Sunday, April 27, 2014

Bringing the Liturgy Back to the Real Vatican II

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Cardinal Burke Comments on Sacra Liturgia Conference


Rome, July 25, 2013 (Zenit.org) Edward Pentin | 34554 hits


The abuses of the sacred liturgy that followed the reforms of the Second Vatican Council are “strictly correlated” with a great deal of moral corruption that exists in the world today, says Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke.



In an exclusive interview with ZENIT on the sidelines of Sacra Liturgia 2013, a major international conference on the liturgy held in Rome at the end of June, the Vatican’s most senior American says poor liturgies have also led to “a levity in catechesis” that has been “shocking” and left generations of Catholics ill prepared to deal with today’s challenges.

In a wide-ranging discussion, Cardinal Burke, who serves as Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, also explains the importance of liturgical law, Pope Francis’ approach to the liturgy, and why the sacred liturgy is vital to the New Evangelization.

ZENIT: Your Eminence, what were your hopes for this conference?

Cardinal Burke: My hope for the conference was a return to the teaching of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council on the sacred liturgy. Indeed, [I was hoping for] a deepening and appreciation of the continuity of the teaching practised with regard to the sacred liturgy throughout the Church’s history, and which is also reflected in the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council – something that was obscured after the Council. I believe in large part that has been achieved.

ZENIT: Are we coming out of that period now?

Cardinal Burke: Yes, already Pope Paul VI after the Council in a very intense way, and then John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, laboured diligently to restore the true nature of the sacred liturgy as the gift of worship given to us by God and which we owe to God in the very way He teaches us how to worship. So it’s not man’s invention, it’s God’s gift to us.

ZENIT: How important is a sound understanding of the liturgy in today’s Church. How can it help evangelization?

Cardinal Burke: To me, it’s fundamental. It’s the most important area of catechesis: to understand the worship accorded to God. The first three commandments of the Ten Commandments are to do with this right relationship to God, especially with regards to worship. It’s only when we understand our relationship with God in offering worship that we also understand the right order of all the other relationships we have. As Pope Benedict XVI said in his wonderful magisterium on the sacred liturgy, and which he expressed so often, [it consists of] this connection between worship and right conduct, worship and law, worship and discipline.

ZENIT: Some argue the liturgy is mostly about aesthetics, and not as important as, say, good works done in faith. What is your view of this argument that one often hears?

Cardinal Burke: It’s a common misconception. First of all, the liturgy is about Christ. It’s Christ alive in his Church, the glorious Christ coming into our midst and acting on our behalf through sacramental signs to give us the gift of eternal life to save us. It is the source of any truly charitable works we do, any good works we do. So the person whose heart is filled with charity wants to do good works will, like Mother Teresa, give his first intention to the worship of God so that when he goes to offer charity to a poor person or someone in need, it would be at the level of God Himself, and not some human level.

ZENIT: Some also say that to be concerned with liturgical law is being unduly legalistic, that it’s a stifling of the spirit. How should one respond to that? Why should we be concerned about liturgical law?

Cardinal Burke: Liturgical law disciplines us so that we have the freedom to worship God, otherwise we’re captured – we’re the victims or slaves either of our own individual ideas, relative ideas of this or that, or of the community or whatever else. But the liturgical law safeguards the objectivity of sacred worship and opens up that space within us, that freedom to offer worship to God as He desires, so we can be sure we’re not worshipping ourselves or, at the same time, as Aquinas says, some kind of falsification of divine worship.

ZENIT: It offers a kind of template?

Cardinal Burke: Exactly, it’s what discipline does in every aspect of our lives. Unless we’re disciplined, then we’re not free.

ZENIT: As a diocesan bishop in the United States, how did you find the state of the liturgy in the parishes you’ve been in charge of? What, in your view, are the priorities for liturgical renewal in diocesan life today?

Cardinal Burke: I found, of course, many wonderful aspects - in both dioceses in which I’ve served - a strong sense of participation on the part of the faithful. What I also found were some of the shadows as Pope John Paul II called them, a loss of Eucharistic faith, a loss of Eucharistic devotion and certain liturgical abuses. And as a diocesan bishop I needed to address them and I tried as best I could. But in addressing them you always try to help both the priest and the faithful to understand the deep reasons for the Church’s discipline, the reasons why a certain abuse is not only unhelpful for sacred worship but is in fact blocking it or corrupting it.

ZENIT: It’s said love for the sacred liturgy and being pro-life go together, that those who worship correctly are more likely to want to bring children into the world. Could you explain why this is so?

Cardinal Burke: It’s in the sacred liturgy above all, and particularly in the Holy Eucharist, that we look upon the love which God has for every human life without exception, without boundary, beginning from the very first moment of conception, because Christ poured out his life as he said for all men. And remember he teaches us that whatever we do for the least of our brethren, we do directly for Him. In other words, he identifies himself in the Eucharistic sacrifice with every human life. So on the one hand, the Eucharist inspires a great reverence for human life, respect and care for human life, and at the same time it inspires a joy among those who are married to procreate, to cooperate with God in bringing new human life into this world.

ZENIT: Sacra Liturgia has been about liturgical celebration but also formation. What basis of liturgical formation do we need in our parishes, dioceses and particularly in our seminaries?

Cardinal Burke: The first important lesson that has to be taught is that the sacred liturgy is an expression of God’s right to receive from us the worship that is due to Him, and that flows from who we are. We are God’s creatures and so divine worship, in a very particular way, expresses at the same time the infinite majesty of God and also our dignity as the only earthly creature that can offer him worship, in other words that we can lift up our hearts and minds to him in praise and worship. So that would be the first lesson. Then to study carefully how the liturgical rites have developed down the centuries and not to see the history of the Church as somehow a corruption of those liturgical rites. In the true sense, the Church over time has come to an ever deeper understanding of the sacred liturgy and has expressed that in several ways, whether it be through sacred vestments, sacred vessels, through sacred architecture – even the care for sacred linens which are used in the Holy Mass. All of these are expressions of the liturgical reality and so those things have to be carefully studied, and of course then to study the relationship of liturgy with the other aspects of our lives.

ZENIT: You’re known for celebrating the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. Why did Pope Benedict make this freely available and what role does it have to play in the Church of the 21st century?

Cardinal Burke: What Pope Benedict XVI saw and experienced, also through those who came to him, who were very attached what we now call the Extraordinary Form - the Traditional Mass - was that in the reforms as they were introduced after the Council, a fundamental misunderstanding took place. Namely, this was that the reforms were undertaken with the idea there had been a rupture, that the way in which the Mass had been celebrated up until the time of the Council was somehow radically defective and there had to be what was really violent change, a reduction of the liturgical rites and even the language used, in every respect. So in order to restore the continuity, the Holy Father gave wide possibility for the celebration of the sacred rites as they were celebrated up until 1962, and then expressed the hope that through these two forms of the same rite – it’s all the same Roman rite, it can’t be different, it’s the same Mass, same Sacrament of Penance and so forth –there would be a mutual enrichment. And that continuity would be more perfectly expressed in what some have called the “reform of the reform”.

ZENIT: Pope Francis is a different person to Benedict XVI in many ways, but it’s hard to believe there are substantial differences between them on the importance of the sacred liturgy. Are there any differences?

Cardinal Burke: I don’t see it at all. The Holy Father clearly hasn’t had the opportunity to teach in a kind of authoritative way about the sacred liturgy, but in the things he has said about the sacred liturgy I see a perfect continuity with Pope Benedict XVI. I see in the Holy Father, too, a great concern for respecting the magisterium of Pope Benedict XVI and his discipline, and that is what Pope Francis is doing.

ZENIT: This conference is reflecting on the 50 years since the opening of the Second Vatican Council, and 50 years ago this December its constitution on the sacred liturgy was promulgated. You’ve already mentioned how liturgical renewal was not as the Council desired, but how do you see things progressing in the future? What do you envision, especially among young people?

Cardinal Burke: Young people are going back now and studying both the texts of the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council with its serious texts on liturgical theology which remain valid also today. They’re studying the rites as they were celebrated, striving to understand the meaning and various elements of the rite and there’s a great enthusiasm for that and a great interest in it. All of it, I believe, is directed to a more intense experience of God’s presence with us through the sacred liturgy. That transcendent element was most sadly lost when the reform after the Council was, so to speak, side-tracked and manipulated for other purposes – that sense of transcendence of Christ’s action through the sacraments.

ZENIT: Does this mirror the loss of the sacred in society as a whole?

Cardinal Burke: It does indeed. There’s no question in my mind that the abuses in the sacred liturgy, reduction of the sacred liturgy to some kind of human activity, is strictly correlated with a lot of moral corruption and with a levity in catechesis that has been shocking and has left generations of Catholics ill prepared to deal with the challenges of our time by addressing the Catholic faith to those challenges. You can see it in the whole gamut of Church life.

ZENIT: Pope Benedict said once that the crises we see in society today can be linked to problems of the liturgy.

Cardinal Burke: Yes he was convinced of that and I would say, so am I. It was, of course, more important that he was convinced of it, but I believe that he was absolutely correct.

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Is Richard Dawkins leading people to Jesus?

Winning souls for Christ!
My schoolfriend Michael – an atheist for decades – rang me the other night and told me he'd returned to the Catholic Church. "And you'll never guess who converted me," he said.
"Your wife?"
"No! It was Richard Dawkins!"
He explained that he was, and is, a huge admirer of Dawkins the biologist. (I'm with him there: I read The Blind Watchmaker when it first came out and was blown away.) "But then I read The God Delusion and it was… total crap. So bad that I started questioning my own atheism. Then he started tweeting."
Like a loony on top of the bus, no?
"Exactly!"
Funnily enough, this is the second time in a week that I've heard of Richard Dawkins leading someone to Christ. Let me refer you to an article in The Catholic Herald by Francis Phillips:
Judith Babarsky, an academic … having only a “surface level” understanding of Christianity as she admits, was recommended Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion to read. She writes that when she began, she thought she would read “a logical, sceptical, nay scientific critique of religion.” Instead, she was surprised to find “strings of pejorative adjectives pretending to be argument, bald assertion pretending to be evidence, an incredibly arrogant attitude and a stance of moral equivalence incapable of distinguishing between the possible strengths and weaknesses of different religions…”
Indeed, Babarsky found Dawkins’ arguments so unsatisfactory, coupled with his own atheistic and fundamentalist stance, that they prompted her to examine for the first time what Christianity was all about. Her examination was to lead to her conversion to Catholicism. “In reading to refute Dawkins as well as educate myself … I discovered the God-man Jesus Christ. Not only did the Catholic view resonate with me emotionally but … it was intellectually honest.”
Here is a link to Babarsky's original article, with its uncompromising title:
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I might conclude that Prof Dawkins secretly converted to Christianity decades ago, and then asked himself: "How can I best win souls? By straightforward argument, or by turning myself from a respected academic into a comic figure fulminating against religion like a fruitcake at Speakers' Corner, thereby discrediting atheism?"
Hmm. Let me throw this one open to the floor.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Betrayed By Their Brother Priests

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Sister Jane Dominic Laurel and Charlotte Catholic High School have received a great deal of attention in recent weeks. Much has been written about Sister Jane’s talk (“Masculinity and Femininity: Difference and Gift”) which was given at an all-school assembly on March 21. The subsequent parents-only meeting resulted in over 900 attending, the vast majority there to express anger at the school.
From all accounts the nearly two and a half hour meeting consisted of parents loudly, and very often rudely, attacking the school’s chaplain, Father Matthew Kauth. Parent after parent stepped up to the microphone for their allotted three minutes. Parent after parent said they were outraged by the topic, the venue, the lack of notification in advance and correlative data presented by Sr. Jane regarding children’s environment and same sex attraction.
The verbal assault on Fr. Kauth during the meeting was described by some as “ugly” and “completely disrespectful” treatment of a priest. Some who attended said they left the meeting feeling “shell-shocked”, while others compared the atmosphere with that of the angry mob on Good Friday who called for the crucifixion of Our Lord.
The handful of parents who attempted to defend Fr. Kauth and to recognize the schools responsibility to teach the truth of human sexuality were interrupted or shouted down. In other words, the usual intolerance from the tolerance crowd.
As someone who lives in Charlotte, has friends whose children attend the school and who has been to many masses offered by Fr. Kauth over the years, this sad affair hits close to home for me. However, there is another aspect to this story that demands attention, one which sets the stage for this type of conflict to manifest.
Oases of Heterodoxy
Situations like Charlotte Catholic have been created in large measure by the poor catechesis and heterodoxy that permeates so many Catholic parishes today. In diocese after diocese (and sadly mine is not exempt), stridently disobedient laity can easily find a parish which will accommodate their cafeteria Catholicism.
What’s most troubling, however, is that everyone knows the breakdown. Often incorporating the language of contemporary political analysis, people speak of the “conservative” parishes and the “liberal” parishes.
While these terms are often used to describe how the liturgy is offered, they can also reference the overall orthodoxy of the parish. The identifiably more “liberal” communities attract many dissenting Catholics when orthodoxy is re-introduced at their parish. These same dissenters know they will avoid hearing about the challenging and unpopular truths of the faith by running off to these oases of heterodoxy. That there are priests who openly accept this recognition as a badge of honor is scandalous. It is also a betrayal of those priests who do not seek the easy way for themselves, but instead embrace the cross in defense of the truth.
We have seen for decades this widespread refusal on the part of many priests to tackle the tough subjects, such as contraception, abortion and same-sex attraction. No doubt many remain silent because of their own dissenting views. The tacit approval of contraception in private often manifests as a deafening silence from the ambo. It is that very silence that also betrays their brother priests.
The conflict many priests face when they become pastors or chaplains is made all the worse because of those priests who preceded them and who failed to protect the souls entrusted to them by God. “The road to Hell is paved with the bones of priests and monks,” as St. John Chrysostom tells us, “and the skulls of bishops are the lamp posts that light the path.”
As someone whose vocation is marriage and who has been blessed with children, I am reminded of the responsibility of fatherhood. Anyone who is a father knows that often he must teach his children the tough lesson, whether they want to hear it or not. This is no different for our priests, our spiritual fathers. And yet, so many have refused to teach the tough lesson; setting the stage for what happened at Charlotte Catholic High School, and other schools and parishes across the country.
True Mercy and the Salvation of Souls
The studies and opinion polls confirm what we already know from experience: a majority of self-professing Catholics reject the Church’s teachings on matters such as contraception and same-sex “marriage”. Many priests refuse to preach the Gospel of Life because they view avoidance as the more merciful or pastoral approach. Pope John Paul II called this a “false mercy, which is not concerned with the truth and therefore cannot serve charity, which has as its only goal the salvation of souls.”
For orthodox priests, such as Fr. Matthew Kauth, the salvation of souls is his only goal. As a high school chaplain, it is the freedom and beauty of the truth that Father seeks to share with his kids. As he told the parents during his opening statement at that explosive meeting:
“When I came here, I experienced to an increasing degree the suffering that comes to our children and the blackness they feel inside. They are taught by nearly every form of media that Christ’s teachings in His Church are restrictive bars, medieval torture chambers to keep them from happiness. When they have “broken free” I get to see their agony. I desire with a father’s heart to protect them from harm and the false notions of freedom to be able to live in the true freedom which chastity brings-free to love as we were made to love.”
These courageous priests do not shy away from the hard teachings or the unfashionable truths. Instead of selecting the wide road, these holy men choose the narrow gate. May their brother priests embrace the cross that is theirs through ordination and begin teaching these difficult but beautiful truths of our Catholic faith.
(Picture: The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio -1602).

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Brampton Churches Burning



SATURDAY, 5 APRIL 2014

St Elias the Prophet Church destroyed - Three Brampton Churches burned

A raging inferno earlier today completely destroyed St. Elias the Prophet Church in Brampton, Ontario this morning, northwest of Toronto. Police say that arson is not suspected.

Really?
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In October 2012, Archangel Michael and St. Tekla  Coptic Orthodox Church suffered over $100,000.00 damage when a molotov cocktail was thrown through a window.



 In May of 2012, St. Jerome's Catholic Church was hit by a pipe bomb.


Firefighters were called to St. Jerome's Parish, a Roman Catholic church on Chinguacousy Road, just north of Steeles Avenue, at about 5 a.m. after a fire hit the building. Police now suspect that the fire may have been caused by a pipe bomb.

Three churches in one city?

Coincidence?