"Well, its not against the law Father"

“It’s not against the law” is one of the responses frequently given when challenging people to recognise that sex before marriage, contraception, abortion, self-abuse and homosexual acts, are contrary to the Gospel and endanger a person’s salvation when he or she knowingly, deliberately and freely engages in such acts. While folk readily accept that political oppression, unfair distribution of wealth, violence etc., are sins, they are not so ready to accept that the above are sins “because they’re part of a loving, committed relationship” and “not against the law”. These responses are common among not only among the younger generation (whose Catholic formation is thereby shown to be woefully -even dangerously- inadequate) but also among some older Catholics who are unable to accept that their adult children are living spiritually dangerous lives.

The underlying reality is that people have moved from allegiance to God to allegiance to the world by exchanging God’s Law for man’s law, though man’s law is simply legislating to make the deadly sin of lust acceptable. Indeed, it appears to legislates against those who hold to God’s law, for example, those who refuse to register same-sex marriages or to supervise junior midwives taking part in abortion. A major cause of this change of allegiance is adherence to the person-centred approach of “whatever is right for you”, even though this is a dressing up of the essence of original sin: “I will not serve”. Sadly, the person-centred approach has influenced many preachers too, who thereby turn the people from the worship of God to the idolisation of the self. Such preachers, whether of diaconal, presbyteral or episcopal rank may see themselves as enlightened, but in reality they are walking in the dark, hoodwinked by the father of lies, and they are leading others into the dark with them. They may well believe they are making the Church ‘welcoming’ so that a person does not feel judged in their lifestyle choice, but they are a danger to souls; unwitting wolves rather than good shepherds. God forbid that a Doctor should fail to judge smoking and alcohol abuse as dangerous so that the patient does not feel judged in their lifestyle choice...

We who preach and teach must correct the work of the deceiver; we must speak what is true and pastorally hold out hope in the mercy of God to folk when they fail, without making that failure into an acceptable option. We should, as Saint Alphonsus said, be like lions in the pulpit and lambs in the confessional. Unfortunately we have become lambs in the pulpit; the proverbial dumb sheep who does not open its mouth (Isaiah 53v7). What can we do to fight back against the deceiver?

Clear preaching and teaching is, I think, essential. It is the light of Truth that sets us free, not the subjectivism of “whatever is right for you”. Also essential is God-centred worship. Too often our liturgy also falls prey to person-centred ideologies by seeking to make it entertaining, emotionally moving or ‘relevant’. I suspect that the preachers and teachers who are person-centred in their pastoral care are also those who provide emotive, affective liturgy. After all, we pray as we believe.

I know preaching against contraception, homosexual acts etc, can be offensive to those who have chosen such lifestyles and to their families, but are we not to bring the light of Christ into the darkness of such lives? I know too that celebrating the liturgy without ‘originality’ is regarded as rule-bound and ‘dead’ by some, but I am acutely aware that the purpose of the liturgy is to adore, propitiate and thank God, not to ‘move’ the people. If we aim for the latter we place self and the people front and centre, not God.

As society continues to follow the person-centred ideology and legislate for the deadly sin of lust, only the people of God can bring the light of the Risen Lord into society and save His beloved children from the hands of the enemy. This is true whether we are preachers and teachers, or at work in factory, field, hospital or media. 

Pope Francis: A Different Kind of Pope?

I share the concern of Pope Francis for those who are poor and oppressed, as does the rest of our parish and of course, Father Dickson. We are not a rich parish; in fact we are a former ‘Pit Village’ (mining village) parish whose industry was lost in the 1980’s, so the needs of the poor and oppressed are close to the hearts of us all. As such, we not only pray for the deprived every weekend in the General Intercessions but, under the initiative of Father Dickson establishing charitable coffee mornings after Sunday Mass, try to support them practically too. For from these coffee mornings we send a few hundred pounds each year to our favourite charities (Aid to The Church In Need, Water Aid and the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child). We also collect and donate clothing to the Knights of Saint Columba, the SVP and to our Diocesan 5p Bus Scheme, in which a bus travels to the impoverished areas of the Diocese to sell clothing at 5p an item. Our Prize Bingo has raised funds for several non-Catholic good causes within our village, and our Red Mission Boxes are always well-filled. I mention this to show that we are a parish in which those in need are remembered both spiritually and corporally, although we celebrate both the ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Mass with as much dignity, reverence and beauty as possible. Sometimes, this is the only beauty the poor have in their lives. We are then, I think, a parish of the same heart and will as Pope Francis. In fact, I don’t believe a Catholic parish exists that does not have a heart and a will for the needy and oppressed.

All that said, I think that the picture we are getting of Pope Francis at present is problematic. Like Father Dickson, I have no doubt that Pope Francis’ concern for and identification with the poor is genuine. However, I worry that by divesting himself of certain papal attire and ignoring the rubrics of the Missal he is allowing the so-called ‘socially aware’ (liberal, left-field catholic) to use him as a stick with which to beat down the reputation of Benedict XVI and all previous popes who retained the fullness of papal attire and remained faithful to doctrine and to the rubrics of the Missal. The presentation we are getting of Francis is that for the first time we have “a pope who is genuinely concerned for the poor”, as though other popes were not; “a pope who is humble”, as though other popes were not; “a pope who reaches out”, as though others did not; “a pope who does not hide behind bullet-proof glass”, as though others always did. Personally, I think abandoning the fullness of papal attire does not help us to see the papacy, but the man who holds the papal office, and I think it should be the opposite way round: that he should be less seen for who he is than for the office he holds. I do however, think the liberal left will find Francis less to their taste and less their ‘blue-eyed boy’ when he publicly upholds the Church’s established doctrine on contraception, abortion, homosexual acts etc., as I fully expect him to do given his reported reputation in Buenos Aires. Indeed, I think the liberal left are heralding a ‘new Church’ too soon; I think they expect Francis to be as free and easy with our doctrine as he was with the liturgical rubrics on Maundy Thursday. I think –I certainly hope- that he will prove the liberal left wrong, and I hope he does so quickly so that he does not become their puppet. I think he will surprise us all...

Lest Liturgical Innovators Forget... Updated

Before Vatican II it mattered little who was elected Pope, for the man who took up the Petrine Office knew he was there to guard what his predecessors handed on. He might develop it, but not alter it or innovate within it. Sadly, liturgical alteration and innovation began when Pope Paul VI established a committee to demolish and rebuild in loose fashion a liturgy that had developed and been secured over centuries of lived Faith. His committee, headed by Annibale Bugnini, developed a liturgy that is impossible to manage because it has an in-built loop-hole for liturgical abuses by virtue of its options. This allows for any presbyter, bishop or pope to stamp his own image on the liturgy; quite the opposite to John the Baptist’s declaration that Christ must increase while he must decrease.

John-Paul II attempted to tie the liturgy down when he issued Dominicae Caene (1980), in which document he made the following –shocking- apology regarding the liturgy:

I would like to ask forgiveness -in my own name and in the name of all of you, venerable and dear brothers in the episcopate- for everything which, for whatever reason, through whatever human weakness, impatience or negligence, and also through the at times partial, one-sided and erroneous application of the directives of the Second Vatican Council, may have caused scandal and disturbance concerning the interpretation of the doctrine and the veneration due to this great sacrament.

The CDWDS followed Dominicae Caene that same year with Ineastimabile Donum, in which Innovations in the liturgy, uncorrected by pastors, were recognised as abuses. In 2004 JP II tried again to correct abuses by calling the CDWDS and the CDF to compile an authentic Liturgical Instruction based on authoritative doctrine. The result was Redemptionis Sacramentum (19/3/2004) which has yet to be obediently implemented in most places.

In the decades following Vatican II liturgical innovation was presented by many as indicating a living liturgy yet innovation is, of its nature, a deviation, no matter who perpetrates or permits such deviation. Popes have exhorted us to by word (JP II) and example (Benedict XVI) to compliance with the norms of the Missal given us by Paul VI, but put no teeth behind their words and actions, and as such innovations/abuses have gobe uncorrected in most places. It is interesting that no Pope since Vatican II –including Benedict XVI- has taken the Papal Oath which begins:

I vow to change nothing of the received Tradition,

and nothing thereof I have found before me guarded by my God-pleasing predecessors

to encroach upon, to alter, or to permit any innovation therein...

The issue of liturgical innovation (correctly called ‘abuse’) is not a minor issue but directly affects the people of God since we pray as we believe and believe as we pray. Sadly the liturgy has become the private property of the celebrant and/or community, who do as they please with the liturgical heritage of the People of God. We should remember that the liturgy belongs to all people of all generations, not only to those living now or to those in any given locale. And if alteration is such that our liturgy is unrecognisable to earlier generations -or worse, appears to them the antithesis of their liturgy- then we have strayed from authentic Catholic worship. This can apply even to Popes, as Cardinal Ratzinger reminded us:

The pope’s authority is bound to the tradition of faith and that also applies to the liturgy.  It is not “manufactured” by the authorities.  Even the pope can only be a humble servant of its lawful development and abiding integrity and identity... the authority of the pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of sacred tradition.  Still less is any kind of general “freedom” of manufacturing, degenerating into spontaneous improvisation, compatible with the essence of faith and liturgy.  The greatness of a liturgy depends- we shall have to repeat this frequently- on its unspontaneity.  (The Spirit of the Liturgy, p166).

All celebrants of the liturgy, from deacons and assistant pastors to popes, must remember that since the Church belongs to Christ, the man belongs to his office, not the office to the man. This is especially true of Popes whose role it is to guard and protect the Deposit of Faith and authentic Catholic worship developed over centuries and secured by custom, but it applies to us all. Deviation from rubrics in a superior is not a green light for deviation by inferiors, since deviations stamp one’s own personality onto a liturgy, which is to be avoided at all costs in order that the People of God receive the liturgy the Church has handed down to them. It also safeguards one’s humility as servant of Divine Worship rather than its master.

Post Script: 
I have just read Fr Cantalamessa's Good Friday words courtesy of Rorate Caeli. I venture to say again that what has been built and secured over the centuries cannot be simply or easily (or rightfully?) knocked down at the whim of anyone. Perhaps Fr Cantalamessa might stop to remind himself that the role of a Pope is to be Guardian of the Church's heritage, and thus refrain from writing an agenda for Pope Francis.

Reaction to Pope Francis

There are a number of negative reactions to the election of Pope Francis. From the Traditional point of view one might well have read the fact that he appeared at the Balcony without the rochet and mozzetta, along with the absence of Traditional Masses in Buenos Aires, as signifying an aversion to Tradition. Really, such an aversion remains to be seen since he has been Pope less than a week. To be honest, I find it hard to imagine that anyone moving to high office in the Church would do so in contempt for the Church’s past and the right of the faithful to their heritage, so I expect to see the trajectory in the recovery of doctrine and liturgy put in place by John Paul II and Benedict XVI respectively, continued. Indeed, to try to remodel the Church by obstructing or abandoning her heritage would be to try to remodel the Church in one’s own image. Not a sign of holiness, I venture to say, so I do not expect to see such a remodelling.

What is of note is that on each of the first two days of his pontificate Pope Francis has spoken of the devil, indicating an awareness that we are in battle against the forces of darkness. This may be good news for Traditional Catholics who hold a great place in their spiritual lives for the prayer of St Michael, but a worry for liberals who would rather leave behind the idea that there is a personal devil who is engaging in a warfare against the Church of Christ. There is also the report that as Cardinal, Pope Francis criticised liberation ‘theology’ and was a voice against homosexual marriage, contraception and abortion as part of the human rights agenda.

We are told that Pope Francis is very much a man of collegiality. I do worry that if this is true he will disempower himself as Pope, but he cannot easily dispempower the Papacy if he takes the teaching of Vatican II seriously, for eventually a succeeding Pope will take to heart the Council’s teaching that

the body or college of bishops has no authority unless it is understood together with the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter as its head. The pope's power of primacy over all, both pastors and faithful, remains whole and intact. In virtue of his office, that is as Vicar of Christ and pastor of the whole Church, the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme and universal power over the Church. And he is always free to exercise this power. The order of bishops, which succeeds to the college of apostles and gives this apostolic body continued existence, is also the subject of supreme and full power over the universal Church, provided we understand this body together with its head the Roman Pontiff and never without this head.(27*) This power can be exercised only with the consent of the Roman Pontiff. 

The individual bishops, who are placed in charge of particular churches, exercise their pastoral government over the portion of the People of God committed to their care, and not over other churches nor over the universal Church. (Lumen gentium 22, 23, emphasis added).

In regard to the liturgy of the Church –which is a most important aspect of the Popes responsibility since it is in the liturgy that God is worshipped, the people formed and sanctified, and Catholic identity individually assimilated and publicly expressed, surely there is little to fear? The damage was done by Bugnini and his cohorts and the wild implementation they fostered and allowed in the early days of the reform. What we can hope for from Francis is that he does nothing to derail the reform of the reform. I am not so concerned that he will suppress Summorum Pontificum since he must surely be aware that the traditional liturgy is a heritage of the Catholic people to which they have a right, that rights are not to be suppressed, and that his authority is “to build and not to destroy” (2 Cor,13v10). So there is hope for the future. I hope.

Pope Francis -Called To Re-build But Likely To Re-Design?

We all, of course, promise respect and obedience to the new Pope, Francis. But there is already much talk about the man as being no friend of Tradition. Can this really be so, when Vatican II reminded us is part of the Deposit of Faith on a par with Sacred Scripture? Surely no one who accepts the Papal Office does so with the desire to change what has been received from the Apostles and its legitimate development down the centuries? Who would have such arrogance or absence of faith to act in such a manner? At any rate, my hope is that the people of God will realise that Francis is Vicar of Christ and as such, owed our obedience and respect. That said, if the fears expressed by others are justified, then I hope that Francis will, in his turn, give his faithful obedience to the Tradition of the Church.  

Unfortunately, for many Catholics today Tradition is regarded simply as custom, and therefore easily abandoned. We must then, as always, trust in the Holy Spirit and offer filial prayers for Pope Francis -not only for his person, but for his Pontificate, that he may demonstrate his firm adherence to the Deposit of Faith in Scripture and Tradition, and thereby serve as both a rallying point for the faithful and firm rebuke to the secular world.

We trust God will use Pope Francis to re-build the Church as he did with his name-sake from Assisi, and pray that he will not try to remodel what does not belong to him. A Pope is not, after all, all-powerful, and the new man surely knows this. Rather, he is caretaker of the Lord’s Body and not its master. One trusts, as all must do, that Francis is indeed aware that Our Lord “is the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb.13v8) and as such does not speak doctrine or guide liturgical development with forked tongue: what was sacred before is sacred now -be that in doctrine or in liturgy. I feel sure Francis has the humility and wisdom to lead the Church authentically and remains open to the promptings of the Holy Ghost, faithful to the Tradition we have received. And who could suggest he does not..?

Disappointed with EWTN...

I have encouraged Father to purchase several DVD sets and books from EWTN, and he himself has encouraged our parish, via our weekly newsletter, to watch EWTN. We agree that many of its programmes are of superb formative value, and would like to see EWTN viewed in every Catholic home –and more besides. But EWTN does have its problems. Here in the UK programme schedules can be wrong several times in a week, and there are oddities in the liturgy of their daily Mass (motets to the Blessed Virgin during Holy Communion when we ought to be directing our attention to the Lord, for example. But that is for another post...) What disturbs me the most is the network’s obsession with John-Paul II. Throughout the entire papacy of Benedict XVI they seemed unable to refer to the reigning Pontiff without referring also to John-Paul II.

Now I, like Father, am very grateful to JP II for his oversight of the Catechism for the tying down of the Faith which had been so distorted by influential theologians after Vatican II. We are, I think I can safely say, also grateful for Inaestimabile Donum (1980) and especially for Redemptionis sacramentum (2005) by which he addressed abuses in the liturgy, though I do wish he had applied these to his own liturgies. But I think that, having began life as an actor early in his adult life, and having retained a charismatic personality, he became a Pope we went to see rather than hear, and since a Pope is primarily a teacher, not a performer, JP II’s charismatic character may have hindered the reception of his teaching.

Being such a charismatic personality one can see why he had such an effect upon EWTN.  In that many of the presenters appear to have had him as their only Pope since they converted or reverted to The Faith, their connection to him as their spiritual father is to be expected, but the network’s obsession with JP seems to me quite marked, with frequent references to JP II as ‘The Great’. Personally, I cannot refer to a Pope who kissed the Koran as ‘Great’; I think the message he conveyed in that gesture is to be regretted since this is an act we reserve for the Word of God in the Sacred Scriptures.

Well, we now have EWTN’s The World Over Live programme suggesting Cardinal Dolan is a likely Pope. I do hope Cardinal Dolan does not become another EWTN obsession, though I suspect he already is, since his jolly character is quite intense (I cannot help but think of Mr Tickle when I see him)! But like JP II, such an external characteristic can get in the way of the message, which is unhelpful.  If Cardinal Dolan is elected Pope we might get some respite from EWTN’s obsession with JP II, though I suspect it will be a case of saying how well he embodies the spirit and style of JP II. That may be true in more ways than one, for while JP II kissed the Koran, we have the much regretted memory of Cardinal Dolan being ever-so chummy with Obama at the Al Smith Dinner last year. An interesting note on this can be found here on LifeSiteNews.

So come on EWTN; let the Holy Ghost get on with the anointing...you may just get the man you seem to favour. 

Praying The Cardinals Will be Wise Enough And Humble Enough

The Cardinals preparing for the Conclave will surely take seriously the fact that they are being called to elect a successor of Peter as Vicar of Christ. I hope they also take seriously the need to elect a man who can strengthen Holy Mother Church’s realignment on the rails in the hermeneutic of continuity. It is, after all, undeniable that she has wobbled on those rails for the last fifty years in both her doctrine and her worship. John-Paul II began the recovery of doctrine by publishing the Catechism; Benedict XVI began the recovery of the Liturgy. We need a man who can consolidate these recoveries -and prevent Episcopal Conferences and the Roman Curia from stifling the emergence of the real Vatican II.

Sadly, many clergy formed in the liberal days of the 1960’s and 70’s, together with the progeny these folk formed, raise their voices against the Church’s teaching on contraception, same-gender marriage, the hierarchical Church etc. They don’t seem to realise (or else they refuse to acknowledge) that that the Faith, delivered once and for all, cannot change: “Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints” (Jude 1v3). Even when the Faith is applied in new ways to new situations it cannot change: what was true before is true now; what was error before is error now: “Christ is the same yesterday today and forever” (Heb.13v8).

As for liturgy this has, in my estimation, become a community gathering for fraternal affirmation rather than the worship of God. While the latter is not deliberately excluded by celebrants, it is surely down-graded: ask what motivates a celebrant to celebrate Mass as he does (facing the people; Communion in the nave rather than from the sanctuary; wandering around for the sign of peace and the use of ‘hip’ hymns etc) and he will likely say “it is good for the folks”. He thereby has the effect upon the congregation his primary concern, yet the primary object of liturgy is not the affirmation of the people but the worship of God by adoration, thanksgiving, propitiation and supplication, with its unseen impact on souls ("Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets, and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!" Rev.22v9). To think we give God adoration and propitiation by making the people our focus is to miss the mark of genuine liturgy.

My hope for the up-coming Conclave then is that the Cardinals will be wise enough and humble enough to choose the man the Holy Spirit points out rather than the man who embodies their own political Churchmanship; a man of deep prayer and commitment to things eternal who will consolidate what the Holy Ghost seems to have clearly begun by the Catechism of John-Paul II and the Liturgical Reform of Benedict XVI.