I've been looking for a video that clearly shows what Iowa State will miss in firing coach Dan McCarney. I finally found it at 3:10 in the morning. Here it is. It deals with a game that I actually was at when the UNLV coach decided to act like a 2 year old and protest the last call of the game. He chased the officials into the locker room and kept his team on the field an extra 15 minutes claiming that a play was not reviewed. Unfortunately for him it had been and had been ruled out of bounds. Some people refuse to take no for an answer.
It was shameful. If I was a UNLV fan, I would have immediately called for his dismissal. Coach Dan McCarney was and is a class act. This is not to say that man who replaced him is not a class act. I'm not going to lie. I have concerns about bringing in someone from University of Texas...that's mostly because I'm mostly because I'm a Texas A&M fan, the Texas equivalent to the Cyclones. But, I think it's worth mentioning that Coach Dan McCarney acts in a way that represents the institution for which he is coaching well. He made the Cyclones proud to be cyclones again.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Friday, December 01, 2006
Where's our snow?
I'm a little disappointed, to be honest, that we didn't get any snow in Iowa, at least not where I live. They told us we probably would and then there was none. It all went to the East...Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan. I look out and there's a lot of cold students walking past my window and the grass still has a bit of green in it, although even that is beginning a turn to the deadly brown of winter. I like the first snow and then I'm ready for spring. The snow is so clean and pure. Maybe I should realize that the first snow is just being put off for a while and be happy that every snowfall that misses us is just putting winter off a little while longer.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
A book by the Pope....
I got an email from a friend that said Benedict is going to carry on the tradition of his predecessor of releasing a theological book aside from his formal theological tretises. John Paul II released two books, one called "Crossing the Threshold of Hope" and "Rise, let us be on our way" that were both personal reflections, basically. It's very interesting to think about the idea of a book in the context of papal documents but I'll spare you the disagreement over canonical identification. Instead, I am saying that I can't wait until I get to read this because it deals with understanding Jesus. Given the patently false assumptions that are out there by folks like Dan Brown, the Pope is going to address people that can't imagine the historical/church understanding of Jesus to be true. Here is a quote from what may be the introduction....
But the phenomenon has an explanation. There has always existed the tendency to dress Christ in the clothing of one's own time or one's own ideology. In the past, as arguable as they were, there were serious causes of great depth: Christ as idealist, socialist, revolutionary... Our age, which is obsessed with sex, is unable to think of him except in relation to emotional problems. I believe that the combination of an openly alternative journalistic outlook together with an historical view that is also radical and minimalistic has produced a result that is on the whole unacceptable, not only for the man of faith, but also for the historian."
"Less justified in an historical "inquest" on Jesus, it seems to me, is the care with which Augias collects all of the insinuations about the presumed homosexual bonds existing among the disciples, or between Jesus and "the disciple whom he loved" (but wasn't he supposed to be in love with the Magdalene?), as also the detailed description of the sordid episodes of some of the women in the genealogy of Christ. One has the impression that this inquest on Jesus sometimes turns into gossip about Jesus.
But the phenomenon has an explanation. There has always existed the tendency to dress Christ in the clothing of one's own time or one's own ideology. In the past, as arguable as they were, there were serious causes of great depth: Christ as idealist, socialist, revolutionary... Our age, which is obsessed with sex, is unable to think of him except in relation to emotional problems. I believe that the combination of an openly alternative journalistic outlook together with an historical view that is also radical and minimalistic has produced a result that is on the whole unacceptable, not only for the man of faith, but also for the historian."
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Christ is the King who reigns from the cross
About a week ago and a half ago two things happened for me. The bottom dropped out of what had been a very hectic semester. Most of the events I was planning came to an end and, as many of you now, I have to leave the students alone to be able to study and prepare for finals. Virtually simultaneous with that event came my first cold of the season, a cold that you can still hear in my lungs despite tons of rest, liquids, and even turkey noodle soup provided by some very caring students. So, with my extra time, I canceled every meeting that I felt I could and stayed at home doing what is my second love in life, reading history. I read over one of my favorite subjects in German history, a period that I believe to be the defining moment in the history of my ancestors. Now, you may think that I’m referring to the period immediately after World War 2 during the rebuilding project but you would be wrong. You may even think that I’m referring to the period after World War One and the failed Treaty of Versailles. But, alas, you would again be wrong.
No, the time period in German history I find fascinating is immediately after the Protestant Reformation. After all, arguably the most famous reformer, Martin Luther, was from Germany. And, unlike England and other countries that are far away from Rome, Germany is the Pope’s next-door neighbor. When Martin Luther nailed his theses up on the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral, some were ecstatic and others less so. Literally, it made father turn against son and mother against daughter. Each European country dealt with the Reformation differently. England decided to make a wholesale switch to Anglicanism. Germany, on the other hand, decided that, basically, the local leader would decide which religion the county would be. So, to put it in modern terms, if the prince of Ames was Catholic, all his subjects would be Catholic too. If he were Protestant, all his people would be Protestant. And, of course, if there was a leadership change there may very well also be a religious change. If the Catholic prince came in and over threw his Protestant predecessor, everyone became Catholic. This marked a very confusing time in Germany history in which counties would fight against one another because of a difference in denominational leadership and secret groups of Christians would meet depending on who was in charge that week to overthrow the leadership.
I think there is an interesting parallel to this in today’s first and second reading, which sets the tone for this celebration of Christ the King. In the book of Daniel we hear that when the Son of Man comes, a title that Jesus used about himself, he would come from the clouds to destroy all the powerful armies of the world. The book of Revelation also shows this type of imagery, only they apply it to the second coming of Christ. Jesus will overcome the power of the enemy by his power. Both of these writings were done during persecutions not totally unlike post reformation Germany. The book of Daniel was written about 150 years before Jesus came when an evil Roman leader named Antiochus Epiphanes came to power. He sought to make all people follow the pagan religion of the Romans. Understandably, certain Jews had a problem with this. They stood up to this tyranny by continuing to practice the exclusive laws within Judaism, not the free flowing legislation of paganism. For their bravery, many died.
Similarly, after the death of Christ, Christianity became a forbidden religion. Many people died simply because they desired to follow the way of Christ. It is no surprise, therefore, that people needed to have hope during these persecutions. Think about our own time. I think all political pundits agree that the reason we had such a drastic change in leadership during the last election was because of dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq. We don’t know how to solve this problem that we caused and we are becoming increasingly distrustful of leaders that tell us we just need to keep trying. We hear no hope in that message.
In times of persecution, people need to hear that in the end the good guys will win. That’s what the books of Daniel and Revelation tell us. That even when we have corrupt leaders who make decisions that compromise human life, it will get better. Good will triumph over evil, God will triumph over sin and death and bring us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. But when you look closely at the gospel, you realize that it paints a wildly different image of Christ as King than that triumphal image from Revelation and Daniel. We hear from the Gospel of John, not from a victorious Son of Man who is coming in the clouds to topple the government of Rome. Not from the God who is the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega, the great Oz behind the curtain. We hear from Jesus Christ who has been imprisoned and is entirely alone. He is being interrogated by the local leader, Pontius Pilate, knowing full well that, for himself, being lifted up as leader will mean that he will be lifted up on the cross to die. This is the Son of Man in reverse. He wasn’t there to take over Israel in a bloody coup. He was there to take over Israel by dying on the cross so that death’s power would be sucked dry and we might have the hope of eternal life. That’s why Pilate couldn’t understand that Jesus was a King unlike any King that he had known, certainly not a political threat to him.
We began this month with the feasts of All Saints and All Soul’s, a time to pray for those of our loved ones who have passed away and ask for the saints to pray for us. We have done this each time we gathered together by reading names from our Book of Remembrance at the beginning of mass. We end this month by remembering how it is that there are saints at all – that Christ our King took his throne on the cross to die for our sins. We don’t have a king that will fight a bloody war with countless casualties on each side in order to gain power for himself, we have a King that models for us what it means to freely serve our neighbors even to the point of shedding our life. In this world of power and authority, we Christians must be like Christ and see our real authority in weakness.
No, the time period in German history I find fascinating is immediately after the Protestant Reformation. After all, arguably the most famous reformer, Martin Luther, was from Germany. And, unlike England and other countries that are far away from Rome, Germany is the Pope’s next-door neighbor. When Martin Luther nailed his theses up on the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral, some were ecstatic and others less so. Literally, it made father turn against son and mother against daughter. Each European country dealt with the Reformation differently. England decided to make a wholesale switch to Anglicanism. Germany, on the other hand, decided that, basically, the local leader would decide which religion the county would be. So, to put it in modern terms, if the prince of Ames was Catholic, all his subjects would be Catholic too. If he were Protestant, all his people would be Protestant. And, of course, if there was a leadership change there may very well also be a religious change. If the Catholic prince came in and over threw his Protestant predecessor, everyone became Catholic. This marked a very confusing time in Germany history in which counties would fight against one another because of a difference in denominational leadership and secret groups of Christians would meet depending on who was in charge that week to overthrow the leadership.
I think there is an interesting parallel to this in today’s first and second reading, which sets the tone for this celebration of Christ the King. In the book of Daniel we hear that when the Son of Man comes, a title that Jesus used about himself, he would come from the clouds to destroy all the powerful armies of the world. The book of Revelation also shows this type of imagery, only they apply it to the second coming of Christ. Jesus will overcome the power of the enemy by his power. Both of these writings were done during persecutions not totally unlike post reformation Germany. The book of Daniel was written about 150 years before Jesus came when an evil Roman leader named Antiochus Epiphanes came to power. He sought to make all people follow the pagan religion of the Romans. Understandably, certain Jews had a problem with this. They stood up to this tyranny by continuing to practice the exclusive laws within Judaism, not the free flowing legislation of paganism. For their bravery, many died.
Similarly, after the death of Christ, Christianity became a forbidden religion. Many people died simply because they desired to follow the way of Christ. It is no surprise, therefore, that people needed to have hope during these persecutions. Think about our own time. I think all political pundits agree that the reason we had such a drastic change in leadership during the last election was because of dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq. We don’t know how to solve this problem that we caused and we are becoming increasingly distrustful of leaders that tell us we just need to keep trying. We hear no hope in that message.
In times of persecution, people need to hear that in the end the good guys will win. That’s what the books of Daniel and Revelation tell us. That even when we have corrupt leaders who make decisions that compromise human life, it will get better. Good will triumph over evil, God will triumph over sin and death and bring us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. But when you look closely at the gospel, you realize that it paints a wildly different image of Christ as King than that triumphal image from Revelation and Daniel. We hear from the Gospel of John, not from a victorious Son of Man who is coming in the clouds to topple the government of Rome. Not from the God who is the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega, the great Oz behind the curtain. We hear from Jesus Christ who has been imprisoned and is entirely alone. He is being interrogated by the local leader, Pontius Pilate, knowing full well that, for himself, being lifted up as leader will mean that he will be lifted up on the cross to die. This is the Son of Man in reverse. He wasn’t there to take over Israel in a bloody coup. He was there to take over Israel by dying on the cross so that death’s power would be sucked dry and we might have the hope of eternal life. That’s why Pilate couldn’t understand that Jesus was a King unlike any King that he had known, certainly not a political threat to him.
We began this month with the feasts of All Saints and All Soul’s, a time to pray for those of our loved ones who have passed away and ask for the saints to pray for us. We have done this each time we gathered together by reading names from our Book of Remembrance at the beginning of mass. We end this month by remembering how it is that there are saints at all – that Christ our King took his throne on the cross to die for our sins. We don’t have a king that will fight a bloody war with countless casualties on each side in order to gain power for himself, we have a King that models for us what it means to freely serve our neighbors even to the point of shedding our life. In this world of power and authority, we Christians must be like Christ and see our real authority in weakness.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
A great Thanksgiving
Today was so much day that it's hard to believe it was only 24 hours long!
I went to mass at my home parish in Marshalltown, which I love to do because I get to concelebrate in that beautiful familiar structure. Then we had our family Thanksgiving dinner, which is again so familar to me.
The one strange thing is that my nieces and nephews are getting older. The younger ones still want to play outside but the older ones don't anymore. It's strange to think that they may be coming to ISU sometime. I pray for them all the time because I know that if the world is getting this immoral at this point in history, what's it going to be like when they get here?
I went to mass at my home parish in Marshalltown, which I love to do because I get to concelebrate in that beautiful familiar structure. Then we had our family Thanksgiving dinner, which is again so familar to me.
The one strange thing is that my nieces and nephews are getting older. The younger ones still want to play outside but the older ones don't anymore. It's strange to think that they may be coming to ISU sometime. I pray for them all the time because I know that if the world is getting this immoral at this point in history, what's it going to be like when they get here?
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
More razzing from the disenfranchised....
I was looking around the net and found this article from (excommunicated) Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo affirms the vaticans decision that celibacy is integral to priesthood while simultaneously believing that "Celibacy should be a freely chosen charism and not a job requirement. Not every priest has the charism to be celibate and this is the problem because the church forces it on him or he cannot be ordained. It is a requirement that violated human freedom..."
First of all, priesthood is not a job. Priesthood is a vocation. It is a life/calling. While one is called to be the best janitor/police officer/doctor possible and is given gifts by God to carry that out, these jobs pale in comparison to priesthood. A priest is expected to live a different life because of his calling. He is expected to be a man of prayer, a man of holiness, a man in the world but not of it. He is expected to image Christ constantly in all his interractions. A janitor that goes home may have a very untidy house but still be called a good janitor. A doctor who smokes is still called a doctor. A priest who committs acts of sexual abuse destroys the very foundations of the church. A priest who swears scandalizes and diminishes priesthood. (I should know. I do it way too often.)
Secondly, but related, in an age of sexual confusion, the best thing that the church can do is recommitt herself to the mandatory celibacy requirement. Priests need to know why they are doing this, true, and they need to be supported in their celibate commitment by many people. But, there has been nothing that in any way shows the need to diminish the necessity of celibacy. The sacrament of marriage is a mess! Sex is a part of dating not the penultimate expression of love between husband and wife. Gender is something that you choose. Why would the church believe that adding sex and marriage to priesthood is going to do anything but make a difficult situation even worse?
Thirdly, why should the church listen to some excommunicated bishop that has founded a schismatic group? Like most schismatic movements in the church, this will die and 200 years from now people will say, "Married priests now? What the heck was that?"
First of all, priesthood is not a job. Priesthood is a vocation. It is a life/calling. While one is called to be the best janitor/police officer/doctor possible and is given gifts by God to carry that out, these jobs pale in comparison to priesthood. A priest is expected to live a different life because of his calling. He is expected to be a man of prayer, a man of holiness, a man in the world but not of it. He is expected to image Christ constantly in all his interractions. A janitor that goes home may have a very untidy house but still be called a good janitor. A doctor who smokes is still called a doctor. A priest who committs acts of sexual abuse destroys the very foundations of the church. A priest who swears scandalizes and diminishes priesthood. (I should know. I do it way too often.)
Secondly, but related, in an age of sexual confusion, the best thing that the church can do is recommitt herself to the mandatory celibacy requirement. Priests need to know why they are doing this, true, and they need to be supported in their celibate commitment by many people. But, there has been nothing that in any way shows the need to diminish the necessity of celibacy. The sacrament of marriage is a mess! Sex is a part of dating not the penultimate expression of love between husband and wife. Gender is something that you choose. Why would the church believe that adding sex and marriage to priesthood is going to do anything but make a difficult situation even worse?
Thirdly, why should the church listen to some excommunicated bishop that has founded a schismatic group? Like most schismatic movements in the church, this will die and 200 years from now people will say, "Married priests now? What the heck was that?"
Sunday, November 19, 2006
The exciting life of the sick campus minister
I tend to think that being a priest at a college campus is, at points, the most frantic lifestyle of a priest. I'm not sure if that's true or if just goes to show how much I'm willing to put into this particular assignment. Regardless, the last forty eight hours have been strange, even for the life of a campus minister
1. I have the flu and it seems as though it's headed for bronchitis. I used to get bronchitis around this time of year in college but it hasn't happened for quite some time. A couple of the college students got a cold that, more or less, was a 24 hour affair. I figured this was the same thing...on Thursday. Now it's Sunday and I feel about as bad now as did then. Clearly, I have it worse than they did.
2. There was a car accident in front of my house last night. Somehow, one of my parishioners got into his car, drove a block, and rammed it into a tree in front of my house. He died. I didn't really hear anything until I heard the sirens. How could I have missed that?
3. The students brought me turkey noodle soup. We had left over turkey from out supper last Sunday and they bought the rest of the stuff. It's awesome soup, too. If I hadn't sneezed all over it accidentally, I'd offer it to other people.
I'm looking forward to an easy week this week. The students are on a week break and I will be getting past this cold and enjoying Thanksgiving. It should be a good time to catch up on reading...something that I've not been able to do since August.
1. I have the flu and it seems as though it's headed for bronchitis. I used to get bronchitis around this time of year in college but it hasn't happened for quite some time. A couple of the college students got a cold that, more or less, was a 24 hour affair. I figured this was the same thing...on Thursday. Now it's Sunday and I feel about as bad now as did then. Clearly, I have it worse than they did.
2. There was a car accident in front of my house last night. Somehow, one of my parishioners got into his car, drove a block, and rammed it into a tree in front of my house. He died. I didn't really hear anything until I heard the sirens. How could I have missed that?
3. The students brought me turkey noodle soup. We had left over turkey from out supper last Sunday and they bought the rest of the stuff. It's awesome soup, too. If I hadn't sneezed all over it accidentally, I'd offer it to other people.
I'm looking forward to an easy week this week. The students are on a week break and I will be getting past this cold and enjoying Thanksgiving. It should be a good time to catch up on reading...something that I've not been able to do since August.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Thursday, November 16, 2006
The meeting about married priests....a thought.
The Pope met with his closest advisors yesterday to talk about married priests. Of course, the media was all aflurry with the misguided conception that the pope would emerge from this meeting and declare priests able to be married. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind when this never happens....
1. The Pope isn't going to change long-standing church policy by meeting with eight people.
2. The priests that have already promised celibacy (myself included) will not be affected by this.
3. There is a legitamate reason why the church should not move in this direction at this point in history. The reason has to do with society's misguided fixation with sex. We are entering an era in which the very idea of celibacy is almost uniformly repugnant to larger society. Sex is a part of the dating process, not something that should be reserved to the married state. In the midst of this, an old heresy has reemerged that posits that Jesus was married and has children. The church needs to stand up against this heresy in all its forms. If, at the peak of this heresy, the church were to allow for married priests, the very people we need to image Christ for society, we would be sending a very confusing message. We would either be admitting that we believe sex is a necessary part of human development or we would be perpetuating the heresy that Christ was married with children.
All of this leads me to believe that, rather than declaring it possible for priests to marry the pope will likely seek to explain with greater clarity the church's theological rationale for "celibacy for the sake of the kingdom"....again.
1. The Pope isn't going to change long-standing church policy by meeting with eight people.
2. The priests that have already promised celibacy (myself included) will not be affected by this.
3. There is a legitamate reason why the church should not move in this direction at this point in history. The reason has to do with society's misguided fixation with sex. We are entering an era in which the very idea of celibacy is almost uniformly repugnant to larger society. Sex is a part of the dating process, not something that should be reserved to the married state. In the midst of this, an old heresy has reemerged that posits that Jesus was married and has children. The church needs to stand up against this heresy in all its forms. If, at the peak of this heresy, the church were to allow for married priests, the very people we need to image Christ for society, we would be sending a very confusing message. We would either be admitting that we believe sex is a necessary part of human development or we would be perpetuating the heresy that Christ was married with children.
All of this leads me to believe that, rather than declaring it possible for priests to marry the pope will likely seek to explain with greater clarity the church's theological rationale for "celibacy for the sake of the kingdom"....again.
Monday, November 13, 2006
wow! It's been a while
I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to post again. I've been busy with a retreat around the student center and unable to do anything but lock and unlock doors. But, aside from the thank you notes, I think I'm finished and will be able to start sharing my thoughts again.
I'll post this weekend's homiy tomorrow and, hopefully, have time to read the bishop's statement on homosexual pastoral care. We'll see.
I'll post this weekend's homiy tomorrow and, hopefully, have time to read the bishop's statement on homosexual pastoral care. We'll see.
Friday, October 27, 2006
We don't often hear stories like this.
Imagine, if you can, the persecution of several hundred catholic priests at a time. Imagine a state that would round up priests and hand out a death sentence for their faith. Sound like something that would happen in Afghanistan or Iran? There aren't enough priests there. How about France?
Read here and find out. Think it can't happen again?
Read here and find out. Think it can't happen again?
Vox Clara more pastoral than most people expected
Toward the end of my seminary experience, a small but significant revolution took place in the english speaking catholic world. I imagine most people were totally unaware of it. Had I not been in seminary, the hotbed of catholic rumor mills, I'm quite certain I wouldn't have known a thing.
The vatican enacted a second group, called Vox Clara, to oversee the translation of latin liturgical texts (texts for mass and other sacraments and prayers) into english. It was thought that this group would make it almost impossible for english to be translated into anything but the most literal of translations. I find it intersting, therefore, to find this article on catholic news service this morning....
Commission looks for balance in English liturgical translations
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Work on a new English translation of the Mass continues to seek a balance between a highly formal prayer language and preserving liturgical phrases that have become part of an English speaker's prayer tradition, said Australian Cardinal George Pell of Sydney.
Cardinal Pell chairs the Vox Clara Commission, an international group of bishops who advise the Vatican on English liturgical translations.
Vox Clara met Oct. 23-26 at the Vatican to study translations developed by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy.
Describing many of the texts as "outstanding," Vox Clara members also said they gave the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments an "extensive commentary on certain problems" found in the translations.
Cardinal Pell told Catholic News Service Oct. 27: "It is important to be clear that they are small problems. They are not major problems at all."
In general, he said, the bishops were concerned about "some interesting terminology that was different from the traditional -- unusual."
While declining to give specific examples, Cardinal Pell said the phrases in question replace phrases -- judged to be faithful to the Latin -- used in English since the Second Vatican Council.
"Provided the Latin is rendered faithfully, we are keen to keep terminology the people are familiar with," Cardinal Pell said.
He also described some of the phrases as "too grammatical" in the sense that they sound like they are the result of an advanced grammar lesson rather than a faithful translation into a living language.
Vox Clara's Oct. 27 press release praised the energy with which everyone is working to get a high-quality, faithful translation of the Mass into parishes as soon as possible.
It also said commission members conducted a final review of a congregation document meant to serve as a guide for English-language liturgical translations.
The congregation is expected to publish the guide, formally called "'Ratio Translationis' for the English Language," before Christmas.
When will we learn that it's just not that easy to move bishops into categories of "liberal" and "conservative"? These are pastors, shepherds who care a great deal for their flock. They don't want to impose any agenda other than Christ Jesus and the salvation of souls.
The vatican enacted a second group, called Vox Clara, to oversee the translation of latin liturgical texts (texts for mass and other sacraments and prayers) into english. It was thought that this group would make it almost impossible for english to be translated into anything but the most literal of translations. I find it intersting, therefore, to find this article on catholic news service this morning....
Commission looks for balance in English liturgical translations
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Work on a new English translation of the Mass continues to seek a balance between a highly formal prayer language and preserving liturgical phrases that have become part of an English speaker's prayer tradition, said Australian Cardinal George Pell of Sydney.
Cardinal Pell chairs the Vox Clara Commission, an international group of bishops who advise the Vatican on English liturgical translations.
Vox Clara met Oct. 23-26 at the Vatican to study translations developed by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy.
Describing many of the texts as "outstanding," Vox Clara members also said they gave the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments an "extensive commentary on certain problems" found in the translations.
Cardinal Pell told Catholic News Service Oct. 27: "It is important to be clear that they are small problems. They are not major problems at all."
In general, he said, the bishops were concerned about "some interesting terminology that was different from the traditional -- unusual."
While declining to give specific examples, Cardinal Pell said the phrases in question replace phrases -- judged to be faithful to the Latin -- used in English since the Second Vatican Council.
"Provided the Latin is rendered faithfully, we are keen to keep terminology the people are familiar with," Cardinal Pell said.
He also described some of the phrases as "too grammatical" in the sense that they sound like they are the result of an advanced grammar lesson rather than a faithful translation into a living language.
Vox Clara's Oct. 27 press release praised the energy with which everyone is working to get a high-quality, faithful translation of the Mass into parishes as soon as possible.
It also said commission members conducted a final review of a congregation document meant to serve as a guide for English-language liturgical translations.
The congregation is expected to publish the guide, formally called "'Ratio Translationis' for the English Language," before Christmas.
When will we learn that it's just not that easy to move bishops into categories of "liberal" and "conservative"? These are pastors, shepherds who care a great deal for their flock. They don't want to impose any agenda other than Christ Jesus and the salvation of souls.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist
I was reading Catholic News Service this morning and came upon this story. I found it to be a very interesting story and one that will affect the American Church. As a priest, I'm glad to be able to shake hands with people as they leave and connect with them then. I sort-of take it for granted that someone else will be purifying the sacred vessels and I can take my time with the people of God. This may shorten the time that I spend there. It's to be determined if that's a bad thing or not.
This will have other affects as well. No more will I hear people say, "Time to go do the dishes!" with a heavy sigh. Nor will I see people pour the sacred species directly down the drain of the saquarium before I can correct them. I'm sure that some will say that this is another case of the vatican taking away the power of the laity and I'm also sure that they are wrong. This is a case of the vatican seeking to give the proper people the proper roles. The priest, acting in the person of Christ, confected the eucharist. He should be the servant whose responsibility it is to clean it up.
This will have other affects as well. No more will I hear people say, "Time to go do the dishes!" with a heavy sigh. Nor will I see people pour the sacred species directly down the drain of the saquarium before I can correct them. I'm sure that some will say that this is another case of the vatican taking away the power of the laity and I'm also sure that they are wrong. This is a case of the vatican seeking to give the proper people the proper roles. The priest, acting in the person of Christ, confected the eucharist. He should be the servant whose responsibility it is to clean it up.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
A reminder of a great movie
Recently, a good friend was in town and we got to watch the movie 1776. It's a musical with some notable figures in the movie version and a great opening sequence...actually the opening sequence is the best part of the movie. You can see it on youtube here.
There's a great quote by the obnoxious John Adams that Starts it off.
"I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, that two are called a law firm, and that three or more are called a congress."
I think in the church we could adapt it slightly. Bear with me on this. This isn't meant to be taken literally...
I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a theologian, that two are called the tribunal, and that three or more are called the chancery/a committe....
There's a great quote by the obnoxious John Adams that Starts it off.
"I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, that two are called a law firm, and that three or more are called a congress."
I think in the church we could adapt it slightly. Bear with me on this. This isn't meant to be taken literally...
I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a theologian, that two are called the tribunal, and that three or more are called the chancery/a committe....
Monday, October 23, 2006
Heroes....the coolest show ever!
Have you caught the new show on Monday nights called Heroes? Here's what it has going for it:
1. Great Actors
2. Great story/writers
3. SUSPENSE!
It keeps me riveted to the screen. It's a myth in the ancient sense of the word. I tape it every week and I'm going to keep the tapes until I have them all and then I'm going to by the DVD's. I have the idea that I will wear the Video Tapes out.
It's not trying to push an an agenda at us. It's just telling a story and doing it well.
I love it!
1. Great Actors
2. Great story/writers
3. SUSPENSE!
It keeps me riveted to the screen. It's a myth in the ancient sense of the word. I tape it every week and I'm going to keep the tapes until I have them all and then I'm going to by the DVD's. I have the idea that I will wear the Video Tapes out.
It's not trying to push an an agenda at us. It's just telling a story and doing it well.
I love it!
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Wednesdays should be meant for fun
Click here and watch the Dave Matthews band perform Sweet Caroline.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Sex Crimes and the Vatican
Sexual abuse is a tragedy. There is no excuse for priests who committ acts of sexual abuse and they should be removed from priesthood and civilly charged. There is no justification for it and bishops deserve the authority and responsibility to deal with it decisively.
The BBC is alleging that the church has a policy of covering up acts of sexual abuse in a secret document called "Crimen solicitationis" or the crime of solicitation. If they are right, this would be the equivalent to the "smoking gun" that lawyers in this country and abroad have been seeking to use to finally involve the Pope and the Vatican in sexual abuse lawsuits. They even claim in their forty two minute video that the man chosen to enforce this document was none other than Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the man we know as Pope Benedict the 16th.
There are a couple of problems with this theory.
1. It's a lie. The document deals with sexual abuse that is contracted in a confessional. In other words, if a priest were to solicit sexual abuse while hearing confessions, this instructs what needs to take place to deal with it. It calls such solicitation a crime and imposes the penalty of excommunication on any priest that committs it. But, it also imposes a statute of limitations on the person making allegations. Why, you may ask? As a priest, I'll tell you why. It isn't fair to bind a priest to the secrecy of the confessional and make false claims of sexual abuse months or years later. The priest cannot defend himself other than saying that nothng of the sort happened. He can't talk about details nor can he name people who may be able to corroborate the amount of time the person spent in the confessional. The church needed to set up some kind of way to protect the rights of the priest as well as the penitent.
2. Why keep it a secret? Perhaps because it deals with internal governance. It's not as though seminaries make this known to priests, trust me. This BBC documentary is the first time that I've heard of this. We are no more informed about this than anyone else is. It may be a policy that is still being worked out by the church. It may have been protected from insidious lawyers who love to use legal technicalities in less than scrupulous ways. The worst thing is that we automatically assume that the reason is insidious. Another possibility is that it is here on the Vatican website but that it's all in Italian. I don't know since I never learned Italian.
3. There is a deeper lie. They are alleging that since it's promulgation twenty years ago, Cardinal Ratzinger was in charge of enforcing it. It wasn't until 2002 that enforcement of this was moved to the congregation for the doctrine of the faith for enforcement, the same year that Cardinal Law came under such intense scrutiny and was, eventually, moved to a position of...let's just say...lesser importance. I'm not sure who was in charge of enforcing it before that, though I'd expect that is was the congregation for the clergy. However, the only thing that is clear is that it wasn't the Pope! The BBC knows this. They know that it wasn't Benedict's responsibility to enforce this but they have continued to put forth this lie.
The media will do anything to make connections wheather they exist in reality or not. They need us to hate the pope and clergy to make them our only trusted resource of truth. Will American Catholics stand together and not let them or die the suicidal death of self hatred?
The BBC is alleging that the church has a policy of covering up acts of sexual abuse in a secret document called "Crimen solicitationis" or the crime of solicitation. If they are right, this would be the equivalent to the "smoking gun" that lawyers in this country and abroad have been seeking to use to finally involve the Pope and the Vatican in sexual abuse lawsuits. They even claim in their forty two minute video that the man chosen to enforce this document was none other than Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the man we know as Pope Benedict the 16th.
There are a couple of problems with this theory.
1. It's a lie. The document deals with sexual abuse that is contracted in a confessional. In other words, if a priest were to solicit sexual abuse while hearing confessions, this instructs what needs to take place to deal with it. It calls such solicitation a crime and imposes the penalty of excommunication on any priest that committs it. But, it also imposes a statute of limitations on the person making allegations. Why, you may ask? As a priest, I'll tell you why. It isn't fair to bind a priest to the secrecy of the confessional and make false claims of sexual abuse months or years later. The priest cannot defend himself other than saying that nothng of the sort happened. He can't talk about details nor can he name people who may be able to corroborate the amount of time the person spent in the confessional. The church needed to set up some kind of way to protect the rights of the priest as well as the penitent.
2. Why keep it a secret? Perhaps because it deals with internal governance. It's not as though seminaries make this known to priests, trust me. This BBC documentary is the first time that I've heard of this. We are no more informed about this than anyone else is. It may be a policy that is still being worked out by the church. It may have been protected from insidious lawyers who love to use legal technicalities in less than scrupulous ways. The worst thing is that we automatically assume that the reason is insidious. Another possibility is that it is here on the Vatican website but that it's all in Italian. I don't know since I never learned Italian.
3. There is a deeper lie. They are alleging that since it's promulgation twenty years ago, Cardinal Ratzinger was in charge of enforcing it. It wasn't until 2002 that enforcement of this was moved to the congregation for the doctrine of the faith for enforcement, the same year that Cardinal Law came under such intense scrutiny and was, eventually, moved to a position of...let's just say...lesser importance. I'm not sure who was in charge of enforcing it before that, though I'd expect that is was the congregation for the clergy. However, the only thing that is clear is that it wasn't the Pope! The BBC knows this. They know that it wasn't Benedict's responsibility to enforce this but they have continued to put forth this lie.
The media will do anything to make connections wheather they exist in reality or not. They need us to hate the pope and clergy to make them our only trusted resource of truth. Will American Catholics stand together and not let them or die the suicidal death of self hatred?
Sunday, October 15, 2006
I pulled this story from this website....
African hunters have a clever way of trapping monkeys. They slice a coconut in two, hollow it out, and in one half of the shell cut a hole just big enough for a monkey's hand to pass through. Then they place an orange in the other coconut half before fastening together the two halves of the coconut shell. Finally, they secure the coconut to a tree with a rope, retreat into the bush, and wait. Sooner or later, an unsuspecting monkey swings by, smells the delicious orange, and discovers its location inside the coconut. The monkey then slips its hand through the small hole, grasps the orange, and tries to pull it through the hole. Of course, the orange won't come out; it's too big for the hole. To no avail the persistent monkey continues to pull and pull, never realizing the danger it is in. While the monkey struggles with the orange, the hunters approach and capture the monkey by throwing a net over it. As long as the monkey keeps its fist wrapped around the orange, the monkey is trapped. The only way the monkey could save its life is to let go of the orange and flee
We all have things that we hold onto way too tight and feel we couldn't sacrifice for God. These are the false gods in our life. How can we let go and let God?
African hunters have a clever way of trapping monkeys. They slice a coconut in two, hollow it out, and in one half of the shell cut a hole just big enough for a monkey's hand to pass through. Then they place an orange in the other coconut half before fastening together the two halves of the coconut shell. Finally, they secure the coconut to a tree with a rope, retreat into the bush, and wait. Sooner or later, an unsuspecting monkey swings by, smells the delicious orange, and discovers its location inside the coconut. The monkey then slips its hand through the small hole, grasps the orange, and tries to pull it through the hole. Of course, the orange won't come out; it's too big for the hole. To no avail the persistent monkey continues to pull and pull, never realizing the danger it is in. While the monkey struggles with the orange, the hunters approach and capture the monkey by throwing a net over it. As long as the monkey keeps its fist wrapped around the orange, the monkey is trapped. The only way the monkey could save its life is to let go of the orange and flee
We all have things that we hold onto way too tight and feel we couldn't sacrifice for God. These are the false gods in our life. How can we let go and let God?
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Fishers of Men
Sorry about not posting for a while. I hope to post every day but these past three weeks have not been good for me.
One of the reasons for that was the project Fr. Phil Gibbs did for the priests of the Archdiocese of Dubuque called Fishers of Men. I played a small part in it and, as usual, worried for weeks about what could go wrong. I was worried that some of my more radical brothers would use this as a day to call for ordinarion of women and ordination of married men. This really gets us no where. Instead, the theory behind this program is that preiests have the tendency to get down on priesthood and focus on what can be fixed. But, happy priests promote vocations. So, if we want the next generation of priests to step forward, we have to put the best foot forward.
We gathered together to talk about what gives us life about priesthood. And, as I hope I communicate in this blog, there are a lot of life-giving experiences in priesthood. It was refreshing to sit down with my brother priests and remind ourselves of that. I sometimes wonder if we should do more of this type of reflection and less where we feel like we have to involve staffs and parish councils and committees and everyone else who wants to show up. As married couples remind me, there are things that I will never know about marriage because I've never been married. There are things that you can't understand about priesthood unless you are a priest. We need to help each other succeed and not think that we can succeed in a vacuum.
One of the reasons for that was the project Fr. Phil Gibbs did for the priests of the Archdiocese of Dubuque called Fishers of Men. I played a small part in it and, as usual, worried for weeks about what could go wrong. I was worried that some of my more radical brothers would use this as a day to call for ordinarion of women and ordination of married men. This really gets us no where. Instead, the theory behind this program is that preiests have the tendency to get down on priesthood and focus on what can be fixed. But, happy priests promote vocations. So, if we want the next generation of priests to step forward, we have to put the best foot forward.
We gathered together to talk about what gives us life about priesthood. And, as I hope I communicate in this blog, there are a lot of life-giving experiences in priesthood. It was refreshing to sit down with my brother priests and remind ourselves of that. I sometimes wonder if we should do more of this type of reflection and less where we feel like we have to involve staffs and parish councils and committees and everyone else who wants to show up. As married couples remind me, there are things that I will never know about marriage because I've never been married. There are things that you can't understand about priesthood unless you are a priest. We need to help each other succeed and not think that we can succeed in a vacuum.
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