Posted on 03/30/2013 11:39:36 AM PDT by Brian Kopp DPM
In two weeks Pope Francis has done more to promote Summorum Pontificum than Pope Benedict did since the day he promulgated it.
After the decision by Pope Francis to wash the feet of two women on Holy Thursday, conservative Catholic priests and laypeople alike will now be looking for ways out of the dilemma posed by the foot washing rite of the Holy Thursday Mass.
The foot washing rite is actually optional, though that fact is little grasped by liberals who impose the options they like as obligatory on those who would prefer to opt out. Liturgical law prescribes that only men (viri in Latin) can be chosen for that rite. Priests who want to adhere to the law will find themselves facing fierce opposition by liberals demanding that women be included. Bishops will be hard-pressed to explain how priests should keep to the liturgical law when the Pope himself flouts it. By including women, the Pope has cast all liturgical laws into the hazard.
Priests who opt to omit the foot washing from Holy Thursday Mass will be seen – paradoxically – as dissenting from the law that clearly excludes women’s feet from being washed. To avoid the dilemma entirely, priests and lay Catholics who wish to see proper liturgical law observed will find a suitable option in the older form of the Roman Rite, the so-called “Tridentine” form emancipated in 2007 by Pope Benedict.
After Summorum Pontificum went into force, a clarifying document called Universae Ecclesiae was issued to help people interpret correctly how how to implement Pope Benedict’s provisions. Universae Ecclesiae says that all customs or liturgical practices not in force in 1962 (such as altars girls, communion in the hand and now, apparently, washing women’s feet), are not to be integrated into liturgies in the older form of the Roman Rite. Priests and lay Catholics who want Holy Thursday without dilemmas and controversies and fights about whose feet can be washed, have the legitimate option of the traditional Roman Missal which is, effectively, bullet proof.
Don’t kid yourselves. Many priests and lay Catholics are upset by the Pope’s move and the dilemma this poses at the local level throughout much of the western Church.
War-weary Catholics are back in the trenches, but they now have Summorum Pontificum. And Pope Francis has done more to promote Summorum Pontificum then Pope Benedict ever did.
There is an adage: Qui bene distinguit, bene docet, that is, someone who makes distinctions well, teaches well.
Distinguished canonist Ed Peters makes good distinctions about the Holy Father’s disregard for the Church’s duly promulgated law when he chose to wash the feet of women on Holy Thursday. My emphases and [comments].
Retrospectives on the Mandatum rite controversies
March 29, 2013It’s a very big Church and there are many issues competing for the pope’s attention. Let me address just that issue I know something about, namely, ecclesiastical law, and try to talk sensibly about it. I’ll leave to finer minds the task of situating legal concerns in the wider ecclesial context.
For starters, perhaps Fr. Lombardi was misquoted or taken out of context when he apparently said, “the pope’s decision [to wash the feet of women on Holy Thursday] was ‘absolutely licit’ for a rite that is not a church sacrament.” That remark is confusing because it implies that liceity is a concept that applies only to sacraments; but of course, liceity is an assessment of any action’s consistency with applicable law (canon, liturgical, sacramental, etc). One would never limit questions of Mass liceity to, say, the matter used for the Eucharist or the words of institution (that is, the sacrament at Mass) [NB]as if all other rubrics were merely optional. No one understands liceity so narrowly, [ehem... I think some people do.] and so, as I say, we are probably dealing with an incomplete answer.
In any case, I think some conclusions can be drawn about the foot-washing incident already.
[Here is an obvious point that must be made to help liberals sober up a little.] 1. If liturgical law permitted the washing of women’s feet at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, [then] no one would have noticed the pope’s doing it. What was newsworthy (apparently, massively newsworthy) is that, precisely because liturgical law does not authorize it, the pope’s performance of the action was huge news.
2. I and many others have long been open to revising the Mandatum rite so as to permit the washing of women’s feet [I am not among them. However, Peters is making a different point...] although I understand that strong symbolic elements are in play and I might be under-appreciating arguments for the retention of the rite as promulgated by Rome. I take no position on that larger issue, it being ultimately a question for experts in other disciplines. My focus is on the law as issued by Rome (c. 838).
[We get to the crux of the canonical issue...] 3. Few people seem able to articulate when a pope is bound by canon law (e.g., when canon law legislates matters of divine or natural law) and when he may ignore it (e.g., c. 378 § 1 on determining the suitability of candidates for the episcopate or appointing an excessive number of papal electors contrary to UDG 33). Those are not hard cases. Most Church laws, however, fall between these two poles and require careful thinking lest confusion for—nay, dissension among—the faithful arise. Exactly as happened here. [In spades!] Now, even in that discussion, the question is not usually whether the pope is bound to comply with the law (he probably is not so bound), but rather [pay attention...], how he can act contrary to the law without implying, especially for others who remain bound by the law but who might well find it equally inconvenient, that inconvenient laws may simply be ignored because, well, because the pope did it. [That, ladies and gents, is the problem. Liberals are going to claim that because of what Francis did, they can do whatever they wish. Indeed, they will claim that others who uphold the clearly written law are wrong to up hold the law. They will, like gnostics, appeal to some vague super-principle which trumps all law (and reason).]
4. A pope’s ignoring of a law is not an abrogation of the law but, especially where his action reverberated around the world, it seems to render the law moot. [moot - "doubtful, theoretical, meaningless, debatable"] For the sake of good order, then [Peters' own recommendation...], the Mandatum rubrics should be modified to permit the washing of women’s feet or, perhaps upon the advice of Scriptural and theological experts, the symbolism of apostolic ministry asserted by some to be contained in the rite should be articulated and the rule reiterated. What is not good is to leave a crystal clear law on the books but show no intention of expecting anyone to follow it. That damages the effectiveness of law across the board.
Get that last point?
What is not good is to leave a crystal clear law on the books but show no intention of expecting anyone to follow it. That damages the effectiveness of law across the board.
This is a huge problem.
Liberals such as Michael Sean Winters, who does not in this matter seem to make distinctions at all, think that Peters and I are “obsessively focused on whether or not a bishop or priest can/should wash the feet of women during the Mandatum Rite in the Mass of the Lord’s Supper”. He is wrong. That’s just your usual liberal misappropriation of the situation.
Peters and I are actually concerned about the good order of the Church. A canonist and a man in Holy Orders ought to be. Winters, on the other hand, writes for the paper of record for dissenters and antinomians.
What this foot washing issue does is reveal how vast the gulf is now that divides those who maintain that order, law and reason are necessary in the Church and society and those who, like gnostics who possess secret powers of interpretation of even more secret teachings, apply super-principles which trump lesser matters such as reason, law and order.
The new gnostics (liberals) call upon “fairness” and feelings. There can be no valid response possible by argument or reason or precedent.
For a long time I have argued that we need a level of liturgical celebration which brings about an encounter with the transcendent, which cuts beyond our (by now) useless linear arguments. People today can’t follow a linear argument. You get to the end and they conclude, “That might be true for you…”. Now, however, we may be seeing more clearly, in reactions to what Francis is doing (not necessarily in what Francis is doing), the exaltation of the golden calf of immanence.
Have we entered an age of a new gnosticism, wherein only those who feel a certain way are the true authoritative interpreters?
Tell me about it. Not exactly the CEO, but our EVP decided she didn't like one of the rules in our Dress Code. She made an announcement at a departmental meeting that she didn't like it and was going to ignore it. After that, everyone ignored the Dress Code. Their attitude was, since she was going to ignore it, they could, too, and the Dress Code went to hell.
Since she was on the Executive Committee, the proper thing would have been to change the Dress Code in concert with the others on the committee and remove the rule that she didn't like, publish and communicate it, and THEN dress as she wished. Instead, she sent the wrong message to everyone: that they could ignore a rule they didn't like.
Great role model she made, and exactly my case in point on this thread.
Same with Pope Francis. The proper thing to do would have been to discuss it with the Cardinals (which is what the Pope usually does when considering changing canon law), decide exactly what the new practice would be, publish it and comminicate it to Catholics around the world so that they knew it had been changed and what it had been changed to, and THEN put it into practice Easter of 2014.
Bottom line: he makes a poor role model for priests, and encourages them to ignore/break the rules. Guess what's going to happen?
There were many references in the 14 Stations to the plight of minority Christians in the region, where wars have forced thousands to flee their homelands. The meditations called for an end to “violent fundamentalism,” terrorism and the “wars and violence." As you can see here -- Pope Francis' Stations of the Cross (Link) the whole program focused on the persecution of Christians.
The Pope, who lead the prayers, didn't actually give a talk until after the Stations. At that point he noted that Christians now continue the Passion of Christ in their daily lives.
Finally, he had been asked by the Lebanese youth group to recognize their Muslim neighbors and fellow-citizens who defended their rights. This is why Pope Francis praised "Muslim brothers" in particular on this particular occasion, and not Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs.
As expected, it always looks a little different when you know the whole story, doesn't it?
AUDIENCE WITH THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS ACCREDITED TO THE HOLY SEE ADDRESS OF POPE FRANCIS
Sala Regia Friday, 22 March 2013
One of the titles of the Bishop of Rome is Pontiff, that is, a builder of bridges with God and between people. My wish is that the dialogue between us should help to build bridges connecting all people, in such a way that everyone can see in the other not an enemy, not a rival, but a brother or sister to be welcomed and embraced! My own origins impel me to work for the building of bridges. As you know, my family is of Italian origin; and so this dialogue between places and cultures a great distance apart matters greatly to me, this dialogue between one end of the world and the other, which today are growing ever closer, more interdependent, more in need of opportunities to meet and to create real spaces of authentic fraternity.
In this work, the role of religion is fundamental. It is not possible to build bridges between people while forgetting God. But the converse is also true: it is not possible to establish true links with God, while ignoring other people. Hence it is important to intensify dialogue among the various religions, and I am thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam. At the Mass marking the beginning of my ministry, I greatly appreciated the presence of so many civil and religious leaders from the Islamic world. And it is also important to intensify outreach to non-believers, so that the differences which divide and hurt us may never prevail, but rather the desire to build true links of friendship between all peoples, despite their diversity.
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Francis' job is to spread and defend the faith, not go all buddy-buddy with a murderous cult whose one goal is dominance over all other religions and peoples. Islam thinks the Vatican would make a lovely mosque.
I truly fear the Lord, who says "Thou shall have no other gods before me," and do not want to be standing next to anybody who would accept that "Allah" is the God of Abraham.
I have read, but cannot verify, that there are millons of conversions from Islam to Christianity every year, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. I do not know that this is actually true: it might be sheer hype. But if you have a missionary desire in your heart to share faith in Jesus --- well, how can you talk to people if you're not on speaking terms with them?
I mean this very seriously. There's a University student in my city who is an aspiring Muslim rapper. I've followed his career just a bit because his father was by sons' soccer coach. Take a look at the video he released:
I Believe in Jesus - Mo Sabri (YouTube Link)
It's no great shakes musically, and ---well, here are the lyrics, which run along extremely shallow lines of "It's nice to be nice and Jesus was nice" --- that's not the point--- the point is, if you wanted to help Mo Sabri grow in understanding the real Jesus, what would you do?
He needs to leap from being a naive Muslim rapper to having a mature faith in Jesus Christ as God and Savior. True?
So what would be more productive? To say "I hate your murderous cult and I think the final solution is gonna be nuking Mecca"? Or would you make a better start by saying, "What does a Muslim like you find so attractive about Jesus?" and hope that a serious, friendly give-and-take about real Christian truth could plant seeds of doubt in his head about Islam.
Pope Francis' job is in the Gospel-spreading business. We know what approach he takes in diplomacy (which is by no means infallible: there are no miraculous claims made about papal diplomacy) -- and we also know the approach he took with the majority-Muslim boys and girls at the Youth Detention Center in Rome.
In the same circumstances --- if your job were the spread of the Gospel --- what approach would you take?
You’re advising Catholics regarding Catholic rites, without demonstrating any understanding of these rites, or of even having read the article, where the issues are explained.
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