The Reverend Know-it-all - St. Lambert Parish
The Reverend Know-it-all - St. Lambert Parish
The Reverend Know-it-all - St. Lambert Parish
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Page Four <strong>St</strong>. <strong>Lambert</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> 4th Sunday of Lent<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Reverend</strong> <strong>Know</strong>-<strong>it</strong>-<strong>all</strong><br />
“What I don’t know…<br />
I can always make up!”<br />
letter to Helena Hahn<br />
Basquette continued...)<br />
Are you still reading this? I just<br />
c<strong>all</strong>ed you a monster! Perhaps I<br />
was harsh. I realize there were<br />
and are people who agonized<br />
over these things. <strong>The</strong>re were<br />
then and are now marriages that are in<br />
difficulty. <strong>The</strong>re were and are those w<strong>it</strong>h<br />
serious medical issues. I had one sister who<br />
couldn’t conceive and another sister who<br />
couldn’t keep from conceiving. We discussed<br />
these things at length over dinner in my home<br />
back in the early sixties. If you struggled to<br />
obey, if you agonized over your decisions, God<br />
keep me from condemning you. It’s not you<br />
that I blame. <strong>The</strong> real monsters are those who<br />
made or make the decision glibly thinking only<br />
of the inconvenience or expense of large<br />
families. <strong>The</strong> monsters are those who sacrifice<br />
children to Moloch and Baal, the Canaan<strong>it</strong>e gods<br />
of prosper<strong>it</strong>y.<br />
In the current age <strong>it</strong> is simply assumed that one<br />
will be sexu<strong>all</strong>y active before marriage and will<br />
practice artificial birth control. It is routine when<br />
a doctor interviews a young woman, married or<br />
unmarried, he asks “What kind of birth control<br />
are you using?” (It is interesting to note that a<br />
doctor never seems to ask a young man the<br />
same question. Another victory for feminism,<br />
no?) Extra mar<strong>it</strong>al sex is the assumption and<br />
sm<strong>all</strong> families are the expectation. Chast<strong>it</strong>y,<br />
mar<strong>it</strong>al fidel<strong>it</strong>y and large families seem odd, or<br />
even irresponsible now. <strong>The</strong> monsters are<br />
those of us who, for love of ease and money<br />
have grown c<strong>all</strong>ous to the beauty and<br />
sacredness of human sexual<strong>it</strong>y and <strong>it</strong>s<br />
relationship to the family. Further, we, the<br />
clergy are the ones to blame for the<br />
monstros<strong>it</strong>y. We failed to teach the Catholic<br />
Fa<strong>it</strong>h. We encouraged you to pick and choose<br />
those teachings that were most useful and least<br />
ch<strong>all</strong>enging. “Dear brothers and sisters, not<br />
many of you should become teachers in the<br />
church, for we who teach will be judged more<br />
strictly.” (James 3:1) We, the scoffers of the 60'<br />
and 70's will soon have to face God and I<br />
tremble because of <strong>all</strong> the people I mislead.<br />
Thinking <strong>it</strong> was kindness, I failed to say the<br />
hard things. Now as my life hurries to <strong>it</strong>s final<br />
chapters, I realize that I deprived people of the<br />
truth, I deprived them of real love by trying to<br />
be pol<strong>it</strong>e. If there is a lion about to devour you,<br />
is <strong>it</strong> kindness on my part not to point <strong>it</strong> out? If I<br />
fail to warn you of danger simply because I<br />
don’t want to upset you, or to anger you, is this<br />
love?<br />
We clergy in the years after the Council taught<br />
a diluted fa<strong>it</strong>h that made few demands. Fasting<br />
was no longer important. Mar<strong>it</strong>al fidel<strong>it</strong>y was a<br />
high ideal, but not re<strong>all</strong>y practical. Mass was<br />
optional. Frequent Confession was tedious and<br />
an invasion of privacy. Father would make up<br />
the Mass as he went along, and use bread<br />
baked by the l<strong>it</strong>urgy comm<strong>it</strong>tee that was tastier<br />
than a dry communion wafer. He used wine that<br />
had a b<strong>it</strong> more zing, like a good port. We had<br />
general absolutions at Christmas and Easter.<br />
Everybody should go to communion, because<br />
we were now <strong>all</strong> sinless. God understands our<br />
weakness. What we did mattered not so much<br />
as what we felt. It was our good intentions that<br />
mattered. If we had made a “fundamental<br />
option” for God, then the rest was unimportant,<br />
after <strong>all</strong> <strong>St</strong>. Augustine said “Love God and do<br />
what you will.” We taught you to pick and<br />
choose among the treasures of the fa<strong>it</strong>h. Now I<br />
see people my own age who, when they talk<br />
about their children, get a far away look in their<br />
eyes. “Yes, my daughter lives in California.<br />
That’s where her career took her. She was<br />
married, but got divorced and the grand kids<br />
spend their time going between Nevada where<br />
their father lives and then back to California.<br />
We see them on some holidays when <strong>it</strong>’s mom’s<br />
turn to have them, but <strong>it</strong>’s <strong>all</strong> right... they seem