Recently, the Tablet's website carried an article a guest contributor, Melanie Lately, in which striking the breast during the Confiteor was equated with child abuse. Fr Zuhlsdorf said what needed to be said about this nasty attempt to attack the new, corrected ICEL translation of the Mass.Liberals intend now to vilify what they don’t like by linking it to clerical sexual abuse of children. It doesn’t matter what it is that they don’t like, if they don’t like it, it must have something to do with child abuse. So, you sometimes have to look beyond the facile – though sometimes admittedly agile – introduction of their new blunt instrument, for their real points.His article also contains a comprehensive fisk of the article itself.
If you follow the link given on Fr Z's blog, you will find that the article has now been removed from the Tablet website. Bless! Such touching naiveté concerning the interweb thingy.
I agree with Fr Z's analysis from the point of view of the Liturgy, but would add an observation from the point of view of our response to child abuse. The present tendency of liberal Catholics to play the child abuse card at every possible opportunity (attacking celibacy, promoting women priests, and ludicrously attacking the new translation etc.) is an insult to those who have suffered harm from priests or others.
The abuse of children is a serious matter which should be addressed with determination, objectivity, and real concern for those who have been harmed. To drag it in as a convenient, point-scoring jibe trivialises a tragedy for people who have been wounded by a real evil that should be recognised as such, not dragged up for the purposes of furthering an agenda in ecclesiastical politics.
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I came across the article on the website of the Association of Catholic Priests, which represents about ten percent of the priests of Ireland. Melanie Lately was described as a 'guest contributor' There was no mention of The Tablet. It's good to know that the paper has apparently taken a second look at what it published.
I regularly celebrate Mass in a home for girls where most have been abused, in almost all cases by family members or relatives. As you say, the suggestion that the new (old!) Confiteor is a form of abuse of children does indeed trivialise real abuse.
My young friends sometimes remind me that it's time for confession. They know what is right and wrong. They know when they have sinned but they also know that God forgives them through the sacrament of confession.
Every year now in the home we celebrate the feast of St Maria Goretti and we combine the feasts of St Agnes and Blessed Laura Vicuña, an exact contemporary of St Maria Gorette in Argentina/Chile, which fall on successive days in January. The girls can identify with the experience of these saints and find strength and inspiration in their lives and deaths as they struggle, among other things, to forgive.
One thing that always surprises me is the number of people who detest The Tablet and all it stands for, and yet continue to buy it.
I would urge everyone who takes The Tablet, despite finding its content objectionable, To cancel their subscription (including on-line subscription). We know from the accounts, which can be found on the Charity Commission website, that the publication is in a weak financial position. A small reduction in its circulation could put it into liquidation.
I am trying not to focus on what each side of catholicism is saying about the new translation. More so, I want to know what Christ is saying to me, through the words. People seem to have a tendency of hijacking THE WORD for their own causes and motivations, perhaps some not even realising they are doing this, the habit having become so ingrained.
Atrophy. I used to think there was no hope for the atrophied, then I remembered we worship a God who raises the dead at will.
So, I encourage us all to ask God to show Himself to us, in the new translation, not the defects of our fellow brethren.
I also want to know if there will be A Simple Prayer book type publication. A few other ordinary(ish) Catholics have enquired about this aswell.
Do you Father Tim, or Father Z know when and where we can obtain this, or will it just be made available in individual Churches at priest's discretion?
Maybe we should all get the first one free(as an encouragent)!
God bless.
Shadowlands - the CTS have many such publications at their website.
Fr Sean - many thanks for telling us something of your work in the home. I am so glad to hear that the saints you mention give strength and inspiration.
I absolutely agree with Fr Tim's final paragraph. Indeed this places the Tablet within the same moral framework as the News of The World over the Milly Dowler scandal. Is this why they've just chosen to removed it from their website, one wonders?
Also, as Et Expecto says, simply stop buying it and e-mail ALL YOUR FRIENDS TO DO LIKEWISE. ALSO POINT OUT THE ABOVE SCANDAL TO YOUR PP AND PLEAD WITH HIM NOT TO STOCK IT. It's our Christian duty. Believe me, The Tablet is almost financially bust: It just needs one final push.
Tabula Delenda Est.
I must admit that when I first read your post I thought there was some hyperbole.
However I then came across Miss Curti`s post on the Tablet blog at http://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogsub.php?id=148&ti=17
The post is entitled "Stirrings of rebellion" about certain protests in Ireland and Austria, It uses the child abuse scandals to attack people on the other side of issues in Catholic debates in a quite shocking way
I do not quite understand how anybody never mind a Catholic editor can use such "News of the World" tactics especially in a journal which is supposed to be a a "thinking person`s " journal.
I know that The News of the World has gone out of business and certain newspapers are rushing to pick up the circulation. I didn`t realise that The Tablet was one of the newspapers rushing to fill the gap.
The use of the child abuse bogey is, as you say, contemptible in its trivialising of what the victims of real abuse went through.
It is also grossly hypocritical. The fifth column who now excoriate the bishops for not having done enough to check child abuse were the first to squeal like the proverbial stuck pig at the faintest suggestion that bishops should assert any authority over anything.
That some “liberal” Catholics should try to associate child abuse with ancient Traditional practice is ironic as well as disgraceful.
It was in the post- Vatican II period, when many such people, I prefer to call them the Relativist Reformers, had the bit between their teeth, that the abuse was at its peak.
This was due to their Relativism which led to a lowering or even dropping of standards because of the seeping of such ideas into the minds of so many, both lay and clerical.
Has The Rock been negligent, breached its duty of care or committed crimes against god? then tell us your truthful stories of abuse and neglect and your views.
Will whats happened to The News of the World happen to The Rock?
At C.1:Q.96, Nostradamus foretells of an iconoclastic prophet, using refined language to continually educate, who is raised in the Last Days.
Logmion is here and says "Bring Back Petrus Romanus"
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Well, as usual I'll compare this with normal Slovak practices, as that's where I live:
Nobody seems to mind striking their breast during the Confiteor - it is very much the norm, from what I've seen in eight years of living here.
Bowing during the Credo is not so universal, though it is at least done at all.
I really don't see what's so funny about it all!
From the article:
"Priestly prestige and power are on the wane in countries where there are good levels of sanitation, education, food, water, and long life expectancy," i.e., "in nice clean countries we don't go in for all that mumbo jumbo".
I can't see any difference between this sentiment and modern, patronising, 'liberal', white agnosticism.
I had a subscription to the Tablet which was given me as a gift. I did not renew it on its expiry.
"Priestly prestige and power are on the wane in countries where there are good levels of sanitation, education, food, water, and long life expectancy," i.e., "in nice clean countries we don't go in for all that mumbo jumbo".
Norway is a very nice and clean country with great sanitation.
However, I don't expect anybody's considered calling the Norweigan waterboard for comfort in the last 24 hours, but I bet a few have called upon the Church, whether directly through her priests or through prayer.
We will always need priests, maybe not ALL the time, but AlWAYS, even in heaven, else otherwise why are they made priests forever by God himself?
God never does anything without a reason, does He? Also, He never wastes, so there must be a heavenly priestly existence.
How silly of people to think that they can do away with the priest because of some seeming transient 'development' on earth.
Common sense, where is it? Buried in man's greed and pride.
Praise the Lord always!
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