EWTN Live - Catechesis of Youth- Fr. Mitch Pacwa with Archbishop Raymond Burke - 08-18-2010

tonight we have with us a guest who was very well known to be a fan of the st. Louis Cardinals however nowadays he hangs around with a bunch of Roman Cardinals so please stay with us as we meet and talk to the head of the Apostolic e-signature thank you thank you welcome I'm father Mitch Pacwa and welcome to EWTN live our chance to bring you guests from all over the world and today we went for other than usual tonight's guest holds the highest judicial office in the church right after the Pope himself and tonight we'll be talking to him because he's the first American to head the Supreme Tribunal of the apostolic signature oh so please welcome our guest Archbishop Raymond Burke well you've come a long way we first met in La Crosse Wisconsin where you would just you know having a great time being a bishop over there you were there but ten years almost and nine years more or less and Wisconsin is your home state yes I was born and raised in that diocese yes it's my home and as most of us from Illinois expect from Wisconsin Ian's that there was a certain connection to cheese at least in the dairy farming yes and I am the son of dairy farmers so I ate a lot of cheese in my day Oh Beth they probably made some over the yes there were a lot of cheese makers in my among my relatives no that's cool those days they had a lot of small cheese factories which are all gone now last too bad it is too bad you know what I like I always like you know that that that quality that comes from you know individuals bringing their own little style this is not the same state the mcdonaldization of our culture is not a positive thing I'm with you yeah but again we've come a long way from there now you moved up to be the Archbishop of st. Louis and now you're at the signature I know we want to talk about a couple topics tonight but what is this signature well this the signature is the highest court of the Holy Father as you well observed the Holy Father is the first judge in the church he exercises that jurisdiction immediately but obviously with olives responsibilities he needs people to help him and so we help him with the administration of justice in the church we are a combination of two things we're a Department of Justice we have the supervision of all the tribunals throughout the world there are over a thousand of them they send us annual reports we help them deal with questions of the abbé we also give them help if they don't have enough degreed personnel if they have people who are equivalent equivalently prepared we get grant dispensation so they can serve in the tribunal and then we ask from time to time to review sentences that they have given to make sure that they're our jurisprudence is in accord with the church's before we describe some of that I know a lot of people wonderful well what kind of case are you like Perry Mason well there are murder cases is it like The Da Vinci Code and you have all these court cases going on no we don't the Roman rota handles all of the the vindication of rights cases where people for instance vindicate the right to enter a valid marriage in other words they contest the validity of the of the marriage they're in an order that they can enter a valid marriage and basically that's what they do they're also sometimes cases of defamation of character where people vindicate the right to their good name in the church with the only cases we do are called administrative cases and that's when either an individual or group of people protest an administrative act of a superior in the church for instance the suppression of a parish the transfer of a priest against his will the dismissal of a religious if one or another party feels that the law has not been followed in this administrative act they make an appeal to the Roman congregation which is competent let's say for instance the bishop decides to close a parish to suppress it then if if an individual or group of individuals felt that the law wasn't followed then they would make an appeal to the Congregation for the clergy which is competent for those questions and then if they weren't satisfied with a response that they received there then it's appealed to us as the Supreme Tribunal we give a definitive decision the matter and there's no appeal against our decision okay so that's that's a Supreme Court element that's the Supreme Court that's a the judicial element that's where and we handle those cases in a in a judicial manner we have arguments from attorneys representing each party and then we have a promoter of justice who responds and then they respond to him and then the the the case is finally given to our judges who make a definitive decision so and if the judges have a problem do they make reference to you I always normally I preside over the the meeting of the judges so that the ouais have access to me and then usually we judge them in groups of five judges or by groups of five judges and so they're before other Cardinals or Archbishop's or bishops who I call in all of our judges are apart from myself all of the judges have other duties in the church and they're called in we usually give them about a two month notice send them all of the acts of the case they study it and then they come in for the session and we do three or four cases in a session know do you deal with heresy trials no that's the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith so you don't have to worry about that no this is this is more trying to take care of the administrators actually they've met those cases that we handle judicially are all administrative acts and they they don't have to do with with crimes or with like heresy or or sysm or or we don't handle either the cases of vindication of Rights like marriage nullity cases now one other thing unlike the Supreme Court of the United States do you legislate from the bench absolutely not we strictly apply the the law of the church and Accord across the general Church law is always tied to the church's teaching it's the discipline reflects the truths of the faith so we we follow strictly what is the church's law and and we in interpreted but the interpretation is meant to be an application of the law to a particular situation according to the exact sense of the law we don't change we don't change the law we have no art we have no legislative authority you know it'd be nice if you could give seminars to some of the US federal judges or the circuit court or Supreme Court they they could use a good lesson on how to interpret law rather than try to make law that's a it's a good observation not that I could give the seminars but that is a difficulty now one one of the things that you also are in charge besides this is your I don't know if you're in charge but you're working with the causes for saints what's your role with that I'm a member of five other die-cast stories as we call them or Offices of the Holy Father and those are demand more or less time and what the the members do is we meet periodically once again we receive an advance documentation to study and then we meet to discuss for instance the COS of a saint for that particular congregation or with bishops we meet to discuss candidates for the office of bishop in a particular diocese or with the Congregation for divine worship and the discipline of the sacraments we meet to discuss the liturgical questions or questions with regard to the sacraments the Congregation for the clergy can be any number of particular concerns either about the life of the clergy or about khattak addicts is also part of that congregation or the organization of parishes and then the last one I'm on is legislative texts and that has to do with the with church law and how its interpreted well so you you keep pretty busy yes I don't have any time on my hands so to speak one one of the de Castries what does it word de Castries come from it's from Aladdin where dicus terraeum and it simply was used from in the Roman times to describe an office of the of the governing authority and so that's it it translates literally as de Castries because it includes tribunals it includes congregations Roman congregations and also the Pontifical councils so it's just an old Roman world Roman word that covers all of the offices of the Holy Father okay no the one on Saints this is kind of interesting because we have a couple of Americans who are being considered yeah at least Archbishop Sheen is one yes but kook Cardinal cook is another one we hope also for Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha the very old blessed but we hope that her cause will go forward for canonization and right so that'd be another Native American yes bishop Baraga from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan right the venerable Solanas Casey therefore the famous Capuchin friar that his cause is also before the congregation so there and there are others as well but those are some that come immediately to mind well one of the ones that I know that you are personally interested in and I am too because I had the privilege of knowing him with his father John Anthony Hardin yes father Hardin was a Jesuit priest and tell us a little bit about his cause his cause really began in my last years in st. Louis in 2007 I had worked with father harden the last three years of his life because I was very concerned for the restoration of catechesis in the church and he had founded an apostolate called the Marian catechist apostolate for the doctrinal and spiritual formation of catechist and when I heard him speak about it at the Institute on religious life which was another apostle at which he founded I immediately got in touch with him made contact with him and then we began to work together in developing this apostolate he had been working on it for a long time and so I came to know him well he was I always called him the quintessential Jesuit because the apostille was everything to him and I always tell the story about the last time I saw him was just two weeks before he died I visited him in Detroit and he was very weak he could you you had to I'd you kneel down and put my ear up to him he was seated because I couldn't couldn't hear him but his last words were to me where father Bishop will you continue to work with me but it was always doing the work of the church and that was his great passion and so I I personally was convinced of his sanctity and then I came to know through father harden so many people have been working with him many more years than I had many lay people and they and also priests too and religious then they urged after he had died that that his cause should be we begun and so we we contacted the Archbishop of Detroit Cardinal Maeda where he had died and normally that's where a cause of a saint is is carried out the work it's actually a tribunal procedure too because you you make the argument that this person was heroic and in a sanctity and Cardinal my day since I was involved with the apostolate si gave me his okay is he had no objection to it being done in st. Louis and so that's where we we began that cars also of course with the permission of the Congregation for the cause of the Saints they had to give their permission for the cause to begin so it has begun we have a the former convent at the Cathedral Basilica in st. Louis is the headquarters of the archive and guild where all of others writings are being gathered and also where his life is being studied and they're also beginning now through the postulator father Robert McDermott who was a priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee we'll begin to take testimony from those who knew father Hardin about his holiness of life and about the various virtues which he which he demonstrated but I see him in particular as a great teacher of the faith that in a period of time when the teaching of the faith was really called into crisis and he was fearless and tireless in in advancing a sound catechesis his catechism for instance that he published early on many people have told me how it was the it got them through that period of tremendous confusion and so forth because it was a solid reference he had a way he knew the the doctrine of the faith but he also had a way of expressing it which was quite accessible to people you know one of his friends was my spiritual director when I was a young professor at Loyola University and Father harden wasn't known for being the most bubbly speaker no not at all he was as dry as dust if he had and he had a very soft voice it was interesting the first time I heard him I thought oh like because they but you know when you got used to him it really you enjoyed listening to him and you just got used to that voice which was very soft and and he was no he didn't put on any kind of show at all no but there was a there was a depth and a conviction that came through even with that kind of manner that it was very effective and lay people tell me that too that they said you know the first time they heard him they were a little bit put off but then they it almost became it took hold of you after a while that the here he was expounding these truths with this very serene manner and so forth but it was effective and one of the things that this my spiritual director said is father harden didn't have the greatest number of gifts you know he wasn't a gifted speaker he wasn't eloquent and all this guy but the thing about him is that every single gift that God gave him he used to the absolute maximum yes because he saw this being used for the greater glory of God and that's all that mattered to him that's all that mattered it was was completely inspired by the spirituality of st. Ignatius of Loyola and and those three years that I worked with him I saw that very clearly the the the whole spirituality of the magis you could which means Oh a smart give you can give more you should always give more - before the glory of God and that's why he never could you never start he never thought that he had done enough in order to to carry out the apostolate and and he insisted with those who were working with him for instance I'm most involved with Marian catechist apostolate but all of them made the 30 day exercise of st. Ignatius at home they had he had written this book retreat with the Lord and and right so they he helped people to make these exercise at home with the direction of a priest and there was always with him catechesis was not simply communicating ideas was communicating a person Jesus Christ and and this of course also st. Ignatius was this great teacher and so he insisted with those who were marrying catechist that that they have first a spiritual formation then the doctrinal formation and then they would be good catechist because they were communicate the person of Christ not just ideas or some kind of but say ideology but this was the way the truth and the life you know this is a characteristic that not only was it father Hardin but it was it's something that was in mother Teresa and Mother Angelica of her own network here that they didn't care so much about their own ideas they cared about Jesus that's right and they loved Jesus so much and with all any and all their limitations they wanted to communicate who Jesus is and father Hardin focused on that as did the others this is key for any one of us to be able to be true apostles talking about Jesus himself is asked to be the center that was one reason to why he was so strong on Eucharistic Adoration and and devotion because here is the the deepest the the most perfect encounter we have with our Lord in the churches in the Holy Eucharist and so he he promoted that very strongly and insisted with the Marian catechist and with other people involved in other apostolates he also had a an apostolate for the Eucharistic education and adoration which still operates a very effective website and he had the apostle religious life vignette a publishing apostolate eternal life which is still very very much alive and and and operative he had also no pasta for the publication of his own works but it was all centered on our Lord and I gave a talk in Mundelein in April their head they Institute on religious life out of their annual meeting to honor far their heart and and they I was asked to give the talk on a spiritual legacy and the summation is that the legacy he wanted to leave was Jesus Christ he saw himself first and foremost as a priest and who is a priest but one who brings Jesus Christ to others and that's what he wanted ultimately everything was was going in that direction that's all he wanted and he didn't know he wasn't it all concerned about him himself or about his ideas and so forth and never claimed that he was presenting original ideas at all was all for Christ and first church that would be another quality to the genius was not in trying to get across some original idea like I've got my perspective on the theology as a matter of fact the word my would not be a big part of his vocabulary you would say this is my idea not at all that that's not this mentality but rather he wanted to make sure that his what he taught was simply the teaching of the church nothing less nothing more yes sometimes I think people misunderstood his his intensity thinking that it had something to do with himself but the intensity was all geared toward the fidelity to the the teaching of the church and to the life of the church and he realized and he often talked about this that we were living in times when people had to be prepared to be martyrs for the faith if not by shedding their blood at least by that white martyrdom of living a sign of contradiction in a society which had become completely secularized and the secularization had entered even into the church so that by by holding to the truth of the faith and by living the faith that with greatest possible density one indeed had a kind of martyrdom and he understood that and wanted to encourage everyone to live that way too as like the first Christians yeah I think that he wasn't just talking about it there's a certain sense in which he lived that himself because in many circles you would not have been very popular you know he wouldn't be say at the catechetical Institute's and things unless he had started it he probably wouldn't have been so welcomed because you didn't have pizzazz no he didn't have pizzazz and he didn't buy all of the the the current ideas the fads that entered in and as a matter of fact did great harm in catechesis and he wasn't of that mind at all he was plain spoken direct and and so that wouldn't make him very popular and he certainly wasn't somebody who was trying to be politically correct or trying to curry favor with people like our Lord himself he knew that if he is going to be faithful and presenting Jesus Christ to the world it would mean also rejection and and suffering that this is all part of what it means to be an apostle so I it many he helped me a great deal to grow in my own spiritual life just in that association that I had with them and to develop even deeper sense of my own vocation as a priest and as a bishop now one of the things that happened in the catechetical Institute's and in the catechetical you know apparatchiks is they began to say that little children are not capable of an act of faith yes and therefore you don't teach catechism to children and so there was a real change in the attitude towards catechetical books that they weren't teaching content and I've come across many parents who signed up and used father hardens methods and books so they could teach their own children because they didn't find that even in Catholic schools and that's a that's another aspect of his life no it's it's very true I was speaking with a bishop the other day at the installation of the new bishop of lacrosse and he told me that he started teaching high school I think it would have been around 1976 and he discovered which I also discovered I was a high school teacher too and there were there were no textbooks or birthday with if they if they were they were vacuously there was no kind of systematic presentation of the faith or at all but he told me and I was really touched by it he had gone out to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe and saw that father Hardin is honored there in a special way and if I get a chance I'd like to mention how he came out there to bless the ground at the beginning of that work but anyway he told me that he made every one of his high school students have a copy of other Hardin's catechism and they used that to - he use that to teach the faith I was I told him I said bishop I hope you'll write that up because that's a very significant story to tell but no that was in it it's many people found it a great anchor in those years of confusion but I started teaching I was ordained in 1975 and I started teaching in the elementary school and then in 1977 I started teaching in the high school but the religious education texts were they were simply inadequate and I found students in high school who had been in Catholic school for probably at that point 10 years who didn't know that the commandments didn't know this or the sacraments didn't know the basics of the faith and they were very bright very bright students but in read in the teaching of religion we treated them like they were you know I don't know what imbeciles or whatever and so they ended up not knowing their faith very well but I used to teach the little second graders words like transubstantiation and people would criticize me as well there they're on computers and they're learning all of these terms and science and so forth why can't they learn this word they won't understand it completely now no we can't ever understand it fully but it will be something for them that they know that this is an event which takes place at though at the Holy Mass which is altogether special and their minds are going to be drawn to enter more deeply into it whereas if you tell a child well this is special bread why didn't what what is that gonna beat him to any deeper exploration he just thinks it's special bread and that's what it is and it'll focus on the bread for exactly right and wonder where the peanut butter is yes so there the father harden understood those things and he had many qualities but one of them was he was a great teacher of the faith the other thing with Eucharist the centering on the Eucharist and then our Blessed Mother he absolutely relied on our Blessed Mother to lead us to Christ and to and to assist and you never got in the car with him that he didn't start the rosary even if you're only driving a little distance you'd get in at least part of a decade or whatever but he was constantly turning to her Blessed Mother for her assistance and also he had the prayer to Our Lady of the way I think I never asked him but I thought he probably learned that at the Jesu of the Madonna Madonna della Strada them at the Madonna of the street yeah we judge was attached to the way because that was the first chapel that we the society ever had before we had the Jesu or any other church the Pope Paul the third gave us the chapel of Our Lady of the way okay well that's it then nice yeah he always always invoked Our Lady of the way that's exactly as a matter of fact the chapel robbers ordained is Madonna della Strada a lady the way so yeah it's important devotion for us Jesuits well it's you're gonna mention some we we don't have too much time but something about the shrine yes well after I met father harden I expressed interest in the Marian catechist apostle that I went to meet him then he came to La Crosse in just a year before he died and he visited La Crosse and I told him about the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe that we were at that time was in its very initial stages and father was already frail at that time he was well into his 80s he was born in 1914 but he wanted to go visit the site where the church was going to be and it's on the top of a hill of what we call a bluff in lacrosse but he insists I said Oh father I think the right is too rough because of the there was just a logging trail going up there no no no he insisted so we went up there and he got out and he surveyed the whole area and he was just beaming and he was so enthused about the notion of this shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe under whom he had put under whose protection he had put the Marian catechist apostolate and at that point he blessed the ground where the church was going to be built the church has turned out to be so much more beautiful than I could ever have imagined it is stunning it is and I attributed a lot of it to father hardens intercession and I think he's still interceding we want now the next stage of the development of the shrine is to build catechetical Center and also a place for his archiving guild and a little retreat house because it was essential to him to the spiritual formation had to include the retreat and that of course is very Ignatian I had and so we want to have at the conversion of heart and and mind before you can actually instruct the mind sack me so we hope to get that we were looking to gather the funds for that to build that and then the the complex of the shrine will be more or less complete but that's an essential element of course their main about a loop is a great catechist and that's why I think for the her and wanted her to be the patroness well great we have to take a little break but we want to come back in a couple minutes and if you have any questions about father Hardin about their signature or any other cases that you might want to bring over this Bishop Burke please feel free to call in and we'll be back in two minutes thank you and welcome back we have a nice group of folks from different parts of the country and different parts of the world as far away as Belize and Kenya and so if you can make a pillow if they can make a pilgrimage you sure can we'd love to have you come and join us if you get a chance to come down through Birmingham you can contact our pilgrimage department at two zero five two seven one two nine six six that's two zero five two seven one two nine six six or go to our website WWE wtn comm and they'll give you all kinds of information about how you know how to get here and where you can stay places to eat as well as scheduling for masses tours and programs so please come and join us it's a lot of fun to have you here also before we go to our first caller you got a chance to visit with Mother Angelica today how was she she was wonderful yeah we had a good visit I've known mother for a long time I was on Mother Angelica live in 1986 as a young priest who had just finished studying canon law and over the years we've remained in contact but we we had a good visit and she's she was very alert and responsive and so I I was for me it was a great privilege to be able to see her again oh that's great and I think she you know obviously these years of her life she's giving a lot to her suffering and so she's helping the church a great deal and this I'm sure helping he wtn a great deal well you know in the time since she's been sick we've gone from sixty million homes to about 180 million homes I mean it's troubled the number of people to get to watch us and her prayers and her sufferings are certain they're clearly a large part of that yes so be confident of that now do you have ready for some questions I think I am alright let's we have a caller Beverly on the line hello Beverly hi were you from from Michigan great and what is your question well I would like to ask a question your excellency I wondered if you might speak a bit about the devotion to Our Lady of America the church's current stance on that devotion and also about any problems that might exist in placing an image of Our Lady under that title in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception well I'm really not an expert on the under devotion but I did a study submit this is a devotion so folks yes give a little back on almost surely there was a religious sister by the name of sister Mary Ephraim she belonged to a community under the title of the Precious Blood and I am sorry to say I can't remember exactly but they were headquartered I believe in the in either in the Diocese of Toledo or the Archdiocese of Cincinnati one or the other but it was Western Ohio yes Western Ohio and she is said to have received locutions from our Blessed Mother and the the heart of them if to summarize it briefly would be was a it was an emphasis on the fact that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within the the Christian soul so that we we live in a certain sense in the Holy Trinity in other words we live in communion with God Father Son and Holy Spirit and that this should be expressed in a very particular way by purity of life that that purity pure love was a particular expression of the indwelling of the Holy Trinity of the Holy Spirit within us and so it's a it's a very beautiful devotion I was involved with it in that I was asked to do a study as a canon lawyer I was already Archbishop of st. Louis to see whether the devotion had ever received any ecclesiastical approval and I did this study and discovered that in fact a former Archbishop or a deceased Archbishop of Cincinnati Archbishop Paul eyeballed had in fact authorized the devotion locally and was very in fact very enthused about it now as far as that a continuation of the devotion any further approval that would have to come from from the the bishop in which the the locutions are took place where the devotion is centered and I'm not quite certain at this point I think it would either be an in Toledo or in Cincinnati and I don't think there's any prohibition on the images at all I don't see any reason why that would be and I haven't heard any objections to the content of the locutions themselves but it would wait for some further approval so you could happily say that if this lady wants to help promote this she needs to go to the Archbishop of Cincinnati at the outset I think that would be a good place to begin you know to or and if he if he isn't the one who's was competent to handle it then he would refer her to someone else okay good all right let's get a question from our studio audience ma'am were you from Birmingham good to have you here in the studio audience and what is your question it has to do with consecrated virginity and I don't know if there's a difference between Association of consecrated virginity and the order of consecrated virginity or if it's the same thing the term order of consecrated virgins can be it's very ancient but it can be confusing to people today because they hear order and we tend to think immediately of a religious order and this is order used in a different sense in the church as a group of people within the church like they used to be the order of penitence the order of widows and the order of those who are consecrated virgins but the consecrated virgin makes her consecration in the hands of the or receives the consecration I should say at the hands of the of the bishop and so it's a it the the consecrated virgin living in the world doesn't become part of a community but obviously all all the those who have received the consecration as virgins living in the world have a relationship with each other and so they are free to make an association and what has happened in this country is that the number not all and no one certainly is obliged to be part of it but a number of the consecrated virgins have formed an association called the United States Association of consecrated virgins and they have a beautiful website and and what was the purpose of it to promote communication among consecrated virgins which has been a very very helpful and also a joyful thing for the consecrated virgins and secondly to help get information about this vocation out to other Catholics and to the to the people in general and so that's the difference between the the two but I think it's important first of all to understand that order means that this is a group of people in the church who have received the consecration and presented themselves to the diocesan bishop have received the consecration as a virgin living in the world and so they belong to this class of people but they don't belong to a religious congregation so it's not like joining say the Sisters of Mercy or something but the order of Saint Benedict or right and so forth oh we have another caller of Jeanne on the line hello Jeanne hi father all right where you from I'm from Wisconsin lacrosse diocese there you go do you know this lady I don't know how you don't know her last name Oh wonderful and what is your question Jean my question is those that are on the Apostolic Nuncio Committee making these decisions are they canon all Canon lawyers or are they judicial lawyers now do you mean the nut Co committee or do you mean their signature o Neill committee I don't know what the nun Co committee is I mean there there isn't we don't have an NCO committee Archbishop Burke is in charge that's the signature oh that's okay now yes there are these all Canon lawyers they're all canonists and generally speaking they have a doctorate in canon law and most of them even though they're Cardinals Archbishop's and bishops have than students of canon law and have actually probably practiced that well they would have to if they were bishop of a diocese or even in one of the Roman some of them are heads of Roman congregations or officials of Roman congregations and so they are all Canon lawyers that's a good thing you know when I was going through the course of studies the new code was in the process of being written but because I was ordained just a year after you yes and the old code was still enforced but they didn't want to teach it to us because they didn't know what was gonna be so we didn't my day we didn't learn most canon law and I had the same experience even when I started so you made up for it though I hope so I've done that yet we have another question from our studio audience sir were you from and I came from police well welcome to get that standard those good long way to go right see to see our son and promotion in in Kentucky Fort Campbell oh great and my question is the subjects of abortion an active homosexuality and indeed fornication and adultery is the church doing enough to warn people of the dangers to their immortal souls that's an excellent question my response would be I don't think we can ever do enough especially in the culture in which we live which is so so it's secularized so godless so forgetful even hostile to to God and to his plan for us and so I I think we we can never do enough to address the culture sufficiently to understand the truth about human life and about the family as the first cell of human life and about right relations in in human sexuality and so I think a lot is being done but much more needs to be done and particularly I I find the confusion even among Catholics about a lot of moral questions having to do with human life or human sexuality is fairly great and we need to do a lot more catechizing also by way of the Sunday homily because many people their only opportunity for any instruction in the faith every week is their participation in Sunday Mass and I think we need to use the Sunday homily more also to give certain instruction with regard to these important moral questions of our time reading moral questions which if the church is not giving a strong witness to the truth so many are being led into confusion and error which is of course destructive of the life of individuals and also society itself you know I like to think of our culture as sexually gluttonous you know that there's just sexual gluttons and you know we have in the secular world and the government the First Lady Michelle Obama is trying to get people to be more active and to eat less junk food and not to be so gluttonous for food because we have a problem with that in our society we need to have the same kind of mentality towards human sexuality that there needs to be an exercise of not this physical exercise but also a spiritual exercise and a weaning away from the kind of pornography and the imagery and the commercials and so much else that's just sexually gluttonous in our society no there's there's so much that and I have particular compassion for the young people who are exposed to so much of this at a time when they they're not really prepared to deal with it unless their parents are very attentive and and help them and other adults help them to think rightly about human sexuality they could be easily led down a path they will discover because it's it's according to nature will they discover that they will not be happy by engaging in disordered sexual acts or engaging in sexual activity outside of marriage and but so much harm can be done before they make that discovery of the truth and the better thing is to instruct them from the beginning and to form them in a discipline because everything has a right order to it and when we respect that then we see the beauty and we then we participate in the joy of God's creation but not by violating it well but what do you do when you have adults who say look kids are going to misbehave in the sexual realm anyway so let's just help them to be safe but I teach them about condoms and other forms of birth prevention and etc what do you say to them I have great confidence in our children and young people and we we all should have that if we teach them correctly and if we form them correctly and help them they'll do what's right I think to say that our children are going to just be sexually active anyway we have to provide them devices or or chemicals or whatever in order to prevent conception is a first of all it's it's it's morally wrong but secondly it's treating our children as if there's something less than then made in the image and likeness of God with with intelligence and freewill and I mean all of us were raised in homes and throughout the schools and so forth - to know right from wrong if we why should we and this was the most important heritage that our parents gave us and why should we deprive our children of that and instead leave them to the ways of the world and say well here use these two to avoid an embarrassment later or whatever you know this may be an odd commentary but it's something that's also relevant I saw on a news program on another network Raquel Welch who was thanking God that she had strict parents who taught her right from wrong and she said sometimes I didn't do what was right but I stopped from going too far because I knew my parents taught me correctly and I needed their discipline and I regret having you know and done anything against the discipline that they taught me at one time and I made mistakes that and I listened to my parents I wouldn't would have been better off that's to come from that source is all the more remarkable it is remarkable but I think sometimes parents are will tell me you know they're the they're afraid to their children's reaction and so forth if they're too insistent with them and of course children when they're corrected and so forth they're going to maybe react and say I hate you or something or you know run into their room or whatever else but afterwards they're going to be very grateful to you because you help them to avoid becoming enslaved to some kind of activity that that's that harms them and harms others I mean one of the reasons I mentioned Raquel Welch is because at 70 years old she's still disdainful to her parents pretty telling her right right even though she didn't always listen she's still thankful that they set the brakes to her and parents should be you know pay attention to that maybe in the immediate moment they may not like you for a little while but they will appreciate that you gave them right wrong and that's again that's we talked before about father Hart yes he didn't care whether you listened or not he was going to say what was right and what was wrong and that you need to know the difference between right and wrong whether you listen or not it's just the truth that he cared about that's right and that's that's the gift we have to give and sooner or later it will be appreciated and it will be appropriated know that that's interesting I hadn't heard that we have a caller on the line too Susan are you there I guess yeah all right were you from Texas great and what is your question thank you your excellency I wanted to find out the code of canon law stipulates that you're allowed to have a private chapel such as for Eucharistic Adoration and it articulates the different items that you can have such as a sanctuary lamp one of the items is that you get approval by your ordinary or your bishop and I was wondering it states about where it's located but I was wondering if there are certain specific other guidelines that the bishop needs to follow or if he can just make a decision but the question yes I think I do about having a reservation of the Blessed Sacrament and private chapel that is completely under the jurisdiction of the bishop and the canons are quite specific about what the requirements are who who may have a private chapel and wonder what conditions the bishop may grant this and it has to be obviously a room that is used solely as a chapel for the bus's you can't have say the television room exactly and in the game room and in the bus of Sacramento that's out it's completely for our Lord normally speaking mass needs to be celebrated there periodically in order that the the Eucharist reserved and the tabernacle is renewed at the at the altar of sacrifice the sanctuary lamb and all of those things and that also that it be a place where people actually come and pray before the Blessed Sacrament and if our Lord is reserved there it's for us and and so there ought to be that those provision but those cannons I wish I could remember the exact numbers but you'll find them in them and in the part on the sanctifying office of the church and it tells you exactly what has to be done but the bishop is the one as the as the first liturgist that ice is the first teacher the faith is the one who who moderates that yeah another question for my studio sir were you from I'm from Kenya he was the long-distance award and you came from a far away but can you still father what an angle from Kenya from the archdiocese of kazuma and my question was actually sure is that this there's a lot of challenges the church is facing in Africa and one of the biggest challenges at the moment is whether to allow Catholic priests to marry or not to marry we find that in my diocese in Kenya there is a new Catholic child carefully congregation called the Reformed Catholic Church and they are fighting and and spreading the word so that Catholic priests could be a Temari all over the world what is the church doing in this is there any is there going to be any change of the law soon or in the future the with regard to that particular group the Reformed Catholic Church I wouldn't know for sure but I know that in this country for instance there are various groups that call themselves reformed Catholics or Orthodox Catholics wherever and I'm here I'm not talking about Eastern Orthodoxy but different splinter groups who permit married clergy and so forth but they're not part of the full communion of the Catholic Church with regard to the discipline of celibacy for priests this is most ancient most treasured I would not anticipate any change with that in that regard and that would certainly would be completely within the authority of the Holy Father no one else but this is a great gift it follows the example of our Lord Jesus himself as our great high priest who was celibate and has become most treasured in the church so I would not anticipate any change in that regard yeah it's you know one of these things that some people think that if we allowed a married clergy we'd have a sudden influx of vocations but I don't think that that's the case no I don't think so either and I've actually had Protestant ministers tell me that they said of you if you think that by allowing priests to marry you're going to have Oh many more priests they that isn't the case because the priesthood first and foremost is a vocation it's a it's a call from God and we believe and I and it's true that if God gives the call to the priesthood he also gives the call to to celibacy and I for my own part once I heard the call to the priesthood even though the call to celibacy obviously has particulars that was happily embraced right for the sake of the of the call to the priesthood yeah and you know I I studied in three different Protestant seminaries and they are also having great crises of vocation in two ways one is just getting people to join up because it doesn't pay enough for a family and the second crisis is that once a minister is in his 40s a lot of times he needs to leave the ministry because his kids are in college and he can't afford to send them there now would we be having priests in the same situation and we have a different understanding of ordination than Protestants too so when they leave the ministry it doesn't have the same sense that we do but we understand that ordination is eternal and not just a temporary experience so that's going to be another problem because this and also you know tragically there's a high divorce rate among ministers and that we don't that's a problem that we don't have to deal with okay so these are some of the issues that we have to make sure that we do our understanding is that the the priest is changed in his very meetin being we call it that an indelible character is imprinted on his soul he becomes totally for the church to act in the person of Christ is that in Shepard and I think our people rightly would have a very difficult understanding time understanding that the priests affections and so forth could be divided between themselves as the body of Christ for whom he has given his life and the legitimate affection and devotion and love what you would have to show to his wife and his children right and so I I think there - there's a would be a great difficulty yeah well thank you no we're just about done well my goodness a first time has just been running out very quickly Oh would you join me in giving a blessing happy very happy all right nobody god bless you and keep you and cause his face to shine upon you the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit amen and I want to remind you you know this network is brought to you by you we don't have any other source of income except you and your generosity last week I was misinformed that you know we had gotten back up to even well I got I got in trouble because it's not the case there was misinformation and we are it's still about 800-thousand other-- down $800,000 in the hole so we do need your support in some special ways so I know that the economy is tough but we really need you to help us out B so that we can get back up to where we should be and start to break even so please keep us in between your gas bill electric bill and your cable bill and we'll be able to pay all of our bills god bless you and thank you very very much you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 13,066

Rating: 4.8545456 out of 5

Keywords: EWTN, Live, Vatican, Fr, Mitch, Pacwa, Archbishop, Raymond, Burke, Catholic

Id: KlUAIDgmydE

Length: 56min 32sec (3392 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 19 2010