WHAT IF THERE HAD NEVER BEEN A VATICAN II?

What if Vatican II had never happened?  If there had been no Pope John XXIII?  If Cardinal Siri had been elected instead of Cardinal Roncalli?  Or Cardinal Agagianian?  Or Cardinal Lercaro?

“What if’s” are a tricky field.  But it would not have made much difference who succeeded to the papacy after Pius XII’s death in 1958.  In the 56 and one half years since Pius’ reign ended, there have been six popes on the throne of Saint Peter.  The extraordinarily long reign of John Paul II is balanced by the extraordinarily short reign of John Paul I and the moderately short reigns of John XXIII and Benedict XVI.  In any scenario there probably would have been between five and seven popes for those decades.  While the terms “liberal” or “progressive” would probably be defined somewhat more narrowly, the right end of the spectrum would be, I would think, somewhat the same as it is now and, without the unexpected developments in liturgy, ecumenism, the role of the laity, and other “fruits” of Vatican II, I don’t think there would be the rancor we experience today between the extremes on either end of the spectrum. 

There would have been change.  Not the degree of change that we experienced; but there would have been change.  As for the Liturgy I think we only need to look at the work that was being done in several of the German Abbeys such as Beuron and Maria Laach in the 1940’s and 50’s as well as the scholarship of men like Josef Jungmann and Louis Bouyer.  Changes began even before the Council.  Pius XII had shortened the communion fast and introduced restored rites for the Sacred Triduum at the end of Holy Week.  The Mass of Pius V would still be the foundation for the Roman Rite but I suspect that a certain amount of vernacular would have replaced the Latin, especially in the Liturgy of the Word.  I think too that vernacular chants such as were developed by musicians like Lucien Deiss and Joseph Gelineau would have been introduced.  Even dramatic Mass settings like the Congolese Missa Luba would probably have emerged and been used in culturally appropriate settings.  Laity would have been introduced to do the readings.  On the other hand, I don’t think the chalice would have been restored to the faithful, at least on any sort of ordinary basis and I doubt that Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist would have been introduced.  As I think the “vocation crisis” would still have happened, there may have been a restoration to laymen of the minor order of acolyte with permission for them to administer Holy Communion. 

While the majority of altars would still be turned so that the priest faces the apse of the Church during the celebration of Mass, the practice of positioning the altar so that the priest faces the congregation had already begun in Europe before the Council.  The practice of versus populum altars was particularly strong in Rome where Popes Pius IX, Leo XIII, and Pius X, in their restoration of countless Roman Churches to their ancient forms, had so situated altars in what in pre-baroque Rome was the typical position. At the Council when bishops from America and other outreaches of the Catholic world saw this they brought the practice home, but altars that “faced the people” were not only common in Rome but not unknown in Germany and France with the Liturgical Renewal of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. 

There would be no outreach to those of other Christian denominations or to those of non-Christian religions.  We would be instructed to be courteous to all, but any sort of collaboration in either mission or worship would be totally out of the question except perhaps charitable work in times of critical need. 

The distinctiveness of our Liturgy, the peculiarities of our practices (such as no meat on Fridays and other days of fast), the prohibition of social contact with our non-Catholic neighbors (where we could not be in their weddings nor they in ours, or even our being forbidden to attend weddings and funerals involving a non-Catholic service) and the strong barriers against mixed marriages would have led to a great deal of isolation for Catholics that in America and would have created considerable social difficulties.  I suspect that there would have been considerable defections to liberal Protestant groups, especially those with a liturgy similar to ours such as Episcopalians and Lutherans, and that even more Catholics would simply not practice their faith.  John Kennedy could probably not have been elected president in 1960 and there would be few Catholics in public office.  The secularization of the culture might initially have been slowed down a bit if the Church had itself resisted inculturalization, but it would have happened none the less and probably over the decades picked up even more speed than it has.   Those families and individuals who remained practicing Catholics would have a stronger sense of Catholic identity simply because they would be so clearly differentiated from mainstream American families. While I think we would still have our automobiles and even our televisions (for select programming) Catholics would be a lot like the Amish in terms of a closed community.  Such Catholic families would still be happy to see a son or a daughter give themselves to the Church in a vocation and the number might be there to serve those remaining active in the practice of the faith but as the community of the active faithful would be so much smaller, I think too the number of priests and sisters would never reach the numbers of the early 1960’s. 

Without the Council and its program of adapting the liturgy and the catechesis of the faith to local cultures the missionary activity of Asia and especially of Africa would probably not have been nearly as successful as it is. The revitalization of the Church in Latin America would probably not have happened either.  Remaining a European Church culturally would mean that the majority of Catholics would still be in the Northern hemisphere.  It would be a much smaller Church but a more distinct and even, perhaps, a more energetic church internally.  It influence on the world outside its own isolation, however, would be negligible.  The Pope would probably be a sort of Christian Dalai Lama, admired for his compassion and piety—even, perhaps with a good pope, for his wisdom—but with little or no impact on the world and its challenges.  

Fifty Years--And More than Camelot Has Disappeared

The Funeral of President Kennedy leaves the

Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle

  This weekend we have been flooded with memories of the November 1963 assassination of President John Kennedy in Dallas.  Those of us who are old enough to remember the event, can tell you exactly where we were and what we were doing when we heard the news.  But this might be an opportunity also to reflect on just how much our Catholic life has changed over these fifty years. 
Fifty years ago Mass was still in Latin, though plans were being made for lent the following year to introduce the vernacular languages on a very limited basis for the penitential prayers, the readings, and the Lord’s Prayer. We were assured that the consecration and other key prayers would always remain in Latin. Hymns in the language of the people could now be sung at Mass—though very few parishes had any tradition of congregational singing.  A few churches—very few—had begun positioning the priest to face the people at Mass.
We were at the tail end—though we didn’t know it yet—of a vocation boom that had started with the return of GI’s at the end of World War II.  Seminaries and novitiates were filled and ordinations were at an all-time high.    Religious women were still in their traditional habits and priests were rarely seen without their collars—and wearing hats: straw in the summer, homburgs in the winter.  Women too wore hats to Church—or, the style set by First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, the mantilla. 
We Catholics did not eat meat on Fridays and only once a day in lent.  Moreover in Lent as well as the Vigil of Christmas, Ember Days, and certain other days we ate only one full meal, supplemented by two light “collations” that together could not add up to a meal.  May Crownings, Forty Hours, novenas, Holy Hours, and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament all were part of the regular rhythm of parish life.  The priest wore black vestments for funerals and most daily masses which were offered for the dead.  At funerals a wonderful sequence was sung called the Dies Irae, heralding the final judgment in bone-chilling verse.  As it was in Latin it lacked the impact however and was just a pretty piece of music.    
We had no lay ministers of the Eucharist, permanent deacons, Religious Education coordinators, Directors of Liturgy, pastoral associates, parish councils, finance boards, cantors, or youth ministers.  We did have Altar and Rosary Societies, Holy Name Societies, Saint Vincent de Paul, Mothers’ Club, Sodality, and Knights of the Altar.  Only boys could serve Mass—and, in fact, a girl got inside the gates of the altar rail twice in her life—first communion and her wedding day (but only if she married Catholic).  Of course if she became a nun she would go in to vacuum, change the altar linens, and fix the flowers.  Where there were no nuns to do this work, a mature matron might be allowed.  O yes—I forgot, we still had altar rails because we still knelt for Holy Communion.  Communion was never received in the hand—we could not have imagined it—nor did we every receive from the chalice.
Religion class was mostly memorizing the Baltimore Catechism, though if you went to Catholic School there was time to tell you stories of the saints or of the apparitions of the Blessed Mother.  In Catholic School you also learned Gregorian Chant—especially Mass 8 (Missa de Angelis).  Some parishes had decent—even good—choirs and lovely pipe organs.  We never heard an instrument other than the organ played in Church.  Most of the time, however, the quality of the music reflected the blue-collar working class makeup of American Catholicism.  It would only be in the sixties and seventies, and mostly as a result of the GI Bill, that significant numbers of Catholics moved up into the professional and managerial classes.  The slow rise of Catholics in the professions and business was due in part to lingering bias against them from the Protestant establishment.    
It wasn’t a bad way to grow up.  There was a distinct Catholic culture that left your Protestant friends a bit bewildered but maybe a little bit jealous too.  Little Methodist girls sometimes wanted to be nuns when they grew up because they (the nuns) looked so cool with those long dresses and heavy veils.  Catholics were different—there was something a bit exotic about us.
Of course, underneath the surface all was not well.  Mody of the abuse cases that have caused such a crisis for the Church date back to the ’50’s and’60’s.  Alcoholism was rampant among the clergy—though it was certainly epidemic in the larger society as well.  Convent life was not always a calm and peaceful as it appeared in The Nuns’ Story or The Sound of Music.   
Of course Viet Nam had not yet bloomed into a full scale war and the subsequent anti-war movement had not yet emerged.  Catholics were rabid anti-communists and the Fatima devotion was used to strengthen our resolve against communism.  We were a bit bewildered however as Pope John’s 1961 encyclical Mater et Magistra attracted much positive attention from the Communist world.  The April 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris won even more recognition from the Communist world.  John XXIII in the last months of his life received the daughter and son-in-law of Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev in audience and gave them symbolic gifts for Khrushchev as well as for their own family.   John’s openness to the Soviet Union was a cause of anxiety for American Churchmen, particularly Cardinal Spellman of New York, who were anxious to keep Vatican in line with American foreign policy.  In 1963 we were still saying the Leonine Prayers after low mass which originally had been for the restoration of the Papal States but had come to be directed towards the “conversion of Russia.”  And of course that reminds me that at this time we still distinguished between “High Mass” (which was sung) and “Low Mass” (which was read sotto voce).  Despite all sort of claims how beautiful the pre-conciliar rites were, most Masses were these recited Masses at which the priest prayed privately and the congregation silently followed along in their missal or occupied themselves with other devotions such as the rosary.  Such rites were bland at best. 
Our churches were filled with statues—usually of mediocre artistic quality done in plaster on a mass-production line.  Votive candles in red and green and blue stood grouped before the various altars.  There often was, at least in the better built churches, some lovely stained glass.  Similarly vestments and paraments were often beautifully embroidered and hopefully (but not always) kept clean and in good repair.  People bobbed in and out of Church to make “visits” to Jesus present in the Sacrament of the Altar. 
All in all, I think it was a wonderful way to grow up.  I doubt it could have lasted.  In part due to the excellent educational system the Church built, Catholics were raising themselves up by the bootstraps—but rising into the Middle Class and leaving immigrant ways behind meant integration into the larger society as well.  The Catholic Ghetto, constructed so carefully by men like Archbishop Corrigan and Bishop McQuaid was doomed to come down at Catholic hands.  I for one would not want to go back even if I could—but it was a wonderful way to grow up. 

Rick Santorum's Picks in the Catholic Cafeteria

St Catherine of Sieana, Great Falls VA
Rick Santorum's parish

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is no admirer of President John Kennedy but when Santorum swept the primaries in Alabama and Mississippi yesterday he did something that Kennedy could never have done and which he, Santorum, could not have done had it not been for Kennedy’s carving out a place in American politics for his fellow Catholics.  Santorum’s victory is a clear sign that the anti-Catholic bias that for so long has plagued the “evangelical” regions of the United States is a thing of the past.  Of course, in this election the choice was among two Catholics and a Mormon which, at least in days past, would have been an “evangelical’s” worst nightmare. 

     For years now each Sunday he is in town Rick Santorum has driven approximately twenty miles from his Leesburg VA home to his parish of choice, Saint Catherine of Siena in Great Falls VA.  Saint Catherine’s is a very particular type of Catholic Parish. In a diocese known for its distinct brand of conservative Catholicism with priests grocery-shopping in cassock and biretta and girls banned from serving at the altar, Saint Catherine’s is the Gold Standard for Catholic neo-traditionalism. Saint Catherine’s is a parish that in the days when the “Tridentine Mass” was not permitted, counterfeited the pre-Conciliar liturgy with Novus Ordo Latin Mass tricked out to look like the “real thing” complete with deacon and “subdeacon,”  with their backs turned to the congregation.  It is the parish of various Catholic luminaries such as Louis Freeh, former director of the FBI and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.  (It also was the parish of Robert Hanssen, devout Catholic and convicted Russian spy.  Santorum has this in common with Hanssen also: both men sent their sons to the private Opus Dei school, The Heights, in Potomac MD.) 

     Rick Santorum is well-known for his opposition to the legalization of Gay Marriage and even stronger opposition to legalized Abortion.  He considers contraception “dangerous.”  And, to his credit, the former senator not only “talks the talk” but “walks the walk.”  He and his wife have had eight children—one of whom, Gabriel, was born prematurely (20 weeks) in 1996, dying after only two hours.  Another child, Isabella, was born in 2008 (when Mrs. Santorum was 48) suffering from a rare genetic disorder.  Mrs. Santorum has home-schooled the children though the older boys eventually were, as mentioned above, to go on to The Heights.  (I am not sure if the girls were given the opportunity to attend Oakcrest, the Opus Dei private school for girls.  Let me also say that both The Heights and Oakcrest are top-rate schools, second only to the untouchable Gonzaga College High School in downtown D.C.) 

      Rick Santorum seems to be a Catholic’s Catholic and his Catholic supporters claim that the Santorums believe in a highly traditional Catholicism that adheres fully to what scholars call “the teaching authority” of the pope and his bishops. But does he? 

      While his stand on gay marriage, abortion, and contraception are consistent with Catholic moral teaching, Santorum differs from the Church on many other issues.  Rick Santorum was a strong supporter of George Bush’s war in Iraq despite Pope John Paul’s plea to the Bush administration not to go into that war and his subsequent condemnation of the war as unjust.  Among those things which the Catholic Church condemns as absolute evils is not only abortion, but torture yet Senator Santorum was supportive of waterboarding and other torture techniques employed for “enhanced interrogation” in the Bush administration. In his Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae Pope John Paul condemned the Death Penalty except under the most restricted of circumstances, circumstances not met in the American penal code.  The Pope even had the Catechism of the Catholic Church rewritten to make sure that the average Catholic is aware of this condemnation.  Santorum has consistently supported the Death Penalty, in 1994 voting against replacing the death penalty with life in prison and supporting limiting appeals from death row inmates.   Santorum believes that Climate Change is a fraud, declaring it “an absolute travesty of scientific research that was motivated by those who, in my opinion, saw this as an opportunity to create a panic and a crisis for government to be able to step in and even more greatly control your life.”  This differs from Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI who have each written and spoken about the need to protect the environment from the disastrous effects that industrialization is wreaking on our society.  Despite a consistent teaching of the Church on the rights of migrants dating back to the time of the Second World War but including papal magisterium from John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, and now Pope Benedict, Santorum opposes any attempts for immigration reform.  Ever since Leo XIII wrote the encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891 the Catholic Church has defended the rights of labor to organize—a teaching repeated by Pius XI, John XXIII, The Second Vatican Council, Paul VI, John Paul II, and now Benedict XVI, yet Rick Santorum opposes the rights of public sector workers to organize and he consistently favors capital over labor in the private sector.  Similarly while the Church speaks of the importance of regulatory safeguards on the economy Santorum always voted against them and still opposes economic regulations. 

       Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind a Catholic candidate differing from the magisterium.  I think that while one must always follow one’s conscience, there are times when, to perform one’s public duties, one’s conscience may call the President, or Senator or Judge or Governor or Congressperson or General or Admiral or whatever to pass over a Church teaching to do his or her public duty.  (Note: I said “Church teaching.”  I did not say Divine Law, though “Church Teaching” may include the Church’s interpretation of Divine Law)   But this brings me into conflict with Rick Santorum’s philosophy too.  Santorum has decried the Kennedy doctrine which states    “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.”

     Santorum says that John Kennedy did great “harm in America” by insisting on the separation of Church and State.  I don’t know.  If it be harm, it wasn’t President Kennedy, it was future President Madison when he drafted the first amendment back in 1789.  And if it be harm, give me more of it for while I don’t want public figures to forsake their consciences, or citizens to abandon their moral principles and religious faith when voting, I do want religious institutions (and atheist and agnostic institutions) kept out of direct participation in public life.     

Reversing the Kennedy Doctrine

During the 1960 Presidential campaign, Democratic candidates John F. Kennedy—a Catholic—said in a famous talk to the Houston (Texas) Ministerium:

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.” 

      Does anyone object to this statement—really?  Certainly, despite the desire of many in the Church for public support for parochial schools,  no Catholic voices were raised in objection when John Kennedy made this claim that religion should not have a direct role in the political process.  Now a prominent Catholic running for the American presidency does take exception?  Why has there been a switch?  Or has there—has Rick Santorum gone out on a limb—too far out on a limb—with his objection that the separation of Church is not “absolute?”  Is it a legitimate claim that he only wants to preserve the rights of religion in the “public square” or has he set up a straw-man with this argument?  Does the non-establishment clause of the First Amendment threaten believers with being pushed to the margins of the American political process?  I don’t know.  I have long thought that Mr. Santorum’s Catholicism was his own particular take on the Catholic faith; I now think his Americanism is his own particular take on our Constitutional heritage.

Freedom from Religion and Freedom of Religion V

John Kennedy, First and Only Catholic
to serve as President of the United States

During the 1960 Presidential campaign, Democratic candidates John F. Kennedy—a Catholic—said in a famous talk to the Houston (Texas) Ministerium:

     I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

     Kennedy’s speech to the association of Protestant Ministers in 1960 is one of the landmark speeches in the history of American Church/State relationships and has stood as the defining statement of the relationship of religion and government in the American constitutional system.  In the context of the time it was meant to answer those who were afraid that a Catholic in the White House would have to take direction from his Church and it was meant to criticize those Protestant pastors who were cautioning their parishioners that a vote for Kennedy was a vote to end religious freedom in the United States.  At the time no Catholic saw a problem with this statement—indeed Catholics, clergy and laity alike, endorsed it as they saw the possibility of a Catholic being President for the first time.  As I said it has stood for fifty years as the canon of independence for politician and voter alike.  It has served as a bulwark to protect public officials from religious pressure so that they can fulfill their constitutional mandate.   That being said, I wonder how many Catholics—especially bishops and clergy—would agree with  it today?  Among the laity, Senator Santorum for one has gone on record as disagreeing.  He may be right and the Kennedy doctrine no longer stands.  He may be wrong.  But we do need to give the subject some thought.   

 

OK , So Is Mitt a Christian?

The Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of 

Later Day Saints in Salt Lake City

Is Mitt Romney a Christian?  This question seems to capture the attention of a lot of people right now.  First, let me say that as a Catholic who remembers John Kennedy’s presidential campaign when his Catholic faith was an issue, I support the United State’s Constitution that provides there shall be no religious test for office.  I am interested in a person’s values—very interested—but not their formal religious affiliation.  But that isn’t the point I want to deal with in today’s posting.  I want to look at the question of whether the Mormon faith is a genuine Christian denomination or not.  
     First of all the problem is the word “Christian.”  We use it in very ambiguous ways.  “She is such a Christian” generally means “She is such a good person.”  It particularly refers to people who are kind and generous, as if one had to be a disciple of Jesus to be kind and generous.  I wish all of Jesus’ disciples measured up to this standard.  I know more than a few, and even some who wear those funny black and white “dog collars” around their necks, that would fail the “Christian” litmus test if Christian genuinely meant nice and kind.  In fact, sometimes the more religious a person is the less Christian he or she seems to be.  As one old priest from Poland who is a friend of mine confided to me, his frequent prayer is “From the daily communicant, libera nos, Domine!”    
      A second sense in which one can use the word “Christian”—and this one with some legitimacy—is a person who embraces the ethical teachings of Jesus as outlined in the Gospels.  One may accept Jesus as a great moral teacher without espousing his Divinity or even the uniqueness of the Revelation he imparts to humankind in his teachings as the New Testament records them.  By this standard, Thomas Jefferson and many of our Founding Fathers (and I suppose Mothers) would qualify as Christian as would Quakers, most Unitarians, and many good souls who have no formal religious affiliation with a particular denomination that claims to be “Christian.”  Few of our the founders of our nation were Christians in the stricter use of the term.  Charles Carroll, the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence, was one of the few leaders of the new nation who actually was a practicing Christian. 
     A third sense of the word “Christian” would be a person who does have formal membership in a religious group that claims for itself to be a “Christian” Church or denomination.  Now claiming to be Christian doesn’t make a person or collective group of people Christian anymore than claiming that bag you’re selling on a street corner for 25 dollars is a genuine Versace makes that knockoff a genuine Versace.  But there is a social convention by which we generally don’t call each other out in public about such claims.  Nevertheless, while we may be polite and choose not to challenge the authentic Christian beliefs of one another, that doesn’t mean that we accept the authenticity of Christian faith in each other.   A particular point is the issue of valid baptism.  Some groups that claim to be Christian, groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, baptize “in the name of Jesus” as opposed to baptizing “in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  The Catholic Church insists that the Trinitarian formula is necessary for valid baptism according to Matthew 28:19.  (There are scripture passages which would seem to validate baptism in the “Name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 2:38; 10:48;19:5, but the Catholic Church and most other Christian denominations reject this formula as insufficient based on historical usage and the centrality of the Doctrine of the Trinity to Christian Orthodoxy.)   While we might say that a particular Jehovah’s Witness is “such a fine Christian” in the sense that he or she is a very nice person, or we might even see how their reading the Gospels has endowed them with a set of good Christian values, we would not consider Jehovah Witnesses to be Christian in the sense of belonging to a community of baptized disciples. 
     A fourth sense of the word “Christian,” very close to the last mentioned definition but still different from it, is public affiliation to one of the Churches or religious communities that stands by Christian Faith and Doctrine  as taught by the Apostles and historically defined by the first seven Councils of an undivided Christian Church.  This faith is generally seen as that proclaimed in the three historic creeds: the Apostle’s Creed, the Creed of the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople I, and the Athanasian Creed or Quicumque Vult.  A Christian in this sense accepts the doctrine that there is one God in three Divine Persons, each Person possessing the fullness of the Divine Nature yet being not three Divine Beings but only One.  Such a person, to be a Christian also must accept that Jesus Christ is truly God as is the Father (and the Holy Spirit) and is truly human as are we.  In the one Person of Jesus Christ there are two natures, one Divine and one Human, the natures are joined but not mixed and while each nature is and remains distinct, what can be attributed to each nature can also be said of the other.  All this sounds very complicated but that is because we always try to explain that which transcends our experience and thus is inexplicable.  Sometimes I think we should simply let Mystery be Mystery and not try to unpack Grace.  
      How do Mormons fit into this scheme?  Mormons use the Trinitarian formula for baptism (and until I had done research for this posting, I had thought they baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus), but most “mainline” Christian theologians and denominations—Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Methodist—have looked at Mormon theology and decided that while Mormons talk about the Trinity they have a very different understanding of the Divine Nature, that is of “God,” than historic Christianity.  In other words, while they use the same words (God, Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) they mean something quite different by those words.  That would mean not only that their faith is substantially different from Christian faith but that their baptism, while using the same words and outward signs (immersion in water), means something very different than as understood by historic Christianity.  For this reason the Catholic Church as well as most other Christian denominations require that Mormons be baptized when joining the Church.  A Presbyterian or a Lutheran, for example, would be “received” into the Catholic Church without repeating baptism.  Baptism in the Catholic theology is an unrepeatable act.  If validly baptized once, you are never baptized again.  But a Mormon becoming a Catholic would have to be baptized as his Mormon “baptism” would be regarded as invalid as the “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” in which he or she had been baptized as a Mormon is not the “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” of our historic Christian faith which is shared by the Orthodox Churches of the East and the majority of Anglican and Protestant Churches (or ecclesial communities) of the West.   Also, because the Mormon understanding of the Divine Nature is, or at least appears to us to be, so radically different than that espoused by historic orthodox Christianity, their understanding of Jesus Christ—in whom the Divine and Human natures are united (though not mixed)—is radically different from that proclaimed historically by the Christian faith.  Thus Catholics would not recognize Mormons doctrinally as Christians. 
      So it all seems to boil down to Are Mormons Christians?  Yes, in the sense that as many (indeed most) Mormons are really fine people many (indeed most) Mormons  are Christians in that broad colloquial sense.  Yes, also, in the sense that most Mormons lead lives shaped by the moral teachings of Jesus.  In this they are as Christian as Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin or most of our Founding Fathers who thought Jesus was this really wise and ethical teacher.  Actually even more so for while they understand the Divinity of Christ, and indeed divinity, differently than historic Christianity, Mormons do believe that in their sense of being Divine, Jesus fit the bill.  They do not think of him merely as some enlightened human teacher.  But No, from the Catholic understanding of Christian Faith and Sacraments, Mormons are not Christians in the sense of professing authentic Christian doctrine and no they are not Christian in the sense of being in the community of the baptized.  Frankly, when it comes to being President of the United States, I won’t hold anyone to a test of religious beliefs, but the only sense in which I would prefer a Christian over a non-Christian is that second sense—a man or woman whose life and values are shaped by the teachings of Jesus in the Gospel.  When it comes to Christians in public life, I am much more interested in orthopraxis than orthodoxis.   And in that sense, Mitt is the only fellow (or fellowette) currently  in the Republican field that I would vote for.   

New Translation of the Mass--A Mixed Reivew

Mass in the Grotto at Lourdes, always a simple,
straightforward, faith-filled, and prayerful experience

I had been planning on returning to the theme of the Gregorian Reform of the 11^th century as we still have considerable material there to look at, but the last several days I attended a workshop on the upcoming implementation of the new Roman Missal, famous (or infamous) for its revised translation of the Latin Prayers.  I have not been a fan of this new translation.  I  believe that the principles for translation laid out in Liturgiam Authenticam are flawed.  Anyone who speaks several languages (which admittedly excludes most Americans) knows that you cannot translate directly from one language to another.  Each language has its own idioms that are woven into its daily use and which the language into which an idea is being translated becomes confused by these idioms which make no sense in the new language.  As an example: I remember once saying in Italian to some European friends of mine: “well, that’s a horse of a different color.”  They stared at me blankly.   What did horses have to do with the subject at hand?  Of course, the liturgical texts are not replete with idioms (ah, but the scriptural texts, especially the New Testament ones, are).  Another problem is syntax.  I remember from Latin III (I go all the way through Latin VI) doing Cicero.  What a nightmare.  That boy could talk.  I remember one sentence, I think it was in the Catilinarian addresses, that had 105 words in fourteen separate phrases.  I would hate to have had to diagram that sentence.  Latin and English are constructed very differently and it is not easy to be faithful to the syntax and still have good English.  I was pleased to note, however, that in the collects and prayers which the presenter showed us, the final product was actually quite beautifully translated—very rich in its language and elegant in its construction.  I hope these examples are typical and not exceptions to the Rule.  I was actually somewhat soothed after the presentations.  Then we had Mass using the new translation and it all fell apart.  The Presider used Eucharistic Prayer III and it was horrendous—clumsy, almost impossible to render intelligibly much less prayerfully. 
     I intend over the next few months, interspersed with entries on the various Church Reforms in History—the Gregorian, Innocentian, Protestant, etc.—to do a number of postings on the upcoming liturgical revisions.  But what struck me most about this workshop—not only from the presenter but from a number of officially produced videos featuring Bishop Arthur Serratelli who chairs the Committee on the Liturgy for the American Bishops Conference, but also Monsignor James Moroney from the Federation of Diocesan Liturgy Committees, is that the emphasis is definitely on ritual/text rather than on a prayerful celebration.  These texts will be very difficult to pray, especially aloud.  They do not facilitate one’s entering into the deepest chambers of one’s heart and expressing what is found there.  The Presider will have difficulty in moving beyond an externalized fixation on the words; the congregants will have difficulty in absorbing the words much less in allowing the words to move the individual to prayerful attention (I won’t say recollection).   That is unfortunate as the texts, at least the ones we were shown, are deeply beautiful and rich but it would take a Shakespearean elocutionist to say them with any measure of poise.  It may be that the texts are too rich to use in vocal prayer.  I will need to look at Eucharistic Prayer III in more detail to see what caused it to come across as somewhat of a hodgepodge (to use an American idiom rather than the Irish: a dog’s dinner) of so many disparate elements.               
     English, at least American English, is a clean and simple language.   We tend to favor short sentences and we are sparing—perhaps too sparing—on both poetical imagery and literary (in this case scriptural) illusions.  We pray openly and frankly.  I agree that we need to use an elevated tone of language—but we are not given to the verbal baroque.  Read Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, Lincoln’s addresses at Gettysburg or his second inaugural, Franklin Roosevelt “Day that will go down in infamy,” or John Kennedy’s address to the Houston Ministerium or his Inaugural Address.  Our English is short, crisp, current. That is how we know how to speak.  For that matter, read Winston Churchill’s addresses to the British Nation during World War II and you will find that same terse and to the point language.  It is eminently suited for prayer—and for those with the mindset of English speakers, far more suited than the courtly baroque of the new translation.  For those for whom prayer is words and pomp  and taking a stance before God, it might work.   For those for whom prayer is standing in the Presence of God, naked in one’s own truth with open heart and open hands—this ain’t going to cut it.  The very blessing of this new translation is its curse.  It will make our ritual less bland but I fear it will make our prayer more stilted           

Why John Kennedy could not be elected president today

Today is the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of John F. Kennedy the first, and to date the only, Catholic to serve as President of the United States. It might be worthwhile considering Kennedy’s words in a famous speech given to 300 Protestant ministers in Dallas Texas on September 12, 1960—less than two months before his election. This speech was a milepost in the Kennedy rise to the presidency; he most likely would not have been elected without it. He himself knew its importance—he diverted his campaign tour from the West Coast to go Houston only to give this speech. In 1928 the only previous Catholic Candidate for the presidency had been defeated because of his religious affiliation. It is hard for us today to understand the strong bias against Catholics in American public life, but throughout the 19th and well into the 20th century many Americans were convinced that a Catholic politician would be no more than the advance guard for a papal takeover of the United States. Catholics were suspected of divided loyalties, or even worse, of owing their chief loyalty to their foreign based and foreigner-controlled Church. We can look at this more closely in some future postings. Today let’s look at Kennedy’s words:
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
Kennedy’s words sufficed the lay aside the fear of the political ambitions of the Catholic Church of enough Americans that he was able to squeak by in the November elections. Interestingly from a historical perspective no Catholic voice raised any objections to his speech. But today, how would Catholics—including some of our bishops—react to the idea “no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act”? And what about a minor change in the subsequent sentence to say “and no Catholic preacher would tell his parishioners for whom to vote?” Something has changed in America. Something has changed in American Catholicism. And it probably isn’t a change for the better.