He is greatly blessed to share his Catholic faith with his beautiful wife, Dorothy. She is his prayer buddy. They have four grown children and three grandchildren. Michael and Dorothy have lived in Knoxville, Tennessee since 1993.
Michael loves the mountains of East Tennessee. He also loves learning. Pope John Paul II, C. S. Lewis and Scott Hahn are a few of his favorite authors. Two of his all-time favorite books are My Way of Life and Theology and Sanity. He believes that the Catechism of the Catholic Church is one of the greatest books written in the twentieth century. Michael also loves music, especially choral music like Mozart's Mass in C Minor or Beethoven's Missa Solemnis in D Major.
He received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Florida and a Bachelor of Science Degree from Florida International University. Michael was involved with RCIA for many years. He coordinated RCIA for two years and wrote a manual for the management of the program. He has been on the education committee at his church for the past few years, and he is a regular contributor to his parish newsletter.
Michael feels compelled to reach out to others through writing. He believes that we are being desensitized to that which is chaotic, ugly and immoral. He wants to invite others to explore beauty, goodness and truth, to rediscover the reality of the natural law and accept the limits it imposes on us. He believes it is urgent that we turn back to God and the Church, or we will lose our freedom and our salvation.
THE PRIESTHOOD AND CIVILIZATION
Even if we ignore the all-important spiritual blessings that we have received through the priesthood, we still owe a tremendous debt to the priesthood for its contribution to civilization. J. Pohle reminds us of this in an article titled "Priesthood" and published in The Catholic Encyclopedia. He states, "...the Catholic priesthood [and religious have] spread to all nations and brought into full bloom religion, morality, science, art, and industry." The following is a summary of part four of Mr. Pohle's article.
Although Charlemagne is credited with uniting the German hordes into one nation after the fall of Rome, it was Catholic missionaries and martyrs who paved the way for Charlemagne's success. They converted many of the Germanic peoples and helped raise them out of a state of savagery, considered barbaric even for those times. In later times, the Benedictines, Cistercians, Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, and others spread across Europe and around the world raising the level of morality and civilization.
They raised the level of morality and civilization by serving the people's needs and promoting human dignity. For instance, the maxim, "Education for all," was first uttered by Pope Innocent III. During the Middle Ages, universities and elementary schools were run by priests and religious. The first medical facility in Europe, the School of Salerno, was founded by the Benedictines. They not only practiced medicine, they educated skilled physicians for all Europe. Furthermore, it has been said that St. Vincent de Paul achieved more for the sick and the poor than many cities and states combined. More recently, Cardinal Lavigerie played an important role in the abolition of slavery, and Catholic congregations, such as the Trinitarians and the Mercedarians, devoted themselves to the liberation of slaves in pagan and Muslim lands.
The priesthood also played an important role in science, the humanities, and scholarship. The idea of scientific progress is of Catholic origin. The scientist and philosopher Roger Bacon was a Franciscan friar. The Heliocentric theory of the solar system is attributed to the Catholic cleric Copernicus. The first geographical chart of the world is attributed to Fra Mauro of Venice. Early humanism was strongly supported by Popes Nicholas V and Leo X. The humanist scholar and writer Erasmus was a priest. Lope de Vega and Calderon, both priests, are some of Spain's greatest writers. The foundation of historical criticism was laid by Cardinal Baronius, the monks of St. Maur, and the Bollandists. And a Jesuit is the father of comparative philology.
Social service and higher learning are not the only secular contributions of the priesthood. An advanced civilization cannot exist without a sound economic base and infrastructure to support it. Catholic bishops and priests, such as Duns Scotus, Nicholas Oresme, Bishop of Lisieux, St. Antoninus of Florence, and Gabriel Biel, laid the foundation for national economies. Benedictine, Cistercian, and Trappist monks cleared the forests and cultivated the land, rendering vast areas free from fever. They also engineered and built drainage and irrigation systems and roads and bridges.
While Mr. Pohle's examples are numerous and wide-ranging, they are far from complete. For instance, he says little or nothing about the priesthood's impact on art, architecture, music and law. Nevertheless, he reminds us that the priesthood is made up of humble men of faith, many of whom God endowed with the intellect, skill, and courage to help build the greatest civilization in history.
Moreover, today's priesthood is the same priesthood that helped build Western civilization and raise the level of others because Christ is its head. When we see a large procession of priests dressed in their vestments, we see an army, a powerful, worldwide army that has lasted for almost two thousand years. And we can be certain of two things: the Catholic priesthood will survive these difficult times, and the future progress of civilization will depend on these gifted, humble men of faith.
Reference:
J. Pohle, "Priesthood", The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol XII, online ed., New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911
RELIGION AND SECULRAR CULTURE
I buried my mother in December and my sister, the youngest of seven, in January. I had a surprising experience at their prayer services. Being the eldest, I led the Rosary at both services. Both were filled to capacity, standing room only at my sister's. Many people recited the Rosary with me at my mother's service. Our voices filled the room. At my sister's service, only a faint, lone voice joined my wife and I. The only noticeable difference between the two crowds was the average age. Although closer in age to my sister's friends, I found many of them alien and difficult to relate to, as though they were from a different culture. As a result of this experience, I cannot help but wonder who we have become as a people in the span of a generation and what it means for our country.
I believe George Weigel gives us a clue in his book, The Cube and the Cathedral. In this book, George Weigle contrasts the culture that built the famous Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris with the culture that built La Grande Arche in 1990. Weigel depicts the French arch as a massive cube. Its plain geometry reminds me of something cold and barren--a world without God. It is meant to be secular humanism's monument to human rights and fraternity, ideals reminiscent of the French Revolution in 1789 (although we best not forget the Reign of Terror which erupted four years later). The Cathedral of Notre Dame stands in direct contrast to the Cube. The geometry of Notre Dame is complex and passionate yet ordered and beautiful. It raises our minds toward heaven and orients our relationship to God and each other. Although Weigel's contrasts give us a clue to who we have become as a people, I believe certain similarities between the Cube and an architectural movement called "Bauhaus" give us another important clue.
I see strong similarities between the architecture of the Cube and the box-like features of Bauhaus architecture. In addition, some ideas within the Bauhaus movement and secular humanism also seem similar. For instance, I find that Bauhaus architecture emphasizes industrial mechanization while the Cube emphasizes bureaucratic mechanization. Thus, it seems that Bauhaus and secular humanism are primarily concerned with systems and control, utility and expedience. Such ideas can become easily perverted when applied to human persons. And that is what history indicates. The Bauhaus movement took hold in Germany and Russia during the early Twentieth century, and I believe its ideas contributed to the horrors of the Nazi extermination camps and Stalin's purges. Consequently, I believe that these similarities should be a warning to us about the potential dangers of secular humanism, which produced the Cube.
Although I do not know if we have become like the kind of people who lived in and produced states like Nazi Germany or Communist Russia, I do know that our ideas and beliefs influence the kind of people we become and the kind of culture and state that we produce. This means that we cannot divorce our religious ideas and beliefs from society and politics as secular humanists desire. George Weigel says ". . . great social and political questions are, more often than not, ultimately theological in nature" (Cube 142). The theologian David Hart writes, "A culture--a civilization--is only as great as the religious ideas that animate it" (qtd. in Cube 166). The philosopher Jürgen Habermas is even more specific. He writes, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy" (qtd. in First Things 28). When I reflect on the experience that I had at my mother and sister's prayer services and the connection between secular humanism and brutal, totalitarian states from the past, I feel an urgent need to pray that history does not repeat itself in our country.
References:
1. Neuhaus, Richard "Secularizations," First Things, Feb. 2009
2. Weigel, George The Cube and the Cathedral, Basic Books, 2005
RSS | Make Catholic Online Your Homepage
