Will Francis have the courage to stop German aggression?

Will Pope Francis stop the German tanks?
According to Reuters the German bishops intend to introduce plans to admit divorced and 'remarried' Catholics to Holy Communion, this is the first serious crisis in the Franciscan Papacy. The German bishop have spent the last 60 years bullying the Church. They introduced Communion in the hand they introduced female altar servers, they have continually turned a blind eye to dissenting theologians, recently they voted to allow the morning after pill to be dispensed in hospitals under their control.

They are powerful in Church terms because of their great wealth through Church Tax, which is also their weakness, because it means they are always beholden to the State, and to those who pay the tax and have little or no faith. It is the German church that has spawned such dissident groups as call for female ordination, priests living in concubinage, far from being healthy the German Church is a source of disease and corruption. The Rhine has been flowing into the Tiber for too long, it must stop.

Unlike Communion in the hand or female servers the admission of those in second marriages seems to be a direct attack on the clear teaching of the Gospels,

Matthew 19:3-9 — The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?” And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’ ? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for  [porneia] sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”

Adultery along with post baptismal murder and apostasy was  always regarded as one of the sins that separated someone Christ.

This is truly a sad move, and many might suggest it has been encouraged by the Pope's own talk on 'liberalisation' earlier in his Papacy, though of course through Abp Mueller there has been a great deal of back peddling.
From the time of Bismark, well before the Vatican Council, the German bishops have shown contempt and arrogance towards Communion with the rest of the Church, will Francis have the courage to stop German aggression?

Pius XII, the Reformer

I have a certain feeling of sympathy towards Pius XII, his obvious antipathy towards Hitler, his personal desire to help the Jews in Rome, the huge moral dilemma he lived with constantly, of the temptation to make an outright condemnation of Nazism but fearing the consequences, even his ambiguous relationship with Italian Facism, it makes him human. At the dawn of the age of mass communication he strode the world stage as the embodiment of Catholicism, a counter-weight to those other huge men who strode the world stage and embodied Russia or Germany. It was an age of men who were in a sense 'manufactured' and projected onto the cinema screen in huge images or whose words for the first time could be heard not by at most a few thousand but by millions.

In the case of Pope  Pius there is something endearing about his neurotic belief in monkey glands and quack medicine and that strange nun that governed the papal apartments. What I have never been able to understand is the reverence those who style themselves 'trad' Catholics have for him, he was after all the patron of those ant-heroes of the traddie world like Bugnini et al.

The good Fr Hunwicke is back, he makes the suggestion that Vatican II was really not that important, that Pius XII had already laid the foundations for radical liturgical reform.

The fontal point is this: The process of change was already firmly in place. I do not think that the Council, in fact, made any real difference whatsoever. My train of thought was started by reading some words which Annibale Bugnini wrote in the Preface to his 1956 Commentary on the new Holy Week liturgy. I give my own translation of his Latin:
"When the Easter Vigil had been restored, a certain keen liturgist did not hesitate to assert: Pope Pius XII, in the history of Liturgy through the ages, will be 'The Restorer of the Easter Vigil'. Now, indeed, by the help of God's grace he is to be called 'The Restorer of Holy Week'; while in the secret of our hearts we do not doubt that still greater things await this indefatigable Labourer, and it is very likely (nec veritatis specie caret) that He will be 'The Restorer of the entire Sacred Liturgy'".

Fr Hunwicke's point is that previous Pope's had seen themselves as 'guardians' of Tradition, whilst Pius XII saw himself as the Pope could do anything. Personally. I can't help but see him as another of those Colossi of the 20th century who thought they could do anything.

I concur with wise Fr Hunwicke's conclusion.

I think it will be very interesting to see, over the medium term, how Pope Francis understands his Ministry. It can be easy for a good man with admirable motives and who is facing real problems to use the power which his position gives him to take short cuts. It takes a very learned and a very truly humble Pontiff - such as a Benedict XIV or a Benedict XVI - to understand, and to internalise his perception of, what  he ought not to do (and I'm not only talking about Liturgy). Pope Francis's two recent utterances which bear upon the Hermeneutic of Continuity make me cautiously optimistic. If this man can consolidate the gains made by our beloved Pope Benedict XVI and at the same time prudently develop the teaching of the Magisterium about the Preferential Option for the Poor, he could turn out to be a great Pontiff.

Female Servers?

One of my parishioners told another of my parishioners she wants to serve, we have men serving but not women.

Until recently we had sufficient men to serve, illness and age have taken their toll, and a couple of years ago two of our men went off to begin studying for the priesthood. Being a city centre parish there are not hundreds of children who want to be on the sanctuary and frankly I am glad of that, I am not comfortable being surrounded by children whilst I celebrate Mass, children belong with their parents at Mass. I can do childcare and I can say Mass, I can't do both at the same time. Jesus loved small children but they do not appear to be present either at the Cross or at the Passover. Should those who have not received the Sacrament of Confirmation and therefore not fully initiated be performing a ministerial role in Church?

I can't help feeling that having girls or women serving, apart from being a significant break with tradition, is a first step towards women clergy, 'stealth priestesses'. The function of a server is obviously to assist the priest, a good server will ensure the priest follows the rubrics correctly and enable the priest to be recollected, and if necessary remind him if he forgets anything, like the consecration or the final blessing. No priest should be trusted to go the altar alone. Ideally the server and especially the Master of Ceremonies should have thorough understanding not just of rubrics but of the liturgy itself.

In the Ordinary Form there is no restriction on the number of servers, and although the server doesn't answer on behalf of the congregation, his role is to assist the priest but also to lead the congregation in prayer. He should at least be an example of prayerful deportment and reverence. He should have a deep prayer life and be devout, otherwise what he does is a sham, just play acting.

As Catholics we do not believe women can be priests, or in VII speak, "presidents of the assembly". It is not only that the Church has no authority to ordain women, as Ordinatio Sacerdotalis says but also there is the argument from 'headship', a favourite of some Protestants. The leaders of Christian prayer should be male, the proper leader of prayer in a family should be the father of the family, he stands as an icon of God the Father. His role as a Christian father is to direct family worship, as the head of the family. Ephesians 5 reminds us too that he also stands in the place of Christ the Head and Bridegroom. It is not illogical to assume that a priests immediate assistants, the servers should properly also be male, and leaders or potential leaders of prayer within their own families..

As a husband and father a man has liturgical role that we need to explore, who knows it might be done in the Synod on the Family. At the Extraordinary Form Mass we have no problem finding servers, it is not quite so easy at the Ordinary Form. In the EF traditionally practically every man knew how to serve, it meant that boys and men could receive some formation in the liturgy and prayer. Prayer was seen as manly. Now the priest and servers are often the only men in the church. As someone once said, not too seriously, 'one good reason for only ordaining men is that it ensures there is at least one man at Mass', well with men servers there are likely to be at least two. However there is crisis in the relationship of men and the Church, not many come and not many get involved and consequently feel the call of vocation either to priesthood or fatherhood. Ignoring the role given them by scripture and the t/Tradition does not help, it certainly does not help foster future priests or men in leadership roles within the Church.

I understand that many priests, even though they have gut instinct against it, feel in a spirit of equality obliged to go along with inclusivity and have both male and female servers but there seems to be a denial of an important element of the faith: men and women are equal, yes, but different. To apply this only to the priesthood and not other areas of Church life seems to be dishonest, if understandable.

Ordained One: Buried One Hundred and Twenty

The Archbishop of Sens-Auxerre says,

In almost twenty years of episcopate, I have buried one hundred and twenty priests, and I have ordained only one in the dioceses of Yonne and the Jura.

If you go to the source, the Archbishop, Monseigneur Yves Patenôtre, chatters on about lay involvement and all that one might expect from a French bureaucrat, basically, 'It ain't my fault'.
I once went to his Cathedral to see the relics of St Thomas Becket, confession was offered on one or two days of the week the rest of the time counselling was offered in the same slot by Mademoiselle ...... .
It is very easy to say, "If I were Pope, I would ...." Well, I hope Pope Francis would get rid of Bishops who allow their diocese to die and rather than donning sack cloth and ashes and cry out to heaven for help, excuse themselves, finding some cunning pastoral plan to cover up their failure.

There was a rather silly myth going around among some English bishops a decade or so ago that the absence of priests was the way God was showing the Church that it needed to empower the laity. So rather than a priest bringing Viaticum to the dying or Communion to the sick, or presiding over non-sacramental prayer the laity took his place, and invariably lay women. In France it is quite normal for lay led funerals, as women 'tend to be more compassionate than men', they tend to do it. I am not sure if it is happening in parts of France yet but there are certain parts of the world where the usual minister of baptism or marriage is not a priest but a catechist, male or female, more likely female. In many places it is a way of introducing female priests by stealth.

Sens-Auxerre is one of those diocese in France where practice has always been a little poor but presumably this Bishop's predecessors managed to attract the 120 priests which this bishop has buried. The problem is that the absence of priests, though bad in itself and a source of great evils, indicates a lack of health in the Church. In France things are certainly not all bad, Paris is doing comparatively well, Frejus-Toulon has as many ordination as the rest of France -excluding Paris- as the rest of France put together. The absence of priests indicates a deep disease, a loss of faith.

Perhaps Monseigneur Patenôtre needs to examine his conscience: has he actually been teaching the Catholic faith over the last twenty years, has he demanded his priests do the same? In France more than anywhere else ideology or theological speculation replaces faith.

Anti-Evangelism

My Aunt Grace when I was a child was a Congregationalist, she lived down the street opposite us just above us was the her church, it was really just a corrugated iron hut which she used to clean every Saturday. Occasionally I would go with her but there was picture a bit like the one above, it was Jesus surrounded by children of different nationalities, even then, I couldn't have been more that six, probably younger, it seemed a bit creepy and not very convincing, in fact I remember very consciously looking at it and deciding I rejected it and what went with it.

It was a piece of anti-evangelism, to me as a small child it was obviously fake the tin hut has long gone and the Protestant sect to which it belonged has almost disappeared. Separating the real Jesus of scripture from his Church is the best way of destroying the Church and make the Catholic Church disappear. 

All the doctrines that 'Catholics' of a certain hue seem to want to disregard or are embarrassed by are actually 'of the Lord': Hell, judgement, eternal life come from Him, so do the condemnation of divorce and remarriage, the promotion of celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom. It is Jesus who speaks about these things and Christians who are so often embarrassed by them.

The teaching of the early Church, which though not explicitly taught by Jesus in the canonical Gospel is so ancient and so obviously shared by ancient Jewish communities, it was obviously teaching Jesus would have no problem with because it fits the rigour of the Gospels, it is not mentioned by him simply because no-one around him would have questioned it. I mean the prohibition on contraception and openness to life, the detestation of same sex relations, the abhorrence of abortion.

I can't help but get annoyed when people say: the Church doesn't allow divorce etc., because it is not the Church, it Jesus himself who teaches such things.

It is interesting those Christian communities who we have always judged to have validly ordained Bishops: the ancient Churches, who hold fast to authentic Christian teaching, whilst those whose orders we would say are invalid, that have itching ears and seek to bend with every wind who seemed incapable of fidelity.

Redford and Murphy O'Connor RIP

Last week Canon John Redford died he taught me scripture at the seminary, Fr Jerome Murphy O'Connor a more famous scripture scholar also died. Canon John once amazed me by saying, "Uh, I can read Ugaritic cuniform, there aren't many people in the world who can". Probably Fr Jerome Murphy O'Connor was one of the other few interpreters of the script of the Ugarites.


I owe a lot to Canon John but I shan't praise him here, merely to contrast to Fr Jerome Murphy O'Connor, who being a clan member of my former bishop was invited to give a clergy in service training course. JR could be described as a 'pastoral' scripture scholar and JMO'C an academic one, both loved scripture. Both were drenched in it, it was their life's blood, the air they breathed.

Canon John spent his life using scripture to reveal the glory of the mystery of salvation. He believed Jesus Christ and his promises to the Church, he saw his mission to build up faith, he certainly did not dismiss difficulties proposed by various texts.

JMO'C probably saw himself as a scientist rather than a pastor, I remember in his short course he dealt with the Transfiguration and Resurrection narratives which he dissected, speculating they owed more to the post-Pentecost 'experience' of the early Church rather than to the accurate remembering of the disciples. I remember some of our diocesan clergy being rather shocked and others delighted that they were somehow liberated from belief in an 'over-literal' interpretation of scripture.



I use these two men as a metaphor on the way in scripture or any other subjects can be taught. Moral theology, for example, can be taught, as it was taught me as a way of minimising morality, in style of David Lodge's  'How far can you go' but contrast the magnanimity of Pope John Paul II's teaching on love and sexuality compared to the meanness of say Charles Curran or many other academic 'Catholic' Moral theologians.

Comparing and contrasting Murphy O'Connor and Redford, one seems to address scripture as a phenomena to be studied, as one might study a virus whilst the other saw it as being the source of life.

May they both be given a merciful judgement and see God face to face.
REQUIESCANT IN PACE

Public Spat and a Papal Correction

I am intrigued Abp Mueller has written to Abp Robert Zollitsch, the letter was date 11 November, about the guidelines for the pastoral care of separated, divorced and civilly remarried people, the letter is interesting in itself but more intriguing is that there is a tension between the Prefect of the CDF and Cardinal Reinhard Marx of the Pope's Council of Eight who said a few days earlier. “The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith cannot stop the discussions” about the issue of remarried divorcees – as well as other questions relating to the family – which will be addressed at the Extraordinary Synod in 2014.

In the past such spats would have been dealt with in an Italian way, by discreet notes, or rather delicately expressed courtly meetings over between secretaries over lunch, now they are made public.

Speaking of things being made public one of these people has read or been informed of the Ceremonial of Bishops art. 107, the other has obviously not!


CE 107 says: “Hands joined” means: “Holding the palms sideward and before the breast, with the right thumb crossed over the left”” The server is correct the Pope is wrong, unless this change has been made Pope as Supreme Legislator, 'everywhere and for all time'.