"Does the USCCB letter on ad orientem establish a virtual 'indult' regime?"

Rorate reports: "Over the weekend, the liturgical website Corpus Christi Watershed posted the following letter from the USCCB's Committee on Divine Worship regarding the recent discussions on the celebration of the Novus Ordo ad orientem."


Rorate concludes: "At the same time we have the happy duty of pointing out that the easiest way right now to celebrate Mass ad orientem is by celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass. "

Seventh Anniversary of Summórum Pontíficum

"I will go in unto the Altar of God
To God, Who giveth joy to my youth"
Tridentine Community News (September 14, 2014):

Today is the seventh anniversary of the effective date of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio, Summórum Pontíficum, which freed any priest to celebrate the Extraordinary Form of Holy Mass without requiring his bishop’s permission. The surge in availability of the Tridentine Mass following this legislation is testimony to the need that it fulfilled.


Summórum has also had a cascading effect on surrounding issues, such as the resurgence of interest in Gregorian Chant, chanting the Propers of the Mass in the Ordinary Form, quality of sacred vestments, and the architecture of new and renovated churches.

Kindly include our retired Holy Father in your prayers. He remains supportive of the Extraordinary Form, as evidenced by his recent visit with leaders of Juventútem and the annual October Summórum Pontíficum Pilgrimage to Rome.

Liturgical Conference in Chicago


St. John Cantius Church in Chicago will be hosting a three day conference on the Sacred Liturgy Friday-Sunday, October 3-5, with an emphasis on the Extraordinary Form. Details and registration information are available at:

http://www.cantius.org/go/events/detail/sacred_liturgy_conference_with_fr._john_zuhlsdorf/

USCCB Revises Its Position on Kneeling for Holy Communion

An interesting discovery was made this week by Corpus Christi Watershed’s Jeff Ostrowski. In 2012, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops quietly revised its earlier policy which stated that standing was the normative posture for reception of Holy Communion in the United States, and that members of the faithful who preferred to kneel were to be “catechized” about the norms. Since those words were published in 2003, the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship has responded to numerous queries about this norm, always supporting the right of the faithful to receive the Sacrament in the traditional posture of kneeling. The USCCB ultimately changed its norm, as explained in the January, 2012 USCCB Newsletter of the Committee on Divine Worship: “In the current edition [of the General Instruction for the Roman Missal], the exhortation to catechesis is removed and the exception to the norm of standing is left to the discretion of the faithful: ‘unless an individual member of the faithful wishes to receive Communion while kneeling.’”

Many parishes in North America are adding Communion Rails and/or restoring the practice of kneeling to receive Holy Communion. Locally, Mother of Divine Mercy Parish will now be distributing at the rail at all Masses, Ordinary and Extraordinary Form, at all three of its churches, St. Josaphat, St. Joseph, and Sweetest Heart of Mary. Other parishes already so doing include Old St. Mary’s, Holy Family, and Assumption Grotto in Detroit, Ss. Cyril & Methodius in Sterling Heights, and St. Edward on the Lake in Lakeport.

Weekday Tridentine Masses to Remain at St. Joseph

The Facebook page for St. Joseph Church reports that while Sunday Tridentine Masses have returned to St. Josaphat Church, Monday and First Friday Tridentine Masses will remain at St. Joseph Church.

Cáveat emptor: The September 7 Mother of Divine Mercy Parish Bulletin reports that Monday Masses are also moving to St. Josaphat, though nothing has yet been said about First Fridays. We believe the Facebook information is correct, however.

Ss. Cyril & Methodius Tridentine Masses to End

Ss. Cyril & Methodius Church in Sterling Heights will be ending their weekly Saturday 6:00 PM Tridentine Mass at some point in October. Celebrant availability challenges are the reason.

Finding celebrants for our local Extraordinary Form Masses is the single biggest challenge we face. The priest shortage makes it difficult for even those priests who want to help us to find time to do so. All the more reason for all of us to pray and work for vocations to the sacred priesthood.

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

• Mon. 09/15 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Joseph (Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary)
• Tue. 09/16 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Benedict/Assumption-Windsor (Ss. Cornelius, Pope & Cyprian, Martyrs)
• Sat. 09/20 8:00 AM: Low Mass at Our Lady of the Scapular, Wyandotte (St. Eustache & Companions, Martyrs)

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Albertus (Detroit), Academy of the Sacred Heart (Bloomfield Hills), and Assumption (Windsor) bulletin inserts for September 14, 2014. Hat tip to A.B., author of the column.]

Why Texas matters: Obama, the US bishops, & the Mexican border crisis

Catholic Campaign for Human Development: Enough already

February 11, 2010 - RCN Coaltion Press Release: CATHOLIC COALITION PETITIONS BISHOPS TO END PRO-ABORTION GRANTS

Catholic Advocate - Is it Time for a Catholic Tea Party?

February 10, 2010 - LifeSiteNews - Bishop Vasa Cautiously Concerned Over USCCB Membership in Pro-Abortion Coalition

Renew America - At War with the USCCB II: the Followup

February 9, 2010 - National Catholic Register - USCCB Still Refuses to Comment on Carr Allegations

Renew America (Matt Abbott) - At War with the USCCB

February 8, 2010 - Inside Catholic - Why Did the USCCB Join this Civil Rights Organization?

February 5, 2010 - LifeSiteNews - CCHD Scandal Picks up Steam as Bishops React

February 3, 2010

Town Hall (Brent Bozell) - A New Abortion Scandal (also at Human Events)

OneNewsNow - Bishops' Contrary Ties Come to Light

The American Thinker - Top Exec with Conference of Catholic Bishops Has Conflict of Interest

LifeSiteNews - U.S. Bishops' Media Director Who Exonerated Exec Admits to Not Reading Key Report

February 2, 2010

ALL Press Release - USCCB Exec John Carr Fails to Address Findings in Report on Pro-Abortion, Gay Marriage Group

Inside Catholic (Deal Hudson) - More Disturbing News About the CCHD

Catholic News Agency - CCHD clarifies connection to activist network that opposed Stupak Amendment

LifeSiteNews - U.S. Bishops' Exec Responds to Charges of Cooperation with Pro-Abortion, Homosexualist Group

Spero Forum (Stephanie Block) - The Scandal of John Carr and the USCCB

Spero Forum (Mary Ann Kreitzer) - Catholic Bishops and Abortion: Connecting the Dots

February 1, 2010 -

LifeSiteNews - U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Exec Chaired Pro-Abortion, LGBT Rights Group

LifeNews - Pro-Life Group Says Catholic Bishops' Official Had Post in Pro-Abortion Group

Patrick Madrid - "A systemic pattern of cooperation with evil"

Inside Catholic - More Evidence that the USCCB Supports Pro-Abortion Groups

Catholic Advocate (Matt Smith) - A Case of Cafeteria Catholicism at the Bishops' Conference

Catholic Advocate (Press Release) - Bishops Must Immediately Suspend All Grants from Catholic Campaign for Human Development Program

Our Sunday Visitor - John Carr Responds to "Unfair Criticism"

January 11, 2010 - Inside Catholic (Deal Hudson) - Catholic Campaign for Human Development Still Funding Abortion Promoter

January 5, 2010 - LifeSiteNews - San Francisco Archdiocese Reinvestigates, Approves Pro-Abortion CCHD Grantee

November 30, 2009 - LifeSiteNews - Sixth Bishop Didn't Take Up CCHD Collection

November 25, 2009 - LifeSiteNews - Three More Bishops Look for CCHD Reform

November 25, 2009 - LifeSiteNews - Fifth Bishop Didn't Take Up National CCHD Collection

November 23, 2009 - LifeSiteNews - Four Bishops Did Not Take Up Collection for Embattled CCHD

November 24, 2009 - LifeSiteNews - Bishop Bruskewitz on CCHD: Bishop Morin Was a "Bit Too Dismissive" of Concerns

November 20, 2009 - Catholic News Agency - Archbishops Nienstedt and Chaput Defend CCHD as Criticisms Continue

November 20, 2009 - Spero Forum - Lay Catholic Coalition Scores Bishops on CCHD

November 20, 2009 - LifeSiteNews - CCHD in Archdiocese of Chicago Says it is Working to Solve Problems

November 19, 2009 - Catholic Exchange - A Time to be Heard

November 19, 2009 - The Washington Post - Conning the Conservatives

November 19, 2009 - Inside Catholic - CCHD Responds to its Critics, Chicago Responds to its Own

November 17, 2009 - Pewsitter.com - CCHD Funding Debacle Continues to Grow

November 17, 2009 - Catholic News Agency - Coalition Calls for Reform of CCHD as Annual Collection Nears

November 17, 2009 - Catholic News Service - Bishops: No CCHD Funds Go to Groups That Oppose Catholic Teaching

November 17, 2009 - LifeSiteNews - CCHD Responds to Reform Movement

November 17, 2009 - LifeSiteNews - Chicago CCHD Accuses Critics of "Partisan Politics", "Deceit", and "Hate"

November 16, 2009 - ALL Press Release: CCHD Scandal Continues

November 13, 2009 - RenewAmerica.com - Church Officials, Critics Clash Over Catholic Campaign for Human Development

November 12, 2009 - Spero Forum - Money Laundering and the CCHD

October 26, 2009 - Human Events - Leftwing Radicalism in the Church: CCHD and ACORN

October 21, 2008 - National Catholic Register - ACORN's Collection Plate Money

October 15, 2009 - Wall Street Journal - HealthCare Reform and the President's Faithful Helpers

September 23, 2009 - LifeNews.com - Catholic Campaign for Human Development Criticized, Funded Pro-Abortion Groups

September 22, 2009 - LifeSiteNews.com - USCCB's Social Justice Arm Caught Funding Pro-Abortion/Prostitution Groups: Takes "Decisive" Action in Response

September 2009 - Capital Research - Leftwing Radicalism in the Church

Bellarmine Veritas Ministry - National Campaign: Addressing the CCHD

Homosexualism, Californication & the bishops

Bishops of Los Angeles recently responded to controversy over Church’s support of Proposition 8, by issuing a letter, "A Pastoral Message to Homosexual Catholics" (The Tidings, December 5, 2008), bending over backwards to reassure homosexuals of their place in the Church.

A reader and correspondent wrote in to observe:

... while I don't think we can possibly appreciate the pressure of the gay culture in L.A. or the frog-in-water effect it has on our clergy, and so should be careful how irked we get at them [they did support Prop 8, after all], still, the second piece [see below] sort of shames them in its straightforwardness, and its last three words really say it all.

Our correspondent was referring to the article co-authored by Joseph Bottom, John Mark Reynolds and Bruce D. Porter, entitled "No Case for Homosexuality in Bible" (On Faith, WashingtonPost.com & Newsweek, December 15, 2008), responding to articles by Lisa Miller and Jon Meacham in the latest issue of Newsweek. Note the last three words: "Honest people repent." Better yet, read the whole article:

In the latest issue of Newsweek, editor Jon Meacham explains: "To argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt--it is unserious, and unworthy of the great Judeo-Christian tradition." Indeed, he continues, "this conservative resort to biblical authority is the worst kind of fundamentalism." Curiously, he intends this as a defense of Lisa Miller's cover story, which announces that we should approve homosexual marriage because the Bible tells that Jesus would want us to.

On any plane of argument, the contradiction would appear stunning, but, then, neither Jon Meacham nor Lisa Miller are engaged in argument. They're speaking, instead, in familiar tropes and fused-phrases and easy clichés. They're trying to convey a feeling, really, rather than an argument: Jesus loves us, love is good, homosexuals love one another, marriage is love, love is loving--a sort of warm bath of words, their meanings dissolved into a gentle goo. In their eyes, all nice things must be nice together, and Jesus comes to seem (as J.D. Salinger once mocked) something like St. Francis of Assisi and "Heidi's grandfather" all in one.

In truth, of course, Meacham and Miller actually know what everyone else knows: The Bible offers no support for homosexual marriage. Christianity teaches love, mercy, and forgiveness for those who do bad things, true enough. Look, for example, at the story in the Gospel of John where Jesus offers his divine love, mercy, and forgiveness to a woman guilty of adultery. He shamed those who would stone her. He taught us all that we are sinners and often hypocrites. And then he told her, "Go and sin no more." He did not reinterpret the Old Testament to proclaim adultery another life-style choice.

Miller demolishes the distinction between sin and sinner, thus eradicating any real conception of sin and guilt. But without sin and guilt there is no need for forgiveness--and no basis for morality. An amoral world may be a quite suitable environment for gay marriage, but it is hardly the kind of world in which most Americans want to bring up their children.

Those who tried to live by the Christian understanding have come to amazingly similar conclusions about what God wants in marriage. We have had centuries to try out many different ideas and test them against the text of the Bible and experience. Only traditional marriage has stood. The Orthodox of Russia came to the same conclusion as the Roman Catholics of Italy. The Pentecostals of Kenya came to the same conclusion as the Reformed Christians of Scotland. Over time, different accommodations have been made to extreme or difficult situations, but the ideal has been clear: God's will is for marriage to be a covenant between a man and a woman. Nothing else will work.

The case for gay marriage in the Bible depends on the trick of taking a single idea and insisting that anything in the book that disagrees with it must miss the "spirit of the book." Do not underestimate how comforting this method of reading is. It allows us to pick up any text and discover that it agrees with our own insights. Of course, it also traps us in our assumptions and prevents any different voice from being heard. Reject the Bible, if you will--but don't pretend it means just what you want it to mean. The plain fact is that when the Old Testament talks about homosexual behavior, it condemns it. And when, in the New Testament, the followers of Jesus encountered homosexual acts, they quickly and universally condemned them.

Proponents of homosexual marriage suggest that the Bible has been twisted to support many dubious moral positions, which is true enough--and the metaphor most often used in this context is race. Didn't some Bible readers once condone negro slavery? Well, some Bible readers today object to same-sex marriage.

The comparison is facile and self-congratulatory. As the vote in California this November revealed, it is overwhelmingly rejected by African-Americans, who are, after all, the ones who should know. For that matter, the racial epithets hurled at African-Americans in California after the election suggests that gay activists aren't serious about the comparison, anyway. It is, for them, merely a handy stick with which to beat those Newsweek dismisses as fundamentalists.

And yet, there is a comparison to be made between advocacy of African slavery and same-sex marriage--though it works the other way around. Christian slave owners had to read race-based slavery into the Bible, and their arguments resemble in form all the other attempts--ancient and modern--to read into scripture what they wanted to find there.

Suppose we were to take the Bible seriously--where it agrees with us, and where it doesn't. We might do this not merely because the Bible asserts that God inspired it. Rather, over centuries, against critics who have used arguments and torture against Bible believers, we have developed reasons for our knowledge that the Bible is God's word. Through the long years, the Bible has been found to describe the human condition with force and accuracy: We will die, we are sinners, we exist in a world we did not make, we live through both joys and sorrows, we must train our children to carry on the work of this world, and we sense from time to time a higher reality beyond ourselves. Further, the Bible points us to the person of Jesus Christ, whom the practical experience of millions has found the best and highest hope of an answer to the human condition.

One thing the Bible never suggests is that the world must work the way we desire it to. Jesus loves us enough not to let us do whatever we want. Every generation attacks biblical ethics in some new way, but the Bible endures. Hypocrites pretend they have no sin. Hedonists pretend their sins are good. Honest people repent.

Joseph Bottum is editor of First Things: A Journal of Religion, Culture and Public Life. John Mark Reynolds, an evangelical, is associate professor of philosophy at Biola University. Bruce D. Porter is a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Which again calls to mind Peter Kreeft's proverbial maxim that there are, in the final analysis, two kinds of people in the world: saints who know they are sinners, and sinners who think they are saints.

[Hat tip to J.M.]

The USCCB and Obama, the CHD and ACORN

A good article by Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, "Obama and the Bishops" (First Things, November 7, 2008):

In a few days, the American bishops of the Catholic Church will be holding their annual fall meeting in Baltimore. High on the agenda is how Catholic bishops can better communicate Catholic teaching on social justice both in the Church and in the public square. It is understood that the priority issue of social justice is the protection of innocent human life—from the entrance gates of life to the exit gates, and at every step along life’s way. The most massive and brutal violation of justice is the killing of millions of children in the womb.

In recent months, an unusually large number of bishops have been assertive, articulate, and even bold, in their public affirmation of the demands of moral reason and the Church’s teaching. Some estimate the number of such bishops to be over a hundred. Critics of these bishops, including Catholic fronts for the Obama campaign, claim that bishops have only spoken out because prominent Democrats stepped on their toes by egregiously misrepresenting Catholic teaching. Why only? It is the most particular duty of bishops to see that the authentic teaching of the Church is safeguarded and honestly communicated.

Not all bishops covered themselves with honor in the doing of their duty. Ignoring their further duty to protect the integrity of the Eucharist and defend against the faithful’s being led into confusion, temptation, and sin by skandolon, some bishops issued statements explaining why they had no intention of addressing the problem of public figures who claim they are Catholics in good standing despite their consistent rejection of the Church’s teaching on the defense of innocent human lives. Some such bishops took the position that publicly doing or saying anything that addressed that very public problem would be viewed as controversial, condemned as politically partisan, and misconstrued by those hostile to the Church. Therefore, they explained, they were doing and saying nothing except to say why they were doing and saying nothing. Such calculated timidity falls embarrassingly short of the apostolic zeal exemplified by the apostles whose successors the bishops are. Fortunately, these timorous shepherds seem to be in the minority among the bishops.

Others seem to have taken to heart in this Pauline Year the counsel of Paul to Timothy: “Fight the good fight . . . I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. As for you, always be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

After the election, some Catholics with itching ears who are manifestly embarrassed by the Church’s being out of step with the new world of “the change we’ve been waiting for” have gleefully pointed out that the assertiveness of the bishops had little political effect. In the presidential and other races, Catholics voted for pro-abortion candidates. So what? It is not the business of bishops to win political races. It is the business of bishops to defend and teach the faith, including the Church’s moral doctrine. One hopes they will keep that firmly in mind in their Baltimore meeting.

The reading for Mass on the day following the election was Philippians 2, in which St. Paul prays that the faithful “may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.” That is as pertinent now as it was in the first century, and will be until our Lord returns in glory. It is the business of bishops to help equip the faithful to let the splendor of moral truth shine through their life and witness as lights in the world. If, on occasion, that coincides with political success, it is to be viewed as an unexpected, albeit welcome, bonus. It is a grievous degradation of their pastoral office, as well as a political delusion, for bishops to see themselves as managers of the Catholic voting bloc.

Earlier this year, the bishops issued “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.” It was, as I wrote at the time, a fine statement in almost every respect. But its elaborate attention to nuance and painstaking distinctions made it a virtual invitation for the Catholic flaks of Obama to turn it upside down and inside out. The statement was regularly invoked to justify voting for the most extreme proponent of the unlimited abortion license in American presidential history.

That unintended invitation to distort, eagerly seized upon by those with a mind to do so, was especially evident in the statement’s treatment of a “proportionate” reason to support pro-abortion candidates. The bishops must do better next time. To be sure, any statement must be carefully reasoned, as Catholic moral theology is carefully reasoned. Yet an episcopal statement is not an invitation to an academic seminar but, above all, a call to faithfulness. The task is to offer a firm, unambiguous, and, as much as possible, a persuasive case on the basis of revelation and clear reason.

The events of these months have once again exposed deeper problems in the leadership of the bishops, although certainly not of the bishops alone. To cite an obvious instance, only 25 to 35 percent (depending on whose data you believe) of the 68 million Catholics in this country regularly attend Mass. That means that, except for a few bishops who have larger media access, bishops are being heard by only a minority of their people. Moreover, many parish pastors and priests are embarrassingly eager to avoid controversy, and others are openly disdainful of the Church’s teaching and/or its implications for public justice. Some bishops are tremulously intimidated by their presbyterates. Such bishops and priests need to read again, and with soul-searching prayer, Paul’s counsel to Timothy.

There are deeper problems. In the last four decades, following the pattern of American Protestantism, many, perhaps most, Catholics view the Church in terms of consumption rather than obligation. The Church is there to supply their spiritual needs as they define those needs, not to tell them what to believe or do. This runs very deep both sociologically and psychologically. It is part of the “success” of American Catholics in becoming just like everybody else. Bishops and all of us need to catch the vision of John Paul II that the Church imposes nothing, she only proposes. But what she proposes she believes is the truth, and because human beings are hard-wired for the truth, the truth imposes. And truth obliges.

It is not easy to communicate this understanding in our time, as it has not been easy in any time. In the twentieth century, the motto of the ecumenical movement was “Let the Church be the Church.” The motto was sometimes betrayed by that movement, but it should be courageously embraced by the bishops meeting in Baltimore. The bishops must set aside public relations and political calculations, and be prepared to surrender themselves anew to the task for which they were ordained, to uncompromisingly defend and communicate the faith once delivered to the saints.

Which brings me, finally, to another and related matter that will surely be discussed in Baltimore and deserves to be on the agenda. The Campaign for Human Development (CHD) is an annual collection in parishes, usually on one of the last two Sundays in November. It used to be called the Catholic Campaign for Human Development but the Catholic was dropped, which is just as well since it has nothing to do with Catholicism, except that Catholics are asked to pay for it. Some bishops no longer allow the CHD collection in their dioceses, and more should not allow it. In fact, CHD, misbegotten in concept and corrupt in practice, should, at long last, be terminated.

Ten years ago, CHD was exposed as using the Catholic Church as a milk cow to fund organizations that frequently were actively working against the Church’s mission, especially in their support of pro-abortion activities and politicians. Now it turns out that CHD has long been a major funder of ACORN, a national community agitation organization in support of leftist causes, including the abortion license. ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) is under criminal investigation in several states. In the last decade CHD gave ACORN well over seven million dollars, including more than a million in the past year. It is acknowledged that ACORN, with which Sen. Obama had a close connection over the years, was a major player in his presidential campaign. The bishops say they are investigating the connection between CHD and ACORN. They say they are worried that it might jeopardize the Church’s tax-exemption. No mention is made of abusing the trust of the Catholic faithful.

What most Catholics don’t know, and what would likely astonish them, is that CHD very explicitly does not fund Catholic institutions and apostolates that work with the poor. Part of the thinking when it was established in the ideological climate of the 1960s is that Catholic concern for the poor would not be perceived as credible if CHD funded Catholic organizations. Yes, that’s bizarre, but the history of CHD is bizarre. The bishops could really help poor people by promptly shutting down CHD and giving any remaining funds to, for instance, Catholic inner-city schools. In any event, if there is a collection at your parish this month, I suggest that you can return the envelope empty—and perhaps with a note of explanation—without the slightest moral hesitation.

After this week’s elections, we must brace ourselves for very difficult times, keeping in mind that difficult times can be bracing. As for the meeting of bishops next week: Let the Church be the Church, and let bishops be bishops.

[Hat tip to E.E.]

Obama, the Bishops, and AmChurch's sacramentalized pagans

A reader writes:

Sometimes a woman can slap a man in the face to make him come to his sense. Sometimes she leaves him. I am not sure just what is taking place right now, but posts like these [see below] are signs of that maybe, just maybe a little fog is lifting amidst the cultural erosion ...

He then quotes Mark Brumley's remarks in (Ignatius Insight Scoop, November 5, 2008):

Part of the problem is that while we now have some bishops willing to speak out in a clear and forceful fashion, we have a generation of churchgoing Catholics -- I'm talking about the churchgoers now, not the Catholics in name only -- who are clueless about their faith and who have little judgment about how to apply it to the world around them. They go along to get along. These are people who may not have been evangelized, and so they are sacramentalized pagans. These are people who have not been catechized so they are spiritual babies having to confront issues that require a mature faith.

We need to make the most of this situation and do what we can to change things. Bishops will have to step up the plate. Priests will, too. And religious. And lay leaders. It is going to take an honest appraisal of the problem. No more happy talk about the Church in the U.S. Yes, we have a priest shortage. You want to know why? Because we have a Christian shortage and a Catholic shortage among Catholics. That's the unvarnished truth. The baptized pagans who occupy so much pew space in our churches have to be converted to Christianity. The liberal-Protestantish Catholicism-lite that substitutes for Catholicism has to be converted to real Catholicism. The bishops have to stop kidding themselves. And they have to be willing to take on their brother bishops when they're part of the problem and they have to be willing to confront their clergy when they are part of the problem.

There is more to be said but this will do for now. Let's all look at our own situation and ask ourselves what needs to be done in our own lives. That may require prayer and sacrifice on our part. It may involve having to confront others--charitably and lovingly, of course. It should get us involved more, if we're not already, in parish life.

Then our correspondent refers to an article by Karen Hall, entitled "What An Obama Presidency Means to Catholics" (Some Have Hats, November 6, 2008), a title for which she gives credit to "A good article by Russell Shaw" (Our Sunday Visitor, November 16, 2008 issue). Hall begins by singling out a single sentence from Russell Shaw's article:

I'd like to shed some light on this particular statement:

For the Catholic Church, the election underlines serious questions about the bishops' ability to educate Catholic voters to the moral implications of political choices considered in light of Church teaching.

The bishops have spent decades sending us the clear message that Rome is a long way away and what the Church teaches hasn't mattered since Humanae Vitae. Now they are puzzled as to why Catholic voters were hard to educate about the Church's teaching on abortion? Note to bishops: first you have to educate the Catholic voters as to why they should care what the Church teaches on any subject. Then you have to educate Catholics (me, for instance) as to why you have the authority to throw politically incorrect passages out of the Bible and/or ignore them as you see fit.

The bishops don't have a tough job ahead of them. They have an impossible job. They cannot explain why the Pope is right about abortion but wrong about female altar servers. They cannot explain why one bishop can read us the riot act and another can march down the aisle behind the rainbow Jesus fish banner. They cannot explain why "good Catholic" has a different definition in every diocese. They cannot explain why the priest in my parish could spend last Sunday playing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" on his clarinet (during the homily) and then make up his own Mass, or why the deacon could get up one Sunday and explain to Caleb that his favorite miracle (the loaves and the fishes) did not really take place. (That was the homily on the Feast of Corpus Christi. Hmmm... what other miracle might not take place?)

The bishops have created a Church that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. There are as many answers to "what the Church teaches" as there are priests in my diocese. If I go for spiritual direction here or in Los Angeles, I will very likely be told what God really thinks, despite what the Pope might claim.

The bishops have created a situation so that, with the exception of the sacraments, I have no access to the Church. I can't send my child to a Catholic school because he will be taught that my friend Bob will come into his room at night and put his hands in Caleb's pajamas. (Yes, I could sign up for the "opt out" and buy the fairy tale that Caleb wouldn't ask his best friend, "What did you guys talk about when I had to leave the room?") I can't go to Mass without something setting my hair on fire week after week. I can't turn on my television without seeing the parade of famous pro-abortion Catholics who receive the occasional stern letter while the bishops continue to ignore Archbishop Burke and the Pope -- for reasons I absolutely cannot fathom -- continues to do nothing. Not even so much as to remove the three bishops who are leading the entire state of California into perdition. (One would think that the Pope would at least care about the souls of the bishops, if he doesn't care about the souls of my children.)

"What An Obama Presidency Means to Catholics" will be rough indeed. But Obama can't put a dent into what the bishops have done to Catholics, while the Church has done the equivalent of standing on the Titanic and yelling, "There's a big hole! A really big hole! The ship is taking on water! Bad things will happen if someone doesn't start bailing! Really, we mean it, we're telling the truth! Really really really!"

Really.

[Hat tip to J.M.]

USCCB: pro-life without quite being pro-life

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) approved a new document on November 14, 2007, to guide Catholic voters in the upcoming elections. Entitled "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States" [PDF], and -- with 43 pages containing 90 sections -- is as long and verbose as its title.

Dale Vree, commenting on the document back in February ("A Perplexing Political Potpourri," New Oxford Review, Feb., 2008), wrote: "As can be expected from a document approved by the full body of the USCCB -- liberals, moderates, and conservatives -- by a margin of 221-4, it runs all over the map, touches on myriad topics, and suffers from information overload -- no easy accomplishment in our information era." More to the point, he adds: "What makes this document so maddening is that it buries the burning political issues of the day under an avalanche of lesser considerations."

Again, in the current issue of NOR, Vree continues his observations ("Muddier Waters," NOR, May 2008):

One of the more peculiar aspects of that dense document is its suggestion that voting for pro-abortion candidates puts a Catholic's eternal salvation in jeopardy. In section 22, the document states, "Intrinsically evil actions ... must always be rejected and opposed and must never be supported or condoned. A prime example is the intentional taking of innocent human life, as in abortion...." Section 34 states, "A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil such as abortion." Section 37 states, "It is important to be clear that the political choices faced by citizens not only have an impact on general peace and prosperity but also may affect the individual's salvation." One can easily come to the conclusion that voting in favor of abortion places one's eternal salvation in jeopardy.

But then the document declares, "There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate's unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons" (#35). And, "The voter may decide...to vote for the candidate deemed less likely to advance such a morally flawed position" (#36). But isn't this the very cooperation with evil that would place one's salvation in jeopardy, especially if the "position" in question is abortion? The document neglects to provide an answer. Beyond the one mention, it is silent about how voting affects one's salvation.

Vree then relates how John L. Allen Jr., the well-known reporter for National Catholic Distorter, caught up with Wilton Gregory, Archbishop of Atlanta and former USCCB president, at the USCCB's annual Social Ministry Gathering in Washington, D.C., on February 26. Archbishop Gregory, he says, was good enough to take a moment to clarify this aspect of the USCCB document. According to Allen (National Catholic Distorter, Feb. 26), Archbishop Gregory "said that it was not the intent of the U.S. bishops in their recent 'Faithful Citizenship' document to suggest that Catholics who vote for a pro-choice candidate are automatically placing their salvation in jeopardy."

What?? Then what did they mean in section 37 when they declared that the political choices faced by citizens "may affect the individual's salvation"? What part of the mass murder of over 50 million preborn babies in the U.S. since 1973 is unclear in being an "intrinsic evil" that "must never be supported"? Evidently, as Vree says, it depends on what your definition of "never" is:

"Defending the right to life is obviously a primary concern," Archbishop Gregory told Allen. "It's the point of departure for everything else." But, said Archbishop Gregory, it is "at least possible" that, as Allen put it, "a Catholic who carefully weighs the issues could decide that, on balance, a candidate who is not explicitly pro-life is preferable to one who opposes the legalization of abortion but who does not share Catholic positions on other matters of importance. In that sense, Gregory said, 'Faithful Citizenship' cannot be reduced to an absolute obligation to vote for a pro-life candidate...."

"Faithful Citizenship" itself states that "A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil such as abortion..." (#34; italics added). But now Archbishop Gregory is saying that there is no "absolute obligation" to vote for prolife candidates. How are voters supposed to make sense of this? Can you help us out here, Your Excellency?

"It's a complicated document," he told Allen.

Indeed. And that, my friends, is the problem. You cannot expect a 43-page document, which tries to blow hot and cold at once and qualifies to death every position it takes, to offer much guidance to a Catholic voter who will be voting simply up or down for the President in November.

Why Peter Phan needs the CDF Note on Evangelization

As a follow up to our post of yesterday, "New CDF document Magna Carta of Evangelization" (December 14, 2007), we note that the USCCB's doctrinal note on Peter Phan was excellent and very well put, and a good compliment to the Vatican's subsequent Doctrinal Note on Some Aspects of Evangelization.

In this connection, Christopher has an excellent resume of the Peter Phan affair in an article he posted yesterday entitled "USCCB Doctrinal Commitee Educates Peter C. Phan on the Gospel" (Against the Grain, December 14, 2007) involving the notoriously recalcitrant and obnoxious Peter C. (for 'Cantankerous'?) Phan. One marvels at the clarity of the USCCB's censure of Phan, among other things.

USCCB withdraws review of 'Golden Compass'

The U.S. bishops, without comment, have withdrawn the review of the film “The Golden Compass,” written by Harry Forbes and John Mulderig, the director and staff reviewer respectively of the Office for Film and Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. See USCCB withdraws review of “The Golden Compass” (CNS News Hub, December 12, 2007); cf. "Peters on 'Golden Compass'" (Musings, December 2, 2007).