Back to History: Returning Students Have New Textbook
by Tim Drake

CAMARILLO, Calif. - When students return to school this year, some will have a new resource that has not been available for more than 35 years - a modern, full-color, authentically Catholic history textbook.

For the past three decades, secular publishers such as Harcourt Brace and Silver, Burdett and Ginn have largely dominated the textbook market. The new book, All Ye Lands: World Cultures and Geography, published by Ignatius Press, hopes to fill the void.

Written for sixth-grade students, All Ye Lands is the first in a series of five textbooks to be published as part of the Catholic Schools Textbook Project. Seven U.S. bishops served on the project's episcopal advisory board, along with a team of history scholars, researchers and writers under the direction of Dr. Rollin Lasseter of the University of Dallas.

"This project is long overdue," said Douglas Alexander, executive director of the Catholic Schools Textbook Project. "For the past 35 years Catholic schools have been forced to use secular history textbooks because the older Catholic history textbooks have become increasingly out-of-date.

"Books from the 1930s and 1950s were written to help Catholic students face a certain set of challenges," he continued. "Students today face a different set of challenges. They need freshly written books to help them."

As an example, Alexander cited the canonization of hundreds of new saints by Pope John Paul II. The textbook project's books will include vignettes about saints.

Alexander also cited the powerful impact of a few of the many events of the past 35 years: moon landings, the ending of the Vietnam War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Internet, the launching of World Youth Days, the saintly examples of Padre Pio and Mother Teresa, and the devastating effects of 30 years of legalized abortion.

"We have a whole generation of Catholic children who are simply unaware of their own reality," Alexander said.

James Hitchcock, professor of history at St. Louis University, agreed.

"The books usually studied by Catholic students teach them the Church was backward and tyrannical until the Second Vatican Council came along," Hitchcock said. "As a result, Catholic students do not cherish those who have gone before them or identify with the sacrifices made by previous generations to evangelize and build up the Church."

"Even worse," Alexander added, "many of today's popular secular history textbooks contain blatant factual errors, some of which directly involve the Church."

He provided as an example the world history textbook Continuity and Change, published by Holt in 1999. "On Page 404, it reads, 'Copernicus … accepted the idea that the planets moved in perfect circles around the earth.' The truth is that Copernicus, a Polish university professor and Catholic priest, argued that planets moved around the sun, not around the earth."

Catholic schools across the country have expressed interest in the project. "They are hungry for good, Catholic, up-to-date history textbooks," Alexander said.

Unfortunately, printed only weeks ago, the textbooks are too late for most schools to use this year. However, schools in California, Michigan, Alaska and Nebraska have already ordered them for use this year. The Lincoln Diocese in Nebraska plans to order books for all its sixth-graders.

Because of the book's late arrival, Anthony Ryan, marketing director for Ignatius Press, said he expects to launch a full marketing campaign prior to next school year.

Birth of a Textbook
The idea for the textbook came from Michael Van Hecke's teaching experience. When Van Hecke started teaching history 13 years ago, he was given a copy of Prentice Hall's Pageant of World History and a black-and-white photocopy of a Catholic textbook.

The secular textbook, though colorful and glossy, had no religious coverage. The old Catholic history textbook, while it contained some good stories, wasn't graphically inspiring.

Van Hecke found it overly parochial. "Why can't we marry the two?" he thought.

That idea grew and grew until 1996 when he received a $17,000 bequest to kick off the Catholic Schools Textbook Project. The project gathered a group of people to work on the project, received support from Ave Maria University and hired writers Carl and (Register correspondent) Ellen Rossini of Dallas, to write the manuscript. About three years ago, they struck a deal with Ignatius Press to print the book. The result was printed and shipped to the warehouse four weeks ago. It retails for $55.

"The textbook meets the grade-level standards of most public school systems," Van Hecke said, "but it's decidedly Catholic." Van Hecke, currently headmaster of St. Augustine Academy in Ventura, Calif., plans to use the textbooks in his school.

Tina Sabga, a fifth- and sixth-grade teacher at Spiritus Sanctus Academy in Ann Arbor, Mich., had the opportunity to use a test version of the book last year with her 22 students.

While Sabga gave the textbook high marks, she said some students struggled with the book's language and thought it was a bit advanced for their grade level. "In some sections I had to break it down word-by-word. It's probably more appropriate for a seventh- and eighth-grade level," Sabga said.

Still, the majority of her students received As and Bs - and that while using a test version without maps or pictures.

In particular, Sabga noted students enjoyed the textbook's section on the Church's history and heresies. "I have a degree in theology and thought that the way the book covered the different aspects of the Church was beautifully done," she said.

One example comes in Chapter 6, "Christianity: A Gift from God."

Says the book: "St. Augustine was widely known for his defense of Christianity against two major heretical groups, the Donatists and the Pelagians. In doing so, he developed several major teachings of the Church. The Donatists had long ago separated over the issue of bishops who weakened during persecution. To them, St. Augustine argued that sacraments are valid even if the minister is a sinner, and that the Church is holy even though it consists of saints and sinners."

An early review from the Love to Learn Catholic home school Web site has also been positive. The site described the textbook as both helpful and enlightening.

"There is a distinct effort to be fair to our Catholic legacy without whitewashing faults," it noted. "It recognizes the role of Christianity in shaping Western culture without ignoring the contributions of the Hebrews, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans."

The review noted the textbook's fun features as well. For example, a "Let's Eat" segment for each culture, toward the end of the chapter, provides information on what people ate and some simple recipes.

The text has also received praise from bishops. "I am a strong believer," says a promotional text by Bishop Raymond Burke of La Crosse, Wis., "in the importance of the knowledge of Church history for the understanding of our Catholic faith and its practice. Therefore, I am happy to give my endorsement to the Catholic Schools Textbook Project."

Mark Brumley, president of Ignatius Press, said the book was a natural for the nonprofit company.

"Fifteen years ago, when I was teaching junior high and was on the St. Louis archdiocesan textbook evaluation committee," he said, "I would have loved to have a book like this. The content is solid, the graphics are superb, and it reflects a Catholic worldview that is neither pietistic nor biased in favor of Catholicism."

No stranger to textbooks, Ignatius is also the publisher of the popular Faith & Life religion series, which is currently being revised. In addition to All Ye Lands, the project is writing a high school American history textbook. Next fall the group hopes to have its fifth-, seventh- and eighth-grade textbooks completed.

© 2002. Article originally appeared in National Catholic Register, Sept. 1-7, 2002.

posted by Tim Drake at 2:54 PM

The Day They Begged for Priests
by Tim Drake

NEW YORK - The firefighters, police officers and other rescue workers of Sept. 11 weren't the day's only heroes.

Priests were, too.

World Trade Center command centers put out an urgent call for priests that day. Priests gave general absolution to rescue workers rushing into the buildings. Priests gave the last rites to people falling out of the buildings. Priests were listening to confessions in the streets before the ash blacked everything out. And then, for months afterward, they buried the dead, comforted the troubled and ministered to a profoundly shaken flock.

Then, after the World Trade Center towers fell, the tower of the priesthood came under attack as a result of the sexual-abuse scandals. But if the sins of a tiny percentage of priests have made headlines this year, Sept. 11 tells a different story, a story of how we count on priests in times of trouble and how they don't let us down.

Each Sept. 11 priest the Register spoke with has particular images seared into his memory.
For Father George Baker, it was seeing the second plane hit the World Trade Center and later helping those that had taken refuge in his Manhattan church.

For Father John Delendick, at the site just minutes after the second plane hit, it was seeing people jump from the towers.

And for Father Geno Sylva, it was blessing recovered body parts at the site later that day.
Each will be commemorating the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks in a far different way.

At Ground Zero
The images are as clear today for Father George Baker as they were on Sept. 11.

His parish, Our Lady of Victory, sits just three blocks southeast of the World Trade Center complex. Following the 8:20 a.m. Mass that day, Father Baker stepped outside to greet parishioners. That's when he noticed everyone staring toward the World Trade Center. In walking over to get a better look, he saw a gaping hole in the tower with dark smoke pouring out. He returned to the church, removed his vestments, put on his suit jacket and made his way to the Millennium Hilton across from the World Trade Center complex, where a triage center had been set up.

"It was while I was there comforting people that I witnessed the second plane go into the second tower," Father Baker recalled. "Shock waves went through my body and time seemed to go blank. Suddenly, all of the police and fire personnel started screaming, telling everyone to run in an eastward direction."

Father Baker ran back to his parish.

There he found approximately 100 people gathered in the church basement - coughing, wheezing, praying and crying. They would remain until they were given clearance to leave by the National Guard later that day.

In the days following Sept. 11, the most difficult thing for Father Baker was observing among parishioners "a belief that God, for a moment in time, had turned his back or stepped away from us. When I began to celebrate public Mass with the congregation again, I looked out on all these people that used to be so attentive and they suddenly looked blank, as if they had been drained of every possible emotion and feeling, as if there was nothing left in them. They were performing the ritual of their faith, but not feeling their belief. They were like sheep without a shepherd."

It was then that Father Baker realized his parishioners needed something more.
As a result, his parish set up post-traumatic stress disorder discussion groups over the lunch hour.

"Friends or family that lived even 20 blocks away would tell them, 'It's over. You made it through. You need to move forward,'" he said. "These people needed a way to articulate their pain and hurt. They needed to shout and stomp and cry to express their emotions."

Since then Father Baker has noticed a more significant increase in the depth of soul-searching with which people come to the sacrament of reconciliation.

"It's an increase in quality, not quantity," he said. "We've always been blessed with vast numbers of people coming to the sacrament, but now they are coming with very deep reflection on their lives and examining areas where they have strayed and where they can improve their relationship with God or with others."

Father Baker plans to celebrate a 12:15 Mass on Sept. 11 to commemorate the victims of last year's attacks. He invited Cardinal Edward Egan to be the celebrant and homilist.

"After our Church reopened, we placed a Book of Remembrance in the sanctuary where parishioners could enroll names of those that had perished," he explained.

"The book has maintained a place of deep respect in our church. During the liturgy, we will place that book and a wreath in front of the altar."

Working With Youth
Ever since he responded to an emergency call on Sept. 11 to leave his chaplaincy post at a nearby high school to minister at Ground Zero, Father Geno Sylva has been trying to comfort youth, especially those who lost family members.

"Many teens' presuppositions that life is fair or that everything happens for a reason came tumbling down on Sept. 11," said Father Sylva, director of DePaul High Catholic High School in Paterson, N.J. "We're trying to try to rebuild teen-agers' faith in the goodness of people."

Father Sylva plans to start the new school year with a theme based on Isaiah 43, "I have called you by name."

This Sept. 11 he plans to gather students and faculty at 8:30 a.m. to remember what they saw a year ago. He wants teachers to discuss with students what is different about what they pictured a year ago to what they remember now.

Then he will play a video in all of the classrooms of children suffering from cystic fibrosis. He hopes to encourage students to rebuild the world and make it a better place.

As part of the school's effort, DePaul High School is partnering with the Passaic County Elks Cerebral Palsy Treatment Center to allow students to minister to children there.

"My hope is that we can change the presuppositions that were lost last September - the things that evil tried to destroy in us last year - and reverse the idea that the world is no good," Father Sylva said.

He also plans to give each student a medal bearing both the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Blessed Mother - medals he received while in Turin, Italy, this summer.

"I want to let our students know that these children need to be treated the way that Mary treated Jesus," he said.

Serving Families
Father John Delendick estimated he has served at hundreds of funeral Masses and memorial services for fallen firefighters during the past year, and the memorials still aren't finished.

"I have three more scheduled in September. Another family is waiting until they get something back," said Father Delendick, pastor of St. Michael's Catholic Church in Brooklyn and currently one of six chaplains serving the New York City Fire Department.

"We're busy, but it's a different kind of busy," Father Delendick said. "A year ago, most of our time was spent with families and family-support groups. Now, the time is spent planning for things like memorials and handling problems in the firehouses themselves. What has us worried is that other still-unforeseen problems may crop up."

While the disaster has drawn some firehouses closer together, Father Delendick said, in others the large number of deaths has contributed to mental-health issues, disagreements and hostilities.

As a result, Father Delendick helped set up counseling units to sponsor weekend getaways for firefighters and their wives. The weekends involve spending a morning and afternoon with a counselor, followed by a date consisting of dinner, a Broadway show and an evening at a New York City hotel.

"Many firefighters spent a lot of time away from home, taking care of other families while they ignored their own," Father Delendick explained.

He said he will take part in an ecumenical prayer service at fire department headquarters on Sept. 11.

The department will unveil a bronze plaque bearing the names, company and date of death of all 343 men that were lost in the attacks. Families have been invited to attend.

"I'll spend a good part of my day there," Father Delendick said. In the evening, his parish will host a Mass followed by a candlelight procession to Engine Company 201, a company that lost four men.

Still, the ceremonies are bittersweet.

"Most families are tired and want to get on with their lives," Father Delendick said. "They're sick of ceremonies. They need time for themselves. During September there will be a lot of different things happening. A lot of fresh wounds will be opened up again."

What the Priests Saw
by Tim Drake

"As people escaped from the buildings, some of them were making confessions. 'Give me a blessing, Father,' they'd ask. I heard one or two confessions. They were all hurrying away. But they'd say, 'Just give me absolution, Father,' as they hurried to get out of the place."

- Father Peter Philominraj, Our Lady of Victory parish.

"While ministering to the wounded in front of the Millennium Hotel, I heard what sounded like gunshots coming from the towers. It was not gunfire. It was the distinct sound of bodies falling to the earth."

- Father Jim Hayes, St. Andrew's Catholic Church, Manhattan

"After the buildings came down, I saw an officer running out of the debris cloud covered with dust. I ran into a nearby deli and grabbed eight to nine bottles of water to pour on his head. He later joked that he thought I was one of New York's first looters."

- Father Chris Hynes, Port Authority chaplain

"As I approached the place where one of our fellow citizens lay, every activity would stop. Soldiers would halt, digging would cease, police officers and firemen sifting through the rubble would lay aside their duties, and together we would kneel in the dust and bow our heads to pray for the dead and to afford them the reverence, respect and love that they so richly deserve.'"

- Father Robert Marciano, military chaplain, Pentagon

"I was appointed as chaplain of the Port Authority just 10 days before Sept. 11. When I got down to Ground Zero on the evening of the 11th, I could not believe the devastation. It was like World War II. It was beyond my imagination. The dust was ankle-deep. There was so much smoke and the smell was unforgettable. There were three air-cooled tractor-trailers serving as morgues. As body parts were discovered they were placed in plastic bags, wrapped in an American flag and saluted and carried away. I spent the evening praying over and blessing them.

"For the first five months I spent Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. working at Ground Zero and working with the 74 Port Authority families that have lost a loved one."

- Father Mark Giordani, Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Paterson, N.J.

© 2002. Article originally appeared in the National Catholic Register, Sept. 8-14, 2002.
posted by Tim Drake at 2:52 PM

Thank You, Father: Grass-Roots Efforts Seek to Support Priests
By Tim Drake

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The messages posted on ThankYouFather.com are simple yet profound, each revealing a truth about the priesthood.

"Dear Father Joe, You make people laugh. You teach us about God and Jesus. Eddy."

"Dear Father Don, I like you very much. You help people that are sick and dying. Love, George."

Written by second-grade students at St. Albert the Great School in Louisville, Ky., the messages are merely two of approximately 2,500 messages posted on the site from people of all ages and walks of life who want to say Thank You to priests. Most of them have little to do with the current sex-abuse crisis in the U.S. Church. Nevertheless, they have been negatively affected by the scandal's impact.

The idea for ThankYouFather.com came to former television news workers Joe Lilly and Rick Redman one morning during coffee.

"After hearing a homily by the pastor in my parish about the impact the current crisis was having on priests who have been true to their vows, I started trying to think of something that could be done to uplift the 'good guys,'" Redman said. "The vast majority of priests are good men and true to Christ and their vows."

"Priests we knew told us they were afraid to go out in public with their collars on," Lilly added.

"Our television news experience taught us the media would hammer everything negative they could out of this story, and we felt that was unfair to the good priests," Redman said.

At first, the two men tossed around the idea of hosting some type of event. However, with few financial resources, Lilly eventually suggested the idea of a Web site, and it stuck. With the volunteer help of their friends Ingrid Bolton, Bryan Rensel, Steve Costello and Doug O'Donnell, the site was created for less than $200 and went live Aug. 1.

To date, the site has received more than 25,000 visitors and has received letters from Poland, New Zealand, Korea, Norway and China. Father Don Hill, pastor of St. Albert the Great in Louisville, said he checks the site almost every day.

"We've had priests tell us that they have wept as they have read the letters," Redman said.

"The site is not a forum for the crisis," Lilly explained. "It simply posts messages of thanks. It is no substitute for individuals' thanking their priests in person; it offers an alternative."

Money and Faith
Joe Maher of Detroit went a step further in his support of priests: He quit his job.

In May, Maher left his work as a financial systems analyst to start Opus Bono Sacerdotii - Latin for "Work for the Good of the Priesthood" - a financial and spiritual support group for priests who say they are innocent of alleged misconduct or who are repentant and reformed.

Maher made the decision after a visiting priest at his parish, Assumption Grotto Catholic Church in Detroit, was accused of raping a choir member.

Maher set to work and raised money, hired an attorney for the priest's legal defense and paid living expenses for the priest, Father Komlan Dem Houndjame - also known as Father Filicien - during the trial. Father Filicien was acquitted of the charges Aug. 30.

Ever since, Maher has been receiving approximately one call per day from parishioners or priests who are aware of other priests in need of similar support. He said he has raised more than $100,000 and is currently working with 50 priests across the country.

"These priests need help," Maher said. "Once their names are in the newspaper, it's over for them. It's very difficult to overcome it."

"Most people do not realize that once a priest is suspended he has no place to live, he no longer receives stipends and he has no salary," he said. "In most cases they are penniless."

Opus Bono Sacerdotii's network operates independently of dioceses or religious orders to provide support through legal defense, living expenses, transportation and accommodations for priests in need.

Maher has his critics. Mark Serrano of the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests told the Detroit Free Press, "You don't see any legal defense funds established for child molesters in professions like teaching or coaching."

While Maher agreed that victims have rights, he said the accused have rights, too.

But isn't it this sort of presumption of guilt that makes special support of priests necessary? "I feel that the victims currently have much support available to them, and priests have no support other than the work that we are doing," Maher said.

Families
As part of its "In Solidarity with Our Priests" program, the Knights of Columbus has encouraged families to hold clergy-appreciation nights and invite priests to individual homes for a family meal. Not only do the Knights think such efforts will encourage priests, but they also think they will foster potential future vocations. The Knights are also offering an ad that can be used to support local priests.

The West Covina, Calif.-based Catholic Resource Center is also reaching out to families in an effort to support priests and the Church. In reaction to the negative media coverage and in response to requests from inquirers, the center is distributing more than 10,000 copies of its video The Splendor of the Church free to anyone who asks for it.

The video, originally produced in 1993, features Scott Hahn, a theology professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio.

"The video provides a much-needed perspective on scandals in the Catholic Church and explains why no scandal gives us an excuse to abandon our faith," Hahn said.

"We realized that there needed to be a voice out there addressing the scandals but also guiding people to the beauty of the Church," said Ruben Quezada, office manager for the Catholic Resource Center. "This is what the video does."

Since first offering the free video in June, Quezada estimates the center has distributed approximately 7,000 copies. "Our goal is to try to reach every Catholic family in the country with a copy," Quezada said.

Each effort, although different in scope, intends to build up the priesthood that has been under attack for the past year. Redman hopes efforts such as his own will remind people to thank their priests.

"We so often take them for granted," he said, "but like Christ, they are always there for us."

© 2002. Article originally appeared in the National Catholic Register, Nov. 17-23, 2002.


posted by Tim Drake at 2:43 PM

On Paul's Conversion Day, Three Modern Converts
by Tim Drake

For sheer, earthshaking impact, the fall from a horse that turned Saul of Tarsus into St. Paul may be unequaled in the annals of Church history. That's why the Church celebrates the mysterious Conversion of St. Paul - who changed from a dogged persecutor of the early Church into the traveling Apostle who wrote much of the New Testament - each Jan. 25.

St. Paul, you may recall, was on his way to Damascus to halt those pesky Christians in their tracks when he was knocked to the ground by a blinding light. Then he heard a voice saying, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting … Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do" (Acts 9:1-6).

Twenty centuries later, people continue to be knocked off their own "horses" in all manner of ways: Approximately 200,000 converts enter the Catholic Church each year. As the Church once again remembers what was arguably the greatest conversion of all time, the Register looks at three contemporary converts whose experiences have made a comparably modest, but no less inspiring, impact on the world around them.

Producing Barbara
Barbara Hall has enjoyed a long and successful career as a television writer and producer. Currently noted for her work as executive producer of CBS' "Judging Amy," she has received the Humanitas Award, the Viewers for Quality Television Award, the TV Critics Award, a Writers Guild Award nomination and three Emmy nominations. She previously worked on such well-received shows as "Chicago Hope," "I'll Fly Away" and "Newhart."

Hall told the Register she "fell off the horse" during the decade following her first year of college. Raised in a strict Methodist home, she abandoned the faith in college. "It stopped speaking to me," Hall says. "I was falling off the horse all over the place."

The victim of a violent crime, Hall found herself facing a divorce and raising a daughter. "I examined all kinds of spiritualities, from Buddhism to yoga to meditation and therapy," she recalls.

When Hall's ex-husband remarried a Catholic, her daughter began attending Mass at a Catholic church. "I needed to know what she was hearing," says Hall, whose journey first led her to an Episcopal church. "It was unlike anything I had ever seen. Suddenly I realized that church is about Communion."

The conversion of her sister to the Catholic faith eight years earlier also played a role. "When you're thrashing around for religion, you need role models," says Hall. "You want to point to someone and say, 'I want to be that kind of Catholic.'" She was also drawn by the content and form of the Mass, recognizing a deep consistency with the early Church. "I found that I completely connected with [liturgical worship]," she says. "I wanted a liturgy that was as close to the original as possible."

The journey had its difficulties. "It was an incredible struggle because I was alone in it," explains Hall. "I had had a negative experience with religion to get over." Her conversion also forced her to develop new friendships.

For Hall, the turning point came during a discussion with one of her Christian friends about three years ago. "I knew I had this need to go back to the church, but I was railing, going through all of the contradictions. I asked my friend, 'How can you believe this? How can you live this?' She responded, 'You don't understand. I'm a bad Christian.' At that moment, everything seemed to make sense."

With friend and sponsor Barbara Nicolosi, director of Act One: a screenwriting institute, Hall attended a local parish's Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) classes. She came into the Church at St. Monica's Catholic Church in Santa Monica, Calif., last Pentecost. "Most of my evolving in the Church has happened since then," Hall says. "You begin to understand it the more you participate."

Florida's Burning Bush
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's "horse" moment came by means of a family crisis following his failed bid for the Sunshine State's top office in 1994. Bush, whose brother would go on to become president of the United States, became so obsessed with his gubernatorial campaign that he nearly lost his family as well.

Raised an Episcopalian, Bush had been introduced to the Catholic faith through his Mexican-born wife, Columba. He had occasionally accompanied his wife to church since their 1974 marriage, but it was not until 1995 that he entered the Church.

By the end of his 1994 campaign, Bush was estranged from his wife and children, one of whom was struggling with apparent substance abuse. Last year, their daughter Noelle was arrested on pharmaceutical-fraud charges; the family has confirmed that she has been through treatment.

In an effort to save his family, Bush decided to explore the Catholic faith. Bush told Time magazine: "I vowed to myself after the election that I would convert."

Beginning in November 1994, just two weeks after his defeat, Bush attended his first RCIA class. He continued with the program once a week for five months at Epiphany Catholic Church in Miami. He was received into the faith at Easter 1995.

Bush has explained that his conversion turned out to be therapeutic. Of his RCIA experience, he said in an interview, "These were real people, and it was so much fun to talk about normal things and to be treated as just a normal, ordinary person … I'm convinced that I'm better off for not having won."

Subsequent to his conversion, Bush was elected governor in 1998 and handily won re-election in 2002.

From Convert to Cardinal
Although he grew up Presbyterian, Cardinal Avery Dulles' faith had given way to atheism and skepticism by the time he entered Harvard University in 1936.

Books by Aristotle, Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine and others first opened Cardinal Dulles' eyes to the richness of the Catholic faith. At Harvard, Dulles - the son of former U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles - confronted the classics as well as contemporary Catholic writers such as Jacques Maritain and Étienne Gilson. "The more I examined, the more I was impressed with the consistency and sublimity of Catholic doctrine," he recalls.

Cardinal Dulles' conversion was a gradual, rational process. Through his study of history, he became familiar with the medieval Church and found himself attracted to it. "I studied the Reformation and read Luther, Calvin and the decrees of the Council of Trent," says the influential cardinal. "I found my sympathies were always on the Catholic side and felt that was where I belonged."

Like Hall, Cardinal Dulles also found himself attracted to the liturgy: "I was living in Cambridge, Mass., which, at that time, and perhaps still today, is a very Catholic city. The Catholic Church had a hold on its people that no Protestant church seemed to have. The people were attending church services in huge numbers and going to confession, communion, Benediction and Holy Week services."

Also like Hall, he describes his journey as a solitary one. Aside from brief contact with a Harvard professor who had converted, Cardinal Dulles was "very alone" in his journey. "That professor was the only glimpse I had of a living Catholicism," he says. "I didn't have any close friends who were practicing Catholics. Only later did I realize that others were making the same journey."

Cardinal Dulles frequented the lending library at St. Thomas More bookstore, taking books out over the weekend and returning them for more. The turning point came in 1938 after he read a chapter of St. Augustine's City of God. "I got tired of reading and went out for a walk," he recalls. After leaving Harvard's Widener Library, he walked out into a rainy spring afternoon and noticed a young tree budding along the Charles River.

"Somehow, I had a sense of God in nature and providence and work, which to me was very decisive," says Cardinal Dulles. "I got down on my knees and prayed for a while and had a sense of the presence of God that I hadn't had before. I knew that I was on my way to the Catholic Church, but I still had a lot of things to work out."

One day, Cardinal Dulles recalled asking at the bookstore, "How do I get into your church?" When they responded that he needed to be instructed by a priest, he answered that he had never met a priest. The store connected him with Edwin Quain, then a Jesuit graduate student at Harvard. He spent the next six weeks studying the Catechism.

Young Avery's decision came as a shock to his family. Although his father did not think the decision was right, he respected his son's freedom to make his own decisions.

The future cardinal was received into the Church at St. Paul's Church in Cambridge in November 1940. He was 22. After graduating from Harvard, he attended law school before being called to duty as an intelligence officer by the U.S. Naval Reserve. Upon returning to the United States, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1946. He is currently a theologian and professor at Fordham University.

Cardinal Dulles tells the story of his conversion in his book A Testimonial of Grace. In it he wrote: "If the Kingdom is the pearl of great price, the treasure buried in the field, one should be prepared to give up everything else to acquire it."

© 2003. Article originally appeared in the National Catholic Register, Jan, 19-26, 2003.
posted by Tim Drake at 2:41 PM

Edited DVDs Cleaning Up Hollywood's Act
by Tim Drake

PLEASANT GROVE, Utah - Stay-at-home mother Shauna Sheridan found herself in a dilemma. As an avid movie fan, there were many films she wanted to watch but just couldn't.

"I remember starting to watch Erin Brokovich but I had to shut it off because of all the profanity," she said.

Then there were the films her 9-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter had heard about at school and wanted to see but were not allowed to because of objectionable content. "They felt they were being cheated," Sheridan recalled.

That all changed once Sheridan discovered CleanFilms (www.CleanFilms.com). CleanFilms is one of nearly a dozen companies that offer family-friendly versions of major motion pictures. The films are edited for profanity, sex, nudity and violence.

CleanFilms offers edited versions of popular DVDs through a direct-mail rental club, similar to Netflix. Since last August, Sheridan's family has been watching films such as Spy Game and SpiderMan - movies they otherwise would not have seen.

While the edited phenomenon began in Utah and was concentrated among Mormons, there is reason to believe that there is a much larger market for the family-friendly films.

Citing a Wirthlin Worldwide poll, ClearPlay chief executive Bill Aho said, "58% of all Americans are interested in watching popular Hollywood movies that have been edited of all graphic violence, nudity and profanity."

Customers appear to be backing up that statistic.

"So often when you see nudity or a sex scene in a movie you ask yourself, why did they put that in? They could have done away with that," said Dave Miller, a sales representative with Bowman Distribution in Taylorsville, Utah, and a father of five. "The MovieMask software does such a good job of filtering objectionable content out that you don't even know it is there."

Miller said the software has allowed his daughter and four sons to watch the war films they enjoy watching.

"We've been able to watch We Were Soldiers and Blackhawk Down without having to see arms falling off," he said.

Demand for the service is growing. In 2000, CleanFlicks opened two stores. Today there are 76 locations in 18 states. In addition, demand for ClearPlay has doubled since last fall.

Additional companies such as Video II, Clean Cut, Family Safe and Family Flix also rent or sell edited videos via the Internet or through retail stores.

Other companies, such as ClearPlay, MovieMask and MovieShield, do not rent films but instead offer equipment or software that masks or filters objectionable content as the movie plays.

Catholics in particular should be eager for the service. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

"Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials."

Most R-rated movies contain simulated sexual acts, making those scenes off-limits to Catholics.

The Big Screen at Home
The concept of edited films is nothing new. They are frequently offered on airline flights and television. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Varsity Theater at Brigham Young University even showed them on the big screen.

Chad Fullmer, chief executive officer of CleanFilms, remembered seeing such movies while he was a student at the university.

"People would come from all over the valley to see the edited films," he recalled. "The lines were amazing."

Believing there was an untapped market beyond Salt Lake City, Fullmer tried unsuccessfully to obtain a license to release airline versions elsewhere. Last year, after renting films from a CleanFlicks retail store, Fullmer created his monthly online direct-mail rental club.

For a predetermined price, club members are free to rent an unlimited number of edited DVDs. They arrive and are returned by mail.

"There really is a pent-up demand for this type of thing," Fullmer said.

Within two weeks of the company's launch he had customers from across the United States and as far away as Japan.

Not Happy in Hollywood
While parents are pleased with the services the companies provide, Hollywood is not.

The debate began four years ago when a company called Sunset Video profited by editing out the nudity and sex scene from hundreds of copies of Titanic brought to them by movie-owners.

Last September, the major editing companies were named in a counter-lawsuit by the Directors Guild of America and eight Hollywood studios - Disney, DreamWorks, Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. At issue is whether editing films, or making software that changes movies, runs afoul of the "derivative work right" of copyright holders to control the making of related works.

"What they are doing is taking something that was created by others, and owned by others, and changing it without permission, and then making a buck off of the derivative product," said Andrew Levy, former spokesman for the Directors Guild of America. "That is illegal."

The studios are seeking an injunction to stop the sale and renting of the edited videos and to declare that the unauthorized editing infringes upon the studio's copyrights and trademarks.

While Hollywood has long allowed movies to be edited for television and airplane viewing, Hollywood studios control that editing.

"To alter these creations in the name of 'morality' or 'family values' is the height of hypocrisy," said Director's Guild of America president Martha Coolidge. She compared the editing to allowing parents to "rip pages out of a book simply because they don't like the way something was portrayed or said by somebody else."

Others admit they are not sure how the court case will play out.

"It's pretty unlikely that a judge would say that editing out 10 seconds of bad language would run afoul of the derivative work right," Pamela Samuelson, a law professor at the University of California, told the Wall Street Journal Online.

Meanwhile, the editing companies and media violence advocacy groups contend that parents have the right to control how they view a film in the privacy of their own homes.

"If I wanted to watch Titanic tonight with my boys, I might watch it differently than I would with my wife. It's up to me to make that choice," said Merrill Hansen, director of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Viewer Freedom. The organization's mission is to help the home and school to avoid potentially offensive content through information, solutions and creative partnerships.

"We appreciate the principles of creative choice, but there are some sound arguments on the viewer's side," Hansen added. "We would like to see the courts be most generous in allowing viewers the broadest offering of choices."

Furthermore, the owners of the editing firms argue that they are providing the studios a market the films would not otherwise have.

"We are confident that because we are purchasing the originals at a 1-to-1 ratio that the fair-use provisions under the copyright law support what we are doing," Fullmer said. "We have a growing number of members that are paying us to do this. These are people that would not normally be renting and watching these films."

© 2003. Article originally appeared in the National Catholic Register, Feb. 2-10, 2003.

posted by Tim Drake at 2:39 PM

Abortion, the Governor and Communion

California Gov. Gray Davis' bishop made headlines recently when he directed pointed criticism at Davis in a homily at a pro-life Mass on Jan. 22, garnering the attention of both local and national news media.

Ordained Bishop of Salt Lake City in 1980, Bishop Weigand was installed as bishop of Sacramento in 1994. He currently serves on the U.S. Bishops' Latin American and Pro-Life Committees. He spoke recently with Register features correspondent Tim Drake about his decision.

How does a bishop like you begin?
I was born in Bend, Ore., and raised in the Spokane, Wash., area as the third of four boys. My father was the manager of J.C. Penney stores in small towns around Spokane. He died rather prematurely from cancer when I was 18 years old. My mother stayed at home but went back to work after my father's death, working in the county auditor's office. She served two or three terms as the elected county auditor until she retired.

My mother had been a Presbyterian and converted prior to her marriage. She made a wonderful Catholic. My father was the strong element in the faith. He was very active and had a great love for the Church. He always spoke positively of priests and our own parish priest, and that influenced me. We would never have thought of missing Mass on Sunday. He set the tone. Even if we were on vacation, he would find out in advance where Mass was and the times. It was a very intentional sort of thing, and that stayed with me all my life.

What led to your vocation?
I attended Catholic schools growing up. My elementary years through seventh grade were spent at Mt. St. Joseph's Academy in Tekoa, Washi. During fifth and sixth grade I was an altar server, and I would say this is when I first felt called to the priesthood. During sixth or seventh grade it came to me that I should serve Mass every day during Lent, and so I did so at the Sisters' convent every morning at 6:30. That is probably when my vocation was clarified. After seventh grade my family moved to St. Maries, Idaho. In August 1951, after eighth grade, I entered Mt. Angel's Seminary in Oregon. I was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Boise, Idaho.

What led you to make your much-publicized comments of Jan. 22?
Locally, prior to Christmas there had been a very public exchange between Gov. Gray Davis and Msgr. Edward Kavanagh [head of St. Patrick's Home]. At the spur of the moment, the governor intended to visit St. Patrick's Home for Children, which was originally an orphanage and is now a home for troubled youth, to hand out gifts.

Msgr. Kavanagh told the governor not to come onto the property because of his aggressive abortion stance. Msgr. Kavanagh felt that it wouldn't be authentic for the governor to give the impression that he was pro-children. The controversy was played out in the media. The governor invited some of the children to the Capitol and handed out gifts anyway, essentially outmaneuvering the monsignor in the media.

Davis made widely quoted comments that many Catholics hold his pro-abortion views, leaving the impression that such is acceptable. Because of the real possibility of confusion in the minds of some about what is the authentic Catholic teaching on the Gospel of life, I felt obligated to set the record straight.

I used the opportunity of Jan. 22 to do so. As diocesan bishop, I was speaking to our Catholic people, doing so in our Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament from my "cathedra," or teaching chair. No media were known to be present.

When the media contacted me later that day, I assured them that it was not my intention to "take on" the governor but to teach and clarify the faith. That is an important part of my charge as bishop of the diocese. I mentioned the governor specifically only because he has chosen to make his Catholic credentials a public matter on a number of occasions in the context of the abortion issue.

Among other things, I said:
"As your bishop, I have to say clearly that anyone - politician or otherwise - who thinks it acceptable for a Catholic to be pro-abortion is in very great error, puts his or her soul at risk and is not in good standing with the Church. Such a person should have the integrity to acknowledge this and choose of his own volition to abstain from receiving holy Communion until he has a change of heart."

The Holy Spirit was present and my message touched hearts. There were people crying in the pews.

How have people reacted?
The Catholic response has been overwhelmingly positive. We have received many hundreds of supportive letters, e-mails, faxes and telephone calls at my office, the cathedral and to our Catholic newspaper. They appreciate the clarity.

There have been a few negative responses, but most seem to be based on misinformation about what I actually said on Jan. 22. I clarified my remarks in my Feb. 8 "Feed My Lambs" column.

What has been your message to those who disagree?
To those who hold views similar to those of Davis and seem confused about what the Church teaches or about what is required of one who is Catholic, I would urge them to study, consult and pray.

In our Catholic understanding, we are to receive Communion worthily and be properly disposed. We are also to be free of serious sin - going to confession first, if need be.

For somebody who takes a very public stance that is contrary to the teaching of the Church on some matter of great importance, there is the additional obstacle of giving public scandal. This would certainly be the case of a public official who makes a public point of being Catholic and also pro-abortion or speaks against Church teachings in other important matters. They have a duty as disciples not to use their public office to confuse their brothers and sisters in Christ. Davis left confusion.

Also, for Catholics, receiving Communion is not simply a private act. It is not something merely "between God and me." We are members of the Body of Christ, the Church. When we receive Communion, while we believe that we truly receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus, we also publicly express by our action that we are in union with [in communion with] the Body of Christ, the Church.

If one is not, in fact, in union with the Church on an important matter, such as the Gospel of life, then one is proclaiming a fundamental contradiction by the very act of receiving holy Communion. This principle is also applied in ecumenical relations. We do not admit non-Catholics to holy Communion in major part because they are not in full communion with the Catholic Church. In our Catholic understanding, it would not be authentic and fitting to receive Communion without being in union with the Church on all important matters.

Do you plan to take any further action?
No. Some people thought I was "considering formally forbidding the [governor] from receiving Communion." I did not intimate that I had any such thing in mind or that we would refuse Communion to someone that approaches.

Some people thought that there must inevitably follow a further step, namely to excommunicate Davis. But there are no inevitable consequences to my action.

After instructing people, we respect them and strive to treat them as adults. We prefer to trust in their sincerity and good will. That is why I stated that a person of integrity should "choose of his own volition to abstain from receiving holy Communion until he has a change of heart."

You have tried unsuccessfully to meet with the governor, have you not?
Yes. Right after the homily, the governor's spokesperson said that the governor was not going to back down and that I should not be telling people how to live their faith. I sent the governor's office a copy of the homily, as well as a polite cover letter requesting an appointment. His office has replied that he is very busy with budget issues.

© 2003. Article originally appeared in the National Catholic Register, Feb. 23-March 2, 2003.
posted by Tim Drake at 2:35 PM

Out of the Starting Gate - and Into the Church
An Interview with Jockey Jerry Bailey
by Tim Drake

Bailey has earned more than $22 million in purses by winning 225 races in 900 starts. He has won the Kentucky Derby twice, the Preakness twice, the Belmont once, the Dubai World Cup four times and the Breeder's Cup 13 times. He's also won the Eclipse Award for best jockey of the year - the Oscar for jockeys - for six of the last eight seasons.

Just before leaving for this year's Kentucky Derby, Bailey spoke with Register features correspondent Tim Drake from his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Where are you from originally?
I was born in Dallas and raised in El Paso, Texas. I have two sisters, one who is four years older and another who is 13 months younger than I am.

What did your parents do for a living?
My father is a pedodontist - a children's dentist. My mother taught home economics until the kids came along. Then she worked as a housewife. She died in 1975 of breast cancer, when I was 17.

How did you handle your mother's death?
It could have been worse. I could have been 7 instead of 17, but I don't think I dealt with my mother's death particularly well. It is a piece of a young man's life that is not easily overcome. I went out on the road and fell into the lifestyle of those people around me - bars and late nights. I ended up becoming an alcoholic.

What led you to become a jockey?
Texas didn't have legalized racing at the time, but my father used to frequent the races across the border at Sunland Park in New Mexico. He was so enthralled that he purchased several racehorses and has owned them all his life. I became hooked by osmosis. In addition to summer jobs like paper routes and mowing lawns, I worked at the stables.

Did you grow up Catholic?
No. I grew up Methodist but wasn't terribly spiritual growing up. Spiritually, I didn't have a basis to draw from. That's probably why I fell on the side of the fence that I fell on.

What led you to become Catholic?
I was married to my wife, Suzee, in 1985. She is Catholic, and both of my sisters married Catholics. Although I wasn't Catholic, I attended a Catholic church with my wife. She has been a great power of example to me.

We have dual residences in both Florida and New York. I went to see our priest on Long Island, N.Y., and he referred me to some members of Alcoholics Anonymous. I recovered in 1989 and am still recovering.

After that, I became more spiritual. I believe God had saved my life and I wanted to grow closer to him. I was received into the Catholic Church at St. Bernadette's Catholic Church in Hollywood, Fla., about four or five years ago. One of my sisters has also converted and the other one is debating it.

Was there a particular incident that led you to join Alcoholics Anonymous?
No, it was a steady progression. We didn't have a child at the time, and it was apparent to me that if I was going to be responsible and be a father, my lifestyle had to change. We suffered with infertility issues but eventually conceived. Our son, Justin, is now 10 years old.

Tell me a little about the daily life of a jockey. Do you ride daily, even when you're not racing? How do you prepare for a race?
Generally races run five days a week, Wednesday through Sunday.

Most mornings I'll exercise the horses that I will be riding the next day or the next week, and I'll go riding at about 6 a.m. I get on them and work them around the racetrack, not at race speed but at three-quarters speed. Then I'll go to the barn area where the horses are stabled and do some public relations with the trainers and go over the mounts with my agent. Every jockey has an agent.

If I'm able, I make it a habit to return home between 9:30 a.m. and noon, and return back to the track for my races in the afternoon. They typically start at 1 p.m. and then run every half-hour.

How does your spiritual life fit into that routine?
Every day the racetrack chaplain has a daily devotion at noon in the jockey room. Wherever I'm at, I'm usually there for devotions every day.

I'm usually away on Sunday, but I try to find a Mass. If I'm in New York, I'll go to church on Long Island. If I'm in Kentucky, I'll attend St. Paul's. If I'm in California, I have to catch a 6 p.m. Mass after the races.

How do you develop a relationship with your horse?
You either have a knack of getting along with horses or you don't. You communicate to the horse through your hands - through the reins and the bridle. That's how you control them and communicate with them. Basically, if you have something through your mouth and someone is sitting on your back and they kick your ribs, you go. If they pull on you, you stop.

The better jockeys are a bit more subtle and have gentler hands. Some jockeys talk to their horses.

What do you most enjoy about working with horses?
I didn't initially get into racing because of the horses. I liked the competition the best, and I still do. I like the actual race itself the best - from the time the gate opens to the end of the wire.

How much of a race depends upon the horse and how much upon the jockey?
Ninety percent is the horse and 10% is the jockey. A good jockey can't make a bad horse win. A bad one can get a good horse beat.

How has your faith impacted your work?
I can't say how it's affected my work, but I can say that my faith has helped me to handle life a lot better.

I've run across many people in this business who are very spiritual people. I realize that the reason I'm winning is that God has blessed me with a talent for winning races. That keeps my head in perspective.

You've said you plan to hang up your jockey uniform soon, haven't you?
Yes; it's a dangerous sport and not one you always walk away from. It also takes me away from my family a lot. I only race here in Florida three months during the winter, so the rest of the time I'm on the road. I return home every Sunday night and then have to leave again on Wednesday. I might quit at the end of this year, or next year. I take it a year at a time. At the most I would say I have a year and a half left.

What are your future plans?
I've had some conversations with a couple of networks as far as doing some broadcasting periodically throughout the year, but I do not plan to do anything full time that takes me away from my family like horse racing does.

You are one of the most successful jockeys of all time. You've earned more than $20 million during your career. To what do you owe your success?
I have to look above and thank God. I owe it all to him.

© 2003. This article originally appeared in the National Catholic Register, May 11-19, 2003.


posted by Tim Drake at 12:46 PM

Reaching Out from Behind Bars: Evangelist and Apologist Russell Ford
By Tim Drake

Russell Ford may be behind bars, but in many ways he is more active in Catholic evangelizing than most Catholics living in the outside world. From his cell in Alabama’s Draper Prison, Ford evangelizes not only with words, but also with wood.

Ford is a much different person today than the one who came to prison 16 years ago. “I came to prison a hate-filled and embittered agnostic, living as a practical atheist,” said Ford, who was sentenced to 25 years in 1987.

Ford’s agnostic-to-Catholic conversion story is told on the audio-tape No Escape, available through St. Joseph’s Communications.

As Ford tells it, toward the end of his first year in prison an older Catholic convict, whom had been inspired by Pope John Paul II to be an evangelist to prisoners, tricked Ford into studying the catechism. After not having much success at first, the older convict appealed to Ford’s ego by challenging him to read The Baltimore Catechism #2. He told him he doubted that Russ would be able to answer the questions after reading the book. The tactic worked, sparking an interest in Ford.

Later, Ford became convinced by the intellectual realization that the Catholic Church was the Church founded by Christ. After learning of Christ’s real presence in the Holy Eucharist, Ford emotionally embraced the faith. He was received into the Catholic Church on February 11, 1989 — the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.

While on his own journey of faith, Ford also became a catechist for others. “My chaplain handed me a catechism and urged me to teach other convicts,” explained Ford. Using the Sharing the Faith video series by Father Robert Fox, Ford continues to teach his fellow inmates about the faith.

His success is impressive. Ford now counts 61 godson converts, and has played a direct role in the conversion of nearly 200 other inmates. Perhaps more impressive, the recidivism rate among his Catholic converts is only 1.6%, compared to a general recidivism rate between 70 and 80 percent for the state.

Prisoners, Ford has written, are drawn by a sense of the sacred. He compares his work as an evangelist to that of being a “tag-team salesman.” “The salesman presents the product with its features and benefits to prospective buyers,” said Ford, “once the presentation has been made, the Holy Spirit comes in for the close.”

It is work for which Ford has paid a price. As a white Catholic evangelist in a predominantly black Evangelical Protestant prison system, Ford has been beaten by a guard, unjustly locked in solitary confinement, had his Bible and books confiscated, and has been denied parole five times. His parole was once denied reportedly because Ford’s priest would not reveal what Ford had divulged under the seal of the confessional to a female member of the parole board.

Ford’s catechetical work has also led him to found an apostolate for prisoners and to engage in apologetics writing.

Reaching Out to those in Chains
Ford sees his apostolate work as a mission of outreach. According to Ford, there are more than 2 million men and women in the nation’s prisons. “We are losing the battle for souls in prison by default,” said Ford.

“The largest mission field in America has almost no Catholic presence in evangelization. The groups competing for convicts’ souls are not just Fundamentalists and Islamic sects, but also growing numbers of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Native American spirituality, Wicca, Druidism, and even Satanism,” explained Ford.

In response, with the help of his first godson, Phil Hanna, Ford founded First Century Christian Ministries (FCCM) dedicated to evangelizing prisoners in cooperation with prison chaplains. FCCM’s newsletter, “The Perfect Prisoner” reaches more than 1,100 subscribers, 75 percent of whom are prisoners. The lay apostolate sends materials such as Catholic books and magazines, catechisms, rosaries, and scapulars to more than 70 prison chaplains across the nation.

Other FCCM initiatives include a strictly screened pen-pal program for Catholic inmates and a “Bibles for Inmates” program.

The program has received praise from various prison ministry offices. “I can’t speak highly enough of FCCM,” said Heidi Sumner, secretary to the prison ministry office for the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Fla. “They have donated a wealth of materials from their members to our ministry.” Lay volunteers with the office have distributed the materials to 16 correctional facilities in the five-county diocese.

“If we’re not in there with the Gospel, something else will grab them,” said Joseph Strada, chairman of First Century Christian Ministries. “While they have their debt to society, we have an obligation to save their souls.”

Reaching out with the Pen
Another way that Ford evangelizes is through his writing. At the urging of Father Killian Mooney, S. T., Ford began engaging in Catholic writing. Influenced by the work of Catholic Answers’ Karl Keating and Peter Kreeft, Ford’s work has appeared in such Catholic publications as This Rock, Communio Magazine, Immaculata Magazine, The Wanderer and Homiletic and Pastoral Review.

In addition, Ford is the only Alabama convict to have published a book from prison. His straightforward and streetwise The Missionary’s Catechism (Magnificat Institute Press) poses some 600 questions and answers based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Catholics such as apologist Karl Keating, the late theologian Father John Hardon, and Fathers of Mercy Superior General Father Bill Casey have endorsed Ford’s work.

Ford’s writing is extraordinary for several reasons.

First, the writing is done amidst the constant noise of the prison, an environment which Ford admits is anything but conducive to spiritual writing. Second, Ford has access to neither a computer nor a typewriter. His articles and books are entirely written by hand. Third, Ford suffers from arthritis, making writing with a pen difficult. “Every word is wrought from pain,” said friend and Jewish convert to Catholicism Marty Barrack.

Reaching Out through Wood
Ford’s words aren’t the only thing wrought from pain. Ford also carries out a woodworking trade from the prison’s hobby craft shop. Proceeds from the trade help to fund the work of his prison apostolate. It’s a vocation that Ford came to by accident.

“I was making rosaries and they were not selling, so I started watching the guys who were doing woodworking,” said Ford, “and I started making things.” It is a vocation to which Ford is able to devote approximately two-and-a-half-hours per day.

Using largely self-taught skills, Ford fashions stunning heirloom gaming tables, ladies jewelry boxes, cigar humidors, rifle racks, quilt racks, and wall and mantle clocks from solid hardwoods, such as cherry, walnut, red oak, maple and mahogany. The one-of-a-kind pieces, such as the rifle cabinet or wall clocks, start at approximately $400-500 and retail for more.

Ford uses hand-rubbed finishes that strongly accent the grains in the wood. Each piece is inconspicuously signed and dated. Delivery typically takes six to eight weeks.

In addition, Ford also produces a line of decorative Catholic wall carvings. Each carving is meticulously hand-carved by Ford. The carvings feature one of more than 30 different prayers, such as the Ten Commandments, Hail Mary, the Prayer of St. Francis and many others. Each plaque is decorated with molded edges and traditional Catholic symbols, such as a Celtic cross, the fleur-de-lis, or a chalice and host. The symbols are accentuated with a partial or complete stone inlay. Ford’s hand-carved wall coverings range in price from $35-50 and retail between $50 and $75.

Last year one customer ordered ten small plaques for her friends and family as Christmas gifts. “I have received many thanks from the recipients,” she said.

Federal appellate attorney Fred Isaacs of Lake Oswego, Ore. first learned of Ford through his Catholic writing. Fred and his wife Nancy, co-direct the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) program at their local parish and frequently distribute copies of Ford’s Missionary Catechism to their RCIA students.

Only later did Isaacs learn of Ford’s skill with wood. Isaacs commissioned Ford to build a Regulator-style clock. To say that Isaacs was pleased with the result is an understatement.

“He made us perhaps the most beautiful clock we have ever seen,” said Isaacs. “It has a German movement and a beautiful wood case with a piano finish. It took Ford several months to complete, but it is a work of art and it graces our living room fireplace mantle.”

Isaacs was also pleased with the price. “We paid about one-fourth, or less, of what a custom-made clock would cost elsewhere,” said Isaacs.

In addition to individual sales, Ford also makes his woodwork available to retail stores.

Marty Barrack has devoted 11 pages to guest apologist Russell Ford on his own apologetics web site Second Exodus (www.SecondExodus.com). There, customers can read about Ford and his work, see photos of his woodworking projects, and place orders for his books and wood products.

“Russ does superb work,” said Barrack, who owns some of Ford’s woodworking as well. “He makes woodwork items as if for Christ himself. I know the love for Christ that Russ pours into every piece, and I know the pain in Russ’ arthritic hands that he offers up to Christ as he works.”

© 2003, This article originally appeared in the Catholic Marketing Network Trade Journal. Tim Drake is features correspondent with the National Catholic Register, and the editor of Saints of the Jubilee (1stBooks, 2002). He writes from Saint Cloud, Minnesota.
posted by Tim Drake at 2:33 PM

Signs of Contradiction in the 21st Century
By Tim Drake

By most external appearances one might suggest, as Nietzche did, that faith is dead. Only 35 percent of Catholics, we are told, believe in the Real Presence. Forty-five percent believe that abortion is acceptable. Fifty percent do not attend Church regularly. Eighty percent believe contraception is permissible. The secular media tells us that Catholicism is passé. Our pope is derided as “rigid”. Although the Church defies such labeling, our teachings are described as “traditional,” “old-fashioned,” and in some circles, “conservative.”

Faithful Catholics find themselves surrounded by dissenting views on all sides – from television and radio, the newspaper and magazines, in motion pictures, among non-Catholic friends and family, and even, at times, among fellow Catholics.

If, however, we know where to look, we can find light shining in the apparent darkness. For if we look beyond the headlines, into our own communities, we will discover pockets of great faith. If we will look within our Churches we will find vibrant Catholics and Catholic families – signs of contradiction leading us toward history’s greatest Sign of Contradiction.

It is through such examples that we can best learn how to defend our Catholic faith in an age that seems to have abandoned most of the Church’s values.

What is worth defending?

If we are like most people, we defend those things that we love – our freedom, our families. A gardener, worried that invading rabbits might raid his precious carrots and cabbage, constructs a fence to defend his produce. If we are good parents we defend our families against the many dangers which threaten our children.

Yet, we take our faith for granted. How much more should we love Christ and His Church than we love our garden, our pet, or our spouse? How much more should we love Christ than television, golf, or shopping? What does it mean to love Christ as he loved his Bride, the Church? Are we willing to lay down our very lives for her?

By virtue of our baptism and the graces received at confirmation we, too, are called to defend Chist’s bride, the Church. The question, however, might be “how do we defend the faith”?

Perhaps it would first be advantageous to examine those ways in which we fail to defend our faith. For in exploring what we should not do, we will discover that which we should.

In what ways do we fail to defend our faith?

Foremost, we cannot defend our faith if we do not know it. When Joe or Jane Watercooler make an off-hand, offensive remark at the office about the Blessed Virgin Mary or the pope, are we willing, ready, or even able to come to the Church’s defense? When a non-Catholic questions why we believe in purgatory, are we prepared to provide an intelligent response or do we simply shrug our shoulders? Too few have received the proper catechesis to explain, let alone, defend the Church’s positions.

The key then is through education. It has been said that knowledge of Scripture is knowledge of Christ; ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. Because the Church’s teachings are founded upon Scripture, we can also say that ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of the Church. So then, in order to defend the faith we must study it and come to know it. Whether this is through spiritual reading, apologetics tapes, fundamentals classes, adult education, or Bible study we must educate ourselves in the truth. Only then will we be adequately equipped to defend it.

Furthermore, we cannot defend our faith if we are not living it. The Evangelical convert Thomas Howard has said that “Catholic is not enough.” We cannot be content to be mere “Catholics” – Catholics who attend Church irregularly, who ignore the Church’s teaching on contraception, or who do not partake of her Sacraments.

We are not free to pick and choose the doctrines that we will follow any more so than we can choose whether to believe in the Trinity. To do so is to make a mockery of our faith. Anything less than orthodoxy is heresy.

Finally, we cannot defend the faith if we say one thing and do another. We lead by example. Therefore, if we are living a sinful lifestyle, we are not defending the faith. Rather, through scandal, we are leading others away from it.

How then do we defend the Church?

Certainly, one way of defending the Church is by constructing a fence. Yet, we are called to be in the world. Therefore, rather than fencing ourselves in we need to defend our faith by becoming living examples.

We can defend our faith actively. This could mean engaging in a friendly apologetics debate with a friend or colleague, writing a letter to the editor, or standing up publicly for the Church’s teaching on a given issue. While we are not all called to defend the faith in this way, we can rest assured that if we are being called to do so, the Holy Spirit will be with us.

We can also defend the Church simply by living our faith fully. We defend the Church every time we avail ourselves of her sacraments. We defend her every time we are absolved of our sins in the sacrament of reconciliation, every time we pray in public, and every time we receive of Our Lord in the Eucharist.

Such acts of faith speak perhaps more loudly than any letter we could ever write. Husbands defend their faith when they go straight home to their wife and children after work, sacrificing that trip to the bar. Women defend their faith when they turn off the soap operas that feed them the world’s lies. Parents defend the faith when they teach their children what the Church really teaches and believes. And we defend our faith every time we reach out to help another in need.

We silently defend our faith in myriad ways each day that we love God and one another and keep his commandments. This is our Catholic Christian call.

It is good to recall that we are not alone in our struggles to defend the faith. Not only do we have the example of fellow Catholic Christian neighbors, but a “cloud of witnesses” has gone before us and intercedes on our behalf.

The Church has officially recognized more than 12,000 martyrs for the faith in the last century alone. Pope John Paul II, has beatified and canonized more than 1,400 individuals since the beginning of his pontificate. The Holy Father recognizes that that in an age marked by such unbelief, we will need their modern examples as we move forward in the new millennium.

And what shining examples they are - examples such as Blessed Gianna Beretta Molla – the Italian doctor and mother who gave up her life for her unborn daughter, and Blessed Miguel Pro – who in the face of death itself, in Mexico, could cry out “Vivo Christo Rey!” before his execution. Or, from this year alone, we have the examples of a mystic, a visionary, and the founder of a lay movement in the newly canonized Padre Pio, Juan Diego, and Josemaria Escriva.

Yet, the Holy Father has said that to be a Christian in the new millennium may require a different kind of martyrdom. We may be forced to endure the slow, gradual martyrdom of facing daily the opposition to the Church that is so visible around us. We face it every time we receive a hostile comment about a Church teaching, every time we hear a harsh remark about our family size, and every time we are insulted for our belief that every human person has the right to life.

It is not difficult to see what it is that we are being called to defend the Church against. We are called to defend her against the secular humanism and the moral relativism so abundant in the culture at large. We are called to defend her against both apathy and heresy. We are also called to defend her against false ecumenism, or a watering down of the faith, which says that all roads lead to Truth. In short, we are called to defend her against anything less than the fullness of the faith.

We would do well to recall the words of a young, Polish cardinal who was asked to preach the annual Lenten retreat in March 1976. “If now… Jesus Christ is once again revealing himself to men as the light of the world, has he not also become at one and the same time that sign, which more than ever, men are resolved to oppose?” said then-Cardinal Karol Wojtyla.

Better yet, we would do well to remember Christ’s words from John 15 - “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.”

Tim Drake is features correspondent with the National Catholic Register and editor of Saints of the Jubilee. He resides in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
posted by Tim Drake at 2:25 PM

Mel Gibson’s Passion
by Tim Drake

Mel Gibson has either directed or played a continuing series of heroic men: William Wallace in Braveheart, Benjamin Martin in The Patriot, Lt. Col. Hal Moore in We Were Soldiers, and Reverend Graham Hess in Signs. So, it should come as no surprise that he is directing a production on the greatest hero of human history, Jesus Christ. Gibson’s most recent project is the self-financed $25-million epic The Passion. Currently being filmed on the sound stage in Rome’s Cinecitta stuido, the film will explore the final 12 hours of Christ’s life.

“There is no greater hero story than this one,” said Gibson, “about the greatest love one can have, which is to lay down one’s life for someone. God becoming man and men killing God – if that’s not action, nothing is.”

Jesus has been the subject of more than 100 films, but never one quite like this. The Passion promises to be neither Jesus of Nazareth nor King of Kings.

For starters, the film will be told in three foreign languages — Hebrew, Latin, and Aramaic — without subtitles. Jesuit language expert Father William Fulco translated the script into Aramaic. Many critics have questioned the intelligence of filming a movie in two dead languages.

For Gibson, however, he feels that the languages will lend an air of authenticity to the film. The visuals, he insists, will tell the story.

“Caravaggio’s paintings don’t have subtitles,” said Gibson in a Zenit interview. “The Nutcracker Ballet doesn’t have subtitles, but people get the message. I think that the image will overcome the language barrier.”

The film also promises to be both bloody and violent. Early photographs have depicted a beaten and bloodied Christ carrying His Cross on the road to Calvary.

“No mere man could have survived this torture,” said Gibson.

EWTN news director Raymond Arroyo saw an early rough-cut of a portion of the film. The violence he described as “intense, but never gratuitous.” He found it “as disturbing as it is comforting.”

The project first took root in Gibson when he began taking his own faith more seriously more than a decade ago. The script is based upon the diary of St. Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824) as collected in the book “The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” It’s a book Gibson found in his library, but didn’t know he had until it literally fell into his hands when he was reaching for another book. The script also draws from “The Mystical City of God” by venerable Mary of Agreda, and the Gospels.

“We’ve done the research. I’m telling the story as the Bible tells it,” said Gibson.

For Gibson, the film is clearly a work of faith. Gibson has a makeshift chapel installed on the set and attends daily Mass, in Latin. A priest on the set has been available for both Mass and confessions.

As interesting as the film itself is Gibson’s choice of actor to portray Christ. Last June, Gibson hand-picked the then 33-year-old Jim Caviezel (The Count of Monte Cristo, The Thin Red Line) to play the role. Caviezel himself is a devout Catholic with a devotion to Mary and the Rosary.

Of the role, Caviezel said, “Truthfully, it was never up to me. I’m interested in letting God work through me to play this role. I believe the Holy Spirit has been leading me in the right direction.”

On the set Caviezel is a daily communicant and has taken to wearing relics in his costume during the shooting.

“I can’t be successful in this business if I do not pray,” Caviezel told Al Kresta in an interview.

When Gibson first saw him onscreen he said, “He looks like the Shroud of Turin.”

The sight of Caviezel walking the streets has moved the townsfolk of Matera, where much of the film has been shot. Caviezel said that he gets one of two reactions. The people either shriek with laughter or they fall on their knees at his feet, lay their hands on him, and chant “Jesu! Jesu!”

The film is a monumental risk. It’s a Catholic film, by a Catholic director, starring a Catholic actor, about a Catholic subject.

It isn’t surprising then that Gibson claims that he has come under fire. Gibson told Fox news’ Bill O’Reilly that reporters had been digging for dirt on Gibson and his family. The New York Times Sunday Magazine recently ran an article attempting to tarnish Gibson by associating him with some of his father Hutton’s more outlandish ideas. To date, Gibson has not been able to secure a distributor for the film.

It’s expected that the film will open in theaters in April 2004, just in time for Lent.

Ultimately, the film seeks to do what Christ did — namely, change lives. In fact, the film has already had an impact. After the filming of the scourging scene many of the film crew had tears in their eyes. Reportedly, one of the Italian actors in the film has come back to the sacraments after a long hiatus, and another member of the film crew, an atheist, is exploring the Catholic faith.

“By the time audiences get to the crucifixion scene, I believe there will be many who can’t take it and will have to walk out — I guarantee it,” said Caviezel. “And I believe there will be many who will stay and be drawn to the truth.”

© 2003, This article originally appeared in Southern Renaissance. Tim Drake serves as executive editor of Catholic.net and features correspondent with the National Catholic Register. He writes from Saint Cloud, Minnesota.
posted by Tim Drake at 2:22 PM

Catholic Universities Push Abortions To Students
by TIM DRAKE

Note: This article won the Bernardin-O'Connor Award for Pro-Life Journalism presented by Priests for Life at the Catholic Press Association in Atlanta on May 30, 2003.

SAN FRANCISCO — The McWalters of San Francisco were shocked by the news that the Catholic university they are paying to educate their son is promoting abortions.

If a University of San Francisco student involved in a pregnancy went to the school’s Web site for help during the last two semesters, it would have given only three options: two abortion businesses and a non-Catholic abortion counseling center.

In other words, none of the city’s eight pro-life pregnancy resource centers and maternity homes is mentioned on the Web site — not even the Gabriel Project at St. Ignatius Catholic Church located on the University of San Francisco’s campus.

The University of San Francisco is one of at least a dozen Catholic universities in the United States directing students to Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses for information, services and even employment.

The situation comes to light after Dec. 5 words by Pope John Paul II casting doubt on the Catholic character of abortion-promoting universities.

“Clearly,” the Holy Father said, “university centers that do not respect the laws of the Church and the teachings of the magisterium, particularly in the areas of bioethics, cannot be endorsed with the character of a Catholic university.”

The University of San Francisco is a Jesuit college. In the past, Jesuit Superior General Peter Hans Kolvenbach has said, “For some [Jesuit] universities, it is probably too late to restore their Catholic character.”

The Dirty Dozen
The Cardinal Newman Society, an organization that works to restore Catholic identity to Catholic campuses, revealed a list of 12 colleges with offending links. In addition to the University of San Francisco, the list included Boston College; St. Xavier University, Loyola University and DePaul University in Chicago; the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minn.; Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.; John Carroll University in Cleveland; Seattle University; King’s College and Alvernia College in Pennsylvania; and Santa Clara University in California.

The University of San Francisco’s Student Health Education Program’s “pregnancy” page not only linked to Planned Parenthood but also provided a telephone number to Planned Parenthood Golden Gate and a description of its services. Another link promoted the local pro-abortion Women’s Community Clinic. The links have been up at least since last March.

While most of the “dirty dozen” Web pages feature direct links or telephone numbers to Planned Parenthood, others go a bit further. Alvernia College in Reading, Pa., lists Planned Parenthood as a potential site for volunteer work. DePaul University’s department of sociology offers internships at Planned Parenthood, and its women’s studies program lists Planned Parenthood among several career opportunities for its students.

Outrage
Negative reaction to the revelations was swift.

“The fact that Catholic colleges have links to Planned Parenthood on their health service Web pages is another piece of evidence that the word ‘abortion’ has lost its meaning, even within many sectors of the Church,” said Father Frank Pavone, president of Priests for Life. He urged all Catholic institutions to eliminate even the appearance of cooperation with Planned Parenthood and offered his organization’s assistance to any institution to make such changes.

For others, the Web sites are merely the latest signs of many Catholic universities’ reluctance to implement Ex Corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church), Pope John Paul II’s 1990 apostolic constitution on Catholic higher education.

“In Ex Corde Ecclesiae, one of the requirements of a Catholic university is that all official actions and commitments must be in accord with the university’s Catholic identity,” said Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society. “Anything that is announced or promoted by a university’s Web site is an official action.”

Many bishops and Catholic leaders have spoken publicly with regard to Planned Parenthood. In 1998, Bishop John Yanta of Amarillo, Texas, said, “I ask all Catholics not to use Planned Parenthood’s services, not to belong to any of their boards, not to serve as a volunteer and not to be employed there.”

Feeling the heat of recent publicity and public outrage, at least three of the universities — the University of San Francisco, Georgetown University and Boston College — quickly removed or hid their offensive Web pages.

The University of San Francisco’s “pregnancy” page now reads, “This portion of the Web site is currently being reviewed.”
The university wouldn’t comment for this story but issued a press release to respond to the criticism.

“The university is taking the concerns that have been expressed to us under advisement as we review the Student Health Education Program Web site content,” said the release, signed by Monica Leifer, assistant director of media relations for the university.
“In the meantime,” it added, “while we make a decision regarding the information provided on the pregnancy section of the Web site, we have eliminated all Web site links and are asking our students to contact us directly with inquiries.”

Problem Remains
Although the link from the “pregnancy” page has been removed as of this writing, the individual Web pages promoting Planned Parenthood and the Women’s Community Clinic are still available through the university’s Web site.

Those pages tout Planned Parenthood as a source for pregnancy testing and counseling, birth control and emergency contraception (which causes early abortion) but fail to mention Planned Parenthood’s role as the nation’s leading abortion business. The Women’s Community Clinic provides pregnancy testing and counseling and referrals to abortion clinics.

Likewise, Georgetown University apparently removed a “sex health and safety” page from its Web site. Canada’s LifeSite News reported that the page linked to a Planned Parenthood Web site, promoted the morning-after pill (an abortion-causing drug) and encouraged the use of sexual aids, including dental dams and latex gloves for “safer sex.” While the page has been removed, it is still identified by the Web site’s search engine.

Reaction on Campus
University of San Francisco senior Brendan McWalters had one explanation for the links on the school’s Web site.
“The Student Health Education Program has a certain degree of autonomy,” he said, speculating that “the decision was probably made by the current coordinator.”

Neither Melissa Kenzig, coordinator of the student health services program, nor Margaret Higgins, vice president for university life, returned phone calls seeking further information about how the material made it onto the Web site.

University of San Francisco senior Peter Halpin said he was not surprised by the revelation and was angered by it.

“I’m used to these kind of things at the university, but this was even more blatant,” Halpin said. “The fact that the university is no longer trying to hide it is both indefensible and arrogant.”

In response, Halpin wrote an e-mail to the university’s president, Jesuit Father Stephen Privett, and Higgins, listing the alternatives available in San Francisco and San Jose.

“Neither offered an explanation,” Halpin said. “President Privett said that the university was in full agreement with the Church and the Church’s teaching on abortion. They both said that the Web page was under review. My contentment will depend upon whether or not the university gets rid of the link.”

The university wouldn’t respond to requests for an interview about campus opinion.

Thomas Harmon, president the Cardinal Newman Society’s Association of Students at Catholic Colleges and a senior at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., saw the whole question about Web sites in the context of the larger one about Catholic identity.
“Catholic college students are leading the renewal of Catholic higher education,” Harmon said, adding that his group’s emphasis “is on positive campus programs to teach and promote the Catholic faith, but when an outcry is needed, college administrators will hear us loud and clear.”

© 2002, Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota. A version of this article originally appeared in the National Catholic Register, December 22-28, 2002.

posted by Tim Drake at 2:05 PM

Kneeling before the Sacred
By Tim Drake

Just minutes before the consecration, our 6-month-old daughter filled her pants.

It was Thursday and we were at daily Mass. It would have been hard not to notice us. We were the only parishioners at Mass who were younger than 40, and our family of six made up exactly 25 percent of the total parishioners.

So, when our daughter began loudly filling her diaper it was only slightly embarrassing. After all, these people see and HEAR us every day. They’re used to it. It was just another instance of walking out of Mass to attend to a dirty, crying, or misbehaving child.

Knowing my daughter’s propensity for soiling through all of her garments I quickly escorted her, diaper bag in hand, to the floor in the children’s play area to change her diaper. Nothing could have prepared me for the task I was to face at 5 minutes to 9 on this particular morning.

The outside of the diaper was soiled. The onesie was dirty. It was on the changing pad. It was on her legs. It was impossible to change her without getting it elsewhere.

The cleaning and disinfectant process was a long ordeal and I missed the majority of the consecration, but I also learned some things in the process.

So often, as I parent, I find myself asking, “Why me, why this, why now?” frustrated by my children’s timing. Yet, even in the midst of a dirty diaper I mustered a smile and laughed as much as I could about the predicament that I found myself in. This was my place. This was my duty. At this particular point and place in time I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. I was doing God’s will. And sometimes God’s will is messy. Sometimes your hands get dirty. Sometimes it even stinks.

As I cleaned my daughter I could not help but think of Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity. Thoughts of them cleaning people’s wounds, washing people’s feet, and changing soiled linens came to mind. Such work requires great humility and even greater love. As Mother Teresa has said, “It is not what is done that is important, but that it is done with great love.”

And as I listened to the priest’s final words of consecration over the loudspeaker and buttoned up my daughter’s clothing I also realized something else. While I had missed the consecration, I still held something in common with those in the Church. I, too, was kneeling.

And for all my griping about my daughter’s timing, it turned out to be just perfect. Wearing a new diaper, minus her onesie, I carried my daughter back into Church just in time to receive Christ in the Eucharist.

My own communion with the Lord had not been hampered by performing my fatherly duties. If anything, I was now more in union with Christ than I was before.


© 2003, Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
posted by Tim Drake at 1:59 PM

Fear of Evil: The “Catholic” Imagination of M. Night Shyamalan
by Tim Drake

M. Night Shyamalan’s (pronounced Sha-ma-lawn) career has skyrocketed. With six films to his name, the 31-year-old writer/producer/director has already established himself as Hollywood’s highest paid screenwriter. His salary has quadrupled since the release of his blockbuster The Sixth Sense in 1999.

His vision and style is traceable through his small, but successful, body of work. Although a Hindu, Shyamalan’s artistic imagination is decidedly Catholic. Like most of his movie’s endings, it’s rather unexpected.

Born Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan during one of his parents’ trips back to Pondicherry, India in 1970, Shyamalan was raised in the affluent Penn Valley of Philadelphia and attended private schools there. The Waldron Mercy Academy for boys, the Catholic gradeschool Shyamalan attended, serves as the backdrop for his second film Wide Awake.

The child of physician parents Jayalakshmi and Nelliate, Shyamalan grew up on films such as Star Wars, E.T., and Raiders of the Lost Ark. By the age of eight he had been given a Super-8 camera, launching his early passion for filmmaking. By age 17 he had completed 45 homemade movies.

A 1988 graduate of Episcopal Academy, Shyamalan went onto graduate from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 1992. It was there that he created his middle name, “Night” — a name he chose not only for its entertainment value, but also because one can see the universe only at night.

Following film school, Shyamalan arranged financing for his first script, Wide Awake. When the financing collapsed, he wrote Praying with Anger, took part of the Wide Awake financing, found new investors, and flew to India to shoot the feature-length film. Not only did Shyamalan raise all of the funds necessary, but he also wrote, starred in, produced and directed the film at a cost of $750,000. Loosely based upon his own trip back to India, the film is a story about an Indian-American sent to a university in India for a year to straighten him out. The film made $7,000.

In 1994, Shyamalan wrote the script “Labor of Love,” about a man who walks from Philadelphia to California to prove his love for his recently deceased wife. He sold the script to Twentieth Century Fox for $750,000 with the understanding that he would be able to direct the film. Later, it became evident that he would not be allowed to direct. “It was a story about what I felt about first being married,” Shyamalan told Newsweek. “It was pure.” Fox has still not turned the script into a movie.

Meanwhile, Praying with Anger got him noticed. After making it, Miramax funded Shyamalan’s Wide Awake, a film about a fifth-grader’s search for God.

“I’m wide awake now.” – Joshua Beal from Wide Awake

Spiritual Bookends
Shyamalan’s first studio film, Wide Awake (Miramax, 1998), along with his most recent film, Signs (Touchstone, 2002) serve as spiritual bookends to his other films. Both focus on the relationship between man and his creator.

The most Catholic of his films, Wide Awake takes place at Waldron Academy. Shyamalan admits that in some respects the film is autobiographical.

In the film, ten-year-old Joshua A. Beal (Joseph Cross) has lost his grandfather (Robert Loggia), leaving him desperate to know where he has gone and whether he is all right.

The film is separated into three parts, each patterned after the school year. It opens in September with a section called “The Questions.” The middle section takes place in December and is termed “The Signs.” The final third is set in May and is called “The Answers.” The three parts mirror Joshua’s journey of faith.

When Joshua asks his best friend, Dave, whether he ever thinks about God, Dave responds, “I go to a Catholic school. God is like our homework. No I don’t think about God.” When Joshua presses, asking Dave whether he thinks that God is real, David responds, “Nope. Too many bad things happen to people for no reason.”

This sets Joshua forth on a mission to find God. In his quest, Joshua watches television, searches the Internet, sneaks into the girl’s school to speak with a cardinal, talks to the school priest, and suggests a family vacation to Rome. “Why Rome?” his parents inquire. “It’s a nice city,” he responds. They point out that Rome is where the Vatican and the pope is. “The pope is not God,” they tell him. “I know that, but he’s his best friend,” responds Joshua. Joshua has little success.

Dave advises Joshua, “Look, Joshua. Either there is no God, or he doesn’t really care that you are looking for him.” This line signals a turn of events that opens the eyes of both the cynical Dave and the seeking Joshua.

The film’s humor is not a “Do Patent Leather Shoes Reflect Up?” style of humor, poking fun at things Catholic. Rather, the Catholicism in the film is respectful. Rosie O’Donnell plays a baseball-loving nun. Father Peters plays a respectable priest. And in a particularly moving scene, Joshua’s grandfather is shown receiving the Eucharist at a healing mass. It is the first time that Joshua realizes his grandfather is ill.

One night Joshua begins to doubt his mission. Out of desperation, he utters a prayer. “Please, I need one bad,” he says, asking God for a sign. “My grandpa believed in two things,” he says, “Always keep your hands on the ball, and hold onto your faith. Faith will get you through. I don’t think I believe in anything at all.”

Next, Joshua has a flashback: Joshua’s grandfather points to the snow as proof of God’s existence. His grandfather asks Joshua, “How do you think the snow appears?” Joshua offers a scientific explanation. “You’re right, but there’s more. Much more. Maybe you’re going to have to find your own proof,” the grandfather concludes.

That night, Joshua gets his sign. It snows.

The sign signals Joshua’s epiphany as he begins seeing things that he’s never seen before. At the film’s conclusion, Joshua says, “Before… Bullies were bullies for no reason. Weirdos were just weird, and daredevils weren’t afraid of anything. Before this year, people I loved live forever. I was asleep. I spent this year looking for something and ended up seeing everything around me. You know what? I’m wide awake now.”

The final piece to the puzzle is Joshua’s encounter with an angel that’s been with him all along. The angel, referring to Joshua’s grandfather, tells him, “You don’t have to worry, he’s happy now,” and then disappears. In the end, Joshua makes his own statement of belief. “I believe that not all angels have wings,” he says.

Joshua Beal’s name and character remind us of Job. It is Job’s story presented for our time. Joshua is struggling with Job’s question, “Why do people you love die?”

Ultimately, Wide Awake is a film about faith. Although through the filter of a non-Catholic, the film is filled with Catholic symbols and rituals — religious statues, confession, a May crowning, guardian angels, heaven, and the Eucharist. In fact, the film was so Catholic that some critics, such as the New York Time’s Stephen Holden were offended. Holden felt the film was too Catholic. Perhaps in response to such criticisms, the Catholicism in Shyamalan’s later films has been more subtle.



“I see dead people.” – Cole Sear from The Sixth Sense

Visions of Purgatory
After Wide Awake, Shyamalan focused on two projects. During the day he worked on the screenplay for the children’s film Stuart Little — about an adopted mouse’s challenge of fitting in with his adoptive family. At night, he worked on The Sixth Sense (Spyglass, 1999) — a film about a young boy that sees dead people. While more subtle in its Catholic vision, the film is essentially an allegory for purgatory.

Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) is a beloved child psychologist. Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), is a brilliant but terrified eight-year-old boy.

After a gunshot wound from Vincent Grey, a former patient and one of Malcolm’s few failures, Crowe feels he has been given an opportunity for redemption by helping young Cole, whose psychological problems are virtually identical to Grey's.

Cole is thought a "freak" not just by other kids, but by his teachers as well. Only his mother (Toni Collette) is there for him, but he dares not share his dark secret with her.

Crowe and Sear’s first conversation takes place in a Catholic Church. The Church’s white interior stands in stark contrast to the rest of the film’s darkness. Cole is playing with his toy soldiers and speaking Latin —"De profundis clamo ad te Domine!" (Out of the depths I cry to Thee, O Lord.)

“In the old days, people used to hide out in churches?,” Crowe tells Sear. “What were they hiding from?,” Sear asks. “Bad people mostly,” says Crowe. On the way out of the Church, Cole grabs a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which he will use in the red-tent sanctuary he has built in his bedroom to protect himself from the terrifying presences that surround him. Cole tells Crowe, “I don’t want to be scared anymore.”

Meanwhile, Crowe has serious problems of his own. He spends too much time working, his marriage is deteriorating, and his wife begins seeing another man.

Eventually, Cole reveals his secret to Crowe. “I see dead people,” he says, “They see what they want to see. They don’t know they’re dead.” Crowe, naturally, struggles with disbelief.

It is when Crowe admits that he cannot help Cole that salvation becomes possible. Cole realizes that the problem is that Crowe doesn’t believe him. What he needs most is someone to listen and believe. Crowe is required to make a leap of faith beyond the limits of his own worldview to accept the unbelievable. It turns out that the dead are in need of the same.

It is not all the dead that are walking the earth, but only those with regrets or unfinished business. They need the help of the living. In this way the film plays with the idea of the communion of saints. Cole serves to finish what the dead could not, helping to release them from their state of unhappiness.

Resolution, therefore, comes in embracing the truth. That truth, revealed in the film’s surprise ending, shows that Malcolm has been dead all along. In the end he tells his wife as she lays sleeping, “I think I can go now. I just needed to do a couple of things. I needed to help someone. I think I did. And I needed to tell you something. You were never second, ever. I love you. Everything will be different in the morning.”

“Water. It’s like your kryptonite.” – Elijah Price from Unbreakable

Good vs. Evil
In Unbreakable (Touchstone, 2000), Shyamalan, an avid comic book fan, creates a film about the mythology of super heroes. It’s a film about good and evil and ultimately a film about sin.

Bruce Willis plays David Dunn, a soft-spoken security guard. While on a train ride home from a New York job interview, Dunn survives a derailment that kills everyone else on board. This prompts Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), a mysterious comic book collector with a degenerative bone disease to contact David. Price offers Dunn an outrageous explanation as to how he managed to survive unscathed. He proposes that they are on the opposite end of the "breakable" continuum, a fact he wishes to explore to support his theory that there are real-life super heroes in the world.

Dunn, of course, has reservations about his strange fate. However, reflecting on his youth, Dunn realizes that he has never been hurt or sick, and that has instincts for identifying bad people.

The more Price talks to Dunn about his gift the more Dunn and his son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark) experiment with his unnatural powers. This sets up the film’s most amusing and terrifying scenes. In the humorous scene Dunn and Joseph are in the basement bench-pressing. Instead of removing weight, his son adds weight, demonstrating that Dunn does, in fact, have extraordinary strength.

In the film’s most terrifying scene, Joseph confronts his father in the kitchen with a pistol, threatening to shoot him. Joseph believes that his father is a superhero and that his father will not die. Adding a moment of levity to a tense situation, Dunn tells Joseph, “Friends don’t shoot each other.” Resolution comes only when Dunn threatens to leave. Joseph fears his father leaving more than he fears his father’s death.

Dunn’s discovery of this gift rekindles his interest in life and renews his love for his wife (Robin Wright Penn). Once he embraces his gift, he dons a monk-like smock and hood and fulfills his role of protecting and defending people. Price, in the end, is revealed to be the archetypal intellectual villain.

While Unbreakable is neither explicitly Christian nor Catholic, themes of virtue run through the film. It is a classic tale of good vs. evil. Dunn is a faithful father working to preserve his marriage and family. Aside from an early scene on the train, Dunn acts honorably always trying to do what is right.

The film also calls to mind the parable of the talents with the message that we each have God-given talents, and that when we do not use the gifts God has blessed us with, we are an offense to God and to humanity. Dunn’s choice to spurn his natural gift leads to the near-death of his marriage, his career, and his heart. Dunn, in some ways, is like Moses — a reluctant hero-leader, fearful to use his gift. Price recognizes this as well, albeit in a twisted way.

There is, in the film, dignity in the human person. At the film’s end, Price asks, “Do you know the scariest thing, David? To not know your place in this world. To not know why you’re here. That’s just an awful feeling. I almost gave up hope, but I found you…. Now that we know who you are, I know who I am. I’m not a mistake.”

“There’s a monster outside my room. Can I have a glass of water?” – Bo Hess from Signs

Signs of Contradiction
Shyamalan’s most recent film, Signs serves as the bookend opposite to Wide Awake. Again, it is a multi-layered film that explores similar spiritual themes, but in a much different way. Whereas Wide Awake was a young boy’s conversation with God, Signs is essentially God’s conversation with a man.

In Signs, farmer Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), a former Episcopalian minister, renounces God following the tragic death of his wife. The film opens with the shadow on the wall where a cross once hung, a testament to Hess’ loss of faith. Much to Hess’ chagrin, residents still call him “Father.”

Set in Bucks County, Pa., Hess lives with his two young children, Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigail Breslin) and his brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), a washed-up baseball player.

Graham wakes up one morning to find five geometric shapes carved into his cornfield. Graham’s lack of belief leads him to suspect that teenagers created the crop circles.

Yet, the crop circles are only a small part of a much larger tale. Shyamalan uses the crop circles to get the audience thinking about divine providence. Does coincidence guide our lives or is there a pattern to it all?

Upon learning from the television news that similar circles have been discovered elsewhere around the world, Hess is also forced to come to terms with issues of faith. Not only is the family wrestling with an invasion of potential aliens, but its protagonist is also wrestling with his demons of unbelief. Some may question whether the first are merely a manifestation of the latter.

As the family sits watching the global crisis unfold on TV, Hess explains his philosophy. He declares that there are two kinds of people: those who believe in miracles and those who believe things happen for no particular reason. At this point Hess belongs to the second group, convincing himself that humans are alone in the world.

In a pivotal scene, Graham acknowledges God. The scene bears similarity to the one in Wide Awake where Joshua, in desperation, speaks to God and asks for a sign.

In Signs, the first time we see Graham talk to God is as he holds his struggling asthmatic son in his arms. He tells God he hates him. “Don’t do this to me again. I hate you. I hate you,” Hess says.

The similarity, of course, is that it is only when the protagonists acknowledge God, even if in desperation or anger, that God begins to move again in their lives. In Wide Awake, Joshua is given a sign and begins to really see things for the first time. In Signs, God honors Hess’ prayer.

As it turns out, not only do the details matter, but God is in the details. Suddenly, Hess’ wife’s dying words, his brother’s moving in with them, his daughter’s idiosyncrasy with water, and even his son’s asthma make sense. In the end, the invaders are defeated and Morgan is saved.

“Did someone save me?” Morgan asks his father. “Yes, I think someone did,” his father replies, weeping.

The film purposefully touches on each of the Church’s sacraments – sacred signs meant to convey God’s grace. Baptism is revealed through the presence of water in the film. Holy Orders are touched upon through Graham’s vocation. Confession is dealt with through a humorous interaction between “Father” Graham and a teenager in the drugstore. Confirmation is alluded to in the scene in the basement where the father and the son breathe as one. The Eucharist is hinted at through the “last supper” scene. And Matrimony and Last Rites are evident, through Graham’s relationship with his wife, and later in his encounter with his dying wife.

Shymalan ends the film as it began. As the camera pulls away it reveals Hess dressing in his clerics. While the image of a faded cross is no longer visible on the wall, one is very evident in the architecture of the bathroom door, symbolizing that Hess has again made his faith a part of his life.

In Signs, as in Shyamalan’s previous films, tangible proof has entered people’s lives demonstrating that reality has dimensions beyond that of everyday. To believe in God, one must agree that there is more to the universe than what we can see. Ultimately, this is what Joshua Beal, Malcolm Crowe, David Dunn, and Graham Hess all come to realize.

“They called me Mr. Glass” – Elijah Price from Unbreakable

Windows on our Souls
One technique that Shyamalan frequently uses in his films is the appearance of windows and reflections.

Oftentimes our first glimpses of evil are caught as reflections, perhaps suggesting that the evil in his films is merely a reflection of the potential evil in all of us.

In Unbreakable, the film opens shortly after the birth of Elijah Price. The scene is played out in the mirror of a department store. Later, when we are first introduced to Price as a young boy, the scene between he and his mother (Charlayne Woodard) is played out in the reflection of an old television set. Later still, he is seen in the reflection of a piece of glass framing a piece of his comic book art. Price is later revealed to be the evil, Mr. Glass — David Dunn’s archenemy.

Likewise, in Signs, Hess first attempts to catch a glimpse of the alien intruders in the reflection from a butcher knife. When he first sees one face to face, it is in the reflection from his television screen. Later, we see an image of the creature through a glass of water.

Shyamalan also makes frequent use of windows. Windows can be channels of grace, or metaphors.

In Wide Awake, a window in school, with light pouring through, serves as the starting point for Joshua’s thinking about God. Joshua says, “It’s funny when you first get an idea. Sometimes it comes when you look at something you’ve looked at 100 million times.” It is also through a window that Joshua receives his sign. It is the light through the window, which reappears at the film’s end, that is Joshua’s proof of God’s existence.

In Signs, a window serves as a metaphor for Graham Hess’ faith. In the beginning, awakened by a noise, Hess looks at the cornfield from his bedroom window. As we see him, from the outside, he is distorted by the window’s aged and wavy glass. It represents Hess’ faith. He can’t see clearly. Later in the film, Hess boards up the windows in an effort to keep out the alien intruders. His bedroom window is one of the last to be boarded. At this point, Hess has shut out his faith completely. In the film’s end, however, Hess’ faith has been restored. The window has been shattered and the view through the empty pane is clear.

“Believe it’s going to pass. Don’t be afraid.” – Graham Hess in Signs

Shyamalan’s Formula for Success
Shyamalan’s films demonstrate an imagination influenced not only by Lucas, Spielberg and Hitchcock, but also by his own Catholic education. They make use of both Catholic imagery and Catholic themes. Rooted by his own experiences, Catholicism shapes his moral vision as he cinematically renders themes such as redemption, purgatory, human dignity, and miracles.

Catholicism and its liturgy are mind-expanding. Shyamalan, a non-Catholic, demonstrates that his mere exposure to things Catholic has allowed him to produce films with a Catholic sensibility. It, no doubt, stems from his exposure during his formative years to Catholic teachings, rituals, and practices – imagery that has made its way into his films.

Alfred Hitchcock once acknowledged that “one’s early upbringing influences a man’s life and guides his instinct.” He admitted that his own Catholic education developed in him “a strong sense of… moral fear — the fear of being involved in anything evil.”

One wonders whether the same influence hasn’t shaped Shyamlan.

It is not the only similarity Shyamalan shares with the Catholic from across the Atlantic. Not only were both educated in Catholic schools, but they both started their film work at a young age and both became the highest paid individuals in their profession.

Likewise Hitchcock, Shyamalan recognizes that it is the things that we cannot see that scare us the most. Shyamalan’s cinematography, and even the opening music in Signs owes to Hitchcock. Also like his mentor, Shyamalan makes cameo appearances in each of his films. In the Sixth Sense he plays a doctor. In Unbreakable, he is a stadium drug dealer. In Signs, he plays the town veterinarian. Finally, Shyamalan’s fondness for surprise endings also recalls the late British-born director.

There are additional recurring techniques in Shyamalan’s films that contribute to his success. His films are all set in Philadelphia. He frequently makes use of windows and reflections. His films often feature children. He softens the terror with humor. Such techniques breed familiarity. They let viewers know what to expect, even when they do not know what lurks around the corner. They also help viewers to identify with Shyamalan’s films, even when they are very different from one another.

Clearly, Shyamalan’s Catholic experiences encompass all of the themes found in his work — fear, family, faith, and redemption. Yet, even when his films deal with the paranormal or supernatural, they are ultimately about relationships — relationships between a parent and child and the relationship between God and man.

Tim Drake is features correspondent with the National Catholic Register and editor of Saints of the Jubilee. He resides in St. Cloud, Minnesota. A version of this article previously appeared in Catholic World Report.




posted by Tim Drake at 1:58 PM