The Synod on Liturgy

Posted on 27 October 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

So much for the Synod.

Well down the list of 58 Propositions, after inculturation, human development, social communication, urban scenarios, migrants, and other matters of vital importance, I’m sure.

Proposition 35 : LITURGY
The worthy celebration of the Sacred Liturgy, God’s most treasured gift to us, is the source of the highest expression of our life in Christ (cf. Sacrosanctum concilium, 10). It is, therefore, the primary and most powerful expression of the new evangelization. God desires to manifest the incomparable beauty of his immeasurable and unceasing love for us through the Sacred Liturgy, and we, for our part, desire to employ what is most beautiful in our worship of God in response to his gift. In the marvelous exchange of the Sacred Liturgy, by which heaven descends to earth, salvation is at hand, calling forth repentance and conversion of heart (cf. Mt 4:17; Mk 1:15).
Evangelization in the Church calls for a liturgy that lifts the hearts of men and women to God. The liturgy is not just a human action but an encounter with God which leads to contemplation and deepening friendship with God. In this sense, the liturgy of the Church is the best school of the faith.

Of course it could be argued that the propositions are in no particular order of importance.

Right?

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CHANGE!

Posted on 27 October 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A reader sent me this:

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The newest vile Obama campaign ad an insult to women

Posted on 27 October 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Have you seen the slimy new video ad from the Obama campaign?  It is disgusting.

Here is some analysis from CNA:

Catholic analyst reacts to Obama campaign’s new ‘anti-woman’ ad
By Hillary Senour

Chicago, Ill., Oct 26, 2012 / 05:06 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A nonpartisan political analyst says Obama’s new ad featuring a young woman describing her “first time” voting for the president in terms similar to losing her virginity is “nothing short of demeaning and sexist” towards women.

“As a woman, I am horribly offended by this ad,” Kara Mone of CatholicVote.org told CNA Oct. 26.

In the ad, 26 year-old actress and writer Lena Dunham, tells the camera that, “Your first time shouldn’t be with just anybody. You want to do it with a great guy – someone who really cares about and understands women.”

“A guy who cares about whether or not you get health insurance, specifically whether you get birth control,” Dunham added.

The political advertisement, featuring Dunham likening her “first time” voting for President Obama to her first sexual encounter has received just over 275,000 views on YouTube, with nearly 9,000 “dislikes” and roughly 6,600 “likes.”

Mone said the ad is “anti-woman” because it sends the message that female voters are essentially “reducible” to their reproductive organs.

“Mr. Obama has constantly reminded young women during this campaign that all we need to be concerned with is sex, birth control and abortion on demand,” she said.

Dunham closes the video saying, “My first time voting was amazing. It was this line in the sand. Before I was a girl, now I was a woman.”

The ad, which has only been released online, has received mixed reviews in the video’s comments section, with some calling it “clever” and others referring to the ad as “creepy.”

Mone said that for Dunham “to suggest that voting for Obama is what made her a woman” is “a slap in the face to women,” especially those who “have worked hard to become what they are today through hard work, dedication and sacrifice.”

The Obama for America campaign did not respond to requests for comment from CNA by publication time.

The First Gay President has descended into pandering, even in its true sense. He is all about abortion and contraception. He strives to appeal to his base by appeal to the base.

[wp_youtube]c4_HuJCwlqM[/wp_youtube]

Trying to be soooo clever.  Winding up being vile instead.

Friends, get out the vote. Warm up your cars and help people get to the polls.

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Changes in the Roman Curia: governance of seminaries transferred to Congregation for Clergy

Posted on 27 October 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

At the end of the Synod of Bishops, which coincided with the beginning of the Year of Faith and focused on the promotion of the New Evangelization (of places where the Christian Faith and identity is dying or dead), the Holy Father said:

In the context of the reflections of the Synod of Bishops, “The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith,” and at the conclusion of a process of reflection on the themes of seminaries and of catechesis, I am pleased to announce that I have decided, after prayer and further reflection, to transfer competence [i.e., which office of the Curia has control] over Seminaries from the Congregation for Catholic Education, to the Congregation for the Clergy [HURRAY!] and competence of Catechesis from the Congregation for the Clergy, to the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization. [Interesting.]

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Declaration of the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” about the SSPX and the discussions

Posted on 27 October 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From VIS:

The Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” takes this occasion to announce that, in its most recent official communication (6 September 2012), the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X has indicated that additional time for reflection and study is needed on their part as they prepare their response to the Holy See’s latest initiatives.The current stage in the ongoing discussions between the Holy See and the Priestly Fraternity follows three years of doctrinal and theological dialogues during which a joint commission met eight times to study and discuss, among other matters, some disputed issues in the interpretation of certain documents of Vatican Council II. Once these doctrinal dialogues were concluded, it became possible to proceed to a phase of discussion more directly focused on the greatly desired reconciliation of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X with the See of Peter.

Other critical steps in this positive process of gradual reintegration had already been taken by the Holy See in 2007 with the extension of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite to the Universal Church by the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum and in 2009 with the lifting of the excommunications. Just a few months ago, a culminating point along this difficult path was reached when, on 13 June 2012, the Pontifical Commission presented to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X a doctrinal declaration together with a proposal for the canonical normalization of its status within the Catholic Church.

At the present time, the Holy See is awaiting the official response of the superiors of the Priestly Fraternity to these two documents. After thirty years of separation, it is understandable that time is needed to absorb the significance of these recent developments. As Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI seeks to foster and preserve the unity of the Church by realizing the long hoped-for reconciliation of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X with the See of Peter – a dramatic manifestation of the munus Petrinum in action – patience, serenity, perseverance and trust are needed.  [Not to mention prayers.]

[01402-02.01] [Original text: English]

Consider that, just a while ago, the new Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbp. Müller, gave an interview during which he used less than optimistic language about the SSPX.  Soon after, Archbp. Müller walked that back a bit with more optimistic language.  Then the SSPX expelled SSPX Bp. Williamson from their fraternity.  He had been making waves contrary to reintegration.  Now the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” (under the CDF) issues this statement with the indication that the original text is in English.

Benedict XVI is the Pope of Christian unity.

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Catholic Near East Welfare Association and winter aid for Christians in Syria

Posted on 26 October 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I picked this up from my friend John L. Allen, the nearly ubiquitous and normally fair-minded prolific writer, alas still writing for the über-liberal Fishwrap.  My emphases.

The Catholic Near East Welfare Association — among the largest the providers of aid to Christians in Syria, if not the largest — has launched an emergency appeal to help Christian refugees get through the winter. The idea is to deliver “Winter Survival Kits” to 2,000 families at a cost of $210 each.

Issam Bishara, a representative of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association in Lebanon, told me Monday that because Syria’s Christians generally have not headed for massive refugee camps in Turkey or Jordan, they’re not getting help from international relief agencies. Fearing exposure to further hostility, they’ve headed to other parts of Syria and to Lebanon, taking refuge with families and friends, but in many cases, those folks are running out of food, water, heating oil and other supplies.

Bottom line: Without help, it’s likely to be a long, cold and deadly winter.

Readers wishing to support the CNEWA appeal can find information and an online donation form here.

I am not sure about today, but in the past the CNEWA was run competently. It is under the aegis of the Holy See. I am confident that it is also good today.

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Drama

Posted on 26 October 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From xkcd:

Did you know that “dray-ma” is a legitimate alternative pronunciation of “drama”?

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Ante diem vii kalendas novembres

Posted on 26 October 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From rogueclassicism:

ante diem vii kalendas novembres

 

  • ludi Victoriae Sullanae (day 1) — games held in honour of Victoria commemorating Sulla’s defeat of the Samnites in 82 B.C.
  • 1656 B.C. — Noah enters the ark (this must be Bishop Ussher again)
  • 31 A.D. — suicide of Apicata, wife of the disgraced Praetorian Praefect Sejanus
  • ca 250 A.D. — martyrdom of Lucian and Marcian
  • 1852 — during a “violent storm” at Athens, one of the columns of the “Temple of Jupiter Olympus” was toppled (perhaps portrayed here?)
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Unless you recover the words, you can’t recover the concepts.

Posted on 26 October 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

When you change the words, you change the concepts.

The liberal progressivist liturgical terrorist reformers were successful in changing our way of speaking about our sacred liturgical worship.

For example, they made us – and no one asked them to do this, by the way – give up talking about “sacrifice”. And when we lost “sacrifice”, we therefore lost a clear understanding of “priesthood”. No “sacrifice”, no “priest”. Today, “minister” dominates. We are losing or have, in some places, lost the words “worship” and “adoration”. Now we talk about “celebration”. We “gather”. We still “pray”. But do we? Really? To whom or what?

“Sin”?  It is to laugh. “Hell”?  What’s that?

“Worship” and “adoration” had to go, of course. They smack too much of Tantum ergo, and all that stuff. You can see why the now aging-hippies tried to do away with those words. In seminary, after all, the same generation of Richard McBrien types incessantly crammed down our throats “Jesus said ‘Take and eat’, not ‘sit and look’!”

“Altar” is now associated more with protestant “altar calls”. Catholics, talk about “table”. Altars are connected with “sacrifice”. Thus, the concept of altar had to go. “Tables” are us!

It is not, I think, that they were trying to find new ways to express old and fundamentally Catholic concepts to a new generation in modern terms. They were trying to destroy the old and fundamentally Catholic concepts for a new generation.

We must recover our terms.

Unless you recover the words, you can’t recover the concepts.

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity, The future and our choices, Vatican II, What are they REALLY saying?, Wherein Fr. Z Rants, Year of Faith | Tagged , , ,
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Hypocritical, one-sided, biased, mendacious, “tolerance” is on the horizon

Posted on 26 October 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Minnesotan readers!   Get out the vote!  Get your like-thinking to the polls and VOTE!

Otherwise, have a taste of Christmas-Yet-To-Come.

Not only is the Obama Administration actively and doggedly undermining our religious freedom, trying to reduce freedom of religion to freedom of worship only, there is a Marriage Amendment on the ballot in Minnesota.  The two issues, religious freedom and defense of marriage come together in the following text.

Over at American Catholic my friend The Motley Monk has this (my emphases and comments):

Intolerant tolerance…
Published Thursday, October 25, 2012 A.D. | By The Motley Monk

While on this side of the pond the nation’s bishops are waging battle against the government’s incursions upon religious freedom, an interesting battle is unfolding on the other side of the pond in Great Britain.

It seems that Susanne and Mike Wilkinson who own Uf Dorf Wilkinson—a Swiss country B&B located in Cookham, Berkshire, which also serves as the couple’s home—believe the precepts of their Christian faith trump the law of the land. [The laws of the land should reflect God’s laws, positive and the natural law as well.] In this instance, that precept concerns the sanctity of marriage and the law is the Britain’s Equality Act Regulations of 2007, which outlaw discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation when providing goods, facilities, services, education, and other public functions.

According to the UK Daily Mail, Mrs. Wilkinson told Michael Black and his partner John Morgan in March 2010 that they couldn’t sleep in a double bed at Uf Dorf. That allegedly “discriminatory” judgment led to a lawsuit that Black and Morgan have won, with the judge requiring Mrs. Wilkinson to pay Black and Morgan £3,600 in compensatory damages on the grounds of “hurt feelings.”

Responding to the judgment, Mrs. Wilkinson to the Daily Mail:

Naturally, my husband and I are disappointed to have lost the case and to have been ordered to pay £3,600 in damages for injury to feelings. We have the option to appeal, and we will give that serious consideration.
We believe a person should be free to act upon their sincere beliefs about marriage under their own roof without living in fear of the law. Equality laws have gone too far when they start to intrude into a family home. [Do I hear an “Amen!”?  But I am afraid that that is the way we are going.  If we don’t stand up, this is what will happen everywhere!]
People’s beliefs about marriage are coming under increasing attack, and I am concerned about people’s freedom to speak and act upon these beliefs. I am a Christian, not just on a Sunday in church, but in every area of my life – as Jesus expects from his followers.
That’s all I was trying to do and I think it’s quite wrong to punish me for that, especially after enduring over two years of vile abuse and threats.

In court, Mrs. Wilkinson explained to the judge that she was serious about her Christian beliefs regarding the sanctity of marriage and wasn’t discriminating because Black and Morgan are homosexual. Mrs. Wilkinson explained that she also doesn’t allow unmarried heterosexual couples to share a double bed at Uf Dorf.

That would make Mrs. Wilkinson consistent in her intolerance or, put in another way, consistent in bringing her faith into her workplace.

Mrs. Wilkinson put her finger squarely on the truth when she observed: “We find this a strange justice in a society that aspires to be increasingly tolerant.”

In the UK, it may very well be the case that the principle of “tolerance” doesn’t extent to being tolerant of traditional Christian teaching about the sanctity of marriage.

Is this a ”coming attraction” of what’s soon to transpire in the United States?  [Yes!]

Posted in Emanations from Penumbras, Liberals, Our Catholic Identity, Religious Liberty, The future and our choices, The Last Acceptable Prejudice | Tagged , , , , , , , ,
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