As Posted to Medium on November 10, 2021

In the Catholic Church, November is a time to remember the dead. Since it starts with All Saints and All Souls days and is the last month of the Church year, it is fitting that it is a time of rememberance. In fact, remembering those we have lost is one of the ways that we prepare ourselves for the anticipation of Advent — the time of getting ready to celebrate Christ’s birth. This may seem counter intuitive. How can thinking about death help us to be ready to celebrate birth? That, however, is precisely what it does.

My grandfather died last week. Being no stranger to death, I immediately thought, “I hate death.” I do. I just hate every part of it. I hate the separation. I hate the sadness. I hate the longing that cannot be satisfied. I hate the thousand questions that suddenly arise with no one to answer them. I hate the regrets. I hate the end. So does God.

He didn’t make us to die. He didn’t make us to sorrow. He didn’t make us to long without satisfaction. He didn’t make us to have regrets. He certainly didn’t make us to be separated from Him or one another. And He absolutely didn’t make us to just end. But, then sin entered the scene and we walked right into its trap and away from all of the things God did make us for — perfect love, unending joy, contentment, union, eternity. The cost of that sin is death.

Yet God hates death so much. He hates it more than you or I ever could. He hates it so much, that He sent His Son to undo what we have done and to destroy death itself. In fact, at Christmas, 2000 years ago, He sent a baby to be born in an everyday world, to an everyday family, for everyday people like us. That little, tiny baby grew and did what He came to do. He destroyed death and took away the sin that had separated us from everything God made us for. He gave us back eternity.

That is why feeling the weight of death’s toll is the perfect way to prepare to celebrate Christ’s birth — He is the undoer of death and the remaker of everything we were meant to be and to have. Death reminds us that we are not living in the world that we were created for. We are strangers, passing through on our way to eternity. Death feels so wrong because it is wrong. We feel helpless before it because we desperately need saving from it. But the One who will make it all right again has already come.

This month, we remember those who have died that we love, but we do not grieve like people without hope. Instead, we know that our grief feels so wrong because it is wrong, but it will be made right again. Next month, we will celebrate the birth of the One who has and who will make it right. That doesn’t mean that all of our grief will be covered up with celebration. No, instead our celebration will be deeper, truer because we celebrate with the full knowledge of how valuable the gift of the One who was born is. We know the worth of the gift because we have lost — just for a while — what He will restore.

As Posted To Medium on November 17, 2021

On November 17th, I always think about Communism. It is the day that my family celebrates the start of the Velvet Revolution, which was a series of protests that resulted in the end of Communism in Czechoslovakia. We eat our various favorite Czech foods: knedliky (dumplings), smažený květák (fried cauliflower), brambory (potatoes), pernik (gingerbread) and Pilsner (no translation needed). We listen to “We Shall Overcome.” We tell our children real life stories about their dad, grandparents, aunts and uncles who participated in the protests. We teach them how terrible Communism was for people they know and love. We remind them of the impact that the fall of Communism in the Czech Republic has on our own daily lives. We generally hate on Communism and, more emphatically, thank God for its end.

This year, as I delighted in my smažený květák, I was reminded of many friends who have looked at my political leanings and asked, “Aren’t you and your husband afraid of Communism? Don’t you know that the Democrats/Church/colleges are infiltrated by Communists? Haven’t you read about immigrants from Communist countries who say that they see Communism coming for America?” I think that these friends are surprised to hear me respond that, while we hate Communism, we are much more concerned about something else.

Just in case I haven’t been clear enough yet, in my house, we hate Communism. That is why my family protested. That is why my brothers-in-law all know English. That is why my husband was warned after he sang an American song to his pediatrician. That is why we celebrate with our kids each year, teaching them truths about recent history and preparing them to fight to ensure it never happens again.

However, there is something that we fear and hate, far more than Communism: the evil that dwelled in the hearts of man and allowed all of the wrongs that happened under Communist rule. That evil — greed, the pursuit of power, dehumanization, anger, hatred, cowardice, lawlessness, lies and self-interest — and not the system of governing itself is what led to the atrocities we remember. In fact, many communist ideas, such as the elimination of exploitation, are fundamentally good. However, its implementation in history has been profoundly corrupted by the evil of man and its methods have made it vulnerable to this corruption. In other words, Communism is guilty of allowing man’s evil to prey on innocent victims. Yet, at heart, what gave Communism its teeth was less its ideology and more the evil of human hearts.

We do not have to look far to see that evil in our own world and, yes, we see it echoing in American politics today. We see it in the willingness to do anything for power or wealth. We see it in the willingness to ignore the dignity of another for private gain. We see it in the willingness to disregard the truth and ignore the law when it is beneficial to do so. We even see it in the reluctance to confront this evil due to the fear of repercussions. We see it in both parties and across multiple hot-button issues.

However, if we are honest, we face the same evil in ourselves. We face it in our choice to sacrifice our families in the name of more money, comfort or status. We face it in our ability to look the other way when greeted by a beggar or to ignore our neighbor’s trauma because it is uncomfortable for us. We see it in our cherry picking of convenient truths and discarding of inconvenient rules. We see it in our own hesitancy to rock the boat. We see it in our choosing to care for ourselves at the expense of our brother.

So then, if the evil that led to Communist horrors lies in our own hearts, how can we think that Democracy — a government of the people — is any safer? We have been told that, historically, our government has kept us relatively protected from such atrocities through safeguards that were built into the system. Of course, those safeguards did not help the Native Americans, the Japanese during WWII, women and far too many Black and minority Americans throughout our history. Still, because of the checks and balances provided by a government of the people, a certain group of American citizens has been protected from the kind of evil that terrorized Communist countries and all Americans are given the promise that such protection can and should be available to them.

Yet, if we lose sight of how important the balance of power is within a government, we will find that our Democracy is just as easy to use as an instrument of evil as Communism was. The innocent will become victims of that evil that already lurks among us. Worst of all, as a country that is ruled for and by the people, we will have loosed that evil upon ourselves.

What I wish my Communist-fearing, question-asking friends understood, is that in our political climate today, Communism doesn’t scare me any more than Democracy reassures me. What I fear most for our future is the government unleashing evil on our society and the only way I see us avoiding that is by strengthening democratic checks and balances and by fighting for what is truly good and right. And of course, through prayer, because we need lots of that right now.

As Posted to Medium on March 6, 2024

Surely this cannot be happening again? The wounds from four years ago are barely beginning to heal. Yet, incredulously, we find ourselves facing another face-off between President Biden and former-President Trump. This is truly terrifying on multiple levels but it is perhaps most horrifying because of the divisions that the 2020 election sowed in the Church.

Unity in the Body of Christ is something that Jesus values dearly. As he prepared for His own horrific death, Jesus prayed not only for Himself, but also for God to take care of the ones He cared about most in the world: us. Our relationships with one another were an essential part of that prayer.

“I pray… that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me — so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20–23)

Christ desires us to be one as He and the Father are one. That is, He desires us to be united in perfect, sacrificial love for one another, caring for one another even when it requires great sacrifice. Such unity is what we have to look forward to in the world to come, when we are perfectly bound up with our triune-God and one another. While it is the future that we anxiously await, it is also essential to our life now because the love we have for one another is the foundation of our witness in the world. We can hem and haw about the ways that our culture is pulling our youth from God, the sinfulness that pervades our entertainment and the persecution of the Church, but if we do not love one another with the unifying love of Christ, we have only ourselves to blame for world that does not know Jesus.

This is why the coming election fills me with both dread and sorrow. We all witnessed the way that the politics around the last presidential election and the insurrection bitterly pitted brother against brother. We watched in disbelief as members of our own congregations, friends and even priests allowed politics to pull them away from love and unity. People who we once fellowshipped with turned us into targets of hate-filled speech and even death threats. My own friends, who had supported me through the death of my daughter and encouraged me through the subsequently terrifying pregnancy with my son, stood by silently as one of their spouses publicly declared that people like me should be shot.

We all have had painful experiences like this that lead us to ask, “Where was Christ when members of His Body did this?” and we are justified when we respond with anger. Like Christ who raged at the defiling of the temple, we too should feel righteous anger towards those who are defiling his Church with division and hatred because the unity of the Body is precious to Him. But the Apostle Paul cautioned us: “In your anger do not sin: do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” (Ephesians 4:26). How can we limit our anger so that it does not further divide the Body of Christ on earth, especially when our brothers and sisters in Christ have quite literally become our political enemies?

I believe the answer lies in the heart of our faith: God’s immeasurable love for His people. When we take time to ponder the full height and depth of His love — a love that culminated in His death on a cross and resurrection from the dead — we witness not only His love for ourselves, but also for all those He has made. As we allow Him to show us how deeply and vulnerably He desires us, we begin to see how desperately He seeks to dwell with our neighbors. If we accept the weight of His sorrow over our sin and separation from Him, we begin to sense His heartbreak when those around us separate themselves from Him. And as we delight in a loving relationship with Him, we begin to mourn for those who do not know Him.

With our minds and hearts firmly grounded in our fellowship with Christ, the divisions and hatred that politics sow engender in us not just anger, but also the sadness of a God who longs for a relationship with His wayward people. We begin to pity those who hold so tightly to their world views that they are unable to abide in the adoring, good God who is Love (1 John 4:16). I believe it is here that true healing can take place because, rather than seeing each other as enemies, sympathy moves us towards charity and prayer for each other. Each time we fix our gaze on Christ, the fleeting grievances of today yield to His unending, glorious love and we are transformed again and again.

So, as we pray that, by some miracle, our country will be spared another devastating election season, let us also hold tight to the love of Christ that allows us to love one another since, as Jesus prepared to die, He did not pray for any particular form of government or powerful leader, but asked instead for the unity of His people.

Featured on Where Peter Is on February 27, 2025

On October 22, 1939, less than two months after the German invasion of Poland, C.S. Lewis (the author of The Chronicles of Narnia) gave a talk on how to face the challenge of daily responsibilities during times of conflict. The sermon, titled “Learning in War-Time”, offers insight into Lewis’s analysis of how the global situation at the onset of World War II impacted those whose lives had not yet been dramatically changed by the specter of war.

The horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust were, in some ways, unique and I pray that they will never be repeated. That being said, as I have spoken with friends and family over the weeks since the U.S. presidential inauguration, I have heard echoes of the same concerns that C.S. Lewis addressed in “Learning in War-Time.”  As a person who takes great strength from the heroes of history, I have quoted this sermon on several occasions and I strongly recommend that you read it in its entirety. Whether or not you choose to read the sermon, I want to highlight some specific aspects of Lewis’s wisdom so that they can benefit all of us during these uncertain times.

Lately, I have heard people confess that they are struggling to focus on daily tasks as they try to make sense of what is going on in our world. I have experienced times like this myself when I wonder if there is any purpose to the things that I am doing and if I should find a more powerful way to preserve our democracy for my own children. Feelings like this can be paralyzing and I suspect that this paralysis is a biological response to the stress that we are feeling. Many of us know that when an animal encounters a threat, they experience “fight or flight.” What is less commonly known is that there is a third response to threats that many encounter: freeze. Freezing has always been my own reaction to perceived threats, a fact which my family of origin found to be excessively amusing when we encountered snakes on our weekend hikes through the woods. For people who do not usually find themselves freezing in response to stress, this reaction of paralysis feels new and confusing.

Fortunately, Lewis offers helpful insight into our tendency to freeze up. He suggests that our “freeze” response is not so much due to a change in circumstances (as he points out, even the most threatening crises do nothing to increase human mortality which remains at 100%), but to the tendency of crises to draw our attention towards our own mortality. Consequently, when faced with a major threat, we begin to question the value of what we choose to do with our finite time. Lewis says that everyone must ask themselves “how is it right, or even psychologically possible, for creatures who are every moment advancing either to heaven or to hell, to spend any fraction of the little time allowed them in this world on such comparative trivialities as literature or art, mathematics or biology.” I would add to this list my own daily trivialities of cooking, cleaning, laundry, reading to the children, running errands, shuttling to activities, attending doctor’s appointments, and even the act of writing. For Lewis, the question of how we use our time becomes particularly salient during periods of crisis. Still, Christians ought to be used to judging their activities in the light of eternity: we know that we will one day give account for each of the moments that God has gifted to us and, therefore, we should ensure that we spend our time well.

Lewis proposes that our focus should not be on what we are doing, but on who we are doing our tasks for. He suggests that in doing our small tasks out of great love and devotion to God they become sacred and meaningful. This likely sounds familiar to Catholic readers because it echoes St. Therese of Lisieux’s Little Way and the voice of her namesake, Mother Teresa: “We can only do small things with great love.” Like Sts. Therese and Teresa, Lewis goes on to say that even the greatest work, when done without love for God, is meaningless. Pope Francis put it this way, “Each of us in our own small way, in our particular state of life, can, with the help of the Spirit, be a sower of seeds of hope and peace.”

For Christians, this means that whatever we are called to do today, whether big or small, is our responsibility in the present moment. Lewis points out that we all have different assignments and that God may choose to use our efforts for great purposes or He may not. Regardless, our job is to faithfully do whatever He asks of us. While this obviously applies to our overarching purpose in life, it also applies to our daily tasks – the grittiness that makes up our existence – and these remain our responsibility irrespective of external circumstances. The idea that the whole of life is a vocation permeates much of Pope Francis’s work. In Gaudete et Exsultate, he made this idea explicit: “You need to see the entirety of your life as a mission.”  In fact, in Evangelii Gaudium, he wrote, that we must all think of ourselves as this mission: “I am a mission on this earth; that is the reason why I am here in this world.”

So then, the question becomes not should we do the tasks we have been given even in times of crisis, but how are we to know what those tasks are?

Lewis answers this question with almost audible dry British humor: “A man’s upbringing, his talents, his circumstances, are usually a tolerable index of his vocation.” In other words, if God has put you in a position to exert great power and influence on society through politics or religion, then that is your vocation. However, if He has put you in charge of building culture, art, and literature, then that is what you must do to bring Him glory. If you are a scientist, pursue good science; a mathematician, faithfully seek to understand the mathematical laws that govern us all; a historian, learn from the past and detect the mistakes of today; a reporter, share the truth; a physician, heal; a carpenter, construct places where life can thrive; a housekeeper, maintain the health and comfort of those around you; an electrician, safely give light so others can navigate darkness; a barber, help people to be presentable and acceptable so that they can fulfill their own vocations; a parent, raise God-fearing and beauty-loving children.

Our vocations, which we were each called to based on our own circumstances and talents, remain the same even when our situations are not ideal. It is possible that, like Queen Esther, God has placed you in a unique position to influence the present time and has given you your current role “for such a time as this,” but it is also possible that He needs you to play a small part in keeping the rest of the world going, knowledge expanding, and beauty flourishing so that those who have been placed “for such a time as this” have something to come back to when the time of crisis has passed. Someone once said that making art during times of war is valuable because it preserves culture and, were that culture to die, there would be nothing left to fight for. So, whether you are called to fight, create, or maintain, your work is valuable.

God recognizes the value in each of us and has called us accordingly. As Pope Francis has said, God “sees a certain potential, at times unbeknownst to ourselves, and throughout our lives he works tirelessly so that we can place this potential at the service of the common good. Vocation arises in this way.” All of us, even the least powerful and educated, have a critical role to play in the advancement of God’s purposes. Indeed, according to Pope Francis, “All the baptized, whatever their positions in the Church or their level of instruction in the faith, are agents of evangelization,” and “all of us are called to share in Christ’s mission to reunite a fragmented humanity and to reconcile it to God.”

This does not mean that the details of our vocation cannot change. It is of course possible that God’s plans for you today are different from the ones He had for you yesterday. Still, while the details may change, your task remains the same: do whatever good thing it is that God has put before you to do so that you can work together with Him to bring about His will on the earth.

How, then, do we overcome the paralysis that we feel in the face of all that is happening in our world so that we can do the work God has for us? Lewis answers this question by identifying “three enemies which war raises up against the scholar.”  While most of us are not at war and few of us are scholars, these same enemies seem to enjoy revolting against the fulfillment of all vocations during any time of uncertainty.

According to Lewis, the first enemy that attempts to prevent us from fulfilling God’s purposes in times of crisis is excitement. How easy it is to be shaken and disoriented by the sensational news headlines that sometimes break hourly. With the constant access we have to information, it is possible to fill entire days simply researching the problems in our world, but doing so often means that we fail to complete the tasks that God has set out for us to do on those days.

The power of excitement relies on one weapon: distraction. The enemy succeeds when our thoughts about the world’s troubles draw us away from what we are meant to be doing. As Lewis points out, this enemy does not restrict its activity to times of crisis. One could argue that someone has not truly lived if they have never found themselves distracted by new love, a long-awaited vacation, the laughter of friends, wafting smells of food, or the incessant interruptions of a fussy child. So, while we cannot eliminate excitement from our lives (nor would we want to), according to Lewis the key is to “do the best we can.” Otherwise, we will “always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.” We can still accomplish a good deal despite distractions if we steadfastly fulfill our daily tasks with great love.

The second enemy of obedience in vocations is frustration. This may result from the realization or fear that we do not have the time to do the things that we once hoped to do given the current state of our world. In the U.S. today, people who have long fought for environmental justice and human rights feel such frustration acutely as they watch so much of their work being undone. It is possible that they may become incapacitated by this frustration if they do not keep their eyes fixed on the Author of History whose timeline is not ours and who will never run out of time to change things. It is also possible for frustration to be caused by the sheer volume of things to be done. One of the tactics that the Trump administration has used repeatedly is throwing as much as it can at people all at once. This flood of information makes it nearly impossible to figure out how to allocate limited time and resources to prevent injustices. If we are honest, Trump is not the only powerful influence in our world who utilizes this tactic. Many agitators within the Church have adopted similar approaches in recent years.

As Christ-followers, we do not need to surrender to the enemy of frustration, even in the most overwhelming times. Pope Francis, in is 2024 address on the World Day of Prayer for Vocations said, “To be pilgrims of hope and builders of peace, then, means to base our lives on the rock of Christ’s resurrection, knowing that every effort made in the vocation that we have embraced and seek to live out, will never be in vain.” Lewis shared a similar sentiment, albeit with a more fatalistic flavor: “Christian attitude, which can be attained at any age, is that of leaving futurity in God’s hands. We may as well, for God will certainly retain it whether we leave it to Him or not.” Our job is to do what we can do right now and to rest in the knowledge that God holds whatever we cannot do in His hands.

It has been said that Pope John XXIII ended each day by praying, “It’s your world God. I’m going to bed.” Similarly, Pope Francis keeps a statue of sleeping St. Joseph on his desk as a reminder that the man tasked with raising the very Son of God could sleep peacefully with the knowledge that God was in control. St. Joseph knew that he was inadequate for the task that was assigned to him, but he also knew that God was beyond capable. If men like these, who carried such great responsibilities, can rest knowing that God will not be thwarted by human limitations, so should we.

The final enemy Lewis identifies is fear. He does not suggest that we must approach difficulties without trepidation. In fact, he says that if Christians look to Gethsemane, they will see that Christianity does not require indifference to suffering. However, we must “guard against the illusions of the imagination.” So often we see the threat in our current circumstances and find ourselves imagining everything that could go wrong. We must remember that our fundamental circumstances remain unchanged: we will die and when we do, we will either be at peace with God or at odds with Him. The rest of our stories are mere details – the proverbial icing on the cake. Rather than allowing ourselves to focus on what may be, we must keep our gaze fixed on what God wants for us at this moment so that whenever that inevitable time comes and our lives end, we will be able to say with confidence that we did all we could to follow Him and did not allow our fears to prevent us from being good stewards of our time.

Lewis concludes his sermon with a paragraph that is worth quoting in its entirety:

All the animal life in us, all schemes of happiness that centered in this world, were always doomed to a final frustration. In ordinary times only a wise man can realize it. Now the stupidest of us know. We see unmistakable the sort of universe in which we have all along been living, and must come to terms with it. If we had foolish un-Christian hopes about human culture, they are now shattered. If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment to soon. But if we thought that for some souls, and at some times, the life of learning, humbly offered to God, was, in its own small way, one of the appointed approaches to the Divine beauty which we hope to enjoy hereafter, we can think so still.

For many of us, the most paralyzing and disorienting aspect of our present time is the realization that the world we thought we were living in was a fantasy. We thought that we were living in a time where freedom, knowledge and peace were valued. We were wrong. We thought we were living in a nation that was unrecognizable from the one that was filled with hatred and racism just a few short decades ago. We were wrong. We thought we had stable and dependable allies on the global stage who shared our desire for a good world. We were wrong. We thought that most of our neighbors agreed with us on the definitions of good and evil. We were wrong.

All the hopes that we pinned on this world and on humanity are being challenged and shaken by a new reality that is rising around us. This is frightening, discouraging and at times unbelievable. Yet it need not lead us to despair. As Lewis pointed out, our hopes depended on things that were never meant to give us the security that we desire. The only reliable foundation for our hope is Christ. We were not made for this world but for another and, for many of us, current events are forcing us to face this reality. Afterall, Jesus Himself promised us that in this world we would face hardship but reassured us that He has overcome the world.

Considering this, what are we to do when we are immobilized by life right now? Lewis would say that we are meant to do the same thing that we have always been meant to do: whatever is the next right thing. And then the next, and the next, until we are finally called home. For some of us, this next right thing will be dramatically standing up to abusive power or making radical sacrifices for our beliefs. For most of us, however, it will be going to work and coming home to love our families. But when done with love and for God, even the smallest of these next right things will carry eternal significance, regardless of the events happening around us. And as Pope Francis has said, “The seeds of goodness we sow are quietly growing and nothing can separate us from the final goal.”

Featured on Where Peter Is on February 24, 2025

Three years ago today, Russia invaded Ukraine in an act of unjustified warfare. If, like me, you are also American, let’s repeat that simple factual statement for those members of our government who deny it: three years ago today, Russia invaded Ukraine. I watched it unfold. You watched it unfold. Even the leaders who seek to deceive us watched it unfold. Don’t let them gaslight or bully you, it happened and it happened because Putin had previously gotten away with seizing territory in the Crimea with minimal consequences. This fact encouraged him to continue his campaign to “take back” land that belonged to a sovereign nation simply because he wrongly considers it to be Russian or, as Pope Francis once put it, “some potentate, sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interests, is provoking and fomenting conflicts.”

It is absurd that I must begin an article about the war in Ukraine with this recitation of plain truth, but we are living in a time when the father of lies prowls about the world seeking to deceive us and he has used our habituation to the horrors of the war in Ukraine to numb some of us until we are unable to remember those early days of the war – a time when who was responsible for the carnage was all too clear. The danger that this poses cannot be understated: ensuring that our understanding of history is based on truth and not lies is essential to any hope of success in the present.

With the truth firmly in mind, it is towards the present that I now turn. The ailing Pope Francis was unable to give his Angelus address yesterday but released the text of his message which included a statement marking the third anniversary of “the large-scale war against Ukraine.” The Holy Father remembered the “suffering Ukrainian people” and all those who are victims of wars throughout the world. Some news agencies have translated “suffering” as “martyred” which is a term that the Pope has used frequently to describe Ukrainians and evokes the constant suffering that they have faced throughout their history, particularly under the rule of Stalin. His statement on this anniversary followed a message to newly ordained deacons which encouraged them to “be a sign of a love that embraces everyone, that transforms evil into goodness and engenders a fraternal world.” His final words to them speak to all of us: “Do not be afraid to risk love!”

Tragically, our country seems to have traded its risky love for the people of Ukraine for the allure of national gain. We have betrayed longstanding allies in exchange for the sweet talk of a devious enemy. In the past weeks, the United States has pressured Ukraine to sign a deal which will pay for aid that they have already received (according to a New York Times article, they will not only have to pay for the aid, but will pay more than four times the amount of aid that they received); refused to guarantee future aid and support to Ukraine in order to ensure its security; spread blatant lies about who is responsible for the war in Ukraine; undermined the presidency of Zelensky by suggesting he is a “dictator” who has no right to participate in negotiations for his own country because he has made President Trump “sick” of “watching Ukraine negotiate with no cards”; shaken hopes of Ukraine joining NATO; and conducted negotiations with Russia about the future of Ukraine without involving representatives from Ukraine itself.

Over the past three years, many have been frustrated by Pope Francis’s calls for negotiation which were born from his overwhelming desire for the conflict to end. However, as Austen Ivereigh made clear in his May 11, 2022 article for Where Peter Is, Pope Francis has never shied away from placing the blame firmly at the feet of Putin, and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, has stressed that negotiations must occur in the context of a cessation of Russian aggression and result in a “just peace.” None of the actions that the United States has taken in recent weeks come close to meeting these criteria.

In his Angelus address yesterday, Pope Francis said that the third anniversary of the war is “a painful and shameful occasion for the whole of humanity!” For a country that was supposedly founded upon Christian principles, it is difficult to express the extent of shame Americans ought to feel for betraying the people of Ukraine as we have done. As we reflect on this national shame, let us ask ourselves the question Jesus once asked: “Who is your neighbor?” Is it the one who holds the greatest power and has the most to offer, or the one who can give little, but desperately needs help. Let it be known that we have chosen to side with the abuser against the abused. There is no shame deeper than that.

Featured on Where Peter Is on February 17, 2025

The Vatican announced today that Pope Francis is being treated for a “polymicrobial infection of the respiratory tract.” The news comes just days after the Holy Father was admitted to the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic hospital in an attempt to treat a prolonged case of bronchitis.

It is commonly known that, due to a severe infection, Pope Francis had part of one lung removed when he was in his twenties. In addition, over the past several years, the Holy Father has undergone medical treatment for a variety of issues including falls, diverticulitis, bronchitis, and abdominal surgeries. Despite this, the 88-year-old Pope has appeared to be relatively healthy.

His current condition was first announced on February 6^th, when the Vatican shared his diagnosis of bronchitis. He was admitted to Gemelli Hospital on February 14^th after his morning audiences and was reportedly resting well and showing some improvement over the weekend. However, this morning the Director of the Holy See Press Office explained that, while Pope Francis remains in good spirits, his clinical status is complex and requires prolonged and altered therapy. Consequently, this week’s Wednesday General Audience is canceled.

Pope Francis’s continued hospitalization appears to be the result of tests which indicate that he is suffering from a polymicrobial infection. According to a 2005 research paper published in the Lancet, polymicrobial infections occur when infection by a single organism leaves patients vulnerable to infections from other organisms. Less frequently, an individual can contract diseases caused by two different microorganisms simultaneously. In either case, these infections may be caused by viruses, bacteria, parasites or fungi.

The editors at Where Peter Is pray for the Holy Father’s comfort and healing during this time and hope that you will join us in our prayers for him:

Father, for nearly twelve years, You have blessed us with an earthly father who has guided Your Church towards greater love, acceptance and concern for those most in need of mercy. From the first moments of his papacy, we have been taught to see You in the faces of the rejected, the homeless, and the criminal. Through the years, he has shown us how to pursue humility even in positions of power and how to value the true treasures of the Church.  We thank You for giving him to us as a faithful witness to Your steadfast love and we ask that You help us to faithfully live out all that we have learned from him.

We come to You today, asking that You will hold him close to Your heart as he battles illness. Please surround him with Your peace that surpasses all understanding and Your strength to continue to witness to Your love despite physical discomfort. If it is Your will, please heal him so that he can continue his work as Your servant here on earth.

Please guide and protect those who care for his physical, spiritual, and medical needs: the priests, doctors, nurses, housekeeping staff, kitchen staff, security guards, and all others who labor to meet his needs today. Please let them feel Your presence in a special way.

Lord, we know that You are a God who works all things together for the good of those who love You. Please use even this time of sickness for the good of Your Church and of our Pope. Amen.

Featured on Where Peter Is on January 27, 2025

On Friday, Pope Francis shared a message for Christian communicators to mark the Memorial of Saint Frances de Sales and the 59^th World Day of Social Communications. His message was one of both encouragement and conviction for those who attempt to change the world through communication.

The Holy Father began by addressing our present times which are  “characterized by disinformation and polarization, as a few centers of power control an unprecedented mass of data and information.” He said that, in this context, the work of Christian communicators is critical.

He went on to explain that communicators are responsible for the impact of their work on others. Because of this, they have obligations which include creating content that kindles hope by rejecting fearmongering, hatred, oversimplification, untruths and the weaponization of language. The work that communicators do must heal and nurture human relationships.

The Holy Father recognized that the task of Christian communicators is not easy. In fact, it requires us to care for our own souls and nurture hope within ourselves. To this end, he referenced Pope Benedict XVI, saying,

“Hope is not passive optimism but, on the contrary, a ‘performative’ virtue capable of changing our lives.”

He then recognized the cost of hope, quoting Georges Bernanos,

“Only those are capable of hope, who have had the courage to despair of the illusions and lies in which they once found security and which they falsely mistook for hope.”

While nurturing the virtue of hope is difficult, Pope Francis reminded readers that our hope “has a face, the face of the risen Lord.” He explained that it is through our hope in Christ that we find our own lives and work transformed. Because of the Holy Spirit, we can “hope against hope” and see “hidden goodness quietly present even when all else seems lost.” This new way of being causes people to ask why we live as we do and, as the Apostle Peter wrote, we must be ready to explain our transformative hope to those who ask.

Pope Francis explained that our work as Christian communicators “should be steeped in gentleness and closeness, like the talk of companions on the road.” He shared his desire for our work to encourage one another, to kindle community and empathy, and to magnify what is good.

For us to be able to create this kind of healing content, we must ourselves “be healed of our ‘diseases’ of self-promotion and self-absorption.” We need to recognize that we are the servants of those who consume our work and our job is to help them to find what is best in themselves as they participate more fully in community. Pope Francis reminded communicators that the spiritual life is not solitary. Instead, we are called to journey together and our work should reflect and promote fellowship with one another. When we do our work well, we communicate the goodness that exists within our world and we help each other to be “a little less deaf to the cry of the poor, a little less indifferent, a little less closed in.”

Featured on Where Peter Is on January 22, 2025

[This article is the last in a four-part series on mental health. The previous articles in the series have addressed the science of psychology, the ways that faith can help those suffering from mental illness, and the role of evil in our approach to mental health.]

In the Jewish communities where Christ dwelt, the traditional greeting was “Shalom aleichem.” The phrase has traditionally been translated as “peace be to you” which is a correct but incomplete translation of the word “shalom.” This is because our current understanding of the English term “peace” essentially amounts to freedom from conflict and disruption. In contrast, when Jesus and his companions used the term, it focused as much on the presence of fullness as it did on the absence of conflict. In fact, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews explains the idea of shalom thus:

Shalom is rooted in the Hebrew word shalem, which means “whole” or “complete.” Beyond a lack of conflict, shalom is the presence of wholeness.

In other words, when Jesus and the people around Him greeted one another with “Shalom” or its extension “Shalom aleichem,” they were wishing one another wholeness, completion and flourishing, in addition to our own limited understanding of “peace.” The idea of shalom is similar to what many consider to be the ideal for mental health: a sense of contentment and well-being that flows from feelings of wholeness. In contrast, people who struggle with mental health issues often have difficulty finding a coherent narrative for their lives and struggle to integrate the various parts of themselves in a balanced way. It could be said, then, that the goal of psychological interventions is to promote shalom in the lives of help-seeking individuals.

At the risk of diving too deeply, this idea of shalom and human flourishing is not a new one. In fact, St. Augustine chronicles his own movement from disordered to properly ordered passions in his well-known book, Confessions. Similarly, many have recognized this same sort of thinking in St. Thomas Aquinas’s writings on human passions. Their philosophies both recognize the need for humans to be balanced and ordered wholes in order to truly flourish. This continuity of thought has resulted in the development of the sub-school of Thomistic psychology. Central to these ideas is the understanding that when something is unbalanced within a person, they cannot function to their fullest potential and they experience spiritual and emotional upheaval as a result. In contrast, when a person’s inner life is balanced into a cohesive whole, with each part fitting harmoniously and properly with every other part, people experience both spiritual and mental well-being.

Mental health as we understand it, is largely based in our physiology which means that to experience shalom, our physical bodies must also enter into this integrated balance. Luckily for us, the integration of body and soul is explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, saving us from having to develop our own understanding of how the two relate to one another:

The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual…Man, though made of body and soul is a unity.

Because psychology and mental health exist both at the intersection of and through the realities of body and soul, an imbalance in either contributes to mental illness and psychological distress. This means that a comprehensive Catholic understanding of psychology will necessarily address both the physical and spiritual aspects of human life.

Of course, psychology was not developed by exclusively Christian thinkers and some of its most famous contributors were decidedly not Christian. This can make such a holistic understanding of human psychology particularly difficult. Yet, as was discussed in the first article of this series, many of the theories that psychologists have proposed can contribute to our Christian understanding of mental health and well-being even if they were not developed by people who understood the fullness of human nature. Their contributions still move us towards “shalom” as it relates to the body and the soul, even if they do so imperfectly.

Unfortunately, however, Catholic psychologists and therapists must face the reality that many of their clients do not share their Christian beliefs. This forces them to choose between two options:

1. They can use the fullest approach to mental health which inherently incorporates spiritual treatment into their practice but carries the cost of alienating a large number of their patients and, so, makes them impotent to help the greatest number of patients; or
2. They can focus only on the physical and mental components of their patients’ struggles, thereby helping the greatest number of patients possible, but sacrificing certain foundational aspects of Catholic psychology unless spiritual issues are brought into treatment by the patients themselves.

While there are some mental health practitioners who have chosen the first choice, many others, myself included, have opted for the latter. They opt to reach the greatest number of people in need and trust that the spiritual needs of their patients will either be raised by the patients themselves during treatment or addressed by others in their patients’ lives. In fact, it was the desire to help all grieving families that compelled me to make my book Raising Sunshine a secular guide in the hope that it would be beneficial to all who need it. Making this choice is not unlike the decision that physicians often make to treat their patients’ physical needs as death nears, while leaving their spiritual needs in the hands of others. It is also not unlike countless other choices we make every day in order to live within a secular world and to meet people where they are. It is an understandable decision and does much good, but it cannot be denied that it comes at a cost.

One way to minimize that cost is to allow patients to direct discussions of spiritual matters. Therapists who do this will find that when patients are open about their faith and willing to talk about spiritual issues, they can play a significant role in wrestling with them about the ways that mental health impacts their spiritual well-being and vice versa. Additionally, in the same way that they would with physical issues that are outside of their scope of practice, they can develop networks for appropriate referrals within their diocese so that they can assist their patients in finding appropriate spiritual guidance and resources.

When patients do not raise the topic of their faith in therapy, Catholic mental health practitioners can still play a key role in helping their patients to achieve as much healing and wholeness as possible with a purely secular approach. They can even do this while prompting their patients to dig deeper into their understanding of themselves and the world around them, which might eventually lead them to consider more spiritual questions. For the most part, however, therapy with these patients will largely follow a more traditional approach that respects the spiritual boundaries of individual patients and offers them the sort of care that they are open to receiving. In other words, while not offering them the best and fullest help possible, it still provides them with assistance and, in this case, something is much better than nothing.

Finally, if a Catholic mental health professional encounters a patient who believes that if they only had enough faith or prayed well enough, their mental health issues would disappear, these professionals can help to gently correct these erroneous beliefs, encourage patients to investigate and embrace scientifically backed interventions, and help them to recognize that scientific advances in the field may actually be the answers to their prayers for healing. St. Ignatius of Loyola once wrote, “Work like everything depends on you, pray like everything depends on God,” and St Benedict Regula said, “Pray and work.” Even St. Paul admonished us that faith that does not work itself out through action is dead. This is true in matters of mental health, as well. As physical beings, we cannot reduce everything to that which is spiritual in nature and demand that God heals us in a supernatural way. Instead, we must embrace the mundane physical gifts that God has given us and do the difficult work of healing while trusting that God, the ultimate healer, is working through our efforts.

By approaching therapy in these varied ways depending on specific patient needs, psychologists and therapists can help to move their patients towards a peace and wholeness that bolsters mental health and well-being. As much as a patient allows it, they can be good stewards of the knowledge and instruments that God has given us through the field of psychology, while not letting their usefulness be limited by more traditional mandates that mental healthcare remain separate from spiritual care. In short, therapy can be directed towards shalom – peace, wholeness, and completion – for all patients, even if the pathways to that shalom look quite different.

Featured on Where Peter Is on January 20, 2025

[This article is the third in a four-part series on mental health. The previous articles addressed the science of psychology and the unique role that the Church can play in the lives of those suffering from mental health issues. The final article will address the idea of shalom as the ideal for mental health and well-being.]

In all of the drama surrounding Mike Lewis’s recent coverage of Fr. Chad Ripperger, one issue stood out to me above the rest: Fr. Ripperger’s pronouncements that most people with bipolar disorder would no longer need treatment if they follow his instructions. My concern grew when I listened to one of his virtual talks and heard him declare that anti-depressants should rarely be used and, if they are, they should only be used for a few weeks while a patient is stabilized. This is patently false. In fact, most antidepressants do not even begin to have their desired effects for several weeks and it can take months more to carefully titrate to a properly therapeutic dose. To be frank, Fr. Ripperger’s statements are spine-chilling for three reasons:

1. It undermines years of working to combat stigma against mental illness by associating it with demonic possession.
2. It promotes a way of thinking that could keep people from seeking and continuing treatment they need.
3. It minimizes the real advances that psychology has made in past decades while publicizing an unproven, irresponsible idea.

In fact, it was Father Ripperger’s statements that prompted me to finally write this series that has long been sitting on the back burner of my mind, waiting to be written.

Throughout my career and studies, the relationship between evil and mental health has been problematic for me. This began to be the case when a Christian elementary school left a message saying that someone I love would not be allowed to attend their school. The details of the message are debated within my family, but my memory of the situation is that the school leadership believed that the loved one’s classic symptoms of Tourette Syndrome were actually the result of demonic activity. My family unanimously agrees that the school’s lack of knowledge about Tourette Syndrome resulted in judgements about this individual that were incorrect. Sadly, my loved one (a child at the time) was the person who received the message and it compounded the struggle with grief and stigma that they were already facing as they came to terms with their diagnosis and navigated brutal bullying and responses from the public school district; it doubtless also impacted their relationship with Christianity in complex and difficult ways. As a result, the unnecessary damage that this school’s assumption caused was significant at a time when the institution had the opportunity to be a bearer of Christ’s love and healing.

Since that time, the number of people I love who have Tourette Syndrome has grown – it is a heritable neurological condition – as has my frustration with people who, knowingly or not, allow the idea of demons to be weaponized against those with physical or mental illnesses.

As I progressed through my training, I encountered patients and even personal acquaintances who were reluctant to seek treatment or to continue with treatment that they were already receiving. This stemmed from a variety of issues, concerns about stigma and prejudice being prominent among them. In addition, therapy is time intensive and requires hard work and honesty about painful things that patients are often trying desperately to avoid. Similarly, psychiatric medications may cause unpleasant side-effects and a kind of psychological numbing that patients have difficulty tolerating. For psychotic patients, medication compliance can be particularly challenging due to paranoia related to their medications. Many of these patients believe that their treatment will poison or harm them in some way.

For some of the patients who were reluctant to accept treatment, their therapy and medication helped to make their lives more livable. For others, these interventions were literally keeping them alive by preventing suicide or dangerous hallucinations and delusions. For all of the patients, the factors that contribute to patients’ resistance towards treatment make them vulnerable.  Consequently, the idea that a prominent Catholic public figure like Fr. Ripperger would suggest an additional (and unfounded) reason for patients to inappropriately halt medication is unconscionable.

That being said, I do believe that there are cases of demonic possession and oppression as the Church teaches. Consequently, I acknowledge that there are times when exorcism is not only appropriate but merciful. In fact, the USCCB considers the sacramental of exorcism to be “just one more way the Church tends to the pastoral care of souls – even souls that are not her flock.” As a Catholic with a doctorate in psychology, I have been challenged at times to explore the intersection of mental illness and demonic activity more thoroughly. As I have delved into research on this topic, certain aspects of this relationship became clear to me.

First, and perhaps most important, the Church has a long history of requiring discernment in the assessment of demonic activity. For example, the USCCB states that all dioceses need to develop protocols to address possible cases of possession. These protocols should “include an assessment which involves medical, psychological, and psychiatric testing” that should be conducted prior to making any potential referrals to exorcists. These assessments should then be used to guide the Church in its determination, since only the Church can confirm possession. The USCCB is also clear that an exorcist’s determination requires “moral certitude” and a “balance within his own mind between not believing too easily that the devil is responsible for what is manifesting and attributing all possible manifestations solely to a natural, organic source.”

The USCCB is not alone in its prescription for caution in dealing with potential cases of demonic possession. In fact, earlier this month, the International Association of Exorcists (IAE), which includes over nine hundred exorcists and was approved by the Holy See as a private association of the faithful, put out a statement about the importance of responding to questions about exorcisms with great care. Specifically, they note the importance of ensuring that only qualified individuals participate in exorcisms and that exorcists can rely on medical and psychological professionals when making determinations. In fact, they state that to assume a supernatural origin for suffering that could be attributed to a natural cause is “not only wrong, but exposes people to unnecessary risks.” The association goes on to say that “The desire to identify at all costs an extraordinary demonic action as the cause of a situation of suffering, the origin of which is unknown, having omitted a previous serious discernment, besides being useless, can cause damage.”

From the viewpoint of the Church, prudential judgement in such matters is essential because the Church does not want to deny care to those in need, but it also resists the tendency to give undue credit to the devil or to foster an unhealthy focus on his works. According to the U.S. Bishops, prudential judgement in these cases is necessary to avoid the development of “sensationalist mentalities” or “sideshows” that detract from the Church’s true mission of serving Christ and sharing Him with the world.

This is all very reassuring from the viewpoint of psychology, because it promotes the idea that experts within different fields should participate in the evaluation of a potentially possessed person. This recognition of authority derived from education and experience helps to ensure that potential victims are treated appropriately by someone who specializes in the particular issues they are facing. In other words, I do not pretend to have any expertise in demonology and exorcism. I do, however, have knowledge of mental health conditions that was gained through years of work and study – twelve years to be precise. Specifically, I specialized in work with children with emotional and behavioral issues. Some of my pediatric patients have presented in ways that a non-psychologist might think of as a manifestation of possession. Out of respect for my patients, I will not elaborate on the particulars of their symptoms here. What is important is that, because I have developed a deep understanding of child development and how children react and respond to their worlds, I was able to recognize that these patients had problems with anxiety, confusion, anger, impulse control, etc. This meant that I could treat them appropriately which, thankfully, yielded good results. I do not say this out of arrogance, but simply as a recognition that there is too much knowledge for one person to be an expert in everything. It is, therefore, essential that people practice only within their field of expertise. Exorcism is not mine. Psychology is.

With that in mind, I believe it is essential that the teachings of the Church are followed and appropriate physical and mental health assessments are conducted prior to involving an exorcist. I also feel that it is important that the Church and its pastors are quick to refer parishioners to mental health professionals when they realize that they are being asked to offer care that goes beyond their area of expertise.

At the same time, Catholic mental health professionals should wrestle with the role that evil plays in their own lives and in the lives of their patients. This brings me to my second observation. We are all living in a fallen world. All of us are born with the stain of original sin and face endless temptations to err in our daily lives. At a minimum, this reality about our existence influences the ways we think and behave, hopefully making us more compassionate towards our fellow sinners.

Psychologists who truly accept this into their understanding will be cognizant of the ways that our fallen nature contributes to mental illness, as well as the ways that mental health can predispose us to certain types of sins. For example, a person who is experiencing depression is more likely to battle despair than someone who is generally happy and content with their life. On the other hand, participation in intrinsic evils like adultery can easily lead us to places of anxiety or depression. This delicate interplay between our mental and spiritual selves is one that psychologists should be willing to work with, acknowledging that both aspects are key to human flourishing.

My third conclusion is that there are times when both spiritual care, even possibly exorcism, and mental health treatments ought to be provided in tandem. Just as it is dangerous to say that psychological therapies are unnecessary if exorcisms are provided, it would be problematic for a believing mental health professional to deny the possibility of demonic activity impacting any of their patients. In most cases, there is likely no harm, in terms of the practice of psychology, in simultaneously pursuing both the spiritual aid of exorcism and the scientific help of psychology (I say in most cases and not all because in some patients there could be harm done by conducting an exorcism– I am thinking here principally of patients with psychosis, but also those with borderline and narcissistic personality disorders or scrupulosity).  In fact, a combined approach would likely be particularly helpful to patients who straddle the line between spiritual and mental torment or who present with signs of both. Nevertheless, it remains essential that both exorcists and mental health providers practice only within their fields of expertise and that neither discourages the interventions of the other. Additionally, when patient consent is obtained, collaboration between both experts would be beneficial and, according to psychiatrist Richard Gallagher, who regularly consults with exorcists, such collaboration is often the norm.

There remains the question of what to do with those patients who push the boundary of what might be considered “ordinary, run of the mill sins” and delve into the darkness of pure evil. I am thinking here about patients who are abusers, murderers, and other types of sadistic individuals. We are faced with the question of how to classify these patients. Are they mentally ill, or are they submitting to evil or possessed by it? This is a question that I cannot answer. It is well outside of my area of expertise, having never worked with or studied such individuals. Of course, I have my own ideas about what drives people to do clearly evil things, but at the end of the day, they are simply my own untested thoughts that I have developed to try to make sense of something that is otherwise nonsensical to me. What can be safely said about such cases is that they do not exist in a vacuum. We all commit evil against each other to varying degrees and the devil does “prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.”  For most of us, who will never encounter such patients in our daily lives or lines of work, the most important thing is to fix our gaze not on what is evil but on what is good and to work to restore God’s kingdom within the small sphere of influence that we each have been given. God is a God of peace, justice and mercy who gives us rest and protection, and he can use both mental health treatment and exorcisms to bring healing into our lives. It is our job to use both prudentially.

Note

Though this article is not meant to be a commentary on the works of Fr. Ripperger, I do want to acknowledge that some have defended his expertise in psychology by referencing his 800-page tome, Introduction to the Science of Mental Health. Having heard him speak on issues of mental health, I have decided that it is not worth the time and expense it would require to read the teachings of someone whose statements have repeatedly flown in the face of the field of mental health.

This work likely contains some accurate teachings about psychology, and his ideas on emotions and the connection between Thomistic thought and psychology are often compelling. However, we must remember that it is possible for anyone to write a book about any subject they choose, regardless of expertise. His biography indicates that his education and professional background do not indicate that he has the qualifications to write or speak authoritatively on mental health, which likely explains why his statements often contradict accepted psychological theories and research.

Fr Ripperger’s statements suggesting that recognized psychological disorders are the result of demonic activity or those that serve to undermine standard and appropriate treatments and theories within the field of psychology have the potential to cause great harm. Fr Ripperger’s education and expertise lie in the areas of philosophy and theology. His comments about psychology should not be considered equivalent to the teachings of experts in the field.