Abortion, Prayer, and Social Action

“Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17). While Scripture permanently reminds us, with these words of St. James, that it is not enough just to believe that something is true without actualizing that faith concretely, we can in fact focus centrally on what it is we believe. Indeed we need, every now and then, to examine our beliefs regarding certain spheres of action. If our actions are producing ill effects, it may in fact be the case that our beliefs have gone astray, and we have substituted presumption in place of Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium.

This reflection is inspired by a strange article of a secular former evangelical author (http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/pray-those-abortions-away), Valerie Tarico. Seemingly without realizing the dynamic, Tarico has started to dance around the ancient rule of faith which the Catholic Church has always and still holds true: Lex Orandi Lex Credendi. Literally, the “Law of Prayer is the Law of Belief.” In other words, our faith is informed by how we pray, and if you really want to know what we believe, look at what we pray, how we pray. A prayer shows a world view. And as world views differ greatly, so prayers differ greatly.

Thus, if we look at what we pray and how we pray concerning abortion, it will show what one believes. Should the realm of action need to be addressed, the faith that informs such works is certainly informed by the prayers of such faith. There is plenty of action is the pro-life realm, some more meritorious, some less so. Prayer itself is one action. Witness can be separate. Counseling, condemnation, accompaniment, or annoyance would all be possible descriptions of other activities of pro-life initiatives. I only summarize a whole other set with the term of Political Action in this list. And in all of these, prayer can be very telling as to the goals that are at hand. Here are some thoughts about what and how to pray, which ought in fact to inform what beliefs accompany any kind of consequent action.

Pray that God take the souls of aborted babies to heaven. Of all those praying for an end to abortion, only Catholics will be open to this point, and only with great difficulty. Yet it is the crux of the matter, an aspect of the problem of evil in the world. The Church does not command us to pray specifically for the souls of aborted babies. Yet the Church approves of this prayer, because we always pray for the dead. It is one of many ways that the Church is one and the same “stumbling block” as Christ himself. It is scandalous enough that Jesus Christ claimed to be the Son of God. The scandal was first compounded when the Church claimed to be the Sacrament of Christ. It is compounded all the more when the same Church says it does not know if and how the grace of baptism can be applied to infants who die in the womb. In the face of an evil like abortion, when people look for some good which the Church can propose to make up for the blood being shed, the Church only offers the mystery of the cross, and bids us to pray for the dead. Having started with the hardest prayer to situate in the mysteries of divine providence, there are some easier ones to keep in our hearts.

Pray that pregnant mothers would find true hope. Hope is not what so many people think it to be. It is not really the virtue or the vision that secularists, humanist, or Christians or Catholics for that matter, often make it out to be. For a mother’s heart to have hope, some instrument, some word, some vision must put in it a glimpse of the infinite goodness of Jesus Christ. It is dependent on grace, and it is not dependent on proselytism or even honest evangelization. It is born in the heart from the mysterious ways of the Holy Spirit. As St. Augustine says, if we did not know this hope existed, we would not know that we long for something we cannot describe. But if we knew exactly what it was, we would then describe what it is that we longed. That hope belongs to God, because it is something in the mystery of who he is. It is shared by him in his ways. And because it does not belong to us, yet he has shared it with us, we must pray that others too can receive it. It is incumbent on the Christian to pray this hope come to every soul lost in the evil of abortion, or to the evil of abortion. This is the hope that transforms lives from despair to eternal joy. How can we model it for others if we do not want it for others? Can we want it for others if we do not pray it for others?

Pray for homes to be places of integrated virtues that support chastity. It is not enough merely to pray for chastity for teens and the unmarried adults. It is much more likely that young people will maintain a more chaste disposition in life, and enter better marriages, when it is formed in them by good parents. To become good examples of balanced life for many unprepared parents, this would go a long way in getting their children on a better track for healthy emotional relationships. In terms of social strategies, this would greatly reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, thus eliminating so much of the demand for abortion.

Pray for holy, godly, foster parents. Of course not every parent is going to raise their children in a healthy emotional way. There will unfortunately be those exceptions – may they become more rare – where others have to play the role of mother and father, assuming the roles spiritually as the “substitute” for them practically. The fact that there are so many emotional and sexual relationships currently proceeding in an unhealthy way, means that much work and sacrifice is going to be needed to guide people (here the impressionable kids and teens in foster care) in a life path of emotional re-integration.

Pray for many celibate vocations. It’s ok to be the camp of St. Paul who said “I wish all lived [the celibate life] as I did” (1 Cor. 7:7). It would indeed be great if, say, the Sisters of Life grew 100,000 strong and could be in every major city, to love and serve every place where abortion is a pressure on families and single parents. Pray that a dozen other consecrated orders or institutes are raised up with similar apostolates. Consecrated orders or institutes could assist those who choose not to abort after learning that they must deal with birth defects and medical difficulties. Such an answered prayer would not only shift the balance to give a whole and complete life to so many innocent families that deserve better than the world has offered them; it would strangely satisfy the laments of those who feel there are too many people on earth, at least temporarily. If a certain pattern holds, it would end up fostering fostering healthy marriages and family life, not deter from them. So it could of course lead to more Catholic families having 14 children in the future.

Pray that this cup may pass by. We know the significance of this phrase. We know when it was first prayed, and whose lips it came from. We too should pray this, as we also pray those words “deliver us from evil” in the Lord’s prayer. We must pray these things. We must long for the Second Coming of our Lord when he will right every wrong and correct every injustice. Yet in the mean time, we know that the cup may still be handed to us. This leads to one last, all important, consequent prayer.

Pray that the Father’s will be done. What looks like utter failure to us (e.g. the Cross) may in fact lead to the greatest good (viz. the Resurrection). Oh how great the wisdom of a life united to Christ, where the words he taught us in Matthew 6, the Lord's Prayer, informs every petition we make, every prayer we offer, every action that is a result of our beliefs.

Morality and the Mechanism of Voting

Evil is real. There is an objective moral order. This post cannot speak to moral relativists, or to people who define morality by what they personally like or dislike. For those who seek objective moral standards, the Catholic Church has provided the most philosophically sound ones available. Here are some standards of cooperation in good and evil and the mechanism of voting.

We are speaking here of moral evil, of a human being who chooses to reject some aspect of the goodness of God's creation, for corrupt, unnatural, reasons. People can choose to be terrorists. They can choose to be racists. They can choose to be abortionists. They can choose to be pornographers. In addition to these evils, people can perpetuate others evils by actions that cooperate in the evil.

If a cable company carries internet sex, they are cooperating in that evil activity, even though their goal is only to succeed in business. The same is true of the gun dealer who sells weapons to people of evil intent. The same is true of a medical company that makes equipment used for abortions. The company does not perform abortions, but their business cooperates with the business of abortion.

These examples are simple transactions. But broader examples get more complex so that it is not easy. The government promotes things that are evil. When a citizen pays taxes they support the government. Is this cooperation in evil? What about voting? If I cast my vote for a candidate, and they commit evil as an elected official, haven't I cooperated in that evil because I helped elect him or her? The Church makes a distinction here, and I will try to apply it. Many more complexities can crop up, but we will simplify the matter for the sake of this introduction.

No one choice, or dozen choices, can eliminate all evil. When we intend to do good, and even accomplish some good aim, sometimes we keep a chain of causality moving, which at the same time, allows evil. The Church calls cooperation in evil, which is not intended specifically to perpetuate that evil, Material Cooperation. If I am the UPS man, and I deliver loads of fertilizer, I may be cooperating in the evil act of making a bomb. If I pay my taxes, I may be cooperating in some government program which promotes sex ed materials in school contrary to God's natural moral order. And, for the voting example, if I vote for a candidate who seeks to institutionalize racism, I may be cooperating in the formation of unjust policies.

Here’s the distinction. The Church's morality allows that we may cooperate materially in evil, without the guilt of sin, if it is "Remote"; that might be explained, if the evil is so far removed from us that there is really nothing we can do to change it. When the evil is "Proximate," or, when it is within our reach to do something about it, then we must do something to try to eliminate this evil, or stop whatever activity we do which cooperates in that evil. I may not be able to stop paying taxes, claiming the unrealistic goal that it will stop immoral government programs. I may be able to cancel some service or business transaction, because I see that it will stop or slow the evil committed by a business provider. I may work in a hospital that performs abortions. But if the only thing about my job that endorses or facilitates those abortions is that it contributes to the overall operation of the hospital, then my cooperation in that evil is remote, and I have no moral obligation to quit my employment at that hospital.

In order to make the full comparison to voting, we need the term that contrasts with Material Cooperation, that is, Formal Cooperation. When a person cooperates formally in an evil act, they are not performing the evil act, but they are endorsing that evil act, because their action specifically facilitates that act. Politicians can vote to enter an unjust war. That is formal cooperation in evil. They may vote to eradicate the natural order of marriage by so called "marriage equality" policies. That is formal cooperation in evil. They may seek to promote abortion by executive acts. That is formal cooperation in evil. The appointed or elected officials here do not perform the actual acts of war, or unnatural marriages, or abortions, but they endorse them in a positive way. This is formal cooperation. Formal cooperation is evil upon evil. It is in fact a second evil added to the evil thing cooperated with.

Now, here is the fine point. It is not necessarily formal cooperation in evil to vote for a candidate who cooperates formally in evil. Under the circumstances of a formed conscience, the morality of the Church “allows” voters to cooperate materially in evil by voting for candidates who cooperate, formally, in evil. Yes. It is indeed "cooperation in evil." But - and this is key - if a voter does not intend to endorse those evils, but only intends to endorse the greater good that they think this candidate will promote, as opposed to any other "electable" candidate, then the Church considers this cooperation "remote" enough that it is allowable.

There are two things here to note. Firstly, if a voter votes for a candidate because they think some of his actions are good, which the Church has called evil, then the Church judges this vote akin to more formal cooperation. The voter intends to promote the evil because they think it good. They are a heretic endorsing immorality. Maybe they do not know the objective morality involved because they are a lapsed Catholic or they are completely pagan. Ignorance of morality and ignorance of Christ are topics for another article. Here the topic is about those people who could and should know some objective standards for moral acts. For our purposes, if I vote for a pro-racism, pro-abortion, anti-family, anti-poor, or any otherwise evil intending candidate, because I intend to further his evil intentions in these areas, against the morality of the Church, I am doing evil myself. I am formally cooperating by endorsing his formal cooperation.

Secondly, it must be granted that a vote for any candidate will likely entail some sort of cooperation in evil. We must note that the Church has not imposed any exact scale by which voters must calculate which candidate has a higher good-verses-evil cooperation score. The first point above, as serious as it is, has not led the Church to make any pronouncement, "You may not ever vote for a candidate that supports X, or that is against Y." Many good Catholics will hold to principles such as these, with a validity of personal conscience, but no pope or bishop has made such definitive and binding pronouncements for all believers who enjoy suffrage in their country. Similarly the Church has avoided so far giving an exact "score" of what is the "best" candidate in any particular election based on the Catholic morality system.

This is the current state of things, but it also is as detailed as we can get with the moral principles of the cooperation in evil. It is very frustrating for everyone. I, as a priest in the United States, must almost say, "let us prepare for the persecutions." For, I can give the Church's morality and direction, but it is certain to satisfy no one. As a Catholic United States citizen I can say both "If pro-abortion, anti-family Hillary Clinton is the best choice we have for President, then we are in very dire and desperate times," and "if pro-greed, anti-solidarity, anti-subsidiarity Donald Trump is the best choice we have for president, then we are in very dire and desperate times." The political strategy, whereby Donald Trump might be more favorable to a Christian social strategy, certainly seems like a challenge and an opportunity for the Church. But some Catholic laity, who dare to take the role of a prophet, are already saying "persecutions and evils suffered under Clinton would be better than the material cooperation in the evil of Trump." This is the argument among many faithful Catholics. "If one will take us to hell in a hand basket, and the other will just take us there slower, do you really want the Church to endorse either one? Are we not in the exceptional circumstances where Catholics might abstain from voting for "electable" candidates in any particular race?" In the mean time, the Church still has not endorsed any candidates.

We may end with the nostalgic reminiscence, that when the Apostles first set forth to preach, they were in a world where no one was called upon to exercise "faithful citizenship" with the thought that they could influence the political sphere of the world's powers. It is both our problem and our opportunity that a citizen's vote in our country may in fact accomplish something, for good or for evil. But in both the ancient world and now, the Church's response to the cry "we are going to hell in a hand-basket" was never, and will never be, "go and vote in this way or that." The Church's response is "go show yourself to the priest," "repent and believe in the Gospel," "for God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified."

Priesthood and Fairness

One particular year I attended a preparation day and rehearsal for our deanery confirmation. Our time with the confirmandi and their sponsors began with informal small group discussions about living the faith, and the Catholic faith in general as seen from the viewpoint of the sacrament the youth were about to receive. People were encouraged to give questions to the priests, even questioning those things that they found difficult with the faith. You know the list: all the moral questions, “why all the rules?”, or “what are the rules for this or that in the first place?” The question of why only men can become priests is never a surprise. But this day it came from a slightly different perspective. It was one of the faithful and devout sponsors who asked to have it explained again - for the inquirer had asked priests before - why it is, that only men can be priests. I could tell that many of the pertinent facts of the priesthood had been covered in this case, and that only a deeper answer, such as would need spelling out with greater depth, would meet it. Unfortunately I had 5 young confirmandi before me, who were going to need something more fundamental, than nuanced and reflective. What I had in mind for this more mature devout Catholic, was not going to reach these high school students in an meaningful way. So I prayed I could at least point out the way. To start opening up the “why” of the male priesthood, in this situation I essentially re-examined the “how it is” that we have a male priesthood; it started with Jesus, then with the Apostles, then their successors, and so on with the history of male bishops ordaining men as priests. One needs to know the tradition historically before one can know if there is an intrinsic justification for it; and the details such as “who was at the Last Supper?” and “what was the commission of the first priests?” take at least a minute or two to cover. In the end I was able to squeeze in a brief reflection on the priest's role of service. Holy Orders is a sacrament of service, and thus is quite strictly to be “used” for others and not for oneself. Trying to touch on the essence of the priesthood, I thus implied that if there are problems in our Catholic male priesthood it is in the actual men who are priests, and not in the priesthood itself. If every priest were a saint, no one would question whether Christ had left us a broken, faulty, or prejudiced system of priesthood. All the while there was a phrase stuck in my mind which really addressed the sponsor's question. The deeper “why?” was one of trying to understand God's inner designs, and his working in the world. Why would a most-loving God restrict one his greatest gifts, the priesthood, to such a particular class of human beings? The phrase that came to mind and stuck there, but which I could not break out in this five minute scope, was “the Scandal of God's Particularity.” Maybe it is a phrase you have heard before. To satisfy the “why?” of the priesthood as it is in the Catholic Church, requires satisfying a deeper “why?” of any priesthood, or any human intermediary to God. Why would God limit himself with any intermediary? If there is scandal in Christ's particularity of forming a Church with only men as priests, there is much more scandal in his particularity of forming a Church in the first place. How dare a human institution take on God's very role! How dare any man or woman associate themselves with such a presumptuous scheme! How could God really choose this means? The scandal of the Incarnation is the worst of all. Why did God become a human being, a man, only in one tiny middle-eastern location, and only for a very brief period in ancient history, for a people who seemed not to deserve such a blessing? If all these things in Scripture are true, one might accuse God of being unfair to the vast and great majority of human beings who did not live in the same time and place as Jesus Christ himself. There is a great 'why?' here, like the 'why' of the Catholic priesthood. It is a deeper 'why.' It is the 'why' of grace. Someone who does not accept the need for a savior, will be aghast at the means that the savior has chosen to work through. This is why God's particularity, we might say his very specific and limited plan in the face of all the other plans that might be proposed, is scandalous. God uses limited finite, even sometimes sinful, human instruments to spread his grace. And yet that is a fundamental article of our faith. When we come back to God's particularity, the one who accepts the the means in which the savior comes to us (the seven sacraments) is going to implicitly understand that there will be “particularity” in the means that they reach us. God does not give the same vocation or the same grace to all. Again, if every priest were a saint, no one would question whether Christ had left us a broken, faulty, or prejudiced system of priesthood. Yet, despite the unsaintliness of the clergy, if one sees that system with the eyes of faith, it is still very good, as God designed it; good despite the faults of men contrary to that design. Let me conclude this episode with another observation about the priesthood, even my own priesthood. It can sadly be seen that there is almost too little scandal taken concerning the neglect of grace, and too much concerning abuse of authority. Holy Orders places a man within the ranks of a hierarchy. It makes one like the centurion who described himself as “subject to authority, with people subject to me.” But, we know the scripture vehemently insists that the greatest factor in salvation is not authority, but charity. Glory comes not from hierarchy, but from virtue. This should be evident within the ranks of holy orders. But this principle of grace is not confined to the clergy; it runs throughout the entire Body of Christ, to all the elect, and is even proved through the souls who have forever turned their back on God. Just like earthly pleasures and earthly possessions, all earthly authority is temporary; glory is eternal. For myself, I can say I know a good number of lay men and lay women, who, while I outrank them in “hierarchy” as a priest, will soon enough outrank me in glory, when we are with the Lord. God will not be mocked, and one can never accuse him of injustice from seeming to “play favorites.” He has revealed to all people (who have the faith to accept it) the scales on which he will judge the merits of souls, and those scales read “faith, hope, and charity.” The true scandal of men is seen to be the neglect of grace, and lack of faith, hope and love. The scandal of God’s particularity is removed only when one both accepts this revelation and lives according to it. Only when one lives with this goal of charity, and its merits, does the ‘why’ of God’s grace begin to make sense. Only with a life directed to sanctity do we begin to see why God gives certain gifts which cannot even be compared to each other, and why the most obvious gifts on the outside, are not as important as those that are hidden deeper.

The 7 Gifts in Luke 14

In 1 Corinthians St. Paul says that the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men. And because the Church preaches Christ crucified as the wisdom and power of God, wisdom is the gift most deeply implanted in the soul that takes up his cross and follows Christ.

The object of understanding is nothing earthly, but rather the revelation of the eternal truths of Scripture. Hence hearing the scriptures we place eternal life from Christ above our own life.

St. Thomas says “piety denotes the reverence which we give to our father and to our country. And since God is the Father of all, the worship of God is also called piety ” Therefore it is piety to reverence God our Father above even our human parents and family.

Knowledge of the true value of each thing in God’s creation will allow us to deliberate and choose the greatest good according to the will of God.

Council often stops us, gives us pause, when ordinarily we would  carry right on through with our human plans.

The Fathers of the Church all deride the idea of asking for peace terms with the opposing king. The Christian should have the fortitude to oppose the advances of the devil. For, the one who has fear of the Lord will not serve another King, nor accept terms of lordship to any other lord except Christ.

What is Wrong with my Catholic School

Two years ago there was a popular article shuffling about social media for Catholic Schools Week. It gave me reason to write my own reflections "why I support my own catholicschool." All that I said there still holds, and I still support my own Catholic school, as a pastor, spiritually, morally, financially. But as time goes on I venture a little closer to the cross of my Lord, I think truths which applied then are more important to be spoken now. If the devout Catholic, who longs and prays over these things, could not see these clearly in my first go round, I ask for prayers as I make them quite clear here. For the most part I talk about "the majority" in regards to the sins of omission that I see as defects in my Catholic school. The situation is of course more complicated than my brief descriptions.

My school is entering its 120th year of operation, and I don't want to put a damper on any due celebrations over the fact. But birthdays should also be reminders of our call to holiness, and we can make our joy over all that has gone right over the last 120 years as our inspiration to transform what is wrong right now. In fact the thing I fear the most by putting these things in writing is not discouragement of anyone else but condemnation of my own hypocrisy and judgmentalism. For I am indeed part of all the problems at hand. And when making known my complaints I do not know if I will be faithful enough to do what I should about them.

Further, before listing what is wrong with my school, I should say right off what is NOT wrong with my school. It is not Catholic only in the pure nominal sense. It is not a school where all that was most valuable in traditional Catholicism was all lost. It not a place devoid of genuine Catholic prayer. It is not a place that overlooks the Eucharist and Confession as essentials. It is not a club-ish, snooty school for the rich. It is not a place where “no one has a clue” as to the ethos of the deep faith which has defined Catholicism, vis-s-vis the clueless culturally conformed Catholicism, which puts niceness before the scriptures, respectability before Christ, and shallow opinions before the 2000 years of Church history since Christ. My school is not a place where charity is superficial and true sacrifice, for love of others, is an ideal that is faked without commitment. There have been enough great Catholics, and still are enough, to keep us above these sorts of reproaches. So there is no way in… (pick whichever place)… that I would let my school shut down, even if harder than usual times were to come upon us. While are not “there,” we are half way there. We are the Apostles at the Transfiguration, but we haven’t made it to Pentecost yet. So with all this made clear, here is some of my thoughts on what is wrong with my Catholic school.

What is wrong with my Catholic school is a shallow perspective on community. Now, the community is there. It is even very healthy when compared to some schools and some parishes. Many a Christian sentiment is happily present in my school (whereas it may be much worse in the public). So the majority of the families rightly appreciate the community (like every parish should too). But they do not gratefully acknowledge that it is only because of Christ that this community exists. Christ is the only source of perfect, unfailing community. But some in my school wrongly think the minor instruments of Christian community, surrounding the school, to be the main co-equal sources of the community that they enjoy. They do not see the real background to what they enjoy. They are hindered from it because, weak in faith, they cannot see how great are the fruits of real Christian community, or the one Source behind them. For example, perhaps the most important factor in the existence of such a school as we have today was the religious order that used to staff it (my school was staffed by the Sisters of the Assumption). It is thought that their legacy is the school itself; people thus think wrongly that by keeping the school functioning as an educational institution they are honoring the sisters' legacy. But the school is not the sisters' legacy. Their legacy is Catholic service to God, lived out in poverty, chastity, and obedience. That was what their own religious community was built on. It should be what our school community acknowledges: holiness. Our Catholic school community is real, but it is shallow when it forgets Christ

What is wrong with my Catholic school is that, still too often, education is approached in primarily worldly goals. It has been said "the person who does not read has no advantage over the person who cannot read." It is true enough if one were to accept this as an extreme scenario. But even with the idealism of such an educational proverb, I can do one much better as far as Catholic ideals, with all the more truth in its extreme. "The one who reads only things that lead to vice, and not to virtue, is worse off than the one who cannot read at all." This proverb too seems like an impossible extreme, but the saints, let alone our current holy father, would say there many examples that could fulfill it all too tragically. Think of all the false gods our children will meet on the road of education. Indeed they are already exposed to them! The false gods of materialism. The false gods of careerism. The false god of acclaim. The false gods of public approval and political correctness. The false gods of the academic achievements themselves. Really, my school (that is, its staff) does do a good job of keeping all of life's priorities in good order (the order we rightly find in Christian humility). But worldliness always creeps in too. Our Lord summarized this as "the leaven of Herod and the leaven of the Pharisees." The 12 apostles were not immune from these evil tendencies, and neither are our Catholic Schools. Neither is my Catholic school. Now to be very clear, there is no heretical curriculum being used, or smutty or demoralizing content (such as in so many horror stories in the recent controversies). But one can still study all the right books for all the wrong reasons. To the extent that our idea of success is merely to "advance" and "do well" in a societal sense, our intentions still are not Catholic.

What is wrong with my Catholic school is that there should be more loyalty to Christ among the parents. Of course, the loyalty that is there is admirable. It is disheartening for what is not there, because there could be so much more. Our Lord taught us about having faith like children. But to grow older and be more child-like means to rely completely on the Lord. Alas, in our so-called adult ways we believe we are self-sufficient, and it is the adults and the parents who believe that they can “make it on their own” for most of life, while just fulfilling a few duties towards God in the meantime. Such is the outlook on life, and the week faith, of too many of our parents. All but a few claim to be Christian. The majority claims to be Catholic. That the vast majority does believe in God and does pray (compared to the residents of our pagan, agnostic state) is great. But believing in God and praying do not guarantee one is really Christian, and do not equate to fidelity to Christ. Regarding this the Lord said "they do not know the scriptures or the power of God." St. Paul, our school patron, said “Christ’s power is made perfect in weakness.” But he also said, “Christ is strong when I am weak.” There are problems in a Catholic community whenever we are too self sufficient to accept the power of Christ.

What is wrong with my Catholic school is that there are not vocations coming from it. Here I will dig deep and comment on a weakness in Catholic marriage practice that has hurt both our vocational life and our schools. I pose it as a statement and a question, the core of which really do boil down to trusting in the Lord. Some may or may not agree that our shortage of priests and religious had little to do with the shrinking size of Catholic families, and more to do with the rejection of the Catholic doctrine about family planning. I do not see those two as the same exact thing, for I hold that if more Catholic parents started to use Natural Family Planning to have smaller families, as opposed to the most convenient societal methods of birth control, a greater percentage of the their children would have accepted a vocation. It cannot be proved. But, to tie this to trust in Christ, we can simply ask a question to all Catholics who still intuit a great value and high ideal in celibacy for the Kingdom of God. How will our children choose to accept celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom of God (priesthood and religious life) when their parents have not even given the example of chastity for the Catholic sacrament of matrimony? One answer is that we should all become Protestants and not worry about it. There is not much that I can say to that. There is certainly very little that any particular Catholic school can do to reverse our vocations dearth. But I can say if we want to remain Catholic, we should be Catholic because we trust Christ in even most vulnerable parts of our lives. The most vulnerable part of a vocational life, whether it be vocational in the family sense or the consecrated or ordained sense, is all of it.

What is wrong with my Catholic school is there are no conversions in the sacramental sense. Well, practically none. In fact there are a few partial conversions, which is noticeably more than the “zero” adult sacraments which have happened in my parish without the parish school. Here’s the gist. The students get excited about religion class; their parents not as much. Most all our students want the sacraments of initiation, because they are easy to receive. Their unbaptized, unconfirmed, unmarried parents do not; because the sacraments are hard to live out. Again, this seems much less troublesome in the light that the few sacraments given through contact with our school families are noticeable in comparison to the absolute lack of sacraments received by other adults in our parish. That might be a consolation or it might be all the more cause for lament. There really is abundant, untapped goodwill toward the Catholic faith here. We need the prayers and faith of many people to turn that into actual fruit. Say that family X has enrolled their kids for years. The kids were eventually baptized because one parent was Catholic and the kids were desirous of baptism for years. They will be better Christians because of it. But it is not certain whether they will draw from the fullness of the Catholic faith unless the Catholic parent comes to desire to have their marriage blessed and/or “practice” the rest of Catholicism. It is, practically, only then that non-Catholic parents might actually want to become Catholics. So far there are no examples of this full conversion in the sacramental sense. So we work on the other kind of conversion.

What is wrong with my Catholic school is that it needs great conversion, starting with the Catholics. Here the word conversion means holiness. Where do we begin? Saint Teresa Benedicta said “Every time I feel my powerlessness and inability to influence people directly, I become more keenly aware of the necessity of my own holocaust." Was there ever a more prophetic statement about holiness? It is first of all those who do receive the sacraments and communion who must lead the way. Then it will go on to those who attend Mass, but do not do much more. And so on. The Holy Spirit inspires from the top down and from the bottom up. So let us, who think we have climbed a little higher in the objective truth of the faith, move a little lower on the rungs of humility and service.

This leads to the last thing wrong with my school. Its pastor trusts too much in his own efforts and not enough on genuine prayer. For sure he prays a lot. But would that it was the prayer of holiness, not some bargaining or complaining session meant to persuade the Lord. And then of course, by his reasoning, the faithful laity must be somewhat to blame because “they always give false praise about how well the pastor is doing, without a clue as to what makes for holiness, etc. etc.” And the pity party continues. Yet the responsibility is there. Other people, and unavoidable factors, do lead the pastor to waste his time, but none more than he does himself. That is to say, than I do myself. For the pastor is me. And to try to get off on the right foot of holiness for today, what comes to mind is the act of love. May I live it out well today, along with all the members of my Catholic school community. “O my God, I love you above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because you are all good and worthy of all my love. I love my neighbor as myself for the love of you. I forgive all who have injured me and I ask pardon of all whom I have injured.”