The Tablet (1): coverage of Purdy judgement

The Tablet of 8th August has taken some criticism, though I have some sympathy with the observations of Humble Piety about this. The real skill in media relations is that of answering a point of view without incidentally promoting the view you oppose at the same time - and it can't always be done.

I actually thought that the coverage of the Purdy judgement in this issue of the Tablet was rather sensible and informative, and quite a useful read. The centre piece of this coverage is an article by Professor Jones, director of the Centre for Bioethics and Emerging Technologies at St Mary's University College, Twickenham.

The last sentence of the following extract seems especially telling:

.. in official surveys Dutch doctors admitted ending the lives of 1 000 people a year who had never explicitly asked for euthanasia, and in 2005, in the Netherlands Journal of Medicine, a report claimed that euthanasia had been used illegally on 22 infants with spina bifida. As a result euthanasia advocates rarely mention Holland these days..

And the following is interesting in the light of John Smeaton's post (and the subsequent defence of it), which do, I assume, reflect the stance taken by SPUC on the judgement (their news release is here):

It is not inevitable that the Purdy case will lead to legalised assisted suicide. It is possible for the DPP to put forward conservative and flexible guidelines that do not involve any reference to disability and that do not bring euthanasia closer. The greatest danger at the moment is that this technical ruling gives momentum to the euthanasia movement and makes legalisation seem inevitable. If this is accepted without challenge, then the United Kingdom could sleepwalk in a change in the law.

As matter of media engagement, the less cautious response of SPUC seems to give "momentum to the euthanasia movement and makes legalistation seem inevitable", adding to the presumptive celebrations of Debbie Purdy and her friends on College Green, that had the utterly contradictory (and presumptive) strap line: "It gives me my life back".

What did he really say?

Writing pupil reports, particularly for primary school teachers, is a very long and time consuming job. The advent of computers can make it easier - one of the options being to use software that provides a "cut and paste" of different appropriate phrases/descriptors for the pupils achievements.

The front page of this week's Barking and Dagenham Recorder (this is one of the local newspapers covering the local authority where I work, and which neighbours my home authority of Havering) is headlined: "£270m boost for schools". This headlines a report of the final sign off by central government of the local authority's Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. The programme will involve pretty much a re-build of the authority's secondary schools and the installation of a new IT infrastructure.

The newspaper's report ends:

Roger Luxton, the council's corporate director of children's services, said: "BSF promises to provide excellent education to give all children the best possible start in life by way of raising teaching standards and pupil achievements in our secondary schools".

Now, does that actually say anything? It reads like a cut and paste of strap lines from different government initiatives in education ... and makes about as much sense.

Word of Life ... but don't try this yourself?

This month's Word of Life is "He loved his own in the world, and he loved them to the end” (Jn 13:1).

As part of her commentary on these words of Scripture, first written as a Word of Life in April 1981, Chiara Lubich tells the story of a young girl who engaged in a bit of "marriage counselling" with her friend's mother. The story is quite striking .... but I am not sure I would advise anyone to try it themselves!

Archbishop Nichols and the Latin Mass Society

I think it was the first of the Extraordinary Form training conferences at Merton College, Oxford. I recall being impressed by two things. The first was Archbishop Nichols, then Archbishop of Birmingham, the diocese in which Oxford lies, willingness to be associated with the event. This really was quite a development, since one might have expected bishops to be as wary of the older form as they had been in the years before Summorum Pontificum. I think the significance of this can be underestimated. The second thing that impressed me was that he celebrated Mass at Merton in the Ordinary Form. This seemed to me at the time to accurately represent the relationship between the two forms of the Roman Rite as expressed in Summorum Pontificum.

It seems to me that Archbishop Nichols approach to the forthcoming conference at London Colney reflects exactly the same approach as this. The text of Archbishop Nichols message to participants in the conference has now appeared in the blogosphere.

If we compare Archbishop Nichols message to the description of the training conference in the Latin Mass Society's invitation letter, I think the difference in understanding of what is going on is quite clear.

The Latin Mass Society version first, taken from their website:

The conference is being organised with the help and encouragement of the Archdiocese...

Prior to the Conference there will be a Pontifical Mass in the Ordinary Form in Latin sponsored and organised by the Archdiocese at 11.00 am on the Monday. The conference proper will commence in the afternoon...

And Archbishop Nichols:

I welcome this short Training Conference provided by the Diocese of Westminster in conjunction with the Latin Mass Society. This is the correct description of this event. In both the teaching and law of the Church it is the bishop who has responsibility for the provision and oversight of the Liturgy...

...the ordinary Form of the Mass and this extraordinary Form serve one and the same Rite. They are, therefore, both finding their place in this Summer School and participants will wholeheartedly celebrate the Mass in each of these Forms.

There may well have been discussions behind the scenes that have resolved this difference and, if that is so, a public statement to that effect would be helpful.

I think "11.00 am on the Monday" will provide an interesting measure of exactly what is going on with regard to the Latin Mass Society and their training conferences. Participation in that Ordinary Form celebration appears to me a courtesy of ecclesial communion with the host Archdiocese and an indication of the appropriate relation of two forms in the One Rite. If the Latin Mass Society separate themselves from it I think I would agree with the view that such a distancing is not what is envisaged by Summorum Pontificum and the accompanying letter from Pope Benedict.

[The comment on this at New Liturgical Movement gives, in its last paragraphs, a substantiation of this last observation.]

What make you of the sign of peace?

A tongue in cheek letter in The Times last week suggested that, if the Church (of England) was stopping the sign of peace in the interests of helping control the spread of swine flu, then the correspondent might consider starting to attend again. And recently I had a (good-natured) conversation with a Catholic who described attending Mass in a parish other than her own - where the priest comes all the way down one aisle to give the sign of peace to members of the congregation and all the way back down the second aisle to do the same. My interlocutor spoke highly of the fact that the priest involved could recall her name when he would have known her as a parishioner something like 15 years ago. My first thought was to wonder where this particular priest had been in recent years - considering the provisions of the revised version of the General Instruction on the Roman Missal 2000 that the priest should always remain in the sanctuary at the sign of peace, and the agenda of "mutual enrichment" expressed in Pope Benedict XVI's letter accompanying the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, which would discourage such a de-sacralisation of the signs of the Liturgy. My second thought was to wonder at the liturgical formation, or lack of, of my interlocutor.

I subsequently reflected on the meaning of the sign of peace, particularly in the Roman Rite, where it is placed within the Communion Rite. Other Liturgical rites place it just before or just after the preparation of the gifts, and, after a suggestion from the 2005 Synod on the Eucharist a suggestion to move the sign of peace to that point in the Roman Liturgy is under consideration by the relevant Vatican dicastery. However, the historical development of the Roman Rite has placed it differently, and I think that gives the sign a different meaning. Accordingly, I rather hope that the Vatican will not decide to move the sign of peace, though one can see theological, historical and ecumenical reason to do so.

The practice of the sign of peace in the High Mass of the Extraordinary Form indicates that it is about the peace of Christ being communicated (deliberate choice of word) from the Divine Presence on the altar to the Church, represented in the hierarchy of her ministers. It is not about being friendly to your neighbour, which is simply to reduce the Liturgical sign to a sociological sign. [Side note: but how many of our people see it as no more than this? And how many of our priests?] The Ordinary Form develops this, perhaps, by including the members of the congregation in the sign. I have started to think that we should view the sign of peace as an act of spiritual communion, which prepares those who are able to receive for the act of sacramental communion, and catechise accordingly. This does respect the nature of the Liturgy itself - even when the sign of peace is not exchanged among the congregation the immediately preceeding prayer and the dialogue - The peace of the Lord be with you always/And also with you - expresses the essential content of the sign of peace. And by raising its status in the eyes of the people, it would meet the pastoral need currently being seen as being met in the blessing given to non-recipients who approach the priest in the Communion procession. I think it would demand, though, a review of the way in which the sign is exchanged between members of the congregation; some form of more explicitly sacral sign is needed. And the optional nature of the sign of peace in the Ordinary Form might be used to preferentially include the sign of peace in circumstances where many people are not able to receive sacramentally and, with suitable catechesis, enable them to enter into communion in so far as they are able.

My thoughts were pre-empted to an extent by Fr Ray's post on Communion Blessings, and you can find a comment from me among those at this post.

Some time ago now, I was put on the spot at lunch in a conversation with an Anglican priest. He indicated, very charitably, that he felt quite hurt by the Catholic Church's refusal of communion to Anglicans when they attended Mass. I took advantage of the delay provided by a mouth full of food to gain some thinking time before replying, anxious to be equally charitable yet honest in my reaction! My reply was to suggest that, for the Catholic, the question of truth and of holding to the same content of faith had a bigger part to play in the conception of ecclesial communion than it did for the Anglican.

In the context of the discussion of blessings at communion and of an understanding of the sign of peace as an act of spiritual communion, I think this idea of truth as a component of communion is valuable too. Communion is not just about letting people feel included socially, which is what I fear the blessing at communion often achieves; for those who are not able to receive sacramentally, it is about achieving the degree of spiritual communion that is possible in the circumstances. And I think this would be better achieved by abandoning the practice of blessings at communion and instead catechising on the sign of peace as an act of spiritual communion accessible to those who are not able to receive sacramentally.

"Re-connecting" the priest and the people

If one were to suggest that many priests today are isolated - from the world in general, and from their Catholic people - this might cause some surprise. After all, the aggiornomento of the Second Vatican Council has opened the Church to the world as never before. But, if you reflect on the position of the priest in your own parish, you might find that he is now rather less familiar to his people than in the past. The simple test is to ask yourself about the extent of your contact with the priest. Do you meet him only at Church on Sunday? Or do you still meet the priest in the school, at the youth group, at the SVP meeting, etc. I suspect that most people no longer have what might be called a "day-to-day" type of contact with the priest; he is isolated. The experience of participation in a Youth 2000 prayer festival or a FAITH Summer Session, to choose two examples among others, provides the counter example. In both of these situations the presence of priests (and religious) is very visible, present in a very "day-to-day" sort of way.

A section of Frank Duff’s article The Priest must have Members is entitled “When the Priest is Isolated”, and it opens in this way:

Moreover, in certain circumstances, in fact in very many places today, the priest is isolated. It is a very easy thing to elbow the priest out and to keep him out, and that is the first step in all these schemes of de-Catholicising places - to get the priest away from the people. There are whole populations where a priest can only enter by deputy.

Frank Duff goes on to comment on this being the case in the then-Communist regimes of the Iron Curtain countries and in China, where priests were persecuted. He continues:

That danger to religion is latent everywhere. Its symptom will always be that pushing aside of the priest. A consecrated class must guard itself against becoming a separated class. In many places the clergy have virtually become a separated class.[1]

I think we can see Frank Duff’s analysis extending here from those areas where the Church is explicitly persecuted to those areas where it is secularisation in society that is marginalising the priest. His remarks are therefore pertinent to the situation of the Church today.

There are three ways in which the priest can “re-connect” with the people. The first of these is through priests acting as chaplains in different professional contexts. Examples of such contexts are school chaplaincy, hospital chaplaincy, prison chaplaincy, chaplaincy at seaports and airports and commercial or industrial chaplaincy[2]. Each of these shares common features:

1) the priest must achieve a formation in and knowledge of the professional context in which he is engaged, and therefore a status among those engaged in that profession

2) in his chaplaincy work the priest is brought into close contact with people, who may or may not be Catholics

3) often the work of the chaplaincy will involve collaboration with lay people who support the work of the priest in the chaplaincy, so that the priest is part of a team and works closely with lay people.

The temptation, however, is to say that the priest has no part to play in this sort of chaplaincy work, and to reserve it only to the lay faithful. Sometimes the shortage of priests is the reason cited for this position. This, though it may be well intentioned, only contributes to the isolation of the clergy of which Frank Duff speaks and, in a contemporary terminology, constitutes a kind of “internal secularisation” within the activity of the Church.

The second way in which priests can “re-connect” with lay people is through membership or collaboration with what Canon Law terms an “association of Christ’s faithful”:

In the Church there are associations distinct from institutes of consecrated life and societies of apostolic life; in these associations the Christian faithful, whether clerics, lay persons, or clerics and lay persons together, strive in a common endeavor to foster a more perfect life, to promote public worship or Christian doctrine, or to exercise other works of the apostolate such as initiatives of evangelization, works of piety or charity, and those which animate the temporal order with a Christian spirit.[3]

The characteristic features of this type of collaboration of priests with the lay faithful are:

1) the ministry and activity of the priest takes part in the charism and apostolate of the association; the priest is inserted into the activity undertaken by the lay faithful who are members of the institute and closely connected to them in that activity

2) the priest gains a formation from the association, in accord with its charism and the contribution that the priest might make to living that charism; that formation might be provided by the lay officers of the association

3) the priest might live a life that is close in style to that of the lay faithful who are also members of the association; there might also be a degree of common life between the priest and the lay faithful in the association, the priest thereby being in close contact with lay members of the association.

The third way is similar in type to the first, and consists in priests acting as “ecclesiastical assistants” (ie as spiritual directors or chaplains) to associations of the lay faithful[4]. Features of this type of collaboration are:

1) the priest has a responsibility for the formation and encouragement of the spiritual life of the members of the association

2) whilst the priest will act in accord with the particular charism and rule of the association, and have a sympathy with that charism and rule, he will not generally have received a formation from the association

3) the priest has a degree of responsibility for directing the work of the members of the association, thought the extent of this varies from association to association.

All three of these models have the effect of bringing the priest into a closer contact with - and collaboration with - lay people in carrying out the mission of the Church.

[1] Frank Duff The Priest must have Members.
[2] cf. Code of Canon Law (1983) cc.564-572. Some of these professional areas have ecclesial associations that have the type of chaplaincy as their mission. Port Chaplaincy, for example, is provided by the Apostleship of the Sea.
[3] Code of Canon Law (1983) c.298.
[4] cf Code of Canon Law (1983) cc.317 (with regard to public associations of the faithful) and 324 (with regard to private associations of the faithful). In the former case, the ecclesiastical assistant is appointed by the relevant ecclesiastical authority; in the latter, the association may choose an ecclesiastical assistant who is then subject to confirmation by the ordinary.

9th August 2009: Feast of St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

In Europe, the feast of St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) has the liturgical rank of "feast" - she is one of the six patron saints of Europe. Unfortunately, this is still not quite enough to enable her to "trump" a Sunday.

Blog-by-the-Sea has remembered the feast day, and has a category with a series of posts from previous years about St Teresa Benedicta. This is the post with a biography of St Teresa Benedicta.

One of my most memorable days was 11th October 1998, when I was in Saint Peter's Square for her canonisation.


Those who know me wouldn't have expected me to do anything else today other than pray an office of St Teresa Benedicta!

Lord God of our ancestors, you brought Saint Teresa Benedicta to the fullnes of the science of the cross at the hour of her martyrdom.
Fill us with that same knowledge; and, through her intercession, allow us always to seek after you, the supreme truth; and to remain faithful until death to the covenant of love ratified in the blood of your Son for the salvation of all.
Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen