My job is too big for one man, says Archbishop of Canterbury
Pope Benedict XVI says “Tell me more about how a church with 80 million members and shrinking is too big for one man.”
While I totally understand the Church having only those with Holy Orders deliver the homily. Sometimes though I muse on the thought of having a homilist-pinch-hitter.
Too often I run across the monotone homilist or the homilist who gives almost a total deadpan delivery. The majority of the time I have found the text of the homily to be fairly decent and that it is the skill in delivery of the homily that I find deficient.
Protestant preachers seem to have paid a lot of attention to this skill set which is understandable since the sermon is pretty much the lynch-pin of a Protestant service. This emphasis explains why the preachers name is often prominently placed on the outside of a Protestant church and not at a Catholic Church. The charism of the individual preacher model though has it’s problems it that people will go preacher-shopping looking for the most entertaining preacher. The positive thing about the Catholic parish model is that having a good homilist transfer doesn’t mean that people will then go looking elsewhere. The parish model where the Mass is the focus reduces a personality driven approach.
Still I think many Catholic homilists could learn something from Protestants when it comes to delivery. Now this does not mean that we must succumb to the idea of the homily as a piece of entertainment. I’ve discussed the use of humor in homilies before in Humorlectics. What I have seen from the limited dataset of my own experience is often really bad presentation. The joys and mysteries of the faith come across as something boring since the preacher can’t seem to lift himself up to any excitement over it. There can be quite disconcerting to hear the disparity between the material and the way it is spoken. This disparity is funny in a talented deadpan comic, for a deacon or priest, not so much. The exuberance of a Cardinal Dolan is reflective of the other end – a well delivered homily. Trying to emulate his Eminence is not the goal as this would not be natural for most speakers. The speaking skills of the homilist are certainly of some importance and I do wonder how much attention is paid to this in seminary? If they are than I am encountering too many homilists that slipped through.
Though maybe what I really need is a pinch-hitter-homily-listener since instead of working harder to pay attention to even a poorly delivered homily I allow my mind to wander and compose blog posts on pinch-hitter-homilists.
This is the 30th volume of The Weekly Benedict ebook which is a compilation of the Holy Father’s writings, speeches, etc which I pull from Jimmy Akin’s The Weekly Benedict. This volume covers material released during the last week for 8 August – 4 September, 2012.
The ebook contains a table of contents and the material is arranged in sections such as Angelus, Speeches, etc in date order. The full index is listed on Jimmy’s site.
The Weekly Benedict – Volume 30 – ePub (supports most readers)
The Weekly Benedict – Volume 30 – Kindle
There is an archive for all of The Weekly Benedict eBook volumes. This page is available via the header of this blog or from here.
Great stuff from the Ironic Catholic.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan praying at each of the conventions was something I had no problem with in contrast to what I saw as problems with the Al Smith Dinner invite. Much is being made at what he said in his prayer with this being the relevant sections. The closing prayers is something not covered by the networks and usually something that gets no coverage other than those who look for it.
Thus do we praise you for the gift of life. Grant us the courage to defend it, life, without which no other rights are secure. We ask your benediction on those waiting to be born, that they may be welcomed and protected. Strengthen our sick and our elders waiting to see your holy face at life’s end, that they may be accompanied by true compassion and cherished with the dignity due those who are infirm and fragile.
We praise and thank you for the gift of liberty. May this land of the free never lack those brave enough to defend our basic freedoms. Renew in all our people a profound respect for religious liberty: the first, most cherished freedom bequeathed upon us at our Founding. May our liberty be in harmony with truth; freedom ordered in goodness and justice. Help us live our freedom in faith, hope, and love. Make us ever-grateful for those who, for over two centuries, have given their lives in freedom’s defense; we commend their noble souls to your eternal care, as even now we beg the protection of your mighty arm upon our men and women in uniform.
I really like the turn of phase “those waiting to be born” as evoking something much more than the term the “unborn.” Classing as “unborn” is accurate, but it has a divide too much like the term “undead.” The Cardinals phrase illustrated to me my slight uneasiness with the word “unborn” and focuses more showing a person awaiting an event other than an event making the person.
Now you can always find a fringe in any political party and often it shows a feeling that is only displayed by the fringe. So the vileness of a Twitter stream relating to what the Cardinal said could be just the temper tantrum of the fringe – but boy are some Democrats reactions to a rather mild prayer vile and so full of f-bombs that they could populate every weapons warehouse in the world. I happen to think that this reaction is not just indicative of the fringe and expresses the very anti-Catholic animosity of many Democrats.
It was inaccurate when it was reported that Democrats booed God. The booing was a response to the fact that the vote taken on the amendment to add the mention of God and the Jerusalem being the capitol of Israel back to the party’s platform. This fraud on the ironically named Democrats in this instance deserved more than just booing. You can’t break down exactly the majority “no” votes as to whether the objection was to God, Jerusalem, or both – but certainly there was a majority objection and the whole event was scripted and the convention attendees forgot to follow the script. Are the majority of Democrats really against God particularly? Probably not, but there is certainly an atheist contingent of the party that is represented all out of proportion to the general public. A general idea of God can get by them, just not a personal God that actually means “Thou shalt not kill” and includes those waiting to be born. The anti-Catholicism of the party is mostly because of the particularity of God and the fact that the Church teaches those particular details that can be inconvenient. The pelvic-central nature of the convention is in opposition as the Church sees the whole person in the image of God. If the gates of hell prevailed and the Church just became the theological flavor of the month, the Democrats anti-Catholicism would disappear. But it is everything else that will disappear, before the Church stops teaching the truth.
Just read this talk that Julie of Happy Catholic gave at this years Catholic New Media Conference. Required reading for all Catholic bloggers – should be part of a terms of service for Catholic bloggers.
Sr. Simone Campbell at Democratic National Convention
TWS: On the legal question, do you think there should be penalties against abortion doctors? I mean, should it be illegal to perform abortions?
CAMPBELL: That’s beyond my pay grade. I don’t know.
Wow that seems like a very similar reply dodge. The very same one then-Candidate Obama gave during the forum at Saddleback Church. I wonder which of the other 10 Commandments are above her pay grade? Bless me Father I am not sure I sinned because it is beyond my pay grade. Plus doesn’t it seem rather odd for a women religious to be speaking in terms of pay grade anyway? Strangely it seems to me that if you are the Executive Directory of an organization that lobbies for social justice this might just possibly be within your pay grade? Really for every Catholic it it within our pray grade.
She is part of the Nuns on a Bus and somehow she didn’t notice the the President had thrown Catholic consciences under the bus.
Ironically for a Democratic convention there was a large elephant in the room that Sister Campbell studiously ignored. To rant on the Ryan budget that had no chance of going through at a convention where abortion is not only enshrined in their platform but something cheered every night of the convention. If anybody that wants to take up prudential points concerning a budget that is there prerogative – though it is rather amazing that the complexity of the Federal budget was not above her pay grade. To ignore the abortaphant in the room is another story. Giving the party of death a Catholic veneer by speaking at their convention without mentioning this is an act where usually the pay grade is compensated with 30 pieces of silver. Jesus’ request was “Not let the little children come to me – in pieces.”
I would further rant about what she did, but I think I will spend some time praying for her instead.
Article via Father Z
photo credit: Eelke de Blouw via photo pin cc
Marc Barnes of Bad Catholics looks at Christina Pesoli’s article, Why This Catholic Girl Is Praying for a Schism that appeared on the Huffington Post (so you know it is bound to be theologically insightful).
The article is mostly typical boilerplate of complaints such as the Vatican and the LCWR and it is written in some humor so it is a kind of piece you can enjoy while pretty much disagreeing with every point made.
Contrary to Jesus High Priestly Prayer to the Father that “they may be one”,
For decades I prayed that the Catholic Church would evolve, but not anymore. Now I’m holding out for a schism, instead. We’ll be the Social Justice Catholic Church and they can be the Conservative Catholic Church.
In part this is an understandable temptation and even faithful Catholics can sometimes wish for a smaller but more faithful Church and that some of the less-faithful divisions would just pick up and move.
The piece makes me wonder if there is some strange genetic learning disability for people’s whose last name uses the letters “eilpso” such as Christina Pesoli and Nancy Pelosi.
Marc Barnes though replies to this article quite thoughtfully and makes many good points in reply. There were many parts I loved about his reply
… Her singular focus on women’s issues. And yes, it’s truly novel, this bizarre move by the Church to call her universal claims universal, her doctrines doctrinal, and her dogmas dogmatic.
…The heart and soul of the Catholic Church cannot — therefore — be social justice. The heart and soul of the Catholic Church must be Christ Himself, for the command to love and work for justice rests on the reality of Him and His love.
Well I can just keep on quoting from it, but ignore me and just go straight to his post.
A lot has already been written on the word God being removed from the Democratic Party’s plank. Though that never stopped me before from weighing in.
It does remind me of Jesus saying”let you yes mean yes” in that to some extent there plank is more truthful. Besides do we really want them using the word in a plank that is so in love with abortion and same-sex marriage? It is a positive thing to some extent that they removed God from the plank since the writers of the document had already removed God from their heart. To the extent that is true I find nothing to rejoice about.
Besides why mention God when his replacement is already President since Barack is a jealous god and admits no rivals. That the exclusion of God from the plank coincides with Obama’s presidency is no coincidence. After all the President has omitted God from Thanksgiving Day speeches and also censored the word when reciting the famous passage from the Declaration of Independence. The man who complained about people clinging to religion will have no problem with this exclusion.
Recently a video from the host committee for the Democratic Convention stated “Government is the only thing we all belong to” – yikes! The Obama campaign is not trying to distance itself from this video played at the convention and that is understandable since it states to plainly what they believe. They believe in a kind of bureaucratic pantheism where the government is in all of us and we are all part of the government. From the New Deal to the New Age. All intercessions are to be rerouted from God to Government as the nanny state has much higher aspirations than just nannyhood – more like what motivated Babylon tower building – but they didn’t build that.
While God is removed from their plank, Moloch is not. While Moloch does not get specifically referenced his hove prints are all over this document and the convention.
Protecting A Woman’s Right to Choose. The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay. We oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right. Abortion is an intensely personal decision between a woman, her family, her doctor, and her clergy; there is no place for politicians or government to get in the way.
So what they are asking for is Planned Parenthood and others to offer free abortions – oh wait thats not it. The “regardless of ability to pay” is not exactly code words requiring the official DNC Decoder Ring (which looks just like a package of birth control pills). It does not take a prophet, a son of a prophet, or someone who once played a prophet on TV to forecast exactly how HHS rules will change in requiring abortion coverage. Or if not exactly that something else that achieves the same goal. The total lack of anybody even pretending to be pro-life at their convention and having the head of the largest abortion provider give a prime time speech we know exactly how little they are concerned about opposition to abortion. If the President was arrogant in his decisions against Catholics and others in his first term we can only expect worse. Health and Inhuman Services will certainly grow.
The administration that uses religious profiling to eliminate Catholics from participating of course say they are against religious profiling in their plank. I do wonder what believers who are Democrats think about their new plank – though once you have swallowed abortion and other intrinsic evils it is hard to complain when it comes to this. Certainly some members of the party have been pretty touch when asked about the exclusion of a reference to God and no doubt they are seeing this as an error that pragmatically didn’t have to be made. But really there is no point in referencing God if the rest of the plank not only excludes him but praises evil. The official religion of secularism is atheism and more and more this is being demonstrated.
Update: While I was writing this they voted to restore the one reference of God back. Though the number of boos certainly didn’t make it sound like it was a two-thirds agreeing and the whole evolution is rather an embarrassment to them.
Though that does not make the multiple references to God in the GOP’s plank perfect.
“Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.’
Not having a plank that proclaims intrinsic evils is certainly a good start.