Source: The Gospel in the Digital Age

Over the last six months or so, the Catholic Church in the United States has found itself in some tension with the executive branch of the federal government over a very grave issue:  religious freedom.  Can a government bureau, in this case the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), define for us or any faith community what is ministry and how it can be exercised?  Can government also coerce the church to violate its conscience?

I wanted to let you, the great people of the archdiocese, know how we’re doing in this fight.  Thank you for your extraordinary unity, support, and encouragement.  Throughout all the archdiocese, our people – both as patriotic citizens and committed Catholics — have been very effective in letting government know that we are not at peace at all with this attempt to curtail the  freedom of religion and sanctity of conviction we cherish as both Catholics and Americans.

This has not been a fight of our choosing.  We’d rather not be in it.  We’d prefer to concentrate on the noble tasks of healing the sick, teaching our youth, and helping the poor, all now in jeopardy due to this bureaucratic intrusion into the internal life of the church.  And we were doing all of those noble works rather well, I dare say, without these radical new mandates from the government.  The Catholic Church in America has a long tradition of partnership with government and the wider community in the service of the sick, our children, our elders, and the poor at home and abroad.  We’d sure rather be partnering than punching.

Nor is this a “Catholic” fight alone.  As a nurse from Harrison emailed me, “Cardinal, I’m not so much mad about all this as a Catholic, but as an American.”  It was a Baptist minister, Governor Mike Huckabee, who observed, “In this matter, we’re all Catholics.”

And it is not just about sterilization, abortifacients, and chemical contraception.  Pure and simple, it’s about religious freedom, the sacred right, protected by our constitution, of any Church to define its own teaching and ministry.

When the President announced on January 20^th that the choking mandates from HHS would remain — a shock to me, since he had personally assured me that he would do nothing to impede the good work of the Church in health care, education, and charity, and that he considered the protection of conscience a sacred duty — not only you, but men and women of every faith, or none at all, rallied in protest.  The worry that we bishops had expressed — that such government control was contrary to our deepest political values — was eloquently articulated by constitutional scholars and leaders of every creed.  Even newspaper editorials supported us!

On February 10^th, the President announced that the insurance providers would have to pay the bill, not the Church’s schools, hospitals, clinics, or vast network of charitable outreach.  He considered this “concession” adequate.

Did this help?  We bishops wondered if it would, and announced at first that, while withholding final judgment, we would certainly give it close scrutiny.

Well, we have — and we’re still as worried as ever.  For one, there was not even a nod to the deeper concerns about trespassing upon religious freedom, or of modifying the HHS’ attempt to define the how and who of our ministry through the suffocating mandates.

Two, since a big part of our ministries are “self-insured,” how is this going to help us?  We’ll still have to pay!  And what about individual believers being coerced to pay?

Three, there was still no resolution about the handcuffs placed upon renowned Catholic charitable agencies, both national and international, and their exclusion from contracts just because they will not refer victims of human trafficking, immigrants and refugees, and the hungry of the world, for abortions, sterilization, or contraception.

So, we have given it careful study.  Our conclusion: we’re still very worried.  There seem far more questions than answers, more confusion than clarity.

Now what to do?

Well, for one, we’ll keep up advocacy and education on the issue.  We continue to tap into your concern as citizens and count on your support.  Regrettably, the unity of the Catholic community has been tempered a bit by those who think the President has listened to us and now we can quit worrying.  You’re sure free to take their advice.  But I hope you’ll listen to your pastors who are still very concerned.

Two, we’ll continue to seek a rescinding of the suffocating mandates that require us to violate our moral convictions — or at least a wider latitude to the exemptions so that churches can be free — and of the rigidly narrow definition of church, minister, and ministry that would prevent us from helping those in need, educating children, and healing the sick who are not Catholic.

The President invited us to “work out the wrinkles,” and we have been taking him seriously.  Unfortunately, this seems to be going nowhere: the White House Press Secretary, for instance, informed the nation that the mandates are a fait accompli (and, embarrassingly for him, commented that we bishops have always opposed Health Care anyway, a charge that is simply scurrilous and insulting). The White House already notified Congress that the dreaded mandates are now published in the Federal Registry “without change.” The Secretary of HHS is widely quoted as saying, “Religious insurance companies don’t really design the plans they sell based on their own religious tenets,” which doesn’t bode well for a truly acceptable “accommodation.”  And a recent meeting between staff of the bishops’ conference and the White House staff ended with the President’s people informing us that the broader concerns of religious freedom — that is, revisiting the straight-jacketing mandates, or broadening the maligned exemption—are all off the table.  Instead, they advised the bishops’ conference that we should listen to the “enlightened” voices of accommodation, such as the recent hardly-surprising but terribly unfortunate editorial in America.  The White House seems to think we bishops are hopelessly out of touch with our people, and with those whom the White House now has nominated as official Catholic teachers.

So, I don’t know if we’ll get anywhere with the executive branch.

Congress offers more hope, with thoughtful elected officials proposing promising legislation to protect what should be so obvious: religious freedom.  As is clear from the current debate in the senate, our opponents are marketing this as a “woman’s health issue.”  Of course, it cannot be reduced to that.  It’s about religious freedom.  (By the way, the Church hardly needs to be lectured about health care for women.  Thanks mostly to our Sisters, the Church is the largest private provider of health care for women and their babies in the country.  Here in New York State, Fidelis, the Medicare/Medicaid insurance provider, owned by the Church, consistently receives top ratings for its quality of service to women and children.)

And the courts offer the most light.  In the recent Hosanna-Tabor ruling, the Supreme Court unanimously and enthusiastically defended the right of a Church to define its own ministry and services, a dramatic rebuff to the administration, but one apparently unheeded by the White House.  Thus, our bishops’ conference and many individual religious entities are working with some top-notch law firms who have told us they feel so strongly about this that they will represent us pro-bono.

So, we have to be realistic and prepare for tough times.  Some, like America magazine,  want us to cave-in and stop fighting, saying this is simply a policy issue; some want us to close everything down rather than comply (In an excellent article, Cardinal Francis George wrote that the administration apparently wants us to “give up for Lent” our schools, hospitals, and charitable ministries); some want us to engage in civil disobedience and be fined; some worry that we’ll have to face a decision between two ethically repugnant choices: subsidizing immoral services or no longer offering insurance coverage, a road none of us wants to travel.

Sorry to go on at such length.  You can see how passionately I feel about this.  But, from what I sense, you do too.  You all have been such an inspiration, and I owe it to you to keep you posted.  We need you more than ever!  We can’t give up hoping, praying, trying, and working hard.

Source: UGCC.org
«Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!»
Mt. 4:17

Dear in Christ!

With these words of our Divine Savior, the Church of Christ is calling today each and every one of us to commence a blessed time of the Great Fast. The name “Great” of this fast is not accidental: it is caused by those God’s gifts and fruits for our spiritual life, which we can attain during this time, provided we spend it worthily. The greatness of this time is likewise determined by the depth of a spiritual change of our person and our life, which will be the result of the meeting with the merciful and loving Heavenly Father.

Hence, how do we live out this period worthily, so as to transform and enrich our lives? First of all, dear in Christ, we need to remember that fasting does not only mean limiting ourselves in food and entertainment. Fasting is primarily to keep away from sin, from evil habits and passions. It is also a rejection of indifference, evil thoughts and selfishness. Lent is an invitation, addressed to each of us, wounded by sins, encumbered with infirmities and depleted with the daily chores, to surrender ourselves to the Lord’s embrace.

The Fathers and spiritual teachers of the Church, urging Christians to live out the fast worthily, called it a time of spiritual awakening and renewal of man; they compared it with the spiritual spring, during which the divine life awakens in our souls: “…When winter ends and we start coming closer to the spring warmth, a seafarer takes his boat again out into the sea, a soldier cleans his weapons and trains his horse for a fight, a peasant sharpens his tools, a traveler, having felt a surge of strength, girds and embarks on a journey… And so let us also, at this time of the coming of the spiritual spring, similarly fix our spiritual weapons as soldiers, let us sharpen our tools as farmers, and, like the true leaders, let us take into our hands the boat of our spirit so as to be prepared to endure the heaps of the waves of senseless passions and, as the pilgrims heading towards our heavenly homeland, let us begin the fulfillment of our spiritual journey” (St. John Chrysostom, Word to the Antiochian People, 3).

Lent is a special time of repentance and penance. Just as in nature, a normal sign of an early spring is the awakening of all creatures to a new life, similarly the human soul, through repentance and penance, comes to life and, having been warmed by the warmness of God’s mercy and love, is freed from the dead stiffness and produces sprouts of a new life in the Holy Spirit. Whoever honestly admits his sins in the Holy Sacrament of Penance, feels the good-giving action of the warmth of God’s life-giving love. And just as spring wins over winter, so the power of the Lord’s forgiveness wins over fear, weakness and disbelief in us, proving that the Divine love is stronger than our sin and that there is no evil force, which would be able to resist the saving mercy of the Heavenly Father. That is why Prophet David, in repenting burst, sings to the Lord: “May Your compassion come to me that I may live, for Your law is my delight” (Ps. 119:77). Revived through repentance and penance and united with the Lord in the Holy Communion, a believer blossoms with God’s beauty of the righteous life and becomes the bearer of hope for his environs as well as for the entire society. For just as sin has a devastating impact not only on a sinner himself, but on all of his environs as well, conversion and repentance bring healing to our relationship with God, our neighbor and all of the creation.

Lent is a time of intensive prayer. Giving up during this period on entertainment, we concomitantly need to pay more attention to the communication with God: through participation in Lenten liturgical services in the church as well as through longer and more intense prayer in family circle and solitude. We cannot devoid of our attention a practice that has recently been introduced in our Church – the reading of God’s Word. Every day the faithful, whether alone or with the family or gathered in prayer groups in parishes, reflect upon and pray with some excerpts from the Sacred Scripture. In this way, the Word of God becomes for us a spiritual nourishment as well as recalls for us that “man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Mt. 4:4). I fervently entrust to continue and spread this pious practice. And for those who have not started doing this yet, may Lent become an opportunity to begin to get to know the Word of God as well as to live it out ever more.

Charitable deeds are likewise a necessary condition of Lenten spiritual journey. The Lord, through the words of the Prophet Isaiah, directs to all of us a special call, showing the meaning of an authentic fast: “Is this not the fast that choose? … Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into the house; when you see the naked to cover him; and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?” (Is. 58:6-7). Just as in nature, the emergence of fresh green shoots in spring exposes the life of a plant, so the Christian almsgiving is a sign of the spiritual awakening of man, his openness to God and neighbor as well as a compelling witness of the living faith, “working through love” (Gal. 5:6). All Christians are called to do the almsgiving, regardless of wealth or financial capability. St. Pope Leo the Great teaches that “nothing can get into the way of our charity, with which we fulfill a vocation of the love of God and neighbor… Not only the rich and wealthy can perform the charity works vis-à-vis their neighbor, but also those that are poor and with the limited fortunes… Almsgiving transforms inequality in terms of the earthly goods into equality in obtaining the heavenly gifts” (Word on the occasion of Lent, 6, 1-2).

Dear in Christ! The time of Lent opens for us the way to Heaven. Let’s embark on it in the spirit of repentance, prayer and almsgiving. Let us walk it together, growing in the grace of the Holy Spirit. Let me remind you about the obligation to partake in this blessed time in the Holy Sacraments of Confession and Communion. May Lent grant us with the renewal of the spiritual life, the awakening of the Christian zeal and love of God and neighbor in our parish communities and monastery ambits! I implore our Father, “who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tm. 2:4), to lovingly bring all of you closer to His merciful paternal heart and, having forgiven your sins, make you, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the partakers of the glory of the resurrection of His Divine Son.

The blessing of the Lord be upon you!

† SVIATOSLAV

Given in Kyiv,
at the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ,
on Cheesefare Saturday, 25^th February 2012 A. D.

During the Synod of Bishops, held from February 8–9, 2012, in retreat center of the Lviv Archeparchy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Bryukhovychi (near Lviv), began the Year of Remembrance of Patriarch Josyf Slipyj in honor of the 120th anniversary of his birth, which is celebrated on February 17. This is stated in the message of the Synod of Bishops to the faithful on the occasion of the 120th anniversary of Patriarch Josyf Slipyj, which was passed to UNIAN new agency.

In the message the bishops recall Patriarch Slipyj is a “live embodiment of the fate of the Ukrainian Church and our people in the twentieth century – he, like many others, were unlawfully deprived of liberty (18 years imprisonment). He, like millions of Ukrainians, was doomed to torture in the dungeons of the NKVD/KGB and martyrdom in the Gulag. Even if in prison he was a ‘silent witness of the Church,’ later, in the settlements (outside Ukraine), he became the voice of the ‘silent Church’ and its spiritual support, never forgetting his countrymen, who were still being punished in captivity.”

The bishops of the UGCC believe that these words are also spoken to us today. “To those who have to live in conditions of selective justice, increasingly more restrictions on the right to assembly and demonstration, to receive and disseminate accurate information, in a time when the national language and culture is being forced out from public life. In Ukraine, unfortunately, there is no stop to the troublesome tradition of abuse of power and disregard for human dignity, violation of national, cultural and religious rights, neglect by ones own, accompanied by pursuit of honors and thirst for power,” states the document of the Synod.

According to the Synod, Patriarch Slipyj’s views on national unity today “are a guiding light,” since now there is still a lack of unity and it becomes “our national disaster when people are artificially divided by regional, historical, linguistic and cultural characteristics.”

In their message, the bishops stress that thanks to Patriarch Slipyj the Church in the diaspora not only survived but has become a world Church, without which today it is difficult to imagine the landscape of the Catholic Church in the world.

“Today normative for us are the two fundamental principles with which Patriarch Slipyj described the UGCC’s church identity: the first, communion with the Bishop of Rome, and the second, allegiance to the Eastern Byzantine tradition,” said Synod.

Therefore, the bishops encourage the faithful of the Church to pray for the glory of Patriarch Slipyj and participate in festivities planned by the UGCC and the state in this anniversary year, but they say the best way to honor him is “to make Patriarch Slipyj’s ideals ours.”

Source: Feb 19, 2012 The Way

Father Pavlo held the second priestly forums giving us a state of the parish address after Liturgy last Sunday. At the well-attended event, he went over the financial committee’s report and then discussed where the parish is headed. Here is a summary for those who were unable to attend:

1. Lent/the Great Fast starts on Clean Monday, Feb. 20th. (Or, one could say, it starts the evening before following Sunday vespers on the 19th.) We will have the Rite of Forgiveness service during the Liturgy on Sunday the 19th.

2. Our full parish catechetical program will start on February 26th following the Divine Liturgy (starting around 11:30/11:45). Father Pavlo will discuss the who, what, when, where, why and how of the Great Fast in our Byzantine/Kyivan tradition. He will focus on adult catechesis and all are welcome, including interested guests. Parishioners are especially encouraged to attend.

3. Our catechetical program, Generations of Faith, will be held around every 1.5 – 2 months with a new topic at each event. Watch the bulletin for more info!

4. Childrens’ catechesis will begin in full swing in the Fall and will be held weekly once it starts.

5. Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts will be held Wednesday and Friday evenings at 7PM throughout the Great Fast. The first and fifth week of Lent are different in structure, so follow the announcements.

6. After Pascha/Easter, we will introduce more liturgical services such as Vespers and liturgy outside of Sunday. Please pray for our parish as we grow and please support Father Pavlo as he prays with and for our community!

7. We placed the property on the side of the church for sale. If you know anyone who is looking, please let them know about this fantastic location right off the tollway. We are also trying to rent the parish hall and its adjoining 2 classrooms (about 1900 square feet) for use during the week. Please spread the word!

8. Please remember to show appreciation to those who volunteer. Don’t wait until you’re asked to help. There is so much that needs to be done that you need only offer!

Our bishop sent a letter to all of the parishes in the St. Nicholas Eparchy and asked that the content in it be announced in all of his churches. He stands with his fellow bishops in the USCCB in denouncing the Health and Human Services department’s decision to force all American employers–including Catholic hospitals, charities, schools, and small business owners–and employees to fund and use health insurance which provides and subsidizes contraceptives, abortifacients like ella and Plan B, and sterilizations.

Bp. Richard Stephen says, ”We cannot–we will not–comply with this unjust law.” Please read his letter below and then act as he directs.

Holy Supper is a tradition of Slavic Christians including those from Ukraine.

It is a traditional lenten meal on the eve of the Nativity of Our Lord (Christmas Eve). Since Christmas is preceded by forty days of fasting, the Holy Supper is the last meal of the fast. The twelve fasting foods usually served are barley, honey, stewed prunes, pierogi, sauerkraut, potatoes, lima beans, garlic, Lenten bread, mushroom soup and salt. The meal begins with the singing of the Christmas troparion (a hymn) and the lighting of a candle placed in the center of the table. The candle symbolizes the star of Bethlehem. The bread is then broken by the father of the house and given to everyone present. This symbolizes Christ at the Last Supper. The foods range from bitter to sweet to remind us of the bitterness of life before Christ was born and the sweetness of life which comes after His birth. The number 12 symbolizes the twelve apostles.

The Holy Supper usually takes place in the home with the father leading the family in the prayer ritual. It begins with the youngest child reading the Nativity account from the gospel of St. Matthew 2:1-12. The father then starts with an opening prayer asking God to bless the bread, wine, and food. He then breaks the bread and passes it out to all present.

Some believers preserve this tradition by eating the Holy Supper with the parish family, having the priest, who is the father of the church family, performing the prayers. Since families no longer live close together and few have the time to cook the necessary dishes, the tradition of the Holy Supper is in danger of being lost if not for those like Ed and Stephanie Beakey who work to preserve it and pass it on. We are grateful for their tireless effort and the delicious food again this year! And also to Chris who thought to snap a few pictures and graciously shared them.

This Catholic Tech Talk article by Brad West lists St. Sophia’s among its notable parish websites! Just think how much better it will be when yours truly, the webmaster, figures out what she’s doing! We’re just getting started.

The Pilot New Media talk and resources on “Creating Excellent Parish Websites” that he mentioned were an amazing resource in this work. We are grateful that the Archdiocese of Boston live streamed it and even took questions all the way from Texas. St. Elias’ church in Brampton and St. Joseph’s in Chicago have also been quite helpful. We are hoping that this website will in turn pay it forward by providing content that other Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Churches can use on their sites so that we can fulfill Patriarch Sviatoslav’s call when he told Our Sunday Visitor:

…we have the right time in order to give the bread of life to those people who are hungry or thirsty for this spiritual dimension of human life. It’s why I proclaimed evangelization is our most important task.

In commenting on the UGCC synod of bishops’ recent Strategy for Development through 2020, the patriarch said, “The development of the parish community should be our priority. By fostering and reviving communities we foster and vivify the whole Church.” It is our hope that this website assists in doing so.

The pope’s prayer intention for November 2011:

“For the eastern Churches, that their venerable tradition may be known and appreciated as a spiritual treasure for the entire Church.”