What is important?

Humblepiety has expressed the sadness of a parish priest where the families of first communion and confirmation children do not sustain any practice of their faith: The Diocesan Plan/Vision Reflecting upon the process as a Parish Priest.

What disheartens my priestly ministry at this point of time is the difficulty of bringing the gospel to two, perhaps even three generations of lapsed Catholics.

I also thought this was a sensible post, at iBenedictines, so I link to it: Is the Church Getting It Right — or Getting It Wrong? 

The question troubling me is, do the current public preoccupations of the Church really help to spread the gospel? Are they, in any meaningful sense, meeting the desire for God? Or does the Church have some other reason for being than leading all to salvation in Christ?

Reading Humblepiety's post, and the dialogue in the comments on this second post, prompts me to add two thoughts of my own. 

The workings of grace can be unseen, and such workings are often present at the ordinary, grass roots of Church life in way that all too easily goes unnoticed. In a final analysis, those workings do not admit of a quantifiable measure. I recall some years ago encountering a thought with regard to first communion for people with learning disabilities - and that thought suggested that, since such an individual was not able to consent to sin, a first reception of communion would suffice for fulfilled life of grace. The most vivid life of the Church is there, and it continues despite everything that appears to the contrary.

And there is a mirror to this first thought. Each of us is called to cultivate that part of the Lord's vineyard where we have been placed; and that does not ask us to take a stance on each and every issue that faces the wider Church, or, indeed, to solve every problem that might impinge on our own corner of the vineyard. We are called to persevere in our own task, and perhaps to disregard that which is not pertinent to it, whatever others might broadcast as being important.

Taekwondo commentary and St Ignatius Loyola

I have not been following the Tokyo Olympics closely, and so have only come across Lutalo Muhammad in the Times newspaper today. According to the Times, Lutalo "has won the admiration of fellow broadcasters and athletes for his eloquent commentary" in presenting Tokyo's taekwondo events this last week.

Along with his mellifluous delivery, his commentary has been noted for its poeticism and use of analogy, among them the phrase: "Fear can either fuel you or be the fire that burns you up".

Lutalo attributes his lyrical bent to a life-long love of reading, which was initiated by trips to the local library with his mother when he was a child.

"As a little boy, fun for us was a trip to the library, which all sounds a bit geeky now. But I really do enjoy reading and I love books that chronicle people developing themselves. I'm fascinated by improvement and performance". 

Apparently, Lutalo's mother still reads a book a day, as well as running a taekwondo club in east London, along with Lutalo's father. 

The second reading in the Office of Readings for today, the feast day of St Ignatius Loyola, describes the effect on the saint of the reading that he undertook when recovering from illness.

Ignatius was very addicted to reading aimless and exaggerated books about the illustrious deeds of the famous and when he felt well again he asked for some to pass the time. But there were no books of that type in the house and he was given a book called The Life of Christ and another The Flower of the Saints, both in his native language.

The passage from the Office goes on to describe how St Ignatius reflected on this reading, but at the same time was also distracted back to thoughts of his more worldly reading.

But there was a difference in his two types of subject for thought. When he was intent on his worldly interests he got great pleasure at the time, but whenever he wearied of them and gave them up, he felt dejected and empty. On the other hand, when he thought about the austerities which he found that holy men practised, not only did he find joy in the account of them, but when he stopped thinking of them his joy remained unabated. However, he never noticed the difference or thought about it, until one day it dawned on him, and he began to wonder at it....Afterwards, however, when he had undertaken spiritual exercises, this experience was the starting point for teaching his followers the discernment of spirits.

In these times of on-line reading, of Kindle, and of the smart phone ......there is still something special about holding a real book in your hands ..... and using a real bookmark! 

And St Ignatius gives us a good example of how serious reading is of more value than the celebration of celebrity that is often to be found in television or online sources.

XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops - coming to a diocese near you!

 L’apertura del Sinodo avrà luogo tanto in Vaticano quanto in ciascuna diocesi. Il cammino sarà inaugurato dal Santo Padre in Vaticano: il 9-10 ottobre.

Con le medesime modalità, domenica 17 ottobre, si aprirà nelle diocesi, sotto la presidenza del rispettivo vescovo.

I translate from the Italian version of the Bulletin of the Holy See Press Office, as it seems to make clearer sense than the English:

The opening of the Synod will take place both in the Vatican in in each diocese. The journey will be opened by the Holy Father in the Vatican: 9th-10th October.

It will be opened in the dioceses with the same formalities on Sunday 17th October, under the presidency of the respective bishop. 

 The note from the Synod of Bishops reported in the Bulletin indicates a path of consultation, starting with a phase at diocesan level, and continuing through phases at Episcopal Conference and continental levels, to a phase at the level of the Universal Church with the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in October 2023. The subject of this synodal process is "For a synodal Church: communion, participation and mission".

Here in England, the Archdiocese of Liverpool has reached the pastoral planning stage after the completion of a synodal process which, affected by the coronavirus pandemic, has stretched over several years. A website for that synodal process can be found here, with a resources page here.

At this point I have noticed a couple of subtle points about the Liverpool experience. The first is a recognition that a number of the ideas that were put forward at a listening stage were "matters outside the remit of the synod". This included ideas favouring the ordination of women, ending the discipline of celibacy for priests, wider use of general absolution for the Sacrament of Penance, and requests around the present liturgical texts. A note about these can be downloaded from the resources page mentioned above.

Might it not be useful, in the light of the forthcoming diocesan phase, for there to be a clear recognition in advance of what lies within the remit of the synodal process and what lies outside that remit? Will the Preparatory Document promised from the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, with its proposals for carrying out the consultation in each local Church, effectively provide this?

The second point was the description of the participants in Liverpool's synod as being "members" rather than "representatives". This is explained at this link. The underlying principle is that members are not representatives of a constituency or of a point of view, be that a majority or a minority point of view; rather they have an office of discernment in the light of their knowledge of the life of the ecclesial community from which they come.

But the language of the Note from the Synod of Bishops is one of "consultation", particularly a "consultation of the People of God" during the diocesan phase that will enable all to take part. It is interesting, however, that, when the Note refers to the consultation of the People of God, it references n.5 and n.6 of Pope Francis' Apostolic Constitution on the Synod of Bishops. I reproduce n.5 below, noting its carefully constructed account of how a Bishop is also a disciple who is able to listen to the voice of the Spirit speaking through his people. I also note the reference in the last sentence to "diocesan institutions whose task it is to advise the Bishop, promoting a loyal and constructive dialogue". Could not the diocesan phase be carried out by means of the already existing mechanisms of consultation in a diocese rather than by the establishing of a separate bureaucracy? And, indeed, is the term "consultation" really the appropriate term to describe that office of the Bishop as both teacher and disciple described in n.5?

It is certainly true, as the Second Vatican Council teaches, that “when Bishops engage in teaching, in communion with the Roman Pontiff, they deserve respect from all, as the witnesses of divine and catholic truth; the faithful must agree with the judgment of their Bishop on faith and morals, which he delivers in the name of Christ; they must give it their adherence with religious assent of the mind”. But it is also true that “for every Bishop the life of the Church and life in the Church is the condition for exercising his mission to teach”.

Hence the Bishop is both teacher and disciple. He is a teacher when, endowed with the special assistance of the Holy Spirit, he proclaims to the faithful the word of truth in the name of Christ, head and shepherd. But he is a disciple when, knowing that the Spirit has been bestowed upon every baptized person, he listens to the voice of Christ speaking through the entire People of God, making it “infallible in credendo”. Indeed, “the universal body made up of the faithful, whom the Holy One has anointed (cf. 1 Jn 2:20, 27), is incapable of erring in belief. This is a property which belongs to the people as a whole; a supernatural sense of faith is the means by which they make this property manifest, when ‘from Bishops to the last of the lay faithful’, they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals”. So the Bishop is called to lead his flock by “walking in front of them, showing them the way, showing them the path; walking in their midst, to strengthen them in unity; walking behind them, to make sure no one gets left behind but especially, never to lose the scent of the People of God in order to find new roads. A Bishop who lives among his faithful has his ears open to listen to ‘what the Spirit says to the churches’ (Rev 2:7), and to the ‘voice of the sheep’, also through those diocesan institutions whose task it is to advise the Bishop, promoting a loyal and constructive dialogue”.

For completeness, here is the text of n.6, which describes how the Synod of Bishops can be seen as an expression of the voice of the entire people of God, though in a nuanced way that reflects the distinctive office of the Bishop:

Similarly, the Synod of Bishops must increasingly become a privileged instrument for listening to the People of God: “For the Synod Fathers we ask the Holy Spirit first of all for the gift of listening: to listen to God, that with him we may hear the cry of the people; to listen to the people until breathing in the desire to which God calls us”.

Although structurally it is essentially configured as an episcopal body, this does not mean that the Synod exists separately from the rest of the faithful. On the contrary, it is a suitable instrument to give voice to the entire People of God, specifically via the Bishops, established by God as “authentic guardians, interpreters and witnesses of the faith of the whole Church”, demonstrating, from one Assembly to another, that it is an eloquent expression of synodality as a “constitutive element of the Church”.

Therefore, as John Paul II declared, “Every General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops is a powerful ecclesial experience, even if some of its practical procedures can always be perfected. The Bishops assembled in Synod represent in the first place their own Churches, but they are also attentive to the contributions of the Episcopal Conferences which selected them and whose views about questions under discussion they then communicate. They thus express the recommendation of the entire hierarchical body of the Church and finally, in a certain sense, the whole Christian people, whose pastors they are”.

Freedom in reading the Scriptures

I have recently been reminded, twice, of a thought that I not infrequently mull over. That thought relates to how one approaches Sacred Scripture as a Catholic. The reading of Scripture within the life of the Catholic Church's tradition and teaching authority at first sight suggests a serious restriction to how an individual Catholic, be they an ordinary member of the faithful or a Scripture scholar, may read the Scriptural text. But what I mull over from time to time is the thought that, though the life of the Church does define how some passages of Scripture are to be understood (for example, on the office of the successor of St Peter and the institution of the Eucharist), these passages are relatively few compared to the entirety of the Scriptural canon, and there is enormous freedom with regard to how much of the Scriptural text can be understood. The Catholic, who reads Scripture in the framework of the tradition and teaching authority, therefore actually has much more freedom in relationship with the text than the Evangelical Christian, whose only source of the content of faith is the text alone and whose relationship to the text is make-or-break on every question.

The first reminder came in a conversation with a lady I have only recently come to know. Over a lunch break, she steered conversation very quickly from asking whether or not I was a believer via the recent decision of the Methodist Church in the UK to allow same sex marriage to asking whether or not I thought the Catholic Church would give in on the issue as well. I pointed out that the arrangements which give the Holy See an existence as an independent state as well as a universal authority of faith protects the Church at a local level from political and social influences that might affect other ecclesial bodies - even if local bishops wanted to give in on the issue, they wouldn't be able to do so. But what struck me was this lady's very brief observation that same sex marriage was against Biblical teaching, which suggested that no other authority sat behind her belief on this question than that. The lady in question did not appear to recognise an insecurity that exists in that basis.

The second reminder came in the homily at Mass this last Sunday. Preaching on St John's account of the feeding of the 5 000, a visiting priest suggested that Jesus' intention in performing this sign was to teach the necessity for the Christian life of caring for the material needs of our neighbour. Noting St John's statement that the event occurred "shortly before the Jewish feast of passover", Father suggested that St John was putting this sign into the context of the first passover, where the Jewish people were to enter the desert with the need there for them to receive earthly nourishment. Father saw this as a first stage in St John's presentation of Jesus teaching, with the later parts of the chapter of his Gospel building up in steps from this first stage. This is not the customary Catholic reading of the text and its parallels in the other Gospels. The more usual reading sees in it, perhaps particularly in St John's Gospel, a sign of the abundance of the Eucharistic gift to the Church (cf Catechism of the Catholic Church n.1335, but see also n.1397, where commitment to the poor is indicated as one of the fruits of reception of the Sacrament). There is a question about the wisdom or otherwise of offering such an unusual interpretation (from the Catholic point of view) during a homily at Sunday Mass in a parish and in the context of a sequence of Sunday Gospel readings that are essentially eucharistic in their intent; but, if that question is put to one side, the interpretation lies within, but perhaps at the boundaries, of the range of freedom that a Catholic exegete has with respect to the Scriptural text.

The Praise of Glory

 MAGNIFICAT for last Sunday uses as its "Meditation of the Day" an extract from St Elizabeth of the Trinity.  The text is published under the title Heaven in Faith in the Institute of Carmelite Studies (ICS) complete works of St Elizabeth, Volume 1. In the following I use the Scripture translations used in the ICS edition, rather than those used by MAGNIFICAT, which use the Jerusalem translations used in the Liturgy (and thereby seem to lose a subtlety in St Elizabeth's thought).

"If you knew the gift of God", Christ said one evening to the Samaritan woman. But what is this gift of God if not Himself? And, the beloved disciple tells us: "He came to His own and His own did not accept Him". St John the Baptist could still say to many souls these words of reproach: "There is one in the midst of you, 'in you', whom you do not know".

The two words "in you" are inserted into, and emphasized, in the quotation of St John the Baptist, and echo a phrase in St Luke's Gospel.

The MAGNIFICAT meditation then omits a following section, losing a Marian reference in St Elizabeth's thought (St Elizabeth may have included this section prompted by the occurrence of the solemnity of the Assumption at the time of her writing):

"If you knew the gift of God..." There is one who know the gift of God, one who did not lose one particle of it, on who was so pure, so luminous that she seemed to be the Light itself: "Speculum justitiae". One whose life was so simple, so lost in God that there is hardly anything we can say about it.

"Virgo fidelis": that is, faithful Virgin, "who kept all these things in her heart".

 The extract then takes up the theme of the praise of glory, quoting St Paul:

"We have been predestined by the decree of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we may be the praise of his glory."

It is St Paul who tells us this, St Paul who was instructed by God Himself. How do we realize this great dream of the Heart of our God, this immutable will for our souls? In a word, how do we correspond to our vocation and become perfect Praises of Glory of the Most Holy Trinity?

"In Heaven" each sould is a praise of glory of the Father, the Word and Holy Spirit, for each soul is established in pure love and "lives no longer its own life, but the life of God". Then it knows Him, St Paul says, as it is known by Him.... St John of the Cross affirms that "the soul surrendered to love, through the strength of the Holy Spirit, is not far from being raised to the degree of which we have just spoken," eve here below! This is what I call a perfect praise of glory!

 Where the Jerusalem translation "..chosen to be, for his greater glory..." appears to be passive in its intent - it is God's action that makes us manifest his greater glory - ".. so that we may be the praise of his glory" suggests an active sense too, on the part of the soul, though active in response to the initiative of God. Whatever the subtleties of the exegesis of the Scriptural text, the idea that the soul should live as a praise of glory of the Trinity is a key part of St Elizabeth's thought.

Can we just make it up?

In his newsletter for last weekend, our parish priest reflected on martyrdom in the light of several feast days occurring around this time: St Oliver Plunkett, Sts John Fisher and Thomas More, St John the Baptist and, today, Sts Peter and Paul. The italics added below are mine:

Some martyrs were ordered on pain of death to deny Christ and conform to false worship, and refused. Others, like John the Baptist, paid with their lives for preaching a message that was uncomfortable for those in power, or for standing firm on a point of principle, like Thomas More and John Fisher. Perhaps we find the last category most puzzling, in an age when religion is seen as a purely private matter. Yet persecution of a different form certainly occurs when people publicly express opinions that are out of step with certain fashionable orthodoxies, and find themselves, not martyred (in the West at least) but effectively silenced and excluded from discourse. 

More and Fisher were martyrs not only for truth, but also for conscience, and for freedom. Many people today are uncomfortable with the idea of objective truth, a reality that they must accept and conform to, rather than invent for themselves. If truth is considered subjective and relative, conscience is even more so. And being subjective, these things must be kept private, so as not to intrude on the freedom of others, including the freedom not to be challenged by differing points of view: that is the way many people seem to think today. However the Christian faith is one that cannot simply be privatised. It is not just a question of proclaiming Christ to the world, which is indeed the heart of the church’s mission, but even more a matter of simply living out our faith and putting into practice the values of the gospel. If the highest of these values is love, we should remember that love sometimes requires us to speak up for the good of others, rather than simply keep quiet.

Father did not directly refer to it, but his words prompted me to think about one of the "fashionable orthodoxies" of our day, namely, the widespread acceptance of ideas of LGBTQ identities. Public conversation has to all intents and purposes replaced talk of biological sex with talk of gender, a somewhat less exact concept (though, interestingly, when Matthew Paris argued recently in the Times newspaper that the experience of gay men in 1989 was not one of wanting to change in any way their identification as male, he appeared to restore, at least for some within the LGBTQ community, biological sex to contemporary debate). The term "gender assigned at birth", for example, is being promoted as an alternative to biological sex.

.... gender isn’t about someone’s anatomy, it is about who they know them self to be. There are many different gender identities, including male, female, transgender, gender neutral, non-binary, agender, pangender, genderqueer, two-spirit, third gender, and all, none or a combination of these.

When I read this extract from a website aimed at teenagers (a site called teen talk, with a .ca domain name), I did wonder: are young people being subject to an ideology that essentially says to them "you can choose from a list" as far as "gender" is concerned, rather than learning to grow in a given biological sex, male or female? Is it really sensible to ask young people to, in effect, choose "who they know them self to be", rather than helping them to grow in living the reality of a male or female sex? 

[I was struck on first reading this extract by the last part: "... and all, none or a combination of these". It really does suggest the idea of gender as being something that a young person can make up, separated from any reality of their biological presentation. Indeed, the next paragraph begins: "There are many more gender identities than we have listed..."]

Matt and Gina: observations on the Zeitgeist

I suspect that the Sun newspaper's video of Matt Hancock, now the former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, in an intimate clinch with a female aide will turn out to be a classic of its genre.

But it does raise a three interesting questions, not specific to the case of Mr Hancock and Ms Coladangelo, but with respect to a range of surrounding assumptions, what one might term "the zeitgiest".

Is consent on the part of the man and woman a sufficient condition to make an otherwise morally unjust action morally just? If we were to remove the element of consent on the part of Ms Coladangelo to the action shown in the Sun's video clip (Mr Hancock is shown squeezing her bottom), the video would provide an example of precisely the wrong behaviour of a man in a position of relative power towards a woman in the workplace that has been raised by #Me Too. News reporting suggests that both Mr Hancock and Ms Coladangelo were being unfaithful to their respective spouses, and the consenting nature of their office clinch does not remove the injustice towards spouses that this involves. Even if one sets this consideration aside, there remains a question as to whether or not that squeezing of the bottom in an office clinch represents a respectful behaviour of a man towards a woman, and whether the woman's consent is sufficient to overcome that lack of respectfulness.  (I don't intend this as a criticism of Mr Hancock as an individual, but as a more general observation about male/female behaviours.) 

The question is of a much wider significance, as much of the contemporary discussion about the safety of women in society, both in social life and in the workplace, focusses on educating men about the nature of consent. But if consent is not a sufficient criterion (though it will be a necessary criterion along with others) for the morality of the actions involved, a focus on consent is not going to resolve the question of the safety and wellbeing of women. We do, perhaps, need to have a conversation about what constitute the boundaries of right and wrong behaviours independently of, and in addition to, the question of consent.

Should we be indifferent to marriage in our public life? Mr Hancock's resignation has with, some emphasis, been connected to his breach of social distancing rules that he himself was responsible for drawing up. In Mr Hancock's own words:

I understand the enormous sacrifices that everybody in this country has made, that you have made, and those of us who make these rules have got to stick by them and that's why I have got to resign.

Reporting, following Mr Hancock's colleagues, have distinguished this reason for resignation from matters of his personal life. The public conversation appears to have a certain style of indifference to the lack of faithfulness to spouses and families shown by Mr Hancock and Ms Coladangelo; tabloid comment refers to Mr Hancock"cheating on his wife" and Ms Coladangelo as a "cheating aide", but more serious comment is keeping a discreet silence about this. Certainly it would be wrong for public conversation to consist of a witch hunt in the media or hounding on social media; charity is required in this context as in any other, and Mr Hancock and Ms Coladangelo just happen to represent far more publicly than is typical the circumstances of many others. A certain silence about the specific case might well be the manner in which charity is shown. 

But the BBC are carrying this morning what might be considered a piece of lazy reporting, reflecting I think reporting from the Sun, but which nevertheless is indicative:

Mr Hancock has ended his 15-year marriage to his wife, Martha, and the relationship with Ms Coladangelo is understood to be a serious one.

It would appear that Mr Hancock has left his wife with an immediate effect, announcing his departure abruptly as the Sun broke the story of his office encounter with Ms Coladangelo (according to the Sun, at least); but even in civil law, leaving aside any particular belief that one might have about the permanence of marriage vows, a marriage has not ended until a divorce has been granted.

Whilst one would not want to launch witch hunts in any individual cases, is it really healthy for society that the wider public conversation in the case of Mr Hancock and Ms Coladangelo should remain  indifferent to the the place of marriage in the life of society? Should not the good of marriage, and expectations around that good, be at least a part of the public conversation? 

How should we correctly understand the significance of private life for public life? There are certainly dangers to freedoms when matters of personal life are seen as necessary conditions for participation in public life. But does this mean that how people conduct themselves in their private lives is completely without significance for their public lives? A personal characteristic such as integrity is one that can be common to both a person's private and public life, for example; likewise a characteristic such as honesty.  The commonality of such characteristics to both private and public life does mean that I think we should be able to expect more from those who play a larger part in public life than might be the case of those who play a smaller part (recognising that we all risk failing to live up to expectations, those with a large public profile as much as those without). 

At the very least, I think we should recognise that private life has some significance for public life, and that this is true for all of us, even if our part in public life is relatively small. It might be of greater significance for those who have a large public profile.