Just when one kerfuffle over the automatic-writing mystic Vassula Ryden is announced, along comes another.

Now the Orthodox Church of Cyprus issued a statement about her on January 13. The Synodical Committee for Matters of Heresy --

By the way, isn't that a great name? Sure, we have a Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is a nice, positive-sounding name, but some issues really deserve a statement coming from an organization that gets right to the point. This is about identifying, defining, combating and routing heresy. I'll send a little note to Levada and see if he-- well, I'll do that later.

The Synodical Committee for Matters of Heresy warned:

In reality, her teachings are heretical, and her claims that she communicates directly with Christ are fantastical and outside of the spirit of the experience of the our Church.

So how many Orthodox Churches have issued warnings against her: Greece? Cyprus? The Patriarchate of Constantinople? Does she plan to stop in at church offices to collect the condemnations on her tour?

There are probably more to come!

What do false mystics do, besides peddle spiritual messages and collect money from naive followers? They sue people who try to expose them.

Last March the Patriarchate of Constantinople warned against Vassula Ryden's claims of presenting messages from Jesus. It was an impressive statement from her own church (English translation here), which should help to diminish the bad influence of this long-exposed phony, especially when it is added to the warnings from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1995, 1996, and 2007.

In March 2011 the critical web site infovassula.ch, based in Switzerland, wrote, apparently incorrectly, that the document was a formal excommunication of Ryden, and in November 2011 Vassula's organization sued the site author, Maria Laura Pio. A hearing about some issues was held on January 6.

The impression of an excommunication is understandable, since the Patriarchate's document stated:

we call upon the proponents of these unacceptable innovations and the supporters who maintain them, who henceforth are not admitted to ecclesiastical communion, not only to not be involved in the pastoral work of the local Holy Metropolis, but also to not preach their novel teachings, to prevent the appropriate sanctions under the Holy Canons.

Of course we are dealing with translations, so ambiguities are possible. It sounds at least as if the followers of Vassula are to be denied Holy Communion until they desist.

I wish Ms. Pio all the best in dealing with this legal harassment from the Vassula camp.

I got an e-mail today from catholic-hierarchy.org, that helpful web site that tracks the appointments, transfers, and retirements of bishops, using the announcements from the Holy See as their data source.

The news is that a coadjutor bishop has been appointed for the see of San Diego. That should be good news.

But when I looked up the name of the new bishop with a web search, this article appeared near the top of the listing:

"Cirilo Flores Rarely Pursued Discipline of Molesting Priests While Serving on Important Church Board"

Now, from reading the piece, it's clear that the article isn't written from an unbiased perspective, and it doesn't give both sides of the story. But the existence of such an article means that the new coadjutor is guaranteed to get bad press at the least; at worst, he might not be a suitable appointment.

So it deserves investigation before he gets appointed to San Diego. It makes me wonder whether the responsible parties of the Congregation for Bishops are even thinking to run an internet search before they send a name to the Holy Father.

A 2011 book by four pro-Medjugorje journalists accused the late Bishop Pavao Zanic of collaborating with the Communists in Yugoslavia against the claimed apparition: an outrageous charge.

The current bishop reviews the accusation and points out that Zanic's position on the case was consistently the exact opposite of the Communists' position. When he was favorable, they were against; when he was against, they were favorable! So they weren't very good at getting him to collaborate, hm?

Tsk, tsk, these Communists were so incompetent!

(Note: the English version published on the Mostar diocesan web site is my translation.)

The attractive new edition of Daily Roman Missal
arrived at my mailbox yesterday.

This is the seventh edition of Rev. James Socias' hand missal which first appeared in 1993. It was issued by Midwest Theological Forum, the Opus Dei-related publishing house near Chicago, where Fr. Socias is vice president, and the book also bears the insignia of Our Sunday Visitor Press.

First of all, I'd say that the general build of the book is good: the leather cover has a padded feel, and the binding looks well-made. I don't usually buy leather-bound books, but that's the edition I was able to pre-order from Amazon (and for only $48), so I took it. (There are, incidentally, conventional hardbound editions too in black or burgundy, less expensive than the leather-bound versions.)

Now that it's here, I feel like it's a bit too nice for me to carry around casually as is my habit; I may have to save this for use at home, and get some simpler book that I can put into a tote bag with my other odds and ends for the drive to a weekday Mass at the mall chapel.

On the inside, the book contains full Scripture readings and propers, and I'm pleased to see that it includes Latin texts for the proper antiphons. The typefaces are well-chosen, though the very nice bible paper does let text and artwork show through from the other side of the page, as you can see in the examples below; this detracts a little from the page's readability.

The ordinary parts of the Mass appear on facing pages, in the Church's language and in the vernacular. I'm pleased to see the rubrics included too. The book has about 30 illustrations in its 2500 pages, which is not much. It would have been good to see more art. And they did have room for it: the book includes a little over 200 pages in devotional prayers.

The other day, "Curt Jester" Jeff Miller read Taylor Marshall's account of how Saint Nicholas of Myra confronted the heretic Arius at the Council of Nicaea (and rearranged his dental work). Well, Jeff wished that there were a Christmas song about the event, so I obliged him:

I saw Santa punching Arius,
in Nicaea where the council met last night;
the bishops were aghast, and the bruise is gonna last:
he seized him with his left hand and then slapped him with the right;
Now the Emperor's pursuing Nicholas,
and wants to put him in a prison cell;
Probably neither will repent 'til their wrath is fully spent
and the heresy's condemned to hell.

Fr. David Barnes, the fine pastor of St. Mary Star of the Sea Church in Beverly, MA, has launched a blog under the title A Shepherd's Post, and I recommend it to you. I sang in his parish choir for the past few years, and appreciated his preaching and his encouragement of sacred music in the parish. Fr. Barnes is an active participant in the movement "Communion and Liberation" and serves as a spiritual director for seminarians at St. John Seminary in Boston.

Welcome to the Catholic "blogosphere", Father!

It's the last day of the Church year, so it's the perfect time to sing the Te Deum laudamus.

Here's a recording of the Schola Cantorum of Milan. It comes with a display of the Gregorian score as found in the Graduale Romanum book (simple tone), so you can sing along:

But why stop there? Here's an enormous force presenting the setting by Berlioz:

And the bold 1936 setting by Zoltan Kodály, written to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the liberation of Budapest from the Ottoman Turks:

Here, the choir of Notre Dame de Paris sings one of the Gregorian settings in the presence of Pope Benedict XVI. Notice a Notre Dame tradition at work: during some phrases, the choir is silent, letting the organ "sing". As it happened, some members of the congregation, probably not familiar with the tradition, sang those phrases anyway. (And that's OK: it's a good thing that the congregation knew the Te Deum well enough to sing along!)

There are several Gregorian melodies for the Te Deum: simple and solemn Roman melodies, and simple and solemn monastic (Benedictine) melodies, so don't be surprised if a particular chant performance doesn't match a score in front of you. Do the Dominicans have their own melody, or the Cistercians? What about the Carthusians? Maybe some more versions will turn up!

For those not familiar with Fr. John Anthony Hardon, SJ, he was a wonderful teacher of the faith who lived in Detroit. He trained catechists and wrote an adult catechism which helped me on the way into the Church; he gave retreats, and spoke to many audiences. He's also noted for making converts: quite a few Catholics found or returned to the faith through an encounter with him.

Supporters of his cause for beatification are building a website presenting many of his talks in text form and as mp3s.

(A prayer for his intercession is posted on the home page of that web site.)

Professor Matthew Connelly (Columbia University) recently presented a radio documentary about the population control movement, "Controlling People", on the BBC, in three episodes.

The story of a radical social-engineering campaign that began with high-sounding ideals and why it didn't work.

Part One: The "religion" of Malthusian ideology: The self-interested Western desire to keep down rising populations in the Third World: population-control ideology spread by men in wealthy countries.

Part Two: The Indian Emergency: Mass sterilization camps in India in the 1970s operated on eight million people, induced by payments and imposed with government pressure and, later, force. Social scientist Steven Mosher, then a supporter of population control, tells about the methods of the one-child policy in China: government lock-up and coerced abortion. But the rise of working women led to delayed marriage and reduced fertility on its own.

Part Three: Continuing Incomprehension. Fertility rates are falling, but the population-control ideology of the 1970s remains, targeting the poor with sterilization. A surrogacy program in India exploits the needs of the poor to satisfy the wishes of Western couples. "The disappearing female child" targeted by sex-selection abortion and infanticide. The continuing conflict among pop-controllers between advocates of sterilization and contraception.

I should note that there are some biases in the presentation: Professor Connelly frames the conflict as merely one between somewhat arrogant proponents of sterilization and more liberal supporters of voluntary contraception, and he treats voices of opposition to abortion and contraception as a "fanatical" religious element. Still, the presentation of the history and the issues is worthwhile.