St. Thomas More gave witness to strong marriage, family, home, says priest

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Father Paul Scalia, son of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, speaks July 28 at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio. A priest of the Diocese of Arlington, Va., Father Scalia addressed the Defending the Faith Conference, which was attended by 1,400 people. (CNS photo/courtesy Franciscan University)

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio (CNS) — St. Thomas More is often heralded as a champion of religious freedom, but supporting that effort was his unshakable faith and evangelical joy in the truth about marriage.

“We should remember Thomas More for his domestic witness, the witness of his own marriage, family, and home,” Father Paul Scalia said at a conference at Franciscan University of Steubenville. “His defense of marriage wasn’t purely intellectual. He knew marriage and the family from the inside. He knew the joy in the virtue that was being threatened by its undoing.”

Father Scalia, episcopal vicar for clergy for the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, is the son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Commenting on his father’s influence, Father Scalia said, “I saw him striving to be a good Catholic man. I also saw him failing, but I saw him trying, and that’s what’s important.”

The title of his talk was “More Witnesses Needed: St. Thomas More and the Eternal Significance of Marriage.” He spoke July 28 at the Defending the Faith Conference, held each year during the last weekend in July at Franciscan University. This year over 1,400 people from across the U.S. attended the conference.

St. Thomas More, English politician and philosopher, also strove toward holiness, famously giving his life in defiance of King Henry VIII’s divorce and remarriage. Father Scalia noted that More didn’t actually speak out against the divorce until he was already condemned to death.

“He simply resigned his public office,” Father Scalia said, connecting the saint’s example to how a Catholic can respond to civil breaches of morality.

“The shepherds (the priests and bishops) always have to speak out against injustice. They don’t have an option,” he said. In regard to the laity, Father Scalia continued, “They are not always in a position where they can speak out, but they are always in a position to live lives of integrity and holiness in witness to the truth.”

Commenting on the many threats against marriage and the Catholic Church, Father Scalia said: “You can’t force people to be moral. No amount of great laws and laws in perfect keeping with the moral code are going to force people to be moral. You can’t outlaw original sin.

“An external change is helpful, as it can create room for the deeper change, but what is really necessary is not a change of laws, but a change of heart.”

Henry VIII, attempting to validate his marriage to Anne Boleyn, broke from the Catholic Church and established the Church of England. Father Scalia noted that since Henry took issue with marriage, he also would take issue with papal authority.

“Both the church and marriage point to something else beyond and before the state, and in that way, they relativize the authority of the state,” he said. “The church and marriage are inextricably bound to one another; the church is the home of marriage.

“The evangelical mission of marriage is the task that married couples have to reveal the eternal significance of marriage,” the priest continued. “When people bump into a married couple who are really trying to live the sacrament of marriage, they’re bumping into an icon of Christ and the church.”

Father Scalia then broke down marriage into four essentials: freedom, permanence, fidelity and openness to life.

Just as Christ freely gave himself to his bride, the church, Father Scalia said, freedom also must be lived out in marriage. “Freedom within marriage means embracing those regular duties. We are able to do freely what we are already required to do.”

Secondly, marriage must be permanent. “Our Lord endured the sickness, poverty, and the bad times, but he never cast off his bride. What the world encounters when it encounters the permanence of marriage is the bond between Christ and his church that is not just permanent, but eternal,” he said.

“Fidelity is devotion to each other, attentiveness, the constant awareness that they are one flesh. Lovers look at each other. Christ is always looking at his bride with love and longing,” Father Scalia said. “When a married couple does the simple thing of living this fidelity in a deep manner, only having eyes for each other, that’s a sign to the world that, yes, love can be true. Promises can be kept. Yes, God’s grace makes this possible.”

On his fourth point, he said that the union between Christ and the church “is all about new life — the new life of grace.”

“New life requires a great deal of trust between the spouses and in God, as well as sacrifice,” the priest said. “Couples that witness to the openness of life and the joy that should come with it, living that sacrifice joyfully and peacefully, signify that it is possible to make sacrifices and be fulfilled.”

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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Our Lady of Fatima's message about prayer, conversion and peace that she imparted to three shepherd children in a field in Portugal "is as important now as it has ever been since" she appeared a century ago, a Connecticut bishop told Massgoers Sept. 23 in Washington. "We come here to ask for her intercession," Bishop Frank J. Caggiano of Bridgeport said in his homily at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. "She might lead every human heart to answer the question, 'What is it that you are looking for?' And we will answer it: 'We are looking for your Son, and lead us to him.'" The bishop was the main celebrant of the Mass, which drew a capacity crowd to the national shrine's Upper Church. After Mass ended, Bishop Caggiano led a procession of concelebrants, deacons, altar servers and the congregation to a new rosary walk and garden near the shrine. As they walked, people recited aloud the joyful mysteries of the rosary. People flooded into the garden -- which on one side features a white Carrara marble sculpture of Our Lady of Fatima with the three child-visionaries at her feet, Lucia dos Santos and Jacinta and Francisco Marto. On the opposite side is the crucified Christ, sculpted from the same kind of marble. The paved walkway, symbolic of the thread connecting a rosary's beads, circles through and around the garden, taking visitors past groupings of colorful mosaics that illustrate the 20 mysteries of the rosary. Bishop Caggiano walked to the Fatima statue, then around the path, blessing the new garden as he went. He ended up back at the statue and led the crowd in prayer. At the beginning of Mass, Msgr. Walter Rossi, rector of the national shrine, welcomed the congregation, noting the 2,000 pilgrims from the Diocese of Bridgeport in attendance, along with pilgrims from the Philippines and China, the New York area and the Washington region. Bridgeport's diocesan youth choir sang for the Mass, which was broadcast live by the Eternal Word Television Network, CatholicTV of Boston and New Evangelization Television of the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York. Msgr. Rossi said it was the first pilgrimage from Bridgeport in about 15 years, adding that shrine officials were thrilled to see so many young people at "Mary's shrine." "I often say that our young people are the hope of the world and the church and they are the hope of Mary's shrine," the priest added. Thanking donors who made the new garden and prayer walk a reality, he noted the project was an initiative put forward by Bishop Caggiano and Dr. Daisy Lin of Washington. Opening his homily, Bishop Caggiano asked, "My friends, what are you looking for? What is it that you seek?" This "may sound like a strange question to ask on an occasion such as this and yet it seems to me that is the question that roots each of our lives," he said. "It is the reason that we have come here to this sacred place, and on this day of pilgrimage and prayer (it) affords us an opportunity to answer it again in your heart and mine in the mind of Christ," he said. Everyone at Mass had "made the sacrifice to break our ordinary routine" to come to the shrine," he said, but he was sure everyone there carried people in their heart -- a family member or friend or neighbor -- who "are confused ... without direction, without joy, perhaps even without hope" because they listen to the modern world's voices of secularism and materialism and are unable to find "the rock upon which they are to build their lives." "They're lost ... without happiness. ... They listen to the voice of relativism that tells them that the only truth that matters is what they believe it to be to be true, rather than a gift to be discovered," Bishop Caggiano. "And they live their lives without direction. And in our world marked with so much conflict and division, they believe the voice that tells them, 'My life is all about me,' and they find themselves alone." "We come here perhaps struggling with that sense of hopelessness, helplessness, (asking) 'How can I help these people?'" he continued. "We have come here because we will put them before Our Lady and we will ask her for her help, her intercession and touch their hearts in a way you and I cannot do." Bishop Caggiano also urged the congregation to be aware of how many times in their own lives they all have struggled -- and he included himself -- "to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus" and have been too stubborn to refuse to see Christ's face in the poor, the outcast, in the sick, in the immigrant, in the marginalized in our midst?" "How many times, my friends, has our own pride, yours and mine, prevented us from loving our neighbor as we love ourselves?" he asked. "And we come here to seek forgiveness, to seek a new beginning to allow our hearts to grow." "No matter what challenge you and I face," Bishop Caggiano said, "the Lord will lead us through it, through the intercession of his mother, and to you and I struggling to be disciples, she is our model and guide." About 1,500 pilgrims from Bridgeport boarded buses for the one-day trip to Washington; the other 500 came on their own. Pilgrims talked about the experience in tweets and in Facebook postings. "We've made it to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception! Positively joyful atmosphere here!" one person said in a Facebook post. "It was such a beautiful and spiritual day for me and my family. I was honored to serve in the Knights honor guard for the Mass," said George Ribellino. 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A member of Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Wilton, Connecticut, Bozzuti Higgins is a former opera singer who has traveled the world performing and also has taught voice at Boston University. She noted that directing the choir is "an avenue to combine my faith with love of music" and "couldn't be a sweeter." The youth choir just started its third year, she said, adding that its creation was Bishop Caggiano's idea as part his overall efforts "to connect kids to their faith."

Message of Fatima as important today as 100 years ago, says bishop

Posted by - September 30, 2017 0
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Our Lady of Fatima’s message about prayer, conversion and peace that she imparted to three shepherd children…