July 2004 Archives

This article, in Crisis Magazine by George Sim Johnston, discusses the issues around trying to bring to fruition that vision the Council intended.

Not personally remembering any of the pre-Vatican II era, I cannot comment on what it was like. However, after reading the Crisis this article, I do get a better sense of the merits of the kind of progressive approach to living the Catholic life that some have been promoting.

I can certainly see the problems that result from a widespread mentality that such an orthodoxy consisted mainly in following the prescriptions of what it meant to be Catholic. Not that everyone necessarily believed and lived this way, but I can see how the great majority of average people would have. Plus, for priests, such an approach would have been only one or two steps removed from the problems inherent in clericalism; the mentality that at least partly contributed to the scandals with which we are now dealing.

However, on a point to which the article alludes, the Council never advocated a "dumbing down" of Catholic faith and morals as a solution to the problem. Yes, forced belief is a problem, but the alternative to that is not that any belief is a good belief. We currently live in a phase of Church history, where the dominant mentality of the laity, as a consequence of the mistakenly understood freedoms of Vatican II, seem to think that believing in Church teaching no longer matters.

My take on the Council documents, and the teaching of this Pope in particular, is that the freedom from restraint granted by the Council should result in a freedom to search to understand and accept those teachings willingly; not a freedom to believe whatever one wishes.

Sort of like the story of the Prodigal Son, where the son realizes after an abuse of freedom that he was better off at home. This realization made him truly free, whereas his brother, at the end of the parable, still feels enslaved as he lives according to his father's rules.

Those who have gone through a conversion or reversion experience understand what I am talking about, and can relate to the Prodigal Son. Thus, the great joy that comes when Church teaching, that was previously rejected, can finally be understood and embraced.

I'm not talking down to those to have trouble with Church teaching; rather, I'm saying we ought share in the joy of renewal and revival when freedom leads one back to the arms of the Church. Because that was one purpose that the aggiornamento of the Council was supposed to bring about. So that's a good thing.

[Via Catholic Sensibility]

OK, so I'll come right out and say it. I think the husband is the head of the family. Ideally, the husband and wife ought to agree in all matters of importance, but since we are human, this does not always happen. There is an equivalence of dignity in family roles, but only one can have the final say, when there is disagreement, and the good of the family is at stake. It is the husband who has the God-given responsibility to be that final authority, and he must approach this duty with fear and trembling. St. Paul says it:

Being subject one to another, in the fear of Christ. Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord: Because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. He is the saviour of his body. Therefore as the church is subject to Christ: so also let the wives be to their husbands in all things. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church and delivered himself up for it: That he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life: That he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ doth the church: Because we are members of him, body, of his flesh and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother: and shall cleave to his wife. And they shall be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament: but I speak in Christ and in the church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular love his wife as himself: And let the wife fear her husband. (Eph 5:21-33)

And let us set aside that easy argument, because there are many who find these words hard, where we quickly conclude that Paul was just expressing his own opinion. There is too much substance here to say that St. Paul was just making some casual remarks. On the contrary, let us make the much more reasonable presumption that St. Paul has something to teach us in our day, and we need to be open to learning it. For the good of our souls. For the good of the family. For the good of the Church. For the good of the world.

St John Cantius Parish in Chicago has online videos of the music from Mozart's Requiem and Schubert's Mass in B-flat. The video streams show those parts of the Mass, celebrated in the traditional Roman Rite, where the composers' music are used.

[Via Dappled Things]

In a comment to my previous post, JohnH made the excellent observation, "Surrender is the key to orthodoxy." In this contribution, he captures the essence of what it takes to conform our minds to the teaching of the Church. This surrender does not mandate a mindless, thoughtless, unquestioning acceptance; but rather it is an attitude that recognizes that Christ entrusted His Church with the authority to teach in His Name, and that on those points that matter most, the Church is preserved from teaching error. With this attitude, we can gradually learn to conform our minds to Church teaching, by reading and re-reading Church documents with the mind of the Church. Then we add prayer to the mix, where we ask God to give us the grace to believe that which has been proclaimed as true.

When I went through a "re-version" to the faith, a number of years ago, I too had a great deal of difficulty with a some of the major points of Church teaching. I found the regular inclusion of the following Act of Faith in my prayers to be quite effective in converting my mind to an orthodox understanding of our Faith.

O my God, I firmly believe that You are one God in three divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; I believe that your divine Son became man and died for our sins, and that He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because You revealed them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.

I found myself focusing particularly on the last sentence, over and over, until it washed over me like a refreshing stream of grace. From that moment on, my mind was like an open book, waiting to be written by Our Lord. Reading the Church documents was finally accompanied by an understanding that had previously eluded me. I firmly believe that, without God's grace, one could never arrive at this state. I thank Him for the unmerited gift of Faith, yet I know that all good things come to those who ask.

I'm also reminded of a passage from Scripture, which is relevant here.

And Jesus exclaimed, "I bless you, Father, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to children. For that is what it pleased you to do. (Matthew 11:25-26)

These are hard words, especially for those with advanced education in studies pertaining to our Faith. But a challenge that can most assuredly be overcome through diligent prayer.

Some Catholics seem to think holding the beliefs of the official teaching of the Church is optional. In other words, if some happen to agree with the Church on Her teachings of faith and morals; that is, all definitive teaching, good for them. But there are others who don't. So, according to this view, it shouldn't matter, because they have all sorts of wonderful outward signs of their faith.

If right belief were not important, why be Catholic at all? Is the Church just an agency of social assistance, or just a social club? Holy Communion is supposed to be a union of mind and heart, not just a bunch who like hanging out together. If only a subset of beliefs is really important, what are those beliefs? Who determines what they should be? Clearly, only the Magisterium of the Church has the authority from Christ to make that determination.

In today's column by John L. Allen Jr., in the National Catholic Reporter, we read how Juan Luis Cardinal Cipriani struggles to keep some sense of order in the Peruvian Catholic Church. One of the main problems the Church there struggles with, according to Cardinal Cipriani, is the promotion of an erroneous theology of liberation.

"They created a system of pastoral work that is now inside of the church, and not only in Peru," he said. "Desacralization, making social work the first thing to do, criticizing the magisterium, involving priests in politics … It's a whole system, a parallel magisterium to the real magisterium. … This way of doing the church, the pastoral work, is still going on and is quite difficult to change."

There has been recent discussion on this blog as to what constitutes orthodox Catholic belief. Orthodoxy, in the Catholic sense, revolves around questions of "right belief". Liberation Theology, as described by its proponents, cares little about doctrinal issues, but rather focuses exclusively on "right action"; or orthopraxy.

For example, under the banner of Liberation Theology, no one would care whether you believed, say, contraception, to be an acceptable practice, so long as you promote social justice, by working toward toppling those regimes deemed to be oppressive. If you read the books and articles of its promoters, you can easily detect, under their breath, a hostility toward the Catholic Church herself, who is counted as one such regime in need of being overturned. The Church, over the past few decades, has rightly been very critical of this movement which demands change, demands it now, and will stop at nothing to accomplish its vision.

Don't get me wrong. I am all for carrying out both the corporal as well as the spiritual works of mercy. Doing good works, as well as embracing doctrinal truth, together form the necessary evidence that we have repented and have put on Christ. It just goes to show how lopsided we can become when we exalt one aspect of conversion over another. Being authentically renewed in Christ must be demonstrated both by conversion of mind (the intellect) and heart (the will), such that we both believe and do that which is right.

Our friends from the St. Cecilia Schola Cantorum, Arlene Oost-Zinner and Jeffrey Tucker, have written an article which discusses why even children should be learning chant.

Ask a child the following: On a spring day, what do you hear outside? Of course he will answer "birds!" Ask him if he speaks bird? Most likely he will laugh, and he may even try to convince you that he speaks warbler. The point is, the sounds of the birds tells him a lot of things: what continent he is on, what time of year it is, who he is in relation to these feathered little friends. The point, of course, is that he doesn't have to understand “birdspeak” in order to learn from it, and for it be meaningful to him.

Learning Latin is a worthy challenge, and many home-educated children are doing just that. But even without learning the language, children can learn to "hear" and "sense" what our Catholic Faith is all about. We are an incarnational people, and Latin chant is part of our heritage. So using our sense of hearing, as a vehicle for internalizing our Faith, is indeed effective, even when the language is not fully understood.

So you think it's difficult to fill an organist post? Try looking for an accordionist for the US Air Force. You'd have to be under age 35, fit their weight and fitness requirements, be able to get a security clearance, and endure six weeks of rigorous basic training. Not a bad gig for being part of the 22-member Strolling Strings ensemble, which entitles members all the benefits of being in the military.

In this article by Sandro Magister, we read of an analysis of existing trends, with regards to Christianity. We already realize that the future of Christianity in America is by no means certain; while in Europe, its prospects are even more bleak. In fact, where Christianity is thriving most is in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Mr. Magister speaks of "a book that described this very effectively, published in the United States in 2002 and in Italy at the beginning of 2004. The original title is The Next Christendom. The Coming of Global Christianity. The author is Philip Jenkins, a religious historian and professor at Pennsylvania State University." There are several trends of which Christians ought to be aware, among which are as follows:

The dominant traits of this new Christianity are Pentecostal and Evangelical: a deep personal faith, a demanding and puritanical morality, doctrinal orthodoxy, community ties, a strong spirit of mission, prophecy, healings, and visions. In one image, it is "Fire from Heaven," the title of a famous 1995 essay by Harvey Cox.

It seems as though all the friction currently playing out, between differing views in the Western Church, may in the end be irrelevant. Based on current trends, numerically speaking, North America and Europe are steadily losing influence in the global Church. One point in fact is that priestly vocations in the developing world are exploding, while Europe and North America struggle with dwindling numbers.

As for the dialectic between the conservatives and the progressivists, the evolution underway increasingly takes the latter out of the game. If the future of the Church is in the developing world, the Catholicism flourishing there is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the liberal agenda of the advocates of a Vatican Council III. The next conclave will surely take this into account.

Maybe there is a lesson to be learned here.

Our friends from the St. Cecilia Schola Cantorum, Arlene Oost-Zinner and Jeffrey Tucker, have written an article for the July/August 2004 issue of Crisis Magazine, which discusses the hottest news in Catholic music publishing: that Oregon Catholic Press is getting into the chant business. It follows on the heels of their prior announcement.

Apparently, even the big name publishers, who have made their bread and butter telling liturgical musicians what they want to hear, now admit there is a pent up demand for chant resources. And they, being business-savvy, want to ensure they are not left in the dust of this powerful new trend.

Though many of us have lamented the falling away from liturgical chant, this is one of the most concrete signs in years that a resurgence is in progress.

Even from a secular point of view, people feel the loss of traditional music is something to be lamented. Here, Peggy Noonan reflects on the state of things:

This music is part of our patrimony, every bit as much as the trees and mountains. Our children, in our civic life, have for a generation been denied these songs. The moral and artistic equivalent of river polluters have decided we need to hear--I don't know, what songs do they play now in school, at events? "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head"?

We need a new environmental movement--a musical conservation movement aimed at saving and preserving the old songs. The rivers and mountains and plains are so beautiful and need saving. But what have you lost if you lose the sound of your ancestors' souls singing? Even more, I think.

She's just talking about songs in popular culture. How much more so when we are talking about a patrimony of inestimable value, such as liturgical music?

Our friends from the St. Cecilia Schola Cantorum, Arlene Oost-Zinner and Jeffrey Tucker, have reviewed for us the happenings at this year's annual meeting of the Church Music Association of America.

There was a sense among all present that this conference is of critical importance right now, given the renewed interest in chant. Mainstream Catholic publishers have begun distributing music from Solesmes, progress is reported at many English-speaking seminaries, and anecdotal evidence suggests more and more parishes are making a shift toward mature music from Christian history. Conference participants improved their skills and renewed their enthusiasm, and returned to their parishes prepared to feed this growing awareness of the need to adhere to magisterial directives.

It's not enough to make music that people want to hear. It's not even enough to make good quality music that people want to hear. Those requirements fit the bill for one who is starting a new radio station, but not for liturgical music. Music appropriate for the Mass must be sacred, where we do not play fast and loose with the definition of the word. If "magisterial directives" mean anything, they must be intelligible when taken at face value. I'm glad to see authentic renewal is continuing apace.