Joseph Stoutzenberger

A Disarming Presence

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

I recently read about a procession of Catholics in Chicago making their way to an ICE detention center where a number of people were being held (October, 2025). A priest carrying the Eucharist in a monstrance under a canopy led the procession. Another priest carried a ciborium with eucharistic hosts. The group approached the center where state police stopped them and went into the facility to ask ICE agents if the priest could come in to distribute communion and pray with those being held. He told the group that they were not allowed in, so they held a communion prayer service outside of the building.

The image of Catholics wanting to pray with frightened people held against their will and not knowing their fate was heartening and disheartening at the same time. Good for those Catholics who recognized these people as fellow human beings in need of the comfort of prayer. Sad that their overseers viewed prayer and communion as a threat undermining the power wielded over them. I know that prisons in the Philly area hold religious services for even the most hardened of inmates. Religious fervor is often commonplace in prisons among people who have little else to hope for. Pope Francis made it a point of visiting prisoners whenever he came to a country for an official visit. One of his first acts as pope was to wash the feet of some inmates in a Rome prison.

St. Francis and Sultan al-Kamil converse peacefully in a golden desert, with distant soldiers fading into the background

I recall a picture in my high-school church history course that depicts Pope Leo the Great meeting with the feared leader of the Huns, Attila, in the fifth century. The outcome was that Attila did not sack Rome, as he had been doing throughout much of Europe. Perhaps there was more myth than history portrayed in the telling of the story, but it suggested that the presence of the holy can be disarming whereas a militaristic stance would have only escalated into the devastation of Rome. We could use some disarming today. In Latin American countries, the military is designed not to fight wars against foreigners but to keep their own citizens in line. In the United States, the military has always been intended to serve as protection against external threats. That distinction is being blurred today, as very militaristic agents camp outside of schools, churches, and places of business seeking to arrest anyone who looks like they might be in the country without proper documentation. Showing up to share communion with detainees is an attempt to be a disarming presence. Those people swept off the streets while dropping off their children at school deserve humane treatment, at least if there is any truth to the Christian message.

During the Crusades, when Christian knights were poised to attack Muslims warriors in Egypt, St. Francis of Assisi walked with a companion into the no-man’s-land between the battle lines. He was quickly picked up by Muslim soldiers who recognized him as a holy man. (Muslims of the time had their own men and women who dressed in simple robes and dedicated their lives to spiritual pursuits.) Francis met with the Muslim leader in Egypt, who was more interested in philosophy and spirituality than in military conquest. Francis and al-Kamil spent a week in conversation and appear to have had mutual respect for each other. It was a disarming moment, when “power over” was set aside, replaced by openminded companionship. The Catholics hoping to share communion with detainees in Chicago reflected a basic Christian vision of how to look upon our neighbors. Jesus didn’t intend his message “Love your neighbor as yourself” to be restricted to only those who look like us or who have filled out proper papers in their escape from the life-threatening dangers of their home country. It doesn’t take much imagination for Catholics who receive communion to realize that the body of Christ they are part of includes those people who populate the detention centers in our country. It’s right there in the bible. “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (1 Corinthians).

When Bible Reading Becomes Toxic

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

A few thoughtful, zealous young men I know have taken up reading the bible regularly. They carry a copy of the book with them, attend Sunday services at a bible-centered church, and meet with other young people once a week to discuss bible passages. As a Christian myself, why am I uneasy with this preoccupation they have? Shouldn’t bible reading be encouraged in our youth? There can’t be too much of it, can there? At the risk of sounding like I’m dampening their enthusiasm, I offer some grandfatherly observations.

Historically, bible reading on a large scale was not even possible until printing presses started up in major European cities, at the end of the 1400s, and practically speaking not until a half century later, when translations in vernacular languages became available. One can only imagine how many German speakers enthusiastically welcomed the opportunity to read the bible on their own after Martin Luther translated it into highly readable German in 1534. Soon after, John Calvin used the bible as the basis of civil society in Geneva, Switzerland, and many others looked to the bible to justify any number of laws and practices. The Catholic Church of the time took a much more cautious approach to bible reading. When church leaders met at the Council of Trent, they admonished Catholics to read only approved translations of the bible and then only under the guidance of church leaders. Church leaders, supposedly with the guidance of learned theologians and the Holy Spirit, provided rightful interpretations of what bible passages mean.

My hesitation with my young friends reading the bible on their own comes from how some bible fundamentalists interpret what is written, often emphasizing passages that reflect their perspective rather than understanding historical contexts and scripture’s broader message. There is a passage (Ephesians 5:22-23) in one of the epistles that wives should be submissive to their husbands, who are the head of the family. The Catholic Church has discouraged using that passage in its liturgies, but I fear what an ardent young person might do with it. When doing his translation, Luther questioned whether the Book of Revelation should be included as part of the bible, but it’s there; and for years some fundamentalists have strained to figure out how it applies to conditions in the world today. Interpretation of scripture that lacks nuance and an understanding of biblical background can result in the bible being used to support an “us” versus “them” mentality, the few who are saved versus the multitude condemned to hell. I hope that young readers can step back and remember that the bible is meant to be good news for all.

Another caution I have about how the bible can be misused: religion and mental illness can be a toxic mix. Someone dealing with mental illness can believe that God is speaking directly to them and find all kinds of secret, dangerous messages in the bible. Hypersensitivity can at times lead someone to be absorbed in what they believe to be spiritual insights that no one else knows, sending them spiraling deeper into a mental state of isolation detached from reality.

So, young people, read the bible, search for meaning there, talk to others about its message. Your intensity and search for truth are admirable, but be humble when trying to make sense of it. Don’t neglect other pursuits and other outlets. The bible is a great drama with many twists and turns. At times, simply step back and say, “That’s interesting.” God speaks to you in this book, but conversation is a two-way street. Be careful not to equate what you think you hear with what God is actually saying. Don’t set aside common sense when trying to make sense of it. In the end, if reading the bible doesn’t enkindle in you an expansive love for yourself and others, you are misreading it. Keep the flame of the Christian message burning bright, but let it cast more light than destructive heat.

The Age of Anxiety

An old man sitting in a living room with his arms crossed and a concerned look on his face.

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

Last night a cable news host I was watching ended his show by saying, “We will continue to broadcast the news, but you might want to take a break from watching it.” I was impressed by his thoughtful comment. After all, viewership is what his network is selling, and it is all news, all the time. Constant exposure to hearing about what is covered as “news” is toxic. I took his advice and switched to watching the Phillies baseball game.

Talking with some friends last week, I asked one of them how he was doing. He replied, “I’m feeling depressed and anxious.” I said, is it something personal or are you feeling this way because of what’s going on politically and in the world. He said, the political climate has him deeply concerned and feeling anxious and hopeless. Others who heard him echoed his sentiments and said, how could you feel otherwise? We are living in an age of anxiety. Even young children are not immune. Are there antidotes?

A number of commentators have addressed this very issue for a couple months now. Some common themes in their advice are: limit screen time, especially news watching and social media; get out in nature; exercise regularly; spend face to face time with other people; fit in prayer or meditation to turn off the ruminating going on in your brain; lose yourself in a good book; and remind yourself of all that you are grateful for and all the good that is happening in the world. Try to avoid debate and instead seek to engage in open-minded conversations with others. There are even websites to help you break away from the narrative of depressing news. One is called simply “Nice News,” offering five-minute daily emails featuring positive, upbeat news.

An older man sitting in a living room with a concerned look on his face.

A helpful piece of advice is: Make good news yourself, or join with others in making good news to counteract all the bad news. On the way to a protest rally recently, I spoke to an older woman carrying a “No Kings” sign. She said, “This is not the way I envisioned spending my retirement.” She would have preferred traveling, spending time with grandchildren, and catching up on reading the books she had always wanted to delve into. Instead, she pushed herself to go into Philadelphia and stand in front of city hall holding a sign for a couple hours, hoping it made a difference. I thought, at least she was trying to make a difference and doing it with like-minded people. We can feel anxious when we feel powerless and believe there’s nothing we can do. That type of anxiety is debilitating. We can also feel anxious and hesitant if we get involved, make our voices heard, and try to make positive change in some fashion. That type of activity is challenging and can be hard work, but it is the opposite of hopeless anxiety.

Hopefully Christians find solace in the words of Jesus, who constantly exhorted his listeners to be at peace. Jesus lived during troubling times, but he saw a bigger picture despite his own bouts of anxiety, such as what he experienced during the night he was arrested. Americans can ponder the message of Martin Luther King, Jr: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Don’t be discouraged when the universe seems to be going in the opposite direction. All people would do well to heed the words of Reinhold Niebuhr’s “Serenity Prayer.” God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Wise counselors tell us that an important starting point is to recognize when we are anxious or depressed. Denying it only causes it to simmer inside of us and makes matters worse. Strangely, telling ourselves that it is okay to feel anxious helps us feel less anxious. That’s hard to do alone, so, if you have friends you can be open and at ease with, much of the battle is won. Would that we all could feel deep in our hearts what the fourteenth century mystic Julian of Norwich came to realize: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Saints Among Us

A pair of men standing in front of a mountain range holding a pair of tablets and smiling.

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

On September 7, 2025, the Catholic Church officially canonized as saints two young Italians from the past century: Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis. Pier Giorgio died in 1925 at the age of twenty-four. Carlo Acutis died in 2006 of leukemia at the age of fifteen. Both were renowned for their passion for life and for finding an impetus for their exuberance in their Catholic faith. Pope John Paul II called Pier Giorgio “a man of the Beatitudes” because he lived the Christian call to holiness so faithfully, and young Carlo Acutis is described as “God’s influencer” because he used his skill with computers and the Internet to spread God’s message.

There are two ways to look upon these two new saints. One is that they were exceptional. They gave to people in need even when they had little themselves. They entered into life with a joy, enthusiasm, and free-spiritedness that drew other people to them. Both had a deep devotion to the Eucharist. Pier Giorgio had a great love of nature and was a frequent mountain climber. Even as a child, Carlo Acutis mastered computers and computer programming with skill well beyond his years.

Although they were exceptional, as described at their canonization Mass, another way to look upon the two is that they were quite ordinary. Neither expressed a desire to become a priest but found ways to live their vocation doing what their friends and acquaintances were doing. I have worked with young people for fifty years, and I have encountered many young people who gave themselves to others and did so with equally refreshing grace and enthusiasm. I often met students who would light up a room with their zest for life, always seeking to share it with others. I had one student who, midway through college, lost her mother. She had two young sisters, so she interrupted her studies to take care of the home and her siblings, becoming in essence the mother to two youngsters. She was never morose about this new role she took on. Her young sisters were blessed to have such a caring mother figure in their lives. I had another student who always came to class with a smile and an “I’m ready for fun” attitude. I asked what she was studying and what her plans were. She said that she worked in a nursing home and loved to take care of the older people there. She was studying to be a nurse so that she could help them more fully. Clearly, she brought joy to people whom most of us would just as soon forget. When I was teaching high school, a student told me about a family who was struggling financially because the mother was sick and the father was caring for her full time. He asked if I would be a faculty moderator for a car wash and bake sale to raise money for the family. He gathered a large group of fellow students who gladly gave up a Saturday to join in this good work.

A young woman in a hospital, wearing nurse's scrubs. She has a kind smile on her face as she treats a patient.

Before the canonization Mass for Carlo and Pier Giorgio, Pope Leo addressed the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square and expressed his happiness that so many young people were present. Many people are in the pipeline awaiting sainthood. There is a reason these two were recognized for their saintliness in 2025. At a time when many young people have lost interest in religion in general and Catholicism in particular, church leaders wanted to celebrate two young people who found their faith to be a spark that can ignite good-heartedness, a desire to help others, and a loving relationship with God. An engineering student, Pier Giorgio felt called to be involved in works of social action in his post-World War I Italy because he heard that message in the tenets of his faith, especially in his experience of the Eucharist. Carlo’s mother says that her son was an average teenager, hanging out with friends and playing sports, but that “he could not be indifferent to suffering.” Both he and Pier Giorgio were “average.” We might even say “ordinary,” if being young naturally blossoms into youthful exuberance about life and about the endless possibilities to enter into it for good. This is what young people can be. They enjoyed what young people throughout the world want to enjoy. They remind all Catholics that entering into life with passion and gusto, always reaching out to others, is what Catholic faith is all about. Their powerful experience of God’s love for them brought them joy and consolation and led them to a life of love themselves. There are plenty of other young people out there who also live that message. Rejoice in the saints among us.

What Does It Mean to Believe in Jesus?

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

So many of my friends were brought up Catholic or some other religion but now have no time for it. If anything, they look upon religions in a negative light and no longer consider themselves Christian. My Jewish friends are for the most part “culturally Jewish.” Their identity as Jews is linked to their heritage and their birth; they don’t have to believe anything to lay claim to being Jewish. On the other hand, to be Christian means to believe in something, or, more precisely, to believe in someone—Jesus. What does that belief entail?

Belief in Jesus means seeking to know and live his teachings, but that can’t be all there is to it. So much of what Jesus said is found in the teachings of other religious figures. “Love God and your neighbor as yourself” as a summation of the commandments resonates with what at least one other Jewish rabbi of the time taught. Five hundred years before Jesus, Confucius summed up his moral teaching in the saying, “Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you.” A number of religions express that Golden Rule in one fashion or another. In short, people can accept the teachings of Jesus without being Christian.

Jesus’s miracles are certainly alluring, but they didn’t necessarily lead to belief in him. The dynamic is more believe in him and miracles happen rather than the other way around. It’s not as if all the people who encountered Jesus, presumably even those who witnessed his miracles, came to believe in him. According to the gospels, throngs of people were calling for his crucifixion during his trial, and no miracle happened to dampen their rejection of him. At that critical moment, there’s no mention of people who saw his miracles standing up for him. His being raised from the dead was initially experienced only by a select group of believers, not by previously disinterested strangers.

What, then, do Christians mean when they say they believe in Jesus? A key Christian belief is that Jesus lived his life in a way that revealed the nature of God. In John’s gospel, Jesus tells us that God is love. That love is expressed in the Greek word “kenosis,” meaning “emptying.” Jesus “emptied” himself, setting ego and self-interest aside, as lovers do, and told us that God is like that. Rather than a mighty God hurling lightning bolts and roaring threats in a booming voice louder than thunder, a more fitting image for a loving, emptying God would be a woman giving birth. The fifteenth century Christian mystic Julian of Norwich was not the first to refer to Christ as a “heavenly Mother,” and breast-feeding as an apt illustration of Christ’s love. Jesus on the cross empties himself even unto death, an act of love that Christians see as revealing his divinity, oneness with God, shining through.

This is what Christians mean when they say they believe in Jesus. In him, they meet the loving God. Pay attention to his teachings. Ponder his at times baffling messages in his stories. Delight in the accounts of his miracles and comforting words. In the end, take heart that God’s divine love found a home in a man who lived two thousand years ago in a small village not too far from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. That God, out of love, was emptied in Jesus. That God is love. That’s the Jesus Christians believe in.

What Is the Mystical Body?

A depiction of Jesus Christ holding up his arms with arcs of energy beaming off of him

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

When we heard that our daughter-in-law, living three hundred miles away in Syracuse, was to undergo a medical procedure the next morning, my wife suggested we go to seven AM Mass to be in solidarity with them. I was struck by how the Mass actually spoke to the connectedness we were seeking. The opening prayer reminded us that in the liturgy we represented the church which exists throughout the world. We twenty people, eighteen women, were stepping out of the dailyness of our lives and entering into sacred mystery that transcends our apparent separateness. The gospel reading was about why Jesus taught in parables. His message required looking below the surface to a deeper reality, and his parables intended to jolt people to see that deeper reality. What is that reality? That we are one in Christ and not as separate as we appear to be.

A Catholic image for the unity my wife and I wanted to experience with our distant family in a time of trouble is “the mystical body of Christ.” In 1943, Pope Pius XII wrote an encyclical on the concept. He wrote that Christ took on flesh so that we might become partakers in divinity. The mystical body refers to the divine, ineffable bond that we all share in Christ. There is much to unpack in this concept. The term “ineffable” reminds us that our words and our thought categories are too small, too limited, to explain our oneness. “Mystical” can be misunderstood to mean “spiritual” as opposed to “physical.” The connection we share with those distant from us is not just spiritual. The air molecules we breathe in Philadelphia enter the atmosphere and mix with the air hovering above Syracuse. Wild fires in western Canada affect air quality thousands of miles away. The soil under our feet doesn’t recognize state borders. The material that makes up our bodies returns to the earth and is replaced with other matter. A continuous exchange of shared matter is happening within and among people all the time. We are likely being kept alive by the same particles that sustained Jesus and all the saints. The spiritual/material Catholic concept “mystical body” is acknowledged in the Eucharist. The sliver of bread people receive in communion is matter and spirit. It defies the two dimensional thinking our minds slip into when we don’t pause to ponder the mystery that the sacred time and sacred space of the Mass invites us to enter into. Our link to past, present, and future is physical as well as spiritual. That mystery is ineffable and mystical but worthy of contemplation.

Pope Francis was fond of reminding us to “reject ideology.” Perhaps he meant that we can over-think things. The reality of the mystical body of Christ is not an idea, an ideology. It is an experience such as Jesus invited his friends to partake in when he shared with them bread, “his body,” and wine, “his blood,” the last time he was with them before he died. Thankfully, the bond with all creation expressed in the mystical body of Christ reminds us that we partake in his divinity even to this day. The pausing to pray and participate in the simple ritual of the liturgy provides Catholics a venue to experience that connection with family in their time of need, the blessing of the mystical body.

In 1943, Pope Pius equated the mystical body of Christ with the church. His description of the church as mystical body is a precursor to the more expansive, inclusivist understanding of church presented in the Vatican Council II documents twenty years later. He stated that “the Church, the Bride of Christ, is one; and yet so vast is the love of the divine Spouse that it embraces in His Bride the whole human race without exception.” That is, we live and move and have our being within a boundless divine embrace. By going to Mass that morning, we were seeking to tap into the interconnectedness that is the mystical body. Surely Christ’s mystical body transcends a mere three hundred miles of separation.

The Zen of Childlikeness

A child running in a park with their arms spread wide and a large smile on their face

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

Walking with me through a nearby park, my three-year-old grandson spent a long time running, jumping, and climbing until he suddenly stopped and sighed, “I’m tired.” He immediately laid down spread-eagle in the middle of the path. It reminded me of the teaching of the Zen master: “When you work, work. When you eat, eat. When you sleep, sleep. This is Zen.” It takes a childlikeness to live like that. When you play, play. When you rest, rest. Three-year-old Aidan seemed to get it. There’s a childlike simplicity to being in the present moment that we all would do well to cultivate.

An incident recounted in Mark’s gospel (Mark10:13-16) reveals how Jesus looked upon children and childlikeness:

People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.

A man with long hair and a beard wearing a robe and surrounded by children giving off an air of childlike wonder.

Jesus knew that childlike simplicity, openness, and honesty are essential in the kingdom of God. Likewise, Zen is all about developing childlikeness, a “beginner’s mind” attuned to the present moment unencumbered by preconceived categories. If children are surrounded by loving grownups, they can appreciate Jesus’s message, “Let not your heart be troubled.” Anxieties and misgivings too often mount as we grow, sometimes even at a relatively early age today. We carry such baggage that weighs us down from entering into the moment with delight and receptiveness. While I pushed him on a swing, my grandson said in an exhilarating voice, “This is fun!” Hopefully, despite our trials and tribulations, all of us can say at times, “This is fun!” Only then can we be grateful and appreciative. Cultivating a sense of humor helps; if on occasion we laugh uncontrollably, even better.

Childlikeness is not the same as childishness. Grasping our toys and not sharing, it’s all about “me” and “mine,” taunting and bullying can appear at an early age. It’s particularly troublesome when childish behavior continues into adulthood. Childlikeness is different. It’s seeing the magic around us, being filled with wonder at beauty, delighting in the goodness and kindness of others. Tapping into our “inner child” means cultivating those qualities that Jesus saw in the little ones who made their way to him. They saw goodness and kindness and wanted to be part of it.

The recent movie, “The Life of Chuck,” begins with billboards and television ads reading, “Thank you, Chuck, for thirty-nine years.” Perhaps it was the musings of a man about to die who could look at the composite of his life and say, “Thank you.” A highlight of the movie is his delighting in a grade-school dance and later dancing on a street corner as a street musician drums away. Hopefully, despite dying at a young age, he could remember such moments and say, “That was fun.” An early image for the Blessed Trinity is that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit “dance around” one another. Jesus’s life story is an invitation to join in the dance, which continues even after death. It takes childlike humility and openness to say yes to the dance and enter into it, the kingdom of God.

Where Is the American Dream Today?

A group of diverse people standing in the streets of New York

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

A few years ago, I had a class of twenty-five students. Looking over the class list, I discovered that thirteen students had Hispanic surnames. They typically were studying to be nurses or to work in another medical field. School policy was not to inquire about a student’s citizenship status, but it is likely that some of mine were noncitizens and aspired to be American citizens. I also had a student who was “gender fluid,” self-identifying as “they.” Can the American dream be their dream? Is there a foundation for their aspirations?

The Declaration of Independence’s underlying principle is: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” As lived out in history, that principle was more a challenge, an aspiration, a “dream,” in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. It began with a group of American colonists describing how their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness were being thwarted by the British king who claimed sovereignty over them. A lingering question was unaddressed: What about enslaved people? Don’t they have a right to liberty and pursuit of happiness as well? That question was finally settled on June 19, 1865, when the last group of enslaved people received the news that they were now free, as celebrated in the Juneteenth national holiday.

Since then, other Americans have been inspired to stand up against policies and practices they saw as violating their liberty and pursuit of happiness. Factory workers, many of them immigrants, organized to demand living wages and humane working conditions. After many years seeking the right to vote, in 1920 women achieved that right. In the 1960s, a number of liberation movements formed demanding that the dream of the Declaration of Independence be applied to them. The 1963 march on Washington was a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement. Segregated schools, bathrooms, and lunch counters were a de facto impediment to liberty for African-Americans. The 1969 police raid on a New York gathering place sparked the gay rights movement, culminating in legal recognition of same-sex couples to marry. The first Earth Day in 1970 was a seminal moment in extending the right to life and liberty beyond just human beings. The 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling sparked controversy about when during the course of gestation there is a person who has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness along with all other Americans. The judges essentially ruled that there is no definitive answer to that question, and therefore, with a few restrictions, women had a constitutional right to an abortion. In 2022 the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling left decisions regarding abortion and protections for the upborn up to individual states. In 1974 the Vatican weighed in and said that if we are not certain, then we should view a person to be present at the earliest stage of development, the moment of conception.

What groups today are clamoring that the dream underlying the Declaration of Independence applies to them? Two groups calling for liberty and pursuit of happiness are immigrants and sexual minorities. One subgroup of immigrants, those who came to this country as children and have only known America as their home, even call themselves “dreamers.” They hope that a path to citizenship can be established for them. Does “all men are created equal and are endowed with unalienable rights” apply to non-citizens as well as citizens? When the nation was founded, white men who owned property possessed rights that others did not. Over time, Americans came to see that equality and equal rights applied to ever-expanding members of society. At the very least, the Declaration implies that all people are to be treated with dignity and respect. It says “all men,” not “all citizens.” There are also Americans who find that the gender “assigned to them at birth” is not an accurate identification of who they are. In their mind, to deny them treatments and surgical procedures that would align them with how they perceive their true self to be is a rejection of their right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness enshrined in the Declaration.

Americans celebrate the Declaration of Independence every July 4. If the celebration would include reading the document along with lively discussion about how it can be applied today, it would reveal that the American dream continues to inspire people on the margins clamoring to be part of that dream. To stop dreaming is to end the American experiment that has given solace and hope to generations of dream seekers.

A Culture of Life

A priest kneeling in front of stained glass windows

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

In the mid-1970s, the U.S. Catholic bishops proposed that Catholic high schools teach a course on “Respect Life.” I recall receiving materials on various topics that would be included in such a course: war and peace, capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia, poverty and hunger, gun violence, and even environmental degradation. The program reflected what Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago would later call “a consistent ethic of life,” or the “seamless garment” approach to affirming the sacredness of life. Some Catholic theologians and philosophers opposed such a broad-based approach to respect for life. They believed that Christianity, and Western civilization itself, were under attack primarily from a few principal problems, specifically abortion, euthanasia, genetic engineering, and acceptance of homosexuality. To link these issues with capital punishment and world hunger resulted in diminishing the focus that should be placed on these pivotal problems. Making abortion and euthanasia illegal should be front and center in the agenda of the Catholic church, not eliminating the death penalty or anti-poverty programs.

Cardinal Bernardin saw things differently. He believed that respect for life had to include respect for all life; otherwise, the term is meaningless. In 1995, Pope John Paul II wrote an encyclical echoing this understanding of respect life. He contrasted a “culture of death” with a “culture of life.” If all human beings are not valued and cherished as God intended, then society’s entire culture needs to be replaced with a culture of life. A culture of death is not a matter of just one issue. Care for the unborn, what most people associate with the Respect Life movement, cannot be separated from care for human life in all stages and in all circumstances. Dismissing certain people as expendable is an affront to life. To affirm this message, whenever a person was condemned to death in the United States, Pope John Paul would write the state’s governor pleading for the sentence to be commuted. He reminded us that society cannot call itself respectful of life if there are malnourished children not cared for and immigrants that are mistreated. Violence, in all forms, is a failure of respect for life.

Catholic theologian Thomas Berry uses different terms to describe the transformation that needs to take place to affirm the dignity and preciousness of all life. He calls for a “new story” to replace the “old story.” The new story he describes is actually an ancient, he would say, original story. The old story views individuals as separate from everyone else and human beings as separate from and even “above” the rest of creation. The new story is attentive to the life force that emerged from creation and is manifest in the dazzling diversity found among human beings and other life forms. A culture of death, the old story, does not prioritize the preciousness of all life in policies and practices. Underlying causes of violence are left unaddressed. The new story that Thomas Berry advocates for seeks alternatives that support and nourish life. Both the pope and Berry propose that when we truly pay attention, we can’t help but realize the interconnectedness of all life. All life is family and should be treated as such.

Some years ago, the “Sixty Minutes” tv program brought a woman from Nepal to the United States. She had lived all of her life in a remote village, so the program’s producers took her to a bustling shopping mall filled with high-end stores to see how she would react. She was bored to death with all the fancy clothes and shiny objects until she entered a pet store where she came to life petting the various animals there. That episode reflects in simple fashion why Thomas Berry sees the life-affirming new story as more fundamental to human experience than a culture that values things over persons, inanimate objects over animated life. All life is awe-inspiring, but its beauty can be lost when a culture of death prevails. In the book of Deuteronomy, God lays out the choice: I set before you life or death…Choose life, so that you and your children may live.

What’s Sinister?

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

Many years ago, I met a friend I hadn’t seen in a while on a Philadelphia center city street. He told me he was meeting a friend at a nearby bar and invited me to join them. Once inside the bar, I realized fairly quickly that it was a gay bar. All the clientele were men, and some men off in a corner were dancing with each other. I told my friend that I didn’t feel comfortable there, and he said, “How do you think we feel in a straight bar.”

I never thought of there being “straight bars.” In my mind at the time, there were regular, normal bars, and then there were abnormal bars—gay bars. Gay bars were not just different; they deviated from what is the norm, just as heterosexuality is the norm and homosexuality is deviant from that norm.

As a left-handed person, I might have been more sensitive to how difference does not have to be negative. The Latin word for being left-handed is sinister. According to my Cassell’s Latin dictionary, the word also means “wrong, perverse, unfavorable, evil.” We “sinister” lefties should be attentive to when people are being denigrated for their differences. Just because we write, throw a ball, and use a fork differently from righties, we would not label ourselves as deviant. FYI: about ten percent of Americans are left-handed and a little more than seven percent self-identify as homosexual. Being left-handed has its challenges—some kitchen utensils are clearly designed for right-handers. Those challenges are miniscule compared to the challenges of navigating through life as homosexual. No one chooses to be homosexual or heterosexual any more than someone chooses to be left- or right-handed.

A wide illustration of people from all walks of life—some holding hands, others writing or painting—gathered peacefully in a public space. A rainbow arcs in the background, symbolizing inclusion, while a nearby building subtly resembles a church. Bright and hopeful, with diverse representation.

American society and the Catholic Church have made great strides in making sexual minorities feel more welcome and less as persons bearing a stigma. Pope Francis was a warm and welcoming person, and he didn’t hesitate to express his affection for gay men and lesbian women. He encouraged two American Catholic ministers, Sister Jeannine Gramick and Father James Martin, to continue their ministry to sexual minorities. He told Sister Jeannine that we need to show “respect for personal history” when relating to people. He acknowledged that a cookie-cutter understanding of gender identity does not take into account each person’s unique history and experience. He even told her: “Transgender people must be accepted and integrated into society.”

I have left-handed friends who attended Catholic school, and they tell stories of their first-grade nun hitting their hand with a ruler if they tried to write with their left hand. I was spared such treatment by Sister Adelaide, so I write with that curved-around style required of writing left-handed. I have friends who knew they were gay at a very early age, others who came to the realization during adolescence, and even some who only realized it after they were adults and were even married to a woman and had children. As Pope Francis said, personal histories are varied. Catholicism has a tradition, adopted from the ancient Greeks, of determining morality based on what is often a narrow understanding of what is natural. “Left” is synonymous with wrong and unnatural. A sexual orientation other than a heterosexual one is unnatural and therefore wrong. In this tradition, morality is determined by fidelity to the natural order and not whether anyone is getting hurt. However, there’s another window into what determines moral behavior. Rape and child abuse are egregious not because they are unnatural but because people are being hurt. That is true even when rape occurs in the context of marriage. Pope Francis had a great knack for seeing persons who were hurting and knew that suffering was often caused by societal attitudes that were unwelcoming and condemnatory. Left-handedness is not just accepted but often celebrated in society. Left-handed pitchers are prized in baseball; and some studies suggest that being left-handed taps into the right side of our brain, stimulating creativity and an artistic sense. Have the church and society arrived at the point of both accepting and celebrating the contributions of people who identify as other that heterosexual as well? That attitude is part of the legacy of Pope Francis. Homosexuals and left-handed people are not going away. Hopefully, their personal history and identity can be viewed as the source of good that God desires of all people.