Punditry

This is from the minutes of a Pastoral Council Meeting at St. Noel Church in Ohio in a discussion on the GIRM.

Fraction Rite – The GIRM mandates that the priest is the only minister to break the bread and that the priest or deacon pour the wine. The American bishops are asking for an indult with regard to the pouring of the wine, which would allow Eucharistic ministers to pour. It is felt that if the priest were the one to pour, in larger parishes this would slow down the Communion Rite.

The staff recommended that we continue to have a Eucharistic minister pour the wine until we get an answer from Rome on whether the indult will be granted.

This makes no sense to me. If you have a practice that is explicitly against the GIRM do you keep on doing it till a possible indult is given? Maybe it is just me, but I would think that you would immediately stop the practice until such a time as an indult is given, if ever. If the Bishops really are asking for an indult on this I would like to know a sane reason why. We need to get away from the concept that active-participation in the Mass means everybody physically doing something at the altar.

Communion For Ministers – Our present policy of having the presider and ministers receive after the assembly was implemented in 1995 after consultation with the parish and a group of about 50 parishioners over a period of four to five months. The decision was made, as a parish, that the presider and ministers would receive last as a sign of hospitality.

The Rite is very clear that ministers receive from the priest and the priest receives first. Because the Rite is so strong on this issue, the staff recommended that we follow this mandate.

Wasn’t that so nice of the staff for them to recommend going along with the GIRM? It always amazes me the argumentation on these issues. Such as worrying about the ministers receiving first will be seen as inhospitable. Did you ever see anybody get up in a huff and leave after witnessing a EEM receive the Eucharist first?

Position of the Assembly During Communion – This was the recommendation that the staff had the most debate and discussion among themselves. There is a clear directive by the Diocese that the assembly should stand until everyone has received Communion, because that was the position in the early Church. The staff felt that there would be elderly and disabled people who would not be able to stand this long, and, therefore, you would have people standing and
sitting.

Oh No!!!!!!! You would have people standing and sitting, what a scandal. I will not stand for it.

Since we presently all sit, showing unity, staff recommended that we continue to do so.

Debate and discuss among yourselves all you want, but please follow the plain instructions in the GIRM. They fail to understand that the sign of unity is not just among members of their parish church but among the whole Church universal. They are out of unity with those churches faithfully following the GIRM. Those who are physically unable to stand, kneel, etc are already excused from those actions according to the GIRM.

This just goes to show that for the most part it doesn’t matter how many documents the Vatican issues and how clear they are. There will still be many that just pick and choose what to implement based on their tastes. This church’s council is probably representative of what goes on in the United States and elsewhere. Well-meaning people who decide what is best for their parish based on their preferences and understanding. The GIRM is meant to be implemented not interpreted. We send our dogs to obedience school. I think it is time that American Catholics also attended.

Summarizing their plans on the vocation practice they planned to have a dialog, panel discussion, focus group, and asking how do vocational statistics make you feel? During focus groups council members would be there in a listening capacity. Typical meeting-speak that says nothing and ends up doing nothing. Those churches who are fully orthodox are not having a vocation problem, and I am sure they did it without focus groups.

With Dean’s recent admission that he is a committed follower of Jesus Christ, it is interesting to see the fallout. Dean being a big supporter of the Separation of Church and State myth must have updated it. He is now a supporter of the Separation of Church and Northern States, for campaigning in Southern states it will be another story. As a follower Dean is rather interesting. A Congregationalist that does not attend a congregation, at least not frequently. A former Episcopalian who fell out with that church over an intellectual theological question, a proposed bike path.

Perusing over the Dean blogs I did not see any mention of Dean’s announcement.

Surprisingly Dean’s Christmas message for a committed follower did not mention Jesus; though it did mention the Democratic Messiah Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In the Envoy Encore blog today Carl Olson mentioned a church called “Scum of the Earth.” The Scum of the Earth church has a web site. Their mission statement appears to be standard Protestant fare and the sermon they have posted is both orthodox and funny.

I don’t know what would be worse; to be accepted or rejected by scum of the earth. To be excommunicated by scum of the earth would not be exactly something you would want to put on your resume.

Update: [Via Relasped Catholic]

“Scum of the Earth (that’s the actual name of the church) founded by the Christian band Five Iron Frenzy says, ‘They want to sing, they don’t want to be sung to. They don’t want to go to church to listen to a sermon, watch a drama skit and go home without talking to anyone. They want to offer a spare bedroom to a stranger who got kicked out of the house. Most of all, they come to Scum of the Earth Church to connect with kindred souls.’

In Australia

A prominent Anglican clergyman known for his hardline stance on gay clergy and the ordination of women has been ordained into the Catholic priesthood.

Bill Edebohls, the former Anglican Dean of Ballarat, who is married with children, was ordained a Catholic priest in Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral last month.

The Pope allows married priests who convert to Catholicism an exemption from the vow of celibacy.

A spokesman for the St Peter’s Catholic Church in the Melbourne suburb of Keilor East today said Father Edebohls was busy preparing for a Christmas mass at the church.

Rector of the Anglican All Saints Church in Brisbane and a friend of Father Edebohls, David Chislett, told ABC Radio there were a number of “Anglo-Catholics” unhappy with the direction of the Anglican Church.
[Full Story]

In Chicago

Saying they can no longer remain silent, a group of Chicago area Catholic pastors denounced what they say is “vile and toxic” language from the Vatican aimed at gays and lesbians.

The group of nearly two dozen priests from parishes in Chicago and the suburbs sent a scathing “open letter” to church officials Friday. In it, the pastors blasted recent church pronouncements regarding gays as “divisive and exclusionary” and “increasingly violent and abusive.”

“As priests and pastors we are speaking out to make clear that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters are all members of God’s family, brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus and deserving of the same dignity and respect owed any human being,” the letter stated.

The Cardinal Responded:

“Our language is exact, but it does not help us in welcoming men and women of homosexual orientation,” he wrote. “It can seem lacking in respect. This is a pastoral problem and a source of anxiety for me as it is for you. It would be good to discuss together.”

But George went on to say that pastors must “mediate the tension between welcoming people and calling them to change.”
[Full Story][Via Domenico Bettinelli]

I am certainly glad that I am not a bishop, because I would be meditating on the tension between tossing these priests out on the street and stringing them up. I can put up with some priests questioning the discipline of celibacy, but to outright attack something that will never be open to discussion is plain disobedience. I remember reading LETTER TO THE BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE PASTORAL CARE OF HOMOSEXUAL PERSONS and it was in no way toxic, vile, violent, or abusive. In fact the letter does mention violence once.

It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church’s pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.

To call homosexual activity “intrinsically disordered” is only to affirm that sin is always disordered. Will these priests also advocate for adultery and remind us that they are also part of God’s family? The Catechism is pretty violent on adultery also. Our stance on the indissolubility of a validly contracted marriage is also not very welcoming towards those who have divorced and remarried and it can be pretty divisive and exclusionary to those who don’t except the words of Christ through his Church..

2380 Adultery refers to marital infidelity. When two partners, of whom at least one is married to another party, have sexual relations – even transient ones – they commit adultery. Christ condemns even adultery of mere desire. The sixth commandment and the New Testament forbid adultery absolutely. The prophets denounce the gravity of adultery; they see it as an image of the sin of idolatry.

Sin does not take away our dignity, but it can take us away from living with God in eternal beatitude. To say otherwise is spiritual malpractice.

Alec Baldwin writes to Pope over animal cruelty

And the Lord sent Nathan to Alec Baldwin, and said to him, “There was a man in the city with much fame and wealth. He looked onto the world to do good with his advocacy. Insects he saw squashed under peoples feet and abused and killed by swatters and chemicals. He felt compassion for these insects and worked to defend them. He wrote letters, did benefits, and did what he could on his part for the insects. At the same time he slaughtered animals to have for his meals. Any meat was fair game. He defended others rights to eat meat and totally supported the butchers right to choose. Thousands of animals were being killed each day and he didn’t blink an eye.” Then Alec’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; that this hypocrite would have no pity for the innocent” Nathan said to Alec “You are the man. Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, “I anointed you king over Hollywood, and I delivered you out of the hand of critics. Yet the animals that I created to clothe and feed you, you felt compassion for. But my children in the womb you support to be mercilessly slaughtered. You have written letters to the Vatican to stop cruelty and support the women’s right to abortion in all circumstances.”

State Assemblyman Rafael Fraguela of Union City, who became a Republican earlier this year after a falling out with the Hudson County Democratic Organization, was kicked out of the Republican caucus Monday, following his vote for a controversial stem cell research bill that passed the lower house by a razor-thin margin.

“In light of Assemblyman Fraguela’s disturbing vote supporting the harvesting of human embryonic cells, I cannot in good conscience recognize him as a member of the Assembly Republican caucus,” said Alex DeCroce, R-Morris Plains, the Assembly minority leader.

Fraguela was the only Assembly Republican to vote for the bill.

The bill, which passed with 41 votes in the 80-member Assembly – Fraguela joined 39 Democrats and Matt Ahern, a Green Party member from Bergen County, in passing the bill – made New Jersey the second state to officially encourage medical research using embryonic stem cells.

Fraguela, a native of Cuba who said he had been a registered Democrat since he first became a United States citizen 26 years ago, defended his vote, saying his position reflects his own views and those of his constituents.

“I discussed this with my conscience and at the end of the day this was the best decision,” Fraguela said yesterday during a telephone interview.
[Full Story]

I discussed this with my conscience?

Fraguela: Excuse me conscience, are you busy?

Conscience: Who is speaking to me? Oh it’s been so long Rafael, yeah I got a few minutes.

Fraguela: Well I wanted to ask you about embryonic stem cell research?

Conscience: You mean the deliberate destruction of human life to experiment on and possibly help to extend someone else’s life.

Fraguela: Well no, I meant embryonic stem cell research.

Conscience: Do whatever you want, I am going back to sleep.

This is from an article talking about the new hi-tech attraction in England’s Bristol.

‘I know how to put a condom on!” cried my 11-year-old son with glee. We were investigating Explore, the science part of a �97 million family attraction in Bristol that goes by the oh-so-now name of @Bristol. Inevitably, Louis had been drawn immediately to the bit about our bits – which seems to be a family trait.

Touring the Doge’s Palace in Venice at the age of nine, his sister Lilia had gone straight for the chastity belts. Now 14, she was busy exploring the exhibition’s Walk-in Womb. Imagine a cosy, swinging padded cell in pink with flashing red rope lights and pumping sounds. “Very Sixties,” she pronounced as we progressed to a film depicting a Virtual Sperm Journey. As 200 million tadpole-thingies battled to get through a tangled forest of mucus in the cervix, it looked almost as difficult as trying to find a place for your child at a beacon secondary school.

Upfront sex education (in case you are worried, condom application is explained using a banana) is but a fraction of the offerings of @Bristol, which include a walk-through mini-rainforest, an IMAX cinema, a planetarium, a virtual volleyball court and a child-usable television studio. Being veterans of this sort of thing, the Tisdall team agreed unanimously that @Bristol is one of the best yet.
[Full Story]

The scariest part of this article is the how no part of this seems to give the father qualms. His only caveat was that just in case you were worried, that only a banana was used to demonstrate condom application.

I don’t think that Banned Parenthood’s Choice on Earth cards really get their message across. So I offer to them free of charge my limited artistic abilities to design a true anti-Christmas card to promote their actual message of choice.

Bishop Raymond Burke wrote to two state legislators and a member of Congress earlier this year to take them to task for supporting legislation that he characterized as “anti-life.” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel used the state’s open records law to obtain a copy of the letter he sent to Sen. Julie Lassa, D-Stevens Point. Burke refused to say who the other recipients of his letters were.

…”You have failed to restrict the evil of abortion when the opportunity presented itself,” Burke wrote to Lassa. Fair enough. Bishops and other religious leaders are entitled to express their opinions.

But then in an interview, Burke said that if lawmakers continue to vote against the Roman Catholic Church’s position on life issues, “I would simply have to ask them not to present themselves to receive the sacraments because they would not be Catholics in good standing.”

This is not as formal a thing as excommunication, where the church says it will no longer give someone communion. But it is close. It is using a religious hammer to try to affect a lawmaker’s vote. That ought to be out of bounds in both religion and politics.

It ought to be out of bounds in religion because believers ultimately have to square their actions with the God in whom they believe, not with an individual religious leader. It ought to be out of bounds in politics because elected officials represent more than just the people who share their religious persuasion.
[Full Story]

We are hearing more and more about the argument of pluralism. That pluralism justify the ends. I would like to know how you represent pluralism? You only have one vote at a time on a bill. You do not have a pluralistic vote where you cast many votes for and against a bill.

If a politician identifies themselves to belonging to some specific religious group then those who voted for them should not be surprised if their votes are consistent with the moral teachings of that group. Unfortunately we normally are now surprised when their votes are actually consistent with the faith they profess.

Excommunication and denial of access to Communion are not spiritual hammers used to bang someone into agreement, but are in fact an act of mercy. If someone holds something gravely contrary to the faith and then receives communion they are eating and drinking judgment onto themselves. To let a person know of this danger is a great act of mercy. To allow them to continue to receive Communion unworthily is unmerciful. In the history of the Church many who have been excommunicated or had other restrictions placed on them, repented of those acts. Love of neighbor requires us to rebuke them when the situation is appropriate. They is hardly anything more appropriate then rebuking those voting with the culture of death.

I say hats off to Bishop Raymond Burke and his efforts. He is one of the Bishops that is ensuring that at judgment he won’t have his hat size taken for the fitting of a mill stone.

TORONTO (CAP) — Curiously, Michael Caine had no memory of the work he did on Norman Jamison’s The Statement, until he saw the finished product on the screen.

The film, based on Brian Moore’s 1995 book about a Nazi war criminal protected by a secret right-wing element within the Roman Catholic Church, goes into theatrical release later this month.

Caine plays Pierre Brassed who, when he was a young officer in the Vichy Malice in 1944, helped round up France’s Jewish citizens. In 1992, when the film opens, his church support is rapidly disappearing and Brassed now 70 is running from unidentified assassins as well as a new military-judicial inquiry.
[Full Story]

The membership of the Catholic Church is suppose to be about one billion people. I wonder if that number is large enough to be able to hold all the secret right wing groups shown in the movies and books. You would think you would be tripping over secret right wing members all over the place. What really annoys me is that I still haven’t received any membership offers from any of the thousands of secret right wing Catholic groups. I especially want a right wing Catholic decoder ring. It is probably really cool with Latin words and Greek symbols on it and can be used to decode the hidden messages in Cardinal Ratzinger’s writings.

I guess we should be happy about the back-handed compliment paid to Catholics by always selecting them. There just aren’t any books or movies about secret right wing Methodists or secret right wing Mennonites.