Winterpeg or Bust

Two professional hockey teams have migrated from my old home of Atlanta to the land of the Canucks.
* The Flames, now in Calgary, were the home team when I was a youngster.
* A few years ago the Thrashers flew north and become the Jets when they landed in Winnipeg.

A recent conversation with an awesome Ottawa pilgrim friend brought to mind the one substantial trip I’ve ever made across the Canadian border (plane changes in Toronto count as visits, to be sure, but they don’t really give you a flavor for the locale).
 
My multi-day trip was to Winnipeg for a friend’s wedding, which was a Sung Mass in the Latin. It was a delightful time, and the big day for my friends was a joyful one for all of us.
 
I also did a little site-seeing while I was in Winnipeg, driving my Rubicon jeep around the city. Flowing through Winnipeg are two rivers, the Assiniboine and the Red. I traversed the Red River a couple of times in my Rubicon, and perhaps because the wedding Mass had been a Latin experience, my mind turned to things Roman during one of the crossings. “When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River, the fields of Rome ran red with the blood of civil war,” I thought. “And now here I am crossing the Red River in my Rubicon Jeep.”
 
My geek credentials thus firmly established, I hummed a Gloria Patri and continued on my way.

More on Marriage

"Until death do us part" is the old fashioned formula that went with the marriage ceremony; any more one is far more likely to hear "for as long as we both shall live." The two statements mean the same thing, and they are rooted in the realization that valid marriage does not end until one spouse dies.

The Protestant response, in my experience, normally includes a reference to this line from Matthew 5:32 "But I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, excepting for the cause of fornication, makes her to commit adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, commits adultery."

Yet this passage must be read in light of the other Scriptures on the topic.

Mark 10:11 reports that "Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another commits adultery against her."

Luke 16:18 records "Every one that puts away his wife and marries another commits adultery: and he that marries her that is put away from her husband commits adultery."

Patristics -- the study of the writings of the Church Fathers -- and the constant, uninterrupted practice of Christians for 2,000 years supports my point.

So is there a contradiction between the passage from St. Mark and the other sources? Only an apparent one. Christ did allow couples to separate for sufficiently grave reasons - the example He gave was for infidelity, but others exist such as abuse, criminal activity, alcoholism, etc. Even then, He allowed only for separation; remarriage while the spouse was living was out of the question.

So what is the proper way to read St. Mark? Like this:

"Whosoever shall put away his wife (I am now speaking of mere separation without remarriage, for that is lawful in the case of infidelity), but whosoever puts away his wife and marries another commits adultery himself and by this adulterous union forces his wife into adultery if she marries another."

Upside-Down Marriages

Feast of the Holy Family

A saint like Francis of Assisi would joyfully stand on his head with the intention of delighting the Mother of God. In the process the energetic Italian would observe that he was actually looking at things right-side up: it was the world that had gone topsy-turvy, and by assuming an inverted posture he was finally looking at things from the proper perspective.

In the modern western view the predominant wisdom is that one should follow his heart in matters of marriage (or concubinage), and then having landed a more or less long-term partner he should carefully and in calculated fashion determine how many children he will have. The beginning is essentially romantic, and the end tends to devolve into business-like practicality.

The perspective of the God who fashioned marriage, meanwhile, is that one should carefully and soberly enter into marriage, and then after being permanently bound in the matrimonial state he should be generous and spontaneous and have as many children as the good God sends. The beginning is essentially practical and business-like, and the outcome is an ongoing romantic adventure.

To the moderns who substitute convenience for happiness and who view children as an interruption of their lives, the latter is foolishness and matter for derisive dismissal.

As one who observes the small-family moderns incessantly complaining about the inconveniences endured due to their spouses, children, jobs, in-laws, neighbors, any just about everything under the sun, I'll side with the kindly folks who take the family adventure God sends their way.

Marriage Revisited

What worked for the ordinary form of the Mass will work for Marriage too

An interview with His Eminence, Cardinal Altus Malum, Secretary for the Conciliar Reform of the Institution of Marriage

Maps, Keys, and Clocks wishes to express its thanks to the Office of Reform of the Institution of Marriage for allowing this transcript to be printed.

MAPS, KEYS, AND CLOCKS: Your Eminence, thank you for granting this interview.

CARDINAL ALTUS MALUM: I was gratified to accept your invitation. The reforms of the Office require careful explanation to be correctly understood and implemented.

MKC: I am certain that is so. Updating the form of a Sacrament must be a great challenge. Do you find it so?

CAM: Indeed, very much so. There are quite a great many old notions covering the topic that must be swept away like so much dust. But it is all part of the duty of the cleaning that comes with the new springtime. We live in a brave new world of progress and improvement, and the journey forward requires we make way for the exciting possibilities of tomorrow.

MKC: I would think that would make for very engaging work. And those who do it must be erudite individuals.

CAM: That adjective is indicative of a non-strategic mindset; we prefer to say “informed.” And to be informed requires that one be aware of the latest trends and developments so as to ride the whirlwind and direct the storm. It is a dynamic time in which to live.

MKC: How do you approach the task, Your Eminence? How is a Sacrament of the Church updated?

CAM: As a preliminary, remember that authority is based in consensus. With so many people in the world today who are informed and educated and capable of holding their own opinions, there is no longer a need to rely on an autocrat to tell them what to think and say and do. My colleagues and I seek to manifest that simple truth in the activities associated with the new rite of marriage.

MKC: I notice you said “activities” and not “rituals.”

CAM: It is pleasing to see that you noticed the distinction. This change of language is key to the program of reform. Actions follow our thoughts, and a new way of living follows from a new way of thinking. For instance, you will recall that in the old form of marriage, the couple being wed actually stood at the front of the Church with their backs to the audience. This example more than any other reinforced the passé notion of a top-down order to the events, one that relegated onlookers to a non-participatory and secondary role.

MKC: Perhaps the “audience” might have said that they thought it proper that the couple being married was placed in a position and posture of prominence, what with it being their wedding day and the reason everyone had gathered.

CAM: If they’d been taught to blindly accept what they were told, then they might have said as much, of course. And here you have demonstrated well one of the endemic challenges of the sophomoric mindset that my Office is attempting to correct. What matters here is conformity with the new and popular way of looking at things. Uncritical adherence to outmoded mental constructs stands in the way of the new freedoms that await those who are eager and bold enough to seek them.

MKC: I have no desire to seem sophomoric, but please pardon the candor of my next question. You have said that you place chief emphasis on conformity to contemporary modes of thought and expression, but it would also appear that you fault people like myself as being sophomoric for our adherence to a previous mode. Is there a contradiction?

CAM: To answer your question, young grasshopper, let me put a question to you. By people, do you mean only the plebeian crowd, or do you mean the phenomenon of fully actualized men who recognize the organized complexity towards which the universe is evolving?

MKC: Two standards, to be sure, and your Eminence demonstrates insight by distinguishing between them. Please allow me this follow-up question: how can you maintain that you represent a popular outlook on the issues of the day before your ideas have become popular among the plebeian crowd?

CAM: It is a source of great anguish that my Office attempts to generously aid and help people who are incapable of truly appreciating what is being done for them! We are misunderstood and maligned by reactionary conformists and integrists; they cannot grasp the sublimity of what we are about. But we move forward anyway, knowing what is best for them, educating them about the benefits they will receive if they quietly trust their leaders, ostracizing and quarantining the few obstinate and opinionated recalcitrants.

MKC: That’s a grave responsibility to take on, don’t you think, Your Eminence?

CAM: If Providence had not intended the people to yield to the direction of their shepherds, He would not have likened them to sheep, no?

MKC: So you are critical of a top-down order when it comes to the old rituals, and yet you insist that the laity do as they are told when it comes to the new activities. Is this not a contradiction?

CAM: No, I think not. The men of the old hierarchy were conformist autocrats. Our Office, however, is enlightened and beneficent.

MKC: To the uninformed this might seem like an arbitrary distinction. How do you safeguard against the possibility of corruption?

CAM: Your meaning is unclear. The vast majority of the Church’s bishops support or tolerate the new agenda. Where is the possibility of corruption?

MKC: I crave your pardon, Your Eminence, but is there not at least a risk of corruption in any merely human endeavor? And with the new ideas subject to constant refinement and change based on current trends in thought that are often at odds what the historical Catholic Faith, is there not a risk that the ideas themselves are not worthy of fidelity? Is there not at least the possibility that without reference to an external objective measure, people are merely reinforcing one another in a self-indulgent delusion so as to avoid being labeled obstinate and recalcitrant by their peers?

CAM: Indulgent? Yes, I see you are still indulging in the old way of thinking. Even if there were such a thing as an external objective measure, how could our limited subjective minds ever comprehend or even approach it? Your concept is improbable. And as long as the people who still attend church sit docile and content in the pews and make no great fuss, how likely is it that there is corruption? A moment ago I thought you showed promise, but now I see that you still do not understand the evolving ways of our Office. How distasteful and sad.

MKC: But I think I begin to understand more of it now. Allow me to return to a matter you mentioned earlier, when you said it was undesirable for the wedding couple to stand with its back to the audience. What is the desirable alternative?

CAM: A wedding is a public and corporate act, and the structure of the events should reflect this. In the new order of activities, the couple sits on a comfortable couch and faces the audience. In this way two life partners invite the entire community to be witness to their public profession of love.

MKC: How is this couch situated? Does it rest at the end of the aisle?

CAM: Oh of course not, it takes the place of the altar. This necessitated the invention of a new type of altar on wheels – progress once again! – that can be readily moved out of the way at need for the new wedding ceremony.

MKC: An altar on wheels?

CAM: One enterprising parish actually built a sofa into the back of its altar, so that instead of wheeling the altar offstage, they would just spin it around.

MKC: That must have been quite a memorable sight. And so from this sofa the couple pronounces its wedding vows?

CAM: Not at all! We have dispensed with vows and other medieval eccentricities. No, the couple makes a public profession of their love and affection in a form that best suits their personalities and cultural heritage, or lack thereof. We leave it to the artistic spirit of each couple, but we encourage unique and heart-felt expressions of their mutual regard. For example, one groom whose ancestry included indigenous peoples crafted a papier-mâché cow head filled with candy that he broke open with a broomstick to signify the sweet life he and his partner would have together.

MKC: I recall hearing about that wedding – the blindfolded groom lost his grip on the stick and nearly hit the bride in the head.

CAM: I say, that is too bad! You mustn’t focus on the insignificant transitory aspects! The important consideration is that he was acting in an original way that was true to his heart and to his character. That was the beauty of the moment! The young woman was unhurt – in fact, when her turn came, she played a recording of herself reciting a poem of her own invention:

The poor little clown-
The one with a frown:
What he thought was a hat
Was really a cat.
Yes, you’re better off dead
Than with a cat on your head!

MKC: She actually had that played in public?

CAM: Indeed! It was a private joke between the two of them, and making it public helped turn the event into a truly personal and memorable one. A wedding should be a celebration, one that everyone will remember with fondness and talk about to the end of their days. Is it not so in your view?

The reporter dropped his pen at this point. After he somewhat regained his composure, the interview continued.

MKC: Forgive me. Now, after the couple makes a mutual exchange of their…personal creations…what comes next?

CAM: Then, my young fellow, the audience is invited to introduce their own contributions. It is all part of the communal aspect of the day, you see. Naturally, we encourage creativity and spontaneity. Remarks, toasts, testimonials, gifts, reminders, taunts, all that and more.

MKC: Um…fifty years from now, suppose a man wanted to try a marriage as you’ve described today as a way of manifesting an appreciation for his own cultural heritage. What do you envision would be said to him?

CAM: In that time the changes would have been further modified in ways we could never begin to imagine just now. If a nostalgic fellow were to inquire about the wedding activities you and I know today, someone would point out that nobody else is asking for them and tell him he should quit wasting everyone’s time. And speaking of time, I am afraid ours has run its course.

MKC: Thank you, Your Eminence.

CAM: Naturally.

Pope: Reduce Number of Annulments

Source

Pope Benedict XVI has urged church tribunals to work harder to encourage couples to stay married and not resort to granting annulments "at all costs."

An annulment is the process by which the church effectively declares that a marriage never took place.

Many Catholics seek them so they can remarry in the church and receive Communion.

Church laws
Benedict told members of the Roman Rota, the Vatican tribunal that decides marriage annulments, that they shouldn't confuse "pastoral charity" in granting annulments with their need to uphold church law.

The Vatican's concern largely is seen as being mainly directed at the United States, which in 2006 had more annulment cases launched than the rest of the world combined.

More on Marriage

Source

From the article, remarks of Pope Benedict XVI:

* Many children raised by cohabitating, separated, divorced, or remarried parents are deprived of fixed points of reference and can suffer from inner conflict and confusion.

* Families in secularized cultures, especially where divorce is legal, are deeply immersed in uncertainty.

* More and more couples build their unions on the fragility and impermanence of cohabitation, which is based on an "individual's feeling or subjectivity."

* As divorces increase and cohabitation is on the rise, the children in these situations are "deprived of their parents' support and become victims of malaise and abandonment, thus spreading social disorder."

* Children today "feel like they are orphans are not children without parents, but children who have too many parents."

* This situation of a child caught between the different expectations and mixed messages of too many stepparents "cannot help but create inner conflicts and confusion" within the child.

* Pope Benedict reminds us of the clear teaching of Christ that in the case of the "irregular and dangerous situation" of divorced and remarried people, only the first marriage exists. "There is no husband and wife in a second marriage" -- rather they are a man and woman living in adultery.

Arcanum

Source

Divorce "is the fruitful cause of mutable marriage contracts; it diminishes mutual affection; it supplies a pernicious stimulus to unfaithfulness; it is injurious to the care and education of children; it gives occasion to the breaking up of domestic society; it scatters the seeds of discord among families; it lessens and degrades the dignity of women, who incur the danger of being abandoned when they shall have subserved the lust of their husbands. And since nothing tends so effectually as the corruption of morals to ruin families and undermine the strength of kingdoms, it may easily be perceived that divorce is especially hostile to the prosperity of families and States..."

– Pope Leo XIII, Arcanum, February 10, 1880

Theoretical Marriages

A colleague from the office named Kim posted this note today on her Facebook page: "If anyone knows a good washer repairman, please send my way. It's like laundry Survivor here. Outwit. Outlast."

I saw Kim in the office later and inquired about the state of her washer.

"No good," she said.

"Does that mean we'll start seeing you in a dress suit because that's the only thing clean?"

"Or my wedding dress."

"Or your graduation gown?"

"Don't know if I'd fit in that."

"Better go with the wedding dress then."

The conversation shifted to talk about a friend of mine who once kicked the tires on a wedding dress rental business; his idea was that it would have been akin to a tuxedo rental business.

"Intellectually I understand it, but my heart wouldn't be behind something like that," I said.

"Yeah, but it's like the wedding party," Kim replied. "Sure it's a big deal, but it really is just a party."

I pondered that for a moment, then said, "Well, it does commemorate a huge, life-changing event. You want something memorable to begin a lifelong commitment."

Kim nodded her head. "It's lifelong in theory, anyway."

I pondered for another moment, then said, "If you're not going into it with the intention of making it for life, then it's not a wedding -- it's just a hobby."

It was Kim's turn to be thoughtful, then she nodded again. "I like that perspective."

Quem Quaeritis?

"Why are men so reluctant to marry?" the question was coyly posed.

"Why are women so reluctant to stay married?" I answered teasingly.

"Huh?" was the startled reply.

In the U.S. 70% of divorces are initiated by the wife. Certainly middle-aged men still trade in the mother of their children for trophy wives; definitely there are cases of infidelity and abuse and criminal activity that warrant a permanent split. But at the end of the day the overwhelming majority of breakups are not because of these factors -- rather, selfishness and boredom are the major culprits.

I recognize full well that societal norms are far different today than they were even a generation ago, when the phrase "irreconcilable differences" started to catch on in a big way.

This in my view makes it abundantly clear that societal norms need to subjected to serious overhaul. With that thought in mind, here's a checklist to help correct the worst marital excesses stemming from today's societal norms.

* Marriage is for life. This is not merely sentiment -- that is, when the words "For as long as we both shall live" are uttered, it is a binding obligation. The spouses can separate (even permanently) when the physical or moral well-being of one or both is gravely jeopardized, but the man and woman remain bound in matrimony as husband and wife until one of them dies. And if your spouse leaves, you do not remarry.

* Marriage is for family. I will never, under any circumstance, no matter who is involved, attend the wedding of a couple who has declared that they refuse to have children. When done properly raising children is a great remedy to selfishness -- you have to be generous and selfless until it hurts to be a good parent. And "family planning" is a misnomer; "family prevention for selfish reasons" is the correct phrasing. I will never show support for someone else formally committing themselves to a selfish lifestyle.

* Marriage is a religious act. Humans did not create marriage, God did. Governments can add some conditions like obliging couples to complete paperwork, but they do not have final say in the matter. For that reason, governments are entirely incompetent to declare marriages ended; the state can oversee division of property and assets, but they cannot declare a married couple to no longer be wedded.

Quem Quaeritis?

For As Long As We Both Shall Live

Christ was put to death by His enemies because he pointed out their pride and hypocrisy and warned them that they would come to a bad end if they didn't repent. And not only the Pharisees received a stern talking to -- consider this requirement: "Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another committeth adultery against her" (Mark 10:11, DRV).

There's a quaint habit of dismissing Christ as a man of His times that amounts to dismissing Him as irrelevant for our times. The passage above from St. Mark, however, was no easier for first century Palestinians than it is for people today. It shocked people then; it shocks them now. Whatever Christ was, He was never "a man of the times."

Marriage unites a man and a woman in a permanent and exclusive union; after the two of them are joined in matrimony, no power on earth can sever that union. Sure they can go their separate ways, but they remain husband and wife: the bond of marriage endures for life, no matter the distance or circumstance. To leave one spouse and take up with another while the first spouse is still living is a big no-no. It's a simple teaching to grasp, though a difficult one to live up to.

I've been told more than once that this view of marriage being indissoluble until death is crazy. But what's really crazy is promising one's beloved to be faithful for life, then leaving that spouse and making the same exact promise to someone else later on. The point about the permanency of marriage is a difficult thing, but the alternative is certifiably insane. Christ does us the courtesy of taking us at our word when we say "For as long as we both shall live."

Three in One

Luca Rossetti da Orta, The Holy Trinity
St. Gaudenzio Church (Torino)

It's not uncommon to come across explanations of the Trinity of the Godhead. It is -- in my experience at least -- less common to see a practical implication articulated for it.

God is uncreated spirit, without gender, without beginning or end. We use the pronoun "He" to describe Him because that's the closest we can get to describing what God is like after our own fashion using human language.

We say that God is the Father because He is the ultimate seminal cause, the supreme source. Everything else proceeds from Him; He holds all authority; like good children, we are to return to Him love and honor.

We say that God is the Son because He is the consummate manifestation of the mind of the Father. Imagine a thought so perfect that it truly and literally exists in its own right, outside the mind of the individual who thought it. That is what the Son is to the Father, and it is why in his Gospel St. John the Evangelist called Him the Word. Being of the same substance of the Father, the Son is begotten.

We say that God is the Holy Ghost because when the Father and Son behold one another, they see the infinite truth, beauty, and goodness that the Other possesses and respond with an infinite Love. This Love is so profound and perfect that it is manifested as yet another Individual: the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. That is why the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son.

(Though I speak of each person of the Trinity in turn, there is no sequence to Them -- i.e. there was never a moment when there was no Son or Holy Ghost: all Three have existed forever and will continue to exist for eternity. And though there are three distinct Persons in the Godhead, there is only one God -- a God who cannot be divided, and three Persons who must not be confounded. But all that is material for a future blog entry.)

So what does that mean for us here below?

One crucial point is that it concretely demonstrates what it means to love. This is not love in the sentimental sense -- as C.S. Lewis put it:

"Not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire that made the worlds, persistent as the artist's love for his work and despotic as a man's love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father's love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes..."

Love responds to love with acts of love. For example, the fellow in love will bind himself to his beloved by promising to love no one else forever (it is the nature of love to inspire this sort of conduct), and his beloved will respond in kind. So toss out the window pre-nups, temporary marriages of convenience, and multiple marriages punctuated by divorces: they're all invalidating exercises, shabby imitations, tired and sterile expedients that make for a damnable waste of time.

Love creates, for another. The love of the Father and the Son is a spirit so real that is actually another Person. Likewise, when a man and woman are in love, there is no better manifestation of that love than for the couple to give birth to another person. That is why birth control is intrinsically perverse, why same-sex marriages aren't marriages, and why couples who marry with the intention to never have children are committing fraud.

Laudamus Te. Benedicimus Te. Adoramus Te. Glorificamus Te.

Trips to the Mailbox

One day a few years ago a jogging neighbor paused at my mailbox while I was retrieving the mail.

"Doesn't that couple's barking dogs bother you?" she asked.

She meant the two dogs that sat on my next-door neighbor's back porch and saluted passers-by in lupine fashion. In point of that fact, the porch was on the same level as my family room, and the dogs routinely barked when they saw me moving around inside my house.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Sure," I said. "But the couple who lives there isn't married, so I've never really gotten to know them."

The jogger recoiled as if her leash had been yanked. "Oh, I don't care anything about that," she said as she turned. "I just don't like the dogs barking." So saying, she resumed her jog.

Quite literally, the person on the street is annoyed by barking dogs but inured to folks living in sin. Commenting on immoral lifestyles is beyond the pale; baying hounds is a matter of righteous indignation. Mentioning the injuriousness inherent in divorcing conjugal purpose from conjugal pleasure is a conversation-stopper; giving two healthy pets the run of the back yard lowers property values.

I wasn't indifferent to the dog-owning couple next door: I had, after all, met them. He was a coach for the now-defunct Atlanta women's soccer team; she was an attorney. My own dog Roscoe was a digger, and twice the couple had kindly brought my little rover home after he'd made his way under the fence to call on his canine neighbors. The couple did eventually marry; not long after they divorced when he was caught in an affair.* I moved a short time after and lost track of them.

* Couples who live together before marrying -- particularly those who intend to never have children -- are more likely to end up divorced than couples who wait until after marriage to share a bed. Thus, living together on a trial basis before marriage to test compatibility actually undermines and hinders marital permanence. It really is unhealthy and unwise.

Letter #4: Marriage

In March 2007 the Beacon published a pair of op-ed pieces about the legal recognition of homosexual marriages -- one op-ed was in favor, the other against. I wrote a response, which was published the next week.

Here are links to the originals:
* Original Article: p. 25 of http://beaconcast.com/downloads/20070703_6
* My Response: p. 27 of http://beaconcast.com/downloads/20070703_7

Below is my letter.

=======

To Destroy With Faint Praise

What people do is less interesting to me than why they do it.

For example, the notion of allowing for a new kind of civil marriage between non-traditional partners is one reason why marriage is less and less talked about in respectable circles. The chief difficulty, I think, is that those who would defend marriage – and by “marriage” I mean the glorious institution that historically formed the bedrock of Christian civilization – are themselves compromised; they have gotten into the habit of merely enjoying the secondary, pleasurable elements and neglecting or even omitting the primary, necessary ones. It’s something akin to chewing up food for the flavor and then spitting it out. In a sane world that would be rightly viewed as an eating disorder, but when everyone is anorexic, even a lean marathon runner comes to be viewed as plump.

Michael Dvorscak wrote, “Marriage is an institution…defined as a union between a man and a woman.” Marriage deserves better than that. The same could be said of a business venture, a civic club, or a picnic. A definition that is unspecific is not only anemic as a definition, it has the effect of undermining through weak praise what must be vigorously protected.

Here are the missing elements of what has traditionally been included in our civilization’s definition of marriage:

• Marriage is the exclusive and permanent union of a man and a woman as husband and wife. After the couple is truly married, the marriage bond endures for life – thus the traditional pronouncement, “’Til death do us part.”
• Its primary end is the procreation and raising of children, whom the parents will feed, clothe, shelter, and educate. Infertility and sterility are not obstacles (there are precedents of surprises in that domain), but a couple that cannot physically procreate cannot marry.
• Its secondary end is for the good of the couple – to form between the man and woman an intimate life of affection and love. This is a necessary support for helping the couple accomplish the primary purpose of marriage; it also makes more likely the marriage’s endurance.

One reason that marriage is permanent is that newborn children are terribly frail and utterly dependent. A society that permits dissoluble or merely civil marriages sentences the most innocent and helpless of its members to a life of chaos and dread.

That, in a nutshell, is marriage as it created, nourished, and benefited Western civilization. Anything that dilutes or weakens the institution or definition of marriage undermines society and condemns its people.

Marriage is the quintessential building block of a society. As the family goes, so goes the nation.

The Georgia Martyrs

In September of 1597 five Spanish Franciscan missionaries were slain by American Indians on the islands off what would later become the Georgia coast. These gentle sons of St. Francis suffered and died for love of the sacrament of matrimony, becoming heroes of the Catholic faith. Like St. John the Baptist who was martyred for protesting King Herod taking for himself the wife of his brother, the five Georgia Martyrs are an eloquent rebuke – then as now – to an age that believes men can make use of marriage with no regard for public morality or for the spiritual character of the institution.

Era of the Spanish Missions in the American Southeast 
The Spanish missions on the southeast American continent – what Juan Ponce de León discovered in the Easter season of 1513 and named La Florida – initially extended from the Florida Keys along the Gulf of Mexico west to Texas and then north to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada.

By the end of the 16th century Spanish influence over most of this area had diminished, but colonies were well-entrenched in northern Florida and coastal Georgia: from a base on the east coast in St. Augustine, missions stretched west across the peninsula to Tallahassee and north along the coast to the Island of St. Catherine (Santa Catalina).

The pinnacle of the Spanish missionary age arrived in 1667 when 70 missions served by 40 priests and brothers were active from Florida as far north to St. Catherine’s Island. It had a longer life-span and involved an even greater numbers of religious and converts than its more famous counterpart in the American west a century and a half later under the “Apostle of California,” Fr. Junípero Serra. This era ended in 1742 when the English Lord (later General) James Oglethorpe defeated Spanish troops at the Battle of Bloody Marsh on St. Simon’s Island.

Life in the Missions
The Spanish missions of coastal Georgia were trying: salt marshes and tidal freshwater wetlands abounded; stone was scarce, and the soil was poor, wet, and acidic, making crops difficult to grow; in the submerged saw-grass terrain mosquitoes buzzed and bit constantly.

Spanish families were reluctant to settle there, preferring the more hospitable lands of Cuba and Mexico to the south. Soldiers considered assignments in the area hardship duty.

One tribe of aborigines controlled the terrain along the 100-mile strip of land and islands that would become the Georgia coast. This group of semi-nomadic worshipers of sun and sky practiced polygamy, wore little clothing, and were lazy, erratic, and warlike. These natives were disinclined to accept Christianity, showing open contempt and even violence: priests who greeted them with charity were not-infrequently slaughtered.

The Indians supplemented their diet of wildlife by planting crops of maize, beans, and tobacco. They built villages of wattle, daub, and tabby for maintaining their farms, but they did not live permanently in them. Each village was ruled by a chief, or mico; over all the micos was a mico mayer, or head chief. In their native tongue they called themselves the Guale (pronounced by the Spanish “Walley”), which was the title of their chief and the name of their main village. The Spanish applied the term to their land as well.

The beginning of the missions among the Guale is credited to the Jesuits, who began their efforts in 1569; one of the missionaries, Domingo Augustin, also wrote a grammar of the Guale language. The unpredictability of the natives and the migratory life of neighboring tribes proved too much for the few Jesuits to serve, however, and a year after a 1571 Indian uprising and massacre the Jesuits withdrew from that mission field.

In 1573 missions were resumed by the Franciscans, who had greater success. The main Franciscan mission was based in the Guale capital on St. Catherine's Island. Deep into the wilderness, far from the safety of military protection, these preachers of the Gospel built missions, taught and catechized, administered the sacraments, and offered the sacrifice of the Mass.

Catechizing the Guale was a slow process, but in time the missionaries taught the Indians the catechism in their native tongue, introduced them to European methods of agriculture, and reminded them of the necessity of wearing clothes, working diligently, and living peacefully. Though the Franciscans adapted themselves where they could to many Indian customs, they held firm that a Catholic man could not divorce, and that he could have only one wife. The missionaries would not baptize a Guale adult who refused to promise to live in a permanent marriage with only one spouse. Through entreaties, patience, and gifts the friars converted a number of the Guale, who were baptized, confirmed, and buried as Catholics.

Five Martyrs
In 1595, during the reign of Spain’s King Philip II, the Guale Christians numbered 1,500 souls when they received a new community of friars.

The recent arrivals were escorted by the local governor to the several missions. At each village the governor reverently knelt to kiss the hands of the missionaries in the presence of the assembled Indians, an act that made a great impression on the inhabitants. A new mission was soon established at the important Guale village of Tolomato, just north of present day Brunswick. The spot was named Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe de Tolomato -- Our Lady of Guadalupe of Tolomato.

The Franciscans’ work continued with no little success, and two years later 22 Guale tribal chiefs traveled south to St. Augustine to pledge their allegiance to the governor. This jewel in the crown of the Franciscan missionary efforts meant that friars could be sent safely almost anywhere among the Indians from the southern tip of Florida north to the border of English-held lands.

Then came a sudden Indian revolt with bloodshed. The ensuing problems had far-reaching consequences which precipitated a change in Spanish rule and marked the beginning of the end of Spanish sovereignty in that region of the New World.

The instigator was Juanillo, a belligerent son of the Tolomato mico. Juanillo married a second wife, and to the great scandal of the Indian Christians he refused the admonitions of the Franciscan in charge of the Tolomato mission, Fr. Pedro de Corpa, a wise and holy Castilian preacher and confessor. A Catholic can have only one wife, the friar said: if a man would remain a Christian he must give up the life of the polygamist as he had promised at his baptism.

Juanillo scoffed at and ridiculed Fr. Corpa. The young Indian’s status as a village leader meant that his recalcitrance endangered the spiritual well-being of the entire mission. Taking counsel with Fr. Blas de Rodríguez, the Spanish superior of all the Guale missions, Fr. Corpa deprived Juanillo of his right to succeed his father as the Guale mico mayer. The right of succession would instead descend upon a relative.

Martyrdom of Fray Pedro de Corpa
The furious Juanillo gathered about him a group of conspirators. Several days later, on the morning of September 14 – the feast day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross – while Fr. Corpa prepared for morning mass, Juanillo and his men, adorned in war-paint, rushed the priest and killed him with their macana, or stone hatchets. They severed Fr. Corpa’s head and impaled it on a stick by the river amid pagan celebrations. The body was exposed to the elements for several days before being buried in an unmarked grave in the woods.
 
Martyrdom of Fray Blas de Rodríguez
The next day Juanillo recruited other Guale chiefs to his cause. The marauders sent word to the Guale chief on St. Catherine’s Island to kill the missionaries there. Juanillo himself remained on the mainland, and with his enlarged force he moved north to the village of Tupiqui. Here lived the Alcantaran Fr. Blas de Rodríguez, with whom Fr. Corpa had conferred. Fr. Rodríguez was surrounded by Juanillo’s men and told that his death was at hand. The friar was held hostage for two days. On September 16 he offered a last Mass and gave a sermon.
 
My sons, for me it is not difficult to die. Even if you do not cause it, the death of this body is inevitable. We must be ready at all times, for we, all of us, have to die someday. But what does pain me is that the Evil One has persuaded you to do this offensive thing against your God and Creator. It is a further source of deep grief to me that you are unmindful of what we missionaries have done for you in teaching you the way to eternal life and happiness.
 
After the Mass Fr. Rodríguez distributed his belongings to his faithful children and gave them instructions to always obey God’s law. The priest was bound, and in this posture he watched the Indians profane the chapel. Having reduced the chapel to ruins, the Indians turned their rage on the helpless priest, whom they clubbed to death. Fr. Rodríguez’s body was left in the woods for several days until it was buried by a Guale Christian; the remains were later recovered by Spanish soldiers.

Martyrdom of Fray Miguel de Añon and Fray Antonio de Bádajoz
The missionaries on St. Catherine’s Island were Fr. Miguel de Añon, a Spanish noble with a reputation as a preacher who was in charge of the St. Catherine’s mission, and his assistant and interpreter Br. Antonio de Bádajoz. Although sympathetic Indians warned the two missionaries of the impending attack, they did not flee; perhaps there was not time, or they did not believe the warning, or they hoped for martyrdom – none today can say. Rather than seek escape, they offered a Mass. Fr. Añon gave Br. Bádajoz communion, and then they were killed, the lay-brother first and then the priest. The date was September 17 – the anniversary of St. Francis’s reception of the Stigmata. Their mutilated bodies lay under the hot the sun until Christian Indians buried them at the base of a large wooden cross that Fr. Añon had erected.

St. Francis Receives the Stigmata (Giotto)

Martyrdom of Fray Francisco de Veráscola
Juanillo’s war party proceeded south to St. Simon’s Island. There they killed Fr. Francisco de Veráscola as he was returning in a canoe from St. Augustine with supplies. The Indians, much afraid of Fr. Veráscola’s great physical strength – he had been nicknamed the “Catabrian Giant” – feigned friendship: two of the warriors took him into their arms at the riverbank while the rest set upon him with their stone axes. After killing Fr. Veráscola – the date is uncertain, but fell before the end of September – the warriors mutilated and buried his body. Father’s Franciscan hood and sombrero were later retrieved from the Guale who had claimed them as trophies, but his body was never found.

Passion of Fray Francisco de Avila
The Indians continued south in search of Fr. Francisco de Avila, who dwelled in the Talapo mission on present-day Jekyll Island. When Juanillo’s band arrived with news they said they carried a message from Fr. Rodríguez. Having received word of the death of Fr. Corpa, Fr. Avila refused to come outside. The Indians broke into Fr. Avila’s hut; the priest attempted to escape, but he was pierced by three arrows and captured. Wounded and beaten, Fr. Avila was forced to walk a long distance to an Indian village where he was tortured further and condemned to die. The Indians abruptly changed their minds, however, and decided to keep the friar as a slave.

Fr. Avila was mistreated in captivity for nine months: in pain from his wounds, he was forced to serve even the village children. He endured cold and hunger, living off what food he could forage for himself in the bleak terrain and wearing only scraps for clothing. To spite the priest’s faith, the Indians tried to make him take a wife and perform other acts against his vows.

There the friar would have died, abandoned to the malice of his enemies, but he was rescued by a Spanish military patrol. Father was borne to St. Augustine, where he recovered his health. The lone survivor of the Guale massacres, Fr. Avila invoked clerical immunity when the Spanish governor asked him to testify: the friar feared that his words would be used as grounds to execute his abductors, and he was unwilling to incriminate them. It was only years later, after Fr. Avila went to Havana, that he wrote of his ordeal, and even then he did so only under obedience to his superior.

Aftermath
The initial slaughter grew into a general uprising, which was put down by Spanish soldiers in a great battle at Cumberland Island. Subsequent retaliatory raids against the Indians finally reduced them to total submission in 1601. By the end of 1603 the mission among the Guale were completely restored, though Spanish rule had been shaken and its forces depleted.

After the uprising a Spanish military force exhumed the remains of Fr. Añon and Br. Bádajoz on St. Catherine’s Island. The relics we transported to St. Augustine, where they were re-interred at the central friary with great honor and ceremony. Today that building is now the National Guard Armory, and is known as “The St. Francis Barracks.” A skull that could be that of Fr. Corpa was discovered by archeologists in 1950.

In 1612 the superior of the custody of Saint Helen (Santa Elena) reported to the Spanish king:

Although the Indians did not martyr the friars for the faith (that is, because of any doctrine or article of faith which they preached), it is certain that they martyred them because of the law of God which the religious taught them. This is the reason the Indians themselves gave and still attest to...

The Guale and the other coastal tribes remained under Spanish governorship for the next 75 years. These subject tribes were finally dispersed at the end of the 17th century by English-armed Indians on slave raids for the Charles Town traders. All surviving Guale were incorporated into the growing Creek Indian Confederacy.

St. Catherine’s Island Today
St. Catherine’s is now owned and operated by a private foundation: one can travel to the beaches, but visitation to the interior is not permitted. The island serves as a zoological sanctuary for breeding endangered species: the subtropical haven now hosts colonies of lemurs, gazelles, zebras, hartebeests, parrots, cockatoos, and Madagascar turtles.

Archeologists have visited the island to search for remains of the Indian villages and Spanish settlements. After copious excavation, the mission chapel was unearthed, and numerous medals, rosaries, crucifixes, and other artifacts were discovered. The archaeologists also discovered a large cemetery beneath the floor of the mission chapel. Upon completion of the excavation, the site was re-covered; the location of the site is not publicized to discourage unauthorized digging.

The Cause for the Georgia Martyrs
Four centuries later, the cause for canonization of the five Franciscan martyrs has been submitted to Rome by the Archdiocese of Savannah. If raised to the altar, these Spanish missionaries would join the three 17th century Jesuits martyred near present-day Auriesville as the only beatified martyrs slain on American soil.

Sources
* The Cross in the Sand by Michael V. Gannon (1993, 3rd printing, University Presses of Florida)
* St. Catherine’s Island: An Island in Time by David Hurst Thomas (1988, Georgia Endowment for the Humanities)
* The Franciscan Missions of Coastal Georgia by Gillian Brown (1985, The Cause of the Georgia Martyrs)
* “Man seeks sainthood for 16th-century friars” by Russ Bynum (April 08, 2007, Associated Press)
* “The Five Franciscan Martyrs of Georgia” web site - http://www.georgiamartyrs.org/