Consecrated Life

The highest and best career decision a young woman can make is for consecrated life as a nun or sister in an order faithful to the Magisterium. Her teaching, her prayers, and her service are of incalculable value to the body of Christ. Sisters professing the evangelical counsels who go out into the world evangelize by the gift of their lives to Rabbi Yeshua, which others can see. Cloistered nuns evangelize through prayer.

Religious life is for men as well. Religious brothers work and pray as religious sisters do for the greater glory of God. We emphasize women here because the dioceses so urgently need priests. As we know, St. John Paul II in 1994 reaffirmed two thousand years of Catholic teaching that Rabbi Yeshua reserved priestly ordination to men alone in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis§ 4 (Responsum).

However, a young man who senses a call to the religious life can profit as well by this guidance for women. Our Lady of Clear Creek Benedictine Abbey. Clear Creek Abbey – Glimpse into the Cloister 3:48 His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke Visits Clear Creek Monastery in Oklahoma 11:57

On March 25, 1996, St. John Paul II issued his apostolic exhortation Vita Consecrata, on the consecrated life and its mission in the Church and in the world. May I encourage all who are discerning a vocation in the consecrated life to reflect prayerfully on the Holy Father’s words. That will take some time, but we should allow time for a decision with not only lifelong but eternal consequences. If God does have a vocation for us, perhaps, as we read and reflect, he will speak to our heart.

Young women considering a vocation should also read Verbi Sponsa, on the contemplative life and the enclosure of nuns, published on May 13, 1999 by the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life.

Faithful to the Magisterium

A young woman considering a religious order and making perpetual vows needs to be sure that the order is faithful to the Magisterium. The Catholic Church has more than a thousand years of experience with religious communities. Many orders formed around the time of the thirteenth century continue serenely in existence, dependent on the Holy Spirit’s guidance through the Vicar of Christ, and will probably continue for many centuries to come. But even new orders faithful to the Magisterium will be stable because they will continue to draw sustenance from the Holy Spirit’s guidance through the Vicar of Christ.

Look for an order in which joyfully consecrated women act enthusiastically in the name of the Church. I particularly emphasize joyful consecration as the mark of a faithful order. Branches firmly attached to the tree of life, the Cross of Christ, will receive through his Vicar the constant spiritual nutrition that they need. Suffering in union with Christ’s suffering on the Cross can be a great trial, but even in suffering an underlying joy can shine through. “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master” Mt 25:23. “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” Jn 16:24 “But now I am coming to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves” Jn 17:13.

Sometimes, along the journey, we find religious communities in which most of the sisters are aging, in their 60s and 70s, wearing sparse habits if any at all, and getting few if any religious vocations. A young woman encountering such an order needs to remember that, if she is 25 and most of the sisters are past 70, in 20 years most of the community’s women will have passed into eternal life leaving an empty shell, with nobody left to support her and no commercial skills by which she could earn a living in secular life. When God is not pleased by a religious community he often allows it to age, wither, and disappear. By contrast, a young woman of 25 who looks at a young community with abundant vocations can anticipate that it is pleasing to God and that he will provide a continuing inflow of young vocations that will keep the community alive and vibrant.

The Catechism on Religious Life

Evangelical counsels, consecrated life

§ 915 Christ proposes the evangelical counsels, in their great variety, to every disciple. The perfection of charity, to which all the faithful are called, entails for those who freely follow the call to consecrated life the obligation of practicing chastity in celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom, poverty and obedience. It is the profession of these counsels, within a permanent state of life recognized by the Church, that characterizes the life consecrated to God.

§ 916 The religious state is thus one way of experiencing a more intimate consecration, rooted in Baptism and dedicated totally to God. In the consecrated life, Christ’s faithful, moved by the Holy Spirit, propose to follow Christ more nearly, to give themselves to God who is loved above all and, pursuing the perfection of charity in the service of the Kingdom, to signify and proclaim in the Church the glory of the world to come.

One great tree, with many branches

§ 917 From the God-given seed of the counsels a wonderful and wide-spreading tree has grown up in the field of the Lord, branching out into various forms of the religious life lived in solitude or in community. Different religious families have come into existence in which spiritual resources are multiplied for the progress in holiness of their members and for the good of the entire Body of Christ.

§ 918 From the very beginning of the Church there were men and women who set out to follow Christ with greater liberty, and to imitate him more closely, by practicing the evangelical counsels. They led lives dedicated to God, each in his own way. Many of them, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, became hermits or founded religious families. These the Church, by virtue of her authority, gladly accepted and approved.

§ 919 Bishops will always strive to discern new gifts of consecrated life granted to the Church by the Holy Spirit; the approval of new forms of consecrated life is reserved to the Apostolic See.

The eremitic life

§ 920 Without always professing the three evangelical counsels publicly, hermits devote their life to the praise of God and salvation of the world through a stricter separation from the world, the silence of solitude and assiduous prayer and penance.

§ 921 They manifest to everyone the interior aspect of the mystery of the Church, that is, personal intimacy with Christ. Hidden from the eyes of men, the life of the hermit is a silent preaching of the Lord, to whom he has surrendered his life simply because he is everything to him. Here is a particular call to find in the desert, in the thick of spiritual battle, the glory of the Crucified One.

Consecrated virgins

§ 922 From apostolic times Christian virgins, called by the Lord to cling only to him with greater freedom of heart, body, and spirit, have decided with the Church’s approval to live in a state of virginity for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven.

§ 923 Virgins who, committed to the holy plan of following Christ more closely, are consecrated to God by the diocesan bishop according to the approved liturgical rite, are betrothed mystically to Christ, the Son of God, and are dedicated to the service of the Church. By this solemn rite (Consecratio virginum), the virgin is constituted a sacred person, a transcendent sign of the Church’s love for Christ, and an eschatological image of this heavenly Bride of Christ and of the life to come.

§ 924 As with other forms of consecrated life, the order of virgins establishes the woman living in the world (or the nun) in prayer, penance, service of her brethren, and apostolic activity, according to the state of life and spiritual gifts given to her. Consecrated virgins can form themselves into associations to observe their commitment more faithfully.

Religious life

§ 925 Religious life was born in the East during the first centuries of Christianity. Lived within institutes canonically erected by the Church, it is distinguished from other forms of consecrated life by its liturgical character, public profession of the evangelical counsels, fraternal life led in common, and witness given to the union of Christ with the Church.

§ 926 Religious life derives from the mystery of the Church. It is a gift she has received from her Lord, a gift she offers as a stable way of life to the faithful called by God to profess the counsels. Thus, the Church can both show forth Christ and acknowledge herself to be the Savior’s bride. Religious life in its various forms is called to signify the very charity of God in the language of our time.

§ 927 All religious, whether exempt or not, take their place among the collaborators of the diocesan bishop in his pastoral duty. From the outset of the work of evangelization, the missionary planting and expansion of the Church require the presence of the religious life in all its forms. History witnesses to the outstanding service rendered by religious families in the propagation of the faith and in the formation of new Churches: from the ancient monastic institutions to the medieval orders, all the way to the more recent congregations.

Secular institutes

§ 928 A secular institute is an institute of consecrated life in which the Christian faithful living in the world strive for the perfection of charity and work for the sanctification of the world especially from within.

§ 929 By a life perfectly and entirely consecrated to such sanctification, the members of these institutes share in the Church’s task of evangelization, in the world and from within the world, where their presence acts as leaven in the world. Their witness of a Christian life aims to order temporal things according to God and inform the world with the power of the gospel. They commit themselves to the evangelical counsels by sacred bonds and observe among themselves the communion and fellowship appropriate to their particular secular way of life.

Societies of apostolic life

§ 930 Alongside the different forms of consecrated life are societies of apostolic life whose members without religious vows pursue the particular apostolic purpose of their society, and lead a life as brothers or sisters in common according to a particular manner of life, strive for the perfection of charity through the observance of the constitutions. Among these there are societies in which the members embrace the evangelical counsels according to their constitutions.

Consecration and mission: proclaiming the King who is coming

§ 931 Already dedicated to him through Baptism, the person who surrenders himself to the God he loves above all else thereby consecrates himself more intimately to God’s service and to the good of the Church. By this state of life consecrated to God, the Church manifests Christ and shows us how the Holy Spirit acts so wonderfully in her. And so the first mission of those who profess the evangelical counsels is to live out their consecration. Moreover, since members of institutes of consecrated life dedicate themselves through their consecration to the service of the Church they are obliged in a special manner to engage in missionary work, in accord with the character of the institute.

§ 932 In the Church, which is like the sacrament — the sign and instrument — of God’s own life, the consecrated life is seen as a special sign of the mystery of redemption. To follow and imitate Christ more nearly and to manifest more clearly his self-emptying is to be more deeply present to one’s contemporaries, in the heart of Christ. For those who are on this narrower path encourage their brethren by their example, and bear striking witness that the world cannot be transfigured and offered to God without the spirit of the beatitudes.

§ 933 Whether their witness is public, as in the religious state, or less public, or even secret, Christ’s coming remains for all those consecrated both the origin and rising sun of their life:

For the People of God has here no lasting city, and this state reveals more clearly to all believers the heavenly goods which are already present in this age, witnessing to the new and eternal life which we have acquired through the redemptive work of Christ and preluding our future resurrection and the glory of the heavenly kingdom.

The Institute on Religious Life

The Institute on Religious Life is an excellent place for both men and women to start. Contact them any time.

The Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious

The Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious (CMSWR) is an assembly of major superiors who embrace a shared commitment to consecrated life as set forth by Vatican II. In October 1995 St. John Paul II (and the Vatican Congregations for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life) designated the CMSWR as a canonically approved national association of Women Religious for the United States.

The average age of nuns and sisters in CMSWR orders is under 35 years, and they have abundant vocations. Young women interested in religious life would do well to contact them for help in discerning the Holy Spirit’s call to religious life.

Three Suggestions

Vocation discernment begins as a comprehensive process. It begins with reflection on what kind of consecrated life God is calling a young man or woman to enter. Eucharistic Adoration and Prayer? Teaching? Missionary travels? The list goes on and on.

All the same, perhaps I will be forgiven for mentioning a few personal favorites:

For men, Second Exodus especially likes the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word. Second Exodus is all about spreading and defending the Catholic Church. The Franciscan Missionaries run EWTN, perhaps the highest jewel of the New Evangelization. I call them my brothers in Christ.

For women, the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration. If a religious vocation is not at all on the horizon, go visit them anyway. Good places to watch Rabbi Yeshua at work.

For a very special kind of woman, the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel’s Hope. Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God, its Mother Superior, has been a very dear personal friend for more than 20 years.

Home School Mom

Catholic families intent on preparing their children for heaven have always been told to home school their children. However, in these last days, the days of the Apostasy of the Gentiles, it has become imperative to remove our children from the public schools. In these days, the overwhelming majority of public schools are being forced to actively teach students material that will lead them straight to hell.

The Duties of Parents

The Catechism of the Catholic Church on the Duties of Parents:

§ 2221 “The fecundity of conjugal love cannot be reduced solely to the procreation of children, but must extend to their moral education and their spiritual formation. The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute. The right and the duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable.”

§ 2222 Parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons. Showing themselves obedient to the will of the Father in heaven, they educate their children to fulfill God’s law.

§ 2223 Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery – the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones. Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them:

He who loves his son will not spare the rod. He who disciplines his son will profit by him. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

§ 2224 The home is the natural environment for initiating a human being into solidarity and communal responsibilities. Parents should teach children to avoid the compromising and degrading influences which threaten human societies.

§ 2225 Through the grace of the sacrament of marriage, parents receive the responsibility and privilege of evangelizing their children. Parents should initiate their children at an early age into the mysteries of the faith of which they are the first heralds for their children. They should associate them from their tenderest years with the life of the Church. A wholesome family life can foster interior dispositions that are a genuine preparation for a living faith and remain a support for it throughout one’s life.

§ 2226 Education in the faith by the parents should begin in the child’s earliest years. This already happens when family members help one another to grow in faith by the witness of a Christian life in keeping with the Gospel. Family catechesis precedes, accompanies, and enriches other forms of instruction in the faith. Parents have the mission of teaching their children to pray and to discover their vocation as children of God. The parish is the Eucharistic community and the heart of the liturgical life of Christian families; it is a privileged place for the catechesis of children and parents.

§ 2227 Children in turn contribute to the growth in holiness of their parents.36 Each and everyone should be generous and tireless in forgiving one another for offenses, quarrels, injustices, and neglect. Mutual affection suggests this. The charity of Christ demands it.

§ 2228 Parents’ respect and affection are expressed by the care and attention they devote to bringing up their young children and providing for their physical and spiritual needs. As the children grow up, the same respect and devotion lead parents to educate them in the right use of their reason and freedom.

§ 2229 As those first responsible for the education of their children, parents have the right to choose a school for them which corresponds to their own convictions. This right is fundamental. As far as possible parents have the duty of choosing schools that will best help them in their task as Christian educators. Public authorities have the duty of guaranteeing this parental right and of ensuring the concrete conditions for its exercise.

§ 2230 When they become adults, children have the right and duty to choose their profession and state of life. They should assume their new responsibilities within a trusting relationship with their parents, willingly asking and receiving their advice and counsel. Parents should be careful not to exert pressure on their children either in the choice of a profession or in that of a spouse. This necessary restraint does not prevent them – quite the contrary from giving their children judicious advice, particularly when they are planning to start a family.

§ 2231 Some forgo marriage in order to care for their parents or brothers and sisters, to give themselves more completely to a profession, or to serve other honorable ends. They can contribute greatly to the good of the human family.

More Children

Many Catholic families decide how many children they want. Second Exodus says, “Let God decide!” Several years ago Second Exodus asked a good friend, a woman with 11 children, whether she expected to have more children. She replied with a smile, “If God sends them, I’ll raise them.”

Raising all the children Rabbi Yeshua sends, and making sure they’re firmly grounded in the Faith, is crucial in the spiritual war. Many Catholic families send their children to government schools that strip their Faith from them. “Woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born” Mt 26:24. Catholic families who are “fruitful and multiply” Gen 1:22, who come “that they have life, and have it abundantly,” Jn 10:10, and are good shepherds for their children” Jn 10:11, immersing them constantly in the Faith, are few, and every family is needed.

Raising children, we always teach the Faith through our actions. If we live what we teach, all day every day, our children will believe what we teach them all their lives. If we do not live our Faith, it will have no roots in their souls, and be easily pulled out by the first person they meet who does live his faith, whether it be good or evil. “Preach the Gospel at all times; when necessary use words,” is a saying attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. “Attributed to” because no biography written within the first 200 years of his death mentions it. Either way, it’s good advice.

Catholic Communities

Flowers are beautiful, but they last only when planted in fertile soil. Sooner or later, every child goes outside to play with the neighborhood children. We need to live in strong Catholic communities, where the neighbors are also raising devoutly Catholic children so they can all go to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass every morning together. When they go out to a restaurant after Mass they can all pray the grace before meals and prayer after meals together, and so on.

We can learn a lot about Catholic communities from Catholic Social Teaching, particular from subsidiarity. Ordinary top-down politics will not give us the kinds of communities our common good requires. St. John Paul II explains: “The real purpose of civil law is to guarantee an ordered social coexistence in true justice, so that all may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way.” If the primary control over our daily life comes from the federal or state governments, most of the people who vote on them will not share our Catholic faith. Authentic renewal will have to come from families, local parish communities, and monastic communities through subsidiarity.

Obama tried to re-phrase freedom of religion to freedom of worship. Freedom of religion is freedom in the public square, freedom to go to Catholic schools, colleges and hospitals, freedom for Catholic health care professionals to refuse any involvement in abortion or contraception, freedom to pray at graduation ceremonies, freedom to put Christmas creches on public buildings, freedom to decide for ourselves whether we want to argue publicly on specifically Catholic grounds, for example, to argue for pro-life causes on the ground that Jesus “came that they may have life, and have it abundantly ” Jn 10:10, and for many other passionately held Catholic convictions. Freedom of worship is freedom to pray inside Catholic parish churches, but once we leave our church and walk onto the public square we would not be allowed to visibly live as Catholics.

We will be able to sustain our robust freedom of religion. For true freedom of religion we need communities. Dictators rarely pay much attention to isolated Catholics because as such we have no real power. We have power only as communities. A parish can persuade a small number of Catholics to take a particular action. A diocese can persuade a much larger number. And a national bishops’ conference can persuade a great many.

We Can Do It

In the spiritual war liberals have made the long march through all of the institutions of western civilization, the public schools, the colleges and universities, the political classes, journalism, on and on. We have during all that time not even been teaching our own children the Catholic faith. The situation has been the same with Jews. Ask an average Jewish kid on the street today what the Eternal Election is. Protestants say they’re guided by every word in the New Testament; ask them to explain how they’re guided by John 6:51–59. Liberals think in decades, sometimes even centuries. We rarely think past the next election.

We Catholic spiritual warriors need to start thinking in decades and centuries. Insofar as we can, we need to “go forth and multiply,” get our children “off the grid,” out of the government education loop. We need to teach our children the Catholic faith–do they even know what the word Catholic means?–and we need to be put on them the whole armor of God Eph 6:11–20.

§ 1653 “The fruitfulness of conjugal love extends to the fruits of the moral, spiritual, and supernatural life that parents hand on to their children by education. Parents are the principal and first educators of their children. In this sense the fundamental task of marriage and family is to be at the service of life.” Pretty strong stuff.

Right now the latest estimate for home-schoolers is that about one and a half million Catholic children are home schooled. Suppose each Catholic mother gave birth to ten children and home schooled them all. Within a generation we’d have 15 million well-informed Catholic voters. And if in the next generation each of five million Catholic families did the same we’d have 50 million well-informed Catholic voters. Shall we talk about a third generation?

Can we really make a difference? What if millions of home schooling moms taught their sons the joys of celebrating Mass? Here’s Isaiah Saying Mass – 3 Years Old 2:09. The happy daddy is Brandon Vogt. Two years later, Isaiah Saying Mass – 5 Years Old 4:04, he’s much better at it. In families with several sons, the boys could take turns at being the “celebrant,” with the other boys “concelebrating.” Maybe a “deacon” or two? And we can’t leave the girls out. Always good to have a few little “nuns.”

A couple at my parish taught all their 15 children to love the Mass. I remember one of them as a little boy. During Mass he always tried to walk away from his mother and up onto the sanctuary. She always had to follow him as fast as she could to bring him back before he could mount the steps. You never know. Another parishioner’s son, Father Daniel Brandenburg, is allowed to go up to the sanctuary whenever he wants. Whenever he comes home to visit his parents he celebrates Holy Mass for us. Even among priests he’s outstanding, full of joy and zest and drive.

Rabbi Yeshua promised, “All things are possible with God” Mk 10:27. “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” Mt 7:7–8. “Until now you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” Jn 16:24.

Certainly it will call for a radical transformation in our lives. But God really does make it possible. If happy Catholic couples are truly open to the transmission of life, God will decide how many souls he will give into their hands to prepare for eternal life. Remember forever: They are God‘s children. We are his servants, assigned to add to them abundant love and teach each one to live “a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way” 1 Tim 2:2.

Rabbi Yeshua explained all this in his Parable of the Talents:

For it will be as when a man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property; to one he gave five talents,d to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them; and he made five talents more. So also, he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.’ And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.’ He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed, and gather where I have not winnowed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ Mt 25:14–30.

See? Families who add value by preparing their children’s souls for heaven will enter into the joy of their Master. But families who “bury” their children, simply letting them go to government schools without supplementary Catholic education, will pay the price that Rabbi Yeshua described.

Before we even asked him, Rabbi Yeshua has already given us two advantages. First, in large families home schooling moms always assign some of their responsibilities to their children. In rural families the boys usually get the outdoor jobs while girls usually get the indoor jobs. And second, liberals don’t reproduce. They have become powerful by taking over our children’s education. That we have to stop.

But there is more. Rabbi Yeshua told the scribes and Pharisees about Satan. “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies” Jn 8:44. We have to teach them the truth in faith above all, but also in secular life. Our children will believe us only if we tell them the whole truth.

But it’s do-able for many couples serious about Rabbi Yeshua. Families who want to home school can find more about it in any of several homeschool communities, including Homeschool.com, Homeschool World, and A2Z Homes Cool. Catholic parents who follow Rabbi Yeshua are the good shepherds Jn 10:11 for their children.

Second Exodus remembers a situation where a public schools advocate told a home schooling mother, “I care just as much about your children as you do.” The mother replied, “You do? Okay, what are their names?”

What about College

Some professions absolutely require a college education. Medical doctors, lawyers, physicists, chemists, mathematicians, and yes, Catholic priests, as well as similar professions, absolutely require an advanced college education. A young man attracted to these professions can go if he can find a college recommended in the Cardinal Newman Society’s own Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College.

Some Catholic families, seeing the cost of a college education, and that most colleges are actively intent on annihilating the Catholic formation they have so lovingly imparted to their sons and daughters, look for a better idea.

Knowledge, not College

We all want to depend on our knowledge for our income. There will always be a place for laborers such as longshoremen who are paid for the strength in their bodies, but as they get older that becomes less tenable. However, the information we accumulate over the years can be re-sold year after year. Many companies are happy to give their new employees on-the-job training.

Some time ago, Fox News’ Cheryl Casone pointed to 5 high-paying jobs that don’t require a college degree. 2:49 Cheryl Casone compiled this list in 2014, many of the salaries she describes are a lot higher today. They include:

Transportation storage and distribution management (shipping). Everything we buy has to be shipped from where it was made.

Installation and repair specialists are needed everywhere. Escalators in shopping malls, electric power lines, subway stations, etc., all need technicians who know how to install and repair equipment.

Detectives and criminal investigators work their way up to very comfortable income levels. In our time some people are very imaginative in how to do evil. People who can gather information about them and arrest them command good salaries.

Aircraft pilots only require an FAA license to fly. The big commercial airlines pretty much require college diplomas, but not unscheduled flights such as tour operators, helicopter pilots, private pilots employed by wealthy corporate executives, etc.

Transportation inspectors for railroads, trucking companies, and other carriers, who manage cargo security clearances and so on may not require college diplomas.

These are only examples one researcher came across. There are many others.

Home schooling moms should start researching current opportunities by the time their children enter high school so they have plenty of time to think about that path.

As we consider education a profession to enter, we may as well also consider it as a resource for home schooling. The Newman Guide provides reliable information on Catholic colleges and universities that provide secure Catholic formation.

Apprentice

For many career fields there is a very good alternative to a college education: In the skilled trades like electrician, plumber, carpenter, welder, etc., it’s common for a young man to serve as an apprentice to a highly skilled and experienced tradesman. The young apprentice starts out by carrying the skilled tradesman’s tool box and running errands, but also watches the tradesman work. The professional teaches the apprentice how to do his job.

The arrangement continues until the apprentice has accumulated enough knowledge to go out on his own. For instance, an apprentice electrician applies for a license or journeyman card in his field. When he attains it, he is ready to earn the much higher pay that a licensed or journeyman electrician is routinely paid.

Companies that employ professionals aren’t accustomed to apprenticeships, but we can accommodate them by seeking entry level jobs without a college diploma. Often when an institution advertises that a college diploma is required, it is looking for a base level of skills and competence consistent with recent college graduates.

Why an Honors Student Wants to Skip College and Go to Trade School

My Fellow Millennials, Consider Skipping College

What If We Can’t

Home schooling is not practical for some families. There are mothers who have to take care of their own parents, who have to take care of a husband who is in poor health, and mothers who absolutely have to work to earn the living for their families. God knows our limits. But we are in the middle of a spiritual war that has already taken us into unprecedented territory. We find other ways to teach our children the Catholic faith. Perhaps we can send our children to a Catholic school of good reputation. If we must send our children into the government schools for a state-approved education we make sure to teach them situation awareness, that we’re in the middle of a spiritual war, and that they have to go to the government schools. But they’re to accept what they hear understanding that they have to go along with it, but that their mother or father will always teach them that Rabbi Yeshua loves them just as much as a home schooled child, that they will be fully taught all that the Catholic Church teaches, and that they can be just as much a spiritual warrior  temporarily operating behind enemy lines. Parents can and certainly should pray Rabbi Yeshua that he will help them in this.

Father John Hardon, SJ, Guide for the Catholic Family in These Days of Turmoil 57:07

Educator

Religious Freedom

In the United States, Religious Freedom is guaranteed by the First Amendment, which declares: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

But religious freedom has been under serious attack since 1947, when Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black ignored a mountain of evidence and concentrated instead on a lonely letter by Thomas Jefferson to reverse the First Amendment.

Established Institutions

Government Schools

Liberal politicians are the hirelings Jn 10:12 who want to take our children away from their parents, teach them what the parents don’t want them to learn, and outright refuse to teach them what the parents want them to know, that Rabbi Yeshua is the true organizing principle of our lives and the source of all that we need.

Asking a young Catholic to take up a career in the government school system is inviting him to martyrdom. Rabbi Yeshua calls us to be martyrs. Teachers in government schools cannot overtly teach the Catholic faith, but there are subtle ways to convey it all the same. The Catholic teaching that every man and woman is God’s image gives him inherent dignity and underlies the morality of human acts. Without God-given dignity, all public welfare systems are arbitrary redistributions of ordinary income. When they teach the origin of representative bodies such as Congress and the various Parliaments, they may be able to raise as classroom discussion issues the ideas underlying the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

When their situation allows, they can teach more about the Declaration of Independence, with its appeals to Divine Providence. They can teach the Constitution, using the text itself as the primary source, and the Federalist Papers as the primary source for its interpretation based on the original intent of the framers and the people in whose name it was ratified and whose understanding of its provisions constitutes the “consent of the governed” that gives it moral legitimacy.

In some situations they can teach redistribution of income by proposing to socialize class grades. Everyone with an A will donate a letter grade to everyone who got a C so all will have a grade of B. Students usually object strenuously, pointing out that those who worked the hardest should not have to give the fruits of their work to those who chose the least work. A teacher may be able to have a class discussion on whether the same moral principle should apply to adults who work hardest to earn money.

At the very least, they can be conduits, informing parents about what the bureaucracy is doing. The spiritual war is in many ways an information war as to whether God or government is and should be the organizing principle of our lives and the source of all that we need. This is the most fundamental of all questions, since our children’s immortal souls will depend forever on their decision for or against God. The bureaucracy is not on God’s side.

Catholic or Private Schools

Catholic schools should be the bridge between the level of commitment that home schooling requires and the outright surrender to Satan that many government schools have become. A young man or woman interested in following Rabbi Yeshua as his witness Acts 1:8 can have a lively and joyful career leading toward eternal life. No one gets into heaven alone. We get in by sharing “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” Jude 3 with everyone Rabbi Yeshua sends to us.

Second Exodus recommends consulting closely with the Cardinal Newman Society before making any crucial decisions. They have a Catholic High School Honor Roll. Read all you can on their web site, then contact them to answer your particular questions.

A Teaching Career

Preparation

Before we can enter upon Catholic life we need to prepare for our college years by selecting a Catholic college. The Cardinal Newman Society is faithful to the Magisterium. Its Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College is the best resource I know for finding a Catholic college that will for true Catholic formation.

School Teacher

Raising a child is first and foremost preparing him for heaven. We prepare our children for the spiritual war, for vocations, for Holy Orders for Consecrated Life, for Holy Matrimony, for raising children of their own, for earning a good living at a job they enjoy doing. There are many things we prepare our children for, but each one is important only as it contributes to their preparation for heaven.

Without hope for eternal life in heaven as our primary mission, Second Exodus wonders what the point of living would be. St. Augustine, at the beginning of his Confessions, declares, “You have formed us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in you.”

College Professor

The high Middle Ages saw the rise of Catholic colleges and universities. As these colleges and universities grew they gave rise to intense competition among the schoolmen (teachers) for students. The competition was usually in the form of a quaestio. Each schoolman would invite challenges (“questions”) to his opinions, and respond to them with virtuosic displays of learning and argument.

In our time, by contrast, many colleges and universities deliberately cripple their students. They teach that there is no such thing as moral truth, that all ideas are of equal importance. That can be exposed simply by responding, “Professor, that’s only your opinion. By your own standard, my sense that absolute truth exists should have equal standing with your sense that it does not.” But the student who does risks a failing grade. R.R. Reno’s First Things article, “The Closing of the American Mind Revisited” explains it with sharp clarity.

Moral relativism as practiced in the universities is a bait-and-switch that would be prosecuted if a corporation ever tried it in an advertisement. When a Catholic declares that § 2271 “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion” he finds that moral relativism does not apply in that case.

We need devout and faithful Catholics in the college and university faculties. Some parents, seeing the word Catholic in an institution’s name, assume that it will give their children a good Catholic formation. The few seriously Catholic professors in those colleges and universities today are doing heroic work protecting the formation of these children as best they can. The Fellowship of Catholic Scholars is their honored gathering place. Catholics who would prefer to teach in a friendly environment can consult the Cardinal Newman Society with its annual Newman Guide to authentic Catholic colleges for a faith-filled future.

St. John Paul II’s Ex Corde Ecclesiae § 5:2 states: “Each Bishop has a responsibility to promote the welfare of the Catholic Universities in his diocese and has the right and duty to watch over the preservation and strengthening of their Catholic character.” Canon 812 states: “Those who teach theological disciplines in any institutes of higher studies whatsoever must have a mandate from the competent ecclesiastical authority.” The original Latin word is mandatum. In the United States, each professor teaching Catholic theology must apply to the bishop for a mandatum. The professor declares that he will teach in full communion with the Catholic Magisterium. If the bishop is aware that the professor has a reputation for teaching in full communion with the Church he grants the mandatum. Solidly Catholic institutions require that all their professors have an approved mandatumas a condition of employment.

Canon 833 adds: “The following are obliged personally to make a profession of faith according to the formula approved by the Apostolic See:” § 6 states: “in the presence of the local ordinary or his delegate and at the beginning of their function, pastors, the rector of a seminary, and teachers of theology and philosophy in seminaries; those to be promoted to the order of the diaconate.” This Oath of Fidelity is required only of seminary faculty.

Franciscan University of Steubenville, one of the best, reminds us that a majority of America’s colleges and universities are treating the mandatum as a private matter between the professor and the university, so that students and parents cannot find out which professors have one. Second Exodus understands this to mean, “We don’t have ‘em, we don’t want ‘em, none of your business.” The Newman Guide is of course well aware of the mandatum and will not approve a Catholic institution of higher learning without assurance that all theology faculty are in compliance. Second Exodus would give its highest recommendation only to a Catholic institution like Franciscan that enthusiastically volunteers to also have at least all its theology faculty take the Canon 833 Oath of Fidelity.

Second Exodus does not understand why any Catholic parent or student, or prospective faculty member, would accept an institution that is not Newman-recommended. Surely the obligation to prepare for eternal life in heaven far exceeds any possible transitory career benefit. In such circumstances the career benefit could be seen as a near occasion of sin. Where special circumstances exist, Second Exodus suggests that the prospective instructor, or parents, personally visit the college. Most colleges are very good at appearances. Second Exodus’ famous one-minute test will tell you about the moral formation the college imparts to its students. Go to a dormitory bathroom and look around. If contraceptives are offered for sale, Second Exodus recommends that the family kick that school’s dust from its shoes and hurry home. The people who put the contraceptives there know all about the school’s moral formation.

How to Build Catholic Identity at a Catholic College

 New Online Institutions

Information transmission has changed drastically in recent years. Social media has become the new frontier because it provides an extraordinary exchange of views.

Online college educations are already well established. Professors like the plush college campus environment and easy course loads where they spend perhaps 15 hours a week lecturing students, itself a pleasant way to earn a living. Naturally, they eagerly promote the “campus experience,” as being good for students. But pleasant for students and good for students are not at all the same. A beautiful campus is surely pleasant, but expensive to maintain. The costs they run up will be added either to student loans or to the national debt those students will soon confront as adults.

Second Exodus sees many college and university tuition costs as disproportionately high compared with their value. Abundant alumni cash donations and federal and state taxpayer aid help lower income students, but even so, many students run up ferocious debts. Far better to teach using far less expensive techniques. Collectively, the universe of social media prove conclusively that young people can and do acquire a great deal of their information online. Catholics who are active soldiers for Rabbi Yeshua in the spiritual war and have gifts in this area can certainly find ways to replicate the social media experience in ways especially conducive to Catholic needs.

It may even be that these new institutions can work with two simultaneous tiers. The first tier would be for active college students, college credit, diploma, etc., that would include active participation by professors, testing, grades and academic records, for which students would pay the necessary tuition costs without subsidies of any kind.

Hillsdale College already operates without federal or state subsidies, and shows that works. The college can be “sampled” through a subscription to Imprimis. It is not a Catholic college, but I would much sooner entrust young Catholics to it than to many “Catholic” institutions.

“No subsidies” is important because as soon as someone takes a tax deduction for a subsidy the federal government will impose requirements on the institution opposed to Church teaching. A second tier would retain access to the college’s online library but have no examinations, grades, or academic records, and only interaction among students who wish to teach the Faith to others at no cost, in accordance with Rabbi Yeshua’s “You received without pay, give without pay” Mt 10:8.

Traditional accreditation institutions often emphasize anti-Catholic approaches. For instance, over time they may come to insist on “open inquiry,” refusing to accredit Catholic inquiry because it is focused on “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” Jude 3. However, their “open inquiry” is not really open. A college that emphasizes research into areas prohibited by government may find itself barred from traditional accreditation. Second Exodus proposes the Cardinal Newman Society as an initial accrediting agency for evaluating devoutly Catholic online Catholic colleges and universities. Alas, for now, USCCB’s putative Ex Corde Ecclesiae system would not suffice.

Journalist

Major Media Journalists

Journalists write the first draft of history. We Catholics “have no lasting city but we seek the city which is to come” Heb 13:14. Liberals do see their lasting city here, with government as the organizing principle of their lives, so they have filled the ranks of journalism.

Most Americans think separation of church and state is in the Constitution because journalists tell them it is. Most Americans think the Constitution guarantees the right to an abortion, the right to privacy, the right to remain silent.

Anyone who does can look for them himself in the Constitution including its Bill of Rights. After all, that’s what we do in Sacred Scripture. When we tell someone, “The Bible says we have to consume Rabbi Yeshua’s Body and Blood to have eternal life,” they say, “show me the passage,” and we show them Jn 6:53. It’s the same with our nation’s chartering document, the Declaration of Independence and the government’s chartering document, the Constitution. We listen respectfully, but then we say, “Show me the passage.”

Most journalists today write about abortion as a normal part of everyday life. They favor abortion, and everyone they know favors abortion. It’s not so much that they conspire to keep secret a truth that they privately know. Rather, they themselves have no idea of what an abortion really is. We need Catholic journalists who write about abortion in ways that make clear what it is. We need Catholic journalists who will show on national television images of the unborn child at various ages, the street battle in the streets, the battle in the courts, so many courts, the March for Life, the battle for religious liberty and the deceptive forces arrayed against it, the day-to-day story the media refuse to show. Rabbi Yeshua told Rabbi Yokhanan‘s, disciples, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them” Mt 11:4–5.

Liberal journalists today see the Church as the voice of an obscurantist minority that seeks to impose its medieval agenda on the whole country. Bishop Sheen once said that there are not a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they falsely believe it to be. We seek to bring wayward Catholics back to the Church, wayward Protestants home to the Church that Rabbi Yeshua instituted, Jews to the completion of what they have already begun, and atheists into the light of God’s presence and power. We can do it only if Holy Mother Church and her witness are widely understood.

In short, we need major media journalists who respect objective truth and report it accurately. Print journalism is on its way out, but digital journalism is alive and well. As our thirst for information increases, so will our need for digital journalists and commentators.

These days, the major media put a thumb on the scales principally by giving a story strong prominence or not giving it any prominence at all. If a story highlights liberal values it will get a lot of coverage, but if it highlights conservative or Christian values it probably won’t. In that way they create an image that the country is becoming more liberal. Cath

Citizen Journalists

Time was when “real” journalists were published by major corporations like the New York Times, or CBS where Walter Cronkite was “the most trusted man in America.” Journalism has changed so much that many young people today have no idea who Walter Cronkite was. Now, in the age of new media, America has millions of journalists. I’m a journalist and commentator; Second Exodus is my journal.

We also need citizen journalists who respect objective truth and report it accurately.

Health Share Shepherd

Catholic health sharing arrangements such as CMF CURO and Solidarity HealthShare are not insurance. They’re not even a “different kind of insurance.” They’re a Catholic alternative to health insurance with pros and cons compared with regular insurance.

What does the Church say? St. John XXIII in Mater et Magistra, § 120, wrote: “Tragic situations and urgent problems of an intimate and personal nature are continually arising which the State with all its machinery is unable to remedy or assist. There will always remain, therefore, a vast field for the exercise of human sympathy and the Christian charity of individuals. We would observe, finally, that the efforts of individuals, or of groups of private citizens, are definitely more effective in promoting spiritual values than is the activity of public authority.”

Each member chooses his own direct-pay doctor and cultivates a relationship with him. Each member sends money directly to other members with medical needs every month. In addition to checks, members often also send each other prayers, notes of encouragement, and perhaps suggestions for natural remedies. This is Catholic life extended into the health care area.

In more detail, when a member is treated for an illness or injury, he collects itemized bills from the doctor or other provider and sends them to the central organization.

The central organization reviews them to be sure they meet the plan’s guidelines. Then it assigns members to send their shares to the member with the need.

Samaritan Ministries oversees the Catholic organizations. Many people have questions about sharing, medical needs, health resources, legal and tax issues, and accountability.

Since health sharing is radically different from health insurance, Second Exodus believes it would be helpful to have specialists in the field who have researched these programs and have plenty of contacts within their own parish or diocese who can answer questions from their own experience face-to-face.

A health sharing specialist would also be able to make presentations to his diocesan bishop, to parish priests, in preparation for giving talks to parishes within his own diocese. We’re all interested in health care these days!

A bishop who supports health sharing might be willing to phone a few of his fellow bishops and ask whether they might want to meet with a health share specialist. And of course a health share specialist should probably have a blog or web site to share personal experiences with willing members.

Retired physicians and nurses probably would be ideal for this calling. Retired attorneys may also be able to offer sound advice. A pension is certainly beneficial in rural areas where parishes may not be able to afford health share talks. Some dioceses or larger parishes may be willing to hire a health share shepherd to be available for members to consult. As always each case is unique.

Protestants peeking at this page can rest assured that there are also Protestant-based organizations that reflect their values. In most instances, the needs are broadly Christian, the doctor sends a bill and we recognize our moral obligation to pay it. However, a Catholic organization will not share abortion, contraceptive, in vitro fertilization, euthanasia, or similar procedures that Catholics regard as morally illicit. Protestants who want that kind of coverage need to find a plan that does cover them.

New Media Shepherd

Until recently, the world’s information media have been built on the one-to-many model. Journalists set up radio and television stations to disseminate information to everyone else. Many young people today have become so immersed in many-to-many media, new media in which people can talk to one another as well as back to broadcast journalists.

It’s not as new as most of us think it is. Amateur radio has been around for more than a century; an amateur radio station built for evangelization at the very top of Graymoor’s beautiful Mount Atonement helped lead me to the Church.

But the emergence of information technology as an advanced science has led to the formation of a vast number of many-to-many institutions by which we can send messages to one another, bypassing the liberal filters that the old news networks imposed. The New Evangelization, including the Second Exodus Apostolate, invites us into the digital sea.

Holy Mother Church urgently needs young Catholic men and women to enter the newest formative profession, new media shepherd. The liberals have built an impenetrable old media wall to shut out Catholic views. The liberal TV networks, and what’s left of the old liberal newspaper lions, lied by commission, loudly stating what was not true. More recently, as the truth made its way through the new media into the nation’s information stream, these lies were exposed. The new liberal model is lying by omission. They simply don’t report anything that supports Catholic views. We need new media shepherds to send God’s truth across the wilderness into the lost hearts.

This is far, far more than putting out a few tweets every hour. New media warriors are highly skilled in Catholic theology, technology, and messaging, to get the word out that the liberals refuse to publish and will try to suppress. They will work with entrepreneurs and other specialists to get the word out. Women can even help us get out the message of elegant modesty.

Let us not imagine that shepherd is a tranquil profession. The young shepherd David told King Saul, “Your servant has killed both lions and bears; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God” 1 Sam 17:36. We speak for Rabbi Yeshua, the Son of David. “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin; but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied” 1 Sam 17:45.

Ardor

The Jews in Rabbi Yeshua’s time, for instance, sought witness. “Jews demand signs!” 1 Cor 1:22. The evidence warranted belief, and many Jews followed him. Their witness, their excitement, pervades every page of the Gospels written by Rabbi Matityahu, Rabbi Marcus, Rabbi Lucas, and Rabbi Yokhanan.

The others who did not follow, despite their own blood oath Ex 24:7–8, had not been attentive to God’s word for centuries. No matter. Rabbi Yeshua asks us to call the strays home Mt 18:11–13. If they say no, Rabbi Yeshua‘s judgment will be on them. If we say no, their judgment will be on us Mt 7:2.

Expressions

Johnny Appleseed was an early pioneer at planting seeds. The legend is that he wandered the young American land planting seeds everywhere. In reality, he was careful. He planted nurseries rather than orchards, built fences around them to protect them from livestock, left the nurseries in care of neighbors who sold trees on shares, and then returned every year to tend them. Once he attended a missionary preacher’s sermon on extravagance. When the preacher said, “Where now is there a man who, like the primitive Christians, is traveling to heaven barefooted and clad in coarse raiment?” Johnny Appleseed walked up, put his bare foot on the stump that had served as a podium, and said, “Here’s your primitive Christian!” Rabbi Yeshua said, “You will know them by their fruits” Mt 7:20.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen was an early 1950s pioneer evangelist. He spoke boldly and clearly on Rabbi Yeshua’s moral law. It is a measure of how far we have fallen since then that millions of American families, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, everyone, turned on their television sets every week and listened intently to a Catholic archbishop speaking on the moral law, and how inconceivable that would be today. I was Jewish then, but our family like all the others stopped what we were doing every week, tuned our black-and-white television sets to the Dumont Television Network, and watched Life is Worth Living. But Bishop Sheen, as he was known then, spoke directly about the Church but he had to depend on people turning on their televisions and tuning in to his channel at a particular time.

EWTN’s Global Catholic Network is primarily a worldwide television network backed up by a web site. Catholic Culture’s Website Review of EWTN is extremely positive. Its television network is watched in many parts of the world, both by Catholics and inquirers into the Faith from many other faith communities. The television network is superb. The web site is also excellent, but it doesn’t offer as much feedback opportunity as the new-media providers do. Michael Voris offers a very different model with his ChurchMilitant.TV. Catholic Culture’s Website Review of ChurchMilitant.TV summarizes its strengths and weaknesses. New media spiritual warriors need to build on the strengths that each model provides, while avoiding their weaknesses.

To show an inquirer the Catholic faith, until recently we had to invite him into our parish church. Now the Church can go out to where he is, but we have to express it in a new way for today’s new culture. Our highest desire is eternal life in heaven. We are free only if we seek and attain our highest desire. If our culture closes off that possibility we have lost everything. Eucharistic Miracles are everywhere. We can show by the Big Bang and by such mysteries as the Sanctuary of our Lady of Lourdes in the Pyrenees foothills of southwestern France and by the Loretto Chapel’s spiral staircase ➝ in Santa Fe, New Mexico that Rabbi Yeshua continues to work miracles in our own time. The new atheists speak of God as a noisy mythological being, a threat to man’s reason. They often see God as competing with us for the same ontological space, for our freedom. In their eyes, if God is free, then we are constrained. If God is constrained, we are free. True free will is possible for us only with a deep friendship with God. We have to find ways to explain that God is the discovery of our own deepest freedom. God made us his image and likeness.

Methods

We have new technologies that can span the world. Bishop Robert Barron 49:55 remarks that he can put a talk up on Youtube and “literally within ten minutes I can get an e-mail from Nepal, an e-mail from the Philippines, an e-mail from an American sailor off the coast of Japan.” We recall the Parable of the Sower, Mt 13:3–9. We sow good seeds. Some fall on fertile soil and bring forth abundant grain. Others are devoured 1 Pet 5:8, and so on. But we can sow many seeds, and by it bring Rabbi Yeshua abundant souls.

Brandon Vogt is the acknowledged expert on methods for our time. He appeared on Marcus Grodi’s The Journey Home 55:50 where he also discussed new media. His My Favorite Resources and Tools is a great introduction. His book, The Church and New Media is the encyclopedia. Perhaps you who read these words will create new and even better methods to reach the strays.

Entertainment

Entertainer and Film Maker

The powers that be in Hollywood are socialists. Most actors and actresses realize that they have to go along to get good parts. But Charlton Heston and a few like him have been lights amid the darkness. Think of the movie The Ten Commandments. Imagine for a moment that Moses had been played not by Charlton Heston but by Alan Alda. The heroic dimension, the sense of living in the sight of God and with his judgments, would have been entirely gone. Instead, we might have had a Moses whose chief ambition was sex with all the attractive Israelite women, contrary to the sixth and ninth commandments. Thanks be to God, we had Charlton Heston.

We need not imagine what The Passion of the Christ would have looked like if it had been made by a liberal Hollywood studio. The heroic dimension of the divine Rabbi Yeshua’s absolute fidelity to His Final Sacrifice would have metamorphosed into a purely human Jesus who commits mortal sin.

Act One, a program that trains Christian screenwriters, is doing some good work in this area. Christians of all denominations can and should work together to restore a Christian perspective to the entertainment industry.

Musician

The Church always needs inspiring musicians. We have our great Gregorian chant 3:37, we have Mozart 56:06 and Bach 1:50:04 with their beautiful Masses, but we need greater numbers of musicians who are able and willing to play these works during Holy Mass. We also need secular music informed by a Catholic worldview so that it can reach wide audiences, instead of the very limited audience for “Christian rock.”

Video Game Designer

Many young people love to play video games. Catholic web designers could produce healthy applications. Instead of World of Warcraft, we could have Eternal World, a game about earthly life, in which players accumulate virtues and sins, and go to heaven, purgatory, or hell (no, it doesn’t exist, but I’d like to see a Catholic web designer produce it), games that model religious life for monks and nuns, games that model Catholic end-of-life teaching, games that model Catholic marriage, a church building game in which the player builds a church by accumulating donations of money and work time.

Clothing Designer

We all know that young women are the biggest market for retail clothing because they want to look attractive for young men. Since the 1960s, clothing marketed to teen-college women has been designed to signal the wearer’s sexual availability. Women who signal easy availability attract men looking for easy availability. Very poor husband material.

We need Catholic clothing designers and marketers who will produce clothing of elegant modesty, designed to attract a young man’s attention to a woman’s head and heart, her mind and her soul, to signal, “I am beautiful, inside and outside.” The elegant modesty designers also have a mission to teach young women how the clothing they wear during their youth can have a powerful impact on their lifelong happiness, and perhaps even their eternal happiness.

I lived all my adult life passionately in love with one woman. During our 44 years together every time she got near me she’d get an enthusiastic hug. I always protected her, more than she needed. Occasionally, when she’d say it wasn’t necessary to go that far, I’d explain, “I love you, my darling. I want you with me as long as possible.” Then she was happy to be protected. Above all, I did all I could to help her prepare for eternal life. She did all she could to help me. God willing, I want to spend all eternity with her. Young women, think about the kind of man you’d like to attract and dress for him. You’ll find the good young men in your parish church doing volunteer work. Ask your parish secretary.

And if you don’t find any good husband prospects at your parish, ask Blessed Mother for help. She found a holy husband. Pray the Rosary every day, and then remain both patient and alert. She will show you the husband her Son wants for you, exactly when he wants you to find him. And if her Son wants you to live a consecrated life, all the more reason to prepare by dressing with elegant modesty.

Medical Doctor

Catholic doctors today are urgently needed to protect the culture of life.

It is an astonishing fact that today, doctors do not see their work as protecting human life and dignity. Most doctors today prescribe contraceptives, which close sexual relations to the transmission of life; God alone knows how many human lives have been snuffed out before they even had an opportunity to be created. Most doctors today refer requesting patients to abortion providers, who snuff out human lives after they are created. Many doctors today, faced with a patient whom they judge will have an unacceptably low quality of life, will kill the patient by euthanasia, often by withholding food and hydration.

In our time, when an aging or seriously disabled patient is admitted into a hospital, if at all possible his faithful family members need to be there around the clock, watching what is going on and asking questions if the patient does not seem to be responding well. Many health care professionals do this routinely.

It has reached the point where most graduating medical students today no longer take the Hippocratic Oath, which physicians have taken for 2,400 years. A popular adage among physicians today is “treat ’em and street ’em.” Their practice managers push them to see large numbers of patients per day, which means the doctor rushes in, looks at the medical history, asks a few questions, makes a quick diagnosis, and he’s out of there. A faithful Catholic physician will care more about his patients than about his own convenience or income.

A deeply faithful Catholic doctor will, consistent with Church teaching, protect the patient’s life and dignity as best he can. He will use all ordinary means to keep the patient alive, such as food and hydration, and ask the patient, or the patient’s representative, whether extraordinary means are to be used. He will provide relief from pain as best he can.

If the patient is a Catholic, the faithful Catholic physician will call a priest when he believes there is serious risk of death and keep the patient alive as best he can until the priest can administer the last sacraments of Penance, Anointing of the Sick and Dying, and Viaticum. He is concerned for the patient’s earthly life, and also his eternal life.

Catholic physicians can be particularly helpful on hospital bioethics committees, where they can explain why human life is sacred from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death, and promote specific policies and practices to protect the lives of hospital patients.

Faithful Catholic nurses are also certainly needed, but Catholic doctors are all-important because doctors give orders. Nurses do what they are told. If the doctor gives instructions that will protect the patient’s life, the nurse will generally go along. If the doctor gives instructions that will foreseeably kill the patient, the nurse can resist only at risk of her job.

Lawyer

Catholic lawyers are urgently needed today to defend the faithful against the slowly rising tide of persecution through laws against “hate speech,” laws that punish discrimination against sin, and content-specific laws that prohibit certain kinds of protests against abortion when the same protest at the same time in the same place on any other subject would be allowed.

Catholic lawyers are also urgently needed to restore respect for objective moral principles. At present, the operation of law in society has deteriorated to the point where raw political power prevails.

The “deep pockets” principle has become so much a part of legal practice today that it is hardly noticed anymore. Lawyers no longer sue the person who actually caused the problem but rather the corporation with the most money that can somehow be involved.

“Piling on” has become commonplace today. A group of federal and state attorneys-general get together and decide to attack a particular corporation or industry. When this happens to joggers in Central Park it is called “wilding,” but when it happens in federal and state courts it is called due process of law.

The cigarette industry is a case in point. If cigarettes are deadly to those who use them, they should be banned. Instead, the federal and state governments have gathered together to sue the industry. Now, if the attorneys-general meant what they said in court to obtain judgments against the cigarette companies, they would demand the judgment money all at once, forcing the cigarette companies out of business. But they deliberately allowed the cigarette companies 25 years to pay. The only way they can raise money to pay these judgments is to sell cigarettes, both within the United States and all over the world. Therefore, the federal and state governments now have a vested interest in continued sales of cigarettes.

Once piling on becomes an accepted principle, we are on a slippery slope where no institution is immune. The day is fast coming when the Catholic Church is the one piled on. Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran pastor near Berlin imprisoned by the Nazis, reminds us,

In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.

A young Catholic, or any orthodox Christian, who serves as a soldier for Rabbi Yeshua in the field of law needs to be in touch with the Alliance Defending Freedom. They’re an alliance because they have allies. Second Exodus has seen some excellent work done by the Thomas More Society and the Becket Fund, but all of the allies do good work.

Young Catholic or other Christian lawyers, or lawyers-to-be, who want to change the world as Rabbi Yeshua’s witnesses Acts 1:8 in the field of law can best start through their own radical transformation toward him.

More at Catholic Answers

Politician

Some liberal “Catholic” politicians say that they cannot impose their moral beliefs on the American people. They are “personally opposed” to abortion but cannot impose their moral values on the citizenry. The same liberal politicians every year vote to transfer money from people who work to those who do not, force landlords to rent apartments to unmarried couples, and force employers to hire and retain persons living sinful lives. The only place they’re ever “personally opposed” is abortion.

Catholics have exactly the same right to impose their moral beliefs by law as does anyone else. If the objection is that our values are religious, so were Rev. Martin Luther King’s 17:28. We shall overcome 4:21 is still a Georgia Baptist hymn. Either we allow religious values including Catholic values or we declare unconstitutional all of the “civil rights” legislation. After all, the “civil rights” legislation restricted the traditional American right to free association, which recognized that each man had the right to decide with whom he wanted to transact business. Whether or not the “civil rights” legislation was morally good, it was certainly Baptist in its origins.

We need Catholic politicians. A Catholic politician does all he can to enact Catholic social teaching into law. Sometimes, when liberals hear this, they have lurid visions of the Pope running the American government, making phone calls to direct that this or that legislation be signed or vetoed. It is not that at all. Catholic social teaching is a body of general principles emphasizing reliance on God rather than government as the organizing principle of our lives, and on treating one another with the dignity due God‘s image and likeness.

Entrepreneur

So far, Formative Professions has followed the traditional model that upholds the artium baccalaureus, a college education in the arts, as a rite of passage that prepares us for a lifelong career. Here I’m going to question that.

Neither Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs finished college, yet both men earned enough money to get by. Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google together. Mark Zuckerberg co-founded Facebook.

In 1982 a high school valedictorian told a reporter for the Miami Herald that he wanted to “build space hotels, amusement parks, and orbiting colonies for two million or three million people who would be in orbit. His goal was to ultimately move the earth’s population into outer space, so that the earth could be preserved as a park.” He failed at that, but his intense concentration continued. Jeff Bezos started and still runs a little company called Amazon.

After a lifetime of observing ways to provide for our material worth to help lead others to Rabbi Yeshua, I have become convinced that for some of us the college-university track is essential. For persons who want to lead souls to Rabbi Yeshua by becoming a Catholic priest or theologian, a doctor or lawyer, or taking up most of the formative professions, college and post-graduate work are absolutely essential. And for millions of others who want only a 9 to 5 office job, it will continue to be essential as long as most of the country’s corporations ask for a college degree as their entry-level credential.

But for many others, a college education is a millstone. The entire Obama administration, from start to finish, was built on ideas taught as self-evident in most of America’s colleges and universities. When the moral dilemma comes, Will God or man be the organizing principle of our lives and the source of all that we need, the universities’ answer is always “Government.” It resists subsidiarity at every opportunity. Every big American city is a monument to its failure. If I had it to do over again, I might not have gone to college, and certainly not graduate school. With my youth, energy and drive I would have started working for a fast track company in a formative profession and worked my way up, learning real-world economics along the way.

In the United States today millions of college graduates still live with their parents wondering when they will ever be able to get a job. College graduates earn higher incomes than high school graduates. But is that because the college experience adds actual value to their skill set, or is it simply that high school students who decide to go to college are more intelligent and motivated than those who don’t, and that these intelligent and motivated students could actually do better than college by getting an early start in the world of work, preparing to be entrepreneurs. Depends on the career field.

We report, you decide.