Self-mastery:
Imperative for maturity, happiness

		A Culture  of Life  Fr. Eric Nielsen

One of the most important responsibilities of a parent is to raise children who are in control of themselves.

Self-mastery is a key virtue. While some may perhaps reach a certain type of worldly success without it, it is impossible to be truly happy until one has gained control of his or her emotions and desires.

While some philosophers have speculated that it is a worthwhile goal to achieve inner peace by the negation of these inner movements, it is the exact opposite in Christianity. In fact, heaven is full of people with great emotion whose contentment is based on their desires being perfectly fulfilled.

So, it is not a matter of negating these feelings, but of learning how to master them so that we control them rather then having them control us.

And this begins in childhood. For children are nothing if not filled with emotions and desires, and a house will be quite stressful if they are allowed to run completely free.

Situation appropriate

Little by little parents begin to teach their children that every cry is not going to be answered and that every desire is not going to be fulfilled, until eventually, somewhere before puberty, a child has matured to the extent that he realizes that only those desires and emotions that are appropriate to any given situation are to be realized.

It is important that they learn a certain mastery of this before puberty, because at puberty a real battle begins with a whole new set of feelings and desires.

The feelings and emotions that surround the awakening of the sexual appetites are for most people the most intense personal battle that they will encounter. These new desires, often manifested in a need for attention and physical gratification, may even be experienced as uncontrollable.

Despite what we hear on talk shows, and by some psychologists, the truth is that these feelings, emotions, and desires are controllable. And in fact must be controlled if true maturity and happiness are to be achieved.

Set a good example

How ironic it is then, that medications (pill, patch, shot, IUD, etc.) designed to allow people to seek attention and gratification free of commitment and self-mastery are called birth control.

For the use of birth control achieves neither birth nor control, but merely a type of adolescent irresponsibility. How can we teach our children to have respect for their own sexuality if we ourselves are not willing to master it ourselves? The fact is, we can't, and so we now have a generation of adolescents that reflect our own lack of discipline.

Well, that's not completely true. I am always amazed by how many young people, despite even the most difficult circumstances, recognize the truth of sexual chastity, and honestly do everything in their power to be chaste.

We owe it to them to do our best by giving good example as people filled with emotions and desires that are comfortably and appropriately channeled toward the good.

Fr. Eric Nielsen is pastor of St. Paul Parish on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. This column is syndicated by www.OneMoreSoul.com

Catholic challenges:
As pope goes to Latin America

		The Catholic  Difference  George Weigel

With Pope Benedict XVI heading for Brazil in mid-May to open the fifth general meeting of CELAM, the pan-continental conference of Latin American bishops, the focus of international Catholic attention will rightly turn to one-half the world's Catholic population, its problems, and its prospects.

CELAM meetings have tended toward the rambunctious. The meeting in Medellin, Colombia, in 1968 was deeply influenced by the nascent liberation theology movement; the 1979 Puebla, Mexico, meeting was opened by John Paul II's trenchant critique theologies that presented Jesus as "the subversive Man from Nazareth."

Reports from veteran observers of Latin American Church affairs suggest that the Medellin forces plan a comeback this year. Those same observers worry that this CELAM session has been poorly prepared, in both Latin America and Rome, and that the meeting's working document is a hodgepodge that, by trying to please everyone, risks confusing everything.

Potential drama

The Italian newspaper, Il Foglio, recently asked me what I expected from Pope Benedict's visit and the CELAM conference. Here, Il Foglio suggested, was an opportunity for genuine drama, as the pope - a sharp critic of aspects of the theologies of liberation during his days as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - confronted the hangovers from that movement that are still found among many Latin American churchmen.

I replied that I hoped the CELAM conference would cast its net more widely, moving beyond the left/right debates of the past 40 years to a new vision of Catholic possibility in the new demographic center of the world church.

To that end, I hoped that three ideas would frame the discussions in Brazil.

Take charge of history

First, Latin American Catholicism, like Latin America itself, must become the protagonist, the subject, of its own history. For more than half a millennium, Latin America has thought of itself as the object of history-made-elsewhere: first, the history made by the colonial power of Spain and Portugal; later, the history made by the giant beyond the Rio Grande, El Norte, the United States.

This instinctive self-deprecation - this sense of being on the receiving end of history, rather than the forging end - has to stop. Latin America is a diverse, rich continent of cultures formed by the unique interaction of native, Iberian, and African peoples. It is a cornucopia of natural and human resources. Yet it never seems to be able to gather itself for civilizational greatness - in part, because of this ingrained habit of thinking of itself as a victim.

If Pope Benedict manages to ignite the idea that Latin Americans must take charge of their own history - which means, among other things, confronting the shadow-side of that history, including the rampant corruption and statism that block economic and political progress throughout the continent today - he will have done Latin America a great favor.

Evangelism works

Second, Latin American Catholics must recognize that the gains made throughout the continent by evangelical and pentecostalist Protestantism are, in part, the result of Catholic failures - not of some dark plot from El Norte.

A sober reckoning with the fact that evangelicalism "works" in Latin America because it instills virtues that Catholicism has found it difficult to inculcate - sobriety, respect for family, thrift, responsibility - would be a good place to start the examination of ecclesial conscience.

Secularism is enemy

Third, Latin American Catholic leaders should recognize that the real enemy is not evangelicalism, but secularism. In 1992, anyone who suggested that "gay marriage" would be an issue in Latin America would have been thought insane. Yet it's on the books in Buenos Aires and likely to come soon to parts of Mexico.

In resisting the secularist tide as well its crypto-Marxist cousin, the back-to-1968 politics of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, evangelicals are the allies of the Catholic Church, not our enemies.

May the bishops and theologians who have internalized the John Paul II Revolution carry the day in Brazil with the aid of Benedict XVI, who once reminded liberation theologians enamored of "Marxist analysis" that "God wishes to be adored by people who are free."

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.