"Excesses"? The Germans Really ARE a Tolerant Bunch!

I like to give the benefit of the doubt to someone whose words I can only read in translation.

I have no German outside of a few art song phrases.

So when I read that after what some think is too long a period of time, (might one say, an "excessive" delay...?) a German bishop has spoken out about the organized gangs of molesters and thieves that plagued New Year's celebrations in their country, and he is quoted as decrying the disturbing and intolerable "excesses in Cologne and other large cities," I figure something was lost in translation.

But here is the German:

Die Exzesse in Köln und anderen Großstädten sind für unsere Gesellschaft zutiefst verstörend und können in keiner Weise toleriert werden.

"Excesses," to me, implies that which in moderation is perfectly acceptable, no?
As if a little bit of pickpocketing and grab-ass with unwilling victims would have been fine, all fun and games? but the perpetrators just went a bit too far?

Ah, the Germans....

Someone Who Has Actual Knowledge of the German "Church Tax"

Very interesting stuff about the way the Church tax is administered and the truth about the ontological reach of a Catholic opting out of the paying of such, in the combox at Catholic Herald

As someone who grew up in Germany I may be able to give some background information:
In order to no longer pay 'Kirchensteuer' you have to declare at the local council that you leave the 'Catholic Church.' Since the goverment is no religious institution this means that one is leaving the civil-law corporation 'Catholic Church in Germany,' without any deeper religious meaning (and courts have made it clear that the goverment can only deal with civil law and have to leave everything else to the Church). The German bishops used to claim that this was tantamount to Apostasy, but a few years ago Rome told them that this was not the case. As a result, the German bishops introduced the crime of leaving the civil corporation, which is to be punished with de-facto Interdict - and recently the bishops decided that you can be teacher in a Catholic school if you live in a civil-partnership with some same-sex partner, but that you are sacked more or less automatically for the sin of de-registering from the civil-law coporation. (Oddly enough, foreigners moving to Germany and simply not registering to the civil-law corporation can receive the sacraments).
However, I guess that the tide is changing - if the German bishops join some Kasperite heresy (as most of them are likely to do so, although hopefully not all), many orthodox Catholics will refuse to fund them any longer, and it is hard to imagine that orthodox priests will pay any attention to this register any longer (it may be necessary to get married abroad, though, because there could be problems with the paperwork). I have been already taught by an long-standing German parish priest that de-registering was maybe not yet morally necessary (this was Pre-Synod) but would in his eyes not be a problem either.
The real tragedy is that the German Church could have done so many things with this money, but they use it to build up a giant administration and to dilute the Faith....

Wolves in Shepherd's Clothing

It is deserving of the widest possible dissemination, so I will reprint Fr Hunwick's post on Cardinal Danneel's remarkably frank and damning confession (which some are now attempting to walk back):

During his Inauguration Homily, our Holy Father the Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI asked for prayer that he might not "flee for fear of the Wolves".

Now, very usefully, the unspeakable Daneels has blurted out information about how the Wolves described themselves: they were "the St Gallen Group". Their declared purpose was to oppose the mission of Pope Benedict to reconnect the Catholic Church with Tradition. Apparently these lupi see no disgrace in likening themselves to the Mafia.

Interesting. If it is OK for Cardinals to gang together to subvert the Roman Pontiff during Pontificate A, then clearly it must be OK for Cardinals to gang together to subvert the Pontificates of Popes B, C, and D. And if it is OK for Cardinals, the sworn intimate collaborators of the Roman Pontiff, to gang together against him at all, then clearly there can be nothing unOK if mere clerics and laity do the same. Or if there is, please tell me why in simple words of one syllable.

Or is it only after the end of a pontificate that the brave souls who have conspired against the Pontiff have the courage to rubbish him publicly? During his pontificate, did they proclaim their loyalty to him from the housetops? While putting in the boot behind closed doors? And then boasting noisily about their doings as soon as he was gone? Is that how the Church is supposed to operate? I'm uncertain whether to call this 'group' a latrocinium or a lupanar.

What a seedy gang of hypocritical crooks at the very heart of the Church, plotting ... even as I write this and you read it ... to corrupt the imminent Synod of Bishops.

"Happy Reproduction!" wishes from those wacky Norwegians

I dunno, with all the angst about human sexuality of late, and fretting about synods and motu propio letters, and human relationships, and the virtue of some of them -- I don't think this slightly risque story is too much.
Apologies if any of my 3.7 readers find it so.

Passengers were left stunned after a Norwegian Air Shuttle flight attendant ... used the aircraft’s loudspeaker to 'congratulate' the lovebirds who were ‘reproducing’ on the two-hour flight from Paris to Stockholm.
... passengers cheered and burst into fits of laughter when they learned two of their fellow travellers were joining the mile high club....police were not contacted as flight safety wasn't compromised.
While it may seem humorous, sky-high sexual trysts on board commercial jets have been no laughing matter in past incidents.
A number of couples have been charged in recent years for engaging in sex acts in the lavatory and in their seats.

No doubt there are some who will proclaim the victimhood of the couple, or at least of the female half of the duo.
Because, "slut-shaming."
You know what I blame this on?
Wi-fi.
Those Interwebs.
Expectations of ubiquitous entertainment, 24/7.
The digital age.

They probably forgot their iPads, and the poor things couldn't imagine not having something... fun to do for a whole TWO HOURS.

See?
It wasn't their fault, they ARE victims.
In fact, it's kind of retro, a wholesome back-to-basics approach to living.

 

"In my day we made our own fun!"

Moral Equivalency

No, no, no, not that one.
(Gee, Archbishop Cupich is taking a lot of heat for his hyperbole, which I still would like to think was a dumbing down of Catholic social teaching for secular audience.)

I was very privileged to be able to watch an opera as it was being performed over five thousand miles away - THANK YOU, MEDICI TV!!!!! (we live in a marvellous age.)

Anyway, Fidelio offered some real treasures, and some real pleasures, chief among them the remarkable Jonas Kaufmann, surely the finest actor currently performing on the operatic stage, perhaps the finest in the history of opera as it can be known on film and on tape.
His entrance, vocal since he was not visible at first, (I hope that was not just a matter of the camera focusing on the wrong thing, an all too frequent occurrence in operatic stage production on TV or in movies nowadays,) was like nothing I have ever witnessed before, disturbing and electrifying and heart-breaking.
As Florestan beings his prayer, "Gott...." instead of the noble, devout, and essentially confident forte one expects, there was a sound, so soft, it at first seemed some of the added sound effects in this production, is it mechanical? a door or pulley moving, the small whine of metal on stone? is it an animal? no, it's human, and it grows, it seems to last forever, becoming louder, stronger, richer until it is clearly a faith-filled cry from the heart -
The heart of a madman? a prisoner, who through torture and isolation, through starvation and hopelessness has almost nothing left of his humanity except for his faith in God?
Whatever, it was astounding.

The production as a whole... well, yes, there was plenty to love, but my overwhelming reaction was,

WHAT THE HELdentenor?????????

Okay, two characters have shadow selves, maybe their inconsistencies and incomprehensibilities are the incoherent way the political prisoner thinks of his tormentor and the love he may never see again.....? okay...

But then, at the end, the "happy ending," that glorious music, that joyous outpouring - the chorus is invisible, perhaps only imagined by Florestan? the principals are all in darkness, (same?)
Okay.
Then why in blazes is Dream Laurie Shadow Leonora frantically signalling the audience, down front and center, in a spot? Who is imagining that?

So, I was curious about the reviews, and the reactions of the opera cognoscenti around the 'web (I had only seen a headline about "boos.")
Well, this opera-blogger, (yeah, finally getting back to the title of this post,) seemingly pretty knowledgeable about opera gave this opera-lover, (me,) a What The Fach moment...
Beethoven's Fidelio is an opera designed to provoke outrage. Any production that doesn't provoke is a betrayal of the composer. Salzburg's new Fidelio is provocative, but that's exactly how it should be. Fidelio is an opera about ideas. Like it or not, Claus Guth's production does engage with the ideas and ideals central to any genuine engagement with the opera. He presents an unusual take on the piece, but nonetheless one which is valid and thoughtful. If we dismiss ideas because they don't fit our own, we're no better than the Don Pizarros of this world.[emphasis supplied]
In case you're unfamiliar with Fidelio, Pizzaro is the villainous, torturing, would-be murderer who has held the noble Florestan a political prisoner, incognito for two years.

So, hows that for an asinine moral equivalency claim?

If you reject the nonsense of the purveyors of  regietheater, you are no better than a villainous, torture-loving, despotic would-be murderer.
So the Salzburg patrons who booed? yeah, same circle of hell as, oh... maybe ISIS.

Asked to Render Unto Marx What Is Marx

An Italian soccer player, (yes. I am an American, it's "soccer,") is in hot water over not paying the German Church Tax.

His, uh, spiritual adviser  accountant registered him as "atheist," at one point.

Then I guess he started sneaking into Masses? tagging along on processions? I don't know.

Kasper, the Friendly Cardinal, and Rendering Unto Kaiser the Things That Are.... oh, you know the rest

(Kasper the Friendly Cardinal is a quip of Himself's, who is probably more than a little tired of hearing of my interest in the Extraordinary Synod on the Family.)

I don't pretend to understand this, nor to have any clear idea of the workings of Germany's church tax system, nor to be able to read any primary sources on it, (they're in German,) nor to have any but the most rudimentary, unlettered layperson's notions of sacramental theology and the Church's teachings on sin.

And full disclosure, I am in the midst of a little "do I really have to register with a new parish?" quandary of my own --  and finally, I am the utterly and eternally grateful beneficiary of the process of obtaining a decree of nullity in the Catholic Church for a putative previous marriage.
So, yeah, I have some skin in the game.

But I've been reading here,  here, and here.

Now, so far as I understood Kasper's interventions so far, he had repeatedly called for "mercy" and after a time of penitence, admission of those, who, (even he admits, since the prior sacrament of marriage is indissoluble,)  are married to someone who is not their spouse, to the sacraments.

Yeah, "married to someone who is not their spouse" is a contradiction in terms, I know, but how would you put it?

Anyway, since one receives communion unworthily who is in a state of unrepentant, ongoing,  intentional, and intentionally-to-be-continued, (as opposed to attempting to live in heroic chastity,)  "sin", and no one would suggest that we should receive while in a state of "sin", His Eminence must believe that the "sin" of the divorced and civilly remarried is not the adultery, is not shacking up with someone who is not your spouse, is not a continuing, ongoing pattern of behavior -- he must think the sin of which the person in question needs to be absolved is the divorce itself, the abandonment or at least forsaking of the other spouse, a one time incident, in the past and over with.

Is that it?

So, no big deal. Mercy! we must not withhold the sacraments as a punishment!

But it seems that he does not always call for pastoral  mercy. Because if, on the other hand,  you're trying to weasel out of paying your Church tax?
Sinner! apostate! heretic! Off with your head!

Can they have this story right?

The Sacrament Nazi says, no Communion for YOU?

I'm just looking for a little clarity on this.