L'Arche Community

 We have discussed Vanier before:

Et tu, Jean Vanier

perhaps it is worthwhile to have a discussion of how do we, both as persons, communities, and institutions, move forward after a mixed history of both good and bad.  We don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but we don't want to minimize the evil that has been done. How do we tell the story?  How do we prevent similar errors from happening again?

Shattered: Catholic community confronts its founder's lies

The case against sending humans to Mars

This article, Mars Sux? - by Jonathan V. Last - The Triad (thebulwark.com), popped up in my e-mail yesterday, and it pretty well sums up how I feel about the goal of manned missions to Mars. I have long felt that to pursue that goal is a waste of money and resources, and is indulging a vain hope that humans could ever live on the red planet. The author of the Bulwark article, Jonathan V. Last, quotes extensively from essayist Maciej Ceglowski to make his case.  From the article:

Not as we see does Jesus see

 This is my homily for today, the 4th Sunday of Lent, Cycle A.  Today's readings are here.

The Tenth Anniversary of the Conclave

I have been an avid reader of Rocco Palmo's blog. (Remember he is basically using the same media as we are).  His role model was a Philadelphia reporter who did an excellent job of giving an insider's view to Philadelphia politics; his aim to do the same for the hierarchy of the Church. 

A few days ago, he retweeted his post on the eve of the Conclave. In retrospect, it is a very convincing explanation that the choice of Francis was on the mark.

In Conclave, The Curia vs. The World

In short, the path begins with a question in each elector's mind: "What is the situation of the church?"  It ends with which melding of those answers in human form can make it to 77.

Still, assembling them almost always tends to begin at the center, with the strengths and weaknesses of what just came before. And this time, when one of the group quietly exclaimed that, in the wake of the series of debacles in the Curia over recent years, "We need someone who can take the Vatican back," it's not hard to see that sentiment as being nearly electable on its own.

Add in that, to an even greater degree than last time, the skill-set is everything and the symbolic would be little more than incidental; should a candidate have the desired qualities, the once-powerful arguments of age and nationality are looking to be practically irrelevant.

If all that leads one to think this could be a week of surprises, you just might be onto something.

In another shift of the scene, the elections of 1978 and 2005 saw ideology – of course, as determined by the legacy of the Council – as a key factor. That's not the case this time – as ecclesial issues go, "reform" of governance usually belongs to the progressive camp, but many who wouldn't be considered "liberal" by any stretch appear to be on-board.

In this election, the fault line can duly be termed "The Curia vs. The World." And as a corollary to it, even if the scene remains immensely uncertain, yet another great upending of what's long been taken for granted is thought to be taking place.

On another front, what’s emerged as the second key quality will likely require some trade-offs with the first: a charismatic choice able to compellingly and convincingly present the faith – in word and through media, both at home and on the road.

That might sound like an evolution of style, but this time around, the concerns of a prior reign hobbled by isolation make one's ability to keep appraised a key matter of substance in determining a viable candidacy among their own.

And then, there is the ultimate ad intra watershed. Fifty years since Vatican II opened, for the first time since the Council, the new Pope will not have been present at it – and the way things are looking, he might not have even entered seminary before its close.

In other words, after decades of its interpretation by pontiffs who were Fathers or periti and the resulting wider fights over the legacy, the Roman pontiff will now effectively have the post-Conciliar church as his sole reference-point

Catholic Music: The Propers

 

Jim's recent post The trouble with Catholic church music claims that Catholic musicians were given an extremely difficult if not impossible task by Vatican II:

What the liturgical music powers-that-be have taken away from passages such as this might be enumerated as the following principles of Catholic worship music:

Everyone should sing everything

People's music traditions should be incorporated into the liturgy.

What musicians did was to try to incorporate popular music traditions into the Four Hymn Mass: Entrance Hymn, Preparation Hymn, Communion Hymn, and Recession Hymn.

Many liturgists who are usually labeled as traditionalists would say that they ignored the Propers. The Propers are a set of chants called the Introit, Gradual, Offertory, and Communion that go back to the pre-Vatican II Mass. Those Chants still exist in updated forms in the Novus Ordo Latin Mass. They all consist of psalms with an antiphon which is usually a verse from the psalm. 

"Fool Around and Find Out"

We've all heard by now that perhaps there was a lab leak leading to the COVID pandemic.  Not that they know for sure.  But the Department of Defense believes it could have happened. But it also could have come from the wet market in Wuhan, in which multiple species of animals and their body fluids were present.  Because what is pretty well known is that the virus was zoonotic in origin, whether it came from the lab or the market.

Which is why I was not thrilled to read this article:  Viruses in permafrost: Scientists have revived a 'zombie' virus that spent 48,500 years frozen | CNN

Cardinal McElroy on peace and war

Cardinal Robert McElroy of the San Diego diocese may be the most interesting American bishop today.  (Among clergy, he may be rivaled only by James Martin SJ.)  He leverages the media to proclaim the Gospel in provocative ways.  

NCR has published a story by Dennis Sadowski on Cardinal McElroy's appearance at Notre Dame last week on the occasion of the annual Notre Dame Forum.  The theme for this year's symposium is "New and Old Wars, New and Old Challenges to Peace".  Some excerpts from the story, together with my own thoughts and comments, are after the break.

What exactly does it mean to be "holy"?

 

Some recent discussions have made me think again about a subject that I have thought about before, many times.   What exactly does it mean to be holy?   I guess the saints are holy (even when they're a bit nuts) because they do devote themselves to God as much as they can.  A friend who was the Social Justice Minister at my last Catholic parish loved to read about the saints.  He was a single man, in his early 40s, totally devoted to serving God by serving the poor and fighting for justice. When he left the the parish and moved to PA our parting gift to him was the biggest, most beautiful edition of the Lives of the Saints that I have ever seen.  He was thrilled, genuinely thrilled.  But  I don't relate to them - that kind of dedication is not something I am capable of doing.  But maybe there are multiple ways to pursue holiness. So I decided to see what the dictionaries say.   What do you all think?  What does it mean for human beings to be holy?  Is it even possible for human beings to be holy?  Can someone be holy and still live a normal life - working, commuting, coaching the soccer team, taking care of kids and family, etc?

Casuistry and Clericalism

 In the January Commonweal, Katherine Kaveny has an article:

A Defense of Casuistry: Casuistry doesn’t have to be rigid.

I have written a reply to that article on the blog of the Cleveland Commonweal Local Community

Casuistry and Clericalism: A Reply to A Defense of Casuistry

in which I go deeper into the issue of confession as the origin of both casuistry and clericalism.

When I joined the Commonweal Local Community, I intended to participate in their meetings only until age eighty which happened last year.  The community of about thirty members has ceased to meet since the pandemic began. I haven't received anything from anyone or Commonweal about plans to reactivate CLCs. Commonweal's new Executive Director was once the CLC person. 

Now that I am eighty, I hope to activate my post-eighty plan which has been to invite people to my house for vespers and a discussion of a Commonweal article or two.  So, I plan to go down the list inviting two or four people at a time to join Betty and I in a discussion of one or more of the articles I have posted on the CLC website. 

I am posting this now in the hope that those of you who do not get Commonweal will not have exhausted your free five articles this early in the month.

Rick Warren and Thomas Merton

Both Rick Warren and Thomas Merton are spiritual writers whose books have reached far beyond their denominations. I had purchased Warren's The Purpose Driven Life because some of the people in my parish were reading it in their small groups. However, I never got around to reading it. When I opened it the other day and began to read it, I was struck both by how similar and how very different its first chapter was to the introductory chapter of Merton's Seeds of Contemplation. 

Below I have summarized each chapter sticking very closely to their words.