Forgive me, but this is too funny

In fact, I don't know that I've ever seen New Catholic exhibit quite this much attitude in his liturgical humor.

Round-up of up-beat news from NOR!

Pieter Vree, "With Cautious Optimism" (New Oxford Review, October 2009), writes:

The NOR has long been trenchant in its criticism and pugilistic in tone when it comes to facing down the deceit and buffoonery of bishops, priests, nuns, and theologians in the Church -- whether they are of a liberal or conservative bent. Let's face it: There's never any shortage of grist for the mill. From feminist nuns to philandering neocons, from light-in-the loafer liturgists to Holocaust-denying "trad" bishops, the NOR has tackled a generous sampling of silliness in the Church and in the world -- and we'll continue to do so. That's what we do!

At this juncture, however, we would certainly be remiss not to recognize some very promising developments in the life of the Church -- developments which would have been unthinkable just a decade ago. In the recent past, signs of a recovery from the ecclesiastical silly season have typically come by way of some small pockets in relatively obscure corners of Christendom -- obscure, yes, but still mightily important. Thomas Aquinas College in the realm of Catholic higher education; the School of Architecture at, of all places, the University of Notre Dame, representing the renaissance of traditional church design; burgeoning young religious orders like the Dominican Sisters of Mary and the Society of St. John Cantius; and the staunch witness of Catholic prolife activists like Joe Scheidler and Judie Brown, who have accomplished so much through prayer and activism amid unrelenting adversity -- these are just a few of the promising people, places, and movements that spring immediately to mind.

What's new and noteworthy over the past year or two is that many of the new positive developments in the life of the Church are not only coming from the obscure corners of Christendom, but are now emanating from the words and actions of the Church's hierarchy -- from Pope Benedict XVI (think of the Holy Father's universal indult for the Tridentine Mass) and his bishops. Even the trend of new bishop appointments is cause for optimism. Cautious optimism, yes, but optimism nonetheless. The Cardinal Bernardins and Archbishop Weaklands of the U.S. Church have given way to the promising likes of American prelates such as Timothy Dolan (New York), Samuel Aquila (Fargo), Robert Carlson (St. Louis), Raymond Burke (Vatican), Charles Chaput (Denver), Thomas Olmsted (Phoenix), Robert Finn (Kansas City-St. Joseph) -- well, you get the idea.

It used to be that Lincoln's Bishop Fabian Brus­kewitz was the lone voice of ecclesiastical orthodoxy in the U.S. Thankfully, he seems to have a growing cohort. The fact is that, with more regularity, certain American bishops are turning heads -- and for the right reason: by acting as courageous defenders of the faith, even when they must swim against the tide of their lazier and more liberal episcopal brethren. Archbishop Burke, for example, is known for his advocacy of denying Holy Communion to Catholics who are public sinners -- like politicians who support abortion. Not so long ago, such outspoken views would have been rewarded with alienation and pillory. It is instructive to note then that Archbishop Burke's outspoken stance on an unpopular subject among his fellow bishops was rewarded with a "promotion" -- from archbishop of St. Louis (one of the most influential American sees) to prefect of the Vatican's Apostolic Signatura, the highest judicial body in the Church, second in authority in judicial matters only to the Pope himself.

Most of the new breed of Bruskewitz-style bishops have made news for their uncompromisingly orthodox views on life issues, but some are now making waves with their stances on matters liturgical -- arguably a more volatile subject overall, at least within the Church. Ten years ago, who would have dared to imagine that an American bishop would criticize Mass "facing the people," and actually promote the celebration of Mass ad orientem? This summer, Bishop Edward Slattery not only did so in an article in his diocesan magazine, the Eastern Oklahoma Catholic, he put his liturgical views into practice. He now celebrates Mass ad orientem at his Tulsa cathedral, an encouragement "by example" for the parish priests throughout his diocese. "Even before his election as the successor to St. Peter," Bishop Slattery explained in August, "Pope Benedict has been urging us to draw upon the ancient liturgical practice of the Church to recover a more authentic Catholic worship. For that reason, I have restored the venerable ad orientem position when I celebrate Mass at the Cathedral."

Ten years ago, a statement like that would have ruffled so many episcopal feathers that one would more likely expect to see Bishop Slattery's head on a pole than his "back to the people" (as some misconstrue the posture). Not only does the bishop explain his reasons for restoring the ancient practice -- the priest and the people should pray facing the same rather than the "opposite" direction -- he explains that the post-Vatican II practice of Mass versus populum (facing the people) was a misguided innovation with unforeseen consequences and largely negative effects: "First of all, it was a serious rupture with the Church's ancient tradition. Secondly, it can give the appearance that the priest and the people were engaged in a conversation about God, rather than the worship of God. Thirdly, it places an inordinate importance on the personality of the celebrant by placing him on a kind of liturgical stage."

It is one thing for a particular parish to return to ad orientem worship, but when initiated by a bishop at his diocese's primary church, it has the potential to inspire many of his priests as well as other bishops to follow suit. This could very well be the beginning of a turnaround, and Bishop Slattery will have made his mark on U.S. Church history.

Up the road in Indiana, Bishop John M. D'Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend made his mark earlier this year by publicly rebuking Notre Dame President Fr. John Jenkins for his decision not only to invite U.S. President Barack Obama to deliver the May commencement address but also to bestow an honorary degree upon the most pro-abortion president in U.S. history. That takes guts! Most American bishops wouldn't dare criticize the president of a Catholic college or university, let alone the president of the most influential Catholic campus in America, as well as the president of the United States. Bishop D'Arcy was repeatedly in the news for his unwavering -- and unpopular -- stance. Three months later the Indiana bishop even penned an article for the left-leaning America magazine in which he singled out Fr. Jenkins for his failure to witness to the Gospel, reiterating that a Catholic university has "the responsibility to give witness to the Catholic faith and to the consequences of that faith by its actions and decisions." Well said!

Most Catholics, however, are unaware of the watershed letter the same Bishop D'Arcy wrote to the priests in his diocese in July. The bishop quietly issued new norms for the placement of the tabernacle in churches, aiming to end controversy on the topic. "The presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament is at the center of our faith and of the devotional life of our Catholic people," his letter began. "The place of the tabernacle in our church should reflect our faith in the real presence of Christ, and should always be guided by church documents," Bishop D'Arcy continued.

In his experience, he explained, people have always desired the tabernacle to be "central and visible" and find it "confusing" when it is not. His new norms state that the tabernacle should be "prominently located in the sanctuary of the church, along the central axis behind the main altar…at an elevated, open location in the apse area, or in another central place in the sanctuary that is equally conspicuous." If a high altar with a tabernacle remains in place, the norms add, "it is appropriate to continue using this noble structure for the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament."

Perhaps some bystanders will fail to understand the significance of such a promulgation, but most NOR readers will no doubt recall the church "wreckovation" wars of the 1990s and the mass propaganda put out by certified liturgists and liturgical-design consultants arguing -- with a straight face -- that the Church has mandated the removal of tabernacles from the sanctuary, and preferably from the church entirely. To be sure, priests here and there have been quietly restoring their sanctuaries and moving their church's tabernacles back into a true position of pride of place, but perhaps Bishop D'Arcy's clear-cut norms will inspire not only his own priests but his fellow bishops to follow his lead.

We are often asked if "the tide is turning" in the Church. So, with some evidence to support our reply, we say -- with cautious optimism -- yes.

New Oxford Notes: October 2009

Pieter Vree is Editor-in-Chief of New Oxford Review since the retirement of his father, Dale Vree. His foregoing article, "With Cautious Optimism," was originally published in New Oxford Review (October 2009), pp. 19-20, and is reproduced here by kind permission of New Oxford Review, 1069 Kains Ave., Berkeley, CA 94706.

Notre Dame Observer goes squeamish on sex

Well, not just any sex, but sexual orientation.

A reader writes: "Over at Aggie Catholics, the comment was that the editor decided to avoid a 'hot' topic. Shades of Fr. Joe in that disingenuous reaction. Read the piece and see if it seems even remotely hot."

At issue is the column rejected by the Notre Dame Observer, "Sexual Orientation and the Catholic Church," by Dr. Charles E. Rice (Ignatius Insight, March 2, 2010).

Indeed.

[Hat tip to our 'Hot Topic' undercover correspondent in Virginia]

"The Butterfly Circus"

This was recommended to me yesterday in class. I just saw it, and I agree that it's a very moving film. Only 15 minutes long, or so -- a tribute to the human spirit and the overcoming of mind-numbing challenges to embrace the goodness of life.

See it on YouTube in two parts here.

[Hat tip to A.W.]

Introduction to the Spirit of the Liturgy by Msgr. Guido Marini, Part 4 of 6

Tridentine Community News (February 28, 2010):

On January 6, 2010 a landmark speech was given by Msgr. Guido Marini, the Pontifical Master of Liturgical Ceremonies, at the Year For Priests Clergy Conference in Rome. There is no need to speculate on what Rome believes is suitable liturgy when clear direction such as this is given. Msgr. Marini was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to reform papal liturgies according to our Holy Father’s thinking. We believe Msgr. Marini’s words speak for themselves, and so we are presenting his speech in its entirety.

3. Adoration and union with God.

Adoration is the recognition, filled with wonder, we could even say ecstatic, (because it makes us come out of ourselves and our small world) the recognition of the infinite might of God, of His incomprehensible majesty, and of His love without limit which he offers us absolutely gratuitously, of His omnipotent and provident Lordship. Consequently, adoration leads to the reunification of man and creation with God, to the abandonment of the state of separation, of apparent autonomy, to loss of self, which is, moreover, the only way of regaining oneself.

Before the ineffable beauty of God’s charity, which takes form in the mystery of the Incarnate Word, who for our sake has died and is risen, and which finds its sacramental manifestation in the liturgy, there is nothing left for us but to be left in adoration. “In the Paschal event and the Eucharist which makes it present throughout the centuries,” affirms Pope John Paul II in Ecclesia de Eucharistia, “there is a truly enormous capacity which embraces all of history as the recipient of the grace of the redemption. This amazement should always fill the Church assembled for the celebration of the Eucharist.” (n.5)

“My Lord and my God,” we have been taught to say from childhood at the moment of the consecration. In such a way, borrowing the words of the apostle St. Thomas, we are led to adore the Lord, made present and living in the species of the Holy Eucharist, uniting ourselves to Him, and recognising Him as our all. From there it becomes possible to resume our daily way, having found the correct order of life, the fundamental criterion whereby to live and to die.

Here is the reason why everything in the liturgical act, through the nobility, the beauty, and the harmony of the exterior sign, must be condusive to adoration, to union with God: this includes the music, the singing, the periods of silence, the manner of proclaiming the Word of the Lord, and the manner of praying, the gestures employed, the liturgical vestments and the sacred vessels and other furnishings, as well as the sacred edifice in its entirety. It is under this perspective that the decision of His Holiness, Benedict XVI, is to be taken into consideration, who, starting from the feast of Corpus Christi last year, has begun to distribute holy Communion to the kneeling faithful directly on the tongue. By the example of this action, the Holy Father invites us to render visible the proper attitude of adoration before the greatness of the mystery of the Eucharistic presence of our Lord. An attitude of adoration which must be fostered all the more when approaching the Most Holy Eucharist in the other forms permitted today.

I would like to cite once more another passage from the post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis: “During the early phases of the reform, the inherent relationship between Mass and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was not always perceived with sufficient clarity. For example, an objection that was widespread at the time argued that the Eucharistic Bread was given to us not to be looked at, but to be eaten. In the light of the Church's experience of prayer, however, this was seen to be a false dichotomy. As Saint Augustine put it: ‘nemo autem illam carnem manducat, nisi prius adoraverit; peccemus non adorando – no one eats that flesh without first adoring it; we should sin were we not to adore it.’ In the Eucharist, the Son of God comes to meet us and desires to become one with us; Eucharistic adoration is simply the natural consequence of the Eucharistic celebration, which is itself the Church's supreme act of adoration. Receiving the Eucharist means adoring Him Whom we receive. Only in this way do we become one with Him, and are given, as it were, a foretaste of the beauty of the heavenly liturgy.” (n.66)

I think that, among others, the following passage from the text I just read should not go unnoticed: “[The Eucharistic celebration] is itself the Church's supreme act of adoration.” Thanks to the Holy Eucharist, His Holiness, Benedict XVI, asserts once more: “The imagery of marriage between God and Israel is now realised in a way previously inconceivable: it had meant standing in God's presence, but now it becomes union with God through sharing in Jesus' self-gift, sharing in His Body and Blood.” (Deus Caritas Est, n.13) For this reason, everything in the liturgy, and more specifically in the Eucharistic liturgy, must lead to adoration, everything in the unfolding of the rite must help one enter into the Church’s adoration of her Lord.

To consider the liturgy as locus for adoration, for union with God, does not mean to loose sight of the communal dimension in the liturgical celebration, even less to forget the imperative of charity toward one’s neighbour. On the contrary, only through a renewal of the adoration of God in Christ, which takes form in the liturgical act, will an authentic fraternal communion and a new story of charity and love arise, depending on that ability to wonder and act heroically, which only the grace of God can give to our poor hearts. The lives of the saints remind and teach us this. “Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom He gives Himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to Him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, His own. Communion draws me out of myself towards Him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians.” (Deus Caritas Est, n. 14)

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@stjosaphatchurch.org. Previous columns are available at www.stjosaphatchurch.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Josaphat bulletin insert for February 28, 2010. Hat tip to A.B.]

The 'gay mass'

Deacon Keith Fournier, "Homosexual Equivalency Activism Masquerading as Compassion" (Catholic Online, February 24, 2010): "Why would any Catholic parish support organizations which work directly against the Church and the truth she proclaims?" ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) - On Friday, February 5, 2010, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops acting through Cardinal Francis George, O.M.I, the archbishop of Chicago and president of the Conference, issued a strong repudiation of "New Ways Ministry." The group is comprised of people who openly dissent from the clear teaching of the Catholic Church concerning the immorality of homosexual practice....

[Hat tip to J.M.]

Benedict on Luther, justification sola fide

Christopher J. Malloy (University of Dallas), whose previous work includes a critique of the Joint Declaration on Justification [Vatican website] by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church, offers a thought-provoking review in "Justification Sola Fide: Catholic after All?" (This Rock, Vol. 20, No. 7, September-October 2009). He writes:

At the close of the last liturgical year, Pope Benedict XVI made a startling proclamation: "Luther’s expression sola fide is true if faith is not opposed to charity, to love" (Wednesday Audience, Nov. 19, 2008). At first, this statement might seem to collide with Trent: "If anyone says that the godless are justified by faith alone . . . let him be anathema" (Trent, VI, canon 9). Again, "For faith, unless hope and charity are added thereto, neither unites one perfectly with Christ nor makes one a living member of his body" (Trent, VI, ch. 7).

The gist of Mally's article (and it is a detailed, analytical article) seems to be that there are differences of expression, emphasis, and insight here, but not such differences as would constitute contradictions. Luther's expression "justification by faith alone" can be understood in a Catholic way, for example, if faith is "formed faith" -- faith formed by charity.

Yet Malloy acknowledges that problems remain in accepting Luther's own formulations:

... Luther rejects the idea that at the baptismal moment of justification a man becomes truly just interiorly (LW 32:229). For Luther, the believer is always totally righteous and totally sinful. Hence, despite the beginnings of sanctification, justification itself must be simply a declaration of forgiveness and an "imputation" of righteousness (LW 26:223-236, 1963 ed.). He must, therefore, reject Catholic teaching. Luther declares, "If love is the form of faith, then I am immediately obliged to say that love is the most important and the largest part of the Christian religion. And thus I lose Christ" (LW 26:270). Luther even resorts to a curse: "Let that expression ‘faith formed’ be damned!" (LW 26:273, see also LW 27:38; on this curse, see Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism, and Politics, 104-11).

... Luther—and the Formula of Concord after him—excludes charity from the justifying role of faith. Luther consequently deflates the dramatic tension that constitutes our "time of decision for love" on earth (Phil 2:12ff; 2 Tm 4:7-8). Catholics cannot accept these teachings of Luther, which contradict the Gospel (Rom 1:16ff) as Catholic faith reads it.

Despite every effort at ecumenical reconciliation, a difficulty remains; an important obstacle must be overcome. As Benedicts shows, Catholic terminology is flexible. It is the reality of the mystery that must be upheld. Provided that justifying faith (Rom 3:28) is understood as a compact expression for faith, hope, and charity, Catholics do profess that faith alone justifies (1 Cor 13:13; on a history of the reception of Romans pertinent to this point, see Thomas Scheck, Origen and the History of Justification).

Nevertheless, there are points at which Luther's emphasis serves as a needed corrective to certain distortions in the otherwise valid notion of merit among some Catholics. Malloy writes:

There is no question, many of the points Luther made were on the money. Among these are the following: Some members of the Church were corrupt; God’s grace is totally free (Eph 2); sin still lies in wait even for the just person (Rom 7); Christ is presently a high priest interceding for sinners (Heb 4-5); good deeds are expressions of gratitude for salvation, etc.

... Above all, our eyes should fall on Jesus Christ. May these papal audiences be as oil upon the head, running down the beard (Ps 133:1ff), so that Catholics may humbly profess the fullness of the faith they do not own, so "that they may all be one" (Jn 17:21).

[Hat tip to J.M.]

APA censures Calvin College for anti-gay affiliation

A mildly livid Roy Alden Atwood, Ph.D., New Saint Andrews College’s first president and a founding member of the College’s board and faculty, writes in "Philosopher high priests excommunicate Calvin College" (On Higher Education, February 10, 2010):

The philosopher kings have become the philosopher high priests of a new orthodoxy. Academic freedom no longer includes religious freedom for the members of the American Philosophical Association. The APA’s high priests have declared Calvin College heretical for not embracing their new homosexual dogma. The APA has the audacity to claim Calvin is engaged in “a most egregious form of discrimination” when it is their own new priestly power mongering that is forcing an utterly novel orthodoxy on the scholarly association members for its own political ends. In this Brave New Academic World, secularists are working overtime to make Christian orthodoxy the new social and political heresy and to declare sexual perversion the new confession of faith. Another case of “Repressive Tolerance.”

According to the report from Inside Higher Ed, the American Philosophical Association singled out Calvin College for punishment using the association’s new pro-gay rule on APA job listings. Calvin, whose supporting denomination, the Christian Reformed Church, is fairly ”tolerant” on the homosexual question compared to many other evangelical denominations, was no doubt targeted because Calvin has long been a powerhouse in philosophical circles. Nick Wolterstorff [now retired from Yale] and Alvin Plantinga [now retired from Notre Dame] are two extraordinarily prominent American philosophers who once taught at Calvin and led the APA. This secular academic power play is likely intended to threaten and punish any and all Christian academic institutions that refuse to embrace secularism and neo-pagan sexual mores. The Sodomite-homosexual lobby has been putting increasing pressure on Christian institutions, whether through the radical SoulForce protests on Christian campuses or through professional association agitations like the APA’s. Calvin College’s prominence among evangelical and Reformed colleges and its leadership in academic circles generally has apparently made it a prime target for testing such coercion and challenging religious freedom in the academy. Homosexuals must figure that if they can whack Calvin into submission through such tyrannical means, they’ll eventually be able to force every Christian college or university to bow the knee toward Sodom. (emphasis added)

[HT to E.E.]

Convert rabbi's book on Jesus re-issued

Sandro Magister, "The Jew, Jesus, Who Changed the Life of the Chief Rabbi of Rome" (www.chiesa, February 10, 2010), writes:

ROME, February 24, 2010 – The first person he told that he had finished writing his book about Jesus was a Jewish rabbi, on the day after his visit to the synagogue of Rome, last January 18.

The rabbi is the American Jacob Neusner, and the author of the book is Benedict XVI.

The first volume of "Jesus of Nazareth" by pope Joseph Ratzinger was released three years ago. And now the second and concluding volume of the work, dedicated to the passion and resurrection of Jesus and to the infancy narratives, is ready for translation and printing.

Meanwhile, however, with significant coordination of timing, another important book about Jesus has been reprinted in recent days in Italy, entitled "Il Nazareno," written more than seventy years ago by a great Italian rabbi.

Not only that. A very positive review of this new edition of the book was published on February 20 in "L'Osservatore Romano," written by a famous scholar, Anna Foa, a Jewish professor of history at the University of Rome "La Sapienza."

And this review also marks an important new development. The author of the book, Israel Zoller, was chief rabbi of the Jewish community of Rome. And in 1945, he converted to the Catholic faith.

The stunning news of his conversion rocked the Roman and Italian Jewish community. And it responded with a silence that lasted for decades.

Anna Foa's review in "the pope's newspaper" has definitively broken this silence. Moreover, she has acknowledged that in that book, although it was written many years before its author's conversion, there already "seemed to appear between the lines a recognition of the messianic character of Christ."

Read a brief biography of Rabbi Israel Zoller, as well as Anna Foa's review, here (scroll down).

Israel Zoller, took the name Eugenio Zolli in honor of Pope Pius XII after his conversion to Catholicism. An English translation of his book is entitled The Nazarene: Studies in New Testament Exegesis(1999), and was given a very positive Review of The Nazarene by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Cranmer meets Benedict

Charlotte Hays, "The Beginning of the Reformation's End?" (Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2010).

[HT to E.E.]

Lay ministry & vocations: food for thought

Russell Shaw (Pontifical University of the Holy Cross) writes provocatively in "Lay Ministry, Lay Apostolate, and Vocation" (Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly, 32, No. 4 (Winter 2009):

People have sometimes said of me that I'm opposed to lay ministries, but that isn't true. I support lay ministries, and I have great admiration for all those wonderful lay people who are involved in ministries of various kinds.

But I do see a problem.

In recent years, there's been a disproportionate emphasis on lay ministries, at the expense of what used to be called lay apostolate or simply "the Apostolate." And that disproportionate emphasis contributes to something very unhealthy in Catholic life.

Here Shaw illustrates with a story based on his experience, a couple of years ago, of teaching an online course about the laity to a class of adult Catholics. Some weeks after the course ended, one of his students sent him an email sharing an experience she'd had. She wrote:

Last week I gave a lecture to a group of women, and as an opening exercise I asked them to write on one side of the page all the everyday things they do in the course of a day or two. Then I asked them to write on the other side all the things they do in the same time frame that they consider to be holy.

Without exception, they made up two entirely different lists -- on the one hand, daily chores and activities, and on the other hand things associated with what they considered to be "ministry" -- serving as minister of communion or lector, attending Mass, things like that.

Point taken. Gaudium et Spes addresses the matter thus:

One of the gravest errors of our time is the dichotomy between the faith which many profess and the practice of their daily lives.... Let there ... be no such pernicious opposition between professional and social activity on the one hand and the religious life on the other.... It is [the task of the Catholic laity] to cultivate a properly informed conscience and to impress the divine law on the affairs of the earthly city (GS, 43).

As Shaw points out, that was over 40 years ago, and little if anything has changed in that pervasive attitude, which divides up our experiences and activities into two distinct compartments or regions, one holy and the other secular. "Fortunately there's a solution, if only we choose to make use of it," says Shaw. "Its name is vocation. Every baptized person has one." But in order to put the solution to work, we need a much clearer understanding of vocation than most Catholics appear to have.

Shaw distinguishes three different dimensions to the idea of "vocation," which he pictures in three concentric rings. (1) "At the center is the common Christian vocation, which comes to us in baptism and is shared by all menbers of the Church." This consists in the commitment of faith and what follows from it, loving and serving God, and one's neighbor as oneself, and so forth. (2) "The next vocational circle, spreading out from this central point, is vocation in the sense of a state in life." Here he has in mind the clerical state, the consecrated life, the state of marriage, and the single lay state in the world. (3) "the outer circle -- and the third meaning of Christian vocation -- is personal vocation." Here he means the particular unique "combination of commitments, relationships, opportunities, disadvantages, weaknesses, and strengths" that God asks us to put to use in serving Him and His Church (this idea can be found in St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis de Sales, Cardinal Newman, etc., he says).

Clearing up our understanding of vocational discernment is the key, says Shaw, to resolving much of the confusion over lay ministry. It involves, first, setting aside the false idea that vocational discernment is done only by those considering the priesthood or religious life; and second, the idea that vocational discernment is a one time thing. The question one seeks to answer is not "What do I want from life?" but "What does God want from me?" It isn't subjective, but guided by Christian morality. "Conscience formation comes first. A person with a well formed conscience is equipped to engage in fruitful discernment. But when someone whose conscience is not well formed tries it, the result is likely to be self-serving and not God's will."

Shaw continues:

Lay ministries, as they are called -- service roles and functions performed by lay people in church settings, especially parishes -- undoubtedly do have their place, and an important one. But their place is subordinate to the priority of apostolate carried on in and to the secular order....

I'm sorry to say that in recent years we seem to have gotten it just the other way around, assigning de facto primacy to lay ministries and downgrading lay apostolate. And although the intentions have been good, that is a bad mistake which has contributed a lot to the current problems in the Church....

I repeat: lay ecclesial ministry can reasonably be seen as one part of [the] larger picture. but to speak of lay ministry as if it were the very apex of it, the peak of the pyramid, so to speak, is an instance of the tail wagging the dog -- that is to say, it's a painfully narrow-minded view of a much larger development in Catholic life extending over the last century and a half and still taking place.

Shaw goes on to relate a hunch he has about how this is related to the sacrament of confirmation -- "a sacrament in crisis if there ever was one." The problem with confirmation, he says, is that basically "nobody really knows what it is." His idea, which he believes is both theologically and pastorally valid, is to present confirmation as a sacrament of vocational discernment -- a subject about which he hopes to produce a book someday.

With that, Shaw offers a bold assertion: "There is no shortage of vocations in the Catholic Church" -- either in the Church as a whole or the U.S. or anywhere. "As a matter of fact, a true shortage of vocations is an absolute impossibility, since every baptized individual has a vocation."

What we have instead, he says, is a shortage of vocational discernment That also is a problem, even a serious one; but it's a problem of a quite different sort. Shaw writes:

You see, if there were a shortage of vocations -- which isn't possible, but let's suppose for a moment that it was -- then the shortage of vocations would be from God. And in that case, there would be nothing we could do about it except ask God to send the vocations he'd been withholding.

But because what we have is a shortage of vocational discernment, we can be quite sure that the shortage of vocations of whatever kind comes from us. Prayer is still needed, of course, but there are a lot of other things that we can and should be doing.

And the first and most important of them is to educate every Catholic to the fact that he or she has a vocation, and that the most important thing he or she will ever do is to discern what that vocation is, accept it, and then continue discerning it and living it for the rest of his or her life.

O'Connor on fanaticism

"To a lot of Protestants I know, monks and nuns are fanatics, none greater. And to a lot of the monks and nuns I know, my Protestant prophets are fanatics. For my part, I think the only difference between them is that if you are a Catholic and have this intensity of belief you join the convent and are heard from no more; whereas if you are a Protestant and have it, there is no convent for you to join and you go about in the world, getting into all sorts of trouble and drawing the wrath of people who don't believe anything much at all down on your head."

-- Flannery O'Connor

Watch the president's face

Paul Ryan: " Hiding Spending Doesn't Reduce Spending."

Nothing like the light of day to illumine all those nasty little dark secrets hidden in the stacks of health reform bill papers.

[Hat tip to E.E.]

Introduction to the Spirit of the Liturgy by Msgr. Guido Marini, Part 3 of 6

Tridentine Community News (February 21, 2010):

On January 6, 2010 a landmark speech was given by Msgr. Guido Marini, the Pontifical Master of Liturgical Ceremonies, at the Year For Priests Clergy Conference in Rome. There is no need to speculate on what Rome believes is suitable liturgy when clear direction such as this is given. Msgr. Marini was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to reform papal liturgies according to our Holy Father’s thinking. We believe Msgr. Marini’s words speak for themselves, and so we are presenting his speech in its entirety.

2. The orientation of liturgical prayer.

Over and above the changes which have characterised, during the course of time, the architecture of churches and the places where the liturgy takes place, one conviction has always remained clear within the Christian community, almost down to the present day. I am referring to praying facing East, a tradition which goes back to the origins of Christianity.

What is understood by “praying facing East”? It refers to the orientation of the praying heart towards Christ, from whom comes salvation, and to whom it is directed as in the beginning so at the end of history. The sun rises in the East, and the sun is a symbol of Christ, the light rising in the Orient. The messianic passage in the Benedictus canticle comes readily to mind: “Through the tender mercy of our God; * whereby the Orient from on high hath visited us”

Very reliable and recent studies have by now proven effectively that, in every age of its past, the Christian community has found the way to express even in the external and visible liturgical sign, this fundamental orientation for the life of faith. This is why we find churches built in such a way that the apse was turned to the East. When such an orientation of the sacred space was no longer possible, the Church had recourse to the Crucifix placed upon the altar, on which everyone could focus. In the same vein many apses were decorated with resplendent representations of the Lord. All were invited to contemplate these images during the celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy.

Without recourse to a detailed historical analysis of the development of Christian art, we would like to reaffirm that prayer facing East, more specifically, facing the Lord, is a characteristic expression of the authentic spirit of the liturgy. It is according to this sense that we are invited to turn our hearts to the Lord during the celebration of the Eucharistic Liturgy, as the introductory dialogue to the Preface well reminds us. Sursum corda “Lift up your hearts,” exhorts the priest, and all respond: Habemus ad Dominum “We lift them up unto the Lord.” Now if such an orientation must always be adopted interiorly by the entire Christian community when it gathers in prayer, it should be possible to find this orientation expressed externally by means of signs as well. The external sign, moreover, cannot but be true, in such a way that through it the correct spiritual attitude is rendered visible.

Hence the reason for the proposal made by the then Cardinal Ratzinger, and presently reaffirmed during the course of his pontificate, to place the Crucifix on the center of the altar, in order that all, during the celebration of the liturgy, may concretely face and look upon Lord, in such a way as to orient also their prayer and hearts. Let us listen to the words of His Holiness, Benedict XVI, directly, who in the preface to the first book of his Complete Works, dedicated to the liturgy, writes the following: “The idea that the priest and people should stare at one another during prayer was born only in modern Christianity, and is completely alien to the ancient Church. The priest and people most certainly do not pray one to the other, but to the one Lord. Therefore, they stare in the same direction during prayer: either towards the East as a cosmic symbol of the Lord who comes, or, where this is not possible, towards the image of Christ in the apse, towards a crucifix, or simply towards the heavens, as our Lord Himself did in His priestly prayer the night before His Passion (John 17.1) In the meantime the proposal made by me at the end of the chapter treating this question in my work ‘The Spirit of the Liturgy’ is fortunately becoming more and more common: rather than proceeding with further transformations, simply to place the crucifix at the center of the altar, which both priest and the faithful can face and be lead in this way towards the Lord, whom everyone addresses in prayer together.” (trans. from the Italian.)

Let it not be said, moreover, that the image of our Lord crucified obstructs the sight of the faithful from that of the priest, for they are not to look to the celebrant at that point in the liturgy! They are to turn their gaze towards the Lord! In like manner, the presider of the celebration should also be able to turn towards the Lord. The crucifix does not obstruct our view; rather it expands our horizon to see the world of God; the crucifix brings us to meditate on the mystery; it introduces us to the heavens from where the only light capable of making sense of life on this earth comes. Our sight, in truth, would be blinded and obstructed were our eyes to remain fixed on those things that display only man and his works.

In this way one can come to understand why it is still possible today to celebrate the Holy Mass upon the old altars, when the particular architectural and artistic features of our churches would advise it. Also in this, the Holy Father gives us an example when he celebrates the Holy Eucharist at the ancient altar of the Sistine Chapel on the feast of the Baptism of our Lord.

In our time, the expression “celebrating facing the people” has entered our common vocabulary. If one’s intention in using this expression is to describe the location of the priest, who, due to the fact that today he often finds himself facing the congregation because of the placement of the altar, in this case such an expression is acceptable. Yet such an expression would be categorically unacceptable the moment it comes to express a theological proposition. Theologically speaking, the Holy Mass, as a matter of fact, is always addressed to God through Christ our Lord, and it would be a grievous error to imagine that the principal orientation of the sacrificial action is the community. Such an orientation, therefore, of turning towards the Lord must animate the interior participation of each individual during the liturgy. It is likewise equally important that this orientation be quite visible in the liturgical sign as well.

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@stjosaphatchurch.org. Previous columns are available at www.stjosaphatchurch.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Josaphat bulletin insert for February 21, 2010. Hat tip to A.B.]

Why 'externals' matter

John Zmirak, in "All Your Church Are Belong to Us" (InsideCatholic.com, February 17, 2010), writes:

"Why do you people care so much about externals?" my non-Trad friends sometimes ask me. And they deserve an answer. A few weeks back, my delightfully contentious colleague here, Mark Shea, waded into the conflict between those who describe themselves simply as "orthodox" Catholics, and those who consider themselves "traditionalists." (Just to save space in the comments box, I mean by this term people who favor the traditional liturgy -- not those who associate with organizations under ecclesiastical suspension.) This line has begun to blur more and more in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum, which we Trads greeted as a kind of Emancipation Proclamation -- even as many of our bishops answered it with liturgical Jim Crow.

Still, the division is palpable. It was lying right there on the table, for any who cared to palpate it, last week when I went to dinner with a Trad-minded colleague and a visiting author who'd come to speak at our college on G. K. Chesterton. (The presentation was riveting, and I highly recommend Dale Ahlquist's talks and books.) Like the good Mr. Shea, our speaker is a convert, and he shared with Mark a puzzlement at the apparent fixation traditionalists have on restoring former elements of the liturgy and other Catholic practices that are not essential, and resisting innovations that are not inherently evil. Having come from churches that didn't have the Eucharist, and remaining through God's grace flush with gratitude for the sacraments, many converts really don't understand what the rest of us are nattering on about. We who grew up privileged may seem like sulky, spoiled kids. We owe these good people an explanation.

Sometimes they think we just care about aesthetics. One visit to a Sunday Latin Low Mass without music, recited soundlessly into a marble altar, should put that idea to flight. Compared to a Novus Ordo liturgy in the vernacular, and from a purely human point of view, attending Low Mass can be dull. You feel like you are eavesdropping. If you follow along in the missal, you can feel that you are watching a very solemn foreign film without any subtitles, except that you have the screenplay. There's a reason the old rubrics relegated Low Mass to weekdays, and called (though they were rarely answered) for sung Solemn Mass on Sundays and holy days. Pope Pius X wasn't kidding when he asked for parishes to revive Gregorian chant and teach it to the laity. Nor is there any good reason why Latin Mass congregations don't give the responses along with the servers -- except perhaps the fear that this is somehow the first step down a long road that leads to clown Mass. Get over it, fratres.

* * * * * * *

I don't know a single Traditionalist who wouldn't prefer the old Mass, facing the altar, said in English, to the Novus Ordo chanted in Latin facing the people.

* * * * * * *
Other people think that we are a band of Latin scholars, desperate to put our dusty declensions to practical use. Again, one conversation with the congregants at the coffee hour will dash that infant theory against the rocks. Most of us studied Latin, if at all, as part of vocabulary practice for the SATs, and follow the English side of the missal. I don't know a single Traditionalist who wouldn't prefer the old Mass, facing the altar, said in English, to the Novus Ordo chanted in Latin facing the people. While the universal language of the Church is still to be revered for all the reasons that Vatican II prescribed in Sacrosanctum Concilium, it isn't Why We Fight.

Still more people think that we cling to the ancient liturgy as a piece of nostalgia for a Church that we vaguely remember, or heard about from our parents, whose schools drummed a stark, simplistic orthodoxy into hordes of dutiful children; whose religious orders and seminaries weren't riddled with rank heresy and extensive networks of secret homosexuals; whose bishops manfully echoed the traditional teachings of centuries without constant goading from Rome; whose buildings and services at least strove for dignity and austerity, even if they sometimes descended into tedium and kitsch.

I'm tempted to say at this point: That's right. That's exactly what we want. Or at least what we'd settle for. What faithful Catholic wouldn't, if he could right now, wave a magic wand and swap the American church of 2010 for that of 1940 -- with all its acknowledged abuses and hidden worldliness? I'll take the blustering Cardinal Spellman over the scheming Archbishop Weakland any day.

But, of course, things never work like that. You can't bring back the Habsburgs by hanging their banners in your apartment (trust me, I've tried), and we cannot undo the catastrophic "renewal" launched in the name of the Second Vatican Council (often in plain defiance of its documents) by clicking our heels and reciting, "There's no place like Rome" -- even in ecclesiastical Latin. Some confrontation between the Church and late Western modernity was inevitable, and if it hadn't happened at the Council, it would have occurred some other way. The Eastern churches didn't vandalize their liturgy; have they been spared the ravages of secularization? Not according to my Greek Orthodox friends, who show up for the last ten minutes of liturgy each week to pick up blessed bread and join their friends for baklava and gossip. The liturgy is miraculous, but it doesn't work like magic: Rev. Teilhard de Chardin had said the Tridentine Mass for decades even as he invented Catholic Scientology; conversely, his sometime housemate at New York’s St. Ignatius Loyola, the holy Rev. John Hardon, obediently switched missals with every tinkering that came to him from the bishops.

* * * * * * *

The old Mass reminds me of what they used to say about the Catholic Church and the U.S. Navy: "It's a machine built by geniuses so it can be operated safely by idiots." The old liturgy was crafted by saints, and can be said by schlubs without risk of sacrilege. The new rite was patched together by bureaucrats, and should only be safely celebrated by the saintly.

* * * * * * *
Of course, there's something to be said for a liturgy whose very nature resists and defeats abuses. The Ordinary Form can be extraordinarily reverent when said by a holy priest. I've been to such liturgies hundreds of times, and I'm grateful for every one. On the other hand, the new liturgy, with all its Build-a-Bear options, is terribly easy to abuse. The old Mass reminds me of what they used to say about the Catholic Church and the U.S. Navy: "It's a machine built by geniuses so it can be operated safely by idiots." The old liturgy was crafted by saints, and can be said by schlubs without risk of sacrilege. The new rite was patched together by bureaucrats, and should only be safely celebrated by the saintly.

There are plenty of theological arguments by men more learned than I -- such as Michael Davies and, er, the current pope -- for the superiority of various elements in the traditional liturgy, such as the priest facing the altar instead of the audience. (I use that word advisedly, given the theatrical quality that took over so many parishes since the 1970s.) There are serious objections to many of the changes made in the prayers of the Novus Ordo -- and they were made by the man who used to hold the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's job at the Vatican, Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, who presented them to Pope Paul VI, begging him not to issue the Novus Ordo. (Imagine Cardinal Ratzinger begging Pope John Paul II not to impose altar girls. Who knows -- maybe he did!) Although I recommend reading these arguments, I won't rehearse them here, since all of them are prudential. Adopting Lutheran or Anglican language in the Mass probably didn't cause the current crisis of belief in the Real Presence, and cutting such language by eliminating all but the First Eucharistic Prayer might not do much to resolve it. (Still, it's worth a try!)

So what is the practical motivation that drives us Trads to schlep to distant or dangerous parishes, to irritate our spouses and incommode our pastors, to detach from local churches our grandparents scrimped to build? Why insist on external things, like kneeling for communion on the tongue, male altar servers, and the priest facing the altar? None of these, I'll admit for the 5,000th time, is essential for sacramental validity or credal orthodoxy; isn't being a stickler on such issues a wee bit pharisaical, even prissy? (I have encountered the odd Trad activist with an unnatural attachment to silk and lace -- pastors wearily call them "daughters of Trent" -- but they aren't the norm. Weary fathers of six or seven pack most Latin Mass pews.)

Here's what we Trads have realized, that the merely orthodox haven’t: Inessential things have power, which is why we bother with them in the first place. In every revolution, the first thing you change is the flag. Once that has been replaced, in the public mind all bets are off -- which is why the Commies and Nazis filled every available space with their Satanic banners. Imagine, for a moment, that a newly elected president replaced the Stars and Stripes with the Confederate battle flag. Or that he replaced our 50 stars with the flag of Mexico. Let's say he got away with doing this, and wasn't carried off by the Secret Service to an "undisclosed location." What would that signify for his administration? If people accepted the change, what else would they be likely to accept?

It's no accident that the incessant tinkerings with the liturgy came at the same time as the chaos surrounding the Church's teaching on birth control. As Anne Roche Muggeridge pointed out in her indispensable history The Desolate City, the Church's position on contraception was "under consideration" for almost a decade -- which led pastors to tell troubled couples that they could follow their consciences. If the Church could change the Mass, ordinary Catholics concluded, the nuances of marital theology were surely up for grabs. No wonder that when Paul VI reluctantly issued Humanae Vitae, people felt betrayed. (It didn't help when the Vatican refused to back a cardinal who tried to enforce the document, which made it seem like the pope was winking.)

The perception that the Church was in a constant state of doctrinal flux was confirmed by the reality that her most central, sacred mystery was being monkeyed with -- almost every year. I remember being in grammar school when they told us, "The pope wants us to receive Communion in the hand now." (He didn't; it was an abuse that was forced on the Vatican through relentless disobedience until it became a local norm, but never mind.) Then, a few years later, "The pope wants us to stand for Communion." A few more grades, and we heard, "The pope wants us to go to Confession face to face." What had seemed a solid bulwark of formality and seriousness was suddenly shifting with every year's hemlines -- which is precisely what the heretics conspiring to change the Church's teaching had in mind. That is why they pushed for these futile, pastorally destructive changes of "inessentials" -- as a way of beating down resistance to changing essentials. And, in a worldly sense, they almost succeeded.

The campaign of dissenting priests, nuns, and (let's be honest) bishops culminated, in America, with the Call to Action Conference, which its leading advocate John Francis Cardinal Dearden described in 1977 as "an assembly of the American Catholic community ." This gathering of 2,400 radical Catholic activists was composed of "people deeply involved with the life of the institutional Church and appointed by their bishops" (emphasis added). The Conference approved "progressive resolutions, ones calling for, among other things, the ordination of women and married men, female altar servers, and the right and responsibility of married couples to form their own consciences on the issue of artificial birth control." This is the mess made by the bishops appointed by the author of Humanae Vitae, which his rightly beloved successor John Paul II spent much of his pontificate trying to clean up. What we Trads feel compelled to point out is that he couldn't quite finish the job, and that the deformations of the Roman liturgy enacted by (you guessed it) appointees of Paul VI helped enable all these doctrinal abuses. They changed the flag.

At this point in my discussion of the gravest theological issues that threatened the faith of Catholics in this country, I wish to call your attention to a stupid YouTube video, which gave this essay its willfully illiterate title: "All Your Base Are Belong to Us."

For those of you too young to have experienced the incessant assault upon the sacred that was the liturgical "reform," or grateful converts who don't understand all the fuss, I beg of you: Please watch this video. In fact, stop reading and watch the video first, then come back to finish this essay. I can wait.

The film takes the Pidgin English from a cheesy Japanese computer game and places it everywhere: on street signs, in Budweiser ads, on cigarette packs. At first, the effect is funny, and you wonder about the geeks who spent their time doing all this Photoshop. But keep watching. Savor the effect as the same mindless, meaningless slogan is plastered everywhere, on every blessed thing. Pretty quickly, it starts to be creepy. By the end, you might feel like Japanese anime aliens have in fact taken over. You can see their fingerprints everywhere . . .

That is how it felt to be young and Catholic in the 1970s. Every sacred thing had to be changed, every old thing replaced with a new one, every complicated beauty plastered over by the cheap and the easy. The message was almost subliminal, but by that means all the more powerful: All Your Church Are Belong to Us.

And by changing back the flag, by taking back our Mass, we are saying: Go back to Hell. Our Church belongs to Christ.
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John Zmirak is the author, most recently, of the graphic novel The Grand Inquisitor and is Writer-in-Residence at Thomas More College in New Hampshire. He writes weekly for InsideCatholic.com.

[Hat tip to A.P.]