A Courageous and Holy Woman: Elizabeth Anscombe Geach

ELIZABETH ANSCOMBE

Here’s an odd thing: a British bishop and a professor have reported that, in two different papal audiences with Pope John Paul II,  as soon as they happened to mention their connection with Oxford University , Pope John Paul  immediately leaned forward with  an enthusiastic nod and asked, ----"Do you know Professor Anscombe?" 

Do you know Professor Anscombe??  ((No? Me neither, for far too long.))  Who is she?

Elizabeth Anscombe’s writings provided the intellectual background for key moral teaching found in documents of the Second Vatican Council like Gaudium et Spes (27), encyclicals like Veritatis Splendor (80), and even the Catholic Catechism (2297-98).  The  American Catholic Philosophers Association awarded her the Aquinas Medal of the for her enormous contribution to ethical thought, and the Papal medal Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice for her service to the Church.  In the last homily he gave before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger lamented that modern life is ruled by a "dictatorship of relativism”  --an idea that echoes the pioneering work of Elizabeth Anscombe.  Mary Warnock, a historian and an unbeliever, said in her survey of women philosophers for the past 4 centuries --- that is, the 17^th, 18^th, 19^th, and 20^th centuries ---- that Elizabeth Anscombe was “THE undoubted giant among women philosophers”. Donald Davidson went even further, since in his opinion Elizabeth Anscombe did the most important work on the ethical theory of action and intention, since Aristotle.

Popes.   Encyclicals.  Aristotle.  “Giant among women.”  Wow.

So who was this wonder-woman? To some, she was G.E.M. Anscombe, a great analytical philosopher. To her students, she was Miss Anscombe---  even after her marriage to fellow-philosopher Peter Geach--- “Miss” Anscombe, the exhilarating teacher.  To some, she was Elizabeth, devoted friend. And to some, no doubt, she was “that awful Anscombe woman,” “the Dragon Lady of Oxford,” the oddball Catholic mother of seven. All in all, she was possibly one of the most holy and courageous women you have never met.

Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe was born in 1919 to loving parents were well-educated, progressive, and secular.

Between the ages of 12 and 15,  Elizabeth voraciously read books concerning religious Faith.  Perhaps her rather non-religious parents consoled themselves that perhaps she would decide to be something harmless, maybe a Buddhist?   … maybe a Quaker? She finally announced, at 15, that she wanted to become a Catholic. Now this was really alarming. “Catholic” was the one thing an intelligent person from a progressive, secular, British family really could not be.  Her parents found one last acceptable possibility: perhaps she could join the Church of England??

They sent her to an Anglican clergyman , who tried to convince Elizabeth than in Anglicanism she could have everything that was “good” in Catholicism, without all the ---“negatives” --- For instance, he said, Anglicans believed that in the Eucharist, they received Christ, “in a manner of speaking,”  “in the bread.”  Anscombe listened to him intently, and then asked, “But after the Consecration, is it still bread?”  He admitted that he thought it was still bread.  Anscombe replied that the Eucharist was transubstantiated so that we could be tranformed, and she wanted to be transformed into Christ, not bread.

This clergyman later recommended that Anscombe’s parents let her be baptized a Catholic, since she held Catholic beliefs more firmly than anybody he had ever met in his life.  But her parents would not allow it before she turned 18.

Elizabeth was accepted in St. Hugh’s College at Oxford University, and began to take instruction in the Catholic Faith from the Dominicans at Blackfriars.  And she became embroiled in a most disturbing controversy.

In the fall of 1939, shortly after England declared war on Germany, the Royal Air Force ---the “RAF”---was openly promoting a counter-city bombing strategy against Germany. They were preparing to carpet bomb entire cities. Their first target in each city would be the city water pumping stations --- the waterworks --- and then they would wipe out, not just the military assets, but the entire city of Dresden, Cologne, Hamburg,  together with all their civilian inhabitants. RAF Air Marshal Arthur Harris explicitly declared that area bombing was meant to crush and demoralize the German population as such.

Elizabeth Anscombe recognized that this is NOT the same as focusing on military targets: this would be terror bombing. She and a fellow student, barely out of their teens, wrote, printed, and started distributing a brief, powerful essay entitled "The Justice of the Present War Examined." Elizabeth was not a pacifist --- in fact both her father and her brother were in the British Army, her brother died during WWII, and she understood and respected the sacrifices of Good Soldiers in a Just War. Yet, not on the basis of pacifism, but by the application of  traditional just-war principles, she argued that the British government’s plan to incinerate large numbers of civilians by means of indiscriminate obliteration bombing, was not an act of Just War, but an act of ----murder.

But before Anscombe’s essay could be widely disseminated, her OWN bishop, the Bishop of Birmingham, told her to withdraw it from publication. He said it was not the job of undergraduates to judge their nation’s military policy, and that she had a lot of learning to do before she could make complex judgments. She agreed that she had much learning to do, and she withdrew the pamphlet.  But it is her words, rather than those of her bishop, which remain in our memory and were later echoed by the Second Vatican Council.

She was indeed quite busy with school and learning, and she was also busy with something else.  In 1938, in her first year at Oxford, she had been baptized in the Catholic Church. After mass at Blackfriars on the Feast of Corpus Christi, she met a young man who was also a recent convert to Catholicism--- Peter Geach. 

Like her, Geach was destined to make a name for himself in philosophy, but philosophy isn’t what sparked their romance. Smitten by Miss Anscombe's lovely face and form and her beautiful voice, Geach immediately inquired of mutual friends whether she was "reliably Catholic." Upon learning that she was, he pursued her and, swiftly, their hearts were entangled. Since Oxford did not make provision for married student housing for undergraduates, they postponed marriage. And their families disapproved.  But in 1941 they tied the knot --- and the only ones present at their wedding were the priest, and 2 witnesses.

And there was another man in Elizabeth and Peter’s life, a man who had just come over from Germany to become head of the Philosophy Dept. at Cambridge. This was Ludwig Wittgenstein. He had good reason to get out of Germany, because he was everything Hitler hated. First, he came from an extremely wealthy and highly cultured family.  Second, he was a Jew.  And third, Wittgenstein was --- well, I suppose the most accurate way to put it, was ---Wittgenstein was definitely not heterosexual.

Now, I said he was a Jew; the Nazis would have classified him racially as a Jew, and of course to them it was all about race; but actually, his grandparents on both sides had converted to Christianity, his mother was Catholic, and he was baptized and raised a Catholic.  But, in a process strangely opposite to that of Elizabeth Anscombe, when he was 12, 13, and 14 years of age, he was losing his Catholic faith.  He decided he did not believe any of the things that a Christian was supposed to believe.

He also disliked women. In his opinion women were incapable of logical thought. To some extent he agreed with  HIS teacher, Otto Weininger ---- who, incidentally, like him, also had Jewish roots and was gay ---- who believed that, while MEN are basically rational, women operate only at the level of their emotions and their sexual organs.  So he especially disliked women philosophers. And he extra-specially disliked Catholic women, whose weak minds were supposedly imprisoned in the iron bands of Catholic dogma.

Wittgenstein was an intensely unhappy man. Everyone in his childhood home had been tortured by extreme sensitivity and emotional suffering. His father was a cold, demanding, and rejecting man who had no affection for his children, and his mother was an emotionally needy wreck who was constantly gushing over them with great waves of sentimentality.   Three of his brothers had committed suicide.  Wittgenstein hated his life for many lonely years. His one consolation was his ability to write treatises on logic and mathematics.

So as Wittgenstein was getting established as Chair of  Philosophy at Cambridge, Elizabeth Anscombe and her husband Peter Geach were getting established as a young married couple doing graduate philosophy research at Oxford --- and having babies. The Anscombe-Geaches were 30 years younger than Wittgenstein, and one would think they would have nothing in common with him.  But one would be wrong.  Because both Elizabeth and Peter were deeply respectful of the power of Wittgenstein’s mind; and Elizabeth would travel the 90 miles from Oxford to Cambridge every week to attend his lectures.

Wittgenstein said nobody had ever listened to him as intently as Elizabeth Anscombe listened to him. He was boggled that she could be so Catholic in her beliefs, and so fearlessly logical in her thinking. Plus, she was something of an eccentric, which fascinated him.

Now, there are a lot of stories about Elizabeth Anscombe’s eccentricities. Some of them might be true and some might be mere legends. I’m just going to recount them as I heard them.

One day, Wittgenstein came to visit Anscombe and her family at home, accompanied by Anscombe’s philosopher friend Philippa Foote. At the time, Elizabeth and Peter already had three or four little children, two running around the yard squealing and chasing a dog, and one drooling and squirming in Elizabeth’s arms.  Wittgenstein was appalled and asked, “But how do you concentrate on doing philosophy?”  Elizabeth smiled and, removing ear-plugs from her ears, said, “Oh, I manage.” 

Then she said, “Come in and I’ll clear off a place for you to sit on the sofa.”  Surveying this scene of juvenile hilarity, the piles of children’s things scattered hither and thither, and the shrieks from the kids in the background, Wittgenstein dropped his anguished head into his hands, turned to Philippa and said,  with furrowed brow, “Isn’t it sa-a-a-d…”

Nevertheless, Wittgenstein admired her strikingly independent and even combative spirit. He took to calling her “Old Man” jokingly, in the style of old-school British professors (“I say, Old Man, do you loathe epistemological phenomenalism as much as I do…” yada-yada-yada.) He liked her commitment to dialogue, and she liked his ability to question himself, even to question his own doubts.

Have you ever seen that button that says “Question authority?”  They went further.  Their motto might have been, “Question skepticism.”

Anscombe’s international reputation as a debater had early roots. At Oxford in 1948, at age 29, she took on ---and trounced--- C. S. Lewis in a debate that still discussed now, more than a half–century later. It focused on the third chapter of Lewis’ book Miracles. Everyone present ---including Lewis--- recognized that the young woman’s critique had completely unraveled his arguments. Yet she didn’t disagree with Lewis’ conclusions; she just thought his arguments were too loose, too easy to pull apart. She wanted a more rigorously tough-minded defense of miracles.

Incidentally, she and Lewis remained on friendly terms, and Lewis rewrote the disputed chapter, taking her criticism into account. Anscombe considered this an act of admirable intellectual honesty.

Anscombe believed in miracles, and believed it was important to teach one’s children about the reality of miracles, just as one taught them the reality of logic and math.  When her first daughter, Barbara, was a little girl, Elizabeth told her about Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist.  Once when Elizabeth came back to her pew from Communion, little Barbara asked her, “Mummy, is He inside you?  Is God inside you now?”  Elizabeth whispered, “Yes, He is” and little 3-year-old Barbara scooted out into the aisle, went face-down FLAT on the carpet and prostrated herself to her Christ-bearing mother.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth, now a graduate fellow at Oxford, became Ludwig Wittgenstein’s most trusted intellectual collaborator, as well as a close personal friend. Throughout their 10 years working together, the two of them intensively developed the art of dialogue, with themselves, their colleagues and their students. They learned to appreciate even the value of honest intellectual error on the way towards the truth.

Anscombe’s friend Philippa Foot remembers an Oxford philosophy seminar in 1947, to which they invited Wittgenstein from Cambridge. One of the graduate students began to take part but, feeling his idea was somehow mistaken, broke off his comments and tried to change the subject. At that moment, Wittgenstein interrupted forcefully and asked him to him to please continue saying what he was going to say, because mistaken thoughts are also important: they might contain some fragment of truth that needs to be carefully recognized and retrieved, and the parts that are erroneous will trigger disputes that would eventually carry them even farther toward the truth.

Anscombe’s friendship with Wittgenstein influenced her philosophical style in a decisive way. She said that one shows respect for a sage by accepting his teachings, but one shows respect for a philosopher by arguing with him.

Then regarded as the greatest philosopher of the 20^th century, Wittgenstein had written works totaling almost 3 million words which had neither been translated from German nor published. Despite their differences, he found Anscombe able to deeply understand others’ points of view whether she agreed with them or not. He chose her to be his main literary executor, translator and interpreter of this vast mountain of unpublished work. All this she did in the midst of her Oxford teaching obligations, her marriage and her growing family.

***

One of Anscombe’s daughters, Mary Geach, describes her as being, in some ways, a more attentive parent than most:  she notes that children rarely receive so many and such deeply considered replies to their questions. Both as mother and teacher, Elizabeth Anscombe was good at thinking at the level of the person she was speaking to.

Anscombe was once asked if any of her 7 children was her favourite.  She said, yes, she always had a favourite child: and that child would be whichever one was, at the moment, six years of age.  She delighted in the six-year-old mind, and was deeply and warmly responsive to the six-year-old heart.

It’s said that Wittgenstein once witnessed Elizabeth and Peter Geach and their many children at prayer, saying the rosary.  He stood at the doorway and watched, unwilling to enter the room, but at the same time, unwilling to leave, with --- it is said --- a look of longing on his face.

By 1951, Wittgenstein was dying. He asked his friend Anscombe to put him in touch with a “non-philosophical priest”, as he said ---- which she did, though she never presumed he would formally return to the Faith of his childhood. Yet a short time later, calling for Anscombe, he told her, “You know, Old Man --- Beth --- I have always loved the Truth. I don’t mean I possessed it, or that I understood it, but that I loved it. I do hope my Catholic friends would pray for me.”  He also said, surprisingly, in the light of his famously miserable life experience,  “I am happy.”

Three more of Wittgenstein’s former students arrived at his bedside—and a Dominican monk, Father Conrad Pepler. They were at first unsure what Wittgenstein would have wanted, but then Anscombe explained that he SAID he wanted prayer, and since he was a baptized person, he was entitled to the Last Rites of the Church, the only prayers which were really adequate to the moment.  So although he was now unconscious, they knelt at his bedside and prayed for him, he was anointed, and he was pronounced dead shortly afterwards.

At Anscombe’s urging, he was given a Catholic burial at St. Giles’s Church in Cambridge. Anscombe said she hoped to see him someday in Paradise.

***

Anscombe’s responsibilities in Oxford in the 1950s did not include teaching ethics, which was covered by her friend Philippa Foot. But at one point Foote took a sabbatical and asked Anscombe to fill in for her. When Anscombe started to organize her thoughts by reading the usual texts of modern moral philosophy she was flabbergasted.

Despite the differences between them, all the 20^th century authors she encountered shared one thing in common: they had no moral absolutes. None. There were no actions that could be ruled out if you were aiming at a good enough result. Not rape, not torture, not abortion, not murder. They said it could all be justified by circumstances. And this was an absolute break with 20 centuries of Western Civilization with its basis in Judeo-Christian moral teaching, and even a break from the teachings of Aristotle and the greats of pagan Greek and Roman civilization.

Anscombe knew this was wrong. Two years previously, in 1956, Oxford University had decided to grant an honorary degree to Harry Truman, who, as US President, had been responsible for the deliberate massacre of hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She contested this honorary degree, but she was told that she was the only one who found it objectionable. She forced a vote but only four faculty members ---- herself, Philippa Foot, and two other women --- were willing to say that a man who authorized the deliberate killing of innocent human beings ought not to be given public honors. Her essay, “Mr. Truman’s Degree,” which she printed as a pamphlet and distributed to her fellow faculty members, makes exceedingly interesting reading even today --- especially, it seems to me, in the light of much more recent controversies about a much more recent U.S. president, Barack Obama, being awarded  an  honorary degree at the University of Notre Dame. 

Anscombe’s reflections on moral absolutes developed into her 1958 paper ‘On Modern Moral Philosophy’. This is an extraordinary piece of work. She boldly challenged the sheer relativism of almost all 20^th century moral philosophers, as rubbish.  (She didn’t use the word “rubbish,” but if you read her careful academic prose, I think you’d get the point.) Standing practically alone against the entire academic philosophical establishment, she defined, described, and pulled apart ‘consequentialism’, the view that there are no acts, no matter how evil, which cannot be justified if one is aiming for good consequences.

Think of the most patently wicked act you can imagine. Say, pronouncing and carrying out the death penalty on a person you know to be innocent.  If consequentialism were right, then it would be legitimate to argue that executing innocent persons could be not only right, but a duty under certain circumstances. The Scriptures tell us that this is abominable and forbidden by Almighty God; but even without reference to religious law, this is completely outside of the bounds of Natural Law, of common decency, and of human civilization. 

Yet so-called “ethicists” who think there really IS no right or wrong, still use terms like “Moral Law” as if one could be obliged to commit sodomy, or torture, or rape, or murder, if there were a good enough reason.  It’s as if God Almighty had said, “Thou shalt not commit moral abominations --- unless thou are really, really, REALLY tempted.”   

If one does not believe in a divine Moral Lawgiver, one should be honest and stop talking about big words, big authority-words like “Moral Law.”  It’s dishonest. Otherwise, you are like a person who uses a big authority-word like “verdict” even though he has abolished judges and juries; or a person who claims to be an expert on ribs and joints, when he denies the existence of bones.

This essay hit academic ethics----- like--- a ----bomb. It basically blew the stuffing out of the makeshift, ethically minimalist house of cards known as modern moral philosophy.

***

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter Geach were still teaching philosophy and still adding to their family.  Keep in mind that she was engaging in all this intellectual combat while washing dirty diapers and surrounded by the noisy Anscombe-Geach children. This raised eyebrows at Oxford, too.

Anscombe already had a reputation as an eccentric woman. Now, keep in mind that at this point we’re talking about Oxford University in mid-century, which until maybe the mid-60’s was a very proper and strait-laced place.  For instance, Oxford had a dress code which required that all the women, both faculty and students, were to wear dresses or skirts.  And women professors were supposed to wear their academic robes --- their full gowns --- in the lecture hall.

Now, Anscombe never wore a dress.  The plain fact is, she disliked dresses. The other plain fact is, she was pregnant for most of the 1950’s, and she felt a lot more comfortable in loose pants and tunics. (You all know what I’m talking about.) So she simply ignored the dress code.  She wore pants everywhere, lecturing and travelling, on campus and off.

The tale is told that she once went to enter a very upscale restaurant, and was stopped by the doorman and told that they did not admit ladies who wore pants.  So ----she just took them off….. I assume she was still wearing one of those long tunic tops!

She also smoked cigarettes. On one occasion, when her second child was sick, she made a bargain with God, that if the child recovered, she would stop smoking cigarettes.  The child did recover, and Anscombe did stop smoking cigarettes….. Now at some point, the pressures of academic life and home life were pressing on her, and denying her nicotine habit was really adding to her stress.  So, being a philosopher attuned to the exact meaning of words, she recalled that although she had promised to swear off cigarettes, she hadn’t said a word about pipes and cigars. So from that point, she took up smoking cigars. 

She once walked into an Oxford lecture hall wearing her academic gown--- this was unusual enough --- FOR HER---that she drew stares ; and shepulled a can of beans out of her pocket, opened it, and proceeded to eat cold baked beans while proceeding with her lecture.   As perhaps a bit of laughter broke out, she just pointed to her academic gown and said, in a portentous voice, “I am a great stickler for convention and propriety.”

But although Oxford could accept a trousers-wearing, cigar-smoking, ban-the-bomb, intellectually combative lady professor who never took her husband’s name --- she was always “Miss Anscombe,” even to him--- something that really and truly disturbed the Oxford community was an outspoken woman who believed in God, believed and lived her Catholic faith, believed and lived chastity, marriage, and a generously proportioned family life.

Another legend: by now it was the 1960’s, and Anscombe, pregnant again, this time with #7, walked into a classroom in which somebody had scrawled on a blackboard an intended insult:  ANSCOMBE BREEDS.  Did she get angry?  No. Did she erase it? Not she. Instead, she added two more words to the intended insult, so that it read:  ANSCOMBE BREEDS …IMMORTAL… BEINGS.

And then there was the matter of--- let’s face it, her name. Reportedly when she was in the hospital to give birth to her seventh baby, the following conversation, or something like it,  ensued between two nurses:

“Oh, I see our old friend MISS Anscombe is here for yet ANOTHER baby. And aren’t you the one who told me she’s a Catholic?”

And the other nurse said, “Yes, but…but… I didn’t say she was a very GOOD Catholic…”

Although Oxford was still, in the 1960’s , a place of considerable outward conventionality, it was inwardly shaken by the moral confusion of the Sexual Revolution.  Undergraduate women often got pregnant, but never had babies, if you catch my meaning.  A male faculty member could seduce a colleague’s wife and nobody was supposed to comment; and if a male professor preferred to take up with handsome male grad student, well, there always was a lot of that in Oxford and Cambridge. At the same time, a girl who was obviously pregnant, or a boy who was outwardly effeminate could be quite brutally shamed and bullied.

Anscombe staunchly defended her friend and mentor, Ludwig Wittgenstein, when he was being unfairly slandered and defamed as a homosexual.  And any person, any person being unfairly attacked --- the pregnant girl, the bullied boy --- could always find shelter under the formidable wings of Professor G.E.M. Anscombe.  Elizabeth was so hospitable that she left the door of her home permanently unlocked: her home was always open to inquiring students , especially the ethically confused looking for a bit of guidance or a safe haven.

Once Professor Anscombe was sought out by a young woman who was pregnant ----pregnant by a professor 30 years older than she ---  and this young student was quite upset and unsure what to do about it.  She confided that  this professor, who was in fact the father of the baby, thought abortion would be the obvious solution.

“And why does he think that?” asked Anscombe.

The girls replied, ‘Well, the first problem is, he doesn’t entirely accept the full humanity ---of the un-born.”

“No, “ Anscombe shot back, “His first problem is that he doesn’t even accept the full humanity --- of the undergraduate.”

Anscombe’s open opposition to sexual exploitation shocked some of her fellow academics. Here’s another story --- told me by a former student ---

One professor, hostile to Anscombe, remarked to this student, “You’ll want to think twice about accepting an invitation to dinner at the Geach-Anscombe table. You don’t know if you’ll be crammed in there next to some “Paki bint” (Pakistani Muslim girl) who’s preggers and wants to keep the brat, or some precious nancy-boy whom Anscombe is shepherding into ethics and chastity. Respectable?  I think she and her whole entourage are batty..”

Now, when an insulting remark was repeated in her presence, Anscombe the Dragon Lady of Oxford sometimes turned fierce.  But not this time.  This time, she merely took a draw on her cigar, blew a smoke ring, and remarked, “Batty? Perhaps I am / Perhaps I am a fool for Christ. I only wish I were more so.”

And she told her children:  “Respect God.  Respect Life.  But don’t respect RESPECTABILITY.”

***

Elizabeth Anscombe’s concern for the victims of World War II  fire-bombings in Hamburg and Dresden,  Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was entirely consistent with  her concern over the killing of unborn children. She said, ‘Each nation that has “liberal” abortion laws has rapidly become, if it was not already, a nation of murderers.’

Although Anscombe’s stand against the atomic bomb was widely reported at the time, when she decided to personally and nonviolently intervene to stop the dismemberment of living babies, the coverage was practically zero. A newspaper photograph that  her family cherishes, shows her being hauled away from the abortion clinic doorway by two policemen, but she is not even identified in the caption or in the article. Her name--- not even mentioned. This, despite the fact that at the time she was arguably the world’s most prominent living philosopher and --- beyond that --- a frail old woman with a mighty heart, heroically and non-violently risking her own well-being to save others.   

You can well imagine that if she were arrested on what is called the “pro–choice” side, it would have hit the 7 o’clock news across the British Isles and beyond.

Perhaps the issue which placed Anscombe furthest from her academic colleagues was her opposition to contraception. People who defend the strategic bombing of civilians or who promote legalized abortion, generally do so because they suppose it to be a “necessary evil.” Even the supporters of such evils don’t see it as a positive good. On the other hand, contraception is typically seen as an unalloyed good, something no intelligent person could disagree with, like soap, sliced bread, electricity, or cotton underwear.

At the Theological Congress held St. Michael's College may refer to:

St Michael's College, Adelaide, Australia, a private Roman Catholic primary and secondary school founded by the Lasallian Brothers

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in Toronto in 1967, Elizabeth Anscombe had delivered a very closely reasoned critique of contraception --- so closely reasoned that two Toronto papers reported that she had defended contraception. When the chairman of the session, Professor Elmer Kremer, protested that they had got it exactly wrong,  they refused to print a retraction: she wore  pant
v.
To breathe rapidly and shallpant suits and smoked cigars, they said, and so she must have been in favor of contraception. She definitely was not.

She sometimes remarked that she’d lived long enough to see every promise made by the early contraceptive enthusiasts turn out to be false: the deceptive hope that contraception would reduce unwed childbearing--- false; the foolish notion that contraception would eliminate abortion – false;  the truly soft-minded supposition that contraception would make marriages more secure --- reduce divorce---  make husbands and wives more satisfied with their sex lives --- all demonstrably false.  She was right about that, but few are clear-sighted enough to see the obvious.

Even though none of these promises of utilitarian benefit have been fulfilled after decades of contraception, few are willing even listen to the argument that there is an inherent moral, ethical problem with contraceptive intercourse, either within or outside of marriage.

In 1970, Elizabeth Anscombe was appointed to the Chair of Philosophy at Cambridge, the same position that her old colleague Wittgenstein used to hold, and which she held until her retirement in 1986.  She spent the next 10 years doing more original work in philosophy, writing, speaking, and striving to empower women --- particularly young women --- with the intellectual strength to resist conformism, to seek and love the truth, and to accept no substitutes.

In the many speeches she made to Catholic audiences about chastity --- that is, moral reflection as it relates to sexual goodness ---  Anscombe was sometimes called upon to talk of marriage and married love. Elle le faisait alors en excluant délibérément tout pathos, avec la conviction manifeste que la conception traditionnelle du mariage dans l'Église catholique se tient entre deux rigorismes également dangereux, celui qui méprise la chair et celui qui exalte la pureté idéale du sentiment amoureux. When she did so, she deliberately excluded sentimentality. She believed that the realism of  the traditional concept of marriage in the Catholic Church stands between two equally dangerous extremes: that of a grim austerity which distrusts or denigrates feelings and  flesh, and that of a fluffy sentimentality which demands nonstop passion and fulfillment. Ce dernière déformation, qui peut se comprendre comme une réaction aux excès contraires du passé, est probablement la plus actuelle dans les milieux chrétiens, et Anscombe prend toujours garde, lorsqu'elle parle du mariage, de ne pas oublier qu'un mariage peut exister sans amour, ou sans amour partagé. This last extreme --- you could call it the « bliss mandate, » which can be understood as a reaction to the excesses of the past austerity --- is probably the most dominant in Christian circles today.

Anscombe always took care, when speaking of marriage, to frankly acknowledge that many couples fall short of a richly satisfying ideal relationship, and yet have a marriage they can and will live in, in an ordinary and even a holy way, to the end.  « Nous ne pouvons absolument pas délivrer un enseignement qui flatte les chanceux, et ne parle pas aux malheureux. » (Anscombe, « Contraception and Chastity » ) As Anscombe wisely wrote in her essay, Contraception and Chastity, "We absolutely can not issue an instruction that flatters the lucky ones, and does not speak to the unfortunate".  Le couple Geach semble avoir été un couple chrétien de l'ancien temps.

The couple Anscombe and Geach seems to have practiced the virtues that could be found in  an old peasant household, formed in the hard school of life and tapping into the treasures of a realistic faith :  better than the illusions of passion, made to last,  growing imperceptibly, a chaste love and proud.

After nearly being killed in an automobile accident in 1996, she spent her last years in the care of her family in Cambridge, enjoying the frequent company of her 7 grown children and, at that time, 10 grandchildren, all of them practicing Catholics. In 2001, at age 81, with her family praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary at her bedside, her last intentional act was kissing Peter Geach.

Pope Francis’ Homily for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi

Here is the text of the Holy Father’s homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) which took place in the square in front of the Basilica of St. John Lateran. After the Mass, Pope Francis presided over the Eucharistic Procession that lead to the Papal basilica of St. Mary Major.

* * *

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In the Gospel we heard, there is an expression of Jesus’ that always strikes me: «You give them something to eat “(Lk 9:13). Starting from this sentence, I will allow myself be guided by three words: discipleship, communion, sharing.

1. First of all: who are those to be fed? The answer is found at the beginning of the Gospel: the crowds, the multitude. Jesus is in the midst of people, he welcomes them, speaks to them, cures them, he shows them the mercy of God; from among them he chooses Twelve Apostles to be with Him and immerse themselves, like Him, in the concrete situations of the world. And the people follow Him, they listen to Him, because Jesus speaks and acts in a new way, with the authority of someone who is genuine and consistent, who speaks and acts with truth, who gives the hope that comes from God, who is the revelation of the Face of a God who is love. And the people joyfully bless God.

Tonight we are the crowd of the Gospel, we seek to follow Jesus to listen to him, to enter into communion with him in the Eucharist, to accompany him and so that he may accompany us. Let us ask ourselves: how do I follow I Jesus? Jesus speaks in silence in the mystery of the Eucharist and each time reminds us that following him means coming out of ourselves and making our life not our own, but a gift to him and to the others.

2. Let’s go further: where does Jesus’ invitation come from, for the disciples themselves to feed the multitude? It stems from two factors: first of all from the crowd that, following Jesus, finds itself outdoors, away from the towns, while evening is approaching, and then from the disciples’ concern to ask Jesus to dismiss the crowd so that they can go into the neighboring territories to find food and lodging (cf. Lk 9:12). Faced with the needs of the crowd, this is the disciples’ solution: every man for himself; dismiss the crowd! Every man for himself; dismiss the crowd! How often do we Christians have this temptation! We do not care about other’s needs, and dismiss them with a pitiful: “May God help you”, or with a not so pitiful: “Good luck”, and if I don’t see you anymore … But Jesus’ solution goes in another direction, one that surprises his disciples: “You yourselves give them something to eat.” But how can we feed a multitude? “We only have five loaves and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all these people» (Lk 9:13). But Jesus is not discouraged: he asks the disciples to make the people sit in communities of fifty people, raises his eyes to heaven, recites the blessing, breaks the loaves and gives them to the disciples to distribute them (cf. Lk 9:16).

It is a moment of profound communion: the crowd, quenched by the word of the Lord, is now nourished by his bread of life. And all of them were filled, notes the Evangelist (cf. Lk 9:17). This evening, we too are around the Lord’s table, the table of the Eucharistic sacrifice, in which he gives us once again his body, he makes present the one sacrifice of the cross. It is in listening to his Word, in nourishing ourselves on his body and his blood, that he makes us go from a multitude to being a community, from anonymity to communion. The Eucharist is the sacrament of communion, that makes us come out from our individualism to live together our discipleship, our faith in him. Then we should all ask ourselves before the Lord: how do I live the Eucharist? Do I live it anonymously or as a moment of true communion with the Lord, but also with all our brothers and sisters who share this same table? What are our Eucharistic celebrations like?

3. One last element: what generates the multiplication of the loaves? The answer lies in Jesus’ invitation to the disciples “You give… “, “give “, share. What do the disciples share? What little they have: five loaves and two fishes. But it is precisely those loaves and fishes in the hands of the Lord that feed the whole crowd. And it is precisely these disciples, distressed when faced with the inability of their means, the poverty of what they can offer, who get the people to sit down and who distribute – trusting Jesus’ word – the loaves and fishes that feed the crowd. And this tells us that in the Church, but also in society, one keyword that we must not fear is ‘solidarity’, i.e. to put at God’s disposal what we have, our humble capacities, because only in sharing, in the gift, will our lives be fruitful, will they bear fruit. Solidarity: a word frowned upon by the worldly spirit!

Tonight, once again, the Lord distributes for us the bread which is his Body, he makes himself gift. And we, too, experience the “solidarity of God” with man, a solidarity that never runs out, a solidarity that never ceases to amaze us: God is near us, in the sacrifice of the cross he stoops to enter into the darkness of death to give us his life, defeating evil, selfishness and death. Jesus also this evening gives himself to us in the Eucharist, he shares our same journey, indeed, he makes himself food, the real food that sustains our lives even in times when the road becomes tough, the obstacles slow our steps. And in the Eucharist, the Lord makes us travel his path, that of service, of sharing, of gift, and what little we have, what little we are, if shared, becomes wealth, because the power of God, which is that of love, descends into our poverty to transform it.

Let us ask ourselves then this evening, worshiping Christ really present in the Eucharist: do I let myself be transformed by Him? Do I let the Lord who gives himself to me, guide me to come out more and more from behind my little fence, to go out and not be afraid to give, to share, to love him and others?

Brothers and sisters: discipleship, communion, sharing. Let us pray that the participation in the Eucharist leads us to always follow the Lord every day, to be instruments of communion, to share what we are with him and with our neighbor. Then our lives will be truly fruitful. Amen.

Pope Francis Explains Why He Chose to Live Away From the Papal Apartments

Pope Francis has revealed for the first time the reasons for his decision to shun the official papal apartments and instead live in a much more modest Vatican ‘hotel’.

He has told a friend that he likes being in daily contact with ordinary people, does not want to be isolated and enjoys sitting down to meals with visiting clergy.

The Pope, 76, who on first seeing the papal apartments reportedly exclaimed “But there is room here for 300 people!” hinted that the arrangement may be permanent.

The Pope broke with Vatican tradition when he decided, after being elected on March 13 during a secret conclave of cardinals, not to live in the apostolic apartments.

Instead he opted to remain in the Casa Santa Marta, a Vatican residence which accommodates visiting clergy and lay people, where he had stayed with his fellow cardinals during the conclave.

He lives in a suite of rooms in the residence, which sits in the shadow of St Peter’s Basilica, on the other side of the Vatican city state to the apostolic apartments.

He explained his choice in a letter written two weeks ago to an old friend, Father Enrique Martinez, a priest at the Church of the Annunciation in La Rioja.

“I didn’t want to go and live in the apostolic palace. I go over there just to work and for audiences.

“I’ve remained living in the Casa Santa Marta, which is a residence which accommodates bishops, priests and lay people.” There he feels “part of a family” he wrote in the letter, which was obtained by Clarin, an Argentinian daily.

“I’m visible to people and I lead a normal life – a public Mass in the morning, I eat in the refectory with everyone else, et cetera. All this is good for me and prevents me from being isolated.

“I’m trying to stay the same and to act as I did in Buenos Aires because if you change at my age you just look ridiculous.” The Pope, the first Jesuit pontiff in history and the first to come from the Americas, said his election was “something totally surprising” which he considers “a gift from God”.

Francis and the Feast of Corpus Christi - June 2, 2013

2 June 2013, , Feast of Corpus Christi, historical event for the Church: the Eucharistic Adoration will be broadcast for the first time worldwide from St. Peter’s Basilica, from 5:00pm-6:00pm local time. 

“It will be an event,” Archbishop Fisichella explained, “occurring for the first time in the history of the Church, which is why we can describe it as ‘historical’. The cathedrals of the world will be synchronized with Rome and will, for an hour, be in communion with the Pope in Eucharistic adoration. There has been an incredible response to this initiative, going beyond the cathedrals and involving episcopal conferences, parishes, lay associations, and religious congregations, especially cloistered ones.”

From the Cook Islands to Chile, Burkina Faso, Taiwan, Iraq, Bangladesh, the United States, and the Philippines, the dioceses will be synchronized with St. Peter’s and will pray for the intentions proposed by the Pope. The first is: “For the Church spread throughout the world and united today in the adoration of the Most Holy Eucharist as a sign of unity. May the Lord make her ever more obedient to hearing his Word in order to stand before the world ‘ever more beautiful, without stain or blemish, but holy and blameless.’ That through her faithful announcement, the Word that saves may still resonate as the bearer of mercy and may increase love to give full meaning to pain and suffering, giving back joy and serenity.”

Pope Francis’ second intention is: “For those around the world who still suffer slavery and who are victims of war, human trafficking, drug running, and slave labour. For the children and women who are suffering from every type of violence. May their silent scream for help be heard by a vigilant Church so that, gazing upon the crucified Christ, she may not forget the many brothers and sisters who are left at the mercy of violence. Also, for all those who find themselves in economically precarious situations, above all for the unemployed, the elderly, migrants, the homeless, prisoners, and those who experience marginalization. That the Church’s prayer and its active nearness give them comfort and assistance in hope and strength and courage in defending human dignity.”

Positive - Corrective - Approach to the New Boy Scout Policy

May 26^th, 2013
Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Dear Parishioners of Our Lady Star of the Sea,


Although I am not at all surprised, I am certainly disappointed in the recent decision of the Boy Scouts of America to change their membership policy. The incredible legacy of the Boy Scouts of America and the amount of good they have done for so many years, creates a particular sadness that they would compromise the good of their mission and the good of the boys they serve for the sake of political correctness.

The exact policy change is this: “to remove the restriction denying membership to youth on the basis of sexual orientation alone.” That is to say that those young men aged 10 to 18 who identify themselves as “gay” or “homosexual” will not be excluded from scouting based on the fact of that self-identification.

I do not feel that it is possible for us to live out, and to teach, the authentic truth about human sexuality within the confines of the Boy Scout’s new policy and so I would like to give an explanation as to why it will be necessary for our parish to part ways with the New Boy Scouts.

 

For many years we have seen headlines that proclaim a genetic origin for homosexuality. Various groups in concert with a willing media have tried to convince people that being “gay” is a genetically defined trait, as if being sexually attracted to a person of the same sex is no different an expression of DNA than one’s height or the color of one’s skin. The reality however, is that there is nothing scientific or logical in such a position.

The genesis of same-sex attraction is much more complicated. As the Catholic Medical Association pointed out in their document, Homosexuality and Hope (November, 2000):


“Individuals experience same-sex attractions for different reasons. While there are similarities in the patterns of development, each individual has a unique, personal history. In the histories of persons who experience same-sex attraction, one frequently finds one or more of the following:

• Alienation from the father in early childhood, because the father was perceived as hostile or distant, violent or alcoholic, (Apperson 1968 ; Bene 1965 ; Bieber 1962 ; Fisher 1996 ; Pillard 1988 ; Sipova 1983 )
• Mother was overprotective (boys), (Bieber, T. 1971 ; Bieber 1962 ; Snortum 1969 )
• Mother was needy and demanding (boys), (Fitzgibbons 1999 )
• Mother emotionally unavailable (girls), (Bradley 1997 ; Eisenbud 1982 )
• Parents failed to encourage same-sex identification, (Zucker 1995 )
• Lack of rough and tumble play (boys), (Friedman 1980 ; Hadden 1967a )
• Failure to identify with same/sex peers, (Hockenberry 1987 ; Whitman 1977 )
• Dislike of team sports (boys), (Thompson 1973 )
• Lack of hand/eye coordination and resultant teasing by peers (boys), (Bailey 1993 ; Fitzgibbons 1999 ; Newman 1976 )
• Sexual abuse or rape, (Beitchman 1991 ; Bradley 1997 ; Engel 1981 ; Finkelhor 1984; Gundlach 1967 )
• Social phobia or extreme shyness, (Golwyn 1993 )
• Parental loss through death or divorce, (Zucker 1995)
• Separation from parent during critical developmental stages. (Zucker 1995)

 Through no fault of their own, through the breakdown of families, through the failures of society at large young people can find themselves struggling with same-sex attraction. The question is, what is the best way to help them? How do we offer hope and healing?

The New Boy Scouts are basically offering a program of ratifying a label of “gay”, which the young man has placed on himself, and which so many elements of society also are happy to place on him.

A survey was done to poll the scouting community as to their opinions concerning the possibility of a policy change, following is one of the questions (the questions were extremely leading, as you can see):

Tom started in the program as a Tiger Cub, and finished every requirement for the Eagle Scout Award at 16 years of age. At his board of review Tom reveals that he is gay. Is it acceptable or unacceptable for the review board to deny his Eagle Scout award based on that admission?"
Pretty obvious what answer they are looking for.

Based on the more scientific and research backed approach of the Catholic Medical Association here would be a series of more pointed questions which would actually get to the issues that could lead to hope and healing for the boy, rather than imprisoning him in that self-identification for the sake of political correctness:

Tom’s father was an alcoholic; he abandoned the family when Tom was five. To compensate, Tom’s mother was overprotective and began to depend upon Tom even from a very young age. Because of this, Tom never got to play with other boys his age and never played sports. Tom was molested by one of his mother’s boyfriends. Since the age of 12 Tom has been confused about his sexual desires and fantasies and thinks he might be gay. Is all of this acceptable? Should we all tell Tom that this is normal? 

Should we affirm that this 16 year old boy is, in fact, “gay”?
Or should we not have the courage and the love to stand up and say this is a tragedy, an all too common heartbreaking disaster? Should we not admit that it is sad and wrong from beginning to end– and that we are going to do everything we can to help kids like Tom?

Our Lady Star of the Sea parish and our youth programs are willing to accept Tom as a casualty in the disaster that is so often the modern family. We are willing to accept him as confused, as unsure of his masculinity, as having had a hard life, as a kid who needs help, compassion, love, mentoring, guidance – and most importantly we are willing to share the love and healing of Jesus Christ with him. But I’m not willing to put the definitive label “gay” on him.

The CMA document continues with some very important points, which guide my thinking on this issue:
“While a number of studies have shown that children who have been sexually abused, children exhibiting the symptoms of GID (gender identification disorder), and boys with chronic juvenile unmasculinity are at risk for same-sex attractions in adolescence and adulthood, it is important to note that a significant percentage of these children do not become homosexually active as adults. (Green 1985 ; Bradley 1998)


For some, negative childhood experiences are overcome by later positive interactions. Some make a conscious decision to turn away from temptation. The presence and the power of God's grace, while not always measurable, cannot be discounted as a factor in helping an at-risk individual turn away from same-sex attraction. The labeling of an adolescent, or worse a child, as unchangeably "homosexual" does the individual a grave disservice. Such adolescents or children can, with appropriate, positive intervention, be given proper guidance to deal with early emotional traumas.”
So what are we going to do?

Our parish cannot be involved with a group that has decided to ratify or approve the self-identification of a 10-18 year old boy as “gay” or “homosexual”. To me it is cruel, and abusive and absolutely contrary to the Gospel to in any way confirm a teenager in the confusion of same-sex attraction, which is what the New Boy Scout policy will do.

And so, we are going to redouble our efforts to create a community that is supportive of happy, healthy, holy marriages. In our marriage preparation we are going to try to get women to stop marrying such loser men who will never be capable of being good dads and husbands, and vice versa. We are going to teach the full truth of human sexuality – especially the truth about contraception as the greatest destroyer of marriage and family life.

We are going to continue to preach the truth from natural law and Sacred Scripture that kids should have a mom and a dad who love each other and who love them – that kids do best in that environment. But we are also going to try to help the great number of families, who, through no fault of their own, or through past mistakes find themselves in difficult situations and in less than optimal circumstances – and we are going to do our best to help them and to provide whatever we can for them to be as successful as possible. We are going to try to provide family activities for moms and dads, single parents, divorced parents, grandparents raising their grandkids – really for anyone who is striving to live the Catholic faith in the mixed up mess of a modern world that we live in.

We  are going to provide youth activities for any and all youth. And in our programs we will have strong mentors, good examples of Christian men and women; we will teach the Gospel; we will challenge kids to live the virtues; we will teach the truth in a very confused world; and we will invite our youth into a friendship with Jesus Christ that can heal any past hurts. Our current Fraternus andFidelis programs are well equipped to help cultivate authentically masculine and feminine identities. We will also develop new programs to help replace what we will be losing from the legacy of Scouting.

 I am very aware that my objection to the change in the New Boy Scouts is increasingly considered bigoted and backward. I know that there are many good people within the Catholic Church who will disagree with me. I am aware that in many people’s minds “homosexual” identity is the new civil-rights issue and that there has been huge swing in public opinion on this issue over the past few years.
 But I won’t put public opinion ahead of the good of the boys and young men in my parish, and I won’t pretend that polls can trump the truths about sexuality and humanity that are revealed to us, first of all by natural law, and confirmed in Sacred Scripture and the teaching of the Catholic Church.

In Christ, 

Fr. Derek Lappe
Pastor of Our Lady Star of the Sea

---

Written on Sunday, 26 May 2013 12:53 by Father Derek Lappe 

Archdiocese Pays for Health Plan That Covers Birth Control

By SHARON OTTERMAN

Published: May 26, 2013

As the nation’s leading Roman Catholic bishop, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York has been spearheading the fight against a provision of the new health care law that requires employers, including some that are religiously affiliated, to cover birth control in employee health plans.

But even as Cardinal Dolan insists that requiring some religiously affiliated employers to pay for contraception services would be an unprecedented, and intolerable, government intrusion on religious liberty, the archdiocese he heads has quietly been paying for such coverage, albeit reluctantly and indirectly, for thousands of its unionized employees for over a decade.

The Archdiocese of New York has previously acknowledgedthat some local Catholic institutions offer health insurance plans that include contraceptive drugs to comply with state law; now, it is also acknowledging that the archdiocese’s own money is used to pay for a union health plan that covers contraception and even abortion for workers at its affiliated nursing homes and clinics.

“We provide the services under protest,” said Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York.

As president of the United States Council of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Dolan has consistently rejected similar arm’s-length compromises offered by the Obama administration, which has agreed to exempt many religious institutions from the provision, but not religiously affiliated employers like schools and hospitals that employ people of many faiths and do not exist primarily to inculcate religious values.

In February, the bishops opposed a proposal that would have allowed employees of those nonexempt religious institutions to receive contraceptive coverage through policies paid for directly by insurance companies. The New York Archdiocese is also suing the federal government to stop the mandate.

“There remains the possibility that ministries may yet be forced to fund and facilitate such morally illicit activities,” Cardinal Dolan said at the time.

The archdiocese agreed to cover its own health workers long before Cardinal Dolan became archbishop of New York, and even today insists that it has no choice. As a result, about 3,000 full-time workers at ArchCare, also known as the Catholic Health Care System, receive coverage for contraception and voluntary pregnancy termination through their membership in 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, a powerful health care workers union, according to Dave Bates, a spokesman for the union.

ArchCare, which operates seven nursing homes and a variety of other health facilities, gives its 1199 union employees the same coverage they would get at over 100 other nonprofit hospitals or nursing homes in the New York area, because ArchCare voluntarily belongs to the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes, a multi-employer organization that negotiates with the union every few years for a joint labor contract.

Bruce McIver, the president of the league since 1991, said he recalled that some Catholic organizations had expressed concern about paying for the contraception benefits in the mid- to late 1990s. But in recent years, as the number of Catholic hospitals in the city dwindled, “they just kind of stopped, from my perspective, paying attention to this issue,” he said.

“Eventually, the Catholics just said, you know, we are going to ignore the issue and pay into the fund and people are going to make their own choices about contraception and so forth,” Mr. McIver said.

During union negotiations, “I don’t remember it coming up in the last dozen years or so, ever,” he said. “In a place like New York, their employees, not all of whom are Catholic, would react pretty badly.”

ArchCare, like other employers in the league, does not directly pay for the coverage. Instead, employers contribute to the union’s National Benefits Fund, in amounts equal to roughly 25 percent of each employee’s base pay; that money is used to pay for the insurance coverage. It is not known how many ArchCare workers actually use the disputed services.

Mr. Zwilling, the spokesman for the New York archdiocese, said that Cardinal John J. O’Connor and the archdiocese “objected to these services’ being included in the National Benefit Fund’s health insurance plan” when joining the league in the 1990s. But the cardinal then decided “there was no other option if the Catholic Church was to continue to provide health care to these union-affiliated employees in the city of New York,” Mr. Zwilling said.

Since 2002, other New York Catholic agencies with standard commercial insurance have been subject to a state mandate to provide contraceptive services, Mr. Zwilling added. Fordham University, for example, covers contraception for employees and students. But rather than nullify the issue, “in fact, these rare exceptional concessions have made the bishops even more aware of the gravity of the situation and lead to the attempt to remedy the matter on a national level,” he said.

In theory, ArchCare could have negotiated independently with the union to avoid providing its 1199 employees — health support staff members ranging from physician assistants to orderlies — abortion and contraception coverage. The archdiocese avoids providing those services for 1,100 other ArchCare employees, for example, by insuring them through a special self-insurance plan that is exempt from the mandate. But in reality, “it would be very difficult,” Mr. McIver said. “It’s hard to go backwards.”

Similar skepticism was expressed by Scott LaRue, the chief executive of ArchCare. “It doesn’t matter whether you join the league or you don’t join; the league determines the contract, and then the union goes and forces the same arrangement on the other homes whether you are in the league or not,” he said.

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Religious employers nationally have often grudgingly covered contraception, whether to comply with state health care mandates or because they simply did not realize they were doing so, said Stephen S. Schneck, director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America, in Washington.

“It’s surprising, but a good number of employers don’t really get into the weeds that much with their insurance plans to know” if they are covering contraception and sterilization, Mr. Schneck said.

Even among the more than two dozen for-profit companies suing the Health and Human Services Department over the mandate, some were paying for contraception and other objectionable coverage until recently. They included the American Manufacturing Corporation, a mud pumping company in Minnesota whose owner, Gregory Hall, a Catholic deacon, played a pivotal role in helping to free trapped Chilean miners in 2010.

Mr. Hall’s lawyer, Tom Matthews, said his client realized that he was covering contraception for his employees only in December, when reviewing what the government would require in his next health care contract. More recently, he was “very upset” to find the plan had also been covering abortion, Mr. Matthews said. A federal court granted the company an injunction that will allow it to stop the coverage until the courts settle the matter.

Another company, Korte & Luitjohan Contractors in Illinois, found out in August that its insurance was covering abortion, contraception and sterilization “as a mistake,” according to Edward L. White, senior counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice in Washington. Korte is one of seven companies represented by the American Center in a challenge to the mandate.

Federal courts have dismissed most of the roughly 30 lawsuits already filed against the mandate by Catholic dioceses and other nonprofit corporations, because the government is not enforcing the mandate for religiously affiliated nonprofits until this August. The case brought by the New York Archdiocese, however, is moving forward. The mandate already applies to for-profit companies, but many of those suing have been granted reprieves until the end of their legal cases.

In courtrooms, government lawyers have pointed out to judges that some of the employers challenging the mandate have already been providing similar coverage. But Mark Rienzi, senior counsel at Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is also representing companies suing against the mandate, said that so far “the courts have not bought the argument that, aha, you must not really mean it if you haven’t caught it before now.”

Sarah Lipton-Lubet, an analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, which supports the contraception mandate, sees the matter differently.

“I can’t begin to understand the argument that coverage that has been part of the plan for however many years is suddenly anathema,” she said.

Francis: Jettison the Culture Based on Economic Wellbeing and the Provisional

May 27, 2013

(Vatican Radio) In order to follow Jesus we must get rid of our culture based on economic wellbeing and of our attraction for the provisional. This was the message highlighted this morning by Pope Francis during Mass at the Domus Sanctae Marthae. Addressing those present the Pope invited us to examine our consciences and take stock of the riches that prevent us from getting close to Jesus. The Mass, that was concelebrated by Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, Archbishop of Lyon, also saw the participation of members of the Pontifical Council for Healthcare Workers led by Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski President of the Council, and a group of collaborators of the Vatican Department of Economic Services, led by Mr. Sabatino Napolitano.
Jesus asked a young man to give all his riches to the poor and then to follow him. But when the young man heard this, he went away sad. Pope Francis’ homily found inspiration in the well-known episode narrated in the Gospel, and he underlined that “riches are an impediment” that “do not facilitate our journey towards the Kingdom of God”. And he pointed out: “Each and every one of us has riches”. There is always, he said, a richness that “stops us from getting close to Jesus”. And this must be singled out. We must all, he continued, examine our conscience and pinpoint our riches because they stop us from getting close to Jesus on the path of life”. And the Pope focused on what he called two “cultural riches”: the first, a “culture of economic wellbeing that causes us to be lacking in courage, makes us lazy, makes us selfish”. Wellbeing, he said, “anaesthetizes us, it’s an anaesthetic”.
“No, no, not more than one child, because otherwise we will not be able to go on holiday, we will not be able to go out, we will not be able to buy a house. It’s all very well to follow the Lord, but only up to a certain point. This is what economic wellbeing does to us: we all know what wellbeing is, but it deprives us of courage, of the courage we need to get close to Jesus. This is the first richness of the culture of today, the culture of economic wellbeing”.
There is also, he added, “another richness in our culture”, another richness that prevents us from getting close to Jesus: it’s our fascination for the temporary”. We, he observed, are “in love with the provisional”. We don’t like Jesus’s “definitive proposals”. Instead we like what is temporary because “we are afraid of God’s time” which is definitive.
“He is the Lord of time; we are the masters of the moment. Why? Because we are in command of the moment: I will follow the Lord up to this point, and then I will see… I heard of a man who wanted to become a priest - but only for ten years, not any longer…” Attraction for the provisional: this is a richness. We want to become masters of time, we live for the moment. These two riches are the ones that, in this moment, prevent us from going forward. I think of so many men and women who have left their land to work throughout their lives as missionaries: that is definitive!”.
And, he said, I also think of so many men and women who “have left their homes to commit to a lifelong marriage”, that is “to follow Jesus closely! It’s the definitive”. The temporary, Pope Francis stressed, “is not following Jesus”, it’s “our territory”.
Before Jesus’ invitation, before these two cultural riches, let us think of the disciples: they were disconcerted. We too can be disconcerted by Jesus’ request. When Jesus explained something, people listened in amazement. Let us ask the Lord to give us the courage to go forward, to rid ourselves of this culture of economic wellbeing, hoping in time – at the end of the journey where He awaits us. Not with the small hope of the moment that will no longer be of any use. And so be it”.

Trinity Sunday - The Pope As Bishop of Rome Left the Pope in the Vatican and Preached to the Children + Heard Confessions: WOW

Today the Pope paid his first visit to a Roman diocese, in the city’s Prima Porta suburb. In his homily Francis spoke about Mary's haste to help us and about the ability to see reality more clearly from a distance and from within a different context. He also explained the Trinity to children

The Pope held a lively question and answer session with children of the parish of Sts. Elizabeth and Zechariah, in the Prima Porta suburb of Rome, who came to see Francis on his first visit to a Roman parish this morning. The Pope started off commenting on the part of the Gospel that describes Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth. He then went on to explain the meaning of the Trinity in the Christian faith, asking the children questions and waiting for their responses.

Francis’ pre-mass address to the faithful and the parish priest of this church on the far northern suburb of Rome was a blend of humour and sober reflection. He referred to the congregation as the city’s guards.

 “Dear first guard and dear second guard, I like what you say about guards; one gets a far clearer perspective of reality from the peripheries than they do from the centre. We need to be guards, just like you said. I give thanks to you for the work you do as a guard and I give thanks for the hospitality given to me on Trinity Sunday. Present here today are the priests you know so well, the Pope’s two secretaries, and the Bishop of Rome. The Pope stayed behind in the Vatican. These last two work well together. One of them, Fr. Alfred is celebrating the 29th anniversay of his priestly ordination. Let us pray for him and hope he will serve for at least another 29 years,” Francis said.

“Mary is always in a hurry because she wants to help us not because she wants to brag about the fact she is the mother of God. She goes to help Elizabeth: “She is our Mother, who always comes in haste when we need help. It would be nice to add to the litanies of Our Lady one that says “Lady who sets out in haste, pray for us!”” “This makes us safe, the safety of always having our mother near, at our side. Our Lady also helps us to understand God well.” The Pope then asked the children present about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in order to explain the Trinity (today is the feast of the Holy Trinity) to them.

“I ask you, children: “Who knows who God is?” Raise your hand, tell me. Okay! Creator of the earth. And how many Gods are there? 1? But they told me that there are 3: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit! How do we explain this? Is there 1 or is there 3? 1? 1? And how do we explain that one is the Father, the other the Son and the other Holy Spirit? Louder, louder! Good answer. They are 3 in 1, 3 persons in 1. And what does the Father do? The Father is the origin, the Father, who created everything, created us. What does the Son do? What does Jesus do? Who knows how to say what Jesus does? He loves us? And what else? What did Jesus do on the earth? He saved us! And Jesus came to give his life for us. Is this true? And how does he walk? What does he do when he walks with us in life? This is hard. The one who answers it wins! What does Jesus do when he walks with us? Louder! The first one: he helps us. He guides us! Very good! He walks with us, he helps us, he guides us and he teaches us how to go forward. And Jesus also gives us the strength to walk. Is that right? He supports us! Good! In difficulties, right? And even in school work! He supports us, he helps us, he guides us, he supports us. Okay! Jesus is always with us. Good. But listen, Jesus gives us strength. How does Jesus give us strength? You know how he gives us strength! Louder, I can’t hear you! In Communion he gives us strength, the way he helps us is by giving us strength. He comes to us. But when you say “He gives us Communion,” a piece of bread gives you so much strength? It’s not bread? It’s bread? This is bread but what is on the altar, is it bread or not? It looks like bread! It’s not really bread. What is it? It is the body of Jesus. Jesus comes into our heart. Well, let’s all think about this,” the Pope said.  “Let us ask Our Lady, Our Lady who is our Mother, always quick to help us, that she help us always to understand well how God is: how the Father is, how the Son is and how the Holy Spirit is,” the Pope said, concluding his homily.

Before celebrating mass in the parish of Sts. Elizabeth and Zechariah, Francis also listened to the confessions of eight faithful. During last Saturday’s vigil with religious movements, he said: “When I go to listen to confession, I mean when I used to – I can’t any more because I can’t leave this place…” Today he was able once again to listen confessions in a parish outside the Vatican.

Testimony of Henry Adams Concerning the Virgin – Grandson of John Quincy, and Great Grandson of John Adams. Not Catholic - Yet Penetrating Insight Into The Blessed Virgin Mary: Mont-Saint Michel and Chartres Doubleday Anchor (1959) 307-308.

   "True it was, although one should not say it jestingly, that the Virgin embarrassed the Trinity; and perhaps this was the reason, behind all the other excellent reasons, why men loved and adored her with a passion such as no other deity has ever inspired: and why we, although utter strangers to her, are not far from getting down on our knees and praying to her still. Mary concentrated in herself the whole rebellion of man against fate; the whole protest against divine law; the whole contempt for human law as its outcome; the whole unutterable fury of human nature beating itself against the walls of its prison-house, and suddenly seized by a hope that in the Virgin man had found a door of escape. She knew that the universe was as unintelligible to her, on any theory of morals, as it was to her worshipers, and she felt, like them, no sure conviction that it was any more intelligible to the Creator of it. To her, every suppliant was a universe in itself, to be judged apart, on his own merits, by his love for her - by no means on his orthodoxy, or his conventional standing in the Church, or according to his correctness in defining the nature of the Trinity. The convulsive hold which Mary to this day maintains over human imagination - as you can see at Lourdes - was due much less to her power of saving soul or body than to her sympathy with people who suffered under law - divine or human - just or unjustly, by accident or design, by decree of God or by guile of Devil. She cared not a straw for conventional morality, and she had no notion of letting her friends be punished, to the tenth or any other generation, for the sins of their ancestors or the peccadilloes of Eve.

  So Mary filled heaven with a sort of persons little to the taste of any respectable middle-class society, which has trouble enough in making this world decent and pay its bills, without having to continue the effort in another. Mary stood in a Church of her own, so independent that the Trinity might have perished without much affecting her position,; but, on the other hand, the Trinity could look on and see her dethroned with almost a breath of relief....." (p. 307)

The "Juggler (Tambeor - acrobat) of Notre Dame” who could do nothing well but did his acrobatics before the Blessed Sacrament and the image of Our Lady (after which she came down and wiped the sweat from his forehead) is pp. 312-318 in poetry.