Bridging the Past and Present through the Progressive Catholic Coalition at the School of the Americas Watch — Commemorating the Massacre at UCA and Working for Justice in Latin America and the Church

On the morning of November 16, 1989, the Atlacatl Battalion of this Salvadoran Army, led by 19 graduates of the School of the Americas (SOA) entered the grounds of the University of Central America and brutally assassinated Elba Ramos, her 16-year-old daughter and six Jesuit priests--among them Father Ignacio Ellacuría, an outspoken critic of El Salvador’s military dictatorship. The SOA Watch movement initially formed to denounce this massacre—one of the many atrocities that occurred in Central America as the United States funded civil wars and trained military at the SOA/WHINSEC.

Urged on by Father Roy Bourgeoise, founder of the SOAWatch, and informed by activist contacts in Latin America countries affected by U.S. policy in their countries, the SOAWatch has gathered each year since 1990 on the third weekend in November to continue raising a rallying cry opposing U.S. militarism. Seeking to bridge the intersections of the past with the present in memory and resistance, SOA Watch returned to the gates of Ft. Benning, Georgia where the U.S. Army school is located to both mark this milestone year of gathering by the movement and commemorating the atrocity that impelled the beginning of the movement as well as to re-pledge itself to continue resistance to expanding militarization by the U.S. plaguing Latin America, and more recently along the border.

The Progressive Catholic Coalition has been gathering at the School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) each year since 2004. 

Six Catholic reform organizations continue to be contributing sponsors of the PCC each year. The coalition brings a justice-based Church-reform presence to the gathering of hundreds of activists from across the country at the School of the Americas Watch [SOAW] each year. From 2016 to 2018, that gathering took place at the U.S./Mexico border in Nogales, on both sides of the border wall.

Presently the PCC includes these sponsoring organizations working for justice in Church and world: Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARCWP), Call to Action-usa, CITI [Celibacy is the Issue-Community is the Intent] Ministries Inc., the Federation of Christian Ministries (FCM), CORPUS and Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC). 

The context for the PCC presence this year, as in the past, is this gathering, like a family reunion. Familiar faces, needing reintroductions; new faces needing to be introduced. And all in one unified spirit of warm sharing stories of what’s been happening since the previous year, recounting what’s being done back home to further the efforts of the SOAW movement. 

SOAW 2019

The SOAW program for the weekend offers themes that resurface each year: updates of what  the movement staff have been working to communicate to its activists. Plans for the future. And after 29 years of converging as a movement, mostly in Columbus, Georgia, at the gates of Ft. Benning, but more recently at the border in Nogales, Arizona/Sonora, Mexico, there is much to review. 

On Saturday, two panels shared thoughts on “Bridging the Past and the Present of the Organization”—some of the history of what the movement has managed over the years and what’s next. 

Panel I: “Lessons Learned over 30 Years of Resistance”

• Between 2009 and 2012, a resolution to close the school while an investigation of the record of graduates was begun was introduced by Rep. McGovern of Massachusetts had gained added co-signers. However, the resolution was not introduced for a vote on the floor. Following the change of the name from SOA to WHINSEC, legislators were of the pinion that the school should have time to rove itself. 
• More recently garnering legislative sponsors to back the present Berta Caceres Bill (HR 1945) to end military funding in Honduras.  
• By 2016, Venezuela, Argentina, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Bolivia and Uruguay publicly committed to no longer sending soldiers, nor police to the institution.
• November 13, 2012: Meeting of Denis McDonough, deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama with a delegation from the the SOAWatch.
• Legislative action of the past to close the U.S. Army school where so many graduates have been implicated in committing atrocities against their own people,

Panel II: “Effective Organizing Strategies in the face of U.S.-led and -supported Violence

The weekend might be summed up in remembering and re-commitment for both SOAW and the sponsoring members of the PCC. 

Further information about the speakers at these panels and t\heir topics can be found at 

https://www.soaw.org/biographies/

An evening program by Pax Christi—Solidarity, Resistance and Hope: The spirituality of Nonviolence Lived Out in the Central American Martyrs and Struggles of Justice Today—topped off the day.

THE RE-COMMITMENT OF THE MOVEMENT

The list of SOA graduates who engaged in massacres, assassinations, torture and disappearances of Indigenous, union and community leaders, and who launched coups and became military dictators, is long. From El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala to Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia, there is an SOA connection to the repression and brutality committed against the masses of people

If there was any doubt about the timeliness of the message of the gathering of the SOAWatch movement at this time, the coup in Bolivia and the news at the border validate the effort.

The knowledge that at least seven leaders of the recent coup in Bolivia against democratically-elected Indigenous President Evo Morales were SOA graduates — such as General Williams Kaliman Romero who trained at SOA in 2003 — underscored the continuing need to win the demand: “Close the SOA!”

That ICE agents and Border patrol officers are being trained at Ft. Benning shows how this facility is a tool of U.S. militarism being used against people forced from their homelands by the actions of trainees from the SOA/WHINSEC.

THE PRESENCE OF THE PCC at SOAW 2019

Each year the PCC has two opportunities for participants in the SOAW: an information table with materials about the sponsoring organizations and a Eucharist led by both women and men priests.

At the PCC Information Table: Young people from around the country were more evident this year. Eight of them from St. Charles Borromeo Church, Skillmen, New Jersey, gathered around the PCC information table to ask about the sponsoring organizations. 

One of them commented how welcome they have been made to feel among the people from around the country. To these young people, being recognized by so many “gray hairs” was unexpected. And the older members of the movement were encouraged by the presence of these dedicated young people. 

Inclusive Liturgy: Kathy Butler  and Janet Sevre-Duszynska, both of ARCWP—a sponsor of the PCC—composed the Liturgy which was led by Katy Zatsick and Diane Dougherty, also of ARCWP. About 30 people made their way to a beautiful Victorian home on Broad Street near the Chattahoochee River for the celebration on Saturday evening. 

The home, an AirBNB, was secured by Jeannette Mulherin, formerly a board member of WOC and long-time supporter of the PCC. The liturgy was modeled on the way communities in El Salvador allow time for everyone to include their comments so that the Spirit is respected in the gathered believers before the prayer continues. 

The announcements following the liturgy included the urging by Fr. Roy Bourgeois to gather on July 16th at the Vatican Embassy in Washington—or for those who cannot travel the distance, at their chancery office— to demonstrate for the ordination of women. The other announcement was an invitation to pass to the kitchen where pizza and refreshments await an informal opportunity to socialize. Most did and departed full of the Spirit, good conversation and appetites satisfied by pizza.

AFFIRMATION OF THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PCC PRESENCE

Two comments during the weekend bridge the past and present affirm the value of the presence of the Progressive Catholic Coalition.

Following the liturgy on Saturday evening, a high school student from Stillmen, New Jersey, expressed her opinion about the womanpriest-led service: “I miss the usual readings and homily that helps me apply the readings to everyday life. But it was nice having priests who are women leading the mass.”

The other comment came as the Sunday Solemn Procession was ending. Erin from Pennsylvania, reading the message on my wearable “sandwich board” banner told me, ““Thank you so much for doing this,” she said enthusiastically, “my mother has been alienated from the Church because if inaction about  these same issues. I’m going to show her the pictures of the message you’re wearing to show her that there are groups working for the same issues she advocates for.”

The wording on the banner that grabbed Erin’s attention read:

The Progressive Catholic Coalition 

• Denounces Militarism--both exported and at the border
• Supports the Amazon Synod Recommendations:

                - Reinstating ordination of women as deacons

                - Restoring a married priesthood

                      - Protecting the Amazon Rain Forest and

                    its Indigenous Peoples.

        SAVE THE CHURCH! ORDAIN WOMEN!

The PCC, recognizing the SOAW emphasis on the effect of militarism at the border, has for the past 3 years brought the presence of its sponsoring organizations to the SOA Watch Border Encuentro in Nogales. This year that presence returned to the gates of Ft. Benning to display the PCC banner listing the names of sponsoring organizations at its information table and at the Sunday Solemn Procession. These services provide SOAW participants—especially young people—with a clear message that there exists a "reforming Church" dedicated to promoting justice and peace on the level of both church and world—topics they do not hear about in their home parishes—that touch their hearts and lives.

The SOAW program on Sunday concludes with the Solemn Procession during which the names and ages of those killed by SOA/WHINSEC graduates are read to which the gathering raises their crosses inscribed with names of the dead as they respond "PRESENTE", indicating that they are present in mind and heart and in the continued struggle to end the militarism that has caused their deaths.

The blessing all invoked at the beginning of the Solemn Procession  prays:

May love and courage go with us as we do the work of building community and transforming injustice. May memory and wisdom root us as we face the radical violence of a failing empire. 

May humility and gratitude guide us as we join in solidarity with people all over the world fighting for their lives. 

May joy and beauty nourish us as we vision past failed structures and institutions into another world. May awe and imagination teach us how to listen for the voices of our ancestors who know the way back home.

Together we cry.  You are not alone. Together we are making liberation. No están solas, no están solos, juntos hacemos la liberación.

The comments of people—from young people unaccustomed to being welcomed among adults and unfamiliar with informal liturgy to a daughter whose mother, alienated from the a church she sees as out of touch, encouraged to see a reform presence at the SOA Watch event, all brought together in the struggle for justice—demonstrate that there is good reason for the sponsoring organizations of the PCC to be present at the SOAWatch gathering.

Please like the PCC on Facebook @ppc4churchjustice. The SOAW website is found at www.soaw.org 

Justice and the Real Presence

The title given this blog may seem to be a "stretch". Read on and see if that's true.
The occasion for the following commentary is a recent Pew research poll reporting that a majority of U.S. Catholics do not believe church teaching about the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. It may be, as reported in the National Catholic Reporter by Timothy Brunk, associate professor of theology at Villanova University of Pennsylvania, that "it's very difficult to determine from this survey how much of the disappointing results are a function of the phrasing of the question and how much is a function of what people really do or do not understand about transubstantiation and Real Presence." 

A comprehensive commentary on the Real Presence and Justice follows. Father Jeffrey Jeffrey D. VonLehmen, pastor of St. Pius X Church in Edgewood, Kentucky, has written extensively on the subject of the Real Presence. 
This commentary presents a view many can identify with. 

The Real Presence and Justice

He’d told them ahead of time what he was going to do: "...the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh....Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you....Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them" (Jn 6:51-56).

So when he actually did it, he carried out a prophetic sign. Such actions that have deeper significance were familiar to the disciples who had heard of God’s Word in Jeremiah and the images of the almond tree and cauldron as concrete messages about God’s ever-watching presence and the threat of invasion due to their misplaced alliances with nations who drew Israel into covenant infidelity, and thus relationships that were not right—the basis definition of injustice.  They knew of the symbolic actions of Jeremiah as he gave the Temple Sermon (Jer. 7 -8, 3) within which they imagined him cutting off his hair (Jer. 7, 29) as a witness to the dichotomy between their copious acts of worship (Jer. 7: 21 – 23) and incompassionate spirit (Jer. 7, 24) in hardness of heart. 

Can’t you just imagine the shock and awe with which those people were struck as they saw him getting up, laying aside his outer garments, in effect striping down to his underwear and washing their feet? 

Like the prophets, Jesus does the action first, and only then ties it to a message. (John 13, 12b – 30). 

After Jesus finished washing the feet of his disciples, he gets dressed again, and joins them again at the table, with the message,

"Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me 'teacher' and 'master,' and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do. Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it. I am not speaking of all of you. I know those whom I have chosen. 

And immediately, John has him using a psalm with a theme of right relationship which begins with a blessing for those who are concerned about the poor “Happy those concerned for the lowly and poor; when misfortune strikes, the LORD delivers them” (Ps 40, 1) as he makes a connection between this call to imitation and the miscarriage of justice contained in the betrayal of a friend

But so that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘The one who ate my food has raised his heel against me.’ From now on I am telling you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe that I AM.

as well as the intimate connection between himself and the disciple

“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me."

Mk 14, 22 - 25

While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, "Take it; this is my body."

Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many. Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."

Lk 22, 19 – 20

Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me."

And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you.

I Cor  5, 7-8, 18-20

Clear out the old yeast, so that you may become a fresh batch of dough, inasmuch as you are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.

Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

I am speaking as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I am saying.

I Cor 6, 7b – 9, 18 – 20

Why not put up with injustice instead? Why not let yourselves be cheated?

Instead, you inflict injustice and cheat, and this to brothers.

Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? 

But whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.

Avoid immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the immoral person sins against his own body. ⁷

Do you not know that your body is a temple ⁸ of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.

I Cor. 10, 16-33  

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.

Look at Israel according to the flesh; are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar?

So what am I saying? That meat sacrificed to idols is anything? Or that an idol is anything?

No, I mean that what they sacrifice, (they sacrifice) to demons, ⁸ not to God, and I do not want you to become participants with demons.

You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and also the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons.

Or are we provoking the Lord to jealous anger? Are we stronger than he?

⁹ "Everything is lawful," but not everything is beneficial. ¹⁰ "Everything is lawful," but not everything builds up.

No one should seek his own advantage, but that of his neighbor.

Eat anything sold in the market, without raising questions on grounds of conscience,

for "the earth and its fullness are the Lord's."

If an unbeliever invites you and you want to go, eat whatever is placed before you, without raising questions on grounds of conscience.

But if someone says to you, "This was offered in sacrifice," do not eat it on account of the one who called attention to it and on account of conscience;

I mean not your own conscience, but the other's. For why should my freedom be determined by someone else's conscience?

If I partake thankfully, why am I reviled for that over which I give thanks?

So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.

Avoid giving offense, whether to Jews or Greeks or the church of God,

just as I try to please everyone in every way, not seeking my own benefit but that of the many, that they may be saved.

I Cor. 11, 24b - 30 

. . .This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me."

In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.

A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.

For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

That is why many among you are ill and infirm, and a considerable number are dying.

Commentary on I Cor 11: 12 [27] It follows that the only proper way to celebrate the Eucharist is one that corresponds to Jesus' intention, which fits with the meaning of his command to reproduce his action in the proper spirit. If the Corinthians eat and drink unworthily, i.e., without having grasped and internalized the meaning of his death for them, they will have to answer for the body and blood, i.e., will be guilty of a sin against the Lord himself (cf 1 Cor 8:12).

¹³ [28] Examine himself: the Greek word is similar to that for "approved" in 1 Cor 11:19, which means "having been tested and found true." The self-testing required for proper eating involves discerning the body (1 Cor 11:29), which, from the context, must mean understanding the sense of Jesus' death (1 Cor 11:26), perceiving the imperative to unity that follows from the fact that Jesus gives himself to all and requires us to repeat his sacrifice in the same spirit (1 Cor 11:18-25).

¹⁴ [29-32] Judgment: there is a series of wordplays in these verses that would be awkward to translate literally into English; it includes all the references to judgment (krima, 1 Cor 11:29, 34; krino, 1 Cor 11:31,32) discernment (diakrino, 1 Cor 11:29, 31), and condemnation (katakrino, 1 Cor 11:32). The judgment is concretely described as the illness, infirmity, and death that have visited the community. These are signs that the power of Jesus' death is not yet completely recognized and experienced. Yet even the judgment incurred is an expression of God's concern; it is a medicinal measure meant to rescue us from condemnation with God's enemies.

CONCLUSION

We cannot have reverence for the body and blood of Christ—the person of Christ—if we knock down those for whom he died out of love. For this reason, people are the Body of Christ. Scripture always says it so well: "Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me" (Mt 25:45). "Those who say, 'I love God,' and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars..." (1 Jn 4:20). In speaking of the condemnation of the unjust steward, Matthew's Gospel says, "So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart" (Mt 18:35).

It is simple: We must have reverence for one another. Can a man say he loves his wife if he abuses their children? Are not the children part of her? We cannot abuse one another, cannot help but want a community of compassion, mercy, peace and justice, if we recognize that we all come from the same womb of God, the love of God poured out into our hearts through the outpouring of the Spirit; signed and sealed in the body-and-blood relationship we have in Christ.                                              

                                        —Jeffrey D. VonLehmen is pastor of St. Pius X Church in Edgewood, Kentucky.

Source:: Originally found st  http://www.americancatholic.org/Newsletters/CU/ac0996.asp

A Fourth of July Greeting Interpreted

On the Fourth of July I posted this wish on my Facebook page:

Happy Fourth of July! (not the one the president envisions, characterized by the Washington Post as "a gaudy display of military hardware that is more in keeping with a banana republic than the world’s oldest democracy.” Americans “shouldn’t be lured by the trappings or the spectacle or the rhetoric of Mr. Trump,” says the editorial board the Washington Post, instead suggesting they should “claim the day for values embraced by the founders: freedom, tolerance and respect for all.”)

Full text at
https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/6c8527b8-9c2e-11e9-85d6-52…https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/6c8527b8-9c2e-11e9-85d6-52…Fireworks pictures: in Hartford at a recent baseball game and at the July 4, 1984 display in DC.

  

Two of my nephews, taking exception to my post, responded.

Mike wrote:

For the last time... we do not live in a democracy; we live in a constitutional republic.

But I do agree that a parade with tanks is something that is reminiscent of Stalin or Mao.

Tom wrote:

I gotta agree with Mike, Jack, I didn’t see you upset against Barak when he was bombing 7 different countries killing innocent civilians, but somehow a parade with military tanks seems to upset you, doesn’t that sound a little hypocritical? BTW I am not a trump supporter.

I quickly replied on my smartphone:

Tell the folks at the Washington Post. I'm just the messenger quoting the  press.       BTW it's "Barach."

The response from Tom:

I’m not absolving you because you’re pointing the finger at someone else, you repeated it, take responsibility for the content, you would’ve repeated it if you didn’t feel the same, when you were younger you called out anyone who was doing immoral things, now you only seem to look at one side, ignoring the other, the man I used to look up to has become tribalistic, bias and one-sided, I’m trying to get you to look in the mirror.

Rather than carry on a repartee on Facebook, I offer my response here:

Sorry, Tom, that my response about "just quoting" didn't include the intended "wry wink" emoji (which I just edited in) since I was on my smartphone responding to you (I could never make my ol' thumbs work like they do for the adept "thumb-typers" I see). And I’ve been busy both with other projects as well as with thinking about your comment.

So now that I'm at my computer, I want to make the time to say, first of all, that I'm sorry for what must have come across as a flippantly dismissive and deflective response to your reply.

In truth, my "Happy 4th" wish was made as an affirmation of the need to keep this national observance true to the vision of the founders, like that of John Adams. He observed in his letter to Abigail:

"The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

Adams referred to the "Second Day” because that was the day the Second Continental Congress approved the motion for independence. 

Considering that the colonies were setting out to back up their severing of ties with England by taking up arms against the armies of one of the most powerful nations in the world, Adams might well have written into his glowing prediction references to a show of military might.

It's apropos to note that the people of Philadelphia fired guns to mark the moment that the news of the resolution was declared. But there was no rolling out of cannon and such.   

The “Salute to America” theme included the president’s remarks to honor the five branches of the U.S. military. While opposing war under various administrations of both colors, the opposition of many—mine among them—was against the policy-makers, not the messengers, the military. I want you to know that my opposition to national policies has always been bipartisan. Over the years, I’ve protested against misguided policies unworthy of who we are during administrations of the two major parties. The carrying out of a “Spectacular Fourth” as envisioned by the president was tantamount to what Secretary of Interior James Watts did in 1983 by banning the Beach Boys as the lead for the Fourth of July festival on the National Mall and replacing them with Wayne Newton. Watt's professed a bias against having a Rock music band because, in his opinion, such groups brought the wrong element to what should be a family event. His switch came as a demonstration of personal bias about what people like at 4th of July celebrations. Watts and the president are both wrong in imposing their personal preference about what the 4th should be. Following that 1983 4th of July, Watts was summoned to the Oval Office to have his moralistic dictates in popular music lightly mocked by President Reagan. The Secretary of the Interior left the Oval Office carrying a “plaster trophy of a foot with a bullet hole in it.” Many people would award the same trophy to anyone imposing their personal preference on what the 4th should be, either with bans of music genre or with show of U.S. military might—even the president of the United States. The reaction of many to the president's "rained-on parade" is that we keep the Fourth of July celebration a celebration of freedom, tolerance and respect for all.

Pope Francis and the Our Father

The flurry about the announced change in the Italian liturgical text of the Our Father ranges from: "It's not his prayer; it's in the Bible that way, so he can't change it! to "I was good enough for my parents; who does he think he is?"

But he's not alone in his reasoning behind the announced change. And he is due the justice of a little background for this justice-based eschatological prayer. 

As reported last week, 

The pope said he thought the English translation of the prayer was not correct.

”It is not a good translation because it speaks of a God who induces temptation,” he told Italy’s TV2000 channel in 2017, per The Guardian. “I am the one who falls. It’s not him pushing me into temptation to then see how I have fallen. https://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment-and-culture/2019/6/6/18655772/pope-francis-changes-words-to-lords-prayer-our-father

Pope Francis doesn't reference the scriptural scholarship of the past or present in his announcement of the change he makes in the Italian liturgical text of the Pater Noster.

My scripture prof of happy memory, Gene Maly, would probably be smiling to see this controversy, recognizing that all the sentimental clinging to what people hold dear misses the point of the scripture text on which our sacrosanct liturgical prayer is based. He'd probably say something like, "Get over it, folks. It's about the End-Times!" ​

Related to that, Francis' words witness the following from Ray Brown, arguing grammatically aa well as quoting the Letter of James (Jas 1:13)​ as he comments on this petition in his article "The Pater Noster as an Eschatological Prayer" [Theological Studies​, May 1961]  

SIXTH PETITION

Mt, Lk, Did: And do not lead us into trial

Mt, Did: but free us from the evil one 

Thus far in the PN, the Christians have urgently petitioned God's triumph and have dealt with their own role in that triumph, both positive and negative. Now the only remaining object of eschatological prayer is the terrible obstacle that separates the Christian from that triumph, namely, the titanic struggle between God and Satan which must introduce the last days. Once again, the aorist tenses117 do not favor the interpretation of this petition in terms of daily deliverance from temptation ​(emphasis mine). ​And, indeed, such an interpretation has produced a theological difficulty, for the prayer would then seem to imply that it is God who is responsible for temptation. It is true that the OT speaks of God tempting people, but normally in the sense of testing.118 In a late book like Sir (15:12) there is a reaction against the inference that God is responsible for human failing. In the NT, Jas 1:13 is lucid: "Let no one say when he is tempted, Ί am tempted by God/ .. . He Himself tempts no one"​ (emphasis mine)​. Why, then, do we have the Christians asking their Father not to lead them into temptation? We see in the patristic phrasings of this petition attempts to avoid the difficulty. Tertullian says it means: Do not allow us to be led into temptation by him who tempts.119 He thus makes Satan the tempter, not God. 

M​ore at ​http://cdn.theologicalstudies.net/22/22.2/22.2.1.pdf

​Seemingly foreseeing the present controversy, W.F. Albright writes in his commentary on Matthew in the Anchor Bible:​"The constant repetition of the Lord's prayer in public worship has steadily eroded the eschatological urgency of the words almost to the vanishing point."

So I echo the imagined word from my scripture prof of old, basing this response on the above scholarly commentary, "Get over it, Folks!"

But to allow for an alternative response, I submit this justice-based translation of the phrase within the Pater Noster for those who object to Pope Francis' change:

Dear Father in Heaven, 

May your Name be glorified,

May your Rule be honored, 

May your Will be done –

as now in Heaven, so also in my life and everywhere on earth. 

Give us today what we need, and

Forgive us our offenses, which requires us likewise to forgive everyone who offends us, and

Help us when we are tempted and

deliver us from harm by the evil one.

For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

See more  http://epistle.us/articles/lordsprayer2.html

A Contemporary Gospel of the Second Sunday of Advent

A Reading of the Good News of Jesus to the people of the State of Connecticut

(a paraphrase of Luke 3: 1-8)

In the second year of the presidency of Donald J. Trump, 

in the final days of the governorship of Dannel Malloy

as Ned Lamont was waiting to take office as governor of the state of Connecticut

 and Luke Bronin served was mayor of Hartford 

while Leonard Blair was metropolitan of the church of Connecticut, archbishop of the church of Hartford, Litchfield and New Haven counties,

with Juan Miguel Betancourt as auxiliary and Peter A Rosazza as auxiliary emeritus and

Frank J. Caggiano was bishop of Fairfield County, Connecticut, and Michael R. Cote was bishop of Middlesex, New London, Tolland and Windham and Fishers Island, NY   

  and various pastors were in their parishes in those churches,

the word of God came to many people—descendants of immigrants—

who heard of thousands of people crossing toward the desert at the southern 

border of the country.

They went throughout the whole region of their land, 

proclaiming a call to be faithful to the baptism of change of heart 

that overcomes that narrow spirit of misguided nationalism and seeks instead 

a spirit of justice and compassion 

as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet:

A voice of one crying out in the desert:

Prepare the compassionate way of our God,

make straight the paths made devious by mis-guided U.S. foreign policy

in Latin America with its considering lands as “our backyard”

where we call the shots, interfering in the affairs of sovereign nations. 

Every valley of prejudice and racism shall be filled

and every mountain and hill of arrogance and misplaced pride shall be made low.

The devious roads of the obfuscation of immigration law shall be made straight,

and the rough ways of obstruction offered the asylum-seeking made smooth,

and all flesh shall see the spirit of justice and compassion of God 

and of a nation that seeks to become great with the generosity of its better angels.