The Traditionalist Movement and the Works of the Flesh

As you can see on the upper right corner of my blog, I have posted an excerpt from the dogmatic constitution on the Church Lumen gentium, n. 14. Recently, at the Chrism Mass, a colleague and I were discussing the tendency of traditionalists ("Trads") and ultraconservatives to be intentionally uncharitable and purposely polarizing. We discussed specific examples. In one case, a cleric from the Archdiocese of New York wrote disparagingly of Archbishop +Annibale Bugnini, comparing him to "his namesake" Hannibal. Slander aginst Archbishop Bugnini has not abated and many Trads still accuse him of being a Freemason. One wonders whether the testimony of the conservative Silvio Cardinal Oddi to the contrary counts for anything.

Another paradigm example comes from the popular blog of an indefatigable (and apparently parishless) demagogue cleric who finds it necessary to preface any reference to the jounalist John Allen with "the nearly ubiquitous fair-minded correspondent for the dissenting [or "ultra lefty"] National Catholic Reporter." In a recent posting on an editorial by Fr John Langan in America, this blogger-cleric has shown himself incapable of dialogue, let alone decent conversation. Instead of responding with truth and charity, his ecclesiopolitical fascism spews out statements like "mournful bayings of desperation." In yet another article by Fr Richard Mc Brien, the blogger mocks the disturbed conscience of the person who is the subject of the author's reflection. In response to the comment that "people are grieving for their church," the blogger responds with "ROFL!" and suggests that the Trads' grief is more credible than those who do not identify with any clique. Curiously, the blogger-cleric adds that "People in the same camp as Pope Benedict are striving to heal that division" (emphasis original), thus perpetuating the "us-versus-them" mindset. I am not convinced that they are "striving to heal that division", especially since they find it necessary to peg each Catholic somewhere on the ecclesiopolitical spectrum, thus driving a wedge between different members of the one Church. Constantly labelling people as "lefty," "left-wing," "leftist," "liberal," and so forth only serves to create and perpetuate division, not heal it, because it calls attention to a label and not to the article of faith which is being dissented. What is most revealing is that when his opinions or ideas are called into question, or when he is treated with the same respect that he affords his ideological adversaries, I.P. number of the disagreeing party is identified and he is thus blocked from his website. So much for dialogue.

Do not misunderstand me. I am not a fan of the National Catholic Reporter, nor of Fr Richard McBrien. By conviction I adhere to the pro-life cause; I have even resolved to abstain from Holy Communion and to go to confession because I voted for President G. W. Bush during his second campaign, thus having "materially cooperated" in a war that is unjust. But I refuse to play the silly game of "Who's More Catholic" because it scarcely never avoids being reduced to creating polarization and rivalry.

St Paul the Apostle would have had a field day:

Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissentions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before, those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God (Gal 5:19-21).

In other words, creating and perpetuating the "us-versus-them" mindset, be it from the right against the left or vice versa, is gravely sinful, so sinful that St Paul teaches that they belong to the same group of sins as fornication, drunkenness, and licentiousness. In other words, traditionalism is a work of the flesh. Perhaps, then, we should call a spade a spade and say that the Trads are scarcely better than fornicators?

She then recited from memory the text from Lumen gentium, 14:

The bonds which bind men to the Church in a visible way are profession of faith, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical government and communion. He is not saved, however, who, though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a "bodily" manner and not "in his heart." All the Church's children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged.

What a relief it was to discover that others, too, have reached the same conclusion. The brilliant Mark Shea in his article "Those Angry Traditionalists" had this to say:

But that is often the impression I have gotten from many (though certainly not all) Traditionalists. Like it or not, discourse among a great many Traditionalists is filled with anger and contempt for Catholics who do not share their burning interest in traditional forms of piety.

So while I've never seen a Clown Mass, I have encountered lots of angry Trads who have compared the Paul VI rite to a Black Mass, made clear that "Novus Ordo types" are second class Catholics, spent a great deal of time obsessing over Jews, sneered at John Paul II and Benedict "Novus Ordo Popes" who have compromised the Tradition, threatened people in my parish physically, smeared good priests with nasty rumor campaigns and generally made their claims to be the Guardians of True Catholicism so repellent that I wouldn't touch the Faith with a barge pole if they were the True Apostles of it they claim to be. And that experience is not just mine.

What is especially disturbing is that the Eucharist, that very Sacrament of Unity, is made to be the point of division. Since the unity of the Church is the res tantum of the Most Blessed Sacrament, I wonder whether taking the Mass as one's battleground and dividing the Church into the "TLM" and the "Novus Ordo" types is actually more blansphemous than showing desecrating the sacramentum et res.

As you know, I'm working on my postgraduate thesis; part of my research requires going through the canons of the Council of Trent. What is especially surprising--and refreshing--is how much respect the Council Fathers gave to Luther and to the other Protestant reformers. In fact, the Council tries to parse the personalities of the Protestant movement from their own views, lest the Council Fathers misinterpret their writings and thus villify their persons. If only the Trads would be so courteous.

If only the Trads could be...Christian. "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!" (Ps 133:1).

But, as in the past, I'm sure some Trad will call me a neo-Protestant for citing the Bible.

"The Grieving Church" by Revd Dr Richard McBrien

On 27 April last, the Revd Dr Richard McBrien published "The Grieving Church" in the online edition of the National Catholic Reporter. While I do not consider myself a fan of Fr McBrien, I do think he has something worthwhile to say here. Below is the text of the article, with my emphases and comments.

I received an e-mail recently from a lay pastoral associate, whose ministerial focus is on adult education and who possesses a graduate degree from a Catholic university. I have his permission to cite a portion of our exchange.

I have suppressed some of the details lest his pastor identify the source and seek to jeopardize the pastoral associate’s job. [This is most unfortunate, since the Code of Canon Law insists that the lay faithful have a right to make their opinions known to the Church's pastors; cf. canon 212.3.]

The e-mail came from a large suburban parish in which the pastor has apparently done everything that he can to remove most traces of the reforms initiated by the Second Vatican Council. [It should not be ignored that like the 'conservatives' or 'traditionalists' who intensely dislike the the Second Vatican Council, so too were the Arians who were the 'conservative' party at the First Council of Nicaea; cf. Leo Donald Davis, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1983), 33-76. It was an 'innovation' that the non-Biblical word homoousios would be used in the Church's progressing dogmatic vocabulary.]

The pastor has done away with all contemporary music at Mass, and has restored pre-conciliar devotions along with auricular confession. He even gives the impression that confession is the greatest of the sacraments.

Perhaps there is some misunderstanding here because the Council of Trent, back in the 16th century, made clear that the greatest of the seven sacraments is the Eucharist. [Correct-it's found in the Thirteenth Session, Chapter Two; but Fr McBrien's detractors do not concede that he has maintained Orthodoxy on this point.]

Under the pastor’s control, the parish has no youth ministry [The General Directory for Catechesis, nn. 181-185 mandates that special attention is to be given to the youth of the Church. This pastor should at least get a clue from the Holy Father's affinity for evangelizing and catechizing young people.], no parish council [If the diocesan bishop has mandated that each parish have a pastoral council, then this pastor is in violation of canon 536] nor any other consultative body [I wonder whether he has a finance council, which is mandated by canon 537]. According to my correspondent, “consultative is not in his vocabulary.” He also gave vocal support to the minority of U.S. Catholic bishops who proclaimed in effect that “Catholics could burn in hell” if they voted Democratic in the recent presidential election.

My correspondent reported that other members of the parish staff are hurting “terribly.” Indeed, they share the feelings of the woman who darted out of church recently during the homily – in tears. [This happens too often. Many of our younger priests seem to be ignorant of the fact that pastoral charity is the paramount priestly virtue--cf. Directory on the Life and Ministry of Priests, nn. 13, 20, 28, and especially 30. Despite the fact that the Directory is issued by the Church's supreme authority, I wonder how many seminarians study it.]

She informed the pastoral associate that she could no longer handle the situation, and that she had to leave the parish. She said that all that she ever hears from the pulpit is what sinners the parishioners are, and why it is so necessary for them to “go to Confession.” [The sacrament of Reconciliation has been called by the Church a "tribunal of mercy." But what often seems forgotten is that Jesus' gripe was always with the religious folk who passed themselves off as better than the prostitute, the publican, or the Roman soldier. I could easily fill this blog posting with citations, but if this basic fact of the gospel narratives is questioned, then it is likely that our ultraconservative or traditionalist is Biblically illiterate. In fact, I've been called a "neo-Protestant" for citing the Bible to one such traditionalist.]

That particular Sunday, with the old-fashioned church music, all the statues covered in purple as they were before Vatican II, and the usual severe words in the homily, the pressure was simply too much for her to bear. [Hello? The Paschal Homily of St John Chrysostom, anyone?]

The woman poured out her frustrations, saying that the pastor had taken the parish back to a church that she knows nothing about and in a manner that showed no understanding of others’ feelings.

At the end of his first e-mail, my correspondent asked, “Are we expected just to get used to it?”
In my reply, I wrote: “No, you are not simply to ‘get used to it’. Parishioners need to go elsewhere, like the woman who left Mass in tears.” [I fiercely disagree. The parishioner should approach her bishop or better the vicar for clergy. The lay faithful have a right to make their needs known to their pastors; cf. canon 212.3; if the pastor in question is in fact violation of the norms of liturgical law, she can appeal to canon 214.]

I continued: “If there are no parishes or other worshipping communities in the vicinity where the pastoral leadership is healthy rather than driven by a narrow ideology, then one simply has to ‘take a vacation’ from the church until the skies finally clear and we are bathed in sunlight once again.” [Some commentators, refusing to give Fr McBrien the benefit of the doubt, assumed he meant skipping Mass and the sacraments. I think what he has in mind is a vacation from the Church as one's employer. I've done that before, and returned with even more gusto. Sound advice, Fr McBrien.]

In response, the pastoral associate noted that “the number of our parish families who are already on vacation from the church is amazing. It hurts to see it.” [This woman "hurts to see it"--a sure sign of her pastoral solicitude. If only her pastor had the same kind of pastoral solicitude!]

“It’s new territory, dealing with people grieving for their church,” he wrote. [Absolutely. All it took was a mis-reading of the Holy Father's motu proprio summorum pontificum and a hasty reading of his theology.]

The lead article in America magazine’s 100th anniversary issue (4/13/09) is by a Dominican who is justly admired the world over. It is Timothy Radcliffe’s “The Shape of the Church to Come.” [Master Timothy is a remarkable Christian, a superb pastor, and a beautiful human being. I had the honour of meeting him at the 2001 General Chapter at Providence College. No-one who works for the Church can afford to ignore him.]

What follows here is a continued commentary on the problem of the “grieving church” and not meant as a criticism of Timothy Radcliffe’s fine article in which he deplores the polarization that is “deeply wounding and inhibits the flourishing of the church.” [Stay tuned for my next posting, "Traditionalism and the Works of the Flesh." Suffice it to say that the active polarization of certain segments in the Church is lumped by St Paul into the same category as "fornication", "drunkenness", and "impurity"; see Gal 5:18-21.]

However, he does identify this polarization as consisting of self-defined “traditionalist” Catholics in open conflict with self-defined “progressive” Catholics.

My experience with the worldwide Catholic church is surely much more limited than Timothy Radcliffe’s, and I would defer to his experience if indeed he has come across a significant number of Catholics who actually identify themselves as “progressive.” On the other hand, I know of countless numbers of Catholics who proudly call themselves “traditional” or “orthodox.”

The pastor in the true story above surely would regard himself as “orthodox,” but the woman who left the church in tears would never have defined herself as a “progressive” Catholic. That adjective would mean nothing to her. [Indeed. These polarizations become more acute as one moves westward in the United States.]

She and other Catholics like her grieve simply for the loss of their church, a church renewed and reformed by Vatican II.

It is not polarization but the pastor of the story and many like him who are responsible for the grieving church. [No--I think Master Timothy is right. Stay tuned for my next blog posting!]

Vacuous Blather v. Text Criticism

N.B.: This post will be continuously updated in order to provide references and sources to my counterclaims of the vlog in question.

1. The vlog begins with an editorial on Carl's resistance to the Bible, "especially the King James Version" and shifts to a discussion of "St Jerome." This move we would call a non sequitur, as the second point does not follow logically from the first one. Or even historically for that matter; the "King James Version", more properly called the Authorized Version, was commissioned by King James I of England and remins essentially an Anglican-use version, despite its misuse by Fundamentalists.

Car'ls version of the history of St Jerome contains several blunders.

In the first place, the task given to St Jerome was purely one of translation. St Jerome was commissioned by Pope Damasus I (d. 384) to undertake a new translation of the Bible, as there had already been one in circulation termed the Old Latin or Italic version. Moreover, Carl fails to take into account that there were already Bibles in circulation, especially the edition ordered by Emperor Constantine I (a.k.a. "Constantine the Great"); in fact, the Codex Sinaiticus is thought to be one such example of these Constantinian Bibles (see T. C. Skeat, "The Codex Vaticanus and Constantine," in Journal of Theological Studies 50 [1999] 583–625).

If Carl had the remotest knowldege of the Bible's textual history, which he clearly does not, he would have made good use of P.R. Ackroyd and C. F. Evans, ed., The Cambridge History of the Bible, 3 vols. (Oxford, UK: Oxfored University Press, 1970), especially volume 1, From the Beginnings to Jerome.

Second, Carl mentions that St Jerome edited out certain narratives of the Bible, citing for instance the lack of Mary's parentage in the narrative (he does not indicate which narrative). He also asked for the names of Mary's parents, and concludes that St Jerome must have deleted them. Again, he is incorrect; according to ancient testimony, they are named Joachim and Anne (or Anna); their names are still retained by the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Coptic Church of Alexandria, Church of England, and several other eastern churches; in point of fact, St Joachim and Anna are liturgically commemorated on 26 July in the Roman Calendar and on 9 September in the Byzantine Calendar. Thus Carl's assertion that we do not know the names of Mary's parents is neglects the evidence of (i) liturgical praxis, (ii) post-biblical writings, and (iii) the testimony of the Fathers. Most importantly, Carl neglects (or is ignorant of) the testimony that comes from the Protoevangelium of James.

2. The vlog mentioned "archives of the Catholic Church." This is a statement of ambiguity . What "archives of the Catholic Church" does he refer to? The Vatican Secret Archives? The Apostolic Library? A scriptorium in a Roman monastery? His vaguely general statement betrays a profound ignorance of the history of Late Antiquity.

3. Carl asserts that Protestants recovered the "suppressed stories" and reinstated them. However, a simple comparison a Catholic Bible with a Protestant Bible will demonstrate the exact opposite. What Carl states here is not mentioned in any reputable work of Protestant theologians or historians. For instance, Prof Dr Alister McGrath, for instance, professor of theology at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford, wrote In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How it Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture (New York, NY: Random House, 2001), makes no mention of this. Not even the fiercely Protestant but scholarly sound website www.Bible.org makes any such claim.

4. Carl also mentions that there is no historical record of the geography mentioned in the Book of Job. He is correct, but this is hardly new information. Whether or not the narrative of Job "actually happened" misses the point entirely, as the narrative serves as a parable, not an history. Carl obviously is unable to distinguish fact and truth--they are not necessarily coterminous. To take a famous example, the story of young George Washington chopping down a cherry tree and later confessing to his father has no basis in fact; yet, for all the historical fiction that it is, the story nonetheless holds an important truth about the virtue of honesty. Even if it were proven beyond all reasonable doubt that young Washington never chopped a wodden tree and--for the sake of the argument--never even existe, the "myth" still has merit, precisely because it relays values, not statistics. Ovid's Metamorphoses are pure fiction, but because they are "myth," they contain truths (consider Narcissus' entrapment in the pool of water, to take an obvious example).

5. In yet another non sequitur, Carl argues for the Bible's inaccuracy on the basis of Bush's failed economic policy. Does this mean if Bush's economic policy led to the greatest prosperity in the history of the United States, the Bible would become true? We have here a miserable instance of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy.

6 "God is not a politician" is another non sequitur. But here, Carl argues for the "wall of separation" (Thomas Jefferson) because God is not a politician. On what basis is he able to determine what God is or isn't? I'm not sure who should be insulted--God, civil servants, or political science majors.

Be that as it may, the American doctrine of the separation of Church and state is wholly irrelevant to the discussion on the Bible's historical veracity.

7. "People need to respect other religions." Absolutely! In fact, the Catholic Church has institutionalized respect for other religions; the Second Vatican Council issued Nostra aetate (II Session) and Unitatis redintegratio (III Session). Not only that, the bureaucracy of the Vatican, the Roman Curia, has specific dicasteries devoted to dialogue with other religions with the aim of creating mutual respect and understanding. There is the Pontifical Council for Promoting Inter-Religious Dialogue, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, as well as several distinct international committes devoted to interreligious dialogue. In point of fact, the Catholic Church has personnel devoted precisely to the cause of religious liberty, the most notable being His Eminence +Walter Cardinal Kasper.

Respect for religions must go beyond saying or signing "Respect for religions!" It must be actualized by honesty and integrity, which Carl fails to show in his inability to verify the premises in the Newsweek article he refers to repeatedly throughout his vlog.

Now, an editorial of my own.

Carl, who claims to be a professor, displays a shocking degree of academic dishonesty: Carl fails to cite his sources; he fails to verify secondhand or thirdhand information; he fails to remain within his field of expertise, instead pontificating on matters of theology, text-criticism, Late Antique history, and logic.

Since my training is in theology and Biblical hermeneutics, I will make a two specific corrections to Carl's many phantastic assertions.

First, he discipline of researching, identifying, and cataloguing fragments of the Bible is called text-criticism. Carl's nonsensical talk about "editing out" narratives, suppressing fragments of the Biblical text, and translations lands him in the court of text critics such as Prof Dr Daniel B. Wallace, Prof Dr Bart Ehrman, Prof Dr J. Harold Greenlee, and the late Prof Dr Bruce Metzger. Each of these experts have written volumously on the question of the Bible's textual history. I refer the interested reader (read: academically honest people) to their books, listed in the bibliography below.

Second [to be continued]

Bibliography

ALAND, KURT, AND BARBARA ALAND. The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism, rev. ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989.

BROWN, RAYMOND, and RAYMOND F. COLLINS. "Canonicity." In RAYMOND BROWN, et al., The New Jerome Bible Commentary. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990.

BROWN, RAYMOND, and D. W. JOHNSON. "Text and Versions." In RAYMOND BROWN, et al., The New Jerome Bible Commentary. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990.

GREENLEE, J. HAROLD. Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism, rev. ed. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995.

HAYES, JOHN H. and CAROL R. HOLLADAY. "Textual Criticism: The Quest for the Original Wording." In Biblical Exegesis: A Beginner's Handbook. Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1987.

METZGER, BRUCE, and BART EHRMAN. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 4th ed. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Hae dies quam fecit Dominus: exsultemus et laetemur in ea, alleluia.

Last year at Providence Centre, where I serve St Mark's Catholic Community of the Deaf, I was assisting my ministerial colleague in decorating the sisters' refectory in the late afternoon of Holy Saturday. Impulsively--perhaps even impetuously--I wrote on the community chalkboard,

Χριστός Ανέστη! Αληθώς Ανέστη!

In Greek, it reads "Christ [is] risen! Truly [He is] risen!"

By the next morning, the chalkboard was sprawling with the same Paschal Greeting in different languages:

Христос Воскрес! Воістину Воскрес! (Ukranian)

Chrystus Zmartwychwstał! Zaprawdę Zmartwychwstał! (Polish)

Le Christ est ressuscité! Vraiment Il est ressuscité! (French)

Christus ist auferstanden! Er ist wahrhaftig auferstanden! (German)

Cristo ha resucitado! Verdaderamente, ha resucitado! (Spanish)

Si Cristo ay nabuhay! Siya nga ay nabuhay! (Tagalog)

Easter--or Pascha--is one of the few liturgical commemorations in which the Catholicity of the Church truly emerges, embracing all peoples and languages. It is the very reason we are Christians.

Slowly but surely, a "political" brand of the Catholic faith has been emerging, one that reduces it to an -ism, "Catholicism"--that is marked by faith not in the Paschal Mystery but in the conviction of sociopolitical conservatism. More and more, it appears that the central conviction of Catholicism in North America is hardly the resurrection of Christ, but rather a kind of theonomy that poses as the religious counterpart to the "New Atheism." Christianity is thus reduced to a battle-front of the culture wars. Instead of proclaiming the Gospel, it seeks to legislate causistry.

It is no secret that I am a member of the G.O.P. By persuasion I am a strict constructionist; I espouse limited government and share many conservative views. But, with Dr Martin Luther King, I am convinced that the cause of human rights cannot be won at the Supreme Court, but in the hearts of people--not at the forum of the judicial branch of government, but in the forum of conscience. Dr King believed that it was necessary for ordinary Americans to be convinced in their hearts that the Black person is also a human being, equally endowed with inalienable rights inasmuch as the Caucasian is. Only after such a grassroots "conversion" could the Supreme Court, with any real conviction, legislate that the Black person is in fact as much an American as the next white person.

For those, like myself, who are engaged in the pro-life movement, we must ask: How much is our sociopolitical agenda rooted in the Paschal Mystery, if at all? Is the "pro-life" label worn as a badge of our Catholicism instead of the belief that the resurrection of Christ reveals the inherent dignity and worth of every human being? It seems to me that, more often than not, political Catholicism places more weight on the anti-abortion agenda that it does in the article of faith that proclaims "Christ is risen."

To push the question further, we might also ask: how can caustic language, cruel words, and cutting remarks against capital punishment, abortion, homosexual marriage, and the Democratic party reveal the Mystery of the Resurrection of Christ? My answer is that it does not.

I would suggest that any action or discourse that serves to obscure the Paschal Mystery is in fact a "counter-evangelism"--we are convincing people not to become Christians because we have set ourselves up as shoddy exemplars. If we will receive an accounting for "every idle word" (Mt 12:36-37), how much more severe will our judgment be when our words, even unintentionally, actually disinvites people to share in the life of Christ! Really, who wants to be a Christian like Anne Coulter?

As the Holy Father reminded us in his Urbi et orbi address to the world this Easter morning, "Resurrectio Domini, spes nostra"--"the Resurrection of the Lord is our hope." Not, I would add, is the agenda of the Republican Party.

Being a Catholic means, first and foremost, believing in the Risen Christ, and from this act of faith is derived the belief in the dignity of all human life (and not the two, side by side, as in a non sequitur). If Christ was willing to undergo the torture of crucifixion and to rise as the Giver of Life equally for President Obama and President Bush, the least we can do is to respect their persons as recipients of Christ's self-immolation.

For us to venture whether they have accepted the offer or not is to paint ourselves as the anti-Pantakrator, because there can only be one "who will judge the living and the dead" (Creed of Nicaea-Constantinople).

Renewal Prayer for the Deaf Catholic Church

The Revd Fr Michael Depcik OSFS has composed a beautiful prayer for the renewal of the Deaf Catholic Church. As he respectfully indicated at the recent National Catholic Office for the Deaf's annual Pastoral Week, the Deaf Catholic community is "in crisis" for lack of new, qualified pastoral workers and sacred ministers.

Readers are cordially invited to click here and follow the prayer he composed. Please take time out of your schedule every Friday to pray this "Renewal Prayer for the Deaf Catholic Church."

As the Director of the Mark Seven Bible Institute, I have decided that this prayer will be signed in common every morning and that the intentions of this prayer will be remembered at each celebration of the Eucharist.

Happy praying!

The Prayer of Blessed +John XXIII, P.P.

Almighty God! In Thee we place all our confidence, not trusting in our own strength. Look down benignly upon these pastors of Thy Church. May the light of Thy supernal grace aid us in taking decisions and in making laws. Graciously hear the prayers which we pour forth to Thee in unanimity of faith, of voice, and of mind.

O Mary, Help of Christians, Help of Bishops, of whose love we have recently had particular proof in thy temple of Loreto, where we venerated the mystery of the Incarnation dispose all things for a happy and propitious outcome and, with thy spouse, St. Joseph, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, intercede for us to God.

To Jesus Christ, our most amiable Redeemer, immortal King of peoples and of times, be love, power, and glory forever and ever.

Blessed +John XXIII, "Gaudet Mater Ecclesia,"

Opening Speech at the Second Vatican Council,

11 October 1962

The Sacred Liturgy and Mystagogy in the Catholic Deaf Community

One of the greatest gifts of the Holy Spirit to the Church in our times is the restoration of the catechumenate (Sacrosanctum concilium, 64). Through three distinct steps and three distinct periods, the seeker comes to know Christ, to submit their lives to him, and ultimately to be incorporated into His Mystical Body (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, 4-8).

The culmination of the liturgical year, of course, is the Paschal Vigil. At the Exsultet, the cantor reminds us of the role played by water in the economy of salvation:

This is the night when first You saved our [ancestors]:
You freed the people of Israel from their slavery
and led them dry-shod through the sea.
...
This is the night when Christians everywhere,
washed clean from sin
and freed from all defilement
are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.
...
The power of this holy night
dispels all evil, washes guilt away... (Paschal Vigil, Missale Romanum, 18).

During the Liturgy of the Word, the Church proclaims the gift of water and its relation to the mystery of baptism (Gen 1:1-2:2; Ps 104; Exodus 14:15-15:1; Isaiah 55:1-11; Ezekiel 36:16-17a, 18-28; Rom 6:3-11, to name but a few).

Imagine, if you will, the candidates for baptism being attentive to the words of the Exsultet and the proclamation of the Scriptures; when the celebration reaches the Liturgy of Baptism, the presider recites an astonishingly beautiful prayer of consecration over the waters, one that again summarises the role of water in the economy of salvation (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, 222). And, after the mighty reminders of water as bearers of sanctifying grace, the candidate submits to a baptism of a few drops of water on the forehead! Instead of being the culmination of the symbol of water throughout the Paschal Vigil, the rite of baptism is reduced to an anticlimatic moment. As Fr Dennis Smolarski SJ, professor at Santa Clara Univeristy's School of Pastoral Ministry explains,

It is often overlooked that the rubrics show a preference for baptism by immersion. The General Introduction of Christian Initiation states that immersion "is more suitable as a symbol of participation in the death and resurrection of Christ." Baptism by immersion has been in use for centuries by Eastern Catholics, by Orthodox Christians, as well as by various Protestant denominations. When someone enters the waters of teh font and becomes completely covered with water, the truth that baptism is an entry into the tomb with Christ as well as a bath for cleansing is conveyed quite dramatically to all present (Dennis Smolarski, Sacred Mysteries [New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1995], 39).

Yet most of us are content to do the least amount of work in the celebration of the sacraments. In the long run, our mystagogical catechesis becomes impoverished; tactile expressions of the faith, which finds a unique home in Deaf culture, is suppressed, and yet another opportunity to catechize the Deaf is tragically lost.

Liturgical minimalism has been the historic disease infecting the Roman Rite. The post-Tridentine Scholastics, in discovering necessary and sufficient conditions for each sacrament, unwittingly became accomplices in the reduction of the sacramental symbols to their absolutely minimal requirements. For baptism, at least water on the forehead and the canonical form became the standard. For Eucharist, at least a piece of unleavened bread and wine mixed with water and consumption of both species by the presider alone became the standard for Holy Communion. As a result, liturgy and catechesis gradually became estranged from each other; during the Tridentine period, handing on the faith was reduced to the propositional model of Revelation, with little if any "hindsight" of the sacraments and their catechetical weight. I am convinced that because the Eastern Church has resisted the tendency towards minimalism, they have been able to easily retain sacramental catechesis. (Cf. Maxwell Johnson, The Rites of Christian Initiation: Their Evolution and Interpretation [Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2007], 189f.)

It would be helpful to recall a significant shift in St Thomas Aquinas' sacramental theology. Whereas earlier in his Sentences, Peter Lombard thought that the necessity of sacramental symbolism was due to the obscurity of human reason by sin and concupiscence, St Thomas argued that the symbolism carried an intentional pedagogical value. His famous sacramental dictum, "The sacraments effect what they signify" should remind us that the value of the sacramental signification should not be reduced to merely the effects. In other words, indeed there is the sanctifying grace communicated through the sacraments, but there is also the grace that enlightens our understanding of the Mystery of Christ highlighted by the sacramental celebration itself. As the supreme magisterium teaches:

The purpose of the sacraments is to sanctify men, to build up the body of Christ, and, finally, to give worship to God; because they are signs they also instruct. They not only presuppose faith, but by words and objects they also nourish, strengthen, and express it; that is why they are called "sacraments of faith" (Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum concilium, 59).

But can we admit of an instructional value when the sacramental signs are minimzed and reduced to their absolute minimum? Of course not.

When I began ministry with the Deaf, a senior colleague, herself a religious sister, gave me the feedback more than once, and always with a derisive tone: "Words, words, words," as though what I said was completely missed by a Deaf audience whose culture was more narrative than literary. Though I was too young to appreciate it at the time, I now understand that she was perhaps more right than she realised!

Recall, for example, St Mark the Evangelist's penchant for details: Jesus "stretched out his hand and touched" the untouchable leper (1:41); his use of spittle and soil, then "groaning" before healing the deaf man (7:34); taking the blind man "by the hand" out of the village (8:23); taking "a little child and put it among [the disciples]; and taking it in his arms" (9:36). Each of these teachings by Jesus was prefaced by a symbol that was palpable and self-explanatory. These moments must have been so profound so as to remain vivid in the memory of St Peter, who according to tradition was the source of Mark's narrative.

Jesus' example of using symbols and gestures is the paradigm of sacramental celebration.

It is precisely for this reason that, in the celebration of the sacraments, the sacred ministers and pastoral workers who serve the Deaf be allowed to make gratuitious use of the symbols in the celebration of the sacred liturgy. It is difficult to understand Christ as the Living Bread when, contrary to the Church's laws, the Sacred Body is served under the appearance of paper-thin sheets of carbohydrates (cf. General Instruction on the Roman Missal, 321). The outpouring of the Holy Spirit is better symbolized by the pouring of the Sacred Chrism rather than tracing a dab of oil on the forehead. Most importantly, catechesis on being "buried with Christ" makes far more sense in the context of one's experience of baptism by submersion rather than infusion (cf. Rom 6:3-6). The gratuitious use of symbols--being tactile expressions of the faith--addresses Christ within the peculiarly Deaf milieu of visual communication.

The neophytes are, as the term "mystagogy" suggests, introduced into a fuller and more effective understanding of mysteries through the Gospel message they have learned and above all through their experience of the sacraments they have received. For they have truly been renewed in mind, tasted more deeply the sweetness of God's word, received the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, and grown to know the goodness o the Lord. Out of this experience, which belongs to Christians and increases as it is lived, they derive a new perception of the faith, of the Church, and of the world (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, 245).

Dr Edward Peters notes that "[a]s a rule of thumb, 90% of Catholics receive 90% of their exposure to things Catholic at Mass on Sunday." When one factors in the small number of Deaf Catholics, most of whom attend Mass only during Christmas and Easter, the urgency of going "all out" with liturgical maximalism becomes even more imperative. It is surprising how the most frequent symbols at Mass become drowned in a sea of words and movements--numerous times Deaf Catholics have asked me about "that white round thing I ate"! How can we expect to catechize members of the Catholic Deaf community if their experience of the sacraments have been minimal?

Indeed, celebrating liturgies with symbols that are allowed to speak for themselves requires work. But given Dr Peter's rule of thumb (above), we cannot afford to do any less. I know for a fact that Holy Angels Church of the Deaf in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles holds weekly meetings with its entire pastoral staff in order to plan the next Sunday's liturgies--they often run up to three hours or "As long as it takes" as the pastor, Fr Thomas Schweitzer once told me. It is not sufficient to ride on the momentum of the pre-established Ordinary and Propers of Mass--any pastoral team needs to plan and implement the inculturation of the liturgy in the Deaf community. How many Catholic Deaf parishes can rival Holy Angels Church's liturgical and sacramental diligence, if at all?

Ecclesial life is essentially liturgical. Our Catholic identity does not rely upon memorization of the twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit or the eight Beatitudes; rather, our Catholic identity is rooted in the sacramental and liturgical life of the Church. Our awareness of Catholic doctrine, then, arises from a double anamnesis: the anamnesis of the Paschal Mystery and the anamnesis of our own celebration of the sacraments. Can we honestly say that our experience of the Sacraments of Initiation or of other liturgical celebrations are truly palpable enough to become the stuff of catechesis? If not, then how will we proclaim the faith to the Deaf without using "words, words, words"?

Not "words," but beauty that breaks through sacramental symbols. Dostoyevsky was right when he said that "beauty will save the world," and beauty will indeed save Catholic Deaf ministry. Our liturgies should inspire Deaf people the same way that it inspired the envoys of Prince Vladimir when they entered the Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom in Constantinople: "We did not know whether we were in heaven or on earth, but we know that God dwells here among his people, for we cannot forget that beauty." Yet how many of us can describe our Deaf liturgies as beautiful?

What might be some specific suggestions? I can think of five to start with:

1. The Paschal Vigil should really be the culmination of the liturgical year (General Norms for the Liturgical Year, 18). Thus diligent planning should prepare for the celebration of the Sacraments of Initiation: baptism by submersion, generous pouring of the Sacred Chrism for Confirmation, and liturgically correct Eucharistic Bread that resembles food. Not only that, but other symbols should be palpable enough to be self-explanatory: a vigorous Paschal fire, a beautiful, perhaps home-made, Paschal Candle that remains lit until the conclusion of Great Paschal Vespers (General Norms for the Liturgical Year 19).
2. As "windows into heaven" and "theology in colour", icons corresponding to the mystery in Christ's life being celebrated should be displayed and venerated, especially during the Lenten/Paschal cycle. In particular, PowerPoint slides of various icons corresponding to each article in the Creed would help the participant in worship to identify the story or narrative being proclaimed.
3. A "running commentary" on the sacramental celebration should be avoided, except by way of reminding the congregation to be "on the lookout" for certain symbols and gestures. Then each gesture and symbol ought to be made with the greatest deliberation and articulation so as to be easily identified in one's memory when the catechist (or mystagogue) recalls them in a session of teaching the faith.
4. Liturgical environment, especially that of cathedrals, provides a rich source of mystagogy. The symbols associated with the episcopal office such as the cathedra and the presbyterium serves to proclaim priests as "co-workers with the bishop" (Presbyterorum ordinis, 2); the mitre, crozier, ring, pallium (if the bishop is a metropolitan), and pectoral cross, expresses the meaning of "local Church" and its relation to the "universal" Church (Ceremonial of Bishops, 1-17).
5. It is indeed an impoverished mystagogy of the Scriptures when they are proclaimed from a sheet of paper as is often the case in Deaf parishes. St Benedict's Parish for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing in San Francisco, to cite one example, uses a beautiful leather binder with a Celtic cross on the cover for inserting loose-leaf lectionary readings. The liturgical law is specific when it discusses the dignity of the book from which the Scriptures are proclaimed: "In a special way, care must be taken that the liturgical books, particularly the Book of the Gospels and the Lectionary, which are intended for the proclamation of the word of God and hence enjoy special veneration, really serve in a liturgical action as signs and symbols of heavenly realities and hence are truly worthy, dignified, and beautiful" (General Instruction on the Roman Missal, 349).

Again, this requires work, much work indeed. But we are not pastoral workers in order to retain the title "Pastoral Worker." We are pastoral workers in order to ensure the full inclusion of Deaf Catholics in the sacramental and liturgical life of the Church. Moreover, our pastoral work presupposes and requires the work of liturgical planning because liturgy is not the "work of the rubrics" upon whose momentum we can ride, but "work of the people" as Christ's "other Self" worshipping the Father. It is precisely as liturgizing that we "do Church", and it is only as Church that we are Catholics.

RECOMMENDED READING

Bedard, Walter M. The Symbolism of the Baptismal Font in Early Christian Thought. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1951.

Irwin, Kevin W. A Guide to the Eucharist and Hours: Easter. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1991.

Kavanagh, Aidan. The Shape of Baptism: The Rite of Christian Initiation. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1991.

Paprocki, Joe, and D. Todd Williamson. Bringing Catechesis and Liturgy Together. Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 2002.

Richter, Klemens. The Meaning of Sacramental Symbols: Answers to Today's Questions. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1990.

Smolarski, Dennis C. Sacred Mysteries: Sacramental Principles and Liturgical Practice. New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1995.

Wilde, James A., ed. Before and After Baptism: The Work of Teachers and Catechists. Chicago, IL: Liturgy Training Publications, 1988.

Yarnold, Edward. The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation: The Origins of the R.C.I.A. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Pres, 1994.