The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd and the Movement of Communion and Liberation

One Thursday afternoon, when my four girls returned home from school, my youngest noted the coffee urn and teapot still sitting on the side table, the small green books left on the chairs and the sofa, and my copy of The Journey to Truth is an Experience on the piano bench. She turned to me and said, accusingly “Did you have atrium without me?” I told her no, that I’d had School of Community that morning. “Oh,” she said, “The grown-up atrium.”
In the method of religious formation called the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, “atrium” is the name given to the room where catechetical sessions take place. For the early Christians, who met to worship in people’s homes, the atrium was the space where those preparing for Baptism met to receive preparation. Maria Montessori borrowed this word from the ancient Church when she began her experiment in applying her pedagogical principles to the religious education of children, and it was taken up again by Sofia Cavalletti (a Hebrew scripture scholar) and Gianna Gobbi (a Montessori educator), the two women from Rome who spent over fifty years developing this Montessori-based approach to catechesis (Sofia continues to develop it to this day, but Gianna passed away in 2002).
My 5 year-old daughter is not the only person who has seen a similarity or affinity between the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd and Communion and Liberation. But it’s strange because many of the differences between the two are striking. While in CGS the preparation of the catechetical space, in its components and organization, is crucial, I have never heard of any guidelines concerning the room in which the local CL community meets to do School of Community. In the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, texts are taken from scripture or liturgy, with only a very small number of exceptional and supplemental texts, which in turn reflect directly on the liturgy or scripture. During School of Community, though, the text is almost always by Don Giussani, Father Carron, or occasionally by the Pope. Most remarkable, though, is that in CL, the companionship, or Christian unity, that develops among its members becomes the decisive and concrete sign of the presence of Christ with us, while in CGS, the companionship or Christian unity that develops within any given atrium community, made up of children and adults together, flows from what Sofia Cavalletti calls a “choral” listening to the Word of God, whose presence is located in holy scripture and in sacred liturgy.
So, then, can a case be made for any relationship between these two movements that sprang up at almost precisely the same historical moment, 358 miles from one another?
Well, first of all, both Cavalletti and Giussani have a particular interest in wonder. For Cavalletti, education to wonder is one of the essential components of catechesis. She dedicates a chapter on this subject in The Religious Potential of the Child, her book that describes the experience of catechesis with young children, in which she writes, “When wonder becomes a fundamental attitude of our spirit it will confer a religious character to our whole life, because it makes us live with the consciousness of being plunged into an unfathomable and incommensurable reality” (Religious Potential, page 139). This remark resonates with much of what Fr. Giussani says in Chapter 10 of The Religious Sense, and in “On the Way, in which he says, “And wonder is the beginning of a reverentia, of a respect, of humble attention. Like a child before a new situation: he feels instinctively a sense of wonder and humble, slightly timorous respect." With words that echo Giussani’s insight, Cavalletti says that in order to cultivate wonder, it is essential to learn how to observe reality with great attention. Cavalletti points out that wonder is a force that draws us forward, rather than pushing us from behind: “The nature of wonder is not a force that pushes us passively from behind; it is situated ahead of us and attracts us with irresistible force toward the object of our astonishment; it makes us advance toward it, filled with enchantment” (in Religious Potential, pg. 138). Her understanding of wonder is akin to Giussani’s insistence on attraction. For Cavalletti, the object of wonder must be adequate, a poverty that contains a great richness, like the simplicity of the parable of the mustard seed or the poverty of the Eucharistic sign of bread. Like Giussani, she insists on an education to the language of signs. Giussani observes, “The sign, then, is a reality which refers me to something else. The sign is a reality whose meaning is another reality, something I am able to experience, which acquires its meaning by leading to another reality” (The Religious Sense, page 111).
Both CGS and CL have been falsely and mistakenly termed “experiential” methods. The dreaded and justly-maligned “experiential” method of catechesis involves beginning with the person’s experience and then using that base to “reach up” to God. Before Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, humanity was “stuck” with the experiential method, a situation that is well illustrated in Giussani’s example of the various building crews all attempting to construct bridges to the farthest star (see "Recognizing Christ"). CGS and CL both rely on experience, but it is an experience of the divine: in the atrium, as well as in School of Community, every moment is prayer. In CGS, one experiences the divine through direct contact with the Word of God, present in particular scripture passages and liturgical signs, while in CL, one encounters Christ through the altogether new Christian community that develops and grows through the charism given to Father Giussani. Each movement demands that we begin with an “experience” of the divine, present in the Bible and Sacraments, or present in the community generated by the living events recorded in the Bible and lived deeply and intensely in the Sacraments. In CGS and in CL we often hear the reminder that the initiative is always God’s.
Another common theme, which runs through all the writings of Cavalletti and Giussani is gift. Cavalletti points out that salvation history may be summed up as a history of a continuous out-pouring of gifts:
How many things there are in the world, from the largest to the smallest, from the stars in the sky to the flowers in the field and the fragrances they emit! So many things have been placed at our disposal to be contemplated and enjoyed, as well as to serve our needs. The world is spread before us like an immense banquet table, a lavish feast prepared for the human creature. No one among us has made the world or would have a clue as to how to make all that we find on the table before us. It all comes to us as a gift, as yet another experience of the “ours and not ours.” We have not earned these gifts; indeed, who could merit the fragrance of a flower (The Religious Potential of the Child 6 to 12 Years Old, page 27).

And Fr. Giussani points out:
Therefore, the very first sense of the human being is that of facing a reality, which is not his, which exists independently of him, and upon which he depends. Empirically translated, it is the original perception of a given, a word which, if used in a completely human sense, involving the total person, all of the factors of an individual’s personality, comes alive: “given,” as a past participle, implies something which “gives.” The word which translates in the content of human terms the word “given,” and thus describes the content of our first impact with reality, is the word gift (The Religious Sense, page 101).

Thus, both Cavalletti and Giussani insist on a God who gives.
Freedom, and with it, the risks inherent for those who nurturing it, are both of central importance to Cavalletti and Giussani. In CGS, this freedom is expressed in the period of “work time” to which the majority of every catechetical session is given over. After the communal presentation, during which adults and children alike place themselves in a listening stance in front of a Bible text or a moment “lifted up” from the liturgy, the children are free to move through the atrium to select the catechetical materials they are most drawn to explore more deeply. The catechetical “materials” are aids that accompany each biblical or liturgical presentation; the catechist makes or assembles them by hand, and they simply concretize the biblical or liturgical themes. For example, the material for the parable of the mustard seed is a small box that contains mustard seeds from the Holy Land (they are much smaller than those one can find in the spice aisle of your local supermarket – truly no larger than specks of dust) and a photograph of a boy standing in front of a mature mustard tree (again, much larger than the scrubby flowering plants that grow from the big spice seeds). Drawing and writing materials are also available to the children, so that they may contemplate the seeds and the photograph, draw a picture that helps them meditate more deeply on the parable, copy out the parable, or write an original prayer or meditation concerning the parable. What always amazes and inspires doubt in those who have no prior experience with CGS is that when given this kind of freedom, the children settle down to work with a peaceful, contemplative joy. But what disturbs the doubtful is the possibility that the children won’t “get” what the educator intends. A little bit of common sense reveals that the kind of deep knowledge that the Mystery of God invites is not susceptible to techniques of memorization or filling in blanks. In the life of faith, it is essential that the person adhere to what he learns, so much so that it becomes part of his identity. For this to happen, the person must accept what is proposed in freedom, chew on it, test it, and have the necessary time, space, and human support to live the repercussions of this new knowledge. Father Giussani understood this well. When he writes, in The Risk of Education, “the first condition inherent in education, whether that condition be conscious or merely implicit, is a sense of detachment and respect. It is a sense of fear and trembling in front of the mystery that dwells in the student” (page 125), he is well aware that he is proposing a risky position for the educator. The student must take a risk when accepting the challenge to verify a proposal that is new and challenging, and the educator must risk both by offering what is most precious to him, but also by proposing the thing that animates his life in such a way that the student may ultimately reject it. Giussani suggests an approach to education in which educator and student “travel together, and it is on this path together, defined by the ultimate goal of destiny, that they learn what the path is. This is the explicit risk involved in accepting the call and the challenge of that definition of humanity, of that mystery Who urges us to recognize that he has created us” (The Risk of Education, page 37).
So I return to my youngest daughter’s original observation, that School of Community is a “grown-up atrium.” Does she recognize these factors that I have traced? She cannot possibly have formulated them in the same way they are laid out here. And yet, the lived experience of Christ has such a particular “fragrance,” that even, or especially, “mere infants” are able to distinguish it and relish its perfume.

Facing darkness

[crossposted at Deep Furrows]

«We see darkness and talk about darkness so many times. We mustn't pretend that the darkness doesn't exist; we shouldn't just think some spiritual thoughts about darkness; we can't do something "alongside" the darkness — we have to look it in the face! "I look into my depths and see endless darkness" [song: "Il mio volyo"]. What is it that the darkness can't quash? It can't stop my acknowledging this darkness, and it can't stop the moment "when I realize that You are there," when I realize that this circumstance, no matter how ugly it may be, is not made by itself; when I live through a dark period, even in that moment I am living, and even in the darkness, I do not make myself; it that darkness I have a radiant clarity: I do not make myself.

[...]

We can't avoid this road, nobody can spare us this road, and this is why Christ went deep to the bottom of the darkness: so that we can look at everything. This is anything but an intellectual exercise! It's simply the recognition of reality according to all its factors.»

Fr. Julián Carrón
Notes from the talks by Ciancarlo Cesana and Julián Carrón at the Beginning Day for CL adults in the Lombardy Region of Italy, September 29, 2007.
Traces Vol 9, #9 - 2007

I mention this apropos of a post at Deep Furrows on an priest sex abuse trial in Kansas City. The post offered only a partial, tentative judgment. If I link to these articles from time to time, it's because of an implicit need to look at the darkness and betrayals of my life, of our life together in the Church. I must remember, however, not to stop at the surface, but to seek the face of Him who conquers the darkness.

The Newest Missionary Venture

Don't miss this week's article by John Allen on a fledgling missionary operation in Mongolia. It's a fascinating subject: a brand new territory for Christian evangelization, Mongolia, just started in 1992 by a Filipino priest, now bishop. To date there are about 400 Christians.

The attraction for the new Christians has come simply from the liturgy (in the vernacular) and from the social relief programs.

Padilla said that when he conducts interviews with Mongolian converts to understand what attracted them and made them decide to join the church, most will say they first came into contact with Catholicism through one of its social programs – a school, soup kitchen, or relief center. What “hooked” them, however, was the liturgy.

“They say it’s the singing, the liturgy,” Padilla told an audience at the Oratory of St. Francis Xavier del Caravita in Rome. “They say it’s more worthwhile than what they experience in the Buddhist temple. They’re active in the prayers and in the singing, It’s not just the monks doing all the singing.”

Padilla said that even though the four parishes in Mongolia (and four parochial sub-stations) use largely Western liturgical music, it’s translated into the vernacular, and most of the liturgy now is also said using the Mongol language. That, too, he said, is a major point of entry for new converts, most of whom are young and from the middle class or below.

“We cater mostly to the young and to the very poor,” Padilla said.

Bishop Padilla also found a strategy to soften up the local officials to get church building permits.

[A] Belgian missionary who had served in Inner Mongolia explained to him how to get things done.

“He told me that when you’re in difficulty, the thing to do is to invite these officials to dinner and get them drinking, especially vodka,” he said.

“It worked, but it was rough. At one point, I was drunk at least once or twice a week. One time I had to leave my car behind because I was too drunk to drive … but God will forgive, and anyway I wasn’t a bishop yet!”

Actually, Jesus attended a lot of parties from all accounts.

Building the Kingdom may not be so complicated as we tend to think.

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A Night of Rhythm and Soul for AIDS Relief

A Night of Rhythm ’n’ Soul
A Journey through American Music

A Benefit Concert with
The David Horowitz and Friends Band featuring Vaneese Thomas

Date: Saturday, 19 January, 2008
Location: The Great Hall at Cooper Union venue information
7 East 7th Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenues) New York City
Time: 8pm

Tickets: $50

The proceeds from the event will be channeled by the international NGO AVSI-USA to the HIV/AIDS project "Meeting Point International" in Uganda. Meeting Point is a program whose goal is to accompany, support and value the person affected by HIV/AIDS, regardless of tribe or denomination.

New York has always been a city of music. While it is undeniable that jazz constitutes the soundtrack of the City, it is also true that New York is the crossroads of all genres. However, since most bands do not take you through all of the American musical traditions it is extremely difficult to experience this musical melting pot.

This is where the David Horowitz and Friends Band and Vaneese Thomas come in.

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John Zucchi on TV

Please go here to see our friend John Zucchi in interview about the statement from Card. Ouellet (the link is on the right.)

via John Rod.

What is the drama of Christian humanism?

[an expanded version of this post is at Deep Furrows]

The drama of Christian humanism is the stage where the 'I' can confront the totality of human needs and desires, without which Jesus Christ is merely a name or at most an idea whose perfection crushes me.

I've long sought out ideas as the way to save myself, but my hope for Cahiers Péguy is that it will be a place to affirm and grapple with the human experience without worrying overmuch about explanations which fail to explain. Instead, if readers are provoked by what they see here, they should 'come and see.'

I invite participants to share a bit of the drama of their lives - in posts or in the comments.

the circumstance of Thanksgiving

At Deep Furrows, I have often reflected on the significance of circumstances. It astounds me that every circumstance can be the occasion of an encounter with the Mystery Who makes me, Who makes everything.

By themselves, however, circumstances are ambiguous; beauty is ambiguous. The stars may make us hunger for a face responsible for their beauty, or they may tempt us to controlling events through studying their patterns. And the choice is not either-or, for some scientists are both attentive to the details revealed by the stars and remain openly seeking the Mystery Who made them (it's eminently reasonable to both go to the doctor and pray to the Mystery Who makes the doctor!).

At the meeting of Communion and Liberation Responsibles in La Thuile, someone spoke movingly of the disasters and sickness over the past year, which brought him closer to Christ (p 43). In response, Fr. Julián Carrón clarified and corrected certain points:

«We have not to wait for some disaster to happen. There is a constant presence, which we call Church, that is the presence of Christ who has promised to be with us 'all days, until the end of the world.' This is the presence that reawakens us constantly. There is no sickness or circumstance able to awaken us continually like the Church, like this presence that constantly challenges everything.»

In the reading for Thursday Afternoon in my Book of Hours, I'm always struck by Colossians 2:17-19, which begins "Reality is the body of Christ." The NAB has here "the reality belongs to Christ." The edition of Adrienne von Speyr's commentary, The Letter to the Colossians says that "the substance belongs to Christ" (95). And the Douay-Rheims has here that "the substance is of Christ." I'm fond of the Douay for its ecclesial history and for its confidence in presenting difficult passages closer to the literal.

The gist of Colossians 2:17, then, would be that regulations on eating and drinking in response to seasonal feasts are shadows, signs to point to God. But God is substantially present to us, through Christ in the Church (I'm reading a bit broadly here). The definitive form of this presence is first of all sacramental and secondly the people generated by the sacraments (baptism, communion, confirmation particularly).

We can only recognize reality as the body of Christ if first we have encountered Christ the head of all things in the Church. And if we allow those things to remind us of Him and draw us nearer to Him. Otherwise we lapse into superstition, or worse, idolatry.

Two more quotes should round out this Thanksgiving reflection:

«Only the person who contemplates the beauty of nature in God and is accustomed to regard it as his voice, his sphere, the mirror of his countenance [cloud and darkness are His raiment, Psalm 96], can, even in his mature years, experience nature as naively and ecstatically as in his eighteenth year, without a drop of melancholy.» (Balthasar, Grain of Wheat, 8)

To what serves mortal beauty
Gerard Manly Hopkins

TO what serves mortal beauty ' —dangerous; does set danc-
ing blood—the O-seal-that-so ' feature, flung prouder form
Than Purcell tune lets tread to? ' See: it does this: keeps warm
Men’s wits to the things that are; ' what good means—where a glance
Master more may than gaze, ' gaze out of countenance.
Those lovely lads once, wet-fresh ' windfalls of war’s storm,
How then should Gregory, a father, ' have gleanèd else from swarm-
ed Rome? But God to a nation ' dealt that day’s dear chance.

To man, that needs would worship ' block or barren stone,
Our law says: Love what are ' love’s worthiest, were all known;
World’s loveliest—men’s selves. Self ' flashes off frame and face.
What do then? how meet beauty? ' Merely meet it; own,
Home at heart, heaven’s sweet gift; ' then leave, let that alone.
Yea, wish that though, wish all, ' God’s better beauty, grace.

May the beauty of this Thanksgiving day be truly a eu-charist for you, dear reader, a time to turn to You-Who-make-me and thank Him for everything, for his good gifts.

Gratitude and the American Experience

From Archbishop Charles Chaput's Thanksgiving Message:

The Roman statesman Cicero once said that, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” Gratitude expresses our dependence on others. By its nature, it leads to humility and wisdom, because a grateful heart understands than none of us is really independent. We have obligations to each other. We also have needs from each other. We’re designed to depend on each other as a family; and to depend as a family on God. Probably no other holiday speaks to the soul of the American experience like Thanksgiving.

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Is Man Made with a Moral Conscience?

A team of dogged psychology researchers at Yale have finally proven what some of us have been trying to tell them for centuries: "... the ability to make moral judgments has innate foundations and is not just learned from parents."

Of course, the psychologists wouldn't put it this way at all... instead, this is the summary judgment of James Randerson reporting for The Guardian.

Instead the psychologists would rather put it this way: "... infants assess individuals on the basis of their behaviour towards others. This capacity may serve as the foundation for moral thought and action, and its early developmental emergence supports the view that social evaluation is a biological adaptation." So, you see, it's just Darwin all over again.

Here's The Guardian's peek at the story. If you've got the dough, you can read the actual research published in the journal Nature here.

For more on this developing story continue your reading at paragraph 1776 of The Catechism of the Catholic Church and check out Luigi Giussani's The Religious Sense.

Who do you belong to?

"I went through a time of panic and fear, like I had never known before, during the Ebola epidemic. The fright came to me when Dr. Matthew died (cf. Traces, 2001, No. 2, p. 19). I felt my life and the lives of those in my house to be in danger. Even the problems at work increased. I began to “argue” with Jesus. I found myself repeating the phrase from the Psalms, “From the end of the earth I call to you with fainting heart.” This was the right phrase to describe the state of my soul. I saw myself destroyed by my weakness, by my nothingness. I saw the house [of Memores Domini] become, again, the locus of the covenant, of the promise that everything that is in me is made secure, saved. I saw the tenderness of Jesus who forgives me in the face of Clara, of Corrado, when I returned home, and this gave me peace. Through that gaze I realized my imperfection, I realized that I am wanted precisely for this reason, because Jesus came to fulfill me. I belong to this tenderness because He has a plan for me. And I felt strong because of this. If there were not this certainty that continues in our houses, everything that is in me and in the world would truly be nothingness, ashes. Instead, when I come home there is a smile waiting for me; I find a smile. At times I wonder, “Why do they smile, truly? Why do I see so many people who have nice jobs, beautiful children, husbands, wives, but no one is truly content with what he does and what he has?” It is an attraction that moves us, this is the condition for happiness, for smiles. I absolutely agree with Father Giussani on everything he is teaching us. I have seen people destroyed by ideology, destroyed by exalting a particular, but in the end nobody is satisfied with this either and they are too afraid to cry out. We are lucky, because even I saw myself drowning in this ideology, but with humility I cry out in that place where I belong, I cry out to God with secure certainty.
For me, this is not feeling or being greater than they are, but being moved by the fact that my nothingness is not lost. Moved before the mercy that generates me. There is nothing that corresponds to me more than this."

This testimony from Rose was published in 2001 in Traces. Rose is the director of Meeting Point, an NGO working with AIDS patients and their families. I was able to hear She talk about her experience at the last International Assembly at La Thuile, in a presentation on Vocation and Charity. One of the thing that touched me most was her saying that (I am paraphrasing here) she was just responding to need. Not just a general need, but concrete need of persons. But, ultimately, you have to come from a place where you can answer the question "who do you belong to?" You have to belong to someone who says that "even the hairs on your head are all numbered." It is hard for us to belong to someone. When growing up one of the questions I was asked, to see who I was, was "who's (child) are you?" If you are not coming from 'belonging', its all just work, just futile.

Belonging is a funny thing: it is hard to do, but we do belong. Also, if you belong to someone who thwarts our freedom, life becomes unbearable.

The latest issue of Traces has a letter from Vicki, who is a member of Meeting Point. Fontanavivace has the text in Italian. I will update the link when it becomes available in English.

In the mean time, here is a write up about Meeting Point.

You can Support MP through AVSI. You can also support MP by going to a concert. So, what are you doing on January 19th?

And Lastly, Rose's speech at Vatican:

ROSE'S SPEECH BEFORE THE VATICAN'S PRESS-GALLERY

Friday February 9, 2001

I would like to begin by thanking the Holy Father. Allow me to say that he is also the Father of everything that I have been doing from the very beginning. Throughout my life no one has ever shown me such a way of giving witness to human value, the value of the person. I have learned from his untiring and constant insistence on the conscience of what man is. I would like to thank You Holy Father, not so much because You are helping us with funding, but rather because You allow my own person to be whole.

If faith determines my work, then the unity of my person is safeguarded. Faith, that is to say the sense of responsibility in the face of something much larger than myself.

As all my work pivots on the human being, it is necessary that faith permeate the way I act, thus generating the correct subject so that you know how to treat the other person well.

At present, it is popular to undertake various projects and it is quite easy to confuse or substitute man with that which we must or can do for him. And then when things do not go as expected, we become violent to him and to ourselves as well.

What really matters is positive value, which technical development has utilised, so that man is not a mechanical object, a cog in the machine.

Man is a composition of needs. If we cannot perceive that, if we do not possess this sensitivity, it is like passing him by with indifference.

In Uganda many have undertaken projects to distribute condoms, defend human rights, overcome poverty, defend women and children, etc. However, these simply pertain to projects and never to the person. The person is nobody, reduced to his problems.

For example, a person has AIDS or a headache, I am dealing with AIDS, not with the person suffering from AIDS. It is not possible to cure a piece of a human being, you have to cure the person. Touching only a part of the person implies touching whole of his body.

I work with the AIDS victims, children, adults and orphans. It is an adventure and it is even entertaining, since I face wishes, characters, needs, traditions and attitudes which are totally different. It is interesting to work with what is called "man and his needs".

Why help people? Who are they to us? And who am I?

"Meeting Point" is the concrete experience of a group of friends who have found themselves in the position of facing the HIV/AIDS issue, either because they are personally suffering or someone in their family or amongst their close friends is affected by AIDS and they desire to discover a sense of suffering and death.

The purpose of "Meeting Point" is not to allow AIDS victims to face alone their sickness and death. This is possible only through a mature and daily companionship which takes all needs into account.

First of all we offer a human relationship, a friendship which with time deepens and whereby the children and the sick discover how to face reality with liberty and joy unknown before and along with them we grow.

Alice, 46 years of age and suffering from AIDS for 10 years, was desperate, looking for drugs to hasten her death. I did not know what to do about her. Before going to work, I would go visit her and sometimes stayed there without saying a word, I could not even comfort her. After a week, crying she told me: "You know, I had my husband, I have six children, the relationship with my husband was the only relationship which meant something to me, it filled me with meaning. Now he is no longer there, it is as if everything has lost its meaning, I lack consistency, I feel lost, I just want to die, help me die now. I will not tell anyone." That was eight years ago. Many people accuse me of having given her some special medicine, she now weighs around 90 kilos and she says: "You simply have to look up to someone having a sense of life, and you also will live." Now she is a volunteer at "Meeting Point", since she wants to do what I do.

Our friendship with the sick and their families is a school where we learn how to realistically and truly love the life of others and their destiny. Condoms and fear are a negative approach, proposing no solutions to cope with the challenge of the epidemic.

We offer our patients and young people psychological support, along with

advice on basic health and proper sexual behaviour. I have already told you that it is an adventure working with adults, youth and children. There is a lot to discover and it cannot all be said today: "I have understood what man needs".

It so happens that I was happy about the time, the money, the food and the medicines that I gave my patients. Then, the opposite occurred. In spite of everything, at a certain time the children, instead of going to school began spending their time in the trash, they refused to talk or pretended they were sick so as not to go to school, or they would hide under their beds or behind the house, or they would not eat. The sick refused medicine, nor did they want to eat. I felt like leaving everything and running away. That is how the question came to me: "But who are these people to me?" and "But who am I to them?"

Up until a short time ago everybody in Uganda knew that they belonged to a tribe, a clan, a family: one knew that he was someone. Now that has lost meaning: families have disintegrated, tribes no longer are concerned with the general interest, but only for their particular interests. Once a child used to belong to the whole tribe, to a whole people, and that gave him consistency and dignity.

Now children and women find themselves without defences, without dignity, and they become melancholy, without any will to live and without expectations.

They do not have a value for their families, after all this wives do not have value for their husbands, nor husbands for their wives. For whom do we live? For whom do we get married? For whom do we procreate?

Losing the very idea of ourselves has made us lose the sense of everything. Having lost the point which gave meaning to them, they no longer know why they must go to school or why they must take medicine, or talk, or whatever. In the end, they do not trust anyone.

What we have tried to do is basically enter into a relationship with them. It is apparent that we are not there to replace their parents, but it is apparent that we love them, that they are important and that they are valued by us. It is not possible to give the idea of the dignity expressed by the formula "being someone" if not one within a relationship.

"Meeting Point" is present in the suburbs of Kampala, Hoima and Kitgum. Kampala is a town built upon seven hills and there is a slum at the foot of each one of these hills. We go through the slums every morning. In the city many people suffer from AIDS. As a result the problem of orphans continually grows. If orphans are not cared for, they will end up living in the streets.

As the population grows, so also the more the disease spreads and this causes great confusion about judgements and feelings, among which are dominant fear, shame and rejection by relatives for their sickness. This adds up to great difficulty. There are no families welcoming orphans, whose numbers are growing.

Women and men between the ages of 20 and 45, that is to say the most active section of population, are the most affected by the sickness. Most of them die in great poverty after long suffering, with a sense of helplessness and having had to give up their employment.

At present we are giving assistance to about 600 sick registered at "Meeting Point" and nearly 1,000 orphans throughout Kampala.

We care for the sick from a medical viewpoint visiting them at home and taking medicine to those who cannot afford the costs of hospitalisation. Of major assistance to orphans is the paying of their school fees, so that they can at least attend primary school. We distribute food and other goods of primary importance: blankets, soap, pans, etc.

We also care for widows and the sick also from the legal point of view - (problems pertaining to heritage, adoptions, etc.).

I am not here to describe all that we do. But what I do want to tell you and that is really close to my heart is the human person, that which concerns man. I know that you know this but as I work with them in Africa, my frailty appears more vividly before my eyes. Since I cannot stand alone, it is much easier to have an intuition of man's greatness and of how much the human being is worth, an absolutely unassailable value.

The human person is something which internally contains a complexity or mixture of emotion, wrath, reaction and tenderness which is inconceivable in any other natural phenomenon. Therefore the things we use such as time, money, food, medicines are but a tool an expression for telling the person that they are worth more than the whole world is worth and that they are responsible for this and for their own lives. It is not a collective responsibility. If it is not belonging to every single man, then it is not necessary, but completely useless. That is why we need responsible people to look up to. To be precise when using instruments on a person you need to love that person, and have consideration for that person.

In the face of the drama of the life we lead in Africa - diseases, wars, conflicts - to be part of our happiness, we need someone having passion for our dignity, and respect for our person.

My teacher used to tell me that the novelty in the world is when man belongs to something, for it is within the experience of belonging that everything changes. From this a new society, a new civilisation can be generated.

This is what I have seen happen in my life and in the lives of the people I care for. It seemed something abstract, but then I saw people change, I saw the sick that I thought would never change, change - and they have changed me, too.

The children who call me Mum - because they have found life. The prostitute Vicky who says, "I do not know what 'Meeting Point' is, but what I do know is that there are people who care for me, and that I want to live for them - Akello's children, a woman at the refugees' camp.

Well, I have already said that belonging to someone appears as something abstract, instead it is the awareness of what the human person is. The responsibility toward the dignity of that person can change the face of the world and go as far as tearing down the structures that frame it. What I wish is that the object of my work is One, that is to say the relationship with a friend. It is this position that can make me change and create something new within the existing structures.

Thank you.

And All is New

A wonderful little post from Andrea Kirk Assaf.

Intrinsic Evil and Voting

Sherry at Intentional Disciples has a very interesting post on the subject we have been discussing here. She shared some thoughts by bioethicist Bishop Anthony Fisher, OP of Sydney.

2.Fisher stated that there was no theological basis for asserting categorically that a Catholic could not, in good faith, vote for either US candidate since both had serious problems from the perspective of Church teaching. Fisher said that if he were an American, he’d be voting for Bush – precisely because of the abortion issue, but that it would be a matter of personal judgment. Life issues had been his personal passion since he was at university and naturally they dominate his moral appraisal of the current scene. Fisher noted that other people with other expertise would naturally be pre-occupied with different areas of grave concern that would shape their prudential judgment.

3.Fisher then made a fascinating comment that I have not heard elsewhere - that there is no basis in Church teaching for comparing two very different “intrinsic evils” and determining that one is objectively and absolutely more grave than the other. One can compare levels of a similar intrinsic evil. You could say that 4,000 abortions is more grave than 40 or that a genocidal conflict that killed 10,000 was a more grave evil than one in which only 500 died. But you can’t, on the basis of current Catholic teaching, categorically determine that abortion, for instance, is always and absolutely more grave than a given unjust war or torture or severe economic injustice. By definition, something that is truly intrinsically evil can’t be relatively less evil anymore than a person can be only mostly dead (well, outside the alternate universe of the Princess Bride, anyway - although I did encounter some situations that came pretty close on the cancer unit).

So one cannot state, as definitive Church teaching, that the gravity of the evil of abortion must outweigh all other intrinsic evils or any possible combination of intrinsic evils in our political calculations. An individual could arrive at such a prudential judgment in a particular situation in good faith but an equally faithful Catholic could come to a quite different prudential conclusion in good conscience.

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When Scripture Gets a Divorce

The recent uproar over a new interpretation of scriptural passages regarding divorce is a good example of why Scripture falls into utter confusion when divorced from Tradition and a concrete Authority.

An article entitled "What God Has Joined: What does the Bible really teach about divorce?" by Evangelical scholar David Instone-Brewer in Christianity Today suggests a theory liberalizing the Evangelical notion on divorce. Time/Yahoo! reports on the aftermath.

Adhering to Community

I found this section very interesting in reading School of Community (p.93) in light of our revived venture of this common blog.

We can have ideas and opinions that originate in Christian truth, but they are still not the redeeming Christian life. We are called to adhere to and participate in a reality that comes from outside ourselves: the community in which Christ places us.

I am really glad to blog here within a friendship that acknowledges first this life that we are invited to. Our smart judgments will not save the world, but instead "the instrument of the world's conversion is the visible unity of the Christian community." Thus we are back to Fred's insistence on presence as taught by Fr. Giussani.

I was struck by the recent defection of a cloning researcher away from stem-cell research. It can appear that we are not making a dent in such outrages to life, but the consistent witness to the dignity of the human being called by God is undeniable. This tenacity is evidently a fruit of the adherence of the community to Christ living with us.

Immigration and Families

An immigration "dilemma" or a mother's worst nightmare. See also a restatement of the Church's position on protecting the human rights of immigrants from earlier this month in Spain. The Church cite is superfluous; this is a no-brainer on basic human rights, Nantel's "I'm just doing my job" justifications notwithstanding.

Saída Umanzor, is an illegal immigrant and was taken to jail to await deportation. Her 9-month-old [breastfeeding only] daughter, Brittney Bejarano, who was born in the United States and is a citizen, was put in the care of social workers....

The case exposes a recurring quandary for immigration authorities as an increasing number of American-born children of illegal immigrants become caught up in deportation operations. With the Bush administration stepping up enforcement, the immigration agency has been left scrambling to devise procedures to deal with children who, by law, do not fall under its jurisdiction because they are citizens.

“We are faced with these sorts of situations frequently, where a large number of individuals come illegally or overstay and have children in the United States,” said Kelly A. Nantel, a spokeswoman for the agency. “Unfortunately, the parents are putting their children in these difficult situations.”...

About two-thirds of the children of the illegal immigrants detained in immigration raids in the past year were born in the United States....

Based on that finding, at least 13,000 American children have seen one or both parents deported in the past two years after round-ups in factories and neighborhoods. The figures are expected to grow. Over all, about 3.1 million American children have at least one parent who is an illegal immigrant, according to a widely accepted estimate by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington.

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election: voting as an expression of the common will

Elections are a curious process. Through the process, the conflicting wills of individuals, partisans, and power brokers are transmuted into a single 'choice' - a mandate of 'the people.'

It's not that far from the process described in Acts, used to replace Judas:

it is necessary that one of the men who accompanied us the whole time the Lord Jesus came and went among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day on which he was taken up from us, become with us a witness to his resurrection."

So they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias.

Then they prayed, "You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this apostolic ministry from which Judas turned away to go to his own place."

Then they gave lots to them, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was counted with the eleven apostles. (Acts 1:21-25)

In the example above, the two candidates are equal, so the election [choice] is left to God through the mechanism of chance. In the elections of our American republic, the candidates are ideally NOT equal, but the winner becomes the common leader of all.

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Democracy is about a lot more than voting. Voting is a ritual that expresses the culmination of all of the democratic processes and makes for a smooth transition. The quality of a campaign and election depends upon a lifetime of political education, which begins with mothers and fathers and is lived every day in the workplace.

The pageant of political campaigns is like paying the check at a restaurant. The decision of how to pay is consequent upon a host of previous decisions: where one goes and what one eats and drinks. When the bill comes, it's a bit late to start thinking of how to pay it. So too with elections. If the choices at this point are too narrow, it's because the groundwork has already been laid - by others.

I realized years ago that the abortion issue goes beyond the positions of President and Supreme Court judges. When abortion became the law of the land, Democrats made a cynical decision to gain a strategic advantage over Republicans by allying themselves with this judicial fait accompli. And Republicans, almost as cynically, cast their position as one of passive regret for something that they consider just as settled.

It's true enough that Democrats tend to expand abortion access and Republicans tend to limit it. Beyond this political truth, it is folly to trust in voting alone to advance the political and civil right to live.

"An Insidious Persecutor"

But today we fight an insidious persecutor, an enemy who flatters, the AntiChrist Constantius. He does not stab us in the back but fills our stomachs, does not seize our property to lead us to life but stuffs our pockets to lead us to death, does not free us by putting us in prison but enslaves us by attendance at court, does not lash our bodies but kills the spirit with gold, does not publicly threaten us with the stake but privately kindles the fires of hell. He does not fight to avoid defeat but flatters in order to dominate. He confesses Christ to deny him, seeks uniformity to banish peace, compromises with heretics to be rid of Christians, honors priests to abolish bishops, builds churches to destroy the Faith. He honors you, O God, in words and on his lips, yet does all he can to weaken belief in you as Father of all...

I found this quote from St. Hilary of Poitiers cited by Hugo Rahner in his wonderful study Church and State in Early Christianity. It seemed germane to our whole political situation, even before I read Giuliani's promise to appoint anti-Roe v. Wade judges. Nor do I intend to mark Giuliani as the only culprit here. An election with two candidates who refuse to acknowledge life forces us to look more closely at what we are asking for from our elected officials.

It seems to me Giuliani is exploiting a kind of reduction in view that pro-life people have made. I know I've said this myself. The Republican party may not be making much progress in protecting the unborn, but at least they'll give us some sympathetic justices. This is the problem with being against something instead of being a presence, to paraphrase Msgr. Giussani.

I appreciate Deacon Scott's refusal to compromise on our vision of the human person called by God to an eternal destiny. I also appreciate the widening of scope that Fred brings in, including instead of subsuming questions of freedom, education and a method of facing reality.

more questions

Here's my response to Fr. Giussani's challenge not to be a presence and not merely react to the agenda which the political experts present us with.

Education
The right and duty of parents to educate their own children is critical for building a healthy society. Along with this duty is the duty of the church to educate people in the Christian faith. The authority of parents and the church must be fostered for society to be free.

I watched the Democratic debate Thursday on CNN and was disturbed to see presidential candidates talking about the role of the national government in education. Public education has historically been a concern of the states in this country, and I would be disappointed to see this powerful instrument become even more a tool of centralized propaganda. Subsidiarity counsels us to keep education free by keeping it local.

Life
"Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights -- for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture -- is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination" (Pope John Paul II, 1988, Christifideles Laici (The Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World) , n.38).

Who is a prolife politician? Similar to Sharon, I question the uses of the prolife position by cynical politicians. How many conservative politicians have loudly proclaimed their opposition to abortion as a moral issue? Meanwhile, their campaign managers ensure that the public knows that their wives support abortion. Protecting human life at all stages is typically construed as a primarily moral issue, meaning that its supporters have already accepted its marginalization as a matter of private morality. I'll believe in those prolife politicians whose position includes not only morality but also the social justice of defending human life.

On the other side of the aisle, I'll take social justice politicians seriously when they admit that life is the basis of any other rights that they would advance, like healthcare, etc.

Realism vs. Ideology
I'm concerned about the ideological divisions in this country, in which partisans filter everything exclusively through their prejudices. In September 2007, General Petraeus testified before Congress about the progress of the Iraq war. It disturbed me to hear several politicians framing questions not to elicit information, but to push their own points. In a world of quickly changing events, a leader must have the capacity and willingness to look at what happens and to listen to those who have seen. Leaders must critically sift this information, but first they must look at it. As the burden on the chief executive increases, we must also look at those people around the candidates. Who will they be influence by? Is their network mainly realistic or ideological?

American Politics 2007

This is a re-post from Deep Furrows. I'll respond to it myself as soon as I can catch my breath.

«Father Giussani understood that simply taking a position against other positions in the public forum was self-defeating for the movement of CL [Communion and Liberation], not from a point of view of political strategizing but because it did not allow CL to accomplish the missionary dimension of the Church, that is, to be a presence.» (John Zucchi, "Luigi Giussani, the Church, and Youth in the 1950s: A Judgment Born of an Experience." Logos 10:4, Fall 2007, p 133).

As we go into this election season, I see many reactions of people I know in emails, conversations, etc. to the current political situation. Of the candidates available, who's the best? Who has the potential of getting elected? What issues are deal breakers and which are not?

What I'm not hearing is a creative response to current conditions. What are the key issues? What kind of leadership does the US need at this time?

How can we educate ourselves on these matters? How is it possible to participate in the political process creatively and not merely accepting the roles dictated to us by the halls of power? Alasdair MacIntyre's non servum is not really much of an option.

Clarification

I see that while I was trying to open the door to an informed Christian vote for a pro-abortion candidate, I didn't properly respect the third party protest vote. The bishops stated clearly: "We recognize that the responsibility to make choices in political life rests with each individual in light of a properly formed conscience, and that participation goes well beyond casting a vote in a particular election." I think there was some confusion on this point of individual responsibility in the last election.

I personally can't see casting a protest vote, but that's because I subscribe to the idea that politics is the art of the possible, as was taught me by a smart Basque priest when I was young and still impressionable. (I realize he stole the quote.) I have some skepticism about an immediate political solution to the prolife crisis, as I elaborated in my post "Reclaiming Life the Hard Way."

God's Initiative

We must not play the part of God. Our responsibility is to be ready for what He does. This is what puts us at ease, because I cannot stop myself from constantly decaying, I cannot avoid it; it is useless to fight against it. The question is that I be true when the Mystery grabs me by the hair again, when He reawakens me, when He comes to meet me.

Fr. Carron, International Assembly of Responsibles 2007

A Criterion for Politics: My Opinion

«Father Giussani understood that simply taking a position against other positions in the public forum was self-defeating for the movement of CL [Communion and Liberation], not from a point of view of political strategizing but because it did not allow CL to accomplish the missionary dimension of the Church, that is, to be a presence.» (John Zucchi, "Luigi Giussani, the Church, and Youth in the 1950s: A Judgment Born of an Experience." Logos 10:4, Fall 2007, p 133).

As we go into this election season, I see many reactions of people I know in emails, conversations, etc. to the current political situation. Of the candidates available, who's the best? Who has the potential of getting elected? What issues are deal breakers and which are not?

What I'm not hearing is a creative response to current conditions. What are the key issues? What kind of leadership does the US need at this time?

How can we educate ourselves on these matters? How is it possible to participate in the political process creatively and not merely accepting the roles dictated to us by the halls of power? Alasdair MacIntyre's non servum is not really much of an option.

Since I've been away, I haven't had a chance to respond to Fred's challenging post of a few days ago. I have been thinking a lot about this subject however. I restructured my blog partly as a way to keep track of a lot of inputs that help inform a decision which we have to make in about a year's time. Staying home that day, of course, is also a decision.

My first observation is that groups are already declaring for candidates, and in some cases they are significantly compromising their expectations. Either they are giving up cherished causes, such as the primacy of the pro-life position, or they are going with a candidate that does fulfill their hopes but who has no hope of winning. The latter position seems more reasonable early on because it doesn't reduce our expectations of the person we put in office, but we have to understand this has a limited educational value.

More Christians are dismayed with the compromises we've made in in order to keep a "pro-life" party in power. The gains have been little, and the losses are very troubling in terms of human dignity. We've taken the utilitarian position that makes calculations of millions of unborn children vs. thousands who die in war or dozens who are executed and presumably guilty. These kind of calculations are not worthy of the value of human life, because each one created is worth more than the universe and is called to an eternal destiny with God. We also have focused rightly on the value of life but sometimes to the neglect of the value of freedom which is necessary for a fully human existence. In fact, the martyrs offer up life in favor of their freedom to love God. Thus freedom is a value that has to be looked at much more closely in politics.

On the one hand, there is the problem of a cultural contraction from the left which seeks a disastrous secularized social hegemony and chills speech at the root with accusations of "hate". For just one example, see the Pornogogue article by Esolen or the dilemma of a generous foster family. On the other side, the War on Terror has been the excuse to dismantle basic rights agreed to in the Geneva Convention and to regularly eavesdrop on private communications without a search warrant. These precedents, even if they don't seem to affect our interests directly, erode the foundations of democracy which recognize the personal dignity and freedom of every individual. This is in addition to our engagement in a disastrous war based on spurious claims and motivations which has only exacerbated the Middle East crisis.

Now is the time to make our statements and not to compromise our ideals, not as a reaction on issues, but as a proposal for the dignity of human life which is guaranteed by our destiny in Christ. We should not coddle candidates who will not commit to human dignity in all its concerns. If a minor candidate can get the whole message out, then that's a plus. But come election day, we will have to simply choose, even if it is by the criterion of the lesser evil. Voting is not a compromise: it's a right and obligation to choose the person who is better able to ensure the public good. A protest vote does not weigh in on that critical decision.

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