2011 November archive at Being Frank

Archive for November, 2011

Nov

The Mystery of the Roman Missal: Missing, Murder or Mass execution?

By Marty Rethul 21 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

Well, it’s been well over 7-10 days since we were alerted to the debacle which has occurred with the new Roman Missal, and still no news from the New Zealand bishops. I thought we’d have heard something by now, as they promised the faithful.

What has happened? One does begin to wonder. This silence is really shaking my confidence.

Could it be that Christmas is a busy time for printing and that no available machines could be found to re-run such a large number of books, which have a lot of intricate work before and after printing (tabs, properly bound covers, detailed cover art, ribbons, etc)? As for the tabs, apparently that was a debacle just in itself: putting tabs on a large book like a Missal is a long and onerous task, and one that was not apparently undertaken during the printing process. Who gets to do them? Has it been done? Is there any point in doing it with these defective Missals?

Could it be that printing presses and printing plants normally shut down from mid December until mid-late January? No doubt the chosen printers had other jobs in the queue; perhaps no time could be found to run our Missal job again before Christmas?

If (let’s say) January 20 is the restart date, and with a normal printing lead-time of 4-6 weeks, could it be that we’re looking at not actually receiving the new Missal into parishes until March next year, which is after the start of Lent? With such a large order, the printing lead-time could actually be more like 10-12 weeks. This means we may miss out for an Easter 2012 introduction.

What a debacle this is!

But do you know what? That’s the good news!

Because, to be honest with you, I strongly fear that after this mess-up (and it is fast becoming one of embarassingly amateurish proportions) and large financial waste, we may not actually end up receiving a Missal at all.

Could it be that we will be subjected to another 30 years of crappy, unapproved, local booklety thingies, similar to those which we have had for the last 40 years?

You know, those sad little plastic-covered spiral-bound pamphlet-style unapproved prayer aids, which are apparently ‘worthy’ for praying the greatest Prayer on earth.

My estimation is that close to 1000 Missals were ordered. Yes, that’s 1000; to cover all the cathedrals, parishes, chapels, schools, chaplaincies, religious houses, chanceries, personal purchases, and backups for the next 20 years. Now, assuming the Bishops placed a small markup on the Missal itself, in order to make a little money in this whole doomed enterprise, we could say that each Missal and Companion cost around $200. The purchase cost for parishes was, from what I’ve been told, $235 for both.

If it cost $200 for 1000 Missals, that’s a total expenditure of approximately $200,000. Yes, my dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, that’s $200,000!

Who will carry the cost for this mess-up I wonder?

Would any printing firm in NZ just accept pouring approximately $200,000 down the drain? I doubt it.

Could it be that there is a legal fight in the wings, and that’s why we haven’t heard anything? And if there is legal fight, that really could mean that the Bishops could have poured $200,000 down the drain.

Your good money my dear brothers and sisters in the Lord. Our money, which we put into the plate each week, could have been poured down the drain on this one. Now, for those who know about Catholic schooling in this country, $200,000 down the drain is peanuts compared with the millions which have been wasted on Catholic schools.

So that’s why I’m speculating that we may not actually get new Missals after this debacle. The Bishops’ Conference may not actually have another $200,000 to fork out, and we may end up reverting to a far cheaper plastic cooking-book option. Who knows.

There is another question here. Why is it that we haven’t done what the other smaller English-speaking nations have done and gone in with them? England, Wales, Scotland and Australia have all gone with the same Missal and printed together. They all have theirs now and are praying the Mass with it.

If we had done that, we could have printed a smaller, cheaper Maori Missal for those who truly wanted it. It could have been printed in a more considered time-frame for use next year.

Could it be that when our bishops visit Rome for their ad limina in December, a few questions will be asked around this problem? Bishop Campbell himself will no doubt be called to account for his public rejection of the new translation.

It’s rather depressing, really, because as I read around the internet today, I am witnessing a lot of joy and happiness with the introduction of the new Missal in other English speaking countries, and yet, once again, we in New Zealand are left looking like complete plonkers.

O tempora! O mores!

Nov

Post-election humm

By Kereopa 15 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

Wow, what an election. A few surprises with National not getting a straight-off majority, the return of Winston Peters and Labour being served their worst electoral feat ever.

Personally, I’m pretty pleased with the result. Politics aside, its a stable government over the next three years. The anomalies of MMP means that even if the most popular party might not form the government. Love him or hate him, John Key deserves to lead the next government, considering his party got a whopping 48% of the vote share.

That aside, MMP is here to stay. Although it’ll be tweaked, rather than reformed which some commentators are calling for.

The vote count was historically quite low. Can’t blame the weather either because it was a stunner around the country. Its a real shame when only 73.8 per cent of voters can be bothering ticking a box once every three years. We should make voting compulsory. People who don’t vote should be named and shamed.

Do you feel that New Zealand is a little brighter already? If not, here’s a little something that was doing the rounds pre-election.

Continue reading ‘Post-election humm’

Nov

Accountability

By Voice in the wilderness 3 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

Today I was able to make use of the great sacrament of reconciliation.Praise God that I felt called to attend this great sacrament of mercy on the opening weekend of Advent. The sacrament heals and restores us, but it also keeps us accountable in many ways. Firstly, by teaching us that we and our actions are answerable to the Lord. Secondly, having the presence of the priest, it helps us be accountable to another human.

This blog contributes to the accountablity of the church. It provides a forum for Catholics through which to air concerns or express any thoughts that might be interesting or worrying. The Pope, single people, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, married couples, priests and religious – all in the church, need to be helped to be accountable.

Sure, it needs to be in a fraternal, charitable way. There is no place for gossip, slander or hate.

I for one am glad that this blog raises issues in the NZ Catholic Church. Hopefully, it opens peoples eyes to the issues that are going on around them.

Tonight is the first Sunday of advent vigil. I pray that we all become more docile to the will of the Christ Child in this first season of the Church’s year!

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence

Isaiah 64:1

Nov

“Well, he framed me for armed robbery, but man, I’m aching for that upper-class tax cut.”

By Methuselah's Beard 3 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

I am going to shamelessly link to our sister site here because this is a good write up on the changes to the translation of the Mass. I find the current language a little unwieldy and inelegant, but that’s probably only because I’m so used to the old way we’ve been doing things.

Oh and don’t forget to vote this weekend. The Conservative Party is the only one I’ve seen mention anything about being pro-life. But if my vote isn’t going to get them into Parliament, it’s really a bit of a waste really. Go the Mana Party!

Nov

A request to all New Zealand priests.

By Opthomistic 18 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

Dear priests of New Zealand,

In the vast majority of parishes in our country, confession is either not offered, or offered only “on request”. As a Catholic, who for many years did not frequent this Sacrament of Mercy, I can tell you now, the eternal fates of thousands of Catholic souls are put in jeopardy by these approaches.

By not promoting regular confession among your parishioners, by not making regular times available for confession, by not making clear the circumstances under which one can approach the Blessed Sacrament to communicate, you are allowing a large number of your sheep to march away from heaven, under your watch.

You are not allowing yourself to be a Priest (which is exercised in the Sacraments), and you are not allowing the laity to be in a state to exercise the royal priesthood (as this is only exercised when in the state of grace, which demands that we be freed from our mortal sins and attachments to venial sin through sincere confession and absolution). When a sizable number, even a majority of Catholic souls at Mass, have the stain of mortal sin since their last confession, they are not really participating, even if they simulate full and active participation. Fr Z. nails it when he notes:

The most perfect form of “active participation” is the reception of Communion in the state of grace!

If someone is at Mass and has, out of misinformation, ignorance, or unavailability of confession, then they have been denied full participation in the Mass, by the priests. This is the worst kind of clericalism I can think of. Clerics are not the only ones to blame, many lay people have helped lead the Sacrament of Reconciliation to its near extinction, and thus all but extinguished the full participation of the laity.

My plea is to all lay people, to all clerics, and to all bishops, that they work, individually and collectively to resist, to fight and to reverse, this trend. May God bless you in this cause.

Nov

It’s not enough just to be a ‘good person’

By Inkling 4 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

It seems very few people follow the new Mass translation 100% – the odd word is still wrong, perhaps understandable – but things like making a ‘profound bow towards the altar’ at the words about the incarnation in the Creed, and striking the chest during the Penitential Act – no-one does it. Have people forgotten about it? Do people know they’re supposed to do it? Or is it because people see no need to do it?

I had a good conversation with a friend the other day about the fact that so many people count themselves as Catholics, yet don’t see the need to come to Mass. I’d been thinking about this when I came across this video of Fr Robert Barron speaking about the findings of a recent study of Catholics in the States, which found that 10% of Catholics are living with partners (a direct contradiction to Catholic doctrine), 40% don’t believe in the real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist (a fairly fundamental aspect of Catholicism..), and 80% think that it’s not necessary to believe in/follow all Catholic doctrine – that just being a ‘good person’ is enough.

Enough for what, I wonder.

Fr Barron goes on to say that the problem is the ‘wedge’ between doctrine and ethics, created by philosopher Kant who put forward the idea that religion comes down to ethics. As a result, most people today would feel, deep down, that what really matters is that you’re a ‘good person’. The danger, Fr Barron says, is that because many ethical practices are founded in doctrine, the wedge created between doctrine and practice undermines ethics. He uses many good examples to illustrate the point, and concludes by saying that one can’t say “it doesn’t matter what you believe, it’s the kind of person you are” because the kind of person you are depends very much on certain doctrines. One only has to look at what happened in Christian-less Soviet Russia and China and other Communist regimes of the 20th century.

I’d highly recommend watching the video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=carFbpDsRPI

Aside from the greater matters of attending Mass and holding cornerstone Catholic doctrines to be truth, I’d suggest that the small things matter too. The small matters of doctrine contribute to a whole picture and belief which a person cannot pick and choose between if one wants to call oneself a Catholic. Either we’re Catholics or we’re not.

Nov

Do what I say – while I give a special salute to Rome!

By Marty Rethul 9 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

A week or two ago, I asked the question about whether a bishop may concelebrate. The answer was a clear and resounding ‘no’. This week, I have a question or two regarding his Lordship Bishop Colin Campbell and his comments on the corrected translation of the Roman Missal, especially his public rejection and damning criticism of it.

These comments have caused a bit of a stir, and rightly so. His Lordship, Bishop Campbell, has been taken to task in several opinion pieces, most notably in the NZ Catholic. Others around the world have queried his comments, and I’m sure the Apostolic Nuncio in NZ would have taken notes, and taken action.

But my question is this. Can a bishop make such damning comments publicly? Not only publicly, but about something which is obviously asked of him by the Holy Father, and in which the Holy Father has had such a guiding hand. This change is for all of the Latin rite. It is universal in that sense, and rejecting it is to reject communion with the Church at a certain level.

The liturgy is not only where we all publicly manifest our worship of God, but also our communion with each other. That’s why there has been a concerted effort to have us all on the same page. Cdl. Ratzinger himself, while he was Prefect at CDF, was one of the first to raise questions of the ICEL translations of the 70s – often noting how they were defective. He wrote several letters to Pope John Paul II asking for it to be corrected, and wrote many times on it in the well respected theological journal ‘Communio.’

However, Cdl. Ratzinger never accused the translation at that time in the same way that Bishop Campbell has done now. Bishop Campbell seems to think along congregationalist lines; thinking that the congregation should decide these things, and that inclusive language is the governing criteria for all translation. We are Catholic, not Anglican, my Lord!

By making such comments, does Bishop Campbell manifest his lack of communion with the Holy Father? Does he manifest his disrespect of the Successor of St Peter? Does he manifest his disobedience to the Holy Father? Does he cause scandal and confusion among the faithful?

I think ‘yes’, perhaps it does. He has manifested a certain lack of communion with the Church in Rome (the Mother Church according to Dominus Iesus), and the universal Church, which in the West is currently beginning to fully implement the new changes.

Do you know something else? If in Bishop Campbell’s mind it’s fine for him to do this publicly to the Holy Father, then should it not be acceptable to Bishop Campbell if one of his own priests did this publicly to him in his own diocese?

In the ordination rite of a priest, the bishop asks the ordinand: ‘Do you promise obedience and respect to me and my successors…’ The same is asked of a bishop at his ordination: ‘Do you promise obedience and respect to the Successor of St Peter…’.

Does Bishop Campbell respect the Holy Father?

Would Bishop Campbell accept this behaviour from one of his priests?

What if a priest in NZ, and indeed in the Dunedin diocese, did some liturgical things which are faithful to the mind of the Church, and the teaching of the Pope, but which are out of step with the currently allowed wide-spread abuses (aka, ‘local customs’)?

What would happen there? Would he be told by his bishop: ‘You promised respect and obedience to me…just do what I tell you’, and be threatened with suspension?

Do the majority of the bishops in NZ like Rome? Do they like having to obey Rome on these types of things?

They expect (and sometimes demand) obedience to themselves on similar things from their priests. Unfortunately, sometimes on things which are out of step with Catholic practice.

Now, we wouldn’t want to accuse certain bishops of hypocrisy (demanding one thing, and doing another); that would be judging their intentions, and situating them with the Pharisees. We wouldn’t want to do that. And I’m sure that the NZ Bishops are upstanding exemplars of service and saintliness.

But when a bishop publicly condemns the new translation for the Liturgy (which has been checked and rechecked, and checked and rechecked), one is confronted by certain questions around his communion with the Holy Father, and the See of Peter. One is also confronted with questions of styles of governance and consistency. Would his Lordship, Bishop Campbell, accept one of his priests doing this to him in his own diocese?

What would happen to such a priest?

Questions which require pondering to be sure, to be sure…