Marriages In Church

A reader writes:

I’ve been looking for a really solid explanation of why Catholic weddings are ordinarily required to be in a Church. I have many friends that often ask me this question, but sadly I think my answers are not as good as they could be. Obviously, having a wedding in a Church emphasizes the sacramentality thereof, and it is a testimony to the faith community’s part in the couple’s life.

Thank you for your assistance.

There are two ways to approach the answer to this question. The first is the canonical approach. Catholic weddings are ordinarily celebrated in a church because the Code of Canon Law provides the following:

Can.  1118 §1. A marriage between Catholics or between a Catholic party and a non-Catholic baptized party is to be celebrated in a parish church. It can be celebrated in another church or oratory with the permission of the local ordinary or pastor.

§2. The local ordinary can permit a marriage to be celebrated in another suitable place.

§3. A marriage between a Catholic party and a non-baptized party can be celebrated in a church or in another suitable place.

Since most Catholics are either marrying other Catholics or baptized non-Catholics, section 1 applies, which indicates that the marriage is to be celebrated in a parish church unless the local ordinary (typically the bishop) or the pastor gives permission for it to be celebrated in another church or oratory (meaning, due to another canon we won’t go into, another Catholic church or oratory).

At first glance, the canonical answer may not seem that enlightening: "Catholic weddings are normally held in Catholic churches because that’s what the law says." Big deal. We probably could have guessed that, and the reader is likely wanting an answer from the other perspective, which is why does the law say this? What’s the reason for the law?

Here is where a close reading of the canon is helpful. It’s always at least a little risky to speculate on the motives behind the law, but the structure of this canon gives us a pretty clear indication of the reason for the law, and it indicates that the reader is on the right track.

If one party is Catholic and the other is either Catholic or another Christian then section 1 wants to locate the ceremony in a Catholic church or oratory, though with permission of the local ordinary it can be celebrated in another suitable place (such as a Protestant’s home church if the Catholic is marrying a Protestant), according to section 2.

The permission of the local ordinary goes out the window, though, if the Catholic is marrying a non-baptized (i.e., non-Christian) person. In that case it can happen in a Catholic church or in any suitable place, no permissions needed.

This suggests that there is a difference between the marriages of Catholics to other baptized people (Catholic or not) and the marriages of Catholics to non-baptized people. In the former case, sections 1 and 2 apply. In the latter case, section 3 applies.

Since all Catholics are baptized, that means that this canon draws a distinction between marriages that occur between two baptized people (sections 1 and 2) and marriages that don’t occur between two baptized people (section 3).

Now: What’s the big difference between marriages between two baptized people and marriages that aren’t between two baptized people?

That’s right: The former are sacramental and the latter are not.

So the reader is on the right track in identifying the sacramentality of the marriage as the key issue.

I’d be inclined to put it like this: Marriage between baptized persons is a sacrament, and sacraments are normally performed in church. To a significant extent, that’s what churches are for. They’re the places we (ordinarily) perform our sacraments.The reasons for this seem to be twofold:

1) Churches are places specially consecrated to God, making them sacred, and sacraments are sacred actions, making it natural to perform them in churches.

2) Sacraments are also ecclesial (church-related) acts, and it is thus natural to perform them in the presence of the church when possible. Churches (considered as buildings) are places where the church (considred as people) meets, and so it is natural to perform ecclesial acts in the presence of the members of the church in the house in which they meet.

There are exceptions to this. In some cases there is a good reason to vary from the practice. For example, sick people often can’t get to church, so the anointing of the sick is often administered to them where they are. But in the main, the two above reasons are good reasons why sacraments–including marriage–are normally performed in churches.

It doesn’t have to be that way, which is why canon law allows exceptions, but it is fitting that it be this way, which is why canon law establishes this preference.

As the green CLSA commentary on the Code of Canon Law puts it:

Since the marriages of two baptized persons are sacraments, they are not merely private or familial celebrations, they are ecclesial events. The spouses declare their consent "before God and the Church" and live out that commitment in and with the support of the local ecclesial community. It is, therefore, fitting that this celebration should take place in the parish church. It is here that the local community is "gathered together by the preaching of the Gospel of Christ, and the mystery of the Lord’s supper is celebrated, ‘so that the whole fellowship is joined together by the flesh and blood of the Lord’s body’"[p. 1337].

Looks Like The Folks At Chrysler Have It Under Control, Too

MORE.
(CHT to the comboxer who provided the link!)

BTW, folks who can’t see these YouTube videos need the Macromedia Flash 7 plugin.

MORE ON THAT.

AND MORE VIDEO HELP.

Now if only YouTube would begin streaming its videos with properly encabulated transmissive push technology. That would solve everyone’s problems!

Hangin’ Around

Square dancing is a very social and sociable activity that has lots of politeness rituals associated with it.

For example, at the beginning of the evening, it’s customary for all the dancers to greet each other with handshakes and hugs. Then, at the beginning of a tip (that’s a pair of two individual dances; typically a hoedown or "patter" call, followed by a singing call–and BTW, square dancing is where we get the word "hoedown") it’s customary for all the men in a square to greet everyone in the square. Then at the end of a tip everyone applauds. Then, after applauding, everyone in the square individually thanks everyone else in the square for dancing with them. And at the end of the evening everyone gives the caller a big round of synchronized applause and a "Thank you!" and then shakes his hand.

All this greeting and thanking means that it’s very useful for square dancers to wear name tags–particularly when you have dances where people from more than one club are present.

And so clubs typically have name badges. They usually have the dancer’s name, the club’s name and logo, and they are often given to a dancer at the time he graduates from a mainstream square dance class and is formally invited to join the club. (Till then, student dancers are typically given informal stick-on or pin-on name tags that have their name written in magic marker.)

Over time, name tags tend to get embellished in various ways. For example, it’s common for dancers to drill holes in the bottom of their name tags and then attach small, little dangly things to them. These dangly things are known, appropriately, as "dangles."

Some dangles are given on particular occasions. For example, if you attend a particular club’s anniversary dance, you might be given a dangle that commemorates the event. Or, if you visit a distant square dance club while travelling, you might be given a travel badge commemorating your visit (not all of these are dangles, though; some are pin-ons).

Some dangles don’t commemorate anything special and are just for fun. These are appropriately known as "fun dangles," and you can typically buy them at big square dance events. They often have cute sayings or pictures on them.

Some dangles take the form of bars that stretch across the width of the dancer’s name tag. These are often used to indicate what office a dancer holds or used to hold.

I keep my name tag pinned to the front of my vest, so I don’t forget to wear it when I go dancing (transferring it from one shirt to another would be a sure recipe for me to forget), but I haven’t had any dangles up to now (in part because I don’t have a drill with which to attach anything to my name tag). I haven’t even received travel badges when I’ve visited other clubs travelling.

But at last Friday’s dance I was given my first one.

Name_tag

Help With The Dark Side

A reader writes:

Before I came to Christ (and the Church) I was thirteen years old.  One time, I played a fortune-telling game, and the dark side made some dire predictions about my life.  Only bad things:  Never getting married, never graduating college, dying at age 27, etc…

I heard of other people quija boards, and all the predictions always come true.  I’m am very scared.  Do you know of any cases when occultic predictions failed to come true? 

Yes. False occultic predictions aren’t just a dime a dozen, they’re a dim a billion. The failure rates for psychics and such are staggeringly high, at least when their predictions have any degree of specificity to them, like the ones allegedly made about you.

Back when I was a teenager, before I was a Christian, I also had an interest in the occult. I didn’t get into ouija boards, but I read a lot of books about psychics like Edgar Cayce and Jeanne Dixon, both of whom made numerous predictions that failed to come true.

An example would be a series of cataclysmic "earth changes" that Cayce and other psychics said would occur between 1958 and 1998, including the earth’s poles flipping, California and most of Japan sliding into the sea, the rising of the continent of Atlantis, and it was all building ujp to the second coming of Christ and the dawning of the Millennium.

Well, as time rolled along, these things started not happening, and the psychics started to get nervous as we got closer to 1998. Some predicted that the things would happen in 1999, 2000, or 2001 instead.

Needless to say, they didn’t, and today this body of predictions–which was hot stuff in prior decades and the subject of numerous books–has been embarassedly swept under the collective rug of the psychic community, with very little being said about it today.

I don’t know who’s been telling you that predictions of ouija boards are never wrong, but they’re just telling you a scare story. They’re most likely remembering a few predictions that happened–due to pure random chance–to come true and they’re forgetting all the false ones (a phenomenon known as the "file-drawer effect," where things that tend to confirm a theory get remembered and things that tend to disconfirm it get overlooked).

The bottom line is that if ouija boards were infallible then no force on earth would stop people from using them constantly to corner the market and make tons of money. They’d also put all the other psychics out of business, and ouijaboardology would be a respected science being studied and taught at countless universities, with massive funding by private foundations.

That ain’t the world we live in, so ouija boards ain’t infallible. FAR from it.

So set your mind at rest about that.

Also, since you’ve now come to Christ and the Church, you have their protection in a way that you didn’t before, so draw confidence from that as well.

And know that this is a problem that will dissipate with time. As soon as you get married, graduate college, or turn 28, you’ll have your own personal disconfirmation of the predictions.

NOTE: To further help our friend out, I invite readers to mention psychic/occult predictions (particularly ones involving ouija boards) that they are aware of that have proven false!

20

Atlas Shrugged

A reader writes:

Hey Jimmy, any thoughts on "Atlas Shrugged"? I’ve yet to read it, but I’m wondering if it makes any good points, and was also curious what the bad ones might be. A friend has forced me to read it, so I thought it’d be best to get your thoughts first. Thanks!

Well, I can’t generally offer thoughts on works of fiction like Atlas Shrugged, and most have both good and bad points, but in this case I do happen to know something about the work and its author, Ayn Rand.

Ayn Rand was a 20th century immigrant to the US who advocated a particular philosophical system that she dubbed "Objectivism," because of its supposedly objective viewpoint.

This viewpoint has significant resonances with the Libertarian political movement, and advocates of Objectivism tend to be Libertarian politically (though not all Libertarians are Objectivists). This means that they tend to be economically liberal (in the historic sense–i.e., in favor of laissez-faire capitalism) while being socially liberal as well (e.g., not opposing abortion or homosexuality).

Objectivism tends to support a form of individualism that leaves open to the individual certain forms of freedom that Catholic theology would hold are immoral (e.g., it sometimes exalts selfishness as a virtue). It also tends to be strongly anti-religious.

While I have not read a great deal of Ayn Rand’s works (though I have read some), I can report that she uses her fiction–such as Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged–as vehicles for her philosophical thought.

I can also report that she is not taken seriously as a philosopher by real, academic philosophers.

I suggest looking into the following online articles from Wikipedia for more info:

* AYN RAND

* OBJECTIVISM

* OBJECTIVIST MOVEMENT

* ATLAS SHRUGGED

Sisters Preaching The Homily

A reader writes:

I found you in the search engine looking for information on preaching by the laity.

Our Congregation of Sisters is having a general assembly. A few Sisters are upset by the fact that we have asked Sisters to give the homily each day after the Gospel. Each of the members of the Steering committee and liturgy committee received a scathing letter today,  flaunting Canon law codes that specifically forbid this practice.

Do you know of any loophole "allowing" Sisters to preach at liturgies during their "closed" liturgies which take place in their own motherhouse or conference centers?

Thanks so much for any help you can give us.

I assume that the passage from the Code of Canon Law which appeared in the letter that your steering and liturgy committees received was this one:

Can. 767 §1. Among the forms of preaching, the homily, which is part of the liturgy itself and is reserved to a priest or deacon, is preeminent; in the homily the mysteries of faith and the norms of Christian life are to be explained from the sacred text during the course of the liturgical year. [SOURCE]

In citing this, the authors of the letter are correct. The homily is reserved to the priest or deacon, and lay people–including sisters–are not permitted to preach it. This is a norm that, prior to the 1983 Code of Canon Law, had certain exceptions, but these were eliminated with the release of the 1983 Code.

Not even a bishop has the ability to dispense from this norm, as was established by the Pontifical Commission for the Interpretation of Legislative texts when it issued the following authentic interpretation:

The doubt: Whether the diocesan bishop is able to dispense from the prescription of
c. 767.1, by which the homily is reserved to priests and deacons.

The response: Negative. [SOURCE]

The 2002 General Instruction of the Roman Missal (American edition) also stresses the reservation of the homily to the priest or deacon:

66. The Homily should ordinarily be given by the priest celebrant himself. He may entrust it to a concelebrating priest or occasionally, according to circumstances, to the deacon, but never to a lay person. In particular cases and for a just cause, the homily may even be given by a Bishop or a priest who is present at the celebration but cannot concelebrate. [SOURCE]

And the Holy See has expressed the same thing in Ecclesiae de Mysterio and Redemptionis Sacramentum. The former states:

The homily . . . also forms part of the liturgy.

The homily, therefore, during the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, must be reserved to the sacred minister, Priest or Deacon to the exclusion of the non-ordained faithful, even if these should have responsibilities as "pastoral assistants" or catechists in whatever type of community or group. This exclusion is not based on the preaching ability of sacred ministers nor their theological preparation, but on that function which is reserved to them in virtue of having received the Sacrament of Holy Orders. For the same reason the diocesan Bishop cannot validly dispense from the canonical norm since this is not merely a disciplinary law but one which touches upon the closely connected functions of teaching and sanctifying.

For the same reason, the practice, on some occasions, of entrusting the preaching of the homily to seminarians or theology students who are not clerics is not permitted. Indeed, the homily should not be regarded as a training for some future ministry.

All previous norms which may have admitted the non-ordained faithful to preaching the homily during the Holy Eucharist are to be considered abrogated by canon 767, 1. [section 3:1; SOURCE]

And the latter states:

[64.] The homily, which is given in the course of the celebration of Holy Mass and is a part of the Liturgy itself, “should ordinarily be given by the Priest celebrant himself. He may entrust it to a concelebrating Priest or occasionally, according to circumstances, to a Deacon, but never to a layperson. In particular cases and for a just cause, the homily may even be given by a Bishop or a Priest who is present at the celebration but cannot concelebrate”.

[65.] It should be borne in mind that any previous norm that may have admitted non-ordained faithful to give the homily during the eucharistic celebration is to be considered abrogated by the norm of canon 767 §1. This practice is reprobated, so that it cannot be permitted to attain the force of custom.

[66.] The prohibition of the admission of laypersons to preach within the Mass applies also to seminarians, students of theological disciplines, and those who have assumed the function of those known as “pastoral assistants”; nor is there to be any exception for any other kind of layperson, or group, or community, or association. [SOURCE]

In light of these, I cannot offer you a loophole allowing sisters to preach the homily at liturgies that are not open to the public, for no such loophole exists. The Holy See is really serious about this. Not even the local bishop can dispense from this norm, and one certainly cannot depart from it on one’s own personal initiative. The Code of Canon Law also provides:

Can.  846 §1. In celebrating the sacraments the liturgical books approved by competent authority are to be observed faithfully; accordingly, no one is to add, omit, or alter anything in them on one’s own authority. [SOURCE]

Although the laity cannot preach the homily, there are instances in which they can preach. The Code of Canon Law provides:

Can. 765 Preaching to religious in their churches or oratories requires the permission of the superior competent according to the norm of the constitutions.

Can. 766 Lay persons can be permitted to preach in a church or oratory, if necessity requires it in certain circumstances or it seems advantageous in particular cases, according to the prescripts of the conference of bishops and without prejudice to can. 767, §1. [SOURCE]

The American conference of bishops has established the following complementary norm regarding lay preaching:

Preaching the Word of God is among the principal duties of those who have received the sacrament of orders (cc. 762-764). The lay faithful can be called to cooperate in the exercise of the Ministry of the Word (c. 759). In accord with canon 766 the National Conference of Catholic Bishops hereby decrees that the lay faithful may be permitted to exercise this ministry in churches and oratories, with due regard for the following provisions:

If necessity requires it in certain circumstances or it seems useful in particular cases, the diocesan bishop can admit lay faithful to preach, to offer spiritual conferences or give instructions in churches, oratories or other sacred places within his diocese, when he judges it to be to the spiritual advantage of the faithful.

In order to assist the diocesan bishop in making an appropriate pastoral decision (Interdicasterial Instruction, Ecclesiae de Mysterio, Article 2 §3), the following circumstances and cases are illustrative: the absence or shortage of clergy, particular language requirements, or the demonstrated expertise or experience of the lay faithful concerned.

The lay faithful who are to be admitted to preach in a church or oratory must be orthodox in faith, and well-qualified, both by the witness of their lives as Christians and by a preparation for preaching appropriate to the circumstances.

The diocesan bishop will determine the appropriate situations in accord with canon 772§1. In providing for preaching by the lay faithful the diocesan bishop may never dispense from the norm which reserves the homily to the sacred ministers (c. 767§1; cfr. Pontifical Commission for the Authentic Interpretation of the Code of Canon Law, 26 May 1987, in AAS 79 [1987], 1249). Preaching by the lay faithful may not take place within the Celebration of the Eucharist at the moment reserved for the homily. [SOURCE]

Ecclesiae de Mysterio also provides:

2. A form of instruction designed to promote a greater understanding of the liturgy, including personal testimonies, or the celebration of eucharistic liturgies on special occasions (e.g. day of the Seminary, day of the sick etc.) is lawful, if in harmony with liturgical norms, should such be considered objectively opportune as a means of explicating the regular homily preached by the celebrant priest. Nonetheless, these testimonies or explanations may not be such so as to assume a character which could be confused with the homily.

3. As an expositional aide and providing it does not delegate the duty of preaching to others, the celebrant minister may make prudent use of "dialogue" in the homily, in accord with the liturgical norms.

4. Homilies in non-eucharistic liturgies may be preached by the non-ordained faithful only when expressly permitted by law and when its prescriptions for doing so are observed. [section 3; SOURCE]

While the law does not permit your sisters to preach the homily at Mass, or to preach something else at the time reserved for the homily during Mass, the law does allow for the possibility of their preaching in other contexts and–provided the requirements of the passages quoted above in this post are met–it would permit them to preach in some form at your upcoming general assembly.

Confronting Evil

A reader writes:

You may have heard about the priest in Las Vegas who is on the run after allegedly beating a parish worker.  If not, the latest update is here.  My spouse and I are parishioners at Our Lady of Las Vegas and are involved in the teen ministry.  This weekend will be our first teen meeting since the incident occurred.  I know we are going to get a lot of questions from teens; however, the entire parish still seems to be in shock.  I don’t know what to tell the kids given that I still can’t wrap my mind around what happened.  I know both people involved and it just doesn’t make any sense.  Most of the teens have a fairly weak and immature faith.  We’ve been trying to answer all their questions and misconceptions to help them develop a mature faith before going on to Confirmation.  I worry that the disillusionment of seeing a priest that they all knew and respected as a wanted criminal will cause them to abandon the faith. Do you have any advice for us?

I had not previously heard about the situation, but I read the article the reader links, and it is truly horiffic. If the man did what he is reported to have done (which includes not just beating but sexually molesting and apparently threatening the life of the church worker) then it so shocking that I find myself at a loss for words to express the enormity of the situation.

It’s hard to know what to say in such a situation.

And that’s the first thing I’d say to the teens.

There are points when something happens that is so shocking, so horrifying, that words cannot express it, when we can only groan to God with the emotions we are carrying–shock, outrage, anger, sadness. It’s okay to experience those feelings. They are part of human nature, and the teens–like everyone in the congregation–will go through them in the coming days. That shows that they are normal human beings.

It is natural to turn to God with these feelings and not know what to say to him in prayer. This is natural, and God understands it. St. Paul speaks of this kind of situation in Romans 8:26, where he writes:

In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for
we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself
intercedes with inexpressible groanings.

As we work through our feelings in the wake of such an event, we struggle to make sense of it in our minds. Here there are several things to consider.

First, evil is a real. Some people commit horrible evil against other people, and we have to remember that.

If the priest did what is reported then he has committed one of the worst forms of evil since he abused his position of trust and betrayed someone.

Jesus warned us that there would be people like this, even among men who claim to serve God. Jesus told us "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves" (Matthew 7:15).

Indeed, Jesus himself was betrayed by Judas–one of his own apostles. He knew the pain of betrayal personally–as well as the pain of knowing that it was coming.

God has promised that he will deal with such people. No matter what evil someone like this does, God will not let them get away with it. God will right all of the wrongs that have been done, he will heal those who have been hurt, he will make it up to the innocent who have suffered, and he will hold the evildoer to account for his deeds.

God gave us the state to investigate and punish wrongdoing of this sort (Rom. 13), and now the police are doing their job, investigating what happened and seeking the man so that he can be brought to justice.

What we should do now is pray that the man is found or that he turns himself in, that the situation is resolved without any more violence, and that the truth will come out. If the priest has done what is reported then he needs to be locked up so that he cannot do this to other innocent people.

At the same time we pray for this, we must also pray for his soul, because if he has done these things then he needs to repent and seek God’s mercy. God’s mercy is something we all need, and Jesus loved all of us–including the priest and his victim–enough that he took our sins upon himself so that we might be saved.

We need to pray for all the hurting people of the parish, for the woman who was beaten, and for the priest himself, who needs God’s mercy most of all if what is reported is true.

Whatever happens with this situation, God will make sure that justice is done and that mercy will be shown to those who seek it. So let us all seek God in prayer and trust him to help us in this horrible situation.

That’s probably as far as I’d go with the teens as a first effort. They are likely to have questions, and I’d do my best to answer their questions honestly and simply. I’d talk about my own feelings about the situation and let them see some emotion if it comes as you discuss it. That would validate and help them process their own feelings.

Of course, I would urge them to talk to their parents about their thoughts and feelings, and I would offer to talk to them myself as well, but the general points I would make and tone I would try to set is in the post above.

Now a few thoughts I wouldn’t address to the teens (unless they’ve heard about them and ask about them):

1) The fact that the priest backed off when he had the woman at his mercy is a good sign. It may indicate repentance or the potential for it on his part.

2) The fact that he ran appears to incriminate him.

3) His asking the woman if she was ready to go to heaven suggests that he may have had even darker plans in mind .

4) The fact that he seemed to suggest that he wouldn’t be taken alive is a bad sign.

5) His speaking of having been with other women at other parishes suggests that further investigation of his prior parish situations is warranted.

6) If he said that the only way he could get out of Lebanon was by becoming a priest then he may simply be a crook in sheep’s clothing, who was never really trying to serve God.

7) There is a significant possibility that some form of mental illness is involved here.

I’ll certainly be praying for this situation, and I ask my readers to keep it in prayer as well.

Hard Sayings Of The Old Testament

A reader writes:

I have a very important question about God and right now my faith is at stake.  I doubt you will be able to provide a satisfying answer but please try your best.

In the Exodus and several other instances God ordered the Israelites to perform what I think we can all agree is genocide.  Samuel told Solomon to go forth and kill and kill every man, woman, child and beast.  Making no distinction between age, sex or whether or not they were innocent. 

These were real people living real lives.  They were not wicked evil doers in some cases, they were just in a land that was supposedly promised.  The people God ordered executed had been living there for generations and the Israelites came and murdered them for their land. 

I now know two men who will be dead soon from cancer.  A girl that was in my kindergarten class was hit and killed by a bus in first grade.  I have experienced death first hand and will soon do so again.  Nobody deserves to die and what God did was a despicable, disgusting and unjustifiable crime. 

God said every man, woman, and child.  Put yourself in the shoes of the murdered.   Maybe you have a son/daughter, perhaps a nephew or a co-worker has a child.  Imagine any child that you regularly come in contact with and then imagine some terrorist coming in and killing him/her.  "They say, oh our God ordered it.  You see, even though you own this land it really belongs to us because our God told us it was ours so we have to kill you."  You don’t believe in their God but that doesn’t matter to them.  You are just in their way and you happened to worship a different God, therefore you deserve to die.

How could a God that supposedly loves us perform genocide on us at the same time?

I am sorry to hear that your faith is currently being challenged, and will certainly pray for you. I encourage my readers to do likewise.

It is understandable that, if anything were to challenge your faith, this kind of thing would. Not only are the passages in the Old Testament difficult to understand, but the reality of suffering and death in our lives is the hardest thing for many people to endure. I have had to endure it myself, and I sympathize entirely with your situation.

Let me do what I can to see about answering your questions. I hope you’ll bear with me as I lay some principles that will become relevant later in the discussion. I want to give you as thorough an answer as I can.

First, regarding the commands to exterminate particular populations, these are, indeed, horriffic from a modern-day point of view. Such commands are incompatible with the Christian age, and anyone today who would claim to have received such commands–such as the terrorists you mention–is wrong. God does not work that way today.

The question is whether he ever worked that way, and the answer to this question must be either yes or no. We will look at both possibilities.

Continue reading “Hard Sayings Of The Old Testament”

The Nine Choirs Of Angels

A reader writes:

I would like a brief description each of the 9 choirs of angels.  Thanks you.

St. Thomas offers the best brief description of the nine choirs that I know of. It’s found in two articles in the Summa Theologiae: HERE and HERE.

You also might want to read Pseudo-Dionysius’s THE CELESTIAL HIERARCHY, which was the work that kicked off the whole nine choirs business.

There’s a brief treatment of the subject in THE ARTICLE IN THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA.

And WIKIPEDIA’S ARTICLE may have some useful bits, but it’s got a bunch of unreliable junk mixed in, so be careful.

In fact, I’d urge caution regarding the whole idea of nine choirs of angels. This is a highly speculative way of classifying angels and is not part of Church teaching (you will note, for example, that it’s not mentioned in the Catechism). The foundations of it are also shaky, biblically. It rests on stitching together several different passages of Scripture and then making the assumptions that the things mentioned in them (1) are all angels and (2) are all different types of angels.

Both of these assumptions are open to challenge.

For example, I am not convinced that there is a difference in kind between an angel and an archangel. The term archangelos in Greek simply indicates a high ranking angel. Archangels may differ from ordinary angels in the same way that high ranking officials differ from low ranking officials or the way that high ranking military officers differ from low ranking military officers. In other words: The difference is one of rank, not of essence.

Indeed, that is what suggested by the very terms. "Angel" in the biblical languages simply means "messenger," with the understanding that the angels are the messengers one would find in God’s heavenly court, just as earthly kings have messengers in their courts. In earthly courts, some messengers may hold higher rank than others, but they’re all human beings. In the same way, the distinction between a messenger and a high-ranking messenger would seem to be one of rank rather than kind.

When we come to cherubim and seraphim, we’re on a little bit firmer ground. These at least look different when they appear in Scripture, though because of the way visionary experience works, I can’t rule out the possibility that there is one underlying class of beings behind both, and sometimes it manifests in a way that conveys one visionary impression and sometimes it manifests in a way that conveys another.

Even if we grant that seraphim and cherubim are different from each other, though, that doesn’t mean that they are distinct from the choir or choirs of angels and archangels. It might turn out that all angels are either seraphim or cherubim (that there isn’t another class). And it might turn out that there are high ranking angels (archangels) among both the seraphim and the cherubim.

So these classes may all co-penetrate each other. They may not be four distinct classes, contrary to assumption (2), above.

When we look at the other five classes–thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, virtues–we’re on even shakier ground because it isn’t clear from Scripture that these are angelic beings at all. These names are derived from three passages in St. Paul’s writings (I’ll stick the relevant names after the key terms where it isn’t obvious in the English translation):

[God] raised [Christ] from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the  heavenly places, far above all rule [principality] and authority [power] and power [virtue] and dominion, and above
every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which
is to come [Eph. 1:20-21].

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his  might.  Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be  able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 
For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the
principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this
present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the
heavenly places [Eph. 6:10-12].

[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities [powers; it’s the same word in Greek as in the former passage: exousiai]– all things were created through him and for him [Col. 1:15-16].

It is not obvious in these passages that Paul is talking about distinct types of angels. That rests on a chain of assumptions that are open to challenge. It is not clear, for example, that he is thinking exclusively of the heavenly realm here. He may have earthly rulers in mind ("in heaven and on earth"), in which case some of these terms may be being used to describe humans. Even if we could identify which terms he’s thinking of as referring to spiritual things, he may not be thinking of angels but of Greco-Roman religious concepts that use the same terms (e.g., virtues like Piety were often worshipped as deities, and the Roman emperor and many other rulers were worshipped as well), with the message being that Christ is superior to all of these and that we struggle against them as Christians. Even if we could show that these terms all referred to angels, this still wouldn’t show that they are distinct classes of angels, any more than the fact that some humans could be described as principalities and some as powers wouldn’t mean that they weren’t all humans.

It strikes me as much more likely that Paul is speaking in a generalized way here, piling up near-synonyms that are intended to overlap–and overlap both the earthly and the heavenly spheres–in a way that makes it impossible to use this as a technical listing of different kinds of non-overlapping groups of angels that differ from each other in essence.