Catholic Metanarrative

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Article: Marshall McLuhan and the divine message

FATHER RAYMOND J. DE SOUZA

He was a devout convert to Catholicism. And religious thinking is essential to understanding his entire work.

Herbert Marshall McLuhan
1911-1980

"What do you think Marshall McLuhan ought to do if he wants to be taken more seriously in the world today?" asked a television interviewer of the man himself.

"Marshall McLuhan is taken far too seriously," he replied.

The centenary of his birth is July 21, and we take him seriously still. In the Internet age, his ideas appear more relevant than ever. The mark of a great idea is that it is obvious once stated. That how we think and act is shaped by the mode of communication itself is now obvious to all.

"Printing, radio, movies, TV – they actually alter our organs of perception without our knowing," McLuhan wrote, observing and also anticipating how patterns of thought, friendships and philosophies would change in the electronic age. When McLuhan was raising his six children, being sent to one's bedroom was a punishment of deprivation; today, parents try to get their kids out of their bedrooms, away from the laptop, video games and mobile phones.

McLuhan is rightly celebrated as a scholar of communications and mass culture, but his ideas about communication and religion, which is at the heart of culture, are generally neglected. As a devout convert to Catholicism, a man who went to Mass daily, prayed the rosary with family every night, and rose early to read the scriptures, McLuhan's religious thinking is essential to understanding his entire work.

"Above all, he believed that because God made the world, it must, in the end be comprehensible, and that a sense of the divine could lead to an understanding of the mundane," writes Douglas Coupland in his quirky biography of McLuhan, published as part of Penguin's "Extraordinary Canadians" series. "He came to feel that his religion was indeed a sense, a sensory perception that coloured his life as much as, if not more so than, sight, taste, touch, hearing, smell or gravity. He'd found his key to eternity."

Yet that same biography by the perceptive Coupland does not examine in depth McLuhan's Catholicism.

"In Jesus Christ, there is no distance or separation between the medium and the message," McLuhan would write. "It's the one case where we can say that the medium and the message are fully one and the same."


McLuhan's famous dictum noted how something is communicated – the medium – has its own effect on the message, independent of what is communicated. A text message may contain words of lapidary import, but the medium empties them of the significance they would assume if they were literally lapidary, carved in stone.

In the person of Jesus Christ, a divine person with a human nature, McLuhan saw that God reveals that He is personal, and that He freely implicates Himself in the full breadth and depth of the human experience. The incarnate God chose a medium – our human nature – that contains its own message, namely that God loves His creation, enters it, suffers for it and redeems it.

Coupland's is right that McLuhan considered his faith like another sense. McLuhan knew that faith is a means of knowing reality, even as we use our senses to tell us about reality. The Christian faith added something deeper though for McLuhan. God came into this world of time and space in Jesus Christ; therefore, this world of time and space was infused with indications, intuitions and icons of the divine.

"It seems incongruent that the man could be ahead of the world in some ways and yet be retrograde in others," writes Coupland, who considers Catholicism rather retro. "And I don't think it's even about being ahead of the times or behind the times. Marshall didn't really believe in time. He believed in eternity. Being alive on earth was but one phase of a larger process."

The electronic age is thus fundamentally anti-sacramental. It does not make the intangible present through tangible matter, but rather takes tangible bodies and discarnates them . . .

That larger process is what Christians call sanctification, becoming holy. McLuhan's Catholic faith is that God makes us holy through the sacraments – baptism and holy communion above all. The Catholic sacramental imagination, the conviction that God uses the tangible things of this world – water, oil, bread, wine – as means of grace, is arguably the key to McLuhan's broader analysis of communication and culture.

Sacraments communicate the presence of an intangible person – God – through tangible things. In the same way, our body makes presence an intangible reality greater than our body, namely our full personhood. The encounter of persons seeking not only communication but true communion – that deeper friendship rooted in a shared identity and mission – requires at some level an encounter of bodies, whether it is a smile, a handshake, a conversation or an embrace.

But our bodies are limited, and to overcome the distance that separates us we move to other forms of communication, each less corporeal than its predecessor – books, letters, phone calls, emails.

"When you are on the phone or on the air, you have no body," McLuhan said, speaking about modern communications creating "discarnate bodies."

The electronic age is thus fundamentally anti-sacramental. It does not make the intangible present through tangible matter, but rather takes tangible bodies and discarnates them, converting a person to a series of digital impulses that are present everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Here we glimpse McLuhan's importance as a religious thinker for the 21st century. The human spirit is uneasy with ever more powerful communications that leave the desire for communion unfulfilled. That is an opportunity for a renewed proclamation of the incarnate, personal God. Yet at the same time the means of making present that incarnate God – the sacraments – are radically undermined by very same media culture.

Addressing this phenomenon is to take up McLuhan's ideas 30 years after his death. He died in his sleep. The evening before a priest offered Mass in his home. McLuhan received Holy Communion, and then enjoyed a glass of champagne and a cigar. All three were media with a message: God is here, present in the good things He gives us, the greatest of which is communion with God Himself in Jesus Christ.



ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Father Raymond J. de Souza, "Marshall McLuhan and the divine message." National Post, (Canada) July 19, 2011.

Reprinted with permission of the National Post and Fr. de Souza.

THE AUTHOR

Father Raymond J. de Souza is chaplain to Newman House, the Roman Catholic mission at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. Father de Souza's web site is here. Father de Souza is on the advisory board of the Catholic Education Resource Center.

Copyright © 2011 National Post

Article: You Always Get What You Want

DEACON DOUGLAS MCMANAMAN

Christ said that in my father's house there are many mansions. The mansion we get is the one we build by the choices that we make.

The First Reading is one of my favorites in the Old Testament. The Lord appears to Solomon in a dream one night and says: "Ask something of me and I will give it to you".

It is significant that this occurred in a dream, because it is while in this state that we are alone with God in the depths of our unconscious mind and completely open and unable to interfere with Him. It is on this deepest level of the unconscious that the secret of what we ultimately want lies hidden from the world, but exposed to God. And when it is revealed what it is we ultimately want, we are revealed, that is, our deepest and truest identity. It all starts on that level. What is it you want, ultimately?

In this state, Solomon, like every one of us, discloses to God what it is he wants ultimately. He does not ask for a long life for himself, he does not ask for great wealth. He does not ask that he may conquer his enemies. He asks for wisdom. This is what Solomon loves above all things; wisdom. And notice the sense he has of his own limitations. He says: "I am a mere youth, not knowing at all how to act." So he asks God: "Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong".

That's Solomon. That's who he is. You are what you will. That is one of the most important truths that I try to get across to my students. You determine your character, your moral identity, by the choices that you make, and the choices that you make are ultimately rooted in a very general decision that each one of us has made, in the very depths of our subconscious mind, a general decision to be a certain kind of person.

You are not what you feel. A person might have all sorts of feelings that bother him, feelings that he does not want; perhaps feelings of anger, or sadness, or fear, or feelings of inordinate desire. Those are feelings, but you are not what you feel. And you are not necessarily what you think – a person might have all sorts of ideas floating around in his head, perhaps even very disturbing ideas. You might even have wrong ideas that you were not responsible for. You are not what you think. But you are what you will. The only time you are what you think is when what you think stems from what you will. And what a person wills ultimately is not always manifest to others, or even to himself.

But in the end, you always get what you want. God always gives you what you want. Solomon wanted wisdom, and he received it. He was given a heart that understands right and wrong. He wanted to understand right and wrong because he loved the good, he loved truth, he loved wisdom. As a result of that, the name of Solomon has been associated, throughout history, with wisdom.


If you are looking for a fascinating book, read the book of Wisdom in the Old Testament. In chapter six we read: "Resplendent and unfading is Wisdom, and she is readily perceived by those who love her, and found by those who seek her. She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her; one who watches for her at dawn will not be disappointed, for she will be found sitting at the gate. For setting your heart on her is the perfection of prudence, and whoever keeps vigil for her is quickly free from care; because she makes her rounds, seeking those worthy of her, and graciously appears to them on the way, and goes to meet them with full attention."

What this reading makes so clear is that if a person does not have wisdom, it is because the person simply does not want it. And there are many people who are indifferent to wisdom, indifferent to coming to a genuine understanding of the Law of the Lord, that is, the truth of what is good and what is evil.

A person's character describes what a person is. There is nothing that is more intimately yours than your moral identity, your character. And character is determined by our free choices. If I choose to lie to you, I am a liar. If I choose to commit adultery, I am an adulterer. That's my identity. If I freely choose to kill another, I have the moral identity of a killer, even if no one knows about it, that is, even if it is my deepest secret. That's what I am. It is only genuine repentance that brings about a change of my own moral identity.

And there are many people who are indifferent to wisdom, indifferent to coming to a genuine understanding of the Law of the Lord, that is, the truth of what is good and what is evil.

And character is not the same thing as personality. Our personality traits are inherited and in part determined by environment. But we are not going to be judged on our personality. You can have a very dull, drab, even cantankerous personality, but have great character. Conversely, you can have a great personality, but depraved character. Character is entirely yours, personality isn't. In fact, some of the most notorious psychopaths have very charming personalities – that's how they were able to deceive so many people. Being a nice guy is not the same as goodness, much less holiness.

Bad character begins with being indifferent to one's own character. Some people couldn't care less what kind of person they determine themselves to be by their choices; they couldn't care less. What these people care about primarily is how they feel. Feeling is more important than being. We know this is true in our case if we are willing to do something that is evil, thus corrupting our moral identity, for the sake of feeling good, for the sake of possessing some temporary good, like money, or position, or a feeling of pleasure. Money and position make a person feel a certain way. And some people are simply more interested in feeling good than they are in being good.

But when things shift the other way, when we begin to become more interested in being than in feeling, more interested in character than in possessing, then there are certain choices we simply will not make no matter how much enjoyment or security they bring to our lives, because in making this or that choice, I become a certain kind of person, and I don't want to be that kind of person, no matter how easy and enjoyable my life becomes from that point onwards. And some students are very honest. They readily admit that feeling comfortable and having a rather upscale lifestyle are more important to them than their own character, their own moral identity – more important than holiness. And so they "sell their soul", so to speak, for the sake of that temporary state of affairs. And that's what it is – temporary. They exchange the eternal for the temporary.


Solomon couldn't care less about riches, nor about the satisfying feeling of victory over his enemies, nor about a long life. He wanted a heart that understands good and evil in order to be able to serve the Lord well in the position in which the Lord placed him, namely, ruler of God's chosen people.

It all comes down to what we ultimately want. And it is possible to attend Mass week in and week out without ultimately wanting wisdom, without loving the Law of the Lord. I think that's why some Evangelical Churches in the U.S are doing so well, because some preachers have given a new twist to the gospel, which is known in Evangelical circles as the "gospel of prosperity". The idea is that if you accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, you will prosper, because the Lord wants you to prosper economically (Cf. 3 Jn), and if you embrace his name and immerse yourselves in the Scriptures, prosperity will follow. Most people today love their own prosperity above all things, and so if going to Church will open the flood gates of financial prosperity, Church is where you'll find them. That's why these Churches are bursting at the seams.

And some students are very honest. They readily admit that feeling comfortable and having a rather upscale lifestyle are more important to them than their own character, their own moral identity – more important than holiness. And so they "sell their soul". . . They exchange the eternal for the temporary.

But that's not a genuine love of holiness. Recently in a major U.S. city, a Church group put on a Passion play, and it was a Black man who was chosen to play the part of Jesus. After realizing this, many people walked.

I know a young lady from the U.S. who comes from a very wealthy family, and who is about to be cut out of the will because she is in a very serious relationship with a black man – of very good character, I might add. If she marries him, she will be left with nothing. And these parents are people who attend Mass weekly, including Eucharistic adoration.

Now that's the U.S., but Canada is just as bad; we are just hung up on other issues. There are parishioners who will write letters of complaint to the bishop if a priest were to preach a hard sermon on sexual morality, or abortion, contraception, or euthanasia. It happens all the time – which is probably why we rarely hear these topics preached from the pulpit. The fact is, some people come to Church to actually pray their way away from God. "If I go to Mass regularly, say my prayers, then I must be okay; I don't have to deal with this nagging voice in the depths of my conscience." This is self-deception. But on the deepest level of the subconscious, what we ultimately want is fully exposed to God's gaze.

We are what we will. We are what we love. And only God knows for certain if at our very depths we love ourselves above all things, or if we love God above all things. But if we love the self above all, and if we persist in that to the end, the Lord will give us what we want. He will leave us to ourselves for eternity.

Christ said that in my father's house there are many mansions. The mansion we get is the one we build by the choices that we make. It is the mansion of our own soul. Our soul is an interior castle, and its beauty and majesty depend upon us, on how much we cooperate with the grace of God offered to us, and if we neglect our soul because we are so preoccupied with this life, this world, with our own lifestyle, our house will be very dilapidated and small. It might even be a hell to live in, and it will be ours forever. But if we put the works of charity first, the kingdom of God first, the Lord's will first and above all and everything else second, we will have built a beautiful mansion that will be ours for eternity, and it is eternity alone that matters.



ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Deacon Douglas McManaman. "You Always Get What You Want." CERC (July 23, 2011).

Printed with permission of Deacon Douglas McManaman.

THE AUTHOR

Doug McManaman is a Deacon and a Religion and Philosophy teacher at Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy in Markham, Ontario, Canada. He is the past president of the Canadian Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. He maintains the following web site for his students: A Catholic Philosophy and Theology Resource Page. He studied Philosophy at St. Jerome's College in Waterloo, and Theology at the University of Montreal. Deacon McManaman is on the advisory board of the Catholic Education Resource Center.

Copyright © 2011 Douglas McManaman

Wednesday Liturgy: Churching After Childbirth

ROME, JULY 26, 2011 (Zenit.org (http://www.zenit.org)).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.


Q: My wife, Deo volente, will give birth to our first child shortly. I have been thinking about the sacramental known as "churching," which was once common. I believe that it has gone out of fashion due to a perception that it manifests a view of pregnancy and childbirth as being "unclean" and is therefore demeaning to women. Without getting into the whole area of modern misunderstandings of ritual purification, it seems to me that this pious practice could be promoted to much pastoral advantage. A woman who has done a wonderful thing, bringing a new Christian into the world, comes to the altar of God to give thanks and receive a blessing -- what could be wrong with that? (For those whose religious practice is irregular, it would also serve as a further point of contact with the Church and a teaching opportunity after the baby's baptism.) As far as I can see, there is nothing in the ritual that would be forbidden to a pastor who wished to use it. Perhaps you could comment? -- P.C., Dublin, Ireland

A: First of all, I offer my congratulations and prayers for this gift of new life. According to the early 20th-century Catholic Encyclopedia, the churching of a woman is:

"A blessing given by the Church to mothers after recovery from childbirth. Only a Catholic woman who has given birth to a child in legitimate wedlock, provided she has not allowed the child to be baptized outside the Catholic Church, is entitled to it. It is not a precept, but a pious and praiseworthy custom (Rituale Romanum), dating from the early Christian ages, for a mother to present herself in the Church as soon as she is able to leave her house (St. Charles Borromeo, First Council of Milan), to render thanks to God for her happy delivery, and to obtain by means of the priestly blessing the graces necessary to bring up her child in a Christian manner. The prayers indicate that this blessing is intended solely for the benefit of the mother, and hence it is not necessary that she should bring the child with her; nevertheless, in many places the pious and edifying custom prevails of specially dedicating the child to God. For, as the Mother of Christ carried her Child to the Temple to offer Him to the Eternal Father, so a Christian mother is anxious to present her offspring to God and obtain for it the blessing of the Church. This blessing, in the ordinary form, without change or omission, is to be given to the mother, even if her child was stillborn, or has died without baptism (Cong. Sac. Rit., 19 May, 1896).

"The churching of women is not a strictly parochial function, yet the Congregation of Sacred Rites (21 November, 1893) decided that a parish priest, if asked to give it, must do so, and if another priest is asked to perform the rite, he may do so in any church or public oratory, provided the superior of said church or oratory be notified. It must be imparted in a church or in a place in which Mass is celebrated, as the very name 'churching' is intended to suggest a pilgrimage of thanksgiving to the church, and as the rubrics indicate in the expressions: 'desires to come to the church', 'he conducts her into the church', 'she kneels before the altar', etc. Hence the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore (No. 246) prohibits the practice of churching in places in which Mass is not celebrated.

"The mother, kneeling in the vestibule, or within the church, and carrying a lighted candle, awaits the priest, who, vested in surplice and white stole, sprinkles her with holy water in the form of a cross. Having recited Psalm 23, 'The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof', he offers her the left extremity of the stole and leads her into the church, saying: 'Enter thou into the temple of God, adore the Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary who has given thee fruitfulness of offspring.' She advances to one of the altars and kneels before it, whilst the priest, turned towards her, recites a prayer which expresses the object of the blessing, and then, having sprinkled her again with holy water in the form of the cross, dismisses her, saying: 'The peace and blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, descend upon thee, and remain forever. Amen.'

While the ceremony itself has no elements of ritual purification, in some places it was associated with Jewish customs and especially with the purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was not obligatory, and customs as to when and where it was carried out varied widely from one region to another.

There are several reasons why the custom has largely fallen into disuse. More than any lingering association of childbirth with impurity, the decline is probably due more to the fact that the dangers inherent in giving birth are highly reduced in modern societies.

It was also common in earlier times for newborns to be baptized within hours after birth or the following day, and so mothers were frequently absent from the celebration. This situation is quite uncommon today.

Because of these new situations the revised Rite of Baptism for Children has incorporated the blessing of the mother after childbirth (the "churching" if you wish) within the concluding rites of the sacrament of baptism. A blessing of the father is also included so that nobody is excluded from responsibility for the child's Christian upbringing.

The Book of Blessings also has an "Order for the Blessing of a Mother after Childbirth." This blessing is only imparted to those mothers who were unable to attend the baptism. The introduction to the rite says, "It is fitting to have a special celebration in order to provide the opportunity for her to benefit from the blessing that in the rite of baptism prompts the mother and all present to thank God for the gift of the newborn child."

This blessing is not necessarily held in a church and may be imparted by a priest, deacon or authorized lay minister.

Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: Which English Translation to Use Abroad

ROME, JULY 26, 2011 (Zenit.org (http://www.zenit.org)).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.


As a corollary to our reflections on the use of the new English translation in non-English-speaking countries (see July 12 (http://www.zenit.org/rssenglish-33057)), there was an earlier related question from a reader in Israel. He asked: "When Mass is celebrated in English in a non-English-speaking country, by priests who are not native speakers of English or under the authority of a bishop from an English-speaking country, how is it determined which English-language lectionary to use?"

I would say that the choice of lectionary would follow the same basic principles as the choice of missal. In other words, any lectionary currently approved for liturgical use may be used in the non-English-speaking country.

There are several approved lectionaries. Most English-speaking countries use the original Jerusalem Bible with some adaptations, such as the use of "Lord" or "God" instead of "Yahweh." The United States uses an adapted version of the New American Bible. Canada has temporary permission to use the New Revised Standard Version, even though the Holy See did not approve this Bible for liturgical use. The Antilles use a lectionary based on a second edition of the Revised Standard Version, published by Ignatius Press. Many consider this the best contemporary translation, and it is the only lectionary which corresponds exactly to a Bible translation currently in print.

The exceptions would be those mentioned in the original article: National colleges or parishes, embassies, overseas military bases and similar places would use the lectionary approved in each respective country.

Although not obligatory, it is pastoral good sense to prefer the lectionary with which the majority of those assisting at Mass have greater familiarity.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Wednesday Liturgy: Antiphons and the Graduale Romanum

ROME, JULY 19, 2011 (Zenit.org (http://www.zenit.org)).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.


Q: I am completing a project of translating into English and transcribing into modern notation the introit and communion antiphons of the Mass. My hope is to enable any singer, even one unfamiliar with the theory and tradition of monophony, to discover the musical truth and spiritual power of these beautiful treasures. In this effort I have noticed many discrepancies between the texts given in the missal currently used in the United States and those that are prescribed in the Graduale Romanum. For example, the communion antiphon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter in the Graduale for Year A is: "Non vos relínquam órphanos" (I will not leave you orphans), but in the U.S. missal it is: "Si dilígitis me " (If you love me, keep my commandments). The missal uses this text for all three years. Now in this instance both texts are found in the Year A Gospel for the Sixth Sunday of Easter (John 14:15-21), but this is not the case for Years B and C where the Graduale texts are Gospel referent, but "Si dilígitis me" is not. The Graduale texts are almost always more related to the Scripture and themes of a particular Mass than are those in the missal. There are many other examples I could cite. I am very curious as to why and how this is. Does the new missal correct this? -- E.L., Chicago

A: The new translation also has "If you love me" for this Sunday which corresponds to the original Latin of the Roman Missal. The Latin missal traditionally has only one communion antiphon normally related to the theme of the Gospel.

The Graduale Romanum, or Roman Gradual, is an official liturgical book containing chants for use at Mass. The Gradual is not limited to the texts provided in the missal but offers a wider choice of musical possibilities.

The discrepancy between the two, if it can be called that, is probably due to the chronology of publication. The Gradual was published in 1974, four years after the missal and the lectionary which introduced the new, three-year cycle of readings. The compilers of the Gradual therefore had sufficient time to propose new chants adapted to each cycle of readings, whereas the missal text was confined to cycle A.

The options are outlined in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM), Nos. 48 and 87:

"No. 48 The singing at this time is done either alternately by the choir and the people or in a similar way by the cantor and the people, or entirely by the people, or by the choir alone. In the dioceses of the United States of America there are four options for the Entrance Chant: (1) the antiphon from the Roman Missal or the Psalm from the Roman Gradual as set to music there or in another musical setting; (2) the seasonal antiphon and Psalm of the Simple Gradual; (3) a song from another collection of psalms and antiphons, approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop, including psalms arranged in responsorial or metrical forms; (4) a suitable liturgical song similarly approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop.

"If there is no singing at the entrance, the antiphon in the Missal is recited either by the faithful, or by some of them, or by a lector; otherwise, it is recited by the priest himself, who may even adapt it as an introductory explanation (cf. above, no. 31).

"No. 87 In the dioceses of the United States of America there are four options for the Communion chant: (1) the antiphon from the Roman Missal or the Psalm from the Roman Gradual as set to music there or in another musical setting; (2) the seasonal antiphon and Psalm of the Simple Gradual; (3) a song from another collection of psalms and antiphons, approved by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop, including psalms arranged in responsorial or metrical forms; (4) a suitable liturgical song chosen in accordance with no. 86 above. This is sung either by the choir alone or by the choir or cantor with the people.

"If there is no singing, however, the Communion antiphon found in the Missal may be recited either by the faithful, or by some of them, or by a lector. Otherwise the priest himself says it after he has received Communion and before he distributes Communion to the faithful."

As can be observed, the liturgical norms allow several choices for the communion song, including using either the Gradual or the missal. Given this possibility it was probably considered unnecessary to provide alternative antiphons in the missal itself. Some vernacular translations, however, have provided these alternatives based on the three-year cycle.

I am very happy to see musicians give priority to the official liturgical texts rather than go the easy way of introducing tunes from other sources. In this way the assembly can aspire to sing the Mass and not just sing at Mass.

An excellent study of the history of the entrance antiphons, as well as a proposal to combine them with metrical psalms for use at Mass, can be found in a 2005 work by Christoph Tietze, "Hymn Introits for the Liturgical Year," Hillenbrand Books, Chicago.

Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: Fasting Before Mass

ROME, JULY 19, 2011 (Zenit.org (http://www.zenit.org)).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.


Related to the question of fasting before Communion (see July 5 (http://www.zenit.org/article-33010?l=english)), a Malaysian reader had asked: "I noticed many Catholic Christians go to church daily and some even go two or three times a day. They even receive the holy Eucharist at all these Masses that they attend. Please enlighten me as I am conducting training for religion teachers and I would like a very clear stand on this. Reference is made to Canons 915 through 922."

The key canon for this question is No. 917. It states, "A person who has already received the Most Holy Eucharist can receive it a second time on the same day only within the eucharistic celebration in which the person participates, without prejudice to the prescript of can. 921, §2."

Canon 921.2 says: "Even if they have been nourished by holy communion on the same day, however, those in danger of death are strongly urged to receive communion again."

There was a doubt regarding the meaning of the word iterum (which can mean either "again" or "a second time") in Canon 917. The Holy See's body for authentically interpreting laws decided that it meant "a second time."

Thus, a Catholic may receive Communion a second time but only during a Mass. Outside of Mass a second or even third Communion may only be received as viaticum for the dying.

Except in the case of viaticum, one should fast for an hour before both receptions of Communion.

Article: A Principled Charity

ARCHBISHOP CHARLES J. CHAPUT, O.F.M. CAP.

The basis of Catholic social doctrine is quite straightforward.

Speaking to Caritas International earlier this year, Raniero Cantalamessa said that "Christianity doesn't begin by telling people what they must do, but what God has done for them. Gift comes before duty." In other words, our love for God and our love for neighbor begin as responses to love we've already received.

Christian charity flows from having first experienced the love of God ourselves. The ultimate purpose of every human being is fulfilled by knowing God's love and being with him for eternity. All Christian charity is practiced with this goal in mind. Therefore, to be authentic, Christian charity must be free and must be motivated to share God's love with others, in addition to offering material aid. Christian charity is always both a material and a religious act.

At root, all acts of Christian charity are a means of communicating to other people the highest form of charity: the knowledge of Jesus Christ and his love for them. From this basic understanding we can draw some important ideals for Catholic social ministry in general, and Catholic Charities organizations in particular. The following list is not exhaustive, but it establishes some foundational principles for Catholic charitable work.


First, every act of Catholic social work should function faithfully within the mission and structures of the local diocese, with special respect for the role of the bishop. All such social work should be true to Scripture, Church teaching and the Code of Canon Law.

Second, every Catholic social ministry, along with providing material aid, should allow for the possibility of verbally professing the Gospel, as prudence permits.

Third – and this should be obvious – a Catholic charitable worker should never engage in coercive proselytization. He or she should always embody respect for an individual's freedom, and be governed by humility and common sense.

Fourth, every Catholic social ministry should insist on the best professional skills from its staff, and should use the best professional means at its disposal in serving others – so long as those skills and means reflect the truth of Catholic moral teaching.

Fifth, Catholic Charities and similar Catholic organizations should always provide opportunities for prayer for their employees and volunteers. Prayer is integral to Christian charity both as the means of experiencing the love of God ourselves and of seeking God's help, without which none of our works can prosper.

Sixth, every Catholic social ministry – guided by charity and prudence, but also by courage – should bear witness to the truth of Jesus Christ in the wider community. This includes giving a public voice to the rights of the poor, the homeless, the disabled, the immigrant and the unborn child, consistent with the particular nature of its work.

Seventh, every Catholic Charities organization, both through action and instruction, should seek to deepen an awareness of Catholic social teaching within the Christian community.

Eighth, Catholic social work always should involve both an effective outreach to individuals struggling with poverty, and a frank critique of the structural causes of poverty through the lens of Catholic social teaching.

Ninth and finally, Catholic social ministries should welcome opportunities to work with other individuals, groups, and social agencies in ways that are compatible with Catholic teaching. But we need to stay alert to the fact that cooperation can easily turn Catholic organizations into sub-contractors of large donors – donors with a very different anthropology and thus very different notions of authentic human development. And that can undermine the very purpose of Catholic social work.


In their attitudes, employees, and methodologies, Catholic charities must learn to reject the "humanism without God" that shapes so much modern social service thinking.

Given the state of Catholic charitable organizations, pursuing these ideals will involve serious cultural change within many Catholic agencies. That will take time. It will also demand people who believe in real human development, as understood in the light of Jesus Christ and the Catholic faith, and who have the courage to speak the truth and act on it confidently.

In their attitudes, employees, and methodologies, Catholic charities must learn to reject the "humanism without God" that shapes so much modern social service thinking. There is no such thing as "humanism without God." It never endures, and it ends by debasing the humanity it claims to serve. The record of the last century proves it again and again in bitterly painful ways.

In the end, the kind of people we hire and the training we provide will determine whether the ideals I've just listed have any effect. With this in mind, Catholic social ministries should always use their training and hiring processes to advance a faithful understanding of Catholic social teaching within their institutional culture – and especially among their employees.

We can't give what we don't have. Christian charity is not generic "do-goodism." Catholic social work exists to serve others, but not in any random way. It is very specifically an expression of Christ's love for us, our love for Christ, and our fidelity to the Church that Jesus founded. If we don't have these things in our hearts, we have very little worthwhile to share.



ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. "A Principled Charity." On The Square (July 14, 2011).

Reprinted with permission of Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. and First Things.

THE AUTHOR

The Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., was the archbishop of Denver, Colorado from 1997 to 2011. He is newly appointed Archbishop of Philadelphia. As member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribe, Archbishop Chaput is the second Native American to be ordained bishop in the United States, and the first Native American archbishop. He is the author most recently of Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life, andLiving the Catholic Faith: Rediscovering the Basics.

Copyright © 2011 Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Wednesday Liturgy: Which English Translation to Use Abroad

ROME, JULY 12, 2011 (Zenit.org (http://www.zenit.org)).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.


Q: At least two new English translations of the Roman Missal will be put into use this year. England and Wales will implement their translation in September; the United States will implement its in November. My question regards which translation should be used for Masses in English when celebrating in Rome. Are the translations the same? Is one to be preferred? -- J.M., Rome

A: Although this question specifically refers to Rome, which has some special characteristics, its scope is wider than the Eternal City. It is of interest in all places where Mass in English is celebrated in countries where English is not an official liturgical language.

By the end of the current year most native English-speaking countries will have introduced the new translation of the Roman Missal.

In English-speaking countries, and in countries that use English in the liturgy as a common second language, the bishops' conferences either publish their own missal or determine which version is to be used. These countries roughly correspond to the full and associate members of the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL). The full members are: Australia, Canada, England and Wales, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Scotland, South Africa and the United States. Associate members are: the Antilles, Bangladesh, CEPAC (Pacific Islands), Gambia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Kenya, Malaysia-Singapore, Malawi, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. With rare exceptions, only the approved Missal is permitted for use within the country.

For all other countries a priest who celebrates Mass in English may use any approved version of the new English-language missal.

Exceptions to this general rule of thumb would be Masses celebrated in embassies, extraterritorial military bases, or the various national colleges in Rome which naturally use the missal of their respective countries. They are also usually allowed to use the calendar and particular liturgical uses of the home country. Parishes set up to attend to the needs of particular nationalities may also do likewise.

At the same time, the differences in the versions are slight and on most days the missals would be perfectly interchangeable.

The differences between the missal of one country and another usually involve the particular adaptations of each bishops' conference to either the text of the missal, the liturgical calendar and the norms of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM).

There are relatively few variations from one country to another in the ordinary of the Mass and in the texts that are common to the entire Church. Among variations approved for the United States are additional prayers for the penitential rite and allowing for the renewal of baptismal promises on Easter Sunday.

More common are the national propers: collections of orations and formularies for feasts and commemorations proper to each nation. Instances of such celebrations are St. George in England, St. Patrick in Ireland (as a solemnity), Our Lady Help of Christians in Australia, and special formularies for Independence Day in the United States.

Individual missals may also have texts for special celebrations such as the Mass for Giving Thanks to God for the Gift of Human Life, which can be celebrated on Jan. 22 in the United States.

Adaptations to the General Instruction also vary from country to country. Such variations are generally incorporated into the text of the GIRM itself prefixed with the phrase: "In the diocese of Country X." The United States has many adaptations regarding elements such as the choice of music for Mass, kneeling for the Eucharistic Prayer, standing for Communion, Communion under both kinds, materials for sacred furnishings and vessels, the vesture of lay ministers, the use of white for funerals and silver and gold for solemn feasts, and the use of instruments other than the organ for the liturgy.

Under normal circumstances such particular liturgical law is local and applies only to the country for which it has been approved.

One must usually follow the calendar of the country of celebration, irrespective of the language in which the Mass is celebrated. Thus using the Irish missal in Florence or Berlin does not convert St. Patrick's Day into a solemnity.

Nor do general permissions granted by the Holy See to a national conference travel with the missal. For example, it is always necessary to investigate the local norms regarding such things as the faculty to distribute Communion under both species, since these fall under the authority of the local bishop.

On the other hand, laws which simply codify existing customs but do not change the universal law may be followed. Thus U.S. citizens could continue to practice kneeling during the Eucharistic Prayer during a European pilgrimage even though this might not be common practice in a particular country.

Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: Kneeling at the Final Prayer

ROME, JULY 12, 2011 (Zenit.org (http://www.zenit.org)).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.


Related to our comments regarding kneeling for the final prayer (see June 28), a reader from Bhopal, India, wrote, "I am glad you explained the meaning of postures during the liturgy. I still have a doubt in my mind regarding 'kneeling.' I very well remember that the Second Vatican Council banned kneeling at Mass. I am surprised to see that you reintroduce it in your writing. We never had another council to decide on changes to be made. I believe that nobody has the legal right to go against the council decision. Could you please explain?"

I fear that our reader was misinformed regarding the decisions of Vatican II. The only conciliar statements remotely related to postures are Nos. 30-31 of Sacrosanctum Concilium:

"30. To promote active participation, the people should be encouraged to take part by means of acclamations, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and songs, as well as by actions, gestures, and bodily attitudes. And at the proper times all should observe a reverent silence.

"31. The revision of the liturgical books must carefully attend to the provision of rubrics also for the people's parts."

This is hardly carte blanche to abolish kneeling, a longstanding practice which was substantially reaffirmed and mandated in the reformed rites. It would appear that it is yet another example of reforms supposedly mandated by Vatican II which cannot actually be traced in its texts.

I therefore did not "reintroduce" kneeling for the simple reason that it has never been abolished. It might be possible that in some places it has fallen into disuse because ministers gave the faithful incorrect instruction. In some cases the lack of kneeling is the result of so-called church renewals in which the kneelers were removed.

This does not appear to be the case in India, although it might be true for some regions. Indeed, priests from that country assure me that it is common practice to kneel throughout the Eucharistic Prayer and for the Lamb of God.

It is also possible that a bishops' conference in a mission country could decide that kneeling might be interpreted negatively in the context of a particular nation's spiritual patrimony. In such a case the episcopal conference could ask approval from the Holy See to change the postures used by the faithful during Mass.

Article: Some Afterthoughts

ARCHBISHOP TIMOTHY DOLAN

Almost two weeks ago — hauntingly, on the Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist, whom King Herod would behead because the saint dared to defend the God-given truth about marriage — our state sadly attempted a re-definition of marriage.

Is there anything left to say?

Yes.

For one, thanks to those courageous millions who valiantly fought this unfortunate project of social engineering. You can hold your heads high. Sanely, civilly, thoughtfully, vigorously . . . you did not cave-in. The forces on the other side were a Goliath indeed – with tons of money, "glitterati" from entertainment circles, political powerbrokers, and the media – but you proved a worthy David.

You will understand my special word of gratitude to people of faith – evangelicals, Mennonites, Jews, Moslem, Catholics, Amish, and so many more, led often by African-American and Latino believers – who simply believe that marriage is a given, at the very foundation of civilization, which the state has the duty to defend and protect, not to mutate.

My brother bishops of New York were particularly prophetic. When I arrived here a little over two-years ago, they told me realistically that we faced a looming battle over the defense of marriage. They advised me that the odds were not in our favor, and that some experts were even suggesting that we give-in and not put up a fight.

But they were also resolute in their conviction that such would have been a dereliction of duty. As Blessed John Paul II often commented, the Church is "counter-cultural," like Jesus, often at odds with what passes as chic, enlightened, and progressive. In their writings, sermons, personal lobbying, interviews, and our common statements – backed up by indefatigable efforts by our New York State Catholic Conference, bolstered by ecumenical and inter-religious cooperation, and, especially, supported by countless thousands of our faithful Catholic people (one legislator told me he received 47,000 e-mails against the measure from the Catholic Advocacy Network) – the bishops were on the frontiers. We have been bloodied, and bruised, and, yes, for the moment, we have been defeated. But, we're used to that. So was the Founder of our Church.

Two, the Church neither has nor wants political "clout." As Cardinal John O'Connor commented, "The only 'clout' the Church really has is God's Truth, the assurance of His grace, and the simple yet sincere conviction of our people." Blessed John Paul II again reminds us that "The Church never imposes, she only proposes." And as our current Holy Father has often observed, all the Church wants is its freedom to serve humanity by bringing the light of the gospel to the world.

But, three, we do worry indeed about this freedom of religion. Editorials already call for the removal of guarantees of religious liberty, with crusaders calling for people of faith to be coerced to acceptance of this redefinition. If the experience of those few other states and countries where this is already law is any indication, the churches, and believers, will soon be harassed, threatened, and hauled into court for their conviction that marriage is between one man, one woman, forever, bringing children into the world.

Four, the real forces of "intolerance" were unmasked here. The caricature, of course, is that those defending traditional marriage were the right-wing bigots and bullies. However, as one out-of-state journalist, who was following the debate closely, commented to me, "From my read of the columns, blogs, and rhetoric, it's not your side that's lobbing the grenades." A Catholic who wrote to criticize me for my defense of marriage still conceded, "But I must confess that I am sickened by the amount of anti-Catholic venom that has surfaced in this debate." As one respected columnist has observed, the problem is not homophobia but theophobia – a hatred by some of God, faith, religion, and the Church.

Five, though, if we did hurt anybody in our defense of marriage, I apologize. We tried our best to insist from the start that our goal was pro-marriage, never anti-gay. But, I'm afraid some within the gay community were offended. As I replied recently to a reporter who asked if I had any message to the gay community, "Yes: I love you. Each morning I pray with and for you and your true happiness and well-being. I am honored that so many of you are at home within our Catholic family, where, like the rest of us, we try, with the help of God's grace and mercy, to conform our lives to Jesus and His message. If I have offended any of you in my strenuous defense of marriage, I apologize, and assure you it was unintentional.

As one respected columnist has observed, the problem is not homophobia buttheophobia – a hatred by some of God, faith, religion, and the Church.

Point six, the Church has always stood-up for marriage – one man and one woman, united in lifelong and faithful love, leading to new life in children – whenever and wherever it was in danger. Veterans my age and over can remember sixty years ago when we fought widespread, no-fault divorce, convinced it would lead to a cheapening of the marriage bond and harm our kids (as, of course, scholarly studies now report has, indeed, happened). Recall how the Church resisted the "contraceptive mentality," fearing it would rupture the sacred bond between love and the procreation of children. Then, remember how the Church sounded the alarm over rising rates of promiscuity, adultery, pre-marital sex, and cohabitation prior to or instead of marriage. And now we ring the steeple bell again at this latest dilution of the authentic understanding of marriage, worried that the next step will be another redefinition to justify multiple partners and infidelity. If you think I'm exaggerating, within days of the passage of this bill, one major newspaper ran a flattering profile of a proponent of what was called "nonmonogamy." Apparently, "nonmonogamy" is the idea that society is unrealistic to think that one man and one woman should remain faithful in marriage, and that openness to some infidelity should be the norm!

Let me say it again. None of this is anti-anybody, but simply pro marriage.

(By the way, as Professor Robert George at Princeton University eloquently points out, in warning about promiscuity, divorce, cohabitation instead of marriage, adultery, and "same-sex marriage," the Church is hardly some shrill, bitter, reactionary, naysaying prude, but actually prophetically right-on-target. Recent studies by people such as Myron Magnet and Kay Hymowitz show that the weakening of stable marriage and families is the cause of most social and cultural woes, especially burdensome on poor women and children.)

Finally, last point, for us in the Church, not much changes. We continue to hold fast to the God-given definition of marriage, and acknowledge that no unfortunate legislative attempt can alter reality and morality. Yes, we have a big catechetical challenge, in that we have to admit that quite a few people no longer hold to this timeless moral truth. (Although I still believe most people do; thus the fear of a referendum on the issue by those who still claim this is a "grassroots movement" sweeping the nation.) Yes, we do have our work cut out for us, as even some Catholics, and, scandalously, even political leaders who claim to be Catholic, tell us the Church is "out of it," and has no claim on truth.

So, we try our best to witness to the truth, encouraging our married couples and their kids to be loving, radiant, "lights to the world." We acknowledge that, as St. Augustine taught, if something is wrong, even if everybody else is doing it, it's still wrong; and, if something is right, even if nobody else is doing it anymore, it's still right. Like St. Thomas More, we're willing to take the heat and even lose our head from following a conscience properly formed by God's revelation and the teaching of His Church, even if it is politically incorrect, and clashes with the King's demands to re-define marriage.



ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Archbishop Timothy Michael Dolan. "Some Afterthoughts." The Gospel In The Digital Age (July 7, 2011).

Reprinted by permission of the media office of the Archdiocese of New York. The Gospel In The Digital Age is Archbishop Dolan's blog.

THE AUTHOR

Archbishop Timothy Michael Dolan was named Archbishop of New York by Pope Benedict XVI on February 23, 2009. Born February 6, 1950, Archbishop Dolan was ordained to the priesthood on June 19, 1976. He completed his priestly formation at the Pontifical North American College in Rome where he earned a License in Sacred Theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas. In 1994, he was appointed rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome where he served until June 2001. While in Rome, he also served as a visiting professor of Church History at the Pontifical Gregorian University and as a faculty member in the Department of Ecumenical Theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. The work of the Archbishop in the area of seminary education has influenced the life and ministry of a great number of priests of the new millennium. Archbishop Dolan is the author of Doers of the Word: Putting Your Faith Into Practice, To Whom Shall We Go?, and Advent Reflections: Come, Lord Jesus!.

Copyright © 2011 Archbishop Timothy Michael Dolan

Article: Three Tips for Taming the Tongue

PHILLIP CAMPBELL

There certainly are times when charity and justice demand that we speak up in defense of truth, but we often end up speaking when we ought to keep silent and keeping silent when we ought to speak up.

It was my worst day as a parish Director of Religious Education: the Third Sunday of Advent, 2007. For weeks, I had been preparing a presentation on Catholic Christmas traditions to give to all the children in our program. As a lover of history and Catholic culture, I was eager to share the humble beauty of the Polish oplatek wafer, the colorful and vibrant Mexican las posadas plays, and of course, the inspiring story of St. Nicholas of Myra, the 4th century Greek bishop who later morphed into Santa Claus.

Unfortunately, during the segment on St. Nicholas, I let it slip that there was no such person as Santa Claus. I had not meant to divulge this intelligence, but after it came out I thought, "Who cares? They're old enough to know the truth! Somebody's got to tell them."

I would soon regret my flippant attitude and the firestorm I unleashed. As you can imagine, the kids who believed in Santa were scandalized and confused. My unfortunate pastor was deluged with calls from irate parents. "Who does your DRE think he is telling my son there is no such thing as Santa?" they demanded. "If we want our kids to believe in Santa, it's our business!" The wrath was so intense, my pastor had to send a letter to every family in the program, apologizing for my statements and acknowledging I had no authority whatsoever to "debunk" Santa to other people's kids. I had never been so miserable, and had never learned so valuable a lesson.


"The tongue is also a fire"

My pastor and the parents were correct, of course. Just because we think somebody ought to hear something does not mean that it is our place to tell them. There certainly are times when charity and justice demand that we speak up in defense of truth; instructing the ignorant and reproving the sinner are spiritual works of mercy (CCC 2447). But we often end up speaking when we ought to keep silent and keeping silent when we ought to speak up.

St. James graphically warns us of the danger of an unbridled tongue:

If anyone does not fall short in speech, he is a perfect man, able to bridle his whole body also. If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we also guide their whole bodies. It is the same with ships: even though they are so large and driven by fierce winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot's inclination wishes. In the same way the tongue is a small member and yet has great pretensions. Consider how small a fire can set a huge forest ablaze. The tongue is also a fire. ... For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. (James 3:2-8)

So how do we avoid "setting the entire course of our lives on fire" by our words? As in all other areas of life, our speech should be regulated by the four Cardinal Virtues, especially the virtue of prudence (see CCC 1804-1806).


1. Be prudent about when to speak.

The prudent person asks, "Does charity or necessity demand that I speak?" If we make a habit of asking ourselves this question, much damage can be avoided.

Prudence is sometimes called "the perfected ability of right decision-making." With speech, the first decision is when to speak. How do we judge when correcting someone's fault is necessary and not just nit-picking? Where's the line between communicating important information and gossiping? The prudent person asks, "Does charity or necessity demand that I speak?" If we make a habit of asking ourselves this question, much damage can be avoided.

I wish I had done so before giving my talk on Christmas traditions. I might have realized what my pastor later told me: that treading anywhere near the topic of Santa Claus's existence with an audience of elementary school kids was very imprudent. Parents have different views on what to tell their own kids about Santa, and I had no mandate to debunk the myth to a room full of other people's children.

When in doubt about whether to speak, it's best to err on the side of restraint. The Book of Proverbs tells us that a multiplicity of words and sin go together, but restrained speech is a sign of wisdom: "Where words are many, sin is not wanting; but he who restrains his lips is wise" (Prov. 10:19).


2. Be prudent in how you speak.

When speaking up is the right thing to do, we still need to exercise prudence in how we express ourselves. There's a world of difference between saying, "I'm concerned that you may be harming your reputation" versus "I think you should know lots of people think you're a jerk."

The prudence of speech may best be judged by the standard of charity. Will my words build people up and edify them, or will they cause confusion and anxiety? Is my speech seasoned with grace and genuine concern for the other, or am I speaking in a self-centered way or with selfish motives? Am I trying to impart truly valuable knowledge, or am I simply showing off my knowledge to stroke my ego? By considering these questions before you speak, you're less likely to put your foot in your mouth or worse, hurt another person.


3. Have the courage to speak when it's right to do so but difficult.

If you cultivate prudence in choosing when to speak and how to express yourself, it's much easier to speak up in situations that call for some courage. I saw a good example of this recently when my friend David faced a challenging situation at his job.

A manager at his company was performing poorly – using company resources for personal needs, watching videos on the Internet at work, failing to communicate with other staff members and customers, and keeping a sloppy, disorganized work area. However, this manager was a close personal friend of the company's owner, so people were afraid to alert the owner to the problem for fear of offending him.

The prudence of speech may best be judged by the standard of charity. Will my words build people up and edify them, or will they cause confusion and anxiety? Is my speech seasoned with grace and genuine concern for the other.

David knew that justice demanded the manager's scandalous behavior be addressed, but he also recognized the need for prudence. An overzealous or ill-worded report could be misconstrued and rejected by the company's owner. After reflecting and praying about it, David talked to the owner, who not only listened but thanked David sincerely for bringing the matter to his attention.

Later, I asked David how he handled such a sensitive issue. He said, "I made sure to only talk about actual behaviors I had witnessed rather than making broad character judgments. For example, I said, 'He did not return a customer's calls,' which is a specific action, rather than saying, 'He's lazy,' which is a moral judgment on his character. I knew that as a friend, the owner would defend the manager's character, but that as a businessman, he would not defend any unprofessional actions. I spoke humbly, saying, 'I think' and 'It seems' rather than 'I know.' And I made certain he knew I was speaking from a genuine concern for the company and not out of any personal motive."

While St. James' observation that "no man can tame the tongue" may sound pessimistic, people like my friend David show the taming power of prudence. And if you read on a few verses further in St. James' epistle, he makes much the same point with the Spirit's guidance.

From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. This need not be so, my brothers. Does a spring gush forth from the same opening both pure and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, produce olives, or a grapevine figs? Neither can salt water yield fresh. Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show his works by a good life in the humility that comes from wisdom. (James 3:10-13)



ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Phillip Campbell. "Three Tips for Taming the Tongue." The Spitzer Center (July 7, 2011).

The Spitzer Center's mission is to strengthen culture, faith and spirit in Catholic organizations for the new evangelization.

Reprinted with permission of The Spitzer Center. Endorsements for the work of the Spitzer Center are here. Spitzer Center programs are listed here.

THE AUTHOR

Phillip Campbell is a teacher and writer whose pieces have appeared in such publications as St. Austin Review and The Distributist Review. He lives in Howell, Michigan, with his wife and four children.

Copyright © 2011 The Spitzer Center

Article: Conscience

DEACON DOUGLAS MCMANAMAN

The precept that every person has a duty to follow his own conscience is not in any way a promotion of individualism, much less moral relativism, that is, a "do your own thing" kind of morality.

The influence of individualism on popular culture has been penetrating. That is the reason we are all very familiar with the current meaning of expressions such as "the right to privacy", "the right to my own opinion", not to mention the curious notion of a "private conscience". Today, these expressions mean something very different than what they meant for a previous generation.

Consider the person sitting outside on a Saturday morning, reading a book in the privacy of his own backyard. He has a right not to be unnecessarily disturbed by a pesky neighbour. If a group of us are discussing a very complex and ambiguous issue, one in which the truth of the matter is not at all clear, I have a right to my opinion if it is evident that no other opinion is supported by enough data to render mine less likely to be true. And the right to my opinion ends when someone puts forth an argument that turns out to be more than a mere opinion, but a conclusion based on true premises and sound reasoning. Similarly, Thomas More considered it not only his right but also his duty to follow his own "private conscience" rather than toe the party line, when the party line was inconsistent with the truth. Bolt has More saying: "Well...I believe, when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties...they lead their country by a short route to chaos."

But the current meaning of these expressions can only be appreciated within the framework of a ruling scepticism and moral relativism — the doctrine that everything is a matter of opinion, and that in the area of right and wrong, there is no absolute truth. And so, it is commonly held that "I have an absolute right to my own opinion", and a right to do what I decide is good for me. Questions such as "Who are you to tell me that what I am doing is wrong?" or "What business does the Church have telling me or anyone what is morally permissible and impermissible?" follow quite readily from the notion that conscience is something "private", in the individualist sense of that word.

Every person has an obligation to follow his own conscience. But this truth is one of the most misunderstood truths in moral theology today. For there is really no such thing as a "private conscience", in the current sense of the word, any more than there is an absolute "right to one's own opinion", or a "right to privacy" with regard to, for example, determining the destiny of the unborn. For there is no such thing, strictly speaking, as a "private" person. As John Donne writes: "...No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were; ...Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."


Confusing Judgment with Decision

The precept that every person has a duty to follow his own conscience is not in any way a promotion of individualism, much less moral relativism, that is, a "do your own thing" kind of morality. This is because conscience is fundamentally a judgment, and not a decision, as most people tend to think it is. Conscience is one's best judgment as to what is the morally right thing to do in the circumstances in which one finds oneself. That is why conscience is an act of the intellect, not of the will — and much less is it a feeling.

Let me explain. People who live in a way contrary to natural law and the teachings of the Church will often maintain that they are living according to their conscience. But on closer inspection, it almost always seems to turn out that they are living according to a personal decision, and not their best judgment. They understand, for instance, that Church teaching forbids them to live together as "husband and wife" without a marriage commitment, and yet they do so anyway, and call it a decision of conscience. And that is precisely what it is: a decision, not a judgment, and thus not of conscience. Over the years I've known many young students who have decided to live sexually promiscuous lives — and who have defended their choice as being perfectly okay. These very students, though, told me outright that if and when they had a daughter in the future, they planned to keep that girl under their watchful protection until she was twenty-one. The reason for this, they explained, was that they know what happens to these girls, because they have engaged in behaviour that would outrage any decent father.

A morally upright person will earnestly seek to know the truth of what is objectively right and wrong in human action in order that his conscience will judge correctly and thereby lead him to personal integrity.

Now it is surprising that such students have not stopped to consider the implications of the golden rule (do not do to others what you yourself do not like). Fairness demands that if these students would not want a young teenage boy to seduce their daughter, then they must not choose to seduce the daughter of some other father, perhaps unknown to them. Young people today are very aware of injustice, and they know when others have failed to render to them their rightful due. That is why their best judgment, which came to light when they began to imagine themselves in the situation of a father, was that what they were doing was profoundly wrong and unjust. But they decidedotherwise. Their promiscuous behaviour was in no way in accordance with their conscience. Perseverance in such a decision only weakens the voice of conscience and reduces it to a virtual silence — at least in regard to such choices. Because people can continue to make similar choices without serious discomfort does not mean that they are making such decisions in accordance with their conscience. If the above-mentioned students had followed their conscience — which they were obligated to do — they would not have chosen to seduce young, vulnerable, and impressionable girls.

If one has an obligation to follow one's own conscience, it follows that one is bound by a moral obligation, namely, to follow what one knows to be true. The very word "conscience" contains within itself the Latin verb scire, meaning "to know", from which the word "science" is derived. The proper object of knowledge is truth. One does not have knowledge of something unless one has the truth about that something. And so it follows that the most fundamental obligation a person has, that is, the most basic duty of conscience, is to properly inform one's conscience with the knowledge of what is truly good. For if there is no truth, or if we do not have the ability to ascertain the truth, then it follows that there is no duty to follow one's conscience. We may simply do what we want to do. But the goal in a judgment of conscience is to arrive at the knowledge of what is truly the right choice to make within a specific set of circumstances.

A conscience must, therefore, be properly informed by the truth. A morally upright person will earnestly seek to know the truth of what is objectively right and wrong in human action in order that his conscience will judge correctly and thereby lead him to personal integrity. Should he choose not to seek the truth of what is objectively good in human choices, he freely chooses to accept the possibility of a misinformed conscience. In this case he becomes responsible for such a poorly formed conscience. Furthermore, he has violated his own conscience; for every man knows intuitively that truth is larger than himself, and every man knows, by natural law, that he has a duty to seek the truth and allow himself to be measured by it — even the sceptic.

As an example of conscience formation, consider the following. I have always loved practical jokes. I used to enjoy playing certain kinds of practical jokes on people, the kind that involve lying, at least temporarily. Later I began to study Grisez's treatment of lying, found in his great work The Way of the Lord Jesus. I discovered that the kinds of jokes I enjoyed playing on people were not as morally innocent as I had originally thought. They involved the manipulation of a person's emotions. Exercising dominion over a person's emotions, even temporarily, is a violation of fairness. We have an obligation to treat others as persons equal in dignity to ourselves. This is violated when we manipulate others, because this kind of emotional manipulation involves exercising dominion (from dominus, "lord") over another. As I studied this, I was able to discern the truth in it. As I was reading his words, my conscience was in the process of being formed even further. I could have fought what I was reading and dismissed it as nonsense, but I knew that the author was right. Had I stopped reading for fear that I might be proven wrong, I would have been responsible for my erroneous conscience.

What one chooses to do and what one knows one ought to do are in conflict. This lack of harmony or integration is nothing less than a division of the self, or better yet, a disintegration. One is becoming disintegrated, fragmented, or split.

Now it is true that one can have a misinformed (erroneous) conscience that one is not responsible for. In this case one makes a judgment of conscience that is mistaken. It's hard to believe that anyone can have a conscience thoroughly conformed to the truth. Even Thomas More, one of my favourite saints, opted for the burning of heretics. I think we can safely say that he was a little off on this one. Nevertheless, it remains that one is obligated to follow an erroneous conscience, if one is not aware that it is erroneous. If a person honestly believes that a certain course of action is morally required, then not taking that course of action would mean choosing not to act in a way that he personally believes he ought to act. If I truly believe that giving a person in a certain situation false directions is the morally right thing to do, I am obligated to do it. To choose not to is to choose not to do something that I really believe is morally obligatory. By choosing not to give false directions, I choose a course of action that I believe is evil. Of course, as was said above, I might or might not be responsible for my mistaken judgment of conscience.

Returning now to the original question: "If it is true that every person must follow his own conscience, then who are you to tell me that what I'm doing is wrong?" Such a question is rooted in a confusion between judgment and decision. If conscience is a judgment, an act of the intellect, then others are obligated to tell me that what I am doing is wrong when they see me doing something that they know to be wrong — for no man is an island. Truth is something common, not private, and that is why the "good" is also "common" (we speak of the "common good"). And justice demands that we live for the common good. But it is not possible to promote the common good if truth is not something common, and every one of my choices affects the common good in some way — even my most personal choices. There is much more than a grain of truth in Dostoevsky's insight that "every man is answerable for everybody and everything, not just for his own sins", and that when we finally come to understand that idea, the kingdom of God will no longer be a dream but a reality (The Brothers Karamazov, p. 264-265).

But what if others don't know, but only believe, or are of the opinion, that what I'm doing is wrong? If I am a morally responsible human being, I will seriously consider what they say and look carefully into the matter. The thought that we just might be wrong should not come as any surprise, especially if we were to look back into our past and note how many times we have been mistaken about good and evil in human action. Such a glance back should help us acquire a healthy and realistic sense of our own finitude.


Conscience and the Church

This brings us to our next question: "What business does the Church have telling people what is morally required?" After acquiring a realistic and healthy sense of our limitations, the need for the guidance of the Church begins to make some sense. But more to the point, the Church is not a source of information or some sort of institution that is outside of me. Rather, if I live in the Person of Christ, I do so as a member of his Mystical Body, his Church. I am in the Church, not outside of it looking at it as an object existing outside of me — if I am in the habit of doing so, that says a great deal about me. Rather, my knowledge and awareness of the Church is akin to a person's awareness of himself. We know ourselves from the inside, so to speak, not from the outside. Now, that part of the Church that is the Magisterium exists for me, that is, for my benefit and my freedom. (The Magisterium is the organ of the charism of infallibility that belongs to the whole Church.) Since the Magisterium is a part of the Church, and since I too am a part of the Church, the Magisterium is part of something to which I intimately belong, just as my leg belongs to the same substance as my intellect. The formulated moral teachings of the Church are not something that comes to me as from a foreign source. The teachings of the Church are expressions of her self-understanding, and it is through these expressions that I come to understand myself as one who has appropriated the faith of the Church. And so I am obligated to form my conscience according to the teachings of the Church of which I am a part. These teachings do not limit my freedom or deprive me thereof; rather they are the very source of my freedom. For a person's freedom increases as his knowledge of what is truly good increases.

In conclusion, to violate one's conscience means to act in a way contrary to one's best judgment, not necessarily contrary to one's wishes. When one does so, one is in conflict with oneself. What one chooses to do and what one knows one ought to do are in conflict. This lack of harmony or integration is nothing less than a division of the self, or better yet, a disintegration. One is becoming disintegrated, fragmented, or split. In other words, one is on the way to mental illness. There is a real link between the moral life and one's psychological well-being. This does not mean that everyone who is mentally ill is for that reason immoral (which is faulty logic). But it does mean that violating one's conscience leads, in the end, to a disintegrated personality. In short, we destroy ourselves when we fail to heed the subtle and gentle voice of our conscience.

I maintain, Callicles, that it is not the most shameful of things to be wrongfully boxed on the ears, nor again to have either my purse or my person cut, but it is both more disgraceful and more wicked to strike or to cut me or what is mine wrongfully, and, further, theft and kidnapping and burglary and in a word any wrong done to me and mine is at once more shameful and worse for the wrongdoer than for me the sufferer.

Plato, (Gorgias, 508)



ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Deacon Douglas McManaman. "Conscience. " CERC (2002).

Printed with permission of Deacon Douglas McManaman.

THE AUTHOR

Doug McManaman is a Deacon and a Religion and Philosophy teacher at Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy in Markham, Ontario, Canada. He is the past president of the Canadian Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. He maintains the following web site for his students: A Catholic Philosophy and Theology Resource Page. He studied Philosophy at St. Jerome's College in Waterloo, and Theology at the University of Montreal. Deacon McManaman is on the advisory board of the Catholic Education Resource Center.

Copyright © 2011 Douglas McManaman

Article: Why vocation programs don't work

FATHER DAMIAN J. FERENCE

The solution to this problem is so fundamental that it is often overlooked and misdiagnosed, but the remedy is as old as the Gospel itself.

For some time now we as a Church have been scrambling in an earnest attempt to remedy our vocation problem. The vocation of marriage has taken the worst beating, as over half of the marriages in our country end up in divorce, Catholic marriages included. Rare are the women who are entering religious orders, which seems to be a big part of the reason the Vatican is conducting their current visitation of women's religious communities; men's communities are doing a little better. Our diocesan seminaries finally seem stable, although our numbers are far from what they could be. Candidates to the permanent diaconate appear to be the lone bright spot, although they have their own issues. And then there is the vocation to single life, which, like the sacrament of confirmation, in some sense still seems to be searching for a theology.

Millions of dollars have been spent by vocation offices on prayer cards, lesson plans, vocation week activities, homily helpers, discernment brochures, websites, and an array of other vocation promotion materials, but have these approaches really made a significant impact on our young people? Sadly, the answer is no. For all the effort that has been put into vocation awareness in recent history, our returns have not been very good, but it is not for lack of effort. Bishops, vocation directors, DREs, catechists and parents, have been working diligently to address the lack of vocations in the Church, but very little has changed. Sure, there are some orders and some diocesan seminaries that are doing better than others, but the overall vocation picture remains the same. It seems to me that the real problem is that we've misdiagnosed the vocation situation, and therefore, we've been spending all our time, effort and money on the wrong things. In other words, we've been treating the symptoms without ever recognizing the disease.

The root of our current vocation problem is a lack of discipleship. Of course, a disciple is one who encounters Jesus, repents, experiences conversion and then follows Jesus. All too often those of us in positions of Church leadership presume that all the folks in the pews on Sundays, all the children in our grade schools, high schools and PSR programs, all the kids in our youth groups, all the men in our Men's Clubs and all the women in our Women's Guilds, and all the members of our RCIA team are already disciples. Many are not. (The same can be said of staffs and faculties of Catholic institutions.) Our people may be very active in the programs of our parishes, schools and institutions, but unfortunately, such participation does not qualify for discipleship.

If the root of our vocation problem is a lack of discipleship, then the remedy is to make more disciples, just as Jesus commanded. But how is this accomplished?

First, an important principle to keep in mind is that disciples beget disciples. In other words, if we are really serious about fostering better marriages, holier priests, more devoted religious, and generally a more faithful and dedicated Church, then those of us who are already married, ordained, and consecrated, and who identify ourselves as Catholics must take a good, hard look at our own lives and evaluate how our discipleship measures up. How long has it been since we last experienced real conversion and transformation? How often do we repent of our sins? Do we really allow Jesus to rule our lives, or have we fallen into the ancient trap of Pelagianism, ultimately believing that we save ourselves? Do we really know Jesus? Do we allow him to really know us? These questions are important ones, for unless we as a Church can offer true models and exemplars of discipleship with our own lives, very few will seriously consider living the kind of life we live.

The inspiration to consider a vocation rarely comes from vocation literature; it comes from real people living out their vocations in the real world. In order to know what it means to be a good family, a good priest, a good religious, and a good Catholic, one needs to have living, breathing examples of each. I would have never considered the priesthood if I had not known some great priests as I was growing up; the seminarians I teach continue to tell the same story about their call. Disciples beget disciples – good marriages beget good marriages, good religious beget good religious, good priests beget good priests, and good Catholics beget good Catholics. When discipleship is modeled well, it becomes an invitation for others to become disciples themselves.


Second, we need to reevaluate how our parish groups, ministries, and programs operate. We have to ask if these groups are truly fostering discipleship, or if they are simply social groups that happen to meet on parish grounds.

It is true that young people tend to stay out of trouble while socializing with peers from the parish, and that service projects help build character and allow young people to move beyond themselves, but without being disciples, such activities never allow for true transformation and human flourishing.

Let us take the example of a parish youth group to serve as a microcosm for our current situation. A youth group has a similar structure to most parish groups, in that most parish groups identify themselves in four ways: spiritual, service-oriented, social and catechetical. For a parish youth group to be what it is supposed to be, the first priority of the group must be to make disciples of young people who do not know Jesus, and to make stronger disciples of the ones who already know him. Such a suggestion seems quite basic and even simplistic at first glance, but this is precisely the point. Far too often we as a Church have failed with the most basic principle of discipleship while loading up on service projects and social activities, and the parish youth group becomes just one more line on a young person's college résumé, without ever calling that young person to real conversion.

It is true that young people tend to stay out of trouble while socializing with peers from the parish, and that service projects help build character and allow young people to move beyond themselves, but without being disciples, such activities never allow for true transformation and human flourishing. Over and over again we as a Church have fallen into the subtle trap of settling for results that can be easily calculated, photographed, and documented in a parish bulletin or website, rather than getting down to the basics of discipleship. Granted, opportunities for socializing and service projects are goods that the Church offers young people, but young people can find these goods outside the Church as well, which is why youth groups that don't get beyond social gatherings and service projects aren't very good youth groups. A youth group that is primarily about the work of making disciples is another story indeed.

Youth groups that are filled with disciples and are about making new disciples are youth groups that allow their young people an opportunity to fall in love with Jesus. Again, I realize such a claim seems simplistic and perhaps a bit pious, but nonetheless it is true. Coming to know Jesus is foundational; not just knowing his ideas or teachings or his history, but really coming to know him. If a youth group is able to offer a young person an opportunity to know Jesus, to know transcendence, intimacy, depth, and a real sense of mystery and being part of a something greater than himself, it will be hard to find a space big enough to gather the young people together.

If youth ministers and, more specifically, priests take the time to teach their young people how to pray alone, in community, liturgically, before the Blessed Sacrament, with an icon or crucifix, in nature, with Scripture, or with a journal, disciples will emerge. Don't be fooled; young people desire to learn to pray and to pray well, and they want their leaders to teach them.

Moreover, it's all too common that those working with youth soft-step around difficult or controversial Church teachings in an attempt not to drive young people away. Gone are the days of young people defining themselves as liberal or conservative Catholics. The stakes aremuch higher today: either you believe in God or you don't. As the Southern novelist Walker Percy said upon his Catholic conversion, these days it is either “Rome or Hollywood,” there is no more middle ground. As such, young people want to be challenged. They want to think and understand and wrestle with big ideas. So why not spend time teaching them about the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Paschal Mystery, the Liturgy, and the Last Things? It is no secret that the Church's teachings on sexuality are counter-cultural, but this is precisely the draw for so many young people – that the human person is more than simply an object of pleasure, and that there is something beautiful about God's creating us male and female, in his image and likeness, and that there is a divine plan for the way we express ourselves.

For a parish youth group to be what it is supposed to be, the first priority of the group must be to make disciples of young people who do not know Jesus, and to make stronger disciples of the ones who already know him.

When young people come to know Jesus, they will develop a deeper appreciation for the Eucharist. And when young people finally find their identity in the Eucharist (and not a pizza party, bowling or laser tag), young people will naturally want to socialize and do service projects, because these activities will flow out of their discipleship. When their lives are formed by the self-giving love of Jesus in the Eucharist, they will want to make themselves a gift for others, and their service projects will take on new meaning as acts of justice. Once young people become disciples, they will want to come to Mass, to spend time at the parish, to serve those in need, to gather for recreation, and to read good books and articles about the faith, and to really help build the Kingdom of God. But none of this can ever happen without the most foundational, and often forgotten, principle of discipleship.

Take any parish group or any Church institution and apply the discipleship principle, and the story will be the same as it is with the youth group. No matter how well-crafted a mission statement is, or how well group facilitators have been trained, or how well-developed a program may be, no matter how much time and effort and money was put into a lesson plan, workshop, meeting, or retreat, it is all for naught without discipleship. We may get things done, but that doesn't necessarily mean that things are being done for the sake of the kingdom.

The real sign of discipleship ultimately shows up in vocations. So why don't vocations programs seem to work? Because vocation programs all too often presume their target audience to be disciples, and many are not yet there. The real remedy to our vocation problem isn't a bigger and better vocation program. Rather, the remedy will be found at the most basic level of discipleship, the universal call to holiness: knowing Jesus. Once people come to know Jesus, repent of their sin, experience conversion, and become disciples, they will naturally draw others to follow him too, in whatever vocation they are called.

Disciples beget disciples. If more married couples, priests, religious and faithful begin to take discipleship seriously, there won't be a vocation problem, because ultimately our vocation problem is a lack of discipleship. The solution to this problem is so fundamental that it is often overlooked and misdiagnosed, but the remedy is as old as the Gospel itself. If we, as Christ's Church, take the call to discipleship and evangelization more seriously, the vocation problem will be lessened. Let us continue to pray for reform and renewal and, ultimately, for the Holy Spirit's pouring himself out on his holy Church, the Bride of Christ.



ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Leonard Franchi. "Why vocation programs don't work." Homiletic & Pastoral Review(February, 2011).

Reprinted with permission of the author, Father Damian J. Ference.

Founded over one hundred years ago, Homiletic & Pastoral Review is one of the most well-respected pastoral magazines in the world. Priests and laymen alike have relied on HPR for decades. Subscribe to Homiletic & Pastoral Review here.

THE AUTHOR

Father Damian J. Ference is a priest of the diocese of Cleveland. He is an assistant professor of philosophy and a member of the formation faculty at Borromeo Seminary in Wickliffe, Ohio. Father Ference graduated from Borromeo Seminary-John Carroll University in 1998 and Saint Mary Seminary in 2003. His theological essays on Catholic identity, priesthood, and youth culture have appeared in America, Catholic Universe Bulletin, Commonweal, Dappled Things, Emmanuel, FirstThings.com, Human Development, Pastoral Life, Seminary Journal, The Priest, and U.S. Catholic.

Copyright © 2011 Father Damian J. Ference