Lex Cordis Caritas - The law of the heart is Love

At times, we may be inclined to cry out, as Jesus did from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Matthew 27:46). We may feel that way whenever we experience something bad in our personal lives, such as sickness or the death of a loved one, or in society, such as terrorist attacks or abortion or the attempt to redefine marriage legally. Why does God let such evils occur? We may feel forsaken and indeed cry out, “My God my God, why have you abandoned me?” So how do we get from feeling abandoned by God to expressions of praise for God’s goodness?

I was in Rome the last week in February for the installation of Father Peter Harman as the new rector of the Pontifical North American College. Father Harman is a priest of our diocese from the former parish of St. John the Baptist in Quincy where he was born in 1973. He attended Quincy Notre Dame High School and completed philosophical studies in preparation for the priesthood at Saint Meinrad College Seminary in Indiana. He finished his seminary formation at the Pontifical North American College and received a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Alphonsian Academy of Moral Theology at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. Father Harman was ordained a priest in 1999 and served as Parochial Vicar at the Cathedral and at St. Agnes Parish in Springfield before earning his Doctorate in Sacred Theology at the Catholic University of America. The topic of his dissertation was Towards a Theology of Suffering: The Contribution of Karol Wojtyła/Pope John Paul II. He then returned to central Illinois as pastor of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception for another five years before returning to the Pontifical North American College in 2013 as Director of Pastoral Formation, Formation Adviser, and Director of Media Relations. Thanks to the convenience of modern communications technology and e-mail, he has continued to assist me and our Catholic Conference of Illinois as a research theologian, particularly in the area of Catholic moral theology and bioethics.

Recently on the radio I heard a commercial advertisement by a travel agency promoting the attractions of having a "destination wedding." One website promoting their staff as "destination wedding experts" tries to entice brides and grooms to say their vows "in a beautiful destination far away" and invites them to imagine "the waves lapping the shore behind you as you stare into the eyes of your beloved. You're surrounded by family and friends who have spent beautiful days together relaxing in paradise." Well, they have probably also spent a lot of money to get there!

Death and funerals are not topics that people tend to talk about very often, unless you happen to be talking to a funeral director and our diocesan director for Property, Buildings and Cemeteries, as I happened to be doing recently. Our conversation centered on the increasingly unusual requests people are making regarding funeral plans. Not too long ago, it was common practice for family members of a deceased Catholic to arrange for a wake at a local funeral home, a funeral Mass in church and burial in a Catholic cemetery. Unfortunately, that is not always the case any longer.

Last summer Pope Francis announced some changes in the processes for handling cases of the nullity of marriage. These changes went into effect this past week on Dec. 8, so I would like to describe them briefly here. Sometimes these cases are popularly referred to as a marriage annulment, but that is technically not accurate, since the church is not declaring an existing marriage to be null, but is examining whether the marriage was null from the outset on one or more grounds that affect the ability of one or both parties to give their valid consent to marry.