Remembering Chaplain Vincent Capodanno: R.S.V.P. September 14, 1967

Moynihan Letters No. 74

June 14, 2013, Friday -- Remembering Father Capodanno

"Stay quiet marine. You will be ok. God is with us all this day." — Father Vincent Capodanno, last words, speaking to a wounded marine on a battlefield in Vietnam 46 years ago in 1967. A few seconds later, Capodanno was shot and killed. Today in Vietnam, not far from the spot where he died, a Mass was celebrated in his memory. (See note on these words at the end of the story below)

Today, June 14, something extraordinary happend in Vietnam.

A Mass was celebrated by a Vietnamese bishop in memory of an American Marine chaplain, Father Vince Capodanno (photo), who was killed in Vietnam on September 4, 1967, at the age of 38. Capodanno was ordained a priest on June 14, 1957, so this Mass today was celebrated in commemoration of the 56th anniversary of his ordination.

And so, in a sense, the Mass, attended by Americans and Vietnamese Catholics, was a sign of peace, and perhaps also of healing, nearly a half century after the end of the Vietnam War.

The Mass was largely the result of an effort by an old friend, Captain Edward "Ted" Bronson, a career Navy officer, now retired, who believes Capodanno was a holy man who died a holy death, administering the last rites to wounded soldiers on the battlefield, and so ought to be canonized by the Church as a saint.

(This photo shows Navy Captain Edward "Ted" Bronson and EWTN journalist Joan Lewis flanking Bishop Tri, with the choir that sang at the Father Capodanno Commemorative Mass in Vietnam)

Here are excerpts from an email Bronson just sent to me:

From: efbronson
To: moynihanreport
Sent: Fri, Jun 14, 2013 6:37 pm
Subject: Re: capodanno mass da nang 14 jun

Bob,

All went well. As magnificent and spiritual a Mass as you could pray for. About 500 attended. The bishop sat on the side, after opening remarks re Father Vincent Capodanno. Then came the procession of 15 celebrants. A high school choir of 38 "rang out" with English hymns.

(A view of the church where the Mass today was celebrated; Photo by Joan Lewis)

I did the first reading.

(Photo of those attending the Mass, by Joan Lewis)

A reception followed for all, a Vietnamese food feast.

Among the 500 were two bus loads of Que Chau villagers from two hours south. We had a special Mass in a home there on Wednesday for 83. They exude pure, intense, single focus faith. It seems as if, were they asked to give up their faith, instead they would join the earlier "martyrs of Vietnam."

This village Mass site was 2 km from the Que Son valley battlefield where Father Capodanno died with his fellow marines on the opening day of "Operation Swift" on 4 september 1967. It was the worst casualty day for our Marines in the war, as they were outnumbered 500 to 2000.

Father Capodanno's death occurred 15 seconds after telling a wounded marine,  "Stay calm marine. Some one will be with you shortly. God is with us this day."

He then went to the side of a corpsman who cried out for help and both were machine gunned to death.

Father Capodanno was a true "Grunt Padre."

Danang Bishop Joseph Tri told us afterwards, he will make this an annual 14 June Mass for the repose of the soul of Father Capodanno. The date is the anniversary of his ordination to the Maryknolls by Cardinal Spellman 55 years ago today.

'Twas magic, Bob, and it was all your challenge at dinner after the Mass at Santa Susanna, Rome 21 May, 2012. I started with a blank piece of paper and went from there... with a measure of help from my guardian angel and Bishop Tri. Delighted to have participated.

Now in Saigon; fly out at 5 am; into DAC at 5:45 pm. Thank you for your friendship and 'till we meet again, very best. Ted

==================================

Note on Father Capodanno's last words

I received the following note about Father Capodanno's last words, which are reproduced above in two different forms.

Bob,

Thank you for covering this historic Mass. Several Marines heard these words from Fr. Capodanno, though versions vary slightly with each telling. From the biography, the quote reads:

"Stay quiet, Marine. You will be OK. Someone will be here to help you soon.  God is with us all this day." The reference is found on page 133 of The Grunt Padre by Fr. Daniel Mode, as recalled by Operation Swift veteran Corporal Ray Harton.

Thank you for all you do to make known Fr. Capodanno. It is an important and timely Cause to be sure.

God bless,

Judy L. McCloskey
Founder
Mission Capodanno
MissionCapodanno@gmail.com
www.MissionCapodanno.org
www.VincentCapodanno.org

============================

"AND THE LORD WAS WITH US THIS DAY"

Also present at the Mass was another old friend, the Rome correspondent for EWTN Catholic television, Joan Lewis. She flew to Vietnam specifically to attend this historic Mass, and wrote a report today on her blog, "Joan's Rome." Here are excerpts:

Friday, June 14, 2013

By Joan Lewis

As I write these words, it is 9 am on a hot Friday morning in DaNang and I am in the courtyard of Sacred Heart Cathedral where the gates have been opened to welcome the bus loads of pilgrims from nearby and from far villages who have come today for Mass at 10 that Bishop Joseph Tri has organized to celebrate Servant of God Fr. Vincent Capodanno.

June 14th was the day, 55 years ago, that Vincent Capodanno was ordained to the priesthood in the Maryknoll order, a missionary order that sent him abroad during his short life as a priest. Eventually he became a chaplain and died giving the last rites to solders in Vietnam, not far from DaNang.

The courtyard is huge but I know it will soon be filled by scores of motorbikes and bicycles in addition to the buses -- probably not a single car! I am sitting on a stone bench next to a lovely sculpture of the Holy Family, listening to the hustle and bustle and horns of DaNang traffic outside the complex that comprises the cathedral, bishop’s residence, school rooms, church halls and the convent.

I have just been joined by a young priest – the brother of our driver these past days. He is from the DaNang diocese and is also a scout leader. We are having a good conversation about many things involving the Church in Vietnam – as well as scouting – but now have to go into the church to prepare for Mass. I will video the Mass and take photos and Father is one of the concelebrants.

More later…..

It is much later now and I am writing from Ho Chi Minh City, from one of the most famous hotels in this part of the world, the Rex Hotel. I am luxuriating in an amazing room in the new wing of the Rex and enjoying, as the expression goes, “champagne tastes on a beer budget.” The Rex opened in 1961 and its first guests were 400 U.S. Army soldiers. They stayed here a week as their tents were being set up in Saigon and Quy Nhon.

During the Vietnam War (called the American War in some guidebooks), the Rex became especially famous for hosting the daily military press conference which the journalists who resided in the Rex cynically called “The Five O’Clock Follies.”

(photos of the Mass)

Following Mass, the cathedral offered a buffet lunch for about 400-500 people. It was astonishing hospitality and prepared by a group of women in the parish!! It was a ton of fun and I could have stayed and spoken to the people for hours, especially the wonderful, joyful, enthusiastic young people! I wanted to charter a plane and bring them to Rome!

(In this photo, Joan Lewis dines with some of the vibrant young Vietnamese Catholics who attended the Father Capodanno Mass today in Vietnam)

Once again, as always happens on these trips, it is late and I am overdue for dinner so will close this chronicle of June 14, 2013, a celebration of the life of Servant of God Fr. Vincent Capodanno. The bishops spoke about him this morning but it was all naturally in Vietnamese and the only words I understood were Vincent Capodanno!

To get a feel for the day’s events and people, go to my many Youtube videos of this occasion. I know my Vietnamese friends in Rome and the U.S. will enjoy hearing Mass in their language – though the youth choir sang in English for the occasion and they were superb!

God sit on your shoulders, dear friends in DaNang.

Before I close, I wish America and Americans Happy Flag Day!

Write to Joan at: joansrome@ewtn.com

Link: http://www.ewtn.com/news/blog.asp?blog_id=1

=======================================

Semper Fi

The example of Father Capodanno, in his life and in his death, shows us the meaning of the Marine Corps motto, "Semper Fi" ("Semper Fidelis," Always Faithful.) Here is an article written two years ago which well describes Capodanno's life and death:

Father Vincent Capodanno and the Meaning of “Sacrifice”

May 16, 2011

By Beth Crumley
If you have never visited Semper Fidelis Memorial Chapel on the grounds of the National Museum of the Marine Corps, you have missed visiting a truly inspirational place. It is a breathtakingly beautiful building, an edifice of stone, rich wood and soaring glass that derives much of its beauty from the surrounding landscape. It is also breathtakingly simple. Nestled in the woods, it was designed to pay homage to the improvised chapels found in the field, attended by those who bear the burden of war.

Last Wednesday was nothing short of a glorious spring day in Virginia. The skies were crystal clear, without a cloud, and vibrant blue. A warm breeze stirred the air. Springtime had brought the grounds surrounding the chapel to life. I was struck by how green the trees were, and by the sound of birds singing. And on this glorious spring day, several people had gathered for a private ceremony to dedicate the “Sacrifice” window in memory of Navy chaplain, and Medal of Honor recipient, Father Vincent Capodanno.

As a former theology student, and a Marine Corps historian, I have long had an interest in those chaplains who have chosen to serve with the Fleet Marine Force. Of particular interest to me were those who served in Vietnam. It was many years ago that I first heard of the “Grunt Padre,” Father Capodanno.

The son of an Italian immigrant, Vincent Capodanno was the youngest of ten children. He attended night classes at Fordham University and in 1949, confided to a close friend that he had felt a calling to the priesthood. He had read The Field Afar, a magazine published by the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, also known as the Maryknolls. Their training was different… in addition to traditional seminary courses of study, a Maryknoll’s training also included emergency medical care, basic sanitation and agrarian methods and survival tactics. Capodanno relished the challenges of the Maryknoll education and was ordained on 7 June 1957.

After serving in Taiwan and Hong Kong, Father Capodanno requested permission to join the Navy Chaplain Corps and serve the growing number of Marines arriving in Vietnam. Commissioned a lieutenant on 28 December 1965, Capodanno arrived in country in April 1966, assigned to 1st Battalion, 7th Marines.  Asked by a reporter why he had chosen to volunteer for service in Vietnam, Capodanno simply said, “I think I am needed here as are many more chaplains. I’m glad to help in any way I can.”

The Reverend Daniel Lawrence Mode, author of The Grunt Padre described this most extraordinary man of God and his service to the Marines in his spiritual care: “Known for a remarkable courage and tenacity, the grunts could hardly be prepared for the horrible realities of war they routinely saw each day -- deaths, brutal woundings, endless loneliness and depression, temptation to despair. To combat the darkness of the combatant, the light of Christ needed to be lit and carried. Such was the job of the Christian chaplain in a war zone… Father Capodanno chose to be more than just a priest assigned to minister to the tragedies of war. He became a spiritual comrade by removing all distinctions and obstacles between his grunts and himself in the way he had learned in his Maryknoll training and ministry. He lived, ate, and slept as the men did… Grunts recall in  vivid detail their padre keeping company with them through an entire night, isolated in distant and dangerous jungle outposts. Others recall the Grunt Padre leaping out of a helicopter in the midst of battle, blessing the troops, serving the Eucharist to the Catholics, and then leaping into a chopper heading off to another corner of active conflict… He remained at the side of the dying, present until the end, rather than let any man die alone, and then he sought to offer solid grounding and hope to the buddies who grieved at the loss of friends.”

While serving as the battalion chaplain with the 1st Medical Battalion, Father Capodanno requested an extension to his tour of duty. That extension granted, he continued to work tirelessly in his new assignment with the 3d Battalion, 5th Marines.

In September 1967, the 2d NVA Division moved into the Que Son Basin, south of Da Nang, in a planned effort to disrupt elections in the area. Operation Swift began when elements of the 5th Marines were attacked in the early morning hours of 4 September, southwest of Thang Binh. Father Capodanno had been travelling with the command post of Company M, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines. First Platoon came under heavy enemy fire. Second Platoon was ordered to assist. While crossing a small knoll they came under withering fire and radioed they were in danger of being overrun.

Father Capodanno left the relative safety of the command post and as his Medal of Honor citation describes, “ran through an open area raked with fire, directly to the beleaguered platoon. Disregarding the intense enemy small-arms, automatic weapons, and mortar fire, he moved about the battlefield administering last-rites to the dying and giving medical aid to the wounded. When an exploding mortar round inflicted painful multiple wounds to his arms and legs, and severed a portion of his right hand, he steadfastly refused all medical aid.”

Father Capodanno moved to the side of Sergeant Lawrence Peters. He recited the Lord’s Prayer with him. After Peters had died, he moved to comfort Corporal Ray Harton. He cradled the young corporal’s head, blessed the wounded Marine with his left hand, saying, “God is here with us, Marine, and help is on the way.”

As the fighting raged, Father Capodanno saw a young lance corporal giving aid to a wounded corpsman who was in danger of bleeding to death from a thigh wound. As the priest moved toward the wounded man, an enemy machine gunner set up his weapon no further than 15 meters away. Father Capodanno gathered the corpsman in his arms, and used his own body to shield the wounded man from enemy fire. He was struck and killed instantly, 27 bullets piercing his body.  He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

The day after his death, a letter written by Father Capodanno was delivered to the regimental commander. In the letter, the fallen priest had written, “I am due to go home in late November or early December. I humbly request that I stay over Christmas and New Year’s with my men. I am willing to relinquish my thirty days leave….”

Forty-four years later, we sat in Semper Fidelis Memorial Chapel, reflecting on the service of this extraordinary Servant of God, a title bestowed upon him by the Catholic Church. We contemplated the meaning of “sacrifice,” and pondered both his life and his death. Said one Marine, “He radiated the love of God. He was, in fact, the presence of God in our midst… He was an oasis in the midst of a very difficult situation. He was always willing to take on our burdens, to share in our sufferings and anxieties. Whenever I heard him speak I had a feeling of peace. If we were worried and anxious, he took our fears and burdens.”

In the closing moments of the dedication ceremony, Lieutenant General Ron Christmas reminded those gathered that we were in the Semper Fidelis Memorial Chapel -- “Always Faithful.”

“Have faith,” he said, “in those young men and women who wear the uniform. Have faith in your God, have faith in this great country, and have faith in our Corps.”

And let us remember the sacrifices of so many, and the sacrifice of Father Vincent Capodanno.

Link: http://www.mca-marines.org/blog/beth-crumley/2011/05/16/father-vincent-capodanno-and-meaning-“sacrifice”

Abstinence Education Downplayed as Method of Combating America’s STD Epidemic

These folks, often in positions of incredible influence, are absolutely sure that human beings are nothing but animals and can do nothing at all to change their behavior.  They are absolutely at the mercy of the stimulus-response model that was ceated in the forlorn hope that social scientists could reduce human behavior to a mathematical formula: 
"If x, therefore y")

“The current priority is on teen-pregnancy prevention, which is only sexual-risk reduction at best. The purpose is no longer to provide teens the information and skills to avoid all sexual risk by waiting for sex [abstention, continence, chastity] — the purpose is merely to reduce the risk of pregnancy by encouraging teens to use contraception when they have sex.”

Real prevention wasn’t discussed at all by Bolan, [Mary Beth] Bonacci [ Real Love Incorporated ] noted. “The CDC’s main recommendations, aside from ‘open and honest discussion’ and ‘speaking out against shame and stigma,’ seem to revolve around testing and screening for diseases that are already present,” said Bonacci, “which isn’t prevention at all. It might lead to earlier treatment, but it won’t prevent infection, except perhaps in a future partner who may learn of the diagnosis and elect not to have sex with the infected individual. But, then, that goes back to that ‘abstinence’ thing.”

http://is.gd/9qy8gx Nat'l Catholic Register 

Abstinence Education Downplayed as Method of Combating America’s STD Epidemic (1103)

A key federal health official’s CNN commentary claims such diseases are ‘totally preventable,’ but omits any mention of chaste behavior as a solution.

• 
  

by CELESTE MCGOVERN 05/31/2013 Comments (2)

ATLANTA — Sexually transmitted disease is rampant in America: Across the country, at any given time, 110 million people are afflicted with chlamydia, genital herpes, genital warts, syphilis and other sometimes silent, sometimes painfully obvious, damaging diseases.
That means that one in two Americans will be infected by an STD at some point in their life.
But despite this evidence of a comprehensive failure in existing strategies to control the spread of STDs, the nation’s public-health establishment continues to give short shrift to promoting sexual abstinence before marriage and fidelity within marriage as a primary means of prevention.
According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released in February, there are 19.7 million new cases of sexually transmitted infections in America every year.
Half of the cases are among young people, aged 15 to 24. And one in four American teenagers is infected every year — worse odds than a game of Russian roulette.
The CDC estimates the total direct medical costs of this epidemic to be about $16 billion per year. But the life-altering costs of the diseases that cause pain, shame, declined school performance, increased poverty, infertility, difficult pregnancies, genital and cervical cancer and neonatal transmissions of infections are incalculable.
In a commentary for CNN in April, describing “How Sexually Active Young People Can Stay Safe,” Gail Bolan, the director of the CDC’s STD prevention division, said the health and economic toll of sex-related disease was “totally preventable. “
“With increased awareness, prevention, testing and treatment, we can bring this hidden epidemic into the spotlight and safeguard the health of young people, while saving the nation billions of dollars in the process,” she said.
Yet absent from the entire article was the idea of preventing disease by waiting to have sex until marriage and then faithful monogamy — the message of so-called “abstinence education.”

Funding Cut
And financially, too, abstinence education has been seriously set back under the Obama administration.
In April, the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) issued an alert after President Obama advised the Department of Health and Human Services to redistribute a portion of Title V funding, which allocates $50 million to the states for abstinence education, to programs that focus on contraceptive use instead.
“Current federal sex-education policy has a staggering 16:1 disparity in funding against the sexual-risk avoidance — commonly known as abstinence education,” Valerie Huber, president of NAEA told the Register. “The current priority is on teen-pregnancy prevention, which is only sexual-risk reduction at best. The purpose is no longer to provide teens the information and skills to avoid all sexual risk by waiting for sex — the purpose is merely to reduce the risk of pregnancy by encouraging teens to use contraception when they have sex.” 
And they do so even though most teens are not sexually active, and two-thirds of those who are wish they had waited.
Regarding Bolan’s remarks on CNN, Huber said, “The CDC revealed that one in four teen girls has at least one STD. Of the four most prevalent STDs among teens, two of the four [HPV and chlamydia] can be easily transmissible — even with the use of a condom. This should cause pause among those interested in the optimal health for youth.”
“Authentic and fail-safe avoidance is only possible with sexual delay,” added Huber, who said that parents of all political persuasions prefer the abstinence-based approach.

Real Prevention Not Discussed
Catholic author and speaker Mary Beth Bonacci, whose organization Real Love Incorporated promotes an integrated understanding of sexuality, love and chastity among young people, also had trouble with Bolan’s remarks.
“Her article says that all STIs [sexually transmitted infections] are preventable, which is true,” said Bonacci. “But it fails to mention how they are prevented.”
Real prevention wasn’t discussed at all by Bolan, Bonacci noted. “The CDC’s main recommendations, aside from ‘open and honest discussion’ and ‘speaking out against shame and stigma,’ seem to revolve around testing and screening for diseases that are already present,” said Bonacci, “which isn’t prevention at all. It might lead to earlier treatment, but it won’t prevent infection, except perhaps in a future partner who may learn of the diagnosis and elect not to have sex with the infected individual. But, then, that goes back to that ‘abstinence’ thing.”
Although Bolan was not available to say why abstinence was not mentioned in the outline of CDC tactics to reduce infection, CDC spokesperson Nikki Mayes qualified her statements later to the Register.
“To effectively reduce the burden of STIs among our nation’s youth, we must use all of the prevention options at our fingertips — no single prevention strategy will completely protect you against all STI,” said Mayes. “Abstinence is the most reliable way to avoid infection with any STI. However, for those who are sexually active, mutual monogamy with an uninfected partner, reduced numbers of partners, condoms, STI testing and vaccination against HPV have all been proven effective to reduce the risk of infection.”
Mayes added that the current STD-prevention approach of the CDC was working, and she pointed to the “near-historic low” incidence of gonorrhea, “and we’re beginning to reverse a decade of increases in the nation’s syphilis rates.”
But back before the current philosophy of “sex education” and STD prevention took root, gonorrhea and syphilis were the only two STDs of significance in America.
Today, there are more than 25 infectious diseases of concern. And, while gonorrhea may be historically low now, in April, scientists were warning that new, antibiotic-resistant versions of the disease are making gains in the population and could make the disease “untreatable by 2015.”

Catholic Teaching
In this scenario and in the current epidemic of STDs, Catholic teaching on sexuality appears to make medical and scientific sense.
It teaches sexuality is a life-giving gift that unifies a husband and a wife and is not shame-based, but, rather, calls youth, as well as older individuals, to a higher sexual fulfillment in chastity and purity (married or not).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man’s belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman” (2337).
“When educating on the great questions of affectivity and sexuality,” Pope Benedict XVI explained in 2010, “we must avoid showing adolescents and young people ways that tend to devalue these fundamental dimensions of human existence. To this end, the Church calls for everyone to collaborate, especially those who work in schools, to educate the young to a lofty vision of human love and sexuality.”

Celeste McGovern writes from Scotland.

Anglican Bishop of Salisbury falied to mention that popes were condemning slavery long before Wilberforce

http://is.gd/7XZYdK

The Bishop of Salisbury is wrong to say that until William Wilberforce’s abolition campaign, Christians saw slavery as Biblical

By Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith on Thursday, 30 May 2013

About the author

Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith

Alexander Lucie-Smith is a Catholic priest and a doctor of moral theology. On Twitter he is @ALucieSmith

Bishop of Salisbury Photo: PA

The Anglican Bishop of Salisbury has written a letter in the Daily Telegraph about gay marriage, which can be read here if you feel you really want to. Embedded in the letter the Bishop has this to say:

“For example, before Wilberforce, Christians saw slavery as Biblical and part of the God-given ordering of Creation.”
Interesting, eh? Wilberforce, one assumes he means William Wilberforce, was born in 1759 and died in 1833. So, for seventeen centuries all was darkness until Wilberforce came along and put us all right on the matter.

This will come as major news to Pope Pius II who condemned slavery as a great crime and who died in 1464. The same is true of Popes Paul III, Urban VIII, and Benedict XIV, all of whom long predated the English reformer, not to mention the founders and members of the Mercedarian and Trinitarian Orders, which were dedicated to the redemption of slaves. In fact the history of Christian anti-slavery is a long one, as this useful article makes clear.

Perhaps we should not expect the Bishop of Salisbury to know much about any of the people above; after all, they were all Roman Catholics and foreigners, and thus, one assumes, beneath his notice. But when someone makes such an ignorant remark, whoever he may be, it is worth protesting, simply because if such ignorant remarks go unchallenged, then they may well pass into the mainstream and poison the minds of future generations.

Slavery is a great evil, but it is simplistic, misleading and dangerous to see it as something that flourished because of the Bible or because Christians approved it.

Evangelizing the Evangelicals

As Weigel explains in a recent First Things essay, “Evangelical Catholicism is a Spirit-led development reflecting the cultural contingencies of history, like other such evolutions over the past two millennia,” of which we could identify (1) the Patristic Church, (2) the Medieval Church, and (3) the Counter-Reformation Church. Each was necessary for the demands of its time, each was in keeping with the abiding truth, and each gave way to a new form. The Patristic church, a roughly thousand-year development between the primitive and medieval Church, produced the Creeds, gave us the Fathers, and evangelized the pagans. The 500 years of medieval Catholicism gave us the Cathedrals, systematic theologies, and major religious orders before splintering. In roughly the same length of time—500 years—the Counter-Reformation—“the Church in which anyone over sixty today was raised”—“converted much of the Western Hemisphere … withstood the onslaught of the French Revolution … met the challenges of twentieth-century totalitarianism,” and much else besides.

And yet, “its time has passed.” Led by the Spirit, the Church moves to a “new evolution in … self-understanding and self-expression,” even though, of course, the way the Church expresses and lives itself out never fundamentally alters the “enduring marks” of the Church, namely, “unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity.”  

 

from Crisis Magazine by R. J. Snell

In his new book, George Weigel explicates the historical development of Evangelical Catholicism, a reform begun by Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), developed by the renewals of the early twentieth-century, formalized by Vatican II, and authoritatively interpreted by John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and now expressed with particular aplomb by Pope Francis.

It’s a stunning account, and, for a recent convert like myself, a mark of the ability of Catholicism to retain the abiding and unchanging truths of faith while allowing new expressions—ever ancient, ever new.

As Weigel explains in a recent First Things essay, “Evangelical Catholicism is a Spirit-led development reflecting the cultural contingencies of history, like other such evolutions over the past two millennia,” of which we could identify (1) the Patristic Church, (2) the Medieval Church, and (3) the Counter-Reformation Church. Each was necessary for the demands of its time, each was in keeping with the abiding truth, and each gave way to a new form. The Patristic church, a roughly thousand-year development between the primitive and medieval Church, produced the Creeds, gave us the Fathers, and evangelized the pagans. The 500 years of medieval Catholicism gave us the Cathedrals, systematic theologies, and major religious orders before splintering. In roughly the same length of time—500 years—the Counter-Reformation—“the Church in which anyone over sixty today was raised”—“converted much of the Western Hemisphere … withstood the onslaught of the French Revolution … met the challenges of twentieth-century totalitarianism,” and much else besides.

And yet, “its time has passed.” Led by the Spirit, the Church moves to a “new evolution in … self-understanding and self-expression,” even though, of course, the way the Church expresses and lives itself out never fundamentally alters the “enduring marks” of the Church, namely, “unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity.” Despite the constancy of essentials, the new expression and life is, at times, quite dramatically different in feel and language, although nothing really changed. It is the same Church proclaiming the same Faith in the same Lord.

It also presents, I’d suggest, a genuine opportunity to reach out to evangelical Protestants, which, until Palm Sunday, I was.

“Roman fever” is a well-documented Protestant phenomenon, perhaps especially among academics and college students, prompting the common question “Why are so many evangelicals going to Rome?” A good deal of this results from the fact that reason alone is insufficient, always requiring tradition, and as evangelicals look to recover tradition they discover the Tradition. While recovering the past, they also find the sheer enormity and depth of the Catholic intellectual heritage, including its music, art, literature, and poetry, all providing a place to dwell rather than the furious scuttling about of constant reinvention.

While suspicions are not as deep as they once were, in part because of ecumenical cooperation on issues such as abortion and marriage, still many evangelicals have hesitations (to put it mildly) about Roman Catholicism, largely in four categories: (1) the status of the Bible, and how that relates to doctrines about Mary, the Saints, and Purgatory; (2) Papal infallibility (however much this repeats the previous issue); (3) justification and faith/works, and (4) the Catholic thing—statues, mumbled prayers, fish, the Rosary, Swiss Guards, noisy kids in the Mass, an odd inability to sing, and so on.

Don’t underestimate the fourth category. At the evangelical college where I teach, most students have given me a respectful berth about my conversion—everybody knew, no one was surprised, no one asked very much—but before one Honors class a student hesitantly asked if I could explain Marian doctrine, then another question was asked and another, for about an hour. The vast majority of questions related to the fourth category: “What’s the deal with Catholics and drinking?” “Why are people so inattentive during Mass?” “Bingo … what’s with that?” “Why not spontaneous prayers?” “Why are homilies so short?” and so on. Not a single question, not one, about justification, even though in a survey of concerns they would list that objection, but largely because they know they’re supposed to, not because they really are bothered by it.

Given the history, how could that be? First, the evangelical Protestant world is a mish-mash of theologies, a good many of which are not remotely linked to the magisterial Reformers on justification, which is why there is so much discussion about it, sometimes heated, and a good many evangelicals are not overly tied to Scriptural authority anyway. Second, most people in the pews are not theologians or Church historians, and evangelicals are perhaps particularly concerned to not be bogged down by the past and so not overly worried to distinguish sola fide from sola gratia. Third, young evangelicals are decent people, and many are more concerned with care of the poor then with the finer points of sixteenth-century theological disputes. In other words, I’m proposing that while all would list the four categories of objections, the most alienating and troubling for many is the fourth—Catholicism just seems weird and foreign to the most salient aspect of evangelicalism, which is a committed, personal, meaningful relationship with Jesus. And from the perspective of a young evangelical, Catholics just don’t get this.

One of my students, to use a representative anecdote, was seriously exploring Catholicism. He was attending Mass, was in conversation with a local priest I had recommended, and was hard at work reading the Catechism and some theologians. And he loved what he was reading. Eventually, however, he went to a Presbyterian congregation because, in his words, “the people at Mass were so uninterested and it was a serious challenge to my faith.” On the one hand, this reveals a cultural difference on the point of going to services; I go to Mass, primarily, to receive Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Everything else is a bonus, but when I was a young evangelical, I was taught that if I didn’t have an experience of God something was wrong, and so I had to express my enthusiasm as proof of my experience. One pastor once told me to “worship hard”—meaning with visible emotion and zeal—so to help others have a similar experience. If this is your expectation, the mumbled prayers, sometimes uninspired homilies and music (oh dear, the music of some parishes! I’ll admit it delayed my own conversion) can be seen as a mark that this is dead, a religion without spirit. Of course, this misunderstands the Mass and is an imperialism of expectations, but culturally it’s a big deal.

On the other hand, it’s also why Evangelical Catholicism has such great missionary potential for drawing in younger evangelical Protestants. I had read Aquinas and Augustine and Athanasius, I had studied with the Jesuits, I had learned the ancient music, I knew the art, I encountered the saints, I was impressed with the commitment to the poor, but until I met Evangelical Catholics for whom, as Weigel puts it, friendship with Jesus Christ was the main thing, I wasn’t convinced. What Weigel describes makes sense to evangelicals, and coupled with the markers of unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity is precisely what a good many of them/us are searching for: “in friendship with Jesus Christ, we come to know the face of the merciful Father, for whoever experiences the Son’s power to forgive sins sees the merciful Father, who welcomes home the prodigals and reclothes them with the garments of integrity.”

The Great Commission continues, and as we experience the ongoing contraction of Christendom, the Oneness of the Church will be especially important. Welcoming home those who left will be an enormous task, requiring patience and charity. If I’m right, though, a good deal of this work could be accomplished if we just did what we should be doing anyway, if we just were who we should be—friends with Jesus.

A Church without Christ is not worth having, but a Christocentric Church will bring home its separated brothers and sisters; it will evangelize those who already have faith but wait for its fullness.

Off the Rails - Was Vatican II Hijacke

This is a four year old article that does an excellent job of explaining just what happened, or didn't happen, that caused the Second Vatican Council to become so controversial, even 50 years later.

 

Was Vatican II Hijacked?

The key reason why postconciliar "renewal" often went wrong is the almost incredible fact that the hierarchy in the early 1960s made almost no systematic effort to catechize the faithful (including priests and religious) on the meaning of the council – something about which many bishops themselves seemed confused. "Renewal experts" sprang up everywhere, and the most contradictory explanations of the council were offered to Catholics thirsting for guidance. Bishops rarely offered their flocks authoritative teaching and instead fell into the habit of simply trusting certified "experts" in every area of Church life. . . .

The partisans of aggiornamento [“updating”] became the first theologians in the history of the Church to make systematic use of the mass media, entering into a working alliance with journalists who could scarcely even understand the concept of ressourcement [“back to the sources”] but eagerly promoted an agenda that required the Church to accommodate itself to the secular culture. Strangely enough, some theologians, along with their propagandist allies, actually denied the Church the right to remain faithful to its authentic identity and announced a moral obligation to repudiate as much of that identity as possible. "Renewal" came to be identified with dissent and infidelity, and Catholics who remained faithful to the Church were denounced as enemies of Vatican II. . . .

Nothing had a more devastating effect on postconciliar Catholic life than the sexual revolution, as believers began to engage in behavior not measurably different from that of non-believers. Priests and religious repudiated their vows in order to marry, and many of those who remained in religious life ceased to regard celibacy as desirable. Catholics divorced almost as frequently as non-Catholics. Church teachings about contraception, homosexuality, and even abortion were widely disregarded, with every moral absolute treated as merely another wall needing to be breached. . . .

Ultimately the single best explanation of what happened to deflect the council's decrees from their intended direction is the fact that as soon as the assembly ended, the worldwide cultural phenomenon known as the "the Sixties" began. It was nothing less than a frontal assault on all forms of authority. . . .  [Actually the release of the Envoid birth control pill, the inaugural event of “the Sixties”, came in July of 1961.]

http://www.catholicity.com/commentary/hitchcock/06475.html

Off the Rails - Was Vatican II Hijacked?

by James Hitchcock - July 16, 2009

Reprinted with permission from our good friends at InsideCatholic.com, the leading online journal of Catholic faith, culture, and politics.

Most Catholics in 1959 probably didn't even know what an ecumenical council was. And yet, here it was. Pope John XXIII announced that the goals of the Second Vatican Council would be "the renewal of the spirit of the Gospel in the hearts of people everywhere and the adjustment of Christian discipline to modern-day living" – a proclamation that was on the face of it ambiguous. How was authentic renewal to be achieved? How should essential discipline be adjusted to modern culture?

John was a relentless optimist, inclined always to look for good in the world, disinclined to scold, and deeply convinced that he had been called to help bring about a new Pentecost in the Church. He further believed that the Counter-Reformation era, characterized both by defensiveness inside the Church and aggressiveness toward those on the outside, was over. The council made only an oblique reference to the fact that the 20th century had already seen a persecution of Christians more severe than any in the entire history of Catholicism.

The Church was apparently flourishing during John's pontificate. By contrast with what would come later, its members were unusually serious, devout, and moral. But such a Church could be criticized as fostering formalism, a neglect of social justice, and an overly narrow piety, and it's likely that John XXIII thought that a new Pentecost could build on this foundation to reach still higher levels.

In his opening address to the council, John affirmed the infallibility of the Church but called on it to take account of the "errors, requirements, and opportunities" of the age. He regretted that some Catholics ("prophets of gloom") seemed unable to see any good in the modern world and regarded it as the worst of all historical periods. The dogmas of the Church were settled and "known to all," so the conciliar task was to explore new ways of presenting them to the modern world.
The preparatory commissions for the council were dominated by members of the Curia, who were inclined toward precisely such a pessimistic view. When the council opened, there were objections to those commissions, with the result that the council fathers were allowed to approve new schema prepared by some of their own. In some ways this procedural squabble was the most decisive event of the entire council, and it represented a crucial victory for what was now called the "liberal" or "optimistic" party, guaranteeing that the council as a whole would look on its work as more than a mere restatement of accepted truths. There was an officially endorsed spirit of optimism in which even legitimate questions about the wisdom of certain ideas were treated as evidence of lack of faith.

The intellectual leadership of the council came mainly from Western Europe, the most influential prelates being Bernard Alfrink of the Netherlands, Leo Jozef Suenens of Belgium, Achille Lienart of France, Julius Doepfner and Joseph Frings of Germany, and Franz Koenig of Austria. Those five countries, along with the rest of Europe, possessed an ancient tradition of Catholicism, and they had nourished a vigorous and sophisticated Catholic intellectual life.

As theological questions arose, the council fathers almost automatically deferred to the opinions of these European prelates, who were in turn influenced by men recognized as the most accomplished theologians of the age – Henri DeLubac, Jean Danielou, and Yves Congar in France; Edward Schillebeeckx in the Netherlands; Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger in Germany.

But in many respects the Church in those five nations – with the possible exception of the Netherlands – appeared less than robust (judging, for example, by rates of church attendance and religious vocations). Indeed, the vigorous intellectual life of those countries was colored by a certain sense of crisis – the need to make the Faith credible to modern men. By contrast, the Church in the British Isles, Southern Europe, and the United States, to say nothing of the Third World, lacked dazzling intellectual achievements but appeared to be relatively hearty.

Most council fathers therefore seemed to have felt little urgency about most of the questions that came before them. For many, the discussions involved issues that, before now, hadn't even been considered, such as making the liturgy and religious life more "relevant." But an unquestioned faith that the Church would always be preserved from error, along with the leadership of John XXIII and Paul VI, led most of the delegates to support the schema that were finally forged from the debate. No decree of the council provoked more than a small number of dissenting votes. Ironically, in view of the later claim that the council brought about the democratization of the Church, deference to authority was a major factor in determining how most of the fathers voted.

Creating Radicals

John XXIII announced Vatican II as a "pastoral" assembly, but there were growing differences of opinion as to what exactly that meant. Pious, instinctively conservative prelates might think of encouraging Marian devotions or kindling zeal for the foreign missions. The dominant group, however, moved the council toward dialogue with the modern world, translating the Church's message into a language modern men understood.

The council fathers always strove to remain balanced. To take what are now the most fiercely debated issues, they imagined no revisions in Catholic moral teaching about sexuality, referring instead to "the plague of divorce" and to the "abominable crime" of abortion. Deliberately childless marriages were deemed a tragedy, and the faithful were reminded of the Church's condemnation of artificial birth control.
At the same time, the fact that practically every aspect of Catholic belief seemed to be under discussion had results that John XXIII probably didn't intend. Famously, at one point he removed the subject of contraception from the floor of the council and announced that he was appointing a special commission to study the issue – an action that naturally led some to believe the teaching would indeed be revised. When Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae in 1968, liberals were outraged that he rejected the commission's recommendation to permit some forms of birth control and accused him of betraying the council.

The council fathers each had periti, or advisers, on matters of theology and canon law, and some of them were very influential, both in shaping the thought of the prelates whom they advised and in working behind the scenes with like-minded delegates and other periti. In explaining the theological revolution that occurred almost immediately after the council, some orthodox Catholics speculate that a well-organized minority intended from the beginning to sabotage the council and that they successfully planted theological time bombs in the conciliar decrees – doctrinal statements whose implications were deliberately left vague, to be activated later. But there's little evidence of this.

It's characteristic of revolutions that they are rarely planned ahead of time. Rather, they arise from the sudden acceleration of historical change, caused by the flow of events and the way in which people relate to those events. There is no evidence that anyone came to the council with a radical agenda, in part because such an agenda would have been considered hopelessly unrealistic. (Some liberals actually feared that the council would prove to be a retrogressive gathering.)
A major factor in the postconciliar dynamic was the reformers' own heady experience of swift and unexpected change. For example, in 1960 no one would have predicted – and few would have advocated – the virtual abandonment of the Latin liturgy. But once reformers realized that the council fathers supported change, it became an irresistible temptation to continue pushing farther and faster. What had been thought of as stone walls of resistance turned out to be papier-mâché.

The council itself proved to be a "radicalizing" experience, during which men who had never met before, and who in some cases had probably given little thought to the questions now set before them, began quickly to change their minds on major issues. (For example, Archbishop – later Cardinal – John F. Dearden of Detroit, who was considered quite rigid before the council, returned home as an uncritical advocate of every kind of change.) When the council was over, some of those present – both periti and bishops – were prepared to go beyond what the council had in fact intended or authorized, using the conciliar texts as justification when possible, ignoring them when not (as recounted, for example, by Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, who was in charge of liturgical reform after the council, in his book The Reform of the Liturgy). Aware that the council didn't support their agenda, they quickly got into the habit of speaking of the "spirit" of the council, which was said to transcend its actual statements and even in some cases to contradict them.

The Role of the Media

While the council was still in session, it occurred to some that it was less important what that body actually said and did than what people thought it said and did. Thus as early as the first session, in 1962, there was an orchestrated propaganda campaign to present the deliberations and define the issues in particular ways and to enlist the sympathies of the public on behalf of a particular agenda. Certain key journalists became "participant-observers," meaning that they reported the events and at the same time sought to influence them – the chief practitioners being "Xavier Rynne" (the pen name of the Redemptorist historian Francis X. Murphy), who wrote "Letter from Vatican City" for the New Yorker magazine, and Robert Blair Kaiser, who reported for Time.
Such reports were written for a largely non-Catholic audience, many of whom were unsympathetic to the Faith, and the thrust of the reporting was to assure such readers that the Church was at long last admitting its many errors and coming to terms with secular culture. Most Catholics probably relied on these same sources for their understanding of the council and so received the same message.
The key reason why postconciliar "renewal" often went wrong is the almost incredible fact that the hierarchy in the early 1960s made almost no systematic effort to catechize the faithful (including priests and religious) on the meaning of the council – something about which many bishops themselves seemed confused. "Renewal experts" sprang up everywhere, and the most contradictory explanations of the council were offered to Catholics thirsting for guidance. Bishops rarely offered their flocks authoritative teaching and instead fell into the habit of simply trusting certified "experts" in every area of Church life. Indeed, before the council was even over, several fallacious interpretations were planted that still flourish today.

Even the best journalistic accounts were forced to simplify the often subtle and complex deliberations of the council fathers. But there was also deliberate oversimplification for the purpose of creating a particular public impression. The media thus divided the council fathers into heroes and villains – otherwise known as liberals and conservatives. In this way, the conciliar battles were presented as morality plays in which open-minded, warm-hearted, highly intelligent innovators (Cardinal Alfrink, for example) were able repeatedly to thwart plots by Machiavellian reactionaries (Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani of the Holy Office). It was a morality play that appealed to the prejudices of many Westerners of the mid-20th century. It also had a real if immeasurable influence on many bishops, who soon discovered that being viewed as "progressive" would gain them a favorable press, while the opposite would make them into public villains.

For understandable reasons, vastly disproportionate attention was lavished by the media on such things as the vernacular liturgy and the end of mandatory Friday abstinence, since concrete practices could be easily dealt with journalistically and such practices had long helped to define the differences between Catholics and others. Catholics who understood almost nothing of the theological issues of the council came to understand that its "real" purpose was repealing rules that had become burdensome and old-fashioned.
But in another sense the attention lavished on such things was not disproportionate, because in a sacramental Church "externals" are the doorways to the spirit. In theory it perhaps ought not to have mattered whether nuns wore habits, but in practice the modification, then the total abandonment, of those habits marked the beginning of the end of religious life as it had existed for centuries. For many people the distinction between essentials and nonessentials was almost meaningless. If Catholics were no longer forbidden to eat meat on Fridays, why could they not get divorced, especially given the widespread conviction that the purpose of the council and of "Good Pope John" was to make people comfortable with their faith?

Many of the council fathers, after they returned to their dioceses, seemed themselves to be in a state of confusion over what they'd done. Only a relatively few – some orthodox, others less so – had a clear and consistent understanding.
 
For most, the postconciliar period proved to be a time of rudderless experimentation, as Catholics groped to understand what the council had mandated. For many people the one sure thing, amid all the postconciliar uncertainty, was the fact of change itself; in an odd way it seemed safest to do or believe almost the opposite of what Catholics had previously been taught.

The Scars of Renewal

Underlying the council were two different approaches to reform – approaches that were not contradictory but that required serious intellectual effort to reconcile.
One was ressourcement ("back to the sources"), a program of renewing the Church by returning to its scriptural and patristic roots (DeLubac, Danielou, and Hans Urs Von Balthasar all held to this).

The other was aggiornamento ("updating"), by which the supposed demands of contemporary culture were the chief concern (Hans Küng, Schillebeeckx, and to some extent Rahner, were all proponents).
Kept in balance during the council itself, these two movements increasingly pulled apart afterward and resulted in the deep conflicts that continue to the present.
A prime example of the postconciliar dynamic at work was the "renewal" of religious life. Cardinal Suenens wrote the influential book The Nun in the World, enjoining sisters to come out of their cloisters and accept the challenges of modern life. Whatever might be thought about them as theological principles, such recipes for "renewal" also promised that those who adopted them would experience phenomenal revitalization, including dramatic numerical growth, and for a few years after the council the official spirit of naive optimism won out over the "prophets of gloom."

The most famous instance of such renewal in the United States was that of the Immaculate Heart Sisters of Los Angeles. Their program of aggiornamento had all the ingredients required at the time – intense publicity from an overwhelmingly favorable media, a prestigious secular "expert" (the psychologist Carl Rogers), picturesque experiments with nontraditional behavior (encounter groups), and a reactionary villain (James Cardinal McIntyre) portrayed as the only obstacle to progress. Not until it was too late did anyone ask whether the IHM Sisters, along with countless others, were simply abandoning their vocations completely. [ Wiki - By 1970, 90% of the sisters were dispensed from their vows.  http://is.gd/Vt83ep ]

A tragic dimension of the conciliar period was precisely the irrelevance and ultimate failure of the exciting intellectual programs that emanated from what were then the five most influential Catholic nations. For a very brief period, Dutch Catholicism made a bid to give the universal Church a working model of renewal, before "the Dutch Church" imploded and sank into oblivion. Rates of church attendance and religious vocations may have been worrisomely low in Belgium, France, and Germany in 1960, but the bishops of those countries probably couldn't imagine how much lower they would fall. In ways not recognized 40 years ago, it's now clear that the strategy of countering secularism by moving closer to the secular culture just doesn't work.

The partisans of aggiornamento became the first theologians in the history of the Church to make systematic use of the mass media, entering into a working alliance with journalists who could scarcely even understand the concept of ressourcement but eagerly promoted an agenda that required the Church to accommodate itself to the secular culture. Strangely enough, some theologians, along with their propagandist allies, actually denied the Church the right to remain faithful to its authentic identity and announced a moral obligation to repudiate as much of that identity as possible. "Renewal" came to be identified with dissent and infidelity, and Catholics who remained faithful to the Church were denounced as enemies of Vatican II.

This occurred at the most fundamental level, so that the authority of the council itself was soon relativized. The notion that a council would claim for itself final authority in matters of belief came to be viewed by liberals as reactionary. Vatican II was thus treated as merely a major historical epiphany – a moment in the unfolding history of the Church and of human consciousness when profound new insights were discovered. According to this view, the council's function was not to make authoritative pronouncements but merely to facilitate the movement of the Church into the next stage of its historical development. (For example, the Jesuit historian John W. O'Malley in 1971 proposed that certain conciliar texts could be legitimately ignored as merely reflective of intellectual immaturity, timidity, and confusion on the part of the council fathers.)

After the council, the concept of "the People of God" was reduced to a crude form of democracy – doctrine as determined by opinion polls. The liturgy ceased to be a divine action and became a communal celebration, and the supernatural vocations of priests and religious were deemed to be obstacles to their service to the world.

Nothing had a more devastating effect on postconciliar Catholic life than the sexual revolution, as believers began to engage in behavior not measurably different from that of non-believers. Priests and religious repudiated their vows in order to marry, and many of those who remained in religious life ceased to regard celibacy as desirable. Catholics divorced almost as frequently as non-Catholics. Church teachings about contraception, homosexuality, and even abortion were widely disregarded, with every moral absolute treated as merely another wall needing to be breached.

Off the Rails

Ultimately the single best explanation of what happened to deflect the council's decrees from their intended direction is the fact that as soon as the assembly ended, the worldwide cultural phenomenon known as the "the Sixties" began. It was nothing less than a frontal assault on all forms of authority.

Bereft of catechesis, confused by the conciliar changes, and unable to grasp the subtle theology of the conciliar decrees, many Catholics simply translated the conciliar reforms into the terms of the counterculture, which was essentially the demand for "liberation" from all restraint on personal freedom. Even as late as 1965 almost no one anticipated this great cultural upheaval. The measured judgments of Gaudium et Spes, the council's highly influential decree on the Church and the modern world, shows not a hint of it.

Had the council met a decade earlier, during the relatively stable 1950s, it's possible that there could have been an orderly and untroubled transition. But after 1965 the spirit of the age was quite different, and by then many Catholics were eager to break out of what they considered their religious prison. Given the deliberately fostered popular impression that the Church was surrendering in its perennial struggle with the world, it was inevitable that the prevailing understanding of reform would be filtered through the glass of a hedonistic popular culture. Under such conditions it would require remarkable steadfastness of purpose to adhere to an authentic program of renewal.

The postconciliar crisis has moved far beyond issues like the language of the liturgy or nuns' habits – even beyond sexual morality or gender identities. Today the theological frontier is nothing less than the stark question of whether there is indeed only one God and Jesus is His only-begotten Son. It is a question that the council fathers didn't foresee as imminent and, predictably, the council's dicta about non-Christian religions are now cited to justify various kinds of religious syncretism. The resources for resolving this issue are present in the conciliar decrees themselves, but it's by no means certain that Church leaders have the will to interpret them in final and authoritative ways. Forty years after the council, serious Catholics have good reason to think they've been left to wander the theological wilderness.


James Hitchcock is professor of history at St. Louis University.

How the liturgy fell apart: the enigma of Archbishop Bugnini Michael Davies

Here is the full text of Minnesota State Senator Dan Hall's speech on the Senate floor opposing Same Sex Marriage: 5-13-13

Here is the full text of Senator Dan Hall's speech on the Senate floor 5-13-13:

There’s a lot of celebrating going on today but there’s also a lot of grieving going on today. Grieving because there are many people in the state who do not believe this is the right thing to do. I sometimes call this the divine tension. Our constitution has protections for religious freedom—not to protect the government from religion.

I have six key points I’d like to state.

First off, marriage exists to bring a man and a woman together as husband and wife, to be the father and mother to any children their union produces.

Second, marriage is based on truth that men and women are complementary. The biological fact that reproduction depends on a man and a woman, the reality that children need both a father and a mother—which one would you not have wanted. Marriage is society’s least restrictive means of assuring the well-being of children. Marital breakdown weakens civil society.

Government recognizes marriage because it benefits society in a way that no other relationship does. Government can treat people equally and with respect and respect their liberty without redefining marriage. Redefining marriage would further distance marriage from the needs of children and deny the importance of mothers and fathers. It weakens monogamy, exclusivity and permanency, the norms to which marriage in our society [inaudible] and it will threaten religious liberty.

I know that, Madam President, you do not allow us to pray in the name of Jesus or the holy spirit while we’re up there, but I ask that the holy spirit be with all of us today in this capitol around Minnesota during this vote. Today we may be changing the course of freedom for our children and our grandchildren in Minnesota. We may be forced to not just listen to someone else’s view—but to accept and then legislate and next, I believe, we will be forced to believe what we don’t.

I have been accused of attacking same-sex marriage because I disagree with the lifestyle. When has disagreeing become an attack? When has taking a stand against something you believe in become a personal attack? Freedom can only be free if we keep our moral compass. If we resolve to strengthen marriage instead of dismantling it. Without strong morals, that which we believe is right or wrong, we lose our freedoms.

Redefining marriage, which has many restrictions—you can’t get married if you’re under 18 without parents’ permission; only two people can get married, not three, not more—is opening that Pandora’s box. If you think marriage, the way it is now, is discriminating, why not add another group? That’s what we’ve done, we’re still discriminating, if that’s what you believe, unless we open it up to all.

But they’ll call me a bigot, they’ll call me a hater, they’ll spit in my face, like they did a friend of mine last Thursday. There are things in life, members, that are worth standing up for, even to be persecuted for.

Many have said to me, ‘Sen. Hall, you don’t understand. You’re married, live in a nice suburb, you’ve got kids, live in a nice house, two-car garage, you’re well educated.’

Most of you don’t know I grew up in the southeast projects, 71 Saint Marys [Avenue] by the U of M. Many of my relatives were addicts, criminals, two sent to prison, more than one child molester. Those that my mother tried to keep us away from were relatives. My mother raised four children in the projects but had an alcoholic husband that she divorced when I was six years old.

Two years later, she married another,  my stepfather who also was a drunk. When he was home, we tried not to be. When I was 12 my mother told him, “You either get on your knees and accept Jesus and have him take over your life and stop drinking or there’s the door, don’t ever come back.’ He did that that day, our life changed, that was a turning point in my history. My father did this 48 years ago today. He’s now in a nursing home, my mother still lives on Lake Nokomis.

But the change of history is like what we’re doing today.  It will forever change the fate of family.

I have family members on both sides of this issue. All of us are not perfect and all of us carry baggage from the past and our families. All have sinned, all have faults, I certainly do. I sin every day. This is not about that. It’s about what’s good for children. The children here in Minnesota. It’s about making the right choice for children’s future. The question is: Are homosexual marriages good for children? Are we as members in this chamber going to change the course of history? As to what the adults, we the caretakers, the public policy holders, leaders of Minnesota—what we think is right for children.

Back to marriage. Marriage is about giving, not taking. It’s about being willing to serve another, giving your affection to no other and, spiritually, marriage is about two becoming one in God’s eyes. A civil union is having a contract to protect yourself from the other that may take advantage of you and legally securing the government and civil benefits that have been reserved for marriage. There are consequences to everything. There will be unintended and, I believe, intended consequences.

Members, God has written his word on your hearts: Don’t legislate what you think personally is wrong. Choose life and life abundantly. Dismantling marriage will bring hurt, shame, confrontation and more indoctrination. Forcing others to give you your rights will never end well. It won’t give you the recognition you desire. That which is right can easily be seen by all. Let me say that again: That which is right can easily be seen by all.

Is this easy for you? Most people know this is not right. You asked for this job, members, when you ran for office. Leading is not easy. Are you still looking for an excuse to vote for it? I’m not giving you that today. I’m here to affirm true beliefs that come from your relationship to your creator.

Do you really want what Europe has? They’re on the verge of civil disaster. Some have said, ‘But don’t you want to be on the right side of history?’ The truth is I’m more concerned about being on the right side of eternity.

In conclusion, let me say this: My desire today is to bring more peace, more justice to all of Minnesota. I propose that we vote “No” on this bill and that we propose a more loving document that will more clearly and more distinctly allow the freedom that both communities would desire.

Don’t fool yourself today and think voting yes on this bill ends the conversation. The great people of Minnesota deserve better than this. This document will bring civil disobedience.

This document will split our schools, our churches, our towns, our counties, our state. It will hurt businesses and confuse children. More than any single issue has ever done since the civil war.

This bill needs to be crafted in such a way that it will not push civil rights back 50 years but bring our communities together. Please think about the devastating repercussions this vote will have on our communities. We must not pass this bill but, rather, we must take one more time to craft a truly bipartisan bill that respects the values of all Minnesotans and where no one feels they’re being shoved into an unwanted world, no one feels their religious liberties are being taken away.

Members, today you must choose who you will serve. May God help us.

The measure passed 37-30.  

Senator Hall represents parts of Bloomington and Burnsville in the Minnesota State Senate , District 63