CatholicTranscript.org ~ The Monthly Newspaper of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut

A regular column last month on the Transcript’s editorial page sought to understand the recent phenomenon of movements, programs and theories literally designed to facilitate death, either in one’s own behalf, or that of others. (See "Faith Perspectives," August issue, p. 26.)

The column probed a narrative by Catherine Pepinster in the London Tablet, about "a purposeful end to life," as discussed in March by a group of thinkers, health care policy-makers and practitioners at Blackfriars, Oxford. The topic is not merely theoretical, as witness the current debate in America concerning health care reform.

An Encyclical Letter is the highest form of Papal communication, and Pope Benedict XVI, like his predecessor, is a world-class theologian in his own right – doubtless the supreme theological mind of our age. Accordingly, one would expect that Benedict’s latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate ("Charity in Truth"), dedicated to the "social question," should prove to be a masterpiece of theological expression. "Awesome" as a descriptive almost seems weak. On its face, it is likely to be dismissed by secularists as well as media which cannot grasp profound verities beyond sound bites, yet it is certain to impact the Church and the world by the sheer power of its articulate reasoning. Whether it is heeded is, of course, another issue; excuses will invariably begin with hackneyed phrases like "people just don’t read anymore" or "bumper stickers are all we have time for."

Being a Catholic today, in America, entails a series of special consequences, many inconvenient, some quite onerous, and a few rather painful. Surely, this is one thought that occurs to a thinking American Catholic on or around our formal birthday as a nation, the Fourth of July.

If we happen to be living in the most admired country of all time, in a democratic republic whose founders, in the Bill of Rights, literally enshrined the God-given freedoms by which we live, beginning with freedom of worship and freedom of speech, thought and assembly – all firmly anchored in freedom of religion – we nonetheless know that we must be especially vigilant lest our carelessness, or worse, our arrogant drift toward already disproven or oft-disgraced socio/political/economic myths, continue to tempt us.

Surely one of America’s noblest priests, the renowned historian and seminary professor, Father Robert F. McNamara of Rochester, died at age 98 on 22 May. Countless priests remember his lectures in Church History and Art at historic St. Bernard’s Seminary, where in six years’ time he surveyed, using his own fascinating notes, the story of Catholicism throughout the ages, including the Church in America. And countless laity as well have read his popular vignettes about the saints in his Saints Alive bulletin column.

Father McNamara’s opus magnum was a scholarly history of the Pontifical North American College in Rome, which he attended following studies at Georgetown and Harvard Universities. He later authored a definitive history of the Diocese of Rochester. His final book, in 2004, was a story of his physician father. Entitled, Good Old Doctor Mac, it was reviewed by the Transcript.

Although Fr. McNamara was widely know and appreciated for his historical scholarship, his laser-like precision in rhetoric, his moving homilies, and his encyclopedic knowledge, he stood tall in priestly reverence, priestly kindness, priestly patience and priestly humility. He was clearly a model for seminarians and clergy. That he chanced to die just as the "Year for Priests" was being inaugurated, should serve as a reminder to clergy and laity alike as to how a priest can minister effectively in the contemporary world.