June 10, 2015
Share:

Audio:

Rev. Cornelius M. Buckley, S.J.
Chaplain, Thomas Aquinas College
Adapted from the talk given at the Alumni Association Dinner
June 6, 2015

Thank you very much. This gives me the opportunity to say something I probably wouldn’t say otherwise, and that is how delightful I am to be here! I came here in 2004, when the class we celebrate today, the Class of 2005, were starting their Senior Year. And I was told I would be here for two years, and I am still here. I’ve had a very, very happy life, but these last few years have been really, as I like to say, the maraschino cherry on top of the very generous sherbet I have.

I have been thinking about the question of Ireland. You see it in the paper recently, where Ireland was the first country that democratically voted in same-sex marriage. That’s pretty extraordinary. I mean, 60 percent of a country that’s been Catholic for 1,500 years. That includes six or seven centuries during which Irish missionaries went out all over Europe, which the historian Henri Daniel-Rops called the “second starting point of the Christianization of Europe.”

And now what happens is that Ireland votes for same-sex marriage. We can call this the second starting point of de-Christianization, after the Enlightenment. Now Cardinal Walter Kasper, who is the liberal spokesman of the liberal agenda for the two-part Synod of Bishops on the Family, stated that the Irish vote shows that the Church needs to address more fully the question of same-sex marriage. He was quoted as saying that, at the first part of the Synod, this was “only a marginal topic, but now it becomes central.”

The Irish vote means, he said, that, “We have to find a new language. We have to overcome unjust discrimination, which has a long tradition in our culture.” The so-called “opening” toward the “divorced and remarried couples” was only the first step toward the widening of revolutionary agenda to include approval of same-sex relationships, which contain “elements of the good.”

So this is the situation in which we find ourselves. The pictures of the crowds who welcomed same-sex marriage were all young people, very young people.

This may be considered the immediate result of the Irish vote — what’s going to happen in the Synod? But there are two other questions we might consider: How did this come about? And How does it affect the members of this audience here tonight?

How did it come about? Well, you can say there were several factors — priest scandals, the “Celtic tiger” that brought about a rapid economic growth and social change, a political leadership that caved in to gay propaganda and intimidation. And we know that the U.S. gay groups sent over millions and millions of dollars to make sure that the propaganda was broadcast throughout the land. The bishops said nothing. The Archbishop of Dublin , a very nice man, said that he never tells people how to vote; they should vote for their consciences. (He didn’t say it was up to him to try to form consciences.) And at the same time the Irish seminaries were terrible, and the schools were not teaching any type of Catholic doctrine whatsoever.

The most important— and the least recognized — reason, however , may be clericalism. That is the attitude, widely shared by laypeople as well as priests, that clerics make up the active, elite group of the Church, and laypeople are just the passive mass; clerics alone should have intrinsic responsibility for the Church’s mission, while the apostolate of laypeople comes to them (if it comes at all) only by delegation on the part of the clergy. There’s a book written on this, Russell Shaw’s To Hunt, To Shoot, and To Entertain: Clericalism and the Catholic Laity. It was put out in about 1993 by Ignatius Press.

There is a common consensus that vocation, by definition, signifies the special calling of those who God wants to be priests and religious. But this is not what the Church teaches. You can read in Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium [31]:

“Laymen by baptism are incorporated into Christ, are placed in the People of God, and in their own way share the priestly, prophetic and kingly office of Christ.…”

In other words, through our Baptism we become adopted children of God, and therefore heirs of heaven, if you will. It comes from divine affiliation: we’re adopted by God, and we’re incorporated into the Trinitarian life. This same decree identifies vocation in three distinct senses.

First, the common Christian vocation: Baptism brings about incorporation into Christ.

Second, vocation as a state of life or vocation to special service: “By reason of their particular vocation, clerics are chiefly and professionally ordained to the sacred ministry. Similarly, for their state in life, religious give splendid and striking testimony that the world cannot be transfigured and offered to God without the spirit of the Beatitudes. But the laity, by the fact of their very vocation, seek the Kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God.”

You here this evening are graduates of an institution that stand as a tangible confirmation of that statement. I know that the founders really didn’t put too much stress on the importance of Vatican II, but in fact their actions showed that they took it very seriously. This institution was founded by laymen. This institution was founded by laymen who realized at the time the terrible situation in which our country existed. And this institution is the living proof that the laity took the words of Vatican II to heart and used them, at least in this situation, to concretize what was the ideal of the Council fathers.

The third type of vocation is the unique and individual vocation: Again, Vatican II says, “All the faithful, whatever their condition or state, are called by the Lord each in his own way, to that holiness whereby the Father himself is holy.”

So what is a unique and individual vocation? In abstract terms it is the particular calling that each member of the Church receives from God to live out the common baptismal vocation, within the framework of a particular state in life or mode of service, and in this way seeking personal sanctification and also making unique and repeatable contributions to the mission of the Church as a whole. This is precisely what the lay founders of this College did and what has been implemented by the lay administrators of the College ever since.

The idea of “vocation” as meaning only “vocation to the priesthood or religious life” is simply not Catholic. The word includes more than that. We all have vocations, and our vocations are given to us by Almighty God. It is ridiculous to compare one type of vocation to another. You might do that in the abstract world of Plato, but when it comes down to the individual, the best vocation, the vocation, is the vocation that that person follows.

There are many unmistakable challenges, of course. Is Ireland a preview of the coming of anti-Christian secular attractions in our own country? Look at the facts. The Obama mandate for Catholic colleges and hospitals — this is something that the administrators here are very concerned about, understandably so. The same-sex marriage and assisted-suicide agenda. Subtle vocabulary changes. For instances, we don’t talk any more about “freedom of religion.” We talk about “freedom of worship,” and there’s a real difference. Worship is contained within the church itself; it does not go outside of the church. But that’s not the idea of our founding fathers.

How are the alumni of Thomas Aquinas College to react? Individually and collectively. Prayer, of course, is indispensable, and I would encourage, if possible, family prayer vs. individual prayer. The family Rosary is really important. Our Lord taught us to pray always. Always? Realistically, how is it possible to put that into practice apart from the time when I am actually praying?

What is better, to think about God, or to put it into effect what I am called to do for Him? Is it my mind that He wants, or my heart, or my memory, or my will? It is my will, of course. God asks that, on every occasion, I should be working for Him, according to my own particular vocation as a layman or a laywoman, as a husband or a wife, as a father or a mother.

But there may be some specific recommendations. Women, by their very nature, are those who train in religion. Go back to the Jewish idea. It is the women who keep religion going. And it is the mother who can teach the catechism best and teach the children to pray best. The husband and the father is really called into question in society today. At no time have men been more feminized. We need strong men, but men who are not adverse to showing affective signs to their children.

And another thing I’ve come to notice: When men go to confession, their children go to confession. When men don’t go to confession, their children give up the sacrament altogether. And confession is the forgotten sacrament today.

Collectively, you might think about getting involved in the parish or school where you live, and getting involved in political movements. Avoid the circling-the-wagon technique. And I would say, too, that Opus Dei is a wonderful organization for us today. Opus Dei does now what the Jesuits used to do. But most of all, thank God each day for your vocation as lay members of the Church, called to that holiness whereby the Father is holy. Ask him what He wants, and how you should respond to His invitation to you in your own way, individually and collectively as men and women of the Church and as alumni and alumnae of Thomas Aquinas College.

Thank you.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.