Gopnik on Chesterton, "Conversion Sickness"

There's a great essay (not available online, sadly) in the current issue of the New Yorker by Adam Gopnik on G.K. Chesterton entitled "The Back of the World: The troubling genius of G.K. Chesterton." It has a fabulous paragraph on conversion that I felt the need to reproduce in toto:

"In these books [his later Catholic non-fiction works] Chesterton becomes a Pangloss of the parish; anything Roman is right. It is hard to credit that even a convinced Catholic can feel equally strongly about St. Francis's intuitive mysticism and St. Thomas's pedantic religiosity, as Chesterton seems to. His writing suffers from conversion sickness. Converts tend to see the faith they were raised in as an exasperatingly makeshift and jury-rigged system: Anglican converts to Catholicism are relieved not to have to defend Henry VIII's divorces; Jewish converts to Christianity are relieved to get out from under the weight of all those strange Levitical laws on animal hooves. The newly adopted faith, they imagine, is a shining, perfectly balanced system, an intricately worked clock where the cosmos turns to tell the time and the cuckoo comes out singing every Sunday. An outsider sees the Church as a dreamy compound of incense and impossibility, and, overglamorizing its pretensions, underrates its adaptability. A Frenchman or an Italian, even a devout one, can see the Catholic Church as a normally bureaucratic human institution, the way patriotic Americans see the post office, recognizing the frailty and even the occasional psychosis of its employees without doubting its necessity or its ability to deliver the message. Chesterton writing about the Church is like someone who has just made his first trip to the post office. Look, it delivers letters for the tiny price of a stamp! You write an address on a label, and they will send it anywhere, literally anywhere you like, across a continent and an ocean, in any weather! The fact that the post office attracts timeservers, or has produced an occasional gun massacre, is only proof of the mystical enthusiasm that the post alone provides! Glorifying the postman beyond what the postman can bear is what you do only if you're new to mail."

Pentecost Reflections

I had the privilege of reflecting on the readings for the Pentecost Vigil last evening, and wanted to share some of the thoughts I had with you. Happy Feast! Alleluia, alleluia!
(The readings for the Vigil were
Genesis 11:1-9
Ezechiel 13: 1-14
Romans 8:22-27
John 7:37-39
Full text on the U.S. Bishops' website)

The writer and non-traditional theologian Anne Lamott has said that she has two basic forms of prayer – “Help me, help me, help me,” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I’d add at least one more variation on the first – one of the ways Christians say “help me, help me, help me” is by praying, asking, begging God to come and be present with us.
Come and save us.
Lord Jesus, come – Maranatha!
And, come, Holy Spirit, which is our prayer tonight at this Vigil of Pentecost. I’d like to focus on our prayer, “come, Holy Spirit” this evening.

Sometimes it can appear that we neglect the Holy Spirit in our prayer, but have you noticed how often we pray “come, Holy Spirit”? In our liturgy, the technical name for this is an “epiclesis” – there’s your SAT word for the evening. An “epiclesis” is a prayer of invocation, asking the Holy Spirit to come and sanctify us.
Whenever we bless holy water for baptism, we invoke the Holy Spirit.
When we celebrate the Eucharist together in a few minutes, we will pray, as we do at each Eucharist, “may the Holy Spirit sanctify these offerings. Let them become the body and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.”
And at every Eucharist, we also invoke the Holy Spirit upon us and upon our church – my Episcopalian friends take that so seriously that the routinely bless themselves when they pray, “by your Holy Spirit, gather all who share this one bread and one cup into the one body of Christ” or “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.” There are always at least two invocations specifically of the Holy Spirit in each eucharist, upon the bread and the wine, the body of Christ, and upon the gathered church, the body of Christ.

So we pray “come, Holy Spirit” a lot – but do we have any idea what we’re asking for on this night of Pentecost vigil when we can focus on the church’s “epicletic” existence?
I think we do know what we’re asking for – and that that is why we avoid thinking about it very often…
Let’s look at our scriptures tonight. Let’s look at these dry bones – “How dry they were!” How dry they are.
One way of hearing these texts is with deep joy, to receive the “springs of living water” Jesus promises in our Gospel tonight, to receive the “sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit.” Those of you a few years older than I probably could have rattled them off without having to look them up on wikipedia, like I did… wisdom, knowledge, judgment, courage, understanding, piety, and fear of the Lord. It can be a bit like the lion getting courage, the tin man getting a heart, and the scarecrow getting a brain – put yourself in whatever category you choose.
But while that joy at the Spirit’s gifts is crucial, I’m not sure rejoicing in the Spirit’s gifts is enough.

You see, here’s what I think.
Deep down, or if I’m honest with myself, some of the time, (most of the time?)
I kinda like being a dry bone.
I kinda like just lying there.
You see, dry bones don’t feel pain. They’re already dry – you need flesh for that.
And dry bones don’t have to get up in the morning – you need sinews and tendons for that.
And nobody expects anything of dry bones – how dry they are! – nobody expects dry bones to keep doing Christ’s ministry in the world, to “do Christ’s work and even greater things than he,” he tells us in John’s Gospel, to save and not simply to be saved – you need Spirit for that.
When we pray, “Come Holy Spirit”, do we really know what we’re asking?

There’s a communal dimension to this as well.
Deep down, if I’m honest with myself, some of the time, (most of the time?)
Do I really want to be united with those who are other than I?
You see, Pentecost is the opposite of Babel – the people that attempt to “make a name for themselves” are dispersed from Babel, while, at Pentecost, the people who glorify God’s name, ha-Shem – the Name – are re-united, speaking all tongues, gathering all people into one new family.

That sounds great – and at the Paulist Center, we do a pretty good job at praying, “Come, Holy Spirit, unite us all in Christ.”

But deep down, do I want the Holy Spirit to unite me with, say, our brother in Christ, Bernard Law?
As a gay man, do I want the Holy Spirit to unite me with my Christian sisters and brothers who think that my sexual orientation is a sin, a perversion? More frightening, do they really want to be united with me?
You can think of your own examples, not of the “easy other” who it’s socially acceptable to accept in your current location, but of the “hard other”, the one who speaks a totally different language than you do. I often want to be united to others with the clay and bricks of my own terms, that is, by proving them I’m right – not on God’s terms, which may or may not be the same. But it is on God’s terms that we who were no people are being made into God’s people.

There is good news in the church this night. It is a great and graced irony that Paul’s promise that “the Spirit will come to the aid of our weakness, because we do not know how to pray as we ought,” is fulfilled when we pray, “Come, Holy Spirit.” It is in asking for the Spirit that we most need the Spirit’s help in being courageous, wise, understanding, prudent… and it is in our confidence that “in hope we are saved” that we believe that our prayer will be answered, and that God will bring our dry bones to life again.

Come Holy Spirit, upon us and upon these gifts, upon these dry bones that are the body of Christ, that are waiting, hopefully, fearfully to walk again. As so often happens in the liturgical calendar, Pentecost ends one season not by coming full stop, but by beginning another – ordinary time, the “Sundays after Pentecost,” in the old language, the time to drink deeply of the Spirit’s living waters. These are the weeks to continue tonight’s celebration, to continue to ask for the grace to pray as we ought, for water to flow within us, for spirit to raise up these bones. Come, Holy Spirit. Amen.

Papal Visit Round-Up

Just wanted to round-up a few of the best sources for reliable information as Benedict's visit to the U.S. begins today, and then add my own two cents...

Rocco at Whispers in the Loggia is obviously the norma non normata of Vaticana these days. Expect him to have the earliest scoops and the best inside information.

Another great source is David Gibson's blog on the papal visit entitled "Benedictions" and sponsored by Beliefnet. Where Rocco brings a heartwarming admiration to the table, Gibson also has the critical, sometimes cynical eye of a seasoned journalist, but with (shock) actual knowledge of the Catholic Church and an ability to distinguish big issues from side issues. And he's fun - check out his article in the Star-Ledger (yes, the New Jersey Star-Ledger) on papal fashion choices.

The New York Times has the fanciest pope visit page, combining some of this past weekend's journalism on the current state of the Catholic Church in the U.S. with live reports on everything that's happening. Expect them to have the best pictures. Crucially, they also have an updating schedule up, so if you've got a map of the eastern seaboard and a little yellow tack, you can follow the pope like a hurricane up the coast.

The Boston Globe also has a good page on the visit, and Michael Paulson is a long-standing, careful observer of things Catholic; though less flashy than the NY Times page, my money's on his analysis's being a bit more insightful.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has shown a good deal of media savvy for the trip, and has their own, high quality blog on the papal visit. It's almost entirely the official line-up of who's who and why they're important, but it will be a good source for photos as well.

If you're following the visit from home, most major television carriers will no doubt be carrying it. EWTN will be streaming it all (and smoke, drink, or donate some money to the Democratic Party at the same time, if you want to offset your possible support for their advertisers...). And you can follow along using the papal missal for the trip, released last week by the Vatican in pdf form.


So what am I thinking about all of this?

Well, I think it would be difficult to be a Roman Catholic Christian and not feel a great deal of excitement and pride about the visit of a pope. For someone raised within the church, the sheer visual and musical spectacle of it all hits all sorts of deep nerves within me. I'm particularly struck/excited by the proposal to ring bells in Catholic churches across the country at 4 pm today EDT, the time of Benedict's plane's arrival.

I respectfully disagree with some of what this particular pope has done, both as the prefect of the CDF where he hurt people who were close to me, and even now as pope. But on the other hand, this is one of those occasions, almost like a funeral or wedding, where one puts aside some of those differences. If he's truly functioning as a symbol not of his own sometimes poor, IMHO, choices, but as a symbol of the universal church and its presence with our own churches here in the United States, then a papal visit cannot but help remind us of that. Plus, B16 is simply a better theologian than JPII, so if John Paul's visits were focused on the question of what John Paul did, I'll be looking on this trip to see what Benedict says.

And yet I think that my experiences -- as a gay man, as a theologian, as a feminist, as an overly-educated academic -- will give me a sense of distance from some of the visit. I can't but approach this visit without some serious question, and while that might be dismissed as not "getting into the spirit of the thing," I think it's actually a saving grace in a quite literal sense. B16 knows (and, I think, knows better than his immediate predecessor) the danger of the pope-as-spectacle becoming a focus for a cult of personality, for an idolatry that places the pope in the place of Christ. After all, he was a child in Nazi Germany, he knows how easily this very human excitement at being fascinated by the spectacle, at being caught up in the moment and losing oneself in the crowd, can be turned, twisted, and misused for something grotesque. So, bottom line, I'll be watching for the next few days with real, unfeigned excitement, and yet with a bit of a critical eye. I think my own experiences, and my generational location, may have saved me from the untrammeled cynicism about all things papal that I find in some of my elders, as well as from some of the uncritical papolatry, in the strict sense, of some of my peers.

I'll be glued to the TV with the rest of America, and I'll be sincerely praying with and for the pope on this trip - but one of my students attending the Mass at Yankees Stadium has instructions to acquire a Benedict XVI popener for me (a papal-themed bottle opener....)

Viva il papa!

Opening Day, and a Chance to Pray

It's Opening Day at Fenway Park. Game time at 2 pm. Ring time at 2 pm.
I'll be correcting papers while watching the Olde Town Team.
This might also be a chance to check out two of the sassiest Red Sox blogs on the block, Basegirl and Respect the Tek. Go Sox!

And, if you happen to be in the Boston area, I'm helping to plan an ecumenical service this evening at 7 pm at the Paulist Center celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Paulist Fathers. Entitled "Hearing Paul Together," it features three great preachers reflecting on St. Paul's writings: Fr. Antony Hughes of St. Mary's Antiochian Orthodox Church in Cambridge; Rev. Jep Streit, the Dean of St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Boston; and Ms. Laura Everett, the Associate Director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches and all-around-kick-ass church chica. (She doesn't put that title on her C.V., but it ought to be there.) If you're in town, come on by. More information at the Paulist Center's newly re-designed website.

Second Sunday of Easter

Do you believe in the Resurrection?
If so, why?

Those are our Gospel’s questions for Thomas, and those are the questions for us, as we conclude our celebration of Easter Day – that’s right – the past eight days are considered by the church to be one day, the liturgical equivalent of a summer night in the arctic, where the sun never sets.

But I’m not going to spend lots of time talking about Thomas this evening. Rather, I want to look rather closely at something interesting – interesting to me, at least – about the scriptures the church links together for us on this Second Sunday of Easter, and particularly at this reading from the Acts of the Apostles. But keep my questions – do you believe in the Resurrection? Why? – firmly in mind.

Let me refresh you, in case your mind was wandering off earlier. “They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common. […] And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

The teaching of the apostles, the breaking of the bread, the prayers – those are relatively clear. “The communal life” – the Greek word that translates for us is the word “koinonia”, “communion”, the sharing of a common life of prayer, of service, of, as we see, material goods. It’s a typical way in the Scriptures and in theology of describing the difference that the Risen Christ makes in our lives together – we who were not a people, become a people; we who were as far apart as Jews and Greeks, as slaves and free persons, as women and men, as Yankees fans and Red Sox fans, are reconciled into one family. We are only Christians by being Christians together – the old Latin tag was “unus Christianus, nullus Christianus” – “a single Christian is not a Christian.”

And so, both for us and for these earliest Christians, the church is the proof of the resurrection, and that’s why we’re talking about it at the end of this Easter week. The church is the indication that the resurrection of Christ, God’s confirmation of Christ’s righteousness and the foretaste of what we can look forward to on the last day, is not a myth, not a pretty story, not a happy ending tacked on to the usual story of another Jewish rabbi killed by the Romans. It’s the existence of this community, devoted to the teaching of the apostles, to communion of minds and bodies, to the breaking of the bread, to the prayers, that confirms Mary Magadalene’s proclamation, “I have seen the Lord.”

Now, what you may be thinking, or perhaps, in my humble opinion, should be thinking is, that all sounds well and good, but hey, I live in Boston. After the events in the Roman Catholic church that have been revealed in the past seven years, how can the church help me to believe in the resurrection? Believing the truth of the resurrection – that’s easy-peasy, compared to believing in the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.” Even here in this Paulist Center Community, we’ve had a rough couple of years, and we’ve had rough patches before, and we’ll have rough patches in the future. If you haven’t had the experience of having your faith shaken by the church that attempts to proclaim it, then, as the bumper sticker says, you haven’t been paying attention. It’s difficult to hear this story from Acts about the early Christian community and not think of it as a fantasy, as a story, or at least as a little bit naïve.

So why in the world would the church link this reading about the early church with the story of Thomas’ coming to faith? Because, I think, not despite the church’s failures, our failures, to be Christ-like, but in and through the church’s failures, our failures, to be Christ-like, we find our truest source for faith in Christ’s resurrection and hope for our own resurrections.

As some of you know, my partner and I live in an undergraduate dorm with about 400 students. Upon hearing how regularly I try to get to church, one of them once remarked to me, with wide-eyes, “You must be really holy.” I told him that calling someone who’s in church a lot holy is like calling someone who’s in the hospital a lot healthy. One of the indications we get that the church’s job is to carry on Christ’s ministry is in the passage of Acts immediately following this one, when Peter heals a man born disabled outside of the Temple. That’s right – Peter. You know, the not-so-bright fisherman with a tendency to exaggerate and/or deny Christ repeatedly. That is, the foundation of the church. We have met the healers, and they are us, the walking wounded, in an emergency room of a community where every doctor is hooked up to his or her own IV bag.

The description of the church as an ideal community in today’s reading from Acts isn’t, upon closer inspection, naïve; just a few chapters later, some of the first conflicts of the early church raise their heads. But in this community here, and in Christian churches across time and space, we find moments of communion, we find the prayers and the breaking of the bread, we find the teaching of the apostles, we find the resurrection of the Lord and the presence of his Spirit, breaking out in unforeseen, gracious ways. That is the difference between a pollyannish naiveté that pretends everything is perfect, and a Christian hope that knows that everything is not perfect – Christian hope holds together the crosses of our feeble, stumbly, dysfunctional community and the moments of grace, the moments of glory, moments made possible by the truth of Christ’s resurrection, that shine out in our world like supernovas. Like Thomas, the surest way for us to know, to believe in the resurrection, is by putting our hands in each other’s wounds, wounds caused by others and wounds we have caused ourselves in all variety of ways, and trying, however clumsily, to give each other comfort, to help each other walk again.

The craziest people I’ve met in my life have been in the church of God – some of you are here this evening. Some of the people who have most annoyed me and most hurt me have been in the church of God. Some of those I have most annoyed, that I have most hurt, have been here as well. But the surest experiences I’ve had that have convinced me of Christ’s resurrection from the dead and of his presence to the world through his Spirit, have been in this same church, not simply through words but through the reality of a new way of being human together that rings out, regularly if not constantly, in this body of Christ. In the stubborn persistence of this people who were once no people; who are now part of me, sometimes despite my preferences and theirs; who are, together, holding each other up as we pray to our father and walking together toward a communion that is real yet incomplete, I hear the reign of God echoing backwards into human history and I find my hope in God’s justice confirmed.

As we continue in this liturgy to devote ourselves to the teaching of the apostles and to koinonia, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers, look around you as we share the sacrament that we fittingly call “communion,” look around at the people who love you and the people who bug you.

Do you believe in the resurrection? Why?

Consistent Ethic of Life

The late Cardinal Bernardin's consistent ethic of life has been on my mind a lot lately, not entirely through my own volition - I proofread and index books on the side, and just finished an index of a volume of Bernardin's speeches on the consistent ethic that will be published later this year.

Rocco has a round-up of some of the reporting on this week's Catholic Social Ministry gathering in Washington, D.C., and the lobbying effort that accompanied it, much of it focused on the U.S. Catholic bishops' document "Faithful Citizenship."

In the last interview, John Carr, the justice-and-peace director for the U.S. bishops had this line which struck me to the quick in its power and its challenge:

“Catholic progressives ought to be measured by how they stand up for human life,” he said, “and Catholic conservatives by how they defend human dignity.” The “consistent ethic of life,” Carr said, “doesn’t give any of us a free pass.”

Something to ponder on a cloudy Wednesday...

Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas

Happy Feast of St. Thomas, patron of theologians and of the Paulist Fathers!

More on last week's ecumenical events and yesterday's opening of Isaac Hecker's cause in a little bit...

(Icon entitled "The Silence of St. Thomas" by Fr. William McNichols, S.J. More info and icons here.)

Which Church Father Are You?

You are St. Justin Martyr!

You have a positive and hopeful attitude toward the world. You think that nature, history, and even the pagan philosophers were often guided by God in preparation for the Advent of the Christ. You find “seeds of the Word” in unexpected places. You’re patient and willing to explain the faith to unbelievers.

Check out St. Justin Martyr: The First and Second Apologies for more information on St. Justin Martyr.

Find out yourself at the quiz.

Just Sex?

"Do my sexual choices demonstrate justice?"

Let's talk of happier things...

How much do coffins cost these days?

That was the phrase my best friend's friend and mentor Dr. Nicky used to use to change the topic of conversation when things got too dark...

Well, about $1,000 if you get them from the Trappists of New Melleray Abbey in Iowa. They make some lovely, simple wooden coffins ("blessed by an actual monk" - which seems to be the only aesthetically questionable part of their marketing strategy, in my humble opinion...) and urns, and deliver next day if needed - or you can pre-plan, which might be a nice final gift for your family.

Also, the simplicity of a wood coffin without lots of bells and whistles might help you in having an eco-friendly burial while maintaining some of the look of traditional Christian burial. But if you're looking for a less traditional option that is still pretty stylish, why not try the Eco-Pod, currently produced in Britain, entirely out of recycled paper, with or without an "Aztec Sun "design?

Jim Martin on Stephen Colbert

And in addition, check out The Wørd: A Blog for Catholic It-Getters. Oh, and watch this space for something I've got up my sleeve.

That other motu proprio

Faithful readers who survived the blogging drought that was most of this past year will remember another, less famous motu proprio on papal conclaves that came out in June. Sandro Magister has an illuminating article by, IMHO, one of the greatest living canon lawyers, Ladislas Örsy, S.J., on why such a seemingly small change by JPII, and its restoration by B16, makes such an important ecclesiological difference.

Ken Hackett, Catholic Relief Services

There's a great article in the most recent issue of the Boston College Magazine (one of the few alumni magazines I've seen that consistently rises above a simple endowment-building vehicle) on Ken Hackett, the president of Catholic Relief Services. CRS has been rated the third most efficient worldwide charity (only 6% of their budget goes to administration and fundraising -- that's 94% of your contribution going directly to those in need), and has, since its inception, relied on Catholic funding to serve all people in need, without proselytization and without regard to the race, creed, or nationality of the people it serves. It's a great example of St. Francis's recommendation to "preach always, use words when necessary." You can make a donation at their website, and/or get information on their fair trade goods.

Happy Feast of St. James

Today is the Feast of St. James, and one of my great dreams has always been to walk the camino del Santiago, the historic pilgrimage route that ends at the shrine of St. James at Compostela in Spain. And I wouldn't be traveling simply for the weather, or even for the plenary indulgence, but also for the chance to see the botafumeiro live and in action. The largest censor in the world, I don't know exactly how fast it goes, but it goes pretty damn fast. And it did go through the window one year. So happy Feast of St. James! Next year in Compostela...

Happy Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul

Today is one of the major patronal feasts of Rome, and, in honor of the occasion, the famous statue of St. Peter at the Basilica gets dressed up...

But it is a joint feast, the idea being that the church at Rome is founded not on the witness, the martyrdom, of Peter alone but of Peter and Paul, two great apostles who, tradition suggests, both met their end in Rome. And last night at services at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, B16 announced that on June 29th, 2008, a Pauline year in celebration of the 2,000 anniversary of Paul's birth will begin.

Nicely coincidentally, next year will also be the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Paulist Fathers, founded by Isaac Hecker under the patronage of St. Paul. Exciting times!

Motu proprio

Not _that_ motu proprio....but now that I've got your attention:

B16 released a motu proprio today re-establishing the previous practice of the conclave to elect a pope only by a 2/3 vote, rather than the scheme JPII instituted by which a deadlocked conclave would eventually switch over to a simple majority -- raising the specter of an intransigent minority that could hold out indefinitely until the 2/3 voting was over. It's another sign, in my opinion, of B16's desire to undue some of John Paul's more, um, creative innovations...maybe Divine Mercy Sunday is next??

In other news, I'm defending my dissertation tomorrow afternoon, so keep me in your prayers!

Next Synod of Bishops, Upcoming Motu Proprio, Etc.

Two upcoming items on the Vatican front.

The Next Synod of Bishops
So only Nixon can go to China. From Fr. Z, a priest and blogger from Rome who spends a lot of time talking about proper translations of liturgical texts from the Latin, as well as the return of the use of Latin in the Mass. The Lineamenta, the planning texts, for October's Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, have been published. The theme will be "The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church." The Synod was called for by Christus Dominus at Vatican II, and has functioned as an occasional advisory body to the Pope since then. But Fr. Z notes an important change that B16 has made to the juridical process of the synod, a change that furthers the pattern of slow, deliberate yet marked de-centralization that reflects a theology of the papacy as the primate among the bishops, rather than above the bishops. Fr. Z's text in full:

For a rigid backward looking conservative, Pope Benedict XVI sure does some progressive things.

The most recent surpise from His Holiness is a change to the Synod of Bishops.

Originally the Synod, called to meet occasionally to discuss questions put to them by the Pope, could before only offer observations and statements. Pope Benedict has now given them deliberative power concerning certain precise questions.

The new edition of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis indicates the changes in new statutes for the Synod.

The Synod will be able to vote on issues, but the vote must be ratified by the Pope. Thus, in certain specific questions, it seems the Synod will become a kind of micro-Council.

This move brings the Synod perhaps more in line with the way ancient Synods worked. It also resonates with the way the Orthodox bishops deliberate, though clearly they don’t have the Petrine dimension excercized by the Pope.

So, this Pope seems to be bent on loosening the vice clamping around some dimensions of the Church’s life since Pope Paul VI. He is exploiting the provisions in Canon Law about the Synod and relaxing artifical and harmful restrictions imposed on the Church’s liturgical life.

The Motu Proprio
And the next news that's likely to come from Rome is the upcoming motu proprio expected to allow a much wider use of the 1962 Missale Romanum (that's Mass in Latin, for my fellow post-conciliar Catholics). Expect lots and lots of people to freak out.

For all of your basic questions for information, Amy Wellborn has put together a "Motu Proprio Tip Sheet" that will, assumedly, receive further detail after the actual publication of the document.

Should those of us who aren't Latin Mass goers freak out? Not necessarily. I expect that the key to the interpretation of the document will be a clause or paragraph in which B16 will signal that a crucial aspect of the wider allowance of the Latin Mass cannot be understood in any way, by bishops, clergy, or laypeople, as suggesting the illegitimacy of the vernacular versions of the Mass. That's the rub that sparked the excommunications of the Lefebvrists back in the day; one cannot, in the Catholic church, promote the use of the Latin Mass because one understands the vernacular masses to be invalid. I expect that the motu proprio will make that clear.

Given that, I'm optimistic that the wider use of the Latin Mass won't make much difference to most people. Releasing a document like this in 2007 is a lot different than it would have been in 1978; there is no way of turning back the clock on the vernacular liturgy, and most clergy, laypeople, and bishops have little interest in returning to the old Mass. If it's strongly emphasized that a preference for the Latin Mass is just that, a preference, and not a matter of faith, then allowing a diversity of usage within the church seems a good move to meet people where they are.

At least two practical issues need to be addressed, however, that may get lost in the shuffle to re-publish 1962 Missals. First, there is the minor issue of a unified calendar; many people were expecting the publication of the document yesterday, on the feast of St. Pius V, the post-Tridentine pope whose publication of the Missale Romanum standardized Latin Catholic usage for the next 400 years. But it's just as possible that the document may be published
on May 5th, his feast day under the Latin Catholic calendar. This in itself signals the difficulty of allowing two distinct calendars within the Latin rite. Some sort of calendar reform within the Latin rite would both make sure that Roman Catholics are celebrating the same feasts on the same days, and would also show the relativity of the Latin Mass -- the Mass is under the regulation of the bishops, and not the reverse. Simply being old doesn't make it scripture.

The second, more substantive issue is the question of how the texts of the Latin Mass understand the relations between Jews and Christians. I have a 1962 Missale here in my library, and a quick leafing through can find those lovely Good Friday prayers for the "perfidious Jews." The Boston College Center for Christian-Jewish Learning has already raised these concerns and suggested some responses.

In both cases, the caveat seems to be that if greater re-introduction of the Latin missal is not going to undermine some of the other developments in post-conciliar Catholicism, it can't be introduced as a museum piece, but must be made a living part of the church, and that includes modifications that will upset true traditionalists by suggesting that there are other reasons for allowing Latin liturgy than a negative evaluation of the conciliar reforms. We'll see shortly, according to all the scuttlebutt, exactly what will happen next.

BXVI Quote of the Day

"It was easy to know the doctrine. It's much harder to help a billion people live it."

Technically, yesterday, from David Gibson's NY Times article on BXVI after two years.

Happy Birthday, B16

He celebrated with a cute new mitre and his new book on Jesus.

Soulforce at Gordon College

Michael Paulson reports in today's Globe that Gordon College, an independent evangelical Christian college on the north shore (and alma mater to many, many illustrious graduates, including my friends Dan and Suzanne...) will be welcoming, rather than locking out, a group of Soulforce LGBT activists on their nationwide Equality Ride.

So what are we to make of this? Underhanded evangelical ploy to look nice while still hating on the gays? After all, the College is not renouncing its policy on homosexuality, and talks and presentations by the Soulforce riders will always be followed by presentations of the college's viewpoint by members of the Gordon community. Or is it a capitulation to the forces of sodomy, an endorsement of the gay lifestyle simply by allowing them to be on campus and (!) to share dinner?

Neither, IMHO. They're entering into explicit, polite, dialogue. Which is not easy to do, in a culture that doesn't promote talking with the people with whom you disagree, and on an issue which goes to the heart of peoples' lives. In the Globe story, the president of the student association, Josh Stoeckle, "said that he supports Gordon's policy against homosexual conduct, but that 'I find myself growing and realizing that the world is also a very complicated place, and we're often not really very good at loving people. We let beliefs become abstractions, and not people. And we have students at Gordon who are homosexual and really struggle with being here.'" Amen. The church's struggle with self-identified gay people is not going to end overnight, and inviting someone into a conversation, rather than shutting them out, is a good step to all of us being able to talk with each other and not about each other.