P.R. masterstroke?
In case you missed it, Robert Mickens’s comment from Peggy’s thread below deserves your attention:
A very helpful piece by John Allen to begin the discussion.
However, in absence of the actual Apostolic Constitution it is difficult and dangerous to draw too many conclusions. We are left only with open questions.
The people at the CDF think they have cleverly “scooped” the media.
This is what happened: at 6 p.m. on Monday evening the Holy See press office announced that Cardinal Levada and Archbishop Di Noia were to hold a press briefing the next morning at 11 a.m. on a “topic concerning relations between Catholics and Angicans”. Many journalists never got the news until the next day and some of them never heard about the briefing until it was already over. The last-minute announcement of a briefing on a vague topic meant that most of journalists were not prepared to ask the proper questions. Usually, a press conference is announced a week in advanced and the topic is clear.
When we arrived at the press hall we expected to receive a document. Instead, we were given an “explanatory note” of the still unpublished Apostolic Constitution. But this was not distributed to us until the briefing got underway.
During the question period neither Cardinal Levada nor Archbishop Di Noia would provide journalists with figures or much detail — how many people are we talking about? which groups are we talking about? who was involved in the committee to draft these still unpublished provisions? were the Catholic episcopal conferences where these groups are found (e.g. England and Wales, especially) involved in the process or consulted? The responses to all these questions were vague, I pointed out at the briefing, asking for more clarity. “If we have been vague, then so be it,” was Cardinal Levada’s answer. Archbishop Di Noia refused to provide the names of people who were involved in the consultation process. He only said it included a limited number of persons and that it was important to protect confidentiality.
A public relations master stroke?
Confusion reigned at the end of the briefing. No one was quite sure what had been announced. And the news reports that have followed reflect this confusion.
Without the actual legislative text — the Apostolic Constitution — it is hard to know just what exactly is at stake.
Among the many question, add these:
1. What specifically Anglican patrimony will be allowed to remain after the “corporate reunion” of these Anglican groups with Rome? Will it include merely the “spiritual and liturgical” patrimony? Are these the only differences between Anglicans and Catholics? And are they even the most essential? There is also a distinctively Anglican ecclesiology and church order (or new elements of such) that have development over the centuries. One thinks immediately of synodality, the selection of bishops and other pastors, the role of vestries, the role of the non-ordained faithful in governance and oversight, etc… Will any of the ecclesiological part of the “heritage” be preserved? If the heritage is limited to “spiritual and liturgical”, then are we not talking about Anglicans being “absorbed” into Rome. And would this not be the establishment of a Western model of “uniatism” (to use the pejorative term).
2. The issue of married priests has left many commentators confused. Some seem to think that the new provisions would create a section within Catholicism where a married priesthood would be perpetuated. But it seems that this will depend on a steady and lasting flow of “coversions” (to use an incorrect term) of married Anglican priests to Catholicism. What type of norms will be needed to regulate this traffic? What of priests who are divorced and remarried? What of Catholics who become Anglicans, get ordained, and then come back to Rome? There will many more issues, as well…
Many, many questions — all impossible to answer without the so far nameless and faceless Apostolic Constitution (which we were told the Pope has already approved, despite the fact it is not completed).
And, of course, what does this auger for Rome’s (evolving) attitude towards and involvement in the field of ecumenism?
It is with a chuckle that I point out the (perhaps) Freudian slip in the last sentence of the quote. The spelling “auger” above refers to a tool for boring holes in something while the spelling “augur” means to foretell, possibly by means of omens.
My gut feeling is that this latest outreach will open a can of worms that will make the SSPX brouhaha look tame. I read in their blog that Archbishop DiNoia contacted a group of cloistered Dominican nuns to ask them to pray for a project he had been involved with, but did not reveal its nature. They seem to be keeping this highly secretive to contain possible negative fallout.
Auger for augur does not augur well! Perhaps he was thinking of boredom. Marvelous!
Leaders who either consult no one or consult only those whose personal modesty or whose bent for adulation inhibits frankness–such leaders, one might say, are only consulting themselves. What sort of adviser does such a one have? I say no more.
I meant of course that boredom is the kingdom of those who auger.
The Vatican must be a unique place to be a journalist – I never heard of news conferences being announced a week early so that reporters could study up on the subject. I guess it is a sign of modernization if the Vatican is using the usual P.R. techniques reporters encounter on other beats.
When I covered City Hall in New York, officialdom’s method for dealing with reporters was often described as the mushroom-growing technique – keep them in the dark, and apply plenty of manure. I don’t really know if that works with mushrooms, though.
So this thread is for comments on Mickens’ comments on Margaret’s comments on Allen’s comments on an announcement by the Holy See…
Nothing’s simple!
Claire –
Now I get it — it’s about what he said she said about what he said they said.
Interesting discussion anyway :-)
You got it Ann… As a big fan of diversion tactics, could this really be an offer to SSPX… meeting this week? ? It’s not Calais ..it’s Normandy..
No, its Chamberlain (aka B16) giving up Czech and Sudetenland because it keeps the peace (aka resolves schism). And makes about as much sense.
Does the Catholic Church consider Anglican orders valid? Do Catholics believe that in an Anglican mass, bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, just as in a Catholic mass? Do Anglicans believe that they do? Apparently Pope Leo XIII’s statement that Anglican orders are “absolutely null and utterly void,” and then Cardinal Ratzinger’s 1998 CDF statement reaffirming that somehow don’t constitute a definitive answer. Or do they? I am a little confused.
David, when a PR master stroke can be had, even dogma must stay in the background. I mean these Anglicans really like us.
I’m glad this comment was brought out in a separate thread. It is valuable to have eyewitness testimony as it adds another dimension to an otherwise remote dicsussion of details of which we aren’t yet aware. PR master stroke? It all depends what the goal was? If the Vatican wanted lots of discussion and speculation, and to keep everyone semi-confused, well, it worked. And that’s sometimes the goal of organizations. Whether it is a good thing or not, who knows.
The lack of consultation with Canterbury on such a momentous ecumenical action does seem strange, to put it charitably. I would love to know what is going one behind the scenes now, with a couple of weeks before the ApCon (as I am dubbing the Apostolic Constitution, using appropriate Pentagon-speak) is released. Perhaps this is when the real negotiating takes place.
This is what makes the Vatican such journalistic fun!
PS: Paul, as for the difference between Rome and secular political organizations, the Vatican is usually calling press conferences to release a major document that everyone usually knows is coming, and it is often of such a complex and particular nature that it behooves all sides to bone up as much as possible. Not that the coverage necessarily reflects that. But Vatican press conferences are desgined to explain and illuminate, unlike many secular political newsers.
New briefings–the more informal chats between the Vatican spokesman and the accredited press–are often more impromptu, if they happen at all. If there is news that the Vatican does not like or want to talk about, they won’t. Hence the reliance on unnamed sources. So the Vatican is both more open and less transparent than many other organizations,
“Does the Catholic Church consider Anglican orders valid?”
Officially, no. Historically, the position may be subject to challenge (a challenge, btw, that may put the validity of Catholic orders to challenge). Also, I understand that various Anglican bishops have been consecrated by validly consecrated non-Catholic bishops over the years.
“Do Catholics believe that in an Anglican mass, bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, just as in a Catholic mass. Do Anglicans believe that they do?”
Regarding both Catholics and Anglicans, it likely depends on who is asked.
In light of scholarly research, statements on the validity of Anglican orders by Leo XIII and Ratzinger are subject to serious challenge.
This issue may be a matter of “People in glass houses should not throw stones” (the “glass houses” referring here, of course, to Rome).
The Apostolic Constitution will be promulgated in two weeks? As one of my former bosses, Archbishop…., a wonderful boss and a very keen observer, used to say often, “If I were a betting man ….” I borrow his words.
2. The issue of married priests has left many commentators confused. Some seem to think that the new provisions would create a section within Catholicism where a married priesthood would be perpetuated. But it seems that this will depend on a steady and lasting flow of “coversions” (to use an incorrect term) of married Anglican priests to Catholicism. What type of norms will be needed to regulate this traffic? What of priests who are divorced and remarried? What of Catholics who become Anglicans, get ordained, and then come back to Rome? There will many more issues, as well…
I would add yet another question about priesthood. Is it clear that already married Anglican bishops and priests, who convert, will be the only married clergy in the new Personal Ordinariate? What happens when it is up and running and a non-ordained man, an already converted PO Anglican, presents himself for ordination. Will he be ordained? If the married priesthood is part of what is being “preserved” in the tradition of this PO, then it will have to be supplied as noted in the post, but does supplying mean a steady flow of converting priests and bishops? What of vocations being generated from within? What kind of issues will this raise for the rest of the Church?
Ratzinger has punished many theologians for causing confusion, yet this is only one example of his own unequalled gift for causing the most impenetrable confusion. Some Anglican bishops are going on in the same way, loudly declaring that they are thinking of going over to Rome. The intent is to bully or blackmail. It is all smoke and mirrors, a publicity stunt. Real conversion does not put carts before horses — first you have clear theological issues, then a patiently considered decision. Newman’s Apologia offers a model of how it’s done.
“Real conversion does not put carts before horses.”
So true.
Every indication (opposition to gay and female ordination and gay marriage) suggests these folks are moving “from” rather than “toward.”
Joseph O’Leary speaking of Anglican bishops: “The intent is to bully or blackmail. It is all smoke and mirrors, a publicity stunt.” This process works both ways and in the U.S. the pro-gay marriage, pro-gay bishop coalition indulge some of the same processes. This is an element of social change always, but it is also the kid who threatens to take his marbles and go home.
The poem below pokes a little fun at Anglo-Catholics. I’ve seen it fondly recalled (from the 1980’s) on a number of Anglican sites recently. It’s by Eric Mascall, who was an Anglican and also a distinguished Thomist philosopher. The last line may have to be revised.
—————————–
I am an Ultra-Catholic – No ‘Anglo-,’ I beseech you!
You’ll find no trace of heresy in anything I teach you.
The clergyman across the road has whiskers and a bowler,
But I wear buckles on my shoes and sport a feriola.
My alb is edged with deepest lace, spread over rich black satin;
The Psalms of Dâvid I recite in heaven’s own native Latin,
And, though I don’t quite understand those awkward moods and tenses,
My ordo recitandi’s strict Westmonasteriensis.
I teach the children in my school the Penny Catechism,
Explaining how the C. of E.’s in heresy and schism.
The truths of Trent and Vatican I bate not one iota.
I have not met the Rural Dean. I do not pay my quota.
The Bishop’s put me under his ‘profoundest disapproval’
And, though he cannot bring about my actual removal,
He will not come and visit me or take my confirmations.
Colonial prelates I employ from far-off mission-stations.
The music we perform at Mass is Verdi and Scarlatti.
Assorted females form the choir; I wish they weren’t so catty.
Two flutes, a fiddle and a harp assist them in the gallery.
The organist left years ago, and so we save his salary.
We’ve started a ‘Sodality of John of San Fagondez,’
Consisting of the five young men who serve High Mass on Sundays;
And though they simply will not come to weekday Mass at seven,
They turn out looking wonderful on Sundays at eleven.
The Holy Father I extol in fervid perorations,
The Cardinals in Curia, the Sacred Congregations;
And, though I’ve not submitted yet, as all my friends expected,
I should have gone last Tuesday week, had not my wife objected.
—————————-
The comments to this post have a few more “poems”:
http://anglicanexfide.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-am-ultra-catholic.html
Also all in good fun, here are old recordings of the weather report and the pedestrian code, in Anglican chant:
http://marguerite.ca/images/mastersingers.mp3
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/thegablehouse/chris-j/highway.mp3
It seems that it’s never good news with you guys.
The Pope responds to appeals made by several Anglican/Episcopalian groups seeking to find a way to Rome as faith communities, rather than individually.
He responds to these various pleas in a pastoral manner. He provides a path that may assist.
Whether it is taken up or not is not the point. The point is that the Pope responded to people seeking a way to come home, people who asked him to provide it – and he has done so.
Based on the commentary here over the past week you would think that the world is about to fall in.
Ecumenism – as thought through Vatican II – had and continues to have a goal – reunification of the Christian family.
The Pope is fulfilling the demands of the Council.
It won’t break your faces to rejoice in the fruits.
Please listen to the people at the Forward in Faith assemblyhttp://www.forwardinfaith.com/news/na09-10.html
They are good, sincere people. But they are obviously entirely unwilling to take up the Roman offer. Rather they mourn wistfully the lack of true Catholic spirit in Anglicanism, urge each other to do all in their power to ensure a more Catholic membership of the General Synod next time, and to continue the struggle for the provisions they demand through the synodical process. The is Anglo-Catholicism as usual, and there is not sign of a mass exodus to Rome in the making — except for one fatuous chap who talked about the Hebrews loading themselves with spoils as they quit Egypt. Even those who most affect to be tempted by Rome are quick to point out that the entire Roman offer is very vague and that they cannot make any response until the full details are clear. Do I also detect unspoken panic in their ranks? Do they fear that the Roman offer will spell not the end of Anglicanism but the end of Anglo-Catholicism? Never ask the Vatican for anything — for you may get what you asked for!
Catherine Harding, what fruits? No one seems happy with this.
http://www.forwardinfaith.com/news/na09-10.html
Judging again from this discussion, I think there may be some who are exhilarated by the Roman offer because they think it will force the Anglican General Synod to grant them provisions that they have demanded up to now. But their delight seems to have little to do with the positive thrust of the papal offer. They insist that Anglicanism, properly understood, is already fully Catholic, and they want their fellow-Anglicans to wise up to that fact. Going over to Rome would be a dismal second-best, in fact an admission of defeat for their historical cause. The papal offer may have scuttled that cause, putting an end to the credibility of Anglo-Catholicism within the Church of England.
Were the Forward in Faith people part of the group that made the request to the Vatican? If they are, then the alleged 500,000 ready to “go over” are just a mirage.
I think this is the situation: The Traditional Anglican Communion (claimed membership 500,000) have left the Anglican Communion, whereas Forward in Faith, with which the TAC maintains close links, is still within the Anglican Communion, as its foremost traditionalist organization. It is the TAC who made the appeal to Rome, no doubt with the sympathy of FiF.
See also: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/peter-stanford-after-500-years-has-the-pope-outfoxed-the-archbishop-1808966.html
Father O’Leary,
As a Catholic priest why would you not be happy about this?
As a Catholic priest, why would it disturb you that the Pope has offered this path to Rome to those who have requested it of him?
As a Catholic priest, why would you be inclined not to reach out for the positve in this moment?
As a Catholic priest, why does it upset you so much that there are so many people looking to this Pope to provide them with the pastoral care that they have not found elsewhere?
The fruits, dear Father O’Leary, are of course ripening as we speak.
Don’t break your face, Father, in rejoicing for them as they bloom.
Dear Catherine Harding,
Your sense, I swear, I’ve come to share:
that gloom lies heavy in the air.
Yet, don’t despair! the day dawns fair:
And all our ills Christ will repair.
The Pope responds to appeals …. in a pastoral manner. He provides a path that may assist.
He responded oddly, leaving the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity out of the process.
Whether it is taken up or not is not the point. The point is that the Pope responded to people seeking a way to come home, people who asked him to provide it – and he has done so.
They always had a “way to come home” … they could have converted.
Ecumenism – as thought through Vatican II – had and continues to have a goal – reunification of the Christian family. The Pope is fulfilling the demands of the Council.
Many think the work of true ecumenism has been damaged by this. What you seem to be calling ecumenism sounds more like uniatism
.
Thank you Robert, but you seriously misunderstand me if you think that what I feel is “gloom.” Far from it. I do not “share” this with you.
I have a sense of anticipation
mixed with a sum of of trepidation
And so I do give joy today
and pray the Pope has shown the way.
I see my take on Forward in Faith and my sense that ‘a bluff has been called’ is shared by De Cura Animarum blog (by an Anglican priest who have gone over to the RCC):
‘This present meeting is even more clear than the one in February that all the talk of being Catholic ‘seems’ to be not much more than what the individual wants to believe is Catholic. To be perfectly honest, it almost feels like a bluff has been called. Sitting and listening to those speeches made me sad and realise that for many in the C of E, the issue that alone makes them ‘feel’ Catholic is being against the ordination of women or so it seems… I am finding the addresses to be very difficult to listen to. I honestly wonder how it is that I belonged to a movement that gives appearances of not really wanting real reunion with Rome when it has finally been offered with some real substance. What I hope becomes clear to those at this Assembly is that the Holy Father is NOT putting forth some document to be revised by a revision committee or determined by a popularity of a majority as something akin to a general synod. Sorry folks, that is not the Catholic way. It’s not about lace and birettas; it’s about authority and truth. There is all sorts of talk about Eucharist and ecclesiology and an ecclesial solution to their problems but this language is becoming all the more nothing save fancy rhetoric. It is really time to take a closer look at what is the substance of being Catholic. I was absolutely shocked and grateful for the generosity and love our Holy Father is offering the Anglican worldwide communion and then only to hear the voices of people claiming to be Catholic at this meeting and longing to remain Anglicans and CofE blows the mind.’
Crystal Watson, maybe I am wrong, but I think ‘the pastoral care that they have not found elsewhere’ is a rather rosy picture of what Anglo-Catholicism is about. They are a lobby within Anglicanism and they want to push their way on everyone else. I understand that the TAC, the main pushers for the Pope’s offer, is actually in schism from the Anglican Communion. Surely given such a risky matter the Pope should have kept the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales, and his friend Archbishop Rowan Williams in the loop? His judgement is highly erratic if he thinks he knows better than they do, as if the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith were omnicompetent. This is his intellectualist bias and shows again his lack of pastoral experience.
Oops, I meant the last message for Catherine Harding.
Ah, Catherine, the perils of poesy!
I did not mean to suggest that you felt “gloom,” but that you perceived it in the dotCombustible air.
Would a scribal emendation from “the air” to “this air” “clairify?”
Crystal,
I do not pretend to know who was involved in the consultations preceding the recent announcement in Rome. It is perhaps telling that cardinal Kasper was away, engaged in dialogue with the Orthodox.
But you recall his somber words in an address to the Lambeth Conference in 2008:
“I have already addressed the ecclesiological problem when bishops do not recognize other’s episcopal ordination within the one and same church, now I must be clear about the new situation which has been created in our ecumenical relations. While our dialogue has led to significant agreement on the understanding of ministry, the ordination of women to the episcopate effectively and definitively blocks a possible recognition of Anglican Orders by the Catholic Church.
It is our hope that a theological dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church will continue, but this development effects directly the goal and alters the level of what we pursue in dialogue. The 1966 Common Declaration signed by Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey called for a dialogue that would “lead to that unity in truth, for which Christ prayed”, and spoke of “a restoration of complete communion of faith and sacramental life”. It now seems that full visible communion as the aim of our dialogue has receded further, and that our dialogue will have less ultimate goals and therefore will be altered in its character. While such a dialogue could still lead to good results, it would not be sustained by the dynamism which arises from the realistic possibility of the unity Christ asks of us, or the shared partaking of the one Lord’s table, for which we so earnestly long.”
Indeed it would Robert.
Well emended and much appreciated.
@ Father O’Leary: “maybe I am wrong”
An excellent place to start, Father. Unfortunately it all goes downhill from the next inevitable word “but…”.
Be hopeful Father, and place your trust in God.
Let’s just be patient and wait and see how it all pans out. It’s not as if we are on a 24/7 newspin cycle here. We can affort to sit back and watch, and hope, and pray.
ISTM that gloom is the proper response to this action.
In order to establish a place for ‘disaffected’ Anglicans, the Vatican had to decide how to handle Anglican Orders, and so they did decide apart from any dialogue with Anglicans. That decision was apparently made last year, as evidenced by Kasper’s pessimism and the CDF’s July letter saying communities without bishops are not true Churches. This negative, unilateral decision should be enough to end all ecumenism, and probably is enough to scuttle any substantial number of Anglicans from taking up this offer.
OTOH, great good may come from it. Perhaps the Church of England, or New Zealand, or Kenya, or someplace else, will take advantage of this provision and corporately reunite with Rome. Not disaffected Anglicans, but the establishment. Maybe Abp Tutu in South Africa will do something in his role as peacemaker.
Promises
The pope has made an offer not as clear
As some would like, yet others loudly cheer.
Remember, friends, for it is doubtless true
What a pope has done, a pope can yet undo.
JFXG in the manner (he hopes) of A. Pope
I move we continue this discussion in heroic couplets. The discipline would be good for us.
I’m afraid I must intervene. DotCommonweal maintains a strict no-rhyming policy in its comboxes.
Side note to Ms. Harding: You’ve stepped into hyperbole. I recommend walking back from it. No one here is suggesting the Anglican express lane portends the end of the world. Nor is it “never good news” with us guys. The way this announcement has been made raises questions that cannot be waved away with rejoicing.
How about blank verse for the Miltons among us?
Catherine Harding: “It seems that it’s never good news with you guys”; and an amendment to Grant.
The responses here, especially the more critical ones, have less to do not with Catholic attitudes toward Anglicans/Episcopalians than toward the pope and the Catholic system of governance. This announcement, whose content is still unclear, comes as many such announcements, from on high! And with Benedict one begins to wonder how much they are the outcome of careful consultation and discussion, even within the confines of the Vatican, or the personal and idiosyncratic views of Benedict and his allies.
Though there has not been much comment here on the appointment of Bishop Raymond Burke to the Vatican committee that appoints bishops, it is much the same problem. What does it mean? Who decided this? What are the consequences not just for the U.S. church where Burke has been an outlier, but for Catholic churches around the world? When those who foster an aura of infallibility about all things Catholic seem to act and pronounce in an arbitrary manner, what are we to make of their claims to authority?
Fr. Imbelli,
I do remember Cardinal Kasper at Lambeth, and remember what NT Wright wrote in response :) – Women Bishops: A Response to Cardinal Kasper – but I get your point …. that there was probably never, even with the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, a hope of ecumenism in the sense of respect for the differences that divide us, and that even if the Pontifical Council had been in the loop, things may have been no different. It’s just that many Anglicans seem disturbed that the plan didn’t go through the normal channels that would have given them a decent heads up . The Anglican Center in Rome said ….
For more than a year, we at the Anglican Centre in Rome have heard rumors of groups of former Anglicans meeting in Rome with representatives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. But we were neither informed nor consulted about these conversations, nor was the staff of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the ecumenical office of the Holy See, who are our closest dialogue partners in Rome. The Pontifical Council did not draft the Constitution, nor did it participate in the press conference announcing the Constitution. The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that he was informed of the announcement “at a very late stage,” and the Archbishop’s Representative to the Holy See, the Very Rev. David Richardson, has said that he was “taken aback by the Vatican’s decision.”
I remember a theologian close to Ratzinger expressing frank Schadenfreude over Anglican divisions. I hope that sort of thing does not go on in the Vatican entourage of the Pope.
Speaking of Milton, you must admire the restraint of our Anglican friends — not one of them has quoted the lines: ‘But the grim Wolf with privy paw/Daily devours apace and nothing said…’
Grant Gallicho
Re: your sidenote. I don’t believe I’m stepping into hyperbole and have no intention from walking back from what I’ve written, thanks all the same.
Prior to your post I wrote: Let’s just be patient and wait and see how it all pans out. It’s not as if we are on a 24/7 newspin (sic) cycle here. We can affort to sit back and watch, and hope, and pray.
That would be my recommendation to you and me and everyone else.
My quote should begin, “Besides what the grim…”
“Sit back and watch, and hope, and pray…”
The whole point of comboxes is to be part of the developing dialectic of historical change and to descry the meaning of events even as they unfold. The meaning of the present event is, imho, a negative one, to be put alongside Regensburg, the Motu Proprio, the Williamson affair, and the various CDF documents putting down the other Christian Churches. The significance of this constellation of events is what is to be discerned.
Like Fr O’Leary I can’t resist making a combox contribution, thus becoming “part of the developing dialectic of historical change and to descry the meaning of events even as they unfold.”
Surely by now it should be obvious that the Pope’s opening to the Anglicans must have been OK’d by Queen Elizabeth. In exchange the Pope will allow her to make a similarly “game-changing” visit to Ireland in the coming year.
Father O’Leary, you rarely fail to make me smile:
“The whole point of comboxes is to be part of the developing dialectic of historical change and to descry the meaning of events even as they unfold”
and I’m pleased to say that your latest produced a genuine guffaw.
But, pray, does not descrying “the meaning of events even as they unfold” cry to Olympus for the Muse of poesy to give it congruent expression? And does Grant, by outlawing same, not thereby set himself in willful opposition to the “dialectic of historical change” (whether in its grandiose Hegelian or more modest Marxist version)?
What would Milton say?
“When those who foster an aura of infallibility about all things Catholic seem to act and pronounce in an arbitrary manner, what are we to make of their claims to authority?”
Not much.
(As an aside, I’d delete the phrase “seem to.”)
Fr. Imbelli, you crack me up.
Catherine avows: “Father O’Leary, you rarely fail to make me smile … your latest produced a genuine guffaw.”
Kathy contends: “Fr. Imbelli, you crack me up.”
Sumus soli servi servorum Dei!
“Sumus soli servi servorum Dei!”
Anglice, ut uidetur, “We alone are the slaves of the slaves of God.”
Do tell. I had thought that the bishop of Rome was the seruus seruorum Dei according to Gregory the Great. It seems now that the ones so enslaved are many. Who is so unfortunate as still to be left out.
Catherine Harding asked what’t not to love about the Vatican initiative, and how I as a Catholic priest can find anything to niggle about. The answer is spelt out with great lucidity in this excellent article: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/10/26/from_vatican_a_tainted_olive_branch/
Actually Father O’Leary I did not ask either of those two questions.
I did ask the following four:
As a Catholic priest why would you not be happy about this?
As a Catholic priest, why would it disturb you that the Pope has offered this path to Rome to those who have requested it of him?
As a Catholic priest, why would you be inclined not to reach out for the positve in this moment?
As a Catholic priest, why does it upset you so much that there are so many people looking to this Pope to provide them with the pastoral care that they have not found elsewhere?
Ah, the joys of participating in the “developing dialectic.”
We’re all set with the cracks about Fr. O’Leary’s comment, thanks. And, LaBarre2305, if you’re going to repeat the mantra “as a Catholic priest,” as if conducting a cross examination, wouldn’t it be fair to share your station?
@ Grant Gallicho,
I have – as observed from years of reading the views of many who post on threads here do so – provided my real name as my moniker.
You can “google” it if you care to.
I have neither tried to share nor refrained from sharing my “station.” I simply haven’t felt it necessary at this point as a newbie to to provide anything more about me or my “station” – as you so condescingly put it – than would add in any way meaningful to the threads in which I am just starting to post.
On the other hand why would you be so insecure/paranoid as to have a problem with this to the extent that you feel it necessary to post my login?
Grant, please feel free to contact me directly at my email addy with any genuine queries you may have – although God knows, no one ever told me that merely posting comments at a Catholic blog that supposedly invites contributions, would lead to the Inquisition.
But Grant – don’t you dare try to smear me by innuendo.
If it is problematic for me to ask Father O’Leary questions that he would prefer not to answer, then Grant, please leave it to the good Father to say so on his own behalf.
You demean him and embarrass yourself with this “throw-dolly-out-of-the-pram” moment.
If however, I am ever in need of a bruiser from outside the neighbourhood, I’ll certainly know who to call.
What makes you think I dared to try to smear you by innuendo? What makes you think “station” is condescending? Vocation? Job? Hobby? I wonder why you continue to hammer home “as a priest.” It seems to me you’re implying something about O’Leary in doing so. You ought to come out and say what that is.
I didn’t “find it necessary” to post your login. You’re interrogating O’Leary, sniffing at those who disagree with you along the way. And of course, users’ e-mail addresses are viewable by mouse-over. I presumed that you, as a reader of the blog “for years,” would know that.
The only one conducting an inquisition on this thread is you.
I’ve never understood those who attack from behind a veil of anonymity. That seems the height of cowardice by those accusing others of various weaknesses.
@ David Gibson
Insofar as your post may have been directed at me – as I can see no other post to which it may pertain – pray tell just how I might – by way of adopting a gmail addy while giving my real name as my moniker – be seen as a) anonymous? or b) attacking someone from behind it?
I asked Father O’Leary some straightforward questions because I was actually interested in learning what his responses might be.
It’s up to him to respond or not. He chose not to. That’s fine.
It’s NOT up to Grant Gallicho to play Joe McCarthym however, and shame on you Mr Gibson for falling in line.
Either this is truly a forum welcoming honest debate (within acceptable boundaries) or it’s just a little club for the “in” crowd to congratulate eachother on their own shared viewpoints.
Clearly I’m not in the club, but that doesn’t mean that the first response to the stating of an alternative view to that of the group consensus makes it a threat deserving of circling the wagons.
I’m sad to say that it actually says much more about the “weakness” of the group think here than it does about me.
I will keep trying and – considering the above – will bear in mind the now obvious sensitivities that I see that some contributors have.
But you people have to start seriously thinking through just what it is you want to accomplish by having this blog.
I’m a child of Vatican II and a happy one. I don’t have a position within the nasty firmanent of internal US Catholic politics That is to say, I have no dog in the race that you Americans are playing amongst yourselves.
I’ve come aboard because I’m interested in Catholicism and Catholic discourse. If you feel I shouldn’t be here, then just tell me and I’ll be on my way.
I’m not interested in being smeared by somebody’s political-based paranoia. I’m not even American. If you tell me that it’s not just Grant, but actually the rest of you that feel the same way, then happy to go.
It won’t be long before this thread is bumped off the blog’s main page. Thanks be. But, perhaps only for the benefit of Catherine Harding, allow me to clarify something. I’m one of the moderators of this blog. Why Ms. Harding is so upset that I would exercise that role with respect to her interrogation of Fr. O’Leary–disturbed enough to accuse me of McCarthyistic paranoia–is beyond me.
This is a forum for honest debate. It’s also a forum for civil debate. Those who have trouble with that are not welcome here.
Grant,
I’ll be sure to keep in mind what you have said for reference with respect to my future postings.
Thanks.
In return, may I ask that you – particularly in your role as one of the moderators here – consider Luke 6:42.