Adulterous Clerics

Pope Francis has been talking a great deal about "careerism" amongst clergy, Chiesa suggests he should look no further that the College of Cardinal to begin a reform. Most Cardinals once ordained Bishop are then moved, or promoted, from one See to another, eventually ending up in a Metropolitan Cardinalatial See, like Westminster or New York, it places careerism at the heart of the Church. The solution Magister concludes is abolish the connection between certain Sees and the "red hat". Some Cardinals can have as many as four dioceses under their fascia.

As holy as individual Cardinals might be, the appearance of "promotion" or of ambition being rewarded amongst the episcopacy, is plainly contrary to the Gospel. It creates a certain culture within the Church that is outside of the perview of the Gospel. It also creates a circle of the ambitious, a "magic circle" if you will.

Nicea saw the movement of Bishops from one See to another as a grave sin. The Fathers saw such moves as adulerous, as bishops like, Christ, are the bridegroom of their Churches, hence even the great Augustine remained Bishop of obscure Hippo all his life.

The role of a Bishop in the Church is not one of power but of service and relationships, primarily of being a spiritual Father, of being the mystical spouse, the Shepherd, the teacher, the guide. Today, more than ever a Bishop cannot rule by imposed authority but by his own fidelity. As in a marriage trust is essential, of the many crisis in the Church today one of the most significant is perhaps the breakdown in trust in the heirarchy. One of the reasons I suspect is that many bishops look outside their dioceses for "success" rather than in it.

One is more likely to become a Cardinal not by serving the poor and needy within one's own patch, not by huge numbers of converts, full seminaries, orthodox catechetical programmes, or even outstanding personal holiness but by heading prestigious committees in the National Episcopal Conference

Magister quotes the great Cardinal Gantin

"On his appointment, the bishop must be a father and a pastor for the people of God. One is always a father. Once a bishop is appointed to a particular see, he must generally and in principle stay there for ever. Let that be clear. The relationship between a bishop and a diocese is also depicted as a marriage and a marriage, according to the spirit of the Gospel, is indissoluble. The new bishop must not make other personal plans. There may well be serious reasons, very serious reasons for a decision by the authorities that the bishop go from one family, so to speak, to another. In making this decision, the authorities take numerous factors into consideration. They do not include an eventual desire by a bishop to change see."

Of course what can be said about Bishops being moved to more prestigious diocese can also be said about Parish Priests.

Francis and Benedict and the Liturgy

From NLMAbbot Michael Zielinski OSB from the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship discusses the differences and similarities between the liturgical approaches of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. (Catholic News Service)
 

I think Benedict left the Church a great deal to build on, Francis will leave us a more personal legacy.

A Shove to the Right

I used to know dozens of Conservative voters, now I know none, they have all become or say they will be UKIP voters. As one of our Bishops said, "It is concerning". It is concerning because those who previously hovered around the Tory centre, or might have voted for other parties but chose to vote Conservative because the Conservatives were in rather broad terms "Christian", or at least were pro-family have all decided, like me "not again". I admit, at the last General Election I voted Conservative, solely because of Dave's promised support of the family, he lied, and I certainly shall not do so again.

It is concerning that many on the vaguely political right have joined a political party or support one that is as much an experiment as Cameron's untried experiment with the redefinition of marriage, a party that is several clicks to the right of traditional Toryism and even more to the Tory Part that has recently emerged. As far as UKIP is concerned we really do not know what is down the road, or where that road leads. Whatever one thinks of Nigel Farage, others in UKIP seem to have a tendency to rather worrying right wing personal ideas, rather than party policies. UKIP however is attractive in so far as it does actually have distinct policies rather than shades

The great problem with joining UKIP, the "concerning" part is that many joining, or associating themselves with the party is that they tend to absorb other right wing ideas. A parishioner whose business revolves around supplying material for London small businesses tell's me that among his Islamic customers that after the Iraq war so many of his customers or more often their children, suddenly began growing beards and becoming more radically Muslim than their parents, whose mosque attendance was sparadic, until Blair's invasion suddenly awakened a renewed consciousness of their religious and cultural difference.

Cameron has given those who would have voted Tory a shove to the right; mild mannered "cultural" Tories, rendered homeless, are now going to mix with by comparison extreme members of new right wing. It is concerning that those who were shocked by Cameron's announcement of supporting gay "marriage" because he is a Conservative and started allying themselves with UKIP have become increasingly anti-European, anti-Eurpean Court of Human Rights, often moving to positions that are anti-Human Rights per se and becoming anti-Immigration too and one suspects finding reasons to become anti "Equalities". Where they will move to is worrying. The older former Tories will probably do little more than write and vote, the young who tend not to vote are likely to be a little more radical, some influenced to move to an extreme.

Why shouldn't Dr Who be a woman?

It is 2013, why shouldn't Dr Who be a woman? so asked a lady on my wireless this afternoon. I remember the cosmic doctor from my childhood, apparently someone called Bet Lynch (a good Catholic girl?) is being proposed to play the transmorphing character. I like the idea of a Miraculous Medal toting, Infant of Praigue venerating Catholic girl as a superhero, a real sign of multicuturalism, especially as being Irish according to government forms is being an ethnic minority, it goes alongside various types of British but is distinct from being blandly "European". But then "Catholic"? No, not unless she is so very spiritual and does a bit of Wicca too. Plain ordinary open to Life, going to Mass on Sunday Catholic just wouldn't quite work, well not unless there are bloodsucking, oversexed vampires to be combatted.

But Dave Cameron is in power and it is 2013, why should the Doctor be a woman? I would suggest that there is no reason why Dr Who shouldn't be a transexual, why not, what phobia is holding back the Beeb - or is it the otherside? The Doctor being a women is just so last year! There are other discriminated groups to struggle for.

I know there is concern that children as young as eight, but I suspect in some households even younger children are regularly watching pornography but broadcasters have a duty to reflect the everyday environment in which children are growing up, so maybe she/he should be a porn star but obviously not "trafficked" too much bleak reality there, possibly just a plain ordinary "sex worker". I know some will object, some will say why shouldn't Dr Who be bi-sexual, I say why not a bi-sexual transexual, who is into a bit of cross dressing too, disabled of course, if the sex it is alreight providing it is "safe", especially as most sixteen year olds are sexually active. It is all harmless, it is after all 2013 and Dave is in power!

Having said that, on a milder note, I am inclined to demand the Women's Hour (better, Wimmins Hour) should be replaced by a "Hours" going through the LGBT-plus spectrum. Now Gay marriage is well on its way to becoming Law in this country we must look to pushing forward the rights of other minorities and breaking free of all those pre-Freudian taboos.

Now, who was that bigot who was saying Hollywood thought the new Liberace biopic was just too "gay" for Hollywood. Most probably some weird Catholic.

Thus people are disposed of, as if they were trash: It cannot stay this way!

Pope Francis seemed quite angry in today's audience as he spoke about ecology, the waste of human beings and resources, here is an excerpt - my emphasis. His reference to "human ecology", taken up by the media when used by Pope Benedict as a reference to gay marriage and the destruction of the family is perhaps significant following the recent changes in the law in Britain and France.

.....  to "cultivate and care" encompasses not only the relationship between us and the environment, between man and creation, it also regards human relationships. The Popes have spoken of human ecology, closely linked toenvironmental ecology. We are living in a time of crisis: we see this in the environment, but above all we see this in mankind. The human person is in danger: this is certain, the human person is in danger today, here is the urgency of human ecology! And it is a serious danger because the cause of the problem is not superficial but profound: it is not just a matter of economics, but of ethics and anthropology. The Church has stressed this several times, and many say, yes, that's right, it's true ... but the system continues as before, because it is dominated by the dynamics of an economy and finance that lack ethics. Man is not in charge today, money is in charge, money rules. God our Father did not give the task of caring for the earth to money, but to us, to men and women: we have this task! Instead, men and women are sacrificed to the idols of profit and consumption: it is the "culture of waste."
If you break a computer it is a tragedy, but poverty, the needs, the dramas of so many people end up becoming the norm. If on a winter’s night, here nearby in Via Ottaviano, for example, a person dies, that is not news. If in so many parts of the world there are children who have nothing to eat, that's not news, it seems normal. It cannot be this way! Yet these things become the norm: that some homeless people die of cold on the streets is not news. In contrast, a ten point drop on the stock markets of some cities, is a tragedy. A person dying is not news, but if the stock markets drop ten points it is a tragedy! Thus people are disposed of, as if they were trash.

This "culture of waste" tends to become the common mentality that infects everyone. Human life, the person is no longer perceived as a primary value to be respected and protected, especially if poor or disabled, if not yet useful - such as the unborn child - or no longer needed - such as the elderly. This culture of waste has made us insensitive even to the waste and disposal of food, which is even more despicable when all over the world, unfortunately, many individuals and families are suffering from hunger and malnutrition.
Once our grandparents were very careful not to throw away any leftover food. Consumerism has led us to become used to an excess and daily waste of food, to which, at times, we are no longer able to give a just value, which goes well beyond mere economic parameters. We should all remember, however, that the food we throw away is as if stolen from the table of the poor, the hungry! I encourage everyone to reflect on the problem of thrown away and wasted food to identify ways and means that, by seriously addressing this issue, are a vehicle of solidarity and sharing with the needy.

"It cannot stay this way", but how do we change it?

St Charles Lwanga Pray for us

Today is the feast of St Charles Lwanga and his companions who chose death rather than submitting to the homosexual advances of King Mwanga of Uganda.
May his example give us courage in the struggle to come.

Venice Biennale

I have been looking for pictures on the net of the Holy Sees Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, all I can find are  a few sketches. It is first year the Holy See has been present at the festival.
In a papacy that is visually bland and  less artistically rooted than the previous one I am a little worried about the future of the Church's involvement in the arts. Possibly they are not as important as they were in the medieval and post-reformation period. "Art" especially the visual arts have become more conceptual and less Incarnational and "art" that is often more about the artist than the subject sits uneasily with the Church's understanding of liturgy, which has been its normal context. Whilst Banksy might well speak to the man in the street, most contemporary art has become specialist and speaks only to an elite.

Anyhow, Fr Eamon has a report on the Biennale, apparently the Holy See spent 750,000 euros on the temporary pavilion and its contents, as we are urged to reach out to the poor by Pope Francis. Apparently Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said that it was time for the church to re-establish its role as a major patron of contemporary art. "Art and faith are sisters," he said. "They both have the same aim of discovering the foundations of reality – not just reflecting the superficial.". He said that the "Church", I am never quite sure what that means, intends to commission new Churches by outstanding architects and to fill them with liturgical objects by contemporary artists.

On one level that is fine, I would love to see Pope Francis wearing a beautiful contemporary chasuble, instead of mass produced cheap vestments we have seen so far at his liturgies, and perhaps holding a modern chalice which speaks of the sacrednes of the mystery of the Eucharist. However, I am not quite sure how it will sit with his understanding of his Papacy, where everything seems to depend on his personal charm and charisma. What I hope we do not get is a celebration of the ugly or frankly ridiculous as we did with Abp Piero Marini's absurd and wasteful contemporary commissions, which spoke of nothing but a fracture with the Church's own artist and liturgical heritage and the vanity and silliness of the artist and commissioning patron.

The problem with contemprary artists, unlike their predecessors, is their lack of formation in the faith and the liturgy of the Church, invariably rather than serving they desire at best to "challenge" if not subvert.


Poor Pope Benedict!