MEMO TO CATHOLICS IN THE PEWS

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When I was first asked to be a guest columnist for this publication, the request was for a column addressing Catholic issues with leeway to wander into other topics. In hindsight I’ve probably written more about other topics than Catholic issues, but with this column I’m returning to my “roots.”

There is much that could be said about the current goings-on within the Catholic Church: the clergy sex abuse scandal, the U.S. bishops skirmish with the new president, the pope’s health. Instead, I’m going to share a few thoughts about us regular Catholics in the pews.

Let’s start with dressing better. This is weird coming from a guy who used to lead the "Folk-Mass" in his teens and twenties dressed in jeans and Birkenstocks, but, at least for Sunday Mass, I have now made an effort to put on what was once called “our Sunday best.” I mean, come on, some of us dress nicer to go to the movies than we do to go to Mass. Sure, it would help to have some encouragement from the pulpit, but in the meantime, we can do this ourselves.

Next, we might try spending some old-fashioned “thanksgiving” time after Mass instead of erupting into a meet and greet.

I was brought up to believe that Jesus Christ, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the consecrated bread I just received at Holy Communion, is uniquely present in me “and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist" (CCC 1377), or in other words, until the “species” (consecrated bread and/or wine) is fully digested - about 15 minutes.

In the “old days” this 15 minutes formed the basis for “prayers after communion.” I mean think of it, we Catholics believe that Jesus Christ, who suffered, died, rose again, and is seated at the right hand of the Father, is uniquely and substantially present in our very bodies for an ultra-sacred 15 minutes. Maybe we should visit with Him for a bit before the others.

Related to this, when we visit after Mass - which is a good thing, let’s take it outside. Our Catholic church buildings are unique. They are not meeting places - as are non-Catholic houses of worship. It’s why our parents and the nuns of yesteryear taught us to be quiet in church, even if it was empty.

And that’s because it’s never empty. Unless for an exceptional reason the Eucharist has been removed from the tabernacle - Jesus Christ, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, is always present. And it’s His house, not ours. So “Shhhhhhh” - as Sister would say.

Speaking of “Shhhhh” - take noisy children outside. I know, I know. Those are fighting words. But before you trash this column, know that I am a father of eleven children, two of whom are special needs, and all of whom we brought to Mass every Sunday from about the first Sunday after they left the womb.

We had a system. Our family sat near the rear entrance of the church or chapel, and while Mom usually held the infant, I held the next eldest - usually a two year old and the child most likely to make noise. As soon as the child got loud enough to distract others, I took the child outside.

Occasionally I’d end up spending the whole Mass outside, but usually the child would calm down enough to return to Mass without incident. I’d say that about age three, each child got the idea and was rarely a problem after that.

Also, we didn’t bring toys, books, games, gadgets, or munchies to occupy the children. They simply intuited through our behavior that there was something special about attending Mass and that it was a time for quiet and reverence.

P.S. It helped that we would attend Masses that were quiet and reverent. I think “solemn” is the word. Our kids, like most kids, responded more to the environment than to any of our “shush-ing.”

One of our children with disabilities, a son, and the tenth of our eleven children, was particularly rambunctious. I spent a lot of time outside with him in his first couple of years. Eventually he figured it out and would just sleep through the Mass.

The only problem was that he was born with a nasal issue and his snoring echoed through the whole church. We learned that he didn’t snore if he slept sitting up. So we propped him up in the pew and all was well.

I miss those days.

Tim Rohr has resided in Guam since 1987. He has raised a family of 11 children, owned several businesses, and is active in local issues via his blog, JungleWatch.info, letters to local publications, and occasional public appearances. He may be contacted at timrohr.guam@gmail.com    

REQUIEM AETERNAM, GRANDPA

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In my last column, I told the story of an anti-Catholic friend who converted to Catholicism and later died on All Saints Day. In that story I mentioned that November is the month that Catholics especially pray for the dead and said that I would explain why Catholics pray for the dead in a later column. So here goes.

In the Catholic calendar, November 1 is All Saints Day and November 2 is All Souls Day. What is the difference between Saints and Souls?

According to Catholic teaching, Saints are Souls who are with God in Heaven for all Eternity, and Souls, or more specifically, the Souls we remember on November 2, are Souls who are on their way to Heaven but aren’t “there” yet.

So where are they?

The Catholic Church teaches: “All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.” (CCC 1030)

This state of purification is what the Catholic Church calls “Purgatory.” Its existence or the need for it was at the root of Martin Luther’s revolution in 1517 and it remains a major difference between Catholic and non-Catholic (Protestant) beliefs today.

To support the doctrine of Purgatory, the Catechism of the Catholic Church references several scriptures including 1 Cor 3:15, 1 Pet 1:7, 2 Mac 12:46, and Job 1:5. However, I always like to include Revelation 20:13-14 and 21:37.

Revelation 20:13-14 gives us the clearest indication in Scripture of a “third place,” a “place” which isn’t Heaven and isn’t Hell: “The sea gave up its dead; then Death and Hades gave up their dead. All the dead were judged according to their deeds.Then Death and Hades were thrown into the pool of fire. (This pool of fire is the second death.)”

The context is the End of Time and the Final Judgment. So here we are at the end of time and there are Souls (“the dead”) who are in “Death and Hades.” We know this isn’t the final place of damnation (“Hell”) because the scripture tells us that Death and Hades are “thrown into the pool of fire” - the “second death.” That’s Hell.

So if Death and Hades is not Hell, and certainly not Heaven, what is it? And more importantly, who are these “Dead” and why are they there?

This takes us to Revelation 21:27: “nothing unclean shall enter it.” The “it” is Heaven, and the faithful who die in the grace of God (their sins are forgiven), may still be “unclean” due to what the Catholic Church calls “temporal punishment due to sin.”

A short analogy is the scenario of little Johnny being sorry for breaking a neighbor’s window, whereafter the neighbor forgives him, but the window still needs to be repaired. For Catholics, forgiveness and reparation go hand in hand and yet are two different things.

While Johnny is sorry and forgiven for breaking the window, the window must still be repaired (“reparation”) and because God is both all-just and all-merciful, he gives us a chance to pay for a new window so that we are completely “clean” when we enter into the eternal beauty of the beatific vision.

I am very aware of all the “Protestant” challenges to this point of Catholicism, but my intent here is not to engage those arguments and only to share the Catholic belief.

However, these days the real challenge to the belief in a state of post-death purification isn’t so much coming from Protestants as it is from well-meaning pastors, who, in an attempt to console the bereaved at funeral Masses, sometimes homilize the deceased into Heaven, or at minimum, fail to make any mention of Purgatory or “The Church Suffering” - as the “Poor Souls” in Purgatory are referred to in Catholic teaching.

Unfortunately, this penchant to comfort from the pulpit has lead to the trend where instead of begging prayers for the repose of Grandpa’s soul, we “celebrate his new life, “proclaim “he’s in a better place now,” and smile that “he’s no longer in pain,” - attitudes which deny Grandpa prayers and may keep Grandpa suffering in Purgatory longer than he needs to.

My Aunt Rose once told me that my Grandpa’s dying words were: “Never stop praying for me.” He knew he was going to Heaven, but not right away. Requiem Aeternam, Grandpa. Requiem Aeternam.

My paternal grandparents, Elmer and Helen Rohr, at the family farm house near Massillon Ohio, heading off to Sunday Mass. ca. 1936

Tim Rohr has resided in Guam since 1987. He has raised a family of 11 children, owned several businesses, and is active in local issues via his blog, JungleWatch.info, letters to local publications, and occasional public appearances. He may be contacted at timrohr.guam@gmail.com    

AUTHORITY THEY DO NOT HAVE

By Tim Rohr

This is a Catholic post about the "laying on of hands" by laypersons. It can be read at my Catholic blog here. 

NO BETTER DAY TO DIE

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November is the month Catholics especially remember and pray for the dead. Why we pray for the dead is a topic for another column. The subject of this column is a short story about a friend who died three years ago on November 1, our Feast of All Saints or “All Saints Day.”

I first met Tim Wood sometime in the early 90’s at the old Kings Restaurant when it was still in what was known as “Gibson’s.” Someone had brought Tim to a business presentation I was doing at a nearby hotel and a few of us had gone for coffee afterwards.

I was in my suit and tie and sat across the table from Tim, who, at the time was probably in his mid 40's, sported a pony tail and sandals, and smelled of marijuana.

We became the weirdest of friends. I never met anyone who despised Catholics as much as Tim. Tim would get crazy angry whenever the word Catholic was even mentioned. He even kept Jack Chick tracts (anti-Catholic pamphlets) in his bathroom for reading material.

Tim really believed that the pope was the anti-Christ and the Catholic Church was the "whore of Babylon," and he would assail me with near-violent harangues about Catholics going to hell at every opportunity.

But for some reason we became really good friends as well as business partners. Our business together took us on some of the craziest adventures of my life.

In the 1990's we worked on expanding our business in the Philippines. The "lahar" was still thick and deep back then and it was a real struggle to drive our little rented car from Manila to Angeles City.

The “lahar” was the gigantic lava and mud flow from the volcanic eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991. The lahar had buried whole villages, and as we drove across that burning gray dirt and sand I remember seeing church steeples and rooftops peaking through the surface. Sometimes we'd have to get out and push the car through the streams and mud when it rained.

Eventually our business adventures came to an end and Tim moved to Hawaii. Many years later - I think it was 2014 -  Tim called me one night to let me know he would be passing through the Guam airport around 4am and asked me to meet him.

We met and I found out why he wanted to meet. He wanted to tell me he had become a Catholic and told me that he loved to pray the rosary and go to Mass.

I won't say that I was in shock because I wasn't. Tim, despite his drug-fueled hippie past and hatred of Catholics, was a deeply genuine person who loved Jesus and wanted to always know him more.

 About a year later Tim called to let me know he had cancer. Over the next few years we continued to chat every once in a while. He was always deeply grateful for my companionship just as he was all those years ago when we pushed our little Toyota through the burning lahar.

About a week before he died, Tim called. It was about 3 am and I happened to be awake. I couldn’t sleep. I got up and prayed for a while and still couldn't sleep. And then I got his call. He had called me by accident and apologized for waking me up (as he had thought). We spoke for about two hours. He told me he was dying. I tried my best to "stay by his side" over the phone.

Tim's cancer was in his nasal passages which affected his speech. He had to hold his nose while he spoke so I could understand him. He apologized to me for being so hard to understand. I don’t remember what I told him. What do you tell a man who tells you he’s dying?

A few days later I learned of Tim’s death from a post by his daughter on Facebook. I looked through the photos of Tim that his daughter had posted and recalled our strange friendship, even stranger adventures, and the story of his conversion that he shared with me at 4:am in the Guam airport.

Then I noticed the date - November 1, All Saints Day, and I remember thinking: “No better day to die, Tim. No better day to die.”

I turned off the computer and said a prayer that where he went there was no lahar.

Tim Rohr has resided in Guam since 1987. He has raised a family of 11 children, owned several businesses, and is active in local issues via his blog, JungleWatch.info, letters to local publications, and occasional public appearances. He may be contacted at timrohr.guam@gmail.com   

NO "I'M SORRY" COLUMN EXPECTED

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In a recent column titled “What does it take to shock a priest?”, the author, a Catholic priest, lamenting what he perceives to be an anti-immigrant bias, asks:

“How could so many of us forget where we came from and deny people outright the very blessings we ourselves have enjoyed? How could a human issue have so easily turned into a political issue that divides rather than unites? This is very hard to understand.”

Given that the priest is a well-known intellectual, I find it “very hard to understand” that he finds it “very hard to understand.”

It’s quite simple. It’s a political issue because the Democrat Party supports allowing illegal immigrants to pour through U.S. borders to create a permanent underclass which will always vote Democrat and keep Democrats in power for generations to come, and the Republicans know this and want to stop it.

But beyond the politics of immigration, I also find it “very hard to understand” how this is the issue which most “shocks” this priest when he ministers in a mostly Catholic community (Guam), wherein:

- The indigenous, mostly Catholic, population, for decades, has been aborting its unborn at three times the rate of all other ethnicities combined.

- The mostly Catholic population has twice elected to the office of governor, Guam’s most militant advocate of snuffing out life in the womb (and even babies who survive failed abortions).

- A bill lies before the mostly Catholic Legislature (Sen. Fisher’s Bill 162-37) which is the most aggressive pro-abortion legislation ever introduced, not just in Guam, but in the entire nation.

- Many of this priest’s fellow clerics were found to have molested and raped the island’s children over half a century at a per capita rate which made clergy sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Agana the largest and filthiest in the world.

But apparently, none of these horrors “shock” this priest as much as our not being nice to illegal immigrants.

Beyond local matters, I recently set out in a previous column some “shocking” facts about U.S. Catholics generally:

- That the majority of U.S. Catholics support abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception - all anathema to Catholic doctrine.

- That 83% of donations from major Catholic charity organizations go to pro-abortion Democrat-affiliated political action committees.

- That nearly one-third of U.S. Catholics do not believe the central tenant of Catholicism: the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

But, at least for this priest, apparently none of the above shocks like the “shock” of our alleged unwelcome towards illegal immigrants.

For the record, though, this unwelcoming nonsense is absurd. According to recent UN Population Division data from mid-2020, and as reported by the Migration Policy Institute:

“Worldwide, the United States is home to more international migrants than any other country, and more than the next four countries—Germany, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the United Kingdom—combined, “ and “while the U.S. population represents about 5 percent of the total world population, close to 20 percent of all global migrants reside in the United States.”

By the way, given the damage done to our island by this priest’s fellow clerics, damage which led to the bankruptcy of the archdiocese, not to mention the damage to hundreds and probably thousands of children, not just to their bodies but to their minds and souls, it would be a nice gesture if this priest would write a column titled “I’m sorry.”

I don’t think we’ll get it. 

Tim Rohr has resided in Guam since 1987. He has raised a family of 11 children, owned several businesses, and is active in local issues via his blog, JungleWatch.info, letters to local publications, and occasional public appearances. He may be contacted at timrohr.guam@gmail.com   

IT'S DECEMBER 8 AND TIME FOR MY SOMETIMES ANNUAL MINI-RANT

By Tim Rohr

Today is December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and time for my sometimes annual mini-rant about translations, and in this case, a particularly terrible translation in that it kicks Mary out of the plan of salvation. 

CONTINUED

ON RELICS AND STATUES

In today's PDN, Dianne Iglesias once again gives Catholics an opportunity to learn what their Church really teaches and not what people like Dianne Iglesias says it does.

For Catholic teaching on relics and sacramentals, see: Catechism of the Catholic Church beginning at paragraph 1667.
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c4a1.htm#1667

For Catholic teaching on graven images, see Catechism of the Catholic Church beginning at paragraph 2129.
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c1a1.htm#2129

Then teach your children and your grandchildren.

NOW AVAILABLE: WHY I'M CATHOLIC

Recently, the elderly owner of an NBA basketball team made a racial remark and was forced to give up his team. A well-known TV chef admitted to using the "N" word thirty years ago and her show was cancelled. An NFL football player made what was judged to be an intolerant comment about the first openly gay NFL draftee and was sent to sensitivity training. But make the most hideous remarks and jokes about nuns, priests, or Catholicism in general, and you move to the front of the class. 

Fr. James Martin has called anti-Catholicism in America "The last acceptable prejudice." Why is this? Some of it is our own doing. We have been too tolerant of our internal Judases. But I would say that what Archbishop Fulton Sheen said nearly half a century ago is still true: “There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.” 

IF IT ISN'T HEAVEN AND IT ISN'T HELL, WHAT IS IT?

Last Sunday, the Pacific Daily News printed an op-ed by Guam resident, Diana Iglesias, which was critical of the Catholic teaching on purgatory, which you can read here. Today, the Pacific Daily News printed my reply, which you can read here.

HOW CATHOLICS "PRAY" TO MARY

In today's Opinion section of the PDN, Diane tells us that Catholics shouldn't pray to Mary. I shared a reply. View the letter and my reply here.

"DEAR DIANE": A RESPONSE TO THE ACCUSATION OF IDOLATRY

In the Opinion section of today's edition of the Pacific Daily News, a reader named Diane opines against the Catholic Church, accusing us of idolatry, etc. You can read her letter here (it's the second letter).

This is a very common accusation and it would do Catholics well to not use anecdotes about pictures of your kids or some such metaphor in trying to explain why we honor and pray to Mary and the saints, but to use scripture to provide the basis for our practices. Following is my response posted in the comments section. 

*****

Dear Diane,

Thank you for the opportunity to engage this topic. A few things. 

First, the bible does not number the commandments. In fact, within what we call the 10 Commandments, there are actually 13 or even 14 different directives. Different religions have grouped these directives differently. What you label the second commandment is part of the first commandment in the Catholic ordering. 

Second, if we are to take your interpretation of the passage, we would have to say that God violated his own commandment only a few chapters later in Exodus 25 when he commands the Israelites to make two statues, and not only make two statues, but place them upon the the holiest of all things, the Ark:

“Make two cherubim of beaten gold for the two ends of the cover; make one cherub at one end, and the other at the other end, of one piece with the cover, at each end. The cherubim shall have their wings spread out above, sheltering the cover with them; they shall face each other, with their faces looking toward the cover.” (Ex. 25:18-20)

And again, later in Numbers 21:8, God apparently disobeys his own commandment - as per your interpretation - when he orders Moses to: 

“Make a seraph and mount it on a pole, and everyone who has been bitten will look at it and recover.” 

It’s interesting here, that not only does God command Moses to make a “graven image” - apparently forbidden by your interpretation of Exodus 20:4-5 - but then commands that people (bitten by snakes) should “look at it” and “recover”. 

Either your understanding is incorrect or God is very confused. However, I know that it is not “your understanding”. It’s what you’ve been taught, like so many others. But going on.

You say that the Vatican asserts that Mary is the “co-redemptrix”. Actually, the Vatican has not approved “co-redemptrix” as an official title for Mary. However, if it does at some point it would be no big deal. All Christians are to be CO - operators, CO - redeemers, in the sense that we are called to carry on the redemptive work of Christ. 

Mary’s role in bringing the Good News to the world is just a bit more special than the rest of us since God chose to be enfleshed through her. 

One final note is your confusion over the word “pray” which you take to mean “worship”. “Pray” means to “ask”. And Catholics ask Mary to pray for them: “pray for us now and at the hour of our death”. We ask her and the other saints (see the “cloud of witnesses” in Heb. 12:1) to pray for us in the same way I can ask you to pray for me. It’s just that, Mary’s prayers and the prayers of the saints are ever more powerful since as James tells us “the prayers of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16). 

This verse implies that the more righteous one is the more one’s prayers will “availeth”. Nothing new there. We find the quality of petition and sacrifice dependent on the righteousness of the offerer throughout the Bible. 

Thus Catholics - and others who believe in the communion of the saints - do not limit their request for prayers to the dwellers of earth but include in their prayer circle the dwellers of heaven - where in Revelation we see them praying for us (Rev 5:8). 

There is much more, so if you would really care to know the truth of the Catholic Faith, join us on Monday nights at the Cathedral bookstore at 6pm for our study session. We would be glad to have you or anyone else with questions.