The Centre does not Hold

Apparently one tenth of Irish clergy and a third of German theologians are calling for radical change in the Catholic Church. The normal type of dissident thing: voluntary celibacy, ordination of women,  openness to gay unions, presumably openness to contraception, abortion etc., less or no interference by Rome, etc. etc. etc. It is the same old stuff.

Both Ireland and to a lesser extent Germany are experiencing a huge hemorrhage of laypeople from the pews. I can understand, even sympathise with, Irish clergy who look around them and see all that has been built up by previous generations lying dust and ashes, and feeling that the status quo just doesn't work, that continuing on the present path is disasterous.

For Catholics elsewhere there may be less scandals, less need for society to shake off  DeValera Church/State legacy but the situation is similar,  the status quo simply doesn't work. There seem to be three possible answers:

1. do nothing except to contain problems, which seems to be what the Irish bishops are accused of and  is I suppose the conservative position.
2. Leave or distance oneself from the sinking ship, which is what most laypeople tend to do, in which case the Church becomes irrelevant except for rites of passage
3. If one loves the Church then one moves either towards the "left" or the "right".

The movement to the "left" it strikes me is a really a continuation of the very things that have caused our problems, it is position favoured by the liberal establishment, an embracing of the modern world whilst rejecting social injustice, it is based on theology from below, concentrating more on the humanity of Christ, its celebration of the liturgy tends be a celebration of the community, it is democratic and best both theologically, morally and liturgically: Popes, saints, lay theologians and personal whim are all the same, except that personal whim tends to win out. It is attractive at first but then as in liberal protestantism it cuts mankind off from God. Scripture, Tradition, the Magisterium, the Heirarchy are not there to reveal God because ultimately even God is a human construct.

The movement to the "right" looks either to the pre-Concilliar period or further back, seeing VII as continuity. It stands in contradiction to the world. It sees God as directly communicating through the Church, which is a divinely given structure. Scripture, Tradition, the Magisterium, the Heirarchy are all there to reveal God. It is anti-popularist, God is an objective reality who has a right to man's service.

What is agreed on is that the centre does not hold, there is a need for change and reform, "the right" understands this as well "the left" but it will claim that God has revealed himself once and for all in Jesus Christ. That the Church needs purification but this comes from penance and catechesis by a return to, not a jettisoning of Tradition. One of the things "the left" calls for is the appointment of bishops locally, it seems to be something the Pope would be very much in favour of but only if the electors are likely to appoint Catholics who are capable of passing on the fullness of that which is revealed.

Ultimately the question is about God and our understanding of Him.

Thoughts on Catechesis

A cruel thing I am given too is to ask people after Sunday Mass what the Old Testament reading or the Epistle was: most people can't remember. Sometimes the more difficult extracts from the Gospel of John are equally quickly forgotten. I suppose I should ask people to tell me what the homily was about but I don't.

I am old enough to remember a time when most Catholics could remember great chunks of the penny catechism, and when the King James Bible and bits and pieces of the Book of Common Prayer flecked ordinary conversation. We remembered, now there seems too much to remember. 

The Old Rite in its wisdom focused on a restricted number scriptural texts, the Gospel is mainly from Matthew, the Epistles are pretty repetitive focusing on the more memorable parts. You get the impression the readings are their to teach rather than as in the Novus Ordo there simply for the sake of reading the scriptures. I really can't see the point of reading more or less the whole of an impoverished translation of Hebrews or Romans in the "liturgical assembly", when it just goes over peoples heads, better to create a culture where scripture has meaning for people and where they will want to sit, study and meditate. Indeed the old Missal was meant to be memorable, by the priest at least.

It amazes me that in the great days of evangelisation and expansion of the Western Church from the time of the conversion of Briton, Ireland and the rest of Northern Europe, right through to the evangelisation of the Americas and vast parts of Asia, up until the founding of so many of the African Churches, it was the old liturgy, in Latin that formed the background for this work. Indeed it was the Latin liturgy that inspired the great exodus of missionaries from Europe to practically every part of the world in the first part of the twentieth century.

Apart from teaching, by osmosis really, the value of silence and private prayer and the interior life, one of things that the old Rite imposed on missionaries and catechists was the need to be disciplined in the presentation of the Faith, to strip the Catholic Faith to its essentials. I am pleased that a version of the Catechism for young people is being published, it is short, it is simple, it is portable, it is a distillation of the CCC.

I think that a greater part of pre-concilliar catechesis was about doing things, keeping the commandments, going to the sacraments, saying the Rosary, putting up crucifixes and pictures of Our Lady, wearing medals and scapulars, kneeling, genuflecting, fasting, saying prayers, burning candles, celebrating feasts, joining processions, even giving money. Not only did these things supply a portal for catechesis in response to the very simple question of "Why?" or "Why should I?" but they also taught people how to live and die. Now we have replaced all these things by endless talk and endless discussion. I suspect that our real problem in catechesis today is that we teach into a void, we give the answer to questions no one is asking because we fail to stimulate questions.

I have been thinking about what to do for Lent in the parish , whether to use the excellent Evangelium course (God bless Fathers Marcus Holden and Andrew Pinsent from my own diocese) or to put on Stations of the Cross and Exposition and other devotions instead, or find some way of combining the two.

Bishop Bashing

Gloria TV carried the above newsreel; see the first two items.

Both Bishops are met with heckling in the case of the French Bishop because he intended to move a popular parish priest. The Orthodox bishop, I couldn't catch his name, but he introduces readings in the demotic modern Greek, and the people cry out "Excellency, not in the demotic!"

But somehow it is unthinkable that an Orthodox would do the things the French Catholic Bishop of Evereux did. Apparently he attended an ordination of women, but I am told did not lay hands on them, in the Anglican Cathedral of Salisbury, where apparently he is a Canon. He has also demanded his priests read the Koran during Mass.

Why is there a difference? Why would an Orthodox bishop be disciplined, even deposed for acting in a similar way? The obvious reason is the hermeneutic of rupture in discipline and catechesis but there is in the East a sense of all being subject to fraternal correction, a sense of interdepedancy of bishop, clergy anf laity, and a common sense of Tradition, which elects bishops and deals heresy locally, whereas in the West there is only an appeal to Rome, and if Rome reacts at all it is simply with at worst a stiff letter.

Two Kingdoms

Today's Gospel:

King Herod heard about Jesus, for his fame had become widespread,
and people were saying,
“John the Baptist has been raised from the dead;
That is why mighty powers are at work in him.”
Others were saying, “He is Elijah”;
still others, “He is a prophet like any of the prophets.”
But when Herod learned of it, he said,
“It is John whom I beheaded. He has been raised up.”
Herod was the one who had John arrested and bound in prison
on account of Herodias,
the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married.
John had said to Herod,
“It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”
Herodias harbored a grudge against him
and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so.
Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man,
and kept him in custody.
When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed,
yet he liked to listen to him.
Herodias had an opportunity one day when Herod, on his birthday,
gave a banquet for his courtiers, his military officers,
and the leading men of Galilee.
His own daughter came in and performed a dance
that delighted Herod and his guests.
The king said to the girl,
“Ask of me whatever you wish and I will grant it to you.”
He even swore many things to her,
“I will grant you whatever you ask of me,
even to half of my kingdom.”
She went out and said to her mother,
“What shall I ask for?”
Her mother replied, “The head of John the Baptist.”
The girl hurried back to the king’s presence and made her request,
“I want you to give me at once on a platter
the head of John the Baptist.”
The king was deeply distressed,
but because of his oaths and the guests
he did not wish to break his word to her.
So he promptly dispatched an executioner
with orders to bring back his head.
He went off and beheaded him in the prison.
He brought in the head on a platter
and gave it to the girl.
The girl in turn gave it to her mother.
When his disciples heard about it,
they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

A chill always runs down my spine reading this Gospel story, it could well be set in the Pornopolis of Brighton.
Just as the Exercises of St Ignatius focus on a meditation of the choice between the two cities, so I suppose the Gospel writers are trying to compare an earthly kingdom with the Kingdom of God, by contrasting the ascetic John the Baptist who announces the coming Heavenly Kingdom with sensual Herod who is willing to give up half his worldly kingdom to a dancing sexey nymphette of a niece!

John denounces the adulterous incestuous relationship of Herod and Herodias, at the birthday party we are given the impression of excess, of drink, of boasting and of a reckless king unable to control himself. Are we even to imagine a sexual relationship with Salome? With Herod we are to imagine anything is possible. His is a corrupt court in which a young girl offered anything she might want conspires with her mother and requests a bloody severed head hacked off the body of the prophet of God, so much for childhood innocence. The sin of Herod and Herodias corrupts the child drawing her into their tangled web.

I think the reader is supposed to see the whole courtly gang as being in opposition to God, blithely ignorant of God, yet destructive of him. We are also supposed to understand that whatever the Kingdom of God is about, it isn't about licence, indulgence, sexual promiscuity or lack of restraint, these things lead us to something monstrous and inhuman.

It is the choice between sensuality an ascesis.

Anaxios

This is really a reaction to a post by Fr John Boyle.

Very, very occassionally I concelebrate Mass with a bishop who when in his diocese refuses to say "... and me your unworthy servant", it is always "... and me your servant". Unworthy, anaxios, is very ancient in the liturgy, we have to admit before receiving communion, one has to be found axious before being admitted to ordination. The man isn't blind and therefore unable to read the Missal but I admit I have never asked him why he deliberately alters the given text. Ultimately of course there is no excuse for altering a liturgical text unless one's theology is at variance with the rest of the entire Catholic Church. A friend was at an ordination recently, the bishop there spoke of the bread and wine "represented" the body and blood of Christ, I would hope he misspoke, or was misheard, but maybe not.

I was speaking to a woman recently who described herself as a sede vacantist, I must have looked very shocked because she immediately excused herself and said she hadn't meant the Holy See but her own diocese. I am afraid I was still shocked, but then she went on to explain various liturgical and catechetical abuses that took place in her diocese, which I must confess I would find difficult to accept. She had written to her bishop he had been arrogant and rude and completely unsympathetic and claimed much of what gave her pain was of his instigation. Though I could understand her feelings I told her that if she was not in communion with her own bishop then she could not claim to be in communion with the Holy See, that the Catholic Church was a Communion of Churches which were in Communion with one another through their bishops. That despite her feelings she had pull herself together and regard her bishop as her "Father in God".

If I were a more courageous and more worthy priest I suppose I should have written to her bishop and rebuked him for not acting as if he were in Communion with rest of the Church and for creating difficulties for this particular lamb of the Lord's flock. Priests, more than laity have a responsibility for ensuring the Communion of the Church with the Apostles and especially with the successor of the Apostle Peter and in a way this post is a bit of bit of an apology, to her, for being a bit of a wimp in this respect, ultimately I will have answer for it before God. Pray he will be merciful to me a sinner.

Now I wonder why none of the priests at this ordination when the bishop spoke of the bread and wine which "represented" the body and blood of Christ did not correct him, crying out with one voice "Anaxios, anaxios" and demanding he correct himself?

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the communists
and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me -
and by then there was no one left to speak out for me.

Popularising the TLM

Tonight we celebrate a Missa Cantata for Candlemas in the Extraordinary Form, I have tried to encourage people to come along. It is a good entry point for the TLM. I know the current interpretation of "actual participation" basically is about praying the Mass, but since the 70s, it has meant doing things and singing and moving around.

Tonight after the fivefold blessing of the candles people can move up to the sanctuary and then process around the Church to the ancient chants and clanging of bells, with the smell of incense, holding their freebie blessed candle, then join in the Missa di Angelis.

It is all about the senses, it is all about strictly controlled liturgy and ultimately it is about prayer, "God kneeding the soul". We have everything in a booklet so there is no need for me to read the lections in the vernacular, so, as the action of the Mass happens people can either join in or meditate on the holy light they are holding. We always give proper big candles too, it helps. So apart from the sermon no vernacular!

For those unfamiliar with the EF this is so much easier to understand than Low Mass, there is silence but not too much to terrify, there is kneeling but not too much hurt.

My New Year's resolution is to try and celebrate the EF more solemnly, it is the best way to popularise it.

If we have a photographer I'll put some photograph's up later.

Frequent Communion a Rupture

Interesting stuff on the blogs about the order of the sacraments. Liverpool Archdiocese wants to restore them to what they were before that old innovator Pope St Pius X interfered by allowing the reception of Holy Communion before Confirmation.
Fr Hunwicke praises the move, Fr Sean has reservations, especially about removing Confirmation as a sacrament conferred by the Bishop.
I am an old trad and therefore favour most things from the first millenium. I certainly see the move by St Pius as being an act of rupture and quite a serious one which prepared the way for even more ruptures in the rest of the 20th Century. That being said, I must say the continuous catechetical process Liverpool proposes would fill me with terror if I were a lay person.

The main reason the Sainted Pope Pius broke with the ancient Tradition was because of his own Eucharistic piety: simply put he wanted to start a habit of not only regular but also frequent reception of Holy Communion. The assumption today is that this is always a good thing but it strikes me that from St Paul onwards the Church discouraged frequent communion thinking it lead to laxity. At the very least that at the Eucharist there were always those who did communicate and those who didn't:

"Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are ill and infirm, and a considerable number are dying. If we discerned ourselves, we would not be under judgment; but since we are judged by (the) Lord, we are being disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

The Fathers are continually pressing for more and more reverent Communion, I am no patristic expert but it seems that by the fourth century very very few people ever received Holy Communion, except as part of initiation in the East and Viaticum in the West, if they were fortunate enough. The division between communicants and non-communicants shaped the ecclesiastical structures for both East and West. By 1000 AD Holy Communion was something for priests and monks and nuns, widows and virgins, and in the West was certainly one of the reasons for the imposition of celibacy (but let's leave that bone alone here).

John 6 of course says, "unless you eat... we will not have Life", but many would suggest this meant receiving once in one's lifetime, as seems to be the practice for many Orthodox who receive communion in infancy at Baptism after Confirmation and rarely ever again. This too is the reason, presumably, why most ancient Missals, like the Roman Missal simply do not have Rite of Communion for the Laity, it just did not happen very often. It was only after the Great Schism that the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) issued the Paschal Precept, which ensured - for the law abiding - at least an annual Communion, despite the statements of various Synods, as far as I know, this never happened in the East.

Getting back to the "Confirmation Debate", it seems that priests always Confirmed those who hadn't been Confirmed before giving Viaticum and Extreme Unction.