Ubi Petrus

Fr. Dwight Longenecker has a great post reminiscing on his time as an Anglican priest during the time the Anglican Communion was debating the issue of womens’ ordination. His tale is one which shows how even clear-headed and well-intentioned people can come to different conclusions on even the most important issues. But more than a tale of human travels, it is a story that reminds us that there is, indeed, a reason why God set up His Church as He did. It is indeed a story that feels very similar to when I was trying to decide to which church God was calling me. The papacy is not the crustacean-encrusted boat anchor some would like to call it – it is indeed the very keel that keeps the ship straight and the mast pointing to God.

Yesterday I posted on the elections of Cardinal George and Bishop Kicanas as president and vice-president of the USCCB, saying they were on the list of “really good guys”. Since then Bishop Kicanas has been excoriated for his handling of a Fr. Daniel McCormack, allowing his ordination to proceed even though he was aware of three incidents of sexual impropriety. That’s what happens when you post while tired and Google search doesn’t nail the other issues in the first few pages.

Excuses aside, I’m still rather disturbed at the sheer venom directed at the Bishop for as of now only one issue which occurred between thirteen and fifteen years ago. Did he blow it? The fact McCormack is now in prison for molesting five boys would certainly suggest he did, at the very least beyond that jury’s reasonable doubt. Am I defending the decision? Absolutely not. What I am saying, however, is that we sit in a very privileged seat when we judge the past actions of someone knowing more than they did at the time and with a particular sensitivity to an issue which has intensified in the interim. When we then act as if our privileged position should have been common sense fifteen years ago and then castigate someone who is, shall we not forget, in the line of the Apostles we act in a most un-Christian manner.

Do I sound as if I’m giving the Bishops a free pass? If you honestly believe that of me that only proves you all the more unworthy to judge in this situation. Perhaps I sound more annoyed than lucid. Perhaps that is the case – one can only deal with so many self-righteous claims of higher authority from those with less knowledge of what really happened than a juror in the first O.J. Simpson trial before it becomes too much. It’s amazingly hypocritical that the very same people who damn the Bishops for not sticking their necks out to defend the faith are also the ones swinging hatchet and cleaver at those same necks when the first inkling of a decades-old sex abuse case surface. It’s no wonder our Bishops have a serious case of turtle-neck syndrome.

If you’re wearing a mitre and someone questions you about a past action in the case of any sexual abuse case by now you’ve been conditioned both from repetitive life-saving ducking motions and the continual advice of legal council to either not answer at all or defend your past actions as appropriate at the time. Should Bishops always listen to lawyers? No, but they also realize that a public admission of any level of fault will generally result in the implosion of any chance of a legal defense which means costing the Diocese for which they are ultimately responsible being hammered with settlements which they simply can never afford.

The further fact that many of these cases have been resurrected from years past serves only to compound the impression that they are being attacked from all sides. Even when cases are impossible to reasonably adjudicate due to time lapse the sheer emotion of the case has all but decided the verdict before it ever sees a courtroom. States then passing special laws rolling back the statute of limitations just for cases involving the Church move the level from suspicious to absurd. Who are they supposed to trust, the lawyers who at least are sounding reasonably prudent and offering the possibility of a way out which leaves the Diocese intact – or the chattering class, red in the face with fury with their knives drawn and torches lit? By virtue of being Bishop the virtues of the Saints are not necessarily imputed.

And finally, let me pinch this off before it even gets going. Don’t dare to tell me that sexual abuse cases are so special that any and all laws need to be rescinded so that we might get at these reprobates and that I can’t possibly understand what any of these people went, and are going, through. I’ve been there and done that. No, not by a priest. And no, I’ve never filed suit either against the person who did it nor their employer. I could never achieve any type of closure by destroying what’s left of that person’s life – I know what happened, I know the other person knows, and until we are both face-to-face with Christ Himself I would like never to worry about it again. Closure for me is simple – that other person had serious issues which were not dealt with appropriately and I firmly believe they were fighting internal demons. My only reaction to the whole ordeal now is sadness for the other person and prayerful hope that they will get the help they need and with any luck find their way to Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Getting souls to heaven, people. Let’s keep our eyes on the ball.

Congratulations to Francis Cardinal George and Bishop Gerald Kicanas, the newly elected president and vice-president of the USCCB. They are both on the list of the “really good guys” in the Church, so their elections are a cause of joy.

While Cardinal George’s election was all but a formality, given the tradition of electing the vice-president at the conclusion of the standing president’s term, the election of Bishop Kicanas of Tucson, Arizona was somewhat less of a given coming in to the Plenary. You may remember the Bishop as the one who instructed Bishop Gumbleton not to give his lecture to a meeting of Call to Action, which earned him a “Bishops with Backbone” award across a good chunk of St. Blog’s. Someone should really make that a real award – a spine with a mitre given for acts of great episcopal courage. The Bishop is also the author of the Diocese of Tucson’s “Monday Minute” where he offers his reflections for his flock. Next stop, perhaps a blog?

And while we’re at it, a hearty congratulations to semi-local Sean Cardinal O’Malley, elected chairman of the Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations. We always like to see a local boy make good.

The Crescat has a moving picture here. Go. View. Grab a hanky. *sniff*

I’ve been knee-deep in paint and wallpaper all weekend, so here is a quick update of the many things that have caught my eye. But first, a solemn salute to all our veterans on this Veterans’ Day. That includes my paternal grandfather (requiescat in pace) who served as a SeaBee in the Pacific theater in WWII, my maternal grandfather (requiescat in pace) who was a medic in the European theater in WWII, my uncle who served in the artillery in Vietnam and my other uncle who served in Beirut. Service has long been a hallmark of my lineage and I am honored and humbled to be a part of this line.

As for the varia:

• Diane at Te deum laudamus! has a nicely researched post pulling together some of the salient points and statements in the participatio actuosa debate. Particularly thrilling for me was the quote from Pope John Paul II’s ad limina address in 1998, “The liturgy, like the Church, is intended to be hierarchical and polyphonic”. To describe the Church as music – indeed, truly insightful.
• Drew at the Shrine has posted a Martyr’s Love-Letter. In only a few short paragraphs it encapsulates the true depth of interpersonal love – to desire the highest and best thing, eternity with God, for the beloved.
• Bella has made it to Manchester, NH! This is quite a move from it’s opening weekend where the nearest theater was in Long Island.
• Gregory Popcak excoriates Gary Wills’ recent argument that abortion is not a religious issue. When someone can resonably argue your article should have started like a Brothers Grimm story, you know you’re in for trouble.

Don’t I wish I were. If you, however, should be so blessed Jeffrey Tucker at NLM has a post for you. I had always, naively, assumed starting a schola wouldn’t be much harder than any other musical adventure. Put to the rejoinder that this music would be performed for the express purpose of giving praise to God in the context of Mass, however, that lightweight thought vanished. Be sure to check out the packet they’ve put together for the workshop that is the genesis of all this work.

Fr. Martin Fox has evidence that I have not gone off the loopy deep end in my belief that kids really are interested in the Mass of the Fathers more than the Mass of their fathers. People, this generation wants a challenge and if we don’t give it to them they’ll find it somewhere else. Give them a Mass that challenges their intellect and pulls on their soul and they come running:

Today St. Mary had its monthly Mass in Latin (per current Missal of Paul VI); only it was also a Mass for the schoolchildren, because they have no school on Friday.

…

After Mass, two of the servers practically ambushed me in the sacristy: “Father, we loved that!” What did you like? “We liked the Latin.” Why? “It really made us pay attention.” And when I said, okay, we might do it again, they said: “can we serve when you do?”

A bit later, I stopped into the school office, and a boy came in. “Great Mass, Father!” Really, I said, what made it great? “The Latin; and when you did this”–he meant the Eucharistic Prayer–“I thought you were going to say the usual words, but you didn’t!”

Kids. Are. Not. Stupid.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker has been on a bit of a roll of late. His recent post on hymns touched off a storm of interest. I am only hoping that our unfortunately necessary ad intra interest in the liturgy has not obfuscated from our view the rest of the life of a Christian. I retain a certain amount of hope that his post on Christian asceticism in America, indeed in the whole of the modern world, will elicit the same amount of interest.

The idea that one should make any sacrifice at all for one’s religion is almost dead within American Christianity. Religion is there, isn’t it, to make you happy, to make you feel better about yourself, to provide warm fellowship for you and your Christian chums, to reassure you that after a pain free victorious life in Jesus you will be on the express train to heaven and even more unimaginable happiness. Yes, American Christians do expect to make financial sacrifices as they tithe, but even then it is often seen as a form of investment. After all, “You can’t out give God. If you tithe regularly you will receive much more back in return and be even more prosperous.” Right?”

Even that, I would say, doesn’t really crack into the center of this lifestyle nut. That alone, I would say, wouldn’t be earth-shattering. We all know how easy it is to be superficial in our faith and how many of us are just that. It would be like a front page story declaring there is a war going on – nothing new. This, however, is where it really becomes real (emphasis mine):

This motivates and inspires me more and more as I come to understand and ponder more deeply the mystery of what I am doing in Christ as I celebrate the Mass each day. That sacrifice I offer brings Christ’s one full final sacrifice into the present moment. That sacrifice is linked with whatever small sacrifices of asceticism I might make in the world. That sacrifice fills and empowers whatever I might try in my halting way to do and say to complete Christ’s action of redemption in the world.

When Christ is the center of what we do, and only when He is the center, then our actions and our very life begins to take on meaning and make sense. Without Him even our triumphs seem empty. With Him, even our great trials and sufferings are causes for great joy.

Or so says this site:

Somehow I’m writing above my education level. Of course that same site rated Deacon Greg as a high schooler, so that leaves a little to be desired. Maybe it’s because he posts snips from the New York Times…