Author: Capital Catholic Happenings

How about them health care town hall meetings! Why is it so hard for us  to have a serious debate in which people are able listen to one another and respectfully respond to one another. Why is it so hard for people to imagine that the owner of their favorite grocery store may have a different viewpoint than their own? (google Whole Foods, if you don’t what this about!) .

It makes me embarrassed as an American to see us failing to practice the art of good healthy public debate that marks a free society. It also makes me want to ignore the whole issues which is neither smart or responsible.

A duty of discipleship

When I am talking to groups about the mission of the laity, I like to sum it up in three short phrases (borrowed from the document Go and Make Disciples).  As  Christians we are called to live our faith fully, share our faith freely and transform the world. It is an interpretation of 1Peter 2 in which we are reminded that all the baptized share in the priestly prophetic and kingly mission of Jesus. http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/1peter/1peter1.htm

Stewards of God’s gifts

To the people who first heard these words, the association they would make with a kingly mission is the image of the ancient king as a steward of God’s people and God’s gifts. In the ancient mindset, the king served the Lord by serving the Lord’s people and being accountable for building up the kingdom according to God’s design.

As lay men and women we  also have a specific responsibility to build the kingdom of God. One way all of us can do that is to bring the light of the Gospel to bear on the issues of the day, not in a way that imposes our faith, but rather proposes insight from the Gospel and from the Church’s 2,000 years of experience in  applying faith to life.  In a number of areas, the Church has expertise that goes beyond the application of theological principles to active ministry in the field.  Education, social services, and health care are all fields in which the church has been a leader in all corners of the country and the world.

Wading into the Health Care Debate

The Church most definitely has an interest in health care reform and has some expertise to bring to the table. I imagine that all of us have an interest as well, but more than an interest we have a responsibility to weigh the issues in light of  the Gospel and the teaching of our Church.  If figuring out what the real issues are and the right questions to ask seems impossible–help has come.  The Culture of Life Foundation has identified 12 key questions we should be asking as we listen to the debate. The questions can be found at http://culture-of-life.org//content/view/582/1/.  The questions reflect the Church’s commitment to protect the dignity of human life at all stages and the responsibility we have as stewards to assume the cost of the plan. I find the answers short, easy to understand and most helpfully, linked to specific references of the House bill.

Study and Prayer

We are called to make our voices heard in two ways. Firstly, in prayer asking the Spirit’s guidance and wisdom for all those with responsibility in crafting the legislation. Secondly, in the public debate by participation in conversation, and in the public discourse through contacting our elected representatives.

In the past six months, there have been two incidents involving airplanes and the Hudson River. In the first incident, a plane safely landed on the Hudson and the crew and passengers all survived. In the second incident, a helicopter and a small plane crashed and fell into the river. There were no survivors.  In the first incident it was so easy to thank God for his providence, for such a skilled pilot , for the tragedy avoided. Last week, it was so easy to ask the question; where was God?  Why is one event truly “a miracle on the Hudson” and the other so clearly not?

Who Deserves a Miracle?

I imagine that like me, you have wondered from time to time about miracles. You have probably found yourself asking, in some cases, “what was God thinking?” We probably never think he chose the wrong time for a miracle, but wonder why this time is not the right time; a loved one who has a fatal disease, a car accident that kills, a situation that seems completely hopeless. We know the old saying, God answers all of our prayers, it’s just sometimes, we don’t like the answer. With miracles, sometimes, we miss what is the real miracle.

An Eyewitness Account

Over the weekend, Fr. Jonathan Morris, LC, a priest whom you may know from his work on FOX News wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal suggesting that indeed there has been another miracle on the Hudson. The full story is worth reading and can be found here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203863204574348703505285632.html#printMode

It’s the story that at the end of the day where there is love, there is God.

We have  recently posted a number of blogs on vocation, courtship, and marriage, and it may seem like overkill…but here’s another.  Yesterday Catholic News Service published an article quoting Archbishop Timothy Dolan as saying, marriage and family is “where we have the real vocation crisis…If we take care of that one, we’ll have all the priests and nuns we need for the church.” Part of this crisis, he noted, is that only 50% of young Catholics are getting married.

How can each of us encourage young Catholics in their vocational discernment to marriage?

We can guide a young Catholic toward spiritual direction; we can support a friend who has just begun a courtship; we can speak about the vocation of marriage to a single son, daughter, neice, or nephew; and we can pray for the Spirit of Wisdom and Courage for all people.

Share with us what you’re doing to support marriage and family!

Note: I’m using the antiquated word courtship on purpose. To court is defined as “to seek the affections of; to seek to win a pledge of marriage from; to perform actions in order to attract for mating.” (Merriam-Webster) Courtship is what leads to marriage and mating…which leads to little boys and little girls growing up and consecrating themselves in service of the Church. It also leads to little boys and girls growing up and making the commitment to court and marry. The circle of life!

A Washington Post reporter, Catholic special education and the Kennedy family

In October 1956, Ed Fouillard, a Washington Post political reporter, was covering Adlai Stevenson. At an event at a Knights of Columbus Hall in Elkins, West Virginia he sat next to Robert Kennedy. Fouillard, whose son Michael attended Holy Spirit, a fledgling school for “mentally retarded” children in Washington, DC, told Kennedy about the school and that he’d read in the Catholic Standard newspaper that Joseph Kennedy funded schools for the disabled. In a 1976 interview, reprinted in a history of the Kennedy Institute, Fouillard noted that Bobby Kennedy said nothing in response.

Fast forward to April 1957. Fouillard runs into the family patriarch, Joe Kennedy, at a Senate hearing. Joe mentions that “Jack [Fouillard says he thinks he meant Bobby] was telling me about your boy and about that school. I am interested.” Fouillard immediately calls the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur to tell them. A few days later, Ethel Kennedy calls him and comes to visit the school, then in the basement of a convent at North Capitol and K Streets.

Next, Fouillard drafts a letter to Ethel Kennedy. The letter is forwarded on to Joe and a few days later, Ethel contacts Fouillard, saying, “Grandpa is willing to go for a half-million.” Then-Archbishop O’Boyle, who was deeply committed to providing education and services for those with disabilities, contributed the other $500,000 and the Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy Institute was founded. Now a program within Catholic Charities, on October 1, 2009, it will celebrate its 50th anniversary of service at 801 Buchanan Street, NE, Washington, DC.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver’s Role

As a 1970s-era history of the Kennedy Institute found in the archives of the Archdiocese of Washington notes that Eunice Kennedy Shriver, director of the Kennedy Foundation, “wanted to prove through model recreation and sports programs, that retarded children and youth could not only enjoy these leisure time opportunities, but that, through such stimulation, these youngsters would improve in all aspects of their personality – psychological, emotional and mental.”

Living out this belief, she became the driving force behind the physical education program at the Kennedy Institute. In January 1965, she established and funded, through the Kennedy Foundation, a Saturday Recreation Program. Students participated in morning activities either at the school or off-site. Believing more was needed, she next pushed for regular physical education as part of the curriculum and volunteered as a physical instruction teacher at the school from September 1965, for two years.

(Eunice Kennedy Shriver teaches physical education circa 1965 at the Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy Institute of the Archdiocese of Washington)

As Dolores Wilson, one of the founding staff of the Kennedy Institute recalls: “Each time [she came to teach], she brought along one of her own children, beginning at a ‘toddler’ age. The weather did not matter. All five classes were alerted that Mrs. Shriver was here and ready to meet them outdoors in the school yard for their exercises. She spent a half hour with each class. We bundled up the little ones who did not want to go outside in the cold and if they were too slow, Mrs. Shriver appeared at the classroom door with ‘Sista, sista, are the children ready yet?’ Mrs. Shriver came to our school for two years and was our teacher, our helper, the one who encouraged us and was grateful for the work being done to spread the word of caring for families and children with special needs. Mrs. Shriver became our friend!”

Inclusion Program at Our Lady of Mercy School

Eunice Kennedy Shriver, of course, went on to found the Special Olympics. She also obtained the funding – $150,000 – to start a model inclusion program for Our Lady of Mercy School in Potomac. The principal at that school today herself was inspired as a teen volunteer at Camp Shriver.

Never to forget the vulnerable, Eunice Kennedy Shriver also was an advocate for the unborn, writing on their behalf in publications and encouraging support for pregnant women in need. She received the 1982 National Figure Award from the Archdiocese of Washington’s Catholic Youth Organization and the 1996 John Carroll Medal from the John Carroll Society.

In the 1990s, working with Archbishop Donald Wuerl (then Bishop of Pittsburgh) she helped develop the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Program, a religious education curriculum for children with special needs that has been implemented in dioceses nationwide.