No Ambiguity in Pre-Vatican II Documents

Catholic Theologian Attempting to Read the Mountains of Post-Conciliar Magisterial Statements

As a Church whose foundations are historical and based on the words and deeds of Christ and the Apostles in history, our faith must continually look backwards towards the life of Jesus; indeed, towards the crucifixion, the pivotal moment in human history. One generation in the Church continually succeeds another, each looking back for the authentic interpretation of contemporary events to the constant teachings and expressions of Tradition. As a historical Church, we ought to (and have for many centuries) interpret the present in light of the past.

However, since Vatican II there has been a shift in the way the Church looks at history, espeically its own. Rather than seek understanding of the chaotic trials of the day in the timeless wisdom of the past, the current trend has been to re-interpret the past in light of the present, as if this present moment was somehow superior to the entire past Tradition of the Church. This is a phenomenon that Fr. Chad Ripperger, F.S.S.P., has called "temporal nationalism"; i.e., the assumption that modern man is so much more enlightened and knowledgeable than his predecessors that he can sit and pass judgement on the past with arrogant abandon.

This view is seen at work in the Church by the sheer volume of magisterial statements put out since Vatican II; since the 1960's, the Church has sought to issue new documents on every aspect of the Christian faith, as if the old documents were unable to stand on their own. Two factors that especially aggravate this is first, that the new documents are infinitely longer than the old statements. The average pre-Vatican II document, like Humani Generis of Piux XII, for example, is about 6 to 10 printed pages long, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer. The average post-Vatican II document is anywhere from 50 to 130 printed pages long. This is partially due to the pastoral and philosophical nature of newer documents - where older documents sought primarily to give declarations and issue decrees, newer documents are geared towards explaining why the Church believes and does this and that. This is not bad, by any means, but it is evidence that the Church has changed the way it views itself and its mission to the world, and that the result has been a post-conciliar corpus that is much more difficult to navigate through.

Second, the theological language of the new documents is sometimes sloppy and prone to ambiguous interpretation. Take the famous example of Dei Verbum 11, which states that the Bible "teaches, without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation."

Now, it can be interpreted in one of two ways: (1) the Bible is immune from error in everything it says, and everything it says God wanted there for the sake of our salvation, and (2) The Bible is immune from error in so far as it teaches about salvation, but can err when it treats of other topics. Post-Vatican II teaching is ambiguous on the proper resolution, and seeking to be "modern" and "scholarly", many theologians, even well-meaning otherwise orthodox theologians, have accepted the second position. Now, how is the Catholic to solve this dilemma, given the relative silence of the modern Magisterium on the matter? Catholics ignorant of Tradition would simply sit down and wait for another ambiguous Magisterial document to interpret the first ambiguous statement. But remember our principle: we interpret the present in light of the past. Now, let's see what Tradition says on the matter of inspiration. I will let the Popes and Councils speak for themselves.

• 
  
  
  Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, no. 20f: “It is absolutely wrong and forbidden either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Sacred Scripture or to admit that the sacred writer has erred... For all the books which the Church receives as Sacred and Canonical are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can coexist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the Supreme Truth, can utter that which is not True. This is the ancient and unchanging Faith of the Church... [T]hose who maintain that an error is possible in any genuine passage of the sacred writings, either pervert the Catholic notion of inspiration, or make God the author of such error.”
  
  
• 
  
  
  Pope St. Pius X, Lamentabili Sane, no. 11, condemns the following proposition: “Divine inspiration does not extend to all of Sacred Scriptures so that it renders its parts, each and every one, free from every error.”
  
  
• 
  
  
  Pope Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, no. 13: “[T]he immunity of Scripture from error or deception is necessarily bound up with its Divine inspiration and supreme authority.”
  
  
• 
  
  
  Ibid., no. 19, condemns the following proposition: “[T]he effects of inspiration - namely, absolute truth and immunity from error - are to be restricted to that primary or religious element.”
  
  
• 
  
  
  Ibid., no. 21: He also teaches that Divine inspiration extends to every part of the Bible without the slightest exception, and that no error can occur in the inspired text.
  
  
• 
  
  
  Pope Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu, no. 3: “It is absolutely wrong and forbidden either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Sacred Scripture or to admit that the sacred writer has erred.”
  
  
• 
  
  
  Pius XII, Humani Generis, no. 22, condemns the following proposition: “[I]mmunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters.”
  
  
• 
  
  
  Vatican Council I, Sess. III, cap. ii, DE REV: “The Books of the Old and New Testament, whole and entire, with all their parts, as enumerated in the Decree of the same Council (Trent) and in the ancient Latin Vulgate, are to be received as Sacred and Canonical. And the Church holds them as Sacred and Canonical not because, having been composed by human industry, they were afterwards approved by her Authority; nor only because they contain revelation without errors, but because, having been written under the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their Author.”
  

So we see how a look at Tradition and pre-Vatican II Magisterial statements (all of them wonderfully concise and precise) we can easily get a proper interpretation of Dei Verbum 11: that the Bible is immune from error in everything it says, and everything it says God wanted there for the sake of our salvation. This is the constant Tradition of the Church. An interpretation other than this would be a radical break with Tradition and constitute a change in the Church's dogma, which is impossible. Finally, if even that is not enough to convince the die-hard fans of modernism, the Council Fathers let it be known how they intended this phrase to be interpreted by referencing in its footnote various writings of St. Augustine, all of which endorse the total inerrancy of Scripture.

Tradition has been and always shall be the most sure norm for interpreting the Church's current teaching. Regarding Tradition, let us remember the famous quote of G.K. Chesterton: "Tradition means giving a vote to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about" (Orthodoxy, 4).

New CDF Document on Lumen Gentium Today

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith today published a short explication of several articles of the Vatican II Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium. The document deals with several questions about the nature of the Church, especially pertaining to the statement made in Lumen Gentium that the true Church of Christ "subsists" in the Catholic Church. The document is brief (I hope this becomes a standard aspect of documents issued under Benedict XVI in contrast to John Paul II's 95 page encyclicals) and is layed out in a simple question and answer format. Some of the pertinent points of the document:

First, in the phrase that the Church of Christ "subsists" in the Catholic Church, "subsists" is taken to mean "perduring, historical continuity and the permanence of all the elements instituted by Christ in the Catholic Church" and as such, the word "subsists" can apply properly to the Catholic Church and to it alone.

Second, Eastern Orthodox Churches are rightly called churches because of their preservation of valid ordination and therefore valid sacraments. Nevertheless, because they lack communion with the Bishop of Rome, the symbol of the earthly unity of the Church, they still are not Churches in the fullest sense of the word. Unity with the Bishop of Rome is not accidental, but is essential to the identity of the true Church.

Third, Protestant ecclesial communities are not to be called "Churches" because they lack valid Holy Orders and have not preserved the continuity of Sacred Tradition, especially with regards to the Holy Eucharist, which is the center of the Church. Thus, while grace is found within certain Protestant communities in relation to their degree of unity with the Catholic Church, they are nevertheless not true Churches.

In short, this document basically reaffirms the age old teaching that the Catholic Church alone is the Church of Christ founded by Him. This is nothing new, but the interpretation given here on the word "subsists" is meant to curb some heretical impulses within certain sectors of the Church which say, errantly, that thet Catholic Church is but one "expression" of the True Church and that other Protestant and Eastern Churches are other different but equally valid "expressions." This proposition is denied by the document.

The Vatican sure is on a role this summer: when Benedict XVI changed the procedure for electing Pontiffs a few weeks back, he angered the liberal Bishops; Summorum Pontificum angered the liberals and, apparently, is stirring up some kind of agitation amongst the Jews; now this document will probably anger the Protestants because it teaches that their "communities" are not true Churches. If the Vatican continues this trend, we can expect the next document to anger the Muslims! Let is be so, Lord, let it be so!

Click here to read the Vatican Document on Lumen Gentium.

Summorum Pontificum

Praise and thanks be to God for the document Summorum Pontificum released this Saturday. I think I speak for many when I say that this document exceeded many of our expectations. The Mass of 1962 has been completely freed and any priest who wishes to may use it without the permission of his Ordinary. Furthermore, the old usages for all of the sacraments have been allowed as well. Perhaps the most rewarding thing about this document is the vindication it gives to those who claimed that the Mass of 1962 was never abrogated and that it has always been allowed (the actions of local bishops in surpressing it notwithstanding).

The Holy Father has explicitly declared that the Mass of Bl. John XXIII was in point of fact never abrogated. This is just another step towards what has been rightfully called "the reform of the reform." Perhaps now we can move away from the kind of horrendous liturgical abuses that we have all been subject to for so long.

Liturgical Abuse: Just say No

While there is much to do from here on out, I cannot help but pondering the next step. This is a long and slow process, and one marked by many small steppingstones. The Indult of 1984 and its expansion in 1988 are two previous steps, and this is another one. What should come next? When will it be enough? I will tell you what I would like to see next:

(1) The old usage be declared the "normative" form of the Latin rite instead of the extraordinary form.

(2) The gradual phasing out of the Novus Ordo.

(3) Some kind of official acknowledgement that the hoped for "riches" envisioned by Sacrosanctum Concilium have not materialized and that the implementation of the Novus Ordo has been an abject failure.

The end we ought to be aiming at should be, in the words of Msgr. Klaus Gamber: "In the final analysis, in the future the traditional rite of the Mass must be retained in the Roman Catholic Church...as the primary liturgical form for the celebration of Mass. It must become once more the norm of our faith and the symbol of Catholic unity throughout the world, a rock of stability in a period of upheaval and neverending change" (from : "Reform of the Roman Liturgy, pg. 114).

Is this too much? I don't think so. I do not want the Mass of 1962 just to satisfy my own private aesthetic or spiritual "taste"; I honestly think this usage is better for the Church Universal, and therefore I think we ought to, as a final goal, will that it be used by the Universal Church, as it had been for 1500 years. Well, the next several months should be exciting to say the least!

Motu Proprio Tomorrow

With it virtually certain that the MP will be out tomorrow, I thought it prudent to simply restate here what was posted by Shawn Tribe today on The New Liturgical Movement regarding our expectations concerning this document and how we ought to react to it. Here is the post from TNLM:

1. Think about Pope Benedict's liturgical teaching. It would be good if people really stop and think about Pope Benedict's vision for the liturgy and the Church, which sees liturgical co-existence, but one which attempts to address the Council and might eventually lead to synthesis. Get your mind into that mode and read Summorum Pontificum in that light, understanding it from that perspective as the seeds of a 'corrective' of the hermeneutic of rupture.

2. Forget about what you've heard about the document and simply read it for what it is. Consider this as well: if this document came as a complete and total surprise with no lead up to it these past months, how would you respond to it then? Respond to it accordingly as such.

3. In the same vein, think not about what you personally would like to see happen, but rather think about the present state of things and ask, regardless of my own opinion of what would be for the best, how does this motu proprio change the landscape for the better (for both the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the Roman rite)? How does it help in the process of reclaiming our tradition from the margins of ecclesial life? How does it build for the future?

4. Realize as well that Benedict may also have had to make a prudential decision about precisely what he thought he could promulgate with a reasonable chance of being successful in the here and now, building for the future. Think of this as another step in a process rather than the "end game". Think about what was released in 1984, which was very restrictive; then the loosening of 1988 with Ecclesia Dei, and now this next step in the process.

5. Be aware, now, before you read it tomorrow, that you probably won't get everything you hope for in one document. Don't expect magical juridical solutions, nor one's that implement all of your own desires.

6. Presume that there no document can absolutely safeguard against those who determined to foil it, but, again, how does it make it that much harder to do so, or that much freer where such a situation doesn't exist, and how does the document build for a better future by redefining attitudes?

7. At the end of the day, your wish-list aside, take real note of the proverbial "new toys" that this motu proprio provides and that you didn't have as of today and be thankful for yet another step back toward our tradition, toward a hermeneutic of continuity, and toward a sensible implementation of the Council.

8. Finally, before you even read the document tomorrow, might I recommend you place it before yourself, and then go through this list of considerations one more time.

Scott Hahn's Holy Spirit Thesis

Much controversy has come of late regarding the assertion Dr. Scott Hahn (Professor of Scripture and Theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville) of the so-called "motherly role" of the Holy Spirit. This teaching is first formulated in Chapter 10 of Hahn's book "First Comes Love" (Doubelday Books, 2002) and Hahn has developed and spoken more on the idea since then. Opponents suggest that the teaching of Hahn introduces a femininty into God that will sanction such practices as calling God "Mother" and giving more ground to the radical feminist sect within the Church. Hahn says that his assertion is backed up by the Fathers, Scripture and the Popes and that, if understood rightly, is completely in line with Tradition and orthodoxy.

Having been profoundly influenced by the teachings of Dr. Scott Hahn in my own spiritual life, I decided this issue merited looking into and got the book for myself. Hahn begins with the premise that Catholics have a hard time identifying with the Holy Spirit because the images of Him in the Scriptures are so impersonal (Wind, Fire, Dove, etc). I would argue this point, but nevertheless, he uses this as a jumping off point to suggest that the Person of the Spirit needs to be further explored in the familial terminology, the type of which that has made Hahn so popular and his theology so understandable to the layman. Hahn frequently draws parallels between the community of Persons in the Blessed Trinity and the family community and quotes John Paul's statement that "God in His deepest mystery is not a solitude, but a family, since He has within Himself fatherhood, sonship, and the essence of the family, which is love." He goes on through Scriptural examples to show how the "love" that the Holy Spirit is is often displayed in Scripture in maternal terminology: the Spirit nurtures, gives birth ("born of Spirit and water..."), gives spiritual milk, teaches us to walk and talk in the Spirit, and teaches us to cry "Abba, Father!" None of this is in dispute.

There is a problem when it comes to support in the Church's Tradition. Hahn lists some tenuous Patristic quotes to give credence to the conclusion that the Holy Spirit, who is revealed by His actions, and since some of His actions are maternal, ought to be understood as the feminine aspect of the Trinity; the "mother" of the Church.

Hahn knows he is departing from the traditional theological understanding here: first, he prefaces his arguments by acknowledging (and rightly so) that his "explorations" must be "cautious" and "tenative" and that "if the Magisterium should find any of them unsatisfactory" that he will be the first to "rip the following pages out of the book and gratefully consign them to the flame" (pg. 128-29). Such an assurance is laudatory on Hahn's part and demonstrates his fidelity to the Church and his willingness to stand with the Church's tradition. Yet such a disclaimer also demonstrates the novelty of his position; if it were simply part of Tradition, as Hahn claims, why would he need to be so cautious and tenative in his "explorations?"

Second, he acknowledges on page 139 that his familial understanding clashes with the traditional view of the Trinity (expounded by St. Augustine and St. Thomas, whom he quotes). Hmm...the formulations of Augustine and Thomas have worked fine for 1500 years; why mess with them now?

Thirdly and most shocking, he prefaces the last section of his chapter by saying, "It seems almost blasphemous to say this, but Christians can place too much emphasis on Christ" (pg. 143). Too much emphasis on the one we are going to be adoring for all eternity? That seems a bit far fetched. The point of these three examples is to show that Hahn is fully aware that he is treading in dangerous water, which ought to give us pause.

Hahn quotes a lot of proof for his position, and (to his credit), he constantly hedges in his comments by saying that this does not mean we can call God "mother", and states "nor do I imply that there are masculine and feminine qualities within the Godhead," and "the analogy of bridal-motherhood here is relational and familial, not physical or sexual. Therefore there is no...justification for goddess worship" (pg. 138). That is fine and good - but why so many warnings if the position could not lead to errant interpretation?

As to Hahn's evidence, the following needs to be observed:

1) His Scriptural evidence is inconclusive, because though the Spirit has some feminine aspects attributed to it, so do the other Persons of the Trinity (Jesus saying "How I would have gathered you as a mother gathers her chicks" and the Psalmist saying that his repose in God the Father is like a child on it's mother's lap (Ps. 132:2). Maternal imagery is common to the entire Trinity, yet we know that God nevertheless not chosen to reveal Himself in as a mother in any way.

2) John Paul II's statement, identifying the Trinity as family, (using even in the familial context Hahn likes to use so much) does not make reference to motherhood. The Father is called Father, the Son connected to Sonship, and the Spirit to love, not motherhood.

3) His patristic sources are obscure; Ephrem, Aphrahat and Narsai hardly constitute "some of the greatest" of the fathers, as Hahn asserts. While all saints ought to be considered, if it came down to it, would not Aquinas and Augustine "outweigh" Aphrahat and Narsai?

4)Hahn's quoting of the progressive Cardinal Yves Congar on pg. 134-35 as a supporter does not give any more weight to his theory since Congar was known as a liberal theologian and together with Rahner and Schillebeeckx, one of the architechts of the ambiguous documents of Vatican II.

Scott Hahn is not teaching heresy, which is defined as a knowledgeable and obstinate denial of some dogma of the faith. He clearly professes obedience to all the Church teaches and demonstrares a willingness to recant if his views should be impugned by the Magisterium. Yet they need not be openly heretical to be troubling. In the old days of the Church, heresy was taught to have certain "degrees" or grades. Hahn's thought is not outright heretical since, if taken strictly within the confines that he sets for it, there is no explicit denial of any article of faith. However, there are propositions called suspecta de hæresi, errore (suspected of heresy or error) which the Catholic Encyclopedia defines as "Propositions thus noted may be correct in themselves, but owing to various circumstances of time, place, and persons are prudently taken to present a signification which is either heretical or erroneous." Thus, because of the problems with feminism and New Age goddess worship in the world today, though Hahn has the best of intentions (and because of his over 20 year record of distinguished service to the Church, we ought to assume the best of intentions), his theory would be subject to immediate misinterpretation by anybody with less pure motives than himself.

Therefore, I say his position might be considered suspecta de haeresi and for the sake of the integrity of the Church, ought to be kept quiet. As the encyclical of Pope Paul VI Mysterium Fidei said regarding safeguarding theological language: "Once the integrity of the faith has been safeguarded, then it is time to guard the proper way of expressing it, lest our careless use of words give rise, God forbid, to false opinions regarding faith in the most sublime things." The Trinitarian language has been in place since Nicea. Should we alter it at the speculations of Dr. Scott Hahn

Latin Mass Resources

The Pittsburgh Latin Mass community has 'server training tapes' on their website. Check it out at: http://pittsburghlatinmass.org/sblm/resources.htm

Thanks for the tip, GCC Catholic!

"Numchuck skills, liturgical skills..."

I have come to realize recently that while it is so enormously important to conform to proper liturgical rubrics, it is also very important that the execution of the rubrics be done with skill and grace. What good is it to have a choir chanting Gregorian chant if they cannot sing in key? Or a priest using the universal language of the Church if he stumbles over any Latin word with more than two syllables? How about sloppily dressed altar boys, priests with their albs on crooked and wristwatches showing while they are holding up the Sacred Host at the elevation? How about the choir rehearsing before Mass and interrupting people trying to pray? How about sound systems that continually malfunction causing the priest to have to dash away into the sacristy in the middle of the liturgy to try to fix the problem?

Fortunately, these things seldom happen at my parish, but I see them happen all of the time in other places. Even if we do get the liturgy right, let's make sure we do it good! It is not worth doing something unless you are going to set your mind to doing it with excellence and beauty. Of course, the Mass has an intrinsic value apart from how well it is executed. But from a pastoral standpoint (and everybody wants to be "pastoral" these days!), whether or not a liturgy is done with excellence is of tremendous importance. It is the beauty of the Tridentine rite that so many say they miss when comparing it with the Novus Ordo, and it is that same beauty that will attract people back to the traditional rite. As Dostoevsky once said, "Beauty will save the world." So, to all of us who may in one way or another be involved in liturgical matters, or may be offering the Holy Sacrifice, let's bone up on our liturgical skills and do this thing right if we are going to do it at all.

Motu Proprio: Practical Considerations

Please take our survey at the bottom regarding the Tridentine Mass

With the Vatican saying that the Motu Proprio liberalizing the use of the Tridentine Mass of St. Pius V will be out any day now(or I should say, the Tridentine Mass as modified by Blessed Pope John XXIII in 1962), many parishes are getting ready to implement the anticipated changes. There has been much written on the merits of the old Mass versus the Novus Ordo, with much especially insightful commentary on the three blogs listed on our links (Athanasius Contra Mundum, Fr. Zuhlsdorf and New Liturgical Movement).

However, I decided to write here on the practical aspects of the switch to the old rite. As a DRE, part of my job is helping my priest to prepare for the transition and he has asked me to help compile a list of practical things that will need to be done for the old Mass to be celebrated in our parish. Thank God I don't have to tackle the pastoral end! Here is the list myself and my colleague Anselm came up with:

1)The first thing that comes to mind is a Missale Romanum. I've seen these going on the net for $150 at the cheapest and $350 at the most. We were fortunate enough to have a donation.

2)In the Church itself,the reinstallation (or new installation)of the communion rails comes to mind. My parish is fortunate enough to still have its old ones, though they are not installed. Father estimates it may cost $1000 to have them properly reinstalled and brought up to snuff. This price would obviously be higher in a parish that did not still have the originals.

3)As far as vestments go, he will need a dignified chasuble and maniples (about $600).

4)Altar cards, as well, and booklets with the translations for the congregation to follow ($75 for the cards and about $250 for the booklets).

That comes to at least $2000 for just the hardware. That does not even take into account the intense training that will need to be implemented:

5)For the choir, who will need to learn Gregorian Chant.

6)For the altar boys, who will need to learn the Latin responses. We found an excellent little book called "Learning to Serve" that was used to train altar boys in the pre-Vatican II days.

Buying the hardware is simple [by the way, you can get all this stuff from the Coalition Ecclesia Dei]; but it will take hours of training to get the choir and altar boys ready, not to mention the weeks of catechesis on the liturgy that the parishioners will need. We also must take into consideration the training your priest will need. Deo gratias to the FSSP for their Tridentine "Boot Camps" they have been hosting (click here for an excellent write up of one of these boot camps from The New Liturgical Movement. It's about half way down the blog).

Let's not imagine that come Saturday, everything will be right with the world. To pull this off correctly, it is going to take months of training, probably years of catechesis and decades of faithful adherence to the liturgy to undue the harm that has been done. But when all is said and done, this whole sorry period of the past forty years will be but a little blip, a historical footnote, in the glorious history of the Church.

CUR DEUS HOMO?

Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church

St. Anselm, the famous Archbishop of Canterbury, was a Benedictine monk, who fought intrepidly for the faith and liberty of the Church. He is one of the greatest philosophers and mystics of the eleventh century. He died on 21 April in 1109.

As Dr Ludwig Ott summarises it in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma:

"St. Anselm of Canterbury in his dialogue: 'Cur Deus Homo' has speculatively penetrated and built up to a systematic theory of Redemption the idea of the vicarious atonement of Christ which is based in Scripture and tradition. While the Fathers, in the explanation of Christ's work of sanctification, proceed more from the contemplation of the consequences of the Redemption, and therefore stress the negative side of the Redemption, namely, the ransoming from the slavery of sin and of the devil, St. Anselm proceeds from the contemplation of the guilt of sin. This, as an insult offered to God, is infinite, and therefore demands an infinite expiation. Such expiation, however, can be achieved by a Divine Person only. To be capable of thus representing mankind, this person must be, at the same time, man and God."

The Catechism of the Council of Trent (The Roman Catechism) has this to say on the doctrine of the atonement:

"The pastor should teach that all these inestimable and divine blessings flow to us from the Passion of Christ. First, indeed, because the satisfaction which Jesus Christ has in an admirable manner made to God the Father for our sins is full and complete. The price which he paid for our ransom was not only adequate and equal to our debts, but far exceeded them. Again, it (the Passion of Christ) was a sacrifice most acceptable to God, for when offered by His Son on the altar of the cross, it entirely appeased the wrath and indignation of the Father."

I have chosen St. Anselm as my patron and (pseudonym) here as it my conviction that a renewed understanding of the Catholic doctrine of the atonement, so admirably ennunciated by St. Anselm, is imperative to regaining a proper understanding of the sacrificial and propitiatory nature of the Mass, which is indeed nothing other than the re-presentation of that self-same atoning sacrifice. I am further convinced, with then-Cardinal Ratzinger, "that the crisis in the Church that we are experiencing today is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy." In short, understanding the atonement will help us to understand the sacrificial nature of the Mass, which will lead us back to the traditional rite of Mass which so well expressed that sacrificial nature, which in turn will bolster the faith and hence the morals of the Catholic people. Of course there is much more to be said here, especially as regards the assertion that the Traditional Latin Mass will bolster the faith and morals of the Catholic people. But I have gone on long enough for now. Perhaps another post. Sancte Anselme, ora pro nobis!

Democratization of the Church

It is not hard to point out many of the changes in the past forty years that have contributed to the current state of doctrinal apathy and moral confusion in the Church. One could cite the liturgical reforms forced on the Church in the name of the spirit of Vatican II (which find no justification in the documents of Vatican II), or one could point to the abandonment of traditional ecclesiology that emphasized the subsistence of truth within the Catholic faith for a newer, more ecumenical ecclesiology which waters down the distinctive nature of the Church and adopts an "I'm okay, you're okay" attitude towards Protestantism. One could point to the tragic decline in biblical scholarship in the past century, characterized by the general acceptance by scholars of anti-supernatural bias, as well as the heretical Documentary Hypothesis and the "Q" Theory (also called the "Two Source" Theory). In this vein, I could point to the ambiguitites created by such documents as Sacrosanctum Concilium and Dei Verbum (chapter 11 in particular). Couple all of these factors with the strange phenomenon of the Popes since John XXIII renouncing much of their authority and adopting a more "pastoral" in place of an authoritative position, and we have a recipe for the present chaos in the Church.

I am not the first one by far to point this out, and volumes have been written on these issues. However, I think they are but instrumental causes of the Church's present state. I notice that they all presuppose another, more foundational tenet which is not discussed or debated so much as it is taken for granted: this is the tend towards democratization in the Church. To be sure, the Church is not a democracy, nor has it ever proclaimed itself to be; but these days it acts more and more like one. Popes no longer wear the triple tiara; rather, they delegate their authority to commissions and congregations; bishops make no move without the advice of committees of lay advisors, and even parish priests work hand in hand with "worship teams" and other useless bodies of individuals who contribute very little to the common good but do foster much confusion and disillusionment.

One reason why the Middle Ages is considered by many to be a Golden Age of the Church is that the Church and State both followed the same model in their structure. Everybody knows that God's kingdom is not a democracy; Christ is the King of Kings and rules absolutely. It is a divine monarchy. In the temporal sphere, the Church functioned as a monarchy as well, with the Pope ruling as the physical head of the Church Militant and the bishops acting as the princes or prelates of the ecclesiastical kingdom. Likewise, civil society was ordered on the monarchic model, with the king reigning in the name of God and exercising the authority vested in his person by divine order.

Following the social changes of the past two centuries, we now have a different situation: Christ, of course, who is unchanging, is still the same and is still King and His kingdom is still a divine monarchy. But civil society has cast off monarchy in favor of democracy and liberal government. Now, the Church is in the middle. As part of Christ's kingdom, she must conform to His order; but more often than not she finds herself instead influenced by the existing socio-political framework. Thus, democracy is seen by the Church as something inherently meritorious, an attitude that is novel to the Church's tradition. The Church had frequently been pressured to submit to a popular will of the people before (as the 17th century French bishops clamored for their so-called "Gallican liberties" and the 19th century liberal Biblical scholars asserted that the papacy had to assent to their heretical views on the Sacred Scriptures, whose views were condemned in Lamenatbili Sane in 1907); the difference is that in ages past, the Popes vigorously asserted their unique prerogatives against those who insisted on the Popes bending to the will of the people. Now, the popes and bishops cave in or go soft when they are confronted with a "majority opinion" (by the way, check out Numbers 16:1-50 and I Samuel 8:1-22 to see what God thinks of majority opinion).

It is clear that to fix anything in the Church it will take authority. And no authority can be exercized until the Popes and Bishops rise up and take the authority that is rightfully theirs and reject this devastating trend of "democratization."

Can We Legislate Morality?

It is not even election year yet and already the presidential candidates are gearing up for the primaries. As with every election year, the so-called dilemma of "legislating morality" comes up. How far can and ought a state go in implementing its laws to fight not only crime, but vice, which is always accompanies crime and often leads to it?

There is a certain political maxim that is frequently repeated by opponents of pro-life legislation and other moral issues. We all have heard it repeated numerous times: "You can't legislate morality." Like many other things, it has been repeated so many times that people tend to take it as absolute truth. But is it?

Well, inasmuch as it means you cannot pass laws to make people moral citizens, it is true. We cannot pass laws to make people stop being lustful or envious. However, we can certainly pass laws to punish certain immoral actions, which is what pro-life legislation and anti-abortion laws would accomplish. After all, murder is immoral and henceforth we have laws against it. Stealing is immoral and it, too is illegal. We have laws against fraud, perjury, rape and a plethora of other crimes, all precisely because they are immoral. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the morality (or immorality) of actions are the only reasons why we legislate. If something were not immoral, why would we take actions against it?

The problem is that in this age, we have gotten away from viewing our laws as a means to an end (just laws to promote just society and harmony among men and with God) and have begun viewing our laws as arbitrary ends in themselves (i.e, we obey the laws because the state says we must, regardless of their morality). This is the old distinction between natural law (the fundamental laws respecting human life are from God and written in our nature) and positive law (laws made only by men with no grounding in divine law). Modern man thinks all law is positive law, and hence, there is no ultimate line we cannot cross if the 51% so say it should be. There is nothing to prevent democracy without respect for natural law from becoming a dictatorship of the masses.

This new way of thinking is fatally flawed because it sets the state up as the ultimate arbiter of moral right and wrong. Our nature as moral being obliges us to think morally, even in political questions, and always hold fast to the Church's moral teachings, since she and she alone has the authority to proclaim the moral truths by which we base our lives. We must especially hold fast to these truths when it comes to life issues such as contraception, abortion and euthanasia, where human existence itself is on the line. After all, the theoretical way we view law and morality influences how and for whom we will vote, which influences how laws will shape the future of our country, which in turn decides whether we will have a culture of life or a dictatorship of death. As God said to the Israelites through Moses, "I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life, that you and your descendants might live" (Deut. 30:19).