Father Steve comments on two related articles regarding the health of the clergy in today's society, examining the way in which their redefined roles are often conducive to the onset of medical problems and issues. On the other hand, Father Steve's review also highlights a priestly example of the "way forward."
The juxtaposition of two recent articles caught my attention. On August 1st, the New York Times printed an
article by Paul Vitello concerning the perilous state of health suffered by many members of the clergy. According to Vitello, incidents of depression, hypertension and obesity now skew higher among members of the clergy than the general population. The reasons for this are many, but in particular Vitello cites a study of the clergy (mostly Protestant ministers, but these same stats could easily be applied to Catholic priests) that indicates that many have “boundary issues,” a therapeutic category that denotes the tendency to be overtaken easily by the apparent urgency of other people’s needs. The point being that many of the clergy surveyed will place the concerns of the people they serve above their own, even if such generosity threatens their own health. Christians might cite this as a positive, an indication of the self- sacrifice they would expect of religious leaders. However, the negative impact is evident in the minds, bodies and souls of the leaders themselves...
Robert Mixa responds to the recent article in The New York Times about Galileo, which showcases the often misunderstood relationship between the Church and Science.
The New York Times has recently issued an
article that is another addition to the supposed legitimization of the secular narrative in placing itself in opposition to the Church’s stance that faith and reason are codependent. Can you guess whom the article is about? Galileo. Talk about obsession! Every secularist invokes the condemnation of Galileo in order to assure themselves, and the world, that faith and reason cannot coexist, inspiring Paola Galluzzi, the director of the Galileo Museum, to say, “He’s [Galileo] a secular saint, and relics are an important symbol of his fight for freedom of thought.” Just as Galileo was confined to house arrest, secularism fears that faith imprisons the mind and is inherently averse to science. However, this is not true...
Today, Ellyn vonHuben offers a very interesting commentary on a recent New York Times feature about the cultural phenomenon of prolonged adolescence. Read what she has to say here:
When my father died I took the Marine Corps dog tag that had always been on his key chain. I carried it on my key chain for a while and today it sits in my jewelry box and I still look at it from time to time. Dad engraved his initials and date of enlistment on the back: 7/8/42. The date was one month and one day after his seventeenth birthday. Seventeen. My youngest son will be seventeen in December, and I worry when he jumps on his bike to run a few blocks to our local equivalent of the Kwik-E-Mart to purchase an energy drink that may contain high fructose corn syrup. Yes, the Kwik-E-Mart - not Parris Island, Cherry Point, Espiritu Santo and other places, foreign and domestic, that were written on the duffle bag that, by 1962, was used to haul home dirty laundry on family vacations. That was the common arc of maturity of the parents of the baby boomers. Expectations of grown-up behavior at seventeen; suburban life with kids and dog by 37...