'Alma Redemptoris mater'

Anglo-Catholic Bloggers Gathering in February in London

This past year in London those who joined the Anglo-Catholic bloggers dinner really enjoyed being together for food, faith and fellowship. Since there is a meeting in February after the General Synod, I saw that Father Tomlinson SSC raised the question about us getting together again while there. That was a brilliant idea and I hope that this time we can add those new bloggers to us and that the regulars will be back again as well. I think we can scale things down a bit this time around but we should sort something soon if all are interested.

So, if you are an Anglo-Catholic blogger or one who helps those who do blog with the technicalities of challenged bloggers, then you are invited to join the second Anglo-Catholic Blogging dinner in London on Friday evening 13 February. Since we will be meeting at the same place, we should gather in the front of the Centre as we did before and arrive together to a spacious place (undecided) for drinks followed by a meal. As soon as the evening devotion is over we will gather together. Does this sound good to all? If you are planning on coming and would like to reserve a place for yourself and your partner if you are bringing one, please do let me know here. Send this link to anyone you feel might be interested in coming along.

Pope's Prayer Intentions for January

VATICAN CITY, 30 DEC 2008 (VIS) - Pope Benedict XVI's general prayer intention for January is: "That the family may become more and more a place of training in charity, personal growth and transmission of the faith".

His mission intention is: "That the different Christian confessions, aware of the need for a new evangelization in this period of profound transformations, may be committed to announcing the Good News and moving towards the full unity of all Christians in order to offer a more credible testimony of the Gospel".

Truth without Compromise: Young and Old Children Alike Want It

The American undersecretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has argued that the Church cannot win the allegiance of young people by downplaying controversial doctrines. Father Augustine DiNoia told an audience in Rome that young people will not adhere to a Church whose leaders "seem too embarrassed to communicate forthrightly." The American Dominican-- who is frequently mentioned as a candidate for promotion within the Roman Curia, or to head an American diocese-- said that Church leaders should teach the faith "without apologies or compromise."

Catholic Culture

Sacerdotium and Sacrificium

The below post and the comments sent to the blog and by way of private email have me thinking that primarily Benedict is clearly thinking about the Lutheran situation. When speaking of the Council of Trent and the key point on priesthood Trent was clear in responding to Luther's key problem in the debate of the connection between sacerdotium and sacrificium. Luther saw this connection as a denial of grace and rejected any notion of the sacrificing priesthood which he saw as a return to the Law--and very wrongly so I might add. This is why Luther turned his attention to the pure functionality of the priesthood and a minister of the word and he reduced the eucharist to a 'confession' of what the word is in visible form. Benedict spells out for us how the Tridentine Fathers responded to this within the ecclesial context. With regards to Luther's denial of the sacramentality of holy orders (i.e., as one who offers sacrifice) then we can see the starting point from which Trent made its polemical statements. Benedict writes,

In fact, this is the logical precondition for the Council's rejection of Luther's exclusive theology of the word; it plays a part also in its upholding of the irrevocability of the priestly ministry against Luther's purely functional view of it. To express this definitive and unequivocal quality, the Council employed the concept of "character" that the Middle Ages had inherited from Augustine: one who becomes a priest is always a priest, just as one who has been validly baptized is always a Christian. With this teaching, the Council of Trent rejected the concept of reordination of oen who has been validly ordained just as it rejected the concept of rebaptism.

Against egalitarianism and the notion of a state church, the Council declared that there are ministers in the Church that cannot be changed. At the same time, the Council forcefully rejected the idea that the office of priest can be validly conferred by the community, the civil arm or a secular administrative body alone. It stated explicitly that there is only one way of become a priest: ordination by an authorized bishop.

Perhaps next we will consider Sacrifice, Sacrament and Priesthood in the Church since that touches at the heart of my thesis topic.

Benedict XVI: Apostolic Succession vs Apocryphal Ordinations

I have chosen not to post a lot of stuff on liturgies around the world particularly because so many other of the Anglo-Catholic blogs do such a very fine job that doing it here would just be over-kill. This blog is more geared towards the theology that is incarnated in the rites and liturgies seen on the other blogs anyway so I will continue on in that light while the others wonderfully show the symbolism of what liturgical incarnation is all about.

In reading the letters to the editor in the Catholic Herald today, I came across a few that were not very happy with last week's entry concerning Anglican ordinations and the Bull Apostolicae curae. That piece was considered out-dated and unloving by the responders in the Herald. This has led me to look at Pope Benedict's thoughts on this in his work Principles of Catholic Theology. One sentence that is often misquoted and taken out of context by those who believe the declaration on Anglican orders 'null and void' to have run its course may find the present Pope's words a bit of a struggle. The sentence that is often taken out of context is found under the heading 'Pius XII's rectification of the Middle Ages' where Ratzinger writes, 'Nevertheless, the text takes an important step forward: it states clearly that the proper sacramental sign of holy orders is the imposition of hands, nothing else.' At first glance, many Anglicans, perhaps, could get really excited about this being that this is emphasized in the Edwardian Ordinal and is a central act in the rite of ordination for Anglicans. The rite emphasises the importance of the work of the Spirit which is the essential point Ratzinger wants to make about ordinations. Yet, he has a very important qualification that we all need to seriously grapple with and chew on over a drink perhaps.

With regards to successio apostlica Ratzinger uses some pretty colourful language to describe his understanding of Catholic ordinations. In the present climate where all sorts of rumours fly about every day, I think a serious look at the Catholic principles of Ratzinger's thought here should force all of us to think seriously and theologically about this question. I am very interested in what other readers think about this. Please do leave or write me a comment.

The high-church movement (I assume he is speaking of the Oxford Movement and the Ritualist Movement in the C of E) that was introduced into some forms of Protestantism in the nineteenth century was unable fully to understand this Catholic concept of holy orders and the related symbolism of the imposition of hands but rather obfuscated it in many respects. This movement undoubtedly stems from a nostalgia for the sacrament and from the feeling that the service of the Spirit in the Church cannot be regulated in a purely organizational way but only in a spiritual--and that means "sacramental"--manner. In addition, there was the longing for a link with the origins of Christianity; a feeling of dissatisfaction with communities that cannot, as such, be traced back to these origins; and a need to demonstrate, in a visible way, their membership in the Church of all ages. These sentiments, are in themselves, perfectly legitimate and helped to break down many barriers even while being, at the same time, responsible for the fact that those who held ministries in these churches managed somehow to arrange an imposition of hands by bishops who could demonstrate a connection with the imposition of hands in the Catholic Church and were thus able to claim a form of legitimacy of apostolic succession. As a result, there are, today, a number of persons holding such ministries whose succession is, if I may so phrase it, apocryphal. Wherever such "high-church" ordinations are conferred or received this "apocryphally", the fundamental nature of the imposition of hands has to be totally misunderstood. Regardless of the positive reasons that occasion it, it expresses, in such cases, either a liturgical romanticism or a canonical tutiorism. These churches want a formally assured legitimacy and tend toward an archaizing liturgical model (often, too, toward an equally archaizing dogmatic model), but they accomplish all this without venturing to revise the ecclesial context in anything but rite. Where this occurs, however, the sacrament is, in fact, restricted to a liturgical-juridical formalism. The inevitable result is that this formalism is regarded with irony by the other side and is countered by the genuineness of the word independent of the rite [This must be a Lutheran reference because he takes Luther on at this point earlier in the book with regards to this very topic].

In truth, the imposition of hands with the accompanying prayer for the Holy Spirit is not a rite that can be separated from the Church or by which one can bypass the rest of the Church and dig one's own private channel to the apostles. It is, rather, an expression of the continuity of the Church, which, in the communion of the bishops, is the locus of tradition, of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Catholic theology places great emphasis on the unbroken identity of the tradition of the apostles, which is firmly held in the unity of the concrete Church and is expressed in the ecclesial gesture of the imposition of hands. There is, in other words, no separation of the material from the formal aspect (succession in respect to the word, succession in respect to the imposition of hands); rather, its inner unity is a sign of the unity of the Church herself: the imposition of hands takes place in and lives from the Church. It is nothing without the Church--an imposition of hands that is not an entering into the existential and traditional context of the Church is not an ecclesial imposition of hands. The sacrament is the sacrament of the Church, not a private way to the beginnings of Christianity.

Benedict XVI Midnight Mass Homily

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

"Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down upon the heavens and the earth?" This is what Israel sings in one of the Psalms (113 (112), 5ff.), praising God's grandeur as well as his loving closeness to humanity. God dwells on high, yet he stoops down to us God is infinitely great, and far, far above us. This is our first experience of him. The distance seems infinite. The Creator of the universe, the one who guides all things, is very far from us: or so he seems at the beginning. But then comes the surprising realization: The One who has no equal, who "is seated on high," looks down upon us. He stoops down. He sees us, and he sees me. God's looking down is much more than simply seeing from above. God's looking is active. The fact that he sees me, that he looks at me, transforms me and the world around me. The Psalm tells us this in the following verse: "He raises the poor from the dust" In looking down, he raises me up, he takes me gently by the hand and helps me to rise from depths towards the heights. "God stoops down." This is a prophetic word. That night in Bethlehem, it took on a completely new meaning. God's stooping down became real in a way previously inconceivable. He stoops down he himself comes down as a child to the lowly stable, the symbol of all humanity's neediness and forsakenness. God truly comes down. He becomes a child and puts himself in the state of complete dependence typical of a newborn child. The Creator who holds all things in his hands, on whom we all depend, makes himself small and in need of human love. God is in the stable. In the Old Testament the Temple was considered almost as God's footstool; the sacred ark was the place in which he was mysteriously present in the midst of men and women. Above the temple, hidden, stood the cloud of God's glory. Now it stands above the stable. God is in the cloud of the poverty of a homeless child: an impenetrable cloud, and yet a cloud of glory! How, indeed, could his love for humanity, his solicitude for us, have appeared greater and more pure? The cloud of hiddenness, the cloud of the poverty of a child totally in need of love, is at the same time the cloud of glory. For nothing can be more sublime, nothing greater than the love which thus stoops down, descends, becomes dependent. The glory of the true God becomes visible when the eyes of our hearts are opened before the stable of Bethlehem.

Saint Luke's account of the Christmas story, which we have just heard in the Gospel, tells us that God first raised the veil of his hiddenness to people of very lowly status, people who were looked down upon by society at large to shepherds looking after their flocks in the fields around Bethlehem. Luke tells us that they were "keeping watch." This phrase reminds us of a central theme of Jesus's message, which insistently bids us to keep watch, even to the Agony in the Garden the command to stay awake, to recognize the Lord's coming, and to be prepared.

Here too the expression seems to imply more than simply being physically awake during the night hour. The shepherds were truly "watchful" people, with a lively sense of God and of his closeness. They were waiting for God, and were not resigned to his apparent remoteness from their everyday lives. To a watchful heart, the news of great joy can be proclaimed: for you this night the Saviour is born. Only a watchful heart is able to believe the message. Only a watchful heart can instil the courage to set out to find God in the form of a baby in a stable. Let us ask the Lord to help us, too, to become a "watchful" people.

Saint Luke tells us, moreover, that the shepherds themselves were "surrounded" by the glory of God, by the cloud of light. They found themselves caught up in the glory that shone around them. Enveloped by the holy cloud, they heard the angels' song of praise: "Glory to God in the highest heavens and peace on earth to people of his good will." And who are these people of his good will if not the poor, the watchful, the expectant, those who hope in God's goodness and seek him, looking to him from afar?

The Fathers of the Church offer a remarkable commentary on the song that the angels sang to greet the Redeemer. Until that moment the Fathers say the angels had known God in the grandeur of the universe, in the reason and the beauty of the cosmos that come from him and are a reflection of him. They had heard, so to speak, creation's silent song of praise and had transformed it into celestial music. But now something new had happened, something that astounded them. The One of whom the universe speaks, the God who sustains all things and bears them in his hands he himself had entered into human history, he had become someone who acts and suffers within history. From the joyful amazement that this unimaginable event called forth, from God's new and further way of making himself known say the Fathers a new song was born, one verse of which the Christmas Gospel has preserved for us: "Glory to God in the highest heavens and peace to his people on earth." We might say that, following the structure of Hebrew poetry, the two halves of this double verse say essentially the same thing, but from a different perspective. God's glory is in the highest heavens, but his high state is now found in the stable what was lowly has now become sublime. God's glory is on the earth, it is the glory of humility and love. And even more: the glory of God is peace. Wherever he is, there is peace. He is present wherever human beings do not attempt, apart from him, and even violently, to turn earth into heaven. He is with those of watchful hearts; with the humble and those who meet him at the level of his own "height," the height of humility and love. To these people he gives his peace, so that through them, peace can enter this world.

The medieval theologian William of Saint Thierry once said that God from the time of Adam saw that his grandeur provoked resistance in man, that we felt limited in our own being and threatened in our freedom. Therefore God chose a new way. He became a child. He made himself dependent and weak, in need of our love. Now this God who has become a child says to us you can no longer fear me, you can only love me.

With these thoughts, we draw near this night to the child of Bethlehem to the God who for our sake chose to become a child. In every child we see something of the Child of Bethlehem. Every child asks for our love. This night, then, let us think especially of those children who are denied the love of their parents. Let us think of those street children who do not have the blessing of a family home, of those children who are brutally exploited as soldiers and made instruments of violence, instead of messengers of reconciliation and peace. Let us think of those children who are victims of the industry of pornography and every other appalling form of abuse, and thus are traumatized in the depths of their soul. The Child of Bethlehem summons us once again to do everything in our power to put an end to the suffering of these children; to do everything possible to make the light of Bethlehem touch the heart of every man and woman.

Only through the conversion of hearts, only through a change in the depths of our hearts can the cause of all this evil be overcome, only thus can the power of the evil one be defeated. Only if people change will the world change; and in order to change, people need the light that comes from God, the light which so unexpectedly entered into our night.

And speaking of the Child of Bethlehem, let us think also of the place named Bethlehem, of the land in which Jesus lived, and which he loved so deeply. And let us pray that peace will be established there, that hatred and violence will cease. Let us pray for mutual understanding, that hearts will be opened, so that borders can be opened. Let us pray that peace will descend there, the peace of which the angels sang that night.

In Psalm 96 (95), Israel, and the Church, praises God's grandeur manifested in creation. All creatures are called to join in this song of praise, and so the Psalm also contains the invitation: "Let all the trees of the wood sing for joy before the Lord, for he comes" (v. 12ff.). The Church reads this Psalm as a prophecy and also as a task. The coming of God to Bethlehem took place in silence. Only the shepherds keeping watch were, for a moment, surrounded by the light-filled radiance of his presence and could listen to something of that new song, born of the wonder and joy of the angels at God's coming. This silent coming of God's glory continues throughout the centuries. Wherever there is faith, wherever his word is proclaimed and heard, there God gathers people together and gives himself to them in his Body; he makes them his Body. God "comes." And in this way our hearts are awakened. The new song of the angels becomes the song of all those who, throughout the centuries, sing ever anew of God's coming as a child and rejoice deep in their hearts. And the trees of the wood go out to him and exult. The tree in Saint Peter's Square speaks of him, it wants to reflect his splendour and to say: Yes, he has come, and the trees of the wood acclaim him. The trees in the cities and in our homes should be something more than a festive custom: they point to the One who is the reason for our joy the God who for our sake became a child. In the end, this song of praise, at the deepest level, speaks of him who is the very tree of new-found life. Through faith in him we receive life. In the Sacrament of the Eucharist he gives himself to us he gives us a life that reaches into eternity. At this hour we join in creation's song of praise, and our praise is at the same time a prayer: Yes, Lord, help us to see something of the splendour of your glory. And grant peace on earth. Make us men and women of your peace. Amen.

DT News

Copyright Vatican Publishing House

Biretta tip to The New Liturgical Movement for picture above.

Wishing All Readers a Very Happy Christmass

To all the readers of de cura animarum I would like to say thank you for helping to make this blog such a delight to run and with over 130,000 visits this year alone. I am humbled that such a large number of people come by to read here regularly. Please receive my best wishes and prayers for a joy-filled night and day tomorrow as we celebrate the birth of our Lord and King! God bless you all!

Father Jeffrey

Reconciling Love with Pope Benedict's Recent Address

Father Giles Pinnock has a link to a Today programme where as he says, 'Joanna Bogle wiped the floor with Christina Odone.' Argumentatively it is true that Joanna Bogle did show how utterly ridiculous these liberals are when it comes to arguing against gender theory from a creative standpoint. Father Pinnock links for us the programme and you can listen to it for the next seven days at the BBC iplayer. Go to 2:21:00 to begin listening to the discussion.

The above was placed on the blog entry below as an update this morning before I had to run out the door to say the daily Mass. The question that Christina Odone wants answered is how the Holy Father can reconcile the ultimate call of the Christian life to love with the Catholic Church's teaching on sexuality and sex specifically. Oddly enough, that is exactly what Pope Benedict XVI did and surprise to Ms. Odone, 'The Pope IS Catholic.' If she wants a real understanding of the reconciliation between her 'apparent' conflict of homosexuality and love, I suggest that she add a late entry to her Christmas list and begin reading the late Pope John Paul II's book Love and Responsibility. Writing on the person and the sexual urge the late Pope says,

Moreover, the sexual urge in man and woman is not fully defined as an orientation towards the psychological and the physiological attributes of the other sex as such. These do not and cannot exist in the abstract, but only in a concrete human being, a concrete man or woman. Inevitably, then, the sexual urge in a human being is always in the natural course of things directed towards another human being - this is the normal form which it takes. If it is directed towards the sexual attributes as such this must be recognized as an impoverishment or even a perversion of the urge. If it is directed towards the sexual attributes of a person of the same sex we speak of a homosexual deviation. Still more emphatically doe we speak of sexual deviation if the urge is directed not towards the sexual attributes of a human being but towards those of an animal. The natural direction of the sexual urge is towards a human being of the other sex and not merely towards 'the other sex' as such. It is just because it is directed towards a particular human being that the sexual urge can provide the framework within which, and the basis on which, the possibility of love arises.

He goes on to speak about the education of love and writes,

Man is a being condemned, so to speak, to create. Creativity is a duty in the sphere of love too. We find that what develops from 'promising' raw material in the form of emotions and desires is often not true love, and often indeed sharply opposed to it, whereas truly great love sometimes develops from modest material. But such a great love can only be the work of persons and - let us add here to complete the picture - the work of Divine Grace...The education of love involves a variety of actions, which are for the most part interior though they find exterior expression, actions which are in any case profoundly personal. The purpose of these actions is what we have called here the integration of love 'within' the person and 'between' persons.

This leads us all to the discussion of chastity. We live in a culture, as Joanna so rightly mentioned, that the sexual value is usurping the place of personal value which is essential to love, and is producing a society driven by carnal love that lacks value in the person of a created order. This sort of moral concupiscence leads to a love, JPII says, 'which is not love, a love which provokes erotic feelings based on nothing but sensual desire and its satisfaction.'

Ms. Odone, this is how the Holy Father and the Catholic Church reconciles what is only a contradiction in your own mind and that of a society driven by carnal concupiscence that has before it the real possibility due to the moral danger of what the Holy Father described as humanity destroying itself for not recognising the created order. I encourage all to have a read of JPII's Theology of the Body as well as Love and Responsibility.

Rediscovering Real Church Music

I was reading my new weekly edition of the Catholic Herald today and came across this wonderful piece on the rediscovery of real church music by the composer James MacMillan. Here is something more of what Benedict XVI was on about in an earlier post on 'utility' music. He writes,

The Church needs to respond to this challenge by rediscovering the wealth of our Advent treasury. The great "O" Antiphons are largely lying dormant, and could be reinvigorated. I set "O Radiant Dawn" recently, and get my little schola in St Columba's, Maryhill, to sing it during the Sundays of Advent.

The Introit and Communion Antiphons for Advent are rich and full of the theological preparation necessary for the faithful to make Christmas a genuinely holy time. But like most of the Church's rotating Propers, they are edged out by the obligatory hymns which make up the "bread" of the modern Church's dreary and unedifying four-hymn sandwiches. Parishes can go into autopilot when it comes to standard liturgical practice nowadays, and the fundamental stumbling block to genuine imagination and authenticity in our liturgy is the modern Catholic hymn book.

It would be wrong to be pessimistic, though. Pope Benedict's liturgical reforms may take time to find their feet in Britain, but his encouragement to good practice is a breath of fresh air, and they will surely come.

One glorious expression of Advent is the hymn "O Come, O Come Emmanuel", which can still be heard in many Catholic churches today - a proud survivor of the decades of interference and "improvement" strategies of the now ageing and fast-fading hippy "liturgists" who moved in, opportunistically, to reshape the liturgy in their own image after the Council.

Pope's Address to the Curia

Go read it all at Massinformation. Thank you MI team for getting this translation for us all to read. What is important is the below with regards to the media hysteria aimed at the Holy Father.

Since faith in the Creator is an essential part of the Christian Creed, the Church cannot and should not limit itself to transmitting to its faithful only the message of salvation. She has a responsibility for Creation, and it should validate this responsibility in public.

In so doing, it should defend not just the earth, water and air as gifts of Creation that belong to everyone. She should also protect man from destroying himself.

It is necessary to have something like an ecology of man, understood in the right sense. It is not outdated metaphysics when the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman, and asks that this natural order be respected.

This has to do with faith in the Creator and listening to the language of creation, which, if disregarded, would be man's self-destruction and therefore a destruction of God's work itself.

That which has come to be expressed and understood with the term 'gender' effectively results in man's self-emancipation from Creation (nature) and from the Creator. Man wants to do everything by himself and to decide always and exclusively about anything that concerns him personally. But this is to live against truth, to live against the Spirit Creator.

The tropical rain forests deserve our protection, yes, but man does not deserve it less as a Creature of the Spirit himself, in whom is inscribed a message that does not mean a contradiction of human freedom but its condition.

The great theologians of Scholasticism described matrimony - which is the lifelong bond between a man and a woman - as a sacrament of Creation, that the Creator himself instituted, and that Christ, without changing the message of Creation, welcomed in the story of his alliance with men.

Part of the announcement that the Church should bring to men is a testimonial for the Spirit Creator present in all of nature, but specially in the nature of man, who was created in the image of God.

One must reread the encyclical Humanae vitae with this perspective: the intention of Pope Paul VI was to defend love against consumer sex, the future against the exclusive claim of the moment, and human nature against manipulation.

Father Giles Pinnock has a link to a Today programme where as he says, 'Joanna Bogle wiped the floor with Christina Odone.' Argumentively it is true that Joanna Bogle did show how utterly ridiculous these liberals are when it comes to arguing against gender theory from a creative standpoint. Father Pinnock links for us the programme and you can listen to it for the next seven days at the BBC iplayer. Go to 2:21:00 to begin listening to the discussion.

Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols

On Sunday evening we had the traditional Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at St. John's Meadowfield where I serve as assistant priest. It was a fabulous evening and very well attended being that there has not been a carol service there in some years. Our parish church web master was able to video 'Torches'. My wife Rhea is conducting. Her only complaint is that she thought it made her look wide! She's not!

Pictured left is Tom our organist and choirmaster.
Anyway, enjoy the video!

The Pope and Moral Theology

The Pope is presently being castigated for his statements on sexuality and the call of the Church to defend the traditional family and human sexuality. Why the media makes something of all of this is beyond me. The Pope has said nothing that is not in line with what the Catholic Church teaches in their catechism and principles from their moral theology. Sky News had the following report.

Benedict XVI described relationships that are not heterosexual as "a destruction of God's work", during his Christmas speech to the Curia, the administrative body of the Catholic Church.

"(The Church) should also protect man from the destruction of himself. A sort of ecology of man is needed," he said.

"The tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less."

But the chief executive of British-based international charity the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement described his remarks as "totally irresponsible and unacceptable in any shape or form".

Rev Sharon Ferguson said: "It is more the case that we need to be saved from his comments.

"It is comments like that that justify homophobic bullying that goes on in schools and it is comments like that that justify gay bashing."

The Pope said humanity needed to "listen to the language of creation" to understand the intended roles of man and woman.

He also defended the Church's right to "speak of human nature as man and woman, and ask that this order of creation be respected".

But Rev Ferguson added: "When you have religious leaders like that making that sort of statement then followers feel they are justified in behaving in an aggressive and violent way because they feel that they are doing God's work in ridding the world of these people."

The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality itself is not sinful, homosexual acts are.

It opposes gay marriage and, in October, a leading Vatican official called homosexuality "a deviation, an irregularity, a wound".

The Pope is not, like the headlines read, likening humans to a rain forest. He is simply stating that humanity and the traditional family needs the protection and attention that society gives to the rain forests. If anyone reads the teaching of the Catholic Catechism on natural revelation and moral theology this is what they will read. If one disagrees, fair enough, but the Pope cannot be faulted for holding to and teaching what the Catholic Church teaches no matter how much the public screams for him doing so. The least that can happen is to give him the respect he deserves for actually holding to and teaching that which his Church teaches and demands from him to follow. I hope this address as a whole is made public so we can read the quotations above within their proper context.

If you agree or disagree, leave your comments. See Ruth Gledhill's and Catholic News Service for more reports.

Quote of the Day

Concerning music and liturgy

"Humble submission to what goes before us releases authentic freedom and leads us to the true summit of our vocation as human beings." Benedict XVI The Spirit of the Liturgy

The Extraordinary Form Video Arrived

I was happy to find my video of the The Extraordinary Form of the Mass arrived in my post today. I will be putting it on to watch once I post this message. I know others were wondering where their copies were and mine arrived today so they are still coming!!

Liturgical Action and Beauty: Not About the Priest but Christ

The liturgy should be beautiful since it is "is a radiant expression of the paschal mystery, in which Christ draws us to himself and calls us to communion." This isn't a matter of aesthetics or snobbery, but "the concrete way in which the truth of God's love in Christ encounters us, attracts us and delights us, enabling us to emerge from ourselves and drawing us towards our true vocation, which is love." And: "Beauty, then, is not mere decoration, but rather an essential element of the liturgical action, since it is an attribute of God himself and his revelation. These considerations should make us realize the care which is needed, if the liturgical action is to reflect its innate splendour" (par 35). In sum, "Everything related to the Eucharist should be marked by beauty" (par 41).

If the liturgy is celebrated properly, the issue of active participation takes care of itself. "The primary way to foster the participation of the People of God in the sacred rite is the proper celebration of the rite itself" (par 39). This means respecting the proper roles of the bishops and priests and "an appreciation of the value of the liturgical norms."; when those are subverted or confused, serious problems arise. In what might be the understatement of the Apostolic Exhortation, Benedict writes: "The eucharistic celebration is enhanced when priests and liturgical leaders are committed to making known the current liturgical texts and norms, making available the great riches found in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal and the Order of Readings for Mass. Perhaps we take it for granted that our ecclesial communities already know and appreciate these resources, but this is not always the case" (par 40).

Benedict is emphatic about the matter of sacred music, a topic he has written much about in works including The Spirit of the Liturgy. "Generic improvisation or the introduction of musical genres which fail to respect the meaning of the liturgy should be avoided." There's little doubt that he is referring, in part, to forms of popular and "rock" music. "As an element of the liturgy, song should be well integrated into the overall celebration. Consequently everything--texts, music, execution--ought to correspond to the meaning of the mystery being celebrated, the structure of the rite and the liturgical seasons." He reiterates the directive of the Second Vatican Council that Gregorian chant should be given pride of place: "Finally, while respecting various styles and different and highly praiseworthy traditions, I desire, in accordance with the request advanced by the Synod Fathers, that Gregorian chant be suitably esteemed and employed as the chant proper to the Roman liturgy" (par 42).

Homilies need to get better! "Given the importance of the word of God, the quality of homilies needs to be improved" (par 46). In particular: "Generic and abstract homilies should be avoided." In other words, the homilies should actively take up the content of the readings, especially the Gospel reading, and not simply be an opportunity for simplistic platitudes.

Too often, the Sign of Peace becomes a distraction; in some parishes in sometimes seems to be the climax of the Mass. "We can thus understand the emotion so often felt during the sign of peace at a liturgical celebration. Even so, during the Synod of Bishops there was discussion about the appropriateness of greater restraint in this gesture, which can be exaggerated and cause a certain distraction in the assembly just before the reception of Communion" (par 49).

Benedict XVI

Father Tomlinson Writes: Blogs Have Personalities

Well, Father Tomlinson has psychoanalysed the Anglo-Catholic bloggers and I am not sure he shouldn't be in the category of us analytical types! It makes for an interesting read indeed. But, I am completely honoured to be named amongst thinkers like Fr. Hunwicke! What does de cura animarum have in comparison to him? Thanks for doing this Father, it makes for fun reading but I'm not too sure everything is well...we'll let others see what they think. The man who gave us our personality examination is left in the picture. Is he able?? De cura animarum fell under this category.

Father Ivan Aquilina/Massinformation/de cura animarum/ Fr Hunwicke: the thinker

The logical and analytical type. They are especially attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.

They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.

Vatican Predictions: But Who Can Predict the Vatican?

This news story was sent to me via an email which apparently is produced on Virtue Online. The story is concerning the Vatican and Traditionalist Anglicans and a "prediction" about what the Vatican may or may not do. The reference is that this story written up in the Church of England News that will come out tomorrow. Here is the story:

The Vatican will not create an enclave within the Roman Catholic Church for Anglicans opposed to women clergy and the 'gay agenda', Rome's La Civiltà Cattolica predicts.

In an October article entitled Catholic Anglican Relations after the Lambeth Conference (La Relazione tra Cattolici e Anglicani dopo la Conferenza di Lambeth) the semi-official Jesuit bi-weekly stated the "corporate unity" under discussion between the Vatican and traditionalist Anglicans "will not be a form of uniatism as this is unsuitable for uniting two realities which are too similar from a cultural point of view as indeed are Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholics."

"The Holy See, while sympathetic to the demands of these Anglo-Catholics" for corporate reunion, "is moving with discretion and prudence." Opposition to the ordination of women to the ordained ministry and to gay bishops and blessings "is not enough," the newspaper said. Anglo-Catholics should be motive not by a rejection of Anglicanism but by the "desire to join fully the Catholic Church," Fr. Paul Gamberini SJ wrote.

Anglican - Catholic relations have been in a downward spiral in recent years, prompting some traditionalists to quit the Anglican Communion for Rome. A number of Anglo-Catholic groups have also petitioned the Vatican to allow whole communities-parishes, religious orders, dioceses to be received en masse, and allowed to maintain their Anglican orders and liturgical forms.

A public acknowledgment of these behind the scenes negotiations cam on July 5 when the prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) Cardinal William Levada responded to an Oct 2007 request for reunion from the bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC)-a 300,000 member group of "Continuing" Anglicans outside the structures of the Anglican Communion.

The cardinal assured TAC "of the serious attention which the Congregation gives to the prospect of corporate unity raised in that letter", and said that "as soon as the Congregation is in a position to respond more definitively concerning the proposals you have sent, we will inform you," as the "situation within the Anglican Communion in general has become markedly more complex."

Less than a week after Cardinal Levada wrote to the TAC bishops, 1333 Church of England bishops, priests and deacons signed an open letter protesting General Synod's decision to authorize women bishops. Should they quit the Church of England for the Roman Catholic Church, they would likely be welcomed into the Roman Catholic Church through the vehicle of the 1980 Pastoral Provision created by Pope John Paul II, which allowed married Anglican priests to be received as Catholic priests, Fr. Gamberini said.

La Civiltà Cattolica stated that after the Nov 4 1992 General Synod vote that "extended to women the ordained ministry, about one thousand pastors have abandoned the Anglican Communion of England: 480 of them have decided to be ordained priests in the Catholic Church, 90 of them are married. Some estimate that about half a million Anglo-Catholics have left the Anglican Communion in recent decades."

However, this infusion of Anglo-Catholics into the Roman Catholic Church would not necessarily lead to the creation of an Anglican uniate rite under papal oversight, Fr Gamberini said.

The Vatican was loathe to intervene, he added, citing Pope Benedict XVI's July 17 comment that he hoped "schisms and new breaks can be avoided, and that a responsible solution will be found" to the Anglican crisis.

While the Vatican has carved out an exception to its clerical celibacy rule for these former Anglican now Roman Catholic priests, it has yet to permit married ex-Anglican Roman Catholic bishops. Married ex-Anglican bishops functioning as Roman Catholic bishops would not be unprecedented, however. In December 1959, Pope John XXIII received a married ex-Anglican priest consecrated as a bishop of the schismatic Igreja Católica Apostólica Brasileira into the Roman Catholic Church.

Married with seven children, Bishop Salomão Barbosa Ferraz was not re-ordained upon his reception in the Catholic Church and upon being named Titular Bishop of Eleutherna on May 10, 1963 was not re-consecrated. Active at the Second Vatican Council, Bishop Ferraz appears to have been the only modern day married Roman Catholic bishop.

One thing I suggest is that everyone try not to predict anything because the Vatican will decide and is often unpredictable. At the end of the day, nobody makes demands on Rome. ANYONE who goes arrives on the Church's demands and not their own. If Anglicans or anyone else does not understand that then they do not understand the Catholic Church and her authority structure. So, what I say is get on with the work of the kingdom and WAIT for word from the authoritative voice in Rome and say your prayers and build God's kingdom by spreading the Catholic Faith. The Church guided by the Spirit moves in her time and moves God's people when ready. Until then, do the work of a faithful servant and let's stop playing prophet.

Moved by Sacrifice: A Call to Pray for Philip Johnson

This young man's story has moved my heart and I have placed in my diary to offer up all prayers, masses, and rosaries for Philip in this week. Biretta tip to Pellegrinaggio for the link. He is a young man of 24 years who was serving in the Navy and has recently found out he has a brain tumor that is not operative. He also feels called to the Catholic priesthood. In his own words he gives us a reminder of how precious the gift of life is and particularly the special privilege of being called to the priesthood in the Church of God. Visit his blog In Caritate non Ficta.

My name is Philip Johnson and I am an officer in the Navy. After graduating from the US Naval Academy in 2006, I served as Gunnery Officer onboard USS VELLA GULF (CG 72) from May 2006-July 2008, which included one Persian Gulf Deployment. From July-October 2008, I served as Fire Control Officer onboard USS IWO JIMA (LHD 7), deploying to the Persian Gulf for two months.

In June of 2008, I awoke during the middle of the night to my arms and legs shaking, unable to move or speak, before blacking out. The doctor diagnosed me with sleep paralysis - a harmless condition. Every 4 weeks, I experienced one of these episodes. In October of 2008, a roommate on the ship witnessed an episode, and reported that after blacking out, I was convulsing for five minutes and would not respond.

The doctor sent me to a Neurologist, who immediately diagnosed me with epilepsy and ordered two tests: an EEG which measures brain activity, and an MRI which scans the brain. The EEG results were normal, but the MRI revealed a brain tumor the size of a lime. Because of the type of tumor, it can not be removed, and only an upcoming biopsy can tell how fast it is spreading throughout my brain. The tumor is growing in the portion of my brain that controls motor skills and sensation in the right side of my body. Currently, I only experience occasional numbness and weakness on the right side of my body, but the symptoms will get worse as the tumor spreads.

This blog is dedicated to documenting this long road. I beg your prayers as I deal with this tumor, but I ask you to pray even harder for those who suffer from conditions far worse than mine.

In regards to his call to the priesthood he writes here the following (there is more so read it all).

As I deal with a brain tumor, I am not sad that it may eventually cause me to suffer and die. This will eventually happen to all of us, and we must be prepared to face death at all times by remaining in the state of grace. The single worry I face every day is that because of various circumstances - some of which are beyond my control - I may never know what it is like to serve God as the alter Christus I desire with all my heart to be. It brings tears to my eyes to imagine departing this world without pronouncing the words of Christ at the Last Supper, "This is My Body; This is My Blood," before gazing upon Our Eucharistic Lord in the greatest miracle ever known to man. I pray fervently that I may one day have the privilege of absolving sins - even if I only live long enough to absolve one - showing the same mercy that God has so often shown me despite my weaknesses and sinfulness.

I offer my suffering from this illness for the intentions and sanctification of all bishops, priests, and religious, and for more vocations to the priesthood and religious life. As I attempt to imitate the Blessed Virgin Mary's Fiat and respond without reservation to God's call to the most extraordinary and humbling gift He can give to a man, I ask you out of charity to please join me in praying this novena to St. Gerard Majella: www.saintgerard.com/nineday.html. Please pray that through his intercession, if it will bring glory to God and to His Bride, the Church, I will be admitted to the seminary and live long enough to die as a priest should this "cup" (my illness), which I willingly take up, not be allowed to pass from me, for nothing is impossible with God.

St. Gerard was denied admittance into the Redemptorist order three times because of his frail health. After many trials and rejections, God saw to it that St. Gerard eventually became a Redemptorist priest and served the Church faithfully for the rest of his life.

Benedict XVI and 'Utility Music'

This evening I was reading a bit in Tracey Rowland's book Ratzinger's Faith and found a quotation from the Holy Father that was simply wonderful. What often passes off as 'modern music' in Catholic liturgy is the Church trying to make use of utility music. This is where Benedict XVI is at his best acknowledging that beauty and holiness go together. This is not simply for the cathedrals to address but at the basic parish level. It is here that we need a lot of work in my opinion and it would do seminaries well to begin training priest so that they can allow for the love of beauty in the liturgy to be experienced.

I applaud the quotation Rowland has from von Balthasar that 'Anyone enamoured of beauty will shiver in the barn of the Reformation, and feel the pull of Rome.' Well, that is true in one sense but some of Rome's music that passes off as liturgical beauty is useless and is missing the mark of the Church's liturgical mission. Before I go further, let me quote from Rowland's text from Benedict.

A Church which only makes use of 'utility' music has fallen for what is, in fact, useless. She too becomes ineffectual. For her mission is a fair higher one...The Church must not settle down with what is merely comfortable and serviceable at the parish level; she must arouse the voice of the cosmos and, by glorifying the Creator, elicit the glory of the cosmos itself, making it also glorious, beautiful, habitable and beloved. Next to the saints, the art which the Church has produced is the only real 'apologia' for her history...The Church is to transform, improve, 'humanize' the world--but how can she do that if at the same time she turns her back on beauty, which is so closely allied to love? For together, beauty and love form the true consolation in this world, bringing it as near as possible to the world of the resurrection. The Church must maintain high standards; she must be a place where beauty can be at home; she must lead the struggle for that 'spiritualisation' without which the world becomes the 'first circle of hell'.

This is not a theological statement but I cannot tell you how much this quotation makes me want to jump up and down while repeating 'yes' over and over again. Let me say that I know of one place in Durham Diocese where Benedict XVI would say, 'now, brethren, here is an example of what I am talking about' and that is Saint James the Great in Darlington. The music tradition there is second to none and it has been built up by Father Ian Grieves SSC to such a top quality that one can only know what I am talking about by experiencing it. How do you describe 'heaven'? You don't, you just say 'it was like heaven'. The choir and the musical tradition that has been and is being built there demonstrates the detrimental effect that a lack of beauty has on the Church that has chosen only to embrace 'utility' music. It is an example of what excellent parish music and beauty in the liturgy can be.

In contrast, go to some of the churches that choose their music by the effect it may have on generating emotions and you'll see what I am talking about. Sometimes the words are not that bad but it is the music that is used to sing the hymns that is so lacking in beauty. There are some hymns that I know that I simply cannot and will not be able to ever sing and I cringe every time they are played. Only recapturing beauty in the liturgy will allow us to hold onto the hope of transmitting the true freedom of the faithful to the next generation.

Visit MusicaSacra for further reading and helps.

Too Busy to Blog but...

Life has been so busy it's unbelievable. Funerals coming in, carol services, school assemblies, preparations for a Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, sermons, and preparations at home for Christmas have kept me from any blog time. I hope to look at some tonight after I return from a Christmas dinner at church. I left this morning early and am home for 15 more minutes to leave again and won't be home until after 8:30 pm I imagine. So, if I don't get to write tonight, I hopefully will some time during mid-morning tomorrow or lunch. So, I apologise to the faithful readers that I haven't had time to write anything. Perhaps that might be a good thing! I trust everyone is having a very happy Advent!

My God grant me time to pause and be quiet to reflect on the Incarnation of our Lord!

Reading De Cura Animarum with Internet Explorer

If you read this blog regularly and use IE, may I suggest you download firefox as IE is the pits when it comes to formatting blogs and posts with videos etc. Firefox is your answer if you read here! Thanks. If you ever find problems with the formatting on IE please do let me know and I will try to make adjustments but Firefox always gets it right!

Archbishop Rowan Williams: Life at Conception

I was very pleased to read the Archbishop's Christmas message today. I hope all Christians will always be willing to have a lot of children and see them as a great blessing. Advent hope reminds us that life begins at conception in the womb of a mother that is never to be removed by the will of men or women. Read it all here.

God chose to show himself to us in a complete human life, telling us that every stage in human existence, from conception to maturity and even death, was in principle capable of telling us something about God. Although what we learn from Jesus Christ and what his life makes possible is unique, that life still means that we look differently at every other life. There is something in us that is capable of communicating what God has to say – the image of God in each of us, which is expressed in its perfection only in Jesus.

Hence the reverence which as Christians we ought to show to human beings in every condition, at every stage of existence. This is why we cannot regard unborn children as less than members of the human family, why those with disabilities or deprivations have no less claim upon us than anyone else, why we try to makes loving sense of human life even when it is near its end and we can hardly see any signs left of freedom or thought.

And hence the concern we need to have about the welfare of children. As we look around the world, there is plenty to prompt us to far more anger and protest about what happens to children than we often seem to feel or express. In the UK this year there have been several public debates about childhood, as research has underlined the lack of emotional security felt by many children here, the high cost of divorce and family breakdown, the disproportionate effect of poverty and debt on children, and many other problems. We look forward to the publication here in the New Year of a nationwide survey about what people think is a 'good childhood' – sponsored by the Children's Society, with its long association with the Anglican Church.

Elsewhere we see far more horrendous sights – child soldiers still deployed in parts of Africa and in Sri Lanka, the burden laid on children in places where HIV and AIDS have wiped out a whole generation, leaving only the old and the young, the fate of children in areas of conflict like Congo and the Middle East and the insensitive treatment that is so often given to child refugees and asylum seekers in more prosperous countries.

'Though an infant now we view him, He shall fill his Father's throne' says the Christmas hymn. If it is true that the child of Bethlehem is the same one who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, how shall we stand before him if we have allowed his image in the children of the world to be abused and defaced? In the week I write this, the British public is trying to cope with the revelation of the shocking killing of a very small child. Recently I accompanied a number of students and British faith leaders on a pilgrimage to the extermination camps at Auschwitz, where some of the most unforgettably horrifying images have to do with the wholesale slaughter of Jewish children – their toys and clothes still on display, looted by their killers from their dead bodies.

Christmas is a good time to think again about our attitudes to children and about what happens to children in our societies. Christians who recognise the infinite and all-powerful God in the vulnerability of a newborn baby have every reason to ask hard questions about the ways in which children come to be despised, exploited, even feared in our world. We all suspect that in a time of economic crisis worldwide, it will be the most vulnerable who are left to carry most of the human cost. The Holy Child of Bethlehem demands of us that we resist this with all our strength, for the sake of the one who, though he was rich, for our sake became poor, became helpless with the helpless so that he might exalt us all through his mercy and abundant grace.

With every blessing and best wish for Christmas and the New Year.

+Rowan Cantuar:

RIP Cardinal Dulles SJ

A brilliant mind has passed from this life to the next. From Whispers in the Loggia.

Word from New York brings the sad news that Avery Dulles SJ -- the celebrated convert, teacher, prolific author, first American theologian and US Jesuit elevated to the College of Cardinals, the dean of American theologians and a giant of the age -- passed to his reward overnight.

Having suffered the ravages of post-polio syndrome in recent years, the Harvard man and scion of a Washington dynasty was 90. Yet even in the face of the illness' physical toll, the ever hard-charging Navy vet -- who usually traveled alone even into his late 80s -- was still working away on a 32nd book in his last weeks.

More as it comes in... may his brilliant soul rest in the peace of the One in whom he believed.

SVILUPPO: At 9.30, a statement from the Jesuits' New York province formally announced Dulles' passing; the cardinal died at 6.30 this morning in his room at the Jesuit infirmary at Fordham University.

Funeral arrangments are to be announced shortly, and later today will see the release of the customary telegram of condolence from the Pope, whose respect for Dulles was especially significant.

Bishop N.T. Wright Preaching at the Ecumenical Vespers in Rome

Read it all Here

The unity of the church is thus a sign, a foretaste and a means of the creator’s eventual plan. We have for too long seen the ecumenical task either within the framework of a merely pragmatic mission, or even within the framework of a dualistic rejection of the creation (let’s huddle together and let the world go its own way). Or, indeed, we have conceived of it on a lowest-common-denominator theological basis; let’s not emphasize our particular theologies too much and then we can all agree, can’t we! Instead, it is the highest theology we have – Trinity, Christology, Pneumatology, the victory of cross and resurrection, the remaking of creation, the coming together of heaven and earth, the eschatology of promised glory – that grounds the vision of unity. And this is why, of course, it matters that we work towards full sacramental unity. The sacraments are themselves precisely the sign of creation being taken up and transformed by the flood of God’s love and glory.

All of this may seem very theological and exegetical; though I don’t apologise for that. If you ask a biblical scholar to reflect on a theme, this is the sort of stuff you’re going to get! But let me close with three, I hope pertinent, more practical comments.

First, and most obviously, our thanks must go, under God, to all those who have worked so hard in recent years towards this unity. We know that we are engaged in a complex and important process, and that we shouldn’t expect trivial or cheap ‘solutions’. We give thanks for the work of Don Bolen, who has been a good friend to so many of us, and for whose future ministry we pray with gratitude. We thank God for Mark Langham coming to take his place. We give thanks for the whole Receptive Ecumenism project, not least for the energy and enthusiasm of Paul Murray, and indeed of the still very youthful Cardinal Kasper in this as in much besides; for the work in Durham of which the new book is one of many early fruits; for this church and its ministry of welcome; and so much more, with apologies for those people and projects not mentioned. All of these are street-signs on the way to that larger hope, both for the unity of Christ’s followers and the larger filling of the whole creation.

Second, however, as we face the future, our study of Isaiah and John leads us to suppose that the way to unity and cosmic renewal is costly, and will demand the dethroning of idols. It it simply going to be a matter of embracing all that we can embrace from one another in a spirit of hopeful receptivity, important though that is. The world, and the powers of the world, will be concerned to keep us apart; we must recognise those pressures for what they are and defeat them through the victory of Jesus’ cross and resurrection and the power of the Spirit. It isn’t simply a matter of better organisation, more conferences and deeper friendships, vital though these all are. It is hard enough to see idolatry in our friends, almost impossible to see it in ourselves, yet if we are to be true to the Word we must, in the days to come, make the effort.

But, third, therefore, we must stress that the ecumenical task is a project of prayer as well as action. You know and I know that the only truly worthwhile things done for the kingdom and glory of God are those things which are rooted in and soaked in prayer. Pray for the Word to do its healing and recreative work. Pray for God’s glory to be revealed afresh in our common life. Pray above all that the love with which the Father has loved the Son may be amongst us too. Join in prayer with Jesus himself, that the glory which was promised ages ago, the glory which filled the Temple and filled Jesus himself, may fill our common life, overcoming all the barriers which still separate us, and that in the dangerous and threatening world of tomorrow, with postmodernity, credit crunches, neo-nationalism and all kinds of other delights facing us, we may show the world by our unity that Jesus is Lord, that God raised him from the dead, and that the Word which was spoken in and through him will not return to God empty, but will fulfill all his purpose, until the earth itself shall be full of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Ever Feel Like This?

The Deformity of Sin and Sacramental Dimension of the Moral Life

One of the theological issues that faces us in the area of moral theology is a proper theological view of original sin and actual sin. What is sadly and wrongly denied often is any notion of the effects of original sin on humanity. The Church has and continues to teach differently. The question is, what is that teaching? Romanus Cessario O.P. explains,

The Christian tradition actually recognizes only two categories for evil. The first, the evil of punishment (malum poenae), denotes the punishment which one suffers as a result of sin, and the second, the evil fault (malum culpae) denotes the actual transgression or sin. A sinful action is one that neither conforms to truth nor embodies goodness; sin is a privation of the due order that should inform a human action. As both the Scriptures and Tradition testify, the deformity of evil present in the world derives from the original sin. In Adam the original sin instantiates fault and brings punishment, but for the race of Adam, original sin brings only punishment. The Catechism of the Catholic church usefully explains that 'original sin is called sin only in an analogical sense; it is a sin 'contracted' and not 'committed'--a state and not an act. The punishment for the human person consists in a deprivation of original holiness and justice, and the consequent disordering of the human capacities, intellect and appetites, both sense and rational.

One is not able to relate immediately certain punishments of original sin to personal moral agency, for example, earthquakes, famines, natural disasters. But even these signs that visible creation has become hostile to man are associated with the sinful and broken conditions of the human race. In the actual economy of salvation, all punishments due to original sin, including disease and physical catastrophes, can be interpreted only in the light of the Christian doctrine of redemptive suffering. Christian moral theology must attend to whatever is required to restore fully the imago Dei present in each human being; this working out of salvation entails the progressive restoration of the Godly image. Because Christ has promised to remain with his Church until the end of time, the Church is able to sacramentalize not only the good things that we do but also the evil that we endure. Ethical schemes that do not take proper account of the nature of the human person and of human actions are less suited to appreciate this sacramental dimension of the Christian moral life.

Bishop Andrew Burnham: Reflection on Pilgrimage to Lourdes

ONE OF MY teenage longings was to visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes. As a youngster I had come across Franz Werfel's book, The Song of Bernadette, though I have never seen the film, and I had bought The Voice of Lourdes - A Pilgrimage in Vision and Recorded Sound, published in 1962. The 'sound' took the form of two rather small LPs, one at each end of the book. I must have been fourteen or fifteen and, though I hoped to go to Lourdes one day, I should never have guessed that it would take me another 45 years to get round to it. The small miracle is that I finally got round to it: claustrophobia has made me a timid traveller - an irony, given my present job - and it has been this year, the year of my 60th birthday, that I have finally managed to go not only to Lourdes, but earlier in the year to Rome. A small miracle, much assisted by the Society of Mary, and, of course, by Our Lady herself. I am conscious that amongst you may be seasoned travellers, experienced pilgrims and people who are very familiar indeed with what, for me, was entirely new. There will be an opportunity later to add to these somewhat random thoughts from a novice in these matters.

A Series of Snapshots
Avoiding the trap of excessive autobiography and anecdote, I hope, after a few general remarks and a brief reflection on the business of gaining indulgences, I shall focus in these reflections on a series of snapshots.One is a glimpse of how you do pilgrimage. Others are reflections on some of the events of this particular pilgrimage, a pilgrimage organised by the Society of Mary and the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in this, the 150th anniversary year of the apparitions. I then shall mention a few other Marian encounters - not places of apparitions but places visited during the journey to Lourdes: Rocamadour (on the way down), Bétharram (whilst we were in Lourdes) and Chartres and Rouen on the way home. Finally I shall reflect on where Anglo-Catholics find themselves at this time: the pilgrimage of 500 people, ten of whom were Church of England bishops and one of whom was the Archbishop of Canterbury, was something of a milestone in the larger pilgrimage, the People of God in search of God's Kingdom.

To put the pilgrimage into context, this was one of a series of jubilee pilgrimages, during the year, fostered and sponsored by Lourdes: the one before ours had had the Pope as its principal attraction; ours was timed to centre on the feast of Our Lady of Walsingham, Wednesday 24th September, a feast which, for English and Welsh Catholics is comparatively new. (The new English liturgical Calendar was recognised by the Holy See as recently as 2000). Our Lady of Walsingham is a memoria, for the most part, though, in appropriate circumstances, as this year at Lourdes, it was celebrated as a solemnity. We had arrived a couple of days earlier - on the Monday - and we all left for home on Friday. It was an ecumenical pilgrimage in the sense that we were Anglicans going to a Roman Catholic Shrine and doing there separately what Anglicans perforce do separately, and what we specifically wanted to do, as well as joining in, as far as we were able, in the rhythm of the place.

I had been warned to expect not a rural retreat but a busy little town, at the foot of the Pyrenees, with almost as many hotel rooms as Paris and more than enough statues of Our Lady of Lourdes on sale, it seemed, to furnish every home on earth with at least one in each room. I was expecting garish junk and high prices, tat and tawdriness, but, in the end, none of that bothered me. One felt served, and not exploited, by the townsfolk and, if it was not all to my taste, that is because it was not all for me. Croatians and Italians, Dutch and German, French and Polish, Filipino and Flemish: here was a place of international Catholic pilgrimage in which our very Anglicanism seemed unknown, unnoticed and untroubling.

Plenary Indulgences
Perhaps the first challenge to our Anglicanism was to use the Upper Basilica, on 22nd September, and the Rosary Basilica - the lower basilica - on 23rd September for our masses.There we were in the sanctuary, as though it belonged to us, with Italians and others crowding in at the back to catch a glimpse, not because we were Anglicans but because here was a sung mass, Novus Ordo, and a sung mass is one of the treasures of the Faith. We were further challenged because the first mass had to be over in an hour and, as you know, the shortest we Anglo-Catholics can ever do a sung mass in is one hour and ten minutes, and there were a few too many of us to manage the shortest of times. A stronger challenge, undoubtedly, was posed by the invitation to pilgrims to take part in the Jubilee Way, acquiring a plenary indulgence, thereby, after Confession and Holy Communion. Some of us had lunch at the Lourdes residence of the Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes and I was amused by the conversation of some of the priests and religious who staff Lourdes in which they were discussing why we still have indulgences, what a 'plenary indulgence' might mean and whether it was something you could have for yourself or had to apply in charity to someone else, presumably one of the Faithful Departed.I was astonished by the vagueness of some of these professional penitentiary personages on this key subject but thought it would have been rude to point them to the fourth edition of the Enchiridio Indulgentiarum, published as recently as 1999. (I myself knew of this but my know-all-ish precision at this point betrays a little poking around on the internet once I got home). What I am not certain of - and my indulgence circle, with each of its four quadrants covered somewhat ineptly by a sticker acquired at each of the jubilee stations continues to hang in my oratory whilst I think on - is whether Confession and Holy Communion in the Anglican tradition will suffice to complete a plenary ind ulgence, given, that is, that the Anglican tradition has had no truck with indulgences these last five hundred years.

How you do Pilgrimage
Moving on to complete the first of my objectives in this talk, I shall attempt to provide a glimpse of how you do pilgrimage. Here I have nothing startling or original to say: the model for pilgrimage is clearly the journey of the People of God towards the Promised Land, the subject of the Book of Exodus. That journey has been seen as a paradigm of the life of the Covenant people, more or less ever since it took place. Certainly the psalms are full of it, and the prophets resound with it. The Babylonian Captivity is another Egypt, filled with longings for another Exodus. The Christian story has been enriched by it: the journey of the baptised Christian towards the true homeland has been seen as a Pilgrim's Progress not just by John Bunyan. St Bernard of Cluny, in the famous hymn of the twelfth century, says

O sweet and blessed country,
Shall I ever see thy face? 1

A little earlier, Peter Abelard says:

We for that country must yearn and must sigh,
Seeking Jerusalem, dear native land,
Through our long exile on Babylon's strand. 2

And if we want convincing that this is not also a more recent sentiment, suffice it to say that J M Neale thought both hymns worth translating.

But what is fascinating is that, whereas the Catholic focus is on where we are heading for on pilgrimage - the sweet and blessed country, Jerusalem our dear native land - ('native', notice - it is where we are born), the Jewish focus is on where we have escaped from.It is the Book of Exodus not the Book of Ingress. 'When Israel came out of Egypt', sings the psalm, not 'When Israel crossed the Jordan'. Pilgrimage, in that Jewish sense, is a journey of some arduousness, away from what is known and what is known to be enslaving, towards something which is scarcely known but which is beyond all description. Something similar is there in the evangelical tradition, where the reference is more often to what happened for me on the cross - the point of slavery and death - rather than what will happen to me when I take my place at the banquet. Either way, looking backwards or forwards, there is an intense preoccupation with the journey, as well as with where one has escaped from and that for which one is heading. So pilgrimage is about the journey, about the going.

Unsurprisingly we find extremely arduous journeys in the tradition: going on foot to Jerusalem in the Middle Ages, travelling on the Pilgrim's Way to Santiago de Compostela. However what has now been lost, largely, is that sense of the arduous journey - which is at the heart of pilgrimage. Sarah Boss talks about this in her essay on Sacred Space: 3 'the very word "travel" is cognate with the word "travail",' she says, 4 as she tells us about mountain shrines in Núria and Vassivière, until modern times unreachable in winter months. There was no route to Composela which was not arduous and, as Boss describes, the full route led to Finisterra on the Atlantic Coast, which led one modern pilgrim to understand entirely the quintessential arduousness of pilgrimage. 5

Arduousness is very much still there in secular culture.Those who sail round the world single-handed, climb Everest, go on space-flights, and so forth, are the inheritors, in some ways of the pilgrim tradition. If you doubt that, then ask whether, say, Christopher Columbus would have been able to distinguish between pilgrimage and adventure. I am sure, in that day and age, he would have seen his journey as having ingredients of both. (I am not sure I know enough about Columbus to make this point authoritatively but what I sense is the mediaeval pilgrimage tradition merging into the adventurousness and inquisitiveness of Renaissance Man. And if it isn't there in Columbus then it is certainly there in the missionaries whose work began in earnest in that era. One of the charming, and more authentic, aspects of the Walsingham pilgrimages is that our cross country journeys to North Norfolk are often so long and tiresome. I'm sure that those returning from Lourdes, whose flight was delayed at the last minute for the best part of a day, and who arrived back in England during the night rather than, as they expected, midday, were, amidst the frustration, being given an extra glimpse of pilgrimage and an extra blessing. There needs to be something of the howling wilderness in it, even if, as in my case, the 'howling' is more about interior anxiety than about exterior obstacles. (I certainly couldn't pretend that the suite I occupied in the four-star Hotel Eliseo was in any sense 'the howling wilderness').

The Events of the Lourdes Pilgrimage
I had arrived in Lourdes - as, no doubt, others on the Society of Mary Pilgrimage had - with a shopping list of sick people. The local vicar - an open evangelical - had given me, with typical openness, a list of the sick of the parish. My driver, Alan, drove the Bishop of Richborough and me to Lourdes whilst his own father was at a clinic in Mexico seeking a cure to an inoperable cancer. So I was duly remembering Ken. Then - and most pressing of all for me - was the case of John, a parish priest in his forties, and Hilary, a bishop's wife, both of whom were suffering from cancer, possibly terminally. And, as on every priest's list, there was a whole collection of names, some known personally to me, others not, for whom I am asked to pray. This was what I had to do - pray for these people - I knew when I arrived.

What I had not bargained for was how busy the programme would be.I have mentioned the opening Mass on Monday in the Upper Basilica followed by the Procession to the Grotto. On the first full day, Tuesday, there was Morning Prayer, outdoor Stations of the Cross on the hillside, a 5pm Sung Mass in the Rosary Basilica - the main, ground floor church - and, in the evening, a Torchlight Procession in which, movingly, the Guardians of the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, accompanied her image, carried alongside that of Our Lady of Lourdes. That left the afternoon for our devotions - and we were encouraged to make the Jubilee Way, visiting each of the local Bernadette sites, walking along the special blue line showing the way. This proved hopeless. One of the sites - the parish church - was fully occupied in funeral liturgy, to the exclusion of pilgrims. Other sites drew huge queues. Having acquired our first sticker at the Grotto on the Monday night, those of us who were fortunate enough to be able to score another sticker on the Tuesday afternoon were doing well but, even for us, the Jubilee Way was only half complete and there would not be another gap in the programme. Visitors to Lourdes in this Jubilee Year are expected to number eight million, up from the normal six million. For comparison's sake, that is about a quarter of the number of visitors that the casinos and other tourist attractions of Las Vegas draws each year - 75% of the 35 million annual visitors to Las Vegas are for what are euphemistically called 'the leisure industry', 25% for trade fairs. However much religion is big business, mammon is bigger business.

If Tuesday 23rd September was busy, Wednesday 24th September was even busier.We began with the International Mass of the Solemnity of Our Lady of Walsingham in the Underground Basilica of St Pius X. The Principal Celebrant was Cardinal Kasper and the Archbishop of Canterbury was the preacher. Seeing them walk in together at the end of the vast procession was a moving reminder of what might have been - what should have been - what, in the mysterious Providence of God, might still become - the reconciliation of Anglicans, some Anglicans at least, with the Holy See. Almost as moving was the inclusion of Anglican bishops, in choir dress, in the procession. We bishops were invited to kiss the altar and some of us to asperge the pilgrims at the mass. I had a quarter of the congregation of 16,000 to cover and, particularly significant for me, the bucket bearer, whose name was also Andrew, was a man of my own age who fifty years ago had grown up with me at Worksop Priory. No less moving was the involvement of one of our own deacons in the liturgy - and later on in the day at Benediction. Here indeed was an ecumenical vision, a glimpse of what Christ prayed for. I shall have more to say about this in a moment or two. Meanwhile here, in the international assembly, a gathering of all nations, was a glimpse of the heavenly banquet, the peace and unity of the kingdom for which we pray at every mass.

Later in the day there would be an ecumenical conference, at which I rather noisily and noticeably fell asleep several times, a Blessed Sacrament Procession, again with Cardinal Kasper and Archbishop Williams side by side, a Pilgrimage Reception and an evening meal out at Bartres, the village where Bernadette worked as a shepherdess.Given that we would be on our return journey on Friday morning, that left Thursday for uncompleted tasks. Having elected to go on the coach trip to the Marian shrine at Bétharram on Thursday afternoon, I had to go AWOL on Thursday morning - missing the Liturgy of Reconciliation and Devotion at the Grotto - simply to gain my stickers and complete the Jubilee Way. That was a difficult decision. No less difficult was deciding on Thursday evening not to take part again in the Torchlight Procession but to use the time to go to the Grotto to light candles and pray for my shopping list. Both decisions were blessed: the morning gave me the space I needed to be there journeying on my own, and I shall always remember the Gregorian chant at the Mass in the Parish Church I stumbled upon, as I finally gained access there. A group of Benedictine monks - presumably visitors - were singing their capitular mass. I shall remember too chatting with Croatians as I queued to see 'the Cachot', the house in Lourdes where Bernadette lived with her parents. Catching up on the intercession in the evening, it was, of course, extremely helpful that the Rosary of the Torchlight Procession was going on in the background, as I made my way to the Grotto and said my prayers, touching the very rock where Mary Immaculate appeared, and on the very spot where the well of healing water was discovered. One of my opportunities, travelling by car, was to bring a gallon of water home: those who were travelling by air are allowed very small quantities indeed and I have been able to help the Milton Keynes Ebbsfleet clergy at least.

Other Marian Encounters
On the way to Lourdes, the Bishop of Richborough and I stopped at Rocamadour, north of Toulouse. And, as I have already mentioned, we visited Bétharram whilst we were in Lourdes. On the way home we called at Chartres and Rouen. Each of these holy places deserves its own talk, not least because they point to much more ancient traditions than Lourdes, but here we have time for only a brief word about each and a short reflection on their cumulative effect on the pilgrim. The legend of Rocamadour begins with the discovery in 1166 of the body of St Amadour, traditionally identified as a servant of the Holy Family, and as Zaccheus of the Gospel and husband of Veronica. The shrine reached its apogee in the fifteenth century, when the magnificent shrine church was completed, perched halfway up a cliff, 216 steps up from the lower town. This spectacular site drew kings and saints, and the cult of the Black Madonna of Rocamadour flourished, based on a statue made by St Amadour in his hermitage. At first it seems to be a place where credulity triumphs: the legends, after all, are extraordinarily implausible to modern ears. And yet it is the place where the modern French composer, Francois Poulenc, was converted, a numinous place, then, of immense spiritual power.

Bétharram is somewhat later, a seventeenth century building in the Spanish Baroque style, on a fourteenth century site destroyed by the Huguenots. For the modern pilgrim, the foundational story of Bétharram is again much less compelling than the story of Lourdes, and yet, ironically, Bernadette was sent here by the Bishop in 1858 to meet St Michel Garicoits, founder of the Order of the Sacré-Coeur of Bétharram who still run the sanctuary. It seemed that this young girl, with her tall story, needed to be subjected to the wise judgment of an authentic servant of the cult of Mary.

Chartres and Rouen, on our return journey, both have cathedrals dedicated to Notre-Dame. Our Lady, Mother of Christians, is, of course, an archetype of the Church, and nothing could be more appropriate than for a cathedral of Our Lady to be the Mother Church of the diocese. But Chartres, at least, offers more than this. The relic of the Sancta Camisia, locked away except for a fragment in a nineteenth century reliquary, is thought to be the cloak of Mary. Some medieval sources say that it was worn at the Annunciation, others that it was worn at the birth of Christ. The camisia was given by the Empress Irene of Byzantium to Charles the Bald, King of the Franks, in 876. Why Chartres? Notre-Dame de Paris was not yet built. Surviving many fires at Chartres unharmed, the Sancta Camisia was taken as a sign that a new and beautiful cathedral should be built to honour the Virgin Mother.

These 'Marian Encounters' are at places where the anthropologist would say that 'the veil between heaven and earth is slightly pulled aside, so that the pilgrim gains a little glimpse of the Other World, the Heavenly Realm'. 6 Quite often the surroundings - the cliff at Rocamadour, the beautiful valley at Bétharram, the flat landscape on which the cathedral Chartres seems to sail like a huge ship on the sea, the grandeur of Rouen, majestic amidst a great city - are already preparing one to see beyond the veil. The Bishop of Richborough and I, in some ways, went indeed beyond the veil, by gaining access to the Sancta Camisia, locked away behind the High Altar in Chartres. Were we stretching into eternity by touching this ancient relic? What was - and is - clear is that the cumulative Marian devotion of the journey, and sense of piety, exceeded, and ultimately did not depend upon, the various folk fables or legends which made these shrines what they were and are. Which is not to say that Lourdes is based on a fable or legend: the then Bishop of Tarbes, Monsignor Laurence, has been succeeded by a Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, Monsignor Perrier, and Holy Church has lent her authority to the miracles of Lourdes as a testimony to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin.

Anglo-Catholics and the Pilgrimage to Church Unity
The most painful part of the pilgrimage, it has to be said, was the feeling of praying apart from Peter. We were a surreal Anglican delegation: all the Church of England bishops were from the Catholic tradition, nearly all 'traditionalists,' in the usual sense of that word; nearly all the pilgrims, it seemed, were 'traditionalists,' even those from parishes in the West and South-West that apparently had not heard of the Bishop of Ebbsfleet! Cardinal Kasper must have been aware that most Anglicans would not come on pilgrimage to Lourdes on principle and that, of those who would, most Anglicans would be happier if women clergy had played a full part. He must have been aware too that even those of us who, as Anglicans, accept the doctrine of the Immaculate Conceptions do so not because that is what our church teaches us but because it is what the Church - to which we do not fully belong - teaches us. Just over fifteen years ago - and certainly thirty years ago - it all felt very different. The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) was encouraging heady optimism and, at last, it felt as though there was general convergence. It seemed likely, as recently as 1982, when the Pope came to England, that the Anglican and Roman Catholic traditions would unite before the millennium.

Nevertheless a pilgrimage of 500 people, ten of whom were Church of England bishops and one of whom was the Archbishop of Canterbury, was something of a milestone in the larger pilgrimage, the People of God in search of God's Kingdom. I was reminded of the Walsingham Festival in York Minster a year or two ago: the House of God, on that occasion, was overflowing with people of what is wretchedly known as 'both integrities' 7 and, for a moment, we could see what it might mean to belong to one another once more. That was certainly the experience of the Society of Mary Pilgrimage to Lourdes: drawn by Mary into faithful and obedient discipleship, Catholics and Anglicans could walk and worship together. Nonetheless, honesty requires that it be seen and known to be a flashback to an earlier vision and that more radical steps will be needed by Anglo-Catholics if we are to recover the impetus and urgency of the ecumenical quest. Flashback to an earlier vision it may be - that is what all reflections are, not least these 'Reflections on an Ecumenical Pilgrimage to Lourdes' - but flashbacks and reflections can also give a glimpse of what might be. Will the day come when those bishops, priests, deacons and lay people, presently apart from Peter, gather with the Church throughout the world and throughout time, not only to stand at the Lord's table but to share in his banquet?

Andrew Burnham, Bishop of Ebbsfleet
Dry Sandford, 12th November 2008, St Josaphat

1 Urbs Sion aurea ('Jerusalem the Golden', English Hymnal 412)
2 O quanta qualia sunt illa Sabbata ('O what their joy and their glory must be', English Hymnal 465)
3 Sarah Jane Boss, 'Jerusalem, Dwelling of the Lord: Marian Pilgrimage and its Destination' in eds. P and J North, Sacred Space, House of God, Gate of Heaven, Continuum, 2007.
4 Sarah Boss, op. cit., p. 136
5 Sarah Boss, op. cit., p. 148
6 Sarah Boss, op. cit., p 142, is referring to the work of V Turner and E Turner, in Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, OUP, 1978, pp 1-39.
7 that is, accepting and not accepting women's ordination to the priesthood and episcopate.