(Vatican Radio) The Holy Father on Friday named Monsignor Georg Gänswein as Prefect of the Pontifical Household, at the same time elevating him to the titular see of Urbisaglia with the title of Archbishop
Finally he has a use for all those zucchettos he has stolen from the Pope all these years. All he has do do is dye them violet an he is set.
One of the reasons I started to create an ebook of Pope Benedict’s writings and speeches was to get into and tostay in the habit of reading everything from him as released weekly. He is such a wonderful writer full of so many insights and you just never know when you will run into something cool – or blog worthy.
For example his speech to a group of French bishops on their ad Limina visit would be something that would totally go under the radar.
Knowing the care with which you prepare your liturgical celebrations, I encourage you to cultivate the art of celebrating, to help your priests in this regard and to work ceaselessly for the liturgical formation of seminarians and of the faithful. Respect for the established norms expresses love and fidelity for the faith of the Church, for the treasure of grace that she preserves and transmits; the beauty of celebrations, far more than innovations and subjective adjustments, makes evangelization a lasting and effective work.
Well at least it was of interest to me and I loved the way he talked about adherence to established norms as expressing love and fidelity for the faith of the Church. The reverse seems to be true at times when it come to liturgical abuses.
There has been a little coverage of Pope Benedict XVI latest Motu Proprio “On the Service of Charity.” Catholic blog coverage has run down the lines of it being a smack down of, for example, Catholic Charities.
Reading through it, it certainly is much more than that. No doubt the Pope has recognized the problems where Catholic charitable institutions have strayed a bit from their responsibilities to the faith. This has led him to notice that the Code of Canon Law does “not expressly mention charity as a specific sector of episcopal activity.” This document is intended to provide a legislative framework that addresses this and sets forth the various responsibilities for the bishops, charitable institutions, and the faithful.
The introduction starts with:
“The Church’s deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold responsibility: of proclaiming the word of God (kerygma-martyria), celebrating the sacraments (leitourgia) and exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia). These duties presuppose each other and are inseparable.” (Deus Caritas Est, 25).
It also precisely states what the problem is in that there has been a schism in charitable efforts regarding proclaiming the word and celebrating the sacraments. The “Socialworkering” of charitable efforts have flattened such institutions as secular organizations that do some good things.
These articles in the document are especially of interest (at least for pundit bloggers.)
Art. 7. – § 1. The agencies referred to in Article 1 § 1 are required to select their personnel from among persons who share, or at least respect, the Catholic identity of these works.
§ 2. To ensure an evangelical witness in the service of charity, the diocesan Bishop is to take care that those who work in the Church’s charitable apostolate, along with due professional competence, give an example of Christian life and witness to a formation of heart which testifies to a faith working through charity. To this end, he is also to provide for their theological and pastoral formation, through specific curricula agreed upon by the officers of various agencies and through suitable aids to the spiritual life.
Art. 8. – Wherever necessary, due to the number and variety of initiatives, the diocesan Bishop is to establish in the Church entrusted to his care an Office to direct and coordinate the service of charity in his name.
Art. 9. – § 1. The Bishop is to encourage in every parish of his territory the creation of a local Caritas service or a similar body, which will also promote in the whole community educational activities aimed at fostering a spirit of sharing and authentic charity. When appropriate, this service is to be established jointly by various parishes in the same territory.
§ 2. It is the responsibility of the Bishop and the respective parish priest to ensure that together with Caritas, other charitable initiatives can coexist and develop within the parish under the general coordination of the parish priest, taking into account, however, the prescriptions of Article 2 § 4 above.
§ 3. It is the duty of the diocesan Bishop and the respective parish priests to see that in this area the faithful are not led into error or misunderstanding; hence they are to prevent publicity being given through parish or diocesan structures to initiatives which, while presenting themselves as charitable, propose choices or methods at odds with the Church’s teaching.
Art. 10. – § 1. It is the responsibility of the Bishop to supervise the ecclesiastical goods of the charitable agencies subject to his authority.
Can we get an Amen?
The goals of this document do not reflect the situation today in the main. So often we find heads and personnel of Catholic charitable agencies at odds with Church teaching. Especially prominent is the fact that so many of these agencies link up with other agencies that are decidedly opposed to Church teaching. The narrowing of social justice into a term charged more with political than Catholic meaning is quite rampant.
So I am very happy to see this document from the Pope. How well the implementation will go is another matter. Remember when Catholic schools cleaned up their act after the promulgation of “Ex Corde Ecclesiae”? Well maybe that didn’t happen. Although this is a slightly different situation where the bishops should have more control and have been given very specific authority regarding it.
Now the pessimist in me would point out that it is hard to expect the bishops to clean house when the USCCB’s “Catholic Campaign for Human Development” is an example of the problem this document addresses. There just has not been really any shakeup with CCHD and while some problems have been addressed I get the feeling that changes have been reluctant. The type of entities that CCHD donates to is rife with interconnecting links to seriously anti-Catholic organizations. Considering that the USCCB is currently using Cokie Roberts to raise money for retired religious or that they had Chris Matthews front and center at the Alfred E. Smith dinner there are certainly some mixed messages. It is alright to advocate the murder of innocents as long as you give your voice to some charitable cause.
Getting to the more optimistic side of me. Good bishops have just been given a legislative framework that is going to help them in coordinating with charitable institutions and correcting problems as they exist. It also means that they have just been given an even larger workload that needs to be managed. The coordination and creation of applicable training along with implementing this document is going to be no easy task. Well just another reason to pray for our bishops.
Like many my reaction to the National Catholic Reporter endorsing Women’s Ordination was “They hadn’t already?” The positive thing to take away at least is that I would rather someone be forthright in what they believe instead of simply undermining from the edges. I am often more annoyed by the somebody where it is quite evident that they oppose Catholic teaching while not quite coming out and saying so. Still it is always sad when somebody rejects the truth.
As always with progressives they always use two things to buttress their points.
This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking. — Lumen Gentium 25
Thinking about the season of Advent I was reflecting on some cool aspects of it.
First off so far liturgists have not managed to ruin it. All of the Lenten shenanigans such as emptying Holy Water fonts or filling them with sand are not really found in Advent. Not that I doubt some liturgist somewhere has tried. Plus the quality of the hymns usually goes up in Advent to some degree.
The season of Advent doesn’t really get much attention in society as it seems Christmastide starts on Black Friday and ends on December 25th. But there are advantages to Advent flying under the radar so to speak. For one there are no Advent equivalents like “Grandma was run over by the preparation for the Incarnation.” For the most part Advent has not been commercialized, just pretty much totally ignored. Although Advent Calendars have become commercialized with everything from Legos to promotions for mobile applications. People are now more likely to know what an Advent Calendar is, just not what Advent is. Just try replying “Have a Blessed Advent” when out shopping and see the blank stares like you just tried to sing a Klingon opera.
Unfortunately so many people are missing out on all the great Advent hymns. The chances of hearing an actual Advent hymn on the radio or at the Mall is pretty much zero with the possible exception of “Emmanuel” Speaking of “Emmanuel” I realize I am a total liturgical curmudgeon in that I am annoyed both that a choir doesn’t seem to know any other Advent hymns and upset when they don’t sing it. At the end of Mass yesterday I was tempted to shout encore and raise an Advent candle to the air to get the choir to come back out and to get around to singing it.
Thankfully I have been building up my own Advent music collection. I can hardly believe that not that long ago I was listening to “System of a Down” when putting up a Christmas tree and now am singing along to Advent hymns instead. In fact if you have a favorite Advent album or hymn I would love to hear about it in the comments.
Eye of the Tiber does it again with this story.
New York, NY––Local Catholic and Liturgical stickler Gerry Brownstone was offended earlier today when leaving his local Food-Mart, after the greeter wished him a “Merry Christmas.” “Who does that guy think he is, saying that to me?” Brownstone said. “Advent has barely begun. The Liturgical Calendar has a Christmas season, you ignoramus, and it begins after the Feast of the Nativity, not a month before.” A visibly irritated Brownstone continued, “I don’t wish you a Blessed Pentecost the week before the Ascension, do I? Grow up.” When asked what he preferred as an Advent salutation, Brownstone answered: “I don’t know. Maybe something about the Season of Advent, like ‘Advent’s Greetings,’ or something about the holiness of the days that are coming, like ‘Happy Holidays.’ Either of those would be liturgically more acceptable.” He concluded his tirade, “It’s like there’s a War on Advent out there.”
Several years ago I theorized that it was Militant Adventists who were stealing the Baby Jesus’ out of Nativity scenes for daring to put him in the crib before Christmas.
I really admire those who wait for Christmas Eve to put up a Christmas Tree. Although I am too weak to wait. I put one up on the first Sunday of Advent. I’ll just call it an Advent tree – yeah that’s the ticket – that mysteriously has an ontological change to a Christmas tree at some point. While I am holding off on listening to Christmas Carols I just have to have that tree up. But I do keep it up to the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. I have heard some will put a tree up early, but not fully decorate it until just before Christmas. I also like that idea, but alas my tree is fully decorated.
So what do you do to make Advent not just some commercial lead up?
I must say I have some serious questions regarding the Pope’s new twitter account @pontifex.
I don’t think he is taking this very seriously as far as I can tell. What should have been done is that the Pope should tweet in ecclesiastical Latin. This would be the official tweet and reference that would then be translated into other languages. Especially considering the Pope’s recent creation of the Pontifical Academy for Latin.
Now I am half-joking here, but wouldn’t an official Latin tweet be rather awesome? Homeschoolers around the world and other Catholic students could apply their skills in translating the Pope’s tweet from Latin into their native tongue. Plus when you have a twitter handle like @pontifex it kind of goes together. Also a Latin hashtag would also be rather awesome.
Which reminds me that back in January I tried to guess at some possible names for the Pope’s Twitter account and one of them was @RomanPontifexMaximus. Just drop Roman and Maximus and I was dead on. But a too wordy of a prophet is not appreciated in his own blog.
I was also thinking Pontifex would make a great Autobot name. For Decepticon names just look through an issue of the National Catholic Reporter.
I also wonder if you could infallibly define something via a tweet? Certainly the “We declare and define” part would fit in a Tweet and so could probably a canonization.
The Ironic Catholic offers Dear Pope Benedict XVI: friendly constructive hints on tweeting Though I take issue with one of her suggestions of a possibility of the Pope using Twitter like a search engine as one famous journalist tried to do to find a recipe
Here are some possibilities of Papal tweets I previously suggested.
First off thanks once again to Discount Catholic Products for offering this generous prize Our Lady of Mount Carmel Chalk Statue.
When I wrote up the rules for the contest it was sort of an afterthought to have people write why they would like to have this statue of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. I was quite stunned by how thoughtful the replies were. I am glad the contest was based on a randomized drawing of email entries in the comments as there is no way I could have chosen just one person from the entry comments.
So without further adieu the winner is Angela (javamom). Congratulations!
This is the 40th volume of The Weekly Benedict ebook which is a compilation of the Holy Father’s writings, speeches, etc which I post at Jimmy Akin’s The Weekly Benedict. The post at Jimmy Akin’s site contains a link to each document on the Vatican’s site and does not require an e-reader to use.
This volume covers material released during the last week for 12 November, 2012 – 22 November 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 40 – ePub (supports most readers)
The Weekly Benedict – Volume 40 – 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.
First off have a blessed Advent!
Seven years ago I decided to create my own Advent Wreath graphic instead of just using the normal animated gif that I had used previously. If you would like it for your own blog you can use the html code below which uses some homepage server space that won’t effect the bandwidth for my blog. I will replace the graphic each week so that it correctly shows the number of candles that should be lit. On Christmas I will change it to another graphic I created for Christmastide.
<img src=”http://home.comcast.net/~curtjester/curtjester_advent.gif” width=”170″ height=”189″ />
Additionally underneath my Advent graphic on my left side I have created a JavaScript that gives a countdown to Christmas. If you want to do the same thing you can insert this script into your blog template with the following code underneath where you place the graphic. Though WordPress.com users would be out of luck since they don’t allow JavaScript.
<!– Christmas Countdown – Jeff Miller–>
<script language=”JavaScript”>
function eventcount() {
var now = new Date();
var message = “”;
var event = new Date(“Dec 25 2012 00:00:01”);
var seconds = (event – now) / 1000;
var minutes = seconds / 60;
var hours = minutes / 60;
var days = hours / 24;
if ( (days%1)<.5)
days++;
days = Math.round(days);
if (hours< 0 && hours >= -24)
message = “Merry Christmas; Christ is born!”;
else if (days > 0)
message = “Only “+days+” praying day”+ (days>1?’s’:”)+ ” till Christmas!”;
document.write(“
<p>”+message+”</p>
<p>”);
}
eventcount();
</script>
<!– End Christmas Countdown –>
For a good omnibus post on Advent see Marcel LeJeune’s post.
Jimmy Akin’s 10 Things You Need to Know About Advent
There are reports the Congress is considering replacing the paper dollar bill with a coin to save money on costs or producing paper money which has a much shorter use life.
I urge you go call your representatives to stop this. This must be prevented if you care at all about ushers in Catholic parishes. When the average Catholic gives their one dollar per week think of the strain on the backs of poor ushers collecting baskets of dollar coins.