What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

With a tip of the biretta to St. Louis Catholic, I share the following great news:

TO: THE PRESBYTERATE OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF SAINT LOUIS AND THE MEMBERS OF THE ARCHDIOCESAN CURIA

FROM: ARCHBISHOP RAYMOND L. BURKE

REGARDING: CREATION OF THE INSTITUTE OF SACRED MUSIC IN THE OFFICE OF SACRED WORSHIP, AND APPOINTMENT OF FATHER SAMUEL F. WEBER, O.S.B., AS THE FIRST DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE

DATE: APRIL 4, 2008 – MEMORIAL OF SAINT ISIDORE, BISHOP AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH

It gives me great joy to announce the creation of the Institute of Sacred Music in the Office of Sacred Worship of the Archdiocese of Saint Louis. I am also happy to announce the appointment of Father Samuel F.Weber, O.S.B., as the first Director of the Institute of Sacred Music, effective May 12th next.

The Institute of Sacred Music is part of the Office of Sacred Worship and is under the supervision of Father William W. McCumber, Director of the Office of Sacred Worship. It has been established to assist me inproviding a fuller cultivation of Sacred Music for the celebration of the complete Roman Rite. Among the activities of the Institute will be the following: 1) programs of education in Sacred Music, especially Gregorian Chant, for parish musicians, musicians of other Archdiocesan institutions and interested individuals; 2) assistance to parishes with the singing of the Mass in English, for example, the Entrance Antiphon, the Responsorial Psalm and the Communion Antiphon; 3) assistance withthe singing of the Liturgy of the Hours; 4) assistance to parishes which wish to develop a schola cantorum for the singing of Gregorian Chant; 5) programs for the full implementation of the English translation of the Roman Missal in the Archdiocese; and 6) particular assistance to the programs of Sacred Music at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis and Kenrick-Glennon Seminary.

I picked this up from Mark Shea’s place.  Take a gander at the spittle flecked anti-Catholic wacko disrupting a Mass in this YouTube video.



Some people’s kids, huh?

This reminds me of something from years ago.  The late Msgr. Richard Schuler once suggested that were someone to do as this guy in the video does, the best approach would be to get everyone to stand up and start singing hymns until the police could come and drag the nut-job away.

Remember… in most places in the USA, at least, it is against the law to disrupt religious services like this.

My friend Mr. John L. Allen, Jr., the fair-minded and nearly ubiquitous former Rome correspondent for the left-leaning National Catholic Reporter has an interesting aside in this week’s Friday missive.  Just start reading and you’ll get to it, which I will emphasize:

I was in Washington, D.C., this week for a Tuesday luncheon sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. George Weigel and I had been invited by Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum, to brief reporters on Pope Benedict XVI’s April 15-20 visit to the United States. As Weigel put it, he was there to offer an "op/ed" perspective, with emphasis on the pope and Islam, while I tried to fill the "news hole" with a broad overview.

A transcript of that session can be found on the Pew Forum Web site at www.pewforum.org.

Later Tuesday afternoon, I ventured a couple miles down Massachusetts Avenue to visit the Apostolic Nunciature, the embassy of the Holy See to the United States, for an interview with the pope’s top man in America: Italian archbishop and veteran papal diplomat Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the papal nuncio (ambassador).

Benedict XVI will be staying at the nunciature in Washington, though Sambi demurred when I asked him to show me the pope’s room; apparently the U.S. Secret Service has imposed a gag order on that bit of information. Sambi was happy, however, to show off a few bits of spit-and-polish around the house. For example, a new bank of trees has been installed on the grounds to shield its garden from the busy street outside, in case the pope wants to take a private walk around its small oval path.

Sambi also showed me the nunciature’s chapel, where Benedict will say Mass on the morning of April 16 before heading to the White House for a closed-door session with President George W. Bush. April 16 happens to be Benedict’s 81st birthday, and as Sambi put it, the small nunciature staff "will be his family that day."

(Liturgy wonks may be interested to learn that, according to Sambi, the design of the chapel means the pope will celebrate his birthday Mass versus populum, facing the small congregation, rather than ad orientem, facing East.)

 

This comment is posted on VIS:

COMMUNIQUE OF THE SECRETARIATE OF STATE

Following the publication of the new Prayer for the Jews for the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal, some groups within the Jewish community have expressed disappointment that it is not in harmony with the official declarations and statements of the Holy See regarding the Jewish people and their faith which have marked the progress of friendly relations between the Jews and the Catholic Church over the last forty years.

The Holy See wishes to reassure that the new formulation of the Prayer, which modifies certain expressions of the 1962 Missal, in no way intends to indicate a change in the Catholic Church’s regard for the Jews which has evolved from the basis of the Second Vatican Council, particularly the Declaration Nostra Aetate. In fact, Pope Benedict XVI, in an audience with the Chief Rabbis of Israel on 15 September 2005, remarked that this document "has proven to be a milestone on the road towards the reconciliation of Christians with the Jewish people." The continuation of the position found in Nostra Aetate is clearly shown by the fact that the prayer contained in the 1970 Missal continues to be in full use, and is the ordinary form of the prayer of Catholics.

In the context of other affirmations of the Council – on Sacred Scripture (Dei Verbum, 14) and on the Church (Lumen Gentium, 16) – Nostra Aetate presents the fundamental principles which have sustained and today continue to sustain the bonds of esteem, dialogue, love, solidarity and collaboration between Catholics and Jews. It is precisely while examining the mystery of the Church that Nostra Aetate recalls the unique bond with which the people of the New Testament is spiritually linked with the stock of Abraham and rejects every attitude of contempt or discrimination against Jews, firmly repudiating any kind of anti-Semitism.

The Holy See hopes that the explanations made in this statement will help to clarify any misunderstanding. It reiterates the unwavering desire that the concrete progress made in mutual understanding and the growth in esteem between Jews and Christians will continue to develop.

Vatican seeks to reassure Jews on Good Friday prayer

By Philip Pullella 46 minutes ago

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican tried to reassure Jews on Friday that a new prayer that some saw as a call for their conversion did not indicate a change in the Church’s high regard for Jews or its contempt for anti-Semitism.

A statement which Vatican sources said Pope Benedict had approved and partly drafted stressed that the new prayer used in some Good Friday services "in no way intends to indicate a change in the Catholic Church’s regard for the Jews."

Catholic and Jewish sources said the statement had been delivered to the secretariat of the chief rabbinate of Israel.

The Vatican had been keen to try to defuse the controversy with Jews over the Good Friday prayer before Pope Benedict’s first trip to the United States as pontiff later this month.

The German pope will meet American Jewish leaders and make a brief visit to the Park East Synagogue in Manhattan.

In February the Vatican revised a contested Latin prayer used by traditionalist Catholics on Good Friday, the day marking Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, removing a reference to Jewish "blindness" over Christ and deleting a phrase asking God to "remove the veil from their hearts."

Jews criticized the new version because it still says they should recognize Jesus Christ as the savior of all men. It asks that "all Israel may be saved" and Jews said it kept an underlying call to conversion that they had wanted removed.

Friday’s Vatican statement said the Church’s relations with Jews were still based on the landmark 1965 Second Vatican Council statement Nostra Aetate, which repudiated the concept of collective Jewish guilt for Christ’s death and began dialogue.

"Nostra Aetate presents the fundamental principles which have sustained and today continue to sustain the bonds of esteem, dialogue, love, solidarity and collaboration between Catholics and Jews," the statement said.

The Church "rejects every attitude of contempt or discrimination against Jews, firmly repudiating any kind of anti-Semitism," it added.

Rabbi David Rosen, chairman of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC) and a leading Jewish interlocutor with the Vatican, welcomed the statement but said he had hoped for an explicit reference to proselytism.

"It is implicit in the statement that esteem and solidarity imply that proselytism is inappropriate but I would have been happier if this had been said explicitly," Rosen, who is based in Jerusalem, told Reuters. 

The Vatican said it "hopes the explanations made in this statement will help to clarify any misunderstanding. It reiterates the unwavering desire that the concrete progress made in mutual understanding and the growth in esteem between Jews and Christians will continue to develop."

(Editing by Jon Boyle)

This is in from Zenit:

Postulator Named to Sister Lucia’s Cause

COIMBRA, Portugal, APRIL 2, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Spanish Father Ildefonso Moriones was named the postulator of the cause of beatification of Sister Lucia, one of the three Fatima visionaries.

Father Moriones was named by Bishop Albino Cleto of Coimbra, the general postulator for the Order of Discalced Carmelites. According to the diocesan news service, the Vatican has already approved the appointment.

In February, on the third anniversary of Sister Lucia’s death, Benedict XVI dispensed the five-year waiting period established by Canon Law to open her cause of beatification.

 A vice postulator is still to be named.

The dispensation of the five-year waiting period has only been given in two other cases: Pope John Paul II and Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.