Novus ordo crybaby corral

[Mornac]

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There’s going to be a lot of this happening so I thought I’d better give it a thread of its own.


Milwaukee priests lament more accurate Roman Missal translation; ‘salt in the wounds’

August 05, 2010

Milwaukee priests quoted in a local newspaper article on the third edition of the Roman Missal are lamenting the revised translations, which more closely reflect the content and majesty of the original Latin.

“The bottom line for me is why,” said Father Alan Jurkus. “Why, with everything else that's going on in the Church, do we have to rub salt in the wounds?”

“For some people this will be very unsettling,” added Father Ken Smits. “The real concern is among the parish priests, who will have to explain something many of them are not in favor of.”

“You can call it whatever you like, but it's not English,” said Father David Cooper, president of the Milwaukee Archdiocese Priests Alliance. “The language of prayer is supposed to be evocative, graceful, uplifting. This reads like clunk-clunk-clunk-bang-boom.”

“Anytime there are changes, people go through the process of being angry and sad,” responded Dean Daniels, who leads the archdiocese’s office of worship. “But the Church has been changing forever. It’s a dynamic, living organism.”

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=7115

[Mornac]

Catholic dissenters create homosexual political group, solicit reports of ‘anti-equality activity’

Washington D.C., Aug 22, 2010 / 06:12 pm (CNA).- Prominent Catholic dissenters have created an organization to promote homosexual political causes and to change Catholic opinion through coordination with other activists. Organized explicitly to oppose the U.S. bishops, the group’s website asks for reports of “anti-equality activity” in Catholic parishes.

The group Catholics for Equality’s website, which is still under construction, reports that the organization is dedicated to “support, educate, and mobilize equality-supporting Catholics to advance LGBT equality at federal, state, and local levels.”

The group claims the “official voice of the hierarchy” favors discrimination and opposes “just” efforts to secure “legal equality for LGBT Americans.” This “anti-equality voice” is “far too often” portrayed as representative of American Catholics, according to the website.

One page on the site, titled “Report anti-equality activity!” contains an incomplete template for a submission form. It asks informers to describe the purported anti-equality activity and to categorize whether it took place in the parish, diocese or community “so that pro-equality Catholics can respond.”

The information generates an e-mail sent to the organization and also “an entry into private ‘report’ database,” the website says.

Mark Matson, president of the dissenting Catholic group DignityUSA, reported in a March 2010 newsletter on the group's website that an organizational meeting for Catholics for Equality took place on January 30 and 31 in Washington, D.C.

He said the meeting was convened to address the “increasing role” of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and state bishops’ conference in opposing “LGBT” political causes. Another purpose of the meeting was to “coordinate efforts to shift Catholic public opinion and voter behaviors.”

Matson said he attended in lieu of executive director Marianne Duddy-Burke because the meeting was held on short notice. He added that other DignityUSA attendees included its board members Mark Clark and Tom Yates, both from Dignity/Washington (District of Columbia), and Ray Panas, president of Dignity/Washington.

According to Matson, Catholics for Equality will “focus on influencing legislation and the behavior of Catholic voters in a way that DignityUSA cannot” because of its tax designation. It will also develop an outreach strategy to include “influential theologians.” In his words, the new group “complements” DignityUSA’s mission and will be a counterpart to the homosexual advocacy group Human Rights Campaign (HRC). He and Duddy-Burke will hold two seats on the group’s board of advisors.

Also in attendance at the organizing meeting were Frank DeBernardo and Matthew Myers of New Ways Ministry. Sr. Jeannine Gramick, co-founder of the group and present co-director of the National Coalition of American Nuns (NCAN), also attended.

In a recent interview with a Dallas-based homosexual paper, Sr. Gramick claimed that there was a disconnect between the Catholic hierarchy and the laity on homosexual issues. She also estimated that about half of Catholic priests were homosexual.

In its interview with the religious sister, the Dallas Voice reported that New Ways Ministry is experimenting with a new program to target legislators as well as Catholic grassroots voters in Maryland.

According to Matson, Catholics for Equality’s organizational meeting was convened by Washington attorney Phil Attey and Rev. Dr. Joe Palacios, described as a Jesuit priest from Los Angeles who is currently on the Georgetown University faculty.

Last year Attey created a website to “aggregate reports on every gay priest” in the Archdiocese of Washington to help them “stand up to the church hierarchy” on homosexual issues. According to a WhoIs lookup, the website shares the same 12th Street, NW D.C. mailing address as Catholics for Equality.

In the 1990s Attey served as HRC’s electronic media manager. According to the gay publication Metro Weekly, he also co-chaired the Obama Pride Metro D.C. group to support the current U.S. president’s election bid.

For his part, Palaicos is a board member of Catholics for Equality and also political co-chair of the HRC’s D.C. Steering Community. According to his biography at the Georgetown University website, in 2009 he was appointed by the White House to serve on the board of visitors supervising what is commonly known as the School of the Americas, a U.S. training facility for Latin American military officers which has been criticized for its alumni’s alleged participation in human rights violations.

Issues listed on the Catholics for Equality website include “marriage equality.” Claiming that same-sex “marriage” does not coerce any religious faith, it invokes the “separation of Church and State” and says “we affirm civil marriage for same-sex couples throughout the United States.”

The group criticizes the U.S. bishops’ opposition to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), and advocates opening military service to open homosexuals.

“Catholics in the United States live in this social context that allows the free exercise of conscience rather than enforced scriptural fundamentalism or bishops’ and pastors’ exhortations in making decisions regarding homosexuality and gay rights— as is often exercised in Protestant fundamentalist and evangelical denominations and now by increasingly doctrinaire Catholic bishops,” the website argues.

It also claims that Catholic priests rarely mention homosexuality or homosexual issues in sermons “except when forced to by the bishops,” saying this coercion happened during the campaign to pass California’s Proposition 8 and Maine’s Proposition 1. Both successful ballot measures restored the definition of marriage to be a union of a man and a woman.

Other attendees at the Catholics for Equality organizing meeting included Joanna Blotner, coordinator of the HRC’s Religion and Faith Program; Sharon Groves, deputy director for the HRC’s Religion and Faith Program; Chuck Colbert, a journalist and contributor to the National Catholic Reporter; Shiva Subbaraman of the Georgetown LGBTQ Resource Center; and Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at People for the American Way who facilitated the discussion.

The homosexual blogger Anthony Adams, who was ordained as a Catholic priest, attended the meeting as did Anne Underwood of Catholics for Marriage Equality in Maine and Charles Martel of Catholics for Marriage Equality in Massachusetts. California priest Fr. Geoffrey Farrow, who was disciplined by his bishop for opposing Proposition 8, also attended.

According to DignityUSA’s Matson, Cathy Renna, media relations director of Renna Communications, advised attendees on communications strategy. She praised Duddy-Burke’s lobbying related to the sexual abuse scandal.

While Catholics for Equality is a 501(c)(4) non-profit which can lobby on political issues, it has also planned a parallel non-political foundation to engage in campus outreach and to reach out to “prominent pro-equality Catholics in the entertainment, civic, business and sports areas, providing them a national platform as leading American Catholics to voice their support for LGBT equality.”

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/catholic-dissenters-create-homosexual-political-group-solicit-reports-of-anti-equality-activity/

[IM2]

Boooring! These are all catholics, novus ordo or not.

[Mornac]

Liberal priests oppose CCHD reform efforts in Chicago
11/6/2010

Even as lay Catholic activists have renewed their criticism of ties between the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and radical activist groups (see today's separate CWN story), liberal priests in the Chicago archdiocese are urging Cardinal Francis George to roll back reforms of the local CCHD effort.

Last year, prompted by heavy criticism of the CCHD, archdiocesan officials in Chicago took extra steps to ensure that grants would not be directed toward organizations that promote abortion, same-sex unions, and other causes at odds with Catholic moral principles. The Chicago archdiocese also decided to send only 50% of the funds from local collections-as opposed to 75% in previous years-to the national CCHD campaign. The Chicago office used the extra funds to support efforts at strengthening family life, arguing that this is most effective (and distinctively Catholic) long-term response to poverty.

But a group of Chicago priests, led by Father Larry Dowling of St. Agatha's parish, is circulating a petition to Cardinal George protesting these reforms. The priests' letter charges that the changes in the Chicago CCHD effort have "done great damage in a number of ways." The priests aim their criticism at new leadership of the Chicago CCHD effort and at Nicholas Lund-Molfese, the director of the archdiocesan office of peace and justice.

The priests' letter expresses resentment that CCHD grant applications in the Chicago archdiocese are being vetted by a selection committee "including lay people who openly described CCHD as defective and 'needing fixing.'" They argue that it is insulting for grant applications to be asked whether their organizations are involved in advocacy for abortion or same-sex marriage.

In an odd twist of logic, the liberal priests complain that by holding back some of the funds that were previously sent to the national CCHD office, the new Chicago policy is hurting local groups, "as many local organizations have been funded by national CCHD monies." Their protest questions whether the reform measures adopted by the Chicago archdiocese constitute an effort to curb Church funding of community organizers. Rejecting the claim that the CCHD was in need of reform, the priests attack the motivations of lay Catholic critics, claiming:

A great amount of criticism and false information about CCHD has been disseminated by those who oppose the Church's promotion of empowering the poor. The current direction of CCHD seems not only to placate these critics but also to directly involve opponents of the CCHD in the selection process.

Father Larry Dowling, the main force behind the Chicago priests' petition, is himself a community activist of some note. He is the chairman of the Illinois Center for violence prevention, a group that includes Planned Parenthood in its "after-school alliance" and has links to groups that promote legal abortion and gay rights. He is also the president of the board of Arise Chicago, a group that, during last year's debate in Washington on federal health-care legislation, wrote a letter to Congressmen protesting measures that would "impose dangerous new restrictions on women's reproductive health care."

http://www.catholiccitizens.org/news/contentview.asp?c=52348

[Mornac]

Priests threaten Mass exodus over changes to liturgy

Leesha McKenny and Barney Zwartz
February 19, 2011

THE Catholic Church is facing open defiance over its new Mass, with at least a dozen Australian priests indicating they will refuse to use it when it comes into force later this year.

Hundreds more are angry about the lack of consultation for the new, more literal translation of the 400-year-old Latin text, which was heavily influenced by a Vatican advisory committee headed by the Sydney Archbishop, Cardinal George Pell.

What supporters say is a suitably elevated and poetic text more faithful to the original Latin is seen by detractors as an outdated, contrived and less inclusive version that ignores modern English and could further alienate Catholics from the church. It has become the latest battleground in the culture wars between progressive Catholics and traditionalists over the direction of reforms stemming from the 1960s Vatican Council, which allowed the faithful to celebrate the liturgy in their own language for the first time.

To be gradually introduced from June, the new Mass will be the compulsory version of the English mass by November.

But Father John Crothers, the parish priest of St Declan's parish in Penshurst, said he could not in good conscience use the text, which he believed to go against the 1960s Vatican Council's spirit of ''aggiornamento'', meaning ''up-to-date''.

''I've no problems with changing things - it's part of my philosophy that you've got to change and grow and develop. It's the fact that this is going backwards instead of going forwards,'' he said. ''I won't be saying the priest part. If the people wanted to do the responses in the new translation, it's up to them.''

In Ireland this mont a group representing more than 400 priests publicly denounced the new translation as ''archaic, elitist and obscure'' and urged their bishops to delay the changes for at least five years until the clergy and laity were consulted.

The chairman of the National Council of Priests of Australia, Father Ian McGinnity, said hundreds of its 1600 members were ''pretty steamed up'' at the Vatican's lack of consultation but most had not yet decided how to respond. At least a dozen had indicated they would not use the new English translation, he said.

''We're also very concerned that the language, the idiom, might perhaps estrange more Catholics from participation in the Eucharist,'' he said.

Asked what sanctions a local bishop could apply to defiant priests, Father McGinnity said: "I really don't know. I suppose he could suspend a bloke. But given the [priest] shortage, it's unlikely."

Father Crothers said he had told Cardinal Pell his position at a clergy conference last year.

''I said at the conference, 'I won't be doing it, and where do I stand there?' And he's just said that he expected all the priests will do it.''

Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, the vice-chairman of the international translation committee, said consultation had been extensive but there would have to be ''dialogue and encouragement'' with opponents. ''I think a lot of the criticism is really a fear of what we think the thing is, and when we get to the reality, it's not like that at all.''

The executive director of the National Liturgy Commission, Peter Williams, who has spent the past year travelling the country to explain the new Mass, said it had already been successfully introduced in New Zealand.

''I think that's what's going to happen here. Of course there will be some irritability, but in due course people will have made the change."

http://www.smh.com.au/national/priests-threaten-mass-exodus-over-changes-to-liturgy-20110218-1azmf.html?from=smh_sb

[Mornac]

Priests call for publication of new missal translation to be suspended

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Irish Times 

IRELAND’S CATHOLIC bishops are to publish a statement “shortly” on the new translation of the Roman missal, they said yesterday.

The translation is to be used in Ireland from Advent next December.

At Maynooth this week members of the bishops’ Commission for Worship, Pastoral Renewal and Faith Development met the Association of Catholic Priests.

Forthright criticisms of the new translation were expressed by priests. Their discussions coincided with the spring meeting of the Irish Episcopal Conference.

In attendance at the meeting with the association were five bishops, all members of the commission, including its chairman Bishop Seamus Freeman.

Killala priest Fr Brendan Hoban called for implementation of the translation to be suspended so priests and people could be properly consulted. What was on offer was very deficient, especially in the use of exclusive language, and had been imposed from Rome, he said, according to minutes on the association website.

It was priests who would face the hostility of many Catholics, especially women, towards the new translation, he said. He said it would be unfair to use it in nursing homes where people were very familiar with the old translations.

Kilmore priest Fr Gerard Alwill criticised the secrecy surrounding the translation process.

He said there was major dissatisfaction with the archaic terms, long, convoluted sentences and sexist language it used.

Kildare and Leighlin priest Fr PJ Madden spoke of a recent meeting in Carlow attended by 60 priests where many said the new texts were not wanted. He felt that at the meeting there was no real effort to take on board the deeply felt concerns of the priests.

Fr Pádraig McCarthy of the Dublin archdiocese suggested the bishops suspend publication of the new translation immediately. A leaflet highlighting its pros and cons should be circulated, after which priests and parish liturgical groups should make their views known to the local bishop and the National Centre for Liturgy at Maynooth, he said.

Dublin priest Fr Dermot Lane said the word “consubstantial”, for instance, as used in the new translation, was transliteration and not used in mainstream English.

He suggested a process of consultation with the people should take place on the new translation such as that used to prepare the new National Directory for Catechesis . He noted that as early as 2003 the Catholic Biblical Association of America was critical of the new translation of the missal.

Columban priest Fr Seán McDonagh said the word “man”, as used in it, was no longer a common noun in contemporary English, and the excuse for using sexist language in the new translation smacked of Humpty Dumpty in Alice through the Looking Glass , where he said “when I use a word . . . it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0305/1224291372552.html

[Mornac]

Vatican instructions on Latin Mass raise hackles of Catholic liberals
PADDY AGNEW in Rome

Sat, May 14, 2011

THOSE WHO would argue that a major thrust of Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate has been an inward-looking, conservative consolidation will probably point to yesterday’s “instruction” on the 2007 Motu Proprio “ Summorum Pontificum ” and shout “case proved”.

To express it in layman’s language, the Holy See yesterday issued a detailed set of instructions calling on bishops and priests to show willing when faced with requests for celebration of Mass in Latin. These instructions follow on from the 2007 Motu Proprio data in which the Pope had eased restrictions on the use of the Latin or so-called Tridentine Mass, which had been sidelined, but not abrogated, by the liturgical reforms of the second Vatican Council, being replaced by the 1970 local language liturgy.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi yesterday said the new norms were published in order “to reconcile differences” between those in favour of restoring the Latin rite and those who see it as a backward step.

One is entitled to be sceptical on this front given that the former lobby tend to see fidelity to the old missal as a mark of traditionalist identity, whilst the latter lobby sees promotion of the Latin Mass as a contradiction of the teachings of the second Vatican Council.

Yesterday’s document recalled three main aims of the original Motu Proprio : to offer the old rite to all the faithful as a “precious treasure”; to guarantee the use of the old rite “for all who ask for it”; and to promote reconciliation in the church. In essence, the instructions call on priests and bishops to offer a “generous welcome” to those calling for the Latin Mass.

In a section called “specific norms”, the instructions deal with a broad series of issues – for example, a “group of the faithful” who worship “in a stable manner” can legitimately request celebration of the Tridentine Mass.

Fr Lombardi emphasised the tone of the instructions makes it clear “there should be no polemical or critical intent on the part of those people making the request”. In other words, such groups must not contest the validity of the “ordinary” post-1970 Mass.

Many liberal Catholics are still likely to interpret these instructions as an unnecessary concession to arch-conservative, anti-ecumenical groups such as the Society of Pius X, founded by the late archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0514/1224296945379.html

[Mornac]

Priests say missal is 'sexist and elitist'

FIONA GARTLAND
Feb 04, 2011

THE NEW missal for use at Mass from next November is sexist, archaic, elitist and obscure, the Association of Catholic Priests has said.

It has called on the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference not to introduce the third edition of The Roman Missal until it has consulted with priests and laity. The conference has said, however, that the new missal is “set in stone”.

Thousands of changes have been made to the current missal, the association said at a press conference yesterday. And the language used, a more literal translation of the Latin missal, is not in keeping with the “natural rhythm, cadence and syntax” of English.

“The association is gravely concerned that this literal translation from Latin has produced texts that are archaic, elitist and obscure,” the association said.

“Many women will be rightly enraged at the deliberate use of non-inclusive language.” The new translation perpetuated an “exclusivist, sexist language”, it said.

Prayers including The Confiteur, The Gloria and The Creed have all been changed.

The phrase “begotten, not made, of one being with the Father”, from The Creed, has been changed to “begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father”.

The response to “The Lord be with you” has been changed from “and also with you” to “and with your spirit”.

The opening three sentences of the Third Eucharistic Prayer have been replaced with one 72-word sentence. Throughout, the missal only refers to “man”, “men” and “he”.

The new wording of the prayers used at Mass and other church celebrations, as yet unpublished, is planned for introduction in Ireland on the first Sunday of Advent, November 27th.

It was produced by the International Commission for English in the Liturgy in consultation with the Congregation for Divine Worship in the Vatican. And according to the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference, it captures “the biblical resonances of our prayers more clearly and the rich words and phrases of the prayers, many more than 1,200 years old”. The current missal was introduced to Ireland on St Patrick’s Day, 1975.

In 2001, the Vatican issued Liturgiam Authenticam , a document that laid down new principles for the translation of the Latin Mass. It required literal translation of the language and its guidelines were used to produce the new missal.

Fr Gerry Alwill, parish priest at Drumkeeran, Co Leitrim, said the new version uses more “cumbersome” language that is “very awkward” and “very arcane”.

In a study carried out by Fr Pádraig McCarthy, a retired Dublin priest, the current missal scored 8.4 on a scale that measures readability, the Flesch-Kincaid scale. This means an average 14-year-old can read it. The new version scored 13.3, equivalent to third-level education standard.

Theologian Fr Dermot Lane highlighted a change in words used at consecration which currently state Jesus died “for you and for all”, but have been changed to “for you and for many”. The shift implies “Christ was for some, not all”, he said.

The German hierarchy had rejected a new version sent to them and “Rome accepted that”, Fr Lane said; the Irish hierarchy could do the same.

A spokesman for the bishops’ conference said the wording in the new missal was “set in stone”, but it was premature for any group to be critical of it.

“Over the next six months the plan is to inform and advise the priests and the people in a sensitive way so that the changes can be fully understood and integrated into the Mass for Advent,” he said.

Third Eucharistic Prayer Old And New


BEGINNING OF OLD PRAYER

Father, you are holy indeed, and all creation rightly gives you praise.

All life, all holiness comes from you through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, by the working of the Holy Spirit.

From age to age you gather a people to yourself, so that from east to west a perfect offering may be made to the glory of your name.

Three sentences, 61 words

BEGINNING OF NEW PRAYER

You are indeed Holy, O Lord, and all you have created rightly gives you praise,

for through your Son our Lord Jesus Christ, by the power and working of the Holy Spirit, you give life to all things and make them holy,

and you never cease to gather a people to yourself, so that from the rising of the sun to its setting a pure sacrifice may be offered to your name.

One sentence, 72 words

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0204/1224288985722.html

[Mornac]

Anger, defiance follow Boston archdiocese's cancellation of gay pride Mass

6/14/2011
By Kathleen Gilbert -LifeSiteNews.com

A Catholic parish and its pastor strongly allied with the gay rights movement in Boston have expressed frustration and defiance after their archdiocese put the kibosh on a much-anticipated "gay-friendly" Mass.

Rev. John J. Unni, pastor of St. Cecilia's Church in the Back Bay, lashed out in Sunday's sermon against Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley's decision to forbid a Mass Unni had planned for next weekend to celebrate the homosexual community.

"You are welcome here, gay or straight, rich or poor, young or old, black or white,'' said Unni as he paced the center aisle, according to the Boston Globe. "Here, you all can say, 'I can worship the God who made me as I am.' ''

The sermon received a standing ovation from the parish, whose members are heavily involved in its "Rainbow Ministry" for homosexuals. More than 200 parishioners wore buttons with a cross, a rainbow, and the words "All Are Welcome," the Globe reports.

The mass, advertised with the theme "All Are Welcome," was intended to "celebrate the diverse community" at the parish and timed to coincide with Boston's Gay Pride month.

The archdiocese says the planned liturgy ran the risk of sending the wrong message about Church teaching. "The wording and placement of a bulletin notice announcing that the St. Cecilia Rainbow Ministry will be joining the parish at a Mass on June 19 may have given the unintended impression that the Mass is in support of Gay Pride Week; it is not,'' said archdiocesan spokesman Terrence Donilon.

Gay activists raged against the decision, including Dignity USA executive director Marianne Duddy-Burke, who called the decision "horrible" and encouraged Catholics to perform the Mass elsewhere in protest. Also among the critics was Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop.

Despite the setback, the parish's gay activists say they plan to hold a prayer service outside the church at the same time as the Mass was originally scheduled for; Donilon told the Globe that the archdiocese would not intervene.

"This should not be about conflict,'' Donilon told the Globe. "The teachings of the Catholic Church are set in stone, but that doesn't stop us from loving people from different walks of life.''

The editors of the Boston Globe on Tuesday acknowledged that Catholic Church teaching forbids homosexual activity on a par with any extramarital sexual relations, while maintaining that homosexual individuals themselves remain, in the words of Cardinal O'Malley, "precious in God's eye." However, the editorial concludes that the Mass should have proceeded, and would have caused no scandal.

"No one would have had the misimpression that the church was endorsing gay sex, but the inclusive service would have been an important acknowledgement that gay Catholics exist," they wrote.

Members of the gay rights lobby nonetheless frequently conflate the Church's prohibition against homosexual activity with expressions of "hate" against homosexuals themselves.

For example, gay rights leaders in February ripped an iPhone app designed to help Catholics examine their conscience prior to confession because the software prompted users with the question: "Have I been guilty of any homosexual activity?"

"Gay Catholics don't need to confess, they need to come out of the closet and challenge anti-gay dogma. The false idea that being gay is something to be ashamed of has destroyed too many lives," stated Wayne Besen of the gay rights group Truth Wins Out.

http://www.catholiccitizens.org/views/contentview.asp?c=53011

[Mornac]

Rallying Around Father Roy: How Catholics Should Respond to His Impending Dismissal

Marianne T. Duddy-Burke
8/16/11.

The curtain has risen on the next act in the drama of Father Roy Bourgeois, MM. Acting under orders from the Vatican, the Maryknoll Missionary Fathers have given Roy a final warning that he must recant his support for the ordination of women to the priesthood or be expelled both from the Order and the priesthood. The conclusion of this tragedy is foregone. Roy will stick to his position, the Vatican will not relent, the Maryknolls will give the official order of expulsion, and Roy will be stripped of his community and his status as a Roman Catholic priest.

Reaction to this event has focused on the unfairness of a good priest being bullied by the Church hierarchy for holding fast to his conscience. The offense merits such an outcry. However, Catholics committed to achieving justice within our Church as well as in the larger world should think about how we choose to respond to this incident, and the many others like it that occur, generally with far less fanfare, week after week.

In truth, this is a moment of liberation that could, in the long run, help bring a new Roman Catholic Church into being. Roy Bourgeois has made the choice to trust his deepest conviction, his community, and, yes, his God. In the face of the profound economic and professional uncertainty that his dismissal from the Maryknolls will bring, Roy has chosen integrity over security. He is choosing to be wholly himself, and refusing to project an acceptable image to the powers that behave badly. To paraphrase St. Irenaeus, he is opting to embody the glory of God, by being a human fully alive.

Too many Catholics face similar dilemmas frequently in their professional, ministerial, and personal lives, and choose the safe path. They are the priests who read letters from their bishops attacking the civil rights of their lesbian and gay parishioners during Sunday Mass, despite the pastoral harm they know these missives inflict. They are theologians who take apart official dogma in private but who refuse to challenge it in the public square. They are the Eucharistic Ministers who refuse Communion to the divorced and remarried, the religious educators who carefully stay inside the lines when answering difficult questions, the teachers who refuse to discuss the importance of condoms in preventing the transmission of HIV. Each of these concessions to power erodes personal dignity, and strengthens the Stepford Church that current hierarchs are creating.

So, rather than asking the Maryknolls not to expel Roy, and then returning to the pews shortly after they do, I ask my fellow Catholics to affirm acts of conscience and integrity by Fr. Roy and so many others like him. We have the power to validate Roy's convictions and his continued priesthood. I'm sure there are many Catholic communities that would be thrilled to embrace Roy as a leader. I also believe there are Catholics who can step forward to provide a living wage, health benefits, and even retirement funding that will allow Roy to continue his justice ministry. Once we've done it for Roy, we can do it for others.

If we can remove economic bullying from the arsenal that Church leaders have to control Catholics, clergy and laity alike, perhaps more of us will be feel free to speak and live the truth of our own convictions. Most importantly, we will have taken an important step in creating the Church we believe in and deserve.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marianne-t-duddyburke/roy-bourgeois-catholic-response_b_925495.html

[Mornac]

Living with the Missal

20 August 2011

What kind of obedience do Catholics owe the Church, with reference to the new English translation of the Roman Missal? Even before its introduction this autumn, there has been a glimpse from Scotland of the way some parishes and their priests are reacting, not with open defiance, but with excuses and ­prevarication as to why their parish is not yet “ready” for the new Missal. Bishop Peter Moran, outgoing Bishop of Aberdeen, spoke recently of “a certain amount of resistance in the parishes”, which was a “challenge”.

Fr Kevin Kelly, Britain’s eminent moral theologian, has now published a letter to the Catholic bishops of England and Wales accusing them of using “doublespeak” by praising the new ­translation in public while expressing unhappiness with it in private. It is beyond argument that the new translation is a flawed product of a flawed process, an issue well rehearsed in the columns of The Tablet. That does not lead automatically to the conclusion that the only right response to it is resistance. In any case, that is not what Fr Kelly recommends. He wants the bishops to be frank. The bishops have obviously made a calculation that the new translation – which, in its final version, they have never themselves formally approved – is a done deal. Hence their duty of obedience requires them to make the best of it while keeping their doubts to themselves. The bishops have called for a catechetical exercise in the parishes to deepen people’s faith in the Eucharist. That is impossible to object to and may do much good. But it does not supply a convincing reason why, for instance, “and with your spirit” is a better reply to “the Lord be with you” than the present form, “and also with you”. In the absence of any explanation for that and similar linguistic infelicities, people will feel bemused and no doubt somewhat irritated.

The controversy was given an extra dimension when Cardinal Napier of Durban wrote to The Tablet to ask: “Whatever happened to religious faith and obedience in Europe …? Is there no room for humble submission?” Hitherto, obedience had not been the dominant issue, though it may become so if priests start to defy their bishops. Obedience in any case is a complex concept, which does not necessarily mean unthinking compliance with an order from above. It comes from the Latin word for “to hear”, audire, which leaves open the possibility of listening without complying. In the Catholic context, for instance, as articulated by Fr Timothy Radcliffe OP, obedience has been construed as meaning “deep attentiveness”. But what is it in this case that Catholics are beholden to attend to deeply? The need to revive collegiality in the decision-making processes of the Church? That seems to be the fundamental issue.

Nevertheless, there is in the parishes a deep instinct for unity in the Church, and a common-sense reluctance to make the good – or even the not-so-good – the enemy of the best. The Mass is the Mass, whatever the language. Ordinary people know very well that in practice the Church is far from perfect, and have learnt, by and large, to make the best of it. But there are problems with the “everything in the garden’s lovely” approach when people know differently. It could rapidly undermine trust and credibility.

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/161608

[Mornac]

Women's Ordination Conference Decries Ban on Altar Girls in Pheonix Diocese

WASHINGTON, DC – August 22, 2011 – Girls will no longer be allowed to serve as altar servers during Mass at the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, SS. Simon and Jude. In response, Women’s Ordination Conference has issued an action alert calling on the Diocese to immediately reinstate female altar servers in that parish.

“If young women in the Phoenix diocese want to grow up to work for the Church – or even aspire to the priesthood – I, and the vast majority of U.S. Catholics, don’t see the harm in that, said Erin Saiz Hanna, executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference. “Around the country, young women have been lawfully serving at the altar for well over a decade.”

Reportedly, Rev. Lankeit banned girls from the altar because he wants only boys to prepare for priesthood in this way. Since 1994, the Vatican and the U.S. Bishops have allowed female altar servers. There is no restriction in Canon Law for women to help at the altar during the liturgy.
 
“This is not only disgraceful, it is impractical. Women comprise at least 80 per cent of church lay ministers, and they are backbone of most parishes around the world,” continued Hanna.

“The Vatican’s stance on the ordination of women is based on arguments that have been refuted time and again.  In 1976, the Vatican’s own Pontifical Biblical Commission determined that there is no scriptural reason to prohibit women’s ordination.  Jesus included women as full and equal partners in his ministry, and the hierarchy would do well to follow suit,” Hanna concluded.
 
http://www.womensordination.org/content/view/368/42/

[Mornac]

Re-thinking the theological thought police

By Phyllis Zagano
Aug 31, 2011

What might baldly be called the Vatican Thought Police are after Theological Studies, the 71-year-old journal for professional theologians that has 2,848 subscribers in 90 countries. They’ve made noises about some of the journal’s essays, apparently forcing it to print a rebuttal to one of them.
 
There is a cold wind blowing out of Rome. Has anyone noticed that Catholic theologians are running for the secular hills? (Yes, thankfully. - Mornac)
 
Jesuit-sponsored Theological Studies is just what it says. It is not a catechetical tool. It is not issued by the USCCB public relations department. It is a journal in which scholars who successfully pass several layers of peer review and a painstaking editing process publish the fruits of years of scholarship. Some of these essays eventually turn up in scholarly books published by Catholic presses.
 
Rome may worry about theological research published by professionals for professionals, but no one seems to care about the strain the current climate puts on Catholic research and publishing. Catholic presses are increasingly wary of writing that might raise a Roman eyebrow. So secular publishing houses offer a safe haven for scholars who ask questions the Vatican would rather not have asked.
 
Does anyone else see a problem here?
 
Full disclosure: I have published in Theological Studies. I write this twice-monthly column mostly published online for NCR. What I write, whether in Theological Studies or in the column you are now reading, is professionally edited by Catholics. I have also published with both secular and Catholic publishing houses. I depend on the criticism of my editors and peers.
 
In keeping with the best traditions of journalism, NCR editors watch for style and spelling and facts. They also ensure respectful discussion of issues.
 
At Theological Studies (known in the trade as “TS”), scholarship and accuracy form the bottom line. Every comma, every footnote, every word is scrutinized and scrubbed to ensure an essay’s meaning is clear, or at least as clear as can be for theologians. The result is such page-turners as “Levinas and Christian Mysticism after Auschwitz” by Paul Rigby and “Christological Polemics of Maximus the Confessor and the Emergence of Islam onto the World Stage” by Grigory I. Benevich. Each appeared in the June 2011 issue along with the apparently non-peer reviewed and very lightly edited “Indissoluble Marriage: A Reply to Kenneth Himes and James Coriden” by Jesuit Fr. Peter F. Ryan and Germain Grisez.

Nearly seven years ago Himes and Coriden raised a theological question with significant pastoral implications. But the Vatican’s brand of thought police (more likely only one Vatican doctrine cop) decided Himes’ and Coriden’s work was non-doctrinal and a danger to the faithful, who probably never heard of either one until this story hit the news.
 
Such is not a new mistake by non-media savvy doctrine enforcers. Think of how many books they have sold for Elizabeth Johnson. If the Vatican is concerned about scholars being popularized, perhaps it should consider how much PR it does on their behalf.
 
It should also consider where Catholic scholars will publish their books in the future, given the current climate. While there are many fine secular publishing houses around, they often do not have Catholic editorial staff to back-stop a writer. They do, of course, send materials out for review among Catholic specialists, but the editorial process is much different, and often more difficult, than with a Catholic publisher because often nuances of tone and technical style are lost on their copy editors.
 
Serious Catholic presses and journals may lean a bit in one direction or the other, but they can be trusted. The denser the book or essay, the more it will be read only by specialists. I sincerely doubt the faithful have much chance of being misled by a single article in Theological Studies, assuming they go to the trouble of finding it in a university or seminary library in the first place.
 
Theological Studies provides a serious forum for serious discussion. It does not make publication decisions lightly -- scholars have but a 10 percent chance of having an essay accepted by TS. Why go after it?
 
Attacking a professional journal does not protect doctrine. It mummifies it. Driving theologians into the secular streets can actually create the problem the doctrine defenders seek to avoid.
 
Where did this dust up come from? Is officialdom mollifying the ultra-right? Will it ever recognize nothing will ever be enough?
 
It makes no sense to force a professional journal to publish what may be a rejected article.
 
Theological Studies will remain the gold standard for scholarship. But the chilling end result of this and other actions in the name of the hierarchy is that Catholic scholars will seek more, not fewer, secular outlets for work rightly and properly discussed inside the guild.
 
Theologians are not the problem.

http://ncronline.org/blogs/just-catholic/re-thinking-theological-thought-police

[Mornac]

I’m just going to tidy this place up a bit. Things are about to get reeeeeeally busy in here.

[Mornac]

Maybe I can get this guy to give me a hand. He seems to be out of work.