PUBLISHED ARTICLES FROM FATHER KRIS
Freedom of Religion Does Not Mean Exclusion of
Religion
"Grandpap, Do You Love Jesus?"
The Journey of Faith
The Journey to Oberammergau
Jubilee for Catechesis
Morality on Campus
Stripping Away the Rhetoric
The
Vatican's Right: sex ed is sex abuse
Freedom of Religion Does Not Mean Exclusion of Religion
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." For more than 200 years, that phrase from the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States has meant "a fundamental protection of our religious freedom and of the extraordinary pattern of tolerance and pluralism in religion that has marked religious life in America," according to Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center in Washington.
Endless debate and court cases have redefined the phrase, as academics and judges have argued about the extent to which religious practices as well as beliefs are protected. Unfortunately, the last two decades have seen current court interpretations increasingly intent on banning the mention of God from our public life. As noted by Stephen Carter, professor of law at Yale, and author of "The Culture of Disbelief," the First Amendment was written to protect religious groups from government interference, not to protect the non-religious from the religious in our society. He observes that the belief or lack of belief by those in charge of our government is being imposed on religious believers via the secular bureaucracy. Robert Wilkins noted in a November 1993 issue of First Things magazine that secularization is "practical atheism," while Raul Yanes and Mary Ann Glendon, in a synopsis in the same issue of four recent religious cases decided by the Supreme Court, said that "the continued reign of separationism means that the court remains a collaborator, witting or unwitting, of the cultural forces bent on secularizing America." Nowhere is this more evident than in recent decisions regarding religious expression in our schools. In Arkansas, a teacher ordered a fifth grader to
turn his T-shirt inside out to hide the Bible verse on it. In another case, a school principal in Spokane, Wash., told a student that by praying silently before eating in the cafeteria he violated the separation of church and state.Commenting on a recent school prayer case in which he was writing for the minority, Chief Justice William Rehnquist said, "Even more disturbing than its holding is the tone of the court¹s opinion: It bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life." Many people share Justice Rehnquist¹s belief that these current court interpretations go too far, and we must fight against the "bleaching out" of God and religious expression from public life.
Not too long ago, "Godspell," a perennial high school play, was banned from public school campuses on the grounds that it told the story of Jesus. The argument was that a religious subject is not fit for the tax-supported
school system to which we have entrusted the education of our children. Presumably, "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" will also have to be banned, along with any other play that talks about values rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. All that is left by this new standard is the morally empty and politically correct stage play that passes under the banner of secular.How does the new secularism being imposed upon our people play out? One example reported in the media was an attempt to recast the American tradition in the requirement in some schools that any reference to Thanksgiving be emptied of God. The new "secular think" has now determined that the pilgrims did not thank God; they thanked the Indians. Bad history, bad sociology, bad scholarship, bad education, but presumably good secular indoctrination.
We live in a nation enriched by a wide range of traditions, various ethnic backgrounds, and a diversity of heritages and faith convictions. Christmas, Yom Kippur, Easter, Ramadan, Thanksgiving Day, Memorial Day, Martin Luther King Day, Kwanzaa, Labor Day, are expressions of the faith, heritage,
traditions, experience and history of the American people.Young people going to school should expect to find in their educational experience some mirror of real life. Children in the United States will grow up to be, we hope, mature adults who will interact with neighbors who are Christians, Muslims, Jews, Republicans, Democrats, African-Americans, English Americans, Italian Americans and many others.
They should be taught a wholesome respect and tolerance that are the signs of a good and just society. How does this happen if they are constrained at
school within an artificial, neutral or secular world that excludes most of the values of the American people?The recently invented and imposed secular view of separation of God from public life does all of us a disservice because it is not reflective of reality. God is a part of the lives of the overriding majority of people in this country.
To pretend in our classrooms or in the workplace that we hold no faith convictions, and to impose fines or punishments for expressing belief in God contradicts human experience and ill prepares young people to deal with real life.
One of the reasons the issue of prayer in public places will not go away is that most of our citizens know that freedom of religion does not mean exclusion of religion. The banning of any recognition of God in public is just as wrong as trying to force upon people a state-imposed religion. Unfortunately, the current insistence upon secularism is itself an imposition of a kind of "religion." It is a form of ideological tyranny that says there must be a separation between any expression of religious conviction and public life.
All of us need to be concerned about this, particularly its effect on our young people in school. It is not enough to say that if you are unhappy with public schools you should send your children somewhere else. All of us are
stakeholders in public education since all of us pay for it.It is important for people of all traditions, heritages and backgrounds once again to proclaim the value of our pluralism, the importance of tolerance and our right to recognize God in our lives, privately and publicly. It should not become the ideological property of a handful of people intent on imposing a vision that offers nothing to our young people and the future - both theirs and ours.
"Grandpap, Do You Love Jesus?"
I
watched with joy and amazement at the unusual situation unfolding before me.
The eyes of 7-year old Stevie conveyed a sense of wonder as he listened
to the older man and the woman next to him respond to the question he had just
asked: “Grandpap, do you love Jesus?”
I experienced joy watching three generations of a Catholic family
(son-mother-grandfather) begin
to share their personal faith story with one another.
I felt amazement at seeing similar family clusters sitting around tables
throughout the parish hall discussing the same thing!
Family-centered catechesis had moved from the realm of dreams and
possibility to become a reality!
The
Second Vatican Council in its “Declaration on Christian Education” set the
tone in 1965: “Parents have a
solemn obligation to educate their offspring.
Hence, parents must be acknowledged as the first and foremost educators
of their children.” The National
Catechetical Directory (NCD) in 1979 continued this emphasis by speaking of the
family as the “domestic Church” – the primary focus for both
evangelization and authentic catechesis. The
Church powerfully proclaims these words, but does she really mean them?
Do our parish catechetical programs truly work to enable and to empower
families to fulfill this fundamental
role?
The face of the American family has changed dramatically over these past
years. Consumerism, individualism,
excessive mobility, and pluralistic values have caused countless hardships,
difficulties, and heartaches for the family system.
But despite all this, the primary truth remains unchanged and central to
our faith experience: Parents were,
are now, and will always be at the heart of their children’s life of faith!
Bringing families together on a regular basis in some formal program of
religious education, like the experience at little Stevie’s parish, has
unlimited possibilities. However,
the Church’s mission of catechesis, in all its forms, must embrace this
challenge: enabling families to fulfill their role as the primary educators.
The religious educator, Margaret Hover, reminds us that “all
catechetical approaches must above all help family members take the time to
examine critically their living together to discover the relevance to their
defining of values and their search for ultimate meaning.”
Family-centered catechesis seeks to help families discuss their every day
experiences in the context of faith! Parish
religious educators must always work to provide parents with a common sense
approach in fostering religious values in the home.
Only then will catechists in the classroom have something upon which they
can build and elaborate. Parents
need to be affirmed and encouraged in their role as faith nurturers of their
children. Family-centered catechesis educates and enables parents to
use more effectively those “teachable moments” at home: by celebrating
family rituals together, by making a conscious effort to pray as a family, by
fostering open communication and dialogue with one another, by watching
television together (the greatest
influence on young children today) and discussing the values that are being
conveyed. When families learn to listen and to share their human story
with one another, the ground is prepared for sowing the seeds of
our Christian Catholic faith-story.
The Journey of Faith
The new year invites and challenges us to newness of life. We are asked to cross into new terrain; we enter anew into familiar relationships and discover new faces along the way; we make new resolutions with the intention of reaching the perfection we so long to achieve! We see the world through different eyes.
Everything
looks exciting, fresh, full of life and so very new!
Even our hearts overflow with an energy and enthusiasm enlivened by the
celebration of Christ’s presence in our midst.
What an appropriate time to once again take up the journey we have been
called to undertake – the journey of life and faith with our God.
This
first Sunday of the secular year places before us the image of the journey. St. Matthew the Evangelist speaks to the Church of the
astrologers from the east who have come to see the newborn King, the Savior, the
Son of God. They leave everything behind with total abandonment; they venture
into unfamiliar and unexplored territory. They have set themselves on a journey to seek after the
answer to the stirrings in their hearts.
It
is a journey that costs them a great deal,
it is a journey that is far
and long. The astrologers follow
signs but with no assurance of their certainty.
But
despite the difficulties encountered along the way, it is a journey not taken in
vain. “They were overjoyed at
seeing the star, and on entering the house, found the child with Mary his
mother. They prostrated themselves
and did him homage.”
(Matthew
2:11). God incarnated himself in flesh not only for the salvation of the world,
but that he might be made manifest for his people.
Each one of the astrologers who had journeyed so far actually met their
God. In the poor and lowly
surroundings, in a place certainly not fit for a king, in a place they did not
expect, the astrologers found their
Lord. The grace and glory of God
shows forth in magnificent manifestation for those men and for so many others.
We
are invited to continue the journey of faith by entering it with renewed zeal, with total abandonment of self, with a willingness to enter
new and unfamiliar terrain, with total disregard for the price that must be paid.
The new year offers us an opportunity to commit ourselves once again to
seeking the face of the Lord day in and day out.
The celebration of the Epiphany reminds us of the manifestation of God in our midst – a manifestation of such overwhelming majesty and splendor! An yet it is so easily missed and overlooked in the experience of our daily lives. The Epiphany calls us to a radical re-orientation: God is truly found in places that we simply may not expect. Our walk of faith demands that we not pass a stranger by or take any detours around the places we don’t want to go! Our journey requires that we stop occasionally to get our bearings so that we can be re-directed when we have wandered from the path. Our journey demands a total and complete effort in seeking the face of God.
But
it is an effort that will never be undertaken in vain.
We are promised the manifestation of our God in countless ways.
We are given the hope that like the astrologers from the East, we too
will see our Lord and King along the way. It
is a promise that the prophet Isaiah foretold long ago:
“Then you shall be radiant at what you see,
your heart shall throb and overflow,
For the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you,
(Isaiah 60:4-5)
The promise of the Epiphany calls us to willingly and completely undertake the journey over and over again.
The Journey to Oberammergau
As we drove through the breathtaking town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen along the Ober River to the jewel of our jubilee pilgrimage, I could see why God would choose this spot to work a miracle.
Situated in the overwhelmingly Catholic Bavaria, Oberammergau sits at the foot of the Zugspritz, Europe¹s highest mountain. The snow-covered peaks and rich green slopes provide a stunning backdrop to this historic town. The houses, all painted with colorful scenes from both the Bible and folklore, enchant the visitor in an almost magical way. We step reverently into the domed Church of SS. Peter and Paul where the villagers first made their solemn vow to God in 1633, that if they were spared the ravages of the Bubonic Plague they would perform every 10 years the Passion of Jesus Christ.
We knelt before the Blessed Sacrament fully aware of how God's goodness extended so generously to these simple villagers generations ago has been showered upon each of us in rich and varied ways.
It is the people of Oberammergau, however, that bring this history to life. The Jubilee Year 2000 has brought changes to this event that has been performed every 10 years, since the first play performed in 1634 - with the exception of 1940 due to the hostilities of World War II.
There is a new theater this year, the Passionspiel, seating 5,000 people in a far more comfortable way than in the past but without sacrificing the open-air stage. With five performances a week from May to October, almost half a million people will visit this small village this year. In true German fashion, every visitor is given a dinner ticket and hotel, a seating time for lunch in a specific restaurant, and assigned the appropriate shuttle to move back and forth. No detail is too small for the people of Oberammergau to overlook.
The skilled woodcarving craft that has long marked the livelihood of so many villagers surrounds us on all sides. The most exquisite hand-carved statues and cuckoo clocks, not to mention the hand-embroidered tablecloths and napkins, beckon us to stop in almost every shop and leave with several bundles we did not anticipate carrying. The treasures of Oberammergau will long remind us of our special visit.
But it is the passion play that we have come to see. So our hearts are stirred when at 8:45 the first round of trumpet blasts calls us to our seats. True to German form, the performance begins at precisely 9 a.m. Nothing we had read or heard from others could have prepared us for what we
would experience. It is nothing less than a modern day miracle that from a village of nearly 4,000 inhabitants, nearly 2,200 are involved in the play. To participate one has to be a native of Oberammergau, related in some way to those villagers of 1634. None of them are paid as this is an act of love and fidelity. As the play opens, one small boy runs across the immense stage carrying a palm branch and Palm Sunday unfolds with increasing grandeur and intensity. Within minutes the entire audience is gripped with the energy of nearly 2,200 actors, along with goats, sheep and a donkey bearing Jesus filling the stage, all singing "Hosanna!"
My earlier reservations about sitting for seven hours watching the passion play in a language I would not understand fell away. I was caught up in an emotional experience where the outpouring of God¹s love on our world through the death and Resurrection of Christ could be felt tangibly.
One cannot deny the unevenness of the play at times. Sadly, there are the weaknesses that come from a less than authentic interpretation of Sacred Scripture, reflecting the all too common modernist tendency to be "politically correct."
Our Blessed Mother, Mary, is reduced to a minor cameo whose whining and lack of understanding of her Son and His mission gives no indication of her graced role in the salvific plan of God. Mary Magdalene, in what appears to be nothing more than a soap-operatic ploy for audience response, prances about the stage as a woman romantically attracted to Jesus. Not only was the audience visibly uncomfortable, but an elderly villager selling me a statue decried what she considered to be a "new translation of the play that was changing Scripture" with regard to both women.
I could only wonder why those who produced such a masterpiece would not work more closely with the church and her pastors so as to be true to the divinely revealed Word of God. After all this is supposed to be the Passion of Jesus Christ according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But there are many strengths. The vast choir of women and men dressed in long gray cloaks with inverted box pleats of crimson silk and futuristic Star-War like hats, give dramatic flair to the powerful and moving musical score.
Stunning tableaus, living images, at the opening of each act, highlight the prefigurement of Christ found in the Old Testament. This addition to the play helps to address the anti-Semitic criticisms from previous years, as well as to show the historical faith of Israel and the continuity of the Jewish faith in Christianity.
But it is Jesus, powerfully performed by Anton Burkhart, which carries us all to a higher plane. His conviction, his inner strength, his energy which never waned in almost seven hours could only have come from the power of faith. As one commentator recently wrote, "he has us in the palm of his hand" from the first moment to the last. The enthusiastic and sustained reaction from the audience at the end could only mean one thing. We had witnessed a once-in-a-lifetime experience and it was worth every effort and sacrifice to get here.
At the heart of it all, however, is nothing other than faith. How much faith was required by those first villagers in taking a solemn oath and believing that God could indeed work such a miracle. In each successive generation, it has been faith that sustained the efforts to produce the play in the face of opposition, criticism, scorn, apathy and the changing culture.
If nothing else, one leaves Oberammergau with a sense of the solemn. Our ancestors knew with every fiber of their being that it was only in God they could trust and find their salvation. The cross is not a scandal but the tree of life for those who believe; life is stronger than death. That belief has been kept alive by every successive generation of people as they strive to honor the oath of their ancestors and bring glory to God.
We came to see a play. We left renewed in our conviction to bring the message of God¹s saving love to every corner of the world.
Jubilee for Catechesis
Thunderous and sustained applause erupted from the nearly 200,000 pilgrims gathered in St. Peter¹s Square on Sunday, Dec. 10, as Pope John Paul II walked out from St. Peter¹s Basilica. I was privileged to be present, along with nearly 100 other American leaders in Catholic education to join in the pope’s Jubilee Mass for Catechists and Religion Teachers. Our earlier anxieties of rain and cold weather that are typical of Roman December days were unfounded. In fact, one of the Swiss Guards informed us of the jubilee reality – "Esche il Papa, esche il sole" ("When the Pope comes out, the sun comes out") - and it was indeed a bright, sunny and warm day for the jubilee celebration for catechesis.
I was present at the invitation of Bishop Donald Wuerl who along with a number of bishops from around the world, concelebrated Mass with the pope. As I joined in the enthusiastic outpouring of affection from those present for our beloved Holy Father, I was conscious that the bishop and I stood as representatives of the thousands of men and women in this diocese who share in the work of teaching the faith. In your names, I pledged our fidelity and loyalty to the Vicar of Christ.
In a talk to all of us the day before, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, prefect of the Congregation for Clergy ‹ the congregation responsible for overseeing the work of catechesis - reminded us of the great privilege we have to be catechists and teachers. What joy there is, he said, in being able to share with others the person of Christ and His message of God’s salvific love. It is a work, we were told, that will only succeed if we have a deep love for Christ and a fidelity to His church.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told us in another talk that the work of teaching the faith was critical to the success of the new evangelization. "We are obliged," he said, "to seek new ways of bringing the Gospel to all."
In his homily at the jubilee Mass, the pope spoke of the importance of catechists in the life of the church. As St. Paul wrote to the Romans, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the Good News." Without teachers and catechists, the message of salvation could not be handed down from one generation to the next. "Catechesis is," the pope said, "a labor of love in imitation of our Savior himself, a desire to teach another to embrace the Truth." He went on to say, "in order to fulfill their mission in the Catholic Church, catechists must live their faith and must present the faith to others in complete harmony with official church teaching."
As I joined with Bishop Wuerl in the prayer of the Mass that day with more than 200,000 others in communion with our Holy Father, I prayed for the wonderful and dedicated catechists and teachers in this diocese. I prayed in thanksgiving for their commitment to the important task of communicating the
faith to others in a way that leads people to embrace Jesus Christ and life in His church. I prayed, as well, that all of us who are teachers of the faith will never forget the awesome responsibility we have been given – the responsibility to love Christ and His church deeply ourselves and to embrace the teachings of Christ and His church completely so that we in turn can teach others to do the same. Our witness of lived faith is a far more powerful lesson than any words we could speak.
The pope ended Mass by giving a copy of "The Catechism of the Catholic Church" to a representative of each continent, a symbol that we were to return to our homes with a renewed commitment to share the message of Christ.
"With this gesture," he said, "I would like to underline that, in various languages and cultures, catechists are called to announce to the whole world the same Truth: Christ, the only Savior of the world, yesterday, today and forever."
May we who teach the faith always be faithful guardians of the Truth, joyfully announcing to others what we have received in Christ.
Morality on Campus
There was a time when Catholics were encouraged to attend Catholic institutions of higher learning to protect their faith. We seem in these recent years to have moved beyond that need. But the recent "Sex Faire" held at the University Park Campus at Penn State has reminded us that there are some college campuses where the moral life of a student is still in jeopardy.
Under the banner of diversity and freedom of opinion, moral relativism reigns and the Judeo/Christian principles upon which our culture rest are under growing attack. Penn State¹s recent "Sex Faire" vulgarized and ridiculed God¹s gift of human sexuality in a way that at least one state representative has rightly asserted "crossed the line of acceptable community standards for a public university." Is this the type of setting that a Catholic parent (or any person of faith) wants as the environment for the education of their son or daughter?
While these kinds of events are foreign to the campus life of Catholic institutions of higher learning, Catholic students in publicly funded secular colleges and universities deserve environments where assaults on their moral life are not tolerated.
Stripping Away the Rhetoric
The correct meaning of words is important in any conversation. Exactness in speech takes on a particularly important dimension in the national debate over the value and dignity of human life. For a long time, we have witnessed a dexterity with words that borders on abuse by those who support abortion and now favor the use and destruction of human embryos for medical research. One group who see human life as just one more commodity to be used or discarded have attempted to disguise what is actually happening behind a smoke screen of rhetoric and euphemism.
For example, we are told by some proponents of euthanasia that the termination of a life of an elderly person in a nursing home who is judged to be simply unproductive is not killing but rather "facilitating the conclusion of the biological process."
In the partial-birth abortion debate, where we are dealing with the killing of a child who has completely exited the birth canal except for his or her head, a spokesperson for one national reproductive rights organization described the killing of the baby as a medical procedure that "terminates in demise." In the embryonic stem-cell issue, few who support this type of research are prepared to speak about the human embryo as the beginning of human life. One article recently spoke of embryos as "property ripe for commercial development."
In the context of the manipulation of language, we can turn to a recent column in the Valley News Dispatch where the syndicated columnist, supporting the destruction of embryonic human life, does so by designating it as "pre-functional." The writer's logic runs that if life is not functional, the taking of it is acceptable. The argument, which voices the position of many pro-abortionists and embryonic stem-cell research advocates, is precisely what all of those who oppose embryonic stem-cell research are concerned about - the use of a utilitarian or productivity norm to determine who survives and who does not.
To justify the taking of a human life simply because it does not meet a functional standard opens the floodgates to all kinds of killing. Most of us have passed the pre-functional stage, but all of us look forward to our post-functional days. Perhaps they will be spent in an assisted-living facility or even a nursing home. Maybe if we are lucky, we will live our last post-functional days in the loving embrace of a family.
But our lack of functional adroitness is hardly reason to kill us. Simply because we have been declared post-functional should not require our "demise." One advantage of the national debate on embryonic stem-cell research is a gradual clarity that is emerging in spite of all the euphemisms. The more those who favor the taking of unborn human life speak, the clearer what is truly at stake appears.
The Vatican’s Right: sex ed is sex abuse
Sex education, as the term is commonly understood, is miseducation.
For the past 20 years, schools in this country have subjected millions of children to an ill-conceived tutorial in the techniques of sex and the sundry methods of disease prevention and contraception. These programs give far more details than kids need, far earlier than they should have any use for them.
What is happening is no less than the sexual harassment and sexual abuse of our children.
Parents have long known that such sex ed is a failure, Sexually transmitted diseases are spreading among teens at an alarming rate and in ever-new varieties. Abortion has become a rite of passage for girls in many public schools. And alumni of the sex-educated generation seem much more likely to divorce than their ancestors – who had to muster through married sexual life without help from the Board of Education.
The Church has shone a harsh light on this situation, in “The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality” released in December by the Pontifical Council for the Family.
A devastating critique of secular sex ed, the document also calls for strong education for chastity. “Truth and Meaning “ reaffirms Catholic tradition that parents are their children’s primary educators. It is a mother and father’s living example of committed married love that will ultimately lead children to understand the true meaning and context of sexuality.
Parents have to take their role as educators seriously. If they do not give their kids adequate formation in chastity, “they are failing in their precise duty as Christian parents."
But, as Bishop Sgreccia, secretary of the Pontifical Council made clear in recent remarks reported by CNS, “parents are often unprepared to give their children an explanation of sexuality within its proper context of morality, relationships and vocation.”
Anyone with pastoral experience will know exactly the difficulty he is talking about. Parents cannot educate their children to chastity while they themselves are using contraceptives or stashing pornography in the nightstand.
And telling your son to save sex for marriage, while you slip a condom into his back pocket “just in case,” is hypocrisy kids can see through instantly.
No. The parents as educators must be authentic in all they do. They have to teach chastity by pursuing it themselves. Kids will believe in chastity when they see it.
But parents also must witness by words, answering kids’ questions honestly and frankly as necessary. One "big talk" at puberty is not enough; it’s nothing less than a dereliction of duty.
Supporting parents, the Church also has a role to play – especially in our Catholic schools and catechetical programs.
We need not teach the techniques of sex. The human species survived till the 1970s without sex ed. We'll survive in the future without it.
The techniques of chastity, however, must be taught. In our fallen state, we are not born – and we do not reach puberty – with faculties perfectly formed for faithful sexual lives. This is especially true in a culture the Vatican document describes as “sex-obsessed” and “overly eroticized.”
Children need to hear the truth from the Church – our proven tradition of doctrine, discipline and prayer.
Our history shows that chastity is livable and fulfilling. True love can wait. Our children are not animals whose actions are determined by their hormones.
There us an economy of words and witness that provide the context for truly effective “sex education.” It’s called the family and the Church. Thanks to the Vatican for saying it again.