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More twin priests

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) – A pair of identical twins were ordained as priests in the Green Bay Catholic Diocese over the weekend.

James Sember says he couldn’t get his sons Ben and Joel "to apply any place else or do anything else, that what’s they decided they wanted to do."

Although both twins will serve in the Green Bay diocese, they say their ministries will be different.

Joel says though they have the same background and the same genes they have "a different approach to things."

And his brother Ben adds: "I hope we don’t ever get assigned to the same parish, not for our sake but for the people, it would be very confusing."

Since one has a mustache and a beard and the other doesn’t, it wouldn’t be that confusing.

Last year there was Gary and Todd Koenigsknecht in St. Paul, Minn , James and Joseph Campbell of Erie. and the twin sons of Catholic apologist Marcellino D’Ambrosio.

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Punditry

Benedictine Arnold

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

The Catholic Bishop of Christchurch, Barry Jones, is opposing a visit by a controversial feminist nun from the United States.

He has written to priests saying that next week’s visit by Benedictine nun Sister Joan Chittister is unauthorised.

Permission for the event had not been sought or given, and Jones did not want it promoted through Catholic churches.

"The point is that silence generates the misunderstanding that this is all approved, when it’s not. I have made my position clear to the priests," he said.

Chittister, from Eire, Pennsylvania, has clashed with church authorities internationally over her strong stance on issues such as women’s ordination and contraception.

She attended the first Women’s Ordination Worldwide Conference in 2000, defying an order by the Vatican.

An independent group of Catholic lay people, the Adult Education Trust, has invited Chittister to Christchurch.

She will speak about spirituality, culture, justice and "God, women and the world".

Jones opposed the visit because he said Chittister did not agree with the Catholic Church’s teachings.

"I don’t see how I, as a bishop, can advance the teachings of the Catholic Church by appearing to condone other views," he said.

High-profile Sister Pauline O’Regan, of the Sisters of Mercy, backs Chittister’s visit and was surprised by Jones’s stance.

It is rather heartening that we are getting more and more stories like this.

"It sort of sounds like censorship, doesn’t it?" O’Regan said. "I think she has a very loving attitude towards challenging the church in matters where it needs to look at itself. She should not be feared. She’s a very, very spiritual woman."

Let’s see, a Bishop makes his view known and Chittister is still going to be speaking, so exactly how is that censorship? I guess a shepard crying out against wolves coming to devour their flock is also censorship. So I guess what she wanted was the bishop to shut up about this, and of course that wouldn’t be censorship.

"Sure, she challenges various things within the church, but then so do a great number of other people. Jesus challenged the leaders of his religious era," said O’Regan.

Yes when you can’t defend something that goes against the authority of Church teaching you say something like that. Jesus challenged those who diluted the scriptures and taught doctrines of men. Women’s ordination and contraception are settled teaching. When Jesus told the Apostles "He who hears you hears me" and gave Peter the power to bind and loose he meant this also for Sr. Chittister and those like her who consider disobedience to the Church a virtue.

Jester Hat Tip: Te Deum
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Liturgy

Perversion and Iconoclasm

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Daniel Mitsui at The Lion and the Cardinal has been having some interesting posts on the connection of the artist with their morality touched off by his post on Eric Gill.

I find this particular question uninteresting because the answer is obvious. It matters as much as the artist makes it matter.

And of course increasingly the artist is making it matter.

PERVERSION and ICONOCLASM

On ART and ARTISTS

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Punditry

Banned in Bejing

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

BEIJING (AFP) – China’s state-controlled Catholic church on Monday praised a letter from Pope Benedict XVI and voiced hope that the Vatican and Beijing would soon be able to establish formal relations.

"The pope, through his papal letter has expressed his love and concern for China’s believers…. This is different from earlier papal letters," Liu Bainian, deputy head of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, told AFP.

"Earlier papal letters were opposed to communism and the socialist system. They wanted to (punish) members of China’s patriotic church. Now the situation is not the same. The pope wants to better understand China’s Church."

Meanwhile:

Beijing, Jul 2, 2007 (CNA).- Several Catholic websites that are housed in mainland China were forced by the government to remove the Pope’s letter to the Catholics in China from their website, reports UCA News.

As of today, some sites still have the full 19,763 Chinese character text, but these are mostly all run by Catholics that are “underground.”

At 6:00 p.m. Beijing time on the day that the letter was issued, several mainland Catholic websites had already been forced to substitute a simplified version of the letter for the full length one they had published only hours earlier.

A priest in charge of such a website registered with the government told UCA News on July 2 he felt helpless because he strongly believes that "China church websites should publish the pope’s letter."

The priest, who asked not to be named, said some government officials came to his office on June 29 and asked about the letter but did not explicitly say he could not carry it. The next evening, he uploaded the letter to his site, but was told on July 1 morning he was not allowed to upload the text.

Other popular Catholic websites in China were warned to remove or not upload the letter. Some sites even informed their readers on June 29 that the long-awaited papal letter would be released the next evening, and urged their readers to watch for it and related reports. But since then, the same sites have only carried Vatican news since the government has refused to let the letter or any news about it be published.

Well I guess this is one way to help ensure this letter will be read by many Catholics in China. Banning it should certainly help to get the unabridged version out.

"The pope wants to better understand China’s Church." Well actually it is the Church in China and not the other way around. But of course that is exactly the problem with the so-called patriotic churches in the first place. Though members of these Churches who are in union with the Pope and Church teaching refer to them as "Open" vice "Patriotic." There is always a problem when Catholics associate their churches so close with the country. Here in the U.S. so many dissident Catholic magazines and websites use the name of the country in their title or at specifically in their url. The ironic connection is that what the "Patriotic" churches are not allowed to teach is very close to what dissident Catholic sites would like to see happen to the whole Church. Union with Rome, contraception, abortion, are topics not allowed in the government allowed churches, sounds like a utopia for dissidents.

It is interesting as Sandro Magister has noted that "There are about 12-15 million Catholics living throughout China, 4 million of whom are members of the Patriotic Church."

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Humor

Kick up your prayer life!

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Have you been meaning to do something about your prayer life? You are kind of into God, yet you can never seem to slice out some time in your busy daily life for him. You know this isn’t right, but every devotional practice you look at seems to take too much time – time that you just don’t have. In this day and age with so many time-saving gadgets that have left you with no time you end up looking for a quick time saving prayer life that will ease your conscience.

The Church in her history has developed the Liturgy of the Hours which has nourished the life of the Church and countless saints. But when you see copies of the Liturgy of the Hours the words four volume set don’t exactly bring you confidence that you can eek out time necessary for this. That was until now with this revolutionary new system that will take your prayer life up a notch or at least a fraction of a notch.

Introducing The Liturgy of the Seconds! This one volume set is really easy to learn and to follow and you will get through Morning and Evening prayers in only a matter of seconds. We are called to fast and pray and now you can pray fast!

You might ask how is this possible? The Liturgy of the Hours uses a monthly cycle of hymns, Psalms, antiphons, and other readings – how can this be condensed?

The answer is simple we pick Psalms such as Ps. 117.

Praise the LORD, all nations!
Extol him, all peoples!
For great is his steadfast love toward us;
and the faithfulness of the LORD endures for ever.
Praise the LORD!

Ps. 131:

A Song of Ascents. Of David. O LORD, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a child quieted at its mother’s breast;
like a child that is quieted is my soul. O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time forth and for evermore.

And Ps. 134:

A Song of Ascents. Come, bless the LORD,
all you servants of the LORD,
who stand by night in the house of the LORD! Lift up your hands to the holy place,
and bless the LORD! May the LORD bless you from Zion,
he who made heaven and earth!

Now toss in a couple of really short antiphons and you will be mostly finished with Morning or Evening prayer in the Liturgy of the Seconds. For longer Psalms we break them up and only take a verse or two. Within a year you will almost read partially through the book of Psalms!

Now you say okay I now understand about how you can quickly go through the Psalm readings, but what about the Canticles normally prayed. Well instead of reciting the Canticle of Zechariah for Morning prayer and the Canticle of Mary for the Evening prayer, you just say the word Benedictus or Magnificat depending on the time of day. Now you might think this is really cheating and not pleasing to God in any way, yet we will show you the biblical warrant for this later in our discussion on the Rosary.

The Liturgy of the Seconds also includes Scriptural reading of course and as you might expect reading Titus fits in perfectly with the Liturgy of the Seconds. Instead of the Breviary you will have a very briefery.

You don’t have to feel guilty about the Liturgy of the Seconds, for one thing God really understands time expansion. To God a day is like a thousand years and so if the ratio holds up a second is like almost half of a day! So every second you spend in the Liturgy of the Hours is really racking up time. Besides God being outside of time isn’t really into time or for that matter in time.

Now once you have started the Liturgy of the Second and find that you actually have the very short time needed for it you might feel brave enough to add other devotions to your prayer life.

Holy Minute – On your way to the store or other place stop by a Catholic Church and spend a Holy Minute before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament of in adoration if the Parish has 24 hour Eucharistic adoration. The great thing about Holy Minutes is that your knees never get numb. Or if you don’t not have time for a whole minute, try the 40 Second Devotion.

Some people are attracted to the charisms of the various third orders such as the Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, etc. Yet many of these third orders require 30 minutes of contemplation/prayer each day. You can cut this time in half by singing during prayer/contemplation. St. Augustine is attributed as saying that when you sing you pray twice, so surely singing would cut 30 minutes down to 15 minutes!

The Rosary is a popular prayer, but it can take 15 to 20 minutes to pray just one of the mysteries if you use the standard form. Instead of reciting the full Our Fathers, Hail Mary’s and the other prayer you just say "Our Father" and "Hail Mary." You can imagine how much faster a Decade of the Rosary is when saying "Our Father, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary." Though we recommend you apply a thin layer of some oil to your Rosary first before speeding through the shortcut Rosary.

Again you might ask about these shortcut prayers and if they are really appropriate? These prayer shortcut are really prayer macros. Macros help you to do complicated tasks in just one easy step. Even Jesus used prayer macros! When Jesus from the cross said "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?", he was referencing Psalm 22 and by using one phrase he was referencing the whole of the Psalm and its Messianic overtones. So if Jesus can uses one phrase from a Psalm to reference the whole Psalm then certainly we can do the same.

It is also reported that the Francisco, Jacinta, and Lucia the children of Fatima just prior to seeing the first apparition of Our Lady were praying the shortcut Rosary. So obviously Mary was not perturbed by their use of the shortcut Rosary, though your mileage may vary.

So start with the Liturgy of the Seconds and other truncated devotions. After all God created us, loves us, and maintains us in existence; so the least we can do is spend some seconds with him.

The Liturgy of the Seconds is available from Second Hand Books.

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Liturgy

The Recovery of the Sacred

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Bishop Arthur Joseph Serratelli continues his excellent series with The Recovery of the Sacred. While a short column it expresses quickly the substance of the matter.

Creativity is not an authentic rule for celebrating the Church’s Liturgy. In many cases, it humanizes the Liturgy and draws attention from God to the celebrant. The priest is merely the servant of the Liturgy, not its creator or center.

Last weeks column was The Loss of the Sacred. [Via AMDG]

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Other

Letter to the People of China

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

I just read through the Pope’s letter To the bishops, priests, consecrated persons and lay faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China. I strongly encourage you to do the same even though it is not a short letter.

Considering the tensions that exist in Chinas between the so-called patriotic Catholic churches, the underground churches, and the government this is truly a pastoral letter addressing this complicated situation. The Holy See has no formal diplomatic ties with the People’ Republic of China and their diplomatic ties with Taiwan are not mentioned in this letter. The stated purpose and tone of the letter immediately acknowledges "sometimes at the price of grave sufferings” of the faithful in China. Though the letter is certainly pastoral and not adversarial, it also certainly does not minimize the real problems of the Church in China.

The Pope in this letter addresses also those tensions of those truly faithful to Church an its head the Pope in participating in the sacraments. The Pope acknowledges those bishops in the state approved Catholic Churches who were ordained without the pontifical mandate, but have subsequently asked to be received into communion with the Successor of Peter. He though says that in many cases that who have requested this and received it have not made known their legitimization publicly and that this has risen to a number of grave problems of conscience for those of the faithful. The Pope in Part Two addresses many of these problem i the Guidelines for Pastoral Life.

The lay faithful too, who are animated by a sincere love for Christ and for the Church, must not hesitate to participate in the Eucharist celebrated by Bishops and by priests who are in full communion with the Successor of Peter and are recognized by the civil authorities. The same applies for all the other sacraments.

Throughout the document the Pope mentions the sufferings of those in the Church, which is of course most prevalent in the underground churches. He leaves it up to the prudence of the individual bishops of how they are to lead the faithful as to whether to take the route of the underground or state-approved churches. The Pope has outlined the areas of disagreement with the government and those areas where true religious freedom must be brought into being, but also reminds them of how the Church sees her role as not being in the political sphere and constantly references the documents of Vatican II. ‘The Church, by reason of her role and competence, is not identified with any political community nor is she tied to any political system. She is at once the sign and the safeguard of the transcendental dimension of the human person”

The Holy Father has also set May 24 as a special day of prayer for the Church in China, but we should certainly pray daily for the fruits of this wonderful letter by the Holy Father to come into being.

Update: American Papist is maintaining roundup of reactions to this document.

Update:

BEIJING: China said Saturday that frank dialogue with the Vatican was needed to resolve differences between the two sides, and acknowledged an open letter from Pope Benedict XVI to the country’s faithful but did not comment on it directly.

… An official with China’s state-backed Catholic Church said his organization had yet to receive a copy of the letter.

"We haven’t received a copy of it so it’s hard for us to comment," said Liu Bainian, vice chairman of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.

Have you heard about this new invention called the internet? The last time I checked the Great Firewall of China was not blocking the Vatican’s site.

Update:
Vatican Radio has an mp3 that talks about the history between China and the Vatican. Quite interesting the number of encyclicals that have been released in the past since the Communist takeover.

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Liturgy

De-emphasis

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

From James V. Schall The Culture of Modernity
and Catholicism
in Homiletic & Pastoral Review.

The liturgy has always been a way to elevate even the lowliest of believers, sometimes the only way available to them, so that a de-emphasis of beauty in music, buildings, and language, in the name of ease to understand or comprehend faith, has the unfortunate result of eliminating the main channel by which people can escape from a deadening common culture whose principles are the opposite of this elevation to beauty.

He footnotes Josef Cardinal Ratzinger for having made the same point in The Spirit of the Liturgy.

This has puzzled me also as to why our churches and the liturgy have to be equalized with the culture. That churches can look like conference rooms or when you enter a gym you consider genuflecting until you realize that it isn’t a church. That the music has ot be poppy enough to have purple dinosaurs singing it. That there is a fear that if there is any element that departs too much from the culture around us that we will be disturbed. That actual exposure to beauty and transcendence will be like a diver coming up to fast. That we will get the liturgical bends if we depart from the ugly and the banal of societal pressurization that we have come to live with.

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Book Review

By way of grace

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

I received Paula’s Huston’s By Way of Grace: Moving from Faithfulness to Holiness for review from Loyola Press and just finished it. The book is a very well written and interesting spiritual biography that follows a format of chapters on the virtues. She discusses a particular virtue and relates it the the struggles in her life. Along the way she tells mini biographies of a saint that relates to the chapter and uses quotes form various Catholics throughout history. St. Thomas Aquinas and his writings are often used to explain the virtues and other points.

Her spiritual journey entails being raised a Christian and then like so many others losing her faith as an adult and became a self-proclaimed atheist. A spiritual reawakening brings her back to Christ and a conversion to the Catholic Church. Though within this journey was also paths through Cafeteria Catholics and bits of Eastern religions and then visiting a Camaldolese Benedictine Monastery and an event at the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem that moved her forward in the fullness of the Catholic faith.

I could really relate with her with she describes the period of a a converts zeal where you really feel out of phases with others especially your own relatives. You come to think that everybody should be at the same point of the spiritual journey as you are and you just can’t understand while they are not also on fire for God. The silliness of this demand on others does not immediately dawn on you or that just a short time ago you were just as spiritually lax.

You can easily remember a list of virtues, but actually seeing where you are lacking and what to do about it when you do start to glimpse this is another thing. This is what I most enjoyed about this book was her frank discussion of her own struggles and the path to slowly overcoming them. The mini saint biographies are also very well done and even though I was mostly familiar with the saints mentioned, I still learned something from them.

Paula’s Huston is obviously well read and was able to draw on the treasury of the Church for examples and quotes to use. I do think at times that some of her explanations were lacking a little bit of rigor. Like for example saying that faith is "a theological one, because it comes through grace", when it fact it is theological because its immediate object is God. Though these minor problems don’t distract from the overall value of the book. One part I could certainly have done without dealt with the enneagram. When she first brings it up she announces skepticism about it and then writes about the values of the insights they gave her into her own personality. Doubtless good can come from even problematic things, but when she describes St. Teresa of Avila as "St. 3." I found that quite annoying and I almost put the book away after that. This though was the exception to an otherwise fine book.

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Humor

Say what?

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Speaking of bad MSM coverage of the Motu Proprio.

According to published reports, the pope was, among other things, trying to bridge a divide with the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, even though that group has expressed concern about reversing the gains of Vatican II.

I think U.S. News & World Report must have got in touch with the little know Society of St. Pius X½ otherwise know as SSPX½.

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