Vatican Official: Reconsider Communion in Hand

CNS story:

The secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments said he thinks it is time for the Catholic Church to reconsider its decision to allow the faithful to receive Communion in the hand.

Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don, the Vatican official, made the suggestion in the preface to a book about the Eucharist by Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Karaganda, Kazakhstan. …

“It is true that if one can receive on the tongue, one also can receive in the hand because this organ of the body has equal dignity,” he said.

However, Archbishop Ranjith said, the introduction of the practice of receiving Communion in the hand coincides with the beginning of “a gradual and growing weakening of the attitude of reverence toward the sacred eucharistic species.”

“I think the time has come to evaluate these practices and to review them and, if necessary, to abandon the current practice,” Archbishop Ranjith said.

In a Slaughterhouse …

Video of California slaughterhouse shows sick cows being tormented to get them to stagger into a slaughterhouse.

Marcial Maciel Dead at 87

Fr. Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legion of Christ, has died. Accusations of drug misuse and sexual abuse had dogged him for decades; the latter finally resulted in his removal by Pope Benedict XVI. Rod Dreher reports.

What the World Eats

From NPR in 2005: Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. Interesting comparison of a week’s worth of food in several different countries.

Rod Dreher on Meat Guzzling

Rod Dreher reflects on meat eating and the world economy, jumping off from a commentary in the New York Times, “Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler.”

“Child-Man in the Promised Land”

On the prolonged adolescence of young men today (via Rod Dreher).

It’s 1965 and you’re a 26-year-old white guy. You have a factory job, or maybe you work for an insurance broker. Either way, you’re married, probably have been for a few years now; you met your wife in high school, where she was in your sister’s class. You’ve already got one kid, with another on the way. For now, you’re renting an apartment in your parents’ two-family house, but you’re saving up for a three-bedroom ranch house in the next town. Yup, you’re an adult!

Now meet the twenty-first-century you, also 26. You’ve finished college and work in a cubicle in a large Chicago financial-services firm. You live in an apartment with a few single guy friends. In your spare time, you play basketball with your buddies, download the latest indie songs from iTunes, have some fun with the Xbox 360, take a leisurely shower, massage some product into your hair and face—and then it’s off to bars and parties, where you meet, and often bed, girls of widely varied hues and sizes. They come from everywhere: California, Tokyo, Alaska, Australia. Wife? Kids? House? Are you kidding?

Not so long ago, the average mid-twentysomething had achieved most of adulthood’s milestones—high school degree, financial independence, marriage, and children. These days, he lingers—happily—in a new hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance.

The Canonization of Isaac T. Hecker?

The Catholic Archdiocese of New York is now officially pushing for the canonization of Fr. Isaac Thomas Hecker (1819-1888), founder of the Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle (aka, the Paulists).

Will it happen? No mention in any of these articles about Hecker’s association with “Americanism,” condemned by Pope Leo XIII in Testem benevolentiae in 1899. Paulist historians argue that Leo was reacting to a mistranslated biography of Hecker, and that he didn’t actually hold to the teachings condemned. Indeed, apart from the mention of the biography, there is no condemnation of Hecker himself nor citation of any of his books.

But when you read Leo’s remarks, they surely can apply to the order that Hecker founded, especially in the decades since the Second Vatican Council:

It is known to you, beloved son, that the biography of Isaac Thomas Hecker, especially through the action of those who under took to translate or interpret it in a foreign language, has excited not a little controversy, on account of certain opinions brought forward concerning the way of leading Christian life. …

The underlying principle of these new opinions is that, in order to more easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions. Many think that these concessions should be made not only in regard to ways of living, but even in regard to doctrines which belong to the deposit of the faith. They contend that it would be opportune, in order to gain those who differ from us, to omit certain points of her teaching which are of lesser importance, and to tone down the meaning which the Church has always attached to them. It does not need many words, beloved son, to prove the falsity of these ideas if the nature and origin of the doctrine which the Church proposes are recalled to mind. …

We cannot consider as altogether blameless the silence which purposely leads to the omission or neglect of some of the principles of Christian doctrine, for all the principles come from the same Author and Master ….

But, beloved son, in this present matter of which we are speaking, there is even a greater danger and a more manifest opposition to Catholic doctrine and discipline in that opinion of the lovers of novelty, according to which they hold such liberty should be allowed in the Church, that her supervision and watchfulness being in some sense lessened, allowance be granted the faithful, each one to follow out more freely the leading of his own mind and the trend of his own proper activity. They are of opinion that such liberty has its counterpart in the newly given civil freedom which is now the right and the foundation of almost every secular state. …

This sounds like it could have been written by Pope Benedict XVI against contemporary Paulists!

And yet, I think the Paulists have reason to be optimistic. Hecker is responsible for turning Catholicism away from the insular path of the Counter Reformation and giving it a vision and passion for evangelism. He was a convert; he was raised a Protestant, but got caught up in Transcendentalism, and his wide reading in philosophy and religious mysticism led him on to the Catholic faith. He became a Redemptorist, and preached parish missions aimed at reviving the faith of Catholics, but then got a vision for evangelizing non-Catholics. He put aside the ceremonial of the parish missions and the smells and bells of rituals, and put on a plain black suit and presented Chautauqua lectures in theater halls, showing how Catholicism answered the deepest “questions of the soul” and “aspirations of the heart” (two of his books). He began a magazine–his followers would go on to use television, movies (Romero and Entertaining Angels), and the internet. The order he founded helped begin Catholic campus ministry at state colleges and universities (the Diocese of Galveston, for example, had them start ministry at University of Texas one hundred years ago). It has led the way in Catholic evangelization since the 1970s. It has pioneered ecumenism and interfaith relations.

The real legacy of Isaac Hecker is in transforming the self-image of Catholicism in America, giving it the courage to reach beyond its former defensiveness, and in transforming its public image as well. Hecker’s legacy can be found not just in the loopy liberalism of the order he founded, but also in new visions of Catholic outreach that are in perfect harmony with the vision of Pope Benedict XVI. Hecker and Benedict together–there’s a pair of names that could transform the bedraggled and divided Catholic church of today into something that all the world might wonder after.

Update: Commentary by Dwight Duncan (an Opus Dei member) on Hecker and Newman in the Pilot.

Kreeft on Cats

From Mark Shea:

Your questions, God’s answers

QUESTION: Can demons possess cats?

PETER KREEFT: Cats need no demons; they are already completely evil.

– Peter Kreeft, Angels (and Demons), p. 123

For more Kreeftian insights, check out this.

Are Mormons Christians?

“Mitt Romney has acknowledged that Mormonism is not a Christian faith.”

“New England Pastor”

Shawn Brace and his dad (I haven’t asked, but I’m assuming his dad is Bill Brace) have a new magazine, hard copy and on-line: New England Pastor, for Adventist pastors in New England (and elsewhere).

CleanFlicks Founder Arrested

The guy who started CleanFlicks, which edited dirty words and pictures out of movies, and who ran a family video club after CleanFlicks was forced out of business, has been arrested. Seems all this was a cover for dirtier deeds.

Update: Not true, says CleanFlicks! The journalists who reported this (and reported it, and reported it) didn’t know what they were talking about, and the man lied about his role with the company.

Ryan Bell on Weimar College

Weimar College is closing–and Ryan Bell, a graduate, reflects.

Update: See also remarks by Alex Carpenter.

Houston Cathedral Progress

Video on installation of statues in the new Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in downtown Houston; another, from channel 13. Webpage. The artist who painted the statues talks about how much research she did–I wonder, why then is Juan Diego, supposedly an Aztec, portrayed with white skin and red hair?

Over the Hump

Study says 44 is the worst age. Most depressing.

Well. I’m glad I’m past it, then.

Church and State in Colorado

Colorado legislature is considering legislation that would stipulate that any agency that accepts state funding cannot base hiring decisions on religion. Archbishop Chaput is crying foul. He says the state is interfering with the church’s mission. He makes a threat:

When it can no longer have the freedom it needs to be “Catholic,” it will end its services. This is not idle talk. I am very serious.

This is what happened in Massachusetts. Catholic Charities was caught between state law which said state funded adoption agencies couldn’t discriminate against gays (a position which the liberals in charge of Catholic Charities accepted) and church teachings that to do so was morally wrong. So they decided to get out of the adoption business.

Now Chaput says the same thing–give us state money without strings, or we will stop our charitable activities.

Catholic writer Amy Welborn can’t understand this.

But it is, of course, possible to minister to the people of Colorado without state funding.

It would be dramatically different and it would require the religious bodies providing those resources to dig deeper and call on their people to really sacrifice in order to continue serving the needy.

And in a sense, I suppose it would be “unfair.”

But it wouldn’t be impossible.

I suppose what I’m saying is that when religious leaders respond to pressures from governments to conform to certain standards as the price for accepting funding by saying, “Well, then, we won’t do it anymore” puzzles me. And frankly, it bothers me.

Amy’s on target. Doesn’t Chaput remember the saying, “He who pays the piper calls the tune?” If you accept state money, you accept state restrictions. If you want to do your own thing, you find your own money. He wants it both ways–freedom to be Catholic and state money. In other words, he wants the state to subsidize programming and personnel that he wants to be explicitly and intentionally Catholic. He wants the state to fund the Catholic church’s mission–which is directly contrary to the First Amendment.

Something else that is troubling–he throws in a gratuitous reference to the ADL.

But the Colorado Catholic Conference has also heard — repeatedly — that the Anti-Defamation League has been a primary force behind this bad bill. I hope that isn’t true. It would be a very serious disappointment. I invite and encourage the Anti-Defamation League to disassociate itself from this ill-conceived piece of legislation. 

He hopes it isn’t true? Did he not think to call them and ask? Such a gratuitous assertion seems only designed to stir up a certain segment of his flock that might be concerned about the involvement of a Jewish organization.

The State of Catholic Education

Carl Olson writes about the kafuffle in St. Louis over pro-abortion remarks by a coach at the Jesuit-run St. Louis University. Will the archbishop win or the coach in this debacle? Olson thinks it will be the coach, because the university has been doing all it can to distance itself from the Catholic church.

Lessons here, I think, for the colleges of other denominations.

End Torture

It should be a no-brainer–torture is a moral evil that can never be excused. Check out the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. Via Mark Shea (and Alex Carpenter).

Pentecostalism “the Ecumenical Future”

John Allen reports: “If demography is destiny, Pentecostals are the ecumenical future.”

Pentecostalism is certainly the only place where there’s any power or passion to ecumenism, and it played a role in my own path towards ecumenism–and then the Catholic Church. In the two years after I left the Adventist church, I visited a couple of Assembly of God churches, including going to one for several weeks when we first moved to Riverside, California. Around the same time I first heard of John Michael Talbot’s “ecumenical Franciscan community,” which I joined a couple of years later, about the time its “associate” program was being reorganized as the “Little Brothers and Sisters of Charity” (now the “Brothers and Sisters of Charity, Domestic”). This was my first exposure to Catholic charismatics. Then, in the summer of 1990, I went for the first time to the Priests, Deacons, and Seminarians Conference at the Franciscan University of Steubenville.

This dabbling in Pentecostalism broke down the doctrinal barriers to considering Catholicism. It led me to put emotion over substance, and to assume that what I was experiencing was the working of the Holy Spirit.

I think Pentecostalism or the Charismatic movement is indeed “the ecumenical future,” because it provides a motivation for getting closer to other Christians that isn’t bound to structure and doctrine and breaks down prejudices. It does for more conservative Christians what the New Age movement does among liberals. And I wonder, are the two really all that different? Are they not just two sides of the same coin? I suspect it is in fact the same spirit operating in both–and not the Holy Spirit, but, rather, a Christianized form of spiritualism.

The Graduation Racket

I can’t believe the high cost of high school graduation these days. $30 for the cap and gown. $25 for 25 invitations (invitation and two envelopes). Another $25 if you want little name cards to put inside. Another $7.50 if you want tissue paper to put inside. The boy’s letter jacket was around $160. The senior pictures were another couple of hundred. Then there’s the SAT cost ($43). College application fees. I suppose he’ll want a graduation party and presents.

And we haven’t even mentioned whether he will go to senior prom.

Vermont Politics

Vermont politics are unique. It is, I think, the only state that requires a “Freeman’s Oath” upon registering to vote (at least, that’s what it was called for over two hundred years; since 1994 is has been called a “Voter’s Oath” thanks to an “inclusive language” bill). It also has democracy at its most basic, in the form of the annual “town meeting,” when you come out for the day, including a potluck, and discuss and vote on matters of concern.

The Selectmen of the town of Brattleboro have voted that among the items to be considered at Town Meeting is a resolution, submitted to them through a petition drive, on “whether President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should be indicted and arrested for war crimes, perjury or obstruction of justice if they ever step foot in Vermont.” Vermont is the one state Bush hasn’t visited since becoming president seven years ago.

“Stupid, Unjust, and Criminal”

That’s part of the title of Andrew Greeley’s latest book: A Stupid, Unjust and Criminal War: 2001-2007. He’s referring to Iraq. Reviewed by Tom Roberts at NCR.

No pacifist, Fr. Greeley nonetheless understands that even in what might be necessary wars, virtue is ultimately sacrificed on the battlefield. “War sucks everyone and everything into its vortex of wickedness. The wars against Japan and Germany were obviously necessary wars, and yet the victors … emerged with bloody hands.”

He is regularly condemnatory of the Bush administration and its conduct of the “unjust” war in Iraq and just as dismissive at times of the Democratic Party and its candidates, whom he labels “losers” and accuses of “cowardice.”

“An Evil Program” that Trains Young People “How to Murder”?

That’s how John Dear, SJ, describes high school ROTC.

When I was in high school ROTC, I recall being taught military history, drill, first aid, map reading, and the use of the M1903 Springfield rifle (bolt action, single shot). Murder wasn’t in the syllabus.

He says it is “shocking and scandalous” that a priest would be a military chaplain in Iraq or West Point. He doesn’t want priests teaching ethics or morality.

The problem is not chaplains teaching ethics or morality–problems arise when they don’t teach these subjects.

Dear doesn’t just want individual Christians to be noncombatants, he wants to eliminate militaries and weapons from the world. Does he also want to eliminate police forces? As long as there is sin, there will be need for the use of force–and scripture says this is in accordance with God’s will (Romans 13). Christians may choose not to participate, but no where does Scripture call on Christians to seek to take away police and military powers from secular governments.

It’s Mardi Gras Time

Galveston’s Mardi Gras festivities kick off this weekend. I probably won’t make it–I’ve only gone down once in nine years.

New Blog (to Me)

My brother, Jim, has joined the bloggers at Cahiers Péguy: the drama of Christian humanism (all members of the Communion and Liberation movement).

Military Service

Julius Nam, Pacifists or Legalists? Korean Adventism and Conscientious Objection/Cooperation (1950-1970).

Fr. Philip Powell

He didn’t send this to me (why not, Philip?), but I saw this at Mark Shea’s–Fr. Philip Powell, OP (who did his diaconate year with me) writes:

I need a tiny little favor.

My senior/grad theology seminar here at the Univ of Dallas is called “Postmetaphysical theologies.” The class has a blogsite called “suppl(e)mental.”

A major part of the students’ grades hangs on “doing theology” in public. My goal here is to acquaint these budding Catholic theologians with the weirdnesses of reading, writing, and writing about Christian theology for an audience outside the academy.

The theologies we will be covering in the seminar are decidedly non-Catholic, sometimes downright (though never explicitly) anti-Catholic, and represent some of the best contemporary theology out there. My goal here is to introduce my very, very orthodox theologians-to-be to the veritable circus of theological methods, vocabularies, personalities, and schools that push and pull the faith of the Church in both creative and destructive directions.

I see myself as something of a “Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

So, would you please link this blog (http://www.supple-mental.blogspot.com)? Maybe give the site (and the students) a little numbers boost.

They will start posting on the 29th and do so regularly until May.

Roe v. Wade IQ Test

How much do you know about Roe v. Wade? Take the Roe IQ Test.

I surprised myself–100%.

Putting a Face on Abortion

Patrick O’Hannigan reminds me of a graphic illustration of the abortion holocaust I posted some time ago.

Colman McCarthy on Ron Paul

National Catholic Reporter columnist Colman McCarthy looks at Ron Paul, and what attracts people to him.

Anthrax and the Road to War

Newsweek carries an excerpt from The Bush Tragedy, by Slate editor Jacob Weisberg.

Something that stands out is the role he says the anthrax scare of 2001 played in the decision to go to war in Iraq.

The anthrax attacks in New York and Washington created a sense of vulnerability that was in many respects greater than the mass murder at the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Inside the administration, the October bioterror attacks had a larger impact than is generally appreciated—one in many ways bigger than 9/11. Without the anthrax attacks, Bush probably would not have invaded Iraq.

Said one person close to Bush, “It was the hard stare into the abyss.”

A cynic might wonder if it was part of the plan. Whatever became of the investigation into those anthrax attacks? Many leads seemed to point to government insiders. But the investigation never went anywhere. Why? Were they orchestrated by hawks within the government to push the nation toward war? I’m not normally one for conspiracy theories, but given the timing, given the state of the investigation into them, given the phoniness of the “evidence” that was used–I remain suspicious.