Ad Limina Apostolorum

Updating Reading List

2012-01-24T15:45:00.002-05:00

My brother Christopher, having recently posted his own reading list for this year, has inspired me to update my own, which has not been updated in about three years. And, well, I have read at least a few books since then. I keep mine on the right-hand column of this blog, which I will strive to keep updated.

A professor in grad school once suggested that we all keep 'running bibliographies', not only of books we wanted to read in the future, but also of books that we have read. I wish to hell I had kept his advice. How many times have I wondered, 'wait, I know I read a book about that topic...' Hopefully it's not too late to start.

Student's Question on the Tree of Knowledge

2011-09-01T10:21:00.000-04:00

As I was looking over the notes from the other day and reflecting upon your lecture, a question arose. I agree that in order to love someone, you must first know them. Additionally, if the person is good (or perfect...aka God), then the more you learn about them, the more you grow in your love for them. God truly wants us to love (and therefore know) Him. Yet, He forbade Adam and Eve from eating from the Tree of Knowlege. Why would God take away that venue if it would only lead humans to a closer relationship to Him? As I said, it's just a little incongruity that popped into my mind. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Yes, of course God desires us to know Him, the better to love Him. Thus, He would never forbid us to have recourse to knowledge of Him. We just need to be cautious in our exegesis of the Genesis story.

The identity of the ‘tree of knowledge of good and evil’ has been a great challenge to theologians. No one can claim with any confidence to understand exactly what the sacred writer meant by this symbol. Certainly, it cannot mean mere ‘knowledge’ of good and evil, in the way that we think of ‘knowledge’. Certainly, our first parents would have already had knowledge of good, since they were created good by God, and experienced communion with God (Adam ‘walked with God’ in the garden). And, while they would not have ‘known’ evil in an experiential way (in the sense that I ‘know’ what it feels like to step in a mud puddle), they would at least have had some ‘notional’ knowledge of evil, in the sense that, being free, they would have been aware that a rejection of God’s commands was at least a possibility open to them.

Most exegetes have preferred to see this tree not as a ‘knowledge’ of good and evil, straightforwardly, but as symbolizing the authority to define good and evil. In this way, God, as the author of good and the giver of the moral law, has supreme authority to dictate what actions are good, and what are evil. Our first parents had the responsibility to accept, humbly, their creatureliness and God’s deity, and to submit to His instruction as to what was good and what was evil. Instead, Satan invited them to refuse the state of creatureliness, and to attempt deification, i.e. to supplant the Creator Himself and become God: as he said, ‘your eyes will be opened and you will become like God, knowing good and evil’ [= ‘having the authority to define good and evil’]. By eating of this fruit, our first parents chose to reject God’s determination of good and evil, and to set for themselves good and evil. As Isaiah 5:20 says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil’. They determined that accepting God’s command would be evil, to break it would be good.

Whether or not this understanding is faithful to the text, it seems the best way of handling the complicated issues involved. In any case, it is the understanding which the late John Paul II gives to the text in his encyclical Veritatis et splendor, from which my comments above are largely borrowed. Hope that helps,

Student's Question on Jesus' Baptism

2011-04-14T14:24:00.003-04:00

I was just posed a difficult question by one of my teens and was wondering if you would be able to help shed some light on the issue for me. We were reading through the story of Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan women in John's Gospel. Right before that study, there reads this interesting little verse.

John 4:1-2 "Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself was not baptizing, just his disciples) . . . "

The two questions I was posed were, 1. "Why doesn't Jesus baptize his disciples" and 2. "If Jesus doesn't baptize his new disciples why does he let his disciples baptize them?"

Purely speculation, of course.

As for Jesus ‘delegating’ the task of baptizing converts to his apostles, there may be no profound theological reason. His primary ministry was to preach. The early apostles established the ministry of the deaconate precisely so they wouldn’t have to deal with practical matters like distribution of charity, and so ‘neglect the preaching of the word’ (Acts 6:2). St. Paul himself says that his primary ministry is to preach ‘Christ crucified’ (1 Cor. 2:2), so that he very rarely performed baptisms (1 Cor. 1:14), but left that to others. So this could be the practical reason: like Paul, Christ focused on preaching, and left practical tasks like baptism to others.

As to why Jesus never baptized His apostles, we don’t know that He didn’t. The fact that Jesus is not recorded as baptizing them does not mean that He didn’t. It could simply be not recorded. But in my opinion (and this is just my opinion), it is likely He did not, because He did not need to. In his Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, Edward Schillebeeckx points out that St. Paul was the only apostle whose baptism is recorded in Scripture (Acts 9:18), and he was also the only apostle who never had a personal, physical encounter with the Incarnate Christ while on earth. Schillebeeckx calls Christ the ‘primordial sacrament’, who, after His physical departure into heaven, leaves behind the seven ‘separated sacraments’ as ‘substitutes’ for His own presence. His theory: While Christ was on earth, the ‘separated sacraments’ are not needed, because men can encounter the ‘primordial sacrament’. (E.g., why do we need the Eucharist if Christ is hanging out with us daily?) Once Christ physically departs, we need the ‘separated sacraments’ as a substitute. That is why Paul needed baptism, and the others did not.

A last consideration. There were, after all, two baptisms: John’s baptism of water for repentance (a purely symbolic baptism), and Christian, sacramental baptism. The distinction is made in Acts 19. Jesus received only John’s baptism. The first command to receive specifically Christian baptism (baptism into the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) is made in the Great Commission in Matthew 28, right before Jesus departs the earth (see the point above on ‘separated sacraments’). The question is, then, which baptism were the apostles performing during Jesus’ earthly ministry. I’m not sure there’s an easy answer to that question, much less an official one. I would propose (though I am happy to be corrected) that it was John’s baptism. After all, Christian baptism is an incorporation into Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection (Romans 6), and an infusion with the divine grace won by Christ’s Passion. This is not possible without the death, burial and resurrection having taken place. Which is why, I think, Christian baptism is inaugurated only at the Great Commission, after the Resurrection. If this is true (and again I’m happy to be corrected), it does change the significance of the passage you mention, where Jesus does not personally baptize. John claims that Jesus’ purpose is to bring a new baptism, not with water but with ‘Holy Spirit and fire’ (Matt. 3:11-12). But this could only be done after Easter. Thus, while Jesus allows John’s baptism with water for repentance to be carried on, it is not the purpose of His ministry, nor does He carry it out personally. His purpose is to die, which He calls His ‘baptism’ (Luke 12:50).

Hope those thoughts help.

A Student's Question about Sacrifice

2010-11-04T11:25:00.003-04:00

A student asked the following question about sacrifice, and the connection between Christ's activity and our own.

So I find it funny how God works sometimes. Just yesterday I was praying about the importance of sacrifice. Rarely do I sacrifice or give up something that I enjoy for the greater glory. Today you mentioned how we are imperfect people and our small sacrifices cannot come close to the ultimate sacrifice that is pleasing to God and that is Jesus's death on the cross. I firmly understand that and believe that. Where I am confused is in the point of our sacrifice. If God is not satisfied in our sacrifice, than why do it? I was praying about setting up a yearly calendar where every 2 weeks I make a sacrifice such as giving up sweets or soda...why should I do this if it is not pleasing to God?

My reply:

It is not that God is not pleased with our sacrifice, but that our sacrifice in and of itself is not sufficient to please Him. It is not that we cannot perform good acts – we can, should and must. But there is a difference between a good act and a good act. This is the distinction between natural and supernatural virtue we discussed in class. Given that God created us with natural powers and abilities (a mind and a will, e.g.) we can use those powers and abilities to perform acts which are, in and of themselves, good – refraining from excessive indulgence in food and drink (moderation), making wise decisions about how we spend our money (prudence), etc. But two observations: (a) in actual fact, we rarely perform them at all, and when we do, they are often done in a half-hearted, begrudging, and morally ambivalent way, often with a mélange of mixed motives; and (b) even if we did perform them (a) continuously, perpetually, and without fail, and (b) with wholehearted and unflagging zeal, they still would not satisfy the demands of God, which are the demands of justice (justice = everyone gets what He deserves). What, then, does God deserve? He deserves far more than this collection of natural virtues. He demands what are properly superhuman virtues – that we accept as true everything He tells us, even those things which don’t make a lot of sense, like the Trinity (faith), that we trust Him to guide us to an eternal happiness we cannot imagine (hope), and that we be willing to sacrifice everything that we want and have for the sake of benefiting others (charity/love). These are things which require powers and abilities which we by nature do not have. They require supernatural assistance, or grace, and this grace can only come from the perfect act of Christ, who offered to God (on Calvary) exactly what God had always demanded of the human race, which is simply what God deserves of us, and which He had never until that time received. But note this: Christ’s activity is not a substitute for our own, as though we could sit back and do nothing, confident that God would accept His activity in lieu of our own failure. No, His activity enriches, empowers and enables our own activity, so that we can do what we could not do before. That is, now that Christ’s grace has been communicated to us through the Holy Spirit, in and through the sacraments of the Church, we can now (a) perform natural acts of virtue with greater frequency and (b) with greater zeal than before, and also (c) perform those supernatural acts of faith, hope and charity which were impossible to us before, and thus . . . please God. So, to come full circle, does the efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice imply that there is no meaning to your own sacrifice? No, just the opposite. The efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice is precisely what gives meaning to your own sacrifice. For when you perform these acts of sacrifice, it will be Him acting in and through you.

Hope that helps.

A Short Guide to Praying the Liturgy of the Hours

2010-08-04T12:49:00.004-04:00

A close friend of mine asked me for some assistance in navigating the Liturgy of the Hourse, a.k.a. the Breviary, a.k.a. the Divine Office. This priceless gem of Catholic liturgy, long a cornerstone of the Church's spirituality, remains an undiscovered treasure for many Catholics, and many who have discovered it have since abandoned it, bewildered and confused by its complex structure.

(For those interested in purchasing the office, it comes in a four-volume set, although laypersons might prefer the cheaper [although much more complicated due to its condensed structure] one-volume version, or even the Shorter Christian Prayer, which contains only Morning and Evening Prayer [probably the only two prayers I would recommend for beginners anyway]. Alternatively, a subscription to Magnificat includes a daily selection from the office [although I personally find it overly simplified and methodologically flawed], or one could just keep it simple and pray a couple of the Psalms every day - which is, after all, how the office started anyway.)

I am cutting and pasting here a two-page summary of how to navigate the Liturgy of the Hours. I threw it together in twenty minutes and -- yes, I know - it is quite incomplete and even simplified to the extent of being partially inaccurate. But I post it here in the event that some reader may find it helpful.

There are four sections of the office relevant for our purposes: the Proper of Seasons, the Psalter, the Commons, and the Proper of Saints:

The Psalter: This is the 'foundation stone' of the entire office, and consists essentially of the 150 Psalms from the Bible (along with a handful of other 'Psalm-like' New Testament passages), which are broken up over a four-week cycle. Every day during this four-week cycle includes seven 'hours' for prayer: each hour, with some exceptions, has three Psalms (or, in the case of longer Psalms, segments of a Psalm). The four weeks are identified by Roman numerals (Week I, Week II, etc.). The Universalis Calendar is a good key to finding out which week we are presently in: just find the date and look in the right-hand column. If we are in, say, Wednesday of Week I, you will go to that respective day in the Psalter. That day will have a section for each hour: Office of Readings, Morning Prayer, Daytime Prayer, Evening Prayer and Night Prayer. (There are actually three ‘daytime hours’, but only one is included, for reasons we won’t get into here.) Traditionally the hours are said at the following times: Morning Prayer at 6am, the Daytime Prayers at 9am, noon and 3pm, Evening Prayer at 6pm and Night Prayer at 9pm or right before bedtime; the Office of Readings can be said at any suitable time, but is often said right before Morning Prayer. Not all the offices need to be said; pick those suitable for your schedule - most laypersons stick to Morning and Evening Prayer, the 'two hinges' of the day.

Now, the parts of each 'hour'. The Office of Readings, Daytime Prayer and Night Prayer are a little different, and each has its unique character, so let's stick with Morning and Evening Prayer for now, which are nearly identical to each other. Each begins with some opening prayers ('Oh God, come to my assistance, etc.'). Then a hymn is typically sung, though this can be omitted if you are praying alone. Then the three Psalms are given; each has an 'antiphon' (marked 'Ant.') which is said/sung immediately before and after each Psalm, to 'set the tone' for that Psalm. Some Psalms have a 'Psalm-prayer' afterwards which may also be said as a reflection, though this too can be omitted. After the Psalms comes a brief biblical reading and a reflective 'response' afterwards. Then comes either the Canticle of Zechariah (Morning Prayer) or the Magnificat (Evening Prayer), which also has an antiphon. (Since this is said every day, it may not be printed out in the hour; it is probably located somewhere else in the office, or in a separate sheet.) The hour closes with a set of petitions/intercessions, then the 'Our Father', a concluding prayer and then the closing words ('Let us praise the Lord', etc.). Morning and Evening Prayer should take about 10 minutes to say alone, maybe 15 in a group. If you say it with more than one person present, the Psalms and Canticle/Magnificat are often said 'in choir' - that is, with each person saying one 'paragraph' and then switching back and forth, and assigning respective duties for each other section (one person assigned to do the reading, another to lead petitions, etc.). This Psalter, again, is the 'core' of the office, and in ordinary time when no feast is being celebrated, that's about as complicated as it gets.

Proper of Seasons: Things get only a little more complicated when we step out of ordinary time. The Proper of Seasons specifies certain changes that are made to the Psalter when a feast or season is being celebrated – mainly Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and other 'moveable' feasts (i.e., feasts which are not on a set calendar day but shift around each year). It is good to keep one bookmark (most offices have ribbons) in the Proper of Seasons to keep track of where you are in the year. Apart from the long 'deserts' of ordinary time (such as we are in now), some things will change. What will typically change are the hymns (there are 'season-specific' hymns suggested for Lent, Easter, etc.), the antiphons and the concluding prayers. The Psalter, biblical reading and petitions will usually stay the same, except on the most important feasts, when these too change. So, on these days, you will often be flipping back and forth between the 'Proper' (for those things which change) and the Psalter (for those which don't). That’s when ribbons/bookmarks are handy. If the Proper of Seasons does not offer a substitute set of Psalms, e.g., then assume it is the same.

Proper of Saints: Most of what was said above for the Proper of Seasons can simply be repeated for the Proper of Saints, which is for all feasts of saints and other 'fixed' days (which are set on a calendar day each year). The Universalis calendar, linked above, can help you keep track of what feasts is being celebrated. Keep in mind that, when feasts overlap (say, St. Patrick's is on a Sunday of Lent), a very complicated system dictates which 'trumps' which: Sunday, e.g., always 'trumps' nearly every saint's feast. So keep the calendar handy. Every saint’s feast has a 'rank', and the lowest 'ranked' feasts ('optional memorials') are just that, optional, so they need not be celebrated, unless you have a particular devotion to that saint. So what was said above applies here. When you are celebrating the feast of a saint, go to that page (the Proper of Saints is in chronological order, so just keep another bookmark here) and it will tell you what changes. Typically, for saint's days, very little changes - often just the concluding prayer and often the antiphon. Everything else stays the same.

Common of Saints: Think of this as what fills the 'gap' between the Proper of Saints and the Psalter. Let’s say you’re celebrating the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary on October 7. You have a strong devotion to the Rosary and want to devote as much of the daily office as possible to the Blessed Mother. But, to your dismay, the Proper of Saints only offers a concluding prayer for this feast, and everything else remains the same. The Common of Saints offers a resource for expanding the celebration to include MORE of that saint/feast. The Common of Saints is broken up into categories: virgins, martyrs, pastors, apostles, etc., including one for the Blessed Virgin Mary. If you wish to devote more of the daily office to the celebration of a certain saint, you may go to the Common of Saints. In this case, you go to the Common of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and it will offer additional substitutes for the antiphons, Psalms, readings, petitions, etc., all of which have a 'Marian' flavor. But, of course, you don't have to do this if you don’t wish.

So, again, things only get complicated on feasts. On some days - say, a feast in the middle of Christmas – you might be switching back and forth between all four sections. During ordinary time on non-feast days it’s just the Psalter. In fact, while you are getting used to the office, I would suggest simply ignoring the feasts and seasons and doing the Psalter alone for a couple of weeks. Then expand to other sections as you get more comfortable. Don’t worry about perfection - I've heard forty people say the office and each does it differently. There’s no 'wrong' way - as long as you are doing it at all, that's right.

Response to Protestant Inquirer #2

2009-11-20T16:13:00.002-05:00

The following is a response sent to another dear Protestant friend. As in this post below, this student is in a mainstream, liberal-leaning divinity school and is having trouble maintaining the tension between his Evangelical convictions (about the Bible, in particular) and the historical critical questions raised by modern criticism of Scripture.

My response to him follows:

I think, even if my examples aren't always the most apropos, [this] captures the essence of my frustration with Evangelicalism - the sense that the entire foundation of my faith didn't really seem to get beyond me. It led to frustrations even in college, and I remember having a lot of talks with [a friend] who was going through a lot of the same things (though he didn't go the way I did). There was a burning sense that, when [a teacher] pointed out an error in the Scriptures, I felt that, if I didn't personally resolve the problem and disprove [the teacher], my entire faith would go plummeting down in flames. If I couldn't defend an article of faith in a debate with a fellow believer, then I had to adjust my entire system accordingly. That I was accountable to, and could depend upon, no one but myself.

I remember reading a debate between an Evangelical and a Catholic (when I was looking into this I looked up every debate I could find on the internet - there are a surprising number of them, many of them videotaped, and I never found one where the Evangelical came off looking smarter) where the Protestant ended the debate by saying something along the lines of, "All I want is for every Protestant to wake up every day and ask himself, 'why am I not Catholic?'" What he meant was that he felt that Protestants had drifted into a chummy, ecumenical co-existence with Catholics and had forgotten why the Reformation happened, and that being a Protestant meant being in a constant state of Protest against the Catholic enemy, and hence insisting again and again upon points like sola scriptura and sola fides, because when we forget those things, we forget who we are as Protestants, and what is most important to us. Well, the Catholic opponent immediately stood up and said that was exactly what HE wanted too - the Protestant to continually ask himself why he was not Catholic. So this seemed a good starting point. At the time I had been calling myself a 'Christian' instead of a 'Protestant', deliberately and self-consciously, because I wanted to transcend and stand above all of those differences. And I took some comfort in C. S. Lewis' 'Mere Christianity', which aims at something just like this. But soom I realized that I was 'cheating', in a way. Because one cannot simply be a 'mere Christian'. Such a creature does not exist. Lewis, in an essay I have never been able to find . . . speaks of the Christian hanging out in the 'hallway' between various rooms (the 'rooms' being denominations', and that the hallway between the rooms ('mere Christianity') is often more attractive than any of the rooms, but the Christian can only stay a while and then he will have to grow up and decide on a room. Simply because a hallway is not a home and one cannot live there. The denominations, like them or hate them, have provided the only stable, communal, structural Christian 'environments' where one can make a home. To avoid denominations is to be in a continual state of drift, which is to live a lie. So here I was, pretending that the great rifts of our history had never happened, and that we were all one happy family.

So now I began to ask myself the question that both apologists (Catholic and Protestant) had asked me to ask myself - why am I not Catholic? And I began to see the horror of the question, you see, which is that Catholicism is the default position, for the burden of proof lies with the Protestant. If one cannot come up with a satisfactory answer to the question, one is left with the option of Catholicism. So the question was framed in a way that seemed to pre-empt a thorough answer. But you see, one cannot really frame it any other way. One cannot ask the Catholic to ask 'why am I not Protestant', because Protestantism is not a default position. Protestantism exists precisely as a rejection of Catholicism, and identifies itself with a set of epithets (sola Scriptura, sola fides) which are really concise rejections of the Catholic system. Protestantism, is, by its very name, a protest against Catholicism. So it cannot very well be a default; it makes no pretenses of being 'mere Christianity'. But Catholicism is not like this at all. Catholicism is not a rejection of the Protestant system. Catholicism does not formulate its teachings in a polemical or antithetical manner.

This is exactly what made the Catholic church so horrifying to John Henry Newman, who is one of my heroes - an Anglican church historian from the 19th century who at the end of his life became Catholic. 'Unjudged, she judges the world', he says. In other words, the Catholic Church simply goes about her business teaching, and doesn't really seem to care what anyone else thinks of her teaching. She makes utterly preposterous claims - like being the one Church of Christ, His vicar on earth, an infallible vessel - with the same kind of flippancy with which one pronounces that one likes one's pancakes with syrup and not butter, without diffidence or defensiveness. And if challenged, she insists that she has always taught these things, and will never stop teaching them.

And the frightening thing is how well these claims stand up to the test. I went into church history for a reason, and the classes I took with . . . started this journey for me. Newman wrote a book called 'Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine', and he noted that Christian doctrine develops without changing. Using analogies from human and plant growth (think an embryo-->adult, or acorn-->oak tree), a thing develops and expands while remaining substantially the same. I knew that all of the doctrines the Catholic Church taught today (regarding Mary, the Pope, etc.) would never be found in the early Church. Not in the same form, that is. But I found that all of the doctrines that I held dear (the Trinity, the inerrancy of the Bible) were not taught in the early Church either. What I found in the early Church were early hints of those doctrines (Triniity, Bible), like acorns and embryos, which I could recognize as having some loose connection with the later development of the doctrines. The problem, of course, was that I found just as many hints (acorns and embryos) for all those Catholic doctrines (Mary, Papacy) I wished to avoid. In fact, in many cases, there was much stronger evidence in the early Church for the Catholic doctrines (Eucharist, purgatory, papacy) than for the doctrines I preferred.

Anyway, I'm sounding preachy and I'm beginning to annoy myself. You have to understand I've been teaching all weekend, a good deal of it on John Henry Newman, so I get in a certain mode, and I have to remember I'm supposed to be writing a personal email and not a sermon.

The point is, Newman famously said, 'to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant'. I found that to be true, and I've known very few Evangelicals who have survived the journey. It's true that not all have become Catholic - some have found happy homes in Orthodoxy or even (pace Newman) Anglicanism. There are some rare birds who are content to remain Evangelical, but these - if pressed - are often more Catholic in their doctrine than they want to admit. I can't guarantee that, had I been surrounded by Orthodox or Anglicans instead of Catholics, I wouldn't have gone that direction at the time, although in retrospect I can now say that neither could prove as satisfying. I met a guy at a conference in North Carolina last month who said he converted from Evangelicalism to Anglicanism because he just wanted to be an 'ecclesial' Christian, and I think that about sums it up. The Evangelical, to me, is not an 'ecclesial' Christian, because he does not live his Christianity in reference to other Christians. His gathering with other Christians on various occasions - Sunday worship or other social events - is a purely accidental feature of his Christianity. He does not allow other Christians to define his faith. He does not allow other Christians to define his mode of worship. He does not allow other Christians to modify or intervene in his relationship with God. The 'ecclesial' Christian, on the other hand, knows that his relationship to God subsists only through the medium of the Christian community - its creeds, its worship and its traditions. The most helpful book for me in making this realization was 'Evangelicalism is Not Enough' by Thomas Howard, who wrote this book after he converted to Anglicanism. (He later became Catholic.) I think both Orthodoxy and Anglicanism can be called 'ecclesial' communities, although (naturally) I think the logic of ecclesiality is realized most fully in Catholicism. (And perhaps Lutheranism is the most 'ecclesial' of Protestant communities, and Reformed coming somewhat after that.)

And I hope you understand, I bear no bitterness against my Evangelical past - I realize I keep referring to my 'frustrations' but I think I only realized I was frustrated in retrospect, like when you get in a warm bath and find yourself falling asleep within two minutes, and only then do you realize how hellish the day must have been that you've just been through, based on how dramatic the relaxation was (wow, how did I come up with that analogy?). I was raised as a Reformed Christian, and discovered my faith as an Evangelical, and I have the kindest, warmest memories of my time in Intervarsity [Christian Fellowship], where my faith bloomed. In fact, I think that it was the inner logic of this Evangelical experience that led me to the Catholic Church. I think, in retrospect, all of the positive, Christian values of Evangelicalism (what Louis Bouyer calls the 'spirit of Protestantism') - vibrant spirituality, disciplined prayer, zealous evangelism, biblical rootedness - is best protected, fostered and channeled within the ecclesiality of Catholicism. While at the same time, the exaggerations and dangers of Evangelicalism - emotionalism, individualism, anti-intellectualism (what Bouyer calls the 'forms' of Protestantism) - are avoided or carefully restrained.

So, it's late and I'm just dumping some thoughts on paper. I hope I don't come off as preachy. I've come so far from the days when I knew you that, sometimes, and it's hard to express this, I don't really know how I sound to Evangelicals anymore. The frustration of the convert is that 'once I was X, and I saw Y, and when I saw Y I realized with absolute clarity that I could no longer remain X - so, given that you are X, and you see Y, I assume you realize too with the same absolute clarity that you can no longer remain X.' When of course we realize that we are not talking X's and Y's but persons, each of whom has his own history and his own framework by light of which he sees things.

Email to a Protestant Inquirer

2009-11-20T14:02:00.003-05:00

Below I am copying some correspondence between myself and a dear Protestant friend. He is currently in a Protestant Evangelical seminary and is grappling with the difficult problems raised by modern, historical-critical exegesis. Just in the case that some casual reader may benefit from this correspondence, it follows. Elipses below indicate that personal, identifying material has been removed:

His email:

I've been here . . . going to seminary , hoping to find some of the answers to all of the questions that had been bombarding me at liberal universities . . .. Most arguments I believed were invalid because they relied on the assumption that God does not exist and that prophecy is impossible. But a lot of arguments sounded extremely logical and difficult to refute. Those types of questions multiplied when I went to [a graduate school in theology], but I always assumed that just because something looked suspect and hard to account for didn't mean that there was not an answer.

So when I got here, I couldn't wait to hear how conservative scholars handle these types of issues, but surprisingly there were not many explanations I had not encountered before. When I took a class on the history of doctrine, it just left me wondering why it took so long to formulate the canon, and why so many people, believing themselves to be Christians, believed so many different things about Jesus early on.

I've taken a special interest in Christian origins and NT textual criticism, looking closely at theological development and textual variants. When I started to read each book of the Bible independently, as they no doubt originated, I began to notice how much of my "orthodox" theology I have to import into each one on order to make it also sound "orthodox." For 11 years I've had the same view of the scriptures, and so I went kicking and screaming into a realization that something might be wrong with that view. Just reading the two birth narratives again (Mt and Lk), I could see that there were problems in thinking that both of them could be historical. I started considering the evidence for identifying the pastoral epistles as pseudonymous, and it was very convincing.

And after taking all of the problematic issues into account, it was impossible to still think of the Bible as the inspired, infallible, word of God. So I was tempted to do what my theology had taught me to do, which was just junk it all. If you can't trust one part, you can't trust any of it. But that seems extreme. So now I'm trying to reconstruct a theology around a view that sees scripture as a witness to revelation, rather than absolute, undiluted revelation straight from the mouth of God.

I just wondered if you had come to terms with any of the findings of historical criticism in this respect, but I have a sense that you might have the same views I had up until about 2 months ago. I agree that there is everything wrong with reconstructing historical events, but what if the events that were recorded were not historical? For 11 years I refused to consider the possibility that the Bible could be wrong about anything, but why? Is there a scripture that says that all Christians must believe that every book that would eventually come to be placed in the NT canon must be believed in its entirety? Or is that something that has been developed later? It's comforting to think that God superintended the formation of the canon, and inspired all of scripture contained therein, but there seems to be too many problems with that view for me to continue with it honestly.

My response follows:

First off, as I’m sure you recall, my response to this question will be different from yours simply because I’m a Roman Catholic. (Although, I’ll add, part of the reason I became Catholic is because of the problems you raise. I found that Evangelical Protestantism proved to be a dead-end in answering the questions posed by modern secularism, whereas only Catholicism (in my experience – if there’s another church that does, I’m not aware of it) provided answers). In sum, I have (historical, biblical) reason to believe that Christ, while on earth, founded an authoritative Church, built on the foundation of the apostles, to teach in His name, and that the Pope and bishops of the Catholic Church are the legitimate successors to these apostles, and hence hold their authority. Thus, I do believe that the Scriptures are ‘inspired’ and ‘inerrant’ (without error), and I believe this on the authority of the Church, since the Pope and bishops have always proclaimed these doctrines. To quote St. Augustine, the 4th century African Father of the Church, ‘I would not have believed the Gospels themselves, unless the authority of the Church moved me to do so’. Naturally, you haven’t been convinced by the Catholic arguments, so your approach would be different, but I wanted to state right out (without getting into an argument over this, since I’m not terribly interested) that I’m in a very different position than yourself when it comes to this. My position is, as it were, easier than yours. I don’t have to bother with refuting each and every argument posed by the historical-critics, because I have it on a higher authority that they are simply wrong. (Naturally, the truth is much more complicated than this, but I’m simplifying.)

For the Protestant, who is reluctant to allow for the authority of an institutional church, as I see it, you have two routes to securing biblical inspiration and inerrancy:

1. The easy way: accept by way of an ‘inner testimony’ of the Holy Spirit that the Scriptures are true; God speaks in my heart that they are true and I will not doubt God – just as God testifies to my eternal salvation (as most Evangelicals believe), He testifies to the authority of Scripture. And not only the authority, but the contents of the canon. As my roommate . . . (you’ll remember him) told me, ‘I cannot accept that God would allow me to be deceived as to the contents of the Scripture’. This sounds good as far as it goes, but there are obvious problems. How do you distinguish between the ‘inner testimony’ of God and a mere psychological confidence? I don’t know about you, but there are a lot of things I thought God was telling me that later proved out to be ‘mis-readings’ on my part of His will. And as I told my roommate, as far as the canon goes, the Protestant has to believe that God allowed every Christian from the 5th century to the 16th, including all Catholics to the present day, including Mother Theresa herself, to be deceived about the contents of Scripture, since all these Christians accepted a different canon than you. (The Catholic canon, of course, is different than the Protestant’s.) So, if God would deceive these gazillion Christians, why would He treat you any differently? (Unless, of course, you take the route that none of these people were ‘true’ Christians, and Mother Theresa is burning in hell. Fine then, that’s a way out. But also, to rest the inspiration of Scripture on an inner psychological sentiment (which sounds Mormon to me) proves remarkably weak when you begin to confront the hard challenges posed by historical critical scholars. As in your case – you have to set the self-evident proof of errors on the page against your inner certainty that they are not really errors. You’re not going to win that fight.

2. The hard way: Do the historical critical work better than the scholars do, and disprove them. Every ball they toss at you, bat it back at them. Every error they point out, prove that it’s not an error. This has been the ‘labor of love’ performed by countless Evangelical scholars over the years, and has typically been the route they’ve gone. Admittedly, they’ve been pretty good at it, and most of the errors proposed to be in the Bible have been pretty handily resolved by Evangelicals. Most. Not all. The problem is that, again, this is harder than it seems, and requires a great amount of faith. Some problems in Scripture, like the discrepancy between John and the Synoptics as to which day Jesus died on (John has it on Saturday, the Synoptics on Friday, as I recall) can be resolved in historical critical ways, such as pointing out that John and the Synoptic authors used different calendars. Fine. Others are not so easy. I needn’t point out examples to you, but there are some problems (in the genealogies, e.g., or in the Genesis stories) which appear intractable, and for which I have yet to read a satisfactory response. And who knows, other problems could be pointed out in the future, or others may be out there I haven’t heard yet. So I have to have faith, that these seemingly intractable problems do indeed have a solution, and that every problem posed in the future will have a solution, but again, that’s not resting on empirical evidence, but on faith (back to the ‘inner testimony’), and the longer you stay in the game, the harder the fastballs keep coming. This seems to be what you hoped to find in Dallas – better batters who could return the fastballs – but the hard truth is that most of the batters have long since given up.

Those are the only suggestions I’ve been given by Protestants. As you can tell, I’m not terribly sanguine about them in retrospect, and they didn’t convince me at the time. The other possibility:

3. As the liberal Protestant concludes, we can just abandon the doctrines of inspiration and inerrancy. Admit that the Bible does have errors in it, or find a compromise, that the Bible is inerrant on ‘matters of faith and morals’, but not on historical/scientific matters. (Many liberal Catholics take this route.) Or deny inspiration, and claim that the Scriptures are simply the historical testimony to the faith of specific historical people, and is ‘inspired’ only in the loose sense, that it ‘inspires’ faith in the reader. That is, not ‘inspired’ but rather ‘inspirational’. The trouble is, as you know, this is simply the first domino in a long stack. For the Protestant, whose faith rests on ‘sola Scriptura’, the authority of Scripture alone, once you abandon the notion that Scripture has any authority, what else do you have? Or once this authority is admitted to be full of errors, then its authority has to be qualified – it is authoritative, but only when it has been ‘vetted’ by historical critical scholars to remove the erroneous parts. And this gives biblical scholars a kind of ‘Magisterium’ or authority over Scripture, and they get to pick and choose what parts are authoritative. Don’t you know what parts they will remove? I teach a class on Paul’s letters, and can you take a guess at what parts of Paul’s letters most scholars think are illegitimate, i.e. not by Paul? 1 Corinthians 11, which says women ought to submit to their husbands, Romans 1, which condemns homosexuality, etc. . . . . In the Catholic Church we complain about ‘cafeteria Catholicism’, where people pick and choose what doctrines they like and don’t like, as though they were in a cafeteria. Once Protestants accept that Scripture includes errors, prepare yourselves for ‘cafeteria Protestantism’. Should it be any surprise to you that the liberal Protestant denominations, which abandoned biblical inerrancy in the late 19th century (Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans) are now ordaining homosexuals and approving divorce, abortion, and all the rest? You ask if there is a scripture that suggests that everything in the canon must be believed in its entirety – well, no, of course not. There is, of course, 2 Tim. 3:16, but this hardly says that. But, naturally, once you suggest that parts of the canon need not be accepted, you can hardly call yourself a self-respecting Protestant. (I think the absence of any such passage speaks more of the weakness of the Protestant doctrine of sola Scriptura than of errors in the canon, but that’s another matter.)

There is another path, of course. You speak of Scripture being a ‘witness to revelation’, rather than revelation itself. Well, yes, fine – this is, of course, the Catholic position, more or less. But I’d ask you – what exactly is this revelation you speak of? What, exactly, does Scripture testify to? Here’s the problem. If Scripture is not revelation but a witness to revelation, then Scripture itself has no direct authority – revelation does, and Scripture only has authority INASMUCH as it testifies to revelation, and if (as the scholars tell us) Scripture does a rather poor job of testifying to revelation (since it is, supposedly, full of errors), then Scripture only has a very limited, qualified and mitigated authority. In other words, one can play off Scripture AGAINST revelation – I have heard these arguments used to justify gay marriage. God’s Revelation is of absolute, unconditional love for all, and Scripture is only meant to testify to this; if parts of Scripture do a very poor job of this, since they are written by bigoted, hatemongering sycophants (such as whoever wrote Romans 1), they we ought to defy or ignore such passages, and in the name of our holy obedience to God’s Revelation, we should accept the holy sanctity of gay sodomy. In other words, in the name of our obedience to Revelation, we ought to defy Scripture. There’s a sick kind of logic there, but that’s the slippery slope you get on. So, I’m find in following you in saying that Scripture is a testimony to revelation rather than the sum total of revelation itself. (I happen to believe Scripture is an inspired, inerrant, authoritative testimony, but we’ll save that discussion for later.) But if you don’t specify exactly what you mean by revelation, but leave it up to the vain speculations of individual Christians to define for themselves, you see where the slope slides. Is this revelation some vague idea, or is it concrete, historical, flesh & blood revelation? If you can’t actually point to what this revelation is, then your only solution is to abandon any notion of Scriptural authority and part ways with the Reformers. This is, of course, exactly the service which the Catholic provides, which is to:

4. Identify God’s revelation with ‘Tradition’. ‘Tradition’, in the Catholic meaning, does not refer to a collection of ‘secret doctrines’ which are not found in Scripture (I strongly suggest this article by a convert to Catholicism). Rather, Catholics speak of God’s full revelation as consisting in the Incarnation of His Son and the sending of His Spirit. Thus, while on earth, Jesus showed us not only a fragmentary revelation of God (Hebrews 1), but the Full Revelation of God Himself, i.e. the very face of God. He left all of this revelation to His apostles, subsisting in the giving of the Spirit as the ‘guarantee’ or ‘deposit’ of truth, which would bring to their minds what He taught them. This truth, then, was ‘handed on’ from Christ to the apostles, which they ‘handed on’ to the Christians after them. (‘Tradition’ – Latin ‘traditio’, Gk. paradosis- literally means ‘to hand over’). Some of these teachings are enshrined in Scripture, but not all (Jn. 21:25 – the world count not contain the books which would include everything He taught), and thus St. Paul (2 Thess. 2:15) urges his churches to obey all the traditions (paradosis = ‘what is handed on’) which he taught them, whether by word of mouth or by letter (e.g., not only the Scriptures he wrote, but also his preaching). ‘Tradition’ is not a set of secret doctrines but rather the whole life of the Church, which is the teaching of Christ – doctrine, creeds, worship, prayer, songs, virtues, stories, practices, the whole kit & caboodle. As the Catholic teaching puts it: Now what was handed on by the Apostles includes everything which contributes toward the holiness of life and increase in faith of the peoples of God; and so the Church, in her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes...So, this ‘revelation’ which Christ brought is simply the life and teachings of the community of the Church. Scripture is simply a witness to this revelation. Scripture itself, after all, is a work of tradition, a part of that which is ‘handed’ on, but hardly the whole thing. (Even if it is, of course, the central thing.) Catholics, for their part, are happy to agree that all doctrines are found in Scripture, as long as we maintain that Scripture is never to be read ‘in a vacuum’, but only within the community of the Church, taking into account the larger ‘tradition’, including the creeds of the early Church. This, of course, also allows for some authority of church leaders (bishops or what not) to preside over this tradition and distinguish true from false traditions. Does it bother me that the canon was not formalized until the 5th century? No, of course not. It bothered me as a Protestant, since I had to wonder what it was that the early Christians used as their authority in the first 400 years – naturally, it was ‘tradition’. And how did Church authorities know which books to include in the canon? They tell us themselves (read Jerome) that they chose those books which best embodied the ‘tradition’ which came from the apostles. Does it bother me that Christians very early on came to different interpretations of the Bible? No, of course not. Because I believe that God has provided a means, outside the canon, as a guarantee of a right interpretation of the canon – that is, the tradition, as interpreted by Church authority. Arius, who denied Christ’s divinity, misinterpreted the canon because he denied the tradition of the Church and was condemned by a church council. But if one believes in NO authority outside the canon, one is sort of up a creek, for the history of doctrine will be bewildering. Find me any thinker in the early Church, before Luther, who believed that the Bible alone was an exclusive source of authority, and that tradition had no authority.

I don’t mean to get detained with Catholic arguments. That wasn’t, as I said, my point, and I’m not much of a debater on these things. But, when you deny that the Bible alone is an adequate and exclusive source for authoritative revelation, and suspect that there must be some source of authority outside the canon, of which Scripture is a partial but not exclusive witness, you should be aware that this is exactly the position of the Catholic Church, and I am unaware of any other Christian denomination (save perhaps the Orthodox, and maybe the Anglicans) who will tolerate such conclusions. And, again, it was exactly this logic which led me to consider the Catholic Church in the first place. I did not find #1, #2, or #3 above to be viable options, and simply couldn’t find a fifth. Obviously, again, you have (so far, at least) found a different route than mine, so more power to you.

As a final comment, a word on the Catholic view of Scripture, which may prove helpful. You might peruse, just as a supplement to your own studies, the Catholic document on divine revelation, Vatican II’s Dei verbum. Chapter 3, in particular, speaks of Scripture. You’ll note that Catholics believe in ‘inspiration’, defined as the notion that the human authors of Scripture wrote only those things which God wanted them to write, so that the text can be considered ‘divinely willed’, with God as its primary author. Also, Catholics believe in ‘inerrancy’, since the texts are held to teach ‘solidly, faithfully and without error’ divine truth. Note, however, that in the Scriptures God speaks to us ‘in a human fashion’, and that the human authors spoke of things using their own free wills and minds, and from their own points of view (so, e.g., they speak of the sun ‘rising and setting’, which is ‘true’ as it goes, from a human point of view) – so we don’t expect the Bible to be a ‘ready-made encyclopedia’ of scientific knowledge. In particular, ‘anything asserted by the human authors’ is asserted by the Holy Spirit, who cannot deceive or be deceived, and so exactly this is inerrant. Thus, the importance of historical-critical study, to determine exactly what the human authors ‘asserted’. We should allow that in cases of metaphor (‘God is a rock’) or ‘hyperbole’ (‘the mustard seed is the smallest of seeds’), or poetry (Job’s reference to sea monsters, or leviathans; perhaps the six days of creation?) we should understand that what the human author is ‘asserting’ should not always be taken literally. This alone accounts for a good number of so-called ‘problems’ of Scripture, and is a healthy ‘balance’, I think, between the need for historical-critical study and the authority of the text. But, in the end, whatever the human author can be identified as asserting is believed by the Catholic church to be inerrant and trustworthy. On that I tow the line.

Bleg

2006-05-11T09:23:00.000-04:00

A break from my non-blogging hiatus for a friend. Let me just point out, you would be working for this guy.

Director of the Bishop Helmsing Institute

Full time faculty position in Theology, to begin in July 2006 -- or sooner, if feasible. The successful candidate will possess a Ph.D. or S.T.D. The Institute is seeking an established scholar with recognized contributions to the field of Theology to direct the newly founded Institute and to teach and author courses in our integrated core curriculum.

Applicants should be conversant with patristics, moral theology and all magisterial teaching. In addition to suitable credentials, applicants should demonstrate experience in pastoral settings, a knowledge of and commitment to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, competency in Latin or Greek desirable, ability to travel regularly, management and leadership skills, and the classroom skills appropriate to the educational needs of a markedly diverse student body.

In addition, the successful applicant will be committed to the educational mission of the Diocese, which is the education of the whole person in the Catholic liberal arts tradition, as articulated in Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Veritatis Splendor, and Fides et Ratio.

Applicants should submit a letter of application, a short statement relating the diocese's mission to their philosophy of teaching, curriculum vitae, official transcripts, and three letters of recommendation to: Rhonda Stucinski, Human Resources Director, Diocese of Kansas City ~ St. Joseph, Post Office Box 419037, Kansas City, Missouri 64141-6037. Electronic applications are preferred. Review of applications will begin upon receipt and continue until the position is filled. The Diocese is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Ad Limina, for now, signing off...

2006-02-08T16:27:00.000-05:00

I've delayed this for far too long, but if I wait any longer it'll be far more difficult. I'm at a point now where I am temporarily suspending the Ad Limina blog. I'm feverishly writing my doctoral thesis, a few teaching assignments and conferences have come up, not to mention balancing family and work. This blog, in spite of the devout following of a handful of loyal readers, is no longer able to get the attention it deserves. I hope to resurrect it within six months or so, perhaps sooner, perhaps later. In the meantime, once the pressure to publish a blog subsides, I will be able to spend more time reading other blogs, which I enjoy far more than writing my own. Thanks to you all.

2006-01-25T12:24:00.000-05:00

My own university was deprived of the great Fr. Shanley last year, as was the Dominican community next-door. But as long as he is cleaning house in Rhode Island, I suppose I can bear to forgive him.

For this link and the two below, hat tip to CWNews.

2006-01-25T12:15:00.000-05:00

What bothers me most about ridiculous pieces like this, which NCR seems to run about every two weeks, just to keep a dead issue on life support, is not that it sensationalizes the issue of women's ordination. It's the way that the journal, through its editorial presentation, accepts the women's ordination as matter of fact, by off-handedly referring to how "Rev. Victoria Rue of Watsonville, Calif., [was] ordained last summer on the St. Lawrence Seaway," and using headlines like "After 'illicit but valid' ceremony, they find ways to serve."

2006-01-25T12:11:00.000-05:00

Excellent interviews with Bishop Bruskewitz and Corrada on Vatican II. Skip the introductory banter and go right to the interviews. Bruskewitz is predictably good, but Corrada, the Jesuit Bishop of Tyler, is refreshingly clear-headed as well.

Newman and Augustine

2006-01-11T13:26:00.000-05:00

What gave me pause in taking up Newman's autobiographical sketch was the possibility of its personal irrelevance. After all, Newman wrote it to defend himself against specific accusations leveled against him in print, and the work is littered with historical details, mostly trivial in nature. Only about ten percent of the text is actually theological in nature.

I found the work surprisingly relevant. Newman's gradually-increasing awareness of the impossibility of remaining Anglican finds echoes in our modern situation. Newman held out as long as he did only because he held an increasingly 'Catholic' interpretation of Anglican dogma (as expressed in the 39 articles, specifically). Earlier, he was convinced that this was the true sense of the articles, as their authors had understood them. Later, he acknowledged it was probably not their original sense, but insisted that the Catholic interpretation of them was valid nonetheless. His Catholic interpretation of them was tolerated long enough by the authorities, but eventually grudging tolerance moved towards ambivalence and eventual condemnation. Besides, Newman grew frustrated that the Anglican episcopacy continued to tolerate the existence of outright heretics in the Church, which in itself seemed inconsistant with its tolerance of the Catholic interpretation.

What I found especially delightful was Newman's reading of early Church history, and his shocking realization that it was the 'Roman' side of the debates which always ended up vindicated by history. Best of all, the shadow of Augustine is long as ever.

"It was difficult to make out how the Eutychians or Monophysites were heretics, unless Protestants and Anglicans were heretics also; difficult to find arguments against the Tridentine Fathers, which did not tell against the Fathers of Chalcedon; difficult to condemn the Popes of the sixteenth century, without condemning the Popes of the fifth. The drama of religion, and the combat of truth and error, were ever one and the same. The principles and proceedings of the Church now, were those of the Church then; the principles and proceedings of heretics then, were those of Protestants now. I found it so,-almost fearfully; there was an awful similitude, more awful, because so silent and unimpassioned, between the dead records of the past and the feverish chronicle of the present. The shadow of the fifth century was on the sixteenth. It was like a spirit rising from the troubled waters of the old world, with the shape and lineaments of the new. The Church then, as now, might be called peremptory and stern, resolute, overbearing, and relentless; and heretics were shifting, changeable, reserved, and deceitful, ever courting civil power, and never agreeing together, except by its aid; and the civil power was ever aiming at comprehensions, trying to put the invisible out of view, and substituting expediency for faith. What was the use of continuing the controversy, or defending my position, if, after all, I was forging arguments for Arius or Eutyches, and turning devil's advocate against the much-enduring Athanasius and the majestic Leo? Be my soul with the Saints! and shall I lift up my hand against them? Sooner may my right hand forget her cunning, and wither outright, as his who once stretched it out against a prophet of God . . . . "

"The Donatist controversy was known to me for some years . . . [T]he case was not parallel to that of the Anglican Church . . . But my friend, an anxiously religious man, now, as then, very dear to me, a Protestant still, pointed out the palmary words of St. Augustine, which were contained in one of the extracts made in the "Review," and which had escaped my observation. "Securus judicat orbis terrarum." (ed. "the secure judgement of the whole world ") He repeated these words again and again, and, when he was gone, they kept ringing in my ears. "Securus judicat orbis terrarum;" they were words which went beyond the occasion of the Donatists, they applied to that of the Monophysites. They gave a cogency to the Article which had escaped me at first. They decided ecclesiastical questions on a simpler rule than that of Antiquity. Nay St. Augustine was one of the prime oracles of Antiquity; here then Antiquity was deciding against itself. What a light was hereby thrown upon every controversy in the Church! not that, for the moment, the multitude may not falter in their judgment,-not that, in the Arian hurricane, Sees more than can be numbered did not bend before its fury, and fall off from St. Athanasius,—not that the crowd of Oriental Bishops did not need to be sustained during the contest by the voice and the eye of St. Leo; but that the deliberate judgment, in which the whole Church at length rests and acquiesces, is an infallible prescription, and a final sentence, against such portions of it as protest and secede. Who can account for the impressions which are made on him? For a mere sentence, the words of St. Augustine, struck me with a power which I never had felt from any words before. To take a familiar instance, they were like the "Turn again Whittington" of the chime; or, to take a more serious one, they were like the "Tolle, lege,-Tolle, lege," (ed. "Take, read") of the child, which converted St. Augustine himself. "Securus judicat orbis terrarum!" By those great words of the ancient Father, interpreting and summing up the long and varied course of ecclesiastical history, the theory of the Via Media was absolutely pulverized."

Happy 2006

2006-01-10T15:42:00.000-05:00

After taking a week or two off for the holidays, I'm back in action once again. The holidays were spent with close family, a box of wine, and a hot tub (convincing my son that fearsome, man-eating manitees roamed the hot-tub actually increased, not decreased, his desire to swim in it). I ended up with a copy of Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf in my hands, which my sister-in-law brought with no intention of reading. Meanwhile, my wife, who is deeply convinced of my untested ability to write fiction, informed me on Christmas Eve that she wanted a short story for her Christmas present. I began promptly, and two days later had 3-4 pages of what I thought was a knock-dead story. I was then informed that my story was 'revolting' and 'disgusting' and that she had no intention of reading past the second page. What can I say?: I'd been staying up late reading the Steppenwolf for three days straight.

I also brought with me something a little more uplifting: The Venerable-soon-to-be-Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua. I'll have more on that in a bit. In short, the more things change, the more they stay the wame.

'High Justice' and the Death Penalty

2005-12-20T13:00:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to blog on this issue for some time, though due to my own constraints the article which occasioned it is now approximately two months old. Joseph Bottum's August/September 2005 article in First Things, entitled 'Christians and the Death Penalty', barely even caught my attention, and my first reading was little more than a skimming. Bottum's writing style is not one I find congenial to rational debate: I like him more as a poet than as a columnist. It was only when the next issue featured a virtual flood of vitriolic hate mail against Bottum, which the author admitted was only the tip of the iceberg, that I gave the article a re-reading. The criticisms made of Bottum were so confused and irrational that they made Bottum's argument seem rational by comparison. Only on my second reading did I grasp what Bottum was trying to argue, and his argument was so eminently rational that it jumped off the page.

A bit of background. Pope John Paul, of happy memory, won few friends on the Christian right by the legacy he gave us in Evangelium vitae 56. Here he argued that, since "[t]he primary purpose of the punishment which society inflicts is to redress the disorder caused by the offence', the state "ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity," cases which, in the Holy Father's opinion, "are very rare, if not practically non-existent."

Cardinal Avery Dulles has argued, on several occasions (including one in the same journal), that the primary reason why the Church has always defended the state's right to execute is not a matter of self-defense, but rather of retributive justice. Dulles claims that modern societies have abandoned the death penalty due not to moral progress, but "to the evaporation of the sense of sin, guilt, and retributive justice." The most obvious conclusion to be drawn from Dulles' repeated arguments is that, even if execution is not necessary to protect the citizens of a given society, it may nonetheless be appropriate as a means of executing justice. Some have taken the additional step of claiming that Pope John Paul's condemnation of the death penalty, in focusing exclusively on the state's need for self-defense (which leads to the foregone conclusion that such penalty is not necessary), ignores the more important reason for executing capital criminals, that of retribution. This I shall call the 'justice argument'.

Bottum's article in First Things should be seen, in this humble blogger's opinion, as a full-fledged refutation of the 'justice argument'. Bottum eventually makes this clear when, after mentioning "several sets of bad arguments for the death penalty," notes that "the worst of these, for a Christian, is the argument from justice."

Bottum continues by analyzing the way society generally responds to accounts of crime. Accounts of most crimes (robbery, arson, even rape) tend to elicit demands for what are, more or less, reasonable and restrained punishments. Restitution and varying lengths of imprisonment reflect a certain 'correlation' with the crime committed. The punishment is seen as representing what is necessary to protect society and restrain criminals, and no more. This is what Bottum calls 'normal justice'.

With the crime of murder, however, a completely different attitude emerges, as the cries go up for bloodletting. This reaction of society to the crime of murder is mythologized in the story of Cain and Abel, where Abel's blood "cries out from the ground" for retribution. And Bottum admits that this reaction is, to an extent, justified: "blood really does cry out from the ground." And in response to this cry, society feels the license, no, the responsibility, to "break free from the social aims of normal justice and pursue closure for a story of high, cosmic justice." The restrained, naturally correlated order of 'normal justice' simply will not do: only the execution of the murderer can quiet the cry of the bloodstained ground. And execution is "an entirely different thing [than normal justice] that aims at restoring the universe and matching a deadly crime with a similarly deadly punishment."

The difference with 'normal justice' is clear. As Bottum points out, we don't demand that rapists be raped, or arsonists be burned. But murderers must die. Why? To bring the story to a close. Bottum speaks of the 2005 execution of Michael Ross as a satisfying story:

It has a completeness, a satisfaction, a narrative arc. It gives a feeling of rightness and a sort of balance restored to a universe gone wrong with the taking of innocent life. It aims, as satisfying stories must, at what we used to call poetic justice: the killer killed, the blood-debt repaid with blood, death satisfied with death.

But, as Bottum points out, as real as this story is, it is ultimately a pagan story, and "Jesus turned all our stories inside out. Especially the old, old ones about blood and blood's repayment." That is why John Paul II, of happy memory, began his encyclical Evangelium vitae with a reflection on the story of the first murder. Abel's blood cries out from the ground, but the Lord refuses to allow anyone to impose the penalty:

The biblical story emphasizes the reality of the blood-debt and the universe thrown out of balance by murder - and nonetheless adds a prohibition against claiming repayment for that debt . . . In Evangelium vitae, John Paul II holds to a delicate line . . . . [T]wo elements in the Cain and Abel story are vital for Christians: the genuine truth that spilled blood calls for justice, and the refusal to demand that this blood-debt be paid with yet more blood.

What Bottum is speaking of here is a genuine demarcation in human thought, brought on by the novelty of the New Covenant. The Incarnation of the Eternal One represented the radical relativization of the temporal realm: the True God showed our false gods for what they were. One of these gods was the divinity of kings, which may have translated into the pretended divinity of modern democratic states.

"What kind of justice - high, low, divine, poetic-," asks Bottum, "can a Christian allow modern democracies to claim for themselves?" In the execution of a murderer, or at least an execution carried out for the purpose of retributive justice, the state is attempting to "balance the cosmic books, to stabilize a shaken universe." Few will doubt that states have the rights to defend themselves - in a just war, for example - Bottum even permits that the state's right to self-defense might in some cases require execution. But he will not allow that the state's right of selfe-defense allows for anything more than what we have defined as 'normal justice' - it does not give the state the license to attempt revenge or 'high justice.'

This whole discussion can't help but bring out the Augustinian in me. The institution of the state can never claim to itself eternal prerogatives, which are the exclusive right of the City of God. If the state pretends to do so - and Bottum believes that retributive executions are exactly such a pretension - it becomes an idol, a false god, that must be cast down. For then, in Bottum's words, it is "overreaching its claim to power to balance the books of the universe - to repay blood with blood."

Cardinal Ratzinger in 1996 described the Pope's teaching on the death penalty as a 'development of doctrine'. Part of this development, if Bottum is right, may be a subtle but definitive rejection of the 'argument from justice'.

2005-12-20T12:58:00.000-05:00

Victor at Right-Wing Film Geek has an incisive reflection on the film 'Brokeback Mountain,' which cuts quite a bit deeper than most of the knee-jerk reactionism currently prevailing on St. Blog's. Worth reading, if you are into reading book-length entries.

Address of Pope Paul VI During the Last General Meeting of the Second Vatican Council

2005-12-09T10:58:00.000-05:00

7 December 1965

What then was the council? What has it accomplished? The answer to these questions would be the logical theme of our present meditation. But it would require too much of our attention and time: This final and stupendous hour would not perhaps give us enough tranquility of mind to make such a synthesis. We should like to devote this precious moment to one single thought which bends down our spirits in humility and at the same time raises them up to the summit of our aspirations. And that thought is this: What is the religious value of this council? We refer to it as religious because of its direct relationship with the living God, that relationship which is the raison d'être of the Church, of all that she believes, hopes and loves; of all that she is and does.

Could we speak of having given glory to God, of having sought knowledge and love of him, of having made progress in our effort of contemplating him, in our eagerness for honoring him and in the art of proclaiming him to men who look up to us as to pastors and masters of the life of God? In all sincerity we think the answer is yes. Also because from this basic purpose there developed the guiding principle which was to give direction to the future council. Still fresh in our memory are the words uttered in this basilica by our venerated predecessor, John XXIII, whom we may in truth call the originator of this great synod. In his opening address to the council he had this to say: "The greatest concern of the ecumenical council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine be guarded and taught more effectively. ... The Lord has said: 'Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice.' The word 'first' expresses the direction in which our thoughts and energies must move" ("Discorsi," 1962, p. 583).

His great purpose has now been achieved. To appreciate it properly it is necessary to remember the time in which it was realized: a time which everyone admits is orientated toward the conquest of the kingdom of earth rather than of that of heaven; a time in which forgetfulness of God has become habitual, and seems, quite wrongly, to be prompted by the progress of science; a time in which the fundamental act of the human person, more conscious now of himself and of his liberty, tends to pronounce in favor of his own absolute autonomy, in emancipation from every transcendent law; a time in which secularism seems the legitimate consequence of modern thought and the highest wisdom in the temporal ordering of society; a time, moreover, in which the soul of man has plumbed the depths of irrationality and desolation; a time, finally, which is characterized by upheavals and a hitherto unknown decline even in the great world religions.

Yes, the Church of the council has been concerned, not just with herself and with her relationship of union with God, but with man as he really is today: living man, man all wrapped up in himself, man who makes himself not only the center of his every interest but dares to claim that he is the principle and explanation of all reality. Every perceptible element in man, every one of the countless guises in which he appears, has, in a sense, been displayed in full view of the council Fathers, who, in their turn, are mere men, and yet all of them are pastors and brothers whose position accordingly fills them with solicitude and love. Among these guises we may cite man as the tragic actor of his own plays; man as the superman of yesterday and today, ever frail, unreal, selfish, and savage; man unhappy with himself as he laughs and cries; man the versatile actor ready to perform any part; man the narrow devotee of nothing but scientific reality; man as he is, a creature who thinks and loves and toils and is always waiting for something, the "growing son" (Genesis 49:22); man sacred because of the innocence of his childhood, because of the mystery of his poverty, because of the dedication of his suffering; man as an individual and man in society; man who lives in the glories of the past and dreams of those of the future; man the sinner and man the saint, and so on.

Secular humanism, revealing itself in its horrible anti-clerical reality has, in a certain sense, defied the council. The religion of the God who became man has met the religion (for such it is) of man who makes himself God. And what happened? Was there a clash, a battle, a condemnation? There could have been, but there was none. The old story of the Samaritan has been the model of the spirituality of the council. A feeling of boundless sympathy has permeated the whole of it. The attention of our council has been absorbed by the discovery of human needs (and these needs grow in proportion to the greatness which the son of the earth claims for himself). But we call upon those who term themselves modern humanists, and who have renounced the transcendent value of the highest realities, to give the council credit at least for one quality and to recognize our own new type of humanism: We, too, in fact, we more than any others, honor mankind.

Would not this council, then, which has concentrated principally on man, be destined to propose again to the world of today the ladder leading to freedom and consolation? Would it not be, in short, a simple, new and solemn teaching to love man in order to love God? To love man, we say, not as a means but as the first step toward the final and transcendent goal which is the basis and cause of every love. And so this council can be summed up in its ultimate religious meaning, which is none other than a pressing and friendly invitation to mankind of today to rediscover in fraternal love the God "to turn away from whom is to fall, to turn to whom is to rise again, to remain in whom is to be secure ... to return to whom is to be born again, in whom to dwell is to live" (St. Augustine, Solil. I, 1, 3; PL 32, 870).

Full text from ZENIT.

Flaming Mudroom

2005-12-08T13:39:00.000-05:00

A post at Mark Shea's blog on purgatory has inspired a bit of discussion, with commenters comparing the place of purgation to a hospital and mudfloor, among other things.

Tom from Disputations is in rare form:

[Commenter A:] But I thought that another useful analogy could be that of a hospital, where the soul is cured of its brokenness and its remaining diseases before entering into the glory of Heaven.

[Tom:] Sure. Cured with fire.

Commenter B:] The mud-room of heaven.

[Tom:] Except it's on fire.

I just love Tom when he gets like this. But he's right - as good as the hospital imagery is (and I really do like the original analogy which Shea posted), the tradition has always favored for the 'fire' analogy, perhaps because it bests captures the reality that purgatory is for purgation, i.e. for the paying of the debt of temporal punishment for sins (see Tom's followup).

Tradition favored this image, of course, because St. Paul used it, but also because in the ancient world the image of fire came to mind a lot more readily than hospitals and mudfloors. Augustine loved the fire analogy, although he occasionally seemed to think that the analogy with natural fire was more than an analogy. Origen generally stuck to the biblical imagery of a purifying fire, but occasionally he let himself get away with more exalted language, about purgatory being sort of an 'academy for souls', where the penetrating mysteries underlying spiritual reality are opened up before inquiring souls. A nice balance, that, but it kind of gets away from the whole 'remission of debt' idea. That and it's Gnostic.

Insofar as...

2005-12-07T14:03:00.000-05:00

12 November 2005, Saturday

Dear Father:

Insofar as you are apparently an Augustinian in Rome . . .

I love getting emails like this.

In point of fact, my current residence is in the Commonwealth of Virginia, i.e. Old Dominion. I am, I grant, an Augustinian, and an inveterate one at that, but probably not the kind of Augustinian you're looking for. The only vows I took were about having and holding, and something about making babies.
. . . where St. Augustine of Hippo's relics from Pavia were recently translated for veneration, (and because he is my confirmation saint) . . .
Mine is St. Thomas. But probably not the one you think.

. . . I am writing you, to seek your help, in my obtainin[g] a valid 3rd class relic medal or badge of St. Augustine of Hippo, either from the Augustinians, from the Church in Pavia, the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, or some other Vatican or church source.

I'm happy to help in any way I am able. But you might have more luck speaking to someone who actually lives in Rome.

With my sincere thanks, and apologies, and looking forward to hearing from you soon, I am

Very Truly Yours,

And I yours.

The 'Sexual Mission' of Christ

2005-12-06T12:57:00.000-05:00

Phil A. Webb at Pontifications reviews and critiques an article entitled 'Women's Ordination and the Church's Order', written by Dr. Ephraim Radner of the Anglican Communion Institute.

Among the fundamental presuppositions of Dr. Radner is the following:

"[I]f we are to address the matter of women's ordination, we must do so within a framework of revealed truth ('what has God told us about this matter?'), and not primarily on the basis of speculations regarding the order of creation ('what does it mean to be a man or a woman?')"

Careful. Pull yourself slowly up from the floor. Dust off your trousers. Return to your seat in a slow, measured manner.

The assumption that the 'order of creation' gets no say in theological debate strikes me as such a horrendous notion that I can't bring myself to believe it could possibly be taken for granted in any community of theological scholars, even the Anglican. (Perhaps it gets some say, but not the 'primary' say. I'll give Radner the benefit of the doubt.) Dr. Radner's reasoning to this point is that ontological demands a priori rule out certain theoretical possibilities (e.g., 'homosexual marriage'), whereas the question of priestesses is not so ruled out, and therefore must be settled by discussions of history and ecclesial tradition.

Such a position might even be reinforced by the most recent papal teaching on the question, in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, which opts for historical-biblical arguments over properly anthropological-philosophical approaches. This Apostolic Letter refers to the 'constant practice of the Church,' the weight of her 'living teaching authority', and then lays down as its primary argument the precedent of Christ's selection of men as apostles. This, by my reading, was the worst approach that the Letter could possibly have taken in defending Magisterial teaching. (As a preemptive self-defense, I note the obvious: we are obliged to assent to solemn ecclesiastical teaching; we are not obliged to accept that the arguments with which the Magisterium expresses this teaching are the best possible arguments by which it could be expressed.)

The reason is that the argument from Christ's precedent simply invites a tidal wave of criticism, since most modern scholars (good and bad) are no longer in the habit of referring to the historical record of the Bible as theological precedent. Most modern biblical scholars do not even trust the historical record of the Bible as accurate history. Certain uncautious phrases of St. Paul's can even be conjured up to argue that women were chosen as apostles. The Holy Father's assumption that Christ was unaffected by sociological prejudices of his day would be rejected by a majority, perhaps, of modern christology experts (mental note: allowing a solemn teaching to rest upon certain assumptions about the conciousness of Christ, however true, is never a good idea).

John Paul the Great was not, however, writing from a blank slate. He had before him the CDF's document Inter Insigniores, published two years before the commencement of his pontificate. The 1976 document spills the bulk of its ink reviewing ecclesiastical practice, and the precedent of Christ and the apostles (much of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is drawn word for word from Inter Insigniores, choosing, in my opinion, the weaker of the two arguments available to it). But the earlier document does not stop there: it proceeds to a deeper, metaphysical-theological argument, which points to the priest's role of acting in persona Christi, the sign value of the sacrament of holy orders, and the nuptial mystery of the Incarnation:

The Christian priesthood is therefore of a sacramental nature: the priest is a sign, the supernatural effectiveness of which comes from the ordination received, but a sign that must be perceptible and which the faithful must be able to recognize with ease. The whole sacramental economy is in fact based upon natural signs, on symbols imprinted upon the human psychology: "Sacramental signs", says Saint Thomas, "represent what they signify by natural resemblance". The same natural resemblance is required for persons as for things: when Christ's role in the Eucharist is to be expressed sacramentally, there would not be this "natural resemblance" which must exist between Christ and his minister if the role of Christ were not taken by a man: in such a case it would be difficult to see in the minister the image of Christ. For Christ himself was and remains a man.

That is why we can never ignore the fact that Christ is a man. And therefore, unless one is to disregard the importance of this symbolism for the economy of Revelation, it must be admitted that, in actions which demand the character of ordination and in which Christ himself, the author of the Covenant, the Bridegroom and Head of the Church, is represented, exercising his ministry of salvation which is in the highest degree the case of the Eucharist-his role (this is the original sense of the word "persona") must be taken by a man. This does not stem from any personal superiority of the latter in the order of values, but only from a difference of fact on the level of functions and service.

The document does not, regrettably, undertake an explanation of why, in the first place, God became incarnate as man at all. But it is to this question that all this points: what is the 'sign value' of sexual difference? Phil A. Webb goes to Adrienne von Speyr for the answer. I would have gone to her male counterpart: Hans Urs von Balthasar, who is far more lucid on this question.

For Balthasar, the sign-value of feminity is receptivity, responsiveness, vis-a-vis God. The sign-value of masculinity is generativity and self-giving. Both signs have values inasmuch as they reflect the inner life of the Triune God (Balthasar even allows that the Son is 'quasi-feminine' in relation to the Father, since He is receptive to Him, but we won't get into that here. That's an order.) Once such sign values are understood, it makes much more sense why Mary and the Church can only be feminine, and why Christ and the priest can only be masculine.

I would humbly propose that the Magisterium could provide a much more satisfying answer to the question of women's ordination if it moved away from historical questions, and towards a more profound, anthropological-philosophical analysis of the meaning of sexual identity as such. It would also be much more fun to talk about. Balthasar's work may not be the touchstone for such an approach, but he could certainly be a starting point.

For that semi-Pelagian clergyman on your Christmas list...

2005-12-06T09:03:00.000-05:00

Diogenes actually got me laughing.

I've always despised those awful trinkets.

If you're in the mood for controversy

2005-12-05T15:31:00.000-05:00

Against the Grain is chronicling the St. Blog's fallout over the recent First Thing's article, 'God on the Internet', by Jonathan Last . . .

. . . and the worldwide fallout over the recent Vatican instruction on seminary admissions.

The Disappearing Bishops

2005-12-02T13:12:00.000-05:00

This week's National Catholic Reporter ('I read it so you don't have to!') includes two articles criticizing the Bishops' Conference, which are notable in their own way. One is a lead editorial entitled 'The Disappearing Bishops', which bemoans the readily observeable fact that the U.S. bishops' desire to lead the charge into complex and divisive political issues has waned in recent days:

The U.S. bishops, once collectively a voice to be reckoned with in the corridors of U.S. power and in the ornate halls of the Vatican, are withdrawing from the national stage and from any meaningful engagement with Rome.

Bishops once bristled at the prospect of becoming, in their words, branch managers or errand boys. They are now only too willing to take orders and leave the questions to others.

What we witnessed in Washington this month during the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was one of the sadder and maybe one of the final chapters in the devolution of the U.S. bishops as a national body. Rome has been after the bishops for years to diminish the significance of the conference, and they have gradually capitulated, snuffing out the once noteworthy contribution of lay experts and signaling their intent to avoid the burning issues of the day. More deliberately than ever they are turning inward to problems of no interest to the wider world and of little interest to most of the faithful from whom they continue to grow distant.

Another analysis by Washington journalist Joe Feuerherd, entitled "Bishops Scale Back Conference", rings the same tone, this time in reference to the recent annual meeting of the Episcopal Conference:

Approximately 300 U.S. bishops met for four days just blocks from the nation's capital -- and few outside ecclesiastical circles noticed. Which was part of the plan.

Of the 10 items up for debate and vote at the truncated public sessions of the Nov. 14-17 annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, eight dealt with intrachurch issues . . . Just two items addressed broader concerns: a statement reiterating the bishops' opposition to the death penalty and a resolution of support for a day of 'remembrance and prayer for mariners and people of the sea.' Both won hearty endorsement.

The low-key approach to the bishops' gatherings -- limiting their collective statements on hot-button issues with political overtones and restricting public access to their deliberations -- is part of an evolving strategy likely to be even more pronounced in years to come. Numerous bishops have indicated a desire to hold more meetings outside public view. And a strategic planning document drafted by a committee chaired by Pittsburg Bishop Donald Wuerl called for the body to "focus on a more limited range of responsibilities and activities in the future."

I've addressed the bishops' desire to return to so-called 'ad intra' issues in an extended manner before, drawing on Archbishop Timothy Dolan's First Things article this April. Bottom line is that the bishops have seen the more urgent priority of doing their own housecleaning before they develop a political strategy. With plummeting mass attendance, pitiful adult catechetical formation, a vocations crunch, not to mention the sexual abuse crisis, there is more than enough work to do at home. Weighing into convoluted economic and political questions, so fashionable in the eighties, has gone out of fashion. May it remain so. The bishops have not disappeared, nor has their influence waned. They have simply come into their own.

The Instruction

2005-12-02T12:43:00.000-05:00

The big news of last week, of course, was the much-anticipated Vatican Instruction concerning the admission of men with homosexual inclinations.

The instantaneous chasms opened up between various episcopates throughout the country over its proper interpretation is hardly news, and in my opinion, the role of the bishop in the admissions process is often overblown. True, bishops are the chief formators for the diocese, and have the ultimate say over who is ordained. But the fact of the matter is that few bishops, either from lack of opportunity or inclination, manage to spend enough time with a particular candidate for ordination such as to provide a sufficient judgment of his character. True, he will pay a couple of seminary visits, but there are more or less formalities: more often than not he will simply trust the assessment of the rector. And as for the decision to admit a man to seminary, that's what vocation directors get paid for.

As a case in point, observe a certain local episcopal ordinary whose alleged openness to ordaining homosexual men has been much trumpeted by the media. What does it really matter, since, as is well-known in local circles, his vocation director has an absolute ban on accepting candidates with homosexual inclinations? The bishop will never even see one of these candidates, so his opinion on the matter really doesn't amount to much.

Ultimately, the concrete process of assessing such men will fall, as the document states, to seminary rectors and other formation personnel. Speaking of which, what may be bigger news than the Instruction itself is its cover letter, which states that those with homosexual inclinations "are not to be appointed as rectors or educators in seminaries." While not in the Instruction itself, and thus lacking formal authority, it's a bombshell that can't help but make itself felt in seminaries worldwide.

The author of said cover letter, however, publicly embarrassed himself in a Vatican Radio interview which intended to clarify this document, in which the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation proposed that seminaries might accept those with transitory inclinations, e.g. those who committed homosexual acts while drunk, while in prison for many years, or as a way to gain favors by pleasing someone else. His point, of course, is that these scenarios arise from temporary circumstances, and not from deep, exclusive inclinations in the person himself. But one might have asked for better examples of the kind of men we're looking for in seminaries.

2005-12-02T12:40:00.000-05:00

All right, I'm getting back on the ball again, after an excessively long (but much needed) holiday vacation, spent traipsing through the Carolinas, Tennessee and ultimately good ol' Georgia. I had hoped, as usual, to do at least some blogging while I was gone, but I was hamstrung by a series of Law & Order marathons that USA and TNT decided to run all Thanksgiving week.

'Collegiality of the People of God'?

2005-11-16T08:39:00.000-05:00

I ran across a full-page paid advertisement in the November 11, 2005 edition of the National Catholic Reporter by 'Dignity/Washington'.

In a somewhat excessively formal statement of beliefs, the last article states the following:

We believe the Second Vatican Council reaffirmed long-held Roman Catholic belief in the collegiality of all members of the People of God: laity, clergy, together with the hierarchy (the Sensus Fidelium or "Consensus of the Faithful").

I suppose one can't argue with the statement that the members of Dignity/Washington believe this to be true, but I find the statement itself absolutely incredible: 'the collegiality of all members of the People of God'!

Of course, the term 'collegiality' is a specific reference to the episcopal college, references to which are found sprinkled throughout Lumen Gentium. By definition, however, this term includes bishops alone. Suggesting that laity clergy might be included in this college is the equivalent of suggesting that a banana might be included in the category of vegetable. But of course, the term 'collegiality' has no meaning whatsoever outside of reference to the episcopal college.

Clearly, then, this statement reflects a completely different understanding of 'collegiality' than anything in the theological tradition (despite the explicit statement that this understanding of collegiality was endorsed by the Second Vatican Council). It seems that this word has become something of a 'catch-all' term, which encapsulates all of the elements of the leftist ecclesiology - decentralization, anti-clericalism, anti-hierarchialism, etc. Perhaps by affirming the 'collegiality' of all the People of God, the signers intend to express their desire for some sort of egalitarian concord, which would exclude any sort of distinct, privileged hierarchy. But a distinct, privileged hierarchy is exactly what the theological concept of 'collegiality' was developed in order to express.

One wonders how all the members and/or signers of this 'declaration' could be so ignorant - willfully or no - of the meaning of the term they so eagerly endorse. This confirms my age-old theory, of course, that most of the 'Spirit of Vatican II' bandwagon have never bothered to consult the texts produced by that council.

Yikes

2005-11-10T13:54:00.000-05:00

I was sitting in the foyer of the the Grand Hyatt in Amman two years ago, sipping coffee. Horrific.

2005-11-09T13:48:00.000-05:00

I just received, in the Nov. 22 edition of Origins, Bishop Alvaro Corrada's reflection on Confirmation, Sacrament of Initiation. Bishop Corrada of Tyler, Texas, a Jesuit religious, is officially moving confirmation before first Eucharist in the Diocese of Tyler.

"Confirmation strengthens a person to bear witness rather than expresses the person's determination to bear witness."

That about sums it up. This approach is clearly more reflective of the ancient tradition of the Church, her biblical witness and sacramental theology.

The customary approach, where confirmation comes after first Eucharist, always seemed more or less of a Protestant approach to me. Growing up Evangelical, there was always a time in your teenage years when you were expected to 'make it your own', and make a personal commitment to Christ. Before this, it was assumed, you had neither the ability nor the responsibility to make a faith commitment. Something of this seems to have snuck into the Catholic sacramental praxis, as some seem to imagine that 'confirmation' means 'me confirming myself in the faith', rather than the Spirit confirming me in the faith.

Read the Pentecost account in the New Testament and tell me it reflected a mature, coming-of-age of the apostles, when they were able to make a determined commitment to the Christian faith. More than Protestantism, such an approach smacks of pure Pelagianism.

In the Wake of All Soul's Day: John Paul II

2005-11-04T08:12:00.000-05:00

A Pope and the Art of Dying Well

In September, the Holy See released the official account of the death and funeral of John Paul II. The first four pages clinically describe the ailments and activities of the last weeks of the Holy Father, from the first hospitalization on Feb. 1 to his final hours on April 2.

This short chronicle, while medically exact, does not do justice to the dramatic and heroic nature of those concluding months. Those of us living in Rome will always remember the Pope's urgent hospitalization and the forest of film crews clustered around the clinic. Nor will witnesses ever forget his triumphant ride through the streets of Rome as he returned to the Vatican, seemingly victorious over death itself.

This extraordinary man, who had already defied society's tendency to shun the sick by keeping up a full public schedule despite his increasingly obvious Parkinson's disease, also showed us true dignity in death. (more)

What the Postulator of John Paul II's Cause Faces

Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the postulator of Pope John Paul II's cause for beatification and canonization, admits to feeling "fear and trembling" before this responsibility.

[W]hen one is before a human and spiritual giant like John Paul II, it's enough to start trembling, above all because one notes the closeness of the grace of God that acted in this man. But also because of the responsibility before the Church, and before so many people of good will, who manifest their desire to see John Paul II beatified as soon as possible. That is why one must move, on one hand, with great expectation in the heart, with a great sense of urgency but, on the other hand, with the awareness that the process must be carried out with the greatest seriousness, observing the procedural norms, because it is not only the expression of a moment of enthusiasm, but truly involves the authority of the Church, which pronounces herself on a Servant of God.

Monsignor Oder: Perhaps almost paradoxically, or perhaps not, maybe as conclusion of what is the natural course of a Pope's life, is the photograph of the last Good Friday, with the Pope leaning on the cross, which he holds in his arms, and with his gaze turned to the Master. For me, truly this image is the synthesis of John Paul II's life, of the path that united him increasingly to the Master until he really appeared before our eyes as just one with the Christ he held in his arms. (more)

Bring it On

2005-11-04T08:06:00.000-05:00

Large families are genuine testimonies of "optimism" and must be supported with appropriate social and legislative measures, says Benedict XVI.

"In the present social context, family nuclei with many children are a testimony of faith, courage and optimism, as without children there is no future!" he exclaimed, prompting applause and smiles from those present.

"I hope that more social and legislative measures will be promoted in defense and support of the largest families, which constitute a richness and hope for the whole country," Benedict XVI concluded.

The Italian Association of Large Families is holding its first congress, in Castelfusano, near Rome, attended by 2,500 people. (Zenit)

I love it that Italy has an 'Italian Association of Large Families'. I love it even more that they have national congresses. My trusty google search tells me that Hungary, Portugal, Israel, and a host of other countries have these. I also found a speech Pius XII gave to the organization back in 1951, so they are apparently quite old. No American branch, though. Anyone?

Archbishop Miller on the 'Pruning' of Secularized Catholic Colleges

2005-11-03T15:49:00.000-05:00

MANASSAS, VA (November 2, 2005) - The Vatican's number two education official predicts that Pope Benedict XVI will follow a path of "evangelical pruning" of secularized Catholic colleges and universities, declaring them no longer Catholic.

Archbishop Michael Miller, secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education and former president of the University of Saint Thomas in Houston, addressed officials and faculty at the University of Notre Dame on Monday.

Miller said that his prediction was based on an examination of the new Pope's writings and approach. The Pope has argued "that it might be better for the Church not to expend its resources trying to preserve institutions if their Catholic identity has been seriously compromised," Miller said.

I think the headline dramatically overstates what Miller is actually saying, which in turn may be a dramatic overstatement of the Holy Father's intentions, but whatever the case, it seems a positive turn. From the Cardinal Newman Society via Mark Shea.

2005-11-03T10:48:00.000-05:00

Pope Benedict praying at the tomb of his predecessor for All Souls Day.

Photo from L'Osservatore Romano, hat tip to Rocco Palmo.

Opus Dei = "The Guinness Extra Stout of the Catholic Church"

2005-11-03T10:44:00.000-05:00

So says John Allen in his new book. Hat tip, Bill Cork.

Serving the Church, Losing the Faith?

2005-11-03T10:11:00.000-05:00

Amy Welborn is hosting an open discussion about the dangers of working for the Church.

I'll get started by delineating the things I think people experience in church employment that can challenge faith...And believe me, it's not that I see these things as necessarily "negative," but just...life. Our faith grows through all kinds of earthquakes and aftershocks, no matter where we are.

* Having illusions about church operations and other church employees shattered.

*Faith matters becoming identified with work, losing the fire.

(more)

My own experience, to be honest, is much the opposite. The degree of cynicism among many in society, including many Catholics, regarding the internal life of the Church, caused me to enter the field with a good deal of skepticism myself. And there is good reason for it, to be sure. But, by and large, I have found those who serve the Church to be good, decent Catholics, with a sincere desire to serve the faithful, motivated by genuine charity. This is especially true for the handful of bishops and clergy that I have come to know. Certainly they don't do it for the money.

But perhaps my own experience is unique. Maybe those who begin working for the Church with idealistic, even quixotic expectations experience a difficult blow. It's easy to forget that we are a pilgrim church, both in head and members.

John Allen Interviews Cardinal Scola of Milan and Bishop Wuerl of Pittsburgh

2005-11-01T14:20:00.000-05:00

Scola: "The bishops, in very positive fashion, committed themselves to going forward with the liturgical reforms that followed Vatican II, despite the great arguments after the council and despite significant abuses. In what sense is this not news?"

"The synod demonstrated that the Eucharist is at the heart of the Christian people, and in itself it has a social dynamism," Scola said. "That means commitment to resolving conflicts between peoples, such as those we see in Africa, and to cosmological questions such as ecology. … Unlike pagan temples, the Christian cult does not separate the sacred and the profane. Everything is cult.

***

Allen: This synod marks the third time you've served as relator. What differences did you notice?

Wuerl: We are rapidly losing what might be called a usable common language. Latin has not been conserved as a universal language for all in the synod. For a long time, Italian was it, but at least in the groups I worked with that's no longer the case. It's not understood by everyone around the table. It's not a major hurdle, but it does make things more difficult. …

I also found the free discussions in the evening very healthy, very open. There's a forum now for everybody to be engaged in the discussion. If it's a little repetitious, well, so are a lot of conversations in which I take part.

(More)

Fr. Richard Neuhaus on the Twin Cities

2005-11-01T11:04:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know, I was there for only a couple of days, and you might think I let myself be too impressed by people eager to sell a visitor on the good things happening in the Twin Cities. I don't think so. For starters, in a lot of places I visit people don't even try to put a good face on things. The comments of clergy and lay people reflect discouragement, ranging from malaise to disaster. In the Twin Cities, among both evangelicals and Catholics, there was a contagious sense of excitement about Christian renewal and mission. (more)

This pretty much encapsulates my own response to Minneapolis, MN. Lots of exciting new apostolates, a great deal of enthusiasm and piety among the youth. A surprising extent of involvement in Eucharistic Adoration, Scripture study and catechetics. I met one young man in his early twenties who, along with two or three friends, began a successful campaign to put a complimentary copy of the Catechism in the hands of every adult convert in the Archdiocese. Of his own accord. Astounding.

At the same time, of course, there are the varying degrees of nuttiness. I posted last year my own experience in a suburban St. Paul parish (I can't find the post now), where the rear wall beside the sanctuary doubled as a coffee bar, which offered coffee and donuts up to five minutes before mass began. But these things will always be with us, especially with the particular generation to which this parish catered. Better things hearken.

Fr. Neuhaus' observations on the Archbishop, I think, are fair, although I do not know the man well. That he has allowed so many flowers to bloom under his watch is a good token.

Matatics a Sedevacantist?

2005-11-01T09:19:00.000-05:00

Reports are swirling that Gerry Matatics, the well-known apologist for the Catholic Faith, has now rejected it.

Some nut-cracker monastery in New York has published an email, said to be from Matatics, which formally endorses the sedevacantist position, not to mention calling the Holy Father a heretic.

Peter Vere has verified, in a phone call to Matatics, that the email is authentic. Robert Sungenis has published an immediate response and refutation of Matatics on his website.

For those unfamiliar with Matatics, he is a convert from PCA Presbyterianism who took up the apologetics cause. He has selflessly and forcefully defended the faith, and put forward biblical defenses of Catholic teachings, in the form of books, pamphlets, and most famously, public debates. In fact, several debates between Matatics and fundamentalists (including this on-line one with James White), gave me a significant shove towards my own conversion. Matatics never failed to demolish any opponent he came up against. His occasional anti-Jewish tirades encouraged other apologists (such as Karl Keating) to distance themselves from him. His rigid position on extra ecclesiam led him increasingly toward a suspicion of the present Magisterium, resulting, it seems, in his own eventual apostasy. Please pray for him as you read this post.

Hat tips Bill Cork and Mark Shea.

Archbishop Levada on Vatican Radio

2005-11-01T07:19:00.000-05:00

On his appointment, the Dallas Charter and Norms, and the Synod:

Basically that's what he told me when he told me I was going to be his successor. I gasped. I told him that I was not the person for the position. He told me yes, I was. (more)

2005-10-25T16:18:00.000-04:00

I'm out of town from October 27-30, at the National Catholic Youth Conference in Atlanta, GA. If any other bloggers are there, look me up. It's my intention, as always, to do some blogging on site, but that sort of thing paves the road to you-know-where. See you all in a few days.

2005-10-25T12:41:00.000-04:00

Bishop Vasa is apparently actively promoting the Dead Theologians Society in the Diocese of Baker. (ht, Mark Shea)

Bishop apologizes for aide's remarks on Protestant service

2005-10-24T08:28:00.000-04:00

Colorado Springs' Catholic bishop has issued an apology after his assistant angered local Catholics by saying they shouldn't attend services at Protestant churches.

[Bishop's assistant Peter] Howard told The Gazette that Catholics should not attend Protestant worship services even if they also celebrate Catholic Mass, saying such services could 'confuse' some Catholics and that their participation denigrates the Catholic faith. (scare quotes in original)

Sheridan wrote that Howard's comments to The Gazette caused 'a great deal of distress and hurt' among Christians and non-Christians - though he believes the hurt was unintentional.

Okay, okay, good...

Howard's comments were significant because some of the diocese's 130,000-plus Catholics attend both Protestant and Catholic services. New Life Church, Colorado Springs' largest congregation, is said to attract thousands of Catholics every weekend. (more)

Yikes.

The good bishop Sheridan, I think, is doing some public damage control, which is all too necessary as shepherd of the Mecca of American Evangelicalism. But when 'thousands' of your sheep are venturing out of the sheepfold on a weekly basis, it's hard to imagine a little shepherding isn't in order. (I'm very confident that Sheridan, taking into account the death threat he posed to me on these pages last month, is more vigilant in this regard than this piece gives him credit for; in fact, like Amy, I would love to see the original letter to find out how much of an 'apology' it really is).

Anyone who has worked with Catholics, especially youth, who routinely attend 'Bible' services at evangelical churches knows they are, generally speaking, the most confused of Catholics. I had a young man ask me, in a youth group, why he had to learn about all these saints, statues and devotions, since 'all that mattered is his relationship with God, anyway'. My suspicions were confirmed afterwards, when I found out his parents were reinforcing his CCD with a summer Bible camp at the local Baptist church.

It's true that, for intelligent and well-grounded Catholics, with a solid prayer life and thorough understanding of their own tradition, occasional attendance at non-Catholic services can be very beneficial. Especially if the benefits go both ways: I've known good Catholics who attend Evangelical services mainly as an opportunity to show a good Catholic witness to those who've probably never seen one.

Cardinals call on Pope to save Latin from last rites

2005-10-24T08:23:00.000-04:00

When Cardinal Angelo Scola, the Patriarch of Venice, opened the synod, he gave his address entirely in Latin, sending many of the 241 participants rushing for headsets to hear a translation. Nothing could have better illustrated the Church's fading proficiency in its own language.
One of the synod's 50 'propositions' to the Pope is that the language should feature prominently in Masses at major international events, where Catholics speaking many different languages are present.
According to reports, only one synod participant spoke Latin every time he took the microphone: Latvian Cardinal Janis Pujats, the Archbishop of Riga. He did the same at the previous synod in 2001, when a disconsolate Pope John Paul II commented: "Paupera lingua latina, ultimum refugium habet in Riga" (Poor Latin, it has its last refuge in Riga). (more)

I believe in English that's called 'showing off'.

The Karmic Wheel o' Catholic Topics Comes Round to Material Cooperation

2005-10-21T09:08:00.000-04:00

Dear sir,

I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions regarding the cooperation of an everyday Catholic in a marketplace that is interwoven with the culture of death. I read your blog on John Kerry, and I already am generally familiar with the Catholic Church's teaching on material cooperation (formal v. material, remote v. proximate, necessary v. unecessary), so you don't need to fill me in on any of that. I am just looking for some imput, as I am a bit scrupulous on the matter.

Let me number my questions:

1) Among the corporations on the new boycott list with regards to abortion is Johnson and Johnson. As I'm sure you know, they produce a wide array of products: Neutrogena, Tylenol, Band-Aid bandages, and a variety of soaps and personal health-related products. If I go to a supermarket that sells these things, and purchase some vegetables, some of the money I spent could go into J&J's pockets when the store orders more of their products. Moreover, if I live with my parents and they buy these products, am I to boycott them? I understand that a "proportionate reason" is necessary for remote material cooperation, is the mere preference of a product sufficient reason? The bank where I have my money is also on the boycott list, am I to terminate my account even if the bank is my best option locally (which it might be)?

Material cooperation is more or less remote, by degree, from the immortal act in question. The act in question being abortion, and its presumable subject being Planned Parenthood (P.P.), to supply funds directly to P.P. would be proximate. To buy products from a company, a portion of whose funds go to P.P., is fairly remote. To shop at a store which stocks products from such a company is very remote. To live with parents who shop at such a store is so remote as to be laughable. In fact, the chuckles probably began one earlier.

There is a line, somewhere. For me to tell you where it is crossed, even if it were possible, would not be desirable, because it would be casuistry. Casuistry, for those uninitiated into its joys, is sort of like the 'voting quiz' I took on CNN's website last October. I was asked how I felt about twenty issues, and how strongly, on a scale of one to ten. My answers were then tallied and computed, and within a few seconds I was told how I should vote. My relief at the instantaneous dissolution of my moral dilemma was only outshone by my trembling awe at the beautiful simplicity of the machine which dissolved it. Casuistry is sort of like that, but in ethics.

The application of the eternal law to the temporal demands of human life takes place in the heart of man, and the only machine that does it runs on the virtue of prudence. That doesn't mean no one can give you advice, but it does mean, as I mentioned two weeks back, that I probably can't (since we just met and the whole 'friendship' thing takes a bit longer). But anyone who tells you to boycott your parents because they shop at K-Mart probably isn't a friend.

And shopping at a store which sells J&J products will not directly support J&J, so long as you do not buy J&J products (if it does, the connection is so remote as to be untenable in serious moral discussion). As for buying J&J products and the like, serious moralists disagree. It would depend upon a number of factors, many of which would be specific to your own situation: how much do I really need this product?, do other realistic alternatives exist?, etc. One can hardly compare a vaccine for a deadly disease with mouthwash.

It is these sorts of factors which prudence is able to take into account, in the context of authentic Christian liberty, in the midst of a life of prayer and discipleship. Casuistry attempts to emasculate prudence, by robbing it of its divinely intended role in moral decision making. Casuistry turns these factors into mathematical formulas in a database, rather than the terrain of a spiritual battlefield.

Personally, I avoid J&J products mainly because it's easy to do: products of similar quality are available, usually at a lower price. We switch banks (from First Union, which supports P.P.) as soon as we found another one within walking distance. But I can't point fingers at other patrons of the Green Onion (my preferred nomenclature), because I don't know their circumstances.

2) Is it "sufficient reason" to buy something in that it contributes to the well-being of the economy? Suppose an entire small town gets its employment by working in a factory that is owned by one of the "boycott" corporations. A boycott could cost all thosepeople their jobs. That said, a boycott also does bring results in the battle against abortion. How do I prioritize?

For the first question, no. Other small towns get their employment from prostitution and crack cocaine. Shutting down an abortion mill itself will have its own economic cost, including blows to facility maintenance, security, and medical insurance companies. Economic concerns such as this should certainly play a part in the moral discussion, but I hardly think they take the issue off the table. You prioritize by growing in prudence, and you grow in prudence by acting prudently (and temperately, courageously and justly).

3) Suppose I am enjoying dinner at a restaurant, and my waitress, is doing a great job, even though I notice she looks pale and worn out. I decide to reward her with a 20 dollar tip. As it turns out, she was pregnant, and uses that tip to help pay for an abortion. Am I responsible? Am I required to ask her how she'll spend the money?

For the last question, as one who used to work in the restaurant industry, asking that is a sure way to get a wad of spit in your soup. Without knowledge, of course, there is no culpability. There is, as you imply, a moral obligation to inform your conscience, but asking a waitress if she'll spend her tip on an abortion is not, I should think, a necessary step in this task. Forming one's conscience is a serious obligation, but one that falls within the limits of reason and moderation. One is not required to take every possible step to inform one's conscience, but every reasonable step.

4) In college, I was in a band that played the music of Bruce Springsteen, who, at that time, was supporting John Kerry for president. I didn't vote for Kerry, but do you think I am guilty of scandal? What about purchasing the music of a band that is pro-choice?

Playing Springsteen is never, ever morally problematic.

5) Can people babysit/housesit for people who work for hospitals where abortions take place (these people aren't doctors, but one is a lawyer, and I don't know what their involvement is at all, but I don't think I can play stupid).

See answer to question 1. Sadly, many hospitals have abortion mills within them, often on the same floor where babies' lives are saved. Babysitting and housesitting, again, is so remote that proximity to their moral evil is itself not a problem (so long as they are not abortionists themselves, which would most certainly present a problem, if only that of scandal). Obviously you share no intention of assisting abortions. If anything, your presence in their lives as a witness may be important. Don't play stupid: evangelize.

6) Can one attend a public university that may or may not have ties to less savory affiliates?

See answer to question 1. Public universities inevitably have ties to less savory affiliates. Most are less than savory themselves. To attempt to eradicate every tie to a morally problematic person or institution is to attempt to approximate the life of blessedness on earth. It is an attempt doomed to failure from the beginning. This life is one where we gain virtue by straining against the bonds of sin, not one where we know of no sin, or pretend such. This is not to introduce moral license, but rather to avoid moral rigorism, which deals the death blow to the liberty of the sons of God.

If you can answer any of these I'd appreciate it. I seriously don't understand how to determine if there is a proportionate reason. It seems impossible to completely avoid tangling with evil, but I don't know to what extent I can engage the society that I am in.

Thank you for your time. Mark

You can and must engage it 100%. You are only a part of it for a few decades, which isn't long in the face of eternity. Might as well take advantage of the brief opportunity.

The Site of Martyrdom

2005-10-20T13:22:00.000-04:00

Diogenes comments on Rich Leonardi's visit to the Tower of London:

We were given a 90 minute tour of the cell, the chapel where St. Thomas' body was first deposited, and then the crypt tomb where it now rests. Our gaoler shared many details of St. Thomas' life. Milk Street, on which the boyhood homes of both Thomas More and Thomas a Becket were located, is just off Tower Hill. Young More likely snuck away from his mum to watch a beheading or two (more).

Reflections on Statuary

2005-10-20T13:12:00.000-04:00

On visiting St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York this week, I was struck by the monumental structures of stone. In particular, the number of statues carved of stone, which line each interior wall of the cathedral, all the way around the nave. These are the old statues, too. Too many of the statues in newer churches are of wood or plastic, or emaciated strips of metal twisted into fearsome shapes which bewilder the senses.

The old, stone statues, on the other hand, have a certain solidity to them. Rough-hewn, unpainted, stark and unchanging, they seem to stand in a timeless world, sculpted out of the stuff of mountains, while the stuff of flesh passes by underneath, lighting a candle and whispering a prayer. St. Augustine spoke of the nunc stans, the 'now-standing-still' which was the best image he could conjure of God's eternity: the stone statues on the cathedral facade are their own timeless witnesses to the nunc stans - perfected reflections of blessedness, looking down upon the school of frail sinners.

Do Catholics not 'Get' Community'?

2005-10-20T10:00:00.000-04:00

While I was at a convention in Tampa earlier this month, I ended up in a long table discussion with a pair of French Canadians, discussing, of all things, the growing number of Evangelical Protestants in the Ontario region. The Catholic parishes, sparsely populated as they already are, are being thinned even further by those who are drawn away to the neighboring Evangelical churches. They asked me, as a former Evangelical myself, to explain what the 'draw' was.

I responded without missing a beat. It has nothing to do with theology, moral conviction, etc. The answer is much more pedestrian: community. Evangelicals get it, Catholics don't. The observation has become so routine that it's hardly worth discussing.

In the Evangelical church I used to attend, you couldn't make it to an empty seat before the service without wading through nine handshakes, seven hugs, three shouts from across the room, and four invitations to lunch afterwards. A visitor, ironically, got not less attention, but about twice as much. Any visitor was invited to a side room after the service was over, for coffee, donuts and a personal introduction and conversation with the pastor. At another church I attended, visitors got a loaf of homemade bread baked fresh that morning, compliments of a group of mothers in the church. When visitors signed a card and dropped it in the plate during the service, they got a home visit from church members the next week, most likely with a hot apple pie. Most refreshing of all is the utter sincerity and generosity with which it was done. Is it a surprise that a huge chunk of our members consisted of former Catholics?

Many of these, I observed, would note that, during their thirty or forty years as a Catholic, they could not recall receiving even one warm introduction while visiting a new parish. It is almost ritualistic: shuffling quietly into a back pew, avoiding eye contact during mass, darting quickly out immediately after communion, and racing out of the parking lot like it's the Indy 500.

Not that Catholics haven't been trying. Many parishes, including our own, have experimented with a 'donut Sunday' at least once a month after mass. These end up being so awkward, contrived and ill-attended that the experiment fails as soon as it begins. Our young associate pastor has started evening meetings for young families, young women and young men, respectively, but these are only attractive for the handful of parishioners who fit the niche and can make the schedule (probably less than 2% of the parish). You could recite a litany of other attempts: invitations by the pastor for visitors to introduce themselves before the opening prayer, extended 'greet your neighbor' sessions during the opening rites, 'greeters' at the church doors (these make me think I'm in Wal-Mart), etc. These inevitably prove to be similarly awkward, contrived attempts to 'impose' community where it doesn't exist. Hence, they fail.

Is the sort of community I'm describing have something innately 'Protestantized' about it, which Catholics would be ill-advised to imitate? Or is it simply that Evangelicals 'get' community, and Catholics don't? If the latter, why?

Back on Terra Firma

2005-10-20T09:58:00.000-04:00

I just returned from a three-day excursion to New York City. I had a meeting or two for work-related business, and decided to bring the family along. We stayed in southeast Manhattan, one block from the UN headquarters. All in all, we were very impressed with Manattan (previous trips had been mainly to Brooklyn), especially with Central Park, although I can't imagine actually living there, much less raising a family there.

While on a traveling note, I'll be in Atlanta for the National Catholic Youth Conference October 27-30. If anyone else in St. Blog's will either be attending, or lives in the area, I would love a chance to meet up. Regrettably, I know no one in the area.

Don't try this at home

2005-10-14T13:27:00.000-04:00

A far cry from sorcerers, satanists and other practitioners whom he dismisses as "charlatans," Italian exorcist Andrea Gemma fights the devil only with the strength of his prayers and advises Catholics: 'Don't do this at home".

A rotund, expansive Neapolitan, the 74-year-old bishop was the first lecturer to face the Catholic Church's latest crop of budding exorcists at a unique course run by clergy at Rome's Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University. The course began Thursday and will run for several weeks. (more)

Pope Praises von Balthasar and His Theology

2005-10-12T07:22:00.000-04:00

In Message for Centenary of His Birth

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 10, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI says that spirituality does not rob theology of scientific weight but rather gives it coherence.

The Pope made that point in a message written for the centenary of the birth of a friend, Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar.

"Theology, as and how he conceived it, had to be combined with spirituality; only in this way, in fact, could it be profound and effective," said the Holy Father in his message addressed to the international congress entitled "Love Alone Is Credible," organized at the Lateran University in tribute to von Balthasar.

In his message, Benedict XVI said: "On an occasion such as this, it would be easy to fall into the temptation to return to personal memories, based on the sincere friendship that united us and on the numerous works that we undertook together, addressing many of the challenges of those years," and he mentioned in particular the foundation of the review Communio.

"However, I do not wish to make reference to memories, but rather to the richness of von Balthasar's theology," said the Pontiff. "Hans Urs von Balthasar was a theologian who put research at the service of the Church, as he was convinced that only theology could be characterized by the ecclesial."

Spirituality does not diminish the scientific weight of theology, "but imprints on theological study the correct method to be able to arrive at a coherent interpretation," the Holy Father added. (more)

A theological Souter

2005-10-07T16:12:00.000-04:00

From a commenter at CWNews:
Pope Benedict XVI is not turning anything like the way I had hoped. Abuses continue unabated. He does nothing on Card. Mahony or on pro-aborts receiving.

I trust to God he is not a theological Souter!
My God. What are you going to do if he is - try to impeach the man who appointed him? Not vote for him in the next election? Throw some money into a lobbying group to undermine him? Write a letter to your senator?

Talk about a policiticization of religion. The Roman Pontiff is the Vicar of Christ on earth, not some black-robed ninny who pulled some strings with the President to get a job.

Sandro Magister casts doubts on conclave leak

2005-10-07T13:11:00.000-04:00

But there are errors in the diary that a jurist cardinal should not commit . . . . This major discrepancy is enough to cast doubt upon the reliability of the 'historical rigor' of the diary.

The rest of the text suggests, rather, that the 'intention' to publish it was a much more combative one: to demonstrate that Ratzinger’s victory was not at all 'plebiscitary,' that it was in question up until the last moment, that it was unduly favored by the fact that Ratzinger was the dean of the college of cardinals, that the time is ripe for a 'new' pope, perhaps a Latin American, and that Benedict XVI should accept these as limiting factors. (more)

I'll just note, the moment I saw that story, I knew it was bunk.

News on Purported Vatican Document

2005-10-07T11:58:00.000-04:00

A forthcoming Vatican document on homosexuals in seminaries will not demand an absolute ban, a senior Vatican official told NCR Oct. 7, but will insist that seminary officials exercise "prudential judgment" that gay candidates should not be admitted in three cases.

Those three cases are:

If candidates have not demonstrated a capacity to live celibate lives for at least three years;
If they are part of a "gay culture," for example, attending gay pride rallies (a point, the official said, which applies both to professors at seminaries as well as students);
If their homosexual orientation is sufficiently "strong, permanent and univocal" as to make an all-male environment a risk.

In any case, the Vatican official said, whether or not these criteria exclude a particular candidate is a judgment that must be made in the context of individual spiritual direction, rather than by applying a rigid litmus test. (more)

Bishop Vasa Won't Take It

2005-10-07T10:13:00.000-04:00

Bishop Vasa of the Baker Diocese announces that he is, more or less, flushing the Dallas Charter down the toilet, which will certainly raise more than a few hackles, on both sides of the ecclesial divide. Few will be comfortable with the precedent it sets for spurning policies adapted by the Episcopal Conference. Vasa is a 'give 'em hell' renegade at heart, who has little but distaste for bureaucracy of any sort. He shoots from the hip, if nothing else. Despite the backlash he will no doubt receive, there is something about Vasa's approach which seems to harken back to a . . . well, genuinely apostolic era of the episcopacy. I'll stick with the 'threefold harvest'.

As the Lord asked what the owner of the vineyard would do when he came back to his vineyard to find it ill-kept and unfruitful, so the Lord of our particular harvest will likewise ask each of us, who are tenants of His gracious gifts, what kind of harvest we have produced. I sincerely hope the Lord does not hold us accountable for the harvest of aborted babies that our country produces each year, or the harvest of abused children, or the harvest of pornography, or the harvest of more and more permissive judicial rulings, or the harvest of anti-life legislative actions.

I asked for and committed myself to seek a threefold harvest from and for the Diocese of Baker. The first is priestly and religious vocations from among our own young men and women to serve in the Diocese. The second is a harvest of evangelization, an evangelized Catholic laity and an evangelizing Catholic laity. The third is a harvest of Catholic adults imbued with a deep and solid understanding of the complete package of Catholic teaching as presented in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. As I explained at Mass, this does not mean that I have no passion for youth and child protection or for life issues or for CCD or for Catholic schools, but rather that I hope the promotion and pursuit of these three harvests will also, almost automatically, entail a fruitful harvest in all the others as well. I pray it is so.

As a result of this discrepancy between a new interpretation of the charter and our diocesan policy, the annual charter audit will undoubtedly find the Diocese of Baker, and me as bishop, 'Not in Compliance' and will issue a 'Required Action,' which I am prepared, at this point, to ignore. I say this not because I resist efforts to protect children, but rather precisely the opposite. There are a series of questions that I believe need to be answered before I could mandate such a diocesan-wide program of 'safe-environment training.

UPDATE: See Dominic Bettinelli's critiques at Bettnet.

Solidarity Sunday at Notre Dame

2005-10-05T08:50:00.000-04:00

From Bill Cork:

The webpage of the University of Notre Dame tells us that October 9 will be Solidarity Sunday. Will they be recalling the Polish labor movement? Nope.
"Solidarity Sunday is as an annual event each Fall semester that highlights our community’s Spirit of Inclusion for gay, lesbian, and bisexual students, faculty, and staff. This event has become an important symbolic event for the Notre Dame community." (more)

2005-10-04T14:06:00.000-04:00

Jimmy Akin is reporting on the cause for the canonization of John Paul I, which is apparently being 'fast-tracked', as the saying goes:

Pope John Paul I, who died in 1978 after a reign of only 34 days, could be the next addition to the growing list of possible papal saints.

"The beatification process for the Italian pontiff has moved swiftly ahead since its 2003 launch, the official in charge of the cause said in an interview marking the 27th anniversary of the pope's death.

"'We have testimony of an apparent miracle which we are evaluating and which we are thinking of presenting to the Vatican,' Monsignor Giorgio Lise told a Catholic website." (more)

The good thing about Mark Shea being back on-line...

2005-10-04T09:01:00.000-04:00

Is that my job is easy. I should just shovel readers in his direction.

Mark on Harriet Miers:

That's about right. Bush has managed to create an almost perfect storm of contempt for his base, coupled with ongoing contempt from people who will always loathe him. This is more than mere bungling. This is active stupidity. Stupidity that may come only once in a generation. Stupidity that works on so many levels. You almost have to admire the sheer elegance of the stupidity. It tempts you to believe in Stupid Design Theory. A magnificent, towering monument to the ability of a single man to do so much wrong with so little effort. (more)

Speaking of Harriot Miers, she has her own blog as well. Who knew?

Mark's got his readers jumping with his proposition that women can be made Cardinals:

Down below, I pointed out that I've been saying for years that one of the effects of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was to make clear that it is *only* the priestly office to which women cannot be ordained. This means, among other things, that the offices of King and Prophet *are* open to women (and have been occupied by them for centuries, right along side men).One of the consequences of this fact is that I can see nothing in the Tradition that particularly forbids the Church from making laywomen cardinals. I don't have anything particularly invested in laywomen (or laymen) being made cardinals (which is why you haven't seen a lot of entries here on that topic). But I see no reason why it couldn't happen. However, since somebody sent me a link about somebody who is making the same basic point, I thought I'd post a little quickie pointing out that the thought had occurred to me too.Yikes! My comboxes freaked out! (more)

Also: 'On the Square,' the First Things blog, is up and running.

Reports from the Front

2005-10-04T08:15:00.000-04:00

Catching up on a few reports on the Synod of the Eucharist via Zenit:

Synod a Chance to Rediscover "Amazement," Says Relator

The most crucial issue for the Synod of Bishops is to rediscover the "Eucharistic amazement" that helped to propel the Christian faith worldwide, said the assembly's general relator.

"The difficulties lie in how to rekindle amazement, generated by the Eucharist, in the many non-practicing baptized persons," Cardinal Scola acknowledged.

"Therefore, the announcement and the personal and community testimony of Jesus Christ to all men are necessary to incite vital and open Christian communities," he said. "Outside of this Eucharistic and sacramental communion the Church is not fully constituted: The Eucharist makes the Church." From this conviction, the cardinal deduced, among other things, the reason why "Eucharistic Communion" requires "ecclesial communion," which led him to pose the question of "intercommunion" -- the possibility that non-Catholic persons might receive communion in the Eucharist -- as one of the issues that will be studied further by the assembly. (more)

Question of Communion for the Remarried Arises

Cardinal Angelo Scola, the general relator of the synod, today mentioned "the diffused tendency of the divorced-and-remarried to Eucharistic Communion, beyond what the teaching of the Church indicates."

"Many of these get divorced and remarried" without annulments, the cardinal continued. "Following the practice of Christian life, some of these manifest serious unease and at times considerable suffering when faced with the fact that the union after the marriage blocks their full participation in sacramental reconciliation and Eucharistic Communion."

Recalling the teachings of Pope John Paul II's postsynodal exhortation "Familiaris Consortio," the cardinal said: "Those divorced and remarried need to be supported by the whole Christian community in the knowledge that they are not excluded from ecclesial communion. Their participation in the Eucharistic celebration permits, in every case, that spiritual communion, if correctly lived, which mirrors the sacrifice of Jesus Christ himself." (more)

Ordaining the Married Isn't an Answer, Says Cardinal

The cardinal considered it superfluous to reiterate "the profound theological motives which have led the Latin Church to unite the conferring of ministerial priesthood to the charism of celibacy."

Instead, he posed this question: "Is this choice and this praxis pastorally valid, even in extreme cases such as those mentioned above?" In some countries, remote Christian communities only have Sunday Mass. In parts of the Philippines, some priests celebrate up to nine Masses on a Sunday. "Being intimately tied to the Eucharist, ordained priesthood participates in its nature of a gift and cannot be the object of a right.

If it is a gift, ordained priesthood asks to be constantly requested for," responded Cardinal Scola, 63. In fact, the cardinal continued, it "has become very difficult to ascertain the ideal number of priests in the Church, from the moment in which this is not a 'business' which should be equipped with a determined quota of team managers." (more)

UPDATE: Be sure to check out Michael Liccioni's comments at Sacramentum Vitae.

Blogging from Tropicanaland

2005-09-24T11:54:00.000-04:00

Only partly justifying my absenteeism as of late, I'm currently blogging from Tampa, Florida, where I'm combining a weeklong conference with a couple days of vacationing with family and friends in nearby Sarasota. I hope to check out the campus at Ave Maria in Naples while I'm here, and, if I manage to convince the wife and kids, drive across the peninsula to St. Augustine's on the East coast.

In the meantime, I hope to post a few passages and comments from a book I've just finished, Joseph Pieper's The Four Cardinal Virtues. I highly recommend the book, especially for those whose fairly extensive background in moral theology more or less overlooked the natural virtues. Pieper, of course, is thoroughly Thomistic and Aristotelian in his outlook, which is pretty much the only game in town when it comes to traditional virtue theory, as far as I've seen.

In regards to the first and 'chief' of the virtues, prudence, Pieper defines this virtue as pre-eminently an authentic knowledge of reality.

The pre-eminence of prudence means that so-called 'good intention' and so-called 'meaning well' by no means suffice. Realization of the good presupposes that our actions are appropriate to the real situation, that is to the concrete realities which form the 'environment' of a concrete human action; and that we therefore take this concrete reality seriously, with clear-eyed objectivity (p. 10).

This involves, of course, the commonly understood aspect of prudence, as the application of objective principles of moral law to the concrete situations of human behavior. This relates it to conscience. But it also includes the aspects of perceptive 'recollection' (memoria) of the truth of things, true 'open-mindedness' (docilitas) to authentic understanding, and a certain 'nimbleness' (solertia) in responding to suddenly-imposed moral choices.

And here, according to Pieper, is where casuistry most often rears its ugly head. Casuistry attempts to flatten prudence into an absolute system, morphing the necessary providentia ('foresight') required by the virtue of prudence into a full-scale program of constructing, analyzing and evaluating individual events in the abstract. This program is fueled by a quixotic desire to attain perfect 'security' in regard to human action, since all situations are envisioned and resolved in advance. Yet, for all of its assistance in this, the program is doomed to fail, since its system cannot hope to be anything more than a dim shadow of the 'flesh-and-blood' reality of the concrete human situation. It can never substitute for prudence as an absolute standard for making ethical judgments and performing concrete ethical actions.

In the end, no one can make a man's decisions for him, no matter how much these are foreseen and anticipated. Certainly, objective moral principles can be grasped and fastened upon. But the subjective approximation of these principles to a concrete human situation cannot be carried out by someone outside that situation. "But no," says Pieper, "there is a certain way, a single way: that is through the love of friendship." A prudent friend, strengthened by the chief of virtues, can make a friend's problem his own, can visualize and concretize that situation, so to speak, in the person of his friend, and help shape that friend's decision. This, of course, is made possible by the love of friendship.

Observations on Episcopal Pastoral Decisions and Ecclesial Communion, Part III of III

2005-09-09T12:36:00.000-04:00

The following is a set of observations on the recent article, Episcopal Pastoral Decisions and Ecclesial Communion, which Bishop Donald Wuerl published in his diocesan newspaper. It intends to draw upon the reflections offered in the preceding Parts I and II of this series.

Bishop Wuerl's opening sections are both thoughtful and thorough, as they bring together all the relevant magisterial documents relevant to episcopal conferences (even going beyond Apostolos Suos). He has done a masterful job of drawing together this material. Wuerl is hardly a small-time theologian, and is regarded by his brother bishops as somewhat of a heavyweight when it comes to catechetics and Church teaching. His thoughts here are not to be taken lightly, nor will they be ignored by the Conference itself.

His closing section, entitled 'Practical pastoral solution', gets to the heart of the matter (though the transition between the sections is rather awkward): how to ensure that local pastoral decisions with national implications be carried out in a truly collegial manner.

Wuerl's observations are accurate in noting that, while the prerogatives of an episcopal ordinary in his own diocese are sacrosanct, there are necessarily implications of these actions in other dioceses. To stick to the subject of the denial of communion, what would happen if John Kerry were denied communion in his home diocese of Boston, but was allowed to communicate freely in neighboring Worcester? Or if, say, Jeb Bush was given communion in his Florida diocese, but denied it when he visited a Midwestern state? This type of arrangement, which seems to have more or less emerged in reality from the status quo situation, would merely serve to highlight the divisions within the American episcopate, and sharpen the edges of disunity on doctrinal and disciplinary practice between local churches. Certainly, it is a solution we can learn to live with, but if a better solution could feasibly be found, we would be bound to at least give it a shot. Is it possible to approach these decisions with a larger dose of the 'collegial spirit'?

Option I. Formal Incorporation into Conference Structure

Wuerl's first approach is to formalize and bureaucratize such disciplinary measures by incorporating them into the Conference structure.

A minor, preliminary step in this direction was taken by the establishment of a 'Task Force on Catholic Bishops and Catholic Politicians', formed in 2003 under the chairmanship of Theodore Cardinal McCarrick to oversee the implementation of the CDF's 2002 document Doctrinal Note on some questions regarding the participation of Catholics in political life. The ultimate fruit of this Taks Force was the 2004 USCCB document, "Catholics in Political Life," adopted by the full body of American bishops at their Spring plenary session of that year. This document was intentionally 'pastoral' in character, preferring to put forward general 'suggestions' rather than binding policies. In point of fact, the document could have done little more than this, since an 'authentic' document which would be binding on all bishops would have required either unanimous approval or a recognitio from the Holy See, neither of which would have been highly likely.

Bishop Wuerl's first suggestion would be to take even more steps in this direction. A formal 'mechanism' of the Conference would be established for the 'review' of a political candidate who is being considered as a subject for a ban on communion. However, this proposal runs up against the numerous limits of conference jurisdiction which we have already noted. It would require a formal, deliberative vote (apprently, on each candidate, considered individually) at a plenary session of the conference for it to be binding upon all members, along with a specific mandate from the Holy See to pursue such a course of action. Again, either a uninamous vote or a recognitio from the Holy See would then be necessary for adoption. If such a vote were carried out successfully, the Catholic politician in question would be formally barred from communion in every diocese, and bishops who failed to take steps to ensure this would be found in violation of ecclesiastical law.

The beauty of this approach is that it is in full accord with the limits canonical jurisprudence. Its beauty, however, is only superficial, inasmuch as the proposal would be utterly impossible to carry out in practice. First, the Holy See would almost certainly not grant a mandate for the conference to establish this mechanism, as there is little basis in prescribed law or jurisprudence for it. Second, the possibility of the American episcopate collectively voting to ban a candidate from communion, even in a full two-thirds vote (at least a 'moral unanimity' would be required to convince the Holy See that a recognitio is merited), especially given the divisions that currently plague the conference membership, is so unlikely as to be laughable. Third, as slow as the wheels of conference bureaucracy turn (or, for that matter, that of the Holy See), it could conceivably take years for this process to be carried out from start to finish. A presidential candidate would have already been elected, served two terms and happily retired before his communion ban was in place.

In addition to its impractability, such an approach would also be, theologically speaking, probably undesirable, as it would be difficult to avoid the impression of a collective bureaucratic entity usurping the rightful prerogatives of the local bishop, even if that bishop were to grant the usurpation. Disciplinary measures on members of the faithful have, in the past, nearly always been entrusted to the local ordinary, and to entrust it to a national episcopal conference would be little short of an innovation.

II. Formalization of Collegial Consultation

There is little doubt that Bishop Wuerl is aware of how impractical, and near impossible, the first alternative is. It is likely that he intends it not a serious suggestion, but rather as a foil for his second, more realistic proposal.

The latter wisely sidesteps the formal bureaucratic structures of the conference, and has a much more modest goal in mind, conversation between bishops: a "commitment on the part of all the bishops to discuss beforehand, through some conference structure, decisions that will impact all of the bishops and the church as a whole."

But Wuerl's proposal is more than a mere "let's talk about it" request. First, it also includes an implicit agreement among each bishop to "refrain from making individual pastoral decisions" on this matter until such conversation was carried out. A decision to bar an individual from communion could "be finalized only in concern with the conference of bishops" (emphasis added).

Second, and apparently as a consequence of what precedes, Wuerl's proposal is specifically noted to require the establishment of a 'conference structure'. What he has in mind is not clear. After examining existing conference structures, the following is the only solution that I can envision:

A permanent or ad hoc Bishops' Committee would have to be established, similar to the already-existent 'Task Force on Catholic Bishops and Catholic Politicians', consisting of episcopal members elected by the bishops themselves, which would offer consultation to individual bishops on this subject. Such a Committee would necessarily require a permament office in Washington with a significant staff, in order to provide the Committee members with the research data necessary to come to a decision on how to offer consultation (e.g., what is a given politician's voting record on relevant issues, what other dioceses might be affected to a decision to bar communion, how do the bishops of these dioceses feel about it, etc.).

In order to be a true exercise in collegiality, this committee would most likely have to include some level of consultation with the full body of bishops, in order to avoid having only a few 'power brokers' make decisions on such a matter. Correspondence would have to be sent to all the bishops, listing the names of politicians being considered for a ban on communion, and inviting feedback from every bishop. The committee would then use this feedback, along with the research data gathered by the USCCB office, to offer consultation to inquiring bishops. Such consultation, of course, could not be considered binding upon any local bishop, but would simply communicate to him how his brother bishops feel about the matter.

This solution would effectively achieve the goal. A local bishop who intends to discipline an errant Catholic politician in his diocese would be able to approach the subject knowing the sentiments of his brother bishops, and would be able to weigh these sentiments against his own, while always aware that the ultimate responsibility for this soul belongs to himself.

The cost, however, would be significant, as it would result in the creation of yet another standing committee of bishops along with a permanent staff office. The warning note of Apostolos Suos should always ring in the background when we make such a consideration:

Such aims, however, require that an excessively bureaucratic development of offices and commissions operating between plenary sessions be avoided. (AS 18)

That the office and commission we are considering would carry out most of its operations 'between' plenary sessions is unavoidable. Since it would intend no binding or 'authentic' teaching or action being carried out by the full body, it would have no conceivable need to bring anything before the full body in plenary session.

Now the sentence from Apostolos Suos is no blanket prohibition, merely a general guideline. But it does rest upon solid principle, viz. that the Conference is never to substitute for or infringe upon the pastoral authority of the local bishop. Certainly, a well-informed commission could offer a good deal of pastoral advice to an inquiring bishop regarding the sentiments of fellow bishops and the voting record of the politician in question.

But the question remains, what can this committee do that the local ordinary cannot do on his own accord? Presumably, or at least in theory, a man's shepherd is the best judge of his soul, and would know the most about his own political record as well. He would also know best what other dioceses would be affected by his decisions. There is little to prevent him from conversing with other bishops to assess their opinions about the matter, and private conversations could generally be more candid than public conversations. More importantly, since they would remain in private, such decisions would never become media spectacles, which decisions about a man's soul should never become. The process could also be carried out much more swiftly than a bureaucratic mechanism could possibly move. The local ordinary would also retain his essential liberty in such decisions, since Wuerl's proposal specifically requires that the bishop "refrain from making individual pastoral decisions" until the conference has offered its consultation.

What is gained, then, by incorporating such a process into the bureaucratic structure of the Conference? A certain formalization and objectivity, perhaps, a minimalizing of personal bias and subjectivity. A broader and more inclusive extent of episcopal consultation would, no doubt, be achieved. But the costs involved, as noted above, may end up weighing against such a proposal, and leaving the matter where it lay in 2004, with the USCCB's last words on the subject:
Given the wide range of circumstances involved in arriving at a prudential judgment on a matter of this seriousness, we recognize that such decisions rest with the individual bishop in accord with the established canonical and pastoral principles. Bishops can legitimately make different judgments on the most prudent course of pastoral action. (Catholics in Political Life).

Reflections on the Reform of the Episcopal Conference, Part II of III

2005-09-08T16:46:00.000-04:00

The call for a reform of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is not itself controversial, as this call has been voiced many times by the leadership of the Conference itself. Many agendas for such reform have been offered, often by episcopal members of the Conference. A Committee has even been established, the Committee for Priorities and Plans, which has as its sole purpose the establishment of a program to reform the conference structure. In fact, I intend to propose little in this post that has not already been proposed by a member of the Conference itself.

One of the instigations of this reform, in fact, is the aforementioned document Apostolos Suos, which many Americans took to be directed specifically at the USCCB, and which was not altogether uncritical in its tone. I will first point out several observations on the need for reform, and conclude with reflections on the means by which they reform can be brought about.

The need for reform can be seen from several different perspectives, which tend to reappear in nearly every proposal.

First, nearly all recognize a need to reduce the bureaucratic structure of the conference, which necessarily means a reduction in the number of staff. The USCCB currrently claims a staff of '350 lay people, priests and religious' (source) in Washington alone, excluding additional offices in New York and Miami. Given that the number of active U.S. bishops is just shy of 300 (including auxiliaries, with retired bishops bringing the number up to 450), many have expressed concern that the support staff might outnumber, and overshadow, the bishops whom they serve. Although cuts are already being made, the general consensus holds that a more serious reconsideration of staff needs is necessary for an authentic reform of the Conference.

Second, the operating budget of the USCCB, by all accounts, borders on the unjustifiable. Although incoming revenues (through publishing services, government grants, etc.) help to absorb most of these costs, a significant amount inevitably falls upon individual dioceses and their faithful, both in direct contributions and in annual 'second collections' which go to specific offices (CNS, Communications Campaign, etc.). Given the budget crunch that most dioceses are feeling these days, complaints from bishops have been not been lacking. Last November, the bishops of the Conference overwhelmingly voted to reject a proposed increase in these contributions to the Conference, leaving the latter even more strapped for funds. It has been noted that a curbing of the Conference's budget is no longer a hypothesis, but an inevitable fact of life.

Third, a perception exists among many theologians and bishops that the Conference has, both in general and in several specific instances, stretched its own juridical limits in ways that threaten to impede the authority and liberty of local bishops. This has already been noted as a major theme of Apostolos Suos, viz. that the Episcopal Conference cannot susbstitute for, or transgress upon, the sacred responsibility of a bishop for his own territorial flock. Complaints have occasionally arisen from local ordinaries who, although personally unsatisfied with a conference document, nonetheless feel pressured or even compelled to comply with it.

Fourthly, according to the operating description of Episcopal Conferences by Apostolos Suos, the structure of the Conference itself may require re-envisioning in light of the demands of canon law. These demands, in sum, mandate that the Conference and its staff exist to serve the bishops and not vice versa, and that the conference only exercises its authentic teaching authority in plenary sessions, not in its committees or offices. This last dimension, in my opinion, has been insufficiently noted.

As for proposals for reform, I will begin with the more general and proceed to the more concrete.

I. A Return to Ad Intra

Archbishop Dolan's April 2005 First Things article, "The Bishops in Council," skillfully narrates how the formative years of the American Episcopal Conference (then identified by the awkward acronym 'NCCB/USCC') were fueled largely by what he calls 'ad extra concerns':

First and foremost, the conference became explicitly enthusiastic about ad extra concerns, setting itself up as a "prophetic voice" in American society, especially on domestic and international issues of social justice. War and peace, the economy, nuclear weapons, unemployment, labor issues, the environment, Central America, Africaconference eagerly issued statements on all of these complicated and controverted areas of public policy. At least partially as a result, the bureaucracy and budget of the NCCB/USCC mushroomed.

As a result, the vast majority of staff of the USCCB are devoted to these sorts of ad extra concerns. For example, the USCCB's Office for Migration and Refugee Services currently boasts 75 staff, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development has 20, Catholic News Service over 30. Doctrine, however, has four; Liturgy, six; Priestly Life & Ministry and Priestly Formation have two apiece.

Besides its effects on bureaucracy and budget, the Conference's eagerness to engage in ad extra issues resulted in a profound shift in Conference structure, giving immense significance to the work of episcopal committees and administrative offices (who oversaw and engineered such activities) and turning the plenary sessions into simple 'rubber-stamp sessions', where the full body would vote (overwhelmingly) to approve and advance nearly every policy or document proposed by a Committee or office. Archbishop Dolan reports much the same:

Their annual meetings increasingly became reports of what the different departments and committees of the NCWC [i.e., the Conference staff] had done in their name since the last general meeting.

Once the Committee reports were done and their work approved, the sessions would disband, giving the general impression that the plenary sessions served the offices and committees, and not vice versa.

The relative inattention paid to internal issues - such as addressing widespread catechetical illiteracy, marriage and family life, liturgical reform, the renewal of the priesthood and religious life, etc. - have now returned full force as urgent priorities of the American Church. The rising generation of bishops now seeks to return the Conference's focus to these internal issues:

Above all, these patriarchs were concerned with building the Catholic Church in the United States. Bishops today increasingly ask whether it is now necessary to rebuild the Church in America, through reform and renewal.

If carried through effectively and seriously, a reform with this goal in mind would not only reorient the vision of the Conference, but would have a serious impact on staff size and budget as well.

II. Re-tracing the Line

After the Second Vatican Council, the Episcopal Conference of the United States was officially restructured and re-established as the NCCB/USCC. Its identity as a dual organization was clear by the awkwardness of the title: the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), which was the aggregate of all the bishops in the country; and and a permanent bureaucracy in Washington, the United States Catholic Conference (USCC). The clear distinction between the American episcopacy and their non-episcopal support staff was, and is, seen as an essential characteristic of the Conference's identity.

In 2001 the Conference was renamed the 'United States Conference of Catholic Bishops', a single and monolithic identity which, while easier to pronounce, lacked the dual character of the previous moniker. This change, it must be noted, was purely nominal; in its actual structure the clear distinction between bishops and staff remained clear and functional. No one, inside or outside the Conference, seems confused about that distinction in itself.

Yet, due to the aforementioned developments in the structure of the Conference, the importance of non-episcopal staff (formerly the USCC) ballooned. Motivated by external concerns and economic/social issues (on which few bishops are thoroughly educated), the Conference came to rely more and more upon 'experts' in these fields. Episcopal documents in the 1980s tended to nearly all be written by outsiders, often laypersons, and in some notorious cases, even non-Catholics. Staff of the 'ad extra' offices swelled with those properly trained and licensed in the appropriate fields, and (at least on lower levels of administration) many who lacked a Catholic identity, if they were Catholic at all. Every Bishops' Committee received several non-episcopal 'Consultants' from relevant national bodies, who offered consultative input to the bishops on the areas within their competence. While all formal deliberative authority remained within the episcopacy, much day-to-day business of the Conference was handled by staff.

Every Bishops' Committee is, as is necessary, staffed by a permanent office in Washington. Although these offices exist solely to serve the Committees, most of them carry out routine affairs as well. The staff of these offices see their role not only as facilitating the decision-making capacities of the bishops they serve, but also as communicating the bishops' decisions and policies to other, external bodies. In this fashion, other national organizations are able to understand and implement the decisions and policies of the American episcopate. This facet of the staff's work, however necessary and beneficial it may be, obviously entails a significant amount of time, expense and resources. This function of the Conference staff may need to be re-examined in light of new priorities of the Conference.

The role of the Episcopal Conference as a whole is to respond to pastoral problems which occur on the national or territorial level, or at least those pastoral problems which require a collegial response. In addition, Episcopal Conferences have significant authority in responding to initiatives and tasks delegated to them by the Holy See. The latter might include the writing of catechisms of the translations of liturgical texts, for example. These twin focii - responding to pastoral problems on a national level and to those tasks entrusted to it by the Holy See - must remain at the forefront of all Conference activity. The Conference cannot, in light of its own identity, see itself as a source for creative and innovative ventures or policy-making, unless these are required by serious pastoral needs which have a national scope. Nor can its commitees see themselves as responsible for, or as having juridical oversight of, all local activities which relate to its subject.

III. Lessons in Downsizing

'Downsizing' is now, for the USCCB, not only a purposeful methodological decision, but also a necessary economic one, given budgetary constraints. I offer two suggestions of my own in this regard, simply for the sake of conversation. They may be more or less helpful, as the case may be.

First, learn to outsource. For the sake of convenience, the USCCB has, over the course of recent decades, progressively made decisions to incorporate many administrative functions as 'in-house' tasks. Hence, the USCCB includes a mailroom, a print and copy shop, a travel agency, a publishing office, a news agency, a technology office, a legal counsel, and several other 'support' offices. Several of these offices it is difficult to imagine the bishops living without. The USCCB, it seems, would of necessity need its own mailroom and human resource office. Others, however, could feasibly be outsourced without excessive inconvenience to the Conference mission. Certainly, there are reasons for keeping them in-house, as this generally reduces the cost and adds to the efficiency of the Conference mechanism. Yet one may wonder if a slight increase in expenses would be a small price to pay, literally, for a strong reduction in bureaucratic size. Also, there are inevitable downsides to in-house support offices, as the staff of the Conference are generally not given the option to use alternative, external resources, even when these are found cheaper and more desirable than in-house operations.

Second, 'embrace the apostolate'. One of the rich gifts of the Catholic Church is the expansive diversity of effective apostolates which function at the local and national levels. When these apostolates prove themselves to be faithful to the magisterium, obedient to the episcopate and effective in producing quality work, there would appear to be little reason not to delegate certain tasks to them. Ignatius Press, for example, would seem well-suited to handle the publication of USCCB materials, and thus enable the downsizing of the massive USCCB Publication office. It is difficult not to see the Bishops' foundation of Catholic News Service as an attempt to establish competition with EWTN, albeit through different mediums (the lamentably poor relations that have often troubled the USCCB and EWTN need not be addressed here). The proliferation of solid and effective Catholic apostolates in other areas, especially in the areas of human development and social justice, need hardly be noted.

The Catholic principle of subsidiarity also holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. Of course, the question of whether and to what extent this principle applies to the Church is an ongoing discussion, but to raise it here at least brings some elements into focus. Clearly, many activities of the Conference, such as the solemn exercise of teaching and pastoral practice, cannot possibly be delegated to others. Nothing which concerns the collegial action of the episcopacy can, in fact, be delegated to a non-collegial level.

Yet at the same time, some activities of the Conference do not properly fall within the proper scope of this collegial activity, and might be best suited to an appropriate apostolate. A Bishops' Committee on Migration and Refugees would certainly be necessary, given the need for clear teaching and pastoral action on what is fast becoming a central issue for the Church (and a teaching that is often ignored). Yet the actual, concrete resettling of refugees and migrants, it would appear, is not something that requires the direct action of the bishops themselves, nor their staff. With competent and faithful organizations such as Catholic Charities, which already work closely with the bishops, there would seem to be no good reason why much of the USCCB staff which work to resettle migrants could not be turned over to these apostolates, while doctrinal teaching and ultimate pastoral oversight on this issue would be the prerogatives of the Conference.

IV. Reform the Plenary Session

The plenary session is, according to Apostolos Suos, the only structure by means of which the full body of American bishops can act and/or teach in a manner that is, theologically speaking, 'authentic'. Yet, as mentioned above in regards to Archbishop Dolan's observations, the overweening importance in past years given to permanent offices and committees has tended to diminish the significance of the plenary session, which has often functioned as a mere means of collectively affirming and ratifying the work of the commitees and offices. Apostolos Suos has these words regarding the priorities of the Conference:

Such aims, however, require that an excessively bureaucratic development of offices and commissions operating between plenary sessions be avoided. The essential fact must be kept in mind that the Episcopal Conferences with their commissions and offices exist to be of help to the Bishops and not to substitute for them. (AS 18)

If this mandate is to be effectively implemented, it would mean that a permanent committee or office would be justified solely to the extent that it served the bishops, and that in their plenary session. This would require more than merely reporting on an office's activities or accomplishments, and more than merely issuing an occasional, token document to celebrate this or that occasion. While it is easy to imagine committees on Marriage, Ministries, or Doctrine putting forth serious items of pastoral concern for the consideration of the plenary session of bishops, it is difficult to imagine this for other offices. The Office for Aid to Catholics in Eastern Europe, for example, serves mainly to gather and distribute financial aid to Catholics in this region: there is little doubt that this aid is much-needed, but it is worth asking what a fund-distribution office might bring to the plenary session that the bishops would find worth talking about (the 'embrace the apostolate' theme might come in handy here). Of course, this entity's incorporation into the Conference certainly helps to facilitate its charitable income, and hence its aid to those in need, but more serious, overriding considerations may take priority.

On another matter, the structure and programming of the plenary sesion itself has been recognized as being in need of reform. Father Neuhaus' 2004 First Things column, "Bishops at a Turning Point", encapsulated and gave voice to the gratitude of many bishops that these reforms were already on the way.

Above all, the bishops desire plenary sessions with less staff and media present, a looser and less predetermined agenda, and more substantive discussion between bishops. In short, they want to meet as bishops, to discuss what concerns them as bishops. They are often frustrated by rigid regulations about who gets to speak when and for how long, and by the harried pace of the meeting agenda itself, which actively discourages lengthy, substantive discussion between members, and lends itself only to brief, curt and pre-written presentations by heads of committees, with a quick 'up or down vote' by the full body, with as little discussion and debate as possible between.

This is difficult to avoid, of course. The meetings already last up three days or more, and the number of issues on the table, as well as the sheer number of members present, make real discussion and conversation impractical. Radical measures, like expanding the meetings over 4-5 days, or closing larger sections off from the staff and media, would be unpopular with most parties, but perhaps necessary. I like, for my own part, to envision a whole week with bishops residing in a hotel or residence together, with no staff or media alllowed, with only the afternoons reserved for meetings. The mornings would have no agenda, but only open coffee bars and round tables for bishops to meet, mingle and discuss what is on their minds. The media, staff and chanceries would hate it, of course. But I have a feeling the bishops would love it.

A Reflection on the Nature of Episcopal Conferences, Part I of III

2005-09-07T15:49:00.000-04:00

As I promised a few days ago, stimulated by Bishop Wuerl's thought-provoking article on the role of episcopal conferences, I would like to offer a few words of reflection on the same subject. My own reflections have as their object John Paul II's 1998 Apostolic Letter Apostolos Suos, 'On the Theological and Juridical Nature of Episcopal Conferences.' This entry will be one of three on the subject: the first will reflect on the nature of episcopal conferences themselves in light of Apostolos Suos, the second on the ongoing efforts to reform the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in light of such mandates, and the third on the specific implications of Bishop Wuerl's suggestions in light of the aforementioned reflections. The second and third have yet to be written (give me a day or two while you're chewing on this one).

The document begins by summarizing the solemn mandate given to the 'college of apostles' by Christ, which was then passed on to their successors. This mandate, in sum, entails that every successor of the apostles, as such, is charged not only with the pastoral care of the faithful directly entrusted to them (i.e., their diocese), but also with that of the whole Church of God (AS 1-2). Without prejudice to a bishop's authority in his own diocese, this larger, collegial responsibility cannot fail to find concrete expression, and history has manifested a broad variety of 'means, structures and ways of communicating' this charge (AS 3). Particular mention is given to the holding of particular councils, plenary councils, provincial councils, provincial conferences and assemblies, and finally, distinguished by their stable and permanent character, Episcopal Conferences (AS 3-4).

The call for the establishment of episcopal conferences, at least in seminal form, was made by the Second Vatican Council itself, in the document Christus Dominus:

[I]t would be in the highest degree helpful if in all parts of the world the Bishops of each country or region would meet regularly, so that by sharing their wisdom and experience and exchanging views they may jointly formulate a programme for the common good of the Church (CD 37, cf. Lumen Gentium 23).

In 1966, Pope Paul VI, by the Motu Proprio Ecclesiae Sanctae, more or less mandated what the council had suggested. These developed quickly and significantly, and became the ordinary means by which the bishops of a country or a specific territory 'exchange views, consult with one another and cooperate in promoting the common good of the Church.' By facilitating this communication, episcopal conferences 'contribute effectively to unity between the Bishops, and thus to the unity of the Church, since they are a most helpful means of strengthening ecclesial communion.'

This 'ecclesial communion' between the successors of the apostles, the fruit of the spirit of collegiality, is something without which the Church cannot function. In fact, 'the supreme power which the body of Bishops possesses over the whole Church cannot be exercised by them except collegially' (AS 9, emphasis added). A bishop cannot exercise this collegial action at the level of his individual diocese, even when he does so with the good of the whole Church in mind (AS 10).

This collegial spirit cannot remain a disincarnated abstraction: it is 'an organic reality which demands a juridical form' (AS 8). Episcopal Conferences constitute 'a concrete application of the collegial spirit.' (AS 14) Yet at the same time it is essential to distinguish between the spiritual reality and its juridical application. Hence, as this document is at pains to point out, the action of the episcopal conference is clearly distinguished and demarcated from the collegial acts of the College of Bishops itself (AS 10). In no way are the actions of the episcopal conference of a territory to be construed as the actions of the sacred college of bishops itself, but only as one, limited juridical expression of this reality. (AS 12; cf. 13).

Thus distinguished from the exercise of the sacred college of bishops per se, the episcopal conference is a reality authorized by the Holy See, which offers general delineations of that conference's form, laying out guidelines for the establishment of a general secretariat and permanent ('administrative') council, the holding of plenary sessions, along with recommendations for committees which would facilitate collegial cooperation in response to the following (non-exhaustive) list of issues:

[T]he promotion and safeguarding of faith and morals, the translation of liturgical books, the promotion and formation of priestly vocations, the preparation of catechetical aids, the promotion and safeguarding of Catholic universities and other educational centres, the ecumenical task, relations with civil authorities, the defence of human life, of peace, and of human rights, also in order to ensure their protection in civil legislation, the promotion of social justice, the use of the means of social communication, etc. (AS 15)

The document continues with a set of stern admonitions regarding the dangers of over-expanding such structures:

Such aims, however, require that an excessively bureaucratic development of offices and commissions operating between plenary sessions be avoided. The essential fact must be kept in mind that the Episcopal Conferences with their commissions and offices exist to be of help to the Bishops and not to substitute for them. (AS 18)

One reason for these limits is the limited nature of the authority of the Conference itself. Sacred tradition has established severe limits to the authority of conferences to act in the name of all bishops. Even if a bishop desired to voluntarily limit or derogate his own authority to the episcopal conference of which he is a member, this could never obtain in reality (AS 20). In order for the conference or its president to speak in the name of all bishops, 'each and every bishop' (to a man) must give his consent.

Even more restrictions are placed upon the conference's exercise of the teaching ministry, limits of which the conference's are 'well aware.' Even in those cases where they are 'official and authentic and in communion with the Apostolic See, these pronouncements do not have the characteristics of a universal magisterium.' But even for a declaration of the episcopal conference to merit as 'authentic teaching' it must receive either the unanimous consent of all bishops, or a clear 'moral majority' of all bishops plus the formal recognitio of the Holy See (cf. AS articles 1 and 2 of the complementary norms).

In all this, the role of the plenary council is pivotal, the sine qua non of the 'official and authentic' action of the conference: 'The very nature of the teaching office of Bishops requires that, when they exercise it jointly through the Episcopal Conference, this be done in the plenary assembly.' Smaller bodies or committees cannot carry out this task, even were the whole conference to delegate it to them. A 'plenary council' would be the equivalent of the highly-publicized 'general meetings' of the USCCB, which tend to occur twice a year (once in the Spring, and once in the Fall). It is only through these meetings that the authentic teaching office of the conference can be exercised.

In sum, the collegial action of bishops is essential both to their own ministry and to the well-being of the whole Church. The episcopal conference is one of the means by which that collegial spirit is enhanced, especially with regard to certain tasks which could not easily be accomplished otherwise. By virtue of their own nature, however, these conferences cannot substitute either for the authority of the diocesan bishop or for the magisterium of the Church, both of which they serve. Hence, a solemn and binding pronouncement by this conference, even in the rare cases in which it is achieved, would be such by virtue of the authority of the Holy See and the individual diocesan bishops, not by virtue of the authority of the conference itself. This authentic exercise of collegial ministry is carried out, in point of fact, only through the plenary council, for the sake of which the entire conference, and all of its juridical structures, subsist.

2005-09-06T14:39:00.000-04:00

As those who know me understand, I am an addict to ecclesiastical gossip. Hence, I have no way of avoiding the obligatory trips through the stateside gossip mills that are a part of that trade. One tendency I have come to deplore among bloggers is the trait of constantly updating one's readers about how many hits and page views one has 'racked up'. This tendency seems to be exaggerated in a few of these gossip mills (cf. Exhibits A and B), which only makes these more painful to read.

I offer my handful of readers the Ad Limina promise: As bad, unreadable and self-serving as my blog gets, you will never, ever receive an 'update' about how well-liked and frequently-visited it is.

That's all.

Lunchtime reading

2005-09-06T13:00:00.000-04:00

After you're done with Shea, read:

Jeff's (aka the Curt Jester's) conversion story. (ht, e-pression).

John Lamont's NOR article "Why the Second Vatican Council was a Good Thing and is More Important Than Ever", republished on-line at the Pertinacious Papist. (ht, Curt Jester)

So That No Thought of His, No Matter How Stupid, Should Ever Go Unpublished Again"

2005-09-06T12:27:00.000-04:00

Mark Shea is back in action.

Headline of the week

2005-09-01T13:50:00.000-04:00

"Pope tells Catholics to multiply"

Hat tip, Zorak.

2005-09-01T12:22:00.001-04:00

Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix defends the Church's right to defend herself. At least I think that's what he's doing.

--Also check out this interview with Bishop Olmsted from Insight Scoop.

And Bishop Wuerl of Pittsburgh pontificates on the role of the USCCB and its response to dissident Catholic politicians. Wuerl's piece is quite interesting; I had the chance to review it pre-publication, and had a number of thoughts on it. I hope to expound a few of these later in the day, if I get the chance.

For now, I'll merely note that Bishop Wuerl made this statement in May of 2004.

(Hat tip Amy Welborn on all three links).

Get your Pope Innocent III Action Figure now

2005-09-01T11:08:00.000-04:00

Introduce this Pope Innocent III Action Figure to your other figures and watch the spiritual sparks fly! Armed with his formidable power of excommunication and an intimidating scroll inscribed with Latin text, this 6" tall, hard plastic model of the 176th Pope will soon have all your other action figures lining up for confession. Read the back of the illustrated blistercard and you'll find that Pope Innocent III was a good guy in all respects. He was a patron of the arts, cared about orphans, built a hospital and reunified the Papal States! Comes with removable fancy Pope hat.

I wonder what happens when Innocent III goes up against Nunzilla. I'm getting Innocent for my sons now. I'd like to ask the company to make a Piux X ("armed with the formidable Index of Forbidden Books, Pius X will have your other action figures reciting the Oath against Modernism in no time!").

Hat tip, Ut unum sint or whatever the heck Bill calls his blog now.

Behold, Lazarus lives...

2005-09-01T09:15:00.000-04:00

As the Vatican curial offices return from a month-long vacation, the VIS just sent its first news transmission since July.

In an ocean of other updates were the following news items (most of which have already been made available to the press):

August 4: Declaration by Holy See Press Office Director Joaquin Navarro-Valls concerning the admittance to Rome's Gemelli hospital of Pope Benedict XVI's brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, with heart problems.

August 24: Appointment of Archbishop William Joseph Levada, emeritus of San Francisco, U.S.A., and prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as member of the Congregation for Bishops.

August 24: Appointment of Fr. Michael A. Blume S.V.D., under-secretary at the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, as apostolic nuncio to Benin and Togo, at the same time elevated to the dignity of archbishop. The archbishop-elect was born in South Bend, U.S.A., in 1946 and ordained a priest in 1972.

August 29: Declaration by Holy See Press Office Director Joaquin Navarro-Valls concerning the audience granted by the Pope to Msgr. Bernard Fellay, superior general of the "Fraternity of St. Pius X." The audience was granted at Msgr. Fellay's request.

Cardinal Kasper Sees Eucharist as Sacrament of Unity

2005-08-31T08:37:00.000-04:00

VATICAN CITY, AUG. 30, 2005 (Zenit.org).- The Eucharist, long regarded as a reason for the separation of Christians, is, in fact, a cause of unity, says Cardinal Walter Kasper.

The president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity made that point about the Blessed Sacrament in a recently published book.

The volume, "Sacrament of Unity: Eucharist and Church," published in German by Verlag Herder, and in French by Cerf, explains that "to understand the Eucharist as the sacrament of unity is not something accessory. The unity of the Church is the reason why the Eucharist exists."

"The fact that in the present situation it is not possible, in the name of truth, that all Christians should gather around the Lord's one table and participate in the one Supper of the Lord, is a profound wound inflicted on the body of Christ and, in the end, a scandal," the cardinal writes.

"The unity of the Church is a gift of the Holy Spirit," he states, clarifying that "ecumenical unity" will not give origin to "another Church, or a new Church; on the contrary, it will be placed in the line of Tradition."

Here's a question for the theologically-minded of you (I know there's some of you out there). Is the Eucharist a sign or a cause of unity? Yes, Tom, I can say 'both/and', but the truth is we rarely hear of the Eucharist as a 'cause' of unity. The CCC only speaks of "a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity." Yet, as we all know, a sacrament is an efficacious sign, so it must be intended to bring about what it signifies. But can this sacrament bring about a unity which does not already pre-exist in some way? If so, why the ban on intercommunion? Or is some minimal degree of inchoate unity a pre-requisite, which unity would simply be fostered and deepened by the sacrament? Yet this would sharply distinguish Eucharist from baptism, in which (as in the case of infants) no such pre-requisite is required, as baptism brings one from death to life. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Because you never know who's reading....

2005-08-30T08:06:00.000-04:00

If you posted this...

[Bishop Michael] Sheridan, by the way, is a hulking beast of a man, with shoulders as broad as a gorilla and a frat boy haircut, and a glance that lets you know he could kill you in less than three seconds.

And got this in your comment box...

Jamie, It was great meeting you in the hotel lobby at WYD. I really must have intimidated you. Of course, I could kill you in three seconds -- but I never would. Is a frat boy haircut a good thing?

+MJS

Bishop Michael Sheridan Homepage 08.29.05 - 2:53 pm

Would you be worried?

P.S. I got an email from one of his staff today, who just wanted to assure me that it was Bishop Sheridan who posted to my blog. He's proud of his bishop for being 'hip' enough to post in a combox.

If His Excellency is still reading, be assured that an episcopal frat boy haircut is a very good thing, and posting to my blog is about the hippest thing you can do.

"Seek always his face" : Papal Angelus reflects on World Youth Day and Feast of St. Augustine

2005-08-29T15:24:00.000-04:00

"Dear brothers and sisters!

That lived in Cologne last week was truly an extraordinary ecclesial experience to mark World Youth Day with the participation of a huge number of youth from all parts of the world accompanied by many bishops, priests, and men and women religious. It was a providential event of grace for the entire Church. Speaking to bishops of Germany shortly before my return to Italy, I said the youth have launched an appeal to their pastors, and in a way to all believers, a message which is at the same time an appeal: 'Help us to be disciples and witnesses of Christ. Like the Magi, we have come to worship him'. The youth left Cologne to return to their cities and nations animated by a great hope without however losing sight of the not inconsiderable difficulties, obstacles and problems which accompany a genuine search for Christ and faithful adherence to his Gospel in our times.

Not only youth, but communities and their pastors also, should take note of a fact which is fundamental for evangelization: where God does not take first place, where he is not recognized and worshipped as the Supreme Good, human dignity is undermined. This is why it is urgent to lead mankind today to 'discover' the true face of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ. In this way, even mankind of our time will be able, as the Magi did, to prostrate themselves before him and worship him. As I talked to German bishops, I recalled that adoration is not 'a luxury but a priority'. Searching for Christ must be the incessant craving of believers, of youth and adults, of the faithful and their pastors. This search should be encouraged, sustained and guided. Faith is not simply adherence to a set of dogmas complete in itself, which would suppress the thirst for God present in the human soul. On the contrary, it projects man on a journey in time towards a God who is always new in his infiniteness. So the Christian is at the same time one who seeks and one who finds. It is precisely this which makes the Church young, open to the future, rich in hope for all humanity.

St Augustine, whose memory we mark today, makes some stupendous reflections about the invitation in Psalm 104, 'Quaerite faciem eius semper - Seek always his face'. He notes that this invitation is valid not only for this life: it applies also to eternity. The discovery of the 'face of God' is never exhausted. The more we enter into the splendour of divine love, the more beautiful it is to proceed with the search, so that 'amore crescente inquisitio crescat inventi - in the measure in which love grows, the search for He who has been found grows'. (Enarr. in Ps. 104,3: CCL 40, 1537).

This is the experience to which we too aspire in the depth of our hearts. This is obtained for us by the intercession of the great Bishop of Hippo; it is obtained for us by the maternal help of Mary, Star of Evangelization, who we invoke now in the Angelus prayer."

Visitation Misinformation (and Clarification)

2005-08-25T08:29:00.000-04:00

I arrived back from Germany to find the blog-boards buzzing with news - well, rumours - about the Apostolic Visitation of seminaries. Specifically, a number of blogs were circulating rumours that the Coordinator of the Visitations was one Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of the Lincoln Diocese. Somewhat shocked at the rumors, since they were so obviously untrue, I tracked them back to their source. Apparently a seminarian or formator at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit leaked to a blogger that that seminary's Visitation was announced for mid-October, with Bishop Bruskewitz as Chair of the Visitation Team.

Regrettably though perhaps understandably, readers confused the office of 'Chair' of an individual Visitation Team with the 'Coordinator' of the entire Visitation process. For clarification: In any visitation, even for the purposes of academic accreditation, each institution is visited by a team, and every team has a chair, who assumes ultimate responsibility for that individual visit. With 229 seminaries (according to reports we've been getting), we can anticipate around 100 different visits (some joint programs will probably be combined), hence 100 different chairs. One Coordinator oversees the entire program.

Yet within hours the rumour that Bruskewitz was the overall Coordinator spread to blog after blog. The comments on the original blog teemed with enthusiasm, with many boldly announcing that this position was a stepping stone on Bruskewitz's way to a promotion to the Cardinal Archbishopric of Washington, DC, and a pitiable Lincoln resident begging the Holy See not to take him away. Then the hopes were dashed by CNS, who picked up a news release announcing that Archbishop Edwin O'Brien of the Military Archdiocese was appointed as Coordinator.

Not that the like-minded have anything to worry about. LifeSite news ran a story the same day crowing over O'Brien's sky-high record on pro-life issues (his scathing rebuke of dissenting politicians may have won them over). O'Brien served as rector of St. Joseph's Seminary in Dunwoodie and the Pontifical North American College in Rome - two of only a handful of seminaries renowned for their orthodoxy during this period, and for steering clear of the excesses which swamped most American seminaries in the 80s. He also served as an auxiliary under Cardinal O'Connor of New York, a man not known for a reputation as a left-winger. (Not that O'Brien's record will satisfy all comers, of course.)

The other reason the surprise was ill-founded is that O'Brien's role as Coordinator hit the press back in April in an AP story ("Archbishop Edwin O'Brien of the U.S. Military Archdiocese has been appointed to coordinate the review"). O'Brien himself did a full interview for Our Sunday Visitor on the Visitations on July 3 (not on the web, which only tells you that bloggers do not read non-web-based media, and also have short memories).

If you want the real O'Brien's take on seminary formation, you have to go a few years back, though, to a June 2002 article he wrote (long before his appointment) for the OSV periodical The Priest (also unavailable on-line, sorry folks), entitled "Reformation of Catholic Seminaries." Here we find a stinging rebuke of the seminary formation programs from the 1960s through the 1980s, maligned as seedbeds of dissent, intellectual apathy, and sexual misconduct of all kinds. As a result, many clergy trained in the pre-Marshall Visitation* period received a formation that can only be described as a "tragic failure," generating priests "whose affective immaturity proved pathological." O'Brien concludes:

"That some . . . in the priesthood, fell into the temptations we are reading of, while certainly inexcusable, scandalous and so very destructive to the lives of others, is understandable in light of the shallow spiritual and emotional soil into which their celibate commitment was sometimes planted. Undoubtedly many thereafter saw the tragic error of their ways, repented and reformed. While the Lord has surely forgiven them, they, the Church and many of their victims will not avoid paying a most costly price for a long time to come." (emphasis added)

Here you have it. The sexual abuse crisis as a symptom of a deeper problem: failed, abysmal, and destructive seminary formation programs which created failed priests who carried out abysmal and destructive ministries. The cure: a reform of seminaries which ensures (a) a seminary environment that nourishes moral integrity and chaste celibacy, (b) intellectual formation that is both faithful to Magisterium and rooted in the profound philosophical tradition of the Church. O'Brien recognized this over three years ago, and probably a decade or two before that. That the Holy See chose such a man to head the Visitations should neither surprise nor discourage us.

* On the Marshall Visitation in the 1980s a half-decent summary was written by one participant, Bishop Donald Wuerl, in the September 30, 2002 issue of America. The final and formal report from the Congregation for Catholic Education on that Visitation can be found in Origins documentary service, October 16, 1986 (vol. 16, no. 18).

Cologne, Day 6

2005-08-21T08:53:00.000-04:00

This is a bit scary, I've spent enough time on German computers that my fingers have started to instinctively go to the 'z' key when I want to type a 'y' (which is, as I said earlier, how German keyboards are set up).

Saturday was day six in Cologne, and the last full day before we depart on Sunday. After a full day on Friday, I slept in until nearly 9:00 on Saturday. We have nothing on the agenda today, so it's more for sightseeing, etc. I spent the late morning reading in a cafe by myself.

I met Fr. EJB and Msgr. Fay at noon, to grab sandwiches together outside the cathedral. Afterwards, Fr. EJB and I headed to the cathedral, which was now opened for tours of the south tower. For 5 Euro apiece we took the climb. Steps only, no elevator, and, although I don't know the height of the tower, it's got to be twice the height of the Washington Monument, if not more. The staircase is, of course, in the round and winding, and just wide enough for two fairly thin persons to squeeze by, one going up and the other down. Cramped and hot near the bottom, although as we go upwards windows start appearing, which cool things down. Midway up are the bells of the south tower, which are incredible, about twice the height of an average person. The central one, which I believe is St. Peter's (all the bells are named for saints, or virtues), is supposedly the largest bell in the world. It is really amazing that someone can fashion a bell that large, which still makes a perfect pitch. Further upwards was the view from the top of the tower, where all of Cologne was spread out around us. A stunning view of the Rhein. We ran into the American Catholic musician Vince Nims near the top; he looked a few steps short of a heart attack. I wasn't in the best shape myself.

Once we made it back down Fr. EJB tried to find out whether an English-speaking mass was being offered on Sunday. I should note that, at this point, all of the pilgrims are gone, and the cathedral and plaza are nearly empty. They've all gone to Marienfeld, which is right outside the city, for the papal vigil for the mass on Sunday. We had originally planned on going, but after facing the crowds already at the papal opening, and since we have already seen the Holy Father a heck of a lot closer than we would see him at Marienfeld, we abandoned ship, and decided to enjoy the empty city. Fr. EJB talked to one cathedral staff after another, finding none that spoke English. He finally found one, who spoke enough English to get the mistaken impression that Fr. EJB was a bishop, so he took him into the sanctuary and let him see the papal chair (where the Holy Father sits/sat during mass). I, of course, do not look like a bishop.

While I was waiting for him I sat and took in some of the stained glass windows. They're not at all like ours, which tend to focus on one, isolated scene from Scripture or devotion. These windows are epics. Around one central artistic motif, entire narratives are woven, in smaller sections of the window. In one relatively small window one can 'read' the entire life of a saint, from birth, education, vocation, miracles, and death. Figurines embodying the virtues are present, with angels and demons to bring in the supernatural dimension. A whole life's story in glass. Rather, the Bible in glass. It is phenomenal to realize that this is precisely how generations upon generations of Christians were catechized, by coming here from hundreds of miles away to meditate upon a window.

Fr. EJB got all lined up for tomorrow's 10:00am English-speaking mass, and then we headed back to San Andreas (he wanted to see St. Albert). The Dominicans are still there, but it still amazes me how they maintain the atmosphere of piety despite all the tourists. During mass and office they actually close the church entrance, so literally no tourists can enter until mass is over. I picked up a Dominican pamphlet describing the order, which, on a page which lists the 'saints' of the order, lists Aquinas, Albert, Catherine of Siena, Eckhart and Savonarola. Go figure that one out and get back to me.

We hiked from San Andreas down the road to the Cologne City Museum. On the way we notice that the proselytizers were now out in force. The plaza, now nearly empty of tourists, is now filled with propagandists. Fundamentalists, anti-globalization protestors, anti-war (in Iraq) peaceniks, Falun Gong agitators, and some weird guitar-strumming love cult calling itself the 'Community of the Twelve Tribes.' You can't walk through the plaza without coming out the other end with your hands filled with literature. Much of it blatantly anti-Catholic. I imagine they were there in previous days as well, but are easier to spot without the pilgrims here. Ah well.

We reached the museum, which offered an entire history of the city of Cologne, stretching back to its foundations by Agrippa as a Roman colony in the age of the Caesars, to the fall of the Third Reich, all in artifacts and paintings. It is awesome to have a city this old, in which the history of European civilization can be traced. What stands out most of all is the resilient Catholicism of the city of Cologne, which served as a bastion of traditional religion amidst the ebb and flow of political and religious changes. The University of Cologne, which once stood in the middle of the city, helped to solidify this conservatism, with the help of a few militaristic Archbishops, who tended to have not only religious but military-political governance of the city for most of its existence.

The cathedral, too, is a history textbook in itself. It took six hundred years to build. I cannot imagine beginning construction on a project which I knew my great-great-great-great grandchildren would never see finished. All without the help of modern technology. Apparently the original plans to the building were lost a few decades after the project started, so the rest had to be made up as it went along. When the plans were discovered again centuries later, the final product was found to be vastly different from its original concept.

The traditional piety of the people of Cologne also stands out. Around the thirteenth century a wealthy businessman was arrested and thrown in jail, and all the possessions he was carrying confiscated; these possessions were later found intact, allowing a reconstruction of what a man would have carried around in that day. Besides a belt and seal, there were about six delicate, tiny bags, which would have contained relics. Apparently the average citizen of Cologne carried several with him whenever he left the house. Some of the furniture, too, is as catechetical as the stained glass windows of the Cathedral. A bureau and oven on display both contain ornate paintings which narrate the life of Christ or some saint (usually Ursula, who was really big here), so even in your kitchen or living room catechesis would be ready at hand, not to mention a call to devotion and piety.

One painting depics a street procession through Cologne after the city was bombed during one of the world wars (the second, I think). Nearly every building in the vicinity, including most churches, were bombed to the ground, but the Cathedral stood relatively undamaged (thanks to a rare display of restraint on the part of the allies). The Archbishop immediately called for all the relics from the rubble of the city's churches be gathered, and carried in procession, along with the tomb of the Magi, through the city to the Cathedral. This was how the city responded to tragedy: a rugged, communal sense of profound religious piety.

This is how most of the day played out. Sorry I have little to report as far as pilgrim activities, it's just that there are almost no pilgrims left in the city. I've been keeping up with the Holy Father's activities on the television back in the hotel. Unfortunately BBC (the only English channel we get here) has been doing the most wretched coverage I've ever seen. They brought one religious commentator in to explain the significance of the Holy Father's visit, and he spent five minutes discussing why the Catholic Church's position on gay sex was self-contradictory, since it blamed God for creating homosexuals. He was eventually, thankfully, cut off by the anchor, who asked him what that had to do with the papal visit. The good coverage is on the German stations, who are all giving the WYD nearly round-the-clock coverage. No blathering, either, almost all just straight-up live coverage of the Pope's activities. Unfortunately my German is terrible, but at least I can see what's going on.

Unfortunately or no, this will be my last blog report from Cologne. On Sunday we'll spend the morning making final arrangements, and will depart early afternoon, so I won't get to a computer. Thanks to everyone for reading, thanks especially to Amy Welborn for networking to so much positive blog coverage, and including my own humble attempts. God bless you all, and please keep the young pilgrims in prayer.

Cologne, Day 5

2005-08-20T04:22:00.000-04:00

I got up early again, hoping to catch breakfast for my first time here, and got it. At 9:00 I met with Fr. EJB in the lobby. He was anxious to get the car, so we headed out immediately, caught a taxi, and found the car with no problems. We caught up on the way: he had found a spot up next to the river, and had seen the papal boat sail by. The crowds, apparently, were even worse than around the cathedral. Once we got the car moving we headed back to the hotel, then met with Msgr. Fay to walk across town to St. Pantaleon's church, where the papal meeting with seminarians was to occur in the late afternoon. Although the pope wasn't actually due until 5:00pm, we were required to arrive by 11am. So a one-hour meeting was an all-day affair.

We arrived at 10:30, and a long line had already formed, of seminarians and those who worked in priestly formation. I ran into Fr. Bashista, the vocation director of my diocese, in the line. Security was tight, even though we had already gone through several checks just to get our tickets. Metal detectors, and the like. After making it through, seminarians and formators were simply wandering around the huge church courtyard, with nothing to do but wait six hours. We found out a mass was beginning in the church itself in ten minutes, so Msgr. and Fr. EJB ran in. They stopped me at the gates, priests only, but Fr. EJB called out that I was his personal 'sacristan' and he never went anywhere without me. 'Sacristan?' Anyway, it got me in, and I followed them into the church and sacristy. Of course, that made me the only one in the building wearing a tie, which is exactly what I wanted to avoid, but I sat in the corner and prayed my office, which at least made me look a little more priestly.

Mass began shortly. The whole mass, for what reasons I don't know, was in Latin, except the readings, which were in French. The French connection was made clear after mass, when I was checking out the church and saw a big full-size photograph right on the edge of the sanctuary of a face which couldn't be anyone but St. John Vianney. A closer inspection revealed that the glass display case next to the photograph was nothing less than the heart of the Cure d'Ars. Awesome. The priests were kneeling in veneration, many kissing the edge of the case. I did the same. On my way out of the church I nearly ran into a swiftly-moving priest, who someone else informed me was currently the pastor of Ars. Cool.

After the mass we tried to get out the back of the church, but the police had closed the massive iron gate to keep the throngs of seminarians from pushing their way in. So we went out the side exit, through the sacristy, and found ourselves right behind the stage set up for the Pope. We were actually in the VIP section, and a few bishops and cardinals had already arrived. Msgr. Fay and Fr. EJB started schmoozing, hoping that they could inconspicuously blend in and stay in the section. I managed to stay for only about half an hour, until my tie gave me away. Despite protestations (Fr. EJB even got Cardinal McCarrick to insist that I was his personal attendant), I was roughly led away by the police. Fr. EJB, though we didn't meet again until late in the evening, was escorted out only a half hour later (Fay, with his full cassock, looked enough like a Cardinal that he stayed in.)

I made my way into the seminarian section, where I met a couple of friendly seminarians from Freiburg, and a pair of huge Polish seminarians from Krakow. I ended up near the front of the seminarian section, only a hundred feet or so from the papal stage. The crowd started getting worked up as the 5:00 arrival approached. Chants of 'Benedetto!' were interspersed with 'Giovanni Paulo', showing the wonderful continuity, as the 'JPII Generation' embraces their new Pontiff. The other chant, from the French, was 'Viva la Papa!', to which the crowd responded, 'Viva!!' A sort of introduction began, in which the seminarians were greeted by representatives, who announced that of the 5,000 attendees, 59 countries were represented. As they read off the names, pockets of the crowd erupted in cheers, and flags were waved aggressively.

After many hours of waiting, the Holy Father finally arrived. We saw his popemobile pull up on the huge screen above, and the seminarians went crazy, the chants starting up again full force. When he finally entered the courtyard, I climbed up over a security fence onto a wall of the church, to get a good view. Unfortunately it didn't help. Please note: our Pontiff is short. I could see every one of the Cardinals escorting him, but the Holy Father is so darned short that I couldn't see him at all until he made his way out of the other side of the crowd. The crowd continued to go wild, and wouldn't quiet down. He stood up and waved for a while, but calmly. The descriptions of him as a bit 'wooden' are not far from the truth. He lacks completely the theatrics of John Paul II, who would have been working the crowd with his actor's charisma. After giving about three waves, Benedict just walked to his chair and sat down. No remarks, nothing: he looked a bit nervous, like he didn't know what else to do.

The evening was actually a vesper's service, led by the Holy Father. Almost entirely in Latin. The psalms were interspersed with vocation testimonies from seminarians. After the reading, the Holy Father gave a few brief remarks, reading off a prepared speech, which he read in German, English and Italian. He speaks all fluently, though his English accept is awfully thick. At the end of the service, he waved again briefly, and then departed through the crowd. I was very close, could see him clearly, and got some great shots. We were a bit disappointed, though, that his performance was so scripted, every word and every motion. Seemed to lack any spontaneity at all. Through the vespers service he remained stoic, looking straight ahead, his mouth whispering the psalms. But the seminarians clearly love him, and the energy was high.

No sooner had I walked out of the courtyard of the church when the downpour began, and I was soaked to the skin in minutes. I ducked under a news van and waited it out. Once it died down a bit, I ran back to the hotel. We were hours late for the youth gathering that Fr. EJB and I were sponsoring, but we had had others take the reigns for us, so it was going well. We missed dinner, but managed to get some pizza out of the kitchen. The youth were doing stations of the cross, and once they finished and began dispersing, we invited the rest of the staff (the emcee, some musicians) downstairs for drinks. A few bishops had shown up for the event, so we naturally invited them down too. Skylstad, Boland (retired from Kansas City-St Joseph), O'Brien (Military) and Dolan (Milwaukee) joined us for a while. Schnurr and Kote saw us going for drinks and tagged along (they had, today, finally found their diocesan pilgrims, for which I congratulated them).

O'Brien was giddy: he had shown up ten minutes late for the bishops' boat yesterday (the bishops of each continent got their own boat, which sailed in front of the papal boat). The boat had departed, and the only boat left was the papal boat, which they promptly shoved him onto. Geez. Most here are very unimpressed with the organization of this WYD, as compared to previous ones. Despite the reputation of the Germans, everything seems quite disorganized and last-minute. The Germans seemed utterly unprepared for this many people. One of the musicians had been at a catechetical site earlier in the day with Cardinal Arinze. He said Arinze had the kids rolling on the floor the whole time, mostly because he would heartily laugh at his own jokes every other sentence. Wish I had seen him. Another musician had been with Cardinal Pell, who apparently gave an excellent presentation.

Afterwards I came up to use the computer, waited nearly an hour for it and then gave up (which is why you'll get two days worth today). God bless, and please keep the pilgrims in your prayers. Tomorrow is the big day: everyone heads into Cologne for the vigil at Marienfield, for the final mass on Sunday.

Cologne, Day 4

2005-08-20T03:21:00.000-04:00

We headed out at 8:30am again to hit a few more of the English-speaking catechetical sites. We ended up being able to catch only one, at an athletic field where Cardinal Mahoney was presenting. When we arrived some musicians were entertaining the rambunctious crowd. Everyone seems to really be playing off the multicultural aspect, trying to work different languages and cultures into the performances, which really gets the crowd excited. It's clearly one of the coolest aspects of being here, when an African drum troupe is set up next to a Scottish dance troupe. Thankfully, the element of devotion is up front and center: even if the song and dance riffs at the catechetical site are a bit cheesy, at least it's praise and worship, which the youth are really getting into.

We headed back to our hotel, where we were supposed to meet Joe Campo and his boys for lunch. Since the Pope is arriving this evening, the streets have started to close down and the public transportation is already full, so they asked us to drive out their way rather than face down the overcrowded tram system. We we drove back out there to Dusseldorf. Their film company, Grassroots, is working on a film project with us, and they had a television set up in the lobby so we could look over their work so far - fantastic stuff. This is the group that did God on the Streets of New York in the Spring. Grassroots is a ministry of the St. Joseph House in New York, which is a house for troubled youth started by Benedict Groeschel (his first project, before he began the CFR's). Youth come there from prisons, halfway houses or juvenile detention centers, youth who have a desire to reform and live a better life. Once in the house, they live a semi-monastic lifestyle, devoted to prayer and ministry. Joe Campo, a layman, runs the house. From there, he discerns the gifts of each boy, and puts them to work in different ministries. One of these is grassroots, for those gifted with film and photography. Joe took six boys to Cologne with him, ranging in age from sixteen to twenty-seven. They're rough around the edges, still fresh from the streets, but with a beautiful desire to serve Christ which is authentic and refreshing. Joe is a father figure for them, probably the only one they've ever had.

We decided to grab lunch back in Cologne rather than risk staying in Dusseldorf too long. We crammed the eight of us into our minivan and drove back. It was too late. The streets had already gradually began to shut down for the Pope's arrival. Once we got into the city, I would be driving down one street, and then a police van would pull out and block the street, diverting us onto another one, etc. We kept getting boxed in and circled around, so I decided it was best to abandon the car and work our way in by foot. I pulled it over to the side of a street, we unpacked our stuff and the boys' film equipment and started hiking. Fr. EJB had to take off: he wanted to be present for the Pope's arrival. Joe and the boys wanted to hike around the city, do some interviews, etc., so I decided to stick with them.

One street over the crowds were gathered, and we found out the Pope was due to drive down this street any second. We camped out for a few minutes, then the motorcycles started coming, avec sirens blaring. The boys set up their cameras and squirmed through the crowds into position. Then more police cars, and then the limos. There were four or five limos in the papal motorcade, and it wasn't easy to tell which one was the Pope's (apparently it had papal flags flying from the hood). It didn't help that the other limos were packed full of bishops and cardinals in the papal entourage, who were looking out the windows and grinning, as the cars drove by at 50mph. In the end, none of us were really sure we saw the pope in person at all. But the crowd was excited. The new chant for this pope, as I'm sure everyone has already heard on television, is the Italian (?) ''BE-ne-DETT-o!'' I haven't even heard any attempts at alternative chants, so this one really seems to be catching on as the universal papal chant (much as ''Giovanni-Paulo!'' was for JPII. Same intonation too, which is probably why it works so well.

Once the motorcade passed and the crowds dispersed, we headed down to the cathedral. By this time it was around 1:30pm. The Pope was headed to a boat, where he was to sail downstream and arrive at the cathedral around 4:00pm. The cathedral was a mess - the crowds had descended from all over the three cities, and thousands upon thousands had thronged to the cramped cathedral plazas. Various exits and roads had been blocked off, and even the public transportation in the immediate area was closed, so getting around was impossible. We finally found a restaurant with a table, and I bought the boys some lunch. We had a great time over lunch - they all drank sodas and ate off one another's plates. We talked about the spiritual renewal of Europe over fried potatoes and sausage.

After a quick lunch Joe and the boys started strategizing for getting photo shots. We were next to the cathedral, only a few feet from the street the popemobile would be driving down, but the crowds were twenty or thirty thick, so any chance of seeing the Pope from ground level was impossible. Joe slipped the waiter a twenty and he brought us up to the third floor of the restaurant, where the window tables had a clear shot of the road. They set up, but once the owner came out and saw us camped out there, he flew into a fury and ordered us out in no uncertain terms. At least Joe got his twenty back.

The security was very tight, but they found it hard to plug all the holes in the centuries-old plaza, so holes occasionally opened up. When one guard was distracted, Joe and the boys made their move to slip behind him, up the steps onto the cathedral level. One, the oldest, made it past, the others were discovered and turned away. They were overjoyed that Cliff had made it past, with a camera no less, and prayed that he'd get a good shot. With nowhere else to go, the rest of us headed around the cathedral through the closed subway tunnels. As we were walking, they saw another hole open up in the security, and made their move. I pulled back, lacking the daring that press usually have in these situations.

So, on my lonesome now, with my car on the other side of the city and inaccessible, I wandered around for a bit, then, worn out by the screaming crowds, I meandered down to the Legionaires coffeehouse, where they had the papal arrival on wide screen through live video feed. I caught it there with a cappuccino.

I then decided to search out the tombs of St. Albert and Duns Scotus. Scotus, as I was told, was in a side street just off the cathedral plaza. I found the church without a problem, but had a very hard time finding the tomb. For some reason the church had turned into an all-out campaign for the canonization of some 'Konrad something or other', with lifesize posters, statues, displays and literature in every nook and corner. I didn't see a single Franciscan: perhaps it wasn't their church. (The Franciscans have camped out at a 'Cafe Cappucino' spot they've set up near the cathedral, cute and highly effective, but interesting that the others chose to use churches and liturgies as their venue.) In the back corner was what looked like a cement coffin. Over it, in old German cast in wrought iron, I could make out DUNS SCOTUS. The 'coffin' was raised off the ground on a stand, with a set of candles in front of it, and a couple of flowers. Another panel on the wall, also quite old, indicated that Scotus had been re-interred here in a joint ceremony between the bishop of Rome and an Eastern patriarch. Probably quite recent, though I didn't catch the name of the Pope. The 'coffin' had a couple of simple symbols on it (papal keys, etc.), but not knowing much about Scotus' life, I couldn't decipher them. I knelt and said a prayer for self, friends, family, and the handful of my blog readers (without whom I wouldn't have known Scotus was here).

After heading back to the hotel to grab some dinner, I ventured back into the crowds again. I was a little unclear about St. Albert's resting place. I saw a St. Martin's church on the map and took a gander. As it turns out it was a Benedictine church, but well worth the mistake. The Benedictines were there in force, the good ones, sisters and brothers in full habits. A vespers service had just let out, and the Benedictines had put on an impressive show. Very solemn and reverent. I took a look around the church: beautiful and ancient, but no relics.

Outside St. Martin's I headed west, to the other side of the Cathedral, to check out a few churches over there. On the way I saw two brothers robed in white eating dinner in a cafe. I accosted them. No English, but what I needed to know wasn't that hard to communicate.

Me: Order of St. Dominic?

Dominicans: Jah.

Me: Heileger Albertus Magnus? Here? (with a gesture around the plaza)

Dominicans: Jah, Jah.

(they grabbed my map and pointed to the church); 'San Andreas'. I somehow managed to communicate that I had found Duns Scotus, but not St. Albert.

Dominicans (looking alarmed): Oh, no, no, no. Albertus Magnus. He ist much, much better.

So I took off for San Andreas, and found it without any problems. Shouldn't have been too hard. The Dominicans, also, were in full force there, having taken over a small plaza outside San Andreas, with tables and literature. Dominican sisters were handing out literature all over the plaza, and brothers and sisters were chatting up the pilgrims. Inside the church was worlds apart from any others I had visited. The Dominicans had slapped up posters on every available space, both around the entrance and over and beside every door, indicating 'SILENCIO' in every language on earth. They pulled no punches: this was no tourist spot, but a house of prayer. As a result, the church was dead silent, despite being full of worshippers and pilgrims. A perpetual adoration site was over in a side chapel, filled with pilgrims on their knees on the hard church floor. Just to the right of the adoration chapel, I found a display case with the vestments worn by St. Albert. Awesome.

I got a bit frustrated when I couldn't find Albert himself, so I accosted another Dominican by the entrance. 'Albertus Magnus?' He gestured silently to a small, low-cut door in the stone wall next to the high altar. It was a dark stairwell leading to a crypt below. All the way down: 'SILENCIO' signs everywhere. A full crypt at the bottom had some beautiful art pieces, in a space prepared for mass. In the back, a staircase leading to an even lower section of the crypt, where another stone 'coffin' stood, elevated above the ground and surrounded by candles. I knelt once again and said a prayer, for several intentions, especially for those who read my blog (don't worry, Polish Prince, you got a shout-out).

After visiting St. Albert, I had had enough for the day, so I hiked back to the hotel. I had hoped to get the car tonight, but it was late and the crowds hadn't even begun to disperse. If anything, they were getting rowdier. Many had turned into pubs as it got dark. The cathedral steps were something approaching a mosh pit. So I decided to fetch the car in the morning, if it was still there.

Cologne, Day 3

2005-08-18T13:01:00.000-04:00

Got an early start today, up at 7am, to visit the various catechetical sites around the WYD area. There are many, many such sites around Cologne and Dusseldorf. About twenty are aimed at an English-speaking audience, about ten of those run by the American episcopal conference. The basic format of the catechetical sites is to have a program which runs from mid-morning until early afternoon, alternating between music, prayer, and speakers (generally catechetical in nature), with a whole lot of emceeing to keep the kids animated. Each site has a 'featured' catechist, usually a well-known bishop or Cardinal.

Wednesday we started off driving down to Dusseldorf, a nice thirty-minute drive north from Cologne, to visit St. Francis Xavier church, where Cardinal George of Chicago was catechist. We just missed his speech, but he was seated in the presider's chair during a break, with a long line of kids waiting to kneel, kiss his ring, and exchange a few words. Real pop star culture. Most of these kids are from third-world countries; I can't imagine they've heard of George, but the Cardinal's velvet must be the draw. Some American Catholic musicians were playing from the stage (sanctuary?).

In the foyer I happened across an old friend from a few years back, Fr. Mark Schwab, a Canadian priest from the Vancouver diocese who spent over a decade in youth ministry, and is now chancellor of that diocese. Great to see him, and exchange a few stories. The great part about English-speaking catechetical sites is that you often run into people you know, which wouldn't happen otherwise. While in Dusseldorf we made contact with another friend staying in a local hotel, Joseph Campo, who runs Youth 2000 and Grassroots Film project, closely associated with the CFR brothers in the Bronx. He and six of his boys are doing some filming on a joint project, and we arranged to spend most of the day together on Thursday.

From Dusseldorf we headed south of the city to a major sports arena ('Bayarena'), another English-speaking catechetical site. This arena hosts 17,000, and its featured speaker is Cardinal McCarrick today. Again, we missed the talk, but got to chat with a lot of the young people. The place is swarming with nuns in full habit, who are an incredible presence here in Cologne. Every group seems to have a few nuns with it, and they are working to staff a lot of the sites, often behind the scenes. None of them are promoting their own order, either, just helping and assisting. We met our friend Sr. Trinite at the arena, with her mother superior and a gaggle of her sisters. I still can't emphasize enough how joyful this crowd is, and how fired up. Someone had the idea to promote WYD whistles, and every group seems to have a few. Walking through the streets makes you have to hold your ears to block out the shrieking call and answer. We saw a few 'I Love My German Shepherd' T-shirts; no Ratzinger Fan Club's yet.

We heard some of the WYD staff discussing some of the events the day the pilgrims arrived. Apparently on Monday Planned Parenthood did an all-out promotion, and plastered all the subways and railways in Cologne with pro-condom posters. But from the hour the pilgrims started arriving, the posters started coming down. Most pilgrims ripped selectively, crossways and upwards, to tear out the shape of a cross across the posters. Others took the whole things down (apparently unaware or unfazed by the fact that this is a criminal offense here). By the end of the first day, nothing was left on the subways but ripped-out crosses and bare walls. That's the energy here. It's not that the kids are necessarily fiercely orthodox. It's just that this is their show, it's their time, it's their Church, and they don't want anyone raining on their parade, or cramming ideology down their throats.

We made it back to the hotel for dinner. Schnurr and Cody wandered by again, still without their flocks. At least they seem to be having a good time. Cardinal Mahoney dashed past our table in the middle of dinner, apparently late for something. (speaking of hulking beasts - Mahoney is fitted out like a praying mantis.) Sitting next to us was a young priest from Bavaria, a fellow diocesan of Joseph Ratzinger's, as it turns out. There are a lot of Bavarians here, although talking to this priest about the diocese was a bit gloomy. They have 500 priests in the diocese, which is a heck of a lot (but Chicago's not too far off), but, as he whispered under his breath, only forty seminarians. Yowya. The Legionaries, as I learned today, have 500 priests worldwide - 2,500 seminarians. I mean, apples and oranges, I know, but it really puts things in perspective.

Speaking of which, after lunch we hit the vocation.com coffeehouse again, which is still rocking out, wheeling out the confessions and masses. Father Bannon, who serves as general of the American Legionaries, is out working the crowds outside; apparently he knows several European languages. The coffee house is really the only place to go. As everyone hear is complaining, there is no real central location in this WYD. Every event and location is spread between three cities. In Toronto, on the contrary, everything was in one city, with one central 'celebration pavilion' which was the hub of every event. Here there is nothing like this. The Cathedral is the only thing close, but unlike Toronto, there's really nothing to do in or around the Cathedral. No events are planned there, just mobs of kids. So the coffeehouse is really turning into a big hub.

I split from Fr. EJB in the late afternoon and, on the advice of some of my readers, hunted around for the tombs of Bl. Duns Scotus and St. Albert the Great. The WYD program had advertised a celebration of Scotus at a church in SW Cologne earlier in the day, so I figured that must be the church he's buried in. (The celebration was put on by the Scottish bishops, who are apparently making a big deal of the fact that Duns is a Scot. Who knew?) I drove down there and found the church. Everyone there was in mass, so I looked around in the foyer and found no clues which would indicate that it was Scotus' tomb, or in fact nothing connecting it with the Franciscans at all. I dragged a volunteer out of mass: she was German but spoke decent English. She had no idea what I was talking about, and took me to the local WYD office, staffed by six teenage Norwegians who speak zippo English.

Volunteer: Vat iz it you vant?

Me: I'm looking for Duns Scotus.

Volunteer and Norwegians: Dunz Skotuz? Who ist he?

Me: Well, he's dead. I'm looking for his grave.

Volunteer and Norwegians: (look very confused) Ver is he from?

Me: Well, Scotland, actually. But he is buried here.

Volunteer: Ah, he came with de Skottish pilgrims. Did he leave zomething here?

Me: No, no. He's dead. He is a saint. Well, actually, a blessed.

Norwegians: Hieleger? Ah!

Much confusion followed. Apparently the Norwegians call him 'John Scotus', and not Duns, hence part of the confusion. They still seemed confused about why I was looking for his grave. They pulled up a computer and googled it, and found the name of the local church where he is.

Me: Okay, how about St. Albert the Great?

Volunteers and Norwegians: Albert who?

Me: He is a saint. Albert. Umm.....from Italy?

(blank stares)

Me: Albertus Magnus?

Volunteers and Norwegians: ALBERTUS MAGNUS!! AH!!!

The universal language. I love it. They googled his church, too. Both are near the cathedral, so I'll hit them tomorrow. Makes me wonder who else is here. Someone should produce a 'POD Pligrims Guide' to various cities. It would have quite an audience. These tombs weren't on ANY of the tourist material (well, I suppose it's not that surprising, but not even on the WYD materials?).

I met with Fr. EJB again at another huge church near the Cathedral, which is being run by the Sisters of the Family of Mary (? best I made out in rough translation of their French), who have turned it into a perpetual adoration site. Youth 2000 is helping out as well, and there are constant confessions in the side chapels. Fr. EJB and I headed down and grabbed dinner. This late in the week my stomach needs a break from sausage and beer, so we opted for Asian instead. Drank way too much wine, blogged (this should explain the state of my blogging, done late at night when everyone in Cologne is drunk) and went to sleep.

Cologne, Day 2

2005-08-17T18:35:00.000-04:00

I woke up on Tuesday morning late, pumped myself up with coffee, and headed down for another day. I found Archbishop Dolan (Milwaukee) in the lobby, newly-arrived and without a scrap of luggage (compliments of British Airways).

The first task of the day was to register for the Friday seminarian gathering with the Holy Father. The event itself was a surprise: the seminarist event itself was planned long in advance: no one knew the Holy Father himself was going to show until he announced his intention to do so a few weeks back. Immediately security was tightened. Myself, Fr. EJB and Msgr. Bill Fay (Archdiocese of Boston) headed down to St. Pantaleon's parish to register. We waited in line for several hours, chatting with seminarians from all over the world, religious and diocesan. The seminarians are pumped: the high profile given to their event by Pope Benedict was unexpected and appreciated, and energy is running high. Requirements were strict: passport, pre-registration ID, personal letter from bishop authorizing attendance for a seminarian. Fortunately, the volunteers could not read a word of English, or else they would have grasped that I carried a letter from Bishop John Nienstedt (New Ulm) explaining that I was not a seminarian and had no connection with seminarians whatsoever. Fortunately, as I said, they could not read English. I was registered and assigned a check-in for Friday, for a select group of 5,000 seminarists to see Pope Benedict on Fritag.

On the way back we met Bishops Schnurr (Duluth) and Cote (Norwich) wandering around, having been separated from their pilgrim groups, and trying desparately to find them. We jibed them about being shepherds without sheep.

Fr. EJB and I grabbed lunch with Bishop Skylstad (Spokane) and Msgr. Fay. Bishop Rosazza (Hartford) joined us later, as he wandered into the building. I was able to give Skylstad a few pointers about places to see when he goes to Jordan in a few months to visit the Patriarch there. I have to mention that, on the previous day, when attending mass at the crypt churhch of St. Mary Major, I received the chalice from Msgr. Fay. Now, upon reaching the chalice (which is unusual in itself in my diocese, where the chalice is not offered by local liturgical law) I noticed that it was filled to the brim, and being the last communicant, I decided to do the Eucharistic minister a favor by chugging a good bit of the Precious Blood, so he (he being Msgr. Fay) wouldn't have to chug it himself. Unfortunately, as could have been expected, I chugged and then choked, after a few gulps nearly spewing the Precious Blood all over the General Secretary of the USCCB. But I kept it back with much effort, although he no doubt noticed, making the lunch later a bit awkward.

After lunch we did some preliminary planning for our vocations program on Friday, with the youth of the military. All the steps should be in place. More on that later.

We then headed out to check out a gathering called 'vocation.com', named after the self-entitled vocations website. The site, as the gathering, is run (quietly) by the Legionaires of Christ. The Legionaires never cease to amaze me. They managed to secure a hotel about one block from the Cathedral, a prime spot for young people. They are running a 'coffeeshop' with live internet access and dirt-cheap food available for any pilgrims who stop by. An hourly mass and six confession stations (in about 20 languages) run twelve hours a day. Live bands and intermittent vocation speakers exchange places on the stage. Books and flyers from Legionaires and Regnum Christi criss-cross the room. The kids come in droves. Hundreds every hour flock in and out, peppering the confession booths, chattering up the priests (why is it that the Legionaire priests are the best-looking priests around?), and crowding in for masses. No site at WYD is as successful. They blatantly promote priestly vocations, parade their priests around, and push (literally) the kids into confession booths, and the kids respond en masse. No one else is pushing confessions. The Legionaires are there. I am incredibly grateful, because spiritual renewal is impossible without penance: I know that, and the Legionaires know that. Top-name bands take turns on the stage, Fr. EJB takes his turn giving a vocations talk (a bang-up job, too).

I caught a mass downstairs, with Fr. EJB presiding with two German priests assisting (one, I think, was a Legionaire). The mass was a combination of German and English, as was the crowd. The kids loved every minute, and flocked around Fr. EJB afterwards. He met two kids he had baptized back home in his home diocese. The kids love the priests, drink it up. There's a respect there. I prayed my office while the kids chatted up Fr. EJB, and I caught a confession with a Legionaire who barely spoke English (no worries, a fantastic confessor!). We left both utterly amazed by what the Legionaires had put together. No fuss. Just substance.

We visited the cathedral next. It is hard to compare with what we had seen in Vienna. Easily twice as big as St. Stephen's, towering over the landscape. The inside (and outside) is in even worse shape, rusted and discolored, blackened in most places. The structure had survived the WWII bombing, but not the passage of time. The structure is awe-inspiring from any angle, but it is in desparate need of work. The inside is great, because it is unchanged from the medieval era. Now as then, the cathedral is built to facilitate great numbers of pilgrims while simultaneously hosting an uninterrupted mass. Hundreds of pilgrims eased around the ambulatory side chapels without disrupting the mass. The prize: the remains of the three Magi, entombed in a tri-layer bright gold coffin on the high altar in the back of the church. I clutched the iron-wrought gate and whispered a prayer to the Magi, for myself, for the whole Church, and for union with the Church of the East (whence the Magi came).

The cathedral is serving as a focus point for the pilgrims gathering. While the interior is half-empty, the outside is thronged with pilgrim crowds, each carrying its national flag and usually doing some sort of chant or song. Spontaneous expressions of enthusiasm come forward. One group somehow organized a 'live fooz-ball' tournament, which each participant standing in one place kicking stoically at a ball. Other groups gather spontaneously for dances, songs and chants. The universal call goes out, 'WHERE FROM'? The response: Paraguay, Bavaria, Chile, Argentina, etc. The questioner then goes on, in most cases, to shout the name at the top of his lungs: 'PARAGUAY!!! YEEEAAAAHHH!!!' 'BAVARIA!! ROCK ON!!!!' Germans dominate the crowds, but the Bavarians are in especially high spirits, given the origins of Pope Benedict - they even have their own checkered flag.

At the cathedral we ran into Fr. Francis Bonicci, a secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education. Humble and even unimpressive in person, he remains a wonderful servant of the church in the area of vocations. On our way back from the cathedral, we met Bishops Schnurr and Cote again, still hanging around in front of the cathedral trying to find their flocks. They kind of remind me of lost high school kids who have somehow managed to get hold of a stray hall pass.

Fr. EJB and I caught dinner at a local restaurant. I ordered what sounded like a nice dish of pork and beef. Warning (Achtung): When you order food in Germany, make sure you ask the waiter whether or not the meal is served in gelatin form. The Polish Prince and I have had an inside joke about 'meat jello' for years. Never did I dream that it would show up on my plate. I forgot that Germany borders Poland. I have never been so ashamed to send a dish back to the kitchen. Fortunately it came with a generous side dish of french fries. Mid meal Fr. EJB and I saw Archbishop Levada and his auxiliary, Bishop Wang, stumbling through the plaza, clearly lost and confused. We thought about assisting them, but the meat jello was too enthralling.

After dinner I headed back to the hotel for some reading (Joseph Pieper, jah) and a soft glass of wine. Fr. EJB headed back to vocation.com, where the action is. More tomorrow, when the action really heats up.

Cologne, Day 1

2005-08-16T15:19:00.000-04:00

We actually arrived in Cologne late Sunday night, picked up a car and went straight to the hotel. The place we're staying is right on the Rhine, although I can only see the Rhine from my room if I press my face way, way up against the glass of the window and look sideways. The weather has been surprisingly, and unseasonably, as I hear, cool and even chilly. But it is a nice surprise. Fr. EJB and I stopped by a pub on the corner. New discovery: German pubs (which as a rule, I learn, are breweries) only carry one kind of beer, i.e. their own. So there is no selection of beers. They ask, 'a beer'?, and you respond, 'a beer.' Other discovery: Germans drink beers by the fifth of a liter, which is about a half the size of a typical American pint glass.

Monday morning my body finally caught up with me, and I slept in until the maid woke me up at 10am. After a quick cup of coffee at the cafe, Fr. EJB and I headed off to the Cologne WYD center to register as pilgrims. Although it's still Monday and the opening mass isn't until Tuesday, the lines are already very long, and we spend most of the morning standing in line. In the cool weather, though, it is not hard to do, and the pilgrims are delightful. We were standing between a group of German locals, and a lone seminarian from rural Poland. No matter how far away the place, Fr. EJB is alway within two or three degrees of separation (he had a mutual friend with the Polish seminarist, stationed together briefly in Krakow).

All the pilgrims are decked out in national colors, many simply wearing flags draped over or around their shoulders. The Irish are especially loud, and when two Irish groups meet, hold your ears. The Americans, unsurprisingly, are the most subdued in this environment. You don't see a lot of American flags. While standing in line, a group will suddenly break out in a chant or cheer, usually religious, and other groups will pick it up, which gets the whole line involved, even crossing national boundaries. There's a real authentic sense of pride in being religious, which is uncommon for Germans, I think. Many youth are wearing 'Jesus is #1' or 'I love Pope Benedict' T-shirts, which is great.

I had made the mistake of signing myself up as 'group leader' rather than Fr. EJB, which means nothing in reality, but I'm going to get egged for it the entire time we're here - anticlericalism, etc.

Once we made it back to the hotel, a number of the US bishops (many of whom are staying at the same hotel) were headed out for a midday mass, including Skylstad (Spokane), Sheridan (Colorado Springs), and Zurek (San Antonio auxiliary). We hiked down to a small church called St. Mary Major, which had a shocking display of photographs from during the war, when it had been bombed literally to the ground. The church is run by a community of nuns, the New Community of Jerusalem, apparently with its base in Paris. A wonderful community, very young and dynamic. We celebrated mass down in the crypt church, which was barren, carved out of rock and devoid of any ornamentation. Monastic in style, with a rock altar standing in the middle. Bishop Skylstad presided. For those who know him, he is rather shy and retiring, but he is also very open and transparent in all the best ways. He did take me a little off guard during the great Amen, when he led his unsuspecting congregation (all three of us) in a rousing chorus of the African-american spiritual version ('Aaaaaaaymen! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaymen! . . .). I prayed my office as they were un-vesting, and found the crypt wonderful for meditation.

Sheridan, by the way, is a hulking beast of a man, with shoulders as broad as a gorilla and a frat boy haircut, and a glance that lets you know he could kill you in less than three seconds. But quite cordial. I suppose. We were escorted by an Irish-born priest, Fr. Tom Healey, who serves the English-speaking community here in Germany, although he knew an excessive amount of detailed information about my hometown in rural North Carolina, which he insisted was a center of liturgical reform by the Oratorian community. I insisted, in turn, that the foothills of North Carolina had not seen a good liturgy since the 1940s. We each left convinced that the other was crazy.

We grabbed dinner at a local joint Monday night with Bishop Zurek and an American reporter. The reporter ended up buying dinner for us, because he was convinced we could get him into a papal event later in the week (we couldn't, and we told him that, but he was convinced otherwise, so we declined to prevent him from paying).

The hotels in Europe have the odd habit of supplying one computer for a hotel of over a thousand rooms. The one computer, in a renovated supply closet, is the 'business center'. But, surprisingly, there's been little competition for it. Perhaps because of the price.

Vienna in three hours

2005-08-15T11:21:00.000-04:00

After three hours sleep Saturday night (body system is still very, very confused) Fr. EJB and I had as many hours to explore the city of Vienna before departing for Cologne.

Since the hotel was located in the first district, we took a hike around the ring, which took us through the district, straight up to the Cathedral of St. Stephen. The structure is enormous and awesome to behold. The spire itself (although currently under construction) towers over the city impressively. Sadly, as you can tell somewhat from the photo, the roof seems to have been redone, most likely in the 70s or therabouts. Rather than the decrepit but still authentic rusted copper that remains on some lower roof sections, the main roofing is now a garish collection of pastel tiles which completely clash from the rest of the cathedral.

The interior remains wonderfully authentic, untouched by modern renovations. Beautiful statuary, awe-inspiring paintings, etc. It puts anything American, including the national shrine in Washington, to shame. This is the real thing, no pale imitation. You could spend hours in every corner, real enough to imagine you are still in the twilight of the Medieval era.

We caught a mass at the cathedral, which was packed out with tourists. The liturgical confusion in the congregation, though predictable, was a sad reminder of the failed implementation of concilar reform. Throughout the Eucharistic prayer, every three seconds one group would stand, another would kneel, and another would sit, and three seconds later they would alternate. Some knelt for the preface, stood for the words of institution, and then sat for the memorial acclamation. No one really seemed to know what to do.

Again, I will have my own pictures of the interior in good time. As in the Medieval period, the cathedral still functions as the town center, and the area around it still has the public, near festive atmosphere it would have had five hundred years ago, with beggars, pantomimes, public demonstrations, pilgrims singing spontaneous hymns, speeches and vendors, etc.

After the cathedral we walked two blocks down to investigate a church structure we had seen from the square. It was a round structure, old in architectural style but clearly built or renovated very recently. The Church of St. Peter.

This was the surprise, and the high point, of the whole trip to Vienna. If anyone goes to Vienna they must spend a few hours here. To walk inside is to feel as though you have walked through the gates of Paradise. It is the most ornate and incredible church interior I have ever seen. Beautiful paintings (including a stunning dome), gilded statues, stained glass, etc. Most impressive of all, it was all clearly brand new, shining and spotless, clean and fresh. Yet the style was reminiscent of the fifteenth century, Renaissance period. You could really believe you were living during that time, because nothing in the church had aged. In two side chapels were full skeletons of early Roman martyrs (Benedict and Donatus, not to be confused with the founder of the religious order or the heretic), on full display encased in glass underneath altars, still dressed in their decayed garments. Over the high altar (note: there was no other altar, which is the first thing that got me wondering) was a great painting of St. Peter healing the leper at the gates of the temple. The clash between this church, recently built and almost excessively ornate (think lots and lots and lots of money) and the cathedral (equally beautiful, but rusted, crumbling and desparately in need of repair - think no money) is the second thing that got me thinking. The discrepancy told me immediately that this church must not belong to the Archdiocese of Vienna. There is no way the Archdiocese would build or restore this church and leave the cathedral in shambles. 'Wealthy lay fraternity' was ringing in my head. The back of the church had no gift shop, but prayer cards to St. Jose Maria Escriva in eight languages. Viola. Think what you will, never before had I been in a church which made me think, if only for a second, that heaven could only be a downer after seeing this (just for a second, of course).

After lingering around St. Peter's for a while (I desparately wanted to stay for a mass, but there was no time), we trucked back to the hotel, and then off to the airport for Cologne. We arrived in Cologne late Sunday night, and I write from the Cologne hotel at the moment. I'll have much more to report about Cologne, 'Day 1' proper of World Youth Day. Probably later tonight.

Please, in the meantime, keep the young people here deeply in your prayers. It is a time of great opportunity for spiritual renewal, and conversion, for many. For many, it will be the greatest such opportunity; for others, it may be the only. Intercede for the salvation of many souls here.

Cologne or Bust...

2005-08-13T21:42:00.000-04:00

With apologies for my blog absence for most of this past week, I have been working on my top secret project day and night; up until 3am two nights back.

I have mentioned in passing, I think, that I am attending World Youth Day in Cologne, through a fortunate series of coincidences, which happened to make it a more or less business related trip. Without going into details, I will be in Cologne for the entire week leading up to World Youth Day, with a travelling companion to whom I will refer as Fr. EJB. My top secret project made it entirely impossible not only to blog, but also to put any planning at all into this trip, with the result that I head into it entirely unprepared, in every way.

As it happens, I am currently blogging from a hotel in Vienna, en route to Cologne. Our flight to Cologne was delayed, so we were put up in the Vienna Imperial Hotel in downtown. Not that I am complaining. I was told by the taxi driver that Hitler stayed here on a regular basis.

Did anyone know that European keyboards, or at least Austrian keyboards, are different than American ones? Most of the basic letters are where they should be, except that the Y and the Z are switched, and most of the ancillary keys are all mixed up (e.g., colon and semicolon, parentheses, even the shift key). Driving me battz. I mean batty.

So Fr. EJB and I leave for Cologne tomorrow afternoon, which gives us a few hours in the morning to explore the city. The prize will be Saint Stephen's Cathedral, or 'Stephendom', which I hear is one of the most beautiful in Europe.

I'll be blogging daily from Cologne, if not twice daily; hopefully this can substitute for a journal of sorts. I have a camera, but unfortunately my capabilities for downloading images are at home, so the pics will have to wait until next week.

Bon voyage until tomorrow...

The Old Oligarch never ceases to amaze me

2005-08-04T08:42:00.000-04:00

The new 'Matrix' vocation poster from the Archdiocese of Indianapolis reminds him of a Matrix takeoff he did two years ago, with Edmund Husserl as Morpheus and Catherine Pickstock as Trinity.

2005-08-03T12:27:00.000-04:00

Yet another reason not to read Diogenes.

Bill Cork unravels how CWN's resident alarmist has . . . well, let the reader decide: either carried out an unprecedented feat of sloppy journalism, or engaged in explicit and malevolent slander against the Cardinal Prefect-elect.

Frescoes of the Life of St. Augustine

2005-08-03T11:54:00.000-04:00

I recently discovered several frescoes of Benozzo Gozzoli (1420 - 1497), from the Apsidal Chapel of Sant' Agostino, San Gimignano, Italy but also available on-line. These are, respectively: (1) St. Augustine reading the epistles of St. Paul, (2) St. Augustine teaching in Carthage, and (3) the funeral of St. Augustine. Lots more here. Hat tip, Polish Prince.

2005-08-02T10:22:00.000-04:00

For some (I hear), the cure to all the Church's ills is the mass ordination of homosexuals.

For others, the cure to all the Church's ills (and probably the coming of the Parousia) is the mass purging from the priesthood of all men who experience same-sex attraction.

Let's not pretend the question of sexual 'orientation' is a neutral one, or that it is irrelevant to a man's suitability for priestly ministry. But, at the same time, let's not be sheer, blithering idiots about it either.

Idiocy, as always, breeds contempt:

[T]his has to be broader than homosexuality...every blotch of heterodoxy must be scrubbed clean. I also believe that it needs to start from the top down...a few, very public removals of dissenting bishops will see all the rats desert. Let the Inquisition begin!

Nuke 'em.

Nuke em. Whatever it takes, however long it takes, the lavender boys will be rooted out,

How much longer do we have to "tolerate" their outright hostility and perversion in the name of Christian "charity?"

If only we could! I suspect that "decimate" is the precisely correct term, i.e. about every tenth priest would be defrocked for homosexuality.

Did Pope Benedict have this in mind when he called for a smaller but more loyal Church?

Yes, I'm certain this is exactly what the Holy Father had in mind. In fact, I'm surprised he hasn't yet checked into Diogenes' blog and echoed some of the above sentiments himself. Perhaps he's preoccupied.

Ever wonder why, when the Church speaks of the "respect, compassion, and sensitivity" due to those who experience the trial of same-sex attraction, those outside the Church have a little trouble taking this at face value?

Bring on the combox road rage.

God on the Streets of New York

2005-08-02T09:10:00.000-04:00

On November 24, 2004, Pope John Paul II blessed six monstrances, representing each of the six continents, which are being used to promote a worldwide Adoration for Vocations campaign during the Year of the Eucharist and sponsored by www.vocation.com and Adoration for Vocations, Serra International and the Holy See's Congregation for Catholic Education's Pontifical Office for Vocations.

One of the six monstrances blessed by Pope John Paul II was presented to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on January 2, 2005 on behalf of vocation.com and the Legion of Christ. The USCCB and the USA Council of Serra International are sending this monstrance throughout North America for dioceses to use in promoting Adoration for Vocations during this year of the Eucharist.

During the week of April 1-8, 2005, the monstrance traveled to the Archdiocese of New York, where a grand parish-to-parish Eucharistic procession was held through the streets and boroughs of New York City. The 33 hour breathtaking Eucharistic procession, led by many priests of the Archdiocese and a police escort, is captured on the video God in the Streets.

I was scheduled to visit New York for this procession, but had to cancel when the good wife went into pre-term labor with Ambrose. The video truly is breathtaking: Watch it here.

2005-07-28T15:54:00.000-04:00

Cardinal George: A Lenin in America, 2005.

On Stocking Groceries . . . the Catholic way.

2005-07-27T12:41:00.000-04:00

Over at Disputations, Tom is discussing a 'Catholic grocer' (btw, Tom, if you'd let us know where this guy works, I'm sure we could send a lot of customers his way). Some selections:

More strictly, "Catholic grocer" could mean a person who traffics in groceries in a manner consistent with the Catholic faith; in this case, "Catholic" modifies the way in which the traffic in groceries is conducted.

There seems to be plenty of stuff in being a grocer that can't really be modified by being Catholic. A grocer order his goods, stocks his shelves, prices his merchandise, receives payments, keeps his books, and so on. These can be done in accord with the Catholic faith, but they are essentially natural, material acts.

And if it's the case that the content of the ideas of Catholic intellectuals are thoroughly Catholic, then might it even be the case, somehow, that the content of the stores of Catholic grocers are thoroughly Catholic? Does that actually mean anything, and if so, what?

The discussion is meant to clarify the meaning of 'Catholic intellectual', and more broadly, I think, exactly what is the scope of that which can be 'qualified' ('modified'?) by grace. It's an intriguing question, and I think it goes further than whether or not a Catholic grocer's groceries are any different than the pagan grocer's groceries. More importantly, is the way a Catholic grocer goes about his work, say, stocking shelves, distinct in any way from the way a pagan does it? Putting aside the question of supernatural virtues, are his 'natural' actions qualified in any way by the fact that he is a Catholic?

As it is always encumbent upon me to offer the unsolicited Augustinian take on anything and everything . . .

St. Augustine has plenty to say on the moral evaluation of human acts, but I'll restrict myself here to a few comments. Of course, St. Augustine and St. Thomas would agree that man can do 'such good as is natural to him' without the help of superadded grace, though still requiring the 'help of God moving him to act' (the in/famous auxilium dei). So there is no question of the pagan grocer's ability to stock groceries in the absence of superadded grace, nor is there a question of this stocking of groceries being a good, though not without qualification.

What I will now dub, with apologies to the Pontificator, 'Ad Limina's First Rule', is this: 'You can't hide from grace', perhaps rephrased better as 'With regard to grace, there can be no neutrality.' Any element in the Augustinian system which attempts to evade the piercing gaze of grace will be found out, and once found out, weighed in the balance. Seemingly morally neutral acts, then, can only seem neutral, for nothing can be neutral in the light of grace. The rub is this, with reference to the grocery-stocking of the pagan grocer: Apart from the question of his grocery-stocking's being a natural good, we must ask the further question of whether or not his grocery-stocking will please God. If yes, it becomes a virtue; if not, a vice. It can only be one or the other.

From De civitate dei XIX, 25:

For though the soul may seem to rule the body admirably, and the reason the vices, if the soul and reason do not themselves obey God, as God has commanded them to serve Him, they have no proper authority over the body and the vices. For what kind of mistress of the body and the vices can that mind be which is ignorant of the true God, and which, instead of being subject to His authority, is prostituted to the corrupting influences of the most vicious demons? It is for this reason that the virtues which it seems to itself to possess, and by which it restrains the body and the vices that it may obtain and keep what it desires, are rather vices than virtues so long as there is no reference to God in the matter. For although some suppose that virtues which have a reference only to themselves, and are desired only on their own account, are yet true and genuine virtues, the fact is that even then they are inflated with pride, and are therefore to be reckoned vices rather than virtues.
Augustine's language of 'virtue' and 'vice' here should not be misleading - he is speaking here about pre-Christian Rome, and specifically about the 'natural' accomplishments of the earthly empire - overcoming unruly enemies, establishing peace, generating a thriving culture, etc. The stocking of groceries can be considered as one element of this larger human industry. And the evaluation of such an act turns upon whether or not it is carried out 'with reference to God', which is to say, whether or not it is done for the glory of God. If it is, it gives God pleasure. If not, it can only be a veiled attempt to exalt human pride. There can be no 'neutral' act from an Augustinian perspective, since an act is always judged according to that to which it has reference. Hence, the well-known reference to St. Augustine's concept of pagan virtues as 'splendid vices' (vita splendida). A grim view of human nature? Perhaps. St. Augustine, as is often pointed out, is nothing but a realist. From another perspective, St. Augustine has a dark view of man's capabilities without God, but a glorious perspective on man's capabilities when assisted by Him.

An Augustinian Scholar's Gold Mine

2005-07-27T08:21:00.000-04:00

A reader has just alerted me to the existence of an on-line databank of secondary literature on Augustine. Based on the Augustinus-Lexikon and the Corpus Augustinianum Gissense, the database has compiled some 27,000 titles into an on-line bibliography, accessible via a wide variety of search strings (a minimal familiarity with German may be necessary to navigate the site). Hat tip to David of Cosmos, Liturgy, Sex!

Without further ado, behold the Augustinus-Sekundarliteraturdatenbank!

2005-07-26T12:42:00.000-04:00

On Michael O'Brien's Father Elijah:

I hesitate to review the first novel in a series without having read its successors, but, as each novel does intend to 'stand on its own' (lacking clear chronological sequence), I think a review is not out of place.

Right off, Michael O'Brien stands head and shoulders above any other writer in the 'acocalyptic fiction' genre, even if, as other reviewers have said, this isn't saying much. He has been rightly compared to Dostoevsky, and some passages of the book are clearly reminiscent of the great Russian master. A few dynamic subplots in the middle of the book (e.g., the rambling confessions of Count Smokrev), which seem on the surface to be entirely out of place, simply make the novel. The vibrant Catholic orthodoxy which pierces every page, along with the thick layers of 'POD' (pious and overly-devotional) - relics, shrines, saints, scapulars, exorcisms, and Marian devotion to your heart's content - make the novel a delightful diversion for the theologically like-minded, if nothing else. Deep mystical themes interweave throughout the book - it seems, at times, less of a novel and more of a prayer.

Now, the complaints. First, the dialogue in O'Brien's novels, however theologically and spiritually potent, bears little to no resemblance to any actual dialogue that might occur between two actual persons. It bears a closer resemblance to, say, a written correspondence, over the course of ten years, between St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, somehow condensed and re-formatted into a hypothetical conversation. Memo to author: Many people wish they could write like that; fewer people actually write like that; no one talks like that.

Second, the characters are surprisingly two-dimensional. Father Elijah, despite all of O'Brien's attempts to plague him with human weaknesses, is unshakably saccharine. I mean, when Smokrev browbeats him with tales of human perversions, you just know Father Elijah is going to respond with some pious dictum about the redemptive forgiveness of Christ. Despite his all-too-human foibles, Father Elijah is about as predictable as can be, a consistent mouthpiece for traditional Catholic piety, all of which makes him inspiring, yes, but also a bit hard to relate to. And don't get me started on O'Brien's Antichrist character, who is so utterly stereotypical and cliche that Left Behind's 'Nicolae' is more believable.

But all told, these minor flaws do not diminish the strengths of O'Brien's novel: a compelling and driven plot laced throughout with an inspiring spiritual message. No one would put O'Brien in the 'first tier' of fiction writers (with Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc.); few would put him in the 'second tier' (with O'Connor and Greene). He is most likely somewhere near the top of the 'third tier', which is not at all a bad place to be.

2005-07-26T09:17:00.000-04:00

The Diocese of San Bernardino received its first auxiliary bishop yesterday, Rutilio J. del Riego, a Spanish-born priest currently serving in the California diocese (pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish in Riverside, perhaps the ugliest parish on the West Coast). Father del Riego is a member of the Diocesan Laborer Priests, a secular institute founded in Spain in 1885 and devoted to 'the promotion of vocations and the spiritual redirection of youth'.

UPDATE: Correction: Del Riego will not be the diocese's first auxiliary bishop - his predecessor in that position, Bishop Dennis P. O'Neil, died two years ago. More on del Riego, the diocese, etc. here. Hat tip, Rocco Palmo.

Pope Benedict's 'Augustinian Thomism'

2005-07-26T08:27:00.000-04:00

Justin Nickelsen's fine new blog, Sources Chretiennes, gets the Ad Limina nod for the coolest blog title of the year - simple yet hermeneutically rich. One to keep an eye on.

Yesterday Justin posted a Zenit interview with the John Paul II Institute's Tracy Rowland. Jamie loves it so much he can't help but post page-long sections:

Q: You have said that the major intellectual and theological battle within the Church is between the "Augustinian Thomists" and the "Whig Thomists." What does this mean?

Rowland: First, let me define "Whig." The expression "Whig Thomist" was coined by Michael Novak to describe his intellectual project. Originally the word "Whig" came from the Scottish word "Whiggamor" for a cattle driver -- though some sources say cattle thief and others say horse thief. It was initially applied to Scottish Presbyterians, mostly from the west coast of Scotland, who opposed the Stuart cause in the wars of the 17th century. Their counterparts, the Tories -- a word derived from the Gaelic for "outlaw" -- consisted of some aristocrats, large landowners and agrarian peasants. They were mercantilist in economic policy, royalist in politics and tended to support the succession of James II [1633-1701]. Over time the term was used to refer to a faction in British politics. Although there was never anything like a strong doctrinal definition of the term, as a sociological generalization it can be said that the Whigs were the heirs of the Scottish Enlightenment, which emphasized economic and political liberty, or an emerging philosophy known as liberalism, which was often fused with a Puritan form of Protestantism. In the 19th century Lord Acton popularized the idea that Thomas Aquinas was the first Whig, that is, the first proponent of a modern, post-Enlightenment concept of politics. Thus "Whig Thomism" refers to an intellectual project that seeks to locate the genesis of the liberal tradition in the thought of Thomas Aquinas and to synthesize elements of the Liberal tradition, particularly those provided by the Scottish Enlightenment, to classical Thomism. The project of reading Aquinas as the first Whig or first Liberal has been criticized by a number of scholars. For example, Robert Kraynak, in his work "Christian Faith and Modern Democracy," has written that "though intriguing, Acton's interpretation is misleading because Thomas defends power sharing and political participation, not as a right of the people to parliamentary consent nor as a means for protecting personal rights and liberties, but as the prudent application of natural law whose ends are best realized in a stable constitutional order dedicated to peace, virtue and Christian piety. This is medieval corporatism applied within the [Augustinian] doctrine of the Two Cities, rather than the first stirring of modern liberty." Those who may loosely be classified as "Augustinian Thomists" follow such a Kraynak-style reading of Aquinas, rather than an Actonian. What I argued in my book "Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II" is that there is a division between those who think that the Thomist tradition should accommodate itself to the culture of modernity, particularly the economic dimensions of this culture -- the self-described "Whig Thomists" -- and those who believe that modernity and its liberal tradition are really toxic to the flourishing of the faith. Those who take the latter position do not want to supplement the Thomist tradition with doses of Enlightenment values. They are very broadly described as Augustinian Thomists for the want of a better label because, in a manner consistent with St. Augustine's idea of the two cities, they reject the claim of the liberal tradition to be neutral toward competing perspectives of the good and competing theological claims. While the Whigs argue that liberalism is the logical outgrowth of the classical-theistic synthesis, the Augustinian Thomists argue that the liberal tradition represents its mutation and heretical reconstruction, and they tend to agree with Samuel Johnson that the devil -- not Thomas Aquinas -- was the first Whig. There are thus two different readings of modernity and with that, two different readings of how the Church should engage the contemporary world. While the Whigs want the Church to accommodate the culture of modernity, the Augustinians favor a much more critical stance. Another point I made in my book is that those who think that the liberal tradition is avant-garde are about 40 years behind the times. Liberalism ceased being the hegemonic intellectual tradition in the Western world in 1968. At least since then the intellectual battlefront has been three-cornered. First of all there are theists -- Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Protestants, etc.; secondly, there are believers in Enlightenment-style rationality, that is, different varieties of liberals who sever reason from faith; and thirdly, there are the postmoderns who think that the Enlightenment was a very oppressive social experiment and that all versions of rationality are in some way related to theological or mythological presuppositions, although they do not accept that we can use our reason to judge between those competing theological presuppositions. On some fronts Catholic scholars may do better to work with the postmoderns than those who insist on a strict severance of faith and reason, or at least not nail their colors irrevocably to a liberal mast. The point at which the Whigs and Augustinians come into conflict is over the issue of the moral quality of what is called the "culture of America," which is not of course confined to the geographical boundaries of the United States. It is, as Alasdair MacIntyre says, a theoretical construct. The Whigs want to baptize the current international economic order, while the Augustinians take a more critical approach, arguing that there are economic practices characteristic of this order that cannot be squared with the social teaching of the Church. Moreover, the Augustinians are more likely to point out that most people do not sit down and develop a worldview for themselves from hours of philosophical and theological reflection. They tacitly pick up values and ideas from the institutions in which they work. The Augustinians argue that there are aspects of the culture of modernity that act as barriers to the flourishing of Christian practice and belief, and unless the culture is changed, no amount of intellectual gymnastics on the part of the Church's scholars will be of help to those 1 billion Catholics who have to make a living within the world. In other words, if one has to be a saint not to be morally compromised by the culture in which one works, then there is something wrong with that culture. I don't think that this is the major intellectual battlefront within the Church, but it is an important one.

Q: In what sense is Pope Benedict an Augustinian? In what sense is he a Thomist?

Rowland: I would say that Pope Benedict is a Thomist insofar as he would probably agree with most of what St. Thomas wrote. However, he is not a Thomist in the sense of appealing to the authority of St. Thomas in his defense of the faith, focusing his scholarly endeavors upon the works of Aquinas or in the sense of using a scholastic methodology. Rather, Pope Benedict is one of the many members of his generation who, while not disagreeing with the content of Thomist thought, believed that the scholastic presentation of the faith doesn't exactly set souls on fire unless they happen to be a particular type of soul with a passion for intellectual disputation. He has said that "scholasticism has its greatness, but everything is impersonal." In contrast, with Augustine "the passionate, suffering, questioning man is always right there, and you can identify with him." Benedict has also been strongly influenced by the Augustinian principle that faith is the door to understanding. He has said that he believes that a kind of memory, of recollection of God, is etched in man, though it needs to be awakened. His Augustinian pedigree is also manifest in his interest in the transcendental of beauty and his understanding of the catechetical importance of language and symbols and the relationship between matters of form and substance. So much of the liturgical mess of the last 30 years has been brought about by philistines who want to dumb down the language of the liturgy, replace symbolic gestures by lay people explaining what Father is doing -- as if we are all uncatechized Martians -- and gutting liturgical language of its poetic dimensions. Even secular linguistic philosophers argue that form and substance are inseparable -- that if we change language, we also in some sense change the way that people think. Pope Benedict is onto this, along with Francis Cardinal George of Chicago, and liturgical scholars such Aidan Nichols, OP, Monsignor Peter Elliott, Stratford Caldecott of the Center for Faith and Culture in Oxford, and Alcuin Reid, OSB.

Q: How does Pope Benedict XVI's "Augustinian Thomism" shape the way he views the phenomenon of liberal democracy?

Rowland: From an Augustinian point of view, the biggest problem with liberalism is its claim to be theologically neutral or indifferent toward different religious traditions. Quite a long list of scholars are coming to the view that the liberal claim to theological neutrality is bogus. This list includes Anglicans associated with the radical orthodoxy circle and scholars with a more Baptist-oriented theological background. It is not a position limited to so-called conservative or ultra-montanist Catholics. Indeed most postmoderns would agree with this criticism of the liberal tradition. Pope Benedict has made it clear that Catholics should not be persuaded by the liberal rhetoric to believe that in order to be good citizens they must bifurcate themselves into public and private halves. He has observed that secularism is itself an ideology, a kind of religious position that presents itself as the only voice of rationality. He sees these views as posing a challenge to the dominant political cultures of contemporary liberal democracies. To say this, however, is not to say that he is against constitutionalism. He is not saying that the Church should run the state. He would probably agree with the saying of Martin Luther King that the Church is neither the master of the state, nor the servant of the state, but the conscience of the state.

Read the full interview.

Saddled by the Spiritual Method

2005-07-22T11:58:00.000-04:00

In Beryl Smalley's epochal work, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, the author lets loose a barrage of snide criticism against the 'cumbersome' exegetical methodologies of the proto-scholastic masters. Here, Peter Langton falls prey to Smalley's pen:

"The concordantia has been quoted as a final example of the cumbrous paraphernalia which the masters were saddled with. Langton takes a section, comprosing, let us say, four verses; he gives a list of variant readings; he gives out the order of the glosses and perhaps variant readings of them too; he collects alternative explanations (I have known him to suggest six for one text, three of which he prefers); he solves questions arising from the glosses and their 'originals', and perhaps from the Histories, as a rule by 'concording' them; he makes a table of related texts, a 'concordance'; after that he still has to plod through it, according to the spiritual senses, all over again. By the time he has finished, we have forgotten what he said about the section before. All continuity in the explanation of the sacred writer's meaning has disappeared."

Understanding Smalley's criticism requires an awareness of her presuppositions, chief among which is her utter contempt for the spiritual exegesis of the Fathers, which receives a brutish right hook in chapter one and never quite recovers (our friend Origen, as you might imagine, is the Antichrist). It is difficult to determine exactly what Smalley prefers (she writes before the full 'blossoming' of modern text-criticism, though she seems to anticipate it), but it is less difficult to determine the essential outline. Smalley gets goosebumps about anything vaguely Hebraic (hence, Jerome gets a pass), which is another way of saying anything which points to a reading of Old Testament not overly colored by Christian suppositions. Her obsession with the Victorine school is clearly due that school's trademark preference for the historical reading over the tropological. All this points to one golden ideal - a literal, straightforward reading of the biblical text according to its historical sense, without reference to the Christian theological tradition, or any other such subjectivism.

Here lies the root of the tree, the template for historico-criticism of the post-modern variety. While none would deny that a historic ('literal') reading of Scripture is an essential part of our tradition, perhaps the most essential, it takes a very truncated view of historical theology to claim that it is the only authentic way the Church reads Scripture, or ought to read Scripture.

The most intriguing facet of the 'spiritual method', as the Fathers called it, is, paradoxically, the quite extraordinary degree to which it could be scientific. Origen, of course, is the first to apply a scientific rigorism to the spiritual method, which is outlined in the De Principiis but evidenced in the hundreds of commentaries and exegetical homilies he leaves us (much misunderstanding of Origen would be allayed if first-year graduate students were given the Commentary on St. John rather than the De Principiis as a representative work of Origen, given that the latter is anything but representative).

For this exegetical methodology we go to Book IV of the De Principiis. The letter of the text, for Origen, is the mere 'earthen vessel' for the divine meaning (8). A priggish affection for the letter can only lead to absurdity, heresy, or worse, the hardness of heart typified by the Jewish rejection of the Messiah. If, as Christians believe, the Scriptures are God-breathed, bequeathed to and handed down by the apostles through ecclesiastical tradition, the only conclusion can be that the text constitutes merely "the forms and figures of hidden and sacred things". Recall that, for Origen, to 'stop' at the figure without advancing to the truth is the very essence of sin. The inspired reader is forced to ask, "Is there not hidden there also an inner, namely a divine sense, which is revealed by . . . grace alone?" "[A]re not the Epistles of the Apostles, which seem to some to be plainer, filled with meanings so profound, that by means of them, as by some small receptacle, the clearness of incalculable light appears to be poured into those who are capable of understanding the meaning of divine wisdom?"

For Origen this realization unfolds a 'threefold manner' in the understanding of 'divine letters'. This is rooted in Origen's tripartite understanding of the human person as 'body, soul and spirit' (man being the image of the Triune God - hey, that would make a great dissertation topic!). The simple begin with an understanding of the 'body' of Scripture, the 'common and historical sense' (elsewhere, the 'inferential historical sense'). Once they make spiritual progress, they begin to discern the 'soul' of Scripture. Those who attain spiritual perfection, however, progress even to the 'spirit' of Scripture (11). “Now a 'spiritual' interpretation is of this nature: when one is able to point out what are the heavenly things of which these serve as the patterns and shadow . . . and of what things future the law contains a shadow, and any other expressions of this kind that may be found in holy Scripture; or when it is a subject of inquiry, what is that wisdom hidden in a mystery" (13).

As Origen systematized Pauline exegesis, Augustine systematized Origenist exegesis. We find St. Augustine's method laid out in his De doctrina Christianae, in particular Book III of that work. St. Augustine's methodology is more strictly grounded in the historical-literal sense, this latter sense never threatens to asphyxiate the spiritual, but rather becomes its foundation and springboard. His approach to the literal sense is expansive, insisting a full exploration of etymology and linguistics, zoology and minerology, a cross-reference with other available textual sources, and above all, a sense of the unity of all Scripture. The literal sense never binds: If ever the literal sense suggests a meaning which stands in violation to reason, piety or sound Christian doctrine, this is a sure sign that the text has been misunderstood. The impact of the text on the moral life of the Christian, its efficacy in preaching (cf. Book IV), its relation to the rule of faith, all have a bearing on how that text is to be read. The 'rule of charity' prevails over all: a text is read properly only when it facilitates the reader's love of God and neighbor. One could hardly be further from the rigid historo-literalism of the modern biblical schools.

The Medieval exegetical system, which is detailed in Smalley's book, represented nothing more than an organic development of the Origenist-Augustinian exegetical tradition, as that took shape in the monastic cloister, and eventually, in the monastic schools. Hence, the pious tradition of lectio divina, along with the 'ornamentation' given to many biblical passages by their liturgical placement, advanced the 'spiritual' strain. Parallel to this, the various collections of scholarly glosses, along with the need to cross-reference between them, advanced the 'scientific' strain. The emerging exegetical methodology, then, was both spiritualist and scientific, a complex and expansive interweaving of patristic, liturgical, moral-spiritual, and dogmatic elements to form a synthetic, if somewhat cumbersome, system. This, of course, is what Smalley ridicules as the "the cumbrous paraphernalia which the masters were saddled with," in her commentary on Langton's work which opened this piece.

I have always noted that no one without a spiritual life is capable of understanding the spiritual method. But I must also add a renewed complaint. No matter how 'cumbersome' the early scholastic commentaries on Scripture could become, could any of them ever approach the sheer textual weight of Raymond Brown's New Jerome Biblical Commentary? Would St. Jerome himself not cringe in horror at a 'commentary' in which a single phrase of Scripture can receive up to two pages of commentary, especially when that commentary is exclusively of a 'scientific' nature (historical, archeological, textual-critical and lingustic)? A tome so massive it requires a substantial effort to lift, and yet there is not a word in it which is capable of lifting the mind to God, much less the spirit. Father Joseph Komonchak once told us of preparing for a homily on Jesus' healing of the man born blind. After spending an hour in Raymond Brown and reading nothing but critical notes about the textual history of the kerygmatic oral motifs of the original narrative, he turned to St. Augustine, and found a beautiful, uplifting and catechetical commentary on man's healing from the crippling effects of sin. If modern readers are 'saddled' with anything, it is this. If anything can free us, it is the exegesis of the Fathers.

2005-07-22T09:16:00.000-04:00

Two Reasons why The Incredibles is Incredible:

1. The Parr family is less 'American Beauty' and more 'Little House on the Prairie'. Bob Parr is no clumsy lout or second-rate oaf. He is a strong, capable and manly man, who takes his role as his family's protector and provider with absolute seriousness. He bears a strong sense of justice, right and responsibility. Helen Parr, for her part, is a supportive and nurturing wife and (stay-at-home) mother, who sees her primary task as ensuring her family's protection and thriving. But when her family is endangered, she is a lioness, and no man or beast can stand in her way. Both parents strike a fine balance between disciplining and protecting their children, yet also creating an environment where they can exercise and refine their own talents and gifts, each contributing to the greater good of the family and community. The children learn that their own thriving is facilitated not by setting themselves against their parents, but by exercising their gifts in service to one another. The villian in the story is a sordid youth who uses his talents to further his own self-advancement and egoism; the Parr family emerges from their adventure more closely bound together. Even the baby is not excluded: he gets to deal the death blow to the bad guy.

2. Lest I give the impression that The Incredibles is a parenting movie: Despite being an animated feature film (which I, as a rule, depise), it is packed to overflowing with action, violence, and arbitrary killing, from the opening machine-gun car chase, to the closing scene where the villain is sucked into a jet turbine. Jamie like. Jamie like very much (though children, of course, should stay far away).

Our New Bishops Get to Work...

2005-07-22T08:34:00.000-04:00

Bishop Robert W. Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph does his summer housecleaning - bringing much-needed reforms to catechetical programs, the diocesan newspaper, and chancery staff - and sallies forth on the work of the laity and on political involvement.

UPDATE: Bishop Finn sends out a new set of liturgical norms. (Hat tip, Polish Prince, who has met Bishop Finn and claims he's possibly 'the best bishop in America'.)

Bishop Larry Silva of Honolulu discusses his role as a bishop, his ordination, and coming back to his birthplace.

(Hat tip, Rocco Palmo.)

More on World Youth Day

2005-07-19T09:25:00.000-04:00

VATICAN CITY, JUL 19, 2005 (VIS) - "I wish formally to announce that the next World Youth Day will take place in 2005 in Cologne, Germany. In the great cathedral of Cologne the relics of the Magi, the Wise Men from the East who followed the star which led them to Christ, are honored."

With these words, pronounced during the Angelus at the 19th World Youth Day (WYD) in Toronto, Canada, in 2002, John Paul II announced the next pilgrimage of young people from all over the world. WYDs were established in 1984, the Holy Year of Redemption, to reaffirm the Church's interest in youth. This year, the young people meeting in Cologne from August 16 to 21 will consider the theme: "We have come to worship Him," the words with which the Wise Men of the Gospel of St. Matthew reveal the reason for their own pilgrimage.

The fact that the 20th WYD is being held in Cologne is also associated with a desire expressed by John Paul II to Cardinal Joachim Meisner, archbishop of that city, during the WYD held in Paris in 1997. "The Pope told me he felt it appropriate that one of the first WYDs of the new millennium should be held in Cologne," Cardinal Meisner recalls, "because last century Germany witnessed some terrible disasters for humanity, and it is right that it should now witness a great sign of hope."

Benedict XVI's visit to Cologne will be his first outside Italy. The Pope will meet the young people (around a million according to the WYD organizers) on August 18. On the evening of August 19, he will participate in the Way of the Cross; on August 20 he will join the participants in a prayer vigil, and on August 21 he will celebrate the event's closing Mass. The altar at which he is due to celebrate stands on a hill overlooking a large field where the pilgrims will gather. The hill itself is manmade, composed of earth from all the countries of the world brought by young people who have participated in the preparatory meetings for this WYD.

During the WYD, the famous reliquary of the Wise Men will be placed behind the altar in the cathedral, as it used to be in the Middle Ages, so the pilgrims can see it as they pass and so, in some way, take away with them the blessing of the Three Kings of the East.

Another feature of the WYD in Cologne will be a large mosaic depicting the face of John Paul II composed of photographs sent in by young people from all over the world.

Benedict XVI's program for the days he will spend in Cologne also includes a visit to the synagogue and various meetings with the German civil and religious authorities. He will also travel to Bonn, where he lived from 1959 to 1963 when he taught theology at the city's university. In Bonn he is scheduled to meet Horst Koehler, president of Germany.

According to the latest information, 7,000 priests and 700 bishops will travel to Cologne where they will impart catechesis in the mornings, hear confessions, and celebrate the Eucharist in the evenings.

2005-07-18T16:10:00.000-04:00

So I'm stuck in a metro car for a full hour in the middle of downtown, with the car ahead of us having mechanical problems. At the other end of the car, a middle-aged lady dressed quite unfashionably in pink turns to the gaggle of children surrounding her and says, in a voice of solemn severity: "Now you see children, this is all that Ronald Reagan's fault." She went on to explain the basic principles of economic deregulation. Nice.

2005-07-18T15:30:00.000-04:00

Blogodoxy takes on the question, "Who is the Greatest Theologian of All Time?" (hat tip, Pontificator). In fact, the post is a response to the publicized results of a TheologicalStudies.org poll (ready for the answer? psst . . . It's John Calvin! Yes, the hard-nosed, displaced Frenchie with the heart of adamantium). And speaking of adamantium, Blogodoxy gives a little shove in the back to our friend Origen (imagine: an Orthodox who likes Origen? Must be a convert. Yep!):

Perhaps all could agree that the overarching purpose of any theologian is to articulate and clarify the nature of God and religious truth--but how that is done would remain contentious. As a professed "man of the Church" Origen of Alexandria spent his entire life trying to do just that in a hostile environment prior to any consolidation of Church teaching. While a number of his ideas have come to be condemned as heresies or, at the very least, generally viewed as falling short of the truth, it would be difficult to conceive of theology in the Church from Nicaea on without him. In his case accuracy would have to be sacrificed as a category of determination, replaced perhaps by an appreciation for the pioneering nature of the work and the fidelity he held to the Church and to uncovering the truth through Scripture.

A finer summary of Origen's contribution to the Chalcedonian church one could not hope for. St. Augustine gets a pat on the head, because the votes of 1.1 million Romanists ought to count for something, but of course 50% of Augustine is just Origen recycled. Aquinas, alas, gets a mere sentence (because he is Augustine recycled?). Blogodoxy's preferences?

1. Origen of Alexandria
2. The Cappadocian Fathers - Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus
3. St. Maximus the Confessor
4. St. Augustine
5. St. Athanasius

If we're limiting theology to the first half millenia of the Church, then I suppose I have little to argue with. While Augustine was, without doubt, a much better systematician than Origen (as Aquinas was vis-a-vis Augustine), few can doubt that Origen had the harder task cut out for him, and did a knock-out job of it. Methinks St. Athanasius was a better politicker than a theologian. Can anyone who's read his De incarnatione really claim it's first-rate theology? If it is, it also contains, in germ, most of the Alexandrian heresies spawned in the next two centuries (to which our friend Origen is, unsurprisingly, the panacea). But I suppose you have to give credit to the man who looked an Arian episcopacy in the face and refused to blink. The same for a man who had his tongue dismembered.

Speaking of dismemberment, to anyone who doubts Origen's credibility as a systematic theologian, I would add that theology, as conceived by every period ere the modern, includes what most modern academics would style 'spirituality' or 'mysticism'. And if we're grading the aforementioned characters by their success in laying a spiritual framework which would inspire generations of future mystics, no one on the docket comes close to Origen, without whom we would have no Cappadocians, no Bernard, and no Balthasar. Does anyone pretend that Calvinism could actually inspire anything resembling a mysticism? Does the term 'predetermined reprobation' give you sweet vibes of mystical pleasure?

UPDATE: As usual, the commenters on Pontifications are having a ball with this one. And don't miss Elliot B's comments at Fides, Cogitatio, Actio.

Cosmos, Liturgy, Sex!

2005-07-18T12:53:00.000-04:00

A fine new blog by an acquaintance, although if your tech department monitors your website viewing, typing those words into google might raise a few flags. It seems to me that only a Balthasarian could get away with a blog title like that.

2005-07-18T08:36:00.000-04:00

"We are already spiritually on the march to Cologne. We will all meet in Cologne!" (Pope Benedict: VIS)

Anyone else out there headed to Cologne, or know any other bloggers who are?

Catching up on the Rome-watching...

2005-07-18T07:51:00.000-04:00

John Allen's Word from Rome is in: on Pope Benedict's vacation, his 'clerical entourage', his ties with Communion and Liberation, etc.

Sandro Magister on Pope Benedict's first three months in office.

An interview with the papal spokesperson, Joaquin Navarro-Valls.