Article: Grace of the Childlike

DOM ANSCAR VONIER, O.S.B.

Now what are we to understand by that wonderful thing, spiritual childhood, the one attitude which makes the kingdom of heaven possible?

... We must be converted and become as little children. Our minds must be pure and unsophisticated and natural. We must be converted and get rid of all those accretions which come to us from false training, from false traditions and standards, rid all that hardness of heart which is the natural condition of the human race.

We must become cheerful, ready to receive things much greater than ourselves. We must have the wonderful gift of loving goodness. We must, in one word, be capable of admiration. We must feel elation when we see something that is perfect instead of taking it to pieces and criticizing it, looking at it in a grudging and ungenerous way.

Instead of that, let us be like children clapping their hands and giving vent to their joy in shouts and laughter; they have no reserves, no critical attitude, they have not been embittered yet, their hearts have not been soured; they have still the first, natural faith in goodness and then, through baptism, they have the supernatural faith in it, they admire it, unless, of course, they belong to that pitiable class of little ones who have no real childhood. But the ordinary happy child, who has the privilege of a good mother, has the gift of admiration, and keeps it till the blight of society falls on his mind and darkens it.

This, then, ought to be our great Christian mentality; a readiness to admire the things of God, a readiness to admit that he does great and marvellous things, that he is great in nature; great in heaven, great in grace, that he is the Creator of earth and heaven; that, in the words of our Blessed Lord, heaven is God's throne and earth his footstool; that there is nothing in the vast universe which is not the handiwork of God, and that therefore it is full of endless glories, possibilities and marvels.

We have but one thing to do — a very easy thing at first sight — just to admire it, so love it for its beauty and riches, to clap our hands in our surprise at its glories and its mysteries. This is part of the great natural goodness of creation which we accept everywhere, and we should just admire, as children admire.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Dom Anscar Vonier, O.S.B. "Grace of the Childlike." excerpt from The Art of Christ: Retreat Conferences (Burns, Oates & Washbourne, Ltd., 1927).

The Art of Christ: Retreat Conferences is out of print and in the public domain.

THE AUTHOR

Dom Anscar Vonier, O.S.B. (1875–1938) was the abbot of Buckfast Abbey in Devon, England and the most gifted dogmatic theologian writing — and preaching — in England during the inter-War years. By an unexpected blessing, the English Catholic Church had in its midst a German monk of outstanding competence and spiritual nobility. He is the author, among other books, of A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist, The Life of the World to Come, The Personality of Christ, and The Human Soul and Its Relations with Other Spirits.

Copyright © In the public domain

Article: What Teachers Mean

FATHER JAMES V. SCHALL, S.J.

What are students and what are professors or teachers?

On coming to a university, the student will hear of the names and characters of the teachers who are there. Most student bodies will have a kind of underground evaluation of the characters and effectiveness of teachers. These can be unfair but often they serve as a good guide as in the phrase the proof of the cook is in the pudding. Furthermore, every university will have good teachers if they can be located. Good teachers are the most important thing that a student can find. As I said, sometimes these teachers will not be living, but living teachers can take us to them. A teacher is someone who takes us to what is worthy of knowing. Both Augustine and Aquinas have written much on teaching and learning. The biblical account of Simon Magus warns us about unworthy teachers.

But finding a good teacher, even if he is not in one's own university or one's own time, even if he is not really a professional "teacher," is a great blessing. He can lead us to things that we otherwise would not have known or encountered. Both the teacher and the student are directed to something beyond themselves. They are not in competition. Both are judged by the same criterion. If we can assist someone in finding something that he might not otherwise find, then we do what a teacher really, at his best, does for us. And good teachers should help us to delight in knowing. As I like to put it, even if the teacher is teaching us about slimy bugs, he can teach us something about everything if he sees the mystery that is also present in all things, even the tiniest.

For his part, the students need to be what is called "docile." That is, he needs to be willing to learn. He needs to be what I like to call "eminently teachable." To be "teachable" means that we are ready to read or consider what we do not know or never heard of before. The canon of books, of which Bloom spoke, referred to books the not reading of which will make us miss something important to our being. We cannot read everything of course. It is all right to realize this, even though the fact is obvious. The numbers of worthy things to read and to know far surpass the ability of any one person.

Yet, we read what we can. Given a choice, which we always have, there some things more worth reading than others. But if we are fortunate enough to be stranded on the proverbial desert isle with only two books, Shakespeare and the Bible, we will in fact not miss much of what is humanly important if we read them, granted that it would also be useful to have a book on how to make a boat.

The teacher, as Aquinas tells us, is to "hand over" what he had himself pondered and contemplated in his own soul, in the time, as Cicero said, he was himself alone. Leo Strauss talked of finding those "teachers" who were not themselves taught. He was referring to people like Socrates and Christ, to people who never wrote a book, yet whose lives were such that the world was changed because of them. Such teachers, of course, needed those who listened to them, who wrote about them.

We know that the only way we have to the minds of most human beings is through what they write. But we also need to know the importance of conversation. Truth ultimately exists not in books but in conversation, in actively making alive in our souls what we know and that we know. Aristotle told us also that this is what friendship at its best was about. This is why reading what Aristotle says in his Ethics on friendship is almost always for a young man or woman an eye-opening affair.

Thus, we have teaching, learning, and books, we have conversation. We have souls that want to know. C. S. Lewis, in a famous quip, had a young devil being given a piece of advice by an older devil on how to prevent young atheists from losing their faith in atheism. He told him that the "young atheist can never be too careful of what he reads." That is to say, of books that tell the truth, we will find that they are attractive to us, that they in fact call us out of ourselves. One of the things that I have always been struck by in Aristotle was his attention to the relation of virtue and truth. The very reading of Aristotle is ever a first step into almost anything that makes sense. If there is, as I have said, no university without the constant reading of Plato, so there is none without the constant reading of Aristotle.

Eric Voegelin, in a remarkable book of his conversations, once stated that "No one is obliged to participate in the crisis of his time. He can do something else."

But the entire Aristotelian understanding of the human soul had to do with what is of concern to us here, with our being free to know what is. The very meaning of "liberal arts" had to do not only with a subject matter but also with a condition of soul that was free to see beyond itself. Aristotle warned us that we would spend our lives justifying our actions in terms of what we chose for the purpose of our actions, a purpose he called happiness.

If we chose as our purpose money or pleasure or honor, the main alternatives of man over time in all places, we would not be free to see what the world is about or ourselves in it. For this we needed virtue, to be temperate, just, brave, generous. We were ourselves a kind of inner kingdom that we needed first to rule. If we failed here, we would probably never really understand what our lives were about.

All the way through the literature of most lands and cultures has been the suspicion that, if the world were "perfect," it would be somehow boring. Hegel once remarked that a happy country had no history. He meant of course that what makes drama and headlines are the tragedies, the wars, and the disasters. One of the greatest books I ever read was Hilaire Belloc's Four Men. It was a walk through his native county of Sussex in England. I bring this wonderful book up here because it is something of a contrast with the idea of a happy country has no history. It is a book about the love of land and friend, the finiteness of our short lives in this world, the laughter and joy that is no doubt there, yet the sense that we too are "wayfarers and pilgrims" if we would really understand ourselves.

To know such things, I think, is also something that we will only fleetingly "study" in our institutions, but which will be and are at the heart of our very lives. The fact is that we want to know what Josef Pieper called "the truth of things." We are interested in what we should and might be because we are interested in what we are. By the very fact that we exist and know that we exist as human and knowing beings, we have already embarked in an adventure the meaning of which we must ponder both with the help of our own experience and with the conversations we have with our friends.

But along the way, we will be "educated." We will receive degrees. We will accumulate books. We will wonder about what is. Criticisms of modern education have no other purpose but to be sure that we have a fighting chance to know what it is all about in a world with so many diverse, confusing, and, yes, erroneous ideas of what man is, what the universe is, and what God is. But we think that we have a chance. We are not alone. It does not take many bad turns before we know that we have taken a bad turn. And it does not take too many encounters with books and writers who tell us the truth before we begin to see that we are not imprisoned in our times.

Eric Voegelin, in a remarkable book of his conversations, once stated that "No one is obliged to participate in the crisis of his time. He can do something else." We do not doubt that the times manifest a profound crisis the dimensions are often hidden to us. Much of what I myself have written is designed to call our attention to the origins of some of them. We can find a way, but we need to know where to begin, what we must know. We need to find teachers and books. We need to think. It is not, in principle, a bad thing to be exposed to intellectual and moral disorders if they incite us to wonder about the right order of our lives and our cosmos. Hopefully, reflection on the "strangest object" in the universe — man — calls our attention to the things we ourselves did not find studied in college.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Father James V. Schall, S.J. "What Teachers Mean." Crisis Magazine (January 17, 2012).

Reprinted with permission of Father George W. Rutler and Crisis

Crisis Magazine is an educational apostolate that uses media and technology to bring the genius of Catholicism to business, politics, culture, and family life. Our approach is oriented toward the practical solutions our faith offers — in other words, actionable Catholicism.

THE AUTHOR

Father James V. Schall, S.J., is Professor of Political Philosophy at Georgetown University and the author of many books in the areas of social issues, spirituality and literature including The Mind That Is Catholic: Philosophical & Political Essays, On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs: Teaching, Writing, Playing, Believing, Lecturing, Philosophizing, Singing, Dancing; Roman Catholic Political Philosophy; The Order of Things; The Regensburg Lecture; The Life of the Mind: On the Joys and Travails of Thinking; Schall on Chesterton: Timely Essays on Timeless Paradoxes; Another Sort of Learning, Sum Total Of Human Happiness, and A Student's Guide to Liberal Learning.

Copyright © 2012 Crisis Magazine

Article: Honouring Scientist Priests

FATHER GEORGE W. RUTLER

While priests are dedicated to theology as the "queen of sciences," some of them have contributed to the material sciences as well.

Roger Bacon, O.F.M. (c. 1214-1294)

A rich experience in my life was knowing Father Stanley Jaki, the Benedictine priest and physicist who did much to explain the dependency of modern physical science on Christianity's perception of the universe. He received the Templeton Prize, a monetary award larger than a Nobel Prize, for explaining how the scientific method issues from the Judeo-Christian concept of a benign and ordered universe.

While priests are dedicated to theology as the "queen of sciences," some of them have contributed to the material sciences as well. Some days ago Google rightly honored Nicholas Steno whose research in stratigraphy earned him the sobriquet "Father of Geology." Google did not mention that he was a convert to Catholicism in 1667 and only ceased his research due to pastoral obligations when he became a bishop in 1677. His scientific achievements were not as important as his heroic virtue, for which Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1988.

The scientific lobe of my brain is lax, and buttoning my cassock is a complex challenge, but I enjoy thinking of my fellows in the priestly fraternity who advanced our knowledge of God's creation. As a student, I practiced the piano on the site where the Franciscan Roger Bacon,Doctor Mirabilis — "Wonderful Teacher," explored mathematics, optics and astronomy in the thirteenth century. His own teacher is thought to have been Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln who gave the basic structure for scientific experimentation. In the sixteenth century, Ignazio Danti, an Italian bishop, made discoveries in engineering, cartography, hydraulics and astronomy. On his heels came a French priest, Marin Mersenne, a friend and fellow student of Descartes. He pioneered attempts at a formula representing all prime numbers and established an international scientific congress. His contemporary, Father Jean-Felix Picard, is known as The Father of Modern Astronomy and was the first to measure accurately the size of our planet.

The nineteenth-century Augustinian abbot Gregor Mendel fathered modern genetics, discovering dominant and recessive genes as a high-school teacher. His contemporary, a missionary priest named Armand David, specialized in zoology, botany, geology and paleontology in China where he discovered, among other things, the Giant Panda. An American son of Belgian immigrants, Father Julius Nieuwland, invented the first synthetic rubber material by first polymerizing acetylene into divinylacetylene. Belgian native Father Georges Lemaitre proposed the Big Bang Theory which he called the First Atomic Moment, and influenced Einstein. Still living is Father Michal Heller of Poland, whose research in general relativity theory and quantum mechanics was recognized, like Father Jaki's, with a Templeton Prize.

The liturgical season of Ordinary Time witnesses to the creation ordered by our Creator, the Father of all thought: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb, I sanctified you" (Jeremiah 1:5).

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Father George William Rutler. "Honouring Scientist Priests." From the Pastor (January 22, 2012).

Reprinted with permission of Father George W. Rutler.

THE AUTHOR

Father Rutler received priestly ordination in 1981. Born in 1945 and reared in the Episcopal tradition, Father Rutler was an Episcopal priest for nine years. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1979 and was sent to the North American College in Rome for seminary studies. Father Rutler graduated from Dartmouth, where he was a Rufus Choate Scholar, and took advanced degrees at the Johns Hopkins University and the General Theological Seminary. He holds several degrees from the Gregorian and Angelicum Universities in Rome, including the Pontifical Doctorate in Sacred Theology, and studied at the Institut Catholique in Paris. In England, in 1988, the University of Oxford awarded him the degree Master of Studies. From 1987 to 1989 he was regular preacher to the students, faculty, and townspeople of Oxford. Cardinal Egan appointed him Pastor of theChurch of Our Saviour, effective September 17, 2001.

Since 1988 his weekly television program has been broadcast worldwide on EWTN. Father Rutler has published 17 books, including: Cloud of Witnesses - Dead People I Knew When They Were Alive, Coincidentally: Unserious Reflections on Trivial Connections, A Crisis of Saints: Essays on People and Principles, Brightest and Best, Saint John Vianney: The Cure D'Ars Today, Crisis in Culture, and Adam Danced: The Cross and the Seven Deadly Sins.

Copyright © 2012 Father George W. Rutler

Article: Generosity

DONALD DEMARCO

It is greed that impoverishes us, not generosity.

It belongs to the nature of giving that a gift be given to another. Strictly speaking, one cannot give a gift to himself. The highest gift we can give to another is the gift of ourselves.

Giving ourselves in this way epitomizes the virtue of generosity. The perfect example of generosity is God the Creator. By means of His generosity, He generates man in His image. For Christians, God's gift of Himself through Christ represents the ultimate form of generosity, and serves as a model for all human generosity.

Because God creates — or generates — man in His image out of His own generosity, a dynamic impulse toward generosity is implanted in the depth of man's being. As a consequence, to live authentically means to give generously. Personality and generosity, therefore, are virtually synonymous. To live authentically is to give generously of oneself. The great Thomistic philosopher, Jacques Maritain, underscored this unification of personality with generosity when he wrote: "Do not heroes and saints impress us as men who have reached the heights of personality as well as generosity?"

Gotta Give

When a person is in touch with the depths of himself, he realizes that at the very center of his being, coincidental with his existence, is the impulse toward generosity. To be is to give; to be fulfilled is to have given generously. The very meaning of life is inseparable from generosity.

Everyone recognizes that generosity is more admirable than greed, and more beautiful, more original, more authentic, and more humane. The fact that greed is as common as it is indicates that human beings can be estranged from themselves while trying to live a life that is alien to them.

Since the time of Socrates, philosophers have been reiterating the essential importance of distinguishing between the order of being and having. Martin Buber wrote beautifully about the "I-Thou" relationship that cultivates our being, or our humanness, and the "I-It" relationship that allows us to have those things that allow us to live. Without "I-It" we cannot live, but without "I-Thou" we cannot be human. Things cannot humanize us, only generous love can.

Greed, the antithesis of generosity and the negation of personal being, enters the picture when our attachment to the things we can have displaces our awareness of our own being. But no amount of having can ever make up for a neglect of being. A form of frenzied addiction ensues when a person believes that if he could only have more of something, he would be able to quench his thirst. Unfortunately, the logic of greed is such that the appetite grows on what it feeds. This is the diabolical phenomenon that Shakespeare describes in Macbeth when he has Malcolm say: "[M]y more having would be a sauce to make me hunger more."

I Want More!

Nothing exceeds like excess! Greed becomes more avaricious the more it has. This paradoxical effect is connected with the fact that a person becomes increasingly frustrated the more he ignores his own fundamental capacity for generosity.

The Many Faces of Virtue by Donald DeMarco

Literary characters such as King Midas, Silas Marner, Ebenezer Scrooge, and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, are driven by greed in such a way that the more greedy they become, the less human they appear. The conversions of Midas, Marner, Scrooge, and the Grinch are, in effect, returns to humanity, and are met by readers with great jubilation. Generous people are not only more likeable than their greedy counterparts, but they appear to be more human, more real.

A wealthy man can easily become a displaced person, alienated from himself, if he takes his riches too seriously. Plato warned long ago that we should bequeath to our children not riches but reverence. Sigmund Freud explained that wealth never makes a man happy because it does not correspond to a basic human drive. None of us comes into the world with a desire to make money. The impulse to have does not originate in our being.

On the other hand, a poor man, who is in touch with the fundamental generosity of his existence, can be productive, happy, and at peace with himself. It is more blessed to give than to receive; but it is far more blessed to give than to take. In the final analysis, we cannot take with us what we have. Greed is an affliction of the dispossessed. Generosity is the plentitude of the self-possessed.

Temperance

To the calculating mind, being generous seems to be costly. To the generous heart, being greedy seems incomprehensible.

Maurice Sendak has written a charming little book for children called Higglety Pigglety Pop! Or There Must Be More To Life. In the story, the owners of Jennie the dog have given her everything. Yet she decides: "There must be more to life than having everything." She leaves home and loses all she has, but instead becomes the leading star of a theatrical production, to her great contentment. The point is made only too clear, even for ten-year-olds, that happiness depends not on how muchwe have, but on who we are. Being is more primary thanhaving. And at the center of our being is the divinely implanted impulse to give and to be generous.

To the calculating mind, being generous seems to be costly. To the generous heart, being greedy seems incomprehensible. It is greed that impoverishes us, not generosity. True generosity, indeed, enriches us a hundredfold. There is a superabundance within each of us. Not to release it costs us who we are. Nothing, therefore, is more costly than greed; nothing is more rewarding than generosity.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Donald DeMarco. "Generosity." from The Many Faces of Virtue (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2000): 181-184.

This article is reprinted with permission from Emmaus Road Publishing and Donald DeMarco.

THE AUTHOR

Donald DeMarco is adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College & Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut and Professor Emeritus at St. Jerome's University in Waterloo Ontario. He also continues to work as a corresponding member of the Pontifical Acadmy for Life. Donald DeMarco has written hundreds of articles for various scholarly and popular journals, and is the author of twenty books, including The Heart of Virtue, The Many Faces of Virtue, Virtue's Alphabet: From Amiability to Zeal andArchitects Of The Culture Of Death. Donald DeMarco is on the Advisory Board of The Catholic Education Resource Center.

Copyright © 2012 Emmaus Road Publishing

Article: The Liturgy Source of Life, Prayer and Catechesis (CCC 1071-1075)

By Don Mauro Gagliardi

ROME, JAN. 25, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Numbers 1071-1075 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) treat sacred liturgy as source of life, as well as its relationship with prayer and catechesis. The liturgy is source of life first of all because it is the “work of Christ” (CCC, 1071). In the second place, because “it is also an action of his Church” (Ibid.). But, which is the preeminent of these two aspects? Moreover, what does the word “life” mean in this context?

Vatican Council II responds: “From the liturgy, hence, and particularly from the Eucharist, grace flows in us as from a source, and obtained with the greatest efficacy is the sanctification of men in Christ and the glorification of God, to which all the other activities of the Church tend as to their end” (Sacrosanctum Concilium [SC], 10). Understood thus is that, when the liturgy is called source of life, from it grace flows. Already answered here is the first question: the liturgy is source of life primarily because it is the work of Christ, Author of grace.

A classic principle of Catholicism, however, states that grace does not take away nature, rather it implies and perfects it (cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, 1, 8 ad 2 etc.). Given this, man also cooperates in liturgical worship, which is the priestly action of the “whole Christ,” namely the Head, which is Jesus, and the members, who are the baptized. Thus the liturgy is source of life also in as much as it is action of the Church. Precisely in so far as work of Christ and of the Church, the liturgy is a “sacred action par excellence” (SC, 7), it gives the faithful the life of Christ and requires their conscious, active and fruitful participation (cf. SC, 11). Understood here is the bond between the sacred liturgy and the life of faith: we could say “from Life to life.” The grace that is given us by Christ in the liturgy calls for vital involvement: "The sacred liturgy does not exhaust the entire activity of the Church” “ (SC, 9), in fact “it must be preceded by evangelization, faith and conversion. It can then produce its fruits in the life of the faithful” (CCC, 1072).

It is no accident that at the moment of bringing together in one volume the writings of J. Ratzinger, entitled “Theology of the Liturgy,” thought was given to expressing one of the fundamental intuitions of the author, adding the sub-title: “The Sacramental Foundation of Christian Existence.” It is a translation in theological terms of what Jesus said in the Gospel with the words: “apart from me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). In the sacred liturgy we receive the gift of the divine life of Christ without which we cannot do anything valid for salvation. Hence, the life of the Christian is nothing other than a continuation, or the fruit, of the grace that is received in divine worship, in particular, the Eucharistic.

In the second place, the liturgy has a close relationship with prayer. Again, the focus of understanding of this relationship is the Lord: “The liturgy is also a participation in Christ’s own prayer addressed to the Father in the Holy Spirit. In the liturgy, all Christian prayer finds its source and goal” (CCC, 1073). Hence, the liturgy is also source of prayer. From it we learn to pray in the right way. As the liturgy is the priestly prayer of Jesus, what can we learn from it for our personal prayer? In what did the Lord’s prayer consist? “Fundamental to understand Jesus are the recurrent references to the fact that he withdrew “on the mountain” and prayed there entire nights, “alone” with the Father. […] This “praying” of Jesus is the Son speaking with the Father which involves the human consciousness and will, the human soul of Jesus, so that man’s “prayer” can become participation in the communion of the Son with the Father” (J. Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, “Jesus of Nazareth,” I, Rizzoli, Milan, 2007, pp. 27-28 [our translation]). In Jesus, his “personal” prayer is not different from his priestly prayer: according to the Letter to the Hebrews, the prayer made by Jesus during the Passion “constitutes the Mass in action of the high priesthood of Jesus. Precisely in his crying, weeping and praying Jesus does what is proper to the high priest: He carries the suffering of being men lifted up to God. He bears man before God” (Ibid., II, LEV, 2010, p. 184).

In a word, Jesus’ prayer is a prayer of conversation, a prayer addressed to the presence of God. Jesus teaches us this type of prayer: “It is necessary to always arouse this relationship and to redirect it in continuation to daily events. We would pray that much better the more profoundly is the orientation of our soul to God” (Ibid., I, p. 159). Hence, the liturgy teaches us to pray because it re-orients us constantly to God: “Lift up your hearts; we lift them up to the Lord!” Prayer is to be turned to the Lord – and this is also the profound meaning of active participation in the liturgy.

Finally, prayer is the “privileged place of catechesis […] in as much as it proceeds from the visible to the invisible” (CCC, 1074-1075). This implies that the texts, the signs, the rites, the gestures and the ornamental elements of the liturgy must be such as to truly transmit the Mystery they signify and can thus be usefully explained within the mystagogic catechesis.

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Don Mauro Gagliardi is full Professor at the Pontifical Athenaeum “Regina Apostolorum,” professor at the Università Europea di Roma, Consultor of the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff and of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

Article: No Reason to Reject Standard Days Method

WASHINGTON, D.C., JAN. 25, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Here is a question on bioethics asked by a ZENIT reader and answered by the fellows of the Culture of Life Foundation.

Q: The Standard Days Method (SDM) of Natural Family Planning (NFP) was introduced by Georgetown University and uses a bead counting method. Some Catholic doctors and priests have criticized the SDM for some/all of the following reasons:

1. It is not "natural" because a computer model was used to calculate the days of abstinence.

2. It is endorsed by USAID (which has links to abortion funding).

3. The original research paper left open the possibility of using a back-up method during the fertile period.

My question is: Can Catholic licitly teach and practice the SDM? -- Fr. JM, Southeast Asia

E. Christian Brugger offers the following response:

The Standard Days Method of fertility awareness is a newer and more precise variation of the older calendar ("rhythm") method that used the length of a woman's menstrual cycle to estimate when fertility was most likely to occur.

Promoters of the SDM state that the newer method is only reliable for women whose cycles range in length from 26 to 32 days. Women outside this range are encouraged to use another method. Those who fall into that range and who wish to avoid pregnancy are advised to abstain from intercourse on days 8-19 of their cycle. These are the days, according to the method, when they are most likely to conceive. SDM literature reports that when the method is used correctly it has a 95% rate of effectivity.

This is not so different from the older calendar rhythm method whose rate of effectivity, when used correctly, was 91%. The problem with the older method was that couples were required to carry out mathematical calculations that the SDM has built into its approach. So whereas the "perfect use failure rate" of the older method was 9% (91% success rate), few couples used it perfectly. The "actual use failure rate," because of the method's complexity, turned out to be 25%, which meant that couples trying to avoid pregnancy got pregnant approximately one in four times.

From the user's perspective, the SDM is much simpler. As stated above, it is limited to women with a specific and reliable cycle length. Once that is established, the days on which couples are advised to abstain are easy to determine. In some countries, a simple string of beads is used to assist women to count off the days of abstinence.

As for its ethical analysis, the SDM is simply a method of NFPassisting couples to regulate their fertility in ways consistent with the natural cycles of a woman's body and with moral norms taught and defended by the Catholic Church. Other methods include the Billings Ovulation Method, the Sympto-Thermal Method, the Creighton Fertility-Care Method, and Ecological Breastfeeding.

In the 1930s, the Catholic Church judged that NFP was a legitimate way for couples to regulate births. Pope Pius XI taught in Casti Connubii (1930): "Nor are those considered as acting against nature who in the married state use their right in the proper manner although on account of natural reasons either of time or of certain defects, new life cannot be brought forth;" and two years later (1932), the Sacred Penitentiary ruled that couples could legitimately "abstain from the use of marriage" during fertile periods for "just and grave causes." Together these were taken as an approval of the recently developed rhythm method. Since that time, the Catholic Church has repeatedly affirmed the legitimacy of recourse to NFP for "iustae causae" ("just causes") (e.g., by Popes Pius XII, Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI, and in the Catechism of the Catholic Church).

Why then might some think that the SDM is a problem? Our questioner states three possible reasons. The first argues that the method "is not 'natural' because a computer model was used to calculate the days of abstinence;" therefore, the logic goes, it must be "unnatural"; since contraception is also 'unnatural,' the SDM must be similar to contraception.

But using a computer to determine facts pertaining to one's fertility cycle is no more intrinsically problematic than using a computer to determine any other facts about one's biology (e.g., blood type, glucose levels, or blood pressure). In this case, the facts are used to assist couples to carry out morally legitimate means of family planning. This enables couples to practice "responsible parenthood," which, the Church teaches, is a great human good (cf. Humanae Vitae, no. 10). And technology used at the service of the moral law and human good is not only legitimate, but praiseworthy. If however technology is used at the service of wrongful forms of family planning, then it is used wrongfully.

The second reason is that the SDM has been "endorsed by USAID (which has links to abortion funding)." This is true. Not only has the SDM been endorsed by USAID, the method was developed (at Georgetown University's Institute for Reproductive Health) by grants in part provided from USAID.

But the fact that USAID is involved in some illicit activities does not mean that everything it does is illicit, nor does it mean that everyone who cooperates with its activities is doing something illicit. By funding the development of a morally legitimate form of family planning, USAID, to that extent, carried out a good act. Using the knowledge derived from that funding is unlikely to enrich USAID and hence equip it to carry out future illicit activity. And that same knowledge is likely to assist large numbers of couples, especially in developing countries, to plan their families in an upright way. Morally conscientious people should encourage USAID to devote more resources to similarly legitimate activities.

The final reason is that some of the literature promoting the SDM has "left open the possibility of using a back-up method [of contraception] during the fertile period." This tells us two things: first, that some who promote the method do not think that contraception is wrong and believe that the SDM is just another form of ("natural") contraception. In this regard, they are in error. Contraception is wrong to use; and the SDM is not a form of contraception, since for a method to be contraceptive it must aim to render sexual intercourse sterile; and the SDM promotes abstinence, which is the avoidance of intercourse.

Second, it tells us that the SDM can be used wrongfully, as when one uses it in tandem with another form of contraception. But the fact that it may be used wrongfully does not mean that everyone who uses it does so wrongfully. Those couples who understand the integrity of marriage and the marital act, and who abstain from intercourse for just reasons using the SDM, and who do not have recourse to other morally illicit forms of fertility control, do nothing illicit.

Therefore, Catholic (and non-Catholic) married couples may practice and promote the SDM as a licit form of Natural Family Planning. This was affirmed in July 2011 in a pastoral statement by Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, S.J., of the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro in the Philippines.

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E. Christian Brugger is a Senior Fellow of Ethics and director of the Fellows Program at the Culture of Life Foundation; and the J. Francis Cardinal Stafford Chair of Moral Theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.

Article: Requiem for the Third See of Christendom

ROBERT SPENCER

Egypt today is the site of a persecution of the Church on a scale unseen in Western Europe since the darkest days of the French Revolution; the Coptic Church is fighting for its life under vicious and escalating attacks from Muslims.

Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria

A Muslim Brotherhood government is coming to power that promises to be more hostile. Yet in these dark days the Copts enjoy little support from Catholics who often only dimly understand the great debt we owe to the Church of Alexandria.

It was not ever thus. The Patriarch of Alexandria was once the third most-powerful prelate in the Church, after those of Rome and Constantinople; he was so designated by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. The Lateran Council, moreover, was merely restating and ratifying — quite belatedly, for a variety of reasons — a canon of the fourth ecumenical council, the Council of Chalcedon, which was held over seven and a half centuries before it, in 451.

The Fathers of Chalcedon, for their part, were actually demoting the See of Alexandria from the second position that it had enjoyed before the Roman Emperors moved their capital to the new city of Constantinople, which accordingly became a great metropolis and a patriarchal see.

Constantinople, as a relative newcomer, initially drew upon the theological and liturgical traditions of two older patriarchal sees, Alexandria and Antioch. In theological investigation, Alexandria was unrivaled. The Church of Alexandria was the home of the Church's first great theological school, where students could learn from pioneering teachers of Christian theology such as Clement of Alexandria and Origen. No other Christian center, not even Rome, rivaled Alexandria's theological sophistication and depth, although certainly Alexandrine Fathers — most notably Origen himself — did not always maintain their speculations within the confines of Christian orthodoxy. At the same time, Alexandria was the cradle of Christian monasticism — although in that case, it was more a matter of saints such as Anthony the Great leaving the great city than learning anything in it.

From Alexandria came both the arch-heresiarch Arius, who denied that Christ and His Father were one in any meaningful sense, and his nemesis St. Athanasius (298-373), whose legacy includes the doctrines of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ — as well as many of the doctrinal formulations contained in the Nicene Creed. Alexandria also was the home of another Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Cyril, who presided over the third ecumenical council, held in Ephesus in 431. In order to safeguard the divinity of Christ and his unity as a single person who was both God and man, the Fathers of Ephesus, led by Cyril, declared Mary the Mother of Jesus to beTheotokos, bearer of God — not just the bearer of Christ, as she had been styled by Cyril's opponent, Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, who was excommunicated and deposed.

After that, as was so often the case during the Christological controversies of the early Church, things get murky. An ecumenical council had declared Cyril's Christology affirming the unity of Christ the faith of the Church, but Nestorianism refused to die, and Eutyches, a monk of Constantinople, became the center of a new controversy when Flavian, the Patriarch of Constantinople, excommunicated him for refusing to confess two natures in Christ, divine and human.

It is tragic that the Church was rent by a schism that appears largely to have been a matter of terminology, of words and concepts understood in varying ways by the contending parties.

Eutyches — and many others — saw this as a Nestorian separation of the Christ whose unity of person had just been affirmed at the third ecumenical council. Finally, in 449 the Emperor Theodosius II convened a new ecumenical council, to be held at Ephesus as well. Theodosius initially asked the Pope, St. Leo the Great, to preside over the council, but Leo declined, as Italy was at that time being overrun by Attila the Hun and travel would have been hazardous. Then, recognizing the influence of Alexandria as a See and the revered Athanasius and more contemporary Cyril (who had died in 444) as the principal architects of the Church's Christology, Theodosius appointed Cyril's successor and protégé, Dioscorus, to preside over the council.

This new council of Ephesus declared that Christ had but one nature. Flavian was deposed and set upon by a mob; he died soon thereafter. The papal legates refused to accept the council's decrees and fled in fear for their lives. Pope Leo the Great also refused to accept the council, dubbing it a latrocinium — a synod of robbers — and appealed to the Emperor to have it overturned. Leo appealed in vain, but Divine Providence then intervened; Theodosius was thrown from his horse and died, and the new emperor, Marcian, agreed with Leo, annulled the second council of Ephesus, and called a new council at Chalcedon, across the Bosporus from Constantinople, in 451.

At Chalcedon, events unfolded in exactly the opposite direction as at the latrocinium. Leo's definition of Christ as one Divine Person in two natures, divine and human, was accepted by the council Fathers, who cried, "Peter has spoken through Leo!" Dioscorus was condemned and excommunicated — taking much of his See and Eastern Christendom with him.

It remains a point of controversy to this day, however, as to whether he was excommunicated for heresy or for his high-handed mismanagement of his See. Nonetheless, he and his followers were labeled Monophysites — those who held that Christ had no human nature or that His human nature was absorbed entirely into His divinity such that it did not perdure. Those to whom this label was applied, however, always rejected it.

Dioscorus considered himself to be carrying on Cyril's teachings. And maybe he was. Both St. Cyril and St. Athanasius had confessed "one nature" in Christ, which was just what had now been condemned at Chalcedon. But it is by no means clear that Dioscorus, any more than Athanasius or Cyril, meant this in a heretical way (that Christ had no human nature at all) rather than in an orthodox way (that His divine and human natures were fully united and inseparable). Ironically, Dioscorus even affirmed that "we do not speak of confusion, neither of division, nor of change" in Christ's nature — language echoed in the confession of faith of the council that deposed him, Chalcedon: "We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division, or separation." And the Church of Alexandria has through the ages celebrated the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil of Caesarea, which affirms that the Lord's divine and human natures "did not separate for a moment or the twinkling of an eye" — a statement that assumes that both exist.

And so the Church of Alexandria (aka the Church of Egypt, or "Coptic" Church, "Coptic" being the Coptic word for "Egyptian") and much of the Christian East, virtually half of Christendom at that time, went their own way, in schism with both Rome and Constantinople (both of which accepted Chalcedon). Dioscorus was declared a saint; his successor, Timothy, was known as The Cat, for he knew how to land on his feet in the treacherous theological disputes of the day.

Yet the Chalcedonians could not and would not forget them. A succession of Eastern Roman Emperors made numerous attempts to heal this schism, hoping to restore the unity of the Empire and make it easier for it to incorporate and hold areas of Asia Minor and points East that were populated by Christians who rejected Chalcedonian Christology. The Emperor Heraclius (573-641) was so anxious to heal the schism that he invented a new heresy, Monothelism, which tried to bridge the gap between Chalcedonian orthodoxy and the "Monophysites" by positing only one will in Christ, but an otherwise intact human nature.

As is always the case with theology cooked up in committees rather than conceived in the hearts and souls of believing people, this attempted compromise pleased no one, and the schism went on. It is tragic that the Church was rent by a schism that appears largely to have been a matter of terminology, of words and concepts understood in varying ways by the contending parties. For political reasons and because of the intransigence that was characteristic of the age, those parties were not interested in forming commissions for dialogue in order to arrive at a mutual understanding.

Not long after he became the Coptic Pope, in 1973, Shenouda and the Pope of Rome, Paul VI, made a momentous declaration.

Finally, when the Arab conquest subjugated and substantially reduced the Church of Alexandria, the entire controversy, and the once-vibrant See that had formulated so much of the Church's understanding of Christ, faded from Western memory. The Copts endured centuries of Muslim rule, their numbers steadily diminished under the pressure of the institutionalized discrimination that Islamic law mandates for Christians, and from which one can be freed simply by converting to Islam. A fraction of the Coptic Church returned to communion with Rome in 1741, and is known today as the Coptic Catholic Church, but most Egyptian Christians (who today still number as much as ten percent of Egypt's population) belong to the non-Chalcedonian Coptic Orthodox Church headed by Pope Shenouda III since 1971.

The title "Pope" doesn't mean that Shenouda is an antipope or a pretender to the See of Peter in Rome. The Patriarch of Alexandria, in fact, began using the title — which was originally derived from the Greek and Coptic words for "Father" and in itself denotes no claim to primacy over the whole Church — several centuries before the Bishop of Rome did. (That's why Eastern Catholic Churches generally commemorate the "Pope of Rome" during their Liturgical celebrations: they're distinguishing him from the Pope of Alexandria, a much more vivid personage in their world than in the Latin West, where the Roman Pontiff is the only Pope in sight.)

Not long after he became the Coptic Pope, in 1973, Shenouda and the Pope of Rome, Paul VI, made a momentous declaration. They affirmed a common faith in Jesus Christ, who "is perfect God with respect to His Divinity, perfect man with respect to His humanity. In Him His divinity is united with His humanity in a real, perfect union without mingling, without commixtion, without confusion, without alteration, without division, without separation." They quoted the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil of Caesarea: "His divinity did not separate from His humanity for an instant, not for the twinkling of an eye. He who is God eternal and invisible became visible in the flesh, and took upon Himself the form of a servant. In Him are preserved all the properties of the divinity and all the properties of the humanity, together in a real, perfect, indivisible and inseparable union."

This did not heal the schism that had by then continued for a millennium and a half. But to end 1,500 years of misunderstanding and mutual recrimination was accomplishment enough. The agreement reminded many Catholics of the existence and illustrious legacy of their brethren of the Church of Alexandria. Today it looks as if such a reminder was much needed, as the Coptic Church would soon be walking the way of the cross yet again — and Coptic Christians need and deserve all the spiritual and material support their Western brethren can possibly provide.

The bleakness of the situation for Christians in Egypt today, with the Muslim Brotherhood poised to take power, cannot be overstated. Might elegies be in order for a See and Church that was once among the most influential and powerful in all of Christendom? The Lord may yet see fit to save the Church that has produced so many martyrs for fourteen centuries now, and certainly Coptic heroism has not dimmed. But however events may unfold, the Coptic Church deserves our prayers and help — not only in simple Christian solidarity but in gratitude for the great gifts of grace God has given us through the noble Church of Alexandria, the Third See of the ancient and undivided Church.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Robert Spencer. "Requiem for the Third See of Christendom." Crisis Magazine (January 3, 2012).

Reprinted with permission of Crisis Magazine.

Crisis Magazine is an educational apostolate that uses media and technology to bring the genius of Catholicism to business, politics, culture, and family life. Their approach is oriented toward the practical solutions our faith offers — in other words, actionable Catholicism.

THE AUTHOR

Robert Spencer is the is the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of ten books, including Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics: 100 Questions and Answers, and twoNew York Times bestsellers, The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).

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