More on Pope Francis' Critique of the Curia

Let’s get back to Pope Francis and his critique of the Roman Curia.  I want to finish this up and we still have several spiritual diseases to look at. 

But as we look at the Curia, its diseases, and its needed reforms, let me say that I am tired of reading that Cardinal Burke was “demoted.”  When a Congressman is reassigned by his party’s leadership from one committee to another, or when a Senator is removed as chairman of a committee because his party no longer has control of the Senate, he is not demoted.  He remains a member of the House or the Senate.  We expect a congressman who is not in line with his party to lose membership on a key committee and end up on one whose role is not as critical.  We expect the chair of a committee to change when the balance of power changes.  Why do we think an injustice or a humiliation was imposed on Cardinal Burke?  He remains a Cardinal.  He is not working with the administration in power; why would he not be removed from crucial committees or lose his prefectship of a dicastery?  They very people who are wailing about Cardinal Burke’s reassignment are the ones who had been calling for Cardinal Wuerl or Cardinal O’Malley or Cardinal Kasper to be removed from their positions.  Surely they understand that Cardinal Burke cannot be entrusted with responsibilities that he will not carry out according to the mind of the Pope.  And it could have been much worse as the Holy Father purges men whose intrigue, whose acceptance of “stipends” for favors or advancements, or whose moral character are at the root of these diseases he sees to infect the Curia.  Cardinal Burke escaped with his reputation intact; there are worse fates.  Now, on to the next two critiques with which the Pope has slammed the Curia.    

The disease of gossiping, grumbling and back-biting. I have already spoken many times about this disease, but never enough. It is a grave illness which begins simply, perhaps even in small talk, and takes over a person, making him become a “sower of weeds” (like Satan) and in many cases, a cold-blooded killer of the good name of our colleagues and confrères. It is the disease of cowardly persons who lack the courage to speak out directly, but instead speak behind other people’s backs. Saint Paul admonishes us to do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent” (Phil 2:14-15). Brothers, let us be on our guard against the terrorism of gossip!

The Holy Father seems to keep coming back to this particular issue of the poisonous atmosphere in the Curia with priests and prelates competing with one another for advancement as they claw their way up the caterpillar pillar.  The competition leads to vicious gossip and the spreading of rumor and innuendo in order to destroy one’s competition.  The same disease is rampant in university faculties, the corporate world, the civil service and government workers and even garden clubs and volunteer associations.  It certainly can be found in Diocesan offices and in religious orders.  The Pope does well in tying it to Satan’s sowing of weeds among the good wheat (cf Matt 13:25).  While it is bad enough for Christians to engage in this sort of behavior in daily life, we have a right to expect more of the leaders of the Church.  The scandals that pushed Pope Benedict into resigning—the purloining of his personal papers by his butler and their release to a journalist—revealed just what a hotbed of intrigue, jealousy, and underhanded politics the Curia is.  This is nothing new—the stories of corruption and chicanery in the papal court can be found back into the early Middle Ages.  Systemic reform will be ineffective without personal conversion on the part of those who are part of the bureaucracy.  That sort of conversion has been rare over the centuries, but hopefully Pope Francis will encourage us all to take a long hard look at ourselves and how we, in our little worlds, fall into the same vices. 

The disease of idolizing superiors. This is the disease of those who court their superiors in the hope of gaining their favour. They are victims of careerism and opportunism; they honour persons and not God (cf. Mt 23:8-12). They serve thinking only of what they can get and not of what they should give. Small-minded persons, unhappy and inspired only by their own lethal selfishness (cf. Gal 5:16-25). Superiors themselves could be affected by this disease, when they court their collaborators in order to obtain their submission, loyalty and psychological dependency, but the end result is a real complicity.

One of the most nauseating sights one can see in Rome is the gathering of the capella papale before a papal ceremony.  In the half-hour or so before the scheduled arrival of the Pope, the various officials of the Curia arrive to take their places in the Vatican Basilica.  There are usually about six to eight rows reserved for them.  The Cardinals sit in the first row on gold chairs with their individual pre-dieus.  Behind them there are two to three rows of bishops seated on benches.  Behind them are the benches for the monsignors and priests who work in the Vatican or who represent the religious orders.  As the various men (this is an all male club) arrive in the reserved area, you see the lessers courting the greaters.  Bishops search out the cardinals; priests search out archbishops.  There is much bowing and scraping, the occasional kissing of a ring, the empty laugh, the glad-handing and the distracted glances as the various priests and prelates select their next target for a suck-up. It all continues until the first notes of the processional start and it resumes as soon as the Mass is over.  The same scene plays out on a different scale in the restaurants of Rome, at parties and receptions, even on the street when one encounters a potential patron or ally.  The whole structure reinforces the tendency of men to see themselves as people of importance rather than as those who are called to be of service.  What does it profit a person to gain the whole world and lose themselves in the process?  It takes people out of contact with reality and reinforces a fantasy world of exaggerated egos and misaligned values. 

I think what this highlights is the need not just for structural reform but for personal conversion.  Leave it to a Jesuit to sound the call.  It is a gift that Ignatius left his sons from his own experience at Manressa; thank you Francis for sharing that gift with the rest of us.  

Francis Merry Christmas: Christians 15, Lions 0 cont.

 Let’s look some more at that bombshell that Pope Francis dropped on the Curia in his Christmas message—not only because it gives us some insight as to why the Papal Curia is as dysfunctional as it is, and not even because it gives us hints where the Pope sees that Reform is necessary, but maybe mostly to see if the silver buckled shoe on the feet of one Cardinal or another might also fit your foot or mine.  The New Year is a good time to examine our consciences as well as taking guesses about the state of another’s soul, or as Jesus put it, to take the beam out of our own eye before we try to remove the speck from someone else’s.

Pope Francis characterized the second spiritual disease infecting the Curia and, by extension, the Church as:

Another disease is the “Martha complex”, excessive busy-ness. It is found in those who immerse themselves in work and inevitably neglect “the better part”: sitting at the feet of Jesus (cf. Lk 10:38-42). Jesus called his disciples to “rest a while” (cf. Mk 6:31) for a reason, because neglecting needed rest leads to stress and agitation. A time of rest, for those who have completed their work, is necessary, obligatory and should be taken seriously: by spending time with one’s family and respecting holidays as moments of spiritual and physical recharging. We need to learn from Qohelet that “for everything there is a season” (3:1-15).

You know, when Leo XIII condemned “Americanism” in the 1899 Encyclical Testem Benevolentiae, one of the criticisms proffered by the Holy Father was that Americans tend to underappreciate the contemplative essence of the Christian life and here Pope Francis is slamming the prelates of the Roman Curia for the very same fault.  Notice that he hits them on two levels: they are not spending enough quality time with Christ, sitting at his feet (contemplative prayer) and they are not spending enough quality time with others, especially their families.  The Pope sees the Curia bureaucrats as men (and nowadays some women) who let their work consume them, forgetting that God did not created us for the purpose of work—even his work—but for love.  We were created to love God with our entire hearts, souls, strengths, and being and to love our neighbor as ourselves.  We need to redefine our lives putting the primacy of our life on relationships not on accomplishments.  But, of course, we are evaluated (judged) on our work and it is our work that wins us advancement.  But what does it profit us to gain the whole world and lose our very selves in the process?  How many of these bureaucrats have lost themselves in their desire to gain higher and higher position in the caterpillar tree that administers the institutional dimensions of the Catholic Church?  And at the same time, how many of us too trade time with God and time with those whom we are called to love in hopes of advancing our careers?  Oh, we do it for our families.  We do this to be better providers.  We do this so they can have tae kwon do.  We do this so they can afford piano lessons or to be in the school band.  yada yada yada   But at the end of the day we aren’t there for them because of all the things we “do for them.”  The fact of the matter is we opt for a higher standard of living that we could afford if we have our priorities in the right place.  At the end of the day all that matters is that we have been there and given them love.   

Then too there is the disease of mental and spiritual “petrification”. It is found in those who have a heart of stone, the “stiff-necked” (Acts 7:51-60), in those who in the course of time lose their interior serenity, alertness and daring, and hide under a pile of papers, turning into paper pushers and not men of God (cf. Heb 3:12). It is dangerous to lose the human sensitivity that enables us to weep with those who weep and to rejoice with those who rejoice! This is the disease of those who lose “the sentiments of Jesus” (cf. Phil 2:5-11), because as time goes on their hearts grow hard and become incapable of loving unconditionally the Father and our neighbour (cf. Mt 22:34-35). Being a Christian means “having the same sentiments that were in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5), sentiments of humility and unselfishness, of detachment and generosity.

And hasn’t this just been the problem?  We have cardinals and bishops and monsignors and priests who, far from having the shepherd’s heart that is a proffered grace of the Sacrament of Orders, have chosen to have hearts of stone.  The Law is what is important.  You know the routine—it is rooted in our Christian tradition from the first days: the High Priest declared: “We have a Law and by that Law this man must die.”  And so too we have our laws: who can go to Holy Communion; who can have a Church wedding or funeral; who can have their children baptized etc.  Gay people can’t be Eucharistic ministers or lectors.  Catholic School teachers must not be remarried after a divorce.  If you are in a same-sex marriage you can’t be the Director of Music.  And don’t forget the famous “Canon 915”—you know the one; it’s the canon that says “I’m holier than thou, you miserable piece of moral turpitude and I will decide that Jesus doesn’t want you coming to the Table of His Body and Blood.”  That’s a loose translation, admittedly, but you get the idea—or at least how some people read it.  Stone, stone, stone—hearts of stone that are quick to judge without knowing the story, without knowing the pain, without knowing the struggles.

This certainly has been the sin of some prelates in the Curia—or, at least formerly in the Curia and now, thanks to Francis the Compassionate, relegated to more ceremonial functions where they can do less harm.  But we find this same legalism in some of our parishes and even among the laity who, given their life experience, should know better.  But it is so much fun to be better than everyone else and to make sure that they, and everyone, knows it.  Why doesn’t the sins of others make us weep in compassion for the struggles they have faced in making their decisions?  Why do we let the failings of others give us an unholy glee to celebrate our moral righteousness?  I think Francis is right on—not just in the sins of the boys in the purple dresses but in raising the questions that should give us all pause. 

We can only be hopeful that the call of Pope Francis to his Curia will bring them to an ever deeper awareness of the Compassion Christ has for each of us and a renewed desire to use their office bring the mercy and forgiveness of God into the lives of all people to heal us of our own spiritual maladies and bring us reconciliation for the forgiveness of our sins.  We need a new face on the public image of the Church.  Francis has brought that at his level, but it needs to spread down and out through the entire administration, not just in Rome but also to our dioceses and our parishes.  For too long everyone has known what the Catholic Church is against.  That is no way to spread the Gospel.  Now we are being given the chance to proclaim loudly what we are for: the spread of the Good News of Jesus Christ that in his infinite mercy God has so loved the world that he sent his only son that whoever believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life; God did not send his Son to condemn the world but rather so that the world might be saved through him.  

Francis' Merry Christmas: Christians 15; Lions 0

Pope Francis and the Christmas 

Bombshell

I remember the afternoon that Josef Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI.  It was a Tuesday afternoon—almost, one could say, in the declining April sun, early evening.  The white smoke had plumed out of the Sistine Chapel about 4:45 pm and I had taken my place on the roof of the Jesuit Curia on the Borgo Santo Spirito where RTE, the Irish National Broadcasting Network, had set up their cameras and microphones to cover the news in Saint Peter’s Square below.  I was doing some consulting for RTE and other networks and it was all very thrilling.  We knew a Pope had been elected but we didn’t yet know whom.  We had presumed it would be Cardinal Ratzinger but as the first day and a half of the conclave had passed with (presumably) 10 ballots and no quick conclusion, we weren’t sure the frontrunner was going to emerge after all.  It would, of course, be Ratzinger/Benedict but, at this point, we were waiting anxiously for the announcement.  We had Cardinal Dulles all lined up to speak once the announcement was made, but as they tried to fill to awkward time between the smoke and the announcement, one of the commentators suddenly had a camera put on me and asked “Who do you think the new Pope will be?”  I had no idea, of course, and said so, adding “I can’t tell you who we will get, but I can tell you what we need.  We need someone who get in there and clean out that rats’ nest of pezzi grossi monsignori that calls itself the Curia Romana.” My friends have long known that I lack that part of the brain that filters what one says, and anyone who knows me would never put me live in front of a microphone, much less on camera.  What I didn’t know until Irish friends called and told me later that day, is that in the Dublin studio was Bishop John Magee, then Bishop of Cloyne, who had served long in Vatican administration and had been private secretary to three popes (Paul VI, John Paul I, and John Paul II).  Magee is the only person in Vatican history to have served as private secretary to three popes.  Magee was obviously displeased at my remarks about “that rats’ nest of pezzi grossi monsignors” and even more so when the Dublin commentator asked him if he had been one of those pezzi grossi monsignors.  He had, of course, and it served him well over the years; he “resigned” under Benedict because of his duplicity in covering up sex abuse charges in his diocese—the orders for which had come from that very same “rats’ nest,” the Curia Romana. 

Well, one Conclave later it looks like we got the Pope we need to clean up the rats’ nest.  One of his first actions as Pope was for Francis to appoint a commission of eight cardinals to look closely at the Curia and see how it might be reformed.  While this seems to be primarily a matter of reorganization and streamlining of the bureaucracy, Francis has not overlooked the issue of moral reform as well.  He has moved and removed people who appeared to him to be more career than service oriented or who have been suspect of using their positions for financial gain.  He has ordered drastic reforms of the Vatican Bank and its practices.  But the greatest surprise—and most heartening sign of his determination—came in the Christmas message to the Curia just three days before Christmas.  Beginning with a pro forma pious reflection on the feast and the usual congratulations and thanks to those who work in the Curia, he soon swung into the most unexpected, indeed revolutionary, set of reflections that a pope has given in the recorded history of the Church.

Pope Francis named fifteen “diseases” that are eating away at the health of the Church and located these diseases right in the middle of what some of us have long seen as the Excretory System of the Mystical Body, the Curia Romana. 

To quote the Pope, the first of these ailments is:

  The disease of thinking we are “immortal”, “immune” or downright “indispensable”, neglecting the need for regular check-ups. A Curia which is not self-critical, which does not keep up with things, which does not seek to be more fit, is a sick body. A simple visit to the cemetery might help us see the names of many people who thought they were immortal, immune and indispensable! It is the disease of the rich fool in the Gospel, who thought he would live forever (cf. Lk 12:13-21), but also of those who turn into lords and masters, and think of themselves as above others and not at their service. It is often an effect of the pathology of power, from a superiority complex, from a narcissism which passionately gazes at its own image and does not see the image of God on the face of others, especially the weakest and those most in need. The antidote to this plague is the grace of realizing that we are sinners and able to say heartily: “We are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty” (Lk 17:10).

Anyone who has lived in Rome knows precisely what the Holy Father is addressing here.  It is a profound challenge to dress in red silk and Brussels lace with a large amethyst on your pinkie and silver buckles on your shoes and be led to your little gilt chair by two uniformed Swiss Guards and a white-tie and tailed Gentleman of His Holiness and remember you are a mere mortal.  All the bowing and scraping and Eminenza this and Eccelenza that throws all but the most holy into a parallel universe where, to say in genteel terms what I would like to say in street talk, their feces doesn’t reek and they have an august importance beyond mere mortals.  In the Curia of John Paul II and Benedict, those aforementioned pezzi grossi monsignors sitting enthroned behind their desks in some Vatican palazzo or other, could make Archbishops tremble with knocked knees by their imperious irreverence as they paged through dossiers making wild accusations and refusing to name their sources.  And as for arrogance: “We do not speak to the help” was one memo sent to a visiting priest from the Emirates who had dared to speak to an elevator operator in the presence of a Cardinal Secretary of a Congregation.  So thank you, Pope Francis, for calling out the pride of men who claim to be the disciples of the one who came to serve and not to be served.  Hopefully your mission of Reform will be accomplished but it certainly will be remembered. 

Thank you even more for the antidote: the grace of realizing that we are sinners.  This fits all of us.  We need to see that while the Church is the spotless bride of the Lamb, we ourselves, as individual members of that Church each carry our own burden of sin.  As we realize this, truly realize it, we are not so anxious to cast the first stone at someone else.  The “Who am I to judge” spirituality of Francis begins to make profound sense as I become not ready to condemn or even offer my own opinion about another, but only anxious for others and myself to together find the tender and accepting mercy of God and some desire down in our deepest being to turn away from sin and be the person this loving God has created me to be.  I am no longer anxious to keep others from Grace, and especially from the Eucharist, as I know that every Holy Communion, even for the best of us, is to some degree “sacrilegious”; and every Holy Communion, even for the most sinful, is an Encounter with the immeasurable Love of God.  But it is only when we have looked squarely at our own moral fractures that we can understand this.  So perhaps if some of those tired old souls would take off their red dresses and look hard and honestly at themselves for whom they truly are, the tone that Pope Francis is trying to set would catch on and we could get the wagons rolling again towards the Kingdom of God.  

Foundations of The Anglican Church XXXVIII

Young Luther in his days as an

Augustinian Friar

In posting his theses for debate Martin Luther had no intention of leading a revolt against the Catholic Church—far from it.  He was a most devout priest but he was also a serious academic and wanted these 95 points argued out in an academic forum in hopes of refocusing the Church and returning it to its roots in scripture and Apostolic Tradition.  Europe was alive with such debate and desire for Church Reformation.  In England you had John Fisher who had been tutor to young Henry before he succeeded to the throne and was now Bishop of Rochester.  And there was John Colet, Dean of London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral. His friend and collaborator in the desire for Church Reform was the Flemish scholar, Desiderius Erasmus, who came to England and taught five years at Cambridge before returning to the Continent where he preached and wrote about Christian humanism and its potential for a renewed Catholicism.  Prior Houghton of the London Carthusians was another enthusiast for Reform as was the rising political star, the lawyer Thomas More.  Throughout Europe—and especially in northern Europe: England, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Austria, Bohemia—academics, churchmen, and serious laity discussed ways in which the Church might be revitalized. 
There had been in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the Rhineland—both German and Dutch—a flowering of spiritual writers including Henry Suso, Johannes Tauler, Thomas á Kempis, Jan Ruysbroeck, and others who made spirituality something for the everyday Christian.   The influence of this spiritual renaissance had spread to England as well with Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, Julian of Norwich and other spiritual authors who created a vast body of spiritual and devotional literature.  Luther himself had been very much influenced by Tauler and Suso. 
Nothing is more dangerous for the institutional Church than when you have an educated and devout laity and a lazy and comfortable clergy.  Of course many priests and religious had been touched by the revival of spirituality and by a desire for reform in the Church, but the hierarchy, for the greater part,  consisted of men who held their positions for reasons of politics and family.  They were more interested in maintaining their comfortable lives and social prestige.  (Does this sound familiar???  I mean an educated laity interested in renewal and Church leadership interested in protecting the institution for its own sake and their own sake???)  
As I said Luther had personally undergone a deep conversion, not from a sinful life to a graced one, but from a religion of fear of God’s Justice to a faith in God’s mercy.  He wanted to see others learn to trust that faith in Jesus Christ was sufficient and to be freed from the compulsive religiosity that too many clergy were instilling—or trying to instill—in the faithful.  His 95 theses represented not an attack on the Church but on a superficial and unhealthy religiosity that distorted the faith presented in the Scriptures.
The great events of history usually are rooted in conflicts of interest.  Luther—and others—were interested in a spiritual renewal for the faithful.  You may remember that back in 2011 we did a series of posts on the history of Saint Peter’s Basilica. (You can review those posts by clicking on Saint Peter’s Basilica in the column on the right of your webpage marked “labels.”)  In 1505 Pope Julius II—the patron of Michelangelo—had made the decision to demolish the basilica that Constantine had built almost twelve centuries earlier over the tomb of the Apostle and build a new basilica there.  He wanted a grand basilica to hold the elaborate tomb for himself that he had Michelangelo design.  And so the project of building the current basilica began.  It was an enormously expensive project and special indulgences were offered in return for contributions that would go to the building.  (In fact half the proceeds went to Albert of Brandenburg to enable him to recover the immense sum of money he had paid the Holy See to be named Archbishop of Mainz.  You see the problems?)  A Dominican friar by the name of Johann Tetzel was named the Commissioner of Indulgences for Germany and in his zeal to raise the required funds made some outlandish claims about indulgences.  Two of Luther’s 95 theses concerned these claims.  As Tetzel went about preaching indulgences, Luther went about preaching against them.  Luther’s theology was sounder and appealed to the more thoughtful and educated populace—and to the many who did not give a fig about theology but who resented the vast sums leaving Germany for Rome—and sales of indulgences began to drop.   Luther appealed to Pope Leo X, whom Luther mistakenly believed would be more concerned about souls and orthodoxy than basilicas and money but ended up being admonished by the Pope to back off his objections to the sales campaign.  Luther, who had been scandalized by his 1510 visit to Rome, now became increasingly disillusioned with the papacy and with the institutional Church in general.  He stated that far from being assured that “when money clinks in the collection chest” that souls are released from purgatory, one can be assured that “when money clinks in the collection chest” greed and avarice are increased in the hearts of prelates.   By 1521 sales had been in sufficient decline that Luther was excommunicated by the Pope.  (Keep in mind that Leo X was a Medici—that is an important piece of information for when we pick up with Henry and his request for an annulment.  And we will get there—this background is an important piece however to understand what led to Henry’s being refused.) 
Luther did not much bother about excommunication.  Plenty of good people, including saints, had been excommunicated at one time or another.  (And since as well, if you remember the story of Saint Mary MacKillop, the Australian foundress of the Sisters of Saint Joseph.)  What did happen was that more and more people flocked to Luther’s side of the argument.  The Elector Frederick was delighted with the reputation this brought his university.  And Luther began to write extensively attacking the theological exaggerations of the Scholasticism and Late Medieval Theological meanderings and to bring doctrine and practice more in line with the New Testament texts.  Unfortunately Luther did not have much of the historical critical tools we have today and his exegesis is by our standards rather primitive but in the sixteenth century it was state of the intellectual art. 
One of the defenders of Catholic doctrine at this time was no less than King Henry VIII who in 1519 wrote his own theological treaty against Luther, In Defense of the Seven Sacraments.  Henry dedicated the work to Pope Leo X who awarded Henry the title Fidei Defensor, Defender of the Faith.  Ironic, isn’t it; but the title is still carried today by the British Monarch. 

Still More Whys and Wherefores



To continue the previous topic of why I spend time doing this blog, what I had seen over the past twenty years or so was a Church that had been newly energized for its mission at Vatican II begun to lose its focus on mission and become self-absorbed in its own institutional interests. 

It was fne in its day,
but there is no going
back

As I wrote in the last entry, I remember well the Catholic Church before Vatican II.  It had a somber beauty and a sense of gravitas, but its mission was stilted.  It was an old grande dame who waited in her splendor for the world to come calling at her gate.  Catholics took comfort in the large urban quasi-cathedrals that served as parish churches for multitudes of working-class faithful, in the legions of nuns in their diverse habits, in cadres of “just dial ‘O’ for O’Malley” knockoffs coming each year out of the seminaries.  That was, of course, the American Church but the American experience reflected the uncritical self-absorption that came right from the top.  There is video of the 1958 funeral of 1958 Pius XII that captures this hubric triumphalism. http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=Ase49h0u9jSVWECsa9hgae2bvZx4?p=funeral+pius+xii&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-900 
Vatican II brought a fresh sense of energy to the Church—that is to you and me, to the People of God.  We began to understand that mission is something that belongs to each of us, the baptized, not simply to those who are ordained or consecrated by religious vows.  It was an entirely new way of seeing ourselves as Church—not the old hierarchical pyramid with pope and bishops and priests stacked above us and the laity a faceless army of drones whose only duty was to “pay, pray, and obey.”  Now we came to see ourselves as Church, strengthened by God’s Word and gathered around the Lord’s Table—an organic unity of priests and religious and teachers and civil servants and health professionals and laborers and students and homemakers and musicians and business owners and merchants and the developmentally challenged and the widowed and children and the married and the shut-ins and caregivers and first responders and the terminally ill and young adults and the unemployed and the immigrants, all being knit together into the limbs and torso and hands and feet and heart of the Resurrected Christ.   I—and others—began to see that we each and all had responsibility for continuing the work Christ had begun of announcing the Kingdom of God and the advice of Saint Francis was our guideline: preach the Gospel always; use words only when you have to. 
I found in the seventies and eighties priests and sisters and committed lay people that I could work alongside—people whose view of the Church was collaborative.  There is a popular song in contemporary hymnals “Sing a New Church” by Delores Dufner, OSB.  It is sung to the tune of  “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”

Summoned by the God who made us
Rich in our diversity,
Gathered in the name of Jesus,
Richer still in unity:

Chorus:
     Let us bring the gifts that differ
     And, in splendid, varied ways,
     Sing a new church into being,
     One of faith and love and praise

Radiant risen from the water;
Robed in holiness and light,
Male and female in God’s image
Male and female God’s delight:

Bring the hopes of every nation;
Bring the art of every race.
Weave a song of peace and justice:
Let it sound through time and space.

Draw together at one table
All the human family;
Shape a circle ever wider
And a people ever free.

I realized, of course, that this is no “new Church”—it is the Church described in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Book of Revelation and in the Letters of Saint Paul.  It is the Church as described in the Didache and by Iranaeus and Hippolytus of Rome and Augustine and John Chrysostom.  This is the Church of Scripture and Tradition.
But things began to go awry in the 90’s.  In 1997 Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles wrote a pastoral letter outlining his vision for what the Archdiocese of Los Angeles should aim in its worship as a new millennium dawned.  It was a brilliant and exciting vision of a Church alive and dynamic in its praise of Almighty God, reflecting the rich cultural variety of the diverse Catholic population of the Los Angeles region.  He was taken to task almost at once by Mother Angelica, a Poor Clare Abbess whose monastery in Irondale Alabama hosted a religious television network with some influence.  Mother Angelica called Catholics in the Archdiocese to disobedience to the Archbishop’s directives—indeed to open rebellion.  This triggered a fissure—or rather revealed a fissure that was already there—between Catholics who wanted to continue the renewal set forth by the Council and those who wanted to retreat either completely or to some limited extent to the pre-Conciliar Catholicism.  Liturgy was only the neuralgic point.  There were far deeper issues which over the subsequent years came more and more to the surface as the two factions grew not only further apart but openly hostile to one another, each claiming to be the legitimate representation of Catholicism in American life.  I obviously espouse the Conciliar plan.  One of the purposes of this blog is to reveal the historic roots of many of our Catholic practices so that we can see that Vatican II Catholicism is a return to our Catholic Tradition, the tradition outlined in the Churches the Apostles established and Church which the Ancient Fathers describe in their writings.   It will differ in many respects from the Church that those of us who grew up in the forties and the fifties remember—but that Church, especially in its American manifestation, though laden with traditions, was the Church out of sync with the Catholic Tradition handed down from the Apostles.  But more on that in future entries.