Brothers and Sister

We are preparing for 40 Hours, beginning with Mass on Thursday at 8am and ending with Benediction on Friday at Midnight.
In Milan the Pope spoke about the place of the divorced and remarried and their place in the Church. I want to draw attention to the heroic role of those who live as "brother and sister", sharing a life together and yet refraining from sexual intercourse. Today, when the assumption is everyone is "at it" it is more difficult for them than in a less sexualised society these and those who come to Mass week by week and yet have remarried outside the Church and are unable to receive Holy Communion are so often living an heroic life. In spite of human weakness, and their inability to personally uphold the Lord's teaching about divorce and remarriage,  in their own way the uphold his teaching.
The post-Concilliar Rites of Christian Inititation for Adults seems to envision a broader concept of what it means to be a Catholic, there are those in  "full communion" but there also those who aspire to communion, like  Catechumens, those whose lifestyle and desire makes them candidates for baptism and therefore Communion but then there are also those who are "enquirers" or "auditors", those who like the rich young man of the Gospels are genuinely interested but who cannot "go and sell everything you have and follow me", even so we are reminded, the Lord "looked at him and loved him".
After the "Donatist crisis" it is estimated that the vast majority of "Christians" in North Africa were not in "full communion" with the Church, either because they were not yet initiated or because having been initiated they had given in during the persecution. In Hyppo some authors suggest that it would have been as high as 80%. If we have RCIA it should follow that we some formal structure for penitents, for those who for various reasons are unable to be full, communicating members of the Church.

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Fr Aidan Nichols: The Future of the Church in England

Here is Fr Aidan's talk on the Future of the Church in England, which he gave here recently.
He sets the future of the Church in Europe in the context of theosis or divinisation, he has many interesting things to say about "Catholic" schools and the Tablet and quite a few other things.

He has the wonderful gift of putting complex ideas into concrete and practical forms.

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Theology: the triumph of orthodoxy

I  am not sure how much use the scripture and theology I learnt in the seminary thirty years ago is in either my pastoral work, preaching or celebration of the sacraments.

I remember being criticised for quoting, occasionally, a certain German theologian and it being suggested that whilst it was alright keeping Kung, Schillebeeckx and Curran on my bookshelves, they were actually supplied "ad usum" by the seminary, that it might be better not to display quite so prominently this theologian's work. That theologian is now Pope and the priest who gave me the warning is now married, and I think, divorced.
Many priests of my generation are really autodidacts. Not all, but much of what was presented was dissenting, younger clergy who came to teach had earned whatever qualification they had in the maelstrom that followed Vatican II, and often their qualifications were pretty light; a simple first degree or STL, sometimes in a subject only loosely connected with what they taught. Few were pastorally minded priests, some were priests who were having difficulties.
 I gave up on official clergy in service training courses after a tedious three days with a prominent scripture scholar who spent that time "proving" the fabrication of various creedal statements, like the Resurrection. The real problem was that no-one really understood the purpose of theology or scripture.
The situation is quite different I understand, now, at least in our three surviving English Seminaries but the recent CDF condemnation of Sister Margaret Farley's Just Loving and the response by the the leadership of the 1,500 member Catholic Theological Society of America show that in the Church at large there is still a serious problem with the role of theology and theologians. The expectations of "academic", albeit Catholic theologians even on the level of "popular theology" in the newspapers like the Catholic Times or Ma P's Journal, the Pope's words to our Bishops, "It is important to recognize dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate", are not taken entirely seriously.
I discussed this with one of our bishops recently, he said there were two ways of dealing with the matter: negatively with blanket condemnations, the quick solution or positively, slowly by raising the standard of the arguments for orthodoxy. "Orthodoxy", he said, "would triumph, because it is True", I think this is really the Pope's position.
Last week we had Fr Aidan Nichols giving a talk here: The Future of the Church in England, the video I hope will be soon, his latest work is Chalice of God is pretty exciting, he describes it as a manifesto for a systematic theology, it is that but it is also a statement of personal belief by a serious theologian who takes into account East and West, and does what Vatican II demands: a return to the Scripture and the Fathers.
It is so exciting when theologians can say "I accept the Magisterium", "I believe the Pope is the successor of Peter"!

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Good Idea: send a postcard

I like this, some German Catholics have started a campaign in the light of Vatileaks of sending the Pope a postcard, just saying, "We are with you!"
It was rumoured that under the previous Secretary of State certain low ranking Monsignori on the various language desks in the postal department of the Holy See would simply bin or fail to forward any unfavourable correspondence sent either to the Pope or Vatican department. It gave enormous power of control to men who were really filing-clerks.
It meant if you complained about a Nuncio, for example, or made a recommendation about who would be an effective bishop and it wasn't to the opener of the letter's taste, it never got through.

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Word Given

I am not a raging Monarchist but I think the Queen is a good thing. She's a bit of a mystery, we know her through the reports of other people. For the most part she herself keeps silent, happier to wave than to speak. When she does speak her words are heavily scripted but here are some of her own words, made on her 21st birthday:

I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong. But I shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join in it with me, as I now invite you to do: I know that your support will be unfailingly given. God help me to make good my vow, and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it.

What fascinates me is that Monarchy, which is, let us not pretend, feudal, it is fundamentally about a "word given" and promises made it is a contradiction of democracy and comes from an entirely different mindset. Feudal society was essentially contractual, based on giving promises, on giving one's word and keeping it come what may.

A French friend used to tell a story about a very English couple in bed together. She finishes a romantic novel, closes it and after a moments thought says, "Cyril, I can't remember the last time you told me that you loved me".
He replied, "Audrey, I told you 45 years ago, on the night we became engaged that I loved you. If I changed my mind I would have let you!".
For my friend it illustrated the lack of communication often present in English love affairs, maybe; but it also illustrates something deeper, "a word given" and not taken back.

My mother was dying, a long tedious process over a couple of years, brought about by hospital infections in a broken leg and dementia, aggravated by poor nursing. Practically everyday my father would drive across town to see her, they were both in their eighties. When he lost confidence in his driving, he would take a bus, a journey of about an hour each way. In the latter stages of her illness she didn't know him, and finally didn't respond to him. They weren't a demonstrative couple, my father less so than than my mother, I suggested he ought to visit a little less, perhaps every other day, his response was simply, "I promised ....".

The promise, the giving of the word, that is binding and not taken back, is the basis of the marriage covenant, the relationship, the covenant marriage between a Sovereign and her people, a bishop and his Church, a religious and his/her superior, a Christian and Christ. Obviously it is rooted for Christians in the Logos, "the Word given", God giving His Son eternally. It is something beyond "romantic love", it raises "duty" and the obligations implied by "duty" to sacred obligation, it raises us above the "hired man" who flees, to martyrs and saints, and faithful servants willing to sacrifice themselves for Christ.

Romantic love is delightful but when one's seven year old handicapped daughter smears the house with excrement, or your sixteen year old son tells you you are the "worst parent in the world" or your wife greets you with a spew of swear words, or your husband is apparently brain-dead, or your country needs you to go to war, or the music is ghastly at Mass, or for that matter your countrymen and co-religionists turn against you would crucify you, it is simply not enough. Neither is it enough when depression robs you of feelings or having fallen into love you fall out of it.
Then duty, then the promise, then the "word given" endures.

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Now is the time to gather with Peter

Vatileaks has one purpose, it is to damage the Pope, to destroy his effectiveness, to sew mistrust in his judgement, to isolate him, to cause him personal distress.
I can't help but compare the present situation with the rumours that surrounded the death of Pope John Paul I, where apparently Vatican officials overwhelmed him with work. With the revelations that have emerged over this weekend, a similar pattern is emerging, where the only "leak proof" means of working seems to be face to face communication which will place enormous pressure on the Pope.

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Hunwicke News

An Ordination date is announced here.

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