Summer Conferences

Acclaimed professor of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body Mary Stanford discussed authority in marriage. She said that our modern culture has a misconception of what marriage is.

“Our modern age operates as though the family were a collection of people whose communal life mirrors the dynamic of a small business,” she said. “Given the prevailing cultural materialism the objective of the so-called family is best characterized as one fulfilling material needs.

“We need to realize that marriage has been redeemed and raised to a new level. St. Paul’s charge for husbands to love their wives and for wives to be submissive to their husbands is full of wisdom,” she said. “Today’s feminist ideology, which identifies any difference with inequality, completely disregards the words of St. Paul as being culturally conditioned by the dominating-male and servile-female notion of antiquity.”

A husband’s authority—headship—is not even possible without a free and gracious reception on the part of his wife, explained Stanford. “Indeed, a husband needs to be allowed—freed—enabled—to be head. A man’s headship is a free gift from wife to husband for the sake of all. A father is called to self-sacrifice to the point of death for his beloved ones. Like Christ, he is not a tyrant, but a lover. He does not exercise authority by taking, but by giving.”

Concluding, Stanford stated: “There will be no authentic equality between spouses, no true flourishing of the persons in the family and no embodiment of the domestic church without self-sacrificing love and generous acceptance on the part of man and wife. The asymmetry—or better, the complementary difference—between man and woman is placed at the foundation of family life precisely because it is life-giving—physically and spiritually.”

Following Stanford’s talk, conference attendees filled Christ the King Chapel where retired Bishop Thomas Welsh of Allentown, Pennsylvania celebrated a votive Mass for the family.

“The idea of covenant helps us to recall the original covenant that was with God and mankind, and so the marriage covenant should remind us that God is very much a part of this agreement,” Bishop Welsh said in his homily.

“We need Jesus at our weddings today,” he continued. “We very much need Mary too. At so many weddings these days the priest is afraid to be looking down at the bride because of the way she is undressed. The Blessed Mother’s presence is very important to us to stem the tide of pre-marital sex and cohabitation before marriage. We need Jesus and Mary, not just at the wedding, but also in the marriage.”

College President Dr. Timothy O’Donnell spoke on the family as a Domestic Church. “There is no doubt that the family, as we know it, is under attack. Everyone has an obligation to prayerfully read Familiaris Consortio, such an important and beautiful Church document on marriage and the family.

“In the first world today there has been almost a total failure in communicating the saving truths found in Church teachings about the family,” O’Donnell said. “And this has been a failure not so much in the family, but a failure on the part of the institutional Church to communicate effectively and faithfully Papal and Conciliar teachings.”

He continued: “Divorce remains today a hidden evil that few want to speak of because so many have been wounded by it, but we are not telling the whole truth about men and women if we do not speak about this. Divorce was regarded as a scandal because it implied that Christ could be separated from His Church. A merely natural love will not keep marriages together today. Couples need to frequent the sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist.”

O’Donnell highlighted many of the attacks that the family is under today. “Feminism in its militant form is essentially demonic,” he said, “because it tears apart and rends asunder what God meant to be joined together. “These days there’s more devotion to Lost, 24, or American Idol than there is to the family rosary,” he lamented. Concluding O’Donnell challenged the audience, “If we as a Church in this country do not speak clearly and emphasize the centrality of marriage—this great sacrament—who will?”

Providing a unique political perspective, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) spoke of the importance of the family in keeping America’s founding values and vision strong.

“The family is under attack,” he said. “No fault divorce laws increase the divorce rate in states by 10-80%; the government does have a role to play. The policies of the left do make a difference. Government support of unmarried single mothers has had a huge impact as well as other programs that make fathers less of a necessity and more of an option for the raising of children and the establishment of families.”

Speaking passionately about the decay of the family in America and across the world, Santorum said that the licentiousness of our culture is eroding the family. “The government has a role to play and society has a role to play, and so far we have sat on the sidelines, choosing to side with free speech as opposed to the rights of families to be protected from harmful speech.

“Self-giving is at the heart of marriage and parenting. It’s also at the heart of the American experiment, because sacrificial love is at the heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition, which is, of course, the foundation of the American vision.”

In his final remarks Santorum encouraged the audience to engage the surrounding culture in order to change it. “We need to have a much more conscious effort to get more people of faith—people who believe in the traditional values of America—to get involved in the culture, in every aspect, from journalism to film to music. As Catholics we are really pathetic at this. We need to engage.”

Dr. Pia de Solenni, who holds a doctorate in Sacred Theology from Holy Cross University in Rome, discussed “Benedict XVI and the Role of Women in the Church.”

“The Church’s view on women transcends categories of liberal and conservative, left and right. Rather, it represents a dynamic reality to which John Paul II dedicated a good portion of his pontificate and which Benedict XVI shows every intention of continuing; particularly since he published a document as president of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the collaboration of women in which he asserted that ‘women have a role in every aspect of society,’” she began.

Touching on the disputed topic of priestly ordination of women she said that persons who believe the Church should adapt to cultural changes and allow women to enter the priesthood just as they have entered other professional fields are gravely mistaken.

“The problem with this argument is the premise that Christ maintained the cultural norms of his time. In fact, the Gospels indicate that he repeatedly broke with tradition particularly in his regard for and his rapport with women,” Solenni said.

Fr. Benedict Groeschel, the internationally loved speaker and writer, presented a lecture on “Benedict XVI and Biblical Exegesis.” Fr. Groeschel decried modern biblical exegesis that does not deal with Scripture on a theological plane. He cited the source of improper biblical exegesis as rationalism, which uses mathematical methods in philosophy, holding that only that which can be observed by the human senses and deduced by human reason is true.

“This way of thinking entered the schools of biblical scholars, resulting in a widespread skepticism, creating a desire to get rid of the mythological. But Catholics did not fall prey to this very easily. The dogmas of the Catholic faith from tradition held that the Word of God, the Scriptures, are unerring substantially and they are given to us, no matter their origins, to guide us on our way to salvation. Many Protestant churches did not have that anchor, so skepticism came in,” he said.

“Scripture study grew further and further away from hermeneutics, which is the study of Scripture to make it an effective preaching and teaching tool,” Groeschel continued. “Contemporary Scripture studies are about as scientific as examining the entrails of a dead chicken by the full moon in order to predict the weather the next day. It’s not scientific!”

“This way of thinking is dead!” Fr. Groeschel exclaimed. “Theories of a historical Jesus and a Christ of faith are not being taught in schools anymore. It is mentioned only in the pulpit these days, because people are not ‘keeping up on things.’ If you hear it from the pulpit you should approach the preacher and ask him if he believes in alchemy as well.”

Helen Hull Hitchcock delivered an address entitled “Pope Benedict XVI and the Reform of the Reform,” in which she stated that Pope Benedict is emphatic that the Council did not represent a rupture, but expressed continuity with the Church’s history. There is no pre- or post- Conciliar Church, he writes, there is but one, unique Church that walks the path toward the Lord.

She continued by explaining that the Pope points out that “liturgy can only be liturgy to the extent that it is beyond the manipulation of those who celebrate it,” and that the new books “occasionally show far too many signs of being drawn up by academics and reinforce the notion that a liturgical book can be made like any other book.”

Although the Holy Father admits that creativity with the new Ordo Missae has often gone too far, there is often a greater difference between liturgies celebrated in different places according to the new books than there is between an old liturgy and a new liturgy when both are celebrated as they ought to be, in accordance with the prescribed liturgical texts, she explained.

In his talk, Dr. Timothy O’Donnell analyzed the Pope’s encyclical, Deus Caritas Est.

“The Pope points out that the love of Christ is not only demonstrated in Scripture but also later in Church History where Our Lord is encountered in His Word, in the Sacraments, and especially ‘in the Eucharist, where in the Church’s liturgy and her prayer, the followers experience the love of God and His presence and recognize that He has loved us first.’ This enables us to respond to the love of God. What is of particular importance for the believer is that he recognizes that God has already shown and proven His love. Loving our neighbor is certainly a path by which we come to encounter God and if we close our eyes to our neighbor, the Pope tells us that we will also be blinded towards God’s presence,” O’Donnell observed.

Fr. William Saunders, speaking on “Benedict XVI and the Compendium of the Catechism,” informed the audience that the current pope was very much responsible for the success of both the Catechism and the newly released Compendium of the Catechism.

“The Compendium is a beautiful summary, if you will, of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The truths of the Faith are laid out in the traditional question-and-answer format and each chapter begins with a beautiful painting which itself teaches an important facet of the Faith,” he explained. “Pope Benedict knew that the Church needed a simple format for helping spread the Faith and to help catechize the ignorant. Everyone should read this little book and better understand, in a succinct and clear manner, the Roman Catholic Faith.”