Veritas Vos Liberat

Well, Jeremiah Days 2008 is now over with, and it was a success. I enjoyed it more than I did last year. The last time I was at this camp the kids were not very well behaved, but this year was better. I even got to give a talk at the camp on tools one can use to grow in holiness. I think the talk went alright, especially considering that I had only a few hours lead time to prepare. My main job at the camp was to be the sacristan. I worked with the supplies they had at the retreat center to try to make the liturgies as nice as possible. The next camp, First Call, takes place in just about two weeks, so I have to be ready to do it all again.

From this afternoon until Wednesday, the Diocese of Rockford will be having its annual Jeremiah Days vocations camp for boys in grades 7-9. Please pray for all the guys on this retreat, and please especially pray for the seminarians who are running it (myself included). Thanks.

For those who do not already know, at 5 am CDT today (noon in Rome), Archbishop Burke ceased to be the archbishop of Saint Louis and became the prefect of the Apostolic Signatura at the Vatican. I ask for your prayers for:

1. Archbishop Burke as he makes the transition into his new appointment.
2. That a good bishop will be appointed to the Archdiocese of Saint Louis.
3. The seminarians at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary as we find out over the next few months how this will affect life at the seminary.

Thank you.

The New Liturgical Movement has posted an interview with Msgr Marini, the papal MC, that was originally published in the Osservatore Romano. This interview addresses, among other things, ad orientem, the need for continuity in liturgy, the Benedictine altar arrangement, and the reception of Holy Communion on the tongue whilst kneeling.

The Spanish parliament has voted to give great apes the same rights to “life and freedom” as humans have. Apparently the Spanish legislators now consider great apes, which last I checked are animals, to be on an equal level with humans. This means that keeping apes for circuses, using them in television commercials or movies will be forbidden. But what if these apes enter into a contract with the movie producers? Since they have the same rights as humans regarding life and freedom, certainly they must be free to enter into a contract (and mayhap kick off a stellar acting career).

It does not surprise me to learn that Peter Singer is behind this to some degree. He has been arguing for so-called animal rights for some time now. He claims to be a moralist, but his morality is warped. For example, he argues that bestiality can be alright. He also argues that infants cannot be considered persons because they lack “rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness,” and therefore killing an infant is not like killing a person (which means an adult in control of all his faculties). This definition of personhood would also mean that someone who is drunk, and thereby impairing their rationality, would no longer be a full person, at least whilst drunk. Come to think of it, I do not know if a sleeping person could be considered autonomous or self-conscious. I suppose if that were the case, and if Peter Singer were correct, killing someone in their sleep could not be considered killing a person.

All of this is utter nonsense.

Apparently even within the Anglican Communion there are some doctrinal lines that cannot be crossed.

The African Anglican bishops are getting ready to announce a schism within the Anglican Communion. These conservative bishops disagree with the ordination of openly homosexual bishop Gene Robinson. They are holding their own conference, the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), apart from the Lambeth Conference which is held every ten years by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Anglicanism (and its American branch, Episcopalianism), is a compromise religion. What unites those in the Anglican Communion is not so much confessing the same beliefs, but rather similar worship. Take, for example, the Anglican teaching on the Eucharist. One is free to believe that the bread ceases to be bread and is instead the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, one can believe that somehow both the bread and the Real Presence exist at the same time (a metaphysical impossibility), or one can believe that there is only bread and it only symbolically represents Christ’s Body; believing any of there will allow a person to maintain communion within Anglicanism. In fact, Anglicans have what they call an “open communion” meaning that any baptized Christian is, under Anglican rules, allowed to receive communion during an Anglican worship service.

This compromising on beliefs is finally catching up with the Anglicans. There are now factions within the Anglican Communion that are so divided about what they believe is acceptable Christian behavior that the communion itself is breaking down. Their belief system has been so watered down from the teachings of Christ that there is not much left to sustain union among all the Anglican groups.

The Archbishop of Canterbury a year or two ago proposed a two-tier communion system in which those Anglican groups that maintain more of the teachings of Christ would be in full communion whereas those who discard the teachings of Christ on such things as homosexuality would be in the lesser tier. My question is, however, that if Anglicans have an “open communion” system, this two-tier system is really just a designation in name only since, as baptized Christians, people in either tier are able to receive communion in the other tier’s worship services. It seems to me that this two-tier idea is ultimately meaningless and is just a way of trying to appease the more conservative Anglican groups so they do not leave.

In common parlance, when we speak of “being in communion” with people what we mean is being in full communion. Thus, to speak of a two-tier communion is oxymoronic since the two-tier part contradicts what people commonly mean by being a communion or in communion. If the upper tier Anglicans are going to restrict the reception of communion during their worship services to only the upper tier, then saying that the lower tier is in communion with them (albeit a lesser communion) just does not make any sense.

Ultimately, I think that what is happening within the Anglican Communion is a good expression of the consequences of Protestantism, namely, a Protestant church for every (or nearly every) Protestant. If one is going to maintain that there is no authority apart from oneself to authentically interpret Scripture, then anytime two different groups of Protestants have a disagreement, they can split and form a new expression of Protestantism. This has historically been seen within the Protestant movement since initially there were only a few Protestant groups (Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, etc.), but now there are tens of thousands of different groups, if not more. This schism within the Anglican Communion is just a furthering of the division among Protestants.

Anglicanism is imploding upon itself because there were few foundational beliefs to support the communion. I think Anglicanism as we have known it is at an end, and perhaps within the next decade the entire communion will fracture into individual groups that are no longer united in any way except they all were spinoffs from the Anglican Communion. There is, however, some good that can come of this. Perhaps the more conservative groups will look into swimming the Tiber, as it were, and returning to full communion with Rome; it has been known to happen in the past with the more conservative Anglicans.

Catholic World News reported that the Patriarch of Constantinople favorably received the suggestion from the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church that the Eastern Catholic churches could enter into a “dual unity” state by being in full communion with both Rome and Constantinople. I fail to see how this could be possible. First, there are doctrinal differences between the Catholic Church and the Eastern churches separated from Rome. Second, the separated Eastern churches do not recognize the full authority of the Pope. For the Eastern Catholics to be in full communion with both Rome and Constantinople is to say that such differences do not exist when in fact they do. The logical conclusion would be that there would be no reason why Rome and Constantinople could not be in full communion with each other.

Today I ordered a traditional style pyx and burse from Adrian Hamers. The pyx has sterling silver as a base metal and is gold plated. The burse probably dates from the 1930’s and is hand-embroidered, probably by nuns. They should arrive on Friday. I plan to take the pyx with me on Tuesday when I attend Low Mass in choir at the Institute of Christ the King’s oratory in Rockford to have it blessed according to the pre-Vatican II Rituale Romanum. Here are some pictures:

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, the president of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, has said that Pope Benedict wishes to see the Traditional Latin Mass reintroduced in all parishes throughout the world. This is wonderful news, as it once again illustrates the importance Pope Benedict places on the liturgy. The TLM is also to be taught in seminaries (as Kenrick is doing).

I foresee three big obstacles to this. First, many modern church buildings are architecturally deficient, deviating from traditional Catholic church designs to things such as barn-like churches and mega-churches. Besides having theological and catechetical implications, these deficient church designs are not conducive to the TLM. It can be done, but it might require some creativity.

Second, there will be opposition among some priests and bishops. Just look at how difficult it has been to implement Summorum Pontificum in some areas. Some bishops are trying to set up uncalled for hurdles to the TLM, even when the Holy Father has liberalized the use of the Mass of the Ages through his motu proprio. Thanks be to God that we are blessed with bishops, such as Archbishop Burke and Bishop Doran, who are not enemies of the TLM.

The third obstacle I foresee is one of catechesis and resistance among the faithful. Nearly two generations have now grown up since the promulgation of the Missal of Paul VI. That means that nearly two generations have grown up without ever experiencing the TLM on a regular basis, and even more people have grown up since the turbulent times between the end of the Second Vatican Council and the promulgation of the Missal of Paul VI when the liturgy was in flux in many areas. Thus, the TLM is unfortunately foreign to many people who might not recognize the value of it. Therefore, catechesis would be required not only to instruct the faithful about the general flow of the TLM, but also about the value of it.

Time will tell what becomes of Pope Benedict’s desire to have the TLM offered in every parish. I can only speculate about his reasons behind this, but perhaps he is using this to discern how we should be worshipping God. Hopefully I will live to see this implemented, and hopefully I will live to see what becomes of it.

Here is a Zenit article about the Clear Creek Benedictine monastery. I’m really impressed with what these monks are doing. In an age of religious not wearing habits, it is stupendous that these monks are attempting to live lives according to traditional monastic practices. Find out more about the monks and their monastery at their website: http://www.clearcreekmonks.org.

I started my summer assignment at St Edward’s Parish in Rockford about two weeks ago. Things have been pretty busy. I help out at the Masses, help in the office, work on computers, etc. Things have been interesting. I never know what any particular day will be like. For example, one day we had an insane person (who I think escaped from a mental ward) in the church. He put medical forms on the altar and refused to take them back. He was pretty much unresponsive when one of the priests asked him questions such as who he was and if he was alright. We ended up calling the police to have him removed because we were worried that he would go completely crazy and hurt someone. However, between the time we left the guy in the church and the time we ended the phone call to the police he had left, taking his medical forms with him. The police searched the building with us, but the guy was not there. I do not know what happened to him. That’s but one example of what can happen in a parish on any particular day.

Today Bishop Doran ordained 7 priests, 2 transitional deacons, and 8 permanent deacons … at one Mass, one two-and-a-half hour long Mass. Besides having all these men ordained at the same Mass, this Mass was also unusual because of Bishop Doran’s broken foot. That meant that he could not walk around too much. He did not process in or out, and we carried in a portable altar and placed it in front of his cathedra. My official duty at the Mass was being one of the lectors, but I also helped carry stools for the ordinandi to sit on during the homily and I helped carry in/out the portable altar.

This evening I attended the first of three first Masses at which I will be in attendance. I was the MC at tonight’s first Mass. Tomorrow I will be serving a first Mass in the morning and then MCing another first Mass in the afternoon. Right now I am exhausted after attending two Masses today totaling 3.75 to 4 hours of time.