Wow! It's just like 1968 for the we-are-church folks!
Thanks for the post, and links. The whole 'sad' document is over at their "We Are Church" website:
http://www.we-are-church.org/
It is called: "Appeal to the Synod of Bishops on Eucharist"
BY: CHRISTIAN WEISNER.
==
We Are Church argued that the dogma of the transubstantiation-- the teaching that the bread and wine at Mass are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ-- is unacceptable to Protestants, and thus impedes ecumenical unity.
Well, I guess that tells us just how much respect these aging kooks have for the truth! And of course our separated Protestant brothers are so very united by their lack of Eucharistic faith!
Such rank stupidity and blindness can only be achieved by a lifetime of dedicated effort.
Some loyal orthodox Catholic organization or person(s) should write an "Appeal to the international movement 'We are Church' on correct Eucharistic understanding in the Catholic Tradition", "Appeal to 'We are Church' [...] to cease and desist", or something like that.
The so-called 'We-Are-Church' group website has the following bad news: "As international studies of renowned religion sociologists confirm, We are Church as a reform movement within the Church represents the "voice of the people in the pews" and has demonstrated this in several Shadow Synods in Rome."
"[...] represents the "voice of the people in the pews""?!
Oh no. In terms of Eucharistic understanding and faith, I hope not.
==
Ooops, I meant:
"Oh no. In terms of Eucharistic understanding and faith (at least), I hope not.
==
See? It's a MEAL-EVENT!!
Now we are talking some real progress in the Ecumenical healing process!!!! Let us see what the Holy Spirit thinks about it.
Let the Convergence Commence!!!
"At an October 4 press conference in Rome, the dissident group called for reconsideration of the key Catholic doctrine on the transubstantiation, an end to the "hierarchical monopoly" on the sacraments, and approval of shared communion with other Christian denominations"
As noted previously,
John 6:51-58 : Crossan gives it a “Not Said by the Historical Jesus” p. 360 in The Historical Jesus, paperback edition.
16-. Supper and Eucharist: (1a) 1 Cor 10:14-22; (1b) 1 Cor 11:23-25; (2) Mark 14:22-25 = Matt 26:26-29 = Luke 22:15-19a[19b-20]; (3) Did. 9:1-4; (4) John 6:51b-58.
And of course a repeat of the teachings about the Eucharist in some Catholic universities (Notre Dame, Catholic U. ??)
"Receiving the Holy Eucharist blends Christ's spirit with our soul or
> spirit). Communion is not Christ's physical Body and Blood since Christ
> exists as a spirit therefore has no physical form.
> Yes. Transubstantiation is still a Catholic doctrine, but it never meant a
> literal transforming of bread and wine into the physical body and blood of
> Jesus. "Substance" in medieval philosophy referred to the essence of a thing
> and was not reducible to material appearance. Transubstantiation is a way of
> expressing belief that Jesus Christ is SOME HOW present in the consecrated
> bread and wine in a special way. Some theologians believe that
> "transignificantion" would be a better term today than transubstantiation."
>"
Convergent,
Thanks, but I'll just be any ultramontane moron and stick with the CCC.
Convergent,
Some theologians believe that 'transignificantion' would be a better term today than transubstantiation.
This is un-Catholic.
"To give an example of what We are talking about, it is not permissible ... to discuss the mystery of transubstantiation without mentioning what the Council of Trent had to say about the marvelous conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body and the whole substance of the wine into the Blood of Christ, as if they involve nothing more than 'transignification,' or 'transfinalization' as they call it; ... Everyone can see that the spread of these and similar opinions does great harm to belief in and devotion to the Eucharist." (Pope Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Mysterium Fidei, Sept. 3, 1965)
"The doctrine of the synod, in that part in which, undertaking to explain the doctrine of faith in the rite of consecration, and disregarding the scholastic questions about the manner in which Christ is in the Eucharist, from which questions it exhorts priests performing the duty of teaching to refrain, it states the doctrine in these two propositions only: 1) after the consecration Christ is truly, really, substantially under the species; 2) then the whole substance of the bread and wine ceases, appearances only remaining; it (the doctrine) absolutely omits to make any mention of transubstantiation, or conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the boy, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood, which the Council of Trent defined as an article of faith, and which is contained in the solemn profession of faith; since by an indiscreet and suspicious omission of this sort knowledge is taken away both of an article pertaining to faith, and also of the word consecrated by the Church to protect the profession of it, as if it were a discussion of a merely scholastic question,–dangerous, derogatory to the exposition of Catholic truth about the dogma of transubstantiation, favorable to heretics." (Pope Pius VI, Constitution Auctorem Fidei, Aug. 28, 1794)
There are very serious problems with emphasizing the notions of Sacrifice and Transubstantiation to the detriment of the integrity of the eucharistic action. This is indeed one of the main reasons for the dismal, alienated state of the Roman Catholic liturgy as opposed to the Anglican, Lutheran and Calvinist liturgies.
The mass is a sacrifice in the sense that it is a participation in the Paschal Mystery, which becomes present in the transformed (transubstantiated and transfinalized) meal event.
The word transubstantiation is not a dogma. It is accepted by Trent as an apt word to name the eucharistic transformation.
To isolate the bread and wine from their total context in the meal event is a distortion. Aquinas links the eucharistic Presence to the "form" of bread and part of the form of bread is its function as something to be eaten in the context of a meal. Trent also signals this by the phrase ut sumatur.
On the problems of the medieval speculation on transubstantiation -- which is strictly speaking not part of Catholic doctrine -- see Fr P. J. Fitzpatrick's book In Breaking of Bread (Cambridge UP).
Dogmatist old fogeys have destroyed the Catholic celebration of the Eucharist by putting the emphases in the wrong places. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Their dogmatism has produced a frozen liturgy, both in the old Latin form and the new half-hearted vernacular one. The striking success of Protestant liturgies in contrast puts them to shame. We Roman Catholics are too hung up on dogma and too trapped in dogmatic binds to be able to celebrate the Eucharist properly.
Neocaths will see in these remarks only "heresy" -- a bon entendeur, salut.
We Are Church--fine.
Which church is the kicker.
Ah, I see Convergent's citing Pope Crossan again. "Ecumenical healing process"
or "convergence," my a--er, tuchus.
So it's "transignifcation" now? I thought it was "transfinalisation." It's so hard to keep track of the latest sleight of hand from embarrassed Catholics. Bottom line: transsomethingotherthanhavingtobelieveitsactuallyt
herealbodyandbloodofjesuschristupthereonthealtarfo
rsophiassake.
For too many Catholics, it has become obvious that ecumenism is simply a pretext for the jettisoning of embarrassing Catholic doctrine--it's a race to the lowest common denominator of the most watered down forms of mainline Protestantism. As always, it is the Catholic teaching/understanding which gets the finger--and the boot.
Fortunately, the ecumenical movement would be at cross purposes on this one--the Orthodox would have none of it. Not for a moment. And given that We Are Church has effectively imploded and is confined to a dwindling number of aging Europeans, it's irrelevant anyway.
There are substantial ecumenical agreements between Rome and other churches on the nature of the Eucharist. Any discussion must take these into account. To keep harping back to older documents, such as Pius VI or the Thirty Nine Articles, written in a polemic context, is to close the gate of Christian understanding.
We Are Church are not as opposed to the sacrificial and transubstantial understanding of Eucharist as they sound, for they speak of sharing Christ's body broken for us.
Does We are Church talks of transsignification and transfinalization? These are terms touted in theological circles since the 1960s. At their best they are a way of making the notion of transubstantiation intelligible -- the inner reality of the meal event is entirely transformed into the inner reality of participation in the Paschal Mystery.
since the 1960s SHD BE in the 1960s
Laudes et gratiae sint omni momento
Sanctissimo et Divinissimo Sacramento!
What a wacky moment in History this is in which we, laymen, have to defend the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass while a Sacerdos downplays its significance...
---
And, yes, O'Leary, Transubstantiation IS a Dogma of the Faith. You may not like the name, you may call it "pineapple", but the process itself by which bread and wine become the MOST PRECIOUS BODY AND BLOOD is transubstantiation.
Naturally, you dismiss dogmas quite lightly. For someone who blasphemes the Conception of Our Divine Redeemer and Perpetual Virginity of the Most Holy Mother, transubstantiation must be quite hard to swallow -- literally. Poor are those faithful who feel compelled to go to masses celebrated by priests who do not believe "as the Church believes".
A leading Presbyterian liturgist believes that in the wake of Liturgiam Authenticam, a controversial Vatican document on translation of texts for prayer and worship, "the entire ecumenical liturgical conversation and dialogue is over--finished, dead, done."
Several Catholic participants in the dialogue, however, dispute the claim.
The Rev. Horace Allen, a veteran of 30-plus years of ecumenical work on liturgy, spoke at Rome's Centro Pro Unione, a center of ecumenical study sponsored by the Graymoor Friars, May 9.
Allen pointed to a late April meeting in New York of the Consultation for Common Texts, the chief forum for ecumenical cooperation on liturgical translation in North America. The three Catholic partners, Allen reported, were noticeably absent.
The Consultation for Common Texts is made up of 21 Christian bodies, including three Catholic groups: the U.S. bishops' conference, the Canadian bishops' conference, and the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (known by its acronym ICEL, a translation agency sponsored by 11 English-speaking bishops' conferences).
At the New York session, Allen said, ICEL and the Canadian bishops' conference delegate were missing, while a representative of the U.S. bishops showed up but abstained from votes.
The pullback, Allen suggested, is the result of the May 2001 document of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Liturgiam Authenticam, which called for a more traditional approach to translation. It expressed reservations about wording that could be confused with that of other Christian groups, while other recent Vatican rulings have asserted that ICEL should not be involved in ecumenical partnerships.
Sources confirmed for NCR that the absence of ICEL was indeed linked to the fallout from Liturgiam Authenticam.
Yet Sr. Donna Kelly, the delegate from the Canadian bishops' conference, denied that her absence was motivated by a shift on ecumenical collaboration. She told NCR that her schedule would have required her to fly to New York on a Sunday, an expense she could not justify.
Officials of the U.S. bishops' conference told NCR they sent two delegates, Msgr. Anthony Sherman, associate director of the Secretariat for Liturgy, and Sr. Doris Turek, who works on multicultural issues, and that they abstained from only one vote.
It was to approve the minutes from the previous meeting, in which a letter had been drafted expressing regret over the absence of ICEL. Turek told NCR that since Liturgiam Authenticam says that bishops' conferences rather than commissions such as ICEL should represent the Catholic church at ecumenical meetings, she asked that the U.S. vote be changed to "abstain." Other than that, Sherman and Turek said, they participated in all votes.
Msgr. James Moroney, executive director of the U.S. bishops' Department of Liturgy, told NCR that it is "unequivocally not true" that the U.S. conference is pulling back from ecumenical cooperation.
Allen said, however, that Liturgiam Authenticam's skepticism about ecumenical translation projects is clear.
"I thought that 450 years after the Protestant Reformation, we had a partnership again," Allen said. "Apparently I was wrong."
Ironically, Allen said, the ecumenical texts under Vatican suspicion actually represent a high-water mark of Catholic influence on Protestant worship.
He pointed to the Revised Common Lectionary, a collection of scripture readings for Sunday worship, published by the Consultation on Common Texts in 1992. Based on the 1969 Roman Lectionary, it differs from the currently approved Catholic text only on readings from the Old Testament in the period after Pentecost.
According to Allen, some 70 percent of Protestant churches in the English-speaking world use this common lectionary. It marks the first time since the Reformation that Catholics and Protestants find themselves reading the scriptures together Sunday by Sunday.
"I can't imagine a more important ecumenical conversation than the liturgy," Allen said. "Who would have thought that 450 years after the Reformation, Catholics would be teaching Protestants how to read scripture in worship?"
In his interview with NCR, Moroney agreed.
"I think the Revised Common Lectionary is the clearest example of the kind of wonderful things we can continue to do ecumenically in the liturgical venue," he said.
Jesuit Fr. Robert Taft, a Jesuit professor at Rome's Pontifical Oriental Institute who is considered among the world's leading specialists in Eastern liturgies, responded to Allen's address with a more optimistic tone.
"It's true that the Catholic church is going through a bad patch right now," Taft said at the Centro gathering. "This too will pass."
Saying he rejected the "utter slander to which ICEL has been subjected," Taft insisted, "This is definitely not the end."
Sources told NCR that the decline in ecumenical cooperation in liturgy is not complete. In England, for example, Fr. Kevin McGinnell, a Roman Catholic, is chair of both the international English Language Liturgical Consultation and the national Joint Liturgical Group of Great Britain.
Allen said he drew hope from Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Vatican office for ecumenical relations, who gave a recent address at Harvard University. Allen said he asked Kasper about Liturgiam Authenticam.
"Don't lose heart," Allen quoted Kasper as saying. "This conversation began under John XXIII and Paul VI, and it will continue. Things don't stop that fast."
Allen closed his talk, however, on a downbeat.
He said he had visited the new display for John XXIII in St. Peter's Basilica the day before, created last year when the corpse of the pope who called Vatican II was removed from its belowground crypt and put on display at a side altar.
"His body is on display, and his council is in ruins," Allen said.
JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome
To call transubstantiation a *process* suggests a chemical understanding of the eucharist, which is not orthodox.
While we are Converging, anyone want to comment on Abraham? Relegating him to the myth/embellished pile would really help the movement.
And other than John 6:51-58, any other biblical references to the Eucharist? OT "prophecies" don't count IMHO since they violate our God-given gift of future.
And what about all these Catholic university professors teachings about the Eucharist? No comments?
One must assume these professors have done their background reading and have made conclusions analogous to the "We are the Churchers". How can they be "un-Catholic". Most of these professors, I assume, are also priests.
So complain/disagree as much as you wish, that is your "free-willing God gift" but none of you to my knowledge are theology "pro-fessors".
Perhaps I should have also written above:
"Due to the serious lack of orthodox Catholic Eucharistic understanding and faith (error) being manifested or proposed by the 'We are Church' sect, and so forth, I therefore humbly and respectfully request that they label themselves properly, and immediately rename their organization to 'We are not Church', - and act accordingly.”
Has this group (or others) never heard of the Council of Trent? If not, is anybody going to teach them? Can they ever be taught? May God forgive them, and send His light and truth.
I am disheartened by any neo-Protestant or godless secularistic unorthodox 'wolves' in our Catholic Church, pretending to be faithful sheep – any such untruthful self-satisfied happy wolves are evil or ignorant destroyers of the holy, the sacred and the good; and I am sick of choking on the 'smoke of Satan' drifting into Holy Mother Church. I need to breathe to live. I want to ‘eat the Holy Sacrifice’, adore, and pray without forever having to 'look over my shoulder’ in fear, looking for possible ‘poison’, or worrying about 'validity’ or even deniers of ‘validity’, if you get my meaning. Should we not all have this right, my brothers and sisters, my priests and teachers, in Christ?
Very sad. I am upset. Sorry. May the Trinity send protection and blessings; and may the Holy Spirit comfort, heal and lead the Church.
==
I do not deny transubstantiation, but interpret it as follows -- the reality of the bread and wine in the context of a meal event is changed into the reality of the risen Christ. Thus the reception of communion is not *eating bread and wine* but *eating the body and blood of Chirst* where *eating*, as in Jn 6, is no ordinary eating. You cannot isolate the bread and wine from the context of a meal event, making them dead substances that magically become Christ's body. It is in the EVENT of the breaking of bread that the risen Christ is present. The reserved sacrament is an extension of that event, not an abolition of the form of bread and the context of the meal-event.
I must admit that eucharistic theology is not my forte, but the nervous nellie anguish of traditional Catholics faced with any attempt to rethink the Eucharist from its biblical roots strikes me as pathological. It is of a piece with the sclerosis of our liturgies. (In the past this sclerosis was compensated for by vibrant para-liturgies which placed the entire emphasis on the adoration of the host.)
"the reality of the bread and wine in the context of a meal event is changed into the reality of the risen Christ."
This is true, so far as it goes, though Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist goes much, much further.
How does it go much, much further?
For starters, in that the Eucharist is not merely a "meal event," but is more importantly a sacrifice -- in fact, THE sacrifice. In that the substance of the bread and the wine are changed into the substance of the whole Christ, while the accidents of the bread and the wine are all that remain of the bread and the wine.
The wailing and gnashing over the RCL represents everything that is wrong with the focus of institutional ecumenism:
All that energy is being expended on working with mainline Protestants, who are rapidly dwindling as a percentage of Christians worldwide, and dwindling in absolute numbers in Europe and North America. In three generations, they'll be 1-2% of the Christian world, and the continuing leftward theological drift will make them quasi-Christian at best as they go Sponging and Spraguing into pantheism. They are clearly the past, but since their weak identities and commitments make them inoffensive to deal with (for the moment), they are easy to talk to and make agreements that no one in the pews of either church will ever read.
In other words, whoop-de-do.
The ICEL translations are cackhanded and show the buffeting of the winds of shrieking agenda-bearers. Wooden, neutered and drained of any hint of transcendent mystery, they needed a harder kick in the kiester than the overblown LA gave them. ICEL's refusal to either admit error or give the faithful worthy texts for the worship of God and the transmission of faith are criminal. It would be nice if its reflexive defenders would acknowledge that ICEL has much to answer for and that its wounds were almost entirely self-inflicted.
Convergent:
The funny thing is that you probably will deny that you are a full-bore, unrepentant gnostic.
Because that's what each and every one of your arguments about the Bible and the sacraments is--a bald statement of gnosticism. Real faith and enlightenment are only available to an initiated, degreed scholarly elite, and those blessed acolytes, like yourself, who acknowledge them. In fact, taking your arguments to their logical conclusion, true faith didn't exist before the enlightenment and the scholarly tools generated by academics operating under its philosophical premises. Sort of a weird blend of rationalism and Mormonism. Interesting, I will admit.
Have fun with storming the castle with your ascended masters!
Mr Potter, all you say about accidents and substances is fully covered by my account, and the sacrifice element is involved in the presence of the risen Christ -- in the power of the Paschal Mystery.
Trent said the eucharist is a sacrifice but did not define the word "sacrifice", a topic that remained a problem for catholic theologians for a long time.
The sacrifice of the Eucharist is of course none other than the sacrifice of Calvary (which is a sacrifice in a very different sense from Greek sacrifices or even the sacrifices of the OT; see Rene Girard also) present in all its power when the Eucharistic meal is shared.
The ICEL translation are catastophic, I agree. But that is because the church failed to gave free rein to poets and to the literary imagination. The French translations are far better, thanks to the involvement of a poet. The confinement of the canon to only four texts is another sign of paralysis. The Anglican church has no problem producing edifying and appropriate texts for the Eucharist Sunday after Sunday. Even when sometimes very close to our texts they make appropriate improvements here and there which make all the difference. I have not yet read Peter Steinfels' A People Adrift, which diagnoses that the situation in the pews is the real scandal and crisis of our church. The faithful are alienated, simmering with silent resentment, bored -- and none of this need be so.
Please note: In Christian and biblical thought sacrifice and meal-event are closely allied -- the Passover meal. Augustine defined sacrifice as that which unites us to God in a holy community.
"...present in all its power when the Eucharistic meal is shared..."
When it is not "shared", it is present in less than "all its power", I suppose. Well, well, someone is far away from the dogmatic definitions of Lateran IV and Trent.
There is no such thing as the non-shared Eucharist. Christ is given to us in the form of bread, of which the essence is to be shared, eaten. "This is my body GIVEN FOR YOU." SUMI autem voluit sacramentum hoc tanquam spiritualem animarum cibum quo alantur et confortentur viventes vita illius qui dixit "Qui manducat me, et ipse vivet propter me" (Jn 6.5
. Translation: He wanted this sacrament TO BE CONSUMED as the spiritual bread of souls whereby are nourished and strengthened those who live by the life of him who said: "He who eats me, will live because of me" (Jn 6.5. Contemporary phenomenological approaches to the Eucharist (including Louis-Marie Chauvet's Symbole et sacrement) seek to bring out this dynamic quality of the eucharistic presence. The hermeneutics of Lateran IV and Trent is a subtler art than either the barren traditionalists or the We Are Church protesters realize.
However, Trent does emphasize adoration of the Blessed Sacrament heavily, in response no doubt to Protestant emphases. Christ is present in the Eucharist before he is consumed in communion (in Eucharistia ipse sanctitatis auctor ante usum est). Trent adds: Neque minus est adorandum ideo quod fuerit a Christo Domino UT SUMATUR institutum. The fact that it is instituted TO BE CONSUMED does not mean it cannot be adored. The presence is not only in used, while consumed, but also before and after.
Shared or not, the PRECIOUS BODY AND BLOOD are the same after consecration. And the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is not merely a memorial of the Sacrifice, but a Sacrifice itself, not only re-presented, but fully propitiatory.
Vatican II corrects an exaggerated emphasis on the reserved sacrament by tying it back to the finality of the institution of the Eucharist, namely, that it be consumed. Indeed, even in 1949 the Congregation of the Sacraments declared: "It would be well to recall that THE PRIMARY AND ORIGINAL PURPOSE OF THE RESERVING OF THE SACRED SPECIES in church outside Mass is THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE VIATICUM. SECONDARY ends are the distribution of communion outside Mass and the adoration of Our Lord Jesus Christ concealed beneath these same species" -- Quam Plurimum, quoted in Eucharisticum Mysterium, 1967.
Yes, the Mass is the sacrifice of Christ, the Paschal Mystery, fully present in all its power. No argument about that. The thing is to get the accents and proportions right, and to link the Eucharistic presence to Christ's presence in the preached Word, in the ministers and in the community. The whole spirit of Vatican II is directed against the reification of the eucharistic presence that undermines the liturgical life of the Church.
First, the "Spirit" of Vatican II, whatever it was, has all but destroyed liturgical life in the Latin Church. The reason is: what you call "reification" (which is pretty close to blasphemous, considering that the object of Adoration is not "res", but Persona and Deus) is essential for liturgical life in the West. The long History, in the West, of protests against the Real and Substantial Presence of Our Lord in the Consecrated Species from the Middle Ages to the aftermath of Vatican II, demands an ever-growing spirituality of Eucharistic Adoration and Devotion, even more so now, when the mystery of the Most Holy Sacrifice has been substituted throughout the Latin world by your beloved "meal-event" mentality.
YOU DESERVE A MEAL EVENT TODAY!!
Today's Lesson in Spiritual Food Preparation:
(1) Transubstantiation is not a dogma. Dogmas are silly anyway.
(2) Transubstantiation is not a process. Only chemicals can be processed.
(3) If you want to know what transubstantiation is, it's transignification and transfinalization.
(4) They can think whatever nonsense they want, as long as they eat it.
(5) Never, never forget to ask "Do you want fries with that?"
Dale,
You label me a gnostic. Sorry, as I noted to JP recently, I consider myself a "Crossanian Catholic" influenced by Schillebeeckx and Somerville. I highly recommend their books since these scholars are IMHO some of the best contemporary thinkers. Read their books and decide for yourself.
Convergent:
You completely missed the point. Your thinking and approach to faith--if not necessarily the content--is gnostic.
You consistently argue--as the classic gnostics did--that only an initiated elite (in your case, guys with degrees) truly understand the faith and are capable of explaining what the scriptures really say, who Jesus really was, etc. That is precisely what the gnostics said.
The difference is your gurus are academics, not gentlemen who ululate into the wee hours of the morning. It is the same elitist approach to knowledge and enlightenment that makes it a fundamentally gnostic view--with the same silly results, I am sorry to say.
As to the book recommendations, thanks. Be advised that I am a diligent practitioner of the Churchill Rule: I only read for pleasure or profit. What I have read of Crossan and Schill. have not fallen into either category.
I found out what feeds the "Spritz of Vatican II": it's the Spritz of Sophia! Not a single mention of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin, the Church, or even the adjective Catholic.
http://www.sophia.ac.jp/E/E_univ...ntent/
spirit_01
The Jesuits have to be lauded for writing so much without saying anything!
Sophia University in Latin is "Universitas Sedis Sapientiae" -- "Seat of Wisdom University". Sedes Sapientiae is a Marian title.
Our students are 90% non-Catholic, so it makes sense to speak of the Christian tradition rather than of Catholicism straight away. Japanese and Asians generally often have the idea that Catholicism and Christianity are different religions, due to the sectarianism of missionaries in the past. The watchword of our university is Christian Humanism. In practice this connects with the great Jesuit educational tradition, which in the US also has been a safeguard of humanism in the educational world. If we were to go round screeching about the superiority of Catholicism to other brands of Christianity, we could end up giving a counter-witness.
You are just in it for the money, the comfort, and the prestige. And I mean you as plural: you, liberals who have destroyed Catholic educational institutions thoughout the world. You, the Arrupe-folks, who have obliterated the Society of Jesus.
God help us!
Fr. O'Leary, by the way, is not a Jesuit, although he teaches at a Jesuit institution, my alma mater in fact. Sophia University has garnered a great reputation in Tokyo, where it is located, like most Jesuit institutions worldwide; but like most of them, as well, it has also slid a long distance down those greased skids in the direction of things Jesuitical in recent years. I must say that I received a substantial education during my years there, with teachers from Germany, Italy, Ireland, Japan, and many other places around the world. Even then, however, there were signs of things to come. I had at least two classes in which my professors were self-professed atheists (one was not Jesuit; the other, sadly, was). The former was a professor of English literature, like O'Leary now is; the latter was a professor of Buddhism, who may as well have been a Buddhist, because he certainly was no theist at all, let alone a Christian or Catholic. Where was the discipline in those days? Already diminished by indifference and relativism.
The whole spirit of Vatican II is directed against the reification of the eucharistic presence that undermines the liturgical life of the Church.
I concur here with New Catholic. While I have no doubt of the existence of liberals in attendance at V-II who entertained notions of this sort, and while I grant the propriety of the notion that the focus of the liturgy is properly upon the Eucharistic Sacrifice, I think nearly all such talk of "reification" is misguided. For one thing, if there was ever a danger of erring on the side of distracting from the centrality of the focus on the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the danger now is obviously the nearly complete amnesia among the faithful of a divine presence in church on Sundays at all -- other than, perhaps, the imago Dei resident in themselves. But whatever proper due must be given to man as an image bearer of God, the focus of Sunday worship is Christ, not ourselves. Second, if anything, it was the post V-II trend of removing Tabernacles from the altar to some side chapel that lodged in our minds the possibility that there could be any rivalry between a focus on Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar and Christ in the Blessed Sacrament reserved in the Tabernacle on the Altar. Prior to the separation, the altar is where we came to meet Him, one way or the other. And thus we were conscious -- most of us with our wits about us anyway -- that there was One in the Sanctuary who Sanctified it and made it a Holy place by His Presence. Nuns and common working men would bless themselves, even genuflect, when passing by His House, because He was there. That consciousness is now all but extinguished and Catholics today are as apt to loathe Catholic tradition as much as Protestant Fundamentalists. Such a spirit of hatred for tradition cannot be the spirit of authentic Catholicism.
"Pope, synod members gather for eucharistic adoration to show devotion
http://www.catholicnews.com/data...cns/
0505917.htm
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service"
==
"Sacrifice of the Mass",
By J. POHLE
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/...then/
10006a.htm
From: The Catholic Encyclopedia.
==
Finally, I would note that O'Leary's continuing romance with Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian and other mainline Protestant liturgical form and preaching might be tempered by a bit more realism if his experience were informed by more than inter-mural discussion with fellow liberals and dissenters from historic Christian tradition. For every ebulliently romantic love-story he can share with you about lovely Protestant liturgical form and biblical Protestant preaching, I could share two tragedies about heartache, loss, betrayal, disappointment, sorrow, depression, and despair. Good men and women are leaving these churches that O'Leary wants us to emulate -- and for all the right reasons. Anyone who is not personally acquainted with the stories of men like Neuhaus, Al Kimel, Robert Wilken, Leonard Klein, and many, many others, should check them out here. I would also remind readers (or anyone who missed reading it) of the post of July 13, 2005, entitled "Lutheran converts and the ELCA brain drain," an open letter from the Lutheran theologian, Carl E. Braaten to ELCA head Bishop Mark Hanson. Check those sources if you think the grass is greener on the other side. Finally, I would suggest that only a distorted and impoverished view of his own Catholic tradition, one that blinds him to the great gifts that the Holy Spirit has unfolded for the Church throughout her history, could lead one to look longingly toward those who have hived off in these last few centuries to start their own separate, independent thing. Ad fontes!
"Sacrifice of the Mass",
By J. POHLE
Paul,
If your purpose in linking to this article was to remind Fr Joe of a few inconvenient truths, I wonder how successful you will be. Since New Advent uses the older version of the Catholic Encyclopedia, circa 1914, I doubt he will grant it much standing.
Ah, the Anglican infatuation. Dispensed with rather nicely.
Dale,
One of the elite! Wow thanks for the compliment. I disagree but so be it.
The elite IMHO are Catholics who think they control the keys to Heaven. Gnostic are we!! Yippee!! Augustine and Thomas A. must by your definition have been kings of gnosticism.
IMHO, your soul would definitely profit from reading any of Crossan's 14 books. Knowledge/reading is one of God's greatest gifts.
The Anglicans have good music. All we have is Jesus. Wouldn't it be nice if we had good music too.
I don't know though if I would pass up sleeping late on Sunday and eggs n bacon just for good music. I will get up for Jesus and I will stand with him even when he is dishonored by his own people.
Charles - don't we Anglicans have Jesus too?
Convergent:
Oh, that's right--you're not serious. I apparently--seriously--had you confused with someone I could reason with. Your inability to acknowledge--let alone respond to--the argument that one has to be a Crossanian scholar to be truly enlightened speaks far louder than your multiple exclamation points. I have the measure of you now, and will not make that mistake in the future.
A little Crossan goes a long way. I get it--really: Mr. Crossan's Good News is that Jesus was a cynic philosopher/peasant executed for opposing the Roman construction program in Judea and his body was eaten by dogs. Essentially a late classical era Arthur Dent with better quips and a slightly worse end. Why that takes 14 books (and counting) to say is beyond me, though I suspect Crossan's still trying to convince himself.
That you associate Sts. Thomas and Augustine with Crossan's brand of theological frippery is proof of your unseriousness. I don't think they'd hold with the idea of Jesus as Alpo. Then again, I'm not a devotee of flavor-of-the-month eisegesis and unsupportable hypotheses, so there you have it.
Dale,
Augustine and Thomas A. vs Crossan and Schillebeeckx, a match made in Heaven. IMHO, Crossan and Schillebeeck have an edge. They have Google.
Theology evolves as do all things earthly.
Theology evolves as do all things earthly."
"Devolves," you mean. You're forgetting entropy, the second law of thermodynamics.
The second law of thermodynamics is not incompatible with evolution, as the facts show. If it were no baby could grow to be a man. What is living must either grow or die. A theology that refused to change, and change often, would no longer be alive.
And so PB you are "devolving"? That does explain a lot!! 
For reviews on "Evolution and Entropy" and "Entropy and Sin" see http://www.asa3.org/ASA/educatio...gins/
thermo.htm . Ahh, PB fear not you are evolving!!!
Also the Second Law concerns physical reality, and does not necessarily apply to spiritual reality.
Just been reading Lonergan on "emerging probability" in "Insight" on the recommendation of a discussant at the Pontificator site. It is relevant to this evolution discussion, but don't ask me to explain it.
Ah, the fresh air of the Catholic Magisterium! Saint Pius X had the answers to ALL absurdities raised by the current modernists!
One of the interesting things of the modernists is that THEY DO NOT CHANGE EITHER... Their arguments, their objections, their wrong conclusions are as heretical today as they were in the days of the holy Pope Sarto...
"Blind that they are, and leaders of the blind, inflated with a boastful science, they have reached that pitch of folly where they pervert the eternal concept of truth and the true nature of the religious sentiment; with that new system of theirs they are seen to be under the sway of a blind and unchecked passion for novelty, thinking not at all of finding some solid foundation of truth, but despising the holy and apostolic traditions, they embrace other vain, futile, uncertain doctrines, condemned by the Church, on which, in the height of their vanity, they think they can rest and maintain truth itself."
On why one should not cling fetishistically to the Roman Canon, Louis Bouyer's account of the historical origins of the Eucharist, which I read in 1972 was an eye-opener. My impression is that Eucharistic Prayers 2,3 and 4 are closer to the earliest forms of eucharistic prayer than the Roman Canon.
"My impression is that Eucharistic Prayers 2,3 and 4 are closer to the earliest forms of eucharistic prayer than the Roman Canon."
Why do Modernists love "evolution" in everything, but they reject it vehemently regarding the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass??? Suddenly, all archaeology returns to haunt the Roman Canon.
Of course Christ did not use the whole Roman Canon, but it was a necessary organic growth in the West, up to the days of St. Gregory the Great, when it was finished as we know it. Its sacrificial clarity, its dogmatic purity, its pre- and post-consecration reminders of our humble position as followers of great saints, in primis the Blessed Virgin, and the Apostles and glorious Martyrs.
Liberals love false archaelogy at Mass because their whole livelihood is destruction and instability of what our ancestors in the Faith did and thought. They HATE the clear Sacrifice spelled out in the Roman Canon. They abhor the Traditional Roman Mass because no disdain for dogma can live alongside it.
New Cath, I am not at all against evolution of the Eucharistic Canon -- the more new canons the better -- I am merely refuting your own argument from antiquity. Here is Ratzinger on sacrifice and meal event:
Those close to the most recent proceedings gave the impression that they were dealing with a top-flight theologian who doesn’t mind engaging in debate. In one telling incident, in fact, Benedict intervened to essentially end a march from the right and pull the synod back from establishing a false dichotomy between the Eucharist as a sacrifice and the Eucharist as a communal meal, expressed by many as the “horizontal” and “vertical” dimensions of the Eucharist. Using the weight of theological reasoning rather than blunt command to end discussion, he told the synod he saw no contradiction between the two aspects.
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