Two Churches?
Phyllis Zagano’s NCR column begins with an assessment of Rome’s apparent retreat on the investigation of US women religious, but concludes with a broader assessment of the state of the Church:
The world is beginning to see two Catholic Churches: one for bishops and priests and another for the rest of us. The one for clerics collects the money and controls the sacraments.
Now I’d hasten to say that this is too starkly drawn–it’s not the ordained against the rest of us. Many priests, along with countless laypeople, women religious, deacons, (and even the occasional bishop!) are doing the work in the trenches that speaks Christ to people. The divide happens somewhere within the clerical ranks–somewhere in their formation, it seems, clerics-to-be pick a side. Over and over, when Rome or the local hierarchy or the pastor says or does something troubling, I hear people say, “they’re not my church. My church is…” and they name the parish, or the ministry, or the small group to which they belong.
This split troubles me. First, the cappa magna-clad (and their ilk) among the leadership only have their powerful and well-funded positions because the rest of the Church continues to acknowledge their leadership. We pay them. Ignoring the leadership does nothing to stop them from speaking for us, and nothing to stop the rest of the world from thinking they represent us. Consider how influential bishops can be on matters of public policy involving, say, contraception, when by and large the people of God dissent from or ignore that teaching?
Second, the disconnect of the two churches disrupts church polity. We are a universal church, not a Congregational body. The disconnect fragments the people of God. To say that those not in synch with Rome or local leadership should put up or leave is tantamount to saying they’re not doing God’s work in a distinctively Catholic way, and that’s just not true. New USCCB head Dolan seems to notice the flood of young people out of the Church, but seems puzzled. So…what next?
I agree with Lisa that it’s not about money and not a clear cut divide between clergy and
laity.
I still think Mrs. Steinfels piece in Commonweal points up the split between the Defenders of the Faith and those who seek comon ground and want to move forward.
What next is a hard question, if that is the divide.
I would like to see in Comonweal an indepth article on the demise for the most part of NPLC and Church magazine and also an update (say by Professor Hinze0 on the current state of dialogue within and without the Church.
I think both might offer some perspective on how much, if any, is possible in resolving the division, did someone say drift, that grows apace.
Can we buy one of those capes on eBay?
Where was that thoroughly un-Christian picture taken?
” The one [church] for clerics collects the money and controls the sacraments.”
Lisa –
Controls the sacraments? But the sacraments are disappearing. In the last month or so alone on three different occasions I’ve gone to a church expecting a Mass at a particular and been disappointed. (I found the purported Mass times on the Archdiocesan internet site.)
Where the Catholic Church is Massless there is no Catholic Church. How JP II and Benedict could miss this point is beyond me. What do they thing the Church is??????
I hate authority, but still find myself drawn to the Catholic church. I believe it is because there are still people and magazines such as the commonweal, who stick up for the laity. I continuously voice my opinion in my diocese and hope others do as well.
http://historywasneverlikethat.blogspot.com/
We are only beginning to see and hear how addictive absolute power is. Another Vatican Council is needed to educate the hierarchy to the need to the views and beliefs of the faithful. That is where the Holy Spirit presides and does Her best work. Little by little, there must be an end to the costly and vulgar displays foisted on believers as divine liturgy. How often did Christ insist on humility in His apostles and demand that they be servants to all?
Here is how the ‘Top Church’ responds to the lack of sacraments. An evangelical married man with five children fast tracks himself first to Episcopal priest then to Catholic priest. Cardinal Levada knows where the ‘top church’ fast track buttons are..
Meanwhile 16000 married American Catholic deacons wait like altar boys in the sacristy silently awaiting a call to full ordained ministry. local bishops travel to poor countries to comb for recruits. Maybe the ‘comfortable’ American Catholic laity along with the deacons are all cappa magna lovers !!! By there actions you will know them … forget the words.
http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/article_a1652bae-9f69-5f64-87af-79ebaf90457e.html
Where was that thoroughly un-Christian picture taken?
Nicholas,
It is a photo of Bishop Edward Slattery of Tulsa, Oklahoma, entering the Basilica of the National Shrine for The Pontifical Solemn Mass, April 24, 2010.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXtO1_c7uE8
Lisa, forgive me, but, doesn’t this reduce to, ‘there are some people I like in the church, and some I don’t; there are some things I like in the church and some I don’t’.
With over a billion members, there are bound to be people, things, entire forms of spirituality, that seem foreign and off-putting to us.
There are people – not hierarchs, just regular people – who *love* the pomp and circumstance of which that photo is emblematic. Who find it spiritually nourishing to say “yes, father” or “yes, your excellency” to someone. Who find radical obedience to be the spirituality to which they’re called. It isn’t just a subset of clerics – it’s a subset of *people*. And they’re our sisters and brothers in the faith.
I believe the answer to what troubles Lisa and so many more (the split between clergy and laity) is one I have mentioned numerous times on the Commonweal blog – Lisa has hit the nail on the head – it is the seminary system (clerics-to-be as she says) and those chosen to teach in the seminary – priests who understand that their main function is to bring others to salvation through preaching the Word of God and living it – the people do not want administrators and more money should be spent on training priest/deacons to preach, lectors to read well, musicians to learn about the liturgy, etc. – service instead of power should be the mark of a deacon/priest.
I don’t know much about Bishop Slattery, but I understand he celebrates the Eucharist ‘ad orientam’ – perhaps that 30 foot scarlet train is of a piece with his liturgical preference? (If a bride walked down the same aisle with a train of that length, I’m not sure what the message would be?)
I believe he is also very strong on immigrant rigths, too. Does that muddy the us-vs-them picture?
Why is it always young boys/men who are the train bearers?
And we wonder why the rest of the world is so quick to buy each and every claim of pedophilia when it arises in connection with the clergy?
“Why is it always young boys/men who are the train bearers?…And we wonder why the rest of the world is so quick to buy each and every claim of pedophilia when it arises in connection with the clergy?”
What disgusting calumny. The train bearers, like altar servers, are and should be boys, the better to foster any potential vocation to the priesthood. If “the sacraments are disappearing”, all the more critical to foster vocations in such a traditionally fruitful manner.
“The train bearers, like altar servers, are and should be boys, the better to foster any potential vocation to the priesthood.”
Oh, really!!! What a load of unmitigated bulloney. The only kind of vocation THAT will foster is one that values princely trappings and wretched excess — what that picture clearly demonstrates.
And I won’t take your “traditionally fruitful” statement any farther than you did.
I say this as a gay man, so don’t unload any stuff on me about “fruitful,” either.
I kind of like the outfits. Must you be a cardinal to wear that? Would my pastor be allowed to wear a train if it were black?
“The altar servers are and should be boys”? At my Church they’re mostly girls and there’s lots of them. There were five servers at Mass last week, all girls. I think its great.
” At my Church they’re mostly girls and there’s lots of them. There were five servers at Mass last week, all girls. I think its great.”
My daughter serves the altar, too. But there were – and still are – a lot of priestly vocations first formed in serving the altar at Mass. See
http://romancatholicvocations.blogspot.com/2009/01/boys-will-be-altar-boys.html
and there are many, many personal testimonies such as this:
http://www.anchornews.org/priest_reflections/maurice_gauvin.php
Believe me, Satan is working diligently in all manner of ways to keep priests from being formed. No priest, no Eucharist.
The Mass in question was incredibly engaging (albeit incredibly long). I’ve never had such a thoroughgoing sense of the beauty possible in Latin-rite liturgy. It was aesthetically on a par with a very well-done Orthodox service, but it was thoroughly Latin.
My thought was that these movements, this drama, is the real art.
I feel as though the real question is, why are so many Americans offended by such sublimity?
We see Satan at work in the picture above. This will turn off Jesus-like men from the priesthood.
There are two churches, i.e., major groups, within the Church of Rome. For lack of better description, we can label them “high church” and “low church”.
People in the first group/church are attracted to the “ontological” superiority of the ordained. They believe the bishops and presbyters have the final say in matters of church (doctrine and practice). They gravitate toward persons in positions of authority. They prefer liturgical solemnity and all the Tridentine trappings thereof. They tend to believe every word out of Rome is infallible.
People in the second church/group are attracted to the common priesthood of all the faithful and tend to reject any idea of “ontological” superiority of the ordained over the rest of us. They are prepared to challenge ecclesial authority when they believe it has been misused. They do not gravitate toward persons in positions of authority. They prefer liturgical simplicity that more closely suggests the simplicity of the gospel message. They tend to remind fellow Catholics that most church teaching is anything but infallible.
Frankly, I find Slattery’s liturgical behavior disgusting. I see nothing of the gospel message or primitive church in all this imperialistic/triumphalist ecclesial garb, ad nauseum.
What I find especially galling right now is B16′s attempt to cram latinized/bastardized English liturgical translations down our collective throats.
“I feel as though the real question is, why are so many Americans offended by such sublimity?”
The Met does it better with better music. If I want theater I’ll go to the theater.
I recently saw a UCANews item reporting that a new cardinal could buy his fancy new red duds off the rack in Rome for $30,011 US.
Which begs the question: Did Raymond Burke buy his new garb “off the rack” or have his outfit tailor-made???
Either way, I find this ostentation sickening.
Where the hell is Jesus in this picture???
“There are…just regular people [w]ho find radical obedience to be the spirituality to which they’re called.”
I’m not sure what is meant by the term “radical obedience”, but we’ve seen the ecclesial “fruits” of a clerical culture that elevated the ordained and subordinated the laity. We’ve seen what happens when formal institutional rules and roles diminish or preclude effective challenges to misuse of authority by local pastors and their hierarchs.
We’ve seen dysfunction in all its ugliness and sickness.
And yet we have a pontiff going out of his way to restore this Tridentine stuff.
God forbid!
(sorry for my several postings, but this topic gets my blood boiling mad)
$30,011 US…..thats enough to keep a family for a year……where is that display to be found in the bible?
The great American churches with gorgeous and expensive stained glass windows built by the immigrants in the 19th century are particularly beautiful to me. They also teach us that at best un-rich people find it appropriate to spend a good bit of their scarce disposable income on beautiful liturgical objects, and it certainly makes sense to me.
So why does that obscene train hit us the wrong way? I think it’s because it is so obviously just for a sort of juvenile self-aggrandizement. Unlike the stain glass windows which let in light and are crammed with meaning, the oversized cappa is liturgically functionless and has no religious meaning whatsoever — it’s just yards and yards of red stuff. What does it stand for? Only the fact that the bishop has a lot of money at his disposal and that he chose to spend a chunk of it on something that would serve only to bring attention to himself. Ironically, by its ridiculously large size it makes him look particularly small.
According to the old Catholic Encyclopedia online (sorry, don’t have link right now), the cappa magna worn by the bishops, etc. ca. 1910 was nothing more than a choir cope that (if I recall) served no official liturgical purpose.
I have no problem with beautiful liturgical objects (stained glass, etc.) as long as we put them in a healthy perspective. Maybe it’s a sort of “guilt by association”, but this architectural and other beauty rubbed off on the sacred pastors of the time who, alone, were permitted entry to the “holy of holies” (the altar). Our grandparents likely would never have seriously thought of challenging their own or the ordaineds’ space and place in the church.
I think it was a ridiculous display, but I found this, which says it’s an . . .
It’s my understanding that this cappa magna is made from silk, and clearly it’s very expensive. If it’s supposed to be a symbol of “the finery of the world, its power and prestige,” it seems to me it ought not to be so ostentatiously real finery.
Dolan seems to want dialogue. We should give him a chance. As to the shortcomings of the hierarchy Dolan cited Dorothy Day which could not have been a better choice as to the problems Catholics have. He referred to her remark: “The church is a whore but she is my mother.” So if we can come together with one mother we might achieve something. This attitude gives rise to community and service. In no way does it connote any permissiveness. A uniting together should acknowledge that we are all attempting the same journey and that service and humility are our banners. Not royalty and domination. We need to stop thinking of the church as the First Estate. Rather the church is the servant of the world and service, according to Jesus, is the essential mark of the church.
Who will take Dolan up on his offer? And will he pursue it?
David, thanks for providing the quote from the Tulsa diocese. I’ve seen it before.
That said, it doesn’t fly. In management, we might note that Patrick Brankin has given us an “excuse”, not a “reason”. Slattery’s behavior clearly mocks the gospel example of Jesus. (What these guys will do to excuse their behavior!!!)
Earlier, I noted my view that there are two groups/churches within the Church of Rome. In fact, there is a third group, namely, the Great Middle. These are people who may or may not worship on weekends. If they do, they may toss a shekel or two into the collection plate, get their “ticket” punched for the weekend, but otherwise do not wish to be bothered by all the brouhaha between the other two groups. They are indifferent as long as the sacred pastors do not disrupt their comfort zones. Indifferent.
However convenient it serves in terms of imagery, I feel it should be pointed out that there aren’t many U.S. bishops – even now – who would readily don a cappa magna of the sort worn by Bishop Slattery at the pontifical high mass at the Shrine last April. Most have yet to preside at any extraordinary form mass at all, let alone one like this. More than a few (I think it is safe to say) would almost certainly rather be rolled in hot roofing tar than do so.
Which reality in turn is one manifestation of why Catholic traditionalists – and even most conservatives – have been just as, if not more, critical of the Church hierarchy as Lisa Fullam and the NCR staff are – a curious irony, if it is ironic. Or at least – for those not in the SSPX fringes – the traditional-ish laity have been hyper-critical, since traditional-leaning clergy usually have had to keep their heads down. It is, in a sense, almost heartwarming that it is still possible to find something that brings together the opposite theological flanks of the Church together in agreement – i.e., disdain for episcopal fecklessness.
But beyond that , it’s becoming harder to deny that there isn’t much else these sides have in common. Which is why when I first read the thread headline, I assumed the “Two Churches” must relate to these increasingly opposed conceptions of … what it means to be Catholic.
Cappae magnae cost $30,000 dollars apiece, we are told; a full liturgical set can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Here we see a parasitical pseudo-aristocracy ripping off the People of God.
“doesn’t this reduce to, ‘there are some people I like in the church, and some I don’t; there are some things I like in the church and some I don’t’.”
No, there is such as thing as discernment of spirits, and there is such a thing as reading the signs of the times. Vatican II showed that such discernment is a charism and responsibility of the People of God. To “reduce” this to mere subjectivism is to undercut a basic feature of Christian life.
The Vatican has taken all power and responsibility into its own hands, to a degree unprecedented in history, and totally opposed to Vatican II. But it is not possible to govern a billion people from dusty, ill-organized offices in Rome. This impossible effort is landing the Church in ghastly messes on a daily basis. Paralysis throughout the whole body and farcical displays of incompetence at the top spell radical crisis. Only a new Council or something similar can resolve this.
I enjoy beauty and some luxury in a church, but it has to be for the glory of God and clearly not for the glory of the clergy.
“Where the hell is Jesus in this picture???”
He is in the Tabernacle.
The Met does it better with better music.
I think we’ve lost sight of the idea of beauty entirely, if this is something a Catholic can find satisfactory. Is God beautiful or not? Is there a relationship between beatific and beautiful? If God is beautiful, what should liturgical art be? Is there anything too high?
“Worship God in the Beauty of Holiness”
My only objection to the Latin Mass is that it is percieved as a ‘show’ and not Liturgy. Since Vatican II, ‘Liturgy- the work of the people’ has been the hallmark of a good Mass.
To sit in silence and listen to (for most) a foreign language, lovely singing, and have little or no actualy participation is not ‘liturgy’. Even turning the priest back around is contrary to the role of the priest in a Roman Mass. 50 years of finally understanding the mass, its parts, and taking a co-creative part with the priest is to be erased?
Never happen. Because then there will be no assembly. No Assembly, and the latinists will be saying mass only for each other.
At a liturgy meeting last year, our Opus Dei trained latinist reminded that congregation that without the priest, there would be no church…. just let that comment sink in for a minute. My response was – without the people there would be no church. These statements cannot both be true.
With no ordained priesthood the people will make the Church of Christ, as in the early days of the church before the hierarchy grew to epic proportions and the rules and regulations began to be distributed. Then, the scism between east and west, based on a forged document called the ‘Donation of Constantine’ and you have what we are dealing with now.
Personally, as a member of the priesthood of all believers, I could see a church with no ordained clergy. I think, too, that there is a good chance that if that were ever happen, and guidance came from those who know what the early church was like, the resulting Church of Christ would be much closer to what Jesus invisioned.
To be “Catholic” is to follow the beatitudes.
True enough, Bill. And couldn’t there be a better way of doing liturgy than the current campfire/ skit aesthetic? Something that fosters purity of heart, for example? Something that brings us into poverty of spirit?
Jimmy Mac, have you seen this interview with theologian David Berger?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,730520,00.html
He tells of his experience within the inner circle of traditionalists in Europe, for whom ceremonial display such as we see in the picture here is part of a self-enclosed world (from which women are of course excluded) that is rife with psychological pathology that manipulates, indulges, and punishes gay men. He calls the Tridentine Mass his “gateway drug” into this society.
“The” inner circle of traditionalists? I don’t know about Europe, but in the US, that would be homeschoolers.
The Pope has written many times about modern liturgical practice that constitutes a “closed circle.” Not that the Ordinary Form has to be that way–but that it often is. There is no entry point for God, except the sole moment of consecration.
It’s as though folks don’t believe the liturgy is a theandric activity anymore.
I think that linking faith and worship with tradition and culture is important an very meaningful. However, the picture above strikes me as playing dress-up. And I don’t mean that in a disparaging way really. It is like going to Reinnasance fairs or historical re-encactment plays and performances.
Such approaches do not link us in any meaningful way with traditio. They are off-putting and anachronistic. I have been a fairly practicing and devout Catholic for over 40 years and I have never, ever seen such a display as pictured above and if I did I would seriously have wonder about the judgement of the leadership who is engaging in thi
The tiara was put away before my time. Put the old costumes away and just continue with what we have now.
It seems to me that Rita’s interview is on target. the Church is not doing itself any favours by indulging these self-enclosed movements.
Evelyn Waugh on two (or multiple) Churches:
“Some people, like Penelope Betjeman, like making a row in church and I don’t see why they shouldn’t….I should feel jolly shy dancing & I feel jolly shy praying out loud. Every parish might have one rowdy Mass a Sunday for those who like it. But there should be silent ones for those who like quiet….The decision actually taken at the Council, I gather, [says] that we must have the same version as the Americans, heaven help us.”
Evelyn Waugh to Lady Astor, March 15, 1963
“There is no entry point for God, except the sole moment of consecration.
“It’s as though folks don’t believe the liturgy is a theandric activity anymore.”
The fetishization of the moment of consecration is indeed a major cause of liturgical dysfunctionality, but I suspect it is more typical of EF than of OF worship. OF worshippers have a sense of the entire liturgy as an action in which Christ is multiply present: in the assembly, in the minister, in his Word, and in the meal-event understood as living and dynamic participation in his Paschal Mystery (dynamic because stretched forward in joyful hope to the coming of the Kingdom).
‘LarryD 12/09/2010 – 9:43 pm
“Where the hell is Jesus in this picture???”
He is in the Tabernacle.’
I think you meant that Jesus was HIDING in the Tabernacle. Somehow I can’t believe that the savior of humanity is actually PLEASED with this sad, sick display of pretension, preening and an utter lack of shame on the part of the few who parade around like cockatoos and pretend that this supports holiness and “sublimity” in worship.
” Is there anything too high?”
Yes there is when it becomes performance art for the sake of the show, not the raising of the minds and hearts to God.
Look at that photo again and tell me that this wretched display isn’t “too high” in the worst sense of the idea.
I wouldn’t want my weekly mass to be like the picture above, but I don’t see anything wrong with a more ceremonial mass once in while. There are some people who really enjoy them; why can’t they have a Mass that they like too? And if they want to listen to it in Latin, that’s fine with me, as long as they’re not saying we all have to go that way. I guess I don’t understand why it needs to be all or nothing.
Fr. O’Leary,
What seems to be entirely missing in contemporary worship is a sense of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in baptized persons. There is no time, no room, for recollection–in our weekly privileged moment of prayer.
Irene, I agree, but this particular ceremony is offensive:
- it reinforces the notion that clergy are above the laity, not like shepherds but like monarchs
- it recalls echoes of a monarchical system where obedience to royalty went against justice for the people. Coming from a country that is proud of having shed its unjust bonds in revolution, I find this offensive
- it shows that this bishop gives priority to spending money on expensive vestments. Given that those vestments are used, not as a display of a shared worship for the glory of God, but as a way to put the focus on the bishop, implicitly suggesting that he is like a king and that we should give him money for him to spend on himself and obey him as blindly as the absolute monarch of old, it’s a complete distortion of priorities.
- for someone like me who is convinced that clericalism is a central problem of our church and that there is something very wrong with our current church government, it just puts oils on the fire.
Depending on my mood I see this picture as somewhere between ridiculous and revolting.
I agree with those who think the column over-simplifies greatly, as if you can divide Catholics, even in the U.S., into only two groups. For similar reasons, the choice of the photo to illustrate this thread misrepresents the real situation. There are many people who find the cappa magna-type liturgy as inappropriate as what Kathy calls “the current campfire/ skit aesthetic”; and, of course, in the U.S., there are far more instances of the latter than of the former.
From Zagano’s NCR article:
“The world is beginning to see two Catholic Churches: one for bishops and priests and another for the rest of us. The one for clerics collects the money and controls the sacraments.”
That view is, of course, NCR’s raison d’etre, and Zagano applies it to the Vatican/American women religous contretemps. I don’t happen to see the church that way; and I don’t see that Zagano contributes anything in her piece except to pick at a sore; but whatever the truth or the perception of the matter, it might be useful to point out that it SHOULDN’T be that way: that we should be one; that we are all members of the body of Christ, with Christ as our head; that priests and bishops (and laity and sisters and deacons) have our role to play in the body.
For the record: I’m not offended by that crimson panoply; in fact, the theatrical side of me finds it pretty cool. I don’t know how it was paid for, but I’m pretty sure that the poor box wasn’t raided.
I’m disappointed that nobody has chosen to engage Kathy in her questions about aesthetics. Granted, aesthetics are difficult to discuss. Let me say that I do find beauty nourishing – that is undoubtedly what attracted me to liturgical music. I’ve reached the point in life where I’ve had my fill of ‘modern’ church architecture, with its walls of unbroken brick symmetry, its stained glass windows that are nothing more than colored panels, its huge spaces bereft of imagery, its wooden ceilings and carpeted floors and artificial illumination. Likewise, amplified music with a pounding beat and electronic instrumentation – I have no quibble with it per se, but I couldn’t stand to worship with only that style of music, week after week – it would be like living on a diet of nothing but cheese puffs. It’s relatively quick to revamp a music program, but a church building lasts for decades. There has to be a better way.
Good grief. The whole children of light versus children of darkness narrative is getting really old.
I know Bp. Slattery personally, and he bears no resemblance to the caricature offered in these comments. He is one of the holiest men I know and, like most *real* human beings, doesn’t fit neatly into the pseudo-political categories that we try to stuff everyone and everything into nowdays (see, e.g., http://tinyurl.com/39jg6k2).
I’m frankly mystified why stuff like the cappa magna generates so much outrage. It ain’t my cup of tea, but I somehow can’t bring myself to accuse its supporters of bad faith or worse. The Eastern Churches–which, as we are often told, have so much to teach us Latins–have far, far more sumptuous liturgies. Is Jesus offended be all of these other, venerable Rites, which are often celebrated in settings were the contrast between wealth and poverty is starker than in the West? I’m convinced that most of negative reaction to “high church” liturgy is the really just cultural prejudice, and says more about modern Western eccentricities rather than monarchical tendencies (or any other boogey man you can conjure up) in traditionally-minded Catholics. Ours is a culture were we think nothing of wearing a tux to the United Way gala, but look askance at the poor fellow who wears a blazer at a suburban Mass rather than the obligatory jeans and polo. And if we ever stop to wonder if things ought to be different, we console ourselves with sophomoric half-truths: “Jesus doesn’t care what I wear, he only cares about what’s in our hearts!”
To deny there are deep divisions in the Church and major drift issues is purblind.
The aesthetics of Bsihop Slattery, nice man or not, reinforce a view of governance that is backward and medieval and offputting to many who think we need to move forward and not lurch back.
And that returns the problem to “defenddrs of the faith” vs. “common ground.”
Crouchback, are you claiming that the cappa magna shown on this picture is not suggestive of monarchy?
Actually this started as an ecclesiology thread, not liturgy directly, but the direction it’s gone reflects how quick a flash-point liturgy is.
FWIW, campfire-skit liturgy irritates the dickens out of me, too, because it often reflects a carelessness about the central purpose of liturgy: to create an atmosphere in which the people of God pray together. For one thing, some contemporary liturgy seems to reflect a fear of silence. OTOH, some “high” liturgy seems to reflect a fear of simplicity, as though plainness is the same thing as irreverence or carelessness. Two versions of the same basic problem, perhaps.
The explanation of the cappa magna as being an entrance garment that’s then “stripped” reinforces the basic theology of priesthood that underlies the split in the church, I think. If the point is “he comes in as a man, then puts on Christ,” then why is it that he comes in dressed like an emperor to start with? I think of regular men as dressed in business suits, and not needing servants to help carry their clothing. If he came in dressed like a regular human being, then was vested (which I’ve seen done very effectively,) that’s one thing. To say “he starts as king, now is priest,” underscores not the priest’s membership among the baptized, but his “superiority” over the run-of-the-mill people of God.
There’s another theological issue. Our theology of priesthood is ontological, not a matter of role. The “strip the bishop then dress him as Christ” seems to imply a theology of priesthood as a role. Ordinarily, I’d say this is a good thing. But then we’re back to the question of why he dresses like a king in the first place.
I found one source that said it was garments like this (long flowing robes) that gave “drag” its name. But that’s another thread….
Thank you, David Nickol for proving (12/09/2010 – 8:43 pm) that the cappa is in fact the OPPOSITE of finery, and intended to be CONDEMNATORY of worldly goods, when it is removed before the altar. As usual, Fr. Komonchak (12/10/2010 – 10:15 am) has words of wisdom to temper progressive intolerance.
What is truly sad is the continuing critical commentary after that fact has been made plain, some ignoring it to enable them to ignorantly condemn Bp. Slattery, others actually saying, in effect, “yeah, but he would WANT to wear it!” Childish, envious, uncomprehending of the forms and meaning of deep liturgy and profound worship.
I saw the explanation that David Nickol found in the quoted article. Twisting the meaning of the obvious, then claiming that I am “uncomprehending of the forms and meaning of deep liturgy”? That does not convince me.
I Posted this before but opposed to the cappa magna here is the lower church again.
What is more authentic and beautiful? Cost?.. two low paid monitors, some volunteers, clorox and cleanup rags.
http://thegubbioproject.org/video.html
“…the central purpose of liturgy: to create an atmosphere in which the people of God pray together…”
That descriptionn seems inadequate to the purpose named by the Second Vatican Council:
“For the liturgy, “through which the work of our redemption is accomplished,” [1] most of all in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, is the outstanding means whereby the faithful may express in their lives, and manifest to others, the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church. It is of the essence of the Church that she be both human and divine, visible and yet invisibly equipped, eager to act and yet intent on contemplation, present in this world and yet not at home in it; and she is all these things in such wise that in her the human is directed and subordinated to the divine, the visible likewise to the invisible, action to contemplation, and this present world to that city yet to come, which we seek [2]. While the liturgy daily builds up those who are within into a holy temple of the Lord, into a dwelling place for God in the Spirit [3], to the mature measure of the fullness of Christ [4], at the same time it marvelously strengthens their power to preach Christ, and thus shows forth the Church to those who are outside as a sign lifted up among the nations [5] under which the scattered children of God may be gathered together [6], until there is one sheepfold and one shepherd [7]. ” (SC 2)
[1] Secret of the ninth Sunday after Pentecost.
[2] Cf. Heb. 13:14.
[3] Cf. Eph. 2:21-22.
[4] Cf. Eph. 4:13.
[5] Cf. Is. 11:12.
[6] Cf. John 11:52.
[7] Cf. John 10:16.
Indeed–pray together. Prayer is a powerful thing. Viz Annie Dillard on liturgy, but, I think, true of prayer in general:
“Does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.”
Love can be that tumultuous.
The beautiful words of the Council, I think, describe what happens in communal prayer, if we consider what happens (and the the effects that might ensue!) from stepping into the presence of absolute, freeing, unconditional, already-given love. Ignatian-flavored people add that one cause/effect of prayer–individual or communal–is mission, to stay or to go in response to the discerned voice of God.
That there are deep divisions within the Church is clear, as Bob Nunz says, correctly using the plural. The divisions don’t divide neatly between Cowboys and Indians; in fact, there are all sorts of crossing-lines in any graph that might be plotted. It’s purblind to think that they reduce to one single one.
A couple of years ago, I saw a website on cappamagnaphobia that claimed that the luxury was legitimate as an expression of Christ’s glorious victory. A real “theology of glory”!
Here’s my solution: I started going to a Melkite Church. I feel much better about my place in the universal church now. I feel less angry and frustrated. My bishops are in Newtown, MA and Damascus, Syria. We are “with” the Pope, not “under” the Pope. And those Arabic chants are beautiful (and they give the Eucharist to small children.)
Lisa,
Are these supposed to be the two irreconcilable types of Catholics? Ignatian-flavored, and clericalist?
I think that while liturgy may be one flash point across Church divide, the notion of “two Churches” currently is a reasonable generalization and represents a major problem in dealing with the issues of drift and polarization.
“Cappae magnae cost $30,000 dollars apiece, we are told; a full liturgical set can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
John 12:3-5
Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.
Then Judas the Iscariot, one (of) his disciples, and the one who would betray him, said,
“Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days’ wages and given to the poor?”
The bishop isn’t Jesus.
The oil didn’t cost $30,000
Try again.
P Flanagan, please don’t try again.. Are you from east Texas? the Prosperity Gospel doesn’t go over well in Catholic circles [in either high or low Church]..
“. . . we should be one; that we are all members of the body of Christ, with Christ as our head; that priests and bishops (and laity and sisters and deacons) have our role to play in the body.”
Jim P. –
One what? Body of Christ? That’s a metaphor and doesn’t specify any of the *differences* that are bound to be part of the Church. You talk about “roles” in the Church, and certainly there are those, and they are described in general terms in the documents of Vatican II. But those descriptions are not entirely consistent either with the VII texts or Church history, so there are bound to be arguments. But Rome *behaves* like the answer is NO: everyone must always think as Rome does or be subject to reproof and even expulsion.
I actually have a great deal of sympathy for the Lefebvrists and other super-conservatives. Their fault is being 19th century Catholics in the 21st century. They’re no-changers in a changers’ world, and that, we must never forget, is they were *taught to be*. It follows that they have no appreciation of the fact that different thinking/dissent sometimes is good, sometimes has at least partial truths to offer, if not whole truths.
My point is that all this talk of unity is, at least in our particular historical context, misplaced. We should be thinking and talking about the necessity of diversity and the limits of diversity as well. We should be thinking and talking about how diversity can be unified without destroying the diversity or compromising the unity. One of many — that’s what the Church is, not some simple, static, know-it-all IT. Rome must really get beyond Parmenides.
Why try again? The oil cost a year’s wages. “We ought to receive every one whom the Master of the house sends to be over His household, as we would do Him that sent him. It is manifest, therefore, that we should look upon the bishop even as we would upon the Lord Himself.” (Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians)
“… we should look upon the bishop even as we would upon the Lord Himself.”
For example, bishop Mixa? Cardinal Law? Bishop Lahey?
We need to keep our eyes open and not lose our critical sense.
Ann: St. Paul’s applies the metaphor of the Body of Christ precisely to explain or even vindicate the differentiation of roles within the Church; see Rom 12:3-8; I Cor 12:1-30.
“The aesthetics of Bsihop Slattery, nice man or not, reinforce a view of governance that is backward and medieval and offputting to many who think we need to move forward and not lurch back.”
Bob N. –
Not medieval, Bob — Renaissance. Yes, my objection is partly cultural — I have a hearty dislike of the so-called splendor of Renaissance art, are which is said to be dedicated to the glory of God but is too often dedicated to the self-aggrandizement of the many utterly corrupt popes and bishops of that time. That era was the nadir of Church history. Why copy its taste?
In fact, what that stupid cappa is, is not even decent Renaissance art but, rather, it’s a bad imitation of Renaissance stuff. I’m sure those detail-loving Renaissance clerics would never have countenanced twenty yards of expensive but unembellished silk.
That thing is bad no matter what your aesthetic criteria are, unless, of course, you think that liturgical art is good so long as it makes somebody feel good.
Bob Nunz: Take regular participants in this blog. I don’t see any way in which they they break down into your “reasonable generalization.” Neither do the members of the two parishes in which I have served over the last twenty or thirty years. They escape easy pigeon-holing. The Church is a far more diverse and vibrant body than you give it credit for being, and this at every level, among laity, religious, and clergy.
“The Church is far more diverse….”
Joseph Komochak,
Good for you! The Church is diverse and vibrant, especially compared to all the other Christian churches in the US. According to the Pew Report — so often referred to — the Catholic church does not lose their faithful nearly at the same rate as every other US Christian denomination. The Catholic retention rate is 70% with Latino Catholics while the retention rates of other churches is far below that: Methodists and Pentecostals (47%), Episcopalians (45%) and Presbyterians (40%) even though these Protestant churches have married clergy and permit many more things than does the Catholic church.
What is often missing, too, from the Pew Report when covering the Catholic “loss” (30%) is the gain in conversions. 2.6% of American polled said they were former Protestants. In a population of 310 million, that suggests there are over 7.8 million converts (8% Catholics are former Protestants and 10% Protestants are former Catholics, according to the Pew Report). That 7.8 million convert grouping is three times the size of the Episcopal church (2.4 million). That is no small achievement! Even with the former Catholics joining Protestant groups, Protestantism is deminishing from 65% in the 1960′s to barely 52% now.
So the losses are felt all over religious America!
“I actually have a great deal of sympathy for the Lefebvrists and other super-conservatives. Their fault is being 19th century Catholics in the 21st century. They’re no-changers in a changers’ world, and that, we must never forget, is they were *taught to be*. ”
Ann, let me preface my comment by acknowledging that I will always defer to you on all things Parmenides :-)
Here is the interesting thing about Lefebvrists and liturigical conservatives: it’s a multi-generational phenomenon. I agree with you that the members of the generations that knew the liturgy prior to the conciliar renewal and never really accepted the reforms were, in a sense, behaving as they were taught. But there are younger generations, too -Xers and Millenials – who are attracted to the Latin mass communities, even though they can’t possibly have known the Latin mass pre-Vatican II – they weren’t alive. (The comment – Kathy’s? – that many of these are home-schoolers rings true to me).
It illustrates that we’re a pluralistic church – a lot of views, a lot of preferences, a lot of streams of spirituality. A dear old friend used to remark that part of the genius of the Catholic church is that it had the ability to absorb differences by channeling them into movements that somehow managed to maintain unity with the church – this in supposed contrast to Protestants who are reputed to repeatedly splinter away from one another into ever-multiplying denominations.
This little news item may help illustrate the many streams flowing through the church. It seems that, to Lourdes, Fatima and Guadalupe, we can now add (wait for it) Green Bay, WI. http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20101208/GPG0101/101208049/1207&located=rss
This kind of thing positively sends some folks to the moon; others roll their eyes in disbelief; others kind of scratch their heads.
“The oil didn’t cost $30,000″
The oil could have been sold for “300 days wages” according to your like-thinking Judas. That’s at least $30k in today’s money at a very modest salary.
“The bishop isn’t Jesus.”
Once he gets behind the altar, he certainly is. In persona Christi.
” talk about “roles” in the Church, and certainly there are those, and they are described in general terms in the documents of Vatican II. But those descriptions are not entirely consistent either with the VII texts”
This is incoherent. You say the documents of Vatican II describe roles in the Church and then say those descriptions are not entirely consistent with the Vatican II texts. ? The documents of Vatican II ARE the text of Vatican II.
The problem with the cappa magna in the photo isn’t that it looks expensive. The whole setting is one of opulence. The problem is that it looks expensive and silly. If it were truly gorgeous, I doubt that there would be so much complaining. But the only thing impressive about it is that it’s the longest many people have ever seen. It doesn’t look anything like a garment. It looks like a big, overly long piece of red material. If it were about half the length, it might be impressive. But it is ridiculously long. Also, while I do not pretend to be an expert here, long trains are not supposed to be held up in the air by people at the end. They are supposed to drag on the floor.
JAK –
I don’t deny the usefulness of the body metaphor, and St. Paul certainly gets specific about some of the different gifts of individuals — teacher, prophet, administrator, healer, etc., so I think I’m with him there. But the question remains: how are those different charisms to be exercised and unified? Shall only the teachers teach? Only the administrators administer? etc.?
Oddly, given the notion of “apostle” as being a teacher, he also calls *everyone* an “apostle”. This implies that everyone has the/a teaching function. Are there many *different* teaching functions, with some proper to the clergy and some to laity? I suspect the answer is Yes, and the solution must integrate some differences. The whole question needs a lot of thinking and talking through.
How does the function of, say, theology teachers differ from the function of bishops as teachers? And what is the function of the laity as teachers, we members who establish “the sense of the faithful”? How do we establish it? Put another way — how is the thinking of the laity to be integrated into the thinking of the total Church?
It seems to me that this very question is a major reason there are two camps in the Church these days: people don’t know whom to trust — the theologians who often make vastly more sense than the bishops or the bishops themselves? Some go with the dissenting theologians, some with the conservative bishops.
At any rate, I don’t think that St. Paul spells out the whole answer to the question of functions in the Church. There are certainly important questions left over about the teaching function.
The oil could have been sold for “300 days wages” according to your like-thinking Judas. That’s at least $30k in today’s money at a very modest salary.
P Flanagan,
The literal translation is “300 denarii,” with one denarius being the daily wage for an agricultural worker or unskilled laborer at the time. C. S. Mann in the Anchor Bible volume Mark says trying to come up with a modern-day equivalent is a task “fraught with difficulty.” I think you are way overestimating. An agricultural worker getting $10 an hour and working a 40-hour week in our times would make $20,800 a year. (Not that it would solve anything in this discussion if we could come up with an exact value for 300 danarii.)
P. –
No, it is not incoherent. The documents of V II are many. They have many parts. Many of the parts imply contradictions. These are called “self-contradictions”.
David N., trains are meant to be carried.
In a bridal procession, if it’s the type where the bride goes first, the bridesmaids held up her train. (Letting it drag would make it difficult/impossible to walk.) If it’s the type where the bride is preceded by the bridesmaids, flower girls or pages hold up her train.
See, e.g., this film of QEII’s wedding. The two little princes, Michael of Kent and William of Gloucester, were the pages holding up her train in the recessional. (4:08)
http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//BHC_RTV/1947/11/24/BGU410270105/
Ann,
Almost exactly three years ago, I related on dotCommonweal an experience of mine from my college days regarding the Mystical Body of Christ. Here it is in slightly edited form.
David N., trains are meant to be carried.
Gerelyn,
What I see in your video is two little girls holding up the very end of the train, but part of it is dragging on the floor. Check out this video from the wedding of Diana and Charles. Her train is clearly on the ground. I am a great expert on bridal gowns (having just looked some stuff up via Google:-), and it seems to me that most trains aren’t even long enough to be held up. In any case, I am willing to compromise and say that a train should either drag or be floating a few inches from the floor, not be held up in the air the way the cappa magna is in the photo. The videos of Elizabeth and Dianna’s dresses look elegant. The cappa magna in the photo looks silly.
It seems to me that I’ve read many articles over the years about how fortunes have declined for ecclesiastical vestment stores (or is it the same story repeated every five years?). Gammarelli in Rome is now reduced to selling red socks for tourists. De Ritis, also in Rome, has to compensate for poor sales to a much smaller number of nuns and their adoption of secular clothes. But if the cappa magna is so annoying to progressives there may be an opportunity for super profits, perhaps even obscene profits, for these stores in the production of the hated finery.
Best painter of draperies: Andrea del Sarto. Bernard Berenson, though an admirer, has some fun with this painter of so many individuals with weighty costumes. He wonders how the BVM will be able to ascend given her flowing robes. And in the Annunziata cloister in Florence Andrea del Sarto has apostles who serve, in Berenson’s eyes, as “a number of tailor’s men, each showing how a stuff you are thinking of trying looks on the back, or in a certain effect of light.” Nevertheless he admires the tactile sense of these paintings and compares Andrea to Leonardo.
In a few years there may be a change of taste even among our progressives and we will wonder how they ever became as austere and censorious as the puritans.
http://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&tbs=isch:1&&sa=X&ei=h6ICTdKYC4H88AbKkM3pAg&ved=0CDIQBSgA&q=andrea+del+sarto&spell=1&biw=1024&bih=864
R: “The bishop isn’t Jesus.”
P: Once he gets behind the altar, he certainly is. In persona Christi.
R: At which point, we’ve been told definitively, he takes off the cappa magna.
If the cappa magna is too expensive, you can buy a pair of Gammarelli chaussettes. “Le violet d’évêque, le rouge (ou pourpre cardinalice) et le noir soutenu sont des couleurs emblématiques et recherchées des amoureux du beau.”
Only 19,90 €.
The perfect stocking stuffer.
http://www.meschaussettesrouges.com/les-marques/gammarelli.html
“R: At which point, we’ve been told definitively, he takes off the cappa magna.”
Good, you seem to get the symbolism now.
“a train should either drag or be floating a few inches from the floor, not be held up in the air the way the cappa magna is in the photo. The videos of Elizabeth and Dianna’s dresses look elegant. The cappa magna in the photo looks silly.”
Well, either that, or the cappa magna is not a wedding train. Hello.
“The literal translation is “300 denarii,” with one denarius being the daily wage for an agricultural worker or unskilled laborer at the time.”
Check my math and logic, but that would be…300 days worth of labor.
David N., the “two little girls” were actually two little boys. (They’re in kilts, not skirts.)
There were no little girls in QEII’s wedding party. Here’s a picture.
http://tiny.cc/ni2a9
Sad to see poor Diana being led to her willing groom in her unfortunate dress. Lamb to the slaughter.
Agree that cappae magnae are silly. So are their defenders. I think everyone should be required to wear cappae magnae to church. Including the pageboys.
I meant unwilling. Freudian slap.
David N. –
Indeed, that was an awful thing to say. Some facts about death are horrifying, but that statement wasn’t even true.
About the Body of Christ — those texts of St. Paul Fr. K. just recommended are the basis for the teaching, I’m sure. To me what Paul says is very clear: We are all parts of what makes Jesus present in the world, not one of us is trivial, and we are for each other too.
12:4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.
12:5 And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord.
12:6 There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all {persons.}
12:7 But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
12:8 For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit;
12:9 to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
12:10 and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another {various} kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues.
12:11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.
12:12 For even as the body is one and {yet} has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.
12:13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
12:14 For the body is not one member, but many.
12:15 If the foot says, “Because I am not a hand, I am not {a part} of the body, it is not for this reason any the less {a part} of the body.”
12:16 And if the ear says, “Because I am not an eye, I am not {a part} of the body, it is not for this reason any the less {a part} of the body.”
12:17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?
12:18 But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired.
12:19 If they were all one member, where would the body be?
12:20 But now there are many members, but one body.
12:21 And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you; or again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”"
12:22 On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary;
12:23 and those {members} of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable,
12:24 whereas our more presentable members have no need {of it.} But God has {so} composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that {member} which lacked,
12:25 so that there may be no division in the body, but {that} the members may have the same care for one another.
12:26 And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if {one} member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
12:27 Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it.
12:28 And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, {various} kinds of tongues.
12:29 All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All are not {workers of} miracles, are they?
12:30 All do not have gifts of healings, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they?
12:31 But earnestly desire the greater gifts. And I show you a still more excellent way.
(Not that it would solve anything in this discussion if we could come up with an exact value for 300 danarii.)
The exact sum isn’t important, David, but you’re suggesting an order of magnitude which seems accurate. It’s not a small extravagance, but an enormous one, and Jesus said it would be retold everywhere the Gospel is.
Ann: When Paul asks, “Are all apostles?” he expects the answer, “Of course not!”
Thanks Gerelyn: you found the perfect present for me to give to my anticlerical brother-in-law!
JAK –
Waaal, I certainly totally misread that one. That’ll teach me to skim St. Paul. He does say at the end, though, “Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts”, and he seems to be saying it to everyone. Hmmm.
Is there any particular N. T. text which gives some basic meaning of “wisdom”? That, it seems to me, is involved in this question of who is supposed to be engaged in what sort of teaching function.
NT “wisdom,” like this from I Cor 2, usually (always?) points to the cross:
6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”[b]—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—
10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.[c] 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for,
“Who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?”[d]
But we have the mind of Christ.
Ann, it’s understandable – after about 12 verses of the Body metaphor, I find myself saying, ‘yeah, yeah, alright Paul, you’ve made your point, WE GET IT – now move on to something else’ :-)
I just think that part and parcel of being a bishop involves, from time to time, presiding at solemn, high, ‘pull-out-all-the-stops’ liturgy. If he wears that extravagant train once in his life, or even once a year, I think it’s reasonable to expect us to deal with it. (If he walked around in it all day every day, that would be another matter!)
Being attracted to the church external/ceremonial does not thereby exempt one from the requirement to help the man beaten by robbers who is lying in the road. This is why I believe that Bishop Slattery’s advocacy on behalf of undocumented immigrants is such important witness.
(You’re welcome, Claire.)
(To all who like stuff about QEII and her train: tomorrow BBC America is all royals all day. “Memories of a Queen”, including her wedding, comes on at 2 and 6 ET. http://press.bbcamerica.com/press-release.jsp?id=21982 )
To Jim: 30K would give a lot of undocumented immigrants a Feliz Navidad. I wonder if he’ll wear the cappa grotesca to Midnight Mass.
” It is manifest, therefore, that we should look upon the bishop even as we would upon the Lord Himself.” (Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians)
First of all, if a “saint” says it it does not mean it is correct. Secondly, there is no alter Christus or in persona christi. The celebrant of the Eucharist is a minister who is designated to bring the whole ecclesia together. The real distinction of the presider is that he should be the servant of all. That is the problem with all this royalty. There is not a sliver of evidence which suggests Jesus approves of this. The parable of the rich man and Abraham in itself gives us the answer.
To use the anointing of Jesus as proof that there should be all this rich pageantry in the church is outrageous. Let’s get back to the “poison” of the Magnificat which the bishops have generally ignored along with their adulators.
Mary tells it like it is: “HE HAS FILLED THE HUNGRY WITH GOOD THINGS; And sent away the rich empty-handed.”
This is the essence of our faith.
Rich man and Lazarus.
“To Jim: 30K would give a lot of undocumented immigrants a Feliz Navidad. I wonder if he’ll wear the cappa grotesca to Midnight Mass.”
I have to admit, with all the talk of dinarii being banded about, I’ve lost track of why we think that piece of clothing cost $30K, but even if it does, we probably shouldn’t assume that however they came up with the money for it (and it seems possible it was donated by someone), that same person/organization is not also generous in helping the poor.
Really, I’m just pointing out that we’re not exempted from our responsibility to the poor by wrapping ourselves in finery.
I would also say that there is a big difference between liturgical vestments and everyday wear. If we’re going to judge people by what they wear (and who doesn’t?), then the latter seems the better criterion.
The precious oil was not remembered because of its worth, but because the anointing was done beforehand for His burial. Similarly, all of the magnificent dress is a sign of our mortality. What seems like glorification is actually a humiliation, just as the humiliation of Christ on the Cross is actually His Glorification.
That is why what the woman did is told wherever the Gospel is proclaimed. She filled the house with the great cloud of glory that filled God’s House when Solomon dedicated it, a confusing paradox of darkness and light. It is in no way a simple image.
Maybe that makes it even more appropriate as a model for the cappa magna. Does any bishop really enjoy being decked out in such an ostentatious garment? I would be mortified if I had to appear in public in such an outfit!
This post really needed two pictures since the title was “Two churches”. Since the cappa magna picture is an example of one extreme, what would be the other extreme — Something that would make people from another end of the spectrum equally mad?
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44325000/jpg/_44325509_taize_afp_416.jpg ?
http://images.chron.com/blogs/believeitornot/aids-nikolasgiakoumidis.JPG ?
http://www.catholic-convert.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/sc0073fdd0.jpg ?
Why don’t we tell it like it is? The cappa magna, miter, vestments, etc. are all attire of the Roman Empire. Either relegate them to a museum or to some recyclying center as a great service to the People of God.
Kathy –
Thanks very much. The text is about God’s wisdom, which is beyond natural wisdom. It’s the latter I’m trying to identify as a kind of knowledge that differs from say, historical or scientific knowledge. When we talk about wise people, I don’t think that means they’re historians or scientists. Wisdom is special, maybe more like art critic, but that’s not it exactly either, or maybe that’s just too specific. Certainly it sometimes includes knowledge of general principles, and sometimes it involves the application of those principles to particulars. But I think it mostly has to do with particulars. What do you think?
There’s so much about “wisdom” and so many references to it all over the Bible, that’s why I haven’t searched it . Too lazy :-)
This discussion may lead to increased devotion to Sant’ Omobono (or Homobonus or Good Man), the patron of tailors. Here he is (with scissors) on a Venice facade:
http://www.slowtrav.com/blog/annienc/2010/03/patron_saints_of_tailors.html
Pope John Paul II on Homobonus:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1997/june/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19970624_nicolini_en.html
He might be the forerunner of the prosperity gospel. See this modernized prayer (of unknown provenance and with no guarantees) which by itself may undermine Weber’s thesis on the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Who can deny the origin of the commercial revolution in the cloth trade stimulated by ecclesiastical vestments?
“Most holy St. Homobonus, I ask for your divine assistance in my corporate environment. Please encourage my superiors to reward me with a sizeable bonus and a meaningful promotion. And please protect me from downsizing, scandal, and undesirable relocation. Amen.”
http://www.needcoffee.com/2006/11/14/happy-saint-homobonus-day/
Also worth considering in a thorough cappa magna discussion is what would St. Martin of Tours do? Into how many segments could he divide a cappa magna?
Over and over, when Rome or the local hierarchy or the pastor says or does something troubling, I hear people say, “they’re not my church. My church is…” and they name the parish, or the ministry, or the small group to which they belong. This split troubles me.
It should trouble you. It should trouble all of us. Why do you suppose that crank Bender keeps coming over here to rail about this or that? Because too much of what goes on is divisive. It is corrosive of the unity of the faith, the unity of the Church.
Each week we make a solemn profession, a profession before God and to God, that we believe in ONE, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. ONE. One God, One Faith, One Church, One People. ONE. As is the Triune God, in whose image and likeness we are made, we are called to be a loving communion of many persons in ONE divine entity. Not “progressive Catholics,” not “traditional Catholics,” not liberal Catholics, not conservative Catholics, not pre-Vatican II Catholics or post-Vatican II Catholics, not Roman Catholics and Orthodox and Protestant, but ONE Church, One People of God (emphasis on the GOD — we are supposed to be of HIM, not He being of us).
One Church, One People — One Big Family. Multiplicity and diversity in communion. COMMUNION, not communalism, not community, but COMMUNION, not merely as a symbol or a metaphor, but as a true mystical reality — communion, from the Latin meaning “to be one with.” This is supposed to be true in the whole of our lives, but it is most especially true in the Mass. To be One with Him, and He to be One with each of us, is to make each of us One with each other. Many made One is His One Body — not merely a metaphorical body, but His very Word made Flesh. Hint — that’s why they call it Holy “Communion.”
Sadly, we all too often do not see this communion. Indeed, here in these pages one reads that some do not even want this communion, they want division instead. It is sad. It is sad whether it comes from rad-trads or the progressive-dissenters, it is sad whether it comes from the Catholicism as Politics faction that inhabits Inside Catholic or the opposite faction that inhabits Commonweal (or America).
“This split troubles me.” It should. That’s why Bender keeps coming here to yell at you guys. We are family. Like it or not. Like any real family, we have our different likes, different ideas, and we fight and argue and bicker. But we are still family — ONE Family. And like a real family, even if we differ on practically everything, we are called to LOVE one another.
”It is manifest, therefore, that we should look upon the bishop even as we would upon the Lord Himself.” (Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians)
First of all, if a “saint” says it it does not mean it is correct.
It is correct though when said by all of the bishops, in unity with the Pope, in ecumenical council. For example –
“the Sacred Council teaches that bishops by divine institution have succeeded to the place of the apostles, as shepherds of the Church, and he who hears them, hears Christ, and he who rejects them, rejects Christ and Him who sent Christ.“ — Lumen Gentium 20.
And getting back to that whole communion thing — that means loving and respecting our bishops, each of them, even those you don’t like, whether it is Charles Chaput or Roger Mahony.
Hey, y’all, reading through the comments – arguments about the cappa magna, when it is taken off, this church, that rite, Latin – English… My goodness, you’ve certainly run far from the original article.
There is a ‘split’. There are articles written by frustrated churchmembers about that split – they not only notice it, they (like me) are worried about it.
There is a movement within parts of certain clerical organizations to return the entire globe to the Latin Rite – with all of its trappings. Where only the priviledged and highly (self)exalted may enter the ‘Holy of Holies’, and people may only reach God THROUGH them.
These priests, at the behest of their organizations are insidious in infiltrating the American Church. They surround themselves with their own little ‘congragations’ and both they and the laity ‘look down’ on the rest of us worshipping in our own language.
If you are not involved in a parish where this is going on, then you have no idea of the danger it represents, since it seeks to have a laity that is uneducated (ie: – no bible study, certainly no ‘theology’), obedient (ie: whatever the priest says can be taken as inerrant) and docile (ie: sit back and enjoy the ‘show’). Communion in the hand is forbidden, females in the sanctuary are forbidden, and the ‘priestly class’ that they are building are so far ‘above’ us mere mortals that I am surprised they do not all suffer nosebleeds.
This is a serious problem, primarily because it looks all so innocent. But the lies and obfuscation tell a different story. Saint Paul tells us to ‘test everything in the Spirit’ and ‘you’ll know the True Spirit by its fruits.” When the fruits of this movement are splits in congregations, church members being disenfranchised because they are not ready to worship in a foreign (and might I add, ‘dead’ language) and arrogance and ‘holier-than-thou’ attitudes on the part of the adherents, then I, for one, find that this whole movement does not past Saint Paul’s test.
Of course, we, the Body of Christ, are powerless to stop this cancer from growing in our midst. But to sit back and joke about it and not take seriously what is going on is to condone an eventual rift in the American church between the ‘Sacreds’ and us trash.
When it comes to the point that this group is widely established and begins to build its infrastructure so that it becomes more and more powerful, you will find that the church that you worship in is gone – you will be the outsider (and, of course, they will pray for your conversion).
The split is no less real than when Catholics discovered the ‘Charismatic’ movement in the 70′s and 80′s and split their parishes.
I may sound like a ‘crank’ but I have been in 3 parishes where this has happened and seen the beginnings of it in my current parish before, thank God, our Opus Deist decided to move on to bigger things. He was not with us long enough to have affected the greater portion of the parish, but his ‘adherents’ still bemoan his leaving and still ‘pray the beads’ at mass rather than participate. Several people in the parish were made to feel inadequate, or had their feathers riled because of the secrecy and ‘behind-the-scenes’ planning.
So, to me, the length of a cappa magna is about as meaningful as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin – in other words, it is useless. Recognizing what is really happening across America is a much more vital discussion and is the one that the original article ought to have engendered!
Please don’t brand me a ‘nut’ or a ‘conspiricy theorist’ because I am neither. I am well educated, have worked in the church for 45 years, and have seen and heard it all. My fear is that if you dismiss my comments, you will not look further into the real issue – the undoing of Vatican II. Are you ready to go back to the dark ages? Because, despite the ‘beauty’ of the Latin Mass (and yes, the Novus Ordo has always been able to be said in Latin) and despite our seemingly common dislike of ‘edutainment’ masses or ‘masses of the personality’, this seems to be the way things are moving over here.
Vatican II talks of a noble simplicity in the liturgy, and Paul VI and John Paul II gave an example of that in their dress. The meaning of the current fashion show in Rome and among Cardinals is to restore medieval Christendom not gospel Christianity.
I agree with Kathy: “What seems to be entirely missing in contemporary worship is a sense of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in baptized persons. There is no time, no room, for recollection–in our weekly privileged moment of prayer.”
I suggest that the routinization of the Mass and the unthinking multiplication of Masses have crowded out the prayer-spaces that we had in the pre Vatican II church — novenas, benediction, etc. We need to reset the Mass in a context of prayer — some version of the Office for instance, with lots of space for silent meditation. There should be a time for such meditation after communion at every Mass. Also it is not obligatory to say the Gloria or (not sure about this) the Creed at every Sunday Mass, and the Offertory prayers can be said silently (again I’m not sure).
Jonathan Davis 12/11/2010 – 12:27
Thank you, Jonathan. You have exactly expressed what I would have hoped to contribute – from small-town England. The parish I attend has been taken over and changed almost beyond recognition in the past two months by a Retro-fanatic. He is personally charming and so very personable. And he is young – just 40. He is splitting the parish – it used to be “our” parish but now it’s his. We may kow-tow, or lump it.
Any helpful suggestions please? Most of the parish are elderly Sundays-only folks but it’s the former daily Mass goers who are suffering as they will not go to Latin Mass at 8.0 am.
Sister Mary Wood,
If it hasn’t been tried already, I would suggest having a one-on-one meeting to truly dialogue about the changes. It might be best to make an in-office appointment, rather than discussing things in the sacristy or on the front steps after Mass. He should be told how you think and feel, and he should be given an opportunity to explain as well.
Dividing the Church into “two” makes dialogue seem impossible. But it isn’t.
“there is no alter Christus or in persona christi.” Bill Mazzella 12/10/2010 – 9:25 pm
That is a heretical statement. Try pleading vincible ignorance at best…
Long ago (above), Lisa Fullam raised the question of “Two Churches”. Attempts to describe two-way splits observable in the Church end up unsatisfactory because there are more numerous, basic divisions in place. A religious group can be described by the set of religious beliefs, rules, and practices its members hold in common. Each group is convinced that it is most truly faithful and the others are not. Groups which identify themselves as Roman Catholic are separated today by various combinations of very strongly held, opposing views on matters such as, for example:
Mass attendance ….. Belief in Real Presence ….. Birth control practice …… Scriptural dictates ….. Clergy gender ….. Use of Confession ….. Homosexuality ….. Clerical celibacy and chastity ….. God’s view of women ….. Abortion for non-Catholics …… Silks and satins
Most groups are not formally named but are clearly distinguishable from one another by their mutually conflicting sets of beliefs, rules, and practices. The strength of the divisions is suggested by the not-infrequent insults and pejoratives from some bishops, priests, and laity (elsewhere) speaking of or to “the others”. There is no single abyss to be bridged , e.g., between Two Churches, to bring about the unity of which many speak. The concept of one Church is not observable in today’s world nor does it seem to be approaching. History suggests how such situations have been resolved in the Church in the past 1900 years and may deserve review.
Patrick Molloy –
Very interesting artword with the tailor. It’s the only one I’ve ever seen, I think, in which a man is actually holding a child. Hmm. Poor men. How restricted they were too.
Bender –
You’re so impressed by “one/unity” that it’s a wonder you admit the multiplicity that is the Trinity/Three Divine Persons.
Really, you do over-simplify gravely.
I still think ms. Steinfels’ aryicle is extremely relevant and that the issue of dialogue (which some seem to think is clear – in their own view) remains a sore point.
My last word here is hers also, after following this thread: we have met the enemy and he is us.
Ann,
The wisdom in I Cor is God’s, but is in some way given to us. Is it possible, even on the natural level, to imagine human wisdom without divine wisdom? De Anima Book III chapter 5 suggests not.
“And getting back to that whole communion thing — that means loving and respecting our bishops, each of them, even those you don’t like, whether it is Charles Chaput or Roger Mahony.”
Bender –
Again, your love of simplicity has skewed your thinking. The issue is not unity. The issue is over-simplicity.Again, your love of simplicity has skewed your thinking. The issue is not unity. The issue is over-simplicity.
We are called to respect the bishop’s OFFICE. That does NOT mean respecting the whole person of all bishops. You need to qualify your thinking — it is WRONG to “respect bishops” simpliciter. It is against God’s command to be honest and respectful of truth and virtue, and when you respect the irrationality or indifference or outright sins of bishops then you are acting contrary to the commands of the Lord.
I thank Johnathan Davis for what he has said today. I strongly agree with him.
“There is a movement within parts of certain clerical organizations to return the entire globe to the Latin Rite – with all of its trappings. Where only the priviledged and highly (self)exalted may enter the ‘Holy of Holies’, and people may only reach God THROUGH them.”
Jonathan Davis –
Certainly, your experience with the Opus Dei member needs to be taken seriously. You seem to think that there is a super-conservative “movement” has taken hold significantly on the parish level. “Movement” implies organization. What evidence do you have for its widespread presence on the parish level?
Having known an ex-Opus Dei member, I can believe that they are inclined to secretive action, and in some cases at least, lying for the good of the goal. Why do you think there are many such people among the parishes?
Kathy ==
Book III, Chap. 5 of the de Anima is indeed very interesting, but I don’t see how it relates directly to wisdom in any sense.
There are undoubtedly many meanings of “wisdom” in English, and I assume that the Greek and ultimately Hebrew words which “wisdom” translates also have various meanings. But it seems to connote something so fundamental to human experience as such, something primeval, that I keep hoping to find some one ur-meaning that would illuminate the meanings. Sometimes such ur-meanings do exist, as etymology shows for many words.
Ann,
Um, ok. But could you connect this philological question to the current discussion? Or is that beside the point?
a. Earlier, I did not have more specific information at hand on the cappa magna. Anyway, the following links from the old Catholic Encyclopedia (ca. 1910) suggest to me that Slattery’s defense of his using this garb is pure bull:
+ Clerical Costume
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04419b.htm
+ Cope
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04351a.htm
“The ‘cappa magna’, now worn [ca. early 1900s] according to Roman usage by cardinals, bishops, and certain specially privileged prelates on occasions of ceremony, is not strictly a liturgical vestment, but is only a glorified ‘cappa choralis’, or choir cope.”
+ Pontifical Mass
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12232a.htm
+ Vestments
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15388a.htm
In none of these and related entries could I find any information even remotely resembling the justification given by the Oklahoma bishop and/or his spokesman for use of the cappa magna. Perhaps Tulsa’s bishop is engaging in some liturgical innovation of his own making???
b. Regarding Kathy’s reference to Ignatius, he is known in church history (i.e., what we apparently know) as the first bishop to espouse the monarchical idea of the episcopacy. There may have been others at his time, but the monarchical bishopric is generally associated with this man. Was Ignatius wrong to promote this imperial notion? Maybe, maybe not for the times and place in which he lived. We’ve certainly seen the “fruits” of this idea in today’s Church of Rome, however, and they aren’t good.
c. As for our reference to “Two Churches”, I had in mind initially the outspoken polarization between two groups, namely, the progressives and the self-described “orthodox”. If my experience blogging here and elsewhere is any indication, the generalization of “Two Churches” is quite apt. Yes, there will be variety within each of these “churches”, but it helps to see the common threads of each group diametrically in opposition to the other. We should not overlook the Great Middle (perhaps a variant of WalMart’s “Great Unwarshed”), but folks in this group generally could care less about the current or future direction of the Church of Rome. For them, it’s enough to get their weekend ticket punched, toss in a few shekels, and otherwise not be bothered.
d. Comparing the anointing of the Lord’s feet with Slattery’s outrageous liturgical behavior is comparing apples with oranges. Hospitality is one thing. Ostentation is another, especially when an old Catholic Encyclopedia suggests no historical warrant for this guy’s “traditionalist” crap.
Sister Mary Wood, there’s nothing wrong with parishioners following up on Kathy’s suggestion to attempt a dialogue with your “Retro-fanatic” pastor — unless the pastor believes as a “JPII” cleric that his presbyteral ordination conferred on him the right to have the last (or only) voice in parish matters. Frankly, I’m not optimistic, but no harm giving it a try.
Bender, the Church of Rome is part of a communion of local churches as I suspect you’d agree. However, each local church/see is comprised of parishes that most closely mirror organizationally the idea of local community.
Mr. Davis, thank you so very much for your apt description of the situation in today’s church. I agree. My fear (which we apparently share) is that most church-going Catholics are pew potatoes who could care less about the turmoil in the church today. It is this very indifference — along with their weekly/monthly contribution of shekels — that will enable continued ecclesial dysfunction.
Vatican II was all about renewal, i.e., to make new again. JPII began rolling back on this goal, and B16 has been losing no time at all to continue this Tridentine/Traditionalist/Triumphalist agenda.
Those who ignore the lessons of history, psychology…….or just don’t give a damn.
Joseph J,
To my ears there is a difference between having the last voice, and having the only voice. In my understanding of canon law, the pastor may not have the only voice. He must have a finance council, and listen to them, for example.
Kathy –
My question is bout a method of resolving this contentious issue of “two churches”. Neither the lessons of Church history nor logic seem to be of much use. We need wisdom, but what is that?
In the OT, two women claimed the same baby. Solomon in his wisdom came up with a method to determine who was the real mother, but that particular method doesn’t seem very relevant to our problem of the two factions claiming the Church. (Or is it?) Scripture speaks of wisdom all the time, so I believe that there is some sort of power/ virtue/kind of thinking called “wisdom” that is needed for resolving this dilemma, and considering wisdom in either or both testaments might point to a method of getting out of this impasse.
Ann,
I wonder why–if I read you correctly–you consider I Cor 2 to be irrelevant to the task. Or perhaps I misunderstand.
“They’re no-changers in a changers’ world, and that, we must never forget, is they were *taught to be*”
May I suggest a quick reading of 1 Cor 13:11 in response?
If my faith remained at the level of the St. Joseph’s catechism which I was forced to regurgitate back, irrespective of whether I understood it or not, then I might be a bit sympathetic with this 19th century folks. Bit it isn’t and I am not.
Kathy @ 7:16 said: “He (a pastor) must have a finance council, and listen to them, for example.”
As a former member of a Finance Council, I can attest to ‘listen to’ being the operative thought. Actually be bound by what the FC have to recommend? Dream on.
Kathy –
I Cor 2 is about God’s wisdom which is a mystery and beyond us. What I’m looking for is some basic meaning of the word “wisdom” which might help us to proceed past this impasse about two Churches — some method of thinking leading to insight about the nature of the problem and the solution to it. Appealing to what eye has not seen nor ear has heard doesn’t seem to take us down that path.
Among the charisms that St. Paul mentions as a part of the Body of Christ is the charism o f discernment. I suspect that wisdom is related to that — wisdom guides the path of discernment. And, of course, the Holy Spirit will lead someone among us or more than one among us to discern the nature of the two Church problem and its solution. But what specifically does that mean? And in the meantime, what can the rest of us do to hurry that along?
Jimmy Mac –
The no-changers were taught that one of the supreme virtues was to accept everything that comes from Rome, contradictory or not. You’re lucky you’re not one of them. Man is a rational animal — sometimes. Many people find it very easy to accept contradictions. I don’t have a reference for that, but some Piagetians have studied this phenomenon — the toleration or easy acceptance of disequilibrium.
Such disequilibrium isn’t a problem only for the no-changers. We all reach some point where life doesn’t make entirely good sense, and we just don’t know what is entirely true or which way to turn. Disequilibrium seems to be the human condition in this world, and different people handle it in different ways..
“there is no alter Christus or in persona christi.” Bill Mazzella 12/10/2010 – 9:25 pm
That is a heretical statement. Try pleading vincible ignorance at best… P. Flanagan 12/11/2010 – 11:42 am
P. at worst, these statements are incorrect. There is no evidence of “heresy”, which generally includes obstinate persistence.
Whether these statement are incorrect depends on how you take them out of context. For instance, it would be easy to use Dominus Iesus to show that one cannot claim that there is any “alter Christus” besides Jesus. It must therefore be firmly believed as a truth of Catholic faith that the universal salvific will of the One and Triune God is offered and accomplished once for all in the mystery of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son of God. DI 14 (and yes, this is the sense in which Bill is using the term alter Christus)
In persona Christi is more difficult. Matthew 25 provides a clear statement act “in persona Christi”: whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me. Bill is a great proponent of this meaning for “in persona Christi,” so he probably not trying to deny that truth. Perhaps his supposed denial is in fact an affirmation of this meaning?
Sister Mary Wood, I wish I had an answer for you. Your local Ordinary is really that only one that has any control over your local priest. If dialogue does not lead to any peace-filled resolution, I’d suggest an informal and non-confrontation visit with your Bishop.
Keep in mind, however, that as a ‘Personal Prelature’, if the priest involved is Opus Dei, even your local ordinary has no control over him.
Ann, I wish I could tell you that I have file folders full of documentation, but, alas, I have only my observations and conversations with others, including my Bishop, who are also aware and concerned. Sometimes, empirical evidence, while it may support a ‘feeling’ or ‘supposition’ is simply not available. But, when a large enough group of people share the same observations, the same feelings and the same suppositions, there is, at least in my poor estimation, a genuine cause for concern.
I do wish to address myself to members of Opus Dei who may be members or readers of this august forum. I am aware that a great number of very dedicated and competant people, lay and ordained, are members and associates of Opus Dei. I do not believe that the entire Opus Dei movement is evil or has evil intent. So, to those of you whose lives are dedicated to serving the People of God, I make a sincere apology, I really do not mean to paint with such a broad brush. I am afraid, however, that within your membership there are people whose intent is otherwise. It is these people who frighten many of us and, at least in my opinion, they are not in the least carrying on ‘the Work of God’.
When accused of not serving the people, one particular member of Opus Dei was deeply ‘hurt’ and wrote to several of us, “I Love the Church and Her Rites”.
I believe with all my heart that the proper answer should have been “I Love Serving The ‘Church’ – which by definition, IS the people.
As I’ve said before, one of the Pontiff’s many titles is “Servum Servorem” – Servant of the Servants. To serve Christ and his People (the Body of Christ) should be the only reason one accepts a call to Priesthood. And I pray for the priests in our Church who are doing exactly that!
Jonathan –
Thank your for your response. The prognosis does look dreary.
In your experience do Opus Dei members identify themselves as members if you ask them about it? It’s their secrecy that I find scary.
I guess it depends on whether their ordinary is in the dark… And, of course, whether they are capable of being truthful. I would guess that any Opus Dei member who are being less than honest in their actions would follow suit in their words.
That they excuse their secrecy using the ‘greater good’ argument is indicative of their total disregard for ‘truth’ whether everyday truth or revealed ‘truth’. I feel sad for them because they have frequently been duped through their own need to be made to feel ‘special’ into believing in an ‘ideal’ that, divorced from their having been ‘buttered up’ would probably not be believable to them.
They are a sad lot who fall for that type of brainwashing. They honestly believe that their ‘mission’ is that only thing that will save the church from perdition.
Anyway, ’nuff said. Though, if I hear the term ‘extraordinary form’ one more time, I will just start laughing. Sometime the attenpts to obfuscate can be laughable. And, of course, in my situation, the man in question was very likeable, amiable and pleasant – at least to my face, I disliked having contrary opinions fighting for prominance in my mind.
Best to you, and thank you for your comments!
Jonathan
PS – several have commented on the the fact that they are afraid that so many who attend mass just simply do not notice, suspect or challenge: they just put in their time at church and drop their money in the basket, get out to their cars and are as frozen spiritually as when they came in. Since it is true that in a lot of parishes ingnorance and apathy are rampant, we have yet another reason that these groups are able to infiltrate so easily.
I know that in so many churches in the more progressive dioceses, the constant change and the attempt by the liturgy committees to be so relevent often means that symbols are piled upon symbols every week to the extent that eventually the symbols themselves become watered down and meaningless. In so many places, in our feeble attempts to be everything for everyone, we have become MacChurch. So there is a need in the hearts and minds of our assemblies that is met in some odd way with the hyperfundamentist liturgical shows of some priests.
We pray weekly (or, is it – weakly) that God well send us holy and zealous men to be our priests.
Boy, we really need to pray harder, because we’re getting them – much to our own peril.
Thank you Kathy and others who have advised dialogue as a possible way forward with the parish’s retro-pp. I appreciate that this is the first way to respond. In fact the invitation has been made over a month ago and the priest said he would come and would let us know when he is free. He has made no further reference to this topic – to be sure this is a busy time before Christmas.
So far as I can assess, liturgically and administratively this man operates strictly within the letter of the Code of Canon Law, (as is his right) and without the customary flexibilities suggested by diocesan custom and by pastoral guidelines approved by the Bishop.
I do not know whether he is a member of Opus Dei; details of identity of members don’t seem to be available on the Opus Dei website. Jonathan, it’s worrying news indeed that if he is, not even the Bishop could do anything. Not that the Bishop would be likely to; he isn’t pro-backtracking and therefore might feel inhibited by his own preferences, and the fact that he has no priests to spare.
Ann,
Are we reading the same Scripture passages? If I understand correctly, St. Paul is saying that the wisdom of God has been given to believers (I Cor 2: 2, 7, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16). The same gift is evident from the passage you quoted (I Cor 12:8).
I would think that God has given the Holy Spirit, who “has spoken through the prophets,” to the Church, precisely to help us with our problems.
Solomon was referred to above. He had a simple question to answer – which woman is the mother? He had three possible simple answers to choose from – woman A, woman B, or neither. His wisdom came from his acute observations and understanding of the depth of feelings typical mothers have for their own flesh and blood, hardly mysterious.
In the case of the “n churches” issue, the basic questions to be answered in order to resolve the multiple entangled issues don’t even seem to have been identified in answerable form. Therefore, there is no reason to expect answers or solutions to be evident. Contention over pre- and post-Vatican II is diversionary. Based on my very limited knowledge, it is my impression that the 16th-century Council of Trent was the last Church effort to address a broad array of intertwined issues on organization, authority, doctrine, discipline, education, and other matters requiring reform at that time. It took many years of complicated effort to focus and produce after a Pope found the wisdom and courage to initiate it. When a comprehensive effort is essential, as in 1545, nibbling at bits and pieces cannot help much.
Kathy –
In 1 Corinthians St. Paul does not say that “the wisdom of God has been given to believers”. He makes some subtle distinctions which preclude saying that, or so I interpret the letter.
In Chap. 1 St. Paul begins by distinguishing his original words/message to that groups as being only about Jesus crucified, while he says his later words are about what is sublime. He also distinguishes human wisdom and the power of God.
In the second paragraph (which a note in my NAB copy says has some textual problems) he clearly distinguishes the “mysterious, hidden” wisdom of God from the wisdom of men and says that God’s wisdom has been “revealed” to us by the Holy Spirit. But does this mean that we know both *that* there is this special wisdom of God and *what* that wisdom includes?
Apparently not both, for in the third paragraph he also says “no one knows what pertains to God but the Holy Spirit”. As I see it, this means that we know only that there is a special, divine wisdom, but we don’t thereby know just what it contains, what it is. At 16 Paul says, “For ‘who has known the mind of God so as to counsel Him’?” (My copy doesn’t give the ref. for that. Job??)
Nevertheless, we“have received . . . the Spirit that is from God”. Obviously, this presence of the Spirit is somehow in us, but it is not the same thing as the presence of the content of God’s wisdom in us. Chapter 3 says that we are all “temples of the Holy Spirit”, not temples of the wisdom of God. So what is the relationship between the three — Spirit and God’s wisdom and us?
In Chapter 12 he says of that “To one is given the expression of the Spirit, to another knowledge according to the Spirit, to another, faith by the same Spirit. . .”
Chapter 13, mainly about love, makes it clear that these gifts of the Spirit are not complete revelations of what God’s wisdom is, but, rather,
“If there are prophecies they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge it will be brought to nothing. For we know an prophecy partially, but when the perfect comes the partial will pass away. . . At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. ”
To me this clearly means that the inspiration of the Holy Spirit always presents us with only a partial revelation of the wisdom of God. So the wisdom of God in all its vastness remains mysterious to us.
In these texts it also seems obvious that God’s wisdom is knowledge. Does this knowledge include how to judge finite matters? No doubt, but that doesn’t seem to be its primary meaning. But when we speak of human wisdom, it seems to mean that human wisdom is an ability or combination of abilities to judge practical matters wisely (whatever “wisely” means). St. Paul speaks derisively of human wisdom, but I can’t help but think that those statements are rhetorical, his way of contrasting the finite with the infinite (though he doesn’t mention those words here).
So is there yet another kind of wisdom besides God’s wisdom and man’s natural wisdom? Is there some spiritual *habit* of thinking inspired by the Holy Spirit? That’s one of the questions I’d like answered. Are there persons in either Testament who are described as having some spiritual habit of wisdom? (Yes, there are the charisms of prophesy, knowledge, etc., but wisdom is not mentioned as one of them). Solomon’s wisdom in the baby incident seems to be a purely natural kind. Did the Holy Spirit inspire his judgment in that case? (Obvsiously, the H. S. was operative in the OT, whether Israel knew it or not.)
There are just many questions about wisdom I think need answering.
For one thing (here goes another liberal rant?) I think the official Church claims too great an ability to discern what God is trying to tell the Church. Is it true that the bishops and Pope can discern truth *apart* from what the faithful believe? What is the nature of their inspiration? How do they tell what is an inspiration of the Holy Spirit as distinguished from their own hopes or wishful thinking?
It seems to me that the two churches problem revolves around these very questions because the big split is about whether or not those questions have already been answered. The conservatives think that Trent and Piux X and the encyclical on infallibility answered them. The liberals think not.
I’m not presenting a brief for skepticism. I am presenting a brief for *faith* — an understanding that there is no proof for any of our beliefs, only evidence that we find persuasive.
Yes, the Holy Spirit helps us with our problems. But Jesus did not promise that the Holy Spirit will answer all our questions fully, nor that we will always understand His answers accurately. This is why we *must* listen to what the other Christians are sayings, even though they too can be wrong more or less. We see “through a glass darkly”, and we must never forget it.
Ann,
I don’t think that “faith” necessitates an absence of proof. That was Kierkegaard’s reasoning, but I don’t think it’s very sound. I think it sets up a contest between knowledge and faith, and results in fearful vigilance on both sides, Dan Brown/ Christopher Hitchens vs. the Catholic fundies.
I think Thomas’ way of acknowledging a single unified truth was much more amenable to reality, not to mention more productive.
In any case, wouldn’t it be better to back away from the question of certainty, and simply begin with the acknowledgement that the NT does suggest that the Church has a gift of wisdom? If I understand you correctly, the reason you were interested in scriptures on Wisdom was to understand how to solve problems, not to establish certitude.
Kathy –
The Catholic Encycl. quotes V II on faith:
“”The Catholic Church”, says the Vatican Council, III, iv, “has always held that there is a twofold order of knowledge, and that these two orders are distinguished from one another not only in their principle but in their object; in one we know by natural reason, in the other by Divine faith; the object of the one is truth attainable by natural reason, the object of the other is mysteries hidden in God, but which we have to believe and which can only be known to us by Divine revelation.”"
Aquinas held that certain dogmas *are* provable by reason, e.g., that God exists, but that other matters which have been revealed cannot. However, we can use reason to show that the revealed truths are reasonable, that is, they are consistent with the truths we know by common experience and reasoning. But they cannot be proven.
I agree that Thomas thinks that truth is unified, but that doesn’t mean that we can prove all of it. I also think that when talking about “truth” we all ought to be more careful in our speech and talk about *truths* (plural). Yes, there is a set of truths that are consistent with each other, but they are individual truths. So to talk about “TRUTH” is a shorthand for that whole set, some of which are provable, some of which are not, at least by us.
Yes, the Church as a whole no doubt possesses some of the truth that is in God whole and simple, but in God it is also infinite, so the Church doesn’t possess the whole of it — unless you count Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Father as members of the Church.
My interest in wisdom is in just what constitutes the supernatural wisdom of human beings (the partial kind Paul speaks of). I believe that such wisdom is the specific grace that allows us to understand the teachings of the Church, and I believe that the bishops receive more of such grace than the rest of us (or at least more than most of us) because their teaching charism obviously presupposes such understanding. This leads to the questions: how do they and we know that their understandings were indeed inspired in any given case/teaching? And just how much does the action of the Holy Spirit guarantee them and us?
It would be Aristotelian and Thomist to say that wisdom in what characterizes the wise….
St Thomas, in answering the question whether sacra doctrina is a wisdom, defines the role of the wise as one of ordering and judging, that is, of relating things to one another and to their final goal and of evaluating things in that light. In response to an objection, he distinguishes two kinds of wisdom. One enables the wise to judge “by way of inclination, just as one who has a virtue rightly judges things that pertain to that virtue, which is why Aristotle says that the virtuous person is the measure and rule of human acts.” The other kind of wisdom enables the wise to judge “by way of knowledge, as when someone instructed to moral science could judge about acts of a virtue even if he did not possess it.” The first kind of wisdom is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit; the second is the kind that belongs to sacra doctrina and is acquired by study, even though its principles are derived from revelation. (Summa theologica, Ia, q. 1, a. 6)
The gifts of the Holy Spirit, obviously, are not confined to the ordained, and those chosen to be ordained, equally clearly, are not always selected because of the knowledge they have accumulated by study. The gift that bishops receive by ordination–the grace of orders–is a grace of guidance and of prevention, not of inspiration, and there is no reason to think that it can substitute either for holiness or for study. Similarly, to ascertain the Church’s wisdom, one has to consult all the articulations of it that can be found in the Scriptures, the Tradition, the Liturgy, the lives of the holy and the wise, etc., and in the end, of course, it will be the wise who will know what wisdom is.
A 2002 commentary on clerical holiness describes a theoretical distinction made by Maritain in his last book between a bishop acting as instrumental cause and acting as proper cause. Instrumental causality, under defined conditions, allows no error, while, in proper causality, error is always possible. The author notes that the two are often “inextricably intermingled” in actions and teachings in practice, thus leaving it for those with sufficient knowledge, experience, insight, reasoning power, and motivation to sort out any individual truths that may be involved.
http://www.crosscurrents.org/doering.htm
This whole thread shocks me and underscores my distance from the Church.
I just don’t see Satan at work in this picture–I see a special occasion of joyful praise in which the bishop has pulled out all the stops. In my days as a spikey Anglo-Catholic, we saw this type of thing very rarely, but when we did, it was meant to express the joy and praise of all those gathered in.
On the other hand, clergy have to be careful about making sure that opulence is not used so often that it seems like something that reflects personal taste and expression (I make no assumptions about Bp. Slattery; I know very little about him). In such cases, I agree with Judas, the money could be better spent on the poor.
FWIW, Diane Rehm is on the radio talking about the cholera epidemic in Haiti, which strikes me as a more important conversation than that about the cappa magna
“It would be Aristotelian and Thomist to say that wisdom in what characterizes the wise….”
JAK –
Yes, it is certainly Aristotelian and Thomist == a typical Aristotelian=Thomist cop=out very similar to their characterization of “virtue” as what the virtuous man does. It breaks the very first law of Aristotelian logic — don’t use the same word in a definition as the word to be defined.
And that is not a trivial point. As I see it a lot of “action theory” goes back to this cop-out by him. The new ethicians are allowing themselves not to get into the hard problems, like what makes a good thing good. Telling us that a virtue is what is virtuous doesn’t cut it.
Sorry about the rant, but Aristotle isn’t perfect and neither is Thomas.
You also say:
“St Thomas, in answering the question whether sacra doctrina is a wisdom, defines the role of the wise as one of ordering and judging, that is, of relating things to one another and to their final goal and of evaluating things in that light ”
I answer: This gets us somewhere, I think: wisdom is about the particular, involves knowledge, is active, and goal oriented. My question then is: what *kind* of knowledge? Any *special* kind?
JAK explains Thomas: “. . . he distinguishes two kinds of wisdom. One enables the wise to judge “by way of inclination, just as one who has a virtue rightly judges things that pertain to that virtue, which is why Aristotle says that the virtuous person is the measure and rule of human acts.”
Ann replies: This knowledge by inclination is so-called “connatural knowledge” which, as an old Dominican teacher of mine said (in reference to Maritain), really makes the will into a cognitive power. Obviously, this is a great inconsistency in Thomas, but I do think Thomas is right that there is such a thing as an affective grasp of the value of something, but this is a function of the will. I also think that the notion of “fittingness” about which Thomas sometimes talks, is relevant here. If i were rich I’d buy his complete works on CD and search that word. I bet there are some nuggets to be found.
This affective grasp of the good is, to me, one of the dead ends of scholastic philosophy, a place just waiting to be extended by that new Aquinas we need so much. But I can see why Thomas might want to avoid the subject — admitting affectivity as a source of truth could be a very dangerous notion, allowing feelings to tell us what we ought to do.
Thanks for the Summa reference. Must check that out.
JAK again: “The gift that bishops receive by ordination–the grace of orders–is a grace of guidance and of prevention, not of inspiration”
Ann replies: Isn’t guidance a kind of inspiration? Or what? (That guidance “of prevention” sounds interesting. Is it what told the medieval bishops to burn heretics?)
Kathy, while a parish is required by canon 537 to have a finance council, the Code of Canon Law makes clear that such a council is intended to assist the parish pastor without prejudice to the pastor’s final say prescribed by canon 532.
I’ve never served on a parish finance council, but I do know that increasing numbers of Catholic clergy since the beginning of JPII’s pontificate believe their ordinations conferred on them the right to make definitive decisions. In short, both this philosophy of “priesthood” as well as canon law make clear that if a pastor ultimately wants to ignore council input, he is perfectly free to do so.
In supervisory training, I always tried to impress on participants the distinction between ‘hearing’ and ‘listening’. With hearing, we use our ears to physically hear the other person’s words. With listening, on the other hand, we use our hearts to understand the feelings of the other person.
Given today’s church environment, I would not be surprised that many (most?) pastors ‘hear’ the input of their finance council members but, regrettably, do not ‘listen’ to these parishioners. Indeed, James Davidson and Dean Hoge’s “Mind the gap: the return of the lay-clerical divide” published a few years ago in COMMONWEAL would suggest this unfortunate scenario is the rule, not the exception.
Joseph J.,
Forgive me if I’ve told this story before. Years ago, Cardinal Kasper gave the Common Ground lecture. Responding to a question about teaching authority, he smiled and said something like this: “I don’t know if you have this problem in the United States, but in Germany, we have this problem: when there is not a single magisterium, there are many, many, little magisteria.”
I think that is an accurate retelling.
My question is, in governance, who should have the last word? Dean Hoge, an old boss of mine and a friend, was a Presbyterian. Should we have a Presbyterian polity? Why? Would it be more likely to make wiser decisions? Why would that be so? Historically, are Presbyterians more successful in decision making? How are the Presbyterians doing these days? Are they reaching their young people, for example?
What has teaching authority to do with administrative decision-making?
How is a pastor — with little to no management training and/or experience — better qualified than a panel of knowledgeable laity in making decisions about a parish’s finances, etc.?
There is more than one model of organizational decision-making. Why would Rome insist on putting final decision-making in the hands of the pastor and not allow other forms of perfectly legitimate decision-making models to be used in parishes?
How does the late professor’s religious affiliation relate to his sociological empirical research?
Joseph,
Someone will make the ultimate decisions in the parish. If not the pastor, someone else. The pastor optimally knows the people best–knows more of them, and knows their souls. He’s responsible to God for their care on that level.
I don’t think the Aristotelian-Thomist insistence on virtue as what the virtuous do is at all a cop-out. If we are lucky enough to have been born and raised in a family and community where virtues such as justice, patience, courage, wisdom, etc. are being lived out, we will learn what it means to be just, patient, courageous, wise, etc. That’s how human beings learn, not by studying textbooks in philosophy which, in any case, will leave concrete judgements to individuals who will act justly if they are just and won’t if they aren’t. Ann, you seem to want some definition of wisdom as something “out there,” accessible without one’s having to be wise.
As for wisdom by inclination, yes, this is probably what Thomas elsewhere calls “knowledge by connaturality.” You criticize this for making the will a cognitive faculty, and think this inconsistent in Aquinas. But doesn’t he (and Aristotle, too) remind us that it is not the sense that senses, not the intellect that understands, not the will that chooses, but the person who does these several things by the senses, by the mind, and by the will? And in the De veritate, in the section on the soul’s self-knowledge, he does not think that the intellect and will exist in the mind as independent silos, unaffected by one another.
By the grace of guidance, I meant the grace to guide; I didn’t mean God’s guidance, which is what might be parallel to God’s inspiration. And no one has ever maintained that any of the gifts of office confer infallibility or impeccability on the ordained, so your final quip isn’t ad rem.
Kathy, while the pastor may be “responsible to God” for the care of souls, canon law makes sure that he is also in final charge of the parish’s finances. These two responsibilities do not necessarily go hand in hand. In fact, recent news reports, if any, would strongly suggest the pastor stick to the spiritual and leave practical details of management to laity who know better of the task by training and experience.
Joseph,
I hope we don’t need to paint all pastors with that same brush. C’mon.
A budget is a set of priorities. The one who makes the budget, approves the day-to-day, etc., is effectively the one who guides the organization.
Someone will make the final decision. It won’t be “laity.” It will be someone, and that person will be fallible. That person will almost certainly not have heard the parishioners’ confessions or known their most closely held secrets, unless that person is the pastor.
At its best, canon law puts ecclesiology into practice. The ecclesiological principle at work here is, I think, that pastors have the richest and best understanding of the priorities that ought to be held at the parish.
Kathy, you have described clerical paternalism, which is key to the all the dysfunction we see in today’s Church of Rome.
JAK –
You’ve switched topics — from simply saying that virtue is what virtuous people do to you can learn what it is by living with virtuous people. But the latter is true only in some cases — it doesn’t happen automatically, so saying that doesn’t answer the question “what is virtue?”.
Certainly it’s true that virtue is what virtuous persons do, but if a newly-arrived rational Martian who is just learning your language asked, “What is this ‘virtue’ stuff you keep talking about?”, and you answered “Virtue is what virtuous people do” would the Martian (or everyday person) know how to identify a virtuous person when he saw one? Of course not. Even if you said, “Virtue is a good habit of a rational animal” unless and until the Martian has learned what “habit”,”rational animal” and “good” mean he still won’t know what a virtuous person is. Yes, he might — but just *might* — learn what virtue is by living in a family with virtuous people and reflecting and comparing behaviors in certain ways. But that does not automatically happen, so it doesn;t really answer the question.
One must go beyond a trivial saying of Aristotle’s (Virtue is how virtuous people behave) to find the solid foundation of Aristotle’s ethics (“Virtues are human habits which result in the person’s flourishing”).
JAK –
As I remember, Thomas says “it is the whole man who knows” in a text in which he talks about connaturality, and I have always thought that that was just a distraction from the issue: does what he say imply that connatural “knowledge” is a function of the will. I just wish Thomas had thought it out more clearly, because it seems to me there is a grasp of good by the will itself, but that too leads to problems, as I’ve mentioned before.