The Mass: Meal, Sacrifice and Errors Corrected

One of the brethren pointed out to me an article in the May-June 2017 edition of Doctrine & Life. The article is by the Irish Dominican Liam Walsh. I am assuming this is the same Fr Liam Walsh OP who contributed to the fascinating book Vatican II: The Liturgy Constitution (1964) edited by Fr Austin Flannery OP. He refers to “a Benedictine monk” his correspondence in The Tablet last year regarding the Mass as meal. His discretion is no doubt because he takes issue with what the monk wrote in his brief letters. That monk was I. Here is the relevant page from Fr Walsh’s article:

The Tablet’s New Editor and Fr Baldovin’s Doctrinaire Assertion

The Tablet is not my favourite read. For me to read it is to experience something similar to those who listen to “shock jocks” on radio, listening precisely in order to be whipped up to a frenzy of outrage at this or that inadequate representation of the topic of the day. The problem for me is that I am of an age where one is getting sick of outrage; and sick also of having to fight for things one holds dear against those who should also be holding them dear. In the words of Browning’s bishop, “Peace, peace seems all.”

Things at The Tablet took a potentially irenic turn with the recent appointment of Brendan Walsh as editor.

Honouring Luther?

Someone pointed me to today’s post on The Tablet‘s website. Gosh, it’s awful.

Pulled posts and autumn courses

The particularly observant may have noticed that the two posts on my letter last week to The Tablet, in response to Fr O’Collins’ letter the week before, have been pulled. The more conspiracy-aware might think something sinister was afoot.

There is not.

A couple of days ago I received a friendly phone call from The Tablet‘s literary editor to advise me that the letter would be published this week. This surprised me as one reason for posting it here was in order not to let the moment pass. It may be that the moment will be longer to pass than I thought. I felt morally obliged to remind him that I had published the letter myself on this blog, since when one submits a letter, the confirmation of receipt comes with a request to confirm that the letter has not been published elsewhere.

There was no reaction to this, so to keep as much in the spirit of the enterprise it seemed to right to take down the posts on the letter. Once the coming edition of The Tablet has been out for a while I might edit the posts appropriately and reload them.

Also, the School of Annunciation has some interesting and useful courses on this Autumn which they feel would benefit many. The flyer is attached.

Pax.

Sloppiness or spin?

This morning I read what would have to be one of the worst pieces of “analysis” I have come across. Dated Tuesday and found online at The Tablet, it is shoutingly entitled ‘POPE FRANCIS EFFECT’ CAUSES SURGE IN NUMBERS OF JESUIT PRIESTS. In it Rose Gamble tells us that an increase in Jesuit ordinations is due to the “Francis effect”. Really?

Certainly Francis is The Tablet‘s sort of pope, and the Jesuits The Tablet‘s sort of order. This double preference is not clouding its logic, is it?

Friday Penance: a dose of The Tablet (but sugared)

Friday is traditionally a day of penance for Christians. So in a frenzy of penitential excess I betook myself to the Letters pages of The Tablet. In never fails to give the psycho-emotional equivalent of a goodly number of strokes of the discipline. It did not fail today.

The various “Outrageds of Tunbridge Wells” have a remarkable knack for flogging dead horses, hoping against hope in advocating their own private Idahos as the model of the Church for all of us.

A Telling Letter in The Tablet

In the latest issue of The Tablet (22 August) there is a letter from the composer and former director of music for Portsmouth diocese. Here it is:

Melanie had suggested that children be taught more traditional Eucharistic hymns because of their (undeniably) fuller theological content and catechetical utility. Mr Inwood is clearly not impressed, perhaps because if all parishes switched to traditional hymns there would be little work for him to do.

Update on Tablet letter

It seems that while my letter to The Tablet was not printed, it has been included in the journal’s online Letters Extra page. I know this because the abbey has received some hate mail about it (hate is too strong a word, but you get my drift).

The email in question was remarkable in seeming to have nothing to do with my letter at all. To refresh your memory, my letter went thus:

It seems to be the spirit of the time to return to old simplicities, and many of your correspondents last week (Letters, 20 April) seemed intent on reviving the ancient simplicity of slaying the bearer of unwelcome tidings.

In addressing a clarification issued by my confrère, Fr Paul Gunter OSB, in his capacity as Secretary of the Bishops’ Department for Christian Life & Worship, they gave the impression that they saw Fr Gunter as peddling his own personal opinions. In fact he was doing his official duty in reminding the clergy of the pertinent facts and liturgical laws as they stand with regard to the optional rite of mandatum on Maundy Thursday. These are laws which Fr Gunter has not the power to change. Those who object to them would better serve their cause, and charity, by addressing their complaints to the Holy See.

One point raised against him merits particular attention. Fr Jim Lawlor asks Fr Gunter why “restorationists” allow themselves to see as exemplary the liturgical practice of Benedict XVI, yet refuse to allow Pope Francis’ liturgical praxis to be likewise exemplary.

Surely the answer is clear with but a moment’s reflection. Benedict XVI retrieved legitimate elements of Catholic liturgical tradition to enrich the celebration of the modern liturgy in accord with its proper laws and theology. Pope Francis’ mandatum contravened both current liturgical law and its theology. As pope, Francis has the power to dispense himself from such laws ad hoc. This dispensation does not extend to the rest of the Church.

It may be that Pope Francis will change the theology and rubrics of the mandatum. Until he does, however, priests are obliged to celebrate the Church’s liturgy in its integrity and not their personal versions of it. To the best of my memory neither Vatican II, nor the subsequent reform of the liturgy, gave priests a mandate to do whatever they want in the liturgy.

Here is the email received by the abbey’s central email address:

re your letter in The Tablet

Thankfully, women and men have had their feet washed over decades in the parishes I’ve attended throughout the country – certainly all my adult life and I’m in my mid-50s!

I realise that over a thousand years ago people thought that women were the result of imperfect seeds, such as a damp wind, but times have moved on. We are not sub-standard human beings but full members of humanity and equal, co-creators.

The Church will get there one day. It just takes a bit of time (eg Gallileo).

She (who shall remain unnamed) implicitly accuses me of misogyny in deciding that I need to be reminded that women are “not sub-standard human beings but full members of humanity and equal, co-creators” (though I ask myself if any human person can be called a “co-creator“). How she can base that on what I wrote is truly beyond me.

Of course, the issue is not about me at all. It is all about her. And that is where this sort of irrational, emotive and often hysterical line of argument emerges from. Liturgy – and morality – have become all about what makes “me” feel good and not what rightly honours God in our lives and our worship, nor what is faithful to the essential meaning and symbolism of theology and liturgy.

To be perfectly honest, to argue like this against what I did not write but merely to vent her unreasoning self-obsession only makes me more and more convinced that the Church is right (not that I need convincing).

PS Some credit should be given to The Tablet for allowing unprinted letters still to be seen, if by potentially a smaller readership.

The Tablet, and the English bishops: whom do they serve?

Last week in The Tablet the Letters pages were opened to what we were meant to see as a flood of complaints about the statement made by my confrère, Fr Paul Gunter OSB, in his capacity as Secretary of the English Bishops’ Department of Christian Life & Worship. Quoted in the previous edition of The Tablet, he had clarified the status of Pope Francis’ setting aside Church law on reserving the mandatum on Maundy Thursday to males, explaining the reasons behind the law and also why Pope Francis’ actions do not licence clergy to a similar liberty. So he was doing his job.

The gushing stream of outrage from The Tablet’s correspondents was directed at Fr Paul, as if he were imposing his personal opinion on us all. The usual arguments of an emotive, “pastoral” nature were employed. Now Fr Paul is well able to defend himself, and his terse but apposite response has been printed in the latest edition. But I felt it necessary for several reasons, to write in support of Fr Paul for doing his job. My letter has not been printed. I am not surprised. Here is what I wrote:

It seems to be the spirit of the time to return to old simplicities, and many of your correspondents last week (Letters, 20 April) seemed intent on reviving the ancient simplicity of slaying the bearer of unwelcome tidings.

In addressing a clarification issued by my confrère, Fr Paul Gunter OSB, in his capacity as Secretary of the Bishops’ Department for Christian Life & Worship, they gave the impression that they saw Fr Gunter as peddling his own personal opinions. In fact he was doing his official duty in reminding the clergy of the pertinent facts and liturgical laws as they stand with regard to the optional rite of mandatum on Maundy Thursday. These are laws which Fr Gunter has not the power to change. Those who object to them would better serve their cause, and charity, by addressing their complaints to the Holy See.

One point raised against him merits particular attention. Fr Jim Lawlor asks Fr Gunter why “restorationists” allow themselves to see as exemplary the liturgical practice of Benedict XVI, yet refuse to allow Pope Francis’ liturgical praxis to be likewise exemplary.

Surely the answer is clear with but a moment’s reflection. Benedict XVI retrieved legitimate elements of Catholic liturgical tradition to enrich the celebration of the modern liturgy in accord with its proper laws and theology. Pope Francis’ mandatum contravened both current liturgical law and its theology. As pope, Francis has the power to dispense himself from such laws ad hoc. This dispensation does not extend to the rest of the Church.

It may be that Pope Francis will change the theology and rubrics of the mandatum. Until he does, however, priests are obliged to celebrate the Church’s liturgy in its integrity and not their personal versions of it. To the best of my memory neither Vatican II, nor the subsequent reform of the liturgy, gave priests a mandate to do whatever they want in the liturgy.

What is of particular interest to me is that only one letter has been included in the latest Tablet on the subject, Fr Paul’s own reply in his official capacity. To the casual reader the impression might be that a flood of outrage against Fr Paul was received at The Tablet but only a few dribbles in support of him. This is a classic propaganda technique. This impression seems confirmed in another regard, namely Cardinal Schönborn’s recent talk in London, which has been mischievously used by some to convey the impression he supports same-sex civil unions. In last week’s Tablet there was only one letter printed that countered this impression, and that too was a letter from an official of Cardinal Schönborn’s Vienna diocese. Yet I know that at least one other letter was sent in the same vein, by a layman prominent in the City, who wrote in a balanced and reasoned way. His letter was not published.

So, the orthodox line is reduced to representation only by officials; the liberal line (to give it a generous label) is open to clergy and laity in any quantity. So, you can see the propaganda technique here: only officials push the Church’s line – the clergy and laity want change! One thing gives me some cheer though: the vast majority of active young Catholics do not read this quasi-Anglican journal. This does not augur well for the future of The Tablet. Its only hope is to come out of the closet and proclaim its allegiance to Anglicanism, which it serves so well. This should preserve its life a few more years.

The English bishops, too, seem to be serving something/someone other than the Church. It is reported that the General Secretary of the bishops’ conference, speaking on behalf of its president Archbishop Nichols, has assured lawmakers that in the case of a mixed royal marriage the children do not need to be brought up Catholic. Royals are dispensed where commoners are not. There is a long history of making concessions to royalty, so there is no real surprise here. It is being painted as a “pastoral” approach. But it raises two points in my mind:

(1) Do the bishops believe that Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life”; and if so, do they agree with Pope Francis when he preached a few days ago that Jesus cannot be found outside the Church? If so, how can they in good conscience deny royal children born to a Catholic parent the right to find Jesus in his Body the Church? Surely the only truly “pastoral” approach is one that leads to Jesus where he is truly to be found. Unless, of course, you believe that all the churches are basically equal…

(2) As a strategic tactic it is appallingly inept. Just when lawmakers are openly proposing the removal of the infamous bar on heirs to the throne marrying Catholics, the bishops are surrendering the obligation for a Catholic spouse to raise children as Catholics precisely at the moment when there is absolutely no need to do so. In fact, the Church should be keeping up the pressure by insisting on the obligation for Catholic royals just as it insists on it for every other Catholic. The bishops seem intent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Tablet, the English bishops – whom do they serve? Jesus and his Church? That seems an increasingly difficult position to argue.

A critique of the Tablet worth reading

The Tablet is not one of my favourite publications. I consider its label “Catholic” false advertising and its content too often apt to lead souls astray (this of course only matters if you do not believe in hell, which they don’t I suspect). There is a Facebook campaign to have The Tablet removed from sale in Catholic churches. It has provoked Clifford Longley to spit his dummy and cry “libel”.

Dr Joseph Shaw, an Oxford don and chairman of the Latin Mass Society (who had the misfortune of teaching me for a short time) has taken Mr Longley head on and produced a clinically cool refutation of claims made on behalf of The Tablet‘s journalistic standards. Here is something of Dr Shaw’s conclusion:

For in fact, no one from their side of the argument has presented new thinking or new research for getting on for twenty years, by contrast with the stream of conservative scholarly publications. It is the liberals who are relying on naked power, and positions of privilege and prestige which they certainly didn’t achieve on merit, to suppress dissent, to close down debate, to maintain the tottering status quo against a groundswell of opposition. The Tablet maintains an ever-narrowing spiral of denial, supported by a dwindling band of aging fire-brands like Hans Kung, and younger thinkers ever more reliant on post-modern bilge rather than argument, inhabiting institutions ever more remotely connected with the Church.

Please do go and read it. It is reasoned and reasonable, free from hyperbole and compelling in its assessment.