Friday, March 21, 2014

God guides us through the storm of life and temptations by Satan and his demons

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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Spiritual insight into God, or our own life, or the universe and God's creation, or into life itself is a gift from God... thanks be to God who is so great and yet so close to us and so kind and considerate as to care for each of us, though we are so many....

Life is awesome and it's normal for human beings to at times feel overwhelmed, especially when we are young because there is so much we have yet to discover and begin to understand, but even in middle age or old age, as the "scenery" of our life changes, we can feel disoriented and lost with the impression we may have to start all over again. This can appear as though we might be "losing our faith" but often it is simply that a more naive form of faith needs to "die" in order to make room for a more mature and robust faith that takes into account the complex realities of life and the many levels of our own inner complexity and human frailty....

I rejoice with all believers and fellow pilgrims and thank God for the way in which He let us know that He is there and loves us. The "withdrawal pains" or troubling doubts we may feel after having "religious experiences" or moments of "grace" when we felt "close to God" or as if all was "right with the world" or that "we were in the right place or exactly where we were meant to be"... all such experiences help us understand why God does not generally "show Himself" to us yet... we are not ready to experience the great intensity of his dynamic presence and love... so we have the gift of time and life on Earth as a time of preparation, and all of life - both the good and the bad - are used by God to help us grow, be stretched, deepen, and widen our spirit and bring our flesh to serve our spirit and of course God and our neighbor. Pope Francis talks much about all these things.

We have to be careful about what we see and hear on TV these days... there are so many programs and episodes that present themselves as scientific research and discovery when in fact they employ a "little science" in order to camouflage flagrant theories which fail to take into account overwhelming quantities of evidence that quite frankly shows their theories are unfounded.

Take for example St Paul. I have seen TV episodes claiming that St Paul exerted undue influence on the early Church and in effect started a new religion that was not and is not in accord with Jesus' intentions. This is the voice of those who set themselves up as critics and naysayers against the Roman Catholic Church and Tradition. There is nothing further from the truth. It is clear from the Acts of the Apostles that Jesus knew exactly what He was doing when He chose Saul and through the grace of conversion made him into Paul.

It does seem as though Paul exercised an overly predominant influence on the early Church and could seem "over represented" in the New Testament... take Paul away and you only have the Gospels, Acts, the other pastoral letters, and Revelation left. It is true that Paul formulated much of the theology that has allowed the Church to deepen her understanding of much of what Jesus said and did.

That is the whole point though, that Paul invented nothing but only reflected deeply on what Jesus said, did, was, and is, and Jesus used then and uses now Paul to bring us closer to Himself. No, the thought that Paul started his own religion is quite wrong, and you are wise to recognize this as a doubt, even a temptation.

Remember dear Reader when you consider your own doubts or confusion on these matters how Satan treated Jesus. First he tried to seduce his human instincts with appeals to our human appetites and wants. When that failed he left Him alone until a later time, which was in the Garden of Gethsemane, at which time he unleashed all the fury he could muster through the instruments of the authorities and soldiers and even bystanders, who all mocked Him....

We cannot expect better treatment from demons than Jesus got. First they appeal to our human weaknesses and passions. When that fails they try the use of power, either supernatural power or material power through natural disturbances or through people. The "storms" we experience in life and in our spirit are not likely the effect of God or his angels but rather the rebellious angels or demons. Why do I think this?

You have only to read the Book of Job to see how God has shown us the true nature of his love and the true nature of Satan and his followers. They are out to "get us" but God takes our part. The Word of God tells us that God never tempts us nor intimidates us nor accuses us. In Revelation 12:10 God makes it clear through John's words that those who accuse the children of God and denounce them before God are Satan and his demon rebellious angels.

God in his kindness, mercy, and respect for the freedom of his intelligent creatures continues to allow even the demons certain freedom, as we can see in the Book of Job, but He imposes limits on what they can do, and all of this just becomes part of God's plan to allow his children the opportunity to have the joy and satisfaction of sharing in Jesus' victory by choosing to resist and fight as Jesus did.

The battle line runs right down the middle of the human heart, which God says in Jeremiah 17:1 is very tortuous and convoluted... we cannot trust our own heart and must certainly not follow it. However, our heart is an important part of us and so we need to pay attention to it, to notice its movements and moods, and learn what our heart is telling us at any given moment about what is happening within us and outside us and in others and how we are reacting to that. Being aware of all these things helps us to understand the situation and to judge what to do in light of God's Word and will.

We need to verify our understanding against God's Word and guide our judgment and actions and words in accord with God's holy will, which means guiding our heart, not following it. We can see, often in retrospect looking back, how God has guided and protected us from following our heart... Even in the face of terrible dark times and awful temptations to go so far as to take our own life, we have not taken our life but are accepting to struggle through it all, to live as fully as we can, by God's grace and in accord with his love and will.

This is the human life of faith in God through Jesus about which St Paul spoke and wrote so eloquently and profoundly precisely because he accepted to live life fully, to follow Jesus with all his might, and to desire one thing alone, to allow Jesus to live in him and "reproduce" his life within Paul.

It is the greatest grace of God that He offers to do the same in each of us.... Peace to you dear Reader and to your family, colleagues, friends, enemies, and loved ones....
“Were not our hearts burning within us as He talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us

  Fr. Gilles

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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Saturday, February 15, 2014

What is the Holy See? Exploring its place in the ancient Christian Churches - East and West - from the time of the Apostles.

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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The Church of Jesus Christ has many levels... and in a way what follows is an over-simplification for the purpose of clarity....

In the beginning there were five autonomous Christian Churches developed by the Apostles and centered in Jerusalem, Rome, Antioch, Constantinople, and Alexandria.

The great Library of Alexandria and much of the Church leadership and strength were destroyed but in time there emerged the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt, which owes its foundation to the apostle and evangelist St Mark.

Much of Antioch was either destroyed or forcibly converted to Islam in the 7th century but there remains a small Antiochan Orthodox Church.

The Patriarch of Constantinople remains the recognized head of all the Orthodox churches, first among equals, but that Church itself is very diminished in members due to forcible conversion practiced since the 7th century by various conquering waves of Islam.

During the second half of the first millennium while Islam was conquering most of the known world and forcibly converting people or killing them or making them second class citizens with no rights and heavy head taxes for life, there developed Orthodoxy, that is, an Eastern form of Christianity with its own cultural expression and spirituality, with over a dozen churches all autonomous and ethnic, that is, characterized by their nationality, language, and culture. 

Then in 1054 due to centuries of increasing political, economic, and religious differences and even violent wars and atrocities - which were more about human nature and not so much about faith or religion - there was a break between East and West, the Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic Church, and the two heads mutually excommunicated the other and all the members of their respective churches.

There are 9 Patriarchates : Constantinople (Greek Orthodox), Alexandria (Coptic Orthodox), Antioch  (Syrian Orthodox), Jerusalem (Greek Orthodox), Russia (Russian Orthodox), Georgia (Georgian Orthodox), Serbia  (Serbian Orthodox), Romania (Romanian Orthodox), Bulgaria (Bulgarian Orthodox); then the other Orthodox Churches are led by Archbishops or Metropolitans rather than Patriarchs (reserved for the more ancient churches); Cyprus, Greece, Poland, Albania, Czech and Slovak lands, Orthodox Church in America, and several "autonomous Churches": Sinai, Finland, Estoia, Japan, China, Ukraine, Chaldean Syrian Church of India, and the Archdiocese of Ohrid, etc.

In the course of the last two thousand years, the primary cause of aggravation, discord, and violence in civil society yet implicating the churches was the confusion between secular and religious interests and between religious leaders and worldly rulers. In the beginning, when the Roman Empire stopped persecuting the one Church, religious and secular affairs remained separate. With time, kings sought the blessing of the Church and the Church sought the protection of monarchs, and this opened the way for secular leaders to manipulate and make use of the Church in ways that at times were immoral and lead to what seemed to be religious wars but were mostly about politics, economics, and demographics.

It is only since the creation of the Vatican City State in 1929 that the Roman Catholic Church in particular has been freed from worldly concerns and governance and free to devote itself entirely to the service of God, the service of its members, and the service of humanity as a whole.

As time went by, during the early Renaissance and the subsequent centuries some of the Orthodox felt that they were drawn by God to reunite with Rome, with the successor of the Apostle Peter, and they became Eastern Rite Churches such as the Greek Catholics, Ukrainian Catholics, Chaldean Catholics, and so on, who were considered traitors and heretics by those who remained Orthodox.

Today, the Orthodox churches continue to be autonomous under the figurehead leadership of the Patriarch of Constantinople, first among equals, who doesn't have the kind of authority that the Pope has over all the Catholic Churches, the Latin Rite or Roman Church and all the Eastern Rite Churches.

The Roman Catholic Church

The Pope is first of all the Bishop of Rome, the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Rome. There are some 500 parishes there.

As Bishop of Rome from the time of the 12 Apostles the Pope came to be recognized as the "first among equals" among all the bishops and patriarchs, who are head of their respective churches. Primarily this was because the first Bishop of Rome, the first Pope, was St Peter, the first among Jesus' 12 Apostles, but also in the time that followed because so many of the Popes were martyrs for Jesus and for their faith, killed by Roman authorities over 300 years.

Over the centuries, primarily due to having greater resources and also accumulating a large library of documents and teachings, the Bishop of Rome came to be recognized as a moral and religious authority, one whose role was to assure the defense of the faith, one in whom Jesus Himself accomplished his promise recorded by Matthew in 28:20 that He would remain with us until the end. So Catholics believe that Jesus assures the Pope will always defend the faith and never make a mistake in the expression and teaching of the faith and of morals.

During the thousand years after the end of the Roman persecutions, so until the Renaissance, Europe was a vast land governed by princes and kings of various sorts, so the land was a bunch of principalities and kingdoms and, occasionally, empires that combined several of the smaller areas into a larger entity or empire. It happened sort of naturally that the bishops and in particular the Bishop of Rome came to rule a large area of land with responsibility to care for and protect the inhabitants. So, the Pope in time developed and army and used it. It is not possible to really understand that or have any sympathy for the people who lived then unless we try to put ourselves "in their shoes or minds".

We are all children of our age and we are least likely to understand objectively the times we live in simply because we are in them and cannot see the big picture as clearly as those who look at us from the outside. It is very arrogant of us to take a superior stance and judge others - either in the past or in other cultures and societies - as primitive, barbaric, or what have you when what we are doing is judging them by our own standards - which they have never known or experienced - instead of judging them by their own standards, which is the only fair way to judge anyone.

During the Renaissance, the Church and especially the Church in Rome became a patron of the arts and sciences, and provided the resources for artists - painters, sculptors, architects - and scientists to develop their field of expertise simply because these churches were among the few organizations other than monarchs who had the means to do so. In this way, the various dioceses and most of all Rome became depositories of art and scientific works. This is why we still have today the Vatican Library and Archives containing manuscripts of historical value going back almost two millennia and the Vatican Museum.

These are of value to the whole human race and don't just belong to the Roman Catholic Church, which continues to be the custodian, assuming the responsibility and expense of maintaining them and keeping them secure. Whether ordinary people contributed offerings voluntarily or their money was taken from them by force as taxes or by persuasion in order to obtain spiritual benefits; either way the religious architectural, artistic, and historical heritage belongs to the people of every age and generation, and the Church remains a stable and trustworthy custodian of this part of the human patrimony.

In the late 1800's there arose in Europe a trend of nationalism and in various places the principalities and kingdoms were abolished, sometimes through civil war, and replaced by states with national governments and eventually with elected officials. It was Mussolini who, in 1929, signed a Concordat with the Pope who surrendered that last remaining Papal States to the government of Italy and in turn Italy left the Roman Catholic Church with the Pope at its head a small parcel of land called Vatican City - much smaller than Montreal and about the size of Mont Royal Park - and recognizing Vatican City as a state; so it is now the Vatican City State with recognition at the United Nations which was itself formed in 1948.

So we have

Vatican City State - a state equal to other nation states but existing as a principality, like Monaco and Lichtenstein. The Vatican is also called the Holy See - this is the Chair of Peter, the Pope as religious and moral leader of the Roman Catholic Church with all his appointed officials and assistants


The Roman Curia - all the officials and groupings constituting the Holy See and working under the Pope's leadership at the service of the universal Church: the Secretariat of State (like a Prime Minister and his Office), Congregations, Tribunals, Pontifical Councils, Synod of Bishops, Offices, Pontifical Commissions, Swiss Guard, Institutions Connected, Labour Office of the Holy See, Pontifical Academies, Pontifical Committees

The Diocese of Rome operates like any other diocese around the world but is among the largest if not the largest. This link gives information about Rome but the Rome website is difficult to log into.

The Roman Catholic Church exists worldwide in the form of local churches or dioceses. Larger dioceses are called archdioceses and the archbishops have some jurisdiction over some neighboring dioceses called suffragan dioceses. However, each diocese is autonomous and the local bishop or archbishop has full authority and responsibility to govern and serve the faithful and the whole population under his jurisdiction, but also is answerable to the Pope who continues to have moral authority over all the bishops together and each one in particular. This is demonstrated in the practice of bishops being personally appointed by the Pope after the Congregation of Bishops has carefully researched the best possible candidates.

From the point of view of civil law, property, assets, personnel, and all forms of management, each diocese is truly autonomous, as if it were simply a member of an association of dioceses worldwide. Each diocese is regulated according to local civil and criminal codes of law.

Some people and organizations are trying to hold the Pope responsible for the abuse of children worldwide, but this shows their lack of understanding of how the Roman Catholic Church works. The Pope has moral authority to try to lead the bishops of the world in the best possible direction, but in the end, each bishop is responsible under local laws for his governance in civil and criminal matters, just as every priest is responsible for his own conduct under those laws.

Bishops are now being held accountable for not having properly managed priests reportedly having committed sexual abuses of children and for not having acted promptly enough to prevent such priests from having further access to children. However, what these accusations seem not to take sufficiently into account is the historical circumstances at work at the time of those sexual abuses, such as the prevailing medical and psychological expertise concerning such behavior and abuse. In addition, those accusations don't seem often to take into account the positive measures taken by many bishops and dioceses to isolate and attempt to treat priests accused of or caught in the act of abuse.

In a social climate in which the general population could not tolerate even contemplating the possibility of sexual abuse, it was difficult if not impossible for bishops to offer to help the reported victims, even though in many cases attempts were made to offer what care could be offered at the time.

Whenever it can be established that priests abused, they must be held accountable according to local laws, and in the end, they will also have to answer to God. When it can be established that bishops failed to govern properly, to prevent such priests from abusing again or to offer timely and effective assistance to victims, then they too must be held accountable according to local laws, and eventually to God.

One of the most serious and misunderstood issues relates to financial compensation of victims because people misunderstand the Roman Catholic Church as a depository of riches and wealth, comparable to billionaires and large corporations that enrich their shareholders. The truth is that the Roman Catholic Church, from a human point of view, is not a single entity like a billionaire or a multinational corporation.

The Roman Church has thousands of dioceses and each one has some form of civil incorporation. In Québec, due to the Napoleonic civil Code, each parish is an autonomous corporation and the bishop does not "own" the assets belonging to parishes. The "riches" of the Vatican are mostly architecture, art, and archives, and no one actually "owns" them, though in human affairs all man-made things must "belong" to someone or some organization. Vatican City "owns" the buildings and art "treasures" of the Vatican, but really, these are part of the patrimony of humanity in general and of Roman Catholics and Christians in particular.

Visible "heads" in the Church, bishops, have of themselves no wealth, unless they are of a rich family and share in the enjoyment of such estates. Regrettably there may be here and there bishops who have "enriched" themselves by siphoning off some funds for their personal use, either in legitimate ways or "under the table", but such cases are few indeed, and when they do occur, they are generally caught and reprimanded. Wherever bishops are in their person the "corporation" which "owns" the assets of their diocese, what constitutes their "wealth"?

Generally all church properties have been purchased and built for the people and by the people. Ordinary citizens like us for generations have contributed their hard-earned offerings to the Church in order to be able to worship in a building offering them shelter from the elements and at the same time through religious art and architecture evoking in beautiful ways the God in whom they believe and whom they come to worship. Dioceses that enjoy surplus funds employ them to maintain those buildings, offer additional services, and provide alternative places for formation, retreats, and recreation, like retreat and formation houses and camps.

When victims and their representatives sue a local church for compensation, the amounts are generally in an order of magnitude that can in effect bankrupt a local church. Because churches do not operate for profit, literally, any surplus funds are needed for personnel development and building maintenance. Large sums attributed by courts to compensate victims generally require that churches be closed and sold. That means that your church or mine would have to be closed, sold, and the money given to victims because father so and so abused them sometime in the past. For one victim to be compensated for sexual abuse, more victims are made now when they lose their church which they have supported. The compensation does not come from the perpetrator of the abuse, nor from the bishops involved at the time of the abuse, but rather from ordinary people today who in effect lose their church and must either begin all over again or must go somewhere else.

This doesn't mean that victims don't deserve compensation, they do, but more than that, they need competent assistance in order to come to terms with what they suffered, somehow get past it, and resume living and giving meaning to their lives. For this the Church hold a heavy responsibility to do all it can to help them achieve an optimal outcome, but simple financial compensation is a view of things inspired by our very twisted western society whose primary value is money and the accumulation of wealth and all the pleasure one can possibly afford. Wealth and pleasures of the flesh do not bring happiness, but rather a meaningful life.

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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Thursday, February 06, 2014

Life is a gift - power over life and death belongs to the Creator alone

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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Yes to palliative care available to all, but no to euthanasia under the name "medical aid in dying" - Québec Assembly of Catholic Bishops 


a Journey of Reflection in Five Steps 

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ACPEL abstracts
Morning Breakout 2—Palliative Care

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PMC    US National Library of Medicine
National Institutes of Health
Linacre Quarterly May, 2015; 82(2): 128–134.
doi: 10.1179/2050854915Y.0000000003
PMCID: PMC4434784    PMID: 25999611
Michael Erdek*

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USCCB United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
PRO-LIFE ACTIVITIES

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Elsevier - Journal of Pain and Symptom Management
Volume 59, Issue 6, June 2020, Pages 1287-1303.e1
Review Article
Author links - Sheri Mila Gerson PhD, Gitte H.Koksvik PhD, Naomi Richards PhD, Lars Johan Materstvedt PhD, David Clark PhD

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Letter “Samaritanus bonus” of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the care of persons in the critical and terminal phases of life, 22.09.2020

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The Vatican has published a new letter entitled “Samaritanus bonus” — The Good Samaritan — on caring for those who are approaching the end of their lives. The Letter provides the foundations for an integral and holistic approach to caring for people who are suffering, especially those with critical or terminal illnesses. By Christopher Wells

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“Samaritanus bonus” (The Good Samaritan), a newly published letter by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, approved by the Pope, reiterates the condemnation of any form of euthanasia and assisted suicide, and advocates support for families and healthcare workers. By Vatican News

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

----------------------------------------------------------------

© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Sexual abuse 2 - is eroticization gone awry

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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Sexual abuse is a crime against humanity...
because it violates the free will, dignity, integrity, and health of the victims... and it manifests the disintegration of the perpetrator's humanity. 

In our previous blog reflection we began to discuss the nature of sexual abuse by clergy and that it is, sadly, but the tip of the iceberg of human society. We began by noting that

"The sexual exploitation and abuse of one human being by another is a crime against humanity because it is a violation of who that person is in their very identity as a sexual human being. Our sexuality is an integral facet of who we are in our distinctiveness as human beings. We are living beings with a capacity to not only relate to others and to care for them but also to do so in a great variety of distinct ways, with degrees of intimacy and expression appropriate to our age, gender, the nature of the relationship, what it is that we want to express or give, all of which is deeply tied into our freedom as individuals and our capacity for meaning and responsibility. Sexual and other forms of abuse are particularly heinous when committed against children and other vulnerable, fragile, or innocent beings. They become doubly tragic when those perpetrating the abuse are themselves the distorted product of having in their turn suffered sexual or other forms of abuse, often at an early and deeply impressionable age." 

It is admittedly impossible to thoroughly understand our human nature, including our sexuality, and even less it its distorted forms, unless we acquire a more fundamental and evidence-based grasp of what we are as human beings and how we come to be, to become, the beings we are when at our best or at our worst. What many factors enhance our free will to live lives of purpose and integrity on the one hand or on the other hand debilitate that ability and cause us to become mere shadows, shameful and even dangerous counterfeit human beings?

The role of "eroticization" in becoming a human person



Distorted human beings - undeveloped or "petrified" persons


to be continued....

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

----------------------------------------------------------------

© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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Friday, January 17, 2014

Sexual abuse 1 - by clergy the tip of the iceberg

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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Sexual abuse is a crime against humanity

The sexual exploitation and abuse of one human being by another is a crime against humanity because it is a violation of who that person is in their very identity as a sexual human being. Our sexuality is an integral facet of who we are in our distinctiveness as human beings. We are living beings with a capacity to not only relate to others and to care for them but also to do so in a great variety of distinct ways, with degrees of intimacy and expression appropriate to our age, gender, the nature of the relationship, what it is that we want to express or give, all of which is deeply tied into our freedom as individuals and our capacity for meaning and responsibility.

Sexual and other forms of abuse are particularly heinous when committed against children and other vulnerable, fragile, or innocent beings. They become doubly tragic when those perpetrating the abuse are themselves the distorted product of having in their turn suffered sexual or other forms of abuse, often at an early and deeply impressionable age. 

One benefit, admittedly an incalculably costly one, of the current scandal of sexual abuse of children and other innocent and vulnerable people and by virtue of the actions that have been courageously taken by victims, those who support them, and those individuals and agencies who represent them, but also by virtue of church leaders who have made manifest their willingness to receive complaints, is that social taboos are shattering and it is becoming more possible to talk of these things openly and therefore to begin to work together towards solutions and better safeguards.

The complex nature of the human person and sexuality 

The fundamental and horrible truth of the matter is that human nature, including our sexuality, has been weakened, damaged, tainted since the dawn of human history. The abominable practices and the pain and suffering engendered by misuse of human sexuality is primarily what has caused - almost across the board worldwide - religious leaders to condemn sexual infidelity and all forms of unusual sexual practices as evil or at least to be avoided if not condemned.

Human history, literature, and culture chronicles the many ways in which human beings cause others to suffer whenever they use their sexuality as a way of taking pleasure, often at the expense of others. While men and women differ by design in their naturally occurring genders - with males more intrusive and females more inclusive - sexual predators can and do exist among members of both genders, even if they admittedly can appear and operate very differently with different degrees of destructiveness in the consequences and aftermath of their sexual activity.

Particularly in our day there is an increasingly universal acceptance that sexual expression and even experimentation are acceptable providing they take place among consenting adults. Yet, increasingly there are those bold and aggressive enough to contend that such sexual activity and experimentation is even acceptable by adults to children and youth. These opinions and ideological positions do not take into account the human developmental process nor the subsidiary process of eroticization.

If we are ever to understand what is going on, how the trends in human thought, feeling, conviction, and practice are constantly evolving - and often in ways that bode ill for the common good - we need to have a closer look at the nature of the human person and of our sexual dimension in a dynamic way that makes provision for and takes into account our developmental process.

If sex were not pleasurable, then there would be little need for this dialogue because few if any human beings would engage in sexual activity. It is precisely because of the pleasure that sex can and does afford that the human impulse to engage in it is so strong. The pleasure principle in general and in sex in particular is of itself ambivalent at worst - neither good nor bad - at best high and noble, and in the middle with the average view that sex is simply good, when it is not great.

Sex is good, yes, but not in every instance

Even reluctant or prudish religious authorities have traditionally granted that sex was good with the belief that it was designed and created by God, if only for the transmission of life and the survival of the species. Those with a more objective, realistic, and appreciative eye go further in acknowledging that human sexuality also has benefits for human couples when engaged in by one woman with one man for life; in that the power of sex binds them together, allows them to mutually give pleasure and comfort, and over time can evolve and grow with them and their relationship so as to intensify their mutual attachment, fidelity, and solicitude, that is, their disposition and motivation to look out for the other and to deliberately put the other's interests first, ahead of their own.

Pope John Paul II, the Bishop of Rome from October 16, 1978 to April 2, 2005 was of this view and went much further and deeper in his development of thought on what he called the "theology of the body", which emerged over time from the philosophical reflection he engaged in from his youth on human meaning, freedom, love, and "the acting person". He was of the view that human beings give meaning to their lives by their deliberate choices and that the highest meaning comes in the freedom to make of oneself a total gift to the other. He called this the "law of the gift". His work continues to be promoted all over the world for the common good.

 Why do people pervert sex into violence?

Because human sexuality is so deeply tied into the integrity of the human person, our freedom, our capacity for giving meaning to our life, and our capacity to be open to and care for the other, sexual abuse is particularly bad for the pain it inflicts, the deep damage it causes, and the lasting harm it does as a violent act, and it is increasingly evil the more grievous its effects on the victim, the one whose freedom, integrity, meaning, caring, and openness have been violated.

Why do people then perpetrate such violence one upon another? The answer can only be found in the toxic mixture of the beauty, goodness, attractiveness, power, high purpose, and desirability of sexual expression on the one hand, and the distorted nature of the humanity of the perpetrator on the other hand. By analogy we understand that a hammer in the hand of a sculptor like Michelangelo can be instrumental in creating such inspiring sculpture as the Pieta, but in the hand of a vandal can destroy a thing of beauty, or wound or kill living things and even people.

The beauty and power of human sexuality 

So it is with our human sexuality, which can be seen as a capacity for tenderness. Human beings don't simply have sexuality, but we are sexual beings. Our sexuality informs, colors, and is informed by our whole being at every level. Comforting a child engages our human sexuality, our capacity for tenderness, but in a healthy person does not generally engage one's genitals or erotic stimuli or responses. These tend not to activate without specific stimulation, unlike our other functions which operate automatically.

Our sexuality can be considered healthy when we have effective safeguards allowing us to distinguish different types of relationships giving us freedom to express a wide range of tenderness - actively in giving and passively in receiving - without any confusion from sexual arousal in ways appropriate to the nature of each relationship, time, circumstance, and the meaning we wish to express. Sexuality can be considered most noble when it seeks and effectively accomplishes the good of the other.

Genital sexuality adds to the expression of tenderness other meanings related to the union of a man and a woman and the outcome of their sexual fertility in the procreation of children, the transmission of life itself. Sexual activity outside of a woman / man couple with a mutual commitment for life sets aside the procreative function, the stability of a life commitment, or other dimensions which all have repercussions on those engaging in sexual expression and those affected by it, such as the offspring.

Human sexual development requires mentoring

However, it is easily observable that human beings don't just fall into a perfect experience and sexual life stance, but that this requires careful upbringing, learning, mentoring, and living. We also need to learn to seek and give forgiveness when our expressions of tenderness and sexual union are clumsy or selfish and manipulate, take, and hurt rather than give and care. When our sexuality and capacity for tenderness are poorly formed, mistakenly informed, or incompletely matured, all kinds of harm can be done in the abominations that occur.

We can see this in every generation and just about in every life. Married couples must invest selfless effort to develop their sexuality so that it becomes a mutual venture that enhances their union and bears good fruit for others around them beginning with their family. The more selflessly parents live their sexuality as a couple, the more benefits there are for their children who develop a more healthy sexual outlook from the mentoring they receive.

Wandering away from the original design

Other forms of human couple have the additional struggle of not having the differentiation and complementarity inherent in the basic man-woman couple, or the permanence and stability of being committed to each other for life, or the deepening of their relationship that comes from long term fidelity and exclusivity, or the deeper freedom that comes from sharing a deep personal relationship with their Creator God as the true and existential source of their love, fidelity, and fertility. When fertility is regarded as a curse or medicated as a disease might, it is easy to understand how sexuality can become an arena of disagreement and unpleasantness if not of selfish manipulation and abuse.

When children are brought into the world in a family where at its center the parent couple do not live their sexuality with the purest of motives and the clarity and freedom of unselfish love, one can begin to understand how all kinds of misunderstandings, manipulation, hurts, and deviations can occur. It is the tragic truth that it is most often and primarily in the family that children are abused in various ways including sexually, where parents or other adults abuse children precisely because they cannot assert themselves and are in their innocence most vulnerable and easy to manipulate and exploit.

Once sexuality is in this way perverted in the young, they struggle for their whole lives to live a more wholesome sexuality in accord with our fundamental design for happiness and togetherness. Those who are fortunate are able to gradually sanitize or make healthier their sexuality, but others become inclined to reproduce in their own lives the abuse and perversions of sexual tenderness that marked them in their innocent years. It is much like the children of alcoholics who tend to gravitate towards another alcoholic when they are seeking out a spouse or life partner simply because that is the type of human personality with which they became familiar while growing up.

Exquisitely sensitive spouses or dangerous rapists

It is the very same raw material of human sexual personality that begins at conception and develops through gestation, birth, infancy, childhood, youth, and adulthood. Why, then, do some become exquisitely sensitive and loving spouses, some struggle with clumsy attempts to please, others have trouble setting aside their own desires and come across as "taking" rather than "giving", and still others become manipulators, violators, rapists, pedophiles, ephebophiles, in short, dangerous offenders and monsters?

It is impossible to understand these differences outside of a "developmental model" of the human person as a sexual human being as opposed to a human being who simply happens to have sexual organs. A human being is a single living entity, and all of its experiences interact with all the others throughout its developmental stages and then continuing throughout its entire life cycle. You cannot examine or understand a person's sexuality without striving to understand the entire person, because everything within them is interrelated. You "pull" on one aspect and the whole fabric is pulled along.

Human development is a long and complicated process

Before the advent of discoveries and advancement in our understanding of the human person, it was generally thought - and many people have not caught up with the social sciences and still think - that a person is "born that way", the way they are, and that they cannot change. Advances in scientific observation, analysis, theorizing, and experimentation have revealed that the living entity called a human being as a physical and psychic organism has a wide and complex range of emotive experience as well as expression, and in addition has a more mysterious spiritual dimension that is more difficult to observe and quantify.

The human being begins its development with the genetic material it "receives" from its mother and father and from the moment of conception also absorbs untold billions of "impressions" from both the mother and the father during gestation in the womb and then continues to take in untold quantities of "impressions" from its parents, other people, other living thinks, and everything else that exists all around it, as well as its own inner processes, which in turn are also very complex.

Each individual has received from its genetic material certain "predispositions" to a variety of conditions, inclinations, sensitivities, and sensibilities. As time passes and as it takes in quantities of sensations and experiences, the individual undergoes the ongoing cumulative effect of all that it is taking in, its ongoing growth, and a developing and constantly operating process of "updating" or "rebooting" for understanding and interpretation, judgement and orientation, responsibility and freedom. Sensations, perceptions, emotions, thoughts, interpretations, awareness, feelings, moral judgements, free choices, the acceptance of responsibility and responsibilities, freedom to change, deliberate commitments, ongoing learning, admission of fault, and efforts to improve are only some of the multiple facets and operations taking place more or less simultaneously that taken together are in a continuous way formative of the human person.

Human development - becoming a person

In the social sciences it is now generally accepted that the human being is a dependent entity from the moment of its conception until it reaches maturity. One becomes a mature adult, with at least the essential elements and abilities of an adult, after having experienced 8 developmental stages between conception and the early twenties. These stages are: fetus, body identity, identity of the doer, individual identity, psychosexual identity, psychosocial identity, identity of the self, and early adult.

We more easily recognize them as gestation, infancy (0-1), toddler (1-2 1/2), budding individual (2 1/2 - 3), Oedipus Complex or nightmare stage (3-6), the "flocking" by gender stage (6-12), teenage (12-18), and "getting a life" (18-22). Along the way, each person develops "preferences" of sensation, outlook, expression, reaction, and action. During the first year of life after birth, some become more "captative", active, or outreaching, while others prefer to become more "receptive", passive, or wait expectantly. During the "potty training" stage, some become more "retentive" and hold things in, hold onto things; while others become more "eliminative" and release things, let them go more easily. This generalizes to every aspect of life from personal hygiene to money to generosity of time and spirit.

From the stage where children "fall in love" with their opposite gender parent (3-6), some males befriend their "intrusive" mode (generally experienced as wanting to be like Daddy) - which is inscribed in the very design of their body - and let it become their natural way of being manly in the world; while some - either because they have been harmed by extreme forms of male intrusiveness or simply lacked an available model - prefer the female "inclusive" mode (they prefer to be like Mommy or like a very inclusive father; with the result that being intrusive takes more effort and energy every time they need to employ that mode, particularly if the mother was intrusive in a way that felt angry or controlling or threatening.

During that same stage when little girls "fall in love" with their Daddy, some females befriend their "inclusive" mode (generally experienced as wanting to be like Mommy) - which is inscribed in the very design of their body and let it become their natural way of being womanly in the world; while some - either because they have been harmed by extreme forms of female inclusiveness or simply lacked an available model - prefer the male "intrusive" mode (they prefer to be like Daddy or like a very intrusive mother; with the result that being inclusive takes more effort and energy every time they need to employ that mode, particularly if the father was inclusive in a way that seemed weak or withdrawing, or humiliating.

In their teenage years, boys and girls try out their newly discovered personal preferences and abilities and find that they are energized when they are with others and may become increasingly extroverted, or they may find that being with others is more draining than energizing, so that they may become more introverted. These dispositions may also tend to vary in accord with the size of the group and their familiarity with the others and degree of acceptance by the others. Some will be more inclined to be leaders and others followers and still others, either role depending on the circumstances and the others involved.

Most of us have some "wrinkles" in our development

Social scientists, philosophers, theologians, varied other professionals, and people in other walks of life will define what is a human person from a variety of viewpoints and a wide range of parameters. What does it take to become fully human? If an individual gets stuck in the first stage of life, infancy, when it was the center of the universe and the mother was still felt to be part of its own body, then as an apparent adult, this individual turns out to behave so selfishly with such little conscience that we call them sociopath - without awareness of others as having a life of their own - or psychopaths - so intent on using others for their own ends that they are actually dangerous to life and limb.This is the case of those who in the face of the prospect of being abandoned will kill their spouse, children, and finally themselves, because they suffocate emotionally at the very thought of being abandoned.

Those who get "stuck" at the potty training stage may appear as extremely retentive or miserly or up tight, on the one hand, or on the other hand eliminative or spendthrift or irresponsibly carefree. Such an individual may be developmentally incapable of caring for others - unable to put out what it takes to care for others or unable to conserve what resources or time or energy that caring for others takes.

Those who get stuck at stage four - 2 1/2 to 3 - may never have become an "individual" in their own right, either because they became so merged with a needy parent or parents that, discouraged from paying attention to their own feelings and needs, they became incompetent as an individual human. Such an individual, perennially deprived of individuality or personal identity, would be hard pressed to properly care for others, being ever depleted for lack of self care. If they manage to heroically care for others, it would then be at extreme cost to themselves, being unable to distinguish differences in priority among the needs and wants of others and their own needs and wants, unable to reconcile those of others and their own.

Those who experience difficulties in befriending their own gender come to such difficulties from any number of factors: the degree or lack of masculinity of their father, absence of a father, frightening or humiliating distortion of a father figure, or unsteady, unstable character of their father; the degree or lack of femininity of their mother, absence of a mother, frightening or humiliating distortion of a mother figure, or volatile, unreliable character of their mother; which factors can be exacerbated by one or several occurrences of one or more forms of abuse: emotional, physical, psychological, sexual; or deprivations that are normally associated with social instability, poverty, and violence such as war, unemployment, racial or other forms of negative discrimination, religious or other forms of persecution, and so on.

Healthy, impoverished, or damaged development at any of these earlier life stages has cumulative effects when the individual enters into the subsequent more social stages of human development, which in turn can accentuate or open up delays in development of various facets of the emerging human person. Childhood and teenage bullying, social pressures to conform and even to perform anti-social or criminal acts, neglect or abandonment by significant adults, extreme social upheaval and countless other factors can enhance, hold back, or demolish an individual's human development up to that point in their young lives.

The initial result when the individual "comes of age" and is recognized as "an adult" will be a human individual that is capable of a minimum of self care, awareness of others as independent individuals with their own value and right to exist, ability to live and act in the world and society, and ability to assume the rights and duties of a citizen and member of society. For many, this initial plateau or goal is delayed until later as they struggle to survive, to help their family or basic group to survive, all the while trying to welcome the challenges and events of life as opportunities to continue to grow and to develop into fully functional human persons.

The role of "eroticization" in becoming a human person



Distorted human beings - undeveloped or "petrified" persons



to be continued....

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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