Mask-free again

 As of today, masks no longer are required in indoor public places in Illinois.  There are a few exceptions: hospitals, nursing homes, public transportation.  And local governments and individual businesses may impose stricter rules.  In addition, in the county where I reside, bars and restaurants no longer are required to check for vaccination status (a practice that, in my observation, was becoming increasingly spotty in any case).

Schools in Illinois have been a contested arena for masking for several weeks now.  I reported earlier this month that a court had temporarily blocked the governor's statewide education masking mandate, causing confusion and some convulsions at districts across the state.  On Friday, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled against that lower court - but then the governor lifted his education masking mandate, effective today.    

My daughter teaches in a public school district.  When mask confusion reigned earlier this month, her district's board landed on a family-decision policy: students would wear masks if the parents required it; if the parents didn't require it, the students wouldn't have to wear masks.  And how does a teacher like my daughter know which parents require their children to wear masks?  She has no idea, and she won't even try to keep track of it.  She leaves it up to the students.  She's continuing to wear a mask.

The Chicago Archdiocese had lifted its own mask mandate for worship and religious education a couple of weeks ago.  I've been going mask-free at the altar until the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and then removing my mask again after communion.  Looking out at the congregation, it appears to me that about half the people are continuing to wear a mask and about half aren't.

I assume that half-and-half observation could extend beyond the walls of the church.  Some people have been agitating to get rid of mask mandates, and now they'll gleefully go about their business mask-free.  Others are risk-averse and will continue to wear masks even when not mandated; some of these folks may have been grateful for having the governor's mandate behind them to relieve them of the social pressure to explain or apologize.

At any rate, we'll see how we do in this next, somewhat less-protected stage of the fight against COVID-19.

Let my eyes stream with tears

This passage from Jeremiah is the Old Testament canticle for this morning's Lauds (Morning Prayer) in the Liturgy of the Hours.  The prophet is foretelling the death and destruction in the wake of the Babylonians' siege of Jerusalem.  Its applicability to the situation in Ukraine struck me.  

Nato Expansion and Ukraine

NYT OPINION

by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

This Is Putin’s War. But America and NATO Aren’t Innocent Bystanders.

In my view, there are two huge logs fueling this fire. The first log was the ill-considered decision by the U.S. in the 1990s to expand NATO after — indeed, despite — the collapse of the Soviet Union.

And the second and far bigger log is how Putin cynically exploited NATO’s expansion closer to Russia’s borders to rally Russians to his side to cover for his huge failure of leadership.

On May 2, 1998, immediately after the Senate ratified NATO expansion, I called George Kennan, the architect of America’s successful containment of the Soviet Union. Having joined the State Department in 1926 and served as U.S. ambassador to Moscow in 1952, Kennan was arguably America’s greatest expert on Russia. Though 94 at the time and frail of voice, he was sharp of mind when I asked for his opinion of NATO expansion.

I am going to share Kennan’s whole answer:

“I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the founding fathers of this country turn over in their graves.

“We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a lighthearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs. What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was. I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe.

“Don’t people understand? Our differences in the Cold War were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime. And Russia’s democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we’ve just signed up to defend from Russia. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are — but this is just wrong.”

W.E.B. Du Bois: Credo & The Divine Liturgy

 A great thanks to Anne for posting a link to last night's live performance of Benedict Sheehan's Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom by Conspirari in Saint Martin's Lutheran Church in Austin Texas. Betty and I greatly enjoyed it. 

You are able to enjoy it, too, if you missed it last night:

The program is available here:

CSP_0122_2533_Credo_Program_1.9_MMT_SPREADS.pdf (conspirare.org)

One of the usual features of last night performance is that it used a Credo written by W.E.B. Du Bois which has a status close to that of MLK's I have a Dream speech. The Credo had already been set to music by famed Black Woman composer, Margaret Bonds. Conspirari has also performed her work recently. You can enjoy it here in a Black culture context:

While it would take a lot of time and effort to discuss the two performances. I think we can discuss both the W.E.B. Du Bois Credo and Benedict Sheehan rational for setting and using it in a concert performance of his work on the Divine Liturgy especially Sheehan's thinking about liturgy. 

Church musicians like Betty may also want to hear Sheehan and his wife's guided tour of his entire work in this video: 

The St. Tikhon Choir - Benedict Sheehan Liturgy Guided Listening - YouTube

Can art be separated from the artist?

 The thing that brought this question up was a conversation at choir practice. We were practicing music for this past Sunday, bearing in mind that the gospel reading was Luke's account of the Beatitudes, the "sermon on the plain".  The song "Blest Are They" seemed to be a natural fit. Only trouble was, it wasn't in our OCP music edition this year. Our choir leader wondered why. I said that it was probably because the composer, David Haas, has been in hot water over sexual harassment accusations, and the music publishers dropped him. This occasioned some comments about "cancel culture", and how it seemed to be punishing people who like the song, rather than the composer. After all, there was nothing theologically wrong about the lyrics.

I admit that I have mixed feelings about the subject. David Haas' behavior seems to have been beyond the pale, if the accusations are true. However there are some classical composers whose lives weren't beyond reproach, but their music has lived on after them.  In the end, we did use "Blest Are They" as a meditation, rather than for congregational singing.

What are your thoughts on art being separable, or not, from the artist?

Invalid Baptisms

The Washington Post (among other news sources) recently reported the case of a priest in Phoenix, Arizona, who for many years used a baptismal formula ("We baptize you . . . " rather than "I baptize you . . . ") that has been declared by the CDF to be invalid. Consequently, Church authorities have announced that not only are all the people "baptized" with this formula not truly baptized, but any sacraments they have receive since their invalid baptism (e.g., marriage, ordination, confession) have also been invalid. There will be an attempt to locate and inform everyone invalidly baptized of the situation, to baptize them, and to administer to them any later sacraments they may have invalidly received that have baptism as a prerequisite (such as marriage) and to validly administer those sacraments.

The comment count as of right now stands at 1207, and if there are any (including ones from those who self-identify as current or former Catholics) that are not mocking, sarcastic, or hostile, I haven't run across them. The top comment, with 230 "likes," is as follows:

Trust issues

This is my homily for today, the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C.  The readings for today are here.

What's up with Canada?

I have been following the Canadian trucker's strike with some puzzlement.  Aren't Canadians supposed to be the sensible neighbors?

Maybe you remember a family from your childhood in grade school, whom your parents held up as paragons.  The kids were well-behaved, and never had to be nagged to finish their homework or do their chores.  I have to admit that I felt a touch of schadenfreude when one of them got in trouble and had to stay after school. That's a little the feeling that comes up over the trucker's strike.  Canadians have always been the responsible ones, who had a national health system, a better social safety net, and didn't buck sensible restrictions to prevent the spread of disease.

So now there is the wildcat trucker's strike north of the border, which has been going on for a month:

EXPLAINER: A look at what’s behind at the protests in Canada (news4jax.com)

Wordle to the rescue!

 The headline on the Chicago Tribune story conveys the gist:

Wordle helped save suburban grandmother being held by armed home invader, cops say. Family was concerned woman didn’t text her daily score.

My little Olympic boycott

I'm not watching the Olympics.  The Chinese regime is genocidal.  Many American firms and individuals with commercial ties to China have remained mute as Uyghurs are exterminated; in my view, these Americans have disgraced themselves.  The Olympic Games are a huge propaganda opportunity for the host country.  I don't want to be complicit in that, even if it's just me and nobody else cares.

Not tuning into the Olympics is not much of a hardship.  There are many other things to watch and many other things to do with my time.  As a general rule, I don't find athletes very interesting or even particularly likeable; I've never understood why media networks insist on putting retired jocks behind microphones.  Elite athletes come across as privileged, self-absorbed, pampered and quite possibly pumped full of illicit substances.  The television network coverage seems to revolve around trying to manipulate our emotions into falling in love with the athletes.  I hate being manipulated.  So I'll pass, NBC.  

When I was a child, I was bursting with patriotic zeal for us to sock it to the Commies.  Nowadays, I feel sorry for Russian and Chinese athletes (including women's tennis star Peng Shuai, who apparently has been detained by her government for many months, possibly after being sexually abused by a Communist Party official).  And given the disparity in wealth and resources, I am not exactly brimming with national pride when an American triumphs over a Jamaican or Ghanaian competitor.  In recent World Cup competition, the arrogance of the American women's soccer team filled me with revulsion as it routed and humiliated the national teams of countries a quarter of our size and many times poorer.  If I'm not mistaken, the American men's team was excluded from the most recent World Cup soccer tournament because it lost in the pre-tournament qualifying to the tiny Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago.  I can't tell you how pleased I was. 

The other evening, my wife, who was sitting with me in the family room as we watched something other than the Olympics, begged me to turn the games on for just a few minutes.  I handed her the remote, told her to go for it, and left the room.  A bit later, when I returned for a few minutes, some American teen was appearing before the media - presumably she had just won a medal or something similar.  I didn't quite catch the question, but it seemed to touch on how she felt about the oppressive Chinese regime.  She smiled and said something along the lines of, 'Hey, I don't pay attention to that stuff; I'm just trying to live my best life.'  I felt completely vindicated in staying away from the Games.

Benedict, Sexual Abuse and his Handlers

 The NY Times story:

Retired Pope Asks Forgiveness Over Handling of Abuse Cases

ROME — Two weeks after a report found that retired Pope Benedict XVI had mishandled four cases involving the sexual abuse of minors while he was an archbishop in Germany decades ago, he acknowledged on Tuesday that “abuses and errors” had taken place under his watch but denied any misconduct.

Greater detail about the response of Benedict and his aides are provided by this article in America

Pope Benedict asks for forgiveness in a ‘confession’ responding to Munich sex abuse report

Benedict, like most bishops of his time, made many mistakes in dealing with sexual abuse. If I had the time, information is out there that could argue that he was ahead of others in recognizing and dealing with the problem especially as CDF head and then Pope. His record of awakening to the problem is probably better than that of Francis who took a long while to get around to his present forceful stance. I think Francis was helped by recognizing the large role that clericalism has played in the sexual abuse scandal. I doubt that Benedict is very concerned about clericalism.

Benedict's poor showing in response to everything going on in Germany about sexual abuse is very likely due to his handlers. This interview with Father Hans Zollner in America makes a great case for that, namely that Benedict's "official response" is very inconsistent with his own thinking on many issues.

Father Hans Zollner on the German sex abuse report, Pope Benedict and the future of the church

Mask wars

Update February 8, 2022, 4:57 pm - over the past 36 hours, the level of local political conflict around here has heated up substantially.  Parents are protesting outside schools and at local school board meetings.  To me, this level of grassroots activism (how spontaneous or organic is unknown) feels like Tea Party 2.0.  If conservative leaders aren't cheerleading, orchestrating and seeking to capitalize politically on this activity already, they will be very soon. 

_____

A court enjoined the Illinois governor's education mask mandate last Friday.  Now individual school districts must quickly devise new masking policies. 

A New Version of the Lord's Prayer

 A very interesting new music version of the Lord's Prayer in both English and Hebrew!  

There are two English versions of the Our Father. The first sung in English and the second used as subtitles to the Hebrew version.  Both are interesting because they contain many of the alternatives that have been proposed by scholars to our present English texts.

The Hebrew is interesting. Most scholars agree that Jesus spoke Aramaic not Hebrew; there are several Aramaic texts of the Lord's Prayer that are used in worship by Churches who use semitic languages, e.g., Syriac. However, this is the first time I have been aware of a Hebrew version. Most likely it is the composer's translation back in Hebrew of the English text he has posted.  However, there is (or was) a Hebrew Matthew. Most scholars view that text as the translation of either Greek Matthew or an Aramaic Matthew used by some vanished Hebrew Christian communities. So maybe this is not a modern Hebrew version?

Note that in the English version waves go from left to right, while in the Hebrew version waves go from right to left. 

Below the break for the convenience of discussion are the full texts

Wordle

 

Photo courtesy of cnn.com

Have you played Wordle yet?  Apparently I am the last member of my family to discover it.  It has its charms.

What is the real purpose of the Synod?

 

I haven't paid a lot of attention to the Synod discussions, but I became curious after stopping by my former parish while walking to get a drink of water and scanning the bulletin to see what was going on (continuing its rightward drift from what I could see). A small announcement caught my eye - they were going to have "another" listening session for the Synod. So even some conservative parishes are doing it!  But the wording got me to wondering about the actual goals of the Synod. From the bulletin -   The Synod is a unique gift for our local Church. It is a gift of time-a chance to step back and reconnect with our parish. It is an opportunity to invite people not only back to Sunday Mass but back to parish life. This invitation to parish life starts with listening. Listening to each other’s joys, hopes, sorrows and anxieties. The Synod is not about changing doctrine or church structures, but rather encountering each other as brothers and sisters in Christ in a post[1]pandemic world.