Author: John Schultz

This is making the e-mail rounds, so you may have seen it. But it was new to me.

SPOONS
A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, “Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.”
The Lord led the holy man to two doors. He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in.In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew which smelled delicious and made the holy man’s mouth water.
The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths. The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. The Lord said, “You have seen Hell.”
They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man’s mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking. The holy man said, “I don’t understand.
“It is simple” said the Lord, “it requires but one skill. You see, they have learned to feed each other, while the greedy think only of themselves.”

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?”