Hermeneutic of Conspiracy

Pentin on the reshuffle at CDW

At the National Catholic Register, Edward Pentin has some good analysis of the recent reshuffle at the Congregation for Divine Worship, and what the personnel changes will mean for the prefect, Robert Cardinal Sarah. Initial reports suggested that the Holy Father had cleaned house, ousted the members of the Congregation known to be liturgical traditionalists, and essentially moved the clock back to the bad old days of the 1970s and 1980s. Pentin suggests that it might not be as bad as all that. Pentin observes:

Pope Francis made a major overhaul last week to the membership of the Vatican’s department for the liturgy, but his new appointments are not quite as sweeping as some had suggested, according to a full list of previous and new members obtained by the Register.

On Oct. 28, the Vatican announced the Holy Father had appointed 27 new members to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, many of whom come from a wide variety of nations to give the dicastery an international character.

However, although the Pope dismissed such prominent cardinals as Raymond Burke, Marc Ouellet and George Pell, he renewed the membership of nine others, including Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, a former secretary of the congregation under Benedict XVI; Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary; and Cardinal Peter Erdö, the former general rapporteur at the synod on the family.

Like those who have been replaced, these three renewed members are known to be “Ratzingerians,” closely aligned to Benedict XVI’s vision for the Church. (See below for full list of names.)

(Emphasis supplied.) Pentin informs us later that Cardinal Bagnasco of Genoa, a prelate likely seen as closer to Benedict’s style than Francis’s, has also been reappointed to the Congregation. Interestingly, the Holy Father has dismissed at least one of his own men; Cardinal Mamberti, appointed to replace Cardinal Burke as the prefect of the Apostolic Signatura and quickly elevated to the purple, for example, was dismissed. Pentin goes on to write:

The majority of the Pope’s new choices have a distinctly preferential approach to Blessed Paul VI’s Novus Ordo Missae, the “ordinary form” of the liturgy most widely used in the Latin Church today, as opposed to being adherents of the Mass in Latin or the Tridentine Mass of the 1962 Roman Missal, designated by Pope Benedict XVI as the “extraordinary form” of the liturgy in his 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum.

Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, favors the approach encouraged by Benedict, the retention of a more traditional approach to the liturgy. He supports what is called a “Reform of the Reform,” meaning the implementation of the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the way the Council Fathers intended.

[…]

Some have read these latest appointments as being made in opposition to Cardinal Sarah. However, the Vatican source said the cardinal “still holds all the cards”; and although he may feel isolated (his junior officials, appointed by Francis, are also firm adherents of the new Mass), the source said it’s unlikely any of the members would “bang their fists on the table” to demand change or Cardinal Sarah’s removal.

(Emphasis supplied and hyperlinks in original.) Indeed, Pentin’s Vatican sources report that Cardinal Sarah, as prefect of the Congregation, will be firmly in charge of the Congregation’s agenda and day-to-day operations. When the Holy Father wants to reduce a prelate’s prominence, he knows how. For example, Cardinal Pell, once given sweeping financial powers, has found himself essentially a glorified auditor, with the balance of actual power shifting back to the Secretariat of State and APSA. And when the Holy Father wants to fire someone, he knows how. Ask Cardinal Burke. Perhaps Pentin has a point, then.

However, as an exercise in image and the politics of gestures, it is hard to say that the Holy Father has not made his preferences known. That is, by dismissing some prelates very clearly in line with Benedict’s project and appointing several very prominent liturgical progressives from the reign of John Paul II, it is clear (we think it is clear, at any rate) that the Holy Father has emphasized, however you want to characterize the emphasis, a very different liturgical direction than the one Cardinal Sarah had marked out.

Women’s ordination and Anglican orders

As we mentioned yesterday, the Holy Father has poured a measure of cold water on the hopes of the progressives in the Church who wish to see women ordained to the priesthood. Responding to a question during one of his famous in-flight press conferences, the Holy Father stated that St. John Paul’s Ordinatio sacerdotalis is the final word on the question. This has provoked the all-too-predictable outrage from progressives. Read the comments here, for a taste.  Generally, despite the Church’s clarification that Ordinatio sacerdotalis is infallible, even if it is not an ex cathedra exercise of the extraordinary papal magisterium (though one might argue that it is such an exercise), the progressives argue, for a variety of reasons, that John Paul got it wrong. Now, this is based in a faulty understanding of the Church and the deposit of faith; progressives (and some conservatives) see the Church as a political entity with the choice to define its doctrine.

With this ecclesial vision firmly in mind, the progressives’ argument proceeds as it often does; that is, on grounds of fairness and inclusion. So far, they hold, the Church has chosen to define its doctrine to “unfairly” “exclude” women from the priesthood. If this sounds like the recent argument over admitting bigamists to Holy Communion, it’s because the progressives don’t have a very deep bench, in terms of arguments. But, of course, we know better, dear reader. The Church is not a political entity and the Church does not get a choice in its doctrine. The Church must obey the apostolic mandate—indeed, a mandate arguably founded in divine law—to hand on what it received, and to do so faithfully, neither adding to nor subtracting from the deposit of faith. This is why the universal ordinary magisterium is so important, especially when it is specifically confirmed by a pope, who is the visible sign of the unity of the Church.

But if the progressives are right and the magisterium is just a political choice, what other choices have the popes gotten wrong? Consider Leo XIII’s Apostolicae curae, for example, which declared Anglican orders “absolutely null and utterly void.” The question of the validity of Anglican orders was hotly litigated until Leo settled the question. But some have noted that, ultimately, the decision to issue Apostolicae curae was based upon the “politicking” of Herbert Cardinal Vaughan, then the archbishop of Westminster, an opponent of early ecumenical efforts between Catholics and Anglicans. This, then, ought to be in the progressives’ wheelhouse. Indeed, the argument that Leo issued Apostolicae curae for purely political reasons is stronger than the argument that John Paul issued Ordinatio sacerdotalis for political reasons. Thus, by the progressives’ standards, it is no less likely that Leo XIII got it wrong when he said that Anglican orders were “absolutely null and utterly void” than it is when John Paul II said that women cannot be ordained to the priesthood of the New Testament.

A brief aside. Though we hope that our faint humor—very faint, most likely—is obvious enough, we emphasize here that we are joking. Certainly men and women of good will can disagree about the circumstances that led to Apostolicae curae, or whether subsequent developments in the Church of England have affected the applicability of the bull. On with the joke.

Progressives may decide, therefore, that Leo XIII did get it wrong and that Anglican orders are valid. There are, then, any number of churches or ecclesial communities or whatever that have preserved apostolic succession and the sacraments. Certainly, the Catholic Church has done so, but the Orthodox and the Anglicans have, too. And one might argue that anyone in communion with the Anglicans has, but we needn’t go that far down the path. So, we can return to their original problem, which is that the Catholic Church teaches that women may not be ordained to the priesthood of the New Testament as a matter of divine law. They think St. John Paul II got it wrong when he confirmed the universal ordinary magisterium by a definitive act. But another ecclesial community, the Church of England (and many other Anglican groups), holds that women may be ordained to the priesthood of the New Testament. Indeed, the Anglicans ordain women not merely to the presbyterate but also to the episcopate. And, remember, we have already decided that the Anglicans have valid orders and apostolic succession because we have already decided that Leo XIII whiffed his big decision, too.

The question, then, is why do the progressives stay formally in communion with Rome? Once you decide that the magisterial acts of this or that pope are subject to review and contradiction—indeed, once you decide that they are merely political acts of the head of a political organization—you can read yourself into all sorts of interesting ideas. The entire world opens up before you, almost as if you are standing on the pinnacle of the Temple or on a high mountain, to take two places entirely at random. The foregoing exercise is entirely reasonable from their standpoint. You can read yourself into ultramontane Anglo-Catholicism that includes the ordination of women, if you want. So why stay in the Church of Rome? Is it simply because they are a disaffected wing of a political party, waiting for more propitious circumstances at the next party conference? Certainly that is how many progressives have acted since well before the Council, and why so many of them clamor for a new council that will, at long last, make the Church as vibrant as the Presbyterians or the liberal Lutherans. But could it be something deeper, a sense that, despite dreary progressive theology and drearier progressive politics, there is something True at the heart of the Church, which cannot be cast aside so lightly as all that?

 

The Holy Father pours cold water on women’s ordination?

Like many readers, we follow the Holy Father’s in-flight press conferences closely, since they appear to be, if not an action of his papal magisterium, then a means of communication close to his heart. Following the Holy Father’s recent trip to Sweden, he was asked a question about women’s ordination. You may recall that he recently established a commission to explore the historical aspects of deaconesses. While Benedict XVI’s Omnium in mentem severed in some way—or, more precisely, concretized finally a process of severing that began with Lumen gentium—the diaconate from the episcopate and the presbyterate, it has nevertheless been seen by many that the push for deaconesses is but the thin end of the wedge for women’s ordination into the presbyterate and episcopate. This is, obviously, one of the great dreams of progressives in the Church today. But the Holy Father appears to draw a bright line under St. John Paul II’s Ordinatio sacerdotalis, which teaches infallibly that women may not be ordained.

Here is Hannah Brockhaus’s coverage at the National Catholic Register:

During a press conference Tuesday aboard the papal plane from Sweden to Rome, Pope Francis said the issue of women priests has been clearly decided, while also clarifying the essential role of women in the Catholic Church.

“On the ordination of women in the Catholic Church, the final word is clear, it was said by St. John Paul II and this remains,” Pope Francis told journalists Nov. 1.

The question concerning women priests in the Church was asked during the flight back to Rome after the Pope’s Oct. 31-Nov. 1 trip to Sweden to participate in a joint Lutheran-Catholic commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

(Emphasis supplied.) Brockhaus goes on to note that the Holy Father has been clear on this point previously, citing Ordinatio sacerdotalis repeatedly:

In a press conference returning from Rio de Janeiro on Aug. 5, 2013, he answered the same question: “with reference to the ordination of women, the Church has spoken and says, ‘No.’ John Paul II said it, but with a definitive formulation. That is closed, that door.”

He said that on the theology of woman he felt there was a “lack of a theological development,” which could be developed better. “You cannot be limited to the fact of being an altar server or the president of Caritas, the catechist … No! It must be more, but profoundly more, also mystically more.”

On his return flight from Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families Sept. 28, 2015, the Pope again said that women priests “cannot be done,” and reiterated that a theology of women needs to “move ahead.”

“Pope St. John Paul II after long, long intense discussions, long reflection said so clearly,” that female ordination is not possible, he said.

(Emphasis supplied.) However, it is unclear to us the extent that the Holy Father sees the question of deaconesses as inextricably tied up with the broader question of women’s ordination, which he apparently views as settled by Ordinatio sacerdotalis.

As we noted at the time, some members of the Holy Father’s deaconess commission are known to be advocates for the ordination of women at least to the diaconate. The argument of Phyllis Zagano, for example, is that while Ordinatio sacerdotalis (probably, she would say) settles the question of ordination to the presbyterate and, a fortiori, the episcopate, it does not settle the question of ordination to the diaconate. In other words, the question of deaconesses is not connected to the questions answered by Ordinatio sacerdotalis. Of course, such an argument likely creates disunities within Holy Orders and immediately serves to create two tiers of ordained ministers. Which is the next step in the argument from the advocates for women’s ordination, to be sure. At least, it has always been the argument.

So, while it is greatly cheering to hear the Holy Father reaffirm simply and directly the infallible pronouncement of John Paul II, we are left wondering what his overall picture of the situation is. Does he, like Zagano and her associates, think that Ordinatio sacerdotalis is limited to the episcopate and presbyterate? Or does he think that the diaconate is somehow off to one side? Certainly he would not err if he considered the diaconate somehow different. The fathers of the Second Vatican Council, St. John Paul, and Benedict each considered it as somehow separate from the episcopate and presbyterate. However, the extent of the difference is, we think, an open question.

 

But the world looks just the same

Today the Holy Father has announced a new slate of appointments to the Congregation for Divine Worship. Gone are prelates known to be sympathetic to traditional liturgy and orthodox doctrine, such as Cardinals Bagnasco, Burke, Ouellet, Pell, Ranjith, and Scola. In their place are prelates like the well known Archbishop Piero Marini, formerly responsible for so many of the most unforgettable liturgies of St. John Paul II, along with many of the Holy Father’s recent, characteristic cardinals. In other words, the Holy Father has cleaned out quite a few of his ideological and liturgical opponents and brought in men who are very much simpatico with his outlook.

The immediate consequence of these appointments is that Robert Cardinal Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, finds himself without many notable allies among the membership of the Congregation. His principal deputies, also selected by the Holy Father, are, we suspect, on a very different page in many important regards. And this, of course, follows the public rebuke he endured as a result of his suggestion that priests celebrate versus apsidem more often. But more than that, the so-called reform of the reform under Benedict is finally over. Whatever Cardinal Sarah hoped to accomplish, we suspect that those plans are on hold for the foreseeable future.

What happens when you don’t get the red hat?

The Dutch blog In Caelo et in Terra has a long, fascinating post on Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard, the first archbishop of Brussels since 1832 not to be named a cardinal, now that his successor, Jozef De Kesel, has been given the red hat. The phenomenon of the Holy Father overlooking traditionally cardinalatial sees is not unknown in the United States. Archbishops Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, Allen Vigneron of Detroit (and, in a bit of ecclesiastical trivia, the Cayman Islands), and José Gomez of Los Angeles have all been passed over in recent consistories. We were particularly surprised that Archbishop Chaput was not named a cardinal in this consistory, given the Holy Father’s first-hand experience of the good work he is doing in Philadelphia. There are numerous justifications advanced for why this or that traditionally cardinalatial see is not graced with the red hat, including declining demographics in some traditionally very Catholic cities. However, we do not think we are saying anything particularly shocking when we observe that the Holy Father has preferred to elevate men to the cardinalate who are broadly in line with his outlook, unlike St. John Paul and Benedict XVI, both of whom seemed to make it a point of pride to raise theological and pastoral opponents to the purple.

At any rate, we won’t spoil the translations of Archbishop Léonard’s comments by quoting them here, instead urging you to visit In Caelo et in Terra to read the whole thing. They are quite interesting, not least because Archbishop Léonard does admit some disappointment in being the first (now only) archbishop of Brussels not to be named a cardinal. Too often, one sees the same anodyne, politically correct comments on controversial subjects. Usually it is like listening to Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots in one of his famously bland, taciturn postgame press conferences. Therefore, it is nice to see—at least we think it is nice to see—a human reaction from a high prelate, even if we wish the reaction had been to a happier subject.

A little bit of good news

There was a little bright spot in the recent drumbeat of bad news when Edward Pentin reported that Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the Society of St. Pius X, met with not only high officials of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith but also with the Holy Father. As you may recall, in June, following a meeting of major superiors of the Society, a couple of communiques were released, which, while not precluding the possibility of unilateral action by Rome, made it clear that the Society’s priorities were its work of priestly formation and its apostolic work, not negotiating a final settlement with the Roman authorities. This was a little disappointing, since rumors were flying that the Holy Father had made a canonical recognition of the Society a major priority and, indeed, such a recognition was imminent. (More in a moment why the Society might have pulled back from negotiations.) As a Society spokesman told Pentin, the meeting, while not hugely productive, does show that discussions are ongoing.

Pentin also links to an English translation of part of a conference Bishop Fellay gave in France about a week ago. As you might expect from Bishop Fellay, it is a precise, clear-eyed, and charitable summary of the situation with the Roman authorities, particularly the apparent disagreement between Archbishop Guido Pozzo, secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, and his boss, Gerhard Ludwig Cardinal Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. A sample:

The second point is that they had crossed out everything concerning religious liberty and ecumenism. They no longer demanded anything of us. That is interesting! Why are they doing this? In this first interview granted to Zenit in February (February 28, 2016, Editor’s note) we see that it is necessary nevertheless to accept the whole Council. But in fact there are degrees. And this idea will be clarified in April (La Croix, April 7, 2016). And here this becomes particularly interesting, because all of a sudden they go and tell us that what was produced by the Council but is not dogmatic, in other words, all the Declarations—the declaration to the world [?! Sic], etc.—are not criteria for being Catholic, according to Abp. Pozzo. What does this mean? “You are not obliged to agree in order to be Catholic.” That is what he started to say when speaking about the Society. And to us, explicitly, he said: “On religious liberty, on ecumenism, on Nostra Aetate, on the liturgical reform, you can maintain your position.” When I heard that, I found it so amazing that I told him, “There is a possibility that I may have to ask you to come and tell us that, because our confreres are not going to believe me.” And still today, I think that it is legitimate to ask the question: is this serious? Is it true or not? Abp. Pozzo actually gave several interviews. I quoted for you the one in April, then there were the ones in July (Zenit, July 4, 2016, and Christ und Welt, July 28, 2016). Between these two dates, in June, his superior, Cardinal Müller, said the contrary (Herder Korrespondenz, June 2016). Therefore you have on the one side Abp. Pozzo who is the Secretary of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, who said in public (in La Croix, April 7, 2016): “‘The statements of articles of faith and of sure Catholic doctrine contained in the documents of Vatican Council II must be accepted according to the degree of adherence required,’ the Italian bishop continued, restating the distinction between dogma and certain Decrees or Declarations containing ‘directives for pastoral activity, guidelines and suggestions or exhortations of a practical and pastoral character’, as is the case especially with Nostra Aetate that inaugurated dialogue with non-Christian religions. The latter ‘will constitute, after a canonical recognition as well, a subject for discussion and more in-depth study with a view to greater precision, so as to avoid misunderstandings or ambiguities which, we know, are widespread in the contemporary ecclesial world.’” That is very interesting.

(Emphasis supplied.) We encourage you to read the whole thing. It is fascinating and deeply informative, especially since one wonders how it is possible to negotiate when high officials of the CDF itself cannot seem to agree about the Conciliar texts.

Catholic America: Civil War

In a series of tweets, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat addresses the recent release by Wikileaks of an email in which Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta apparently claims to have been behind setting up Catholic groups with the explicit goal of changing the Church’s doctrine on certain points. Douthat begins:

Read the whole thing there. (You may have to scroll down to see the whole series of tweets.) It is essentially Douthat’s argument that the Podesta email provides a window into how Catholic “civil war” is fought.

But Douthat’s argument seems to rely on a concept of Podesta, his Center for American Progress colleagues, and the rest of the leadership of these groups, including Christopher Jolly Hale, head of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG), as essentially dissenting Catholics. That is, these Catholics disagree with settled doctrine of the Church—including, notably, the Church’s teachings on contraception and women’s ordination, doctrine that has been infallibly proclaimed by the popes—and they think they can change that doctrine. They cannot, and, indeed, it is folly to think they can. But that’s not the point; they want to. But they’re not likely to find help from within the Church, so they have to go to secular progressives for assistance. Now, there are some problems with this narrative.

Before turning to the problems, however, it is fair to note that Douthat is probably correct when he talks about a “civil war” among Catholics. Some might quail at such imagery, but given the ferocity of the conflicts throughout the 20th century and even to the present day between, broadly speaking, traditionalists and progressives (though we can be clinical and call them by their name: modernists), it is not unreasonable imagery. This conflict has taken on mostly moral dimensions. That is, people are far more concerned with the Church’s moral teaching than, for example, the implications of the metaphysics imposed by Dei Filius. We have, for the past couple of years, seen a prime example of this conflict in the ongoing debate over whether and on what terms bigamists may approach the Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord. So, when Douthat talks about a civil war, we’re inclined to agree with his assessment. However, we think Douthat’s connection between the Podesta leak and the ongoing struggles in the Church requires some clarification or nuance or whatever on a couple of points.

First, Douthat seems to assume that progressives need help in these fights. However, it is not a secret that progressives in the Church have long been able to find significant support from within the hierarchy. And the progressives in the Church, therefore, have always operated with relative impunity. While it is pleasant for them, apparently, to pretend as though they are being chased through the swamps by St. Pius X and a band of Dominicans while hounds bay in the distance, it is pure fantasy. (Indeed, if one wanted to criticize St. John Paul or Benedict XVI, one would observe that they were far too fond of promoting dissenters.) From the proceedings of the Council to the implementation of the Novus Ordo to the suppression of the traditional Latin Mass to the social agenda of the Church, the progressives have been able to achieve their will with relative ease. It is only on a few points—points upon which the intervention of the Holy Spirit may be felt especially clearly—that they have been thwarted: contraception, women’s ordination, and the like.

But this isn’t really the issue. Assume that the progressive Catholics haven’t had essentially fifty years of winning all but a handful of internal disputes. Such a suggestion might be nothing more than the bitter grousing of a traditionally minded Catholic who wants everything to return to 1954. Say it is. It does not change the fact that these organizations—CACG and Catholics United—are not really instances of Catholics running for help from secular progressives. They’re instances of secular progressives, who are incidentally Catholic, creating organizations intended to advance their secular agenda inside the Church. Furthermore, given the proximity of these individuals to state authority, both historically and prospectively, there is some cause for concern, which today Archbishop Kurtz, president of the USCCB, about state interference in Church affairs, addressed, if obliquely. This is the second, and more serious, problem with Douthat’s argument. Indeed, we think Douthat misses the mark when he says that this whole affair provides a window into a sort of civil war within the Church.

And it is the specter of state interference that is most concerning. Perhaps Podesta’s associates will refuse to take the call when President Hillary Clinton’s likely chief of staff, Neera Tanden (Podesta’s successor as head of the Center for American Progress), calls to complain about the intransigence of the Catholic Church on any number of President Clinton’s policies. Assume it’s the repeal of the lifesaving Hyde Amendment. But it could be anything. Perhaps they won’t take her call. And perhaps, if they do take her call, they’ll tell her that they won’t help her put pressure on the bishops to back down. It’s possible. Really. It is possible. Maybe. One knows, instinctively, that power doesn’t work that way, of course. Least of all in a city like Washington, D.C.

John Podesta’s Catholic connections

The secret is out. As part of Wikileaks’ ongoing leak of the emails of John Podesta, a 2011 email exchange between Podesta and a fellow named Sandy Newman was released. Ordinarily, nothing could be less interesting than the shop talk of a couple of veteran Democratic operatives. However, this email exchange is interesting because it states—it doesn’t suggest, it states—that Podesta was involved in setting up Catholic organizations that, well, putting it charitably, advocate essentially for Democratic viewpoints within the Church. The exchange implies, in fact, that these groups have as a goal undermining the Church’s hierarchy and doctrine. As Podesta’s boss advances toward the White House, the exchange takes on new relevance. And it ultimately ought to give Catholics very serious pause when they evaluate organizations claiming to represent constituencies in the Church.

You can read the whole exchange at Wikileaks, but the thrust of it is this: Newman was complaining to Podesta about the perceived intransigence of the Catholic bishops on the Obamacare contraceptive mandate. Newman called for a “Catholic Spring,” a reference to “Arab Spring” and other similar movements, which conceivably would involve rank-and-file Catholics rising up and demanding that the Church change its infallible teaching regarding contraception. Podesta responded to Newman with something very interesting; he says, “We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a moment like this. But I think it lacks the leadership to do so now. Likewise Catholics United.” (Emphasis supplied.) A staff reporter from the Catholic Herald provides a very good overview, too, of the emails and the implications.

Podesta is, of course, a major figure in Democratic politics. Currently, he is a top official in Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. But, before that, he was a player in Bill Clinton’s administration, finally becoming White House chief of staff toward the end of Clinton’s presidency. After that, he was a Democratic lobbyist and think-tank boss. But he remained in the Clintons’ orbit. And when Hillary Clinton announced her current—potentially successful—bid for the presidency, he came on board as the campaign’s chairman. In other words, John Podesta has been a very heavy hitter in Democratic circles for a very long time. And there is, therefore, every reason to believe that Podesta knows what the Democratic establishment has and has not done as far as establishing so-called astroturf (i.e., fake grassroots) organizations. We are not inclined to dismiss Podesta’s statement out of hand.

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, which purports to be “[p]romoting Pope Francis’s politics of inclusion throughout the United States,” is led by Christopher Jolly Hale. It takes a range of positions, and generally tries to stake out a pro-life position within the Democratic Party. Catholics United, which does not appear to be a going concern at the moment, was the project of Chris Korzen and James Salt. Based upon publicly available information, it seems to have been largely an advocacy outreach by the Democratic Party to Catholics. For his part, Chris Hale has put out a predictably outraged statement, which reads in part:

When I woke up this morning, I never thought our organization would get caught up in WikiLeaks drama.

Prominent commentators have used a stolen e-mail from 2011 (while I was a 21-year-old college student) about our organization in an attempt to impugn both our integrity and our organization’s work.

So let’s set the record straight: every day, my colleagues and I work tirelessly to promote the social mission of Pope Francis and the Catholic Church in American politics, media, and culture. 

Politics is messy. Lived faith is messy. So this work isn’t always easy. You’re bound to make everyone mad at least once.

(Italics in original; emphasis supplied.) It is, of course, ironic that Hale would claim the mantle of Pope Francis, who, while archbishop of Buenos Aires, was locked in more or less perpetual combat with the president of Argentina. But, for reasons well known to any reader of Semiduplex, the first thing progressive dissenters do when they want to enervate the Church’s teachings is wrap themselves in Francis’s mantum.

But back to the matter at hand. It may be worth noting that at no point in the press release does Hale actually deny Podesta’s statement that Catholics in Alliance was founded by Democratic operatives to advance a Democratic agenda inside the Church. He just claims that he was in college when Podesta wrote the email. This is, of course, a non sequitur. One has very little to do with the other. At any rate, as leader of the organization, Hale ought to know—the Catholic Herald was able to find out, any rate—that Catholics in Alliance was founded in 2005 by Tom Periello. (One assumes that Chris Hale was in high school or whatever then.) Currently its chairman is a man named Fred Rotondaro. The Catholic Herald reports that both Periello and Rotondaro are senior fellows in Podesta’s think tank. In other words, in addition to Podesta having some authority by virtue of his position in Democratic politics, solid reporting shows that Catholics in Alliance was founded by people very close to Podesta. To put it in legal terms, the circumstantial evidence corroborates very strongly Podesta’s statement.

For some reason, Hale neglects to mention this in his press release. Of course, if his best argument is that he was in college when Podesta’s close associates set up an organization Podesta claimed to have set up, we can understand why Hale wouldn’t want to talk about it. But no problem ever went away by ignoring it, and Hale most certainly has a problem.

And Hale’s problem is not limited to the founding of the group. He claims that Catholics in Alliance has no intention of dividing the Church against itself. However, that is not quite the same thing as saying that Catholics in Alliance does not seek to contradict the doctrine of the Church of Rome. In fact, whether Catholics in Alliance exists to undermine the doctrine of the Church is something you’ll have to judge for yourself, after reading the press clippings the group makes available so kindly on its website. Certainly Rotondaro himself, as the Catholic Herald reports, has taken positions in stark contrast to the Church’s, not only on contraception but also on women’s ordination (Hale, of course, is an enthusiastic supporter of deaconesses) and homosexual behavior. In this context, Hale says,

Many of our fellow Catholics disagree with some of our politics. And they should. That’s a sign of a healthy culture within the Church.

But I can say with strong conviction that we love our Catholic faith and the Church. Contrary to what others have said, my colleagues and I would never try to divide the Church against itself for political ends.

Judge us by our fruits. We’ve time and again challenged both Democrats and Republicans—often at some political cost—to be better stewards of the common good.

You can question our politics, but don’t ever question the sincerity of our faith or our love of the Catholic Church.

(Italics in original; emphasis supplied.) We agree with Hale, “The proof is in the pudding.” (Italics in original.)

Furthermore, we know, from other revelations, that other people in Podesta’s circle have not an enormous amount of use for the Church’s teachings. Addie Mena, a reporter for Catholic News Service, has reported on another of Podesta’s emails leaked by Wikileaks. In a 2011 email exchange, John Halpin and Jennifer Palmieri complained about conservative Catholics. Halpin is apparently a senior official at Podesta’s think tank. Palmieri is Hillary Clinton’s communications director. Halpin complained that conservative Catholics bastardized the faith and simply threw around Thomism and subsidiarity to appear clever. Palmieri attributed even less elevated motives to her coreligionists. At some level, it is not a surprise that these men and women are essentially progressive Catholics who are not hugely impressed with the Church’s traditional teachings. Just as the First Things crowd seeks a fusion between Catholics (and others) and the Republican Party, these people seek a fusion between Catholics and the Democratic Party. Of course, while a faithful Catholic has a passing hard time being a good Republican, a faithful Catholic simply cannot be a good Democrat.

One could assume that much. But what the Wikileaks releases indicate goes beyond mere contempt on the part of Democratic elites for the Church’s traditional teaching. It suggests that Democratic operatives have set up organizations in an attempt to bring the Church’s teaching in line with Democratic orthodoxy. These operatives are now in the circle of a woman who is, if the polls are to be believed, quite likely to be the next president of the United States. Do they intend to use these organizations to advocate for President Hillary Clinton’s policies? We already know that Clinton wants to advance the cause of abortion and contraception in the United States by repealing the life-saving Hyde Amendment. The bishops are sure to resist. Will White House employees use their connections with organizations like these, or any others that just happen to spring up, to urge Catholics to resist the Church’s teachings on these points. It is a frightening picture, to say the least. Bishop Richard Umbers, the auxiliary bishop of Sydney, Australia, and a prelate who understands social media, puts the matter succinctly in a tweet, calling the idea of a “Catholic Spring,” “[w]orrying signs of a desire for state interference in church creed & organisation.”

At the very least, Catholics now have good reason to be suspicious of advocacy groups that come along—claiming to represent “ordinary Catholics” or Pope Francis or any other constituency—who ultimately propound positions contrary to the settled teachings of the Church. Catholics are, of course, used to dissenters in our midst; indeed, the history of the Church since, oh, 1962 or so, has been one long process of dissent and reaction. But we have always assumed that progressives dissent simply because they do not actually like the Church all that much, and seek to make a church for themselves as doctrinally coherent and vibrant as the liberal Lutherans, the Anglicans, or the United Methodists. However, all of this suggests that some dissenters might have altogether more worldly motives.

“Amoris laetitia” and the Magisterium

When Amoris laetitia was first issued, you may recall the response of Raymond Cardinal Burke, well known to Catholics around the world, in the National Catholic Register:

The only key to the correct interpretation of Amoris Laetitia is the constant teaching of the Church and her discipline that safeguards and fosters this teaching. Pope Francis makes clear, from the beginning, that the post-synodal apostolic exhortation is not an act of the magisterium (3). The very form of the document confirms the same. It is written as a reflection of the Holy Father on the work of the last two sessions of the Synod of Bishops. For instance, in Chapter Eight, which some wish to interpret as the proposal of a new discipline with obvious implications for the Church’s doctrine, Pope Francis, citing his post-synodal apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, declares:

I understand those who prefer a more rigorous pastoral care which leaves no room for confusion. But I sincerely believe that Jesus wants a Church attentive to the goodness which the Holy Spirit sows in the midst of human weakness, a Mother who, while clearly expressing her objective teaching, “always does what good she can, even if in the process her shoes get soiled by the mud of the street” (308).

In other words, the Holy Father is proposing what he personally believes is the will of Christ for his Church, but he does not intend to impose his point of view, nor to condemn those who insist on what he calls “a more rigorous pastoral care.” The personal, that is, non-magisterial, nature of the document is also evident in the fact that the references cited are principally the final report of the 2015 session of the Synod of Bishops and the addresses and homilies of Pope Francis himself. There is no consistent effort to relate the text, in general, or these citations to the magisterium, the Fathers of the Church and other proven authors.

(Emphasis supplied, slightly reformatted, and hyperlinks in original.) This approach was not widely adopted by traditionally minded Catholics, not least since the Holy Father and the Holy Father’s favored interpreter of Amoris laetitia, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, O.P., have insisted, explicitly or implicitly, on the magisterial value of Amoris laetitia. In other words, no one except Cardinal Burke seemed to think Cardinal Burke had hit upon the right answer.

Today, at First Things, Jessica Murdoch, a Villanova University theologian, has a wonderful article about the magisterial weight of Amoris laetitia. Professor Murdoch’s whole essay is well worth reading, and we are tempted to quote the whole thing. The crucial point she makes is this:

Given these difficulties, what is to be made of Cardinal Schönborn’s assertion that Amoris Laetitia is a binding document of magisterial authority? His analysis is unpersuasive, for three principal reasons. First, the document lacks language of formal definition. A clear example of language of formal definition appears in Ordinatio Sacradotalis, wherein Pope John Paul II uses words such as “We teach and declare” to define the Church’s teaching on the priesthood. Contrast this with the language of Amoris Laetitia highlighted by Cardinal Schönborn: “I urgently ask”; “It is no longer possible to say”; and “I have wanted to present to the entire Church.” Second, Amoris Laetitia lacks the theological and juridical precision of binding ecclesial documents, instead relying upon metaphors, imagery, and thick description, rather than clear statements. And third, if, in fact, the document does contradict either natural or divine positive law, then it simply cannot bind the faithful to the obsequium religiosum, that is, the assent of mind and will, specified by Church Lumen Gentium 25.

(Emphasis supplied.) It bears noting, if briefly, that Cardinal Burke also pointed to the informal language and lack of “theological and juridical precision of binding ecclesial documents” in his assessment of Amoris laetitia. But Professor Murdoch unpacks very nicely for those of us who are not quite so theologically savvy what Cardinal Burke compressed into a very brief comment. And, while she treats only Amoris laetitia, it is possible to extend her reasoning to the letter to the Argentine bishops lately, which, of course, confirmed the Holy Father’s sense of what, exactly, Amoris laetitia did. Professor Murdoch goes on to note that,

The basic principles of the Church’s doctrine of infallibility provide substantive guidance here. First and foremost, the Petrine ministry participates in the infallibility of the deposit of Revelation. This is crucial to hold in view, because Revelation is ultimately the criterion of truth. The special, divine assistance of infallibility is a privilege attached to the Holy Father as the center of unity of the Church, yet this privilege is always given for the entire Church. Besides the infallibility attached to the Pope’s pronouncements taught with the fullness of his supreme authority (the “extraordinary magisterium”), the “ordinary magisterium” can also be a source of infallible teaching, when it concerns de fide doctrine (concerning faith and morals), when it is marked by unity and unanimity, and when it is proposed to be definitive and absolute teaching. Not every teaching of the ordinary magisterium, however, fulfills these criteria. Some teachings of the ordinary magisterium can be fallible, and do not command interior assent of mind and will, if such teachings are clearly contrary to reason, or to the natural law, or to the divine positive law.

(Emphasis supplied.) She then goes on to propose some practical principles for assessing the magisterial weight of not only Amoris laetitia but also any papal pronouncement. We won’t spoil that, however, other than to say that we were reminded of the greatest science-fiction movie of all time, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, by one of her points.

In short, Professor Murdoch adds some serious theological weight to Cardinal Burke’s opinion that Amoris laetitia does not have an excessive amount of magisterial weight. Perhaps it has some—after all, it is a formal teaching document of the Roman Pontiff—but given its informality of tone and its lack of precise definitions, it has magisterial weight insofar as it does not contradict natural law or divine law. Of course, the most serious aspect of the debate so far has been whether or not Amoris laetitia contradicts the divine law.

Read her whole essay, though. It is well, well worth your time.

 

Thomas Merton, Paul VI, and reform—liturgical and otherwise

It is no surprise when a traditionally minded Catholic criticizes the liturgical reforms following the Second Vatican Council. The reformers, particularly those in Annibale Bugnini’s circle, seemed to view the immemorial tradition of the Roman Rite as a burden to be lightened and an obstacle to be overcome, not a precious part of the faith of the Church to be protected and preserved. One expects to see defenders of the pure, apostolic faith—such as the great Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, the tragic hero of the Second Vatican Council—express reservations of the gravest sort about liturgical reform. It is, however, a surprise when someone not ordinarily considered a traditionally minded Catholic does so.

We were, therefore, surprised when we read Bellarmine University theologian Greg Hillis’s lengthy article about Thomas Merton’s reaction to the breakneck liturgical reforms of the 1960s. Indeed, Hillis’s piece has gotten some coverage from sources that probably do not follow him—or matters Merton—all that closely. He begins:

Alone in his hermitage on 22 September 1967 – a little over one year before his untimely death – Thomas Merton decided to make a recording. Because severe dermatitis in his hands hampered his ability to write, Merton used a tape recorder to dictate various things for a monk down at the monastery to type.

On occasion, however, he used the recorder for his own purposes, and on this day Merton recorded himself chanting in Latin the entirety of the Cistercian mass for the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost.

His journal entry for the day gives no clue as to why he did this, nor does he explain himself on the tape. But as one listens to Merton chant a liturgy with which he was deeply familiar after more than 25 years as a monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, one hears his love for the traditional liturgy, both in the brief explanations he provides about certain parts of the liturgy as well as in the passion with which he sings it.

(Emphasis supplied.) This is, of course, hugely interesting on its own. Merton is known primarily as a hermit, mystic, and writer. (That’s how we know him, at any rate.) His spiritual autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, is a classic of its kind. One is surprised, therefore, to hear that Merton took an opportunity to sing the traditional Cistercian Mass apparently simply for posterity’s sake. However, as Hillis explains, Merton’s attitudes on the liturgy and liturgical reform were complicated. While a supporter of some reform, Merton had reservations about the way the reform was carried out and what the reform entailed. In this regard, as we’ll see in a minute, he reminds us of Pope Paul himself. And we think—we’ll come back to this—that there is a lesson here for this moment in the life of the Church.

Hillis goes on to tell us that Merton was enthusiastic, in some regards, about Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Council’s decree on the liturgy, and the liturgical reforms that followed the Council. Merton died in 1968, so he would have known the reforms of Inter Oecumenici best. Tres abhinc annos was issued in May 1967, coming into effect about a month later. Thus, one may say that Merton was spared the most radical revisions to the Roman Rite and knew primarily the modest-in-comparison (though not particularly modest in objective terms) reforms of Inter Oecumenici. At any rate, Merton plainly was in sympathy with some of the motivating intentions of the reforms. Indeed,

According to Merton, the laity have become in some cases little more than spectators, detached from the liturgy and detached from one another, and because of this, the Eucharist as a sacrament of unity rooted in communion is lost. Hence Merton’s enthusiasm for the emphasis in Sacrosanctum Concilium on greater participation of laity in the liturgy: “The nature of the liturgy is such that if you don’t have everyone fully participating in it, you don’t have fully liturgical worship.”

Reform of the liturgy necessitates the full, conscious and active participation of the laity, for it is only through this that the true nature of the church is manifested in and through the liturgy. Whereas the Council of Trent emphasized Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and in the priest, Sacrosanctum Concilium completes the picture by emphasizing Christ’s presence in the communion of the faithful, a communion manifested in the union of all in the work of prayer and worship.

(Emphasis supplied.) Nevertheless, Merton understood that the problem—if it was a problem, and that itself remains a debatable and debated proposition—with the liturgy was not a problem with the Roman Rite itself, but a problem with the spirit in which the liturgy was performed. It is true, as Hillis demonstrates, Merton thought a spirit of openness and participation was needed. However, according to Hillis, Merton’s example of a liturgy motivated by a spirit of openness and full participation was a 1938 Mass he heard at Corpus Christi in New York City:

Interestingly, when Merton describes concretely what this kind of liturgy could look like, he appeals not to the new but to the old, pointing specifically to his experience of the liturgy at Corpus Christi parish in New York City in 1938. In this essay, he writes that it was in no small part because of the liturgy at Corpus Christi that he became a Catholic, a monk and a priest. What was it about the liturgy at Corpus Christi that set it apart?

“Corpus Christi had the same Roman liturgy as everyone else in 1938. It was just the familiar Mass that is now being radically reformed. There was nothing new or revolutionary about it; only that everything was well done, not out of aestheticism or rubrical obsessiveness, but out of love for God and His truth. It would certainly be ingratitude of me if I did not remember the atmosphere of joy, light, and at least relative openness and spontaneity that filled Corpus Christi at solemn High Mass.”

Merton tries here to steer a middle course between those calling for total reform with little regard for the tradition and those refusing to countenance reform of the old. There was, Merton writes, nothing of the new in the traditional Latin High Mass Merton experienced at Corpus Christi, but neither was the liturgy celebrated in order to be beautiful or out of slavish adherence to the rubrics. It was open, spontaneous, and beautiful because it was performed out of love.

(Emphasis supplied and slightly reformatted.) Of course, the tension between liturgy celebrated well to honor God and mere adherence to the rubrics is nothing new to traditionally minded Catholics. Indeed, Fr. Adrian Fortescue expressed—in very sharp terms—nothing but contempt for liturgists whose lives were consumed with minute study of rubrics and responsa ad dubia from Rome. Of course, we might quibble and suggest that the arid, legalistic, technically correct Mass—a frequent caricature of the 1950s and 1960s—was not nearly so widespread as portrayed by supporters of the reform, not least since these spiritually unprofitable Masses were fantastically well attended. People don’t tend to go to Masses that do not provide some spiritual sustenance; just ask the finance councils of all the hip parishes known for their hip liturgies. (Provided they haven’t been “reorganized” out of existence. Yet.)

But, throughout all this, Merton deplored the unseemly haste with which supporters of the reform discarded the ancient forms of the Roman Rite—especially Latin and Gregorian chant. He wrote once, “The monks cannot understand the treasure they possess, and they throw it out to look for something else, when seculars, who for the most part are not even Christians, are able to love this incomparable art.” (Emphasis supplied.) And Merton understood that imprudent reforms would produce a terrible result. To a Carthusian, Merton wrote, in a spirit that seems not far removed from true prophecy, “I am very much afraid that when all the dust clears we will be left with no better than we deserve, a rather silly, flashy, seemingly up-to-date series of liturgical forms that have lost the dignity and the meaning of the old ones.” (Emphasis supplied.) In other words, Merton, despite his enthusiasm for “openness” and authentic participation, understood that the liturgical patrimony of the Church was, so far from a burden and an obstacle, “a treasure” of tremendous spiritual value.

However, Merton was far from alone in expressing both enthusiasm for reform and a sense that something irreplaceable was being lost in the process of the reform. We are particularly reminded of Paul VI’s famous comments in his general audience of November 26, 1969, in which he expressed, with seemingly great regret, just what ditching Latin would mean for the Roman Rite:

 The other reason for the reform is this renewal of prayer. It is aimed at associating the assembly of the faithful more closely and more effectively with the official rite, that of the Word and that of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, that constitutes the Mass. For the faithful are also invested with the “royal priesthood”; that is, they are qualified to have supernatural conversation with God.

It is here that the greatest newness is going to be noticed, the newness of language. No longer Latin, but the spoken language will be the principal language of the Mass. The introduction of the vernacular will certainly be a great sacrifice for those who know the beauty, the power and the expressive sacrality of Latin. We are parting with the speech of the Christian centuries; we are becoming like profane intruders in the literary preserve of sacred utterance. We will lose a great part of that stupendous and incomparable artistic and spiritual thing, the Gregorian chant.

We have reason indeed for regret, reason almost for bewilderment. What can we put in the place of that language of the angels? We are giving up something of priceless worth. But why? What is more precious than these loftiest of our Church’s values? 

The answer will seem banal, prosaic. Yet it is a good answer, because it is human, because it is apostolic.

(Emphasis supplied.) We are also reminded of Paul’s 1966 Apostolic Letter to religious bound to the choral recitation of the Divine Office, Sacrificium laudis:

Yet, from letters which some of you have sent, and from many other sources, We learn that discordant practices have been introduced into the sacred liturgy by your communities or provinces (We speak of those only that belong to the Latin Rite.) For while some are very faithful to the Latin language, others wish to use the vernacular within the choral office. Others, in various places, wish to exchange that chant which is called ‘Gregorian’, for newly-minted melodies. Indeed, some even insist that Latin should be wholly suppressed.

We must acknowledge that We have been somewhat disturbed and saddened by these requests. One may well wonder what the origin is of this new way of thinking and this sudden dislike for the past; one may well wonder why these things have been fostered.

[…]

Yet those things that We have mentioned are occurring even though the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council has after due deliberation declared its mind in solemn fashion (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 101,1), and after the publication of clear norms in subsequent Instructions. In the first Instruction (ad exsecutionem Constitutionis de sacra Liturgia recte ordinandam), published on 26th September, 1964, it was decreed as follows: In celebrating the divine office in choir, clerics are bound to preserve the Latin language (n. 85). In the second Instruction (de lingua in celebrandis Officio divino et Missa “conventuali” aut “communitatis” apud Religiosos adhibenda), published on the 23rd November, 1965, that law was reinforced, and at the same time due consideration was shown for the spiritual advantage of the faithful and for the special conditions which prevail in missionary territories. Therefore, for as long as no other lawful provision is made, these laws are in force and require the obedience in which religious must excel, as dear sons of holy Church.

(Emphasis supplied and hyperlink added.) It is extraordinary to read Paul’s statements, knowing that the root-and-branch destruction of the Roman Rite was carried out in his name. We are, of course, well aware of the story that Bugnini told him that Consilium wanted all these changes and the Consilium that Paul wanted the changes. We are also aware of the story about the Octave of Pentecost. But we are no less aware that, as archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Montini gave an intervention at the Council on October 22, 1962 on the schema De Sacra Liturgia, which would become Sacrosanctum Concilium. (The intervention may be found in the Acta Synodalia I.313–16.) His whole intervention is worth reading, not least because it seems to reflect a certain enthusiasm on his part for liturgical reform. Thus, we are not always sure that he was an unwilling participant in Bugnini’s schemes, but we will leave that for his biographers.

We bring it up only to note that Merton was far from alone in this ambivalence about liturgical reform. No less a reformer than Paul VI had reservations about not only the way the reforms were being carried out but also what was being lost in the reforms. One doubts very much whether Father Merton and Papa Montini, so to speak, were alone in their sentiments. Yet, the reforms occurred all the same. And this is perhaps a salubrious lesson for this moment in the life of the Church. It may even be the essential lesson for this moment in the life of the Church. A sense that something is not quite right or that the price for something is too high to pay—even if it is shared by figures as different as the Supreme Pontiff and a Kentucky hermit—is not enough to stop reform if the experts have determined that reform is necessary. More, it seems, is needed. Otherwise, the experts will implement the reform they want and leave the faithful to catch up.