A thought on the English Martyrs

I heard a priest in Verona asking in a sermon, "If we are not being martyred, are we being the Church?"

A weaker, poorer Church is a Church of Martyrs. No-one attacks the strong, and the wealthy can always buy off their persecutors. When we have nothing of value but Christ then we will be willing to lay down everything including our lives for him.

More than anything else martyrdom will shape the Pontificate of Pope Francis and his successors, early on in his Pontificate he will canonise the 800 Martyrs of Otranto, killed by Muslim soldiers in the 16th century.

For those outside the Church, martyrdom is a futile gesture, it is about engaging in battles and wars that we cannot win, except in the eyes of God.

In Europe and North America today it isn't rack and rope but legislation that strips us of the position in society that we once had.

It is our Bishops that will have the duty of gathering the scattered flock, and of preaching the Truth.
Today we celebrate the Martyrs of England and Wales under Henry VIII all except St John Fisher succumbed, under Elizabeth all the bishops appointed under Mary were imprisoned or exiled, the list of post-reformation martyrs has many priests and laymen, even lay women but only one Bishop

Pray for our Bishops

Curial Reform: start from the top

Simon Peter has a special role amongst the Apostles, he is charged with strengthening the brethren, with feeding the lambs and sheep.  In the first ever infallible statement he speaks on behalf of the other Apostles, when they express confusion, he, speaking for them, says, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God". The immediate response of Jesus is "You are the Rock, on which I will build my Church".

Even so Paul is willing to challenge Peter, when he seems to fail to understand the fullness of his statement, "You are the Christ", for example when Peter seems to side with "the men from Jerusalem", the Cutters, the Judaisers, Paul corrects him, even to the point of rebuking him publicly, yet it seems that Paul always wanted to act in communion with Peter.

Historians, suggest the monarchical Epoiscopate, at a local level, seems to take some 50 years to emerge to as the norm, although the Pastoral Epistles seem suggest Timothy and, perhaps, Titus as the overseer of local Churches. The functions of those termed Bishop, Presbyter and even Deacon are unclear in the New Testament, even though as Catholics we are bound to believe they originate with the Lord.

Although I tend to argue against a "Spirit of Vatican One" understanding of the Papacy, the Synoptic Gospels, and in different way the Gospel of John, seem to have a common Petrine thread running through them, they can be described as Petrine. Apostolic Christianity in both East and West is Petrine.

The Church has the Apostles as its foundation, it is through our communion with them, or rather their successors today's Bishops, that we are united to Christ the "Cornerstone". The Dominical model of Church, is actually top down, it starts with the Peter and then the Apostles, the Pope and the Bishops, they are the ones who bring the faith, they are the ones who admit to the sacraments, we have access to Christ through them. We recognise them as authentic Apostles by their communion with the successor of Peter.

The first step towards Curial reform, which seems to be on everyone's lips, surely cannot begin without first of all recognising that the purpose of the Curia which is essentially about Communion with Peter. Its purpose is to assist Peter in being in Communion with the local Churches, in order to fulfill the role given him by Christ to "feed", to "strengthen" and to be "the centre of unity".

Communion however is a two-way street, there has to be a desire at the local level to be "in communion". Pope Francis and his various associates seem to be scattering ideas around like pixie-dust, presumably to stimulate debate and prayer but at some point the Church has to decide what it actually means to be "in communion with Peter".

The Romanitas of the Church is marked specifically by the Cardinals, whose theoretical role "Roman clergy" should be a guarantee of Communion with Peter, in practice this just doesn't happen and has to be backed up by the system on Nuncios. Perhaps rather than naming as Cardinal the Archbishop of principle city a Cardinal ought to be the bishop most skilled in holding his fellows in Communion with Peter and themselves.
The experience of the Church in may parts of the world is that the Cardinals are often set on dis-Communion with Rome, certainly that was the experience in England and Wales with Cardinal Hume.

The rather long and tedious negotiations between Benedict's Curia and groups like the SSPX, which have proved ultimately stillborn as far as unity is concerned have been very fruitful in causing us to question what exactly "Communion" is, in the same way, at the other end of the spectrum the negotiations with the "beyond Jesus" American nuns. Eventually the very simple issue of what is meant "Communion" must be answered. Reference to "aerosol" or "rosewater" Christianity might be an indication that we have to move beyond something so ill defined as self defined Catholicism.

The implied criticism by Cardinal Ouillet, who seems to be one Pope Francis' most frequent visitors, of our own Bishops recently on their Roman retreat might suggest "Communion" is more, even than a congruence of faith.

‘My brother bishops, you face many challenges in your apostolic ministry in England and Wales. Perhaps you can identify with Peter and John as they are dragged before the Sanhedrin to be pressured, threatened and even beaten to stop proclaiming the saving Truth of Jesus Christ. Perhaps you can sense viscerally the pressure to obey men rather than God, to see yourself-as a mere manager or functionary rather than a disciple and an apostle.’

As Catholics we believe in salvation through faith which is "fruitful in good works", this seems to be a major theme in the Pope's teaching.
Cleaning up the Curia, isn't just about competence it must be about appointing men who are "fully converted", who are willing to be real evangelists, who are not slaves to the Law but actually have a real spirit of discipleship with fire in their bellies.
Cardinal Ouillet went on to say:

‘Pope Francis, also makes us feel uncomfortable. One thing I have noticed, even in my personal meetings with him, is that Pope Francis’ sole criterion is Jesus Christ. The Holy Father does not get distracted by peripheral considerations. He goes to the heart of things with simplicity and boldness. You recall that just two days after his election he said to the Cardinal Electors gathered in Rome: “If we do not profess Jesus Christ, things go wrong. We may become a charitable NGO, but not the Church, the Bride of the Lord …. When we do not profess Jesus Christ, we profess the worldliness of the devil, a demonic worldliness” (Homily from Missa pro Ecclesia with the Cardinal Electors, March 14,2013). 

‘Yet the verbal surgery of the Incarnate and Risen Word and of His Vicar has a point: having cut away what is not of Jesus Christ, we can encounter Him and be united with Him in love and intimate friendship. Exposing the weakness and failure is the condition of possibility for creating communion with the Risen Christ and sharing in His Easter joy.

Before anything else, especially in the light of the O'Brien  scandal, reform must start with the College of Cardinals.

Were those "wolves" which Pope Benedict feared most feared members of the College who should have been his closest collaborators?

Resonding to Sweatshops

Speaking on the tragedy in Bangladesh Pope Francis said,

“That [38 Euros] is what the people who died were being paid. This is called slave labour,” he said. “Today in the world this slavery is being committed against something beautiful that God has given us – the capacity to create, to work, to have dignity. How many brothers and sisters find themselves in this situation!
“Not paying fairly, not giving a job because you are only looking at balance sheets, only looking at how to make a profit. That goes against God!
“There are many people who want to work but cannot. When a society is organised in a way that not everyone is given the chance to work, that society is not just.”

I haven't found that any official site, yet.

Primark, and apparently Tescos, sell clothing made in this factory, now I don't know if any of our Bishops have written to either of these companies to tell them what the Holy Father has said or to say their own bit about the scandal of British companies not caring for their producers overseas. I hope after their next plenary meeting they will decide whose responsibility it is and sit down with the relevant commision and write.
The problem is it will be October before something appears on the Bishop's website. The letter I published earlier today from Bishop Egan will get to the public either through the dioocesan site or via blogs like mine, not through the Eccleston Square site of the Bishop's of England and Wales. It is a very good letter, it should be reported, it is unlikely to be picked up nationally because journalists don't trawl through diocesan websites. There is need for the Bishop's of E&W press office to report what is being said by our Bishops, which sometimes can be quite exciting and relevant, rather than the created news of the various commissions.

On Beards and Equalities

Good for Bishop Philip Egan.
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission have issued a document: Religion or belief and the workplace and Bishop Egan takes his scalpel an in less than a page cuts it ribbons

Rt. Hon. Baroness Onora O’Neill
Equality and Human Rights Commission
3 More London Riverside
Tooley St
London SE1 2RG 

Dear Baroness O’Neill, 

From Rt. Rev. Philip A. Egan, Bishop of Portsmouth 

I write to you with the best wishes of the clergy and people of the Catholic
Diocese of Portsmouth, and the promise of our prayers, as you chair the
Equality and Human Rights Commission. The EHRC has a very difficult task with
its statutory remit to promote a ‘modern Britain where everyone is treated with
dignity and respect’. This task is certainly one that Catholics support. However, I
also want to express to you some concerns I have as a bishop and pastor about
the recent document issued by the Commission, Religion or Belief in the
Workplace. Unfortunately, I believe some aspects of this document are
problematic not only for us Catholics, but for all Christians in our country and
indeed, for the Christian patrimony of our British culture. 

First, it seems to me that the document has a philosophical flaw in that it fails to
differentiate adequately or robustly between what constitutes a religion and
what constitutes a life-style or moral conviction. The result of this is that, for
instance, vegetarianism, environmentalism and even having a beard (p. 3),
becomes equated with the ‘great’ religions of Judaism, Hinduism, Islam,
Christianity and so on. Although unintended, this is surely offensive? 

Secondly, the document is based on the thesis that every religion or belief must
be treated as absolutely equal and identical, rather than respected as essentially
different and complimentary. In other words, a totalitarian or absolutist concept
of ‘equality’ is at work. A consequence of this is that minority religions such as
Druidism will be treated disproportionately and this will tend to obscure or
dilute the religion of the majority, Christianity, in any policy-making. In the long
run, this will subvert the core and essence of our national culture. 

Thirdly, as the Queen traditionally acknowledges in her Message each
Christmas, Britain is a Christian country. This is not only because of the number
of those who practice of profess in some manner the Christian faith, but moreimportantly because of the self-evident Christian patrimony of our laws,
institutions, social mores and traditions. Indeed, even the secular values
espoused by the EHRC itself (e.g. tolerance, respect, dignity, freedom of belief)
are arguably derived from underlying Christian values. They have vibrancy, not
simply because of the law, but because of the implicit adherence of the
populace to its Christian heritage and ethos. 

Finally, Catholics fear the ‘dictatorship of relativism’ that arises when
governments and legislators impose ethical guidelines and patterns of
behaviour upon their citizens that are not demonstrably derived from the
natural law and right reason. Without its basis in right reason and the natural
law – which Catholics believe was confirmed in the divine revelation of Jesus
Christ – British law and social policy will be dominated increasingly by pressure
groups. This will lead to social disintegration. Instead, we believe that
governments and policy makers ought to foster the traditional religious identity
of our culture, that is, our Christian patrimony. This will truly assist greater social
cohesion, and the very respect and equality that the EHRC espouses. 

I recognise the complexity of all these issues but I raise them out of duty and
concern. Please be assured of my prayers for all the members of the EHRC and
for God’s blessing on your important work. Indeed, I pray, through the
intercession of St George, for the peoples of our land that the Holy Spirit will
bring about a greater social cohesion, with real respect and love for one’s
neighbour. 

With my best wishes to you and your Commission members,
+Philip
Bishop of Portsmouth
cc Priests and People of Diocese of Portsmouth

I want to be a Priest to Forgive Sins

Exchanging emails recently with a young man about a vocation to the priesthood, I asked why he felt someone should be drawn to the priesthood, his reply was, "to forgive sins". Personally I thought that was pretty good, but maybe not what most bishops would regard as the normal answer, some might even find it an unacceptable answer.

Co-incidently, I then read Fr Z on Pope Francis' little homily from yesterday morning. It really is brilliant, I think I am going to put it on the back of next Sunday's newsletter. Fr Z is the expert "fisker" so read it there, rather than the Vatican Radio form below.

Interesting, JPII generation of priests wanted to teach or preach the faith, Benedict XVI generation of priests wanted to celebrate the liturgy reverently. I wonder will the Pope Francis generation want to be priests because they want to forgive sins. How exciting if they do".

In many ways what Francis says explains his motto: Miserando atque Eligendo my loose translation "I was given mercy and as a consequence I chose". A priest must be someone who is aware of God's mercy and his need for it. He should be ashamed of falling short of God's love, and be uncomfortable with it and want to seek God's mercy through the Sacrament of Mercy, often.

Pope Francis doesn't seem to be against daily confession, "And if tomorrow I do the same? Go again, and go and go and go .... He always waits for us".  Obviously there are dangers of a priest pandering to a neurosis or a penitent failing to make a firm enough purpose of amendmentment  but with a wise confessor can deal with that but God's mercy helps us to stop sinning. A priest never wastes time hearing Confessions or going to Confession himself. Amongst clergy we need to create culture of frequent Confession. Perhaps Pope Francis will do that, that will certainly be a huge step to "humbler, poorer Church", a Church that identifies with sinners.

I have met plenty of "good" priests and bishops, the less impressive ar those who are naturally good, the more impressive are those in whom one can actually see the workings of Grace. Not necessarilly the most good but certainly the most Holy, was a Bishop who lived with two elderly priests, who used to speak about them as "my confessors". I think he used to go to confession daily, either to one of these priest, or to a priest who he was visting, or to a priest who confessed to him.

"Walking in darkness means being overly pleased with ourselves, believing that we do not need salvation. That is darkness! When we continue on this road of darkness, it is not easy to turn back. Therefore, John continues, because this way of thinking made him reflect: 'If we say we are without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us'. Look to your sins, to our sins, we are all sinners, all of us ... This is the starting point. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful, He is so just He forgives us our sins, cleansing us from all unrighteousness…The Lord who is so good, so faithful, so just that He forgives. "
"When the Lord forgives us, He does justice" - continued the Pope - first to himself, "because He came to save and forgive", welcoming us with the tenderness of a Father for his children: "The Lord is tender towards those who fear, to those who come to Him "and with tenderness," He always understand us”. He wants to gift us the peace that only He gives. " "This is what happens in the Sacrament of Reconciliation" even though "many times we think that going to confession is like going to the dry cleaner" to clean the dirt from our clothes:
"But Jesus in the confessional is not a dry cleaner: it is an encounter with Jesus, but with this Jesus who waits for us, who waits for us just as we are. “But, Lord, look ... this is how I am”, we are often ashamed to tell the truth: 'I did this, I thought this'. But shame is a true Christian virtue, and even human ... the ability to be ashamed: I do not know if there is a similar saying in Italian, but in our country to those who are never ashamed are called “sin vergüenza’: this means ‘the unashamed ', because they are people who do not have the ability to be ashamed and to be ashamed is a virtue of the humble, of the man and the woman who are humble. "
Pope Francis continued: “ we must have trust, because when we sin we have an advocate with the Father, "Jesus Christ the righteous." And He "supports us before the Father" and defends us in front of our weaknesses. But you need to stand in front of the Lord "with our truth of sinners", "with confidence, even with joy, without masquerading... We must never masquerade before God." And shame is a virtue: "blessed shame." "This is the virtue that Jesus asks of us: humility and meekness".
"Humility and meekness are like the frame of a Christian life. A Christian must always be so, humble and meek. And Jesus waits for us to forgive us. We can ask Him a question: Is going to confession like to a torture session? No! It is going to praise God, because I, a sinner , have been saved by Him. And is He waiting for me to beat me? No, with tenderness to forgive me. And if tomorrow I do the same? Go again, and go and go and go .... He always waits for us. This tenderness of the Lord, this humility, this meekness .... "
This confidence, concluded Pope Francis "gives us room to breathe." "The Lord give us this grace, the courage to always go to Him with the truth, because the truth is light and not the darkness of half-truths or lies before God. It give us this grace! So be it. "

Peronism in the Apostolic Palace?

A political journalist friend of mine said, "If you want to understand Pope Francis, you have to understand Peronism". Certainly, Argentina's press seem to want to paint him as a Peronist.

Not being Argentinian, I don't understand it but it is something that can embrace the Kirchners but also those who oppose them. It seems to be about a strong (and benign) populist leader, who sets out to gain mass support, the message is simple: the national good, national harmony, national solidarity, an appeal to the majority, to the workers, in other words "the poor".

Peronism was Argentina's own response to the dictatorships of Europe. If one subtracts the Hitler pact, racism and the castor oil of pre-war Mussolini, who got the trains running on time, virtually destroyed the Mafia, brought about a sense of hope, economic well being, vitality and national pride, might well be more accessible model for Europeans. Mussolini was essentially a moderniser, who re-presented the dream of the ancient Rome. Someone once suggested that Mussolini modelled himself as a secular Pope and to some degree Pius XII modelled himself on Mussolini.

I am certainly not suggesting that Papa Bergoglio is a latter day Mussolini but getting the Church's trains running on time, getting rid of corruption, regaining the masses seems to be his mandate. The message of simplicity, or in fact simplifying the message, popularising, de-intellectualising seems to be what we have seen so far.

Despite the Tablet and other journals, Archbishop Piero Marini and a few other Curial members, the German Bishops, even our own Bishops, to some extent, presentation of Francis seems to want to present him as a break with Benedict, apart from the outward signs of Papacy, there doesn't seem to be a doctrinal rift, on the contrary Francis seems, in the best sense of the phrase, the poor man's Pope Benedict, speaking to the masses rather than an elite. In deed the announcement this week that he intends to complete Benedict's  encyclical on Faith seems to suggest continuation rather than rupture.

Even when he speaks to the Cardinals as he did on St George's day his message ended simply, "Avanti! Avanti!", (which might well ring bells, of good or ill, with certain Italians) or to biblical scholars, he seems more concerned to communicate to the doorman or the cleaners or the security men, or those beyond his immediate audience, to the masses.

Cripples, Non-entities, Mediocrities and Curial Reform

As Curial reform is very much in the air, let us start from basics. Is this true?

Bishops

"Most of the bishops, instead of being the strong characters presently needed, dynamic and active personalities, even if indeed pious and religious men are in effect at the same time mediocre, or even below mediocrity. Some are apathetic, timid, indolent or vain; others are conformists, bureaucrats or introverts; many are ignorant and clumsy administrators. 

Sometimes the whole episcopate of a country looks like a bunch of cripples".

Cardinals

"As for the cardinals, the senate of the Church and the electors of the pope, here the situation is even worse, particularly in the case of those attached to the Roman curia. The sacred college contains too many non-entities who have reached their rank by never asking awkward questions. The merit of many eminences is not their excellent pastoral experience or learning, but that of having staffed a Vatican desk for a very long time. Without any real knowledge of the world or the life of the universal Church, they are nevertheless automatically promoted and placed in executive jobs far above their modest talents."

Italians

"Almost half of the cardinals and the great majority of the curial ones are Italians, as if the Holy Ghost had a distinct preference for the Italian nation. 

This only aggravates the matter, for even if Italians may have many talents, they are certainly not noted for their organizational skills. For the universal Church, this is at the same time both an insult and an injustice. The few excellent foreign prelates present in the curia are examples of what the alternative might look like."

These aren't my words, they weren't even written recently, neither are the the criticism of someone on an extreme of the Church but by Willem Marinus van Rossum, a Dutch Redemptorist Cardinal who was Prefect of “Propaganda Fide" with Benedict XV and Pius XI.

In fact His Eminence actually is pretty damning about mediocre Popes too! Read more here.

Van Rossum's solution is "Collegiality", which seems to be the solution that VII and Pope Francis put forward, and practically everyone else. It probably is the answer but then Collegiality also brings problems - "too many cooks spoiling the broth", springs to mind, especially if the cooks are not too competent. What the Franciscan Papacy will bring, if anything, is too early to tell. So far it has brought about a fair degree of confusion, organs like the Tablet, America and NCR seem to think that everything including doctrine is up for grabs. The German Bishops have reversed rulings by Rome over abortiofacients. Other Episcopal Conferences seem to see the new Papacy as a time for continue to do their own thing, to appoint their own men, to build up their nationally distinct churches.

A Papal transition has always been a time for the worse of clerical activities; score settling and jockeying for position, power grabbing, intimidation, factionalism and gossip. The worse excesses of this happened before Benedict's election, during JPII's long death. The continuation between him and his successor who knew an awful lot about the different types of filth and a great deal about the problems of various Episcopal Conferences meant that apart from the press and getting Cardinal Sodano out of the Secretary of States office and apartments the transition was reasonable smooth. Pope Francis on the other hand is a complete outsider, who will take months at least, if not years, to "learn the job", if he is actually interested in doing so, whereas Benedict had twenty years plus understudying JPII at the CDF.

As far as E&W is concerned Benedict seemed to have deep understanding of both the history of modern Catholicism here, as well as, so I am told, by those who have discussed it with him, an understanding of our present problems too. As a polyglot I understand he was a regular, if critical, Tablet reader. I can't imagine that Pope Francis is, or has bothered to find out more than he was told by Archbishop Nichols on his recent visit with our Bishops to the Holy See, which probably means we will be left to go our own sweet way. As with England and Wales, so with the US and so many parts of the world.

Allowing that to happen is probably the easiest option but strongly local or national Churches growing in independence of Rome have historically always ended up in schism. That is the story of the Reformation, of Jansenism, of the rise of the Old Catholics and as Pope Bergoglio is only too aware of Liberation theology. Whilst guarding against Ultramontanism and excessive centralisation a weakened Papacy will bring about weakened sense of unity, and therefore of the faith.

The great weakness of the Papacy is the Pope himself, as Van Rossum said it is a superhuman task, placed on the shoulders of a rather frail mediocre human being. A serious question is can it continue to exist in its present form.