Much ado about not much

As the news about the Kennedy Annulment being invalid makes its rounds, I may as well weigh in.

My first though is this smacks of good ol' American celebrity worship. Yes marriage is a public event. But public in a local and personal way, not the Enquirer sort of public star gazing way. Friends and the locality have the right to know someone is married so actions can be viewed as proper and without scandal. But following someone else's problems for 16 years could be viewed as obsession.

Second, yes I believe the annulment process is seriously flawed if not corrupt in some places in the US. What legal system in the U.S. hasn't been tainted by our affluence and desire for power. We are taught to seek control of everything in our lives and this even affects our religion.

Was justice denied by being delayed so long. Probably. But just as the reasons for annulment are confidential, we can't pretend to know the inner workings of the Curia either. Annulment is a slow bureaucratic process here in the U.S. So it stands to reason that examining the appeal of that process is going to be slower. Perhaps largely because of the bureaucrats that ruled incorrectly in the first place. And that leads to my final point.

We have the religion we deserve here in the U.S. We are fat and egotistical, obsessed with power and the desire to control every facet of our lives. We don't like being told we are wrong, but if admitting being wrong in the past gets us what we want now, we will swallow that small bitter pill for today's ecstasy. Polluting our bodies and water supply are insignificant side-effects, subservient to the need to control our fertility by chemical means. And we seek out pastors and shepherds that will affirm us rather than correct us. More often the wrath of God is him allowing us to learn the hard way about the pain of sin while the mercy of God is rapid correction and chastisement. Or simply, wrath is letting us have our way. Give me the quick reproof anytime.

Almost 40 years past our rejection of the prophetic Humanae Vitae, are we surprised that our shepherds who were silent on that infinitely more important matter are slow to respond on this minutia?

Lord have MERCY on us.

Watch out for the forest

I pray that Fr. McBrien realizes how beautiful the forest is when one isn't focused on how many trees his ego can chop down.

Anamchara: FR. RICHARD MCBRIEN AND LIMBO

It reminded me of watching an old horror film from the thirties: the creaking and groaning of an opening coffin. I expected to see the corpse of Pelagius, disgraced Celtic monk (who denied Original Sin) rising from the dead, but it was just Fr. Richard McBrien offering us his take on the rescinded Limbo teaching from the Vatican. As always, he gets it wrong and takes us back to Pelagianism: his quote:

"If there's no limbo and we're not going to revert to St. Augustine's teaching that unbaptized infants go to hell, we're left with only one option, namely, that everyone is born in the state of grace," said the Rev. Richard McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame.

Nothing upsets me more than a fellow priest and theologian twisting Catholic teaching to mean whatever he wants it to mean. The new Vatican line on Limbo has to do with God's mercy, not the reality of Original Sin. The bottom line is, we do not know what happens to unbaptized infants or adults who die. We just don't know for certain. Never have, never will until we enter, hopefully, eternal glory. Just like Pelagius, Fr. McBrien negates the necessity of Baptism to wipe away Original Sin, and just like Pelagius, he is wrong.

The bottom line is this, the Mercy of God is bigger than we can fathom. We can't presume to judge what God is doing outside the normal means of salvation (Baptism). A recent article in the Crisis Magazine stated this quite well regarding friends and family who die outside the Church or in the state of Mortal Sin. Justice is reserved to God and He alone can judge the heart of another. We certainly can't, so for us they only need is to pray for their souls.

Ready for Lent

As I often mention, I love the liturgy as setup by the Church. The cycle of readings ties the Old Testament, Epistles and the Gospel together, shining light on how the Bible was meant to be read. Another wonder of how the cycle of readings benefits the Church is shown in today Gospel. Take a normal Sermon centered Protestant church and their Bible readings are dependent upon the preferences of the pastor. And consider how many priest today would be willing to tackle the difficult message of Luke 6.

Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.... Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.

I was particularly challenged by the Gospel and even the first reading from 1 Samuel 26. How often I fall into judging others much more harshly than I could stand to be judged. The Psalm reminds us that the Lord is kind and merciful. How often I need to be reminded that when it comes to judging others, Justice is God's, mercy is ours.