Stephen has a wide range of interests. He thinks deeply about theology and physics and loves to discuss these things. He is also knowledgeable about economics, politics and personal investments, and enjoys gardening, science fiction, theatre and rock music amongst other things. Although Stephen has very strong beliefs, he does accept other people with differing views to his own, and likes it best if they are willing to have an open discussion about them. He is very good at debating and often exaggerates to make a point, so some people could be a bit intimidated, but that would not be his intention. Stephen cannot tolerate an atmosphere in which people are expected to conform to others' conventional ideas. Stephen is a very loyal friend and prepared to spend a long time helping people to work through things that are troubling them. He has done this for me on several occasions and for various work colleagues.
I am having to read about current moral theology on sex at the moment. It is depressing work, full of non-sequiturs, unjustified assumptions and unwarranted inferences. I could the more easily criticize your views if I could as yet see that the other established theories were absolutely coherent and correct. As it is I fear the whole structure needs rebuilding.
From what I have read on the internet US Catholics - cleverly manipulated by some of their bishops - are now blaming gay people instead of those very bishops! - for the destruction of the Mass, the abandonment of orthodoxy, and the general and spectacular decline of catholicism in the last few decades. The theory of the ''Infiltration of homosexuals into the clergy'' plot. Had the Renewal of the Church been confided to us gays, it would have been successful!
As such, I believe you are right in saying that its truth
is only later discerned. It takes time for the dross removed, and gold
to
be refined. Our great councils
(and many of our local councils) give expression to that truth. They are
often the distillation of
the lived tradition as it unfolded. They also help discern what in
the tradition is valid and what was not. But they are not The
Tradition, only a part of it.
I sometimes get the feeling that people see tradition as past history. Or, that we can simply pick and choose from the multiple threads of our lived experience of Gospel that which appeals to us - and then call it The Truth. Or that one static moment within our history should be allowed to become the referent that governs the future. The tradition of the church is far more complex and merits far more wisdom. That said, I also believe that the church's storehouse of memories, rites and rituals is vast and wonderful. That there is a place for bringing forth the old and the new.
Here in the USA, "traditionalists" (aka radically
conservative Catholics) use the tradition of the church as bludgeon.
They pick and choose that which appeals to them to prove their arguments
against the movement of the church. They are marked by
intransigence and narrow-mindedness. They are hung up on a static view
of church and are generally fixated on the Tridentine
Mass. Like you, I too take umbrage at their
claims of being "traditional". They are not. They are simply fixated and
fearful that the Spirit might actually do
something new.
Pharsea replied:
I suppose that I am fed up with listening to both modernist and neo-conservative clergy and theologians talking drivel, and knowing that I could do better. For a long time I have felt a great burning in the bones as - I think - Jeremiah puts it. In the end, one has to speak out - to "prophecy" - or else it just drives you mad!
As to the reason that I started my webpages, that is documented in my autobiography. The core of my writings were a response to a challenge from Paul Hammond as to how someone "as wise as" me could "believe what" I believe.
I started RCIA over two years ago with the inquiry phase, but it became very clear that I already knew more about the church and the faith than many of my well intentioned members of the RCIA team. This only strengthened my resolve to join the Catholic Faith. I then moved into the next phase right before Easter. My first celebration of Easter in the Catholic Church was a very moving and spiritual one. Never before had I experienced the true meaning of Easter as I did then.
Soon though, certain things began to bother me. I noticed that very few people would genuflect when coming in for Mass, or would bow to the alter when they passed it. I knew this was a tradition and one that showed great respect to the holiness of the place. I asked the members of the RCIA team and their response was "We used to genuflect when the host was kept at the front of the church, but since we now keep it in a room off to the side we no longer feel it necessary." I understood but their reply only troubled me more. I asked that while would explain the lack of people genuflecting, but what about them not bowing to the alter? "Oh, the priest does that for us." and that troubled me even more.
These are just a few of the examples of what I've experienced since I started on the second part of my journey. There are more, but from reading your site I'm sure you know already what I've been feeling.
I'm still confident that my choice to become a full member of the Catholic Church is the right one. I'm sure that after my confirmation I will be able to find a parish that is more traditional and closer to what I feel the liturgy should be. I didn't want to change horses mid stream so to speak, and I didn't want to cause trouble. I was coming into their family, not the other way around. So, I've kept quiet, but it gives me comfort to know there are those like you out there expressing what I feel and believe. It also gives me hope that I will find a Church that is closer to what I'm looking for.
For this I want to thank you, especially for all the time and effort you have given your web site. I also want to thank you for giving me a realistic perspective on my sexual orientation and how it relates to my faith.
I think the part of the site that impressed me the most was that dealing with the Christian tradition's attitude to homosexuality; it prompted me to dig out a copy of "Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality" from the Edinburgh University library, but unfortunately it's on reserve so I only get to look at it for three hours at a time: not nearly long enough!
But your own account of the matter is impressive enough by itself. My
father is a social historian, and one of the things I've learned through
observing his researches is that people don't have good memories for "the
way things used to be" when that goes back more than Fifty years. As a
result, they tend to assume that "the way things are" is "the way things
have always
been", even when the current age is an anomaly. I've come to think
this applies to Christian attitudes to homosexuality. It's not been uniformly
disapproved of since the very beginning; its status has wavered and dipped
and risen over the centuries, and the reasons for condemning it or justifying
it have changed as our understanding of the world and God has improved.
Your defence of the Tridentine rite really opened my eyes. I'm from Ireland, and thus naturally I grew up surrounded by Catholicism. Technically, I was raised Catholic, but it's hard to keep a firm faith when your parents aren't religious and are steadily undermining most of what you learn in school (not that I blame them; the calibre of our religious teaching was not high, and mostly what my parents taught me was to think for myself and question everything, which I did). In that environment, moderately conservative Catholicism is the norm, and any Catholic practice too far outside that norm is considered odd, freakish, most likely only subscribed to by lunatics. This includes the Tridentine mass, of course, so until I found your site I thought of that rite as being something only weirdos stuck in the Nineteenth Century could possibly be interested in.
But you opened my eyes. I see now that there are very good reasons for preferring the Latin Mass, reasons that one would have to be a very strange sort of Catholic not to be able to recognise as valid and worth honouring. What astonishes me is the extent to which the old rite has been not just replaced in practice, but swept away in people's minds, as if there could never have been a good reason for it in the first place. Which is absurd when you think about it for five seconds, but I think most people never do.
The Gay Mysteries of the Rosary are beautiful. I'm going to have to print them out.
Your stress on the importance of friendship
is likewise beautiful, and only too needed in these benighted, sex-obsessed
times. You're a Star Trek fan, so perhaps you won't mind if I take an example
of the denigration of friendship (and, to a certain extent, all non-sexual
relationships) from Deep Space Nine: in the final episode, Sisko, who has
been hailed as the
Emissary (a Messiah-like figure in the Bajoran religion) and taken
from the material world to dwell with the godlike Prophets, says farewell
to only one person -- his wife. Not to his dear friend Major Kira, who
was one of the first to recognise that he was the Emissary; not to Dax,
who was (in her three incarnations) first his mentor, then his friend,
then his protege; not
even to his son! No, the wife got to see him and say goodbye, but none
of the others, even though he'd known many of them for longer and in many
ways had more in common with them. That infuriated me. I love Deep Space
Nine, but I hate its flaws, and one of the worst flaws was a tendency to
give a sexual undertone to every relationship, regardless of whether
that added anything or not. The show falsified itself by doing that.
I have often thought that the most important thing in the world is friendship;
for friendship is a love that comes to us as a gift, and
though it is passionate it is also wise. I've never had many friends,
but I cherish all the more the few friends I have. They are precious to
me. I have never had a sexual relationship, never been "in love"; but I
have been loved, because I have had friends. And in my experience, the
only romantic relationships that last are those that either began in friendship
or found their way there. Perhaps one of the reasons why friendship is
so denigrated in contemporary culture is simply because it is omnipresent,
mingled
in all the other loves to a greater or lesser degree (and thereby ennobling
and strengthening them).
Anyway. I could go on forever, but I've rambled quite a bit already so I'll just say: thank you again for your site. It has been illuminating, thought-provoking and encouraging. Blessings upon you!
I live in Houston, TX, USA, where I attend a small but thriving Anglican
use parish. The parish was created in the 1980s when the Holy Father
allowed the ordination of married ex-Episcopal priests. The parish is dedicated
to Our Lady of Walshingham and the liturgy would be familiar to anyone
who has ever attended a traditional Anglo-Catholic eucharist. The Eucharistic
Prayer is the translation of the Roman Canon taken from the Anglican Missal,
and we sing traditional Anglican hymnody.
The Mass at OLOW is a suggestion of what the post-Vatican II liturgy might
have been, before it was highjacked by the forces of NewChurch. It is not
an ideal solution to the liturgical crisis, but
at least it makes it possible for me to attend Mass and
take communion without grinding my teeth.
As far as I know, I am the only self-accepting gay man at my parish, and to be honest, my own level of self-acceptance is often shaky at best. One of the reasons I was glad to find this group is that it makes it possible for me to air some of the problems I have had as a gay Catholic. I know that as a gay Catholic I am expected to go on about the homophobia of the clergy and the evils of the hierarchy, but to be honest that is not my most serious dilemma. Yes, I have encountered closeted, homophobic clergy (often in bars where they were trying to pick me up), but my real struggle has been with my gay "brothers," not with my Catholic co-religionists.
I came out in the early 80s after reading Father John McNeill's The Church and the Homosexual, in which he argues that monogamous gay relationships are consistent with the gospel. I found his argument persuasive. I came out not expecting to have as much trouble as I have had in actually FINDING the kind of relationships he writes about. Yes, they are out there, but they are not terribly visible, and what was visible was not easy to reconcile with any vision of Christian love I could swallow. And I am not just talking about the bars and bathhouses. The gay churches were not much better. I have never heard a sermon on sexual ethics in the pulpit of an MCC or a chapter of Dignity. Why is that? Based on what I have seen there is certainly a desperate need for one.
Please don't get me wrong. I am not a prude. I enjoy sex and am not a virgin. But sex detached from love and committment is hard to reconcile with the gospel. In my own experience as a young gay man desperate for love I know that I was hurt by many of the experiences I had, which seemed to be the only kinds of experiences available to me. There just weren't a lot of role models out there of the kind of relationship I wanted.
Shouldn't we as gay Christians be fighting on two fronts? Instead of devoting all our efforts to criticizing the Church, shouldn't we also be playing a prophetic role in the gay community? I haven't seen much of an effort to play that role, and I find it very disturbing. Frankly, I would not want the church to endorse much of what goes under the rubric "the gay lifestyle." And until gay Christians detach themselves from that lifestyle and offer an alternative to it, as a traditionalist Catholic, I would rather see the status quo, as unsatisfactory as it is, continue. We as gay people are waiting for the Church to grow up. Did it ever occur to us that the Church is waiting for similar signs of maturity on the part of gay people?
A reply to the above from another list member
I think that my experience of both 'gay liberationist Catholicism' and 'traditionalist Catholicism' (to use my own terminology) parallels your own. I myself have been following the Anglican Use movement within the Catholic Church from a bit of a distance. There is an Anglican Use community (the Congregation of St. Athanasius - on the net at www.locutor.net) here in the Boston area. I have attended one or two liturgies at the chapel where the Congregation of St. Athanasius meet, and I found the liturgy quite reverent and traditional. However, I have thus far kept my distance from the Anglican Use movement for the most part, having encountered considerable homophobia from disgruntled ex-Episcopalians who left the Anglican Communion over this and similar issues. Therefore, I find it very encouraging to hear from someone in an Anglican Use parish who can make a home for himself there as a self-accepting gay man. Hope springs eternal!At the present time, I still maintain ties to Dignity USA, but I am finding that their approach to liturgy (of the bouncy, hand-clapping variety), among other things, leaves me quite cold. On the (fortunately) rare occasion, the Boston chapter have been known to host 'lay led liturgies' which I absolutely refuse to attend. Of course, because of this, I stand accused of clericalism and lack of gay solidarity. I truly wish there were really a viable alternative for traditionalist gay Catholics, and I think that the Pharsea's World website is an excellent first step in that direction. Keep up the good work!
So far, I've shared your sections on Plato with several friends, as well as your beautiful Gay Mysteries of the Rosary. Your many citations of great writers, theologians, and the Fathers are lovely, rich, and rewarding. I think that we will enjoy taking our time to explore everything in your site.
I wish I could take all your information on your site, both the gay
material and the theological/philosophical material, and use it for continued
education for many people here. As you yourself well know, the gay versus
Christian controveries are fueled by
ignorance and lack of charity on both sides: and in a liberal community
like Seattle, the ignorance and lack of charity is chiefly on the gay side,
which so loathes Christianity that dialogue is nearly impossible.
I'm originally from Dallas, Texas, although as a "red state refugee"
my partner and I of 5 years moved to Troy, New York (upstate, where
he's originally from) just over a year ago. I now attend at Albany's Cathedral
of the Immaculate Coneception which is both rather gay friendly and celebrates
the Novus Ordo with as much dignity and decorum as might be humanly possible.
Yes, the priest still faces me and has to look almost everyone in the eye
as he says, "Take this all of you and
eat it" (which used to drive me completely insane, now I just close
my eyes and imagine us all facing in the same direction but still, the
music is nice and the mass is very reverent.
Since having left the Fraternity of St. Peter, my experience with the
traditional liturgy has been less than ideal. A
"tridentine"
parish
has actually been established by our bishop only about 10 - 15 blocks from
my home in Troy. A lovely sung mass is celebrated there on the first
Sunday of every month from September to May by a professional choir with
both rennaissance polyphony and Gregorian chant.
The problem for me is the low mass offered the other times. Now, I've always considered the low mass a bit of an abberation any way. "Good old" St. Augustine said that to sing well is to pray twice. And in Eastern thought, or at least so I've been told, God is only worthy of superlatives, and singing is the superlative of speaking, thus Eastern Liturgies are always sung. I had, however, grown used to the use of Low Mass while at Seminary (although it would have NEVER been considered for a Sunday liturgy or for a solemn feast day). At seminary, however, it was almost always in the form of the "dialogue mass". My experience with the Low Mass so far here has been what we used to jokingly (and rather disdainfully) called the "Silent Low Mass". Silent it is practically indeed, for the only ones doing any talking are the priest and his one or two altar servers!
The first time I went to one of these, I hadn't expected this, and having
a good knowledge of Latin, I didn't feel I needed to take along my missal.
The problem was, I couldn't hear a flipping word the priest was saying,
not even when he was reading
the Gospel! I'm normally a very laid back person, but I was so
mad about this that I stormed out of the church during the
offertory. The priest didn't even bother to read the lessons
again in English before the homily. This would not have been a problem
for me if I could have just heard them in the first place! Since then I've
only been back for the High Mass (where only the choir usually sings the
responses, but I, much to the chargrin of some of my neighboring (boring
being the key word root) dearly beloved in Christ, belt out the responses.)
I also feel that most other traditionalists would not be appreciative of my God given sexuality, thus I usually dart out of Mass before the "meet and greet brunch" that follows it.
On the subject of the Anglican-use liturgy. I have actually experienced it quite frequently at Our Lady of the Atonement in San Antonio, Texas. It is truly beautiful. The parish even has bumper stickers which read "Worship Like You Mean It! Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic Church". It is quite a beautiful parish church with a beautiful rude screen, altar, art work, lady chapel, etc. Like their Anglican/Episcopalian counterparts, they offer both rite I and rite II of the liturgy. Rite I is the older, and rather longer liturgy, said in Elizabethan style English. Rite II is too much like the novus ordo to be to my liking. They also have a Latin N/O in the evening. This used to be tridentine, but it was attracting too many freakish types for the parish's liking, so they switched to a Latin N/O. There is also an Anglican-use parish in Arlington, TX (one of the "mid-cities" between Dallas and Ft. Worth). They however use Rite II as their primary liturgy and thus I have never attended.
One thing does strike me as rather protestant, however, about the "Book
of Divine Worship" as their Missal is called, and that
is the way they list the 10 Commandments which are used during the
penitential rite during the season of Lent (at least in Rite I).
We Catholics have always listed the first commandment as prohibiting
both the worship of other gods and the worship of graven images as gods
and have then listed "thou shalt not covet" and "thou shalt not covet thy
neighbour's wife" as two separate commandments, for women aren't property
(I can hear your objections already, but stay with me) and thus the sin
would be different in kind or degree. The liturgy of the Anglican-use,
however, uses the protestant numbering which combines the kinds ov coveteousness
and makes the prohibition of the worship or making of graven images a separate
commandment, which to me sounds rather ikonoclastic. See what I'm saying?
I think we're all for the lifting of all restrictions on the traditional latin rite. I think it was a good thing that the 1965 missal allowed for the vernacular. (I also believe a grave injustice was committed against the publishers who printed the 1965 missal. They were told that it was indeed the "renewed" liturgy of Vatican II, thus they put a lot of money into printing it. When just a few years later the Vatican said, "Oops, my mistake, that wasn't the right mass at all!" and issued the Novus Ordo, that publishing house subsequently went bankrupt.) Any way, why shouldn't the Vatican take a lesson from the Anglicans and allow for two rites? Like I said, they have a more traditional liturgy (Rite I) and a more banal, aaah, rather modern, yeah that's it, liturgy (Rite II).
The beauty of liturgy is that one is supposed to know what is coming and when. This enables us to pray the mass and feel connected to it. When postures or words are change or ommitted on a whim, it is like throwing a wrench into a finely tuned clock. At least that's what it feels like to me.
My western Catholic sense of appropriate posture and liturgy is so engrained in me that even though I KNOW it is not within Eastern tradition to kneel at any point of their liturgy (eg. during the consecration)I still feel really uncomfortable not doing so. The reverse is proabably also true. When I was in seminary outside Scranton, PA, many of us used to frequent a beautiful Byzantine liturgy at a Ukranian Catholic church that was conducted in Old Church Slavonic. We loved it, but couldn't help making fun a little bit, like..."Again and again and again and again and again and again in Peace, let us Pray to the Lord." or "Let us pray, 96 times, let us pray. Lord have Mercy, Lord have Mercy, Lord have Mercy, Lord have Mercy, Lord have Mercy....." The Tridentine Liturgy, however, has no bidding prayers and I'm sure this seems very odd to the Byzantine who prays 96 times for the same things all during their liturgy.
[DISCLAIMER] The above is meant in good spirit and not meant to offend any one.
I am just unashamedly western in my liturgical sensitivities. ;-)
I have to date been quite torn between my traditional catholic upbringing,
and being gay; thinking I had to embrace the more modern aspects of the
liturgy in order to be among those who accept me as a gay person. To a
large extent I still feel that's true,
though it's comforting to know there are others out there in the same
situation.
I look forward to reading more of your website as it looks like it contains some really useful and inspiring stuff for the likes of me.
I saw your personal page and read it. I only very recently have found your site, so have not ploughed through everything yet. Yesterday, I found another site, with a statement on homosexuality by the bishop of Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, Pa. This is the diocese I was born and baptized in. At any rate, after reading it, I was in a huge tailspin, and recalled some of what I read in your site. It did provide an equilibrium, somewhat for myself.
I must say I have, and always had major questions about papal authority, and how the Holy Spirit is working through all of this when it seems there is such evil in that office. History proves that time and time again, but Rome always tells us to never mind that. I must say, none of this is new to me, I thought I dealt with it thoroughly before, but I guess it is never ending until I am ended. At the moment, I question my faith, certainly my church and even Mr. Big Himself. I certainly now have some understanding and compassion for all who have left, as this seems to be a twelve headed monster thrust upon us.
Thanks for the traditionalist views and research. It's true, we have lost so much in all the confusion. Does anyone know what a real Catholic is anymore? Had an argument with a lay Carmelite last week along these lines. Apparently no-one has any backbone to stand up and say this is not my tradition or my belief. How far away will the Spirit let us drift away before towing us back in?
So I'm not crazy. Other people think the same things I do.
I applaud you on your site with its excellent resources attempting to bring together the seemingly conflicting elements of Catholicism and homosexuality. As a bisexual Catholic, and perhaps of a slight traditionalist bent, I understand all too well the problems that you decry in the Church in the post VII era. At times I feel as if I should discard it all, and adopt the ever promising Unitarian Universalism. Alas, I am forever drawn to the sacraments, from which I draw sustenance and meaning to this every dreary and demoralizing existence. I crave the liturgy, which brings some semblance of order to my life.
I only momentarily completed your brief diatribe about the Novus Ordo Missae. I must say, it was very well written and most impressive.Your "moderate" position more or less coincides with that which I have taken, in light of reading literature on both sides of "the divide."
I have the option of attending a Mass celebrated once a month in a chapel about 150 miles away. It is under the auspices of the SSPX, and I have strong reservations about supporting such groups. That said, however, I do think the American bishops have done traditionalists a great disservice in that they have failed to permit the widest application of JPII's indult as was intended.
On occasion I attend a parish which celebrates only the Tridentine Mass. It is such a joy to attend there, though my girlfriend thinks the priest there to be an intolerant bigot and therefore will not attend with me. Her vapid condemnations are not at all misplaced, really, though I much prefer the refreshing liturgy and tend to ignore that which I do not particularly care for. His strict adherence to Humane Vitae makes the bisexual in me just a bit uncomfortable, however.
Take care, my friend. Pax Domine Vobiscum.
http://forums.delphiforums.com/paxchristi/messages
I've always leaned toward Platonism. You're the first person who ever suggested to me that a return to Platonism is the solution for many difficulties in the church! 'Radical traditionalist' indeed! I'm also struck by the clarity and balance of your thought. We deal continuously in cyberspace with conservatives that can't entertain the possibility of change. Your site is a refreshing change.
It's difficult for me to reconcile my liking for the leather/uniform subculture within the gay community & traditional Catholicism, but I hope I can do so. Do you think it's possible? Although I've checked out some of your web site, I still have to read and view the rest of it. So far, I think it's great and I'm elated that I found it on the internet. God bless you & your loved ones, Pharsea, and much success in all you do!
I'm a Catholic lesbian, 23 this August, and very interested in making more lgbt Catholic friends. I'm still in University and while I'm interested in theology, I'm not very well-schooled in it. My training has been largely in the fine arts (literature and theatre), and I've only taken one philosophy class during my entire university career.
I'm very excited to see a new refutation on your site (particularly as it addresses Gay Marriage!)
I am also writing .... to thank you for providing such a wonderful resource
to LGBT Catholics -- and particularly to me. In my
attempts to better educate myself about my faith and the relationship
of my sexuality to that faith, I have consulted your site on at least a
weekly basis since June of this year. I am particularly interested in the
aspects of your site that relate to Traditionalism
as
this is, by virtue of being born after Vatican II, family background
and geographical location, not a topic I was ever really taught about until
finding your site. Your papers on magisterial
infallibility are especially illuminating (though I must confess I
still have some confusion on the topic, related solely to my own long-held
misunderstandings).
Overall, however, I feel great hope when reading through your site -
especially as I have spent the last four years of my life feeling on some
level that I had to choose between my faith and a full expression of my
sexuality. I am, slowly but surely and not
without much fear, beginning to realize that I may be wrong.
Thank you again, Stephen! Oh, I was also interested to notice that you are a D and D player :). It's a pity I live on the other side of the Atlantic - I'd love to join your campaign, otherwise!
It was extremely refreshing to see someone else is gay and into the Tridentine Mass. I have only attended it once, but I have often expressed my sadness that I couldn't have been a Catholic before Vatican II, so I could officially have it all the time. I should go more, but my one year of high school Latin is insufficient for real understanding, so I just read the English as they go. Now I go to church occasionally at the most conservative churches in town, where they have kneelers and Saints galore. But I have to remain strong inside knowing that many of those around me would condemn me if they knew what I was. It was hard to get into the Church, I don't want to get thrown out now that I'm in.
I wish I knew as much about the Old Rite as you do, nothing a lot more reading can't solve.
Thanks for being you Pharsea!
I appreciate especially your reasoning on matters. Logical engagement is not my finest strong point as I rather intuit or come from a poetic perspective, so it is most helpful to see someone coming at matters logically. I only wish I had discovered your site when I was coming out as an undergraduate, reading through stacks of works to think through the matter, and finding myself up against a brick wall with regard to current Vatican statements and the relatively poor pastoral care of priests in helping me wade through. I might have found more grounds for staying and dissenting.
I have been of late ruminating over your thoughts on the Tridentine Mass. There is so much which you have written that I can only say "Amen!" to. Your notes on ICEL language are spot on: liturgy is icon, poetry, our participation in the Rite of Heaven, that we offer such shoddy response to G-d making love to us is a deep shame if not heterodox in it's own right.
I found your statement about the "goings on" in the typical parishes
of the Roman Jurisdiction to be virtually a "different religion"
quite poignant. I thought the same thing growing up in my relatively
conservative parish in comparing my experience of catholicism at the time
with that I saw in the "lives of the Saints" etc. It was for all
general purposes a "different religion". This breach with continuity is
most disturbing.
I still feel robbed and cheated out of my heritage due to the
misinformed ever changing directives of some diocesan liturgical commissions
in regard to liturgy on the parish level. Most of what passes for
liturgical use in the average Roman parish has
little in my humble opinion to do with the liturgical directives of
Sancrosanctum Concilium in the documents of Vatican II.
That makes me angry. It makes me angry that a whole generation
of Romans have grown up being led by many who for all
their good intentions basically destroyed the Romant Rite in their
zeal for antiquity and making the liturgy revelant to the common man. I
have seen the Novus Ordo Missae done with much beauty and solemnity (St
Agnes church in St. Paul, Minnesota and St. Michaels Church in Munich)
but unfortunately too often the liberty that is taken in regard to rubrics
and decorum is lacking in continuity and is not an organic development
of the centuries but in many situations a real breach with continuity.
This is what disturbs me. This and the often times indifference I've found
among many Roman priests who are misinformed has caused me much grief.
If the faithful are thereby strengthened in their faith in the Eucharistic
Saviour and in their zeal for performing good works by their assisting
at and participating in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass when their
lives are transformed in holiness by the liturgy be it Anglican Use,
Novus Ordo, Tridentine or whatever then the liturgy is serving its
purpose I think. My question is whether this is the case in
many places.
I am however not of the school of thought that places the blame on Vatican II. On the contrary I believe the implementations at least liturgically speaking if not more have never been realised in the Roman Church. This is sad to say the least. What is worse is that you have liturgical commissions and directors who are doing what they can to "update" the "faith communities" with "revelant" liturgy all in the name of "the spirit of Vatican II". The much maligned "spirit of Vatican II" has not been tried and found wanting liturgically speaking it has been misinterpreted, left untried and unimplemented.
I'm not attempting to demonise the Novus Ordo Missae by any stretch of the imagination: though in its current widespread usage I find it very wanting and lacking of continuity, transcendence and mystery. I do not argue the validity of the Novus Ordo Missae vs Traditional ie Tridentine. I have a very different concept of Catholicity than the average Roman anyway.
I find the Holy Mass celebrated in my own parish church to be much more
traditional and catholic than that celebrated in many
Roman Churches but I do not seek to malign the Holy Roman Church by
saying this. I do not think I am any less Catholic than any Roman that
I know. I'm convinced that the "Great Mystery" as I said is larger than
the Holy Roman Church. This is not to say that I have no respect for the
Roman Church. I pray daily for her priests, religious and faithful and
especially for the Holy Father. I do not consider myself outside
the pale of the Catholic faith of the ancient undivided Church.
If you get the chance, could you take a look at these two links? I have not read them through and don't know what else is on the site, but for the development of dogma, it looked interesting. I must re-read them both, they are long and a little involved.
http://www.geocities.com/pharsea/DefinitionOfDoctrine.html
http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/faculty/ckaczor/articles/development.htm
Jeff replies:
They are interesting and pretty well done. I have barely skimmed through both of them, but from a preliminary look I would be more inclined to go along with the first one.Pharsea remarks:The second appears to flat out deny infallibility or even the possibility of infallibility altogether. I noticed one of its links went to a page by Paul Halsall. I realize it is not a valid argument to "attack" someone else's character, but on the other hand, I would note that he is an outspoken proponent of homosexual relations.
The commentator has gotten his "first" and "second" mixed up :-) Moreover, he clearly hasn't read my article!
Having learned more now about you and Mr. Hammond, I am sorry that it fell out as it has. I should be happy to stand in as a sort of philosophical intermediary.
Your links throughout are great, but Ludditish dullards like myself, scraping our knuckles on the floor as we shuffle uncertainly forward - and I hope I am the only one of our kind left, actually, having had such a hard time getting a hearts table together lately - might do better with an easily accessible over-all map or directory of the site. In my experience it is the richest site on the web; there is so much worthwhile material available. But it is not easy to access.
Intermediately, the ethical business at the end [of my paper on epistemology], about knowledge of the Good, etc., would probably be placed in a somewhat more discrete section, to the satisfaction of most philosophers. By all means maintain the link. But inasmuch as epistemology and ethics have been divided in modern philosophy into two quite distinct areas of investigation and discourse, perhaps you should point the way to a "knowledge of the Good" page from both directions, ethics and epistemology. Plato was indeed astoundingly brilliant, persistently so to those of us who have the patience to keep reading him with respect, to have returned to this concept of the union of those two ideas, what we can know and what we should do. By all means carry on the connexion.
Your page is too long for me to be able to comment conveniently on aspects of it, aside from my general considerations given above. I might point out that you do not make any mention, as I recall, of eudaimonia as an ethical object of either the normal life or of the life well lived. Aristotle, it seems to me, is just an ingenious industrious Platonist, with other interests. And so, there is no need for us Platonists to distance ourselves from Aristotle and his admirers, as much as some of us have perhaps tended to do.
Thanks for the passage from the Meno. It brought tears to my eyes, specifically the Pindar fragment. Pindar definitely deserves to be prayed for, along with all the other beloved non-Christians. Vergil too, nevermind Dante. But poor Pindar had this two-dimensional Mussoliniesque admiration of certain kinds of special people, on the surface; while at the same time he clearly was trying to find a moral, religious foundation somewhere in the divine sphere, wherever that was to be located, within, above, in mythology, in prophecy, wherever.
I find that in many cases your views are more similar to mine than I had first thought. You indeed do know, and very thoroughly, the Primacy of Conscience, although I don't think you used that terminology. And following links you put in some of your posts I found there was even MORE of your site that I had not read yet.
I was most impressed with your thorough disection of the passage in Leviticus in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, especially since neither theology nor linguistics is your profession! I am a language teacher and I know how easily words can be misinterpreted in the context in which they are used, and how some words can have multiple meanings depending on their placement in a sentence and the endings that indicate gender and number.... I don't know Latin, Greek or Hebrew at all, but no matter, the concept of the way that different nuances in languages affect meaning helped me to follow along what you were explaining. I found it utterly fascinating.
Now if the bonding is unrequited or cut short (e.g. the other person gets run over by a bus), we have a tendency to stay locked in this "fallen in love state" and we don't have the relationship with that person to help us to move forward into the next stage. So we get stuck in a love rut. We have a tendency to put on a pedestal those that are taken from us. Half the male heterosexual population would not be so in love with Marilyn Monroe had she grown old and not died young. Now as any true-blue dyed in the wool bejesus heterosexual will tell you: the best way to snap out of this state is to find someone else to fall in love with. I've tried it and and works every time for me.
By the way, I am incredibly impressed at the amount you have achieved in a pretty short period. You have the capacity to get enthused by a subject and produce substantial material. I've just started reading a book called "Disciplined Minds" written by a guy who worked for Physics Today. It is all about professional work, and how the companies want "yes men" who will sell their minds without raising any tough questions. The premise is that all professional work is political, but professionals are trained to offer their creativity in a straight jacket, without questioning the politics and goals of what they are doing. I highly recommend the book. It seems like the Catholic church fits right in with the corporate culture in this regard!
I felt a share in perhaps some personal anger of yours, in that clearly your theological understanding is superior to most priests, as is probably your passion for Jesus and the Catholic Church - which should give you a clear role within the Church, that the Church should appreciate, so they committed a serious wrong when they rejected you either because of "personality issues" or because you "won't just do as you're told". It is good that you also have great enthusiasm for physics, so the Church has not cut you off from your only calling.
Regarding the Joint Declaration on Justification :
When they [the Lutherans] stress that God's grace is forgiving love ("the favour of God"), they do not thereby deny the renewal of the Christian's life.The point is to clarify what the Lutherans believe. Some Protestants might consider that "the favour of God" is no more than a naming game. Once you say "I believe", although you are just as sinful as before, God "counts you as righteous" (when you're not) because He sees Jesus when He looks at you. Saying the Christian's life is renewed is an attempt to negate this concept.
They intend rather to express that justification remains free from human co-operation and is not dependent on the life renewing effects of grace in human beings.It is clear from the document that the Lutherans really believe that God chooses to view and treat some people as righteous (when they are not) simply because they believe in God, and that it is only because of God's goodness that He is able to take this viewpoint and see Jesus instead of the sinner. The Lutherans then would say that it is impossible to be in this state (of believing in God and viewed as righteous) without becoming a better person, so the result is the same as the Catholic result but cause and effect are opposite. (Lutheran: God chooses to see you as good, because you believe, but as you believe and through God's help you become a better person; Catholic: God helps you become a better person and as you say, sees the final result.) The document seems to be an attempt to ignore the "cause and effect" issue and agree with whatever can be said to be agreed upon. I think the Lutherans are loathe to change, even if their theology does not make much sense, because of sentences in the Bible, which they are reluctant to deviate from (e.g. God imputes the righteousness of Jesus on the sinner).
I read some time ago your essay on free
will. I found it quite stimulating but I am still not quite sure
what I really think of it.
In short, before I started reading your essay I considered the "free
will problem" to be one of the most ungraspable problem of maybe any religion
in general and having finished reading your stuff, I still do.