Coming soon to a church near you

Did the pope's decision regarding the Latin Mass really intend to serve directly as a unifying force? I think not. In his book "Called to Communion", written when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI goes on at length about how it is necessary to remove obstacles in order for the Church to fulfill its true purpose.

He wrote, "The fundamental liberation that the Church can give us is to permit us to stand in the horizon of the eternal and to break out of the limits of our knowledge and capabilities....the Church must be the bridge of faith and must not--especially in her life as an inner-worldly association--become an end in herself....The freedom that we rightly expect from and in the Church is not achieved by introducing the principle of majority."

I am leaving out a lot of text here, but I think the point he makes in his writing fits in very well with liberalizing the use of Latin. I think it is but a step toward unification.

Here is what Pope Benedict wrote as his reason for his decision. It certainly sounds like he means this action to be a unifying force:

Excerpt from:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/letters/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20070707_lettera-vescovi_en.html

LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS
BENEDICT XVI
TO THE BISHOPS ON THE OCCASION OF THE PUBLICATION
OF THE APOSTOLIC LETTER "MOTU PROPRIO DATA"
SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM
ON THE USE OF THE ROMAN LITURGY
PRIOR TO THE REFORM OF 1970

[...]

"I now come to the positive reason which motivated my decision to issue this Motu Proprio updating that of 1988. It is a matter of coming to an interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church. Looking back over the past, to the divisions which in the course of the centuries have rent the Body of Christ, one continually has the impression that, at critical moments when divisions were coming about, not enough was done by the Church’s leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity. One has the impression that omissions on the part of the Church have had their share of blame for the fact that these divisions were able to harden. This glance at the past imposes an obligation on us today: to make every effort to enable for all those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or to attain it anew."

Maybe his decision is a only superficial reason given to provide a logical argument to do something he wanted to do anyway, but I think he may really believe that his decision will help to unify the church. I think all evidence (including the division evidenced by the responses to this article) points in exactly the opposite direction. I pray that I am wrong, but I think his message and the resulting situation only sets us up for more pain, division, and schism in the future.

Jeff La Benz

"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:38-39

Marie R., reading the many comments here would suggest to me that this is not a step toward unification! Even the Lefebre group that this decision is supposed to pacify and is meant as an invitation to join the flock, is not happy with this: doesn't go far enough as far as they are concerned.

jeff and henkgal,

Obviously, the decision is not pacifying everyone. One can see, though, that the disputes are mainly the result of imaginings as to what terrible results this decision will have. Given that the first thing the pope did was to write about the value of being charitable, I think his hope is that people will allow others the space to worship in their preferred way. So long as we are confident in our own freedom to worship, I think we do not have to be defensive of our preference to the degree that we deny others their preference. I do not imagine that people will find it easy, but I do expect that people will find it is far less important than they believe it to be at the moment.

You write *the priest is in persona Christi, at both Masses, so yes, the priest is special, Sister. He, not the people, is in the person of Christ

If this is so, then is the laity the body of Christ or no? If we are the body of Christ are we a dead body and not a person?
Erv Sanders

I find this reply so indicative of something that I have learned about here at NCRcafe! And, again, I am someone who has written a viva la differance in regard to the two mass forms but...

I think this writer truly writes his reflection of his engagement of the mass. He is stating that these things are true for him and none of us should be called to question the nature of his experience. It is his experience and he reports it. That's why a simple number grading of his response would not capture how I see this posting.

But I see his essential response to the mass as an ethereal response.

NOt everyone would experience the mass in this way. I would wager to guess HE did not always experience the mass in this way.

I also sense his true and authentic vision of "Christ above us". But some of us prefer a vision of "Christ in us".

In fact, both statements are probably true.

But again, why the rigidity? Why the insistence on everyone seeing the mass as I see it? The insistence that MY reality is the only true reality. This trend is echoed in the church's recent re-statement of Catholicism as the one true church. I don't think this rigidity serves us all that well.

Great reply MollyJ. I am getting pretty frustrated with the posters who value the Latin Mass, and their seeming need to imply that the rest of us don't get what it means to be at Mass. That somehow our preference for the Novus Ordo is a direct result of poor formation and lack of understanding of what's really going on. There doesn't seem to be any sense of 'live and let live', or different strokes for different folks. I get much more of a sense of 'my way or the highway'. That's why I laugh when some of them post about the selfishness of liberal Catholics and our need to make everything about 'me'. SAY WHAT?

Br. Steve has done us a service in clarifying some points concerning Sr. Joan's fears of the recent recommendations of the Vatican encouraging the wider use of the pre-Vatican II Traditional Latin Mass. Sr. Joan’s fears are centered in the fact that the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass does not do a particularly good job of teaching socio-political values which she feels should be shared by all Catholics. It is worth noting that Sr. Joan uses the term “Tridentine Mass” repeatedly in referring to the pre-Vatican II Mass thereby ignoring the fact that the Traditional Latin Mass has undergone continual textual readjustment since the Council of Trent in the 16th Century CE.

Sr. Joan tells us that the Latin Mass is “a priestly act, a private devotion of both priest and people.” She points out that “the instruction in what it means to live a Gospel life -- is, in the Tridentine Rite, at best, a minor element.” Here is, perhaps, what Sr. Joan feels to be her most serious complaint against the Latin mass:

She tell us that "[in] the Latin mass, the sense of mystery -- of mystique -- the incantation of "heavenly" rather than "vulgar" language in both prayer and music, underscores a theology of transcendence. It lifts a person out of the humdrum, the dusty, the noisy, the crowded chaos of normal life to some other world. It reminds us of the world to come -- beautiful, mystifying, hierarchical, perfumed -- and makes this one distant. It takes us beyond the present, enables us, if only for a while, to "slip the surly bonds of earth" for a world more mystical than mundane." She seems to feel that this is in some way harmful for the faithful.

She goes on to exalt the Vatican II liturgy reminding us that it “steeps a person in community, in social concern, in the hard, cold, clear reality of the present.” The twentieth century has been marked by an increased shift toward the secularization of liturgical events. Sr. Joan’s attitude would seem to encourage this shift. I doubt there are many serious Catholic thinkers who would dispute the value of the objectives which Sr. Joan and others who feel the need to defend the Vatican II liturgy share. Sr. Joan’s liturgical objections center on the question of the proper context for the teaching of these values. The “traditionalist” would probably suggest that the Gospel teachings as applied to everyday life be explored in the classroom or the social hall rather than in the Sanctuary.

Chittister's comments on the Latin Mass seem accurate enough; but there is a pejorative undertone in her writing. It may be that she fails to recognize the essential contemplative nature of the Traditional Catholic Mass. It is the formation of a spiritual community through contemplative prayer that unites the people, priest and servers through the Holy Spirit to experience as much as each is possible the increased spiritual consciousness that brings us all closer to the God we all adore and seek. It is not an event as such, but rather a single and unified universal prayer. These experiences transform the consciousness of the individual and become an essential part of the every day experience so that one is aware of the glory of God that is revealed in all creation. Referring to the Traditional Latin Mass and the new Vatican II liturgy, Sr. Joan argues that we should “make no mistake: in their fundamental messages, they present us with more than two different styles of music or two different languages or two different sets of liturgical norms. They present us with two different churches.” And therein lies the tragedy of radical positions. From Sr. Joan’s point of view, the unity which the Pope aims at achieving within the Catholic Church is a foregone impossibility. The end result of such attitudes can only be division and dissension. Why our Sister would want to turn this attempt at unity into an either/or cause is difficult to grasp; her attitude seems contrary to the stated objectives of the NSP she co-chairs.

Fr. Bede Griffiths, also a Benedictine, reminds us that "[each] of us comes forth eternally from the hidden depths of the Father into being in the Word." This is the mystery that is celebrated in the Traditional Latin Mass as well as the new Eucharist. And the Christ spoke directly to the problem of “unity” that confronts us: “That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us. . ." (John 17:21). There is no need to fear the mystical and the transcendental. The sociologist Peter L. Berger sees a hope for religion and contemporary culture when he states that a “rediscovery of the supernatural will be, above all, a regaining of openness in our perception of reality.”

I am sorry, but I disagree. I do not believe this was an attempt at unity as much as a concession to those who refuse to accept the validity of Vatican II. I also do not believe that having two distinct liturgies will unify anyone. If holding two world views side by side unifies people, why is there so much antaganism between those who speak English and the immigrants who speak their own language? Or so much fear and suspicion at cultural traditions that are different from main stream America?

If you were familiar with the writings on the Liturgy by Cardinal Ratzinger (pre-election, of course), you would know that he indeed intends unity. He believes that the only way to correct the course of the liturgical movement vis-a-vis the New Mass is to allow the Old Mass to co-exist. Then, as priests are trained to say both, and the laity experience both, the revered principles of the old will inform the new. The straight forward approach to the rubrics (do the red, say the black) may preclude the innovations which have pervaded the new, and the reforms actually sought by Sacrosanctum Concilium might be implemented into the old.

Unity is not going to be instantaneous, but a long road, of which this was but the first step.

There are not two distinct liturgies, mlou, there are eight. Read your Catechism- it lists Latin, Byzantine, Alexandrian, Syriac, Armenian, Maronite, and Chaldean as valid rites.

As Vicar of the universal Church, the Pope is shepherd of the rites of the West and the East. The eastern rites which have a separate code of canon law, are completely equal in dignity with the rites of the West. All of these eastern ritual churches come under the jurisdiction of the Pope through the Congregation for the Oriental Churches. The rites are administered by either a Patriarch, a Major Archbishop, a Metropolitan, or have some other arrangement. Patriarchs are elected by a synod of bishops of their rite, and then request ecclesiastical communion from the Pope. The Pope has several titles. He is the Bishop of Rome, the Patriarch of the West, and Vicar of the universal Church. As the Bishop of Rome he is the head of the Latin rite.

1) LATIN. This is by far the largest rite in the Church and was founded by St. Peter in Rome around 42 A.D and handed down more or less intact from at least the 4th century. This was the liturgy used in Rome. As the "Patriarch of the West" (meaning west of Jerusalem) the Pope is ALSO vicar of other liturgical rites that date from before the Council of Trent. These rites include the Mozarabic rite from Spain, the Ambrosian rite from Milan, Italy, named after St. Ambrose (340-397), the Bragan rite from Portugal, and the order liturgies of the Dominican, Carmelite, and Carthusian orders.

2) BYZANTINE. The largest of these eastern rites is the Byzantine. The Byzantine liturgy is based on liturgy developed by St. James for the Antiochaian church, but modified by St. Basil (329-379) and St. John Chrysostom (344-407). This liturgy is similar if not identical to the liturgy used by the Orthodox churches. Churches using the Byzantine liturgy include the Albanian, Belarussian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Greek, Hungarian, Italo-Albanian, Melkite, Romanian, Russian, Ruthenian, Slovak, and Ukrainian.

3) ALEXANDRIAN. The liturgy used by the church in Alexandria in Egypt is attributed to St. Mark the evangelist. This church became known as the Coptic church because Copt is the Arabic and Greek word for Egyptian. Before the Moslem invasion in 641 the Copts fell into heresy due to their rejection of the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Today there exists in Egypt the Coptic rite which is Orthodox and the Coptic rite that is loyal to the Bishop of Rome. The Ge'ez rite based in Ethiopia is closely associated with the Coptic rite. Missionaries from Alexandria spread the faith in Ethiopia in the 4th century. The native language (Ge'ez) was used instead of Greek in the liturgy.

4) SYRIAC. The liturgy of the Syriac rite is attributed to St. James the Apostle. This liturgy was used by the church in Antioch in present day Syria. Many bishops in this area also broke away after the Council of Chalcedon. They stopped using Greek and used the Syriac language in their liturgy. The Syriac language is similar to Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke. Through the work of Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries many members of this rite returned to union with Rome, including the Patriarch of this rite in 1781.

5) The Malankarese rite developed in India. They trace their Christian lineage to St. Thomas the Apostle who traveled to South India and founded a church. This rite was in union with the Assyrian (Chaldean) church which had fallen into the Nestorian heresy after the Council of Ephesus in 431. This church was "discovered" by Portuguese missionaries in the 16th century. After attempts to "latinize" the rite, many broke away to form their own rite under the control of the Syrian Patriarch. In the 1920's and 30's four bishops of this rite were reunited with Rome, and many members of their rite followed. This rite is located in Kerala State, India.

6) ARMENIAN. Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as the state religion in the 4th century. They used the Antiochine liturgy of St. James said in the Armenian language. At that time Armenia was located in eastern Turkey. After it was destroyed in the 11th century it moved to Cilicia (southern Turkey). That is why to this day the Patriarch of this rite is known as the Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenians. The Armenians also fell into heresy after the Council of Chalcedon. The Council of Florence in 1439 declared reunion with the Armenians, and Pope Benedict XIV confirmed the first Patriarch in 1742. The Turks massacred roughly two million Armenians at the end of World War I. Most members of this rite live in Lebanon.

7) MARONITE. The Maronite rite traces its origins to the work of St. Maron in the 4th century who founded a monastery east of Antioch. Later monks moved to the mountains in what is today Lebanon. This rite never fell into heresy and was only separated from Rome by the political reality of Moslem or Ottoman occupation. The Maronites use a hybrid liturgy based on the Antiochian St. James. Maronites make up 17% of the population of Lebanon and by the law of that country the president of Lebanon is always a Maronite.

8) CHALDEAN. The people in modern day Iran and Iraq were once known as the Assyrians. The church established itself there very early but the people in this area fell into the heresy of Nestorianism in the 5th century. After missionary efforts many returned to union with Rome, and in 1553 Pope Julius III proclaimed the first Patriarch of the Chaldeans. Chaldean is the biblical term used for those from Babylon. Today the Patriarch of this rite located in Bagdad, Iraq where most of the members of this rite live.

I enjoyed this response as to me it seemed both thoughtful and respectful. I have one observation to add.

“That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us. . ." (John 17:21)."

In this quote of Jesus's He speaks of the Father as 'in' and that we maybe one 'in' He and His Father. Jesus does not say 'up' or 'out' or 'heaven'. He says 'in'.

As you say, there is no need to fear the mystical and transcendental, and certainly no reason not to search for Him within. In fact we are mandated to do so. To reserve this search to the sole province of Mass attendance and Church Authority is to abrogate the command to seek Him within ourselves that we may be one with Them and each other.

Some of the anguished arguments about eucharistic liturgy (and not a few other matters) prompt me to wonder whether we are reading the Gospel narratives and taking them seriously, lovingly, joyously.

Let's try again.

Englishwoman

Ken, thank you for pointing me to the Rowan Williams lecture. I will definitely read it.

To me, the interpretation of priesthood as "lookout," "interpreter," or "weaver" is eminently biblical. Built right into the New Testament term for a bishop, "episkopos," is the notion of watching over, looking out, helping to interpret and discern the action of the Spirit in the whole community.

And it can well be argued, I think, that the episcopal function builds on what is the primary priestly one: that is, to call the community together, using presbyteral gifts to weave people into community, assisting the community in interpreting the action of the Spirit in the community, helping to look out for the action of the Spirit wherever She manifests herself.

As Frannie very aptly suggests in a posting below, these are gifts that are given to the entire community. In exercising priesthood, the priest calls forth and helps to weave together the gifts of all, the priesthood of all.

The sacral notion of the priesthood is hardly mentioned in the New Testament. In the form in which it is now being reasserted and retrieved, it postdates New Testament developments. To the extent that it militates against the notion of the priesthood of all believers, it fundamentally distorts the New Testament.

This is one of the primary points Vatican II wanted to make, in returning us to a much richer ecclesiology that had dominated the church in the reactionary period after Trent--a biblical and patristic notion. It's a pity that we are moving back to that very a-traditional notion of the church and priesthood today, IMHO.

William D. Lindsey

#1. You say: "Benedict XVI’s act of liberalization"??? I would say: "The Pope's REACTIONARY re-introduction". Let us hope it quells the conservatives so we can get back to the message of Our Lord.
#2. You say: "only among the ex-colonialist White Folk" and you say: "The White Folk have controlled the Church for a time." I ask: Why so bitter? The Lord taught us to ask the Father to: "Forgive Us Our Trespasses as We Forgive Those Who Trespass against us." I assume He also meant TrespassED, as well. I have known hatred in my heart, and now have been freed of its heavy burden. I pray it does not come back.
... The greatest of these ...

Ken, a quick p.s.: if you haven't read Mary Doria Russell's two novels The Sparrow and The Children of God, I recommend them--if you don't have an aversion to science fiction. I don't want to be a plot spoiler, so won't say more than that your prediction of a second Gelasius is fulfilled in Russell's own theological-literary imagination.

William D. Lindsey

Ken, thank you for clarifying your posting, and for your generous response. I had rather thought your own posting was tongue-in-cheek. My own pique was directed perhaps most of all to those who are now reviving all that kitsch from the Tridentine Mass--and actually creating a whole new business around this revival.

Like you, I believe that the issue of the Latin Mass is a non-issue for Catholics in many parts of the world. One of the points I had hoped to make in my clarifying posting is that I agree very much with Sr. Joan that there's a subtext associated with this whole discussion. It's about a lot more than using Latin in liturgy.

Like you, I also don't fundamentally care much whether the option is there or not. In fact, I don't see any real harm in offering people the option to pray in Latin, Swahili, Ladino--any language in which they feel comfortable praying.

What interests me in some of the discussions about how "comforting" Latin is is that they lead to the ultimate logical conclusion that many people would be perfectly happy with worshiping in languages that make no sense to them at all. The ultimate conclusion of argument about the "comfort" and "mystery" of the Latin Mass is that we should have liturgies that dispense the Eucharist--perhaps from some kind of machine?--while New Age music and some kind of nonsensical babble murmurs through the church in the background.

Of course, what this comfort-and-mystery trend overlooks is the communal element of Christian worship, which requires that we understand our involvement in the liturgy, and what it is we commit ourselves to when we break bread together and share the common cup. To my simplistic mind, the communio and the kingdom positions aren't opposite poles, but two sides of one coin. You can't have communio without kingdom-seeking. You can't receive communion without seeking to be communion--with everyone in the church, and ultimately, everyone in God's creation.

I'm also very concerned about the--I'll be frank--the appalling level of ignorance of many JPII priests. Though they speak about returning to tradition and recovering a sense of history, I often find their level of historical knowledge very shallow, and their sense of the tradition in its full complexity very slim.

I suspect that birettas and burses are more about dressing up in clothes that provide a new generation of priests the illusion of power over others--something that is being lost as the full scope of the sexual abuse scandal becomes apparent. And it should be lost: priesthood should, seems to me, be about serving God's servants, not exercising coercive and dominative power over others. I fear many personalities entering the priesthood in the JPII generation are brittle, personalities needing power and the affirmation of symbols of power, and that some of the brittleness is reinforced by a lack of education.

William D. Lindsey

Ken, I sent a reply to your posting yesterday that was a bit tongue-in-cheek. But I was also trying to make a serious point. Though yesterday's reply hasn't yet been posted, I want to send an explanation of my tongue-in-cheek response to your posting--in part, because I do not want you to think I wasn't taking your posting seriously.

I'm always interested in the way in which "traditionalists" are very selective (and often ill-informed) about "the" tradition they are trying to recapture. It's rarely the tradition in the full historical sense.

And, after all, what IS "the" tradition? Is it the church as it was being born out of Judaism following the death and resurrection of Jesus--the period in which Peter and Paul were debating whether Christians could eat meat sacrificed to idols? Is it the church of Aquinas? Of Teresa of Avila? Of Bishop Sheen?

Which moment do we want to recapture as the pristine original moment when we departed from the right path and things began to fall apart? There's a tremendous amount of arbitrariness about the moment we're now canonizing as "the" tradition: there's a tremendous amount of arbitrariness about retrieving birettas as part of "the" tradition. Birettas are, after all, a rarely recent development in the history of the church, and a very culturally conditioned one at that.

Furthermore, I think that to understand what is going on in the move to reinstitute the Latin Mass, we have to talk about more than liturgy itself. We have to talk about all the subtexts of this move--and I read this as the point of Sr. Joan's article to which we're all responding.

In listening to folks who are discussing this around the country, I note several subtexts. I know some older Catholics who are good, pious, church-going Catholics and who welcome the option of the Latin Mass not because they have much invested in Latin or returning to the past. They see this, though, as a return to a moment they imagine they lived through, in whihc people were reverent in church, in which they arrived on time, didn't exit before the last verse of the final hymn was sung, didn't giggle or chat during Mass.

The children of these folks, who can't remember the Latin Mass at all, see it as a countercultural assertion of Catholic identity. These children have raised their own children by home-schooling them. They have restricted their access to t.v. and computers. They are living a version of Amish life as Midwestern Catholics in rural areas. Latin will bind them together further as a subculture, and will set them apart--something they want in a world that seems to them to be going to hell in a handbasket, where men are marrying men and some of their siblings have even married Protestants and don't go to church every Sunday.

And then there are the young priests, the JPII priests, like the one operating the website you mention. My impression is that, in many cases, they welcome the return of birettas and Latin because they want a resacralized version of the priesthood that gives them an unquestioned authority and status they believe priests lost after Vatican II.

In some respects, they and their motives concern me more than anything else, with the revival of the Latin liturgy. We had begun to make progress, I had thought, in reviving the very traditional and very ancient notion of the church as the people of God.

Reviving that notion means moving away from the highly sacralized notion of the priesthood. Moving back to that notion means retreating from Vatican II. I am suspicious of the move back to the highly sacralized notion of the priesthood at the very time that we have most need to be exploring how and why church leaders covered up abuse of minors--and seemingly, most of all in those decades in which priests had the most unquestioned status as hieratic leaders of the community.

William D. Lindsey

....they welcome the return of birettas and Latin because they want a resacralized version of the priesthood that gives them an unquestioned authority and status they believe priests lost after Vatican II.

Retired Anglican Bishop John (call me Jack) Shelby Spong says much the same thing. "Today the superstructure of ecclesiastical privilege is tottering before our eyes...loss of priestly power is now affecting the haberdashery worn by the ordained, especially the vestments worn by the hierarchy."

He quotes the Anglican primate of the Scottish Episcopal Church,Richard Holloway, as saying," Why not gather on the banks of the river Thames and hurl our medieval mitres into its da rk waters and be done with them forever,"

What is interesting is the diametrically opposed values that are attached to this observation. On one hand the value is Tradition and Authority. On the other hand the value is Servanthood and Mutuality.

One of my favorite noncanonical verses comes from Jesus Christ Supertar: Neither you, Simon, nor the 50,000, nor the Romans nor the Jews, nor Judas nor the 12, nor the priests nor the scribes, nor doomed Jerusalem herself understand what power is...understand at all.

Bill, I concur with your assessment of a return to a more sacrilized notion of priesthood. There is a direct correlation between implied superior status and lack of accountability. The majority of the damage sustained from the abuse scandal has indeed come from the generations of priests whose seminary formation occured before Vatican II. The same can be said for the Bishops who actively participated in the transfering and enabling of all the pedophile priests. But the accountability issue also goes directly to the percieved lack of freedom laity feel in demanding accountability. Protecting the concept of the 'sacred' priest takes precedence over any notion of accountability for the individual deviant within the priesthood. In other words, the ideal or archetype of priesthood trumps the reality every time.

I imagine this is why Jesus insisted repeatedly that his notion of priest was a servant priest, a priest who would essentially see himself as one with the flock rather than one set above or aside from the flock.
Personally, I can't see where the notion of a more sacrilized priesthood serves anyone's spiritual interests. It only serves to maintain an immaturity in the laity which is underscored by calling priests 'father', and harms the individual priest in any attempt to make meaningful friendships outside the clerical cast. It's a system which encourages a lack of balance within the structure of the Church itself and within individuals.

As with any other lack, a lack of balance in this sense is a poor place from which to encourage any meaningful spiritual growth.

Col, thanks for a very insightful reply. What you have to say is powerful: "In other words, the ideal or archetype of priesthood trumps the reality every time."

And one of the tragedies of this moment of church history seems to be the desire, from the top, to reimpose that archetype at all costs. The cost is tremendous.

There's the cost of pretending the abuse crisis was a blip on the screen of history and is now over--that it didn't signal some fundamental problems in the church that need to be addressed fundamentally. With this pretense and cover up go a loss of credibility, of respect for our ethical principles, a forfeiting of our ability to infuse the public sector with our values. We seem content to turn inwards and mumble our Latin prayers, parading in our birettas and surplices, while the world at large sorely needs to hear from us about the values of the reign of God.

The other cost--which you delineate so clearly--is the betrayal of the gospel notion of priesthood as service. You are very right, I think: the newly refurbished archetypal image of the priest as sacral father entraps all of us in immaturity. How can priests themselves grow in the spiritual (not to mention psychological) life, if their attention is focused on asserting authority over others?

And how can we, the people of God, grow in our own priesthood if it's constantly played against that of "the" priest, and if we're told only to obey and stop asking questions?

William D. Lindsey

I'm confused. I really need some historical perspective. Are we not a priestly people? Have we in truth no priest but Jesus? Were the words of the last supper not spoken to the community? How did we go from presbyter to priest?

Great idea!

Yes, we are a priestly people (going back to the Bible), but is there a ministerial priesthood as well? Do we have other priests under our great high priest?

Ignatius of Antioch (died 98-117 AD) wrote: "And say I, Honor thou God indeed, as the Author and Lord of all things, but the bishop as the high-priest, who bears the image of God--of God. inasmuch as he is a ruler, and of Christ, in his capacity of a priest. After Him, we must also honor the king. For there is no one superior to God, or even like to Him, among all the beings that exist. Nor is there any one in the Church greater than the bishop, who ministers as a priest to God for the salvation of the whole world."

So the bishop at least is of a different kind of priesthood, but are there others under him?

Clement of Rome (d 97 AD) writes: "These things therefore being manifest to us, and since we look into the depths of the divine knowledge, it behooves us to do all things in [their proper] order, which the Lord has commanded us to perform at stated times.(1) He has enjoined offerings [to be presented] and service to be performed [to Him], and that not thoughtlessly or irregularly, but at the appointed times and hours. Where and by whom He desires these things to be done, He Himself has fixed by His own supreme will, in order that all things being piously done according to His good pleasure, may be acceptable unto Him.(2) Those, therefore, who present their offerings at the appointed times, are accepted and blessed; for inasmuch as they follow the laws of the Lord, they sin not. For his own peculiar services are assigned to the high priest, and their own proper place is prescribed to the priests, and their own special ministrations devolve on the Levites. The layman is bound by the laws that pertain to laymen."

Certainly seems to suggest such a hierarchy exists in the first century, even if not as clearly defined as it is today.

This makes sense, given that we have, from the same Origin, the laws of worship given to the Jews. That includes the Holy people of God, the specific priestly tribe of the Levites, the ministerial priests, and the high priests.

As for the Last Supper, there is no evidence that it was spoken to the community, indeed as it was the Passover meal it would be unlikely that a large number of His followers would have assembled, rather each would have held their own meal. Even if it were, how many people are present at ordinations who are not, by consequence ordained?

Thank you so much for taking the time to help me with these quotes. They are very helpful, but I'm not out of the woods yet. Who presided at the breaking of the bread? In a house chur4ch was that an itinerant priest or the head of the household? No, I don't think they would have eaten separate passovers. They were not at home. They were on the move. I think they would have prepared and shared the meal together.

Frannie, I absolutely agree. I just posted a reply to Ken above, in which I cite your posting. Far and away, the predominant term for "priest" in the New Testament is "presbyter," not "sacerdos." And the notion of priesthood in the New Testament is clearly one that envisages all baptized Christians--male and female, gay and straight, white and black, and so on and so on--as priests.

William D. Lindsey

My gosh, if we're going to head backwards, why stop with burses and birettas?

I'm sure there must be a few dunking stools for witches and scolds (female ones, it's understood) still hanging around somewhere, as well as those devices a man could put in his wife's mouth to stop her from scolding--sort of a bit like people place in horses' mouths.

And maybe there are a few unused stakes lying around that we can use to burn heretics/dissenters, Jews, anyone who strikes our fancy as a good juicy target....

The move backwards surely needs to keep looking as far back as possible, if it's seeking true authenticity, no? Wasn't there a time in the early Middle Ages when a lord who died missing a body part could leave instructions to have that body part severed from one of his serfs and buried with him, to assure that he would be intact on the resurrection day?

Burses, birettas, dunking stools, racks and wheels to torture heretics--let's go the whole hog as we retrieve the good old traditions, what say?

William D. Lindsey

William ~ You post with tongue in cheek but there is much truth behind your remarks. A couple of points for consideration- the first with gratitude: those retrograde attitudes, views and perspectives seem to be still there but, fortunately without the power to coerce as was the case in the heyday of ecclesiastical domination. One can almost anticipate the revival of the medieval view of "hell" as a cudgel to force us into submission to the newly reiterated view of "onliness" of Church, exclusion of women and revival of latin, etc. I am in the midst of Jack Holland's, "Misogyny" which tends to reinforce my view that the poetically worded exclusion of women in contemporary documents is, like many other dictates, but a thinly veiled reflection of the misogyny of Pandora/Eve stories, and worse.

My second reflection is about how strategic the institution really is and the naievte of those, including myself, who try to avoid outright condemnation of latin rite revival as being no more than a mild concession to the "whining traditionalists", rather than an element of a more general move to restore domination.

Dennis, I posted a reply to you the other day, which hasn't yet appeared on the thread. This is an addendum to what I previously posted.

I've been pondering your statement re: the archetypal roots of misogyny. What I have to say may well be trite, and has perhaps been said before. But these thoughts have struck me with new force lately. And sometimes the obvious has to be said, over and over, before folks hear it.

I believe that there is a powerful coalescence shaping up in the contemporary world around fear of and violent opposition to women's emergence to full personhood on the stage of global history. It's interesting to me that, in this respect, Orthodox Jews, fundamentalist Catholics, right-wing Protestants, and Muslims of certain stripes have more in common than what divides them.

In direct proportion to the insistence of women that women's lives and personhood be valued, there is violent reaction, often fueled by religious movements. Where such violent reaction exists, there has to be something very powerful that these reactionary groups fear.

There is tremendous -- archetypal is not too strong of a word -- resistance to the affirmation of the feminine as valuable. Of course, deep in our archetypal memory, there are memories of times and cultures in which women did have social power and worth. But perhaps more deeply rooted there are memories of what controlling male power centers wish us to believe has always been the case, and is the only possibility, if we do not wish for total chaos: the domination of the feminine by the masculine.

I am convinced that the renegotiation of gender roles and gender identity is the single most powerful force fueling reactionary religious and political movements at a global level. Where there is such resistance -- such willingness to use violence to keep people in their places -- there must, indeed, be great power that is deeply feared by those who stand on the side of reactionary violence.

P.S. Oops, sorry! I now see that my reply to you did, in fact, appear yesterday. This is an addendum to the posting below.

William D. Lindsey

Dear Bill,
I agree completely. Susan Falluti (sp?) wrote a book called Backlash some years ago with much the same theme.
That the religious forces in modern society are fueling this gender jihad is so sad and so mystifying historically. Islamic societies had women physicians and scientists when women were barred from universities and professions in Europe. Catholic nunneries offered women a choice to patriarchal arranged marriages and the church's insistence on delictio for both parties in a marriage gave women the right to follow their hearts. Even where women would have been barred by law from entering certain marriages, the church blessed them with holy concubinage. Perhaps the answer is that these folk were still a minority and did not challenge the majority power base. When women who were natural healers threatened the emerging male medical establishment, christianity gave us the witch burnings.
Frannie

Brilliant, Dennis, and on several fronts at once.

I love the phrase "onliness" of Church. I'm tempted to play with it and turn it into "ownly." It does seem so absurd to me that the roman church (or any church) could claim that -- in all God's wide, beautiful, wildly diverse creation -- it only owns ALL the truth.

This is so naively obtuse that it would almost be charming, were it not noxious. It's very much akin to a little boy on the playground claiming he owns all the marbles on the planet; only he has them all.

And I very much agree: misogyny is deeply rooted in mythic, archetypal stories and attitudes. We're selective about the ones we cling to, of course. There are many others that point to different possibilities for male-female allocation of power. The ones we choose -- particularly in "our" church setting -- reflect a fascination-repulsion with female power that is almost pathological in its obsession. There is not such fear and loathing, where there is not something quite attractively powerful to try to harness or keep a lid on.

I tend to agree that these church pronouncements are very strategic. After all, these last two statements from Rome were "desk-clearing" statements issued just as Benedict went on vacation, almost as if they were afterthoughts.

That might mean they were testing-the-water statements. I suspect, though, that their timing had something to do, too, with the certain knowledge that Los Angeles was just about to write that big check to pay off those with claims for abuse by priests. I've noticed in recent years a pattern of anticipatory missile strikes from church authorities, just before such a big announcement about the abuse crisis comes along. They often seem to have a diversionary attempt. If you can get folks looking at the razzle-dazzle show on the sidelines, or fighting about non-issues, you can get them to ignore the really big show right in the center of the stage.

William D. Lindsey

Molly, I, too, read Ms. Lisa Tekeuchi Cullen's article in TIME a couyple of weeks ago. It seemed to me that the homiles at her Church (unlike the ones I receive over the net from a friend in Rome weekly. Who, alas, is uncomfortable being called anything but "Father"--so sad--I mean, we are ADULTS here----he is NOT MY father, MY Father died in 1996 and I called HIM "Daddy"! At age 69, I truly resent calling a younger male "Father"!)

Anyway, the homiles at Lisa's Church (if I recall the article) and the remainder of the liturgy, were so uninspiring, so "removed" from anything "spiritual" to her that she was hoping for something more "tradtional" to what? Make her more "unconscious"? more "in touch" with God somehow?

Because her Parish, her priest, certainly was coldly not doing it! (Unfortunately, this is happening in a cursory and uncaring and disconnected fasion more often these days and I assume it was happening in Lisa's parish.)

I, too, am a Dr. Herbert Benson freak--my current favorite (an older book, really) is TIMELESS HEALING--THE POWER AND BIOLOGY OF BELIEF which also deals with the relaxation response, as well as negative thinking and belief, and its effects on health.

It is a shame that the institutional Church as so little regard for the People of God that it forgets (in so many cases) its role "to serve" and expects the People of God to "serve it". What a role reversal!

Jesus would not be pleased...Yet the People of God have a responsibility, too. Unfortunately, despite all the efforts of CTA, VOTF, and the many good Catholic lay people who try in various ways to effect change, (like Michael Moore who is fighting so effectively, I hope, for Health Care) a "tipping point" for effective chance within the Church itself has not yet been reached. Perhaps one day, through Grace and the Holy Spirit, it will. But maybe the answer lies in yet another direction. Meanwhile, as the example of Michael Moore and others shows, the "social justice" aspects of many good people and teachers in the Church have not been lost.

Just about the "father" bit, Father Benedict Groeschel (no flaming liberal) said on his tv show that t he appelation was originally applied to those who fed the poor and was used equally with priests, monks and laymen.