Fr. Z's Blog | Catholic commentary by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Sr. Johnson responds to the USCCB!

Posted on 31 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I posted about the USCCB’s Doctrine Committee and their examination of Sr. Elizabeth Johnson’s book on the Trinity which seems to be heretical.

NCFishwrap covered this too. Bottom line: Feminist theologian = good. USCCB Doctrine Committee = bad.

Sr. Johnson, CSJ, has responded to the USCCB’s statement. Her response is worth a glance with my emphases and comments.

Response by Dr. Elizabeth Johnson C.S.J., March 30, 2011:

It is heartening to see the Bishops Conference give such serious attention to the subject of the living God. [/sarcasm] I appreciate how this statement acknowledges the laudable nature of the task of crafting a theology of God, and the number of issues on which the statement judges that I am “entirely correct.” [Imagine yourself reading Sr. Johnson’s book. Now imagine yourself walk into a shop full of broken clocks.] The book itself endeavors to present new insights about God arising from people living out their Catholic faith in different cultures around the world. [I think that is code for “different religions”. I could be wrong.] My hope is that any conversation that may be triggered by this statement will but enrich that faith, encouraging robust relationship to the Holy Mystery of the living God as the church moves into the future. [Perhaps Sr. Johnson is a small-c catholic. And the church will move into the “future”, when it abandons traditional Catholic teaching about the Trinity and the language we use to describe the Trinity.]

I would like to express two serious concerns. [Rather than all the other serious concerns? Rather than the concerns that aren’t serious?] First, I would have been glad to enter into conversation to clarify critical points, but was never invited to do so. [“conversation… invited”.] This book was discussed and finally assessed by the Committee before I knew any discussion had taken place. [At this point I must ask… because I don’t know… did Sr. Johnson submit her book to a bishop or his delegated censor librorum? Also, why should anyone have to alert her that her book is being studied? She put it out in public in the first place!] Second, one result of this absence of dialogue [read = invited conversation] is that in several key instances this statement radically misinterprets what I think, and what I in fact wrote. [Indeed?] The conclusions thus drawn paint an incorrect picture of the fundamental line of thought the book develops. [NB: “fundamental line of thought”. That is a noteworthy phrase.] A conversation, which I still hope to have, would have very likely avoided these misrepresentations. [We’ll never know. Sr. Johnson can now print an explanation of her “fundamental line of thought”. If she wasn’t able to make her thought clear enough to be understood by the very smart people who studied her book for the USCCB, perhaps she can take another run at it. Are people in the CDF who can help? ]

That being said, as a scholar I have always taken criticism as a valuable opportunity to delve more deeply into a subject. [Fair enough.] The task of theology, classically defined as “faith seeking understanding,” calls for theologians to wrestle with mystery. [But… Catholic theologians are not autonomous.] The issues are always complex, especially on frontiers where the church’s living tradition is growing. [Am I wrong, or does this sound like “evolving”, but not in the sense of “development in doctrine” along the lines Newman might recognize.] Committed to the faith of the church, [And what is the church?] I take this statement as an occasion to ponder yet further the mystery of the living God who is ineffable. [It is a good thing. Bp. Trautman isn’t on the USCCB’s Doctrine Committee. Er…um… well… you know what I mean. Did I just write that? You see… I didn’t make the fundamental line of my thought clear. Bp. Trautman objected to the use of “ineffable” in the new, corrected English translation of Mass. See? It is possible to get at that fundamental line of thought!]

At this time I will make no further statements nor give any interviews. [I suspect that the reason for this is that she is worried that the next step is that the powers that be will remove her mandate to teach in a Catholic school.]

If Sr. Johnson can indeed remain silent in this regard and then make corrections to how she expresses her “fundamental line of thought”, then the system will have worked.

It might have worked a while back, but it is working now.

Drive through confessionals – WDTPRS POLL

Posted on 31 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

We have talked about iPad Roman Missals on the altar. We have talked about ATMs in the narthex of church’s for your weekly donations. We have talked about electric vigil lights, and recorded music, and microphones, hand sanitizer at Communion. We have talked about iPhone apps to help you examine your conscience.

How about drive through confession?

It doesn’t matter if this is a 1 April thing or not.

From the Herald Sun of Australia.

VIDEO: Pitstop penance

Your sins forgiven on the run

Terry Brown
From: Herald Sun

SINFUL drivers can repent on the run with the opening today of Australia’s first drive-through confessional.

The pray-as-you-go service is to become slicker, with a sin-selection board to be installed by Easter and a smartphone app on the way.

South Melbourne Catholic priest Fr Bob McGuire said yesterday that the move brought the church up to speed with modern life.

“Everybody drives past this place but no one comes in,” Fr McGuire said.

“Now they can stop at the window, open their window and confess their sins. Then I’ll reassure them that they’ll be right.”

Do you think the drive-through confessional is a good idea? Tell us below

The 60-second car wash for the soul includes a symbolically refreshing spray of rose water. [Why not just call it McPenance?]

A flashing green light will signal when a driver’s sins have been forgiven. “When you’re driving out you’ll be clean as a whistle,” Fr McGuire said. [So… it’s like a car wash. And it had better be a touchless car wash.]

The seven cardinal sins – lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, wrath, envy and pride – will be numbered on a sign, Chinese menu-style. [Or a Taco Bell window.]

From 6.30am, sinners will repent at a mobile unit dubbed the Hopemobile in the St Peter and Paul’s church driveway, confessing, for instance, to three No.7s and a No.4.

Fr McGuire said the coded response was meant to maintain confidentiality.

A more permanent set-up should be in place by Easter and Fr McGuire is hoping for a sponsor to cover set-up costs.

He said some overseas churches had confessional sponsors. At least one had a bookmaker as the backer. “They called it O’Flaherty’s sin bin or something,” he said. [They… did?]

The phone app, sourced from the US, will let drivers select deadly sins from a list, which will appear in front of the priest on a screen when the car pulls up. [We are straying onto more difficult ground now. Absolution, the form, must be pronounced to a person who is actually present. The matter of the confession is concerned, the communication of the sins themselves in number and kind, can be conveyed in different ways.]

It will also advise on the correct form of words to use.

“Part of it’s being already used in one church in the US,” Fr McGuire said. [It is?]

“I think it’s even been passed by the church police. [Okay… that’s glib, but who would that be? The local bishop? The CDF? The CDW?]

“It’s the combining it with being forgiven for your sins in the flesh that hasn’t been tried.”

Fr McGuire ran a trial of drive-by prayer three weeks ago, on Ash Wednesday, but gave it up for Lent.

It is all very sly and funny that way, right?

But … is there something to this? Seriously?

There is a poll at that newspaper site. I think their question is wrong: “Is the quickie confession a good idea?” Yes. No. It seems to me that the length of the confession is not the point. Was the confession complete and sincere?

Okay. Let’s have a poll and a focused look at this, regardless of the calendar.

Chose the best answer (yes, I know there are other possible answers) and give your reasons in the combox. Let’s keep this as focused as possible.

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Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity, POLLS |
50 Comments

Of Popes, Jubilees and Pontifical Masses

Posted on 31 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I was alerted to this video over at Rorate.

I would point out that this year on 29 June is the 60th Jubilee of our Holy Father’s ordination to the priesthood, together with his brother Georg.

(This video is no longer available.)

It is too bad that there could not be a Pontifical Mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC for the anniversary of Pope Benedict’s election.

Wouldn’t it be great if there could be one – somewhere – for his 60th Jubilee?

Posted in Just Too Cool | Tagged 60th Jubilee, Georg Ratzinger, Joseph Ratzinger, Jubilee
12 Comments

USCCB shreds Sr. Elizabeth Johnson’s book on the Trinity

Posted on 31 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

US Bishops do care about theology and what is being taught and written. For example, even though we already knew this, Sr. Elizabeth Johnson’s book on the Trinity, Quest for the Living God, is not a good book.

The Doctrine Committee of the USCCB has issued a statement about the doctrinal orthodoxy of Sr. Johnson’s little tome. Sr. Johnson, a CSJ, teaches as the Jesuit school Fordham University in NYC.

The USCCB Doctrine Committee is chaired by His Eminence Donald Card. Wuerl.

There is a 21 page pdf available.

The nearly ubiquitous John L. Allen, Jr., sadly still writing for the National Catholic Fishwrap has a very good summary article about the statement on the theological orthodoxy of Sr. Johnson’s book. He saves you some time so you don’t have to slog through the pdf.

After saying explaining that Sr. Johnson’s book was very popular, and that it won awards, and how many awards and degrees Sr. Johnson has, we learn that … well… let me share some of this with my emphases and comments:

First, at the level of method, the statement accuses [Interesting choice of words. It may actually be accurate.] Johnson of questioning core elements of traditional Christian theology, including its understanding of God as “incorporeal, impassible, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.” Doing so, the statement asserts, is “seriously to misrepresent the tradition and so to distort it beyond recognition.” [I believe the Church teaches that God, Triune, is all of those things.]

Second, the statement faults Johnson for treating language about God in the Bible and in church tradition as largely metaphorical, implying that truth about God is essentially “unknowable.” Even if mysteries such as the Trinity and the Incarnation can never be fully grasped, the statement says, they can nevertheless be “known.” While Johnson bases part of her argument on early church fathers, according to the statement, her position actually has more in common with Immanuel Kant and “Enlightenment skepticism.”

Third, the statement asserts that in talking about the “suffering” of God, Johnson actually undermines God’s transcendence, suggesting that God differs only in degree, not in kind, from other beings. [That would be bad.]

Fourth, according to the statement, Johnson advocates new language about God not based on its truth but its socio-political utility. In particular, she argues that all-male language about God perpetuates “an unequal relationship between women and men,” and thus has become “religiously inadequate.” [And so we get to it.] In fact, according to the statement, male imagery about God found in scripture and tradition “are not mere human creations that can be replaced by others that we may find more suitable.”

Fifth, the statement asserts that Johnson’s emphasis on the presence of the Holy Spirit in non-Christian religions “denies the uniqueness of Jesus as the Incarnate Word.” [That would be bad.] In effect, according to the statement, Johnson’s argument suggests that for the fullness of truth about God, “one needs Jesus + Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, etc.”, a position it says is “contrary to church teaching.”

Sixth, the statement says, Johnson’s treatment of God as Creator ends in pantheism, undercutting the traditional understanding of God as “radically different from creation.” [The inevitable end of Modernism.]

Seventh, the statement faults Johnson’s understanding of the Trinity. Johnson treats traditional language about God as three persons as symbolic, according to the statement, thereby undercutting the church’s belief that “Jesus is ontologically the eternal Son of the Father.”

[NB] In its conclusion, the statement says the root problem with Johnson’s book is that it “does not take the faith of the church as its starting point.”

“It effectively precludes the possibility of human knowledge of God through divine revelation,” the statement says, “and reduces all names and concepts of God to human constructions that are to be judged not on their accuracy … but on their social and political utility.”

With today’s statement, Quest for the Living God joins a handful of other recent books by prominent American theologians which have been singled out for formal criticism by the Committee on Doctrine. [Get this great list:] Those works include The Sexual Person by Todd Salzman and Michael Salazar (Georgetown University Press, 2008); Being Religious Interreligiously by Peter Phan (Maryknoll, 2004); and two 2006 pamphlets on contraception, abortion and same-sex marriage by Daniel Maguire.

I am happy that the USCCB Doctrine Committee is reading books. Also, we should be grateful to Mr. Allen for giving us a summary.

Posted in Brick by Brick, The Drill | Tagged Card. Wuerl, Sr. Elizabeth Johnson, USCCB
23 Comments

Just too cool, for people who like gizmos

Posted on 31 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Imagine the possible applications!

[wp_youtube]3CR5y8qZf0Y[/wp_youtube]

And did you see the video of the guy who can spin an inverted glass full of water? Did ya?

Posted in Just Too Cool, Lighter fare |
8 Comments

We need Summorum Pontificum. We need the new, corrected translation.

Posted on 31 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Over at Southern Orders there is a study in contrasts.

For your consideration.

We need Summorum Pontificum. We need the new, corrected translation.

And then…

We need Summorum Pontificum. We need the new, corrected translation.

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Our Catholic Identity, SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM, The future and our choices | Tagged SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM
40 Comments

Prayer Request – Theft of Blessed Sacrament

Posted on 31 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

In the Anderson, South Carolina Independent Mail.

Police investigating break-in at Anderson church

ANDERSON — Anderson police are investigating a break-in at St. Mary of the Angels Catholic Church in Anderson.

A church member went to St. Mary to unlock it around 6:35 a.m. today and found damage to a window.

A window was broken and some cabinet doors were damaged. Desk drawers had been opened and items strewn around the space.

The office of Father Aubrey McNeil, pastor of the church, was broken into, and the key to the church tabernacle taken, officials said.

Bread used in communion and distributed at Mass was taken from the tabernacle, but it does not appear that anything else was, officials said.

Mass cannot take place at the church until officials there find out from the bishop for the Diocese of Charleston how to proceed because communion material was disturbed.

McNeil said to his knowledge the break-in is the first at the church since it opened in 1943.

Please pray for the person(s) who did that and please perform some penitential act today in reparation for the desecration of the Eucharist.

Posted in The Last Acceptable Prejudice | Tagged desecration, sacrilege, Theft of Eucharist
12 Comments

I am confused.

Posted on 31 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The Catholic left condemned President Bush and the Iraq War.

Why is the Catholic left not condemning President Obama and what he is doing in Libya?

Posted in The Drill |
43 Comments

On the new, corrected translation. Wherein Fr. Z rants and reacts.

Posted on 31 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Liberals who don’t like the new translation either don’t like the clearer theology of the prayers or the sound of the prayers.

The usual tack they take is people are too stupid to understand the new texts. This has been the mantra for a long time now, since long before the new translation was approved by the bishops conferences and then by Rome and then emended by Rome.

I think people will take to the new translation pretty well. Yes, there will be a period of adjustment. It’ll be okay.

As far as being too dumb… well… when I was seven years old my grandmother, who had been in her long life a school teacher, gave me sets of LP records of Shakespeare plays. At first I didn’t understand them at first, but I was fascinated by the sound of it and in time I got them just fine, thank you very much. I was changed by them.

I am not saying that the new translation is anything like Shakespeare. Not at all. I have read the Eucharistic Prayers aloud in PODCAzTs. During Lent I have include the corrected versions of Collects in LENTCAzTs. They are not Shakespeare, folks. They are in some respects more challenging and awkward to read than many of my own slavishly literal versions I worked up for the sake of prying the Latin originals open, versions I never intended to be anything like liturgical, blunt instruments for the sake of study.

When I read them and heard them read aloud, the new, corrected translations do sound like translations. But I have gotten to the point, as I have said before, it is often okay for a translation to sound like a translation.

Ehem… they are translations. Latin is our liturgical language, not English.

With that as a prelude, there is a good post at CMR about the different sound of the language of the new, corrected English translation of Mass.

My emphases and comments.

The New Mass Translation – The Power of Fancy

by Pat Archbold Tuesday,

I may be weird, but I am looking forward to the new translation of the Mass.

It’s not that I am secretly a Latin scholar who has for years lamented improper translations. I am not. I don’t know my e pluribus unum from my ad nauseum. But I like the idea that the language will be fancier. I like fancy language. Fancy makes things seem special. [He is on the right track here.]

Fancy can take the the otherwise mundane and elevate it and make it memorable. [the lame-duck texts are so indecorous, any new translation would have meant an elevation.]

Do you remember those Merchant Ivory films from twenty years ago? They were all the rage back then. They won all kinds of awards and stuff. One I remember in particular, Remains of the Day.

Remains of the Day starred Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Hopkins plays a stuffy, emotionally repressed butler who never gets up the nerve to ask the maid out until it’s too late. This plot isn’t just mundane, this plot is mundane’s older but even more boring brother, humdrum. I would rather read Brecht while listening to Zamfir on the pan flute than watch this movie.

But….

You throw in some fancy tuxedos, fancy language and some fancy British accents and Bam!! Eight academy award nominations. Fancy did that.

And I remember it twenty years later. Fancy did that, too.

I have been convinced for years that if men started wearing bowler hats again, workplace productivity would go up 20%. It’s the power of fancy. [What he is really dealing with here is called decorum theory. He is talking about the effect of our contact with and pursuit of the aptum and pulchrum.]

Who among us, after watching a Shakespeare play, does not feel as if their IQ went up 20 points? I like to watch Shakespeare movies for no other reason than to look down on the people coming out of the Matt Damon movie in the next theater. [He lost me with the second part, even though I am sure he is making a funny, but that first part is surely right. Especially in this day of horrific English, which makes us stupider day by day, hearing Shakespeare does make us smarter.]

Let’s look at this another way. What happens if you take away the fancy? Would the prom still be the prom if everyone wore shorts and flip flops? No, then it would be like a regular summer Mass. But I digress… [Has the big question occurred to you yet?]

Fancy matters because fancy helps us remember that what is going on is special. And what is more special than the Mass? If a little elevated language can remind us how special the Mass really is, isn’t that a good thing? If a few thees and thous and a consubstantial can remind us to lift up our hearts, to lift them up to the Lord, I say all the better.

So while some may lament that the new translation is too, for lack of a better word, fancy, I say bring it on. Bring on the fancy. Sursum corda and all, whatever that means? But it sure sounds fancy.