Author: Pete Vere

Ah, our family really enjoyed ourselves at the Holy Family Conferenceco-hosted by CUF Tucson and the Southern Arizona Life Team, but it feels good to be back in Florida and back at Catholic Light. As I mentioned elsewhere, my talk was on how the Rosary and artificial contraception are squaring off in the battle over marriage. Basically, I consider artificial contraception a chemical weapon of the culture of death, whereas for the Culture of Life the Rosary is our greatest weapon of mass conversion within marriage. A little melodramatic, I admit, but from my tribunal experience I feel the contrast is appropriate. I was going to post excerpts from my talk, but it looks like CUF-Tucson will be posting an audio file of the talk in the coming month. Additionally, CUF has asked me to expand this section of my talk into an article for an upcomming issue of their magazine The Lay Witness which will have the Rosary as its theme.

Speaking of the rosary, btw, the latest book project to which I’ve contributed is now out. It is called 101 Inspirational Stories of the Rosary and is edited by Sister Patricia Proctor, a Poor Clare sister. She felt inspired to bring together this project in response to Pope John Paul II declaring this the Year of the Rosary. Here’s a pic of the cover…

But getting back to Tucson, our family really enjoyed itself. We met with a number of friends from Catholic Light and St. Blog’s, including one of my favorite bloggers, Gordon Zaft. As Gordon notes on his blog, I had a bad cold the day we got together for lunch. I thank Gordon for his gracious words, but truth be told, I was a little out of it that day. Still, I enjoyed meeting Gordon and was glad he and Mike Mohr (president of CUF-Tucson) hit it off quite well and were able to carry the conversation amidst my sniffles. Both Gord and Mike are RCIA instructors with a common vision of catechesis. As Mike and Gord are both great individuals, I hope they will stay in touch and collaborate on future projects together. Here’s a pic I took of them over lunch at a great Mexican restaurant Gord picked out:

This says it all!

When you’re wrong, apologize!

A number of people emailed me yesterday to express both their prayers and support. Thank-you, it is much appreciated. Others, including some who also oppose the war and/or share similar concerns about it, emailed to rebuke me for going off-line and to encourage me to stand firm on the blog for peace. This includes some good friends within the Church hierarchy. In reading history, one of the things that leads to fighting is when someone cannot admit they are wrong. In reflecting upon the emails I received, I now realize that I made the wrong decision. I can walk away from the fight without walking away from the schoolyard in which it is being fought.

Another French Retreat

Over the last couple of months, in light of the Church’s opposition to this war, I have carefully weighed and pondered every possible justification for this war that I came across. In the end, I simply cannot in good conscience take a position different than that of our Holy Father, and thus I remain morally opposed to the present war in Iraq. This worked for a while, however, even among other orthodox Catholics things have just become too uncomfortable around St. Blog’s for me personally. Our town in Northern Ontario was located less than a hundred miles from the Quebec border. Over half the population in the area was French. My first memories of the faith are all in French, from the good Sisters who taught us how to pray the Rosary (in fact, I could not recite a Hail Mary in the English language until I was in college!) and all my childhood catechesis was conducted in the French language. History, geography, literature and all our other subjects were taught from the classical French-Catholic perspective. And thus I cannot continue to watch both the Church’s position concerning this war and the French come under constant attack and remain charitable about it. So I think the best thing at this point would be to take a retreat from St. Blog until the war is over, and pray for a peaceful resolution to this whole crisis.