Sunday, May 29, 2011

The World's Silliest Felt Banner

Life holds few distinctions, but I think we may safely boast that here, at my parish, hangs one of the silliest felt banners in all Christendom.
The taste and judgment of this display become even more apparent in context.  What 104-year-old cathedral would not be improved by such a decoration?
Reason no. 3,247,854 for restoring the tabernacle to the (high) altar: to get it away from the felt banners.

(And no, that is not the original tabernacle.)

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Another Sign of the Sea Change: Meatless Fridays Reappear in the English-Speaking World

For those who doubt the sea change currently taking place in the Church, a recap of recent events: 

Item: in 2005, an instruction is released reaffirming that homosexuals are disqualified from the Catholic priesthood.
 
Item: Summorum pontificum is released in 2007, taking the usus antiquior out of the deep freeze.

Item: severe canonical penalties -- including dismissal from the clerical state -- have been imposed on priests guilty of misconduct in recent years, including one of the Franciscans heavily involved in Medjugorje and the priest-founder of the LifeTeen movement.  The whole mechanism for dealing with sexual misconduct has been reformed and streamlined. 

Item: several problem bishops have been unseated in recent months, including one in Australia who has been notorious for being a proponent of flagrant heresy.  No alternative grounds were proffered for the unseating of the Australian bishop (as, for example, in the case of the heretical Matthew Fox, who was expelled from the Order of Preachers on grounds other than heresy).

Item: Rome has just released Universae ecclesiae, a new instruction strengthening Summorum pontificum and making it clear that the Extraordinary Form of the Mass is to be re-introduced into the mainstream of Catholic life.

And now:

Item: the bishops of England and Wales are bringing back the traditional penance of abstinence from meat on all Fridays of the year, starting September 16, 2011 -- the anniversary of Pope Benedict's visit to Britain.

Herewith the text of the bishops' resolution on Friday abstinence, with my emphases (and with all pronouns referring to God capitalized, in accordance with the policy of this blog):
Catholic Witness - Friday Penance  

By the practice of penance every Catholic identifies with Christ in His death on the cross. We do so in prayer, through uniting the sufferings and sacrifices in our lives with those of Christ’s passion; in fasting, by dying to self in order to be close to Christ; in almsgiving, by demonstrating our solidarity with the sufferings of Christ in those in need. All three forms of penance form a vital part of Christian living. When this is visible in the public arena, then it is also an important act of witness.

Every Friday is set aside by the Church as a special day of penance, for it is the day of the death of our Lord. The law of the Church requires Catholics to abstain from meat on Fridays, or some other form of food, or to observe some other form of penance laid down by the Bishops' Conference.

The Bishops wish to re-establish the practice of Friday penance in the lives of the faithful as a clear and distinctive mark of their own Catholic identity. They recognise that the best habits are those which are acquired as part of a common resolve and common witness. It is important that all the faithful be united in a common celebration of Friday penance.

Respectful of this, and in accordance with the mind of the whole Church, the Bishops' Conference wishes to remind all Catholics in England and Wales of the obligation of Friday Penance. The Bishops have decided to re-establish the practice that this should be fulfilled by abstaining from meat. Those who cannot or choose not to eat meat as part of their normal diet should abstain from some other food of which they regularly partake. This is to come into effect from Friday 16 September 2011 when we will mark the anniversary of the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United Kingdom.

Many may wish to go beyond this simple act of common witness and mark each Friday with a time of prayer and further self-sacrifice.  In all these ways we unite our sacrifices to the sacrifice of Christ, who gave up His very life for our salvation.
As the bishops point out, we have always been required to practice some penance on Fridays; but who knew it?  In twelve years of Catholic school, I can't recall anybody ever telling me that.  And it was never a good idea to let us pick our own penance.  I will never understand how, at the height of the Cold War and the sexual revolution, and less than two generations away from two world wars, such naïve trust could have been reposed in human nature.  Discipline without accountability is dead.   

Will the bishops in the U.S. follow the example of their English and Welsh brethren?  I certainly hope so.  We lay Dominicans already abstain from meat every Friday of the year, and so are in a position to reassure our fellow countrymen that this practice won't kill anybody.  In fact, we could use some penance and some Christian witness in our hedonistic society every bit as much as our brothers across the Pond.

Besides: who knows where it could lead?  Today, meatless Fridays; tomorrow -- the return of Ascension THURSDAY?  How about restoring all our holy days of obligation to their proper dates, even if it means we have to go to Mass TWO DAYS IN A ROW?????

This also would not kill anybody. 

Saturday, May 14, 2011

A Victory for the Rights of Catholics

From the time it became known that an instruction  on Summorum pontificum was coming, devotees of the Extraordinary Form feared -- not without reason -- that liberals in the Church would seize the opportunity to choke off the Pope's initiative to restore traditional worship and effectively shelve the pre-conciliar liturgy once again.  Now that Universae ecclesiae is out, it appears to be viewed as a defeat by some in the traditionalist camp.  Universae ecclesiae certainly must be regarded as a defeat by anyone unrealistic enough to demand the complete and universal suppression of the Mass of Paul VI, effective immediately.  The instruction certainly has its flaws, and as a lawyer, I cannot help spotting its loopholes.  But overall, I find myself bouyed and encouraged by Universae ecclesiae, which vindicates the legitimate rights of Catholics -- all Catholics, whether they like it or not -- in matters of liturgy and worship.  Some observations:

-- The hermeneutic of rupture -- the idea that we created a "new Church" after Vatican II, and that the traditional liturgy and all its accoutrements, including chant and Latin, must be abandoned -- is once again clearly condemned as error.  The notion that we are well rid of those things that we had "gotten away from" after the Council is not in line with the mind of the Church.  The instruction reminds us once again of what the Holy Father said in his letter to the bishops at the time the motu proprio was issued: "There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of the Liturgy growth and progress are found, but not a rupture. What was sacred for prior generations, remains sacred and great for us as well, and cannot be suddenly prohibited altogether or even judged harmful."

-- It is clearly the intent of the Holy Father that the Mass of tradition once again enter the mainstream of Catholic life.  It is not just for the trads; it is for all Catholics.  It is a part of our patrimony and our heritage as Catholics, and we have a right to it.  Those of us who are devoted to traditional worship are not to be considered as denizens of the fever swamps:
8. The Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum constitutes an important expression of the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff and of his munus of regulating and ordering the Church’s Sacred Liturgy.  The Motu Proprio manifests his solicitude as Vicar of Christ and Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church,   and has the aim of:
a. offering to all the faithful the Roman Liturgy in the Usus Antiquior, considered as a precious treasure  to be preserved;
b. effectively guaranteeing and ensuring the use of the forma extraordinaria for all who ask for it, given that the use of the 1962 Roman Liturgy is a faculty generously granted for the good of the faithful and therefore is to be interpreted in a sense favourable to the faithful who are its principal addressees;
c. promoting reconciliation at the heart of the Church.
-- Innovations that have cropped up in the liturgy since 1962, such as altar girls and Communion on the hand, will not take place in the Extraordinary Form.  The ethos of the form shall thus be preserved.  Those who would seek to sabotage the regular celebration of the Extraordinary Form by introducing these things into it will not be permitted to do so.   Does this instruction stop them from trying?  It may very well do so in some cases, despite the fact that we generally cannot know about abuses that do not take place because they have been prevented.  But even if it be the case that no abuses are in fact prevented, we are still better off for having the instruction than otherwise, just as we are better off for having laws against stealing, even though the law fails to deter all thieves.

-- Even though liturgical practices introduced since 1962 do not apply to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, the instruction gives the lie to the contemporary notion that that the Extraordinary Form is a dead thing, a museum piece or a fly stuck in amber.  The instruction contemplates, in Paragraph 11, the creation of new liturgical books and texts pertaining to the Extraordinary Form.  For example, feast days for saints canonized since 1962 will find a place in the Extraordinary Form.  No doubt the Feast of Divine Mercy will also be incorporated into the older rite.

-- The question of what constitutes a "group of the faithful existing in a stable manner" who requests the Extraordinary Form is to be liberally construed, as is the question of what qualifies a priest to celebrate the Extraordinary Form.  Groups of the faithful need not have been devoted to the Extraordinary Form prior to Summorum pontificum, and they need not belong to the same parish or even the same diocese.  Priests cannot be required to be expert Latinists in order to celebrate the Extraordinary Form -- a prerequisite, by the way, that would have disqualified the Cure of Ars himself, who flunked his Latin exams in seminary.

-- Bishops are to assist their priests and seminarians in training in the Extraordinary Form.  The instruction does not affirmatively require them to do so, though I am given to understand that the authoritative Latin text is actually much more strongly worded than the English translation.  If the bishops are exhorted to provide opportunities for their priests to train up in the older rite, even though they are not being ordered to do so, then it must be the case that they may not legitimately forbid or hinder such training.

Will there still be bishops, chanceries, priests and laity hostile to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass?  Yep.  Are there still dioceses where we who desire the Mass of Tradition are asking our priests, in effect, to be pioneers and take the arrows?  You bet.  But a priest is chosen and trained and fortified by the Sacraments, especially of Confirmation and Holy Orders, precisely to take arrows.  How can he be faithful and not expect arrows?  And can a faithful priest of the Roman Rite bear to remain for long ignorant of half of his rite, and to forgo unlocking the treasure that has enriched centuries of saints?   And how can we in the pews, who expect our priests to put themselves on the line for us, not support them and take the arrows with them?  The state of affairs that has persisted for almost the last half-century need not continue -- ought not continue -- now that it is plainer than ever that the hostile forces have neither the law nor the mind of the Church on their side.  This is a huge victory, if only we grab hold of it and use it. 

It's funny how, in an age when we are so big on claiming and asserting our "rights," so many  of us Catholics gladly jettison our legitimate rights to the treasures of our heritage and to the liturgy and sacraments properly celebrated.  Indeed, we bristle with indignation whenever anyone seeks to vindicate or even remind us gently of our legitimate rights.  We prefer to wear ourselves out chasing after the "right" of women to be ordained; the "right" of girls to serve on the altar; the "right" of laymen to march into the sanctuary and handle the Sacred Species; the "right" to receive Holy Communion on the hand; the "right" of middle-aged adolescent garage bands to play at Mass; the "right" to have the Church witness gay "marriage"; the "right" to contracept; and all sorts of other imaginary "rights" to which we have no legitimate claim and that we simply have no business pursuing.  Our thinking on the whole question of rights is now so warped as no longer to remotely resemble anything Catholic. 

Thank God Pope Benedict still thinks like a Catholic,  still shines a light on our true priorities, and still looks out for the legitimate rights that we throw away like yesterday's garbage.