I need help from you knowledgeable readers.
Is there any software that will allow me to record – on a single computer – 4 usb webcams with 1 or 2 audio sources?
The idea is to record simultaneously four different camera streams so that you can later edit them together into, say, an interview or even 4 different angles of a Mass. I don’t mean having some switch between cams while the thing is going on… I mean recording all four and then editing/switching later.
Any ideas?
Schism and disobedience, undermining one’s ecclesial identity, are hardly new in the Church.
Still, I have noticed that coverage of these aberrations has increased.
I saw a suggestion that the clerical sexual abuse crisis is responsible for the lack of respect for the authority of bishops. Therefore, when bishops make certain decisions, people no longer think it necessary to be guided by them.
I wonder if that crisis wasn’t merely an aggravating factor.
Perhaps the real foundation of the problem is decades of liturgical abuse and bad catechesis.
People have lost, in some parishes, that deeper sense of Catholic identity. They just barely belong to the same religion. Therefore, when there is some pushing and shoving, they head to the door in groups.
In other words, they are just doing what they have been formed to do.
This is a rather pessimistic view, I know. But it needs some thoughtful discussion.
Thoughts?
Today I was talking to a friend about a parish he visited. He saw that penitents waiting for confession were using a printed form or sheet that had a structured form for making a confession as well as an Act of Contrition.
I myself saw such a thing in a cathedral of a diocese I visited.
Is this something you have seen? Is this a trend?
I am ever more impressed with the quality of posts on Fr. Bill Baer’s blog. He is a priest acquaintance of mine in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. I have posted about him before.
He has been talking about confession recently, which is a common theme here on this our blog as well.
Fr. Baer posted in his latest his explores the idea of two kinds of penitents, those who want "a quick sacramental “clean-up” before Mass, or a lengthy conversation in the Confessional afterwards".
He adds:
The pastor who has scheduled confessions after Mass may then wish to do two things: First, offer a simple explanation from the pulpit concerning the differences between confession, spiritual direction, and counseling, perhaps expressing a willingness to offer spiritual direction or counseling — or to refer parishioners to qualified Catholic spiritual directors or counselors — but at a different time and place than the Confessional. Second, the pastor may address these issues directly in the Confessional with a penitent who seems to want something more than, or different than, the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
This brings up good points for people who are waiting to get into a confessional.
May I also direct you back to my 20 Tips for Making a Good Confession?
Manilio Sodi, SDB, is virulently opposed to Pope Benedict.
The Italian blog Messa in latino reports that Sodi has been on Italian radio a couple times recently running down Pope Benedict’s Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.
The good news is that its August and virtually no one heard him talk. It hardly makes much of a difference what he said.
Sodi – editor of an influential liberal liturgical journal – is over the top in his comments. He demonstrates how uninterested in he is being as thoughtful or objective about an important liturgical issue as a scholar ought.
In tortured Italian, Sodi remarked in the radio:
The Pope’s Motu Proprio published three years ago was intended to enable some groups of people who were attached to the previous rite to celebrate with the necessary peace and serenity according the the Missale published in 1962. What was underscored in the ambit of the Motu Proprio was the fact of rapprochement with stable communities, that is communities which remained faithful and always attached to this form of celebration.
There is another radio spot as well, rather more condescending but pretty much more of the same.
This is Sodi’s line and the line most liberals adhere to: Summorum Pontificum, just like Ecclesia Dei adflicta before it, was intended strictly for those who cannot make the transition to a more enlightened liturgy. The Motu Proprio does not intend to expanded the use of the older form or expose to the traditional forms anyone except those who are either old, and therefore nostalgic, or who are already trapped in rigid groups of regressivists.
Sodi is afraid of the growth in numbers of younger people who are interested in traditional liturgical worship. His worst nightmare.
I am sure you readers can post in the combox below the evidence to the contrary. It might be a good exercise to review this, in light of the upcoming 3rd anniversary of Summorum Pontificum.
The bottom line is that Sodi doesn’t like the Pope and what he is doing. He fears the effects of Summorum Pontificum. He perceives the Pope’s Motu Proprio to be an attack on his life’s work.
What Sodi is doing is a perfect example of what the Brit’s call "special pleading".
From a reader:
I am a transitional deacon on pastoral placement. Please include me in your prayers for thorough preparation for the priesthood. [Will do.] The Parish Priest has said that I should not wear the dalmatic for weekday Masses. When pressed, he says that the people do not understand the symbolism of the dalmatic, but would understand the stole worn as deacons do.
The GIRM indicates that the dalmatic may be omitted for reasons of necessity or lesser solemnity (GIRM 119b, 338), but seems not to indicate who regulates the permission for the dalmatic to be omitted.
To the best of my knowledge, the local bishop and episcopal conference has not specified anything on the question. Can you or your readers help?
Could it be that the pastor is worried that greater liturgical decorum will be required if there is … greater liturgical decorum? What next? Gregorian chant?
First, do what the pastor says.
Second, the pastor’s reason – at least the reason you say he gave – is ridiculous.
Having a transitional deacon available for weekday Masses is a spectacular opportunity for a little catechesis. This doesn’t mean I that I think there should always be sermons at weekday Masses. Not at all. But, there could be very brief comments which teach people about:
and… wait for it…
If the pastor thinks people won’t understand what a dalmatic is, then he must either have a low appreciation of their intelligence or his own ability to teach.
But… no… hang on… deacons can preach at Mass, can’t they.
I bet that a newly ordained deacon might has some of this stuff fresh in his mind, too.
And were the pastor to say, "Okay, sonny, read the Gospel and then preach for no longer than 5 minutes. Any more than 5 minutes and you’ll be sleeping in the basement in a cardboard box with a little piece of lettuce."
Now for the Latin texts from the GIRM:
119. In sacristia, pro diversis formis celebrationis, parentur sacræ vestes (cf. nn. 337-341) sacerdotis, diaconi et aliorum ministrorum:
a) pro sacerdote: alba, stola et casula seu planeta;
b) pro diacono: alba, stola et dalmatica, quæ tamen, ob necessitatem vel minorem gradum sollemnitatis, omitti potest;
So… the dalmatic can be omitted because of necessity (which probably means there is no dalmatic or that it is 130F degrees), or because it is a weekday Mass, which is of less solemnity for sure. It can be omitted. That doesn’t mean that it should be omitted.
If the chasuble is the proper garment of the priest, the dalmatic is the proper garment of the deacon. The priest celebrant has to wear his chasuble for Mass. The deacon… ergo…
So… we know what the GIRM says. But what about a more reason document of the CDW, Redemptionis Sacramentum?
[125.] The proper vestment of the Deacon is the dalmatic, to be worn over an alb and stole. In order that the beautiful tradition of the Church may be preserved, it is praiseworthy to refrain from exercising the option of omitting the dalmatic.
Soooo… John Paul II tells the Congregation for Divine Worship to prepare a document dealing with liturgical issues, especially liturgical abuses. The CDW prepares and the Pope commands it to be promulgated.
It states that, yes, you can omit the dalmatic, but if there is no good reason to don’t omit it. This is a good and beautiful tradition. It is praiseworthy to use it.
Enough?
Imagine this if you can… but I saw something a little weird in Richard McBrien’s most recent blurb in the National Catholic Fishwrap.
McBrien’s piece is about Popes of the 20th Century!
As you might guess, he points out their deficiencies.
Highlights:
And then there was Pius XII.
Pius XII was really bad.
He gave lots of power to Sister Pascalina and everyone was ascared of her.
Wait…. now. Think about this.
McBrien is saying this was a bad thing.
What is it that he is pointing to? La Popessa.
A Pope empowered a woman religious and let her run the Church!
I have been following the debate over the building of a mosque at Ground Zero in Manhattan.
I have a counter proposal.
Let us build a chapel dedicated to Sts. Nunilo and Alodia next to the mosque.
Saints Nunilo and Alodia were a pair of 9th c. virgin martyrs in Huesca, Spain. They were born to a Muslim father and Christian mother. However, they chose their mother’s Christianity.
And so during the Emirate of Abd ar-Rahman II it came to pass that these little girls were first put in a brothel and then were executed as apostates according to Sharia law.
Their feast day is 22 October.
I think their relics are in the Cathedral of Pamplona, having been translated a couple times.
Now think about this for a little while. And for those who don’t want to think this through, let’s spell it out.
No reasonable person thinks that the developers don’t have the legal right to build a mosque on that spot. But do they have a moral right to build there?
There is such a thing as propriety.
The project of this Mosque is not neutral in meaning. The location is not neutral in meaning. The desire behind building this particular mosque is not neutral.
In my opinion it is spectacularly insensitive to press for this mosque to be built at that site. It would be tantamount to building a church dedicated to Christian children martyred under an Islamic regime next to a place revered by Muslims.
I read the National Catholic Fishwrap piece about the change of sisterly presidency of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.
They had their rite of farewelling and leadershiping for the outgoing prez.
What the hell is this? Star Trek?
From a reader:
Our priest wanted to move the choir loft into the open attic space at the back of our church (over the narthex), [the logical place for a choir loft] but he said the bishop would not let him “because Vatican II said the choir should be in a place where it can lead the congregation.”
(Our priest was successful in moving it from the sanctuary – opposite the altar – to a place down the steps in the front corner of the church.)
I have searched Sacrosanctum Concillium, but have not found anything pertaining to the placement of the choir.
Did I miss it, or what?
If His Excellency is really interested in following the Church’s documents about liturgical participation and sacred music, I would imagine that he is vigorously promoting the use of the pipe organ and Gregorian chant, which have the very first places in all the Church’s sacred music. If His Excellency is so interested in the proper application of liturgical norms, I am sure he has followed Sacrosanctum Concilium 54 ("… steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them."). If he was the local ordinary before 2007, how did he apply Ecclesia Dei adflicta? How about Ecclesia de mysterio? Are there any parishes in the diocese which do not celebrate the sacred rites in conformity with the rubrics? Are they any points of Redemptionis Sacramentum which might need to be reviewed?
Okay… now that I have that out of my system….
I am guessing that the bishop, who is probably of a certain age, is thinking of a 1964 document called Inter Oecumenici in which we read the silly statement:
The choir and organ shall occupy a place clearly showing that the singers and the organist form a part of the united community of the faithful and allowing them best to fulfill their part in the liturgy.
I use the strong word "silly", because I can’t fathom how a person would get the idea that people in a choir loft weren’t participating in the liturgical action. Inter Oecumenici was written back in the day by the liturgical experts who were in the throes of making everything "meaningful". Everyone had to see everything in order to "participate". I think we have grown out of that limited and limiting notion. Furthermore, the place where they are best allowed to fulfill their role would be a place where the acoustics are best and where they are not a distraction to others and to themselves. More on that below.
I think there is also something about this in Musicam sacram of 1967. The 2000 GIRM says in "The Place for the Choir and the Musical Instruments":
312. The choir should be positioned with respect to the design of each church so as to make
clearly evident its character as a part of the gathered community of the faithful fulfilling a specific
function. The location should also assist the choir to exercise its function more easily and
conveniently allow each choir member full, sacramental participation in the Mass. [I don’t see why coming down from the choir loft, or having a priest/deacon go to the loft with Holy Communion is so very haaard. And if a choir is singing, will anyone be confused about their presence? "GaaaWLEE!? Where’s da sound cumin’ frum??"]
The problem with putting a choir in front of everyone’s eyes (let’s not even contemplate putting them in the sanctuary where the clerical choir belongs) is that it gives the impression that the choir is performing. It gives also the wrong sense to the musicians (if they can be so called) as well.
It seems to me that making the choir too easily visible in the church places too much emphasis on their physical presence and appearance rather than on the prayer they contribute in the form of sacred music. Having the choir up front is just another distraction. Even for the members of the choir it is a distraction.
Moreover, in most older churches, the building’s acoustics will favor the positioning of the organ and choir in the choir loft. A choir can usually sing without amplification when they are in a choir loft, thus avoiding yet another layer of artificiality in the sacred action.
I think the bishop should let the church building be the church building it was designed to be and let the priest in this case make the good choice to put the choir in the loft.
There is after all a fairly good track record for choirs in lofts. That has been successful for centuries.
I think it could be successful now, too.
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
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