Missing Father Curry

On Saturday the world lost an exceptional baker, performer, professor, and priest in Fr. Richard Curry, S.J. I had come to know him as a fellow faculty member in Catholic Studies at Georgetown. His class on “Theater and the Catholic Imagination” was incredibly popular with students (...who were not typically drama or theater students but instead were a cross-section of undergraduates). This video shows some of them performing in 2010:

My family came to know him through what he baked. Fr. Curry created the Dog Tag Bakery in 2014. As a parent of kids with severe nut allergies it was such a blessing for us to find a bakery that is nut free. It is also a place where veterans and their spouses are employed and trained in business. The bakery provides fellowships that result in a Certificate in Business Administration from Georgetown. When I teach my course on the history and politics of food I require students to bake his recipe for “Brother’s Bread” from The Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking to experience making something from scratch. It is always a highlight when they all bring in their version of the bread and share it in class.

Fr. Curry was the founder and artistic director of the National Theatre Workshop of the Handicapped. You may have seen him act on television when he played Dr. Jonah Sorenson on Monk. He also developed the Writers’ Program for Wounded Warriors, which provides workshops where veterans tell their stories through monologues. It provides an opportunity for the development of writing skills, artistic expression, and therapy.

Just last week at a Catholic Studies Christmas dinner we called Fr. Curry and each of the faculty wished him well as he received treatment and we all looked forward to his return. I let him know my kids had become huge fans of his chocolate cake. He told me I had to keep going to the bakery whenever they wanted it! And I will.

It is such an understatement to say Fr. Curry will be missed. If you are ever in Georgetown do yourself a favor and stop by the bakery. He will be there, not only in spirit but in the recipes. On a larger scale, the impact he had on the students who were lucky enough to get a spot in his classes will also continue to live on...

Catholic School Is Going Into Orbit

A Virginia Catholic primary school (grades K-8) is going into orbit soon. Faith and science are striving to reach space from the hands and minds of Catholic school kids (with the help of Orbital ATK’s Cygnus Cargo Spacecraft carrying four tons of supplies). Students at St. Thomas More Cathedral School in Arlington designed, programmed, customized, and tested a four inch by four inch cube satellite (CubeSat) that is set to be released from the International Space Station (ISS). Launches on December 3rd and 4th were delayed by weather. A launch is expected before the end of Sunday.

The idea for the project, the STMSat-1 Mission, came when America’s last operational manned spacecraft (for now) flew over the region’s skies on its way to the Smithsonian. Kids from the school formed the outline of a shuttle in the school parking lot as the Space Shuttle Discovery came to its new home in April 2012. The kids wanted the Discovery and the plane carrying it to see them. They began to think on a bigger scale and wondered about putting something in space that could not only look down but also up and out to the stars.

The satellite cost about $50,000 and was paid for with fundraising and assistance from NASA. It includes an Earth observation camera and an asteroid observation camera. Unlike all other NASA satellites it also comes with a golden crucifix that was blessed by Pope Francis and a plate with the etched names of all the students and those who supported the project.

Each grade has had its own responsibilities. For example, the first graders are operating the ground station, the third grade is operating the asteroid detection camera, and the seventh grade worked on the satellite’s 3D compass payload. Outside of science classes, space has become integrated into other aspects of the school’s curriculum. “The art teacher has the students drawing planets, the music teacher has them making up space songs, the gym teacher has the children inventing space dances, and their religious instructor has the kids writing prayers for the satellite” (NASA).

So often we hear about religious schools being criticized in secular media for integrating too much faith into the curriculum. Here we have a Catholic school widely integrating science. This may come as a surprise to many but it shouldn’t. Pope Leo XIII famously noted that “no real disagreement can exist between the theologian and the scientist, provided each keeps within his own limits.” The Church never opposed Darwin’s work on natural selection and in 1950 Pope Pius XII positively resolved that evolution is worthy of investigation for the source of the human body (...but not the soul...and of course Catholics can still favor the literal Genesis account). Generations of students have learned about evolution in biology and science classes in Catholic schools. In the 1920s and 1930s, Catholic priest and astronomer Georges Lemaître was instrumental in describing the creation of the universe with the Big Bang and the expansion that followed. Since 1936, many Nobel laureates (including Max Planck, Otto Hahn, and Niels Bohr) have served the Church in the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences. Current members include Stephen Hawking, Werner Arber, and Francis Collins.

Yet this recent rich scientific history and legacy has never reached the consciousness of many. A 2014 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, found that 36% of U.S. adult Catholics believe that science sometimes conflicts with their religious beliefs. By comparison, 34% of Protestants responded as such as did 16% of those without a religious affiliation. Even as most Catholics do not see conflicts between science and religion it is still distressing that more than a third of Catholics assume that there is. Equally troubling is the scientific knowledge U.S. Catholic adults express in surveys. The table below shows responses to 11 scientific knowledge questions in the 2014 General Social Survey (GSS). On average, only about seven in ten adult Catholics correctly answered these questions. More often than not being “outscored” by Protestants, those of other non-Christian religious affiliations, and those without a religious affiliation.

I just finished teaching a class on secularization at Georgetown. One of the themes explored in the class was the growing number of young Americans who leave the faith they were raised in to adopt science as their new “faith.” Among those leaving Catholicism, many believe science is incompatible with the religion in which they were raised.

I think the Church should continue to emphasize, perhaps as Pope Francis has with Laudato si', that the Church and science are by no means “at war.” I often think of science and theology as being on two parallel tracks seeking truth in different ways and searching for answers to different (but ultimately related) questions. Each may have to periodically correct course (i.e., the Church with Galileo or modern physics accepting “a day without a yesterday” as proposed by Lemaître). Perhaps somewhere in the distant future those two tracks will meet. After all as Pope Leo XIII noted “no real disagreement can exist.” Science also needs religion or some other ethical system. In the end it is just a tool or a process. It can tell you how to build a nuclear weapon but it can say nothing about how, if ever, this should be used.

I hope Catholic schools not only continue to be great places to teach the Catholic faith but also strive to be world class centers for science, technology, math, and engineering (STEM) like St. Thomas More Cathedral School. Not only would this likely improve Catholics’ knowledge about science but also do much to counter New Atheism’s attempt to “claim” science as their own—as something apart from religion. Perhaps some of those Catholics leaving their faith for “science” would realize there have been little if any incompatibilities between the two for hundreds of years.

Congratulations to the students and faculty of St. Thomas More Cathedral School and everyone at NASA that helped them. We hope all goes well. Godspeed, STMSat-1.

Update (12/6/15): The launch was successful (...on the feast day of Saint Nicholas)!

Where Will Your Final Resting Place Be?

Yesterday was All Souls’ Day. You may have thought about and prayed for lost loved ones. You may have even thought about your own eventual death. What will happen to you? Will you have a vigil service? A funeral liturgy? Rite of Committal? You may fully intend to have a traditional Catholic funeral and burial. But will it happen? Well it really isn’t up to you.

When I am reporting on or making presentations about Catholic sacramental and practice data, one of the most common concerns I hear from priests is not related to baptisms or marriages. It is funerals. I hear a similar story over and over. An elderly member of the parish has passed and their kids decide to forgo the Catholic funeral and burial against the deceased parent’s wishes. They don’t feel comfortable at a funeral Mass. They think everything about the funeral and burial is too costly. They don’t see the point and their parent has passed. “They’ll never know” …and then mom gets cremated and takes her place on the mantle at home. At least at Christmas time the Elf on a Shelf is nearby.

Statistically speaking, if you go by the Church’s numbers, death is becoming less common among Catholics in the United States. If the trends in funerals and deaths recorded in Catholic parishes from the 21st century continue, no deaths of Catholics will be recorded after 2087. That doesn’t mean the Church will have found the fountain of youth in the Diocese of Orlando. Catholics still die at the same rate as non-Catholics, they just aren’t getting a Catholic funeral and burial in a Catholic cemetery like they used to.

According to the Center for Disease Control’s Vital Statistics reports, in 2013, there were 2,596,993 deaths in the United States. If one applies the very stable adult Catholic affiliation percentage to that total (assuming Catholics are no less or more likely to die then the overall population), we would expect there to have been approximately 610,293 Catholic deaths in that year. In 2013, U.S. Catholic pastors reported 402,963 deaths in The Official Catholic Directory. Thus, we can assume about 66% of Catholics who died in that year were likely to have received a Catholic wake, liturgy, and/or burial in a Catholic cemetery (i.e., Rite of Committal).

What happened to the other third of Catholics who passed away? Some are on the mantle. Others have their ashes scattered at a favorite beach or golf course. Maybe some are among those rumored to have their ashes scattered on the Haunted House ride at Disneyland?

The decline in funerals is not limited to the Catholic Church. The National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) reports that the number of funeral homes in the United States has declined by 10% since 2004 (-2,137 sites). Some of this decline may be related to the economy. The median cost of an adult funeral and burial has increased by 29% since 2004 to a total of $8,508. The median costs for cremation is less, $6,078. More Americans are choosing cremation over burial and this trend is expected to continue and become more frequent.

According to the NFDA, in 2005, 61% of deceased in the U.S. were buried and 32% were cremated. By 2030, the NFDA expects those numbers to flip in the other direction with more than 7 in 10 deceased being cremated.

I searched the polling archives for questions about burial and cremation to see if I could isolate Catholic preferences. Oddly, pollsters appear to shy away from asking respondents what they want to happen to their body when they die. There is one CBS/Vanity Fair national poll from 2012 which asks, “If you had the chance to peek in on your own funeral, what would you be most curious about? How many people show up, if there are any surprise visitors, how you look in the casket, or what people say about you?” Catholics, like most others, said they would want to hear what people say about them (53%) followed by wanting to see how many people show up (24%). Only 2% would want to see themselves in the casket.

According to Church law, “The Church earnestly recommends the pious custom of burying the bodies of the dead be observed, it does not however, forbid cremation unless it has been chosen for reasons which are contrary to Christian teaching” (Canon 1176). If Catholics choose cremation, they are required to have their ashes buried or have an urn placed in a crypt, niche, or other approved above-ground option at the cemetery. You can’t have your ashes blasted into space or made into jewelry. Mom or dad probably didn’t want that anyway.  

Mantle photo courtesy of Aime Fedora.