A few weeks ago, in the wake of the Fr. Alberto Cutie scandal, an editor at CNN.com asked me to write a short piece (800 words) on the meaning of celibacy from a Catholic standpoint. So I composed what I thought was a harmless little essay, laying out as simply and straightforwardly as I could why the Church reverences celibacy as a spiritual path.
This past week in Washington D.C. I participated in the annual meeting of the Academy of Catholic Theology, a group of about fifty theologians dedicated to thinking according to the mind of the church. Our general topic was the Trinity, and I had been invited to give one of the papers.
I’ve just returned from a wonderful trip to Europe, where my team and I were filming for our ten-part documentary on Catholicism. We journeyed throughout France, Germany, and Poland, taking in some of the artistic and architectural glories of European Catholicism. We photographed at Notre Dame Cathedral and Sainte Chapelle in Paris, at Chartres Cathedral, at the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar which houses Grunewald’s magnificent Isenheim altarpiece, at the imposing Cathedral of Cologne in Germany, and finally at Wawel Cathedral in Kracow.
A year ago I began posting brief reflections on movies, music and culture on YouTube, probably the most watched Web site in the world. This exercise has resembled St. Paul's venture onto the Areopagus in Athens, preaching the Gospel amid a jumble of competing ideas. YouTube is a virtual Areopagus, where every viewpoint-from the sublime to the deeply disturbing-is on display. Never as a Catholic teacher or preacher have I addressed less of the "choir.”
It was with a great deal of dismay that I listened to the speeches given last Sunday at Notre Dame by Fr. John Jenkins the President of the University and Barack Obama the President of the United States. Both are decent men and both are eloquent speakers, but both, I’m afraid to say, are confused in regard to some fundamental matters.