A Letter-to-the-Editor String?

I rarely see published replies to any of my published letters-to-the-editor (LTTE), but today there was a published reply to a published reply to one of my recent LTTE in The Age. Here it is:

Homophobia hoax

ALEX Carnie (Letters, 30/12) may have read between the lines, but he has also read far too much in there about the Pope and homosexuality (which, as he rightly says [actually, it was my point in my original letter], the Pope did not mention in his Christmas address).

A week ago, so concerned was I at what I now consider to be perhaps the biggest journalistic hoax I have encountered in the homophobia attributed to the Pope, that I did a print-out of the original speech in Italian from the Vatican site and analysed the whole document (the 3590 words, not just the 580 of the offending paragraphs).

The Pope's reference to "gender" is to a philosophic theory of many hues and is not a veiled reference to homosexuality as such.

A pity I cannot fit my 3000 word analysis into these columns.

John N. Collins, Seaford

A pity indeed. And this is exactly what I was getting at in my original letter. It was a journalistic hoax to make the Christmas address into a "diatribe against homosexuality", all done with mirrors. At least John (who can read Italian) went to the source. We all have to do this. For eg., whenever a new story comes up that I want to put on the Ecumenical and Interfaith Newsblog (eg. in Cathnews), I always track it down to the original source to verify it. Often this means original documents or reports from journalists who have proved themselves trustworthy (eg. John Allen or Tom Heneghan - never trust something that gives the Telegraph or the Hong Kong Times as an original source). The fact is that on this story, no-one really bothered to do that and just went straight from reading the newspaper reports to writing letters to the editor to stick in the boot.

Daniel Dennett on the Wisdom or Otherwise of Reforming Religions

Readers will be familiar with the little Chesterton quote in my side bar: "Reformers are always right about what is wrong, but generally wrong about what is right".

I was surprised this evening, while reading an excellent little book called "The Future of Atheism", to find support for this Chestertonian thesis from none other than Daniel Dennett, author of "Breaking the Spell":

Many of the attempts to reform religion have been misguided; they've been under-informed, and they have done more harm to their religions than good. If you want to save your religion, if you want to improve your religion, you better understand how it works.

I was surprised because I never thought I would find him expressing an idea with which I have such a high degree of agreement. The problem with many of our liberal dissenting reformers today is surely exactly this: they attempt to "reform" Catholicism on the basis of completely mistaken ideas about what sort of religion it actually is, thus doing far more harm than good.

My Daughter: On the Sacrifice of the Mass

I hope readers of SCE would realise by now that I have a couple of budding theologians for daughters. My oldest daughter, Maddy, commented to me today that she finds it strange that at her school the existence of other Christian Churches and other religions is not acknowledged (she knows she is a Lutheran - and has a friend at school who is a Sikh).

Is that surprising for a Catholic school, I asked?

No, but they should still recognise it, she replied.

Well, I answered, one of the things we are doing at work at the moment is asking the question of how religious pluralism is tackled at a primary school level in our schools.

But she went on.

I know I am a Lutheran, she said, because I don't think Holy Communion is a sacrifice.

Really? How so?

Well, I know that the body and blood is Jesus' sacrifice, but it's God's sacrifice for us, not ours for him.

Oh. Who have you been talking to about this?

No one. You just said the other day when I asked that one of the differences between Catholics and Lutherans is that Catholics think Holy Communion is a sacrifice we offer to God and Lutherans don't.

Our conversation then went on to why it was necessary for us to offer sacrifices to God.

Well, she said, that's just our idea. God doesn't want us killing any of his animals to give to him.

But it was his idea originally, wasn't it, in the Old Testament? (she hadn't thought of that). A sacrifice has to be made for our sin, but animals aren't enough. Not even our life is enough to pay for anyone's sins but our own. So what if God wanted to give us the perfect sacrifice for us to offer to him for our sin? Wouldn't he have to become one of us to make that offering back to God?

She thought she would think about that a bit more.

Please do, I said. And keep doing exactly what you have been doing. Anything I tell you, you think about it and try to work it out for yourself whether it is right or wrong. You have to do that with anything I tell you, or anything anyone else tells you, Lutheran or Catholic or otherwise. That's how you will learn what is right for you to believe.

So why did you become Catholic, Dad? asks daughter number two who has been eagerly listening.

Because I found that my beliefs were closer to the Christian beliefs of Catholics than the Christian beliefs of Lutherans, I answered.

Yeah, I'm not sure yet, was her reply. And number one said: At the moment, I think I am a "Catholutheran".

Keep working at it, my darlings.

Reading Between the Lines? At Least Someone Read the Text...

There is an answer to my letter to the editor in today's edition of The Age. Someone at least was annoyed enough by what I wrote to go to the bother of finding an English translation of the Pope's address and READING it!

Pope's message between the lines

DAVID Schutz (Letters, 29/12) is either trying to deceive people or needs to brush up on his reading comprehension skills. While there is no official English translation of the Pope's address to the Curia, there are English translations available. The one I found while searching for a translation was on Schutz's own blog.

In this translation, the Pope clearly refers to homosexuality even though the word itself is never used. If anything, it is the reference to climate change that was taken out of context.

Nevertheless, the media reports and subsequent commentaries got the underlying meaning correct. Before telling people to check their facts, maybe we should learn to read between the lines.

Alex Carnie, Brunswick West

Hmmm...

"Trying to deceive people"? Nooo... not exactly. By pointing out that there was not even an official english translation available yet, I was simply trying to draw attention to the fact that the critics were generally relying on journalist reports of the speech rather than reading the primary source document. If Alex was able to find an English translation via my blog as he said he was, that means that a) he at least now has a copy of the source document, b) my blog has served a useful purpose!

Need "to brush up on [my] reading comprehension skills"? Nooo... I don't think I have a problem there either. I wasn't, of course, denying that the Pope "clearly refers to homosexuality [inter alia] even though the word itself is never used". I was pointing out that to describe the Pope's address as a "diatribe against homosexuality" was clearly inaccurate, since such a "diatribe" would at least have required the use of the word "homosexuality". "Diatribes" do not usually require "reading between the lines".

In fact, no deception exists nor is reading between the lines necessary. His meaning was plain enough to all who read the text as it stands. And anyone who does so will realise that it was NOT a "diatribe" against homosexuality.

When the "God beyond all names (and metaphors)" becomes personal...

In my previous blog regarding the use of the terms "metaphor", "symbolism", "model" etc., Anon (who comments here quite regularly) commented that "Aquinas's treatment of metaphor and analogy and their role in talk about God is as pertinent today as the day it was written". That may well be so. I am not a scholastic. To tell the truth, as a Lutheran (ex-Lutheran?), I have deep suspicions of the scholastic method. My reading of Tracey Rowland's "Ratzinger's Faith" has only made me more aware of how scholastic (or neo-scholastic) theology has led the Church up a garden path on more than one occasion in history.

I have, for instance, often been told by Aristotelian/Thomistic types that God is beyond suffering. Poppycock. The God who is "beyond suffering" may be a perfectly satisfying philosophical "model" of God, but it bears little resemblance to the Biblical God of the Old and New Testaments.

I was struck by the way in which Pope Benedict took this usual picture of the God who is "infinitely beyond us" and brought the whole discourse down-to-earth (so to speak) in his Christmas address. Note how far the God he describes is beyond the God of the Philosophers. Note how personal such a God gets. When one has a "personal faith" at this level - based on the knowledge of God that comes from personal experience and trust - it is very hard to fall into the trap of modernistic liberal gnosticism.

The folk such as Fr Dresser have such a problem with the idea of God becoming a man because they are stuck more with a neo-scholastic idea of God than the real God who reveals himself in the Scriptures - the God who actually becomes man, the God who actually suffers, the God who is NOT "beyond all names", but who actually has a human name: Jesus.

Anyway, here is the first paragraph of the Pope's Christmas Eve Homily:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

"Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down upon the heavens and the earth?" This is what Israel sings in one of the Psalms (113 [112], 5ff.), praising God’s grandeur as well as his loving closeness to humanity. God dwells on high, yet he stoops down to us… God is infinitely great, and far, far above us. This is our first experience of him. The distance seems infinite. The Creator of the universe, the one who guides all things, is very far from us: or so he seems at the beginning. But then comes the surprising realization: The One who has no equal, who "is seated on high", looks down upon us. He stoops down. He sees us, and he sees me. God’s looking down is much more than simply seeing from above. God’s looking is active. The fact that he sees me, that he looks at me, transforms me and the world around me. The Psalm tells us this in the following verse: "He raises the poor from the dust…" In looking down, he raises me up, he takes me gently by the hand and helps me – me! – to rise from depths towards the heights. "God stoops down". This is a prophetic word. That night in Bethlehem, it took on a completely new meaning. God’s stooping down became real in a way previously inconceivable. He stoops down – he himself comes down as a child to the lowly stable, the symbol of all humanity’s neediness and forsakenness. God truly comes down. He becomes a child and puts himself in the state of complete dependence typical of a newborn child. The Creator who holds all things in his hands, on whom we all depend, makes himself small and in need of human love. God is in the stable. In the Old Testament the Temple was considered almost as God’s footstool; the sacred ark was the place in which he was mysteriously present in the midst of men and women. Above the temple, hidden, stood the cloud of God’s glory. Now it stands above the stable. God is in the cloud of the poverty of a homeless child: an impenetrable cloud, and yet – a cloud of glory! How, indeed, could his love for humanity, his solicitude for us, have appeared greater and more pure? The cloud of hiddenness, the cloud of the poverty of a child totally in need of love, is at the same time the cloud of glory. For nothing can be more sublime, nothing greater than the love which thus stoops down, descends, becomes dependent. The glory of the true God becomes visible when the eyes of our hearts are opened before the stable of Bethlehem.

"Metaphor" + "symbol" + "model" = Gnostic Nonsense

This article from the National Catholic Reporter, recently critiqued by Fr Z at WDTPRS.com, has a paragraph which perfectly demonstrates my abhorence of the words "metaphor", "symbol" and "model" when used in discussions of Christian dogma:

But rather than reject a lifetime spiritual path, perhaps I need to get more comfortable with the idea of metaphor in Catholic doctrine and look beyond the literal pronouncements; then it becomes easier to see Christ as a symbolic son of God, as a presence that helps me find the divine spark (God) within myself, and more importantly serves as a model for truly compassionate living.

Simply amazing how all three concepts can be used in such a short paragraph to express such Gnostic nonsense.

Whose Version of the Gospel?

My little letter to the editor of The Age re Pope Benedict's Curia address (still not available in English on the Vatican Website) has been published (see the very end of this page) at the very end of the main letters section. The only other letter on the matter was from one "Pat James" of "North Balwyn" (that would be Fr Hodgen's old parish, no?) which read:

If the Pope wants people to listen to him he should preach the Gospel of Jesus, not his version of it."

Which surely raises an interesting question - in fact THE "interesting question" with which much of the discussion on this blog is concerned: What is the authentic Gospel of Jesus and what is simply someone else's "version of it"?

If we concede the fact than any expression of "the Gospel of Jesus" is going to be someone's "version of it", surely it is not unreasonable to expect that the Pope would preach the Catholic "version of it"?

A thought provoking letter from a Lutheran Bioethicist

The following letter to the editor was published in "The Lutheran", the official magazine of the Lutheran Church of Australia, in the December edition. I thought it would be worth republishing it here:

Let's Celebrate Jesus coming as an embryo

Christmas is coming, and we Lutherans are good at celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus.

25 December is often the best-attended day at our churches, as we sing welcome to the holy infant in the manger. Few of us seem to remember that Jesus chose to enter this human world nine months before that birth.

Our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters are better than we at celebrating the annunciation, the announcement of the incarnation made by the angel Gabriel to Mary, and the festival marking it (Lady Day) on 25 March. In all your years of attending Lutheran services, has your pastor ever mentioned the annunciation?

I believe that in making the deliberate choice to come as na embryo, as the most tiny and defenceless member of the human family, Jesus was teaching us to respect life from conception onwards. Has your pastor ever mentioned the human embryo in a sermon?

Does all the 2008 lack of respect for the embryo in reproductive technology, in stem-cell research, in cloning human embryos and in abortion law reform just roll by you and your church?

Perhaps pastors (and we) feel awkward in defending the human embryo because we are aware that some women in the pews will have had abortions. And yet in 2008 the major Christian churches do not condemn women who have abortions. Rather, we see them as victims pressured into a non-choice by othe rpeople or by circumstances beyond their control.

Fortunately, as with all our sins, we can rely on the grace and mercy of our loving God.

This Christmas please consider asking your pastor to celebrate in March 2009 Jesus coming to earth as an embryo.

Dr Rob Pollnitz
Glenside SA

It is, I think, a good letter with a good intention.

But it does raise the question of why (especially since the death of the late great Rev. Dr Daniel Overduin, the Lutheran pastor and bioethicist who worked closely with Fr John Fleming in the 80s), bioethical issues are not as high on the radar of the LCA as they once were. I understand that the last Lutherans For Life National Convention - which used to be very well attended twenty years ago - was attended by less than a dozen people.

I wonder, for instance, whether there might be a connection between the failure of the contemporary Lutheran Church to clearly proclaim their public teaching on the sacredness of human life from conception till natural death (a teaching they share with us Catholics) and the Lutheran support of artificial contraception? I think this could be so. Dr Pollnitz might have added that many pastors might feel "awkward in defending the human embryo" because many in their congregations are using contraceptive devices or medicines that result in very early abortion of the embryo.

In the same way that the LCA's teaching on the sacredness of human life is clearly attested in their documents but less so in their preaching, so also the feast of the Annunciation is on the Lutheran calendar but rarely celebrated and proclaimed publically in Australia. (My wife's parish of St Paul's Box Hill is an exception - they often observe this feast with a choral vespers).

In this context, Dr Pollnitz's suggestion that Lutherans could raise the prominence of their celebration of the Annunciation is certainly a suggestion in the right direction. Certainly it is an area of shared faith and doctrine between Lutherans and Catholics which could result in a fruitful alliance for our society at this time.

Letter to the Editor Re Pope Benedict's Christmas Address to the Curia

Amazing how I said in a blog just the other day that there was nothing controversial in Pope Benedict's Address to the Curia this year. How wrong could I be? There were no less than four letters to the editor on the subject in this morning's edition of The Age.

Here is a letter I sent to the editor of The Age this morning. Check tomorrow's paper to see if it is published.

It is fascinating that there are so many critics of Pope Benedict's (alleged) "recent diatribe against homosexuality" (Philip Ingamells, "Letters" 27/12) , when the text of the offending address isn't even available in an official english translation yet. For that matter, anyone who had actually read the text would realise that the Holy Father never even mentioned homosexuality once in the entire address! A word of advice to all critics: read the text before you stick in the boot.

Is the Pope Christian?

Not according to English Anglican Giles Fraser, vicar of Putney, west London, in this piece (reprinted from the Guardian in today's edition of The Age): entiteld "The Pope has forgotten Christ's word".

He finds the Holy Father's comments in his address to the Curia (still not available in English on the Vatican Website, but provided here on this website from Bishop Michael Campbell, coadjudtor bishop of Lancaster) objectionable for claiming that "gay people threaten the existence of the planet in a way that is comparable to the destruction of the rainforest." He goes on:

I guess the idea is that if we all were gay, then we wouldn't be making any babies. Yes, it's a bit like saying that if we all were to become celibate priests we wouldn't be making any babies either. Except that would mean the Catholic Church has itself become a threat to the planet. OK, that's a cheap shot.

Yes, it was, Vicar. Having babies is, in fact, what this Anglican appears to have a problem with. It is not, first and foremost, what the Pope was talking about.

What the Holy Father actually said was:

When the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman and asks that this order of creation be respected, it is not the result of an outdated metaphysic. It is a question here of faith in the Creator and of listening to the language of creation, the devaluation of which leads to the selfdestruction of man and therefore to the destruction of the same work of God. That which is often expressed and understood by the term “gender”, results finally in the self-emancipation of man from creation and from the Creator. Man wishes to act alone and to dispose ever and exclusively of that alone which concerns him. But in this way he is living contrary to the truth, he is living contrary to the Spirit Creator. The tropical forests are deserving, yes, of our protection, but man merits no less than the creature, in which there is written a message which does not mean a contradiction of our liberty, but its condition.

Vicar Fraser might have a problem with that, but one could safely say it is his problem, not Pope Benedict's.

But the good Vicar believes Pope Benedict's message is "anti-biblical", despite the fact that he rails against those who would take the bible "if it were a reference book" of Christian doctrine. He quotes (in part) Isaiah 56:4-5:

4For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; 5Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.

This, he claims, applies "by direct analogy" to "people who are gay". Note that (as he quotes this passage in his article) the Vicar leaves out the bit about "who choose the things that please me". Anyone who has even bothered to get inside the thinking of the Catholic Church toward homosexual persons will understand that the Church in no way turns her back upon such of her sons and daughters as these, but cannot and will not condone doing the things that DO NOT please God. It has nothing to do directly with having babies (although of course this is a part of the picture), but with acting in accordance with the Creator's loving will for all human beings.

Here, by the way, is the Holy Father's Christmas eve homily. I haven't read it yet(and I missed the Midnight Mass on the ABC yesterday morning) but look forward to his usual high standardard of teaching and inspiration.

No Media please, we're Catholic!

Poor Barney. Imagine arriving at the steps of St Patrick's Cathedral, star of the ABC Lessons and Carols for Christmas Eve, and find that there is no room at the inn for the media!

Here is his report in today's edition of The Age:

The Age is unable to describe the solemn pontifical Mass at St Patrick's Catholic Cathedral because new dean Gerard Johnson has imposed a policy of refusing media entry without written permission. Unfortunately he only advised us of this new policy on the steps of the cathedral seconds before the service began.

Dean Johnson has worked hard this year to maintain the character of the Cathedral as an house of prayer. He has placed up signs in various languages asking that due reverence be shown by tourists, placed security guards at the doors during liturgical services to admit worshippers only, and placed up fences around the Cathedral precincts to keep skateboarders and others from causing damage and disturbance. I guess this policy is designed to the same purpose.

Now, if Barney had come as a worshipper rather than as a journalist, he would have been admitted with no problems...

Happy Christmas to all SCE Readers!

And a very blessed new year for 2009!

Check out Pastor Weedon's Church - All Christmassy!

This is Pastor Weedon's church - looking like a cross between the parish church of my youth and that big house down the street with all the Christmas lights.

But wouldn't it be nice to have Christmas in winter darkness for once and to be able to do up our Australian churches like this? (For those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, it might interest you to know that at Christmas it is still daylight outside at 9pm here in Melbourne...)

Pope's Christmas Address to Curia 2008

Well, ever since his first Christmas address to the Curia in 2005 when he floated his "hermeneutic of continuity" idea in relation to Vatican II (a phrase now "up there" with "dictatorship of relativism" as an iconic phrase of this pontificate), Vatican watchers have eagerly awaited the Holy Father's annual address to his henchmen (and one or two women).

The English is yet to come out, but the Italian is here, and CNS has a news report here.

Nothing controversial this year, it appears (unless you think that the linking of the Church's doctrine of Creation to the Church's doctrine of marriage is controversial - see here).

However, there was this rather droll quip (quoting "the only philosopher worth reading" as is his want) in response to the World Youth Day "nay-sayers":

Friedrich Nietzsche ha detto una volta: “L’abilità non sta nell’organizzare una festa, ma nel trovare le persone capaci di trarne gioia”.

Friedrich Nietzsche once said: "The difficulty is not in organizing a party, but in finding people able to take joy in it."

Good one, Your Holiness!

Who said "distinction between state and Church...is a great progress..."...and a fundamental condition for [the Church's] very liberty..."

"...and the fulfillment of her universal mission of salvation among all peoples"?

Yes, you guessed it, none other than our own Papa Benny while visiting the Italian Embassy a week ago. The Vatican website has the full speech in Italian only, but Zenit has a report, and here is the "google translator" version of the relevant passage (I really must learn Italian some day...):

This brief visit is propitious for me reiterate how the Church is well aware that "the fundamental structure of Christianity is the distinction between what is Caesar and what belongs to God (cf. Mt 22.21), namely the distinction between state and Church "(Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, 28). This distinction and this autonomy is not only the Church acknowledges and respects, but they welcomed as a great progress and a fundamental condition for his own freedom el'adempimento of its universal mission of salvation among all peoples.

At the same time, however, the Church feels like his job, following the dictates of its social doctrine, argued "from what is consistent with the nature of every human being" (ibid.), to awaken society and moral forces spiritual, helping to open the will to the genuine needs of the property. Therefore, invoking the value they have for life not only private but also and above all public some fundamental ethical principles, in fact, the Church helps to ensure and promote the dignity of the person and the common good of society, and in this sense is realized l 'Desired real cooperation between church and state.

That appears to be more or less where we wound up our discussion on the pros and cons of the "Catholic Confessional State".

Time for Confession!

Well, the line was huge in the Cathedral today. One line started a hour before mass and was still going half an hour afterwards.

I must say I have something of a difficulty with the "examination of conscience" thingy. It is very easy to get stuck in a rut - to always be quick to recognise those familiar sins in one's life, but to allow others to go straight through to the keeper without noticing them.

While teaching Galatians this past year, I found Chapters 5 and 6 especially useful in guaging where I was at spiritually. So, how would it be if, rather than just use the 10 Commandments, one were to make a practice of reading those passages in the bible which clearly spell out what, in God's eyes, are sins and what are virtues? Would that help?

I have found that it does - and here is a neat little page to get you started. Print it off and park it in your prayer book or missal.

And now get thee off to the box (time is running out!).

A Christmas Recipe

Here is something I haven't done before on this blog: a recipe!

I actually enjoy cooking a lot, and the girls are starting to join in. I was delighted to find this recipe for Speculaas on the Insight Scoop blog, and they really are yummy. I would make one modification - forget about slicing them after they have been in the fridge. In fact, probably only a few hours for the dough in the fridge would suffice, and then roll the dough out real thin and use little biscuit cutters. Don't over cook them either. If anyone knows where I can buy some proper speculaas biscuit moulds, please let me know.

Speculaas:

1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup shortening (I used copha - which worked okay)
1/2 cup butter [that's 113g - much easier]
1/2 cup condensed milk
4 tbsp cinnamon
1 pinch each nutmeg, cloves, salt
4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup slivered almonds, crushed

Mix together the sugars, the shortening and the butter. Add the condensed milk and spices and gradually blend in the flour and baking soda. Crush the almonds with a rolling pin and mix in. The dough will be somewhat stiff. Roll into logs covered with plastic or waxed paper.

Leave in refrigerator overnight. [Or just a couple of hours]

Cut into slices [or roll out thin and use biscuit cutters] and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake in preheated oven at 375 degrees F [180 degrees C] for around 10 minutes. Traditionally Speculaas are imprinted with some pattern created by a wooden mold (before baking). If you imprint the cookies with a mold, they will look better.

Makes about 80 cookies [or lots of little ones].

Silly Christmas Songs with Maddy and Mia

Okay, here are the girls singing "Jingle Bells". Mia does the Aussie version and Maddy does her impression of Elvis...

Celebrate the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul on Sunday 25 January 2009

But, you say, doesn't the Church always celebrate the Conversion of St Paul in January 25th? Well, yes, it does. BUT not when it falls on a Sunday (it is not a Solemnity), as it does in 2009.

HOWEVER, on May 30 2008 the Pope released a special declaration through the Congregation for Divine Worship to the effect that since this is the Jubilee Year of St Paul, for 2009 only the readings and propers for the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul may be used on the Sunday. There are special considerations (see below), but I just thought I would point this out now, since most Australian parishes will be in "holiday mode" still on the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary time. Now is the time to contact whoever is in charge of liturgy in your parish (your parish priest maybe???) and urge them to make Sunday 25 January a little less ordinary and more special by marking it as a Pauline Sunday.

Vatican permits parishes to mark feast of conversion of St. Paul

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- As part of the 2008-2009 celebration of the special year devoted to St. Paul, Catholic parishes may mark the traditional Jan. 25 feast of the Conversion of St. Paul even though it falls on a Sunday in 2009.

The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments issued a decree saying Pope Benedict XVI, "in an extraordinary manner," has given permission for parishes and churches to use the prayers and readings for the feast day instead of those for the third Sunday of ordinary time.

The decree was released May 30 at the Vatican.

Generally, the Mass texts for feasts such as the Conversion of St. Paul are not used when the feast day falls on a Sunday.

"The apostle St. Paul, who proclaimed the truth of Christ to the whole world," and who converted after having persecuted followers of Christ, "always was and still is venerated by the faithful, especially in this particular year," which marks the 2,000th anniversary of his birth, the decree said.

For that reason, "only for the year 2009," Pope Benedict has decided that parishes may use the prayers and readings for the feast day Jan. 25.

Because the feast day Mass does not include a second reading, the second reading from the third Sunday of ordinary time should be used and the Creed, often not recited at Mass during the week, should be recited, the decree said.

The decree was signed by Cardinal Francis Arinze, prefect of the congregation, and by Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don, congregation secretary.

ABC to televise Carols from St Patrick's Cathedral and Pope Benedict XVI’s Christmas Midnight Mass

So, while you don't get Pontifical Vespers, you do get Pontifical Carols and Lessons AND Pontifical (indeed, PAPAL) Mass - which I think is a good deal. So here are the details, and don't forget to set your video recorders!

ABC TV1 will broadcast the annual Festival of Readings and Carols (Pre-Recorded) from St Patrick's Cathedral at 7.30pm Christmas Eve.

Archbishop Denis Hart will ["has" - past tense - would be more accurate - this is a recording after all!] preside, accompanied by the Cathedral clergy and complemented by both highly acclaimed choirs of St Patrick’s Cathedral.

On Christmas Day, with the memory of Pope Benedict’s WYD visit to Sydney still fresh in our minds, Australians will be able to join with the Pope when the ABC telecasts Midnight Mass into homes, hospitals and nursing homes across the country.

The Mass, direct from St Peter’s Basilica, will air at 11am on ABC Television 1.

The Holy Father will preside at the Mass which will, as usual, feature the participation of children from around the world.

The ABC’s telecast will feature English-language commentary.

When I needed a Saviour...

Cheryl Lawrie is a bright young thinker in the Uniting Church. The kind of gal of which the UCA could probably do with more. Despite this, although she appears to aim at being "alternative", she is so very...well...Uniting Church.

She has an opinion piece in today's Sunday Age which caught my eye because it was illustrated with this picture:

We have written here before on the tendancy of some to bestow Messiah status upon Mr Obama (somewhat akin to the crowds in Monty Python's "Life of Brian"). I was highly amused by Ms Lawrie's report on a social networking site which

collated its users' predictions about Obama's presidency, inviting them to finish the sentence, "When Obama wins … ." The responses flooded in: "the permanent war will end and there'll be liberty and justice for all", said one. My favourite was "Charlie Brown will finally kick that football".

Ms Lawrie goes on to reflect on what it is to have hope and what it means to have a Messiah - a real one. There is something very true about her very "un-Dresser-like" (see the latest report in Cooees) description of the real Messiah:

When we look at Jesus — God with flesh and bones — our understanding of a Messiah is redefined. It's based only and always in love and justice; a power that's collaborative, not coercive; one that doesn't demand authority but instead speaks truth to it. The story of Jesus' birth is not about being rescued from the world, but being taken right into its most fragile and godforsaken places.

Fr Dresser too wants to emphasis the point that Jesus is a Messiah of this world, but he, in contrast to Ms Lawrie, thinks that this can be done by de-emphasing the radicalness of the Incarnation.

Ms Lawrie appears to be right on the money when she says:

At the heart of the story lies this truth: the birth of divine hope happens in the darkest parts of our world, and it needs humans as its midwives simply to keep it alive.

I found myself thinking how she might enjoy reading the Holy Father's second encyclical "Spe Salvi".

But then--having demonstrated so beautifully how necessary God's "inbreaking" into our world is if we are to have REAL hope, she then goes and ruins it all with this closing paragraph:

We like to think of God as being able to fix the world, like magic. But perhaps the greatest faith isn't always to believe that God can do anything; it may take just as much faith to believe that God might rely on humankind to do that work; to bring love and peace, to work to restore justice. It's no wonder that people look to political leaders in the hope they will be Messiahs, but it's also a cop-out for us to wait for our leaders to fail, unsurprised at the inevitable disillusionment. If we don't believe in Messiahs, or if we know that no Messiah will rescue us from the world in which we live, then the responsibility falls back on to us: we are the ones who must be midwives to the birth of hope in a broken world.

In the end, the alternative she poses to placing our hope of salvation in human political leaders is to place the hope of salvation in the whole mass of humanity. This then makes sense of her earlier, somewhat disdainful, note that

many Christians base their faith on a belief that Jesus will come again, in power and glory next time, taking all before him.

Perhaps she could actually benefit from reading Papa Benny's own words in his encyclical:

Yet our daily efforts in pursuing our own lives and in working for the world's future either tire us or turn into fanaticism, unless we are enlightened by the radiance of the great hope that cannot be destroyed even by small-scale failures or by a breakdown in matters of historic importance. If we cannot hope for more than is effectively attainable at any given time, or more than is promised by political or economic authorities, our lives will soon be without hope. It is important to know that I can always continue to hope, even if in my own life, or the historical period in which I am living, there seems to be nothing left to hope for. Only the great certitude of hope that my own life and history in general, despite all failures, are held firm by the indestructible power of Love, and that this gives them their meaning and importance, only this kind of hope can then give the courage to act and to persevere. Certainly we cannot “build” the Kingdom of God by our own efforts—what we build will always be the kingdom of man with all the limitations proper to our human nature. The Kingdom of God is a gift, and precisely because of this, it is great and beautiful, and constitutes the response to our hope.

While it might sound trite to say simply that our hope is based on "a belief that Jesus will come again" and bring with him true justice and true mercy, yet that, and in the end only that, can give true hope to our lives.

If the hope we celebrate this Christmas was, in the first place, an act of God's profound giving of himself to the point of being counted as one of us, then we cannot simply turn around and say that our future hope is only to be found in the hearts of men. Today, as much as two thousand years ago, we look for the coming of the Lord and the gift of his kingdom - which we "cannot build...by our own efforts."

"Ecumenical" Daily Prayer?

My friend, Lutheran Pastor Fraser Pearce, is a happy boy. He has just bought himself a copy of Concordia Publishing House's 'The Treasury of Daily Prayer' and is thrilled that CPH publishes such "stuff that is unashamedly Lutheran".

So, my question is, what makes a version of Daily Prayer specifically "Lutheran"? How does (or should) a "Lutheran" morning prayer (for eg.) differ from a Catholic or Anglican MP?

I would have thought that while we all have different versions of the psalter (in terms of what psalms are prayed on what day - and in terms of translations which differ even within confessional groups) there is nothing specific to any particular confession about these variations.

Surely the beauty of daily prayer is that - as distinct from the Eucharist - it is a form of the "Prayer of the Church" which we can pray together?

In fact, if there is any liturgical project on which it might truly be possible for all Western churches to agree, surely it would be a joint version of the Daily Prayer of the Church. This would indeed be a "grand project" but it would put "spiritual ecumenism" on a very sure and daily footing.

If Advent/Christmas music in your parish is really awful...

...listen to this and feel better. http://www.burnsidewriterscollective.com/audio/oholynight.mp3

(HT to Sonitus Sanctus)

What if God had a blog?

Now there's an idea, I hear you say. Well, some bright spark has already had this idea and set up "God's Blog" at http://god-has-a-blog.blogspot.com/. From a quick scan it looks very amusing. Just what we need before Christmas... (HT to Ironic Catholic).

Archbishop Coleridge and Cruelty to Sheep

I bet no one reading this blog has ever mulesed a lamb. (If you don't know what "mulesing" is, see here)

I have. Well, in fact, I tell a lie. I have never actually mulesed a lamb myself - but it was my job to hold the lambs while my father did the job.

And in case you think that my father was a man who was comfortable with cruelty to animals, I will point out that I have never known any person more down to earth in his love and respect and compassion for our four-footed/furry/winged/feathered friends as my father.

To tell the truth, the practice of mulesing made me almost sick. But what made me MUCH sicker was the sight of a fly-blown sheep. I can remember early one Easter morning, before leaving for Adelaide for the service of baptism for an infant cousin, having to physically dip the rear ends of a whole mob of lambs in a bucket of sheep dip who were discovered to be fly-blown the day before. Fun.

Why mention this? Well, the practice is somewhat controversial here in Australia, with animal rights activists (somewhat less practical in their expression of love for our sub-human friends than my father) calling for an end to the practice. The alternative however is not all that clear.

And this weekend, apparently, Archbishop Coleridge of Canberra and Goulburn presided at a blessing of farm implement which included mulesing shears (just a word of note: usually the shears used for mulesing are the same as the old-fashioned hand shearing shears). And, of course, he has been criticised. But as he said, farmers are (generally) unjustly accused of cruelty to animals. They are, rather, simply more practical in their care of our fellow creatures than most animal rights activists.


And for another article by the same Archbishop on the matter of abuse of the sheep in the Lord's "mob", see this article in Canberra's "Catholic Voice", where Archbishop Mark gives his own take on the situation at St Mary's in South Brisbane. He writes:

If any Church in this country has been the Church of the mob, open to all, it has been the Catholic Church. But the inclusiveness of the Church does not mean that there are no boundaries. It does not mean that there is no such thing as sin which sets a person or a group outside the communion of the Church.

And ya gotta love this:

In the end, communities like St Mary’s and those who support them, fail to recognise the difference between a band-wagon and a hearse. With the best of good intentions – and no-one is attributing any of this to malice – they jump gleefully on the band-wagon of a certain relevance and inclusiveness without realising that what looks like a band-wagon into the brave, new world of the future is in fact a hearse leading to a dead end that they do not see coming. Such confusions do not help, and it is the task of the Pope and the bishops to speak with one voice in pointing the way beyond them.

This is why we need to be afraid of opinions, Catherine

Ah, Catherine Deveny. If controversey is the key to success in the media business, then The Age certainly is onto a winner with this woman. And you know what? They're proud of it! (see here)

No matter, as we here at SCE find her a most stimulating commentator on our social mores. Today's colum in the Age ("Most people are idiots - even the ones who agree with me" Catherine Deveny December 17, 2008) is such a case.

"WHY are people so threatened by opinions?" she begins. Well, let me tell you why, Catherine.

1) Because we live in a democracy, "opinions" determine legislation.
2) Because most people's "opinions" have about as much rational foundation as their most recent emotional reaction to an issue.
3) Because very few people, when called to do so, are actually either able to or prepared to defend their opinion with any other justification than "That's what I think and we're all entitled to our own opinion"

As I said long ago in this post:

The degree to which I am honour bound to respect your "right" to hold any given opinion is precisely the degree to which it is possible "to verify the truth" of it, that is, the degree to which it may be substantiated "by positive knowledge or proof".

Actually, I wouldn't care two hoots about your opinion if you didn't have any sort of power to enact your opinion into legislation (civil or ecclesiastical) which could bind my action and conscience. For that reason, I am a far happier individiual as a Catholic than I was as a Protestant. As a Catholic, I am secure in the fact that none of you reading this (unless you are a bishop or likely to become one in the near future - hullo to all those in "the purple" reading this blog - I would really like to know who you are!) can have any effect upon what I am obliged to believe. The same was not the case when I was a Lutheran. Then I had to fight every battle with the knowledge of the fact that my "opponent" in the matter of opinion had just as much right to vote at General Synod as I did. Very dangerous... (Considering the possibility that my opinions could be erroneous, at least!).

Ms Deveny defines "opinions" as "basically just 'I reckon'." Yes, I remember that. All through Seminary, I can recall that my fellow students would begin statements in class with "I think...". Personally (and don't take offence here, dear reader) who gives a damn about what "you think". I want documented authoritative guidance. I want rational argumentation. Something that goes someway to prove that your "opinion" has validity in that it has a positive degree of correlation to reality. (As an example of such "opinion", may I cite the good Cardinal Pole, who has demonstrated himself to be far more patient with me in argumentation than I am with him!).

Again, Ms Deveny finds consolation in the fact that "most people are idiots". That this is a tempting conclusion, based on every day experience, I will grant. However, it is not the attitude that we here at SCE have adopted. We are (rather gratuitously) ready to begin with the assumption that that you, dear Reader, are NOT an idiot - while at the same time not discounting the real possibility that you (or indeed your humble correspondent for that matter) MAY well be such.

Ms Deveny fears that opinions are "becoming extinct". I haven't noticed. What I have noticed is an incredible lack of willingness of people to defend their opinions when challenged - or indeed the number of people who are in fact offended if you dare to trespass upon the ground of their sacred opinons.

Actually, though, I share her concern that

Most of what passes for opinion these days are [I think she means "is"] often hermetically sealed arguments difficult to bite back at or engage with. Hermetically sealed "opinion" is generally nothing of the sort, just a list of facts that make people think, "Well that's sorted. No need for me to think."

Maybe there is something of the Orthodox Catholic sensibility in this (and I do hope Brian Coyne is reading). There are indeed those who confuse loyalty to the magisterium with "a list of facts" such that there is "no need for me to think". An interesting document arrived on my desk just yesterday, on which I intend to blog at some length as soon as I have fully investigated it, called "The Spirituality of Teachers in Catholic Schools: Project Report prepared for the Principals Association of Victorian Catholic Secondary Schools" (are you interested already?). In this document, the teachers are divided up into a number of different categories, but the first two most interested me:

1. Uncritically Catholic: "(9 out of 60) These were people who had always been Catholic, and who were quite uncritical in the way that they approached their faith. Several of them, for example, were deeply concerned to know 'what the Church taught', approaching this as an 'orthodoxy' which they would not dream of questioning. ....

2. Reflectively Catholic: "(23 out of 60) The largest group among those whom we interviewed... They identified themselves as Catholic and their Catholicism was important to them... These people were 'reflectively Catholic' rather than uncritically Catholic because they had thought critically about their faith. They did not simply accept what the Church said. Indeed, many of them were critical of some aspects of the teaching or practices of their own faith."

What gets me about this labelling is that it suggests that "magisterial Catholics" are "unthinking" and "dissenting Catholics" are "reflective". The fact of the matter is that "magisterial Catholics" are obliged to "reflect" upon the teaching of the Church AND upon their own thought and opinions, and find ways in which the two may be found to be congruent rather than dissonent. Often this will take more "reflection", more "thinking" than to simply be a "dissenting Catholic" who asserts that "in my opinion the Church is wrong".

Ms Deveny continues:

Answers and truths come about by being stimulated into rigorous debate, rational thinking and soul searching. Usually because something seems a bit wonky. It jars a little. And if it jars a little it's time to question what you believe. If you're game. Keep in mind the word is believe.

And I couldn't agree more. But "belief" is not simply an "I think". It has some basis. Rational thought, or revelation, experience, "soul searching" or some such. And all of this should be involved in the formation of our "opinions". Opinions that begin and end with a gut reaction are only "half-baked" and not worthy of serving up sliced with butter and tea. The "baking" process is precisely the "rigorous debate" to which Ms Deveny refers. Hence her column. Hence this blog.

Ms Deveny asserts that "We make decisions emotionally and defend them rationally". She may well be right. But if we are really rational creatures, and if our "opinions" are truly rational, then our rationality must also question our initial emotional decisions as well as defend them.

They say it's impolite to discuss sex, politics and religion. Stuff that. They're the only things worth talking about.

And I probably couldn't agree or have ever agreed with Ms Deveny more than in that last statement.

Guidance from Cardinal Dulles from beyond the grave

Okay, he might not be quite "in the grave" yet, but I certainly found reading this paper by Cardinal Avery Dulles in First Things very useful to the discussion on the doctrine of religious freedom.

Challenged by Josh on the point that I might be veering away from the teaching of Catholic Tradition and Magisterium on this matter and "not quite sentire cum ecclesia" (SHOCK! HORROR! GASP!), I think I can make a small adjustment to my guidance system that will get me back on track.

In particular I found this helpful:

It is clear, according to DH, that “society will itself benefit from the fruits of justice and peace that result from people’s fidelity to God and His holy will.” These religious responsibilities are in line with what Leo XIII designated as the “care of religion.”

Vatican II did not adopt the liberal concept of the religiously or morally neutral State—one that concerns itself only with civil peace and material prosperity. Many bishops at Vatican II feared that the Council would deny the duty of the civil government toward the one true religion as affirmed by a whole series of popes. DH stated explicitly that the one true religion subsists in the Catholic Church and that it accepted “the traditional Catholic teaching on the moral obligation of individuals and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.” The question was raised whether this meant that the obligation rested on the citizens, as distinct from the State. On this issue, as on the supposed right to profess error, Bishop De Smedt in his final relatio gave a decisive answer. He explained that the text, as revised, did not overlook or deny but clearly recalled Leo XIII’s teaching on the duties of the public authority (potestatis publicae) toward the true religion. These words may be taken as an official commentary on the text-indeed, the only official commentary we have on this particular point.

We may therefore conclude that DH does not negate earlier Catholic teaching on the duties of the State toward the true faith.

So. Okay. Let's get this clear.

1) The State is not to be religiously or morally neutral
2) The obligation "toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ" does not rest only with citizens (what I have been calling "society") but also with the State
3) The State therefore does have a duty of a "care of religion" which is directed twoard the advancement of "the true faith".

I concede all that. The question is: HOW?

How is the State - and I don't think it is helpful to talk in the abstract - so let's be specific - how is the State of the Commonwealth of Australia to carry out this duty of care toward the one true faith?

Dulles answers that in the next couple of paragraphs:

Speaking to a worldwide community in a period of rapid flux, Vatican II wisely refrained from trying to specify exactly what kind of help the Church ought to expect from the State.

That question must be variously answered according to the constitution of the State, the religious makeup of the population, and the traditions of the society. No one formula could be suitable for all countries today, though any legitimate arrangement must, as I have already said, respect the rights of all citizens.

The main difference between the doctrine of the nineteenth-century popes and that of DH is in the means that each envisages. Pius IX and Leo XIII, writing in an age when paternalistic monarchies were still normal in most Catholic countries, evidently preferred to see the Catholic Church in a legally privileged position.

Vatican II, speaking within a more democratic and religiously pluralistic situation, placed greater reliance on indirect support. If the State would simply establish conditions under which the Church could carry on its mission unimpeded, it would do more for the Church than many Christian princes had done in the past.

On the final day of the Council, December 8, 1965, Pope Paul VI addressed to temporal rulers the question: “What does the Church ask of you today?” And he answered: “She tells you in one of the major documents of this Council. She asks of you only liberty, the liberty to believe and to preach her faith, the freedom to love her God and serve Him, the freedom to live and to bring to men her message of life.”

That, to me is the answer to the question "How can we expect the Australian State to carry out its duty of care to the one true religion".

In short, it is to provide that degree of liberty for all its citizens which make it possible for every member of society to seek and find the Truth which alone can make us free. The State cannot legally impose religious practice or belief - this is fundamental. But by not in any way restricting the Church's freedom to preach and teach the Gospel, by actively protecting the Church's right to conduct her activities in Australian society and her members the right to participate fully in the public square, and by freely cooperating with the Church to enable her to fulfil her mission in our land, the Australian State fulfils its duty toward the one true Church.

The fact of the matter is that in our Australian context (I do not speak of any other context anywhere else - although I dare say it applies fairly universally) this freedom and protection and cooperation is best achieved where ALL CITIZENS AND RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES are granted the same freedom and protection and cooperation of the State. In doing this the State is not acting in a "religiously or morally neutral way" nor need it endorse a "relativistic" understanding of the metaphysical validity of all religious ideas and creeds. It is simply enabling that liberty that is necessary for all her citizens to seek and to find the Truth that the Church proclaims.

Pope Benedict Prays for Freedom of Religion for OTHER Religions in Apostolic Exhortation

Okay, it's not an infallible definition or a Papal Encyclical, but it's pretty high up on the level of magisterium. Here, I think, is the final and qualitative proof that Cardinal Pole is wrong when he asserts that Pope Benedict "has never specified that false religions can be the object of a right to free religious activity."

Here too, I would like to reaffirm the solidarity of the whole Church with those who are denied freedom of worship. As we know, wherever religious freedom is lacking, people lack the most meaningful freedom of all, since it is through faith that men and women express their deepest decision about the ultimate meaning of their lives. Let us pray, therefore, for greater religious freedom in every nation, so that Christians, as well as the followers of other religions, can freely express their convictions, both as individuals and as communities. Sacramentum Caritatis p.87

What IS "religious freedom"?

Cardinal Pole, on these pages and on his own blog, has put forward the following idea with regard to religious liberty:

To say that “everyone has a natural right to the free exercise of religion” (call this proposition A) is not erroneous, since it does not specify the object of this right. But if one were to add the words ‘any’ and ‘whether Catholic or non-Catholic’, so that the proposition becomes “everyone has a natural right to the free exercise of any religion, whether Catholic or non-Catholic” (call this proposition B), then this would indeed be erroneous.

I have ridiculed this interpretation of religious freedom as being basically non-sensical. It is the equivalent of the man who is told by the waiter that he is free to order anything he likes on the menu and then handing him a menu with only one dish on it. It would be a marvel of ingenuity and originality to apply such an hermeneutic to Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis Humanae).

Nevertheless, Cardinal Pole has insisted that Pope Benedict himself "has never specified that false religions can be the object of a right to free religious activity."

Well, let us see what the Pope means when he speaks of "Religious Freedom". Here is Papa Benny in his address to the Curia in December 2005.

First, he reitterated the point (which is challenged by some readers on this blog) that:

The Church, both before and after the Council, was and is the same Church, one, holy, catholic and apostolic, journeying on through time; she continues "her pilgrimage amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God", proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes (cf. Lumen Gentium, n. 8).

Second, he said that

Those who expected that with this fundamental "yes" to the modern era all tensions would be dispelled and that the "openness towards the world" accordingly achieved would transform everything into pure harmony, had underestimated the inner tensions as well as the contradictions inherent in the modern epoch.

But how is it possible that, in facing the "inner tensions...inherent in the modern epoch" the Church could take a stance with respect to religious liberty that was so contrary (or had the appearance of being contrary) to the statements of the Church in former times? Benedict explains:

The Second Vatican Council, recognizing and making its own an essential principle of the modern State with the Decree on Religious Freedom, has recovered the deepest patrimony of the Church. By so doing she can be conscious of being in full harmony with the teaching of Jesus himself (cf. Mt 22: 21), as well as with the Church of the martyrs of all time. The ancient Church naturally prayed for the emperors and political leaders out of duty (cf. I Tm 2: 2); but while she prayed for the emperors, she refused to worship them and thereby clearly rejected the religion of the State.

The martyrs of the early Church died for their faith in that God who was revealed in Jesus Christ, and for this very reason they also died for freedom of conscience and the freedom to profess one's own faith - a profession that no State can impose but which, instead, can only be claimed with God's grace in freedom of conscience.

This was, of course, his famous discourse on the "hermeutic of continuity", and thus he addressed the fact that there could be such strong apparent differences between the "before" and "after":

It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within. On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change. Basic decisions, therefore, continue to be well-grounded, whereas the way they are applied to new contexts can change.

I don't think the Holy Father could be clearer on this point. It is no coincidence then that he goes on to speak of Religious Freedom as a case in point.

Thus, for example, IF religious freedom were to be considered an expression of the human inability to discover the truth and thus become a canonization of relativism, then this social and historical necessity is raised inappropriately to the metaphysical level and thus stripped of its true meaning. Consequently, it cannot be accepted by those who believe that the human person is capable of knowing the truth about God and, on the basis of the inner dignity of the truth, is bound to this knowledge. It is quite different, on the other hand, to perceive religious freedom as a need that derives from human coexistence, or indeed, as an intrinsic consequence of the truth that cannot be externally imposed but that the person must adopt only through the process of conviction.

At this point I think Cardinal Pole must concede that Benedict IS referring to the freedom of all persons to follow the creed of their conviction, Catholic or otherwise. What else can he mean when he says that religious freedom is a "need that derives from human coexistence"? I concede, as I think I have done before, that we cannot claim religious liberty as a "right before God" (what Pope Benedict calls raising it "inappropriately to the metaphysical level") but it is a right of the human being with respect to the State - precisely because, as Papa Benny points out, religion "cannot be externally imposed".

Via several links to conversations that Cardinal Pole provided elsewhere on the net, I eventually found this statement from the dearly departed Cardinal Avery Dulles which puts it very well:

Over the past fifty years we have seen a strong and welcome development of the doctrine of religious freedom. Articulating the principles of the gospel in new situations, the Church has found a new voice. She speaks with a fresh awareness of the dignity and freedom that God wills for all human beings and with a deeper realization of the limited competence of civil governments. As the Church adapts her social teaching to changing political and social circumstances, she comes to a sharper perception of certain aspects and consequences of the gospel. The teaching of the nineteenth-century popes was not erroneous, but was limited by the political and social horizons of the time. In the words of DH, Vatican II brought forth from the Church’s treasury “new things in harmony with those that are old.” This process of development must continue as the Church faces the new problems and opportunities that arise in successive generations. (Source: First Things)

I do so like it when I discover my own independantly formed ideas expressed by wiser and greater people than myself.

[PS. As a simple example of how things have changed at a practical level regarding Church and State, need one cite any thing else than the contrast between a Church that once endorsed an Albert, elector and archbishop of Mainz and archbishop of Magdeburg (1490-1545) and a Church which censured a Bishop Fernando Lugo, now President of Paraguay?]

New Year of Grace entry

It has been a long time coming. Here it is for those of you following the story. I had to edit this one a little. Lot's of personal stuff in there. Some people have said I am taking a great risk with this project of either putting to much of personal life into the public square or of causing offence to my Lutherans sistern and brethren. But it is an historical document. It is what happened at the time. I am a different person now and in a different place, but we don't get anywhere by sweeping the past under the carpet. That's my philosophy anyway. Tell me what you think.

Requiesce in pacem "Herr Professor"!

I have only just read in Zenit of the death of Avery Cardinal Dulles, the man whom Pope Benedict called "Herr Professor".

His wisdom and guidance has been a gift to the Church, recognised by Pope John Paul II in making him a cardinal of the Church of Rome.

As Zenit reports, Robert Imbelli, associate professor of theology at Boston College, wrote that:

"Unlike other theologians of the 1970s and 1980s, Dulles never neglected the fact that the mystery of the Church always refers to the greater mystery: Jesus Christ himself, who alone is the light of the world.

"In a time when some theologians seemed to stress one-sidedly the horizontal and this-worldly dimension, Dulles insisted that we must not lose the radical sense of God's transcendence."

As the good book says: "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord henceforth. They rest from their labours, for their deeds follow them!” (Rev 14:13). Cardinal Dulles' "labours" will remain a treasury for us long after his passing. If you are unfamiliar with his works, it is not too late to become familiar with them. You can start here.

Rest in peace, good and faithful servant.

"The Secular Conscience" - Austin Dacey

I came across this bloke and his work through a review in Zenit by Fr John Flynn of Dacey's book "Secular Conscience: Why Belief belongs in Public Life", who freely admitted that "Dacey is no apologist for religion", but goes on to say:

In fact, what he advocates is a return to secular liberalism, but not in the form it has adopted in recent times. Secular liberalism went off the tracks, he maintains, in insisting so much on the idea that religion, ethics and values are only private matters.

This has come about because secularism equated the private conscience with the concepts of personal and subjective, thus placing them out of bounds of a serious evaluation. If conscience is thus beyond criticism it cannot be subject to public scrutiny.

So Fr Flynn recommends the book. And so does Fr Richard John Neuhaus (I hope you are all praying for him at the moment as he deals with his cancer diagnosis), despite the fact that

it is published by Prometheus Press, the source of a seemingly endless flood of secular humanist and anti-religious propaganda... [and] endorsed by the notorious Peter Singer, Princeton’s contribution to helping us make our peace with infanticide and other enormities, and also by Sam Harris, the slash and burn author of The End of Faith.

He writes of "The Secular Conscience:

On almost all the hot-button issues—abortion, embryo-destructive research, same-sex marriage, Darwinism as a comprehensive philosophy, etc.—Dacey is, in my judgment, on the wrong side. But he is right about one very big thing. These contests are not between people who, on the one side, are trying to impose their morality on others, and people who, on the other side, subscribe to a purely procedural and amoral rationality. Over the years, some of us have been trying to elicit from our opponents the recognition that they, too, are making moral arguments and hoping that their moral vision will prevail. But in the world of secular liberalism, morality is the motive that dare not speak its name. Austin Dacey strongly agrees.

And if you want to see what the other side has to say of the book, well, it seems they like it too (see the review in the New Humanist here).

Given the story about the Humanist Society getting approval for "religious" education in our schools, the reaction to Dacey's proposal for a more public discussion of morality, ethics and conscience seems to say that there is something here we can all agree upon. Our society works best when it allows all its members to freely and openly discuss issues of faith, conscience and belief. It is simply out of order to cry "foul" when someone speaks from a position of religious conviction. Everyone speaks from some perspective, and the perspective of the secular humanist is no less a moral or a faith perspective than that of the Christian or the Muslim or the Maptocostal Angloholic.

But (some readers of this blog will say) what of the duty of society to acknowledge the true religion?

Well, that is our mission. "Our mission" as in "The Church's mission". It is not the duty of the state to teach or impose religion upon society, it is the duty of the Church to transform society by the proclamation of the Gospel. We do not aim to Christianise the State - we aim to Christianise our society and culture by evangelisation. The former is illegitimate. To attempt the latter is our right and our duty.

Of course, every one else who holds another point of view has an equal right to promote their point of view as their conscience requires. It is in such a situation that the Church can truly flourish - IF she is prepared to fight the battle!

CCC 854 By her very mission, "the Church ... travels the same journey as all humanity and shares the same earthly lot with the world: she is to be a leaven and, as it were, the soul of human society in its renewal by Christ and transformation into the family of God" [GS 40#2].

At the end of his review article, Fr Flynn gave some useful and recent Papa BXVI quotations in this regard:

"Every milieu, circumstance and activity in which we engage that can become resplendent with the unity of faith and life is entrusted to the responsibility of lay faithful, moved by the desire to communicate the gift of encounter with Christ and the certainty of the human person's dignity." (Nov. 15 speech to participants in the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Laity)

"The Holy See seeks to engage the world in dialogue so as to promote the universal values that flow from human dignity and advance mankind on the road to communion with God and one another... Indeed, we may say that the distinction between religion and politics is a specific achievement of Christianity and one of its fundamental historical and cultural contributions." (Oct. 27 address to the new ambassador of the Philippines to the Holy See)

"[We must] become more aware of the irreplaceable role of religion for the formation of consciences and the contribution which it can bring to -- among other things -- the creation of a basic ethical consensus within society." (Sept. 12 at the Elysée Palace on meeting with authorities of France)

Revised Grail Psalter?

This has received some comment on other blogs about the place (see, for eg., The New Liturgical Movement here and here), but it does make me wonder.

The USCCB has decided something called the "Revised Grail Psalter" should be used as their official translation of the psalms for the new translations of the liturgy. I don't think the Australian Bishops have even considered the question of appropriate psalm versions for the new translations.

Be that as it may, what is the "Revised Grail Psalter"? You can't find it on the web, because it is copyrighted. (Copyright is one of the big problems.) But it also won't be published until it gets the Vatican imprimatur.

Here is what the creators have to say about it:

While the 1963 Grail Psalter was very successful in this regard, there are places where the adherence to a set rhythm necessitated a paraphrase of the original Hebrew as opposed to a more authentic translation, taking into consideration the sometimes irregular rhythm of the Hebrew Psalms. Since Vatican II, however, we have seen a move to preserve sacred texts' fidelity to their original sources.

Secondly, since the 1950s when most of these psalms were composed, “Much has happened in the area of biblical scholarship to enable us to understand better both the structure of Hebrew poetry and some of the more problematic texts,” Abbot Gregory said. He continued, “This scholarship will make a more accurate translation possible.”

Additionally, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments’ 2001 document Liturgiam Authenticam insists that a consistent translation be used in all the texts of the liturgy, which is currently not the case as far as the psalms are concerned. The Revised Grail Psalter will be the official translation used in the Lectionary, the Liturgy of the Hours, the texts for all books of the Sacraments, etc.

All of these points are excellent issues. The Lutheran Church of Australia, for eg., never endorsed the Grail version precisely because it is an inaccurate translation. Our local Kapelmeister in the Cathedral refuses to use it - he calls it the "dum titty dum titty dum de dum" version - and uses the NRSV instead which is much better suited for chant.

I actually like the "dum titty dum" style of the Grail - it makes it easy for memorisation as well as singing - but would be eager to see a more accurate translation.

The issue of Copyright remains though, and it is hard to see a way around this. I do not believe that any element of the Church's liturgy should be "copyrighted". It should all be freely available electronically on the internet. But of course the publishers and composers and translators have to earn a living too, so I guess this is something I can live with.

(As long as they don't try to prosecute me when I do make copies of their texts...)

A Hymn for Advent

I have posted a couple of versions of Rorate Caeli on my hymnody blog "Sing Lustily and With Good Courage". You might be interested.

Issues in yesterday's edition of The Sunday Age

Cardinal Tauran recently commented that

"God has returned to our societies. There has never been as much talk about religion as now."

And this was certainly borne out in reading yesterday's edition of the Sunday Age. Here are a few articles to be going on with:

Religion in schools to go Godfree

Yes, folks, it's official: Atheism is a religion. There are, of course, many Christian groups (such as the Salt Shakers) who are throwing their hands up in despair at this decision to allow the Humanist Society access to primary schools on the same footing as other religious groups, but I rather think it is the Humanists who have conceded a point here, not the religions! As my friend Prof Des Cahill says in the article:

"Our view would be that humanist studies are a legitimate world view just as Catholicism, Anglicanism or Islam is, and that none are any more provable than the rest, just as theism or atheism are no more provable than the other."

(My agnostic father-in-law looked a bit sheepish on this point over Sunday lunch yesterday.) As long as they are quite up front about who they are and what ideology they are pushing - and parents have the right to "opt out" their children, why should the Humanists and Atheists not have as much right to push their religion as we have? At least it beats the way these ideologies are usually taught in the class room without disclosure!

The God Allusion

The usual guff at this time of year about how the Christmas event is to be taught and commemorated in schools and kindergartens.

The Future in our Hands: The medical profession is denying parents real choice about Down Syndrome babies

This is a VERY interesting article, about the way in which pre-natal testing is being used to screen for Down Syndrome. One point of interest is the fact that the author, the president of Down Syndrome Victoria, repeatedly insists that "Down Syndrome Victoria has a neutral prenatal policy" despite the fact that the article exposes and criticises the almost routine assumption that unborn babies diagonosed with Down Syndrome should be aborted. The drop in pre-natal testing is also interesting. We had an ultrasound for Maddy (Cathy was advised to do this because she was over 35) but not for Mia two years later. The moral of this story is: be very suspicious when anyone tries to pressure you to have a prenatal test. Ask the question: Why?

Read the Newspaper - On line!

Reader: Oh, Schütz, what are you on about, I've been doing that for ages! You just go to http://www.theage.com.au/ or http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/

Schütz: No, no, you mistake me - I don't mean, read their homepage, I mean read their newspaper, just as you get it with your bacon and eggs and coffee in the morning.

Reader: What do you mean?

Schütz: Well, you know how you read the paper, and think, "I should blog on that later", and then later that day or the next day, when you haven't got the paper at hand, you go to their website and look for the article and it either isn't there, or its there but its not the same article (like perhaps its been updated), or you can't find it because they've given it another heading or something?

Reader: Umm... I can't say that I've noticed...

Schütz: Well, take it from me, its a problem. For instance, I might say to myself, I read that in Thursday's paper somewhere around page 5, and now it's Monday, well by this stage you have buckley's* of finding the article through their home page, or you have to subscribe to their archives.

Reader: This is going somewhere, isn't it.

Schütz: Yes, of course, this is what I'm getting at. Well now I have found a website that lets you view the print edition of almost any newspaper anywhere in the world ON-LINE. You get to chose the newspaper by country, newspaper and edition (archives going back several months), and then you can read each article in full just by clicking on the headline. The only thing is that it obviously takes them a day or so to to get the edition online, so if you want today's news with your brekky you still need to use the conventional methods, but this is a great service.







Reader: Well, what's the address?

Schütz: Its called "Press Display", and you can check it out at: http://www.pressdisplay.com/. Australian titles covered include:



Reader: Does it cost anything?

Schütz: Ah well, there's the rub. The answer is there is a free level of service, and then several options for subscriptions - but it isn't very expensive if you want to go that way - not compared to actually subscribing to the newspapers. Still, I rather reckon that if you sign up for the free subscription, and then use the homepage of the particular newspaper together with Google, you will get some benefit from using this service. Check it out and see what you think.

______

(* An old Australian expression meaning you have no chance - full version is in answer to the question "What chance do you have?" answer: "Buckley's and none".)

Just because it isn't a crime, doesn't mean it is a right...

That's the basic argument put forward by Vatican Spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi yesterday in reference to Archbishop Celestino Migliore's opposition to a proposed UN declaration to "endorse the universal decriminalisation of homosexuality".

According to Fr Lombardi:

Archbishop Migliore's point was that it's one thing to argue against discrimination and criminalization regarding homosexuality, but another to contend that anyone who makes a distinction based on sexual orientation is considered an adversary of human rights.

It is an interesting proposition. What other acts (and we keep in mind, mind you, the distinction that the good Cardinal Pole pointed out in a combox to a blog below, that it is not "homosexuality" that is the usual object of criminalisation in law, but the act of "sodomy") are not crimes, and yet are not "rights" also? The act of gluttony? The act of adultery? The act of sending your help-desk enquiry line off shore to the Philippines (viz. Telstra Bigpond internet service...)?

How does this help our discussion of religious liberty? In the proposed "Catholic Confessional State" would worshipping contrary to the Catholic faith be "legal", but not a "right"? - Just a long shot to clarify the thinking of the defenders of the idea of a "Catholic Confessional State".

The Social Agenda

Here is something that came out back in 2000 from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace called "The Social Agenda" and is a compendium of magisterial teaching of the Church (largely just quotations from various sources) arranged in categories for easy access. It appears to be a forerunner to the Compendium on the Social Doctrine of the Church that the same department released in 2005.

We (Cardinal Pole and I) have been discussing the authority and application of Pius IX's Quanta Cura to the modern context.

I find it interesting, to say the least, that neither document from the PCJP quotes the teaching of any pope before Leo XIII (with one exception: The Social Agenda quotes a line from Gregory the Great). (Just as an aside, Quanta Cura p.3 is affirmed by the Catechism of the Catholic Church in just one instance: in footnote 39 to paragraph 2109 which states taht "The right to religious liberty can of itself be neither unlimited nor limited only by a "public order" conceived in a positivist or naturalist manner.")

Some might say the great watershed in Catholic Social teaching came with Vatican II, but it is undeniable that in fact Leo XIII marked the real turning point. I would contend that the turning point was not a change in the faith and morals of the Church, but a readiness on the part of the Church to address her faith and morals, for the first time, to that society which today we would call "modern". In fact, Leo is usually accredited with inventing the idea of a "social encyclical".

For my part, I find that Leo XIII, in Immortale Dei (1885) goes a very long way to providing the positive teaching with regard to the State which "connects the dots" between the condemnations of Pius IX in Quanta Cura and the seemingly opposite affirmations of the Second Vatican Council and the modern popes. Even Immortale Dei requires reading within its context, but it at least gives a measured foothold on which to carry out the dialogue between what goes before and what comes after.

Only when all the dots are connected - not leaving any of the dots out (whether they date from 1864, 1885, 1965 or 2008) - will an overall coherant picture be formed.