Proclaiming the Word

This past Sunday, the person who read the New Testament reading had a warm smile. It was a natural smile; she did appear to make any conscious effort “to smile at the congregation” as she made eye contact with those listening to her. There was warmth to her presence as she read, a warmth that encourage listening.

We communicate with much more than our voice.

2010 Translation

A translation of the missal was prepared and received the approval of the eleven English-speaking conferences of the world.  This translation was rejected by the Congregation for Divine Worship. As a result, instead of the 1998 translation of this Sunday’s Prayer over the Gifts:

O God,

you provide us with gifts

to be offered to your name

and you accept them as a sign of our loving service.

In your mercy grant that the offering you enable us to make

may obtain for us an enduring reward.

We have this 2010 translation:

O God,

who provide gifts to be offered to your name

and count our oblations as signs

of our desire to serve you with devotion,

we ask of your mercy

that what you grant as the source of merit

may also help us to attain merit’s reward.

Remember this is a prayer to be prayed aloud and heard by a congregation.

One element that marks the 2010 translation is the frequent use of “merit.” One of the meanings which the Merriam-Webster dictionary provides for “merit” is: a spiritual credit held to be earned by performance of righteous acts and to ensure future benefits. In light of the theological battles of the 16^th century that led up to the Council of Trent, I puzzle over the repeated use of this work in our liturgical prayer.

Note also the dropping of "you" before "who provide." In English one would expect "who provides" after  "O God". 

Rome and Canterbury

Yesterday, June 14, Pope Francis and Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, met for the first time since they both took over leadership positions in their respective Churches in mid-March. They talked in private for over thirty minutes in the Pope’s library. Afterwards they prayed together and then had lunch together with their respective delegations, in the Vatican guesthouse where Pope Francis lives.

Archbishop Welby described the visit as a personal, rather than official, visit, “a very private discussion about the nature of our faith and of our spirituality of prayer, of the experience of the grace and mercy and love of God.” He said, “We also touched on other subjects to do with international issues where we looked for ways in which the Churches can develop cooperation and demonstrate our affection for each other, which is a real affection at a very deep level.”

One participant revealed that over lunch the Pope suggested that he and the Archbishop of Canterbury issue a joint statement on human trafficking and the exploitation of women and children and the Archbishop agreed. 

When asked what personal impression he had of Pope Francis, the Archbishop reflected for a moment and then said: “an extraordinary humanity, on fire with the Spirit of Christ.” 

Archbishop Vincent Nichols, President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales accompanied Archbishop Welby. He said they started their visit by praying at the tomb of St Peter and afterwards at the tomb of Pope John Paul II.

This encounter can seem ever so normal. Yet fifty years ago, when the Second Vatican Council opened, such a meeting was unthinkable. Pope John XXIII (Blessed John XXIII) invited delegates from other Christian communities to attend the Council as observers. Yet during the third session of the Council, the question was raised: Was it permissible for the Council Fathers (the bishops) to join the non-Catholic observers in praying together the Lord’s Prayer! Such was the state of affairs at that time.

In the course of the Council several historic events took place. One of the most dramatic was the meeting of Pope Paul VI with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras I, on January 5, 1964 in Jerusalem. The two churches had not only been separated since 1054, there had been no formal contact in over 400 years. In 1963, Pope Paul wrote a handwritten letter to Patriarch Athenagoras. The last time this had been done was in 1584 when Pope Gregory XIII informed Patriarch Jeremiah II about reform of the calendar.

These exchanges led to the formal lifting of the mutual excommunications pronounced by the two churches in 1054. Toward the end of the Council, a joint declaration by the Pope and the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras I, was read out in St. Peter’s. In it the Roman and the Orthodox Churches “consigned to oblivion” the centuries-old excommunications that had poisoned relations between them. That same day in Istanbul, at the patriarchal cathedral, Athenagoras I presented the papal delegation, headed by Cardinal Shehan, of Baltimore, with an annulment of the excommunication of Cardinal Humbert, the legate of Leo IX, in 1054. In Rome, when Metropolitan Meliton of Heliopolis, the representative of Patriarch Athenagoras, received the brief that formally annulled the excommunication of the eleventh-century Patriarch Michael Caerularius, he was embraced by Pope Paul in the kiss of peace with the words “Pax tecum” (“Peace be with you”). Turning to go back to his place, the Metropolitan was greeted by a storm of applause from the Council.

Another major event occurred on the eve of the conclusion of the Council in December of 1965 when Pope Paul VI gathered with the non-Catholic observers at the Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls for an ecumenical prayer service. It was the first time that any Pope had ever participated in an interdenominational religious service. The lesson in English was read by Dr. Albert C. Outler, professor of theology at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas; the lesson in French was read by Father Pierre Michalon, a Catholic priest and a Council theologian; the lesson in Greek was read by the Archimandrite Maximos Aghiorgoussis, rector of the Greek Orthodox parish church in Rome. The hymn “Now Thank We All Our God,” in which all joined in English, was written by the seventeenth-century German Lutheran composer Johann Cruger.

Today the various Christian communities continue to have many points of division. However, the Second Vatican Council irrevocably changed the relationships between Catholics and Orthodox as well as between Catholics and other western Christians.

Emeritus I

The tradition of popes serving for life has been a significant influence on the cardinals who gather in conclave. Another, perhaps less obvious factor, is the impact of modern medicine which contributes to longer lives. Currently, there are ninety-one cardinals over the age of 80, forty-four of them over than Benedict XVI, and fifteen who are in their 90’s.

In this context, Joseph A. Komonchak’s comments in Commonweal seem particularly to the point:

“There is potentially great significance in Benedict’s action, and it may be that his resignation will be his greatest contribution to ecclesiology. He has so subordinated his person to the office that he could renounce it. His frank admission that he no longer had the strength of mind and body needed for the Petrine ministry not only humanizes the pope himself but helps bring the papacy back within the church, down from what Hans Urs von Balthasar called its “pyramid-like isolation.” All those unique titles that seemed to place the papal office above and beyond all other offices and ministries in the church suddenly have to yield to what their occupants all have in common: a fragile, sinful, and mortal humanity. The pope—and not just this one—loses something of his sacral apartness. He rejoins the rest of us.

“Benedict’s action also suggests the thought that if a pope can resign for reasons of health or of age, he might resign for other reasons too. There could come a pope who agrees with what John Henry Newman wrote in 1870, during the longest pontificate in church history: “It is not good for a pope to live twenty years. It is anomaly and bears no good fruit; he becomes a god, has no one to contradict him, does not know facts, does cruel things without meaning it.” In other words, even though no term limits may be assigned to the papal office, a pope can have his own term limits in mind, and say to himself, and to the church, “Basta!” If papal resignations were to become something normal (that is, more frequent than every seven hundred years), then there might be less reluctance to elect someone younger and still energetic without worrying that he will fall victim to the tendency Newman feared.”

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Problems facing the Church

In 1962, a thirty-five year old theology professor, Father Joseph Ratzinger, was invited by the Archbishop of Cologne, Joseph Cardinal Frings, to accompany him to the Second Vatican Council as his theological advisor.

At the end of each of the four sessions of the Council, Father Ratzinger wrote an essay on the significant points raised in the Council deliberations. These essays have been published in English as Theological Highlights of Vatican II.

In his reflections on the third session of the Council in the fall of 1964, he,  in response to the question, “What concrete problems did the Council face” wrote: “These problems may be crystalized into the following groups:

1.      The problem of divine worship.

2.     The problem of centralism in the Church.

3.     The problem of relations with non-Catholic Christendom and the ecumenical movement.

4.     The problem of new directions in the relations between Church and State, or what might somewhat imprecisely be labeled the end of the Middle Ages, or even the end of the Constantinian era.

5.     The problem of faith and science, or, more specifically, the problem of faith and history, which had become a basic problem for faith through the triumph of the method of historical criticism.

6.     The problem of the relation of Christianity to the modern ethic of work, to technology, and in general to the new moral problems posed by a technological society.

While the Council attempted to address most of these problems, they continue to be issues for the Church today.

Retirment

What may not be obvious is that retirement by those in ordained ministry is something relatively new in the Roman Church. Prior to the Second Vatican Council it was normal for bishops and pastors to remain in office until they died. Likewise there were no limits on the roles of Cardinals either in the Roman Curia or in the Conclave.

However the Council in its Decree Concerning the Pastoral Office of Bishops it the Church (CHRISTUS DOMINUS) stated:

“Since the pastoral office of bishops is so important and weighty, diocesan bishops … who have become less capable of fulfilling their duties properly because of the increasing burden of age or some other serious reason, are earnestly requested to offer their resignation from office either at their own initiative or upon the invitation of the competent authority. “(#21)

The Decree also stated that:

‘Pastors who are unable to fulfill their office properly and fruitfully because of the increasing burden of old age or some other serious reason are urgently requested to tender their resignation voluntarily upon the invitation of the bishop. “(#31)

In 1966 Pope Paul VI in his Apostolic Letter, ECCLESIAE SANCTAE, Implementing Decrees of Vatican Council II issued norms which were to “be observed by way of experiment, that is until the new Code of Canon Law is promulgated, unless in the meantime some other provision is to be made by the Apostolic See.”

“RESIGNATION OF BISHOPS

“(NO. 21 OF THE DECREE CHRISTUS DOMINUS)

“(11) That the prescription of No. 21 of the Decree Christus Dominus may be put into effect, all bishops of dioceses and others who are juridically their equals are earnestly requested of their own free will to tender their resignation from office not later than at the completion of their 75th year of age to the competent authority which will make provision after examining all circumstances of individual cases.

“(#20 - 3) So that the prescription of No. 31 of the Decree Christus Dominus may be carried out all pastors are asked of their own free will to submit their resignation from office to their own bishop not later than at the completion of their 75th year.”

Then in 1970, Pope Paul VI issued a motu proprio that decreed that cardinals over the age of 80 would cease to be papal electors.

Pope Paul VI designated  the point of entry to the conclave as the determining date but this was modified by Pope John Paul II in his 1996 who changed this so that you had to be under 80 on the day prior to when the start of the sede vacante.

The revised Code of Canon Law, issued in 1983 set a retirement age of 75 for cardinals that head up dicasteries (Curial offices) or other permanent Vatican institutes as well as for diocesan bishops. The Code also specified the right of the Pope to resign his office, a resignation that did not need acceptance by any body.

Pope Benedict’s decision to retire is part of a process begun by the Council which introduced the practice of retirement from ministry for the good of the Church.

Implementing a Vision

As Church, particularly on the parish level, I think that we have barely begun to give practical shape to the implications of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.  The Council document on the Liturgy describes the liturgy as the action of Christ. However, we still use the language of things for the sacraments; we speak about receiving the sacraments not initiating people into the mystery of Christ.

Sacraments are deeply personal because they are celebrations of faith. But the sacraments are not private; they are communitarian because they celebrate the interaction of the faith of the individual and the faith of the community.

However, I do not see evidence that this view has permeated the thinking of people at large. I find that parishioners have yet to take ownership of the responsibility for growing the Church. How many parishioners have ever extended an invitation to someone to explore the Christian faith? How many parishioners take responsibility for engaging with the catechumens in their faith journey?

It still seems a common practice to deal with the catechumenate as a program rather than as a faith journey. The invitation is extended to “join the RCIA” rather than to explore who Jesus is. The timetable often follows the calendar which is not necessarily the way faith develops.

The vision of Church that underlies the Rite of Initiation of calls for a renewal of parish life that remains to be implemented.