The excitement following the election of Pope Francis has been amazing.  Like those before him, this Pope so clearly carries on the work of his predecessors with his own unique style.  I cannot help but be taken by Pope Francis’ physical, public manifestations of caritas, charity.  The Church has been blessed recently by very holy men sitting upon the Chair of St. Peter who have gifted us with a framework in which to operate in this ever-changing world.

“Newness” can be exciting, and, indeed, our faith is meant to be a constant renewal of the culture and the individual souls living in it.  Yet, our belief is anchored in the person of Jesus Christ, and in truths as old as the faith itself.

In his first homily, Pope Francis spoke of “journeying, building and professing,” and of St. Peter who did not want our Lord to suffer:  “The same Peter who professed Jesus Christ, now says to him: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. I will follow you, but let us not speak of the Cross. That has nothing to do with it. I will follow you on other terms, but without the Cross. When we journey without the Cross, when we build without the Cross, when we profess Christ without the Cross, we are not disciples of the Lord, we are worldly: we may be bishops, priests, cardinals, popes, but not disciples of the Lord.”

Pope Francis’ admonition pertains not only to the Cardinals present at his first homily, but to all of us.  What we build in our families, at work, in all of our interactions with others, must be formed with the sacrifice of our Lord foremost in our minds.  Nothing lasting or worthwhile can be created on foundations any less sure than this. If we seek the easy way over the hard work of bringing the Word to others – in spite of threat, difficulty or discomfort – what have we built for God’s kingdom?

Our charitable work must be the same, whether it be the professional type through Catholic Charities, or the heart-to-heart variety that should be practiced by every Christian with all they meet (though I’d argue these are not meant to look that different).

Pope Francis continued, “We can walk as much as we want, we can build many things, but if we do not profess Jesus Christ, things go wrong. We may become a charitable NGO [nongovernmental organization], but not the Church, the Bride of the Lord. . . .When we are not building on the stones, what happens? The same thing that happens to children on the beach when they build sandcastles: everything is swept away, there is no solidity. When we do not profess Jesus Christ, the saying of Léon Bloy comes to mind: ‘Anyone who does not pray to the Lord prays to the devil.’ When we do not profess Jesus Christ, we profess the worldliness of the devil, a demonic worldliness.”

We are not meant to resemble the world in the good work we do, because the world does not base its activity on the cross of Christ.  The more we look like those who reject Christ, whether they be our lost neighbors or the secular nonprofit next door, the more we lose our hold on the transformative power of God in the work we do.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote of this in his encyclical, Deus Caritas Est:  “We are dealing with human beings, and human beings always need something more than technically proper care. They need humanity. They need heartfelt concern. Those who work for the Church’s charitable organizations must be distinguished by the fact that they do not merely meet the needs of the moment, but they dedicate themselves to others with heartfelt concern, enabling them to experience the richness of their humanity. Consequently, in addition to their necessary professional training, these charity workers need a ‘formation of the heart’: they need to be led to that encounter with God in Christ which awakens their love and opens their spirits to others.”

We are called to this formation of heart that changes our mere activity into something elevated by grace. This is no easy task, but linking ourselves to the cross in all things will open us to a richness of living to which no worldly inclination can compare.

Pope Francis concluded with a call for courage for which we should all pray:  “My wish is that all of us, after these days of grace, will have the courage, yes, the courage, to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Lord’s Cross; to build the Church on the Lord’s blood which was poured out on the Cross; and to profess the one glory: Christ crucified. And in this way, the Church will go forward.”

Read more about it here

“Ciskanik said that donors and sponsors are attracted to the college because of its commitment to an authentic Catholic liberal arts education, its refusal to accept federal funding, and its high-caliber alumni.

‘While I would put the academics of Christendom College against any other school for helping its graduates learn to think, Christendom’s approach is much more than this,’ Rohlena said during his remarks. ‘The school’s mission is to create and train a vanguard of Catholic men and women who are equipped intellectually and spiritually to go out and meet the growing threat. Graduates are called to actively propose a counter-culture to the withering and stagnant culture that we see gaining strength all around us.’”

I participated in a roundtable discussion on Bishop Sheridan presents, Bishop Michael Sheridan’s radio program.  We had a fun discussion of the conclave, our impressions of Pope Francis, and hopes for the Church.  It’s worth a listen,  JUST CLICK HERE AND SELECT THE POPE FRANCIS ROUNDTABLE

The recent debate on civil unions in Colorado was instructive in many ways. We learned from candid comments that many state legislators have personal issues with the Catholic Church. We learned, too, of growing intolerance toward individuals with sincerely-held religious beliefs. The message to those who adhere to certain enduring teachings is that you may only express your faith within the walls of your church.

While these hostile views on faith are troubling on many levels, one sentiment stands out. Increasingly, charitable ministry is being described by proponents of social change as mere business. “If you want to be in the marketplace, then you must adhere to every requirement that government advances, even if it violates your doctrine. This is the cost of doing business,” they say. Yet, the idea that the Church’s care for those in need is a side business worthy of less protection than the right to worship is contrary to doctrine and experience.

In his encyclical on Christian charity, Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict VXI expresses the reality: “Love of neighbor, grounded in the love of God, is first and foremost a responsibility for each individual member of the faithful, but it is also a responsibility for the entire ecclesial community at every level: from the local community to the particular Church and to the Church universal in its entirety. As a community, the Church must practice love. Love thus needs to be organized if it is to be an ordered service to the community.”

Pope Benedict further stresses the indispensable role of charity: “As the years went by and the Church spread further afield, the exercise of charity became established as one of her essential activities, along with the administration of the sacraments and the proclamation of the word: love for widows and orphans, prisoners, and the sick and needy of every kind, is as essential to her as the ministry of the sacraments and preaching of the Gospel.”

Can there be any doubt that Christians must practice charity outside the confines of the parish? Charity must permeate our lives in every place, at every time. This universal call is not dependent on civil law. Living the faith, including the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, has subjected Christians to punishment and death at times (and still do today), but the faithful continue to risk all to truly live charity.

We know from scripture (Acts, chapt. 6), for instance, that the Apostles chose the first deacons to care for those in need. The Church modified her structure to ensure care of neighbor remained a priority.

Before the conversion of Rome in the 4th century, infanticide was common, as unwanted children were left out in the elements to die. Christians rescued these children, often raising them as their own in their communities. These merciful acts, as well as burying the dead and simply being Christian brought with them extreme danger.

Throughout the centuries, the Church has continued its care for those in need. Countless members of the faithful have given their lives to this work, and even religious orders formed to serve the poor. The Church has provided unceasing witness to the two great commandments – to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbors as ourselves. While the form of charity has changed over time, it has never been absent. At times this charity has been welcomed by civil authority, and other times the state has done all it can to crush it.

In today’s nonprofit environment, the Church’s ministries operate in various legal frameworks. But the fact that a ministry utilizes a tax exempt status does not mean that it has become a mere private sector business that must abandon its animating principles. These organizations still represent the Church’s charitable identity and must honor all of her doctrines. This ministry predates the state’s interests, and the state should afford the same kinds of protection to the charity of the Church as it does to the right to worship in the pew.

Viewing the charity of the Church as a series of business transactions does not capture the truth. When others try to portray the faith as backward and oppressive, remind them that the Church is the largest charitable organization on the face of the earth. No other faith tradition inspires such care of others, and we must never allow this ministry to be defined as mere commerce.

Mark C. Rohlena, Esq.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mark is the CEO of Catholic Charities of Central Colorado. He is a monthly columnist with the Colorado Catholic Herald and His blog, The Charity of Christ has received national acclaim.

I was interviewed the other day by Eric Singer, an anchor with the local ABC affiliate, KRDO,  on the potential impact of the passage of the Colorado civil unions bill.  I think it is a fair news story on the issue. 

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO AND TEXT

Enjoy!

I was part of a Panel Discussion on Warren Olney’s “To The Point” on Public Radio KCRW out of LA.  Of course, the topic was same sex unions and I weighed in on Colorado’s Civil Unions.

You can find the link  BY CLICKING HERE and then clicking the “listen” or download buttons. I come in a 21:16, and then respond in an exchange that starts at 37:52.  Enjoy!

     The First Amendment to the United States Constitution establishes religious freedom as our first, most cherished right. The Colorado Constitution also upholds this principle, ensuring the rights of Coloradans to practice their religious beliefs. In rejecting conscience protections, our government seeks to determine where religiously-affiliated organizations may carry out their charitable work. It has begun to construct an untenable framework that permits the state to determine that faith, for some, may only be lived within the four walls of a church. The General Assembly has said, in essence, that many Coloradans with sincerely held religious beliefs are unfit to be in the marketplace and public square even though their faith requires them to be active there. Some legislators have said as much explicitly. Primary bill sponsor Senator Pat Steadman, speaking of organizations like those who seek to operate their charitable ministries in accord with their beliefs on traditional marriage (beliefs which comport with the definition of marriage in our state Constitution), said: “So, what to say to those who claim that religion requires them to discriminate? I’ll tell you what I’d say. Get thee to a nunnery and live there then. Go live a monastic life away from modern society, away from the people you can’t see as equal to yourself.” This message is outrageous and demonstrates a deep intolerance of the religious beliefs of many Coloradans.
 
     The Catholic Church has very publicly served those most in need, including children, for 2000 years. It has done so without regard to race, creed or sex. The Church’s very identity, and Catholic Charities’ identity by extension, is bound up in its charitable work. This work is as important to the life of the faithful as the sacraments and proclamation of the Gospel. The Church’s charitable work has continued throughout the centuries, even when such service was punishable by death at various times in history. When undertaking this work, the Church and its related entities are engaged in ministry, not mere business.

     The Colorado General Assembly has done a great disservice to children in need by rejecting religious freedom protections. Inexplicably, most of the legislators who support Senate Bill 11 also supported conscience protections last year, but have refused to do so this year. The government has now set the stage to disregard the desires of many birth parents, as well as the voices of so many adoptive parents who seek to work with an agency that shares its religious beliefs in this very personal decision. The General Assembly’s actions will also likely plunge Colorado, a state with significant diversity of belief, into years of unnecessary litigation to force our leaders to uphold the principles that our state and federal Constitutions so clearly seek to protect.

The Most Reverend Michael J. Sheridan            
Bishop of the Diocese of Colorado Springs        

Mark C. Rohlena
President and CEO
Catholic Charities of Central Colorado

What causes us to lose focus in the first place? How, at certain times, do we find ourselves acting so differently from the people we aspire to be? How often do we leave an interaction wishing that we were more attentive, more loving, less angry or full of gossip?

A spiritual battle as old as mankind is being waged all around us. It has been said that the devil’s greatest trick was convincing the world that he didn’t exist.  What a brilliant tactic!

If Satan doesn’t exist, then why be on our guard?  If there is no tempter, is there really any temptation or even sin? If there is no sin, why bother with the Church’s redemptive sacrament of reconciliation or Eucharistic abandonment to God’s will? We may live as we please because the Church is really just holding up repressive human constructs as God’s law.

Satan has been practicing this line of attack since he approached our first parents in the Garden of Eden.  He worked to convince Adam and Eve that sin did not exist, and attempted to argue that God was not the supreme lawgiver and creator of all things.  Instead, with forked tongue and malice in his heart, he portrayed God as arbitrary, a being striving to keep man from reaching full potential.

Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that Satan works constantly against us, and did so even with our Lord.  In the Pope’s Angelus remarks from February 17, he takes us through Satan’s temptations of Jesus in the wilderness.

Sts. Matthew and Luke present us with nearly identical accounts (Mt 4:1-11, Lk 4:1-13).  Satan tries to tempt Jesus, who had fasted for forty days, to turn stones into bread.  Satan then takes Jesus to the top of the temple and says he should throw himself down, because scripture says the angels will support him and keep him from harm. Finally, Satan shows Jesus all of the kingdoms of the world, indicating that these are his to give, if Jesus will only worship him.

Satan clearly knows and quotes scripture to his own ends, but Jesus, himself, is the Word.  Each of Jesus’ responses stifles the attack of the enemy in dramatic fashion.  Yet, Jesus does not directly refute the claim about Satan’s power in this world.  God surely didn’t hand over this power, but we, in our free will, often give Satan the dominion over our souls that he seeks.

Pope Benedict continues:  “Yet these temptations are also false images of man that threaten to ensnare our conscience, in the guise of suitable, effective and even good proposals. . . .The tempter is cunning. He does not directly impel us towards evil but rather towards a false good, making us believe that the true realities are power and everything that satisfies our primary needs. In this way God becomes secondary, he is reduced to a means; in short, he becomes unreal, he no longer counts, he disappears. Ultimately, in temptation faith is at stake because God is at stake.”

We often view sin as a bold and active rejection of God.  In some rare cases, people reject God outright.  For most of us, though, we habituate ourselves into elevating lower created goods above the very thing for which we were created – God.  We listen to the voice of Satan that echoed in the ears of Adam and Eve so long ago, a voice whispering that God’s law is unimportant and that we have nothing to worry about if we violate it in small ways.  The ruinous effect is evident in the evil man has committed on the Earth throughout human history.

This Lent, then, let us mind the entire house of our soul.  The front door may be guarded, but have we left a window open for Satan to enter?  Where does the tempter’s voice reach us?  Satan, a student of human nature, knows where to apply pressure against us.  Together, let us examine our lives in a quiet, prayerful way to see where we must be on guard.

Even though we must be watchful, take comfort that God is with us.  Pope Benedict puts it beautifully, “let us not be afraid either of facing the battle against the spirit of evil: the important thing is to fight it with him, with Christ, the Conqueror. And to be with him let us turn to his Mother, Mary; let us call on her with filial trust in the hour of trial and she will make us feel the powerful presence of her divine Son, so that we can reject temptations with Christ’s word and thus put God back at the center of our life.”

*This article by Mark Rohlena, Esq., first appeared in The Colorado Catholic Herald on March 1,2013.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mark C. Rohlena, Esq.

Mark is the CEO of Catholic Charities of Central Colorado.  He is a monthly columnist with the Colorado Catholic Herald and His blog, The Charity of Christ has received national acclaim.

The full piece can be found at the Denver Post by CLICKING HERE.  Please read his very reasonable comments.

Some key quotes:

A former classmate of mine, Professor Donald S. Prudlo, puts the historical context around Pope Benedict’s decision. You can read what he wrote at Crisis Magazine online by CLICKING HERE

Professor Prudlo points out that the last Pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, who resigned to bring an end to the Great Western Schism in 1415. 

The conclave to select the new Holy Father will likely take place in March.

The Holy Father’s statement about his resignation, made at a canonization consistory, where the Church named three new saints, is reproduced in its entirety below.  You can find it on the Vatican website:

Dear Brothers,

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.  I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the barque of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects.  And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.

From the Vatican, 10 February 2013

BENEDICTUS PP XVI