Denver Catholic

22 MARCH 24-APRIL 13, 2018 | DENVER CATHOLIC Perspectives Getting ready for Synod-2018 T he headline on the March 3rd story at the CRUX website was certainly arresting — "Car- dinal on charges of rigged synods: 'There was no maneuvering!'" The cardinal in ques- tion was Lorenzo Baldisseri, secre- tary-gen- eral of the Synod of Bishops, and not only were his voluble comments striking, they were also a bit discon- certing. Did I simply imagine the uproar on the fl oor of the Synod on Oct. 16, 2014, as bishop after bishop protested an interim report gener- ated by Baldisseri and his colleague, Archbishop Bruno Forte, that did not refl ect the discussions of the previ- ous two weeks? Were the complaints about the suŠ ocating Synod proce- dures Cardinal Baldisseri outlined prior to Synod-2015 an illusion? Didn't thirteen cardinals write Pope Francis in the most respectful terms, suggesting alterations in those proce- dures to ensure the open discussion the pope insisted he wanted? But, hey, memory is a tricky thing, and this is the season of mercy, so let's let bygones be bygones and concen- trate now on Synod-2018, which will discuss youth ministry and vocational discernment. Those are very import- ant topics. The Church in the United States has had some success address- ing them, despite challenging cultural circumstances; so perhaps some American leaders in youth ministry and vocational discernment could be invited to Synod-2018 to enrich its discussion, on the Synod fl oor and oŠ it (where most of the interesting con- versations at these aŠ airs take place). Curtis Martin is the founder of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), which is arguably the most creative campus minis- try initiative in the post-Vatican II Church. FOCUS sends recent college graduates back to campuses as mis- sionaries and has had such success in the U.S. that FOCUS missionaries are now working in Europe. There's a lot the bishops at Synod-2018 could learn from Mr. Martin's experience. Then there's Anna Halpine, pres- ident of the World Youth Alliance: a network of pro-life young people all over the world, who witness to the joy of the Gospel and the Gospel of life in an extraordinary variety of social and cultural settings. WYA has also designed and deployed innovative educational programs and women's health centers that, building out from the Church's teaching on the inalien- able dignity of the human person, oŠ er life-a´ rming alternatives to the moral emptiness of too many elementary school curricula and the death-dealing work of Planned Par- enthood on campuses. Surely there's something to be shared at the Synod from this remarkable enterprise. Bishop David Konderla of Tulsa was the director of campus minis- try at Texas A&M for eleven years, where St. Mary's Catholic Center has set the gold standard in traditional campus ministry and created a model for others to emulate. Over the past twenty years, Konderla and his prede- cessors have fostered more vocations to the priesthood and religious life than that school with the golden dome in northwest Indiana, while helping many Aggie men and women prepare for fruitful and faithful Catholic mar- riages. Bishop Konderla would make a very apt papal nominee to Synod-2018. Msgr. James Shea, president of the University of Mary in Bismarck, N. D., has taken up the mantle of the late Dr. Don Briel in creating a robust, inte- grated Catholic Studies program on his growing campus. Shea's goal, like Briel's, is to form mature young men and women intellectually, spiritually and liturgically, so that they can be, in the twenty-fi rst c entury, Pope Fran- cis's "Church permanently in mis- sion." He has things to say about how to do this, and Synod-2018 should hear them. Then there is Father Thomas Joseph White, OP, a banjo-playing, bourbon-appreciating theologian of distinction who (with his Dominican brother, Father Dominic Legge) has created the Thomistic Institute, to bring serious Catholic ideas to pres- tigious universities across the U.S. The Institute's lectures and seminars fi ll the intellectual vacuum evident on so many campuses today — the vacuum where thought about the deep truths inscribed in the world and in us used to be. Father White is being redeployed by his community to Rome this Fall, so he'll be a number 64 bus ride away from the Vatican. The Synod fathers should meet him, and perhaps he and Cardinal Baldis- seri, an accomplished pianist, could jam. So by all means, let's have "no maneuvering" at Synod-2018. But let's also have some American expertise there, for the good of the whole Church. The Catholic Di¦ erence George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. GEORGE WEIGEL The ongoing Christian genocide G enocide is a serious accu- sation. Many people have spoken of an ongoing perse- cution of Christians in the Middle East as genocide, a claim that has clear backing in interna- tional law. The United Nations defi nes genocide as "any of the following acts com- mitted with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately infl icting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." In 2016 the State Depart- ment and both houses of Congress declared that ISIS, in particular, was committing genocide against Chris- tians and other religious minorities. On average, it is estimated that 7-8,000 Christians are martyred each year, according to the International Society for Human Rights (though larger estimates take broader warfare and ethnic confl icts into consider- ation, especially in Africa.). Nine of the top ten oŠ ending countries with the highest rates of Christian persecution are found either in the Middle East or in neighboring coun- tries. With the rise of ISIS, persecu- tion reached a particularly intense moment, though under the Trump administration their territory has shrunk dramatically. Nonetheless, the centuries long trajectory of elimi- nating the Christian population of the Middle East continues. The Per- secution and Genocide of Christian in the Middle East, edited by Ronald Rychlak and Jane Adolphe (Angelico, 2017), provides a systematic overview of the historical, religious, legal, and social forces behind the persecu- tion of Christians. The book collects proceedings from a conference held in Rome, "Under Caesar's Sword: Christians Respond to Persecution," co-sponsored by Notre Dame and Georgetown, as well as contributions from other scholars and experts. The book provides a comprehensive over- view of the issues faced by persecuted The Catholic Reader R. Jared Staudt, PhD, is a husband and father of six, the catechetical formation specialist for the Archdiocese of Denver, a Benedictine oblate, prolifi c writer, and insatiable reader. DR. R. JARED STAUDT PHOTO BY SPENCER PLATT | GETTY IMAGES

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