Thoughts on God's love

In my Lenten journey this year of disciplining myself to stay away from all that would interpose the opinions of men between me and the God I seem to compulsively fear instead of trust, I've been encouraged and supported along the way by others who are also being led along the same line of reflection. Rick at new life emerging has written some beautiful posts which are right in line with what I'm learning during this forty days. Here's a sample:

How many people who have been abused are convinced that they caused it or deserved it? It is extremely difficult to reverse those imbedded beliefs. The same is true with toxic religious beliefs. God lifts the hand of Love and some flinch in fear; it's a conditioned response.

I think too much of religion is based on the premise that we are bad sinners who deserve to be punished. It further scars our God-given identity. That is sin. We were created in the image of divine love and this love continually reaches toward us but our self-hatred continues to push away at love for we think we don't deserve that love.

It’s not Divine punishment that defeats the toxicity of sin; it’s Divine love that overcomes the damages of sin and brings new life. Huge difference. I think much of the talk in certain church circles about grace stems from a form of religion that has convinced folks that they are bad but God is good. No wonder many people in the church act like abused animals starved for affection—they have been.

The hand of Love that formed you is the hand that continues to reach out to you, not to slap you but to hold you. Rest in that Love. Trust. You are loved. Do not be afraid.

Read the whole thing.

Gee. What a surprise.

You Should Be a Romance Novelist

You see the world as it should be, and this goes double for all matters of the heart. You can find the romance in any situation, and you would make a talented romance story writer... And while you may be a traditional romantic, you're just as likely to be drawn to quirky or dark love stories. As long as it deals with infatuation, heartbreak, and soulmates - you could write it.

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

A fellow traveler

Joe at the Canterbury Trail blog has written a post entitled Sin? which I found helpful, and an echo of the leadings I've experienced so far this Lent.

We talk a lot about sin in the Church, but do we really know what it is? In the Western Church, we have usually looked at sin as any willful lack of conformity to the revealed will of God. This approach, coupled with atonement theology, often leaves us with very legalistic view of sin, and IMHO makes God out to be judge first and Father second.

This has always rubbed me the wrong way, because I just can'’t seem to find this approach in the life and ministry of Jesus. Jesus knew, and I think that it is fair to say, loved the law (in so far as it was an instrument to reach the Father), but he often blatantly broke it and not just the human laws of the Pharisees, but portions of the Law of Moses as well...

Read it all.

Lenten discipline: joy and confidence

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm a person who likes rules, predictability, and structure in worship. Well, let's put it this way: if you say you're about this and that set of worship rules, then follow them. I get very nervous when, for hundreds of years, the rule has been, "do it this way," and then all of a sudden, we're not any more, and there's no reason except we felt like it.

And yet ...

The problem with rules and a personality like mine is that the anxiety of them tends to wear me down and rob me of joy. I get worried and fretful. I read what other people have written, trying to suss out what's right from the myriad interpretations. I start doing my own clumsy, amateurish research.

What I end up with is feeling very down about myself. I can never be good enough. I can never surrender enough.

That leads me, fortunately, to God, begging Him for forgiveness and knowing He can make up my deficit. But I'm still sad. And it doesn't help when the advisors (of various stripes) say, condescendingly, "we must have joy in our hearts, so celebrate! ...but do it carefully."

That's why the fruits of my fast have been so really astonishing to me over the past couple of weeks. I use A Guide to Prayer from the Upper Room, both the "blue" edition (for ministers) and the "red" (for all God's people). I tend not to study during the week, but do the whole week's study in a gulp on Saturday and/or Sunday. It just seems to work better for me that way.

One of the readings one week was from Psalm 116, 1-2. In the NJB, it reads, "I am filled with love when Yahweh listens to the sound of my prayer, when he bends down to hear me, as I call."

I was struck by the thought that could mean "I am filled with love for Yahweh" - or it could mean - "I am filled with love -- from him loving me."

I rather like the second idea: that, when God listens to the sound of my prayer, I am filled with love. My life is filled with love.

Then a reading from James 2: "Talk and behave like people who are going to be judged by the law of freedom. Whoever acts without mercy will be judged without mercy but mercy can afford to laugh at judgement."

I highlighted that in my journal. It struck me because I've had to make some hard decisions over the last few years. I've had to separate myself from individuals who said they loved me, but who drained my spirit even after I communicated clearly what I needed from them... things appropriate to their role in my life. In making those sometimes terribly difficult choices, I've prayed and acted in the most fair and generous way I could. That has meant monetary hardship for me and, sometimes, humiliation. I felt at peace about it, but that verse from St. James was such a comfort. Even though there are those whose understanding of scripture tells them that what I did was wrong, God knows, and it is to God I will answer. For me, that's a rather brave stance.

When I was very young, and new in the church, my whole goal was to follow the rules carefully so as not to have regrets when I got older. This applied to everything in my life. When it came to dating, this meant being very careful to dress modestly, not tease the boy, etc. From my grandmother and mother, I learned that it was wrong to be forward - to bring up marriage, for instance. I held to these precepts even when my young man - a dear friend from high school, whom I really, truly loved - told me that he loved me, and I felt a huge need to respond to that and to follow up with something like, "can we please be married?" I couldn't breathe. I couldn't speak. I couldn't do anything in that moment, because all my energy was on not saying those words. That night, as we said good night, I felt so sad. I knew the moment had been lost. I tried to comfort myself that it would come again... he'd ask me later. He didn't. As it turned out, he wasn't thinking about that at all, being young and clueless himself. And my chaste behavior, which he always honored out of love for me, left him vulnerable to a direct attack by a determined young woman to whom I couldn't avoid introducing him. He was gone in weeks. The day he told me he was leaving to go with her, we held each other and sobbed.

Obviously there were more factors than I'm disclosing or can possibly accurately convey. Our parents and their issues, which kept them from inquiring too deeply into what was going on so they could advise us. The young woman's incipient mental problems. His Cleaver-esque upbringing which left him completely unprepared for her tactics. My long experience with my bipolar mother, which let me see the train wreck happening from afar off, helpless to stop it.

I was left with the certain knowledge that, if I had spoken what I was impelled to speak that night, I might not have lost him. Losing him was one of the worst things that could ever have happened to me. The well-meaning rule-makers had inadvertently caused me to let go of my very life. I had bought into their dogma, and, ironically, the very rules I depended on to preserve me from regret left me to deal with it years and years later, after a lifetime of refusing to acknowledge I even felt any. After all, I'd followed the rules, hadn't I?

But I hadn't trusted God, or myself, or him.

In the Daily Guide, there was a quote from James C. Fenhagen's Invitation to Holiness in which he reflects on the many passages in the Psalms and elsewhere where the authors speak of their love for the law of the Lord and their delight in meditating on it. Fenhagen writes,

"Our concern is not to have presented to us a blueprint for life that will allow us to avoid risk, but rather a vision of integrity from which decisions are made and life is lived. Similarly, our concern for the Law and the prophetic insight into the power of evil as it operates in the world is not to win God's acceptance by so-called right behavior, but to know within ourselves the desperate need we have for the Grace offered to us in Jesus Christ."

That quote arrested my thought and led to the vivid teenage memory I related above. I still need to learn that lesson now, as a mature adult.

But God goes with me ...

This Lent, so far

Even before the ... episode ... chronicled below, God had been steering my heart this Lent into a different sort of practice.

1. I am being led to know joy.

Now, this sounds very non-Lent to me. Lent is about sacrifice. Suffering. Uniting with Jesus on the Way of the Cross, etc.

But, in my meditation and prayer, God brought it home to me that Lent is about turning towards Him, and listening, and discipline. And the root of all healthy discipline is accepting God's love, and obeying His will.

I am one of those whose walk with Christ was originally joyous, but who, in recent years, has been sad and downcast. That has led to my second understanding about this Lent - the fast I am to observe.

I'm a person who (obviously) likes predictability and structure in worship. Furthermore, I tended to use a lot of commentaries and annotated Bibles.

2. God's leading this Lent was: let it go. Leave it behind.

I just very clearly knew that I was to set aside all the commentaries and words by people - however well-meaning or educated - and let God speak to me directly from the Word.

There will be those who would read that and react with fear. I certainly have a part of me which does. After all, who am I, a mere mortal, to understand what God says? What about all the layers of meaning? The textual criticism? The ...

Jesus didn't do that.

He sat down, and he preached. The people were saved.

The call has seemed very clear: I am to fast, this Lent, from the explanations, and feed directly on the Word of God.

This hasn't been easy. I've clung to my study Bibles and commentaries and other books. They've gotten me through tough times. But, for this forty days of Lent, I need to put them aside.

I have been obedient. I have used only Bibles with cross-references. The most commentary I will use is that in the New Jerusalem Bible, which is less application-based and more textual.

And God has taught me.

May His Name be praised.

That's it. I'm done.

This outrage is the last straw.

If Bishop Brown does not want those people, he certainly does not want me. He is a bishop, and speaks for the Church; therefore the Church does not want me, either, because I am very like those poor rebuffed sheep.

"Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers." - John 10:4

I've done this before ... gotten lulled into a sense of "gee, maybe this time" ... and always gotten the door slammed in my face. I need to quit crawling back for more abuse, and go where my soul is fed and my conscience is at peace. My Lenten reflections have been leading me back to my Christian roots, anyway. I shall post about that when I can steal a bit of time from a delightful turn of events in my personal life. More later. ;)

OK, this fits

Your Birthdate: September 15

You take life as it is, and you find happiness in a variety of things. You tend to be close to family and friends. But it's hard to get into your inner circle. Making the little things wonderful is important to you, and you probably have an inviting home. You seek harmony with others, but occasionally you have a very stubborn streak. Your strength: Your intense optimism Your weakness: You shy away from exploring your talents Your power color: Jade Your power symbol: Flower Your power month: June

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Postcommunion reflections

In my previous post (immediately below), I lamented the loss of "quiet time" after communion. Tony at Catholic Pillow Fight recently went to traditional Latin Mass, and, in the course of a very good post about it, reported that he experienced it differently from the way I did:

I didn't feel like I was worshipping God communally as the Holy Mass is supposed to be. I felt like all the people at mass were worshipping God in their own way. It almost seemed like Eucharistic adoration than the Holy Mass.

There were not a lot of distractions, but there was a decided lack of community. As I said before, Mass is communal prayer, where we join with Catholics the world 'round as one body to praise the God of the universe.

I find it intriguing that he would say, "It almost seemed like Eucharistic adoration than the Holy Mass." Tony, you say that like it's a bad thing. ;)

Seriously, though, it is interesting that he and I would find it so different. I quote his account of his experience here, not only to be fair, but to ask if others agree, and if so, why?

More reflections on "the spirit of Vatican Two"

Lorna commented on a previous post:

this is really interesting. I'm not RC so I'm not sure how to phrase these questions

what was the spirit of vatican II in your opinion

why was it hard to accept the rulings of vatican II for you personally?

why is communion in the hand or standing a problem

what did you (do you) miss from the pre vatican II period

how would you like the mass to be developed under Pope Benedict to meet your needs

I'd be really interseted in your reply.

I think those are excellent questions, and fair ones. If I'm going to mutter darkly about something, I ought to be clear about why!

I'll warn you, though: this is going to be way long. Go get a beverage or something before embarking. ;) (Update: I incorporated a couple more great links, and changed one word ("revision") to the more accurate "translation." And found another great quote.)

What was the spirit of Vatican II in your opinion?

When I use the phrase, "The Spirit of Vatican Two," I mean it sarcastically. The Vatican II council took place during a time of great unrest in Western society, including an open attack against tradition on all fronts, not just that of the church. The changes in the Roman Catholic liturgy which followed were sweeping, sudden, largely unexpected and cruelly enforced. In many cases, the changes have absolutely no basis in the Council, although you'll get ¶'s and ¶'s of spin trying to prove that they were. I think "the spirit of Vatican II" is fuzzyspeak for, "we don't actually find this anywhere in the council's writings, but we think they meant ... "

In a recent interview, Bishops Bruskewitz and Corrada gave some interesting and helpful insights into what happened.

Why was it hard to accept the rulings of Vatican II for you personally?

I have no problem with the Council or its documents. I have serious issues with the way its "intent" has been construed.

To say that the church was wrong for well over a thousand years, and throw out everything - everything - that was Catholic: art, church architecture, sacred music, the habits worn by religious, the liturgy, devotions such as the Rosary, and to do all of it with such dismissive cruelty, could not have been from God. Three centuries would have been barely enough to introduce such sweeping changes. Three decades? Absurd.

The result? One cardinal writes:

I want to warn against an excessive “inculturation” that is destroying our liturgy. In the past generation, we have introduced into the liturgy some practices and attitudes from North American society that have no place there. For example: the hurried pace, the tyranny of the clock, the inattention to the arts, the casual tone of a presider, the “what can I get out of it?” approach of the consumer, the “entertain me” attitude of a nation of television watchers. All these are the wrong sort of inculturation. Their prevalence shows how difficult it is to seek what in the culture offers a true correspondence with the spirit of the liturgy. -- Cardinal Archbishop Roger Mahony

This is bizarre and unintentionally hilarious - "we have introduced into the liturgy some practices and attitudes that have no place there." The cardinal archbishop prides himself on ignoring the clear directives of Rome when celebrating the sacrifice of the Mass. (that last link is from a German site which I machine-translated into English. I think you can get the gist, however.)

Fortunately, three wonderful things have happened: 1.) The religious orders which adopted the new ways are disappearing, because in studying Buddhism and enneagrams and labyrinths and their navels, they have lost their distinctive charisms which attracted young people to surrender their lives entirely to Christ in the community. The hippie priests who set out to destroy the church like crazed rockers in a hotel room are now all gray and long in the tooth and soon to meet their Maker, along with their approving bishops. 2.) The young people in the church are discovering the rich treasury of tradition, art and music. They are flocking to traditional parishes and religious orders. 3.) Pope John Paul II won the respect of the world and the ear of the young; Pope Benedict XVI is a master theologian with great tact and steely determination.

Why is communion in the hand or standing a problem?

In the ideal, it's not. I love the accompanying permission to have communion from the cup, which was entirely impractical before. The problem is the way in which communion in the hand has been adopted in the parishes to which I've gone.

The consecrated host is Jesus. This is the consistent teaching of the Church through the centuries. When Jesus comes into the host, He becomes helpless all over again. He makes himself vulnerable to us to a degree unheard of in mere human experience. He does that so that we can approach him without fear, and take Him fully into ourselves. He cannot be harmed - he is God - but if we truly believe He is in the host, don't we want to show him care, love and respect?

Before the changes in the rite after Vatican II, the instructions for taking communion were:

When the bell rings at the Domine, non sum dignus ("Lord, I am not worthy..."), go up to the Altar-rail, and kneel there, with ungloved and folded hands. Renew with all possible fervor your act of contrition... When the Sacred Host is presented to you, receive It on your tongue lightly resting on the lower lip. Say in your heart the words which the Priest uses: The body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve my soul unto life everlasting. Retire to your place with recollection and modesty, and remain for some time kneeling, in silent communing with your heavenly Guest. Do not be too anxious to use your Prayer-book: it is far better for a while to dwell upon the Sacred Mysteries which you have received. Let not this precious time be wasted, however; should attention flag and distractions arise, have recourse to the following prayers... A Manual of Prayers for the Catholic Laity, copyright 1888, new edition copyright 1930.

For me, the anticipation of receiving Jesus, the quiet walk back to the pew, and the time of silent meditation afterwards ... greeting Him in my soul, telling Him all the very personal things one would tell Jesus if He were inside one for a few moments in such a special way - I converted to the Catholic Church specifically for those moments.

It took a long time in a crowded church, even with several priests administering communion. During that time, the music was perhaps choral at the beginning, then, as the choir came down to take communion, it became solely instrumental, often simple, familiar settings. Gregorian chant is very centering, and those are the moments one wants to be centered. Silence is best, listening to the shuffling of feet and the sounds of people rising and returning to their pews. In the days before air conditioning, the doors of the church would often be left open. Out in the courtyard, the birds would be chirping in the trees (okay, this was in Southern California). :) I could kneel among hundreds of fellow worshippers, listening to Jesus in my soul, listening to the birds, hearing the occasional comment or question of a child or the cry of a baby. It was a time of such deep recollection and meditation, and so very, very meaningful. I felt intimately joined with those around me. Jesus was actually, literally present in our midst, and coming into our souls, one by one, uniting us in our shared communion.

That was then.

This is now: get in line when directed by an usher, go up to the priest or eucharistic minister, bow quickly, get Jesus pressed into the palm of your hand, step aside to put the Host into one's mouth, and go back to the pew. Don't kneel; that would be against "unity." Of course, this highly managed corporate effort has its downside; as the bishops say in the GIRM:

The liturgical assembly of the baptized that comes together for the celebration of the Eucharist is a witness to, a manifestation of, the pilgrim Church. When we move in procession, particularly the procession to receive the body and blood of Christ in Communion, we are a sign, a symbol of that pilgrim Church 'on the way.' For some, however, the experience of the Communion Procession is far more prosaic, analogous perhaps to standing on line in the supermarket or at the motor vehicle bureau. A perception such as this is a dreadfully inaccurate and impoverished understanding of what is a significant religious action.

Before Vatican II, one was not being herded by officious ushers, and could choose to arise and approach the altar when one was ready. It was much more meaningful.

While we stand there after communion, instead of greeting the dear One Whom we've just received, we are to sing. It is apparently very important that the song involve guitars, which are difficult to tune properly in the best of circumstances. The song must be sung by people who are untrained in musicianship, led by a cantor waving and directing the congregation. Preferably the song will have difficult timing and/or melody, so you have to open the music to follow it, and the words will focus on Me and how I feel good being here with Everyone Else in the sacrament of Togetherness. In other words, recollection and reflection are impossible. It appears that the act of communion is being carefully and deliberately desacralized.

The bishops realize the problem. What follows was written recently, not in 1970, at the beginning of the reforms, when those who actually liked to pray in church were horrified at the noise and distraction:

For some, however, the singing of this [communion] hymn is perceived as an intrusion on their own prayer, their private thanksgiving after Communion. In fact, however, this hymn is prayer, the corporate thanksgiving prayer of the members of Christ's Body, united with one another. Over and over again the prayers of the liturgy and the norms of the General Instruction emphasize this fundamental concept of the unity of the baptized, stressing that when we come together to participate in the Eucharistic celebration we come, not as individuals, but as united members of Christ's body. In each of the Eucharistic Prayers, though the petition is worded in slightly different ways, God is asked to send his Holy Spirit to make us one body, one spirit in Christ; the General Instruction admonishes the faithful that they should become one body, whether by hearing the word of God, or joining in prayers and singing ...(GIRM, no. 96) it describes one of the purposes of the opening song of the Mass as to ... intensify the unity of those who have been gathered and says of the Communion Chant that its function is to express outwardly the communicants’ union in spirit by means of the unity of their voices, ... and to highlight the communitarian nature of the procession to receive Communion.

After Mass, the congregation applauds the musicians, loud conversations erupt in all corners of the church, and if you kneel in your pew to try to pray, you get annoyed looks from people. (Of course, one can go to traditional Latin Mass, although in a diocese where the bishop is hostile to the TLM, it can be very onerous - drives of two to three hours, one-way, are not unheard-of.)

So ... it's changed. And, as I think I mentioned before, communion in the hand came about because Pope Paul VI caved in to a flagrantly disobedient bishop. That's not simply remembering it differently, by the way; I was a new convert at the time and followed the unfolding of the whole sad scenario in the Catholic press.

There is another very serious problem with communion in the hand, which is that the Host can be carried away and treated in who-knows-what manner. If the priest puts the consecrated host directly into the communicant's mouth, it's much less likely it will be abstracted and show up later on Ebay or be used for something unspeakable.

What did you (do you) miss from the pre Vatican II period?

• I miss the sense of being special - being Roman Catholic. Now it's just another confused, drifting, church-like organization, distinguished mainly in the world's eyes by randy priests, indifferent bishops, and execrable translations. It's odd when the Episcopal and Lutheran liturgies are more reverent, orderly and instructive than the Roman Catholic.

• I keenly miss being able to participate fully in worship. Besides being always on edge, distracted, and distressed the entire time one is at Mass (I strongly dislike being touched by strangers, and there's getting to be way too much of that going on at the peace and Our Father; it's upsetting when the priest doesn't know or won't follow the norms; etc.), the sense of community is impaired. You are with people who speak [whatever language the Mass is in] and it's so limiting. One used to be able to celebrate Mass anywhere in the world, praying understandably with people from whom, outside church, one couldn't ask for a drink of water without making signs. It is a cozy, warm feeling. Jews have always used Hebrew in worship. Muslims can worship together anywhere using Arabic. Shared worship forges a very strong bond and makes you feel like family, even when you're far away from home. It is astonishing to hear bishops fretting about how their parishes have splintered along ethnic lines when they imposed those divisions themselves by using the vernacular! (What's the Latin for duh?)

The objection that people can't understand Latin is gravely insulting. Virtually everybody can learn some parts of a new language, particularly when it's presented side-by-side with their native language in a missal. The real reason to abandon Latin has nothing to do with that, anyway.

Latin is a dead language; it doesn't change, so the meaning of the words remains the same. The vernacular changes daily. Texts constantly need updating. If one wants to make changes in belief, the obvious place to start is in the liturgy, with seemingly small changes worked in during the process of translation. Little bits of change can be, and are, made. However, that doesn't allow the changes to happen fast enough for some people, which leads me to...

• I miss the days when bishops and priests would strive to outdo one another in saying Mass beautifully, meaningfully and reverently. Now they're always trying to sneak past the rubrics to do their own thing, like naughty boys. It's pathetic and cowardly. Roger Mahony is a prime example, insisting on celebrating Mass in which he does the kinds of things Redemptionis Sacramentum was written specifically to correct.

How would you like the mass to be developed under Pope Benedict to meet your needs?

To this I would reply gently that the Mass is not something one can "develop."

Q. Pope Benedict XVI has addressed this very issue in his writings on the liturgy. Liturgy is something that is supposed to be given by, and received from, our fathers in the faith, rather than something we create or innovate.

Bishop Bruskewitz: Absolutely. It is not created.

And furthermore, the laity has a right to a proper liturgy. Pope Paul VI emphasized this. It is not the priest's arbitrary bestowal upon the people, but it is the people who have a right to the Church's liturgy as it is supposed to be done. That certainly deserves emphasis.

Brian Mershon at RenewAmerica.us.

The Mass was not a creation of man alone. In its original form it is a kind of living tradition handed down through the centuries. It changed and grew organically into different forms and rites, but since earliest times it has always been said in Latin and always had certain prayers and parts. Protestant services either draw from or repudiate it. The translation of the whole of it into the vernacular was, in my opinion, a serious mistake, because it implied the Mass could be changed to fit the whim of the local ordinary - which is, of course, what has happened.

I am grateful that Pope Benedict is acting to stop the more egregious errors. I would like to see him correct the grave injustice which has been done to those who safeguarded the Mass through the centuries, as well as those who love it today, by enforcing the indult his predecessor supplied.

The most common canard about the Latin Mass is that it keeps the people from participating and stifles their spirituality or some such thing. What rubbish. For centuries the Mass nourished the faith, teaching, and thought of musicians, artists, philosophers and saints. The current version with its insipid music, always-changing vernacular texts, and careless behavior is not the same act of worship. While I accept the Novus Ordo (new order [of Mass]) when it is done with reverence and according to the published rubrics, I cannot help but suspect that the emphatic suppression of the traditional Latin Mass has nothing to do with pastoral concerns, and everything to do with how banal and ugly the new rite often is in comparison.

...but I'm not biased, or anything. ;)

I'm not alone. There's a particularly excellent post over at Pontifications about this. The comments are interesting and along the same lines as what I've written here ... if markedly more succinct! ;)

Finally, in full personal disclosure, I must qualify my strong reaction to The Spirit of Vatican Two by acknowledging that it is because the "reform" followed the same (and simultaneous) scenario as in my family life when my mother lapsed into severe alcoholism. She was a brilliantly intelligent, capable, enormously talented woman. She was eminently persuasive and forceful. She explained her use of alcohol as necessary for self-medication. She lauded its properties. It caused her to rescind some previously absolute requirements or bans. When I protested, she told me that I was disloyal and ungrateful. When I longed for the days when there was some predictability to life, she reproached me for feeling that way.

The Council of Vatican II was one thing; the swarm of eager progressives who exploited its apparent loopholes, something else entirely. Drunk with their vision of liturgy, they leveraged the Roman Catholic laity's devotion to their Church by forcing the changes through, saying how wonderful everything was, when it clearly wasn't. Absolute requirements (fish on Friday, for example) and bans (the laity handling the consecrated Host) were waved away. When the laity expressed distress and shock, they were told they were being disloyal; that they were clinging to the old ways... that they were wrong to feel that way. After years of recovery, I know that, when someone tells you "don't feel that way," you are dealing with a bully and your boundaries are under siege.

The laity behaved like any family will when a parent lapses into chronic drunkenness: some leave, never to return; others show up only at Christmas and Easter and stay well away the rest of the year; still others hang in there, trying to cope with the changes while being faithful to the family unit and finding a balance between healthy detachment and concerned involvement. Some accept everything the drunk tells them, covering for the drunk, explaining away the embarrassing episodes, and trying to keep the home together. Finally, there are those who are outspokenly in the drunk's corner, mixing the drinks and snarling at anyone who would suggest that something's obviously wrong. And, through it all, the drunk is saying, "I'm perfectly fine. Why don't you accept that I'm fine? I've never been better. You're the one with the problem, not me." The home gets untidy and disorganized, marked by strife and factions, and missing some of its members who did not so much leave, as were driven out.

I am not the only one to see the parallel. And then there's this from an article by Fr. Vincent Capuano, S.J. which appeared in the Adoremus Bulletin:

Many religious accept liturgical abuse in a manner similar to how a wife will often accept spousal abuse -- from a false sense of charity and tolerance. It is not that the perpetrator of abuse is completely evil, he often possesses many virtues and admirable qualities. The victim of liturgical abuse, like the victim of spousal abuse, wants to be forgiving, wants to practice tolerance, wants to be charitable. The abuser takes advantage of such desires and sentiments and continues to abuse. --Quoted in Catholic World News "Off the Record"

I believe that Benedict XVI has been sent by God to administer the long-awaited intervention. May he be blessed in his role as he steadies and guides the Church.

St. Anthony, where's my sidebar?

I have no idea what happened... nor do I have the time to work on it now. Maybe this weekend...

Finally - an exorcism for the Spirit of Vatican Two

The Curt Jester has a copy of the draft of the rite! Check it out here.

Holding my breath

Dear friends, I've been so remiss in not posting lately ... I'm sorry. (Lorna, I have not forgotten my piece for you ... it is being worked on, I promise.)

No excuse, but a reason: I am distracted. Or, to put it another way, I'm too focused right now on something else; something in my personal life. A tremendously good something in any case, but one which, if it turns out in one particular way, would result in huge change for me.

And we all know how lightheartedly we welcome change. (Not.) ;)

Sorry to be so cagey, but there's not a lot I can tell right now. Heck, there's a lot I don't know myself. God knows, but He's the cagiest of all.

As I have for more than 30 years with this particular thread of the story of my life, I wait on Him to show me the next step to take. However, I am not able to clear my mind of what's going on; I'm not that good at detachment, yet. I've only learned better how not to worry... instead, to trust Him who made both me and the one who is so much in my thoughts and prayers of late.

It is a great story, one which I will relish telling someday. In the meantime, I wait for the unfoldment of events... and neglect this blog, though I do go visiting others', when I can.

Peace to you.

The Puppy Bowl

Has anyone else watched the "Puppy Bowl" on Animal Planet? It's inspired!

They just put some darling puppies into a small pen disguised as a stadium, give them lots of toys, and have some clever camera folk follow them around. There's a water dish with a clear acrylic bottom with a camera focused up to catch the darling little noses and tongues (and sometimes paws). And for half time? Kittens! Playing on an elaborate "set" with all kinds of intriguing toys.

Extremely inexpensive to produce, and just so fun to watch. Sponsored by Bissell. ;)

How to get parishioners interested in a class

...offer one about Latin.

Yes, Latin.


via Insight Scoop.

Pastors would be well-advised to note the amount of the contributions which followed in the wake of the decision to offer a class, and the Mass, in Latin.

Deus caritas est

Here's the link to the encyclical. It's on my list for an initial read this weekend sometime.

When anger is a sign of health in the body

I'm not the only one to reflect that the Roman Catholic church is showing definite signs of life, in the same way that one can tell when a person's beginning to turn the tide against an illness - they begin to express anger again, instead of just lying there, inert. On many of the blogs people are sputtering with fury about Michael Schiavo's wedding.
Even MCJ, an Episcopalian blogger, notices it:--

The fact that this "marriage" produced this kind of outrage indicates a church with significant spiritual vigor. The marriage of a man and his concubine, by whom he had fathered two children while he was legally married to someone else, would barely be noticed in the Episcopal Church or the Anglican Church of Canada.

(H/T Kathy Shaidle, via open book)

James Hitchcock writes on Vatican II

This excellent article was published in Crisis Magazine in the June 2004 issue, and which I just now found for the first time.

I've interposed some few comments, but I really don't have anything to add to it. I deeply appreciate Hitchcock's thorough and balanced summary.

Off The Rails: Was Vatican II Hijacked?
By James Hitchcock

Most Catholics in 1959 probably didn’t even know what an ecumenical council was. And yet, here it was. Pope John XXIII announced that the goals of the Second Vatican Council would be “the renewal of the spirit of the Gospel in the hearts of people everywhere and the adjustment of Christian discipline to modern-day living”—a proclamation that was on the face of it ambiguous. How was authentic renewal to be achieved? How should essential discipline be adjusted to modern culture?

John was a relentless optimist, inclined always to look for good in the world, disinclined to scold, and deeply convinced that he had been called to help bring about a new Pentecost in the Church. He further believed that the Counter-Reformation era, characterized both by defensiveness inside the Church and aggressiveness toward those on the outside, was over. The council made only an oblique reference to the fact that the 20th century had already seen a persecution of Christians more severe than any in the entire history of Catholicism.

The Church was apparently flourishing during John’s pontificate. By contrast with what would come later, its members were unusually serious, devout, and moral. But such a Church could be criticized as fostering formalism, a neglect of social justice, and an overly narrow piety, and it’s likely that John XXIII thought that a new Pentecost could build on this foundation to reach still higher levels.

In his opening address to the council, John affirmed the infallibility of the Church but called on it to take account of the “errors, requirements, and opportunities” of the age. He regretted that some Catholics (“prophets of gloom”) seemed unable to see any good in the modern world and regarded it as the worst of all historical periods. The dogmas of the Church were settled and “known to all,” so the conciliar task was to explore new ways of presenting them to the modern world.

Modernism had been repeatedly and explicitly condemned by several previous popes.

The preparatory commissions for the council were dominated by members of the Curia, who were inclined toward precisely such a pessimistic view. When the council opened, there were objections to those commissions, with the result that the council fathers were allowed to approve new schema prepared by some of their own. In some ways this procedural squabble was the most decisive event of the entire council, and it represented a crucial victory for what was now called the “liberal” or “optimistic” party, guaranteeing that the council as a whole would look on its work as more than a mere restatement of accepted truths. There was an officially endorsed spirit of optimism in which even legitimate questions about the wisdom of certain ideas were treated as evidence of lack of faith.

This attitude persists even today. If one questions a decision, or criticizes an outcome, one is "disloyal," "unfaithful," etc.

The intellectual leadership of the council came mainly from Western Europe, the most influential prelates being Bernard Alfrink of the Netherlands, Leo Jozef Suenens of Belgium, Achille Lienart of France, Julius Doepfner and Joseph Frings of Germany, and Franz Koenig of Austria. Those five countries, along with the rest of Europe, possessed an ancient tradition of Catholicism, and they had nourished a vigorous and sophisticated Catholic intellectual life.

As theological questions arose, the council fathers almost automatically deferred to the opinions of these European prelates, who were in turn influenced by men recognized as the most accomplished theologians of the age—Henri DeLubac, Jean Danielou, and Yves Congar in France; Edward Schillebeeckx in the Netherlands; Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger in Germany.

But in many respects the Church in those five nations—with the possible exception of the Netherlands—appeared less than robust (judging, for example, by rates of church attendance and religious vocations). Indeed, the vigorous intellectual life of those countries was colored by a certain sense of crisis—the need to make the Faith credible to modern men. By contrast, the Church in the British Isles, Southern Europe, and the United States, to say nothing of the Third World, lacked dazzling intellectual achievements but appeared to be relatively hearty.

Most council fathers therefore seemed to have felt little urgency about most of the questions that came before them. For many, the discussions involved issues that, before now, hadn’t even been considered, such as making the liturgy and religious life more “relevant.” But an unquestioned faith that the Church would always be preserved from error, along with the leadership of John XXIII and Paul VI, led most of the delegates to support the schema that were finally forged from the debate. No decree of the council provoked more than a small number of dissenting votes. Ironically, in view of the later claim that the council brought about the democratization of the Church, deference to authority was a major factor in determining how most of the fathers voted.

Creating Radicals

John XXIII announced Vatican II as a “pastoral” assembly, but there were growing differences of opinion as to what exactly that meant. Pious, instinctively conservative prelates might think of encouraging Marian devotions or kindling zeal for the foreign missions. The dominant group, however, moved the council toward dialogue with the modern world, translating the Church’s message into a language modern men understood.

The council fathers always strove to remain balanced (see George Sim Johnston’s “Was Vatican II a Mistake?” March 2004). To take what are now the most fiercely debated issues, they imagined no revisions in Catholic moral teaching about sexuality, referring instead to “the plague of divorce” and to the “abominable crime” of abortion. Deliberately childless marriages were deemed a tragedy, and the faithful were reminded of the Church’s condemnation of artificial birth control.

At the same time, the fact that practically every aspect of Catholic belief seemed to be under discussion had results that John XXIII probably didn’t intend. Famously, at one point he removed the subject of contraception from the floor of the council and announced that he was appointing a special commission to study the issue—an action that naturally led some to believe the teaching would indeed be revised. When Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae in 1968, liberals were outraged that he rejected the commission’s recommendation to permit some forms of birth control and accused him of betraying the council.

This was a serious problem - especially when you consider the cultural environment of the times.

The council fathers each had periti, or advisers, on matters of theology and canon law, and some of them were very influential, both in shaping the thought of the prelates whom they advised and in working behind the scenes with like-minded delegates and other periti. In explaining the theological revolution that occurred almost immediately after the council, some orthodox Catholics speculate that a well-organized minority intended from the beginning to sabotage the council and that they successfully planted theological time bombs in the conciliar decrees—doctrinal statements whose implications were deliberately left vague, to be activated later. But there’s little evidence of this.

It’s characteristic of revolutions that they are rarely planned ahead of time. Rather, they arise from the sudden acceleration of historical change, caused by the flow of events and the way in which people relate to those events. There is no evidence that anyone came to the council with a radical agenda, in part because such an agenda would have been considered hopelessly unrealistic. (Some liberals actually feared that the council would prove to be a retrogressive gathering.)

A major factor in the postconciliar dynamic was the reformers’ own heady experience of swift and unexpected change. For example, in 1960 no one would have predicted—and few would have advocated—the virtual abandonment of the Latin liturgy. But once reformers realized that the council fathers supported change, it became an irresistible temptation to continue pushing farther and faster. What had been thought of as stone walls of resistance turned out to be papier-mâché.

The council itself proved to be a “radicalizing” experience, during which men who had never met before, and who in some cases had probably given little thought to the questions now set before them, began quickly to change their minds on major issues. (For example, Archbishop—later Cardinal—John F. Dearden of Detroit, who was considered quite rigid before the council, returned home as an uncritical advocate of every kind of change.) When the council was over, some of those present—both periti and bishops—were prepared to go beyond what the council had in fact intended or authorized, using the conciliar texts as justification when possible, ignoring them when not (as recounted, for example, by Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, who was in charge of liturgical reform after the council, in his book The Reform of the Liturgy). Aware that the council didn’t support their agenda, they quickly got into the habit of speaking of the “spirit” of the council, which was said to transcend its actual statements and even in some cases to contradict them.

And this is why, when I refer to "The Spirit of Vatican Two," you can take it as dripping with sarcasm.

The Role of the Media

While the council was still in session, it occurred to some that it was less important what that body actually said and did than what people thought it said and did. Thus as early as the first session, in 1962, there was an orchestrated propaganda campaign to present the deliberations and define the issues in particular ways and to enlist the sympathies of the public on behalf of a particular agenda. Certain key journalists became “participant-observers,” meaning that they reported the events and at the same time sought to influence them—the chief practitioners being “Xavier Rynne” (the pen name of the Redemptorist historian Francis X. Murphy), who wrote “Letter from Vatican City” for the New Yorker magazine, and Robert Blair Kaiser, who reported for Time.

Such reports were written for a largely non-Catholic audience, many of whom were unsympathetic to the Faith, and the thrust of the reporting was to assure such readers that the Church was at long last admitting its many errors and coming to terms with secular culture. Most Catholics probably relied on these same sources for their understanding of the council and so received the same message.

The key reason why postconciliar “renewal” often went wrong is the almost incredible fact that the hierarchy in the early 1960s made almost no systematic effort to catechize the faithful (including priests and religious) on the meaning of the council—something about which many bishops themselves seemed confused. “Renewal experts” sprang up everywhere, and the most contradictory explanations of the council were offered to Catholics thirsting for guidance. Bishops rarely offered their flocks authoritative teaching and instead fell into the habit of simply trusting certified “experts” in every area of Church life. Indeed, before the council was even over, several fallacious interpretations were planted that still flourish today.

Even the best journalistic accounts were forced to simplify the often subtle and complex deliberations of the council fathers. But there was also deliberate oversimplification for the purpose of creating a particular public impression. The media thus divided the council fathers into heroes and villains—otherwise known as liberals and conservatives. In this way, the conciliar battles were presented as morality plays in which open-minded, warm-hearted, highly intelligent innovators (Cardinal Alfrink, for example) were able repeatedly to thwart plots by Machiavellian reactionaries (Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani of the Holy Office). It was a morality play that appealed to the prejudices of many Westerners of the mid-20th century. It also had a real if immeasurable influence on many bishops, who soon discovered that being viewed as “progressive” would gain them a favorable press, while the opposite would make them into public villains.

For understandable reasons, vastly disproportionate attention was lavished by the media on such things as the vernacular liturgy and the end of mandatory Friday abstinence, since concrete practices could be easily dealt with journalistically and such practices had long helped to define the differences between Catholics and others. Catholics who understood almost nothing of the theological issues of the council came to understand that its “real” purpose was repealing rules that had become burdensome and old-fashioned.

But in another sense the attention lavished on such things was not disproportionate, because in a sacramental Church “externals” are the doorways to the spirit. In theory it perhaps ought not to have mattered whether nuns wore habits, but in practice the modification, then the total abandonment, of those habits marked the beginning of the end of religious life as it had existed for centuries. For many people the distinction between essentials and nonessentials was almost meaningless. If Catholics were no longer forbidden to eat meat on Fridays, why could they not get divorced, especially given the widespread conviction that the purpose of the council and of “Good Pope John” was to make people comfortable with their faith?

Many of the council fathers, after they returned to their dioceses, seemed themselves to be in a state of confusion over what they’d done. Only a relatively few—some orthodox, others less so—had a clear and consistent understanding. For most, the postconciliar period proved to be a time of rudderless experimentation, as Catholics groped to understand what the council had mandated. For many people the one sure thing, amid all the postconciliar uncertainty, was the fact of change itself; in an odd way it seemed safest to do or believe almost the opposite of what Catholics had previously been taught.

Here, kids, take these razors and go play on the freeway.

The Scars of Renewal

Underlying the council were two different approaches to reform—approaches that were not contradictory but that required serious intellectual effort to reconcile. One was ressourcement (“back to the sources”), a program of renewing the Church by returning to its scriptural and patristic roots (DeLubac, Danielou, and Hans Urs Von Balthasar all held to this). The other was aggiornamento (“updating”), by which the supposed demands of contemporary culture were the chief concern (Hans Küng, Schillebeeckx, and to some extent Rahner, were all proponents). Kept in balance during the council itself, these two movements increasingly pulled apart afterward and resulted in the deep conflicts that continue to the present.

A prime example of the postconciliar dynamic at work was the “renewal” of religious life. Cardinal Suenens wrote the influential book The Nun in the World, enjoining sisters to come out of their cloisters and accept the challenges of modern life. Whatever might be thought about them as theological principles, such recipes for “renewal” also promised that those who adopted them would experience phenomenal revitalization, including dramatic numerical growth, and for a few years after the council the official spirit of naive optimism won out over the “prophets of gloom.”

The most famous instance of such renewal in the United States was that of the Immaculate Heart Sisters of Los Angeles. Their program of aggiornamento had all the ingredients required at the time—intense publicity from an overwhelmingly favorable media, a prestigious secular “expert” (the psychologist Carl Rogers), picturesque experiments with nontraditional behavior (encounter groups), and a reactionary villain (James Cardinal McIntyre) portrayed as the only obstacle to progress. Not until it was too late did anyone ask whether the IHM Sisters, along with countless others, were simply abandoning their vocations completely.

A tragic dimension of the conciliar period was precisely the irrelevance and ultimate failure of the exciting intellectual programs that emanated from what were then the five most influential Catholic nations. For a very brief period, Dutch Catholicism made a bid to give the universal Church a working model of renewal, before “the Dutch Church” imploded and sank into oblivion. Rates of church attendance and religious vocations may have been worrisomely low in Belgium, France, and Germany in 1960, but the bishops of those countries probably couldn’t imagine how much lower they would fall. In ways not recognized 40 years ago, it’s now clear that the strategy of countering secularism by moving closer to the secular culture just doesn’t work.

The partisans of aggiornamento became the first theologians in the history of the Church to make systematic use of the mass media, entering into a working alliance with journalists who could scarcely even understand the concept of ressourcement but eagerly promoted an agenda that required the Church to accommodate itself to the secular culture. Strangely enough, some theologians, along with their propagandist allies, actually denied the Church the right to remain faithful to its authentic identity and announced a moral obligation to repudiate as much of that identity as possible. “Renewal” came to be identified with dissent and infidelity, and Catholics who remained faithful to the Church were denounced as enemies of Vatican II.

This occurred at the most fundamental level, so that the authority of the council itself was soon relativized. The notion that a council would claim for itself final authority in matters of belief came to be viewed by liberals as reactionary. Vatican II was thus treated as merely a major historical epiphany—a moment in the unfolding history of the Church and of human consciousness when profound new insights were discovered. According to this view, the council’s function was not to make authoritative pronouncements but merely to facilitate the movement of the Church into the next stage of its historical development. (For example, the Jesuit historian John W. O’Malley in 1971 proposed that certain conciliar texts could be legitimately ignored as merely reflective of intellectual immaturity, timidity, and confusion on the part of the council fathers.)

After the council, the concept of “the People of God” was reduced to a crude form of democracy—doctrine as determined by opinion polls. The liturgy ceased to be a divine action and became a communal celebration, and the supernatural vocations of priests and religious were deemed to be obstacles to their service to the world.

Nothing had a more devastating effect on postconciliar Catholic life than the sexual revolution, as believers began to engage in behavior not measurably different from that of non-believers. Priests and religious repudiated their vows in order to marry, and many of those who remained in religious life ceased to regard celibacy as desirable. Catholics divorced almost as frequently as non-Catholics. Church teachings about contraception, homosexuality, and even abortion were widely disregarded, with every moral absolute treated as merely another wall needing to be breached.

Off the Rails

Ultimately the single best explanation of what happened to deflect the council’s decrees from their intended direction is the fact that as soon as the assembly ended, the worldwide cultural phenomenon known as the “the Sixties” began. It was nothing less than a frontal assault on all forms of authority.

Bereft of catechesis, confused by the conciliar changes, and unable to grasp the subtle theology of the conciliar decrees, many Catholics simply translated the conciliar reforms into the terms of the counterculture, which was essentially the demand for “liberation” from all restraint on personal freedom. Even as late as 1965 almost no one anticipated this great cultural upheaval. The measured judgments of Gaudium et Spes, the council’s highly influential decree on the Church and the modern world, shows not a hint of it.

Had the council met a decade earlier, during the relatively stable 1950s, it’s possible that there could have been an orderly and untroubled transition. But after 1965 the spirit of the age was quite different, and by then many Catholics were eager to break out of what they considered their religious prison. Given the deliberately fostered popular impression that the Church was surrendering in its perennial struggle with the world, it was inevitable that the prevailing understanding of reform would be filtered through the glass of a hedonistic popular culture. Under such conditions it would require remarkable steadfastness of purpose to adhere to an authentic program of renewal.

The postconciliar crisis has moved far beyond issues like the language of the liturgy or nuns’ habits—even beyond sexual morality or gender identities. Today the theological frontier is nothing less than the stark question of whether there is indeed only one God and Jesus is His only-begotten Son. It is a question that the council fathers didn’t foresee as imminent and, predictably, the council’s dicta about non-Christian religions are now cited to justify various kinds of religious syncretism. The resources for resolving this issue are present in the conciliar decrees themselves, but it’s by no means certain that Church leaders have the will to interpret them in final and authoritative ways. Forty years after the council, serious Catholics have good reason to think they’ve been left to wander the theological wilderness.

James Hitchcock is a professor of history at St. Louis University and senior editor of Touchstone. His book The Supreme Court and Religion is forthcoming from Princeton University Press.

A(nother) reflection on Vatican II

First of all, Lorna, if you're checking here wondering if I'll ever reply to your questions in the comments - I'm working on the answers. It has been a cathartic, interesting, complex journey for me. Dang, girl, you ask good questions!

In the meantime, my wanderings on the topic throughout the blog world have led me to this conclusion:

Some wanted to use Vatican II to destroy the Church. For a lot of years, it looked like they were winning. But, today, I can see they have lost, and Christ has won.

How do I know?

Because we are still talking about it. Arguing over it. Reading the encyclicals, canon law, the writings of the Church fathers - anything we can lay our hands on to buttress our point! We engage one another passionately - and yet, almost always, in charity.

We are Roman Catholics. We are brothers and sisters. And we are so passionate because we have faith - because we love our Church.

If the enemy had won, we would no longer care. Whether in despair or sheer indifference or exhaustion, we would throw down our books and wander away.

The very thing which keeps me at arm's length from the Church is the very thing which has brought me back to her: the give-and-take, the endless caring about doing it right.

Of course, the only problem is, it just consumes the hours. I want to take issue with Mark Shea, who muttered something in a post about people who natter about the liturgy but ignore the theology of the body (very rough casting of what he said - don't take it literally, I'm not going to go get the quote now). I am making notes for my responses to Lorna's good questions. I realize I have to go back and read the conciliar documents again (sigh), because I want to be fair in what I say.

And - because of that - I am involved in the Church. I care about how we worship Christ. It matters to me whether or not our liturgy teaches us well. I care passionately about whether it's more effective to attract new fish into Peter's net by watering down the liturgy, or tightening it up and making it into true art.

As I travel through the 'net, reading what others are saying, marveling at the intense conversations among people of all ages who are wrestling with one another over the issues in the wake of Vatican II, I meet people I love. Just, quite simply, love. Appealing, intelligent, truthful personalities. I don't always agree with the points they make, but I know a sibling when I read one. ;)

So long as we care - so long as we're willing to research and pray and type and argue to preserve God's Church - she will survive.

And if it took Vatican II, with its ambiguous documents, ham-fisted implementation, the spectacular bungle of the handling of Humanae Vitae, and the apparent triumph of the deconstructionists over tradition to wake up the Roman Catholic laity enough to care - then it was just the Holy Spirit doing His thing again, inscrutable and mysterious as it is.

A vocation to pray for

"Moneybags," he who has been connecting bloggers with their saints for the year, has disclosed his discernment of vocation to the priesthood. He sounds calm and filled with joy. Let us pray for him.

More NAB vs. NAB discussion

Over at Bettnet, Dom and Melanie noticed the insipid translation of 1 Corinthians 6 used at Mass the other day.

As I was listening to the second reading at Mass today, something was nagging at me. It just didn’t sound right.

Brothers and sisters:
The body is not for immorality, but for the Lord,
and the Lord is for the body;
God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power.

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?
But whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one Spirit with him.
Avoid immorality.
Every other sin a person commits is outside the body,
but the immoral person sins against his own body.
Do you not know that your body
is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you,
whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
For you have been purchased at a price.
Therefore glorify God in your body.

Wait a minute, isn’t all sin immorality? How can we say that immorality is a sin of the body? There is immorality that isn’t physical, like things we say or fail to do. Something wasn’t right here.

Then Melanie, who was thinking the same thing, pointed to the Spanish version of the reading. (Our parish has bilingual missalettes.) Now, I don’t read or speak Spanish, but when it uses “fornicar” for the English lectionary’s “immorality” I think I can figure out what the word is supposed to be. When I got home, I picked up my Greek New Testament and sure enough the word is “porneia,” which according to Bauer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament means “fornication, prostitution, unchastity, or every kind of unlawful sexual intercourse.”

The keepers and guardians of the New American Bible must have decided that “fornication” is too coarse a word for our tender ears or that it might be too judgmental of those who are, you know, fornicating.

Instead we get some kind of mush that tells people nothing really, and that could even mislead them. “Huh, only things we do with our bodies are immoral. Great! Now I can lie and hate and all kinds of other things.”

Some people say that the Church has a hang up about sex. What about those who have a hard time letting God’s Word talk about it unfiltered?

As mentioned before, I recently rediscovered a 1971 first edition of the NAB which was given to me as a gift before I was received into the church. Of late I've been comparing passages, finding significant differences from today's version. The 1971 version of verse 18 of the passage reads: "Shun lewd conduct. Every other sin a man commits is outside his body, but the fornicator sins against his own body." Quite a change over 30 years.

Our evangelical protestant brethren would not stand for this. They pounce on every new translation and nitpick it to death. I'm really concerned that we Catholics are just sort of drifting along, not paying attention, while the meaning of our liturgy and scriptures are being "translated" (read: twisted) into something quite different from the original meanings.

You would think that those shaping the direction of the Episcopal church these days would be the first to do something like this - subtly retranslate the Word to fit their agenda. They can't, however, because they use the RSV or NRSV, and the Christian community would be all over them in a jiffy. (What they have done is simply omit the "difficult" passages - imprecatory Psalm verses, for example, or teachings against homosexual behavior - from their daily liturgical readings in the Book of Common Prayer. It's sort of amusing, in a sick, sad sort of way.) The situation with the NAB is different. In the first place, most Catholics are not Bible readers in the sense that many Protestants are. Those who are, often abandon the NAB for more mellifluous or accurate translations such as the RSV or the Jerusalem Bible. I am a Bible reader, but then, I was out of the Church for a long time. ;) The NAB these days is the most wooden, awkwardly reading thing I've ever encountered. It's so bad, it's embarrassing. When combined with what's happened to the liturgy and the music at Mass, it's a catastrophe for art. Anyone who disagrees needs to listen to the Mozart Requiem. Get back to me after you've recovered from that experience, and we'll talk.

Seriously: by watering down an important passage like that, a basic Christian teaching is being obscured. I really am concerned. It was deliberately changed to read that way. In charity, we should put it down to cluelessness until proven otherwise. However, when you read the writings of someone like Pope Benedict and look at your neighbors at Mass, you know that the church is not made up of the knuckle-dragging, childlike, preliterate hominids for whom the liturgists and musicians seem to be writing these days. What happened??