CDH Chaplain's Message

CDH trip to Kenya '09

For anyone interested in Cretin-Derham Hall’s first justice education trip to Africa (By JEForliti, June 28, 2009)

On June 8, 2009, eight CDH students and three staff left for the western part of Kenya in East Africa, returning 15 days later. It was a memorable journey into the lives and habitat of handshakes, smiles, JAMBO, and “that green spinach-like stuff,” ending with forty hours of “up-country” roads and air planes. KENYA KREW ’09 returned home happy and healthy, having experienced the journey of a life time.

THE KENYA KREW ’09.  Led by Mr. Rob Peick, Ms. Amy Bellus, and Fr. John Forliti, the students, all from the CDH class of 2010, were Brian Boyle, Maura Daugherty, Sam Dooher, Louise Gappa, Mary Henry, Megan Kramer, Cecelia Leatherman, and Revalon Wesson.

THE WEATHER. We say “We’ve been to Africa” and friends and family say “Wow, it must have been hot in those jungles and deserts.” Not so, we say. Every day, sunrise around 6 a.m. and sunset around 6 p.m., (such is life at the Equator) with day time temps in the 70’s. Ideal, even with brief afternoon showers. Rabondo’s elevation at 4,000 feet offers as perfect a weather pattern as imaginable. Every day was a perfect day weather-wise. (We returned to the Twin Cities with its 93 degree humid and heavy temp.)

OUR PURPOSE. St. Timon’s Secondary Day School, constructed in 2003-04 with donations from generous parishioners of St. Olaf Catholic Church in downtown Minneapolis, received a $10,000 grant to bring the benefits of computers to the students of St. Timon’s. The KREW from CDH spent a week teaching computer skills, thus launching a remote area of the world into the information age. The Kenyan students lapped it up with enthusiasm and genuine excitement. It was a thrill to watch it unfold.

SOME BACKGROUND. Prior to the construction of St. Timon’s, girls from this remote area and only a few boys (whose parents could afford boarding school) might have acquired a high school certificate. With an enrollment of 200 plus, St. Timon’s has become a beacon of hope for the entire community. Five of its eight teachers are paid by the government, the others volunteer and receive modest stipends from monies raised by the Rabondo Community Project USA, Inc., a charitable organization begun by Mr. Timon Bondo and located in Golden Valley, Minnesota.

TYPICAL CHALLENGES. In the Third World, personal safety, safe drinking water and food safe to eat for Americans have to be top priorities. We experienced more than adequate levels of safety in all three categories. A few of us had some minor discomfort on a couple of days, but nothing to halt full participation in every activity. Warnings about mosquitoes and malaria were taken seriously so we had taken the prescribed medications, but mosquitoes were few and apparently friendly!

ACCOMMODATIONS. Our two choices for lodging in the Rabondo area had been the Sugarland hotel in Awendo about 15 kilometers from St. Timon’s, which would have required transportation to and fro daily, or the Rabondo Community Project Guest House, a two block walk from the school. The latter was the better choice. Equipped with electricity and rain water tanks for showers, the Guest house was staffed by two cooks, a housekeeper/launderer, and a “house-boy”, making our stay comfortable. With plenty of bottled water for cooking, brushing teeth, and drinking, we had no worries about that. The food was Kenyan, well prepared and plentiful: casseroles of beans and rice, some chicken and beef, local vegetables and fruit (fresh pineapple every meal). Single rooms for CDH staff and shared rooms for CDH students were equipped with bed nets.

SIDE TRIPS. Our African experience began with three days in Nairobi. One day we visited Kibera, one of the largest slums in the world, and on another we enjoyed a safari in Nakuru National Park. Nakuru offered four rhinoceros, a million flamingoes, baboons, monkeys, deer, water buffalo, and other species. Kibera offered people making the most of very little, a lesson in human ingenuity, courage, and hope. In Rabondo, a visit to the SONY sugar factory put us in touch with the one major industry near St. Timon’s, a 1930’s factory with poor working conditions and minimal pay.

          MEMORABLE MOMENTS. There were several. Our stay at the LaSalle Center in Nairobi provided a brief look at the work of the Christian Brothers in Africa. Minnesotans, Brothers Dominic Ehrmantraut and Tom Sullivan picked us up at the Nairobi airport with our eighteen suitcases full of educational, medical, athletic, recreational, and clothing donations. The LaSalle Center

is home to several Brothers-in-training representing Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa and India. Comfortable accommodations and terrific hospitality.

          A visit to the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy gave us a look at a project whose purpose is to give girls living in the slum a chance at life, giving them an education and reason to hope. We saw their crowded classrooms and witnessed an inter-school match between the girls and the Academy’s faculty. Abdul, founder of the Academy, was our guide. A CDH grad, Ryan Sarafolean, had worked with Abdul in the past and plans to go back in the Fall with funds raised in Minnesota.

          In the Rabondo area, our first Sunday there, we participated in the Corpus Christi procession and Mass at St. Monica’s parish in Rapogi, the central parish church of the Rabondo community. The procession swelled to some 800 plus people with participation of the parish’s primary and secondary school students Also on the compound is a hospital. The entire service lasted about four hours with the typical celebration of Mass and its nearly continuous singing and praising God. Our whiteness was of interest, especially to the children. “Muzungu” they called us. “White folks!”

          Although the Kenyan school year does not end until November, the graduation ceremony for St. Timon’s was held early in honor of our visit. Unlike at  home where our seniors tend to slack off months before graduation, Kenyan high school graduates have to pass national exams so their motivation keeps them on task until November. The ceremony began with a prayer and two poetry recitations by students, then moved into a long series of speeches. Speeches are important in Rabondo so anyone with a hint of prominence in the community enjoyed some time on stage.

The two main speakers read from their texts and were sure to list (for our benefit) the school’s priorities for further development. I was honored to be the Chief Guest, offering a prayer to the “graduands” -- as they call them-- that they would be learners life long, be courageous in the face of challenges, and cherish their strong faith in God and Jesus Christ. I was also honored to hand out the diplomas. A moment of silence was requested  to honor Jim Ryan whose family contribution was key to the construction of St. Timon’s. Jim had passed away just two weeks earlier.

          Our second Sunday in Rabondo was punctuated with Mass celebrated in the dining hall of St. Timon’s. As the sole celebrant I was assisted by a seminarian, Brother Cavin, from St. Monica’s who translated English into the Luo native tongue and gave the homily. These Christians know how to sing! Men’s voices in counterpoint with women’s made the music truly impressive. Some participants had walked for two hours to get to

Mass.

Their sense of community and the gospel call to love their neighbors was evident in the offerings the poor made to others even less well off.

Again, while the community was gathered, expression of gratitude to “the U.S. visitors from CDH” could not have been more effusive. They loved us! And hope to have more reason in the future to express gratitude. Current priorities specified by the Principal, Samuel Omogi, are these:

1) Text books (3 per student for 200 students each at $3,500 US)

2) 70 stools for the science laboratory (c. $2,000 US)

3)    40 student desks and chairs (c. $2,300 US)

4)    Library building (foundation is complete, $14,000 US to build)

5)    A dormitory for girls, another for boys (c. $50,000 US)

Other items on the wish list are a school bus, additional classrooms, a kitchen, and a bursary to cover school fees, uniforms, and texts for orphans.

          MAJOR GAINS. While we were there negotiations were completed for a bore hole (a well) to be dug within the school compound that will furnish safe water to St. Timon’s, to the primary school’s seven hundred plus students, to the dispensary, and to the Guest House. Work is expected to be completed by October, ’09. Funds were provided by Rotary Clubs of Alaska and White Bear Lake, Minnesota!

          Another major gain is the advantage that computer technology will give to St. Timon’s students, thanks to the grant from the Augustine Foundation and the introductory instructions given by the CDH Kenya Krew ’09. As Mr. Omogi put it: Rabondo has now entered the Information Age!

          All in all, the CDH trip to Kenya was very successful: no one got sick, no one got lost, our luggage followed us without incident, CDH represented the US

with grace and were received with outstanding hospitality. One student admitted that, prior to our arrival, some Kenyan students thought we Americans might act in a way that would lead them to “despise” us, but instead they found us wonderfully friendly and gracious. It was mutual.

          Contributions can be directed to RABONDO COMMUNITY PROJECT USA , P.O. Box 27954, Minneapolis, 55427. Any questions, feel free to call me (Fr. Forliti) at 651-488-4514 or email at jeforliti@comcast.net

CDH Baccalaureate 09

CDH Baccalaureate 09  Congratulations to the Cretin-Derham Hall Class of 2009. Today you gather with your parents and guardians, family members and friends to celebrate a mile stone in your journey of faith, giving thanks to our God who has blessed you so abundantly.

Faith is a journey not a destination. Graduates, your very existence was given birth in an act of faith on the part of your parents, faith in themselves that they could give you most if not all of what you would need to arrive at this day; faith in God that their vocation as guardians of life and transmitters of love would be strengthened by spiritual blessings, material well-being and deeply held moral values. We are, all of us, products of homes that have nourished, of faith that has sustained, and of hopes that have endured.

Faith is a journey, not a destination. Graduates, as you have grown through childhood and teenage, you have received much. Those who have loved you have protected you from yourselves, from childhood risk-taking to adolescent missteps. You have been loved into learning by your teachers, coaches, friends, and classmates. You have been encouraged to love God on your own, and to embrace Jesus Christ as your daily companion. Though still young, you have been challenged by time: when to laugh and when to cry, when to build and when to tear down, when to be silent and when to speak, when to plant and when to uproot. Yet, with all that has been your life thus far, you have only just begun. Like all of us, you have one life to live and one life to give, with most of it still to come.

As you accept now the gift of future time, I offer two special prayers for you. First, I pray that you will embrace Jesus’ gift of the Eucharist. There is nothing more important in your journey of faith than genuine participation in Sunday Eucharist. It will keep you grounded morally and spiritually, and give you strength no matter the challenge or need. The Last Supper that Jesus left us as a memorial of his death and resurrection is the only lasting meal we can count on. We are saved in community. Get to Church. It will serve you well. Do not let the secular environment of our times nor the failures of religious institutions and people trick you into believing that organized religion has little to offer. Though still young, you are wise enough to know that no institution is perfect. Government, education, business, medicine, religion, --even family-- deserve the best we can give them. When our institutions are healthy, everyone benefits.

My second prayer for you is this. For many of you, your college environment will promote science over faith. You know better. You know that both science and faith are God’s gifts and the world is blessed when they complement each other. You have learned that science answers when, what and how, but faith alone can answer who and why. Ultimately, who made you and why are the more important answers for your faith journey. Don’t ever forget who made you and why. That is my second prayer.

So, get to Church and keep the faith. Those are my two prayers for you. Do so and you will be an example in your love, purity, and self-control. Do so, and you will know the peace that God gives in the person and name of Jesus. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Have faith in God and faith in Jesus. May Jesus live in your hearts, forever.

TEENS ARE NOT THERE YET

TEENS ARE NOT THERE YET

Teens not there yet! Teens are at the front end of the adolescent phase of human development, a phase beginning at puberty (age 11 or so) and ending in the mid or late twenties. Would you agree or not: all teens are “at risk” today, a term usually used to designate teens struggling with chemical dependency, alcohol abuse, gang involvement, and similar difficult life conditions? I believe that all adolescents are at risk for the following reasons.

1)      Modern medicine, now able to take pictures of the developing brain, has demonstrated that, contrary to earlier beliefs that the human brain was fully developed around age 17 or so, our brains continue to grow into the mid twenties. And it’s the pre-frontal cortex that is doing the growing. So, what does this part of the brain do? Executive function! That is, it’s that part of the brain that makes decisions and judgments, that differentiates among conflicting thoughts, that determines good and bad, better and best. It presents future consequences of present actions, helps us work toward defined goals, predicts outcomes from current behaviors, and applies social control (suppressing urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially-unacceptable outcomes). In adolescents, the pre-frontal cortex is NOT THERE YET. Which is why the young folks need parents, mentors, and friends to help them make good decisions: about speed limits and not texting while driving, about binge drinking (the scourge among college “kids”), about porn and premature sexual behaviors, about sexually transmitted diseases and the limits of safer sex, about drug use and hanging around with the wrong crowd, or jumping off cliffs without checking the depth of the river below. A challenge for all parents and parental surrogates is to save us from ourselves as we go through adolescence. 

a.       Some corollaries:

                                                               i.      “But we love each other” ends with her being used and both more confused about what love truly is.  

                                                             ii.      “At risk behaviors” (sex, drugs, erratic thinking and doing) have a way of derailing us on our way to maturity. Actually, some of us never really “grow up”.

                                                            iii.      Sexually active teenage girls are four times more likely to experience depression than girls who are not sexually active. For boys, the ratio is two times more likely.

                                                           iv.      Having life goals, that is, a career and life purpose to aim at, helps significantly in our making good decisions during adolescence. Vast numbers of college students still do not know what they want to do with their lives. We live in an era of extended adolescence.

                                                             v.      How can something that feels so good possibly be bad is a question most teens are not ready yet to be wise about. The power of passion, the “love is blind” reality. Added to this moral dilemma is that a case can be made that love is not only blind, it’s deaf too!  They don’t hear a word their parents are saying!

                                                           vi.      The damage to one’s brain cells caused by chemical abuse is not the first thing on an adolescent’s mind when he/she is floating in mid-air. Drinking and driving, binge drinking, acts of vandalism, date-rape, etc.

                                                          vii.      “If I get in trouble, medications will fix me.” The youthful feeling of invulnerability. Knowledge about long term side-effects are only part, and a small one oftentimes, in the prevention of destructive behaviors. The distance between the head and the heart (knowing what’s right and doing it) can be especially difficult for adolescents to bridge. It’s that prefrontal cortex again!  

2)      Preponderance of peer pressure during adolescence makes all teens and young adults “at risk”. Our identities (sexual and core identities) typically do not settle for life until the middle and late twenties. That is when, hopefully for all, we have reached a personal authenticity, with our morals and values pretty well established for life, and a strong sense of self, making us capable of making good choices in a mature manner. The leap from friend to lover is huge and the pressure to make this leap sets teens up for unwise choices. “Everybody is doing it” may be the mantra but a false one. Current data indicates that today’s teens are less likely to be sexually active than a decade ago. Even if true, majority rule is not a solid basis for morality. 

3)      A third factor making all adolescents “at risk” is the stimulation in western culture. So much of the media that dominates adolescents’ lives is driven by greed, created and promoted by premature adults, fueled by readily available access to porn and other negative shallow or false values. Add to this the current wave of anti-religious sentiment which serves to sever adolescent’s ties to highly principled communities and morally strong role models.  

4)      Most adolescents are on the way, but not there yet, in their capacity to understand the relationship between love and sex, the responsibilities which come with adult behaviors, the interplay of gender similarities and gender differences (e.g. males will play at love to have sex, females will play at sex to have love).

Some adolescents seem to understand their “at risk” phase of growth and appreciate and work with the adults in their lives. These young folks will survive the risks with a few minor scars. Others, more resistant to external controls, benefit greatly from the adults who hang in there with them, see them through their hurting and healing, continue to provide encouragement and guidance, offer honest feedback, and persist in loving them while not approving of certain behaviors. Adults know from their own experience that new beginnings are always possible, that some past mistakes may leave permanent scars but scars can be blessings once the festering has finished. There is no substitute for genuine moral strength. A moral fabric that is founded upon faith in our Creator God and, --for Christians, faith in Jesus, will serve us well till the shadows fall and our journeys end. 

During adolescence, the over-arching task in human development is the I-Thou relationship, growing in the capacity to develop healthy relationships. Friendship is the field of play most critical to this development.

Spiritual, not religious

What do you think? I have come to believe that the statement commonly offered these days to the effect "I'm spiritual but not religious" may be a cop-out, one more sign that community is out and individualism is in. Sort of like:

    I'm patriotic but let somebody else fight to protect my freedom.

    I love my family but I rarely attend family gatherings.

    I wear my team's uniform but I usually skip practices.

    I want to live in a clean and safe neighborhood but I hate paying the taxes.

The "spiritual but not religious" expression might also be one way to say "Organized religion has been a source of pain and disappointment for me and I'm stepping away for a while or maybe forever." Or it might be a temporary phase on the way from "I" to "We" in personal development. I can understand these sentiments and developments. But there may be more to it.

Could it be that some baby boomers and/or their offspring are disconnected from the historical movements that brought them the good life they enjoy. I am thinking of the Church's promotion of the labor movement, and the Catholic social teaching that had a great deal to do with establishing humane working conditions and the benefits enjoyed by the majority of Americans. I am also thinking about the Martin Luther King Jr. and the gains made in the civil rights movement, again largely fueled by organized religion, by communities of faith doing together what alone or separately would never have been accomplished. 

Individual spirituality cut off from a community of faith does not benefit from what only a social order can bring to it, namely, beliefs tempered by reason, moral values moderated by a shared wisdom and common human experiences. 

Human beings are not islands unto themselves. We are social beings by nature. At some point in our spiritual journeys we will seek out others of like mind and find ourselves --imagine that -- organized into a faith community.    

What's so great about Catholicism

Some reasons why I love my Catholic Faith:

    1) We trace our comunity back to Jesus and the Apostles. He gave us Word and Sacrament, experienced in community, to continue to feed us until the end of time.

    2) We've done it all, the worst and the best, to some degree or other, which both gives us good reason to be humble and good reason to continue to strive to do great things.

    3) Through the roughest centuries of Western civilization, our monastic tradition preserved the classical heritage that remains the basis of Western culture.

    4) Our social justice teaching has been forged over centuries of history, giving positive major impetus to societal and economic policies and structures, challenging institutions of all kinds to work for the common good.

    5) Our Church has maintained a profound respect for the human mind, being a major force in the development of schools and universities.

    6) From the time of Jesus, the dignity of women and children, the priority of family, respect for every human being have been protected and fostered.

    7) Our Church has fostered the development of science, striving to maintain its accountability to a higher order. Science is not an end in itself. Just because we can doesn't mean we ought to.

    8) Our Church fosters the totality of human nature, including its respect for music and the arts.

There is more, to be sure, but these strike me as good beginners to the answer the question; What is so great about Catholicism!

"Biting the hand"...reflections on science and faith

Whether innocently or mischieviously, we sometimes bite the hand that feeds us. In this series of brief essays I will attempt to summarize bits and pieces of a fascinating book, WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT CHRISTIANITY, by Dinesh D'Souza. I believe he slays several dragons of ignorance and dishonesty toward organized religion and the Catholic Church. It is pretty well established that Europe is abandoning its Christian roots and the United States is on the edge of doing the same. D'Souza sees much of the energy for this change as being fueled by a new atheism, one founded on the classical proponents of a century earlier, such men as Nietzsche, Marx, and Darwin. The new atheism is intellectually militant and morally self confident, he writes, a confidence based strictly on science. Science has become the new religion for many, inspiring their passion, goals, devotion and arrogance. I strongly recommend D'Souza's book.

By titling this series "Biting the hand that feeds us" I mean to suggest that much of the contemporary criticism of organized religion, and Christianity particularly, is unwarranted, exaggerated, unfair, and myopic. It seems to me to be the "sore thumb" syndrome, that is, seeing only the small part that is wounded while failing or refusing to see the rest of the body which is healthy and doing quite well. It is a major mistake for us Christians to retreat from the critics, and indeed a sad state of affairs if our backing away is because we have failed to realize the great things Christianity has done for democracy, gender equality, racial harmony, business ethics, economic justice, education of the poor, health services, works of compassion, and other improvements for the common good of humanity.

Dragon # 1   Atheists charge that organized religions, including the Catholic Church, are enemies of science.

It is unquestionably true that some religious bodies defy and deny scientific facts, for example, fundamentalist Christians who reject the evidence surrounding the theory of evolution. Not only does the Catholic Church accept the scientific evidence of evolution (Pope John Paul II taught that the theory is now more than a theory but fact, given all the evidence) but the Church was one of the earliest proponents of scientific research through its establishment of universities as far back as the 13th century, and continues today. Across the globe, Catholic educational institutions at all levels of learning --universities prominent among them--continue to foster science.

Dragon # 2  Galileo's case demonstrates the Catholic Church's animosity toward science. Prominent atheist, Carl Sagan, portrays Galileo "in a Catholic dungeon threatened with torture."

In this charge antagonists toward the Church demonstrate either ignorance of history or anti-religious bias or both. Galileo lived at a time when science itself was having an internal struggle between Ptolemy (the sun revolves around the earth) and Copernicus (the earth revolves around the sun). In his time, religious faith and science were closely intermingled --an environment we find it difficult to comprehend, cherishing as we do, the separation of church and state. Galileo's run-in with Church authorities placed him at odds with some theologians and he was called to account for his views. Contrary to atheist claims Galileo was never tortured or placed in a dungeon. House arrest for the first five months in a luxurious palace followed by going home to his villa with liberty to continue his scientific researh is far from the false picture promoted by atheist propangandists. He was never charged with heresy despite the fact that he ventured outside his scientific arena into theology. (D'Souza, ch. 10)

Dragon # 3 Through its Inquisition the Catholic Church cast fear into all of Europe by hunting down huge numbers of heretics and by persecuting Jews.

While it is true -and not to be excused--that religion is sometimes the source of conflicts and killing, it is also true that atheistic and anti-religious writers have greatly exaggerated religion's role. More often than not, though religion has been blamed, ethnic rivalry and politics were and still are the real issues. Examples are plentiful: the Thirty Years War in Europe was primarily political not religious. Northern Ireland, the Sunni-Shiite conflict in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are all politically motivated conflicts in essence.

The historial stereotypes of the Inquisition --that the Catholic Church cast fear into all of Europe by its hunting down and executing large numbers of heretics and persecuting Jews are largely myths created by political enemies of religion. One contemporary historian, Henry Kamen in THE SPANISH INQUISITION estimates the executions at 2,000 over a period of 350 years. Ugly and bad, to be sure, but far from the number of executions by atheists over a period of 100 years: Stalin's twenty million, Hitler's ten million, Mao Zedong's seventy million, without counting lesser atheistic tyrants such as Pol Pot, Castro, Hoxha, Ceausescu, and Kim Jong-il. D"Souza (page 219) writes; "Taken together, the Crusades, the Inquisition, and witch burnings (the latter accounting for half of this number) killed approximately 200,000 people. Adjusting for the increase in population, that's the equivalent of one million deaths today. Even so, these deaths caused by Christian rulers over a 500 year period amount to only 1 per cent of the deaths caused by Stalin, Hitler, and Mao in the space of a few decades." D'Souza's point is not to justify the sins of Christians but rather to offer a perspective that seems to have evaded the atheist's view of history.

Dragon #4  "The Crusades slaughtered millions in the name of Jesus. The Inquisition brought the torture and murder of millions more. After Martin Luther, Christians did bloody battle with other Christians for another three centuries." -- Columnist Robert Kuttner spelling out the case against Christianity.

Before Mohammed's time, the majority of inhabitants of Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Egypt were Christians. Inspired by Islam's call to jihad, Mohammed's armies conquered Jerusalem and the Middle East. By the time Christendom began to fight back (two centuries later) Islam had pushed into Africa, Asia, and Europe, including parts of Italy and most of Spain. (D'Souza ch. 18)

The term Crusades was unknown to the Christian pilgrims who, at great sacrifice to themselves, chose to recapture places they revered as holy. Yes, there was pillaging and rape committed by some and the killing of many Jews, but it must be noted that the vast majority of the crusader pilgrims were uneducated and were left to themselves to find food, shelter, and safety. They left their homes passionate about reclaiming the holy places that Islam had taken from them. They had to provide their own horses, pack animals, and equipment. The pillaging and murders they committed cannot be justified but neither can the charges be justified that the crusades were a crime against humanity. "The Crusades can be seen as a belated, clumsy, and unsuccessful effort to defeat Islamic imperialism. Yet the Crusades were important because they represented a fight for the survival of Europe. (D'Souza, p. 210)

Dragon #5  "Faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the small pox virus but harder to eradicate. ...Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness."  Richard Dawkins. (D'Souza p.196)

Some religious beliefs can be dangerous, even crazy. Witness suicide bombings and 9/11 for recent examples of dangerous. The resident of a psyche ward who claims to be Napoleon is an example of illness. So, where would Dawkins, an atheist, put Stalin, Hitler, and Mao who collectively annihilated 100 million innocent people? Is human faith the power that needs to be harnessed, rather than religion?

One of the persistent contributions of the Catholic Church historically is its respect for rationality, for the human capacity to reason. And, believe it or not, it is reason that harnesses faith, and faith that harnesses reason.

Atheists would have us believe that science and reason are the only roads to truth, the only realities that are real. But faith is real also. In fact, faith alone can deal with some parts of reality that science cannot. One example: science may be able to tell us how the world developed over the eons of time, the Big Bang theory and evolution giving very believable evidence for both, the when and how. But science cannot answer the questions of who and why. These are questions that point to realities beyond science's capability.

Try to change the beliefs of another person. You can reason, thinking that you are being reasonable in your arguments but to no avail. People believe what they choose to believe. Evidence to the contrary may have an influence in changing or modifying another's faith, or it may not. Faith can be powerful in wreaking havoc or creating the good and the beautiful.

Dragon #6  If scientists can destroy the influence of religion on young people, "then I think (this) may be the most important contribution we can make." Physicist Steven Weinberg.

No wonder parents worry about their children losing their faith at the college door. Many teachers, at the college level especially, cast scorn upon religious beliefs, labeling them as simplistic, unsophisticated. Scientific views and naturalistic world views are presented as fashionable and enlightened, and the only true reality. A bonus for young adults that such an attack on religion offers is its characterization of religion as sexually repressive, therefore, abandoning religious faith leaves one free and without restraints. 

It is standard fare in universities and colleges to presume that religious beliefs are something to grow out of, and education is a major means of achieving that. The problem for Christians is not that they have been indoctrinated in their religion and know too much, but that they know too little. They freeze up when challenged by the atheist perspective and are too easily intimidated by atheist claims. A way out is to seek the safety of other ill-informed believers rather than the charged up non-believers eager to spread anti-religious attitudes of the "intellectually elite." Christianity needs apologists for the faith who are well informed and passionate about their faith to meet the intellectual and scientific challenges against it. We can no longer presume that we live in a Christian West.

Dragon # 7  "The cosmos is all there is or ever was or will be." Carl Sagan.

In other words, the natural is all that exists. The supernatural does not exist, never did, does not now, and never will. Children should be taught to revere science as a replacement for religion. Dawkins asks "should parents be free to impose their beliefs upon their children? Is there something to be said for society stepping in?" Dawkins goes so far as to say that teaching children religious doctrine is a form of child abuse. What a dangerous and unsophisticated belief this is! Christianity holds firmly to the rights of parents over the state.

Dragon #8 Atheist Christopher Hitchens condemns Chrstianity as "a creepy movement to impose orthodoxy on a free and pluralist and secular republic."  (D'Souza, ch. 22)

Atheists do not object to morality, many of them are known for their decent moral living. They object to absolute morality, a moral code issued from "above", a set of standards that obligates every human being, a universal and objective morality. As non-believers in God, they reject any notion that whatever universal morality there seems to be, it is not divinely derived. The golden rule --do unto others as you would have them do unto you --they say, is a natural development in the evolutionary process. The "oughts" that people feel are ultimately for self-preservation or for the survival of one's genes into the future.

D'Souza unveils Christianity's belief in the existence of a natural moral law (e.g. honesty) just as there are natural physical laws (e.g. gravity), and that these universal prescriptions for right behavior are obvious when we consider the workings of conscience. Deep in the Judaeo-Christian experience is belief in God as the One who is the giver of these universal moral laws just as God is the Creator of nature's laws. Contrary to the opinions of some, exceptions do not falsify or eliminate the existence of a universal and objective morality, they reinforce it. Disagreements among humans do not eliminate it either but rather demonstrate its complexity. Simply put: some behaviors every human ought to do, other behaviors humans ought not do.  

Contrary to atheist claims, our experience of a universal moral code is a strong argument for the existence of God, and further, powerful evidence that this God is good, the source of love itself, and a respecter of the freedom God gave humans to choose good and or to choose evil.

Dragon # 9  ...the claim that Christianity and Christ do not matter.

In D'Souza's final chapter he reflects on how Christianity "can change your life."

No question that organized religion, Christianity a major one among them, has plenty of failures. elcome to the human reace. Evenso it must be said that Christianity is unique for what it holds to be true, and for the ideals and relationship to God through Jesus that are at its core. Distinct from other world religions (e.g. Judaism, Buddhism, Islam) Christianity is defined by one person, Jesus, who claimed to be more than God's human messenger (Moses, Buddha, and Mohammed), claiming to be divine as well as human.

Jesus remains the most influential person in history. The claims about His resurrection are unique. The requirements he makes of His followers can be rejected but not ignored --there will be judgment and justice done.

How can Christianity improve our lives? D'Souza offers several thoughts. 1) Christianity makes sense of who we are in the world. Christianity has always embraced both reason and faith. While reason helps us discover things about experience, faith helps us understand things that transcend experience.  

2) Christianity infuses life with a powerful and exhilarating sense of purpose. Our lives on earth have meaning not only to ourselves but to God. Injustices experienced and sufferings undergone are not the end, but point to a transcendent power who can bring good from evil and blessings from misfortune. Each person matters. This life is but prologue to the next. We live our lives in the "shadow of eternity."

3) Christianity gives us the answer to our loneliness. In life as in death we are never alone. God is with us. Since it is impossible for us to reach up to God, God has reached down to us. Jesus is the Way, the truth, and the life. 

Selma and Inauguration Day

Selma and Inauguration Day. It was 44 years ago that I marched with an estimated twenty-five thousand plus Americans from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery. It was an intense time: fresh memories of civil rights workers seized and murdered, of red necks' and KKK's open hostility towards blacks and northern "do-gooders", of mounted police mercilessly whipping peaceful protesters, of deep seated bigotry and hate. We slept on church basement floors and in the open air chill. We sang "We shall overcome", over and over, as we walked, hope filled but with an ever present realization of potential danger. Reminding us of the danger were the national guard personnel, evenly spaced, facing away from us, with their guns held in the ready, for our protection. An experience I shall never forget.

Yesterday, as I watched the broadcast of President Obama's inauguration and listened to comments from both blacks and whites, I felt the surge of hope and bubbling joy in young and old alike. I began to realize that I would never truly appreciate what this day must mean for African Americans.

I was one of the marchers at Selma and am glad to have been there. I needed to be there. But, like yesterday, Selma's significance for blacks was far beyond my comprehension. Still, I did not need to comprehend Selma to participate in its noble purpose. Nor do I need to comprehend yesterday's Inauguration to be grateful for its occurence. We humans may be slow in accomplishing God's work. And it may take a while for us to get it right. Whether or not we comprehend it, it may be sufficient to partake and be grateful.

Calling All Atheists

Dr. Francis Collins directed one of the most significant and amazing scientific projects in modern times. The genome project arrived at the genetic code for humans. It has over 3 billion letters and, if written on paper and the papers stacked on top of each other, the pile would equal the height of the Washington monument!

Collins was not raised with any serious religious training and went through a period of agnosticism in his late teens, then in college believed he was an atheist. Then he read MERE CHRISTIANITY by C.S. Lewis and changed his mind about atheism. Now  atheism struck him as denying reason. He began to search for God and found God in the Christian faith. What is an amazing story is his capacity to embrace science and faith in beautiful harmony. His book THE LANGUAGE OF GOD is a first rate read for anyone espousing atheism but open to learn.

CCC #9 Do you want to find God?

Do you want to find God? Then be silent, for long periods of time. Meditate. Contemplate. Disengage from the need to accomplish and God will find you. Open your soul to the blessings that surround you. Realize that you are not the center of the universe. And halt the rat race. Make time for the inner life --your relationship with God and the One whom God sent, Jesus. Practice prayer and the interior life.

CCC #8 On Bended Knee

What is it in our current culture that encourages us to think we are God's equal? Little need to wonder and worship, little inclination to lie down before our Creator God and adore, no desire to bend one's knee in the presence of the Holy One. There is something beautiful that happens in the human heart when one is kneeling before God.