January 2009 Archives
It is an interesting cultural touchstone to consider how priests dress themselves for Holy Mass. You can tell something about a parish that adorns its advent wreaths in blue candles, you can tell something about priest who wears his stole on the outside of his chasuble, you can tell something about a church that has "Glory and Praise" hymnals. Likewise, you can tell something about the bishop by the type of mitre he wears.
Consider the difference today between tall and short mitres on bishops. A short, squatty mitre smacks of a liberal, moderny bishop; a soaringly tall mitre suggests a "high-church" traddy bishop.
Exhibits:
Bp. Tod Brown, Diocese of Orange County, CA:
Roger Cardinal Mahony, Archdiocese of Los Angeles, CA:
BY CONTRAST:
Bishop Robert Finn, Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, MO:
The late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, SSPX:
NOTE:
It's not a totally reliable indicator of episcopal orthodoxy, of course. Bishops usually have more than one mitre! One good example:
Archbishop Raymond Burke (short mitre), Archdiocese of St. Louis, MO (Emeritus):
Archbishop Raymond Burke (medium mitre):
I would be remiss if I didn't mention that my own Archbishop, His Excellency Joseph Naumann, wears a fairly short mitre. In my estimation, Abp. Naumann is a suitably orthodox bishop and I am happy to be in his archdiocese. I wish he were a little more accommodating to traditional Catholics in Johnson County, but I really can't call it much of a complaint. And you go to Church with the Ordinary you have, not the Ordinary you want to have, so I'll be happy that we've at least got one of the "good guys" and not one of the renegade bishops. I think that if Abp. Naumann wears a short mitre, it's because the dude's huge. (note: ordinary is another word for "bishop") If you've ever seen the good Archbishop in person, you know that he's a mountain of a man. I bet his short mitre is just a function of his height.
In the end, it's not the hat. It's the man under the hat. Still, these exceptions aside, I think that the hat has become a fairly reliable indicator of the man under the hat. Vestments have trends just like anything else. Certain styles come in and out of fashion--in church styles, the fashions often belie some bigger issue.
This scene from the 1964 movie Becket is a good example of a very short mitre that would have been very typical of the gothic era of the Church:
The days of the renaissance era were extravagant ones for Catholicism. The renaissance era produced so many of the Church's great artistic treasures--they were also colored by corruption and underhanded behavior at the top of the Church (check out the "renaissance popes" some time to understand the full scope of corruption). But for all of its impropriety, it was the height of artistry. During this time the mitre soared to peaking heights--and bishops that wore short mitres were seen as fuddy-duddies that weren't in on the party. But the party ended when Martin Luther began his reformation which eventually split into Protestantism; as the protestant reformation was met by the Church's counter-reformation, a cultural shift was underway in Catholicism.
This period gave birth to great discipline in the church. It founded so many great religious orders like the Discalced Carmelites and a resurgence to the Benedictines, it was the era that founded the Jesuits and the Dominicans.
The baroque mitre stayed tall and dominant. I think that it was a mark of representing the authority and tradition of the Church in a time when it was more vogue to challenge the Church than listen to her (I freely admit that my own personal bias may enter the analysis here). The tall mitre became the standard of the episcopacy for a very long time.
Enter: the 1960's.
Like renaissance tall-mitre bishops were distrustful of paleo-gothic small-mitred bishops as being spoilsports, the free-wheeling times in the church that arrived with the 60's, 70's and 80's were distrustful of the stodgy ordinaries in their tall hats. It was another cultural shift underway. Mitres became short and fat (didn't we all?) hitting their nadir sometime around His Holiness Benedict XVI was elevated to the papacy. Not quite the little mitres of gothic Catholicism, but you get the picture. Tall-mitred bishops were curmudgeons or stalwarts, relics of a bygone era. The new episcopacy was just this-side of iconoclasm and would have rather not taken part in the tall-mitred feet dragging of their old fashioned predecessors.
I should make it clear that I'm using some pretty serious over-generalization at this point.
For around four decades, it was the norm of the bishops to dress with plain and simple flowy vestments (the Roman chasuble is still the norm for priests in America--it's the top robe that Father wears for Mass. A Roman chasuble is typical of the gothic era; the "fiddleback" chasuble is associated with a baroque aesthetic... and with priests who offer the Tridentine Latin Mass) with short mitres.
The shift began when Pope Benedict XVI asked Archbishop Piero Marini to step down as the Papal Master of Ceremonies. Papal MCs basically run the public appearances of the pope; they coordinate Masses and speeches, they present him with his vestments and control the appearance of the papacy. Abp. Piero Marini was Pope John Paul II's Papal MC and essentially created the "JP2 Style". It was the style that Benedict inherited when he assumed the throne, the earliest pictures of Benedict as pope have him in some vestments that totally don't match the style which he models today. It's a big sign of whether or not a photo is old or recent, as they are typical of the two Marinis who served as papal MC's.
Pope Benedict XVI with "old Marini" Archbishop Piero Marini as Papal MC:
Pope Benedict XVI with "new Marini" Monsignor Guido Marini as Papal MC:
Some of the differences can be explained as simple fashion: 60's and 70's minimalism is giving way to a little more ornamentation. But I also think that we're in a period of aesthetic and theological reactionism to the post-Vatican II era. It's a strange time. I'm beginning to think of this period of Catholicism as post-Conciliarism; Catholic are reacting to the stuff we lost to iconoclasm in the 70's, 80's and 90's. The Church is tradding-up.
Frankly, we're probably just tired of stripped down minimalism, we'd like a little... interestingness. Some weight. Some appreciation of beauty. Of tradition. Of orthodoxy. Of glory.
The mitres are a historical outward sign of this. It's not a perfect measure, of course. It's not the hat. It's the man under the hat. But it's still proving a somewhat reliable standard of what kind of bishop is in charge.
A mitre-gauge.
There's a fundraising supper coming up for the Sisters Servants of Mary.
It's Sunday up at the parish center of St. Patrick's Church on State Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas. If you don't know St. Patrick's, it's East of the Legends in KCK. The building is kind of an unfortunate relic of 1960's architecture and suggests maybe that it's an International House of Pancakes, but at least it's a proper rectangle church rather than the round spaceships we have in Johnson County.
The Sisters had their spaghetti dinner there last year too; we went, it was simple and fun. And CROWDED! We intended to go to noon Mass at St. Patrick's and then go get lunch afterwards. But it turns out that noon Mass is actually 11:30 Mass and our plans were foiled. It was kind of lucky, because if we didn't go straight to lunch (and go to Mass later that day, thankyouverymuch), we wouldn't have been able to get a seat for us and our friends that we were joining. Really. It was standing-room-only and people were waiting for our chairs as soon as we sat down.
Last autumn, the Sisters were treated to a fundraising dinner and action at their behalf, a $125/plate soiree that drew around 600 people and an auction that raised more money in a few hours than they earn in dozens and dozens of small events like spaghetti dinners. Obituary sections in the newspaper continually list that donations be made to their convent in the name of the deceased. The archdiocesean newspaper, The Leaven, even dedicated an entire special issue just to these nuns back in September. People just love giving to these women--women who take their vows of poverty, women who still dress in humble habits and always need a ride to get wherever they're going.
You see, these Servite nuns are a pretty special blessing. Many of their members are licensed nurses, they all minister to the sick and dying. When you've got a family member who is sick and bedridden, these nuns will stay by their side, praying and staying by the bedside. When family members need to get a little sleep at night but cannot leave their loved one unattended, the Sisters step in to help. They'll pull a chair up by the hospital bed and attend to the care of the sick. They've also been known to do some dishes in your kitchen overnight--caring for the sick often means caring for the family of the sick, too.
The Catholic Church has taken a hit in a lot of its vocations in recent decades. Great religious communities, monks, nuns, friars, and orders of all kinds have really struggled in most of the world. Communities who struggled with recruitment have been forced to board up their convents and monasteries, sell their assets and pool together with similar communities. It's that way the Ursuline sisters here in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas. The Ursulines came to Kansas in 1895 and educated over 50,000 students in just a little over a century's time. But a century later, they were running low on recruitment and couldn't afford to maintain the grounds of the convent in Paola.
By the time I went to Catholic High School, there were only two nuns left teaching classes. One would pass away shortly after I graduated, the other keeps steadily plugging along. She has quiet strength and has earned her respect with a lifetime of work--she could have probably retired a couple decades ago, but it's her life's work, her vocation and her ministry.
There's some people who consider the decline in religious vocations and point to the changes in the Church after Vatican 2. This was the thesis behind Kenneth Jones' work Index of Leading Catholic Indicators (out of print, but you can find it in some Catholic bookstores. Check around online). The forward to the book was written by Pat Buchanan, and it's pretty startling. Buchanan's rhetoric is pure PJB, over the top and borderline sensation, but in the end, the numbers paint a pretty stark picture on the Church in America since the Council. The sum of which, Jones says speaks for itself: "In the end, though, my purpose in writing the Index of Leading Catholic Indicators is not to make any argument at all - it's simply to present the facts to people so they can come to their own conclusions."
A person on the Catholic Answers Forum put it this way: For the USA, it's like a nonsense narrative: Well, Mass attendance was high, seminaries were full, there were lots of teaching orders, etc. But then, thank goodness, we finally got a "renewal." It's hard to disagree.
There's probably also some merit in a competing theory for the decline in vocations: good economies don't beget many religious. The idea here is that people join the priesthood, convents or monasteries because it's steady work, a roof overhead and health care in retirement. I think that this is theory gains credibility if you look at cultural factors, like poorer countries often have a higher level of religiosity and therefore more religious vocations. But you're chasing chickens and eggs there, and while we need more priests, I don't think that the answer is to promote third-world living conditions in the USA.
In any measure, the Sister Servants of Mary do not appear to be struggling with vocations. There's quite a few of them at their convent in KCK--and they appear to have come to this city from all over the globe (including a lot of third-world countries) and they're in hospitals all over the city. Quietly and graciously living our their mission and their vocation. Ministers to the sick and suffering, doing God's work and asking nothing in return--other than a ride to and from the hospital or the bedside. The sisters don't drive.
God bless them and their work, those Sisters are good people. I'm not sure that planning a Spaghetti fundraiser on Super Bowl Sunday was necessarily the wisest decision, but I'll forgive those nuns for not having that day circled on their calendar already. Anyway, kickoff isn't until 5:20, so you've got time to have your meatballs and be back in time to cheer on the Cardinals--you are cheering for the Cardinals, right? Come on, man. They get to elect the next pope. They deserve to win a Super Bowl once in a while. Or even once.
SISTERS SERVANTS OF MARY
ANNUAL SPAGHETTI DINNER
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2009
11am To 4pm
ST. PATRICKS PARISH CENTER
9400 State Avenue Kansas City, KS
Dinner includes: Salad, Spaghetti, Homemade
Tomato Sauce, Italian Sausage, Meatballs, Garlic
Toast, drink and dessert. Price is $8 for adults
and $3 for children under 10
See you there.
In Saturday's Kansas City Star, the FAITH section ran a story exploring Public prayer at Obama's inauguration. The article posits that there are three major opinions on public prayer:
Do it your way: The speaker should pray in his or her own faith tradition. Embrace everyone: Pray an inclusive, interfaith prayer. Don't do it: Prayer should not be allowed at public events.
The Star goes on to present a number of "area faith leaders" that included a blue-ribbon panel of a Protestant Pastor, a Buddhist Lama, a Seminary Professor, Jewish Rabbi, the president of the Heartland Humanists and a Catholic layman who convened the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council. It's an interesting group of people that could end in "walk into a bar". Strange that they couldn't find a Catholic priest in their list of "faith leaders", but I guess you go to press with the panel you have, not the panel you want to have.
It is further strange that the Humanists are included in a list of "faith leaders", since Humanism is (theoretically) a belief system that doesn't concern itself with "supernatural beliefs". But as the great Yogi Berra said: "In theory, theory and practice are the same thing. In practice, they're not." The Heartland Humanists are closer pals to atheists than to any strain of theism. Use your Google and find out for yourself.
In any matter, I found it curious to read the Star's take on the three major prayers related to the President's inauguration. First, I'd like to spend a moment parsing the pray-ers.
Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson kicked off Obamastock with an invocation that begged for tears, anger, discomfort, patience, humility, freedom from mere tolerance, compassion and generosity. All in all, I'd say that I pray for many of the same things, though for different reasons. Rev. Robinson's prayer was a hope that we make the world a better place for people, and that's a noble goal. Indeed, on the face of things, I'd say it's a worthy prayer for people to treat other people with kindness and charity. We should all be so focused in our lives. Still, I think there's more to praying for tears, anger, discomfort and humility than just a social justice agenda. I'd say there's real merit in praying for tears, anger, discomfort and humility as a way of understanding Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross, that tears of sorrow could be united to Our Lady of Sorrows, that we have a profound understanding of Christ Crucified, that our tears, anger, discomfort and humility are tools to spur people to make the world a better place for God. Which means, of course, that we make the world a better place for people. But what is our ultimate motivation? For whom does the church bell toll? I don't know much about the Episcopalian Church-- or what really distinguishes them from American Anglicans (who often say that they consider themselves Catholic-- albeit Anglican Catholic rather than Latin/Roman Catholic), and I don't know if they have the same view on the dolors that Romans do, so I might be asking too much from the man.
As an aside: what's the last rock concert you went to that had an Episcopalian bishop give the opening prayer? How odd. It seemed so "tacked-on", like he was the gay-answer to Rick Warren. I'm sure that Bishop Robinson was happy to get the call asking him to appear on HBO, but it sill seems... weird.
Protestant megachurch pastor Rick Warren, for his part, gave a fairly decent invocation that asked God to give the new President wisdom, courage and compassion--but more interesting to me was Warren's line: "We now commit our new president and his wife, Michelle and his daughters, Malia and Sasha, into your loving care." I wonder if the President and his family knew that they were going to be given to God's care? Warren also had the chutzpah to mention Jesus' name outright, saying that he asked his prayer "in the name of the one who changed my life, Yeshua, Isa, Jesus [Spanish pronunciation], Jesus". Warren is the author of the book The Purpose Driven Life, and I think that after reviewing his invocation, his prayer is that he's praying that Obama has a Purpose Driven presidency. Warren's prayer seems to be more God-focused than Robinson's was, but it's also fair to say that they were markedly different settings. Warren was there to dedicate a new President, Robinson was there to open up for Beyonce.
I'm having a harder time understanding the Benediction prayer from Methodist Rev. Joseph Lowery. A benediction is different than an invocation, though I wonder if that really matters to anyone else than me. An invocation is a prayer to invoke God into our lives, it's a prayer of petition--the word comes from the latin verb invocare, meaning "to call on". A benediction is a prayer of blessing, which while it broadly calls an invocation for divine help, is more like a prayer of good wishes. The word itself is based in the Latin words bene (well) and dicere (to speak) and suggests a prayer to for an infusion of holiness more than a specific petition request from the Almighty. Lowery, for his part, used his benediction to string together some Spirituals and Blues songs to make a curiously rhyming prayer that was more poetic than the actual poetry that preceded his blessing. Lowery's focus was, like Robinson's, directed towards the broken, wounded, exploited and unfavored people that they might be rich and elite one day. I suppose that there's a tangible connection between Lowery's prayer and Jesus' eight Beatitudes, but the Beatitudes promise eternal riches, not temporal ones.
These three speeches are what prompts the Star to ask its panel a few questions about public prayer. One of those questions was this: "Should a person offer a public prayer in his or her own faith tradition or an interfaith prayer?" The answers were interesting. In their own words:
Bishop Mark Tolbert, senior pastor of Victorious Life Church in Kansas City: He said he always prays in the name of Jesus because he believes "this is the name that God has ordained for this dispensation." The Pentecostal pastor said he doesn't want to offend anyone."There are other things that I might modify in my attempt not to offend, but when it comes to prayer, that is too sensitive and crucial for me to not want to offend God. Because if I please others but don't please God, then I run the risk of not getting my prayers answered."
Thor Madsen, academic dean at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City: He agrees that Christians should not pray interfaith prayers because "by their very nature, they downplay the lordship of Christ and his unique place in salvation history."
The Rev. William Davis, Pastor of Sycamore Hills Vaptist [sic] Church, Independence: For a Christian, Davis said, there can be interfaith dialogue, cooperation and activities but not "interfaith prayer in a proper sense."
"Prayer for a Christian comes from intimacy with God through Christ," the Southern Baptist minister said. "Interfaith prayer would compromise that intimacy since Christ would not be seen by other faiths in the same manner and as the one by whom the Father is approached."
Ted Peters, religion professor at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, Calif., author of publications on public prayer: The alternative to praying within one's own faith tradition "would be to construct a prayer that tries to be inclusive of many traditions, and the result is such a vapid prayer that everyone -- perhaps God included -- wants to regurgitate. There is something authentic about a prayer that exhibits the strength of a long religious tradition, even if that tradition is not one's own."
[Rev. Holly McKissick, pastor of St. Andrew Christian Church, Olathe]: "To offer a public prayer that ends with 'O Source of all Life' instead of 'In Jesus' name' does not reflect a watered down faith, but a sensitivity to the varied ways people experience God. It is consciously choosing, in a public setting, to go with words that will touch the broadest group possible."
[Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, professor of liturgy, worship and ritual at Hebrew Union College]: "When people try to pray in common, some may say this is the lowest common denominator, but I would call it the highest common denominator. It is very high for people to expand their horizons and understand that God created the entire universe and is not limited as humans are.
"God speaks all languages. God even hears the prayers of the heart. He does interfaith work."
And all of this speaks to a totally different question that must first be sincerely answered before you can ask about the method of prayer: why do public prayer at all?. I mean, really. Why are you doing it?
There are two elements to any life of faith: a horizontal dimension and a vertical dimension. A horizontal dimension is focused on people, a vertical dimension is focused on God. In real life, we've got both dimensions in our churches--and broadly speaking, we need both dimensions. It's more popular to be horizontal--think of this as the "chuch as a soup kitchen" model. And indeed, Christ Himself said to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the imprisoned. It's a meritorious goal! A vertical dimension is the more erudite position--in it's extremes, I think of it as the Carthusian model that lives as a total hermit dedicated to worship the Lord. But when we gather in public prayer, which dimension is our greater focus? Are we praying to God or are we praying to other people? With whom is the conversation?
I'd venture to say that Bishop Robinson's prayer was more like a God-ish speech to people more than a person's speech with God. Warren's prayer seemed to be a real petition to the Lord. Lowery's prayer seemed more like a moment for the microphones. These are, perhaps, unfair criticisms. But I'll stand by them nonetheless.
So when you're praying publicly, is it poor form to pray in your own "faith tradition" or should you use a neutered interfaith prayer? Listen: you're praying to God for God's blessing. You're not praying to the crowd or the cameras--and if you are, then you're not really praying. A horizontal dimension may be important to people and religions in practice, but prayers are vertical. The whole point is to talk to God. When you spend time watering down a prayer to make it acceptable to people, you've already missed the point.
So here's my answer: I'm praying for the President. I'm praying for the country. And I pray in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Just remember who you're praying for and who you're praying to... there's a difference.
Today marks the 36th anniversary of Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States.
Author and speaker Frederica Mathewes-Green has a column that appears in the National Review online today, reprinted on her own site. Excerpt:
My Boomer generation will never see abortion as anything other than the wise and benevolent gift we bestowed on all future generations. We still control the media, the universities, and so forth, and it will take time for all of us to topple off the end of the conveyer belt.But the time is coming when a younger generation will be in charge, and they may well see abortion differently. They could see it, not as "a woman's choice" but as a form of state-sanctioned violence inflicted on their generation. It was their brothers and sisters who died; anyone under the age of 36 could have been aborted (and somewhere around a fourth or a fifth of all pregnancies, in fact, are aborted). A younger generation might feel a strange kinship with the brothers and sisters, classmates and coworkers, who are missing.
And I'm afraid that, if they do see things that way, they aren't going to go easy on my generation. Our acceptance of abortion is not going to look like an understandable goof. The next generation can fairly say, "It's not like they didn't know." They'll say, "After all, they had sonograms." And they may judge us to be monsters.
Maybe that won't happen. Maybe future generations won't think twice about abortion. But even we who have grown sick of talking about it still harbor some doubts. In particular, people who think of themselves as defenders of the weak and the oppressed must have many a quiet moment when they wonder, "How, in this one issue, did I wind up on the side that's defending death?"
As an interesting aside, the plantiff in the Roe v Wade decision was "Jane Roe", a pseudonymous woman who claimed that the pregnancy was on the account of rape and insisted on an abortion. Roe later revealed her identity as Norma McCorvey. The court case took longer than 9 months, she gave birth to her child-- who was put up for adoption. McCorvey later said that she was not raped and that her entire trial was put up to her by two lawyers one of whom advocates challenging the Roe decision the same way they argued for it, saying that challengers "would go at it every way they could -- and they'd especially pick up on the dissent on Roe v. Wade, in which Rehnquist wrote there is no right to privacy in the Constitution, that the court made it up."
McCorvey is now pro-life.
Hat tip: CrunchyCon.
The following prayer was composed by John Carroll, Archbishop of Baltimore, in 1791. He was the first bishop appointed for the United States in 1789 by Pope Pius VI. He was made the first archbishop when his see of Baltimore was elevated to the status of an archdiocese.
I remember as an adolescent Boy Scout, I was working on meeting the requirments for the "Ad Altare Dei" religious emblem award, (which is something like a Catholic Merit Badge, basically one exists for every major and most minor world religions) and the handbook talked about "witnessing" to people who had no religion. I don't remember exactly if it was a call to witness to other faiths and non-Catholic Christians, but thinking back-- I kind of doubt it. It wouldn't have been very PC to drop that on a 13 year old kid... but I can't recall that part exactly. But it's beside the point.
So I was talking to my friend 
Well, all-in-all, I don't think much of "reconciliation rooms". I'll take the anonymity of the booth, thankyouverymuch. (Though, in fairness, many of those "reconciliation rooms" are now being retrofitted with awkward Japanese screens and kneelers for penitants who want to be thought of as "chickens") For regular confession goers, confession is kind of a businesslike practice. Wait in line, hit the kneeler, give a list and a quantity, get your penance and get out. Next! There's a little talking involved, of course. Father will probably want to know some circumstances of some stuff, he'll give a little advice and perspective, give penance and pray the prayer absolution. Priests will get reputations as "good confessors" (though I can't say that I've ever heard of a "bad confessor") and when you go to the confession services during that last week of Advent, their line is the longest. The REALLY good confessors are the ones who get reputations for being able to "read your heart" and open you up when you weren't willing to do that on your own. Two Saints in particular come to mind: 
