European court: Ireland’s abortion laws breach human rights

Posted on 16 December 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The European Court of Human Rights seems to think that abortion is a human right.

From The Catholic Herald:

European court rules that Ireland’s abortion laws breach human rights

By Michael Kelly on Thursday, 16 December 2010

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Ireland’s laws banning abortion breach European human rights law.

In a landmark and binding case [It is unclear to me how this ruling can be “binding”.  Perhaps Europeans can explain that.] that could have implications for other European countries, the court ruled that Ireland had breached the human rights of a woman with a rare form of cancer who feared it would relapse if she became unintentionally pregnant.

But the woman was unable to find a doctor willing to judge whether her life would be at risk if she continued her pregnancy to term. [Did that violate a human right?  That she couldn’t find a doctor who would say that?  She has the right to a doctor who will tell her what she wants to hear?]

The court concluded today that neither the “medical consultation nor litigation options” relied on by the government constituted an effective or accessible procedure.

“Moreover, there was no explanation why the existing constitution right had not been implemented to date,” the court ruled.

While abortion remains a criminal offence under 1861 legislation, a technical constitutional right to abortion does exist in Ireland following a 1992 Supreme Court ruling. In a controversial judgment known as the “X case”, the court established the right of Irish women to an abortion if a pregnant woman’s life was at risk as a result of the pregnancy.

However, successive governments have not legislated on the issue, and several constitutional referenda variously aimed at either enacting or revoking the judgment have proved inconclusive.

Guidelines from the Irish Medical Council describe abortion as “professional misconduct”.

The European court case was filed in 2005. In 2009 it had an oral hearing before the court’s grand chamber. This 17-judge court is reserved to hear cases that raise serious questions affecting the interpretation of the European Convention of Human Rights. As a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights – now incorporated into Irish law – the government is obliged to remedy any breaches of the convention.

Ireland and Malta are the only member-states of the Council of Europe in which abortion remains illegal.

[…]

You can read the rest there.

Posted in Emanations from Penumbras, New Evangelization, The future and our choices, Throwing a Nutty | Tagged ,
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Hurray for President Obama!

Posted on 16 December 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Did you ever think to read that here?

President Obama’s approval rating may be at an all time low, but today for me he ticked up a notch!

POTUS signed a critically important world-changing piece of high impact legislation of global important significance and meaningfulness.

I guess this proves that elected officials can get the really important things done.

From CBS:

Obama Signs CALM Act on Volume of TV Commercials

TV viewers, rejoice: You’ll no longer get blown out of your seat by the difference in volume between the television program you’re watching and the commercials that air during it.

On Wednesday President Obama signed into law the “Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation” or “CALM Act.” A press release from the White House states the law “requires the Federal Communications Commission to prescribe a regulation limiting the volume of audio on commercials transmitted by television broadcast stations, cable operators, and other multichannel video programming distributors.”

The House passed the bill by a voice vote on Dec. 2. It was passed the Senate unanimously in September. The FCC will start enforcing the new rules within a year.

Consumers have complained to the FCC about loud commercials for decades, and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif. [Chaldean Catholic]) told the Wall Street Journal in December that the CALM Act is the most popular piece of legislation she’s sponsored in her 18 years in Congress. [Get this… she is pro-abortion too.  Just thought I would toss that in.] “If I’d saved 50 million children from some malady, people would not have the interest that they have in this,” she said.

For now, the FCC has a webpage on the subject, which advises consumers, “Manually controlling volume levels with the remote control remains the simplest approach to reducing excessive volume levels.”  [Well.. that’s helpful!]

I wonder if this will affect POTUS approval rating.

Meanwhile…

[CUE MUSIC]

coffeeWhen you’ve had a hard day, a noisy day, filled with noisy noise, use that remote control like the FCC recommends and TURN OFF THE TV …. er umm… lower the volume on the TV so that you aren’t distracted while you order some Mystic Monk Coffee!

Yes, as Screwtape says, Hell is full of noise.  On the other hand, Mystic Monk Coffee helps to create peace, quite and CALM.  I bet the pro-life politicians who voted for the CALM legislation were drinking Mystic Monk Coffee… and from WDTPRS mugs.  And if they weren’t they were wishing they were!

So, do your part to promote peace and quiet in the world and refresh your coffee supply now!

Mystic Monk Coffee!

It’s swell!

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QUAERITUR: recording my own confession

Posted on 16 December 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

Under stress, my mind goes blank. I find Confession really stressful, so therefore can not mentally absorb the advice of the priest nor remember hardly anything he says afterwards. I feel I am missing a lot of good advice that could be helpful to my spiritual life.

Can I hit the voice memo button on my smart phone and record my Confession so that I can replay it later (just for myself to hear)? [Don’t.] I have not done this yet as I thought it might not be permitted due to the risk of one’s phone being lost, but I do password my phone so I’d be willing to take that small risk. [Bad idea.] I write down my sins to say anyway, so already take the risk of losing my paper (which isn’t password protected). Since writing one’s sins is allowed, I have begun to wonder if it might not be forbidden afterall to record one’s own Confession just for one’s own personal spiritual benefit.  [Don’t.] I still have a “funny” feeling about doing that, so perhaps there is another reason if might be forbidden… if it is forbidden. Do you know if it is?  [Don’t]

My advice is: Do not record any part of any confession.

READ THIS:

Thursday, July 15, 2010

MODIFICATIONS MADE IN THE NORMAE DE GRAVIORIBUS DELICTIS

§ 2. With due regard for § 1, n. 5, also reserved to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is the more grave delict which consists in the recording, by whatever technical means, or in the malicious diffusion through communications media, of what is said in sacramental confession, whether true or false, by the confessor or the penitent. Anyone who commits such a delict is to punished according to the gravity of the crime, not excluding, if he be a cleric, dismissal or deposition.

The priest, or anyone who over hears a sacramental confession, is bound by the Seal and may not divulge by any means the content.  The penitent may not record anything either.

People can and do write sins down.  If a person does that I strongly suggest never putting your name on it or making it identifiable.  Sometimes a priest must make notes about the content of a confession for the sake of contacting the Apostolic Penitentiary in order to obtain a faculty to lift a censure.  In those cases he does everything possible to protect anonymity.

But a voice recording of your confession….

Don’t record any part of a confession.

If you must, ask the priest to repeat what he said so you are clear about it.  Make a note if you must.

Recording any part of any confession is a really bad idea.

Posted in ASK FATHER Question Box | Tagged , ,
25 Comments

R.I.P.

Posted on 16 December 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

My digital thermometer, has died. I thought it just needed a new battery.

It served me well for many years.

Posted in Fr. Z's Kitchen |
13 Comments

QUAERITUR: absolution without any confession

Posted on 16 December 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

There is a parish in our diocese that offers a rather unique penance service with no individual confession offered. A penance service is held and people simply file up in a line, say to the priest “I am sorry for my sins” and he gives them absolution one by one. Is this valid?

That doesn’t sound valid to me, if that is what is being done.  Unless there has been an earthquake or there is a meteor about to strike, that is not valid.

Absolution without individual confession of sins may not be given except in an emergency.  Furthermore, a person who receives a valid absolution must seek individual confession of sins and absolution at the earliest opportunity.

Except in the case of an emergency (i.e., there are too many people for one priest and too little time, there is a disaster, people are too close and listening and there is a chance of death, etc.) for the sacrament to be valid a penitent must confession all mortal sins.

Saying “I am sorry for my sins” can suffice for an expression of sorrow for sins.  The priest must have a reasonable certainty that the person is truly sorry.  But that statement does not substitute for confession of the mortal sins themselves.

It may be that the priest there is unaware that what he is doing is wrong.  Perhaps he can be instructed or persuaded.

If there is printed material available describing this service, a video/audio recording of the people being instructed to do this, I would get hold of it and put a question about it to the local bishop or even to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.  If you have some sort of proof that this is what is done, the Congregation would be very interested to hear about it, if the local bishop is uninterested.

Hearsay does not suffice.

Posted in ASK FATHER Question Box, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000 | Tagged , ,
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WDTPRS Thursday in the 3rd Week of Advent: We’re all going to die!

Posted on 16 December 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The LordThis Collect was in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary.  In the 1962MR it was one of the prayers for Ember Saturday of Advent.  The cutting, snipping experts of Fr. Bugnini’s Consilium decided in their wisdom to add a word, salutari, for the version in the post-Conciliar editions of the Missal.

COLLECT (2002MR):
Indignos nos, quaesumus Domine, famulos tuos,
quos actionis propriae culpa contristat,
Unigeniti Filii tui adventu salutari laetifica.

Note the antithesis in laetificare (“gladden”) and contristare (“sadden”).  Contristo, in our vast Lewis & Short Dictionary, means a range from things, from “to make sad, to sadden”, to “afflict” and “hurt, damage”.   I think we should try to hear all of these meanings in this rich word.   On the other hand, laetifico also means “to render fruitful”.  Rich contrasts.

WDTPRS SLAVISH VERSION:
O Lord, we implore,
by the saving arrival of Your Only-Begotten,
gladden us Your unworthy servants
whom the sins of our own actions have saddened.

CORRECTED ICEL REVISION A:
Unworthy servants that we are, O Lord,
grieved by the guilt of our deeds,
we pray that you may gladden us
by the saving advent of your Only Begotten Son.

CORRECTED ICEL REVISION B:
Unworthy servants that we are, O Lord,
disheartened by the guilt of our deeds,
we pray that you will gladden us
by the saving advent of your Only Begotten Son.

I wonder if the translator didn’t fall partially into the trap of sticking too closely to Latin word order.  I think the effort was good, but….

You decide.

LAME-DUCK ICEL VERSION:
Lord,
our sins bring us unhappiness. [O for the love of God…. just one. more. year.]
Hear our prayer for courage and strength.
May the coming of your Son
bring us the joy of salvation.

Roman Catholic Daily Missal (Angelus Press):
By the [saving] coming of Thine only-begotten Son,
we beseech Thee, O Lord,
gladden us Thine unworthy servants
stricken sorrowful by the guilt of our misdeeds.

“Stricken”!  OORAH!  The gets both “sadden” and “harm” pretty well!

In remember the especially shallow “prof” in my US seminary who categorized all human emotions as variations of “sad, mad, glad or scared”.   Yah… let’s talk about scared for a moment.

Advent is about the Second Coming and the general judgment.  Don’t lose track of that!

We will have an anticipation of the Second Coming if we die before the Lord returns (which is likely).  Our death is like a Second Coming, for that is when our particular judgment will take place.  Those who are not ready, or rather have neglected to prepare, will be sad indeed on that fearful day.  Sins, which have been so harmful, will make that soul sad indeed.  Sad indeed.

In that light, the word contristat grabbed by attention.   In the Preface for the Dead, we have this:

In quo nobis spes beatae resurrectionis effulsit: ut quos contristat certa moriendi conditio eosdem consoletur futurae immortalitatis promissio. Tuis enim fidelibus, Domine, vita mutatur, non tollitur: et dissoluta terrestris hujus incolatus domo, aeterna in coelis habitatio comparatur.  …  in Whom the hope of a blessed resurrections heath beamed upon us: so that those who are saddened by the certainty of dying to Thy faithful people, Lord, life is changed, not taken away; and when the home of this earthly sojorn is dissolved, an enternal dwelling is made ready in heaven.

Use your time of Advent, especially as we move into the greater days of Advent tomorrow, to reflect on your state of life and state of soul.

Are you ready for what will come?

Posted in ADVENT, WDTPRS | Tagged ,
22 Comments

You, too, can write like a Pope!

Posted on 16 December 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I know that some people out there, in the real world or the blogosphere… certainly no one here… writes as if she had magisterial authority. She may consider herself to have the same authority as, say, popes or bishops. You know about the Magisterium of Nuns, of course.

If you want to write like a Pope, you now can!

I was looking through some fonts which can be purchased (I like that sort of thing).  I was looking for a font like the chancery hand that was once used in the Roman Curia.  I know what it looks like, but not what it might be called.  Anyway, as my eyes were scanning down a page filled with different styles of fonts that emulate handwriting, one fleetingly caught by eye. I scrolled back and, sure enough, I know why it caught my eye.

You can write like John Paul II with the JP2 Font!

JP2 Font

And in the example of text they provide, yes… it looks like his writing.

Of course there is no guarantee that what you write with that font will be worth reading, but you too can write like a pope!

Posted in Just Too Cool | Tagged
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If lay people “assist” at Mass, what does the priest do? Fr. Z rants.

Posted on 16 December 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A reader sent me a link to a blog I had never seen, Priest’s Secretary for an especially irritating entry.   The entry wasn’t irritating because the blog itself is loony.  Rather, the story recounted in the entry was loony, and did I mention irritating?  The blog was just reporting it.  As a matter of fact, Priest’s Secretary boiled it down from another blog, Cleansing Fire.

I thought this sort of …. codswallop was fading out.  I guess it hangs on among the liberal dinosaurs.

It dredges up memories of the pure heresy we were fed at my US seminary many years ago.

Did I mention this was irritating?

Here it is:

Blogger looks at growing complacency in priest shortage

From CleansingFire.com– Charlotte Bruney, who has been serving as the lay pastoral administrator of St. Vincent De Paul in Churchville for nearly 12 years, comments in her most recent column about the departure of Fr. Cosgrove from weekday Mass assistance [“assistance”…?!?  Right!  Father, er um… sorry… “Just call me Bob!” only helps a little at “liturgy”.] at her parish. In this piece, Ms. Bruney appears all too comfortable without a regular priest to offer weekday Masses. Sadly, this is a problem I see becoming more widespread each day in this diocese [Rochester, NY].

[…]

Perhaps my concern will be better appreciated if one recalls what Ms. Bruney wrote in her brief article [this explains a few things…] printed in Bishop Matthew Clark’s lay ministry apologetic, Forward in Hope:

“an eighty-year-old gentleman who was a regular at daily liturgy pulled me aside one morning and announced: “We’ve been talking and we’ve agreed that we don’t want you working so hard to get us a priest for weekdays. We’ve decided that you should say Mass for us!” Stunned, I laughed aloud and then realized that he was perfectly serious. I asked him if he wanted to have me excommunicated; he replied, “We’ll just pull down the shades. No one will have to know but us!“”

Equally problematic is the following passage, also from Ms. Bruney’s piece in Forward in Hope:

“This small, but faithful, community gathers every weekday morning for either Mass or a Scripture and Communion service (at this point, it matters not which it is)”

Read more

I think it does matter.  And it would matter a great deal to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith if someone was simulating Mass there.

We hear language about lay people “assisting” at Mass.  That is not what priests do.  Priests don’t assist.

Bad theology trickles down form the sanctuary and pulpit into the pews.   It is subtly but inexorably conveyed with vocabulary, attitude, tone of voice and outright statements.   Change the words of how we pray, for example, and you will change what people believe.

There was some dreadful theology about priesthood and lay people and ecclesial roles from influential authors such as the late Fr. Eduard Schillebeeckx which we still need to clean up today.

Lay people cannot simply be “called forth” from a community to “preside” at Mass (let’s say “Mass”, not “liturgy”).

The sharing in the priesthood of Christ which the baptized have is not the same as the priesthood the ordained priest has.  They are different qualitatively.  A thousand million billion lay people could say the words of consecration over bread and wine and, at the end of the day, bread and wine would be on the altar.  A priest, without a lay person in sigh, would consecrate the Body and Blood of Christ.   Priest’s don’t “assist” at Mass.  And I am not entirely sure that “assist” is the best word to describe the participation of lay people.   That word implies something that is, in a sense, impossible, unless perhaps we are talking about their “active participation” properly understood.

Pay attention to the words people use and the subtle clues they give.  What do you hear these days?

Ministry?  Minister applied to nearly everyone?

Priest?  Presider?

Mass?  Liturgy?

Participate at Mass/liturgy?  Assist?  Attend?  Hear Mass?

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Our Catholic Identity, Wherein Fr. Z Rants | Tagged , ,
52 Comments

St. Haggai, prophet, and a note about a calendar

Posted on 16 December 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

St Haggai, prophetMany Old Testament figures are accounted as saints by the Catholic Church.

Today is the commemoration of St. Haggai, one of the twelve prophets of the Old Testament.

Here is his entry in the Roman Martyrology:

1. Commemoratio sancti Aggaei, prophetae, qui, tempore Zorobabel ducis Iudae, populum admonuit, ut domus Domini reaedificaretur, in quam venturus erat thesaurus cunctarum gentium…. The commemoration of St. Haggai, prophet, who, in the time of the leader Zorobabel, admonished the people that the house of the Lord, in which the treasure of all the peoples would come, should be rebuilt.

I don’t know if the Congregation for Divine Worship is closely involved in the preparation of the Vatican wall calendars (I chuckle at the very thought, actually), but there is an error on the Vatican calendar today.  On the Vatican wall calendar, with tear off sheets (I don’t know about the monthly calendar) today there is indicated St. David, king and prophet.  This was also, I think, wrong last year as well.  David is, I believe, 29 Dec.

Closer.

Yep, that’s David alright.  On the wrong day.

I suspect this is about the time the new calendars are being prepared for printing, I think, since they are never ready before the new year comes.   What sense would it make for them to be available before the year begins?   I imagine the Congregation is involved somewhat because of the addition of new saints.  In any event, someone should provide whomever it is who proofs the calendar with a copy of the 2005 Martyrologium Romanum.

Posted in Saints: Stories & Symbols, The Drill | Tagged ,
3 Comments

What’s going on with the Legionaries of Christ?

Posted on 16 December 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

At Sandro Magister’s place there is an article about what is going on with the correction of the Legionaries of Christ.  Here is the preamble:

ROME, December 16, 2010 – The order is binding. All the houses of the Legionaries of Christ must be emptied of photos of the founder, Marcial Maciel Degollado, the man of “foolhardy, wasted, bizarre” life whom Benedict XVI called in his recent book-interview “a false prophet.”

Not only that. They must no longer call him “Our Father.” They must no longer celebrate his anniversaries, but only pray for him on the anniversary of his death. They must no longer display or sell his writings. In Cotija de la Paz, Mexico, where he is buried, his grave must no longer have any distinguishing marks. Next to the spiritual retreat house there must be built “a place dedicated to reparation and expiation.”

These provisions were issued on December 13 to all the Legionaries in the world by their director general, Álvaro Corcuera, by the order of Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, the pope’s delegate to get the congregation back on the right track.

[…]

You can read the rest there…if you want.

Posted in Clerical Sexual Abuse, The Drill | Tagged ,
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