I'm going to be pretty busy for the next week or two, so I might not get a lot of good entries up for a while. The way that I like to write is pretty time-consuming. Fellow bloggers know how much time it takes to crank out a good post.

So in the meantime, let me recommend some good sites to you:

If you read WRC because you like personal writing from a Catholic perspective, then check out "Et Tu?" - The diary of a former atheist.
If you read WRC because you like commentary on the Catholic Mass, then I cannot speak highly enough about Good Father Zuhlsdorf's What Does The Prayer Really Say?
If you read WRC because you like Catholic news and comment, then spend some time with American Papist.

There are so many other good sites (I'm running out of time before I have to get to a meeting) and I love all the ones in the "regular reads" links to the right. Also check out the "Tagbacks" links below, which are sites I like but that get chewed up by my webserver and I'm not as familiar with them.

See you soon!

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that when I was away from the Church, I always figured that I'd start going again some time.

It brought me back to a conversation that I had with a roommate back in college. He was saying that he wanted to quit smoking one day, but didn't know which day it'd be. He said that he didn't figure he'd smoke when he had a family, that it wasn't a good thing for a father to do around his children. He said that he didn't want to be one of those old guys who have to pull their Oxygen tanks wherever they go, that he didn't want to have a wheezy laugh that ends in a sloppy wet cough. He said that he always knew that one day he'd be a former smoker, but he also knew that that was for some day in the future, not for that day back in 2002.

That same conversation was the first time that I admitted out loud that I figured I'd be a churchgoer again someday, but didn't know when. He looked away into some near distance and said that he didn't think he'd ever be a regular in a church again; that he didn't think he'd ever really be accepted at a church after the stuff that he'd done.

I didn't know exactly what he meant and didn't ask. I couldn't figure out if he wanted me to ask or not. It doesn't matter.

My roommate said that he grew up "Evangelical Methodist" (I didn't know that such a thing existed), but that it was his parents church back home. When he first got to college, he was big into the Christian scene, but then he found out about bourbon and it pretty much ended his time with his plastic-fish-on-the-trunk-of-the-car crowd.

This story also pops into my mind for a different reason.

I was reading Good Father Zuhlsdorf's blog, What Does The Prayer Really Say?, and saw at the end that his blog, he notes that it is:

Powered by: Luke 5:1-11 and WordPress

I have changed his Luke 5:1-11 link to the New American Bible translation. It's not the best translation available, but it's quite readable and does not detract from the point of this section of the bible. Go read it. It's short, I'll wait. Luke Chapter 5, Versus 1 through 11.






Have you read it? Seriously now, go back, click the link and read the first 11 verses.






Good job. Thank you.

Here we've got Jesus starting to assemble his apostles--essentially recruiting men to begin His Church. It's a crucial scene to the history of human history, one that would ultimately be part of THE STORY of Western Civilization for the next 2000 years (and counting). Jesus sees these three fishermen who were starting to clean up from a long day's work. Simon and his partners James and John have been at work all night. These were men who made their lives' income by doing work the hard way. Dragging huge fishnets out at sea, in the dark of night and the heat of the open sun; a Midwestern guy like myself might compare it to a construction worker today. You've got to be big and strong and work when you're hurt and tired. Simon was gruff and impetuous, headstrong and stubborn. He was basically illiterate and would be the kind of guy today to have a "School of Hard Knocks" bumper sticker on his pickup.

So when this Jesus guy--a person they hadn't met--shouts out to their boat to go back out and cast their nets on the other side of their boat, they had every reason to ignore Jesus. Jesus was not a fisherman, he was a carpenter--a lowly job for a poor and lowly man. What did he know about commercial fishing? Objectively, probably little. Simon barked back to Jesus that they're tired, they've caught nothing all night. They were professionals, they knew their trade.

But they did it anyway. Strange, isn't it? We don't know why Simon and his fishing partners did what Jesus said, but they did anyway. And of course, they caught so much fish that their nets were strained to the breaking point, their boats were so full that they barely stayed afloat under the weight of their catch.

That's an amazing story, and if it ended there, we've seen enough to understand that Jesus' first apostles where hand picked, that they followed His directions from the very start and that we've beheld the simple power of Jesus. Good tale.

But to me the most interesting point is what happened next, in verse 8. Simon got back to shore, fell in front of Jesus and said "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." Those are awesome words. We know that Simon instantly knew he was in the presence of an incredible man. Lord might not just mean "God". It might have also meant "Sir" or "Boss". Except that Simon notes he is not worthy of even hanging around Jesus--that his sins make him unfit to be with Him. That's not the kind of reaction you have to your boss. It's the kind of reaction you have to your God.

Jesus told him to get up, he looked at these three fishermen and told them to come with Him--that from thenceforth, they'd be fishers of men. They brought their boats to shore, left everything and followed Him.

I doubt these guys knew that they were rewriting their life's stories in that moment. That John would spend most of his later life imprisoned and alone, that he'd die in Ephesus after a life of torture and rebuke. That James would see Jesus tortured and crucified, that he himself would be have his head sliced off at the order of the king. That Simon would later be picked by Jesus to be "the rock", the petros, that his name would be changed to Peter and that he'd be the first bishop of Rome, the first pope, and that a life dedicated to Jesus would ultimately end up resulting in his own crucifixion, hung upside down on a cross, a painful and humiliating death.

They couldn't have known it at the time. They also couldn't have known that by walking away from those fishing boats, they'd carry the good news of Christ to all the land, that they'd feed his lambs and tend his sheep, that they'd offer peace and salvation to billions and billions of people in the still-continuing course of history. That thousands of years later, people would still name their children after these simple fishermen, that the gospel they preached to the Jews and Gentiles would be a part of the gospel in every continent on Earth and to every nation under the sun.

They couldn't have known. Indeed, Simon Peter denies himself to Jesus, saying that he wasn't fit to be in his company. He was a sinful man and it was better for all if Jesus just left Simon alone.

And I think about my roommate. Saying that he wasn't fit for church anymore. That people would know him and reject him. That it was just better for everyone if he just left church alone.

I'm not saying that this guy was going to re-write the next two thousand years of history or that he'd eventually be executed by crucifixion. I kind of doubt that, actually.

But I read those words again: "Do not be afraid".

Wise words.

When I walked back into church, I was very afraid. Afraid of getting funny looks from the "regulars" who'd wonder what I was doing in their pew, afraid of altering my Sunday mornings irrevocably--that I'd have to get up early every week without any exceptions. I was afraid that someone would talk to me, afraid that no one would talk to me, afraid of doing the wrong thing, afraid to not do anything. I was afraid of things I couldn't identify and fully conscience that none of my fears were justified at all. That part doesn't matter.

"Do not be afraid".

And when they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.

A friend of mine's wife (who is also a friend of mine) is currently in labor. It's their first child and taking a while. Keep them in your prayers, please.

Prayer For One In Childbirth Hail, O Queen of Heaven, Mother of Mercy, Consolation of life, and Joy of them that love you! To you do we cry for this poor sufferer. In your maternal goodness, take pity on her. Abandon her not in her pains, since she places a childlike confidence in you. Through your own blessed delivery and your Divine Son, stand by her and gladden her with a happy delivery, that she may gratefully praise your kindness! In all our troubles and necessities, we fly to you for help, O Blessed Virgin Mary. Amen.

Thanks for your help. Blessed Virgin Mary, Lady of Good Help, ora pro nobis!

CatholicsComeHome.org is a nonprofit organization who noticed that a lot of Church outreach efforts... are not really good. So they decided to do better.

Take a second and watch this clip. It's super.

Hat tip: Get To Mass.

NOT.

Yikes. Saint Vitus, patron of dancers, ora pro nobis!

Please!

Hat tip: American Papist, via Diogenes of Catholic World News

Danielle Bean, writing in Faith and Family Magazine:

"You know the problem with being an author?" Ambrose mused from the backseat of the car yesterday afternoon.

I absolutely do, I wanted to tell him. I know many of the problems with being an author. The pay, the hours, the never having the right idea when you need it but then having exactly the right idea immediately after you hit "send" or in the middle of the night or while you are driving down the highway at 70 miles per hour with nary a pen in sight.

But I thought a 9 year old might have a different perspective, and so I answered only, "What?"

I'm not exactly an author, but I can appreciate the talk. Go read the whole thing.

The Windsor Hills Baptist Church is the kind of Church that makes Senator Barack Obama pretty nervous.

The Windsor Hills Baptist holds a youth conference every summer that tries to get young people interested in church. According to the website, the youth conference has all the predictable bible teen camp things like preaching, skits, a big country cookout, volleyball, basketball, choirs, and a preacher kids' conference. There's also a drawing for an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle.

You know. All the typical stuff.

Unfortunately, the gun giveaway has been cancelled. It turns out the head pastor had an some kind of foot injury, so they're not giving away the gun this year. Luckily, someone's loaning the church a shotgun so they can still have the shooting competition.

The Windsor Hills Baptist Church Youth Conference website also contains the complete opinion document of the United States Supreme Court in the District of Columbia v. Heller decision about the right to bear arms. The site doesn't have any word on whether this will be specifically be discussed at the cookout or the preacher kids' conference, but I'd suggest that attendees should bring a highlighted and annotated copy of the Heller Opinion anyway. Organizers will then try to pry it from your hands.

All jokes aside, little events and stunts like this to get young people interested in church usually don't turn out well. For one, they're usually conceived by adults trying to be "hip" and attended by youth who either (a) see right through the adults' charade, or (b) are probably pretty uncool. I'm sorry if the second point above doesn't sound charitable. I don't mean it as an insult, just as informed reporting. I was in category (b) for a lot of my junior high and high school days, so I've been there.

What happened to me is why I'm disinclined to appreciate or encourage young people to get interested in the LifeTeen stuff that some Catholic churches offer. LifeTeen is a format of Mass and Youth Groups that try to incorporate bad Christian Rock and hip preaching to high schoolers who are supposed to be enjoying it. I'll get to that in a moment.

I went to one of these services a couple years ago by accident at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Lenexa, Kansas (yes, the same Holy Trinity that refused to let a Catholic organization use a side chapel for Mass). This is when I was trying to figure out how to be Catholic again and how to rejoin the Church after being away for years. Sunday morning had gotten away from me and I missed all the Masses being offered around town. I found that Holy Trinity had a 5:00 PM Mass on Sundays and set out for evening Mass.

Little did I know.

The lyrics to the Christian rock music were on the overhead projector being shown on the wall right night to our Lord crucified on the Cross. They had a band of about nine gentrifying gray haired old men playing acoustic guitars and swaying back and forth to their own rhythms. About 40% of the people there hadn't been "teens" for at least 40 years--in the spirit of charity, I'll presume they drove their kids to Mass. When Father Tom Dolezal delivered his sermon, he plopped down on the sanctuary steps and sprawled out on the floor and preached from this sprawl for the next 20 minutes or so. It's been a couple years ago, so I don't remember the homily or if it was good, but I do remembering that the whole Mass was a disjointed conglomeration of dippy music and hugging sessions that could best be described as pseudo-Catholic.

And if I were 13 years old and in junior high again, I bet I would have kind of liked it--or at least thought that I should like it. I had a pretty shallow understanding of my faith back then and was kind of scared to challenge myself. It's a long story that I haven't totally sorted out in my head, but I was developing a stunted personal theology that was about to get totally confused by my Catholic High School religion classes that mixed in strange admiration of Buddhism, Protestantism, Secular Humanism, Deism and "diet" Catholicism that didn't make any sense and wouldn't stand up to my own intellectual thinking. I'd eventually talk myself out of God altogether, but that'd be a few years after I was a smiling 13-year-old gluing felt banners for school Masses in the gymnasium.

You know how young children picture God as an old man with a white beard in a chair that sits on a floating cloud? Kids see this bearded God as some kind of genie who grants wishes, called "prayers", whenever they ask. When kids start to get older, they figure out that God is not some kind of magic-making wish-giver and struggle to replace that notion of God with something else. Enter: felt banners and Christian Rock. Some people never get out of this stage in life; I think some of them end up driving their children to LifeTeen Masses.

By the time I went to college, my Catholic thinking had ended up as Moral Relativism and then just outright quitting. I'd had enough. God seemed like a confusing delusion that was a trick for suckers and dupes, the only people that really figured God out were the atheists and the televangelists. Though I'd never say as much publicly, I didn't have much time for the Church as I knew her and wasn't interested in finding time.

In an unrelated path of my life, I'd eventually end up making a mess of myself and my life; it'd take that point for me to pick something else. You know the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? I decided to change what I was doing; the results I had been getting kind of sucked. I don't need to go over this story again, you can read about it in the introduction if you want.

So what does all of this have to do with Baptists and their assault rifles? Admittedly, not much. But seeing youth conferences and teen camps tend to remind me of this story. I wonder if our attempts to cultivate a crop is just casting seed on rocky ground, where the seed will sprout but doesn't develop roots. Of course the flip-side is true too! It'd be hard to tell an eight-year-old about about St. John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul, the sense of loneliness, desolation and abandonment by God that is often considered the hallmark of intensely deep Christian mysticism. Eight-year-olds are still in the felt-banner stage!

But when these Oklahoma City teenagers grow up to be adults, will they still consider the Almighty Lord to be something squeezed between basketball and trap shooting? I don't know. Maybe their conference does a nicer job of addressing these issues than I give them credit. Yet I reserve the right to remain a skeptic.

And not just because it's a Baptist camp and I'm a Catholic! Catholics are pretty good shots too.

I'd like to have a short discussion of vocabulary that people use when discussing religion and Godly issues.

Theism - A belief that God exists. From the Greek word Theos, meaning deity, god or gods. This is where I am. I put it on top because it's the right answer. Thanks for reading. :)
Atheism - A combination of Greek words a- (without) -theism (belief in God). People who fall in this camp are annoyed by religion, but it doesn't "offend" them; it just wastes their time. I understand atheists, I get their point of view; it's an intellectual position that is not challenging to reach.
Anti-theism - A combination of Greek words anti- (against) -theism (belief in God). In a way, this is in-your-face confrontational atheism, also called "new atheism" because it picks fights. These people have read their little Richard Dawkins books and are mad about it.
Deism - A belief that a deity (God) created the world, but doesn't get involved. No heaven, hell, praying, nothing. People who say that the United States was rooted in Christianity have a poor understanding of deism and famous deists. Count the famous American deists. In my humble opinion, this is atheism for people that don't want to talk about it.
Gnosticism - From the Greek word gnosis, meaning knowledge. It's a type of mysticism. A lot of Eastern and New Age hoodoo (including Kaballah) could be dumped into this category, gnosticism comes and goes in popularity.
Agnosticism - A combination of Greek words a- (without) -gnosis (knowledge). These are people who aren't sure if God exists or not. It implies being open but unsure about the idea. A lot of people call themselves atheists when they're really agnostic.
Irreligious - This is a broader category that a lot of people fall into without thinking about it. They're people who lack religion, don't care or are hostile about it. Atheists, deists and agnostics are in this camp. It also includes people who are disinterested or just don't care, as well as people who could be called secular humanists, a common and happy (but ultimately unjustifiable) philosophy. People who were raised religious but stopped when they got out of their parent's grasp fall in this category also.

I bring this up because a lot of people call Paul Myers an atheist--himself included. He's the guy that read all about the University of Central Florida student Webster Cook who snuck out of Mass with the Blessed Sacrament and made (and continues to make) a stink about it when people objected. Myers, a biology professor, promised on his blog:

I have an idea. Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There's no way I can personally get them -- my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I'm sure -- but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I'll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won't be tempted to hold it hostage... but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart.

Myers calls himself a "militant atheist" and is really big into mocking God and all religions except (for some reason I cannot discern) Islam. So as a matter of definitions, PZ Myers is an anti-theist. He's against theism, not just without theism. This is the case for a new crop of atheists, often called "New Atheists" (how do you have a "new" philosophical position that was conceived around 3000 years ago?)

I've got an opinion on Mr. Myers, however this probably isn't the forum to discuss his antics. But it is time we get the term straight.

From Jennifer F in her blog "Et Tu?" The diary of a former athiest in a post titled:

Good people, bad people, truth and lies

Meanwhile, in what I thought was a totally unrelated line of thinking, I continued to be baffled by the whole religion thing. Even if people did need to tell themselves stories about angels or an afterlife or whatever to make themselves feel better, why mess around with all the rules? Look at me, after all: I was a good person without buying into religious superstition with all its oppressive dogmas.

That last part was a fundamental part of my worldview: the idea that there were "good people" and "bad people," and that (whew!) I was one of the good people. Of course I knew that sometimes good people do bad things and vice versa, but I was confident that there was a certain level of evil that only a "bad person" could commit, that there was some invisible line that only someone fundamentally different from me could cross. When I would hear about heinous events on the news or read about the atrocities of history, I was hearing of acts committed by people who were entirely "other" -- they were the bad people, the people who did really evil things, and it would be impossible for good people like me and the nice folks I knew to understand the how's and why's behind their actions.

Probably one of the biggest paradigm shifts I've ever experienced in my life came after I started exploring Christianity and I realized: there is no such thing as "good people" and "bad people." Not in the way I thought of it, anyway.

As always, go read the whole thing. It's good.

My Dad grew up going to a little congregational Protestant church in an old part of Kansas City, Kansas. His conversion to the Catholic Church was an intellectual decision.

Mom's conversion, a few years before Dad, was based in an emotional connection and a bit of divine providence. It's her story, not really mine, so I won't share it here. But if we're ever hanging out some time, ask me. It's a great story. But I digress.

A lot of Dad's perspective on the Catholic Church comes from his Protestant background, it's interesting to me to hear him posit on the Church because his point of view is pretty different than mine. But he's Catholic and for years helped teach the classes for people wanting to learn more about Catholicism since he'd done it all before (and knows how to speak Protestant).

One of the things that he likes to chuckle about is how his church would hire their own preacher. If that preacher spent too much time chastising the congregation, they'd call a committee together and fire the reverend. If they got a really good preacher, the little church would see attendance grow as people would bring their friends and family. If they had a preacher that wasn't a real dynamic speaker (an occupational hazard in the preaching business), there weren't so many butts in the pews any more.

On paper, Catholics don't do that. If we get a priest assigned to our parish that is a crummy homilist, folks, we're stuck with him. If he doesn't offer Mass just exactly the way you like it or if his sermons ramble meaninglessly for twenty minutes--tough cookies. He's going to be at the altar for the next 2 to 8 years. Ordinary Catholic churches are divided into parish boundaries, if you live in a particular parish's boundaries, you're to go to the corresponding Church. If you want to be a member of a parish outside the boundaries, you've actually got to get permission from your territorial parish to join the other. It's not really the hassle that it sounds like, I promise. My lovely wife and I did it.

There are non-territorial parishes, called "personal parishes", who carry permission from the Bishop to operate without boundaries. Personal Parishes serve a particular mission or need--like the Holy Trinity Chapel in Johnson County. It serves the Korean Catholic community. Additionally, a lot of Latin Mass communities are based in personal parishes. But again, I digress.

Because people are generally divided into their neighborhood parishes, congregations way outlast priests. In my Ordinary round spaceship parish, there's people in the pews that remember the parish before it was considered Ordinary and before it was a round spaceship. The biggest difference is that your usual rank-and-file Catholics don't get a vote in who their priest is going to be--the Bishop makes those decisions, not some self-appointed committee. There's probably a lot of people who'd like a vote in the process, but the Catholic Church is not a democracy! So if you get stuck with a priest that doesn't flip your dipper, you've just got to wait it out.

And this too, shall pass.

It probably wasn't as big of a deal until the last few decades. There used to be a lot more priests than there are now, a large parish might have a main pastor and 3 or 4 other associate pastors. So if one priest wasn't very sermon-oriented, you might not catch his stop in the rotation for weeks at a time. But these days, even the huge suburban parishes are lucky if they've got 2 priests, some country priests might be pastors to 3 or 4 parishes at the same time. So if you're idea of liturgy and Father's idea of liturgy don't match up, there's not much avoiding it. But for the last 500 years or so until the 1960's, the Mass was a lot more codified and wasn't so priest-centric.

One thing my Dad likes to talk about is how good it was that the Second Vatican Council de-emphasized the priest as the only portal to God; he says that the old Tridentine Latin Mass was rigidly priest-centric. He's never been to the old Mass and isn't interested in going. That's fine. He doesn't have to go! But I'd make a case that between the pick-and-choose prayers, the priest's chair is in the middle of the room in front of the tabernacle and crucifix, the priest standing at the middle of the room at an altar table-- and all the pews wrap around him behind the altar table, that all the altar servers have been reduced to mere props to hold books or fetch cruets for the priest--in fact, the Novus Ordo Mass is MORE priest-centric than the old Mass. In the TLM, the priest and people each faced the Lord together, altar boys attend to the sanctuary and congregation as well as the priest, the priest's chair is off to the side and all the focus is on Christ on the cross. In fact, with the priest standing before some of the great high altars, the priest is really quite dwarfed by the majesty of Christ on the altar. But again, I digress.

In any manner, I wonder if when there's a mismatch between priest and congregation, who is more uncomfortable--priest or congregation?

Good Father Rossman is a recently ordained priest and associate pastor of Prince of Peace Church in Olathe, Kansas. He's on his first assignment out of seminary, and it looks like some of his congregation wants to butt heads with him. As he's presented the story, he's got some parishioners who just start singing their own songs at daily Mass and don't care to listen to what he says about the liturgy. Sorry folks, it doesn't work like that. It's the priest's call, not yours.

Liturgy is quite a mess for your average Catholic in the pews. We've all got an opinion. If you're a recent convert and think you don't have an opinion, wait until you've got a new priest assigned to your parish--trust me, you've got an opinion (and it may not be a charitable opinion). Going to Mass on Sundays is how most churchgoing Catholics interact with their Church. For most of us, that's the only time we really spend thinking about being Catholic. So if we're going to give an hour or so, we expect that the priest is going to act out the show just the way we want it.

Expecting perfection is probably asking for disappointment.

Liturgical abuses and honest mistakes aside, priests generally want to offer a good Mass every day. They (should) take time to write a good homily, they expect that the organist and choir knows how to do their part, that the lector has pre-read the readings and knows how to pronounce Zerubbabel, Artaxerxes, Mithredath and Tabeel, that the servers know how to light candles without setting their cassocks on fire... there's a lot of "moving parts" to Mass. I bet there's a little breath-holding every time the pianist bangs out the opening notes to "Gather us In".

But since most of us only "touch" the Church through Sunday Mass, we've got some high standards. Unfair? Perhaps. Real anyway? You bet.

I had a friend of mine shoot me a text message the other day wanting to know about a Mass he was just getting back from attending. He said that right after the "sign of peace", everyone knelt for the "Lamb of God" prayer and for the Centurion's prayer, but that Father just forgot that part and started handing ciboria to all the Extraordinary Ministers around him. It was probably an honest mistake and doesn't affect the validity of the Mass, but that's the kind of stuff that really gets under the skin of Catholics.

I bet that congregational Protestant churches don't have these dilemmas. But Catholics have a handbook that allows them to better micromanage from the pews, so it's right in our wheelhouse. We've got the script and the stage notes ahead of time.

This is something I really struggle with.

I have to stop myself from feeling real resentment when Mass doesn't go my way. I have a tendency to be a liturgical fuddy-duddy. It's not fair to Father, it's not fair to my wife (who disinterestedly puts up with my complaining), it's not fair to me. Being judgmental and polemic is a weakness, and I have to make up my mind ahead of time to not let Mass be a near occasion of sin. And I haven't figured out if it's something I should include in confession and how, exactly, to tell Father that his Mass drives me crazy. It's hard. But this isn't a perfect world, and when I was in the sanctuary, I was a crappy altar boy--so I guess I can understand a little of what the priest has to deal with. Early daily Mass helps that; they're usually so rigid and formulaic that there's not much variation. And there's not many moving parts: if there's an altar "boy", he's probably in his 60's, as is any lector that might be there.

I like daily Mass. I get up early and go at least once a week. The Masses are quiet and fairly slow, they really give a sense of a "sacred silence" that you don't get on Sunday Morning with the honking flutes in the children's chorus or the tambourine rattle of the noon-time folk Mass. Daily Mass people aren't there for entertainment or a show. I'm a fuddy duddy. I like daily Mass.

Yet still, each Mass offered validly and licitly is worth any other Mass offered validly and licitly. So personal preferences aside, we meet our Sunday Obligation even if we prefer the cantor to sing Marty Haugen songs rather than David Haas ditties. And as a matter of meeting the minimum obligations, this much is true. But if it is further true that the law of prayer is the law of belief, then based on some sloppy Masses, we've got some Catholics with sloppy beliefs. Myself included, of course--I'm on my way back from being a "Cafeteria Catholic", which for years I just somewhat jokingly called an "American Catholic".

This journey back is part of my fudd-duddery.

But, if as in Fr. Rossman's case, I agree that the priest can put limits on the Congregation making up their own service music, then probably the door swings both ways. Father probably has the ability to loosen the limits on what is fair game in a church liturgy--within the wide boundaries of the black and red print in our St. Joseph's hand missals.

These are the cards we're dealt. The Catholic Church isn't a democracy, we don't get a vote. Roma Locuta Est, Causa Finita Est. And when the Mass ends, go in peace. There's enough strife in the world, don't let church cause you any more.

Jeff Miller, The Curt Jester notes a story blurbing around the internet today.

A poll conducted by social networking website MySpace has branded the Catholic Church "out of touch" with young people, just ahead of its World Youth Day event in Sydney.

Pfft. A MySpace poll? Wow. Move over, Roper. Tom is in da hizzouse.

RELATED: Good kids use Facebook, Bad kids use MySpace. Just so you know.

During part of the time that I was away from the church and generally disinterested in religion, I figured that one day I'd start going again. I imagined that when I was married and had children, churchgoing would be a regular part of life. We would pack into our flying station wagon and buzz over to church. After Sunday morning Mass, my imaginary future family and I would all go to the imaginary future IHOP and eat imaginary future pancakes together.

Of course I'd do these things one day. My image of my own future wouldn't be complete without those things. Just like guys think of pitching tennis balls to their yet-unconceived sons and women think about teaching their yet-unconceived daughters to knit and vacuum (or whatever), I figured that church and religion would be part of my life again one day.

Yet I wondered when that day would actually start.

Not the get married and make babies part, I figured (and still figure) that day will come when it comes. But the church thing. I wondered when that would start.

If I just waited until this imaginary future family plopped into my lap to start going back to church, I wondered-- feared-- that this imaginary future family would be so entrenched in my ways that I wouldn't able to cajole them into the flying station wagon on Sunday mornings-- and figured that I wouldn't be up for it myself either. (I have a theory about changing and maintaining human behavior: inertia is strong; objects at rest tend to stay that way).

At this point in my life, I wasn't going to church and wasn't interested in doing so. And I had plenty of reasons to not go! Saturday nights usually crossed into Sunday mornings. I felt out of place sitting in church by myself. I don't really like the parishoners/music/priest/kneelers. My roommates or friends would think I'm some kind of space cadet. I'm just so tired on Sunday mornings. I'm strong enough in my religion that I don't need to go every week anyway. Sunday is my only day to rest. I'm not leading the kind of life that befits going to church, they probably don't want me there dirtying up the pews. Like the world needs another bad Catholic. Yadda yadda yadda. None of these were unique to me, none of them very strong on their own, none of them worth doing anything about.

So I didn't do anything about it.

It'd take a pretty crummy point in life to push me from being an inert body into a body at Mass. And my re-energizing to Faith began slowly; I sat alone in an adoration chapel and prayed the rosary quietly. I didn't have any words to say to God other than that-- the routine and formulaic prayers that Catholics say over and over are real blessings to have.

Some critics say that we say our memorized prayers out of habit or routine and that they aren't real conversations to the almighty Lord. They accuse Catholics of mistaking prayer for "magic words". The critics are welcome to their uninformed opinions. Sometimes when you don't know what else to say, it's important to have these prayers in your mind and heart. But I digress.

My journey back started alone, just me and Jesus in a quiet little chapel. Then I started going to Mass again. By myself. There's no feeling of alone-ness like going to Mass by yourself in a new parish-- you don't know anyone and figure they're all staring at you. Wondering why you're infiltrating their church. And the truth is that I did feel out of place at church by myself. I did dislike the parishoners/music/priest/kneelers. Sunday was my only day of rest. Giving that up was a real pain. It was a real sacrifice.

Over the last few years, I've taken a different perspective on life. Sunday mornings at Church have changed my opinion of days of rest; they've changed my opinion on parishoners/priests/music/kneelers. It's still a sacrifice, some Sunday mornings still start pretty early. But now I look at it as if I'd miss something if I didn't go to Church. That God is waiting for me and I shouldn't be late to his invitation.

It may sound hokey to you. But I don't go to church for you.

A few weeks ago when I was in New York, I went to Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral twice in that week. And on Wednesday morning when I got up early to go to Church with a friend on the trip, he and I walked the few long blocks from the hotel up to the Cathedral. People were on their way to work, to the tour busses, to stampede their way to wherever they were going. But we were there, getting up early on our vacation for church... and there we saw it.

Something we would have never seen or experienced if we'd slept in like people do on vacations.

But it was providence indeed.

The Lord works in mysterious ways, sometimes he gives us gifts when we give a little for him!

And this was a very special gift, a very special moment that we wouldn't have otherwise been given.

Hallelujah.

Holy cow.

Hot dog.

It took me a long time to appreciate how important receiving Communion on the tongue was for Catholics. I always figured it was something that only the overly pious people did and that rumors of people snatching the Eucharist were only objects of overblown rumors.

But people who discreetly steal hosts for nefarious purposes are not just characters in fiction.

From Creative Minority Report:

Webster Cook is a student at the University of Central Florida. He is also a top notch jerk.

Last week Cook attended a campus mass. At that mass, he attempted skulk back to his pew with a consecrated host. The extraordinary minister saw what he was doing and blocked his path until he put into his mouth. However, when he got back to his pew he removed the host. A lady from the Church saw what he done and attempted to get the host back from him by trying to pry his hand open. Cook now claims he is a victim.

As always, go read the whole thing.

Two notes:

(1) This could have been easily prevented if the Blessed Sacrament was given properly on the tongue. Such a practice would make abuses like this pretty hard to accomplish.

(2) It's further evidence how a seperation of Church and State benefits not only the State, but also the Church. It sounds like Mr. Cook was planning on making a political point, not a religious one when he says:

"The church feels that I'm the problem here," Cook said. "The problem is actually that this is a publicly-funded religious institution. Through student government here, we fund them through an activity and service, so they're receiving student money."

Some people insist that religion should stay out of government. I'm inclined to agree as long as the reverse it also true.

UPDATE:
I STRONGLY URGE you to send an email to the UCF President and Director of OSRR in protest. This is the email I just sent to:

jhitt@mail.ucf.edu (president) and pmackown@mail.ucf.edu (OSRR).

Dear Dr. Hitt,

I am writing you to express my sincere dismay with a student at the University of Central Florida. I'm sure you've already received a fair amount of email on the subject of Webster Cook. Futher, I'm sure that you understand that this is a serious offence that must be addressed by the University in light of the "Golden Rule" of conduct at UCF. Specifically: Rules of Conduct 2.F.3.a Disruptive Conduct; "An act that impairs, interferes with, or obstructs the orderly conduct, processes, and functions of the University or any part thereof." Furthermore, his actions are a direct slap to the UFC creed tenets of Integrity, Community and Excellence--a creed that, no doubt, the University of Central Florida takes quite seriously.

Mr. Cook is no doubt a bright young man. He serves on Student Government and even started a student run newspaper. But his little stunt is a serious offence against his fellow students and other members of the UCF community and must be addressed by the university in an expeditious manner. It is nothing short of religious harassment, and no public academic institution should stand for such conduct.

Please find this email CC'd to Ms. Patricia MacKown, Director of the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities, as per the instructions of the Office of Student Conduct rules section 2; "Alleged violations of the UCF Rules of Conduct shall be reported in writing to the Director of the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities (OSRR) or designee. The written complaint of violation of the UCF Rules of Conduct shall be made no later than six months following discovery of the alleged violation."

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

UPDATE 2:
I hear that Dr. Hill is on vacation. Nonetheless, he is responding to his emails quite quickly. His blackberry must be getting a workout! Here is his extremely prompt reply:

Thank you for your note Mr. Walberg. I have been told that Mr. Cook returned the consecrated Eucharist yesterday. The university takes this matter very seriously, and it is in the hands of our student judicial system. John C. Hitt President, UCF

I hope that news is true.

If so, it's time to start praying for Webster Cook's repentance and forgiveness.

Christopher at Lost Lambs writes:

As some of you may or may not know I have created a group called the "St Gregory the Great Society" for Catholics in Johnson County KS to organize and request a traditional Mass for the Johnson County Area in accordance with article V of Summorum Pontificum, while we have the ICRSS and the FSSP in the area neither are in Johnson County. The Facebook group can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19037047591 and we will have a web site up soon.

Today I made a formal request to use the chapel pictured above, as all in the group had thought that it was the perfct place in the area to hold the mass. Unfortunately we were denied. The meeting lasted less than two minutes I first inquired what would it take to use the chapel, he seemed open and willing but once the Pastor was aware that our group promoted the Ancient Mass, the Pastor felt inclined to tell me about his Love for Vatican II, his hatred of the Latin Language, he stated that Latin has no place in the Mass that Vatican II was the best thing for the church, that the Latin mass was divisive and he would NEVER allow any Latin mass at any of his parish facilities. I knew none of my arguments or discussions would change his mind, I thanked him for his time and left.

Well, we'll keep on trying.

Most of Johnson County is full of either round spaceship churches or square auditorium churches. The few old church buildings that survived the 60's were pretty much wreckovated, lest someone think that Catholics are inside.

Truthfully, the perfect location would only be icing on the cake. After all, generations of servicemen were able to worship on their knees in the mud with a crucifix on top of a munitions box, certainly we can find a place to glorify the Lord too.

Hopefully in a proper church, of course. My wife would be very upset to go to church every Sunday in the mud!

Still, it's a discouraging setback.

It's easy for people like me who read the Catholic news and blogs that seem to point to a resurrection of Tradition in the Church-- yet face such blunt oppostion; it's easy to get to thinking that everyone agrees with you on this stuff.

Indeed not.

It's okay though, we'll make it. But this might be the first a few places where we have to shake the dust from our sandals.

"He who would climb to a lofty height must go by steps, not leaps."
-- Pope St. Gregory the Great

The organization will be found online at http://www.GregoryTheGreat.org as soon as I get to working on that website.

Interesting articles, offered without comment:

98 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

Hat tip: Bettnet.

One of my new favorite blogs on the internets, "'Et tu?' The Diary of a Former Athiest" writes about depression and self-identity.

For quite a few years in my late teens and early 20's, I struggled with depression. It was clear to me that there was some kind of chemical imbalance going on in my brain, and it permeated every aspect of my life and thoughts. I would sometimes lament the fact that I just wasn't "myself" anymore...yet I was never comfortable with that idea. In my worldview, the human person was nothing more than a collection of molecules; selfhood was nothing more than a unique set of chemical reactions firing in the brain. In that case, how could the current set of chemical reactions be less "me" than the chemical reactions that were going on a few years before?

Go read the whole thing. The author, Jennifer F. converted from certain athiest to believing Christian through an intellectual process first, then by emotional connection. I think most people, me included, do it the other way around. She's a good writer and it's worth a couple minutes to read.

First Fridays in Kansas City are a pretty big event.

Did you read that first sentence?

It means totally different things to different people.

Until a handful of months ago, I heard "First Fridays" and instantly thought of the street parties and art galleries in Kansas City's Crossroads District. In fact, if you put "First Friday" in the Google, you'll see it's a regular party on the first Friday of each month in a variety of cities for a number of different events from a block party in Las Vegas to a mixer for African American Professionals in San Francisco.

So when I first heard "First Friday" in a Catholic sense, I was understandably confused.

It has to do with a Catholic sense of the calendar, each day is set aside for a type of commemoration. It's commonly known that each day of the calendar is set aside as a saint's feast day, but certain months are set aside to recognize different commemorations--as are certain days of the week. Think of it like this: every Sunday is a "miniature Easter", Catholics go to Mass to celebrate the risen Jesus in the Mass. Likewise, Fridays are "miniature Good Fridays" dedicated to Christ's Passion and his Sacred Heart. Months work the same way; in the secular world, March is National Frozen Food Month, but in a the Church's realm, March is also dedicated to St. Joseph, Jesus' Earthly father.

You can pick which one is more important, or incorporate both commemorations into your St. Joseph's Table. Frozen cookie dough, anyone?

First Fridays are a little different though. As the devotion to Jesus's Sacred Heart, they are a call for Catholics to go to Mass on that day in devotion.

I remember a story told to me by a priest about going to Catholic School in the '50's. Back then, he said that there was a three-hour fast before going to Mass, which basically meant that you didn't have any breakfast before you went to church. There's a variety of reasons for this act that Canon Lawyer Ed Peters discusses on his blog and elsewhere, but the short answer is that when you receive Communion, you should be hungry for the Lord. Today, the Church only requires a one-hour fast before receiving communion (not one-hour before Mass, which practically means don't eat during church) and some old-timers talk about when it was a 12-hour fast (anyone know when it changed to the 3-hour fast?), which meant you had to have watch the time of dinner on Saturday night. So you first meal in the morning is when you would break the fast, or... eat breakfast. But I digress.

This priest was talking about how all the Catholic school children would go to Mass before school on the first Friday of each month (as was the custom), and of course, wouldn't have eaten anything before they left for school that morning. So after Mass, the parish and school would have milk and doughnuts in the church basement. He remembered really looking forward to each first Friday because it meant that he could get sugared-up before going to class. The priest would join them too, all the nuns and teachers were easy-going on those days, they really had fun as they kicked off each month at church and school.

It's a cute story about how people become attached to their church and how when people put God first in their lives, life is sweet. For a moment, this priest telling me the story was smiling, leaning back in his chair with his hands folded on top of his belly, lost in a little corner of time.

This was a practice that was totally lost on me. In Catholic school, we went to Mass once a week. But we would have easily fulfilled the 1-hour fast by the time lined up at the front of class in our single-file lines to march over to church; milk and doughnuts after Mass were pretty irrelevant at that point. And we didn't discuss the Sacred Heart of Jesus at all, much less taking the first Friday of each month in commemoration. I don't know why, except the charitable presumption that religion teachers all had other topics to talk about and there's only so much time in a school day.

I was 28 years old in my lifelong Catholicity before I'd ever heard of a church first Friday or given any thought to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Strictly speaking, a First Friday commitment is part of a novena to the Sacred Heart. A novena is a set of nine of something. Commonly, a novena would be going to Mass or saying a rosary for nine consecutive days or once a week for nine consecutive weeks or--as in first Friday--once a month for nine consecutive months. The idea comes from the Bible; after Jesus ascended to heaven, he instructed his disciples to devote themselves to constant prayer. The apostles, Mary and some other followers locked themselves in the upper room and prayed together for nine days ending in Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon them and compelled them to being their Christian ministry to the world. Yet despite its part in a nine-month set, I'd venture a guess that most people that participate in First Friday Mass do it every month, not just 9 out of 12 in a year. I don't specifically keep the First Friday novena myself--but maybe I'll start this month.

June is the month that the Church dedicates to the Sacred Heart of Jesus--so I guess I probably have started last month. Truth be told--I probably actually did go to Mass on the first Friday of June, but I didn't do it as a Sacred Heart devotional, I just went because I go to Mass fairly often. I think I'll start it here on Friday. It sounds like a nice way to start a nice 3-day weekend.

You know, it would be hard for me to grasp this connection to the Sacred Heart. I guess it's because I don't really understand what people are going for; but since I've never tried, there's no surprise I don't understand the connection. I'm looking for the end result before I've made the first step.

Yet intellectually, what does it mean to have a devotion to the Sacred Heart? From FishEaters:

The heart has always been seen as the "center" or essence a person ("the heart of the matter," "you are my heart," "take it to heart," etc.) and the wellspring of our emotional lives and love ("you break my heart," "my heart sings," etc.) Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is devotion to Jesus Christ Himself, but in the particular ways of meditating on his interior life and on His threefold love -- His divine love, His burning love that fed His human will, and His sensible love that affects His interior life.

Later:

Devotion to the Sacred Heart has two elements: consecration and reparation:

We consecrate ourselves to the Sacred Heart by acknowledging Him as Creator and Redeemer and as having full rights over us as King of Kings, by repenting, and by resolving to serve Him.

We make reparations for the indifference and ingratitude with which He is treated and for leaving Him abandoned by humanity.

In art, the Sacred Heart is often depicted as a heart, burning with Love and tortured by thorns. Sometimes you'll see it just as a heart by itself, sometimes you'll see it in a statue or image of Jesus with his heart on his chest.

A woman once told me told me a story: at one point of her life, her marriage was falling apart, her kids were turning away from her, she was nearly bankrupt and sick, she found a small picture of Jesus and put it on her desk. In those moments where she was too weak from crying to pray, she was able to turn to Jesus and sob, knowing that with His love, she could make it another day. She was able to go to the Sacred Heart just as her own heart was breaking.

Sometimes we devote ourselves to God. Sometimes he devotes Himself to us.

Hey, I like art galleries and wine too. And in that respect, I like First Fridays. But if you're ever around some Catholic nerd (like me) and he mentions that he's going to First Friday, he might not mean that he's going down to cruise the art galleries and drink wine on a warm summer night (of course, he might mean that exact thing). Or maybe he's got something else on his mind?

I'm sure it's not exactly what they're teaching in medical school these days, but I'm going to start thinking of the Heart when I think of doughnuts.

That's my kind of Catholicism!

I got a text message from a friend of mine the other day. He posited that it didn't make sense for a guy like the pope who takes a vow of poverty to wear Prada shoes. You might have heard that Pope Benedict XVI sports bright red kicks from the chic shoemaker Prada, whereas his predecessor, Pope John Paul II often wore tired old brown loafers. You've probably heard it by now, that Papa Benny is a bit of a shoe dandy and has expensive taste in footwear despite his humble office. Two notes: (a) The pope doesn't take vows of poverty, (b) Those aren't Prada.

To explain:
(a) It's a common misconception that priests take vows of poverty. In fact, most priests do not take that vow--but the vocabulary makes it confusing. All priests and religious (nuns, monks, friars) take a general public vow called a "religious vow" that says they dedicate their life to follow a calling by God to a type of religious living. That's a basic agreement to be a priest or religious (read "religious" as a noun, not an adjective). Beyond that, some priests and religious join organizations that ask other commitments, generally called "professed vows" (see how the vocab is nebulous?) that are the big three that everyone knows: Poverty, Chastity, Obedience.

Poverty is not actually a promise to be poor, but to have no goods greater than the community, and that all goods should benefit the community; some of the old Benedictine Abbeys could actually be quite rich if you measured the value of their land, buildings and religious stuff on a balance sheet--but all the monks wear plain black robes and don't get HDTV. But if someone donates a Lexus to the monastery, you might see some monks in a pretty nice car.

Chastity does not mean the same thing as Celibate, but in the 21st Century, we conflate the two words. Celibacy is a charge to all Catholic priests and religious, which means they promise to lead a sexless life. Chastity is a virtue of sexual moderation; married people are supposed to be chaste in relation to their spouses, which at its most basic understanding, means not sleeping around. I don't really understand the difference in chastity versus celibacy in priests, and if they're leading celibate lives, why ask for chastity on top of it? It seems redundant. But in truth, we're ALL responsible for living chaste lives--as single people, married people or religious people.

Obedience is an agreement to respect the bishop, abbot, abbess or whomever leads whatever abbey, friary, convent or organization that the person joins.

The three professed vows are commonly known, but not universal to all priests or religious. For example, Benedictine Monks (i.e. Dom Perignon) are part of a very old organization--the "Rule of Saint Benedict" is from the 6th Century. They make pledges of Obedience (to the Abbot who heads the Abbey), Stability (committed to one particular Abbey, there are different Benedictine communities all over the world) and "Conversion of Manners" (which included forgoing private property and living celibate chastity). Franciscans (i.e. Friar Tuck) and Dominicans (i.e. Saint Thomas Aquinas) are mobile kinds of groups that could do a lot of traveling for their ministries, so they dropped the Stability vow and profess the regular poverty, chastity and obedience.

But you regular run-of-the-mill priest doesn't take the professed vows. In fact, any priest at any church might actually be kind of rich--at least, it's his right to be so. His income from the parish/diocese probably doesn't amount to much, but the priests could come from rich families, have made good investment decisions, or have some other specialty. Good examples might be if they are authors, artists, lecturers, musicians, etc. Of course, most priests aren't rolling in dough, in fact I'd wager that they probably don't earn much more than what they need to live--as most of the time the congregations they serve are cash-strapped already.

As pope, Pope Benedict is basically a privately elected king of a rich monarchy. In fact popes used to even wear tiaras (not the Miss America kind, mind you) when they were acting as head of state or in any other official capacity (not during Mass); it was a pretty common practice until the Second Vatican Council when Pope Paul VI famously "renounced Human Glory" and laid down the tiara as a sign of humility. I'd probably assert that this was the part of the bigger "dumbing down" of Catholicism of Vatican 2, but that's all Church politics and not really part of this question. But the pope could be considered as pretty rich if you consider him as head of a monarchy. I don't think he draws a salary (or know what it would be used for?), but let's say that he lives a pretty lavish life for a clergyman. There are a number of papal tiaras, and if this pope-- or any future pope-- wanted to pick one up and wear it around, it's his total right to do so. There's even one on display in the United States: Paul VI donated his theretofore unused tiara to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in our nation's capital.

(b) A lot of the "fashion" choices that this pope makes are not really about fashion, per se, as much as they are about Catholicity. Pope Benedict's big thing is to see and teach about a thread of continuity between the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and the Nineteen Hundred Years before 1962. When Paul VI laid down the tiara, a lot of the truly ancient practices of the Church came to a staggering close. The music changed. The architecture changed. The Mass changed. The way people thought about other Catholics changed. The way people thought about the Church changed. The way people thought about God changed. It was a pretty striking departure from the traditions of the Church that will take GENERATIONS to sort out. If this sounds like pithy exaggeration, I promise it's not. It's really like there is 2 Churches, the pre and post V2 Catholic Churches. Benedict's big thing is to show that the aesthetic and the spirit and the essence of the Church didn't have to be thrown away wholesale like the 60's and 70's would have you believe, so he's digging out of the Vatican closets to bring out some of the old clothes, music, prayers and practices that were otherwise forgotten--in a hope to rejuvenate the way Catholics think, pray, worship and believe.

A good example is the "camauro" hat that you'll see this pope wear in winter. We'd call it a "Santa Hat", but it was a pretty common thing for popes to wear since sometime around 1100 A.D. right up until Pope John XXIII died in 1963. The pope's camauro is not going to make someone a better Catholic, but it's one small part of rebuilding a Catholic Identity. Our common image of a pope is just an old dude in a white suit. Likewise for the red shoes--they're an old and longstanding part of how popes dress--but people my age haven't ever seen it because popes stopped dressing like popes in the 60's.

Pope Benedict actually had the reputation for a stodgy old curmudgeon before being elected pontiff. He is very quiet and shy, a soft-spoken college professor who cares more about playing Mozart on the piano with his brother than he would about appearing with celebrities (like John Paul II was famous for doing). So digging out old vestments from the papal attic is not really a part of trying to garner attention as much as it is about reconnecting to the historical aspects of Catholicism.

So those are real, honest-to-goodness red pope shoes from a real cobbler in the mountainous Piedmont region of Northern Italy , not some fashionista accessory from 5th Avenue.

To wit: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article4218136.ece:

The Pope wears Prada? That's cobblers, says the Vatican The Times Online Richard Owen June 26, 2008

The Devil may wear Prada -- but the Pope does not, according to the Vatican.

The pontiff has been hailed as a "style icon" since his election just over three years ago and speculation has been rife that he enjoys designer clothes. Attention has focused not only on his often elaborate headgear and fashionable sunglasses but also on his dainty red shoes, or moccasins, widely assumed to be made by Prada.

However L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, categorically denied reports today that the shoes were a Prada product, saying this was "of course false".

According to Vatican sources the Pope's shoes are made by a cobbler from Novara called Adriano Stefanelli, who makes them from calf or kid for the winter and nappa leather for the summer. Papal shoe repairs are carried out by Antonio Arellano, a Peruvian shoemaker in the Borgo, the medieval quarter next to St Peter's. The article, on "Ratzinger's Liturgical Vestments", was written by Juan Manuel de Prada, the noted Spanish writer and author of The Tempest, who is not related to the fashion company. De Prada said that the image of the German-born Pope as concerned with "frivolity" was at odds with the truth, which was that he was a "simple and sober" man. Suggestions to the contrary were "stupid and banal".

On the day of Benedict's election as pontiff "the whole world" had seen the sleeves of a "modest black sweater" peeping out from beneath the cuffs of his papal robes, De Prada said. It was true that Pope Benedict paid a great deal of attention to his clothing, but only because of its liturgical significance.

"The Pope is not dressed by Prada but by Christ," he said. Rome residents recall that as a cardinal Benedict was austere rather than flamboyant, and used to cross St Peter's Square from his office to his flat wearing a black beret and black overcoat and carrying a battered leather briefcase.

De Prada said that an article in Esquire magazine describing Benedict as among the world figures who were the "epitome of elegance" had been greeted with "amused perplexity". The Pope had revived traditional papal headgear, from the fur-trimmed red medieval caumaro he wears at Christmas to the wide-brimmed red saturno, or "Saturn hat" he has been wearing in the current heat wave in Rome. These had been worn by previous Popes, as had the Renaissance fur-trimmed velvet cape or mozzetta.

Vatican watchers nonetheless noted that these hats and outfits have not been used since the days of Pope John XXIII, who died in 1963. Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II, was usually seen in the same pair of well-worn brown shoes, and invariably wore simple outfits such as a basic white cassock and white gold-trimmed sash, although in winter he tended to don a crimson wool cloak trimmed with gold braid.

Pope Benedict has been seen wearing Serengeti sunglasses, and is also known to have been given Geox loafers by Mario Moretti Polegato, the Geox CEO, who is a friend of Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the former papal spokesman. When he retreats to the mountains of northern Italy in the summer he wears a jaunty white baseball cap.

After his election the Vatican denied reports that Pope Benedict was abandoning the Rome ecclesiastical tailors Gammarelli, who have been making papal cassocks since 1792, for a rival firm, Maninelli, which supplied his robes when he was a cardinal. "There are no cassock wars," a spokesman said.

So it's not about designer shoes.

Though I'm sure the Pontiff would like to visit Kansas anyway, why does the pope really wear red shoes?

To keep his socks clean!

Next week: why do firemen wear red suspenders?