New Posting In "Year of Grace"

I have posted a new chapter in my “Year of Grace” conversion retro-blog, for those of you who are following this story.

Martini and Marino on Oozytes and Monozygots

I’m embarrassed now. After having quoted Cardinal Martini with a degree of approval (see my blog: “Spelling out the principal of the lesser evil”), I now have read the full interview, courtesy of Sandro Magister. It makes rather uncomfortable reading—especially the way in which the Martini (the Cardinal) virtually fauns at the feet of Marino (the bioethicist). This bit especially bothered me:

Marino says:

“But science comes to the rescue to suggest alternatives to the creation and freezing of embryos. There exist more sophisticated technologies than those used today, which provide for the freezing, not of the embryo, but of the oocyte at its stage of two pronuclei, the moment when the two chromosome pairs, the female and the male, are still separate, and a new DNA chain has not yet been formed.

“In this phase, it is not possible to determine which path the cells will take at the moment when they begin to reproduce: they could produce a baby, or two twin monozygotes. The embryo does not exist, there is not a new genetic patrimony, so there is not a new individual. From the biological point of view, there is not a new life. So can we also think that life is not present from the spiritual point of view, and that there are therefore no problems for a person of faith in evaluating the idea of following this path?”

To which Martini replies:

“I understand how these things upset many persons, especially those most sensitive to ethical problems. And I am also convinced that the processes of life, and thus also those of the transmission of life, form a continuum in which it is difficult to identify the moments of a real and proper qualitative change. The result of this is that when dealing with human life, we must have great respect and reservation in regard to everything that in some way manipulates it or could exploit it, from its very beginnings.

“But this does not mean that it is not possible to identify moments in which no sign of an individually distinguishable life yet appears. It seems to me that this is the case you are bringing up with the oocyte at the stage of the two pronuclei. In this case, it seems to me that the general rule of respect can accompany the technical treatment that you suggest.”

In other words (and I add that I have even less biological expertise than Cardinal Martini professes to have), because at this very early stage after conception (the first few days?) there is the possibility that the fertilized egg (the “oozyte” at its stage of two pronuclei) may become either one or two (or more?) individual human beings, we may treat it as if it is not yet human at all. I don’t think this follows, does it? It is either one or more than one individual, it is not no individual at all? Is it? Or am I missing something here?

Magister gives, as his first reference for comparison at the end of the article, the references to the relevant sections of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is worth keeping the accepted teachings of the Catholic Church in mind while reading this conversation. Especially these:

366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not "produced" by the parents - and also that it is immortal:

466 … Christ's humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception.

491 Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, "full of grace" through God [Lk 1:28], was redeemed from the moment of her conception.

The implication is that at the point of conception—even though science may not yet be able to predict whether one or more human beings will result—God knows exactly how many individuals he is dealing with, for he has created their very soul (or individuality, or personhood, or however else you want to modernise this concept). He knew and intended, for instance, that Jesus was going to be just Jesus (and not Jesus and Joseph Jnr), and that Mary was going to be just Mary (not Mary and Martha).

The fact that we cannot yet see a soul under a microscope does not give us the right to consign its “outward form” to the waste bin.

Lutherans ask "The Women Question"

Over at “Always Yes”, Tom Pietsch has posed a question that deserves an answer:

“The very idea of a few hundred Australian [Lutheran] delegates voting in a Toowoomba auditorium on whether the Bride of Christ has been sexist for its two thousand year history does seem a tad rich. But one does sense that the Holy Spirit is moving the LCA toward a greater fidelity to that Word whose beauty is ever ancient ever new. Ecclesiology aside, it is worth noting the fidelity of a people who will most likely decline again the offer to ordain women, instead declaring their allegiance to the Church of the departed saints. I wonder whether even the Catholic Church could manage such a popular outcome. But maybe that’s just gossip..”

The answer is, I think, no. A popular vote among Australian Catholics today would produce a landslide in favour of women's ordination. I have two observations to make in this regard:

1) Australian Catholics (probably most Catholics) are not as well catechised as Australian Lutherans, and therefore do not understand the issues so well. They would tend to make their judgement on sociological grounds rather than from a knowledge of the Word of God (in both Scripture and Tradition);

2) It somewhat depends on who these "Catholics" are. If you define as a Catholic someone who has been baptised as one (which the Church does), then you would get a quite different result from the one you would get if you selected only confirmed, catechised, weekly mass and regular confession attending Catholics who consent to the doctrines of the Catholic Church and spend a great deal of time in prayer and studying God's Word (as it is conveyed in tradition and scripture).

3) The Church doesn't believe that doctrine is something for anything but an ecumenical council (made up of all the validly ordained bishops in the world who are in communion with the See of Peter, ie. the Magisterium) to vote on—and even then, they can’t invent a new doctrine but are restrained by the Word of God (which, as I think I mentioned, is both Scripture and the way in which the Apostolic Witness has been traditioned over time.)

Sorry, did I say "two observations"? Well, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition…

The questions that Tom asks about the authority of localised synods (be they of laity, of sectarian groups, or of validly ordained bishops), and about subsequent syonds voting against earlier ones, are important. Apart from the logical inconsistencies of a Synod voting against its own prior resolutions (which would seem to undermine its authority to make any sort of declarative pronouncement on doctrine at all), the fact is that a local Church can never act in a way that is opposed to the Universal Church without bringing into question the matter of communion between the local and Universal Church. Cf. The Anglican situation.

If you want to stay a sane Lutheran, Tom, don’t ask these questions. You will either become an insane Lutheran or a sane…

As an interesting sideline, in Terry Pratchett’s 31st Discworld Novel “The Monstrous Regiment”, the scriptures of the local god Nuggan are kept in a ring binder so that bits can be added and deleted on the whim of Nuggan, who issues daily bulletins as to what is or is not to be considered “an abomination unto Nuggan”. Not surprisingly, after a while, Nuggan’s adherents begin to suspect that their god is completely mad.

Full, Vocal Unity Achieved At WCC

Perhaps it is his impending nuptials that lead Tom Pietsch, the young Lutheran seminarian and blogger at “Always Yes”, to muse on global warming and all things apocalyptic. I have been meaning to blog on this one myself for a while, as it is (believe it or not) an ecumenical “issue”.

You will all be aware that the 9th Pow-Wow of the World Council of Churches took place in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in February. One has not come to expect very much of these events, at least in terms of concrete ecumenism. A quick glance through the agenda and the resolutions of the Assembly will make this immediately clear.

For eg., here is Dr Sam Kobia, the General Secretary (ie. effective head) of the WCC speaking to ABC Radio National’s Encounter:

Sam Kobia: As the World Council we have been dealing with this for the last 30 to 35 years. It’s good to see that now the evangelicals finally have realised that this is an issue that also they should be involved in. Let this assembly identify [it] as the one issue that Christians of different persuasions and representing different traditions can speak with the one, strong, Christian voice, because I think if there is an issue around which we can say we are agreed … we can even speak with a voice without having to go into theological debate. I think [it] can be the rallying point around which we can speak with one strong voice.

What is he talking about? Is “it” the full, visible unity of the Church? Is “it” the desire to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations? Is “it” a far more modest goal such as a common date for Easter among all the Churches?

No. Here is the unedited version:

Sam Kobia: I welcome very much the evangelicals to the platform of dealing with the issue of climate change. … Let this assembly identify climate change as the one issue that Christians of different persuasions and representing different traditions can speak with the one, strong, Christian voice.

So there you are. Not the Eucharist, not the Church, not the Gospel, not the Word of God, but: climate change. I guess we should be thankful that the Christian communities of the world have finally found something they can all speak about together “with the one, strong Christian voice.”

Spelling out the principle of the lesser evil

The news today is that “the Holy See is preparing a document on the use of condoms to prevent the transmission of the HIV virus” (Catholic World News). This follows the discussion which appeared in the Italian daily La Repubblica. John Allan reported at length on this issue in this week’s Word From Rome, where he said:

Similarly, asked about the use of condoms to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS, Martini responded: "Certainly the use of prophylactics can, in some situations, constitute a lesser evil," mentioning the case of a couple where one partner is infected and the other isn't.

The problem, Martini said, isn't really the ethical analysis. The problem is the PR headaches that follow whenever a church official says this out loud. To put it bluntly, anytime a senior church official says that use of a condom might be a "lesser evil" in the context of a deadly disease, the next day's headlines trumpet "Church okay with condoms," which is not the same message.

"The question is really if it's wise for religious authorities to propagandize in favor of this method of defense [from HIV/AIDS], almost implying that other morally sustainable means, including abstinence, are put on a lower level," Martini said. "The principle of a 'lesser evil,' applicable in all the cases covered by ethical doctrine, is one thing; another thing is who ought to express these judgments publicly."

I highlighted that bit above, because that is indeed spot on. I’ve never really believed that the plague proportion of HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa (etc.) is due to the Catholic prohibition of condoms, nor that it would be halted if the Church removed its “blanket ban” on condoms. Somehow it just doesn’t ring true that men who would have unprotected sex with prostitutes and then with their wives would pay much attention to what the Pope has to say on the matter. It would seem to me that the condom question for such men is more a question of a “macho” image. Or the simple fact that it is more pleasurable to have sex without a condom than with one.

[I speak from experience of my pre-Catholic days. I haven’t used one since my conversion. My very wise catechist, Anthony Fisher—now auxiliary bishop of Sydney in charge of the next WYD—pointed out the perversity of committing a sin when the sin actually reduces the pleasure of the sexual act!]

What is probably more true is that their wives and those who advise their wives will pay attention to the Church’s teaching. Here I expect that the principle of the lesser evil (as outlined by Martini above) has always been pastorally applied to individuals who have sought such pastoral advice, and I believe that such advice has been given without sin.

Maybe these days people need everything spelled out for them. But I don’t trust the media to get the spelling right, and most Catholics seem to use the media as their source of infallible pontifications these days. Here, the cautionary advice of Fr Neuhaus on the standards of religious journalism in the New York Times should be heeded:

“The New York Times is a newspaper where a reporter’s ignorance of a subject is considered a qualification. I’m not making this up. More than one person at the Times has explained to me that having someone report on a subject with which he is not familiar provides a fresh and unbiased perspective, and makes it more likely his reporting will be readily understood by non-specialists. That is not the policy on really important subjects, mind you, such as science, the Supreme Court, and same-sex marriage. But it will do for religion.”

Has Papa Benny been reading Kashmir Shaivism?

I recently showed Papa Benny’s Easter Vigil Homily to a priest friend. He wrote back:

Dear David, Thank you for the homily of Pope Benedict. It is an extraordinary statement. What do you make of a statements like “He was one single reality with the living God, so closely untied with him as to form one person with him.”? This is right down my alley –Kashmir Shaivism. Has he read these sorts of texts? Surely not! He continues on “we become one single subject, not just one thing.” These ideas are take up in other ways in other parts of the homily. This is extraordinary writing. What has happened to ‘Three Persons, one God’? Likewise his first encyclical entered into themes from Kashmir Shaivism. He can’t have read in this area, surely?

I agree that it is an extraordinary homily, for all the reasons he mentions, but also because of the "evolution" language he uses about the Resurrection being a "mutation". I agree that he has probably not read the texts of Kashmir Shaivism, but he may have read the writings of people who have. I find in many of his works that he quotes philosophical or religious ideas "second hand", that is, his footnotes reference the references of other theologians who have reflected upon the source material.

The section my friend highlights seems to me to be more along the traditional "Christology from below" stream in Christian thought as contrasted with our more usual "Christology from above". Most orthodox theologians have a preference for the latter, while acknowledging that the former has strong support in the scriptures. I think their unease with the former is that many of the early Church heresies, and not a few of the modernist, early 20th Century (eg. Albert Schweizer) theories of Christology, were "from below" in this fashion. I think we have to assume that "Three persons in one God" is still very much behind what Papa Benny is saying (how could it not be?), but that he is challenging us to think in new categories about the same basic reality. This is also what I think he is doing with the "evolution" language in reference to the Resurrection.

In this context, I find what John Allen says in this week's Word From Rome very much to the point. Allan is commenting on the themes in Benedict's speeches and sermons during Holy Week:

"Ticking off the topics Benedict covered during Holy Week, at first blush they seem entirely predictable -- the need for priests to be men of prayer, Jesus' washing the feet of the disciples as an act of love, the reality of evil, the link between Easter and Baptism, and so on. It's the nature of the liturgical season.

The striking thing, however, is that Benedict did not treat these subjects as a point of departure for other reflections, but rather as the very core of his concern. There was never a sense that he wanted to use the platform afforded by Holy Week to launch a message; Holy Week was the message.

In that sense, Benedict is a "back to basics" pope.

The church doesn't need new paradigms or initiatives, he believes, so much as the capacity to explain its core teachings well, and to inspire a desire to live them. Benedict's theology is never speculative, but pastoral and "kneeling." ...Benedict has pared the papacy back to what he considers its core functions, and when he does take the stage, he is determined to get to the heart of the matter.

None of this, however, means Benedict is incapable of surprise.

In his homily during the Easter vigil, for example, he described the resurrection as a kind of evolutionary "leap," awakening echoes of the late French Jesuit theologian and scientist Teilhard de Chardin, whose thought indirectly influenced the document Gaudium et Spes at the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), and who saw physical evolution as part of a broader cosmic and spiritual process. At the time, then-Fr. Joseph Ratzinger was critical of what he saw as an overly optimistic thrust in Teilhard, and in French theology generally, but he never dismissed the core insight.

"If we may borrow the language of the theory of evolution," Benedict said, "it [the Resurrection] is the greatest 'mutation,' absolutely the most crucial leap into a totally new dimension that there has ever been in the long history of life and its development. … It is a qualitative leap … towards a new future life, towards a new world which, starting from Christ, already continuously permeates this world of ours, transforms it and draws it to itself."

One well-known theologian in Rome told me this week that he always holds his breath when Benedict XVI speaks, because he may hear something that will take him off guard -- generally in the sense of opening up a new perspective on a topic he thought he already understood.

This will not be a papacy of great innovation, but neither will it be about stagnation or "glorious repetition." Instead, it is shaping up as a case study in the "return to the sources," or ressourcement, which has always been Benedict XVI's theological and pastoral style."

I think there are some clues there.

Also, I have been reading Ratzinger's "Introduction to Christianity" over several months (it must be taken in bite sized chunks and chewed well before swallowing), and I often find "pre-echoes" of the teaching that is now emerging from the Throne of Peter.

I also sense that when it comes to dialoguing with theological ideas from the other religions, Islam is his main focus. He often seems to be wanting to present us with a God of love, a personal God, an involved God in a way that contrasts with the Islamic view of Allah. In this sense he recently referred to God "overcoming God's own limitation in the Incarnation". (I am trying to relocate this remark--I read it somewhere recently and now have lost it). A staggering concept: that God, as Creator, is limited by the strict delineation of the Creator from his Creation (very much how Islam views Allah), and yet that he overcomes this limitation by the self-emptying and entry into Creation in the incarnation. Nb. This is very much a "Christology from above".  

The amazing thing is that in earlier years one could have been hauled before the Holy Office for any one of these ideas!!!

Happy Birthday, Your Majesty!

A short note to say "Happy Birthday" to our Sovereign, the Queen of Australia, Elizabeth II. Long has she reigned over us, and long may she continue to do so. I pray that God continues to give her good health and blesses her in the years to come.

Interesting editorial in The Age, today.

"This newspaper has long advocated that Australia must become a republic. This is not disrespectful to the Queen, but an expression of how the importance and meaning of monarchy have, over her long reign, become less important to most Australians who live in a self-sufficient soicety and expect the logical realisation of those values."

Then comes the clanger:

"But we could not have reached this point without monarchist rule, which has given us the history and heritage to venture towards independance."

In other words, were it not for the monarchy, Australia would have been a very different and much less happy society. Which kind of makes one wonder whether a future without the monarchy will be a better place...

On Truth in Faith and Dialogue

Okay, I agree with Edmund Chia that the argument “Christianity is the only religion with a savior who rose from the dead [;therefore] it obviously is the only true religion” is problematic. He says:

“First, how does one arrive at the conclusion that just because of a raised messiah Christianity must be the true religion? Second, is that conclusion suggesting that other religions must be false or at least less true?”

The problem, however, is a simple lack of logic. The fact of the resurrection certainly proves that Christianity is true; it does not necessarily prove that only Christianity is true or that Christianity is the only religion that has any truth.

Nevertheless, if the resurrection of Jesus is true, then any religion that denies the resurrection of Jesus must—at least on that point—not be true.

Furthermore, if Christ really rose from the dead, then that simple fact must surely have some consequence for all human beings, and not just for Christians.

I’m not quite sure if Chia is ready to acknowledge this point.

Nor do I think Reverend W. Neil Wilkinson (Uniting Church minister, Mont Albert) is ready to concede this point. He likes Waleed Aly’s piece in yesterday’s edition of The Age, but he isn’t so sure about the idea that it is

“emphatically unremarkable that a cardinal would make an exclusive claim to truth on behalf of Christianity, which by definition implies deficiencies in other theologies. Indeed, as much is claimed by proponents of most great religious traditions.” (It certainly is of Islam!)

In today’s Letters to the Editor, Rev. Neil says:

“While friendly bridge-building is important, religious leaders need to get beyond the footy supporters' position of "my team right, your team wrong". Though all major religious traditions are important, no tradition has a monopoly on truth. The sooner we humbly admit this and learn to value the spiritual insights and understandings of each other, the sooner serious dialogue will begin and people learn the sacredness of peace. God, by whatever name, will surely then smile upon us.”

The resurrection of Jesus, however, is not a “spiritual insight” among other spiritual insights. It has a quality which Papa Benny called (in his Easter Vigil Homily):

“the greatest ‘mutation’, absolutely the most crucial leap into a totally new dimension that there has ever been in the long history of life and its development: a leap into a completely new order which does concern us, and concerns the whole of history.”

Surely such a “new order” does call into question the spiritual insights of the old order, even in the context of “friendly bridge-building”?

"God's Medium is God's Message"

Since my university days, I have been very impressed by the work of Marshall McLuhan, who gave us the dictum “The medium is the message”.

But not until today was I aware that McLuhan was also a committed Catholic, and that he himself once remarked:

“Christ came to demonstrate God’s love for man and to call all men to him through himself as Mediator, as Medium. And in so doing he became the proclamation of his Church, the message of God to man. God’s medium became God’s message.”

Golden moments in recent interviews

Occasionally, I come across an exchange in an interview that is just priceless, and needs to be repeated. The first is from John Allen’s Word from Rome, interviewing the US Ambassador to the Holy See, Francis Rooney:

JA:      Let's talk about the United Nations. Over the years, the Holy See has expressed more confidence than the United States about the U.N. as an organ of international governance.
FR:     You don't have to have a lot of confidence to have more confidence than we do.

The second one is from this morning’s Stephen Crittenden Show with guest Mustapha Kara-Ali (who, apart from this exchange, came across quite well):

SC:      And what about Muslims who convert to Christianity in Afghanistan and face the death penalty? Do we just not talk about that bit?

MK-A:      Again, what we have today – look, I can tell you clearly, what we have today –

SC:      Apparently we don’t talk about that bit.

Is the Pope Catholic? Yes, thank Allah!

Waleed Aly’s piece in today’s edition of The Age makes a good point.

He says the assumption “that fruitful and harmonious interfaith relationships can exist only in a world of post-modern relativism” is “a comprehensive misunderstanding of the basis for interfaith dialogue” based on “a false dichotomy: that people either agree or live in hostility”.

He calls the Pope’s new emphasis on “reciprocity” (ie. if the Saudi’s can fund a large mosque in Rome, why can’t Catholics build churches in Saudi Arabia?) “more an even-handed observation than vitriolic belligerence”.

And finally, regarding Dominus Iesus, he says: “It is emphatically unremarkable that a cardinal would make an exclusive claim to truth on behalf of Christianity, which by definition implies deficiencies in other theologies. Indeed, as much is claimed by proponents of most great religious traditions.”

Thanks, Waleed. Sometimes the great benefit of interfaith dialogue is that an outsider’s point of view is able to shine the light of clarity on our own internal arguements.

"Year of Grace" update

I have posted another entry in my “Year of Grace” conversion story blog. Check it out, if you like reading other people’s secret diaries…

Good Friday Homily from Vatican

I am, at this very moment, listening to and watching Fr Cantalamessa’s Good Friday sermon in St Peter’s Basilica on EWTN television online. He is preaching in Italian, and the EWTN commentator is “translating” in English. In fact, she is reading the official text, which I am reading simultaneously on the Zenit website. And I am blogging at the same time! What a wonder modern science is.

I was hoping that I would see the Holy Father preaching, but I am not disappointed. Fr Cantalamessa is the preacher for the Papal Household. His sermon is very “modern”, speaking about the new Da Vinci Code film and the Gospel of Judas. It is spot on addressing current concerns.

Here is a taste:

Some years ago, Raymond Brown, the greatest biblical scholar of the Passion, wrote: "It is an embarrassing insight into human nature that the more fantastic the scenario, the more sensational is the promotion it receives and the more intense the faddish interest it attracts. People who would never bother reading a responsible analysis of the traditions about how Jesus was crucified, died, was buried, and rose from the dead are fascinated by the report of some 'new insight' to the effect that he was not crucified or did not die, especially if the subsequent career involved running off with Mary Magdalene to India … These theories demonstrate that in relation to the passion of Jesus, despite the popular maxim, fiction is stranger than fact, and often, intentionally or not, more profitable."[2]

There is much talk about Judas' betrayal, without realizing that it is being repeated. Christ is being sold again, no longer to the leaders of the Sanhedrin for thirty denarii, but to editors and booksellers for billions of denarii. No one will succeed in halting this speculative wave, which instead will flare up with the imminent release of a certain film, but being concerned for years with the history of Ancient Christianity, I feel the duty to call attention to a huge misunderstanding which is at the bottom of all this pseudo-historical literature.

New Update on Conversion Blog

I have added another short update on my "conversion blog", Year of Grace.

An In-Line Catholic's view of Online Catholics

Hey, everybody, someone’s finally left a comment of more than a few syllables! My thanks to Tony, who left the following comment on my article re Rocket Science and the Priesthood Shortage:

Dear David,

No doubt your blog attracts others like myself who are open to diversity and good arguments. What a pity you choose to indulge in petty inacurracy.

Readers of this blog should be aware that David's comments about Online Catholics web are both misleading and mischevious. Online Catholics is a subscription service. True. But then again every Diocesan newspaper in this country (except for maybe The Southern Cross in Adelaide) is a subscription service or needs to be purchased. Does David wish to suggest that these publications are also "in-house discussion between progressives, because no self-respecting conservative would fork out the cash"?

Readers might be surprised to know that Online Catholics also offers a parish subscription service which allows access to the web by quite a number of people, not all of whom sit comfortably in David's paradigm of lefties.

So, let's be a bit more honest with our comments David. BTW, I seem to be the only person interested in engaging with you in here. But at least your blog led me to the elusive Credo. Thanks

Tony

Yes, you are right, Tony, I don't get many readers engaging with my blogs; sad, isn't it? But I know from my site meter that I get several serious readers every day (ie. People who stay for more than a minute).

Thank you for your comment, though. I am a bit naughty saying cheeky things like that about Online Catholics. I admit my comments were mischevious, but I don't know about "misleading". You have to admit that the editorial policy and the general content of Online Catholics does not reflect a policy or content which could be said to “think with the Church”. Around the Church, against the Church, under the Church, through the Church, but not really “with” the Church. Sorry, I’m being naughty again.

You can see what Online Catholics has to say about itself on their “About us” page. When you read phrases such as “including the renewal of Church governance and structures and participation by the faithful”, you know that you are in “Wir sind Kirche” territory. These are not guys who subscribe to the old dictum “Roma locuta est, cause finita est”. Shoot me, but I am (I’ll blog a bit more about that separately). There’s no getting around the fact that, however much Online Catholics seeks “to reflect the diversity of Church life and views” and “the rich texture of the Catholic heritage”, it is in fact a leading forum in Australia for dissent from the Magisterium.

They also state that they wish to promote controversy, albeit in “intelligently” and “in a spirit of faith, reason and generosity”. For the most part Online Catholics achieves this, but I have long ago lost a taste for “controversy” for its own sake. In the end it simply doesn’t build up the Church in the way that good, old fashioned loyalty and faithfulness does. We are, after all, called “the Faithful”.

And on the matter of charging a subscription to read the content of Online Catholics. Print media needs to charge subscription for the sake of the very high costs of producing hard-copy journals. Even still, I am able to read most of the journals for free in my local Catholic library, or borrow one from a mate, or read the single parish copy. Other online journals, such as The Tablet, First Things, and National Catholic Reporter, usually have either a significant amount of their online content available for free, or, like First Things, make back copies available for no cost.

There is a principle involved here. If you believe that what you publish is really for the good of the Church, and that the Church needs to have access to your content, you will make that content available for the widest possible audience at the lowest possible inconvenience to the reader (subscriptions are an inconvenience, IMHO). I applaud Online Catholics for making one article available from each issue. I would suggest they go a step further and take a leaf out of First Things book, by making back issues available on the web for free.

It can’t really cost that much to run an online journal, can it?

New "Year of Grace" entry

I have made a new entry into my other blog, “Year of Grace”, in which I publish a journal I kept during the year of my conversion between Easter 2000 and Easter 2001 (a whole five years ago! Gosh!).

Rocket Science 101 - or "The Priesthood Shortage and what to do about it"

Have I already mentioned somewhere that I once began planning setting up an online journal called “In-line Catholics”?

Over at Online Catholics (where you have to pay to get the benefit of the wisdom and opinion of the Australian Catholic Left—thus ensuring, of course, that it remains an in-house discussion between progressives, because no self-respecting conservative would fork out the cash) Fr Hodgens has been holding forth on “Staunching the clergy haemorrhage”.

This has provoked the usual discussion on the Cathnews discussion board.

My observations will seem equally banal and commonplace. Nevertheless, I believe them to be true or I wouldn’t bother expressing them.

1. If we are looking for someone to blame, I suggest we lay that blame at the feet of the baby boomer generation. Yes, folks, Fr Hodgens tells you what went wrong. He says that “One third of the Baby Boomers have left priesthood for alternative careers.” Several commentators on the Cathnews discussion board, expatm for one, have pointed out that Fr Hodgens is at least nine years of the mark by putting the point of decline at 1975. 1966 is much more like it. The statistics might only have become evident nine years later, but the down turn came between the end of the Council and the beginning of the 1970’s. What happened at this time? Ask Papa Benny, who witnessed first hand the rejection of authority and open anarchy that broke out in the 1968 “revolution”. In short, the Baby Boomer generation lost faith in all ecclesiastical authority. Those who had been ordained priests (even many of them who stayed in the job) lost faith in the priesthood as a ministry of grace in which they embodied Christ himself by means of a sacramental character. Having lost faith in the priesthood as a vocation, the Baby Boomer generation were unable and unwilling to promote vocations in the next generation, Generation X.

2. Fr Hodgens says we should “let the secretaries and pastoral workers run the parishes” and “let someone qualified and competent do the preaching”. Well, there is a better solution, because the Church has endorsed a “qualified” (in the sense of ordained) ministry to preach and to assist priests in pastoral work. They are not allowed to say mass, but they can baptise, marry, preach, teach, catechise, bury, administer holy communion and a host of other jobs that would take the pressure of the priests. They can be married, part-time or full-time, old or young, retired or self-employed. All this the Church allows right now, if only the local Church in Australia would embrace the possibilities such a ministry offers. I am, of course, talking about permanent deacons, a ministry restored by the Second Vatican Council yet curiously ignored despite our pastoral crisis. There are barely 100 permanent deacons in Australia. You want reform? Start here, folks.

3. One commentator pointed out the obvious fact that there were more priests pre-1975 because there were more Catholics regularly going to mass. The “pool” of young eligibles, in other words, has shrunk. The answer is bleedingly obvious: Evangelisation. Yet there is some sort of weird clericalism in the progressive ranks that seems to believe that the only way to grow the church is to ordain all and sundry, because what is needed to grow the church is three masses in every parish on every Sunday. No, dear friends, what is required is that all Catholics in Australia, from the humblest and youngest lay Catholic to the oldest and wisest bishop, really get serious about their faith and about communicating the Good News to the people of Australia (perhaps beginning with those who turn up in the pews every Sunday!). There isn’t a simple “band aid” strategy that will fix this one. It will be hard work.

4. Finally, do we forget what Jesus had to say on the matter? “Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into the harvest”. “You do not have because you do not ask”. I know one priest who said Mass every Thursday in his parish for vocations, and in three years three young men from his parish took up the call. One discovered it wasn’t for him, but the other two are well on the way toward ordination. Imagine if we had, in any given three years, two vocations to the priesthood from every parish in Melbourne? Problem solvered, as they say. Now of course, there was a lot more to it than just lip service prayer. This priest put work into his altar servers guild, into his catechesis, into his serious befriending of young men (don’t smile—one of the great tragedies of the recent scandals is that the real mentoring required for vocations between priests and young male parishioners has been dropped like a hot potato).

So, Fr Hodgens, there you have it. The David Schütz program for increasing vocations and supplying pastoral care in Australia. It ain’t rocket science. To bad so many people use this crisis as an opportunity to drive their own agendas. Yes, some really would like us to “do nothing” and see the Church continue to shrink in size. We have Jesus’ promise though that he will not let this happen.

Schönborn's Fifth and Sixth Creation Catechesis

How bloody frustrating. You know that I have been following Cardinal Christoph Schönborn’s Catechetical lectures on Creation.

Well, they translated lectures one to four into English, but since then he has given two more lectures (five and six) and they haven’t been translated!!!!

[Reader: Don’t be so lazy, Schütz. Brush up on your German and read them in the original language.

Schütz: It’s hard enough getting my mind around the ideas without having to get my mind around the language!

Bishop Donald W. Trautman on the new translation of the Mass

Thank you, John Allen, for drawing the world’s attention to a lecture given recently by Bishop Donald W. Trautman at St John’s, Minnesota entitled: “The Relationship of the Active Participation of the Assembly to Liturgical Translations”. Trautman is secretary of the USCBC’s Liturgical committee, so he is no light-weight in these matters. He is squarely on the “anti-Liturgiam Authenticam” team.

His basic thesis is that the proposed translation (following the principles of the Liturgiam Authenticam) is in violation of Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Liturgy, which states in Article 21:

“Texts and rites should be drawn up so that they express more clearly the holy things which they signify.  Christian people, as far as possible, should be able to understand them with ease and to take part in them fully, actively, and as it befits a community.”

Trautman holds that this refers to the translation of the liturgy, insisting that all liturgical texts, to be authentically in line with the Constitution, should be immediately and transparently comprehensible to the man (woman) in the pew.

In fact, the section to which he refers is not talking at all about the translation of the liturgy, but rather about the restoration of the liturgy. The text on the Vatican website says:

“In this restoration, both texts and rites should be drawn up so that they express more clearly the holy things which they signify; the Christian people, so far as possible, should be enabled to understand them with ease and to take part in them fully, actively, and as befits a community.

[Am I quibbling to say that there is a difference between being “able” to do something and being “enabled” to do something? The latter suggests some assistance would be required?]

Since it is the restoration of the liturgy, and not its translation  which would enable such an understanding, one assumes that such “understanding with ease” could be done even if the liturgy were to be celebrated (for the most part) in Latin rather than in the vernacular. Vatican II in fact did not even require that the whole liturgy should be celebrated in the vernacular. In fact, the Constitution declared that “it is for the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority…to decide whether, and to what extent, the vernacular language is to be used”. Presumably, therefore, a local Bishops Conference could decide that the entire liturgy should be celebrated in Latin, without going against the dictates of the Council! Otherwise, Sacrosanctum Concilium says nothing about using translated versions of the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

In John Allen’s “Word from Rome”, Father Harbert, the director of ICEL, makes the point that

“‘active participation’ in the liturgy as desired by Vatican II [may not be] the best possible translation of the Council's words. I can participate in an event without getting really involved, and I can get involved as a spectator at a game of football without participating. I think ‘active involvement’ expresses better what the Council wanted: not merely ‘joining in,’ but being drawn in, heart and mind. For that to happen, the liturgy must express feelings as well as facts.”

Oddly enough, this sort of ‘involvement’ can happen even where a language other than one’s own is used for prayer. Trautman quotes Fr Godfrey Diekmann (more on him later) to the effect that one should always pray in one’s own language. Rubbish. Anyone who has ever been to Taize or to a Taize-style prayer service will know how easy it is to lift your heart to God in prayer in a language that is not your own, be it Latin, German, or French. In fact, by using another language the words don’t get in the way of the prayer. [Charismatics recognise this in their valuing of the gift of tongues.] Even the new Compendium of the Catechism acknowledges the value of praying in other languages by the inclusion of the prayers in the back in both English and Latin.

Beyond this misuse of Sacrosanctum Concilium, what evidence does Trautman bring to his thesis? Only the evidence of “liturgical experts” (eg. Fr Anscar Chupungco, “a liturgical scholar and professor of liturgy at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute in Rome”). Excuse me, but I get a bit tired of this. The use of the word “liturgist” to mean “liturgical expert” is a bit of a Roman fault, if I may say so. All Christians who participate in the mass Sunday after Sunday are “liturgists”. They are the real “liturgical experts”, and it seems that they have hardly been consulted on this matter. We are being told by “experts” like Bishop Trautman that the new translations will be “bad for us”. Excuse me, but I and my fellow laymen (and women) will be judge of that. Laity the world over have been clamouring for liturgical translations that are faithful and beautiful and that is what the Vatican and ICEL are now offering us. Bishop Trautman, with all due respect, please step aside.

I am somewhat wary of Bishop Trautman’s insistence throughout the document that the liturgy be in a language that is “contemporary mainstream English as spoken in the United States”. Excuse me? English is spoken elsewhere, you know. England, for eg. And here in Australia. And in the Phillipines, and in South Africa and in India, and in New Zealand. Trautman insists that

“when people [ie. Americans—do any “people” live outside America?] come to celebrate Eucharist they come with the everyday language of contemporary American culture in their ears and on their lips.  That language reflects the influence of television, videos, movies, newspapers, magazines, and best sellers.  The liturgical and biblical texts of the Eucharist can only be heard and prayed in the culture of the assembly.”

Well, I’m sorry, but I have just about had it up to here with American English being imperially foisted upon us in “television, videos, movies, newspapers, magazines, and best sellers”, and I hardly want my prayers to be invaded by Americanese as well. We humble Ozzies might wonder at the audacity of an American bishop suggesting that their local version of our language should dominate the world-wide English liturgy. Here is Bishop Trautman’s own explanation of why such a domination is perfectly reasonable:

“Where in the world do we have the largest number of people participating in weekly Eucharist? Not France, not Germany, not Spain, not England, not Italy, not South American [certainly not Australia!!]. The Church in the United States, with Poland and Malta, ranks at the very top of the list. I think we Americans know something about liturgy and participation. Our voice should be heard.” (from a talk given by Bishop Donald Trautman to the Southwest Liturgical Conference on 17 January 2002)

In particular, what happens when we look at some of the Bishop’s examples of inappropriate or incomprehensible English? Consider the following:

1. Objection to “consubstantial” and “incarnate” in the Creed. And this from the Church that gave the world the term “transubstantiation” and “assumption” and “immaculate” and “beatific vision”? Things are getting a bit sad in the Church if people don’t know what “incarnate” means. Besides, both of these words express quite specific doctrines of the Church—and they are not equal to “one in being with” or “born of”.


2. Objection to “place of refreshment” for the dead. Don’t we talk about being in God’s presence? And don’t we pray for a “place” in his presence? That heaven is “not a place” is in fact an elitist quibble; the laity are hardly to be bothered with this.


3. Objection to “dew of your Spirit”. Okay, we’re not used to this, but how is this any different from the expression “breath of your Spirit” which is common place?


4. Objection to the translation “chalice” for the cup. Trautman bases his objection on the Greek of the New Testament. Sorry, Bish. This is a translation of the Latin Mass, not the of the Greek gospels. Otherwise, why would we have “which will be given for you” rather than “which is given for you”?

The rest of his objections are all to do with the lectionary, and frankly I can’t see how that could get any worse from the version we currently have! A bit weak, my Lord!

Trautman seems also to overlook the fact that many of the best loved devotional prayers of the laity were translated into English long before the post-Vatican II liturgy and have endured for centuries. Take the Hail Holy Queen (whoever calls anyone “clement” any more?) or the Lord’s Prayer itself which stubbornly resists any attempt toward modernisation in the Liturgy (who ever uses the word “hallow” anymore? What child understands the word “temptation”?).

I won’t even bother to argue the toss about “inclusive language” other than to say that the situation we face today, where the masculine can no longer be used for the generic, is one for which the ideologues are entirely to blame and can hardly through back in our faces as if it were anyone’s fault other than their own.

But I will make a quick reference reference to two points:

1. The Bishop asks: “Did Jesus ever speak to the people of his day in words beyond their comprehension?” The simple answer to this typical, protestant, “What-Would-Jesus-Do” type of objection is: Yes, even when he used single syllable words. The Gospel of John for instance uses a vocabulary of little more than 600 words, but you are kidding yourself if you think it may be “understood with ease”. And what about Matthew 13:13, eh?


2. Dynamic Equivalence is all very well, but as any bible translator will tell you, it causes as many problems as it “solves”. Literal translations may not be immediately transparent, but they leave open a wider field of possible meanings. The dynamic equivalent translator must first choose which of these many meanings he (she) thinks is most likely from among a wide field of contenders, and then translate accordingly, thus reducing the possible resonance of the multi-dimensional text to one dimension only. The language of poetry and prayer are generally the hardest to translate using dynamic equivalence techniques for this reason.

Finally, take good note of Bishop Trautman’s admiration for Fr Godfrey Diekmann, who was a teacher for almost 60 years at the very college where Trautman gave his lecture. Most Catholics of our generation never knew Diekmann, but he had a monumental effect on the modern Catholic liturgy. To find out what sort of fellow he was, it is worth reading this obituary in The Adoremus Bulletin from April 2002 (following Diekmann’s death). His antipathy toward John Paul II is well worth noting.

The spectre of the possibility that the US Catholic Bishops Conference could actually reject the new translation of the Missal should frighten the boots off us all. It could mean that the world ends up with not one but several different English versions of the Roman Rite (I have actually heard from authoritative sources that the English, the Americans and the “rest” of the English speaking world form three different “blocks” on the translating team which could result in at least three different versions). Or, more likely, it could mean that the new translations are held up for many more years yet to come.

"Word from the U.S. of A."

My worst fears have been confirmed. Take a look at this week’s Word from Rome by John Allen Jnr, and tell me if it isn’t rather more “Word from the U.S. of A.” than from Rome. I really really really hope that this isn’t what we can expect when he gets back to the States.

Arinze on the Liturgy

Read, learn, and inwardly digest, my dear people. Cardinal Arinze, the Terror of “Northern progressives” from the “deep South”, has issued this gem on the liturgy: Hearts and Minds: thinking about and celebrating the Liturgy.

This time last year, Cardinal Arinze was my top bet for bishop of Rome. (No, I wasn’t against our dear Papa Ratzy from being elected—I just didn’t believe the Cardinals had the guts to do it). I still think he would have made a little ripper of a Pope. Ah well.

As you will see from his writing style, the newspapers would have loved him. Nice short “new-bite”-length sentences.

Here’s a taste:

“God is not our equal. He is not our colleague. He is our Creator. Without him we would not exist at all. He is the only necessary being. It is normal that we acknowledge this fact. Those who refuse to adore God must not decorate themselves with the apparently nice title of liberal intellectuals. If we are to call a spade a spade, we shall inform such people that they are unreasonable, ignorant and blind to most obvious facts. A child who refuses to recognize his parents is not a liberal. He is a brat. Would it be wrong to call him stupid, and unaware of common sense, and even of his own best interest? And God is to us much more than parents are to their children.”

Tasty? Yes. Here’s more:

“Gradually in the Church of the Latin Rite from the Middle Ages, Eucharistic devotion has developed in such forms as visits to the Most Blessed Sacrament, personal and group Holy Hour of Adoration, and Eucharistic Benediction, Procession and Congress. None of us should behave as if he or she had outgrown such manifestations of faith and had no need of them.”

And one more bit:

“A do-it-yourself mentality, an attitude of nobody-will-tell-me-what-to-do, or a defiant sting of if-you-do-not-like-my-Mass-you-can-go-to-another-parish, is not only against sound theology and ecclesiology, but also offends against common sense. Unfortunately, sometimes common sense is not very common, when we see a priest ignoring liturgical rules and installing creativity – in his case personal idiosyncracy – as the guide to the celebration of Holy Mass.”

You gotta love these guys at Headquarters. The progressives clamoured for a non-Italian pope, and they got JPII. They clamoured for a voice from the South, from Africa, and they got Cardinal Arinze. It seems the further they are from the centre, the more centred they become.

“There's no pleasing some people.”

“That's just what Jesus said, sir.”

Ah yes, a quotable quote for every occasion, that’s what Monty Python is.

Today’s occasion is the publication of the Brack’s Government’s intended changes to the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act. There are a couple of procedural changes to sort out the frivolous and malicious claims from the genuine ones, but the change that really counts is this:

“Proposed Amendment: Clarification of the meaning of religious purpose’ to include “teaching, conveying and proselytising of a religion’.

“Explanation: There has been some uncertainty in the faith community about freedom to proselytise. In his recent judgement in Fletcher v The Salvation Army Australia [2005], VOAT 1523, Justice Morris observed that the RRTA does not prohibit proselytising.

“The Government intends to clarify the meaning of “religious purpose” to include “conveying, teaching or proselytising of a religion”. “Religious purpose” must be genuine and remains subject to the requirement of reasonableness and good faith.

“The proposed amendment will ensure the RRTA is interpreted in line with Justice Morris’ observations.”

Now you’d think that would put an end to it, wouldn’t you? I mean, besides “teaching, conveying and proselytising” of your own religion, what possible reason would you have for wanting to say anything about anyone else’s religion? Except truly being nasty, perhaps.

Yet here is the response of David Palmer, the Presbyterian spokesman, to these proposed changes:

"The battle is joined. They've said what they are prepared to do, and it falls so far short."

Yes, Brian, there truly is “no pleasing some people”…

Hey everybody, its "Creation Time"!!!

Okay, this one got me hot under the collar some years ago when it was first pushed here in Australia by the Uniting Church and the Lutheran Church. Originally the brain child of Rev. Dr. Norm Habel, it appears to have caught on with the Europeans.

In a news release, the Conference of European Churches has announced that “More space to honour God as Creator and to reflect on the preservation of the environment is needed within the Christian calendar”.

“We have reaffirmed the proposal to establish a ‘Creation Time’ within the Christian yearly calendar,” said the Swiss theologian Lukas Vischer.

The news release says: “Already in 1989 the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople had invited all Christians to celebrate 1 September as a day of thanksgiving for the gift of creation and of prayer for its protection. This Orthodox proposal was picked up by the EEA2 and since then it has been accepted by several churches including various Protestant Churches, and the Roman Catholic Bishops' Conferences of the Philippines and Italy.”

Well, one day is one thing—and it would never replace have precedence on a Sunday—but the audacity of claiming the Ecumenical Patriarch as their inspiration for this move is astounding! No matter how much he esteems the environmental cause, he would be the very last person to allow any tampering with the Church year for this purpose.

You can view the Australian website here, and the European Website here. For something really scary, have a look at the liturgy page on the Australian Website.

So, what’s my beef with this? It is completely alien to the Church’s liturgical year.

1. The Church year is Christological in structure, just as Sunday is. The Church may have special days set aside for special causes, but the focus of the liturgy is always the Paschal Mystery.


2. The Church Year has an “historical” structure, anchoring the cycle of the years in the Salvation History of our redemption.


3. The Church year has developed organically over time, and is not hospitable to ideological innovation.

I could probably think of some more reasons. So could you. Leave a comment to this effect. I don’t think we need to fear that this will enter our lectionary while Cardinal Arinze is around!

"Year of Grace" update

I have posted an update on my “Year of Grace” retro-blog about my conversion between Easter 2000 and Easter 2005.

At last! Clear teaching from a Catholic Bishop!

This is amusing. Bishop John Cunneen of the Catholic Diocese of Christchurch, NZ, believes that: “semi-nude jelly wrestling is an odd way to commemorate Easter.” We have to agree.

The Compendium is here!

In my hot little hands, no less. The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is a bargain at $17.95 from St Paul's bookshop in Lonsdale Street (mind you, the full edition is only a few bucks more). Its not as "slim" as I expected, and still a very substantial work. I will be doing a bit of a comparison to the full edition of the CCC in the next few days. For the moment, there are more pictures (and better quality) than I expected, and there is a lovely little touch which highlights all the quotations from the Fathers in blue boxes. Pithy little bits, which (like quotations from Monty Python only more authoritative) may be quoted in many situations to confound the infidel. In fact, they suggest that they could be memorised, just like we (ie. we protestants) once used to memorise bible verses in Sunday School.

Its hard to know how we will abbreviate the title of this one. I have been calling the Catechism of the Catholic Church the "CCC", but to call this one the "CCCC" seems a little clumsy. Perhaps just "The Compendium", or perhaps the "Com-Penny Catechism"...

Unfortunately, it is not yet available online in English. French, Italian and (of all languages) ROMANIAN are available on the Vatican Website.

A moment of frightful silence...

For any of you who have an interest in interfaith dialogue and the meaning of the “religions”, get a hold of a copy of Ratzinger’s “Truth and Tolerance: Christian belief and World Religions”. It is a ripper.

I was bowled over by this bit, which appears on page 209, and is in reference to JPII’s encyclical “Veritatis Splendor”. Ratzinger begins by quoting Die Zeit’s review of the encyclical by Jan Ross:

“The voice of the Pope, he says, “has given courage to many people and to entire nations and has sounded hard and piercingly in many people’s ears and has even aroused hatred; but when it falls silent, that will be a moment of frightful silence.” And indeed, if no one talks about God and man, about sin and grace, about death and eternal life, any more, then all the shouting and all the noise there is will only be a vain attempt to deceive ourselves about the voice of true humanity falling silent.”

It seems to me that there is perhaps an even more frightful silence: not just the impossible thought that the Bishop of Rome might cease to speak God’s Word to us, but the horrible possibility that God’s own Word itself might be rendered silent in all the earth. Perhaps that is what is meant by Rev 8:1 "When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour." May there never be such a silence upon earth!

Reducing the Triduum

Now I’ve heard everything (or at least a bit more than I have heard before). I have recently been alerted to a move in some circles to discourage parishes away from the practice of reading the cycle of Old Testament readings at the Easter Vigil in darkness or semi-darkness. They claim that to do so is to suggest that before Christ came all was darkness. The problem with that? It is, apparently, a snub against our Jewish brothers and sisters, let alone all other religions.

But hold on a moment: Whatever happened to “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” etc.? Isn’t the whole point of the Darkness, Night, Light and Fire symbolism of the Easter Vigil that the Light of Christ has come into the world?

Where on earth did this idea spring from? I certainly haven’t heard any complaints from the Jewish community on this. Next they will be complaining about the reading of St John’s Passion on Good Friday… What? Really? They already do? Well, OK then, if we get rid of Good Friday AND the Easter Vigil, there’s not much left but to go and join the local synagogue in celebrating Pesach…

Could he have been a she?

While I am waiting to get my hands on another copy of “Missing Mary” by Charlene Spretnak, I have emailed her asking her to explain briefly her assertion that emphasising the Church’s traditional teaching on Mary doesn't compromise the attempt to “get people to think of God as much female as male”.

It seems to me that there are two very clear issues:

1) Mary is feminine
2) Jesus is masculine

Its easy to say this because they were human.

God is a more difficult matter, because we acknowledge that as Creator he is above and beyond created gender. Furthermore, we know that human beings image God as "male and female" and not simply as male alone. Nevertheless the scriptural tradition more often speaks of God as "father" than "mother"; and never speaks of God as "wife" although God is often spoken of as "husband". This fits right in with the two facts given above:

1) Mary is a woman, the "spouse" of the Holy Spirit, the "Queen" of Heaven to her son's "King".
2) Jesus, the "image of the invisible God"  (Col 1:15) is male.

And a third NT witness:

3) Christ is male spouse to his "bride" the Church.

So, could Jesus just as easily and just as well have imaged God had he been a she? Was there, so to speak, a 50/50 chance that he could have been a woman? Or was there some intrinsic reason why the Christ had to male, and is that reason intrinsic to God or to humanity?

Those who like things to fit into a neat scheme will, it seems to me, be drawn toward the following conclusions:

God = Father, therefore Male; Mary = Female, therefore Mother.
Jesus = Male, therefore Bridegroom; Church = Bride, therefore Female.

(Note that I have kept the chiastic relation of this scheme)

Mind you, I am a bit uncomfortable when people portray the above scheme as if Mary were the fourth person of the "Trinitarian Family" with Mary as Mom and God as Dad, and Jesus and the Holy Spirit as the kids with us as adopted children of this happy family. I have never heard it put quite this crassly, but I have heard explications that come close, especially from the "Catholic right" (Scott Hahn would be an example).

Newman in support of Spretnak?

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have been reading Charlene Spretnak’s “Missing Mary”. Unfortunately, I have had to return the book to the Joint Theological Library before I finished reading it (it was an interlibrary loan and is due back), but I will pick it up again as soon as our copy arrives in the Daniel Mannix library.

You will know that I have been critical of Charlene’s identification of Mary with the “Mother Goddess” who appears in many religions and cultures throughout human history.

However, I have just read a passage from Newman (quoted in Chapter 14 of an online book by English Dominican Aidan Nichols “Epiphany: a theological introduction to Catholicism”) which full supports approach, as long as it is taken in line with her comments she made to me personally about how to understand what she was trying to say:

"We are not distressed to be told that the doctrine of the angelic host came from Babylon, while we know that they did sing at the Nativity; nor that the vision of a mediator is in Philo, for in very deed he died for us on Calvary."
("Milman's View of Christianity" in Essays Critical and Historical (London 1890) 2:233)

Nichols goes on to say:

"The Church, en route between Pentecost and the parousia, can continue to find analogues of her own truth in the cultures of the unbaptised; not merely, indeed, echoes of the truth she knows consciously, but instruments for the fuller appropriation of its inexhaustible richness."

Speaking tomorrow at the Caroline Chisholm Library

Just a quick reminder to all and sundry who can get to the Caroline Chisholm Libary tomorrow (Wednesday 5th April) at 1pm for the Lunch Time Lecture. The Speaker is Yours Truly, and the topic is "Repentance in the New Testament". See you there! (Click on the link to the Library to get the address and other details).

Let's get subversive: Fr Tom Elich complains about the republication of early Liturgical Renewal texts

Fr Tom Elich of the Liturgical Commission has written an article called “Claiming our history” complaining that “right-wing Catholic publishers” are being “subversive” by publishing the texts of the early pioneers of liturgical reform.

I rather like the idea that the "progressives" are now calling the "conservatives" subversive. The boot being on the other foot for a change! There is a fair bit of dummy-spitting in Fr Elich's article.

You can usually tell the age of a bloke or blokette by the way they view the Church as being divided into good guys and bad guys. The great thing about Pope Benedict is that he is moving the Church beyond these tired old ways of looking at things.

We could do without language like "right-wing revisionists" and "mainstream Church" (one gets the impression that the mainstream Church is always on MY side).

Interesting too how Fr Elich continually asserts that the reformed liturgy we ended up with was the work of the Second Vatican Council. Everyone knows that this is a myth. It was the combined work of the Curial committees and ICEL years after the Council ended. You can't find anything (for eg.) about celebrating facing the people in the text of the Council documents.

A little anecdote passed down through oral tradition. Apparently Pope Paul VI was getting ready to celebrate the mass for the Monday after Pentecost (which used to be an extension of the Pentecost feast) after the reform of the Church Year, and expressed surprise to find green vestments rather than the traditional red ones laid out for him. "Why Green?" he asked the sacristan. "Its ordinary time, your Holiness". "Since when?" "Since it was changed, your Holiness." "Who authorised that?" "Why, YOU did, your Holiness!"

So much for everything being done "with the full knowledge, support and encouragement of the Holy See"!

Vale, "Word from Rome"...

Word From Rome, that excellent column by the excellent John Allen, will soon be no more. John Allen is heading back to the good 'ol US of A according to this article in the National Catholic Reporter.

Not that we are to be deprived of John Allen's reflections and reporting on "All things Catholic", as his column in NCR will continue under this title. We are told that this will allow him to "report more extensively on the Catholic church in the United States as well as to travel and report on the Catholic community worldwide".

Yeah, well, that'll be the hard part, won't it? Keeping a balance between what's going on in the States and what's happening in the Catholic community worldwide.

No one reading JA's columns over the years will have missed the fact that he has done a lot of growing and personal development in the time he has been in the Vatican (just compare his writing on Ratzinger before in 2000 to his writing today on Pope Benedict). His point of view has broadened to at least being able to see with both eyes, something that most of the journalists at NCR are incapable of doing, since they were either 1) born blind in one eye, or 2) find the light so bright in the US that they have to squint a lot...

I can't say that I welcome his announcement to return to the States, but I will pray that the defect affecting his fellow US progressives does not reinfect his vision of "All things Catholic".

An annulment for Nicole Kidman? Here's why it will probably happen.

A report in the Sunday Herald Sun claims that Nicole Kidman has been told by “a priest” that if she were to marry again, she “could still have a church service”. Now, I very much doubt that this “priest” had any real authority to make such a claim, and really, no-one ever knows if they may obtain an annulment until the declaration of nullility has been made by the Tribunal, but he is probably right.

Few are aware that divorced Catholics who are returning to the Church and who either are remarried or who want to remarry have an “escape clause” that makes an annulment of their first marriage a fair certainty.

Canon law, which establishes the validity of any marriage, requires that a member of the Church may not marry a non-Catholic or get married in a non-Catholic faith community without dispensation from the Church from the obligation to marry a Catholic in the Catholic Church.

When a Catholic ceases to practice their Catholic faith (as Kidman did by becoming a Scientologist) and marries outside of the Church (as Kidman did to Cruise) they rarely bother to seek the Church’s authority to do so (one presumes Kidman and Cruise did not both to either).

Therefore, the marriages of many non-practicing Catholics lack proper canonical form and are therefore automatically “null and void”. Upon their return to the Catholic fold such marriages would need to be regularised. If the returning Catholic is (like Kidman) divorced, she will be granted an annulment (virtually) automatically, leaving her free to remarry in the Church.

Non-Catholics who marry non-Catholics outside of the Catholic Church and then become Catholic do not have the benefit of such an “escape clause”. The Church graciously deigns to acknowledge the full validity of marriage which has been celebrated between a baptised separated brother and a baptised separated sister in a non-Catholic ecclesial community without the permission of the Church.

The upshot of which is that it is generally much easier for divorcees to remarry in the Catholic Church if they were non-practicing Catholics at the time of their first marriage than if they were fully practicing baptised non-Catholics. Go figure.

God of the Mess: Church music in Australian Catholic Parishes

A friend recently sent me this link to the Society for a Moratorium on the Music of Marty Haugen and David Haas.

Would I join this society? Answer: no.

Does that mean that I totally approve of Haugen and Haas’s stuff? Again, the answer is: no.

But context is everything. The Society is based in the US, and, at least according to the Society’s website, in the US the choice is between “Haugen and Haas” and “Gregorian Chant and Palestrina”. Would that it were so here in the Land of Oz (and I rather doubt that it is so in the good ‘ol U. S. of A. either).

The sad fact of the matter is that if Australian Catholic parishes sang nothing except the compositions of Haugen and Haas, it would be a distinct improvement over the current offerings. If you don’t believe me, go to the Word of Life Top 100 songs page and see the evidence for yourself. Word of Life is a licensing agency used almost exclusively by Catholics.

Here, for instance, is a song by Peter Kearney that we have been using in our parish during Lent as a “penitential” song. Ask yourself: could you sing this? Would you want to?

GOD OF THE MESS

Chorus:
God of the mess that we're in, you still bless us
And feel every bump when we fall;
You see the good in our heart
and you know how we struggle
You fathered and mothered us all.

1. You see through the eyes of the child on the street
The man on the dole who drinks down defeat,
The mother alone- her rent overdue
It's not what you want but it's true.

2. The old man confused, the junkie in gaol,
The baby all bruised- a victim so frail;
Good things go wrong, we try and we fail
Over and over again.

3. But the seasons turn round and wounds they can mend
A neighbour comes round- you laugh in the end;
You take a deep breath and count up to ten
And start it all over again.

When you are faced with this, Haugen and Haas begin to look very appealing…

Today's Editorial in The Age: The pot calling the kettle black...

“An objection that dare not speak its name”??? This is the header for today’s editorial in The Age. And what is this “name” that dare not be spoken? At the end of the editorial we find out that it is “Rank Hypocrisy”. And who is guilty of this “Rank Hypocrisy”? Why, none other than society's most infamous hypocrites of all: THE CHRISTIANS!!!!

So what hypocritical crime are Christians being accused of this time? The crime of continuing to assert (in line with the belief and practice of all human societies since the day dot) that marriage is a partnership between a man and a woman.

Apparently Christian politicians are “reject[ing] same-sex unions because of their Christian beliefs”, which have no part in our "secular" society.

The editors at The Age pontificate that:

“They are free to hold to these beliefs personally; it is another matter to impose these through the law on everyone else.”

In other words, dear reader, these “senior federal politicians” are being labelled “rank hypocrites” because they wish to defend in practice what they believe in their hearts to be good, right, true and beneficial for Australian society.

Instead, The Age suggests, they ought to believe one thing in their hearts, and to act in a way that is completely contrary to their sincerely held beliefs in public.

Forgive me, but wouldn't that make them even greater hypocrites than they currently are supposed to be?

Papa Benny was right: a purification of reason in the realm of political life is sorely needed.