Saint Mary Magdalen

More on PO'D on the Bishop's Conference

2008-08-20T09:09:00.003+01:00

I do not know if this true, but I was sent a link to this blog when I asked somone whether they had heard anything about the latest "Fit for Mission" document from Bishop O'Donahue. Apparently it has been leaked widely.

See, if you haven't yet, the post about Bishop's Conferences I put up a few days ago. Seems like we all be crying Ratz has spoken through PO'D when it is released.

Roman Catholic Bishop Patrick O'Donohue of the Lancaster diocese in northwest England, has heavily criticised his fellow bishops of England and Wales for what he sees as a weak, "flat" response to many of today's moral crises, especially that of the radical homosexualist and anti-Catholic, secularist lobby.
A document is due to be published next week, in which O'Donohue calls on his fellow bishops to "rediscover" and fearlessly exercise their teaching authority in union with the Pope.

In the densely packed 92-page document, "Fit for Mission? Church", Bishop O'Donohue writes of the failure of the Catholic bishops of England and Wales forthrightly to face the issues of homosexual activism as a body.

He especially emphasizes his "disappointment that our Bishops' Conference recently could not agree on a collegial response to the Government's legislation on same-sex adoption."

"Attempting to arrive at a consensus among bishops with sometimes divergent views, Episcopal Conference statements and documents have a tendency to be often flat and 'safe' at a time when we need passionate and courageous public statements that dare to speak the full truth in love."

"I must admit that during my 15 years as a bishop I have increasingly come to share certain concerns about the relationship between individual bishops and the National Conference."

Bishop O'Donohue says he agrees with the warning of the 1985 Synod on the "necessity of limiting the authority of national Episcopal conferences."

The Bishop writes that the idea of dividing the areas of responsibility, such as education, liturgy and healthcare, among the bishops, has resulted in a "reluctance among the rest of the bishops to speak out on these issues."

He notes particularly that some bishops had reacted with "surprise" that he had dared to produce his own teaching document, "Fit for Mission? Schools", earlier this year.

"The effort to achieve a consensus" he says, "results...often in the loss of the 'scandal' and the 'folly' of the Gospel, so that we are no longer the 'salt' and 'leaven' so urgently needed."

"Confident, courageous and prophetic bishops [are] vital for the well-being of the Church during this time of increasingly aggressive secularism."

Citing the great 5th century bishop St. Augustine, Bishop O'Donohue calls for bishops to "re-exercise their individual teaching charism."

This rediscovery of the charism of bishops, he says, is needed to combat the loss of passion for Catholicism notable in many parishes and lay people.

"The passion to serve the Lord is noticeably absent in many cases - there seems to be at times a tiredness and reticence to preach the gospel." He says that in the course of the 16-month consultation in preparation for the document, he saw a "lack of confidence and knowledge of the Catholic faith."

He therefore calls for a revival of apologetics, the reasoned defence of Christianity, especially in the face of increasingly popular atheist polemics from writers such as Richard Dawkins.

In the document, produced as Bishop O'Donohue prepares to retire, he says that "Agencies and Commissions of national conferences" have failed to uphold the "fullness of the Church's teaching", particularly "doctrinal and moral teaching, in their collaboration with secular agencies."

"I'm thinking in particular of agencies with a responsibility for education or economic development. The staff of these agencies are often in a position to witness to the truth of the Church's teaching on, say, the theology of the body with its positive refutation of pre-marital sex, 'safe sex', or artificial birth control, in their dealings with government departments and committees."

Bishop O'Donohue does not name names, but many have made similar criticisms of the English Catholic bishops' overseas aid and development agency, CAFOD, that has insisted on promoting condoms as a means of controlling the spread of HIV/AIDS.

In another case, at least one Catholic adoption agency has opted to abandon its association with the Catholic Church to adhere to the government's requirement to adopt children to homosexual "partners."

When the problem of the Sexual Orientation Regulations and the Catholic adoption agencies arose in the news last year, it was revealed that many agencies held the policy of allowing children to be adopted to single homosexuals, and this with at least the tacit blessing of the local bishop.

Bishop O'Donohue's own suggestion for the Catholic social services agency was to have it adopt an uncompromisingly Catholic position and refuse to adopt to anyone who is not in a legal marriage.

In the document he criticises the administrators of Church institutions, saying, "There must be no back peddling on these issues just because certain truths are unwelcome in the corridors of power."

"We have talked too much and done too little. We have witnessed over the past forty years a growing crisis in the Catholic understanding or self-identity of the Church...Have we forgotten what it is to be Catholic?"

Hope for the future, he says, lies with the younger generation who are notably more interested in reviving the essentials of the Catholic religion.

"The maturity of the Pope John Paul II generation will lead, I hope, to a resurgence of orthodox, committed adults in the Church, gradually renewing vocations to the priesthood, religious life and marriage."

Prefect of the Apostolic Signature: No Communion for Pro-Abortionists

2008-08-20T06:57:00.003+01:00

American Papist

Abp. Burke: Catholics who support abortion should be denied Communion
Clear and unequivocal:

The Prefect of the Apostolic Signature, Archbishop Raymond Burke, said this week that Catholics, especially politicians who publicly defend abortion, should not receive Communion, and that ministers of Communion should be responsibly charitable in denying it to them if they ask for it, “until they have reformed their lives.”

“If a person who has been admonished persists in public mortal sin and attempts to receive Communion, the minister of the Eucharist has the obligation to deny it to him. Why? Above all, for the salvation of that person, preventing him from committing a sacrilege,” he added. (CNA - underlining mine.)

Looks like he's using his new title well.

Saints and Beauty

2008-08-20T06:16:00.003+01:00

Zenit have just posted an extract of the Pope's question and answer session with the clergy of Diocese of Bolzano-Bressanone. As important as the rational is in his thought, beauty, whether it is in the form of music or the plastic arts or human loving as we see it in lives of the saints, calls us to make the intuitive leap into faith.

Still, Benedict XVI continued, though the importance of reason cannot be undermined, "I did once say that to me, art and the saints are the greatest apologetic for our faith."

He explained: "The arguments contributed by reason are unquestionably important and indispensable, but then there is always dissent somewhere.

"On the other hand, if we look at the saints, this great luminous trail on which God passed through history, we see that there truly is a force of good that resists the millennia. […] Likewise, if we contemplate the beauties created by faith, they are simply, I would say, the living proof of faith."

Epiphanies

The Pope pointed to the example of the cathedral where he was meeting with the priests. "It is a living proclamation," he said. "It speaks to us itself, and on the basis of the cathedral's beauty, we succeed in visibly proclaiming God, Christ and all his mysteries: Here they have acquired a form and look at us."

The Holy Father said great works of art "are all a luminous sign of God and therefore truly a manifestation, an epiphany of God."

"I think the great music born in the Church makes the truth of our faith audible and perceivable," he continued. "In listening to all these works […] we suddenly understand: It is true! Wherever such things are born, the Truth is there. Without an intuition that discovers the true creative center of the world, such beauty cannot be born."

Pay for the soul of Bishop of Bolzono-Bressanone, Wilhem Egger, who died a few days after the Popes visit.

Pope approves beatification of St. Therese's parents in Lisieux

2008-08-19T20:30:00.002+01:00

(CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has approved the beatification of Louis and Marie Zelie Guerin Martin, the parents of St. Therese of Lisieux.

The couple will be beatified Oct. 19, World Mission Sunday, during a Mass in the Basilica of St. Therese in Lisieux, France, the Vatican announced Aug. 19.

St. Therese and St. Francis Xavier are the patron saints of the missions.

The Vatican did not say who would preside at the Martins' beatification Mass.

With beatification, the diocese where the candidate lived or the religious order to which the person belonged is authorized to hold public commemorations on the person's feast day. With the declaration of sainthood, public liturgical celebrations are allowed around the world.

The Martins were declared venerable, one of the first steps in the sainthood process, in 1994. But despite the active encouragement of Pope John Paul II to move the cause forward, the miracle needed for their beatification was not approved by the Vatican until early July.

Louis lived 1823-1894 and his wife lived 1831-1877. They had nine children, five of whom joined religious orders.

Also Aug. 19, the Vatican announced four other beatification ceremonies:

-- Sister Vincenza Maria Poloni, founder of the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy in Italy, will be beatified Sept. 21 in Verona, Italy.

-- Father Michael Sopocko, founder of the Sisters of Merciful Jesus and spiritual director of St. Faustina Kowalska, will be beatified Sept. 28 at the Church of Divine Mercy in Bialystok, Poland.

-- Father Francesco Pianzola, founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Queen of Peace, will be beatified Oct. 4 in Vigevano, Italy.

-- Father Francesco Giovanni Bonifacio, martyred in 1946 by Yugoslav communists, will be beatified Oct. 4 in Trieste, Italy.

Saint me me

2008-08-19T08:48:00.000+01:00

Received from Mac, a "me me"

"If you should pass from our presence, what picture of you shall we use for your saint's card, should you be so elevated, and of what do you want to be patron?"!

Mac should know, "the road to hell is pathed with the skulls of priests."

"From him who is given much is expected."

An old monk I knew, used to write to newly ordained priests saying, "Consider that you are most likely going to go to hell, you could be thought a good priest if go alone, rather than dragging others with you!"

I can't think of an image for a card, I had always thought a tomb with an image like this one, (is it from Wells Cathedral?) possibly holding a scroll with "ora pro me" scratched on it would be good.

Bishop's Conferences

2008-08-18T23:52:00.005+01:00

Apparently Bishop O'Donahue of Lancaster has written scathingly about our own Bishop's Conference, which of course was described as the "best in Europe" by the last Nuncio.

Just to add fuel to the fire of debate, I think this excerpt from "The Ratzinger Report", a book length interview with the former Cardinal published in 1985 might be of interest.

Here is an excerpt in its entirety:

"The decisive new emphasis on the role of the bishops is in reality restrained or actually risks being smothered by the insertion of bishops into episcopal conferences that are ever more organized, often with burdensome bureaucratic structures. We must not forget that the episcopal conferences have no theological basis, they do not belong to the structure of the Church, as willed by Christ, that cannot be eliminated; they have only a practical, concrete function."

It is, moreover, he says, what is confirmed in the new Code of Canon Law, which prescribes the extent of the authority of the conferences, which cannot validly act "in the name of all the bishops unless each and every bishop has given his consent", unless it concerns "cases in which the common law prescribes it or a special mandate of the Apostolic See... determines it" (CIC, Can. 455, 4 and 1). The collective, therefore, does not substitute for the persons of the bishops, who - recalls the Code, confirming the Council - are "the authentic teachers and instructors of the faith for the faithful entrusted to their care" (cf. CIC Can. 753). Ratzinger confirms: "No episcopal conference, as such, has a teaching mission: its documents have no weight of their own save that of the consent given to them by the individual bishops."

Why does the Prefect insist upon this point? "Because", he replies, "it is a matter of safeguarding the very nature of the Catholic Church, which is based on an episcopal structure and not on a kind of federation of national churches. The national level is not an ecclesial dimension. It must once again become clear that in each diocese there is only one shepherd and teacher of the faith in communion with the other pastors and teachers and with the Vicar of Christ. The Catholic Church is based on the balance between the community and the person, in this case between the community of individual particular churches united in the universal Church and the person of the responsible head of the diocese."

"It happens", he says, "that with some bishops there is a certain lack of a sense of individual responsibility, and the delegation of his inalienable powers as shepherd and teacher to the structures of the local conference leads to letting what should remain very personal lapse into anonymity. The group of bishops united in the conferences depends in their decisions upon other groups, upon commissions that have been established to prepare draft proposals. It happens then that the search for agreement between the different tendencies and the effort at mediation often yield flattened documents in which decisive positions (where they might be necessary) are weakened."

He recalls an episcopal conference that had been held in his country in the thirties: "Well, the really powerful documents against National Socialism were those that came from individual courageous bishops. The documents of the conference, on the contrary, were often rather wan and too weak with respect to what the tragedy called for."

"Besides," he said, "it is obvious that truth cannot be created through ballots. A statement is either true or false. Truth can only be found, not created. Contrary to a widespread conception, the classic procedure of ecumenical councils did not deviate from this fundamental rule. At these councils only statements that were accepted with a moral unanimity could become binding." (p. 59-61).

Assumption Devotions

2008-08-17T07:45:00.005+01:00

On newly reconciled The Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer's site there are a whole series of pictures of their celebrations for the Assumption. Before the altar is this amazing catafalque, draped in white and decked with flowers and candles, on the top you can glimpse a shrouded statue of the Mother of God.

I know that in the Eastern Rites of the Church the erection of such a catafalque is normal, in some places some form of funeral rite is celebrated together with a procession. That is about all I know. Has anyone further knowledge of this ritual?

I was a bit dissappointed by the number of people who came to our Assumption Day celebration, it was about half what it would have been before their Lordships moved the Dominical Holy Days to the nearesy Sunday. I had spoken about the obligation of attendng Mass last Sunday, and the importance of taking the day off to pray and celebrate if it is possible.

An Evangelical Initiative
One of my young Slovakian couples told me that for the last two years they always tried to take the day off on the great feast days, to come to Mass, to pray together and to have a party for their English non-Catholic friends, "just so we can talk about the joy of the feast to them", apparently it was something I said to them about "sharing the joy of faith", a few weeks after their arrival in Brighton. Partying seems like a very gentle evangelical initiative.
There are one or two of my parishioners who would love the idea of toasting the Blessed Virgin under each of her titles from the Litany of Lorretto with a gentle explanation of each. I understand this was or is a popular devotion amongst recruits in one pious Polish regiment. I am not sure how far they got with a small slug of 75% proof Vodka for each title.

Liturgy of the future???

2008-08-16T08:35:00.006+01:00

Roger Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles enters to preside Pharoah-like over his diocese 2008 Religious Education Congress. I find this type of thing fascinating. It is liturgy shaped not by Tradition but by set-designers, choreographers, costume designers, lighting engineers. It is liturgy broken loose from any constraints, designed for "modern man", to give instant satisfaction, a feel good factor. It is Catholicism submerged in the best of Evangelical Protestant worship, Catholicism drawn to a liberal extreme.

A generation after the introduction of this kind of "pastoral liturgical" Catholic worship is at a crisis point. Either we continue to move forward and this becomes an ideal: note the number of people involved, the "celebration of ministry", the lack of gender selectivity (except for the clergy), the real enculturation, or we move back to the solidity of Tradition. The alternative is that we hold both this and something approximating to the Tradition in tension.

Cardinal Mahoney's liturgical style, actually makes me feel physically sick, but it draws in the punters, "All are welcome". It is contrary to everything I understand by worship, but I have to admit that for many people it is the ideal. It is light on theology, but strong on "feel good". Unlike much contemporary liturgy it is stylish and lavish, triumphalistic even.

They Love Guests

2008-08-15T08:52:00.007+01:00

Apart from this parish, the place I love most is Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight. I first went there in 1974 just before being received into the Church. The place has bugged and haunted me ever since. Having decided I was called to the secular priesthood I didn't dare go back until my ordination retreat. Throughout my first years of priesthood I kept thinking that I should be a monk. Eventually, in 1999 I became postulant there, which was such a good time but it became apparent to me that I needed a parish.

What I now know I was searching for, was an environment in which I could formed by the liturgy.
The place is beautiful, the lands have the ruins of the ancient monastery on them and go right down to the sea. The incredible building and the location, together with the kindness of the monks make this an incredibly prayerful place.

I remember the community when it had over thirty monks, now it is down to nine. The liturgy has lost some of its elegance, it is sad Fr Matthew is now in Pluscarden and the wise Liverpudlian John Bennet is at Ramsgate and others have left too but I sense there is a change under the Prior Administrator, Father Finbar, who seems much loved and bringing about a new sense of hope at Quarr. What they really have going for them is that they love one another, that is not always so in communities.

Father Gregory, the Prior, asked me to recommend the new guest house, they are Benedictines therefore they love guests (male guests). The new guest house is very splendid, though I miss the whirring and ticking of the clock in the old one. There are very splendid stone bowls in each of the rooms, a contrast to the tin ones in the monks cells, there are excellent showers, nice firm beds, the rooms are clean and airy, guests are not charged but it is suggested they normally give a donation to cover food, laundry etc. so it is heaps cheaper than most hotels or guest houses. The only disadvantage is the chairs in the guesthouse are the most penitential in Christendom, even with pillows! I always fall asleep if I do my spiritual reading prone, hence on my first evening I fell asleep and almost missed supper. However Fr Nicholas, the guest master thinks something might be done soon.

Contact Fr Nicholas the Guestmaster: guestmaster@quarrabbey.co.uk
I want to bring a group of parishioners down in the autumn.

Happy Assumption Day

2008-08-15T00:40:00.000+01:00

Away until Friday

2008-08-13T10:32:00.001+01:00

Advice for Priests & from a Priest

2008-08-13T00:49:00.008+01:00

from Orthfully Catholic some pretty good humoured advice, the type of thing seminarians ought to be saying:

At Mass today Father gave a whole new meaning to in persona Christi. He said more priests should be thrown out of their parishes by their parishioners as Our Lord was thrown out of the Synagogue in today's Gospel simply by preaching the Truth.He said priests are not preaching the truth from the pulpit anymore and Catholicism is becoming too comfortable. He used today's patron, St Alphonsus Liguori as an example, he preached the moral truth, God's Moral Law, something priests aren't doing any more. So come on Fathers, preach the truth and get thrown out of your churches for Jesus!

In their combox, this makes my blood boil.
Fr Martin said...

"Advice for Seminarians"!!!Until you are ordained then please do not assume to offer advice to priests. The advice I will offer you is if you wish to be ordained then I suggest that you refrain from such patronising comments. You are lucky that I do not know which Seminary that you attend, as if I did I would be expressing my concerns to your Rector.

I think this is the same "Fr Martin" who has been visiting my blog and the same "Martin", "a priest in good standing" who has been causing howls of outrage on Holy Smoke. Which could be why he objects so strongly to their advice, which I have italicised.

This is an outrageous piece of clerical bullying and arrogance! If it is a Vicar General of a diocese as Damian suggests, the Bishop must replace him and get him some help, and quickly!
Thank God for our mild and prudent Vicars General in the diocese A&B.

Nuns average age 35!

2008-08-12T23:58:00.002+01:00

Thanks to Fr Tim for this video about those Nashville Dominicans. There average age is 35! Why are these thriving and others dying?

I think it is something about total committment, and what many communities of women are very uncomfortable with nowadays, the language of espousal, consecration of virginity and sacrifice.

Clothed in Glory, or not?

2008-08-12T08:17:00.005+01:00

For those of you obsessed by dressing up, or down, here is something to get your teeth into it is from Homiletic & Pastoral Review, written by Fr. Kenneth Baker S.J. He speculates on what we will wear in the life to come. Unfortunately he appears to deal only with those who stand amongst the Blessed, not those who damned themselves or those amongst the clergy who have sold their souls for prelatial purple.

I remember meeting a now dead Bishop to the Forces who was just about to go to the annual Low Week meeting, muttering, "Hell is other Bishops."

I found the following on Creative Minority Report.

1) They will be clothed. When the resurrected, glorified Jesus appeared to his apostles, he was clothed. The Gospels do not affirm that but they assume it. When our Blessed Mother appeared to Bernadette at Lourdes and to the three children at Fatima, she was clothed in white—we know that from the images of her that the visionaries described. In the past, when saints and angels appeared to human beings on earth, they too were clothed in white. That makes sense for the sake of modesty, given our present sinful state. In the Book of Revelation, the saints before the throne of God are “wearing white robes” (7:9; see also 3:5; 4:4; 6:11; 7:13). But St. John did not see resurrected bodies because the universal resurrection has not yet taken place. The commentaries say that the white robes are symbolic of victory, joy and resurrection.

The glorified bodies of Jesus and Mary are clothed, but what is the nature of their clothing? Is it a glorified fabric, similar to a glorified body? What style is it? Jesus and Mary seem to appear in the clothing they wore in Jerusalem two thousand years ago.

2) They will not be clothed. Adam and Eve were naked before their fall into sin. The New Jerusalem at the end of the world will be like a return to the Garden of Eden. Since there is no concupiscence or attraction to sin, it would seem that the resurrected do not need clothes.

When Jesus rose from the dead on Easter Sunday morning, he left the shroud in which he was wrapped, plus the cloth for his face (see John 20:5-7). Was he covered with glorified clothes we know nothing about?

The Name of God not to be used

2008-08-12T00:21:00.000+01:00

The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has issued the instruction that that name which was only uttered once a year by a priest, chosen by lot, in the Holy of Holies of the Temple, has issued the following instruction.

1. In liturgical celebrations, in songs and prayers the name of God in the form of the tetragrammaton YHWH is neither to be used or pronounced.
2. For the translation of the Biblical text in modern languages, destined for liturgical usage of the Church, what is already prescribed by n. 41 of the Instruction Liturgiam authenticam is to be followed; that is, the divine tetragrammaton is to be rendered by the equivalent of Adonai/Kyrios: "Lord", "Signore", "Seigneur", "Herr", "Señor", etc.
3. In translating, in the liturgical context, texts in which are present, one after the other, either the Hebrew term Adonai or the tetragrammaton YHWH, Adonai is to be translated "Lord" and the form God" is to be used for the tetragrammaton YHWH, similar to what happens in the Greek translation of the Septuagint and in the Latin translation of the Vulgate.

I hope that all those ghastly charismatic hymns that trivialise this most holy word will now be removed from "Catholic" hymnals. I know that the biretta is doffed at the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary and one bows the head on hearing them, I have never known what to when hearing this word. I just tremble.

The Architects Great Granddaughter

2008-08-11T21:00:00.006+01:00

A few days ago I had a phone call from a Phillippa Hunter who is the great granddaughter of Gilbert Blount our architect. She came down to take some photographs she was a mine of information. It seems as if some of the mre splendid glass in the Church was designed by him an executed by Hardmans. There used to be a glorious paschal candlestand here, presumably also by them. We want to create an online history of the Church, so the work Philippa is doing will be of great value. She also brought some photographs of Blounts other churches, they are all rather gloomy but with jewel like windows, other thing he seems to do is set rare pieces of marble in ordinary stone again creating a sense of jewel-likeness.
It was fascinating to see his diaries, Phillippa is reading one in the Church, she also gave us a photograph of a miniature of him, and told us about his recussant origins.

Blount was an English Catholic architect active from about 1840-70. He received his earliest training as a civil engineer under Brunel (c.1825-28) for whom he worked as a superintendent of the Thames Tunnel works. After a period in the office of Syndney Smirke, Blount was appointed as architect to Cardinal Wiseman, the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster.
Blount's mature work coincided with the resurgence of Catholic church building in England. His activity as an architect was largely in service of the need for new churches and related ecclesiastical institutions.
About the CollectionHoldings include studies for eleven churches (1844-74), two tabernacles, reredos, two pulpits, a stained glass window, twelve high altars. Among the churches are St. Ambrose Church, Kidderminster, Worchestershire, 1858; St. Edward, Clifford, Yorkshire, c.1844-45; St. Mary, Husband's Bosworth, Leicestershire, 1873-74; St. Mary Magdalene, Brighton, Sussex, 1861-62; St. Peter, Gloucester, 1859-60, 1867-88; Our Lady and St. Catherine of Siena Church, London, 1869-70.

A running relative

2008-08-11T20:52:00.004+01:00

My father told me one of my relatives, Laura Turner, is running in the Olympics. I think she is a second cousin once removed, I've never met her. It is surprising how much she looks like him when he was younger.
Not wanting to encourage Chinese oppression I am not watching the Olympics.

CRB CHECKS or FEEDING THE HUNGRY?

2008-08-10T13:03:00.006+01:00

One of my occassional parishioners is the Diocesan Child Protection Officer, not only does she protect children but also "vulnerable" adults. She told me this morning that her brief for such adults also extended to the people we assist on our soup run. So someone who is on the streets with mental health problems or an addiction or because they are a asylum seeker, or ex-prisoner, or just homeless is classified as "vulnerable".

This means that our volunteers have to agree to a Criminal Records Bureau check, that means that her diocesan office gets to know if someone has a criminal record, if their offence is likely to endanger a child or vulnerable adult I receive notification and inform the person their services are no longer required.

Well, this parish is a melting pot, people have "pasts", that they don't want revealed. In my eight years here we have had exiled politicians who feared for their lives from subsequent regimes, former members of the IRA and others on witness protection schemes, people who have come to Brighton to change identities, people who have had notorious pasts which they want to forget or to be forgotten. We also have people who are resident here for just a few months, I estimate 70% of our congregation moves within 6 months, I think a CRB check takes about that time to complete, until it is done the volunteer shouldn't be volunteering, fine in most parts of our diocese were communities are reasonable stable, here it just doesn't work. Volunteers are difficult to come by, because temporary residents have little commitment to our community. Our Soup Run operates 7 days a week and on average feeds about 30-40 people a night, we have a small core of helpers, plus anyone else we can cajole or beg to help out, some of our volunteers come for a few nights, others appear for awhile then dissappear. Some are people who were once fed by the Soup Run and are now feeding others, some are doing it in reparation, as a self imposed penance almost, for things that have happened in the past, some as act of thanksgiving, one or two, in the past, because they are illegal asylum seekers, who the government forbid to work, this alone gave them some dignity of giving, and they are the last people who would want the authorities looking at their status.

When the diocese made us introduce these checks for various liturgical ministries almost a quarter of my parishioners refused to agree to them and had to give up what they were doing, that created serious difficulties.

I know that if we asked our Soup Run helpers to sign up for a CRB check a much larger number than that will refuse. I know too that it would be almost impossible to get new volunteers, by the time their check had been processed they would have left the parish.

It is true that many of the people who come to be fed are indeed vulnerable, they wouldn't come to building or somewhere enclosed, they come to an open space because can get away if they fear a threat. They pick up their sandwich, soup, a cup of coffee and bit of fruit and shuffle off. After a few nights sleeping in a doorway or an abandoned car, the most vulnerable develope a certain wariness of their fellows and anyone who might help, including any perceived threat from the helpers..

A couple of weeks ago I thought the biggest threat to this work of Christ was the povery of our parish, but God's providence has sorted that out for a few months at least, it is sad that now the threat comes from the diocese. If we are rigourous in our implementation of the diocesan demands we will have to stop our work, the most vulnerable in our community will go hungry. In Brighton women and boys can normally find something to sell if they are in real need, but as one young nineteen year old lad once told me, he was so hungry and cold that if it wasn't for our souprun, he would have done anything in one of Brighton's public lavatories just to have been able to fill his belly.

It would be less than magnanimous to ask, as many priests do, who our protection policies are actually protecting, is it the vulnerable or the bishops and the diocesan finances.

Unless we can find a middle way, we have to choose, either to opt out of our diocesan policy on this issue, which apparently means any legal claims devovle directly on me, and the pittance I put away for my old age, or we follow the directives of our Child Protection Office which means we will have to stop our Soup Run, except possibly on the the second and third Wednesday of each month, and ignore Christ's imperative to "feed the hungry".

Today, before I heard this, I preached on "taking risks to reach Christ", it would be hypocritical to stop and I would fear the judgement of God.

Flipside of the Medals

2008-08-10T07:03:00.002+01:00

from Creative Minority Report

Father Bernardo Cervellera, the director of Asia News and an acknowledged expert on China has published a book in Italian called "The Flipside of the Medals" which speculates that China has only become more oppressive because of the Olympics.

He answered some questions in an interview with the National Catholic Register:

Are there changes going on in China?

There are, and it’s the worst kind of change. Nowadays it seems that the Communist Party of China doesn’t have any more ideals of harmony, justice and so on. It’s just a group of people in power who are trying their best to collect as much money as possible to send it abroad and to exploit the Chinese population with their corruption.

People whom I have met are defining the Olympic Games as a national disaster because they have suffered exploitation in the workplace; they have no health care, no pension funds, no housing and so on.
And this about the illusion of closer ties between China and The Vatican:
Turning to Vatican-China relations, do you see any improvement, especially after some recent friendly gestures from Beijing?

To be honest, I don’t really see an improvement in the relationship between the Vatican and China, although in this period before the Olympics there have been some small gestures, such as the concert in the Vatican offered by the Chinese embassy in Rome, and the invitation of Bishop John Tong to Beijing for the Olympic opening.

But these things, it seems to me, are more of a kind of advert for China to show that they are changing. They have been offered to the Vatican just when the image of China was tarnished by the repression in Tibet and by the persecution of its people. So they are trying to put themselves in a better light through these gestures.

I don’t see any new gesture towards the Church in China, for example, because bishops are still in prison, priests are still in prison. The Shanghai authorities and the Patriotic Association [state-recognized Catholic church] used the World Day of Prayer for the Church in China as a warning not to follow the indications of the Pope.

So it seems to me China’s policy towards the Vatican is still schizophrenic.
Last night, I watched the incredible opening celebration of the Olympics but I couldn't help but think of all the oppression, murder, and torture which defines the regime in power. We can only pray that somehow God uses these games to free China from its rulers.

Chinese activists to Bush and Sarkozy: Don't forget us at the Games

2008-08-09T18:05:00.003+01:00

An extract from article on Asian News about a letter addressed to Presidents Bush and Sarkosy whilst they attend the Olympics:

The letter - signed by a large number of citizens, whose identities have not been publicised because of the fear of reprisals - lists some of the recent offences: the expulsion of people from their homes in order to build Olympic projects, the lack of protection for migrant workers, persecution of human rights activists and dissidents, the lack of freedom of expression and assembly, censorship of the media, persecution for religious reasons.
The Western leaders who will go to Beijing are asked: to visit imprisoned dissidents and ask for their liberation; to participate in religious services in unauthorised churches, to highlight the problem of religious freedom; to express solidarity with the parents who are asking for justice for their children who died in the earthquake of Sichuan; to remember the question of the Tibetans, Uyghurs, and other ethnic minorities.
Last July 9, the police killed five Uyghurs believed to be terrorists. Earlier this year, they arrested 82 people in Xinjiang on suspicion of terrorism and "conspiracy to sabotage the Olympics". But the East Turkistan Information Centre, made up of Uyghurs in exile, recalls that "No lawyer on the mainland has dared to speak out for Uyghur suspects", and expresses the fear that "suspects would be subject to torture and would make forced confessions".
Yesterday, Xinhua reported that so far, 42 Tibetans have been sentenced for protesting in public last March, while another 116 are on trial and at least 953 are still in jail. They could face the death penalty.

read the whole article

Monks singing our heritage

2008-08-09T17:26:00.003+01:00

ex manus Paulinus

The Telegraph has an article about the Cistercian monks of Heiligenkreuz near Vienna and their fabulous CD of Gregorian Chant.

The Feast of St Theresa Benedicta (Edith Stein)

2008-08-09T12:16:00.003+01:00

I found this instructive:

Writing about women

Most of Edith Stein’s writing on women and women’s vocation stems from the decade of her professional life between her conversion and her entrance into the Carmelite community at Cologne. The importance of these essays cannot be overestimated, both in terms of their originality and level of insight, but also in terms of their wider influence. On a recent visit to the U.S., Cardinal Lustiger of Paris, himself a Jewish convert to Catholicism, called Edith Stein one of the greatest philosophers of our time. “Her best pupil,” he said, “is the Holy Father [JPII].” Anyone who has read the pope’s encyclical on The Dignity andVocation of Woman, or his more recent Letter to Women, will see immediately how much they owe to Edith Stein’s pioneering work on this subject.

The motivation for these inquiries into the nature and vocation of women was, in Stein’s view, the need to educate women in a way that would be perfective of them, not just as generic human beings, but as women. Stein rejected the radical feminist claim that there are no important differences between men and women. As a philosopher looking for the basis of true femininity, she begins with what might be called an ontology of woman.

After her conversion to Catholicism, Stein had turned to an intense study of the great Catholic philosopher and Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas. She was fascinated by St. Thomas’s view of the human person. Unlike the radical dualism of Descartes, which represents soul and body as two different and distinct entities, Thomas insisted upon the subsistent unity of the person, body and soul, since each natural substance is a composite of form and matter. Further, since matter is what distinguishes one human being from another, the body is essential to the person, and not simply a machine or a shell for the soul that could be discarded without serious loss to the “real” self.

Woman's distinctive soul

Along with St. Thomas and Aristotle, Stein acknowledged that there are traits unique to the human soul, abilities (or at least dispositional traits) that are shared by every member of the species. Rationality, and along with it free choice, belong to every human being and so to every woman as a human person. But if the soul is the form of the body, and the form of humanity is individuated by being united with this body or that one, Stein reasoned that the woman’s soul will have a spiritual quality distinct from the man’s soul. She did not argue that biology is destiny, but that the physical differences between men and women profoundly mark their personalities. The woman’s body stamps her soul with particular qualities that are common to all women but different from distinctively masculine traits. Stein saw these differences as complementary and not hierarchical in value, and so they should be recognized and celebrated rather than minimized and deplored. There are two ways of being human, as man or as woman.

Stein supported her view both by philosophical appeal to the intimacy of the body/soul relationship and to psychological theories that focus on personality types, rather than on behavior alone. She considered the differences between males and females to be evident even to common sense, and so in need of little argument. Her thesis would be denied by many feminists today, but probably not by anyone who has children of both genders. The differences between girls and boys are evident and seem totally resistant to manipulation. Nature has a stubborn way of asserting herself in total disregard for our theories.

Deep dispositions

Stein looked especially to the creation narratives of Genesis to draw out what she took to be the natural vocation of woman. Every woman, she claimed, is meant to be both a companion (her spousal vocation) and a mother. Because of her close connection with human birth and development, woman seeks and embraces whatever is living, personal, and whole. “To cherish, guard, protect, nourish, and advance growth is her natural, maternal yearning.” Woman naturally focuses on what is human, and tends to give relationships a higher importance than work, success, reputation, etc. Here Stein’s thinking lines up with recent neo-feminist authors like Carol Gilligan who claim that women approach moral questions with more attention to the people affected by their actions and decisions than to abstract and impersonal considerations of duty, rights, and justice.

Woman is naturally more attuned to the individual, and hence to a concrete, particular person with all of his or her own needs and potential. Further, this maternal concern aims at the total development of the other person as a unity of body, soul, and spirit. No one aspect of the personality is to be sacrificed to any other. In particular, there is to be no divorcing of mind and body, treating persons (especially students) as if they were disembodied intellects.

The maternal aspect of woman’s vocation involves helping other persons develop to their fullest potential, and for those who are married, this will include their husbands as well as their children. Motherhood is a universal calling for women, and so not simply a task to be exercised with one’s biological children. Woman’s concern for the good of persons must extend to all those whose lives touch hers in some way.

Pope John Paul II raises this feminine vocation to truly cosmic proportions, looking to women for the rehumanization of a world dominated by hedonism and materialism. In The Gospel of Life he calls upon women to “teach others that human relations are authentic if they are open to accepting the other person: a person who is recognized and loved because of the dignity which comes from being a person and not from other considerations, such as usefulness, strength, intelligence, beauty or health.” This contribution of women, declares the Holy Father, is “an indispensable prerequisite for an authentic cultural change,” for replacing the culture of death with the civilization of love.

In addition to this cultural or spiritual motherhood, Stein sees woman’s calling as including a spousal dimension, the role of companionship. This involves sharing the life of another, entering into it and making that person’s concerns one’s own. One might argue that this is a vocation for both men and women, and it is unlikely that Stein would deny that it is. But it may also be true that women have a special genius for friendship, perhaps because of their orientation to the human and personal, and a greater capacity for exercising empathy. Stein’s dissertation on the subject of empathy was completed some years prior to her lectures on women’s roles, but one can see its influence on that later work. She describes empathy as a clear awareness of another person, not simply of the content of his experience, but of his experience of that content. In empathy, one takes the place of the other without becoming strictly identical to him. It is not just understanding the experiences of the other, but in some sense taking them on as one’s own.

Obviously this ability to enter into another’s life is especially helpful within marriage, but it can and should be exercised in other relationships as well. For women who are single, or for those who have consecrated themselves wholly to God, this aspect of their vocation should take on a more universal scope, and will call for a more disinterested {that is to say a more divine} kind of love. Everyone who knew Edith Stein tells us that she was a living example of this capacity for empathy. Her spiritual director in the late '20s, Abbot Raphael Walzer, wrote that she possessed “a tender, even maternal, solicitude for others. She was plain and direct with ordinary people, learned with the scholars, a fellow-seeker with those searching for the truth. I could almost say she was a sinner with the sinners.”

Kepi Blanc and the habit

2008-08-09T07:50:00.006+01:00

Fr Martin, suggested he had opened a can of worms by his comment below.

I do not think he has done that. I just find reducing a discussion on something which should be serious merely to what people are wearing, or starting it from there, is always going to be superficial. I accept that the habit is often the first thing that attracts, or repels young people, hence among women's orders/congregations those who wear habits tend to attract vocations, those that don't tend not to attract them.

Speaking recently to one major religious superior she said that after twenty years of being habitless, she had come to see it as one of the chief reasons for her congregations loss of identity and absence of vocations.

I have an occasional parishioner here, who is a deserter from the French Foreign Legion, he sums up his first few months of training as being mainly about, "running, sweating, going without sleep to polish boots and pressing uniform, but mainly ironing shirts" apparently with absolute precision. The object of his training was signified by earning the famous kepi blanc. Having got it he left.

Clothes amongst young people especially are a statement of identity. St Anselm said, "The habit does not make the monk" but it does both signify an identity and an aspiration. A young priest I know was asked by a visitor, "Why are you wearing a soutane?" His answer, "Because I am Catholic priest and I am proud of it". One might ask some one who doesn't wear clerical dress why they are don't, I am not sure what the answer would be. For me the black shirt, which in Brighton is worn by practically every waiter, with a strip of fairy liquid bottle at the neck, doesn't make me proud, possibly because I can never find one that fits neck and waist together and stays tucked in. I think it is Italian shirtmakers.

There was a ridiculous Irish bishop some time ago who decided he would not wear his miter or carry a crosier because young people were not coming to Mass, I doubt that this act of mortification changed the situation much.

Olympics

2008-08-08T23:06:00.002+01:00

For those of us who think the Beijing Olympics are just a touch vulgar, here is something a little more English. The cigarette whilst in goal, those were days!

Comments on the dress of the participants will be rejected!

Oxford #7: A response to criticism

2008-08-07T16:25:00.009+01:00

I received this comment from somone who styled themselves "Fr Martin". I hope I am not pillorying the good Father but I think that his concerns might well be shared by many priests and lay people, certainly older ones.

Looking at the pictures of the LMS Confernce I feel very concerned. .............. It does indeed look like the Anglican Walsingham Pilgrimages, (I have never attended such an event; I presume the concern comes here from seeing clergy in choir dress. I must admit this rare nowadays at any clergy event, but I think it is really because there has been a very rigid enforcement of concelebration at any clerical gathering. In theory concelebration or assisting in choro is supposed to be an idividual priest's choice, I have never been to a clergy gathering where provision fo private Masses is made. In practice the choice is between Concelebrationor sitting in the congregation). but what seriously concerns me is the direction that the Church seems to be going, backwards rather than forwards. (The Church is of its age, I think people today are looking for roots, I wonder if searching for roots and indeed memory can be seen as going backwards) This seems to be further enforced by the language in the draft proposal of the new Missal. It is very legalistic, uncomfortable to speak and very Anglican. (Anglican? I don't know about current Anglican liturgy. I think there is a very serious concern with the translations currently used that they have a rather sloppy Anglican theology (I know a bit about that). Their imprecision is not reflected in any other European language - except Portugese. The trend in mainstream theology since the publication of the Catechism, at least, seems to be precise. I agree that the translations sounds strange but even conservatives will eventually get used to them.) I am also seriously worried by the number of young clergy present. (Most clergy there seemed to want to respond to a pastoral need of their people, or a spiritual need of their own, or a theological need to be in union with the Church's history. As for their youth, well being cruel, the young priest and laity have moved on from the 1960s and 1970s.) Come on, lets be realistic. When the Tridentine Mass was celebrated as the norm, Low Mass was rushed through in 15 minutes on a week day, (I have tested that myself, in a dry Mass, it is an old chestnut 22 minutes is the fastest I could manage, even just reading the text takes most people a good 20 minutes) and very few parishes ever celebrated high Mass, and at a Missa Cantata the best that most parishes could come up with wsa a very poor rendition of Mass VIII and Credo III. (You need 3 sacred ministers for High Mass, so Missa Cantata was usual, there are many parishes today that never sing the Mass, just hymns at Mass) Do you really want to go back to those days. (No! The standards of younger priests and lay people is much higher than 10 or 20 years ago and most prbably 50 years ago.) I for one do not and lets be honest those that do probably never experienced the liturgy of the 1940's, 50's 60's and 70's. (If you did Father, I can understand your lack of comprehension of the young and the Church of today! I really do not think anyone at Merton wants that, they want something other than the ephemeral, and something richer than a hasty construct of a narrow committee in the 1960s. That is reflected in the new Mass translations too.)
My predecessor (who was present at the Conference) did untold danage to my parish by forcing Latin on the parish when they didn't want it. (The same damage is done by forcing anything on people, think of the post Vatican II period, and the degree of lapsation and confusion that followed. A priest must lead but also be sensitive.) I am not totally opposed to the use of Latin, (It is the official language of the Church and its liturgy) as long as it is used sensitively, and not forced on people at the whim of individual celebrants. (Here we agree, the Pope's intention is extending choice, in this matter not removing it).

I think there is big problem for many priests, especially of my generation and older who are unable either to understand their younger confreres or the Church as it is today. They have a model that is rigid and a concept of liturgy and of liturgical praxis that sprang out of something more related to popular entertainment than Catholic Tradition. Their cry at anything that rejects the trend they supported unquestioningly is "Reactionary"! For them "Tradition" which is of the essence of Catholiscism, is actually a dirty word.

Most of the priests at Merton last week were unlikely to celebrate the the TLM more than once a week and for those who chose to come to it. Most like me wanted to understand more deeply the richness of our liturgical heritage and the pull of the old on the new.

I had a conversation and enjoyed the company of one young priest who celebrates both according to the Missal of John XXIII and in sign language for the deaf with equal ease and keeness, for the most part he celebrates according to the Missal of Paul VI.