John Allen has an interesting interview with Cardinal George which, for some idiotic reason,the NCR folks decided to put online in pdf form.
FIRST, HERE’S A BACKGROUNDER ON THE INTERVIEW.
AND HERE’S THE INTERVIEW ITSELF.
In the interview, Cardinal George has a number of things to say that have a bearing on the thesis that a broader cultural shift among Catholics is significantly responsible for declining Mass attendance and other religious practice, yet he also faults the leadership of the Church for contributing to the problem out of a sense of sociological naivete.
Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge talk about the distinction between “high tension” and
“low tension” religion, arguing that over time low tension groups tend to dissolve into
secularism.That’s right. In the 60s, it was very important to show you could be American and Catholic.
Whole magazines were devoted to that. There was a collective sigh of relief at the Second
Vatican Council, with human freedom being so much in the forefront of the conciliar concerns,
that the tension wasn’t there anymore. I think some of the moves of the church in that period
now seem sociologically naïve, in their long-term consequences.
What do you have in mind?Catholicism as a distinctive way of life was defined by eating habits and fasting, and by days
especially set aside that weren’t part of the general secular calendar. They were reminders that
the church is our mediator in our relationship to God, and can enter into the horarium [calendar]
that we keep, into the foods that we eat, into all the aspects of daily life, into sexual life. Once
you say that all those things can be done individually, as you choose to do penance, for example,
you reduce the collective presence of the church in somebody’s consciousness. At that point, the
church as mediator becomes more an idea for many people. Even if they accept it, it’s not a
practice. So then when the church turns around and says ‘You have to do this,’ then resistance is
there to say, ‘How can you tell me that? I’m deciding on my life for myself, and you even told
me I could!’
Cardinal George also comments on the situation with the new translation of the liturgy being prepared and notes that, while the new translations are better and the right thing is being done in preparing them, it’s still going to be a significant adjustment for people:
Bishop Donald Trautman and others worry that when that Sunday comes and you have to
explain to people that from now on they will be saying “and with your Spirit” rather than “and
also with you,” there will be a negative reaction. Do you share those concerns?Hopefully, there will be a lot of good catechesis, which is already being prepared in all the
English-speaking countries. That [a negative reaction] will happen if it’s not well prepared. It
will be a lot harder, as we all know, to go from English to English than from Latin to English.
The Latin was foreign anyway, and this was our language. Now we’ve got something that is our
language, and we’ve got something new that is also our language with a slightly different cast.
That’s going to be hard. Beyond that, we’ve memorized. I can say the canons by heart. We can
enter into them and pray them. Even if they’re not great translations, they’re not bad, and in
many ways they’re quite beautiful. I’ve made them my own. It’s good when you say “We
believe,” and people go down the line through the Creed. We’re changing four lines in that thing.
It’s going to be difficult. People will go back again to reading it, whereas for 20 years now we’ve
just been able to remember it. That’s not going to easy, and nobody’s looking forward to it.
Is it worth it?Oh yes. I think the translations are superior. There’s a lot of the richness of the Roman rite, and
therefore our faith, because our liturgy reflects our faith, that we will have present in our hearts
again. But it will take 20 years, maybe, before we have it memorized. I mean, I’ll probably go to
my death fighting not to say, “and also with you,” because it’s so second nature by now. People
know immediately what to do. That’s great, that’s a sign of unity. So we’re introducing a
discordant note in our unity, for a good purpose. I think the reason is very adequate, but it’s
going to be work.
GET THE STORY. (PDF WARNING)
…because our liturgy reflects our faith…
AMEN to that!
I love the way that Cardinal George addresses the Giuliani issue:
To take a specific example, if Rudy Giuliani is the Republican nominee and he shows up for Mass in the Archdiocese of Chicago, would you give him communion?
“I don’t think he’s married in the church, so that’s an easy one. We wouldn’t even get to the question of his position on abortion.”
What a great shepherd!
Having spent long years as an Episcopalian saying “And with thy spirit” (in English), I think I will take to the new translation very quickly. :‑)
For the past few months I’ve been practicing saying “And with your spirit” and “I believe . . .” and especially “Lord, I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof, only say the word and my soul shall be healed” and now these words just roll off my tongue. I guess if we start saying these words in our private prayers now we won’t be stumbling when the changes happen.
I don’t like the Cardinal’s stance on communion either. I’m all for unity and against divisiveness. However, it’s not like the politicians in question have not been warned repeatedly. Unless I’m mistaken, I think helping someone procure an abortion (for example, by having it performed on you, by driving someone, by voting, by persuading people with your contrary public opinion) incurs a penalty of ex-communication latae sentitae (can someone please back me up on this point?). In such a state it can and probably should be argued that a minister of the Holy Eucharist helps the soul of the person by denying them communions so that the person does not compund his sin with irreverence (probably not quite the word I’m looking for). The unlawful communicant comes up and divides the church – the bishops should stand together and proclaim the constant teachings of the church – and for everyone’s sake, communion should be denied.
Susan is also correct to call to mind the flippancy of the cardinal’s answer regarding Guliani.
For the most part I thought he had some good answers, although there were one or two other quibbles. I look forward to hearing others’ impressions.
Ben, a few distinctions regarding abortion thing and the denial of the Eucharist.
An actual abortion (i.e. getting one or performing one) is a crime in the Catholic Church (CIC canon 1398) and incurs latae sententiae excommunication. Necessary participation in a crime incurs the same penalty (canon 1329 § 2). Most canonists are of the opinion that advocating for abortion laws or making laws allowing people to get abortions, while gravely sinful acts, are not necessary participations in an abortion. This means that those persons are not committing any ecclesiastical crimes, thus they do not incur excommunication, automatic or otherwise.
However, since those individuals are engaged in public gravely sinful acts, they can be denied reception of the Eucharist (can. 915), which is different from excommunication. Another public gravely sinful act would be public adultery, which is why Cardinal George would deny reception of the Eucharist to Giuliani.
somewhat off topic but just have to know what is wrong with PDF?
BrianC: No probs on my Mac. I assume you’re on a Windows box? Is your reader up to date?
BrianC,
Here are Jimmy Akin’s thoughts on PDF.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Jimmy is right: PDFs are obnonxious…
I wasn’t being sarcastic. I think Cardinal George is a good shepherd, and I like that he is very plain and to the point. Sorry if you misunderstood.
Peace,
Susan
Thanks, Susan, for clarifying. I did NOT read you as being sarcastic, at all. Its easy to be misinterpolated on them there internets, though.
Use foxit reader, open source and awesome.
Ah! The good old conservatives. They want better translations of the Novus…..That is good. They seem to have massive amnesia — the problems with the liturgy result from the MASSIVE disruption caused by the imposition of the New Mass. The liberals now are protesting new translations because they will confuse people…what the heck was the New Mass IMPOSED on Catholics in 1970? Good old conservatives and liberals — they are in the same camp on liturgy.
Rhys is right; Foxit reader for the win: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/
George strikes me as a slippery character. What exactly does he think about a prayer for conversion of the Jews? Does he think that the allegedly “chosen people” need Jesus to go to heaven, or just that they are “better” off if they “know” Jesus?
Try a hermeneutic of charity instead of a hermeneutic of suspicion, Jeb. The Cardinal clearly equates the prayer for Jews to “come to the fullness of redemption” with coming to faith in Jesus. Surely everyone who gets to heaven comes to the fullness of redemption. But if you are asking whether the Cardinal believes that Jews lacking explicit faith in Jesus might be saved without coming to such explicit faith in this life, that question was answered long before Vatican II.
BrianC: No probs on my Mac. I assume you’re on a Windows box? Is your reader up to date?
Oh don’t worry. Adobe Reader for Windows will tell you when your software needs updating. It’ll even do it in the middle of your presentations, thank God. Heaven forbid you should be able to get through a presentation with any of your software a point out of date! I mean why *wouldn’t* you want to download software, install it and then reboot your computer in the middle of your presentation?
PDFs are Evil, no doubt. Unfortunately, we’re stuck with ’em for a long time to come yet.
Comments for WINDOWS to make your life less misrable:
1.) Use Foxit Reader, 100x better, no Adobe suckage (http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php)
2.) For CREATING, use Office 2007’s Save as PDF if you use Office2007, or use one of the myriad of free PDF creation tools such as doPDF (www.doPDF.com)
Word of advice from a techie geek:
Any modern software for Windows that isn’t a driver or some low-level utility (like Network monitors, anti-virus, etc) that requires a reboot should be suspect.
Cardinal George’s Mayor Richard Daley is a pro-abortion and a rabid supporter of gay marriage.
Daley should not be given communion.
Daley also has the keen ability to raise dead voters as zombies to vote during elections. That might be grounds for denial of communion also.
My generation (the later baby-boomers) has been the most liturgically experimented-upon generation in the history of the Church. And I’m really, really tired of it.
Chad:
Necromancy requires latae sententiae excommunication?
My generation (the later baby-boomers) has been the most liturgically experimented-upon generation in the history of the Church. And I’m really, really tired of it.
Ed Peters:
You have my sympathy.
I can only imagine —
I’ve only come to experience just a parcel of that experimentation of my albeit short lifetime here and even I have become sick and tired of it myself already.
Ed Peters,
I don’t see how the correction of a hastily done translation equals “experimentation.”
The list of experimentation is so long that it boggles the mind sometimes. Everything from liturgical dance to when to stand versus kneel are just the beginning.
Rock concerts masquerading as the mass which had their birth in the Saturday afternoon “folk mass”.
Sure many of the “experimentations” are out and out abuses, but should they have been foisted on us by anyone?
When I was a young teen it seemed to the “in” thing to clap our hands and stomp our feet during certain songs.
Ed is right, it’s no wonder so many who were poorly catechised simply moved on over to the “Praise Temple” or “Kensington” mega-churches (as here in the Detroit area). So many have become so protestant in our ways of worship that it was easier to accept the move over the hill and out the door.
Ooh, another Detroiter! Tom, it bears mention that a lot of the Catholic-raised (and some Protestant or secular-raised) Kensington attendees are coming back to the Church because the pastors of Kensington have been so cooperative in working with Fr. John Riccardo while he was at St. Anastasia, just around the corner. Just last night I was at an RCIA meeting, and several of the prospective candidates were Kensington attendees.
Ahem. Back to your original point…ah nuts, I’ve lost my train of thought. 🙂
–sigh–
Every time I try to explain to my Protestant friends that we Catholics do not believe that any of the saints or that any peson or part of the Church herself usurps Jesus’ role as the mediator between God and Man for man’s salvation, another quote like this shows up. I understand that every Catholic can’t spend all of his time guarding his statements against misinterpretation, but golly, a Cardinal?
t,
I wouldn’t sweat it too much. We shouldn’t have to refrain from commonsense language just because of the hypersensitivities of our detractors.
After all, the Church IS the Mystical Body of Christ you know(per Pius XII, Mystici Corporis). Remember, “I am the vine, you are the branches”? And, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It wasn’t just metaphor…
Enough with the hatin’ on PDFs. I make my living handling them. IE on a PC takes forever to open them but they’re a great file format. Safari on a Mac and Mozilla are fine with them. Blame Redmond not PDF.
Mark:
Excellent points, all.
Kasia,
I agree that Fr. John is an amazing priest. We “up north” miss his homilies and the focus he was able to place on the faith. Those south and west of here are blessed to have him now. I also agree that it was a blessing that he brough so many both back and in to the church, but sadly the example that he set was quickly erased, and a whole group of people gets left to question who was right, him or the priest before him or now after. The experimentation goes on, testing the faithful to see if they will notice the differences, which they will, but how will they see it?
The priests at my parish said if the new translations are as bad as they are rumored to be, they are just going to keep using the same sacramentary they are using now. It sounds like the new translations are high English for Australia, England and Scotland. It’s not American English and will be foreign. If we can have a separate “rite” for the handful of people who want the unreformed mass from 1962, we should be able to have a decent transation in American English and not be force-fed a snobbish form of the vernacular.
“The priests at my parish said if the new translations are as bad as they are rumored to be, they are just going to keep using the same sacramentary they are using now”
This is what happens when opinions are shaped by shallow and disobedient priests.
“It sounds like the new translations are high English for Australia, England and Scotland.”
It isn’t.
“a snobbish form of the vernacular.”
I’m sorry, you are the one sniffing disdainfully at being asked to slightly alter a few phrases. Sounds snobby to me.
The Cardinal says the new translation will require us to read the prayers again and – he says – “that’s not going to easy, and nobody’s looking forward to it.”
I am.
Re: “high English”
The Latin of the official Latin Rite Mass forms, and the Greek and Aramaic and other tongues of the official eastern Rites’ Masses, are not normal Joe Blow forms of the language. The Hebrew of the synagogue services, and the Hebrew of the Temple, were not ordinary Joe Blow forms of Hebrew.
When we talk to God and worship Him — when God grants us extraordinary access to Him — we are not in an ordinary situation. To use completely ordinary language is to act as if we don’t understand this.
Interestingly, nobody complains about the artificial elevation of corporate language, speeches in Congress or political discussions between the powerful, or even of advertising copy. Even restaurant menus try to make the occasion special by using special words or a foreign tongue. People demand that the level of discourse be elevated for important secular situations.
Even the poorest people will keep and bring out Grandma’s good china for honored guests. But we, the heirs of those poor people who invented new and high-sounding Greek words to express the amazing realities of the Gospels — we, who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb and the court of the King of Kings — we are being snobby if we try to bring out a few big words?
Riiiiight.
Marueen,
Thanks again for your insightful tid-bits!
However, as regards:
…speeches in Congress or political discussions between the powerful…
Whatever became of the profound rhetoric in political speeches?
For example, I’ve yet to encounter in current times a speech that was as eloquent and meaningful as that of Abraham Lincoln’s in Gettysburg.
The closest is the popular one from JFK (i.e., the Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country…) as well as Reagan’s Challenger speech (written by Peggy Noonan, a fellow Catholic no less!) that addressed quite eloquently the Challenger tragedy where the beloved crew: “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.”.
Is there ever going to be that kind of eloquence in presidential speeches ever again?
Not to pick on Bush — but is presidential eloquence going to be reduced to the level of: “Childrens do learn.”?
“slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.” Is there ever going to be that kind of eloquence in presidential speeches ever again?
As long as there are speechwriters and well-known works like the one from 1941 from which words can be lifted, why not?
Just as the devil can quote scripture, so too can Noonan steal the words of John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (1922-1941) and put them in the mouth of one of best script-readers of the Oval Office.
You mean just how Stephen J. Covey PLAGERIZED the Prayer of St. Francis with his LIFTED version:
“Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood.”
Compare that one to the words in the Prayer of St. Francis:
“O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.”
Thus, compare “O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek…to be understood as to understand…” with Covey’s “Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood.”
High Flight
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things
you havenot dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
high in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (1922-1941)