Gulf Pine Catholic

Gulf Pine Catholic • June 15, 2018 20 Amidst sweltering summer heat, St. Michael Parish holds 89th Blessing of the Fleet At left, Father Greg Barras, pastor of St. Michael Church, affectionately known as ‘Church of the Fishermen’, blesses a commercial shrimp boat in the Biloxi Channel during the 89th annual Blessing of the Shrimp Fleet, Sunday, June 3. At right, Father Barras is pictured with Biloxi Shrimp Royalty for 2018, King Arny Gollott, Jr., and Queen Sarah Gatlin of St. Patrick Catholic High School. The parish also hosted a fais do-do on Saturday, June 2, and held a special Mass for deceased fishermen on Thursday, May 31. Photos/Keith Wilson/The Biloxi-D’Iberville Press I will confess that as a person of Irish heritage on both sides of my family, I found the events in Ireland last week particularly dispiriting. Not only did the nation vote, by a two-to- one margin, for the legal prerogative to kill their children in the womb, but they also welcomed and celebrated the vote with a frankly sickening note of gleeful triumph. Will I ever forget the unnerving looks and sounds of the frenzied crowd gathered to cheer their victory in the courtyard of Dub- lin Castle? As the right to abortion now sweeps thoroughly across the Western world, I am put in mind of Gloria Steinem’s mocking remark from many years ago to the effect that if men could get pregnant, abor- tion would be a sacrament. I say this because abortion has indeed become a sacrament for radical feminism, the one, absolutely sacred, non-negotiable value for so-called pro- gressive women. One of the features of the lead-up to the vote -- and this has become absolutely commonplace -- was the al- most total lack of moral argument on the part of the ad- vocates of abortion. There was a lot of political talk about “rights,” though the rights of the unborn were never men- tioned; and there were appeals to “health care,” though the lethal threat to the health of the child in the womb was a non-issue. There was, above all, an attempt to manipulate people’s feelings by bringing up rare and extreme cases. But what one hardly ever heard was a real engagement of the moral argument that a direct attack on a human life is intrinsically evil and as such can never be permitted or legally sanctioned. Accompanying the entire process, of course, was the subtext of the Catholic Church’s cultural impotence, even irrelevance. Every single story that I read in advance of the vote and subsequent to it mentioned the fact that over- whelmingly Catholic Ireland had shaken off the baleful influence of the Church and had moved, finally, into the modern world. How sad, of course, that being up-to-date is apparently a function of our capacity to murder the in- nocent. But at the same time I must admit -- and I say it to my shame as a Catholic bishop -- that, at least to a degree, I understand this reaction. The sexual abuse of children on the part of some Irish priests and brothers, not to men- tion the physical and psychological abuse of young people perpetrated by some Irish nuns, as well as the pathetic han- dling of the situation by far too many Irish bishops and provincials produced a tsunami of suffering and deep in- justice. And we must remember a principle enunciated by my colleague, Fr. Stephen Grunow -- namely, that the abuse of children in any society, but especially in one as insular and tight-knit as Irish society, has a tremendously power- ful ripple effect. When a young person is sexually abused, particularly by a figure as trusted as a priest, that child is massively and permanently hurt; but once the abuse be- comes known, so are his siblings, his parents, his friends, his extended family, his parish. Now multiply this process a dozen times, a hundred times, a thousand times -- again, especially in a country as small as Ireland -- and you will find that, in very short order, the entire nation is filled with anger, indignation, and a legitimate thirst for setting things right. I do believe that what we witnessed last week was a powerfully emotional reaction to the great crimes of the last several decades. The deeply sad truth is that the abuse of young men and women has given rise to an even more dramatic abuse of unborn children. When you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. Is there a way forward for Ireland? I think a significant sign of hope is the considerable number of people who took the extremely unpopular stance against this legisla- tive innovation. Knowing full well that they would likely lose and that they would be subject to ridicule and perhaps even the loss of their professional positions, they coura- geously argued for life. On that foundation, much of value can be built. But what Ireland most needs at this moment -- and indeed for the next hundred years -- are saints and mystics. Moral arguments can and should be made, but if the Church wants to recover its standing as a shaper of the Irish culture, it has to produce men and women who give themselves radically to the Gospel. It needs figures in the mold of Teresa of Calcutta, Oscar Romero, Francis of Assisi, Dorothy Day -- indeed of St. Patrick, St. Bren- dan, St. Columbanus, and St. Brigid. And it requires men and women of prayer, like the founders of the great Bene- dictine, Franciscan, Dominican, Cistercian, and Trappist houses that still dot the Irish countryside -- and like the strange denizens of Skellig Michael, who for six centuries clung to the edges of the world off the coast of Ireland and lived in total dependence upon God. Finally, only prayer, witness, radical trust in divine providence, honest preaching, and the living of the radical Gospel will undo the damage done last week. Bishop Robert Barron, bishop of Los Angeles, is founder of the global ministry, Word on Fire and the Fran- cis Cardinal George Professor of Faith and Culture at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein. Sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind: a reflection on the Irish referendum Word on Fire Bishop Barron