Category: The Church

Just How “Major” Was Monday’s Finance Document?

Curia

There was a lot of buzz leading up to the the note on world financial matters released by the Holy See on Monday.

One of the first references I saw to it was in a story with a headline something like “Major Vatican Document to Be Released Monday.” I clicked on the story and saw that the document in question was to be released by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. My eyebrows immediately went up, and I began pondering the sense in which the term “major” was being used.

I suspect that the person who wrote the headline was using the term in its ordinary sense, which would signify a document of great importance relative to others issued by the Holy See, on some kind of absolute or general scale. You know, the way a papal encyclical is a major document.

But I suspect that the person who wrote the headline was under a misimpression, because the document was not major in this way.

“Major” is a relative term, and while it might be accurate to say that the document was “major” by the lights of the PCJP, it was not major in the overall Vatican sweep of things. The mere fact that it’s being issued by the PCJP tells you that much.

That’s no slight to the PCJP. It is a dicastery (department) of the Holy See, with its own proper work and role. It’s just not a venue the pope uses to issue major documents, when “major” is read in terms of the Vatican as a whole.

Because of the controversial nature of the document, it attracted a great deal of comment in the press, with some loving and some loathing it. Others loved certain aspects of the document and loathed others. And there was a great deal of discussion regarding what kind of authority the document has.

George Weigel stated:

The truth of the matter is that “the Vatican” — whether that phrase is intended to mean the Pope, the Holy See, the Church’s teaching authority, or the Church’s central structures of governance — called for precisely nothing in this document. The document is a “Note” from a rather small office in the Roman Curia. The document’s specific recommendations do not necessarily reflect the settled views of the senior authorities of the Holy See; indeed, Fr. Federico Lombardi, the press spokesman for the Vatican, was noticeably circumspect in his comments on the document and its weight. As indeed he ought to have been. The document doesn’t speak for the Pope, it doesn’t speak for “the Vatican,” and it doesn’t speak for the Catholic Church.

Fr. John Zuhlsdorf wrote:

I can say this: Thanks be to God this “white paper” doesn’t form part of the Holy Father’s Ordinary Magisterium.

Every once in a while the Holy See’s smaller offices, Pontifical Councils and so forth, have to put out a paper to justify their budgets and remind everyone that they take up valuable space. These documents, which do not form part of the Holy Father’s Magisterium, can deal with critical issues like how to be a safe driver. The dicasteries keep busy by hosting seminars on how to play sport and so forth.

Mark Brumley states:

Even though Catholics are not obliged to accept the policy proposals of this “note,” many Catholics will nevertheless want to hear what the council says, and others are likely to be influenced by it, even though it does not represent “the Vatican’s position” (contrary to what some media accounts and some leftwing Catholics would lead you to believe).

Each of these gentlemen is correct in the assertion that the document does not represent the Church’s teaching authority or magisterium—at least the document as a whole does not. (It does contain quotations from other documents which do carry magisterial authority, and those passages carry the same authority as they had in their original context.)

This is stuff that people who make a close study of the Holy See and the way it operates are aware of, but the secular media doesn’t pay close enough attention to know, and they regularly misrepresent things. Because the media doesn’t know how to process these things, they haven’t done a good job informing the general public about them, and so the ordinary person gets misleading headlines like “Pope Calls for World Bank” or things like that.

So how do we know that gentlemen like Weigel, Zuhlsdorf and Brumley are correct?

What I’d like to do here is offer a few brief thoughts on the subject. First, in this post, let’s deal with the question of how “major” the document is or—per Weigel and Zuhlsdorf—what the status of the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace is. In a second post, we’ll look at the question of whether documents like this represent the Magisterium of the Church.

First, let’s talk about the Roman Curia—the set of “dicasteries” or departments that includes the PCJP (the picture above is Pope Benedict addressing the Curia in 2009). The basic document governing the Curia is an apostolic constitution issued by John Paul II in 1988 called Pastor Bonus (Latin, “Good Shepherd”). This document provided the overall legal and organizational framework within which the Curia works today (though Pope Benedict has modified it a bit). According to the document:

Art. 1 — The Roman Curia is the complex of dicasteries and institutes which help the Roman Pontiff in the exercise of his supreme pastoral office for the good and service of the whole Church and of the particular Churches. It thus strengthens the unity of the faith and the communion of the people of God and promotes the mission proper to the Church in the world.

It then explains the concept of a dicastery and an institute more closely:

Art. 2 — § 1. By the word “dicasteries” are understood the Secretariat of State, Congregations, Tribunals, Councils and Offices, namely the Apostolic Camera, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, and the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See. . . .

§ 3. Among the institutes of the Roman Curia are the Prefecture of the Papal Household and the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff.

Another thing that Article 2 of Pastor Bonus explains is that:

§ 2. The dicasteries are juridically equal among themselves.

This means that they have an equality before the law, though it does not mean that they are all equal in duties or influence. The New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law notes:

While the dicasteries are technically juridically equal, they are not equal in importance or power. Normally no dicastery has any power over another; each responds directly to the pope regarding its activity (p. 479; on cc. 360-361).

The commentary then, in further passages, remarks on some of the differences in the influence and power of different dicasteries, noting that the Secretariat of State plays a central role and is especially close to the pope, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has an especially influential role among the congregations, etc.

In practice, it is not difficult to determine the relative influence of particular departments. They are, in fact, listed in Pastor Bonus itself in terms of their relative importance. Notice that Article 2 lists the Secretariat of State first, then the Congregations, then Tribunals, then Councils, and then Offices. This is the same order that you find if you go to the Roman Curia’s page on the Vatican web site. You’ll see exactly the same list of categories, in the same order (and further expanded and extended to include additional bodies).

This is the basic power structure within the Curia. While all departments may be juridically equal, those dicasteries that are higher up in the hierarchy have more influence in practical terms and those which are lower have less. The Secretariat of State has the most influence, followed by the Congregations. These include the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which has the most influence of all congregations (which is why it’s listed first in every such list; it doesn’t come in this order alphabetically in Latin; the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the Congregation for Clerics, and the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments would all come before it alphabetically in Latin), then other dicasteries with portfolios sufficiently weighty to be given the status of Congregation. Afterwards there are the Tribunals, and then we get to the Councils, one of which is the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. And it’s not at the top of the Council list. It’s the fourth one down in another non-(Latin-)alphabetical list of Councils that gives at least something of an idea of the relative influence of each Council.

As the commentary quoted above notes, these departments do not normally exercise power over each other. For the most part, they function in dependently based on their own particular missions. There are, however, exceptions. The Secretariat of State plays a coordinating role among the dicasteries to some extent. When a question of doctrine is in dispute, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith gets called in. The Signatura (one of the Tribunals) may be called upon to settle certain disputes between dicasteries about which one is competent in a particular area. And the pope himself can always intervene and make other provisions. But the general level of authority is indicated by the hierarchy given in Pastor Bonus, and Councils are not at the top of it.

This is why Weigel refers to the latter as a “rather small office” in the Curia and why Zuhlsdorf refers to it as one of the Curia’s “smaller offices.” This isn’t true just in terms of staff size. It’s true in terms of their relative level of authority.

It’s also why I raised my eyebrows at the claim that a “major” document would be released by the PCJP. As a Council, it occupies a place (and not the first place) on the fourth tier of dicasteries, and it’s not the kind of department that is used to issue “major” documents in terms of the overall sweep of things at the Vatican. A given document may be major compared to documents the Justice and Peace council normally issues, but under ordinary circumstances they won’t be major compared to documents issued, say, by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, or the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments—or the pope himself.

If one wants to accurately assess the import of a particular document, an important part of that assessment will be the nature of the one issuing the document.

That still doesn’t get us to the question of whether the document represents the teaching authority or Magisterium of the Church, though, so let’s talk about that next time.

PODCAST 017 Is Women’s Ordination a Heresy?

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SHOW NOTES:

JIMMY AKIN PODCAST EPISODE 017 (10/22/11) 

* BEN ASKS ABOUT WOMEN’S ORDINATION AND HERESY

Canons relating to the Church’s Magisterium, including the definition of heresy: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P2H.HTM

Who must make the profession of faith: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P2R.HTM

Text of the profession of faith: http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/cdfoath.htm

Doctrinal commentary on the profession of faith: http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/cdfadtu.htm

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Supreme Court to Decide Issue of Women Priests?

Supreme_courtThat’s what could happen on a legal theory articulated by the Obama administration—and the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court were quick to pick up on the fact.

The case at hand involves a Lutheran minister, but the principles potentially apply to the issue of women’s ordination in the Catholic Church.

Specifically, the case involves a woman who served in a teaching capacity that her Lutheran body considers ministerial. Problems arose with her position because she suffers from narcolepsy, and she threatened to file a complaint with the state under the Americans with Disabilities Act. She was then let go because the Lutheran body she works for holds that an in-house dispute resolution process should have been used rather than involving the state.

They apparently have a fairly strict interpretation of 1 Corinthians 6:1-8, where St. Paul warns against lawsuits among believers, saying that such disputes should be settled within the Christian community rather than using the secular courts because of the scandal this creates. The Catholic Church recognizes the principles used in this passage but would apply them within a larger, natural law framework that would not result in an absolute prohibition. The scandal caused by Christians suing each other in secular court in a country like America today is not nearly the same as it would have been in St. Paul’s day, when Christians were a tiny minority. Operating in a “Scripture only” manner that does not have the same natural law heritage, however, it’s easy to see how a Lutheran group might take St. Paul as being more absolute than he is.

Whatever one may think of the group’s view regarding dispute resolution and going to court, it seems like this is precisely the kind of thing that the First Amendment would protect. The federal government should not be in the business of telling churches who they must or must not have as ministers. Such an intervention would violate the free exercise of religion.

Right?

Not according to the Obama administration.

FROM CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY/EWTN NEWS:

“The (Obama) administration has taken a very extreme position,” said Becket Fund Legal Counsel Luke Goodrich, who is leading the religious freedom group’s work on the Hosanna-Tabor case. He said the administration was “attacking the very existence of the ministerial exception,” such that “even the pastor of a church could sue the church for employment discrimination.”

“There’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding the outcome of this case,” Goodrich told CNA/EWTN News Oct. 3, “because the Supreme Court has not decided a case involving the autonomy of religious groups in many years.”

The Justice Department holds that the Lutherans cannot fire Perich for complaining to the government even if church teaching forbids it.

And it was this question – when might the government’s interest in preventing discrimination trump a religious group’s principles? – that prompted the justices to ask the attorney for the government’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission during Oct. 5 oral arguments why female priests could not be mandated by the government on similar grounds.

The justices were quick during oral arguments to apply the principles the Obama administration was proposing to the Catholic Church’s teaching that only baptized men can be validly ordained to the priesthood:

“The belief of the Catholic Church that priests should be male only – you do defer to that, even if the Lutherans say, look, our dispute resolution belief is just as important to a Lutheran as the all-male clergy is to a Catholic?” asked Chief Justice John Roberts, questioning Leodra Kruger, the U.S. solicitor general’s assistant who represented the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission.

“Yes,” Kruger responded. “But that’s because the balance of relative public and private interests is different in each case.”

That right there should send chills up your spine. Whenever a public official starts talking about the relative balance of public and private “interests” the public (i.e., government) “interests” tend to win out in the end. It may take a generation, but once the precedent is set that it’s a question of how government vs. non-government “interests” get balanced, the government finds a way—based on changing mores and social standards or whatever—to impose its own interests as the expense of non-government entities.

“Do you believe, Miss Kruger, that a church has a right that’s grounded in the Free Exercise Clause and/or the Establishment Clause to institutional autonomy with respect to its employees?” asked Justice Elena Kagan.

“We don’t see that line of church autonomy principles in the religion clause jurisprudence as such,” the federal government’s attorney replied.

Kruger also said the ministerial exception to discrimination laws was not simply a part of the First Amendment’s guarantee of the “free exercise of religion.”

So according to the Obama administration a church does not have a First Amendment right to determine who its ministers will be.

Justice Scalia then pressed Kruger on the difference between ordinary “associations” – subject to a range of anti-discrimination laws – and religious ones.

“There is nothing in the Constitution that explicitly prohibits the government from mucking around in a labor organization,” said Justice Scalia, “but there, black on white in the text of the Constitution are special protections for religion. And you say that makes no difference?”

Kruger’s response included her explanation of what the government considers “the core of the ministerial exception as it was originally conceived … which is that there are certain relationships within a religious community that are so fundamental, so private and ecclesiastical in nature, that it will take an extraordinarily compelling governmental interest to (allow) just interference.”

Go, Antonin! This is the very reason we have freedom of religion protection in the First Amendment to begin with—to draw a bright line that the government must not cross.

But Justice Breyer pushed the federal government’s attorney to say how far she believed the protection extended.

“Suppose you have a religion and the central tenet is: ‘You have a problem with what we do, go to the synod; don’t go to court,’” he asked. “So would that not be protected by the First Amendment?”

“It’s not protected,” Kruger responded.

So, according to the Obama administration, the Obama administration gets to decide on the applicability of 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 to an employment dispute?

The government attorney went on to attack Hosanna-Tabor’s use of the ministerial exception, which she said would mean “ that the hiring and firing decisions with respect to parochial school teachers and with respect to priests is categorically off limits” to federal regulators.

And this would be bad . . . how? Note in particular that she objected to the idea that “the hiring and firing decisions with respect to . . . priests is categorically off limits.” So the Obama administration thinks the government’s interference with the Church’s hiring and firing of priests should not be off limits?

“We think that that is a rule that is insufficiently attentive to the relative public and private interests at stake,” she said, citing “interests that this Court has repeatedly recognized are important in determining freedom of association claims.”

It was then that Breyer sprung the question of whether a woman might sue over her exclusion from the Catholic priesthood, on the same basis that Perich was suing over a religiously-grounded termination.

Kruger said the two situations were different – not categorically, but rather because “the private and public interests are very different in the two scenarios.”

“The government’s general interest in eradicating discrimination in the workplace is simply not sufficient to justify changing the way that the Catholic Church chooses its priests, based on gender roles that are rooted in religious doctrine,” she said.

But, she said, the government does have a “compelling and indeed overriding interest in ensuring that individuals are not prevented from coming to the government with information about illegal conduct,” even if the church in question would prohibit its members from doing so on religious grounds.

I’m sorry. My spider sense is telling me that if the principle is established that these situations are not “categorically different” then it’s only a matter of time before the government, trying to pander to feminist constituencies, will decide that “the government’s general interest in eradicating discrimination in the workplace” is “sufficient to justify changing the way that the Catholic Church chooses its priests.”

Justice Samuel Alito pointed out that this distinction between the Lutherans’ lawsuit prohibition on the one hand, and the Catholic Church’s male priesthood on the other, seemed arbitrary.

To quote President Obama, “Darn, tootin’!”

Kruger’s clearest articulation of the Obama administration’s position on religious freedom came in response to Justice Kagan’s question as to whether she was “willing to accept the ministerial exception for substantive discrimination claims, just not for retaliation claims.”

The government’s lawyer responded that “substantive discrimination” claims, such as those alleging sex discrimination, could also be legitimate grounds for a lawsuit against some religious institutions.

Yes. This generates lots of confidence that the Catholic Church will not be an institution that is tomorrow subject to lawsuits alleging sex discrimination regarding its hiring of priests.

The good news is that, based on the press account above, the justices seem skeptical of the Obama administration’s legal theory on this point—and a majority of the court are, in fact, Catholics of one stripe or another—but we’ll have to wait and see the outcome of the suit, won’t we?

In the end, the Church will not base its theology on the dictates of the U.S. Supreme Court, but if things go wrong now, they could go even more wrong in the future and harm the Church’s ability to live and promulgate its faith in America.

What do you think?

“Pope (LAST NAME HERE)”

Head-silhouette-with-question-mark Many years ago, when I was first starting to work in apologetics, I was reading an article by an Italian journalist—I think it may have been Andrea Tornielli—who referred in passing to “Pope Wojtyla,” meaning John Paul II.

“How disrespectful!” I thought.

At the time, I was only used to referring to popes by their regnal name (the one they choose when they become pope) either preceded by the word “Pope” (i.e., “Pope John Paul”) or followed by their regnal number (i.e., “John Paul II”) or both (i.e., “Pope John Paul II”).

And that was only if there was a name involved at all. More generic designations were also possible—like “the holy father” or simply “the pope”—but not other combinations involving names.

It still strikes me as being overly familiar with the high pontiff to just haul off and refer simply to “John Paul” or “Benedict” without at least first getting in a reference to “John Paul II” or “Pope Benedict.”

It can be a little tempting to ask, “So . . . how long have you and his holiness been on a first name basis?”

After the first reference in an article has paid homage to the pope’s position, though, I fully understand using just the regnal name to avoid undue repetition.

But to reach back before his papacy and grab a name that he went by before he acquired the authority of the successor of Peter—as in “Pope Wojtyla”—that seemed to me to be the height of impertinence.

I imagine it strikes a lot of Americans that way when they first encounter the usage, because here in America we don’t commonly refer to popes this way.

But in Europe they do. It’s much more common there to use the “Pope (Last Name)” construction, and it isn’t considered disrespectful.

An interesting proof of that is that if you read enough Vatican documents, you find that this usage isn’t confined to the European press. The Holy See itself uses it. In fact, the popes themselves do.

For example, in an address Pope Benedict gave last May on the 50th anniversary of John XXIII’s encyclical Mater et Magistra, the current holy father said:

Still valid, too, in addition, are the instructions that Pope Roncalli offered on a legitimate pluralism among Catholics in the implementation of the social doctrine. He wrote, in fact, that in this context “differences of opinion in the application of principles can sometimes arise even among sincere Catholics. When this happens, they should be careful not to lose their respect and esteem for each other. Instead, they should strive to find points of agreement for effective and quick action, and not wear themselves out in interminable arguments, and, under pretext of the better or the best, omit to do the good that is possible and therefore obligatory” (n. 238).

Pope Benedict obviously isn’t dissing his predecessor here. His reference to “Pope Roncalli” isn’t intended to be disrespectful. If anything, it’s meant to be affectionate.

And this is not the only such reference you’ll find in Vatican documents.

If you do some quick Googling of vatican.va (using the “site:vatican.va” tag on Google), you find multiple results of this kind for recent popes:

“Pope Roncalli” (John XXIII) . . . 3 results
“Pope Montini” (Paul VI) . . . 19 results
“Pope Luciani” (John Paul I) . . . 8 results
“Pope Wojtyla” (John Paul II) . . . 6 results

The dataset is too small to draw any conclusions about trends regarding the usage (and too small a set of the Vatican’s documents are as yet online), but it does show that this is an established usage—blessed by Vatican and even papal practice—even if it’s somewhat unfamiliar to American ears.

What are your thoughts?

America Gets Its 1st Approved Apparition!

OlghYippie!

Approved apparitions are cool!

The apparition took place in 1859 in what is now the Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin. For the last two years a diocesan commission has been evaluating its authenticity, and on Wednesday (Dec. 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception), Bishop David Ricken announced its approval.

Apparently, he was surprised to learn that this was the first such approval of an apparition in the United States. He also reportedly was surprised to learn that it hadn’t already been approved since his predecessor bishops had supported it (albeit without giving it formal approval—note well that this is something that can happen; just because a bishop says something nice about an apparition does not mean it has been formally approved).

As this is the first American approval of an apparition, it is instructive to see the kind of language that Bishop Ricken used (most other such approvals were done pre-Internet and/or in other languages and thus have not been seen by most).

THE COMPLETE TEXT OF HIS DECREE CAN BE READ HERE (.pdf)

After the bishop briefly reviews the history of the apparition and the investigation of it, he arrives at the money part:

It remains to me now, the Twelfth Bishop of the Diocese of Green Bay and the lowliest of the servants of Mary, to declare with moral certainty and in accord with the norms of the Church:

that the events, apparitions and locutions given to Adele Brise in October, 1859 do exhibit the substance of supernatural character, and I do hereby approve these apparitions as worthy of belief (although not obligatory) by the Christian faithful.

These Marian apparitions are now commemorated under the title “Our Lady of Good Help,” and there is a corresponding shrine in Champion, Wisconsin.

So what happened in 1859?

A young woman named Adele Brise—28-year old Belgian immigrant to what was then the American frontier—was taking wheat to a local mill when she saw a lady in white standing between two trees (and, yes, she did report the lady as having golden hair in the vision, which would most likely be based on Adele’s ethnic background). The lady then vanished. She saw the same thing the next day. At first Adele thought the lady might be a soul in purgatory who needed prayers, and she was frightened. She communicated this to several people, one of whom, a local priest,

told her that if it were a heavenly messenger, she would see it again, and it would not harm her, but to ask in God’s name who it was and what it desired of her.

 

Note that these are a paraphrase of the two classic, basic questions, “Who are you?” and “What do you want?” (I once recommended the same questions to a child who called in to Catholic Answers Live reporting that he heard a voice from an unknown source—if the voice came back. Unfortunately, I never heard whether it did or what the voice answered. But I’m glad to see the advice I gave in modern times echoed in this case. They seem to me the best questions to ask of an unknown, possibly supernatural agency.)

Meanwhile, back in 1859, what happened next?

After that, Adele had more courage. She started home with her two companions, and a man who was clearing land for the Holy Cross Fathers at Bay Settlement accompanied them.

“As they approached the hallowed spot, Adele could see the beautiful lady, clothed in dazzling white, with a yellow sash around her waist. Her dress fell to her feet in graceful folds. She had a crown of stars around her head, and her long, golden, wavy hair fell loosely around her shoulders. Such a heavenly light shone around her that Adele could hardly look back at her sweet face. Overcome by this heavenly light and the beauty of her amiable visitor, Adele fell on her knees.

” ‘In God’s name, who are you and what do you want of me?’ asked Adele, as she had been directed.

“ ‘I am the Queen of Heaven, who prays for the conversion of sinners, and I wish you to do the same. You received Holy Communion this morning, and that is well. But you must do more. Make a general confession, and offer Communion for the conversion of sinners. If they do not convert and do penance, my Son will be obliged to punish them’

“ ‘Adele, who is it?’’ said one of the women. ‘O why can’t we see her as you do?’ said another weeping.

“ ‘Kneel,’ said Adele, ‘the Lady says she is the Queen of Heaven.’ Our Blessed Lady turned, looked kindly at them, and said, ‘Blessed are they that believe without seeing. What are you doing here in idleness…while your companions are working in the vineyard of my Son?’

“ ‘What more can I do, dear Lady?’ said Adele, weeping.

“ ‘Gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation’

“ ‘But how shall I teach them who know so little myself?’ replied Adele.

“ ‘Teach them,’ replied her radiant visitor, ‘their catechism, how to sign themselves with the sign of the Cross, and how to approach the sacraments; that is what I wish you to do. Go and fear nothing. I will help you.’”

The manifestation of Our Lady then lifted her hands, as though beseeching a blessing for those at her feet, and slowly vanished, leaving Adele overwhelmed and prostrate on the ground [SOURCE].

And that was all, in terms of the apparitions. They were short and straightforward.

Following this, Adele devoted herself wholeheartedly and despite obstacles to her mission of educating children. She became a Third Order Franciscan Sister. Many people began to hold pilgrimages to the site, where a shrine was built. Healings were reported, and twelve years later the site of the shrine was spared from a tremendous wildfire that scorched large swaths of forest around it.

And so, given the convergence of (1) the (obvious) compatibility of the message with the Christian faith, (2) the revolution in the life of Sr. Adele, and (3) the apparent fruit—including apparent answered prayer—that followed the apparition in the lives of others, Bishop Ricken approved the apparition, concluding with “moral certainty” (not absolute certainty) that it was of divine origin and could be recommended to the faithful as such, though this recommendation does not carry an obligation of belief. One is free to discount the idea that the apparition is of supernatural origin, and in doing so one does not sin.

While apparitions differ from one to another, it may be noted that this case corresponds fairly closely to the core paradigm for approved Marian apparitions, which may be phrased along these lines: On a limited number of occasions, the Virgin Mary appears to a young, uneducated person—usually female—and imparts a message of that proclaims no new doctrine but instead conveys both warning and consolation focusing on the salvation of souls and suggesting a way to promote this; the life of the visionary is revolutionized, and the visionary pursues some form of religious vocation (if not already undertaken); the visionary seeks the guidance of competent authorities in the evaluation of the manifestations and is obedient to ecclesiastical authority; some form of further evidence of answered prayer or the miraculous is forthcoming.

So.

America gets its first approved apparition. Kewl beans.

And, its a straightforward and uncomplicated one that should be uncontroversial and thus serve to highlight it as a useful spiritual signpost. Kewler still.

OFFICIAL SITE OF THE SHRINE.

BIO OF THE VISIONARY, ADELE BRISE.

ACCOUNT OF THE APPARITIONS.

REGISTER COVERAGE.

How To Get Your Autographed Copy of The Fathers Know Best

Fathers Know Bes1-02 At last!

I’ve had a lot of people ask when the book would be available for pre-order, and now it is!

In fact, I’m pleased to tell you how to get your very own, autographed copy of the book–together with an exclusive audio interview that will not be available anywhere else.

Catholic Answers is doing a fundraising appeal based on the book because printing and properly promoting a book is expensive–particularly in the orthodox Catholic, non-profit world of niche publishing.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE.

As Karl Keating explains in a recent letter,

I want to launch this book with a bang, not a whimper

The book is ready for the printer. The text has been finished, proofed, and typeset. But this is a big book—about 400 pages—and to print it in a large enough quantity to get a good per-copy rate from the printer and to give it the initial public promotion it deserves . . . well, that takes cash that we just don’t have.

But—ahem!—you and our other friends do, and so I’m asking you to give us a hand in getting The Fathers Know Best printed and publicized. 

I’ve been involved in writing and publishing for a long time, so I know that bringing a book to fruition and getting it noticed (and sold!) is no easy thing. 

Each year more than 40,000 titles are published in the U.S., and it takes savvy and, alas, cash to get a worthwhile book “noticed” and reviewed and (as I think this one will be) praised, but that’s what needs to be done if The Fathers Know Best is to have the influence I think it ought to have.

In publishing, as in other areas, there’s a “window of opportunity.” 

If a publisher can make a big splash right from the start, then a book has a chance to carry itself, so to speak, and to go from success to success. 

But if a publisher isn’t in a position to print many copies or to give the book the marketing oomph it needs, even the best book will languish.

And The Fathers Know Best mustn’t languish, because it’s a book that can do an immense amount of good—both spiritual and intellectual—for countless thousands of people, both Catholic and non-Catholic.

That’s why I want to have a large first-run printing and an extensive right-out-of-the-gate marketing campaign. 

I want this book to “go viral”—because Christians of all stripes need it

To use a term common on the Internet, I want this book to “go viral,” which means to have publicity about it be self-sustaining so that more and more people can learn about—and learn from—this important book.

I hope you can help us pull this off. 

As I said, we need money to print a large number of copies of The Fathers Know Best—the more copies we order, the cheaper the unit cost and thus the lower we can set the retail price—and to undertake an extensive promotional campaign. 

I hope you might be one of those willing to help with a gift of $500 or $1,000 or even more. Or maybe you can afford to send us $100 or $200 toward this effort. Whatever you give, you have our thanks.

If you’re able to help us with a donation of at least $50, as a thank-you, we’ll send you in return two things: 

1. A copy of the book itself, of course, autographed by Jimmy Akin.

2. An exclusive audio interview with Jimmy about the book and its background. This interview will not be made available in the future and is available only as a thank-you to those who help with this project.

Perhaps you can tell from this letter that I’m excited about this project. I think Jimmy’s new book will do a lot of good for a lot of people. 

Over the years, I’ve learned of many people who, having stumbled across the Fathers, found themselves compelled to go where they didn’t want to go—into the Catholic Church.

They saw that the Catholic Church and Catholic beliefs go back beyond the Council of Trent, beyond the medieval councils, all the way to the earliest councils—and further back still, all the way to Christ. 

Won’t you help us help thousands come to see this truth?

You and I are witnesses to the truth of the Catholic faith—and I think we’ve had some success in that—but the most powerful witnesses I know, outside the Bible itself, are the Fathers of the Church. 

Please help us introduce them to today’s readers, both Catholic and non-Catholic. 

I’m excited about the book finally being available for pre-order, and I hope you will consider supporting it–and Catholic Answers as a whole–through a generous donation.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE.

Of course, you could simply wait a little longer and purchase the book, but I hope that you will offer your support in this way because it helps the ministry continue its work and it helps us do a decent print run and proper promotion for the book–maximizing the apostolic good that is done and helping Catholic Answers undertake more publishing projects like this in the future.

To give those who support this appeal added value, I’m going to be sitting down and autographing all the copies that are sent to those who donate.

I’m also–and I haven’t talked about this elsewhere–going to be personalizing the autographs by adding a citation to a relevant Bible verse to each one. That’s something I always do when I autograph things as a lagniappe–“a little bit extra.” Years ago when I was given a book by a Christian author, he wrote a Bible verse under his signature. I went home and looked it up, and I decided I liked the custom, so I always do that when I autograph.

And I don’t give the same verse to everybody. I’m going to be picking out a selection of Fathers-related Bible verses and using them for the autographs.

I wonder what your verse will be?

To add even more value for the donor, I recently sat down to record an exclusive interview with Patrick Coffin about the Church Fathers and the making of the book. We will be sending a copy of this on CD to those who generously respond to the appeal. It will not be aired on Catholic Answers live, will not be posted online, and will not be available in any other way in the future. It is exclusively a thank-you for those who are able to help the ministry through their generosity.

So I look forward to autographing a book for you, and I hope you can give to this appeal and help Catholic Answers maximize the apostolic good it can do though The Fathers Know Best.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE.

Meet the Next Doctor of the Church

JhnewmanProbably.

I mean, it’s not certain, but at this point it’s probable.

Why do I say that?

And who am I talking about?

If you don’t recognize his picture, it’s John Henry Cardinal Newman.

As to why is it probable, well, he is to be beatified.

GET THE STORY.

If he is beatified, it is likely that he will (at some point) be declared a saint.

(NOTE: There is already an investigation underway of a possible second miracle needed for sainthood.)

If that happens, it’s a dead certain lock that he will be named a doctor of the Church.

Why?

Because Newman’s writings made the kind of important theological contribution to Catholic teaching that doctors of the Church make.

In particular, his theory on the development of doctrine helped the Church in a very important way by allowing theologians to better articulate the manner in which doctrine progresses, how something can be implicit in one age and made more explicit and precise with the course of time. He also did important work on the doctrine of conscience and other subjects.

Newman’s theological contributions are so substantial that if you look at the index of people cited in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and if you eliminate all the saints and popes, you’re left with basically three names: Newman, Origen, and Tertullian.

At least those three get mentioned more than anybody else in the not-a-saint, not-a-pope category.

Tertullian will never be a saint, because he died a schismatic.

Origen is undergoing something of a rehabilitation, as can be seen from the kind of treatment B16 gave him in his series of Wednesday audiences on early Christian figures.

But Newman is the closest to being given the title "doctor."

It may even happen at the same time as his canonization, should that be forthcoming.

MORE ON NEWMAN.

Calling Priests “Father” In Latin

They don’t.

Call priests "Father" in Latin, that is.

This is a fact that came to my attention recently when I was reading a volume of Roman Replies and CLSA Advisory Opinions (a canon law journal that prints what its name indicates) that had a revision from the reign of John Paul II of the rescript of laicization that is given to priests who are returned to the lay state (in terms of how they function in the Church; they still remain priests ontologically).

The revision was notable in that it allowed bishops to do things like, after a period of time, allow the ex-priest to serve as a lector or an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion.

What caught my attention, though, was the way the document refers to the priest.

In the English translation, it says something like "Father _____________ of the Diocese of ______________ is hereby . . . blah, blah, blah, etc."

But in the original Latin, it doesn’t say the Latin equivalent of "Father _____________," which would be "Pater _____________."

Instead, it said, "D.nus _____________."

D.nus?

I recognized that as almost certainly an abbreviation for "Dominus" or "Lord," which is a title that is still used for clergy in Latin, as it is in some countries (like England) as a title for nobility.

Thus when B16 was elected, Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez announced:

« Fratelli e sorelle carissimi ! ¡ Queridísimos hermanos y hermanas ! Biens chers frères et sœurs ! Liebe Brüder und Schwestern ! Dear brothers and sisters ! Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum : Habemus papam ! Emminentissimum ac reverendissimum dominum, dominum Iosephum, sanctæ romanæ Ecclesiæ cardinalem Ratzinger, qui sibi nomen imposuit Benedicti decimi sexti. »

The blue part would be "Lord Joseph (Cardinal of the holy roman Church) Ratzinger."

(BTW, you can listen to that online HERE. I just love listening to it and recalling that day. I especially like the brief pause before he enthusiastically says "Ratzinger." WHEEEE! I love it. HERE ARE MORE HABEMUS PAPAM RECORDINGS OF OTHER POPES.)

Anyway, after looking at the rescript, I called a friend who is a Latinist and who is well acquainted with Church documents in Latin and asked two questions:

1) Is Dominus the normal honorific used for priests in Church documents.

Yes.

2) Do they use Pater or an synonym?

No.

So it seems that calling priests "Father" is something that happens in vernacular languages like English (Father) or Spanish (Padre) or Arabic (Abunah) but not (at least not typically) in the Church’s official documents.

Interesting.

I said to my friend: "I bet there are a bunch of priests who don’t know they are ‘Lord So-and-So’ in Latin."

My friend: "Let’s not tell them."

I’ve Been Saying This For Years

It’s shocking!

You know how only a third of Catholics believe in the Real Presence?

Well, they don’t.

By which I mean: It isn’t true that only a third of Catholics believe in the Real Presence.

That’s a myth that got created due to thee things: (1) a pollster using a poorly worded questions that didn’t correspond to Catholic teaching, meaning that Catholics responding to the question weren’t sure how to answer it in a way that reflected their faith, and so the pro-Real Presence vote got split among several different categories. (2) Those reading the results of the poll didn’t pay careful attention to how the question was worded and what the implications were for how the different categories had to be pieced back together to get an accurate indication of belief in the Real Presence. (3) The general desire to lament how bad things are these days led people to read the results in terms of a staggering crisis of faith.

And so for years the idea has been floating around out there that only a small number of Catholics actually believe in the Real Presence, despite the fact that it isn’t true.

Now, I’m happy to concede that not enough Catholics believe in the Real Presence. 100% of them should. I’m also happy to concede that not enough Catholics understand the Real Presence in the manner articulated by the Church (transubstantiaion). Some have views that are fuzzy on that point, and bad catechesis is a key factor in that.

But the numbers are nowhere near as bleak as people make out.

And now there’s a new study (by the National Catholic Reporter folks, of all people), that backs this up. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus writes:

81 percent say that “belief that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist” is essential in their understanding of the Catholic faith. Keep in mind that the survey is of a cross section of the 65 million Catholics in the U.S. (although Latinos are greatly underrepresented). Among the more highly committed Catholics, it is reasonable to assume that belief in the Real Presence is considerably higher than 81 percent. This is worth keeping in mind because some years ago a clumsily worded question in a survey came up with the conclusion that only one third of Catholics believed in the Real Presence, and that “finding” still crops up in discussions on the state of Catholicism. Among active Catholics, belief in the Real Presence, as also in the Incarnation, the Virgin Birth, and the Resurrection of Jesus, edges up toward unanimity.

GET THE STORY.
(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)