Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

The website Catholics Come Home launched in March, is credited with bringing 3,000 Catholics in the Diocese of Phoenix back to the Church in less than three weeks. Take a look around the website and while you’re there, watch the television ad called Movie (bottom of home page) - very powerful.

For the movie of our life can be used to judge us. We will sorrowfully relive the bad times and joyfully revisit the good. (Romans 2:1-16)

It is then we will fully realize how our unkind thoughts and selfish choices wounded others, and led us away from our loving Father. (Matthew 25: 31-46)

And each time we ignored God’s voice, our conscience grew more deaf, and our heart hardened. (Matthew 24:12, Hebrews 3:8,15)

No matter what you’ve done, there is good news, since Jesus came not to condemn the world, but to save it. (Isaiah 1:18; John 3:16-17; Romans 5:8)

Jesus can heal your memories and forgive your past, if you accept His mercy. You really can be freed from the addiction of sin and find lasting peace. (Matthew 11:28)

May God abundantly bless those who love enough to humbly bring others to Christ.

H/T Catholic Education Resource Center

I found an interesting commentary in the London Times Online from a Catholic priest, Fr. James Bell, a convert from Anglicanism. The commentary is sort of a review of a new book on Cardinal Newman entitled “John Henry Newman–A Mind Alive” by Msgr. Roderick Strange. However, Fr. Bell discusses other issues as well. He talks about the announcement of Cardinal Newman’s imminent beatification. He spends most of the commentary discussing Newman’s role in the ecumenical dialog between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church. Bell laments that so many members of the Communion have moved much further from their Anglican roots in terms of confession and moral teaching than was the case just 40 years ago. Fr. Bell seems to hold hope that the upcoming beatification can be an impetus for the movement of Anglicanism closer to reunity with the Church, perhaps based upon Newman’s conviction to ecumenism through trust and a radical commitment to Christian truth. However, he does not seem to be very confident this will be the case. He ends the article with the observation that Newman’s grave was desecrated just a few weeks ago and then wonders whether the the fruit from ecumenical talks will be worth the effort spent.

If I read him correctly then I can certainly affirm Fr. Bell’s sentiments. Reunion with Anglicanism seems quite bleak at this point for the reasons Fr. Bell points out: there is very little unity within it. The sense of unity within Anglicanism is one primarily of political unity rather than unity in Truth Himself. If one looks at its history, it would seem likely that this would eventually in our time, be the case.  The Church of England went from still relatively Catholic under Henry VIII, then radically reformed under Edward, and then Catholic again under Mary.  Elizabeth’s rise to the throne saw this see-saw come to an end because she saw the unity of the empire more important that unity in truth.  Elizabeth demanded compromises in the truth of the faith that she hoped would satisfy both the reformers and the Catholics. Thus, the heritage of Anglicanism seems to have been from the earliest days, any compromise in belief that is necessary in order to maintain political unity. Today we see the same thing happening with the ordination of bishops who openly practice their same sex attraction disorder and the attempt to strike whatever compromise is possible to maintain unity. Even Rowan Williams who had openly supported ordaining those with SSAD is now backtracking for the same of political union.

However, as bleak as things seem what is truly impossible for men is possible with God.  If the the Shoot can arise from the stump of Jesse, the dry bones can regather into living flesh, and the springtime in the Church that seems to be blossoming in the US and in other parts of the world is a reality, it is clear that God can bring about life where there appears only death.  Faithfulness and not the prospects of success is the reason why the ecumenical dialog is worthwhile regardless of how useless it might seem to be in human terms.  I am sure that Cardinal Newman and Fr.  Bell would agree. Cardinal Newman: Pray for Us!

H/T Fr Alvin Kimel, Pontifications Purgatory as Self-Knowledge :

Humankind cannot bear to see the destruction and horror that it brings into the world, cannot bear to accept the responsibility for the injuries it has afflicted on others. Our offenses, infidelities, greed, lust, and violence ripple through families and communities, affecting people unto the third and fourth generation. We spend much of our time, both individually and corporately, protecting ourselves against this knowledge; - “Human kind”, T. S. Elliot

Like cursed offspring, mankind continues to suffer as a result of the sins of our ancestors past who sought refuge among the destructive sins of abortion, contraception, violence and sexual “freedoms”. In our quest of seeking out happiness and self fulfillment away from God, we develop into a type of spiritual hurricane with the hope of dwelling within the eye of the storm. The quick fixes, “personal choices” and alleged “rights” bring about the false sense of security one usually experiences while in the eye of a storm, holding on to a false hope of totally isolating themselves from the destruction and chaos of the storm swirling about them. The effects of our sins bring about a spiritually blindness, and through fear we learn to justify and accept the horror of abortion, the selfishness of contraception, the immoralities of lust and other immoral and unethical means of protecting the integrity of our selfish pride, comfort and safety. All the while, we believe we are making personal decisions and unaware that our evil deeds have become a new source of spiritual destruction, causing harmful scandal and suffering for generations to come and we allow injustices to go on, saying and doing nothing - out of fear and indifference, and for that we will be held accountable.

We see the meaning and the effects of ALL our sins in Purgatory—their effects on others as well as ourselves, both directly and indirectly, through chains of influence presently invisible, chains so long and effectual that we would be overwhelmed with responsibility if we saw them now. Only a few can endure the saint’s insight that “we are each responsible for all. - “Human kind”, T. S. Elliot

I’m feeling not so much in the judgmental mood right about now.

A brand new Web site through the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy provides open access to Biblical verses with exegesis from doctors of the Church AND cross reference liturgical texts with commentaries from Church Fathers. The site offers six categories in nine languages in addition to the option of downloading the site’s content. The nine translations of the Bible, including Hebrew and Greek, can be read side-by-side, as can the Eastern and Latin Codes of Canon Law. A down-loadable version allows us to connect Sacred Scripture to the complete works of many Doctors of the Church, Councils, Encyclicals, teachings of the Popes, Catechisms, as well as commentaries from secular literature, etc…

Might want to bookmark this one. Fair warning if you plan to down-load a version onto your hard drive, it’s excruciatingly slow.

Update: E-mail support for documents and articles of interest for Bishops and Priests.

Zenit

Recently, I have had a number of opportunities to consider the current state of theological inquiry and the prevailing approach to Catholic theology that has been called “the current emphasis.” I will argue, that this new approach, the “Nuptial Mystery” reflects a new synthesis of authentic previous theology on the order of that established by St. Thomas. But first some background.

In the 13th century there was a watershed in Catholic theology which would establish the approach to Catholic theological inquiry for the next seven hundred years. If one allows St. Anselm of Canterbury to be identified as the progenitor of the scholastic method, this event occurred about a century and a half into the development of this systematic approach to doing theology. The watershed to which I refer, of course, is arrival on the scene of the intellectual giant, St. Thomas Aquinas, who not only mastered and perfected this method but he employed it in such a way as to synthesize (almost) literally, all available sources of authentic knowledge up to that time. At the outset, I must say that I am not reducing all medieval theology to Thomism. However, even the the most hostile scholars to Thomism must admit that since Augustine, no single theologian has had the wide-ranging influence of St. Thomas.

St. Thomas was not only a brilliant personality, but as Etienne Gilson points out, he possessed in uncommon abundance an attribute that magnifies intellect in a synergistic way–a great humility. St. Thomas was not simply an intellectual giant, he was a humble saint and these together allowed him the ability to synthesize knowledge in such a way that even almost eight centuries later, we have not finished plumbing the depths of what he left us. His great synthesis began with adapting and purifying the intellectual tools of philosophy, and integrating recently rediscovered Aristotelian metaphysics into this, for Christian theology. With these tools, he integrated the best of biblical scholarship with his mastery of theological wisdom and insights from the patristics and scholastics up to his time.

Because his insights and completeness of thought were so formidable, the greatest effort of the vast majority of theologians who came after him was in plumbing its depths rather than in adopting his method. This is not to ignore the Franciscan school’s rejection of Thomism and the attempts to set up an alternative school. However, it seems clear that while the Scotian school certainly influenced thinking, and not all for the good when one considers his student’s, William of Ockham, insidious distortion of Western thought with his Voluntarist Nominalism. Nevertheless, even this theology took Thomas as its point of departure. Years later, when Thomism was eventually embraced by a majority of Catholic theologians, later approaches (so called neo-scholasticism) did not place as high a premium on mastering the sources as Thomas had.

This began to change at the end of the 19th century in Tubingen, and even more so, in the early part of the 20th century leading up to the Second Vatican Council. Among an influential group of Catholic theologians, there grew an emphasis on a return to the sources, the so-called Ressourcement, that so many theologians had set aside. The fruit this bore, was its influence of the conciliar documents and it came of age in the years following the council, primarily in the school now called Communio. Those associated with this school are certainly not monolithic in their approach or their models. However, there is a prevailing theme that, I would argue, one might now identify as the dominant approach to modern Catholic theology at the turn of the millennium that is bearing fruit.

Hence, I must say that I agree with Fergus Kerr, Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians: From Chenu to Ratzinger, who identifies this approach to be the aforementioned “Nuptial Mystery.” In his book, Kerr attributes this theology primarily to Hans Urs von Balthasar and Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. So what is the nuptial mystery? You can read the About this Blog page to get a little better sense of it, but in a nut shell it is the recognition that the Trinity is a Communio Personarum, a Community of Persons. One of the most fruitful insights has come from recent insights in personalism. These insights begin with the fact that man is made in the image of this Communio and that the human person can in deed be understood in analogy to the Divine Persons. This has led to stunning implications of this image for anthropology, the Sacraments, ecclesiology, indeed, the whole of theological inquiry. In a word, the nuptial mystery looks at the analogy of the Trinitarian Communio with human nuptial communion as the “model” par excellence to draw together and provide the integrating theme for the various theological traditions describing Trinitarian life, creation, the Incarnation, soteriology and indeed, all of salvation history.

In the end, the beatific vision is described in terms of marriage; it is marriage with God for which man was created. This is because human marriage arises from and is possible only because of the divine Communio Personarum. Thus, marriage with God is understood as an insertion of individual persons into Trinitarian communion, not as individuals, but corporately. This corporate incorporation comes about again through marital communion. This marital communion is the marriage of the Church, the Bride to the Incarnate Son, the Bridegroom. It is this marital communion that integrates the corporate Bride into the Hypostatic order. In other words, humanity is restored to its communion with God in the Person of Jesus Christ. Fallen human beings share in this restored communion, by union with Jesus Christ, and thereby enter into the Trinitarian Communio–which is integration into the eternal marital communion of the Trinity. Everything that the Church teaches, then, can be understood in terms of this marital end for which we were created.

This nuptial mystery has its foundations in the the exitus–reditus schema which permeates many civilizations’ cosmologies and was taken up in Christianity, especially in the East. This idea of creation coming out of God and returning to God can only be maintained in coherence in the Christian distinction (i.e. the infinite difference between Uncreated Being (God’s nature) and created being). Thus, the going forth and returning cannot be maintained in a substantive sense but rather, must recogized to be in the category of real relations (on the part of creation, not of God of course). Not surprisingly, St. Thomas’ magnum opus his Summa Theologiae, is arguably organized according to this schema and his presentation of what is called today, the Immanent Trinity (the Trinity in Itself) and the Divine Processions, reflect this.

St. Thomas presents all of the features necessary for this Nuptial Mystery in his theological work. In fact, he presents a little recognized foundational insight for it in his treatise on the Angels in the prima pars of the Summa. Here he says that while the Angels in their nature more perfectly reflect God in His nature, human beings because of their begetting more perfectly reflect God relationally.

It seems to me that St. Thomas has the metaphysical tools necessary for expounding the depth and breadth of the Nuptial Mystery but primarily in metaphysical terms. He did not yet have the philosophical tools for further developing the theological analogy of human personhood to divine Personhood. Indeed, philosophical personalism would not begin to flourish until the early-mid 20th century and the theological implications of this would not come about until Balthasar and Wojtyla especially. Today we still do not have a vocabulary for describing the quasi-substantiality of real created relations, much less the quasi-substantiality of real, I would argue, volitional relationships.

Baltahasar and Wojtyla are themselves synthesizers of the fruits that have arisen from biblical scholarship and the return to the sources that began in the years prior to their entry onto the scene. Between the two, I would say that Balthasar, in some ways, has been the most creative. However, I would argue that Wojtyla/JPII has been the greater and more complete synthesizer. One of the reasons for this is the latter’s better understanding and complete acceptance of Thomist metaphysics which stands at the foundation of his theology. Fused with this is Wojtyla/JPII’s mastery of a relatively new philosophical tool, phenomenology, which has enhanced developments in philosophical personalism. Wojtyla/JPII uses phenomenology to extract universal insights from subjective experiences by bracketing the subject’s unique conditioning of the way he interprets his experiences.

Balthasar, on the other hand, leaves too many cracks in his theology, it seems to me. Specifically, he has abandoned a consistent metaphysics (read Thomism) in favor of embellishing his theo-dramatic model. For example, he dismisses the metaphysical structure for discourse about God and His immutability because he cannot reconcile this with God’s suffering in His divinity. Suffering in God is important for the symmetry of his Theodrama. However, in doing this Balthasar leaves a contradiction between suffering and immutability because suffering per se means privation of being. Thus, he is left with a contradiction that he has to hide with appeals to mystery.  I cannot see how this avoids abusing the meaning of mystery and thus leaves him open to charges of fideism.

The Nuptial Mystery is an integrating thread that demonstrates the consistency and coherence of myriad traditional theologies such as those found for creation, the Incarnation and salvation, the Church, anthropology, the Sacraments, the liturgy, and eschatology. It also explains the human person and makes sense of interior dynamic experience. However, not everyone is happy with this approach. Not surprisingly, it appears to be those who are not especially attached to Catholic teaching or traditional Catholic theology.

R. R. Reno of Creighton University gives some insight into this disapproval in a follow up to his review of Kerr’s book cited above, both in First Things and both of which are more interesting reads than this post I must admit. Any way, Reno discusses the fact that Kerr is lambasted by the seventies crowd for many things in his book, but especially for not criticizing the Nuptial Mystery. Reno points out that Kerr defends himself in response, obviously hurt by the rejection of his contemporaries, that he was misunderstood, and that his “sardonic style” was missed. Those who reject this new synthetic theology are the usual suspects. They are radical feminists, sexual libertines, and others who wish to promote lifestyles that reject the truth that sexual intercourse can only be expressed legitimately within the marital covenant, and then only in openness to life.

Background in the Nuptial Mystery brings with it new and deeper meaning to reading Wojytla/JPII’s writings, especially his Theology of the Body. It will make deeper sense of Ratzinger/B16’s works such as the Spirit of the Liturgy. A good book on this that I would recommend is by Angelo Cardinal Scola entitled nothing other than, The Nuptial Mystery.  If you needed any other motivation to learn more about it, read Reno’s On the Square post about those who reject it…this should be sufficient evidence that there is something compelling there.

Of all days for a Protestant tradition to hold a service honoring Mary , why on the Feast of the Assumption?

“The people of the church need to know that Mary is important in the life of the church,” said the Rev. William F. Dopp, rector at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Hudson. “Mary is to be honored.” To help achieve that end, Dopp’s church is offering a service for Mary on Wednesday, her feast day. It includes a dramatic reading of words attributed to Mary, as well as a teaching on her role in the church.

Is anyone aware of why Episcopalians, who clearly reject the authority of the Catholic Church and, therefore, also presumably reject doctrines of The Immaculate Conception and Assumption, would choose that very day which Catholic’s celebrate the latter?

In the Episcopal tradition, August 15th is observed as the commemoration “Of the Blessed Virgin Mary”, and the recent Anglican-Roman Catholic agreed statement on the Virgin Mary assigns a place for both the Dormition and the Assumption in Anglican devotion.

I got an e-mail the other day, forwarding a link to an article from an on-line North Carolinian newspaper. It was a commentary on the CDF’s recent ecclesiological clarification that we posted on back in early/mid July. I found the article interesting for the simple fact that it contains, in one convenient place, almost every logical fallacy and erroneous form of thought that I have seen hurled at the Church for this document–and all of this in just over 800 words.

The author, Lauren R. Stanley, is a former Catholic who is now ordained in the Episcopalian ecclesial communion. As a literary device, she repeatedly uses a southern phrase of disagreement/disbelief:

Well, spit. I guess I’m not a real Christian after all. I thought I was. Truly. I’ve devoted my life - my body and my soul - to being a Christian, to trying to live as one. But apparently, I’m not. At least, not as far as Pope Benedict XVI is concerned. The Vatican, under his leadership, recently announced that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true Church, and that those of us who worship in other “churches” aren’t worshipping in real churches after all.

The “real Christian” assertion is a non-sequitur. The Catholic Church explicitly teaches that everyone who is validly baptized is a Christian (see CCC 1271). The claim of not being a real Christian then is Stanley’s interpolation and not that of the Church. Now if Stanley wants to argue that the Church is wrong about this and assert that everyone must be in a “real church” to be a “real Christian” then she must make the case for her assertion. Otherwise, to claim that Pope Benedict or the Catholic Church is asserting something that he/She is not is, at the very least negligent but more probably, disingenuous.

But of course, in distorting the meaning of the document, which is euphemistically called “spin” but more honestly called a lie, she is in good company with a majority of the reporting on this. This type of behavior seems to be reminiscent of that which one sees from rebellious teenagers who are not yet able to argue logically and so they emote by accusation. But of course, this is not all she had to say. Stanley goes on:

The Vatican even had the audacity to proclaim that while Orthodox churches could be considered “churches” in some ways, they aren’t really because they suffer from a “wound” that comes from not recognizing the primacy of the papacy.

Stanley accuses the Catholic Church of “audacity” for daring to have an understanding of Christianity and of the Catholic Church at variance with her own. In accusing the Church of arrogance what she does is to conflate a subjective attitude with a truth claim and in so doing, she falls into the trap of relativism by assuming that either there is no absolute truth or assuming at least that no one can have access to it.

The fact is though, that a truth claim is either true or false. If it is false then one simply need to demonstrate its falsity. However, what she does here is to assume its falsity, a priori, and then goes on to make an assessment of the subjective state of all of those involved with making this proclamation. In other words, she has looked into all of their souls and summarily found them all guilty of having an arrogant attitude. Quite a feat, huh?

The interesting thing about falling into relativism is that you automatically become self-contradictory–and that is what happens here. In assuming that the Catholic Church is wrong about the nature of the Church, and that she is right, without even making an argument for her position, she is becoming dogmatic in the pejorative sense of the term. Dogmatism is never tolerant and so it is not surprising to find that neither is Rev. Stanley.

She assumes that her ecclesiology is the correct one and seems to have no tolerance for those who would disagree with her. If tolerance is openness to hearing and discussing others’ views without personal condemnation, then Rev. Stanley must be characterized as being intolerant.

She is also self-contradictory in assuming that her position is right and the Catholic teaching is wrong. Later she will imply that anything that a Christian wants to call a church is one by definition in giving the advice to her readers to continue to go to the church of their choice. One might ask by what authority does she claim to know infallibly (or at least with sufficient confidence so as to authoritatively teach others) what God has taught and what He has not. Here she is making the logical fallacy of special pleading. She asserts that the Catholic Church does not have authority to teach on Christ’s behalf (she says later of B16: “You don’t get to decide these things!”– presumably this is because He didn’t give anyone this authority?) but then she immediately assumes this authority for herself in order to condemn the Church for assuming this authority for itself–an authority that apparently does not exist except momentarily when she needs to make use of it. Did you follow that? But the good Rev. is not done with Catholics yet. She will return to the old canards of caricature and ad hominem:

I must admit, there is a part of me that says, “Oh, ignore him. Benedict is the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, but he’s not my spiritual leader.” This is the part of me that recognizes that Benedict is the former cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger, who always has been a strict interpreter of the Roman Church’s stances. That this is the man who in 2000 wrote the document Dominus Iesus, in which these current views were promulgated. That this is the man who was feared by some in the Roman Church for his unwavering conviction that he was right, the rest of the world was wrong, and that was that.

This is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. As an Episcopal clergyman who has chosen to speak out about the Catholic Church she has some obligation to understand the Catholic Church and what it teaches if she is going to criticize it. Her reference to “the current views” of the Church assumes that the Church sometime had taught something else, but this is exactly the purpose of the document–to affirm the continuity of the teaching about the Catholic Church as the fullness of the one Church that Christ founded.

Further, she ought to know that Magisterial teaching is not a matter of the individual opinions of those comprising the Magisterium weighed against others. But I forgot, the Catholic Church has no right to Her own ecclesiology. The Church must submit to Stanley’s ecclesiology or be dismissed as arrogant. If I were the type to posit the attitude of another, I might say that she is arrogant. After ranting a bit, she gets in one more of the favorite canards of vague thinkers, before returning to her apparently favorite approach–caricatured distortions:

And then there is the part of me, the one that after my initial reactions is gaining ascendancy, which is bemused and asks, “Is this really the way to proclaim the Gospel? Is this how we work to proclaim the love of Christ? Are we really called, as beloved children of God, to be this exclusionary? Did Jesus really tell me to say, ‘My faith is better than your faith!’?”

Here she throws in the old stand by of modern religiosity: namely, that any faith that makes demands on its adherents is by definition, exclusionary. There is much that could be said about this: for example, this is not a document meant for initial proclamation of the gospel but a clarification of a truth for Catholics who may have been confused by theological discussions of this issue. Regardless, her implication is that any truths of faith that could in any way be taken in a negative way by those who are not part of that faith must be expunged. This fits very well with a relativist mindset but as I said, relativism is inherently self-contradictory.

One might ask her, isn’t proclaiming the love of Christ exclusionary in itself? Why proclaim it at all? Is it necessary or just a heart warming thing to do? If necessary, then doesn’t this mean that those who have not accepted Him are excluded from the Church until accepting His truth? If proclaiming the gospel is just something nice to let people know about it, then why proclaim it at all and risk offending some who do not want to hear it? There is no justification for proclaiming the gospel if Christianity is not by definition exclusionary–it excludes those who have not heard or do not want to accede to the truth it proclaims. Well, perhaps she had a sense that this was an implication of her thinking because she immediately goes back to caricatures in her last sentence and in the next paragraph:

And in part, I realize that every time someone comes along - be it the pope or one of my neighbors - proclaiming that he or she alone knows the mind of Christ, and the rest of us are damned, I cringe. Because that sort of exclusionary theology ensures that many, many people - people who are starved for spiritual nourishment - are going to turn their backs on churches and church politics and say, “No way. I refuse to be involved in any church that tells me I’m not good enough.” Which basically is what Benedict is saying: Those of us who are not, or who no longer are, Roman Catholics, quite simply are not good enough.

I suppose that I need not point out that the Pope does not proclaim that he alone knows the mind of Christ. He does not say that everyone who is not Catholic, or even Christian, is damned. He did not say that non-Catholics are not good enough. I suppose it is appropriate for the good Rev. Stanley to end her longer rant with her favorite tactic of impersonating an emoting teenager. After all, if one is not prepared to dialog with authentic tolerance, without caricaturing or condemning the other because one disagrees then I suppose all that is left to do is–well, spit!

Benedict XVI has named the Archbishop for the Military Services, Edwin O’Brien, as the 15th Archbishop of the nation’s first See in Baltimore. Archbishop O’Brien was an Army Chaplain with the 82nd Airborne Division back in the early 70s, as well as a chaplain in Vietnam for the 173rd Airborne Brigade and the 1st Cavalry Brigade as well. He has also been Rector of St. Joseph’s Seminary in NY and North American College in Rome. His military background and his seminary experience are no doubt why he was selected to oversee the seminary review that was completed last year. I suspect that this background may also be the reasons that he was given Baltimore.

He was my Archbishop for my last 4 years on active duty. I never met him though I did inconsequentially correspond with him once. He was generally known by the average military Catholic (who cared enough to know about his faith) to be a solid and caring bishop. Even though the military services are low on priests, he would not hesitate to remove a priest whose actions/beliefs led to more harm than good. With the work ahead of him, I think that his background will be of great benefit.

The Pope has done Baltimore a great service by giving them an Archbishop who cares more about their faith than their personal approbation. Please say a prayer for the Archbishop as he begins to serve the people of Baltimore.

The recent “one, two” punch of the motu proprio, Summorum pontificum, and the CDF’s RESPONSES TO SOME QUESTIONS REGARDING CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE DOCTRINE ON THE CHURCH (along with a very helpful commentary) illustrate the focus of B16’s pontifical program. Namely, to continue John Paul the Great’s (JPTG) program of implementing the authentic vision of the Second Vatican Council.

As I have said many times, an authentic reform of the liturgy is one of Benedict’s highest priorities. Hopefully one benefit of this will be that seminaries will now take more seriously their obligation to form their seminarians in Latin, which seems to be essentially proforma (if it is addressed at all) in too many seminaries at this point. While the wider availability will be slow in coming because of the preparations necessary to say the Mass well, I think that it will eventually help to create a longing for many of the important elements that were sadly left out of the current Roman Missal.

Furthermore, Summorum comes with a limpid affirmation that there is but one Latin Rite and that both the current Roman Missal and the 1962 Mass are two expressions of the same Rite. This is a clear statement of correction to the two “camps” of Catholics that agree that the Second Vatican Council was a break from the past. While these camps agree that VII was a break, that is all they agree about. The Bologna school camp has made it their primary task in life to convince the rest of the world that the Catholic Church, in the Second Vatican Council, has now recognized that She is just one of a host of other man-made organizations indistinguishable in essence from the non-demoninational church that will set up shop in the vacant store down at the mall next week. This School attempts to buttress its position with the claim that its “more humble view” is necessary for ecumenism, though this is not any ecumenism that is recognizable from even a cursory reading of Unitatis redintigratio (e.g. see paragraph 11 and the warning against harming the purity of the faith in the pursuit of a false peace). The other camp–the Radical Traditionalists–agree that the Second Vatican Council did break from the Catholic Church of the past and so they want to go back to the “good old days” of the 1950s–or perhaps the 1650s–in order to recover the purity of the faith.

Benedict recognizes that this erroneous theory of discontinuity needs to be corrected. One of the biggest issues is the faulty ecclesiology of the Bologna camp that attempts to place the entire weight of this “new” Catholic ecclesiology on the now infamous phrase in Lumen gentium 8, “the one Church of Christ … subsists in the Catholic Church… .” Well, this little phrase cannot bear such a burden, especially when all of the weight of evidence is against it. Theologians such as Francis J. Sullivan, (cf. e.g. “Quaestio Disputata: A Response to Karl Becker, S.J., On the Meaning of Subsistit In,” Theological Studies 67 (2006): 395-409) have spent a lot of time and effort trying to develop vast theories with detailed analyses of language, evolution of documents, etc., all with the aim of trying to show that the documents don’t really say what they say.

Setting motivation aside, it seems to me that these theologians possess a faulty philosophical foundation (apparently Ockhamist Nominalism) which allows them to conceive of a Church that can both have the fullness of Christ’s Church but not be equated with Christ’s Church at the same time. Christ has but one Mystical Body, one Church. It is the Catholic Church. This Mystical Body is hierarchically constituted with the Successor to St. Peter as its head. To rip the Catholic Church and place it on its own, in autonomy from the Church of Christ, renders the Church of Christ as an unrealized ideal that has no real ontology. This is an emaciated ecclesiology that also deprives humanity of it access to grace–understood as partaking in the divine nature (2 Pt 1:4). Thus we are left with a Reformed theology of grace as extrinsic favor rather than intrinsic, deifying communion. It is no coincidence that the Bologna school adopts a Protestant ecclesiology and is then driven also to a Protestant Sacramentology.

The argument is sometimes made that the Catholic Church is just another particular Church, with the assumption that every other Christian body is its own, autonomous particular church. But it is unity in Christ, and so in the Vicar of Christ, by which each particular Church achieves its essence. Contra Cardinal Kasper, the particular Church cannot preexist the Universal Church. Thus, to the degree the Christian body is united with the fullness of the Church, these Churches and ecclesial communities share in Christ’s mediation of the Father’s grace to humanity…i.e. are united to the Catholic Church. But regardless of whether they are in visible communion or not, any and all grace they receive is mediated through Christ’s single Mystical Body, and so it is mediated by the Catholic Church.

A major complaint is that this ecclesiology sounds so triumphalistic; thus it is arrogant. Proper distinctions need to be made to see the error in this. Any truth claim is what it is–it is either true or false. Arrogance/truimphalism is a subjective attitude and has nothing to do with truth claims. Truth can be presented in humility and falsehoods can be proclaimed with arrogance (the latter of which is more often the case I would argue). One cannot preemptively dismiss a truth claim as false simply because of fears about how it might be received. To do so is to succumb to an emotivist relativism.

It is this confused thinking that B16 is taking on as he attempts to get authentic ecumenical dialogue started (again) by returning Catholic ecumenists to their task of understanding and then humbly presenting the truth of the Catholic faith to their dialogue partners, and so get on with the important work of authentically moving toward unity.

We can see that B16 is going full bore in carrying out Blessed John XIII’s three main goals for VII: reinvigorating the faith of the Church, restoring Christian unity, and bringing the Church into dialogue with modernity. He has an uphill battle when too many of those who are involved in carrying out this program are so confused about what the Church really is and what She teaches. Nevertheless, building upon the patrimony of JPTG and with B-16’s intellectual acumen and intrepid leadership, we are now off to a great start.

12 years ago yesterday, Amber and I originally exchanged marriage vows outside of the Catholic Church on June 10th 1995 by a Methodist minister, and subsequently had our union officially recognized through a Convalidation of Marriage by the Church on August 29, 1999. Looking back, I think I may understand how tough it must be for some parents whose adult children have abandoned the faith and painfully want to do what is best to ensure the salvation of their children’s soul. For many years in my early adulthood years, my father and I - who were so very much alike - had a somewhat of a contentious relationship which placed a burden on him to maintain a relationship with his son who was not typically open to inconvenient truths and, at the same time, protect him from his own ignorance. He did the best he could. Despite the fact that I had not darkened a Catholic Church in 10 years at the time, because of my father - I actually went to confession and spoke to a priest prior to the wedding. Not that it would have made a difference, but the priest told me since it was only weeks away from our wedding, that we could just to go ahead with the wedding and return to the Church in 6 months (which I never did) to have it recognized - just what I wanted to hear but not correct (correct response here).

My favorite wedding picture of Amber who told me once, in no uncertain terms, she would never be a Catholic!

The exchange of our wedding vows which were not recognized by the Church, not because the Catholic Church sees Herself as the only Church capable of performing a valid marriage but because as a Catholic I should and must follow Church law.

We had our union officially recognized by the Church through a convalidation of marriage at Our Lady of the Atonement by Father Phillips. My father died prior to this and Amber’s conversion to the Catholic faith, but grace through his patience and words that he spoke to me shortly before he died, along with David and Tricia brought me and Amber home.

I guess you could say Frances Kissling, who dared The Church to excommunicate her for her pro-abortion advocacy, and I have something in common- neither of us knew anything about excommunication latae sententiae. First Things explains how and why Catholics who advocate for abortion actually excommunicate themselves.

The issue of excommunication persists, however, because canon law treats abortion much more severely than most other kinds of wrongdoing. It imposes on the canonical crime of procuring an abortion a so-called latae sententiae excommunication (canon 1398). An excommunication latae sententiae attaches to the offender merely because he has performed the prohibited action and without any judicial action by the Church—indeed without any further action by anyone whatsoever. The penalty is imposed automatically, or, as an American lawyer might say, by operation of law. Ecclesiastical authority will, at most, take note of the fact that the wrongdoer has incurred the penalty.

Hence, when Catholic politicians violate the canon, the Church should declare openly that they have incurred the penalty of excommunication latae sententiae.

Note to Ms. Kissling - best wishes on your book deals and safe travels on your speaking tour.

Update: (Important comment left by Jeff Miller/ Curt Jester) - Unfortunately I think he misrepresents the Canon. No Canonist has extended the Canon on “Procuring” an abortion to those who vote to make it law. Rome has not interpreted this Canon this way. If they did there would never had been any talk about giving pro-abortion politicians Communion since those who are excommunicated automatically are not allowed Communion.

Canonist Ed Peters who is quite reliable has posted on this multiple times on his blog.

The Pope was asked a question about the Mexican bishops and excommunicating pro-abortion politicians. So far these Bishops have not in fact excommunicated anybody, but if they did the Pope would be totally behind them because they certainly can. The real issue is not whether they incurred an automatic excommunication, but the fact that under Canon law they should in fact be denied Communion for this.

Catholic Archbishop of Russia, Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, has strongly rejected the practice of “proselytism”,  which, according to the article, “is conversion of Orthodox Russian into Catholicism”(?).

”Russia is above all an Orthodox country and it is the Russian Orthodox Church that is responsible in the first place for converting people”. The archbishop also stressed that the Catholics were called ‘together with Orthodox brothers’ to take part in the conversion of people, ‘helping each other and strictly observing the teaching of the Catholic Church that proselytism is absolutely unacceptable and cannot constitute a strategy for the development of our (Catholic - IF) structures either in Russia or in any other country in the world’.

Archbishop Kondrusiewicz also said ‘It is completely wrong’, to understand the Fatima prediction of Russia’s turning to God as meaning a conversion to Catholicism as Mary spoke only of a conversion in general.

Maybe I lost his definition of proselytism in the translation. So, I’ll cautiously assume Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz’s rejection of proselytism is referring to the use of unfair and coercive methods leading to conversion. But I must question the judgment of his confident belief and vocal conviction that it is “completely wrong” to believe our Blessed Mother’s prediction of a Russian conversion was never meant to be understood as, to the Catholic church. Given statements like this, the Archbishop can rest assured no one could ever accuse him of proselytising a soul to Catholicism.

A few days ago, we did a post on Richard Sipe in the context of a new book that he coauthored with two others. One of the co-authors, Fr. Thomas Doyle, took issue with some of our facts and the tone of our blog in an e-mail. Because we closed down comments and as a matter of fairness, I am posting his e-mail here (though of course, I will also have my own comments afterward):

Dear Mr. Delaney,

I am writing this to you because it appears that you are one of the directors/managers of the blog site on which the review of Sex, Priests and Secret Codes appeared. If I have your title or role wrong, please accept my apologies. I have no intention of continuing the debate that was apparently closed.

I had never heard of the site until someone sent me a copy of the review on line. I read it over and the attached comments. I happen to be one of the three authors and am disappointed that the review was not actually a critical review, which I would have welcomed, but rather and attack on the authors.

In this regard I’d like to point out that there are several factual errors in both the review and the ensuing comments. Mr. Sipe’s name is misspelled but more important, it is alleged that he is still obligated to celibacy. Mr. Sipe was dispensed and laicized before he initiated a relationship with his wife. He was validly married in the Catholic Church and has remained a close friend of his former abbey in Minnesota. The same is true of Patrick Wall, also validly dispensed and married.

I read with both interest and amusement the theory advanced as to why I have some of the supposed (but quite incorrect) attitudes toward the hierarchy and the Church. One of the statements held that it stems from my experience as a tribunal judge. I will not comment on my personal attitudes but I will say that this statement is totally false. It is true that I served for many years in various tribunal positions and it is also true that I did a great deal of research and writing into canonical issues related to marriage. It is also true that my experience with the Chicago tribunal where I did nearly all my tribunal work, was enriching and spiritually fulfilling. I was privileged to learn from the experience of some preeminent canonists and priests, all of whom are retired now or deceased.

My final thought or comment is this: I read with great interest the remarks attached to the review but also much of the other information that I was able to find on the blog page. I found much of it interesting and personally enlightening. But I was also struck by a tone that saddened me and it is this: a significant lack of charity manifested by many who disagree with the ideas or writings of others, especially the so-called ˜liberal or critical people. In my many years in the priesthood I have gone through many phases and perhaps the most painful one has been facing the fact that many of us have sacrificed charity, a core Christian virtue, for our concepts of orthodoxy.

God’s blessings on you.

Thomas Doyle

I have been familiar with Fr. Doyle for many years, though I have never met him. He was stationed as an AF chaplain at a nearby airfield to my assignment in the early 1990s. This is where I learned some things, second hand, about his background. This is perhaps also why almost every time I come across something written by him, I am saddened, as one is when an friend or near acquaintance goes astray. Perhaps the added camaraderie that is often shared among servicemen, especially from the same service, adds to this. However, more than that, the sadness also comes from his office as priest I suppose. That one who took a vow to help shepherd Christ’s people through the authority given to him by the Church, has taken it upon himself to misuse that authority to teach the sheep using his personal opinions about what he thinks the Church should be. Fore example, in June 2002 he wrote an article for the National Catholic Reporter in which he espouses a reductionist view of the Church. He states:

Medieval church is dying

All one has to do is take an impartial look at the traditional governmental model, clearly outlined in the Code of Canon Law, to see the concept of monarchy loud and clear. That model doesn’t work anymore! The false presumption of uneducated, sinful masses is a figment of history. The people, led by the abuse survivors, won’t tolerate an institutional church that puts looking good and the preservation of power and control above the emotional and spiritual welfare of persons. The medieval church is dying, terminally afflicted with the virus called “œclericalism.”

This is all a painful reminder of the fact that the Catholic church is centered on Jesus Christ, not any human structure. Furthermore, its claims to reflect the word and example of Christ must be present in the real life of the church, not just in sermons or theology books. It means little to a wounded survivor to say “the church is love unless we do it, not by word but by action.

To consider the hierarchical structure of the Church something separate from the constitution of the Church herself is clearly outside the bounds of authoritative Church teaching. In fact, his whole article can be understood as flawed expectations arising from a distorted ecclesiology. What I mean is that he espouses a caricature of the hierarchical aspect of the Church as a power hungry monarchy and then criticizes Her for not acting according to this caricature when it comes to problem of the abuse of minors by some priests. He then jumps to an unwarranted conclusion that it is this structure that is fundamentally the problem.

What I find most troubling is that it seems to me that the three authors of the book discussed in the earlier post, are in a sense complicit in further victimizing these abuse victims. Instead of helping them to heal through reconciling them to the Church of which they feel alienated and victimized because they were abused by one of Her representatives, they further fan the flames of distrust of the Church as an institution. In fact, it is becoming clear that they and others are raising the expectations of these victims to consider that unless the Church changes Her structure and Her teaching on priestly celibacy (among other things) then She is not adequately or sincerely responding to the victims. This is the message in Fr. Doyle’s article, the message I get from perusing the Doyle, Sipe, Wall book, and especially the message articulated by organizations like SNAP and VOTF (both of whom Fr. Doyle seems to have close ties with).

True healing for the victims of clergy sexual abuse requires many things, but it cannot come without an authentic understanding of the nature of the Church and their reconciliation with the Church in these terms. They must be helped to recognize, contra Sipe’s Freudian jibberish, that it is not celibacy, and contra Fr. Doyle erroneous ecclesiology, that it is not the Church’s hierarchical structure that led to their abuse. Rather, it was the crimes of sinful men in the most sinful abuse of trust imaginable. But abuse does not warrant disuse of a structure (the Church hierarchy) or gift (consecrated celibacy) that Christ suffered and died to give us.

The findings of the National Review Board make it obvious that celibacy and Church structure were not the problem. The John Jay Report makes it clear that while a problem has always and will always exist in the fallen world, the proportion of bad priests is returning to the extremely low rates, compared to the larger society from which the Church draws Her priests, that it saw prior to the turmoil of the 1960s.

To the extent that the three authors are motivated by authentic concern for victims I am not faulting them, but I do earnestly pray for them because good intentions alone are insufficient. That is why I also pray for their victims because they will not find the healing they need and deserve until they are freed from those who tell them to seek revenge and especially change in ways that cannot come. They need to hear from these people that they need to forgive and to return to the embrace of Christ through His Mystical Body–the Catholic Church and Her Sacraments.

Just days after being elected Bulgaria’s youngest Orthodox bishop, Nikolay saw it upon himself to call the Pope a heretic while being interviewed on television. His asinine comment was largely criticized by his fellow clerics.

“Plovdiv will see scandals on a monthly basis with this newly-hatched bishop,” Hristo Matanov, a former chief of the state’s Department of Ecclesiastical Matters said. “If he wants to play Jesus, than he should throw his silk cassock and give up all contemporary commodities and roam the Earth barefoot preaching.”

There was no single event that marked the schism between Rome and the Eastern Church, but a movement into and out of schism during a period of several centuries, with periods of  reconciliations. The East’s final break with Rome did not come until the 1450s, with pressure from Muslims, most of the Eastern churches repudiated their union with Rome, and this is the split that continues upto our current day.

There appears to be growing concensus among the elite in the psychiatric community who contradict the logic of using evidence based medicine to appropriately diagnose and effectively treat patients afflicted with gender dysphoria; choosing, instead, to collaborate with the illness and authorize a cosmetic mutilation commonly called a sex change operation. The scientific facts are that chromosomes, not genitals or cognitive discernment, determine gender. While in the womb, prenatal hormones shape the brains of the child, so rest assured, there is no invasion of a body waiting to trap a brain of it’s opposite sex.

Given the scientific evidence of gender development vs. a two year old insisting that he is a girl, I tend to support science. Unfortunately, there is resistance to provide any type of documented, long term follow up for those who undergo a sex change. I wonder why that is? Could it be the physicians and therapists who support this type of intervention ignore the facts that point to the appropriate diagnosis of Gender Identity DISORDER, so subsequently, they leave an illness untreated?

As for a story of the 12 year old boy who is undergoing hormonal therapy in order to protect his personality, I’m trying to understand how a denial of reality and deception used in conjunction with hormonal injections are supposed to nuture a healthy personality. As for the theory of a male being trapped in a female’s body, why do you suppose some men who have had their gentalia removed to become a pseudo-woman have wives and girlfriends? Thankfully, I don’t get “it”.

Catholic teaching in this area is clear. It is impossible to “change” a person’ sex.

Some relevant posts that we have done on this issue include: Extreme Makeover: The Tragic Edition and Sex and Human Personhood: Sex Differences.

Today is the first day in the octave of Prayer for Christian unity that John Paul the Great encouraged Catholics to participate in. It begins on the 18th of January and culminates with the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul on the 25th.

Ut unum sint– that all may be one! This was the name of the encyclical that our late Holy Father, John Paul the Great, penned on Christian unity. It is hard to imagine a contemporary personality with more zeal for Christian unity than John Paul II. He was driven by, what I believe was a unique, mystical insight into the terrible horror of the wounds to the Mystical Body of Christ caused by Christian disunity. He also recognized that charity, supernatural love enkindled by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of Christians, is the only way home to a visible unity in the Mystical Body.

I am reminded in this of St. Augustine’s meditation on the 6^th chapter of John’s Gospel. Specifically, beginning in verse 16 of this Bread of Life discourse, in which St. Augustine sees the ship being tossed by the seas as an image of the Church, the bark of Peter, and explains the primary cause of Her experience of tribulations:

As the end of the world approaches, errors increase, terrors multiply, iniquity increases, infidelity increases; the light, in short, which, by the Evangelist John himself, is fully and clearly shown to be charity, so much so that he says, “Whoso hates his brother is in darkness;” that light, I say, is very often extinguished; this darkness of enmity between brethren increases, daily increases, and Jesus is not yet come. How does it appear to increase? “Because iniquity will abound, and the love of many will begin to wax cold.” Darkness increases, and Jesus is not yet come. Darkness increasing, love waxing cold, iniquity abounding,—these are the waves that agitate the ship; the storms and the winds are the clamors of revilers. Thence love waxes cold; thence the waves do swell, and the ship is tossed (Tractate 25, 5).

Love waxes cold daily in my heart too I am afraid. In our everyday lives we have so many tasks pressing upon us, daily struggles, and urgent obligations that such a seemingly impossible goal as visible Christian unity can often seem to spare of our time, little more than a pious nod in assenting to this intention. But it is so often this disunity that comforts unbelievers in their belief that they need not seriously investigate the claims of Christianity. It so often is also the cause of questioning in the hearts of Christians as well. The current situation is certainly not that of which Jesus prayed, that the unity of the Church be that of His unity with the Father.

Please consider using this first day of prayer for an increase in our own charity. Specifically, that through God’s grace we be given the ability to fully possess ourselves and when we do, that we may be enabled to give ourselves totally to God and that through this increase in our charity the Church may move one step closer to Her calling of visible unity.

In recognition of this week, the Institute of Catholic Thought is hosting an ecumenical discussion of the problem of Christian disunity. If you are in the area, we would be honored if you would join us on Tuesday evening with your thoughtful questions and comments as we seek to know one another better and pray together for more visible unity in the body of Christ.

Can Jesus’ Prayer Still Be Fulfilled?

Discussion on Christian Unity

January 23, 2007 (7PM)

Lewis Lounge

St. John’s Catholic Newman Center

604 E. Armory Ave. Champaign, IL

On the night before his death, Jesus prayed that all his disciples might be one. Yet Christians today find it hard to believe that unity is possible in a world where there are thousands of Christian churches. What is the real meaning of Christian unity? Does it mean mutual love without organizational unity? Is unity of heart possible without unity in truth? What would Jesus want Christians to do today to express a greater unity?

Representatives of three major Christian traditions come together to address these questions by considering the meaning of Jesus’ high priestly prayer recorded in the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of John. Jointly sponsored by The Institute of Catholic Thought (of St. John’s Catholic Newman Center), Urbana Theological Seminary, and the Three Hierarchs Greek Orthodox Church, this evening of dialogue returns to the fount of our knowledge of Christ in the New Testament. Our three presenters, all intimately acquainted with the pastoral needs of the church, will speak to the issue of Christian unity by twenty minute reflections on Jesus’ prayer. Ample time is allotted for questions and discussion.

All are welcome as we ponder one of the most pressing problems in world Christianity today. It promises to be an evening of enlightenment, encouragement and thoughtful prayer.

Where: Lewis Lounge, St. John’s Catholic Newman Center

When: January 23^rd at 7:00-9:00PM

Contact: Kenneth J. Howell, Director of the Institute of Catholic Thought. khowell@sjcnc.org or call 344-1184.

Presenters and Discussants

Presenter to be determined, Urbana Theological Seminary.

Fr. George Pyle, Pastor of Three Hierarchs Greek Orthodox Church.

Kenneth J. Howell Ph.D., Director of the Institute of Catholic Thought and Professor of Religious Studies, UIUC.

Fr. Christopher G. Phillips has just started a blog, and one need not browse for very long to understand how he became the pastor of the first parish with the only approved variation of the Latin Rite in the U.S. For the first time in the history of the Western Church, Protestants were welcomed into the Church with a Pastoral Provision which included the right to seek the establishment of Personal Parishes under the authority of diocesan bishops, a unique liturgical use, devotional practices, and married clergy on a limited basis.

Here is the history of the parish.

While we are on the topic of evangelization and catechesis…

I have been interested in the Alpha Course for some years now. I have heard a lot about it and many good Catholics have sung its praises as an effective evangelization tool. Many of these Catholic evangelists I know well and have much respect for. Interestingly enough, those who might be considered not so faithful Catholics join them in praising the course. However, there have been a lot of criticisms as well. Some criticisms come from Catholics who say that the course makes good Protestants out of Catholics and criticisms from Protestants argue that it is a tool for making Catholics. Well, recently, I finally the both the time and opportunity to view the videos that are used in the course itself and have formed some thoughts about them. I thought I would jot some of them down before I forget.

First of all, for those who are not familiar with the Alpha Course here is some background. It was begun in an Anglican parish in London back in the mid 1980s. This parish is a charismatic parish that was associated with the “Toronto Blessing” for those who are familiar Benny Hinn. Alpha is a 10 week course that begins the first session with a meal. After the meal is a lecture and then faith sharing. There are a total of 15 lessons that are given with five of them being delivered during a weekend retreat. After each lecture, the attendees break up into small groups led by a facilitator. The course is copyrighted and comes with the stipulation that must be given in its entirety with nothing added or removed if one is to use it. The presenter in the video is Nicky Gumbel, an English, Anglican “clergyman” as he calls himself. Gumbel has developed his course such that he believes that any Christian tradition can feel comfortable in using it.

Because it is therefore, essentially Protestant, a Catholic supplementary series is offered by ChristLife Catholic Evangelization Services in Baltimore. ChristLife has been promoting the course to Catholics in the United States for about a decade or so. They indicate that “hundreds of Catholic parishes” are now using it. ChristLife says that the course is completely compatible with Catholic teaching but does not present the entire Catholic faith so they offer three supplementary series that can be used to “supplement” the Alpha course.

The first is called Touching Jesus Through the Church, presented by Marcellino D’Ambrosio, with 8 lessons. D’Ambrosio by the way endorses Alpha. He is a solid Catholic and very effective evangelist and catechist. The second series is called Drink From the Wells of the Church, presented by Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM CAP, who was the preacher to the papal household for JP the Great. He also endorses Alpha for Catholics. Fr. Cantalamessa’s is a seven-talk series. Finally, they offer Catholics Listening to God, given by Bishop Mark Coleridge, an Australian Bible scholar. His is also a seven talk series.

O.k., so my thoughts. First, why is it so successful? I suspect that it has as much to do with environment and approach as it does with the way it proclaims the gospel message. I believe that the weekend retreats and the small groups are a significant part of this. The Cursillo movement, begun in the 1930s in Spain and now spread throughout the world, has had great success in employing these strategies as well. Nicky Gumbel is also a very good speaker. I know as an Irishman, I should not admit this but I find the British accent and phraseology charming and regardless of what is being presented, quite compelling for some reason. While that is not something US Catholics could adopt, I would say that his approach does provide several things that we could learn from.

One is just in style. I think one of the important things I find is that he does not overload the talk with information. He uses plenty of “white space” by using related anecdotes and illustrative personal experiences which I think are compelling for most people. He believes what he says and, while sensitive to his audience, is also firm about what he believes. He identifies his major points as he moves from one to the next and tells people how many he has to cover. Another very important strength is that after presenting a point, he continually invites his listeners to consider what this means to their own lives. In other words, he asks them to examine themselves and see how it might apply to them. There is a continual invitation to conversion. Alpha begins with Christ and helps the student to develop a personal knowledge of Him.

Now do I think that it is appropriate for Catholics, even as initial proclamation? I am sorry to say that I emphatically do not. Why not? I will start with its aim, which is to present the faith from the lowest common denominator as far as faith content is concerned. This by definition is Protestant and so it presents a truncated view of the faith as the essential Christianity. I also must disagree with ChristLife’s assessment that the way it is presented, the material is completely consistent with Catholic belief. It is not.

Here an initial concern is that the program of catechesis is clearly charismatic in focus. Charismatic spirituality is not bad in itself, but in a course like Alpha we are talking about providing the essential core of the Gospel message. While there are two lessons on Jesus, there are three on the Holy Spirit emphasizing the gifts and another session devoted to God’s healing of Christians. Because the weekend retreat is done something like a “life in the Spirit” seminar with the praying over people for the gift of tongues and for healing of any maladies, these become necessary for the Alpha program. However, it leaves the catechetical structure well out of balance and gives the impression that charismatic spirituality is the essence of Christianity.

A further problem is that it presents the faith from a Protestant Evangelical perspective with an emphasis on personal interpretation of the Bible and the suggestion that Scripture is the sole rule of faith. Although in places Gumble does seem to try to correct this impression, in the way he treats Scripture, the Church, becoming Christian, and obtaining forgiveness, he presents an unmistakable individualistic approach to Christianity and the false idea that there is no more to becoming a Christian than one’s personal proclamation of faith.

However, one might ask: can’t these shortcomings be overcome in a Catholic supplement? That is the claim. This is justified further in saying that the initial proclamation need not cover everything. To be fair, Catholics who claim this clearly do not think that there is anything problematic presented. I suggest they are simply not sensitive to the issues I present. However, even if this were the case, Alpha would still be problematic.

In general, the argument that Alpha, as initial proclamation and the call to conversion, is not required to give the entirety of the faith. While initial proclamation in itself need not, the Alpha course is certainly catechetical as well. The General Directory for Catechesis in fact indicates that evangelization/initial proclamation are distinct but not separate. It goes on to say that any initial catechesis must be complete. The problem that is posed by incomplete catechesis is that in doing something partial, it provides a mistaken understanding of the reality you are trying to convey. I think that Gosta Hallonsten, former Carl Peter Professor for Ecumenism at The Catholic University of America, put this concern into another context that I think applies here.

Hallonsten said that Protestantism views, at best, the Catholic faith as “Christianity plus.” In other words, they think that Catholics have added unnecessary teachings to Christianity. He should know. He was a Lutheran theologian appointed to the Lutheran World Federation’s Lutheran-Catholic dialogue prior to his conversion to Catholicism. Gumbel affirms this idea of “Christianity plus” in his Alpha presentation. In his talk on the Church, Gumbel indicates that while truth is important, unity is just as important. He then cites a medieval theologian (whose name I did not recognize but it was something like Bertus Maldivius) who says that in essentials unity, in non-essentials, liberty (this is actually from St. Augustine but he goes not to say but in all things charity). Gumbel goes on to interpret this to mean that we all ought to have the freedom to believe whatever else we wish as long as we agree on the essentials. In the context of what he is saying, the listener takes him to mean that that as long as every Christian accepts the essentials as he has presented them, then Christians ought to be free to add and believe whatever else they wish. Gumbel finishes by saying what joins us in infinitely greater than what divides us.

Hallonsten is emphatic that Catholics must engage in ecumenical dialogue with this understanding of the Protestant view. He, therefore, promotes a more integrated approach to dialogue rather than allowing it to be separated into compartments because compartmentalizing it and then concentrating on issues that Protestantism sees as the essentials (e.g. Sola Fide) abets the mistaken notion that Catholicism is Christianity plus. This same concern can be applied to the Alpha Course. What the Alpha graduate has been both implicitly and explicitly set up to believe, is that if they choose to take the Catholic supplements what they will next be receiving is the optional extras of Catholicism. Trying to deconstruct this view is somewhat problematic because in doing so, one is going to call into question why he was given Alpha in the first place. However, there is more deconstruction/reconstruction to be done.

The course provides both partial truths that distort the entire meaning and false statements about Christianity such as the one about being free to believe whatever one wants as long as they hold to the essentials (though who defines these is left unstated). The course discusses Sacraments but only as symbols with no efficacy and then of course, only two of them (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper). Gumbel presents the Evangelical notion that one is a saved Christian by simply proclaiming one’s faith. He also talks about sin and reconciliation. However, forgiveness is obtained from the moment of one’s repentance. Gumbel discusses the Church at the end of the course. It is presented as a three tiered structure with small cells (like Alpha small groups), mid size groups (about 35 people), and large gatherings for worship. He does say that the Church is necessary, but not for what. He gives only the reason that Christians are needed support each other in keeping up their enthusiasm.

In the end, the Alpha course presents a truncated view of Christ, the Church, the Sacraments, and grace. The Church is understood to be just a community of believers and not an essential mediator of salvation. John Paul the Great in Catechesi tradendae (paragraph 5) says that all authentic catechesis is Christo-centric. But in being Christo-centric we must present the truth about the whole Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (795), drawing on St. Augustine from his Confessions, refers to the Christus totus, the Whole Christ. Christ together with His Church make up the Whole Christ. The Church is not an add on, nor is it just a group of Christians who come together to increase one another’s fervor. The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ and is necessary for salvation. One can be saved only by incorporation into Christ’s Mystical Body through Baptism. The Whole Christ is necessary in order to receive the grace by which we are saved. Grace is a partaking in the divine nature (2 Pt 1:4) and it is only through this partaking of divinity that we can be transformed into Christ and so enter into eternal communion with the Blessed Trinity. However, it is not automatic. As Jesus continually warns, we must be fruitful. In other words, we have to cooperate with His grace in order to become like Him. This is what we call good works. Only Christ’s death and resurrection make any of this possible. Furthermore, the Church is visible (see Matt 18:17; 1 Tim 3:15) and it is hierarchical (see Matt 16:18; Acts 1:15-26). This is the essential Good News and it must be proclaimed in its integrity for an authentic understanding of Christianity and the requirements for a fruitful Christian life.

It is counterproductive to first advocate a presentation of the Good News, and then to essentially deconstruct the initial presentation in order to present the fullness of truth. The thought that Alpha is neutral suggests to me that those who support it unwittingly fall into the trap that Catholicism really is Christianity plus. At least this is the effect of the approach. The Alpha course may be successful, but its success is in creating a Protestant view of Christianity. We already have enough Protestant Catholics in the Church today. What we need for a new evangelization is not to borrow approaches from others when they teach error. We need to take what is helpful in method from them but spend the effort and apply these methods in developing a program with an authentic Catholic faith content.

With the recent appointment of Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, archbishop of Sao Paulo in Brazil, to the prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy there has been much rumination: what is meaning of the appointment? Two widely-read and well-respected Catholic commentators have offered their own analyses of this but they have widely divergent views. Which one is correct?

First, we have the analysis of John Allen, columnist for NCR (the bad one). Allen was a severe critic of then-Cardinal Ratzinger, until he was publicly chastised for a book that caricatured the Cardinal. This chastisement was given by a surprising source: Fr. Joseph Komonchak, a theologian at The Catholic University of America and the English editor for the Bologna school’s five volume “interpretation” of the history of the Second Vatican Council. Komonchak showed Allen’s book to be nothing short of a hatchet job with little journalistic merit. Stung by the rebuke from such a “sympathetic” and authoritative figure such as Komonchak, Allen did some soul searching. He has since done an heroic job of putting aside his philosophical and theological ideologies and, I believe, honestly tried to present things from a fair and balanced perspective. In fact, I am surprised that NCR has let him continue to write for them.

Unfortunately, Allen is not always successful (see one of our posts here for example). Such is the case with his recent assessment of the Hummes appointment. One can tell things how an article is going to go when it begins: I don’t like to use id