This is getting to feel a bit like surfing. The longer one stays on this particular wave, the less secure one feels. But be that as it may, I think there is still more to be said.
One element in Irish Christianity to which I have alluded is what one might call the folk element. I watched a programme on the Electric Television some months ago. Three men shared a boat in Ireland; one of them was Dara O'Briain, the other two were British—Griff Rhys Jones, I think, and an irritating Rory. Somewhere in the sticks they came across a holy well, and there was by it a sight familiar to those who frequent such places. A tree stood hard by, festooned with rags of cloth. One of the Englishmen opened his mouth to say something caustic, but was forestalled by Dara O'Briain who said 'I want to mock that, but I don't want you mocking it.'
Here we have the Irish paradox. Ireland is a country that is intensely proud of its own culture, not least that it has managed to keep it alive under the most unpropitious circumstances. It is highly tenacious of it, but also aware that other cultures have despised it, and non-Irish educated people these days are at best patronising about it. Irish people, especially intelligent and educated Irish people (and there are still plenty of Englishmen who think that that is an oxymoron) feel this tug within them. The same Dara O'Briain, when a guest on that smugfest quiz Q.I. was asked by the host Stephen Fry to comment on various patron saints, among superior chortles from guests and audience. O'Briain got right up on his hind legs and objected to what amounted to the racism being expressed. He is not, I understand, a practising Catholic, but he is very sensitive to the fact that the chattering classes are allowed to be as patronising and contemptuous as they wish about Catholicism and Irishness without the slightest need to devote any energy to understanding what they are criticising. Both are self-evidently beneath contempt.
'But, but……' —I can hear people protesting right now—'surely Irishness has never been so popular. Look at all those Irish pubs, look at Riverdance, look at Enya, look at 'Celtic Spirituality'. This kind of Disney view of Ireland, sometimes called 'Oirishness' has substituted in many (non-Irish) people's minds for the real thing. A charming, out of touch, mediæval cute little land of leprechauns, shillelaghs, and Guinness keeps people from engaging with the reality of a land whose people are peculiarly articulate, with high standards of education (in everything but religion) and a unique and valuable culture which is itself in danger of being Oirished out of existence.
The Irish are keenly aware of how they are viewed, and it makes them somewhat allergic to the somewhat stranger manifestations of folk religion, like rag-festooned trees (and yes, I know that in the past, and even here and there today, such things could and can also be seen in England). This in itself distances the educated Irish from Catholicism, because the dearth of serious catechesis in the last 40 years has exposed them to the stranger elements of folk religion without the intellectual apparatus to understand the real depths of the faith. All they have got has been weak hymnody, poor sermons, inadequate religious instruction—and now clerical child abuse and irresponsible bishops.
That is one result. There is another, which is no less dangerous. I don't think that the Irish have any problem at all with the spiritual dimension of things. It was what (real) Celtic spirituality brought to Catholicism in general. The drive of the Platonic element in Christianity, vitally important though it is, tended to create an attitude to the material creation that was ambivalent at best. Matter was at the other end of the spectrum to Spirit, and the closer one wanted to draw to God, the more one should despise matter. The great Christological crises of the first centuries centred mostly around this strange fact that God, pure Spirit, could take a material nature without diminishing what He was.
I alluded in an earlier post to the (probable) fact that St Patrick never studied Plato in any thoroughgoing way. His education stopped in his mid-teens, and only restarted when he trained for the priesthood in Gaul. At any event, the Irish have never seen any problem with finding God in the material. They have seen wonders all around them, all the time. Sacraments make total sense. The old Celtic gods were primal forces in nature, unpredictable. Christianity (which spread throughout Ireland without any real opposition within a single generation, it is said) gave a whole new meaning to the world around them, and the introduction of the Latin script gave the a means to articulate this joy. The introduction of Egyptian-style penitential monasticism to Ireland was also deeply creative. The desert is a tough place to live, without much to look at, but Ireland is deeply beautiful. Even that monastic rock in the Atlantic, Skellig Michael, lifts one's mind to God. Imagine looking at a sunset from there and not wondering at the might and glory of God who could create such a thing. St Kevin stood up to his neck in the freezing water, but he did so at Glendalough, a truly lovely place. The Christian Romans didn't really look much at scenery, (many pagans did, though—think of Horace, or the villas around the Bay of Naples) but the Irish enjoy looking at everything and everyone with a perpetual and vivid curiosity and see nothing wrong in it.
What I'm trying to get to is that, deprived of proper orthodox catechesis, many Irish people will continue to look around them for the spiritual, because they expect to find it in the world around them. So they will hare off to Ballinspittle to look at moving statues, they will go to Achill Island to hear the latest message from God through Christine Gallagher, they will listen to John Bird's latest predictions concerning the end of the world……
So, there are two results from the atrociously poor catechesis of the last fifty years. The first is a tendency among the more highly-educated elite to throw everything to do with Catholicism over (though with a rather uneasy conscience, because the Irish are naturally spiritual). There's no fear of them becoming Protestants, because that would be to deny their own history. The other result is to flee after signs and wonders.
To believe nothing, in other words, or to believe anything.
For God's sake, for the people's sake, serious catechesis, well adapted for the intelligent, inquiring, mind in the modern world must be reintroduced without delay. But how, and by whom? There is a long path ahead.
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
500 (c)
It needs saying again: Irish Christianity/Catholicism is not, and never has been, like that of any other nation. Its roots do not lie really within the Roman Empire, but has other influences, many entirely its own.
It has long been suggested, with a pretty fair degree of certainty, that there are strong links with Egyptian monasticism. This makes enormous sense to me, and explains so much. It explains the strong penitential tradition, for instance, and it also explains the unliturgical expression of the faith.
When St Anthony the Abbot walled himself up in the old fort at Pispir for twenty years, has it never occurred to anyone that he must have gone those twenty years without once receiving Holy Communion or even attending Mass? Those early monastic communities expressed their faith in extreme asceticism, in the recitation of the psalms. They were not coenobitic monks, but hermits or at least ideorhythmic monks, and this is the idea that they took to the far coast of Ireland.
St Patrick was educated as a child but abducted before that education was complete; he never went on to study philosophy, and so Irish Christianity developed its own outlook on the world; free of that platonic distrust of lowly matter it embraced the material world and loved it as God's (albeit fallen) creation.
Ireland never really developed that Imperial system of dioceses and bishops; many think that Ireland never even had a secular clergy until the coming of the Normans. There were simply monks, and there were lay folk. Enormous monasteries might have had one priest to do the sacramental things: it is not impossible that this one priest may even have been in Episcopal orders; at any rate, the bishops were monks living under the authority of the abbot. When Columbanus set up a monastery in Gaul, the local bishops were spitting feathers because of his amused disregard of their authority; he clearly saw his own authority as greater than theirs.
And then there's the liturgy. Have you ever looked at any of the most ancient Irish monastic sites? There are churches, but it would be more accurate to call them tiny little chapels. For the most part, these buildings could have just about accommodated an altar, a priest and a server. Where did the laity go? Where, even, did the monks go? In those early days, did they go to Mass much at all?
With the coming of the Normans, churches got a bit larger, but not much. An Irish Cathedral (outside Dublin anyway, or the Pale) was a small affair. And for the most parts, the Anglo-Normans assimilated to the Irish culture rather than the other way about.
So, if not in the parish church, where was the locus or perhaps focus, of the faith of the Irish? Well, for one thing, it was in the home. Like that of the monks, even the Irish laity's spirituality was ideorhythmic; rosary, holy wells, saints, pilgrimages, penances (Lough Derg, Croagh Patrick), and enthusiastic going to funerals, even those of strangers. They learnt to go to Mass, surely, and developed a love for the sacraments, but an Irish congregation at Mass is a very different thing to a congregation in any other land. They pray, fervently, at Mass, but I do not think, in general, and surely there must be exceptions, that they could be said to pray the Mass itself, even now. The Mass is something that is done in their presence, but even now any idea of direct communal participation is foreign. The responses are muttered by each person at his own speed, the Creed or Gloria being a sort of subterranean murmur that begins, and vaguely ends. People stand, kneel, sit, more or less at random. Mass is rarely more than Low Mass, celebrated quickly. 'High Mass' is a low Mass with a choir singing hymns; it's a very rare parish where the congregation would join in.
Foreign visitors are often shocked at this. But it would be a profound mistake to read into it—as far too many do—that the Irish are entirely unserious about their religion. That is absolutely not the case; it is just that the accent is (very) different to most other places.
And it is not without its advantages; for the Reformation to (largely) succeed in England, it was necessary only to change the liturgy. For English Catholics, 'it is the Mass that matters', and to deprive them of the Mass was to deprive them of the faith. For the Irish it worked differently. The churches were all taken, the liturgy changed, as in England, but people still carried on much as before. Their faith had enough sustenance coming from where it has always come: they continued to go to holy wells, say the rosary, go on pilgrimages, and, when they could, attend Mass at a Mass rock. They educated their children in the home or in hedge schools, just as they had done for generations.
The religion did not depend on the priest: in some ways, one might say that the priest was more of a political figure; a sort of alternative jurisdiction in an occupied country. I'll say more about this in another post.
Suffice it to say that Irish Catholicism has it in itself to survive this present crisis. But for something like a hundred and fifty years people have been badgering the Irish Catholics to adopt the Liturgical Movement. In the last forty years, all the things that have kept them going through the ages have been decried. I was at St Kieran's Well in Co Meath a few weeks ago; my elderly aunt commented sadly to me that when she was young, there were always crowds of people there; on that day it was only she and I. To some extent, the Irish themselves have been keen to abandon all this. For centuries this stuff has been dismissed as 'peasant religion', fit only for uneducated people, and if there is anything true, it is that the Irish value education. That charge, though, would be a telling one, particularly as there are aspects of this 'folk religion' which really do tend to the superstitious.
I have a lot more to say on this, but I'll leave it till the next post.
It has long been suggested, with a pretty fair degree of certainty, that there are strong links with Egyptian monasticism. This makes enormous sense to me, and explains so much. It explains the strong penitential tradition, for instance, and it also explains the unliturgical expression of the faith.
When St Anthony the Abbot walled himself up in the old fort at Pispir for twenty years, has it never occurred to anyone that he must have gone those twenty years without once receiving Holy Communion or even attending Mass? Those early monastic communities expressed their faith in extreme asceticism, in the recitation of the psalms. They were not coenobitic monks, but hermits or at least ideorhythmic monks, and this is the idea that they took to the far coast of Ireland.
St Patrick was educated as a child but abducted before that education was complete; he never went on to study philosophy, and so Irish Christianity developed its own outlook on the world; free of that platonic distrust of lowly matter it embraced the material world and loved it as God's (albeit fallen) creation.
Ireland never really developed that Imperial system of dioceses and bishops; many think that Ireland never even had a secular clergy until the coming of the Normans. There were simply monks, and there were lay folk. Enormous monasteries might have had one priest to do the sacramental things: it is not impossible that this one priest may even have been in Episcopal orders; at any rate, the bishops were monks living under the authority of the abbot. When Columbanus set up a monastery in Gaul, the local bishops were spitting feathers because of his amused disregard of their authority; he clearly saw his own authority as greater than theirs.
And then there's the liturgy. Have you ever looked at any of the most ancient Irish monastic sites? There are churches, but it would be more accurate to call them tiny little chapels. For the most part, these buildings could have just about accommodated an altar, a priest and a server. Where did the laity go? Where, even, did the monks go? In those early days, did they go to Mass much at all?
With the coming of the Normans, churches got a bit larger, but not much. An Irish Cathedral (outside Dublin anyway, or the Pale) was a small affair. And for the most parts, the Anglo-Normans assimilated to the Irish culture rather than the other way about.
So, if not in the parish church, where was the locus or perhaps focus, of the faith of the Irish? Well, for one thing, it was in the home. Like that of the monks, even the Irish laity's spirituality was ideorhythmic; rosary, holy wells, saints, pilgrimages, penances (Lough Derg, Croagh Patrick), and enthusiastic going to funerals, even those of strangers. They learnt to go to Mass, surely, and developed a love for the sacraments, but an Irish congregation at Mass is a very different thing to a congregation in any other land. They pray, fervently, at Mass, but I do not think, in general, and surely there must be exceptions, that they could be said to pray the Mass itself, even now. The Mass is something that is done in their presence, but even now any idea of direct communal participation is foreign. The responses are muttered by each person at his own speed, the Creed or Gloria being a sort of subterranean murmur that begins, and vaguely ends. People stand, kneel, sit, more or less at random. Mass is rarely more than Low Mass, celebrated quickly. 'High Mass' is a low Mass with a choir singing hymns; it's a very rare parish where the congregation would join in.
Foreign visitors are often shocked at this. But it would be a profound mistake to read into it—as far too many do—that the Irish are entirely unserious about their religion. That is absolutely not the case; it is just that the accent is (very) different to most other places.
And it is not without its advantages; for the Reformation to (largely) succeed in England, it was necessary only to change the liturgy. For English Catholics, 'it is the Mass that matters', and to deprive them of the Mass was to deprive them of the faith. For the Irish it worked differently. The churches were all taken, the liturgy changed, as in England, but people still carried on much as before. Their faith had enough sustenance coming from where it has always come: they continued to go to holy wells, say the rosary, go on pilgrimages, and, when they could, attend Mass at a Mass rock. They educated their children in the home or in hedge schools, just as they had done for generations.
The religion did not depend on the priest: in some ways, one might say that the priest was more of a political figure; a sort of alternative jurisdiction in an occupied country. I'll say more about this in another post.
Suffice it to say that Irish Catholicism has it in itself to survive this present crisis. But for something like a hundred and fifty years people have been badgering the Irish Catholics to adopt the Liturgical Movement. In the last forty years, all the things that have kept them going through the ages have been decried. I was at St Kieran's Well in Co Meath a few weeks ago; my elderly aunt commented sadly to me that when she was young, there were always crowds of people there; on that day it was only she and I. To some extent, the Irish themselves have been keen to abandon all this. For centuries this stuff has been dismissed as 'peasant religion', fit only for uneducated people, and if there is anything true, it is that the Irish value education. That charge, though, would be a telling one, particularly as there are aspects of this 'folk religion' which really do tend to the superstitious.
I have a lot more to say on this, but I'll leave it till the next post.
Sunday, 24 July 2011
500 (b)
The 500-strong Association of Catholic Priests are riding high right now for all the reasons that I mentioned in the last post. They are conscientious priests who probably do not spend all their time on the golf course, or else they would not be getting so generally upset over these issues. They do actually care and want real solutions to the terrible problems that they see in the Irish Church.
On the whole, they see the problem as being largely one of a conservative Vatican reining in on all the good things that the Second Vatican Council had brought and returning to a model of 'you will take what we give you, and you will like or or lump it'. Hence their opposition to the new translation of the Mass, and hence their outrage at the insufficient reaction of the hierarchy to the pædophilia crisis.
Here the reader will not be surprised to learn that I part company with them. Not all the way: in the last post I too deplored the way that the bishops have been left undisciplined.
The trouble is that you can't keep your cake and eat it as well.
• You can't abolish sin (original and actual), hell, penance, confession, and the rest, for forty years and then reinvent them for the special case of pædophiles and complacent bishops.
• You can't (in the spirit of collegiality and Vatican II) for forty years protest Rome's interference with local bishops, and now complain that it hesitates to interfere and discipline them.
It really is all of a piece. The Church has two millennia of experience of dealing with sin, but if you are going to tie her hands behind her back and then expect her to deal decisively with a wolf when it descends on the fold, then you are going to be disappointed.
That is why I think that what the Church needs is not bishops like Willie Walsh, much-loved and kind man as he is, but men like Charles Chaput who really get it.
There are not a lot of places in Ireland where what is sometimes called the New Orthodoxy has been attempted. Parishes on the whole are very much what they were in 1970, only not quite so full. Young people have not received the opportunity to encounter the genuine faith and see its power. They just find the 1970s model unconvincing, and its strictures incomprehensible in the light of the fact that it would appear to have so little else to offer them.
I wonder whether something like World Youth Day might not do some good if it were held next in Ireland.
On the whole, they see the problem as being largely one of a conservative Vatican reining in on all the good things that the Second Vatican Council had brought and returning to a model of 'you will take what we give you, and you will like or or lump it'. Hence their opposition to the new translation of the Mass, and hence their outrage at the insufficient reaction of the hierarchy to the pædophilia crisis.
Here the reader will not be surprised to learn that I part company with them. Not all the way: in the last post I too deplored the way that the bishops have been left undisciplined.
The trouble is that you can't keep your cake and eat it as well.
• You can't abolish sin (original and actual), hell, penance, confession, and the rest, for forty years and then reinvent them for the special case of pædophiles and complacent bishops.
• You can't (in the spirit of collegiality and Vatican II) for forty years protest Rome's interference with local bishops, and now complain that it hesitates to interfere and discipline them.
It really is all of a piece. The Church has two millennia of experience of dealing with sin, but if you are going to tie her hands behind her back and then expect her to deal decisively with a wolf when it descends on the fold, then you are going to be disappointed.
That is why I think that what the Church needs is not bishops like Willie Walsh, much-loved and kind man as he is, but men like Charles Chaput who really get it.
There are not a lot of places in Ireland where what is sometimes called the New Orthodoxy has been attempted. Parishes on the whole are very much what they were in 1970, only not quite so full. Young people have not received the opportunity to encounter the genuine faith and see its power. They just find the 1970s model unconvincing, and its strictures incomprehensible in the light of the fact that it would appear to have so little else to offer them.
I wonder whether something like World Youth Day might not do some good if it were held next in Ireland.
Saturday, 23 July 2011
500
The debate raging in the Irish Church brings me little surprise.
It is my honest belief that the episcopate and the presbyterate in Ireland have been riding for a fall for perhaps half a century, perhaps longer.
I remember a funeral luncheon for an uncle of mine. It was on a Monday; the funeral had been exceptionally deferred from the traditional third day after death to enable me to attend and officiate. I was sat next to the parish priest—actually the Vicar General of the diocese, now deceased—and listened with scant sympathy as he grumbled about his extremely busy weekend. He lamented that that Sunday he had had to celebrate Mass twice, imagine!, and now with this lunch to attend, it might be another hour or two before he could get off to the golf course.
I quietly commented that I had had a relatively easy weekend, with only three Masses on the Sunday and five baptisms (admittedly done in one ceremony), plus the flight to Ireland.
The town is a big one (by Irish standards), with an enormous church (by any standards). In those days (no longer!) there were four priests, and the entire town could be squeezed into the church for four Masses, no more. And all four on Sunday morning. As far as I could work out, there was no pastoral work of any sort done which was not celebrating Mass. There were no youth clubs, no sacramental preparation other than that done in the schools, no care of people because that was the government's job…… you get the picture.
Money, now: that was collected regularly. Giving at Mass has never been good, so there were, and are, 'outside collections' of various types. When my father was young, the names and amounts contributed of all these collections was solemnly read out at Mass.
The only half decent cars in those days were driven by priests.
One place you would regularly see the clergy was at the GAA, the Gælic Athletic Association. The sports pages of the local papers would be covered with photographs of the Parish Priest presenting trophies to the various local sporting gods of the town.
It is little wonder that the same uncle that I buried that day had been disgusted when he heard I wanted to be a priest. He assumed that it was for money and status. He had thought that I was better than that. Though in the past we had been close, he wrote me out of his will, and, a widower having no children himself, he left everything to neighbours. This was some eighteen years ago.
Do not underestimate the anger of the Irish people right now. In the context, it is entirely understandable.
Now let us look at the bishops. Before the 60s, it was normal that episcopal appointments would be finally approved by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (or 'Holy Office'). Pope Paul Vi changed this to final approval by the Secretariate of State. This is because he wanted to pursue a policy of detente all round; ecumenism and Ostpolitik were the watchwords. So henceforward bishops would be diplomats; nice guys, people who could pour oil on troubled waters, men who would not rock the boat.
These are the men who would not pursue child abusers, for fear that a storm might arise. They are good men, nice men; they are just not what is needed now, if ever.
There has been criticism of the '500' priests. There is much I disagree with them about; however, I think that they are men of integrity who don't always actually understand what is going on.
They are right that the Vatican is not appointing the right men to be bishops in Ireland (with some exceptions). And they are right that serious surgery needs to happen if things are to be rectified. If the Vatican does not hear that the Irish people are seriously angry and need to see justice done, it will not recover the trust of what has been until recently one of the most Catholic nations on earth. Expressions of sorrow on the part of the bishops are not enough; these can be dismissed easily as crocodile tears.
Questions of the new translation of the Mass are entirely secondary right now. Ireland needs bishops of unimpeachable integrity and orthodoxy, and it needs them yesterday.
The Taoiseach's speech had a lot of this anger in it. The reference to the confessional speaks more about clerical unaccountability than demonstrating a real understanding of the issues. People need to grasp that before they get worried that Ireland will place police microphones in every confessional.
Saturday, 16 July 2011
Throwing petrol on embers
I am a great fan of the Catholic Truth Society—at least as presently set up. It has really found its feet, and is producing some first rate material to promote and explain the faith. And, not least, to produce a new Missal which really looks like, well, a missal.
But I am disturbed at this report of a work published by the CTS; it's a new 'explanation' of Catholic Traditionalism. I rather suspect that CTS commission all sorts of works, and then run them without reading them too clearly–they even once published something of mine, though they never approached me again.
I know and greatly respect Dr Joseph Shaw, the writer of the critique, and the fact that he wrote his article on an iPhone, no mean feat for such a long critique, suggests the depth of his feeling on the matter.
Summorum Pontificum was a watershed. It suggested to all sides that they bury the hatchet, and even laid out an ingenious strategy that would make it possible for almost all protagonists to do so without loss of face. Dr Edwards' reportedly intemperate booklet Catholic Traditionalism would, if Dr Shaw is right, appear to be grubbing up the imperfectly-buried hatchet again (as E.F. Benson put it). Why?
Dr Edwards even seems to be just as intemperate in his criticism of the traditionalists' opponents—I think this must be the first instance of Annibale Bugnini's honour being defended by a committed traditionalist!
If Dr Shaw is even half right (and I have not yet seen the booklet, though I shall strive to get one a.s.a.p.), this work really needs to be withdrawn. As he says:
But I am disturbed at this report of a work published by the CTS; it's a new 'explanation' of Catholic Traditionalism. I rather suspect that CTS commission all sorts of works, and then run them without reading them too clearly–they even once published something of mine, though they never approached me again.
I know and greatly respect Dr Joseph Shaw, the writer of the critique, and the fact that he wrote his article on an iPhone, no mean feat for such a long critique, suggests the depth of his feeling on the matter.
Summorum Pontificum was a watershed. It suggested to all sides that they bury the hatchet, and even laid out an ingenious strategy that would make it possible for almost all protagonists to do so without loss of face. Dr Edwards' reportedly intemperate booklet Catholic Traditionalism would, if Dr Shaw is right, appear to be grubbing up the imperfectly-buried hatchet again (as E.F. Benson put it). Why?
Dr Edwards even seems to be just as intemperate in his criticism of the traditionalists' opponents—I think this must be the first instance of Annibale Bugnini's honour being defended by a committed traditionalist!
If Dr Shaw is even half right (and I have not yet seen the booklet, though I shall strive to get one a.s.a.p.), this work really needs to be withdrawn. As he says:
The point I wish to make is not about the truth or falsity of these claims, but about the appropriateness of this polemic and speculation in this booklet. Just at the moment when Traditionalists and their various historical opponents are having to learn to live with each other, to share churches, to cooperate in parish life and in Catholic institutions of all kinds, is this spewing of vitriol in all directions really what we need? Wouldn't it be better, as well as more historically accurate, to admit at this point that these old divisions were caused by Catholics who were sincere, intelligent, and serious, but who came to different conclusions about the needs of the time, and the implications of timeless theological and liturgical principles?This is precisely right. This is not the time for slinging mud. For heavens' sake, can't we live the bitter past behind us now?
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
The First Person
This last weekend, I celebrated Mass for a small but enthusiastic parish in Sussex while their priest (ordained the day before I was born) was taking a well-earned post-Jubilee break. Before the Mass, I was informed by the musical directrix that it was to be a 'Folk Mass' that Sunday. Not really my cup of tea, as any reader of this blog will quickly understand. But the whole thing went with a swing; the singing was enthusiastic and there was a very positive atmosphere in the little church. I enjoyed my visit.
Some of the hymns sung have been going round in my head since. So many of the things sung in the folk-idiom use the words of the Lord in the first person; 'come, follow me…' 'I am the bread of life'. Of course these things are quotations from or paraphrases of the words of our Lord in the Gospel, which the priest or deacon reads in the first person, but I don't really feel comfortable with what feels to be taking a liberty with our Lord's words. I don't feel happy singing that I am the bread of life.
Anybody who has even a cursory familiarity with the Church's history will be aware that the phenomenon sometimes called Pentecostalism recurs from time to time. St Paul notes speaking in tongues, for instance, though he gets a bit unsure about it, perhaps later, when he insists that there must always be an interpretation. After that, the phenomenon acquired a dodgy reputation under a Phrygian called Montanus who with his two charming young lady assistants believed themselves to be 'channelling' the Holy Spirit, and would indeed speak in the first person—not quoting scripture, though—adding to it, as it were. Now here we come to another aspect of this pentecostal phenomenon: quasi-authoritative private revelation. The leaders of these groups believe themselves to be in some way divinely appointed to teach and lead. They speak with an infallibility that the Pope could only dream of and their pronouncements must be treated as divine revelation. For the most part these pronouncements are harmless 'I have a word from the Lord: I love you with an endless love' for instance, but they can also be used against individuals 'The Lord says that Mary-Lou Whaletrouser is a disturbing influence in the community, and we should all lovingly treat her like dirt until she repents'. And in some cases these leaders behave as an alternative magisterium teaching doctrine which might be at variance with official teaching (I have experienced this), but which is required to be accepted by the community as the ipsissima verba Domini.
Mgr Ronald Knox's remarkable book Enthusiasm tells the tale of this strange phenomenon in Christianity throughout the ages; it's a bit of a tough read, but very illuminating.
I should, naturally, say that the little parish where I said Mass on Sunday has none of these weird characteristics: they were charming and devout. It was just the 'first person' nature of some of the hymns that got me thinking.
And it's why I feel uncomfortable about using the Lord's words directly like that.
Some of the hymns sung have been going round in my head since. So many of the things sung in the folk-idiom use the words of the Lord in the first person; 'come, follow me…' 'I am the bread of life'. Of course these things are quotations from or paraphrases of the words of our Lord in the Gospel, which the priest or deacon reads in the first person, but I don't really feel comfortable with what feels to be taking a liberty with our Lord's words. I don't feel happy singing that I am the bread of life.
Anybody who has even a cursory familiarity with the Church's history will be aware that the phenomenon sometimes called Pentecostalism recurs from time to time. St Paul notes speaking in tongues, for instance, though he gets a bit unsure about it, perhaps later, when he insists that there must always be an interpretation. After that, the phenomenon acquired a dodgy reputation under a Phrygian called Montanus who with his two charming young lady assistants believed themselves to be 'channelling' the Holy Spirit, and would indeed speak in the first person—not quoting scripture, though—adding to it, as it were. Now here we come to another aspect of this pentecostal phenomenon: quasi-authoritative private revelation. The leaders of these groups believe themselves to be in some way divinely appointed to teach and lead. They speak with an infallibility that the Pope could only dream of and their pronouncements must be treated as divine revelation. For the most part these pronouncements are harmless 'I have a word from the Lord: I love you with an endless love' for instance, but they can also be used against individuals 'The Lord says that Mary-Lou Whaletrouser is a disturbing influence in the community, and we should all lovingly treat her like dirt until she repents'. And in some cases these leaders behave as an alternative magisterium teaching doctrine which might be at variance with official teaching (I have experienced this), but which is required to be accepted by the community as the ipsissima verba Domini.
Mgr Ronald Knox's remarkable book Enthusiasm tells the tale of this strange phenomenon in Christianity throughout the ages; it's a bit of a tough read, but very illuminating.
I should, naturally, say that the little parish where I said Mass on Sunday has none of these weird characteristics: they were charming and devout. It was just the 'first person' nature of some of the hymns that got me thinking.
And it's why I feel uncomfortable about using the Lord's words directly like that.
Monday, 4 July 2011
On Being a Blogger
There are a number of things that go with the territory of being a blogger. One is the fact that one will never rise in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. That to many is, of course, a relief, but it can be a bit disconcerting. A priest friend of mine had an excellent blog, which personal circumstances caused him to suspend. Having at the time been a curate, he was immediately made parish priest 'now that you've stopped writing your blog'. The blog, regrettably, hasn't re-started.
Another thing is being importuned by other blogs, sites and even advertisers, for free publicity on one's own blog. That makes me quite cross; a blog is one's personal thing, and being pressured to recommend something naturally inclines one the other way.
Or it does if you're me.
If someone asks me to recommend them, the first thing I do is to look at their site and see if they recommend my blog, or even mention it. Quid pro quo, after all. If I see nothing, I conclude that they are insincere, though I still feel guilty for ignoring the request. It doesn't imply that I don't agree with their aims, or think that their blog is poor. I just think that some good manners are as appropriate on the internet as in other parts of life.
Another thing is being importuned by other blogs, sites and even advertisers, for free publicity on one's own blog. That makes me quite cross; a blog is one's personal thing, and being pressured to recommend something naturally inclines one the other way.
Or it does if you're me.
If someone asks me to recommend them, the first thing I do is to look at their site and see if they recommend my blog, or even mention it. Quid pro quo, after all. If I see nothing, I conclude that they are insincere, though I still feel guilty for ignoring the request. It doesn't imply that I don't agree with their aims, or think that their blog is poor. I just think that some good manners are as appropriate on the internet as in other parts of life.
Wednesday, 29 June 2011
Not knowing what to think
At the weekend, term ended here at the Seminary with the Diaconate Ordination; a very splendid occasion when Paul Andrew, a former Anglican clergyman, was ordained (transitional) deacon for the diocese of Plymouth. Deacon Paul has his own website and journal here. The other members of his class were ordained deacon in the autumn.
Still for such splendid occasions, an organist is required, and I was approached. I was surprised, because I am far down the pecking order of organists here (quite rightly, as all the others are much better than I am), but pleased to be asked. I played for many such ceremonies in the past, before rust began to gather in my joints (and I've passed the half-century mark since I wrote the last post). And though I'm a moderately competent service accompanist, these days I get very nervous playing proper pieces for voluntaries &c, and so generally make a hash of them.
So why did they ask me, then?
The usual organist, an external professional who lives on the south coast, had married a wife and could not come. Or some other reason.
The number one internal organist suddenly had to make a retreat in Canada, and couldn't wait for the last day of term.
The number two internal organist was directing the schola cantorum and preferred not to have to be rushing from one place to another, as he said to me.
The number three was needed to sing in the schola.
So, it was explained to me, that left me, and would I kindly do it?
Still for such splendid occasions, an organist is required, and I was approached. I was surprised, because I am far down the pecking order of organists here (quite rightly, as all the others are much better than I am), but pleased to be asked. I played for many such ceremonies in the past, before rust began to gather in my joints (and I've passed the half-century mark since I wrote the last post). And though I'm a moderately competent service accompanist, these days I get very nervous playing proper pieces for voluntaries &c, and so generally make a hash of them.
So why did they ask me, then?
The usual organist, an external professional who lives on the south coast, had married a wife and could not come. Or some other reason.
The number one internal organist suddenly had to make a retreat in Canada, and couldn't wait for the last day of term.
The number two internal organist was directing the schola cantorum and preferred not to have to be rushing from one place to another, as he said to me.
The number three was needed to sing in the schola.
So, it was explained to me, that left me, and would I kindly do it?
I was flattered but, yes, you're right, I should have been suspicious.
It turns out that Carlo Curley was on the guest list; a major professional organ recitalist, who describes himself as 'The Pavarotti of the Organ'!
No wonder all the other organists headed for the hills! They all knew about it, but did they tell me? No they didn't, because they knew that if I knew, I too would have found an unbreakable subsequent engagement in Wagga Wagga or the Falkland Islands.
Mr Curley must forgive me if I say that God rushed to the defence of his priesthood and struck the Pavarotti of the organ in the foot, making his attendance at the ordination impracticable. He didn't come. Thank God.
And now I don't know whether to be furious with my colleagues for not telling me, or relieved.
On a happier note, I noticed that the Holy Father initiated the new Vatican news service with a click on an iPad. Good to know that Apple Mac Technology has reached the highest quarters. Catholicism and Apple Mac: an unbeatable combination!
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
In Hope of Harvest
Well, the book is launched today. For anyone who might perhaps like to know something about the history of St John's Seminary, Wonersh, (why?) they can get a copy here:Paperback, £16 + p&p
Hardback, £20 + p&p.
It has 502 pages, and covers the story of St John's from its foundation in 1889 more or less to the present day.
People are kind enough to tell me that it isn't boring.
Thursday, 9 June 2011
Fr Hunwicke
The closure (let us hope, suspension) of Fr Hunwicke’s Liturgical Notes is, I think, a grief for all of us of a Catholic persuasion. That very phrase should suggest the distance we have come. I think that there is nobody who has sold to us ‘Romans’ so persuasively the merits that may be found within Anglo-Catholicism. You need only see the number of Catholic blogs who link to his. I think that among all those Anglophones who welcome Pope Benedict’s various initiatives, on both sides of the Tiber, Fr Hunwicke has starred as one of the most erudite and articulate expositors.
I cannot imagine that Fr Hunwicke has suspended his work willingly. In fact, I rather suspect that in his Liturgical Notes he has found his most adaptable and functional pulpit to date. But it seems clear from what he writes that he abandons the blog in order to be able to exercise the priesthood of Jesus Christ. I find this wholly admirable. What I mean is that were John Hunwicke to be denied the priesthood, this would assuredly release him to write whatever he wanted without fear of censure. I would continue to read him, as, I strongly believe, would large numbers of people, including those in Rome.
John Hunwicke is now a Catholic; a believing, communicant member of our faith, and that will not change. Though I have never met him, I will continue to look up to him as one of the main architects of one of the most exciting changes to have taken place in Western Christianity since the Reformation. I pray that this development will not deter many others from following him across the Tiber, though I fear it may.
Correction— I know, from actual examples, that it already has.
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
The Benedictine Arrangement
Cynicism
Commenting on the cancelled visit of Cardinal Burke to the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice conference, the sage William Oddie has a lot of useful things to say, as usual.
He does, however, write this:
He does, however, write this:
I cannot help reflecting on how much less divisive it would have been had Cardinal Burke emulated Cardinal Hume, who when Mother Angelica addressed Pro Ecclesia himself not only attended but addressed the conference, and was not only respectfully but appreciatively applauded.
Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. I was there that day; so of course was William Oddie; in fact he was in the chair. Mother Angelica was on superb form and Cardinal Hume, when he came on the platform to address the conference, was indeed warmly applauded. Everyone felt that it was good to see him there, and perhaps suggested a willingness to listen.
Until he began to speak, that is: the burden of what he said was 'you are Catholics; Catholics are supposed to obey their bishops; we know what is best for you; put up, and shut up.' The applause at the end (there was a little, out of politeness) was anything but appreciative and respectful; in fact there was a lot of angry muttering.
The idea that traditionally-minded Catholics could cynically be hoist with their own petard by liberal bishops demanding an obedience they would never even dare to ask of others, and refuse to the Holy Father ('this rule does not apply in this country') disgusted me then and disgusts me now.
It does not appear to me that our current hierarchy are of this mind, thank God. In fact, it is a pleasure to note a new spring in their step, and to see that some of them actually seem to enjoy being Catholic these days.
Sorry about the weird text; it isn't supposed to mean anything: it just went strange of its own accord, it seems, and I couldn't get it back to normal.
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
Rough Games
I read in this morning's paper that two seven-year-old boys have been disciplined by their school (which also demanded that the parents reinforce the lesson) for making 'guns' with their fingers. I would be interested to know whether the teachers responsible for this particular act of absurdity have children of their own.I have a friend who is an evolutionary anthropologist. Until she married and had two boys, she uncritically accepted the dogma she had been taught, that the difference between the sexes was simply a matter of plumbing. Her boys almost from the moment they could see and grasp scorned the cuddly toys and went straight for the tractors and planes, and that was only the beginning.
It is a natural instinct to protect children from becoming horrible adults, and a good one. We want our children to be 'free' when they grow up, but the trouble is that freedom is now being confused with licence. Against this, I prefer to call freedom 'the ability to act in accordance with my nature' which, since my nature is fallen, may require not a little self-discipline. So far, I am in agreement with the educators. Some actions are good for children to learn, some are not good.
The difficulty is when our real nature is poorly understood. As I mentioned in the last post, there is a notion of how some people think we 'ought' to be, rather than beginning from where we actually are. Can you make a boy a 'new man' by forbidding him to play soldiers? Is there no way that male natural instincts can be turned to good rather than by being completely suppressed?
CS Lewis had a strange opinion on this: I'm not sure I go all the way with him, but I can see what he is saying. I wish I could find the passage, but I don't have my books with me; it might even be from Mere Christianity. Lewis was not, of course, in favour of war as a thing in itself, but he lamented that a soldier was no longer entitled to see war as glorious in some way, that he had to see it as a sad necessity. In some way this is emasculating; a man ought to be able to rejoice in his masculinity. It's Lewis' opinion, and perhaps goes a bit far, but I can see what he is saying.
Among various differences, men are generally physically stronger than women. Instead of denying that strength, it needs to be focussed on a good end. It ought to be possible in childhood to enable a boy to see his strength as service for the good of a higher cause. It's the old crusader thing; to have some higher aspiration to which one gives oneself, and he who loses himself will find himself. That is the essential paradox that is fully in accord with human nature.
We talk about child-centred education, but that is not the same thing as educating in the child's best interests. In the same paper I read this morning, I also read about school trips costing the parents four figures. Add to that the designer clothes and electronics, and everything else now considered indispensable to a child. It is all of a piece with the lessons that encourage pupils to express how they feel all the time, to sit in judgment on great minds and say what they think about Shakespeare, whether he 'got it right'. Children are encouraged and helped to get what they want out of their education, so that they can get what they want out of their career, and get what they want out of their marriage—sorry, relationships—simply, we are educating people for disappointment. And, in my opinion, that is why so many of our young people look so sulky. And why they lapse from the practice of the faith. People admire the dedication and self-sacrifice of the Queen, but have no inclination to imitate it.
Instead of considering 'what can I get out of life', our young people should be encouraged to consider 'what can I do with my life'. We should begin with our teenagers asking themselves 'what am I, and what are my gifts and inclinations for?' Christianity gives the answer: to love God and my neighbour as myself.
Rough games are natural to boys; let's teach them how to use their strength for good, and not simply repress it, which is far more likely to result in its misuse.
On a lighter note, did anyone notice during the latest royal wedding that crass BBC announcer (a woman) asking a group of teenage boys 'so, boys, what did you feel when you saw the dress?' The poor lads were completely nonplussed. I imagined phalanxes of grim, grey, Guardian-reading pedagogues tutting to themselves at what young people are becoming these days……
I once was chaplain to a primary school that wouldn't number its classes because numbers are 'hierarchical'; even the children in the classes were of mixed age, lest a younger child feel disadvantaged by having a lower number (age) than an older. The classes, instead of being numbered, had tree names, 'Oak', 'Beech' and so on. The headteacher (no headmaster, he; and yes, he was a man [I assume]) told me one day that they were going to add a couple of classes, and could I suggest some nice trees to name them after. I am ashamed to record that I suggested 'Cane' and 'Birch'.
Looking for the pic at the top of this post, I came across this site, dedicated to educational idiocy.
Sunday, 29 May 2011
The bleedin' obvious
Just about the oldest joke in the book is about the little Catholic boy and the little Protestant girl who took their clothes off and went for a swim. Both of them went to their mothers afterwards and said, worried, 'Mummy; I didn't know there was such a difference between Catholics and Protestants!'
At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, I was struck yet again the other day at what a difference there is. From time to time I have a look at the Ugley Vicar's blog: he's usually got something interesting to say from a different perspective to mine. The particular post that interested me was one on the 1975 decision of General Synod that 'there are no fundamental objections to the ordination of women to the priesthood', which he describes as 'perhaps the most stupid thing General Synod has ever done'.
Well of course it would be impertinent of me to comment on General Synod's decisions, though as an outsider it looks to me to have had pretty catastrophic consequences. (Sorry if that's impertinent!) The Ugley Vicar comments, rightly, that to say that there are no fundamental objections is simply wrong. One might say that there are fundamental objections and they are wrong objections, and anathematize them, as a General Council might, but to say that they do not exist is simply untrue. Well, quite. It suggests that any objections that exist are merely shallow, unworthy of consideration.
The whole Evangelical method of reasoning, however, is fundamentally different to the Catholic one. For our friend the Ugley Vicar, the matter is a moral one. One should obey God's will, and one derives one's knowledge of God's will from God' Word; which is to say, from the Bible. Whether a woman can be a priest or a bishop is a matter of right and wrong; of fidelity or infidelity to the word of God as revealed in the Bible. Since most Evangelicals take a symbolic view of the sacraments, (many indeed would favour 'lay presidency' at the Eucharist), the question of whether a woman might preside at such a celebration would be a moral one; ought she to do so? Is she being disobedient to God's Word, and is the Church of England being disobedient to God's word in permitting a woman to exercise headship in the Church? The successive Synod votes on the subject of women's orders since 1975, then, have been successive mistakes, but mistakes can be put right again. All you have to do is wait things out, keep the pressure on, and get the decisions reversed in due course.
To a Catholic mind, the question is not just a moral one, but an ontological one. Priesthood and a fortiori Episcopacy are about more than just headship or leadership. This is because we believe that sacraments actually do what they say on the tin, and we ask not just 'may' or 'should' somebody do it, but 'can' they do it? To make a priest you have to do more than simply putting a vestment on and calling them a priest; a bishop is more than a pointy hat and a curly stick.
As a sort of reductio ad absurdum, I remember going to the plumbing-in of Cormac Murphy-O'Connor as the Archbishop of Westminster. There were present several leaders from Pentecostal communions, and some of them had clearly felt that on such an occasion they ought to dress appropriately, to fit in, I suppose. There were about three or four, men and women, who had clearly gone to Vanpoulles or somewhere, and, basically, bought various bits of liturgical bling which they draped about their persons and greeted the new Archbishop as equals. If cucullus non fecit monachum, then mitra non fecit episcopum either.
I think that it was Ronald Knox, when an Anglican, who believed that Anglican orders must be valid, because God would surely not have left the Church of England so long without the comfort of the sacraments. That too is a moral argument not an ontological one. If God the Son regularly obeys the words of the priest to substantially make Himself present under the forms of bread and wine because He is faithful to His promises, then is it not reasonable to assume that He does not dispense with His own laws simply because human beings have shifted the goalposts?
If we cannot (rather than should not) modify our celebration of the Eucharist with bread and wine, then we cannot make changes to the sacrament of Order without seriously worrying whether we have moved the goalposts on God's promises.
This ontological view is all of a piece with our view of the world. Some years ago, when I was, for some eighteen months, a priest in Oxford, I was privileged to attend a course of lectures given by the eminent physicist and daily Massgoer, Dr Peter Hodgson. A remarkable man, he was never afraid to nail his colours to the mast even when this courted unpopularity; at the height of the arguments against nuclear power, he was a passionate advocate—I think he even wrote a CTS pamplet on the subject—demonstrating how the arguments against nuclear power caused (appropriately) more heat than light. Hodgson was long on the lecture circuit; I discovered in the course of the preparation of my book that he had visited St John’s Seminary to lecture on ‘Science and the Priest’ as far back as 1955 or 6, I forget which, and he was already described as ‘eminent’ then.
In his old age, he turned his mind to another problem he saw emerging; the Church being perceived as the enemy of science. That is still, of course, a challenge, with the old chestnut of Galileo being trotted out regularly as it if proves the point without further need of discussion.
Hodgson’s point was that, precisely, the development of science as we know it would not have been possible without the Catholic Church. There were many strands to this, but one is, of course, the development of the Aristotelian method beginning with Albert the Great, and continuing. Secularists are quick to point out, quite correctly, that the Church got that from the Moslems, but they do not then go on to show how the Church developed it over the ages. It is all about understanding how reality works; about categories, and about how one thing observably and regularly leads to another. Whether in physics or metaphysics, things happen regularly and one can therefore deduce that they will continue to do so. As Chesterton said in Orthodoxy, the fact that the sun rises regularly each day is a recurring miracle; the point is that it does so faithfully because all the universe is subject to regular laws of behaviour, because there is a Lawgiver. This regularity makes science possible. Even particle physics which seems to reveal a certain antinomianism may well have laws which we do not yet understand.
A couple of years ago, Gem of the Ocean put on her blog a list of the eminent scientists who ‘just happened’ to be Catholic priests. I wish she would repost it, because it was very interesting. I remember that I added Gregor Mendel, the father (as it were) of genetics, to the list. Galileo is embarrassing, I suppose, but for every Galileo there must be twenty, fifty, a hundred, eminent Catholics who see no contradiction between their science and their faith.
For a Catholic, as for a scientist, we need to know whether if I do x, y will follow. We know a male priest can do the biz: why introduce variables that we cannot be assured will work at all? When I die, I want to be properly absolved, not simply to be comforted by somebody (of either sex) saying that surely God wouldn’t (read ‘oughtn’t’) to send me to hell. I want assurance that my sins are forgiven, not warm words and a comforting opinion that just might be rubbish, and dangerous rubbish.
‘If I were God, I would organize things this way rather than that way’ is not a meaningful principle of action in either theology or science. We struggle to understand a fact (we are not omniscient) but do not deny its status as a fact. Somebody may well know why copper sulphate is blue and not pink; I don’t, but I accept that it is so, that all my wishing won’t change it, and get on with my life.
Some of this, I suppose, must go back to old William of Ockham; a thing is what I say it is. I say it is a baseball bat, you say it is a club. I suppose it’s Berkeley, too, trees falling in woods making no noise and all that. When Ronald Knox answered that amusing limerick about the tree that continued to be when there is no-one around in the quad, he said something very important. For the Catholic, and, indeed, for the theist, the fact is that things have their ontological nature not because you, or I, or Parliament, or a General Synod say so, but because God says so. This is what gives stability to human thought and society; and to science too. It assures me that the cosmos is a unity subject to ‘laws’, that its functioning is not an accident, but is both observable and reliable. This makes science possible, and makes theology something equally stable that I can have a growing relationship with.
The Catholic point is that you cannot hive off part of reality and make it subject to a vote. Phrases such as ‘it’s my truth’ are meaningless.
At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, I was struck yet again the other day at what a difference there is. From time to time I have a look at the Ugley Vicar's blog: he's usually got something interesting to say from a different perspective to mine. The particular post that interested me was one on the 1975 decision of General Synod that 'there are no fundamental objections to the ordination of women to the priesthood', which he describes as 'perhaps the most stupid thing General Synod has ever done'.
Well of course it would be impertinent of me to comment on General Synod's decisions, though as an outsider it looks to me to have had pretty catastrophic consequences. (Sorry if that's impertinent!) The Ugley Vicar comments, rightly, that to say that there are no fundamental objections is simply wrong. One might say that there are fundamental objections and they are wrong objections, and anathematize them, as a General Council might, but to say that they do not exist is simply untrue. Well, quite. It suggests that any objections that exist are merely shallow, unworthy of consideration.
The whole Evangelical method of reasoning, however, is fundamentally different to the Catholic one. For our friend the Ugley Vicar, the matter is a moral one. One should obey God's will, and one derives one's knowledge of God's will from God' Word; which is to say, from the Bible. Whether a woman can be a priest or a bishop is a matter of right and wrong; of fidelity or infidelity to the word of God as revealed in the Bible. Since most Evangelicals take a symbolic view of the sacraments, (many indeed would favour 'lay presidency' at the Eucharist), the question of whether a woman might preside at such a celebration would be a moral one; ought she to do so? Is she being disobedient to God's Word, and is the Church of England being disobedient to God's word in permitting a woman to exercise headship in the Church? The successive Synod votes on the subject of women's orders since 1975, then, have been successive mistakes, but mistakes can be put right again. All you have to do is wait things out, keep the pressure on, and get the decisions reversed in due course.
To a Catholic mind, the question is not just a moral one, but an ontological one. Priesthood and a fortiori Episcopacy are about more than just headship or leadership. This is because we believe that sacraments actually do what they say on the tin, and we ask not just 'may' or 'should' somebody do it, but 'can' they do it? To make a priest you have to do more than simply putting a vestment on and calling them a priest; a bishop is more than a pointy hat and a curly stick.
As a sort of reductio ad absurdum, I remember going to the plumbing-in of Cormac Murphy-O'Connor as the Archbishop of Westminster. There were present several leaders from Pentecostal communions, and some of them had clearly felt that on such an occasion they ought to dress appropriately, to fit in, I suppose. There were about three or four, men and women, who had clearly gone to Vanpoulles or somewhere, and, basically, bought various bits of liturgical bling which they draped about their persons and greeted the new Archbishop as equals. If cucullus non fecit monachum, then mitra non fecit episcopum either.
I think that it was Ronald Knox, when an Anglican, who believed that Anglican orders must be valid, because God would surely not have left the Church of England so long without the comfort of the sacraments. That too is a moral argument not an ontological one. If God the Son regularly obeys the words of the priest to substantially make Himself present under the forms of bread and wine because He is faithful to His promises, then is it not reasonable to assume that He does not dispense with His own laws simply because human beings have shifted the goalposts?
If we cannot (rather than should not) modify our celebration of the Eucharist with bread and wine, then we cannot make changes to the sacrament of Order without seriously worrying whether we have moved the goalposts on God's promises.
This ontological view is all of a piece with our view of the world. Some years ago, when I was, for some eighteen months, a priest in Oxford, I was privileged to attend a course of lectures given by the eminent physicist and daily Massgoer, Dr Peter Hodgson. A remarkable man, he was never afraid to nail his colours to the mast even when this courted unpopularity; at the height of the arguments against nuclear power, he was a passionate advocate—I think he even wrote a CTS pamplet on the subject—demonstrating how the arguments against nuclear power caused (appropriately) more heat than light. Hodgson was long on the lecture circuit; I discovered in the course of the preparation of my book that he had visited St John’s Seminary to lecture on ‘Science and the Priest’ as far back as 1955 or 6, I forget which, and he was already described as ‘eminent’ then.
In his old age, he turned his mind to another problem he saw emerging; the Church being perceived as the enemy of science. That is still, of course, a challenge, with the old chestnut of Galileo being trotted out regularly as it if proves the point without further need of discussion.
Hodgson’s point was that, precisely, the development of science as we know it would not have been possible without the Catholic Church. There were many strands to this, but one is, of course, the development of the Aristotelian method beginning with Albert the Great, and continuing. Secularists are quick to point out, quite correctly, that the Church got that from the Moslems, but they do not then go on to show how the Church developed it over the ages. It is all about understanding how reality works; about categories, and about how one thing observably and regularly leads to another. Whether in physics or metaphysics, things happen regularly and one can therefore deduce that they will continue to do so. As Chesterton said in Orthodoxy, the fact that the sun rises regularly each day is a recurring miracle; the point is that it does so faithfully because all the universe is subject to regular laws of behaviour, because there is a Lawgiver. This regularity makes science possible. Even particle physics which seems to reveal a certain antinomianism may well have laws which we do not yet understand.
A couple of years ago, Gem of the Ocean put on her blog a list of the eminent scientists who ‘just happened’ to be Catholic priests. I wish she would repost it, because it was very interesting. I remember that I added Gregor Mendel, the father (as it were) of genetics, to the list. Galileo is embarrassing, I suppose, but for every Galileo there must be twenty, fifty, a hundred, eminent Catholics who see no contradiction between their science and their faith.
For a Catholic, as for a scientist, we need to know whether if I do x, y will follow. We know a male priest can do the biz: why introduce variables that we cannot be assured will work at all? When I die, I want to be properly absolved, not simply to be comforted by somebody (of either sex) saying that surely God wouldn’t (read ‘oughtn’t’) to send me to hell. I want assurance that my sins are forgiven, not warm words and a comforting opinion that just might be rubbish, and dangerous rubbish.
‘If I were God, I would organize things this way rather than that way’ is not a meaningful principle of action in either theology or science. We struggle to understand a fact (we are not omniscient) but do not deny its status as a fact. Somebody may well know why copper sulphate is blue and not pink; I don’t, but I accept that it is so, that all my wishing won’t change it, and get on with my life.
Some of this, I suppose, must go back to old William of Ockham; a thing is what I say it is. I say it is a baseball bat, you say it is a club. I suppose it’s Berkeley, too, trees falling in woods making no noise and all that. When Ronald Knox answered that amusing limerick about the tree that continued to be when there is no-one around in the quad, he said something very important. For the Catholic, and, indeed, for the theist, the fact is that things have their ontological nature not because you, or I, or Parliament, or a General Synod say so, but because God says so. This is what gives stability to human thought and society; and to science too. It assures me that the cosmos is a unity subject to ‘laws’, that its functioning is not an accident, but is both observable and reliable. This makes science possible, and makes theology something equally stable that I can have a growing relationship with.
The Catholic point is that you cannot hive off part of reality and make it subject to a vote. Phrases such as ‘it’s my truth’ are meaningless.
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
Iam finita sunt proelia!
The book is finished!
yes, really.
really!
That's a bottle of Lanson champagne on the left, and Brunello di Montalcino on the right.
Thanks to all who have got me here today.
In Hope of Harvest, the 502-page history of St John's Seminary, Wonersh, will be available to all who suffer from insomnia or have too much time on their hands in mid-June. I wouldn't bother, if I were you.
Thursday, 19 May 2011
Welcome back…
…to His Patrimoniality. 'Fr Hunwicke's Liturgical Notes' is, to our great relief and universal rejoicing, up and running again—and is now an indisputably Catholic blog!
On this front, I've been a little exercised as to how I should order my sidebar. Would Catholics of the Ordinariate prefer to have their own little enclave, as at present, or join hoi polloi in the Catholic Links section?
On this front, I've been a little exercised as to how I should order my sidebar. Would Catholics of the Ordinariate prefer to have their own little enclave, as at present, or join hoi polloi in the Catholic Links section?
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
Strange times
I have assisted at a Mass where an auxiliary bishop sang the responsorial psalm (he is now the Archbishop of Birmingham, and has a very beautiful voice—in fact, when still a priest, he sang at my ordination). In Rome in the old days, when the Pope celebrated, senior curial officials would act as the altar servers; however, I have never before seen a choir directed by a cardinal in choir dress, especially in St Peter's! It is, I assume, Cardinal Bartolucci.
h/t John Paul Sonnen here
Saturday, 14 May 2011
Two steps forwards, one step back
It has indeed been wonderful to get the news about Universæ Eccclesiæ, the restored Friday penance and the possible restoration of Epiphany and Ascension.
In France, however, there is one piece of startling news. It concerns this man:
Nope; he's the new bishop of Rodez, the only diocese in the South-West of France that has been getting back into an objectively more healthy state, according to the site Chrétienté Info, largely due to the work of the outgoing bishop Bellino Ghirard; at least, it says, Rodez was the only diocese not entirely in a coma. I notice that on its diocesan webpage it even notes where one may find the Extraordinary Form. That will probably change under what is likely to be the 18-year reign of Mgr Fonlupt (he being 57). As the photograph suggests, he is an opponent of the EF, being described as the liberal's liberal. Gloria TV news noted that he recently denied the 'material presence' of Christ in the Eucharist, and said that our Lord was as much present in the congregation. Chrétienté Info also notes that he celebrates 'second' marriages for the divorced, refuses to oppose artificial contraception because it's what people are doing anyway, and has no problem giving general absolution.
I have to say that I don't really get the strange things on his face—no, not his glasses.
How on earth could this happen today?
Has the eldest daughter of the Church gone nuts?
In France, however, there is one piece of startling news. It concerns this man:
His name is François Fonlupt; a used car salesman, perhaps, or a rep for some company?
Nope; he's the new bishop of Rodez, the only diocese in the South-West of France that has been getting back into an objectively more healthy state, according to the site Chrétienté Info, largely due to the work of the outgoing bishop Bellino Ghirard; at least, it says, Rodez was the only diocese not entirely in a coma. I notice that on its diocesan webpage it even notes where one may find the Extraordinary Form. That will probably change under what is likely to be the 18-year reign of Mgr Fonlupt (he being 57). As the photograph suggests, he is an opponent of the EF, being described as the liberal's liberal. Gloria TV news noted that he recently denied the 'material presence' of Christ in the Eucharist, and said that our Lord was as much present in the congregation. Chrétienté Info also notes that he celebrates 'second' marriages for the divorced, refuses to oppose artificial contraception because it's what people are doing anyway, and has no problem giving general absolution.
I have to say that I don't really get the strange things on his face—no, not his glasses.
How on earth could this happen today?
Has the eldest daughter of the Church gone nuts?
A very handy postscript here from the French Oasis.
Monday, 9 May 2011
How Popes Should Travel: The Holy Father in Venice
How cool is this! So much better than the refrigerator-on-wheels they usually make him sit in; even the motorized version in Venice was open.
Photos: Corriere del Veneto
The Latin Mass Society magazine, Mass of Ages is looking for a new editor. If you are interested, email here: michael@lms.org.uk
Sunday, 24 April 2011
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Our new missal
Love the missal; not so keen on the other stuff. But it makes me look forward to the publication.
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
The Heritage Lottery Fund and Churches
The architect Deirdre Waddington has drawn to my attention that the Heritage Lottery Fund doesn't seem to be too keen on giving money to churches.
The Fund is carrying out a consultation (which you can find here) about how it might allot its money. Members of the public can register their views, and I would strongly encourage you to do so and pass the word around.
Miss Waddington says:
Here is the email that is being circulated:
The Fund is carrying out a consultation (which you can find here) about how it might allot its money. Members of the public can register their views, and I would strongly encourage you to do so and pass the word around.
Miss Waddington says:
To my mind the questionnaire is not very well designed. It seems that it is necessary to mention churches in the comments box for them to get a look in. The one good aspect is that you can review what you have written before signing off.
Here is the email that is being circulated:
“I have been told authoritatively, and from a completely dependable source, that the initial results from the HLF on-line e-mail consultation are not especially encouraging with regard to potential future funding for churches.
Although a sizeable proportion of those responding to date have indicated that they enthusiastically support future funding for historic structures and buildings, a far smaller proportion have indicated support for resources being targeted at churches. This may reflect a shortcoming in the questions themselves, and therefore a confusion in the public mind about whether funding would be offered to churches as historic buildings or whether all churches are to regarded as religious institutions, and therefore as a low priority for Heritage funding.
Given the eventual phasing-out of much English Heritage money to support historic buildings, and the need to garner support from the HLF for our churches, it is essential that we do all we can to influence the on-line consultation in the direction of continued (and greater) support for church buildings as important historic structures and part of the national patrimony.
The deadline for on-line comments is 26th April and the documentation is available on www.hlf.org.uk/consultation2011 Please respond yourselves and get anyone else (DAC members, workers in your diocesan office, friends, complete strangers off the street…) you can to do the same. The numbers of people responding are fairly small, so the chances of having a significant effect on the statistical balance are good. “www.hlf.org.uk/consultation2011
Monday, 11 April 2011
Getting Old
I have always thought of myself as essentially young in at least one respect; the priest who baptized me nearly half a century ago was still in active ministry until this morning.
Please say a prayer for the soul of Fr Brendan Burke, who gave me the most extraordinary gift of Baptism all those years ago, and who was still the Parish Priest of Rustington in Sussex until he died this morning.
Euge, serve bone et fidele!
Please say a prayer for the soul of Fr Brendan Burke, who gave me the most extraordinary gift of Baptism all those years ago, and who was still the Parish Priest of Rustington in Sussex until he died this morning.
Euge, serve bone et fidele!
Friday, 8 April 2011
Invitation to Catholic Bloggers!
The Vatican has invited Catholic bloggers to a meeting in the Vatican.
There isn't much time; the meeting is scheduled to take place on 2nd May in the Pius X auditorium.
If you read Italian, you can find more here: Google Translate may help out, if you don't.
Hat tip, Palazzo Apostolico.
This event, organized by the Pontifical Council for Culture and Social Communication, has as its objective to allow a dialogue between bloggers and the representatives of the Church, to share the experiences of those who are active in this field, and to understand better the needs of such a community.
There isn't much time; the meeting is scheduled to take place on 2nd May in the Pius X auditorium.
If you read Italian, you can find more here: Google Translate may help out, if you don't.
Hat tip, Palazzo Apostolico.
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
History Lesson
A history lesson with a difference, from a Warder at the Tower of London. The best bit starts at about 3.00 and goes on to the end. Hat tip to Gary Blosh. There are more of these on the YouTube site.
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Monday, 28 March 2011
TLM in York Minster
You can find more photos here.
Thursday, 24 March 2011
You must not become a Catholic
Archbishop Mennini said:
At the nunciature [in Moscow] there was also a young [Orthodox] seminarian who had stopped studying in order to make some money. I would tell him quite often: “You must not become a Catholic. You have to keep your faith in order to better serve your Church. Now you know us you can dream about going to Rome. You can go to Rome one day in order to study but you should remain a Russian Orthodox.”
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Language and the Psalms
I've been having a look at the Revised Grail Psalter, which you can find here, on Wikispooks, next to the Revised NAB version which is used in the States. It is very likely that we will be using the Revised Grail for the Breviary and for the Psalms at Mass in the future.
On the whole, the (old) Grail version has been quite successful; it rarely grates on the ear, with only the occasional infelicities:
and the occasional weirdnesses:
No doubt you can think of some others. And the Coverdale psalms are scarcely free from weirdnesses:
But, for good or ill, the Grail has got under our skin now in a way that the Jerusalem Bible and the now-moribund translation of the Mass have failed to do. It has sufficient quality to be familiar and easily known by heart; it reads easily, with the occasional exception.
What pleases me about the new Grail is that while using inclusive language when the sense is inclusive, it retains gender-specific language when it is not. So it recognizes (which too many versions do not) that many of the 'men' referred to in the Psalms are Types of Christ.
They seem to have retained a great deal of the old version, but this is not altogether a good thing, because familiarity can make one confident, and then along comes a change and trips one up. I don't really understand the reason for some changes;
On the whole, the (old) Grail version has been quite successful; it rarely grates on the ear, with only the occasional infelicities:
'shooting upright men in the dark'
'he sends a scorching wind as their lot'
and the occasional weirdnesses:
'grow higher ancient doors.'
No doubt you can think of some others. And the Coverdale psalms are scarcely free from weirdnesses:
One deep calleth another / because of the noise of the waterpipes.comes quickly to mind.
But, for good or ill, the Grail has got under our skin now in a way that the Jerusalem Bible and the now-moribund translation of the Mass have failed to do. It has sufficient quality to be familiar and easily known by heart; it reads easily, with the occasional exception.
What pleases me about the new Grail is that while using inclusive language when the sense is inclusive, it retains gender-specific language when it is not. So it recognizes (which too many versions do not) that many of the 'men' referred to in the Psalms are Types of Christ.
They seem to have retained a great deal of the old version, but this is not altogether a good thing, because familiarity can make one confident, and then along comes a change and trips one up. I don't really understand the reason for some changes;
OG: Foundations once destroyed, what can the just do?
NG: Foundations once destroyed, what can the righteous do?Anyway, so far I'm hopeful that it will work all right, unless a closer inspection reveals anything horrid.
Friday, 18 March 2011
The Lectionary
The original idea was that our new translation of the Missal would be accompanied by a new translation of the Lectionary, too. It was decided some time ago that we would use the NRSV version of the Bible, but that now seems to be no longer quite so certain.
Not surprisingly, Rome has been less than happy with certain aspects of the NRSV, in particular its inclusive language. The publishers of the NRSVare less than happy with what Rome proposes; not just our desired modifications to the text, but even the 'incipits' we use in the Gospel: 'At that time Jesus said to the pharisees'; 'When Jesus came to Capernaum he said…'; this, it seems, they consider tinkering with God's Word (which, apparently, their inclusive language isn't). So now we have stalemate.
There is a growing number of people who consider that the 'old' RSV would match better with the new translation of the Missal (especially if its thees and thous were altered).
I hear that the Bishops of England and Wales have now decided that there are to be no further liturgical changes for another six years: that perforce will include the new lectionary. This, I suppose, is to enable people to get some wear out of any personal missal they might buy that has the new version of the Missal but the Jerusalem Bible and Grail Psalms. So publishers can get going, in other words, and not fear being left with a lot of useless stock, or not making sales at all.
This means that we have six years to campaign for a decent version of the Bible for the Lectionary: fortunately it seems that the NRSV probably isn't going to be a runner after all.
And in the meantime, I expect that we will see publishers of temporary books like Magnificat making a killing; Magnificat is a very good thing, though whether many parishioners can be induced to take out a subscription remains to be seen.
Not surprisingly, Rome has been less than happy with certain aspects of the NRSV, in particular its inclusive language. The publishers of the NRSVare less than happy with what Rome proposes; not just our desired modifications to the text, but even the 'incipits' we use in the Gospel: 'At that time Jesus said to the pharisees'; 'When Jesus came to Capernaum he said…'; this, it seems, they consider tinkering with God's Word (which, apparently, their inclusive language isn't). So now we have stalemate.
There is a growing number of people who consider that the 'old' RSV would match better with the new translation of the Missal (especially if its thees and thous were altered).
I hear that the Bishops of England and Wales have now decided that there are to be no further liturgical changes for another six years: that perforce will include the new lectionary. This, I suppose, is to enable people to get some wear out of any personal missal they might buy that has the new version of the Missal but the Jerusalem Bible and Grail Psalms. So publishers can get going, in other words, and not fear being left with a lot of useless stock, or not making sales at all.
This means that we have six years to campaign for a decent version of the Bible for the Lectionary: fortunately it seems that the NRSV probably isn't going to be a runner after all.
And in the meantime, I expect that we will see publishers of temporary books like Magnificat making a killing; Magnificat is a very good thing, though whether many parishioners can be induced to take out a subscription remains to be seen.
Thursday, 17 March 2011
Swishing Along
I was reminded earlier of the alternative to the Ordinariate, known snappily as The Mission Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda (SWISH), so I thought I'd have a look at their website to see what's going on.
The answer is, virtually nothing! This really reinforces my view at the time, which was that SPLOSH was simply dreamed up by a couple of guys over a drink or two without any clear idea of what it was going to do ('we'll fill in the details later… whose round is it?'). The heavenly patrons must have been chosen at the one-for-the-road stage, for (as others have pointed out) it is hard to think of early English saints more devoted to Roman communion.
So is SCRATCH going anywhere? Given the lack of activity, it wouldn't seem so. But perhaps there is frantic striving behind the scenes to prevent the upcoming votes going against them……
But that too is unlikely. Their website says that it is for those who are 'unconvinced' that the CofE has the authority to ordain women. If they simply aren't convinced now, then perhaps they will soon become convinced, or at least prepared to tolerate a compromise. It always pays to leave a door open for a graceful retreat, I suppose.
Fr Ray draws attention to the fact that very few in the traditional heartland of Anglo-Catholicism (London, Brighton and South Coast Religion) are taking the Roman Option in Ordinariate form (though some are joining the mainstream Church); there are a priest and some laity in Eastbourne, and two families in Chichester. That's it. It is puzzling. The Patrimonial Doctor made some reference to it a few weeks back, noting that those formerly loudest in their Romanistic Professions are those who are staying, while those who were simply steady Anglicans seem to be wading into the Tiber.
is it because Bishop John Hinde provides a temporary illusion of 'business as usual'? That might well suit some of the gin-and-lace brigade. An incumbent not far from me declared his intention of simply staying on till he retires 'and then I don't care what happens'! That's okay by me; I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable with somebody with so little zeal or principle as a colleague.
The answer is, virtually nothing! This really reinforces my view at the time, which was that SPLOSH was simply dreamed up by a couple of guys over a drink or two without any clear idea of what it was going to do ('we'll fill in the details later… whose round is it?'). The heavenly patrons must have been chosen at the one-for-the-road stage, for (as others have pointed out) it is hard to think of early English saints more devoted to Roman communion.
So is SCRATCH going anywhere? Given the lack of activity, it wouldn't seem so. But perhaps there is frantic striving behind the scenes to prevent the upcoming votes going against them……
But that too is unlikely. Their website says that it is for those who are 'unconvinced' that the CofE has the authority to ordain women. If they simply aren't convinced now, then perhaps they will soon become convinced, or at least prepared to tolerate a compromise. It always pays to leave a door open for a graceful retreat, I suppose.
Fr Ray draws attention to the fact that very few in the traditional heartland of Anglo-Catholicism (London, Brighton and South Coast Religion) are taking the Roman Option in Ordinariate form (though some are joining the mainstream Church); there are a priest and some laity in Eastbourne, and two families in Chichester. That's it. It is puzzling. The Patrimonial Doctor made some reference to it a few weeks back, noting that those formerly loudest in their Romanistic Professions are those who are staying, while those who were simply steady Anglicans seem to be wading into the Tiber.
is it because Bishop John Hinde provides a temporary illusion of 'business as usual'? That might well suit some of the gin-and-lace brigade. An incumbent not far from me declared his intention of simply staying on till he retires 'and then I don't care what happens'! That's okay by me; I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable with somebody with so little zeal or principle as a colleague.
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
Early April Fool?
I hope that this is just an ugly rumour put around by opponents of the Ordinariate to dissuade people from its arms, or else an early April Fool joke. This thing, according to Damian Thompson, is being considered by the Bishops' Conference as the 'pro-cathedral' of the Ordinary, or at any rate its London base. Better to share a church, I should have said.Surely there must be better buildings around. Does the pro have to be in London? There are plenty of fine churches in Liverpool in need of a careful owner. And, if it isn't too late and there are some funds to care for it, there is the splendid church at London Colney, which the Diocese of Westminster no longer needs.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
Brick by brick
It is pretty well axiomatic that if you want to read a reasoned and charitable discussion on important issues, you won't find it in blog comment boxes. There 'Mr Angry of Purley' has full rein, barely even subject to editorial moderation, to write what his most extreme emotions tell him to write at two o'clock in the morning, perhaps having worked his way through most of a whisky bottle. And he doesn't even need to write his real name. From his hermitage (or his computer room anyway) he damns the world, and certainly weasel priests like me who hesitate to turn our altars around immediately and begin celebrating the Traditional Mass exclusively, no matter what our parishioners think.
The poor Holy Father is often invoked in all this 'why won't he just order the bishops to X…?' (here write in whatever your particular gripe is). There is no consideration as to what will happen if the bishop says 'no!' What does the Holy Father do? Excommunicate the bishop, of course! And when two-thirds of the episcopate are excommunicated, what then?
It is just the same, on a smaller scale, in our parishes. I should, apparently, order my musicians to put away their guitars and use the Liber Usualis from next Sunday. Well, what if they say no? I could indeed turn my parish into a screaming hell-hole of bitter arguments, but would that actually serve any purpose? In the end, my parishioners would, the majority of them, either mutinously put up with the situation, or else go somewhere other for Mass, or lapse. I would actually inoculate them against the very thing I was trying to bring about.
I am completely convinced that Pope Benedict and, indeed, the Doctor Lapidarius Father Zuhlsdorf have it right. 'Brick by brick, folks'.
The Church tried repression before. In the past, of course, it could back up its commands with the Inquisition and the State's pyre. Those options aren't open to us; our age in that respect is more civilized, thank God. But in our modern world, people really can vote with their feet, and they need to be persuaded, not ordered. Both Blessed Pius IX and St Pius X, wonderful men, tried dealing with what was then called 'Liberal Catholicism' and came to be called 'Modernism' with repression. It worked up to a point. But only up to a point, Lord Copper.
If a person asks an intelligent question, one is well advised to try and give an intelligent answer. The response 'you aren't allowed to ask that question!' may produce compliance, but a reluctant one. Resentments will seethe and brew under the surface, and the questions will not go away; rather they will become more insistent. In a more liberal age, they will burst forth like a dam breaking, and carry away all sorts of good stuff in the torrent. Is not that a good description of the Church of the 60s and since?
Right now, the Holy Father could jump up and down, shout and holler for obedience. He is unlikely to get it from everyone, and he risks actually putting the Church into a worse state by trying. Instead, he is using the policy of the Doctor Lapidarius; brick by brick. At last, the serious questions of the liberals are being treated seriously and being answered by someone who doesn't lose his temper or his charity. It is an awesome sight. I re-read the other day the Introduction to the Holy Father's first Jesus of Nazareth book. He begins by saying that what he wants to do is simply, reconnect the 'Jesus of Faith' with the 'Jesus of History.' And does just that. Bingo! Is not that worth thousands of anathemas? Even The Tablet has to acknowledge the Pope's theological skill and eloquence! On the liturgical front, he presents what he thinks people can manage right now, and by doing it himself, encourages others to imitate him. Hence all the 'benedictine arrangements' appearing here and there. For those who want the traditional Mass, it can be freely offered. It is up to the Mr Angrys to go to them, support them, encourage them, and, brick by brick, rebuild what has been lost, only stronger and better, having learnt important lessons along the way.
And that is the model for the parish, too. Brick by brick. No anathemas, just helping people to love and desire the truth because it is, just simply, better.
The poor Holy Father is often invoked in all this 'why won't he just order the bishops to X…?' (here write in whatever your particular gripe is). There is no consideration as to what will happen if the bishop says 'no!' What does the Holy Father do? Excommunicate the bishop, of course! And when two-thirds of the episcopate are excommunicated, what then?
It is just the same, on a smaller scale, in our parishes. I should, apparently, order my musicians to put away their guitars and use the Liber Usualis from next Sunday. Well, what if they say no? I could indeed turn my parish into a screaming hell-hole of bitter arguments, but would that actually serve any purpose? In the end, my parishioners would, the majority of them, either mutinously put up with the situation, or else go somewhere other for Mass, or lapse. I would actually inoculate them against the very thing I was trying to bring about.
I am completely convinced that Pope Benedict and, indeed, the Doctor Lapidarius Father Zuhlsdorf have it right. 'Brick by brick, folks'.
The Church tried repression before. In the past, of course, it could back up its commands with the Inquisition and the State's pyre. Those options aren't open to us; our age in that respect is more civilized, thank God. But in our modern world, people really can vote with their feet, and they need to be persuaded, not ordered. Both Blessed Pius IX and St Pius X, wonderful men, tried dealing with what was then called 'Liberal Catholicism' and came to be called 'Modernism' with repression. It worked up to a point. But only up to a point, Lord Copper.
If a person asks an intelligent question, one is well advised to try and give an intelligent answer. The response 'you aren't allowed to ask that question!' may produce compliance, but a reluctant one. Resentments will seethe and brew under the surface, and the questions will not go away; rather they will become more insistent. In a more liberal age, they will burst forth like a dam breaking, and carry away all sorts of good stuff in the torrent. Is not that a good description of the Church of the 60s and since?
Right now, the Holy Father could jump up and down, shout and holler for obedience. He is unlikely to get it from everyone, and he risks actually putting the Church into a worse state by trying. Instead, he is using the policy of the Doctor Lapidarius; brick by brick. At last, the serious questions of the liberals are being treated seriously and being answered by someone who doesn't lose his temper or his charity. It is an awesome sight. I re-read the other day the Introduction to the Holy Father's first Jesus of Nazareth book. He begins by saying that what he wants to do is simply, reconnect the 'Jesus of Faith' with the 'Jesus of History.' And does just that. Bingo! Is not that worth thousands of anathemas? Even The Tablet has to acknowledge the Pope's theological skill and eloquence! On the liturgical front, he presents what he thinks people can manage right now, and by doing it himself, encourages others to imitate him. Hence all the 'benedictine arrangements' appearing here and there. For those who want the traditional Mass, it can be freely offered. It is up to the Mr Angrys to go to them, support them, encourage them, and, brick by brick, rebuild what has been lost, only stronger and better, having learnt important lessons along the way.
And that is the model for the parish, too. Brick by brick. No anathemas, just helping people to love and desire the truth because it is, just simply, better.
Sunday, 13 March 2011
Councils
His Patrimoniality, the estimable Fr Hunwicke has begun a series on councils. I commend it to you. I am looking forward very much to seeing what he has to say.
This is a subject which has exercised my mind for quite a number of years. There is a general assumption that councils teach infallibly and certainly with great authority. However:
1) I am not convinced that, say, Nicæa I saw itself that way. Several of those who agreed to homoousios there didn't feel particularly bound to teach consubstantiality afterwards. Its prohibitions against bishops changing sees didn't prevent Eusebius, a signatory, changing from the see of Nicomedia to Constantinople. To my view, the fathers at Nicæa saw the council as being not a lot different from a local council, just on a bigger scale. It was an agreement, not a mouthpiece for the Holy Ghost.
2) How is one to regard a council, such as at Ephesus, where the business gets under way before an important party even has time to arrive and discuss the matter? Old Cyril of Alexandria (who presided) must be one of the several examples of people who became saints despite the magnitude of their, shall we say, darker side.
The Syrians, who at that time had a problem with the dual nature in one person of our Lord, were the party concerned. They went off into schism as a result, labelled as Nestorians. A later great figure of the Syrian (or, better, Assyrian) schism, Babai the Great, with his work on qnome and parsopa came up with, basically, what Ephesus taught, but in different language. Are they to be held to the verbal formulation of Ephesus (which they don't like for reasons as much historical as anything else) if what they believe adds up to the same thing in any case?
3) The same thing can probably be said of Chalcedon and the Copts, Armenians and Jacobite Syrians.
4) Athanasius' little councilettes at Alexandria (21 bishops in 362) and Antioch (25 bishops) managed to overturn the Arian council(s) of Ariminum/Seleucia (500 (!) bishops in 359), confirmed at Constantinople in 360 (when the world groaned to find itself Arian) which certainly saw itself as an Ecumenical Council. No doubt he swung it because he had the support of the new Emperor (successor to Julian the Apostate), Jovian.
5) By the middle ages, it seems to have been established that a Canon (with an anathema) in a Council document was highly authoritative, perhaps infallible, whereas the preamble and any notes were illuminative (if I can put it like that). So when Trent teaches whoever denies that the Sacrament of Order consists of both major and minor orders, anathema sit, that's gotta be taken really really seriously, but when in a note it lists the orders as porter, lector, exorcist, acolyte, subdeacon, deacon, priest; that can be taken as seriously illuminative, but not infallible in any way (which it can't be, since the East does it differently, and Trent knew that—Council of Florence, and all that).
6) Vatican II has no canons at all. Some people, therefore, treat the whole thing as infallible. Is it all to be considered 'preamble' and therefore illuminative, or infallible?
Others consider infallible the bits they like (Gaudium et Spes, for instance) and pretend the bits they don't like (the use of Latin must continue in the Western rites) don't exist. Traddies can be as guilty of this as trendies.
Paul VI and Bd John XXIII seem to have thought that the council was to proclaim no new dogmas. What, then, does that make of the occasions when it does seem to vary from what has been held before? (e.g. Holy Orders as being Bishop, Priest, Deacon, see Trent above). Pope Benedict's idea of the Hermeneutic of Continuity is probably the best approach to this, but there are wrinkles that have to ironed out.
The East (when it stops trying to long for the days of the Emperor) seems to think that 'reception' is what makes the difference between a dodgy Council (like Ariminum/Seleucia, or the Robber Council of Ephesus) and a pukka one. I think that this is rather like our notion of the Sensus Fidelium. In other words, it all depends on whom you speak to. When Gregory the Great went to Constantinople as Papal Legate, he found almost every single church there still basically Subordinationist (kind of Arian). It was really only after centuries that Nicene orthodoxy really rooted itself in the East.
It has often been said that the Church thinks in centuries. Perhaps here we have an indication to Reception/Sensus Fidelium. It isn't an instant thing, but can take a very long time. Like the psychohistory of Hari Seldon, it only operates on a vast scale. A priest once commented to me that we are, sub specie æternitatis, still living in the Early Church; this is, of course, right. The bigger picture is something we will only see when we have all gone to our reward.
What I think is harder to prove is that the Holy Spirit whispers in the ears of every Father in an Ecumenical Council in such a way that, in effect, every Ecumenical Council takes verbal dictation from God. In some ways, a Council opens up more questions than it hopes to solve; the present dialogue taking place between the Society of St Pius X and what it calls 'Conciliar Rome' is a good example of this. That the Society is still trying to settle this matter, and hasn't simply separated itself from the Church, as so many have before, is a very good sign, and may perhaps help us to settle this issue of what a Council actually is.
If in any way I have gone over the line in this, I apologize, and submit my judgment to that of the Church. I am just trying to feel my way through an interesting set of ideas.
This is a subject which has exercised my mind for quite a number of years. There is a general assumption that councils teach infallibly and certainly with great authority. However:
1) I am not convinced that, say, Nicæa I saw itself that way. Several of those who agreed to homoousios there didn't feel particularly bound to teach consubstantiality afterwards. Its prohibitions against bishops changing sees didn't prevent Eusebius, a signatory, changing from the see of Nicomedia to Constantinople. To my view, the fathers at Nicæa saw the council as being not a lot different from a local council, just on a bigger scale. It was an agreement, not a mouthpiece for the Holy Ghost.
2) How is one to regard a council, such as at Ephesus, where the business gets under way before an important party even has time to arrive and discuss the matter? Old Cyril of Alexandria (who presided) must be one of the several examples of people who became saints despite the magnitude of their, shall we say, darker side.
The Syrians, who at that time had a problem with the dual nature in one person of our Lord, were the party concerned. They went off into schism as a result, labelled as Nestorians. A later great figure of the Syrian (or, better, Assyrian) schism, Babai the Great, with his work on qnome and parsopa came up with, basically, what Ephesus taught, but in different language. Are they to be held to the verbal formulation of Ephesus (which they don't like for reasons as much historical as anything else) if what they believe adds up to the same thing in any case?
3) The same thing can probably be said of Chalcedon and the Copts, Armenians and Jacobite Syrians.
4) Athanasius' little councilettes at Alexandria (21 bishops in 362) and Antioch (25 bishops) managed to overturn the Arian council(s) of Ariminum/Seleucia (500 (!) bishops in 359), confirmed at Constantinople in 360 (when the world groaned to find itself Arian) which certainly saw itself as an Ecumenical Council. No doubt he swung it because he had the support of the new Emperor (successor to Julian the Apostate), Jovian.
5) By the middle ages, it seems to have been established that a Canon (with an anathema) in a Council document was highly authoritative, perhaps infallible, whereas the preamble and any notes were illuminative (if I can put it like that). So when Trent teaches whoever denies that the Sacrament of Order consists of both major and minor orders, anathema sit, that's gotta be taken really really seriously, but when in a note it lists the orders as porter, lector, exorcist, acolyte, subdeacon, deacon, priest; that can be taken as seriously illuminative, but not infallible in any way (which it can't be, since the East does it differently, and Trent knew that—Council of Florence, and all that).
6) Vatican II has no canons at all. Some people, therefore, treat the whole thing as infallible. Is it all to be considered 'preamble' and therefore illuminative, or infallible?
Others consider infallible the bits they like (Gaudium et Spes, for instance) and pretend the bits they don't like (the use of Latin must continue in the Western rites) don't exist. Traddies can be as guilty of this as trendies.
Paul VI and Bd John XXIII seem to have thought that the council was to proclaim no new dogmas. What, then, does that make of the occasions when it does seem to vary from what has been held before? (e.g. Holy Orders as being Bishop, Priest, Deacon, see Trent above). Pope Benedict's idea of the Hermeneutic of Continuity is probably the best approach to this, but there are wrinkles that have to ironed out.
The East (when it stops trying to long for the days of the Emperor) seems to think that 'reception' is what makes the difference between a dodgy Council (like Ariminum/Seleucia, or the Robber Council of Ephesus) and a pukka one. I think that this is rather like our notion of the Sensus Fidelium. In other words, it all depends on whom you speak to. When Gregory the Great went to Constantinople as Papal Legate, he found almost every single church there still basically Subordinationist (kind of Arian). It was really only after centuries that Nicene orthodoxy really rooted itself in the East.
It has often been said that the Church thinks in centuries. Perhaps here we have an indication to Reception/Sensus Fidelium. It isn't an instant thing, but can take a very long time. Like the psychohistory of Hari Seldon, it only operates on a vast scale. A priest once commented to me that we are, sub specie æternitatis, still living in the Early Church; this is, of course, right. The bigger picture is something we will only see when we have all gone to our reward.
What I think is harder to prove is that the Holy Spirit whispers in the ears of every Father in an Ecumenical Council in such a way that, in effect, every Ecumenical Council takes verbal dictation from God. In some ways, a Council opens up more questions than it hopes to solve; the present dialogue taking place between the Society of St Pius X and what it calls 'Conciliar Rome' is a good example of this. That the Society is still trying to settle this matter, and hasn't simply separated itself from the Church, as so many have before, is a very good sign, and may perhaps help us to settle this issue of what a Council actually is.
If in any way I have gone over the line in this, I apologize, and submit my judgment to that of the Church. I am just trying to feel my way through an interesting set of ideas.
Friday, 11 March 2011
The New Translation
We're using the new translation in its entirety here in the Seminary during Lent. This morning was the third celebration, and still the sky hasn't fallen down, nor has anyone walked out.
People have commented that it's much easier to listen to than to read on the page, which is encouraging. One person, who habitually likes to demonstrate his competence in the Liturgy by making all the responses louder and faster than anyone else, forgot from time to time, and a couple of times shouted out 'and also with you' (he wasn't using the crib card, to show that he didn't need such things) thus tripping others up. Some sacred ministers were a little lost ('as confused as a Jesuit in Holy Week', they used to say) but all in all, it has been prayerful and a good experience. I am encouraged.
This morning, the dismissal by the deacon was a little abrupt; 'go in peace!'. It sounded a little like 'go away!'
People have commented that it's much easier to listen to than to read on the page, which is encouraging. One person, who habitually likes to demonstrate his competence in the Liturgy by making all the responses louder and faster than anyone else, forgot from time to time, and a couple of times shouted out 'and also with you' (he wasn't using the crib card, to show that he didn't need such things) thus tripping others up. Some sacred ministers were a little lost ('as confused as a Jesuit in Holy Week', they used to say) but all in all, it has been prayerful and a good experience. I am encouraged.
This morning, the dismissal by the deacon was a little abrupt; 'go in peace!'. It sounded a little like 'go away!'
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Land and Law
An Anglican priest of my acquaintance spoke to me recently about a curious incident. The diocese in which he works contacted not him, but his churchwarden, to state that at the latest by the end of next year (and preferably via the diocese within a month) the land on which the church and churchyard stand must be registered with the Land Registry as always having belonged to the church. This must be asserted before a solicitor.
There are some curious angles to this:
• Why is this necessary all of a sudden? Is it because some congregations are hoping to take their buildings with them when they join the Ordinariate?
• Does this mean that the Church of England is actually aware that its confident assertion that such alienation of property is not possible is actually not as watertight as it hoped? In fact, that congregations might successfully claim ownership of their own church?
• Why was the churchwarden approached without the knowledge of the incumbent? Is it because, as a known opponent of the ordination of women, he might be thought liable to join the Ordinariate?
One hears rumours of an E.U. law which says that if a congregation has been worshipping in a building for twenty years or more and maintaining it entirely at their own expense during this period it belongs to them. And presumably they could take it with them if they voted to join the Ordinariate or, for that matter (and no doubt preferably to some in Church House) the Unification Church or the Church of Scientology.
Makes you fink, dunnit?
There are some curious angles to this:
• Why is this necessary all of a sudden? Is it because some congregations are hoping to take their buildings with them when they join the Ordinariate?
• Does this mean that the Church of England is actually aware that its confident assertion that such alienation of property is not possible is actually not as watertight as it hoped? In fact, that congregations might successfully claim ownership of their own church?
• Why was the churchwarden approached without the knowledge of the incumbent? Is it because, as a known opponent of the ordination of women, he might be thought liable to join the Ordinariate?
One hears rumours of an E.U. law which says that if a congregation has been worshipping in a building for twenty years or more and maintaining it entirely at their own expense during this period it belongs to them. And presumably they could take it with them if they voted to join the Ordinariate or, for that matter (and no doubt preferably to some in Church House) the Unification Church or the Church of Scientology.
Makes you fink, dunnit?
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