Amplify’d from ncronline.org

America: Time for laity at the top

by Tom Roberts

NCR Today

Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF version "You say your grandmother's a cardinal?" "Your dad's meeting regularly with cardinals in Rome?" Maybe not so unrealistic as it sounds. A recent America magazine editorial advances daring proposals that the magazine itself had to admit might sound "pie in the sky." But they just may be ideas whose time is long overdue: change canon law and/or create structures within the church that place laity near the top decision makers. The Jesuit publication, in its Feb. 21 issue, editorialized that the "fundamental criticism of the institutional church" in the various crises that have jolted the church in the United States, England and Europe, "is that its clerical, all-male establishment has not made room for other voices. There is no need to list the number of recent policy decisions, from Rome to home, which would have been more prudent if only a variety of laypersons had been consulted." Read the full proposals here.

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Pax Christi USA moving national HQ to Washington

Amplify’d from cnsblog.wordpress.com

Pax Christi USA moving national HQ to Washington

by Dennis Sadowski

(CNS Photo/Nancy Wiechec)

Seeking to raise its profile on Capitol Hill and beyond, Pax Christi USA is moving its national headquarters from Erie, Pa., to Washington.

The move will allow the U.S. arm of Pax Christi International, the international Catholic peace organization, to more readily address issues related to global conflicts, nuclear disarmament, justice for the world’s most vulnerable people and environmental concerns.

“We’re at a point where our voice needs to be heard on a much more national scene,” said Sister Josie Chrosniak, a member of the Sisters of the Humility of Mary and chairwoman of the organization’s national council. “We need to be where it can have the most effect.

“We need to speak to people in positions that can create change in the government as well as in the church,” she told Catholic News Service from Cleveland. “As we grow and as we get stronger relationships with some of the other organizations speaking truth to power, in a sense we really need to be where they are and many are in Washington.”

Executive director Dave Robinson will continue in his position.

The organization has worked for nearly a decade to increase its Washington presence. It opened a Washington office in 2002 and more recently expanded that presence by moving to the Center of Concern and starting an internship program.

Ursuline Sister Dianna Ortiz coordinates the Washington office.

Pax Christi USA opened its national office in Erie in 1986 thanks to the support of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie. While Pax Christi eventually bought its own building and expanded staff and activities as its membership grew, the location proved to be less than ideal in working with government officials and other national and international organizations.

Sister Josie said the organization is grateful for the support the Erie Benedictines offered early on and over the years.

Expect Pax Christi USA to broaden its message to include environmental concerns as well.

“Somebody has to speak to the violence that is happening to the earth. We need to … speak on how to stop that violence,” Sister Josie said.

The move is scheduled to be completed this summer.

Latest Posts A lesson in U.S. black Catholic history Pax Christi USA moving national HQ to Washington Rooms still available for Blessed John Paul II weekend Forget this year’s red carpet hoopla: Consider yesteryear’s stars, films with Catholic connection Taking a shine to Martin Sheen Virtually there: Small Christian communities online in Africa Indian Catholic magazine makes impressive debut Confronting sex abuse rage: a priest’s story Home is where the heart is, even for Kenyan street kids Nairobi’s Catholic children talk about mission Read more at cnsblog.wordpress.com

 

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Will a bankruptcy case destroy the Jesuits once again?

Amplify’d from www.secularnewsdaily.com

Jesuit Bankruptcy Redux

Will a bankruptcy case destroy the Jesuits once again?

The Jesuits are bankrupt again. At least, some of them are. Is there any chance that the current bankruptcy will have as devastating a consequence for the entire order as the first time this happened, almost 250 years ago? A week ago, 37 lawsuits totaling about $3.1 million were filed in a Portland, Oregon bankruptcy court against organizations affiliated with the Jesuit province covering the northwestern United States. Two years earlier, that province had filed for bankruptcy, claiming assets of approximately $4.8 million and liabilities of nearly $62 million, after having paid out some $25 million in settlement of sex abuse lawsuits since 2001. The current round of lawsuits seeks to recover payments made by the province to various affiliated organizations shortly before the bankruptcy filing. The plaintiffs aren’t necessarily alleging that these payments were fraudulently hiding assets from creditors, but our laws do permit the recovery of even some above-board pre-bankruptcy payments, and the plaintiffs naturally want to leave no stone unturned. The critical issue here is “What exactly is ‘the Jesuits’?” Consider Spokane’s Gonzaga University, an asset-rich organization that is run by the Jesuits of the northwestern province. Its advertising for decades has proclaimed it to be a Jesuit institution; now that there’s money on the line, it quite vociferously asserts that it is not really “owned” by the Jesuits at all. As one plaintiff’s attorney put it: The Gonzaga argument about it’s not really part of the Oregon Province is like Pontiac arguing it’s not really part of General Motors. Yeah, it may be a separate corporation, but it functions as part and parcel of the same organization. Ultimately a court will decide just how separate Gonzaga University and a number of other Jesuit outfits (such as a $7 million retreat for priests at Hayden Lake, Idaho) really are from “the Jesuits” who have the $62 million liability. My completely uninformed guess is that the sharp lawyers who set up the intricate web of connected corporations will be found to have done their jobs competently, and that the losers will be the people who are owed the $62 million. They will end up with only a few cents on the dollar, and most of the Jesuit empire will roll along unscathed. But no matter how badly things turn out in this case, they won’t be as catastrophic as the first time the “Who are ‘the Jesuits’?” issue arose, in 1764 France.

Loyola: 'We must see black as white, if the Church says so.'

The “Company of Jesus” had been established by Ignatius Loyola in 1534 as an elite, ultra-disciplined corps of counter-revolutionaries with a single mission: support the Pope, God’s mouthpiece on earth, in his struggles against Protestant heretics. Education of the upper classes was an early mission; cementing relationships with the future rulers they tutored, Jesuits worked their way into the position of “confessors” – priests who heard the sins of kings, forgave them on God’s behalf, and whispered in their ears what God wanted them to do. They developed a reputation for laxity on matters of morality, overlooking the sexual foibles of the powerful who did their political bidding. Father Benzi, for example, wrote that “It is only a slight offense to feel the breasts of a nun.” Though Jesuits didn’t use “the end justifies the means” as a mantra, they may as well have. One Jesuit document noted that “Actions intrinsically evil, and directly contrary to the divine laws, may be innocently performed by those who have so much power over their own minds as to join, even ideally, a good end to the wicked action contemplated.” Loyola himself wrote that: “We must see black as white, if the Church says so.” Political assassination became a favorite Jesuit technique; the king of France and the Stadholder of Holland fell to Jesuit conspiracies, and the Queen of England nearly did as well. Jesuits were also encouraged to lie, whenever doing so would advance their cause. For example, “A man may lawfully say he did not kill Peter, meaning privately another man of that name, or that he did not do it before he was born.” Enterprising Spanish Jesuits busied themselves in fabricating ancient documents and relics to make Spain’s Catholic heritage appear far more embedded in its culture than it really was. When the Pope in 1680 ordered the Jesuits to stop teaching this doctrine, the Superior General chose not to communicate the Pope’s decree to his subordinates.

Jesuits made, then lost, a fortune in the slave trade

Loyola had prescribed vows of poverty for his followers, but after the Pope gave the Company the right to engage in banking and commerce it grew immensely wealthy, with its fingers in commercial enterprises around the globe. In 1760, a Jesuit slave-trading business on the island of Martinique became unable to pay its bills. Angry creditors back in Marseilles did not appreciate being offered satisfaction in the form of a Mass to be said on their behalf rather than cash; they filed a lawsuit against the Company itself, claiming it was a single entity, responsible for the bills of each of its subsidiaries – exactly the argument of today’s plaintiffs in Oregon. Though the Jesuits argued that their Martinique representative was acting beyond his authority, and that anyway they were doing God’s work and should be considered above petty commercial law, they lost. They then committed the colossal blunder of appealing the verdict to the Parliament of Paris, even though they knew it to be sympathetic to a Church faction that Jesuits had been persecuting for decades. The Parliament of Paris proceeded to launch a thorough investigation of the hitherto secret governing documents of the entire order, to determine just how independent the Martinique operation really was. Revelation after revelation piled up, not only about Jesuit business operations but about their disdain for government officials who did not carry out God’s will as they saw it. The ultimate outcome was a shocker: After Parliament confirmed every claim of the Marseilles merchants, a special council concluded that for promoting “a doctrine authorizing robbery, lying, perjury, impurity – all passions and crimes; inculcating homicide, parricide, and regicide; overturning religion, in order to substitute in her stead superstition; and thereby sanctioning magic, blasphemy, irreligion, and idolatry,” the Jesuit order must be banned from France. Its schools would be closed, its wealth nationalized.

Voltaire: 'Why, then, should the Jesuits make such an outcry?'

When their hearts resumed beating, French Jesuits assured themselves that the very Catholic king would never allow this order to stand. As indeed he would not have – but for the fact that precisely at this time, Voltaire was bombarding Paris with letters, pamphlets and books about the horrendous evil the clergy had committed in Toulouse in the Jean Calas case (about which I’ll be writing more in October), and getting the opinion-makers of Europe to join in his campaign. Although the Company actually had little or no direct involvement with the events in Toulouse, it drowned in the tsunami of Voltaire’s abuse, which proved that it was possible for common sense to prevail over even the most powerful of God experts. A visiting German princess wrote that “At Paris, among the clergy or laity, I do not believe there are a hundred persons who hold the true faith.” The king let the dissolution order stand. Voltaire expressed his views on the Jesuit plight in his Treatise on Tolerance: In like manner, if these latter have been found to teach the most reprehensible doctrines, and if their institution appears contrary to the laws of the kingdom, it becomes necessary to abolish their society, and of Jesuits to make them useful citizens; which, in fact, so far from being an oppression upon them, as has been pretended, is a real good done for them; for where is the great oppression of being obliged to wear a short coat instead of a long gown, or to be free instead of being slave? In time of peace whole regiments are broken without complaining. Why, then, should the Jesuits make such an outcry, when they are broken for the sake of peace? Other countries soon followed suit; in 1773, Pope Clement XIV dissolved the Company of Jesus altogether. It was only reconstituted in 1814, after the forces of reaction had dismantled revolutionary France.

The priest who brought down the Jesuits

So no matter what happens in Oregon, it won’t hold a candle to 1764. By a sublime irony, though, there is one more connection between the time when Toulouse brought down the entire order, and the current siege. Most of the $62 million in Jesuit liabilities arose from sex abuse verdicts and settlements, the chief villain of which was a Jesuit priest who began raping boys in 1950 and continued doing so until 1970, despite attention being drawn to his activities by a pistol-wielding parent. Instead of having him arrested, the Jesuits simply moved him from spot to spot; he wound up at Jesuit-run Seattle University, where after his death a lectureship in philosophy was established in his name. The name? Father Toulouse. Related articles: The Trial of the Catholic Church: A Tale of Moral and Financial Bankruptcy Head of Henri IV Returned The true face of faith healing ChristianChirp Founder's Fraud Complaint "ChristianChirp": Twitter for Self-Segregating Christians!

Latest News Freedom Bill ‘ideal vehicle to scrap law on compulsory worship in schools’ Was America Founded To Be A Christian Nation?: AU’s Oklahoma Chapter Welcomes Debate Top Secular Headlines February 28, 2011 Church of England’s opposition to gay marriage highlights need for disestablishment Jesuit Bankruptcy Redux Read more at www.secularnewsdaily.com

 

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Sex abuse suits seek $3.1 million Jesuits sent to their ministries

Amplify’d from www.catholicsentinel.org

Suits seek money Jesuits sent to their ministries

Lawyers for those accusing Jesuit priests of sex abuse say an extra $3.1 million should be added to a Jesuit asset tally, which is being used to parcel out settlement amounts. The attorneys are not accusing the Oregon Province of Jesuits or any of its affiliated ministries of attempting to hide the funds, but say the money spent before the 2009 declaration of bankrupcty simply should be figured in. The declaration came in the form of 37 lawsuits seeking money from various payees and ministries of the Jesuits, including Jesuit High School. The suits were filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Portland Feb. 17. The lawsuits say the Jesuits sent money to many of its entities before the bankruptcy filing. Among those was Jesuit High, which received about $31,000. Gonzaga University in Spokane got $232,000. The Jesuit Volunteer Corps got a $17,000 payment that plaintiffs want included in the settlement amount.    This educational aid and other payments were made at a time when accusers were seeking settlements. "I don't think this is a hiding issue," plaintiffs' attorney James Stang told the Oregonian. "It's not illegal. This is what Jesuits do. They support education. That's a fine thing to do, when you're not insolvent." Other funds helped train Jesuit seminarians, care for elderly Jesuits, pay faculty and support tuition for students in need. Between 2001 and early 2009, the Jesuits settled more than 200 legal claims, paying out $25 million for abuse that occured decades ago and mostly in Alaska. The bankruptcy of two years ago was a way to save money for remaining and subsequent suits and make sure settlements are equitable. "Jesuit High School contends that those claims are completely without merit," says a statement from the school. "Jesuit High School's assets are not at risk in any way due to the Oregon Province's bankruptcy proceeding or this latest claim by the creditors' committee. We will remain a fiscally healthy institution committed to educating young men and women in the Jesuit, Catholic tradition." Jesuit Father Patrick Lee, provincial superior of the Oregon Province of Jesuits, said he could not comment on the lawsuits "out of respect for the judicial process and all involved." Read more at www.catholicsentinel.org

 

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The Church and Its Abuse

Amplify’d from skinnersnotes.blogspot.com

The Church and Its Abuse

“He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but he whoso confesseth and forshaketh them shall have mercy.”  Proverbs 28:113

“The sins of the common, untutored people are nothing in comparison with the sins that are committed by great and high persons that are in spiritual and temporal offices.”

Luther, Table Talk

Stories about members of the Catholic clergy abusing children continue to appear in the press.  A Sunday’s New York Time Magazine article (February 13, 2011) featured a report by Russell Shorto, “The Irish Affliction,” detailing the sexual abuse (I believe more accurate terms are “sexual assault” and “rape.”) of children perpetrated by priests throughout Ireland.

Besides the thousands of cases in Ireland, which makes that country only second to the US in the number of cases, Shorto cites reports of clergy sexual abuse in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, Britain, Italy, Spain, France, Malta, Switzerland, Austria, Mexico, New Zealand, Canada, Kenya, the Philippines, and Australia.  Though this list might seem shockingly long, it does not report all the countries that have experienced abuse by Catholic clergy.

More tales of horror will, no doubt, surface in the future (See Washington Post, L.A. Cardinal’s legacy tainted by priest abuse.” Saturday, February 26, 2011).  But how many victims have remained silent over the years and how many victims from centuries past took the abuse they suffered silently to their graves?         One particularly disturbing story that has made its way into the news is that of Marie Collins.  Collins told the curate of her parish about a priest who sexually abused her when she was thirteen.  The curate listened to her ordeal and then informed her that she “may have tempted” the priest into “digitally raping” her.

Other depositions and news stories have revealed that the church would sometimes pay off victims and then convince them to sign nondisclosure agreements, prohibiting them from speaking about what they suffered.  In other cases, church authorities transferred abusive priests to different parishes when complaints against them became too clamorous to contain.

Worst of all, the Vatican frequently asserted it had legal jurisdiction over priests accused of abusing children in order to shield them from criminal prosecution. These tactics were part of a ubiquitous pattern of concealing the crimes being perpetrated by their priests.          Through its history, the church had been more interested in protecting its reputation and wealth than the lives of the young.  But now that the church is buried in an avalanche of public evidence, one would expect at least a trickle of mea culpa to emanate from the Vatican.  Nevertheless, Rome rejects responsibility for these crimes and dismisses the fact that it covered them up.  One wonders, what makes this self-proclaimed guardian of morals blind to its own culpability?         The mendacity of the Vatican has persuaded all but the most docile and dogmatic supporters (The Catholic League for one) to see the church for what it is: an accessory to numberless counts of sexual abuse, sexual assault and rape. Though it might attempt more subterfuge, it can no longer disguise its history of obstructing justice and helping perpetrators evade punishment.         To anyone with the most rudimentary moral sense, it’s astounding that an institution guilty of covering up thousands of sex crimes continues to censure society’s “immoral” culture and behavior.  Yet, as its own crimes pour out for everyone to see, the Vatican still tries to deceive the world about the rot circulating through its clergy body.  Rome’s duplicity reflects a controlling hierarchy trapped in an archaic system of beliefs, beliefs of an insular male culture that sees issues involving women, marriage, celibacy, sexuality and the contemporary world through a warped lens of a medieval theology and philosophy.         If the church is to purge itself of their foul crimes, it would first have to launch itself into the twenty-first century by modernizing all of its positions on the issues above.  But that is more than unlikely, since it would require jettisoning an all male hierarchy that will never surrender its control and power. Read more at skinnersnotes.blogspot.com

 

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Vatican Blames Israel For Problems In Muslim World

Amplify’d from bloodthirstyliberal.com

Vatican Blames Israel For Problems In Muslim World

Accuses Israel of Ethnic Cleansing

The January edition of La Civiltà Cattolica – the most authoritative magazine of the Jesuits, printed under the supervision of the Vatican – opens with an editorial about Palestinian refugees. Adopting the Arab propagandist word Nakba, it declares they are a consequence of “ethnic cleansing” by Israel. The journal also supports anti-Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, and falsely proclaims that “the Zionists were cleverly able to exploit the Western sense of guilt for the Shoah to lay the foundations of their own state.”

The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, just joined an “interreligious meeting” in Doha, Qatar. Sponsored by the Arab League, the event occurred on Jerusalem, with the participation of “Christian and Muslim leaders.”

But no Jewish presence.

The slandering of Israel is growing among the most important Catholic journalists. Vittorio Messori, who conducted the first book-length interview with Pope John Paul II, recently wrote an editorial for the Italian daily Il Corriere della sera where he stated “All governments of all Muslim nations are under the tsunami of the violent intrusion of Zionism that has come to put its capital in Jerusalem.”

The Vatican’s teachings have a direct influence on 1.166 billion people. To understand its new mood about Israel, one has only to read what happened in the special synod on the Middle East, hosted in Rome. Nothing was said about Islamist persecution of Christians; indeed, every effort was made to show the Catholic Church sympathetic to Muslim grievances, especially against “Zionism” – a word evoked as a symbol of evil.

Archbishop Edmond Farhat – the official representative of Vatican politics – proclaimed that the ultimate cause of all the evils in the Middle East is that “foreign body” which is Israel: “The Middle Eastern situation today is like a living organ that has been subject to a graft it cannot assimilate and which has no specialists capable of healing it”.

US Archbishop Salim Bustros wrote the final message of the synod, claiming that the Jewish Promised Land had been “nullified by Christ,” thus reviving the infamous replacement theology that played a great role in the Holocaust. Bustros also claimed that the Bible can’t be used to justify the “occupation” of the West Bank, attempting to sever any link between the Jewish people and its homeland.

The former patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, named by Pope Benedict XVI to address the concluding session of the synod, presented a document against Israel called “Kairos” bearing the signatures of many Christian leaders in Jerusalem.

It says: “The Israeli occupation is a sin against God,” and takes sides against the very presence of Israel.

It likens the security barrier that has blocked suicide attacks to “apartheid,” it cancels the concept of a Jewish state and proclaims that “resistance to the evil of occupation is a Christian’s right and duty.”

Can’t go on.. too nauseated.

- Aggie Read more at bloodthirstyliberal.com

 

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Amplify’d from www.catholicherald.co.uk

The SSPX claim the Novus Ordo is a Protestant rite. Can they be serious?

The Mass of Paul VI is unambiguously sacrificial, not simply a remembrance of ‘the Lord’s Supper’

By William Oddie

Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta holds a monstrance containing the Eucharist (Photo: CNS)

The current Catholic Herald debate on the collapse of the doctrinal discussions between the Vatican and the SSPX is getting a substantial response, and has been noticed elsewhere in the blogosphere. The whole debate, according to one blog, The Sensible Bond, was predictable: “On the one side, high-minded papal loyalists cannot say enough about how disobedient the SSPX is, or how proud. On the other side, SSPX tub thumpers jeer about the hierarchy’s tendency to wink at all rebellions apart from the SSPX’s, and the busted flush of Benedict’s papacy which has seen him gravitate from liturgical traditionalist to Assisi tribute act in a mere four years”.

Well, I can’t say I’m neutral between the two points of view, definitely tending towards being a “papal loyalist” (despite some discomfort over Assisi, I think it’s just about defensible), though how high-minded you need to be to hold such views I’m not sure: it seems to me it’s a perfectly normal for a mainstream Catholic to be loyal to the pope.   The real question is whether there was ever any realistic prospect that there might be any kind of rapprochement. Rome’s view is that the SSPX can be as critical as it likes about the distortions of Vatican II – what Pope Benedict calls “the hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture” – but in the end it has to accept the essential Catholicity of the Council itself. This seems to me entirely reasonable. SSPX actually demands that Rome should repudiate the Council and accept that the Mass of Paul VI is invalid, even Protestant.   This is grotesquely unreasonable. It is inconceivable that the Vatican would simply turn against an ecumenical council of all the world’s bishops. SSPX must have known this: so it has been playing an elaborate game whose outcome was probably clearly foreseen by Bishop Fellay. The Pope, on the contrary, clearly had hopes that the schism might be overcome. Well, he has done everything he could to explore every avenue towards reconcilation. Now it is over.

The issues involved, however, will be with us for some time, and still have to be faced, since the casual acceptance of some supposedly “traditionalist” views has done considerable damage. One of these was summed up by one participant in the ongoing Herald debate: his view is essentially that the Novus Ordo is an invalid rite:

“The Novus Ordo does not signify the Catholic theology of the holy sacrifice of the Mass. It is ambiguous – deliberately so – and tends toward giving a Protestant understanding of the Lord’s Supper, which gradually will replace the Catholic Mass in the eyes and psyche of whatever remaining “Catholic” attend it. It is simple: no sacrifice = no need for a sacrificing priest = no need for an altar but merely a table for a commemorative meal over which the presbyter presides and in which the people of God exercise their universal priesthood and so they, not any priest, worship God in their way instead of in His.”

This is a grotesque distortion – no, worse, an actual direct untruth – simply asserted as though it were self-evident. The Novus Ordo is very clearly a valid Catholic liturgy, in which the doctrine of the Mass as sacrifice is both assumed and unambiguously stated. Consider the following, from the current English translation of Eucharistic prayer III:

Father, calling to mind the death your Son endured for our salvation, his glorious Resurrection and ascension into heaven, and ready to greet him when he comes again, we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice.   Look with favour on your Church’s offering, and see the victim whose death has reconciled us to yourself. Grant that we, who are nourished by his body and blood, may be filled with his Holy Spirit, and become one body, one spirit in Christ.   May he make us an everlasting gift to you and enable us to share in the inheritance of your saints, with Mary, the virgin Mother of God, with the apostles, the martyrs, and all your saints, on whose constant intercession we rely for help.   Lord, may this sacrifice, which has made our peace with you, advance the peace and salvation of all the world…

That is quite unmistakeable, and clearly, intentionally and unambiguously expressed: what is being offered is a “holy and living” sacrifice, the sacrifice of Calvary. Or consider this, from Eucharistic prayer IV:

…looking forward to his coming in glory, we offer you his body and blood, the acceptable sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole world.   Lord, look upon this sacrifice which you have given to your Church; and by your Holy Spirit, gather all who share this one bread and one cup into the one body of Christ, a living sacrifice of praise.   Lord, remember those for whom we offer this sacrifice, especially [Benedict] our Pope, [name of local bishop], our bishop, and bishops and clergy everywhere…

I find the accusation of “deliberate ambiguity” particularly interesting, since many years ago, when I was training to be an Anglican clergyman, I once had to write a long essay comparing the language and theology of the then recently authorised Anglican and Catholic rites: the Novus Ordo and what was then called the “Series III” service of Holy Communion of the Church of England. My conclusion then (it was one of the factors that led me, about a decade later, to understand that I had no alternative but to become a Catholic) was that the chief linguistic difference between the rites was that Catholic language was, precisely, deliberately unambiguous and Anglican language (because the same Eucharistic prayer had to gain acceptance from Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals alike) was inevitably ambiguous.   Take the words of the epiklesis, the invocation of the Holy Spirit, in the Roman rite: “And so, Father, we bring you these gifts. We ask you to make them holy by the power of your Spirit, that they may become the body and blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose command we celebrate this Eucharist.” That’s the epiklesis of Eucharistic prayer III: but the same doctrinal point has to be made about all four prayers: the assumption here is that the Eucharistic elements undergo an actual and supernaturally effected change: there is an actual point at which they become, in very truth and not merely symbolically, the body and blood of Christ.

The equivalent Anglican words at this point are “grant that by the power of your Spirit these gifts of bread and wine may be to us his body and his blood”: the notion of a moment at which change is effected is deliberately avoided: an Anglo-Catholic can assume it, but an evangelical can see these words as referring simply to a mere subjective view, that the bread and wine in some way “to us” symbolise Christ’s body and blood. The idea of the Eucharist as sacrifice is deliberately excluded by the words which follow “we celebrate and proclaim his perfect sacrifice made once for all upon the cross”: in other words, the sacrifice of Calvary was in no way repeatable, and what we now do is simply a distant and subjective memory of it.

Whether you like the new prayers of the Roman Rite or not (personally, I think that Eucharistic prayers III and IV are magnificent, especially in Latin but, though more evidently in the new translation, even in the current English version) it is ludicrous, ludicrous, to claim that they tend towards Protestantism.

The Novus Ordo is a valid Catholic Mass, written in unambiguous language. Let us all, whether or not we like the way it is sometimes celebrated, or the way it was originally translated, agree on that. If we can’t, we’re all in trouble.

Related Posts So the Pope says the old Mass privately? Well, probably not Morning Catholic must-reads: 28/02/11 Debate: Have the SSPX-Vatican talks been a waste of time? Vatican talks are almost over, says head of SSPX ‘We want to be outward-looking’ Read more at www.catholicherald.co.uk

 

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'Vatican assassin warlock'Charlie Sheen's Mental State Questioned - ABC News

URL:  http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/grand-wizard-master...

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Liberal Catholic Democrats in Maryland Dismiss Their Church Leaders; WaPo Can't Locate Church Leaders

By Tim Graham

On Thursday's front page of The Washington Post, reporter John Wagner wrote of how Maryland's top three leaders are Catholics but are "crossing the hierarchy" of the church by imposing "gay marriage" on the state: "But the presence of three Catholics at the helm in Annapolis hasn't stopped a same-sex marriage bill from wending its way through the legislature, triggering deep disappointment among church leaders as it suggests a waning of Catholic influence in this heavily Catholic state."

But it must have surprised readers that those "church leaders" Wagner referred to were nowhere to be found in this Post story, not even their names. Cardinal Donald Wuerl oversees the suburban Maryland counties of the Washington area, and Archbishop Edwin O'Brien oversees Gov. Martin O'Malley's Baltimore stomping grounds. Wagner somehow could not find them in his phone book. It's not as if these prelates have been quiet on the "gay marriage" issue in Maryland. Archbishop O'Brien just took great exception to the "hatemonger" label in his newspaper the Catholic Review:

Unfortunately, such sweeping characterizations took on additional meaning last week when Senator James Brochin (whose district encompasses the parishes of Immaculate Heart of Mary, Church of the Nativity, St. Pius X and Immaculate Conception, Towson) cited the tone of testimony offered by some who spoke against the bill at the hearing as the reason he was changing his publicly-stated position in support of traditional marriage, to now vote in support of redefining marriage.

In spite of Senator Brochin’s claim that he only “heard hate and venom coming out of that hearing,” witness after witness voiced their opposition, offering no such judgments or invective, including members of our Maryland Catholic Conference and an Archdiocesan parish. Their testimonies can be viewed at catholicreview.org/matysekblog. The notion that anyone opposed to same-sex marriage is a bigot or “hate monger” is not only unfair and insulting, it also ignores the very belief system that underpins our support for marriage.

Wagner and the Post seemed to want to let Catholic Democrats speak for themselves, and not create any public-relations problems for them by letting the actual church leaders discuss their opinions of these men and their John Kerry-style "not a Catholic on the day job" philosophy. Instead, Wagner quoted the top Catholic lobbyist, which doesn't have the same impact:

Mary Ellen Russell, executive director of the Maryland Catholic Conference, a leading opponent of same-sex marriage, said she has been distressed by the debate and the governor's decision.

"It's always troubling when someone in such a public position openly disagrees with the church," she said, calling defeat of the legislation "a critically important issue for the church."

Wagner's report does dare to inquire about the depth of the politicians' practice of their faith. The story begins with Gov. O'Malley "regularly attends a weekday Mass and has sent his four children to Catholic schools" and later notes that neither House Speaker Michael Busch or Senate President Mike Miller is a regular churchgoer.

But have top church leaders personally contacted these Catholic politicians on this "critically important" issue? Or are they leaving all the phone calls to the church lobbyists? This is certainly a question worth investigating that would strengthen the Post's story if the emphasis was on crossing the "Catholic hierarchy." Putting that story on the front page without any apparent contact with the hierarchy is like walking into public without pants. Read more at www.newsbusters.org

 

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Wisconsin Dem Assemblyman Tells GOP Assemblywoman 'You Are F--king Dead,' Media Mum | NewsBusters.org

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2011/03/01/wisc...

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bs8ux