St. Joseph of Cupertino

Feast Day: September 18
Patron of aviation, astronauts, students

The saint’s father was a poor carpenter who died before Joseph was born. His mother was forced out of their home by creditors and gave birth to her son in a stable behind their house. From the age of eight, he had mystical visions of Jesus, Mary and the saints which would leave him in a trance, wandering around open-mouthed. Classmates ridiculed Joseph by nicknaming him boccaperta, Italian for “the gaper.” Joseph had a hot temper and would lash out in retaliation.

By the age of 17, he was an apprenticed shoemaker, yet desired to live a life of service to God.

After being rejected by two friaries due to a lack of education, Joseph was eventually accepted as an oblate at the Conventual Franciscan friary near Cupertino. Barely able to read or write at 25 years old, he was ordained to the priesthood due in large part to his virtue and spiritual insight.

His visions and ecstasies continued throughout his priesthood. During Mass, he would often levitate and hear heavenly music. His mystical experiences caused him much suffering, since he was unable to celebrate Mass in church or sing with his brothers in choir for over 35 years, living in near total seclusion.

Joseph’s most famous levitation reportedly occurred during a papal audience before Pope Urban VIII. When he bent down to kiss the Pope’s feet, he was filled with reverence and began to float. Only when the minister general of his order commanded him to come down was Joseph able to return to the floor.

Pope Clement XIII canonized him in 1767. Actor Maximilian Schell starred as Joseph in the 1962 movie The Reluctant Saint, now out on DVD. Joseph is the patron saint of aviators, astronauts, the mentally handicapped, test takers and students.

This column is produced for Legatus by the Dead Theologians Society, a Catholic apostolate for high school age teens and college age young adults. On the web: deadtheologianssociety.com

by Dr. Susan Locke

For many older people, age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of vision loss and may be the likely culprit of blurred vision, difficulty recognizing faces, and straight lines that appear wavy. AMD gradually destroys the sharp, central vision needed to see objects clearly, making common daily tasks such as driving nearly impossible.

There are two types of AMD: “dry” and “wet.” Dry AMD accounts for 85-90% of cases and occurs when light-sensitive cells in the macula slowly break down. It typically progresses slowly and individuals who have the condition can lead relatively normal and productive lives. However, at any time dry AMD can develop into the more severe form of macular degeneration known as wet AMD.

Wet macular degeneration occurs when abnormal blood vessels behind the retina start to grow under the macula. These vessels often leak blood and fluid and can damage the macula rapidly, causing a quick loss of central vision. Wet AMD does not have stages; all are considered advanced.

Treatment options differ for wet and dry AMD. If you are diagnosed with dry AMD, treatments may delay the advancement of the disease. The Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) from the National Eye Institute found that a specific high-dose formulation of antioxidants and zinc significantly reduced the progression from the intermediate stage to the advanced stage of AMD.

Although there are several treatment options for wet AMD, there is no cure and vision loss may progress despite treatment. One should discuss treatment options with an ophthalmologist.

Dr. Neil Bressler

I talked to world-renowned ophthalmologist, Neil Bressler, MD, chief of the Wilmer Eye Institute’s Retina Division at Johns Hopkins Hospital.*

Can people with an early stage of AMD take the AREDS formulation to help prevent the disease from progressing to an intermediate stage?

The AREDS formulation has only been shown to reduce the risk of progression from the intermediate stage of AMD to an advanced stage. If one has no AMD or only an early stage of AMD, regardless of one’s family history, the strongest evidence suggests that the AREDS formulation will not reduce one’s risk from developing an intermediate stage of AMD.

Does quitting smoking significantly reduce the risk of AMD?

There is strong evidence to suggest that cigarette smoking is associated with the development or progression of AMD. Since there is strong evidence that when one quits smoking, one reduces the risk of progression of other diseases, one should consider quitting smoking. It’s not known how long one must quit to reduce the risk.

Do you recommend any alternative medicine techniques?

The strongest scientific evidence would not suggest that one should take any complementary or alternative medicine technique for AMD at this time.

*Bressler’s participation in this article does not constitute or imply endorsement by the Johns Hopkins University, the Johns Hopkins Hospital or the Johns Hopkins Health System. Healthnetwork partners with over 30 top-tier medical institutions. If you have questions about AMD or if you’re interested in scheduling an appointment with an ophthalmologist, contact Healthnetwork today.

Susan Locke, MD, is Healthnetwork’s medical director.

Healthnetwork is a Legatus membership benefit, a healthcare “concierge service” that provides members and their families with access to some of the most respected hospitals in the world. One Call Starts It All: (866) 968-2467 or (440) 893-0830. Email: help@healthnetworkfoundation.org

John J. Hunt

by John Hunt

2009 was a difficult year. Few sectors of the U.S. economy were spared, and Legates were not immune. So it should be no surprise that Legatus membership reflected the state of the economy with a dip in membership.

I’m pleased to report, however, that the downward trend has been reversed. Renewals have rebounded to historically high levels and new members are discovering Legatus to a degree not experienced in recent years. Legatus continues to be the leading lay organization for Catholic CEOs and their spouses that was envisioned by its founder, Tom Monaghan.

Despite this good news, there is still much to be done if we are to fulfill our leadership role in the Church. In addition to faithfully embodying the Legatus mission to “study, live and spread the Catholic faith in our business, professional and personal lives,” we must share Legatus with every qualified business executive we know. Unfortunately many Legates are reluctant to invite prospective members to share the Legatus experience — monthly Mass, rosary, Reconciliation, dinner and speaker, not to mention extraordinary annual Summits, pilgrimages and conferences.

My conversations with Legates have convinced me that this reluctance is a reflection of their not being familiar with membership criteria or not understanding the rationale for requiring such standards. In this and subsequent articles, I will discuss some common questions that deter members from inviting others to Legatus.

Q: Why does Legatus require that executives lead businesses of a certain size to qualify for membership?

Business executives, principally CEOs, are in a unique position of influence. They are responsible for the ethical and moral conduct of their organizations and should serve as models of Christian conduct in their business and private lives. Their example necessarily has an impact on the lives of their employees, families, business associates and the broader community. While there are many other influential Catholics serving the Church, the commonality of authority and responsibility of private sector business leaders is a unifying aspect of Legatus membership. To be continued.

John Hunt is Legatus’ executive director. He and his wife Kathie are members of Legatus’ Chicago Chapter.

Anne Hendershott

by Anne Hendershott

The Feast of the Assumption marked Ex Corde Ecclesiae’s 20th anniversary. Pope John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation for Catholic colleges and universities has had a rough ride over the past two decades. Some colleges have embraced it. Others have not.

Dr. David House, director of the Center for the Advancement of Catholic Higher Education (click here for a related story), maintains that much has been accomplished. Others like Notre Dame law professor Gerard Bradley, an advocate for restoring the Catholic identity of colleges using Ex Corde Ecclesiae (ECE), wrote that “the people in charge — the faculty, college administrators, trustees, other intellectual elites and the bishops — do not believe what they need to believe to restore Catholic education to the colleges.”

Once describing ECE as a “sick patient,” Bradley concluded that “the patient is now dead” in a 2002 Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly column. For Bradley, the real crisis on Catholic campuses is a crisis of faith. Bradley says many faculty members and administrators have rejected ECE’s assertion that the “distinguishing task of the Catholic university is to unite existentially by intellectual effort two orders of reality that too frequently tend to be placed in opposition as though they were antithetical: the search for truth and the certainty of already knowing the fount of truth.”

Until recently, many of us have reluctantly agreed with Bradley’s conclusions. But there have been some recent signs of faithful life on campus. There are glimmers of hope that we may once again recapture the mission that drove the founders of the earliest Catholic colleges. Much of this hope emerges from what the Wall Street Journal’s Naomi Schaefer Riley calls “the missionary generation” of students. A growing number of faithful students have joined forces with supportive faculty, trustees and administrators who are gaining the courage to view their own Catholic colleges and universities as what John Paul called the “living institutional witness to Christ and His message.”

They’re beginning to see that the activities on their own campuses are connected with the Church’s evangelical mission. They’re recognizing that “research carried out in the light of the Christian message … puts new human discoveries at the service of individuals and society.” And they’re beginning to acknowledge that “education offered in a faith context forms men and women capable of rational and critical judgment and conscious of the transcendent dignity of the human person” (ECE, #49).

This is not to say that those on Catholic campuses are “imposing” their faith on others. “When Christians insist that human laws line up with moral truth, they are not imposing religion,” Princeton professor Robert George wrote in his 2001 book Clash of Orthodoxies. “Instead they are making the entirely reasonable demand that reason be given its due in human affairs.” This joining of faith and reason is especially true for life issues as a growing number of Catholic colleges are finally confronting the pro-choice culture that had been allowed to flourish on too many campuses.

Indeed, it’s in the pro-life arena that the greatest opportunity emerges to reclaim a commitment to authentic Catholic teaching. The Cardinal Newman Society has documented a drop in pro-choice commencement speakers and honorees on Catholic campuses. Student affairs initiatives including pro-life clubs, speakers and activities are beginning to strengthen the pro-life culture. Yet if pro-life advocacy remains on the fringes of campuses, restricted to student affairs, it will remain marginalized.

To create a culture of life on campus, faculty must once again be willing to confront the culture of death in the classroom by making a commitment to teach the truth through education on natural law and authentic Church teachings. If a college is to maintain its Catholic moral identity, teachers must be unambiguous about what clearly agrees with and what clearly conflicts with the faith.

While pro-choice faculty on Catholic campuses continue to publish pro-abortion books with titles like Sacred Choices by Marquette theologian Daniel Maguire or A Brief Catholic Defense of Abortion by two Seattle University philosophy professors, a growing number of bishops are responding. The bishops’ Committee on Doctrine recently declared that Maguire’s works “do not present authentic Catholic teachings.”

Earlier this year, Marquette president Fr. Robert Wild withdrew an offer of employment to a candidate for dean of the College of Arts and Sciences because her published writings denigrated Catholic teachings on marriage and the family. He said his decision “was made in the context of Marquette’s commitment to its mission and identity.”

It’s likely that the specific nature of the job at issue — as dean, the candidate would have been charged with helping implement ECE — may have driven Marquette to step back from that appointment. On all Catholic campuses, the Arts dean helps to hire theologians mandated to teach in communio with the Church.

The news from Marquette is just one small sign that ECE may still be a quiet presence on Catholic campuses. And the emerging success of new faithful colleges like Ave Maria, John Paul the Great and others give us hope that some of our long-standing Catholic colleges and universities can be revitalized.

Anne Hendershott is the John Paul II Fellow in Student Development at the Center for the Study of Catholic Higher Education.

Fr. Tim Kitzke

Father Tim Kitzke
Milwaukee Chapter

Father Tim Kitzke has a unique position. He shepherds two parishes, but four churches. He’s one of a team of three priests chosen by the diocese to pastor four churches that had been consolidated into two parishes. He also happily serves as the lone chaplain for Legatus’ local chapter. The South Milwaukee native, who just turned 50, was ordained to the priesthood in 1989. He enjoys time with his extended family — and daily prayer time in his rectory garden.

Tell me about your call to the priesthood.

I’m the youngest of four children. My parents were hard workers and raised us to be honest and kind, and to love the Church. They had a very active devotional life, and I was involved in the Church at an early age as an altar server. I went to a high school seminary right after the eighth grade. My father has passed, but my mother is still living in my boyhood home. My two older sisters and brother are married. I have 12 nieces and nephews and 10 great-nieces and -nephews.

You now shepherd four churches.

Yes. Eleven years ago three small historic churches merged, forming a parish called Three Holy Women because they were all named after women: Mary Queen of the Rosary, St. Hedwig and St. Rita. We have Masses in all — and all are full. The parishes have really come back to life, so we take formation — especially young adult formation — and evangelization very seriously. Then four years ago I became pastor of another parish. This area is growing, so the archbishop appointed me and two other priests to serve in what Canon Law calls an in solidum team where the three of us are pastors of four churches.

When did you first encounter Legatus?

I was asked to say a Mass for Legatus about 10 years ago. One of the local founders was trying to establish a chapter, so after the initial meetings we all started working together. We’ve grown to about 40 couples. They are deeply spiritual, deeply generous and quite involved in their parishes.

What impact has your interaction with Legates had on you?

Being the chaplain of Legatus has reminded me of the deep respect people have for the priesthood. We pray well together. When we have Mass together, it really is the highlight of the evening, and everything else flows from the Mass. The unique thing about Legatus is that members belong to all sorts of groups with various purposes, but what other group could you have that has the Eucharist as its source and summit, its central reality for what the evening is going to be?

What do you try to bring to them every month?

I try to bring the encouragement to do their work faithfully as believers in Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church. But also to get a renewed energy that there are other people dealing with exactly the same things as they are in the business world — and all they need to bring to Legatus is their heart. This isn’t a fundraising event. Just bring your heart to the Lord and be supported by Christ in the Eucharist and those who share at the table with you.

What do you do in your spare time?

One of my passions is my big garden, so I work out in the yard. I enjoy being outside. I don’t grow vegetables because at harvest time people always bring me their extra produce. My passion is perennials. I use my backyard for parish events, and it’s a little haven in the midst of the city. It’s a great place to take a breather with the Lord, just to sit in the garden for a while.

Dorinda C. Bordlee

by Dorinda C. Bordlee

Science tells us when life begins. The real question is when love begins. For many abortion-minded women, love began when they had the opportunity to see their unborn child on an ultrasound screen.

The good news is that the opportunities to open this window on the womb are increasing with more and more state laws requiring ultrasounds before an abortion can be performed.

Testimony given by women in legislative hearings confirms that ultrasound images help a woman in an unexpected pregnancy to realize she’s not alone in this seeming crisis — that it’s not all about her, and that there’s another person right there with her in the most profound and physical way.

That person is her unborn child, who is joined by many other people such as those who operate pro-life pregnancy care centers that provide free hands-on resources like ultrasound and medical services, parenting and marriage counseling, diapers and formula, and even food for the new mom’s pantry before and after her baby’s birth.

The Knights of Columbus have taken the lead in getting ultrasound machines donated to pro-life pregnancy centers. This ultrasound donation outreach, together with the legislative efforts (promoted by my public-interest law firm Bioethics Defense Fund) is a powerful tool for building a culture of life. It gives each of us in the pro-life movement the opportunity to do what Supreme Knight Carl Anderson speaks of as “living as Christ lives, [as] we reveal to others who they are: beings made by love, and for love.”

It’s true that laws cannot mandate love. But by legally requiring that an ultrasound be performed before abortion with the express option for the woman to view the screen, this type of legislation can indeed create an environment for the light of love to overcome the darkness of fear. The ultrasound option allows an abortion-minded woman the freedom to replace her natural tendency to self-absorption with the ultimate opportunity for self-giving. It gives her a chance to realize that she can be a hero for one of the least amongst us.

This positive approach to building a culture of life is garnering national secular attention. A recent Washington Post opinion column was entitled “Women Should be Informed Before They Abort.” In the piece, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Kathleen Parker describes herself as “both pro-life and pro-choice.” Yet she writes that ultrasound legislation is a worthy approach which recognizes that “abortion truthfully presented would eliminate itself or vastly reduce its numbers.”

The column features a Louisiana law, drafted by Bioethics Defense Fund, that gives every woman seeking abortion two chances to choose life:

1. At least 24 hours before an abortion, the abortion provider must provide the woman with a list of places that offer free ultrasound services. This list will be compiled by the state’s Department of Health and will include pro-life pregnancy centers that offer free ultrasound.

2. If the woman returns for an abortion after a 24-hour reflection period, the abortion provider must perform an ultrasound at least two hours before the abortion to determine fetal viability and issues related to the woman’s health. At that ultrasound, the woman must be read a script that gives her three options: The option to view the ultrasound screen, the option to hear an explanation of the images, and the option to get a print-out of her unborn child’s image.

These options are offered by a script that the ultrasound technician must read to the woman in the examination room prior to the beginning of the ultrasound examination. The BDF model legislation includes the text of the script so that the abortionist cannot negatively influence the woman by saying things such as, “You don’t want to see this, do you?”

Because the ultrasound provisions are added to a currently existing “Woman’s Right to Know” law, the abortionist will be subject to civil and criminal penalties if the woman is denied these options.

Laws requiring ultrasound before abortion give women the gift of sight. What they see is the beauty of their unborn child — the kind of beauty referred to by Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky when he wrote his famous phrase, “Beauty will save the world.” In this case, beauty can save a life.

Dorinda C. Bordlee is senior counsel of Bioethics Defense Fund, a non-profit pro-life legal organization with the mission to advocate for the dignity of human life through litigation, legislation and public education. An abridged version of this article appeared in the September 2010 issue of Legatus Magazine.

Matt Maher
Alive Again
Essential/BMG, 2009

Alive Again captures the penetrating spirit and charisma of Maher’s live performances. This young Canadian is one of the few Catholics to have cracked the Christian contemporary music market in the United States. Maher says this new compelling, 12-track journey will “prompt listeners to stop and ask some tough questions about who they are and where they are letting God maneuver in their hearts — and in doing that, experience the heart of the passion, death and resurrection.” Amen to that!

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