Very interesting: "The EF and the New Age"

This article conjoins the unexpected topic of the New Age with a seemingly-unlikely mate, the Extraordinary Form of the Catholic liturgy, not any sense to conflate the two, but to show why those attracted to the New Age (and here there are many historical examples) have found or can find what they thought they were looking for in the transcendent liturgy of antiquity: "FIUV Position Paper: Joseph Shaw, "The EF and the New Age" (Rorate Caeli, November 18, 2017).

Sammons and Lawler: why we pretend nothing went wrong after Vatican II

Three articles were published recently revisiting the confusion following Vatican II and suggesting how to make sense of it:

• Martin Mosebach, "Pope Benedict's Red Thread," First Things (August 10, 2017)
• Eric Sammons, "Evangelization, Vatican II, and Censorship," Crisis (August 15, 2017)
• Phil Lawler, "Let's stop pretending: something DID go wrong after Vatican II," CatholicCulture.org (August 23, 2017)

The last article by Lawler draws the three together by summarizing points made by Mosebach and Sammons. Mosebach's and Sammons' articles, however, should not be neglected, because they make excellent points in their own right that do not make it into Lawler's summary -- particularly some of the details about "soft censorship" of bad news by the Church and Catholic media, and their promotion, almost exclusively, of good news (the "Everything is Awesome" view). A good example of the latter is George Weigel's recent article, "Motown and the Turbocharged Church," First Things (August 16, 2017), which speaks to the positive aspirations of key Church leaders in Detroit, but ignores the long-entrenched aberrations of others.

Sammons identifies three reasons why inconvenient truths are often suppressed by Catholic media. Bad theology ("Many believe that since Ecumenical Councils are guided by the Holy Spirit, nothing erroneous or even harmful can come from them"); institutional bias ("The Church and its supporting institutions have heavily invested themselves on the idea that Vatican II was beneficial to the Church"); and financial support ("If an orthodox organization questioned Vatican II, its speaking engagements and invitations from parishes and dioceses would disappear"). It is safe to assume that George Weigel's speaking engagements and invitations will not disappear any time soon.

But Lawler offers the most convenient summary. He writes:

Something went wrong—seriously wrong—in the Catholic Church in the years after Vatican II. Can we all agree on that much? Leave aside, for now, the familiar debate about the causes of the problem; let’s begin with the agreement that there is, or at least certainly was, a problem.

Eric Sammons makes the point in a provocative essay that appeared in Crisis last week:

If an entirely objective social scientist were to study the Catholic Church in the second half of the twentieth century, he would see one fact staring him straight in the face: the Church experienced a precipitous decline in the Western world during that time.

The problem (whatever it is) is compounded, Sammons remarks, by a general refusal to acknowledge the reality of our post-conciliar difficulties: what he terms a “soft censorship” of unpleasant news. Bishops and pastors, diocesan newspapers and parish bulletins have bombarded us for years with reports that the Church is “vibrant,” that programs are booming, that the liturgy is beautiful, that religious education is robust. Never is heard a discouraging word. Yet we know better. We know about the shortage of priests; we see the news of parish closing; we notice the empty pews on Sundays. Something is wrong; we know that.

Sammons argues persuasively that this “soft censorship,” this see-no-evil approach, is now an impediment to evangelization [my emphasis], because it thwarts serious discussions about the current state of the Church. Evangelization means bringing people to the truth, he reasons, and that process “cannot thrive in a censored environment.” ...

... Did the problems that arose after Vatican II come solely because the Council’s teachings were ignored, or improperly applied? Or were there difficulties with the documents themselves? Were there enough ambiguities in the Council’s teaching to create confusion? If so, were the ambiguities intentional—the result of compromises by the Council fathers?

Suggesting that there could be difficulties with some Vatican II documents does not mean denying the authority of the Council’s teaching. No document drafted by human hands will ever be perfect. There may be a need for clarification, elucidation, explanation, even correction.

More to the point, while it is certainly true that the “spirit of Vatican II” that is often cited in support of radical changes cannot be reconciled with the actual teachings of the Council, it is also true that the proponents of change can cite specific passages from Council documents in support of their plans. So are those passages being misinterpreted. Are they taken out of context? Or are there troublesome elements of the Council’s teaching, with which we should now grapple honestly? One thing is certain: we will not solve the problem by pretending that it does not exist.

Related: John T. Elson, "The Catholic Church Battles Its Old Guard," LIFE Magazine (October 18, 1963), pp. 114ff.

[Hat tip to E.P. and J.M.]

"What makes Bach so successful among the Japanese?"

Uwe Siemon-Netto, "J. S. Bach in Japan" (First Things, June 2000). What an amazing article! Here are a few teasers ...

Twenty-five years ago when there was still a Communist East Germany, I interviewed several boys from Leipzig’s Thomanerchor, the choir once led by Johann Sebastian Bach. Many of those children came from atheistic homes. “Is it possible to sing Bach without faith?” I asked them. “Probably not,” they replied, “but we do have faith. Bach has worked as a missionary among all of us.” During a recent journey to Japan I discovered that 250 years after his death Bach is now playing a key role in evangelizing that country, one of the most secularized nations in the developed world....

... “In their frenetic pursuit of production, speculation, and consumption,” Repp said, “the older Japanese have provided their offspring exclusively with materialistic values. But the youngsters are yearning for something more. The result is an enormous gap between the generations; they are no longer able to communicate with one another.”

... ”What people need in this situation is hope in the Christian sense of the word, but hope is an alien idea here,” says the renowned organist Masaaki Suzuki, founder and conductor of the Bach Collegium Japan. He is the driving force behind the “Bach boom” sweeping Japan during its current period of spiritual impoverishment. “Our language does not even have an appropriate word for hope,” Suzuki says. “We either use ibo, meaning desire, or nozomi, which describes something unattainable.” After every one of the Bach Collegium’s performances Suzuki is crowded on the podium by non-Christian members of the audience who wish to talk to him about topics that are normally taboo in Japanese society—death, for example. “And then they inevitably ask me to explain to them what ‘hope’ means to Christians.” ...

Japan’s Bach boom does, however, have one baffling aspect: how is it possible that melodies and rhythms from eighteenth-century Germany should please people of an entirely alien culture thousands of miles to the east? Tokyo musicologists have come up with an astonishing answer: Bach’s appeal to today’s Japanese is directly linked to a Spaniard’s first attempt to evangelize their ancestors 450 years ago.

... Believers were crucified, burned at the stake, tortured to death, or hanged upside-down over cesspools to intensify their suffering. Few Japanese were aware of this sinister aspect of their history until last year, when the Tobu art gallery in Tokyo commemorated the 450th anniversary of Francis Xaviér’s arrival with a massive exhibition spread over three floors.

The enormous crowds filing through this show were horrified by the cruelties its images portrayed. But there was one thing they did not learn at the Tobu Gallery: Western music managed to survive the persecution. The Jesuits had introduced Gregorian chant to Japan and built organs from bamboo pipes.... By the time Christianity was totally outlawed in Japan in the early seventeenth century, elements of Gregorian chant had infiltrated Japan’s traditional folk music. That influence remained strong enough to help Johann Sebastian Bach’s music sweep across the island nation more than four centuries later.

This explains the amazing success of Bach’s collected works, which were published by Sogakukan, a Tokyo company, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the composer’s death. This collection of fifteen volumes, including 156 CDs accompanied by books with the original lyrics in German and Latin plus their Japanese translations, cost a staggering $3,000 each. Within weeks the first edition of five thousand copies was sold out.

The collection’s editor, Tesuo O’Hara, described himself as one of Christianity’s sympathizers, though not a believer. He could have fooled me. “What makes Bach so successful among the Japanese?” I asked him. O’Hara replied, “Bach gives us hope when we are afraid; he gives us courage when we despair; he comforts us when we are tired; he makes us pray when we are sad; and he makes us sing when we are full of joy.”

[Hat tip E. Echeverria]

Intimations of transcendent beauty, holiness, salvation

Buy/download the album HERE.

[Hat tip to Rorate]

Indeed. Where does one start?

David Warren, "Where Does One Start?" (The Catholic Thing, July 22, 2016):

In my own experience -- the only experience I have -- it is not easy to explain Catholic beliefs. The condition is progressive: it becomes more difficult every year.

... The Greek and Roman world was, to a remarkable degree, capable of reason, and of being reasonable. It had many attitudes incompatible with those the Christians were expounding; but it had also the habit of listening to an argument. ... it is easier to lay foundations, and build upon, hard ground. Christianity advanced the cause of reason; but reason also advanced the cause of Christianity.

... The world we face today is not like Greece and Rome. It is much more like the ancient East: a swamp in which reason finds little purchase. In order to evangelize, we must forego leaps. We must not assume premisses shared by all men of reason and good will. We must start with the very premisses.

[Hat tip to JM]

Pope Emeritus Benedict breaks silence, speaks of 'deep crisis' facing post-Vatican II Church

I was surprised to suddenly see this everywhere -- reports of Pope Emeritus breaking his silence in an interview, originally given in German last October and now reported by an Italian journal, "Cos’è la fede? Ecco le parole di Benedetto XVI" (Avvenire, March 16, 2016).

Here's what Maike Hickson reported at LifeSiteNews yesterday:

March 16, 2016 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- On March 16, speaking publicly on a rare occasion, Pope Benedict XVI gave an interview to Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference, in which he spoke of a “two-sided deep crisis” the Church is facing in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. The report has already hit Germany courtesy of Vaticanist Guiseppe Nardi, of the German Catholic news website Katholisches.info.

Pope Benedict reminds us of the formerly indispensable Catholic conviction of the possibility of the loss of eternal salvation, or that people go to hell:

The missionaries of the 16th century were convinced that the unbaptized person is lost forever. After the [Second Vatican] Council, this conviction was definitely abandoned. The result was a two-sided, deep crisis. Without this attentiveness to the salvation, the Faith loses its foundation.

He also speaks of a “profound evolution of Dogma” with respect to the Dogma that there is no salvation outside the Church. This purported change of dogma has led, in the pope's eyes, to a loss of the missionary zeal in the Church – “any motivation for a future missionary commitment was removed.”

Pope Benedict asks the piercing question that arose after this palpable change of attitude of the Church: “Why should you try to convince the people to accept the Christian faith when they can be saved even without it?”

As to the other consequences of this new attitude in the Church, Catholics themselves, in Benedict's eyes, are less attached to their Faith: If there are those who can save their souls with other means, “why should the Christian be bound to the necessity of the Christian Faith and its morality?” asked the pope. And he concludes: “But if Faith and Salvation are not any more interdependent, even Faith becomes less motivating.”

Pope Benedict also refutes both the idea of the “anonymous Christian” as developed by Karl Rahner, as well as the indifferentist idea that all religions are equally valuable and helpful to attain eternal life.

“Even less acceptable is the solution proposed by the pluralistic theories of religion, for which all religions, each in its own way, would be ways of salvation and, in this sense, must be considered equivalent in their effects,” he said. In this context, he also touches upon the exploratory ideas of the now-deceased Jesuit Cardinal, Henri de Lubac, about Christ's putatively “vicarious substitutions” which have to be now again “further reflected upon.”

With regard to man's relation to technology and to love, Pope Benedict reminds us of the importance of human affection, saying that man still yearns in his heart “that the Good Samaritan come to his aid.”

He continues: “In the harshness of the world of technology – in which feelings do not count anymore – the hope for a saving love grows, a love which would be given freely and generously.”

Benedict also reminds his audience that: “The Church is not self-made, it was created by God and is continuously formed by Him. This finds expression in the Sacraments, above all in that of Baptism: I enter into the Church not by a bureaucratic act, but with the help of this Sacrament.” Benedict also insists that, always, “we need Grace and forgiveness.” [emphasis added]

Also reported in

• Maike Hickson, "Benedict XVI Gives Rare Interview ... Says The Church Has Lost Missionary Zeal" (The Wanderer, March 16, 2016)
• Steve Skojec, "Pope Benedict Breaks His Silence On 'Deep Crisis'" (One Peter Five, March 16, 2016)
• Louie Verrecchio, "Benedict's Avvenire interview: A man of the Council speaks" (aka Catholic, March 17, 2016), who raises some questions about the translation presented at LifeSiteNews.
• Christopher A. Ferrara, "Benedict Breaks His silence ... with Another Leaky Lifeboat" (Remnant, March 17, 2017), knowing Italian, offers his own translations of the text and concludes that the upshot of the interview is more devastating than Benedict's own damning diagnosis of the problem -- a continued lack of clear rationale or incentive for the missionary mandate.
• Father Z, "New interview with Benedict XVI in Avvenire" (Fr. Z's Blog, March 16, 2016), who offers an interesting liturgical inference.
• Robert Royal, "Benedict Breaks Silence" (The Catholic Thing, March 17, 2017)

SEE FULL TEXT HERE: Elizabeth Scalia, "The Christian Faith Is Not An Idea But A Life" (Aleteia, March 17, 2017); and AND HERE: "Full text of Benedict XVI's recent, rare, and lengthy interview" (Catholic World Report, March 17, 2016).

Los Angeles Churches Make Worship ... Hip?

Sheila Marikar, in the New York Times (December 12, 2015) enthuses:

Mosaic, a church that counts thousands of young people among its congregants, offering sermons rife with pop-culture references, musical performances that look like Coachella, and a brand cultivated for social media. (Church events are advertised on Instagram; there’s a “text to donate” number).

While Christianity is on a decline in the United States, at Mosaic and other churches like it in the Los Angeles area, the religion is thriving.

Sorry. Not a fan. Not for me. This flash-in-the-pan surrogate religious fare seems to offer a quick fix with shots of pure sugar and adrenalin that draws young people because it's like a free concert with fringe benefits. It's like taking LSD to attain Satori (enlightenment) rather that doing the hard work of Zen meditation. Kids will continue to go for several months, maybe even a couple of years, but then they will find themselves getting real jobs, kids of their own, and moving on; and the whole enterprise will just fade away into oblivion.

It looks like a huge shining lake of sparkling water, but turns out to be a shallow puddle of enthusiasm that cannot possibly sustain over the long haul because it is fuelled by the cult of personality and entertainment and lacks the benefit of deep theological rootage.

This is precisely what is killing AmChurch Catholic parishes attempting to ape these methods and cultivate a 'hip' ambience. Things turn out not to be 'hip' as hysterically pathetic, vapid and boring. By contrast, nothing revives the faith more than the solid meat of authentic Catholic teaching. To go deep into history is to cease to be vapid and boring, and to open the wellspring of the Living Waters of Life passed down from the Apostles and our Lord through Catholic tradition.

True our Lord says (Mt 11:30) that His "yoke is easy" and His "burden is light." But He also says (Mt 7:14): "small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and few are those who find it." There is no quick and easy path to sanctity or salvation. The consolations of Christ will lighten our burden, but the simple fact remains: faith is hard work. Faith is not a rock concert.

"Has the Church Effectively Abandoned the Great Commission?" - The Mark Shea and Christopher Ferrara debate (video)

The monthly men's Argument of the Month Club (AOTM), hosted in the basement of St. Augustine's Catholic Church in St. Paul, MN, regularly draws huge crowds. Crowds of men. Certainly part of the draw is the ample food (lots of barbecue) and beer. But the more significant fact is that men are drawn to serious intellectual questions concerning the Church and the Catholic Faith.

Recently AOTM hosted a debate between Christopher Ferrara (right) and Mark Shea (left) on the hot-button question "Has the Church Effectively Abandoned the Great Commission?" And AOTM has decided, for the first time ever, to publish a video of the debate: HERE it is, with a brief introduction by Kent Wuchterl, the President of AOTM, who is just a regular guy who likes to shoot some of his videos in his garage (not to worry: the garage wasn't the venue for the debate). Enjoy. And DONATE something, if you feel so led. It's a good cause.

[Hat tip to Sir A.S.]

Hour-long Catholic critique of the Alpha program

Some people aren't going to like this at all. "The Tyranny of Emotion" (Mic'd Up, January 29, 2016) includes a discussion with Michael Hichborn of the Lepanto Institute about the Alpha program being implemented in many places and notably in Detroit; and Dr. Jay Boyd, who offers an in-depth discussion of Sherry Waddell's Forming Intentional Disciples with some cautions.

The upshot seems concisely expressed in the question: why are Catholics embracing these 'watered-down' and 'protestantized' sorts of programs when excellent Catholic alternatives exist, such as Servant of God, Fr. John Hardon's Marian Catechist Apostolate, now under the sponsorship of Cardinal Burke? Not to mention all the hazards of emotionally-charged low-information evangelization with potentially misleading components. Food for thought. One can hardly say "food for feeling," can we!

Update: William J. Cork, D.Min., "Is ALPHA for Catholics??," offers a fairly detailed outline and critique of Alpha, arguing that it promotes (a) an individualistic Christianity, (b) a congregationalist ecclesiology, (c) an evangelical perspective on the sacraments, as well as (d) a charismatic agenda. The author concludes:

Despite the commendable intent of Alpha to evangelize the unchurched by facilitating an initial encounter with Jesus Christ, we must conclude that even with a Catholic supplement, it remains deficient, and cannot be recommended for Catholic use. Alpha does not fulfill the expectations for Catholic catechesis and evangelization, and presents what Catholics must see as an impoverished and distorted Gospel. It is not "basic Christianity," but is Charismatic Protestantism. To tack Catholic elements to be tacked onto the end, especially issues of Church and Sacrament, denies the integral nature of Christian revelation.

Fascinating discussion of the strange phenomenon known as "Protestantism"

This appears in a half-hour-long discussion among a panel of five members, including one woman (a Notre Dame law school grad) and four men (another Notre Dame grad with a pontifical degree in theology and several others) in the new "Download" program feature on "False Ecumenism" (January 25, 2016), which you can view with a $10/month premium account at CMTV. Enjoy.

Fr. Eduard Perrone's proposals for the evangelization of the Archdiocese of Detroit

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" [a temporary link] (Assumption Grotto News, January 10, 2016):

Sometimes I feel like a word processor, an inhuman, mechanized instrument, churning out words, as duty necessitates. (This is pure bellyaching, cherished reader, and accordingly you ought not to pay much attention to it.) So many pastor’s columns, sermons, classroom teaching, counseling and occasional talks–a veritable mountain of words that are weighed, pondered and critiqued. I reckon that I have written close to six hundred Descants and a whole library of sermons and conferences. I wonder about the utility (or futility) of it all. Ideally, this mass of verbiage is an instrumental means to promulgate the teaching of Christ. But a preacher and writer can have his doubts. Every word of his will be tried in the balance on the last day. Undaunted by this reckoning, I plod on, obedient to what I believe to be my pastoral duty. Patience!

That said and done, I move on to the business of reporting on the end-of-the-year meeting held here in preparation for the upcoming archdiocesan Synod. I knew in advance that I would not be able to attend the gathering due to a previous engagement. In a way, my absence was to the good since our people spoke perhaps more freely without me being there.

Why ever the Archdiocese deemed Grotto parish desirable for the expression of its people’s views and comments remains an unsolved mystery. We are notably and decidedly different from many a parish–the very reason you make the weekly sacrifice of goodly travel time to get here. Our sole emphasis in this parish has been to form as good and devout Catholics as possible we can be. The rest of what we do is as so much jazz.

The fundamental question for the proposed Synod is: Why bother? If every priest faithfully and piously fulfilled the duties Holy Orders imposed on him for the salvation of his people, all would be well. Long years of neglect of these and–further–of departure from them in the pursuit of modernistic, socialistic and experimental ends have spelled the ecclesiastical disaster which has now hit hard on the spiritual lives of Catholic people. If it were up to me to suggest one thing that would have the greatest positive impact on the life of the Church in this Archdiocese it would be the reform of the clergy. By this I mean that priests would not only do more of the works characteristic of priests and much less of endless meetings, administrative business and wastes of their time but that they would engage themselves instead in a more concentrated pursuit of the holy life their sacred calling imposes upon them. Out would go secular-styled liturgies and inane preaching, interminable meetings, secular clothing, partying and dancing, vulgar speech, inappropriate movies, excessive drink, rock music (and the whole junk culture generally), and in would come holy hours, spiritual reading, more private prayer, and the cultivation of a more intense intellectual and theological life along with a priestly solidarity with other priests who aim at securing these same goals. There are indeed many fine priests in this Archdiocese who already do these things and who shun the worldly model of the priest expected of them in some places. Yet, as you well know, these priests are not in evidence everywhere.

Regarding the recent pre-synodal gathering here, one thoughtful writer said that its format was “a classic consulting ‘stakeholder feedback’” session. With my ignorance of the business world, I have no idea of what that means except that it is apparently a decidedly secular way for the Church to be doing its ‘business.’ In my unhumble opinion, I think the Church should be distinctively churchly and have that proverbially Christian ‘saltiness’ in its manner of operating. In other words, perhaps the very way the Synod is being prepared and plans to function is already indicative of the very problem it seeks to edress: the invasion of secularity in the ways of the Church.

I heard that many of our people expressed their content with our parish and their appreciation for its priests. They also aired their dissatisfaction with parishes from which they departed. The dangling question however remains, What good will this input accomplish? When all gets sifted through the “process,” what will be left of our people’s comments and suggestions which are meant, as I understand it, to be of service to the Archbishop? My near cynical reaction is that our participation will have been for naught. Yet, grace has the potency to elevate weakened human nature, and so a spiritually deflated (but not depleted) diocese can be rejuvenated by divine helps that exceed all human efforts.

I close with two fanciful proposals of my own for evangelization in the Archdiocese. I would ask every priest to make a voluntary pledge in writing to the Archbishop to bolster his priestly life by avoiding secular ways and entertainments and by implementing spiritual exercises that are characteristically priestly (daily rosary, holy hours, daily meditation in silence, spiritual reading, regular confession, etc.); and I’d ask every priest voluntarily to consecrate his parish to the Immaculate Heart of Mary at every Mass on a given weekend. These two things are as simple, concrete, and extremely doable as they are also highly unlikely of ever being considered for the diocesan Synod. Thus I rest my case on relative disvalue of the enterprise of renewal of the diocese through the Synodal process.

Fr. Perrone

The odds of the Old Evangelization today: What alternatives are there?

This is iconic. The Christian Faith represented by a stalwart fellow with a good heart made to look like a hopeless old geezer, mocked and ridiculed by Muslims who would rather scoff at him than behead him.

What would the New Evangelization propose as an alternative? Dialogue? Friendship evangelism? Pre-evangelism? Like what?

God bless this old fellow. At least he spoke what he could of the truth. For the record, St. Francis had about as much luck in his jaunt into Muslim lands.

A well-written, humble, inspiring book

I just finished reading this book with our daughter. J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, it's not. But it has every bit the adventure of my mother's stories about her life as a missionary in China, to which she travelled alone by freighter to Hong Kong, making her way inland to Chendgu, Sichuan, where she served as a medical mission nurse until my father arrived, they were married, they tried to stay after the Maoist revolution and after I came crashing into their lives. Perhaps this disposed me empathetically to the story about Sr. Theophane in Selfless.


From the publisher:

Selfless is the story of Sister Theophane, a passionate, driven nun dedicated to serving the poor around the world.

Discover the inspiring story of how a precocious young girl from upstate New York became a servant and apostle to the poor in the jungle missions of Papua New Guinea, and, eventually, a prisoner of the Japanese in World War II.

Selfless: The Story of Sr. Theophane's Missionary Life in the Jungles of Papua New Guinea was written in 1946 by a fellow sister of the Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters [Sr. Immolata Reida, SSpS], but it is just now being published for the first time.

Long held in anonymity, Sr. Theophane's amazing life of service and apostolic zeal is now finally being revealed to the world. Her story is a breathtaking tale that will inspire a new generation of Catholics to heed the call of service to Christ and others.

Our daughter was touched by Theophane's love of animals from when she was a child, through her horse-riding adventures in the mountain passes of Papua New Guinea. I was touched by her quiet heroism, her unflagging selfless zeal, and her untimely death as a casualty of the Pacific War (WWII). The ending is particularly moving, if you follow the threat of hear life throughout the whole narrative.

Pray for a renewal of the missionary spirit among Catholic women religious. Lord knows we need it.

When did the Church learn to evangelize? After Vatican II?

One of the more persistent annoyances in the contemporary Catholic world is the proud declaration that now we finally know that we’re supposed to evangelize and go forth and go out and not sit smugly inside the church walls! Finally!

Thus begins a recent post by Amy Welborn, who, in the context of discussing a book called The Blind Sisters of St. Paul, nails to the wall one of our own pet peeves of this era of the "New Evangelization" ... She continues:

It’s not all the fault of the Francis Moment. Since the Second Vatican Council, that idea: that the pre-Vatican II Church was closed-off, and we’re all about the openness, energy and evangelization now – exists in the Catholic Atmosphere somewhere between assumption and dogma.

But how odd, then, that when we dig out examples to inspire us in our current efforts to take the Gospel into the world, to be energetic and creative and engaged, we tell each other that we need to be more like…

Francis de Sales!

Catherine of Siena!

Frederic Ozanam!

Maximilian Kolbe!

Alphonsus Liguori!

Francis of Assisi!

Dominic!

or today’s saint: Blessed Marie-Rose Durocher!

Who all, it seems, managed to understand Jesus’ call pretty well, despite having to live rigidly with access only to the ©TLM.

Just think what they could have accomplished with more freedom and the right to actively participate!

Guy Noir, who sent us this linked article, highlighted Wellborn's frank observation:

(My take has always been that what Vatican II unleashed, even as it was called in order to enable the Church to offer the Gospel to the world with more vigor and understanding, was mostly decades and decades of self-involved naval-gazing and infighting as the energy to go out was redirected into endless meetings trying to figure out new structures and mission statements and what we’re all about and for, a massive waste of time and misdirection that we’re seeing reach its natural climax in #Synod15.)

Whether you wish to take that cum grano salis (or not), I think you will agree that there are a growing number of pretty frustrated people out there. God bless! -- Catholic and enjoying it, +PP

How the plain man (or woman) sees it

Andrée Seu Peterson, "Fast-tracking annulments" (World, September 9, 2015):

Having absolved women for terminating unwanted pregnancies, Pope Francis yesterday announced the widening of absolution for couples terminating unwanted marriages. The instrument of this convenience, called an “annulment,” is the most bizarre invention since the Middle Ages practice of selling of indulgences. Annulment means, in a word, that the marriage never happened.

Why get a divorce when you can get an annulment? Why live with the shame of a failed union when for $800 you can buy a clean scorecard showing a union that never existed? Tuesday’s motu proprio papal initiative (much like an Obama executive order) waves all but small administrative fees while streamlining and expediting the burdensome procedure that previously required two tribunals to cosign.

All this reminds me of a movie I saw long ago about gypsies. In one scene, an attractive gypsy woman undergoes her annual rite to become a virgin de nouveau. She has been promiscuous all year but the ceremony purifies her, and afterward her relatives exclaim in joy, “Maria is a virgin again! Life is good!”

Before the pope announced his new annulment rules yesterday, a significant percentage of people who would begin the process didn’t follow through with it. This is partly because of the onerous expense and partly because of the lengthy questionnaire requiring one to find fault with one’s spouse in order to prove the marriage was flawed from the start. But, of course, all this folderol will be remedied by Tuesday’s papal decree. Especially the reduction of the questionnaire is all to the good, I’d say. After all, the act of rehashing your spouse’s faults on paper sounds to me like adding the sin of slander to the sin of splitting. 

Now, granted, this article is by a Protestant and full of a multitude of misunderstandings.  But honestly ask yourself: is it any wonder?  Has anything said and done by our church leaders in recent years helped to made it easier, for example, for those of us who are converts to explain all this to our evangelical brethren?  

[Hat tip to JM]

A review article by Thomas Storck: "Liturgy that Speaks to the Soul"

Review article by Thomas Storck
 
Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis: Sacred Liturgy, the Traditional Latin Mass, and Renewal in the Church.  By Peter Kwasniewski. Angelico Press. 212 pages. $16.95. 

Peter Kwasniewski, a professor of philosophy and theology at Wyoming Catholic College, has written a wide-ranging book consisting of articles, most of which originally appeared in The Latin Mass magazine, that pin the many problems in the Catholic Church today — indeed, over the past fifty years — on the state of the liturgy. In question here is the Mass of the Latin Church, or Roman rite, whose ancient liturgy was replaced in 1970 with a “new order of Mass,” or Novus Ordo Missae, which has weakened or even destroyed the sacred atmosphere or ethos that was long associated with Catholic worship.

At the beginning of his book, Kwasniewski accurately sums up the current situation in the Church. “Since the Second Vatican Council,” he writes, “the Roman Catholic Church has experienced an unprecedented crisis in her very identity, extending even to her hitherto impregnable sacred doctrine and spirituality, her apostolic and missionary activity.” Everyone reading this is, no doubt, aware that not only are the majority of Catholics today poorly catechized, but a large number who are better instructed — clergy, for example, or academics — think nothing of rejecting important aspects of the sacred inheritance of doctrine received from our Lord Himself and His Apostles, while the bishops, appointed guardians of their flocks, do little or nothing about it. Many have blamed this sorry state of affairs chiefly on the new Mass introduced by Bl. Pope Paul VI, especially as it is typically celebrated at ordinary parishes. In order to explain the deleterious effects the change in the Mass has produced, or at least contributed to, commentators have tended to use two types of arguments, and Kwasniewski does likewise.

In the first place, Kwasniewski concentrates on the actual text of the Novus Ordo, pointing out that its wording is poorer theologically than that codified by Pope St. Pius V in the sixteenth century. When one compares, for example, the Offertory prayers of the Mass of Paul VI (the ordinary form), with those of the Mass of Pius V (the extraordinary form), one is struck by the theological depth of the latter. Since it is rare for a priest who celebrates the Novus Ordo to use the traditional Roman Canon (Canon I), even the Eucharistic Prayer has suffered a definite diminution in its presentation of the mysteries of the faith. Although this loss is certainly real, arguments of this type can be overdrawn, for the theological richness of the extraordinary form is contained in prayers said or sung in Latin, a language no longer understood by most of the congregation. Moreover, the congregation does not even hear some of the prayers in the Latin Mass (notably the Offertory and Canon) since the celebrant prays them in a low voice. Although most of those who attend the extraordinary form of the Roman rite probably use a missal, and thus can profit from this theological richness, was this true before the Council when this Mass was normative throughout the Latin Church? I do not know, but we cannot simply assume that what obtains at the present among the admittedly small number of traditional Latin Mass devotees was the norm for the entire Church in an earlier era.

Kwasniewski employs a second common line of criticism of the Novus Ordo that is by far stronger. James Hitchcock, in his 1974 book The Recovery of the Sacred, summed up this argument: “In the actual life of the Church, most sacred symbols are not understood by most believers in an explicit, intellectual way, but are nonetheless apprehended as having meaning…. The total effect of these symbols is to sustain a strong belief in God, even though specific symbols may not always convey specific religious meanings.”

The atmosphere of the Latin Mass, especially a sung Mass, is entirely different from that of the typical Novus Ordo Mass. The former bespeaks a sacred action, something focused on another world, and seems to bring something from that other world into ours now, as indeed actually occurs in the eucharistic sacrifice. But the new Mass at best struggles to retain some of that sacred atmosphere, and at worst has descended into a sort of religious banality. Kwasniewski is well aware of this. “If the liturgy cannot immediately show something meaningful to a wide-eyed child, then it has failed,” he writes. “The bowing priest reciting the Confiteor, the acolyte swinging a censer, the subdeacon, deacon and priest aligned hierarchically during solemn Mass, the awesome stillness of the Roman Canon — all these things speak directly to the heart, to the heart even of a little child…. The Novus Ordo liturgy has little to say to such souls because it only says, it does not do.”

More than once Kwasniewski hits on what he calls the “never-ending verbiage” of the Novus Ordo.

Fr. Perrone on Pentecost, the interior work of the Spirit, and Archbishop Vigneron's prayer request

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" [temporary link] (Assumption Grotto News, May 24, 2015): 

The ‘fiftieth day’ is the meaning of Pentecost, the countdown for which began at Easter. This feast bears a relation to the day of Christ’s resurrection somewhat in the way that Epiphany bears to Christmas. The light that shone from the risen Savior’s body on Easter falls today upon Christ’s mystical body, that is, upon His Church. Easter was the day for catechumens to receive the sacrament of Baptism; today is the day that marked the coming of the Holy Spirit given in Confirmation. 

It is commonly said that Pentecost is the birthday of the Church. Our Lord promised that we would not be orphaned after His ascension because He would send the Holy Spirit to carry on His work in the Church. He would be the ‘soul’ of that body in the sense that He would give it life, both in its corporate totality as well as in the individuality of each member of the Church. Without the coming of the Holy Spirit sanctity cannot be possible, nor would the actions of the Church have any effectiveness. This means that sins would not be forgiven in confession and absolution without the Holy Spirit since our Lord breathed Him upon the apostles that they might have the power to forgive men’s sins. It means that the grace of preaching God’s word would not have its penetrating power to touch men’s souls for their conversion (an actual grace) unless the Holy Spirit would speak through the words of those preaching the truth of Christ. It also means that the Mass would be a powerless ceremony unless the Spirit would effect the change from bread and wine into the Lord’s body and blood in the sacrificial act of the Mass. 

The prayer of the Church on this day is that the Holy Spirit fill the hearts of the faithful. The idea here is a plenitude of grace, a perfecting of divine life. The Holy Ghost stirs up grace and activates His gifts in us to move us on towards the fullness of sanctity. (Note that His gifts are given to every Christian and are not the exclusive reserve of certain frantic enthusiasts who claim to have received specialized powers from Him.) 

I also call your attention to the presence of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Pentecost day since it was not by chance that She was in the company of the apostles. The first descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Virgin Mary resulted in the incarnation of Christ, that is, in the Son of God taking on human flesh through Her. In this second descent of Pentecost She is there again, this time as the Mother of the Church, Her Son’s mystical body. It is a new fertility of the Holy Spirit which gives this birth to the Church; notice how it, like the incarnation, also involves Holy Mary. 

We need to be discerning of the interior manner of the Holy Spirit’s working in our souls, and not be caught up, let alone confused, by the hype that’s often attributed to the Holy Spirit whose very name–Spirit, Ghost–indicates His invisibility. The outward signs of His coming on Pentecost–the wind, the tongues of flame, the gift of languages–are only indicators of His invisible presence. His operation in us, though divinely potent, is aptly expressed in peacefulness and quiet, mildness, humility, chastity and in charity. This, again, is quite other than the hoopla often attributed to Him nowadays. The infused gifts of the Holy Spirit received at baptism and confirmation will lead us to the height of sanctity unless we should impede their operation (which, alas, we may do all too often on account of our sins). 

Archbishop Vigneron has asked us to pray with him for the work of evangelization in the archdiocese. We need to pray that there will be souls converted to the faith of Christ in all its fullness. This is not the mere work of men’s talking, but of God. It’s not really a “new Pentecost” that is needed but the original one extended in our day. Let us ask Holy Mary to join us in prayer for this work of growth to the body of Christ’s Church of which She is the Mother.

Fr. Perrone

 

On disadvantages of the Novus Ordo Mass in Africa

Joseph Shaw, "The Extraordinary Form and Sub-Saharan Africa" (Position Paper No. 25) (Fœderatio Internationalis Una Voce, April, 2015), via Rorate Caeli:

Catholics of the older generation often tell me that at the time of the introduction of the reformed liturgy, it was frequently justified as being necessary for 'the missions'. This paper points to a number of difficulties with the idea that the reformed liturgy is particularly suited to Africa.

Shaw also addresses the problem of inculturation on his own blog in a post entitled, "The Traditional Mass and Africa" (LMS Chairman, April 25, 2015):

[O]bviously, the Novus Ordo is bound to be more suited to the cultural conditions of Africa... right?

Wrong. The reality is that, unfortunatly, the Novus Ordo looks very much like ... aspects of modern European culture which have been arriving in Africa since colonial times, which are not respectful of authentic African culture. Alongside Hollywood films and consumerism, the Novus Ordo reflects the passage through European thinking of Rationalism and Romanticism. Insofar as one can see it as a good response to the cultural situation of modern Europe - and this is presumably the idea - then its attempt to make Catholicism less shocking and uncomfortable for people who don't understand the concept of the supernatural and instinctively reject the idea of tradition, it is addressing a situation totally removed from the situation in Africa. For most African Catholics, it is an answer to a question which is not being asked....

What the Church needs, in fact, is a form of worship which is clearly not pagan, but which still answers the spiritual needs of people who feel the pull of paganism. A liturgy which creates a sense of the sacred, of entering into the mysterium tremendum. What can too easily happen is just the opposite: a 'banal on-the-spot-product' (as Pope Benedict described it) with pagan ceremonies inserted into it at intervals, as we have all seen with Papal liturgies. African Catholics could be forgiven for thinking, in a liturgy like that, that it is the pagan stuff which is powerful, which connects with the transcendant, with the spirit world, and not the Christian stuff. That, obviously, is a disaster, even leaving aside the whole question of liturgical abuses.

What I would like to emphasise finally is that, however narrow-minded some of the missionary priests of old might have been (and by no means all of them were narrow-minded), having a totally Catholic but spiritually impressive liturgy like the Traditional Mass can today give priests and people the confidence to incorporate African customs into the life of the Church, without exposing themselves to the polemics of the Evangelicals or to any kind of syncretism. It is a great sadness that Africans should feel they have the abandon their indiginous names, music, or art, in order to become Christian: this is something Pope Paul VI spoke firmly against in 1967: 'an African man, when initiated into the Christian religion, is by no means forced to repudiate himself'. Cultural self-repudiation has never been the Church's demand of converts. The Traditional Mass is not part of the problem with inculturation, but part of the solution.

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The Una Voce Position Paper (first referenced above) is actually the much more substantial article of the two, so please don't neglect to read it, if the subject interests you.

One recalls the massive success in Africa of the Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, from 1932 until he ran afoul of Rome after Vatican II.


In 1948 he was appointed by Pope Pius XII as his Apostolic Delegate of Dakar, he oversaw the Catholic Church in 18 African countries. By 1959, his territory of apostolic work had expanded to 12 archdioceses, 36 dioceses, and 13 Italian Apostolic Prefectures including Morrocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Mali, Central African Republic, Senegal, Guinea, The Gambia, Cote d'Ivorie, Benin, Togo, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Madagascar, Le Reunion. One can find more on his testimony of the Catholic Faith's effect in Africa here [disclaimer: Rules 7-9]; and all of this took place well before the advent of the Novus Ordo in 1970.

"Nightcrawler: my favorite Catholic super hero"

Charmaine Wagner, "The Amazing Catholic Nightcrawler!" (Skeeoh, August 25, 2013), writes: "Kurt Wagner A.K.A Nightcrawler is not only my favorite super heroes in general, he is also my favorite Catholic super hero. Here are some of his awesome quotes":

“We are alike, you and I — angry at the world. My pain drives me to seek God, yours drove you away. Our ability to understand God’s purposes is limited, but take comfort in the fact that His love is limitless.”- Nightcrawler to Wolverine

Read more >> ... and have a look at this revealing clip, if you're interested:

Question: What will the "New Evangelization" yield?

The question comes to us from the undercover correspondent we keep on retainer, Guy Noir - Private Eye, who asks, even more starkly: "Will the 'New Evangelism" ever produce recognizable faith?"

That may sound a bit bleak, given the fact that a fairly large swath will likely be claimed for the "New Evangelizaton," which includes the likes of the significant numbers of those who would attest that their lives have been impacted in a positive way by what is largely termed the "renewal" of the last few decades (happening places like Steubenville, for example).

But I'm not sure that's exactly what Noir has in mind. I'm guessing that he's thinking of the virtual collapse of Catholic overseas missions since the mid-20th century and erosion of the zeal that animated those efforts since the early years of the Church right down through St. Francis Xavier's time -- namely, the conviction that the unevangelized in all probability cannot be saved apart from the Gospel. Here's what Noir was thinking about: David G. Bonagura, Jr.'s article, "Can Faith Survive in the 'first world'?" (The Catholic Thing, March 22, 2015). Excerpts:

... history shows that Catholics have had massive success evangelizing whole peoples when they were compelled by two deeply held beliefs: a profound love of Christ to the point of martyrdom, and an understanding that those they encounter cannot be saved unless they accept the Gospel.

Our Lord promised that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church, but that was not a guarantee to keep souls within her. A distressing number of first world residents have heard of the Gospel [heard hear suggests understood, gotten it] but have not listened to it.

Noir comments: "This is rather shocking in how it makes quiet assertions seemingly oblivious to the example of reigning clerics who seem to deny them by pastoral example. The bolded lines, what leaders even believe these things?"

Hard words.

This also reminds me of what John Lamont wrote (New Blackfriars, Vol. 88, 2007) concerning a missing element in Vatican II:

The trouble with the Council's approach to mission is that although it stresses that Catholics must seek to convert unbelievers, it gives no adequate reason for doing this. It does give Christ's command to evangelize as a reason, but it gives no proper explanation of why that command is given, or of the good that the commandment is supposed to promote. This, of course, means that the command is unlikely to be followed; and it has in fact been largely disregarded since the Council.

In other words, Lamont writes: "[The Council] made no reference at all to unbelief rendering salvation doubtful." Or, in still other words: completely missing was a sense of urgency about the possible damnation of the unevangelized.

Again, hard words. Do we still believe them?