John Schultz: July 2006 Archives

Remember those canadian ladies who were "ordained" on the St. Lawrence Seaway last year? Well one wasn't Canadian.

``I've always seen my role as to stay within the church and to push the boundaries," Marchant said in an interview. ``But I really came to see in the archdiocese that the change was not going to come about because we women were doing a good and worthy job, but that something more dramatic and drastic had to happen. Until we really took a very strong step and defied this very unjust law -- the canon in canon law that restricts ordination to men -- nothing was going to change."

Sounds like a typical statement made by womanwhothinkspriestsshouldbewomentoobecauseshe'sheardthecall andgotsecretlyordainedontheSt.LawrenceSeaway, right?

Well this one came from the former director of healthcare ministry for the archdiocese of Boston.

Bonus #1: she's married to "a one-time Marist priest who left the priesthood for their relationship." To be fair, it's unclear whether the former priest just up and left, or went through the canonical process to leave the priesthood. Either way - it's clear this household would need to support married priests.

Bonus #2: article contains a photo of the "priestess" with a very self-satisfied look on her face.

Four words: more chancery housecleaning required.

How about a big book about how there's been a crappy response to sexual abuse within the Church over the years? Wouldn't that be edifying and useful?

Well now you can buy it.

The lesson to be learned is, of course, to turn away from sin and embrace the Truth. But do we need a book like this to understand that? This will probably be used by malcontents and detractors as a source of unending Church bashing.

VATICAN CITY, JULY 23, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave on sacred music, delivered in the Sistine Chapel on June 24, 2006, after a concert sponsored by the Domenico Bartolucci Foundation.

* * *

Your Eminences,

Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Presbyterate,

Brothers and Sisters in the Lord,

At the end of this concert, evocative because of the place we are in -- the Sistine Chapel -- and because of the spiritual intensity of the compositions performed, we spontaneously feel in our hearts the need to praise, to bless and to thank. This sentiment is addressed first of all to the Lord, supreme beauty and harmony, who has given men and women the ability to express themselves with the language of music and song.

"Ad Te levavi animam meam," (to you, Lord, I lift up my soul), the Offertory of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina has just said, echoing Psalm (25[24]:1).

Our souls are truly lifted up to God, and I would therefore like to express my gratitude to Maestro Domenico Bartolucci and to the foundation named after him that planned and put on this event.

Dear Maestro, you have offered to me and to all of us a precious gift, preparing the program in which you wisely situated a choice of masterpieces by the "prince" of sacred polyphonic music and some of the works that you yourself have composed.

In particular, I thank you for having wished to conduct the concert personally, and for the motet "Oremus pro Pontefice" that you composed immediately after my election to the See of Peter. I am also grateful to you for the kind words you have just addressed to me, witnessing to your love for the art of music and your passion for the good of the Church.

Next, I warmly congratulate the choir of the foundation and I extend my "thank you" to all who have collaborated in various ways.

Lastly, I address a cordial greeting to those who have honored our meeting with their presence.

All the passages we have heard -- and especially the performance as a whole in which the 16th and 20th centuries run parallel -- together confirm the conviction that sacred polyphony, particularly that of the so-called "Roman School," is a legacy to preserve with care, to keep alive and to make known, not only for the benefit of experts and lovers of it but also for the entire ecclesial community, for which it constitutes a priceless spiritual, musical and cultural heritage.

The Bartolucci Foundation aims precisely to safeguard and spread the classical and contemporary tradition of this famous polyphonic school that has always been distinguished by its form, focused on singing alone without an instrumental accompaniment. An authentic renewal of sacred music can only happen in the wake of the great tradition of the past, of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony.

For this reason, in the field of music as well as in the areas of other art forms, the ecclesial community has always encouraged and supported people in search of new forms of expression without denying the past, the history of the human spirit which is also a history of its dialogue with God.

Venerable Maestro, you have also always sought to make the most of sacred music as a vehicle for evangelization. Through numberless concerts performed in Italy and abroad, with the universal language of art, the Pontifical Musical Choir conducted by you has thus cooperated in the actual mission of the Pontiffs, which is to disseminate the Christian message in the world. And you still continue to carry out this task under the attentive direction of Maestro Giuseppe Liberto.

Dear brothers and sisters, after being pleasantly uplifted by this music, let us turn our gaze to the Virgin Mary, placed at Christ's right hand in Michelangelo's Last Judgment: let us especially entrust all lovers of sacred music to her motherly protection, so that always enlivened by genuine faith and sincere love of the Church, they may make their precious contribution to liturgical prayer and effectively contribute to the proclamation of the Gospel.

To Maestro Bartolucci, to the members of the foundation and to all of you who are present here, I cordially impart the apostolic blessing.

[Translation issued by the Holy See]

It's convention season for the National Pastoral Musicians Association.

I guess when you get that many priests, liturgists and musicians together you'll get a few crazy statements... like:

"Liturgy is like a musical."

And some partly sensible ones:

What's "tasteful" in church is subjective, he said. "The underlying factor is: Is this causing prayer?"

This from a Wisconsin paper: The times are a-changing for local Catholic parishes

I thought maybe the article would be about gregorian chant in Wisconsin parishes. Or maybe a communal burning of priestly vestments that have rainbows on them.

But it turns out there's going to lots of schedule changes at Parishes. Because there aren't enough priests. Because: priests can't get married and women can't be priests.

Some changes have already been felt, other changes are coming for parishes and parishioners within the Milwaukee Archdiocese, notes the Rev. Steven Amann, new pastor of St. Charles Borromeo Parish, Burlington.
Many of these changes are a response to the current shortage of priests, which Amann attributes to the church’s prohibitions on priestly marriage and ordination of women.
But neither of these issues is currently up for review or discussion within the church. “My guess is unless we make both of those changes, we’re going to continue to have a shortage,” Amann said.

Thanks for the soundbite, Reverend. I'm sure since your parish will be a bastion of orthodoxy since you are so strongly committed to important church teachings.

Mother is 83 today. After listening to Raymond Arroyo's book, I have a newfound respect for her holiness, tenacity, and courage. Too bad she can't conduct Episcopal Backbone Classes for the U.S. bishops.

My only question about the update on EWTN's site: a mariachi band?

The link to EWTN's catalog goes to the large print edition of the book. Get the audio CDs if you can - Arroyo impersonates everyone from Mother Angelica to Archibishop Rembert Weakland. It's a hoot.

Talk amoungst yourselves...

Senate bill seeks more pay for aliens

Do you ever click on a link and wish you hadn't?

I was reading a snarky press release that linked over to a Minneapolis, MN parish. The press release was lamenting the certain content on the site is pro-gay but the local bishop and pope won't do anything about it. (In case you're wondering why I think the press release is snarky - just read it for tone and check out the quote at the end.

Well, it turns out there's some special stuff on that site besides what is mentioned in the article:

A unique aspect of Sunday Mass at St. Joan of Arc are the challenging presentations given by guest speakers and SJA's pastors. This section of our webpage announces upcoming speakers. Please join us.

The schedule needs to be copied here to be believed:


There you have it. Outrageous liturgical practices, political "sermons" made by lay people... it's just so... Episcopalian.

Can we make a trade? A couple of orthodox, Bible-believing Episcopal parishes for a parish that's Catholic in name only?

This part of the article is pretty straight forward.

Female Episcopal bishop could strain Catholic ties

A potentially historic speech about women that received little media fanfare was made two weeks before America's Episcopal Church elected Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as its leader in June.

The speaker was Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's top liaison with non-Catholic Christians. He addressed the Church of England's bishops and certain female priests.

Catholic and Anglican officials have spent four decades working toward shared Communion.

Mincing no words, Kasper said that goal of restoring full relations "would realistically no longer exist" if Anglicanism's mother church in England were to consecrate female bishops.

And this must be quoted out of context:

The cardinal said female bishops should be elevated only after "overwhelming consensus" is reached with Catholicism and like-minded Eastern Orthodoxy.

Mainly because it doesn't make sense in the context of the next quote from the Cardinal:

Anglicans cannot assume Catholicism will someday drop objections to female priests and bishops, Kasper said. "The Catholic Church is convinced that she has no right to do so."

...full piece here

Congrats to the World Cup Champions!

The one-quarter of me that's Italian is thinking about drinking too much wine and burning something down. The rest - English, German and Irish, is thinking about being polite and organized about my drinking.

Remember when Nihil Obstat was driving everyone crazy?

Well - here's "A Day in the Life of N. Obstat..." from September 2002.

5:07am My dream about being the Editor of the Concord Monitor interrupted by the scratching of my 4 Siamese Cats.
5:09am I rise from bed to spoon heaping helpings of Fancy Feast out into individual cermanic food bowls.
5:17am Proceed to the laundry room to quickly remove cat elimination from the litter boxes.
5:56am Tolstoi, the youngest cat, is the last cat to arrive for his morning evacuation.
5:58am Litter boxes clean, I proceed to my study boot up my computer.
5:59am Morning Earl Grey tea is brewed extra strong.
6:10am I step out into the cool NH air and witness a neighbor allowing their dog to tramp through the yard
6:10:23am I yell "Get off my lawn!" at the neighbor while shaking a clentched fist
6:12am Proceed back to the computer to begin important work

The rest of the day is here.

I'm holding up six fingers.

Go visit - there some great stuff over there. Especially "Free Piglet"

CL is 4 years old as of last May - an anniversary that passed us by. Might be time for some "best of" entries.

...before the articles lamenting the untimely death of Enron founder and recent convict Ken Lay appeared.

Apparently death and divine judgment wasn't good enough for him.

But now that he's died of a heart attack in the luxury of his Colorado getaway while awaiting sentencing for his crimes, none of his victims will be able to contemplate that he's locked away in a place that makes the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel look like Hawaii; that he might be spending long nights locked in a cell with a panting tattooed monster named Sumo, a man of strange and constant demands; and long days in the prison laundry or jute mill or license plate factory, gibbering with anguish as fire-eyed psychopaths stare at him for unblinking hours while they sharpen spoons into jailhouse stilettos.

He will not be ground into gray jailhouse paste by listening to the eardrum-scarring symphony of 131-decibel despair that is the Muzak of penitentiaries, by gagging on the dead prison air, by choking on the deader food, by watching the blue sky taunt him with freedom over the exercise yard, and by feeling his nervous system rent by the cruel grenades of memories -- explosions of nostalgia for the days when he knew he'd be swanning forever through the comfy laps and cool lawns of luxury and infinite possibility. Sweet Gulfstreams through sweet skies, the pools, the jewels, the Maybach limousines, a life in which he didn't just pimp his ride, he pimped the entire world as he knew it.

You can read the rest of the story in the Washington Post. The author makes the point that human "savagery" makes us want to see Lay suffer in prison.

Which would be typical, if one doesn't believe in God, judgment, and the afterlife.