On the impossibility of women's ordination in the RCC

Given that a tiny group of ecclesial dinosaurs here in the U.K. are plastering London buses with pro-WO ads, I thought it might be time to revisit the issue in some detail.

Below is a piece I posted back in 2008 at the request of a young Dominican friar who was asked about the Church's teaching on the impossibility of women's ordination to the Catholic priesthood.

It's long, but I promised detail, right?!

________________________________________________________________


First, notice the origin and ground of the objections. All of them are based on one or more of the following mistakes:

a) Priesthood is about power
b) "Access" to the priesthood is about rights and justice
c) The "exclusion" of women from the priesthood denies humanity of women. . .
d) . . .and it denies their proper place as potential "Christs for others"
e) All exercises of Church authority are excluding
f) Tradition is always about male privilege
g) Women would make better priests because of their natural empathy and compassion
h) Jesus' exclusion of women from the priesthood was culturally based and therefore reformable
i) Scripture is silent on the nature of the priesthood b/c it is a third century invention of males
j). Women report feeling called to the ordained priesthood, therefore the Church ought to ordain them.

Let's answer (briefly) each in turn.

Priesthood is about power. No, it's not. Priesthood in the Catholic Church is about service. Do priests often mistake their office of service as a privilege in the use of power? Yup. But that's an abuse of the office and in no way changes the actual nature of the office. Men are ordered to Christ, Head of the Church, to serve his people as he did: sacrificially in leadership. When supporters of women's ordination (WO) claim that women must be allowed to share in the governance of the Church as priests, they mistake the office for a political one.

"Access" to the priesthood is about rights and justice. Wrong again. The only right a Catholic has as a Catholic in the Church is the right and duty to serve others. Justice is getting what one deserves. No one--not even men--"deserve" to be ordained, to serve as ordained priests. To claim that ordination is a right is bizarre given that men are called by God and confirmed by the Church to be priests. This use of democratic rhetoric is attractive but misplaced. You cannot be the subject of an injustice if you have no right to that which you have been denied. I am not being treated unjustly b/c I cannot vote for the next Italian presidential election. 

The "exclusion" of women from the priesthood denies their humanity. In fact, the Church's teaching on ordination reaffirms the humanity of women by clearly laying out what it means to be human, male and female. To be fully human as a creature is to submit one's will to the will of our Creator and cooperate with His grace to achieve our perfection AS men and women; that is, I am perfected as a male creature. My mother is perfected as a female creature. Often this objection is rooted in a modernist notion that one's sex is socially constructed. We are MADE male and female by our Creator and not pieced together sexually by social forces.

The "exclusion of women from the priesthood denies their proper place as potential "Christs for others." This would be true if the only means of being Christs for others was to be a priest. Fortunately, our Lord had to foresight to make sure that there were other means of becoming the sons and daughters of the Father in His service for others. Ordination is one way that some men are called by God and confirmed by the Church to "work out" their salvation. No one is denied their perfection in Christ b/c they are not priests. All the baptized serve the Father by being priests, offering themselves in sacrifice for others.

All exercises of Church authority are excluding. Wrong. If an exercise of Church authority excludes, it does so in order to liberate through a declaration of the truth of the faith., thus including everyone in the knowledge of truth. To be excluded is not in and of itself an injustice or a violation of human dignity. There are many perfectly beautiful options open to all Christians to which I am excluded in virtue of my ordination, e.g. marriage and biological fatherhood. In the case of WO, the Church has used her authority to recognize a limit of her own power. In effect, the Church has recognized that she is excluded from considering the ordination of women.

Tradition is always about male privilege. Tradition has certainly been misused to prop up abusive practices that privilege males. That we have seen these abuses in no way changes the fact that Tradition is the handing on of a living faith, the "living faith of the dead." The faith of the Church never changes. It cannot change. Our understanding of the faith can and does change. However, WO is not a change in understanding but a radical revision of some of the most basic threads of the Christian narrative. To alter these threads does more than "open the priesthood," it unravels the faith whole clothe.

Women would make better priests. I concede this readily. But we have to be clear about what we mean by "better priests." The objection assumes that the vocation of the priest is simply about empathy and compassion. It's not. Sometimes what the priest must do is show firmness, rectitude, and unwavering direction. . .even if empathy and compassion seem to be set aside in doing so. If the only vocation of the priest were to be empathetic or compassionate, then women should be ordained. However, as we have seen in the Episcopal Church and the Church of England, women priests and bishops (at least for now) seem to be more inclined to the destruction of the living faith than its preservation. Each time a stone in the catholic faith has been removed by female clergy and their male supporters in these ecclesial communities, it has been removed on the grounds of justice, rights, empathy, and compassion--all understood in strictly secular terms. The results have been disastrous.

Jesus' "exclusion" of women from the priest was culturally based and therefore reformable. This objection assumes as true a number of false premises. First, it assumes that Jesus was not who he clearly said he was and is: God. God is not constrained by cultural prejudices. Second, it assumes that Jesus was disinclined to break social taboos. In fact, he broke any number of cultural taboos in teaching and preaching the Good News, causing a great deal of scandal. Why not break the taboo against women as priests/rabbis? Third, this objection also assumes that cultural change should guide Church teaching. Cultural change should and often does guide our understanding and application of the faith in the world, but the world is irrelevant when it comes to determining the content of our faith. A danger for WO supporters here is that the way they understand many of the Church's cherished social justice positions are undermined by this objection to the Church's teaching. If we can alter the faith to follow cultural change and ordain women, why can't we examine many of Jesus' legitimate justice teachings in the same light and alter them as well? Maybe our modern culture and social norms should be used to override the historical Christian concern for the poor. Surely, the recent collapse of the economy can be blamed in part on a misplaced concern for the poor and homeless.

Scripture is silent on the nature of the priesthood. This is a particularly odd objection for faithful Catholics to be making. It is largely a Reformation objection and ignores volumes of Patristic teaching on the origins and development of Christian priesthood. It is simply false to say that the Catholic priesthood is an third or fourth century invention. There are elements of the priesthood as it is enacted in the world that came about in later centuries, but the core nature of the priesthood was infallibly established at the Last Supper when Christ commissioned his apostles and friends as those who would lead the community in prayer and the breaking of the bread, to "do this in memory of me." He had every opportunity to include women in this moment, but he didn't. The key here is to understand that the Last Supper was a Passover meal, a family meal, one that reinforced the bonds of paternal authority in the ancient Jewish tradition. of liberation from slavery. Even with women present at a Jewish Passover, the men are commissioned to perform the rite. Does this mean that women are excluded from the liberation Moses brought and the Passover celebrates? Hardly.

Women feel called to the priesthood. In the paragraph directly below this one I note that all of the objections to the Church's teaching on WO are rooted in modernist, feminist ideology. This objection is a perfect example. What this objection assumes is that the call to priesthood is a subjective experience immediately deserving a positive response from the Church. What can be more modernist than the triumph of personal experience over objective truth. The truth of the matter is that the call to priesthood comes from God through the Church, who is the Body of Christ. To say that a particular person (male or female) receives a call outside the Church assumes that Christ speaks to a member of his Body from outside his Body. However, all calls to serve the Body come through the Church and are therefore verifiable by the Church. Most of us believe we are called to all sorts of vocations for which we do not have the requisite gifts or authentic vocation. I feel called to be a regularly published poet, yet my poetry is regularly rejected. The poetry community (i.e., the Church of Verse) regularly rejects my claims to being a poet. Years of personal experience, strong conviction, earnest effort, and multiple academic degrees cannot make up for the lack of consent by the poetry community to my alleged call. I can call myself a poet. I can rail against the perceived injustice of not being regularly published. I can even accuse my tormenters of bias, hatred, and lack of taste. I'm still not a poet. Think for a moment of the implications if the Church bowed to the "I feel called to priesthood" objection and answered these claims positively. On what grounds could we reject anyone from the ordained ministry? My application to be made a postulant for ordination in the Episcopal Church was rejected. Had the vestry of my parish not done their job of proper discernment and oversight, I would be an Episcopalian priest right now. Thank God they listened to the Holy Spirit!

It is important for faithful Catholics to understand how many of these objections are based on modernist, feminist theories of justice, gender, the social construction of reality, and postmodern identity politics. None of which have a place in the faith of good Catholics. All are deeply rooted in 19th and 20th century liberal democratic ideas about freedom, liberty, and rights. None of them pull from the tradition of the Church or her ancient philosophy and theology. None of them are scriptural or magisterial. I have yet to read a single objection to the Church's infallible teaching against WO that does not rely exclusively on ideas and argument entirely alien to our faith. The canonical objections I've read are little more than legalistic sophistry and grounded in a "hermeneutic of suspicion" that starts with an antagonistic attitude toward truth and quickly devolves into relativism and subjectivism--little more than minute loopholes.

Probably the best book on this subject was written by Sr. Sara Butler, MSBT, The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the Teaching of the Church, Sr. Sara started her life as a religious as a supporter of WO and has since looked carefully at the scriptural, tradition, magisterial, and archeological evidence for that position and changed her mind. This book does a much better job of defending the Church's teaching than I ever could, and I highly recommend it.

It is vitally important that women understand that the Church's lack of authority to ordain them to the priesthood is not based on the notion that they are inferior or damaged or in any way "less than men." Yes, some medieval theologians, including Thomas Aquinas, put forward certain metaphysical explanations for an all-male priesthood that few of us will applaud now. But these are merely explanations of any already existing teaching and their dubious nature in no way detracts from the truth of the faith. In other words, Aquinas, et al did not invent the all-male priesthood based on medieval notions of biology and metaphysics. They took up the question in light of the sacaramental theology then current and the already existing reality of the all-malle priesthood and attempted to explain the truth of the priesthood in the light they had. Demolishing Aquinas' argument for the all-male priesthood does not demolish the Church's infallible teaching against WO.

A note on the question of the infalliablity of Pope John Paul II's document, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. This 1994 document was issued by the Holy Father in order to settle forever the question of whether or not the Church has the authority to ordain women. Drawing on scripture, tradition, and centuries of papal magisterial teaching, he concluded that the Church does not have the power to ordain women. It is very important to understand that the Pope did not say that the Church will not ordain women or that the Church does not feel like ordaining women. He wrote: "I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women. . ." The Church CANNOT ordain women. The Church also cannot declare that Jesus is not the Savior. The Church cannot declare that Mary was not the mother of Jesus, etc. In other words, the failure of the Church to ordain women is not based on a lack of will or inclination or patriarchal prejudice. If every bishop in the Church, including the Pope, laid hands on a woman, performing the entire sacrament of ordination on her in St Peter's Bascilica in front of the College of Cardinal with their wild applauses, she would still be a laywoman. And she would be a laywoman if every Catholic in the world believed that she was a priest.


Is this teaching infallible? Yes, it is. The Pope wrote in full: "Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful."


Now, some theologians claim that this teaching is not infallible. They want to make a fine distinction between the content of the teaching and this declaration of the teaching. They want to say that OS itself is not infallible; in other words, they want us to believe that the Pope's declaration that the teaching is infallible is not itself infallible. This is typical modernist sophistry and a confusion of terms. All the Pope did in this document is repeat an ancient truth: women cannot be ordained. This is not new. Imagine the Pope issuing a document tomorrow declaring that Jesus is the Messiah. Such a document would be pointless because the Church has always believed this. There is no need for an infallible teaching on the question. How odd would it be then for some theologians to assert that the document is not infallible when it asserts that the teaching that Jesus is the Messiah is infallible. Simply bizarre.


Reread the highlighted phrases above. Those are the words required for an infallible teaching. Period. OS as a document, OS per se does not have to be infallible, just as a document declaring Jesus as the Messiah would not have to be infallible. The content of the teaching is without error regardless of the magisterial/canonical status of the document. What the supporters of WO want us to believe is that the Pope is not interpreting the ancient teaching correctly. That he is merely repeating what has always been the case in the Church seems to be irrelevant to them. It seems odd to me that the Pope would issue this document "so that all doubt might be removed" and then have some claim that he did so in order to set the stage for future women's ordinations! We had a professor in my seminary who taught exactly that. Fortunately, none of us fell for the deception.


Fr. Joseph Fitzmeyer, quoting a supporter of WO, Rev. Herman Pottmeyer, "According to Pottmeyer, 'O.S. is an instance of ordinary (i.e., non-infallible) magisterium, declaring that the church’s unbroken tradition with regard to ordination is irreformable.' In saying this, he may be right, even though the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith subsequently explained that the doctrine about women’s ordination belongs to the deposit of faith and has been constantly held in the church’s tradition and infallibly set forth by the ordinary and universal magisterium." Fr. Fitzmeyer concludes his critique of Rev. Pottmeyer, "Pope John Paul II stated in O.S. that 'the church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women' (No. 4). He did not mean that 'he could not himself change tradition in this matter.' He spoke rather of Ecclesiam facultatem nullatenus habere. If it is so, that the church has no ability to change it, then the Pope cannot invite everyone to prayer and dialogue as he would summon 'a council to make a final decision.' If 'the church' cannot do it, then a council cannot do it, no matter what 'signs of the times' may be or what 'faithfulness to Jesus' might seem to call for in Pottmeyer’s estimation."


Best book on the history and theology of the Church's teaching authority: Magisterium: Teacher and Guardian of the Faith, Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ.

This link from the USCCB helps to clarify a number of issues.

Follow HancAquam ------------>

Comment on commenting

1).  I read every comment posted on HancAquam, but I can't comment on every comment posted.

2).  If I don't comment on your post, please don't think that I'm ignoring you. . .sometimes I approve comments on the run and simply don't have time to respond.

3).  If you ask me a question in the combox and I don't respond in a day or two, don't be afraid to ask again! 

4).  I will not approve comments that are obscene, libelous, contain links to dodgy sites, or attack the Church in some truly offensive way.  Comments critical of the Church are welcomed if they are reasonable and expressed in a charitable manner. 

5).  I always appreciate corrections. . .and often need them.

Follow HancAquam ------------>

At what expense?

Excellent Berkowitz article in the WSJ on the alleged death of political conservativism . . .

An excerpt:

It is always the task for conservatives to insist that money does not grow on trees, that government programs must be paid for, and that promising unaffordable benefits is reckless, unjust and a long-term threat to maintaining free institutions.

But conservatives also combat government expansion and centralization because it can undermine the virtues upon which a free society depends. Big government tends to crowd out self-government—producing sluggish, selfish and small-minded citizens, depriving individuals of opportunities to manage their private lives and discouraging them from cooperating with fellow citizens to govern their neighborhoods, towns, cities and states. [Think here of the Catholic social justice notion of subsidiarity]

And lest we think that Berkowitz is simply being partisan, he concludes:

The Gingrich revolution fizzled, in part because congressional Republicans mistook a popular mandate for moderation as a license to undertake radical change, and in part because they grew complacent and corrupt in the corridors of power.

Perhaps this time will be different. Our holiday from history is over. The country faces threats—crippling government expansion at home and transnational Islamic extremism—that arouse conservative instincts and concentrate the conservative mind.

 

Follow HancAquam ------------>

Tea Mug Browsing

Putting to rest the meme that the MSM has no liberal bias:  88% of network execs and personalities give to the Democrats.

Your native tongue shapes how you think. . .I didn't know that this was ever controversial.

On why America's elites fear the Unwashed Masses:  oikophobia.  As a fully recovered oikophobe, I can attest to the power of this fear. . .it's pervasive in the academy and in some portions of the Church. (Link fixed)

Drink 'til you drop!  Weight loss and the most common beverage available.

Speaking of weight loss, Mark "The Beard" Shea proposes a new movement for us fatties:  I Am Jolly!  I will no longer tolerate being called "obese" or "overweight."  From now on the P.C. term for us larger citizens is "gravitationally enhanced."

Europe's population bust.  This is what happens when we listen to Nanny State know-it-all's. 

Is kneeling to receive communion against Church law in the U.S.?  Short answer:  No.  The norm for reception is standing, but "norm" simply means "the normal way to do it" not "the only way it may be done."  The most common objection to kneeling is that it raises safety issues--someone behind you could trip.  I celebrated four or five Masses a week for three years at U.D.  Many people knelt to receive.  Not once did anyone trip.  NB.  you may NOT be refused communion if you kneel.

The link between contraception and sexual license.

If I were a security guard. . .

Cute pic of the day. . .awwwwwwwww.

Goth Zombie has a little fun

When men write advice columns

Follow HancAquam ------------>

Updates, news

Cooking burgers and fries for the brothers tonight!  Also, a low-calorie, fat-free bread pudding (BAWAHAHAHAHA!!!!).  Seriously, my bread pudding starts with a stick of butter. . .to grease the pan.  (Update:  the burgers were good. . .the pudding was OK. . .baking with ingredients you're not used to can be tricky)

My pants. . .errrrr. . .trousers came in the mail yesterday.  Surprisingly, they fit. . .at least they do now.

I've been on another insomnia jag these last two nights.  Up at 2.30am.  Good time to do laundry, I guess.

Studying French. . .from afar.  It's really kinda pretty from this distance.

Please pray for the friars meeting in Rome for the Elective Chapter.  They will elect a new Master of the Order.  I'm rooting for an American. . .but betting on an European.

I've added a few new poetry books to the WISH LIST.  Philosophy/theology all the time makes Friar Philip a very dull preacher. (NB.  I've added the poetry books from Book Depository, so there is no shipping charge.)

When I ordered the meat for tonight's burgers over the phone, I had to repeat myself a few times.  The priory's Scottish cook laughed at me and said, "Speak English!"

I gave fra. Lawrence Lew a chuckle in the sacristy yesterday.  We wear these cumbersome albs overs our habits to con-celebrate Mass.  When I pulled the thing down over my head the back of the hood was facing forward.  So, there I was with the my face covered and getting a little peeved.  

All is well here in Oxford. . .sunny days with 66 degree temps.  Lovely.

Follow HancAquam ------------>

On Liturgy: priestcraft is also soulcraft

One word best describes this piece on the new Missal: BAM!

An excerpt:

Publicly owned corporations are more accountable to their shareholders than tenured bureaucracies, which may explain why it took the Ford Motor Company only two years to cancel its Edsel, and not much longer for Coca Cola to restore its “classic” brand, while the Catholic Church has taken more than a generation of unstopped attrition to try to correct the mistakes of overheated liturgists. The dawning of the Age of Aquarius is now in its sunset repose and the bright young things who seem to be cropping up now all over the place with new information from Fortescue and Ratzinger, may either be the professional mourners for a lost civilization, or the sparks of a looming golden age.

One thing is certain to a pastor: the only parishioners fighting the old battles are old themselves, their felt banners frayed and their guitar strings broken, while a young battalion is rising, with no animus against the atrophied adolescence of their parents, and only eager to engage a real spiritual combat in a culture of death. They usually are ignorant, but bright, for ignorance is not stupidity.

Go read the whole thing and give thanks to God!

Follow HancAquam ------------>

Tea Mug Browsing

U.D. students will be happy to know this:  Odysseus was real!

AP's predictable "reporting" on the new Missal translation ripped to shreds.

If you live in the U.K., make sure your doctor is a believer. . .that is, if Nanny allows you to choose your doctor.

How expansive court interpretations of the Commerce Clause are destroying the republic.

CCHD is under some pretty close scrutiny. . .might be time to contact your bishop and let him know that your donations to the Church should not be going to support radical leftist political organizations.

How to [Effectively] Repeal the First Amendment. . .hint:  use "codes of professional ethics" to push for "diversity" and "equality" and then punish anyone who disagrees with your definition of these two vague terms.

Once again:  B.O. is NOT a Muslim.  Why does this question persist?  Obvious answer:  his political opponents see it as a way to smear him.  Less obvious:  B.O.'s political base is mostly anti-Christian/anti-religious, so he doesn't play up the fact that he is a Christian.

Religious joke from Emo Phillips.

Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener in less than ten seconds.

The Seven Deadly Sins graph. . .as if you really need these charted, right?

Bury her in Israel?!  Why take the chance. . .?

Follow HancAquam ------------>

Coffee Mug Browsing

Twenty-something's and the "failure to launch"--why can't they grow up? 

Global hubs and megacities threaten the supremacy of the state when it comes to who rules the roost.

Memory lane & double standards:  how did the lefty MSM treat G.W.B.'s religious beliefs? 

FINALLY!  The new English translation of the Roman Missal will be launched First Sunday of Advent 2011.  No more "May this Eucharist have an effect in our lives". . .shudder.

Should we tolerate intolerance?  On tolerating Islam. . .until it has the power to merely tolerate us.

If you can look at this pic w/o laughing, you should see a doctor.

Very, very sexist pic with caption.  Don't blame me. . .

Chuck Norris vs. Zombie!

Ah, THIS should wake you up. 

Follow HancAquam ------------>

Among the freaks and lunatics (need feedback!)

HELP!  Immediate feedback needed on this one.  Does it make sense?  Where does it go wrong?   

UPDATE:  Just goes to show ya. . .not only do I not like this homily, I think it is incoherent. Despite my dislike, I couldn't revise it, couldn't think of anything else to say.  Nothing.  After Mass tonight, a young couple approached me and told me that they were returning to the Church after years of being away.  They said that they had heard that the preaching at Blackfriars was intelligent and worth a listen.   They said that the homily had touched them right where they needed it and that they were deeply appreciative.  Go figure.  One day I'll learn. . .maybe.

21st Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Sisters of Notre Dame/Blackfriars, Oxford

Some see it as a door. Others see it as a path. Jesus says it's a gate, a narrow gate.  Flannery O'Connor's creation, that paragon of 1950's white rural middle-class Protestant respectability, Mrs. Turpin, saw it as a bridge. She stands at the fence of her hog pen, the pigs have gathered themselves around an old sow: “A red glow suffused them. They appeared to pant with a secret life.” She watches them 'til sunset, “her gaze bent to them as if she were absorbing some abysmal life-giving knowledge.” Finally, ready for the revelation, Mrs. Turpin raises her hands and “a visionary light settles in her eyes.” A purple-crimson dusk streaks the sky, connecting the fields with the highway: “She saw the streak as a vast swinging bridge extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it a vast horde of souls were rumbling toward heaven.” Mrs. Turpin is surprised to see not only poor white trash on that bridge but black folks too. And among the “battalions of freaks and lunatics,” she sees her own tribe of scrubbed-clean, property-owning, church-going people—singing on key, orderly marching, being responsible as they always have been. We might imagine that it was a distant relative of Mrs Turpin who asked Jesus that day, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” 

Some say it is a door or a path. Some think of it as a key or a tabernacle. Jesus says that it is a Narrow Gate, a gate so narrow that most won't have the strength to push themselves through. There will be some on this side of the gate and some on the other side. Most of us imagine that we will be on the right side of the gate when the master of the house comes to lock the door. We will be on the inside listening to those on the outside plea for mercy, shout out their faithfulness, and cry for just one more chance. We will be on the inside when the master shouts at those on the outside, “I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!” When we hear this brutal rebuke, do we flinch? Do we beg mercy for those left outside? Do we try to rejoin them in a show of solidarity? 

These questions matter only if we have gathered the strength necessary to squeeze ourselves through the gate. If we are weak, exhausted, apathetic, or if we really are evildoers, then staying on this side of the gate, away from the table of the kingdom, probably seems more attractive, easier to accomplish, not so much sweat and tears. Do we really want to be part of a banquet that excludes so many? Do we want to lend our support to a homeowner who crafts a narrow gate for his front door, knowing that most will not be able to enter? We may be lazy or stupid or just plain evil, but we would rather suffer righteously with sinners than party self-righteously with the saints! 

Mrs. Turpin's distant cousin is insistent, however: “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” Jesus never answers the question. Rather than giving a straightforward yes, no, or about one-third, he moves the question away from the number of those to be saved toward the method by which they will be saved. Those who are saved are saved b/c they have used their strength to push through the Narrow Gate just before the Master locks the door. How many are saved? Don't know. Who are these people? Don't know that either. What happens to those who didn't make it through? Wailing, grinding teeth, and being cast out. Despite all their pleas, they are cast out. 

Is there anything for us to do now in order to build up our strength for that final push through the Narrow Gate? Anything for us to do to fortify ourselves for that last surge, that last run at the battlement's gate? We read in the letter to the Hebrews: “. . .strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed.” This is a call to righteousness, not just the sort of uprightness that comes from following the rules, but the righteousness that comes from calling on God to correct our infirmities—our drooping hands and weak knees—so that what is lame is healed and not made worse by time and trial, not left to become disjointed. Our rush through the Narrow Gate is not a test of physical strength, nor is it a marathon of virtue. The narrowness of the gate is a test of our determination, a trial against a tepid heart and irresolute mind. The narrowness of the gate challenges the sharpness of our focus on being among the blessed who will be called upon to sacrifice everything for Christ's sake, everything for the love of just one friend. It is not enough that we have been to dinner with the Lord; that we have shouted his name from a crowd; that we have witnessed his miracles, praised his preaching, memorized his teaching, or invited ourselves to recline at his table. It is not enough that we are respectable, well-educated, middle-class, religious, worthy citizens of a civilized nation. We might manage to squeeze our respectability, our diplomas, our tax forms and churches and passports through that Narrow Gate, but none of these will assist in the squeezing. Yes, we will likely end up on Mrs Turpin's bridge, heading into the clouds with all the other freaks and lunatics, but we will end up there b/c we have placed ourselves at the mercy of God to forgive us the sins that impede us, that slow us down, and all but guarantee that we do not make the gate in time. 

Mrs Turpin sees her own people on that bridge. Somewhat bewildered by the strange company of white trash and black folks, her tribe of middle-class church-goers nonetheless sing on key: “Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away.” Perhaps what will get us through that Narrow Gate is the willingness to have everything that seems so vital, so necessary, so absolutely true. . .to have all of it burned away.

Follow HancAquam ------------>

Two new podcasts

Homily podcasts:

No Place for Self-appointed Martyrs

Stop Counting and Forgive

P.S.  I put the Wish List button back up.  The shipping address is Rome, so I won't actually get any books sent until I get back to Rome in early Oct.

Follow HancAquam ------------>

The Wrong Questions

20th Week OT (Tues)

Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP

Priory of the Holy Spirit (Blackfriars, Oxford)

When you ask Christ the wrong question, you still get the right answer. A wealthy young man asks Jesus, “What good work must I do to enter heaven?” To answer, Jesus reels off a laundry list of conditions, including with the deal-killing requirement of abject poverty, and concludes by saying, “Follow me.” The disciples ask, upon hearing Jesus say that a camel will gallop through the eye of a needle before a rich man enters heaven, “Who can be saved, then?” Jesus responds, “For men, this is impossible, for God everything is possible.” Wrong questions, right answers. But why are these the wrong questions to ask? What's so wrong about wanting to know who will be saved, and how one goes about being among those saved? Let's say that you are possessed by a holy curiosity, a truly inspired need to explore the mysteries of salvation. If you understand anything that Jesus teaches about the possibility of enjoying the Beatific Vision, you know that to ask what must be done to enter heaven reveals a deep misunderstanding of the Good News. To ask who can be saved, implies an even deeper misunderstanding. There is nothing to be done. And the invitation to live with God eternally, an invitation made by the cross and the empty tomb, is delivered to everyone without conditions. The young man and the disciples do not yet understand what Jesus means when he teaches that salvation is a gift, eternal life freely given.

That the young man and the disciples see their entrance into heaven in terms of What Must Be Done and Who Can Do It should not surprise us. They were born and raised in a religious tradition that made salvation contingent on the completion of specific works completed by specific people during specific times of the year. Jesus regularly claims that he is fulfilling the Law not abolishing it, so it is only sensible to wonder exactly what requirements of the Law has he fulfilled and how his potential followers are to do their part in following along behind. The answer that Jesus gives the young man mirrors the young man's expectations regarding the work to be done for salvation: keep the commandments, sell all you have, give the money to the poor, and then follow me. 

The answer he gives to the disciples, however, is not what the disciples expected, “. . .for God everything is possible.” Peter, obviously dismayed, pipes up, “Oh really? Well, what about us? We've left it all behind for your sake. What are we to have, then?” Jesus says, “For all that you have forsaken you will be repaid one hundred times over and you will inherit eternal life.” Then, just to make sure that his students get the lesson, he adds, “Many who are first will be last, and the last, first.” In other words, young man, disciples, what you count as sacrifice and treasure here do not count as sacrifice and treasure in heaven. It is not your own power—or treasure or sacrifice or good works—that wins the victory but the grace of God that snatches you from the final defeat. 

The Good News—for the young man, the disciples, for all of us—is that all things are possible for God and He desires our salvation. Left to ourselves we might or might not follow the all commandments, make all the right sacrifices, pray all the right prayers, and give away all our treasures. However, none of this really matters when it comes to whether or not we will dine at the heavenly feast. We have the invitation. So let's not waste our time asking the wrong questions. We have the only answer we need: “. . .for God everything is possible.”

Follow HancAquam ------------>

Coffee Mug Browsing

As an itinerant friar, I travel a lot.  Mostly by airplane. My experiences are almost always good ones.  There have been times, however, when I wish the plane had an on-board disciplinarian empowered to smack selfish passengers. . .particularly those who jump up and grab their overhead baggage and stand in the aisle.  I always want to ask, "Do you think the plane is going to take off again with you on it?"  SMACK!

Hmmmm. . .maybe the flight attendant in question here is not the folk hero he is made out to be.  

What's good for the iman is good for the. . .um. . .drag queen?  I dunno.  This point of this seems to be to show up the hypocrisy of insisting on building a mosque next door to the 9/11 memorial in the name of tolerance and moderation.  Is this a serious suggestion?

A mighty good suggestion:  work for a few years out of high school before going to college.  Or do some volunteer work, or join the military. . .I went straight from high school to college to grad school.  Big mistake.  When your whole world from age 18 to 30 is nothing but university life, you get a very skewed notion of reality. 

This is not a problem I face!  However, my problem is more insidious:  students consistently confuse "Fr. Philip" with "Dr. Powell."  There seems to be an expectation that Dr. Powell will function as a professor in the same way that Fr. Philip functions as a priest--merciful, understanding, forgiving, "easy,"etc.  The realization that this is an illusion is not always pretty.

A future President of the U.S.?  How quickly would MSM heads explode if the Tea Partiers/GOP nominated and the voters elected a black conservative to the White House. 

A conservative defense of the judge who voided Prop 8 in CA.

Border security tech. . .

This guy hits the B.O, meltdown on the nose. . .ten times in a row.  Excellent.

Can a suffering atheist find God?  Yup.  NB.  the author of this piece assumes that only non-believers are capable of rational, objective deliberation.  How?  By distancing themselves from most of what makes us human.  Very sad.

On political civility and our Elitist Betters. . .when they see the torches and pitchforks coming up to the castle gates, our self-anointed rulers turn up the music, pop the bubbly, and ramp up the rhetoric that marks them as fundamentally anti-democratic.  NB.  R-rated content.

Even the Brits seem to get it. . .and they really know elitism when they see it!

From the tar pits of 1972, mewling ecclesial dinosaur mewls some more.  Bless her heart.

Zen quotes (sorta). . .I've experienced #4.

A conspiracy theory generator.  My guess is that the author of this program needs help providing CNN with fresh material.

Follow HancAquam ------------>

Stop counting and forgive

19th Week OT (R)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Church of the Incarnation, Univ of Dallas

Podcast

You may be surprised to learn that most pumpkins in the U.S. are naturalized citizens. That the soul is located in a gland found in the brain. And that monkeys are usually politically libertarian. Are you surprised? You should be. You should be surprised not because these fascinating facts are in fact false, but because they pretend to tell us something about the world that they cannot tell us. Pumpkins are not subject to the citizen naturalization process. The soul is not a physical entity that can be located in a body part. And monkeys are not the sorts of creatures that have political opinions. When we say things like, “I've visited every building on campus, but I've yet to see the university,” we are making what philosophers call a “category mistake.” The university is not a building that can visited. The mistake occurs when we believe that the non-physical entity (the university) can be visited as if it were a physical entity (a building). Peter makes this same sort of mistake when he asks Jesus, “How many times must I forgive my brother?” Jesus' answer is a bit more poetic than, “Peter, you are making a category mistake.” He says, “You must forgive from the heart.”

Peter's mistake is understandable and easily forgivable. The Law under which he carried out his religious duties was stacked with accountable obligations; discreet, countable practices. The proper kind and number of animals for sacrifice. The proper number of days for fasting. Ten Commandments. Twelve tribes. Seventy judges. His question is not a devious attempt to avoid Jesus' teaching on forgiveness. Rather he is trying to learn—within his religious tradition—what his obligation to forgive others means in practical terms. We Catholics are prone to making our own category mistakes. “Father, do I get more grace if I attend Mass twice a day?” Or “Aren't my sins better forgiven if I confess them twice?” Grace and forgiveness are not the sorts of things that can be numbered, measured, or intensified. There is no such thing as “more grace” or “better forgiveness.” There is grace and there is forgiveness. Both are superlative, always excellent in themselves, and achieved once for all through Christ.

Jesus makes this point when he teaches Peter to forgive from his heart rather than from his counted reserves of mercy. A philosopher might say that to forgive is dispositional; that is, when you forgive you forgive because of who you are. You are disposed to forgive. A theologian would say that you forgive because you are intensely aware that you yourself have been forgiven. Forgiving others is a matter of spreading the Good News of God's boundless mercy. Counting the number of times you forgive a sin committed against you violates the very nature of mercy. Mercy flows from Mercy Himself—limitless, continuous, and innumerable. We are not charged with acting as God's accountants of merciful acts, meticulously toting up debits and credits. Rather, we are vowed to being living, unobstructed conduits of His forgiveness for others. We are able to forgive only because He has forgiven us first.

Seven times eleven is not seventy-seven in the arithmetic of forgiveness. Seventy-seven is the number given for our forgiving natures, the number that exceeds counting, exceeds all limits. We are bound in obedience to Christ to forgive the 78th, 79th, and 80th time we are sinned against. In mercy, we are forbidden to count; by divine love, we should want to.

Follow HancAquam ------------>

No place for self-appointed martyrs

Memorial of St. Clare

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Church of the Incarnation, Univ of Dallas

Podcast

Resetting a broken bone hurts. Cleaning a bloody wound hurts. Talking about past traumas hurts. Whether we are in need of physical cure or spiritual healing, treating injuries and uprighting wrongs are never a duties we take on with much gusto. Seeing the end, the healed soul and the cured wound, helps with the immediate pain, but the memory of the ordeal lingers and leaves us wary of the next time we might need the surgeon's knife or the Church's medicine. But despite this wariness, despite our deep reluctance to seek out healing and cure, we are unambiguously charged with “taking care” of our hurts—both physical and spiritual. Jesus tells his disciples that whatever they bind on earth is bound in heaven and whatever they loose on earth is loosed in heaven. When a brother or sister sins against you, you are free to bind their offense to you or let it loose. If you let it loose, it is gone. If you choose to bind it, just remember: “Lord, forgive me my sins as I forgive those who have sinned against me.” As you forgive, so you are forgiven.

It is not likely that many of us here are weighed down with truly grievous sins, really weighty offenses that have killed our love for God. God's enemies rarely show up for Mass! It is more likely the case that if any of us are in a state of sin, we are there b/c we are mired in a shallow yet complex morass of wounds caused by holding grudges, nursing hurts, seeking after petty revenge, or by practicing habitual deceit. Each cut leading to another, deeper wound; each wound bleeding out our strength and resolve to seek healing. Perhaps convinced of the righteousness of our refusal to forgive, we cling to being offended, replaying again and again the moment we were injured. I am the victim! I deserve justice! And rather than free ourselves and our assailant from the soul-killing swamp of sin, we nurture our wounds, scratch them open, and let them bleed for all to see, so that all might know how we were violated. What we bind on earth is bound in heaven and bound to drag us down.

However, what we loose on earth is loosed in heaven. Freeing those who have sinned against us is immediately repaid in our own freedom. No longer tied to our offenders by sin—theirs and ours—we are liberated, and no longer left to languish in a self-pitying mess. We can choose to loose, choose to relieve, choose to unlock. Or we can choose to remain wrapped in grudging self-righteousness and the resulting despair. If we will continue to walk with Christ, carrying our cross, and growing in holiness, the only choice for us is to live lives of forgiveness, daily living the mercy that we ourselves have been shown again and again. In fact, the most deliberate way that we can give God thanks for His mercy is to share out that mercy to others. 

Jesus says that he is with us when we gather in his name. How much more powerfully will we experience his loving presence if, when we gather in his name, we gather to loose the ties of sin that bind us, to bind ourselves in obedience to his commandment to love one another? Let's own up to a hard truth: the refusal to forgive, an unwillingness to show mercy is an act of mortal pride and deadly to the soul. We risk forsaking our heart's charity, the love we have for God. No gamble is worth those stakes. The Good News is that the choice is ours to make. Bind and be bound. Loose and be set free.

Follow HancAquam ------------>

Coffee Mug Browsing (Catholic edition)

Prof. Peter Kreeft on whether or not the CDF's 2000 document, Dominus Iesus is liberal or conservative.  The answer:  neither and both.  IOW, the document is a model for Catholic orthodoxy! One of my seminary profs, a self-avowed feminist sister, declared to our class one day, "This document will be on the trash heap of history in ten years!"  Of course, the author of DI is now Pope Benedict XVI.

Is Catholicism collapsing in Italy?  When answering questions like this one we have to take the long-view and remember that we live within a 2,000 year old history.  Mass attendance can decline for decades. . .but the Church prevails.

The federal judge who declared CA's Proposition 8 based his decision on a dangerous anti-American premise:  religion is harmful.  Few believers would deny that religion can be harmful; however, Christianity is not inherent harmful.  Like anything created, religion has its uses and abuses.

This judge pointedly included passages from a 2003 document on the family written and signed by Cardinal Ratzinger. 

Contra indifferntism:  can non-Catholic be saved?  The short answer is:  Yes.

How to talk to someone who supports same-sex "marriage"

Catholic heathcare blues

"There's a Little Black Spot on Your Head Today". . .the Catholic Weird Al.

Lots of Jesuit jokes

Follow HancAquam ------------>