Catholic Courier

This Friday "Essays in Theology" will mark its 45th anniversary. The column began on July 8, 1966, seven months after the adjournment of the Second Vatican Council.

Catholics and other Christians profess their faith in "the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come." Belief in the resurrection of each individual person is grounded in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and is, therefore, a central tenet of Christian faith. 

I have been writing this weekly column now for almost 45 years. Thanks to my friend and former graduate assistant Kern Trembath; his two sons, Alex and Cal, who are about to graduate this year from the University of California Berkeley; his stepdaughter, Emily; and, of course, my own longtime (25 years and six months) assistant Donna Shearer, all of these columns are now saved electronically and can be retrieved by subject matter at www.richardmcbrien.com.

The news coming out of Philadelphia is sad as well as sordid. That archdiocese is experiencing now what the Archdiocese of Boston experienced following the disclosures in The Boston Globe in January 2002. Those disclosures led eventually to the early resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law, a fate that is not likely to befall Philadelphia's archbishop, Cardinal Justin Rigali.

Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia died on Jan. 24. Unlike the much better-known and widely celebrated Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, who was martyred at age 62 while presiding and preaching at Mass on March 24, 1980, Bishop Ruiz died at age 86 of complications from arterial hypertension and diabetes, both of which led eventually to a difficult final illness.

Pope Benedict XVI’s much-touted state visit to Britain last month tracked closely with the 32nd anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s election to the papacy on Oct. 16, 1978. The visit provided yet another opportunity to compare and contrast the personal and papal styles that the two men had fashioned over the years.

I keep hoping that one of these years the U.S. Catholic bishops will issue a Labor Day statement that focuses on the church’s own responsibility to practice what it preaches and teaches about social justice and human rights.

It is a mystery why the U.S. Catholic bishops continue to oppose the health-care reform legislation that has already passed both houses of Congress and been signed into law by the president.