The Ark and The Dove

The Magisterium can change her mind (and that's okay)

In response to the sad occasion of blogger Bill Cork leaving the Catholic Church, Zippy Catholic points out:
A Catholic submits to Peter knowing full well - or at least responsible for knowing full well - that Peter hasn't promised, when it comes to a great many things, not to change his mind. A Catholic submits to Peter because Peter is the Vicar of Christ, given the keys by Christ.

And as a commenter points out:
You can't avoid obeying a fallible human, because even if you reject everyone else's opinion and do what seems right to you, you are simply another one of those fallible humans.

So, the question becomes, given that I have no choice but to follow the opinion of a fallible human, has God selected any particular fallible human for me obey in certain matters?

I think that not understanding this is a serious problem for many.  Progressives and Radical Traditionalists both make such a mistake.  I can't tell you how often I see people say, "You used to say X (which was good or bad) and now you say Y (which is bad or good) violating non-contradiction standards and thus either you were the true church and have ceased to be so, or you never were and never will be.

St. Luke's Passion

I went to the Dominicans for Mass this morning and the homilist (Fr. John Langlois) said something very interesting (as Dominicans are in the habit of doing).

He said that the bit about the Good Thief on the cross (which is mentioned in St. Luke but not in the other Gospels) is the Parable of the Prodigal Son lived out.  He drew parallels between the son's humble request and the good thief's and between the father's joyfully superabundantly generous reply and Jesus'.  As evidence that these parallels are something he read out of the text rather than read into it, he pointed out that St. Luke is also the only one to have the parable of the Prodigal Son.

Is it not written in your Law, "I said, 'You are gods'"?

From what I understand of Plotinus, who was one of the last big pagan Platonist philosophers of classical antiquity, he considered The One (we would say God) to be something which is like a Platonic form - the things which Platonist philosophers consider are the real, true, eternal, and unchanging - only better, even more perfect.

Importantly, a Platonist like Plotinus considers that when the intellect apprehends a form, it becomes identified with it.   

Of course, like any kind of philosophy, Christian philosophers and theologians could not swallow Plotinus' philosophy Mystical union with the One whole, without criticizing portions of it that did not square with divinely revealed truth (for instance, Plotinus is pantheistic), but -- how could Christian thinkers - coming from passages like I John 3:2 in the Scriptures - look at things like the doctrine of mystical union with the One and not acknowledge that the Platonists had some valid insights into reality?

Moreover, these philosophers have been a huge influence on the language we have historically chosen to phrase our doctrine in.  Here I am thinking in particular how we call the experience of heaven the Beatific Vision.  You can explain what this is without recourse to Platonism, but if you are at least somewhat familiar with their ideas about intellectual vision, it makes a great deal of sense without a lengthy explanation.

Context

Many people do not realize how you have to be part of the right interpretative community in order to interpret a text in a way that results in meaningful communication between the author and the reader.  For instance, many radical-"traditionalist" Catholics often like to quote old Church documents out of context; they assume that because they have a pre-Vatican II mindset, they will automatically understand anything written before Vatican II.  And don't even get me started on Protestants and the Bible.

Reading Pope Benedict's Exhortation, I had this mental image of someone hundreds of years in the future reading this passage:

Given the need to rediscover sacramental forgiveness, there ought to be a Penitentiary in every Diocese.

and supposing that back in the 21st Century the pope used to have a jail in every diocese.

Confession

I was at St. Mary of the Mills the other day and I sat in the back of the chapel and left for the confessional right after Mass ended, and I was like seventeenth in line. 

Anyway, some words of encouragement, if you're still waiting to go: I couldn't help noticing what people looked like when they went in vs. when they came out.  When they went in, they were somber or nervous or both; when they came out, they all wore big smiles or looks of relief.  Really.  People are so afraid of it, but the only way you'd come out of the confessional feeling worse than you went in is if you on purpose deliberately lied to the priest about what sins you committed. 

Apologetics

I don't know what your situation is like, but if you're like me, you are sick to death of hearing (chiefly from Catholics who would like to find an excuse not to believe the Church in these matters) the absurd weasel line that the Catholic Church doesn't really teach that abortion and contraception are immoral and that same-sex marriage is not marriage, because (they claim), those are only the opinions of a conservative faction who would like to represent their opinions as Church doctrine.

Thanks to Amy Welborn, I heard something that you almost certainly won't hear about on the news.  A Catholic university professor in Wisconsin wrote some pamphlets arguing that very thing and sent copies to all the bishops in the US.  As a result, his bishop made public statements to the effect that the content of these pamphlets is not the teaching of the Church and is in fact contrary to the Church's faith, and the USCCB issued a detailed and unequivocal statement which is intended to "clarify the Church's faith and teaching for all of the Catholic faithful throughout the United States."

As a layman who loves the Church's faith, thank you, Eminencies and Excellencies.

Ignoring the Pope

Is "a custom more honour'd in the breach than in the observance," but it is a long one in the Catholic world.

This post from The Hermeneutic of Continuity details the shameful widespread shrugging-off by bishops, priests, and laity of the consistent and repeated condemnation of modern race-based slavery by the popes, to which the writer draws a parallel with the modern situation with abortion and birth control.

This might be a little surprising to non-Catholics, who seem often to think of the pope as some all-powerful potentate enjoying absolute obedience from his flock.  Actually, when you think about what the pope is, it must be very confusing to them that we are so massively rebellious, but such is the world.

Anyway, seeing as how we've been similarly blowing off the pope for most of 400 years about liturgy and church music (even though that doesn't involve money, political power, or sex), what do you think is the likelihood of the instructions of Pope Benedict's Exhortation being implemented?  I'm not getting my hopes up.  Blogging priest Fr. Zuhlsdorf here covers how people are already working to make sure they are not.

Errata

Some time ago a friend asked me if what his parish does with the Agnus Dei is allowed, and I answered incorrectly.  My usual approach is that if someone does something I'm not familiar with, and I'm not absolutely sure it's wrong, I presume it to be licit.  For instance, if a priest starts using a Eucharistic Prayer at Mass that sounds unfamiliar to you, maybe it's one of the Reconciliation Prayers (bet you didn't know there're something like ten approved EPs).

This question in particular was whether it was allowed to replace one or more instances of the phrase "Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" with some other invocation.  This didn't feel right to me, but I suggested yes, it might be technically permitted, explaining it by means of "tropes."  This article knocks that down using information that I knew.  It also has some pretty neat info and history about the Agnus Dei.

By the way, (and this applies to you especially if you are part of or the leader of a church choir [don't be paranoid, but do your homework and check]) don't just assume that just because a song is in a hymnal marketed to Catholic parishes that everything in it is correct.  Those things don't come from anyone with any authority in the Church.  In fact, some of the more popular ones come from people who don't really like the Church's teaching or liturgy and want to change it into something they like better.  How did they become so ubiquitous, then?  Good question.

Joseph of Nazareth, You Are The Man

Yes, that is the title of a breviary hymn.  You might have seen it if you have a breviary or a Christian Prayer book.  If you see the rest of the words, you'll realize that the sense is a bit different than what you are probably thinking, but that sense is just as true.

There are tons of great St. Joseph meditations you could think of, but did you ever think of the parallels between St. Joseph and Joseph of the Old Testament?  I didn't really until someone pointed it out to me.  Both were noted for their righteousness and chastity, both were the son of Jacob, both had to go from Israel and live in Egypt to save their people, both were noted for their gift of dreams from God that directed them on how to do this.

St. Joseph is famous as the Just Man; you should know that in the Bible in English, both the word "just" and the word "righteous" translate the one Greek word dikaios.  Latin uses "iustus" consistently because that is the word for that; English "just" doesn't have quite the same punch, so the NAB often uses "righteous" except in the verb form where it has to use "justify" because, I suppose, there is no such word as "righteousnessify."  Some of us like the idea of social justice better and some social righteousness as though they were opposed or you had to pick one or the other.  Really they are two sides of the same coin: Joseph the dikaios should be our patron for the fully integrated life of Christian charity.

May 15

That's when this book of Pope Benedict's on our Lord becomes available.