Saturday 31 October 2015

Archdiocese warns against ‘playing games with Satan’ ahead of live TV exorcism

Archdiocese warns against ‘playing games with Satan’ ahead of live TV exorcism



The house in St Louis where an exorcism took place many years ago (Photo: CNS)

The live television exorcism is a 'dangerous endeavour', says Bishop Hermann
TV producers preparing to broadcast a live exorcism this evening from a house in St Louis have been warned they “cannot play with games with Satan and expect to win”.
Destination America aims to air Exorcism: Live! tonight from the same house where the purported Satanic possession that inspired the William Peter Blatty book The Exorcist, and later the 1973 film, took place.
But the Archdiocese of St Louis has warned against the plans, saying it risks opening those involved up to a “hidden satanic attack”.
The programme will attempt to show the “exorcism” of the house, not a person, where a 14-year-old boy known as “Roland Doe” was reportedly possessed in 1949.
Catholic priests performed a series of exorcisms at the time, in what went on to become a notorious case.
Exorcisms took place in Washington DC, before priests moved him to St Louis, where further attempts took place at the university campus, the area hospital, and a relative’s home – where the live show will be broadcast.
“No one has ever attempted to rid the lurking spirits and demons that inhabit this home – until now,” Destination America said in its promotional pack for the event.
In a promo for the show, paranormal investigator Nick Groff said: “Something is lurking there, something is stained within the floorboards, within the wood of the building, the foundation, the soil.
“That whole land has this stain, this mark of something that dreaded this individual way back when … It’s waiting there to attack somebody else who’s going to come in and open themselves up.”
The show is the “first of its kind”, but St Louis Archdiocese has said exorcism is an extreme measure not for entertainment.
Bishop Robert Hermann said: “Any attempt to use the solemn Rite of Exorcism as entertainment exposes all participators to the danger of future hidden satanic attack.
“We cannot play games with Satan and expect to win.”
The archdiocese released a statement clarifying it is not involved in the “dangerous endeavour”, saying it felt it necessary to “educate and warn the public about the dangers of participating in such activities”.
It further clarified that anyone involved in the production, including paranormal investigators, spiritualists, mediums or non-Catholic clerics or anyone “who claims to be a member of the Catholic clergy, is not affiliated with the Archdiocese of St Louis nor are they operating under the authority of the Vatican.”
It added: “Any purported exorcism … for the purposes of entertainment trivialises this ancient rite of the Roman Catholic Church and the very real danger of evil.”
Despite this, the channel is still reporting it has a member of the Church to preside over the event.
“We’ve enlisted a qualified and trained bishop to perform the actual exorcism of the house,” Destination America says on its website referring to James Long, of the United States Old Catholic Church, which is not recognised by the Catholic Church.
The programme is still set to go ahead at 9/8c in America.

Thursday 29 October 2015

The Vatican Synod on the Family is over and the conservatives have won



The Vatican Synod on the Family is over and the conservatives have won





Screen Shot 2015-10-24 at 19.50.00
This afternoon the Vatican Synod on the Family amended and approved the final document summing up three weeks of chaotic and sometimes poisonous debate – much of it focussing on whether divorced and remarried people should be allowed to receive communion.
The majority view of the Synod Fathers is that they don’t want the rules changed. They especially don’t want one rule to apply in, say, Germany and another in Tanzania. Pope Francis has just given a cautiously worded (but also, alas, rather waffly) address in which he acknowledges as much:
… we have also seen that what seems normal for a bishop on one continent, is considered strange and almost scandalous for a bishop from another; what is considered a violation of a right in one society is an evident and inviolable rule in another; what for some is freedom of conscience is for others simply confusion.
Significantly, the Fathers didn’t back a ‘solution’ suggested by liberal cardinals, whereby divorced and remarried Catholics could consult their consciences and their confessors over whether they should follow the rules.
This was the liberal Plan B, hastily put together after it became clear at the beginning of the Synod that there was no chance that Cardinal Walter Kasper’s radical plan to scrap the communion ban would be voted through.

I back Ross Douthat: elites don’t own Catholicism



Ross Douthat is a columnist for the New York Times (AP)
The journalist can draw solace from St Bernadette, who refused to stay silent in the face of opposition


Recently, you will have noticed, if you have been reading anything Catholic online, there has been a synod. Mr Ross Douthat, a Catholic journalist, has commented on the synod, in his column in the New York Times. Some people did not agree with what he wrote, and have written to the New York Times to express their displeasure. Among other things, they said that Mr Douthat had no professional qualifications to write on the subject. This whole affair has become quite a big thing, but I think I am summing it up as best I can. (There is a better summary here.)
I sympathise with Ross Douthat, in two ways. Firstly, I sympathise, because I agree with what he writes. I think his reading of the situation is essentially correct. And I sympathise with him in another way. He has said something that some people do not like, and they have all jumped down his throat. I am familiar with that, having spent three decades as a “professional” Catholic in the Church, wearyingly familiar. So, I feel for him. We have, many of us, been here before.
When I was young, I was frequently told to shut up, and on various grounds. I was too young, I knew nothing about it, I had no degree, I had no theology degree, or my background, race and class disqualified me from having an opinion. Gradually these people telling me to shut up, themselves shut up, as I gradually got a degree from Oxford, a doctorate in theology from Rome, and worked in a comprehensive school, in a parish and on the African missions.
All of that gave me a rather better grounding that most of the people who had told me to shut up, many of whom had none of these experiences. As for those who told me I was too young, they fell silent as I grew older, to be replaced by people who told me that I was too old: I rather missed the transition from being too young to too old, but it was very brief, I think – no more than a month or two.
But there is a point here, a very serious one. Catholicism is a mass movement. I am not sure if everyone has quite grasped this. It is not a religion in the hands of the elites. In fact there are no true elites in Catholicism: Jesus Christ Himself was no elitist, and neither he nor his disciples had qualifications the Pharisees recognised. Elitism is profoundly against the spirit of Catholicism and its letter. In Protestantism, a religion of the book, scholars of the Bible, and its preachers, clearly have a leading role to play. In Orthodoxy, the monks have a key role. But in Catholicism no one religious order, no one particular nation has a pivotal position.
True, one nation comes forward to play a crucial role, for a time, but these times pass. Once it was Spain, then it was France, later it was Germany, now it is surely Africa… but no one geographical area can claim paramount importance. Again, the same with religious orders: each has its day, and each finds a balance with other charisms in the Church. The charisms given to the Church are widely diffused throughout the body of Christ.
Now some may doubt this and point out that the Catholic Church is a monolithic and hierarchical structure with the Pope at its head. But the hierarchy exists to serve the communion, to rule out that which would damage it, and to ensure that the genuine charisms live together for their mutual benefit and enrichment. These charisms are not restricted to any one group.
Consider people like St Thérèse of Lisieux and St Bernadette of Lourdes, or Blessed Mother Teresa, the three great Catholics of recent times. They were emphatically not people who emerged from the elites. Indeed they challenged the assumptions of the elites. And the Popes of the day recognised their charisms as valuable.
Bernadette, I seem to remember, was told to shut up by both Church and State. Thank the Lord, she didn’t. We are all better off for it. I hope Mr Douthat will take courage from her example, and not be put off. We need his voice. And there are lots of other voices like his, for which we should all be profoundly grateful.

Historically today is the feast of St. Narcissus who was consecrated Bishop of Jerusalem about the year 180

Historically today is the feast of St. Narcissus who was consecrated Bishop of Jerusalem about the year 180





St Narcissus was born towards the close of the first century, and was almost fourscore years old when he was placed at the head of the church of Jerusalem, being the thirtieth bishop of that see. Eusebius assures us that the Christians of Jerusalem preserved in his time the remembrance of several miracles which God had wrought by this holy bishop, one of which he relates as follows. One year, on Easter-eve, the deacons were unprovided with oil for the lamps in the church, necessary at the solemn divine office that day. Narcissus ordered those who had care of the lamps to bring him some water from the neighbouring wells. This being done, he pronounced a devout prayer over the water; then bade them pour it into the lamps, which they did, and it was immediately converted into oil, to the great surprise of the faithful. Some of this miraculous oil was kept there as a memorial at the time when Eusebius wrote his history. The veneration of all good men for this holy bishop could not shelter him from the malice of the wicked. Three incorrigible sinners, fearing his inflexible severity in the observance of ecclesiastical discipline, laid to his charge a detestable crime, which Eusebius does not specify. They confirmed their atrocious calumny by dreadful oaths and imprecations; one wishing he might perish by fire, another that he might be struck with a leprosy, and the third that he might lose his sight, if what they alleged was not the truth. Notwithstanding these protestations, their accusation did not find credit; and some time after the divine vengeance pursued the calumniators. The first was burnt in his house, with his whole family, by an accidental fire in the night; the second was struck with a universal leprosy; and the third, terrified by these examples, confessed the conspiracy and slander, and by the abundance of tears which he continually shed for his sins, lost his sight before his death.Narcissus, notwithstanding the slander had made no impression on the people to his disadvantage, could not stand the shock of the bold calumny, or rather made it an excuse for leaving Jerusalem and spending some time in solitude, which had long been his wish. He spent several years undiscovered in his retreat, where he enjoyed all the happiness and advantage which a close conversation with God can bestow. That his church might not remain destitute of a pastor, the neighbouring bishops of the province after some time placed in it Pius, and after him Germanion, who dying in a short time was succeeded by Gordius. Whilst this last held the see, Narcissus appeared again, like one from the dead. The whole body of the faithful, transported at the recovery of their holy pastor, whose innocence had been most authentically vindicated, conjured him to reassume the administration of the diocese. He acquiesced; but afterwards, bending under the weight of extreme old age, made St. Alexander his coadjutor. St. Narcissus continued to serve his flock, and even other churches, by his assiduous prayers and his earnest exhortations to unity and concord, as St. Alexander testifies in his letter to the Arsinoites in Egypt, where he says that Narcissus was at that time, about one hundred and sixteen years old. The Roman Martyrology honours his memory on the 29th of October.If we truly respect the church as the immaculate spouse of our Lord, we will incessantly pray for its exaltation and increase, and beseech the Almighty to give it pastors according to his own heart, like those who appeared in the infancy of Christianity. And, that no obstacle on our part may prevent the happy effects of their zeal, we should study to regulate our conduct by the holy maxims which they inculcate; we should regard them as the ministers of Christ; we should listen to them with docility and attention; we should make their faith the rule of ours, and shut our ears against the language of profane novelty.

The Amazing Deathbed Conversion of Oscar Wilde

                  
Oscar Wilde is one of the most famous 19th century authors and playwrights, having written such works as The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest.


What is less known about him is that, after years of flirting with the Church, he had a death bed conversion to Catholicism.




Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1854, Wilde was baptized as an infant in an Anglican church. His mother, Jane, however, was drawn to Catholicism and would often visit Mass. When Oscar was a young child, she asked her local priest to instruct her children in the Catholic faith, though it’s unclear if she herself ever joined the Church officially.
Wilde, though he received some Catholic instruction, did not consider himself a Catholic growing up. While at Oxford for university studies, he started to seriously consider becoming Catholic, even becoming a priest. But he also joined the Free Masons around the same time, and commented he “would be awfully sorry to give it up if I secede from the Protestant Heresy.”
In 1877, at the age of 23, he traveled to Rome and had a meeting with Pope Pius IX that left him “speechless,” and he started reading the books of Bl. John Cardinal Newman. He is quoted as having said, “for saints and sinners alone – for respectable people, the Anglican Church will do.” In 1878, he befriended a priest and scheduled a date on which he would be received officially into the Church. But his family was against it: his father threatened to cut off his hands if he joined. At the last minute, Wilde decided against joining.
Years later in 1895, after having achieved literary fame, he was accused of sodomy, or of having committed homosexual acts, which was illegal in England at the time. After a lengthy public trial, he was convicted and sentenced to two years of hard labor.
During his time in prison his health declined, but he also experienced a spiritual renewal. Upon release, he made a request to the Society of Jesus for a six month retreat. Unfortunately, he was turned down. Reports say he wept at hearing the rejection. Nonetheless, he told a journalist regarding the Catholic Church, “I intend to be received before long.”
But he left England for France, where he lived for a few years depressed and in poverty, spending the little money he had on alcohol.
In 1900, he developed cerebral meningitis and became very sick. When it became clear he might die, his friend and apparent homosexual lover Robbie Ross who was with him called for a Catholic priest. When the priest arrived, Wilde requested to be received into the Catholic Church. The priest later recounted how it happened:
As the voiture [carriage] rolled through the dark streets that wintry night, the sad story of Oscar Wilde was in part repeated to me…
Robert Ross knelt by the bedside, assisting me as best he could while I administered conditional baptism, and afterwards answering the responses while I gave Extreme Unction to the prostrate man and recited the prayers for the dying.
As the man was in a semi-comatose condition, I did not venture to administer the Holy Viaticum [Eucharist]; still I must add that he could be roused and was roused from this state in my presence. When roused, he gave signs of being inwardly conscious…
Indeed I was fully satisfied that he understood me when told that I was about to receive him into the Catholic Church and gave him the Last Sacraments… And when I repeated close to his ear the Holy Names, the Acts of Contrition, Faith, Hope and Charity, with acts of humble resignation to the Will of God, he tried all through to say the words after me.
The next day, Wilde died.

Friday 23 October 2015

What Goya really thought of the Church

What Goya really thought of the Church



Goya asked to be buried wearing a Franciscan habit
The Spanish artist, subject of a major exhibition at the National Gallery, both celebrated and satirised Catholicism. Was he the most hypocritical artist who ever lived?
On the face of it, Francisco de Goya y Lucientes was one of the most hypocritical artists who ever lived. The son of a gilder and impoverished aristocrat from Zaragoza in Spain, Goya was happy to fulfil religious commissions which could benefit him – an early painting, Christ Crucified, granted him admission to the prestigious Royal Academy of San Fernando. But he was just as ready to criticise the Church when he believed that it had failed him.
In one of his more polemical etchings, a prelate is treading a frayed tightrope over a startled crowd, his arms spread wide like a bat and his expression fixed like a sullen death mask. “May the rope break” read Goya’s words at the bottom of the sheet.
But go back a few years in Goya’s biography to 1817, and he is painting canvases of the Crucifixion and saints Justa and Rufina for Seville Cathedral.
If Goya’s relationship with the Catholic Church is best described as “complicated”, it is all the more inspiring for it. Goya witnessed the horrors of the Peninsular War and the Spanish Inquisition, but far from allowing disillusionment to overwhelm him, he stridently committed his doubts to paper. But what look like renouncements of religion are often, in fact, exercises in reconciliation.
Goya found success as an artist when he was appointed court painter to Charles III, Charles IV and finally Ferdinand VII. A major new exhibition of his portraits at the National Gallery features around 70 of his intimate, softly lit portraits of royals, nobles and intellectuals, including the lively Duke and Duchess of Osuna and their Children, complete with toy carriage and imaginary hobby horse.
It is hard to imagine that, at the same time as Goya was producing many of these affectionate studies, he was beginning work on a suite of 80 etchings, Los Caprichos, presenting his nightmarish visions of the world. Railing vehemently against the folly of superstition and human frailty, Goya depicted dark scenes such as a woman attempting to extract teeth from a hanged man’s mouth for good luck (Out Hunting for Teeth).
The prints resound with Goya’s frustration at the backwardness of contemporary thought under the Ancien Régime. A keen advocate of the Spanish Enlightenment, Goya counted among his close friends the philosopher, poet and statesman Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, popularly known as “The Melancholic”. With the death of Charles III in 1788 and the beginning of the French Revolution the following year, Jovellanos was exiled under suspicion of being a French sympathiser. Following his return to Madrid, however, he worked with Goya to promote religious reform by renovating the royal hermitage of San Antonio de la Florida. The scenes they chose for the frescoes were telling, given their interest in making a fresh start in the Church after the troubles of recent times: St Anthony of Padua resurrecting a man who had been murdered in order to ask him to confirm the identity of his killer.
But however much Goya approved of moral reform, he was no supporter of the Spanish Inquisition, which Ferdinand IV revived when he came to the throne following the defeat of the French in 1813. Goya painted Ferdinand as a haughty ruler, his feet facing forward, his body twisting untrustworthily away from the viewer.
Goya came close to experiencing the weight of the Inquisition himself when two “obscene” paintings (one of them a nude painted for Manuel Godoy, the Spanish prime minister, in response to Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus) were traced to him. Fortunately, the proceedings appear to have been dropped soon after they began.
Did the Inquisition turn Goya against the Church? The debate about who pulled the strings during the Inquisition has reignited in recent decades, particularly since the Vatican opened the archives of the Holy Office in 1998. That the papacy had ceased to play a role in the Inquisition by Goya’s time is now broadly accepted. Historian Thomas Madden argues that the Inquisition was “an arm of the Spanish monarchy” quite separate from the Church as an institution.
Not that this stopped Goya from painting a flagrant scene of an Inquisition tribunal peopled by monks and “penitents” (those deemed heretics) dressed in paper tunics and flame-flickering conical hats. But nor did the horror of the Inquisition prevent Goya from forging close relationships with a number of friars and cardinals.
The artist took refuge with an Aragonese Jesuit priest, José Duaso y Latre, in 1824, when the secret police were hunting down liberals in Spain. Such was his apparent admiration for Duaso that Goya decided to paint his portrait, but restarted it four times before finally capturing him in his cassock and insignia of the Order of Charles III.
He also created a series of paintings of Pedro de Zaldivia, a heroic Franciscan monk who famously fired a shot at a bandit.
But Goya’s relationship with his faith is perhaps best compared with that of the Augustinian friar Juan Fernández de Rojas, another close friend. Like Goya, Fernández satirised many aspects of society, including the Church, as if by highlighting the problems he could go some way towards solving them. Goya turned to him for advice when he was painting and drawing, and might well have been inspired by his treatises on modern theology.
Seemingly frustrated by his lack of progress, however, Goya created a number of works in which he showed how close he came to losing his faith altogether. In 1808, French troops invaded Spain, triggering an uprising by the Spanish people. Although Goya hoped that the invasion would have a liberating effect on Spanish custom, he was shaken by the bloodshed it wreaked. In The Third of May 1808, he painted Napoleon’s soldiers executing the Spanish resisters. A lantern, symbolising the Enlightenment, lights up the scene. In the background, the church towers of María la Real and San Nicolás near Madrid loom emptily against the night sky.
But Goya did not give up. In the final decade of his life, he returned with some passion to religious themes, painting a moving altarpiece of St Joseph of Calasanz for the church attached to the ecclesiastical institution where he had studied as a boy.
He also produced a self-portrait in which he presented himself ailing in the arms of his doctor. In the background of the portrait are the shadowy figures of three men. To some viewers of the painting, these figures are devil-like. To others, they are churchmen. Interestingly, Goya requested in his will to be buried wearing a Franciscan habit. As he struggled against the tide of conflict and worsening illness, he might well have hoped to be comforted by the friars who were his friends.
By the end of his life, Goya had witnessed more than enough suffering to spark disillusionment with both Spain and its Church. He had, by now, settled in Bordeaux in self-imposed exile. But the prints in which he had attacked superstition and ecclesiastical hypocrisy did not signal that he had turned his back on religion, after all. Rather, he had focused his mind on how far the times had shaped the need for reform and Enlightenment through means other than Inquisition.
As far as Goya was concerned, there was no contradiction in supporting progress while nurturing the tenets of his faith. If he failed in one respect, it was in convincing posterity that he never lost his belief in the potential of the Catholic Church.
Daisy Dunn is a writer, author and classicist. Goya: The Portraits is at the National Gallery in London until January 10
This article first appeared in the Catholic Herald magazine (23/10/15)

Wednesday 21 October 2015

Amnesty’s pro-abortion campaign is disingenuous and anti-Catholic, say critics

Amnesty’s pro-abortion campaign is disingenuous and anti-Catholic, say critics



A shot from the Amnesty campaign film


Amnesty International has launched a video campaign, calling for the decriminalisation of abortion in Ireland, which has been described by some as anti-Catholic.
The video, uses actor Liam Neeson’s voice who refers to a “cruel ghost” which “haunts” Ireland and brings “suffering and even death to the women whose live it touches” as the camera pans across a deserted church.
Neeson says the ghost is “feared by politicians, this is the ghost of paper and ink. A spirit that lives in a constitution written for a different time. It is the shadow of a country we hoped we’d left behind. Ireland doesn’t have to be chained to its past. It’s time to lay this ghost to rest.”
The video concludes with Neeson saying “repeal the Eight” which refers to the Eight Amendment of the Irish Constitution which protects the life of the unborn child.
Lord Alton told the Catholic Herald that Amnesty wasn’t established to “take away the protection of the right to life of an unborn child.”
He said: “Amnesty’s campaign is simply disingenuous. Their publicity makes it seem as if they want abortions solely where the baby is going to die. If you dig deeper you discover that they want to ‘Repeal Article 40.3.3 of the Irish Constitution to remove the protection of the right to life of the foetus’. These are their words, not mine.
“Since I was a student I have campaigned with Amnesty on countless issues and have huge respect for many of the people who have worked for them. As recently as last week we met to discuss the plight of Burmese political prisoners. Their mission statement – crafted by Peter Benenson – their founder and a Catholic – was to speak up for the voiceless and to seek protection for those who are being persecuted, tortured, or whose lives are at risk because of unjust laws and totalitarian regimes. But Amnesty wasn’t set up to take away the protection of the right to life of an unborn child.
“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights insists that ‘Everyone has the right to life’. If the eight million dead British children had votes and voices – and whose lives we have failed to protect – Amnesty would undoubtedly be running campaigns on their behalf. I wonder what Peter Benenson would have had to say about this campaign? He’d probably be asking them to remove him name from the building, Benenson House, which houses Amnesty’s headquarters.”
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Tim Stanley, who is a Catholic Herald contributing editor, said: “This doesn’t look like a campaign against Ireland’s abortion laws. It looks like a campaign to exorcise the Catholic Church from Ireland. Which is highly ironic because the liberals behind it are exactly the kind of people who always insist that religion should be kept out of politics. On this occasion, however, they’re very happy to play the faith card.”

Wednesday 14 October 2015

Crisis for Pope Francis as top-level cardinals tell him: your synod could lead to the collapse of the church

Crisis for Pope Francis as top-level cardinals tell him: your synod could lead to the collapse of the church


Damian-Thompson


12 October 2015

Update, 3.20pm Monday: As I write this, various cardinals have said they didn’t sign the letter, some of them waiting several hours before distancing themselves from it. Now Erdö says he didn’t sign it. It’s extremely hard to get at the truth. ‘Not signing’ can mean a number of things, ranging from an outright false claim that a cardinal supported the letter to panicky backtracking by cardinals who did assent to it but are grasping at the technicality that they didn’t personally append their signature. But the damage to the synod is done.


A group of cardinals – including some of the most powerful figures in the Catholic Church – have written to Pope Francis telling him that his Synod on the Family, now meeting in Rome, has gone badly off the rails and could cause the church to collapse.
Their leaked letter, written as the synod started, presumably explains why a few days ago the Pope suddenly warned against ‘conspiracy’ and reminded the cardinals that he, and only he, will decide the outcome of the synod.
This is the gravest crisis he has faced, worse than anything that happened to Benedict XVI, and he knows it.
And, talking of the Pope Emeritus, I suspect that, had he been free to sign the letter, he would have done so.


The cardinals warn the Pope, in diplomatic language, that (a) the synod is being hijacked by liberals obsessed with the narrow issue of giving Communion to divorced and remarried people; (b) going down the route of ‘pastoral flexibility’ could lead to the Catholic Church falling apart in the same way as liberal Protestant denominations; and (c) the synod working papers prepared by the Pope’s allies Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri and Archbishop Bruno Forte are a mess and going down badly with the Synod Fathers.
The seniority of the signatories shows how close the church is to civil war. Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the Congregation of the Faith – the Church’s doctrinal watchdog – is on the list. So is Cardinal George Pell, head of the Vatican’s finances, and Cardinal Robert Sarah, in charge of the Church’s worship.
Sarah is the most prominent African cardinal in the church, along with Cardinal Wilfred Napier of Durban, who has also signed. Add to that the name of Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, and it becomes clear that the loss of confidence in Pope Francis extends far beyond the Vatican.
He is, however, passionately supported by liberal cardinals in Europe and Latin America, among them Cardinal Reinhard Marx, head of the German bishops. He can also count of the unquestioning loyalty of Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster.
As the Catholic Herald reported this morning:
Two of the cardinals who signed the letter, published in full by [Vatican commentator] Sandro Magister, have prominent roles in the synod. Cardinal Péter Erdö is its relator general, and Cardinal Wilfrid Napier is a president delegate. [NB: On Monday afternoon, several hours after it appeared Cardinal Erdö denied signing the letter.]
Other signatories included Vatican officials Cardinal Gerhard Müller and Cardinal George Pell.
In the letter, the cardinals expressed concern that ‘a synod designed to address a vital pastoral matter – reinforcing the dignity of marriage and family – may become dominated by the theological/doctrinal issue of Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried’.
The letter continued: ‘The collapse of liberal Protestant churches in the modern era, accelerated by their abandonment of key elements of Christian belief and practice in the name of pastoral adaptation, warrants great caution in our own synodal discussions.’
The cardinals also asked the Pope to ‘consider a number of concerns we have heard from other synod fathers, and which we share’ and criticised the synod’s Instrumentum Laboris, or working document.
‘While the synod’s preparatory document, the Instrumentum Laboris, has admirable elements, it also has sections that would benefit from substantial reflection and reworking,’ the letter said.
‘The new procedures guiding the synod seem to guarantee it excessive influence on the synod’s deliberations and on the final synodal document. As it stands, and given the concerns we have already heard from many of the fathers about its various problematic sections, the Instrumentum cannot adequately serve as a guiding text or the foundation of a final document.’
Here is the list as originally reported by Magister:
• Carlo Caffarra, archbishop of Bologna, Italy, theologian, formerly the first president of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family;
• Thomas C. Collins, archbishop of Toronto, Canada;
• Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York, United States;
• Willem J. Eijk, archbishop of Utrecht, Holland;
• Péter Erdö, archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, Hungary, president of the Council of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe and relator general of the synod underway, as also at the previous session of October 2014 [He has now denied signing the letter, though there was a noticeable delay before he did so];
• Gerhard L. Müller, former bishop of Regensburg, Germany, since 2012 prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith;
• Wilfrid Fox Napier, archbishop of Durban, South Africa, president delegate of the synod underway as also at the previous session of the synod of October 2014;
• George Pell, archbishop emeritus of Sydney, Australia, since 2014 prefect in the Vatican of the secretariat for the economy;
• Mauro Piacenza, Genoa, Italy, former prefect of the congregation for the clergy, since 2013 penitentiary major. [He now denies signing the letter];
• Robert Sarah, former archbishop of Conakry, Guinea, since 2014 prefect of the congregation for divine worship and the discipline;
• Angelo Scola, archbishop of Milan, Italy. [He now denies signing the letter];
• Jorge L. Urosa Savino, archbishop of Caracas, Venezuela;
• André Vingt-Trois, archbishop of Paris, France, president delegate of the synod underway as also at the previous session of the synod of October 2014. [He now denies signing the letter.]
Note that not all these cardinals are regarded as outright conservatives: Cardinal Dolan, for example, is gently orthodox, an amiable figure far removed from the thundering traditionalist Cardinal Raymond Burke, who has been excluded from the synod.
Moreover – and this is very dangerous for Francis – the main point of contention is not the question of whether the church should be give communion to divorce people in second marriages, or whether gay unions should be given some degree of recognition.
This is an argument about the wisdom of calling the synod in the first place, and expresses the suspicion of over 100 Synod Fathers that the organisers are manipulating proceedings by confronting them with working papers and procedures designed to push them in a liberal direction. Others are simply fed up with the amateurish nature of the proceedings and wonder why, after last year’s chaotic preparatory synod, the Pope left the same people in charge. To quote the Australian Archbishop Mark Coleridge, ‘At times our work has seemed more muddled than methodical’.
I’m one of countless commentators who has warned that holding this synod could split the church. Now it’s happening, much faster than any of us anticipated.

Monday 12 October 2015

The Times is reviving its Latin crossword after 85 years


The Times is reviving its Latin crossword after 85 years

Cum Dignitate Otium



The Times is reviving its Latin crossword after 85 years. The paper writes that the aim is to preserve and amplify everything that is most appealing about learning the language: its oddness, its rigour, the Romans’ spirit of whimsy and affection for wordplay. The first Times crossword was published on February 1, 1930. It quickly became very popular, so much so that one month later The Times ran a crossword in Latin for those of a more “exacting intellectual standard”.

Monday 5 October 2015

Pope Francis proclaims that marriage is forever



Pope Francis proclaims that marriage is forever





At 10 am , the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Pope Francis presided at the Mass in St. Peter's Basilica for the opening of the Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the theme: 'The vocation and mission of the family in the Church and in the contemporary world.'Below is the Vatican-provided translation of the homily Pope Francis delivered during the Mass:
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 “If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 Jn 4:12).
This Sunday’s Scripture readings seem to have been chosen precisely for this moment of grace which the Church is experiencing: the Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the family, which begins with this Eucharistic celebration. The readings centre on three themes: solitude, love between man and woman, and the family.
Solitude
Adam, as we heard in the first reading, was living in the Garden of Eden.  He named all the other creatures as a sign of his dominion, his clear and undisputed power, over all of them.  Nonetheless, he felt alone, because “there was not found a helper fit for him” (Gen 2:20).  He was lonely.
The drama of solitude is experienced by countless men and women in our own day.  I think of the elderly, abandoned even by their loved ones and children; widows and widowers; the many men and women left by their spouses; all those who feel alone, misunderstood and unheard; migrants and refugees fleeing from war and persecution; and those many young people who are victims of the culture of consumerism, the culture of waste, the throwaway culture.
Today we experience the paradox of a globalized world filled with luxurious mansions and skyscrapers, but a lessening of the warmth of homes and families; many ambitious plans and projects, but little time to enjoy them; many sophisticated means of entertainment, but a deep and growing interior emptiness; many pleasures, but few loves; many liberties, but little freedom…  The number of people who feel lonely keeps growing, as does the number of those who are caught up in selfishness, gloominess, destructive violence and slavery to pleasure and money.
Our experience today is, in some way, like that of Adam: so much power and at the same time so much loneliness and vulnerability.  The image of this is the family.  People are less and less serious about building a solid and fruitful relationship of love: in sickness and in health, for better and for worse, in good times and in bad.  Love which is lasting, faithful, conscientious, stable and fruitful is increasingly looked down upon, viewed as a quaint relic of the past.  It would seem that the most advanced societies are the very ones which have the lowest birth-rates and the highest percentages of abortion, divorce, suicide, and social and environmental pollution.
Love between man and woman
In the first reading we also hear that God was pained by Adam’s loneliness.  He said: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Gen2:18).  These words show that nothing makes man’s heart as happy as another heart like his own, a heart which loves him and takes away his sense of being alone.  These words also show that God did not create us to live in sorrow or to be alone.  He made men and women for happiness, to share their journey with someone who complements them, to live the wondrous experience of love: to love and to be loved, and to see their love bear fruit in children, as today’s Psalm says (cf. Ps 128).
This is God’s dream for his beloved creation: to see it fulfilled in the loving union between a man and a woman, rejoicing in their shared journey, fruitful in their mutual gift of self.  It is the same plan which Jesus presents in today’s Gospel: “From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female’.  For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.  So they are no longer two but one flesh” (Mk 10:6-8; cf. Gen 1:27; 2:24).
To a rhetorical question – probably asked as a trap to make him unpopular with the crowd, which practiced divorce as an established and inviolable fact – Jesus responds in a straightforward and unexpected way.  He brings everything back to the beginning of creation, to teach us that God blesses human love, that it is he who joins the hearts of two people who love one another, he who joins them in unity and indissolubility.  This shows us that the goal of conjugal life is not simply to live together for life, but to love one another for life!  In this way Jesus re-establishes the order which was present from the beginning.
Family
“What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mk 10:9).  This is an exhortation to believers to overcome every form of individualism and legalism which conceals a narrow self-centredness and a fear of accepting the true meaning of the couple and of human sexuality in God’s plan.
Indeed, only in the light of the folly of the gratuitousness of Jesus’ paschal love will the folly of the gratuitousness of an exclusive and life-long conjugal love make sense. For God, marriage is not some adolescent utopia, but a dream without which his creatures will be doomed to solitude!  Indeed, being afraid to accept this plan paralyzes the human heart.
Paradoxically, people today – who often ridicule this plan – continue to be attracted and fascinated by every authentic love, by every steadfast love, by every fruitful love, by every faithful and enduring love.  We see people chase after fleeting loves while dreaming of true love; they chase after carnal pleasures but desire total self-giving.
“Now that we have fully tasted the promises of unlimited freedom, we begin to appreciate once again the old phrase: “world-weariness”.  Forbidden pleasures lost their attraction at the very moment they stopped being forbidden.  Even if they are pushed to the extreme and endlessly renewed, they prove dull, for they are finite realities, whereas we thirst for the infinite” (JOSEPH RATZINGER,  Auf Christus schauen. Einübung in Glaube, Hoffnung, Liebe, Freiburg, 1989, p. 73).
In this extremely difficult social and marital context, the Church is called to carry out her mission in fidelity, truth and love. To carry out her mission in fidelity to her Master as a voice crying out in the desert, in defending faithful love and encouraging the many families which live married life as an experience which reveals of God’s love; in defending the sacredness of life, of every life; in defending the unity and indissolubility of the conjugal bond as a sign of God’s grace and of the human person’s ability to love seriously.
To carry out her mission in truth, which is not changed by passing fads or popular opinions.  The truth which protects individuals and humanity as a whole from the temptation of self-centredness and from turning fruitful love into sterile selfishness, faithful union into temporary bonds.  “Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality.  Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way.  In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love” (BENEDICT XVI, Caritas in Veritate, 3).
To carry out her mission in charity, not pointing a finger in judgment of others, but – faithful to her nature as a mother – conscious of her duty to seek out and care for hurting couples with the balm of acceptance and mercy; to be a “field hospital” with doors wide open to whoever knocks in search of help and support; to reach out to others with true love, to walk with our fellow men and women who suffer, to include them and guide them to the wellspring of salvation.
A Church which teaches and defends fundamental values, while not forgetting that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mk 2:27); and that Jesus also said: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mk 2:17).  A Church which teaches authentic love, which is capable of taking loneliness away, without neglecting her mission to be a good Samaritan to wounded humanity.
I remember when Saint John Paul II said: “Error and evil must always be condemned and opposed; but the man who falls or who errs must be understood and loved… we must love our time and help the man of our time” (JOHN PAUL II, Address to the Members of Italian Catholic Action, 30 December 1978).  The Church must search out these persons, welcome and accompany them, for a Church with closed doors betrays herself and her mission, and, instead of being a bridge, becomes a roadblock: “For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified have all one origin.  That is why he is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Heb 2:11).
In this spirit we ask the Lord to accompany us during the Synod and to guide his Church, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse.