Letter of Archbishop Nienstedt to Minnesota's Congressional Delegation

March 15, 2010


E-Mail Message

Dear Senator or Representative,

I write to urge you, as a member of Senate or House, to commit yourself to enacting genuine health care reform that will protect the life, dignity, consciences, and health of all.

While I am grateful that the House health care bill, by way of the Stupak amendment, applies the existing prohibitions on federal funding for abortion, I am deeply concerned about the current Senate health care bill. This legislation fails to keep in place the current law. It requires taxpayers and the federal government to fund and facilitate plans which include elective abortion and then requires people in those plans to pay directly into a fund which only pays for abortions. This is unacceptable.

I thank you for your leadership to the state of Minnesota, and hope that you will continue to represent Minnesotans faithfully. No legislation should be finalized until and unless basic moral criteria are met. The only way we will get needed health care reform legislation that protects the life, dignity, conscience and health of all is if you continue to provide strong and consistent moral and political leadership. I hope that we as Minnesotans can count on your help in this urgent task.

Please know of my prayers for you and your families as you face these decisions that will impact us all.

With every good wish, I remain,

Cordially yours in Christ,


The Most Reverend John C. Nienstedt

Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Letter of Archbishop Nienstedt to Minnesota's Congressional Delegation

March 15, 2010


E-Mail Message

Dear Senator or Representative,

I write to urge you, as a member of Senate or House, to commit yourself to enacting genuine health care reform that will protect the life, dignity, consciences, and health of all.

While I am grateful that the House health care bill, by way of the Stupak amendment, applies the existing prohibitions on federal funding for abortion, I am deeply concerned about the current Senate health care bill. This legislation fails to keep in place the current law. It requires taxpayers and the federal government to fund and facilitate plans which include elective abortion and then requires people in those plans to pay directly into a fund which only pays for abortions. This is unacceptable.

I thank you for your leadership to the state of Minnesota, and hope that you will continue to represent Minnesotans faithfully. No legislation should be finalized until and unless basic moral criteria are met. The only way we will get needed health care reform legislation that protects the life, dignity, conscience and health of all is if you continue to provide strong and consistent moral and political leadership. I hope that we as Minnesotans can count on your help in this urgent task.

Please know of my prayers for you and your families as you face these decisions that will impact us all.

With every good wish, I remain,

Cordially yours in Christ,


The Most Reverend John C. Nienstedt

Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Feast of St. Padraig

Happy feast of St. Padraig's. Here are a couple links to previous posts on this great saint including an essay from Msgr. Knox on the ascetical practices of St. Padraig.

http://tuitiofidei.blogspot.com/2009/03/happy-st-patricks-day.html

http://tuitiofidei.blogspot.com/2009/03/st-patricks-purgatory.html

Feast of St. Padraig

Happy feast of St. Padraig's. Here are a couple links to previous posts on this great saint including an essay from Msgr. Knox on the ascetical practices of St. Padraig.

http://tuitiofidei.blogspot.com/2009/03/happy-st-patricks-day.html

http://tuitiofidei.blogspot.com/2009/03/st-patricks-purgatory.html

Unknown Knight of Malta by Pinturicchio

Painting of an unknown Knight of Malta in background as Archbishop of Siena, Aeneas Piccolomini presents Eleanor of Portugal to Frederick III at the Comollia gate in Siena in 1451. Fresco by Pinturicchio (1502-07). Piccolomini Library, Duomo, Siena, Italy

Clarity in the Use of Liturgical Terms

Fr. Z has added a good commentary to an article by Prof. William Mahrt in Sacred Music on how the terms we use make a difference in understanding liturgical language.  Here is a sample and you can finish reading the article here.

Words make a difference. Even though two words are identical in basic meaning, their connotations may suggest that one is much more appropriate than the other. When it comes to music and liturgy, the connotations of some commonly-used words point to a mistaken ecclesiology. [Bingo!] This was an issue in the discussions of Music in Catholic Worship and Sing to the Lord. The former document represented an anthropocentric view of the church and her liturgy, while the latter, while far from perfect, yet included a much more theocentric view. I would suggest that if musicians and liturgists would consistently use the more appropriate terms, a change in attitude might gradually be effected. [Do I hear an "Amen!"?]

Take, for example, two words: assembly and congregation. [Oooo… good one to tackle.] “Congregation” was used before the council, but has largely been replaced by “assembly.” Etymologically there are subtle differences. “Assembly” derives from ad + simul, a coming together, making similar. “Congregation” comes from con + grex (flock), a gathering together in a flock. Some would object to calling the people in church a flock, as in a flock of sheep, who are simply herded around without exercising their own independent judgment. [Then people would take exception to our Lord describing His people as a "flock" and as "sheep".] But I would suggest that the difference between the two terms is more functional: “assembly” implies bringing people together without distinction, being made similar; “congregation” implies being brought together under the guidance of a shepherd. That shepherd, as we know, is Christ, who is represented liturgically by the priest, who acts in persona Christi, who leads in the place of Christ himself.

The Reign of Christ Over Nations

"So long as Christ does not reign over nations, His influence over individuals remains superficial and precarious.  If it is true that the work of the apostolate consists in the conversion of individuals and that nations as such do not go to heaven, but souls, one by one, we must not forget, nevertheless, that the individual member of society lives under the never-ceasing influence of his environment, in which, if we may not say the he is submerged, he is, at least, deeply plunged.  If the environment is non-Catholic, it prevents him from enmbracing the faith or, if he has the faith, it tends to root out of his heart every vestige of belief.  If we imagine Catholic social institutions, with Our Lord no longer living in the hearts of the individual members of society, then religion has there become merely a displeasing signboard which will  soon be torn down.  But, on the other hand, try to convert individuals without Catholicizing the social institutions and your work is without stability.  The structure you erect in the morning will be torn down by others in the evening.  Is not the strategy of the enemies of God there to teach us a lesson?  They want to destroy the faith in the hearts of individuals, it is true, but they direct still more vigorous efforts to the elimination of religion from social institutions.  Even one defeat of God in this domain means the weakening, if not the ruin, of the faith in the souls of many."  from the Kingship of Christ according to Cardinal Pie of Poitiers, p.59

Fun - The Meaning of Life

On the way home this morning I saw a bumper sticker that said Life is Meant To Be Fun! and then linked to a website no doubt promoting this philosophy.  Undoubtedly we should have fun in our lives and when things are fun they can be more enjoyable.  Even menial or dull tasks can be made to be fun, rendering them more pleasant to do.  But is 'Fun' really the meaning of life and where does this lead society if we make it the goal rather than something we enjoy along the way? Because when we encounter situations that cannot be made fun, we will be tempted to despair or become disheartened.

Last week after the Canadian women's Olympic hockey team won the gold medal they spent hours after the game, on the ice, celebrating their victory while smoking cigars and drinking champagne.  It is one thing to enjoy the moment with joyful exhuberance but quite another  to show up your opponent by turning the whole thing into an on ice victory party in front of them.  Add in the fact that a number of the girls were under the legal drinking and smoking age and you have a situation that showed a considerable lack of class and sportsmanship for the fans and opponents.  Why I mention this is that there were comments from a number of people following the article in the news that condoned their actions by reducing them to a common thread that, "they were just having fun."  It is one thing to have fun but quite another to make it your life's identity and excuse any type of behavior because it was "fun". 

Without going to deeply into the subject I think that there is a different philosophy that I believe is more Catholic and get's us to our ultimate goal, Heaven, without having to slog through a life absent any joy.  This idea comes from the title of a book on the lives of saints and is called Saints Are Not Sad.  It opens with a quote from St. Francis de Sales who said, "A sad saint would be a very sorry saint indeed."

So as we make our way through the remainder of Lent let us remember that the sacrifices and penances we undertook might not be 'fun' but we should still find joy in doing them.  For by God's grace they help us grow in holiness, to become saints and anything undertaken for the glory of God should bring us happiness, even if it isn't fun.

Msgr. Knox on Forty Days of Grace

Some thoughts of Msgr. Knox from one of his Lenten sermons that appeared in the London Times.

"Worldliness like yours," the preacher says, "would give God a perfectly good excuse for cutting you off, here and now, in your sins. What holds his hand is the appeal of Calvary. He is giving you a little more time to repent in; let us call it forty days. After that, if you remain impenitent, I cannot answer for what will happen."

Is the right recipe for Lent, then, to live as we would if we were certainly to die on Good Friday? No harm in the idea, but it misses the point. God's threats are conditional; when Jonah cried "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown," he meant, not that the city was doomed in any case but that only repentance could save it. In these days, when nations rather than individuals have become he units of history, perhaps we should think of sin abandoned as our hope of staving off the deluge.

St. John's Commandry Swingfield

Saint John's
Commandery in
Swingfield, Kent U.K.

Hospitallers preceptory founded 1180 on the site of the nunnery of the Sisters of the Order of St John of Jerusalem who were removed to Buckland Priory (ST 32 NW 3). The chapel is the only surviving building, it dates to the 13th century and was converted into a house after the Dissolution. Further alterations were made during the 18th century and 19th century. It was restored in 1972-74. Traces of other buildings survive as parchmarks and slight earthworks to the south and west of the chapel. It appears that the chapel was situated to the east of a courtyard. The cemetery lay to the northeast of the chapel.