June 2007 Archives

My archbishop doesn't seem to realize how much interest there is in the old Mass. He writes:

From Cleveland I flew to Rome at the request of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone to participate in a meeting discussing the Holy Father’s Moto Proprio about the use of the older form of the Latin Mass. There were about 25 bishops there, including the president of Ecclesia Dei Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, the prefect of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments Cardinal Francis Arinze, several heads of bishops’ conferences as well as some cardinals and other residential bishops.

They shared with us the Moto Proprio and the Holy Father’s letter explaining it. We also had an opportunity to read the Latin document. We each commented on that, and then the Holy Father came in and shared some of his thoughts with us. The Holy Father is obviously most concerned about trying to bring about reconciliation in the Church. There are about 600,000 Catholics who are participating in the liturgies of the Society of St. Pius X, along with about 400 priest.

The Holy Father was very clear that the ordinary form of celebrating the Mass will be the new rite, the Norvus Ordo. But by making the Latin Mass more available, the Holy Father is hoping to convince those disaffected Catholics that it is time for them to return to full union with the Catholic Church.

So the Holy Father’s motivation for this decision is pastoral. He does not want this to be seen as establishing two different Roman Rites, but rather one Roman Rite celebrated with different forms. The Moto Propio is his latest attempt at reconciliation.

In my comments at the meeting I told my brother bishops that in the United States the number of people who participate in the Latin Mass even with permission is very low. Additionally, according to the research that I did, there are only 18 priories of the Society of St. Pius X in the entire country. Therefore this document will not result in a great deal of change for the Catholics in the U.S. Indeed, interest in the Latin Mass is particularly low here in New England.

In our archdiocese, the permission to celebrate the Latin Mass has been in place for several years, and I granted permission when I was in Fall River for a Mass down on the Cape. The archdiocesan Mass is now at Immaculate Mary of Lourdes Parish in Newton. It is well attended, and if the need arises for an extension of that we would, of course, address it.

This issue of the Latin Mass is not urgent for our country, however I think they wanted us to be part of the conversation so that we would be able to understand what the situation is in countries where the numbers are very significant. For example, in Brazil there is an entire diocese of 30,000 people that has already been reconciled to the Church.

I think I know what's leading the Cardinal to underrate the issue's importance for the US: he's thinking only of the Motu Proprio's effect for Catholics who worship at SSPX Masses.

In France and Germany, they're substantial, visible communities, a large segment of the active Catholic population. In France, some parish churches have even been placed under SSPX control by direct action of the laity with the cooperation of local officials.

So the Cardinal counts 18 SSPX priories in the US and figures that's how big the movement is. But SSPX priests serve multiple locations -- 105 of them; and there are other groups as well: splinter groups from the SSPX, smaller movements, and also individual priests with independent chapels. All told, there are over 300 unapproved Mass sites: a lot more than 18. The unauthorized traditionalist groups are just more diverse and more dispersed.

But the Motu Proprio is aimed at benefiting all the faithful, not just those who have opted for the illicit chapels. It should improve the celebration of the Roman rite Mass in general, if the clergy and the musicians who shape its celebration can develop in it the values to which the old rite bears witness.

My response to the Cardinal follows after the jump.

By now most wrestling fans, especially Canadian ones, will have heard of the murder-suicide of Chris Benoit and his family. The following is an editorial I wrote this morning for the local secular media:

********************
On Chris Benoit's death
By Pete Vere

SooToday.com
Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Initially I was going to write this editorial on last weekend's fun at the St. Jean Baptiste Day festival, the opening of the Desbarats farmers' market this Friday, and this weekend's Canada Day celebrations. I had not intended to devote another editorial to professional wrestling so soon after the last one.

Nevertheless, like most other fans of this sport, I was both shocked and saddened by the death of Chris Benoit, his wife Nancy, and their seven-year-old son Daniel, in what now appears to have been a murder-suicide.

Although he struggled at his mic skills, Benoit was a gifted technical performer and rose to become Canada's best after injury forced Bret Hart into retirement. In an industry where egos often clash, my contacts within the industry tell me Benoit was a good guy in the locker-room who always treated other wrestlers with respect. This certainly was the case with the fans, for whom he never gave any less than 100 percent.

I regret never having had the opportunity to see Benoit perform live. Yet he certainly entertained me on many a Monday and Thursday night. His flying headbutt was one of my favorite moves. His departure from WCW after the company aborted his championship run angered me - enough to reconsider my boycott of the WWE.

But this is now in the past.

This morning I find myself, along with many other fans, struggling with the following question: How do I reconcile Chris Benoit the humble performer who consistently gave his all, with the Chris Benoit who reportedly killed his family before ending his own life?

Was it steroids? A mid-life crisis? Had he suffered some sort of brain injury in the ring of which nobody was aware? Is there some other medical or scientific explanation that the experts don't know?

I certainly don't.

So this is one of those times when I must set aside logical explanations for the comfort of my Catholic faith. As a Catholic, I believe both murder and suicide to be acts of great evil. Each of these acts ends one of God's most precious gifts to us: the gift of human life. Those who take innocent life are worthy of eternal damnation.

Yet as a Catholic I also believe in forgiveness and redemption. I believe that Jesus Christ gave His own life to bring us an even greater gift, namely, salvation which is the gift of eternal life. Because Christ is an infinite God who became man, whereas we are finite human creatures who desire to come to God, I believe there is no sin of which we are capable that Christ cannot forgive.

This includes sins against human life.

There is no way of knowing what went through Chris Benoit's mind as he struck out against his family and himself. Yet there is also no way of knowing what conversation took place between him and God in the final moments of his life. Therefore, what sustains at moments like these is the hope that Chris, Nancy and Daniel, in their dying moments, each made their final peace with God.

May their souls, and the souls of all the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

OK, everybody, get over to the web site of the Church Music Association of America, and hear some moving and beautiful recordings of polyphony and chant works sung by participants in this year's CMAA's annual colloquium. I attended the program June 19-24, and enjoyed the experience greatly. I'll post more about it over the next few days.

Basilica glorifies in glass mosaic

Maybe Pete will write about this is "Surprised By Canon Law - Tertius Secui"

Kennedy marriage annulment overturned by the Vatican

That should actually be "Two".

For those of you who enjoyed Surprised by Canon Law and cannot wait to read more, I'm pleased to announce that Surprised by Canon Law, volume 2, is now available for pre-order through Amazon.

Here's the cover:

SBCL2 covers all sorts of interesting topics like the canonizations of saints, Eastern Churches, religious orders, the sex abuse crisis, penal law, ecumenism, and parish mergers and closures.

The baby loves her pop-up books...

Voice of Russia radio has the moving story this week of a woman raised under the Soviet atheistic system, who trained for the Soviet foreign service. Living far away in affluent Washington, she began to feel the mysterious stirrings of God in her heart, drawing her to re-examine her life and become a Christian believer. To hear the program, select the broadcast from Saturday 0800; the "Christian Message from Moscow" feature starts at 31 minutes into the hour.

This from a blog post about English translations of the Latin Mass texts.

I imagine we've been here before. As koine Greek gave way to vulgar Latin, for the sake of the wider mission of the Church, Latin is now giving way to English and Spanish for the same reason. I wonder if some Greek speakers wanted to Hellenise the Latin as the Latinists now feel the need to Latinise English. 'My dear fellow; how can you possibly adequately translate the word logos into anything except, well, logos?!'

Can we ask the Latinisers to take English a little more seriously? Perhaps. During the apartheid era I visited a 'coloured' Catholic diocese where the mother tongue is Afrikaans, 'the language of the oppressor', a sentiment I then shared. When I attended the Eucharist in Afrikaans, my negative perception collapsed dramatically. Here was clear Catholic faith and piety, intense, prayerful, and faithful, 'sanctifying' a despised language.

What further evidence beyond the Incarnation and Pentecost do we need to be convinced that in Christ all languages are sacred and therefore to be trusted?

And the good father totally missed the point of an authentic translation. It's not about Latin being "better" than English. It just so happens that for hundreds of years Latin has been the official language of the Church. We need translations that express these texts accurately in English. Full post here.

Let's run some numbers from this article.

Data Shed Light on Child Sexual Abuse by Protestant Clergy

The three companies that insure a majority of Protestant churches say they typically receive upward of 260 reports a year of children younger than 18 being sexually abused by members of the clergy, church staff members, volunteers or congregants.

And later:

Religious groups and victims’ supporters have been keenly interested in the figure since the Roman Catholic sexual-abuse crisis erupted five years ago. The church has said it has recorded 13,000 credible accusations against Catholic clergymen since 1950.

13,000 sounds bad, right? Not as bad as 260 of course.
Except that for Catholic clergy, it's 13,000 since 1950.
And the companies insuring Protestant congregations are reporting 260 per year.
Since 1950, that would be 14,820.

Obviously this is a numbers game that is not good for anyone. Still - it shows how the reach of the evil of sexual abuse across denominations. And, in spite of similar numbers, the Catholic Church has taken the most punishment for this, both financially and in the eyes of the general public.

And if a reader wasn't thinking and didn't do the math, the Catholic Church would still be taking the most heat from this article.

Torture, death penalty, false imprisonment = bad
Abortion = a basic human right

"Amnesty International’s position is not for abortion as a right but for women’s human rights to be free of fear, threat and coercion as they manage all consequences of rape and other grave human rights violations," Gilmore claimed.

Gilmore condemns Cardinal Martino for saying Amnesty International is "promoting abortion" but says in her statement that "Amnesty International's actual policy ... is to support the decriminalization of abortion ... and to defend women's access to abortion."

O, the philosophical and moral hoops people jump through to try to create a facade of legitimacy to their views on abortion...