“When people approach the Church, we must offer them beauty"

Let the Church say "Amen!"
Good article in the National Catholic Register about the foundation of Silverstream Priory in Co. Meath, Ireland.
Dom Mark Kirby is one of the most inspiring people I've ever met at a CMAA Colloquium, which is saying a lot because yearly the gathering takes on the aura of a retreat, and if it's possible for an event to be a "spiritual director," it is surely one.

“Dom Benedict [the other monk with whom Dom Mark founded the community at Silverstream] and I were conscious that, in God’s providence, we were called to rekindle the torch that blazed from the Benedictine abbey of Fore in County Westmeath until its suppression under Henry VIII in 1536.”

Oh, and all this makes it seem like the right time to remind my 3.2 regular readers to vote in Church March Madness.
Though I guess that ought, with a nod to liturgical use, to be "Procession Madness."

What Cardinal Kasper Said, If Cardinal Kasper Said What I Believe Cardinal Kasper To Have Said

In this day of Fake News, or rather, constant accusations of fake news, one is reminded more than ever that no one can have empirical knowledge of all matters that interests or concerns him.
I am not there to hear to the actual words spoken by a president, or here to watch the actual expressions and gestures of a pope or that other place to see the actions taken by a terrorist .

When it gets down to it, I don't know that those images of storms flickering on the screen are of an actual event happening now, that the contents of this pill bottle are what the box describes, or even if they are, that they will do what I am told by my doctor who is told by the FDA or a pharmaceutical conglomerate, that they will.
But you have to trust somebody, and I choose to trust the weather man, and I choose to trust my GP. One hopes previous accuracy or good faith is, if not quite a pledge, at least an indication of present accuracy and good faith.
National Review, New York Times, Breitbart, HuffPo... who knows?
An additional problem in this area of finding and trusting sources for information, especially in the ecclesiastical realm is the translation issue.
All that is by way of prelude to saying, Sandro Magister is someone in whom I have a high degree of trust. He has a  piece on the push for inter-communion in recent ecumenical initiatives, including some of an interview Cardinal Kasper gave, to which I can only say, What the Francis? [Emphasis supplied]

Cardinal Kasper: We are friends, we are brothers and sisters. We have begun this ecumenical way and we have taken many steps in the meantime. We have good hope that one day we will even reach full communion. Even now we already have a great deal of communion among us.
       Q: A communion at the Eucharistic table as well?
Cardinal Kasper:Yes, shared communion in certain cases, I think so. If [two spouses, one Catholic and one Protestant] share the same Eucharistic faith - this is the presupposition - and if they are interiorly disposed, they can decide in their conscience to receive communion. And this is also the position, I think, of the current pope, because there is a process of coming together; and a couple, a family, cannot be divided in front of the altar.

Um, no.
The entire premise is flawed because the two descriptors of this hypothetical couple are incongruous, they cannot exist at one and the same time.
If they ACTUALLY "share the same Eucharistic faith" it is either because the one has ceased to be Catholic or the other has ceased to be protestant.
(Yes, I'm shouting.)
And the idea that just because they are a couple they cannot be divided this way is absurd.
He's speaking of mainline protestants with liturgical worship and at least some sacraments, whose Eucharist faith is similar, (NOT "the same,") but what of others?
What if one is Catholic and the other Mormon? or Baptist? or Jewish? of Satanist? or pagan? or Muslim? or Taoist? or atheist?Should they be divided in front of the altar?

The Catholic Fringe Unraveling On Both Selvages, and Overplaying One's Hand

A bit of hubbub of late over some ordained persons' calling out of some unordained persons, in some cases by name, (one of said ordained persons being in the habit of threatening unordained persons with civil lawsuits,) following the unordained persons having called out other ordained persons by name, some consecrated persons by name, and even, in several cases, an installed person whose name is... well, known to virtually the entire world.
Some of all of this is deserved, other instances are unfair, some of it is bullying and clericalist, some of it is barking mad.
Hardly is anyone in these wars ever 100% wrong, there are often good reasons, up to a point, and very often, perhaps usually, good intentions. (We must assume that last, until the assumption is proved wrong.)
Even the ill-intentioned will begin with the reasonable and kind and inarguable.
Sometimes people give themselves away, of course, frequently by overplaying a hand,
Ah ha, the observer says to himself, I was with you up till now, you first point was undeniable and laudable but I see now that that was merely a set-up to this balderdash, an attempt to lull us into amiability so you could sneak in some poppycock.
Man cannot keep himself from Going Too Far.
Been discussing the failed 1998 translation a great deal with a friend lately,
While I admit there are some clunky moments in the one in use today, I overall drastically prefer it to the rejected one.
But there are other words and phrases spurned by TPTB that I would have endorsed, and more, endorsed the agenda behind them - but the reformers, as so often, went too far.
They knew, they had to know, that eventually, when push came to shove the Catholic Church was not going to allow the Anglophone Catholic Church, no matter how many of us like to think of ourselves as an autonomous sect, NOT to say, "I believe," and "and with your spirit," and "for you and for... many," (I actually think they could have sneaked that one in with "THE many.") Perhaps not on this go 'round, but eventually, and couldn't we finally have a few decades of liturgical calm now?
(Oh, and for the record, sometimes clunky is waaaaaaay better than curt.)
I digress.
Anyway, the Rad-Trad fringe has a lot of right on its side, and honest, it is possible to decry the feminization of ministry, and see it as a wedge issue for the impossibility that looms so large in the spiralist agenda*, the ordination of women, without despising women. (I promise you, I am not a self-hating gyno-American.)
But likewise, it would be easier to believe die-hard traditionalists oppose women in Holy Orders on loving theological grounds is so many of them did not openly display such contempt for women. Protestations that no, of course not, women are not held in less regard by the Church would be so much more credible if Aquinas hadn't said we were “deficiens et occasionatus”, if so many functions besides the confection of the Eucharist were not reserved to priests, and oh, yeah, the priesthood is reserved to men.

A contributing factor in the social recognition of the role of women is a greater appreciation of their responsibilities in the Church: their involvement in decision-making, their participation in the administration of some institutions and their involvement in the formation of ordained ministers.

Well, yeah.... it could be.
And it could have been.
For centuries.
And the longer it took the Church, it still takes Her, to come 'round, the harder it is to believe that Her denial of the presbyterate to women isn't just part and parcel of Her denigrations and ignoring of other charisms woman might have to offer Her and all of mankind.
Anyway, among the much criticized bloggers, there's a fellow who in a newish thread is arguing against "sacramental trans-genderism,"
Good for him, good turn of phrase, and he's right, mostly.
But he can't let a side comment go without answering it with this stupidity:

universal suffrage was one of the worst ideas in human history. Personally, I'm all for head of household landowners being the only ones allowed to vote. They have the most skin in the game.

That's right.
Not everyone who is entitled to vote knows what he's dong, so let's limit it.
Oooh. Interesting.
How?
I.Q. test?
Determining the potential voter's logical acuity or moral fiber?
No.
By wealth and ownership of material goods.
And he caps it off with the inanity about "skin in the game."
Um, no. LITERALLY wrong.
His ideal voter may have capital staked, he may have money on the game, but we each of us, literally, have one, our own, skin in the game.
His idea is as contemptible as the idiot's in the UK who think young people's votes should count more than that of their elders in the BREXIT referendum, since they'll probably live longer with the consequences.
-------
(*Those who hold it might prefer the phrase "progressive agenda," but it aint' progress when you're going around in circles.

"Theology needs to 'catch up' with gestures"?

I do not pretend for a moment to have any special insight into the relationship between the Church and the Anglican communion, or what the schism caused by Henry VIII's desire for a male heir and a woman who was not his wife entailed, or how any of this confirms or confuses the Ordinariate.

But I am having great difficulty wrapping my mind around the idea of theology - that is, received and discerned truths about God, His wishes, and mankind's relationship to Him and to those wishes - conforming itself to the gestures made by churchmen, rather than the other way 'round.

Fr Tony recalls that the documents of the Second Vatican Council recognized those elements of the Church which exist beyond the boundaries of the Catholic Church, adding that recent ecumenical efforts have been looking at the implications of that statement in the search for reciprocal recognition of ministry.
While he notes that such recognition is still not fully possible, he cites many gestures to show a growing respect and recognition of the ministry exercised by Anglican bishops. In particular he recalls the gesture of Pope Paul VI, 50 years ago, of giving his own episcopal ring to the Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey. Theology, Fr Tony says, “needs to catch up” and find the “theological underpinnings to these gestures”.
He adds “I think it’s true to say we don’t use the language of ‘null and void’ any more” as that’s “clearly not what is spoken by the gestures, generosity, and warmth which we see time and time again”.

Just because one does not use certain language because it will not advance ones cause does not make that language inaccurate, does it?
I suppose "imaginary" and "non-existent" are equally injudicious.... 

Feeling Fertile?

Their newsletter having arrived, I've been reading various past on the website of the Rosary Shrine, including about their most recent profession.
The new nun is challenged  -

Do you wish to be totally consecrated to God and dedicated to the universal Church in a new way, in order to announce prophetically the blessings of Christ and to enlarge the people of God with your hidden fecundity, and do you wish to be set aside for our Order by solemn profession so that, while persevering in prayer with Mary the Mother of Jesus, you may ardently desire the fullness of the Spirit?

Perhaps it is because I am childless, and though not by choice, quite contentedly, that one phrase struck me so ringingly, she is bid,

Enlarge the people of God with your hidden fecundity.

"Hidden fecundity."
It's a wonderful description of the duty we all have to spiritually nourish the Mystical Body of Christ, (which paradoxically, in so many ways but especially in Christ's Real Presence in the Sacrament nourishes us.)
We are, each of us, regardless of station in life called to spiritual motherhood and spiritual fatherhood.
Though I have neither given birth nor adopted a child of my own, I have never felt disconnected from the ongoing commission to be fruitful and multiply.
I've tried not to "fall down on the job." I have brought in to communion and kept in communion, I have loved and taught children, I have if not given at least saved life.
One is not just his brother's keeper, at times one is his parent, no?

Get out there and bear fruit!

Why Do People Always Ask "WWJD"?

Should what Jesus would do be our guide?
Should we not rather ask, what would Jesus want me to do?
What He might do, what He may do, what He has done - these are not necessarily relevant.

He might tell a cripple that his sins are forgiven, He might say I am the Resurrection and the Life, He might ask His governor, and His worried-sick Mother, how could you not know I'd be taking care of my Father's business?

 I not only don't do these things, I daren't do them!

Nope, we have neither the power nor the right to do what Jesus did.
(Although turning over tables to end irreverence and abuse in God's Holy Place should be a message to those upset with Liturgy Shaming Admonishing.)

Oh, and one last thing - another correct answer to WWJD?

Start my own Church.

That's right.

Not my prerogative, you know?

Not yours, either.

My Chicken Little Moment, and the See of Peter

My dearest husband is a worry-wort. Yes, Himself is anxious over many, many things, yet always has time to include another scenario in his Litany of Terrible Things That COULD Happen.

Not that "seem likely to," note - but no matter how unlikely still could.
(And he almost always believes them to be more likely than they are, I should add.)
Most of them have to do with politics, and many, many, many of them seem to be inspired by political thrillers he watched an an impressionable age, Manchurian Candidate, 8 Days in May sort of stuff.

He grew up ducking and covering, (how sad that I was born too late to share in that....) and worrying about missiles in "Cuber," and he is not above remarking to people that what didn't happen could've happened, if it had happened, even though... well, it didnt - e.g. a coup by Nixon and his cronies? Could've happened.

"End Times" has just never been the future which my mind's eye envisious when awful occurances loom.
I simply never imagined apocolyptic results of elections, disasters, atrocities....

So whence the dread as I read this?

Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops...and the synod secretariat will be hosting a symposium Saturday through Tuesday to “build a discussion” on the topic [of decentralization]... the nature of the Pope’s speech [on the topic] one that aims to pay more attention to the concerns of bishops and their faithful and offer them greater autonomy — has caused some concern. If inappropriately devised and executed, critics say, it could threaten unity and possibly even lead to schism.

Why did I see the dissolution of the Church and the End of Days?
I am not one of nature's pessimists, I don't live my life in fear of judgement day, I know the gates of hell will not prevail against God's Church...
So what is this foreboding?
I can tell you, I don't want to be a member of the American Church, still less of the Church of Gary or the Church of Newark or the Church of Venice, I don't even consider myself particulalry bound to Rome nad its rite, (going to a liturgy in Aramaic soon, as a matter of fact,) but I do consider myself bound to Peter's succesor.
I put not my faith in princes, even, or perhaps especially, princes of the Church.

a major concern about the proposed reform is that it could be especially vulnerable to abuse, particularly if it facilitates national or regional conferences gaining authority to approve pastoral practices that are not coherent with doctrine.

I see the promulgation of doctrinal developement and the handing on of teachings and Tradition becoming like some massive game of telephone.
It is hard enough to trust in Pete's successors, trying to muster confidence in the successors of all the apostles just multiplies my doubts by 12.

Romans 8:35?

Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ?
No one.
Right.
Okay, then who or what will separate us from His Bride?

Frank Sheed has the answer, (h/t to Nick Donnelly, @ProtectThePope):

“We are not baptized into the hierarchy; do not receive the Cardinals sacramentally; will not spend an eternity in the beatific vision of the pope. Christ is the point. I, myself, admire the present pope, but even if I criticized him as harshly as some do, even if his successor proved to be as bad as some of those who have gone before, even if I find the Church, as I have to live with it, a pain in the neck, I should still say that nothing a pope (or a priest) could do or say would make me wish to leave the church, although I might well wish that they would leave."

Speaking of Dutifuls and Prodigals....

I'm not the nicest person in the world.
I like to make jokes, and I do it too often at other people's expense.
I'm trying not to snark too much at political figures at the moment, (not because they don't deserve it, but because politics is actually making me a little sick so I'm trying not to think about it,) and I fear that the excess snark not so utilized is being deployed in other directions.

So I don't want to make this too snarky, and I REALLY don't want to indulge in noting that some kettles share the same coloration as myself.

That said--

There seems to be a kind of dionysian glee, (a paradox, yes) taken in lamenting that certain persons who should not have received the Blessed Sacrament have partaken of the Eucharist throughout the Catholic blogosphere.

The commentary, (this is generally in com-boxes, not the work of writers with any reputation or standing,) almost wishes perdition on separated brethren and sistren rather than praying that they might be saved, that all might be one.

I do not condone the sacrilegious, (even if unintended, it is sacrilege,) reception of Communion at Mass, nor the fuzzy thinking and preaching that may have encouraged it, but come on - people must be presumed to be of good will, and people of good will need to be catechized, not have anathemas hurled at them.

There was an excellent reflection in Magnificat this past week, can't recall the writer, that essentially told of the truth of a Word being attested to in any of three way: the speaker can be trusted, the word itself is self-evidently true, or those who already hold it to be true inspire confidence in it.

Orthodox Catholics Are Obliged To Behave In A Manner Worthy Of The Vocation In Which The Are Called.

You cannot draw people to the Truth if you make that Truth seem ugly.

Big Honkin' Schismatic Chickens Coming Home to Roost

I genuinely feel for both sides in this, (hence by blocking out mention of the cause of their disagreement,) I do believe they are all trying, as they understand it, to live out their Gospel vocation, but seriously, what did they expect?
I do not hold with the borderline schismatics in the Church, (by which I mean the OHCA,) who say that our separated brethren best serve the Lord by trying to be the best separated brethren they can be rather than returning to the OHCA, but nor can I gloat over this shambles.

A meeting of national leaders of the Anglican Communion on Thursday issued a statement reprimanding the Episcopal Church, its American branch, for having allowed its clergy to [XXXXXXX].
“Recent developments in The Episcopal Church with respect to a change in their Canon on [XXXXXXX] represent a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching held by the majority of our Provinces on the doctrine of marriage,” a Jan. 14 statement from the meeting reads....
The Anglican Communion has been in tension in recent years over the issues of [XXXXXXX] . Since 2003, the Episcopal Church has made moves to be more tolerant of or even welcoming to [XXXXXXX] . These moves have drawn sharp criticism from Anglican communities elsewhere...
The Primates 2016 statement notes that “We gathered as Anglican Primates to pray and consider how we may preserve our unity in Christ given the ongoing deep differences that exist among us concerning our understanding of [XXXXXXX].”
“The traditional doctrine of the church in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds [XXXXXXX]. The majority of those gathered reaffirm this teaching.”
The statement called the Episcopal Church's decision “unilateral” and lacking “Catholic unity. 

 

"Unity, shmunity! where'd'ya THINK 

this was all gonna lead?"

"I don't know what the Blessed Sacrament is, and I sure don't believe it's what YOU say it is, but you have it, so I want it anyway...."

The Synod continues to produce Moments That Make You Go WHAAAAAAA???

What do you suppose Robert Welsh believes about the Catholic Eucharist? that it is delusional? that it is stupid? that it is evil?

I had friends in school, very large family, widowed mother.
Sandy, one of the middle kids, was a good student and a superb athlete, who even in middle school was obviously a likely candidate for a free ride to college in field hockey.
Her sister Kathy was also a good student, vaguely interested in the arts, and a bit of a drama queen, (bear with me, there's a point to this story.)
Our coach suggested Sandy would really benefit from a week of hockey camp one summer.
Their Mom could send none of the brothers and sisters to camp, but in some years a friend with connections managed to wrangle a free week in the woods for one of the boys.
The coach thought she could get Sandy a partial--scholarship? campership? whatever you call it.
The Mother thought she might be able to manage the rest, especially after the oldest son, Joey, (a buddy of mine,) said he would contribute more than his usual 50% of lawn-mowing money to the family coffers.
At this point, Kathy, who was neither good at, nor drawn to athletics, and had no experience in, nor had ever expressed any interest in hockey, threw a complete hissy about how unfair it was that Sandy was getting something she wasn't, nobody liked her, how did they know she wouldn't have wanted to go to hockey camp, why couldn't anyone take her side for once, (yes, I, just a friend, actually happened to be there for the histrionics, in which she sobbed herself breathless,) etc., etc., etc.
The upshot, I later learned was that Kathy would also to hockey camp.
Not sure how they afforded it, what anyone else may have gone without to make it possible.
I did hear from Joey that Kathy did not offer to find baby-sitting work to contribute.

To cap it all off - after the week away, Kathy never picked up a hockey stick again.

If you've kept reading this far, the reason why I brought this incident up, (I'd really forgotten it,) was the story about one of the protestant - what are they, observers? delegates? I've heard or read both - anyway, Robert Welsh, a member of the Disciples of Christ, (a denom about which I know very little,) who is attending the Synod, wants to go to hockey camp.

Welsh, a representative of the Disciples of Christ, recounted his personal story in this regard: his wife is Catholic, as well as his daughter and grandchildren. The eldest of them, Trace, is 14 years old and a well-trained altar boy. Welsh shared that he suffers greatly at not being able share in the partaking of the Eucharist together.

He "suffers," but not, seemingly enough to remedy the situation.
The man has been married to a Catholic for over four decades, so he has been exposed to the Catholic Church's practice of Communion and, (this is important,) the Catholic Church's beliefs about Communion since 1973.
Admittedly, he may not "know" but if he does not, he is willfully ignorant.
And if he knows, he obviously does not share them.
Because if he shared them there would be no power on earth that he would allow to keep him from embracing them and availing himself of this utterly unique and life-giving gift.
And not sharing them, why would he want to take part in what to him must seem either an evil or a stupid or a delusional charade?

I want Dr Robert K. Welsh to partake of the Catholic Church's Communion.

Sir, if you actually want to receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ Truly and Wholly Present, Soul and Divinity in the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Altar- WHO OR WHAT IS STOPPING YOU?

Who Said "A Turnip May Know No Greek But I Do"? and "Synod"

I'm probably remembering it wrong, and I haven't got a copy either of the book or the tv series, but I think Augustus in "I, Clavdivs,"  used that expression - a turnip may know no Greek....
(I, Claudius, with production values that rival Dr Who for tacky cheapness is still one of the two or three greatest television series EVER.)

Well, a turnip knows just about as much Greek as I, which is why I have to depend on the kindness of (erudite,) strangers.)

Can anyone tell me what the (minor,) hubbub is over the word, "synod," and the insistence by some bloggers that it means "meeting," (which I believe is true,) but that it does NOT mean "a path taken together," or "walking toward each other or with each other," as well, (which also seem feasible,)?

Why not both?

 

Is there anyone in Rome who 

has NOT slept with my daughter 

claimed to have an inside track 

on the Synod??!??!?#??$???

Catholic Schools Promoting Catholic Teaching - the Unmitigaged Gall !!!!

Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Springfield IL seems to be under the impression that those schools in his purview are for the creation of virtuous persons!

Oh, my God, is there no end to the wickedness of Papists?

He seems not to understand that his Church is just a collection of arbitrary rules and suggestions, that have no place in the making of moral and ethical decisions!
How dare he foist his opinions and his beliefs on people who are just looking for a cheap alternative to prep schools, (as indicated by the way, according to stats provided by one of the secular news outlets that has its panties in a bunch the percentage of non-Catholic attending Catholic school in the diocese jumps from elementary to high school,)?

And if parents of a child in the school are publicly flouting what those wacky Catholic Christians is mandated by God's law or by natural law he's, oh my God, I can hardly bring myself to type this --- he's insisting that they dialogue!
Yes, that's right, you're not seeing things, he wants them to come in for a [shudder] MEETING.

Because, you know, the Worship of God and Salvation of Souls.

Oh the humanity!

[/snarcasm]
Do you suppose the Catholic parents of a child in an evangelical protestant school are within their rights to insist that when the kiddies are doing art projects, or working on memorization that utilize scripture, that they not use the KJV, or NLT or NIV,  little Mary Bernadette will use the NAB, thank you very much?
Or is it only Catholics who provoke these diatribes when they promote a way of life that's, um, Catholic?

Can you imagine if an Islamic school in the US told the owner of a liquor distributor who wished to enroll his kids in a madrassa to be prepared, that the were not going to avoid  the Muslim teaching on alcohol just to please him?
Or a Christian Scientist, (or do I mean Jehovah's Witnesses?) school agreed never to mention their attitude toward blood transfusions?
Or a group that engaged in ecstatic dancing promised a parent of a denom that forbade dancing that they would water down or gloss over  their religion for him?

Or any religion whose teachings included any stances that were counter-cultural which ran a school?

Would the State Journal-Register be whinging about that?
Dubious.

Here's the document for Springfield that parents are asked to sign.
Oh, you're not Catholic? Who is forcing you to enroll your kids there?

There's an old saying in community theatre that too many star wannabes and drive-by members of the organization don't realize that it's more about "community" that "theatre."

Well, many parents, Catholic and non-, and of course the secular media, don't understand that Catholic Schools are and should be more about Catholicism than Scholarship. The latter is an accidental, and its purpose is to reinforce the former.

The money thing, the tithing?
I don't know about any of the parochial and high schools in Springfield, but in any other diocese of which I've had any knowledge even the out-of-parish, out of the Faith tuition didn't begin to cover the actual costs per student.

The sacrifices made by the teachers, (most could get much better money elsewhere,) and the average PIP, (most of whom, childless or not, do not have children in the schools in question,) are to build up the Faith, to build up the Church, to produce good Catholic, to - I can hardly believe this needs saying and I know when it is said it is roundly mocked - TO SAVE SOULS.

Here endeth the rant.

Show me the way to go home....

...I'm tired and I want to go to bed.
No, that's not true.
Or actually, it is true, but it's not my theme.
On a thread over at the CMAA messageboard wherein the oft vaunted virtues of vernacular are invoked, and by some, vented upon, the merits of Latin as the Roman Church's sacred language was neatly put like this, by the musician blogger Adam Wood:

The most important reason to retain Latin is that language carries culture.

Every immigrant group has realized this, and every native tribe after colonization --- when the children stop learning the old language, they abandon the old culture. When hegemonic political regimes want to control and subdue a culture, they forcibly remove the language --- think of Ireland, Native Americans, Native Australians, and Cantonese speakers in China....

Latin is the language of Catholic culture. If we lose it, we lose who we are as a people. Or perhaps we already have. 

I do not share his pessimism, or at least his doubt. We, the Church, the Faith, the faithful have not and we shall not lose it.
Not to say that  their aren't plenty of poor little lambs who have gone astray out there, just that the Shepherd will supply ... you know the rest.
There will always be that remnant, even when the glories of the Israel's forest, 

and of his fruitful land the Lord will destroy, both soul and body, and it will be as when a sick man wastes away. The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few that a child can write them down.
In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean upon him that smote them, but will lean upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.

I firmly believe that so long as a single child remembers the way home, the family can never be truly lost.

Does it matter if the janitor at a Catholic parish is gay?

I am again wondering what I was musing on a week or so ago.

In an announcement Tuesday, the German bishops’ conference in Bonn said the majority of bishops had ruled that immediate dismissal will only be a “last resort” for employees who are divorced and subsequently “remarry” or those living in a registered partnership.
Until now, such employees were required to be dismissed from such employment, although the rules were often ignored. The Church is the second-largest employer in Germany.
“An automatic dismissal may now in future be ruled as out of the question,” said Alois Glück, president of the Central Committee of German Catholics, the country’s top lay Catholic organization. From now on, he said, any public violation of loyalty to Church teachings must be examined on a case-by-case basis.
The amendment, when enacted by a bishop, explicitly overturns a 2002 ecclesiastical law, which stipulated that all Church employees need to be loyal to the magisterium.

Adulterers and gay people need to make a living. In a country where the Church is the employer of such enormous numbers, doesn't justice require that this be taken into account?
A teacher, (yes, even a coach or computer teacher,) is indubitably, whether this role is embraced or not, a "role model."
The bookkeeper? not so much.
The psalmist at the ambo presents as a liturgical ministers instructing the assembly in the way of prayer.
But does an organist in a loft?
The music director, yes, but the French horn player jobbed in for Christmas?
Sticking with the area, I am most familiar with, is there any reason not to employ a Protestant or an atheist to arrange the brass parts for Easter? I think not.
But is it reasonable to disqualify that non-Catholic as a member of an editorial board that decides what lyrics are suitable for the de facto sung theology of the Church?
I believe so.
A psychotherapist with no acceptance, or even perhaps understanding, of the Church's views on guilt and responsibility should not be counselling through Catholic Charities, a doctor who will be part of the ethics committee at a Catholic hospital and does not think with the mind of the Church shouldn't even get an interview.
But does it matter who sets a broken bone?

I'm willing to take instruction here - maybe I am missing some ramifications of this.
By failing to exercise Her right not to hire in some cases, is the Church likely to find Herself constrained by laws such as that threatening Her autonomy in DC in others? essentially forced to hire those who work against Her truths, who actively promote sin?

I dont know.

"The Hard Core of Church Life"?

A Jesuit magazine has an article about the ways in which the Holy father is changing the Church.
Pope Francis is changing the Church?
GOOD!
The OHC&A Church is semper reformanda, it is always in need of change, or positive change.

But this is an idiotic and ahistoric view of things:

For more than a millennium dogma has been the hard core of church life

No.
It hasn't.

Love trumps Dogma, always did, always will (in fact, dogma itself tells us that it is trumped by love.)

The core of life in the Catholic Church has always been caritas, Active Love, in other words, (sorry, sola fides types,) the much maligned and misunderstood "good works," whether those good works consist of worship directed toward the Triune God, (that is following "the first of these,") or those  good works which we direct towards each other, (the second which "is like the first" but is nonetheless second.)

But, and this is important, the highest value? the "hard core", as you put it?
It's Love -- not Niceness.
Here's a shocker for ya - seemingly loving actions which contradict revealed Truth ARE NOT MANIFESTATIONS OF LOVE.

Quite the opposite.

But they like it! is not always the best reason to give someone something.

"But it's absolutely LUSCIOUS, Hon! I heard about it on the Internet from a snake! You'll see... TRY it!"

I don't owe my "sister" obedience

Not that I don't have several sisters who are really swell people, and all...
The Catholic Church, or, to be precise, the Holy See will have a pavilion at EXPO Milan 2015, which is a good thing.
The theme of the exposition is ""Feeding the Planet."
Also good!
And the theme of the Holy See's contribution to the festivities is “Not by bread alone.”
Beyond good, purt'dang near perfect!

The Holy See Pavilion will take as its title two short Biblical phrases: 'Not by bread alone' and 'Give us today our daily bread'

But then, this:

Msgr. Luca Bressan commented that the Holy See Pavilion will offer to help tourists and citizens encounter “the mystical dimension, openness to God”. He added that the method to be followed will be that of posing problems and making suggestions to solve them, “used with success by Pope Francis, to show that the Church is not a sour schoolmistress but rather a sister who shares our path with lucidity and a vision of the future, a devoted mother able to show the ways and the resources of the future”.

My sister, my mother, my sister, my mother..... I feel like Evelyn Mulwray.

I suppose if Jesus is my (step?) brother, the Church can be my sister, but I am uncomfortable with what seems to be increasing emphasis on a kind of, if not equality, parity in these mystical relationships, a down-playing of man[kind]'s DISparity in status.
It's presumptuous.
And I really think it is wrong to downplay the Church's teaching authority by saying she is not a "sour schoolmistress."
Better to learn at the foot of a sour schoolmarm than to have no schooling at all....
But yes, it's certainly more pleasant if She hasn't, or rather, that we, as Her agents don't give Her "the face of a pickled pepper," as the Holy Father has put it.

"Can we talk....?"

 That's the plea from, (no, not Sr. Mary Joan Rivers,)

(Ya know, if she had spoken Catholish, it would have been, "Can we break into small discussion groups with facilitators for each one?")

but from a few loose threads on the fringes of Catholicism -

clericalism pervades the Church at all levels. It's not just bishops who insulate themselves from the voices of lay people and, sometimes, their own priests. It's not just the priest or pastor who assumes license to overrule all other input and ignore parishioners' voices. It's also lay people with a "Father says" or "what will Father think" attitude. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, clericalism isn't even in the same league as the "demi-clericalism" running rampant in many American parishes, there is NO ONE as eager to "assume license", "overrule all other input" and "ignore parishioners' voices" as a Catholic lay minister with certification from some other Catholic lay minister who manages to gain for himself control of any facet of parish life.
(And by "himself" I almost always mean "herself.")
And if there are two such at odds? Bloodsport.
Of course, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church has fringes on both sides, the selvages are unravelling -

Richard Williamson, the bishop consecrated by Lefebvre and dismissed from the Fraternity of St. Pius X in 2012 [ordained] a new bishop... on the feast of St. Joseph in the monastery of Santa Cruz in Nova Friburgo, Brazil.... The consecration of a bishop without a papal mandate will make the ordaining party, ... the person being ordained, ... liable to a latae sententiae excommunication. 

Good Saint Joseph, Guardian of Our Lord, and Guardian of the Church Universal, pray for us!

If Only Members of Parliament Were Permitted To Marry Instead of Forced Into Celibacy...

.... if only in the '80s there were women in the two houses, in the cabinet, in No.10, the feminine presence as a sort of leavening agent!
Why,  these things wouldn't be able to happen in civilized places like Great Britain!
If only....

A newspaper editor was handed startling evidence that Britain’s top law enforcement official knew there was a VIP pedophile network in Westminster, at the heart of the British government. What happened next in the summer of 1984 helps to explain how shocking allegations of rape and murder against some of the country’s most powerful men went unchecked for decades.
Less than 24 hours after starting to inquire about the dossier presented to him by a senior Labour Party politician, the editor was confronted in his office by a furious member of parliament who threatened him and demanded the documents. “He was frothing at the mouth and really shouting and spitting in my face,” Don Hale told The Daily Beast. “He was straight at me like a raging lion; he was ready to knock me through the wall.”
Despite the MP’s explosive intervention, Hale refused to hand over the papers which appeared to show that Leon Brittan, Margaret Thatcher’s Home Secretary, was fully aware of a pedophile network that included top politicians.
The editor’s resistance was futile; the following morning, police officers from the counter-terror and intelligence unit known as Special Branch burst into the newspaper office, seized the material and threatened to have Hale arrested if he ever reported what had been found....
Great Britain’s notoriously tough libel laws insured that obviously he couldn’t repeat the allegations included in the Home Office papers that about 16 MPs and members of the House of Lords, and 30 high-profile figures from the Church of England, private schools, and big business, were members of, and advocates for, the Paedophile Information Exchange. The shadowy group, which operated partly in the open, campaigned for the age of consent to be abolished and incest to be legalized. It also allowed pedophiles to send each other secure mail and to meet in person....
 Sir Cyril Smith, the man who “had steam coming out of his ears” as he remonstrated with Don Hale, was himself allegedly a predatory pedophile with more than 140 complaints filed against him. Throughout his life he had been protected from prosecution.
Among the retired police officers Danczuk interviewed, one recalled the time Special Branch officers forbade them from asking a victim about Smith. Others remembered the day Smith was allowed to walk out of a police station without charge despite indecent images being found in his car after an unexplained telephone call from London.

Patently, this is a great evil.
But will trolls now scour the internet for opportunities to use this evil to indict all politicians, all government, all enormously fat men?
Will the structure of constitutional monarchy be blamed, as inherently productive of this evil?
Will the NYTimes end every story about England with a quote from a cockney anarchist who can't get anyone to listen to him at Speaker's Corner? will "progressive" British periodicals hire disgraced associated with other organs, (news organs.... what did you think I meant?) who have publicly dished about how delightful the death of the HRH would be?
Probably not.
It is only the Church that is so hated.

"Fissiparous?"

Fr Hunwicke talks good sense on the theology behind privileging the Church Universal ahead of local concerns and structures.
(And I learned a new word!)
I would certainly not have condemned "the idea that the local Church has ontological priority" in those words, (I am neither sufficiently learned nor eloquent,)  but, as I believe I've mentioned so often everyone I know is bored to distraction by it, when I was first being drawn back into "church music" I was alarmed by a list I had come across of the purposes of such music.
Before I knew his music, I knew that anyone who would say that liturgical music should "provide a means of identity for the local church, the parish, [and] bond the community together," while completely ignoring what it had done and ought to continue to do for the identity of the Church Universal, was probably not someone whose oeuvre was worth the bother.
 (Since then I've come to learn that the man not only indifferent to that which could aid in strengthening our common Catholic identity, he bears it a certain animus.)
Even as a child, what was most attractive to me in the Church was the knowledge of its universality, and the reassurance that its liturgical practices were similarly global. (Well, at least in theory.)
I didn't WANT to belong to St. Thewaywedoithere's, and celebrate according to the Makingitupaswegoalong Rite, (and I say this as someone who has loved her parishes.)

But anyway, back to Fr Hunwicke.

It is sometimes suggested that, as an alternative to a Church which is pushed around by the Curia, we would be better served by having a much weaker and tinier curia and a lot of very powerful Episcopal Conferences. I find myself entirely out of sympathy with these sentiments. Partly, this is on personal and pragmatic grounds. We, in the Church of England, saw what happened when 'Provincial Autonomy' was allowed to ride rough-shod over Doctrine, Tradition, Bible ... and even the Dominical Imperative of Unity. It is a thoroughly nasty and miserable experience....
the idea that the local Church has ontological priority....  is ecclesiologically illiterate. There is one Body of Christ, One Catholic Church. It subsists in two modes. There is the Church Universal spread throughout the world. Then there is the Particular Church, Bishop, priests, deacons, people, in one place. This distinction goes back to S Paul, who uses 'Ekklesiai" in the plural to refer to the local churches, but "Ekklesia" in the singular to refer to the Universal Body of Christ which lies behind, as it were, each local church. Yet the two are one. The Catholica is in the local church, and you cannot participate in the Catholica without participating in your local Church. The whole Body of Christ subsists in the Particular Church. This theological simplicity calls into question any attempt to muddy its waters, unless it is firmly understood that that any 'groupings' are merely functional and ad hoc. Powerful regional "churches" introduce a, to me, incomprehensible confusion into the simple teaching of Scripture and Tradition. And they are subversive both of the unique role of the local bishop (with his curia of presbyters and deacons) and of the unique role of the Roman Pontiff (with his curia). 

You should read him every day.
(Oh, and fissiparous means something like resulting from fission or fissures.)