On my arrival in Roma I wended my way to this famous church where St Philip established a confraternity. Card Branmueller has just begun the Confiteor.
PS Faldstool
UPDATE:
As usual, no row by row Communion.
Acts of thanksgiving at side altars. Thank You, Lord, that we weren’t forced by someone with a microphone to sing some ditty.
Reposing the Blessed Sacrament.
Eamus!
I have boarded what has been dubbed The Hurtling Tube Of Flaming Death for Roma, and I am settling in for a boring few hours. As the great Roman Fabrizio – I think it is his turn to buy lunch – reminded me, All Saints is a great day to get away from it all!
On a more worldly plane, I happily saw that my bag was scanned plane-side (my… what we do to English).
My view:
Dennis Prager has a good post called:
Why a Good Person Can Vote against Same-Sex Marriage
Changing the definition of marriage is bad for society.
I love this paragraph:
The history of left-wing policies has largely consisted of doing what feels good and compassionate without asking what the long-term consequences will be; what Professor Thomas Sowell calls “Stage One Thinking.” That explains, for example, the entitlement state. It sounds noble and seems noble. But the long-term consequences are terrible: economic ruin, a demoralized population, increasing selfishness as people look to the state to take care of their fellow citizens, and more.
The Canonical Defender, Prof. Ed Peters, is back at it after his synodal sojourn in Rome.
Catholics, Communion, and Controversies
by Dr. Edward PetersControversies over participation in holy Communion by Catholics publicly at odds with Church teaching cannot be usefully aired until the norms governing Catholic participation in holy Communion are first understood. The editors at First Things kindly gave me a chance to set out those norms for readers in their November 2012 issue. My essay, “Fencing the Altar”, is available on-line.
If I may quote myself:
Participation in Holy Communion is achieved by two related but distinct acts: the action of a member of the faithful in seeking Communion (reception) and the action of the minister in giving Communion (administration). These two actions are not only performed by different persons, they are governed by different canon laws. Virtually all confusion over Communion can be traced to the failure to keep these two actions distinct.
and,
[A] clear recognition of the fundamental differences between canon 916 on the reverent reception of the Eucharist and canon 915 on a minister’s withholding of Holy Communion is essential in assessing these cases. So too is recognizing that ambiguous cases must be decided in favor of reception of the Sacrament, even at the risk of sacrilege, while proven cases of public unworthiness as understood by Church law must result in withholding the Sacrament, even at the risk of public outcry. [!] Both outcomes are required upon pain of dereliction of ministerial duties in regard to participation in the Eucharist.
Canon 915.
CLICK TO BUY CAN. 915 STUFF
Here is a video from just after the Democrats’ Convention.
WOW!
If only our own bishops would speak with this clarity and righteous anger.
Watch and learn.
[wp_youtube]7_FrySY8oYM[/wp_youtube]
Note his explanation of how insulting to black people it is to claim that denial of the “right” for homosexuals to “marry” is like the 20th century racial civil rights movement.
From LifeNews:
Pro-Abortion Biden Claims He’s a “Practicing Catholic” In New Ad
by Steven ErteltIn a last-ditch effort to get Catholic voters to support pro-abortion President Barack Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden, who also backs abortion, has released a new web ad. In the ad, he claims he is a “practicing Catholic” and he claims Obama’s record matches Catholic doctrine. [So why are the Catholic bishops suing the Obama Administration?]
“As a practicing Catholic like many of you, I was raised in a household where there was absolutely no distinction between the values my mom and dad drilled into us and what I learned from the nuns and priests who educated me,” Biden says. “We call it Catholic social doctrine: ‘Whatever you do to the least of these, you do for me.’” [This is so hard to read. It’ll be harder to watch.]
Biden claims the Obamacare law, which funds abortions and prompts concerns over health care rationing, fulfills his claim that Obama has advanced Catholic doctrine as president. But Biden ignores the controversial HHS mandate that has sparked more than 100 lawsuits over its forcing religious groups to pay for abortion-inducing drugs and to fine them if they refuse. [Biden said that Obamacare was a “big f-ing deal”.]
The new ad comes as at least one Catholic bishop says Biden shouldn’t receive communion because of his abortion views.
Michael Sheridan, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs, says pro-abortion Vice President Joe Biden shouldn’t receive communion form the Catholic Church — at least in his diocese.
[wp_youtube]qP5H64VYBpc[/wp_youtube]
Canon 915.
CLICK TO BUY CAN. 915 STUFF
From Andrea Tornielli of Vatican Insider:
Cardinal Cañizares explains why he agreed to preside over [not just “preside over”] Saturday’s mass for faithful from the “Una cum Papa nostro” pilgrimage, in St. Peter’s Basilica
ANDREA TORNIELLI“I gladly accepted to celebrate next Saturday’s mass for pilgrims who came to thank the Pope for the gift of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum because it is a way to make others understand that it is normal to use the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite…” [That’s right!] This was the answer Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, gave to Vatican Insider when asked about the meaning of next Saturday’s (3 November) mass which will be celebrated at 15:00 in St. Peter’s Basilica. This morning, the spokesman for the “Una cum Papa nostro” pilgrimage announced that Archbishop Augustine Di Noia, Vice President of Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei will be present at the mass.
VI: What is the point of the pilgrimage?
Card. Cañizares: “To give thanks to God and thank the Pope for the motu proprio he issued five years ago, recognising the value of the liturgy celebrated according to the missal of the Blessed John XXIII and marking continuity with the tradition of the Roman Rite. By recognising the previous liturgy one understands that reform does not mean doing away with older traditional practices.”
VI: Why did you agree to celebrate mass for pilgrims who follow the pre-conciliar Rite?
Card. Cañizares: I agreed because it is a way to show people it is normal to use the 1962 missal: [Do I hear an “Amen!”?] there are two forms of the same Rite but there is only one Rite, so it is normal to use it during mass celebrations. [Did I mention that it’s normal?] I have already celebrated a number of masses according to the missal introduced by the Blessed John XXIII and I will gladly do so again on this occasion. The Congregation in which the Pope has called me to act as Prefect does not oppose the use of the old liturgy, although the task of our dicastery is to enhance the meaning of liturgical renewal according to the directives of the Sacrosanctum Concilium constitution and follow in the footsteps of the Second Vatican Council. In relation to this it must be said that the extraordinary form of the Latin Rite must draw inspiration from the conciliar Constitution which in the first ten paragraphs focuses on the true spirit of the liturgy and so is relevant to all rites.” [I think some trads will freak out at that suggestion. Perhaps they ought to read the first ten paragraphs of SC.]
VI: What is your opinion regarding the implementation of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, five years on?
Card. Cañizares: “I do not know the details regarding the world situation, partly because it is the Ecclesia Dei Commission that deals with this but I think that people are gradually beginning to understand that the liturgy is core to the Church and we have to revive the sense of mystery and sacredness in our celebrations. [Perhaps this could have been part of the discussion of the Synod of Bishops.] Furthermore, I believe that five years on we are able to better understand that it is not just about some faithful feeling nostalgia for the Latin Rite but about adding to the meaning of the liturgy. We are all part of the Church, we are all in one communion. Pope Benedict XVI explained this very well and on the first anniversary of the motu proprio, he recalled that “no one is unwelcome in the Church.”
POLL BELOW
What happens if, in the presidential election, both candidates wind up with the same number of Electoral College votes? WaPo has some scenarios HERE.
Review: Popular vote does not elect a President as it does Representatives to Congress (Senators were once not elected by popular vote… we should go back to that, perhaps).
The Electors of the Electoral College elect the President and Vice President (who are not representatives of the people as much as they are executives of a federation of States). Popular vote, for the most part, designates the direction Electors must go in the actual presidential and vice-presidential election. Electors are in the individual states. They are chosen by the states and Washington DC, and they are “pledged” to cast their vote according to the popular vote in states (except I think in Nebraska and Maine, which are proportional rather than winner-take-all). Each state can have its own method of choosing Electors. Right now there are 538 Electors (the voting membership of the Congress, 435 Representatives + 100 Senators) and three for D.C.). Popular vote normally determines how the state’s Electors in the Electoral College ought to cast their votes. The Electoral College elects the President and Vice President in two different ballots. In theory, Electors could do their own thing in choosing for whom to vote. Some infamous Electors have gone against the popular vote of their states. If I remember correctly, the Supreme Court ruled that “faithless Electors” could be punished or their votes invalidated. Thus, if some doofus elector voted for, say, Ron Paul, after Romney or Obama won the doofus’s “winner-take-all Electors” state, that doofus’s vote could be scratched and the doofus could be fined, etc.
My native Minnesota does not by law require the Electors to go by the popular vote, but neighboring Wisconsin does.
In any event, what happens if there is a tie in the popular vote of the states which ought to determine the Electoral College votes? What then?
Let’s step back. The Electors of the Electoral College vote on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December after the presidential election. They meet in their own states, not together in Washington. They vote for President and Vice President on separate ballots. The results are recorded on a Certificate of Vote. The state’s Certificates of Vote is sent to the Congress and to the National Archives. Each state’s electoral votes are counted in a joint session of Congress in the House chamber on 6 January of the next calendar year. The sitting Vice President, as President of the Senate, presides over the count and announces the results.
According to the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, Electoral College ties are resolved in a rather byzantine way, reflecting a different age of the world, for sure, but also a different role for the POTUS and VPOTUS than we sometimes imagine. Let’s look:
The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.
Clear?
Can you imagine the squabbles in each state’s delegation? California has 53 congressmen, but only vote. The delegations of each state of the incoming, newly elected House, would have to determine among themselves how that one vote would be cast. They’d go by a majority, I suppose. Going by the Electoral College, California has 55 votes. In this tie resolving scenario that number is reduced to 1, which would make California as influential as Rhode Island. Remember: the President is the executive of a federation of States.
I think the ties for Vice President are handled in the Senate, rather than the House. That also happened once in the early 1800’s.
Also, since in this tie scenario a party’s candidates for President and Vice President are no longer linked together, as they are on election day for us mere peons at the ballot box, the House could elect a President Romney and a Vice President Biden… or Ryan… or, I think, Obama.
Nisi fallor, the House has only elected the President once. In the early 1800’s there was a square off between Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, someone else whose name escapes, and Henry Clay. Nobody received enough votes to win outright. Since the House could only choose from the top three candidates, Henry Clay was not eligible. The House elected Adams, instead of Jackson, after Clay endorsed Adams. Adams then made Clay Secretary of State. Plus ça change, …. Calhoun was VP. A lake was named after him in my native Minneapolis, by the way.
I like this system. First, it underscores that this is a federation of States. We have gotten away from talking about THESE United States and rather say THE United States. “These” is, in my opinion, better though I slip on this all the time.
The federal government is encroaching on the sovereignty of States. The Electoral College process reminds us that President is not the directly elected representative of the people, but rather an executive for the federation of States. This is why there is an Electoral College and why, in my opinion, there should not be direct popular vote of the President of these United States.
That said, let’s have a POLL!
Please choose your best answer and give your reasons in the combox, below.
And this on the day I wrote about the Knox Bible. Life is funny.
The amusing Eye of the Tiber has this:
Washington, DC––Citing a need for the Church to “reach out to its estranged youth,” the International Commission on English in the Liturgy requested, and has already begun intensive work on, an all-meme edition of the Roman Missal. Representatives from the Commission, unhappy with last year’s implementation of the new translation of the Missal, shared their concern that the Church is not “speaking the language of the people.” “Young people are unable to relate to [the Missal’s] rigid, academic language” said a spokesperson for the group, “and so we are taking it upon ourselves to bring them closer to the richness of the Catholic Faith through the most modern meme-linguistic-format.” Such meme-characters as “Bad Luck Brian,” “The Most Interesting Man in the World,” and “Skeptical Black Kid,” the new mouthpieces of the Roman Liturgy, would be projected on the bare walls of churches behind the altar, to allow for “full, active participation” of young people during the Sacred Rites.
Far-fetched you say? Sure that’s satire, but consider this video, of some priests in France, isn’t of a Mass, well… you decide…
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Could there be an Ordinariate for former Lutherans in a way similar to those for former Anglicans?
It is hard for me to see how. Perhaps it could be possible.
From CWN:
The president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity said in an interview that the Vatican would entertain a hypothetical proposal by Lutherans to establish ecclesial structures modeled on the ordinariates developed for Anglican communities that wish to enter into full communion with the Holy See.
“Anglicanorum coetibus was not an initiative of Rome, but came from the Anglican church,” said Cardinal Kurt Koch, referring to the 2009 papal document that established the ordinariates. “The Holy Father then sought a solution and, in my opinion, found a very broad solution, in which the Anglicans’ ecclesial and liturgical traditions were taken into ample consideration. If similar desires are expressed by the Lutherans, then we will have to reflect on them. However, the initiative is up to the Lutherans.”
Cardinal Koch also said that both “‘progressives and traditionalists suffer from the same ailment”: a refusal to interpret the Second Vatican Council with a hermeneutic of “renewal in continuity.”
“Both see the Council equally as a break, even if in a very different way,” he said. “The Holy Father has questioned this understanding of the conciliar hermeneutics of the break and proposed the hermeneutics of reform, which unites continuity and renewal.”
Benedict XVI is the Pope of Christian Unity.
Fuller article with Card. Koch’s comments HERE.
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
A Daily Prayer for Priests
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