That is: a doctorate in sacred theology?
In 1995, the eminent canon-law professor Ed Peters wrote a piece for Homiletic and Pastoral Review about the need for bishops to set aside some young priests with academic ability, and get them enough advanced study so that they would be prepared in the future, if called, to serve the Church as bishops. At the time, Peters foresaw a “coming bishop crunch” in the U.S.: a lot of bishops reaching retirement age and perhaps a shortage of qualified priests possessing an advanced degree as required by canon law for a bishop.
Canon 378 lists several official requirements for bishops, and one is that he “hold a doctorate or at least a licentiate in sacred Scripture, theology or canon law, from an institute of higher studies approved by the Apostolic See, or at least be well versed in these disciplines.”
(In case the word “licentiate” is unfamiliar: it’s a graduate degree of lower rank than a doctorate, but it qualifies the holder to teach in a Catholic seminary awarding the bachelor’s in sacred theology.)
I thought about this topic the other day when I saw Sandro Magister’s column; it was a little chatty talk about some of the cardinals attracting interest as possible choices to succeed Pope Benedict XVI.
One of the names mentioned happens to be my local bishop, Cardinal O’Malley, and it always surprises me to see him on a list like that, since he doesn’t happen to hold either of those degrees. He does have a PhD, but it’s in Spanish and Portuguese literature. While I trust that he’s well versed in theology, I suspect that the cardinals are probably not going to elect anybody Pope unless he really fulfills the requirements with an earned degree in one of the sacred sciences named; and preferably at the doctoral level.
So I decided to make a little survey of the cardinal electors and see who studied what. For the sake of simplicity, I excluded about half the cardinals from my study population: those over 75 and those under 60 years of age, since I doubt that the cardinals will want to elect them.
Dr. Peters’ web site has a helpful table of the cardinal electors soon to choose a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, with links to biographies of the 118 current electors. Here’s a summary of who has earned a doctorate, and in what field; the lists are in descending order by age, and names marked with a star appear more than once.
Cardinals age 60-75 as of 2/17/13:
Doctorates in canon law
Romeo (IT)
Coccopalmerio (IT)
Monteiro de Castro (PT)
Cafarra (IT)
Brady (IE)
Grocholewski (PL)
Rai (LB)
Vallini (IT)
Bertello (IT)
Tauran (FR)
Versaldi (IT)
Sandri (AR)
Piacenza (IT)
Gracias (IN)
Filoni (IT)
Burke (US)
Harvey (US)
Erdö (HU)*
Doctorates in theology
Amato (IT)
Dziwisz (PL)
Hon (CN)
Wuerl (US)
Scola (IT)*
Irosa Savino (VZ)
Rodriguez-Maradiaga (HN)*
Calcagno (IT)
Sepe (IT)*
Cipriani Thorne (PE)*
Onaiyekau (NG)
Ouellet (CA)
Ricard (FR)
Schönborn (AT)
Alencherry (IN)
Cañizares Llovera (ES)
Collins (CA)
Braz de Aviz (BR)
Scherer (BR)
Koch (CH)
Erdö (HU)*
Doctorates in moral theology
O’Brien (US)
Rodriguez-Maradiaga (HN)*
Pengo (TZ)
Doctorates in Sacred Scripture
Monsengwo Pasinya (CG)
Betori (IT)
Turkson (GH)
Other fields:
Doctorates in philosophy
Scola (IT)*
Rodriguez-Maradiaga (HN)*
Bagnasco (IT)
Sepe (IT)*
Cipriani Thorne (PE)*
Filoni (IT)*
Barbarin (FR)
Miscellaneous
Pell (AU): Church history
O’Malley (US): Spanish literature
Rylko (PL): Social science
Nycz (PL): Catechetics
Dolan (US): Church history
Which cardinals have the most academic accomplishments? Well, it’s a little hard to say, since I’m leaving out the licentiates here. But within this limited survey, the top is Oscar Rodriguez-Maradiaga of Honduras, with doctorates in theology, moral theology, and philosophy, plus a diploma in clinical psychology and conservatory studies in piano! What a guy!
Perhaps the most unusual field one of the cardinals has studied is industrial engineering. Cdl. Cipriani was an engineer working for W.R. Grace before he entered priestly studies.
To summarize: of the 67 cardinals in this age range, 18 have doctorates in canon law; 21 in dogmatic theology; 3 in moral theology, 3 in Scripture.
And 24 do not have that top-level degree in one of the sacred sciences required by the canon — which really surprises me.
And the names of those outliers include some illustrious cardinals whom I would not mind seeing as Pope: George Pell (Australia), Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don (Sri Lanka).
[Welcome, readers from WDTPRS!]
Song For A Contemporary Nativity Set
Have yourself a minimalist Christmas
with a set of blocks
each a single color and an oblong box
Have yourself a geometric Christmas
It’s a tidy plan
As if they were painted like a Mondrian
Bet you knew
that our Lady’s blue
while Saint Joseph’s all in brown
Deeper shades from the Orient
tell you Magi are in town.
Soon it will be copied by IKEA
Yuletide can be blah:
Angels without mouths can’t sing a Gloria.
But have yourself a minimalist Christmas, brah.
On that night
Was our Savior white?
Was the shepherd grubby gray?
In that box
there’s no lamb or ox
but the Pope says that’s okay
If your kids see this on Christmas morning
sure they’re gonna cry
look at you in tears and ask you, Daddy, why?
So let’s just kiss this minimalist Christmas ‘bye
(A hat tip to Fr. Bryce Sibley for letting me know about this.)
Website for classic devotional hymns
My friend Peter Meggison has an interesting project going: he’s helping to keep old-fashioned Catholic devotional hymns alive by commissioning choral performances and recordings of these sentimental favorites. I’m putting together a web site for him at http://www.catholicdevotionalhymns.com/, so drop by and enjoy some of these charming old songs!
Parish Book of Psalms
Composer Arlene Oost-Zinner has been distributing her a cappella psalm settings for a few years through the Chabanel Psalms project, and this summer she has brought out a complete set of responsorial psalms for Sundays and solemnities, published by the Church Music Association of America.
View the Parish Book of Psalms at Scribd
By way of disclosure, I contributed to the book by doing some custom chant typesetting so I’m pleased with how the music looks. (The Scribd display above is not exactly what the page looks like, but it’s close.)
It’ll be available from Amazon shortly:
In CMAA’s spirit of sharing, free downloads of individual psalms are available online at http://musicasacra.com/pbp/.
What? We don’t do that… um, stuff
Somebody thought this was a good idea, but they should have checked it out more.
D’you ever hear of this? There’s some movement of people, starting in Japan, that wants to promote world peace, so they go around to promote putting up little posts in public places with a multi-lingual peace message.
In this case, a parish a couple of towns over erected a “peace pole” on its property, at the suggestion of a teenager who needed a place to carry out his Eagle Scout project.
The event took place a few years back, in ’09; I just happened to stumble on an Internet video of the installation today:
Whether the kid knew it or not, it’s sort of a “new-age” movement. At least it appears that way because the movement promoting these well-intentioned monuments has talk like this on its website:
The Power of Thought
Thought forms create an energetic field strong enough to empower the course of planetary destiny.
The Power of Words
Words carry vibrations strong enough to inspire, heal and transform the human heart as well as the Kingdom of plants, animals and all creation.
Uh… no.
We Catholics don’t believe in talk like that: about imaginary energy fields and immaterial vibrations. In fact, we would classify that as “superstition”. A belief about such things may be part of some Eastern religion, or it may show up in “new-thought” religions in America, but we Catholics don’t do that stuff.
Well, I will have to visit that parish and see if their little peace pole is still there reminding people to send out the vibrations or transmit the energy field. I’ll bring my wi-fi detector and see if it picks up any signal.
You want peace? Don’t just wish for it. Don’t just formulate wishes directed to no one in particular. Instead, pray for peace. Prayers, unlike wishes, are directed to someone other than yourself. For one, God is there; He’s happy to hear us turning to Him and asking for what the world needs. And the Blessed Virgin Mary is happy to join in with our prayers when we ask her, especially since her message at Fatima calls on us to pray the Rosary for peace.
What would be a good replacement for these not-Catholic peace poles installed in Catholic churchyards — and, by the way, this isn’t the first case I’ve seen.