Switching RCIA Classes?

A reader writes:

I have spent many years as an active Christian in a Protestant church, but about
2 yrs ago I began reading the early church fathers and
suddenly my eyes were opened to the Truth of
Catholicism! I have been studying ever since and am
involved with several online Catholic groups.

My question is:

Since I am anxious to enter the RCC and I have studied
extensively, is there a reason/need for me to go
through almost 18months (including Inquiry) of RCIA? I
have another year to go in this particular RCIA but I
am struggling with some things. The candidates and
catechumens are doing the exact same program, no
consideration is made for previous Christian life
whatsoever (our priest has delegated RCIA to the
facilitators and will not intervene). The candidates
are required to participate in the scrutnies etc. I
know that it says in the RCIA manual (thanks to your
website :o)) that candidates do not participate in
scrutnies and sent the info along to my facilitators
and they said "technically scrutnies do not apply to
you but we have decided that everyone will participate
in them". I endured sitting through a movie entitled
"The Fourth Wiseman" which was RCIA’s version of
sharing the gospel.

Should I submit to everything this RCIA demands out of
obedience to the church or should I go across town to
another RCIA who is willing to look at each person’s
history and take that into account? I talked with this
other RCIA and they are eager to help me enter the RCC
sooner than NEXT Easter Vigil.

I want to be in full communion with the Church and I
hunger for the Eucharist! I do not think I am
demanding anything the Church does not make allowances
for but I do not want to be rebellious in any way.

Could you please help me with this?

Until you mentioned that there is a nearby RCIA program that would be willing to help facilitate your entrance into the Church by actually obeying the National Statues for the Catechumenate–which require that people not all be treated like catechumens–I was going to suggest that you hold your nose, grit your teeth, and tough it out. In other words, just do whatever you have to to get into the Church, which is the important thing.

That’s what I had to do. I had an awful RCIA program, and the parish I was attending refused to comply with Church law, which requires that candidates for reception into the Church who have already lived lives as catechized Christians are to be sorted out from the uncatechized and be given abbreviated periods of formation and then received into the Church apart from Easter Vigil.

Unfortunately, I was in a town where there were only two Catholic churches, and I didn’t have another alternative.

Neither do many people.

But if you are in the fortunate situation of having another RCIA program available to you that actually will follow the law then by all means make use of it!

There is zero problem with obedience on your part regarding this. You have no obligation whatsoever to stick with an RCIA program that is refusing to follow the law if you have the alternative of one that is. The obedience problem isn’t yours; it’s theirs.

If I were in your shoes, I’d count myself fortunate at having made the discovery of the other option and then waste no time in following it up.

Welcome home!

About That Motu Proprio

One big clue to the pope’s thinking came in his 1997 book, titled “Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977” and written when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in which he sharply criticized the drastic manner in which Pope Paul VI reformed the Mass in 1969.
…
But the picture is not so clear-cut. As Cardinal Ratzinger, he said he considered the new missal a “real improvement” in many respects, and that the introduction of local languages made sense.
In one revealing speech to Catholic traditionalists in 1998, he said bluntly that the old “low Mass,” with its whispered prayers at the altar and its silent congregation, “was not what liturgy should be, which is why it was not painful for many people” when it disappeared.
The most important thing, he said at that time, was to make sure that the liturgy does not divide the Catholic community.
With that in mind, knowledgeable Vatican sources say the pope’s new document will no doubt aim to lessen pastoral tension between the Tridentine rite and the new Mass, rather than hand out a victory to traditionalists.
CNS on the Motu Proprio: a link and commentary
What came to my mind here was there is also a need for those who have rejected our tradition and traditional forms to likewise demonstrate their own good will and a hermeneutic of continuity. Let’s be clear and fair, there has been a hermeneutic of rupture which has banished most anything deemed “pre-conciliar” and this is as problematic as the sort of traditionalist who has rejected anything and everything “post-conciliar.”
Further, not all “traditionalists” take on this approach of rupture. If they are simply attached to the treasures of the classical liturgy, desirous of true liturgical reform in the light of both the Council and our tradition of organic development, all the while never questioning the validity of the modern Roman rite, but calling for a reform of the reform with regard to it, then it seems to me that they have nothing to justify and join the ranks of our Holy Father as a Cardinal in this set of ideas. In that regard, I would propose they form a part of the true liturgical centre and mainstream —- just as do those who focus upon the reform of the reform, but who are supportive of the availability of the classical liturgy, provided we do not take an immobiliistic and triumphalistic approach to it, or one which rejects the Council — not as popular opinion may go of course, but as the mind of the Church may go, as seen in the light of the Conciliar documents and our tradition.
As for the extremes, the road to a change of heart and mind is not a one way street as this article might make one think; it is rather and precisely a two-way street.

Of course a lot of people have been wondering where the Tridentine Mass liberalization motu proprio is and why it hasn’t come out.

We know with a high degree of confidence that the documents was drafted–in fact, that it’s been through several drafts–and that B16 has been favorably disposed to issuing it (or it wouldn’t have been drafted in the first place).

But where is it?

Some have speculated that it was delayed by the negative reaction of the French episcopate–or other episcopates–and that this negative reaction may derail it altogether.

Maybe.

Although maybe B16 is just letting the bishops have their say before he does what he planned to do all along.

Myself, I have a different speculation about why it hasn’t come out. The desire for greater consultation with the bishops may be part of it, but I suspect that there is a different factor that has been delaying the motu proprio: the delay of the apostolic exhortation.

The Holy See sequences the release of major documents so that each one can make an impact in the press and then be absorbed by the public (or at least the relevant sections of the public). They don’t want the impact of major documents diluted by having them step on each other.

You could see a bit of that happening last week when–although the big news was the release of the apostolic exhortation–the headlines in many places were stolen by attention to a document of much lesser importance: the warning about some books by an individual theologian.

The latter–because it involved controversy–got more press in some circles, though it was much less important in and of itself.

Now you can imagine what would happen if they released the motu proprio before or (as some suggested) at the same time as the apostolic exhortation. Since the motu proprio will be controversial, the press surrounding it would totally overwhelm the apostolic exhortation.

The smart things for B16 to do–and he is a very smart man–would be to issue the apostolic exhortation first, to lead with the document that clearly shows he is in harmony with the liturgical renewal that followed the Second Vatican Council (even if it needs some course corrections) and then issue the motu proprio liberalizing the celebration of the Tridentine Mass.

The inordinate delays with the apostolic exhortation (which B16 complained about himself, albeit politely) thus strikes me as a likely reason for the delay in the release of the motu proprio.

Or that’s my theory.

Surf Mars!

Surf_marsOkay, you won’t be able to do it any time soon.

I mean, Virgin Galactic and its competitors haven’t gotten off the groundplanet yet, and there’s all that terraforming that would have to be done, but it looks like the raw materials are there for a totally tubular Martian vacation.

We’ve known for some time that Mars has water on it, but until recently we haven’t known how much.

Now there are reports that Mars’ polar caps–if melted–would provide enough liquid water to cover the planet with an ocean 36 feet deep.

That would be if the planet’s surface were totally smooth, which it isn’t, of course, so what you’d get is patches of land poking up through the water–islands and stuff (Olympus Mons would probably be a continent)–and that means just one thing . . .

BEACHES!

Lots and lots of red sand beaches.

Oh, and there’s one other thing you’ll need for really good surfing on a terraformed Mars: a big moon to cause tidal forces. Phobos and Deimos just won’t cut it. So we’ll need to tow into orbit a really big hunk o’rock that some other planet isn’t using. Maybe one of the Jovian sattelites or something.

Just think of the interesting wave dynamics that would be possible with Mars’ lower gravity. I’m imagining really big curls or something.

In the meantime,

GET THE STORY.

P.S. The story also says that they’ve detected traces of possible liquid water on Mars right now–a possible habitat for microbial life, so be sure and get your shots before you go.

Allison’s New Heart

Acey My niece, Allison, has a new heart, as of last Tuesday! Many thanks to all for your prayers. Just for grins, I have posted a picture of her, pre-transplant, with Ace Young, from last season’s American Idol show. He came by Denver Children’s Hospital just to see her. Nice guy.

Since I posted a link to Allison’s Web Page previously, I have refrained from posting on her progress for a couple of reasons;

1) The news of her recovery changes daily, and I only want to hit highlights as they come. I am by nature optimistic, and didn’t want to post about every little bump in the road.

2) I didn’t want events in my personal life to even BEGIN to dominate Jimmy’s blog, even in the short term.

In short, Allison is doing well. The surgery itself went as well as could be expected. Such procedures now take between 6-8 hours, and her’s was typical. there was scar tissue to deal with, and for that reason there was some increased post-operative bleeding that was not unexpected. One significant fact; Allison’s blood oxygen levels, post-op, have been normal for the first time in her life! So her new heart is doing it’s thing.

There have been some additional issues, but overall, Allison is recovering nicely. If you would like to keep up with her day-to-day progress, her webpage is updated fairly often by my brother, the radio genius. He’s not only a great husband and father, but he can build a radio station for you from the ground up, and in addition is the best DJ and sports announcer I have ever heard.

Praise God for his healing mercy.

Blogging for the Dark Side

This weekend I got a piece of e-mail that I thought was going to be an attempt at phishing, and I opened it expecting to quickly hit the "Report Phishing" doo-dad in Gmail.

But it didn’t contain a phishing appeal in the text of the e-mail itself. (You know, all those Nigeria/wherever variants on The Spanish Prisoner). Instead, it contained a link to a blog on Blogspot.

Ostensibly, the e-mail was from the pastor of a church in another country who had set up a blog and was inviting me to read it, but the e-mail still threw off phishing vibes to me even though there was no appeal for money in the e-mail itself.

So I clicked on the link and took a look at the blog.

I found what appeared to be the blog of a pastor in another country. Yet the way the thing was written and the way it re-used photographs kept my spider sense tingling and, sure enough, sandwiched in to various blog posts were appeals for financial support, and something in my brain said: "Two-step phishing routine; phishers may start sending out innocent-seeming e-mails as bait to get people to sites where traditional phishing is carried out."

Now, I don’t know for sure that this wasn’t legit. It may be that this really as the blog of a pastor in another country, who is innocently asking for donations.

Which is why I’m not naming the site. I don’t want to falsely accuse someone who is legitimate.

But just coincidentally, later that day, I happened to run into

THIS STORY ABOUT BLOGSPOT BEING INFECTED WITH PHISHING AND MALWARE-SPREADING BLOGS.

Be careful out there, folks.

CDF Sobrino Warning

A reader writes:

I am involved in our parish group and in one of the books we have to read was an extended article about Fr. Jon Sobrino, SJ. We though he was a hero until today.

In a Spanish newspaper I read the warning he has received from the Vatican for deny publicly Jesus divinity.

Can you clarify for me please?

I’ll do my best. The story you read is based on an actual event. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has published a warning about two books by Fr. Jon Sobrino, SJ. The warning, among other things, notes Fr. Sobrino’s failure to clearly affirm the divinity of Christ. That passages of the warning reads:

4. A number of Father Sobrino’s affirmations tend to diminish the breadth of the New Testament passages which affirm that Jesus is God: "[The New Testament] makes clear that he was intimately bound up with God, which meant that his reality had to be expressed in some way as a reality that is of God (cf. Jn 20:28)" (Christ the Liberator, 115). In reference to John 1:1, he affirms: "Strictly speaking, this logos is not yet said to be God (consubstantial with the Father), but something is claimed for him that will have great importance for reaching this conclusion: his preexistence. This does not signify something purely temporal but relates him to the creation and links the logos with action specific to the divinity" (Christ the Liberator, 257). According to the Author, the New Testament does not clearly affirm the divinity of Jesus, but merely establishes the presuppositions for it: "The New Testament…contains expressions that contain the seed of what will produce confession of the divinity of Christ in the strict sense" (Ibidem). "All this means that at the outset Jesus was not spoken of as God, nor was divinity a term applied to him; this happened only after a considerable interval of believing explication, almost certainly after the fall of Jerusalem" (Ibidem, 114).

To maintain that John 20:28 affirms that Jesus is "of God" is clearly erroneous, in as much as the passage itself refers to Jesus as "Lord" and "God." Similarly, John 1:1 says that the Word is God. Many other texts speak of Jesus as Son and as Lord.5 The divinity of Jesus has been the object of the Church’s faith from the beginning, long before his consubstantiality with the Father was proclaimed by the Council of Nicea. The fact that this term was not used does not mean that the divinity of Jesus was not affirmed in the strict sense, contrary to what the Author seems to imply.

Father Sobrino does not deny the divinity of Jesus when he proposes that it is found in the New Testament only "in seed" and was formulated dogmatically only after many years of believing reflection. Nevertheless he fails to affirm Jesus’ divinity with sufficient clarity. This reticence gives credence to the suspicion that the historical development of dogma, which Sobrino describes as ambiguous, has arrived at the formulation of Jesus’ divinity without a clear continuity with the New Testament.

But the divinity of Jesus is clearly attested to in the passages of the New Testament to which we have referred. The numerous Conciliar declarations in this regard6 are in continuity with that which the New Testament affirms explicitly and not only "in seed". The confession of the divinity of Jesus Christ has been an absolutely essential part of the faith of the Church since her origins. It is explicitly witnessed to since the New Testament.

HERE’S THE FULL TEXT OF THE WARNING.

AND AN EXPLANATORY NOTE ISSUED BY THE CDF.

AND SOME PERSPECTIVE BY JOHN ALLEN.

On a side note, I found it interesting that–though Sobrino has been active in Latin American liberation theology–he is of Basque origin.

Incidentally (sorry, but the linguist in me can’t resist), Basque is one of the few language isolates that exists in Europe (or anywhere else). That is, it is a language that is not clearly part of a larger language family, like the Indo-European family, to which virtually all of the European languages belong. Basque, apparently, is a survival of a language that was already in place before the expansion of Indo-European into Europe. Almost everywhere else got swallowed up by speakers of Indo-European langauges, but the Basques held on to theirs.

Consequently, I’d really like to study their language some time.

MORE.

Michiganders, What’s On Your Menu Friday?

Muskrat
I was glad to see Catholic News Service run

THIS STORY

about a practice that I’ve heard about before, and that I believe has shown up here on the blog about before, but which I haven’t seen the paper trail on: the local practice of eating muskrat on Fridays during Lent.

I’m always a little cautious about reports of local exceptions like this and whether they are still allowed. I want to be able to see the documentation rather than just taking someone’s word or taking the word of an old written source that may not reflect current Church law.

The article linked above doesn’t provide what I’d like in the ideal–a quotation from a legal document issued by one or more dioceses in Michigan. It doesn’t do that because–apparently–there isn’t such a document. That’s okay (legally), though, because canon law recognizes the possibility of custom attaining the force of law, and it seems to me that in this case that’s the current basis for the Michigan muskrat exception. In other words, unless someone produces a legal document that we don’t currently know about, it looks like the faithful in some areas of Michigan are allowed to eat muskrat on days of abstinence, according to legitimate local custom.

A Pound of Flesh

Whatever happened to making license plates? In a scenario that seems to take the Chinese model as an inspiration,

Apparently, South Carolina is considering allowing prisoners to trade body parts for time off their sentences.

Being that the political and ethical problems with this are smell-able from a couple of furlongs, the only question in my mind is how an idea this grisly and morally tone-deaf could get this far along. Who the heck thought this is a good idea? I’m speaking as someone who’s niece underwent a heart transplant yesterday!

"Mary Jo Cagle, chief medical officer of Bon Secours St. Francis Health
System in Greenville, urged senators to find an allowable incentive.
"We have a huge need for organs and bone marrow," Cagle said."

Oh. I see. Well, that makes it okay, then. It’s a market-driven thing, I guess. To be fair, the legislative committee that has worked on the proposal is not sold on the idea of an incentive program to encourage inmates to cut their incarceration by donating organs or tissue. They are not even sure it’s legal (obviously some outdated legal aberration, like in Hartford, Connecticut, where it’s illegal to kiss your wife on Sunday).

In an advanced society such as ours, we understand that it is WRONG to ask an inmate to trade his/her very flesh for a reduced prison sentence (this could give a whole new dimension to the Plea Bargain), or to be so crass as to just write a check for someone’s internal organs. We prefer to steal valuable tissue from anonymous, microscopic people. Far fewer entanglements.

GET THE STORY.