These days it’s easy to be discouraged reading the news about never-ending scandals popping up here and there, or about the shortcomings of various role models, or the interviews of well-known people criticizing one another, and so on. I’m sure that we all can think of examples and that we all recognize an overwhelming flow of negativism, criticism, egoism, a flow that at times becomes so strong that it’s easy to be carried away by it and to simply surrender without looking beyond the negativity, coming to the conclusion – and this is very subtle – that, at the end of the day, this is all normal.

A week or so ago, I decided to read something about Thérèse de Lisieux, I knew that she had died at a young age, that she is a great saint, that she is a doctor of the Church and an inspiration for many with her ‘little way’. I was impressed with what I read because I recognized a similarity between her personal struggle at the end of her life and this dark period that we seem to be going through.

I just want to highlight what struck me most, because it helped me to see things from another perspective, and it might help you too.

In the introduction to the book I found a quote of Joseph Ratzinger who said about Thérèse: “She was very kind and, apparently, of unassuming simplicity. Unexpectedly she finds herself immersed in the torments of doubt, a symbol of contemporary men and women, who unexpectedly catch sight of an abyss that opens beneath what seemed to be the solid ground of conventional truth, and the question becomes all or nothing: there are no other options.”

So Thérèse, from one moment to the next, finds herself in a situation of doubt. She cannot be sure whether all that she believes and all that she lived for is actually true. Her deepest convictions and, therefore, her relationship with God are put to the test. She describes her inner state as being in darkness without feeling the presence of God. And what is her reaction to this situation?  She abandons herself immediately and totally to the will of God because she believes (even without seeing or feeling it in her soul) that everything is love from God.

This attitude of ‘transforming’ reality and seeing things from the perspective of the love of God – without ignoring or denying the events, which are very real – is what touched me deeply. Isn’t this an invitation to do the same, even today?

When Thérèse discovered her illness by coughing up blood (she died from tuberculosis), her reaction wasn’t: “I’m sick, I coughed up blood”, but “My Spouse (Jesus) has arrived”.

I think Thérèse here teaches us that each event carries with it two realities, a human reality and a divine reality. Personally I try to focus on God’s love first of all, and I realize that this gives me great inner peace and a feeling of optimism; it helps me to see the ‘bigger picture’, without getting trapped in a narrow and sometimes self-centered way of thinking. It actually helps me to discover the needs of others, to reach out to them and, if it’s the case, to reverse their tendency to think negatively.

The more I manage to recognize the love of God in both positive and negative events, the more I feel that the relationship between Him and me grows.  And as this relationship grows, it becomes easier to recognize God’s love in everything that happens. And then it becomes possible to bear witness to God who is Love in daily life.

I’m very grateful to Thérèse. I’m sure she’s giving us a hand from above!

Jeroen Van Der Biezen| Print This Post |

It’s been a horrible week at the Vatican, and it’s only Tuesday. Last week, German bishops addressed claims that youth had been sexually abused by clergy in various Catholic schools. News surfaced that boys had been abused at an institution in Regensburg where Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, the Pope’s brother, had later been choirmaster. Press reports alleged that the Catholic Church in Germany had tried to block official investigations into other abuse claims, though the country’s Chancellor Angela Merkel countered that the German Church has taken allegations very seriously. Then on Monday evening, Vatican Radio reported that the bishops of Holland were meeting to discuss allegations of abuse in that country. Clergy sexual abuse has been a long nightmare for the North American church, but this week proves that some problems, sadly, are international.

Vatican Spokesperson Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ spoke to Vatican Radio about the new allegations. He said the institutions involved have reacted to the claims quickly and decisively. The Regensburg Domspatzen School, where Msgr. Ratzinger taught, posted a notice on their website saying they were looking for an individual who told German newspapers he had suffered abuse at the school in the early 1960s (again, before Msgr. Ratzinger served there).

Fr. Lombardi said that sexual abuse has always been considered a grave offense by canon law and cited the 2001 document “De delictis gravioribus” (”On more serious crimes”) written by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. (The document has been blamed by some for promoting a culture of silence surrounding sexual abuse.)

Fr. Lombardi concluded by saying there is no denying the seriousness of what the Church is experiencing at this moment, and everything must be done to ensure that, out of this tragedy, the Church finds a better way to protect children and youth.

Read Fr. Lombardi’s statement, released today. More information is also available in this report from Catholic News Service.

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Photo: CNS photo/Nancy Wiechec

Alicia Ambrosio| Print This Post |

It’s a grey, cold, windy, rainy day in Rome… and I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen! This is officially day five that I’ve been here as S+L’s Vatican Correspondent. I am now officially accredited to the Holy See Press Office. It only took four days, three paper clips, two photos, and a few well placed phone calls.

I first went to the press office on Friday morning with the necessary paperwork. The Catholic News Service photographer had already sent them my digital pic for use on my press badge. Obviously, being the Eternal City, there was a snag. The person who had my official letter of accreditation and presentation was out of town. Of course, before I could get to that part, I had to explain my entire life story. I handed over my passport to be photocopied. Anywhere else, this would be a task that takes mere seconds. In Italy, with me, it goes like this:

Vatican/Italian official: I’ll need your passport please Miss.

Io (Italian word for “me”): Certainly, here you go. [hands over Canadian passport]

Official: [looks at cover of passport, opens passport to ID page] Eh, Ambrosio?

Io: Yes.

Official: But that’s Italian! You’re Italian!

Io: Yes.

Official: [smiles happily, and switches to Italian] So, your family is Italian? Were they born in Canada?

Io: [now speaking Italian] My Dad was born and raised in Italy. I was born in Canada.

Official: Ah, wow! [looks at ID page again] I see your parents also decided to give you a first name that was pronounceable in Italian!

Io: Well, actually my first name is Spanish. [pause] My mother is Argentine.

Official: [forgets about passport and sits down as if for long chat] Really? How did they meet?

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Alicia Ambrosio| Print This Post |

So far (here and here) we’ve looked at Sacraments as “visible signs of invisible grace” so we talked about signs, about sacraments as mysteries and we talked about grace. Another definition of Sacraments is “visible signs instituted by Christ to convey grace”.

There’s a story in the gospels (Mark 5:25-34) that will help you understand this. There was a woman who had a haemorrhage. She touched Jesus’ cloak and was immediately healed. This, I think is the perfect illustration of Sacrament: the power that flows out from the body of Jesus in order for us to have a new life in him. This makes perfect sense because in reality, Jesus is the ultimate Sacrament. Christ is made present in the Church and so, the Church is the Sacrament of Christ, because the Church makes Christ present in the world.

This is why we believe that Christ instituted the seven Sacraments. The Sacrament takes a natural thing (matter) and makes Christ present in it. To say that Jesus instituted the Sacraments doesn’t mean that he said, ‘this is how you pour the water and these are the words you say’… although with baptism he actually did say, “Baptise them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit…” But the Gospels don’t say that he did that with all seven Sacraments. We believe Jesus instituted the Sacraments because he promised that he would be present in them, in those mysteries. We can, however, find scriptural references from the Gospels, supporting Jesus saying something about these seven mysteries.

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Pedro Guevara-Mann| Print This Post |

Posted below is a transcript of Cardinal William Joseph Levada’s address on Anglicanorum coetibus, delivered March 6th in Kingston, Ontario. The American Cardinal, who serves in the Vatican as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was introduced by the chaplain of the Queen’s University Newman Centre, Fr. Raymond de Souza.

Note that the following is an unofficial transcription by Salt + Light. The official text has not yet been released.

Five Hundred Years After St. John Fisher:
Benedict’s Ecumenical Initiatives to Anglicans
Cardinal William Joseph Levada
Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario
March 6, 2010

Thank you very much Fr. de Souza for the invitation to Kingston—my first visit—and to deliver this St. John Fisher visitor lecture. Thank you for introducing me to CCO. I’m delighted, I feel it a great privilege to be a part of this evening of testimony and partnership and, we hope, ongoing support. Of the fifty or so English Cardinals, only one was a martyr: St. John Fisher. As I mentioned, I am honoured to deliver this lecture named for St. John Fisher to this assembly sponsored by Newman House and by CCO.

I’m reminded of the prayer with which our Holy Father imposed the cardinal’s biretta, or hat, on my head, some four years ago this month. The prayer reads: “Receive this red biretta as a sign of the dignity of the Cardinalate, by which you must be strong even to the shedding of your blood, in working for the increase of the Christian faith, for the peace and tranquility of the people of God, and for the freedom and progress of the Holy Roman Church.”

I can’t say that I pray daily to be a martyr. I wish I were stronger. But it’s a good reminder for me to be here at this lecture in honour of the great martyr-Cardinal of the English Church. As a way of celebrating these 500 years since the time of St. John Fisher’s saintly and intrepid life, which brought him the martyr’s crown, and of celebrating as well this year’s promised beatification of the venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman, whose search for the fullness of truth led him to Rome without requiring that he abandon the spiritual heritage that had nurtured him in the Anglican communion, I entitled my presentation today: “500 Years After St. John Fisher: Pope Benedict’s Initiatives Regarding the Anglican Communion.”

The recent Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, establishing—I don’t need to translate this, I suppose, it won’t come out so well in translation: “groups of Anglicans”—establishing personal ordinariates for groups of Anglicans seeking full communion with the Catholic Church, was not created in a vacuum. For many Anglicans, the possibility opened by this initiative has seemed to be a logical development of the official dialogues between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church during the 45 year period since the end of the Second Vatican Council. Any discussion of Pope Benedict’s initiatives regarding Anglicans might therefore begin with a glance at this important history.

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Kris Dmytrenko| Print This Post |

Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta delivered the first of three lectures for the Year of the Priest at the Baltimore Basilica this past Sunday.  The title of the first lecture was “Father-Brother-Friend; Bishop-Priest Relationships.”   See below for the full text:

Archdiocese of Baltimore

John Carroll Lecture
Father, Brother, Friend: Bishop-Priest Relationships

+Wilton D. Gregory,
Archbishop of Atlanta

Our modern American society places a great deal of importance on relationships – perhaps more so than did any other previous society. And fortunately for all of us modern-day experts of all types have devoted significant serious and important consideration and research on the subject. Psychologists, sociologists, and all manner of social scientists have studied the issues of relationships from their most personal and primitive perspectives to the consequences of the relationships among peoples, nations, and cultures. So fundamentally important are our human relationships that we are now aware that even tiny babies apparently begin to be shaped and to be formed in their personalities from their earliest experiences of being held, touched, and caressed. Some studies might even suggest that the infant within the womb begins to sense a bond with the mother even in those first moments of life. The human person is designed to be in relationship with others on many different levels. We can all recall the importance of the special relationships in our lives, both those from our past as well as the life-giving relationships that we currently enjoy today.

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Matthew Harrison| Print This Post |

Tony Gagliano, Chairman and CEO of St. Joseph Communications and Chair of the Board of the Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation delivered this keynote address during the annual Toronto Police Services Communion Breakfast on Sunday March 7, 2010 at the Colony Hotel Conference Centre in downtown Toronto.

Toronto Police Services
46th Annual Communion Breakfast
Sunday, March 7, 2010

Thank you Constable Joseph Kovasec and good morning.

It was an honour to receive this invitation from the Toronto Police Service and I am happy to be here with you today at the Toronto Police Service’s 46th annual communion breakfast. It is wonderful to see guests of all ages at what has become a special annual family tradition hosted by the Toronto Police Service. I am here with my wife Lina and my three children, Michael, Guy-Anthony and Krista.

I would like to send a special greeting to those I am honoured to join at the head table: Lieutenant Governor of Ontario David Onley and his wife Ruth Ann; Chief William Blair and his wife Susanne; His Grace Thomas Collins, Archbishop of Toronto; Judge Hugh Lock, Reverend Fred Mazzarella and Ian Davidson, Commissioner of Community Safety . Along with all of you here, what an incredible group of citizens we have together for this special Mass and breakfast.

What I would like to talk about today is the notion of service: service to one’s family, one’s community and the betterment of humanity in general. Looking around the room, we are surrounded by the notion of service in the truest sense of the word. Members of the police service dedicate themselves to serving citizens and our communities, both on and off duty. Through enforcement, leadership and outreach, they are committed to making our schools, our streets and our neighbourhoods the best and safest they can be.

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Administrator| Print This Post |

The following is an excerpt of Saturday’s address by Cardinal William Joseph Levada in Kingston, Ontario, entitled, “Five Hundred Years After St. John Fisher: Benedict’s Ecumenical Initiatives to Anglicans”.

Visible union with the Catholic Church does not mean absorption into a monolith, with the absorbed body being lost to the greater whole, the way a teaspoon of sugar would be lost if dissolved in a gallon of coffee. Rather, visible union with the Catholic Church can be compared to an orchestral ensemble. Some instruments can play all the notes, like a piano. There is no note that a piano has that a violin or a harp or a flute or a tuba does not have. But when all these instruments play the notes that the piano has, the notes are enriched and enhanced. The result is symphonic, full communion. One can perhaps say that the ecumenical movement wishes to move from cacophony to symphony, with all playing the same notes of doctrinal clarity, the same euphonic chords of sanctifying activity, observing the rhythm of Christian conduct in charity, and filling the world with the beautiful and inviting sound of the Word of God. While the other instruments may tune themselves according to the piano, when playing in concert there is no mistaking them for the piano. It is God’s will that those to whom the Word of God is addressed, the world, that is, should hear one pleasing melody made splendid by the contributions of many different instruments.

The address on Anglicanorum Coetibus, the apostolic constitution mandating a structure for Anglicans groups joining the Catholic Church, is significant given that these “personal ordinariates” will be erected by and subject to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Cardinal Levada leads as prefect. As reported by Deborah Gyapong on the Anglo-Catholic blog, the event also occasioned the first meeting between the Cardinal and the primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, Archbishop John Hepworth.

Earlier in the day, the Vatican Cardinal celebrated the Eucharist with students in a packed chapel at the Queen’s University Newman Centre. He then enjoyed a private lunch with media and evangelization leaders (that I was honored to attend), hosted by the Centre for Cultural Renewal.

The full transcript of the March 6th lecture will be posted here later today. Note that the prefect will be celebrating Mass this afternoon at Ottawa’s Notre Dame Cathedral at 4:30 pm. Following this, he will deliver the keynote address at the Catholic Christian Outreach fundraising gala on the topic, “The Catholic Faith: Why Is It Worth Passing On?”.

S+L is filming the Mass in Notre Dame, which will be broadcast Thursday, March 11th at 8:30pm ET and 9:30pm PT.

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Photo credit: Deborah Gyapong / Canadian Catholic News

Kris Dmytrenko| Print This Post |

It’s been just about a week since the Olympics have wrapped up, leaving many of us wondering: have the Olympics changed Canada for the better?

This past Monday morning—the morning after Sidney Crosby’s historic goal and the resulting goal medal win in men’s hockey—S+L took to the streets to hear what Canadians had to say. As expected, we were met with a range of personalities and viewpoints, but one overarching theme was PRIDE. Collective Canadian pride has been awoken after a long slumber and it made its full debut at the Olympics closing ceremonies, flying beavers and all.

Now that Canada seems to feel mighty comfortable in the limelight of the world stage, we here at S+L are raising another question: is nationalistic pride un-Christian? And so we asked you, our viewers, what you thought.

One of our comments compared the Olympics to the Kingdom of God. Jack Liu writes:

I really think the Olympic games has some resemblance to the Kingdom of God: unity, friendship, health…. May we bring all these to everyday life!

On some levels, the Olympics can be compared to the proverbial mustard seed Jesus speaks of in the Scriptures. In the parable, the Kingdom of Heaven is compared to the mustard seed, the smallest of seeds that yields the largest of trees, in whose branches the birds of the air make their home. This is a beautiful image and surely, “with glowing hearts”, Canadians will continue to reap the benefits of the Games and grow from the experience. Yet, there are some who have their reservations about having planted a 6-billion dollar mustard seed.

Tonight at 7 pm and 11 pm ET (8 pm PT), join Pedro Guevara Mann as he speaks with Fr Chris Valka, CSB and Clay Imoo, Director of Youth at the Archdiocese of Vancouver, along with Salt + Light producers Kris Dmytrenko and Gillian Kantor. Together, our first Perspectives panel discussion will cover a whole range of angles, including the distinction between nationalistic pride and patriotism.

This is an episode you won’t want to miss. Continue to check our webpage and our Facebook page for updates. Happy weekend!

Jenna Murphy| Print This Post |

Last time we talked about why we need signs and about the Sacrament being not just the grace received (the gift) but also the sign or ritual. Today, let’s begin by talking about grace. Remember, most of us have learned that a Sacrament is a “visible or outward sign of an invisible or inward grace.”

So, what is grace? Grace is a gift from God. Can it be anything, as long as it comes from God? Yes.

Grace is the effect of the presence of God in your life. Grace is the spirit of God in you. I like to think of grace as the love and life of God poured into our souls. I used to help out at a bible camp in our Parish and one summer we had a song that went: “hello my name is Grace; I’m a present just for you. I am here to remind you that God loves you. I’ll never be far from you. I’m a little piece of God inside you. My name is Grace…” It was a cute song. That really made sense to me: grace is a little piece of God inside us. Put very simply, grace is God’s very Life inside our soul. Grace is the Kingdom of God, as a seed, in our soul. We all have it. Can we lose it? You bet: through sin. But not as in a switch that is turned on or off: now you have it, now you don’t. Sin causes this very life of God to diminish in our soul. In the same sense, grace causes it to increase.

We believe that we are guaranteed to receive grace with every Sacrament. This is different from other times we receive grace in that with the Sacraments there is a guarantee. Jesus said, “I came to bring you life, and that you would have it abundantly.” That’s what He meant.

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Pedro Guevara-Mann| Print This Post |