Richard Chonak: September 2008 Archives

Here's a discreet but decisive change in Rome: Catholic News Agency reports that Pope Benedict has quietly dismissed all the former consultors to the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff, holdovers from the tenure of Abp. Piero Marini, and replaced them with supporters of the 'Benedictine' reform.

For English-speaking readers, the most familiar name will probably be Oratorian Fr. Uwe Michael Lang, author of "Turning Towards the Lord", recently appointed an official of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

I'm going to have to start watching papal liturgies more closely!

The setting: 4:59 pm and 30 seconds. Choir loft at St Leo's, Pawtucket.

We're ready for Low Mass in the Extraordinary Form. A guy walks up to the loft and asks Brian if he can squeeze in "On Eagles' Wings" somewhere, 'cause his sister (for whose benefit the Mass was to be applied) liked it.

We threw him over the side.

No, that's not what happened. Really, the bell rang for the priest's entrance (Saved By The Bell!) and Brian turned back toward the console. The guy kept talking. Brian shook his head. "Not at this Mass," then he sat down and started the hymn. It was "Let all mortal flesh keep silence". Just by happenstance.

Man, that request was so wrong in so many ways.

No, mister, paying the stipend for a Sunday Mass doesn't turn it into your own family affair where you're entitled to make requests about the music. This isn't a wedding or a funeral. It's a regular Sunday Mass. On the other hand, I might wish to get such influence just by giving a stipend. I'd do it all the time just to improve the music at my suburban parish!

No, mister, we don't take last-minute requests. This is not the drive-through window: "Gimme a Mass of Creation with some Pan de Vida on the side".

No, mister, we don't play anything in English during the Traditional Latin Mass: it's against the rules at High Mass, and the priest doesn't allow us to do it at Low Mass.

And we do wish we could make you happy, mister, but we're not going to play sentimental, sappy, overused songs from the '80s that sound like a commercial jingle before or after the Tridentine Mass, because the congregation would rise as a man, hike up to the loft, and execute swift vengeance on anyone up there.

Just to escape, I'd have to throw myself over the side.

Fr. Thomas Pandippally, pray for your brothers in India; pray for us.

Sometimes there are things going on in the world that I don't want to know about, because I'd feel I should do something about them. This is one.

Orissa is a state in southeast India, and Kandhamal is a rural district there.

TIKABALI, India (Reuters) - On a starry night last week, as Lal Mohan Digal prepared to go to bed, a mob of raging, machete-wielding Hindu zealots appeared above the hills of his mud house and swarmed over this bucolic hamlet in Orissa.

By dawn, Christian homes in the village were smoking heaps of burnt mud and concrete shells. Churches were razed, their wooden doors and windows stripped off.

"We could hear them come shouting 'Jai Shri Ram'," Digal said, referring to the rallying cry of Hindus hailing their warrior-god.

The mob poured kerosene on the thatched rooftops of the village homes, then threw matches. Church spires were hacked down.

The Hindu part of the village was untouched. For four days Digal and his stricken Christian neighbours hid in the teak forests, before being herded to a government-run relief camp.

The violence replicated itself in village after village, as the rural Kandhamal district of Orissa convulsed from some of the worst anti-Christian attacks in India.

[story continues]

The Church there is doing what it can:

Church petitions Indian Supreme Court to protect Christians in Orissa

NEW DELHI (CNS) -- The Catholic Church in India has petitioned the country's Supreme Court to protect Christian lives and property in Orissa state.

Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar told the Asian church news agency UCA News Sept. 2 that the church decided to approach the highest court "as we are not getting sufficient response" from the Orissa government.

The archbishop, whose archdiocese is in Orissa, said the church wants the court to order federal authorities to protect Christians in the eastern state.

"We want some clear help and response" from the government, added the archbishop, who has stayed in New Delhi since the violence broke out in Orissa Aug. 24.

The church petition seeks the deployment of sufficient riot police in villages where Hindu extremists continue to destroy churches and Christian buildings. It also demands that the Central Bureau of Investigation, the country's criminal investigative agency, probe the violence.

In addition to its regular judicial duties, the Supreme Court of India can take action if individuals file a petition with a question of public importance that needs the court's involvement.

Archbishop Cheenath said the attacks have now decreased, since "there are no more targets to attack." But in several villages Christians reportedly have been forced to sign documents declaring they are Hindus and have been asked to destroy their churches and other Christians' houses afterward.

The archbishop told UCA News all Christian institutions have been destroyed in the Kandhamal district, the worst-hit area of Orissa. The violence began there after suspected Maoists gunned down an 85-year-old Hindu religious leader and five associates Aug. 23. Hindu radicals targeted Christians, claiming they had masterminded the killings.

[story continues]

ZENIT has a two-part interview this week with our own favorite canonist Pete Vere.

[Update: For information on the subsequent laicization of Fr. Vlasic, see this post from July 2009. --RC]

Slowly, the corruptions surrounding the Medjugorje case are being dealt with.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has investigated charges and imposed sanctions against Fr. Tomislav Vlasic, OFM. Perhaps you've never heard of him.

Here's the background. In 1981, Fr. Vlasic, a friar and parish priest in Yugoslavia, was distressed at having fathered a child by a Franciscan sister and having sent the mother away from Herzegovina to live and work in Germany. Struggling with his conflicting duties, he attended a Charismatic conference in Rome. There he was given a consoling "prophecy" of a Marian visitation. When he got home to Herzegovina and found that a bunch of teenagers was claiming an apparition, he stepped into the role of their spiritual advisor, got himself assigned to their parish, and shortly became an international religious celebrity.

Undeterred by his earlier co-ed religious experience, he felt inspired to try another one in 1987: together with a German laywoman, he founded a would-be religious community in Italy for young men and women all living together, called "Queen of Peace, we are totally yours". He claimed that our Lady had approved the idea, and he kept it going even after the bishops of the place had rejected it and the Medjugorje seer who supported him confessed publicly that the heavenly endorsement was a falsehood.

Coming forward to 2008, it seems he's been continuing the group all these years, as the CDF's sanctions order Fr. Vlasic to have no contact with it or its members. Complaints to the CDF have accused him of "the diffusion of dubious doctrine, manipulation of consciences, suspected mysticism, disobedience towards legitimately issued orders and charges contra sextum."

Perhaps it is the last point, charges of violating the sixth commandment, that caused CDF to take up the case, as particularly grave offenses against the sixth commandment -- involving the abuse of minors or involving the misuse of the sacrament of penance -- are reserved to CDF for judgment.

In perhaps the easiest matter to adjudicate, Fr. Vlasic has apparently incurred the penalty of interdict because of his refusal to return to the Franciscans and reside with them.

Moreover, CDF indicates there is a "suspicion of heresy and schism, as well as scandalous acts contra sextum, aggravated by mystical motivations" -- so CDF has forbidden him to hear confessions, to preach, to conduct financial business; and has ordered him to undergo some theological training and be evaluated on his teaching.

At the request of CDF, the diocese of Mostar has published the Congregation's statement on the case, and it follows here.