Pastoral Recommendations for the Year of Faith

The CDF has released its "Note with pastoral recommendations for the Year of Faith". Some highlights from its introductory comments and forty specific recommendations:

This year will be a propitious occasion for the faithful to understand more profoundly that the foundation of Christian faith is “the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”[Deus Caritas Est, 1] Founded on the encounter with the Risen Christ, faith can be rediscovered in its wholeness and all its splendor.

The next General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, to be held in October 2012, will have as its theme: The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith.

The Year of Faith is intended to contribute to a renewed conversion to the Lord Jesus and to the rediscovery of faith, so that the members of the Church will be credible and joy-filled witnesses to the Risen Lord in the world of today.... “Through his love, Jesus Christ attracts to himself the people of every generation: in every age he convokes the Church, entrusting her with the proclamation of the Gospel by a mandate that is ever new. Today too, there is a need for stronger ecclesial commitment to new evangelization in order to rediscover the joy of believing and the enthusiasm for communicating the faith.”[Porta Fidei, 7]

Recommendations - for the Universal Church:

3. During this Year, it will be helpful to invite the faithful to turn with particular devotion to Mary, model of the Church... To this end it would be proper to organize pilgrimages, celebrations and gatherings at the major Marian shrines.

6. The Year of Faith will offer a special opportunity for all believers to deepen their knowledge of the primary documents of the Second Vatican Council and their study of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This is especially true for candidates for priesthood... [and diaconate, one should add].

7. This Year will provide an auspicious time for a more attentive reception of the homilies, catechesis, addresses and other speeches and documents of the Holy Father.

10. At the conclusion of this Year, on the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Universal King, there will be a Eucharist celebrated by the Holy Father, in which a solemn renewal of the profession of faith will take place.

Recommendations for episcopal conferences:

4. Pastors should work to promote television and radio transmissions, films and publications focusing on the faith, its principles and content, as well as on the ecclesial significance of the Second Vatican Council. This should be done using the new styles of communication, especially on the popular level, making these things available to a wider public.

5. The Saints and the Blessed are the authentic witnesses of the faith. It is, therefore, opportune that Episcopal Conferences work toward the dissemination of a knowledge of the local Saints of their territory, also by modern means of social communication.

6. The contemporary world is sensitive to the relationship between faith and art. It is, therefore, recommended that Episcopal Conferences maximize the catechetical potential – possibly with ecumenical cooperation – of the artistic patrimony of the region entrusted to their pastoral care.

Recommendations for Dioceses:

2. It would be desirable that each Diocese in the world organize a study day on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, particularly for its priests, consecrated persons and catechists.

7. Bishops are invited to organize penitential celebrations, particularly during Lent, in which all can ask for God’s forgiveness, especially for sins against faith. This Year also provides an appropriate occasion in which all can approach the Sacrament of Penance with greater faith and more frequently.

Recommendations for parishes and communities:

2. The Year of Faith “will also be a good opportunity to intensify the celebration of the faith in the liturgy, especially in the Eucharist.” [Porta fidei, 9]

3. Priests [and deacon] should devote greater attention to the study of the documents of Vatican Council II and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, drawing from them resources for the pastoral care of their parishes – catechesis, preaching, Sacramental preparation. They should also offer cycles of homilies on the faith or on certain specific aspects such as, for example, “the encounter with Christ”, “the fundamental contents of the Creed”, and “faith and the Church.”[Verbum Domini, 59-60, 74]

4. Catechists should hold more firmly to the doctrinal richness of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and, under the direction of their pastors, offer guidance in reading this precious document to groups of faithful...

6. The promotion of missions and other popular programs in parishes and in the workplace can help the faithful to rediscover the gift of Baptismal faith and the task of giving witness...

"For the liberty and exaltation of Holy Mother Church" - updated

Is any kind of cooperation between Church and State possible in the current political climate? If yes, what kinds, with what limits? If no, what does that imply about the apostolic ministry, and our share in it as deacons?

Msgr. Charles Pope of the Archdiocese of Washington has an excellent post, summarizing the "real and subtle" attacks on the Church in the US. In addition to the obvious coercions of court-imposed rules in the abortion issue and so-called same-sex marriage, etc., he notes items such as the (still pending) HHS regulations about health insurance requirements, denials of grants solely on the basis of Catholic pro-life doctrine, increasing government intrusion in Church affairs (e.g. as attempted in Connecticut in 2009), and so forth. He doesn't mention the Obama administration's arguments before the Supreme Court earlier this year, in the case of a Lutheran teacher who was fired from her position, which were blatantly contrary to the First Amendment. Nor does he mention the current suits and counter-suits at Belmont Abbey College, nor the ruling against California's Catholic Charities a few years ago, which also have to do with health insurance regulation. The list could be extended quite a bit further.

He concludes his article this way:

"At the beginning of a New Year, please take these threats seriously. The extreme secularists presume they can simply wear us down by their repeated and numerous legal maneuverings. And, frankly, they may be right, unless people like you and me are vigilant and unflinching in supporting the Church as she battles these attacks.

And don’t be too sanguine about how we should be willing to endure persecution. We should, but that does not mean we simply surrender our Constitutional rights at the door and let secularists, and proponents of the cultural revolution isolate us. We have every Constitutional right that any American does and we cannot simply let the Church be silenced by either ignoring the problem or minimizing it."

Msgr. Pope is proposing an engagement of culture by the Church. The first goal is to resist the false claim that the Church has no role in public life, which has been dubbed the "naked public square." The second goal is to win certain "natural frontiers" (namely, faith and morals, and their intersection with public policy) within which the Church can act publicly, without having to defend that role repeatedly and minutely. The third (and unspoken in this article) goal is, of course, the conversion of culture.

In the same vein as this engagement, we have something like Archbishop Neinstedt's leadership on the proposed constitutional amendment in Minnesota in defense of marriage. This is a good particular instance of the USCCB's priority for the defense of marriage and the building up of a pro-family culture, which has been so badly eroded over the past three to four generations. Clearly, public policy about marriage and family is not immediately subject to the Church's Magisterium, the divine authority to teach on all matters of faith and morals. But equally clearly, public policy about marriage and family has profound, long-lasting, and far-reaching implications for just about every other area of public life, from education to the social welfare net to economy and taxation. The Church does not dictate public policy, but we should absolutely want to influence and shape public policy. Therefore, one would be correct to conclude that this sort of engagement is crucial to the Church's role in public life, and therefore worth fighting for the right to do so (clearly a right in both the natural law and the Constitution, but as Msgr. Pope has shown, one which is denied by the current administration and its secular ideology).

But engagement is not the whole of our Tradition. We also have the tradition of what might be called isolation: Catholic institutions separate from the public ones, self-funded and therefore autonomous to a far greater degree. At one time this was true of all our Catholic schools and hospitals, though it isn't universally true in these areas today. At one time, this logic was so clear and accepted in the Church that we organized all kinds of separate Catholic groups in public life: even things as apparently insular as Catholic actors' guilds, for example. (Given the debauchery of "Hollywood culture," maybe this separatism shouldn't be deemed anachronistic!) The Catholic Charities in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is holding to this logic. In light of what has happened in Massachusetts and Illinois, this is perhaps not a bad idea at all. But is it an engagement of the culture; and if so, how does it engage?

I would argue that this sort of separatism is a necessary component of the engagement of culture. Engagement requires clarity about our goals. This means Catholic identity, and Catholicity in general, must be clearly upheld in practice. Separate Catholic institutions do that. So too does the "separateness," the consecration, of clergy, of religious, and of families. From that clarity of identity comes clarity of mission. Without that clarity of identity, mission is inevitably compromised by ideologies.

O God, our refuge and our strength, look down in mercy on Thy people who cry to Thee, and by the intercession of the glorious and immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God, of St. Joseph her Spouse, of Thy blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and of all the saints, in mercy and goodness hear our prayers for the conversion of sinners, and for the liberty and exaltation of our holy Mother the Church. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Update: Two more views on this same topic: Pope Benedict XVI's address to the diplomats credentialed to the Vatican, and Bishop Jenky (Peoria, IL) in his annual Festival Letter.

Historicity of the canonical Gospels

I found this fascinating lecture by Dr. Timothy McGrew, on the historicity of the four Gospels and Acts. (He's a philosophy professor at Western Michigan Univ. in Kalamazoo.) I don't think I can embed it here, but follow the link. You can either listen to the audio only, or hear it while viewing the corresponding slides. I'm sure none of us are in grave doubt about this topic, but his arguments are easily portable for apologetics, and his methodology is utterly sound. Quite a good lecture.

Merry Christmas to every blessing in the new year of grace 2012!

Homily - Dec 14, 2011, Feast of St. John of the Cross (falling on Wednesday of the Third Week of Advent)

Today in my homily at the Cathedral, I started out like this:

"Turn to me and be safe, all you ends of the earth, for I am God; there is no other!" (Is 45:21) Today, as we celebrate the memorial of St. John of the Cross, the great Carmelite reformer, we note that we are two-thirds of the way through Advent. Have we done as we are called to do in this season of preparation for Christ's coming - His coming to us in our hearts, and His coming in Bethlehem in the Incarnation, and His final coming to judge the living and the dead? Have we in fact turned back to God?

I'll answer for myself, and I think most of you would agree with this answer: "Yes, but..." Yes, we love God; that's why we're here for this Mass. But, I am weak; I am easily distracted; I am subject to temptation. I know well my own failings.

But this is the great joy of the Incarnation, which has changed everything, always and everywhere: Turning to God is not something we do only once. Just as He comes to us again and again in His Church, so we can turn back to Him again and again. He always remains faithful. He longs for our conversion with a patience as great as His infinite love.

I said just a little more about using well what remains of Advent, which to be honest I can't remember very clearly. I ended with the same quote from the first reading I started on. I had intended to add another line to that quote ("Only in the LORD are just deeds and power"), and then say finish on something like "Jesus, we trust in you," but when I looked down at the lectionary, I couldn't find it. It wasn't in my head, it wasn't on the page; so I simply stopped right there.

One of the parishioners told me after Mass he thought I was going to say something else when I ended my homily. We shared a chuckle when I explained how I lost my place on the page.

St. John of the Cross, prayer for us!

Foundations of the New Evangelization

This past Saturday, the first group of US bishops completing their ad limina visit were received by Pope Benedict. His address to them is simple and compelling. These two paragraphs impart some of that sense of urgency and focus (i.e., deep hope that responds to real needs) which the Church's ministry ought to exemplify:

Many of you have shared with me your concern about the grave challenges to a consistent Christian witness presented by an increasingly secularized society. I consider it significant, however, that there is also an increased sense of concern on the part of many men and women, whatever their religious or political views, for the future of our democratic societies. They see a troubling breakdown in the intellectual, cultural and moral foundations of social life, and a growing sense of dislocation and insecurity, especially among the young, in the face of wide-ranging societal changes. Despite attempts to still the Church’s voice in the public square, many people of good will continue to look to her for wisdom, insight and sound guidance in meeting this far-reaching crisis. The present moment can thus be seen, in positive terms, as a summons to exercise the prophetic dimension of your episcopal ministry by speaking out, humbly yet insistently, in defense of moral truth, and offering a word of hope, capable of opening hearts and minds to the truth that sets us free.

At the same time, the seriousness of the challenges which the Church in America, under your leadership, is called to confront in the near future cannot be underestimated. The obstacles to Christian faith and practice raised by a secularized culture also affect the lives of believers, leading at times to that “quiet attrition” from the Church which you raised with me during my Pastoral Visit. Immersed in this culture, believers are daily beset by the objections, the troubling questions and the cynicism of a society which seems to have lost its roots, by a world in which the love of God has grown cold in so many hearts. Evangelization thus appears not simply a task to be undertaken ad extra; we ourselves are the first to need re-evangelization. As with all spiritual crises, whether of individuals or communities, we know that the ultimate answer can only be born of a searching, critical and ongoing self-assessment and conversion in the light of Christ’s truth. Only through such interior renewal will we be able to discern and meet the spiritual needs of our age with the ageless truth of the Gospel.

But his concluding paragraph is even better:

In the end, however, the renewal of the Church’s witness to the Gospel in your country is essentially linked to the recovery of a shared vision and sense of mission by the entire Catholic community. I know that this is a concern close to your own heart, as reflected in your efforts to encourage communication, discussion and consistent witness at every level of the life of your local Churches... Young people have a right to hear clearly the Church’s teaching and, most importantly, to be inspired by the coherence and beauty of the Christian message, so that they in turn can instill in their peers a deep love of Christ and his Church.

Or, much more bluntly, dissent is idolatry. When we ignore or usurp or fudge the judgment of Tradition; when we take upon ourselves the role of the Magisterium which Christ entrusted to the Apostles, to be handed on to their successors, the bishops; when we substitute our own vision for His vision for us, we commit a grave injustice. Not only do we deprive others of the right to hear Christ's voice, to see His face, unimpeded, we also claim implicitly that our voice and face are His.

Pope Benedict ties this explicitly to both the prophetic role of the hierarchy, and to their priestly role: A weakened sense of the meaning and importance of Christian worship can only lead to a weakened sense of the specific and essential vocation of the laity to imbue the temporal order with the spirit of the Gospel. We have to be at least as obedient to Tradition in the liturgy as we do in the works of charity. That doesn't mean a blind return to the past, of course, but it does mean that the past still lives for us. The "unity of shared vision" Pope Benedict is talking about is not just where we're going, but also where we've been. We have to preserve and make our own the depth and richness of the liturgical vision which is "Traditional." That includes two things Pope Benedict has preached about for decades: continuity and organic development.

Pope Benedict encourages praying the Liturgy of the Hours

At the end of his Wednesday Audience this week, Pope Benedict XVI said,

"I would like to renew my call to everyone to pray the Psalms, to become accustomed to using the Liturgy of the Hours, Lauds, Vespers, and Compline. Our relationship with God can only be enriched by our journeying towards Him day after day."

It is part of our ministry as deacons, and even already as aspirants and candidates, not only to be firmly attached ourselves to praying the Office, and letting it form and enrich us, but also to encourage and teach others to do the same. Over at New Liturgical Movement, they put up a nice post about this Wednesday audience, and some simple tips on beginning:

First, while not underestimating what you can do, do not bite off more than you can chew either... Second, establish a routine around the praying of the Divine Office... The third suggestion I would give is for you to buy a liturgical wall calendar...

It's worth reading.

Year of Faith

The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, yesterday announced:

I would like to announce in this Eucharistic celebration I have decided to convene a ‘Year of Faith’, which I will explain in an apostolic letter. This ‘Year of Faith’ begins on October 11, 2012, on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of Vatican II, and ends on November 24, 2013, for the Solemnity of Christ, the King of the Universe. It will be a moment of grace and commitment to a more complete conversion to God, to strengthen our faith in Him and to proclaim Him with joy to the people of our time.

Here's the promised letter.