Sentire Cum Ecclesia

…(followed by bread rolls thrown at the blog owner with the port bottle at the head of the table).

Well, folks. It’s time to depart from the Commentators’ Table and head back your own place for the Feast of the Nativity. Most of you have already departed (judging by the lack of comments on the last few posts), and those of you who are left: GET A LIFE!

Thanks for your company in 2010. We’ve had a few hiccups this year and found a new home (Thanks WordPress Hosting). We’ve made a lot of new friends along the way. There are now 174 approved commentators on this list – that’s a big table! I’ve enjoyed getting to know you all, and making contacts all over Australia and over the world, with Catholics and Orthodox and Lutherans and Anglican and Atheists and Muslims and all sorts.

And I wish all of you (yes, even the Atheists and Muslims – you can take it or leave it!) a happy and holy Christmas.

To that end, I tried to find something to illustrate my Christmas greetings for the year. My mother, who has recently discovered the joys of email, heard about people sending “e-greetings”, and so this Christmas, rather than buying and sending cards to everyone, she scanned one Christmas card and emailed it to everyone… Those who know me know that I don’t send Christmas cards at all (if you got one purporting to be from me, check the signature). So don’t be offended if you didn’t get one. I haven’t dropped you from the list. I don’t HAVE a list!

So, I went onto the net to try and find a profound Youtube video to inspire your Christmas. I failed. I found these:

1) How it really happened. Actually this is for my children; we recently had a car-quiz – the tricky questions Dad asks you to puzzle over while on long car trips – in which I asked how many kings the bible says went to the stable to visit the baby Jesus.

2) And how it might have happened if it happened today

This is now my third post on the Pope’s Christmas Address to the Roman Curia, because I have not yet highlighted something that I find very beautiful in what he had to say. He addressed at length the issue of clerical sexual abuse – and surprisingly (or perhaps not for this professor-Pope) he found an historical allusion to the problem in a vision of St Hildegard of Bingen. But among all that, there was this, which surely needs more attention:

Among us priests and among the lay faithful, especially the young, there was a renewed awareness of what a great gift the Lord has entrusted to us in the priesthood of the Catholic Church. We realized afresh how beautiful it is that human beings are fully authorized to pronounce in God’s name the word of forgiveness, and are thus able to change the world, to change life; we realized how beautiful it is that human beings may utter the words of consecration, through which the Lord draws a part of the world into himself, and so transforms it at one point in its very substance; we realized how beautiful it is to be able, with the Lord’s strength, to be close to people in their joys and sufferings, in the important moments of their lives and in their dark times; how beautiful it is to have as one’s life task not this or that, but simply human life itself – helping people to open themselves to God and to live from God.

Yes, at Christmas time we marvel at “how beautiful it is” that God became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. But the incarnation of the Mission of God did not end with the Ascension of Jesus to the right hand of the Father. Unlike Moses and Mohammed, Jesus did not leave us with a book to contain his Gospel: he left us with a Church with a priestly ministry that continues to incarnate the Gospel. Just today I went to make my Christmas confession, and marvelled at “how beautiful it is” to hear the same words that Jesus addressed to the paralytic (Mark 2): “your sins are forgiven”. On Christmas Eve I will again receive, from the hands of the priest, the very body and blood of the man who as a baby lay in the manger in Bethlehem. It was for the sake of this ministry – more than anything else – that I became a Catholic almost ten years ago.

I put up my earlier post on the Pope’s Christmas Address to the Roman Curia without comment because I had not had time to read it yet, and lo and behold the Commentary Table got stuck into the port and went straight into a discussion of the causes of paedophilia! So rather than continuing that comment thread, which can be read here, I will continue the discussion in a new post.

Tony reacted to this comment from the Pope:

In order to resist these forces, we must turn our attention to their ideological foundations. In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorized as something fully in conformity with man and even with children. This, however, was part of a fundamental perversion of the concept of ethos.

Just by way of a note, that comment actually can already be found in “Light of the World”. In fact, the 2010 Christmas includes a lot of ideas that can already be found in the Peter Seewald interview, only this time, arguably, we have the Pope speaking magisterially in his office as pope rather than in personal non-magisterial reflection.

That being said, here is what Tony had to say:

To assert [this]…is utter garbage in the context of the ‘ideological foundations’ of abuse. No child, no parent, no decent human being ‘theorised’ that a priest raping a child was in ‘conformity’ with anything remotely resembly morality.

Arabella and Christine engage Tony by pointing to the case of Fr Paul Shanley and NAMBLA. Tony counters by saying:

There have been such groups since the Romans and the Greeks, Arabella. There are such groups now. The suggestions that they form the ‘ideological foundation’ of clerical abuse at its height is a red herring.

…Clericalism and mandatory celibacy are much more important factors to recognise as ‘ideological foundations’ for abuse, IMO, but they’re too uncomfortable and too close to home for church leaders to face.

Tony may be right in the first case (I don’t know how pervasive that sort of “ideology” was – although if such ideas existed at all, I am sure that perpetrators of abuse would have jumped at the chance to justify their actions to themselves with this stuff) but I think he is wrong in his second assertion that “clericalism and mandatory celibacy are much more important factors” behind clerical abuse of minors.

I say this because, as we know, the incidence of child sexual abuse among celibate Catholic clerics is no different than in the general populace. (And here it is also mandatory that I point out that it should be significantly different – ie. much, much less if not non-existent – given the vocation of the priest.)

I was listening recently to an old pod-cast of a ABC Radio Sunday Night program led by Noel Debien. His guests on the show were

Dr Carolyn Quadrio (a consultant child and family and Forensic Psychiatrist and an Associate Professor in Psychiatry at the University of New South Wales), Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, Mons. Stephen Rossetti (an expert on psychological and spiritual wellness issues for Catholic priests who for many years headed the St Luke Institute in Maryland), and Garth Blake SC (a lawyer and the Chair of the Professional Standards Commission of the Anglican church of Australia).

The interesting comment made by Mons. Rossetti was along the lines that his treatment of abuser priests had seen a very high rehabilitation rate of those whom he had treated (nb. not that any of these priests were then allowed back into the mainstream). Dr Quadrio reacted with surprise to this statement, saying that she had a very high failure rate with offenders in the normal populace.

Later in the program, Debien raised the question of Benedict’s Irish Letter and the proposal of devotion to the example of St John Vianney and to the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament as an antidote to child abuse. Wasn’t this a case of naivety on the part of the Pope? No, said Mons. Rossetti, because in his experience it was precisely the two-pronged approach of quality psychiatric care and a renewed connection with authentic spirituality that produced the positive results of the treatments he cited earlier. In other words, authentic Catholic spirituality of priestly vocation was one source – but a powerful one – of healing for these priests. I would also read into that – and I think this must be undeniable – that conversely it would not be possible for these priests to commit such offences unless there was, in the first place, not only a psychological sickness but also a severe lack of connection to an authentic priestly spirituality.

Now, put that together with the fact that according to Garth Blake, the Anglican lawyer, the instances of offence were as common among Anglican clergy as among Catholic clergy, and I think Tony’s thesis that “clericalism and mandatory celibacy” are major contributing factors to the instance of abuse by Catholic priests is further called into question. Interestingly, while Dr Quadrio’s statistics shows that in the general populace, the incidence of offence is predominantly committed against girls by family members, in cases of clergy abuse of minors the ratio is directly reversed, with boys being the chief victim group. The commentators put this down to the fact that offenders generally had more access to boys than to girls. But it is especially significant that this was the case in both the Anglican and Catholic experience.

So I guess that while I share Tony’s curiosity about why the Pope would single out some 1970’s ideology that believed sexual acts with minors to be morally acceptable, I don’t share Tony’s rather simplistic reasons for identifying “clericalism and mandatory celibacy” as the chief concerns. I rather wonder whether Tony isn’t making such a claim because he holds particular views about both the status of clergy within the Church and the discipline of celibacy.

Thanks to Andrew Rabel for alerting me to this note, which can be found here. It should be noted that this is the first time that this has been discussed at the level of the Magisterium (a low level, admittedly, but with authority, none-the-less; the pope’s own musings in his interview do not count as authoritative).

NOTE OF THE CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
On the trivilization of sexuality
Regarding certain interpretations of “Light of the World”

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Following the publication of the interview-book Light of the World by Benedict XVI, a number of erroneous interpretations have emerged which have caused confusion concerning the position of the Catholic Church regarding certain questions of sexual morality. The thought of the Pope has been repeatedly manipulated for ends and interests which are entirely foreign to the meaning of his words – a meaning which is evident to anyone who reads the entire chapters in which human sexuality is treated. The intention of the Holy Father is clear: to rediscover the beauty of the divine gift of human sexuality and, in this way, to avoid the cheapening of sexuality which is common today.

Some interpretations have presented the words of the Pope as a contradiction of the traditional moral teaching of the Church. This hypothesis has been welcomed by some as a positive change and lamented by others as a cause of concern – as if his statements represented a break with the doctrine concerning contraception and with the Church’s stance in the fight against AIDS. In reality, the words of the Pope – which specifically concern a gravely disordered type of human behaviour, namely prostitution (cf. Light of the World, pp. 117-119) – do not signify a change in Catholic moral teaching or in the pastoral practice of the Church.

As is clear from an attentive reading of the pages in question, the Holy Father was talking neither about conjugal morality nor about the moral norm concerning contraception. This norm belongs to the tradition of the Church and was summarized succinctly by Pope Paul VI in paragraph 14 of his Encyclical Letter Humanae vitae, when he wrote that “also to be excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.” The idea that anyone could deduce from the words of Benedict XVI that it is somehow legitimate, in certain situations, to use condoms to avoid an unwanted pregnancy is completely arbitrary and is in no way justified either by his words or in his thought. On this issue the Pope proposes instead – and also calls the pastors of the Church to propose more often and more effectively (cf. Light of the World, p. 147) – humanly and ethically acceptable ways of behaving which respect the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative meaning of every conjugal act, through the possible use of natural family planning in view of responsible procreation.

On the pages in question, the Holy Father refers to the completely different case of prostitution, a type of behaviour which Christian morality has always considered gravely immoral (cf. Vatican II, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes, n. 27; Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2355). The response of the entire Christian tradition – and indeed not only of the Christian tradition – to the practice of prostitution can be summed up in the words of St. Paul: “Flee from fornication” (1 Cor 6:18). The practice of prostitution should be shunned, and it is the duty of the agencies of the Church, of civil society and of the State to do all they can to liberate those involved from this practice.

In this regard, it must be noted that the situation created by the spread of AIDS in many areas of the world has made the problem of prostitution even more serious. Those who know themselves to be infected with HIV and who therefore run the risk of infecting others, apart from committing a sin against the sixth commandment are also committing a sin against the fifth commandment – because they are consciously putting the lives of others at risk through behaviour which has repercussions on public health. In this situation, the Holy Father clearly affirms that the provision of condoms does not constitute “the real or moral solution” to the problem of AIDS and also that “the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality” in that it refuses to address the mistaken human behaviour which is the root cause of the spread of the virus. In this context, however, it cannot be denied that anyone who uses a condom in order to diminish the risk posed to another person is intending to reduce the evil connected with his or her immoral activity. In this sense the Holy Father points out that the use of a condom “with the intention of reducing the risk of infection, can be a first step in a movement towards a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.” This affirmation is clearly compatible with the Holy Father’s previous statement that this is “not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection.”

Some commentators have interpreted the words of Benedict XVI according to the so-called theory of the “lesser evil”. This theory is, however, susceptible to proportionalistic misinterpretation (cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis splendor, n. 75-77). An action which is objectively evil, even if a lesser evil, can never be licitly willed. The Holy Father did not say – as some people have claimed – that prostitution with the use of a condom can be chosen as a lesser evil. The Church teaches that prostitution is immoral and should be shunned. However, those involved in prostitution who are HIV positive and who seek to diminish the risk of contagion by the use of a condom may be taking the first step in respecting the life of another – even if the evil of prostitution remains in all its gravity. This understanding is in full conformity with the moral theological tradition of the Church.

In conclusion, in the battle against AIDS, the Catholic faithful and the agencies of the Catholic Church should be close to those affected, should care for the sick and should encourage all people to live abstinence before and fidelity within marriage. In this regard it is also important to condemn any behaviour which cheapens sexuality because, as the Pope says, such behaviour is the reason why so many people no longer see in sexuality an expression of their love: “This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being” (Light of the World, p. 119).

I guess I was rather hoping for a bit more “clarification” than that, though. The clarification of “the lesser evil” theory is a good one, but of course draws on the earlier magisterium of John Paul II. The reference, by the way, is to a lengthy passage in Veritatis Splendor. Paragraph 75 begins by saying that “there exist false solutions, linked in particular to an inadequate understanding of the object of moral action” – and that is certainly pertinent to this discussion. He discusses “teleologism”, (ie. “consequentialism” and “proportionalism”), and rejects the view that “deliberate consent to certain kinds of behaviour declared illicit by traditional moral theology would not imply an objective moral evil”. The rest of the discussion concerns the nature of “the object of the deliberate act” – all pertinent to this discussion.

That’s pretty fundamental, but perhaps more important to a clarification of the Pope’s statements would have been a clarification of whether or not what the Pope did say actually applies also to heterosexual married couples – this has been the main concern of the debate. The Note says:

The idea that anyone could deduce from the words of Benedict XVI that it is somehow legitimate, in certain situations, to use condoms to avoid an unwanted pregnancy is completely arbitrary and is in no way justified either by his words or in his thought.

But that isn’t quite exactly what the debate has been about in this instance. The question has been whether it is somehow legitimate, in certain situations, for a couple to use condoms to avoid an unwanted infection, even if the secondary effect was also to reduce the chance of pregnancy to virtually nil. A clear yes or no on that issue would have been good.

It’s just been put up on the Vatican Website and can be read here. I will expand this post when I have had time to read it.

An excellent article on the Declaration Dominus Iesus was published recently in the journal Ecumenical Trends, by Mons. Paul McPartlan, the Ordinary Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology and Carl J. Peter Professor of Systematic Theology and Ecumenism at the Catholic University of America. Since the journal is not online, I requested and received permission to publish it on the Ecumenical and Interfaith Commission’s website. You can download it and read it by clicking here. I highly recommend it.

In this essay, Fr Paul writes that it is “illuminating, especially amid all the complexity and controversy surrounding that little phrase “subsists in,” to hold together the council’s use of it in L[umen] G[entium] 8 and its use of it in U[nitatis] R[edintegratio, the Decree on Ecumenism] 4.” He then compares that to the use of the phrase in Dominus Iesus. He has four conclusions:

First, from a Catholic point of view, that structure of unity, namely the college of bishops headed by the pope, is part of the Lord’s will for his Church. It follows, then, that the Church does not exist fully without it, and that is what is meant by saying; as DI does, that the Church “continues to exist fully only in the Catholic Church” (DI 16, emphasis mine), where that structure of unity, and especially the universal primacy of the pope, is recognized and operative.

Second, part of what is meant when it is said that the Church subsists is that that structure of unity itself subsists, and it is in that sense that it might even be said that the Church subsists only in the Catholic Church (cf DI, footnote 56), since clearly that is the only place where that structure of unity actually functions today.

Third, and very importantly, none of this detracts at all from the recognition that many elements of the Church exist outside the visible bounds of the Catholic Church, and, in particular, that the fundamental elements of apostolic succession, holy orders and Eucharist exist among the Orthodox Churches, such that they are indeed “true particular Churches” in which the Church is Christ is “present and operative” (DI 17), as Vatican II emphasized (cf UR 15).

Fourth, contrary to what might easily be presumed to be the meaning of the phrase, “subsists in” is not therefore synonymous with “is present and operative in.” “Subsists,” it would seem, alludes to that additional factor of unity and stability that is, provided for the Church on earth by the personal ministry of the pope as universal primate.

Interesting stuff. I take his final conclusion to mean that, while “subsistit in” does mean “is present and operative in”, it must be taken to include “the additional factor of unity and stability” that comes with communion with the Successor of Peter, and thus it is in this sense that one must “believe, teach and confess” (as Lutherans are wont to say) that the Church Christ established fully subsists only in the Catholic Church in communion with the Pope.

One problem with situational ethics (the ethics that most commonly underlines current thinking in the public square) is that it is so often logically inconsistent.

We have had, here in Australia, a very distressing case recently of a mother who has been convicted, for the sake of continuing her sporting career, of killing her newborn babies immediately after birth. This phenomena of “neonaticide”, as it is called, is apparently more widespread than has previously been appreciated, and is leading the states to consider ”baby safe haven” laws which – for the sake of the life of the child – would allow mothers in such distress to anonymously abandon their newborns at hospitals, or police and fire stations, without fear of criminal prosecution.

It is a move that I think should be considered, although there needs to be a lot of thought given to just how it would be implemented.

In the Sunday Age on the weekend, John Elder had two articles on this matter: Victorian moves to protect newborns and Sins of the Mother: the tragedgy of neonaticide. Both articles are worth reading, but I discern a deep logical and ethical disconnect behind the sentiments and ideas expressed in both articles and in the thinking behind the suggestion of such “baby safe haven” laws.

The “Sins of the Mother” article begins like this:

THE day you are born is the day you are most likely to be the victim of homicide. This cheerless statistic holds true whether you live in Stockholm or South Yarra. The perpetrator will almost certainly be your mother.

This statistic is true because, during the rest of life, the moment of death is rather more randomnly scattered – statistically speaking – throughout all the other thousands of days of a persons life. Nevertheless, if we were to extend the question beyond an actual 24 hour period and ask “In which nine months of a person’s life would he or she be most statistically likely to be killed?”, the answer would, without a doubt, be the nine month period before birth.

And hence the logical disconnect in this kind of situational ethics. It totally ignores the statistics and widespread practice of abortion. In fact, the word “abortion” does not occur anywhere in either of these two articles. There is something very strange going on in a society that cringes at the notion of neonaticide, and yet “celebrates” (as one commentator put it recently) a woman’s right to procure an abortion at any stage in pregnancy before the actual birth of the baby. No where in these articles is it pointed out that “simple solution” (of course, it is no “solution” at all, but would mean that the mothers in question would be condemned by neither the law nor by society if they were to take this action) would be for mothers who did not want their babies to have their babies aborted before birth rather than kill them after birth.

Few “ethicists” – other than Peter Singer and the Catholic Church – are entirely consistent on this matter. Singer says that if abortion is okay, neonaticide should be regarded as okay. The Catholic Church, of course, condemns both. At least both Singer and the Church are consistent. But a society that considers the one action to be acceptable and the other to be reprehensible is – at the very least – not consistent in its ethical thinking.

In the “Sins of the Mother”, Elder quotes the associate professor at the University of New England’s School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences, Dr John Scott, as saying:

it is easy to dispose of an ”object” that we have no emotional links with. Moreover, he says, if the object threatens to block social opportunities, crime becomes a viable option.

”It is easier to kill animals because they are not ‘human’. At what stage does an infant become ‘human’? Not an easy answer here and [it] is likely to vary between individuals and cultures,” he says in an email.

…”Part of being human is having a social identity and part of this identity is formed from the onset of the pregnancy being made public. If this status is not made public, is it possible for a social identity to adequately develop? If this identity is less developed, it may be easier to commit the crime.”

These statements seem to me to throw as much light on the question of abortion as on the questin of neonaticide.

It is because our society recognises that a new-born baby is “human” that it condemns (both legally and ethically) acts of neonaticide. What can we do to raise the awareness that the human dignity of the unborn is equal to that of the newly born?

The First “Word Day of Peace” was instituted by Pope Paul VI 43 years ago in 1968, the year in which the famous Humanae Vitae encyclical was released. It is worth read Pope Paul’s original message in which he explains his rationale for such a “Day of Peace”. Among other things, he says:

The proposal to dedicate to Peace the first day of the new year is not intended, therefore, as exclusively ours, religious, that is, Catholic. It would hope to have the adherence of all the true friends of Peace, as if it were their own initiative, to be expressed in a free manner, congenial to the particular character of those who are aware of how beautiful and how important is the harmony of all voices in the world for the exaltation of this primary good, which is Peace, in the varied concert of modern humanity.

Every pope since then has used this day to address weighty matters, including, as Pope Paul himself said, that every person’s “right to life and human dignity [be] recognized and respected. The topics of Pope Benedict XVI’s messages have so far included In Truth, Peace, The Human Person, the Heart of Peace, The Human Family, a Community of Peace, Fighting Poverty to Build Peace, and If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation. That last one, for 2010, is a virtual critique of the policy of the Australian Greens party, focusing as it does on the importance of maintaining the human ecology as well as the natural ecology.

Now the Holy Father has released his message for the 2011 World Day of Peace, on the topic Religious Freedom, the Path to Peace . It is a dense and tightly argued letter – practically a “mini-encyclical” – on the fundamental human right of religious liberty. (Again, the Greens, who believe that “giving absolute primacy to freedom of religion over the entire range of other rights would not be necessary” (Greens response to Your Vote, Your Values), could take note.)

He begins by immediately calling to mind the murderous attack on the Syro-Catholic Cathedral in Baghdad, and expressing his closeness to all Christians in the Middle East who are suffering persecution for their faith.

In this context, I have felt it particularly appropriate to share some reflections on religious freedom as the path to peace. It is painful to think that in some areas of the world it is impossible to profess one’s religion freely except at the risk of life and personal liberty. In other areas we see more subtle and sophisticated forms of prejudice and hostility towards believers and religious symbols. At present, Christians are the religious group which suffers most from persecution on account of its faith.

This paragraph shows that he has two main threats to religious liberty in view. The first is that posed when prevailing forms of religion or political ideology in a given society directly oppose the exercise of religious freedom with real, physical violence and abuse. Here it is clear that he has mainly extreme Islamist and communist states in view, although he never actually names them as such. The second is clearly the secularist ideology that prevails in so many Western societies which, in the name of “tolerance” actually seeks to banish religion from its legitimate place in the public square. The Pope writes:

Religious fundamentalism and secularism are alike in that both represent extreme forms of a rejection of legitimate pluralism and the principle of secularity.

Thus he identifies both the situation “in Asia and in Africa, [where] the chief victims are the members of religious minorities” and the “more sophisticated forms of hostility to religion which, in Western countries, occasionally find expression in a denial of history and the rejection of religious symbols which reflect the identity and the culture of the majority of citizens.”

His observation that “at present” the religious group experiencing the most widespread and universal opposition is Christianity is timely. It is a fact which is empirically verifiable. To be sure, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism are also on the rise in many places, but in terms of sheer numbers of those affected, no one can deny that, as much as any time in Church history (including the first 300 years), this present age can rightly be called “the era of persecution”.

If one looks at the footnotes, one stands out from the others. It is a reference to Cicero:

Whenever the legal system at any level, national or international, allows or tolerates religious or antireligious fanaticism, it fails in its mission, which is to protect and promote justice and the rights of all. These matters cannot be left to the discretion of the legislator or the majority since, as Cicero once pointed out, justice is something more than a mere act which produces and applies law. It entails acknowledging the dignity of each person which, unless religious freedom is guaranteed and lived in its essence, ends up being curtailed and offended, exposed to the risk of falling under the sway of idols, of relative goods which then become absolute. All this exposes society to the risk of forms of political and ideological totalitarianism which emphasize public power while demeaning and restricting freedom of conscience, thought and religion as potential competitors.

This appears to me to be a swipe at the sort of legal positivism that often appears in a discussion of human rights: that those alone are human rights which are “created” by positive acts of legislation. I have always feared that a “bill of human rights”, as proposed by some in our federal government, would be dangerous for this reason: that it would create “rights” that are not true human rights (such as the right of same-sex partners to “marry”) and that it would fail to recognise other human rights (such as the right to life of the unborn).

This “mini-encyclical” goes on to stress that

• The right to religious freedom is rooted in the very dignity of the human person
• Religious freedom is at the origin of moral freedom.
• A freedom which is hostile or indifferent to God becomes self-negating and does not guarantee full respect for others
• Religious education is the highway which leads new generations to see others as their brothers and sisters
• Religious freedom enjoys a special status among the fundamental rights and freedoms rooted in the dignity of the person,
• Religious freedom is not the exclusive patrimony of believers, but of the whole family of the earth’s peoples.
• Religious freedom proceeds from the personal sphere and is achieved in relationship with others; freedom without relationship is not full freedom.
• The profession of a religion cannot be exploited or imposed by force.
• Religious freedom is the condition for the pursuit of truth, which does not impose itself by violence but “by the force of its own truth”.
• Every form of hostility to religion that would restrict the public role of believers in civil and political life must be opposed.
• Healthy dialogue between civil and religious institutions is fundamental for the integral development of the human person and social harmony.
• Dialogue between the followers of the different religions is essential to peace but this cannot take the path of relativism or religious syncretism.
• Politics and diplomacy should look to the moral and spiritual patrimony offered by the great religions of the world in order for those universal truths, principles and values which cannot be denied without denying the dignity of the human person.
• Religion is defended by defending the rights and freedoms of religious communities.
• For the followers of Christ, witnessing to the Gospel is, and always will be, a sign of contradiction

But how does this look in practice? It has often been said that the power of the Church’s teaching lies in its ability to implement in practice, to say “damnamus” and “anathema sit” to those concrete cases where the Church’s teaching is violated. As if to give us just such an example, the Holy See has reacted with condemnation against China for the renewed acts of force against Catholics in that country. Catholic bishops in that country have been forced against their will to attend a meeting of the Patriotic Association in which the participants were forced to “elect” presidents of both the illicit “College of Catholic Bishops of China” and of the “Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association”. The Holy See’s opposition to both these organisations can be seen from the fact that the Vatican statement laments equally the election of an illegitimate bishop as head of the “College” and a legitimate bishop as head of the “Association”.

As Pope Benedict reminds us, Christians are called to live in the world as “signs of contradiction”. Nevertheless it is the duty of all human beings and societies to uphold the fundamental right of religious liberty for the sake of peace and human dignity.

This has been reported on other blogs, but we need to keep up with it here at SCE as well. Here is the report from the Archdiocesan website:

Australian Ordinariate: Giant Step Forward
Thursday 16 December 2010

At a recent meeting in Melbourne convened by Catholic Bishop Peter Elliott, Episcopal Delegate for the Ordinariate, and Traditional Anglican Archbishop and Primate John Hepworth, the Australian Ordinariate Implementation Committee was formed.

This ground breaking and historic initiative was unanimously agreed to by a working party including clergy of the Anglican Church of Australia and official representatives of the Traditional Anglican Communion in Australia. They resolved to work closely together to bring to fruition their shared desire to be in full communion with the Catholic Church through the Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus of Pope Benedict XVI.

“I was heartened and moved by the spirit of good will and cooperation at the meeting which represented the major Anglican groups.” said Bishop Elliott. “This convergence of heart and mind opens the way for establishing an Ordinariate in Australia next year. There is every reason to be optimistic that our goal for unity will soon be achieved.”

Archbishop Hepworth said, ”The long years in which we have had conversations with the Holy See and with other Anglican groups, which the Holy Father recognized in creating Anglican Ordinariates, will now become a reality. The Australian Ordinariate will exist in a matter of months. I urge Anglican clergy and people to consider with seriousness this unique offer of the Holy Father.”

A national gathering open to interested Anglicans and Catholics will be held in St Stephen’s College, Coomera, Queensland, 1-3 February next year. Details of the gathering may be found at: www.friendsoftheanglicanordinariate.com and www.themessenger.com.au.

They obviously have a lot of work to do if things are to be “ready to go” by Easter!

Terra, on her blog, draws our attention to this piece from The Australian, which claims:

Four TAC bishops, a retired Anglican bishop, a Japanese bishop, 24 priests and several thousand laypeople will join from the outset. Many of the Ordinariate’s priests will be married, and Catholics will be free to attend their masses.

It is significant that the bishops taking up the offer of Anglicanorum Coetibus in Australia are mainly from the TAC, rather than from the Anglican Church of Australia, whereas the five in England come from the Church of England. This is because existence of the TAC in Australia has meant that there has been a sort of “half-way house” already for Anglicans who feel that they could no longer remain in the larger Anglican body.

The Australian also reports that the Ordinariate will be using “500-year old liturgies”, which really peaks one’s curiosity.

Bypassing the Catholic world completely was a controversy in the Protestant world in the 1990’s about “Worship as Evangelisation”.

There were all kinds of issues raised in this debate, including fundamental questions of what worship and liturgy were actually “for”. There were some who wanted all the major services on a weekend to be “seeker services”, ie. services designed for the “unchurched”. In some extremes, this resulted in the eucharist (or communion service) being relegated to weeknights and all services on Sunday were evangelistic services of praise and worship with no sacramental element. On the other hand, you got the people saying that, as in the Early Church when the doors were closed to any who were not fully initiated, the Sunday liturgy was “for” baptised and catechised Christians.

Of course, in all this there was the constant reminder that the liturgy was not “for” us human beings at all, but “for” God.

This debate fizzled more or less in the first decade of the 21st Century, as the issues became a little more nuanced.

First they recognised that, unlike the Early Church, the Church in Christendom and “post-Christendom” has always engaged in “public worship”. We don’t close the doors any more, even in those churches where the cry “the doors, the doors” is still maintained.

Second they realised that focusing on God, offering worship and praise to God, was actually “good for the soul”. In other words, one of the most effective forms of evangelisation was actually a congregation worshipping and praising and focusing on God with all their heart.

Third, they recognised that there are levels of evangelisation. The initiated and the uninitiated alike all need to be evangelised and to grow closer in their relationship to God through Jesus Christ. It was recognised that the sacrament was an important part of this, even in those churches that practiced “close” communion.

Finally, they realised that whatever you do on Sunday should be done well, as it is a witness to the seriousness with which the people there take this business of doing liturgy.

Perhaps it would be beneficial if, mutatis mutandis, some of these insights filtered into the way we do the liturgy in our Catholic parishes.

We do get “seekers” in Catholic parishes, but more regularly what we get is semi-catechised, semi-formed, baptised and confirmed Catholics. Both these Catholics and the well-catechised, well-formed Catholics form a single worshipping assembly. Both are meant to be where they are and have a right to be there. They also have a right to the liturgy done according to the directions of the Church as laid out in the General Instruction on the Roman Missal.

When we do the liturgy well, it becomes a powerful witness to the Catholic faith. The preaching of the Word, the celebration of the sacraments, the open opportunity to enter into real communal prayer all draw the worshipper – however well prepared they are for what they are engaged in – deeper into their relationship with God and the Church. The public liturgy of the Church is thus a major and regular event of evangelisation in every parish (and also in schools and other places where the liturgy is celebrated).

One protestant writer on the liturgy for whom I have always had a major regard is Marva Dawn. Her classic was the book “A Royal Waste of Time: the splendor of worshiping God and being Church for the World”. An earlier book was called “Reaching out without dumbing down: a theology of worship for this urgent time”. I remember once listening to Marva speak, and she quoted a passage from Annie Dillard’s book “Teaching a Stone to Talk”:

“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”

If that applies to Protestant worship services, how much more should it apply to the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass, in which – if what we believe is really true – the Lord Jesus Christ, God Incarnate and the Judge and Saviour of the World, is Really Present, should we not be wearing metaphorical crash helmets and life preservers?

When we celebrate liturgies that forget about Who is Really Present, and his power to change the lives of those present in dramatic and real ways, are we not being a little like the kids playing with TNT? Will those present have any warning that they are entering into seriously “dangerous territory”? Moses understood this when he stood on “holy ground” before the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the burning bush. But when we “play at liturgy”, “dumbing it down” and seeking to defuse the spiritual TNT that the liturgy conveys, we weaken the power of the most effective means of evangelisation that the Holy Spirit has given to the Church. But in the Liturgy, the Holy Spirit is a Bird of Prey rather than a dove, and he won’t let us clip his wings.