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Blog Author: Fr. John Jay Hughes

Related Audio Course: A Journey Through the Parables

THE MESSAGE OF LIFE
14a. Mt. 11:25-30.
AIM:    To proclaim the sacredness of human life.

This weekend we are celebrating the anniversary of our country’s Declaration of Independence.  It is a noble document.  Though only one of the signers was a Catholic, it is a document of which we Catholics can be proud.  The second paragraph contains these eloquent words:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

In 1776, and for the better part of a century thereafter, there was one group of people in American society, however, who were not deemed worthy of liberty.  People brought here from Africa as slaves, and their descendants, were not free.  Our Supreme Court, reviewing a case originally heard here in St. Louis in 1847 and 1850 at the courthouse just west of today’s arch, held in the Dred Scott case that a Negro “whose ancestors were … sold as slaves” was not entitled to the rights of a citizen under our Constitution; and in consequence did not possess the right to liberty which the Declaration of Independence had said was unalienable and self-evident.  It took a terrible Civil War and a courageous act by the man whom many believe to have been our greatest President, Abraham Lincoln, to make clear that this dark chapter in our country’s history must end.

In the two hundred twenty-nine years since our Declaration of Independence the circle of those to whom we extended the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was steadily expanded.  We welcomed immigrants, we freed the slaves, we extended legal protections protection to workers.  After World War I women received the right to vote.  The Great Depression of the 1930s brought government aid to the needy and Social Security for the elderly.  After World War II we ensured civil rights for all and made public spaces accessible to the handicapped.  In all these ways America became a steadily more inclusive society.

This process of expanding the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was reversed in January 1973.  The same Supreme Court which said, in the infamous Dred Scott case, that there was no constitutional protection for black slaves, in 1973 ended the legal protection previously given in all our states to society’s weakest and most defenseless members: babies in the womb.  And incidentally, those laws were passed by overwhelmingly Protestant, often strongly anti-Catholic, state legislatures.

Everyone born since 1970 has grown up in a world in which the killing of the unborn has been legal, respectable, and frequent.  The death toll in this slaughter of the innocents is now approaching fifty million.  All but a tiny minority of these fellow members of our human family were killed for no other reason than convenience.

This is the only world known to every person thirty-five years of age or younger: the world of the quick fix, in which a fellow human being whom I dislike, who gets in my way, who causes me financial or other pain (or conceivably might) may be not just ignored or pushed aside, but killed.  A tenured professor at Princeton advocates the view that parents may kill a baby in the first month after birth if they decide that the little one’s life is not worth living.
The killing of inconvenient humans is not merely defended today as unfortunate but necessary.  It is trumpeted as a sacred right, a magnificent breakthrough in humanity’s upward march from superstition and slavery to enlightenment and freedom, something to be defended by all right-thinking people.  Protesters are dismissed as kooks and screwballs, members of the despised “religious right”: evil people as dangerous for our society as armed criminals because they spread the subversive idea that there is a law higher than the laws made by politicians and judges.

The attack on life’s other end is already well advanced.  The same powerful molders of popular opinion who defend the killing of the unborn as a sacred right (even when this takes place during actual birth, a procedure which doctors tell us is never medically necessary) are now arguing that physicians should be permitted to kill the elderly and infirm when continued life becomes burdensome for themselves or even for others.  The burden may be of any kind: mental, physical, or financial.  And in a society in which health care is increasingly dictated by insurance companies, we can expect the financial argument to become ever stronger.
Advocates of euthanasia try to make it attractive by calling it “mercy killing” or “death with dignity.”  They bid us look to the Netherlands where the practice is  legal, if certain guidelines are followed.  They fail to tell us that in that much smaller, far more homogeneous country, where guidelines are much more easily enforced than they could ever be here, up to a thousand people are now killed annually without their consent.

Is it any wonder that Pope John Paul II, spoke often about “a culture of death”?   This culture of death will be reversed only when respect for life at every stage, from conception to natural death, is implanted deep in our citizens’ hearts and minds.  Then, and only then, will our country’s laws again protect society’s weakest members: the unborn, the aged, ill, and infirm.  Then we may be able to see that even the execution of those guilty of horrible crimes undermines respect for life.

Let’s be honest.  Which of us doesn’t feel that there are certain crimes so heinous that the perpetrator has forfeited the right to life?  But Pope John Paul II reminded us many times that society can be protected without recourse to the ultimate penalty.  The death sentence is arbitrarily imposed: when was the last time you heard of a wealthy white man or woman being executed?   Moreover, since the criminal justice system is a blunt instrument, there is no guarantee that the innocent will not be executed.  If you doubt that, consider the following statistics.  Since 1973 over 7000 have been sent to death row nationally.  And more than 100 persons have now been released in the wake of evidence either strongly pointing to innocence, or clearly exonerating them.
The culture of death in which everyone under the age thirty has grown up has not yet gained universal acceptance, however.  Many people still yearn for something better, the young in particular.  How else can we explain the millions who come together on successive World Youth Days to see our Holy Father; to hear, and to cheer, his powerful message of life?   These are today’s “little ones”, as Jesus calls them in today’s gospel: little not in size or importance but in the sense that most of their life span is still ahead of them. They welcome the beautiful message of life.

Who today, on the other hand, are the “wise and the learned” from whom the beauty and power of this message is hidden, as Jesus says in today’s gospel?  We see them every evening on the television news programs.  They write the editorials in our leading newspapers.  They head our major foundations and elite universities.

Upholding the message of life, insisting as our Founding Fathers did over two centuries ago, that all people have a self-evident and unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — not just the strong, the healthy, the fit, but all — is a difficult task, at times heart-breakingly difficult.  Today’s enlightened and powerful shapers and molders of public opinion regard this message as quaint and old-fashioned at best, dangerous and pernicious at worst.  Today’s culture of death is pervasive.  It affects us all.   When we grow weary and wonder if it is really worthwhile swimming against the stream of public opinion, Jesus’ words from today’s gospel comfort us.  They are the good news for us today:

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of hear; and you will find rest for yourselves.  For my yoke is easy and my burden light.”

Filed under "Catholic Homilies" by jhughes

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Welcome to Get Smart about Investing. Let’s look at the most common mistakes that individuals make regarding the taxation of investments.

1. Not knowing the cost basis
Very few investors actually know the cost basis of their investments. As a result, they are making investment decisions without considering one of the key factors - the tax consequences. It can make a big difference if you are selling a position that has a loss or gain. Professional portfolio managers will often make investment decisions that offset gains and losses to minimize the tax an investor is subject to each year.

2. Not considering the holding period
What if you had invested $20,000 11 months ago and your investment had grown to $40,000? If you sold today, your holding period would be less than one year and as a result, you would have to pay the higher, short-term capital gains rates. If you held onto the shares one extra month, you could convert short-term gains into long-term gains, thus saving on taxes.

3. Making taxes the primary focus in decision-making
On the other hand, you never want to make investment decisions solely due to taxes. I have met many investors who never sold an investment because they didn’t want to pay taxes; and all too often the result is holding onto investments of lesser quality simply to avoid taxes. Always factor in taxes, but do not let taxes dictate your investment decisions.

4. Getting upset about losses and forgetting about them
No one likes to have losses, and some people, after experiencing them, get really upset and tend to have an out of sight, out of mind perspective. This happened a lot in 2001 and 2002, when many stock investors suffered significant losses. If you experienced losses, you need to keep track of them, so at the very least, you can reduce your taxes ny deducting losses against your income. Again, I never want to experience losses, but if I do, I definitely want to use them on my taxes as a way of reducing their impact.

5. Buying mutual funds right before their distribution dates
Mutual funds usually make their distributions once or twice a year, most often in November or December. If you own the shares prior to the distribution, you will probably have to pay some tax on whatever the distribution amount is. The challenge is that you might be subject to taxes on an investment even though you did not receive any gain. This can be fairly complicated to understand and represents one of the disadvantages of mutual funds from a tax perspective. Always ask the mutual fund company when their distribution dates are prior to buying, particularly in November and December. Perhaps it would be better to wait until after the distribution to make the investment.

6. Not considering the account type along with the potential taxation of your investments. It makes a big difference, from a tax perspective, whether you are investing in a retirement account or a regular taxable account. Maybe you could hold income investments like bonds or dividend-paying stocks in your IRA to avoid taxes on the income. Perhaps you could structure more growth-oriented investments in your taxable accounts. Or maybe you should use index funds or tax-efficient funds in your taxable accounts, and actively-managed mutual funds in your retirement accounts. All of these are ways of minimizing your tax liability.

As you can see, the tax consequences of your investments can be complex. Your goal is to look at your investments from many different perspectives and it’s important that the tax perspective is one of them. So what should you do with the information we have just gone over? As a starting point, go through each of the investments in your taxable accounts and figure out what your cost basis is for each investment. If you need help, call the brokerage or mutual fund company and ask them to track how much you paid for the investments. This will give you some sense of how much gain or loss you would incur if you sold your investments and how much you would owe in taxes. At the very least, you will have this information organized and ready when you sell your investments and need it to complete your taxes. In the next chapter we will shift our focus to investing for retirement, which is perhaps the most important financial goal most people have.

I’m Greg McGraime and Now You Know!

Filed under "Investing by Greg McGraime" by gmcgraime

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Blog Author: Fr. John Jay Hughes

Related Audio Course: A Journey Through the Parables

“YOU ARE PETER …”

SS. Peter & Paul Matthew 16:13-19.

AIM:  To encourage the hearers by showing the human weaknesses of Peter and Paul.

          “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.”  What do these familiar words really mean?  They were a play on words which cannot be duplicated in English.  In Jesus’ language, Aramaic, the words for Peter and Rock were the same.  In calling his friend, Simon, “Peter,” Jesus was giving him a new name: “Rock.”

          In reality, Peter was anything but rocklike.  When, on the night before he died, Jesus told Peter that within hours Peter would deny him three times, Peter protested: “Even though I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” (Mt. 26:34f)  We all know the sequel: Jesus was right, Peter wrong.

          Why, then, did Jesus choose Peter, of all people, as the leader of his church?  Was it because Peter loved Jesus most?  No, there was another friend of Jesus who clearly loved the Master more; who, alone among Jesus’ male disciples, returned to stand beneath the cross as Jesus died.  If love and loyalty were the basis for the office of leader, it would have gone to the unnamed “disciple whom Jesus loved,” as he is called in the gospel according to John. 

          Jesus gave the position of leadership to the friend whose love was imperfect; whose impetuosity and weakness made the name Jesus gave him — Rock — ironic: as ironic as calling a 350-pound heavyweight “Slim.”  Before he was fit to become the church’s leader, however, Peter had experience his weakness.  That is the significance of Peter’s threefold denial of the Lord the night before Jesus died. 

          As long as Peter thought he was strong; as long as he could boast that though all the others might desert Jesus, he would remain faithful — he was unfit for leadership.  He had to become aware of his own weakness.  He had to be convinced that without a power greater than his own he could do nothing.  Then, and only then, could Jesus use him.  Then Simon would deserve his new name, “Rock;” because he would trust not in his own strength or willpower, but only and always in God, “whose power reaches perfection in weakness,” as today’s other saint, Paul, would write in his Second Letter to the Corinthians (12:9).

          What was rocklike, then, in Peter was not strength of character or willpower, but faith — Peter’s trust in the One whose strength overcomes our human weakness.  Jesus bestowed the office of leader on Peter in response to Peter’s declaration of faith.  That is the rock on which the Lord builds his church: trust in Jesus as God’s anointed servant: the Messiah, and God’s Son.  As long as this trusting faith endures, Jesus says, even death itself will have no power over his church.

          We Catholics believe that Peter’s office of chief pastor continues in Christ’s church.  In time, Peter’s successors came to be called “Pope.”  Today the Pope has a position as different from Peter’s as today’s worldwide Catholic Church differs from the little band of friends who followed Jesus along the dusty roads of first-century Palestine.

          In one respect, however, Peter’s successor today is no different from the warm-hearted but impetuous and often weak man whom Jesus first chose to lead his church, and to whom he gave the name, “Rock.”  Every one of Peter’s successors, our present Holy Father included, is an ordinary sinner like each of us, who must constantly seek God’s forgiveness for his shortcomings and failures in the sacrament of penance.  Like Peter, he is strong only as long as he trusts not in himself, but only in the power that comes from God alone, through his Son, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

                Pope Benedict confirmed this during his visit to our country last April.  At the end of the Mass the Pope celebrated in New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Cardinal Bertone, the papal Secretary of State, reminded everyone that it was the third anniversary of Benedict’s election as Pope and thanked him for all he had done in those three years. The congregation responded with prolonged applause.  Though English is the Pope’s fourth language (after his native German, Italian, and French), Benedict responded with simplicity and genuine humility. Here is what he said: “At this moment I can only thank you for your love of the Church and Our Lord, and for the love which you show to the poor Successor of Saint Peter. I will try to do all that is possible to be a worthy successor of the great Apostle, who also was a man with faults and sins, but remained in the end the rock for the Church. And so I too, with all my spiritual poverty, can be for this time, in virtue of the Lord’s grace, the Successor of Peter.”

          With Peter the church honors today that Pope’s namesake.  Paul’s call was as surprising, in its way, as the Lord’s choice of Peter to be the church’s leader.  Which one of us could have imagined that the church’s arch-persecutor, Saul, would become its first and greatest missionary, Paul?  Ananias, the man sent to baptize Saul after his blinding vision of the risen Lord on the road to Damascus, tried to refuse.  “Lord, I have heard from many sources about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem.”  “You must go!” the Lord answered.  “This man is the instrument I have chosen to bring my name to the Gentiles … and to the people of Israel.  I myself shall indicate to him how much he will have to suffer for my name.” (Acts 9:13-16)

          “How much he must suffer”: there is the key.  A special call always involves suffering.  Paul’s sufferings were compounded by defects of character as pronounced as Peter’s, though different.  If Peter was impulsive, impetuous, and often weak, Paul was hypersensitive, touchy, subject to wide swings of mood: at times elated, at others tempted to self-pity.  No one who knew Paul would ever have accused him of “having it all together” — to use modern jargon.

          Is there anything like that in your life?  When you look within, do you see any of Paul’s touchiness, or Peter’s impetuosity and weakness?  Take heart!  You have a friend in heaven — two friends, in fact: Peter and Paul.  The same Lord who gave the vacillating Simon the name of “Rock”; who summoned the church’s arch-enemy, Saul, to be the great missionary, Paul, is calling you.  In baptism he made you, for all time, his dearly loved daughter, his beloved son.  He called you to be not only his disciple, but an apostle: his messenger to others.  You say you’re not fit for that?  Neither was Peter – or Paul.  God does not always call those who are fit, by ordinary human standards.  But he always fits those whom he calls.   

          God has a plan for your life, as surprising and wonderful as his plans for Peter and Paul.  Knowing this, and aware of how God was accomplishing his plan in Paul’s own life, Paul could write: “I am sure of this much: that he who has begun the good work in you will carry it through to completion, right up to the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6).

Filed under "Catholic Homilies" by jhughes

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Welcome to Get Smart about Investing. A common question that comes up is, does it make sense to pay off your mortgage early? The argument goes something like this: If you have a 30-year fixed mortgage for $200,000 at 6 percent, your mortgage payment would be approximately $1,200 per month, not including real estate taxes or homeowners insurance, just the mortgage. Over the 30-year period - the life of the loan - you would have paid a total of approximately $430,000. I know it’s amazing how much you pay: $200,000 would be the principal and the rest would be the interest. If you took a 15-year fixed mortgage for the same amount at the same interest rate, your monthly payment would be approximately $1,700 per month. So every month you would be paying more than the 30-year fixed mortgage, but you would finish the mortgage in half the time. With the 15-year fixed, you’d end up paying $300,000 over the life of the loan, saving over $130,000 in interest. Now, most people can’t afford to get a 15-year mortgage because the monthly payments are a lot higher; but the question still remains, does it make sense to try and pay your mortgage off early to whatever extent you can?

Making the decision
In most cases I think it does make sense to pay off your mortgage early, particularly if you can pay it off by the time you retire. Too many people are entering retirement still carrying big mortgages on their homes. Retirement becomes a lot more affordable if you no longer have your biggest expense - namely your mortgage payment. Some people will argue that it would be better to invest any additional money you have instead of paying down the mortgage; but that’s really comparing apples to oranges. Paying off your mortgage has no investment risk, whereas trying to achieve a higher return on your money does have investment risk. In addition, you will have to pay taxes at some point on any of the gains you receive from investments, which can also eat away at your returns.

But before you start paying extra on your mortgage, we have to look at the bigger picture. In an earlier chapter, we looked at the different types of debt and mentioned how a mortgage is a good form of debt because you are building equity each month, the value of your home is appreciating, the interest rates are usually low, and the interest is usually tax-deductible. You should not be paying down your mortgage early if you have outstanding consumer debt like credit cards or car loans; they are typically at higher interest rates than your mortgage and don’t have the favorable tax treatment. All too often I see clients paying more than they need to towards their mortgage while carrying high interest rate credit cards or car loans. That does not make sense.

Another area to consider is your own personal savings for retirement. Are you doing a good job saving for retirement each year? Another mistake I often encounter is with clients who are paying extra on their mortgage, but aren’t contributing money to their company’s 401(k) account; often missing out on matching funds from the company. You should be saving at least 5 to 10 percent in your company’s retirement account and/or putting the maximum amount in an IRA before considering paying extra on your mortgage. Remember, no one is going to loan you money to retire. To summarize this point, if you don’t have any consumer debt and are doing a good job saving for retirement, I think paying extra on your mortgage makes great sense both financially and psychologically. There are few financial things that make an individual feel more secure than having their home paid for in full. I can’t remember meeting any client who had their home paid off early and was not in good financial shape.
I’m Greg McGraime and Now You Know!

Filed under "Investing by Greg McGraime" by gmcgraime