Loyola Institute for Ministry holds virtual open house, webinar on spirituality

The Loyola Institute for Ministry, in cooperation with the Archdiocese of New Orleans, is hosting the free webinar, “The Roman Missal: A Look at the New Translation,” on Tuesday, May 15 at 8 p.m. The presentation, by the Rev. Stephen Sauer, S.J., pastor of the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception in New Orleans, is dedicated to providing a deeper understanding of the recent changes to the language of the Roman Catholic mass.

LIM will also host a virtual open house on Wednesday, May 16 at 8 p.m. and provide information on Loyola’s online graduate program in religious education and pastoral studies. For details on the webinar and open house, visit the LIM website.

LIM offers both Master of Religious Education and Master of Pastoral Studies degrees, which are 36-credit hour degree programs designed to be taken completely online.

The Loyola Institute for Ministry responds to the needs of ministry and education personnel who have limited access to Catholic educational resources. Focus areas include Christian spirituality for pastoral ministers, pastoral life and administration, youth ministry, Hispanic ministry, religion and ecology, marketplace ministry and small Christian community formation.

For more information about LIM and the information session, contact Eileen Hooper Chapoton at 504-865-2109 or email her at chapoton@loyno.edu.

Belleville priest says Burke would reject his appeal to save job

BELLEVILLE • A priest in the Belleville diocese at odds with his bishop over the wording of the Catholic Mass said the former Archbishop of St. Louis – now head of the Vatican’s highest court – said he should have been removed from his parish long ago.

The Rev. William Rowe said Belleville Bishop Edward Braxton told him in a meeting Tuesday that if he refused to resign as pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Mount Carmel, Ill., the bishop would use canon – or church – law to remove him. Rowe said he asked Braxton if he could appeal a removal, if it came to that.

Rowe said Braxton told him that he could appeal an eventual removal to the Vatican’s version of the supreme court, called the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. But, Braxton said, he had already spoken to the head of that court – former St. Louis archbishop, Cardinal Raymond Burke – in February, and that Burke told Braxton that Rowe should have been removed “a long time ago,” according to the priest.

“The understanding there is that I’m done,” Rowe said.

Messages left with the offices of Braxton in Belleville and Burke in Rome were not returned Wednesday morning.

Rowe said Braxton told him that on two recent trips to Rome several bishops asked him about Rowe’s case, and encouraged him to remove the priest. The bishop told him the bishops had heard about two civil weddings outside the church Rowe had performed for couples whose previous marriages had not yet been annulled. Braxton “said Rome was aware of those weddings and upset about that before the liturgy thing,” Rowe said.

For decades, Rowe has deviated from the language of the Roman Catholic Mass, a highly prescribed liturgical rite, parts of which are as old as Christianity itself. In December, the Vatican introduced a new English-language translation of the Roman Missal – the book of prayers, chants and responses used during Mass. The new translation rendered some of the language in the Missal closer in spirit to the original Latin. Critics of the new translation have said the English is clunky and awkward for priests and laity.

Most of the prayers read by priests from the Missal during Mass cannot be changed. But there has never been an established penalty for improvising non-alterable prayers, and bishops have traditionally looked past an individual priest’s extemporizing. Last June, Braxton had sent a letter to all the priests in the Belleville Diocese warning that “it will not be acceptable for any priest or any parish to refrain from using the new prayers due to their personal preference.”

Rowe offered Braxton his resignation October 12, 2011, after a meeting during which the bishop barred the priest from improvising prayers during Mass. Braxton didn’t accept Rowe’s resignation until Jan. 30, 2012. Canon law says a bishop must accept a priest’s resignation within three months of the original offer. Rowe has since retracted his resignation offer.

Bishop Braxton issues ultimatum, priest says

A priest in the Belleville Diocese at odds with his bishop over the wording of the Catholic Mass said Belleville Bishop Edward Braxton told him in a meeting Tuesday that if he refused to resign as pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Mount Carmel, Ill., the bishop would use canon — or church — law to remove him.

Braxton did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

The priest said he had been told he could appeal to the Vatican. But he said prospects for a reversal are grim.

“The understanding (in Rome) is that I’m done,” Rowe said.

In December, the Vatican introduced a new English-language translation of the Roman Missal — the book of prayers, chants and responses used during Mass. Last June, Braxton sent a letter to all the priests in the Belleville Diocese warning that “it will not be acceptable for any priest or any parish to refrain from using the new prayers due to their personal preference.”

For decades, Rowe has deviated from some of the language of the liturgy’s prayers to better convey the point of his sermons. He offered to resign last year after Braxton told him he could no longer improvise parts of the Mass. In a February letter, Braxton said he’d accepted the priest’s resignation because he ‘simply would not and could not pray the prayers of the Mass as they are translated in the new Roman Missal.” Rowe has since retracted his offer to resign.

He said Wednesday he was meeting with a group called the Southern Illinois Association of Priests to get a sense of his legal options.

Bishop Braxton issues ultimatum, priest says

A priest in the Belleville Diocese at odds with his bishop over the wording of the Catholic Mass said Belleville Bishop Edward Braxton told him in a meeting Tuesday that if he refused to resign as pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Mount Carmel, Ill., the bishop would use canon — or church — law to remove him.

Braxton did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

The priest said he had been told he could appeal to the Vatican. But he said prospects for a reversal are grim.

“The understanding (in Rome) is that I’m done,” Rowe said.

In December, the Vatican introduced a new English-language translation of the Roman Missal — the book of prayers, chants and responses used during Mass. Last June, Braxton sent a letter to all the priests in the Belleville Diocese warning that “it will not be acceptable for any priest or any parish to refrain from using the new prayers due to their personal preference.”

For decades, Rowe has deviated from some of the language of the liturgy’s prayers to better convey the point of his sermons. He offered to resign last year after Braxton told him he could no longer improvise parts of the Mass. In a February letter, Braxton said he’d accepted the priest’s resignation because he ‘simply would not and could not pray the prayers of the Mass as they are translated in the new Roman Missal.” Rowe has since retracted his offer to resign.

He said Wednesday he was meeting with a group called the Southern Illinois Association of Priests to get a sense of his legal options.

Belleville priest may be out for good, with Burke unlikely to help

BELLEVILLE • A priest in the Belleville diocese at odds with his bishop over the wording of the Catholic Mass said the former Archbishop of St. Louis – now head of the Vatican’s highest court – said he should have been removed from his parish long ago.

The Rev. William Rowe said Belleville Bishop Edward Braxton told him in a meeting Tuesday that if he refused to resign as pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Mount Carmel, Ill., the bishop would use canon – or church – law to remove him. Rowe said he asked Braxton if he could appeal a removal, if it came to that.

Rowe said Braxton told him that he could appeal an eventual removal to the Vatican’s version of the supreme court, called the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. But, Braxton said, he had already spoken to the head of that court – former St. Louis archbishop, Cardinal Raymond Burke – in February, and that Burke told Braxton that Rowe should have been removed “a long time ago,” according to the priest.

“The understanding there is that I’m done,” Rowe said.

Messages left with the offices of Braxton in Belleville and Burke in Rome were not returned Wednesday morning.

Rowe said Braxton told him that on two recent trips to Rome several bishops asked him about Rowe’s case, and encouraged him to remove the priest. The bishop told him the bishops had heard about two civil weddings outside the church Rowe had performed for couples whose previous marriages had not yet been annulled. Braxton “said Rome was aware of those weddings and upset about that before the liturgy thing,” Rowe said.

For decades, Rowe has deviated from the language of the Roman Catholic Mass, a highly prescribed liturgical rite, parts of which are as old as Christianity itself. In December, the Vatican introduced a new English-language translation of the Roman Missal – the book of prayers, chants and responses used during Mass. The new translation rendered some of the language in the Missal closer in spirit to the original Latin. Critics of the new translation have said the English is clunky and awkward for priests and laity.

Most of the prayers read by priests from the Missal during Mass cannot be changed. But there has never been an established penalty for improvising non-alterable prayers, and bishops have traditionally looked past an individual priest’s extemporizing. Last June, Braxton had sent a letter to all the priests in the Belleville Diocese warning that “it will not be acceptable for any priest or any parish to refrain from using the new prayers due to their personal preference.”

Rowe offered Braxton his resignation October 12, 2011, after a meeting during which the bishop barred the priest from improvising prayers during Mass. Braxton didn’t accept Rowe’s resignation until Jan. 30, 2012. Canon law says a bishop must accept a priest’s resignation within three months of the original offer. Rowe has since retracted his resignation offer.

New Brisbane Archbishop appointed, breaking 50-year habit

Most Reverend Mark Coleridge has been named Metropolitan Archbishop of Brisbane. Photo: Supplied

A recognised theologian and scriptures scholar has been appointed to the head of Brisbane’s Roman Catholic Church by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.

Most Reverend Mark Coleridge was last night named Metropolitan Archbishop of Brisbane.

The announcement was made in Rome where he served for five years before his appointment as Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Melbourne in 2002.

He will officially replace Archbishop John Bathersby, who at 75 years old retired to Stanthorpe last year, with an Installation Mass held at the Cathedral of St Stephen in May.

The Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese, Bishop Geoffrey Jarrett, has welcomed the appointment of a man described as a distinguished leader of the Church in Australia.

Born in 1948, the third of five children served as a priest for 38 years, developing special qualifications in the fields of Sacred Scripture and the Church’s liturgical worship, both of which he has taught extensively in Australia and overseas.

During his time at the Vatican in the late 1990s, Archbishop Coleridge was an official in the Secretariat of State, the Holy See’s political and diplomatic department. He was appointed Chaplain to His Holiness Pope John Paul II in 2001.

Chief among his scholarly contributions was his chairing of the international editorial committee responsible for the new English translation of the Roman Missal, the text used to celebrate Catholic Mass.

The first non-Queensland born Archbishop appointed in almost 50 years comes to serve the city after serving in Canberra and country New South Wales.

He made headlines earlier this year while serving as Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn by proposing to cancel Masses if they are not attended by at least 15 adults and making claims that Canberra had twice the number of Catholic schools, parishes and churches as the city needed.

The Apostolic Administrator, Bishop Jarrett of Lismore, continues in office as arrangements are made to welcome the Archbishop-elect and the plans are completed for Archbishop Coleridge’s installation in St Stephen’s Cathedral.

An Installation Mass will be held in the Cathedral of St Stephen on Friday May 11.

Questions and answers about Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter

(Photo by Jose Luis Aguirre/Catholic San Francisco)

Fourteenth Station: Jesus is placed in the tomb.

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March 27th, 2012

What is the Easter triduum?
The Easter triduum is the high point of all liturgical celebrations of the Catholic year. It begins with the evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday, reaches its high point in the Easter Vigil on Saturday night and closes with evening prayer on Easter.

The liturgical services that take place during the triduum are the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion, and Mass of the Resurrection of Our Lord.

Is there Mass on Good Friday or Holy Saturday?
Because this is the period that commemorates the time from Jesus’ death until his resurrection, on Good Friday and Holy Saturday only the sacraments of the anointing of the sick and penance are celebrated.

What happens on Holy Thursday and why is it important?
The Mass of the Lord’s Supper on the evening of Holy Thursday should be the only Mass of the day unless there are reasons that people cannot get to Mass otherwise. The Mass, which can include but is not required to include the washing of the feet, commemorates specifically the Last Supper of the Lord with his apostles before his passion and death.

What is the main liturgical celebration of Good Friday? May a deacon officiate since it is not a Mass?
Although the celebration of the Lord’s Passion appears to be a service of the word with the distribution of holy Communion, the Roman Missal does not permit a deacon to officiate at the celebration. Historically, even though the Eucharist is not celebrated on this day, the liturgy of Good Friday resembles a Mass. At one time it was called the “Mass of the Presanctified” (referring to the pre-consecrated hosts from the Holy Thursday Mass used at Communion). This is also reflected in the prescribed vesture for the priest: stole and chasuble. The liturgy of Good Friday, as an integral part of the triduum, is linked to the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper and the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday.

Passion plays and other popular expressions of piety should never substitute for the liturgical celebration of the Lord’s Passion, which brings the Lord’s presence in a special way.

Good Friday services normally occur in the afternoon, at about 3 p.m. but can also be held shortly after noon or later in the evening but never later than 9 p.m.

Veneration of the cross is a core part of the Good Friday liturgy. The Catholic Church specifies that “personal adoration of the cross is an important feature of this celebration and every effort should be made to achieve it.” The cross is elevated for adoration by the priest and then clergy, lay ministers and faithful may pray silently and can come forward to venerate and kiss the cross.

What happens on Holy Saturday?
The only sacraments celebrated on Holy Saturday are the sacraments of penance and the anointing of the sick. Holy Saturday ends at sunset.

What is the Easter Vigil and why is there not a regular vigil Mass on the Saturday before Easter?
The vigil, by its very nature, must take place at night. It is the first celebration of Easter and must begin after the sun goes down and should end before daybreak.

As a nocturnal vigil, it retains its ancient character of vigilance and expectation, as the Christian people await the resurrection of the Lord during the night. Fire is blessed and the paschal candle is lighted to illumine the night so that all may hear the Easter proclamation and listen to the word of God proclaimed in the Scriptures.

The Easter Vigil is a special Mass that has seven Old Testament readings and two New Testament readings which recount the outstanding moments in the history of salvation.

The vigil includes the baptism of any new Catholics, as well as first Communion and confirmation. All Catholics should be able to receive holy Communion under both forms during the vigil.

Why is Easter Sunday Mass always so full of pomp, music and other celebration?
The church’s liturgical rules call for Mass to be celebrated on Easter with great solemnity. A full complement of ministers and the use of liturgical music should be evident in all celebrations. In the dioceses of the United States, on Easter Sunday, the rite of the renewal of baptismal promises takes place after the homily, followed by the sprinkling with water blessed at the vigil, during which the antiphon “vidi aquam,” or some other song of baptismal character should be sung. The holy water fonts at the entrance to the church should also be filled with the same water. On the subsequent Sundays of Easter time, it is appropriate that the rite of blessing and sprinkling holy water take the place of the act of penitence.

Why is there a large candle on the altar from Easter until Pentecost Sunday?
The paschal candle is lit during the Easter Vigil and indicates Christ’s undying presence, his victory over sin and death and the promise of sharing in Christ’s victory by virtue of being part of the body of Christ. During Easter time the paschal candle is lit during all solemn liturgical celebrations, including Mass, morning and evening prayer.

After the 50 days following Easter, the paschal candle is kept with honor in the baptistery and used to light baptismal candles and is placed near the coffin during funerals to indicate Christ’s promise of eternal life. The paschal candle should not otherwise be lit nor placed in the sanctuary outside Easter time.

From March 30, 2012 issue of Catholic San Francisco.

More Church/Vatican   

Tech Talk: Church Tech – KFYR

Tech Talk: Church Tech

| Video

Jerame Novak | 3/8/2012

Technology is changing the way we communicate with friends, family and coworkers. Now, smart phones are giving people a new way to pray. Typically, you would think that a smart phone would be a distraction during church. But there are people using apps enhance their spiritual lives.

The Catholic mass is thousands of years old. The prayers, readings and songs that have been used for centuries are recited from the Roman Missal.

“If you go to mass, you see that, you know the church has big books. They`re very decorative, obviously, and they`re supposed to reveal the beauty of what`s being done, what`s being said,” said Father Brian Gross at Cathedral of the Holy Spirit.

Even though Catholic religious traditions go back to the Apostles, Saint Peter never had an iPhone.

“If I was in a bind, I could say Mass from my phone,” Gross said.

For Gross and other younger priests, when it comes to their spiritual life, there`s an app for that. “From before Kindergarten, I was using a computer and so my progression into having technology as part of my life is a natural thing.”

While the technology is nice, some people still like to go old school.

“There`s still something for me, anyway, about having the rosary in my hands or things like that,” said Duane Eichele, a teacher at Cathedral School.

Even though Eichlie often prays the rosary the old fashioned way, at times he too will use technology to connect with God. “Sometimes when I`m on the road or not in a setting like this, I`ll us my phone to go through the rosary or go through the stations of the cross.”

Gross and Eichlie agree that these apps are helpful, sometimes too helpful

“If you try to sneak ahead to the next decket, a little prompt will come up and say, `Please pray the rosary in the proper order.` So I guess I just kind of call it my `Sister App.`”

Father Brian says there`s even an app to help you make a good confession, by keeping track of your sins, but you still can`t go to confession over the phone.

There are even apps available for the current season of Lent.

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New books, old story?

By Natalia Nowakowska

As the Catholic Church embarked upon its observance of Lent last week, many congregations will be holding in their hands brand new, bright red liturgical books — copies of the new English translation of the Roman Missal (the service book for Catholic Mass), introduced throughout the English-speaking world at the end of 2011 on the instructions of the Vatican.

This is not a new experience for Catholic congregations and clergy. The rare book collections of the world’s research libraries are full of the ‘new’ liturgical books produced for European dioceses between 1478 and 1500, on the orders of bishops making enthusiastic use of the recently developed printing press. Some of these books, missals printed on vellum in full folio size, are too heavy for me to pick up. Others, tiny breviaries with heavily-thumbed pages, would fit in your pocket, or that of a late medieval priest. In their prefaces, bishops explained that the point of printing these new liturgical books was to reform the church. Their aim was to provide parishes with new liturgies which were an improvement upon the service-books already in use, both the “crumbling” liturgical manuscripts from which communities had been praying for centuries, and recent, pirated printed editions. This fifteenth-century initiative was reprised during the Counter Reformation; echoing the actions of late medieval North European bishops, Pope Pius V’s Breviarium Romanum (1568) and Missale Romanum (1570) provided the entire Catholic world with new liturgical editions in Europe and beyond. The printing of improved liturgical books was therefore at the forefront of many high clerical minds in Renaissance Europe, just as it is a priority for the Vatican today.

Pope Pius V by El Greco. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The links between these Renaissance-era projects and what is currently happening in English-speaking Catholic churches go beyond a general impulse by high clergy to roll out improved worship-books, however. I’ve been struck by how similar the language used by fifteenth-century bishops, Pius V, and the current Roman Catholic hierarchy is. Late medieval bishops, in their neatly printed prefaces, complained bitterly at the “corruption,” “distortion,” and “manifest errors” of old liturgical books. The provision of the 2011 Roman missal is, meanwhile, justified with reference to the oversimplified, “plain,” and possibly inauthentic words of the earlier translation. Fifteenth-century prelates stressed that an authorised, printed liturgy would ensure a “unanimity” in worship which symbolised the essential unity of the church; the modern Congregation of Rites states that the new missal translations will function as “an outstanding sign and instrument of… integrity and unity.” Late medieval bishops took care to stress the academic credentials of the clergy-scholars who had prepared the new editions; Benedict XVI has thanked the “expert assistants” who worked on the new missal, “offering the fruits of their scholarship.” The language of liturgical reform, corruption and renewal, unity and authenticity, which we hear today is also that of the sixteenth and fifteenth-century church, which had in turn inherited it from the early medieval church.

New books, same story. Yet the introduction of new books for worship is about power and authority, as much as reform. A handful of more audacious late medieval bishops, from Würzburg in Germany to Skara in Sweden, legally compelled their parishes and priests to acquire the newly printed ‘official’ liturgy and discard the old editions, or else face a fine and excommunication. Pius V threatened the entire Catholic world with similar sanctions in 1568 and 1570. Today, adoption of the new missal by English-speaking Catholic parishes is not a voluntary matter either; the new books must be purchased and used in the pews, the old books put away forever. The late medieval sources are too sparse to tell us whether German or Swedish parishes meekly complied with this episcopal innovation; I have my doubts. In the sixteenth-century, we know from the work of Simon Ditchfield and others that there was much delay and non-compliance in the localities in the face of Pius V’s bulls. In 2011-12, the new communications revolution of the Internet testifies in turn to the dismay, disgruntlement and discontent of parts of the English-speaking Catholic community — at the unfamiliar words of the new missal, the sense of an unwanted book imposed from above. The launching of new liturgical books, in the 1470s, 1560s, and 2010s alike, therefore exposes some of the paradoxes of the history of the Roman Catholic church, an institution which sees itself as being by definition resistant to historical change. The same episodes play out, again and again, couched in the same language, but always in changing historical contexts, not least in the opportunities and threats presented by new technologies.

Natalia Nowakowska is a Tutor and Fellow in History at Somerville College, University of Oxford. She is the author of Church, State and Dynasty in Renaissance Poland: the Career of Cardinal Fryderyk Jagiellon (1468-1503) and the recent Past and Present article ‘From Strassburg to Trent: Bishops, printing and liturgical reform in the fifteenth century’ which you can read for free online for a limited time now. She has a regular blog on writing and researching history at Oxford, Somerville Historian.

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Ad-libbing priest changes his mind

Rowe said Monday that he has withdrawn the resignation but will offer it again if the bishop insists that he must leave. But Rowe said he hopes his action will encourage more discussion about his straying from the exact words of the liturgy that might lead to him be allowed to stay, but added he won’t stop ad-libbing during Mass.

Braxton has a policy of not commenting to the local media. His spokesman. the Rev. John Myler, could not be reached for comment.

Rowe said he has been a priest for 47 years, serving as a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force and then at various parishes in Illinois.

Braxton is not the only bishop to warn Rowe about sticking to the official wording of the liturgy when celebrating Mass. Rowe said that during the time when Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory was bishop of Belleville, he warned him that he was “pushing the envelope” by not following the exact wording of the liturgy. But Gregory did not take any action to remove the priest.

In his recent letter to Braxton, dated Feb. 23, Rowe responded the bishop’s Feb. 14 open letter to parishioners that laid out the history of the dispute and the bishop’s role in it. Braxton wrote that Rowe told him that some Mount Carmel parishioners had come to him and complained about Rowe diverging from the exact wording of the Roman Missal.

But in his letter and during an interview Monday, Rowe said the bishop is mistaken. He said he never said that and heard it from the bishop during their meeting in October. He said he simply made no comment when he heard that parishioners had complained.

Rowe, whose parish council and parochial school board have written letters to the diocese in support of him, has served in Mount Carmel without taking a salary, relying on a pension from the Air Force and Social Security to live.

He has said if he is forced to leave in June, when a successor is named, he may operate a soup kitchen, perhaps in Belleville.