Tablet attacks Rome. Pope Catholic. Bears etc.

In the midst of perhaps the most significant crisis in relations between the Catholic Church and the British Government in the past 100 years, the Tablet has, true to form, attacked the teaching of the Church on the central issue.

Its leader "Need for Compromise" refers to the document regarding homosexual civil unions issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2003 and signed by Cardinal Ratzinger as "ill-judged" and speaks of "the intemperate language of Rome."

Part of the argument runs as follows:
The Catholic Catechism says that Scripture describes homosexual acts as "grave depravity". This is far removed from the temper of the times, and probably no longer even reflects what a majority of practising Catholics believe about homosexuals. Many of them have gay friends and gay relatives; Catholic mothers have gay sons. Some of the most devout are gay themselves.
I am trying hard to imagine what it would be like to belong to a Church that tried to follow the "temper of the times" as perceived in a highly secularised country in the affluent West. The assertion about the "majority of practising Catholics" is, of course, dubious in the extreme. Those Catholics who practise their faith tend to do so because they believe the teaching of the Church. If they don't, there are plenty of alternative denominations, faiths and "philosophies".

Many of us, of course do have gay friends and relatives. I also have friends and relatives who are Muslims, members of the Socialist Worker Party, and the Freemasons - it doesn't make me the least bit embarrassed or offended by the Church's teaching as it applies to them and am happy for any chance to engage in a "frank and open exchange of views." Knowing me to be Catholic, they tend not to be overly surprised or upset to find that I believe the teaching of the Church in which I publicly profess my faith.

The leader makes the interesting point that if all homosexual acts are depraved, it would not be licit to refer homosexual couples to other agencies. They attempt to enlist the Cardinal onside by saying that "the implication is" that he does not believe in using this argument. As readers of this blog have pointed out, there is no small evidence to support this implication. A change of emphasis would be wise at this stage. Given the Cabinet's determination to rub the Church's nose in it, there seems little point in accepting any legal requirement to refer or "sign-post." It was always a questionable practice when done voluntarily.

The final paragraph has a classic Tablet attack on Rome and, by implication, Pope Benedict:
The higher up the hierarchical ladder of the Church one goes, the less responsive it is to movements in grass roots opinion.
(Those particular grass roots flourish especially in the manicured lawns of our leafier suburbs.) The article concludes by encouraging the Catholic Church in England and Wales to make more "progress" in the opposite direction from Rome.

In the same issue: "A love found wanting" by Martin Reynolds:
A gay Anglican priest, describes how he and his Catholic partner took on a child and why they wish to do so again.

Popular posts from this blog

1962 Missal pdf online

The Church Music Association of America and Jeffrey Tucker of the New Liturgical Movement have made available the 1962 Missal online in pdf format (72Mb). The file is hosted at Musica Sacra , the website of the CMAA, thanks to a generous gift from Fr Robert Skeris While you are at it, take a look at the articles clarifying the rules for music at Low Mass and music at High Mass .
Read more

Request for Novena to Blessed Pius IX

Image
A priest friend of mine is ill in hospital. He has a special devotion to Blessed Pius IX. Could I ask you, of your charity, to say a Novena for his speedy recovery. Novena In Honour of Blessed Pius IX Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, hear our prayers and glorify your servant Pius IX, who consecrated the Universal Church to you. (Our Father...) O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you, hear our prayer and glorify your servant Pius IX who declared you Immaculate. (Hail Mary...) Saint Joseph, spouse of the most pure Virgin Mary, hear our prayer and glorify your servant Pius IX who declared you the Patron of the Universal Church. (Glory be...) Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Immaculate Mary, our Hope, and Saint Joseph hear our prayers and glorify your servant Pius IX , granting to us through his merits and intercessions the graces which we ardently desire: that the glory of God be revealed through Father's illness. (Our Father..., Hail Mary..., Glory be...
Read more

Saint Gabriel

Image
The angels call for our veneration and awe as part of God’s creation. Part of the destructive modernism of the 1970s included advice to Catholic school teachers that they should not talk to children about angels. This wrought lasting damage which continues to need rectifying. We should include in our prayers a heartfelt recourse to our own Guardian Angels. The Archangel Gabriel “God is my strength” would be terrifying were he to appear to any of us. Our Lady was “troubled” at the word of Saint Gabriel and wondered at the manner of the salutation. Immediately, according to his mission, the awesome messenger explained himself. Modern retelling of the event is often reduced to the jejune “Mary said Yes to God”. In fact, she said “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word”. This conveys more accurately the flawless faith and trust of the Immaculata. In the infinitely wise providence of the Father, we now know the structure of the event in even more detai...
Read more

Saint Ignatius on heresy, and the capsizing boat

Image
On the feast of St Ignatius, I offer my prayers and good wishes to some great Jesuits. Just off the top of my head, I think of Fr Joseph Fessio SJ the founder of Ignatius Press which has not only published the English translations of various works of Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict, but has also given a break for good Catholic authors both of theology and of Catholic fiction. Then there is Fr Bob Spitzer SJ, with whom I studied in Rome many years ago, and Fr Paul Mankowski SJ who has written some superb articles over the years. Here in England, I recall Fr Anthony Meredith SJ, the great fatherly commentator on the Fathers of Cappadocia and in Rome, there is Fr Gilles Pelland SJ, the fierce French-Canadian patristics scholar was a bit harsh when I first arrived in the Holy City, but seemed to soften a bit when after 5 years he seeme satisfied that, though English, I was not a modernist. Many of my Jesuit priest friends and mentors have now reached “that night when no man can work”...
Read more

Downloadable booklets for Vespers

Image
Gregorian Chant Hymns is a most helpful website that I mentioned in a post just over a year ago. As I said then, the site "[...] promotes the learning of Gregorian Chant by making sheet music, recordings, translations, and instructions. There is a short guide to Gregorian Notation (those square notes) and to Latin pronunciation. Everything is available free of charge, in line with other great traditional music websites." Work has continued at the site and there is now a section which makes available pdf (or .docx format) booklets for Vespers for every Sunday of the Year and a few major feasts. There is the basic booklet for ordinary Sunday Vespers which is supplemented by separate files for the Sundays after Pentecost which contain the Magnificat and Collect. Then there are booklets, for example for Advent and Lent, where the office is different from the regular Sunday Vespers with its antiphons. All of the booklets have texts and notation for Benediction and the Maria...
Read more