Catholic Priesthood: A Call to the Courage of Christ

Biretta tip to Philip Andrews. This is a great video put together by a seminarian from the Southwark diocese.

A Wonderful Year For Catholics and Personally for Me

What a tremendous year it has been for the Church and for me and my family personally. As we come to the last day of the Christmas octave, I have so much to be grateful for. Most of all the gift of the Incarnation and all the blessings the Christ-child brings to me and my family; leaving Protestantism behind for good and being united to the Catholic Church at the beginning of this past summer; experiencing my prayers being answered that were prayed at the tomb of St. Peter in Rome during Easter week; seeing the prayer of Jesus from John 17 being made real by the Holy Father as he extends his hand of welcome to Anglicans and his continued work towards reunion with the East; giving the space to watch and pray now as we head into 2010 to see what the future holds for me and my family as we further discover God's will for our lives.

Catechesis: “Mary, the all-holy ever-virgin Mother of God, is the masterwork of the mission of the Son and the Spirit in the fullness of time. For the first time in the plan of salvation and because his Spirit had prepared her, the Father found the dwelling place where his Son and his Spirit could dwell among men. In this sense the Church's Tradition has often read the most beautiful texts on wisdom in relation to Mary. Mary is acclaimed and represented in the liturgy as the ‘Seat of Wisdom’” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 721). May she pray for us as we head into the New Year with hope and joy as well as thanksgiving for the year just celebrated!

There has been much pain in 2009 around the world but there has been so much to give thanks for as well. I hope all readers have a blessed New Year of prosperity and good health! Please pray for me as I do for you!

Priesthood, Liturgy and Beauty

One of my suggested readings by my spiritual director at our last meeting was to read through Pope Benedict XVI's book Priests of Jesus Christ. It is a book that I am not reading for academic formation but one of personal formation as I pray about God's vocational call upon my life. I am reading the book and praying and that is all that I am really doing with it at this time. It is reading with reflective intentions and examines me deeply within so as to transform me more and more into the image of Christ no matter what God intends for my future service. The core of his messages to priests are applicable to the laity in many ways as well. One such point is the thinking about how liturgy connects us to the infinite beauty when it is executed beautifully. In his homily given at the celebration of vespers with priests, religious, seminarians and deacons at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2008, Pope Benedict reminded his audience that

God's Word, the Eternal Word, who was with him from the beginning, was born of a woman, born a subject of the law, in order to redeem the subjects of the law, 'to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons'. The Son of God took flesh in the womb of a woman, a virgin. Your cathedral is a living hymn of stone and light in praise of that act, unique in the annals of human history: the eternal Word of God entering our history in the fullness of time to redeem us by his self-offering in the sacrifice of the Cross. Our earthly liturgies, entirely ordered to the celebration of this unique act within history, will never fully express its infinite meaning. Certainly, the beauty of our celebrations can never be sufficiently cultivated, fostered and refined, for nothing can be too beautiful for God, who is himself infinite Beauty. Yet our earthly liturgies will never be more than a pale reflection of the liturgy celebrated in the Jerusalem on high, the goal of our pilgrimage on earth. May our own celebrations nonetheless resemble that liturgy as closely as possible and grant us a foretaste of it!

This is exactly right I think. One of the ways that liturgy loses its beauty is when the priest allows his own personality and ego to get into the way of the celebration. Another is when he lacks in liturgical celebration via a lack of preparation and simply 'wings' it. Another is a lack of gesturing and standing at the altar as if he were leaning against the bar ordering a pint. Liturgy is to be the drama of all that happens above and what happens above and below when it is executed in the beauty of holiness changes history and the world. This is true every time it is enacted whether we see it and experience it or not in our lifetimes. So, may we all give ourselves more faithfully to making the liturgy of the Mass the most beautiful experience on earth that we might taste and see the goodness of the Lord!

What Are Readers Reading?

I am interested to know what readers of the blog are presently reading or about to read due to Christmas books received this year. Let us know what is a good read or not so good a read that you may have recently put your hands on. This way, everyone can perhaps improve their personal libraries with any extra book money received at Christmas. Book lists can range in anything from theology to good novels or biographies. Forward this post to others who may not read the blog and get them to leave their list of books as well. Thanks and let us remember to pray to end abortions and all Christian suffering throughout the world on the Feast of Holy Innocents!

Urbi et Orbi: Pope Benedict XVI Christmas 2009

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Rome and throughout the world,
and all men and women, whom the Lord loves!

“Lux fulgebit hodie super nos,
quia natus est nobis Dominus.
A light will shine on us this day,
the Lord is born for us”
(Roman Missal, Christmas, Entrance Antiphon for the Mass at Dawn)

The liturgy of the Mass at Dawn reminded us that the night is now past, the day has begun; the light radiating from the cave of Bethlehem shines upon us.

The Bible and the Liturgy do not, however, speak to us about a natural light, but a different, special light, which is somehow directed to and focused upon “us”, the same “us” for whom the Child of Bethlehem “is born”. This “us” is the Church, the great universal family of those who believe in Christ, who have awaited in hope the new birth of the Saviour, and who today celebrate in mystery the perennial significance of this event.

At first, beside the manger in Bethlehem, that “us” was almost imperceptible to human eyes. As the Gospel of Saint Luke recounts, it included, in addition to Mary and Joseph, a few lowly shepherds who came to the cave after hearing the message of the Angels. The light of that first Christmas was like a fire kindled in the night. All about there was darkness, while in the cave there shone the true light “that enlightens every man” (Jn 1:9). And yet all this took place in simplicity and hiddenness, in the way that God works in all of salvation history. God loves to light little lights, so as then to illuminate vast spaces. Truth, and Love, which are its content, are kindled wherever the light is welcomed; they then radiate in concentric circles, as if by contact, in the hearts and minds of all those who, by opening themselves freely to its splendour, themselves become sources of light. Such is the history of the Church: she began her journey in the lowly cave of Bethlehem, and down the centuries she has become a People and a source of light for humanity. Today too, in those who encounter that Child, God still kindles fires in the night of the world, calling men and women everywhere to acknowledge in Jesus the “sign” of his saving and liberating presence and to extend the “us” of those who believe in Christ to the whole of mankind.

Wherever there is an “us” which welcomes God’s love, there the light of Christ shines forth, even in the most difficult situations. The Church, like the Virgin Mary, offers the world Jesus, the Son, whom she herself has received as a gift, the One who came to set mankind free from the slavery of sin. Like Mary, the Church does not fear, for that Child is her strength. But she does not keep him for herself: she offers him to all those who seek him with a sincere heart, to the earth’s lowly and afflicted, to the victims of violence, and to all who yearn for peace. Today too, on behalf of a human family profoundly affected by a grave financial crisis, yet even more by a moral crisis, and by the painful wounds of wars and conflicts, the Church, in faithful solidarity with mankind, repeats with the shepherds: “Let us go to Bethlehem” (Lk 2:15), for there we shall find our hope.

The “us” of the Church is alive in the place where Jesus was born, in the Holy Land, inviting its people to abandon every logic of violence and vengeance, and to engage with renewed vigour and generosity in the process which leads to peaceful coexistence. The “us” of the Church is present in the other countries of the Middle East. How can we forget the troubled situation in Iraq and the “little flock” of Christians which lives in the region? At times it is subject to violence and injustice, but it remains determined to make its own contribution to the building of a society opposed to the logic of conflict and the rejection of one’s neighbour. The “us” of the Church is active in Sri Lanka, in the Korean peninsula and in the Philippines, as well as in the other countries of Asia, as a leaven of reconciliation and peace. On the continent of Africa she does not cease to lift her voice to God, imploring an end to every injustice in the Democratic Republic of Congo; she invites the citizens of Guinea and Niger to respect for the rights of every person and to dialogue; she begs those of Madagascar to overcome their internal divisions and to be mutually accepting; and she reminds all men and women that they are called to hope, despite the tragedies, trials and difficulties which still afflict them. In Europe and North America, the “us” of the Church urges people to leave behind the selfish and technicist mentality, to advance the common good and to show respect for the persons who are most defenceless, starting with the unborn. In Honduras she is assisting in process of rebuilding institutions; throughout Latin America, the “us” of the Church is a source of identity, a fullness of truth and of charity which no ideology can replace, a summons to respect for the inalienable rights of each person and his or her integral development, a proclamation of justice and fraternity, a source of unity.

In fidelity to the mandate of her Founder, the Church shows solidarity with the victims of natural disasters and poverty, even within opulent societies. In the face of the exodus of all those who migrate from their homelands and are driven away by hunger, intolerance or environmental degradation, the Church is a presence calling others to an attitude of acceptance and welcome. In a word, the Church everywhere proclaims the Gospel of Christ, despite persecutions, discriminations, attacks and at times hostile indifference. These, in fact, enable her to share the lot of her Master and Lord.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, how great a gift it is to be part of a communion which is open to everyone! It is the communion of the Most Holy Trinity, from whose heart Emmanuel, Jesus, “God with us”, came into the world. Like the shepherds of Bethlehem, let us contemplate, filled with wonder and gratitude, this mystery of love and light! Happy Christmas to all!

Former Anglican, Father John Jay Hughes, Recounts the Joy of Priesthood

I have been in a brief email discussion this evening with Father Hughes and it is always a delight to speak with such a fine holy priest. His prayers for me mean more than he'll ever know. I passed on his article that was printed in Zenit on 18 December. I reproduce it here for your edification and an opportunity to give God thanks for faithful priests who serve his Church.

DEC. 18, 2009 (Zenit.org).- "Priests who like being priests are among the happiest men in the world." Those words by the Chicago priest and sociologist, Father Andrew Greeley, lifted me out of my chair when I read them a few years ago. "Andy, you're right," I e-mailed him. "I can confirm that from my own experience."The son and grandson of priests in the Episcopal Church, I grew up in a world in which public worship and private prayer were as much a part of daily life as eating and sleeping. From age nine I was a choirboy at New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine, then a kind of American version of Canterbury Cathedral or York Minster in England. We sang the psalms at daily Evensong (Vespers), and on Sundays anthems and the musical portions of the Eucharistic liturgy. I loved it.

From age 12 I knew that I wanted to be a priest. Required when I went away to boarding school to write an essay on, "What I expect to be doing in 20 years," I wrote about serving as a missionary priest in Africa. This idea, to which I had previously devoted not a moment's thought, must have come from the school chaplain, a priest of the Anglican Order of the Holy Cross, which had a mission in Liberia.

Every time I served Mass I thought: "One day I'll stand there. I'll wear those vestments. I'll say those words." The idea of a missionary vocation soon faded. But priesthood never. I went straight toward that goal, like a steel needle to a magnet, until, 12 years later, I achieved it. Following my first Mass on April 4, 1954, I was so happy that I recited the whole of the "Te Deum" aloud in the sacristy.

During six happy years of parish ministry, I found priesthood all that I had hoped for, and more. My personal religion was "Catholicism without the Pope." My studies had taught me that the modern papal claims to universal jurisdiction and infallibility were illegitimate additions to the faith of the ancient Catholic Church. Popular Catholic tracts claiming that the Pope was some kind of oracle "who gives us the answer to every question" (a caricature of authentic Catholic belief) confirmed my rejection of papal infallibility, so defined. During those years I visited countless Catholic churches on both sides of the Atlantic. I found the silent and rushed Masses, the Latin (when you could hear it) so gabbled and garbled that it might have been Chinese, an off-putting comedown from the reverent Anglican liturgy which I loved, with full congregational participation, including fervent hymn singing which I continue to miss to this day.

I always realized that Anglicanism was a theological house of cards. But it was my house. It was where the Lord had put me. You don't leave the place God has assigned you without very serious reasons. Doing so became a possibility only when I discovered, during a lengthy European trip in 1959, that the Catholic Church had a different face from the one familiar to me in the United States. This launched me on a period of agonized study and reflection, accompanied by lengthy daily prayer. For close to a year the questions of the Church, and of my conscientious duty, were not out of my mind for two waking hours together.

My final decision, at Easter 1960, to leave the Anglican Church, which I loved (it had taken me from the font to the altar), and enter an alien world, which still had little outward appeal to me, was the hardest thing I have ever done. Looking back years later (but only then), I recognized that it was the best thing I have ever done.

I became a priest for one simple reason: so that I could celebrate Mass. Doing so was wonderful the first time I did it, almost 56 years ago. It is, if possible, even more wonderful today. Celebrating Mass and feeding God's holy people with the bread of life is a privilege beyond any man's deserving. To prepare, it has been my practice for years to spend a half-hour waiting in silence on the Lord who told Moses at the burning bush: "Put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground" (Exodus 3:5).

Priesthood has other rewards as well. There is the joy of preaching the Gospel: feeding God's people from the table of his word. An evangelical hymn defines the preacher's task thus: "Tell me the old, old, story / Of Jesus and his love." John's Gospel says it more briefly, in words once posted inside pulpits for the preacher to see: "Sir, we would like to see Jesus" (John 12:21). His story, and Jesus' words, uphold us when we are down, rebuke us when we go astray, and fill our mouths with laughter and our tongues with joy (to use the Psalmist's words) when the sunshine of God's love shines upon us.

There is also the joy of pastoral ministry. Like priests everywhere, I have witnessed miracles of God's grace in the people we serve. Not 10 years ago a man came into my confessional bruised and bloodied from a failed marriage. Then one of our CEO Catholics (Christmas-and-Easter only), he is today a daily communicant, and a frequent penitent. Every priest has stories like that, many of them more dramatic.

Have every one of my almost 56 years of priesthood been happy? Of course not. That does not happen in any life. A widow spoke for married people when she told me: "Father, when you walk up to the altar on your wedding day, you don't see the Stations of the Cross."

Priesthood has brought me suffering as well as joy. For seven years I was without assignment and literally unemployed. Subject to a German bishop, but resident in St. Louis, I was like an army officer who has got detached from his regiment. The clerical system didn’t know what to do with me. The Church for which I had sacrificed everything seemed not to want me. I survived only by prayer. To anyone who asks, however, whether I have ever regretted my decision for priesthood, I answer honestly and at once: Never, not one single day.

Writing in April 2005 to my former teacher during my doctoral studies in Münster/Germany, Joseph Ratzinger, to express my joy at his election as Pope, and assure him of my prayers, I closed the letter, "In the joy of our common priesthood." What more can one say than that? From age 12, priesthood has been all I ever wanted. If I were to die tonight, I would die a happy man.

A Christmas Photo

A Very Happy Christmas to All of My Faithful Readers at the Blog

We Remain the Church of Tradition

In the Catholic Herald today, is a wonderful exchange going on between author Moyra Doorly and Fr. Aidan Nichols. I recommend the entire post to you and will offer a bit of words from Fr. Nichols below. It is really a fantastic piece and I was glad to see Fr. Nichols' hopes for an added Anglican Catholic tradition to the richly varied Catholic Church. Give your thoughts in comment.

It is part of the richness of Catholicism - of the "Catholic tradition" - that it luxuriates in such variety. Not for nothing are we a Church made up of numerous ritual churches, Eastern and Western, with which (I hope) a church of Anglican Catholic tradition will one day be numbered. To limit the Catholic Church to those ways of presenting Tradition typical of a Scholastically oriented Latin Catholicism in the middle decades of the 20th century cannot be right. This was Archbishop Lefebvre's mistake.

But to belong to so richly varied a Church - varying in the ways in which it presents Tradition, through time and across space - comes with a price attached. There must be unceasing vigilance to ensure that "traditions" (lower-case "t") - whether ancient and inherited, or emerging and thus relatively novel - genuinely permit "Tradition" (upper-case "T") to make its appearance, really allow Tradition to enter minds and hearts. The tail must not wag the dog, the medium control the message. And this is where Archbishop Lefebvre was exactly right. If Tradition is Revelation itself as transmitted in the Church (and in that sense it may be said to include Scripture, just as in another sense it can be described as complementing it), then the continuance of Christian truth turns crucially on the authenticity of the manner in which this process of transmission is carried out. That is why the Pope and bishops, as, by Christ's will and determination, the chief witnesses to Tradition have a duty to "guard the deposit".

Was the deposit guarded at the Second Vatican Council? This will need to be the subject, Moyra, of another exchange. For the moment, it will have to suffice to say that the doctrinal Modernism combated by Pope St Pius X seems to me to play no role at all in the documents of the Second Vatican Council. The place to find it, were it to exist, would undoubtedly be the Council's Dogmatic Constitution on Revelation, Dei Verbum. In speaking of how "the tradition which comes from the apostles develops in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit", Dei Verbum explains such development (para. 8) as "a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down". There is here accretion in understanding through - we are told - contemplative study (on the model of Our Lady at Nazareth) and mystical insight, and this finds sanction in the preaching of those who have received the "sure gift of truth" (a quotation from the second century St Irenaeus) in episcopal consecration. There is no suggestion in this text of accretion in the deposit itself. I see nothing here remotely reminiscent of Pascendi, no bubbling up from the depths of the collective subconscious, no insinuation that doctrines are only symbols of truth rather than triumphant acquisitions of truth. I find no spirit of accommodation to what Jones, or the man on the Clapham omnibus, can swallow.

That in the situation of anomie in the still not fully resolved crisis in our Church episcopal guardianship has often been lacking, I have no doubt. Nor do I think Neo-Modernism is merely a chimera. But I am equally convinced that the Church of the post-conciliar popes remains the Church of Tradition. What we need now is to recover, for the sake of their great serviceableness, many of the venerable traditions - conceptual, liturgical, and the rest - in which Tradition has been presented. I am speaking of their serviceableness to a Gospel which must, by ever-new inventiveness, be preached to unbelievers in the world of today. This was what was done by the scribe of the Gospels whom the Lord commended for bringing from his treasure chest things both old and new.

Persecution on Our Own Island

I posted a story below on Iraq and how Christians there are not able to publicly celebrate Christmas. That should cause each and every one of us to pause, give thanks, and pray for those who suffer at such religious oppression. Then, opening my Christmas edition of the Catholic Herald to read it this morning I came to this story "Get ready to be sued."

A government Minister has predicted that the Equality Bill will create a torrent of hostile legal actions against the Church.

Michael Foster, the Minister for Equalities, admitted that the legislation would open the floodgates to a tide of sexual and religious discrimination cases. He advised the Church to start preparing to defend itself in the court from such people as ideological secularists who seek to squeeze religion from the public sphere.

“Both sides [the Church and the secularists] need to be lining up [their lawyers] by now,” he told journalists. “Government is used to the fact that its legislation should be challenged. People feel very strongly about these issues. We can’t do anything about this and we wouldn’t want to.”

He added: “I would like to see the churches being more bold. I would like to see the faith groups stand up and be counted for what they think and to challenge secularism, if that’s what they want to challenge. The secularists should have the right to challenge the Church and if the Church’s argument is good enough – which I believe it is – then the Church should win through.”

Christians Suffering in Iraq: A Christmas Not Celebrated

Read the story here. It is very sad indeed and to think how we take advantage of our freedoms to celebrate and secularists get offended at Christian freedoms. Join me in praying for these faithful brethren in Iraq who cannot even have the joy of welcoming the Christ-child. Kyrie eleison!

Christians in Iraq are preparing for a muted holiday season, with one bishop in the southern city of Basra calling for a ban on public festivities while other congregations across the country have canceled services and cautioned worshipers to keep their celebrations private.

The Chaldean bishop of Basra, Imad al-Banna, is asking Christians "not to display their joy, not to publicly celebrate the feast of Nativity" to avoid offending Iraq's Shiite community, whose Ashura holiday falls two days after Christmas this year.

According to Louis Sako, chief archbishop of Kirkuk for the Chaldean Christians, a Catholic sect that originated in Iraq, none of the northern archdiocese's nine churches has scheduled a Christmas Mass this year.

"This is the first time we have had to cancel our celebrations," he said.

Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Iraq's Christian minority has faced constant persecution, including dozens of church bombings, executions, kidnappings and forced expulsions, devastating some communities and reducing the overall Christian population by at least 25 percent.

Just last week, a double car bombing at a church in Mosul killed four people and injured 40.

This year, with Christmas falling so close to Ashura, church officials in Baghdad and other cities say they have received warnings of attacks, forcing them to limit services to indoors and caution followers to keep family gatherings discreet.

"We are in solidarity with the people in Basra," said Abdel Ahad, pastor of Baghdad's Syrian Catholic Church. "We are afraid. We need to stop the bloodshed. We are going to do our prayers, but we will not celebrate."

O Emmanuel

O Rex Gentium

Eucharist and Incarnation: Thoughts from Mgr. Sokolowski

As we approach the Christmas season, I think it is important to think about our Eucharistic Feast and Transubstantiation in light of the Incarnation. Interestingly enough, this was the heart of the late Lancelot Andrewes' framework for discussing real presence. In looking through Sokolowski's book Christian Faith & Understanding: Studies on the Eucharist, Trinity and the Human Person, we find some very interesting insights into the mystery of Real Presence. I will allow his words to explain:

In the Eucharist, therefore, it is the radical worldliness of the Incarnation, its materiality, that calls for Transubstantiation in the Eucharist. It is the incarnate divinity, the word made flesh and not simply the divine nature, that is present in the Eucharist. If I may use the terms, the body of Christ, because it is material, "displaces" or "dislodges" the bread. Whatever matter may be, it takes place, it is located. Through Transubstantiation, the bodily presence of the transcendent divinity, in the person of the Son, takes its place among us in a manner that follows upon the Incarnation, and it does so by replacing the substance of bread and wine.

However, not everything of bread ceases to exist in the Eucharist. As St. Thomas says, "the accidents, which are the proper object for the senses, are genuinely there." The accidents and natural characteristics of bread are truly there; we should not think of the species of bread and wine as merely images in our minds. They are part of the world and they provide the place where Christ is present. St. Thomas says that these accidents serve as a kind of subject for the presence of Christ: "Strictly speaking, there is no subject in this change....All the same, the accidents which remain do bear a certain resemblance to a subject." The sacramental presence of the Word occurs here in this place and at this time, and it thus bears the signature of the Incarnation. The visible and tangible forms of bread and wine, the forms present to the senses, remain as they are, but the substantial form, the form present to the understanding, does not: the body of Christ is now present to the understanding, but to an understanding enlightened by faith, an intelligence guided not by vision, touch, or taste, but by hearing. We recall also that the Eucharist directs us toward the celestial liturgy and our future participation in it, where no sacramental presence, no appearance of bread and wine, will be needed, and where the same God who is now an object of faith will be present to vision. In that celestial liturgy the bread and wine are no longer required for the presence of Christ, but his human being, the fruit of the Incarnation, does remain. For our present state, however, the bread and wine are a worldly expression of the glorified body of Christ that is present to the Father, a worldly expression that we return to the Father in the Great Amen of our Eucharistic Prayer.

I would think that this is a very clear way of thinking about Transubstantiation and Incarnation and the reality of Christ's presence in the sacred gifts of bread and wine. Eucharist and Incarnation thought about in the doctrine of Transubstantiation makes the most theological sense of any other 'theory' of presence put forth by Protestants. The logic of Incarnation leads on to the doctrine of Transubstantiation and should not be seen as separate truths but are quite interrelated and should be discussed together. Maybe a good Christmas homily would be on Real Presence!

Durham UK: Recent Video by Alastair Roberts

Thanks to Alastair for shooting this wonderful video of our home city. For all the readers wondering what it looks like in Durham in the winter leading up to Christmas, here are some beautiful scenes of our home city.

Thoughts on Our Lady From Prots With an Axe to Grind

If you ever wondered what Martin Luther meant when he said, 'Every man hath a Pope in his belly,' go and see the discussions from these Protestant ministers mentioned below. They are having a debate on whether or not Mary had sexual relations with Joseph. There are a couple of writers, particularly in their comments, that may test your sanctification; but remember that it is Advent and pray! :-) On a more serious note, the hermeneutical and authority issues touching on our use of scripture and tradition come to a head in discussions like these. I must say that Bryan Cross and Taylor Marshall (US based) are giving it a go but I simply will not enter into their proof-texting schema of those prots. Well done to Bryan and Taylor for hanging in there!

Funny thing is if one reads some of their writings on typology, which I have immensely valued from (10 years ago) in my past life on my own spiritual journey, one can see the complete cafeteria approach to how typology and theology governs their hermeneutic. BEWARE fellow Catholics as some of their language on our Blessed Mother is offensive and offending. Feel free to comment here on it if you wish. What is most interesting to me is what seems to be their present obsession with all things Catholic. I guess it gives them a platform from which to prove themselves 'not guilty' from their own present troubles and accusations of having papal leanings. Now, they go overboard in order to show their 'enemies' that they are not Catholic in the 'Roman' sense but are convinced that they are the 'true' Catholic Church. Here are a few titles of their most recent attacking posts:


Mary's Unbelief

The Impending Distress

Concerning BMEV

Protestants and BMEV

More Thoughts on the BMEV

Rome, Why Bother

Have fun!!!!!!

A Christmas Message from Our Archbishop

Christmas message from Archbishop Vincent Nichols from Catholic Westminster on Vimeo.

Six Reasons for not Forgetting Mary: Ratzinger Report

First point: "When one recognizes the place assigned to Mary by dogma and tradition, one is solidly rooted in authentic christology. (According to Vatican II: 'Devoutly meditating on her and contemplating her in the light of the Word made man, the Church reverently penetrates more deeply into the great mystery of the Incarnation and becomes more and more like her spouse,' Lumen Gentium, no. 65). It is, moreover in direct service to faith in Christ—not, therefore, primarily out of devotion to the Mother—that the Church has proclaimed her Marian dogmas: first that of her perpetual virginity and divine motherhood and then, after a long period of maturation and reflection, those of her Immaculate Conception and bodily Assumption into heavenly glory. These dogmas protect the original faith in Christ as true God and true man: two natures in a single Person. They also secure the indispensable eschatological tension by pointing to Mary's Assumption as the immortal destiny that awaits us all. And they also protect the faith—threatened today—in God the Creator, who (and this, among other things, is the meaning of the truth of the perpetual virginity of Mary, more than ever not understood today) can freely intervene also in matter. Finally, Mary, as the Council recalls: 'having entered deeply into the history of salvation, ... in a way unites in her person and reechoes the most important mysteries of the Faith'" (Lumen Gentium, no. 65).

This first point is followed by a second: "The mariology of the Church comprises the right relationship, the necessary integration between Scripture and tradition. The four Marian dogmas have their clear foundation in sacred Scripture. But it is there like a seed that grows and bears fruit in the life of tradition just as it finds expression in the liturgy, in the perception of the believing people and in the reflection of theology guided by the Magisterium."

Third point: "In her very person as a Jewish girl become the mother of the Messiah, Mary binds together, in a living and indissoluble way, the old and the new People of God, Israel and Christianity, synagogue and church. She is, as it were, the connecting link without which the Faith (as is happening today) runs the risk of losing its balance by either forsaking the New Testament for the Old or dispensing with the Old. In her, instead, we can live the unity of sacred Scripture in its entirety."

Fourth point: "The correct Marian devotion guarantees to faith the coexistence of indispensable 'reason' with the equally indispensable 'reasons of the heart,' as Pascal would say. For the Church, man is neither mere reason nor mere feeling, he is the unity of these two dimensions. The head must reflect with lucidity, but the heart must be able to feel warmth: devotion to Mary (which 'avoids every false exaggeration on the one hand, and excessive narrow-mindedness in the contemplation of the surpassing dignity of the Mother of God on the other,' as the Council urges) thus assures the faith its full human dimension."

Continuing his synthesis, Ratzinger lists a fifth point: "To use the very formulations of Vatican II, Mary is 'figure,' 'image' and 'model' of the Church. Beholding her the Church is shielded against the aforementioned masculinized model that views her as an instrument for a program of social-political action. In Mary, as figure and archetype, the Church again finds her own visage as Mother and cannot degenerate into the complexity of a party, an organization or a pressure group in the service of human interests, even the noblest. If Mary no longer finds a place in many theologies and ecclesiologies, the reason is obvious: they have reduced faith to an abstraction. And an abstraction does not need a Mother."

Here is the sixth and last point of this synthesis: "With her destiny, which is at one and the same time that of Virgin and of Mother, Mary continues to project a light upon that which the Creator intended for women in every age, ours included, or, better said, perhaps precisely in our time, in which—as we know—the very essence of femininity is threatened. Through her virginity and her motherhood, the mystery of woman receives a very lofty destiny from which she cannot be torn away. Mary undauntedly proclaims the Magnificat, but she is also the one who renders silence and seclusion fruitful. She is the one who does not fear to stand under the Cross, who is present at the birth of the Church. But she is also the one who, as the evangelist emphasizes more than once, 'keeps and ponders in her heart' that which transpires around her. As a creature of courage and of obedience she was and is still an example to which every Christian—man and woman—can and should look."

Found here.

Being Catholic and Union With Peter: Lumen Gentium

Lumen Gentium
But the college or body of bishops has no authority unless it is understood together with the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter as its head. The pope's power of primacy over all, both pastors and faithful, remains whole and intact. In virtue of his office, that is as Vicar of Christ and pastor of the whole Church, the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme and universal power over the Church. And he is always free to exercise this power. The order of bishops, which succeeds to the college of apostles and gives this apostolic body continued existence, is also the subject of supreme and full power over the universal Church, provided we understand this body together with its head the Roman Pontiff and never without this head.(27*) This power can be exercised only with the consent of the Roman Pontiff. For our Lord placed Simon alone as the rock and the bearer of the keys of the Church,(156) and made him shepherd of the whole flock;(157) it is evident, however, that the power of binding and loosing, which was given to Peter,(158) was granted also to the college of apostles, joined with their head.(159)(28*) This college, insofar as it is composed of many, expresses the variety and universality of the People of God, but insofar as it is assembled under one head, it expresses the unity of the flock of Christ. In it, the bishops, faithfully recognizing the primacy and pre-eminence of their head, exercise their own authority for the good of their own faithful, and indeed of the whole Church, the Holy Spirit supporting its organic structure and harmony with moderation. The supreme power in the universal Church, which this college enjoys, is exercised in a solemn way in an ecumenical council. A council is never ecumenical unless it is confirmed or at least accepted as such by the successor of Peter; and it is prerogative of the Roman Pontiff to convoke these councils, to preside over them and to confirm them.(29*) This same collegiate power can be exercised together with the pope by the bishops living in all parts of the world, provided that the head of the college calls them to collegiate action, or at least approves of or freely accepts the united action of the scattered bishops, so that it is thereby made a collegiate act.

Saint John of the Cross: Penetrating Darkness with Contemplation

This is precisely what the divine ray of contemplation does. In striking the soul with its divine light, it surpasses the natural light and thereby darkens and deprives a soul of all the natural affections and apprehensions it perceived by means of its natural light. It leaves a person's spiritual and natural faculties not only in darkness, but in emptiness too. Leaving the soul thus empty and dark, the ray purges and illumines it with divine spiritual light, while the soul thinks that it has no light and is in darkness, as illustrated in the case of the ray of sunlight that is invisible even in the middle of a room if the room is pure and void of any object off which the light may reflect. Yet when this spiritual light finds an object on which to shine, that is, when something is to be understood spiritually concerning perfection or imperfection, no matter how slight, or about a judgment on the truth or falsity of some matter, persons will understand more clearly than they did before they were in this darkness. And easily recognizing the imperfection that presents itself, they grow conscious of the spiritual light they possess; for the ray of light is dark and invisible until a hand or some other thing passes through it, and then both the object and the ray are recognized.

Since this light is so simple, so pure, and so general, and is unaffected and unrestricted by any particular intelligible object, natural or divine, and since the faculties are empty and annihilated of all these apprehensions, the soul with universality and great facility perceives and penetrates anything, earthly or heavenly, that is presented to it. Hence the Apostle says that the spiritual person penetrates all things, even the deep things of God [1 Cor. 2:10]. What the Holy Spirit says through the Wise Man applies to this general and simple wisdom, that is, that it touches everywhere because of its purity [Wis. 7:24], because it is not particularized by any distinct object of affection. And this is characteristic of the spirit purged and annihilated of all particular knowledge and affection: Not finding satisfaction in anything or understanding anything in particular, and remaining in its emptiness and darkness, it embraces all things with great preparedness. And St. Paul's words are verified: Nihil habentes, et omnia possidentes (Having nothing, yet possessing all things) [2 Cor. 6:10]. Such poverty of spirit deserves this blessedness.

Pope Benedict XVI on Liturgical Dancing

Dancing is not a form of expression for the Christian liturgy. In about the third century, there was an attempt in certain Gnostic-Docetic circles to introduce it into the liturgy. For these people, the Crucifixion was only an ap­pearance. Before the Passion, Christ had abandoned the body that in any case he had never really assumed. Danc­ing could take the place of the liturgy of the Cross, be­cause, after all, the Cross was only an appearance. The cultic dances of the different religions have different pur­poses—incantation, imitative magic, mystical ecstasy— none of which is compatible with the essential purpose of the liturgy of the “reasonable sacrifice”. It is totally absurd to try to make the liturgy “attractive” by introducing dancing pantomimes (wherever possible performed by professional dance troupes), which frequently (and rightly, from the professionals’ point of view) end with applause. Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. Such attrac­tiveness fades quickly—it cannot compete in the market of leisure pursuits, incorporating as it increasingly does various forms of religious titillation. I myself have expe­rienced the replacing of the penitential rite by a dance performance, which, needless to say, received a round of applause. Could there be anything farther removed from true penitence? Liturgy can only attract people when it looks, not at itself, but at God, when it allows him to enter and act. Then something truly unique happens, beyond competition, and people have a sense that more has taken place than a recreational activity. None of the Christian rites includes dancing. [The Spirit of the Liturgy, (SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000), p. 198]

Amazing: Jailed Fathers for Refusing Forced Sex Ed Classes to Their Children

See Story here.

UPDATE: Let's remember readers, there is a story about this taking place in England as well as soon as 2011. The BBC News and the Daily Mail have these stories as linked here and here.

At least eight Russo-German families in Salzkotten, Germany, have suffered heavy fines and now their fathers have been sentenced to prison, because they have refused to send their elementary school-age children to mandatory sexual education classes.

The International Human Rights Group, a Christian legal defense organization that defends religious liberty and the right to homeschool in Europe, reports that in addition to refusing to allow their children to attend sex-ed classes, the families also resisted having their children enlisted in a theatre production of "Mein Körper gehört mir" or "My Body Belongs to Me," which informs young children in how to engage in sexual intercourse.

With fines having failed to force the families into compliance, government officials have now sentenced each of the families' respective fathers to spend a brief time in prison. One father has already spent seven days in jail and was released Friday.

Instead of inflicting ordinary punitive fines on the families, the state has opted to impose a special fine called "Bussgeld," which IHRG European Director Richard Guenther explains literally means "repentance money" and is "designed to show contrition for a wrong behavior on the part of the person being fined."

The "Bussgeld" fines are significant, perhaps especially because they put the eight German families in an impossible situation: payment of the fines would imply an admission of guilt, but they believe that they have done nothing wrong.

"This type of persecution from German government officials against the Salzkotten 8 shows how committed the German system is to punishing home school families and others who do not comply with the compulsory education laws," said IHRG President Joel Thornton, "even when they are only removing their children from a single clearly objectionable class."

Thornton states that unlike much of the American education system, German officials "view the children as belonging to the State, particularly during the time they are in school" and for that reason parents' beliefs and authority over their children takes second place to the interests and mandates of the State.

Attorneys Gabriele and Armin Eckermann of the German homeschooling advocacy group SchuzH have intervened with IHRG to represent the Salzkotten 8....

The Youth Welfare Office or Jugendamt - an institution similar to Child Protective Services - acts as the government's chief intervening instrument, and when prison and fines do not bend Christian families into compliance, they recommend that these Christians lose parental custody of their children.

In one case, the Jugendamt, accompanied by 15 heavily armed police, forcibly seized 15 year-old Melissa Busekros in the dead of night from her family in 2007 against her will. However, legal intervention ensured that Busekros was legally permitted to return to her family upon turning 16.

IHRG is currently representing Hans and Petra Schmidt, who are faced with a similar situation. They are fighting the state to retain custody of their 14-year-old son Aaron, who is homeschooled. The Schmidts so far have been fined 13,000 Euros (US $19,000) in home-schooling fines and have had a lien placed on their home by the government.

Some homeschooling families have fled the country, either into neighboring Austria or abroad. German homeschooling parents Uwe and Hannelore Romeike and their family fled into the United States last November demanding asylum, a move that finally brought the attention of Germany's media to the extreme situation faced by its estimated 300-500 homeschooling families.

German Embassy Contacts:

In the United States:

German Embassy

In Canada:

German Embassy
1 Waverley Street
Ottawa, ON, K2P 0T8
Tel.: 613-232-1101 Fax: 613-594-9330
Email: germanembassyottawa@on.aibn.com

In the United Kingdom:

Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany
23 Belgrave Square
London
SW1X 8PZ
Phone: 020 7824 1300
Fax: 020 7824 1449

Living in a Radical Age of Disbelief

If anyone wants to know where the real battle is to be won take a read of the comments in the Telegraph article that speaks of Rowan Williams' challenge to the government that he describes as 'seeing people of faith as an oddity.' I sometimes wonder if all of our flopping about as fish out of water isn't coming to a head, as it presently seems that it is, so that we Christians can get our acts together and do what it is that Jesus really calls us to do by handing on the FAITH in this age of disbelief as one of the Holy Father's titles reads. Are we really not seeing what is at stake? What is happening to us Christians that we are so losing the plot? Why should we be so surprised at radical persecution of different sorts when Jesus told us to expect it if we are being faithful? Where is our culture in Great Britain? It is in a crisis catechetical!!! What sort of a catechetical crisis? The Holy Father explains:

In the technological world, which is a self-made world of man, one does not immediately encounter the Creator; rather, initially, it is only himself that man always encounters. The fundamental structure of this world is feasibility, and the manner of its certainty is the certainty of what can be calculated. Therefore even the question of salvation is not geared to God, who appears nowhere; rather, once again, it is geared to the ability of man, who wants to become the engineer of himself and of history. Accordingly, he no longer seeks his moral standards, either, in discourse about creation or the Creator, since such talk has become unfamiliar to him. For him, creation is silent with regard to morality; it speaks only the language of mathematics, of technological utility, or else it protests against its violation by man. But even then its moral exhortation remains indeterminate; ultimately, in one way or another, morality becomes identified with social acceptability, compatibility with man and his world. In this respect, morality too, has become a question of calculating the best possible arrangement of the future. All of this has fundamentally changed society. To a great extent the family, the basic sustaining social form of Christian culture, is in the process of disintegrating. When metaphysical ties do not count, other sorts of commitment can scarcely shape it in the long run. This whole world view is mirrored, on the one hand, in the new media and, on the other hand, is nourished by them. To a great extent, the representation of the world and of events in the media today makes more of an impression on people's awareness than their own experience of reality. All of this affects catechesis, which finds that its traditional social supports--family and parish--are present only in broken form. Since it can no longer connect with the experience of faith lived out in the living Church, it seems to be condemned to remain mute in an age whose language and thought feed almost exclusively by now upon experiences of the self-made world of man.

I do not know about any other reader, but this paragraph ought to be frightening to us. We have embraced method over content as the Holy Father goes on to say rather than using method to communicate the true content resulting in the haphazard and incoherency of the whole Faith. We are ranking praxis over truth and look at what it is doing to our culture! What we have is a priority of the study of man over the study of God and we are living with the consequences of a man-centred world. Experience is now the measure for one's understanding of the faith heritage we are called to pass on and is it any wonder why the government sees it as an oddity? Perhaps they haven't encountered it or experienced it! Have Catholic Christians lost confidence in the organic whole of our faith?

Now, read the commenters from this news story again and perhaps on this gaudete Sunday we can pray for a return to faithful catechesis that communicates the entirety of the faith and not piecemeal anthropologically centred experience. Perhaps our internal battles and wranglings are not allowing us to see the evangelisation that is so desperately needed in our parishes, homes, schools and communities! Mary, pray for us!!!

Apostolic Constitution and Anglican Patrimony

There is an interesting story in the BBC on Anglicans taking up the Apostolic Constitution and what patrimony is all about. It would be interesting to hear what Anglicans who are considering this opportunity think about what is in this article.

Anglican patrimony

"They become members of a Church which has the ministry of the successor of St Peter as its source of unity... unity for Catholics is central to their understanding of the Church."

Meanwhile, much still needs to be clarified about the application of the Apostolic Constitution, says Mgr Faley.

The Vatican document provides that the ordinariate, headed by an "ordinary" with similar status to a bishop, and its parishes would be separate from the ordinary Catholic dioceses and parishes - but with many links to them at national and local level.

Members of the ordinariate would retain "those aspects of the Anglican patrimony that are of particular value". Some media reports have claimed this refers to the practice of allowing priests to marry.

A substantial number of married ex-Anglican priests are already Catholic priests, having crossed to Rome in the years following the ordination of women priests by the Church of England in the 1990s.

But the overwhelming majority of Catholic priests in Britain are required to remain unmarried and celibate.

The Apostolic Constitution, by setting out the procedure for admitting married men to the priesthood within the ordinariate, has revived interest among some Catholics in the question of priestly celibacy within their church.

But Mgr Faley says there is no great change in the offing.

The mechanism for giving a dispensation to married ex-Anglican clergy to become Catholic priests will continue in the ordinariate, he says.

But a man in the ordinariate who wishes to be considered as a priest "would be ordained as a celibate priest; he wouldn't be allowed to marry."

And a married man who has not been an Anglican priest, could he apply? "No," says Mgr Faley, "A married man within the Catholic tradition cannot be ordained; the norm is celibacy."

The Apostolic Constitution allows for a former Anglican bishop to head the ordinariate. If he were married - as are most of the bishops on the Catholic wing of the Church of England - he could not be a Roman Catholic bishop, but could be the ordinary, and a member of the bishops' conference.

Eucharistic Realism and the Call for Adoration

Pope Benedict XVI General Audience this week was fascinating to read and a wonderful reminder of what we believe about what occurs in every Mass celebrated by the Church. The Rite of the Eucharist is not about socialisatoin according to the Holy Father. This was an wonderful address and I invite visitors to read it all at the Zenit site.

A prodigious writer, Rupert left very numerous works, still of great interest today, in part because he was active in several important theological discussions of the time. For example, he intervened with determination in the Eucharistic controversy that in 1077 led to the condemnation of Berengarius of Tours. The latter had given a reductive interpretation of the presence of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist, describing it as only symbolic. The term "transubstantiation" had still not entered the language of the Church, but Rupert, using at times audacious expressions, made himself a determined supporter of the reality of the Eucharist. Above all in a work titled "De divinis officiis" (The Divine Offices), he affirmed with determination the continuity between the Body of the Word Incarnate of Christ and that present in the Eucharistic species of bread and wine. Dear brothers and sisters, it seems to me that at this point we must also think of our time; the danger exists also today of re-appraising the Eucharistic realism, to consider, that is, the Eucharist almost as just a rite of communion, of socialization, forgetting too easily that the risen Christ is really present -- with his risen body -- which is placed in our hands to draw us out of ourselves, to be incorporated in his immortal body and thus lead us to new life. This great mystery that the Lord is present in all his reality in the Eucharistic species is a mystery to be adored and loved always anew!

I would like to quote here the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which bear in themselves the fruit of the meditation of the faith and of the theological reflection of 2,000 years: "The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as 'the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.' In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist 'the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained'" (CCC, 1374). With his reflection, Rupert was a contributor to this precise formulation.

Neo-Erastianism Runs Seriously Amok

In a CNS story Simon Caldwell reports on the following Equality Bills Law that could have a serious impact on the way the Church is to operate. This is worth some serious theological and legal attention. Discuss.

LONDON (CNS) -- The Catholic bishops of England and Wales said they could be at risk of prosecution under a proposed law unless they accept women, sexually active gays and transsexuals as candidates to the priesthood.

They made their claims in a briefing for Catholic members of the House of Lords, Britain's upper political chamber, ahead of a scheduled Dec. 15 debate on the Equality Bill, which aims to stamp out discrimination in the workplace.

The bishops said the bill defines priests as employees rather than officeholders. Under the terms of the bill, the church would be immune from prosecution only if priests spend more than 51 percent of their time in worship or explaining doctrine. [For a woman to be a priest or someone living openly in a sexual relationship outside the confines of the sacrament of matriomony between one man and one woman would be against the doctrine of the Church. So, the priest living a holy chaste life and being a male only is teaching and explaining the doctrine of the Church 100% of the time while he does his job. A woman or any other form of sexual life lived out that is against Church teaching is not teaching the doctrine of the Catholic Church so they are disqualified from the job.]

According to the briefing, a copy of which was obtained by Catholic News Service Dec. 8, the government definition will, in effect, make it "unlawful to require a Catholic priest to be male, unmarried or not in a civil partnership, etc., since no priest would be able to demonstrate that their time was wholly or mainly spent either leading liturgy or promoting and explaining doctrine."

"The bill fails to reflect the time priests spend in pastoral work, private prayer and study, administration, building maintenance, etc.," the briefing said.

"This contentious definition was drafted without consultation and has been maintained by the government despite the concerns of the bishops' conference and representations made by most religious bodies in the U.K.," the briefing added.

The bishops asked Catholic lords to try to either strike out the contentious definition or widen it to protect priests and lay employees "whose credibility ... would be fatally compromised if their personal lives were openly at variance with the church's teaching."

In a Dec. 8 statement given to CNS, a government spokesman rejected the claims of the bishops, saying that an exemption "covers ministers of religion such as Catholic priests."

An amendment to the bill to protect the liberty of the churches was voted down in the House of Commons in November. The bill is likely to become law early next year.

Richard Kornicki, the bishops' parliamentary coordinator, told CNS in a Dec. 8 telephone interview that the bishops believe it is not possible to meet the criteria of the government definition of a priest.

According to legal advice received by the bishops, he said, this could lead to legal actions for sex discrimination if the church rejected women, married men, gays in civil partnerships or transsexuals who asked to join the priesthood.

"The government is saying that the church cannot maintain its own beliefs in respect of its own priests," he said.

Neil Addison, a Catholic lawyer who heads the Thomas More Legal Centre, which specializes in religious discrimination law, said that in the worst-case scenario the church could not only be sued but bishops could face imprisonment and unlimited fines and church assets could be sequestered. He said the bill would have the effect of making it impossible for the bishops to discipline clergy who wanted to live "alternative lifestyles."

Earlier, the bishops said the bill could force Catholic schools and health care institutions to remove crucifixes from their walls in case they offend
non-Christian employees.

How in the world have we arrived in such a state? Mary, pray for us!

Veritatis Splendor: Criteria for Discerning Truth from Error

32. Certain currents of modern thought have gone so far as to exalt freedom to such an extent that it becomes an absolute, which would then be the source of values. This is the direction taken by doctrines which have lost the sense of the transcendent or which are explicitly atheist. The individual conscience is accorded the status of a supreme tribunal of moral judgment which hands down categorical and infallible decisions about good and evil. To the affirmation that one has a duty to follow one's conscience is unduly added the affirmation that one's moral judgment is true merely by the fact that it has its origin in the conscience. But in this way the inescapable claims of truth disappear, yielding their place to a criterion of sincerity, authenticity and "being at peace with oneself", so much so that some have come to adopt a radically subjectivistic conception of moral judgment.

As is immediately evident, the crisis of truth is not unconnected with this development. Once the idea of a universal truth about the good, knowable by human reason, is lost, inevitably the notion of conscience also changes. Conscience is no longer considered in its primordial reality as an act of a person's intelligence, the function of which is to apply the universal knowledge of the good in a specific situation and thus to express a judgment about the right conduct to be chosen here and now. Instead, there is a tendency to grant to the individual conscience the prerogative of independently determining the criteria of good and evil and then acting accordingly. Such an outlook is quite congenial to an individualist ethic, wherein each individual is faced with his own truth, different from the truth of others. Taken to its extreme consequences, this individualism leads to a denial of the very idea of human nature.[Now, how many times do we come up against this line of ridiculous thinking? This so reminds me of a discussion I had in my recent past on conscience and the determination of moral sexual ethics.]

These different notions are at the origin of currents of thought which posit a radical opposition between moral law and conscience, and between nature and freedom.

Veritatis Splendor

Priesthood and Sacrament: 'My Doctrine is not Mine'

Saint Augustine is known to have said, 'My doctrine is not mine'. I think this phrase can and should be remembered when the Church's teaching on sacramental ordination of men only to the priesthood is challenged by a hermeneutic that is of the Protestant Reformational mindset and more recently secular liberalism that demands that dogma submit to the assumed conceptual grid of our modern secularist worldview. Vatican II was very clear in its document on the priesthood to remain united to the Council of Trent's understanding that the primary sacramental function of the priest is his offering up of the one sacrifice of Christ at Calvary in the sacramental sacrifice of the Mass. So, when Rome is challenged by theologians as graceful and gifted as Rowan Williams on an issue that the Catholic Church holds as a primary doctrine received from Christ himself, it is impossible to move to a place where Christ himself has not put it.

Language is an important symbol that communicates reality much like the symbols of the sacraments. What has happened with priesthood in our modern egalitarian culture is to remove the sacral language of priesthood and replace it with the profane vocabulary of modern society as if we are speaking on the same plane when discussing priestly ordination. To remove the sacral language from priesthood is to miss the mark completely on what Jesus gave to his Apostles. Priesthood is not a matter of practical utility and this is the danger that people, even Catholics, can fall foul to if they lose the symbolic language of the sacral in priesthood. To do the latter is to deny the very foundational mark in the building of the Church which is the Apostles' participation in the mission of Jesus. There is a serious flawed move in trying to form an alliance with Marxist ideals and shaping our Christology on a Jesus who is a 'revolutionary of love' who is against institutions and all the enemies in Marxist philosophy that get into the way of its pursuit of deconstruction and a false utilitarianism. This approach has found its way into modern theology and is attacking the Christological foundations that priesthood symbolise. This is, therefore, a serious departure of primary theological positions, not secondary. OrdinatioSacerdotalis explains my point.

In the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, I myself wrote in this regard: "In calling only men as his Apostles, Christ acted in a completely free and sovereign manner. In doing so, he exercised the same freedom with which, in all his behavior, he emphasized the dignity and the vocation of women, without conforming to the prevailing customs and to the traditions sanctioned by the legislation of the time."

In fact the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles attest that this call was made in accordance with God's eternal plan; Christ chose those whom he willed (cf. Mk 3:13-14; Jn 6:70), and he did so in union with the Father, "through the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:2), after having spent the night in prayer (cf. Lk 6:12). Therefore, in granting admission to the ministerial priesthood, the Church has always acknowledged as a perennial norm her Lord's way of acting in choosing the twelve men whom he made the foundation of his Church (cf. Rv 21:14). These men did not in fact receive only a function which could thereafter be exercised by any member of the Church; rather they were specifically and intimately associated in the mission of the Incarnate Word himself (cf. Mt 10:1, 7-8; 28:16-20; Mk 3:13-16; 16:14-15). The Apostles did the same when they chose fellow workers who would succeed them in their ministry. Also included in this choice were those who, throughout the time of the Church, would carry on the Apostles' mission of representing Christ the Lord and Redeemer.

Jesus reminded us all that 'on our own he nor we can do anything.' This statement draws bishops, priests and deacons into the mission with Jesus. Everything given to the people of God from priests is given to them as gift and nothing comes from them but directly from God and this is understood in the language of the Church as sacrament. This is where males priests who symbolically and really function in persona Christi give what they themselves cannot give. This makes the office of priesthood a divine sacrament and hence of primary position when understanding the doctrine of ecclesiology. Without this sacramental expression of ministry the newness of Christ in the present age will not be communicated to a world that needs to come face-to-face with the living God in the person of Jesus Christ. Therefore in the words of the late Pope John Paul II, given with his apostolic blessing, sharing in the mission of Jesus, and the first Apostles writes,

Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.

Cardinal Newman on the Development of Doctrine

Principles are popularly said to develope when they are but exemplified; thus the various sects of Protestantism, {181} unconnected as they are with each other, are called developments of the principle of Private Judgment, of which really they are but applications and results.

A development, to be faithful, must retain both the doctrine and the principle with which it started. Doctrine without its correspondent principle remains barren, if not lifeless, of which the Greek Church seems an instance; or it forms those hollow professions which are familiarly called "shams," as a zeal for an established Church and its creed on merely conservative or temporal motives. Such, too, was the Roman Constitution between the reigns of Augustus and Dioclesian.

On the other hand, principle without its corresponding doctrine may be considered as the state of religious minds in the heathen world, viewed relatively to Revelation; that is, of the "children of God who are scattered abroad."

Pagans may have, heretics cannot have, the same principles as Catholics; if the latter have the same, they are not real heretics, but in ignorance. Principle is a better test of heresy than doctrine. Heretics are true to their principles, but change to and fro, backwards and forwards, in opinion; for very opposite doctrines may be exemplifications of the same principle. Thus the Antiochenes and other heretics sometimes were Arians, sometimes Sabellians, sometimes Nestorians, sometimes Monophysites, as if at random, from fidelity to their common principle, that there is no mystery in theology. Thus Calvinists become Unitarians from the principle of private judgment. The doctrines of heresy are accidents and soon run to an end; its principles are everlasting.

This, too, is often the solution of the paradox "Extremes meet," and of the startling reactions which take place in individuals; viz., the presence of some one principle or condition, which is dominant in their minds from first to {182} last. If one of two contradictory alternatives be necessarily true on a certain hypothesis, then the denial of the one leads, by mere logical consistency and without direct reasons, to a reception of the other. Thus the question between the Church of Rome and Protestantism falls in some minds into the proposition, "Rome is either the pillar and ground of the Truth or she is Antichrist;" in proportion, then, as they revolt from considering her the latter are they compelled to receive her as the former. Hence, too, men may pass from infidelity to Rome, and from Rome to infidelity, from a conviction in both courses that there is no tangible intellectual position between the two.

Protestantism, viewed in its more Catholic aspect, is doctrine without active principle; viewed in its heretical, it is active principle without doctrine. Many of its speakers, for instance, use eloquent and glowing language about the Church and its characteristics: some of them do not realize what they say, but use high words and general statements about "the faith," and "primitive truth," and "schism," and "heresy," to which they attach no definite meaning; while others speak of "unity," "universality," and "Catholicity," and use the words in their own sense and for their own ideas.

Go here to read it all.

Women's Ordination and the Changing of Divine Law

There has been a back and forth exchange between myself and the 'flyingvic' in the post below on why I believe Rowan Williams was wrong on seeing Ordo as a secondary issue. What I would like to do is to bring this discussion to the public in case many people who read the blog don't necessarily get around to reading the comments. So, here is the latest comment from 'flyingvic'. My comments that he is responding to will be highligted in red.

"You a teacher of Israel and ignorant of such things!" said Jesus.

How has the church ever decided upon matters that have come new to its attention? By prayer, by study, by learned and spiritual discussion and - where what is new has already been for a while in existence - by a careful study of its fruits.

"...a hard capsule to swallow that the Spirit has moved in such a way that if Jesus were alive today he would call women to be bishops, priests or deacons. This is simply unacceptable theologically."

Does not that give pause for thought? Because your theology has decided that Ordo is of Divine Law and not human development, your theology also dictates that Jesus would be as incapable today of involving women in apostleship as he was, for whatever reason, unwilling to do so two thousand years ago. Because your theology decided that Ordo is of Divine Law, the Holy Spirit COULD NOT decide to embrace particular changes today. When we find ourselves limiting the scope of the Almighty because of a particular theological position we have adopted, is not the first step to question whether the original theology was correct?

I get extremely uneasy, as you may have gathered, when it seems to me that all too fallible human logic is applied to the things of God with the apparent expectation that God will meekly follow along, persuaded by the force of the argument.

"If something is of divine law how can something completely contradictory be of the same Spirit?" I accept the force of the question. Do you accept that our understanding of that divine law might not yet be complete?

The question is how to deal with divine law. For instance, is the divine law, 'You shall not commit adultery' not yet complete? How about, 'You shall not steal'? Again, my question is, who is to make this decision about the completion or non-completion of our understanding of divine law? Where is the spark that tells us what we are doing is right especially if the "new thing" is completely contradictory to that which has gone before?

The problem that I have with 'flyingvic's' theology is that it is very much anthropologically centred and lacks Christocentricity. What do I mean? Ordination is something that Christ gives as a gift and he does so by way of exclusive calling of males and he even excludes in his calling from all baptised males in the Church. Let me say this very clearly: NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO RECEIVE THE SACRAMENT OF HOLY ORDERS. One is not sent by his own desires either. It is the authority of the Church that decides who Jesus has given the responsibility to call someone to receive the gift.

We might not understand all of God's ways and we often have to submit to his divine prerogative on matters that are a mystery to us. But, because we don't understand does not give us the authority to change what he has given to his Church. We are all under that authority, including the Magisterium of the Church. What I think much of this type of 'spirit-speak' is nothing less than people preaching themselves and trying to re-invent the faith. Pope Benedict said it well in his book on Principles of Catholic Theology.

No one goes to church to hear someone else's personal opinions. I am simply not interested in what fantasies this or that individual priest may have spun for himself regarding questions of Christian faith. They may be appropriate for an evenings' conversation but not for that obligation that brings me to church Sunday after Sunday. Anyone who preaches himself in this way overrates himself and attributes to himself an importance he does not have. When I go to church, it is not to find there my own or anyone else's innovations but what we have all received as the faith of the Church--the faith that spans the centuries and can support us all.

I am sorry, but approaches to theology that disregard the teaching of the Church and completely contradict what has come before is not the development of doctrine but the innovations stemming from human pride and autonomy. It is for this reason that I left Anglicanism to become a Catholic and have never been better for it and happier in the Christian faith of 2,000 years.