I just don’t get why the media and some Catholics are calling this a “selfie.”

Oxford Dictionaries Online’s quarterly update defined selfie as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.”

This is more of a “groupie.”

It is bad enough that we have terms like this and then don’t even use them correctly.

The media though always like pictures that they think are somewhat ironic when it comes to the Pope, bishops, priests, and those in religious life. Show them doing something “normal” and somehow it is news.

Still I like the picture itself which no doubt is much better than the one taken on that cell phone at arms length.

A couple of years ago Steven D. Greydanus wrote an excellent essay A House Divided: Broken Homes, Flying Houses, Divorce, and Death in Family Fantasy Films. I thought that what he had to say was dead on. Some of the movies he discussed were based on children’s books.

During the summer the site Sync offers YA literature in audiobook formats. Each week during this time they usually have a fairly recent YA fiction audiobook and one of more classic literature. What I have noticed of the YA fiction are some similarities to what Mr. Greydanus wrote. In the last couple of years I can’t think of one book I read or listened to in this genre that actually had an intact family. If the children were not orphans than it was usually the case that they only had a mother or rarer only a father.

Such a contrast between classics such as the ones written by Madeleine L’Engle. I had been reading through the Kairos first-generation books and looking at the other YA books I have read in the last couple of years there is quite a contrast. Now many Fantasy novels have had the trope of the orphan who becomes the hero partly out of revenge. Now though it just seems that there must be a broken family regardless of the setting of the novel.

The other thing I have noticed is just how much deception and lying is part of these plots. Children lie and deceive either their one parent, whoever is taking care of them, or some authority figure. There is almost never a lesson learned in this and some resulting character development. The children/young adults “know better” and just have to do this for some apparent good. Moral relativism is the status quo even for the heroic figure. While I enjoyed the Harry Potter novels, the amount of lying that Harry does throughout and with no apparent consequences is an aspect that annoyed me.

Another common thread in many of these YA novels is just how dark they are or how often it involves the death of young adults. The situations contrived call for this to happen and becomes a major part of the plot as for example “The Hunger Games” trilogy. Dystopian futures seem to dominate.

Now I can understand various plot tensions and how conflict is a necessary part of a story. Yet this was done before without a dominance of broken families and gloomy futures. Maybe I am just getting older and instead of saying “Get off my lawn” I am saying “get off my bookshelf.”

While I am unable to eloquently write about these trends I see, I do wonder if others have noticed the same?

The following article has been making the rounds recently that was previously released on May 14, 2013 at the Bellarmine Forum.

A stranger came into the sacristy after Sunday Mass. In an incriminating huff he said, “I have been away from the area for fifteen years; where are the people? And now you are tearing down the school? I went there as a kid.” I put my hands up to quiet him from further talking and I calmly said, “Let me ask you a question: How many kids did you have?” He said, “Two.” Then I said, “So did everyone else. When you only have two kids per family there is no growth.” His demeanor changed, and then he dropped his head and said, “And they aren’t even going to Mass anymore.”

I never thought I would be asking that question, but since I had to close our parish school, I’ve grown bolder and I started to ask that question more often. When I came to my parish five years ago, the school was on its proverbial “last legs.” In its last two years we did everything we could to recruit more students, but eventually I had to face the fact that after 103 years of education the school was no longer viable. In one of the pre-closure brain-storming sessions with teachers, I was asked what to do to get more students. I replied, “Well, I know what to do, but it takes seven years.” The older teachers laughed, but the others needed me to state the obvious to the oblivious, viz. we need more babies. In my January 2010 letter to my bishop asking his permission to close our school, I wrote:

Bishop, it is with a heavy heart that I request this of you. As you know, priests were not ordained to be closing grade schools, but we were ordained to be Christ in the midst of sorrow and pain, which will be happening as we come to accept both your decision and the inevitable fact that St. Mary’s Grade School is no longer viable. The efficient cause is simple….no children. The first cause is the habitual contraception and sterilization mentality of a good portion of married Catholic Christians–in short the Culture of Death. The final cause is the closure of Catholic Schools and parishes. Bishop, we need your leadership to address the contraception/abortion/sterilization mentality in as forceful a way as soon as possible.

I, and St. Mary’s, closed the school that May 2010. Now three years later, I am razing the school building. It breaks my heart every time I go into this closed school. It is only 50 years old and yes, the windows and heating are in need of replacement, but otherwise the building is in good shape. You could not build as solid a building these days. There has not been a week without someone bringing the school closure and now razing up to me and how sad it is. But the cost of insurance and the cost of heating an empty building has become too burdensome for an aging and a decreasing congregation. A part of this decrease has happened because I have preached against the Culture of Death. I have modestly preached against contraception and sterilization, but for many of my parishioners it is too late. Most of them are done with raising more children. They have had their two kids twenty, thirty, forty years ago and some women don’t want to hear about the Culture of Death. They decide to go to other parishes where the pastor doesn’t prick their consciences. I am reminded of a diocesan official in his talk to us young pro-life, pro-family priests twenty years ago. He said, “Yes, you can preach against abortion and contraception, but remember, you have to put a roof over your churches.” Now, our diocese is closing and merging these same parishes, but you know what—they all have good roofs.

Pastors, if the demographic winter or bomb seems someone else’s problem, try this at your parish as I recently did at mine. I took the last ten burials and printed out their obituaries. At Sts. Peter and Paul Cemetery we had six men and four women with an average age of 80 years. With the ten, I counted the number of siblings for a total of 45 and divided by 10 which came to 4.5 children per family. Then I counted the ten’s children and divided by ten. The next generation had 28 kids which I divided by ten and came to 2.8 per family. I then moved on to the third generation, the grandchildren. These ten deceased had 48 grandchildren from their 28 children. When dividing these numbers, I came to a figure of 1.714 per family. The national average number of children per household is 1.91 (cf. ); while the replacement level is 2.1 children per family.

This priest perspective matches my own regarding the so-called vocation crisis and the connection to contraception and abortion.

The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as heretofore; let them go and gather straw for themselves. But the number of bricks which they made heretofore you shall lay upon them, you shall by no means lessen it; for they are idle; therefore they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.’ Let heavier work be laid upon the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words.” (Ex 5:6–9)

Then the foremen of the people of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, “Why do you deal thus with your servants? 16 No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, ‘Make bricks!’ (Ex 5:15–16)

What the Pharaoh did certainly has a parallel with our own attitudes. We have withdrawn the straw by not being open to children and then complain about the lack of priests. While it is certainly true to some degree that there is a problem of men not being ope to their priestly vocation, small Catholic families certainly exasperates the problem. We demand that God “makes bricks” while not having children or encouraging possible vocations for the children we do have.

On my own part I had totally boughten into the population problem and was proud to have had two children and a subsequent vasectomy at the ripe age of 25. As an atheist I had elevated selfishness to a virtue. I even wanted to spread the “good news” of a vasectomy and even convinced a co-worker to get one. Unfortunately it looks like my selfish and very secular viewpoint was replicated in many Catholic households. The fact that many shared my mindset does not make me feel any better about it and is one of my greatest regrets.

Still it is one thing to complain about this problem, but what do we need to do going ahead to rectify this mindset?

After Humanae Vitae it seems that contraception has become the third rail that hardly anybody wants to touch. Rampant dissent became the accepted view. The media constantly reminds us that the majority of Catholics dissent on this. The media’s inflated percentage does not take the sting out of the fact that so many Catholics approach Communion while contracepting. Having the intrinsic evil of contraception actually mentioned in a homily from time to time might be a good start, but really a ton of both/ands need to happen. Really this requires an “all hands on deck” reaction with the laity, priests, bishops, and those in religious life.

And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.” (Mk 9:29)

Unfortunately we must still think we are wedding guests with the bridegroom amongst us and so we ’eat and drink” and even worse don’t even think contraception is a problem in the first place.

Photo credit: Chris Devers, cc

More and more it seems to me that dialogue means never having to say you’re sorry. That dialogue becomes just another delaying tactic for revisionists.

When the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) met in its annual assembly Aug. 13–16 in Orlando, Fla., the main topic of business was how the sisters would respond to a 2012 mandate of reform from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). The LCWR is a canonically erected superiors’ organization of nearly 1,400 sisters who are leaders of about 80% of the women religious in this country.

Interest in their 2013 assembly was heightened by the presence of the Vatican’s apostolic delegate charged with conducting the reform, Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle. He had offered to attend the LCWR 2012 assembly to discuss the mandate that had come out April 18 of that year, but had been told then by LCWR leaders that his presence “would not be helpful.”

This year, Archbishop Sartain addressed the entire membership ‘n a closed session and fielded questions about the mandate from LCWR members. He also met with the LCWR’s 21-member national board during the first of three days of board meetings after the assembly closed.

However, the only decision announced by LCWR in an Aug. 19 press release was simply to continue talking with Archbishop Sartain and Bishops Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., and Leonard Blair of Toledo, Ohio, who the Vatican appointed to assist him.

Now the question is: How long is the CDF willing to have the apostolic delegates continue those conversations when the LCWR has not yet agreed to any of the reforms mandated in the doctrinal assessment?

That eight-page mandate is very explicit and readily available on the Internet, even though some LCWR members have claimed that they don’t know the details of the document. Among issues identified in the mandate are areas of “corporate dissent,” “serious theological, even doctrinal errors,” various “theological interpretations that risk distorting faith in Jesus and his loving Father” and commentaries that “undermine the revealed doctrines of the Holy Trinity, the divinity of Christ and the inspiration of sacred Scripture.”

The mandate directs the bishop delegates to take no more than five years to direct a revision of the LCWR’s statutes; review and reform LCWR plans and programs; create LCWR programs to help member congregations receive deeper formation in Church doctrine; review and guide application of liturgical norms and texts; and review LCWR links with the affiliated organizations NETWORK and Resource Center for Religious Institutes.

Reportedly, several meetings and/or teleconferences between the bishop delegates and LCWR leaders took place over the past year, but no information has leaked out. From all indications, none of the mandated reforms have yet begun, even something as simple as taking the LCWR “Systems Thinking Handbook ” off the LCWR website. The CDF mandate had directed that publication to be “withdrawn from circulation, pending revision.” (source)

Right now I am reading Sisters in Crisis Revisited: From Unraveling to Reform and Renewal by Ann Carey (who also wrote this article here). This book revisits and updates her previous book on the subject and is both an informative and sad read concerning some of this history. Dialogue as a delaying tactic is clearly a method used by the LCWR and its previous incarnation from the Sixties onward. Enter into dialogue and just keep doing what you have been doing. A waiting game where you hope the other side blinks and then you just keep truckin’ on as if nothing had happened. When dealing with dissent the Vatican plays the long game (often necessarily), but in the meantime the damage continues.

… The press release for the 2013 assembly included an excerpt from her presidential address in which she said that, relative to the doctrinal assessment, the LCWR’s “situation reflects larger questions and concerns,” including “understandings of authority, faithful dissent and obedience and the need for spaces where honest, probing questions about faith and belief can be raised and discussed.”

It would seem that dialogue about doctrinal matters with the Vatican delegates will be very challenging when the sisters claim the right to “faithful dissent” and their own understandings of faith, ecclesial authority and religious obedience.

Call me very pessimistic about a true reform of the LCWR. This pessimism is towards the “leadership” of the LCWR and not necessarily towards the member organizations. Many women in religious life have their belief’s represented by the LCWR just as much as President Obama’s beliefs represent my own.