I’ll bet you thought Jesus died for our sins. HAH! NCR has a new angle.

Posted on 21 April 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

It is hard to know what to do when you see a “catholic” site post something that is simultaneously heretical and thoroughly dopey.

Do you ignore it?  Do you post about it and therefore drive traffic to it?

This is my dilemma today in the case of Jamie Manson of the National Catholic Fishwrap.  Her piece today is both as weird and as heterodox as any NCR reader could ever wish.

Nutshell:

Jesus did not come into this world or endure His Cross and death to save us from our sins.  That’s just a guilt trip the Church laid on people.   Its Religious Power that killed Jesus.  He came – so far as I am able to glean from her article – to save us from the Roman Curia and the Republican Party.

An excerpt:

I’ve had more than one Catholic who grew up either before or on the cusp of Vatican II tell me horror stories of how they were taught that Jesus died because of their sins.

This was a particularly heavy-handed way for priests and nuns to lay an even thicker coat of guilt on impressionable Catholic school children. Because they were sinners, Jesus had to suffer and die to redeem them. It was one rendering of the traditional theological interpretations of the crucifixion — that Jesus had to die to fulfill the Scriptures and that his death atoned for the sins of the world.

I know that countless people throughout the centuries have found profound, life-changing and even comforting meaning in this understanding of the Cross. But I’ve often felt that if we immerse ourselves in the accounts of Jesus’ arrest, passion, and death as told by the four Gospels, these texts can broaden and deepen our understanding of the crucifixion. It can help us make meaning of so much of the anguish that we witness in our world and in our church.

When I read the passion narratives of the Gospels, I don’t hear simply that Jesus suffered and died for our sins. Rather, I hear the four evangelists very clearly say that Jesus’ suffering and death was the will of those who conspired against him — those whose political systems he had undermined, those whose religious convictions he had offended.

[…]

There’s a lot more like this.   She effectively offers an NCR Soteriology.

Jesus died to save us from the Roman Curia.

I am trying to imagine a version of the Stations of the Cross composed by Jamie Manson for the National Catholic Fishwrap.

  • The 1st Station – Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura Condemns Jesus to Death.
  • The 2nd Station – The President of the Pontifical Council for the Authentic Interpretation of Legislative Texts Gives Jesus His Cross
  • The 3rd Station – The Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy Trips Jesus the First Time
  • The 4th Station – Jesus Meets the Congregation for Religious
  • The 5th Station – The President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace Helps Jesus Carry the Cross.
  • The 6th Station – The Sister President the Leadership Conference of Women Religious Wipes the Face of Jesus
  • The 7th Station – Jesus is Tripped for the Second Time by the Prefect for the Congregation for Bishops
  • The 8th Station – Jesus Meets the Women’s Ordination Conference
  • The 9th Station –  Jesus is Tripped for the Third Time by the Secretary of State
  • The 10th Station – The Vatican Bank Strips Jesus of His Garments
  • The 11th Station –  The Prefect of the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith Nails Jesus to the Cross
  • The 12th Station –  Jesus Dies Not For Your Sins But Because Of “Religious Power”
  • The 13th Station –  The Pontifical Council “Cor Unum” Takes Jesus Down From the Cross.
  • The 14th Station – The Congregation For Divine Worship Lays Jesus in the Tomb, in Latin.
Posted in Throwing a Nutty | Tagged , , ,
50 Comments

WDTPRS Holy “Maundy” Thursday in the Triduum

Posted on 21 April 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The term “Maunday” or “Maundy” Thursday refers to Christ’s mandate (mandatum) in John 13:34 to His apostles in the service of the Church. It is also called sometimes “Shere” Thursday, perhaps from “shere” indicating “tolerance” and “remedy”, in the sense of “wiggle room”. This “shere” was, according to the OED the difference or error permissible in a measure of something, such as the deviation from the standard in minting a coin.

COLLECT (2002MR):
Sacratissimam, Deus, frequentantibus Cenam,
in qua Unigenitus tuus, morti se traditurus,
novum in saecula sacrificium
dilectionisque suae convivium Ecclesiae commendavit,
da nobis, quaesumus, ut ex tanto mysterio
plenitudinem caritatis hauriamus et vitae.

This prayer is a new composition for the Novus Ordo.

It might have a thin tendril reaching back into the ancient Veronese Sacramentary #96: Uere dignum: qui se ipsum tibi pro nobis offerens immolandum idem sacerdos et sacer agnus exhibuit.

In our Lewis & Short Dictionary we find that frequento is “to visit or resort to frequently, to frequent; to do or make use of frequently, to repeat” and thence more suitably for our purposes, “to celebrate or keep in great numbers, especially a festival”. Haurio is “to tear up, pluck out, draw out, to take to one’s self, take; to swallow, devour, consume, exhaust”.

Agony in the GardenCommendo is “to commit to one for preservation, protection, etc., to entrust to one’s charge, commit to one’s care, commend to” and “implying a physical delivery, to deposit with, entrust to; constructed with aliquem or aliquid alicui, or absolutely”. Moreover, it is “to commend or recommend, i. e. to procure favor for, to make agreeable, to set off with advantage, to grace”. I was also intrigued by the possibilities in this definition: “Especially, of the dying, to commend children, parents, etc., to the care of others”. You all know about the final commendation of a dying person.

As you work on your own to put this into English, Deus is the subject of the main verb da, and those to whom it is to be granted are found in frequentantibus. Frequentantibus has as its object the Cenam. The whole phrase in qua… commendavit is embedded within that structure.

This prayer, it seems to me, is seriously overworked.  It is so self-consciously elegant that it is a challenge to sort out at a single hearing. It becomes a tangled mass, just as when you are trying to twist up a forkful of spaghetti.   If you twisting the fork with too many strands at the beginning, after a couple twists you have too much going on and the whole plate starts to move.

LITERAL TRANSLATION
 O God, we beg, grant to us attending the most holy Supper
in which Your Only-begotten, about to hand Himself over to death,
commended to Church a new sacrifice unto the ages
and a banquet of His love,
that we may from so great a mystery
drink deeply the fullness of charity and life.

The word haurio gives us the image of Christ’s bitter struggle on Thursday in the garden when faced with the chalice from which He would need to drink.

His bitter draught was our drink of new life. This was the consequence of Christ’s sacrificial love, His perfect charity.

LAME-DUCK ICEL:
God our Father,
We are gathered here to share in the supper
which your only Son left to his Church to reveal his love.
He gave it to us when he was about to die
and commanded us to celebrate it as the new and eternal sacrifice.
We pray that in this Eucharist
we may find the fullness of love and life.

Not hideous.

NEW CORRECTED ICEL VERSION:
O God, who have called us to participate
in this most sacred Supper,
in which your Only Begotten Son,
when about to hand himself over to death,
entrusted to the Church a sacrifice new for all eternity,
the banquet of his love,
grant, we pray,
that we may draw from so great a mystery,
the fullness of charity and of life.

Posted in LENT, WDTPRS | Tagged , ,
5 Comments

QUAERITUR: Can we attend non-Catholic weddings?

Posted on 20 April 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

Is it wrong if not in fact sinful to attend the weddings and funerals
of non-Catholics? For as Pope Pius XI stated in his encyclical
treating on Christian unity, Catholics are never to participate in
schismatic or heretical congregations. I would love to know what you Father have to say in regards to this.

Yes, a Catholic can attend a non-Catholic wedding of non-Catholics marrying in their own non-Catholic church service.  You can attend non-Catholic funerals of non-Catholics as well.

But you cannot participate in any form of “communion” they offer.

Go, and be respectful of what they do.  Say your own prayers quietly for the people involved if you need to.  And you don’t have to be a party to anything stupid, or blasphemous.

The encyclical referred to, above, is certainly Mortalium animos, which I drilled into in one of my PODCAzTs.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, ASK FATHER Question Box, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged , ,
27 Comments

THE list again: Fr. Z’s 20 Tips For Making A Good Confession (and Fr. Z rants)

Posted on 20 April 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

You and I are going to die someday.  We don’t know when.

When we die we will be judged.

Scripture teaches, and Christ’s own words and actions make clear, that there are some sins bad enough to kill the life of grace in the soul and sever you from friendship with God.

Die in that state and you will be eternally separated from God.

If you think about that  – eternal separation from God – which doesn’t immediately sound that bad, you will run or crawl to the confessional, get yourself to the priest to confess every mortal sin in kind and number you can think of…. because… you one day will die.

Jesus Christ Himself gave His own power to forgive sins to bishops and priests as the ordinary means for forgiveness of post-baptismal mortal sins.  Christ’s power is exercised in the Sacrament of Penance.

You may have heard some goofy ideas over the years, or when you were growing up, about it being nearly impossible to commit a mortal sin, or that all that stuff the Church taught is too strict or too focused on sex or too mired in the mores of ages past.

Do you want to bet your eternal soul on those goofy ideas which, in your heart of hearts you know full well are dead wrong?  When they are going all squishy and wobbly and easy on what you are doing… doesn’t that actually ring alarm bells somewhere in your conscience?

That alarm bell you hear is your conscience and God’s grace trying to pull your sorry backside out of the serious spiritual danger your soul might be in.   And if your soul winds up in Hell, friend, your body will one day follow.  And the results of that will never… ever… end.

Never ending separation from God in hopeless, loveless agony … or… the sight of God face to face, the fulfillment of every good and the perfection of every joy and virtue in communion with the angels and saints and the infinite Triune God.

Heaven or the PIT.

Stick to the Church, friends.

Review the Catechism of the Catholic Church or any old approved Catechism or pious book of prayers with examinations of conscience.  Forget what the “Everyone’s just fine as they are and Jesus is a fluffy huggy friend” crowd, the “There can’t be anyone in hell” gang.  Wanna bet your soul on that?

Never mind about the pious language in some of those older book, look at the substance. The things the old books and approved Catechisms say are sins really are sins and they can put you in Hell forever if you don’t confess them, receive absolution, do penance and amend your life.

Go to confession.  Hold nothing back.

Go to confession.  Confess it all, in kind and number.

Go to confession.  Don’t be afraid.

Fr. Z’s 20 Tips For Making A Good Confession o{]:¬)

We should…

1) …examine our consciences regularly and thoroughly;
2) …wait our turn in line patiently;
3) …come at the time confessions are scheduled, not a few minutes before they are to end;
4) …speak distinctly but never so loudly that we might be overheard;
5) …state our sins clearly and briefly without rambling;
6) …confess all mortal sins in number and kind;
7) …listen carefully to the advice the priest gives;
8) …confess our own sins and not someone else’s;
9) …carefully listen to and remember the penance and be sure to understand it;
10) …use a regular formula for confession so that it is familiar and comfortable;
11) …never be afraid to say something “embarrassing”… just say it;
12) …never worry that the priest thinks we are jerks…. he is usually impressed by our courage;
13) …never fear that the priest will not keep our confession secret… he is bound by the Seal;
14) …never confess “tendencies” or “struggles”… just sins;
15) …never leave the confessional before the priest has finished giving absolution;
16) …memorize an Act of Contrition;
17) …answer the priest’s questions briefly if he asks for a clarification;
18) …ask questions if we can’t understand what he means when he tells us something;
19) …keep in mind that sometimes priests can have bad days just like we do;
20) …remember that priests must go to confession too … they know what we are going through.

This list is always available on a page I created for this blog.  Go to the bottom of the blog and look for the page in the list on the left footer.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Brick by Brick, Linking Back, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity, The Drill, The future and our choices, Wherein Fr. Z Rants | Tagged , , , , , , ,
34 Comments

Mercilessly grilled under the lights

Posted on 20 April 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Okay… grilled is a little melodramatic.

I was at the Newscorp Building where Fox News Channel is ensconced to tape some Q&A for some upcoming projects my good friend Greg Burke, FNC’s Rome correspondent, is preparing.

Some people will probably look at this building with a measure of fear, as they cower below it. I see it as a place where the news industry gained some balance.

20110420-040817.jpg

Here’s a really unflattering photo with books in the background.

We were going to do this in a church, but it didn’t work out.

20110420-040829.jpg

I actually asked to make sure that none of the books on the shelves were “bad”. I don’t know about you, but I always look at the books on the shelves.

The very cool FNC people who helped with the taping. Taping. That doesn’t sound adequately digital, does it.

20110420-040841.jpg

Really nice people, as has always been my experience with any of the FNC crew. I managed to crack them up during an answer today… and I’ll bet every dollar in my pocket that segment doesn’t get used.

So… that was part of my afternoon.

WDTPRS Kudos to the FNC behind the scenes staff.

And, to wrap this up, I assume my stuff will be used, if they use it, for the beatification coverage.

Posted in Fr. Z KUDOS, Lighter fare, What Fr. Z is up to | Tagged , , ,
13 Comments

How is your Lent so far? II

Posted on 20 April 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A couple weeks ago I asked how your Lent was going… if you were sticking to your plan… if you had a plan, that is.

It is time to ask again.

So?

How’s it going?

Select an answer and add a comment in the combox.

How is your Lent so far? II

  • Okay. However, I have fallen down in what I planned, but started again. (39%, 755 Votes)
  • Very well. I have stuck to my project. I will stick to what I am doing. (26%, 493 Votes)
  • Not great. I have not stuck to what I planned to do and am discouraged. (22%, 422 Votes)
  • Very well. I have stuck to my project. I am ready to add more. (6%, 110 Votes)
  • I didn't have a plan, and won't do anything for Lent. (4%, 71 Votes)
  • I didn't have a plan at the beginning, but I did start something. (4%, 70 Votes)
  • I didn't have a plan but I will start doing something now. (0%, 8 Votes)

Total Voters: 1,930

Posted in Our Catholic Identity, POLLS | Tagged ,
23 Comments

Chinese Family Planning Official Kills Man Over Forced Sterilization

Posted on 20 April 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A few days old, but this comes from Life News:

Chinese Family Planning Official Kills Man Over Forced Sterilization

by Steven Ertelt | Beijing, China | LifeNews.com | 4/7/11 1:53 PM

Seeking to enforce the one-child policy that involves forced abortions and sterilizations for violators, a Chinese family planning official has been accused of killing a man after attempting to uphold the law.

[…]

On March 21, family planning officials entered the home of Xu Shuaishuai to seize his sister for a forced sterilization. Unable to find her, they beat Xu’s father and when Xu defended his father from the attack, one of the Chinese population control officials stabbed him twice in the heart with a long knife. Xu died on the way to the hospital.

[…]

More there.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA | Tagged , , ,
9 Comments

REVIEW: L’Osservatore Romano’s new website and online editions

Posted on 20 April 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE: 20 April

The new L’Osservatore Romano site is working better today, though it is still clunky and a bit hard to navigate.

I was able to bring up the PDF of today’s daily.

One curiosity:   They fuzzed out the Vatican stemma at the top of the front page.

I presume that they don’t want people to copy it and then use it elsewhere.

NEWSFLASH to the L’OR STAFF: The horse has already left the barn.

____

ORIGINAL POST 19 April

My general mantra for how the Vatican uses technology has for decades been:

Yesterday’s Technology Tomorrow!

The semi-official Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano has at last expanded their online presence in an effort to make more of the content of the daily and different language editions available online and also probably make some money.

For 50 Euros (roughly US$72) you can subscribe to the daily, which is in Italian, for one year.

Imagine my shock when I tried to subscribe (I would like to support their effort) and I was kicked back to a previous page, with both Firefox and Chrome.  Eureka, it worked with IE, however.   Be prepared for Italian language buttons (a bad piece of planning, that).  Use “conferma” to go ahead.  They need buttons that have English beneath the Italian on the same button.

Moreover, you should be able to view a PDF of the daily at the click of a mouse button.

I tried it and – today at least – it doesn’t work on any browser I tried, and I am both registered and logged in.  The PDF seems to be broken at the time of this writing.

Sure there will be bugs.

I am reminded of the press conference for the inauguration of the new Vatican Curia office for “New Evangelization”, during which the President, Archbishop Fisichella, said they didn’t have internet access.  But that isn’t a “bug.  That’s poor planning that reflects a culture within the Curia and how quickly (not) they get things done.

Slowly but surely the culture of extreme caution (read: paranoia) about technology is shifting there, probably as a result of younger blood filling more and more positions.  It will take a while to shift the prevailing view of how the Curia uses technology.  They are not exactly leading the way, but we have seen some big moves in the last few months.

For example, around Christmas time the Vatican Radio and Vatican TV have provided the impressive live streams for which you can choose audio for your language (from Vatican Radio) just the raw audio without voice-overs.  That was a HUGE step forward.   Sincere kudos for that!

To be fair, they have to deal with various languages all at once.  That complicates and increases the workload.  Nevertheless, given the pool of really smart people they could choose to draw on, if the Catholic Church can’t do it well, then who can?

Finally, I hope that the subscription income they will gain they will be able to afford a coffee machine in the editorial offices.  They need to wake up and smell the doppio ristretto there.

But that is another issue.

UPDATE:

The site seems to have been overcome with traffic.

I hope they are ready for DOS attacks.

Posted in Brick by Brick, Fr. Z KUDOS, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity, REVIEWS | Tagged , ,
19 Comments

If Easter is coming, it time to bash the Catholic Church.

Posted on 20 April 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Remember… if Easter is near, its the season to bash the Catholic Church.

Before Easter and before the beatification of Pope John Paul we are seeing the uptick in anti-Catholic gestures saved up by the MSM precisely for this period.

For example, in the Telegraph we find this, with my emphases and comments:

Pope film sparks Catholic controversy [Benign word, no?  If this were done about a Jewish figure, the Jewish community and others would be up in arms saying that this was an effort to promote anti-Semitism, not “controversy”.]

A film about a panic-prone Pope who has unwittingly been thrust into the papacy and has to hire a psychiatric assistant to help him has sparked controversy in the Roman Catholic Church.

By Philip Willan in Rome 5:13PM BST 19 Apr 2011

Traditionalists say that the film, by the acclaimed Italian director Nanni Moretti, is “an instrument of Satan” and is particularly offensive as it has been released in the approach to Easter.

Bruno Volpe, the Catholic lawyer, has launched suit for defamation against Moretti and the producers under the terms of the Lateran Pact, which extends the same protections to the prestige of the pope as to the Italian president. [Good for him.] Mr Volpe said Habemus Papam (We Have a Pope), never mentioned the current Pope by name but it was nevertheless clear that it was a parody of Pope Benedict XVI and dishonoured the figure of the Pontiff in general. Salvatore Izzo, a Vatican expert, branded the work disrespectful and boring in an open letter to Avvenire, the Catholic bishops’ newspaper.

He said Catholics should boycott the film, which opened in Italy on Friday and will be in competition at Cannes. [Will it win something?]

“Why should we support financially that which offends our religion?” he asked, admitting he had not seen the film.

Antonio Vacca, the bishop of Alghero, described Moretti as “an instrument of Satan for separating man from God”.

Gerardo Pierro, archbishop of Salerno, said the launch of a similar film in an Islamic country would have led to the burning of cinemas and attempts to kill the director for blasphemy. “I think many people take advantage of the traditional meekness of Catholics, which is often confused with foolishness or resignation,” Archbishop Pierro said.

Franco Zeffirelli, the director of Jesus of Nazareth, agreed Moretti’s film was an insult to the Pope and the faith.

“It’s a horrible cheap shot,” Mr Zeffirelli said. “I feel especially sorry for this Pontiff, who may not be a crowd-pleaser, but who is very civilised and reasonable.” [Crowds are larger for Pope Benedict’s General Audiences than they were for the late Pope John Paul’s.]

The Pope is played by Michel Piccoli, an 85-year-old French actor, and many Catholics have acknowledged Moretti’s sympathetic depiction of the film’s ecclesiastical characters, though the Vatican has not reacted officially.

Posted in Biased Media Coverage, Our Catholic Identity, The Last Acceptable Prejudice | Tagged , , , , , , , , ,
19 Comments

California church destroyed by arsonist

Posted on 20 April 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I think we are going to see a lot more of this.

From CNA:

Calif. parish pledges to rebuild after arsonist destroys church
By Kevin J. Jones

Los Angeles, Calif., Apr 20, 2011 / 06:02 am (CNA).- Parishioners at St. John Vianney are determined to rebuild after an April 16 arson attack destroyed their Hacienda Heights, Calif. church.

“The church is completely destroyed, I mean down to ashes and dust. The pews, organ, everything,” parish pastor Msgr. Tim Nichols told the 5 p.m. Sunday Mass. He presented remnants of the altar and tabernacle and said only a few vessels and vestments were saved.

[…]

Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Zavala, who lives two blocks away from the 5,000-member church in Los Angeles County, was awakened by a neighbor pounding on his door soon after midnight on Saturday morning. From his front lawn he could see the fire’s flames shooting 150 feet into the air. He rushed to the church to join priests and parishioners watching the blaze destroy the church and the rectory.

The fire burned for almost three hours before firefighters were able to extinguish it.

“The investigators have been quite definitive to me, this was very definitely a deliberate act,” Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, told the Los Angeles Times.

[…]

Various crimes have targeted Catholic churches in California in recent years. In January one or more vandals spray-painted the misspelled phrase “Kill the Cathlics” on churches in Anaheim and Irvine.

In May 2010 vandals broke into and ransacked St. Rose of Lima parish school in the city of Maywood in Los Angeles County.

Holy Rosary Church in Woodland near Sacramento has been victimized by theft and vandalism four times since 2007. St. Stanislaus Church in Modesto suffered a burglary and vandal attack which desecrated the sanctuary, knocking down and damaging four statues of the Virgin Mary.

Posted in The Last Acceptable Prejudice | Tagged , , , ,
21 Comments