Benediction

Benediction last night, someone took a few photographs, these are the best of them, with no flash everything is drained of colour and takes on sepia hue.

 

The Limits of Mercy

One of the things I am beginning to like about Francis is that he challenges me, he makes me ask questions, especially about mercy. "Am I merciful? How far mercy should be extended? Is there a limit to it? Where does it end?"

The test came with the celebration of a Requiem Mass for the murderer and war criminal  Erich Priebke, who was responsible for the deaths 335 Italian civilians and who himself admitted to personally shooting two people. Pope Francis' Vicar for Rome, Cardinal  Agostino Vallini, had forbidden every priest in the diocese to offer a Requiem for him. From what I understand this was a blanket ban with no exceptions, it wasn't possible for example to offer a Requiem at an obscure and tiny church early in the morning, with no music, with a limited number of participants, or even with just a priest and server, behind locked doors.

Personally, I have no sympathy for murderers, anti-Semites and Nazis, as a priest I have a duty to be merciful to sinners even if I am revolted by what they have done. I would not want to celebrate Priebke's funeral rites and certainly  not in public but in his life Priebke was not excommunicated and according to his lawyer he died having been to Confession and therefore we presume was reconciled to God and his Church. Excommunicating someone post mortem which seems in effect to to be what happened to Priebke seems a terrible and unmerciful thing to do, something which belongs to the Church from a previous century. As Francis himself asked in the case of Mgsr Ricci, "Who am I to judge?" In the case of someone who has just died, who now stands before God's throne Catholics are indeed not called to judge but to implore God's mercy, the unfaithful become 'the faithful departed'.

Certainly, Cardinal Vallini was right to take in account the opprobrium of the faithful and even of the secular world but in this case it seems 'the right-wing Catholic cult, that has split from Rome', the SSPX, has been more merciful than the Pope's Cardinal Vicar. Though we might be suspicious of their motives, they have been willing to accept the inevitable condemnation that comes with being merciful to those society vilifies.

It could be that we are dealing with two different understandings of funeral here. In the rite which was offered for Priebke, whether he had killed millions or was eventually raised to the altar as canonised saint, it would have been the same, it would have implored God's mercy, recognising that 'all have fallen short of the Glory of God'. Perhaps Cardinal Vallini understood a funeral to be 'a celebration of the life of'' Priebke, with readings, music and even the colour of the vestments chosen by loving friends and relatives and a sermon full of platitudes preached by a sympathetic priest.

The question remains, who showed mercy, the diocese of Rome or the priest who said Mass for him carried out the final obsequies? Who showed the mercy of God and questioned the values of the world?

Alison Davis

Pray for Alison Davis, pictured here on her last visit this year to Lourdes with Colin Harte who cares for and assists her, she has become increasingly frail of late, and I think would be very appreciative of your prayers at the moment.

Her story is remarkable, she tells a little of it here, it is from a 2009 talk she gave at a pro-Life conference in New Zealand.

The most compelling argument I can present is my own experience. I have suffered a lot of pain throughout my life, and now need increasing doses of morphine, but even that doesn't always alleviate the pain. In addition to spina bifida and hydrocephalus, and using a wheelchair full time, I also have emphysema, a breathing problem that makes me susceptible to chest infections, arthritis, lordosis and kyphoscoliosis - causing my spine to twist out of shape in every possible direction, and osteoporosis - brittle bones, which has caused my spine to collapse and trap nerves. When the pain is at its worst I can't move or think or speak.

She has been a remarkable campaigner for disability rights and through her own suffering has come to understand the beauty and preciousness of life.

Since every human being is made in the image of God, each is of infinite value and Jesus would have paid the same price for one as for all, the same price for the same -infinite -value.
Because of this infinite human value, one minute of life is as precious as a hundred years
(how could a hundred years be precious but not the individual minutes and hours and days
which comprised it?) A short life is as valuable as a long one and a profoundly disabled life
as precious as one labelled "perfectly healthy.” 

'Clericalism'

I was told of a priest, who happens to write for one of those Catholic papers which no-one reads. He re-ordered his church according to his own whim. In the process he destroyed an altar and various statues and objects that were given by past parishioners, of course there were complaints. The priests reaction was to get a friend, a solicitor, to send those who objected letters suggesting that if they continued to make their concerns public they risked being sued for defamation. With one particular family, not content with one letter, for several years afterwards, just before Christmas, his solicitor friend would send a reminder.

Pope Francis talks a lot about 'clericalism', this story is about clericalism of the worst sort but it is typical of much that went on after Vatican II, a clerical elite -both priest and lay- forcing something on a people who didn't want it or didn't understand it. That whole ghastly 'Spirit of Vatican II' is nothing other than spirit of 'clericalism', where an elite impose something unsanctioned on the rest of the Church. It involves a negation of the Law, of the plainly written text, of teaching that has been passed on.

The culture that covered up the sin and crime of sexual abuse certainly has its root in 'clericalism'. 'Clericalism' is certainly a 'leprosy', 'a virus', it is marked by a lack of transparency, a failure to be a servant and to consider that the rest of the Church. It sees the clergy as a caste apart the laity is there to serve rather than to be served. It is akin to Pharisaism in the Gospels.
It strikes me that 'clericalism' springs not from a strong priestly identity but from a weak one, and a weak sense of the nature of the Church. Teaching the Catholic faith isn't clericalism, celebrating its Mysteries decently and reverently according to the Law isn't clericalism, but imposing one's personal interpretation of the faith is clericalism of the most dangerous type, as is substituting rites of one's devising for those given by the Church.


The priest or bishop whose personal beliefs are out of 'synch' with the Church is really dangerous because ultimately he is not seeking to deepen the union of his people with God within the Church but with himself. It is a form of idolatry, in which the priest usurps a place the place of God.

Pope Francis recently speaking of the devil said:

There are some priests who, when they read this Gospel passage, this and others, say: ‘But, Jesus healed a person with a mental illness’. They do not read this, no? It is true that at that time, they could confuse epilepsy with demonic possession; but it is also true that there was the devil! And we do not have the right to simplify the matter, as if to say: ‘All of these (people) were not possessed; they were mentally ill’. No! The presence of the devil is on the first page of the Bible, and the Bible ends as well with the presence of the devil, with the victory of God over the devil.”
Pope Francis warns that such an approach seeks to relativize the truth about Jesus and leads to half-measures in our battle with the Devil ....

But what in fact is happening is that such priests are negating revealed Truth with a message of their own, they are given a role within the Church that they abuse. Here the Pope speaks of the devil and demons but he could equally well have substituted conscience or contraception, sin and confession, heaven and hell, death and judgement, or any foreshortening of the Faith.

Joseph Shaw on Pope Francis

I must say this is one of the best things I have read on Pope Francis over the last few weeks and I have read a lot.

Dr Joseph Shaw, the philosopher, who also happens to be the Chairman of the Latin Mass Society, has written a five part article on the Holy Father's remark that Ignatius of Loyola was a 'mystical not aesetic'.
He makes the argument that Traditional Catholics have much less to fear from the Pope than Neo-Conservatives and Liberals.

The final part, Part 5 Mystical not aesetic: a response to Pope Francis, is here.

Part 1: what his disctinction 'Mystical' vs. 'Asectic' means
Part 2: why traditional Catholics can better accomodate this perspective than 'Neo-Conservatives'
Part 3: why liberal Catholics shouldn't feel too comfortable with it
Part 4: what is going on with the reference to the life and family issues.

Joe gives interesting insights into the spirituality of Traditional Catholicism as being open to many of the things the Holy Father seems to favour such, as pluralism, de-centralisation, a loathing of ultramontanism, of papal or legal positivism. The second part especially where he deals with the evil -my word, not his- of neo-conservatism is particular worth reading, especially if you have neo-con tendencies.

Of all the documents issued by Benedict XVI I am convinced that Summorum Pontificum is the most important, it is a sort of constitution for the Traditionalist Movement, a piece of grit placed in the heart of the Church, especially amongst the young, that will slowly grow as a grass-roots movement to produce a pearl of great price. It is about the liturgy, but is more than that, it is about creating as Joe suggests, a truly Catholic spirituality and a critical intellectual counter-culture within the Church.

At The Holy Name of 'Lesus'?

Proof reading, checking texts seems to be 'the' problem with Vatican at the moment, if they can't get the Son of God's name right on the medal issued to commemorate the new Papacy, is there any hope?

I am told this banner appears on a Vatican website, I can only find it on the site of one of the parishes the Pope has visited. I think I remember seeing it on film at a Papal audience, again you would think someone might suggest it is 'inappropriate', some in the crowd should have suggested it should be taken down.

There is something quite concerning going on, it worries me that there on the altar of Santa Marta rather than a crucifix dominating the altar and framed by candlesticks, it is so tiny that its absence would not be noticed, the floral decoration seems to be as important.

I am told on few occasions this Pope's predecessor after crowds chanted his name would look embarrassed and point to the crucifix. The message always has to be 'Jesus', there is no substitute, there is no room for error or mistake.

Getting the name and place of Jesus right is more important than getting the Curia or the Vatican Bank right, failure to do so indicates a lack of seriousness about him.

Extraordinary Synod on the Family

No Pastor is going to deny that the teaching of the Church on the family and sexuality is in a mess.

We have beautiful teaching but it is just not taught, we have a wonderful understanding of the complementarity between man and woman but it is not understood. We can eloquently argue that man and women within the bond of marriage, together, are more perfectly the image of God. We can present arguments that divorce and remarriage harms children. We can speak about the need for sex to take place only within the bond of marriage and to be open to life but it is disregarded.

All the evils that afflict modern society from pornography, premarital sex, contraception, adultery, divorce and marital break-up, single parent families, the exclusion of fathers, the uncertainty of sexual identity could and should be addressed by the Extraordinary Synod. It could go even further and address the assault on Life, the fragmentation of society, its economic breakdown, youth unemployment, the alienation of the elderly.

The Church's teaching is glorious and multi-dimensional, and when presented coherently it is life changing but even among bishops and clergy, and 'professional', it is actually not only misunderstood but treated as an embarrassment to be best ignored or excused away.

To a world that has few big ideas what the Catholic Church actually has to say should to truly revolutionary.

I was talking to our diocesan vocations director recently he was saying how young men see celibacy as something dynamic, that is about spiritual fatherhood and potency and yet so often it is presented in terms of loneliness and negation. Marriage and family can easily portrayed in terms of negativity. I think, I hope, that when Pope Francis speaks about Catholics being obsessed by homosexuality, contraception, abortion, what he really means is that we often present our message in negative terms, whereas we should be presenting the beauty of continent brotherly love, the wonder of being a life-giving parenthood and the dignity and value of life from its beginning to its natural end.

We desperately need a new moral theology. The moral theology, especially around sex and the family, that followed the Second Vatican Council rather than rejoicing in goodness, tended to be a way of finding people excuses to be immoral. Rather than embracing a new way of life and the radical dynamic conversion Benedict and Francis have been calling people to, so much of Catholic moral theology is still expressed in terms of the niggardly 'How far can I go?' It is the meanness and minimalism that seems to dominate the tickbox thinking of dissidents rather than the glorious adventure of discipleship.

A Greek Practice

Latins often criticise Greeks for being lax on celibacy and lax on remarriage, as far as celibacy is concerned. although Greeks do not allow priests to marry after ordination, they do ordain married men and yet married men may not be ordained to the episcopacy and in parish setting married clergy tend to be expected to give way to their celibate brothers. They have exactly same rules as we have for Anglican converts in general and applied to the Ordinariate in particular who although some may be married before ordination may not marry afterwards and were married men are not ordained bishop, a bit of Grecianisation through the back door?

As far as remarriage is concerned, I remember being given a paper which suggested all Orthodox marriages were invalid because the Orthodox recognise 'remarriage' within the lifetime of a divorced spouse, so therefore the writer suggested there was no sense of lifelong, exclusive commitment among Orthodox, QED: No Orthodox marriage is valid because of a lack of commitment to a lifelong exclusive union.

That is bit simplistic. It is worth remembering that in the West we recognise two levels of marriage; sacramental marriage between two baptised Christians and non-sacramental marriage between a Christian who has been baptised and someone not baptised. In the past such marriages were very much frowned upon and according to local custom were done without much ceremony, sometimes even in the sacristy, without music and just witnesses being present, still today the bishop or his delegate (normally the Parish Priest) has to give explicit permission for such a marriage to take place. In theory such marriages can be dissolved 'in favour of the faith', in favour of a sacramental marriage, should the Catholic party meet and to desire to marry a 'good Catholic' boy or girl. Nowadays no real liturgical distinction is made, except the obvious one of it being inappropriate to have a nuptial Mass, as the non-Christian, non-baptised cannot receive Holy Communion. The Rite speaks in terms of a sacrament even if no sacrament is being confected. Historically, I understand in some places, at a time when Holy Communion was rarely received, there were restrictions on when a person in such a union was permitted to receive Holy Communion.

Of course we Latins have always allowed a certain laxity towards even those in a sacramental union by allowing a declaration of annulment, our rather legalised approach to a pastoral situation of marital breakdown and the desire to remarry. Protestants used to be horrified at our allowance of such a practice and most Catholics really don't understand it. We require proofs of invalidity rather than the word of the person requesting an annulment. The problem is that the proof normally involves the co-operation of the estranged party or their friends - which is often not forthcoming. For some an annulment can be a healing experience, for others it is bruising and uncertain.  It is a legal solution not one designed for spiritual growth.

For Greeks, historically less legalised than us Latins, for a pastoral problem there is the pastoral solution of “oikonomia”, where someone might be married a second or even third time at the discretion of the local bishop and his advisers. Subsequent marriages are always marked by a much lesser degree of liturgical solemnity and often restrictions are placed on the couple's ability to receive Holy Communion, sometimes it is forbidden if sexual intimacy is taking place, that is until the couple can live as brother and sister, penitential disciplines can be placed on the couple it all depends on the Bishop or custom of the local Church but such a concession to permit an act contrary to the plain sense of scripture is a concession to human weakness and frailty, in much the same way as in the West we once regarded a non-sacramental marriage.

In Assisi some clear teaching

I have been rather impressed by some of the things the Holy Father has been saying in Assisi today, I just wonder if someone has been pointing that ambiguity and confusion are destructive, I think others are impressed a bit too and here as well.

Maybe the Mueller interview was a turning point.
See fasting and prayer work.

Oh and isn't that toddler crawling around in front of the throne sweet, no cynicism about Papal casting.

And then there was this interesting post a few days ago from the great Zee about Medge. Interesting, eh?

The answer: Jesus Christ, fasting and prayer

Listening to the news this morning, the accounts of the deaths of those immigrants off the coast of Lampedusa, the death Hamzah Khan, the little boy who was starved to death by his addicted mother in Bradford, on a lesser level the sheer nastiness of the Mail on Sunday's reporting on Miliband's dad, there is something serious wrong at the heart of our society.

As with everything else I know the answer is 'Jesus Christ', what the question is I am not sure, nor how we lead people find the answer.

It is the same with the Church, the confusion, the hurt that so many feel as Pope Francis changes the gearing in the engine of the Church; what the questions are, we are not sure, we know the the answer is 'Jesus Christ'.

Join me in a day of prayer and fasting for the Pope's intention. When Christians see confusion, or are frightened or can't see a way forward then is a time for more prayer and more fasting, to come closer to the crucified.

And now the Mueller Interview

After the chatter and confusion of recent days there is a short, rather refreshing interview with Archbishop Mueller on the (future) role of the CDF, he returns to some Ratzinger themes, for example the relationship of bishop to the pope and the place of Bishops Conferences, the primacy of doctrine, doctrine and pastoring.
Obviously it is a corrective to some of the speculations resulting from the various pronouncements.

a few excerpts

....
It's not as if other bishops or Pope Benedict had constantly spoken about abortion, sexual morals or euthanasia. And pastoral work is not a therapeutic game. It wants to serve people with the Word of God. That is why juxtaposing doctrinal and moral teaching against pastoral work is not in the mind of the inventor. The former is the source of the latter.
.....
 If Jesus Christ is not the Son of God who became Man, then he cannot be the Good Shepherd. Pope Francis has that special charism of being able to translate the Church's doctrine of the faith, which he adheres to unconditionally as he never tires of emphasising, into a personal encounter with people. As Pope he behaves like a local pastor.
.....
The CDF is responsible for the whole world in the interests of the papal Magisterium. Bishops lead local Churches. The papal and the episcopal office are legitimised by divine law. That is something that bishops' conferences are not. They are work groups but do not have a competence to teach of their own over and above that of an individual bishop's mandate. So they are not a third authority between the Pope and bishops. I don't think, therefore, that we'll see a sort of federalist reform similar to that in the Federal Republic [of Germany] where key competences are relayed from the central state to the individual [German] states. That is not how the Church is constituted. According to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, the Church consists in and of the local Churches.

I don't understand Angels

There are few sermons I remember, especially from my time in the seminary but one I do remember was preached by the late Dr Frederick Broomfield, a Southwark priest. It began, 'Today many people do not have an orthodox Catholic belief in angels: I tell you that does not bother the angels one bit'.

Angels are to men, as a man is to a microbe. Angels are beyond our comprehension, we can understand their actions but not what they are. God is so far above angels that the difference between men and angels is only paper thin.  

In modern theology they have little place, in popular piety they are more like fairies than 'the mighty warriors of the Lord'. I rather threw our school by suggesting that rather than little girls with tinsel and gossamer wings appearing in the Nativity play, angels should be boys dressed and armed as soldiers. Angels in scripture are after all always portrayed as male in scripture, even if occasionally they wear 'shining raiment'.

I do not know if it is possible to have the same belief in angels as Jesus did, or even the writers of the first century. The more I think of them, the more muddled I get, even the names of the Archangels are confusing; 'who is like unto God', 'icon of God'. Quite how to understand them gets more confusing especially when trying to understand later writers like Pseudo-Dionysius and Gregory, if you add into the mix the idea that John the Baptist is referred to as the 'Angel' of the desert, and Jesus himself is referred to as an 'angel' or at least 'messenger' in some early writings and many would suggest in the 'supplices' of the ancient Roman Canon it is Jesus that is the High Priest and Angel of the Lord who takes the sacrifice from the earthly to the heavenly altar, who else would be worthy to transport it? 

Almighty God, we pray that your angel may take this sacrifice to your altar in heaven. Then, as we receive from this altar the sacred body and blood of your Son, let us be filled with every grace and blessing. [Through Christ our Lord. Amen.] 

I do not understand angels, just like I do not understand much in our Holy Faith but then then message of the Angels is not about comprehensible things but about incomprehensible Mystery. Our response is merely to turn to the Lord, fall down with them in adoration and worship and cry out, 'Sanctus! Sanctus! Sanctus!'

 

'I have the humility and the ambition ...'

There is another excellent post by Ches on the latest Papal interview.

What to do?
Why not write to the two English speaking Cardinals of the Gang of 8, Cardinal Seán O'Malley and Cardinal George Pell, maybe they might have some influence over a Pope who can say, 'I have the humility and the ambition ...'.
If you can't summon up the strength to do that, pray and fast.

However, before you join Hans Kung at Dignitas, Rorate has this.

Oh dear! Another Francis interview

Entitled, "I will change the Church", Rocco Palmo reports the holy Father has yet another interview about to hit the presses, this time with the atheist journalist and founder of La Republicca. So expect another round of squeals of delight from one quarter and groans of misery from another.

The sensibly bonded Ches suggests that problem is Francis' choice of vocabulary, though maybe he is not a Liberal, he talks  a Liberal:

 Those who try to harness Francis to their liberal cause are on a hiding to nothing, they say.  

But there is something deeper here which makes their campaign rather difficult to manage, and it just comes back (once again) to Pope Francis's use of language. The fact is that unwittingly he often expresses himself in the codes that liberal Catholics use. When he says, for example: The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently, he does so apparently without a thought for the connotations of such a proposition. But in a liberal mind, that is simply code for, Don't worry about the doctrine, God loves ya. When he says, The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules, your liberal Catholic knows just what kind of rules this can be applied to. I could give you another half a dozen examples, but anyone who has read the interview will see that what I'm saying is true. Francis uses - unwittingly, I'm sure - multiple citations from the liberal Catholic phrase book.

I don't think it is just the choice of vocabulary that suggest Liberalism, it is also the Pope's style, especially his liturgical style; pushing the Blessed Sacrament to the side and minimising the crucifix in the chapel of Domus S. Marta, assisting priests and bishops discarding vestments proper to their office, or as one of my parishioners says, "It is the abundance of polyester"! Then there is that man with the damned camera too!

For me, the problem is the chatter, the incessant words of Francis, the adulation of Francis, overshadowing the action of Christ in the Sacraments.
Ches ends his piece:

Meanwhile, the Franciscan tsunami is washing over us. Somewhere in it is a rather beautiful message about love of God but I find it is spoiled by a lot of flotsam, not to mention the screams of those who are terrified of its unwitting and possible enduring damage to orthodox projects under construction. Whatever else might survive now, I have a sense that what Paul Virilio calls the synchronization of collective emotion is going to consign people like me - and other lingering doubters, however modestly they express themselves - to the outer darkness. And if you don't believe me, perhaps you have never tried crossing a rainbow-stole wearing priest in crappy sandals talking about love. The chances are that such creatures are coming back (I know some never went away)... and they'll be able to cite a liberal code-talking pope to support them (except when he is teaching full-fat doctrine).
Oh yes, after a conservative ultramontane, hell hath no fury like a selectively ultramontane liberal.

+++

Speaking of Ultramontanism, Palmo has now published this:  "I Am the Pope" – In Fresh Interview, Francis On Church's New "Beginning"

An excerpt:

"We must be a leaven of life and of love," Francis said, "and the leaven is infinitely smaller than the mass of fruit, of flowers and trees that grow thanks to it.... [O]ur objective isn't proselytism but listening to [people's] needs, desires, disappointments, desperations and hopes. We must restore hope to the young, aid the old, open ourselves to the future, spread love. [We must be] the poor among the poor. We must include the excluded and preach peace. Vatican II, inspired by Pope John and Paul VI, decided to look to the future with a modern spirit and to open [the church] to modern culture. The Council fathers knew that opening to modern culture meant religious ecumenism and dialogue with non believers. After then very little was done in that direction. I have the humility and ambition to want to do it."

Which means?