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?
“But he didn’t, he just did his own thing on the spot.”
He did not do it on the spot. It was announced earlier that he would wash the feet of both women and infidels. It was also announced that it would be closed to the press.
Around the world, Bishops and priests come together at their local Cathedrals on Holy Thursday morning to celebrate the institution of the priesthood. During the Mass, the bishop blesses the Oil of Chrism that will be used for Baptism, Confirmation, and Anointing of the sick or dying.
At this Mass, the bishop washes the feet of twelve priests to symbolize Christ’s washing of his twelve Apostles, our first bishops and priests.
From the Catholic News Agency.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resources/holy-week/holy-thursday/the-significance-of-holy-thursday/
You’re right -— I’m sorry, I expressed that ineptly. Of course it was announced; and the prison officials had to have consulted with the Pope’s aides to select which prisoners would participate. I didn’t really mean “off the top of his head,” I meant without a Motu Proprio or any ‘formal’ change of the rubric.
We’re not talking about the Commandments or the Natural Law. We’re talking about the liturgy.
Obviously, the Pope thought there was a good reason to wash the feet of women. He has the authority to make such a judgment.
Just as obviously, this decision is fraught with risks—primarily the risk of encouraging what is, when done by others, illicit. Is it news that the Pope exercises authority that is not exercised by others?
There is a reason that Popes’ liturgies are traditionally models of formality and correctness—to avoid precisely the kind of misunderstanding—firestorm, even—that has followed the Pope’s Holy Thursday liturgy.
I think Fr. Z’s comments in the last few days—and the comments of Dr. Edward Peters—have been the most enlightening and balanced.
“He has the authority to make such a judgment.”
And where does he derive that authority from? And what did that Supreme Authority do on the first Holy Thursday?
P.S. The former Cardinal Bergoglio not only disobeyed his Pope, he bad-mouthed him.
At a TLM I attend, the men whose feet are to be washed are prominent members of the parish who wear their Sunday best suits and clean socks. I have always thought it might be better to choose homeless men on the street. On the other hand, now that I have read that it is for disciples, that makes it wrong to wash the feet of Moslems. Jesus did not wash the feet of Judas, correct? When a Moslem imam bends down and washes the feet of the pope, then I will say we are on “equal footing” as to dialogue.
the CEO of your corporation can do a whole lot of things that you can't...
paranoids worrying about ABSOLUTELY NOTHING !!!!!
Although rooted in historical events, liturgy is not a pictorial or dramatic reenactment of one particular historical event.
When did Cardinal Bergoglio bad-mouth Benedict?
People seem to forget how Christ saved the prostitue from stoning. That was against custom, too. Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.
...crickets.
I didn't think that it would take this long for some nitwit to make this association....pathetic
Amen.
Agreed.
Imagraftedbranch.
This may come as a shock to you, but the Pope isn’t Christ. He is charged with holding fast, handing on and confirming the brethren, not making up stuff as he goes along.
Sorry, that was kind of snarky, but so were those crickets. :)
Please tell me how I am ignorant.
Please tell me how I am ignorant.
“Maybe we really are in the end times but the opposite of what many people think. Maybe the Pope is giving us all (Catholics, Protestants, and Anglicans) one final example of humility and Christ-like action versus holding on to old tradition and obsessing if he uses the right mass or genuflects correctly. Will all of us as a universal Christian church humble ourselves or will we grasp on to tradition?”
I’m terrified of the prospect. I don’t view it as “Christ-like” action, but rather as unChrist-like misdirection.
The Gospel isn’t about what YOU can do for CHRIST, it is about what Christ has done for us. Certainly, we have our duty to our neighbors. If a man asks us to walk a mile with him, we should walk twain. But this is not the Gospel. This is not the primary message of Christianity. Whether we walk with a man an extra mile doesn’t matter if he is still going to hell after all is said and done. It is this false focus on works, which every other religion and charity group on the world promotes, except Islam of course, is dangerous insomuch that it is likely to lead even more people astray.
This is the chief sin of the “Emergent church” and social justice groupies here in the States.
I think people are kind of losing sight of the fact that this was a Mass for the benefit of children, albeit in a detention facility. The Pope was not washing the feet of an imam, he was giving a lesson to boys and girls who needed it. He was also not doing mass on worldwide tv.
I think this reminds me of when a judge makes a ruling that is not intended to set any legal precedent, because the situation is a little odd, but is just to be the decision applicable to those parties to the suit. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve forgotten the term for that, but it does happen occasionally, without undermining the general pattern of legal interpretation.
As John Paul II did by kissing a Koran, Francis is skating awfully close to violating the first commandment.
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