Fr Cleary's Letter to President Obama

GO To Fr Cleary's Letter on AMERICA Magazine web site.

MAYBE THIS IS WORTH A TRY

The war of words rages on about Notre Dame's graduation plans. The war is getting a lot of attention from the secular media because it features Catholics shouting at each other. Now we get a refreshing "new" idea, let actually talk to the president about the issue!

CNS reports that "the head of the Holy Cross religious order that founded the University of Notre Dame has written to U.S. President Barack Obama and asked him to rethink his positions on abortion and other life issues.

U.S. Father Hugh W. Cleary, Holy Cross superior general in Rome, said that when Obama receives an honorary degree from the Indiana university and delivers the commencement address in May, he should take to heart the objections of Catholics who have been scandalized by the invitation.

Father Cleary asked the president to use the occasion to "give your conscience a fresh opportunity to be formed anew in a holy awe and reverence before human life in every form at every stage -- from conception to natural death."

Read the whole story on Catholic News Service

Sadly we pro life citizens seem to be willing to yell at each yet put little or no effort into addressing the opponent. I was always taught that it was one of the most common tactic of the evil one, get good folks to fight each other and evil wins by default.

There are some life issues on which the President does agrees with the Catholic position. His opposition to torture ,unjust wars and slavery are consistent with the Catechism. In any case he has often exhibited a willingness to talk with his opponents. Perhaps Fr. Cleary's letter will represent a challenge that will be taken seriously.

Some humor or irony can be found in the buzz. One commenter on the CNS story actually classified Pope Benedict as a "marginalized Catholic figure". The Church exists in over two hundred countries around the world and interacts with presidents, premiers, kings and dictators of all kinds. I would guess that the Pope finds our President more open to Catholic input than the majority of leaders around the world.

Flood Season - Muscle and Prayers Needed

A few day ago this blog was celebrating a Springtime blizzard but now the threatening part of Spring is upon us, a record setting flood is underway on the Red River of the North. The video below is a personal journal of one person's helping sandbag in her parents neighborhood in Moorhead, Minnesota.

Out here in lakes country we are also impacted. Bus loads of high school kids and caravans of volunteers have been heading west all week to help in the emergency. Today evacuees from nursing homes and senior residences started arriving in our area. Every hour news of another evacuation order for a small town or neighborhood is issued.

It was just announced that the expected crest will be two feet higher than previously predicted. The water level on the Red at Fargo is already almost at the level of 1997 which was the last record setting flood. The existing flood protection had been built up with sandbags to 41 feet. Now the volunteers and National Guard workers need to add two more feet with more sand bags!

If you can help go to the Moorhead or Fargo web sites to find how to sign up to help. If you are afar off or cannot physically help please add your prayers to the effort.

Notre Dame Protests

Much blogging and editorializing has ensued following the decision of Notre Dame University to invite President Obama to speak at and receive an honorary degree at its graduation ceremony later this Spring. It is puzzling that an institution whose graduates have championed human rights around the world would take this decision in light of the mixed human rights decisions the President has made to date.

One measured response was from Bishop D'Arcy in whose diocese Notre Dame is located.

"This will be the 25th Notre Dame graduation during my time as bishop. After much prayer, I have decided not to attend the graduation. I wish no disrespect to our president, I pray for him and wish him well. I have always revered the Office of the Presidency. But a bishop must teach the Catholic faith “in season and out of season,” and he teaches not only by his words — but by his actions. My decision is not an attack on anyone, but is in defense of the truth about human life. "


View the Bishop's entire statement here.

Stopping Terrorism

Tushar Gandhi, the great grandson of the ledgendary non-violent father of Indian Independence is quoted in an article by Robert Hirschfield in a recent issue of America Magazine.

"You can stop a terrorist with a bullet, but you can't stop terrorism with a bullet."

Read the entire article.

Remembering The Celtic Evangelist

Music always enhances a celebration. Enjoy the Chieftans and Ricky Skaggs:

Abraham and Sarah

Iwas asked to preach on Genesis Chapter 17:1-7, 15-16 at an Ecumenical Lenten service this week. Here is a section of my homily.
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I suspect we have become jaded by the marketing pitches on our TVs and in printed media promising great sexual wonders if we just buy and use their latest drug. Remember a couple of years ago when older men were featured in the TV ads for Viagra. It seemed that the old "fountain of Youth" myth could come true in a modern day drug.

Here in the 17th Chapter of Genesis we find an older man (Abraham was 99) and an older woman (Sarah was 90) receiving a promise of sexual renewal in its most basic sense:
"I will render you exceedingly fertile."
"I will bless her with a son"
"Peoples shall issue from him."

Our modern "ED" marketeers promise renewed or "better than ever" pleasure for those using their drug.

Abraham and Sarah were promised FERTILITY if they accepted God’s Covenant!!

In fact, the original covenant God promised the same thing.

"God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them, saying: "Be fertile and multiply;" (Genesis Chapter 1)

"a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body. " (Genesis Chapter 2)

In the account of the Covenant with Noah (Genesis Chapter 9) God again calls on the men and women of his covenant to be fertile. He said to Noah,

"For in the image of God has man been made. Be fertile, then, and multiply; abound on earth and subdue it."


In a age when, for some, sexuality has been identified with totally unfertile activities it is good to recall God’s plan for our sexuality. It is our sexuality that leads us to participate in God’s continuing creative action. It is in being men and woman who cling together, become one body and are fertile that we join in God’s eternal creative action.

Celebrating A Blizzard

One of the pleasures of living in the north country is the occasional holidays that happen when a blizzard comes through the area. Yesterday was Blizzard Day here in lakes country. The announcement of school closures triggers a batch of other closings. Actually the weather brings about effective closure of almost everything as the roads get progressively impassible.

For those of you who don't have the joy of these random holidays or flee the area during this time of year might enjoy a review.

1)While snow fall is assumed to be a part of a blizzard that is a fallacy. There does need to be snow or other materials available but it does not have to fall during the blizzard.

2) Per the definition in the AMS (American Meteorological Society) Glossary, there are very specific criteria for blizzard conditions:

Winds of at least 35 mph (frequent gusts are generally considered to qualify), and visibility reduced by falling and/or blowing snow to less than 1/4 mile. The strict application is for the wind and visibility criteria to be met for at least three consecutive hours. (From Weather Channel Site)

I remember in the mid 1950s a year with almost no snow fall in eastern North Dakota. The available snow and soil from the exposed farm fields combined with the prairie winds of 40-50 mph produced blizzard conditions resulting in huge drifts that may have been 80% soil and 20% snow.

Yesterday we did receive 4 to 5 inches of new snow and the wind was in the required range, about 40mph gusts. Visibility was reduced to less than a block at times here in our neighborhood (see photo above). By mid afternoon Interstate highways were closed from Jamestown, ND to Fergus Falls, MN and from the Canadian border to the South Dakota border. Major state highways were also closed.

Late in the afternoon my wife, our dog and I bundled up in our storm gear and ventured into the storm to traverse the road that circles our peninsula neighborhood (photo to the left). The adventure was successful and we were able to estimate the work that would be required to dig out in the morning.

What Ideology Does Science Trump?

The other day President Obama reversed the presidential policy of blocking federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. His remarks included characterizing this change as a victory of science over ideology. My first reaction was to ask what was the ideology that was vanquished?

While conservatives will assume it is their view that is being attacked and Christians will assume it the Christian view that is meant, it seems clear to me that the ideology that is meant is the liberal view that humans possess rights due to their being human. The issue of when human life begins, in our time, is not a matter of faith but well documented by science. What is at dispute is not the science but the politics of which humans' rights are to be protected.

FROM US NEWS And WORLD REPORT:
"As if the Republicans didn't have enough political problems already, embryonic stem cell research is another sticky wicket for the GOP. According to Pew, 60 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of independents back the research, while just 37 percent of Republicans do. That explains why support for embryonic stem cell research is such a no-brainer for the Democrats—it's the rare wedge issue in which the wedge breaks the Dems' way."

What stikes me is is how large the minority is that does not back the use of tax dollars for for reseach that destroys human embryios. It seems that the Democrats have a huge wedge of their own. 40% of Democrats, those who most likely were among those voting for Barack Obama, oppose this change!

The media seems willing to foster the impression or assumption that support for stem cell research, which is widespread, is somehow equal to approval of the destruction of human ebryios. The Pew statistics suggest that this is a suspect assumption.

Lenten Invitations

Here is the ending of my Sermon on the Transfiguration:

My friend, if you are here today only as an observer, consider responding to his call, his invitation to you to become one of his people. Just as he had Moses lead the Jews to freedom through the waters of the red sea Jesus will bring you into his friendship through the water of baptism.

Lent is a good time to consider this invitation. Not a day passes without him thinking about you.

My friend, have you come here today and now recall that your brother or your sister has something against you? That a moment of silence or anger has become a decade, that your pride has built a wall between you?


I urge you to go forth from here today, turn back the clock, tear down that wall and be reconciled.

Lent is a good time to undertake such an effort. Not a day passes without Jesus wanting you to be at peace with them and with him.

My friend, are you one who has been away from the table of your God? Perhaps you just wandered away. Or you ran away in anger. Maybe something else seemed more appealing at the time.

Today, in this place, we your brothers and sisters remind you of him. He asks about you every day. He waits with longing for your return.


Like Elijah, we your brothers and sisters, are calling you back to the table of your God.

The sacrament of reconciliation is celebrated here in this place throughout lent. Come, he waits with open arms to be reconciled with you.

A Posting Worth Reading

Click on above title to go to one of Dawn Eden's essays.