A few weeks ago, a video went viral of students at Riordan HS walking out on an assembly featuring a prolife speaker. On November 8, the archbishop met with student leaders. Before those meetings he sent to Riordan students a letter from his heart.
First Things has just published the letter.
“To the young women I say: Your fertility is a blessing to be cherished, not a problem to be “fixed” or an appliance with an on-and-off switch to be flipped at will. God has given you the awesome gift of being able to conceive and bring to the light of day a new, unique human being, with an immortal soul…”
“To the young men I say: …You still have a ways to go before you mature into full manhood. If you want to remain a boy forever, then spend your life caring only about yourself and every little immediate pleasure that you desire, because to be a real man requires a life of sacrifice and virtue. It also means acting responsibly by showing respect toward women as your true equals and cherishing and respecting that awesome gift she has of bringing new life into the world.”
“To all of you I say: Do not be victims of the culture. There are powerful forces in our country that use slogans to co-opt you into being agents of their own self-serving agendas. You must see through the lies.”
Archbishop Cordileone went on:
“My earnest hope is that you will cultivate your idealistic energy for justice, while learning to see through so many lies of the culture in which we are living. Do not fool yourselves, though: Advocating for justice in an unjust society is not glamorous. Indeed, it will make you social outcasts, not welcomed in the circles of polite society, much less of the socially elite. You will be scorned, mocked, and ridiculed. You will have to develop very thick skin. Is it worth it?”
“Think of the abolitionists of the mid-19th century, or the advocates of civil rights of the mid-20th century: They did not fit into the societies of their times, advocating for politically unpopular and unfashionable causes. They risked, and some lost, their lives in the effort to correct the greatest injustice of their time. We now regard them as the moral heroes of their generation. The most renowned of them all, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” This, though, only happens when a new generation of moral heroes rises up to correct the injustice. This requires a strong backbone, great spiritual stamina. Will you be the moral heroes of your generation? Do you have what it takes?”
“You will if, above all, you cultivate your life in Jesus Christ. He loves you. He gave his life for you. He is the one Savior of the world, who teaches us saving truth.”
The above comes from a Nov. 19 posting in First Things.
Catholic schools have been a dismal failure
Yes; I deeply regret sending my four (now adult) children to Catholic schools. I would not do that again, and I will do everything I can to keep my future grandchildren out of that faith-killing Moralist Therapeutic Deism.
Jesus is not your buddy. He is the Lord.
I can’t imagine public schools would have been better. I homeschooled mine and it is deeply resented and what my kids swear they will never do. Grass is always greener.
Now that’s a shepherd! That’s a man living the faithful life in his clerical state that he is asking the students to live in their respective states, whether married or not.
Sorry Dan, but did you read the complete letter? Your response seems odd. I doubt many of the students of this high school are married.
Sorry cd that you did not understand my sentence. I shall try to write more clearly next time. I too was not happy how I constructed the sentence, so allow me to try again. The meaning of that sentence was this: students have faith and courage throughout your life, whether you are married, single, or in a church vocation.
Looks like this “Catholic” school, formerly “all-boys”– has no training for their students at all, today, in the Catholic faith! They had better get busy on that! Catholic high schoolers who are real Catholics, are usually deeply involved in pro-life activities! I wouldn’t “argue” with kids, if I were an Archbishop. I would never put up with “backtalk” and bad behavior, from kids. I would warn them that they would be suspended and possibly kicked out of school, if this terrible, disrespectful behavior ever happened again! I would totally shut down and “re-do” this school, to be an authentically Catholic school, and re-open it to practicing Catholic families, and require parental involvement. Great idea, to involve the kids in mandatory Catholic Pro-Life, Culture of Life, and Catholic dating, Marriage, Children and Family Life instruction, reading, writing essays, and family and community activities.
Archbishop Cordileone is positioning himself to be appointed a Cardinal by the next Pope. He is betting on a staunch conservative.
“Archbishop Cordileone is positioning himself to be appointed a Cardinal by the next Pope. He is betting on a staunch conservative.” Oh really Dino, that’s interesting, because I thought he was sincerely reaching out to the students as their shepherd to help them understand what it means to be Catholic. Perhaps you would care to share what in Cordileone’s letter gave you the impression he is basically a career-minded opportunist? Or if not in the letter in previous actions of the archbishop? Do tell, and thanks in advance.
Also that being pro-life is right-wing.
Pro-lifers are Nazis.
Hitler was against abortion.
Pro-life is oppression.
All pro-lifers are in favor of capital punishment and against gun restrictions so they are really not pro-life. They are hypocrites.
And it is disempowering females in this age of female empowerment.
Sorry, this got put in the wrong place. It is the current talk by pro-choice people.
The letter did not address the issues. But maybe when he met with the students, that got cleared up.
I did not like him calling the students gullible.
He did not address the issue from a human rights standpoint.
He did not address it as a woman’s rights issue (or a child’s rights issue.)
If anyone ever started to address children’s rights and that became a priority in our society, that would fix most things.
He did address how most women who have abortions feel like they have no choice.
There did not address how the reproductive rights crowd tries to deny men a voice on this issue, even though every aborted baby is the child of a father.
I hope the meeting brought up some of these things.
me, I thought the heart of the letter was the line “To all of you I say: Do not be victims of the culture. There are powerful forces in our country that use slogans to co-opt you into being agents of their own self-serving agendas. You must see through the lies.” As best as I could tell, there was no need to go into particulars but an exhortation to have the courage to recognize and withstand the cultural juggernaut of lies. That’s enough for a cover letter, IMO.
I think he needed to spell out the lies and errors, the false values and the use of emotional manipulation.
However, I also felt that his letter was manipulative.
The arguments that I see now are pro-choice people saying “Everyone is pro-life.”
That pro-life positions are held by men trying to keep women “barefoot and in the kitchen.” Mysogyny.
Pro-life people want to deprive women of their basic human rights.
And more and more, women in media and entertainment are coming out and saying they had an abortion and they would never have had the life they did if they did not abort the baby.
The creator of “Sex and the City” (I have never watched it but I guess it is popular with many) just came out and said she had an abortion because it was the wrong time and the wrong man and she knows that “Sex and the City” would never had existed if she hadn’t. The values are entertainment and self-fulfillment over human life. Most of the women who have abortions are not going to attain anywhere near that level of success.
There is no such thing as “female empowerment” nor “reproductive rights.” That is all “gobbledegook”– mindless insanity made up by sick, demented, selfish, Satanic political leftist activist misfits. A helpless little child, made by God, is a responsibility. If you are unable to care for your baby, you must responsibly place the child with an adoption agency.
Females need to be empowered to say no to sex if they don’t want a baby.
me– No. If you are immature and an irresponsible, immoral brat, you are not ready for responsibilities of grown-up marriage vows and motherhood. Mature Catholic women who marry, joyfully embrace their wonderful new roles as a loving wife and mother. To be infertile is a very painful heartache, for both husband and wife. To lose a beloved child in a miscarriage, is a terrible suffering– you and your husband will grieve the death of that child, and carry a wound in your hearts, for a very long time.
Respect Life. That is the ideal. Women who live the idea don’t have abortions. Some people are immature and irresponsible and immoral. and they have sex and their birth control fails and they have abortions.
But also, mature women who are married with several children have abortions.
And women who are very responsible, even over responsible have abortions.
And teenagers, whom you would not expect to be mature or responsible, have abortions.
And lots and lots of women have abortions because they feel like they are too immature, too irresponsible or too immoral to have kids.
And lots of women have abortions because the people around them tell them they are too immature and too irresponsible to raise a child.
And lots of responsible, mature, moral women have unplanned and unexpected pregnancies and they have the baby and love the baby and sometimes, even die for the baby.
And unfortunately, the news is full of stories about irresponsible, immature and mentally ill women who have babies and don’t take care of them and sometimes kill them.
There will always be, on earth, only a small handful of true believers, living the faith of Jesus Christ, preparing their souls for Eternal Life in Heaven with the Lord. All the rest is a total wasteland.
“:That pro-life positions are held by men trying to keep women “barefoot and in the kitchen.” Mysogyny. Pro-life people want to deprive women of their basic human rights.” As a pro-life man I don’t own any of the characterizations painted of me and grieve that there are those out there who actually believe this feminist narrative so often pushed by just about everyone connected to Hollywood and/or the Democratic party. I always thought that narrative so incredibly void of reality that only those with very large blinders on would subscribe to it. But now see, the creator of Sex and the City will one day have to stand before Jesus Christ (with the rest of us), who asked what it would profit anyone to gain the whole world but lose their soul. And that’s what at stake — one ‘s soul. But before the Archbishop can deliver this bad news, he has to build a certain level of trust the students and meet them where they are at. I think the letter tried to do that, and I had trouble finding anything manipulative in it. It seemed honest and straightforward, If there was something manipulative, could you point it out? And thanks in advance.
Almost all of it. I do not use the word “manipulative” in a malevolent way. Rather than presenting facts or ideas with the end that they will decide what they want to believe, he really just presents emotional ploys to get them to believe what he wants them to believe.
And we Catholics do that. It is very common.
We are very convinced of our beliefs and we do not allow variation.
I am sure that at the meeting he listened to them, if they felt comfortable to speak.
It is all about values. These kids could have parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, friends, celebrity crushes etc who have had abortions. And they are at the age when loyalty is a high value. It is also very scary to have to make adult decisions before they are adults. The bishop did touch on that.
I have been pondering a lot lately on why people get so upset and rejecting of others for just having a different viewpoint or opinion (not abortion but other things.) why did they plan a walkout? We are at a very weird time in our country’s history.
And real Catholics help support these “Catholic” schools? Why? Wake up Catholics.
Why doesn’t Cordileone celebrate a TLM at the high school? If the TLM is so great and attracts the youth, then the high school kids should be enthralled to have a TLM celebrated at school. They certainly wouldn’t walk out of a TLM, would they? Put the TLM to the test: force the high school students to attend one. Cordileone will never do that because he knows that the TLM appeals to a marginal, niche group of ideological Catholics. Put it to the test, I say.
Those who love the Traditional Latin Mass are deeply devout Catholics, who love their Faith!
I don’t think these kids are sufficiently trained in the Catholic Faith for attendance at any Mass at all! They all need to go to Confession, and do some penance! Here is what I would do: Send these kids down to a mandatory raining session at the next 40 Days For Life, and require every single kid to sign up for mandatory time slots. Next, to sign up for mandatory volunteer times and days at Pro-Life crisis pregnancy centers for women in need. Next, to sign up–mandatory– for offering a Spiritual Bouquet for women and babies in crisis pregnancies, in which each student may choose to offer Rosaries, Holy Hours, etc. Last, a required term paper for each student, on the Gospel of Life, of Pope St. John Paul II.
The full article at First Things has the archbishop telling the students that they should be open to listening to points of view. with which they disagree. This, at a catholic school, where the issue that they apparently disagreed with was not killing unborn babies, or, as Archbishop Cordileone has described it, child sacrifice.
The parents must be sending their children to Riordan for a superior academic education, but apparently not a catholic religious education.
Perhaps the students need to hear from “Silent No More,” a group of women willing to tell their regrets over their abortions.
to: “me”
so, you didn’t like the bishop calling
the students “gullible”
he was being diplomatic, he more accurately
could have described them as morons
Please pray for the Catholic priest and the Catholic school children and parishioners injured in Waukesha.
Pure pandering. Also, it’s sad to continuously see prelates and clergy in general cite MLK as their paragon of virtue. King was fraud.
Well Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Mahatma Ghandi (whom some admired) and even J. Edgar Hoover did have some serious flaws. Women were a problem among the first four, and we can only pray for their souls if we are so inclined. My bets on who is the most saintly one would be President Diem, whom our country set up for the kill. He probably had the cleanest hands out of all of them.
The news story on Vietnam’s Pres. Diem was heart-breaking. He came to the U.S. seeking help, then went home and was brutally assassinated. He and his family were devout Catholics.
By the way, Hymie, I did not give you a thumbs up nor a thumbs down. That was someone else.
Well, Hymie, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was accused of being a womanizer in his personal life.
However, in his leadership for Civil Rights for the Blacks, King was outstanding. And no natter what terrible abuses he and his team were subjected to, they stood by the Gospel, prayer, educating on Civil Rights, and belief in non-violence and Christian love to attain their God-given rights, which is to be greatly admired. In the end, King was assassinated. Very good Role Model for any abused group seeking to end horrific abuses and attain their rightful Civil Rights.
King, a Baptist minister with a Ph.D. in theology from Boston University (his wife, Coretta, attended New England Conservatory of Music) had long anticipated potential violence towards himself. In the case of a potentially violent attack, he had always arranged for a Catholic hospital to provide medical help for him, as all the Protestant-run and non-church-affiliated hospitals in the South, refused all medical services to Blacks. So when King was fatally shot in April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, on that hotel balcony, he was rushed to a local Catholic hospital, where he died. Heavy armed guards were required at the hospital entrance, and outside the hospital room where he died, due to potential violence by crazed radical racists.
What a beautiful to the youth of this and all generations.
I’m afraud Hymie is correct
Anne TE is also correct
it’s always those dern wimmin’
except in the case of hoover
and i’m not referring to the vacuum
cleaner
JFK, LBJ, MLK, and Gandhi were known to have committed adultery, having illicit affairs with women. It is very bad, particularly, to see a minister (King) be a womanizer, and commit sins of adultery! (Hopefully, he repented before he died.) Hoover’s FBI men knew all about King’s womanizing, in detail. But J. Edgar Hoover had a different sin– he was known to have a lifelong gay lover. And also known to cross-dress, at times. Still, despite his womanizing sins, I think that King was a good Role Model for Blacks seeking Civil Rights, by Christ’s Gospel, prayer, and non-violence– great!
I was referring to his Communist affiliations (but since you brought up personal issues, yes, that’s a problem for a Christian minister who makes his living lecturing the country on its morality):
⦁ His April 1967 speech going right down the Communist line on Vietnam given at the radical Riverside Church in New York. This caused black leaders across the nation to publicly disassociate themselves from him.
⦁ Stanley Levison, good friend and chief advisor; also Soviet bagman to the US Communist Party.
⦁ Etc., etc.
In his favor, I guess: The Mitrokhin Archive reveals that in the last year or so of MLK’s life the KGB was busy discrediting him (“framing”) as an Uncle Tom in the pay of the US government by placing stories in obscure publications to be picked up by Big Media. This was part of KGB efforts to promote Stokely Carmichael, a young violent radical.
Your slander of Hoover was long ago exposed as Soviet propaganda and exposed again more recently in the Mitrokhin Archive.
The King files remain sealed until 2027. Stay tuned, eh?
In the 1960s, whenever Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be on TV, with his Civil Rights speeches and marches, someone would always remark, that the FBI was chasing King, and had recorded tapes of his womanizing. I then would reply, “yes, I read about that. Womanizing, adultery, is a terrible thing, especially for a minister. Anyway, I think he is seeking Civil Rights for his wrongfully persecuted Black people in the right way. He leads by Christ’s teachings and example, by prayer, and by the principles of non-violence, as taught by both Christ and Mahatma Gandhi. That is excellent. But the rest of King’s life, his affairs with women– no.”
Well, Hymie, I was not aware of the news stories of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ‘s possible problems with Russia and Communists. I thought there were lots of upset people in our government, possibly outside agitators, too (like Russia) who were wary of a potential violent racial war with Blacks in the U.S., due to King’s work, though he taught non-violence– and would try deviant methods to stop King’s work. I thought those “Communist” problems actually were of the radical, violent Black activists– they were highly dangerous, and did great damage to their people. There was, at one time, some news stories about Hoover being possibly gay, with his “best friend”– and possibly having psychological problems, as a “cross-dresser.” But also, he was lauded as a great lawman, with the FBI. The private lives of men in government were basically ignored by the public, at that time.