ANNIBALE BUGNINI, LITURGIST FROM HELL

Posted on April 19, 2018 by abyssum

52c7c-john-and-paul

Pope John XXIII and Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI

Settimo Cielodi Sandro Magister

Paul VI and the Liturgical Reform. He Approved It, But Didn’t Like It Much

DiesIrae

*

“The pope wants it.” This is how Monsignor Annibale Bugnini (1912-1982), the author of the liturgical reform that followed Vatican Council II, silenced the experts every time they contested one or another of his most reckless innovations.

The pope was Paul VI, who in effect had entrusted to none other than Bugnini the role of secretary and factotum of the council for the reform of the liturgy, headed by Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro.

Bugnini had a terrible reputation among some of the members of the council. “Sinister and smarmy,” “schemer,” “as devoid of education as of honesty”: this is how he is described in the “Memoirs” of the great theologian and liturgist Louis Bouyer (1913-2004), highly esteemed by Paul VI.

Which pope, in the end, was on the point of making Bouyer a cardinal and punished Bugnini by exiling him as nuncio in Tehran, having realized the damage that he had done and the duplicity of that “The pope wants it” with which the reprobate shielded himself.

Over the subsequent decades, nevertheless, the heirs of Bugnini dominated the field. His personal secretary, Piero Marini {if Bugnini was the “liturgist from Hell”  Marini was his cellmate} was from 1983 to 2007 the master of pontifical ceremonies. And recently books have been published on Bugnini, glorifying his role.

But getting back to Paul VI, how did he experience the unfolding of the liturgical reform? The defenders of the preconciliar liturgy point to him as the one ultimately responsible for all the innovations.

In reality, between Paul VI and the reform that was taking shape little by little there was not that affinity for which the critics rebuke him.

On the contrary, it was not unusual for Paul VI to suffer on account of what he saw taking place, which was the opposite of his liturgical culture, his sensibility, the spirit in which he himself celebrated.

There is a brief book published in recent days that sheds new light precisely on this personal suffering of pope Giovanni Battista Montini over of a liturgical reform that in many ways he did not condone:

“Paolo VI. Una storia minima,” edited by Leonardo Sapienza, Edizioni VivereIn, Monopoli, 2018.
 http://www.edizioniviverein.com/shop/pao…

In this book Monsignor Sapienza – who has been regent of the prefecture of the papal household since 2012 – collects various pages of the “Diaries” compiled by the master of pontifical celebrations under Paul VI, Virgilio Noè (1922-2011), who became a cardinal in 1991.

With these “Diaries,” Noè carried on a tradition that dates back to the “Liber Notarum” of the German Johannes Burckardt, master of ceremonies for Alexander VI. In his account of every celebration, Noè also recorded everything that Paul VI said to him before and after the ceremony, including his comments on some of the innovations of the liturgical reform that he had experienced for the first time on that occasion.

For example, on June 3, 1971, after the Mass for the commemoration of the death of John XXIII, Paul VI commented:

“How on earth in the liturgy for the dead should there be no more mention of sin and expiation? There is a complete absence of imploring the Lord’s mercy. This morning too, for the Mass celebrated in the [Vatican] tombs, although the texts were beautiful they were still lacking in the sense of sin and the sense of mercy. But we need this! And when my final hour comes, ask for mercy for me from the Lord, because I have such need of it!”

And again in 1975, after another Mass in memory of John XXIII:

“Of course, in this liturgy are absent the great themes of death, of judgment….”

The reference is not explicit, but Paul VI was here lamenting, among other things, the removal from the liturgy for the deceased of the grandiose sequence “Dies irae,” which in effect is no longer recited or sung in the Mass today, but survives only in concerts, as composed by Mozart, Verdi, and other musicians.

Another time, on April 10, 1971, at the end of the reformed Easter Vigil, Paul VI commented:

“Of course, the new liturgy has greatly streamlined the symbology. But the exaggerated simplification has removed elements that used to have quite a hold on the mindset of the faithful.”

And he asked his master of ceremonies: “Is this Easter Vigil liturgy definitive?”

To which Noè replied: “Yes, Holy Father, the liturgical books have already been printed.”

“But could a few things still be changed?” the pope insisted, evidently not satisfied.

Another time, on September 24, 1972, Paul VI replied to his personal secretary, Pasquale Macchi, who was complaining about how long it took to sing the “Credo”:

“But there must be some island on which everyone can be together: for example, the ‘Credo,’ the ‘Pater noster’ in Gregorian….”

On May 18, 1975, after noting more than once that during the distribution of communion, in the basilica or in Saint Peter’s Square, there were some who passed the consecrated host from hand to hand, Paul VI commented:

“The Eucharistic bread cannot be treated with such liberty! The faithful, in these cases, are behaving like.. infidels!”

Before every Mass, while he was putting on the sacred vestments, Paul VI continued to recite the prayers stipulated in the ancient missal “cum sacerdos induitur sacerdotalibus paramentis,” even after they had been abolished. And one day, September 24, 1972, he smiled and asked Noè: “Is it forbidden to recite these prayers while one puts on the vestments?”

“No, Holy Father, they may be recited, if desired,” the master of ceremonies replied.

And the pope: “But these prayers can no longer be found in any book: even in the sacristy the cards are no longer there… So they will be lost!”

They are brief remarks, but they express the liturgical sensibility of pope Montini and his discomfort with a reform that he saw growing out of proportion, as Noè himself noted in his “Diaries”:

“One gets the impression that the pope is not completely satisfied with what has been carried out in the liturgical reform. […] He does not always know all that has been done for the liturgical reform. Perhaps sometimes a few matters have escaped him, at the moment of preparation and approval.”

This too must be remembered about him, when next autumn Paul VI is proclaimed a saint.

*

By way of documentation, the following – in Latin and contemporary language – are the prayers that the priests used to recite while they were putting on the sacred vestments and that Paul VI continued to recite even after their removal from the current liturgical books.

Cum lavat manus, dicat:
As he washes his hands, he shall say:

Da, Domine, virtutem manibus meis ad abstergendam omnem maculam: ut sine pollutione mentis et corporis valeam tibi servire.
Grant, O Lord, that my hands may be clean from every stain: so that I may serve you with purity of mind and of body.

Ad amictum, dum ponitur super caput, dicat:
At the amice, as he puts it on his head, he shall say:

Impone, Domine, capiti meo galeam salutis, ad expugnandos diabolicos incursus.
Place, O Lord, on my head the helmet of salvation, to overcome the assaults of the devil.

Ad albam, cum ea induitur:
At the alb, as he puts it on:

Dealba me, Domine, et munda cor meum; ut, in sanguine Agni dealbatus, gaudiis perfruat sempiternis.
Purify me, O Lord, and cleanse my heart: so that, purified in the blood of the Lamb, I may enjoy eternal delights.

Ad cingulum, dum se cingit:
At the cincture, as he cinches it on:

Praecinge me, Domine, cingulo puritatis, et extingue in lumbis meis humorem libidinis; ut maneat in me virtus continentiae et castitatis.
Gird me, O Lord, with the cincture of purity, and extinguish in my loins the ardor of concupiscence; so that the virtue of continence and chastity may be preserved in me.

Ad manipulum, dum imponitur bracchio sinistro:
At the maniple, as he places it on his left arm:

Merear, Domine, portare manipulum fletus et doloris; ut cum exsultatione recipiam mercedem laboris.
May I be worthy, O Lord, to bear the maniple of grief and pain: so that I may receive with joy the recompense of my labor.

Ad stolam, dum imponitur collo:
At the stole, as he places it around his neck:

Redde mihi, Domine, stolam immortalitatis, quam perdidi in praevaricatione primi parentis: et, quamvis indignus accedo ad tuum sacrum mysterium, merear tamen gaudium sempiternum.
Restore to me, O Lord, the stole of immortality, lost through the prevarication of the forefather; and although I may approach unworthily your sacred mystery, grant that I may merit eternal joy.

Ad casulam, cum assumitur:
At the chasuble, as he puts it on:

Domine, qui dixisti: Iugum meum suave est, et onus meum leve: fac, ut istud portare sic valeam, quod consequar tuam gratiam. Amen.
O Lord, who said: My yoke is easy and my burden is light: grant that I may bear this in such a way as to attain your grace. So may it be.

(English translation by Matthew Sherry, Ballwin, Missouri, U.S.A.)

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MIRABILE DICTU !!! MIRACLES DO STILL HAPPEN !!!

Posted on April 18, 2018 by abyssum

CDF, Pope Reject Intercommunion Handout of German Bishops’ Conference

Maike Hickson April 18, 2018 One Comment

As the Austrian Catholic news website Kath.net reports today, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – with explicit approval of Pope Francis – rejected the 22 February 2018 handout concerning the admittance, in individual cases, of Protestant spouses of Catholics to Holy Communion as it had been approved by the German Bishops’ Conference under the leadership of Cardinal Reinhard Marx. We have confirmed their report with our own sources close to the Vatican.

Kath.net relies for its story on “well-informed Vatican sources,” according to which this handout “has been sent back to the sender.” Only last week, there had come out reports about a letter written by seven German bishops and addressed to the Vatican, in which they ask for clarification in this matter. One of these seven bishops, Bishop Stefan Oster, had subsequently explained in detail what the objections of these bishops were.

As Oster explained in an article published in his own diocesan newspaper, “We wish to receive a clarification as to whether this expansion of the interpretation of grave emergency situations is correct.” It does not seem a “simple” thing to “share the full Catholic understanding of the Eucharist,” while at the same time remaining in another denomination; and “thus to preserve for oneself, at the same time, that confession’s own understanding, let’s say of the Last Supper.” Oster does not see how this inner contradiction could – or should – be preserved of holding two different, incommensurate understandings of Holy Communion at the same time.

Several other prelates, among them Cardinal Walter Brandmüller and Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, had raised their voices in opposition to the German Bishops’ Conference and its new push for pastoral novelties with regard to intercommunion.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, himself the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, also recently insisted that the German bishops, with their new handout, should not lead the faithful “into confusion.” He explained that any ecumenical effort has to lead to a conversion to the Catholic Faith:

There would be only ecumenical progress if we came closer to the great goal of the unity of Christians in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The precondition for this, however, would be the recognition of the sacramentality of the Church and of the fact that we have no power of disposal over the Sacraments. Here, one would first have to clarify whether bishops’ conferences do not step over their own area of authority in individual cases.

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SIGN OF THE TIMES: TELEPHONE EXORCISMS!!! SATAN’S HELPERS HAVE INCREASED THE DEMAND. FOR EXORCISTS THE PAY IS NOMINAL BUT THE RETIREMENT BENEFITS ARE HUGE

Posted on April 18, 2018 by abyssum

Priests are performing exorcisms over the phone, cardinal claims

by
The Catholic Herald, UK
posted

Cardinal Ernest Simoni (Getty Images)

Rising demand means priests are saying some prayers over the phone, Cardinal Simoni said

Priests have been carrying out exorcisms over the phone as demand continues to rise, a Cardinal has said.

Speaking at the Vatican’s annual exorcist training conference in Rome, Cardinal Ernest Simoni said priests are delivering prayers of liberation, part of the exorcism ritual, remotely.

“There are priests who carry out exorcisms on their mobile phones. That’s possible thanks to Jesus,” he said.

However, some warned that the practice was not wise, as people who are possessed often writhe around violently and have to be restrained during exorcisms.

Professor Giuseppe Ferrari said: “Priests pray with people on the phone to calm them down, but if you are not there you cannot control the physical aspects. Some exorcists say it is effective. Whether it is orthodox or correct, I couldn’t say.”

Around 250 priests from 50 countries are attending this year’s conference at the Regina Apostolorum university as prelates from around the world report an increase in demand for exorcisms.

The course started in 2004, and since then the number of priests attending each year has more than doubled.

Earlier this year, Irish priest Fr Pat Collins said calls were rising “exponentially” and added that he was “baffled” Church leaders were not doing more.

“What I’m finding out desperately, is people who in their own minds believe – rightly or wrongly – that they’re afflicted by an evil spirit,” he said.

“I think in many cases they wrongly think it, but when they turn to the Church, the Church doesn’t know what to do with them and they refer them on either to a psychologist or to somebody that they’ve heard of that is interested in this form of ministry, and they do fall between the cracks and often are not helped.”

Last month, Italian exorcist Fr Benigno Palilla said there had been a surge in demonic activity in the country, and that Italy needed many more exorcists.

In his most recent apostolic exhortation, Gaudete et Exsultate, Pope Francis warns that the devil is not a myth but a “personal being who assails us”

“We should not think of the devil as a myth, a representation, a symbol, a figure of speech or an idea,” the Pope wrote. “This mistake would leave us to let down our guard, to grow careless and end up more vulnerable.”

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“But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No.’ Whatever is more than these is of the evil one.” Matthew 5:37

Posted on April 18, 2018 by abyssum
notre_dame_paris
Interview with Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane on the subject of sodomy
 
 

MR SPEERS: That’s a fair point, what’s done, and whether that relationship is loving, whether it’s mutually giving…
 
ARCHBISHOP COLERIDGE: Yep.
 
MR SPEERS: …whether it’s monogamous and so on but if it is all of those things…
 
ARCHBISHOP COLERIDGE: Absolutely.
 
MR SPEERS:  …is it ok a gay relationship in the eyes of the Church?  Let’s leave marriage to one side. Is a homosexual relationship?
 
ARCHBISHOP COLERIDGE:  It can have much about…
 
MR SPEERS: If it’s all of those things, is that ok?
 
ARCHBISHOP COLERIDGE: It can have much about it that is wonderfully good and creative and loving. And anywhere you find genuine love – and here I’m not lapsing into sentimentalised discourse…
 
MR SPEERS: Mmm.
 
ARCHBISHOP COLERIDGE: Anywhere you find genuine love, and the kind of self-giving and self-sacrifice that that entails, you’re dealing with something good, so to stand up in some pulpit and condemn that doesn’t deal with the reality either of human experience or even the reality of God, perhaps particularly the reality of God.  So [indistinct] has to be assessed…
 
MR SPEERS:  And [indistinct] interesting point because I think this has been muddied [indistinct] debate, what the Catholic Church position is on homosexuality.
 
ARCHBISHOP COLERIDGE:  A lot of things have been muddied…
 
MR SPEERS:  Yeah indeed.
 
ARCHBISHOP COLERIDGE: …and this is one of the things that has been most muddied. 
 
MR SPEERS: Yeah, and this is important to clear up, the Catholic Church view on homosexuality but also homosexual activity.  There is no problem from the Church’s point of view with that?
 
ARCHBISHOP COLERIDGE: Look, there is a problem, but to say that is not to say nearly enough, again because it focuses upon the act…
 
MR SPEERS:  And what’s the problem?
 
ARCHBISHOP COLERIDGE:  …in a vacuum. The problem is precisely focusing upon the act , that you’ve mentioned, in a vacuum. The act has to be set within the context of a relationship, so to assess the act you need to assess the relationship.  And with same sex relationships there’s the same variety in relationship as there is in heterosexual relationships.  [indistinct]
 
MR SPEERS:  Yeah.  So this gets back to the point, as long as it’s in a relationship that’s monogamous, giving and loving and so on, then it’s ok by the Church?
 
ARCHBISHOP COLERIDGE:  Well, no what – no what I’m saying, David, is that – that the – the – the act within the context of a faithful, loving relationship is very different from a one-night stand. I state the obvious.  
 
MR SPEERS:  Sure.  But if it is all of those things, is it ok by the Church?  Homosexual activity is ok in the Catholic Church’s eyes?
 
ARCHBISHOP COLERIDGE: What – what do you mean by – what do you mean by…
 
MR SPEERS:  I mean – I mean homosexual activity..
 
ARCHBISHOP COLERIDGE:  You want me to lapse into – do you want me to lapse into – no, but David, do you want me to lapse into black and white, all or nothing?  That’s the very language [indistinct]…
 
MR SPEERS:  No, no, no, I’m just ask whether it is at all ok if it..
 
ARCHBISHOP COLERIDGE: Because all or nothing [indistinct]…
 
MR SPEERS:  …if it meets the criteria that you’ve been discussing here, whether it’s in a loving, monogamous relationship, is it ok by the Catholic Church?
 

ARCHBISHOP COLERIDGE:  No, I’m not – I’m not going to use your language ‘cause it’s the language of black and white, all or nothing. What I’m saying is that there can be something good and creative in that relationship.

{The above is a verbatim transcript of a interview given by Brisbane’s Archbishop Coleridge to a television news anchor.  Below is the letter Aussie Richard Stokes sent to all of Australia’s bishops along with a copy of the above transcript.}
Dear Australian Bishops
 
Now that the battle against the introduction of ‘gay’ marriage has been lost, some in the laity are seeking to determine what went wrong, so that we can better prepare ourselves for the next battle.
 
I attach a video of Archbishop Coleridge on ABC discussing Catholic teaching on sodomy.  It is part of a larger clip, but the remaining sections make little or no difference to the context.  And the video is available on line, should anyone need to verify detail.  A transcript is attached to this email.
 
Listening to the video, I find it difficult to work out exactly what the Catholic Church teaches on same sex ‘marriage’.
 
Why is it so hard to say that sodomy is an unnatural and evil act; that it is scandalous because it involves two people; that it is a sin crying out to Heaven for vengeance; and if a sodomite dies without repentance he goes to the fearful punishment of Hell and never gets out?
 
If this is all true, why haven’t we heard it from priests and bishops?
 
And if bishops had said this publicly, what difference might it have made to the result?  Could souls have been saved which will now be lost?
 
Richard Stokes
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HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO REASON WITH A PERSON WHILE THEY ARE CRYING? IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE. WHEN TEARS FLOW THE BRAIN SHUTS DOWN AND THE ‘HEART’ TAKES OVER.

Posted on April 17, 2018 by abyssum

Jorge Salcedo/Shutterstock

Rod Dreher

THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE

How The Church Discusses Migration

By ROD DREHER • April 17, 2018, 11:33 AM

This morning at the Faith Angle Forum, we’re talking about faith and immigration. The speakers are Sister Norma Pimentel, director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, and Dr. Mark Amstutz, a Wheaton College political scientist.

Sister Norma began by telling heart-rending stories about caring for migrants coming across the US-Mexico border. Their human plight, in her telling, was quite moving.

Dr. Amstutz, by contrast, gave an argument. His basic point was that the all states have to have defensible borders. Protecting human rights and achieving justice depends on a strong, benevolent state. In the immigration debate, he said, these things have to be taken into consideration. Whatever the state decides what to do on immigration has to be done in an orderly, legal way — because this order serves the common good.

In listening to this exchange, I’m struck by the role of emotivism in this discussion. Sister Norma is clearly a compassionate woman, and has a very big heart for these desperate people. On the other hand, to me it seems that she is trying to help migrants violate the law. That’s an uncharitable way to put it, and I keep trying to find a more charitable way to look at it, but the more she explains her position, the harder it is for me to see it in any other way. Her view seems to be that her role as a Christian is to get as many of these migrants into the US as possible — this, as a matter of compassion.

Again, by contrast, Prof. Amstutz is trying to take a more comprehensive view. He described his own view as a “communitarian” perspective — one that tries to balance the wishes of the migrants with the wishes of US citizens. Amstutz said “communitarian” perspective has been discarded by “religious elites”.

One of the journalists present said that after hearing Sister Norma’s account of life at the border, he wondered why he wasn’t there at the border helping her, and why all “decent” — his word — people aren’t doing the same. That struck me as a telling moment, one that showed what a disadvantage people like Prof. Amstutz are when talking about these kinds of issues. As a political scientist, he is trying to bring a philosophical framework to discussing and analyzing immigration. He’s well-spoken, don’t get me wrong, but it’s discouraging to observe how hard it is to have a clear, rational discussion about this issue (and not just immigration).

A journalist asked the two presenters how we determine how many migrants we are to allow into the country. Sister Norma responded by saying that she was speaking to a group of kindergarten students at a Catholic school, and asked them what they thought we should do about all the migrants at the border who are fleeing terrible conditions at home.

The children said, “Let them in,” the nun said. She added, “I don’t know that Jesus would leave anybody out.”

And that was it. This is not thinking. This is emoting — and it is emoting just as much as the kind of rhetoric that Trump uses when he discusses immigration. Sister Norma is a vastly more genial person than many of the anti-immigrant hotheads are. But it’s still substituting emotion and sloganeering for hard thought about difficult questions.

 

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RENDER TO CAESAR WHAT IS CAESAR’S AND TO GOD WHAT IS GOD’S

Posted on April 17, 2018 by abyssum

Rendering to Caesar

THE CATHOLIC THING

TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 2018

We must render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but who gets to say what is Caesar’s – Caesar  alone, or does God have a say?

Some of us will stay up late tonight to file taxes on Tax Day. But Thursday is arguably more important. It marks “Tax Freedom Day”, the date up to which we must corporately work to pay off the 30 percent of GDP taken away by federal, state, and local taxes. An entire third of our useful labor is spent funding the government. What does the Church have to say about this?

At the start of modern Catholic social thought, Leo XIII warned that government would be able to achieve its beneficent goals, only “provided that a man’s means be not drained and exhausted by excessive taxation. The right to possess private property is derived from nature, not from man; and the State has the right to control its use in the interests of the public good alone, but by no means to absorb it altogether. The State would therefore be unjust and cruel if under the name of taxation it were to deprive the private owner of more than is fair.” (Rerum novarum, 47)

But what counts as fair? Presumably, that judgment could be reached, only by those adept at apportioning out the joint roles of “nature” and of “man” – not an especially strong suit for us today.

This much seems correct: a fair tax burden would need to be something short of what “drained and exhausted” taxpayers. Thus a limit on government is implied. The classical and scholastic concept of taxes was: financing for the necessary activities of government. It was expected that there would be a match between what government reasonably attempted to do, and the burden that taxpayers could bear.

Now suppose a tax burden, accurately calculated, would “drain and exhaust” taxpayers: then ipso facto the government would be overreaching. Start with the premise that the current $120 trillion in “unfunded” liabilities, if accurately assessed, would imply a crushing tax burden: it follows that government must reduce its ambitions, and civil society must expand.

St. John Paul II was taking a similar approach when he taught, repeatedly, that tax policies should aid the family. In doing so, he was echoing a magnificent paragraph in the Vatican II document on lay apostolate, which bears quoting today:

It has always been the duty of Christian married partners but today it is the greatest part of their apostolate to manifest and prove by their own way of life the indissolubility and sacredness of the marriage bond, strenuously to affirm the right and duty of parents and guardians to educate children in a Christian manner, and to defend the dignity and lawful autonomy of the family. They and the rest of the faithful, therefore, should cooperate with men of good will to ensure the preservation of these rights in civil legislation and to make sure that governments give due attention to the needs of the family regarding housing, the education of children, working conditions, social security, and taxes; and that in policy decisions affecting migrants their right to live together as a family should be safeguarded. (Apostolicam actuositatem, 11)

This rich and sharp teaching on taxation is presented in a highly attenuated form in the Compendium of Catholic Social Doctrine: “Tax revenues and public spending take on crucial economic importance for every civil and political community. The goal to be sought is public financing that is itself capable of becoming an instrument of development and solidarity.  Just, efficient and effective public financing will have very positive effects on the economy, because it will encourage employment growth and sustain business and non-profit activities and help to increase the credibility of the State as the guarantor of systems of social insurance and protection that are designed above all to protect the weakest members of society.” [355]

The Compendium presumes that the State has the function of redistribution, and its sole comment about the family and taxation falls under that idea: “In the redistribution of resources, public spending must observe the principles of solidarity, equality and making use of talents. It must also pay greater attention to families, designating an adequate amount of resources for this purpose.”

As for the Catechism, its only comment on taxes is that tax evasion is unjust. [2409]

More troubling, though, than what seems to be a lack of balanced skepticism about taxes in these sources is the lack of attention to the tax-exempt status of churches. How do we ensure that a church and its property are rendered to God not Caesar?

We are at risk. Even though the exemption is deeply entrenched in U.S. tradition, law, and tax policy, we can expect it will come under greater attack, as Christians are increasingly castigated as “enemies of the human race” (as Justice Scalia warned). In the popular mind an exemption is a favor: How, then, can the government show such favoritism without violating the First Amendment?

Caesar himself has given some answers. Churches often provide services that government might otherwise have to provide. Churches do not engage in any economic activity that generates taxable income. If church property were taxed, churches could hardly be built in cities, where people live. Whatever can be taxed can be destroyed, but the government should not have the power to destroy any religion.

And yet, Caesar’s guide is always expedience. And, besides, the deepest answer comes from God, not Caesar. It pertains to the independent sovereignty of the Catholic Church, enjoyed analogously by Christian churches and other religions, and explained by Leo XIII: “The Almighty, therefore, has given the charge of the human race to two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine, and the other over human, things. Each in its kind is supreme, each has fixed limits within which it is contained, limits which are defined by the nature and special object of the province of each.” (Immortale Dei 13)

© 2018 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.orgThe Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Michael Pakaluk, an Aristotle scholar and Ordinarius of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, is professor at the Busch School of Business and Economics at The Catholic University of America. He lives in Hyattsville, MD, with his wife Catherine, also a professor at the Busch School, and their eight children.

Michael Pakaluk

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YOU SAY THAT YOU ARE IN FAVOR OF OPEN BORDERS? YOU NEED TO SEE A PSYCHIATRIST AND GO TO CONFESSION

Posted on April 17, 2018 by abyssum
Subject: PARIS TODAY
If the Liberal attack continues and perseveres, our dear country is doomed.
Czech couples pictures and comments of Paris Today
It turns out that the second saying is now relevant in the literal sense: the modern capital of France is not similar to the one that is known to you .
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“We went there not so long ago, just go for the weekend. We bribed the price of tickets, unusually low, but we were not in Paris for more than 10 years. We decided to refresh impressions, again inhale the French romance. The fact that the lowest price for Air France had alerted us, but nothing like this. “
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“The flight was fine, then we boarded a train that took us to the center, and it was there that we experienced the first shock: not only was the Northern station all littered with debris,  there was not a white Frenchman! It shocked us to the core. “
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“Further – more, we hastily settled near the Sacré Coeur, where the situation seems to have been even worse. When we went down into the subway to get to major attractions, then suddenly we found out that in the car me and my wife – only white. It was Friday, about two o’clock in the afternoon! “
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“At the Louvre, which is always full of onlookers and tourists, is now deserted, but around armed to the teeth patrols. These people look at you with suspicion and do not remove their finger from the trigger. And this is not ordinary police, but real soldiers in full dress! As it turned out, in Paris for almost a year living in a state of emergency … “
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“On the streets of migrants crowd, full of shops, whose owners are refugees. Where so many of them come from? At the Eiffel Tower – one. Check out all but covered from head to toe Muslim. This selectivity of the French. Landmarks around the tower teeming with hucksters of the African, Arab gambler, beggars from all over the world and pickpockets. “
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“It was a terrifying experience. I can imagine what’s going on in Marseille and Calais where migrants are already de facto set their own rules. In France, a civil war is brewing, that’s what I say. Therefore, I recommend not to go there – Farewell, beloved France! God forbid that we had something like this in the Czech Republic! “
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HISTORY WAS MADE BY CARDINAL JEAN LOUIS TAURAN, A CARDINAL CREATED BY SAINT POPE JOHN PAUL II

Posted on April 17, 2018 by abyssum

Settimo Cielodi Sandro Magister

What Had Never Been Said In Saudi Arabia. A First For Tauran

Tauran

 

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, has been in the capital of Saudi Arabia since April 13, and will stay there until April 20, thereby repaying the visitmade to the Vatican on September 20, 2017, by the secretary general of the Muslim World League, the sheikh Muhammad bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa.

Welcomed by Prince Muhammad bin Abdurrahman bin Abdulaziz, vice-governor of Riyadh, Cardinal Tauran gave at the headquarters of the Muslim League, during his meeting with the sheikh Al-Issa, an address without precedent in the history of relations between Christianity and Islam, not because of the things that were said but because of the place where they were pronounced.

It was in fact the first time that in Saudi Arabia, the homeland of Wahhabism, one of the most radical currents of Islam, a leading representative of the Catholic Church has spoken out in public and with clarity on capital questions like freedom of religion and equal rights for believers of all faiths.

Here is a brief anthology of the things that Cardinal Tauran said in Riyadh, printed in “L’Osservatore Romano” of April 17.

*

ON THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS

“What is threatening all of us is not the clash of civilizations, but rather the clash of forms of ignorance and radicalism. What is threatening coexistence is first of all ignorance; therefore, to meet together, speak, build something together, are an invitation to encounter the other, and also means discovering ourselves.”

ON OPENING THE HOLY PLACES TO ALL

The cardinal recalled how the Christian sacred places, “in the Holy Land, in Rome or elsewhere, together with the numerous shrines in many parts of the world,” are “always open to you, our Muslim brothers and sisters, to believers of other religions, and also to every person of good will who does not profess a religion.” Besides, he added, “in many countries the mosques are also open to visitors,” and this, he said, “is the kind of spiritual hospitality that helps us to promote mutual understanding and friendship, contrasting prejudice.”

ON THE TRUE MEANING OF MARTYRDOM

“Religion is the dearest thing a person has. This is why some, when they are called to choose between keeping the faith and remaining alive, prefer to accept paying a high price: they are the martyrs of all religions and of every time.”

ON FUNDAMENTALISM

“In all religions there are forms of radicalism. Fundamentalists and extremists may be zealous person, but unfortunately they have deviated from a solid and wise understanding of religion. Moreover, they consider those who do not share their vision as unbelievers who must convert or be eliminated, so as to maintain purity. They are misled persons who can easily go on to violence in the name of religion, including terrorism. They become convinced, through brainwashing, that they are serving God. The truth is that they are only  hurting themselves, ruining the image of their religion and their coreligionists. This is why they need our prayer and our help.”

ON EQUAL TREATMENT AMONG ALL THE RELIGIONS

After clarifying that “religion can be proposed, never imposed, and then accepted or rejected,” Cardinal Tauran identified as one of the fields in which Christians and Muslims must be in agreement, seeing that “in the past there has been a great deal of competition between the two communities,” that “of common rules for the construction of places of worship.” In fact, all the religions must be treated in the same way, without discrimination, because their followers, together with the citizens who do not profess any religion, must be treated equally,” he remarked in referring to the always relevant theme of “full citizenship” for all. In part because “if we do not eliminate the double standards of our behavior as believers, religious institutions and organizations, we will foster Islamophobia and Christianophobia.”

ON THE CONDEMNATION OF TERRORISM BY RELIGIOUS LEADERS

“Spiritual leaders have a duty: to keep the religions from being at the service of an ideology, and to be able to recognize that some of our coreligionists, like the terrorists, are not behaving correctly. Terrorism is a constant threat, and because of this we must be clear and never justify it. The forms of terrorism want to demonstrate the impossibility of coexistence. We believe the exact opposite. We must avoid aggression and denigration.”

ON INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

“All authentic interreligious dialogue begins with the proclamation of one’s own faith. We do not say that all religions are equal, but that all believers, those who seek God and all persons of good will devoid of religious affiliation, have equal dignity. Everyone must be left free to embrace the religion that he wishes.” After this came the concluding appeal to join forces “so that God, who created us, may not be a motive of division, but rather of unity.”

(English translation by Matthew Sherry, Ballwin, Missouri, U.S.A.)

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AN INTERVIEW WITH ROSS DOUTHAT

Posted on April 16, 2018 by abyssum

notre_dame_paris

Ross Douthat’s Take on Where Pope Francis Is Taking the Church
Commentator looks at this papacy in his new book, To Change the Church.
BY: Celeste Behe

THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC REGISTER

{ABYSSUM}
Ross Douthat is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times, the film critic for National Review and former senior editor of The Atlantic. Douthat converted to the Catholic faith when he was a teenager. “I will die a Catholic,” he says. “There is no getting rid of me now.”

Douthat is the author of four books, including Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (Free Press, 2013). Douthat’s new book, To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism (Simon and Schuster, 2018) offers a provocative look at Pope Francis’ efforts to liberalize the Church’s approach to morality: efforts that, according to Douthat, have thrust the Church into a state of theological crisis.

He shared his thoughts on this theme via an email interview with Register correspondent Celeste Behe April 12.

BEHE:  Regarding the Church’s teaching on marriage, you say that “its striking continuity from the first century to the twentieth … is a study in what makes Catholicism’s claim to a unique authority seem plausible to many people, even in a disenchanted age.” To what degree do you, as a convert to the Catholic faith, think that potential converts will be deterred by the current confusion within the Church over marriage-related issues?

DOUTHAT:  Conversion is a complicated alchemy, and no conversion is alike, so I’m hesitant to make sweeping generalizations. I think it’s reasonable to guess that the Francis era is likely to discourage a certain kind of conversion that was common in the John Paul II era, in which intellectually-minded Protestants found themselves appreciating the papacy for its firm stance against the spirit of the age, its continuity with the Christian past, and eventually came to appreciate the Catholic synthesis in full.

Indeed, the Pope’s strategy seems to assume that such conversions are less important than the goal of encouraging reversion — of bringing Catholics who have drifted from the Church back home. But for both possibilities, conversion and reversion, we should also be a little skeptical that the character and controversies of a particular pontificate have the determinative effect on a process that can be so personal, mystical and strange.

BEHE:  You recently spoke at Villanova University’s Charles Widger School of Law. If a law student were to ask you to name three key arguments in defense of Pope Francis, what would those arguments be? 

DOUTHAT:  The strongest arguments for the defense: First, the Church has changed before, on issues as diverse as usury and religious liberty, and its view of marriage has evolved; why should this particular pastoral evolution be an impossible leap? Second, the Pope is the pope, and conservative Catholics in particular are supposed to submit to his interpretations; aren’t conservatives in this case just substituting private judgment for the teaching of Peter’s successor? Third, our sexual culture in the West is sufficiently debased and post-Christian, and Catholic catechesis is so abysmal that we should give the benefit of the doubt to anyone whose marriage failed and simply assume — without burdening them unreasonably with the annulment process — that they were probably incapable of the true consent that Catholic marriage requires.

BEHE:  What would be the key arguments on the other side of the case?

DOUTHAT:  To the first point, the Church’s teaching on marriage’s indissolubility is simply more fundamental than other teachings, like usury, where “development” looks a bit like real reversal; it goes back to the clear words of Jesus himself, whose response to his disciples’ shock at his extremism was to extol the alternative of celibacy, and as such is much more irreformable even than other sexual teachings (no to contraception, fornication, masturbation) that depend upon the vision it implies.

To the second, the Pope’s undoubted authority cannot be invoked to justify leading the Church into self-contradiction, and if a pontiff so brazenly departs from ancient and recently-reaffirmed practice, faithful Catholics have every right to question him.

To the third, the problems with our sexual culture may be a reason to err on the side of mercy in the annulment process, but ours is hardly the first era in which marital readiness was uncertain (think of the long ages of arranged marriage); marriage is not a counsel of perfection that only a perfectly-formed Catholic is supposed to be able to undertake; and to allow auto-annulments is not to err on the side of mercy, but to turn the idea of indissolubility into a pleasant fancy, a doctrine with no practical import in real life.

BEHE:  As a parent of college students, I often find myself having to explain “what Pope Francis really meant” by one of his ambiguous remarks. What advice do you have for Catholic parents in a similar position?

DOUTHAT:  It depends on the age of your kids: My own children, at 2, 5 and 7, are not being indoctrinated into their father’s criticisms of the Pope! But the older they are, the more reasonable it is to simply tell them directly what you think is going on.

If the media is misinterpreting the Pope, tell them that; there’s no reason for them not to learn early that journalists can get things wrong. And if you think there are good reasons to think that Francis said something with which a faithful Catholic can disagree, you should be honest about that.

Respect for the pope is a virtue, but a simplistic papolatry is a vice, and any 13-year-old Catholic should be capable of grasping the idea that papal infallibility is a limited charism; indeed, bringing them to an adult faith requires teaching them about the Church’s weaknesses and the mistakes its leaders often make, before the world and experience educate them in those realities instead.

BEHE:  Throughout his pontificate, Pope Francis has focused on the theme of mercy. Yet, you write that, “as theological conservatives have turned on him,” the Pope has “turned on conservatism generally, so that instead of correcting its errors he is ignoring its insights.” Might this strike faithful Catholics as something of a double standard?

DOUTHAT:  I suppose I might put it this way: Even if the Holy Father is completely right in every particular, he sometimes evinces a lack of charity — perhaps even mercy — for those Catholics who are resisting his innovations, not on the basis of some dusty medieval codex or in a spirit of pharisaical inflexibility, but out of what they see, very plausibly, as fidelity to things that were taught for hundreds of years and reaffirmed only yesterday.

If conservatives are wrong, we are wrong in, I think, an extremely understandable and reasonable way, and Pope Francis might take the edge off present controversies a bit if he extended a touch more understanding, even a touch more mercy, toward those of us who are doubtful that a Church that taught “A” yesterday can reasonably and consistently teach what looks more like “B” tomorrow.

BEHE:  Do you think it more likely that Pope Francis will be remembered as a “heroic revolutionary” or as an “ambitious pope who overreached”?

DOUTHAT:  The latter, I’m afraid. But what I’m sure of is that he’s put himself in a position where those are increasingly the only two plausible legacies. The Church will either have to tacitly repudiate his innovations in order to restore consistency and continuity, or else follow them further to where they seem to lead, in which case his impact will be genuinely revolutionary. At this point, it’s hard to see a middle ground (unless he changes course dramatically); I may be wrong about the wisdom of his vision, but I’m sure I’m right that the Catholics of the future will remember this pontificate as an exceptionally significant one, for good or ill.

Celeste Behe writes from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

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A FORMER SOUTHERN BAPTIST: “THE CHURCH IS THE PARADIGM SHIFT”

Posted on April 16, 2018 by abyssum
APRIL 16, 2018

Paradigm Shifts in the Catholic Church?

JEREMY A. KEE

CRISIS MAGAZINE

 

{ABYSSUM}

 

As one who is in the process of leaving the Southern Baptist church for Roman Catholicism, I say without hesitation and full of love and concern that the Church I fell in love with, the Church in which I found, finally, the full embodiment and expression of truth, goodness, and beauty, is becoming harder to recognize almost by the day. What I see is a Church struggling to maintain a healthy distance from a fallen world that seeks her undoing. It is become harder to see the lifeboat as it takes on more of the water from which we are in need of rescue.

In recent months there have been myriad stories and scandals, some old and disgracefully persistent, others newer, and all ephemeral. Perhaps the most interesting is also the least sensationalized (at least at the root), namely the talk of “paradigm shifts” within the Church. This view was first voiced by the Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Parolin, who began to pull at this particular thread not too long ago when he suggested that Pope Francis’s Amoris Laetitia signals a paradigm shift in the Church. These sentiments were affirmed soon after by Cardinal Cupich of Chicago. There has been a predictable slew of commentary since, most notably by Cardinal Gerhard Müller, demoted prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. On matters of doctrine, wrote Müller, paradigm shifts are not possible.

The view of an outsider eager to come in from the cold is this: the Church needs no paradigm shifts because the Church is the paradigm shift.

The modern world is characterized by nothing if it is not characterized by a fundamental lack of rootedness, and this, it would seem, is by design. Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia recently delivered an address, in which he said,

Our country is built on change because we’re a nation of immigrants. Change is natural. It’s also healthy, as long as a nation remains linked in some key organic ways with its past. A nation’s identity fractures when it changes so rapidly, so deeply and in so many ways, that the fabric of the culture ruptures into pieces that no longer fit together. We’re close to that point as a society right now—if not past it.

As it is on our own shores, so the same is true in most places on earth. And yet, there are some who would see this pseudo-virtue be adopted by and adapted to the Church, hence the talk of paradigm shifts. It seems that this same sort of split experienced so vividly in American culture is perhaps beginning to occur within the Church itself. The word “schism” has been employed increasingly, if sensationally, albeit not always by those in fellowship with the Church universal. Nonetheless, one need not be on a ship to point out that there are cracks and dents in her hull.

Coming back to the matter of paradigm shifts, it is true—absolutely and beautifully true—that the Church is the paradigm shift. It is the Rock, built upon the rock, which remains unchanged in a world so zealous and eager to change. The modern world revels in its constant drive to reinvent itself. Society has figured out what the greatest physicists and engineers have not, namely how to perpetually sustain forward movement into infinite and unimaginable reaches.

They call it “progress,” because today is different from yesterday, and tomorrow different from today. The destination, however, has yet to be clearly determined, and movement without a destination is nothing but aimless wandering. Man once had a set and decided destination—God. But God was abandoned when man began to wonder if he knew better. Man thus became an existential exile, lost and alone in the cosmos.

For all of its truly great progressions—modern medicine and the once-promising “Space Race” stand out in one’s mind—in what ways has humanity itself improved as a result? All one ever hears is the gospel of progress. Life has become a catechesis of the material, being told that all of reality is one way and that only in believing the officially approved orthodoxy will man experience happiness. And what is this desired happiness? It is to be freed from the shackles of “irrational” superstitions, i.e., religious belief and all the attendant pompous piety (which, interestingly, is nothing but a reframing of man’s existential exile). Freedom is happiness, one is told and sold, and one cannot be free if under the thumb of some divine puppet master. It was Jean-Paul Sartre who reasoned falsely, “If God exists, I cannot be free; but I am free, therefore God cannot exist.” Thus it is that man, fool that he is, who celebrates his being lost. Is it any wonder, then, that strange and horrible events and “developments” are occurring with such regularity today?

The fact remains that perpetual motion is a physical impossibility. Even our ever-expanding universe, so it is theorized, will one day begin to retract into the infinitesimally minute speck of cosmic primordial matter from whence it came. The modern spirit is wedded to progression, and constant progression is quite literally exhausting. One may say, not unreasonably, that the myriad dysfunctions seen in the world and in the Church are the symptoms of our spiritual exhaustion. It is a time for rest, not for further action.

This, then, is the role of the Church: to remain constant in her faith and in her teaching; to continue offering refuge to the wanderers and the exiles; to show that much of what happens outside of her walls is not real, but superficiality and vanity. She is, in other words, the definitive paradigm shift. The ways and whims of the world may change, but the Church stands at the ready, sentinel like, prepared to offer her counterpoint and, if necessary, her defense.

There is a popular view of history as a pendulum, whereby the events of history swing back and forth from one extreme to the other. One may also think of a tide, rolling in and going back out. Both the pendulum and the tide, however, are confined to a very strict range of motion: right and left, in and out. The Church is above it all. She is the gear that keeps the pendulum moving, and the box that houses both pendulum and gears. She is the boat resting peacefully atop the waters as they roll, however turbulently, in and out. Houses are built and houses crumble, but the rock remains a rock unless intentionally destroyed.

Whether a net good or not, this debate over paradigm shifts is an important conversation not so much for its merits at face value, but rather for the glimpse it offers into the soul of the Church itself. Theological developments as Newman described are not relevant to this discussion. The Church cannot change in any fundamental way but only build upon pre-existing Tradition. Yes, individual prelates have made certain mistakes in the past that have resulted in unfortunate changes. Those changes are to be expected since the Church is made up of imperfect men, which is to say, of perfect sinners. But that is not the sort of change being suggested here either. Rather, what some Church officials are proposing is an arbitrary and fundamental change that accommodates the shifting sand of worldly sentimentality from which the Church exists to offer refuge.

In the midst of a storm, a wanderer needs shelter. That is the Church. When the roof begins to leak, it must be patched. It would be foolish, however, to replace the entire roof, and all the more to replace it with much more dubious and rickety material.

As one seeking shelter from the storm, it is disheartening to find such senseless and capricious quarrels erupting in the last refuge.

Editor’s note: Pictured above is “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee” painted by Ludolf Backhuysen in 1695.

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Jeremy A. Kee

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Jeremy A. Kee writes from Dallas, Texas, where he also serves as a manuscripts editor for a local university. He is, as well, the founder and editor of Further-In.com. His writings have appeared at The Imaginative Conservative, Real Clear Politics, and The Daily Caller, among others.

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