The Soil Is Turned

About CFOTAE 2012

Vatican II: 50 years on: The New Evangelization
With

With Michael W. Higgins and Jessi Taylor

A realistic vision of Catholic education today needs to be rooted in the work and teachings of the Council. The struggle for Catholic identity in a culture of dis-belief requires a tangible witness to faith in every aspect of school life: school ethos, organization, curriculum content, particularly in the sciences and social science, pedagogy, classroom management, our relation with parents and the significance of the parish.

What does it mean to be Church today? Why Catholic Schools? The basic ideas that we need to answer these questions are found in the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.

2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council. Theologians and bishops continue to recognize Vatican II as the most significant event in Catholic history in over 400 years. A younger generation of teachers, for whom the excitement and creativity of the council came before their time, this will be a chance to find out what made it such a significant chapter our Catholic story.

This year the Canadian Forum on Theology and Education will celebrate the marvelous achievements of Vatican II. For many participants, the theme Vatican II: The New Evangelization of this year’s conference will be an opportunity to acquaint themselves with a vision of the Church that emerged at the Council. For others the Conference will be a moment of recommitment to the prophetic values promoted in the Council’s documents.

Catholic Education Week begins as Forum closes. As an ecumenical council is the highest teaching authority in the Catholic Church Forum is a great lead in for teachers, administrators, chaplains, members of school councils, trustees, parish clergy and staff.

http://www.cfotae.ca/AboutCFOTAE.html

Paul, dissent and the party line

Author: Dr. Ian Elmer

Posted by: Editor on March 15, 2010 1:00:00 AM

There is an apparent assumption here that the "teachings of the magisterium" are static and unchanging, and that no form of dissent from those teachings will be tolerated.

As a model of Christian action Paul's willingness to go it alone against the "magisterium" of Peter, James and John at Jerusalem, to grant primacy to his "private revelation" over the public revelations of the "those who were apostles before [him]" (Gal 1:17; cf. 2:2, 6), stands in stark contrast to the claims of the hypothetical "faithful to the Magisterium Catholics" who would have us believe that it is all a simple matter of "towing the party line".

The term "dissent" in many quarters is considered a nasty word. In a recent Catholic Answers forum, I read a response to a question about the dissent shown by so-called Cafeteria Catholics. The respondent finished his answer to the question by stating that "Cafeteria Catholics in denial of certain truths are in danger of committing heresy" - to which he appended his signature with an anachronistic "With love in Christ".

Dissenters rarely get a lot of praise in church circles, and sometimes they get thrown out of the community. It is interesting to note that the term "dissent" did not appear in theological literature prior to the end of Vatican Council II (cf. Lumen Gentium 25). More recently, the Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian promulgated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1990, has stressed the importance of the principle of obsequium religiosum.

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FutureChurch

Mission and Vision

Our Mission: FutureChurch seeks changes that will provide all Roman Catholics the opportunity to participate fully in Church life and leadership

Our Vision: FutureChurch works for:

      * Just, open and collaborative structures for Catholic worship, organization and governance.

     * A return to the Church’s early tradition of both married and celibate priests.

     * A return to the Church’s earliest   tradition, modeled on the inclusive practice of Jesus, of recognizing both female and male leaders of faith communities.

     * Regular access to the Eucharist, the center of Catholic life and worship, for all Catholics.

Guiding Principle:   Future Church's activities grow from a spirituality based on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Eucharist, the Spirit-filled beliefs of the faithful, and the teachings of Vatican II.

http://futurechurch.org/about/

Of liturgy and life: Jesuit scholar reflects on his 46 years in Rome

Dec. 15, 2011

By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

Jesuit Fr. Robert F. Taft (CNS/Paul Haring)

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VATICAN CITY -- In a sitting room where lace doilies top every table, Jesuit Fr. Robert F. Taft's gray sweater and wooden cane add to the impression that he's a refined retired professor.

But then he shared what he believes is the line his former students quote most: "There are two things you do not do alone: liturgy and sex."

The world-renowned liturgical scholar was interviewed Dec. 13 as he prepared to return to the United States after more than 46 years in Rome.

Students and friends share his pithy quotes with relish and his graduate summer school students at the University of Notre Dame even published a collection of them several years ago.

"They're totally spontaneous. It's not like I sit in my room before class thinking, 'What wisecrack can I throw at them today?' It just happens," he said.

[...]

As for a popular notion that the so-called Tridentine Mass in the Latin rite approaches the Byzantine liturgy's sense of mystery better than the modern Mass in the vernacular does, Taft said, "Nonsense."

"The prayers are not for God. God happens to know the whole show already," he said. "The language is for us, and if you don't understand the language" -- whether in Latin or your native tongue -- "then you've got a problem."

"The notion that the language creates the mystery is the height of asininity," he said.

For Taft, after a lifetime of studying every word and detail of the liturgy, the mystery increases with knowledge and understanding.

He also said people are wrong to assume the Tridentine Mass is closer to "Catholic tradition."

"The Tridentine reform of the liturgy was just as much of a change, with respect to what preceded it, as the Vatican II restoration of the liturgy was," he said.

Taft is solidly on the side of the faithful who can't abide by priests inventing and innovating in the liturgy as it catches their fancy. But he doesn't blame that on the Second Vatican Council, which held its last session in 1965, the semester he arrived in Rome.

http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/liturgy-and-life-jesuit-scholar-reflects-his-46-years-rome