Month: July 2006

St. Mr. T?

Saint_mr_tA reader writes:

I am fascinated by the person popularly known as Mr.T. He is such a
curiosity that I cannot seem to put him out of my mind. I wonder
about things like "Does he go to bed with his jewelry on?" "Is he
always Mr.T or does he become Mr.Other Name when he gets home after a
day of work?" "Is his father, T Senior (presumably), ashamed that his
son did not pursue a more respectable career as a scientist named Dr.
Q?" "Does he eat his own cereal?" "Does he wear more or less jewelry
when going to weddings?" Such a human enigma!

I don’t have definite information on all of these questions, though here’s what information I have:

According to Wikipedia’s entry on him, Mr. T was born Laurence Tureaud, though that’s not his name now. He changed his name to Laurence Tero and then to Mr. T. Literally: Mr. T. He therefore does not go home and have another name. He also does not seem to go to bed with the jewelery on–at least anymore–since it appears that he gave up wearing the jewelery (at least the chains) after he became involved in relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina last year. He did, however, sometimes wear it to bed in the past, "to see how my ancestors, who were slaves, felt." Since givingup the chains, he presumably doesn’t wear them to weddings now, either. I would assume that he has eaten his own cereal at least once. I know if I were joing to license a cereal, I would want to make sure it tastes okay. And I’d hope that his father is proud of him given how successful he’s been.

The reader continues:

Then I wondered what would happen to him if he were to A) Convert to
Catholicism and live an exemplary life (not that I am judging his
current life) and B) Die and finally C) Become canonized — what
would we call this saint? Would it be St.Mr.T with both titles (saint
and mister) or would the St. just replace the Mr. and we would just
call him St.T?

Somehow St. T just does not have the same weight as Mr.T. I think it
is the second syllable in mister that makes the name really work. It
is kind of like growling when you say it "Mis-TERRR".

It seems in general titles earned in this life are dropped when the
St. is added. For example, it is not St. Sister Therese but just
plain old St. Therese. The only sort of exception to this would be
the nickname that goes after the name to distinguish this St. First
Name from other saints First Name. For example St. Therese the Little
Flower.

In such a case, I wonder if it would be appropriate to refer to him
as St.T of the Mister or something like that.

Anyway, I was just curious about titles and how they work with saints
and wondered if you could provide any insight into that whole thing.

Mr. T apparently is a Christian, who is reported to take his faith seriously these days. If he were to become a Catholic and (at least henceforth) lead a life of heroic virtue then he would potentially be eligible for formal canonization.

Should he be canonized then–at least as things stand now–he would be referred to as St. Mr. T because the Mr. is an actual part of his name. It is not an honoriffic, but the first part of his legal name.

Of course, if he had aspirations toward canonization then he might change his name again–perhaps back to Laurence Tureaud, but as things stand now, it would be St. Mr. T.

Hope this clears up some of the mystery surrounding this human enigma!

CHT to The Curt Jester for Photoshopping the above image, and especially for his creative take on what kind of halo St. Mr. T would have!

 

New Medjugorje Commission Announced

Earlier this month, I wrote:

In his pontificate, B16 has been quietly (or not so quietly) dealing with issues that appeared to drift during the pontificate of John Paul II. He reined in the Franciscans in Assisi; he reined in the Neocatechumenal Way; he dealt with the Fr. Maciel matter. I’m wondering if the discussion he had with Bishop Peric included an initiative to clarify where the Church is regarding the subject of Medjugorje.

New evidence has surfaced that my suspicions were correct. Over the weekend I got word from Diane of Te Deum of a story in the European press reporting the formation of a new episcopal commission to investigate Medjugorje. Before I could blog about it, though, word came today that Catholic News Service had confirmed it with the Cardinal who will be overseeing the commission (CHT: Amy).

First,

HERE’S DIANE’S TRANSLATION OF THE EUROPEAN STORY

and

HERE’S THE CNS STORY.

Now for some analysis:

The European story notes that the announcement of the new commission came after the recent meeting of the Bosnia-Hercegovina bishops’ conference in Banja Luka (I just love the sound of that name: Banja Luka. Cool!).

According to the story,

This announcement surprised many, because Medjugorje was not even one of the topics discussed at the meeting.

It also stated:

From our information, the request for the establishment of a new commission comes from the Vatican,

That certainly coheres with the idea of the commission not being discussed at the meeting. If it was the initiative of the local bishops then one would expect it to be discussed. If it were a Vatican initiative, it might not be.

It even more strongly coheres with a few points of evidence from the CNS story. First,

"The commission members have not been named yet," Cardinal Puljic told Catholic News Service in a July 24 telephone interview. "I am awaiting suggestions from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" on theologians to appoint.

So that establishes involvement of the CDF on some level, but most tellingly,

When asked if the new commission was the idea of the doctrinal congregation or of the bishops’ conference, Cardinal Puljic said, "I would rather not answer that question."

Okay. That’s it. Slam dunk. Case closed. The Holy See requested the new commission.

Also (though is is a lesser point):

Officials from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith were not available July 24 for comment.

Here’s exactly what happened:

<Knowledgable Guess Mode> Pre-16 felt for a long time that the community of the faithful would benefit from a clarification of where the Church is with respect to Medjugorje, and so after he became pope, he resolved to provide one. But this matter is delicate and could not best be dealt with in the manner of a motu proprio as the Franciscans of Assisi were. It needed a more indirect approach. He therefore approached his successor as head of the CDF, Cardinal Levada, and asked him to begin preparations for a new commission conducted under the auspieces of the local bishops’ conference. He also informed Bishop Peric earlier this year and Cardinal Puljic as well. Bishop Peric took the opportunity to signal the likely direction–or at least his desired direction–for the commission’s conclusions by stating B16 privately expressed skepticism about the apparitions and by publicly calling on the seers to stop making their claims. After the remainder of the bishops had been informed of the commission, Cardinal Puljic then made it public.</Knowledgable Guess Mode>

In case anyone needs a reminder of why B16 might feel that a clarification of the Church’s position is needed, I quote a passage from Bishop Peric’s confirmation homily that I quoted in my previous post regarding how serious the situation in the diocese is:

[I]n this local Church of Mostar-Duvno, there exists something similar to a schism. A number of priests that have been expelled from the Franciscan OFM Order by the Generalate of the Order, due to their disobedience to the Holy Father, for years now have been forcefully keeping a few parish churches and rectories along with church inventory. They have not only been illegally active in these parishes, but they have also administered the sacraments profanely, while others invalidly, such as Confession and Confirmation, or they have assisted at invalid marriages. This type of anti-ecclesial behaviour is shocking to all of us. At the same time, this scandal of sacrilegiously administering the sacraments, especially of the Most Holy Body of Christ, must shock all the faithful as well who invalidly confess their sins to these priests and participate in sacrilegious liturgies. We pray to the Lord that this scandal and schism be uprooted as soon as possible from our midst.

According to the CNS story:

The cardinal said he did not expect the commission to be established until sometime in September because of the summer holidays.

He said the primary task of the commission would be to review a 1991 report from the region’s bishops that concluded, "It cannot be affirmed that these matters concern supernatural apparitions or revelations." [i.e., a non constat de supernaturalite result]

In addition, he said, the commission would be asked to review pastoral provisions that forbid official diocesan and parish pilgrimages to Medjugorje, while at the same time allowing priests to accompany groups of Catholics in order to provide the sacraments and spiritual guidance.

Now, I can’t make any concrete predictions regarding what the commission will end up announcing, but the direction of these events would not be encouraging for those who would like to see official approval of the apparitions or a loosening of pilgrimage rules–unless B16 is a closet supporter of Medjugorje, which would seem not to be the case if Bishop Peric was honest in what he said in his confirmation homily. Specifically, he said:

[A]ccording to the words of our current Pope, who I encountered during an audience on 24 February this year, [he] commented that at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith they always questioned how all these “apparitions” could be considered authentic for the Catholic faithful.

If that is accurate then it would seem that the holy father’s intention for the new commission would be directed toward one of three ends:

1) Reaffirming the status quo on the apparitions (non constat de supernaturalite) and pilgrimages (unofficial ones permitted with clerical support) in a more forceful manner

2) Reaffirming the status quo on the apparitions (non constat de supernaturalite) but placing new restrictions on pilgrimages (e.g., disallowing priests to accompany pilgrimages to the site)

3) Downgrading the status on the apparitions (i.e., to constat de non supernaturalite) and placing new restrictions on pilgrimages.

The irregular situation of the local ex-Franciscans may also be dealt with anew in an attempt to bring them into line.

Of course, the future is not yet written (from man’s perspective), and none of those things might happen, but if B16 really did take the tone with Bishop Peric that Bishop Peric reported then it sounds as if the best that devotees of the apparitions would be likely to see happen would be a reiteration of the status quo in hopes of ending some current abuses.

Whatever happens, it’s likely to be painful and disappointing to some people on some side of the issue.

So let’s keep the matter in prayer and ask God that healing will be brought to the situation through the commission’s work and that it will reach accurate and wise conclusions that reflect the truth of the matter, whatever the truth may be.

Weeeeelllllllll. . . . Isn’t That “Special”

McgowanEXCERPTS:

Meet Kathleen McGowan, novelist and self-proclaimed descendant of a union between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. McGowan, who says she is from the "sacred bloodline" Brown made famous in his mega-selling novel [The Da Vinci Code].

[A]mong believers are her powerful literary agent and the editors at New York publisher Simon & Schuster, who are throwing their weight behind her autobiographical religious thriller The Expected One, out July 25, with a sizable first printing of 250,000 copies.

"Everyone’s going to think I’m on The Da Vinci Code bandwagon, but I’m not," says McGowan, who began working on her book in 1989. The Da Vinci Code was published in 2003.

McGowan originally self-published her novel last year and it sold only 2,500 copies.

Simon & Schuster is spending $275,000 to promote The Expected One and is sending the author on a cross-country tour beginning Aug. 3 in Los Angeles.

Trish Todd, editor in chief at Touchstone, a division of Simon & Schuster . . . says she has no problem believing McGowan’s claim that she descends from a marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. "Yes, I believe her. Her passion and her mission are so strong, how can she not be?"

The Expected One is the story of Maureen Paschal, a woman who begins to have visions of Mary Magdalene, discovers she is a descendant of Mary and Jesus and undergoes a dramatic search for a gospel written by Mary that is hidden in southwestern France. In a parallel plot, McGowan tells what she says is the actual story of the marriage and children of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

The title of the book, she explains, is taken from an ancient prophecy that tells of a woman chosen by divine providence to bring the real story of Mary Magdalene’s life to the world.

McGowan calls this a novel but says it mirrors her own life. Maureen’s visions, she says, are "verbatim" accounts of her own visions of Mary Magdalene. "Maureen is a fictional character," she says, "but there is a lot of me in Maureen. I know it will be hard for people to accept this, but it’s true."

Though McGowan says she is descended from Jesus and Mary Magdalene, she won’t say whether she, like the fictional Maureen, is "The Expected One."

"I’m not grandiose about this, and it concerns me a lot that I could be portrayed that way," McGowan says. "I don’t want it to appear that I’m standing up and saying I’m the expected one. That’s a dangerous, ego-driven kind of thing."


So far, McGowan is offering only her word about her lineage and only hints at her proof. In addition to the visions, she says, she has discovered that her family is related to an ancient French lineage that traces its roots to Jesus and Mary Magdalene’s descendants. Legend holds that Mary Magdalene settled in France after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. "That’s all I’m prepared to say right now," McGowan says. Some members of her family, she explains, want her to respect their privacy and not discuss it.

Despite the lack of hard evidence, McGowan’s supporters include her literary agent Larry Kirshbaum, who left his position as CEO of Time Warner Books in December to start his own literary agency. McGowan was one of his first clients and he helped her get a seven-figure, three-book deal with Simon & Schuster. (Her next two books pick up where The Expected One leaves off.)

And USA Today has proven itself perfectly willing to prostitute itself in order to promote this trash, giving the subject voluminous amounts of space meant to promote the book, including an excerpt of the novel itself.

GET THE STORY.

AND THE EXCERPT.

AND A REVIEW.

Here we go again, folks!

Incidentally, McGowan gets further into her novel than Dan Brown did before she makes a literary blunder. The very first word of the first sentence of The Da Vinci Code was a dud. McGowan made it through at least six words before her first sentence started to go off the tracks.

OH, AND HERE ARE KATHLEEN MCGOWAN’S REVIEWS OF OTHERS FOLKS’ BOOKS ON AMAZON. INTERESTING READING MATERIAL SHE’S INTO.

AND HERE’S HER HOMEPAGE.

Frozen Embryo Adoption

A reader writes:

I happened to bump into someone’s blog, and I was just curious about her personal blogs about what she plans with her husband. What she stated is below.  Can you please advise about the Church’s stance if any on what she is referring to below, which is "In Vitro Fertilization Adoption."  Correct me if I’m wrong, but adopting embryos still seems like its morally unacceptable or at least questionable according to Catholic Moral Theology, since you’re still harvesting them?   

"Yes I am Catholic. And yes I know that in vitro is wrong. That is why I want to adopt an embryo. I told my husband before I married him that I didnt feel right about in vitro because I hold to the doctrine of the church. My husband just converted and is more of a liberal catholic. I have already talked to a priest about our situation. Adopting an embryo is taking the embryos that other couples that did in vitro didnt use and instead of throwing them away or giving them to research, couples can adopt. I find this a better alternative for these little lives then letting them stay frozen, die, or even to research."

Thanks, please advise,

Rome has not yet issued a finding regarding the moral acceptability of adopting embryos who would otherwise die in the freezer or be actively destroyed. I anticipate a decision in the coming years, quite possibly during the current pontificate, but for right now Rome is letting moral theologians kick this one around and work out the issues involved.

At present the community of orthodox moral theologians is split: Some have the intuition, as you do, that this is wrong–not because it involves harvesting embryos (implanting them isn’t harvesting them; "harvesting" refers to killing them so that they can be used for possible medical treatments) but because they feel it is intrinsically wrong to implant an embryo from one woman into another. In arguing this, they may appeal to the idea that the development of the child in the womb is part of the reproductive process and is thus inviolable.

Other moral theologians have the opposite intuition, that embryo adoption is morally justifiable in this case becaues the alternative is letting the child die (or be actively killed when the embryo bank decides to junk it). This is not the same situation as surrogate motherhood, where one woman has a child on behalf of another and thus circumvents the normal reproductive process. It is allowing one’s womb to be used to rescue a child who has already been created and who would otherwise die.

Catholics are permitted at present to take either view.

My own instincts are with the second group–that it is morally permissible to adopt embryos in order to keep them from dying.

To my mind, the definitive moment of reproduction is conception. When that happens is when you have a new human being. What happens to it next is not reproduction, because the reproduction has already taken place and we have a new person. What follows (implantation in the womb and subsequent gestation) is simply caring for a new person who already exists and thus is not subject to the same kind of moral unalterability as the act of reproduction itself.

In other words, human reproduction is inviolable, which is why IVF (like adultery) is wrong, but most of what is happening during pregnancy is not reproduction. A new human is produced–and thus reproduction takes place–at the very beginning of pregnancy. What follows is growth, development, and care.

I would analogize the frozen embryo adoption situation to that of a wet nurse. If a child’s own mother is unable or unwilling to nurse the child, it has been a practice throughout human history to have another woman–who is willing and able to nurse the child–to do so. The second woman thus provides the nourishment from her breasts that the child needs when the biological mother is unable or unwilling to do so.

Adopting a frozen embryo strikes me as the same thing, morally: In this case a second woman provides the nourishment and protection from her womb that the child needs and that the biological mother is unable or unwilling to do so.

In both cases care is being provided for the infant by a second woman, the difference being the age of the infant and thus which organs of the overall reproductive system (breasts or the womb) is being used to provide the care that the infant needs at that stage.

This, from my perspective, deals with the intrinsic moral nature of the act. Some might wish to bring in extrinsic considerations, such as whether doing this would encourage people to create more snowflake babies (as they are called).

I do not think that this argument has weight for two reasons;

1) The number of children who can be so-adopted is miniscule compared to the number of frozen embryos that there are. There is no way that anything more than a small fraction of them could be adopted, and thus I do not see that allowing embryo adoption would have an appreciable effect on the number that are created.

2) It could likewise be argued that allowing wet nurses–or even adoption–also encourages people to create children that they are unable or unwilling to care for. No doubt some people do–and certainly they historically have been–sexually looser than they otherwise would have been, in the knowledge that they could put the children that might result up for adoption. That doesn’t mean you let the resulting kids die of neglect. You do what you can to save them, even if you can’t save all of them. In fact, historically Christians were known for picking up foundlings, caring for them, and raising them as Christians.

To my mind, this is a high-tech version of the same thing.

Non-Catholic Brother Planning New Marriage

A reader writes:

My brother, who is a
baptized Catholic but has not practiced since he was little (my
parents left the Church for a Protestant one at that time and have
since returned, though my brother is still Protestant) has
married outside of the church in a Protestant ceremony is now in the process of divorcing his wife, who is pregnant.
He also already has a new girlfriend whom he has expressed the intent
to marry. 

I have told him that I could not attend this wedding and
that I should not have attended his first wedding as it was outside
of the Church and he is a baptized Catholic, even though he has
rejected Catholicism. 

I know that he has not formally (that is
written to Rome) left the Church.  Have I done the right thing? 

This
is creating a huge amount of tension and stress in my family,
especially because I am trying to inform my now Catholic parents of
what the correct position is to take in regards to the potential
second wife, whom my brother has asked to be allowed to live at their
house (though not in his room…After separating from his first wife,
he moved back home). 

Though it is not in the planned future, I have
also told my family that I cannot attend my other brother’s wedding,
when and if he decides to marry, unless it is within the Catholic
Church.  Is this correct?  Please help.  Many hearts are hurting over
these matters.

This is a really tough situation, and my heart goes out to you.

The Holy See recently released a document on what is required in order to formally defect from the Church, and it took a startlingly restrictive view. One does not have to write to Rome to formally defect, but one does have to go through one’s local bishop.

The question in my mind is whether Rome intends this to apply to previous marital situations or just those from here on out. According to the Code of Canon Law,

Can. 16 §2. An authentic interpretation put forth in the form of law has the same force as the law itself and must be promulgated. If it only declares the words of the law which are certain in themselves, it is retroactive; if it restricts or extends the law, or if it explains a doubtful law, it is not retroactive.

It does not seem to me that the recent document merely declared the plain meaningof the words of the law which were already certain. What constituted formal defection was notoriously uncertain, and the canonical commentators I am aware of universally interpreted it more broadly than how the recent document did. The recent document therefore seems to me to either function as restricting the interpretation of the law or explaining a doubtful one. In either case, it would not be retroactive and thus your brother would not have needed to go through the local bishop in order to formally defect.

Unfortunately, Rome has not yet given us an authoritative statement on whether the new document is ot be understood retroactively, though I suspect that is coming since an awful lot of marriage cases have been adjudicated based on the prior understanding of formal defection, and that is bound to lead to confusion.

Even then, it is not clear to me whether your brother formally defected from the Church. One of the reasons that this concept was in need of clarification was that how it applied to situations like your brother’s was unclear. In other words: What about the case of children who are taken to other churches by their parents and made members of them? Does that mean that the child formally defected despite his lack of age and responsibility for doing so? Does he need to reaffirm the defection once he is an adult? Does he need to reaffirm it formally?

We now know the answers to these questions going forward, but at the time your brother was made a member of another church, the answers were unclear.

I thus can’t tell–both because of the unclarity of the law at the time and because it is at least arguable whether the law is retroactive–if your brother has formally defected.

The best way I know to handle the question is thus to split it and ask what would apply if he did formally defect and if he did not.

First, let’s suppose that he did formally defect.

Canon law provides that if a person has formally defected from the Church then he is not bound to observe the Catholic form of marriage. If your brother had formally defected then he would have been free to marry his first spouse. Marriage enjoys the favor of the law so, until the nullity of his first marriage is established, he must be presumed to be married to his first wife and thus not free to marry his current girlfriend. Any union with his current girlfriend must be presumed to be adulterous, per Jesus’ statements in Mark 10.

On this understanding, it would have been permissible for you to attend his first wedding but I could not recommend that you attend his second because your presence would lend credence to an objectively adulterous relationship.

Similarly, I could not recommend allowing two people who must be presumed to have an adulterous relationship to live under my roof, for the same reason: Doing so lends credence to an objectively adulterous relationship, as well as providing scandal (in the technical sense of setting a bad example that may lead others into sin). The same applies even if they are living chastely prior to attempting marriage. Your brother is not presumptively free to have a relationship with this woman, and letting her live there lends credence to the idea that he is.

Now let’s suppose that your brother did not formally defect.

In this case he was still bound to observe the Catholic form of marriage and his first marriage was invalid. He is thus free to marry someone else–however, this marriage too will be invalid unless he either observes the Catholic form of marriage or obtains a dispensation from it. In order to do either, he will for practical purposes need to have his first marriage investigated by an ecclesiastical tribunal and declared null (which is not certain for reasons indicated above, even though at the moment I’m assuming that he did defect and so it was null; that still has to be shown).

Your brother, as a non-Catholic, is presumably not willing to go through the above steps, in which case his new attempt at marriage would be invalid. I thus could not recommend attending it (or the previous one) nor letting him live in my house with his girlfriend (married or unmarried) since their planned future union would be invalid.

Thus, while one of the key facts of the case (whether or not he formally defected) is unclear, the practical conclusions are similar: I couldn’t recommend attending the new attempt at marriage nor allowing his girlfriend to live in the house, either before or after the attempt.

It is to be understood that, as a Protestant, your brother may be acting in good conscience in all this (though he would need an awful good reason to be divorcing a pregnant wife), and he cannot be expected to understand or appreciate the reasons outlined above.

Nevertheless, he needs to understand the reality of his situation. It does not do him any favors to confirm him in an adulterous or otherwise invalid union. If he is going to get his marital situation straightened out before God, he needs to be made aware of the truth and to be aware of it as soon as possible. Letting him get confirmed in a new, invalid union will only create a larger mess to be cleaned up later.

The merciful thing–as hard as it is–is to be honest with him now about his proposed union (honest both in word and in deed) and give him all the support and encouragement one can to help him avoid making a terrible mistake.

I would therefore explain to him as charitably as possible, and with as many family members as possible in agreement, why he needs to re-evaluate the situation, which also involves re-evaluating the question of his religious affiliation. If he is unwilling to do so, that is understandable. Nevertheless–as painful as it would be for him–he should respect the fact that as a Catholic you must follow your consciences even as he follows his.

None of this, I would hasten to point out, has anything to do with how much you love him. You still love him and, in fact, it is precisely because of your love for him that you are handling the matter in this manner.

I hope this helps, and I encourage my readers to pray for this situation!

20

 

Missing Mass To Go To Class

A reader writes:

My boyfriend and I live in
Rome and he is going back to the states for about a month long
vacation in August/September.  He is attempting to take a weekend-
long motorcycle training course as he is hoping to obtain a scooter
when he comes back to Rome to make life in Rome easier. 

The only
possible times for the class eliminate any possible time when he
could go to Holy Mass that weekend to fulfill his Sunday obligation.
We have looked everywhere for a Mass early or late enough for him to
attend, but it seems to be impossible.  It is absolutely necessary
that he take this class before attempting to drive a scooter in Rome
for safety reasons and licensing.  He cannot miss ANY of the class
because if he does he will not able to obtain the certification to
drive in Italy that is necessary. 

What should he do?  Does he need a
special dispensation to miss Holy Mass on Sunday?
He thinks he has to have a dispensation from the local Ordinary but I
think he doesn’t. Who’s right?

One is excused from one’s Sunday obligation for a moderately serious reason, and the need to take a driving class to obtain licensing will count as a sufficient reason. Things like being required to work or attend weekend classes for non-trivial subjects (and how to drive safely and get a vehicle license is a non-trivial subject) definitely excuse.

Your boyfriend therefore does not need to obtain special permission in order to miss Mass.

Also, when one doesn’t have a moderately serious reason and one does need to get permission to miss Mass, it isn’t the local ordinary that one needs to approach but just one’s own pastor. In this case, only a "just cause" (a much weaker standard) is needed for him to provide permission. The Code of Canon Law provides:

Can.  1245 Without prejudice to the right of diocesan bishops mentioned in can. 87, for a just cause and according to the prescripts of the diocesan bishop, a pastor can grant in individual cases a dispensation from the obligation of observing a feast day or a day of penance or can grant a commutation of the obligation into other pious works. A superior of a religious institute or society of apostolic life, if they are clerical and of pontifical right, can also do this in regard to his own subjects and others living in the house day and night.

Needing to take the kind of class that you describe is certainly a just cause, and if the pastor is half-way reasonable, he should recognize this.

Even if he didn’t, though, the reason itself is sufficient to allow your boyfriend to attend the class and miss Mass this once.

20

Clerical Garb

A reader writes:

I’ve recently been wondering about what kinds of clothes priests should wear according to the letter of the law.  specifically, I know that one of my parish priests likes to sit in the back of other parishes and observe mass when he goes on vacation.  Now I know that is not what he is supposed to do, and he knows it too, so I’m not looking to concern you with the fine points of whether he should be in choir dress, cassock+surplice or vested and exercising his priestly faculties at those masses.  I am however interested in what kinds of clothes priests can and should wear day to day. This is particularly of interest to me as I have recently been
accepted to the seminary for pre-theology studies in my home diocese.

 
Anyhow, some specifics might include:
  • when is it appropriate/allowable for priests not to wear the roman collar but to dress in purely secular clothing?
  • is it permissible for a priest to wear the Roman cassock outside of church grounds, e.g. out to dinner or shopping?
  • who is responsible for setting these norms – national conferences, individual bishops, the Code of Canon Law?

For priests belonging to the Latin Church, the universal law regarding this matter is found in the Code of Canon Law, which states:

Can. 284

Clerics
are to wear suitable ecclesiastical garb according to the norms issued by the
conference of bishops and according to legitimate local customs.

As you can see, the Code simply states that they are to wear some kind of distinctive garb and authorizes the authorizes the conference of bishops (as well as local custom) to determine this more precisely, which answers the third of your bulleted questions.

Before we look at the complimentary norm for this canon here in the United States, though, let’s look at a passage from the 1994 Directory for the Life and Ministry of Priests, which goes into the matter in more depth and says:

66. Obligation of Ecclesiastical Attire.

In a secularised and materialistic society, where the external signs of sacred and supernatural realities tend to disappear, it is particularly important that the community be able to recognise the priest, man of God and dispenser of his mysteries, by his attire as well, which is an unequivocal sign of his dedication and his identity as a public minister. The priest should be identifiable primarily through his conduct, but also by his manner of dressing, which makes visible to all the faithful, indeed and to all men, his identity and his belonging to God and the Church.

For this reason, the clergy should wear "suitable ecclesiastical dress, in accordance with the norms established by the Episcopal Conference and the legitimate local custom”. This means that the attire, when it is not the cassock, must be different from the manner in which the laity dress, and conform to the dignity and sacredness of his ministry. The style and colour should be established by the Episcopal Conference, always in agreement with the dispositions of the universal law.

Because of their incoherence with the spirit of this discipline, contrary practices cannot be considered legitimate customs; and should be removed by the competent authority.

Outside of entirely exceptional cases, a cleric’s failure to use this proper ecclesiastical attire could manifest a weak sense of his identity as one consecrated to God.

Now, here’s the U.S. complimentary norm:

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops, in accord with the
prescriptions of canon 284, hereby decrees that without prejudice to
the provisions of canon 288 [which exempts deacons from the clerical dress requirement], clerics are to dress in conformity with
their sacred calling.

In liturgical rites, clerics shall wear the vesture prescribed in the
proper liturgical books. Outside liturgical functions, a black suit and
Roman collar are the usual attire for priests. The use of the cassock
is at the discretion of the cleric.

In the case of religious clerics, the determinations of their proper
institutes or societies are to be observed with regard to wearing the
religious habit [SOURCE].

As you can see from this, "the use of the cassock is at the discretion of the cleric," which means that it would be permitted outside church grounds, answering the second of your bulleted questions.

This leaves your first bulleted question, which is in what circumstances they can simply go about in civvies, without the black suit and Roman collar that this norm requires.

The answer is . . . the law doesn’t say.

We know that there are exceptions, because the Directory for the Life and Ministry of Priests alludes to "entirely exceptional cases" being sufficient to excuse a priest from wearing clerical garb, but it doesn’t say what those might be.

This therefore strikes me as an area of the law that could stand further clarification.

One note about the phrase "entirely exceptional cases": That’s a pretty strong phrase and it might be taken to mean that you need an awful strong reason not to wear clericals in a particular situation. But this might misread the intent of the Directory. It could easily be argued that the Directory is concerned with getting priests to wear clerical garb in general and thus it reqiures an "entirely exceptional case" to justify not wearing ecclesiastical garb in general. In other words: a priest needs a powerful reason–like government prohibition or the possibility of violence against him–in order to justify never wearing clerical garb.

That being said, given the pastoral reasons behind the law as articulated by the Directory and the fact that the law assumes that he will be wearing clerical garb as a general matter, a conscientious priest will not lightly excuse himself from wearing it in public.

And if I may add an additional pastoral reason why he should not do so: It will confuse the faithful if they see him sometimes in clerical dress and sometimes not and undermine his ability to minister to them effectively as doubts are sewn in their minds about whether his "failure to use this proper ecclesiastical attire could manifest a weak sense of his identity as one consecrated to God."

Incidentally, for readers overseas, I did a quick check of the complimentary norms for canon 284 a number of other countries in the English-speaking world (England, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) and was mildly surprised to discover that the U.S. is far more specific in spelling out the requirements for clerical dress. England’s complimentary norm simply says that existing customs regarding clerical dress are to be observed (thus devolving the matter to existing custom). Ireland and Canada’s norms say that a priest is to be recognizable by his dress as a priest (thus implicitly devolving the matter to custom). And Australia and New Zealand say that the dress needs to identify him as a priest but then says the diocesan bishop will make further determination of the matter (thus devolving it on the local bishop). Some of these countries also add that the garb must be suitable to the occasion.

Prayer Requests

I haven’t decided how often to have prayer request posts here on the blog (probably not every week as was suggested, but once in a while).

I’d like to begin one today, though, and with a special prayer request of my own: SDG and his wife are expecting a new baby and, since the little one is significantly overdue, they are finally having labor induced today. I’d like to ask folks to pray for the safe delivery of mother and baby.

So that’s my prayer intention.

Please use the combox to add your own prayer intentions.

Superheroes Go Postal

Superherostamps

Just in case anyone here at JA.org happens to like superheroes, y’all may be interested to know that your favorite caped crusaders are coming soon to a postage stamp near you.

"Faster than a speeding bullet, comic book superheroes are coming to a post office near you. Batman and Superman, Wonder Woman, Supergirl and a half dozen other superheroes will star on new postage stamps being released Thursday.

"The new 39-cent stamps and 24-cent postal cards will be made public at a comic book show in San Diego, and will go on sale nationwide Friday.

"The stamps are sold in a sheet of 20, half featuring the individual superheroes and half showing covers of comic books starring them.

"The Postal Service reports this is its first set of super hero stamps, indicating more are likely to follow."

GET THE STORY.

The super stamp models are slated to include, among others, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Green Lantern, and Supergirl. No word yet on whether letters posted with the superhero stamps will arrive at their destination faster than a speeding bullet.