Blessed Sacrament Church

By Joe Ruff 
OSV News 

In a party line vote, Democrats in the Minnesota Senate passed a bill 34-33 in the early morning hours of Jan. 28 to place a right to abortion for any reason and without a limit on viability into state law. The House approved the measure Jan. 19, and Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, is expected to sign the bill into law.

People on both sides of the abortion issue express their views at the State Capitol in St. Paul Jan. 27, as members of the Minnesota Senate debated a bill that would place a right to abortion into state law. (OSV News photo/Dave Hrbacek, Catholic Spirit)

Pro-life and pro-abortion advocates gathered in large numbers outside the Senate chambers at the State Capitol in St. Paul shortly before the debate began about noon Jan. 27. In that debate, which stretched over 15 hours, Democrats rejected multiple Republican amendments to the Protect Reproductive Options, or PRO Act, before the final vote on Jan. 28. 

Hoping to sway lawmakers and showing support for their cause, the song “Amazing Grace” from pro-life advocates rose alongside pro-abortion chants of “we say pro-choice,” and “two, four, six, eight, separate church and state.” People holding signs that stated “Science says abortion kills a human being,” “I am human,” and “I regret my abortion” stood beside another group with signs stating slogans such as “Keep abortion safe and legal.” 

Standing behind the main gathering of opposing sides stood Angela Erickson, 30, with her five children, all under the age of 7. A member of the Church of St. Anne in Hamel, Minnesota, Erickson and her children drove an hour from their home to be present as the Senate took up the bill that had already passed the House 69-65 on Jan. 19. 

“There’s no scourge worse than abortion,” said Erickson, a board member of St. Paul-based Pro-Life Action Ministries and co-host of Relevant Radio 1330AM’s “Living the Gospel of Life” with PLAM Executive Director Brian Gibson. 

Asked how her presence with her children might be helpful at the Capitol, Erickson told The Catholic Spirit, “I want other people to see that children are a blessing and not a burden.” 

Not far away stood Jon Guden, 61, of the St. Joseph Community in Rosemount, Minnesota quietly praying the rosary. 

“We can’t do it alone,” Guden told The Catholic Spirit in reference to changing the minds of abortion advocates. “It requires the Lord and Mary to intervene.” 

Measures to codify abortion in Minnesota — HF1 and its companion bill in the Senate, SF1 — moved quickly as the 2023 legislative session opened Jan. 3. The House saw HF1 introduced Jan. 4. The bills made their way through House and Senate hearings, with Minnesota Catholic Conference officials and Bishop Chad Zielinski of New Ulm among those testifying against them. 

Democrats, who hold a majority in the House, gained a majority in the Senate in the November elections. Gov. Walz is also a Democrat. 

Only hours before the full House vote, Archbishop Bernard Hebda and Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Williams of St. Paul and Minneapolis, along with Bishop Zielinski and the state’s four other Catholic bishops, wrote a letter protesting the bills and had it hand-delivered to every lawmaker. 

Rep. Jim Nash, R-Waconia, referred to the bishops’ letter during lengthy floor debate before the House vote and quoted from it regarding responsibility to protect life: “The work to limit demand for abortion, however, does not absolve the legislator from the responsibility to protect the living human being in the womb. No amount of support for public assistance programs is sufficient to exonerate one from complicity and cooperation in creating legal frameworks that facilitate the death of other human beings through legal abortion.” 

“That’s a lot,” said Nash, who is not Catholic, emphasizing the moral weight of the bishops’ words. He encouraged lawmakers to find the courage to vote no and “follow that friction in your heart.” 

As the Senate prepared to debate the measure that passed the House, Archbishop Hebda released a video and accompanying statement Jan. 25 urging people to reach their senators to head off approval of the bill. 

“The PRO Act is part of the most extreme abortion legislative agenda in Minnesota history, allowing for abortion for any reason and at any time without regulation,” the archbishop said. “How disturbing that a pre-born child whose heart is beating, who can feel pain and who may even be viable outside the womb is treated with such disdain.” 

In their letter to lawmakers, released by MCC, the bishops said they were disappointed “to see the quick pace at which these destructive bills are moving, and we hope to give legislators pause.” 

Beyond codifying abortion, MCC said in a news release, the PRO Act does not distinguish between minors and adults as it directs state courts to protect the “fundamental right” to reproductive freedom, thereby opening the door to a host of fertility treatments, regardless of wisdom or ethics. 

The bill states in part: “‘reproductive health care’ means health care offered, arranged, or furnished for the purpose of preventing pregnancy, terminating a pregnancy, managing pregnancy loss, or improving maternal health and birth outcomes. Reproductive health care includes, but is not limited to, contraception; sterilization; preconception care; maternity care; abortion care; family planning and fertility services; and counseling regarding reproductive health care.” 

In effect, the bill could lead to minors being able to access sterilization without parental notice or consent, as well as receive hormonal contraceptives, medical treatments and sex-transition therapies without parental consent, MCC warned. 

The bill also could lead to lawsuits at the intersection of bioethics and new reproductive and fertility treatments and infringe on conscience and religious liberty rights of individual and institutional medical providers who don’t want to provide such treatments, MCC officials noted. 

Minnesota’s Supreme Court found a constitutional right to abortion in the state in a 1995 ruling. Backers of legislation that would place a right to abortion into state law argue that codifying the right would add security, considering the U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had found a right to abortion in the U.S. Constitution. 

In their letter to lawmakers, Archbishop Hebda and the state’s other Catholic bishops also urged legislators to vote against bills moving through the House, HF91, and the Senate, SF70, that would remove protections for abortion-minded mothers and their babies. Among other measures, the measures would remove protections for babies born alive after an abortion that were established in the state’s Born Alive Infant Protection Act, which requires reasonable medical care for an infant surviving abortion. 

The bills also would remove parental notification requirements for minors seeking an abortion and the Woman’s Right to Know informed consent law. And the legislation would remove Minnesota’s abortion reporting law, an annual report on procedure statistics prepared by the Minnesota Department of Health. Those protections also were struck down in a lawsuit that is being challenged. 

Joe Ruff is editor-in-chief of The Catholic Spirit, a publication of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. 

By Deacon Kyle Eller 
The Northern Cross 

The future of the extraordinary form Latin Mass in the Diocese of Duluth received new clarity Jan. 22, as Bishop Daniel Felton sat “in choir” and preached at a celebration of that liturgy at St. Benedict Church in Duluth.

Clergy and servers gather before the celebration of the extraordinary form Latin Mass Jan. 22 at St. Benedict in Duluth. Bishop Daniel Felton preached at the Mass and gave an update to the Latin Mass community on how the liturgy will be celebrated in the diocese in the coming years. (Photo courtesy of Father Seth Gogolin)

The bishop began by sharing the text of a letter he would send out to the clergy of the diocese later in the week, detailing the steps that had been taken in light of Pope Francis’ motu proprio Traditiones Custodes in July 2021 and subsequent clarifications of it from the Holy See. Those efforts included a committee formed by Father Joel Hastings, the diocesan director of liturgy, to monitor developments relating to the motu proprio and how they related to practices within the diocese. 

In the letter, the bishop announced, “I have decided that the public celebration of the Mass using the Missale Romanum of 1962 will take place in our diocese exclusively at St. Benedict Church in Duluth.” 

“… St. Benedict Church has been, and continues to be, the home of the vast majority of Catholics in northeastern Minnesota who deeply appreciate this form of the Mass,” the bishop wrote. “I am fully in support of those who worship at St. Benedict Church, and I wish to state clearly that this community of the faithful is a rich blessing for our diocese.” 

Since Traditiones Custodes restricts celebration of this form of the Mass in parish churches, Bishop Felton wrote that he sought and received a dispensation from the appropriate Vatican office to permit it. He said the dispensation lasts for two years, until October 2024, after which he will “need to ask for another dispensation.” 

Three priests — Father Hastings and Fathers Anthony Craig and Nicholas Nelson — will have faculties to celebrate the extraordinary form Mass to support the community, and Father Hastings has been appointed moderator of that ministry. 

The bishop also addressed a past practice of celebrating the extraordinary form Mass in the Brainerd area once a month but said he has not presently asked for a dispensation to continue that practice, noting the lack of an available priest for it and the availability of an extraordinary form Mass nearby in the St. Cloud Diocese. 

In the remainder of his homily, Bishop Felton acknowledged that many of the faithful drawn to the liturgy celebrated before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council had experienced confusion, shock, and anger, and echoing his recently released pastoral letter, he encouraged them to find healing in Jesus, particularly in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Mass. 

He said one of the ways to open up to that healing is beginning with respect for one another and listening to one another, noting that he had been grateful to hear the voices of those attached to the Latin Mass during the diocese’s “Let’s Listen” sessions. 

He said that appointing Father Hastings — who celebrates most of the extraordinary form Masses in the diocese and has long ministered to that community — as moderator would help to ensure that the community’s needs and concerns would continue to be heard at the diocese. 

Expressing a love of the sacred liturgy in all its forms, the bishop said that he desired to “return to the intention of Pope Benedict XVI,” who in his own motu proprio in 2007 allowing broader celebration of the extraordinary form liturgy “envisioned that the two forms of celebrating the Mass, the ordinary form and the extraordinary form, would indeed inform and enrich each other.” 

In addition, he said the dialogue should center in the context of the New Evangelization and how each form of the Mass helps invite others to a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ and into the healing, hope, and joy that can only be found in him. 

Editor’s note: Deacon Kyle Eller served on the diocesan committee to implement Pope Francis’ motu proprio Traditiones Custodes. 

By Deacon Kyle Eller 
The Northern Cross 

Bishop Daniel Felton offered a requiem Mass for Pope Benedict XVI at St. Mary Star of the Sea Church in Duluth Jan. 5, joining Pope Francis in Rome and dioceses across the world as the retired pope was mourned by the universal church. 

The bishop noted in his homily that the retired pope, who died on New Year’s Eve at the age of 95, had been in service to the church for so long that people knew him in a variety of ways — as a theological expert at the Second Vatican Council, as a cardinal and prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as pope, and as pope emeritus.

Bishop Daniel Felton delivers the homily at a diocesan requiem Mass for Pope Benedict XVI at St. Mary Star of the Sea Church in Duluth Jan. 5. The retired pope died Dec. 31. Parishes were also encouraged to honor Benedict XVI in their daily Masses that day. (Deacon Kyle Eller / The Northern Cross)

But he said it was fruitful to think of Benedict XVI in two ways: as a theologian and as a disciple. 

“Pope Benedict will be remembered as having the greatest theological mind of the 20th century,” Bishop Felton said. “He was at his heart and core a teacher, and in so many ways, he was able to use that charism that he had been given in such a special way.” 

That service as a theologian included influencing key documents of Vatican II; dealing with complex issues facing the church as prefect of the CDF; heading the commission for the writing of the Catechism of the Catholic Church; and writing 66 books, three encyclicals, four exhortations and “literally hundreds and hundreds of essays.” 

“Pope Benedict the theologian will be with us for centuries, as we go back to the writings of St. Augustine, as we go back to the writings of the the doctors of the church,” the bishop said. “For centuries we are gong to go back to the writings of Pope Benedict ….” 

But he said to understand the theologian, you had to understand the disciple, the humble and kind man he encountered personally while studying in Rome as a priest in the 1980s. 

Bishop Felton said that of all of Pope Benedict’s writings, the one sentence that struck him the most was: “Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea but the encounter with a Person, Jesus Christ.” 

“It’s really that one sentence that sums up all of his theology,” the bishop said. “It’s that one sentence that sums up who he was as a person, as a priest, as a cardinal, and as pope.” 

Bishop Felton said that the late pope’s personal witness was dedicated to showing and telling how to have that encounter, and that’s why his whole life was summed up in his dying words: “Jesus, I love you.” 

Click on the image to view in a larger size.

Our first check was delivered in August 1993, and our last tuition payment will be paid appropriately during the 2023 Catholic Schools Week. My husband, my children, and I know that receiving Catholic education has been a privilege. 

Betsy Kneepkens Faith and Family

Many parents desire this sort of formation for their children, but there is not a school in the vicinity. Many parents don’t know the difference Catholic schools would mean for their children and family. Some have outdated perceptions of Catholic school education, so they don’t choose it. With a contemporary relook, perhaps more children would experience this blessed experience. With the aid of technology, rural parishes will have the opportunity to offer affordable Catholic education in the decades to come, which is exciting and revolutionary. 

For the Kneepkens family, this Catholic Schools Week marks the end of a special relationship. Coming up with the money to pay tuition has not always been easy. For some of these years, we had six children in tuition-funded schools. At times it seemed the money wasn’t there. Over and over again, we figured it out. Since my husband and I saw that Catholic school formation was a need and not a want, numerous “wants” went by the wayside in exchange for what we felt was a need. We are so profoundly grateful that we accomplished our promise to each other. I am confident that our investment will pay life dividends. 

I must credit our parochial school for helping us stick to our faith priorities. In the same respect, the stability and structure our family enjoyed had much to do with the community the school provided for us. This unexpected benefit was a priceless one. We knew that having our family values match our children’s daily life in school kept our kids balanced from a young age. The added gift was that our children were surrounded by peers from families that lived and believed as we did. This community has provided lifelong friendships for many of my children and us. This unexpected relationship outcome is so precious that the value cannot be determined. 

Over the years, I have complained about food, gas, entertainment, and car prices. I get frustrated with how wasteful our government is when we pay so many taxes, licensing, and city fees. However, I have never protested paying our tuition bill. As I said, I knew it was a substantial investment, and we were confident that our children would benefit immensely. 

Paying tuition was additionally satisfying when we saw the great lengths the school went to to be stewards of our dollars. The efforts the staff took to respect the sacrifice families were making for the Catholic schools was impressive and affirming. I have countless examples of the work these schools did to keep Catholic education affordable. For instance, at the end of the school year, a staff person went through the students’ lockers, collected leftover supplies like shelves, book covers, markers, and pens, and cleaned them up on her own time. The following year she made them available for the students to cut the cost of school supplies. The school had a used uniform closet to assist families that couldn’t afford uniforms. Worksheets came home on recycled paper, and leftover lunch snacks were put aside for children who didn’t have enough to eat. I could go on and on with the creative acts considered normal operations for these schools, never sacrificing faith and learning in the process. Simply put, this was the order of business living out their Catholic school mission. 

The real heroes and witnesses at Catholic schools are the faculty, staff, and administrators. They are genuinely missionaries, working the mission fields. Although staff is well educated, prepared, and licensed to work in their positions, they make personal and family sacrifices to work in the Catholic school system. Catholic schools cannot operate paying these well-deserved instructors the same they would get paid in the public school near them. Many of these teachers work their whole professional career serving Christ in this way, forgoing significant pay increases and benefits. These missionaries work the vineyard, which means forgoing so much for them and their families. How could we ever complain about paying, knowing what these kind “spiritual servants” did for our sake and the sake of all children in their care. 

Undoubtedly, the staff’s service is for a mission, and that mission is Christ and building up his kingdom. This reality became evident shortly after spending time with the school staff on campus. Teacher conference after teacher conference, I heard beautiful testimony on how they brought my children to Christ in their subject matter, whether in math, English, or any other class. After a few short weeks of classes, I was amazed at how well they got to know my child. 

Since the school was in my neighborhood, I observed the teachers leaving the building in the late evening, and even on a few occasions, I witnessed the principal exiting in the wee hours of the morning. I wish there were some badge of honor or some way to publicly let our communities know the loving service these individuals selflessly give year in and year out. As missionaries, I imagine their service will likely be rewarded with a loving glance from our Creator. Hopefully, the sacrifice they and their families have made for families like ours will be the just reward in heaven, because they will not see equal professional compensation on earth. 

Even more than when my kids went, Catholic schools and support for Catholic schools has never been more important than now because, as Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, “It is a characteristic of any decaying civilization that the great masses of the people are unconscious of the tragedy. Only those who live by faith know what is happening in the world … the great masses without faith are unconscious of the destructive process going on, because they have lost the vision of the heights from which they fell.” 

Catholic schools have helped my children and so many more see so they can recognize the wounds of our world. Please trust my testimony: “There is no better way to spend your hard-earned money than providing a place, away from home, that reinforces the faith needed for your children to see what is going on in this hurting world.” The role of these school missionaries is immense, so there is never a question of whether we paid too much. 

It seems like it was just yesterday that we wrote that first check in 1993. However, it is funny that my husband and I are celebrating our last tuition payment. Because, simply put, as long as we are able, we are obligated to continue our giving not only for future generations of Catholics but as a sign of respect and appreciation for the missionaries that often go thankless for all the earthly sacrifices they do laboring in the vineyard for our children. 

Thank you, Catholic schools. My family has been blessed. And a very happy Catholic Schools Week. 

Betsy Kneepkens is director of the Office of Marriage, Family, and Life for the Diocese of Duluth and a mother of six. 

I don’t make a habit of using emojis very often when I am texting, but there are two I find myself using a bit more lately: the eye roll emoji and even more the one in which the guy (or girl) has their arms up in the air and shrugging, as if to say, “I don’t get it” or “I don’t know.” 

Father Richard Kunst Apologetics

If I could use emojis when writing this column, I would certainly use the arm shrug for this one, because I am going to address one of the more bizarre things in Catholic life, and I am kind of happy to say that it is not really well known, though I do not doubt the legitimacy of it. 

On Feb. 25 the church honors St. Walburga, who was a hugely popular saint in the medieval world in large part because of some crazy happening at her grave. But first a little bit about the person. Walburga lived from 710 AD to 777 AD; she was the daughter of another saint by the name of St. Richard the Pilgrim (great name). She was born in England but traveled with her brothers, who were assisting St. Boniface in his evangelizing of the pagans in Germany. There she eventually became an abbess at the Monastery of Heidenheim. Sometime after her death in 777, her relics were moved to Eichstatt, Finland, where they remain to this day. 

Now the weird part: Soon after her relics were transferred to Finland and placed in a rocky niche in the monastery, a strange oozing oil started to be excreted from her grave, and if that wasn’t weird enough, soon the ooze was said to have curative powers, that it was said to be miraculous. 

Every year, the nuns at this monastery would collect this oil and distribute it, and the crazy thing is, it still happens today. You can do a simple Google search and see images of the nuns collecting the oil. Even St. John Henry Newman, the British “Brainiac” in the 19th century, declared the oil to be a credible miracle. 

So what are we to make of this? A little closer to home for me, from time to time I am asked to bring a relic of a saint or of a saint candidate to pray with people who may be sick. And I do that! I am in a unique position to be able to use relics in prayer, and often my prayer is to ask for a miracle. But the question remains: What are we to make of this? It may seem strange and primitive to many people, Catholic and non-Catholic alike. 

Does the ooze coming from St. Walburga’s bones really cause miracles? Do body parts of other saints or clothing they wore really cause miracles? How about Lourdes water or any other unique relic associated with a saint or holy place? Are these all causes of miracles? 

The short answer is, yes. God, from time to time, does allow holy “things” to be a means in which he will perform a miracle, but this is where we have to be careful, because we Catholics can easily fall into superstition. There are times in which Catholic piety and superstition can intersect in a way that is not healthy. 

Think of the passage in the Gospels where the woman had the flow of blood for 12 years that could not be cured by any doctors. She convinced herself that all she needed to do was to touch the tassel of Jesus’ cloak, and then she would be healed. And the Gospel acknowledges that that is exactly what happened: “Jesus was conscious at once that healing power had gone out from him” (Mark 5:30). In other words, the mere association of the clothing to Jesus gave his clothing a curative power. 

We would say that something is similar with relics. Think of it this way: If you were to rub something like a butter knife or some other piece of metal against a large magnet, eventually the knife will also have magnetic properties. It will become a magnet. 

But here is the difference: Intrinsically speaking, relics like Walburga’s oil have no value. It is the association they have with the holy person that is the aid to faith. Sometimes God uses these things to help people in the faith by allowing miracles to occur due to their intervention, but in the end, it is less about the relic than it is about we ourselves. Remember how the story ended with the woman who had the hemorrhage. Although Jesus acknowledged that curative power had gone out from him because she touched the tassel on his cloak, it wasn’t the tassel that cured her, it was her faith! “He said to her, ‘Daughter, it is your faith that has cured you. Go in peace and be free of this illness’” (Mark 5:34). 

Relics are not good luck charms. They can assist us in prayer if used properly, but in the end it is our faith in God’s ability to cure that causes miracles. And if you don’t get the miracle you prayed for, it is not necessarily a sign of weak faith! This is important to note; we cannot understand why God allows some miracles to happen when others he does not. This is a mystery of God’s divine providence, but still we trust in him and have hope that it might be his will that St. Walburga’s oil or some other relic can help bring about a cure. 

St. Walburga, pray for us. 

Father Richard Kunst is pastor of St. James and St. Elizabeth in Duluth. Reach him at rbkunst@gmail.com.

It makes profound sense to go all in and strive to become a saint. God will reward us more than we can imagine. But is there a minimal requirement to being a practicing Catholic? Yes, in fact there is. 

Father Nick Nelson Handing on the Faith

First, we must follow the moral law of the church summed up in the Ten Commandments. Second, there are additional requirements we must fulfill. These additional requirements are called the Precepts of the Church. The church in her wisdom has discerned that these are the absolute minimum things we must do if we want to grow in the life of grace and in our love for God and neighbor. If we can’t do these, then we can’t expect to persevere in the faith. These are so necessary to the life of grace that the church attaches the penalty of mortal sin to them. 

There are five explicitly listed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but there are another two found elsewhere in the catechism, bringing the total to seven. Let’s take a look at them. 

The first precept is, “You shall attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation and rest from servile labor.” The third commandment is “keep holy the Sabbath.” With Christ’s resurrection on the first day of the week, the Sabbath has now become the Lord’s day on Sunday. By divine law, we are called to keep it holy. The church has prescribed that going to Mass is the principal way that we keep it holy. That is ecclesiastical law. Therefore, going to Mass on Sundays is not an absolute requirement. You may be sick, you may have to work, and for a just cause, a pastor may dispense his people from this precept. Personally, I am willing to grant a dispensation once or twice a year if someone is going camping or hunting in the middle of nowhere. I will ask them spend an hour where they are doing something in place of attending the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Usually, I ask them to pray a rosary and spend 15 minutes reading and reflecting on the readings and discussing them together. 

The second precept is “you shall confess your sins at least once a year.” This precept guarantees that a person is returning to a state of grace and friendship with God and his church at least once a year and therefore can worthily fulfill the third precept. 

The third precept is “you shall receive the sacrament of the Eucharist at least during the Easter season.” This precept is interesting. The more observant people may say, “Wait. Isn’t this precept redundant with the first precept? The first one says we have to go to Mass every Sunday. If we are already going to Mass, why do we have to be told to receive Holy Communion?” Well, the reality is that while you are required to go to Mass every Sunday, you are not required to receive Holy Communion. The most important thing about going to Mass is that you are offering God the supreme act of worship and religion. You are giving God what is due to him. You are offering him sacrifice, the living Christ under the appearance of bread and wine to God our Father. Every Sunday, we are obliged to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We are not obligated to receive Holy Communion. 

And in fact, we shouldn’t receive Holy Communion if we have missed Mass without a just cause or have some other serious sin on our soul. This precept was implemented centuries ago, when many people had such an extreme respect of the sacred and their own unworthiness that people would not receive Communion for years at a time. The church responded to this attitude by obliging them to receive Holy Communion at least once a year. 

The fourth precept is “you shall observe the days of fasting and abstinence established by the church.” This precept not only includes the season of Lent, when we are required to abstain from meat on Fridays and fast both on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, but it also includes every Friday. In the United States, we are no longer required to abstain from meat on Fridays, so long as we replace it with another form of penance. Sadly, many Catholics forget about penance on Fridays altogether. I find it simplest to abstain from meat on Fridays, and I encourage you to join me. 

The fifth precept is “you shall help to provide for the needs of the church.” The church doesn’t demand a certain percentage from us. But Christ encourages us to give from our poverty and not from our surplus. I believe the biblical 10% is a good goal. 

The sixth precept is “you shall obey the laws of the church regarding Holy Matrimony.” This precept requires its own article, but for now, a Catholic, in order to be validly married, needs to be married in the church. Otherwise, the two are not indissolubly bonded and don’t receive the grace of the sacrament. 

The seventh precept is “you shall participate in the Church’s mission of Evangelization of Souls.” The mission of the Church of evangelization is not just for priests and religious but for all Catholics. 

So, this is the minimum. But don’t be content with the minimum. The saints never were! 

Father Nick Nelson is pastor of Queen of Peace and Holy Family parishes in Cloquet and vocations director for the Diocese of Duluth. He studied at The Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Rome. Reach him at fr.nicholas.nelson@duluthcatholic.org

Dear friends in Christ, 

Bishop Daniel Felton Believe in the Good News

Recently, I released my Pastoral Letter, “The Dawn From On High Shall Break Upon Us: Healing, Hope and Joy in Jesus.” In the letter, we are challenged to be aware of our personal and regional mission fields, with an emphasis of bringing the healing power of Jesus to all that we encounter and accompany wherever they may be in the journey of life. 

As I move around our diocese and engage in a number of conversations about your personal life, family life, parish life, and the life of the communities in which we dwell, I am so aware of how much grieving we are all experiencing at so many levels and in so many ways. This grieving encompasses personal loss of loved ones; families on the move to find employment; parishes with fewer parishioners; factories, schools, and businesses closing in our community, a post-COVID world that looks and feels very different than it did before. 

What is the grieving that is most impacting you, your family, your parish, and your community at this time? Pray about that for a moment. What comes into your heart and mind? Can you put this grieving into words and say it out loud? 

Grieving is a necessary experience for healing to take place. The need to embrace and to work through grieving is very needed, as a grieving which is avoided will always come back to us, if not now then later. Grieving has many stages: anger, denial, bargaining, depression, acceptance, and hope. As you identify what you are grieving, how are you grieving and what is the manifestation of your grieving at this time? 

Acknowledging your grieving, how can you allow the healing of Jesus to enter into your hurting and sadness? Jesus came into this world and became one with us so that he himself might experience the depth of our hurting. We are told that when Jesus learned of the death of his friend Lazarus, he wept outside his tomb. Jesus knows what it is to grieve. And he knows your grieving. Even now, Jesus is walking with you as he did with the disciples on the road to Emmaus as they were grieving. 

As Jesus accompanies you, your family, your parish, or your civic community in the grieving process, surrender your grieving into his hands and Sacred Heart. Jesus is healing and is our promise of new life. After grieving the death of his friend, Lazarus, Jesus goes on to bring him back to life here on earth. It was a sign that Jesus is the Lord of life over death, hope over despair, healing over hurt, and joy over tribulation. In Jesus, every ending will have a new beginning. Every hurt can be healed, not by yourself alone, but with the real presence of Jesus raising you from your grief to new life. 

Additionally, we cooperate with the healing grace of Jesus as we accompany one another in our grieving, sometimes as a family member, friend, counselor, spiritual director, pastor — Jesus can use each one of us in a unique special way or role to be an instrument of his healing presence. The one thing we know for sure: Walking alone through grief is very difficult. 

As we begin to identify the mission field that is longing to know and embrace the healing of Jesus, be it the person in front of me or all the people within my parish or regional mission boundaries, let us be healed by Jesus ourselves. We cannot give to others that which we do not have ourselves. Then, filled with the healing that Jesus brings to your hurt and grief, go out to your family, parish, and community to be for others the healing presence that we can only find in Jesus. 

Truly, in our grieving, the dawn from on high is breaking upon us! 

Bishop Daniel Felton is the tenth bishop of Duluth. 

I had thought that I was doing God’s will; I had prayed and every indication was that this was the direction that God wanted me to pursue. But after some time, every road block was put in front of me, and I had to go elsewhere. How could I have been so wrong about what God was calling me to? 

Father Michael Schmitz Ask Father Mike

This is such a great question. So many people have been in your shoes and know the frustration of believing that God had called them to do one thing only to realize that the door they thought God wanted them to go through was shut. I hear you. I also hear your asking where you went wrong. 

I see this most often with people in relationships. There are times when two people will have been very thoughtful and prayerful about discerning whether or not God was calling them to be in a dating relationship (or even engagement) with each other. They could have sought out wise counsel and really submitted their plans to whatever God wanted. In that, it might have become very clear to them that God was inviting them to enter into this relationship. (I have also seen this with men entering seminary and women entering discernment with a religious community.) Then, sometimes all of a sudden, the other person breaks up with them. Or the seminary instructs them that they are not called to continue formation for the priesthood. Not only can this be incredibly painful, but it can also send a person into a kind of tailspin when it comes to their ability to hear the voice of God. They begin to doubt whether they can ever wisely and accurately discern God’s will again. 

There are a few things to keep in mind when discerning God’s will. The first is that God’s will is not always obvious or even specific. We know that God’s will is always that we become saints. God constantly wills that we say yes to him and surrender our lives to him. But he also gives us quite a bit of leeway when it comes to our choices. While there are some things that God has always prohibited (like murder or adultery — you don’t have to discern whether he wills you to kill an innocent person or break marriage vows), and there are some things that God has always commanded (like going to Mass on Sundays or loving our neighbor), there seem to be quite a few choices that God is quite OK with us going this way or that. 

A general rule of thumb could be: If God hasn’t revealed his will on a topic through Scripture or the church’s teaching, and he hasn’t made it absolutely clear to you that he wills a particular choice for you, then he is giving you the freedom to choose for yourself. 

Many of us often say that we want this. Of course, when it comes down to it, many of us want to do God’s will so that we have some imagined guarantee that things will turn out well, or because we want someone to blame if things turn out poorly. It could be worth our time to reflect on why it is that we want to know God’s will. Is it because we desire to submit our entire lives to him or because we want someone else to make a decision for us? In creating us with free will, God is also entrusting us with the responsibility of exercising that free will. And this means that sometimes we will not choose the best for ourselves. But it was our choice, not God’s. 

Second, we can sometimes discern wrong. God is incredibly involved in our lives; He does not want to remain some distant “force” somewhere outside of the universe. He is a Father who loves us and who draws close to us. He wants the best for us and does reveal Himself and His will in various ways. And there are times when we get Him wrong. Just look at the history of Christianity to see how often people sincerely get God entirely wrong. From various heresies that have arisen over time, to the Reformation that ended up fracturing Christ’s Body into tens of thousands of splinters…well-meaning Christians can get it wrong. I’m sure that Martin Luther or John Calvin were praying and thinking and discerning when they broke away from the Church…and they were still wrong. 

Because of this, we can’t rule out the possibility that we can discern incorrectly. 

Third, one of the criterion for deciding whether or not we discerned wrongly cannot be that it has led us to a place of pain or failure. I will talk to people who say that their current situation must have meant that they missed God’s will, because their plans didn’t work out or because they encountered a tragic amount of pain: The person who tried a new job only to fail or the person who took a moral stand at work and ended up paying a price for their courage. 

Doing the right thing does not mean that everything will work out the way we had hoped. For proof of this, we only have to look to Jesus. He did the Father’s will perfectly, and yet he was rejected, betrayed, brutally tortured, and killed. God does not promise that things will be easy for us if we do his will. Instead, he warns us that we will be rejected and hated. 

Lastly, you might have discerned exactly what God was calling you to do. What you might not have discerned was how long He was calling you to do it. There are times when I will offer counsel to someone who was so absolutely sure that God had called them down a certain road only to discover that he was then calling them to turn down another road that was very different than the original road. They can be tempted to see this as failure. I do not. I see this as a person who is continually allowing themselves to be led by God without falling into the trap of thinking, “I’ve figured out God’s will for my life … discernment is for someone else.” If God got a person to start moving down one road and calls them to “turn,” that means that the first discernment was accurate! It got them to the next road that God was calling them towards. 

We often want to know the entire route, but God most often gives us just enough light for one step. We often want to know the whole story, but God wants to write the story with us, one choice at a time. 

Father Michael Schmitz is director of youth and young adult ministry for the Diocese of Duluth and chaplain of the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth. 

Back in 2012, during the debate over the proposed marriage amendment in Minnesota, I noticed something I just can’t unsee about the way that debate was carried out, the way those debates are still playing out. 

Deacon Kyle Eller Mere Catholicism

It came into focus for me after I attended and reported on one of the events the church sponsored. There were expert speakers making arguments for the amendment — compelling ones, in my opinion. They drew from a range of disciplines: not only theology and Catholic teaching but philosophy and state law, with a depth that surprised even me, someone pretty well versed in the arguments. There was also an opportunity for people to ask questions, including people who disagreed with the church’s stance. There was an exchange of ideas. 

The objective was clear: to persuade and convince people who weren’t already convinced, through dialogue in pursuit of the truth with mutual respect. 

I think I was the only journalist there. 

I didn’t attend any of the events held by the other side, but I carefully followed the news coverage of them, which was extensive and wholly favorable. I read countless op-eds and letters to the editor from opponents of the amendment. 

The approach of that side of the debate could not have been more different from ours. There were endlessly repeated bumper sticker slogans and talking points, like “love wins.” Carefully curated personal stories manipulatively aroused a very one-sided sympathy. When it came to those who supported the amendment, we were spoken of always with contempt, accompanied by false accusations of hatred and bigotry. 

When they bothered to make arguments, they were superficial arguments proponents of the amendment had answers for. Those answers were not even acknowledged, much less engaged. The secular media was not so much reporting as “manufacturing consent,” echoing the language and talking points of only one side. Small wonder most people never even heard the other. 

The objective was obvious: to circumvent public debate entirely, to give the impression there was only one legitimate side, opposed only by ignorant, hateful bigots. 

This, I have come to see, is the blueprint for how so many of these cultural debates, most recently the PRO Act, the extreme abortion law rammed through the Minnesota Legislature last month, get carried out. 

The bishops of Minnesota sent a profound, wise, compelling letter to all the state legislators. They explained the flaws in the law, explained the critical moral principles at stake, highlighted the need to pursue common ground, and testified beautifully to the need for Minnesota to care for women in need and find common ground in pursuing the common good. 

Legal experts testified before the legislature giving compelling arguments. Countless people of good will contacted their legislators begging and pleading with them to stop the bill or at least to moderate its extremes. 

The approach of the other side was, again, quite different. There were the slogans we’ve heard (and refuted) for 50 years. There were the carefully curated personal stories designed to manipulate emotions. There was the media manufacturing consent. There was the contempt for and demonization of the pro-life community, the horrible false accusations. 

And most strikingly there was the total lack of engagement of any of the pro-life arguments, those irrefutable arguments rooted in science and natural law and the dignity of the human person that we have been making for so many years. 

The outcome itself, of course, is the most terrible part of it: the death and the suffering and the unspeakable violation of human rights that will result from it. Minnesota is undoubtedly a much worse place for it. 

But I also found myself so sad and discouraged by the injustice of how these debates play out. Consequential issues should be debated seriously and openly and substantively, and truth should matter. We should try to persuade, not demonize, those we disagree with. This is how a good society would conduct itself. 

Despite the sadness of it, though, I found myself being proud to be associated with the people who made our case so well, who carried themselves with intelligence and decency, who treated the people who disagree with us with respect and appealed to their consciences, attempting to convince them, even if in the end they didn’t listen. 

I know there are many people who take the opposite lesson. There are those who think that winning is all that matters, and if that means adopting the rhetorical tactics of those who oppose us, that’s what we should do. We should stop trying to persuade, stop focusing on rational argument, and instead focus on slogans and manipulative sentimentality, the argument goes. As for those who disagree with us, there are those who feel we’d be better off doing to them what they do to us, demonizing them and treating them as unworthy of engaging with civility and respect. 

I think those are not just the wrong lessons but approaches that damage our pro-life witness. How could we defend human dignity by denying it in our opponents? How could we uphold truth by turning away from reason? How could we uphold the moral law by being shallow and manipulative? 

Given the public perception of the Catholic Church, it’s a delicious irony that often, on these major issues, the church is the most consistent defender left in the public square of reason, of science, of genuine human freedom and liberty, of respectful dialogue. 

Now, if only there were more people receptive to those valuable things. 

Deacon Kyle Eller is editor of The Northern Cross. Reach him at dcn.kyle.eller@duluthcatholic.org