Pope Francis has replied to a plea for an answer to a question, and has done so within SIX WEEKS!!
A well-known theologian has commented with immense joy, pointing out how wonderful it is
"that Francis answered at all and did not let my appeal fall on deaf ears";
"that he replied himself and not via his private secretary or the secretary of state";
"that he clearly read the appeal most attentively";
"that he is highly appreciative".
Who is the theologian? Hans Kueng. What was his appeal? That PF would allow free discussion concerning the doctrine of papal infallibility, which Kueng has spent a lot of his life attacking.
Kueng wrote to PF on March 9 2016; his ecstatic press statement describing PF's reply was released to The Tablet on April 27 2016.
Papal Infallibility is a dogma solemnly defined by an Ecumenical Council, Vatican I, in 1870. Its teaching included anathemas against those who denied the doctrine.
Kueng says that PF "set no restrictions. He has thus responded to my request to give room to a free discussion on the dogma of infallibility. I think it is now imperative to use this new freedom ..." etc. etc..
This gripping news broke some weeks before the recent spate of Internet papers by court theologians arguing that documents like Amoris laetitia require a more obsequious acceptance from the theological community than they have in some quarters received.
So ... assuming that Kueng has not been telling naughty porkies ... on the one hand, obsequious submission is required; on the other, the whole fundamental substructure of the Petrine Ministry is up for grabs!!
You couldn't make it up, could you?
Double standards (2), (3), and (4) are due to follow.
7 November 2017
6 November 2017
A Pope and the Liturgy: Non Potest
Following on from my post about possible dangers to sound Liturgy arising from PF's own personal liturgical fads and his dirigiste instincts, I want to draw to the attention of readers two loci of Magisterial status. (I presume that readers are already familiar with what the then-Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in The Spirit of the Liturgy, when he criticised the hyperpapalism which, after Vatican II, played on an erroneous assumption that the pope can do anything. This, of course, could be argued to be non-Magisterial.)
The two places that I wish, very briefly, to draw to your attention are full exercises of a Papal Magisterium.
(1) In the Letter to the Bishops which accompanied Summorum Pontificum, pope Benedict XVI wrote "What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden forbidden". Notice the expression cannot. The learned pontiff says, not "should not be"; he says "cannot be".
(2) I suspect Ratzinger of being responsible for drafting paragraph 1125 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, although, of course, it was promulgated with the force of an Apostolic Constitution in 1992 by Pope S John Paul II.
The second sentence of this paragraph begins with the phrase "Ipsa auctoritas Ecclesiae suprema [Even the supreme authority of the Church itself]". This is a phrase commonly used, especially at Vatican II, of the Pope himself (although surely it would also apply to an Ecumenical Council). Next comes "non potest [is not able]". I ask you to notice that we do not have "non licet" ["he is not permitted"], nor do we have a jussive subjunctive ["he shouldn't do it"]. What is being excluded is being excluded as an impossibility. Just as S John Paul II excluded the sacerdotal ordination of women as an impossibility (nullam facultatem habere).
The sentence in the Catechism continues: "liturgiam ad placitum commutare suum [change the Liturgy in accordance with his own fads] sed solummodo in oboedientia fidei et in religiosa mysterii liturgiae observantia [but only in the obedience of the Faith and in the religious observance of the mystery of the Liturgy]."
In other words, if a pope were to attempt to change the Liturgy in accordance with his personal fads, he would be acting ultra vires. And so his attempt would be null.
I suspect we would have to go back to the principled and glorious teaching of Vatican I (Pastor aeternus) to find as clear and forthright a Magisterial statement of what a pope is not competent to do!
My apologies to readers who recognise this as the theme of a paper I have read in a number of places during the last five years, sometimes under the title "Can the pope abolish the Vetus Ordo?". I am willing to dig it out and update it and come and read it again if anyone else wants to hear it!!! Anywhere in Europe! Just my expenses!
The two places that I wish, very briefly, to draw to your attention are full exercises of a Papal Magisterium.
(1) In the Letter to the Bishops which accompanied Summorum Pontificum, pope Benedict XVI wrote "What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden forbidden". Notice the expression cannot. The learned pontiff says, not "should not be"; he says "cannot be".
(2) I suspect Ratzinger of being responsible for drafting paragraph 1125 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, although, of course, it was promulgated with the force of an Apostolic Constitution in 1992 by Pope S John Paul II.
The second sentence of this paragraph begins with the phrase "Ipsa auctoritas Ecclesiae suprema [Even the supreme authority of the Church itself]". This is a phrase commonly used, especially at Vatican II, of the Pope himself (although surely it would also apply to an Ecumenical Council). Next comes "non potest [is not able]". I ask you to notice that we do not have "non licet" ["he is not permitted"], nor do we have a jussive subjunctive ["he shouldn't do it"]. What is being excluded is being excluded as an impossibility. Just as S John Paul II excluded the sacerdotal ordination of women as an impossibility (nullam facultatem habere).
The sentence in the Catechism continues: "liturgiam ad placitum commutare suum [change the Liturgy in accordance with his own fads] sed solummodo in oboedientia fidei et in religiosa mysterii liturgiae observantia [but only in the obedience of the Faith and in the religious observance of the mystery of the Liturgy]."
In other words, if a pope were to attempt to change the Liturgy in accordance with his personal fads, he would be acting ultra vires. And so his attempt would be null.
I suspect we would have to go back to the principled and glorious teaching of Vatican I (Pastor aeternus) to find as clear and forthright a Magisterial statement of what a pope is not competent to do!
My apologies to readers who recognise this as the theme of a paper I have read in a number of places during the last five years, sometimes under the title "Can the pope abolish the Vetus Ordo?". I am willing to dig it out and update it and come and read it again if anyone else wants to hear it!!! Anywhere in Europe! Just my expenses!
5 November 2017
Development
Almost at the very end of the press conference to 'present' Amoris laetitia, a young woman, who, I think, was sitting next to the erudite Professor Roberto de Mattei, was allowed to ask a question. Unlike most of the hacks and hackettes, Diane Montagna asked a question ... an appeal for "clarification" ... "everybody wants to know" ... which was very short and totally to the point. She just wanted to know whether there was anything in this new document which contradicted paragraph 84 of Familiaris consortio. The question went for answer to some Austrian called von Schoenborn. He repudiated strongly the idea that there could possibly be a contradiction. But he proceeded to explain that Doctrine develops.
The Austrian gentleman referred us instead to Blessed John Henry Newman's Essay on Development. I think anybody who wants to be up-to-the-minute should reread that brilliant tour de force. Remember, incidentally, that the Blessed did not write it as a guide to how future curial spokespersons, by a neat conjuring trick, could present Change as Non-change; but as an analysis of how in fact Catholic Doctrine had in the past developed while remaining true to type.
Newman shared with S Paul the advantage of not being an Austrian aristocrat.
When Pope Francis was later asked about the coherence of Amoris laetitia, he replied by referring us all to this 'Introduction' by von Schoenborn, whom he described as a great theologian and a former secretary of the CDF. (It is a mercy that Vatican I, in defining the Primacy and Infallibility of Roman Pontiffs, did not claim that they had good memories with regard to the Curricula Vitae of their associates.)
I have recently been repeating some previous posts making clear what the Church has formally taught about DEVELOPMENT, in a Magisterium which begins with a phrase of S Paul's which was then taken up by writer after writer, pope after pope, Council after Council, until our own time.
The phrase is
EODEM SENSU EADEMQUE SENTENTIA.
People ought to chant this at PF whenever he .... er ...
New readers might like to read back over these old articles of mine, which I usually published at 5 in the afternoon.
The Austrian gentleman referred us instead to Blessed John Henry Newman's Essay on Development. I think anybody who wants to be up-to-the-minute should reread that brilliant tour de force. Remember, incidentally, that the Blessed did not write it as a guide to how future curial spokespersons, by a neat conjuring trick, could present Change as Non-change; but as an analysis of how in fact Catholic Doctrine had in the past developed while remaining true to type.
Newman shared with S Paul the advantage of not being an Austrian aristocrat.
When Pope Francis was later asked about the coherence of Amoris laetitia, he replied by referring us all to this 'Introduction' by von Schoenborn, whom he described as a great theologian and a former secretary of the CDF. (It is a mercy that Vatican I, in defining the Primacy and Infallibility of Roman Pontiffs, did not claim that they had good memories with regard to the Curricula Vitae of their associates.)
I have recently been repeating some previous posts making clear what the Church has formally taught about DEVELOPMENT, in a Magisterium which begins with a phrase of S Paul's which was then taken up by writer after writer, pope after pope, Council after Council, until our own time.
The phrase is
EODEM SENSU EADEMQUE SENTENTIA.
People ought to chant this at PF whenever he .... er ...
New readers might like to read back over these old articles of mine, which I usually published at 5 in the afternoon.
4 November 2017
Argumentum ad hominem UPDATED
UPDATE: The Bibliography attached to the Wikipaedia entry suggests that the "modern" usage is not found earlier than 1986; and that the Lockean meaning still held force in Fowler, 1926. Whoever wrote that entry appears not to have heard of Locke or to have read much literature from before the 1990s. This exemplifies another cultural problem: the erecting of barriers between the ages. C S Lewis attributes this to the activity of devils. It probably also exemplifies a decline in the study of the Classics. Another C S Lewis point ...
I seem to keep seeing, day after day, the phrase Argumentum ad hominem misused. A recent example occurred in Fr Tom Weinandy's otherwise splendid Letter to PF.
People use it now, apparently, to mean "a personal attack". That is, when you attack somebody in a violent and deeply personal way, rather than arguing politely and rationally about a question in hand. That is how Fr Tom uses it; his point is that PF and the Bergoglians refuse polite dialogue and simply hurl nasty hate-filled personal abuse around. And, of course, he's dead right. That is exactly what they do. But this is not what Argumentum ad hominem means.
Well, language changes. If enough people use Argumentum ad hominem in this incorrect sense, then I suppose one will, regretfully, have to stop calling it wrong. Usage validates. Every philologist knows that.
But I think it is a great shame that an elegant and well-observed description of a certain sort of precise argument is being taken over and forced to mean something crude which is totally different. Something useful is being lost in the field of human discourse, with no apparent compensating advantage that I am capable of discerning.
And ... I am sorry to be personal!! ... I greatly mistrust the motives of some who misuse the phrase. I think the poor things sometimes do it because they think it sounds fine and dandy to say something in Latin. I think saying something in Latin, when you think it means something quite the opposite to what it really means, is embarrassingly pretentious and, to be frank, a display of ignorance. Why not just say "You are making this attack rather personal"? What harm is there, for heaven's sake, in speaking English? It's a very respectable language ... the language of Jane Austen and Ronald Knox and C S Lewis and etc.etc..
So what really is an Argumentum ad hominem? A proper one, in its true native habitat?
Here is Locke's very neat definition: "To press a man with consequences drawn from his own Principles and Concessions".
I've written about this before, giving examples from Socrates to Newman. You could find my earlier blogposts via the search Engine attached to this blog, sub voce Argumentum ad hominem ... if you were interested.
I seem to keep seeing, day after day, the phrase Argumentum ad hominem misused. A recent example occurred in Fr Tom Weinandy's otherwise splendid Letter to PF.
People use it now, apparently, to mean "a personal attack". That is, when you attack somebody in a violent and deeply personal way, rather than arguing politely and rationally about a question in hand. That is how Fr Tom uses it; his point is that PF and the Bergoglians refuse polite dialogue and simply hurl nasty hate-filled personal abuse around. And, of course, he's dead right. That is exactly what they do. But this is not what Argumentum ad hominem means.
Well, language changes. If enough people use Argumentum ad hominem in this incorrect sense, then I suppose one will, regretfully, have to stop calling it wrong. Usage validates. Every philologist knows that.
But I think it is a great shame that an elegant and well-observed description of a certain sort of precise argument is being taken over and forced to mean something crude which is totally different. Something useful is being lost in the field of human discourse, with no apparent compensating advantage that I am capable of discerning.
And ... I am sorry to be personal!! ... I greatly mistrust the motives of some who misuse the phrase. I think the poor things sometimes do it because they think it sounds fine and dandy to say something in Latin. I think saying something in Latin, when you think it means something quite the opposite to what it really means, is embarrassingly pretentious and, to be frank, a display of ignorance. Why not just say "You are making this attack rather personal"? What harm is there, for heaven's sake, in speaking English? It's a very respectable language ... the language of Jane Austen and Ronald Knox and C S Lewis and etc.etc..
So what really is an Argumentum ad hominem? A proper one, in its true native habitat?
Here is Locke's very neat definition: "To press a man with consequences drawn from his own Principles and Concessions".
I've written about this before, giving examples from Socrates to Newman. You could find my earlier blogposts via the search Engine attached to this blog, sub voce Argumentum ad hominem ... if you were interested.
3 November 2017
Gimme money!
Don't miss this ... a wonderfully, miraculously funny piece of hysteria in The National Catholic Reporter by an individual called Michael Sean Winters, screaming his abuse at Fr Weinandy. It is a classic, a real winner!
One little factual query. Winters says that the opponents of PF (opponents whom, incidentally, he appears to invite to leave the Church or at least her Ministry) are "well-funded and very noisy". If he would count me in this category, I would have no problem about being deemed "very noisy".
But "well-funded"? My wife and I live off our Church of England pension, with one or two modest additions.
"Well-funded"! How do I get my hands on all this limitless loot which is apparently swilling around? Who dispenses it? To whom should I make application? Why has nobody told me about this before? How is a poor convert supposed to know about this eldorado if nobody tells him?
I want money! And I want it now! Just tell me whom to ask!
One little factual query. Winters says that the opponents of PF (opponents whom, incidentally, he appears to invite to leave the Church or at least her Ministry) are "well-funded and very noisy". If he would count me in this category, I would have no problem about being deemed "very noisy".
But "well-funded"? My wife and I live off our Church of England pension, with one or two modest additions.
"Well-funded"! How do I get my hands on all this limitless loot which is apparently swilling around? Who dispenses it? To whom should I make application? Why has nobody told me about this before? How is a poor convert supposed to know about this eldorado if nobody tells him?
I want money! And I want it now! Just tell me whom to ask!
November 5, is the Feast of the Holy Relics
However, this year, the Feast is displaced by a Sunday. But does that prevent homilists from expounding its themes at the Sunday Mass? After all, modern custom is to identify Sunday mainly with the Resurrection, and Resurrection is what the Feast of all the Holy Relics preserved in our churches is really about. (And the Mass can be said as a Votive on any free day ...)
What a wholesome liturgical instinct this festival represents. In the medieval English rites, it tried out various dates; May 22 or the Monday after the Ascension at Exeter; the Sunday after the Translation of S Thomas (July 7) at Hereford and Sarum - although Sarum notes that 'nuper' it occupied the Octave Day of our Lady's Nativity, with an appropriate Collect "Grant we beseech thee Almighty God, that the merits may protect us of the holy Mother of God and Ever Virgin Mary and of thy Saints whose relics are kept in this church ...". The traditional Benedictine rite keeps this festival on May 13, presumably a learned allusion to the Dedication of the Pantheon in Rome, upon this day, as the Church of Sancta Maria ad Martyres. Before the reforms of S Pius X, this festival was to be found among the Masses For Some Places on October 26, or on the Last Sunday of October.
After S Pius X, the Feast of the Relics settled, most appropriately, onto a day within the Octave of All Saints, November 5, where it was observed by papal indult in certain places (often as a Greater Double). The colour to be used is red. This is consistent with the fact that the Office is the Common of Many Martyrs, despite the fact that not all the Saints whose relics we this day venerate were martyred. Perhaps we may relate this usage to the primitive notion that the Martyrs are the prototypical saints; that the unmartyred sancti et sanctae in a sense just piggy-back along upon the martyrs.
The Sacred Congregation of Rites sometimes felt tempted to turn to Byzantine sources to get a richer mixture than one always finds in formal Western texts (Sessio xxv of Trent is sound enough on the relics but a trifle sober). So the proper lections at Mattins for this feast are taken from that always-reliable Doctor of the Church S John of Damascus (Fr Eric Mascall once observed the propensity of Roman liturgists to resort to Eastern sources whenever they felt moved to say something 'extreme'). "For since Life itself and the Author of Life was numbered among the dead, we do not call those who finished their last day in the hope of Resurrection and of faith in Him 'Dead'. For how can a dead body utter miracles? Through relics the devils are cast out, diseases sent fleeing, the sick healed, the blind see ..." etc. etc.. The Collect is a fine composition which likewise sees the miracles performed through the relics of Saints as pledges of the Resurrection: Increase in us O Lord our faith in the Resurrection, who in the relics of thy Saints dost perform marvellous works: and make us partakers of the immortal glory of which our veneration of their ashes [cineres] is a pledge.
This celebration disappeared from Church life in the post-Conciliar period, for presumably the same reasons that at the same time caused the Jesuits, who then occupied the Church of S Aloysius in this City, to have a massive bonfire of all the relics and reliquaries in their splendid Relics Chapel (Fr Bertram's elegant booklet about those events reminds one uncannily of the similar things which happened throughout England in the late 1540s ... mercifully, the gracious spirit of S Philip Neri has now restored lost glories by filling the Alyoggers Relics Chapel with a grand new collection).
This feast is, in my view, rich in themes for evangelical preaching and teaching, and ripe for wider revival. It teaches the goodness of material things against a false 'spiritualism'; it preaches the ultimately indissoluble link between Body and Soul against the sub-Christian notion that only the soul really matters; it proclaims the transforming eschatological glory which will clothe this perishable with what is imperishable, and this mortal with what is immortal, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
What a wholesome liturgical instinct this festival represents. In the medieval English rites, it tried out various dates; May 22 or the Monday after the Ascension at Exeter; the Sunday after the Translation of S Thomas (July 7) at Hereford and Sarum - although Sarum notes that 'nuper' it occupied the Octave Day of our Lady's Nativity, with an appropriate Collect "Grant we beseech thee Almighty God, that the merits may protect us of the holy Mother of God and Ever Virgin Mary and of thy Saints whose relics are kept in this church ...". The traditional Benedictine rite keeps this festival on May 13, presumably a learned allusion to the Dedication of the Pantheon in Rome, upon this day, as the Church of Sancta Maria ad Martyres. Before the reforms of S Pius X, this festival was to be found among the Masses For Some Places on October 26, or on the Last Sunday of October.
After S Pius X, the Feast of the Relics settled, most appropriately, onto a day within the Octave of All Saints, November 5, where it was observed by papal indult in certain places (often as a Greater Double). The colour to be used is red. This is consistent with the fact that the Office is the Common of Many Martyrs, despite the fact that not all the Saints whose relics we this day venerate were martyred. Perhaps we may relate this usage to the primitive notion that the Martyrs are the prototypical saints; that the unmartyred sancti et sanctae in a sense just piggy-back along upon the martyrs.
The Sacred Congregation of Rites sometimes felt tempted to turn to Byzantine sources to get a richer mixture than one always finds in formal Western texts (Sessio xxv of Trent is sound enough on the relics but a trifle sober). So the proper lections at Mattins for this feast are taken from that always-reliable Doctor of the Church S John of Damascus (Fr Eric Mascall once observed the propensity of Roman liturgists to resort to Eastern sources whenever they felt moved to say something 'extreme'). "For since Life itself and the Author of Life was numbered among the dead, we do not call those who finished their last day in the hope of Resurrection and of faith in Him 'Dead'. For how can a dead body utter miracles? Through relics the devils are cast out, diseases sent fleeing, the sick healed, the blind see ..." etc. etc.. The Collect is a fine composition which likewise sees the miracles performed through the relics of Saints as pledges of the Resurrection: Increase in us O Lord our faith in the Resurrection, who in the relics of thy Saints dost perform marvellous works: and make us partakers of the immortal glory of which our veneration of their ashes [cineres] is a pledge.
This celebration disappeared from Church life in the post-Conciliar period, for presumably the same reasons that at the same time caused the Jesuits, who then occupied the Church of S Aloysius in this City, to have a massive bonfire of all the relics and reliquaries in their splendid Relics Chapel (Fr Bertram's elegant booklet about those events reminds one uncannily of the similar things which happened throughout England in the late 1540s ... mercifully, the gracious spirit of S Philip Neri has now restored lost glories by filling the Alyoggers Relics Chapel with a grand new collection).
This feast is, in my view, rich in themes for evangelical preaching and teaching, and ripe for wider revival. It teaches the goodness of material things against a false 'spiritualism'; it preaches the ultimately indissoluble link between Body and Soul against the sub-Christian notion that only the soul really matters; it proclaims the transforming eschatological glory which will clothe this perishable with what is imperishable, and this mortal with what is immortal, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
2 November 2017
Liturgical Arts Journal
Older readers will remember with affection the name of Shawn Tribe who, back in the days when Liturgical Restoration was just beginning, founded the blog New Liturgical Movement.
Mr Tribe is at it again! The Liturgical Arts Journal is now up and running, with website, facebook, and twitter presences. It cannot but be good!
Mr Tribe is at it again! The Liturgical Arts Journal is now up and running, with website, facebook, and twitter presences. It cannot but be good!
Fr Weinandy
I very much regret that I have never met Fr Thomas Weinandy, whose letter to PF has just been published. He is a distinguished American theologian; he was in Oxford for a decade or two and his reputation was high when I came back here later than his return to America. He was Warden of Greyfriars, a Permanent Private Hall of the University, and for a time Chairman of the Theology Faculty.
The fact that the American Episcopal Conference, within minutes, sacked him from being a Consultor of their Doctrine Committee must indicate that America is awash with brilliant theologians. If that Conference really can so easily do without someone of his standing ...
It must also indicate that the USA Episcopal Conference is dominated by very little men. God bless the dear little fellows.
This cheap and vulgar ritual humiliation exemplifies the extent to which PF is presiding over a bully-boy Church in which midget bishops and minicardinals compete to defeat each other in the sycophancy stakes. Just as Tom Weinandy has, in effect, just said.
The young Weinandy was taught at Kings, London, by the great Anglican Thomist Canon Professor Eric Mascall, which gives him a link with our great Anglican Patrimony. I like to think that his action redeems the honour of the American Church, just as the courageous lecture given in August by Fr Aidan Nichols redeemed that of the English Church. Nichols is an Oxford man (Cardinal College) and Weinandy is Oxonian by adoption, so I feel that dear S Frideswide Universitatis specialis adiutrix must be quietly satisfied that, despite the demonic spirit of secularisation at work in modern Oxford, some of her lads have turned out good during this unparalleled crisis in the Church Militant. Floreat Oxonia.
The fact that the American Episcopal Conference, within minutes, sacked him from being a Consultor of their Doctrine Committee must indicate that America is awash with brilliant theologians. If that Conference really can so easily do without someone of his standing ...
It must also indicate that the USA Episcopal Conference is dominated by very little men. God bless the dear little fellows.
This cheap and vulgar ritual humiliation exemplifies the extent to which PF is presiding over a bully-boy Church in which midget bishops and minicardinals compete to defeat each other in the sycophancy stakes. Just as Tom Weinandy has, in effect, just said.
The young Weinandy was taught at Kings, London, by the great Anglican Thomist Canon Professor Eric Mascall, which gives him a link with our great Anglican Patrimony. I like to think that his action redeems the honour of the American Church, just as the courageous lecture given in August by Fr Aidan Nichols redeemed that of the English Church. Nichols is an Oxford man (Cardinal College) and Weinandy is Oxonian by adoption, so I feel that dear S Frideswide Universitatis specialis adiutrix must be quietly satisfied that, despite the demonic spirit of secularisation at work in modern Oxford, some of her lads have turned out good during this unparalleled crisis in the Church Militant. Floreat Oxonia.
1 November 2017
Joseph Ratzinger
Happy All Hallows! May the Saints pray for the whole stae of Christ's Church Militant here in Earth. We need you!
This is a slightly unusual post which some people ... probably rightly ... may consider in bad taste.
Archbishop Gaenswein has described the life of emeritus pope Benedict as flickering away like a candle flame. Please God, he may yet live to give service to the Church. Back in 2013, some unwholesome individuals were already gleefully anticipating his funeral ... one of whom has actually just cheerfully suggested that Ratzinger should now campaign in support of PF! "Brazen", did you say? But nobody lives for ever. If his death is within sight, it seems to me that there are some practical points which it might be useful to make.
It will be an occasion for grief but also for retrospectives. The Media love retrospecting! It will also be a time in which even some of the nastier specimens in the bilge water of the Barque of S Peter will by convention put their gut hatred temporarily on hold. Joseph Ratzinger may, for a week, become in death more audible!
It seems to me that this should be an occasion for emphasising and showcasing what we think is important about his distinguished pontificate; not simply out of nostalgia and affection but with an eye on what needs to be emphasised for the good of the Church's ongoing life. It is my view that any of us who have any sort of entree into the Media world should have given some sort of forethought to this question.
Secondly, I have a suspicion that PF, out of a thoroughly commendable sense of decency, has not liked to savage elements of Papa Ratzinger's legacy too obviously while his predecessor is still alive. And I doubt if he would wish to do so on the very morrow of his death. But there is some evidence that PF is aware of his own mortality, and might not wait as long as he would wish before doing some spoiling. We must also not forget his unfortunate tendency to be easily influenced by some immensely dodgy people.
'Liturgy' springs to mind; and not least the position of Cardinal Sarah, around whom the Wolves ... and probably the Vultures as well ... have been circling for some time. It is rumoured that he was appointed by PF on a recommendation of Papa emeritus Ratzinger. Repeated and rather nasty public humiliations by PF have happily failed to persuade His gutsy Eminence to behave like an Anglo-Saxon and fall on his own sword. I wonder how long his heroic service to the Church in his present lonely role will survive Joseph Ratzinger's death.
Sarah, Liturgiam authenticam, and Summorum Pontificum are treasures which the Church can ill afford to lose. And they are what the Wolves particularly have their eye upon.
This is a slightly unusual post which some people ... probably rightly ... may consider in bad taste.
Archbishop Gaenswein has described the life of emeritus pope Benedict as flickering away like a candle flame. Please God, he may yet live to give service to the Church. Back in 2013, some unwholesome individuals were already gleefully anticipating his funeral ... one of whom has actually just cheerfully suggested that Ratzinger should now campaign in support of PF! "Brazen", did you say? But nobody lives for ever. If his death is within sight, it seems to me that there are some practical points which it might be useful to make.
It will be an occasion for grief but also for retrospectives. The Media love retrospecting! It will also be a time in which even some of the nastier specimens in the bilge water of the Barque of S Peter will by convention put their gut hatred temporarily on hold. Joseph Ratzinger may, for a week, become in death more audible!
It seems to me that this should be an occasion for emphasising and showcasing what we think is important about his distinguished pontificate; not simply out of nostalgia and affection but with an eye on what needs to be emphasised for the good of the Church's ongoing life. It is my view that any of us who have any sort of entree into the Media world should have given some sort of forethought to this question.
Secondly, I have a suspicion that PF, out of a thoroughly commendable sense of decency, has not liked to savage elements of Papa Ratzinger's legacy too obviously while his predecessor is still alive. And I doubt if he would wish to do so on the very morrow of his death. But there is some evidence that PF is aware of his own mortality, and might not wait as long as he would wish before doing some spoiling. We must also not forget his unfortunate tendency to be easily influenced by some immensely dodgy people.
'Liturgy' springs to mind; and not least the position of Cardinal Sarah, around whom the Wolves ... and probably the Vultures as well ... have been circling for some time. It is rumoured that he was appointed by PF on a recommendation of Papa emeritus Ratzinger. Repeated and rather nasty public humiliations by PF have happily failed to persuade His gutsy Eminence to behave like an Anglo-Saxon and fall on his own sword. I wonder how long his heroic service to the Church in his present lonely role will survive Joseph Ratzinger's death.
Sarah, Liturgiam authenticam, and Summorum Pontificum are treasures which the Church can ill afford to lose. And they are what the Wolves particularly have their eye upon.
31 October 2017
Traditional Catholics in the Baltimore area...
... Ordinariate news!! Mount Calvary Catholic Church, centre of a flourishing Ordinariate Group, is being erected into a parish of the Ordinariate. Bishop Lopes, Ordinary of the Chair of S Peter, will celebrate Pontifical High Mass (ORDINARIATE RITE) at 4.00 on Saturday 11 November. During Mass he will consecrate the Altar, and seal into it a relic of S John of the Cross.
Mount Calvary has taught and practised the Faith since 1842; its first Vicar, Fr Alfred Curtis, was received into Full Communion by Blessed John Henry Newman himself, and subsequently became the second Bishop of Wilmington.
It sounds a jolly area; the Shrine of S Alfonso Liguori (FSSP); and America's first Catholic Cathedral, our Lady Assumpta, are not far away.
Mount Calvary has taught and practised the Faith since 1842; its first Vicar, Fr Alfred Curtis, was received into Full Communion by Blessed John Henry Newman himself, and subsequently became the second Bishop of Wilmington.
It sounds a jolly area; the Shrine of S Alfonso Liguori (FSSP); and America's first Catholic Cathedral, our Lady Assumpta, are not far away.
All Hallows' Eve
A lovely day, in which the Roman Liturgy, with its beautiful Mass of the Eve, or Vigil, of All Saints, sets up a big marker against the heathen puerilities of "Hallow Een". And carries forward the themes of the Social Kingship of Christ. I am sure that both clergy and devout laity enjoyed this morning the texts of this Mass.
Except that most of them didn't. What a shame that Vatican II, or the Novus Ordo, abolished it. Just another example of all that has been wrong since the 1960s.
Except that the Vigil of All Saints was not abolished by Vatican II (or by the undoubted vandals who did use "Vatican II" as a dishonest excuse to ignore what the Council did actually mandate).
No; this lovely Vigil was abolished by Pius XII, hero-pope of a certain sort of Traddy!!
Pius XII it was who employed Hannibal Bugnini and began the deformation of the Roman Rite, years before Papa Roncalli had any notion of summoning a Council. They began by interfering with the rites of Holy Week.
If, in a second-hand bookshop, you spot an old pre-1950 Missal going cheap, snaffle it up!
Except that most of them didn't. What a shame that Vatican II, or the Novus Ordo, abolished it. Just another example of all that has been wrong since the 1960s.
Except that the Vigil of All Saints was not abolished by Vatican II (or by the undoubted vandals who did use "Vatican II" as a dishonest excuse to ignore what the Council did actually mandate).
No; this lovely Vigil was abolished by Pius XII, hero-pope of a certain sort of Traddy!!
Pius XII it was who employed Hannibal Bugnini and began the deformation of the Roman Rite, years before Papa Roncalli had any notion of summoning a Council. They began by interfering with the rites of Holy Week.
If, in a second-hand bookshop, you spot an old pre-1950 Missal going cheap, snaffle it up!
30 October 2017
Christ the KING: Tom Wright's view
Many readers of this blog will not have heard of Tom Wright. A former don in this University, he was made Bishop of (the prestigious see of ) Durham, because of his formidable academic reputation. After ... I think ... seven years he joined that distinguished number of heavyweight Anglican intellectuals who've either turned down episkope or else abandoned it after a short trial to return to academe. He is an Evangelical but has 'broadened' (when he was Chaplain of Worcester College in this University, he used to waggle incense around). He tries to understand the Catholic Faith, but, not having experienced it from the the inside, often gets things wrong. His books on S Paul and Pauline doctrine are very well worth reading. (Don't bother with For all the Saints, because he gets the Catholic/Orthodox cult of the Saints wrong.)
Tom is no fool. Writing about the adoption by the Church of England of the feast of Christ the King on the Sunday Next Before Advent, he objects because "this particular novelty ... gets it completely wrong. It presses all the wrong buttons. It completes the job of pulling the Church's year out of shape. Once again, more is less. This "feast" devalues other feasts and occasions ... by concluding the implicit story-line at the wrong point, thereby throwing out of kilter the narrative grammar of the whole story. It implies that Jesus Christ becomes King at the end of the sequence, the end of the story, as the result of a long process". So it devalues Ascension Day. It is, he opines, "like trying to eat the Christmas pudding first and stir it afterwards".
Actually, I wonder if the Feast of Christ the King may be up for review in more circles than one. Traddies very naturally prefer the intention manifested by Pius XI, that the Festival should be closely associated with the Feast of All Saints. I gather that all this stuff about Kingship appeals less and less to some Trendies, because they would rather think of the Lord as a Servant and all that sort of stuff. And people soaked in good old Anglican Patrimonial traditions miss Stir up Sunday. And people whose Patron Saint is S Andrew can't celebrate their Patron when he occurs on a Sunday and, of course, are prevented every year from celebrating his External Solemnity on the Sunday.
Does the current Novus Ordo treatment of Christ the King really make anybody happy? Pragmatically, you're more likely to have good enough weather for a procession of the Blessed Sacrament at the end of October. And the Pius XI date at the end of October would help to provide a bit of an antidote to the commercially-inspired 'Hallow'een' spookfest. Best of all, it provides a Christian alternative to Reformation Sunday.
Rather like Pius XII's clever idea of making May 1 the feast of S Joseph the workman, the November date for Christ the King has never really bedded down into the mentality and popular culture of ordinary Christians. Clever ideas quite often don't. Because Liturgy is, after being the property of the Almighty, the property really of the plebs sancta Dei, God's common ordinary folk, not of chaps with clever ideas who write learned papers about Inculturation but treat Liturgy like a gamesboard on which they and their chums are entitled to move the counters around.
Tom is no fool. Writing about the adoption by the Church of England of the feast of Christ the King on the Sunday Next Before Advent, he objects because "this particular novelty ... gets it completely wrong. It presses all the wrong buttons. It completes the job of pulling the Church's year out of shape. Once again, more is less. This "feast" devalues other feasts and occasions ... by concluding the implicit story-line at the wrong point, thereby throwing out of kilter the narrative grammar of the whole story. It implies that Jesus Christ becomes King at the end of the sequence, the end of the story, as the result of a long process". So it devalues Ascension Day. It is, he opines, "like trying to eat the Christmas pudding first and stir it afterwards".
Actually, I wonder if the Feast of Christ the King may be up for review in more circles than one. Traddies very naturally prefer the intention manifested by Pius XI, that the Festival should be closely associated with the Feast of All Saints. I gather that all this stuff about Kingship appeals less and less to some Trendies, because they would rather think of the Lord as a Servant and all that sort of stuff. And people soaked in good old Anglican Patrimonial traditions miss Stir up Sunday. And people whose Patron Saint is S Andrew can't celebrate their Patron when he occurs on a Sunday and, of course, are prevented every year from celebrating his External Solemnity on the Sunday.
Does the current Novus Ordo treatment of Christ the King really make anybody happy? Pragmatically, you're more likely to have good enough weather for a procession of the Blessed Sacrament at the end of October. And the Pius XI date at the end of October would help to provide a bit of an antidote to the commercially-inspired 'Hallow'een' spookfest. Best of all, it provides a Christian alternative to Reformation Sunday.
Rather like Pius XII's clever idea of making May 1 the feast of S Joseph the workman, the November date for Christ the King has never really bedded down into the mentality and popular culture of ordinary Christians. Clever ideas quite often don't. Because Liturgy is, after being the property of the Almighty, the property really of the plebs sancta Dei, God's common ordinary folk, not of chaps with clever ideas who write learned papers about Inculturation but treat Liturgy like a gamesboard on which they and their chums are entitled to move the counters around.
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