Sentire Cum Ecclesia

HT to Adam for this link to a Daily Mail article in Britain:

But who can doubt that the Pope’s central theme deserves a hearing in a society increasingly devoted to instant self-gratification?

Britain is a country riven by family breakdown and moving ever closer towards ‘mercy killing’ for the sick and elderly. It’s a nation in which the destruction of unborn human lives is routine — and anti-abortion protesters have been thrown behind bars for holding a banner depicting an aborted foetus.

In the name of ‘multiculturalism’, Christian nurses have been ordered not to pray for their patients, a BA worker has been disciplined for wearing a small crucifix and public authorities have shied away from celebrating Christmas.

Doesn’t the Pope make a timely point when he warns against the march of ‘aggressive secularism’?

Other church leaders should draw courage from the success of his visit.

There’s a hunger in this country for a spiritual dimension in public life — and they should stop being afraid to feed it.

As they say in the classics, there’s something in that for all of us!

Not that every one in Britain was happy with this vocal demonstration of “Affirmative Catholicism” (as John Allen likes to call Benedict’s own particular idiom). In this report, Allen describes what he calls “the largest public protest Benedict XVI has ever faced on one of his foreign trips, and one of the largest protests against a pope in modern history”.

Maybe that in itself is a guage of his effectiveness. Whoever heard of such protests aimed against any other prelate in today’s Church (or Churches)?

Perhaps with an eye to the protesters, Benedict himself said

“In our own time, the price to be paid for fidelity to the Gospel is no longer being hanged, drawn and quartered,” the pope said, “but it often involves being dismissed out of hand, ridiculed or parodied.”

Allen goes on to say that

Benedict argued that Newman’s life and example confirms that “the Church cannot withdraw from the task of proclaiming Christ and his Gospel as saving truth, the source of our ultimate happiness as individuals and as the foundation of a just and humane society.”

Forget Gay Marriage – the Greens, according the ABC TV news tonight – are going for the jugular: Bob Brown has announced that the first thing on their agenda is to get the law changed so that the Territories have the freedom to enact Euthanasia laws. In essence, he is hoping to overturn the decision of the Federal Government 13 years ago that outlawed a piece of Northern Territory legislation allowing Euthanasia. A small window of “opportunity” that allowed Dr Death (aka Philip Nitschke) to bump off four of his patients (something he is very proud of…)

Forget Islam! Forget the Boats! Forget the Feminists even! These guys are the guys that are really – I mean REALLY – out to change the very fabric of our Society. So what are we going to do about it?

Well, begin by raising awareness of the very real dangers that the Green’s agenda is posing.

OPPOSING EUTHANASIA AND ASSISTED SUICIDE

October 13 Wed 7:30 PM
O’Hanlon Centre, Mitchell Street, Mentone VIC

$5.00 per person

ALex Schadenberg, Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is speaking on ”Caring Not Killing”.
Democratic Labor Party Upper House MP, Peter Kavanagh is chairing the meeting
Bishop Peter Elliott will be in attendance.

Car parking is available in St. Patrick’s School grounds, enrtance via Childers St.
For more information, see the Euthanasia Prevention Coallition

There are moves afoot to legalise euthanasia in Victoria [and elsewhere!] so get informed!!!

The Age today reprinted a part of an article originally published in The Guardian by Andrew Brown on the Pope’s visit to England. Fr Z. has a link to another one, in which Brown declares:

This was the end of the British Empire. In all the four centuries from Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II, England has been defined as a Protestant nation. The Catholics were the Other; sometimes violent terrorists and rebels, sometimes merely dirty immigrants. The sense that this was a nation specially blessed by God arose from a deeply anti-Catholic reading of the Bible. Yet it was central to English self-understanding when Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1952, and swore to uphold the Protestant religion by law established.

For all of those 400 or so years it would have been unthinkable that a pope should stand in Westminster Hall and praise Sir Thomas More, who died to defend the pope’s sovereignty against the king’s. Rebellion against the pope was the foundational act of English power. And now the power is gone, and perhaps the rebellion has gone, too.

Yes, how very different the Britain of today is. It is also the country where more Muslims go to Mosque on Friday than Anglicans go to Church on Sunday… Catholics and Muslims. Both have been portrayed as “violent terrorists and rebels, sometimes merely dirty immigrants”. In anycase, both have been defined as “the Other”. Here (or rather “There”) to stay.

The End of the British Empire? I wonder…

So asks the PM in reference to parliament, and so asks the Australian Anglican Primate in reference to the General Synod currently underway in Melbourne.

Reading Glosses From An Old Manse, I see that the Bearded One of Canterbury is also having ecumenical talks with the Bearded One of Volokolamsk (I wonder what the Holy Father would look like with a beard… Do you think it would help East West relations?). Metropolitan Hilarion was doing some tough talking:

We are concerned about the fate of [the Anglican-Russian Orthodox] dialogue. We appreciate the proposal Archbishop Rowan Williams made this year to exclude from the dialogue those Anglican churches which failed to observe the moratorium on the ordination of open homosexuals. But we regard this proposal as not quite sufficient to save the dialogue from an approaching collapse. The dialogue is doomed to closure if the unrestrained liberalization of Christian values continues in many communities of the Anglican world.

Now, Sentirists will know that I am no supporter of the liberalisation of Christian doctrine, but reading Metropolitan H.’s comments made me realise that there is in fact a difference in the way Catholics do ecumenism compared to the way Orthodox do Ecumenism, and it is basically summed up in my unofficial motto for my day job: “We’re not fussy, we’ll talk to anyone!”

Pope Benedict has just been meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury and recommitting to another round of ARCIC dialogue. This is despite (on their side) the ordination of women and homosexual bishops and (on our side) Anglicanorum Coetibus. In spite of? No! Because of! It is precisely because of our disagreement over these fundamental issues of Christian praxis that we must continue our dialogue with our brothers and sisters by Christian baptism. The Russians, of course (and the Lutherans for that matter, which is why Pastor Mark was so drawn to Met. Hilarion’s comments), utterly reject an ecumenism of compromise, a “kissy-kissy” ecumenism as Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali put it. Well, for the record, so do does the Catholic Church (although I will admit to our shame that there have been plenty of Catholics willing to practice that kind of ecumenism). But we cannot accept proposals such as that which Archbishop Williams has apparently made to the Russians; we cannot dialogue only with those with whom we already agree! What, then, would be the point of the dialogue! Rather, we conduct dialogue as an opportunity to witness to the truth, to attempt to persuade others of the truth as we have received it, and hence to seek the truth together – not on the basis of compromise, but on the basis of the Truth once received by the Church.

You can “talk tough” in ecumenical dialogue, but unless you are also ready to practice “tough love”, it ain’ worth nuthin.

ROTFL with this one. HT to Josh.

I gather that at Twickenham on Friday there were two groups of protestors ; the ultra-gay lobby and the ultra-Protestants. The police were out in force to keep them from really spoiling the occasion and managed to herd them together into one corner where they could keep an eye on them.

What they didn’t reckon on was that the two groups spied each other and realized that here was an enemy even more hateful than the Pope; so they then set about having a regular ding-dong at each other and quite missed what they had come to spoil. (Source)

At least Herod and Pilate became friends in their opposition to Jesus…

The Vatican Information Service has released a “communique” (not a “joint statement”) about the meeting of Pope Benedict with Archbishop Williams. My emphases and [My Comments]

“Fifty years after the first meeting of a Pope and an Archbishop of Canterbury in modern times – that of Pope John XXIII and Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher, in December 1960 – Pope Benedict XVI paid a fraternal visit to Archbishop Rowan Williams. [You have to admit that, even though the two prelates are not in communion with one another, a “fraternal visit” is a nice thing among leaders representing two bodies of Christians whose relations, for more than four centuries, had been anything but “fraternal”!]

“In the first part of their meeting they both addressed the Anglican and Roman Catholic diocesan bishops of England, Scotland and Wales, in the Great Hall of the archbishop’s library, before moving to a private meeting.

“In the course of their private conversation, they addressed many of the issues of mutual concern to Anglicans and Roman Catholics. They affirmed the need to proclaim the Gospel message of salvation in Jesus Christ, both in a reasoned and convincing way in the contemporary context of profound cultural and social transformation, and in lives of holiness and transparency to God. [That’s nice too. At least we are on the same playing ground, even if it might sometimes appear that we are playing different games.] They agreed on the importance of improving ecumenical relations and continuing theological dialogue in the face of new challenges to unity from within the Christian community and beyond it. [IOW, the more we disagree with each other, the more urgent our dialogue becomes. IOOW, we don’t give up on dialogue when issues arise that divide us.]

“The Holy Father and the Archbishop reaffirmed the importance of continuing theological dialogue on the notion of the Church as communion, local and universal, and the implications of this concept for the discernment of ethical teaching. [A lot of people have been saying that there is no point anymore to continuing dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion – most recently, Bishop Nazir-Ali. However, even though ecclesiastical union is now only a very remote possibility, dialogue on the two issues specified here (ecclesiology and ethics) will obviously help us to isolate the source and cause of the present disagreements.]

“They reflected together on the serious and difficult situation of Christians in the Middle East, and called upon all Christians to pray for their brothers and sisters and support their continued peaceful witness in the Holy Land. In the light of their recent public interventions, they also discussed the need to promote a courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace, especially the needs of the poor, urging international leadership to fight hunger and disease.

“Following their meeting they travelled together to the Palace of Westminster and to evening prayer at Westminster Abbey”.

Continuing to follow the Holy Father’s teaching ministry in Britain, here is an excerpt from his speech yesterday in Westminster Hall:

And yet the fundamental questions at stake in Thomas More’s trial continue to present themselves in ever-changing terms as new social conditions emerge. Each generation, as it seeks to advance the common good, must ask anew: what are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend? By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved? These questions take us directly to the ethical foundations of civil discourse. If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident – herein lies the real challenge for democracy…

The central question at issue, then, is this: where is the ethical foundation for political choices to be found? The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. According to this understanding, the role of religion in political debate is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be known by non-believers – still less to propose concrete political solutions, which would lie altogether outside the competence of religion – but rather to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles. This “corrective” role of religion vis-à-vis reason is not always welcomed, though, partly because distorted forms of religion, such as sectarianism and fundamentalism, can be seen to create serious social problems themselves. And in their turn, these distortions of religion arise when insufficient attention is given to the purifying and structuring role of reason within religion. It is a two-way process. Without the corrective supplied by religion, though, reason too can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology, or applied in a partial way that fails to take full account of the dignity of the human person. Such misuse of reason, after all, was what gave rise to the slave trade in the first place and to many other social evils, not least the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. This is why I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.

Religion, in other words, is not a problem for legislators to solve, but a vital contributor to the national conversation. In this light, I cannot but voice my concern at the increasing marginalization of religion, particularly of Christianity, that is taking place in some quarters, even in nations which place a great emphasis on tolerance. There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere. There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none. And there are those who argue – paradoxically with the intention of eliminating discrimination – that Christians in public roles should be required at times to act against their conscience. These are worrying signs of a failure to appreciate not only the rights of believers to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, but also the legitimate role of religion in the public square. I would invite all of you, therefore, within your respective spheres of influence, to seek ways of promoting and encouraging dialogue between faith and reason at every level of national life.

Some bits from the Pope’s address to the Ecumenical Meeting and Archbishop Williams address at Evening prayer.

Pope Benedict said:

This year, as we know, marks the hundredth anniversary of the modern ecumenical movement, which began with the Edinburgh Conference’s appeal for Christian unity as the prerequisite for a credible and convincing witness to the Gospel in our time. In commemorating this anniversary, we must give thanks for the remarkable progress made towards this noble goal through the efforts of committed Christians of every denomination. At the same time, however, we remain conscious of how much yet remains to be done. In a world marked by growing interdependence and solidarity, we are challenged to proclaim with renewed conviction the reality of our reconciliation and liberation in Christ, and to propose the truth of the Gospel as the key to an authentic and integral human development. In a society which has become increasingly indifferent or even hostile to the Christian message, we are all the more compelled to give a joyful and convincing account of the hope that is within us (cf. 1 Pet 3:15), and to present the Risen Lord as the response to the deepest questions and spiritual aspirations of the men and women of our time…

Our commitment to Christian unity is born of nothing less than our faith in Christ, in this Christ, risen from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father, who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. It is the reality of Christ’s person, his saving work and above all the historical fact of his resurrection, which is the content of the apostolic kerygma and those credal formulas which, beginning in the New Testament itself, have guaranteed the integrity of its transmission. The Church’s unity, in a word, can never be other than a unity in the apostolic faith, in the faith entrusted to each new member of the Body of Christ during the rite of Baptism. It is this faith which unites us to the Lord, makes us sharers in his Holy Spirit, and thus, even now, sharers in the life of the Blessed Trinity, the model of the Church’s koinonia here below.

Archbishop Williams said:

Christians have very diverse views about the nature of the vocation that belongs to the See of Rome. Yet, as Your Holiness’s great predecessor reminded us all in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint, we must learn to reflect together on how the historic ministry of the Roman Church and its chief pastor may speak to the Church catholic—East and West, global north and global south of the authority of Christ and his apostles to build up the Body in love; how it may be realized as a ministry of patience and reverence towards all, a ministry of creative love and self-giving that leads us all into the same path of seeking not our own comfort or profit but the good of the entire human community and the glory of God the creator and redeemer.

Venerable (Blessed as of tomorrow) John Henry Newman is a hero of mine, perhaps, you might say, for obvious reasons. But in fact, he has had a special place in my life since I was a Lutheran seminarian, long before I followed his example and converted to Catholicism. So I am rather looking forward to tomorrow. The girls and I have already added JHN to our little bed-time litany of the saints, along with St Joseph and St Michael (my patrons), St Bernadette (their school patroness), and Blessed (soon Saint) Mary of the Cross.

But I was wondering this morning about “Convert Saints”, by which I mean converts from other Christian traditions, saints who were baptised already before becoming Catholic. I know that there have been many from other religions, notably St Edith Stein and St Josephine Bakhita (I don’t think St Paul or the other apostles count – they were not so much converted from Judaism – which was not a separate religion from Christianity at the time – as to a new sect within Judaism). St Augustine was a convert from Manicheanism, but that that wasn’t really a form of Christianity.

A check on the internet gave me St. John Ogilvie (born into a Scottish Calvinist family in 1579), St Henry Morse (an English Protestant born in 1595) and St Elizabeth Ann Seton (born as an Episcopalian in 1774). Have there been any others than anyone knows about?