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

I just heard a rumor that biker Lance Armstrong may return to cycling and tackle the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France next year.

Over at our friends from Rorate there is a prayer request for one of their "main contributors".

CATHOLIC BLOGGER TEAM!  SOLIDARITY!

Hugh Hewitt today read Archbp. Chaput’s entire response to Sen. Joe Biden.

He concluded that if you are a devout Catholic, you cannot vote for Sen. Biden, because you would be cooperating in evil.

No mincing words from him.  He just laid it out in stark terms.

Listening to Senator Biden today on Meet The Press made me think of a verse from Proverbs:

Given the scandal Speaker Pelosi and Senator Biden have caused on Meet the Press about the Church’s teaching on the beginning of human life and abortion.

It is good to trace back to the sources of the bad arguments pro-abortion Catholics make and the disastrous conclusions they produce.  Where do they get this justification for their position that you can be privately against abortion but then act publicly for it?

An old Pastor’s Page of the great Fr. George Welzbacher, pastor of St. John’s in St. Paul, Minnesota, is a marvelous resource.

Here I reproduced from Fr. W back on 4 May 2008.

___________________________

Pretty often the "pastor’s page" of parish a parish bulletin offers pretty thin gruel indeed.

At times, however, they can be truly useful tools. 

Here is an offering from Fr. George Welzbacher. 

My emphases and comments:

Pastor’s Page
By Fr. George Welzbacher
  
May 4, 2008

  Thoughts on Pope Benedict’s "Journey of  Hope"

   Many years ago, if memory holds true, there was a television game show in which contestants were asked to identify which of  the two or more candidates claiming, each of them, to be a certain particular person was "the real McCoy". At the end of the contest, after each candidate had made his pitch, the program’s impresario announced in stentorian terms: "Now will the real ["Mr. Smith", or whoever] stand up?" I was reminded of this during Pope Benedict’s recent visit to the United States. While watching his appearances and listening to his words, and comparing what he was saying with what the exponents of a revisionist, "progressive" Catholicism have been saying for lo! these many years, I kept hearing a voice in the background saying "Now will the real Catholic Church stand up!", as Pope Benedict’s face, humbly and serenely smiling, filled the screen.

   Pope Benedict’s basic message, a message of "the real Catholic Church," is a message of hope, a hope based on Christ’s promise that ‘The truth will make you free" (John 8:32), the truth, that is to say, taught by Christ and transmitted by His Church under the everlasting guidance of the Holy Spirit, an eternal and unchanging truth that reflects the unchanging nature of God and the unchanging nature of man. [authentic "liberation theology"]  This is the truth that "progressive" Catholics have sought to "revise," particularly as it governs sexual behavior. When Humanae Vitae (the encyclical letter Pope Paul the Sixth signed on July 25, 1968 ) reasserted the age-old teaching of the Catholic Church that the use of the sexual power is restricted to the union of husband and wife in the life-long commitment of marriage and that the procreative potential of the sexual power can never be actively obstructed, a gang of rebel priests publicly rejected this papal teaching, led by such intellectual mediocrities (though widely applauded demagogues) as Father Charles Curran, a professor of moral theology at Catholic University whose shabby thinking , a perfect match for his sloppy prose, is on display forever in his book entitled Absolutes in Moral Theology? Joining Father Curran Father Richard McBrien, whose two-volume work entitled Catholicism was quite properly censured by America’s Catholic bishops for its multitude of errors. The errors referenced by America’s bishops for correction have survived, uncorrected, in the work’s subsequent editions.

   Such priests as could claim for their false teaching the prestige of an academic chair were soon seconded by a bold chorus of parish and religious order priests, who moved perhaps by a desire to be compassionate, though in this case such compassion would be a compassion falsely defined, swiftly set up a counter-magisterium to their own liking – one is reminded of Aaron’s revolt against Moses – according to which the practice of contraception was enthusiastically praised as the "responsible" choice. Once this initial repudiation of a single teaching of Christ’s Church had gained widespread acceptance, abetted by legions of priests who with a spectacular lack of courage in defending the truth began to counsel their parishioners privately to judge the matter for themselves, rather than to rely on the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking within Christ’s Church, very predictably the rest of the precepts governing sexual morality were successively allowed to fall one-by-one into oblivion. Soon what used to be called (and is still rightly considered to be) "living in sin", that is to say cohabitation without life-long commitment, came to be regarded by many as an acceptable practice. And once the separation of the sexual power from its procreative purpose was taken for granted, approval of sterilization and homosexual lifestyles soon inevitably followed. Finally – again in the name of compassion – approval of abortion began, timidly at first and then with gathering speed, to find support among Catholics, Catholics, that is to say, who are disposed still to identify themselves as Catholic but for whom the voice of St. Peter’s successors, charged with obeying Christ’s mandate to "establish the brethren", has come to count for very little. The coup de grace for a united Catholic front against abortion came with the assurances given to Catholic politicians by [pay attention] Jesuit Father Robert Drinan, for ten years, though without the required ecclesiastical permission, a representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, who taught that one may cast a vote to promote abortion with a clear conscience, as long as one is "personally opposed" to abortion; one cannot you see, impose his own religious scruples on the public domain. In the interests of accepting so sophistical an excuse for mass murder a blind eye has to be turned to the basic truth that a directly intended attack on innocent human life violates the natural law, the law that governs all of mankind, whatever one’s religious convictions, the law that is "written on the hearts of men" (Romans 2:15), the law that expresses itself in the spontaneous judgment that certain acts are so disordered as to be always and everywhere evil. Therefore to act in response to that spontaneous, moral judgment is not to impose the peculiar precepts of a particular religion or a culture; particular  culture; it is to bow to the dictates of a universal law rooted in the very nature of man. Whether one is Roman Catholic or Buddhist or a card-carrying atheist, the directly willed murder of the innocent is something human beings instinctively recoil from, since it fundamentally violates the dignity of man and, by depriving him of life, deprives him of all other rights.

   In his First Letter to Timothy St. Paul refers to a certain Hymenacus and Alexander, two Christians about whom we otherwise know nothing, who "by rejecting conscience … have made shipwreck of their faith." (1 Timothy 1:19). In that same first chapter of 1 Timothy St. Paul gives examples of the kinds of sinners whose sins will cause them to suffer shipwreck in the faith: "manslayers, immoral persons, sodomites, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and whatsoever else is contrary to sound doctrine." (1 Timothy 1:10). In effect St. Paul is telling us that if we fail to shape our behavior in accord with our faith, we will very soon shape our faith to accord with our behavior. That formula fits the so-called "progressive" Catholic quite well. As St. John tells us in his Second Letter: "Anyone who goes ahead and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God; he who abides in the doctrine has both the Father and the Son" (2 John :9). There is a kind of "progress" that means turning our backs on God.

   Pope Benedict has come to our shores to rescue those who have suffered shipwreck in the faith, or at least to rescue those who are willing to accept the terms that will permit such rescue. Such terms of rescue call fundamentally for a return to the "sound doctrines of which St. Paul speaks, the doctrine protected and proclaimed in Christ’s Church ("the pillar and bulwark of the truth"-1 Timothy 3:15) by the Holy Spirit against the devil’s ceaseless attempts to subvert that doctrine. As Pope Benedict announced, "A people of hope is a people willing to make a change," a people willing to make whatever changes in their lives may be needed to bring them into harmony with Christ’s truth. Whatever may have been the previous course of their lives, if they are willing now, under the grace of God, to change course and and to take Christ’s teachings as the only true compass, they can find their way home to safe haven through "all of life’s tempestuous seas." That is his message to us.

   Pope Benedict invites each one of us to examine his conscience and to make whatever changes in our lives need to be made. Let us pray that we will do so, and let us pray for those in whose confused and sin-darkened minds the voice of Peter, speaking through Benedict, has perhaps stirred some awareness that through an obedient return to sound doctrine a new way of life can open up, a new way of life that offers hope.

That, my friends, is how it is done.

WDTPRS solemn high kudos to the great Fr. W!

First, Sen. Barak Obama (D-IL), the Dems’ candidate for POTUS answered a question at the now well-known "Saddleback Forum" about the beginning of human life.  Actually, he dodged the question with what was considered a very deficient, even "flip" answer.

Subsequently, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Vice-Pres. candidate Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) were asked questions about Sen. Obama’s flip non-response when they appeared on Meet The Press.

As Catholic pro-abortion politicians, they committed scandal and thoroughly embarrassed themselves on Meet The Press in response to host Tom Brokaw’s questions about Sen. Obama’s response about the beginning of human life at the "Saddleback Forum". 

Senator Obama is now backtracking, edging away from the answer which sparked these tough direct questions to other key members of his party and campaign.

Look at this AP story:

Obama says he was too flip on abortion question

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama acknowledged Sunday that he was probably too flip when he said it was "above my pay grade" to answer a question about when is a baby entitled to human rights.

Obama gave his answer last month at a nationally televised religious forum sponsored by minister Rick Warren at his megachurch in Orange County, Calif.

Asked on Sunday whether the "above my pay grade" answer was too flip, Obama said: "Probably. ...What I intended to say is that, as a Christian, I have a lot of humility about understanding when does the soul enter into … It’s a pretty tough question.  [But it is okay to talk about both your beliefs and your understanding of what science says.]

"And so, all I meant to communicate was that I don’t presume to be able to answer these kinds of theological questions," [He wasn’t being asked to reflect theologically, or express himself as a theologian.  Also, you can refer to the scientific position.  "What I understand is that virtually all serious studies, apart from our religious views, state that human life begins at the moment of conception." Easy.] he said in an interview broadcast Sunday on ABC’s "This Week."

In a separate interview, the answer to a similar question came easier for Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden.

A Roman Catholic, Biden said he accepts his church’s teachings that life begins at conception, but that the issue is personal for him. He said it wouldn’t be right to impose his views on others who are just as religious as he is.  [Lousy argument.  Really bad.]

"I’m prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception. But that is my judgment," Biden said on NBC’s "Meet the Press." "For me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally and maybe even more devout than I am seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society."

A truly pluralistic society allows for the expression, also, of views of faith.  In a pluralistic society they encounter each other.  At the polls people express themselves as a result of what they believe.  Every piece of legislation limits someone or some group’s "rights" or "desires".

Still,... the important thing here is how the candidate is trying to walk away from his earlier statment which inspired hard direct questions to the Speaker of the House and the VP candidate. 

But I think the cat is out of the bag. 

Rather, the artery has been slashed.

Everytime they are interviewed, these same questions must be posed and answers required.

Denver’s Archbishop, Most Reverend Charles Chaput, and Most Rev. James D. Conley, Auxiliary Bishop of Denver, have weighed in on the comments of VP candidate Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) on Meet The Press.  Archbp. Chaput also drilled into the issues in the matter of the outrageous scandal caused by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

Here is the link and here is the text with my emphases and comments:

Public Servants and Moral Reasoning:  [Out of the box very strong]

A notice to the Catholic community in northern Colorado

To Catholics of the Archdiocese of Denver:

When Catholics serve on the national stage, their actions and words impact the faith of Catholics around the country. [The perfect starting point.  He introduces immediately the problem of public figures and their widespread influence.]  As a result, they open themselves to legitimate scrutiny by local Catholics and local bishops on matters of Catholic belief. [This is not interference in "politics".] In 2008, although NBC probably didn’t intend it, Meet the Press has become a national window on the flawed moral reasoning of some Catholic public servants.

On August 24, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, describing herself as an ardent, practicing Catholic, misrepresented the overwhelming body of Catholic teaching against abortion to the show’s nationwide audience, while defending her "pro-choice" abortion views. On September 7, Sen. Joseph Biden compounded the problem to the same Meet the Press audience.

Sen. Biden is a man of distinguished public service. That doesn’t excuse poor logic or bad facts. Asked when life begins, Sen. Biden said that, "it’s a personal and private issue." But in reality, modern biology knows exactly when human life begins: at the moment of conception. Religion has nothing to do with it. [Exactly!  You don’t have to argue from religious tenets!] People might argue when human personhood" begins – though that leads public policy in very dangerous directions [indeed it does… and it opens up problems about when it ends, as well] – but no one can any longer claim that the beginning of life is a matter of religious opinion.

Sen. Biden also confused the nature of pluralism. [This was a point I raised too.  I am glad to see Arcbhp. Chaput address it.] Real pluralism thrives on healthy, non-violent disagreement; it requires an environment where people of conviction will struggle respectfully but vigorously to advance their beliefs. [RIGHT!   And in the voting some will win and some will lose, but the issues can be raised and people can be moved.]  In his interview, the senator observed that other people with strong religious views disagree with the Catholic approach to abortion. It’s certainly true that we need to acknowledge the views of other people and compromise whenever possible – but not at the expense of a developing child’s right to life. Abortion is a foundational issue; it is not an issue like housing policy or the price of foreign oil.  [Many pro-abortion Catholics try to draw moral equivalence between various social issues so that they can diminish the importance of the overriding issue of right to life.] It always involves the intentional killing of an innocent life, and it is always, grievously wrong. If, as Sen. Biden said, "I’m prepared as a matter of faith [emphasis added] to accept that life begins at the moment of conception," then he is not merely wrong about the science of new life; he also fails to defend the innocent life he already knows is there.  [Right!  And, no matter what the Senator says, defending life from a conviction that it begins at conception is not an imposition of his religious views.]

As the senator said in his interview, he has opposed public funding for abortions. To his great credit, he also backed a successful ban on partial-birth abortions. But his strong support for the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade and the false "right" to abortion it enshrines, can’t be excused by any serious Catholic.  [Thank you, Your Excellency.] Support for Roe and the "right to choose" an abortion simply masks what abortion is, and what abortion does. Roe is bad law. As long as it stands, it prevents returning the abortion issue to the states where it belongs, [YES!] so that the American people can decide its future through fair debate and legislation.

In his Meet the Press interview, Sen. Biden used a morally exhausted argument that American Catholics have been hearing for 40 years: i.e., that Catholics can’t "impose" their religiously based views on the rest of the country. But resistance to abortion is a matter of human rights, not religious opinion. And the senator knows very well as a lawmaker that all law involves the imposition of some people’s convictions on everyone else. That is the nature of the law. American Catholics have allowed themselves to be bullied into accepting the destruction of more than a million developing unborn children a year. Other people have imposed their "pro-choice" beliefs on American society without any remorse for decades.  [Masterful.]

If we claim to be Catholic, then American Catholics, including public officials who describe themselves as Catholic, need to act accordingly. We need to put an end to Roe and the industry of permissive abortion it enables. Otherwise all of us – from senators and members of Congress, to Catholic laypeople in the pews – fail not only as believers and disciples, but also as citizens.

+Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Archbishop of Denver
+James D. Conley
Auxiliary Bishop of Denver

 

Wonderful!  Kudos to Archbishop Chaput!  Thank you Bishop Conley!

In interesting news, Denver’s Archbishop Charles Chaput’s book Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life is on the New York Times Beseller List.

I wonder if you readers can help push it upward? 

If any of you will be at the installation of the new bishop of Wilmington, Delaware, Most Rev. W. Francis Malooly, please get in touch!

I would be interested in details of who attended, if you know what I mean, and what the sermon was, if you know what I mean.

 

UPDATE:

Apparently Sen. Biden did not attend the installation Mass of his new bishop.

UPDATE:


From a reader who was there:

Fr. Z are you still interested in a report from the Wilmington installation.  As you know Biden was not there, thank goodness.  The Bishop gave a very strong prolife homily, apologized for the clergy sexual abuse scandal, and promised to lead and asked others to follow.

Cardinal Keeler from Baltimore, Archbishop O’Brien from Baltimore, the Papal Nuncio were the big names in attendance.  Bishop Mulvee, 7th Bishop of Wilmington, was supposed to attend but had a heart cauterization procedure in Rhode Island.

The installation was typical Amchurch—the only sign of beauty was Mozart’s Ave Verum.  A few of the priests did note one quizical factor not seen in Wilmington in a long time that the crozier bearer had on white gloves—we don’t know who introduced this or if it was demanded.

The night before we had ‘Solemn Vespers’ in the Cathedral I was shocked to see that they were going to expose the Most Blessed Sacrament this has not been seen in a while either.  The Bishop gave a good homily on the importance of Eucharistic Exposition and its role in Vocations.  Disappointingly though, neither the O Salutaris nor the Tantum Ergo were sung either in Latin or English though were were inundated with Spanish ‘songs’ at the installation Mass.

I met you in Rome a few years ago on Feb. 22 on the feast of the Chair of St. Peter where you took my picture along with one of my friends.  Unfortunately at the time I did not know who I was meeting and have been an avid fan of your blog for 3 years now.  Thanks for everything

 

I am sure there will be many anniversary Masses in thanksgiving for the 1st year of Summorum Pontificum being in force.

Here is one notice:

The Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite will be offered this Sunday (9/14/08) at St. Timothy’s Church in Warwick, RI, near the Providence Airport, at 3:00 pm.  This will be a High Mass for the Feast of the Exultation of the Cross.  The pastor has a great heart for the Church and is trying to help implement Pope Benedict’s Marshall Plan as best he can, so any support would be greatly appreciated.  I am told that Father is planning on [for now] reserving the EF for significant feast days—I am told the next one will be a Vigil Mass for All Saints’ Day on the evening of October 31st.

After dealing with a couple hundred e-mails and several phone calls, I am only now getting around to paying attention to the new about His Excellency Most Reverend Robert Morlino, Bishop of Madison.  You might remember my entries about how this increasingly impressive successor of the Apostles  changed his mind after Summorum Pontificum, about how he celebrated a Pontifical Mass and how he stepped up to the plate big time in Wisconsin in defense of human life.

Now I get word that Bp. Morlino, having heard the abysmally stupid comments of vice-presidential candidate pro-abortion Catholic Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) on Meet The Press, comments which seemlessly extended the dreadful distortion of Catholic teaching uttered two weeks before by Speak of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), tossed aside his prepared sermon for Sunday Mass, stuck his heals into the floor and let go.

Many blogs, I am sure, will be all over this already, but though this many simply repeat their good efforts (GO TEAM BLOGGERS!) I will also post this.

Transcribed excerpt from The Curt Jester with my emphases and comments.:

"Senator Biden does not understand the difference between articles of faith and natural law. Any human being regardless of his faith, his religious practice or having no faith. Any human being can reason the fact that human life from conception unto natural death is sacred. Biology not faith, not philosophy, not any kind of theology; Biology tells us science that at the moment of conception their exists a unique individual of the human species. It’s not a matter of what I might believe. What my faith might teach me. What other people might … Science the best science says at the moment of conception there is a unique individual of the human species. [Sen. Biden claimed that he could not vote against abortion because he said he didn’t want to impose his religious views on those who don’t share them.  But he does not have to appeal to religion.  He can ground himself in natural law and science.  Biden sas what he says so that he can marginalize his faith into the sphere of the strictly private.]  Senator Biden has an obligation to know that and he doesn’t know it. Again I believe that after the Council some theologians, probably some priests, and some bishops allowed him to be confused about this matter. It’s not pretty. The reason I bring this up is because Speaker Pelosi and Senator Biden are Catholics and there on television and they’re giving out their ideas to Catholic people and they are causing confusion. They’re suppose to believe in separation of church and state. They’re violating the separation of church and state by confusing people. [Not sure about that, but think about how some people howl about "separation" when any matter of faith is expressed in the public square.]  I have an obligation to teach. They’re stepping on the Pope’s turf and mine and they’re violating the separation of church and state confusing God’s good people.  [RIGHT!  BRAVO!] But why? Because they themselves were confused after the Council and I don’t blame them for that. Bishop’s allowed it, theologians did it and some priests did it and in Canada even some bishops did it." [Whew!]

This came by e-mail:

Dear Father,
 
As always, thanks for all your work on your blog.
 
I had a question regarding the handwashing of the priest before Mass in the Extraordinary Form (and optionally in the Ordinary Form).
 
Does the priest use soap and water for the hand washing?  And does he do this in the sacrarium?  I have heard several different answers on both parts from different priests.

A good question.

This really should apply to the sacred ministers and even those who serve, I think, even before putting on the surplice, which had its accompanying prayer.

Many people know about the prayers a priest is to pray as he puts on his vestments for Holy Mass.  They are beautiful and highly significant.  Their loss as a regular part of priestly practice was a loss for priestly identity.  I am glad to see they are being recovered by many younger priests.

What many people don’t know, however, is that the priest and sacred ministers were always to wash their hands before vesting, while reciting a prayer, ... which we can get to below.

Already in the ancient Church there was a firm understanding that the priest especially had to be properly disposed to celebrate Mass.  He had to have the correct intention, and mental and physical disposition.  The physical disposition included being clean. 

Lay people have to be properly disposed too.  They must be in the state of grace to receive Communion and they must have fasted.  Also, there is still a ritual "washing" with the sign of the Cross with holy water, which harks to the ancient washing of hands and feet at fountains outside the church.  I think we can view the Asperges in this light, as a matter of fact: there is a ritual cleansing of mind and body before Mass begins.  I digress…

The priest for centuries had a long series of prayers to recite even before vesting which he was to recite pro opportunitate.   Since Carolingian times, this usually included washing of hands before vesting.  There was sometimes even a ritual divesting of outer clothing, putting on special shoes, etc.  Also in medieaval times there was even a moment for combing the hair with its own prayer referring to the seven-fold gifts of the Holy Spirit!   When bishops wold comb their hair, a towel would be placed around his neck and the deacon would solemnly hand the comb to him.  Imagine that today….  In some places there was not only a washing of the hands but also the face, etc.
 
As I said, outward preparation was considered important. The hand-washing prayer above, however, seems to be later.  In any event, this practice and prayer made its way into the Roman Rite.

 

Here is the prayer priests of the Roman Rite are to recite when they wash their hands before vesting:

Da, Domine, virtutem manibus meis ad abstergendum omnem maculam ut sine pollutione mentis et corporis valeam tibi servire.

The word virtus can be "virtue", of course, but we can drill at it a bit.  Try this from the Lewis & Short Dictionary:  "manliness, manhood, i. e. the sum of all the corporeal or mental excellences of man, strength, vigor; bravery, courage; aptness, capacity; worth, excellence, virtue, etc."

I find this provocative.  Men should be doers and the work of saying Mass is truly "work" in the deepest sense.  Hands are deeply connected to work as would be, I think, his brow.

Virtus is by extenstion also "virtue" in the moral sense, as well as the skill for military prowess.  The next vesting prayer, for putting on the amice, also has a military overtone, taken from perhaps St. Paul’s imagery of armor.  The priest uses the amice as the "helmet of salvation" to drive sway the attacks of the enemy, the devil.

Going on, abstergeo is "to wipe away (any thing disagreeable, a passion, etc.), i. e. to drive away, expel, remove, banish".  Pollutio is "defilement, contamination, pollution".  It has, of course, not just a meaning of dirt or filth in the physical sense, but also in the moral sense.  Pollutio was the word usually used from the mediveal period onwards for the discharge of semen without sexual intercourse.  This application of pollutio is probably due to the writings of John Cassian (+435), who had some seriously dire things to say about … just about everything.  To make a long story short the prayer may have some overtone against masturbation (from manus and stuprare "to defile; to dishonor by unchastity, to debauch, deflour, ravish, stuprate).  We might want to think about the older version of the quite ancient hymn sung for Compline, Te lucis ante terminum which had this second verse:

Procul recedant somnia
Et noctium phantasmata,
Hostemque nostrum comprime,
Ne polluantur corpora.

I don’t want to push this too far, but I think there may be a layer of meaning of this in the prayer.

So, let’s get at this prayer:

 

OUR VERSION:
Give manly power to my hands, O Lord, in order to cleanse every stain, so that I may be able to serve you without defilement of mind and body.

 

Now to the question.

I don’t think soap would have to be used, but I think it is a good idea.  Why not actually wash your hands?  There is a practical dimension of keeping the vestments clean and the vessels free of oil from the hands. 

I remember many years ago when in Rome I lived with the rector of the Basilica of St. Cecilia and during that summer before seminary began I went every morning to serve Mass within the cloister of the Benedict nuns in the convent of St. Cecilia: yes, the place where the lambswool was worked, etc.  The rector, who was one of the papal masters of ceremony, very pointedly directed me to wash my hands at a marvelous lavabo in the cloister across from the door of the sacristy before entering and putting on my surplice.  There was soap, of course, and always fresh towels.  

Those days loaded me up with some fascinting anecdotes, which would only be digressions here.  So… I think soap is a good idea.  

And no, I don’t think the sacrarium really has anything to do with this washing.  It may be that in older churches the lavabos and sacraria are one and the same, such as perhaps in the sacristies of some old Roman churches, etc., but mostly I think they would not be.  There is no reason why the gray water from washing hands would have to go down the sacrarium.

Short questions.  Long answer.

But it is interesting to get at what the prayer really says.

 

You might remember the events in St. Paul, Minnesota’s University of St. Thomas.  The Board of UST voted the Ordinary, Archbishop Nienstedt off the board, effectively, by changing the bylaws so that the local ordinary was no longer and ex officio member.  Pretty bad.

Now there may be a development.  This is from the newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, The Catholic Spirit.

Archbishop, St. Thomas outline new relationship

By The Catholic Spirit   
Wednesday, 03 September 2008

Following months of discussion between Archbishop John Nienstedt and the University of St. Thomas regarding the archbishop’s relationship to the school’s board of trustees, the archbishop and UST have announced new measures to help ensure and perpetuate the school’s Catholic mission and governance. 

The archbishop and Father Dennis Dease, UST president, announced three outcomes from the discussions in separate statements released Sept. 4:

• The UST board of trustees has elected Father Lee Piché, archdiocesan vicar general and moderator of the curia, to the board. As a voting member, he will act as the archbishop’s representative at board meetings.

• Archbishop Nienstedt will be present for one of the three scheduled meetings of the board of trustees each year. He also will meet twice a year with the chair of the board’s executive committee and key trustees.

• The board of trustees has agreed that it won’t make any decisions that may affect the school’s Catholic mission or its Catholic identity without directly consulting the archbishop’s office.

Last fall the UST board of trustees announced changes in its bylaws, based on recommendations made six years ago by the Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities, to elect its chair and vice chair. Previously, the sitting archbishop served as ex-officio chair of the board.

Visit www.stthomas.edu/bulletin/news/200836/Thursday/dease9_4_08.cfm to read Father Dease’s statement.

The following is Archbishop Nien­stedt’s full statement:

Archbishop Nienstedt’s statement on the relationship of the archbishop to the University of St. Thomas


Over the past several months, I have been working with Father Dennis Dease, president of the University of Saint Thomas as well as with members of the University’s Board of Trustees, to establish a new relationship between the office of the Archbishop and the Board. A focal point of these discussions has been to ensure and perpetuate the University’s Catholic mission and governance.

I am happy to announce jointly with Father Dease that one key outcome of these discussions is the election by the St. Thomas Board of Trustees of Father Lee Piché, the Archdiocese’s Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia, to the Board. As a voting member of the Board, Father Piché, a 1980 alumnus of the university, will be my representative at all future meetings.

As another result of our fruitful discussions during the past few months, I have proposed, and the University has ac­cepted, two procedural resolutions designed to clarify its association with me and my office and the University’s desire to manifest its identity as a Catholic institution.

First, as Archbishop, I will be present for one meeting of the Board of Trustees’ three scheduled meetings every year. And I will also meet twice a year with the Chair of the Executive Committee of the Board and key trustees of the University. The purpose of these meetings will be to discuss issues related to the University’s Catholic mission. Second, the Board of Trustees has agreed that it will make no decisions that may affect the University’s Catholic mission or Catholic identity without directly consulting the office of the Archbishop.

Finally, I want to express my gratitude to Father Dennis Dease and the members of the Board for their valuable assistance in helping to establish the terms of this relationship. I feel confident that the University of Saint Thomas and the Archbishop’s office will move forward together to promote the mission of the Catholic Church in all its fullness.
 
The Most Reverend John C. Nienstedt, S.T.D
Archbishop of Saint Paul and Min­neapolis.

WDTPRS thinks that Catholic universities should have a close relationship with the local bishop.