From a reader:
We have been invited to attend the solemn profession of final vows of a young woman becoming a cloistered nun. Are there any gift giving customs involved with one’s attendance at such a ceremony?
Hmmm… no idea.
Anyone?
Let’s help this person out.
From the Catholic League:
FRONTAL ASSAULT ON CATHOLICISM
MARCH 9, 2012 BY ADMINCatholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:
Never has there been a more vicious anti-Catholic advertisement in a prominent American newspaper than the one in today’s New York Times[Hell’s Bible] by Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF).
The demonization of Catholicism is palpable.
The pretext of the ad [click here] is the Catholic Church’s opposition to the Health and Human Services mandate forcing Catholic non-profits to include abortion-inducing drugs, contraception and sterilization in its insurance plans. Its real agenda is to smear Catholicism. Here is how the ad begins: “It’s time to quit the Roman Catholic Church. Will it be reproductive freedom, or back to the Dark Ages?” [I wonder if they get any money from an Obama superpac or the DCCC. How do you find out where 501c3’s get their money? Is it even possible? I digress.]
The ad blames the Catholic Church for promoting “acute misery, poverty, needless suffering, unwanted pregnancies, overpopulation, social evils and deaths.” [Probably because of all the hospitals, schools and charities the Church has built and run.] It says the bishops are “launching a ruthless political Inquisition” against women. [NB: Like all lefties, they mendaciously reduce what the Church teaches to something “political”. Always watch for that. When the Church teaches doctrine, the Church’s enemies say it is “political” and that the Church’s teachings are “policies”.] It talks about “preying priests” and corruption “going all the way to the top.”
In an appeal to Catholic women, it opines, “Apparently, you’re like the battered woman who, after being beaten down every Sunday, feels she has no place else to go.” [But abortion and contraception, the liberal sacraments, have freed women to be treated like objects. That must be the goal of this group: turn women into tools for making money for big-business abortion. Do you suppose this group gets any money from Planned Parenthood? I don’t know the answer. I’m just askin’]
FFRF is led by a husband and wife team, Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker. Fortunately for Gaylor, her mother did not follow through on the advice she gave women in her book, Abortion Is a Blessing. [For people like this, for their secularist religion of self-worship, abortion is a sacrament.]
Not a single Catholic who reads this ad will be impelled to leave the Church. That is not the issue (Catholicism, unlike many other religions, is actually growing in the U.S., and worldwide).
The issue is the increase in hate speech directed at Catholics.
Nothing will stop Catholics from demanding that the Obama administration respect their First Amendment rights, this vile assault by FFRF notwithstanding.
Why the Times allowed this ad is another issue altogether. [Because, Bill, it is Hell’s Bible.]
Contact the “free thought” bigots at FFRF: fttoday@mailbag.com
Ps 58:
1 To the choirmaster: according to Do Not Destroy. A Miktam of David.
Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods? Do you judge the sons of men uprightly?
2 Nay, in your hearts you devise wrongs; your hands deal out violence on earth.
3 The wicked go astray from the womb, they err from their birth, speaking lies.
4 They have venom like the venom of a serpent, like the deaf adder that stops its ear,
5 so that it does not hear the voice of charmers or of the cunning enchanter.
6 O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD!
7 Let them vanish like water that runs away; like grass let them be trodden down and wither.
8 Let them be like the snail which dissolves into slime, like the untimely birth that never sees the sun.
9 Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns, whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away!
10 The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.
11 Men will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous; surely there is a God who judges on earth.”
God is our Creator and our Savior and our Judge.
There is a God who judges.
Pray for these people. Let them be defanged. Let them be turned from their ways, lest they like snails in the sun dissolve into slime the NYT prints with, lest they be swept away.
Sts. Nunilo and Alodia, pray for us!
There has been another attack in Nigeria by Muslim suicide bomber on a Catholic church. 4 DEAD.
Coming to a neighborhood near you… though it will probably be a different set of activists before these other killers get around to it.
Sts. Nunilo and Alodia, pray for us!
What times we are in!
More and more I have a desire to go to Navarre and venerate their relics and then go on with the Camino to Santiago de Compostela.
Some years ago, an dyspepsic old Italian bishop, irritated with the gabbling of the bishops gathered in a plenary of their conference, stepped outside the Paul VI audience hall, where I was waiting to meet someone.
“Less chatter and more processions!”, quoth he.
I will add “More pilgrimages”.
The Canonical Defender, Prof. Ed Peters, who does not have an open combox on his fine blog In The Light of the Law, has opined about the case in the Archdiocese of Washington DC, now infamous, wherein a lesbian Buddhist instrumentalized her own mother’s funeral Mass so as to set a trap for a priest whom she wanted to provoke into refusing her Holy Communion.
My own opinion has been clearly given all along. I think the priest in question, Fr. Guarnizo, acted prematurely in denying the lesbian Communion under can. 915, but his choice was understandable and ought to be applauded. Given the lack of good examples from bishops in regard to can. 915, priests – who are also bound to obey can. 915 – have been left to shift for themselves. Also, Fr. Guarnizo was trying to uphold some important principles.
In any event, people are writing to me that Fr. G was “suspended” by his ordinary bishops Card. Wuerl.
No… not really. There is LAW involved, as it turns out.
That said…
Take it away Dr. Ed!
My emphases except for headings and comments.
Bp. Knestout’s March 9 letter on Fr. Guarnizo
March 11, 2012
Most of the lesbian/Communion controversy has been a dis-edifying parade of misleading commentary[I hope I am not guilty of same.] being proffered about misapplied laws. I don’t write here to correct these many errors, as their partisans (whether ‘left’ or ‘right’) don’t seem especially interested in what the law actually says, but I am happy to offer some observations on Bp. Knestout’s letter of March 9 for those who are trying to understand what is, and is not, at work in this matter.
1. Fr. Guarnizo has not been suspended (suspension is a canonical penalty levied only upon guilt for crimes, per c. 1333), but he has been placed on “administrative leave”, a term not found in the Code, [! Not in the Code… but it sure is used OFTEN.] but nevertheless serving as a practical description of a situation in which, usually, one is not permitted to function as a cleric for so long as a wider situation requires resolution. A priest’s faculties for confession, preaching (homilies), witnessing weddings, etc. can be restricted a couple of different ways, and there is no reason to think that those ways were not satisfied in this action (although direct discussion of them is lacking). [By which I think Prof. P means, they haven’t been explained to the public.]
From the text of the letter, I cannot tell whether Guarnizo is prohibited from celebrating Mass even in private (he is certainly prohibited from public celebration), although the trend in such cases is to allow for private celebration. This question could easily be addressed between Knestout and Guarnizo, and probably has already been answered.
2. A vicar general almost certainly has sufficient authority to issue such a letter (c. 479 § 1); one may expect the Cardinal to be informed of this action in a timely manner (c. 480).
3. As a parochial vicar, Guarnizo has considerably fewer procedural rights to office than would a pastor. Compare a pastor’s rights under c. 522, etc., and c. 1740 etc., with those of a parochial vicar, per c. 552. All associate pastors know this. [An aside. The terms I became used to were “assistant”, rather than “associate” or this “parochial vicar” creature. Years ago a priest was visiting the rectory of my home parish when the late Msgr. Schuler reigned. He ask Msgr. whether in that archdiocese we used the “assistant” or “associate”. Without missing a beat Monsignor responded, “The first three letters are the same”. But I digress.]
4. Guarnizo is not “incardinated” in the Archdiocese of Washington (c. 265 etc.); the situation of an “extern” priest is inherently more tenuous than is the situation of locally incardinated clergy, it being a function more of contract (express or implied) than of law. All extern priests know this.
5. Little in Knestout’s letter suggests that this action is being taken in response to the lesbian/Communion controversy (though one may be sure that the pro-lesbian camp will claim victory, [A big reason why I wonder if this was well-done. But I am not the man in the big chair and don’t know much about the circumstances.] and the pro-Guarnizo camp will decry the ‘mistreatment’ of the priest).
The allegations of “intimidating behavior” by Guarnizo are not recited in Knestout’s letter, but three questions would occur to me: (a) is this just a pile-on by people looking to kick Guarnizo while he is down?, or (b) are there long-standing legitimate complaints against Guarnizo that the recent controversy made more likely to surface? , or (c) did Guarnizo’s post-controversy conduct in the parish render him intemperate with others, provoking what are really recent complaints? Such are the things that an investigation is designed to, well, investigate.
6. The letter expresses the hope that Guarnizo will be able to return to priestly ministry.
There. As you arm-chair observers itch to weigh in, that is the analysis by a canonist of the law involved.
Finally, I will only note that there are a lot of priests out there doing some pretty crazy things and teaching oddities from their pulpits and they are not on administrative leave. I’m just sayin’
Our friends in the UK are more advanced in the kulturkampf that we are in the USA… but we are catching up fast. Furthermore, while I think public discourse may be a bit more rough-n-tumble in England, Americans are more aggressive activists.
At least a dozen people have sent me a video of a Mass in a parish church in Teignmouth, Devon, in the Diocese of Plymouth, England. A Homosexual Activist with a video camera tries to intimidate a priest during Sunday Mass into NOT reading a letter from the Bishops of England and Wales which priests were instructed… well.. probably invited… to read at Masses on Sunday. He makes a little speech and leaves.
We will be seeing a lot of this sort of thing in the future.
As you watch the video, pay attention to a few things.
1) Some of you will want to jump all over the priest. I urge you to consider a) that it is easy to lob a bomb from afar especially if you are a lay person in the safety or your armchair or pew, and b) that priests in the UK have been given such a meager example by bishops for decades that they have to re-learn – or learn for the first time – to stand up on their own, and c) that Holy Mass is not the time for a priest to have a fight with an Activist with an axe to grind.
2) When the priest didn’t feed the “troll” (a “troll” on the internet invades a combox to make trouble… perhaps for the context of churches we should say “hobgoblin” – I don’t doubt you will have other ideas!) the “troll” left. Mind you, taken off guard like that, I might have put up a fight, which then would have been put on YouTube to the glee of self-righteous promoters of sexual perversion everywhere.
3) When the Activist “troll” turns the camera toward the congregation, he fuzzies up the image, probably because by filming people who aren’t public figures he might be on thin legal ice. Frankly, in the USA it is illegal in most places to cause a disturbance during a religious service. I suspect it is in England, too. I would appreciate some instruction about that point. Would there be some old law in England about disturbing religious services or is there some paragraph of the Public Order Act? Par. 5? This seems like “religious harassment” to me. But I am not a barrister. If at the onset the priest had said to the Activist “As the one responsible for the property I say that you do not have permission to film anything here”, would that have changed the whole scenario?
4) The Activist Troll who made the public show of religious harassment during a church service said openly that he was going to post it on YouTube. He wrote on the YouTube entry that he had never demonstrated or protested before blah blah blah. I am skeptical about his protest virginity. Some time ago there was a video posted on Youtube of a horrid pro-homosexual Mass in a church in Soho, London. I suspect this may be partial blow-back.
[wp_youtube]6em7Yy-MjEc[/wp_youtube]
Note the use of the word “uncomfortable”, which in England is a bit more charged with censorious power than in the USA.
Two final things.
Fathers and Bishops, if I were you I would start thinking about this sort of “smash and grab” scenario from promoters of unnatural acts. They will be aggressive in the future as we have never seen before. In finem citius. I would start thinking about what you are going to do when this happens to you. Bishops, you might want to consult a bit to find out what laws might be involved in trollish “smash and grab” hit like this and perhaps have a worship for priests or a memorandum with suggestions.
I want to reiterate that I think the priest probably handled this as well as he could, given the circumstances. When he didn’t feed the troll, the troll left. Also, I suspect that the people in the pews were more interested in the content of the letter (which, in my opinion, was pretty thin soup) than they would have been had the priest just read it and set it aside. Calling negative attention to it produced in that congregation the opposite result.
UPDATE
No sooner did I post this, but I received an email response to some questions I put to a well-known barrister (lawyer) in England, Neil Addison of the Thomas More Legal Centre. I am grateful for his time, effort, and expertise. Thus, he instructs me (and a couple other priests to whom he also sent this). I add some emphases and slight editing:
Dear Father Z
In response to your question in England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate legal systems) there are a number of legal remedies where there is any attempt to disrupt a Church Service see my website HERE and HERE for more details.
There is the rather old fashioned in wording, but still legally valid
s2 Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860 which makes it a criminal offence, punishable with imprisonment, for any person to be guilty of“riotous, violent, or indecent behaviour in England in any cathedral church, parish or district church, or chapel of the Church of England, or in any chapel of any religious denomination, or in England in any place of religious worship duly certified under the Places of Worship Registration Act 1855, 18 & 19 Vict c 81, whether during the celebration of Divine service, or at any other time, or in any churchyard, or burial-ground, or who shall molest, let, disturb, vex, or trouble, or by any other unlawful means disquiet or misuse any preacher duly authorised to preach therein, or any clergyman in Holy Orders ministering or celebrating any sacrament or any Divine service, rite, or office in any cathedral church or chapel, churchyard, or burial ground ”
(NB Do note that though the Church of England is specifically mentioned the section applies to disrupting the services of “any” religious denomination.)
There are s4A and s5 of the Public Order Act 1986 which make it a criminal offence when any person
“(a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or
(b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting,
within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby.”
which would apply to any such behaviour taking place in a ChurchSections 5 and 4A are Aggravated (ie carry a heavier penalty if)
“(a) at the time of committing the offence, or immediately before or after doing so, the offender demonstrates towards the victim of the offence hostility based on the victim’s membership (or presumed membership) of a racial or religious group; or
(b) the offence is motivated (wholly or partly) by hostility towards members of a racial or religious group based on their membership of that group.“Religious Group” is defined as
“a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief.”Also the crime of “Aggravated Trespass” under s68 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
“(1) A person commits the offence of aggravated trespass if he trespasses on land and, in relation to any lawful activity which persons are engaging in or are about to engage in on that or adjoining land, does there anything which is intended by him to have the effect—
(a) of intimidating those persons or any of them so as to deter them or any of them from engaging in that activity,
(b) of obstructing that activity, or
(c) of disrupting that activity.”It is worth noting that any person can be a Trespasser in a Church. Even though Church buildings are normally open to the public they are in law private property and people enter them with an “implied licence” which means that they have a right to enter in order to use the Church for the normal purposes of a Church namely to pray, to attend religious services etc, they do not have a licence to enter for any other purpose. Can I make a comparison: anyone can enter a supermarket for the purposes of shopping but if they enter for any other purpose they become a trespasser and can be told to leave and can be evicted if they refuse to leave. If they enter with the intention of “intimidating” mass goers, “obstructing” Mass or “disrupting” Mass then they commit the criminal offence of “Aggravated Trespass”.
Under English law “reasonable force” can be used to evict a trespasser and therefore in the situation shown in the YouTube Video the Priest could have instructed the person with the Camera either to turn the Camera off and sit down or to leave, if the person refused to leave then they could have been physically removed. That said as a practical point I can see that no Priest would want to see a potentially violent fight in the middle of Mass. I am just sorry that the Priest in question allowed himself to be disrupted and did not simply carry on with reading the Bishops letter whilst he asked someone to call the Police. He had the perfect right to read the letter which was in effect the Homily of the day and the giving of a Homily is part of the rite of Mass and as such it is unlawful for any person to disrupt it as this person was allowed to do.
I hope this information is of assistance please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions. I am sending a copy to Fathers […] and I give each of you Reverend Fathers full permission to use or quote any of this email as you see fit.
Neil Addison (Barrister)
I also wonder what would have happened if some group identities and locales were shifted around: substitute in Synagogue, Mosque, etc.
I could use some good news from readers.
What’s up these days?
I have some good new from Kansas City, KS.
Latin Mass is closer to a new home
Father Justin Nolan [FSSP] and Archbishop Emeritus of Kansas City, Kansas, the Rev. James P. Keleher, went to great heights on a scaffold lift Saturday to perform a blessing on the bell at St. Rose Philippine Duchesne Roman Catholic Church’s new location.
March 6
BRIAN BURNES |The Kansas City Star
The old Latin Catholic Mass has a new home in Johnson County.Almost 200 people braved brisk winds Saturday during a “bell blessing” ceremony at St. Philippine Duchesne Roman Catholic Church, 5035 Rainbow Blvd., in Mission Woods.
[…]
[L]ast July church members bought the Spanish Mission-style church built in the late 1940s by members of the Westwood Lutheran Church.
Much work remains to be done on the church’s interior, and church officials don’t anticipate moving in permanently until this summer. But Saturday’s ceremony marked the completion of exterior work, which included new flashing around the bell tower and a new wooden cross atop it.
The 45-minute ceremony on Saturday was a mixture of traditional and contemporary, with some 20 minutes of psalms in Latin, followed by the James Patrick Keleher, archbishop emeritus of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, ascending with others up to the bell tower in a scissor lift.
“I think we were right at the weight limit,” Keleher said afterward.
[…]
“It’s very easy to retrofit this church for the Catholic liturgy,” added the Rev. Justin Nolan, St. Philippine Duchesne assistant chaplain.
That includes the bell.
The bell blessed Saturday is the same 550-pound bell, manufactured in England, that Westwood Lutheran Church members installed in 1950. But through Saturday’s ceremony, Nolan said, the bell became a sacramental, or sacred object.
[…]
Read the whole thing over there.
In some places parishes are being closed.
Why not try something new in those parishes before closing them?
Mark Steyn has an especially mordant column on National Review Online about the nation’s new contracepting sweetheart ( for lack of a better word), Sandra Fluke. This pair of paragraphs caught my attention.
Steyn points to an ironic contradiction in the thinking Pres. Obama and his HHS minion catholic Kathleen Sebelius and the rest of the Party of Death.
Nor is the core issue liberty in its more basic sense — although it would certainly surprise America’s founders that their republic of limited government is now the first nation in the developed world to compel private employers to fully fund the sex lives of their employees.
Nor is it even the distinctively American wrinkle the Republic of Paperwork has given to governmentalized health care, under which the “right to privacy” the Supreme Court claimed to have discovered in Griswold v. Connecticut and Roe v. Wade will now lead to thousands and thousands of self-insuring employers keeping computer records of the morning-after pills and herpes medication racked up by Miss Jones on reception.
Speaking of Mark Steyn:
I recommend Mark Steyn’s After America: Get Ready for Armageddon.
USA book click here.
USA Kindle book click here. (Text-to-Speech enabled)
UK book click here. UK doesn’t have a separate Kindle version yet.
Did you hear some great point in the your Sunday sermon?
Share it here.
I know that many of you readers in England Wales heard a letter from the Bishops. Relate your reaction and what people said about it.
From a reader:
Just a quick ‘thank you’ for your posts on Confession. Went to first confession today (I’m a RCIA gearing up for the Easter Vigil). I was terrified. As a forty-something fella with a ‘chequered past’ my list was LOOOONG and – to put it bluntly – embarrassing. So I went to our Diocesan Cathedral instead of my Parish Church (more anonymous). The priest was lovely. Really helped me through it and was hugely encouraging. I’m so glad to put all that lot behind me so I can focus on the future. I’m definitely in the Confession & Eucharist early & often camp now! Thank you so much for encouraging the use Of this VITAL sacrament.
My work here is done.
Congratulations for making your first confession!
I am glad you added that point about anonymity making the experience easier.
This adult’s experience of 1st Confession spurs me to add a note or two.
I suspect that this person was able to deal with the anxiety of making that first confession in part because he had learned some useful things about the meaning and effects of the sacrament about what to do.
It is important when helping adult converts to get ready for first confession to give them a format and prayers they can memorize so that they know exactly what to do when they start. Structure can relieve anxiety.
If this is true for adults, imagine how important it is for children?
Children need structure. If adults are sometimes experience some fear when they don’t know what to do in important, solemn, formal moments, children can be reduced to paralysis.
It is cruel to bring children to do things of the religious nature without proper preparation. Children are innately religious little creatures. They know when something is important. They want to do the right thing. Help them by having them memorize well the prayers and the order of things.
For the love of God, give adult coverts and children alike an exact, traditional template, structure for what to do and say in the confessional!
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
EAW on Continue the Rome shot posts? I dunno.: “Yes, please continue the Rome shot posts! They have become one of the things I always look forward to. TC…”
on Continue the Rome shot posts? I dunno.: “Please keep posting Rome photos! I don’t know where I should go to find them if you were to stop!…”
on Continue the Rome shot posts? I dunno.: “Fr. Z, Please do continue the Rome posts. It’s like a little escape every day. Rome is our mother, she…”
on Continue the Rome shot posts? I dunno.: “I’ve only been to Rome three times, once as a seminarian lucky enough to be accompanying my Cardinal during his…”
on 10 November – St Andrew Avellino (Vetus Ordo). Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “My mom gave me this prayer when I was living alone during college and in the years after graduation. Please…” on Continue the Rome shot posts? I dunno.: “Archbishop Broglio led a retreat at my seminary once. He was almost universally liked by the seminarians. There are many…”
on Continue the Rome shot posts? I dunno.: “in the illo, curley’s helmet: i’d buy one if it came in my size. i for one love the Rome…”
A Daily Prayer for Priests
They find you a pro-life agent in your area who commits to giving a portion of the fee to a pro-life group!
PLEASE subscribe via PayPal if it is useful. Zelle and Wise are better, but PayPal is convenient.
A monthly subscription donation means I have steady income I can plan on. I put you my list of benefactors for whom I pray and for whom I often say Holy Mass.
In view of the rapidly changing challenges I now face, I would like to add more $10/month subscribers. Will you please help?
For a one time donation...
Help Monks in Wyoming (coffee – UPDATED LINK) and Norcia (beer) and the wonderful "Soap Sisters" of Summit, NJ!
Please follow me on Twitter!
Visits tracked by Statcounter
since Sat., 25 Nov. 2006:
