Letter from Bishop McDonnell on the HHS Mandate

I write to you concerning an alarming and serious matter that strikes at the fundamental right to religious liberty for all citizens of any faith. The federal government, which claims to be “of, by, and for the people,” has just dealt a heavy blow to almost a quarter of those people—the Catholic population— and to the millions more who are served by the Catholic faithful.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced on January 20 that almost all employers, including Catholic hospitals, Catholic colleges and Catholic institutions, will be forced to offer their employees health coverage that includes sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraception. Almost all health insurers will be forced to include those “services” in the health policies they write. And almost all individuals will be forced to buy that coverage as a part of their policies.

In so ruling, the Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty. And as a result, unless the rule is overturned, Catholic entities will be compelled either to violate conscience, or drop health coverage for employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so). The Administration’s sole concession was to give our institutions one year to comply.


We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second class citizens. We are already joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many others of good will in this important effort to regain our religious freedom.

Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America’s cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God-given rights. In generations past, the Church has always been able to count on the faithful to stand up and protect sacred rights and duties. For the sake of future generations, I hope and trust she can count on this generation of Catholics to do the same.

And therefore, I would ask of you two things. First, as a community of faith we must commit ourselves to prayer and fasting that wisdom and justice may prevail, and religious liberty may be restored.

Without God, we can do nothing; with God, nothing is impossible. Second, I would also ask you to visit www.usccb.org/conscience, to learn more about this severe assault on religious liberty, and how to contact Congress in support of legislation to reverse the Administration’s decision.

You are in my prayers; please keep me in yours.

In Christ,
Most Reverend Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell
Bishop of Springfield, MA

Watch a Live Traditional Latin Mass

On my list of things I'd like to do someday is attend a traditional Latin Mass. I have no desire to give up attending the Novus Ordo, but I am curious about the Extraordinary Form. I think it would be interesting to see.

Tomorrow (February 2nd), His Excellency Archbishop Wenski of Miami will celebrate a Solemn Pontifical High Mass for the Feast of Candlemas at 7:30 p.m. It will be streamed live at www.LiveMass.net and on iMass.

Learn About a Modern Day Hermit

Now, here is a vocation I haven't thought about recently (although some days, I have to say, it sounds mighty appealing!), but Theresa Thomas just wrote an article about her sister who is a modern-day hermit.

As the article states: "According to definition, a hermit withdraws from the world, and spends most of the day in seclusion and silence, praying and fasting. A hermit publicly professes the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience, and follows a rule of life that the local bishop has approved. Mary’s specific rule and vows reflect her vocation of being a hermit of “crucified love”, which means her “plan of life” is centered on Christ crucified. Mary begins her day, fittingly, with Mass and spends many hours praying before the Blessed Sacrament. Because her “charism” is crucified love, she makes certain to spend the particular hours of noon to 3 p.m. in prayer and Adoration in church. Additional prayer and good works-physical and spiritual – accompany her time."

It truly is a fascinating article about a way of life I wasn't even sure existed anymore: My Sister the Hermit

On God, Life, and Space

Pondering space, at least for me, definitely makes the case for God. How could such an amazing universe ever be created via chance? But faith and science have had an uneasy relationship through the years.

U.S. Catholic recently interviewed Fr. George Coyne, the president of The Vatican Observatory Foundation and former director of The Vatican Observatory. His article offers a lot of food for thought about the relationship between faith and science and what studying the universe can tell us about God: Dancing with the Stars

The Truth About Life with a Huge Student Loan

One of the issues of this presidential campaign as well as of the recent Occupy movement is the cost of higher education and the burden of student loans. I’ve heard some people remark that people who complain about the cost of student loans are “whiners” and that they should have realized what they were getting into and acted more responsibly. Others trot out the old maxim, “I worked my way through college – today’s young people should do the same.”

I would like to start this article by saying that I am not, in any way, whining. I merely want to share some facts, including real dollar and cents information, on what life is like with a huge student loan and why something truly needs to be done about this growing problem.

I was very fortunate. I received a large scholarship for my undergraduate education, and my father generously covered the small percentage that we needed to pay for. I attended graduate school one class at a time which was paid for by the college since I worked there full-time.

My husband was not so lucky. He came from a poor background. After high school, he worked for several years and helped support his family. He returned to college in his mid-twenties. By attending a community college and a four-year institution at the same time, he was able to complete his undergraduate degree in three years. He then went on to law school – working full-time and attending school part-time in the evenings. In 2001, he graduated the month after our first child was born with $111,000 in debt.

That first student loan payment came due that November. Even with consolidating loans and the thirty-year graduated payment plan, the bill was for $800. It could have been a million dollars. The reality was, we simply didn’t have the money. We firmly believe in paying our bills, but there was no way we could pay that one. We worked with the Department of Education which holds the loan and were able to obtain a forbearance. We would pay $300 a month. It was a stretch, but we were able to pay it. I believe we paid that for two years. We then went up to $450 a month and $600 and finally the full amount which we have been paying for several years now. We currently pay $860 a month – more than we pay for our mortgage payment.

The issue is that during the years we couldn’t pay the full amount, the interest kept accruing. At its highest point, the loan reached $130,000. We have now been paying on this loan for over ten years. During that time, we have paid $73,964.98, yet the principal amount is still $126,082.58. I will repeat that so that it can sink in – we have paid over seventy thousand dollars yet the amount we owe is still fifteen thousand dollars more than we started out owing! Can you understand why this can make people throw up their arms in frustration? As much as I would like to honor this debt and pay off this loan, pending an unexpected financial windfall, we will most likely die before it is paid off.

Meanwhile, it has impacted every financial decision we have made. It affects our ability to save for our children’s education and retirement. Plus, there is the psychological weight of knowing that we owe this money.

I stated in the beginning that I was not whining and that is true. We have been blessed. We are able to make the payments. My husband’s education allowed him to pursue a career which gives him fulfillment and allows me to work part-time from home and home-school our children. Plus, at least he received both an undergraduate and graduate education for the amount we owe. Today, that amount of loans can easily be accumulated simply obtaining an undergraduate degree. If both a husband and wife have this amount of loans, the result is truly financially crippling.

Unlike home loans or car loans, which are based on income and what you are buying and can be made as prudent financial decisions, student loans are based on hope – the hope of future earnings. I know that when we were signing for these loans, we knew the amount was large, but we had no concept of what it would take to pay them. We certainly didn’t have the money to pay for the classes out-of-pocket. They were necessary for him to obtain his education. We simply hoped it would all work out.

Today, as a parent, I don’t know how to advise my children. I want them to be able to fulfill their potential and obtain a higher education if that is what they want. At the same time, I know the reality of living with large student loan debt. Something must be done about the high cost of higher education and the burden of student loans. This is a very real issue that isn’t going away anytime soon.

Small Kindnesses Matter

It is amazing how much small kindnesses can matter. We may never know the effect a smile or kind word has on someone. I'm currently reading Streams of Contentment: Lessons I Learned on My Uncle's Farm by Robert J. Wicks. In that book, he shares this story from a collection by William Bausch:

The pastor of a small church received an envelope marked, "Please give to Harry the usher." The pastor put it in his pocket and didn't think much about it until he came across Harry on Sunday and then remembered to retrieve it for him.

The pastor stayed with the usher while he read the letter. Then, with tears in his eyes, Harry handed the letter to the priest, who read:

Dear Harry,

I'm sorry I don't know your last name, but then you don't know mine either. I'm Gert, Gert at the ten o'clock Mass every Sunday. I'm writing to ask you a favor. I don't know the priests too well, but somehow feel close to you. I don't know how you got to know my first name, but every Sunday morning you smile and greet me by name, and we exchange a few words: how bad the weather is, how much you like my hat, and how I am late on a particular Sunday. I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to remember an old woman, for the smiles, for your consideration, for your thoughtfulness.

Now for the favor. I am dying, Harry. My husband has been dead for sixteen years, and the kids are scattered. It's very important to me that when they bring me to church for the last time, you be there to say, "Hello, Gert. Good to see you." If you are there, Harry, I will feel assured that your warm hospitality will be duplicated in my new home in heaven.

With love and gratitude,
Gert

It was so easy to be a parent . . . before we had kids!

I think most of us had some preconceived idea of what type of parents we would be before we had children. After all, we read the parenting books, websites, etc. We were educated and well-versed in child psychology! Our children would always be well-behaved and polite and would never embarrass us. We may even have explained the "right" way to parent to some of our friends.

And then, we actually had these children, who from day one were people in their own right with their own ideas about when they would sleep, what they would eat, and how they would behave. And we were humbled . . . sometimes daily.

I know I now try to refrain from giving parenting advice, unless directly asked, or I think it is REALLY, REALLY important. Because even though I have nearly 11 years of parenting experience under my belt, every child is different and what works with one will not necessarily work with another. Instead, I try to lend a sympathetic ear and reassure the struggling parent that this issue, whatever it may be, will pass. I have to remind myself of that frequently as well.

Erin Franco offers her own take on this subject in this article on Catholic Mom: Confessions of a Former Mommy Know-It-All