In Praise of (the Right Kind) of Change

“The Lord be with you.”

“And with your spirit.”

We hear this exchange between the celebrant and the congregation at every Mass now. It happens as a matter of course. Hardly anyone thinks a thing about it. It’s just what Catholics do. Fading into the memory of only those who were intensely interested at the time is the odd fact that these words in Catholic Mass have only been spoken by people in the pews for about 18 months.

Before that time, there were grave warnings that these changes would never stick. They would drive people away. Years of debate and discussion preceded the change. There were warnings that this change would end badly. And yet, the change happened, and, today, hardly anyone thinks a thing about it. I would venture a guess that there is no one in my parish who sits and seethes, thinking “we should bring back the old words ‘and also with you’.”

Why is this? Why were the changes that followed the Second Vatican Council accompanied by grave upheaval, factions, drops in Mass attendance, and widespread frenzy wheres the changes adopted just last year have been generally met with widespread acceptance? The experience of the 1960s and 1970s made Catholics generally fearful of changing anything at all. It drove the Catholic world into a paradoxical state of rigid conservatism. But the recent experience of the new Missal illustrates something very important: change can be wonderful provided it is change in the right direction.

It is true that the new Mass was a much more dramatic change. The liturgical traditions of many centuries were thrown out for something radically unfamiliar. Even so, the changes enacted by the new Missal were not trivial. They changed the whole tenor and linguistic/cultural framework of the liturgical language, taking us away from the “dressed down” feel of 1969 to a much more formal and poetic mode of expression, one that departs from the cultural sensibility of our time.

My own theory is this: if the change is directed toward making the liturgy more true to itself, it will be accepted and even embraced. If it goes the opposite direction of making the liturgy less authentic and more decidedly “with the times” it will be met with opposition and rancor.

This principle has governed the changes we’ve made in our own liturgical experience with music at my parish — and our experience parallels that of hundreds of other parishes.

Just like week, our choir sang the entrance antiphon from the Simple English Propers plus one verse. We repeated the antiphon, and, by that time, the procession was over and Mass began. We sang Vidi Aquam for the sprinkling rite. We sang the Gloria in Latin (from Mass XV). The Psalm came from the Parish Book of Psalms. The Offertory antiphon came from a chanted English version from Fr. Samuel Weber. The Sanctus and Agnus were in Latin. The Communion antiphon was the authentic Gregorian, and we sang 4 verses of Psalms with it. We also sang a Latin motet by Victoria and an English motet by Tallis. The recessional hymn was in English and the only hymn that day.

We do some version of this lineup every week in my parish. The resources we are using are mostly newly available. There were no readily accessible and comprehensive book of antiphons and Psalms even available five years ago. Ten years ago, hardly any ordinary form parish sang the authentic communion chant from the Gregorian books. Now this is common all over the English-speaking world and the world generally.

What we did last week and what we will do this week seems completely normal and even predictable. It is something people expect as part of their Mass experience. No one is “against” what we are doing. Neither are people jumping up and down with celebration. It is just something natural and normal, the way the liturgy expresses itself in song. The sheer normalcy of it all is something that completely thrills me.

You see, if we had dropped this program on people ten years ago, it would have been a radical undertaking. In fact, we would have been reluctant to do it. Actually, we wouldn’t have been able to do it. The resources were available. The awareness of Mass propers was in its infancy, or maybe it didn’t exist at all outside a small circle. English versions were nowhere in sight. They certainly weren’t accessible. Instead, we spent all our time digging around second-rate hymnbook trying to find material that seemed vaguely acceptable.

A vast experiential chasm separate 10 years ago from what is common today. In fact, there is no comparing the two. What we did 10 years ago was fine and inoffensive but we were not singing the actual liturgy, and that made us uncomfortable, and created the nagging feeling that something just wasn’t right. We worked and worked endless hours to make it right but we ultimately lacked in that crucial thing: a vision for what could and should be.

Once the ideal clicked, we had a plan which we implemented slowly, piece by piece. The final result is really something spectacular. The way we do the propers changes each week. Sometimes we sing them in a choral style. Sometimes we do pure Gregorian. Sometimes we do English, variously choosing to add Psalms or not depending on what other motets we have prepared. There is a glorious stability about the whole thing. Mostly, we can feel like we are making a contribution to the liturgy because our role as singers is beautiful integrated into the liturgy itself.

When you back away and look at it, the swift from ten years ago today is absolutely revolutionary. It amounts to a radical change. But no one feels it. It just seems like the liturgy is doing what it is supposed to do: invite the whole community in a meeting with eternity.

Why did it succeed? The reason it worked is the same reason that the new translation has worked out really well. The liturgy is now permitted to be truer to what it wants to be. This is the kind of change we need — not change for its own sake but change toward truth and beauty. That’s what the the “sense of the faith” emerges from the experience of the people at Mass. It goes with the grain rather than against it. Everyone is happier for it.

Nearly every day, I hear of new projects from major Catholic music publishers for chanted propers or new settings of the actual text of the Mass. This is a great thing. It is happening after nearly 50 years of wandering in the desert but it is still a much-welcome thing. I would expect that as these new editions hit the market, they will proliferate more and more, because choirs and priests will discover what we discovered. If we just stop trying to substitute our own judgement for the judgement of the Church, and instead let the words of the Mass become our liturgical song, wonderful things start happening.

Catholic and American? Part one

If you asked Catholics in the United States in the 1950s if it was possible to be fully Catholic and fully American, most would have answered with an enthusiastic YES! In the first decade after World War II where Catholics and non-Catholics had fought side-by-side against common enemies, simultaneously overcoming some deep-seated prejudices among themselves, the great majority of Catholics had few if any worries about the compatibility of the Catholic faith with American culture. Do we still feel that way today?

The Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted is the bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix. He was installed as the fourth bishop of Phoenix on Dec. 20, 2003, and is the spiritual leader of the diocese’s 820,000 Catholics.

Can we still be Catholic and American?

Sixty years ago when Catholics were pursuing higher education as never before, when vocations to the priesthood and religious life were at an all time high level, when Catholic hospitals and schools were expanding and flourishing at unprecedented rates, most Catholics in the United States were proud to be here; and very few anticipated the tensions that would erupt within American culture in the 1960s and the crises that would fray the fabric of the Catholic community after the Second Vatican Council.

Now, over half a century later, many Catholics have at best ambivalent feelings about the relationship between Catholicism and America. So much has changed since the good old days of the ’50s. Consider, for example, the following: 45 years of legalized abortion has killed more than 50 million unborn children, the HHS mandates of the federal government seriously threaten religious liberty, and the powerful political and other societal forces gravely weaken the institution of marriage and with it serious threats to the well-being of children. Should Catholic still be excited about being American citizens?

Do we even have a problem?

Last year, the archbishop of Toronto, Cardinal Thomas Collins, spoke of the obstacles to the New Evangelization found in Canada and the United States today. He said: “Public opinion polls indicate a disturbing phenomenon… While we are trying to evangelize, the rulers of this age, who shape popular culture, are effectively de-evangelizing many Christians. Often the misguided ideas against which we speak are increasingly attractive, and the principles we affirm are unattractive, to Catholics as much as any others, who are unconsciously absorbing the false wisdom of the age.”

What is it in American society today that makes “misguided ideas” attractive? And what makes solid principles of Catholic faith and morals unattractive? It is not hard to see how this cultural phenomenon greatly hinders efforts of the Church in North America to bear witness to the saving message of Jesus Christ. But how many even see and acknowledge that we have a problem?

The depth of the present crisis is evidenced in the fact that large numbers of Catholics, being more embedded in our secularist culture than in the life of the Church, feel quite at home in this world. Not only do they not feel motivated to work for cultural change, writes Russell Shaw in his new book “American Church,” they do not even see a problem, not even feel a need to take a good, hard look at what is happening to the basic foundations of American society and at its corrosive effect on the Church and other faith-based institutions, and upon human dignity and the foundational institutions of society, especially marriage. As Russell writes (p. 13), “On the evidence, many appear neither ready nor willing to provide a Christian critique of things like legalized abortion… the contraceptionist consumerist mentality that dominates the American dream of material success, the idol of American exceptionalism abroad, and much else in the world view of contemporary secular America in serious tension with their religious tradition.”

Keep your eye on the Chair

A recent headline caught my eye, NOT because it conjures up memories of a former basketball coach but because it expresses the opposite of apathy. The headline read: “Sometimes, Throw a Chair.” The greatest challenge that we Catholics face in America is indifferentism, not Americanism; it is not a problem of being too patriotic but a problem of being morally lazy, intellectually sloppy and spiritually asleep.

Many things can freeze us in our tracks and keep us from responding to crises that threaten us individually or as a community: from doubts and fears on the one hand to failure even to notice that there is a crisis. We can fail even to notice “a progressive secularization of society and a kind of eclipse of the sense of God” (as Pope Benedict XVI described the crisis); or even worse we can fail even to care about this dramatic drift away from faith in God that has poisoned the culture of so-called “first world” countries like America.

In striking contrast to this sickly slide into sloth that has weakened our American culture, we have the startling words of Jesus (Lk 12:49), “I have come to set a fire on the earth, how I wish it were already blazing!” We also have the refreshing spontaneity and compelling witness of Pope Francis who continually challenges mediocrity even as he inspires love. His personal witness to Christ has been formed in the crucible of suffering, in his relentless advocacy for the forgotten and poor, and in his courageous defense of human dignity and religious freedom before hostile governments in his native land.

Pope Francis, perhaps more by his own person and deeds than his words, is awakening Catholics to our mission from Christ at this pivotal point in history. We don’t have to worry about Pope Francis throwing a chair but we can be sure that his witness to Christ from the Chair of Peter will continue to make the indifferent uncomfortable and ignite the fire of love among followers of Christ today. May we welcome that fire with grateful hearts.

In the next issue of The Catholic Sun, I will look more closely at the relationship between the Church and American culture, at the challenges we Catholics have faced and continue face today, and what we must do in order to be faithful to our mission. The vast field of evangelization in America has both disturbing trends and grace-filled marvels. It is precisely in face of both that we have the duty and privilege of knowing, loving and serving Jesus Christ.

Category: Bishop Olmsted, Views

Year of Faith Pilgrimage to Italy – The Happy Priest Extends an Invitation

CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) – Many of you have been reading my homilies and articles on Catholic Online for the past few years.  I am putting together a pilgrimage to Italy for the Year of Faith, and it just occurred to me that maybe some of you would like to join me. 

I have six places left for our tour. 

We are leaving from Houston, Texas on June 5 and returning on June 14.  No matter where you are located you can join us in Houston or meet us in Frankfurt, Germany where we take a plane for Venice, Italy.

Venice is the first city of Italy that we will visit.  After Venice, we will visit Padua, Florence, Siena, Assisi, Orvieto and then we will spend three days in Rome.

The highlight of the trip will be the General Audience with our new Holy Father, Pope Francis. 

Rome is the center of our Catholic Faith.  It is where Saint Peter, Saint Paul and so many martyrs gave the supreme witness of their lives for the Faith.  It is the home of great saints, beautiful basilicas and churches.  It is the city where every Catholic needs to visit at least once. 

This special pilgrimage coincides with the Year of Faith proclaimed by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI to remember the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council and the twentieth anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. 

This journey to Rome and to the shrines of Italy also coincides with the twenty-fifth anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood.

I was ordained in Rome, on December 24, 1987 and I celebrated my first Mass the following day at Saint Mary Major, a magnificent second century basilica dedicated to the Blessed Mother.

Saint Mary Major is part of our trip and I will be celebrating Mass there at the same altar where I celebrated my first Mass twenty-five years ago. 

Moses Khano of Inspirational Tours and his staff have a remarkable reputation for putting together affordable and superbly organized pilgrimages that thousands of people have enjoyed for many years. 

The cost of the ten day trip is $3,090.00.  The price includes everything except lunch and tips. 

If you would like to join me, or if you need more information please call Inspirational Tours at (713) 961 – 2785. 

Father James Farfaglia is a contributing writer for Catholic Online You can visit him on the web at www.fatherjames.org.

Janine Young: Foundation had roots in Vatican II

One of the most significant developments in the Catholic Church in the last 50 years has been the implementation of the vast changes brought about by Vatican II.

Between 1962 and 1965, the Second Vatican Council was convened by Pope John XXIII for spiritual renewal of the Church and to reconsider the position of the church in the modern world.

Parishioners saw the most visible effects of the Council’s work in how Mass was celebrated, in new forms of church architecture, and in the repositioning of the altar.

But the consequences of Vatican II went much deeper into the heart of Catholic theology and the meaning of living as a Catholic in the modern world. The Council called for a new emphasis on the traditions of the church, especially Scripture, while also calling for a dialogue between the church and the contemporary world, among different faiths and religious traditions, and within the very structures and leadership of the church.

Since Vatican II, there has been a profound new emphasis on evangelization, missionary traditions, and an increased commitment to the poor. In the Diocese of El Paso, the effects of the Second Vatican Council were especially notable in the emergency of lay ministry both at the parish level and the diocesan level as the laity has increasingly taken its place as leaders of the church.

Today, most parishes within the Diocese of El Paso have a wide variety of ministries led by lay leaders that provide

outreach, spiritual care, and religious education including the Knights of Columbus, Guadalupanos, Ministries of Communion, Lectors, Youth Groups, Marriage Ministries, Religious Education Programs, Social Justice Ministries, and St. Vincent de Paul Societies.

At the diocesan level, lay ministry has expanded significantly since Vatican II and is reflected today in 16 pastoral offices including Catholic Campus Ministry, Communications, Vocations, Office of Education (Catholic Schools), Permanent Diaconate, Religion Formation, Office of Worship, Catholic Counseling Services, Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services, Peace and Justice, St. Charles Seminary, Tigua Native American, Youth and Young Adult, Tepeyac Institute, Worship, and the West Texas Ministry.

In 2001, Bishop Armando X. Ochoa, in recognition of the need to provide for the long-term sustainability of these diocesan ministries, established the Foundation for the Diocese of Paso.

The Foundation is an independent nonprofit organization that exists to support the growing needs of the Catholic community. The Foundation manages the Catholic Legacy Fund which is an endowment program that supports the annual and long-term needs of diocesan ministries, parishes, and schools.

An endowment is a permanent fund whose income is used to support the ministry, parish or Catholic school of the donor’s choice. Through the creation of endowments, the Foundation is providing a means to generate future and sustainable income for Catholic entities throughout the diocese.

The Foundation also oversees the Progress Annual Appeal which provides annual operational funds for the 16 diocesan ministries with a portion of the funds raised returned to parishes based upon their levels of participation, and the Grants Development Office, which seeks foundation and corporate grants for ministries, schools, and parishes. As a complement to fundraising programs, the Foundation promotes stewardship through several activities including an annual dinner.

Since its creation in 2001, the Foundation has raised more than $10 million for endowment, $14 million in grants, and $18 million through the Progress Appeal.

Join us this Wednesday at the Camino Real Hotel for the Foundation’s annual Catholic Legacy Fund Dinner — From Fame to Faith: An Evening with Eduardo Verástegui. Actor, singer, model, and film producer, Verástegui will be the keynote speaker. Known for his work in the movies “Bella” and “For Greater Glory,” he is also a spokesman for Catholics Come Home.

Eduardo will share his story about going from a life of fame to living a life of faith. For more information, or to purchase tickets, call the Foundation at 872-8412.

Janine Young is the author of the Centennial History of the Diocese of El Paso. She works for the Foundation for the Diocese of El Paso. For more on the Centennial, go to www.elpasodiocese.org.

Program celebrates 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council

CLINTON —
“Sharing the Vision” of Vatican II with a Latin American bishop, a Franciscan nun who led American Catholic Sisters during the Vatican investigation of their leadership organization, and a young, feminist theologian whose nationally published columns challenge the “Vatican II generation” to speak to what today’s young people need to know about what is called the most significant event in modern Church history is all in store at the closing session of the “Celebrating Vatican II” lecture series.

The Catholic Sisters of the Upper Mississippi River Valley will conclude the four-part lecture series they have sponsored in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church on April 21, beginning at 2 p.m. at Prince of Peace Church, Clinton.

“Celebrating Vatican II: Sharing the Vision” has offered lectures by a variety of expert commentators at venues throughout the region since October 2012. The lecture series, which explores four key themes of the Council, coincides with the “Year of Faith” being observed by the Catholic Church, and is free and open to the public.

“We developed this four-part event as a gift to the Church and the people of God in celebration of the Council. We felt a responsibility to bring a renewed awareness of the great gifts of Vatican II to the people with whom we minister throughout the Upper Mississippi River Valley,” explained Anne Martin Phelan, OSF, president of the Sisters of St. Francis, Clinton, and chairwoman of the organizing committee.

“It is providential that a Latin American Bishop should be with us in these days, following the election of the first Latin American Pope. We are all looking forward to his perspective on how Pope Francis might approach Vatican II heritage during his papacy.”

At the program, Dr. Marlene Weisenbeck, FSPA, former president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, will describe Vatican II’s invitation to read the signs of the times and respond in dedicated service; Most Rev. Daniel Turley, Bishop of Chulucanas, Peru, will reflect on ways the Church is called to solidarity with the people of God throughout the world; and Jamie Manson, columnist with the National Catholic Reporter, will speak to what young people in today’s Church need from the Vatican II generation.

Sister Weisenbeck is a member and former president (2002-2010) of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, La Crosse, Wis., as well as former president of LCWR, a canonically approved membership organization that exists as a support system and corporate voice for leaders of religious institutes of Catholic Sisters in the United States. She also serves as chairwoman of the Catholic Health Association’s Sponsorship/Canon Law Committee and is a consultant in religious law.  She is past president of the National Conference of Vicars for Religious and chancellor for the Diocese of La Crosse.

Sister Weisenbeck holds a B.M. Ed. degree from Viterbo University, an M.M. from George Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, a J.C.L. in Canon Law from Saint Paul University-Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Bishop Turley, an Augustinian priest and a native of Chicago, is the second Bishop of Chulucanas where he has served since 1996. He was elected to the Permanent Council of the Peruvian Bishops’ Conference and has been awarded an honorary doctor of Humane Letters by Villanova University, Philadelphia. In 2011 he was awarded the Peace Prize by the Peruvian government’s Ministry for Women’s Rights and Social Development in recognition of his outstanding work in defense of farmers in the Upper Piura region of the Diocese of Chulucanas. Bishop Turley insisted that farmers’ concerns about environmental degradation, which would destroy their livelihood, be heard as part of the discussion about opening a large mining operation in the area. In the process he received death threats. The Ministry called Bishop Turley “a tireless promoter of a culture of peace.”

Jamie L. Manson writes a monthly column for the National Catholic Reporter, addressing the plight of the poor, the future of the Church, issues of gender and sexual orientation, and ways of finding God’s presence in our everyday lives. She received her Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School, where she studied Catholic theology and sexual ethics. Her NCR columns have won numerous awards, most recently second prize for Commentary of the Year from Religion Newswriters.

 There is no registration for the lecture series and no admission charge. Follow-up sessions to the lectures are offered in the cities where the sponsoring Sisters congregations minister.

“Celebrating Vatican II: Sharing the Vision” is sponsored by Carmelite Nuns, Eldridge; Congregation of the Humility of Mary, Davenport; Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, La Crosse; Sinsinawa Dominicans, Sinsinawa, Wis.; Sisters of Mercy, West-Midwest Region, Omaha; Benedictine Sisters, Rock Island, Ill.; Sisters of St. Francis, Clinton; and Sisters of Charity BVM, Sisters of the Presentation, Sisters of St. Francis, Sisters of the Visitation and Trappistine Nuns, all of Dubuque.

For details, see www.facebook.com/catholicsisters or call Sisters of St. Francis, Clinton at 242-7611.

Meeting of religious examines Year of Faith

By John Heuertz

“ … They called the church together and reported what God had done with them and how he had opened the door of faith …” (Acts 14:27).

Billed as “The Year of Faith: A Faith Professed, Celebrated, Lived and Prayed,” the Institute for Religious Life held its Midwest regional meeting last Saturday at the Franciscan Prayer Center in Independence.

In proclaiming the “Year of Faith” that began last October 11, Pope Benedict XVI asked the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics to study and reflect on the documents of the Second Vatican Council and the Catechism of the Catholic Church to deepen their knowledge of the Catholic faith.

Catholics living a consecrated life as religious brothers, sisters and nuns have a key part in this deepening. “It’s a great day for religious to come together in solidarity to better understand their role in the Church’s New Evangelization of the world,” IRL Executive Director Michael Vick.

“The Institute for Religious Life … continues to carry out a wonderful work of the Church, providing sound teaching and formation for Religious, and inspiration for us all,” said Bishop Robert W. Finn in his homily during Mass for the 200 religious and laity at Saturday’s meeting.

IRL National Director Fr. Thomas Nelson, O.Praem. discussed “Deepening the Virtue of Faith in This Year of Faith.” He recalled Benedict XVI’s teaching that Christ opened the door of faith for the whole world by his Passion and Death, and that the door to faith is always open to all.

“Faith is like a door to a home of love, security and a network of relationships – a door to the Church,” he said. “The Church is like a family.”

Christ opens this door, enabling us to “see that God is also a man who reveals Himself as a triune God of love.”

But first we must believe in Christ, and “give humble assent to His word.”

Anyone with a humble mind, a trusting heart and an obedient will can give this assent. All the saints model it.

The Blessed Virgin Mary was the model of the perfect faith. “That’s why Saturdays are hers. The Apostles lost their faith on Friday and regained it on a Sunday.”

Atchison Benedictine Fr. Thomas Habiger, OSB discussed “The Essential Role of Consecrated Religious in Shaping and Evangelizing the Culture.”

He taught partly from Pope John Paul II’s 1996 Apostolic Letter “Vita Consecrata,” which says that both Catholic and Orthodox institutes of religious life flourish everywhere because “the choice of total self-giving to God in Christ is in no way incompatible with any human culture or historical situation.”

Fr. Habiger said that Catholics living a consecrated life express this total self-giving through competence in mission, a renewed commitment to the Church’s intellectual life, and especially through the prophetic dimension of religious life, since that life imitates the total self-giving of the Lord’s life in this world.

Catholic clergy and religious only make up one-tenth of one percent of the whole Church. “Our role is to bring the teachings of Jesus and the principles of the rightly lived Christian life to the 99.9 percent, and to encourage them to go out and live it,” Fr. Habiger said.

Benedictine College’s Dr. Jeremy Sienkiewicz echoed this sentiment when he spoke on “Vatican II and the Salvation of Modern Man.” As a fruit of Baptism rather than a separate Sacrament, “The religious life … moves people from saving one’s own soul to helping those in the Church save their souls to helping all humanity save theirs.”

This hierarchy of goals is key to the radical transformation of one’s own life that drives the New Evangelization, which aims to transform the world in Christ.

“Modern man thinks Christianity is all about bringing joy to people, but it’s not,” he said. “To Catholics, our religion is about the will and the intellect.”

“We have to get others to believe the Catholic faith is something to die for, and live that belief in our own lives.”

Because they’re the leaven in the Church’s New Evangelization, it’s especially important for consecrated Catholics to know what the Catechism and the documents of the Second Vatican Council actually say.

“We should read them because they’re magisterial and because they’re beautiful,” Dr. Sienkiewicz said. “And because they’re for us.”

Personal holiness is even more important. “Everyone is called to be a saint. To not be a saint is to be less than human.” o

Founded in 1974, the IRL is a collaborative effort of Catholic bishops, priests, religious and laity to foster and strengthen vocations to the consecrated life. For more information, visit the web site at www.religiouslife.com.

Not Less than Everything

A group of Catholic writers profile “religious realists” through history.

By

Diane Scharper, Contributor /
March 14, 2013

Not Less than Everything:
Catholic Writers on Heroes of Conscience from Joan of Arc to Oscar Romero
Edited by Catherine Wolff
HarperOne
339 pages.

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Dorothy Day disliked religious romantics. “I want a religious realist,” she told “The Village Voice,” “…one who prays to see things as they are and to do something about it.” If there’s one phrase to describe Day and the other 25 subjects profiled in this anthology, it’s the phrase, “religious realist.”

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The book’s editor, Catherine Wolff, could also be called a religious realist. She believed in the reforms set forth by the Second Vatican Council, especially the importance of the individual conscience. So when the hierarchy tried to limit the effects of Vatican II, she became frustrated and decided to compile an anthology which would focus on inner-directed figures, like herself. 

Despite its somewhat unwieldy title, Not Less than Everything: Catholic Writers on Heroes of Conscience from Joan of Arc to Oscar Romero, the book is engaging. It gathers characters from New Testament times to the present. The collection is lively; the many fresh faces, voices, and styles keep it from being just another book with an axe to grind.

10 most controversial authors (in recent memory)

The people profiled here aren’t necessarily Catholic. (Martin Luther, for example, left the Church and started the Protestant Reformation). Nor are they typical heroes. (Gerard Manley Hopkins acquiesced to his superiors and destroyed much of his poetry). Some, like Bartolomé de las Casas, Hildegard von Bingen, Michel Montaigne, and Mary Magdalene, are famous historical figures. But others, like Horace McKenna S.J. and Father Charles Strobel – both parish priests who spoke out against racism and spoke up for the homeless and downtrodden – are known only in the small circles of their influence.

Yet all of those profiled took the example of Jesus Christ for inspiration. This is not the pretty Jesus pictured on holy cards. It is Jesus the iconoclast, the one who threw the money changers out of the temple, who publicly chastised hypocrites, and who disdained the authorities. This is the Jesus who did what he thought was right and bore the consequences.

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Countdown to the Conclave, Day 4: The New York Times and Hans Kung

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) – More Conclave hilarity yesterday, this time from a reliable source of hilarity, the New York Times. Our friend at the Catholic League, Bill Donohue, immediately sent out an email alert when the op-ed by Hans Kung appeared. 

Prof. Kung, now 85 years old, is himself the embodiment of what John Paul II and Benedict XVI rescued the Church from becoming.  This is not to say that Kung is not a man of immense learning — he is! — or a scholar with a worldwide reputation — he has that! — or even a man who would be a delightful companion over a glass of wine at dinner — he would be!  (Indeed, Benedict XVI surprised everyone by having him to dinner in the Vatican in 2005.)

But to feature Prof. Kung on the last day of the pontificate of Benedict XVI is the equivalent of the New York Times holding up its middle finger to the Holy Father, the Church, and the 1.3 billion Catholics around the world. This is how Donohue summarizes Kung’s evaluation of the latest pontificate: According to Kung, Benedict XVI

“‘irritated the Protestant churches, Jews, Muslims, the Indians of Latin America, women, reform-minded theologians and all pro-reform Catholics.’ He blames the pope (when he was Cardinal Ratzinger) for covering up the sexual abuse of minors, and cites ‘Vatileaks’ as a problem. He also says the two major scandals of his tenure were giving ‘recognition’ to the ‘Society of St. Pius X, which is bitterly opposed to the Second Vatican Council, as well as of a Holocaust denier, Bishop Richard Williamson.’”

Kung should know better than to speak to his elders that way! Benedict XVI, now pope emeritus, is one year older, having been born in 1927.  And at least Benedict XVI knew when to “hang up his spikes,” whereas Prof. Kung remains on the “spirit of Vatican II” treadmill, much like poor Sisyphus pushing his rock up the hill, only to watch it roll back down again.  

If you are not familiar with the name Hans Kung, let us provide a few basic facts: He was the first major Catholic theologian to reject the doctrine of papal infallibility (see his book, Fallibility: An Inquiry, 1971). Eight years later he was stripped of his license to teach Catholic theology. His criticism of the Church, and the papacy in particular, has continued unabated ever since, including an embrace of euthanasia among other intrinsically evil practices.  

Hans Kung is, it seems to us, very much a tragic figure, one of the best minds and best scholars the Church has produced in the last century.  But somewhere along the road he took a wrong turn and became the virtual magisterium of Catholic dissent, a font of authority much imbibed by theologians in the academy, including many Catholic departments of “religious studies.” But he became irrelevant to the development of Christian doctrine over the past forty years.  

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time stood him in good stead when he became, on radio and television, the national spokesman for Catholics.

Promotion to the episcopacy became inevitable. From 1951 to 1957 Heenan was Bishop of Leeds. He decided that he needed to wake up a sleepy diocese, and he did so by moving priests from one parish to another at an unprecedented rate. This gave Leeds the nickname of “the cruel see”, and led to the canard that at his final Vatican audience as bishop he left the Pope in tears, lamenting to his aides, “He has moved me to Avignon.”

Promoted to be Archbishop of Liverpool, (1957-63), Heenan was more circumspect in his relations with the clergy. But he took many significant decisions. Dedicated, like many of his colleagues, to the preservation of segregated Catholic education, he presided over the building of 49 schools. The Second Vatican Council (1962-65), in the course of which Heenan was translated from Liverpool to Westminster, was a turning point in his life. Loyal to successive popes, he found uncongenial the direction in which many of the council Fathers wished to take the Church. His distaste for academic theology found expression in speeches attacking the experts or periti who came from monasteries, seminaries or universities: he saw them as ignorant of “the real world”. For him, theology consisted in obediently following Vatican dictates, though he is best remembered for replying “God bless you” when David Frost pressed him for what a priest should say to a Catholic couple who, after having properly informed their consciences, had decided to use the ­contraceptive pill. For Heenan the worst sin was “giving scandal” – that meant doing ­anything that showed the Church in a bad light, even if it was a true light. This laid up trouble for his successors.

As Archbishop of Westminster, Heenan was uncomfortable in implementing the reforms initiated by the council. His last years were saddened by the defection of so many of his priests, especially figures of the clerical intelligentsia – Charles Davis, Peter de Rosa, Hubert Richards and others.

Heenan was a classic tragic figure: a man of many virtues whose career was shattered by a single debilitating fault, which was well described by his assistant Bishop Christopher Butler: “He thinks (almost unconsciously) of the faithful as a crowd of uneducated east Londoners of the first decade of this century; and any layperson who shows more than a purely passive acceptance of the Penny Catechism is for him a tiresome person who does not understand his proper position in the Church.”

Hagerty is not afraid to record episodes he considers disastrous mistakes. His book presents a balanced history of the Catholic Church in England and Wales as seen from Heenan’s desk. It does not, however, place it in the broader context of the Universal Church: thus, he seems to accept Heenan’s view that Cardinal Bea and Mgr Willebrands, who engaged in constructive dialogue with Anglican prelates, were interfering continental busybodies. On the other hand, Hagerty gives us no intimate picture of Heenan as a man: his sources are almost exclusively published works and official correspondence. We look in vain for private personal letters; maybe there were none.

I can testify, however, that Heenan was not the heartless apparatchik depicted by many of his critics. As Hagerty narrates, when a young priest in the Liverpool Archdiocese, I fell into disfavour because I several times attacked in print the British Government’s policy of nuclear deterrence. I failed to persuade the archbishop of the immorality of the policy and eventually he forbade me to write in diocesan publications. During one of our discussions I recall saying to him, “Episcopacy corrupts, and archiepiscopacy corrupts absolutely.” (A remark of which, I regret to say, I was at the time rather proud.)

Later in life, as master of an Oxford college during the years of student revolt, I had my own experience of dealing with bright and bumptious young men who were confident that they were in possession of the moral high ground. I cannot recall any of them ever being as rude to me as I had been to Heenan. Yet he continued to exhibit a benevolent, and indeed generous, care for my welfare.

Progressives, Conservatives Wrestle over Catholic Doctrine

Whoever succeeds Benedict faces challenges that will impact New England’s large Catholic community.

I’ve just entered the cavernous vestibule of the Holy Cross Cathedral. At this hour, there are two different masses being held, in two different languages, two visions for the future. In the upper church, a Mass hymnal in English; in the basement chapel, another in Latin.

A staircase separates the two, but it could just as well be separated by centuries of religious traditions. Following his election in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI affirmed his belief in conservative Catholic doctrine and promoted the symbols of traditionalism, including vestments and the Latin mass.

“As if Jesus himself spoke Latin or as if he conducted the mass wearing vestments,” said James Carroll, a former seminarian, and distinguished scholar in residence at Suffolk University. He said like conservative Catholic doctrine, the Latin mass is a throwback to the pre-Vatican II era. And for many folks that is appealing.

“The truth is there was something beautiful about it,” Carroll said. “It was coherent. It was orderly. There was an answer to every question and symbolized by the Gothic cathedral, the epitome of all that we loved about the Catholic Church. The astonishing thing is that this beautiful, coherent, gothic, edifice that was Catholicism — there was something deeply, deeply inhuman and corrupt in it.”     

The Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II, in the early 60’s, was a response to centuries old stagnation within the church, Carroll said. And so, Catholicism — constructed as a gothic fortress against external and internal forces — opened up, if only slightly, to new, modern-day realities. 

But in 2013 the doors are shut again, said Eileen Doherty, a member of the Spirit of life Community — a Catholic lay organization whose members believe in the ordination of women as priests, gay marriage, contraception in general, and even abortion under some circumstances.

“The way the Roman Catholic Church is going now is that they are excluding more people than helping,” Doherty said.

Under an iron-gray sky streaked with rain, Doherty and others are passing out flyers in front of the Cathedral. She accuses Cardinal Sean O’Malley and the church hierarchy of abandoning the poor.

“We have to be there for the people who can’t speak for themselves to make some necessary changes that have to happen for the church,” Doherty said. 

I asked her if those changes include doctrine.

“Yes, because the gospel of Jesus is not being adhered to, because Jesus was there for those that were deprived,” Doherty answered. “And they’re not my church. I don’t find them true to the gospel.”

Doherty said that Catholic doctrine — the way that gospel is taught and interpreted — must change to accommodate progressive viewpoints. But traditionalists in the church are pushing back.

As passengers dart from the subway in Downtown Crossing, they pass through a gauntlet of conservative activists passing out religious flyers. Ross Dutcher, a Catholic from Wakefield, hands me a pamphlet. What does he think of progressives claim to the church?

“They’re not really Catholic,” Dutcher said. “I mean, the church’s doctrine doesn’t change.”

How should the Catholic Church in your view and in the context of doctrine accommodate those folks who believe that women should be ordained? 

“Just tell them the truth,” Dutcher said. “Jesus ordained only men.”  

But Ray Flynn, former Boston mayor and U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, and a traditionalist, said that the church is fundamentally open to new ideas.

“I’ve seen the Catholic Church in Ghana, in Mexico City, in Sarajevo, in the middle East,” Flynn said. “How do you bring those traditions of culture into what we as Americans know the Catholic Church to be, consistent with our culture? That’s the challenge. Not by changing doctrine but by changing attitudes and making it more open and more inclusive.” 

Larry Kessler, who heads the Boston Center for Living, a facility assisting people to live with HIV, describes this as tinkering around the edges of change, not change itself. Kessler has spent most of his life working with AIDS victims in clinics and in hospices. He also attended Catholic schools and even went into the seminary.

“I guess I would say I have been a very practicing activist within the church for forty years, but recently I have had some serious doubts about whether I should hang on in there any longer,” Kessler said.

Kessler said he was hopeful following Vatican II, which gave lay people a greater role in church life. But he added the current Catholic hierarchy is mired in scandals and not receptive to change from below. 

“The pews are getting more empty every Sunday, because it’s not listening or speaking to the people that used to come to those pews,” Kessler said. “And it’s larger than the sexual abuse crisis. It’s a lack of leadership, a lack of vision, a lack of a coherent policy.”

Kessler said that instead of advocating for the kind of people he assists, he believes Catholic bishops — including Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley — have directed their political energies into fighting contraception, abortion and gay marriage.

“The Catholic Church has acted more like the Republican Party, and we know what kind of trouble the Republican Party’s in because they’ve lost touch with the people who need strong government, and in terms of the church, we’ve lost trust in the bishops because they’re not being very Christ-like.”

But Flynn, a longtime advocate for the poor, strongly disagrees. 

“There are advocates for change, but the change is completely inconsistent with Catholic doctrine,” Flynn said. “The Catholic Church is not going to change its doctrine. Anybody that suggests that is trying to make headlines.” 

Francis Fiorenza, a professor of Catholic theology at Harvard Divinity School, said traditionalism and progressivism are not necessarily incompatible.              

“All one has to say is this is where the church is today,” Fiorenza said. “And the only way to do it is to develop a mutual respect to say, ‘Well, what is the side that doesn’t want change afraid of, and what do they really want to hold on to?’ And those that want change, they’re not wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. And we need to try to understand the positions of both. And you also would have to ask the question: What in modern culture is positive that demands change?” 

As you think about that question, another word or two about Francis Fiorenza. He studied theology in Germany. His teacher was Joseph Ratzinger — who took the name Pope Benedict XVI, a resolute conservative. So Fiorenza’s answer to what in modern culture is positive and demands change may surprise you.   

“If I take a controversial issue like women’s ordination, there I think change is possible,” Fiorenza said.

John Allen, national senior correspondent for the Catholic Reporter in Rome covering the election to succeed Benedict, said “not likely.”

“Bear in mind, everyone of the 117 cardinals who will vote in this election were appointed by either John Paul II or Pope Benedict XVI, and on the big picture level, they’re all of like mind,” Allen said. “So I think its quite unrealistic to think whoever is elected pope is going to revise the church’s teachings on issues like abortion, or gay marriage or the ordination of women.”

But Carroll — who’s witnessed the Church evolve from a legacy of anti-Semitism to an embrace of civil rights — said never say never in the context of Catholic doctrine.

“Because we’ve had the breakthrough already: the breakthrough into the world of change,” Carroll said. “And what’s the most palpable recent incidence of that? Pope Benedict himself. By changing a practice of the church that’s a thousand years old that pope’s don’t resign. Well, yes, they do. And the church of Benedict will never be the same.” 

But some Catholics are not waiting for the outcome of the conclave.

“This church is an aberration of Catholic doctrine,” said Doherty, passing out progressive literature in front of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.

“Women ordained? Same-sex marriage? Contraception? The Church isn’t going to go that way,” said the conservative Dutcher, handing out flyers on the Red Line platform.

Both are waging a spiritual battle, if you will, for the heart and soul of the Roman Catholic Church, which they both claim as their own.