Ohio Nuns on Contraception

A group of Ohio sisters have produced a video on Contraception

 Have a look at their site.

The video also tells viewers:

• Possible side effects of the pill include irritability, depression, blood clots, high blood pressure and migraines.
• The pill works by preventing fertilization. If that fails, it prevents implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus.
• More than half of women getting abortions say they used contraception in the month they became pregnant.
• The overpopulation problem is a myth, and contraception puts the human race at risk of extinction.
• Christians of all denominations condemned contraception as sinful until 1930. Martin Luther, John Calvin and Pope John Paul II all opposed the practice.

Read More

St Michael: the Cosmic Battle

Belief in Angels is a supernatural gift, in a way the depth of our belief in Angels is a barometer of our spiritual health. There is temptation to believe only in what we can see, or at best imagine, as we can imagine evil more easily than good, it is no wonder many seem more aware of that than the power of good.

Angels are beyond our imagining, they point us to world that is other, to a reality that is spiritual. These creatures that are Spirit and Intelligence call us to contemplate a world that is ours by Grace but not by Nature. They whisper to the Church and its people to go beyond its comfort zone, they remind us that the mysteries we celebrate take us to another place and they remind us too that the real existence of man is a  in the world of Spirits.

This feast tells of the extraordinary mystery of cosmic battle between Satan - the Opposer and Michael -Who is like unto God. It is the battle in which we are involved, on one side or the other. It is a battle that takes place within us too, every thought, every action, every word is blow for one side or the other, ultimately it will decide our fate. This is a battle begun at the beginning of time and will end when all is al in Christ at the consummation of the ages.

Michael -Who is like unto God is the power of God himself, he is not because Christ himself has already defeat the forces of Satan and left him powerless and is himself victorious, and yet the battle continues until salvation is announced to every creature under heaven. The Archangels have names we know, the angels names are known to God alone but we know they are called "Angel" which means Messenger or Announcer or Herald this is their role, to announce Christ's victory to the Just so they might rejoice in Christ's Triumph and to the Spirits of evil that they might flee from it. This is why in ancient iconography Angels are pictured with the wand of the Imperial messenger.

The victory has been won but it has to be announced to the ends of the world; the announcing, is the Cosmic battle we see in the Book of the Apocalypse.

Read More

"Vatican II: A discussion that can no longer be stopped"

Under the heading, "Vatican II: A discussion that can no longer be stopped". The excellent Rorate Caeli says:

Whatever might be said about the current situation of the talks between the Vatican and the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), and whatever one's doctrinal position might be, one thing is clear: the frank discussion of the ambiguities of Vatican II and of post-Conciliar Vatican documents vis-a-vis the pre-Conciliar Magisterium has begun, and can no longer be stopped. While it would be easy to exaggerate the quality, extent and openness of the discussion so far, it cannot be denied that signs of it have been appearing in unlikely places, such as the following article that was published last week by the Homiletic and Pastoral Review.

It is interesting that the article deals essentially with mission or evangelisation, read the whole article, but it ends rather damningly:

The church has failed miserably in her missionary mandate, not because of laziness or a lack of numbers. Rather, it is because she has quite simply lost sight of her own mandate. She doesn’t know, for example, whether to convert non-Catholics to the one true faith, or to merely wish them well in the safe haven of their own religious beliefs. Vatican II sanctions both opposing views as equally necessary. It is as if the Catholic Church is just one of many other churches, all of which need to “converge” toward a total Christ who is immanent in all denominations. 

More and more, Catholics are shying away from using terms like “proselytizing,” “conversion,” and even “Catholic” in their ecumenical and inter-religious efforts, almost as if they were ashamed of the Gospel, or afraid of appearing as a “sign of contradiction.” In this confused state of diabolical disorientation, the Church has lost her ability to speak to the modern world about God with any clarity or conviction. She has, in fact, lost her salt, and become tasteless. 

Indeed, a kind of de-evangelization has set-in. In order to erase the prevalent indifferentism, and growing skepticism, among Catholics, the church needs to re-examine her relationship with the modern world, and clarify her understanding of Christian unity. Otherwise the Church’s missionary activity will be reduced to nothing more than literacy programs, irrigation schemes, agricultural improvements, and health services—that is, the advancement of civilization rather than religion.

Surely a failure to evangelise, to have the confidence in its message, is not merely a problem in itself which we suffer from today but it is a sign of the lack of health of the post Vatican II model of the Church, at least as it is lived out in those parts of the world where it is shrinking. The Church by its very nature is evangelistic if it is failing to produce fruit we must look to the root to find the disease.
I hope that one of the issues addressed by the forthcoming Synod on Evangelisation will be the reasons why we are failing to evangelise. The obvious answer must be the ambiguity, as this article points out, of Concilliar teaching.
Speaking of fruit, I heard of one seminary spiritual director, (guess where?) who was voted out of office by his monastic community who now tells his seminarians he is "as much a Moslem as Christian" and urges them to read the Koran as spiritual reading. That is better than another one, a Franciscan, who describes himself as "more a Buddhist than a Christian. Then of course there are those leading American nuns who have "moved beyond the Church and beyond Jesus".

Read More

SSPX's Problems

Recently the SSPX Bishop Tissier de Mallerais revealed during a conference a letter written by Benedict XVI which says an agreement between the SSPX is dependant on their acceptance of Vatican II and subsequent Magisterial teaching. I really can't see the problem.

The difficulty is in the "how" the accepting of the Council and subsequent teaching is to be done but I am sure that the good bishop has no problem with Humanae Vitae for example. Bishop Fellay has said that the SSPX accepts 96% of the teaching of VII, but those bishops and priests with whom Pope Benedict might normally concelebrate I suspect would, if they were ever questioned, accept far, far less, not because they really disagree, but because of ignorance or failing to understand what the Church is really saying.

Ultimately, our faith is not about accepting propositions, (though it has been frequently about denying them) except for one: the Church teaches without error. And if you want to know what the Church is: it is simple, it those in communion with Peter and his successors. Though even here, many Catholics, now and in the past, would not be able to voice that belief.  It seems as if the real problem with the SSPX is that either it sees the Church as erring, or it doesn't recognise Benedict  is Peter. Regrettably there is a sede vacantist streak in the SSPX, it is the fruit of Gallicanism.

It can be dressed up as a dispute over aspects of Vatican II teaching but in its essence it is simply about whether the Church in communion with Benedict is the Church of Jesus Christ or not. 

Unless of course one disputes that Vatican II was a valid Oecumenical Council; Orthodox friends certainly would, one of mine dismisses it as a "Western Synod" but that doesn't seem to be a real option for Catholics as it has been continuously defined as an Oecumenical Council by subsequent Popes. Did they err in this? Catholics must answer, "No", or find a new way of defining our Catholic understanding of "Catholic". 

However, ever since the Council we have disputed how to interpret it and what it meant and what weight to give its teaching. In that sense it is a singular Council, it itself anathematised no-one if they didn't accept its particular teachings, even if they rejected those central documents labelled "Dogmatic Constitutions". Did the Fathers expect us to treat every word or sentence as de fide, in the same way as we are bound to accept the Canons of Nicea, or even Trent, no-one has ever suggested that, except the maddest diocesan catechist who has never read the documents. On the contrary, Pope Benedict has continuously taught that VII can only be interpreted by previous teaching.

Read More

Bishop Egan's Pictures

I thought you might like to see this flickr set of Bishop Egan's Ordination, click here










© Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk

Read More

Our Cunning Plans and God

 

Baldricks, "I have a cunning plan" was part ecclesiastical culture of the last part of the 20th century: small groups, Ministry to Priests, Renew, diocesan visions or vision statements, strategies of various kinds were all part of priestly life and they all seem to have disappeared almost with out trace under the sands of time. I don't dismiss them entirely but I have always felt they were displacement activity to avoid living and proclaiming the Gospel.
The Gospel depends on that most fragile of all things "a relationship", first and foremost with God but also between human beings. Faith is passed on not by schemes but "in the space within a Divine embrace". Ultimately the foundation of the Church charity or one could say Grace.

“Solving the pastoral problems that present themselves in your dioceses must never limit itself to organizational questions, however important these may be. This [approach] risks placing an emphasis on seeking efficiency through a sort of 'bureaucratization of pastoral care,' focused on structures, organizations and programs, ones which can become 'self-referential,' at the exclusive use of the members of those structures. These would have scarce impact on the life of Christians who are distanced from regular practice [of the faith]. Instead, evangelization requires starting from the encounter with the Lord, within a dialogue rooted in prayer, which then concentrates on the witness of giving itself toward the end of helping the people of our time to recognize and discover anew the signs of the presence of God.” 

–Pope Benedict XVI: Ad Limina Address to the Bishops of Western France Castel Gandolfo 21 September 2012

I think it is important to remember that in England apart from the two Papal visits the greatest large scale act of Evangelisation was the visit of the relics of St Therese. Here it has been events like Forty Hours, our 150th Anniversary opening Mass. I have a sense that teaching is important but so too is space, space for the touch of God, for people to come and open their hearts.
In our cunning plans Grace, Divine Providence, God himself is often excluded. God's displeasure towards David, seems to be because he places his trust in bureaucracy rather than Him.
"If you want to make God laugh tell him your plans".
In many ways the problems of the Irish and other Churches are the result of "cunning plans"; substituting management of a situation for trust in God and seeking his goodness in all things.

Read More

Developing a cultus

When I first came here to Brighton, a now dead parishioner remembers overhearing one of my predecessors describing the parish to a new curate as "there are courtesans to the north and common prostitutes to the south and east, they come together in the church". Although there were in the past more families there was always a lot of strange goings on here. 19th century descriptions of Brighton might well suggest why the founders of our parish chose her as the patron of this parish, especially as in the old rite she is presented as Penitent rather than witness to the Resurrection. Brighton is still sexualised and still in need of the Magdalen's prayers.

The newly appointed parish priest of Knaphill, has post about some pop singer playing St Mary Magdalen and points out that there is still a popular consciousness of the role of the Magdalen. Fr Henry is in search of a relic of St Gerrard, which made me think that we really need do to develop devotion to our patron, we have a small relic, a not very nice statue but no altar or shrine for her.

I suppose we could offer an occasional votive Mass, I could bring her into sermons a little more often but really I am at a loss, though maybe for the Year of Faith we should integrate our patron saints into our parish lives. The devotion to saints is, or at least was, an important part of "Roman" Christianity as is witnessed by the ancient and august Roman Canon.

Ideas? Sensible one's!

Read More