In Brief...

The Holy Father’s Intentions

Pope John Paul II has announced the following general and missionary intentions for July and August 2000:

September

That scientists and the academic world may find in the search for truth the way to God, the heavenly Father.

That Muslim-Christian relationships may be marked by mutual understanding and respect.

October

That young married couples may be sustained by the example and assistance of their parents and other families.

That a revived awareness of the universal co-responsibility of bishops may multiply initiatives of missionary cooperation among the local Churches.

Springtime of Faith

Looking for a way to reinvigorate your faith to end the Jubilee Year? Come to the Springtime of Faith Conference, sponsored by Catholics United in the Faith, where internationally known speakers will help you “open wide the doors to Christ” at the King’s Island Conference Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, November 3-5.

“Life on the Rock” host Jeff Cavins will lead such renowned apologists and theologians as Scott Hahn, Tim Gray, John and Sheila Kippley, Michael Rose, and Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J. (and many more) in speaking on apologetics, Scripture study, liturgy, and marriage and family topics.

The CUF staff will also be on hand for the event, including CUF president Leon Suprenant, CUF vice president Philip Gray, information specialists Dave Utsler and Tom Nash, and CUF president emeritus Jim Likoudis.

This conference reflects the mission of the CUF apostolate: to encourage lay people to grow in holiness and equip them to live their faith at home, at school, and in the workplace. This is the first national CUF conference since 1993, and is intended to be the first of many such initiatives in the coming decade.

Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati and CUF advisor Bishop Edward J. Slattery of Tulsa will each lead the conference in the holy sacrifice of the Mass, and there will be opportunities for prayer and the Rosary. Entertainment during the conference will include a concert by Mary Jo Stetson, a Catholic singer and songwriter, and plenty of other activities and food venues are located near King’s Island Conference Center.

Registration fees are $125 per person or $225 per couple. Conference attendees can receive reduced rates for lodging in the conference center. To register or for more information, please call (888) 821-2156, or register online by clicking here.

Preparing College Missionaries

The toughest competition on college campuses this fall will not involve football or academics, but winning the battle for students’ souls, according to Suzanne Decker, 23, a member of the Fellowship Of Catholic University Students (FOCUS).

“Students are hungering for the truth,” says Decker, a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, who will serve on the FOCUS staff at Benedictine College in Kansas. “But they need prayers, encouragement, and support if they are to withstand the pressures of campus life,” she added.

Twenty missionaries who will serve on campuses across the nation recently completed an intensive summer formation program sponsored by FOCUS at the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley.

“We concentrated on evangelization, apologetics, Scripture, the Catechism, and spirituality,” explained Curtis Martin, founder of FOCUS. “We also took part in a number of other activities designed to build friendship and support among the missionaries,” he added.

The outside activities included white-water rafting, daily basketball games, a sand volleyball tournament, attending a Rockies game, square dancing, and other activities, according to Martin.

FOCUS was established three years ago with four missionaries on campuses in Colorado and Kansas. In its second year, there were 12, and this year 20 missionaries will work on campuses, including a new full-time team at the University of Denver.

Commenting on the rapid growth, Martin said that there is clearly a need for a Catholic presence on campus, but there is also a hunger among young Catholics to serve the Church.

“Young Catholics are looking for a way to serve,” Martin said. “FOCUS provides the opportunity for spiritual growth in the context of a two-year mission commitment that includes summer formation programs.”

Greg Doring, 24, a graduate of Kansas State University, will serve as the FOCUS director at the University of Illinois. He describes the summer formation program as a “Catholic boot camp.”

“The summer formation program is the most intense time of the year for FOCUS missionaries,” said Doring. “It’s a time of prayer, study, and fellowship that prepares us for the work we will do during the year.

Teachers at the summer formation program included: Archbishop Charles Chaput, Scott and Kimberly Hahn, Tim Gray, Ted Sri, Michael Dauphinais, Curtis Martin.

—Peter Droege

Holy Popes

With the beatification of Pope Pius IX this month, media criticism of the 19th-century Pope has become inflamed, as has criticism of Pope John Paul II for deciding to beatify him.

The biggest controversy surrounding Pius IX, who reigned from 1846 to 1878, is his decision not to return a baptized Jewish boy to his Italian parents after Church officials took custody of him. The case involved two well-known laws in the Papal States. First, in part to safeguard the religious freedom of Jewish families, the Church forbade Jewish families from employing Catholic house servants. The law was intended to prevent the application of the other law: if a gravely ill, non-Catholic child was baptized and then recovered, he could not be raised by his non-Catholic parents unless they converted. Without Catholic servants around to potentially baptize a gravely ill child, the Church reasoned, custody disputes over newly baptized children would not arise. However, if a family deliberately ignored the law and their child was baptized in such circumstances by a Catholic servant, the penalty would be the removal of the child.

Edgardo Mortara’s parents ignored the law and hired a teenaged Catholic girl as their servant. When Edgardo fell seriously ill at age one—the seriousness of the illness is disputed—she prayed for the child and baptized him; the boy recovered. About five years later, after the servant expressed her concern to her parish priest about the child’s not being raised Catholic, Church officials in Rome sent police to take custody of the six-year-old boy. The boy’s parents vociferously protested his removal and the controversy became an international story. When the family did not become Catholic, Pius IX refused to return the boy to his family, believing that God wanted him to safeguard the Christian formation of Edgardo, who became like a son to the pontiff. However, Pius IX did grant the parents significant access to their son as he grew up, and as an adolescent he was given the opportunity to return to his parents. When Edgardo became an adult, he chose not to embrace Judaism. Instead, became a devout priest and respected scholar, dying in 1940 at age 88. Once he became a priest, he was reconciled with his parents.

The controversy is recounted in various books, including Father Bernard O’Reilly’s The Life of Pope Pius IX (New York: Peter F. Collier) and, more critical of Pius IX, David I. Kertzer’s The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (Random House).

Many have taken issue with Pius IX’s handling of the matter, arguing that his beatification and canonization should therefore be ruled out. The Mortara controversy notwithstanding, the Church has determined that Pius IX lived a holy life and manifested heroic virtue. He was much loved by the Jews of his day, to the point that in 1847, Mosè Israel Kassan, who at the time was Chief Rabbi of the Israeli University in Rome, dedicated a psalm and prayer to the “glorious and immortal” Pius IX.

A less scholarly and, sadly, much better-selling book on Pius IX, Pius XII and other Church officials and issues, is Gary Will’s Papal Sins: Structures of Deceit (Doubleday).

As with John Cornwell’s Hitler’s Pope, the story behind the story in Papal Sins is Wills’ own antipathy for the Church’s teaching on marriage and family, which he calls “intellectually contemptible.” Objective observers have noted the deficient scholarship and thinly veiled contempt for the Church manifested by Cornwell and Wills in their works.

Ronald J. Rychlak’s Hitler, the War and The Pope (Genesis Press) will prove helpful in dealing with both Cornwell and Wills’ books. The evidence in Rychlak’s book, ignored by Ed Bradley in his reckless portrait of Pius XII on “60 Minutes” earlier this year, serves as a methodical refutation of Cornwell, Wills and others who, whatever their motives, misrepresent the record of Pius XII before and during World War II.

            For more information on these topics, call CUF toll-free at (800) MY-FAITH.

—Thomas J. Nash

Pope’s Response to “Gay Pride”

According to its organizers, World Gay Pride 2000, held July 1-9 in Rome, was specifically intended as a direct attack on the Catholic Church during the Jubilee Year.

In his Angelus message at St. Peter’s Square on July 9th, Pope John Paul II affirmed that Christians must regard homosexuals with respect and sensitivity, quoting at length the balanced, pastoral teaching found in Catechism, no. 2358. But he denounced the event in no uncertain terms:

“In the name of the Church of Rome, I cannot fail to express bitterness for the affront to the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 and for the offense to Christian values in a city that is so dear to the heart of Catholics around the world. The Church cannot silence the truth, because it would mean being less faithful toward God the Creator and it would not help to discern what is good from what is evil.”

Despite the opposition of many U.S. Catholic leaders and organizations to “World Gay Pride,” the event had the apparent backing of the Clinton-Gore administration. President Clinton declared the month leading up to the march “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, 2000.” Vice President Gore was more explicit in his support of the demonstration, going so far as to give the event’s organizers a written endorsement.

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