For noen dager siden ble en kvinne «ordinert» til katolsk prest i Chicago – visstnok er hun nå en av ca 60 slike over hele verden. (Jeg skriver ordet ordinert i hermetegn, siden etter katolsk lære er umulig for en kvinne å bli prest.)
Her er lenken til videoen – NB kort reklameinnslag først.
Vi leser at Kardinal Kasper nylig har utgitt ei bok om resultatene av 40 år med økumeniske samtaler etter Vatikankonsilet: A new book on ecumenism, written by members of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, was presented at the Vatican today by Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the same council. The book aims to look “both to the past and to the future» of ecumenical efforts. The new work, which is entitled «Harvesting the Fruits. Basic Aspects of Christian Faith in Ecumenical Dialogue. Ecumenical Consensus, Convergences and Differences,» was recently published by the London-based publisher Continuum.
Cardinal Kasper explained at the Vatican’s press office that the new publication «is the result of two years of intense efforts I undertook with officials of my pontifical council, in collaboration with our consultors and ecumenical partners.”
The work is dedicated to analyzing the main Protestant communities that were the first to establish ties with the Church following the Second Vatican Council, as well as examining the current situation, «with an eye both to the past and to the future,» the cardinal explained.
During the presentation, Cardinal Kasper also announced that a symposium, due to be held in February 2010, will use the book as its starting point to discuss the future of Western ecumenism.
I den forbindelse sier Kasper også at pave Benedikt snart skal besøke den lutehrske kirken i Roma – men så langt er ingen dato fastsatt.
På et annet nettsted leser vi også følgende: As far as the book is concerned, Cardinal Kasper said that even the people working on it were «positively surprised at how much has been accomplished in these years. It is a very rich harvest that overcomes the polemics and the great historical problems of the Reformation.»
The cardinal said he knows that «even among some members of the Roman Curia» there sometimes is a feeling that ecumenism «has not borne any fruit and left us with our hands empty.»
But «that is not the official opinion» of the church, he said, pointing out that Cardinal William J. Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is also a member of the council for Christian unity, and read the first draft of the book and made suggestions.
Also, he said, Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Levada were given the first copies of the completed edition of «Harvesting the Fruits.»
Nesten 10 år etter den berømte enigheten om rettferdiggjørelsen mellom katolikker og lutheranere, undertegnet i Augsburg 31/10-99, har man de siste månedene hatt stadig større problemer i de økumeniske relasjonene i Tyskland. Anna Arco skriver om et dokument produced for the Protestant EKD (Evangelische Kirche Deutschland) and subsequently leaked to the German press, the document was written for a conference in July but not published in full until recently.
The report (German) set out to look at three points and was less than complimentary. 1) Where does ecumenical dialogue stand? 2) “An awareness of irritations which are emanating from Rome” 3) What could these mean for the standing of ecumenical dialogue between the two Churches before the Ecumenical Church Days 2010. The “irritations” listed included the publication of Dominus Jesus in 2000 with its “famous-infamous description of the churches of the reformation which are not churches in an actual sense” which caused consternation and confusion as well as general criticism towards Pope Benedict. The report mentioned the Pope’s by now infamous address in Regensburg, the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum and of course, lifting the excommuncations hanging over the Lefebvrist bishops in January this year, among the problems they perceived to be coming from Rome.
It also listed the clerical child abuse scandals, lack of vocations and declining church membership as well as a defensive approach to Pentecostal Christianity in Latin America among further obstacles in ecumenical dialogue. It effectively accused the Vatican either of being incompetent in matters diplomatic or of having a strategy and intention which sets out to reverse the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
Turning their eyes towards German ecumenism, the drafters of the report became more specific in their criticism. They viewed the appointment of Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg to follow Cardinal Karl Lehman as the head of the German bishops conference with scepticism. He was marked as a “controversial and therefore weakened candidate” from whom a “leading and marking force does not emanate”.
The paper concluded that the Catholic Church was in the middle of an internal wrestling match between modernisers and traditionalists—those who wanted to accept the Second Vatican Council and those who did not. This would affect the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church in Germany.
“Like a wounded boxer, the Catholic Church will sway between open gestures and rough delineation of boundaries, between ecumenical invitations and profile making delineation.”
Et annet sted leser vi at det sist onsdag ble avholdt et oppvaskmøte mellom katolikker og protestanter; et møte som gikk noenlunde bra. …
Jeg er (som de fleste vet) oppvokst i Den norske lutherske kirke, og var alltid vant til at presten vendte seg mot Gud når han ba – og ingen av oss tenkte en gang på at det kunne gjøres på en annen måte. Men den norske kirke har de siste årene langsomt snudd noen alter – ved nybygg og ombygging av kirker – og jeg fikk i går en e-post fra en prest i Den norske kirke, som skriver:
«Jeg ser at du har dratt i striden for den gamle latinske messen. Jeg har – som luthersk prest – ikke behov for å mene noe om det. Men for en tid tilbake gjenga du en uttalelse fra en engelsk kirkeleder om det å feire messen vendt mot forsamlingen, eller mot øst. Han karakteriserte den første ordningen med noe a la «at en gruppe hadde samlet seg for å snakke om Gud«. Nei, dette var langt fra det rette sitatet, men kanskje du husker hvordan det egentlig lød? Jeg kan ikke finne det igjen, så jeg er glad om du kunne hjelpe meg. Statskirkens liturgireform kan jo nemlig innebære at også versus populum blir normalordning også hos oss.»
Jeg svarte ham at det kanskje kunne være i dette innlegget, men kanskje det heller er i dette, eller i noen eldre innlegg: kommentarene til 1795, i 1719 eller 1669.
Kanskje noen av leserne husker bedre enn meg hvor dette stod på bloggen?
OPPDATERING: Sitatet står HER – det er biskop Edward Slattery, i Tulsa, Oklahoma, som har begynt å feire messen på sin domkirkes høyalter, ad orentem. Meldinga var fra august i år. Takk til Tor.
Det påstår Robert Moynihani Inside the Vatican, og han formulerer seg slik (fra NLM-bloggen):
Pope Benedict XVI has just made a dramatic choice, one which will certainly be numbered among the major decisions of his pontificate. He has decided, in effect, to reopen formal debate on the Second Vatican Council and its teaching.
The new dialogue, which will take place in Rome between the leaders of the Fraternity of St. Pius X (the followers of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre) and Vatican experts will take place on October 26 at the Vatican, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said today. …
For the Pope’s critics, the decision is unwise, as it seems likely to open a large can of worms. These critics have argued that the lid on this can should be kept tightly closed. In essence, they have advised the Pope not to «dignify» the Society’s objections to certain conciliar teachings — or to the interpretations of those teachings — by granting such a formal dialogue.
But Benedict has decided to let the dialogue begin.
For the Pope’s supporters, the decision is an occasion for praise. Why? Because the Pope, almost five years into his pontificate, has finally decided to face head on and «bring into the open» the doctrinal problems «smoldering» (to cite his own words of 45 years ago) just beneath the surface of Church life throughout the entire post-conciliar period (1965 to the present, or 44 years).
So, with this decision to engage in a dialogue about the Council, a very significant phase of Benedict’s pontificate begins.
Flere kilder melder at samtalene mellom SSPX og Kongregasjonen for Troslæren starter mandag 26. oktober, i Vatikanet. Katolsk.no skriver om dette, og skriver: «Innholdet i samtalene vedrørende de åpne doktrinære spørsmål vil holdes strengt konfidensielt», sa p. Lombardi en pressemelding torsdag.
I et nylig intervju med et sørafrikansk SSPX-magasin, … svarte generalsuperior i SSPX, biskop Bernard Fellay følgende på spørsmål om samtalenes lengde og innhold: «Jeg har ingen anelse om hvor lenge de vil vare. Dette kommer an på forventningene i Roma. Det kan nok ta lang tid. Dette fordi temaene er mange og brede. Våre hovedinnvendinger mot konsilet, som for eksempel trosfrihet, økumenikk og kollegialitet er velkjente. Andre innvendinger kan allikevel bli tatt opp, slik som den moderne filosofis innflytelse, liturgiske nyvinninger, verdslighet og dets påvirkning på den moderne tanke som har spredt seg som en farsott i Kirken».
Vårt Land skriver også om dette, og forteller bl.a.: En rekke personer vil være til stede under møtet. Deriblant erkebiskop Guido Pozzo, sekretær for Ecclesia Dei; erkebiskop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, sekretær for Kongregasjonen for Troslæren(KT); p. Charles Morerod OP, sekretær for den internasjonale teologiske kommisjon og rådgiver for KT; erkebiskop Fernando Ocariz, generalvikar for Opus Dei og rådgiver for KT; samt Jesuitpater Karl Josef Becker, også fra KT.
Jeg leser nå Ole Martin Stamnestrøs doktoravhandling om liturgien for annen gang, og leser her på s 151-153 om pave Pius XIIs synspunkter i Mediator Dei om lekfolkets bønner om fromhetsøvelser som kommer i tillegg til messen og tidebønnene. Paven kritiserer dem som er motstandere av denne parksisen: The first abuse to be rebuked is the tendency amongst some liturgical scholars to frown upon extra-liturgical acts of devotion and to draw a clear-cut line between subjective and objective piety.
Pius admits that an attack on acts of personal piety would be justified if they “were to neglect the august Sacrifice of the altar and the Sacraments.” But, according to Pius, far from having this effect they serve to rouse people “to repentance and holy fear of God. Thus he praises firstly the widespread extra-liturgical forms of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
He also acknowledges the value of other extra-liturgical devotions. In this respect he singles out May devotions to Our Lady, devotio to the Sacred Heart in June, novenas, triduums, and Stations of the Cross: “These devotions make us partakers in a salutary manner of the liturgical cult because they urge the faithful to go frequently to the Sacrament of Penance, attend Mass and receive Communion with devotion.”
Pius rejects the presumed conflict between subjective and objective piety: “No conflict exists between public prayer and prayers in private, between morality and contemplation, between the ascetical life and devotion to the Liturgy.”
Perhaps Pius is unable or unwilling to recognise the importance of teaching the faithful clearly the distinction between the liturgy of the Church and extra-liturgical acts of devotion. His teaching must, however, be viewed against the background of those liturgists who did not engage with the questions of determining a proper relationship between the two, but who thought that the Mass and the Divine Office would best be served by the suppression and elimination of the various popular devotions.
Pius comes closer to achieving a balance when he states that “unquestionably liturgical prayer, being the public supplication of the illustrious Spouse of Jesus Christ, is superior in excellence to private prayers. But this superior worth does not at all imply contrast or incompatibility between these two kinds of prayer.”
Individual parish priests should not take it upon themselves to alter deeply rooted expressions of devotion. “Hence he would do something very wrong and dangerous, who would dare to take on himself to reform all these exercises of piety.”
Jeg er nå et par dager på Jæren, besøker min familie, og fikk også være med i en begravelse til ei faster (tante), som døde sist uke, 86 år gammel.
Jeg har begrensa nettilgang her (mobilt bredbåbd; Nettcom litt bruk), men det har ikke passa så godt å arbeide med bloggen her.
Jeg leste for noen dager siden kardinal George Pells forsvar for den kristne tro, som han begynner slik: My claims this afternoon are simple. It is more reasonable to believe in God than to reject the hypothesis of God by appealing to chance; more reasonable also to believe than to escape into agnosticism.
Og avslutter slik: It is an intriguing question why so many in the Western world today are unable to believe, especially those culturally attached to Christianity and Judaism. For me the issue is too important for polemics and self-indulgence.
I will continue to believe in the one true God of love, because like André Malraux I maintain that «no atheist can explain the smile of a child».
Against this the tsunami also reminds us brutally of the problem of innocent suffering. But such suffering is worse if there is no afterlife to balance the scales of misfortune and injustice and worse again if there is no innocence or guilt, no good or evil, if everything has the moral significance of froth on a wave.
På denne adressen har maranatha.it en grundig oversikt over hvordan gamle messen skal feires, med forklaringer på engelsk. Her er det mye å lære for alle prester, også når man feirer den nye messen.
Damian Thompson har besøkt en kirke et sted i England, og han likte aboslutt ikke det han så. «Ikke mer polyester«, er hans avsluttende setning:
Recently I attended a Catholic service in a church, and a diocese, which shall remain nameless. This is not because there is anything scandalous to report, but because I’m about to compare it to a 1970s department store and I don’t want the priest to cancel The Catholic Herald.
The church was (I would guess) Victorian Romanesque, or maybe neo-Gothic – the truth is that it was so nondescript that it didn’t leave much impression. It was very much the sort of church thrown up in large numbers at the end of the 19th century, and I imagine that in its heyday it was bustling, happy and sentimental.
Then, after Vatican II, its interior was modernised. But we’re not talking savage reordering here: just the usual wall-to-wall carpeting of the sanctuary, removal of the altar rails and – unforgivably, not least because it makes a nonsense of the high altar – the removal of the tabernacle to… somewhere. I didn’t even notice; just that it was missing from its place of honour, installing an emptiness at the centre of things. … …
It was the same story in the sacristy. The priest was wearing a double-breasted polyester alb whose top half resembled a chef’s outfit. I didn’t know such a thing existed. The door of the wardrobe was open, revealing a jumble of highly coloured cheap chasubles (also polyester) that could have been mistaken for the women’s clothing rack in an Oxfam shop.
Now, I know this sounds like sneering, and missing the point: the Apostles did not worry about the cut of their fisherman’s clothes, and the Gospel is not about externals: there are churches, especially in the Anglo-Catholic wing of the C of E, where fussing about the embroidery of a chasuble or the choreography of censing the acolytes takes precedence over visiting the sick. (Though, to be fair, some of the most ritualistic parishes are also the most pastorally diligent.)
I’m not saying that the alternative to the shabbiness of this church is to turn it into a mini-Oratory. Nor do I want to suggest that the priest and ministers of Holy Communion in this community are not faithful Catholics.
But what the parish priest and his bishop need to understand is that these things matter: from the collage of outdated posters at the west end of the church to the badly repainted apse at the east, every single item of church art or furniture gives the impression of “making do”. The message: this is just another church. .. …
The culture of mediocrity, of making do, that has pervaded the Catholic Church in England and Wales extends beyond what happens in the sanctuary. Therefore putting things right is a wider project than the more solemn celebration of Mass, which the coming English translation will help to effect, along with the increasing conservatism of new priests. We need to move back to what the Church used to offer – and, significantly, the commercial world is increasingly able to provide to meet rising consumer expectations: a total experience drawing on the highest standards of professionalism in art, architecture and music.
Perfectionism; attention to small details; impatience with the second-rate – these are what we must demand of our pastors and what, in a Church run by Archbishop Nichols and soon-to-be Archbishop Longley, there is now a faint chance of achieving, particularly with a papal visit in the offing. That means no more excuses, no more amiable making do – and definitely no more polyester.
Teksten i denne videoen er spesielt tydelig, og presten har en fin italiensk aksent på sin latin.
HER er en annen video.
John Henry Newman hadde høsten 1845 forstått at han måtte bli opptatt i Den katolske Kirke, og han inviterte en god og from katolsk prest til å komme hjem til seg. Da presten kom inn døra, knelte Newman foran ham, og ba med en gang om å bli tatt opp i Kirken. Han bekjente sine synder (det tok flere timer) og ble opptatt i Kirken ved kondisjonal dåp. Det var alvor over ting den gang – men jeg er glad for at kondisjonal dåp ikke lenger regnes som nødvendig. Her er dette fortalt litt mer utførlig:
When Newman had made up his mind to be received into the Church in October 1845 he heard that Blessed Dominic would be travelling through Oxford. Via their mutual friend John Dobrée Dalgairns Newman asked the Passionist priest to call in at Littlemore. When Dominic Barberi arrived late in the evening of 8th October, soaking wet from his journey, Newman did not hesitate one moment, knelt down in front of him, and asked him for reception into the Church. He then began his general confession which he had prepared in the previous days and which lasted for several hours. The rite of reception, including conditional baptism, took place in the chapel next to Newman’s private room on the evening of 9th October. Two of his friends, Richard Stanton and E. S. Bowles, were received at the same time. Newman never regretted his decision. Not only in the Apologia, but also in many letters, he witnesses to the interior peace that always accompanied him as a Catholic, despite the well known fact that he was not spared difficulties not only from outside the Church but also within it.
På denne dagen i 1845 angret John Henry Newman på sin villfarelse, bekjente den katolske tro og ble opptatt i Den katolske Kirke. Og ved hundreårsjubileet for denne hendelsen skrev pave Pius XII følgende:
A century has now all but run its course since John Henry Newman, the pride of Britain and of the universal Church, came to harbour after his long voyage in search of Catholic truth. With anxious and loving care he had sought it; with ready assent he acknowledged at last the warning accents of the Divine Voice. … …
One quality especially seems to Us to call for close attention and study in the career of the great man… He ‘gave up his whole life to the truth’ (Juvenal. Sat. iv. 91); all his efforts, all his untiring labours, were dedicated to that end. A time came when the beauty of Catholic teaching revealed itself clearly to his longing eyes; with that, no obstacle of any kind – his old prejudices, loss of prospects, the protests of his friends – could hold him back; nothing must stand between him and full adherence to the truth he had now mastered. He held to it ever afterwards with unshaken consistency, made it the guiding principle of his whole life, found in it, as in nothing else, full contentment of mind.
Beyond question… among the many important gifts which will make a later posterity honour the greatness of John Henry Newman, this is his chief title to fame.
Dagbladet skriver i dag om ei ny bok, skrevet av et tidligere medlem i den norske frimurerordenen – med mye informasjon om hva som skjer på deres samlinger. Det sies ofte at de norske frimurerne er mye mer moderate enn de er i flere andre land, men det er vel noe usikkert hvor sant det er. For meg er dette temaet også litt ekstra interessant fordi flere katolikker i Stavanger var knyttet til frimurerne – noe jeg fant noe underlig og ubehagelig.
I boka leser vi:
«Du blir viklet inn i et nettverk der det er umulig å stille kritiske spørsmål til det du er med på. I ettertid er jeg sjokkert over hva jeg har vært med på rent religiøst, og hvor naiv jeg var som ble med i en organisasjon uten å vite hva den drev med.
.. Forfatteren beskriver i boken i detaljerte ordelag hvordan de forskjellige ritualene som blir brukt når et medlem skal få høyere grad foregår. Det er rik forekomst av symboler og oppstyltede taleformer.
Men mest rystende var det kanskje for ham da han ved opptak til tredje grad måtte stille seg foran et alter med en ekte hodeskalle, før han kort tid etter ble lagt i en likkiste og båret bort. Over ti kapitler går han inn i samtlige av de ti gradene losjens medlemmer kan oppnå — i stor detalj.
Gjenfortellingen av sine egne opplevelser på «losjevandringen»; fra den første Lærlingegraden til den niende St. Johannes-losjens Betroede brødre; er blant annet basert på dagboknedtegnelsene han gjorde i løpet av de ti årene han var aktivt medlem.»
Jeg har nå begynt å lese gjennom Ole Martin Stamnestrøs doktoravhandling om liturgiske bevegelse for annen gang (se også et notat om denne i oktober i fjor), og la nå bl.a. merke til dette – som jeg håper å komme tilbake til om noen dager: «The Liturgical Movement has sometimes been blamed for weakening the sacrificial aspect of the Mass, but this is precisely the angle from which (Dom Lambert) Beauduin starts when arguing for frequent reception. At the heart of sacrificial thinking is the destruction of the victim. The faithful therefore share more fully in the sacrificial act when communicating. Beauduin was of the opinion that “whatever loss the Liturgy suffers among Christian people is also a loss of the notion of sacrifice, and consequently of Christian renunciation.”
Alle bispedømmets prester er på Mariaholm, sammen med biskopen, på vårt årlige prestemøte denne uka, så jeg har lite tid til å sjekke nyheter på nettet og til å skrive på bloggen. Men jeg har et abonnement (Netcom litt bruk) på mobilt bredbånd, så jeg kan følge med litt, og bl.a. godkjenne kommentarer – selv her «langt ute i skogen».
Katolsk.no melder også kort at Janne Haaland Matlary 1. september ble utnevnt til medlem av Det pavelige akademi for sosialvitenskapene. Men på et engelsk nettsted (dvs. britisk i dette tilfellet) leser vi mye grundigere om henne:
Janne Haaland Matlary, professor of international politics at the department of political sciences of the University of Oslo, Norway has been made a member of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences
Dr Matlary was the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs for Norway and a member of the Christian Democrat Party between 1997 and 2000. She is a convert to Catholicism and already serves on the Pontical Council for Justice and Peace and is a consultor on the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
Readers will remember the fuss, last year, over Cherie Blair giving a talk at the Angelicum in December. The event was a conference on Women and Human Rights, in honour of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Mrs Blair’s high profile and controversial talk, garnered all the media/blogging attention. Dr Matlary’s talk was very good but went largely unnoticed.
She sets the fundaments for her debate, by arguing that human rights are absolute and unchanging, not to be changed by political will. “They are inborn, pre-political and apolitical, not given by politicians, not to be taken away or changed by politicians.”
Later she speaks about abortion, in the context of women’s rights–in the context of equal rights.
She said: “In the case of the abortion debate, the fierce struggle which continues and which will continue is about the terms of the debate: if the question is “under which conditions can human life be taken?” one has to consider the constitutional norms of right to life and the international instruments of human rights that state this as the highest norm. If the debate is cast in pragmatic terms, e.g. as a women’s issue, this is not necessary.
I går starta en synode om Afrika i Vatikanet, og bildet viser alle biskopene som deltok i messen i Peterskirken søndag morgen. Synoden skal vare fram til 25. oktober, og John Allen skriver slik om gårsdagen:
Pope Benedict XVI led this morning’s liturgy, joined by almost 240 bishops, most of them Africans taking part in the synod. Concelebrating the Mass were the three co-presidents of the synod, Cardinals Francis Arinze of Nigeria, Wilfrid Fox Napier of South Africa, and Theodore-Adrien Sarr of Senegal, along with Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, the “relator,” or general secretary, of the synod.
If the musical tone was upbeat, Pope Benedict struck a more sober note in his homily this morning. The pope praised the dynamism of the faith in Africa, where the Catholic population grew during the second half of the twentieth century by some 7,000 percent, soaring from 1.9 million Catholics to an estimated 160 million today.
The pope called Africa “an immense spiritual ‘lung,’ for a humanity that appears to be in a crisis of faith and hope.” Later, during his midday Angelus address, Benedict praised the «extraordinary human wealth» of Africa.
Nonetheless, in his homily Benedict warned that Africa faces two serious threats, suggesting that the synod should carefully ponder responses to both.
The first threat, Benedict said, is a “practical materialism, combined with relativistic and nihilistic thought.” Those philosophical currents, he suggested, are reaching Africa from the West.
“The so-called ‘first world’ has exported and is still exporting its toxic spiritual refuse,” the pope said, “which infect the populations of other continents, especially in Africa.”
“Colonialism is finished in a political sense,” the pope said, “but it’s not completely gone away.”
The second threat Benedict identified is “religious fundamentalism, mixed with political and economic interests.”
“Groups with diverse religious affiliations are spreading themselves throughout the African continent,” the pope said. “They do so in the name of God, but according to a logic opposed to that which is divine. They’re not teaching and practicing love and respect for liberty, but intolerance and violence.”
The pope also made clear reference to the social ills that continue to scar Africa, citing “exploitation, conflicts and corruption,” as well as “poverty, injustices, violence and wars.” He called upon the church in Africa to be a source of “prophecy and ferment of reconciliation among the various ethnic, linguistic and religious groups, within individual nations and across the entire continent.”
In his Angelus remarks, Benedict likewise noted that life in Africa is marred by «so much poverty, and still suffers under heavy injustices.» … …
Hos Damian Thompson så jeg denne videoen av prester som løfter hendene og «danser» under en pinsemesse i Frankrike i år.
