What's the year: persecution watch!

Elsewhere I've linked to a brilliant satire of the doom and gloom over the current numbers in the Church, which takes us back to the dire straits the infant Church was in just after the Crucifixion  and reminds us of the rapid growth that occurred immediately after that first Pentecost.

But what really is the year?

The key question though is what year are we in now.

Is it truly AD 33, when, as Acts chronicles, the infant Church grew exponentially (albeit in the face of persecution)?

Is it instead AD 70, when, warned by the Spirit, Christians abandoned Jerusalem and thus escaped its razing to the ground by the Romans?

Or are we at some other point in history?

Last week we celebrated the 1700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, under which the Emperor Constantine granted freedom of religion to his subjects.  Yet today freedom of religion, and freedom of conscience is greatly under threat in the West, with harassment and persecution seemingly becoming more intense every year.

Some of course, view the Royal Commission into institutional child abuse in this light.  Personally, I'm hoping it will prove more akin to the experience of the Church at the time of the Emperor Julian the Apostate.  Back then, you might recall, virtually every bishop was an Arian heretic.  But Emperor Julian's rejection of the faith he had been brought up in ultimately did the Church a favour, by deposing all of them, thus allowing orthodox ones to take their place.  God uses all as he will, even those who oppose him!

Persecution watch

Elsewhere around the world though, it has to be said that the signs are looking pretty ominous.

In New Zealand, barely a month since passing legislation to permit same sex marriage, an organization called Family First (no relation to the Australian political party) faces deregistration as a charity because of its opposition to the legislation.

In the US, the IRS (Tax Office) has apparently being specifically targeting and attempting to intimidate pro-life and conservative organisations.

And in the UK, Catholic institutions have apparently been under the hammer long enough to have developed Stockholm Syndrome, with a Catholic Primary School bringing in a homosexual lobby group to conduct 'anti-bullying' training allegedly in response to one five year old telling another that his shoes looked gay...

There are many other such stories one could highlight of course, but on the face of it, the signs of the times suggest we need to be getting ready to flee!

Perhaps not literally.

But we do, I think, need to prepare our schools, hospitals and other institutions for the day when Government funding comes with too many strings attached (if it doesn't already!); for the day when we lose those exemptions from discrimination that allow the Church to employ (at least in theory) actually Catholic teachers for example; for the day when those institutions will be forced to close down operations such as adoption support and State recognised marriage celebration lest we be forced to support sin.

May the Holy Spirit strengthen us for what is to come!

Happy Pentecost!

Hard to go past the opportunity to listen to one of my favourite motets:

Latin prayer of the week: Veni Sancte Spiritus

As I've previously covered the hymn usually sung at Pentecost, Veni Creator Spiritus, I thought this week I would focus on the sequence sung at Mass throughout the Octave (assuming you are following the traditional calendar which still retains it!) Veni Sancte Spiritus instead.

Just a reminder though, that there is a plenary indulgence attached to singing or reciting the hymn publicly on the feast of Pentecost.

The 'Golden Sequence'

This sequence, one of the few remaining in the liturgy (Pope Pius V's reform of the Missal tossed most of them out), is most likely by the thirteenth-century Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton.

Here is the text as set out in the Compendium of the Catechism:

Veni, Sancte Spíritus,
et emítte cælitus
lucis tuæ rádium.

Veni, pater páuperum,
veni, dator múnerum,
veni, lumen córdium.

Consolátor óptime,
dulcis hospes ánimæ,
dulce refrigérium.

In labóre réquies,
in æstu tempéries,
in fletu solácium.

O lux beatíssima,
reple cordis íntima
tuórum fidélium.

Sine tuo númine,
nihil est in hómine
nihil est innóxium.

Lava quod est sórdidum,
riga quod est áridum,
sana quod est sáucium.

Flecte quod est rígidum,
fove quod est frígidum,
rege quod est dévium.

Da tuis fidélibus,
in te confidéntibus,
sacrum septenárium.

Da virtútis méritum,
da salútis éxitum,
da perénne gáudium. Amen.

And the translation given there is as follows:

Come, Holy Spirit, come!
And from your celestial home
Shed a ray of light divine!
Come, Father of the poor!
Come, source of all our store!
Come, within our bosoms shine.
You, of comforters the best;
You, the soul’s most welcome guest;
Sweet refreshment here below;
In our labor, rest most sweet;
Grateful coolness in the heat;
Solace in the midst of woe.
O most blessed Light divine,
Shine within these hearts of yours,
And our inmost being fill!
Where you are not, we have naught,
Nothing good in deed or thought,
Nothing free from taint of ill.
Heal our wounds, our strength renew;
On our dryness pour your dew;
Wash the stains of guilt away:
Bend the stubborn heart and will;
Melt the frozen, warm the chill;
Guide the steps that go astray.
On the faithful, who adore
And confess you, evermore
In your sevenfold gift descend:
Give them virtue’s sure reward;
Give them your salvation, Lord;
Give them joys that never end.

And here is a nice video via the excellent Corpus Christi Watershed site, that allows you to follow words and music with a line by line translation.

Corpus Christi: Is your diocese joining the worldwide adoration led by the Pope?

I mentioned a few weeks back that Pope Francis is planning to lead a worldwide Hour of Eucharistic Adoration the Sunday after Corpus Christi (or transferred celebration/External Solemnity thereof depending on which calendar you are following).

So what's the Australian response to the Vatican request to date?

Predictably, shall we say, mixed!

Here is what I could find on our Archdiocese's plans.  I'll keep updating this, keep it near the front page of the blog, and extend the listing to other dioceses over the next week or so.

What you can do!

If you live in one the Archdioceses listed below that have thus far shown no signs of having a Corpus Christi event, perhaps you could send a (polite) email to your Archbishop asking whether something is planned, and if not to suggesting he hold one.  If your diocesan website doesn't given a suitable email address, try going via the ACBC website.  Do let me know what response you get (offline is fine!).  Similarly, find out what is planned in your parish or community.

If you live in another diocese, check the website for your diocese, cathedral and parish, and follow up if there is nothing showing as yet.  And use the comments box (or email me offline) to publicise the results...

CORPUS CHRISTI ADORATION EVENTS

Melbourne

On 2 June in St Patrick’s Cathedral, at the conclusion of the 11am Solemn Mass , there will be a  Procession and Holy Hour until approximately 1:10 pm.   Parishes and communities have also been  invited to arrange a similar Holy Hour at a suitable time on that day, praying in union with Pope Francis for the needs of the Church.

Sydney

Nothing explicit that I could find on the link with the papal event, but the Archdiocese is advertising its annual Walk with Christ, starting from St Patrick's Church Hill at 2:30pm, and accompanied by shared prayers and hymns, the colourful procession culminates with Benediction at the St Mary's Cathedral forecourt and concludes at about 4:30 pm.

Brisbane

Has a website for its procession (though nothing that I could find on the Archdiocesan or Cathedral websites), which starts at 2pm on 2 June, but details area little sparse on the website as yet (I'm guessing that the map there is showing where it starts??!).

Perth

Nothing on the website.

Adelaide

Nothing listed - 2 June features a 'Mass for families with young children' event in the Cathedral instead.  Perhaps the Archbishop is preoccupied with the Maitland-Newcastle Inquiry?

Canberra

Nothing listed.  In the absence of  a bishop, the Archdiocese's priests seem to be running free, promoting the dubious 'visionaries' of Magigoogoo (coined by someone else, but I love it!) and other errors.

Hobart

Too busy promoting pagan Enneagram, Winter Solstice,  and 'Cosmic Christianity' events...

**The collapse of the English Church as a cautionary tale: is it too late to renew the Church in Australia?

The Vatican has just released its latest figures on the state of the Church, and they seem to continue the now well-established trend of decline in the West, growth in the 'global South'.

Some new data for England and Wales though, illustrates, just how bad the situation in the West really is.

Over the nine days I've posted some suggestions on how to go about reviving the Church here:

• raze the ecclesial bureaucracy;
• fix the liturgy - at a minimum, say the black, do the red!;
• actually use our parish churches;
• revive religious life;
• transmit the faith better by fixing schools, sacramental initiation and countering false theology;
• demanding that priests live up to their calling;
• come clean on the real state of things, and engaging the laity through transparency and accountability; and
• commit to the need to make converts to Catholicism.

But given that Australia seems to be pretty much on the same trajectory as the UK, the new data raises an important question: is it too late to revive the Church in Australia?

In twenty years, there will be more Muslims worshipping in the UK than Christians...

New census data shows that Christianity is declining much faster than previously thought in the UK, while Islam, as a result of immigration and conversion, is rapidly growing: 1 in 10 people aged under 25 is now a Muslim.

Like Australia, many of those who previously described themselves as Christian no longer do.  Like Australia, most Christians in the UK tend to be older, while Muslims tend to be younger.

In short, the latest analysis shows that the United Kingdom really is well on the way to becoming a Muslim nation.

The sad thing is that up until Vatican II, there seemed to be a very prospect that the United Kingdom might once again become Catholic, with conversions ('receptions') running at rates that had a demographic impact.

Conversions in England and Wales, Catholic Directory
Source: Latin Mass Society

Catholic Voices got it wrong...

A few weeks ago, Catholic Voices in the UK made a fairly outrageous claim, namely that there were now more priestly vocations in England and Wales than there had been in the 1950s.  It wasn't even vaguely true: in fact the numbers are far lower.

And to make it worse, Austen Ivereigh (currently in Australia, I believe, helping to train Catholic Voices Melbourne starters) instead of just selling the supposedly good news story, couldn't resist having a dig at traditionalists in the process, claiming on twitter that "some traditionalists finding it hard to accept [the claimed figures] Explodes persistent myth abt post Vat-II 'decline'".

Well it turned out those traditionalists were right, and in fact the situation is much much worse than anyone would have thought.

Catholic Voices apologised, but it stimulated some excellent work by the UK Latin Mass Society into the historical data to establish just how bad the situation really is there.

More Catholic marriages in 1912 than 2012!

In particular, the data, set out in a Latin Mass Society Press release and expanded on in some other posts linked to below shows that:

• priestly vocations in the UK, like Australia running at a relative high for recent years, are only 36% of the average level they were at in the 1950s;
• the number of Catholic marriages in 2011 was lower than in 1911, and the decline is even sharper when looked at on a marriages per 1000 Catholics basis.  The number of Catholic marriages collapsed by a third between 1968 and 1978;
• baptisms halved between 1964 and 1977 and continue to decline;
• before Vatican II, conversions were running at a rate to make that talk of the conversion of England a real prospect: between 1912 and 1960, well over half a million people were received into the Church.  But the rate of receptions collapsed in the early 70s and hasn't changed much since then. 

The solution?

Meanwhile in the UK, there is one area of growth, and that is in the traditionalist community.  As an article in The Economist noted late last year:

"The Latin Mass Society of England and Wales, started in 1965, now has over 5,000 members. The weekly number of Latin masses is up from 26 in 2007 to 157 now. In America it is up from 60 in 1991 to 420. At Brompton Oratory, a hotspot of London traditionalism, 440 flock to the main Sunday Latin mass. That is twice the figure for the main English one..."

In sum, as Catholics in the Ozarks has pointed out:

"You can spin the data any way you want, but the facts are the facts, and cannot be denied....

1. Attendance at contemporary vernacular masses is declining in the Roman Rite.
2. Attendance at traditional Latin or Anglican Use masses is increasing in the Roman Rite.
3. Attendance is more stable at vernacular masses celebrated according to to older traditional customs."

The numbers at Latin Masses is, of course, still tiny, and it isn't growing at a fast enough rate to offset the overall decline.

But perhaps the most important demographic fact about those Latin and conservative Masses is that those congregations, in Australia as for the UK and elsewhere, are, like the Muslim community and unlike mainstream Catholic parishes, invariably dominated by young families.

Australia

Are the trend lines for the collapse of the faith the same in Australia as for the UK?

I don't know whether the older data exists for this country to make possible a similar analysis (anyone got a pile of old Catholic Directories sitting around on their bookcase?), but certainly the data that is available is absolutely consistent with the UK pattern (albeit not necessarily matching particular years).

Remember that study of the religious orders in Australia done a few years back, 'See I'm Doing a New Thing' ? It showed, for example, that there were more religious in Australia in 1926 than there are now, despite the huge growth in our population since then.

It is true that the UK is still a few steps further down the path of secularisation and Islamisation than we are.   But you wouldn't want to count on that continuing to be the case.  On the secularist side we face the continuing push for same sex marriage, euthanasia and radical abortion laws, and some States and Territories are well down that track.  On the other side, there are parts of Sydney are already heavily Islamic coursey largely of immigration and large families.

It is worth keeping in mind though that we are up against a religion that is having considerable success at making conversions: in the United States, the latest available data shows that 40% of Muslims are converts.

By contrast, the Catholic Church in Australia in 2011 managed only 5,061 adult baptisms.

How many baptised converts were there?  Unfortunately there are no overall statistics readily available, but the numbers would appear to be minuscule: Sydney Archdiocese, one of Australia's stronger ones, this year boasted a whole 44 of them amongst its piddling 238 converts for the year!

The bishop problem

All of which raises the critical question, is it too late, or can a new evangelisation still succeed?

There are reasons for pessimism.

In Australia, as in the UK, the majority of our bishops are outright liberals at worst, or wishy washy middle of the roaders at best, who don't seem to have any interest in reviving the faith as such.

Are the new bishops making a positive difference?

We've had a number of new appointments over the last year or two.

Good things do seem to be happening in Parramatta.

But I'm told that nothing much has changed on the ground in places like Toowoomba and Sandhurst, where the old guard still have de facto control.

In Maitland-Newcastle, the Latin Mass continues to be effectively suppressed (apart from the odd guerilla raid) and the diocese is (understandably given that at least 10% of the dioceses priests seem to have been perpetrators, and many more involved in the cover up) focused primarily on damage control over the sex abuse scandal.

Armidale now at least finally has a website.  But is anything else happening there?  It is true that the latest statistics shows that Armidale is one of most Christian dioceses overall, at 75.8% of the population, but it isn't in the top five in terms of proportion of Catholics, nor were its last publicly available Mass attendance rates that great (12.5% in 2006).

In Perth, I keep hearing that previous positive initiatives are being suppressed, and all that healthy experimentation put a stop to.

Elsewhere the collapse continues: the case of Adelaide

And of course in the ultra-liberal dioceses like Adelaide, the collapse of the faith continues apace.

Consider, for example, the case of the parish of Willunga, located in the rapidly growing areas of Adelaide's southern suburbs.  A reader wrote to me:

"This parish is located in the outer southern suburbs of Adelaide and extends into the Fleurieu Peninsula.  There are 3 x Churches: Willunga, Aldinga (15 minutes apart) and Normanville (35 minutes away from Willunga & Aldinga).

However, our Priests live at Noalunga Centre and are responsible for a large parish there.  Noarlunga Centre is 25 minutes north of Aldinga.

Recently, the Priests also had to take on responsibility for another Parish further south on the Fleurieu Peninsula with 5 Churches.  It is an hour's drive from Noarlunga Centre to Victor Harbor or Goolwa, and at least an hour and a half to Kangaroo Island, not counting the 20km ferry crossing.  Each church on Kangaroo Island is at least an hour apart.

The result is that Mass can only be offered at some Churches once a month.  If you miss Mass, you don't have any other options.

Other Churches have different times on alternate weekends, which is quite confusing when you are trying to plan social events on a Sunday.

My local Church only offers Vigil Mass on Saturday nights.

This lack of choice for Mass is odd considering we are 'only' an hour from Adelaide CBD.  The population of the three parishes is actually increasing due to urban sprawl, and many parts of these parishes would consider themselves urban rather than rural in character.

But this is the reality of a serious lack of priests.  They are completely stretched to the limit..."

Indeed.  According to the latest statistics published by the ACBC Pastoral Research Office, Adelaide is the fifth largest diocese in Australia population wise, with 1.4 million people.  But under Archbishop Philip Wilson's watch it has become the second most secularised (after Hobart), with some 28.1% of its residents claiming no religion, and only 57.1% claiming to be Christian of any kind. And in 2010 the diocese had but 4 seminarians, not even vaguely enough to counter the ever declining number of priests there - in 2001, when Archbishop Wilson was appointed there were 92 diocesan priests; the latest figure from the 2012 Annuario is 73.

The seeds of destruction were sown, in most dioceses, well before the current incumbents took office.  But they have, in many cases, seemingly done their best to hurry things along through both their actions and inaction.

Is it too late?

Change does not, however, have always to be led from above.

I was recently reminded of that great quote from Bishop Fulton Sheen:

“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops and religious. It is to you, the people (LAITY). You have the minds, the eyes, the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act as priests, your bishops like bishops, and your religious act like religious.” (Address to the Knights of Columbus – June 1972)

That's part of the task of course.

We need to force our bishops to admit that there really is a problem (and not just with the size of the collection plate!) and to step up, and take the drastic action needed to fix things.

We need to encourage our priests to preach truth and take action to create genuine parish communities.

We need to encourage our religious to gt back into their habits, to go back to their convents, and to focus on tasks proper to their calling rather than trying to be political lobbyists.

We need to pray and work for vocations and support new orders.

But more than that, one of the few positives of Vatican II its seems to me, was its emphasis on lay action in its own right.  Contrary to the propaganda of theologians following Yves Congar on the one hand, and some traditional clergy on the other (unduly influenced, perhaps, by an overly literal reading of the pastoral prescriptions of the Council of Trent, but not perhaps aware of the actual practice of the Counter-Reformation and more importantly the thriving lay life that prevailed under Christendom), this emphasis is not counter to the tradition, but rather a revival of the reality that has prevailed through much of the Church's history.  If you look at practice in the middle ages, for example, the laity could and did vote with their feet, establishing guilds and sodalities, putting on miracle plays and  pilgrimages, supporting monasteries, and much more.

That's not to suggest that our efforts can be entirely independent of the hierarchy of course - of course what we do is subject to regulation for the common good.

But it was lay action that established most of the traditional communities in Australia, and lay action that can make the critical difference now if we are but brave enough to open ourselves to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit working within us.

Next?

I do hope you've found this series of interest.

It is getting lots of hits, but I'm never entirely sure where they are coming from - those among my targets worrying about what I'll say next, or actual supporters, so I do appreciate the comments I receive on and offlist!

There are of course many other things that could have been included on this list, and are essential to a revival: a return to the confessional and greater use of traditional devotions for example, so please do feel free to contribute your suggestions.

But I do hope I've at least stimulated your thinking, and your prayers.

And to help those along, here is the final day's prayer for the Holy Ghost Novena:

Come, O Divine Spirit, fill my heart with Thy heavenly fruits, Thy charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, faith, mildness, and temperance, that I may never weary in the service of God, but by continued faithful submission to Thy inspiration, may merit to be united eternally with Thee in the love of the Father and the Son. Amen.

Recite one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and seven Glory Be's.

You might also wish to say the consecration prayer, and prayer for the gifts:

ACT OF CONSECRATION TO THE HOLY GHOST

On my knees before the great multitude of heavenly witnesses I offer myself, soul and body to You, Eternal Spirit of God. / I adore the brightness of Your purity the unerring keenness of Your justice and the might of Your love. You are the Strength / and Light of my soul. In You I live and move and am. I desire never to grieve You by unfaithfulness to grace and I pray with all my heart! To be kept from the smallest sin against You. Mercifully guard my every thought and grant that I may always watch for Your light: and listen to Your voice and follow Your gracious inspirations. I cling to You and give myself to You and ask You / by Your compassion to watch over me in my weakness. Holding the pierced Feet of Jesus and looking at His Five Wounds / and trusting in His Precious Blood and adoring His opened Side and stricken Heart / I implore You / Adorable Spirit I Helper of my infirmity, so to keep me in Your grace that I may never sin against You. Give me grace O Holy Ghost, Spirit of the Father and the Son to say to You always and everywhere / "Speak Lord for Your servant heareth." Amen.

PRAYER FOR THE SEVEN GIFTS OF THE HOLY GHOST

O Lord Jesus Christ Who, before ascending into heaven did promise to send the Holy Ghost to finish Your work in the souls of Your Apostles and Disciples deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me that He may perfect in my soul / the work of Your grace and Your love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Your divine truth / the Spirit on Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining heaven, the Spirit of Fortitude, that I may bear my cross with You I and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God find know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable / the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, dear Lord with the sign of Your true disciples / and animate me in all things with Your Spirit. Amen.

**And for a complementary perspective (albeit more pessimistic on the prognosis) on this, do go read Joshua's commentary over at Psallite Sapienter.

***And for a brilliant humorous take on the source of our hope, have a read of Eccles and Bosco is Saved is saved.  Here is the beginning of it:

Church Membership in Decline

Jerusalem, Easter Day, AD 33. Shocking figures in this week's Catholic Herald (editor, Matthew Bar-Alphaeus) indicate that Church Membership, which stood at over 5,000 only a few months ago, has plummeted to around 25 (including 11 apostles, various people called Mary, a centurion, etc.)


Dr Joseph of Arimathea, of the Latin Mass Society, linked the decline to the wrenching changes in the Church produced by the Crucifixion. However, a new initiative, the Resurrection, was announced today; as a result there were predictions that around 500 people might be joining the Church within the next 40 days, with a corresponding increase in apostolic vocations. A further initiative was planned within 50 days....

Of course, the question is whether the year is 33 or AD 70, when the Christians, warned by the spirit and Our Lord's prophesies, fled Jerusalem in advance of its fall.

Holy Spirit Novena Day 8

Today's prayer for the Holy Spirit Novena is for the gift of wisdom:

Come, O Spirit of Wisdom, and reveal to my soul the mysteries of heavenly things, their exceeding greatness, power and beauty. Teach me to love them above and beyond all passing joys and satisfactions of the earth. Help me to attain them and possess them for ever. Amen.

Recite one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and seven Glory Be's.

Renewing the Church in Australia - Step 8?

And today, I've already talked about the problem of a lack of commitment to the basic concept of making converts to the faith in this country.  So rather than saying more about my own ideas for reviving the Church, I invite you to make your own suggestions...

Renewing the Church in Australia Step 8: Commit to the need for conversion to Catholicism!

Today Cath News strikes again with one of those classically erroneous Cath Blog posts, this time on the subject of the necessity of being baptised and/or a Catholic in order to get to heaven.

In short, today's post suggests that a Mormon woman interested in becoming a Catholic shouldn't bother, because she is clearly among the millions who will be saved since Christ died for all.  Is that the Churches teaching?  Well no!

I have to say that given the author's qualifications -  it is written by Dr Angela McCarthy, a lecturer in Theology in the School of Philosophy and Theology at the University of Notre Dame in Perth - Cath News' editor is perhaps not to blame for thinking this piece was legitimate to run.  This seems to be a case where the scandal needs to be laid at the feet of whatever bishop gave Dr McCarthy permission to teach and has failed to revoke her license to continue doing so!

Is baptism necessary?

The post talks about a Mormon married to a Catholic wondering about whether, as she had been told by someone, she wouldn't make it into heaven with her husband and children since she hadn't been baptised.  The author claims that what she had been told was erroneous since "Jesus Christ died for us all, not just for some".

Sorry, but that is not in fact what the Church teaches.

In fact the Catechism of the Catholic Church reaffirms the traditional, formally defined doctrine that outside the Church there is no salvation, and baptism is indeed a necessity:

"The Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation. He also commands his disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and to baptize them. Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament. The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude; this is why she takes care not to neglect the mission she has received from the Lord to see that all who can be baptized are "reborn of water and the Spirit."...(CCC 1257)

Has Church teaching changed?

Unfortunately Dr McCarthy apparently subscribes to the 'doctrine can change' view'. She says:

"...The previous teaching propagated by Catholics that you had to be Catholic to go to heaven is not the doctrine of the Church but somehow the minds of people have not changed from that error.

There are millions of very good, faith-filled, people in this world who have not, and who will never receive Baptism but who will be glorified after death because Jesus Christ died for us all, not just for some."

The traditional doctrine, which was formally defined at the Fourth Lateran Council is of course, is that membership of the Church is necessary for all men for salvation.  Sounds tough?  The Fourth Lateran Council declared that "The universal Church of the faithful is one outside of which none is saved" and that teaching has been reiterated many times since.

So no, the teaching hasn't changed!

It is true that the Church has always admitted some exceptions to the necessity of the sacrament of baptism: for Jews who died before the sacrament was instituted (hence all those Old Testament saints); for those catechumens who die before they are baptised, yet clearly went through the baptism of desire (CCC 1258); and those martyred for the faith, who receive a baptism of faith.

Some (such as the Feenyites) would admit of no other possibilities.

But in the absence of further formal definitions on these issues by the Magisterium there is room for some legitimate debate on what constitutes membership of the Church, for example.  And there is room for debate amongst theologians on questions such as what is necessary for the baptism of desire to occur.

Invincible ignorance

The wording of the Catechism above, for example, talking about the necessity of baptism for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed, points to the possibility of some other possible exceptions, based on the Council of Florence's teaching that:

"Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery." 

The Catechism links this the possibility of salvation to an implicit baptism of desire in cases of 'invincible ignorance':

"Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity." (CCC 1260)

It has to be remembered though that heaven is a free gift from God, not a right.

That we have received baptism, and been given the great grace of membership of the Catholic Church is something we should be daily giving thanks for!

And we need to keep at the top of our minds that we have to play our own part in the salvation of ourselves and others by responding to God's offer of grace.

Christ died for all, just as he made us all.

But as Sherry Weddell reminded those who have heard her speak recently, the classic requirement is that we respond to God's offer of salvation.  St Augustine, she pointed out, said:

“God who created you without you, will not save you without you” (Sermon 169, 13).

Discouraging conversion!

The particularly alarming aspect of today's Cath News post is that Dr McCarthy makes it clear that this is not a case of invincible ignorance: the woman in question is not only married to a Catholic, not only has children who are baptised, but is actually one of her (theology?) students!  And because of what she had been told, was actually thinking of becoming a Catholic:

"This had concerned her deeply and so she was considering joining Catholicism purely to be assured of an afterlife with those she loves the most."

If, as the post seems to suggest, Dr McCarthy told her not to worry, then she has surely committed a very grave sin indeed.  Regardless, her license to teach theology in a Catholic institution should surely be revoked in the light of this post.

God is free to save others

There are of course other areas of (legitimate) debate around who is saved.

What about others who have faith in God, but not the triune one for example?  I've heard some convoluted theological arguments purporting to justify a claim that Muslims can be saved for example.  Personally, I think such arguments are utterly unconvincing (except in the case of invincible ignorance), but it is of course true, as Dr McCarthy suggests, that we cannot know the mind of God, and that God is not himself bound by the sacraments.  

In particular, contrary to Dr McCarthy's claims, we cannot positively know that 'millions' will be saved, whether formally members of the visible Church or not.  Nor can we cannot predicate our actions and advice on the vague hope that God might choose to save others outside the visible Church.  

Renewing the Church in Australia: commitment to the need for converts!

Over the last several days, I've been talking about what needs to be done to renew the Church in Australia.  One of the most basic things needed would appear to be a renewed commitment to that biblical injunction to go out and make disciples of all nations!

God has given us his Church for a reason, and as the Catechism states, though God himself 'is not bound by his sacraments', he has 'bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism'.

That is why he instructed the disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and to baptize them.

Unless we truly believe this, the Church in Australia will die out.

A good start would be to put a stop to the subversion of the faith going on in so-called Catholic institutions, and the propagation of error by Catholic organisations such as Cath News...

And you can find the final part of this series here.

The bishops on life issues: some great new videos!

It is nice to have something positive to talk about by way of Australian Bishops' Conference initiatives for a change, and so I want to highlight one that looks to be very good indeed, namely three new videos (available online or as DVDs) on three key life issues, namely euthanasia, abortion and reproductive technologies.

There is a video introducing the series, starting with some context from Bishop Hurley, and then with some extracts from each of the three which you can watch over at the ACBC blog.

I've only watched the euthanasia one in full as yet, but it seems to be very good indeed, and as I've recently blogged on this topic, here it is:



Follow up?

I would note though, that at the moment at any rate, the new website contains nothing but the three videos.

There are some suggested links at the end of the video on euthanasia which I guess you could freeze the screen on to find, but it does seem to me that, as a minimum, these could usefully be put up separately on the website.

Ideally, of course, speaking from an educational/marketing perspective, there would be things like a leaflet summarising the main points of the DVD; FAQs on what is and isn't permissible; perhaps some more detailed material targeted at priests, medical practitioners, and family and friends of the dying; and suggested links for those who want to get engaged in the churches mission in this area.  There are other things that could be done too, such as an online forum where people could ask follow up questions (perhaps the various diocesan Life Offices could collaborate on managing it)?

Still, it's a useful start!

Renewing the Church in Australia Step 7: Engaging the laity through transparency and accountability

One of the biggest challenges, I think, for the revival of the Church in Australia, is actually mobilising the troops - and by troops I mean we, the laity, but also parish priests, religious and others - to help.

We can each take action on our own spiritual life, that necessary foundation for mission.  And we can each take advantage of the opportunities  providence provides to show forth our faith.

But ultimately we have leaders for a reason.  They need to point us in the right direction, they need to provide us with the information on the tactics that work, and with intelligence that let's us know whether or not our actions are contributing to the overall task, and are proving effectual or not.

In short we need genuine engagement between hierarchy and laity, and much more transparency and accountability.

Information for engagement

If you want to do something about an issue, you need to know its dimensions in order to shape appropriate action.

Once you are acting, you need to know whether or not what you are doing is actually working.

And typically, you need to share that information fairly widely in order to motivate people to act.

Yet most of the time, Catholics get given very little useful information indeed on what is happening in their church, unless they happen to be part of the magic inner circle.

Take parish finances.  I'm always bemused by the number of parish and community bulletins that include information on how much money members contributed - but absolutely none on how much is really needed, or what the money collected is actually being used for.  Yet on the face of it, people are much more likely to put more on the plate if they know the parish can't currently pay its heating bill, or needs to purchase new vestments, or whatever the issue is, than if you simply ask for 'more'!

Similarly, although the latest data on Mass attendance rates is now available, only one Australian diocese (Melbourne) has actually put up its 2011 figure on its website so far (as far as I've been able to find).  And how many parishes have told anyone outside the parish council how big the evangelisation challenge they face actually is, and  how many people have left since the last survey?  Where is the data for each diocese on baptisms and marriages mapped against all births and marriages for example?

Yet this seems to me to be vital intelligence that can be deployed to good effect, as the exemplary Parramatta Diocese pastoral planning process seems to be doing, for example, stirring up real signs of new life there.

Out with the old paradigm!

In order to tackle the sorry state of the Church in Australia, we have to face up to the real situation and be honest about the challenges we face.  We need to get everyone, not just the currently engaged few, on the same page.  In short, we need to mobilise.

So why are the hierarchy so reluctant to do that?

There are still, for example, no lay observers or, in contrast to the US, video-streamed public sessions of Australian Catholic Bishops Conference Plenary's for example.  In fact, only a couple of representatives of religious get to sit in.

A lot of data on the state of the Church in Australia is provided to Rome by dioceses - but very little of this appears on diocesan websites.

And even where dioceses have pastoral plans in place, where bishops issue pastoral letters that contain concrete measures, there seems to be little attempt to check that the measures have actually been implemented, evaluate their effectiveness, and share that information with those it impacts on.

Take the case of the Archdiocese of Sydney.  Its pastoral plan for 2008-2011 was lauded a few years back by AD 2000 as the answer to how to turn around the woeful state of the Australian Church.  But though its notional period of effect has long expired I could find absolutely nothing on the Archdiocesan website (or elsewhere) on how well it has or hasn't worked (and in reality, as far as I can work out, the answer seems to be a very mixed one).  Nor are there any signs of the next plan being formulated!

I don't think this kind of approach is tenable, if it ever was.

Accordingly, I think our leaders need to find new, much more open ways of engaging us, drawing on the tools of social media amongst others.

What's the Plan?

Michael Voris in one of his classically combative videos this week asked the question, What's the Plan?

That is, where is the bishops' master plan to revive the faith, not just manage the decline.`    

You can watch Voris' video over at Fr Ray Blake's blog, where you can also read the classic counter argument, that  men's 'cunning plans' tend to come to nothing, and attempts to come up  with them perhaps divert us from the supernatural vision, and God's supernatural leadership.

Now given this series you won't be surprised to know that I'm actually with Mr Voris on this one.

Yes, we need God's guidance on whatever form the plan should take.  And yes, we need to remember that nothing will succeed without God's grace.  We need to keep in mind that even what are perceived as failures in the world's eyes might actually turn out to be successes in the longer run: the blood of the martyrs, after all, has often been the seed of the church.

All the same, God expects us to employ all of the tools at our disposal in his cause: grace perfects nature; it doesn't displace it altogether.

And it seems to me that analysing the data, developing plans for the future, engaging people on those plans, and measuring success are tools we should be using.

Why is it, then, that many in the Church are so reluctant to genuinely engage the laity on the future of the Church?

Scared of debate?

One of the challenges of living in a post-modern, socially networked world is how to make decisions and engage in debate.

It is a problem for politics, but it is also a problem for the Church.

It has never really, I think, been the case that decisions were simply taken at the top, handed down and obeyed: there have always been formal and informal routes of influence; insiders and outsiders to the decision-making process.

What has changed, I think, is that those who typically remain outside the formal processes and under the radar have now been empowered by social media.

There are a lot of people (and I'm one of them) that tend to hang around the fringes of parishes, reluctant to get actively involved for various reasons.  One of the issues, I think, is that natural human tendency to want to welcome newcomers on our terms, happy to have them so long as they don't challenge the status quo.  Yet in reality the very reason many of us stay on the fringes is that we aren't happy with the status quo, but know that any challenge to it will not be welcomed (to put it mildly).  And that's also the reason many end up either going somewhere else,  or stop practising altogether.

Somehow or other, we need, I think, to find a way to engage those people on the fringe, and have the debate that needs to be had in a positive way.

How to have a (real) debate

There was an interesting rant this week that appeared in a number of forums called Why Australia hates thinkers.  It was basically a complaint about the strong anti-intellectual tradition in Australia, the intense dislike of public debate at the level of ideas.

Now as is often the case the author, Alecia Simmonds, went too far on a number of counts.  As Jeff Sparrow has pointed out on New Matilda, amongst other problems she seems to conflate the concept of intellectual with academic; she confuses the lack of left wing space in the public sphere with lack of space altogether; and seems to have some expectation that the pearls of wisdom imparted by the apparently delicate flowers of the liberal left should be applauded, rather than having to be defended through polemical debate.

Still, I do think there was something to Ms Simmonds original comments, in us much as within the Church and outside it, our culture devotes a lot of effort to preserving at least the illusion of decision-making by consensus, even though achieving this means marginalizing and excluding those with views challenge that consensus, rather than actually engaging with them in a meaningful way.

The recent manoeuvres around the National Disability Insurance Scheme, where a business leader was ridiculed for pointing to the effects of increased taxation on his industry, and the Opposition Leader forced into supporting the levy rather than being painted as being against the disabled in an election campaign, was a classic example of this in the secular sphere.  Now in that particular case, the ultimate outcome was probably the right one, but one can think of plenty of counter-examples - Australia's treatment of asylum seekers for example, or less controversially for this blog, abortion and euthanasia - where ridiculing and de facto exclusion of the alternative perspective seems likely to lead to less than optimal outcomes.  

Within the Church, the effective exclusion of traditionalists from the Churches consultative structures in this country, and the failure to engage those at the margins of parishes (and other communities) who might challenge the status quo, is, it seems to me, another manifestation of the same cultural problem.

The Benedictine model

In my view, there are actually models for engagement of the troops and decision-making that actually provide a way through these issues.  As I favour Benedictine spirituality, I'm going to propose that particular one, but there are others.

The model proposed by St Benedict is not about consensus decision-making.  In the end, the Abbot makes the important decisions within the monastery.

But St Benedict does impose a duty on the abbot to hold council meetings involving all, and to listen carefully to the views of all, even the newest and youngest, indeed, even to visiting outsiders lest they have been sent by God for that very purpose.

There is a nice exposition on the tension between our desire for consensus decision-making and our reluctance to obey in the latest installment (15 May) of The Abbot's Notebook from the US Christ in the Desert Monastery, chronicling the shift of the monastery from post-Vatican II experimentalism to a more traditional model.  When the monastery was established, Abbot Philip Lawrence relates, they wanted everything to be done by consensus: consensus was in, obedience to the abbot was out.  When they were admitted to a Benedictine Congregation, they were told this was not how Benedictine monasticism worked.  They complied, but hoped to maintain a consensus based approach as much as possible.

Similar tensions remain in the Church today, the Abbot suggests, with many Catholics reluctant to accept the divinely instituted nature of the Church and the limits on debate that imposes.

And it seems to me that the hierarchy's reluctance to engage stems from the fear that if they do open up the debate, Catholics are demonstrably reluctant to respect the limits set by the Church, and to accept the pastoral decisions that are made within those bounds.

Still, I think there are styles of leadership, ways of engaging that can work in the contemporary framework.  Indeed, Pope Francis' daily homilies seems to be an excellent example of just such a style of operation.

It won't be easy or painless.

But it is necessary.

***Making nuisances of ourselves

Pope Francis' latest week day sermon is very pertinent to this, talking about St Paul's talent Saint Paul for ‘being a nuisance’, at unsettling people who had grown too comfortable in their faith and imbuing them with that Apostolic zeal that is necessary for the Church to move forward.

Vatican Radio reports:

Pope Francis said that Apostolic zeal, implies "an element of madness, but of spiritual madness, of healthy madness” and proclaiming Christ has its consequences, which can often result in persecution. Nonetheless, stated the Pope, we must not be ‘backseat Christians’ cozy in our comfort zones. 

Drawing inspiration from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 22, where Paul was brought before the Sanhedrin, Pope Francis pointed out that the life of the Apostle to the Gentiles was one of "persecution", but that this did not discourage him. The fate of Paul, he stressed, "is a fate with many crosses, but he keeps going, he looks to the Lord and keeps going":

"Paul is a nuisance: he is a man who, with his preaching, his work, his attitude irritates others, because testifying to Jesus Christ and the proclamation of Jesus Christ makes us uncomfortable, it threatens our comfort zones – even Christian comfort zones, right? It irritates us. The Lord always wants us to move forward, forward, forward ... not to take refuge in a quiet life or in cozy structures, no?... And Paul, in preaching of the Lord, was a nuisance. But he had deep within him that most Christian of attitudes: Apostolic zeal. He had its apostolic zeal. He was not a man of compromise. No! The truth: forward! The proclamation of Jesus Christ, forward! ".

We need to encourage each other to become holy nuisances!

You can find the next part in this series here.

Pope Francis on priests and bishops as wolves!

Yesterday in my series on Renewing the Church in Australia, I wrote about the priest problem.  Pope Francis' latest daily sermon was on just this issue, so I thought I'd give you the highlights reported in the media by way of a follow up.

And there is another useful bit of data I want to highlight on the participation of women in the Church too.

First though, for those who need to catch up the series so far covers:

• our problematic ecclesial bureaucracy, including the Office for the Participation of Women, Office of Film and Broacasting and Caritas Australia;
• the ongoing issue of liturgical abuse;
• bringing to life our closed and empty parish churches;
• reviving religious life; and
• the importance of priests.

Today's novena prayer: counsel

Later today I'll post today's part in the series, on the importance of greater transparency and accountability in the revival of the Church.  In the meantime though, you might want to pray and meditate on today's gift of the Holy Spirit in the traditional Novena, for the gift of counsel.

Come, O Spirit of Counsel, help and guide me in all my ways, that I may always do Thy holy will. Incline my heart to that which is good; turn it away from all that is evil, and direct me by the straight path of Thy commandments to that goal of eternal life for which I long. Amen.

You should also recite one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and seven Glory Be's.

And if you want to say the consecration prayer and daily prayer for the gifts, you can also find them here.

Pope Francis on careerist wolves

Yesterday's reading at Mass in the Ordinary Form was actually on the very topic I posted on yesterday (curiously I hadn't realised that as we actually got the wrong reading at the Mass I went to!).  Here is what Pope Francis has to say on the topic from CNA/EWTN:

"Pope Francis said on Wednesday that bishops and priests must take care to avoid temptations in order to be an effective shepherd, protecting their flock from dangers.

He urged the Catholic faithful to pray for bishops and priests, “because if we go on the road to riches, if we go on the road to vanity, we become wolves and not shepherds.”

The Pope’s words came in his May 15 homily in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae residence at the Vatican.

“A bishop is not a bishop for himself,” Pope Francis said. “He is for the people, and a priest is not a priest for himself. He is for the people: to serve, to nurture them, to shepherd them, who are his flock – in order to defend them from the wolves.”

When the bishops and priests do this, he said, they foster a “relationship of protection and love” between God and the pastor and between the pastor and the laity.

This shows “a true love” that unites the Church, he explained...

He cited St. Augustine’s commentaries on the prophet Ezekiel. Augustine warned against the temptations of wealth and vanity, when the bishop and priest “take from the people,” make deals and become “attached to money.”...

A bishop or priest on “the road to vanity” is one who “enters into the spirit of careerism – and this hurts the church very much,” the Pontiff said. Such a man “ends up being ridiculous: he boasts, he is pleased to be seen, all powerful – and the people do not like that!”...

He urged bishops and priests to pray much and to “boldly preach the message of salvation.”

The role of priests and the influence of women in Australia

And finally, on a side note to my post on the dubious case for the existence of the ACBC Office of the Participation for Women, particularly given the erroneous ideas they seem to be propagating, some interesting new research from the 2011 NCLS Operations Survey for Catholic Parishes, published by the ACBC Pastoral Research Office (PRO).

It shows that far from lacking visibility and influence in the Church, women hold pretty much all of the offices open in parishes aside from those reserved to the ordained clergy.

The survey shows that while the vast majority (95%) of parishes continued to be led by a parish priest (ie the majority of parishes continue to be led by a priest except of course in the ultra-liberal dioceses of Bathurst, Maitland-Newcastle, Broome, Hobart, Sandhurst and Toowoomba), in practice the priest alone was the leader in only 29% of parishes. Many of the responding parishes, the PRO reports, indicated that the leadership of the parish could best be described as a team, including both ordained and non-ordained members.

But here is the key result.  The PRO's Newsletter No. 2 states that:

"Parishes were asked about the types of leaders in the parish, their working arrangements and demographics. The 163 responding parishes indicated that, with the exception of the ordained roles, most other roles in the parish were predominantly held by women."

And guess what, youth workers aside, most of them were aged 40 plus (with overwhelmingly female pastoral associates are predominantly aged 60 plus).

So either the Office for the Participation of Women was never needed in the first place.

Or it has succeeded all too well, and can now be abolished so that priests can wrestle back their role from the aging blue rinse set.

Prayer and penance for Cardinal O'Brien: but what about Bishop Robinson and others?!

The Vatican has announced that Cardinal O'Brien of Scotland will leave Scotland for several months of prayer and penance.

That seems an entirely appropriate first step.

But it begs some questions, first about his own punishment, and secondly about the several other Cardinals and bishops whose crimes (canonical and otherwise) have become public scandals.

Such as former Sydney Auxiliary Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, who has just put out a new book advocating the ordination of women and other errors.

And to there is, as the ever excellent Fr Ray Blake has pointed out, the question of how many others are still lurking in the ranks of the episcopacy.

Cardinal O'Brien

Cardinal O'Brien, you will recall, was quickly retired, and decided not to attend the papal conclave after his double-life as a practicing homosexual was revealed a few months back.  The worst of the accusations were that he had propositioned seminarians under his authority.

Since then there have been assorted reports as to what would happen to him, and he seemed to be preparing to move  into a cottage for his retirement.

That is now on hold, as a Holy Office Press statement says:

“His Eminence Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien, archbishop emeritus of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, for the same reasons he decided not to participate in the last Conclave, and in agreement with the Holy Father, will be leaving Scotland for several months for the purpose of spiritual renewal, prayer, and penance. Any decision regarding future arrangements for His Eminence shall be agreed with the Holy See.”

Deposing Cardinals

Prayer and penance is obviously a good place to start, but it begs the question of why he is still a Cardinal.

The title of Cardinal is different to that of bishop.  A bishop can, at least in theory be laicized, but as with a priest, his orders remain valid.  By contrast, Cardinal is not strictly a degree of Holy Orders, but rather a rank of honour that can be given - and taken away.

There seems no prospect that Cardinal O'Brien could continue to serve the Pope in the care of the universal Church, or take part in another conclave should the opportunity arise.  And he certainly doesn't meet the canonical selection criteria of being 'outstanding in doctrine, virtue, piety and prudence in practical matters'!  So why not just depose him from the office of Cardinal?  

Similar questions arise in relation to other 'retired' Cardinals such as Cardinal Mahony.

Cardinal O'Brien has at least acknowledged his crime, and agreed to do penance.  

Cardinal Mahony, by contrast, is still defiantly tweeting and blogging away, and even performing confirmations, thus continuing to undermine the credibility of the Church in the US, as well as the clean-up work on the abuse scandal of his successor.

Those retired bishops

And he is not the only bishop who continues to use his teaching authority to undermine the faith.

Consider the case of former Sydney Auxiliary Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, whose latest book 'For Christ's Sake' once again advocates heresy and error.  His last effort earned at least vague condemnations from the ACBC.  This one needs to be swiftly condemned too.

There are some who argue that ignoring these kinds of books is the best approach - condemning it will just drive up sales.  In some cases, such as Fr Kevin Lee's 's defamatory zamisdat 'confessions' that might be true. 

But in this case, we have a book published by a reputable publisher (indeed one used for many official and semi-official publications) whose title page gives him the title of bishop.  If acatholics want to read it precisely because the Church rejects it that's their choice, but the unsuspecting deserve to know its real status.

Knowledgeable doubters are a rare breed...

There are some, such as current US visitor Sherry Weddell of the US Catherine of Siena Institute, who claim that the crying need for Catholics is not catechesis, or focus on the liturgy, but rather something operating at a much earlier stage in the learning curve that primes us for a sense of and relationship with God.

The more traditional position, to which I subscribe, is that to develop a strong relationship with God we need above all to know him, and that includes intellectual knowledge, as well as experience of him in the liturgy.

And that position - which goes to the need for guidance from the hierarchy on books such as Bishop Robinson's - has just gained some support from some interesting new work from the US Center for Applied Research on the Apostolate (CARA).


A couple of years back a US Pew Forum survey found that 45% of US Catholics did not know do not know that the church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion do not merely symbolize, but actually becomes, the body and blood of Christ.

The latest CARA research, though has, found that while half of self-identified adult Catholics (50%) are unaware of what the Catholic Church formally teaches, 63% of them nonetheless do actually believe that "at the Consecration during a Catholic Mass, the bread and wine really become the body and blood of Jesus Christ."

How do they reach this view?

Apparently most people who believe in the Real Presence are what the researchers call "knowledgeable believers," the 46% of adult Catholics who are aware of the Churches teaching about the Real Presence and believe it to be true.   But there are another 17% of  "unknowing believers" who believe in the Real Presence but who are unaware that this represents a Church teaching.

Importantly, most of those who don't believe in the Real Presence seem to be just ignorant: 33% of those surveyed were simply unaware of the teaching.

Indeed, according to the research only 4% of those surveyed knew the teaching and rejected it, making them formal heretics.

The conclusion from the CARA research:

"Now we know that lack of belief in the Real Presence is more a problem of religious education than of doubt."

Would the results be similar for Australia?  If any research has been done on this, it is not (yet) public. But I'd be prepared to bet the results wouldn't be all that different.

We need bishops and priests to teach truth!

Renewing the Church in Australia Step 6: Fixing the priest problem!

Today's prayer in the Holy Ghost Novena is for the gift of understanding:

Come, O Spirit of Understanding, and enlighten our minds, that we may know and believe all the mysteries of salvation; and may merit at last to see the eternal light in Thy light; and in the light of glory to have a clear vision of Thee and the Father and the Son. Amen. 

Knowledge vs understanding

Knowledge, which was the subject of yesterday's novena prayer, and understanding, are of course very closely related.  St Thomas Aquinas differentiated between them as follows:

"...two things are requisite in order that the human intellect may perfectly assent to the truth of the faith: one of these is that he should have a sound grasp of the things that are proposed to be believed, and this pertains to the gift of understanding...while the other is that he should have a sure and right judgment on them, so as to discern what is to be believed, from what is not to be believed, and for this the gift of knowledge is required."

Through the gift of understanding, then, we are able to penetrate to the core of the truths of the faith, see the connections between them, and acquire a sense of certitude in revealed truths.

Yet though understanding is a gift of the Holy Spirit, as is present in all who are in a state of grace, the extent of the gift we receive depends on it being cultivated aright.

Yesterday I looked at some general aspects of the transmission of the faith.  Today I want to look at the priest problem in this regard.

The responsibility of priests

The book of the prophet Hosea provides an indictment against the people of Israel: instead of serving God they have committed adultery, chasing after false gods; instead of cultivating virtue, they have given themselves over to immorality.

Hosea's words are alas, all too pertinent to our own times where few can truly claim to follow the commandments, where killing infants and the old is given polite euphemisms such as abortion and euthanasia; and all too many claiming to be Catholic have become of the world rather than simply living in it.

Hosea warns: a people without understanding shall come to ruin.

But this warning about lack of understanding comes after an extensive treatment on just who is to blame, viz priests for their failure to teach:

"...There is no faithfulness or kindness, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, killing, stealing, and committing adultery they break all bounds and murder follows murder...Yet let no one contend, and let none accuse, for with you is my contention, O priest...My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children...And it shall be like people, like priest; I will punish them for their ways, and requite them for their deeds." (RSV)

Our Lord of course, reiterates this theme a number of times, particularly in the Sermon on the Mount and the warnings about wolves in sheep's clothing; and his repeated teaching to the disciples that their role is to serve, not be served.

The sorry state of the priesthood

There are of course some excellent priests in most dioceses, who faithfully teach the faith and serve their people.

They say Mass at times that suit the congregation rather than themselves, sit in the confessional for extended periods, visit the sick on a timely basis and seek out those who need counsel or correction; they teach the actual faith and not some other; maintain a strong prayer life; and live simply and humbly without seeking the applause of the world.

But the reality is that they are relatively few and far between.

And that few are able to live up to the ideal is not entirely their own fault, but in large part a failure of diocesan and other systems.

Let's leave aside for today the problem of those sexually depraved men who preyed on their flocks, who destroyed the lives of God's little ones; and the even worse problem of those who failed to stop them.

Let's focus instead on the much bigger problem of those who have utterly failed to teach the faith, or worse still, actively lead their flocks astray through their false teaching.  Those who fail to inspire their people to aspire to holiness and mission; and those who fail to build effective communities.

What can be done?

Let priests be priests...

The first priority must surely be for bishops to deploy their ever decreasing numbers of priests in ways that ensure that the sacraments - most especially confession - are actually available.  That means co-ordinating across parish boundaries, for example, on things like weekday Mass times, since in cities at least most people have access to transport.

In my own diocese for example, Masses are not readily available near each of the major town centres  of Canberra (and the one place where it is, Civic, the diocese is trying to close it down!).  Nor can confession readily be found anywhere in the city other than on Saturdays.

Yet there are small but powerful things that can be done - in Parramatta for example, Bishop Fisher has appointed five 'Canons Penitentiary', priests designated to hear confessions in the Cathedral to ensure that confession is available daily.

Priests are not meant to be sacramental machines, however, confecting the Eucharist, and then leaving it to the laity to deliver it to the rest of us, whether as the all too ubiquitous 'Special Ministers' or taking the Eucharist to the sick and bedridden.  Rather, priests are meant to be pastors of souls, and that means getting to know their people and supporting them spiritually, sacramentally and in practical ways, especially at times of crisis.

In many cases, it seems to me, too much of a priest's time is sucked up on bureaucratic tasks and committees that could reasonably delegated to laypeople, while laypeople are left to undertake the task that should be done by priests.

Formation and ongoing support

Of course, in order to undertake their real role, priests need to be trained properly; they need to  receive ongoing mentoring from an experienced priest; they need ongoing professional development; and they need fatherly support from their bishop.

How do you do this when priests are so scarce?

Diocese, secular institutes and religious orders need, I think, to get quite a bit more creative.

There are plenty of models out there in the secular world, including use of  social networking forums that could help overcome the isolation many priests feel, and provide the resources they need so people do not have to constantly reinvent the wheel.

The Gaudium et Spes generation

The biggest problem facing the Church today though, is surely the legacy of that era when seminaries rejected or weeded out anyone who looked vaguely traditional in their outlook; failed to provide a solid moral and spiritual formation to seminarians; and left their graduates with a thoroughly modernist theological education.

Many of course simply left.  Some kept their heads down but sought out alternative, more solid sources of formation either then or subsequently.  But all too many, alas, are continuing to live out the legacy of that era, with dire consequences both for their own souls and those of their flocks.

There are some who advocate the 'biological solution', viz waiting things out until they are replaced by the younger generation of more conservative priests.

Maybe that is an option in some places where there actually are vocations, but what about those many dioceses where there are few or none?  The hard reality is that even with the recent upsurge in vocations, there are not nearly enough priests coming in to replace those who are dying.  And there are very many more dioceses who, all things being equal, will have to do what Wellington in New Zealand is currently looking at, namely closing literally 50% of its parishes.

More importantly perhaps, I don't think the Church can afford to write off so many of its own people.

What can we do?

The first and most basic thing the laity can do, I think, is to support efforts for priests to reclaim those tasks that are properly theirs, and help them with the things that unnecessarily distract them from their main role.  When asked to take the Eucharist to the home-bound, for example, perhaps we should question the appropriateness of this, and ask if there is some other task we can take on to free up the priest so he can do it himself?

Secondly, I think we have to be prepared to say that there are some situation where no priest is better than the one we have!

I think we need to encourage bishops to take tough action where priests are not teaching the faith or doing the other things necessary to promote it.  And if that means a parish or community has to devote itself to praying for vocations and saying the Office instead of having Mass regularly, well people have survived that in times past.

Where a priest isn't doing what he should, the first option should ideally be an intensive course of professional (re-) education to address the deficiencies of the seminary and post seminary educations of most priests.  Part of that will be about the basics of theology and spirituality.  But equally important will be a fresh push on forming effective communities and focus on how to form the laity to undertake the 'new evangelization'.  And if that means time out from the parish, so be it.

Of course, this requires good, strong committed bishops.

And on that front, our main recourse at the moment is prayer.

You can find the next part of this series here.

Renewing the Church in Australia Step 5: Transmit the faith!

I mentioned a few days back, three key tasks for the Church: the worship of God, the transmission of the faith, and good works.  Today I want to focus on the second of these, the transmission of the faith.

The gift of knowledge

Today's prayer for the Holy Ghost Novena is for the gift of knowledge:

Come, O Blessed Spirit of Knowledge, and grant that I may perceive the will of the Father; show me the nothingness of earthly things, that I may realize their vanity and use them only for Thy glory and my own salvation, looking ever beyond them to Thee, and Thy eternal rewards. Amen. 

The gift of knowledge is intended to enable us to grasp the truths of the faith easily and profoundly: it enables us to know to live; it gives us insight into the what we should and should not believe and do.

Yet like all the gifts of the Holy Spirit it is meant to perfect nature, not supplant it: we should not expect, save in exceptional cases, God to provide by immediate light that knowledge which we can and ought to be taught by our parents and teachers, or acquire for ourselves by study.

Unfortunately this assumption - that amounts to sheer presumption in my view - seems to have been at the root of much of what continues to pass for catechesis in Australia and elsewhere in recent times.

Knowing 'the story'

 Reading Acts, one is presented a couple of times with the basic 'story' of the faith in sermons by SS Peter and Paul.

It is a story that starts from the Old Testament, from the creation of the world, through the fall of man, continues in God's promises to the patriarchs and prophets, embraces his saving action through history, and places Christ's mission into this context.

If you read the catechetical works of the early Church, such as St Augustine's Instructing Beginners in Faith, you will find a similar framework.

Why is it then, that instead of connecting the Mass to this Scriptural narrative, for example, the Australian Bishops paid for and endorsed a website aimed at school children called 'Together at One Altar' that instead of teaching what the sacrifice of the Mass is actually about (indeed you will be hard pressed to find the word 'sacrifice' actually used) focuses the narrative on Vatican II and its promotion of  'active participation'?

What use is it to tell someone about how to participate if they don't actually get taught what they are truly meant to be participating in?!

It is as if St Peter said, in those sermons, Jesus came not to save, but to tell you Pharisees and Scribes that you are just wrong; or as if St Paul should have started his preaching in the Areopagus not with the universal mystery of God, but with the Council of Jerusalem, saying the Jewish faith is out, this is all a new thing, isn't that great!

Instead of being given the big picture of Scriptural history; instead of being taught the subsequent story of how the Church's understanding of the faith has been crystallized into dogma in response, on the one hand to the challenge of error, and on the other hand, through the prayer, meditation and study of the saints and doctors, we have been fed, and continue to allow our children to be fed, the pap of 'experiential' approaches.  Instead of being taught the prayers and devotions that have enabled Catholics down the ages to cultivate their faith, everything 'old' was dumped in the name of 'adapting to the times'.

It is past time to acknowledge that these approaches have utterly failed to transmit the faith and start afresh!

What must be done?

1.  Fix the schools.  A reader suggested, in a comment on an earlier post that part of the razing of the ecclesial bureaucracy that I was suggesting needs to occur should be scrapping our Catholic Education Offices and starting again.

I agree.  Look at the websites of many diocesan CEOs and you will see that they are very much part of the problem not the solution, promoting bad theology and poor practice.

If Catholic schools aren't turning out practising Catholics with a solid knowledge of their faith, then they are failing in their most critical mission.  It is simply not good enough to blame it on the parents - yes, they are the primary educators, but they are themselves mostly uncatechised, and have by dint of enrolling their child in a Catholic school asked for help in this task.

Nor should Catholic schools justify their existence on the basis of academic and social development alone - a Church institution should not be just another private school/NGO!

Are there any dioceses that are succeeding?  Sydney Archdiocese, for example, does at least seem to be trying, but despite some positive initiatives, and a good deal of rhetoric in form of charters and the like, there is no actual concrete evidence offered on their website to suggest they are actually succeeding.  The annual reports/accountability statements provided on religious education for example, look to be pretty wishy washy and vague, at least on the small sample I looked at.

And in any case, fixing our schools will require much more than improving the content of religious education courses.

We need to recover the genuinely Catholic ethos of Catholic schools.  That means things like reducing the number of non-Catholics who attend them from the around 30% plus (depending on school or diocese) currently to less than 5%, even if that means closing some schools.  It means reintroducing the Angelus and other prayers, said daily.  It means insisting that all teachers take fidelity oaths, and finding habited religious to teach.

2.  Restore the traditional order of the reception of the sacraments

Prior to Pope Pius X, the order of the reception of the sacraments was baptism; confirmation; Confession; Eucharist.  Pope Benedict XVI, in Sacramentum Caritatis (18) opened up the possibility of returning to this traditional order, and some bishops overseas have taken up his invitation.

In my view, getting confirmation in earlier, so that children enter their turbulent teenage years strengthened by the sacrament, rather than receive it at a time they are typically questioning their faith, has a lot to recommend it.

It would mean, however, that a way would need to be found to ensure that subsequent catechesis does continue to happen!

3.  Provide more guidance when it comes to theology and Scripture!

The biggest elephant in the room, though, it seems to me, continues to be the flood of books and other material around that promote outright heresy, or even not outright erroneous, undermine the foundations of the faith for those without sufficient theological training to put them in context.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the Compendium, for example are excellent resources, but where are the Catechetical courses in each diocese based on them?

And when it comes to works on theology, while I wouldn't suggest a return to the index of prohibited books, I do think there is room for a lot more guidance to be provided.  Instead of the ACBC worrying about film reviews, for example, perhaps it might devote some resources to guides to what the strengths and weaknesses  - and outright errors - of various popular texts used in our Universities and theological institutes, being promoted by assorted ex-priests and/or retired bishops, used in parishes, or that are current best sellers.  Perhaps, too, more effort could be put into promoting the use of imprimateurs - statements that a book is free of doctrinal error (and to making sure that this really is the case!).

Above all, if one actually wants Catholics to read Scripture (which I do think is essential), work needs to be done to provide better, thoroughly orthodox resources to help Catholics do that.  In the nineteenth century Blessed Cardinal Newman translated St Thomas Aquinas' Catena Aurea of the Fathers on the Gospels, for example, as an aid for families in this regard.  If there is a good commentary that integrates the insights of the Fathers and the subsequent tradition with the useful insights of modern scholars without succumbing to assorted modernist errors, I for one haven't found it. Yet this seems like an obvious priority.

You can find the next part of this series here.