Friday, 1 November 2013

If I had not broken my vows, Michelle Lucilla Lee would not exist

I wrote a blog recently in which I stated that the best thing in my life (my daughter Michelle) would not be here if I had been faithful to my vows.
Now I know that keeping your vows (be it in marriage or priesthood) is an ideal worth striving for, but we know the reality is many don't. The results of broken vows is often babies are born who would not have otherwise existed. Were those 'mistakes' or 'accidents' meant to be? 

In my case I implied that out of what seems bad, good can come. In that I am implying that nothing really bad happens without some good coming from it. This to me is evident of God’s ultimate triumph over evil’s apparent reign.

There is a saying I read in the letter Paul wrote to the Romans during the week, "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them..." (Rom 8:28)

I know that out of bad things, good can happen.. but doesn't that mean that God transforms the bad into good?

We have in our church people who teach dogmatic theology. Sometimes they also teach ethics.
Ethics and morality are difficult areas to dogmatise... I don't know if we can say there are any ever an moral absolutes..

I meet so many people who confessed to using IVF.  They tell me they wanted a child so badly they resorted to something the church condemns...

Now I know the reasons for condemning IVF & I totally agree with those reasons.. I discouraged as best as I could, many people who were thinking about doing the IVF programme.

But, I baptised some beautiful babies and know some very grateful Catholic parents who don't see the sinfulness in what they did.. were foetuses disposed of? I don't know,, I worry for those non-persons who are collateral damage of IVF. But does that negate the goodness of the end result that the parents now love?
Did God not breathe a soul into this newly conceived child of His?

Does God want something to happen that is against His will? Can't He stop it? These are all questions I still wrestle with..

I heard an orthodox priest once tell a congregation of mourners that this boy died on his bicycle because God saw a future where he could have lost his eternal soul and he stopped that from happening by causing the driver of the truck and that boy's lives to intersect that day.. what a stretch?

I don't know, I just like to think that God allows humans to have free will to sin and then permits them to  find out the wrongness of their actions and be reconciled much like a parent allows their children to make mistakes and forgives them because they love them unconditionally, not just because they are good...

I Know God will allow humans to choose actions that are immoral or seemingly sinful if they are going to discover the mercy of God more fully.

I know in the eyes of many my actions are sinful.. I read of a priest disparaging me in front of a Parish Council meeting, brandishing a newspaper cutting which applauds my efforts. Little did he know that I was assistant priest in that parish many years back and some sitting in front of him are still grateful to me for helping their kids connect with Jesus or buried their spouse or baptised their children, and they still believe I am a good priest despite having chosen to be married and have a baby,

He has made himself to look like a jealous or envious man with no Christianity in him. Instead of achieving his aim of belittling my memory he has made people recall the good I did as a priest. And it has made them regret that I could not continue to do good just because I fell in love.. 

Tuesday, 24 September 2013

EVERYONE LOVES A BABY, BUT MINE IS THE BEST

I have said it a million times when people show me their babies, "Oh isn't he/she gorgeous" knowing the parents would think I was being sincere but honestly all babies look the same to me. A bit squashed up and often looking in pain as they are pushing out some baby excrement, but still they grow out of it.
After a two hour delivery Michelle Lucila Lee exited her mother's womb to be born at 9:50pm on 24th September weighing in at a massive 3.9 kilos. To all those who wondered if this was really my baby, their doubts were destroyed when she appeared all pink...
When Michelle was born I felt a sudden rush of shock. I thought I had conceived a misshaped and horrible monster. She looked (in my mind) like she was totally deformed and I don't know how to describe in words I won't later regret.
I just wished I had allowed Josefina to give birth to her in a hospital as she wanted but without the financial capacity to pay for it, opted for a home birth with the village midwife.
But anyway, I rushed out of the room and prayed to God for the strength to accept whatever she looks like. I promised to love her unconditionally despite her disabilities. When I came back half an hour later (yes it took me a while) I took a proper look.
The midwife had washed all the blood off her and her elongated head had strangely taken on normal proportions and her eyes opened slightly and looked a beautiful shade of dark blue.
I don't know why I felt all that initially and its probably inappropriate to share with some people who aren't really happy that a priest has conceived a child, but I really wanted to say that I am now in love with who I think is the most gorgeous baby I have ever seen.
I can see my sister Monica in her, as well as my niece Bridget and even my Dad (in her hair and head shape). She also has my skin colour and sleeps with her arms above her head like I do.
I really don't think it matters what a baby looks like, parents will always love their own child and in some people's cases, its just as well.
I am writing this basically because I want to thank of all you who put up with my rants about the Catholic Church and the Liberal Party and read my posts & share my undeserved blessings!
I am grateful to the 140 or so people who commented and wished us happiness. As I always say, a baby is God's way of saying He wants the world to continue..

Reflections on the birth of our baby
I’ve celebrated hundreds of weddings and baptised thousands of babies and looked with amazement of the love of a mother and father for their child. I thought I understood. I have counseled many couples in crisis, prepared couples for marriage and celebrated funerals for people’s parents. I thought I knew how they felt. I have often known of their secret struggles to love one another but I could never really understand why two people in love could feel anger towards one another. The one thing that often bound them together was the love for a child. She or he is truly something miraculous.

Many have attempted to describe the phenomenon we call birth. Nothing I have read has adequately described it. Its like trying to tell a blind person what a beautiful sunset looks like, or a rainbow. They have no worthy comparison. The same with the emotional explosion which is the birth of your own child. I am lost for words but knew I wanted to attempt a description.
The most prevalent thought was, “this person would never have existence if I had kept my vows”. I have always believed that nothing happens without God’s divine permission. Although consequences can sometimes be less desirable than humans would want it, the Creator has given us free will and He desires that we use it. Not be enslaved by our laws or fears.

When we decided to love one another, Josefina and I knew it would eventually (if God was willing) result in the birth of a child. For love to reach its full potential, it needs to be shared with more than just the couple. That is why there is an inner longing for a child in people in relationship. Those who don’t want one, often given selfish reasons for excluding the possibility that some legacy would be left after their earthly love terminates, to demonstrate how creative their love was. Another human life formed after an intimate act of mutual giving is the proof of eternity for me.

As I lay awake watching Michelle breathe and sleep so peacefully beside her mother it was impossible to sleep. I have sadly been the witness of many still births, babies dying from SIDS (including my niece whom Michelle is named in honour of) and also many terrible accidents resulting in the death of a child.
I remember one incredibly heart wrenching night when as police chaplain I was asked to assist the police who were dealing with an infant’s pool drowning in Springwood, very near where my parents live. The people who were involved were helpless to pacify the grieving parents. A mother in law tried to use pious platitudes to comfort the despairing mother but was only doing more harm. At one point she spoke from her indoctrination and said, “He has gone to a better place…” The mother retaliated, “What’s wrong with our place?”

I accompanied the mother to the hospital and sat with her in a room where she was given the last chance to be with her son in the darkness of a cold sterilised room. Two police stood sobbing outside the door, expected to take statements from her, “when she felt up to it..”
I just sat in stony silence, totally out of my depth and unable to say or do anything to alleviate the thick, painful emptiness that pervades this woman’s heart. I just whispered silent prayers to God asking His assistance and strength. The mother rocked her dead, still damp child in her arms. Her husband experienced a strange but normal desire not to be there. He stood outside the room and just stared into space. I felt privileged to hear the mother’s intimate one way conversation with her son. But I was devastated when she said mournfully, “If I knew you were going to die today I would have sat with you, kissing you all night…”
I burst into tears. I didn’t know the woman or her baby but I felt a common bond.

I stayed as long as I could with that lady as I have done with countless people in similar circumstances. I returned to an empty, dark house with no one to debrief with or no one to cry. I wanted to talk about my emotional response to this tragic situation, if only to ask my own questions. I went to our church and knelt in my usual pew. I have always known the Presence of God in our church especially at night. I felt a blanket of love envelope me and convince me that I had done something good just by being there, even without my words.
That event frightened me. I knew in my mind that I wouldn’t last as a celibate priest dealing with grief and joy in the one day, a life of roller-coaster emotions.. running from baptisms to weddings to funerals to car accidents.. I needed to live my life with more normalcy.

From then on I have prayed to meet a person I could share my remaining earthly years with in a life that allows me freedom from such intense moments of pain and spiritual suffering. I know it sounds selfish, but I had had enough of grief. I had had enough of watching other people’s joy and happiness knowing it would never be an experience I could fully comprehend.
I knew that if I did meet the woman that God gave in answer to my prayers, it wouldn’t be a rose garden of happiness.. I most feared that once you allow yourself to love someone you also allow yourself to be hurt by them. But I was prepared to take that risk. Many before me have done so and appreciated the good with the bad or vice versa. Now that we have a child I have a greater motivation to make sure I hold back from saying or doing the things that would contribute to the erosion of our peace and relationship.
Photo: Nothing means more in the world than you right now Michelle. 
You have made me realize how special my own mother is & appreciate so much more the sacrifices she made for me: the nine months of inconvenience & suffering, the multitude of nappy changes & feeds all night only to get later ingratitude & constant demands.. and then she did it NINE MORE TIMES! I love you Mummy... (and Dad too of course)
I am watching you Michelle and I never want to feel regret that I did not love you enough. I want to know that whatever happens, I am grateful to God and Josefina for giving me the best treasure in my life. I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t know how long I have with you. But I will pray every day a grateful Eucharist that you are my daughter, my connection with eternity and the visible proof that I have been in this world.
I will conclude by repeating the words a friend told me recently (although I cant remember who exactly told me): "When you see what your wife goes through to give birth to your baby, you will hold her in a sort of esteem you didn't have for her previously. Your love is intensified when you see your baby."

Well whoever it was that told me, was spot on. I feel immense pride for my wife Josefina and seeing her joy when she changes Michelle's clothing endlessly and smothers her in love, I feel incredibly gratitude to her for loving and accepting me and for gifting me with the most precious treasure I could ever have imagined!

Someone asked where they could send us a gift and I suggested politely that we have enough baby clothes and toys now to satisfy the village. (Josefina suggested to open a BabyCo type store and sell the clothes but I quickly reminded her that I am hoping for more babies!)

If you do wish to give us a gift that would help us much more appropriately, please go to my website
www.unholysilence.com  and buy my book. (Buy two and give one to a friend!)

My wife Josefina and I and baby Michelle thank you all for your prayerful support and concern.

May God richly bless you and your family too!

Thursday, 22 August 2013

Appeared in Catholic Weekly 16th December 2001

Conversation: Go directly to jail; collect $20,000: Fr Kevin Lee, police chaplain and temporary prisoner

Fr Kevin Lee receives the $20,000 cheque on his ‘escape’ from Triple M DJ Brendan Jones.
The chance to present a face of the Church to 18–39 year-olds via their favourite rock music radio station was the reason this police chaplain spent three weeks in the clink. Oh, and he won $20,000 for homeless men as well. But did the end justify the (indecorous) means? MARILYN KERJEAN spoke to Fr Kevin Lee
Spending three weeks locked inside Melbourne’s former Pentridge jail to win $20,000 and other prizes in a radio station competition was “a walk in the park” for Fr Kevin Lee compared with the hectic demands of parish life.
And it brought “unexpected blessings”, in particular the conversion of a fellow contestant who asked to be baptised after asking Fr Kevin about the Catholic faith.
The priest’s rivals for the prize missed family, television and mobile phones. Not so, Fr Kevin. “It was like a retreat, I used the time to reflect,” he says.
As part of Triple M’s Escape from Pentridge competition, the police chaplain and assistant priest at St Michael’s, Baulkham Hills, lived prison life inside the old jail with seven other contestants from November 12–30.
Their own clothes, books, alcohol, CDs, mobile phones and cigarettes were banned.
They were also under constant surveillance through web cameras so people could watch them through the radio station’s website and talk with them via a special chat line at night.
The only concession made for the priest was that he was allowed to take in what he needed to say Mass every night in his cell.
People ‘tuned’ in to the Internet Mass, says Fr Kevin.
“They would say: ‘I was with you when you were saying the Mass. I was praying with you’,” he says.
Fr Kevin earned the most points by successfully completing challenges like picking a lock, having his head shaved, composing a song and reciting a memorised text.
He says the worst challenge was being hosed down despite chilly temperatures.
‘The Padre’, as he became known to Triple M listeners donated his $20,000 cash prize to the Mathew Talbot Hostel for homeless men.
He also won a trip to Switzerland and a car; he has yet to decide whether to keep it.
Fr Kevin, not a regular listener to Triple M himself, heard about the competition through his brother.
“My brother is in advertising and he said: ‘This will be a great opportunity for the Catholic Church to be seen to be reaching out to where people are instead of waiting for them to come to you.’ He said here was an opportunity to talk to people where they are.”
Fr Kevin, “knew I had a good chance of winning, but I thought the challenges would be things like pushups and running”.
His involvement in a publicity stunt for the pop rock music station was controversial, especially when people heard what he would have to do to stay in the game.
“When I told the bishop I had entered and was going he was very supportive,” Fr Kevin says.
But there was also some disquiet about whether it was ‘appropriate’ for a priest to spend time in jail this way.
“But I thought if I’m going to be in it I have to submit myself to and do everything the others have to do,” he says. “I couldn’t ask them to treat me differently (such as) not swear around me.
“And, out of those bad things, good things did come.”
For example: “I had heaps of opportunities to talk about the Catholic faith and why it is the true religion,” he says.
One night he was woken up to talk on the station’s late-night program. He discussed the priesthood, celibacy and the Church with two presenters. One defended him; the other “didn’t know what I was talking about”.
He found out later that it was a program on sex issues.
“They were really great, they gave me free reign to talk about that on a commercial radio station where people were listening to the program to get advice about sexual problems,” he says.
Two other presenters, both Catholic, gave Fr Kevin lots of precious air time over the three weeks and he says he tried to make the most of it to promote the Church.
“I did it so that young people who don’t know anything about the Catholic faith and wouldn’t get the chance to hear about it could hear about it.
“And also, as we have a shortage of vocations, so that people might see a priest as a normal person and see it as a radical way of life.”
Fr Kevin was embarrassed to hear that the radio station staff had told the people at Matthew Talbot about his intention to donate the prize money.
“What if I hadn’t won?” he asks,
Fr Kevin says he hopes he has encouraged others “to donate to Matthew Talbot, especially as Christmas is coming up – I was able to publicise them a bit”.
He says: “I’d like to see them have regular counsellors for the men, not just give them a sandwich and send them off again but have someone their to listen to their life’s story. And that will take a lot of money.”
Fr Kevin got a huge reception from young parishioners on his return to St Michael’s.
“The Masses were booming on the weekend. Even the kids from the public school where I teach religion came out,” he says.
“Those kids who don’t usually turn up to church came up to see me. They may not keep coming, they might, but at least when we have the end of term school Masses they’ll see me and go: ‘we know him’.”
Television’s A Current Affair also followed the unusual competition. As the prison gates closed behind Fr Kevin on the first day, he was asked if he was nervous.
“It’ll be a walk in the park,” he answered.
At the end of three weeks he was asked him if it had, indeed, been that easy. When he answered, “Yes” the reporter said he didn’t seem a very humble winner.
“I said: ‘But I had God with me all the time. There was never a moment that I felt worried’.”

Monday, 22 July 2013

Do not allow yourself to be called Teacher or Father

The word for teacher is Tagalog, the language of the Philippines is ‘guro’. This is also the root meaning of the word ‘guru’ which means a Master or Teacher. When Jesus was addressed by His followers or those who acknowledged His superior preaching ability they addressed Him as Rabbouni or Rabbi which also means ‘Master’ or ‘teacher’.

How does one get to be given such an honorific as “Master”? In some martial arts it comes as a result of reaching a certain level or superiority in your discipline. But in the Catholic church you achieve it by being ordained. Getting yourself through the seminary and jumping through the required holy hoops. A priest is automatically referred to as “reverend” and “Father” and given all forms of unearned respect. Herein lies the inherent danger.

People give to priests a respect they neither earn nor deserve.

There is an innate human need to have Rabbis or teachers. But Jesus told His disciples to not allow themselves to be addressed as ‘teacher’ or ‘Father’ because He said, “You have only one Father and He is in heaven” and “you are all brothers.”

So why do we persist in addressing priests as “Father”? I use the preface to my name to distinguish myself from the 7,819 other Kevin Lee on Facebook and the over two thousand Kevin Lees on Twitter so my real friends can find me, but I never referred to myself as “Father Kevin Lee” in conversation except when I needed certain doors opened.

So why do we need priests and gurus and Masters and other experts to teach us what we ought to know already? It’s because many of us humans lacked good fathering in our childhood and are still looking for leaders and father-figures.

This is a human weakness and implies an immaturity when we seek the advice or guidance of others instead of seeking to communicate directly with the Divine.

I also fall into that category of immature humans who seek a father figure or teacher here on earth. I used to seek out spiritual ‘gurus’ and ask advice about what they thought I should be doing with my life. I made the frequent mistake of assuming that because this person or that looked ‘holy’ or lived what I deemed a holy life, they were closer to God than me. I often bestowed that trust in priests or religious brothers that, superficially at least, displayed a peace or tranquillity that I attributed to being at one with God.

How sad I was when I was regularly betrayed or proved wrong about those I entrusted my spiritual belief in.

One by one they showed their flaws and the cracks that I was not looking to discover, but God pointed out to me. I say it’s sad because it was something I was disappointed to discover. I want to believe that there are men and women who are totally altruistic and seeking only to serve God through His earthly children. But one by one my illusions have been shattered. As I got to know people who knew them more intimately that myself I saw them for who they really were and slowly their rocklike façade eroded and that pristine image I had created for them gradually dulled.

I still believe that there are holy men and women walking this mortal path but I am yet to meet them. I do have some close approximations to perfection whom I have gotten to know over the years but I will reserve my judgement of them until I learn more about them. The reason I say this is because even those I was convinced were holy and living examples of Jesus for me in the past have all shown their true colours in later years and proved my theory that true holiness does not exist on this planet, or in this generation.

Even the saints I have admired have shown a darker side to me in my later investigations of their lives. For instance, although I admire Padre Pio and revere him for his holiness and sacrifice, I have met older Italians who knew him and described his fierce temper in the confessional or his judgemental dismissal of those who did not make a perfect confession to him. I even heard from an Italian parishioner whose mother knew him well that he hit some women with the cord he wore around his waist because they were talking in church.

I had decided to write about more of the saints at this juncture but my Guardian Angel prompted me not to. The reason, as he explained, is that I have made my point and my opinion of another’s sanctity based on another’s observations hardly serves as proof. So I leave it at that. I do expect I will keep searching for a holy person who will inspire me to want to try harder to follow Jesus’ example and live a life on this side of the grave that better approximates the kind of existence Jesus demonstrated is possible.

I wish I could know a human being who is so in touch with God that he or she could lead me to a better knowledge and purer love of the eternal life. If you know such a person, please, please tell me!

Blessings on your day!    

Wednesday, 10 July 2013

The Ersatz Pope - and things you didn't know about him and others connected with him

The Ersatz Pope

Ersatz - a lower quality or artificial substitute – is how Pope Francis was described by Horatio Verbitsky, a leading Argentine investigative journalist and human rights activist, the day after the election of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as pontiff.
“His biography is that of a conservative populist...adamant on doctrinal issues but with an openness to the world, especially toward the dispossessed masses….But at the same time he attempted to unify the opposition against the first government in many years which adopted a policy favorable to those groups.”
Claiming concern for the poor while undermining a government trying to alleviate poverty, Bergoglio was elected by the College of Cardinals to preserve a Church of, by, and for the plutocracy.
As Argentina’s only cardinal and archbishop of the capital and largest city, Buenos Aires, Bergoglio was the most powerful and influential prelate in the country. He was a strong opponent of the liberal progressive administrations of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner during “a decade in which Argentina lived the largest and fastest reduction of poverty and inequality,” according to Ernesto Semán, a historian at New York University and former reporter for two Argentine newspapers.

In 2005, a military chaplain said that the Minister of Health should be thrown into the sea because of his progressive views on contraception. “It doesn't take much effort at all to imagine what that must sound like to the ears of an Argentine with any sense of history,” Semán noted.
(One of the means used by the Church-supported military junta (1976-1983) to dispose of accused enemies was “death flights.” People were thrown alive from airplanes and helicopters into the ocean.

Former Marine Captain Adolfo Scilingo, who shoved 30 individuals to their deaths including a 65 year old man, a 16 year old boy and 2 pregnant women in their early 20′s, said that the Catholic hierarchy approved this as a “Christian form of death.”)

Bergoglio refused to comply with the government’s demand for the chaplain’s resignation.
A 2007 U.S. State Department cable released by WikiLeaks noted that “some observers consider Roman Catholic primate Cardinal Bergoglio to be a leader of the opposition to the Kirchner administration because of his comments about social issues.”

Bergoglio opposed the 2010 legislation approving same-sex marriage as “a destructive pretension against the plan of God” and “a move by the Father of Lies which aims to confuse and deceive the children of God.” He is also opposed to adoption by gay couples.
With popular backing and in clear defiance of the Church, the Kirchners pushed for mandatory sex education in schools, free distribution of contraceptives in public hospitals, and the right for transsexuals to change their official identities on demand. Argentina became the first nation in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriages.
Sounding very much like his U.S. confreres, in 2012, Bergoglio accused the Kirchner government of “demagoguery, totalitarianism, corruption and efforts to secure unlimited power.” While Christian von Wernich, a priest sentenced to life imprisonment in 2007 for crimes during the junta including 31 cases of torture and 7 aggravated homicides, continues to exercise his priestly ministry in prison; and Fr. Julio Grassi of Buenos Aires convicted of two acts of sexual abuse and aggravated corruption of minors yet defended by Bergoglio, is still a priest in good standing; Fr. José Nicolás Alessio, an Argentine theologian, was dismissed from the clerical state in February 2013 for favoring marriage equality.

The election of Cardinal Bergoglio as pope on March 13 “is a masterstroke of Vatican diplomacy. The Catholic Church, about to sink between the financial and sexual scandals, urgently needed another ‘image’ in the face of public opinion in the world and more so in Latin America. The profile of Benedict XVI, a German, hard, rigid, an Inquisitor, failed to float the ‘barque of Peter,’” explained Alessio. “In Argentina and on the continent, the right-wing sectors, both political and religious, will be strengthened,” the theologian stated.
Andrea D’Atri, founder of Bread and Roses, an Argentine human rights group, agrees that, “In Argentina, his naming as pope has been received with the warmest enthusiasm by the rightist opposition.”
The majority of Latin American nations are now governed by left-leaning parties. Semán said that the election of this “very conservative cardinal from the region might help bolster forces that are opposed to continuing this enormous change that’s occurring in Latin America.”
The cardinal/electors “are positioning their pieces in the world game of chess in order to empower political projects championed by the North and its allies in the South,” wrote Brazilian Ivone Gebara, one of Latin American’s leading theologians.
The telecommunication industry… immediately tagged Francis as a simple man, cordial and friendly. The Catholic press says nothing about many people's suspicions regarding his role during Argentina’s recent military dictatorship, or about his current political stands against gay marriage and the legalization of abortion. Neither do they mention his well-known criticism of liberation theology or his distain for feminist theology…..
There is no criticism of this perverse system, which continues to invoke the Holy Spirit in order to maintain ultraconservative positions clothed in the pretext of religiosity and docile submission….What is invoked, instead, is a set of quasi-magical teachings. On the one hand, we have a society awash with great spectacles that captivate us and urge us to accept…and on the other a system of paternalistic handouts that is equated with evangelization.
To go out into the streets and give food to the poor and pray with prisoners is somewhat humanitarian, but it does not solve the problem of social exclusion that afflicts many of the world’s countries….
The highly touted commitment to evangelization as a Church priority seems instead to be a commitment to a hierarchical order in a world where the elites reign and the people applaud in great plazas, where they pray and sing and bubble over with high spirits, invoking divine blessings upon the heads of their new political-religious leaders….
Yes, Francis has made several statements in favor of economic structures which favor the poor, but so has every other modern pope. Regardless of what these pontiffs said (with the exception John XXIII), they supported imperialists, fascists, dictators, corporatists, oligarchs and plutocrats.
Very quickly, Francis assured all Vatican employees that he would be making no personnel changes until after the summer. However, on the one-month anniversary of his election, Francis named eight cardinals from around the world to be his closest advisers. He could have kept an informal cabinet of men he had been close to Argentina as John Paul II did with his fellow Poles. He could have selected a panel which included lesser Church officials, or lay men and women. But he chose cardinals, the only people who swear to keep the secrets, as well as "assert, uphold, preserve, increase and promote the rights, even temporal; the liberty, the honor, privileges and authority of the Holy Roman Church."

Why these particular cardinals? An Argentine journalist approached Bergoglio after he was made a cardinal in 2001 to write his official biography. He didn't assent to the project - Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio: His Life in His Own Words - until after he came in second to Ratzinger in the 2005 conclave. So perhaps he gave some additional thought, if more successful in the next conclave, which cardinals would provide the type of counsel he wanted.
A brief review of the past and present ecclesial careers of the cardinals selected provides important insights into Francis' worldview and how he will direct the Church in the future. (I could find little information on Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Mumbai and Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, archbishop of Kinshasa, Congo.)

Italian Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello is head of the commission governing Vatican City State and the
only Vatican official in the group. A longtime member of the Vatican diplomatic service, he was nuncio to Rwanda in 1991, remaining in that post during the genocide.
The Catholic Church “was the only institution involved in all the stages of genocide [which] took more than a million lives in just a hundred days….There is no doubt that throughout the history of Rwanda, Church leaders have had ties with political power. The Church was also involved in the policy of ethnic division, which degenerated into ethnic hatred,” wrote Ndahiro Tom, a Rwandan human rights commissioner. He is disheartened “to see the institutional Church protecting, instead of punishing, or at least denouncing those among its leadership or in its membership who are accused of genocide.”

Richard Johnson, a former Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. State Dept., wrote a paper dated March 19, 2013: “The work of many foreign and Rwandan researchers also demonstrates that the 1994 genocide raises grave issues of accountability for the Vatican and the Catholic Church more generally, including participation of Catholic clergy in the genocide, providing escape routes and safe haven to fugitive genocide suspects, and supporting the Hutu Power movement’s propaganda campaign.”
The group, African Rights, wrote a letter to Pope John Paul II in 1978 asking him to guide the Church through “a process of reflection, confession and self-examination” in light of the Church’s historical involvement in ethnic politics. The group sent a second letter to John Paul II marking the 10th year commemoration of the 1994 genocide regretting “that no one at a senior level in the Church has responded to our earlier appeals” and asking again for “a study of institutional failings in relation to the genocide.”
No doubt, after consultation with Bertello, Francis will also ignore them.

Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa, the retired archbishop of Santiago, made headlines in Chile for protecting Fr. Fernando Karamina, a spiritual leader among Santiago’s most influential families. In April 2010, a civil criminal complaint was filed against Karadima for child sex abuse by four men who were once his devoted followers. The claims were dismissed by a court ruling stating there was not enough evidence to charge him. One of the claimants protested, "We would have liked to appeal, but with defense attorneys like his, who have the Appeals and Supreme Court eating out of their hands, and a number of powerful people who continue to protect Karadima, we knew it would be an uphill battle that we were likely to lose."

Karadima’s legal defense team has familial and group ties to "Comando Rolando Matus," a paramilitary organization of the National Party (Chile, 1966–1973). It played a key role in the destabilization of the country during Salvador Allende's democratically-elected leftist government leading to a coup by the Church-supported military dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet. According to one of the claimants, Karadima protected and hid the man wanted by Chilean police in 1970 and later sentenced for the assassination of General René Schneider for the purpose of preventing Allende’s inauguration.

Karadima is the "worst scandal" of the Chilean Catholic Church. Power is the "true point of the case. The abuses were not possible without a network of political, social and religious power working for 50 years,” Chilean political analyst Ascanio Cavallo, Dean of the Journalism School of the Adolfo Ibáñez University stated.

In January 2011, a judge ordered that Karadima be interrogated. According to court testimony, Church officials, including Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz, tried to shame accusers into dropping claims, refused to meet with them or failed to carry out formal investigations for years. The first known reports of abuse by Karadima reached Errázuriz in mid-2003. In 2006, a priest appointed by Errázuriz to investigate the claims made his report to the cardinal, stating that he believed “the accusers to be credible.” Errázuriz wrote in a public letter that he did nothing because he thought the allegations were beyond the statute of limitations.
A judge dismissed the criminal case against Karadima in November 2011 because the statute of limitations had expired but also determined that the allegations were “truthful and reliable.” The Vatican “sanctioned” Karadima by ordering him to a life of “penitence and prayer,” but he remains a priest in good standing.

When Pope Francis appointed Errázuriz as one of his closest advisers, one of the claimants who had accused the cardinal of covering up Karadima’s crimes called it “a shame and a disgrace.”
Like Francis, Errázuriz is also an opponent of liberation theology. While Secretary of the Congregation for Religious at the Vatican, Errázuriz demanded that CLAR, the Latin American Conference of Religious, regarded as too heavily influenced by liberation theology, make deep reforms in its most controversial programs. Similarly, Pope Francis has already demanded the reformation of the U.S. Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) based on the same ideological objections.

Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, the archbishop of Tegucigalpa, is “the leader of Opus Dei*” in Honduras which “participated actively in the 2009 coup against the constitutional president, Manuel Zelaya,” as written in a report by sociologist Marco Burgos. According to Burgos’ research, “active members of this clan are making intromissions in the Honduran national politics, despite Honduras being officially considered a secular country.” Rodríguez, “who has not denounced the violation to the constitution that the coup was, has instead blessed it.”
After the coup, former Honduran Foreign Affairs Minister Ernesto Paz Aguilar "considered that religious groups are operating in secrecy, becoming members of several institutions.” Coupist government Foreign Vice Minister Marta Lorena Alvarado and the Mayor of Tegucigalpa, Ricardo Alvarez, are some of the members of Opus Dei.
Honduras now has the highest homicide rate in the world fueled by the drug trade and government corruption. Only 2 percent of murders are solved. The U.S. State Department estimates that 40 percent of the cocaine headed to the U.S. and 87 percent of cocaine smuggling flights from South America pass through Honduras.

After becoming Melbourne archbishop in 1996, Australian Cardinal George Pell invited Opus Dei to become established in that area, and then in Sydney after becoming archbishop of that city in 2001. “Opus Dei's star is on the rise, it is said, and that of others - including other more established groups within the Church - is sinking,” Sydney Morning Herald's religious affairs columnist wrote in January 2002. The reporter saw “signs of a new elitism….a clerical culture is being encouraged in which there is a highly select ‘in’ crowd around Pell.”
When asked what he thought was the root cause of the sex-abuse scandals Pell replied, “it’s obviously connected with the problem of homosexuality.”

Accounts of clerical child sex abuse in Australia have been as appalling as those heard around the globe. Prelates and clergy considered themselves above the law so the Church covered up criminal activity, shielded the perpetrators, transferred them from parish to parish and then tried to hide it.
The number of reports became so egregious that the state of Victoria (capital Melbourne) initiated a parliament inquiry, the state of New South Wales (capital Sydney) is investigating complaints that the Catholic Church hampered police investigations, and Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the formation of a Royal Commission to study child sex abuse by religious and non-government bodies.
Pell’s response was to complain about a “'persistent press campaign’ and ‘general smears that we are covering up and moving people around,’ and then capped it off with the claim that abuse by Catholic priests had been singled out and exaggerated.’”
“Catholic clergy commit six times as much abuse as those in the rest of the churches combined, ‘and that's a conservative figure,’” Patrick Parkinson, a Sydney University law professor, told the Victoria inquiry on May 30, 2013. Of thousands of offences, not a single crime was reported by a Church official to the police, Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Graham Ashton testified.

On May 24, 2013, Pell appeared as the final witness in the parliamentary inquiry. Like other prelates, Pell made an apology which came across as insincere. "My response to Cardinal Pell's evidence, being as fair as I can, is that it was to me a rather cynical exercise in damage control," Dr. Bryan Keon-Cohen QC, president of community lobby group COIN (Commission of Inquiry Now) said. “He offered a lot of words, offered apologies, expressed remorse, but to me it lacked conviction,” according to Keon-Cohen.
During Pell’s testimony, “Many of his responses about his personal empathy for victims were met with laughter and scoffs from the public gallery, which included victims and victims' advocates.”

Anthony Foster, father of two young daughters repeatedly raped by a priest, said Pell showed a “sociopathic lack of empathy typifying the attitude and response of the Catholic hierarchy.” Ian Lawther, whose son was sexually abused by a priest, described Pell's apology as "full of criminal clichés….It was a kick to the groin of every Australian Catholic, maybe even Christian."
In his testimony, Pell denied there was a culture of abuse. ''I was certainly unaware of it. I don't think many, if any, persons in the leadership of the Catholic Church knew what a horrendous widespread mess we were sitting on. If we'd been gossips, which we weren't…we would have realized earlier just how widespread this business was,'' Pell said.

Fr. Kevin Lee, chaplain of the New South Wales police for fourteen years, wrote a just- published book, Unholy Science, about how “widespread alleged sexual abuse of minors were covered up and not reported to the police by the Catholic Church during a period of over 20 years of his career….
Lee alleged that he complained to several Catholic Church supervisors including Cardinal George Pell without success, and had to go to the police and media as a last resort.”
Nearly three months in office, Pope Francis spoke his first words about the child sex abuse scandal.

The Vatican news service had reported that Francis “recommended that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith continue along the lines set by Benedict XVI” on April 7. On June 4, Francis said three times “This is important work, keep it up!” as he greeted Prof. Hans Zollner, the German head of the Gregorian University Center for Child Protection.
Founded in 2010, the center held a symposium in February 2012 where bishops could, if they chose to do so, send representatives who “received guidance” on “what do you do with abusers, what can you and should you offer to victims and what can you do for the prevention of abuse.” The center’s “main purpose is the creation of a global E-Learning training center in academic resources for the pastoral professions [i.e. ‘bishops conferences, religious congregations, local dioceses and so forth’] responding to the sexual abuse of minors, taking into account multilingual and intercultural issues.”
In other words, regardless of the mountain of resources already available to organizations on how to deal with child sex abuse, the Vatican is still working on “a truly Catholic response.”

In the run-up to the 2013 conclave, Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley was considered to be on the short list of papal candidates. He is regarded, as is Pope Francis, as a simple, humble man who cares for the poor. O’Malley is widely praised for cleaning up his predecessor, Cardinal Bernard Law’s, sordid record of aiding and abetting predator priests. But “a close look at O’Malley reveals a career-long pattern of resisting disclosure of information, reinstating priests of dubious suitability, and negotiating mass settlements that are among the least generous in the history of the crisis.”

On May 10, 2013, O’Malley issued a statement that he would not attend the Boston College commencement because the Catholic institution should not have invited Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny as speaker.  “Mr. Kenny is aggressively promoting abortion legislation,” O’Malley declared. Kenny is doing nothing of the sort replied the Irish government.

The Irish government made the case firmly that Kenny had very reluctantly introduced the minimal legislation which safeguards the life of the mother on the back of a Supreme Court judgment that mandated he or some future Irish government had to do it. Kenny moved in response to public uproar over the death of Savita Halappanavar, an Indian-born dentist who died of sepsis after doctors in Galway refused to terminate her non-viable fetus despite her desperate pleas to do so. The subsequent inquest found the hospital deeply culpable in her treatment.

Kenny is leader of the Fine Gael party which governs in a coalition with the Labour Party. Like the anti-same sex marriage demonstrations in France are being used to weaken François Hollande, and the Philippine Church’s opposition to the Reproductive Health legislation attacks Benigno Aquino, Ireland is another country where the pope is spreading the U.S. "culture wars" to rally right-wingers against progressive governments. Francis would like to repeat the Church’s success in defeating Democratic Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.

Pres. George W. Bush went to the Vatican on June 4, 2004, complaining that “’Not all the American bishops are with me’ on the cultural issues. The implication was that he hoped the Vatican would nudge them toward more explicit activism.” So Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) gave the American bishops their marching orders: Kerry was to be denied communion because he supported legal abortion. The U.S. bishops mounted a huge media campaign against Kerry for “aggressively promoting abortion.” Although the senator had led among Catholics at the beginning of the campaign, Bush won the Catholic vote, especially in Ohio giving him the re-election. “The hierarchical attacks on Kerry had a real impact on the race….The Ratzinger effect? Parochially speaking, there's no doubt about it.”
Currently, O’Malley is in the forefront of U.S. bishops' attacks againstObamacare although the cardinal led no campaign against Romneycare which provided insurance coverage for abortion

The Boston cardinal is a faithful supporter of Opus Dei even sponsoring the canonization of the priest who “established an Opus Dei presence among students and professors at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology” between 1946 and 1956.
The inclusion of Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and Freising, on Francis’ list of eight advisors represents the Vatican’s recent alignment with Germany since that country has become the financial powerhouse of Europe.

Pope Benedict XVI chose German Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller to head the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and appointed and promoted now Archbishop Georg Gänswein as his personal secretary and Prefect of the Pontifical Household. The Italian economist, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, was ingloriously dumped as president of the layman’s commission of the Vatican Bank and the German industrialist, Ernst von Freyberg, chosen to take his place.
The previous Italian prime minister, the technocrat Mario Monti, was a frequent visitor to the Vatican. He even accompanied Pope Benedict to the airport before the pontiff’s “apostolic” trade junkets. But the new Italian prime minister and member of the center-left Democratic Party, Enrico Letta, has yet to visit Francis.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, however, seeking her third four-year-term election in September, met with the pope on May 18. Unlike other world leaders who stop at the Vatican when they are in Rome on other business, Merkel, accompanied by a delegation of 15 people  came to Rome for the sole purpose of conferring with Francis. "I see continuity in the missionary aspect, in becoming aware of the importance of Christianity for our Christian roots," said Merkel, adding that the "simple and touching words" of Francis are already reaching people.
Merkel said they spoke about the regulation of the financial markets but no "sorry" from either leader for the crushing austerity measures responsible for the suicides, crippling economic dislocations and record-high levels of unemployment in Europe imposed by German and Church-supported financiers.

The Vatican Bank accounts in Italy suspected of laundering money were in the process of moving Church funds into Frankfurt, the financial capital of Germany. "There are seven skyscrapers in Frankfurt...Every one is about finance” and "At the top of each of those skyscrapers will be Opus Dei," noted author Matthew Fox tells us.
Cardinal Marx was the invited speaker for 300 guests of Opus Dei held in the Deutsche Bank, the country’s central bank. Like O’Malley, Marx has presided at Masses celebrating Opus Dei founder, Josemaria Escrivá, and visited one of the worldwide network of Opus Dei centers for university students in Munich.

On March 28, Francis greeted 3,000 attendees from 200 schools around the world who are part of an Opus Dei program for university students. The pontiff delighted the group by quoting Escrivá.
The first American priest chosen by Francis to co-celebrate Mass with him is Opus Dei Archbishop José H. Gomez on April 9. The Los Angeles prelate was accompanying a group of U.S. Latino businessmen who were attending  a series of private meetings with Vatican officials.
Francis’ selection of Cardinals O’Malley and Marx remind us that guns are no longer necessary for our enslavement. The same can now be accomplished by the financial “masters of the universe” and their hierarchical promoters.

*Opus Dei is a secret society of global financiers, bankers, businessmen, politicians and their supporters directing the Catholic Church’s geopolitics. The names of members are never disclosed unless a person self-identifies him/herself as a member. The clergy and prelates ordained into the Opus Dei religious order are, however, public. In return for their financial support - including funding “scientific” apologetics for the Church’s anti-women, anti-gay agenda - the Church provides a “moral” veneer to their work in promoting the 1%. Opus Dei’s primary “charity” is running schools and supporting students in an estimated 80-90 countries to train more plutocrats, bioethicists and whatever other skills are deemed necessary to their growing wealth and power. (See Robert Hutchison Their Kingdom Come: Inside the Secret World of Opus Dei Thomas Dunne Books, 2006). Put simply, "Opus Dei is a radical, fascist, right-wing Catholic movement," according to Matthew Fox.

         Sat Jun 08, 2013 at 04:46 AM PDT

originally appeared http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/08/1213693/-The-Ersatz-Pope#

Saturday, 29 June 2013

People are different

Compare and Contrast.

I remember doing the HSC and a common question option on my Geography exam was "Compare and contrast the vegetation/climate of two regions etc.."
Well I always enjoyed comparing and contrasting and it has been a pattern of human life that has always fascinated me. I like comparing people and contrasting their habits.
One interesting example is my blog posts.
I write various kinds of blogs although one is more popular.
My blog of spiritual enlightenment, inspirational thoughts and writings I have read over the years is the least popular. The most popular is the one that details the flaws of those who are leaders of church and state.
But what I fail to understand is why?
I write a blog subject that lauds the good of people like Mother Teresa, various saints and holy people and am lucky to get 25 people read it for the whole of the time its available online. While at the same time, sending only to the same group of people, I write a blog that details the failures of church leaders and government wannabes and get over 9.000 reads in one week!
"Why is that?" I ask myself.
A while back there was a fiesta in our town and it was presided by two bishops, twenty five priests and two deacons and attended by a huge crowd that I estimate was four hundred people. That probably is the size of our whole community. Small but I like it.
Anyway the very next day at Mass the congregation totalled twenty.
The priest was also surprised at the contrast and commented at the start of Mass like this:
"Yesterday there was such a huge crowd of people at Mass. Today there is nobody".
I felt like raising my hand and calling out, "We are not nobodies Father!" but I expected to be tut-tutted by the people around me who are all so respectful of their parish priest.
Whether there is 500 people reading this or five, I still exert the same amount of energy and I still edit it carefully before posting (of course there will still be mistakes).
I am writing a book at the moment which is filled with a compilation of spiritual wisdom that I have gleaned from various sources over a long period of time. I am sure it will not sell as many copies as my book of jokes.
Why is that?
I don't know. But it baffles me about the tendency of humanity to steer away from things that are positive and helpful and draws them towards the peripheral, more temporal things.
As another example: I don't know why my wife will spend hours online searching for recipes and skin treatment miracles, while she shuns the stories I direct her to, which are filled with advice on how to build small ecclesial communities or direct a group of local residents on how to develop a community produce garden.
I am still hopeful that I can inspire people to want to read my advice even if they don't like me.
Maybe that will only happen after I am dead, but my desire has always been to make a difference in the world. I suppose it doesn't matter when it happens or whether I live to see the results.
Anyway, that's the thought I wanted to share with the five or six people who are interested to read it.
And by the way, the recipes Josefina finds are pretty amazing and her miracle skin treatments, although a waste of time and resources in my opinion, seem to make her feel good.
Blessings!

Saturday, 22 June 2013

Finish the towers you start




Jesus tells an interesting parable to people who ask to be His follower.

He reminds those ambitious people that, choosing to follow Him means you better run to keep up and it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

It’s in the gospel of St. Luke (14:28-30)
“For which of you, desirous of building a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, if he have what [is needed] to complete it; in order that, having laid the foundation of it, and not being able to finish it, all who see it do not begin to mock at him, saying, This man began to build and was not able to finish?”

To you who are reading my message for you is that I hope you finish things you have started. It took me over 16 years until I finally published my expose of the machinations of the Catholic Church and its influence over the power structures it operates under. Unholy Silence (www.unholysilence.com) was always going to be completed but until it was available for people to read, I felt unfulfilled.
I have also written a few other books that are at various stages of completion as well as a few landscape paintings that are yet to have their final touches with the brush. I hate leaving things undone. Maybe you do too?
What is that you always wished you had done? What is stopping you doing it?

I know many people over the years who told me things like, "I left my husband/wife after 20 years of marriage because he/she was holding me back from achieving my dream".
Now I would never promote divorce just to fulfil a dream but I do encourage people to seek personally to have no regrets about things they wished they had done.
I feel my personal sense of happiness comes from believing I am working towards my life's purpose. I can go to my grave a happy man if I have fulfilled all I set out to do. As St Paul said, "I have run the race and all there is left is to pick up the garland (the prize)".
You should finish the things you started.
The passage above from Luke is doubly relevant and appropriate to me because it was literally true. It’s a long story which I will tell you the short version of here because I am sure I must have written it somewhere before in my blog.
To me, a church is not a church without a bell tower, displaying the symbolising of the cross above the treeline so everyone in town knows where the church is. Also it has bells to ring out the start of Mass and the end of funerals and weddings.

At Padre Pio Parish in Glenmore Park, the bishops didn’t share my enthusiasm for the tower I wanted to complete so they froze my access to MY OWN PARISH funds!

Was I annoyed? Was I feeling defeated? No. I just raised my own. Miraculously people came forward giving donations that equalled the EXACT amount I needed to complete the work.

Thirty eight thousand dollars. People just came from nowhere giving me big sums of money.

Now if I was the crook cleric I am being accused of by my adversaries I could have taken that money and run. No one knew about the donations (except the parish secretary whom I always briefed on everything I was doing – with the exception of my wife on the side). But the donors all said, “I don’t want this receipted, I don’t want any adulation, I don’t want any recognition. I’m giving this to you Kevin because we believe in you”.
 
In fact, I received lots of donations for that church not because people believed in Catholicism, the Pope or even God. They did it because they trusted me and believed in the ideals I stood for. Of course I am not saying, I wanted to be believed in more than God. Of course I tried to point the glory back to the Creator in whose honour I was building the church and tower. I didn’t take it with me. I couldn’t if I wanted to. I knew I would leave the area one day but I still wanted God to be honoured and all to see that glowing cross illuminating the cold nights of Glenmore Park and remember how much Jesus loves them.
 
Of course I hope they spare a prayer for the poor priest who appeared to have abandoned them, when he in fact, moved on to a different phase of life with a different tower to build.

More blessings to you for reading!

Wednesday, 6 March 2013

How low is too low for a laugh?

I find it hard to watch modern movies in the company of my parents. Pretty much every movie I have ever seen contains something I would describe as 'objectionable' and cringe-worthy in their presence.
I remember a time when we had what were loosely described as 'censors', people who were paid to watch movies and tell us which ones we ought to avoid. These days its clear anything goes if you at least aim for an M rating. Even comedy shows on TV are riddled with F bombs and other material that embarrass me to hear.
I was not brought up with swearing and the only time an expletive has passed my lips is when I am quoting what someone else has said. My brother Anthony chided me when I was a teenager when I said, "shit" : "Does that strengthen your argument if you add a swear word?" I thought about it for a while searching for a defense.
To my shame I admit he rightly picked up on my weakness. And now when I hear someone shouting out their Fs and their Cs I know their argument must be flawed. We need to offend if our intelligent attack is weak.
Despite spending a lot of time around police and footballers, I still find it shocking to hear swearing. And even more so when it comes out of the mouth of a woman. Its just so unnecessary.
I do not honestly know any Tagalog rude words so as I listen to people in the Philippines I never hear once offensive word. Unlike walking down the street of any Australian town, I am appalled even by the little children who cuss.
But I was absolutely appalled (that's even worse than just being appalled) when I watched a recent rant from comedian Adam Hill. Lucky I was wearing my earphones! He was ripping into Joan Rivers over some disparagement he heard from the aging American comic over the English singer's size.
As you would all know Joan Rivers makes a living out of critiquing other people's body shapes because she spent a fortune modifying her own. But I have a particular bias towards her after watching her win a season of the Celebrity Apprentice USA. She was very raw and emotional in her defense of criticisms leveled at her own daughter during the competition. She was also very generous in delivering services for charities that she had no need to do. In her altruism I saw the softer side of Joan and she often burst into tears when other contestants got aggressive towards her.
Now I don't even want you to go and watch Adam Hill's beserko attack of Joan because it was not even funny (apart from the last line when he tells Joan to "manufacture herself a new soul"). The rest of it was shallow vitriol which can hardly be classified as comedy.
Comedy is generally meant to make you feel good. It makes you laugh with, not at, the target of the humour. I find the current version of comedy that we see dished out by comics shallow on content and deep in dirt.

It is easy to make fun of people for they way they look. For most of us without big bank balances, we can't do much about it. If people wanted to ridicule me for being bald, I can't really go out and buy a new head of hair. So why mock people for their appearance?
Even Hill's comments calling Adele "hot" is also an opinion whose relevance would vary depending on the beholder.
Why do we put so much emphasis on appearance? When I watch the news each night we see a variety of people speaking on various topics from politics to health to religion. But you don't see them being critiqued on what they looked like and their opponents don't malign them with expletives.
I think we need to look at how low we are diving for things to make fun of in entertainment and we need to lift our game if we want our children to look up to us.
As I often reflect, how low is too low in the quest for a laugh?

Sunday, 24 February 2013

Give to whoever asks and you will have gifts in return

Jesus taught His followers; ‘Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate.
Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.
Give, and there will be gifts for you: a full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap; because the standard you use willbe the standard used for you.'  Luke 6:36-38

A certain pastor was telling his pastor mates about how he decided how much of the collection plate he used for God’s work and how much he used for Church renovations etc. One of the fellow pastors said, “This is how I calculate it. I throw the whole collection up in the air and what God wants, He takes. What falls to ground is mine!”
It’s a very generous offer God makes to us in the above Gospel excerpt: Gifts without limit will be given to those who are generous to others. I thought about this as I saw the collection plate heading towards me on Sunday during Mass. I hesitated. I had some money in my pocket. Despite what you may think, I have not been paid a cent from the Diocese since I left priesthood and I didn’t get any money for speaking with the media. Also, I don’t make a lot of money in this new role I have undertaken and the uncertainty of my tenure means I count my money carefully before I think of spending any of it.
I had recently heard a Christian woman telling me about her tithing (giving 10% of her income to God). I wanted to argue with this good person who was attending one of the franchises of the Assemblies of God (of which Hillsong is part) that giving money to Pastor Houston’s empire was not actually giving money to God. In fact, I don’t even believe giving money to priests is giving money to God because I remember being a little wasteful with some of the funds people gave me in another parish. Anyway, I felt compelled to give ten percent of what I made last week and put it in the collection plate. I felt happy with myself after that and certain that it would come back to me in multiples of ten.
Of course giving with the expectation that it’s going to come back tenfold is not really a good motive for giving.   I do believe that Jesus was instructing us to not hold back when we are asked for help from others. He was explaining how God can never be outdone in generosity.
I know it for a fact as I have told you before, I am never without finances even though I do give to whoever asks. Many times in the Philippines I am confronted by beggars who put out their hand pitifully and ask for food. I never refuse if I have money with me. Jesus told us, “Give to anyone who asks” (Luke 6:30) and He never qualified it with advice like, “only if they are not going to spend it on alcohol or cigarettes” or “only if you trust them”. He just flat out ordered us to give to anyone who asks us for something.
It is hard and it sometimes takes some effort but I believe it to be God’s demand. Everything we have is from Him indirectly anyway, so it is His, so He can tell us what to do with it. When we start to think “this is mine, I can do what I like with it” is when we begin to become selfish.
I give to whoever asks and never have empty pockets. I never deplete my resources completely because God gives it back to me. I can’t explain it. Its miraculous.
Now in case you are tempted to think “That’s because you beg for money yourself! I saw your GoFundMe appeals!” Well have a look how much I got from those appeals. Its not a lot! And I have not taken it out. (I didn’t initiate those appeals by the way. It was suggested to me as a way of measuring my support base. I found out from those appeals how few people among my Facebook friends support my cause.)
But I go on undeterred because my mission is not to help my friends. My mission is to assist those who have no one to help them. I am helping some people who don’t even recognise they need my help. It is a mission of love and not of seeking wealth or prosperity however I am sure those will follow because I can’t outdo God in generosity.
I also know it’s impossible for me to fail in my mission because I am motivated by Jesus’ command to give to those who ask.
So try it for yourself. Give to that beggar you see in the park near your work. Give to that dude who looks like he is going to spend your money on smokes. How do you know he is not “Jesus in Disguise” testing you on your Christian authenticity?  Think about the quote from Hebrews 13:2: “Don't forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!
 Be generous. I guarantee you will get that money back ten-fold.
But this passage is not limited to giving money or material support. What Jesus was actually talking about if you read the section earlier, was not setting limits on your forgiveness. He was also instructing His followers about giving to enemies. He was telling them not to restrict their generosity only to their friends but even to those who are your enemy.
Jesus’ demands are hard and that is why there are so few real Christians sitting on the pews of churches.  But just like exercise is hard if you do it only sporadically, it can become a routine and it does get easier.