20 years of Popery and counting ...

I forgot to mention here that Holy Wednesday was the 20th anniversary of my reception into the Church back in 1993 by a wonderful African-American priest of Madagascan ancestry, Fr. Wilbur N. Thomas (now Rector of the Basilica of St. Lawrence in Asheville, NC). It has been a journey down roads full of unwanted pot holes and many surprises, but a journey I never once regretted. It has been one of the single most important decisions of my life.

The Annunciation of our Lord

Coming soon to a bank near you

"Cyprus bail-out: savers will be raided to save euro in future crises, says eurozone chief" (The Telegraph, March 25, 2013): "Savings accounts in Spain, Italy and other European countries will be raided if needed to preserve Europe's single currency by propping up failing banks, a senior eurozone official has announced.... Ditching a three-year-old policy of protecting senior bondholders and large depositors, over €100,000, in banks, Mr Dijsselbloem argued that the lack of market contagion surrounding Cyprus showed that private investors could now be hit to pay for bad banking debts."

Romanian lawyer sues bishop & 4 priests claiming they failed to exorcise flatulent demons in his house

Madalin Ciculescu, 34, claims the flatulent demons are ruining his business. Reports claim that he plans to go to the European Court of Human Rights. Should be interesting. (Mail Online, April 6, 2013).

[Hat tip to E. Foster]

Plenary Indulgence Avalable this Sunday

Tell your favorite Lutheran!

• Apostolic Penitentiary Decree: Indulgences attached to devotions in honour of Divine Mercy
• The Divine Mercy Sunday Indulgence (shorter summary)
• Definition of "Indulgence" (Ask a Lutheran or even a Catholic whether he can define what it means without looking! If even Wikipedia gets it right and they can't, shame on them!)
• Luther's 95 Theses on Indulgences

Ask a Lutheran whether he agrees with the following theses from Luther's famous 95 Theses:

6. The pope cannot remit any guilt ... though, to be sure, he may grant remission in cases reserved to his judgment. If his right to grant remission in such cases were despised, the guilt would remain entirely unforgiven.

38. [T]he remission and participation [in the blessings of the Church] which are granted by the pope are in no way to be despised, for they are, as I have said, the declaration of divine remission.

56. The "treasures of the Church," out of which the pope grants indulgences, are not sufficiently named or known among the people of Christ.

73. The pope justly thunders against those who, by any art, contrive the injury of the traffic in pardons.

77. It is said that even St. Peter, if he were now Pope, could not bestow greater graces; this is blasphemy against St. Peter and against the pope.

[Hat tip to L.S.]

Liturgical wisdom and wit of George Weigel

Not every book George Weigel writes is on a subject above his pay grade. He is, in fact, a very good writer, often well-researched, and sometimes very clever. The first book of his I read was Tranquillitas Ordinis: The Present Failure and Future Promise of American Catholic Thought on War and Peace(New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), which I thought very good -- excellent, in fact; and I have read many articles by him since, first in the pages of Crisis Magazine, when it was still a print magazine, and then in First Things and National Review, which fairly impressed me.


The book in question here, however, is entitled Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church(New York: Basic Books, 2013), and my first reaction before reading the book is to ask myself, Now what in the blazes is that supposed to mean: Evangelical Catholicism? Is this yet another attempt to re-invent the proverbial wheel? or to produce a fast-food version of the Real Thing called McCatholicism or something?


Whatever it is, if George Weigel has produced it, you can be sure that it has the corporation's brand name and seal of approval on it. He would see to that. The man is well-connected (Just read his biography). In the retrospective issue of First Things after the death of Fr. Neuhaus, there were photos in which you could see the young Weigel together with Neuhaus, with William F. Buckley, and a host of other major movers and shakers. He wrote a massive biography of Pope John Paul II, and, of course, he is also (let me pause just a moment here while I clear my throat) Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

But I digress ... Here, of course, our concern is liturgy, and the following is a taste of what Weigel suggests Evangelical Catholicism envisions by "Deep Reform" in the liturgy, which comes in a secion entitled "Reform, Not Nostalgia" of Chapter 7, "The Evangelical Catholic Reform of the Liturgy":

The reform of the Church's liturgy in Evangelical Catholicism is emphatically not an exercise in nostalgia: nor does it begin from the premise that the Novus Ordo of Pope Paul VI--the form of the Roman Rite developed by the Concilium for the implementation of Vatican II's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy--was a serious mistake. There were certainly grave mistakes in the implementation of the Novus Ordo liturgy. Thus Evangelical Catholicism welcomes the revival of the Missal of 1962 (the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite) for its capacity to inspire a more dignified celebration of the Novus Ordo. But the evangelical Catholic liturgical renewal of the twenty-first century will be built from the Novus Ordo, particularly as embodied in the Third Edition of the Roman Missal, not from a return to the preconciliar liturgy.

For a small minority of Catholics, the Missal of 1962 offers a way of prayer most conducive to the worship they seek to offer. For the overwhelming majority of Catholics, however, the reform of the reform will be an ongoing reform of the Novus Ordo as outlined above. That reform will be retarded, not advanced, by exercises in liturgical nostalgia that, by seeking to re-create an imagined past (which is, in truth, barely recognizable as the 'past' that Catholics who lived in the 1950s would recognize), fail to set an appropriate course for the future. This kind of ill-informed nostalgia cannot contribute to the development of Evangelical Catholicism in the twenty-first century; the reform of the reform of the liturgy will not be advanced by a return to the use of the maniple, or by the widespread revival of fiddleback chasubles, or by a proliferation of lace surplices and albs, or by other exercises in retro-liturgy. (p. 168)

The end of this sentence carries an endnote. As I said, Weigel is very clever; and his pièce de résistance comes in this endnote (n. 11, p. 274). He writes with delicious (but undoubtedly altogether charitable and not the least bit malicious) irony:

How anyone can imagine that the abundant use of lace in liturgical vestments advances the reform of the priesthood as a manly vocation is one of the minor mysteries of early twenty-first century Catholic life.

There is so much Weigel get's wrong here that many contemporary Catholics are simply clueless about, it will be fun to see who wins at the carnival game of throwing the ball that hits its target, releasing the victim into the barrel of cold water. Like I said, he's one clever cookie. Happy aiming. Enjoy yourselves, but be charitable.

[Hat tip to E. Echeverria]

Update: ... and sometimes it appears that even Francis agrees with Pope George.

CWR removes Deavel's review of Ralph Martin's book

Emails about this have been circulating everywhere, and posts have now been appearing, so I will be brief: Paul Deavel wrote a detailed favorable review of Ralph Martin's book, Will Many Be Saved? What Vatican II Actually Teaches and Its Implications for the New Evangelization.(We posted an article on Martin's book, "Oh Hell" in Musings, back on Dec. 14, 2012) Deavel's review is entitled "Vatican II and the 'Bad News' of the Gospel."

Now Ignatius Press has removed the review of Dr. Martin's book initially posted on CWR. Ignatius Press President, Mark Brumley, candidly acknowledges pulling Martin's article in a CWR post HERE (CWR, April 1, 2013): "This is blatant censorship by me, Mark Brumley," he states, tongue-in-cheek; however, it doesn't sound like an April Fool's joke. From what he suggests, they want a "fuller treatment of a difficult subject than the original view" provided, and so they are looking to host a number of articles from a number of perspectives in future issues. One wonders about any connections here to the life-long investment of Ignatius Press in the publication of Hans Urs von Balthasaar's works in English translation.

Sheesh! It's not as if poor Dr. Martin is some foam-at-the-mouth TRADITIONALIST or something! Give the guy a break! =)

[Hat tip to SHMS colleagues]

Update: "Forbidden text and Catholic samizdat: 'Vatican II and the "Bad News" of the Gospel'" (Rorate Caeli, April 8, 2013).

Gonzaga University: K of C discriminatory, denied right to form student organization

CWR reports (April 5, 2013) that Jesuit school denies Knights student group status because members must be Catholic.

Well, there are Jesuit universities, and there are Catholic universities ... and one can't even be too sure of them anymore. The best education is that gotten on your own no matter where you get your union card.

[Hat tip to JM]

Look! Obama's returning 5% of his salary!

He's one of us!!! He's making common cause with federal workers who may have to make a similar paycut because of that nasty bourgeois Republican sequestration (that was only incidentally initiated by President Obama). In fact, the President is a true proletariat, a comrade!

But wait, there's more! There's his incessant golfing with Wall Street buddies, his vacation of the month club, and, well ... THIS PIECE from Richard Cohen at the PostPartisan (April 4, 2013):

What’s the difference between $789,674 and $769, 674? Will the kids not go to camp? Is Hawaii out of the question for next summer? ...


President Barack Obama drives a golf cart with Robert Wolf, former chairman of UBS AG’s Americas unit,
at Mink Meadows Golf Club in Vineyard Haven on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.
... The president was apparently responding to the symbolism of him living like a pasha while asking others to sacrifice. I understand. But his taking a wee haircut on his salary is just a PR stunt from the White House that’s more insulting than it is empathetic.

Let's face it: the President of the people, of transparency and hope and change, has become the first presidential winner of the Nobel Peace Prize with his own kill list, living in some ways outside or above the law. He and his wife are living as emperor and empress, Michelle with something like 40 ladies in waiting, while Calvin Coolidge had a milk cow on the White House lawn. Put that in your bong pipe and smoke it, Berry.

Oh, but I forget, Michelle calls herself a "busy [virtually] single mother"! (see below):

Inter-faith relations with the Church of Satan

Mr. Hugh Moore, Executive Director of the St. Laphatdis Foundation (www.laphadisfoundation.net) in Chicago announced today 4/1/2004 8:41:00 PM at a press conference the discovery of a previously unreleased version of Nostra Aetate, the Vatican II document on inter-faith relations. The document outlines efforts by the council to reach some level of ecumenical understanding with the Church of Satan. In Germany, an ecumenical Cardinal who prefered to go unnamed gave ghostly praise to the new document, calling it "a breakthrough in the Catholic Church's journey toward fully reconciling herself with the many gifts that those who reject Christ bring to our cultural heritage."

###

NOSTRA AETATE (Part II): Declaration on the relation of the Church to Satan

In this age of ours, when men are are drawing more closely together and the bonds of friendship between different peoples are being strengthened, the Church examines with still greater care the relation which she has with Satan.

When God created the angels, He appointed Lucifer the "anointed Cherub" over paradise (Ezek 28:14). Since "the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" (Rom 11:29), it follows that, by virtue of his original office, Satan shall forever enjoy a special place and dignity before God. Men always ought to show him respect therefore. Not even the Archangel Michael dared accuse him of wrongdoing (Jude 8-9).

The Apostle James reminds us that Satan still possesses the virtue of faith, something that not even all men possess (see James 2:19; cf. 2 Thess 3:2). In fact, it was not Peter or any of the Apostles who first recognized and confessed Jesus' identity, but Satan and his demons (Mt 4:1ff.; 8:29; Mk 1:24). Satan has therefore retained a deep religious sense. This is especially apparent in his efforts to establish religious institutions all around the world through which men have been invited to explore the divine mystery of that One "who is in all" (Eph 4:6) and "who would have all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." (1Tim 2:4)

Sounding the depths of the mystery which is the Church, this Council remembers the spiritual ties which link the people of the New Covenant to Satan. This link is most poingnantly observed in Satan's angelic nature. The Church of Christ acknowledges that in God's plan of salvation the beginning of her faith and election is to be found in the angels who were the first of all God's rational creatures (cf. Job 38:7). She also professes that in the resurrection all Christ's faithful shall become "as the angels." (Mt 22:30).

Many of the early Fathers, including Origen, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St.Maximus the Confessor, Didymus the Blind and Evagrius Ponticus, speculated that Satan would one day be restored to his original place in Heaven.

Ought the Church to share in this hope? Perhaps not, but does it not at least strike a resonant chord deep within the human spirit?

The Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy about Satan. She has high regard for his nature, office, dignity and faith. Although she differswith him on many points of doctrine, nevertheless he often relects a ray of that truth which enlightens all God's creatures. Let Christians, while witnessing to their own faith and way of life, acknowledge, preserve and encourage the spiritual and moral truths found within the person of Satan as well as his social and religious life and culture.

###

For more information, see www.laphadisfoundation.net

[Hat tip to L.S. I trust no one here is so thick as to take this post seriously!]

Humility proportioned to each station in life

An excellent article over at Unam Sanctam Catholicam, "Humility and Station in Life" -- well worth reading.

[Hat tip to L.S.]

1.4 million French march against gay ‘marriage’;police tear gas crowd, children

Pope to review Vatican bureaucracy and scandal-ridden bank?

Now that would be a nice first step. A nice second would be cleaning house of the lavender rat-infested bureaucracy itself. Remember that 300-page report in a red binder that Benedict XVI left under lock and key for the next pope to deal with before retiring?

In any case Reuters reports: "Pope Francis to review Vatican bureaucracy, scandal-ridden bank" (The Times of India, April 2, 2013)

Catholic seminary rector beaten to death in India

Murder described as 'brutal, terrible and senseless'

Nirmala Carvalho, "Bangalore, seminary rector murdered on Easter" (AsiaNews.it, April 2, 2013). The attackers killed Fr. K.J. Thomas hitting him in the face and head with a brick. Motive and identity of the killers still unknown. Archbishop of Bangalore "brutal and senseless murder, this is a great loss for us all." The funeral will be held in Ootacamund, his native diocese.

Mumbai (AsiaNews) - Dozens of priests, seminarians and lay Catholics celebrated a mass in memory of Fr. K.J. Thomas this morning, the rector of the seminary in Bangalore (Karnataka) murdered yesterday morning at dawn. Meanwhile, the police continue to investigate a murder described as "brutal, terrible and senseless" by Msgr. Bernard Moras, Archbishop of Bangalore, speaking to AsiaNews. In the coming hours the priest's body will be transported in Ootacamund, his native diocese, where the funeral will take place. The local bishop will communicate the date as soon as it has been decided.

[Hat tip to New Oxford Review]

Cantalamessa: "the residues of ceremonials" must be "knocked down"

This is really the story of two myths; but first, the one referenced by Candalamessa here: It is the one referenced also by von Balthasar in his famous title made popular by a textbook used in many seminary classes, Razing the Bastions: On the Church in This Age, which views the Church of the past as having erected barriers between clergy and laity making the Church a colossal failure. (Anyone who believes that should check what Joseph Pearce says about the "burgeoning Catholic revival" and "unprecedented heyday of notable conversions" in the generations preceding Vatican II.)


In any case, Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, OFMCap, the Preacher of the Pontifical Household, preached in the Vatican Basilica on Good Friday what was formally a homily but what Rorate Caeli calls truly "a panegyric to the new pontiff with an embedded program of great ambition." The post is entitled "Cantalamessa's Panegyric: 'a new time is opening for the Church', 'partitions, staircases, rooms and closets' and 'the residues of ceremonials' must be 'knocked down'" (Rorate Caeli, April 1, 2013).

Here are the key excerpts (emphasis added by RC):

We know what the impediments are that can restrain the messenger: dividing walls, starting with those that separate the various Christian churches from one another, the excess of bureaucracy, the residue of past ceremonials, laws and disputes, now only debris....

As happens with certain old buildings. Over the centuries, to adapt to the needs of the moment, they become filled with partitions, staircases, rooms and closets. The time comes when we realize that all these adjustments no longer meet the current needs, but rather are an obstacle, so we must have the courage to knock them down and return the building to the simplicity and linearity of its origins. This was the mission that was received one day by a man who prayed before the Crucifix of San Damiano: "Go, Francis, and repair my Church"....

May the Holy Spirit, in this moment in which a new time is opening for the Church, full of hope, reawaken in men who are at the window the expectancy of the message, and in the messengers the will to make it reach them, even at the cost of their life.

In short, the message is that we must heed the call of the Holy Spirit, and knock down the residues of traditional ceremonials that stand in the way of the Gospel.

This is a very inviting and common-sensical to many today, particularly those in the Evangelical Catholic community and those in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. What counts is the "spirit" of the law, not the "letter." The forms of liturgy, memorized 'set' prayers, Q & A (Baltimore) catechism styles all strike them as rigid, empty, lifeless "forms" that should, at best, be viewed as something like "training wheels" for mere beginners who haven't yet learned to fly.

(Here I can't help remembering Peter Kreeft's story about how he came to the rectory and told the Irish priest, while in grad school, that he wanted to convert, and the priest asked, "Who's the girl?" When Kreeft persisted with serious theological questions from the Summa of St. Thomas, the good priest handed him a copy of an elementary catechism entitled, Fr. Smith Instructs Jackson, and told him: "Walk before you fly, son. Walk before you fly!" But this, of course, is indeed another story.)

As to this first myth about knocking down traditions and razing bastions, however, Sandro Magister recently recalled, as noted in Rorate Caeli, one possible response that may be made:

In the pseudo-Franciscan and pauperist mythology that in these days so many are applying to the new pope, imagination runs to a Church that would renounce power, structures, and wealth and make itself purely spiritual.

But it is not for this that the saint of Assisi lived. In the dream of Pope Innocent III painted by Giotto, Francis is not demolishing the Church, but carrying it on his shoulders. And it is the Church of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of the bishop of Rome, at that time recently restored and decorated lavishly, but made ugly by the sins of its men, who had to be purified. It was a few followers of Francis who fell into spiritualism and heresy.

The second myth is referenced somewhere by Peter Kreeft, but I think comes originally from G. K. Chersterton who once said "Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up." That, too, is a kind of common sense, at least to many people it would be so. It is elaborated upon in a book by Kreeft entitled The Best Things in Life, one of his playful dialogues between an imaginary Socrates and imaginary contemporary characters. But here again, it's hard to say where the ideas originate. Others out there write in a similar voice these days, as does Bruce Herman in the following quote:

Taboos fence in a particular experience -- and what is fenced in also fences other things out. Case in point: sexuality. The fence around sexuality is there to protect something that is very vulnerable and precious. If you knock the fence down, you no longer have the sense of preciousness, and eventually all sensitivity is lost.

I have addressed this issue before and some time ago in connection with litugical ceremonials ("'Making it Real' - Part II: The Sacrament of the Altar," Musings, March 9, 2007). The point would be, essentially, that these forms that hedge about the sacred mysteries, far from being "empty forms" or "senseless taboos," or "mere letters of the law" that serve to impede evangelization, in fact serve to preserve and protect that which is most precious and central to the heart of the Catholic Faith, apart from which the living faith of the people would wither and die.

There is another writer who puts the two myths in still other terms. The writer is Thomas Howard. The book is An Antique Drum, which was re-published by Ignatius Press under the unfortunate title of Chance, or the Dance? The first myth is that nothing means anything. In this instance, forms, rituals, gestures, vestments -- all these things are essentially meaningless externals in themselves, the operative word being meaningless. The second myth is that everything means something. In this instance, the altar boys bowing their faces to the floor during the Confiteor, the faithful receiving the sacrificial victim on their tongue rather than taking Him in their fingers, genuflecting at the et incarnatus est in the Credo and at the verbum caro factum est in the Last Gospel -- all of these things point beyond themselves, such that they are tiny instances of the way things are in the universe as a whole. It's always the little things.

I don't know that I can prove or disprove one or the other of these two myths. I can certainly testify to the existence of these two competing myths in the Catholic world today. Readers will have to put two-and-two together for themselves and see what makes sense from their vantage points. Certainly I believe in the Holy Ghost. Certainly I believe also in the Magisterium. I do not see them as working at cross purposes. Never have.

[Hat tip to L.S.]