If only more Bishops were like him... (UPDATED)

Archbishop Chaput

***UPDATE***: See Below

Archbishop Charles Chaput is a courageous and intelligent Bishop. As Thomas Peters from American Papist puts it:

"I will never tire of saying this: read everything Archbishop Chaput writes."

He is correct. You should read everything that Archbishop Chaput writes. Everything.

Recently, Archbishop Chaput gave a talk that was the keynote address as part of the University of Notre Dame student-organized Right to Life lecture series. You can find that talk here in essay form: Chaput Keynote Address in Essay. [NB: Following the directives that Peters and I have laid out, you should read this.]

What was said during a follow up Q&A session after this talk was even more telling on exactly how orthodox this Bishop is, and just how far gone other Bishops are. For example his answer regarding Abortion, Communion and Bishops, taken from the Boston Pilot [my comments]:

"There is unity among the bishops about abortion always being wrong, and that you can't be a Catholic and be in favor of abortion -- the bishops all agree to that -- but there's just an inability among the bishops together to speak clearly on this matter and even to say that if you're Catholic and you're pro-choice, you can't receive holy Communion," Archbishop Chaput said.

Individual bishops probably do take such a stand privately more often than anyone knows, the archbishop noted, and he said he is not in favor of refusing Communion without giving private notice ahead of time to the person. He emphasized, however, that Catholics who support keeping abortion legal should be told that they will not be given Communion, and not to present themselves to receive. [Amen!]

Archbishop Chaput said he and others have been trying to move the U.S. bishops' conference to speak clearly on this issue for a number of years. However, there is a fear, he said, that if they do so, the bishops might somehow disenfranchise the Catholic community from political life, making it difficult to get elected if a Catholic politician has to hold the church's position on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. [Bishops live in fear of politics? No wonder the American Church is where it stands today... what a disgrace!]

The strategy clearly has failed, he continued, "So let's try something different and see if it works. Let's be very, very clear on these matters," and he asked the audience to "help me to convince the bishops on that subject." [Wow... he's right, these young folks probably do know better than the Bishops for the enemy is within.]

Chaput isn't afraid to say what needs to be said. There is a reason that he wasn't elected the President of the USCCB and this is it. He is a bold and orthodox leader and the dissident Bishops do what they can to marginalize him. Why? Because he acts on his beliefs and those beliefs are rooted in the true teachings of the Church.

"We act on what we really believe," Archbishop Chaput said. "If we don't act on our beliefs, then we don't really believe them."

The idea that the separation of church and state should force us to exclude our religious beliefs from guiding our political behavior makes no sense at all, he continued:

"If we don't remain true in our public actions to what we claim to believe in our personal lives, then we only deceive ourselves, because God certainly isn't fooled: He sees who and what we are. God sees that our duplicity is really a kind of cowardice, and our lack of courage does a lot more damage than simply wounding our own integrity; it also saps the courage of other good people who really do try to publicly witness what they believe. And that compounds the sin of dishonesty and the sin of injustice."

Amen Archbishop, Amen. If only we had more like him...

***UPDATE***:
The Heterodox National Catholic Reporter has posted an article by none other than Michael Sean Winters. If you don't know what this means... lucky you. He essentially calls our Archbishop Chaput and claims that Chaput is in a small minority of Bishops that think the way he does about Canon 915. He goes further to say that Chaput should bring up the issue during his ad limina visit ("State of the Diocese Visit") and he will find that the Holy Father and the Vatican are in disagreement with his "theology" concerning Canon 915. He does make a point about Cardinal Levada, but aside from that he post is more about his feathers being ruffled than anything. What he doesn't say and can't say is that Canon 915 was written to do exactly what Chaput indicates, but that Bishops have since ignored it to the point that the norm no longer reflects the intent. As St. John Chrysostom, Athanasius, John Eudes and many others have informed us... much in hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.


You can find Archbishop Chaput's book: "Render Unto Caesar" here, and you can read his homilies and writings at his Archdiocesan website here. 

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