Self-Hating Catholics

A Lutheran Pastor of my acquaintance has told me of his discomfit when engaged in official ecumenical dialogue with Catholics – because the Catholic representatives all too often can't wait to bad-mouth and criticise the Catholic Church, the Pope, Cardinal Pell, and so forth, and are only too glad to proclaim their love for Bp Morris, while ostentatiously rejecting Catholic doctrine and morals.

I hear of a similar sorry incident that occurred only the other day.

Thank God, there are Catholics who love the Church and her teachings as being those of Christ, rather than hating Sancta Mater Ecclesia, setting up their own imagined Christ as an idol in place of Our Lord, and eagerly following, not the truth, the way and the life, but a lie that is sterile and leads out into the waterless waste.

I think of one ex-priest who in my hearing opined that the relics of St Thérèse (then being brought on a visit to Tasmania) were fit only for boiling up to make soup.  What a nasty blasphemer!

Or again, I recall a fellow who went to try his vocation in the Melbourne seminary back in the bad old days of the eighties: he left after a week or so, because every night the staff and students were drunk, and there wasn't even daily Mass.  In a seminary!  (When the future Cardinal Pell was Rector there for a few years way back then, he had a tremendous fight against staff and seminarians when he tried to reintroduce daily Mass, in Corpus Christi College if you please.)

Far too many of the clergy and religious are parasites, happy to suck the sap while spreading false teachings.  Were they to cease the pretense of playing Catholics, and set up their own church in which they might freely do as they list, no one would go to it: hence their determination to benefit from the perquisites of power.  Personally, I would prefer to see them honest men, who would either depart or repent: but they are blind and see not.

It takes little consideration to realize that, in a clerical and religious culture that winks at doctrinal dissent, there is place also for moral turpitude.  How can X, who preaches quite other than the Catholic faith, reprimand Y, who has suspiciously close relations with parishioners?  Both are guilty of differing forms of disobedience: it was only the employment of the secular courts in recent times that caused abusers to be removed and punished.  Perhaps a "truth in advertising" test case could be mounted against a priest who pretends to teach the Catholic religion, yet in fact propagates alien beliefs?

As Chesterton said, it must be so hard for those without moral principles to know how to act.

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P.S. I was feeling rather angry and disillusioned when I wrote this.

Lutheran Dormitionists

During the Reformation in Germany, several Imperial abbeys, formerly Catholic, became Lutheran, such as Herford and Quedlinburg – the canonesses and abbesses of these were all Protestants for centuries; their continued existence was facilitated by the fact that the canonesses, while unmarried, had always been and remained secular canonesses, who took no vows; and it was convenient for noblewomen undesirous of marriage to retreat to such houses.  The devout ladies of these establishments even published books of spiritual writings, as for example did Princess-Abbess Anna Sophia II of Quedlinburg.

Given all this, and the delighted recognition of the unique Dormitionist charism previously expressed in comment from contemporary Lutheran clergy appended to my first posting explaining about the little-known but fascinating Order of the Dormition, it will be unsurprising to note that in Germany, too, some Dormitionist houses (dorters, or dormitories) passed out of Catholic and into Protestant hands, without a total dissolution of these monasteries, particularly those of Dormitionistines, the female branch of this most retiring of Orders – noble and devout women, seeking godly and perpetual rest.

Furthermore, the various revivals of monasticism among the separated brethren that have occurred since the nineteenth century have also included not a few instances of Dormitionist lifestyle being once again adopted and propagated.  The Dormitionist habit, so similar to the secular pyjamas, was more than once taken up by enthusiasts, albeit pairing it with the nineteenth-century smoking-jacket beloved of gentlemen (for incense of sorts, too, came in fashion).  New shoots spring from the old stump...

As Dormitionists seek to live, even in this life, as already in the eschatological state of endless rest, it will at once be apparent how persons more intent on faith than works would find such a fundamental spiritual orientation congenial.  For "faith without works is dead", and so those cleaving to sola fide should appear, if not utterly dead, then at least asleep: their hope, indeed, would be to be as "them which are asleep".

For this reason, Lutheran houses following this mode of existence may be found here and there (I believe there are plans afoot to regularize such a foundation in Australia); rather than using Catholic titles such as "of the Dormition", however (for all that these well-meaning people accept the Dormition as a traditional and catholic pious belief, without dogmatizing about it), they tend to avoid any cause for scandal by naming their establishments "Golgotha Dormitory", or "Soul Sleep Church", or "Family Crypt", or some such.  It is a purely private joke, alluding to the perseverance or otherwise of some would-be monastics, to call such-and-such an establishment "the Empty Tomb".

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This blog being especially interested in matters liturgical, it will not go amiss if some reference is made to the worship of Lutheran Dormitionists.  (Attentive readers will already have realized how the Dormitionist vow to enter into rest, being in fact a Biblical text, was easily admitted as a devout prayer, not a work of supererogation, indeed, not a work at all, by these persons.)

A very plain Easter sepulchre

At Compline (always the principal Hour for sleepers-in-Christ), the only modifications made are to the text of the Confiteor, and replacement of the Marian anthem by a visit to the "Easter sepulchre", that common feature of northern European churches, representing the burial-place of Christ – there, such hymns as In Christi Wunden schlaf ich ein ("I fall asleep in Jesus' wounds") are customarily sung, taking up the rich tradition of vernacular song that is one of the glories of Evangelical piety.  (More modern Evangelical revivals of the Dormitionist charism in the U.S. prefer such ditties as "Rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham.")

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The revision made of the Dormitionist Mass is of particular ecumenical importance.  Given the simplicity of the rite, it will be unsurprising that, following Luther's own first redraftings, nothing at all of the fore-Mass or first part of the Liturgy was changed, while at the Offertory the Dirigatur Domine and Orate fratres alone were retained, the Veni Sanctificator omnium and the In spiritu humilitatis being deleted.  With a fine feeling for liturgical structure, however, the variable Secret of the Catholic Mass was replaced with a fixed epicletic prayer, itself taken in a truly conservative spirit from the mediæval corpus orationum, modifying only the controverted words tibi... oblata:

Munera tua, quæsumus, Domine, sanctifica: ut tui nobis Unigeniti Corpus et Sanguis fiant ad medelam, qui tecum vivit...

(Hallow Thy gifts, we beg, Lord: that they may become for us the Body and Blood of Thine Onlybegotten, for our healing: Who with Thee liveth...)

In other words, the essential import of the former Dormitionist offertory prayers was maintained, and a strong stand taken against sacramentarian deviations, just as orthodox Lutheranism ever has.

Most startlingly of all, yet, as alluded to above, most importantly, the Evangelicals who continued to maintain the Dormitionist traditions made a most interesting compromise between Luther's wholesale rejection of the Canon (the Lord's words amongst the oblationary passages therein being in his view "the Ark of God in the temple of Dagon") and the continuance of catholic features thereof.

Combining certain of Luther's earliest liturgical ideas, as expressed in his Formula Missæ, with some of those espoused by his followers in Sweden, and all unawares taking up the early Roman Christian idea of the consecratory Preface, the Canon was most radically reordered, by first of all reversing the usual Dormitionist practice of saying the Preface silently, and inserting the very Verba Domini therein, then by praying quietly a late variant of the Suscipe sancta Trinitas between the Sanctus and Benedictus (the Elevation being made during the latter), and concluding with the Per ipsum aloud:

Vere quia dignum et justum est, æquum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere, Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, æterne Deus, per Christum Dominum nostrum.  Qui pridie quam pateretur, accepit panem: tibi gratias agens, fregit, deditque discipulis suis, dicens: Accipite, comedite, Hoc est Corpus meum, quod pro vobis datur. Similiter et calicem, postquam cænavit, dicens: Hic calix est novi testamenti in meo Sanguine, qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum.  Hæc quotiescumque feceritis, in mei memoriam faciatis.  Et ideo cum Angelis et Archangelis, cum Thronis et Dominationibus, cumque omni militia cælestis exercitus, hymnum gloriæ tuæ canimus, sine fine dicentes:

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth, pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua.  Hosanna in excelsis. 

Suscipe, sancta Trinitas, hoc sacrificium laudis quam tibi offerimus in memoriam Passionis Domini nostri Jesu Christi: et præsta, ut proficiat nobis et omnibus fidelibus christianis ad requiem æternam.  Per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum.

Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.  Hosanna in excelsis.

Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso, est tibi Deo Patri omnipotenti, in unitate Spiritus Sancti, omnis honor et gloria, per omnia sæcula sæculorum.  Amen.

(Truly worthy and just it is, right and salutary, for us always and everywhere to give thanks unto Thee, holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God, through Christ our Lord.  Who the day before He suffered, took bread: giving thanks unto Thee, He brake, and gave it to His disciples, saying: Take ye, eat ye, This is My Body, which is given for you.  Likewise also the chalice, after He had supped, saying: This chalice is the new testament in My Blood, which for you and for many shall be shed in remission of sins.  These whensoever ye shall do them, in my memorial ye shall do them.  And therefore with Angels and Archangels, with Thrones and Dominations, and with every company of the heavenly host, we sing a hymn to Thy glory, saying without ceasing:

(Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts, full are heaven and earth with Thy glory.  Hosanna in the highest.

(Receive, O Holy Trinity, this sacrifice of praise, which we offer unto Thee in memorial of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ: and grant, that it may profit us and all faithful Christians unto rest everlasting.  Through the same Christ our Lord.

(Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord.  Hosanna in the highest.

(Through Him, and with Him, and in Him, is unto Thee, God the Father almighty, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honour and glory, world without end.  Amen.)

It will be seen how daring, and how designedly ambiguous (indeed, how Anglicanesque) is the Suscipe sancta Trinitas of these catholic Lutherans: for the phrase "this sacrifice of praise", while eminently biblical, is used of the Eucharistic oblation in the Roman Canon itself, and to pray "that it may profit us and all faithful Christians unto [gaining] rest eternal", directly after the Consecration of the Eucharist and directly before the Elevation of the Sacrament, is to beg the question, is it but a heartfelt verbal sacrifice that is offered in the hope of benefitting all, or is it the Eucharist that is here offered up?  There is here, too, a hint of prayer for the dead, never entirely excluded by Lutheran orthodoxy, impetrating that all faithful Christians – living and dead – may indeed rest in peace.

Given this not-so-cryptic catholic reference, it is not surprising that any formerly Lutheran Dormitionists, coming into full Catholic communion have (by private rescript, analogous to the liturgical provisions made for incoming Anglicans) the unique privilege of offering Mass either in the usual Dormitionist rite, using the venerable Canon, or, for the sake of brevity (just as, in the Ordinary Form, Eucharistic Prayer II is provided, for utterly the same reason) according to this form, by using the epicletic Secret above, with the Consecratory Preface, Sanctus, Benedictus and Per ipsum with the Suscipe sancta Trinitas, supplementing that brief yet sufficiently expressive prayer of oblation and anamnesis by including mention of the Pope, the dead, and the Saints:

Suscipe, sancta Trinitas, hoc sacrificium laudis quam tibi offerimus in memoriam Passionis Domini nostri Jesu Christi, et in honorem beatæ Mariæ semper Virginis, et omnium Sanctorum: et præsta, ut proficiat nobis et omnibus fidelibus christianis vivis et defunctis, cum Papa nostro N. ac Episcopo nostro N., ad requiem æternam: et illi pro nobis intercedere dignentur in cælis, quorum memoriam agimus in terris.  Per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum.

(Receive, O Holy Trinity, this sacrifice of praise, which we offer unto Thee in memorial of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in honour of Blessed Mary ever-Virgin, and of all Saints: and grant, that it may profit us and all faithful Christians living and dead, with our Pope N. and Bishop N., unto rest everlasting: and may they deign to intercede for us in heaven, whose memory we keep on earth.  Through the same Christ our Lord.)

To conclude, however, by returning to the actual modifications made in the old Dormitionist rite by the Lutherans, it must simply be observed that few other changes to the Mass were made.  The Lord's Prayer had the usual Protestant doxology added to it, with the old Embolism deleted (again following Dr Martin's prescription), though the administration of communion followed in the normal manner, with the traditional prayers, Agnus Dei and so forth; likewise, either Benedicamus Domino or the uniquely Dormitionist Requiescamus in pace was to be used at the end of the service, never Ite missa est (Luther erroneously deriving missa from a Hebrew word for sacrifice, he found the term unappealing); so too the Placeat was given away (Catholics are, however, required to say it).

The squaring of the circle, by always maintaining an oblationary reference in the Eucharist, remains a strange attractor towards full Catholic communion for all would-be Evangelical Dormitionists.  Please God, may it remain so!

I have often speculated that the Suscipe sancta Trinitas prayers (there were many variants in mediæval times, some few of which survive in extant rites such as the Dominican) derive from the Gallican rite, especially as they bear a curious resemblance to like prayers of sacrificial oblation in the Mozarabic rite.  It is good to see them not utterly abandoned.  Indeed, would it not be far better – and shorter! – to allow more widely this combination of consecratory Preface and Suscipe sancta Trinitas, in place of the untraditional Ordinary Form Eucharistic Prayer II, which, being but a hash made of pseudo-Hippolytus, has become de facto the standard prayer of the Roman Rite?  But I digress...

Isn't it wonderful that, the fruits of all true Christianity being oriented toward Unity in the Una Sancta, even ex-Lutheran Dormitionists can rest in peace, together?

Old, New, True Ecumenism

The Popes have ever proclaimed that all conversation with non-Catholics is rightly ordered to securing for them in true charity the ineffable blessings of Catholic unity, that they may attain salvation. (It would be tedious to repeat centuries of quotations from their writings to this effect.)

In more recent decades, ecumenical dialogue has been undertaken, not to forswear what the latest Council proclaimed - that all who, grasping that the Church is necessary for salvation, must needs enter her communion to be safe and saved - but to help smooth the way for the unity of all Christ's scattered flock, by eliminating scandals, misconceptions, age-old prejudices and misunderstandings.

(To interject some levity, it reminds one of a Catholic Frenchman in the days before the Revocation of the Edict of Nante, who, to help motivate Huguenots to convert, set up a Bank of Conversions that offered cheap loans to such persons! He claimed "It prepared the heart for the operation of grace!")

Unfortunately, Catholics have sometimes deluded themselves and others, in their anxiety to be irenic, or even in their hankering after profane novelties, by vainly papering over or falsely belittling real differences of importance between our Holy Faith and the heterodox opinions of others, thinking to salve consciences and compose disputes in an insincere manner. This tendency the Roman Pontiffs have naturally opposed. But they have been abused for doing so...

Equally unfortunately, those not of our faith have been lured by this vacillation of Catholics between the conserving acts of the Magisterium and the confusing, provoking acts of ill or well-meaning persons, into surmising that Rome, too, will bend to the winds of time and change, smoothly adapting herself to the world in practising expediency. This may all too be true at an accidental level, but not at a substantial one. The promise of infallibility and indefectability is given to the whole Church at large, as well as guaranteed in the person of Christ's Vicar, as Servant of the servants of God, the successor of St Paul as well as of St Peter, consumed with the care for all the churches, to keep them in one.

How appropriate to think of this on the very feast of the dedication of the great Basilicas of St Peter and St Paul!

Alas, far from Rome in the true sense, impertinent persons in particular have played a malign part in this deviation of ecumenism from its natural role of fostering unity, to an improper purpose of maintaining (let us be candid) elaborate talkfests to occupy and waste time, without scarcely forwarding the mission of the Church. Even non-Catholics have remarked at the scandal their Catholic dialogue partners engender: for all too often, it is the Catholics who wink at Church doctrine and say as much, being all matey and conspiratorial about it! This rightly repulses many, but confirms all outsiders in the opinion that much is dirty and unpleasant within the Ark that is the Church.

Grace, the grace of the Holy Spirit Who convicts the world of sin, justice and judgement, Who inspires the will and enlightens the intellect to chance great things and belief hard truths, must be allowed to work: but its sweet secret work may be frustrated and brought to nought by hard, proud hearts, rich only in their own conceit and doubledealing, delighting not in the truth but in dreams.

What I have written of - the deliberate change in Papal policies for the last forty-odd years to indulge in Realpolitik toward non-Catholic bodies, by accentuating immediate goals (greater mutual charity, lessening of vile bigotry) relative to discreetly advertising the ultimate intent (reception of converts into full unity) - is by many unwise persons called the "old" ecumenism, when really it is newfangled.

What is now called by its enthusiasts the "new" ecumenism, and decried by its detractors (profiteers of the "old") as totally opposed to ecumenism - exemplified by the energetic steps taken by His Holiness to embrace incoming Anglicans, according them many sweet privileges, in response it must be underlined to their heartfelt pleas for corporate reunion, having been at last revolted by the unchristian antics of their original denomination - is in fact the original, settled ecumenical policy of Rome, no different in substance to the efforts, lasting or not, made since mediæval times and before, to offer rest and peace to those willing to return to the Father of Christendom.

Both the new "old" ecumenism, and the old "new" ecumenism, are true insofar as they are rightly ordered, implicitly or explicitly, to the true goal: to unite all Christians in one faith under one shepherd, for which happy cause Our Lord Himself deigned to pray directly before His saving Passion: Ut unum sint, ad salvandas animas, ad gloriam Patris.

There is an old blessing, sometimes termed Mozarabic but cropping up in the Benedictine Office and I suspect of mainstream mediæval Latin Rite origin, given its rough rhyme:

In unitate Sancti Spiritus,

benedicat vos Pater et Filius.

This is best interpreted in the deeper sense: May we, united in the one Holy Spirit, Who is the Principium Unitatis as the Quickener of our souls and bodies, as the Lifegiver to our fellowship in the Holy Catholic, that is, rightbelieving worldwide, Church, be therefore blessed by the Father and the Son - for these Three are One. Amen.

Light from the East

Patricius over at Singulare Ingenium has an excellent post describing the dismay the Orthodox feel at the modern Roman Rite, which is to them a bare, stripped-down rite too often celebrated, not at a high altar, but a trestyl trist, a Cranmer table.

If the Western Church wishes to strive to heal the terrible schism that has cut off the East these thousand years, we could begin by removing the stumbling block that is our modern threefold affliction caused by the infamous hermeutic of discontinuity and rupture: impoverished liturgy, and too many abuses with it; doctrinal and moral deviations running riot, unchecked; and a complete abandonment of the discipline of fasting. The East prides itself on maintaining the glorious worship of the Fathers, their pure doctrine and practice, and the strict ascetical disciplines of the past ages - if we are to reëstablish their admiration and their trust, ut unum sint, it will not be by displaying our poverty, confusion and decadence.

With this in mind, I note that Saturday two weeks' hence I'll be joining some friends of mine at the local Greek Orthodox church here in Launceston (served only monthly, by a priest from Hobart) for the Sacred Liturgy on its titular feast day of the Dormition of Our Lady (according to the Julian Calendar).

To an Unknown God

Having had to get up very early in order to give my mum a lift to hospital for her operation, I decided to go on to the early Mass at Carmel and pray for her...  The first reading was from Acts, detailing St Paul's "interfaith dialogue" with the Athenians at the Areopagus: after somewhat slyly telling them that he'd noticed how very religious they are, in fact to the degree that they had an altar to an unknown god (meaning, one of their pretended deities which they may have forgotten to propitiate), he went on to boldly preach the True God and His Risen Son to them; some scoffed, but others where converted, as famously Dionysius the Areopagite.

I suppose this is the model for reaching out to non-Christians: even the most polytheistic cults tend to have some supreme being (usually imagined as so high and mighty as to be unconcerned and soi disant about things below), and the God they seek after so blindly is in fact the living God Who made heaven and earth, "in Whom we live and move and have our being" - and St Paul rightly and appropriately added, "for are we not all His children?" (quoting with approval one of the pagan poets).  We must start by affirming that there is, above whatever imagined "gods" anyone may have, One, Immense, Omnipotent, Everliving God, the Creator: and from this exercise in theodicy go on to proclaim what Divine Revelation reveals beyond this - that God the Creator of all is Three Persons, the Second of Whom took flesh and died for man's salvation, and established His Indefectible Church (or assembly of those called forth from the massa damnata), fully in possession of all the means of salvation (doctrine and sacraments), upon His first Apostle, Peter, and his successors, down to Benedict XVI now gloriously reigning.

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It is now evening: my mum's come through the operation, and I'll soon go and visit her (and drive dad over to see her too).

Pursuing Unity

Now, ecumenism that proceeds as far as overcoming bigotry, prejudice and hatred is all very commendable, and I understand that things have come a long way from the days when "No Catholic need apply" could be found in employment advertisements - but owing to a lack of any ecclesiology above the level of the congregation, and an entirely individualistic, simplistic concept of salvation ("Just me and Jesus"), many Protestants seem to think that having friendly relations between "denominations" (read "a thousand weltering sects") is enough, and that one can attend whichever church one likes - which is the indifferentism that has also infected many Catholics: that is the danger with ecumenism having achieved modest improvements in good manners, but no great reunification; and while among mainstream Protestants things like weekly celebrations of what they would term Holy Communion or the Eucharist have become much more common than before the ecumenical liturgical movement, there is really not much sign of a vast convergence in doctrine (with the most major achievement so far being the partial agreement on justification between Catholics and most Lutherans), and contrariwise the disastrous deviations in morals that have become increasingly permitted, even lauded ("their glory is their shame") among "mainline" Protestants have made the search for true Christian unity farcical.  Add into the mix such oddities as priestesses, and it quite makes a Catholic glad that his own Church's fractured unity in faith, morals, liturgy and all else is holding up as well as it is!

But for all that, there is hope on the horizon - our hope in Christ, the One Head of the Church, Who we trust is by His secret grace, by His Divine Providence, and by His instruments, the hierarchs of His Church, the Pope and Bishops in communion with him, is gathering all into one.  For this reason, I am very glad that it appears the Traditional Anglican Communion's application - without preconditions - to be admitted to Catholic Unity has been accorded a favourable hearing at Rome, and rumour has it (would that it were true) that Easter 2009 may bring the happy news.  I recall that the great hope of Anglo-Catholicism was for corporate reunion with Rome.  Would that the pontificate of Benedict XVI sees this accomplished - His Holiness is likewise attempting to heal the schism with the SSPX, after all.

Here in Launceston, I note that there is a local parish of the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia (a member of the TAC), and I am going to try and make contact, with an eye to finding out what is happening on the local level.  Who knows, if what is hoped for comes to pass I could join them at Mass!  From their Directory online, here are the details:

Parish of the Annunciation (Anglican Catholic Church in Australia)

Temporary location:

Harry Abbot Scout Centre, 

St George's Square, 

LAUNCESTON

SUNDAY:

 

10.30a.m. Holy Communion (1st,3rd 4th and 5th Sundays in month); 

10.30 a.m. Morning Prayer on 2nd Sunday.

I may go along on the 2nd Sunday to reconnoitre... and in the meanwhile have emailed them.