Posted on 02/05/2003 8:53:44 AM PST by Maximilian
The Authentic Catholicism of Father Ignatius "Mac" McDermott of Chicago, IL
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
By Thomas Roeser, Chairman, Co-founder, Catholic Citizens, author of "Father Mac" (Amazon.com, $30)
Authentic Catholicism 'the Catholicism of America that shaped Ignatius McDermott' owes everything to the Council of Trent, which met in that northern Italian city intermittently between 1545 and 1564. The council was convoked to meet the spread of Protestant Reformation by instituting a range of doctrinal reforms long recognized as urgently needed. Among other things, it postulated the legitimate role of Tradition along with Scripture, the understanding of grace, sin, and merit in salvation, and the theology of the Sacraments. It directed formation of a seminary system and insisted on the residence of bishops in their dioceses.
Reacting to a chaotic age, its strictures were defended as necessary 'formation of the Creed, the Latin Vulgate of the Bible, the order of the Mass, and rules governing the Index of Prohibited Books.
Priests were to say Mass every Sunday morning without fail (in a Latin form called Tridentine, changed by Paul VI, but now experiencing a comeback), the Blessed Sacrament was to be reserved in all churches and given due respect, priests were to reside in their parishes, parishes must maintain baptismal records and lists of the faithful, strict accounts must be kept of parishioners who kept or failed to observe Easter duties (i.e. confession and reception of Holy Communion at least once a year at Easter time); priests who had been keeping concubines must send them away or face canonical penalties including arrest and imprisonment.
The English delegate to the council, Cardinal Reginald Poole, saluted Trent for 'the uprooting of heresies, the reform of ecclesiastical discipline and morals, and lastly, the eternal peace of the whole Church.'
Wrote the historian Jacques Barzun: 'At the same time as it cleansed and refurbished the ancestral fabric, the Council of Trent tied reform to narrow views; in this respect the result was to freeze Catholic beliefs at the point that European ideas had reached by 1500 or even earlier.' True, but not inconvenient for a Church that believes in eternal verities.
In America, teachings of the council were set in stone by what was called the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, in 1884, consisting of 79 bishops, monsignori, and professors of theology.
Two dynamic U.S. bishops, James Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore [1834-1921] and Archbishop John Ireland of St. Paul [1838-1918], led the council which secured uniformity in worship, and established parochial schools and diocesan seminaries. In addition, it dictated what is known as the Baltimore Catechism, a primer of theology and philosophy consisting of lessons taught to all parochial children with an impact that lasted 85 years and is still taught in selected parish schools.
Little paper-backed books, written in the form of questions and answers, were memorized in whole under the tutelage of the nuns. Recited in singsong by the children, the Catechism was yet far from intellectual gruel. It constituted in ingenious summary form the Augustinian-Thomistic teaching that guided the Church since the 13th century, implementing with respect the discipline of the Council of Trent.
The Catechism, religion notebooks, and the careful teaching of the nuns schooled Catholic children to think in what was to be regarded, since Trent, as traditional Catholic categories. That teaching, drilled into children from pulpit and schoolroom, began with the Scriptural covenant God made with Abraham, father of the chosen people who were always regarded as Christianity's spiritual ancestors.
Catholic children learned that having lost God's friendship through the fall of Adam, man could no more redeem himself by his own volition than one who is dead bring himself back to life. Step by step, God taught the children of Abraham by sending them prophets to reveal Himself and by decrees to make them holy. Then came the Incarnation of God's Son as Redeemer. Yes, God could have reopened heaven by simply forgiving everything without reparation; why He did not do so is a mystery, but one theory is that a sacrifice is in keeping with His expression of Divine Love. Therefore, God took the most sublime course possible allowing his only Son, the second person of the Trinity, as true God and true man, to take on a human nature, representing all humanity, and redeem us through His passion and death.
Nun and priest catechists used the Catechism and religion workbooks to inculcate that Christ chose 12 apostles (of whom one betrayed Him) and sent them forth, as He had been sent, to teach, govern, serve, and sanctify all believers through His Catholic Church, appointing the pope as His vicar on earth. Catholic schools of that era may be rightly criticized for less reliance on the Bible than on its teaching filtered through the Church.
But educators knew correctly that first came the Church (it did come first historically, before the New Testament) and then the Scriptures. Thus, emphasis was on Sacraments first and Biblical texts as supportive.
If there is any mystery of faith about which the entire liturgy revolves, it is known as the Eucharist: the consecration of bread and wine into the actual (not symbolic) body and blood of Christ which only a priest can do. And only a priest can mediate between God and man to ask forgiveness of sin. All priests trace their authority to the apostles, the first priests, but all the Christian faithful share in the priesthood by their baptismal character.
While priestly celibacy is not required by the priesthood itself (some of the apostles were married), since A.D. 315, councils forbade priests in the Western church to marry, insisting that celibacy is particularly suited to the priesthood (as costly as its demands may be to human nature, they thought that it draws special grace and blessings on the priest since his sacrifice merits favor from God). Weakness of human vessels, unfaithful priests, corrupt popes, lying, deceptive and cowardly bishops does not invalidate a Church which authentic Catholics believe is the Mystical Body of Christ, nor does it diminish a papal infallibility which does not certify all papal statements are correct but that ex cathedra ones, pertaining to faith and morals, are free from all error.
Catholicism taught in simple, but profound, factoid nuggets from the Baltimore Catechism in parochial schools of this earlier era was far from anti-intellectual. It radiated historic link with the Golden Age of philosophy, the scholasticism of Augustine, Ambrose, and Aquinas that devolved from Aristotle and the Council of Trent. The gist of the teaching was thus: There are absolute standards of goodness, truth, and beauty...humans must strive to improve themselves so as to conform more closely to these standards...the universe has meaning...God established natural laws governing the world's operation...moral laws must be followed so as to dissuade overindulgence and this direct from Aristotelian ethics humans cannot be courageous unless they are just, cannot be just unless they are temperate, cannot be temperate, just, and courageous unless they are prudent.
This indoctrination served young Catholics well in the early 20th century when challenges came from secular universities that raised havoc with intellectual certainty. Catholics believed that if evolution occurred -- a big if -- there was a stage at which God infused an immortal soul; yet the scholar Chesterton's axiom was uppermost 'the most enduring thing about the Missing Link is that it is still missing.'
Early 20th century Catholic teaching propounded the Thomistic view free from the Marxian notion that man is enslaved by economic impulses, the Freudian dictum that he is pulled robot-like by sexual desires; and the philosophical concept that we are living in a sea of relativistic values, as taught by Einstein. In rudimentary form, these were the precepts taught to the Bradleys and McDermotts from pulpit and grade school at St. Gabriel's and Visitation.
Under John Paul II and publication of a voluminous catechism underscoring the eternal theological verities, authentic Catholicism has been given a powerful renewal.
Tom Roeser delivered this speech at a recent Catholic Citizens luncheon forum in honor of Monsignor Ignatius McDermott, who is the subject of Tom's new book, "Father Mac" (available at Amazon.com, all proceeds go to the Haymarket Center for Alcohol Addiction Treatment.)
The Catechism under JPII gives us ordinary Catholics a rock upon which to base our understanding of our faith - especially when so many of our priests have selectively abandoned aspects of true Catholic belief. The Catechism will serve powerfully to keep priests from straying from the true faith.
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