Domine, da mihi hanc aquam!

27 October 2009

Catholics are too stupid to get it

Bishop Donald Trautman thinks Catholics are too stupid to understand most of the new English translation of the Roman Missal:

"The vast majority of God's people in the assembly are not familiar with words of the new missal like 'ineffable,' 'consubstantial,' 'incarnate,' 'inviolate,' 'oblation,' 'ignominy,' 'precursor,' 'suffused' and 'unvanquished.' The vocabulary is not readily understandable by the average Catholic," Bishop Trautman said.

Here's a radical idea: let's do what the Church has been doing for 2,000 years--let's teach the faith and not assume that our people are inherently unable to learn! A bulletin insert should do the trick. In arguing against what he thinks of as liturgical elitism, the good bishop exposes himself as a cultural elitist. This is the sort of condescension we've come to expect from the progressive wing of the Church.

"'The (Second Vatican Council's) Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy stipulated vernacular language, not sacred language,' he added. 'Did Jesus ever speak to the people of his day in words beyond their comprehension? Did Jesus ever use terms or expressions beyond his hearer's understanding?'"

If I'm not mistaken the gospels are jam packed with examples of Jesus doing just that--teaching and preaching ideas that baffled people, especially those who followed him closely. The disciples are constantly misunderstanding his teaching. Large numbers walked away from his Bread of Life discourse in John because they didn't get what he was saying. He himself admits that his parables are meant to be understood only by those who "see and hear." "Vernacular" certainly means "everyday language," but are we to believe that the Council Fathers intend for us to constantly re-translate the Mass to keep up with the ever-shifting trends in the language? English is an incredibly dynamic language! Of course, what the bishop fears is that the sacred language of the new translation will become the vernacular of the Church's liturgy. Can't have all that transcendent mumbo-jumbo pointing us toward God, ya know?

"'Since [the Nicene Creed] is a creedal prayer recited by the entire assembly in unison, the use of "we" emphasized the unity of the assembly in praying this together as one body. Changing the plural form of "we"to "I" in the Nicene Creed goes against all ecumenical agreements regarding common prayer texts,' he said."

So, if I'm understanding the argument here, we only get the communal sense of the Creed if we start the prayer with "we." Does reciting the prayer together fail to demonstrate the communal nature of the prayer? Does starting the Pledge of Allegiance with "I" undermine its communal nature? I have no objection to "we," but the bishop's argument here seems specious. And I'll start worrying about conforming Roman Catholic liturgical practice to ecumenical agreements when our non-Catholic brothers and sisters start worrying about conforming their doctrine and practice to ours. Women bishops, anyone? Communion for pets?

"The new translation asks God to 'give kind admittance to your kingdom,' which Bishop Trautman called "a dull lackluster expression which reminds one of a ticket-taker at the door. ... The first text reflects a pleading, passionate heart and the latter text a formality -- cold and insipid."

And the concluding prayer from yesterday's Mass ended with "May this Eucharist have an effect in our lives." An "effect"? Like giving us the measles? Or causing excessive gas? Or increasing male pattern baldness? All of these are effects of causes. Talk about insipid. I'll confess right now: I didn't conclude yesterday's Mass with the appointed prayer. I flipped the page and used the prayer from the 31st Sunday.

What the good bishop fails to understand, or willfully refuses to acknowledge, is that the Mass is a time and place apart from the market, the family room, the corner pub. Instead of urging Catholics to take the sacred out into the world, he's pushing the Church to bring the world into the Church. This is reverse evangelization. Of course, the new translation will be clunky at times and it will use words that normal people don't hear everyday. A little education will go a long way toward fixing these problems.

The other element here that everyday Catholics aren't aware of is the theological differences between the 1970 translation and the new one.* The 1970 translation renders most of the Latin in such a way that emphasizes human effort in achieving salvation and holiness. God's work in us is minimized, if not outright eliminated. The 1970 English missal has been credibly accused of Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism, ancient heresies that teach we achieve redemption/holiness by our efforts alone, or with little help from God. The ideological effort, of course, is aimed at "building community down here" rather than leading us to become a Church that prays up there.

The 1970 missal is deeply flawed. The new translation will be deeply flawed. Language is simply incapable of adequately expressing the fullness of God's glory. That's a given. But what do we need our prayers to do? Remind us that we live in a fallen world? Or lift us to the One who created us and redeemed us?

Thankfully, Bishop Trautman lost this fight.

*I read a draft of the new translation while studying at Blackfriars, Oxford in 2003-4. It is not as ridiculously ponderous as the good bishop would have us believe.

Choose to hope

30th Week OT (T): Readings

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

Sometimes planted seeds die in the ground. Sometimes yeast will not leaven wheat flour for bread. For those of us who are not farmers or bakers we could add: sometimes laptops do not boot up; sometimes buses do not run on time; sometimes you get a “C” in Latin. We experience the failure of potential to be fulfilled everyday. Essays go unwritten. Books and articles for class go unread. Chances to forgive and ask for forgiveness pass us by. So accustomed are we to mishaps, lapses, and near-misses that we have adapted ourselves to work around them, to count them as features of doing business in a world not yet perfected by God's grace. If there's any grand purpose in failure, it is this: who we are made to be in Christ is made all that much clearer, all that much more starkly evident. For those of us who are saved by hope, living in the middle of the contrast between what is and what could be hones the good habits of endurance so that our inevitable trials are not merely endured but enjoyed, celebrated as signs of what we have yet to achieve with Christ. The mustard seed will germinate and grow. The yeast will rise to leaven the bread.

Paul, writing to the Romans, asks: “. . .who hopes for what one sees?” We do not hope that the bus arrives on time when we see it arriving on time. We do not hope that our laptop will boot up when we see it booting up. Hoping for success when we see success in action is irrational. So, Paul adds, “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance.” Notice here that he qualifies how we wait, “with endurance.” We do not hope, waiting impatiently, or angrily, for what we do not see. While we hope for what we do not see, we wait with strength, resolution; with guts and grit, with moxie and mettle. We dare failure to do its worst, and still we hope. But we must remember, lest we sound arrogant, we must remember: we do not hope in the works of our hands, or the words of our mouths; we hope in the marvelous deeds of the Lord, in His Word alone. It is only in the Kingdom of God that the mustard seed always grows, that the yeast always leavens. And only in His Kingdom that our failure might be counted as success.

Paul writes, “. . .in hope we were saved.” Saved from what? From whom? We are saved from despairing over our inevitable mistakes; from collapsing under the weight of temptation and sin; from suffering for the sake of suffering; we are saved from the one who would rejoice if we were to abandon eternal life for endless death; from the one who wishes us nothing but disorder, disease, insanity, and pain. The most marvelous deed that our Lord has done for us is to free us from all that binds us to the one who would kill us out of envy and spite. We are saved from his eternal failure. We are planted, watered, and fed so that all we can do is grow and thrive; all we can do is season and leaven this world. Therefore, choose to hope, or hopelessness will be chosen for you.

26 October 2009

Sr. Quinn and canon law

Canon lawyer, Ed Peters outlines a few possible canonical responses to Dominican sister Donna Quinn's formal and material cooperation with abortion.

Unfortunately, he agrees with me that there is little to be done.

Faith No More

Christopher Hitchens on "What I have learned from debating religious people around the world":

"[Pastor Doug] Wilson isn't one of those evasive Christians who mumble apologetically about how some of the Bible stories are really just "metaphors." He is willing to maintain very staunchly that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and that his sacrifice redeems our state of sin, which in turn is the outcome of our rebellion against God. He doesn't waffle when asked why God allows so much evil and suffering—of course he "allows" it since it is the inescapable state of rebellious sinners. I much prefer this sincerity to the vague and Python-esque witterings of the interfaith and ecumenical groups who barely respect their own traditions and who look upon faith as just another word for community organizing. (Incidentally, just when is President Barack Obama going to decide which church he attends?)"

Read the whole thing here.

25 October 2009

Insomnia, or On the use of Greek pastries in the Crimean War

Ugh.

I woke up this morning at 3.00am and couldn't go back to sleep, so I got up, got some coffee and fired up Ye Ole Laptop for some browsing. (Note the time stamps on the posts below). My hope was that I would get a little sleepy and manage to fall back into dreamland.

No luck.

Anyway, after Laud/Mass, breakfast, and a turn around the cloister, I got to work. Lunch, recreation with the brothers, and. . .finally!. . .a little nap.

However, I am still both wired and tired. So, wired and tired that I completely misread this pic caption at one my new fav blogs, Big Government: "Today is also the anniversary of the Charge of the Light Brigade, from the Battle of Balaclava in 1854."

My first thought was, "Uh? The Brits attacked the Russians with sticky Greek pastries?"

My next thought was, "Oh, maybe the Russians were allergic to pistachios."

Now I'm looking for my travel size bottle of Benadryl.

24 October 2009

A Parable

A passenger jet carrying about 250 people is forced by a hurricane to crash land on a remote island.*

Most of the passengers and the flight crew safely evacuate to the beach to ride out the storm.

After a couple of days, the hurricane abates and three members of the flight crew climb the small mountain back to the crashed jet in an attempt to contact help with the cockpit radio.

The crew is gone for two days. In the meantime, another hurricane hits the island. When the three crew members fail to return after four days, a small party of passengers climb the mountain and discover that the storm has caused an avalanche and killed the three crew members. The radio has been destroyed as well.

The passenger-rescue party find three notebooks bound together with a rubber-band and sealed in a heavy-duty plastic bag. They take the notebooks back to the beach and begin trying to decipher the scribbled notes. Soon, all agree that the crew members were taking notes on a proposed rescue plan. But it is unclear whether they themselves were planning a possible rescue scenario, or if they were taking notes on a plan proposed via radio by authorities on the mainland.

The notes indicated that the stranded passengers and crew would have to undertake several arduous tasks in order for any rescue attempt to succeed. In fact, these tasks would not only deplete their limited food and water reserves, but also place all of them in danger of injury and death.

Two groups quickly formed around two possible interpretations of the three notebooks. One group, the Rescue Realists (RR), argue that the notes themselves indicate that the crew had been in contact with the mainland and that they should do everything necessary to complete the tasks in order to be rescued.

The Rescue Anti-Realists (RAR) argue that the notes indicate nothing more than a plan to be proposed by the crew to make sure that the stranded people worked together as a cohesive group in order to maintain civilized behavior and the hope of rescue. Given the obvious tentative tone of the notes, the more dangerous tasks are interpreted as merely brainstorming suggestions rather than requirements to be met for rescue.

Since the radio had been destroyed, there was no viable means of verifying the RR interpretation. However, the RR camp argues that to ignore the plan would be tantamount to suicide, so the whole group should immediately begin the tasks so as to maximize their chances of rescue.

The RAR argue that since there is no way of verifying the RR interpretation, it would be wiser to ignore those tasks that directly threaten their limited resources and focus only on those tasks that would keep the group together as a community until they were rescued, if they were rescued.

The following are givens:

1). There is no viable, external means of verifying either interpretation.

2). Both interpretations would work to keep the group together as a community.

3). Neither interpretation guarantees rescue, injury/death, or an unusual depletion of resources. Though everyone agrees that the RR interpretation is more dangerous and likely to deplete supplies more quickly.

Given all of this, which interpretative group would you join and why?

*This parable is adapted from one proposed by Paul Moser to explain the difference between theological realism and theological anti-realism. He sees the difference as primarily one of epistemology, that is, what can we know about God and how?

Victicrat

Great vid! Some of the language may not be appropriate for everyone. . .

Well, well. . .HancAquam is #18!

Top 25 Catholic Websites

1. EWTNews - 4,038
2. American Papist by Thomas Peters - 1,466
3. New Advent - 702
4. What Does The Prayer Really Say? - 278
5. Catholic Church Conservation - 197
6. The American Catholic - 121
7. The Curt Jester by Jeff Miller - 91
8. Jimmy Akin - 88
9. Conversion Diary - 83
10. Whispers in the Loggia - 74
11. Holy Smoke by Damian Thompson - 51
12. Per Christum - 48
13. Inside Catholic - 38
14. The Black Cordelias - 36
15. RORATE CÆLI - 34
15. The Hermeneutic of Continuity - 34
17. Pro Ecclesia by Jay Anderson - 20
18. Vatican YouTube Channel - 19
18. CVSTOS FIDEI - 19
18. Steve Skojec - 19
18. PewSitter News - 19
18. Domine, da mihi hanc aquam! - 19
23. New Liturical Movement - 18
24. National Catholic Register’s Daily Blog – 16
24. Creative Minority Report - 16

Why are liberal cities so white?

Funny thing. . .turns out that all those Leftie Prog cities that the eco-weirdos love so much are really, really, really white. I don't mean shiny clean. . .I mean White. . .as in mostly Lily White People.

Figures the Lefties would find a way to couch their racist white-flight in terms of "saving the planet."

Heh.

23 October 2009

Coffee Bowl Browsing (A.D.D. Edition)

Well, it's not a Chinese buffet. . .but close!

Ten for $10, or five for $8. . .no refunds.

Very sick. . .but also true.

He wants to borrow your camera. . .but he has no thumbs.

Off to the gym. . .in 1909.

Ahhhhhh, so this is where the Italians get their driver's license. . .

Don't watch this if farm animals and yoga teachers creep you out. . .

Zombies hold a car wash fundraiser. . .to buy more brains.

Fun before death. . .horrible, agonizing death.

I don't know what this means. . .but it's funny anyway.

Yea, they're gross. . .but vanilla ice cream helps a lot.

The Dark Lord has lost it. . .Vader does Carmen.

Oops. . .someone burned the roast again.

Anglican Welcome Poll

Dominican sister helps out at abortion clinic (UPDATED)

[UPDATE: A number of readers have written to ask me about contacting Quinn's superior or Cardinal George. The LifeSiteNews story includes the contact info for both. However, if you read the whole article linked below, you will see that sister's prioress is well-aware of her activities and defends her. Quinn has been involved in supporting abortion for years. There's nothing new here. At most a letter or email will get you "thank you for your concern" note in response. Please don't expect anything more than that. In my experience dealing with dissenters, notes of outrage only fuel their view of themselves as martrys. Also, please note that Quinn is a sister not a nun. Dominican nuns are not in the business of helping mothers kill their children. . .nor are a vast majority of sisters.]

Next time some "Spirit of Vatican Two" Catholic sputters and whines about the injustice of the Vatican investigating U.S. religious women, point them to this article from LifeSiteNews.com:

HINSDALE, Illinois, October 23, 2009: A Dominican nun [sic] has been seen frequenting an abortion facility in Illinois recently - but not, as one might expect, to pray for an end to abortion or to counsel women seeking abortions, but to volunteer as a clinic escort.

Local pro-life activists say that they recognized the escort at the ACU Health Center as Sr. Donna Quinn, a nun [sic] outspokenly in favor of legalized abortion, after seeing her photo in a Chicago Tribune article. . .

This is beyond scandalous. Donna do doubt believes that she is truly doing God's work by helping these mothers kill their children.

But what drove her to this dark place. . .radical feminism, of course:

In a 2002 address to the Women's Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School, Sr. Quinn described how she came to view the teachings of her Church as "immoral": "I used to say: 'This is my Church, and I will work to change it, because I love it,'" she said. "Then later I said, 'This church is immoral, and if I am to identify with it I'd better work to change it.' More recently, I am saying, 'All organized religions are immoral in their gender discriminations.'"

Quinn called gender discrimination "the root cause of evil in the Church, and thus in the world," and said she remained in the Dominican community simply for "the sisterhood."

"Gets 'em every time," snickers Wormwood!

Bridge over Anglican waters...

I've rec'd a lot of questions about the practicalities of the Holy Father's invitation to traditionalist Anglicans to join Mother Church.

I will attempt to answer them with these provisos: 1) I am not canon lawyer; 2) and the apostolic constitution has not been published.

1). What's the difference between the current pastoral provisions for allowing married Anglican clergy to become Catholic priests and this new arrangement?

Under the pastoral provisions of John Paul II a married Anglican priest may be admitted to Catholic Holy Orders at the discretion of a local bishop. He will have to take some classes and pass a few exams before ordination. After ordination, he can be assigned to a Catholic parish as an administrator or associate pastor. He may not serve as a pastor. Whole Anglican parishes may come over as well and be included in what is called "Anglican Use" parishes. These parishes use a version of the Book of Common Prayer for their liturgies and are usually served by a former Anglican priest. In all cases, the individual priest and the parish remain under the direct jurisdiction of the local bishop.

Benedict is changing this up by placing converted Anglican clergy and parishes under the jurisdiction of their own Ordinaries; that is, an Anglican Use parish served by a former Anglican priest will not answer to the local Roman Catholic bishop but rather serve under an Ordinary who was also once an Anglican priest or bishop. This means that in any given diocese, there can be an Ordinary for the Latin Catholics (always a bishop) and an Ordinary for the local Anglican Use Catholics (can be a celibate bishop, a celibate priest, or a married priest, all of whom were once Anglican clerics). Every geographical diocese already has a number of Ordinaries. One is a Latin Rite bishop, another may be a Ukrainian Rite bishop, or a Byzantine Rite bishop. What Benedict seems to be doing is establishing the first non-Latin rite in communion with Rome that comes out of the Reformation.

2). Can boys who grow up in one of these Anglican Use parishes become married priests?

That is unclear. My guess is that the marriage provision applies only to converts not those who will be baptized in the Anglican Use rite as children. I doubt very seriously that Rome will allow the Holy Father's offer to become a permanently opened backdoor for an across-the-board married Latin Rite priesthood.

3). Will these former Anglicans be real Roman Catholics? I mean, do they have to accept Church teaching in every way?

Yes. Without a doubt they will have to accept as true all the teachings of the Church. Rome is not going to let them fudge on hot-button issues like contraception, papal primacy and infallibility, and Marian dogma. They will have to become fully Roman Catholic. The word is that they will sign copies of the Catechism rather than just make a statement of faith as is the norm now for Anglican converts.

4). Doesn't this offer from the Pope ruin ecumenical dialogue with the Church of England and the Episcopal Church?

Some certainly think so. I don't. We can continue talking to anyone we please. Most professional ecumenists see their job as an effort to find ways of bringing two churches together in some sort of theological or ecclesial compromise. We'll drop doctrine X if your accept doctrine Y. This is not the Church's teaching on how to do ecumenical dialogue. Dialogue with other ecclesial communities is not about diluting the tradition just so we can all say that we belong to the same institution. Benedict's offer to the Anglican is truly ecumenical because he has waived certain non-essential requirements for admission into the Church. He has made it simpler to become Catholic, not simpler to just join a compromised tradition. Catholic ecumenists are a little upset with all this because they sometimes see these dialogues as a backdoor means of liberalizing Catholic teaching. They also don't like the fact that Benedict's offer is unilateral, that is, not negotiated with the official Anglican bodies. The assumption here is that Rome should have treated Canterbury as an ecclesial equal rather than the usurper it is.

5). Does this move hurt our relations with the Orthodox?

Hardly. By allowing married Anglican clergy to become Catholic priests but not bishops, the Holy Father is sending a clear signal to the Orthodox that the ancient tradition of a celibate episcopacy will be maintained. If anything, the offer will strengthen our ties to the Orthodox (a very, very good thing!). It has become painfully clear in the last few decades that organic union with the mainstream of Protestantism is not going to happen. The divisions have been widened over the years by women's ordination, same-sex activism, and other radical changes in the catholic tradition. Rome cannot alter the essentials even if she wanted to. And most liberal Protestants are too entrenched in their modernist heresies to accept Roman authority anyway. Our only hope for reunion now is with the traditional Anglicans and the Orthodox. This is one of the projects of the current pope.

6). Why not set up a Jewish Use parish, or a Buddhist Use parish? They don't hold Catholic beliefs either.

I'll treat this as a serious question. Obviously, Jews and Buddhists aren't Christians. The Church has never said that Anglicans, Methodists, Quakers, etc. are not Christians. They do not hold to the fullness of the apostolic faith found in the Catholic Church, but they are baptized Christians. Jews, Buddhists, atheists, animists are all welcomed to become Catholic any time they choose to. Christ's offer of salvation with his Church is universal.

I will post more on this issue once the constitution is published. One friar noted yesterday that the Vatican is holding on to the constitution in order to gauge public reaction to the Pope's offer. The idea is to let the notion percolate, listen for issues not raised or discussed in the private deliberations, and make any changes necessary. Smart move, if true.

B.O.'s media bullying of FOX fails. . .miserably

The Most Transparent and Open Administration EVAH! tried to bar FoxNews from the press pool that covers this most translucent, illustriously tolerant White House.

It didn't work.

To their credit, the other news organizations refused to go along with B.O.'s bullying and threatened to pull their reporters if Fox was excluded. As usual, confront a bully and he'll back down--they are basically cowards at heart.

Never one to say anything nice about the NYT, I will nonetheless gratefully acknowledge the Times' role in exposing B.O.'s thuggery.

The current take on the White House's war with FoxNews is that the bumbling crew of the West Wing hoped to dissuade their media minions from picking up on stories Fox is reporting.

Again, it didn't work.

Let's hope and pray that the MSM has grown tired of B.O.'s petulance. Maybe they'll start doing their jobs now.

Is the Holy Father's welcome to traditionalists Anglicans. . .
	...an act of a true pastor.
	...a good thing but not a big deal.
	...a nice gesture that will go unanswered by most.
	...an act of poaching.
	...a declaration of war against revisionists.
	...a confusing mess for canon lawyers and bishops.

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