...Time to Say Goodbye

Blessed James Alberione's personal reflection from 1954 (written in the third person) is more than apt today:

As for his poor self: he has accomplished part of God’s will, but he must fade from the scene and from people’s memories... So, too, at the end of Mass, the priest removes his vestments and stands before God as the person he is.

Photo by Rod Halpert. Used with permission.

Pope Benedict's Morning Prayer

In his final General Audience this morning, a warm and encouraging good-bye message, Pope Benedict mentioned a simple prayer that he recommends saying every morning. You can tell that it was an old, familiar prayer--the sort of thing a child would learn in a devout family.

I learned that very prayer when I entered the Daughters of St. Paul. We have two versions of it: one for morning, and one for night prayers. Since I had never heard it before, I long assumed (until this morning, in fact!) that it had been composed by our Founder, as were most of the prayers in our community prayerbook. Now I see that it was the morning prayer of the ordinary families of Catholic Europe, prayed in Bavaria as well as in northern Italy.

Here's how it goes:

I adore you my God, and I love you with all my heart.
I thank you for having created me, made me a Christian and kept me this night.
I offer you my actions of this day. Grant that they all may be according to your holy Will.
May your grace be always with me, and with all my dear ones.
Amen.


And, as a bonus, here's the nighttime version:


I adore you my God, and I love you with all my heart.
I thank you for having created me, made me a Christian and kept me this day.
Pardon me the evil I have committed, and if I have done some good, accept it.
Take care of me while I sleep, and deliver me from dangers.
May your grace be always with me, and with all my dear ones.
Amen.

7 Things Every Catholic Should Know about the Papacy (#5)

The Papacy could have taken a different form—and it still can.

The papacy is the world's oldest continuously existing office. But that doesn't mean it always looked the way it does today. The papacy as we know it took almost 2000 years to take this shape, and it can continue to change according to the needs of the Church.

The experience of the first bishops of Rome was hardly what we could call “pontifical.” Waves of persecution, sometimes lackadaisical, sometimes ferocious, ensured that the local bishop kept a fairly low profile in civil society. Besides, the local bishop probably only had a low social profile: Callistus II (+222), for example, had been a slave.

Things changed dramatically when Constantine legalized Christianity—and then started constructing shrines over the tombs of Peter and Paul. The first church buildings began to appear on the sites of the homes that had hosted the community. Many of these churches are known to this day by the names of the homeowners: Cecilia, Chrysogono, Susanna, Praxedes, Pudentiana...) (You can find a list of the churches by family name and current name here: http://romanchurches.wikia.com/wiki/Titulus.) With the Church taking its place in society, leadership styles also evolved. Popes no longer expected martyrdom to end their ministry. Little by little, imperial trappings became associated with the Bishop of Rome. Even the Roman “basilica” (royal) style of architecture was used for Churches.

 Gregory the Great, by Jacopo Vignali
from the Walters Art Museum

At about the same time, though, Imperial Rome moved east, to the newly named “Constantinople” (Constantine's city), the “new Rome.” Old Rome was left more or less to fend for itself, and the Bishop of Rome stepped into the void. Leo the Great is credited with convincing Attila the Hun to spare the decrepit city; a century later, Gregory (also “the Great”), a monk with diplomatic experience, used his organizational skills (he had been Prefect of Rome) for the relief of the needy, setting up an administrative system to streamline assistance. In effect, Gregory restored government to the city. Now he was not just the Bishop of Rome, he was the de facto mayor. Temporal rule was added to the evangelical tasks of "feed My lambs, feed My sheep."

By Gregory's time, the Church also had land holdings (the farms that produced the goods Gregory's system distributed). These farms, supplemented 3 centuries later with a dubious land grant attributed to Constantine, became the nucleus of the later “Papal States.” Its last remnant is Vatican City.

It was Gregory who sent missionaries to England, extending the immediate authority of the Bishop of Rome to the far-off British Isles. Later missionaries from England took the Gospel to the still-pagan parts of northern Europe, seeking authorization (as well as bishops) from Rome, uniting all the Christians of Europe even more clearly in communion with the Pope, and giving the Bishop of Rome more of a direct hand in the life of the churches in those lands.

Quick to notice the benefits offered by a united Christendom, Charlemagne imposed the Papal liturgy on his lands. (Given the slow work of copying such complicated manuscripts, this was not entirely successful!) Centuries later, St Francis of Assisi did something similar, telling his friars (in 1223) that their liturgies should follow the rites of Rome and not of the various locations they found themselves in. Both Charlemagne and Francis grasped the unifying quality of the Pope's role. So the papal liturgies had, at least on paper, pride of place even in lands with their own ancient rites. Not until the Council of Trent would the liturgical rites of Rome be mandated throughout the Latin Church, unless a locale could prove that its own rites were over 200 years old. (Conveniently, by the time of Trent the printing press assured ample copies could be made available.) 

Naturally, commercial interests also sought to work this unifying power to their own advantage. With the election of the Bishop of Rome in the hands of the priests and people of the city, influential families (with connections throughout Europe) sought to bend the outcome. Even legislation limiting votes to “Cardinal-Bishops” did not free the papacy from being manipulated and even controlled by the powerful, whether kings or clans (see “Bad Popes”). Like it or not, the Pope was now a prince in his own right. He even started having a coronation--with a unique triple tiara style headdress that continued to be used for about 800 years—until Pope Paul VI retired his immediately after the ceremony.

With the series of revolutions in Europe (beginning with France) that ushered in the modern political framework came the overturning of the former relations between secular and religious authority. Where before a ruler might have submitted nominations for bishop, now that was either outlawed by the nation, or simply unthinkable (a Freethinker—relativist—might be nominated!). The Pope began directly appointing more and more bishops.

It was the loss of the Papal States in 1870 (with the birth of the modern nation of Italy)—along with the birth of popular media—that, oddly enough, contributed greatly to the high profile model of papacy we are familiar with today. Early on, Blessed Pope Pius IX protested by declaring himself a “prisoner of the Vatican.” (He had actually lost his residence, the Quirinale, to the new Italian nation.) But there were advantages to being limited to the tiny territory of Vatican City. The pope was now free to focus on his pastoral ministry without being entrenched in local politics.

Commemorative coins issued by the Vatican on the occasion
of Pope Paul's speech before the U.N. General Assembly.

Pope Leo XIII realized that he could address “the Condition of the Working Classes” with the first-ever social encyclical. Pius X reversed his predecessors' course and gave Italian Catholics permission to participate in elections. John XXIII decided to be “prisoner of the Vatican” no more and ventured out to Rome's hospitals and parishes and prisons. And without any input whatsoever, he called a Council when it wasn't all that apparent to most minds in Rome that one was called for. Paul VI became the first “world” Pope, traveling not only out of Italy, but crossing oceans to speak to the United Nations, visiting the Holy Land, India and even Western Samoa (where he met one of the talking chiefs: my local superior's dad!). The papacy had developed in more ways than could have been imagined in the 2^nd or 8^th century.

And it can continue to develop. Pope John Paul II's encyclical on Christian unity asked for input on how the papal ministry could evolve to better serve the needs of the whole Christian community. Pope Benedict XVI published books as a private theologian under his given name and is resigning the papal office itself—under no exterior pressure at all.

We haven't seen the end of the development of the papacy.  

This is the 5th in a series of 7 Things Every Catholic Should Know about the Papacy

#4, Infallibility: It's Rare, but It's There 
#3, Bad Popes
#2, The Bishop of Rome is the Pope, not the other way around
#1, It was Jesus' idea

Stuff you'll want to read

Father James Martin is tired of hearing that celibacy "causes" people to become pedophiles. "One of the many goals of celibacy is to love people as freely as possible and as profoundly as possible."

Tim Carney's severely disabled nephew, spread more love in his short life than most of us ever will. 

Jennifer Fulwiler writes about the difference between a cowboy hat and a chapel veil, from her perspective as a convert (and a Texan). She makes more sense of wearing the veil than I could (even after 35 years!).

Thank me later.

Conclave Countown

Well, it's not really a countdown to the conclave yet: we aren't even at the "Sede Vacante" (empty chair) stage yet. But a conclave is well within sight, since Pope Benedict is scheduled to turn in his Keys Thursday, about noon Eastern Time. (Yes, I am going to be glued to the TV to participate in this moving and historic event.)

And even within days of stepping down, Pope Benedict has issued what is most likely his final papal document, a "Motu Proprio" ("on his own initiative") refining some of the rules about...conclaves. For one, he makes it easier for the Cardinals to schedule an earlier start than the 15-days post Sede Vacante that had been the norm. But he also imposed a stiff penalty for any support staff who violate the conclave's secrecy: excommunication.

Isn't that a bit...dramatic?

It certainly is! But it's also a kind of teaching technique (which is what the threat of excommunication generally is: a warning that a certain course of action is very harmful). Far from being a lack of transparency on the part of the Vatican, a conclave's secrecy is meant to protect the cardinals from outside pressure--the very reason the conclave ("lockdown") was devised! After all, the Church of Rome had long centuries of experience of political and economic powers manipulating the election process. Secrecy preserves the cardinals' independence, and allows them full freedom to elect the man they believe most fit for this hour in the Church's life.

- - - - -

As we look toward the conclave, our primary attitude should be not curiosity, but prayer. To that end, a team of German catholics have come up with an "Adopt a Cardinal" randomizer. Put in your name and and e-mail address, and you get assigned a cardinal to pray for! I ended up with Cardinal Versaldi, Prefect of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See. There was a picture too: he has a nice face, and a kind of Julius Caesar haircut. I have never heard of him before, but with a job like his, he probably really needs the prayers!

7 Things Every Catholic Should Know about the Papacy: #4 (the big one: infallibility!)

Infallibility is the big one; it's rare, but it's there.

When I've gone to the store to purchase electronics, invariably I'm asked if I want the “product protection plan” --a guarantee. It's not something I plan on using, but it's good to know it's there in case of need. Infallibility is something like that. Rarely invoked, it gets all the attention.

“Infallibility” gets thrown around a lot when the papacy is in the news. It's easy to understand why the terms is so often misunderstood. “Infallible” seems to mean “incapable of falling” (etymologically, it's failing). That must mean moral failure, right: An infallible Pope is one who can't make a mistake, commit a sin, or exercise poor judgment, right?

Wrong.

Infallibility refers only to teaching; the Pope cannot “fail” when teaching under certain carefully defined circumstances:

• it is a matter of revealed faith or moral truth: something that comes to us from Christ himself
• the Pope makes it clear he intends to teach “ex cathedra”: from the teaching chair of Peter
• the truth (dogma) is explicitly said to be binding on all the faithful “with the assent of faith”--faith in God

This “charism” (special gift of the Holy Spirit) is at the service of the Gospel, of the whole Truth about Christ and us. The Pope does not have the option to “invent new truths” out of thin air, or create new doctrines on a whim: his teaching authority is subject to the Bible, not “over” it. It is a matter of “guaranteeing” the truth (a problematic area in an time when relativism has taken such deep root we cannot all agree that there is “one” truth).

I found this terrific image of Peter on his
teaching chair via Facebook; don't know
whom to credit.

The charism of infallibility is limited to teachings that are divinely revealed, even if those truths had not previously been expressed in the same terms. Infallibility itself, while exercised throughout Church history, was only defined infallibly in 1870! That is because dogmas are usually “defined” only when the truth they uphold is facing a grave challenge. That was the case in the late 19^th century, when the very notion of truth was being undermined by the glamor of “free thought” (relativism). It was also the case when the pivotal dogmas about Jesus Christ were defined in the 4^th century—those truths we restate every Sunday in the Creed, using the dogmatic language of the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople. The Council of Trent (16^th century) was also rather generous in making infallible pronouncements.

When you think about it, infallibility makes sense. The whole Church has a share in Christ's infallibility, his complete trustworthiness (indeed, he is the Truth). In teaching infallibly, the Pope is acting as visible head of the Church. That is also why infallible pronouncements are unlikely to be occasions for the Pope to act alone. They are much more likely to be expressed by a Church Council (in union with the Pope, of course) than by a Pope acting without reference to the college of bishops (though he can, if need be).

Infallibility is not an excuse for ignoring or dismissing the “Ordinary” teaching authority of the Pope and bishops. It is an exceptional kind of teaching, not the norm; a guarantee of not being misled in the most fundamental matters of faith. The “ordinary” magisterium is still a unifying power in the Church; a way of keeping in touch with the Truth that makes us free.

This is Part 4 of a 7 part series. Earlier posts are:
#3, Bad Popes
#2, The Bishop of Rome is the Pope, not the other way around
#1, It was Jesus' idea

You Are Peter

Lawrence OP / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

It's the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter and Pope Benedict has one week left until he hands in those keys.

Meanwhile, in Rome, St Peter's Basilica is ablaze with light, especially around the Altar of the Chair beneath the Glory of Bernini. Today's feast celebrates not a piece of furniture, but a teaching position: a "Chair" in the same sense that the university system uses to this day. Peter's Chair is not endowed with a financial grant, but with the Spirit's seal of infallibility--even if this is, strictly speaking, limited to some very specific conditions.

In celebrating the Chair of St. Peter, we thank the Lord for giving his Church a consistently reliable teaching authority: one that unites us around Peter to unite  us visibly around Jesus Christ, the "author and perfecter" of the faith that Peter preserves in his name.

7 Things Every Catholic Should Know about the Papacy (#3)

Alexander VI, Poster Child of Bad Popes

Bad popes, good popes, mediocre popes: we've seen them all. And kind of shrugged off most of them as just not that interesting. But the fascination continues with the more notorious occupants of the Chair of Peter. That TV series on the Borgias didn't help, given that one of their own is generally acknowledged as the worst of the bunch.

Popes are men of their times... and the bad popes tell us something about the Church's ever-changing relationship to society. In the early middle ages, influential Roman families controlled the election of the Pope (unless a northern king from, say, Germany, came down and put his own candidate on Peter's Chair). Meanwhile the Vikings were devastating the monasteries that could have been training grounds for scholarly and virtuous bishops (and, possibly, popes). The lack of leadership from within opened the way to exploitation by the powerful, and this continued off and on through the Renaissance. (A series of popes, including the most notorious, came from just two Italian families, the Medici and the Borgia.) The Church became a career path like any other; the Pope a “prince” like any other with lands to defend and commerce to be conducted. Yet despite the financial and moral corruption of some of the successors of St. Peter, none of them ever promulgated false teachings or attempted to rewrite the moral laws they themselves flouted in their personal lives! 

In one of the most challenging eras in Church history, with European leaders in ever-changing alliances and wars (and body counts to match), with Martin Luther's righteous challenges as yet unanswered, two of the less admirable popes succeeded one another. Clement VII (a Medici) was more interested in continental politics than in the city of Rome, which was sacked on his watch. His successor was Paul III, born Alexander Farnese. Through his sister, Farnese had ties to the most infamous of Renaissance popes, the Borgia Alexander VI (the married Julia was the pope's mistress). Farnese himself was a family man who appointed two teenaged grandsons as Cardinals (he had separated from his own mistress, the mother of his four children, before he was ordained to the priesthood--and, to be fair, was not a wicked man).

The young St. Ignatius Loyola
discovering the call of Christ.

Any other institution would have been completely run to the ground, but the Holy Spirit not only has protected the Church from error and from the depredations of her own unworthy leaders, God has been continually raising up SAINTS, the real powerhouses in the Church, to point out the path of the Gospel: “Do not conform to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind!” (Rom. 12:4).

During this same period, some of the greatest saints in history made their mark: Francis Xavier, Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola, Peter Favre, Philip Neri, John of the Cross, Cajetan, Thomas More, John Fisher, Peter of Alcantera, Francis Borgia (great-grandson of Pope Alexander). Could it be that the weaker and more worldly the Pope, the greater the saints of the age?

Most of the 8-10 generally recognized "bad popes" reigned between 880-1550. As Protestantism made the pope irrelevant to swaths of northern Europe and nation-states began to arise, the climate that had allowed for bad popes gradually changed. We haven't seen their like since.

When a pope is saintly, it could be believed that he – and he alone – is responsible for the spread of the Gospel. But no one can be tempted to shift all the responsibility for the cause of the Gospel on men who are obviously unfaithful to it! Then it becomes clear that the work of evangelization truly rests on the shoulders of each and every member of the Church. (Could the bad popes have been somehow good for the Church, after all?)

This is the third in a series of 7 Things Every Catholic Should Know about the Papacy.
#2 is The Bishop of Rome is the Pope, Not Vice-Versa
#1 is It Was Jesus' Idea to Build His Church on Peter

TOB Tuesday: The Redemption of Desire

I haven't done a TOB Tuesday post for a while, but I'm glad to have the occasion: A couple of weeks ago received a review copy of Christopher West's latest book, "Fill These Hearts: God, Sex, and the Universal Longing." Much of the material is familiar--West incorporated it into the Theology of the Body "Head and Heart Immersion" program I participated in last October. Here's my take on the book version:

A healthy antidote to the twin maladies in Western culture (the full-throttle pursuit of pleasure on the one hand; the puritanical/jansenistic suspicion of it on the other), "Fill These Hearts" takes desire seriously as a vitally important aspect of the spiritual life. Ignore or repress it, and life, prayer, morality and religion itself are reduced to dry and unappetizing duty. Gorge yourself with short-term satisfactions and you become a hamster on a wheel, turning every relationship, opportunity or experience into a means to the same end, the never-ending pursuit of a "more" that will always fail to satisfy the soul. There is a third way, West promises: desire rightly ordered keeps fire in the soul, even as it keeps the soul turned toward the ultimate good of communion with God.

This is a book about that rightly ordered desire. How do we recognize our deep desires? How do we respond to them in an enlightened and even passionate way without being driven blindly by them into destructive choices? How do we live "temperately, justly and devoutly" (Tit. 2:12) in this present age, when even a walk down a city street means encountering soft porn on billboards and bus shelters? Is it possible to live sexual purity passionately? (Yes! West says: "A properly disciplined eros is even more wild than its 'frat house counterfeit'.") What does all this mean in the relationship of man and woman?

West illustrates this highly readable book not simply with references to Scripture or to the writings of Popes and saints, but with abundant pop culture references to the insatiable (if often misinterpreted) hunger for God, the ultimate goal of desire. Thankfully, West also disproves the common contemporary suspicion (nurtured, no doubt, by the reduction of "devotion"--a word of passion--to "duty") that Heaven might be boring!

Papabili? UPDATED (links fixed)

No sooner had Pope Benedict pronounced the last Latin syllable of his resignation "declaratio" than whispers of "papabile" began to be heard around the world. Who is the most "pope-able" of the Church's men in red? Some of the name are familiar to me as a reader of Communio, a theological journal co-founded by, um, Joseph Ratzinger.

I met the gentle Father Marc Ouellet decades ago at a symposium on Hans Urs von Balthasar (another co-founder of Communio). I thanked him for his wonderful writings in that same journal. Now you can read them, too. If the former Archbishop of Quebec is elected in the next conclave, you'll be familiar with his thought!

• Theological Perspectives on Marriage.
• Paradox and/or Supernatural Existential
• The New Catechism: An Event of the Faith
• 'Woe to Me If I Do Not Preach the Gospel.'
• The Mystery of Easter and the Culture of Death.
• Priestly Ministry at the Service of Ecclesial Communion.
• Jesus Christ, the One Savior of the World, Yesterday, Today, and Forever.
• Covenantal Justice.
• Mary and the Future of Ecumenism.

Angelo Scola is another presumed papabile I first encountered in the pages of Communio. I automatically associate him with Theology of the Body because of the theme of some of those articles; come to find out that in 1982 he was appointed professor at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family (founded by the TOB pope himself).

Some of Cardinal Scola's writings can be found linked to the Communio blog; others are in back issues of the journal (you can buy those precious back issues--at least the ones they still have on hand).

As if you didn't have enough Lenten reading to do! At any rate, who knows if one or the other sets of links might end up being particularly useful in the near future?

End of an Era?

Whoever the next Pope is, it is unlikely that he would have been an active participant in Vatican II, whether as a Council Father (like the young Bishop Karol Wojtyla) or as a theological consultant (like Joseph Ratzinger).

According to Andreas Widmer (a former Swiss Guard-turned-CEO who got to see Pope John Paul's papacy up close), John Paul saw his mission as continuing the implementation of Vatican II, and Benedict saw his as rounding that out and equipping the Church for the New Evangelization. From Benedict's perspective, what is needed now is not a continued implementation of Vatican II, but vigor and energy in the Petrine ministry. (One might say that this is already a hint to the next Conclave, but I don't see that in Benedict's character.) 

Widmer's take, that Benedict saw his role role as assuring the genuine implementation of Vatican II seems to be supported by his own words on Feb. 14, speaking to the clergy of Rome in a kind of farewell address. He told the back story of his own participation in the council, and then very baldly told a tale of two councils: the one he was part of ("the council of the Fathers", "the true council") and an alternate council--the "council of the media." These two councils had very different takes on such things as authority, liturgy and scripture. Pope Benedict was not afraid to say that it was the "council of the media" and not the "true council" that had the greater impact, and not for the good. But he's also not afraid to declare, as he goes off into the sunset: "This Virtual Council is breaking down, getting lost and the true Council is emerging with all its spiritual strength. And it is our task, in this Year of Faith, starting from this Year of Faith, to work so that the true Council with the power of the Holy Spirit is realized and Church is really renewed."

Who will take on that task? Cardinal Re joined the Curia in 1963, so he was around during the Council--as was Cardinal Martins, who was a professor at the Claretianum (the university of his religious order, the Claretians)--but neither appear to have had an active role in the Council. 

This could mean that 50 years after the Council, we may see our first post-conciliar Pope. 

It could be that the next Pope will be the Pope of the New Evangelization that Vatican II intended all along.

7 Things Every Catholic Should Know about the Papacy (#2)

#2:

The Bishop of Rome is the Pope, not vice-versa.

When the Cardinals enter into conclave sometime in the next few weeks, it is not so much to elect a Pope as it is to choose a bishop for the diocese of Rome. That man will be Pope in virtue of his being the bishop of Rome. 

The conclave itself hints at the way bishops were chosen in the first centuries of the Church. In some areas, all the faithful had a voice (that is basically how St. Ambrose was chosen as bishop of Milan in 374). In other local Churches, the clergy came together as a “college” or congress to pick the one who would be chief shepherd among them. In a city the size of Rome, this college was composed of the leaders of the original “parishes” of Rome—which you can still visit today (though their ruins are ten feet below the ground level of modern Rome). Even now, each Cardinal is honorary pastor of a Roman parish, called his “titular” Church, so that symbolically, at least, the bishop is still chosen by a group of Roman clergy.

But why Rome? Wasn't Jerusalem the center of Christianity in biblical times? Why isn't the bishop of Jerusalem the Pope?

This hearkens back to Jesus choice of not a city, but a particular person to be the “rock” on which he would build his Church. That person was Peter.

If Jerusalem had remained Peter's center of ministry, then today's bishop of Jerusalem might indeed have been Pope (most likely of a tiny, strongly Jewish Christian community—if anyone survived the destruction of the city by Rome in 70 AD).

In God's providence, Peter realized early on that he had a universal ministry: he himself “gave orders” that the devout Gentile Cornelius be baptized (Acts 10: 34-38) without first becoming a Jew through circumcision. With an increasing number of Gentile converts in the vast city of Antioch (modern day Antakya, Turkey), Peter moved there. (The Maronite Patriarch of Antioch boasts of being “the successor of St. Peter in the See of Antioch.”)

But Peter did not stay in Antioch: like Paul, he was drawn to the capital city, to Rome. And it was there that he died, by order of Nero, crucified in the “circus” (racetrack) by the Collis Vaticanus (Vatican Hill) across the Tiber from the city center. From then on, every chief shepherd of the Church of Rome could only ever be the successor of St. Peter.

It is this connection to St. Peter that designates the bishop of Rome not just the shepherd of one diocese among many but the visible center of unity for all the churches of the world. In other words, the Pope.

--------------

The North American College (seminary) has an interesting list of the ancient parishes ("station churches") of Rome, along with a Google map (with photographs of some of the churches) and other features.

--------------

This is #2 in a series of 7 Things Every Catholic Should Know about the Papacy.
Here is the #1 Thing Every Catholic Should Know

For a History of the Popes by a reliable Catholic scholar, try the one by John O'Malley, SJ.

Feb 14 is now Theology of the Body Blog Post Day!

By my own decree, here at Nunblog St Valentine's Day shall henceforth be known as...


Theology of the Body Blog Post Day!

And to kick it off, here is a St Valentine's Day greeting from Cardinal George (released last year)!

Create your own St Valentine's Day Theology of the Body blog post and link it here--or share a great TOB story or article (you'll find some starters at the Theology of the Body Institute website).

Malachy Malarchy (UPDATED)

I got a phone call yesterday from a young adult Catholic who is truly shaken by the Pope's resignation (as I admit I am, too). Like many others, this young person is looking to visions and prophecies for answers or some sense of resolution. He asked me about the famous prophecies of St. Malachy and about some contemporary visionaries...

One thing that especially concerned me during that conversation was the young man's worry that, according to the one of the versions of the prophecies attributed to Malachy (but more likely written 600 years later), the "next" Pope will be a false Pope. This undermines the new Pope's ministry before it even begins, and fails to assign any role at all to the Holy Spirit!

Did someone, centuries ago, have an insight into what we are facing today? Can that give us a clue about how to interpret the signs of the times? These things certainly do spark curiosity. They also distract us from the real task at hand: praying intensely--with Lenten intensity--for the Church during this crucial almost-interregnum, and for the man who will take on the burden of the papacy within the next month. (I can think of only one person who would be especially interested in keeping us from praying, and he's not on our side.)

If we do our part, though, when the new Bishop of Rome assumes his office, he will discover an abundant outpouring of grace* given to him precisely through the prayers of the very people he is called to serve.



* Just today, Ash Wednesday, in his General Audience talk, Pope Benedict spoke of a similar experience of being supported and upheld by the prayers of the Catholic world:  “I have felt, almost physically, your prayers in these days which are not easy for me, the strength which the love of the Church and your prayers brings to me.”

7 Things Every Catholic Should Know about the Papacy (#1)

1. It was Jesus' idea to give his Church structural unity by “building” it on a rock, like a wise man (Mt. 7:24). That “rock” was the former fisherman, Simon, the son of John.

Peter with his keys and his upside-down cross,
from Montserrat, Spain.

Jesus prepared Simon for this role through experiences, teachings (Mt. 17:25), prayers (Lk. 22: 32) and even rebukes (Mt. 16:23) that were unique among the apostles. Then, in a solemn way, he made it explicit by conferring on him a new name, the way God had changed Abram's name to Abraham, and Jacob's name to Israel. But “Peter” was a completely made-up name, invented by Jesus. “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mt 16: 18). Of course, Jesus called him Kephas (Aramaic for “foundation stone” or “rock”) and not the Greek-style “Peter,” but Simon was known by both for the rest of his life. (We see Paul refer to him in both ways—Kephas and Peter—within a few verses in the letter to the Galatians, chapter 2.)

The Gospel of Matthew goes into detail on what this name change meant, quoting the prophet Isaiah to demonstrate the kind of authority Jesus was giving Peter. Like the new “master of the palace,” Peter was given the Master's own set of keys, to open and close, bind and loose. Later (Mt. 18:8) the Apostles would be given that power to bind and loose, but only Peter ever held the keys himself. Peter is consistently singled out among the Twelve. When Jesus offers a challenging teaching, it is Peter who responds for the rest (Mk. 10:28). Even when predicting Simon's betrayals, Jesus affirms his special calling to “strengthen your brothers” (see Lk. 22:32).

On Easter morning, the Angel at the tomb told Mary Magdalen and the other women, “Go tell the disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee' “ (Mk. 16:7) She ran “to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved” (Jn. 20:1). And even though the younger disciple outran Peter, it was Peter who first stepped into the empty tomb while the other waited outside. At the Sea of Galilee, the Risen Jesus put the care of his sheep and lambs into Peter's hands: “Do you love me? Feed my lambs” (see Jn. 21:15-19).

The primitive Church expressed Peter's special role in various ways. In every list of the names of the Apostles (in the Gospels and in Acts), Peter's name comes first. When the question of what to do about Gentiles seeking Baptism caused great controversy in the Jerusalem community, threatening its peace and unity, it was Peter whose declaration caused the assembly to fall silent (Acts 15: 7-11).

Even Paul had to explain, in detail, a confrontation he had had with Peter in Antioch. Although Paul took issue with Peter's behavior (not his teaching), that episode damaged not Peter's credibility, but Paul's.

Ultimately, the papacy comes from Jesus himself, through Peter.

Mardi Gras: a Word from Pope Benedict

I have to thank my friend Father Bryce Sibley (from Our Lady of Wisdom) for tipping me off to this apologia for Mardi Gras by none other than Joseph Ratzinger! (If anyone tells you Facebook is good for nothing, this proves them wrong.)

My annual Mardi Gras display in the convent refectory.

“It seems incongruous to speak of Mardi Gras in a theological meditation, because it is at best only indirectly a time in the Church year. But are we not somewhat schizophrenic in this regard? On the one hand, we are only too ready to say that it is precisely in Catholic countries that Mardi Gras is most at home; on the other hand, we nevertheless ignore it both spiritually and theologically. Is it, then, one of those things that as Christians we cannot condone, but as humans we cannot deny? In that case we should ask: Just how human is Christianity?

Granted, Mardi Gras is heathen in origin: fertility cult and exorcism merge in it. But it was the Church that had to step in and speak the exorcism that banned the demons who do violence to men and destroy their happiness. Then, after the exorcism, something unexpected, something new, appeared - a merrymaking that is wholly exorcised. 

Mardi Gras is to Ash Wednesday a time of laughter before the time of penance, a time of lighthearted self-irony, whose laughter speaks a truth that may well be closely akin to that of the Lenten preacher.

Thus Mardi Gras, when it has been exorcised, reminds us of the words of the Old Testament preacher: “...a time to weep, and a time to laugh” (Qo 3:4). For Christians, too, it is not always a time for penance. There is likewise a time for laughter. Yes, Christian exorcism has routed the masked demons and replaced them by the laughter that has been exorcised.

All of us know how far removed from this ideal our present Mardi Gras often is; how frequently it is mammon and its henchmen that reign there. This is why we Christians do combat, not against, but in favor of, laughter. To struggle against demons and to laugh with those who laugh - these are inseparably united. The Christian has no need to be schizophrenic: Christian Faith is truly human.

– Joseph Ratzinger

Adieu, Benedict (UPDATED with video)

Next week's Feast of the Chair of St. Peter should be a poignant one, indeed.

It's an understatement to say that no one saw this coming, but the papacy asks a lot of a man who was almost eighty when he started the job. Now, Benedict says, the demands are getting to be too much for him. It's not the first time a Pope has stepped down, but it is the first time since, well, the printing press.

Usually we get an empty chair (sede vacante) when God decides--that is, when the Pope dies. This time (not the first, but still), a Pope has named the date and time (Feb 28, 8 pm) when the "sede vacante" will begin, and leaves it completely to others to call a conclave and get its work underway. (It was Ratzinger himself who handled those duties the last time.)

On this feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, we have just about enough time for two novenas before the work of the Conclave begins in earnest. (Naturally, the speculation has already begun!) We're also about to begin Lent, and I can think of no more appropriate spiritual reading for this season in the Year of Faith than Benedict's own reflections on the last week in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

Meanwhile, here's the official statement ("declaratio"):

DECLARATIO Dear Brothers, I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrineministry.  I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the barque of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is. Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects.  And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer. From the Vatican, 10 February 2013 BENEDICTUS PP XVI

Here you can listen to him as he made the announcement this morning (in Latin):

Those were the days...

I wish I had had a video camera at the supper table when the conversation turned to the old school technologies we used to use in our mission! I don't even have pictures from those days to share; I have to get what I can from the Internet (not all the pictures I need are available!)

A four-color Perfector like the one
we dedicated on Easter 1976. Each
mound holds the plate to print a
different color. You could print full-
 on one side of a sheet, or two colors
on both sides, finishing the job.

Sister Lusia worked the presses--she remembered when we fit four printing machines (okay, only one of them was technically a "press"; the rest were offset machines) in one rather cramped room. I remember when Cardinal Medeiros came on Easter Sunday evening to bless the new 4-color Heidelberg perfecter--the first 4-color press in New England. (The Heidelberg company used to bring customers to our pressroom to see the machine in action.) By the time Sister Lusia was in charge, we had a big new room and a six-color press that could print one side of paper in full color and the other in two colors in one go-through, saving the sisters time and energy (those sheets ran 2 X 3 feet and could be quite heavy to load).

But the offset presses needed printing plates with images on them in order to transfer ink to paper. That's where Sr Frances came in (and Sr Helena, too, for a while). Sr Frances worked in "litho," a department that combined graphic design with the photography angle of offset printing. She took the galleys from the sisters in the photocomposition department (where they could type in two different typefaces without changing film reels!) and arranged them on the flat bed of a huge camera, covering them with a spotless glass plate and shooting the galleys. Then she had to develop the negatives in the darkroom, swishing them through pans of chemicals until they reached the right point and hurrying to "fix" the image in another bath of chemicals (called "fix"). Those negatives, in turn, were taped to a large orange sheet of flexible, opaque plastic, and a razor blade (the old fashioned kind) had to be wielded just right to cut away only enough plastic to reveal the reverse "page" on the negative (otherwise random lines would show up on the printed copy).

Ink being transferred
--plate to blanket to paper--on an offset press.

Litho was a complicated department. The orange sheets, called "flats," weren't the last step there. Sister Helena remembered her favorite step: The process involved laying the flat on another perfectly spotless glass plate and closing a vacuum sealing lid over it. The whole thing then rotated on its huge axis so that intense light could penetrate the empty parts of the negative and burn the words onto the actual metal plates that would get affixed to the presses. (Sr Frances commented how many cuts she got from the sharp edges of the plates.) From there, it was to the pressroom: The plates were fastened around cylinders on the press. Ink "stuck" to the burned-in image and was transferred to the rubbery "blanket" on another cylinder so that it would be picked up by the paper as it made its way through the machine.

Sister Helena also worked in Photocomp, the typesetting department where we had that first, enormous computer system (and the only air-conditioned space in the entire complex). Mistakes were time-consuming (not to mention costly!). But still, they had air-conditioning.

I missed all the exciting technology, being assigned to the shipping department. However, even in shipping there was one machine for me. I maintained the subscriber list for our Italian-language bulletin-missalette and for that I had to learn the noisy little "Addressograph" system, where I typed addresses on little metal cards.  Every month I ran the stack of metal address plates through the machine to stamp labels through a kind of typewriter-ribbon process that could be heard throughout the building. (No one misses the Addressograph.)

What old-school technology do you remember--or wonder about?

My most unfavorite Gospel text

There are some powerful connections between the first reading and the Gospel in today's Mass, and that Responsorial Psalm is the kind of prayer that you hold onto when you hear things like that.

To put it mildly, I don't even like today's Gospel. When I was preparing for the liturgy by reading the texts last night, I saw what the Gospel was and couldn't stop the "ugh." from escaping my lips. You know what it is? It's one of those passages that we hear not once during the liturgical year, but three times, in all its creepy detail. (Granted, one of those times is on the feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist.)

What was John's crime? He was simply carrying out what the first reading exhorts all Christians: "Let marriage be honored among all, and the marriage bed kept undefiled" (Heb. 13:4).

Timely, isn't it?

Christopher West Webinar

I missed the webinar today (it was during our community Hour of Adoration), but Image Books is making it available for me and you. This is in conjunction with the launch of West's newest book, "Fill These Hearts." (I just got a review copy, and will be posting my response soon--God willing!)

Meanwhile, here is Mr. West on the theme of his book: desire.

Countdown to Lent

That's right: we're just one week away from Ash Wednesday! (And I haven't had a single piece of King Cake yet.)

Today's first reading (from Hebrews) is actually very appropriate as we begin to look forward to the "discipline" of Lent. In fact, "discipline" is the key word in that first reading. The author tells us to look at our attitude toward discipline--and by this he includes all manner of trials. It is not something we submit to or take on for its own sake; it is for the sake of "the peaceful fruit of righteousness" that it brings about in us when we undertake it or accept it within the framework of divine Providence.

We're also put on guard about the results of a lack of discipline: the "bitter root" that springs up and causes trouble, defiling many. We've seen plenty of that in the Church over the past dozen years; it has even been in the news over the past week. The letter to the Hebrews seems to say that the sex abuse crisis had its own "bitter root" in the absence of a "struggle against sin"--a struggle that is expected to be costly. Sadly, if there is one thing that was absent throughout the sex abuse crisis, it was that sense of a manly fight against evil, both in the perpetrators (granted, mostly very sick men) and the bishops and other leaders who took the quick and easy detour from the rugged path of discipline.

Discipline is not a dirty word; it is an essential practice in any area worth developing. The trick is to direct the "struggle" against the right enemy, the "capital sin" that trips us up the most--and not some lesser, more manageable, area.

This week before Lent begins can be the time to discern the area of discipline that could help us the most, to make the Lent of this Year of Faith a time of real spiritual renewal and reinvigoration.


Here's an interesting look at the shape of Lent in the past, from a back issue of the local Franciscans' newsletter.

Relics: Ex Indumentis

Today we hear the rather lengthy Gospel of the cure of the woman with a hemorrhage (the one who reached out to touch Jesus' clothes to access his healing power) and the raising of the daughter of Jairus. Two startling miracles; both accomplished through a kind of mediation. In the first case, it wasn't even Jesus' own person, it was his garments that communicated his power; in the second, his words: Talitha koum.

In the Acts of the Apostles, we see this sort of thing continue: We may not be surprised at a miracle worked by the laying on of hands, but Peter's shadow brought healing to those it fell on (Acts 5:15), and people used to touch handkerchiefs, or even the corner of an apron, to Paul with the expectation that these objects would somehow mediate Paul's miracle-working presence (Acts 19:12).

I have in my own possession a few similar relics: a scrap of fabric encased in a medal of Blessed James Alberione inscribed "ex indumentis" ("from the clothing"); a rosary given to me by Pope John Paul II; a holy card with a hand-written message signed "M. Alberione" ("M" as in "Maestro"--the title used by Blessed James Alberione, the way we would use "Father").

These third-class relics all represent the person who used or touched them. It's not that they are buzzing with supernatural power on their own. Even Jesus' garments in today's story were not supernaturally radioactive (although it may have seemed that way in the Transfiguration, when his clothes, too, were as white as light). Jesus went out of his way to find the person who had drawn power from him through that touch in order to assure her that it was not his clothing, but her faith that had won the healing she desired. And yet there is a way in which God's power is--at least virtually--present in these material things: since they derive from God's creation, they have a kind of sacramental value from their very origin. When you think about it, our whole sacramental system is based on the assumption that created things can communicate the supernatural: not by their own inherent power, but as instruments, as mediations.

In this Year of Faith, I pray to have the kind of faith that can touch Christ as directly as that woman did when she touched his flowing garments.

remedy for media violence: a proposal

The horror unleashed in December at Newtown CT certainly got the gun-control proposals started. While efforts continue to find a workable solution to the proliferation of weaponry, I would like to offer another sort of proposal, this one taking aim (pardon me) at portrayals of violence in the media, especially in motion pictures.

This idea came to me on the Orange Line from Midway to downtown Saturday night. Station after station featured posters for the next Hollywood action movie. You don't even have to know the plot to know that bullets and explosions will abound, along with a certain wry humor. And the studios hope to net millions and millions and millions from this formula.

Hmm.

How many millions have our governments (local, state, national; county/parish) and schools had to spend to protect citizens from just the sort of chaos unleashed by gun violence? Here in Chicago, the gun violence is just ridiculous, but the city doesn't have the resources to strengthen the police presence that helps keep things just under the boiling point.

You see where this is going.

So, for my proposal: Every bullet that whizzes by on a film, every time that film is projected $1 goes to fund the police in the municipality where the movie was shown? Naturally, it could be be directed to other projects (non-profit orgs like Cease Fire, for instance). That's for others to determine.

Is it enough to have a fee per bullet? What about explosions? $5, maybe? Right now we don't have an explosion problem so much as a madman/gangbanger with a gun problem, so I'm not sure we need to tackle explosions, too. (However, if Hollywood gets tired of being nickel-and-dimed over bullets, though, they may very well move to more explosions, in which case the copycats out there might make a similar move.)

Okay, so I'm not totally serious. Not about the dollar per bullet thing, anyway. But I am serious about filmmakers getting serious about onscreen violence, especially the kind of violence that is the whole point of an action film. Why do they get a free pass in the name of artistic license, when it is everyone else who pays the price?

Catholic cameo on Downton Abbey

Aside from the Food Network, I really don't watch TV much at all. Except on Sunday evenings during the Downton Abbey season. And last night we caught a cameo appearance by the Catholic Church in the manor house, which hadn't seen a Catholic presence, since (the Earl indignantly declared) the Reformation.

The little intruder wasn't even baptized yet: the newborn daughter of the (late) Lady Sybil and her husband, the former chauffeur, the Irish Mr. Branson.

Here's the back story, in case you missed it:

Watch Downton Abbey: Sybil and Tom on PBS. See more from Masterpiece.

After the funeral, the Earl's family mentioned that they really ought to see about the child's christening. At the mention of Mr. Travis, the local clergyman, the young father spoke up. The baby, he said, is Irish. She will be Catholic. It's just part of being Irish--or perhaps to the revolutionary Mr. Branson, it is another way of not being English.

This provoked no little consternation on the part of the socially conscious Earl. He even brought Mr. Travis in to argue the case theologically. Alas, there were no theological arguments to be had on either side, unless you can count Mr. Travis' conviction that God was not pleased with incense and Latin and other pagan relics, but that he was infinitely well-pleased by all that was British, including the Anglican worship service, and that side-effect of British colonization, the spread of the Gospel message. The members of the family all weighed in wittily, but the one thing no one mentioned at all was whether there was any question of truth involved.

All in all, a conversation among agnostics about which church offered more appropriate social benefits for the newborn: Catholic (in line with her ethnic and national identity as Irish, since she would in fact be raised by her father) or Anglican (to assure her place in high society as a descendent of the house of Grantham). Even the late, lamented Lady Sybil had already mentioned to her sister that the baby would be raised Catholic for her father's sake, and not because Mr. Travis or anyone else knew more about God than the next person. Post-modernists before the fact!

It's rare enough that the very issue would be raised in a high profile TV series, so I was glad to see this in the program, along with the dismissive remarks of the Earl about his grandchild being a "left-footer" and the comment about there having been no Catholic Crawleys since the Reformation (when the imaginary Downton Abbey would have been seized from the monks or nuns who built it and given to the politically connected). I also enjoyed the hint of rebellion in the Dowager Countess' (Maggie Smith's character) expression of high esteem for the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk (read between the lines: the Duke of Norfolk was alone in the realm in not accepting the Church of England back in Elizabethan days). 

So the conversation wasn't very substantive, but this is TV! At the very least, it shows that being Catholic was then, as now, a sign of contradiction. (Are we worthy of that?)

Fire and Light on Candlemas Day

For this last appearance of Christmas (until December!), here is a Christmas poem by Robert Southwell (to "hear" the rhythm, words like "scorched" have two syllables; where there is only one, he uses an apostrophe). The imagery fits well with the  "Candle Mass" on this Feast of the Presentation of the Lord.

The Burning Babe

As I in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the snow,
Surpris’d I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed
As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed.
“Alas!” quoth he, “but newly born, in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiled souls,
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
"So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.”
With this he vanish’d out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.



Southwell, an English Jesuit, was a contemporary of (and some say influence on) Shakespeare. As a priest in Elizabethean England, Southwell managed to evade capture for six years of ministry. Writing a book of consolation for the Catholic Earl of Arundel, who was in prison for his Catholic faith, Southwell described his own future fate, and in another major work his attitude toward suffering: "Let God strip you to the skin, yea to the soul, so he stay with you himself."

He was canonized as a martyr in 1975.

Southwell's biography is well worth reading; here is one from a literary perspective.