A Whackadoodle Writes On Women Lectors At Mass

The Great Organ at
Harrow, a symbolic
font of theological
reflection 

I mentioned in a recent post that I regularly read the blog New Liturgical Movement because it often contains some very fine historical scholarship on the development of the Liturgy.  Historical Scholarship—not necessarily sound theology or advisable pastoral practice—but the sort of historical detail that a trivia master like myself can store in his little brain and pull out from time to time, Sheldon Cooper style, to amaze and mystify his friends over a beer and even occasionally, very rarely actually, stun a room of Jeopardy fans. 

So recently while checking out to see what NLM was offering on its platter of esoteria, I cam across a link to Katholik Krazy blog, One Peter Five and an article by a “noteworthy traditional  Catholic scholar” under the nom de plume of Benedict Constable.   (Why do these neo-traditonalists always adopt the persona of a member of the House of Lords.  They’re never a Joe Podgorski or a Mike Capone.  Benedict Constable, good Lord, it just sounds like someone who for eight years was buggered behind the organ pipes at Harrow before going on to serve as an equerry to the Duke of Kent.  But I digress.)  Professor/Doctor/Canon/Mr./Viscount/ Whatever Constable published an essay on the unsuitability of women to serve as lectors at Mass (and by extension, I would imagine, the Reader at Solemn Vespers—or simple vespers.  Or even Compline.)  He sets the tone for the article in the opening sentence.  

Given that Catholic churches throughout the world swarm with lay liturgical ministers of both sexes,

Catholic churches “swarm” with lay liturgical ministers?  Well that tells us right off the bat what the root of the problem is.  At the core, it is not that there are ladies “within the (no longer existent) rails"; it is that there are laity treading shod on the holy place.  So keep that in mind; we will come back to it. 

And Benedict goes on

First, the ever-increasing number of parishes and chapels in which the Extraordinary Form is celebrated have reintroduced all over the world, to the relief of traditionally-minded men and women, the custom of male-only service in the sanctuary.

So banishing women from the sanctuary, or better put, admitting only men to the sanctuary,  gives his Lordship and others like him “relief.”  I am curious to know why.  Does the sight of women on stage similarly trouble him?  How about at the beach?  Is he somehow or other repulsed by the sight of women at the beach?  In the classroom: what does he think of women professors?  Does he have to compete in academia with women or is this “noteworthy traditional Catholic Scholar” in some academic cloister to which only male scholars are admitted?  Just asking.  He is saying something here about more than liturgy, but about his own psycho-sexual comfort zone.   But he continues;

But the very experience of this once-universal practice necessarily prompts Catholics to raise the question of why it “had” to change at all, and the related question: Is the Church better off for the change, or, as with communion in the hand while standing or communion under both kinds, worse off?

So it is not only women serving at the altar, but the wider issue of liturgical restoration including communion in the hand and standing to receive Holy Communion.  (I say restoration rather than change because standing for Communion and placing the Eucharist into the hand of the receiver are not changes but the restoration of practice in the early Church.) 

He then returns to his bugaboo about lady parts and those who have them:

Third, now that the evil fruits of a disordered feminism are far more apparent in society and in the Church than ever before,

“The evil fruits of a disordered feminism.”  Now I will admit that there are feminisms that are “disordered” and even bizarre even as history can show us—and we can even see today in the way women are treated in some societies such as the sexual violence against women in ISIS—theories of masculinity that are disordered and absolutely evil.  But what precisely for our distinguished scholar makes a feminism “disordered” and with “evil fruits.”  Is it when a woman approaches the voting booth?  Is it when a woman heads a major Catholic Institution such as an Abbess or as President and CEO of Catholic Relief Services?  I am just asking because apparently it is a sign of out of control estrogen when a woman presumes to read from the Book of Wisdom.    

Ok, here’s a good one. 

Especially in our times, when confusion about sexuality is rampant, how we conceptualize and implement male and female roles in the Church cannot fail to have huge ramifications in our theological anthropology, moral theology, and even fundamental theology, extending all the way to the inerrancy of Scripture and the trustworthiness of apostolic Tradition.

Confusion about sexuality is rampant…  well, I suppose it is but it is fascinating how various scientific studies, especially in the field of genomics, is both clearing up much of our confusion and revealing that sexuality is far more complex than who has a penis and who has a vagina.  Of course this new information is frightening to many because it threatens to undermine the legitimacy of various prejudices as well as to shine light in under their own nailed-shut closet door.  It was also much simpler in the days before scientific studies revealed that people of African origin had the same mental capacities as us white folk.  Of course, when you hear some of these neo-trads pontificate how polyphony is “superior” to Gospel music you realize that not everybody got that message either. 

And yes, gender studies and genomics are going to have dramatic effect on our theological anthropology and our moral theology.  As for its undermining inerrancy of Scripture, that would be true only if you were some kind of a snake-handling, strychnine drinking krazy from the mountains of Tennesse who rejects the various forms of scholarly biblical criticism that interpret the scripture in its historical, cultural, and linguistic setting.  For those of us who have embraced modern biblical study, we aren’t finding a problem.  Same goes for the trustworthiness of Apostolic Tradition.  For those who grasp the difference between Tradition and traditions it really is no problem.  But then the neo-trads have always confused Tradition and traditionalism.  Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, this one from Jaroslav Pelikan:

“Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. And, I suppose I should add, it is traditionalism that gives tradition such a bad name.”

Our friend goes on to explain that since the Word of God is the seed and the male is the one who sows the seed, while the female is the one who receives the seed, it is fitting that the reader—the sower as it were—be male while the ladies should content themselves to sit in the congregation and be inseminated.  This doesn’t quite clarify the role of the men in the congregation—since they can’t all be readers.  Are they too then to be recipients of the “seed” scattered over them by the man at the ambo?  Hmm.  But I forget, Benedict spent all that time behind the organ pipes at Harrow, he is not uncomfortable with men being recipients of the seed.  I mean, really, have you ever heard anything so stupid?  Do you really think this is what Jesus had in mind in Matthew 13?

Let me cite just a few quotes from the article that give us some insights as to where this whackadoodle is coming from:

If males ought to be priests, then males ought to be lectors, servers, ministers of communion, and so forth, because all of these are roles of giving, of acting upon, while the response made by the faithful is always one of receiving and of being acted upon. This, of course, is the very point of the metaphor of planting or sowing the seed versus taking it into the womb of the ground where it germinates and bears fruit.

 it should be said that Holy Mass is not a moment of private prayer or a Scripture study, but a public liturgical act offered to God by Jesus Christ the Eternal High Priest, at the hands of ministers who are conformed, more or less perfectly, to the image of this High Priest.

 it should be said that denying that ministers in the sanctuary need to be conformed to the Eternal High Priest as regards their human constitution amounts to a denial of the mystery of the Incarnation, in which the Son of God became not just human (homo), but a man (vir). Hence, although a lector need not be ordained, it is fitting that the lector be ordainable, that is, one who is of such a nature as to reflect the concrete personal identity of the Incarnate Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth.

When the Church, for her part, needs a ruler, teacher, or sanctifier, she chooses and appoints a man, for no one else can represent the face, the voice, and the hands of Jesus Christ… it is strictly a matter of who may formally act in His person (in persona Christi), when making present His redemptive action upon us who receive its fruits.

Since only a man can be the image of Christ in His total incarnational reality, Christ chose only males to exercise His priesthood at the altar of sacrifice, as foreshadowed by the priests of the Old Covenant.

What we see here, is that the author is totally ignorant of the ecclesiology which the Church teaches in the Second Vatican Council.  To this “noteworthy traditional Catholic scholar” the ministers at the Mass: the acolytes, lectors, and others in the sanctuary are extensions of the (ordained) priest.  He does not understand that all who serve in the Liturgy—including those members of the assembly—do so by right of their baptism and not in persona sacerdotis.  Furthermore, he sees that only the priest “represents” Christ and fails to understand that the assembly itself—the entire assembly including the ordained priest(s)—are there not merely as “representatives” of Christ but as the true Risen Body of Christ.   Christ is not present by “representation” but is there in his Real Presence as his Body the Church.  Furthermore, it is not only the priest who is called to be “conformed” to Christ but every Christian at his or her baptism is given this vocation.  This is not to deny that the sacrament of Orders confers on the priest a unique charism not shared by all the baptized but it is to contextualize that charism within the community of the Church and not to make it a possession of the priest independent of the entire Communion of the Church.  In other words, this guy doesn’t know jack about ecclesiology, the theology of Holy Orders, or the theology of Baptism.  His Christian anthropology is way off.  And when it comes to his Christology, he is in formal heresy.  I can only wonder if his cited hero, Saint Thomas Aquinas, is in heaven laughing his glorified rear end off or weeping in despair for being cited as an authority by this wingbat.   But wait, it gets worse (or better, depending on your sense of perspective). He (I can only presume the author is a man; it pains me to think that a woman would be so imprisoned in self-loathing to hold these ideas) writes:

The Church allows married couples to have relations out of motives of lust so long as they remain open to life, but that is hardly the ideal of conjugal intimacy. Thus, merely because something is allowed does not mean it is, or should be, encouraged. For, as the Apostle says in a similar context, “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful” (1 Cor 6:12).

For those of us who have not spent our school days being “entertained” behind the organ in the chapel, there is a via media between “motives of lust” and “open(ness) to life.”  Those of us who are not hopelessly baffled by human sexuality believe—if indeed we have not experienced it—that there is such a thing as longing for union with one’s spouse, a desire for true communion with the other which is expressed most profoundly in love making.  There comes a time for most of us where we have moved beyond the rages of lust and seek to both give and receive this foretaste of the heavenly bliss which is at the center of the Sacrament of Matrimony.  Perhaps Benedict Constable is a wizened old celibate who has spent his life fighting off temptations once so easily yielded to at Harrow, but celibate or married, if he were a sexually well adjusted person he would never have written that passage.  Indeed if he were a well balanced individual he would never have written this article.    

Why history?

Let’s take a time out from the march of history and talk about "why do a history blog?". There are many voices around claiming to have a monopoly on what it means to be a Catholic. There are web presences like “Trinity Communications” that “rate” sites for their Catholic “orthodoxy.” There are sites like “Restore DC Catholicism,” “The Defender,” “The Saint Catherine Review,” “The Cardinal Newman Society,” “The Catholic Media Coalition,” “Catholic Citizens of Illinois” Michael Voris and “Real Catholic T.V.” and dozens of others who claim to be authentic Catholic voices yet are no more than the opinionated voices of individuals or groups who very often use a “Catholic” identity to mask other agendas—political, economic, or social. Their particular views on Catholicism and misrepresentations of our Catholic Tradition is best countered by a knowledge of the history of the Church which shows just how rich and varied our Catholic heritage and Tradition is. Very often Catholics think that the Church into which many of us were born and in which we grew up—the American Catholicism of the 1950’s—represents historic Catholicism. Well it does, sort of. It was one flower on the abundant vine of the Catholic Church, a flower of a very different color or scent than the Catholicism of medieval France or that of seventh-century Ireland or that of second century Rome. Things that we thought always and everywhere were: Mass in Latin, celibacy for the clergy, papal infallibility, seven sacraments, confession, kneeling at mass, communion on the tongue, nuns in habits, calling priest “Father” never were either “always” nor “everywhere.” History can shed a very different light on things. One might be surprised to know that “Mr. Carroll,” as our first bishop was known to his contemporaries, normally wore ordinary clothes in public—granted, of a dark color and with out ornamentation; pews in church were a Protestant innovation, Kneeling at Sunday Mass was banned by the same Council that gave us the Creed we recite on Sundays, and communion rails were an Anglican custom that we borrowed. It surprises people to know that even before Vatican II, the papal altars in the four Roman basilicas always “faced the people,” that Vincent de Paul wanted his Daughters of Charity to live in rented apartments not convents, and that Thomas Aquinas did not believe in the Immaculate Conception. Our history can be very enlightening, very freeing, and also show us that many of the “changes” of the last forty years are not “innovations” but restorations of more ancient practices of the Church. So that is one reason to do a blog like this. Some of us believe in real “Tradition” and know there was a Catholic Church long before there was a Baltimore Catechism and even before there was a Roman Missal. Our image today is a medieval sculpture from the facade of Lucca Catheral showing mass facing the people 500 years before the Second Vatican Council.

More on those wonderful ladies--what is the Vatican's problem?

I want to get away from the anti-Catholicism material for awhile. There is still much on that topic as we trace both the end of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century as well as some current aspects. This anti-Catholicism series seems rather popular, but there are other topics to talk about and I want to return—just for today—to the topic of the Vatican Investigation of American Nuns. Most Catholics don’t know enough about the history of religious life to be able to put the issues the investigation is pursuing in the proper context. Those of us “of a certain age” grew up with “nuns”—they taught us in school, nursed us in the local hospital, and we would see the in the street or shops with their long dresses that swept the floor and their modest veils that hid all but their face—and sometimes a good share of that. I did some earlier blogs (January 14 and 19) to explain the difference between “nuns” and “sisters.” The ladies we saw in the street or who taught us in school were not nuns at all, but sisters. And the origins of nuns and sisters is quite different—as is their role in the Church. I spent this past week in a monastery of nuns giving some talks. Some of those nuns had, earlier in their lives, been sisters. Nuns are contemplative religious, almost always living an “enclosed” (cloistered) life while sisters collaborate in the apostolic work of the Church in a wide variety of ministries. In one of the earlier blogs I mentioned the story of the remarkable English woman, Mary Ward, who in the height of Elizabethan England and its persecution of the Church, founded a community of women who did not wear a habit, were not bound to the traditional choral prayers in chapel, and whose mission, modeled on the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) and their work with young men, was to educate young women. This in a time, incidentally, when even women of the upper classes were not thought to need anything more I the way of education than reading and perhaps some penmanship, a smattering of French, some music, needlework, and how to administer a household.
Another religious community of sisters was founded just a few years later. Vincent de Paul was a pious French priest with an extraordinary compassion for the poor and suffering. This may have originated in his having been captured by Moorish pirates and forced into slavery for several years before he could escape. Monsieur Vincent traveled in some of the most exalted ecclesiastical and social circles of the day and was known for his deep spirituality and an outstanding ability to preach retreats. He avoided fame, however, and took a living in a rural parish far from Paris. In his love for the poor he organized confraternities of socially prominent women to help the poor and the sick. These women were called the “Ladies of Charity.” For most of these socialites work among the poor was a diversion more than an evangelical commitment. Their hearts were in the right place and they opened their purses, but in accord with the aristocratic tenor of 17th century France, tended to send their servants to do the actual hands-on care. Vincent met the wealthy and pious widow, Louise de Marillac sometime about 1625 and served as her spiritual director—mostly by letter as she lived in Paris and he in the rural parish of Châtillon-les-Dombes. But Vincent’s preaching and his fame as a spiritual director and a seminary administrator led to him being recalled to Paris. There he and Mde. de Marillac organized a group of poor girls into a community to serve the poor and sick. They began working at the Hotel-Dieu, the ancient hospital across the parvis from Notre Dame Cathedral. The community grew rapidly as it provided the sisters with both a mission and a deep spirituality. This spirituality, much like the one of Mother Theresa of Calcutta four centuries later—was eminently practical, uniting prayer and work, with the sisters being encouraged to see Christ in each of the poor they encountered. But Monsieur Vincent and Mde. de Marillac did not see these women as nuns. To avoid the canon law requiring enclosure, their vows were private “simple” (not Solemn Vows) vows, taken not for life but annually renewed. Contrasting their life with that of nuns, St. Vincent de Paul admonished them:
• for a monastery, only the houses of the sick,
• for cell, a rented room,
• for chapel, the parish church,
• for cloister, the streets of the city,
• for enclosure, obedience,
• for grille, the fear of God,
• for veil, holy modesty
Well, isn’t it just that attitude that gets Rome to conduct a visitation? How ironic. By the way, you may—if you are old enough—remember that until 1964 the Daughters of charity wore these distinctive white starched cornettes instead of a veil. Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillace had them in grey dresses (later blue-grey) with these white starched headpieces. At the time they were founded those white winged bonnets were the typical headwear of Parisian working-class and serving women, but as with so many “habits,” lay fashions changed and what once was ordinary lay dress became a distinctive habit. When the Sisters gave up the cornette in 1964 it was replaced by a simple (but elegant) blue dress and scarf-like cap designed by Christian Dior.

The image today is a photo of Daughters of Charity wearing the traditional French cornettes they wore until the mid-sixties.