Working Together: Pro-life signage becomes joint project in Humboldt

Over the last several months, I've become more active in my local Knights of Columbus Council.  In that capacity, I have been named to two positions.  I am the One Year Trustee, but I am also the Pro-Life Chair.  I would like to share a story that was printed in the latest issue of The Globe, the newspaper for the diocese of Sioux City in Iowa.  The story follows below:

 Working Together: Pro-life signage becomes joint project in Humboldt

HUMBOLDT – New pro-life signs were recently installed on the north and east sides of Humboldt to present motorists a life-affirming message as they enter and leave the city.
The process for getting the signs began with Bruce Reimers after he travelled to Emmetsburg and saw similar signs. In time other pro-life signs were placed in Manson and that led them to contact the Knights of Columbus who were responsible for the signs in that community. 
Reimers took information back to his church, Zion Lutheran Church LCMS.  They got on board with the idea, but wanted to share the project and cost with the Catholic Church as well as the other ecclesial communions in the area.  
According to Andy Milam, pro-life chair of the St. Mary's Knights of Columbus #8592, they fully supported the concept and quickly decided that they would support it in any way they could.  Eventually, the cost was shared completely between St. Mary's and Zion Lutheran.
“This process has been a great example of interreligious dialogue.  Zion Lutheran and St. Mary's have a common goal and that is to protect and make aware that the unborn are innocent and have a right to life,” he said. “There is no disagreement or theological difference on the concept.”
From a Catholic point of view, Milam said they look at this as continuing the Catholic mandate that all life is sacred from the moment of conception to natural death. He referred to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life."  (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2270)
He also cited: "Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law: You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish." (CCC 2271 and  Didache 2,2:SCh 248,148)
Because this work is so important, Milam said that is what motivated the Catholics and Lutherans to work together on this project “because some issues should be based on our common heritage as Christians.”
The Knight said that the morality of this joint action is simple to understand – no one has the right to take the life of an innocent person. He stressed, the unborn child is innocent. 
Milam called it a joy to work with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.  
“We hope that going forward we will be able to collaborate again on programs which promote proper interreligious dialogue,” he said.

Do Traditional Catholics Know Better?

Recently I was asked the following:


"I wonder if there is any empirical data to indicate that traditional Catholics know their faith better and have a better formed conscience compared to their contemporary counterparts."

As a catechist, I've worked in both settings.  I was in a liberal parish for several years and as I have noted, I've lived in a very conservative parish.  I can tell you from experience that the more traditional parish promotes thinking whereas the more liberal parish promotes feeling.  Obviously, there is some feeling which goes on in a traditional parish and there is thinking that goes on in a liberal parish, but by and large, the think v. feel mentality is very obvious.  But I am sure that there must be some empirical data to support my position.  I would look to the life of conservative parishes in one's diocese v. liberal parishes and see how the sacraments are being utilized.  I will be doing some research on this in my own diocese and I hope to be able to report back on this in a month or so...for now, though I will expand upon my understanding as I have witnessed it in several different parishes.

Liberal parishes encourage people to believe based upon their personal feelings.  This causes a huge problem, because the subjective reigns supreme and there is very little objective teaching which goes on.  Everything is experiential and personal.  The Church simply doesn't base it's operation that way and what results is a distorted and subjective form of worship and theology based upon the faulty subject.

To contrast, traditional parishes promote thinking based upon objective truths.  This creates an enviornment whereby the people are not basing things off of their experience and feelings, but rather on teachings which have existed for thousands of years.  They can make those teachings personal, to be sure, but the teachings are not based upon their faulty views.  They are based upon objective truth.

When one learns and applies traditional Catholic thought, the growth is immeasurable.  When one bases their Catholicism on the personal and feelings, he is limited by his own experience.  Of course there are exceptions, but this model holds by and large to be true.

If we are to be authentic in our Catholicism we must not rely on our personal experience to guide our views, because that gives us a limited worldview, but rather we should rely on the objective truth which cannot be limited by personal experience.

So, to answer the question directly, yes...contemporary Catholicism (as you have applied the terms) forms superficial Catholics, because they are limited by their own subjective experiences.  Traditional Catholicism does form a deeper Catholic because he is not limited by his own experience, but rather he is freed by the objective truth to know and understand that which is beyond and outside himself.

Bishop Paprocki: The Upcoming Vote

This is important, please watch.  As Catholics we must heed the words of Bishop Paprocki!  They are balanced and very important for us to understand as we enter into the election season.

The Liturgy, A School of Prayer

One of the things I do every morning as I drink my glass of iced tea (coffee for me), I read the news release from the Vatican.  I think that there is some good information in there and it keeps me abreast of what is going on in the mainstream Church.  As I was reading this morning, I came across a news brief which I would like to share.  I'm going to break it down Fr. Z style (this time. my responses will be in red):

The liturgy as a school of prayer, as a "special place in which God addresses each one of us ... and awaits our response", was the theme of Benedict XVI's catechesis during his general audience, held this morning in St. Peter's Square.
The Pope explained how, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "we read that the word 'liturgy' originally meant a 'service in the name of/on behalf of the people'. If Christian theology took this word from the Greek, clearly it did so thinking of the new People of God, born of Christ Who opened His arms on the Cross to unite mankind in the one peace of God; 'service in the name of the people', a people which exists not of itself but which has come into being thanks to the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ". [I think this is a key point.  There is something important about understanding that the Mass and Eucharist are not about the individual first, but rather it is about the faithful coming together to worship.  That is what the Holy Father is saying.]
"The Catechism also states that in Christian tradition, the word 'liturgy' means the participation of the People of God in the work of God". In this context Pope Benedict recalled how the document on the liturgy had been the first fruit of Vatican Council II. "By beginning with the issue of liturgy, light was very clearly thrown on the primacy of God, on His absolute precedence. ... Where the gaze on God is not decisive, everything becomes disoriented. The fundamental criterion for the liturgy is that it should be oriented towards God, in order to ensure we participate in His work. [A misconception which came about after Vatican Council II is being corrected.  The act of worshipping should be directed at God, the Father 100% of the time.  Our participation in the liturgy is not based on how much we do, but on how well we do it.]
"Yet, we might ask ourselves", the Holy Father added, "what is this work of God in which we are called to participate? ... And what makes the Mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ, Who brought salvation, real for me today? The answer is this: the action of Christ through the Church and the liturgy; in particular the Sacrament of the Eucharist which causes the sacrificial offer of the Son of God Who redeemed us to be present; the Sacrament of Penance in which we pass from the death induced by sin to new life; and the other Sacraments which sanctify us". [Get that, sacrifice and sanctification]
Quoting again from the Catechism of the Catholic Church the Pope affirmed that "a sacramental celebration is a meeting of God's children with their Father, in Christ and the Holy Spirit; this meeting takes the form of a dialogue, through actions and words'. Thus", he explained, "the first requirement for a good liturgical celebration is that it be prayer and dialogue with God, first listening then responding. ... Sacred liturgy offers us the words, it is up to us to enter into their meaning, absorb them, harmonise ourselves with them. ... One fundamental and primordial element of dialogue with God in the liturgy is concordance between what we say with our mouths and what we carry in our hearts", he said.  [Clearly, the Holy Father is trying to shift the meaning of active participation to actual participation.  We don't have to be doing something or even saying something all the time in order to fully participate.  We can internalize the matter and we can actually participate without opening our mouths or eyes one time during the Holy Sacrifice.  While we can and it is laudable that we do, at times, it is not a lessening of our participation if we don't, so long as we orient our hearts, our minds and our souls to the adoration, supplication and worship of God, the Father at Holy Mass.] 
The Pope then referred to a particular moment in which the liturgy calls upon us and helps us to find such concordance: the celebrant's invitation before the Eucharistic prayer: "sursum corda", meaning "let us lift up our hearts"; lift them up, that is, "out of the mire of our concerns and desires, our worries and our distraction. Our hearts, the most intimate part of us, must open meekly to the Word of God and join the prayer of the Church, in order to be oriented towards God by the very words we hear and pronounce".
"We celebrate and experience the liturgy well", the Pope concluded, "only if we maintain an attitude of prayer, uniting ourselves to the mystery of Christ and to His dialogue of a Son with His Father. God Himself teaches us to pray. ... He has given us the right words with which to address Him, words we find in the Psalter, in the great prayers of sacred liturgy and in the Eucharistic celebration itself. Let us pray to the Lord that we may become increasingly aware of the fact that the liturgy is the action of God and of man; a prayer that arises from the Holy Spirit and from us; entirely addressed to the Father in union with the Son of God made man". [Our dialogue is internal.  We must pray and we must unite our souls, our hearts, and our minds to God the Father, in Christ the Son, through the Holy Spirit.  That is the purpose of the Mass.  The Mass is a vehicle to bring us the Sacrament.  It is the means by which we worship as Christians.  It is the authentic and proper way for all Christians to commune with God.  But in order to do this we must pray.  We must understand that prayer is threefold.  It's object must be worthy of God.  It must include faith which includes implicit trust in God.  And it demands our attention.  We must be attentive to what we are doing.  If one of these things is lost, the prayer is not fulfilled.  Christ taught us to pray.  He furthered this by giving us the Mass.  And it is through understanding the end as well as the means that we can truly understand what is proper in the liturgy.]
Following the catechesis the Holy Father addressed greetings to, among others, faithful from Latin America, including a group of Chilean parliamentarians whom he reminded of Catholic politicians' duty "generously to seek the common good of all citizens, in a manner coherent with the convictions held by the children of the Church".

As I was looking at this article, I realized that the act of worshipping is not just an outward action, but it is an internalization of what God the Father created us for.  We were created to worship Him Who Is.  When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, man lost that freedom to worship Him.  As God expelled them from the Garden, He promised Adam and Eve that He would restore that freedom.  We find that freedom in the Sacrifice on Calvary.  Through the re-presentation of Christ's death in an unbloody way, we gain that freedom that was lost.  If our end on Earth is to worship God the Father, then it is fulfilled in the manner in which He gave us, the Holy Mass.

More on Participatio Actuosa and the Misconceptions

Recently, a priest friend and I were having a discussion regarding active participation prior to the Council and after.  He made the following assertions:

This is what I remember about Pre-Vatican II actual participation in the Mass during that brief and early period of my life:
1. Participation in Mass was highly individualized and personal. The only communal aspect was simply being gathered together. However, all eyes had to be fixed on the sanctuary, there was very little or no interaction amongst those present.
2. The Holy Rosary seem to be the prayer of choice during the liturgy by the vast majority of people. I was taught by my parents to hold the Rosary during Mass and even pray it during Mass.
3. However, I was given a St. Joseph Missal and asked to bring it to Mass to follow the Mass and many people brought both their rosaries and missals to Mass--missalettes or worship aids were not provided by the parish, except a hymnal of some kind.
4. The laity remained quiet, and only the altar servers spoke during the Mass or the choir if there was one--my experience during pre-Vatican II times was mostly the Low Mass at the early Sunday morning time slot.
He then stated, "So no one can tell me that "actual participation" as Vatican II and post Vatican II developments did not hinge on building upon what was good prior to Vatican II but also addressing what wasn't good, meaning passivity and letting others do for them what they should be doing themselves, like singing, speaking and actively engaged in the liturgy both internally and externally and the external being a symbol of internal participation and a fruit of it."

I can.  What you call passivity is not right.  I will use myself as an example (feel free to criticize me, it won't hurt my feelings).  I NEVER respond at Holy Mass and I can guarantee you that I am not passive in my worship.  I internally process and adore Our Lord called down from heaven at each and every Mass.  I do this primarily by the means you list first.

1.  I don't care what the person next to me is doing.  To be honest, I don't want to know.  It doesn't mean a hill of beans to me whether or not Billy is praying a rosary, meditating on the life of Christ or following his missal.  That is how he worships and that is his right.

2.  How one unites himself to the Sacred Mystery is not for me to call.  If one most perfectly unites himself to the SM by meditating on the Life of Christ, good.  If one unites himself to the SM through the rosary, good.  If one unites himself to the SM by following the Missal, good.  But I am not a huge fan of hand missals, because I see them as a crutch, outside the translation of the readings (personal opinion, others will disagree).  But regardless of that, it doesn't matter to me how Billy unites his mind, soul and heart to the SM, just that he does so.

3.  Missalettes and worship aids are unneeded expense and socialist.  The fact that I can pray from a Lasance Missal and you can pray from a St. Joseph Missal and Marc can pray from a St. Andrew's Missal and we are all able to express our personal taste in that manner.  And that is ok.  I shouldn't be forced to follow what OCP or Leaflet or whomever chooses for me.

Rosaries are good, even at Holy Mass.

4.  And yet there is imposed silence now.  It's as if silence is a bad thing, unless it is forced on us after the homily and after Holy Communion's song....Silence at Holy Mass is desirable.  It allows for the faithful to focus on the Sacred Mystery.  It allows for the internal aspect of worship to be expressed.  It is a major fault of Vatican Council II and after that all of a sudden we have to be "busy."

He then went on to say:

After Vatican II and when the liturgy changes were being first implemented, the thrust of the priests who were telling us what was desired by Vatican II was active participation and two things would facilitate this, the turning of the priest to face the congregation during the Mass to make the Mass more "intelligible" more vernacular to make the Mass more easily understandable and the actual participation of the laity in the responses and chants of the Mass that up until that time were reserved to the altar boys and/or choir.
By the 1980's and at the behest the liturgist Father Eugene Walsh, active participation was being defined in the following way:
1. hospitality2. creating silence for private prayer, listening to the Scriptures and meditating on them and listening actively to the prayers that are prayed and not using worship aids and following these in a book, but looking and listening with eyes, ears, body and soul.3. Actively participating and energetically in all spoken and sung parts4. Departing Mass recommitted to bringing Christ to our homes, play and work.
The clericalism part of this was priests in the late 60's and 70's trying to enforce this post Vatican II vision and by facing the people during the entire Mass, acting like supervisors of their participation and sometime belittling people who were slow or unwilling to change from their pre-Vatican II practices. This clericalism might well explain why so many who did not like being supervised during Mass may well have dropped out of Mass altogether, especially if they were felt to be second class citizens by maintaining their pre-Vatican II worship practices. 

No, I'm not looking to be hospitable during Mass.  I don't need to create silence, it is already there, as long as the faithful and the celebrant stop needlessly talking.  My participatio activa (actively participating by singing, responding, etc) is ALWAYS secondary to my participatio actuosa (internal and actual participation) which is how I properly worship.  I'll leave the talking to the servers.  I think that the lack of commitment was minimal compared to today's "participants."  At least people who went to Mass before the Council left the church.  The people after the Council just stopped going.

Is it any wonder, Father that the churches that are filling up are the TLM churches, by percentage?  So, those are the faithful who are committed.  Not those who self-idenitfy as Catholic and do nothing about it.

Mons. James Lavin, RIP

The world lost a very good priest.  I lost a very good teacher and a very good friend.  RIP Mons. Lavin.

Monsignor James Lavin, 1918-2012

Monsignor James Lavin, who devoted his life to serving the University of St. Thomas community, died today (Sept. 17) at the Little Sisters of the Poor residence near downtown St. Paul. He was 93. Lavin had suffered from congestive heart failure and died of natural causes at the end of an early-morning Mass celebrated in his room by Father Joseph Johnson, pastor of Holy Family parish in St. Louis Park. "We got to the end of Mass," Johnson recalled. "I said, 'Go in peace,' and he breathed his last." Arrangements are pending, but Lavin's funeral is expected to be held later this week in the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas on campus or in the Cathedral of St. Paul. "Monsignor Lavin was one of the most beloved figures in the history of St. Thomas," said Father Dennis Dease, president of St. Thomas. "His paramount concern was always purely and simply for the welfare of students. They always knew that they could come to him with problems large and small, and he provided common-sense counsel in a soft-spoken but firm voice. He exemplified total dedication. We shall not soon forget him." Lavin arrived at St. Thomas in 1936 as an undergraduate student and graduated summa cum laude with a degree in English in 1940. He returned to campus in 1946 after his ordination and taught religion until 1967, when he became an academic counselor. He went to work for the St. Thomas Alumni Association in 1988 as a special assistant to the president and a university ambassador who attended countless events, funerals, weddings and baptisms. Known widely as "Scooter" by his college friends, he lived in Ireland Hall as an undergraduate from 1936 to 1940 and as a faculty member and administrator from 1946 to 2002. He began to offer peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, also known as "Lavin Burgers," in 1967 to residence hall students in the evenings. Scooter’s restaurant in the Anderson Student Center carries his name, as does an award for volunteer service to the Alumni Association.

Nothing Much Different

Recently, the following question was asked:

"What would the bishops of Vatican II have done differently if they had a crystal ball and could see how the Second Vatican Council was implemented 50 years later with all the developments that have happened in the last 50 years?"

I repsonded this way:

I don't think that they would have done much of anything differently.  What Vatican Council II "promulgated" and what happened are two separate events, with regard to the liturgy.  There is no connection between Sacrosanctum Concilium and the Novus Ordo.

With regard to so-called "ecumenism;" I think that they got exactly what they wanted, which is a change in theology.  The view of catechesis, ecumenism, and evangelization has been so compromised that in order to teach it properly today, one has to spend too much time unpacking the true understanding of Protestantism, Orthodoxy, and Paganism in the world.

As for Religious Liberty, I think that they got exactly what they wanted with that too.  I think they wanted to change the tambor of how Catholics viewed Protestants and how we "tolerate" them.  They wanted us to not tolerate them any longer, but to accept them as valid Churches.  I think that most bishops of Vatican Council II would be upset with the term "ecclesial communion."

With regard to the Magisterium of Vatican Council II, I think that most of the bishops would be mortified to think that their work is being critiqued in such an objective way.  By and large the whole point of Vatican Council II was to introduce Subjectivism into the Church as a valid basis for theology and philosophy.

So, save for the Mass itself, I don't think they would have done much differently.  I think that by and large they have accomplished what they set out to do.  I think that most of the bishops would be disappointed that we have Benedict XVI.  I think they would see him more as a Pius XI type and not a John XXIII type.

In essence, the answer is that they would not have allowed the Mass to be as radically disassembled as it was, but other than that...nothing.