Posted on 07/27/2005 1:05:40 PM PDT by GF.Regis
OLEAN -- Various columnists for this paper already covered the making of a new pope last spring to a fare-thee-well, driving the tormented editor to declare an informal moratorium on writing further copy about the pomp and circumstance surrounding Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's ascension to Benedict XVI.
We complied. So, in general, did the rest of the American print media, which these days, sadly, are trained by watching too much television to ignore anything that doesn't photograph well, or lend itself to colorful video, or where religion is concerned doesn't contain elements of movement and ceremony.
But in recent weeks, I've noticed a few short items creeping onto inside pages about the Holy Father's vision -- predicted here and elsewhere -- of a venerable Roman Catholic Church that more resembles the one of four decades ago instead of a global organization struggling to accept elements of modernity.
Starting the first week in October, a synod of Catholic bishops from around the world will meet in Rome to plot the future of the church under Ratzinger's leadership. A hefty working text has already been prepared for official consideration, and some sections have sporadically leaked to the Vatican press -- enough to suggest that Benedict XVI has no intention of mellowing from the hardrock conservative positions he held in his previous position as Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, a Vatican office tracing its pedigree directly back to the Inquisition.
Bottom line: Pope John XXIII's liberal changes stemming from the Vatican II conclave to take into account this planet's social and cultural and scientific developments not previously sanctioned by Rome are in deep trouble.
There are some key words in the working text that constitute predictable indicators -- some superficial, some profound. The "translations" below are my predictions, not actual descriptions in the Vatican document of suggestions.
Parish priests will be urged to prevent "profane" types of music from being played during Mass. Translation: Lose the guitars, flutes and drums, boys. It's back to Gregorian chants (which are specifically mentioned in the aforesaid text as more appropriate).
The tabernacle, a large container -- usually bejeweled and gold-plated -- which holds the wheat wafer Host that devout Catholics believe is the actual (not representative) body of Christ after consecration, must be given a "prominent" position on the altar instead of the corner or side repository popular after Vatican II. Translation: Altars, with the tabernacle right in the center as unmistakable focal point, will be turned back around to allow the priest to celebrate Mass in relative solitude with his back to the congregation, instead of facing and speaking directly to the faithful as Vatican II decreed.
Lay persons will participate in the Mass only in a "minimal" fashion. Translation: No more reading of Scripture lessons by members of the congregation, or carrying of the wine and water up the aisle to facilitate Holy Communion, or letting the non-ordained help distribute the Eucharist during that sacrament. Priests only, please, just like in the old days.
During "liturgical gatherings," Latin will be relied upon as the universal tongue instead of English and other regional languages. Translation: A return during celebration of Mass to the Latin liturgy, viewed as confusing mumbo-jumbo by many Catholics before Vatican II, cannot be far behind.
Priests should not be "showmen." Translation: All those brave fathers in Central and South America and Africa and elsewhere who have the courage to question corrupt and dictatorial governments, or the temerity to suggest social and cultural reform, will be muzzled.
The working document, by the way, singles out Catholic politicians who support abortion and divorced persons who remarry for particular criticism and specific proscription against receiving the sacrament of Holy Communion without first making a true confession to a priest. This will also affect various areas of the planet where an acute shortage of priests has triggered the practice of taking Communion after making one's peace with God in one's mind because the preparatory sacrament of confession simply isn't available.
Some Catholics, particularly elderly ones, would welcome these changes, whether they actually occur or not. Many of them hate the Vatican II reforms. I was sitting next to my late beloved and curmudgeonly father in the early 1970s when a bearded guitar-wielder first strode to the altar to play some inspirational song of hope. My father actually stood up in the pew to leave before my mother dragged him back down to the kneeling bench.
I also secretly prized during those days the frequent look of repugnance on his face during the newly instituted "kiss of peace," which soon evolved into a hearty-handshake-with-those-nearby section of the Mass. My father was one of the friendliest gentlemen on earth; he just liked to reserve his handshakes for persons he knew, or trusted, or was happy to see.
Casting aside all the paternal nostalgia, I'm wary of Benedict XVI's plans. This is a man whose mind sees cultural development as conspiracy.
He still condemns the use of condoms to fight AIDS in Africa. He's already bounced, without adequate explanation, the respected editor of a liberal Jesuit magazine in this country.
Many Catholics are unaware that Ratzinger even criticized the immensely popular Harry Potter books as harmful to children.
In a letter of praise two years ago to a narrow-minded German critic of author J.K. Rowling, then-Cardinal Ratzinger described her astoundingly successful books as "subtle seductions" for youths and works that "act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly."
Get real. I personally think J.K. Rowling deserves some Nobel-level award for becoming a one-woman assault squad on illiteracy. Do you know how hard it is to pry kids away from the TV or iPod or cell phone and get them to actually read a book? The numbers are there. Rowling actually has children reading again, using their TV-stunted imaginations anew to convert print into thought, to transform type into imagery. Her harmless books are stimulating and superbly written, and most children understand they are merely interesting works of fantasy about magic and good and evil and pretend sorcery -- stuff kids are intrigued by and will find anyway.
If the new pope really wants to do some good in this vein, he should take a gander at the hideously violent and often demonically promotional TV fare that is available to the majority of toddlers and youngsters in this country. Talk then about conditioning senses and warping vulnerable minds.
In his years as a promising priest and bishop, Ratzinger was viewed as somewhat of a liberal and reform-minded theologian. He once wrote a short book that viewed Vatican II with enthusiasm and promise. In his previous post as protector of the faith, however, the native of Germany became more and more conservative until he was known and routinely described as "God's Rottweiler" -- a ferocious defender of venerable Vatican views and practices.
In an excellent article in the July 25 edition of the "New Yorker" magazine, Anthony Grafton describes him in this role as "a snapping guard dog who threatens all dissidents with appropriate punishment." Ratzinger, writes Grafton, "was a censor, and he did his job well."
Since last April, Catholic writers around the world, particularly in Europe and North America, in article after article, have speculated that Ratzinger will realize he is now the spiritual head of the oldest and largest religious organization on the planet and -- as the "New Yorker" writer puts it -- will now "show a milder countenance in his new office." Not very likely. As Grafton writes, Ratzinger has repeatedly denounced "the intellectuals who confused social reform with Christianity" and is at heart himself fearful about intellectual conclusions.
"The intellect," he once told a gathering of about 800 priests, "does not always grant vision, but provides the conditions for intellectual games, and artfully conjures syntheses into existence where there is really nothing but contradiction." Only faith, believes the new pope, will abide.
I agree with author Grafton. A prelate who's fearful that Harry Potter books will block the spiritual growth of young Christians "may find it harder than he thinks to take on modernity in all its sprawling strangeness."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Hanchette, a professor of journalism at St. Bonaventure University, is a former editor of the Niagara Gazette and a Pulitzer Prize-winning national correspondent. He was a founding editor of USA Today and was recently named by Gannett as one of the Top 10 reporters of the past 25 years. He can be contacted via e-mail at Hanchette6@aol.com.
"None of the things you listed changed any dogma of the faith any more than the gay "marriage" preformed by an ROC priest changed Orthodox dogma."
You go right on telling yourself that.
To me, it does not look so rosy. And, if you go to the string as to the departure of the Antiochian Orthodox Church from the National Council of Churches, you'll find I am also not sanguine about a number of "Orthodox" jurisdictions either. To me, our present situation looks a lot like things as they were in the 4th century when St. Jerome said, "The whole world has gone Arian." Pope John Paul II was one of the big culprits. Others were the ecumenical patriarchs Meletios Metaxakis and Athenagoras. And JP2 is on the fast track to canonization? Oh boy!
The Latin Vulgate was the Bible of the Western Church for centuries before the last of the Seven Ecumenical Councils that both Orthodox and Catholic agree are canonical. The objections you are raising about the Vulgate were not raised during the period when Pope Damascus was Pope of East and West, and there was unity. It was not raised as heretical by the Eastern Bishops or Patriarchs when Jerome translated it and Damascus approved it.
The standard Orthodox position is that the Catholic Church split and the Latin Church lapsed into error after the Seventh Ecumenical Council, but before the Seventh Ecumenical Council East and West were united in one Holy Orthodox and Catholic Church.
The Vulgate was part of that, and the East did not object to it as heresy then. Is this a new doctrine of the East, not raised during the time of Orthodox unity, that the Vulgate has BECOME heretical some 300 years AFTER it was accepted as the Latin text by the united Church?
That would be a novel move.
I have no idea which text was translated and paraphrased in Eagle's Wings, but it does not matter. You can read the lyrics and see that there is no heresy contained in it.
None of the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is spelt out in detail in any text of the Bible, and yet one can listen to the words and look at the practices and see that there is nothing heretical about it by its CONTENT.
"You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord,
who abide in His shadow for life:
say to the Lord 'My refuge!
My rock in whom I trust!'
He will raise you up on eagles' wings,
bear you on the breath of dawn,
make you to shine like the sun,
and hold you in the palm of His hand!"
That's the text.
You know it is not heretical by reading it.
Heresy is not hidden, lurking about. It's open and profane and obvious.
Eagle's Wings is not that.
Some people don't like the music.
And whatever disputes there are about the authenticity of any particular version of the Bible are not germane to this particular issue.
You're looking to pick a fight, which is your right, of course, but the accusation of "heresy" stands acquitted on those words I printed, even if they came out of the King James version of the Bible (which they didn't).
"Your list is part of the reason why I'm converting to Catholicism from Anglicanism now rather than previously."
What took you so long I wonder? I too started from where you were.
Now all you need to do is justify the heresies Rome has been proclaiming or initiating since A.D. 1054.
Actually, I believe the changes in the Church - all churches in the US - were driven by the Communist infiltration of the seminaries. I know that sounds like a tin-foil hat conspiracy theory, but infiltrating the Church was one of the items on their agenda to destroy American culture. I remember a distinct change in our Sunday School material when I was an eighth grader in 1966 - and this was in the Presbyterian Church! It was very subtle, but almost as if the writers of our lessons wanted to instill as many doubts and questions as possible into impressionable junior high minds. I remember getting really angry at some of the things that were being taught, and knowing even then that some of it was bordering on heresy!
"I have no idea which text was translated and paraphrased in Eagle's Wings, but it does not matter. You can read the lyrics and see that there is no heresy contained in it."
I have no beef with the Vulgate but I do with the D-R. Maybe I should have a beef with the Vulgate? I don't know. I can tell you that the LXX is still the only canonical Old Testament for the Orthodox because to this day it's the only Old Testament ever authorized by the Church. Nothing to argue about there.
The LXX Psalter is now available in English. It first came out in 1974. To inquire about it, click on http://www.thehtm.org/
I always knew that I would one day be Catholic. What took me so long was that I didn't see the need for the Magisterium. Now that the Anglican church is traveling into heresy, I see quite clearly how necessary the Magisterium really is. I don't believe the Magisterium has been proclaiming heresies since 1054, precisely because of the Scripture verse that you quoted: that Our Lord established the Church on St. Peter and that He will prevent the gates of hell from prevailing against it.
You need to gain a patristic as opposed to a merely scholastic understanding of Matthew 16:18
Interestingly, the best study I know of,
Primitive Saints and the See of Rome, happens to be by an Anglican, one of the Cowley Fathers, Fr. F. W. Puller.
Go for it.
There is no such thing in Orthodoxy, by the way, as a Magisterium. There is instead the Vincentian Canon. Don't confuse the two.
Communist infiltration of the seminaries
This is a documented fact by an ex-Communist Party activist. Their goal was to corrupt the clergy, and they began this infiltration in the 1930's. It came to fruition 30 years later.
You're not the first to suggest this possibility :-)
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Ratzinger - "Very Soon It Will Not Be Possible to State That Homosexuality is an Objective Disorder"
The Mass of all ages
1345 As early as the second century we have the witness of St. Justin Martyr for the basic lines of the order of the Eucharistic celebration. They have stayed the same until our own day for all the great liturgical families. St. Justin wrote to the pagan emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161) around the year 155, explaining what Christians did:
On the day we call the day of the sun, all who dwell in the city or country gather in the same place.
The memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets are read, as much as time permits.
When the reader has finished, he who presides over those gathered admonishes and challenges them to imitate these beautiful things.
Then we all rise together and offer prayers* for ourselves . . .and for all others, wherever they may be, so that we may be found righteous by our life and actions, and faithful to the commandments, so as to obtain eternal salvation.
When the prayers are concluded we exchange the kiss.
Then someone brings bread and a cup of water and wine mixed together to him who presides over the brethren.
He takes them and offers praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and for a considerable time he gives thanks (in Greek: eucharistian) that we have been judged worthy of these gifts.
When he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all present give voice to an acclamation by saying: 'Amen.'
When he who presides has given thanks and the people have responded, those whom we call deacons give to those present the "eucharisted" bread, wine and water and take them to those who are absent.171
*all of what you complain about, and more, occured previously in the old liturgy, as Trebt attested to
"As early as the second century we have the witness of St. Justin Martyr for the basic lines of the order of the Eucharistic celebration. ... St. Justin wrote to the pagan emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161) around the year 155, explaining what Christians did:..."
According to the Quinisext fathers meeting at Trullo, our earliest witness is the Liturgy of St. James the Brother of the Lord. See Canon XXXII of the Council in Trullo. There is a copy of this liturgy in the library of the St. Catherine of Sinai monastery at the bottom of Mount Sinai. It bears very little resemblamnce, of course, to the Tridentine Mass. The Liturgy of St. James was delivered to him by our Lord Himself.
ninenot wasn't making a distinction. He was categorically denying the last supper was mass. The Catholics I know, who are my age, learned the action of Mass consisted in Jesus offering Himself as (priest and victim) as a sacrificial offering of propitiation - which is what happend at the last supper and which Trent, ect ect, taught was when the Mass was instituted.
*LOL "traditionalism" distilled to its protestant essence. I couldn't have drafted a more revealing post. Congrats....
43 years later, I can still do my altar boy responses in Latin.
And the old Solemn High Black Mass For The Dead? Man was that steeped in the old ways.
Perhaps I'm a protestant.
At least I'm not a sniggering "holier than thou" who dogmatically pronounces on the "first Mass" without understanding the little matter of the Sacrifice...
And, by the way--since your evidence of your righteousness consists largely of observations about a Rite which was NOT "Roman"--and which was NOT used by the Church from about 1575 through today's date--
shall we refer to you as a Worshiper of Antiquity?
Certainly, the Tridentine Rite is more "modern" than the one which you seem to think is preferred--and the NO is even more "modern" than the Tridentine.
Perhaps you'd best select a historically (and theologically) accurate position from which to throw your hissy-fits.
Finally, I read GBC's cite as saying that the Last Supper, in and of itself, was NOT a "Mass," insofar as the Sacrifice was NOT consummated at the Last Supper.
NONE of your citations stated that the Last Supper was the first Mass. None.
All of them did state that the LS was the institution of the Holy Eucharist--a point which I made, as well.
Repeat--it's tiresome--come up with a citation which states, categorically, that the Last Supper was the "first" Mass.
Put up or shut up.
I will, until I can be shown otherwise. Your examples fail to demonstrate any change in dogma based on the foolish acts of individuals.
Thank you.
I should like to obtain the Orthodox English translation and run a comparison of it with the various Catholic English translations. I doubt there will be much controversial.
I don't believe that the Orthodox Church accuses the Catholic Church of being heretical on the Bible, or if it does, this is the first I had heard of it.
Since the Catholic Bible is based on the Latin Vulgate translation of the LXX and the Masoretic Text, and this translation was done hundreds of years before the Great Schism, even before the end of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, and Pope Damascus approved of the Vulgate canon, and the East did not go into schism with the West over the Latin Bible, nor raise this is as a flaming issue of church-rending dissension at the Ecumenical Councils when the Church was all still united, I did not realize that this was a point of contention.
Certainly the Bible is a point of contention between Protestants and Catholics, but I was unaware that it was between the Orthodox and Catholics.
Is the Bible one of the issues over which there is a heresy charge by the Orthodox against the Catholics?
(My understanding is that the Catholic Church does not accuse the Orthodox Church of heresy.)
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