KenAND NOW...LIBCATS
As weird as this might sound, blithering religious idiocy is actually not exclusive to the Episcopal Church these days. The Rev. Robert VerEecke, S.J., director of the Boston Liturgical Dance Ensemble[Chris, I'm beggin' ya]describes one of his recent, uh...projects:
I just did a dance piece called "Melodrama." I dance it with another dancer, who's Jesus, and I'm a priest. And the first part is my commentary on going to the Gibson "Passion" and looking away most of the time, and trying to figure out why. Then I segue into other images of Jesus we need to see, for example a comic Jesus. Jesus and I go into a duet to "Make 'Em Laugh" from "Singin' in the Rain," doing all this kind of Three Stooges movement, slipping on banana peels, walking into walls. I bring this up because someone who is Catholic and who heard about the piece was very upset, even hearing that I would do something that could possibly be offensive to Catholic sensibilities, whatever that means.
A Jesuit. Heads the Boston Liturgical Dance Ensemble. Does comic pratfalls with "Jesus" as part of the liturgy. 'Kay. The rest of this article is what a bunch of IwasraisedCatholicbut's sound like after they've knocked back some really good Amontillado for a couple of hours, in case you're in need of an emetic any time soon.
Thanks to the MCJ Michigan bureau chief.
Submitted by Tom
at 6/7/2004 6:12:10 PM| There is loads that goes on in the Church of Rome that the Latin Rite does not allow. As one who has occasion to frequent Roman masses in and around St. Louis the sloppiness and liturgical innovation I witness is truly painful. So far it has been enough to keep me on the Canterbury side of the Tiber. At least the Episcopal priests in my parish take the "proper position" (facing God) when celebrating the Eucharist and the choir is outstanding, singing a Latin setting from time to time!
And don't forget, we have the St. Louis branch of the Jesuits to thank for much of what passes for "hynmnody" in the American Catholic Church. |
Submitted by Duane
at 6/7/2004 9:33:35 PM| oy, the Society of Jesus once again causes Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier to roll over in their graves. I belong to a Catholic parish that its own outrages, such as "The Rose" by Bette Midler being sung as an offeratory anthem, so there is enough idiocy on both sides of the Tiber. |
Submitted by Sonetka
at 6/7/2004 10:18:26 PM| Ah, the Jebbies strike again! (I'm Catholic, but well aware that where there's something truly weird going on, the Jesuits have good odds of being involved. A shame, they started off so well...)
I think we must go to the dullest church on the planet. Last Sunday we had a sermon about the nature of the Trinity - imagine! Can't think how they thought they'd hold our attention with all that theological stuff :). |
Submitted by Sonetka
at 6/7/2004 10:19:34 PM| NB I meant "something weird" in the sense of interpretive liturgical dance, not in the sense of "The Jesuits destroyed the World Trade Center." (Yes, there are people out there who believe that - a quick Google search will turn up the undersides of some very scary rocks. |
Submitted by Ken
at 6/7/2004 10:48:10 PM| Well, our Pentecost offertory was the Hallelujah Chorus followed by "Come Holy Ghost, Creator Blest". Yesterday (Trinity Sunday) the choir did a simple two part Benedictus Es, followed by a version of St. Patrick's Breastplate sung congregationally. I'd never heard this translation: "I clasp unto my heart today". Jarring at first, but really nice in toto. We opened with "Holy Holy Holy, Lord God Almighty" and closed with the Catholic National Anthem (aka "Holy God We Praise They Name") as practice for next week, when we will conclude the Corpus Christi Mass with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, singing, naturally, the traditional Latin O Salutaris Hostia and Tantum Ergo, and then, the aforementioned Holy God. But then, we do those every Wednesday night in the Holy Hour. No biggy.
Doth it seem I gloat a bit? :-) |
Submitted by Gayle
at 6/8/2004 8:51:52 AM| I'm with Tom on this one. Just another tarnished example of why I am loathe to swim the Tiber as a solution to the current problems within the Anglican Communion. My experience with American RC is that "they're nuttier than we are". Some of the worst of the bunch are the religious and their on-going love affair with Matthew Fox and the concept of "original blessing" vs "original sin". Plus there's all of the syncretism within spirituality and spiritual direction..a little from neo-paganism earth worship, plus some native American ritual to be capped off with just a mild dose of Buddhism.
This out of the same fertile minds that believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, mother of our Lord. I'm sorry but the notion that Joseph held her in too much awe to be able to touch her as a man, well, that dog just don't hunt. Especially after I have come to know and love some very wonderful and earthy orthodox Jews. |
Submitted by Ed the Roman
at 6/8/2004 9:04:40 AM| If a man really, really, believed that the Spirit of the Lord had come upon his wife, and the power of the Most High had overshadowed her, and that the three year old running out of the house with his new plane was the Lord of Hosts, who had fashioned the heavens as if a tent and the earth as if a stool, he might think twice.
And don't forget, "Joseph was an old[emph added] man, An old man was he, He married Virgin Mary, The Queen of Galilee." |
Submitted by Therese Z
at 6/8/2004 9:07:07 AM| It's not anywhere nears as bad as that, son. We have our abuses, but I'd have to look long and hard in my diocese to find any of this silliness. Music quality varies wildly, along with homiletics, but overall, we're an okay bunch, reverence-wise. My parish has great music, medium homilies overall, and we're building up more traditional practices, like a Corpus Christi procession next Sunday, outside, around the block (right past the Bible Church, whoopee, let's use lots of incense) and Adoration for the next four hours ending in a sung Benediction. Much enthusiasm from young people and families for the event.
There's an awful lot of us, in comparison to the Piskies, so our nuttier relatives are larger in number, not proportion. But the truth of the Eucharist wins out over the lunatic fringe, to my way of thinking. I keep saying this: we NEED you, who are interested in coming across the Tiber, to request and rejoice in beautiful language and liturgy. |
Submitted by Ken
at 6/8/2004 11:08:01 AM| It should be clear by now that swimming the Tiber as a solution to anything is not the thing you want to do. The only reason for becoming Catholic is that you come to believe the Catholic Church is that Church founded by Jesus through the apostles. If you believe she is one church among many options (which would, I think, describe much protestant ecclesiology), there are, I promise you, much better options.
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Submitted by William Tighe
at 6/8/2004 11:14:54 AM| The Perpetual Virginity of the Theotokos was defined, albeit passingly, by the Council of Ephesus (431 AD; the Third Ecumenical Council) when it referred to her as the aeiparthenos (ever-virgin) Theotokos (Mother of God), explicitly by the (local) Council of Rome in 649 AD which repudiated the Monothelite heresy, and more directly by the Council of Constantinople III in 680 AD (the Sixth Ecumenical Council). If you are "comfortable" with setting your own opinions and experiences of "wonderful and earthy Orthodox Jews" against the minds of the Fathers of the Church assembled in Ecumenical Council, then tyou should never, ever, contemplate becoming Catholic (or Orthodox) |
Submitted by Ed the Roman
at 6/8/2004 1:49:07 PM| Well said, William, but perhaps let us change the last sentence to read 'As long as you are "comfortable"....then you should not yet contemplate...' |
Submitted by Perry
at 6/8/2004 2:05:50 PM| "I just did a dance piece called "Melodrama." I dance it with another dancer, who's Jesus, and I'm a priest. And the first part is my commentary on going to the Gibson "Passion" and looking away most of the time, and trying to figure out why. Then I segue into other images of Jesus we need to see, for example a comic Jesus. Jesus and I go into a duet to "Make 'Em Laugh" from "Singin' in the Rain," doing all this kind of Three Stooges movement, slipping on banana peels, walking into walls."
Man. Stuff like that, you can't make it up. |
Submitted by MJD_NV
at 6/8/2004 2:44:43 PM| William T, I love hearing from you, but now I'm more confused than ever. Points of clarification?
1) What is the Monothelite heresy? 2) What exactly did the Council of Constantinople III in 680 AD say that applies to this? 3) Does the Eastern Church believe in the Perpetual Virginity of the Theotokos?!? I thought that that was one of the issues in 1054? Thanks as always for your insight! Back to the original blog...you know, a secular study came out recently that discussed the low percentage of people who actually have a Christian worldview who are sitting in the pews week after week. RC was at 2% - the lowest of the bunch. (Mainline Protestantism had about 6% - but that's 'cause ECUSA was lumped in the the S Baptists.) Granted, 2% of 85 mil is still a lot, and the most in America, but studies like those and stories like these confirm my suspicion that most of the Roman Church (at least in the West) does not believe the Catholic Faith. Fortunately, for them, unlike ECUSA, a much higher percentage of their clergy still believe. |
Submitted by Duane
at 6/8/2004 3:20:58 PM| There are two very different camps in the Catholic Church. There are those who are culurally Catholic, who were baptized, confirmed, and might go to Mass at Christmas and Easter occasionally. Then there are those who attend Mass regularly, and the beliefs of the two are very different. A similarity can be found in the Jewish world, as there are folks who are culturally Jewish and those who are observant. |
Submitted by craig
at 6/8/2004 4:08:57 PM| Stuff found on the net for MJD_NV:
(Ain't Google great?) 1. A definition of Monothelitism found in the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1918: "The denial of more than one will in Christ by the heretics necessarily involved the incompleteness of His human nature. They confounded the will as faculty with the decision of the faculty. They argued that two wills must mean contrary wills, which shows that they could not conceive of two distinct faculties having the same object. Further, they saw rightly that the Divine will is the ultimate governing principle, to hegemonikon, but a free human will acting under its leadership seemed to them to be otiose. Yet this omission prevents our Lord's actions from being free, from being human actions, from being meritorious, indeed makes His human nature nothing but an irrational, irresponsible instrument of the Divinity — a machine, of which the Divinity is the motive power." 2. From Constantinople III, regarding Mary: "our lord Jesus Christ our true God ... begotten ... for us and for our salvation from the holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, who is properly and truly called mother of God, as regards his humanity..." 3. From Constantinople II, regarding Mary: "Having thus detailed all that has been done by us, we again confess that we receive the four holy Synods, that is, the Nicene, the Constantinopolitan, the first of Ephesus, and that of Chalcedon, and we have taught, and do teach all that they defined respecting the one faith. And we account those who do not receive these things aliens from the Catholic Church. ... In addition to these we also anathematize the impious Epistle which Ibas is said to have written to Maris, the Persian, which denies that God the Word was incarnate of the holy Mother of God, and ever Virgin Mary, and accuses Cyril of holy memory, who taught the truth, as an heretic, and of the same sentiments with Apollinaris, and blames the first Synod of Ephesus as deposing Nestorius without examination and inquiry, and calls the Twelve Chapters of the holy Cyril impious, and contrary to the right faith, and defends Theodorus and Nestorius, and their impious dogmas and writings." |
Submitted by William Tighe
at 6/8/2004 4:49:02 PM| Ed the Roman,
I stand corrected. MJD_NV, I wrote a long response to your three questions a coule of hours ago, but when I clicked on "Submit" it all just disappeared. More briefly (perhaps), 1.) The Monothelite heresy was promulgated by the Emperor Heraclius in his *Ekthesis* of 638, as way to unite the orthodox adherents of the Council of Chalcedon (which in 451 had defined that Christ is one (divine) person with two natures (the divine and the human) with those who rejected Chalcedon (in Egypt, Syrian and Armenia especially): these were called "Monophysites" (One-Nature-ites) as supposedly believing that Jesus Christ is one Divine Person with one Divine Nature (only), although this is an oversimplification, since all the "monophysites" rejected it as I have just formulated it: rather, they had grave philosophico-theological difficulties with the way that the Chalcedonians understood "nature." Monothelitism was embraced by the Patriarchates of Constantiniople, Alexandria and Antioch, while that of Jerusalem opposed it strongly (and as Jerusalem had fallen to the Muslim Arabs in 638 its Patraarch was beyond the Emperor's reach: when Antioch [641] and Alexandria [643] fell to the Arabs as well is patriarchs fled to Constantinople, where they continued to uphold monothelitism (while the "monophysite" patriarchs remained behind and came to gain the allegiance of most Christians in those two cities). Rome dithered about the problem, and this earned the chief ditherer, Pope Honorius I, condemnation as a heretic for not defending the orthodox faith at Constantinople III in 680. "Monothelitism" held that Christ is one divine person, in two natures (the divine and the human) but with one divine will; "mono-thelit-ism" means "one-will-ism"). Rome later turned against the idea, and the Council of Rome in 649, a local council of Italian bishops presided over by the pope, repudiated monothelitism as a heresy (and incidentally asserted clearly that the perpetual virginity of the Mother of God was a Catholic dogma). In the East, monothelitism met with increasing opposition: the leading opponent was St. Maximos the Confessor (ca. 580-668), one of the ghreatest Eastern theologians, who wa simprisoned, tortured and mutilated for his opposition. Eventually, the Third Council of Constantinople met in 680 and condemned the heresy. It survived only among the Maronite Christians of Mount Lebanon, and they abandoned it when they entered into union with Rome in 1122. 2.) I do not have the acts of Constantinople III to hand, but as I recall they refer repeatedly to the "ever-virgin" (aeiparthenos) mother of God (Theotokos). 3.) The Perpetual Virginity of the Mother of God was not an issue dividing the Latins and the Greeks, either in 1954 or today. Both Catholics and Orthodox hold it to be a part of the orthodox Christian faith, the Orthodox as part of the dogmatic substance of the authoritative Holy Tradition, Catholics as also taught by the papal and episcopal magisterium throughout the ages. The "non-Chalcedonian" Eastern Churches believe in it as well. So did Luther, Zwingli and Calvin (see John de Satge, *Mary and the Gospel of Christ,* London, 1978: SPCK, for the Reformer's views on these Marian matters; de Satge was an evangelical Anglican clergyman who was about to become a Catholic when he died of a heart attack in 1981.) To disbelieve in the Perpetual Virginity is as clear an example of setting one's own "private judgenment" above the consent of the Church in all ages as I can think of (although I would suppose support for the "ordination" of women must run a close second!), and, as such, is as good an illustration of the differences between Orthodox and Catholic, on the one hand, ideas of the nature of the relationship between Scripture and Tradition, and those of Protestantism, both liberal and conservative (with the exception of Catholic Anglicans and Confessional and so-called "Evangelical Catholic" Lutherans). |
Submitted by Ken
at 6/8/2004 5:13:48 PM| Duane -
It might be fair to include a third group of Catholics, such as (I assume) Father VerEecke, who are very active in the Church, but whose beliefs and/or practice are not orthodox (small "o"). It's these fruitcakes who get a lot of media attention, but are actually a small number of souls. An article I read recently puts their number at 30,000 hard-core, but I would bet there are 10 times that many who hold similar beliefs but keep their mouths shut. Another article claimed that of the 65 million "Catholics" in the U.S., there may be 10 million committed believers. Boy, this thread sure has gotten serious, given the totally looney nature of the article Chris linked. But, hey, it's the Boston Globe... |
Submitted by chuck
at 6/8/2004 7:35:17 PM| MJD_NV,
On point 3 is it possible you're confusing the perpetual virginity of Mary with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary? The former is agreed upon by the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, while the latter is a major point of disagreement - the East emphatically rejects while Rome teaches it as infallible dogma. As far as I can recall this is the only serious point of disagreement between the two churches concerning Mary. |
Submitted by MJD_NV
at 6/8/2004 10:50:33 PM| Thank-you, WIlliam T & craig, for your insights & information. My head is spinning, but I feel much more well versed in the issue. :-) chuck, you may be right - I may be misremembering my Marion doctrines! Thanks for the clarification.
Duane & Ken, pleae know that what I said was present company excepted - er, or better expressed, present company in that statistical 2%! Duane, I know exactly what you mean - there are cultural mainline Protestants, too, and the difference between them and actual believers is just as blatant. |
Submitted by Dale Price
at 6/9/2004 7:33:51 AM| Michigan Bureau Chief reporting in! :)
Thanks for the notice, Chris--Also, I'll have the address in the email today. Virus, work backlog, NBA finals--take your favorite excuse pick. MJD_NV: The 2% figure comes from a Barna survey asking about a "biblical worldview"--not "Christian"--and had a slight evangelical tilt in the questioning, if memory serves. It would be understandable for the Catholic figures to skew lower. However, while I tend to put the number of orthodox practicing Catholics on the low side--ten to fifteen million (the latter when I'm Pollyannaish)--it isn't that low. While the VerEeckes are low in number, but they are high profile and influential because of their positions in religious orders, Catholic (INO) universities, and USCCB/diocesan bureaucracies. We are long overdue for a purge, but God in His providence is helping through natural processes--it's rare when you see one of these moonbats on the good side of forty. And Lord knows these apostates are incapable of passing on any kind of faith to anyone else. |
Submitted by Ed the Roman
at 6/9/2004 9:28:52 AM| William T, you rock. I only add that the Orthodox (and Luther) also believe the Assumption (that Mary after death was assumed bodily into heaven) and Luther directed that a bas-relief of it be placed on his tomb (it's there today). |
Submitted by Larry
at 6/9/2004 10:23:38 AM| An article in Catholic Dossier Magazine helps explain the bizarre behavior one finds in some areas of the Catholic Church. The author, Cynthia Toolin, offers 4 categories of “Catholics” that identify in various degrees with that adjective. I summarize below:
1. A descriptive label – a category that expresses a person’s characteristics with minimal or no effect on external behavior. A man for whom the status “Catholic” is a descriptive label might attend Mass only on Christmas and Easter and for weddings and funerals. When asked about religious membership, he might say he is Catholic, but add a negative qualifier such as “I don’t agree with most Church teaching, especially on sexual issues.” A relationship with Christ is probably seen as irrelevant, if it is thought of at all, and the status has almost no effect on his external behavior. 2. A social declaration -- a category that expresses an external behavior that a person wants others to see. Here the person might attend Mass relatively often and might volunteer the information to others that he is Catholic. Such a person wants to be identified by others as such. The reasons can vary widely – to receive social status as a God-fearing man, to please a spouse or potential spouse, or to gain acceptance into a community. His goal is not to have a relationship with Christ, but to be perceived as having one. Thus, his external behavior may be affected by the status, but it has no impact on his inner spiritual development. 3. A distinctive affirmation -- a category that expresses self-definition and has a strong effect on external behavior. In this case the person would probably rarely miss Mass, might be a church usher, and might belong to a Catholic organization like the Knights of Columbus. The status of “Catholic” is very important to him, and has a great impact on his external behavior. It is one of the most important self-identifiers he has. However, this high salience does not mean that he has a relationship with Christ, nor that he believes Church teaching, nor that he lives a moral life. High salience of the status “Catholic” is not the same as, nor does it necessarily lead to, holiness. 4. A definitive statement -- a category that expresses what permeates a person’s inner life and has a significant effect on external behavior. The highest salience of the status “Catholic” is found in a man who can be classified in this category. Being Catholic permeates his inner life. He is engaged in a relationship with Christ and is growing spiritually towards holiness. He loves Christ, and Christ’s spouse, the Church – he believes Church teaching on faith and morals, and daily grows in a live of virtue and in obedience to God. Estimates of 23% to 46% of Catholics fall into the last three categories. By observation, one might sadly conclude that the last category forms a very small minority of all Catholics. Although the article was specifically written about Catholic identity, in this secular culture one can insert any Christian denomination and make a similar comparison. This seems to be a phenomena of our age. |
And pray for Archbishop O'Malley... Boston... that says it all.