Humanae Vitae: 55 Years Later

07-30-2023Pastor's LetterFr. John Bonavitacola

Dear Friends,

July 25, 1968, a day that will live in infamy? That of course was the date of the promulgation of Humanae Vitae. 55 years later what has the failure to heed its teaching wrought and what has acceptance of its teachings bought?

As Pope Paul VI (now Saint Paul VI) predicted the widespread and uncritical acceptance of contraception has led to marital breakdown. No-fault divorce for one. This means for the first time in our history you can be commanded by a judge to appear in court for having done nothing wrong. A spouse who does not want to divorce is hauled into court and a great part of their life (and bank account) now is controlled by a judge for no other reason than for continuing to love their spouse. We can add to this sky-high rates of cohabitation (which amounts to experimenting on one another). The effects of contraception also contribute to harm women’s health, including death (just read the warning label on the pill or IUD); the poisoning of our lakes and rivers and water supply, the deformation of many aquatic species exposed to high levels of hormones in the water, the unknown effects on humans drinking and bathing in the same water supply. Same-sex marriage, polygamy, children raised without one parent, artificial insemination, surrogate mothers, unknown fathers from sperm donation and the legal and psychological mess these have caused; the spread of venereal diseases, increases in extramarital affairs; the birth of internet pornography, human trafficking in the sex trade, embryo destruction and experimentation all were spurred along by separating out procreation from conjugal love. And of course, abortion gives the illusion that having no child is better than having an unexpected one.

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Just---Enough?

07-23-2023Pastor's LetterFr. John Bonavitacola

Dear Friends,

I recently viewed the remake of the Film, “All Quiet on the Western Front”. And it is every bit as jarring as the original. I encourage you to view it. Those of us who only see War from a distance and get a sanitized version from media need to familiarize ourselves with the brutality, cruelty and inhumanity that are too often characteristic of wars. Maybe then we would push harder for our leaders to exhaust every form of diplomacy before engaging in hostilities.

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A Total Eclipse

07-16-2023Pastor's LetterFr. John Bonavitacola

Dear Friends,

I find it a bit amusing how Americans can figure out ways to make a profit off a Solar Eclipse! Hotels, restaurants, and businesses along the path of totality that takes place NEXT year (4/8/24) already are anticipating their business ledgers to turn as black as the eclipsed light of the sun. Hotel bookings in some places are as high as $748 a night and many hotels are already booked a year in advance. Still, it is good for us to look up for a change and not down at our phone screens and to consider a subject that we give so little thought to in our times: cosmology. With each new change in understanding of the world at large, from the Copernican revolution to Newtonian physics to Einstein’s theory of Relativity, comes a change in the way we understand ourselves as well. When it comes to faith and science, way too many people remember the Galileo affair, but few know that Einstein’s theory of Relativity was given its biggest boost by a Catholic priest: Fr. Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian priest and mathematician. (what follows is from a wonderful blog that I encourage you to read: These Stone Walls: http://thesestonewalls.com/gordon-macrae/science-faith-big-bang-theory-creation/.

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The Anti-Enlightenment

07-09-2023Pastor's LetterFr. John Bonavitacola

Dear Friends,

When the Enlightenment Period came along the Church found itself on its heels trying to defend the compatibility of faith with reason. And over the centuries that followed some outstanding intellectuals were able to do just that. Theologians to apologists to a few good Popes helped give faith a solid foundation that demonstrated that faith is compatible with reason. Perhaps the apex was Pope John Paul II (his landmark encyclical letter “Fides et Ratio”) and Benedict XVI, who both articulated a complete synthesis of faith and reason. Pope Benedict warned that there are “pathologies of faith and of reason”. Faith unhinged from reason becomes superstition and reason divorced from faith devolves into ideology. The unity of faith and reason give the most complete picture of humanity and the reality around us. (Though I admit we may have become too focused on reason and rationality at the expense of mystery and mysticism. Discussion for another day.) By the end of the Twentieth century, not even the “new atheists” like Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, were not able to mount a serious challenge to this synthesis.

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Which Flag?

07-02-2023Pastor's LetterFr. John Bonavitacola

Dear Friends,

We modern civilizations have learned to recognize that we are mortal like the others. We had heard tell of whole worlds vanished, of empires foundered with all their men and all their engines, sunk to the inexplorable depths of the centuries with their gods and laws, their academies and their pure and applied sciences, their grammars, dictionaries, classics, romantics, symbolists, their critics and the critics of their critics. We knew that all the apparent earth is made of ashes, and that ashes have a meaning. We perceived, through the misty bulk of history, the phantoms of huge vessels once laden with riches and learning.

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The Dodger Blues

06-25-2023Pastor's LetterFr. John Bonavitacola

Dear Friends,

Here is what a friend wrote to the LA Dodgers:

“Dear Dodger Organization: One of the great gifts of growing up in Southern California was the LA Dodgers. As a 67yr old man my life memories are filled with Dodger blue. Going to Chavez Ravine for a game and having a Dodger Dog were the highlights of my summer. Listening to Vin Scully was better than watching a game on TV as he could paint pictures with his words. I can hear him now: “2 on, 2 out, the count is 2 balls and 2 strikes. The deuces are wild!”

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A Valid Exemption

06-18-2023Pastor's LetterFr. John Bonavitacola

Dear Friends,

Whenever elections come around so do calls for revocation of the tax-exempt status of Churches. In fact some put it this way, “it’s time for the government to stop subsidizing the Churches”. Well tax exemption and subsidies are not the same thing by a long shot. And here is why.

For the founders of the US not taxing the property of the Church (remember income tax didn’t come along until the 20th century) was something that they brought with them from England. In many European countries there were official Churches, such as the Church of England, which gave the Church a quasi-governmental status. So why would the government tax itself? But beyond that as the Church and State became more and more disentangled the state saw the social impact of the Church as benefiting the common good. So things like education, hospitals, feeding the poor etc. that the Church did took the burden off the state. For governments to tax the Church would mean less of those services. So for government this was a win-win situation.

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Reporting for Duty

06-11-2023Pastor's LetterFr. John Bonavitacola

Dear Friends,

This time of year is when clerical assignments are given out. The main driver behind the new assignments is the addition of the newly ordained to the starting line-up. For us, here in the Diocese of Phoenix, two new priests were ordained. Though we are grateful for them, the addition of two doesn’t make up for the number of retirements and deaths and especially in our case, the amount of growth in our area. So, pray for vocations and encourage vocations to the priesthood.

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You're Out!

06-04-2023Pastor's LetterFr. John Bonavitacola

Dear Friends,

Tommy Lasorda was Manager of the LA Dodgers for over twenty years. He was also a Catholic and made sure that a priest would come to offer Mass at Dodger Stadium for team members and staff on Sundays when his team played. So, I wonder what he would have thought about the Dodgers Organization “honoring” the so called ‘Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’? Probably not much.

The ’Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’ describe themselves as “queer and trans” who dress up as nuns, in a mocking fashion and indulge in lots of sacrilegious, profane, and disgusting displays. Some of those include mocking the Blessed Virgin, disrupting Mass, using a large crucifix to do a stripper’s pole dance, and a whole lot worse that I won’t scandalize you with. Basically, they are an anti-Catholic hate group engaging in belittling religious sisters, blasphemously using Catholic symbols, and trampling upon some of our most sacred beliefs.

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The Road Less Traveled

05-28-2023Pastor's LetterFr. John Bonavitacola

Dear Friends,

The “road less traveled” is not the smoothest road. Anyone who takes being a Christian seriously will eventually find him or herself on that road. I don’t just mean because of the challenges that come from without, whether persecutions, hostility or suffering personal loss because of your beliefs. Often the most difficult part resides within our own spiritual journeys. God has a way of being very exacting of his children. And for good reason: He wants us to live the abundant life. It’s just that sometimes it seems as though He makes the grade in the road especially steep!

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Priesthood at 35

05-21-2023Pastor's LetterFr. John Bonavitacola

Dear Friends,

“Half-time goes by, suddenly your wise, another blink of the eye, 67 is gone, the sun is getting high, we’re moving on.” 100 Years sung by Five for Fighting Lord Jesus, Eternal High Priest, Thirty-five years have passed since that day when my name was called at the Cathedral and I responded: Here I am. Well Lord, here I am, still, despite myself---

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The devil's in the details

05-14-2023Pastor's LetterFr. John Bonavitacola

Dear Friends,

The “devil is in the details”. In this case I am referring two recent films that feature Satan as best supporting actor. I always find it amusing how Hollywood is firmly atheistic but believes in the Devil. A devil without a God seems like a losing proposition. Still, Satan’s greatest success, via the Enlightenment, was to get society to accept that he doesn’t exist, except as a metaphor.

In his Preface to The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis wrote: “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall into about devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe and feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves (the devils) are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

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Not the Hawaii You Know

05-07-2023Pastor's LetterFr. John Bonavitacola

Aloha Friends,

They are too few and far between, saints from our corner of the globe, our portion of the Body of Christ. But when they do happen, they are impactful. This week we can rejoice as we celebrate the feast day of another good guy who worked among us and has washed his robes white in the blood of the Lamb and made it to the rolls of the sanctified. Wednesday, we celebrate the feast day of Joseph De Veuster, known as Fr. Damien, who was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI and now known as Saint Damien of Molokai. The road to canonization for Damien was a little long and at times quite bumpy. But he is a man for our times as he was a strong advocate for the proper care of the sick and treatment of the most vulnerable among us. We need his intercession as we try to rise to the challenge of providing adequate and just health care in our country and face potential epidemics that might again require forms of quarantine.

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