The Deacon's Bench

Time will tell if it will actually have any impact, but the significance of this piece of news can't be overstated:

More than 150 Christian leaders, most of them conservative evangelicals and traditionalist Roman Catholics, issued a joint declaration Friday reaffirming their opposition to abortion and gay marriage and pledging to protect religious freedoms.

The 4,700-word document, called "The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience," sounds familiar themes from political and social debates over the health care overhaul and gay marriage battles.

While acknowledging that "Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage," the group rejects same-sex marriage. The declaration states that opening a legal door for gay marriage would do the same for "polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships."

President Barack Obama's desire to reduce the need for abortion is "a commendable goal," but his proposals are likely to increase the number of elective abortions, the document contends.

"The present administration is led and staffed by those who want to make abortions legal at any stage of fetal development, and who want to provide abortions at taxpayer expense," it says.

Obama has said he wants to strike a balance on abortion coverage in the health care overhaul.

The declaration also cites threats to health care workers' conscience clauses and anti-discrimination statutes it argues impinge on religious freedoms.

Signatories include 15 Roman Catholic bishops, including New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl; Focus on the Family founder James Dobson; National Association of Evangelicals president Leith Anderson; seminary leaders, professors and pastors.

You can read the entire document for yourself at this link.

In this Year for Priests, few stories could be more surprising, or inspiring, than this one, about a priest named Msgr. Leon Dobosiewicz, from Florida Catholic:

At 90, the monsignor, who is parochial vicar at Holy Spirit Parish in Lake Wales and celebrates Mass at the Mission of St. Leo the Great in Nalcrest, doesn't mind confessing, "I'm one of the oldest active priests in the Orlando Diocese. Maybe the oldest."

Here is an extraordinary man who, at his own expense, bought a closed bank in Polk County, remodeled it into a Catholic mission, and presented it to the Orlando Diocese. He also flew airplanes, was a certified scuba diver, maneuvered his own speedboat and excelled at downhill skiing.

"I can attribute my calling mostly to my uncle," he said. "He was a dedicated priest who kept his church alive in the height of the Depression, when a total of $10 in the weekly collection plate was a rarity. I watched as he applied his priestly skills in harsh circumstances, and I knew I wanted to be like him."

Msgr. Dobosiewicz and his two brothers and three sisters grew up in Erie, Pa., in an energetic family, proud of their Polish roots. There is even proof of nobility on his mother's side of the family tree. He graduated from Erie Academy High School in 1939. He then went to Gannon University in Erie, at that time a two-year Cathedral College, and on to St. Francis College in Loretto, Pa. -- founded in 1845 by the Brothers of the Third Order of St. Francis of Assisi. That's where he earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy and theology.After graduating from St. Mary Seminary in Wickliffe, Ohio, he was ordained to the priesthood April 6, 1946, at St. Columba Cathedral in Youngstown, Ohio, by Bishop James McFadden.

As a priest, he inspired his parishioners at St. Joseph the Provider Church in Campbell, Ohio -- where he served as pastor for 20 years -- to raise their own funds to build a school, a gym, a convent and complete the construction of their church.

"Ours was a territorial parish, predominately Polish," he said, "so we had a common denominator. Same mentality, ideals. The building project became our common goal, and we were on fire. Everybody worked diligently, faithfully. Our secretary cut her own salary to $50 a month. At the end of seven years of bingo, car raffles and festivals, we paid off our debt."

After an age-required retirement from the Youngstown Diocese in 1984, and hearing a fellow priest glorify a Florida vacation -- "He told me it was like going to heaven"-- Msgr. Dobosiewicz headed for Clearwater where his sister resided.

For several years, he lent a hand in both the Orlando and St. Petersburg dioceses, until -- at Bishop Norbert Dorsey's invitation -- he settled in the Lake Wales area where he founded the Mission of St. Leo the Great in Nalcrest, a community of retired letter carriers.

"People sometimes ask what I might say to young men who are discerning their calling to the priesthood. Well, we live in a consumer society, chasing happiness that is not here. It's personal, temporal. Families are unstable. But serving Christ and serving others -- it's a wonderful life.

"And, since priests have no children of their own to rear, there's time to develop ourselves, our personalities, our gifts."

Read more at the link.

It didn't get much attention, but news moved yesterday that a beloved prize-winning Catholic author won another prize:

Among the National Book Awards winners named on Wednesday night whose names may elude you, one honoree you've almost certainly heard of is Flannery O'Connor.

In an online poll conducted by the National Book Foundation, her collection "The Complete Stories" was named the best work to have won the National Book Award for fiction in the contest's 60-year history.

The competition was steep: other finalists in the poll were "The Stories of John Cheever," William Faulkner's "Collected Stories," "The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty," Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" and Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow."

The National Book Award winners for this year can be found here.

The intense debate over the same-sex marriage bill in Washington, DC has now led to talk that maybe the two sides can come to a compromise.

From the Washington Post:

Some D.C. Council members and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton are reaching out to the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington to see whether they can find a compromise so the Church will not end its social services contracts with the city if the council legalizes same-sex marriage.

After a week of heated rhetoric, District officials said Thursday that they see a way for Catholic Charities to continue operating programs with city money while assuring that the organization's gay and heterosexual employees would be treated equally if they got married.

"The rights of [gay] partners cannot be any different from similar situated couples, but with that said, if other jurisdictions have found a way to accommodate Catholic Charities, that would be very much be desired," said Norton (D).

Norton, who said she was trying to make sure Congress does not intervene in the dispute, spoke briefly with Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl on Thursday.

Meanwhile, D.C. Council members David A. Catania (I-At Large) and Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) sent Wuerl a letter Wednesday urging that Catholic Charities embrace a policy similar to one in effect at Georgetown University.

They said that the Catholic university gives benefits to some same-sex couples even though the university does not officially recognize that the beneficiaries are of the same sex.

Susan Gibbs, a Church spokeswoman, said archdiocese officials were happy that city leaders were "finally responding," but she said she was not sure the proposal alleviates the Church's concerns.

There's more at the link. Stay tuned.

I saw this item over at the America magazine blog "In All Things," and thought it offered some interesting food for thought -- particularly since it comes from my friend Sr. Camille D'Arienzo, RSM, who works with inmates on death row.

She dropped a note to the editor of the magazine making this point:

Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try the accused 9/11 perpetrators in a civilian court near Ground Zero has ignited a national debate over whether the accused Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his companions should face a military or civilian court. Other concerns include the safety of the city, the opportunity for propaganda and the possibility of acquittal, based on waterboarding the men experienced in Guantanamo.

One matter not being debated is Mr. Holder's determination to urge the prosecution to seek the death penalty for these mass murderers.

If the destruction perpetrated here had occurred in London, Paris, Rome or any other European city, the death penalty would not be debated either. It is not allowed in nations that form the European Union.

If the death penalty were forbidden here, life without parole would at very least deprive these mass murderers of presenting themselves as martyrs and us as their killers.

Any thoughts?

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