Podcast: The Sign of the Cross

Listen to an excerpt from Praying the Mass: The Prayers of the People. Chapter 2 is on the Sign of the Cross, a prayer which is worth discussing on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.

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Another Interview on Relevant Radio, this Thursday

I'll be interviewed on Relevant Radio on Thursday, May 27th, on the Drew Mariani show around 4:30 PM (Eastern).  It'll be on the topic of the new English translation of the Mass.  You can listen live here.

"Structures of sin" and "social sin"

Here are two quotes from documents by Ven. Pope John Paul II on "structures of sin" and "social sin", phrases which sometimes get used out of the context in which the Holy Father insisted they must be understood in:

1984's Reconciliatio et Paenitentia 16, "Personal Sin and Social Sin"

Sin, in the proper sense, is always a personal act, since it is an act of freedom on the part of an individual person and not properly of a group or community. This individual may be conditioned, incited and influenced by numerous and powerful external factors. He may also be subjected to tendencies, defects and habits linked with his personal condition. In not a few cases such external and internal factors may attenuate, to a greater or lesser degree, the person's freedom and therefore his responsibility and guilt. But it is a truth of faith, also confirmed by our experience and reason, that the human person is free. This truth cannot be disregarded in order to place the blame for individuals' sins on external factors such as structures, systems or other people. Above all, this would be to deny the person's dignity and freedom, which are manifested — even though in a negative and disastrous way — also in this responsibility for sin committed. Hence there is nothing so personal and untransferable in each individual as merit for virtue or responsibility for sin.

As a personal act, sin has its first and most important consequences in the sinner himself: that is, in his relationship with God, who is the very foundation of human life; and also in his spirit, weakening his will and clouding his intellect.

At this point we must ask what was being referred to by those who during the preparation of the synod and in the course of its actual work frequently spoke of social sin.

The expression and the underlying concept in fact have various meanings.

To speak of social sin means in the first place to recognize that, by virtue of human solidarity which is as mysterious and intangible as it is real and concrete, each individual's sin in some way affects others. This is the other aspect of that solidarity which on the religious level is developed in the profound and magnificent mystery of the communion of saints, thanks to which it has been possible to say that "every soul that rises above itself, raises up the world." To this law of ascent there unfortunately corresponds the law of descent. Consequently one can speak of a communion of sin, whereby a soul that lowers itself through sin drags down with itself the church and, in some way, the whole world. In other words, there is no sin, not even the most intimate and secret one, the most strictly individual one, that exclusively concerns the person committing it. With greater or lesser violence, with greater or lesser harm, every sin has repercussions on the entire ecclesial body and the whole human family. According to this first meaning of the term, every sin can undoubtedly be considered as social sin.

Some sins, however, by their very matter constitute a direct attack on one's neighbor and more exactly, in the language of the Gospel, against one's brother or sister. They are an offense against God because they are offenses against one's neighbor. These sins are usually called social sins, and this is the second meaning of the term. In this sense social sin is sin against love of neighbor, and in the law of Christ it is all the more serious in that it involves the Second Commandment, which is "like unto the first." Likewise, the term social applies to every sin against justice in interpersonal relationships, committed either by the individual against the community or by the community against the individual. Also social is every sin against the rights of the human person, beginning with the right to nd including the life of the unborn or against a person's physical integrity. Likewise social is every sin against others' freedom, especially against the supreme freedom to believe in God and adore him; social is every sin against the dignity and honor of one's neighbor. Also social is every sin against the common good and its exigencies in relation to the whole broad spectrum of the rights and duties of citizens. The term social can be applied to sins of commission or omission — on the part of political, economic or trade union leaders, who though in a position to do so, do not work diligently and wisely for the improvement and transformation of society according to the requirements and potential of the given historic moment; as also on the part of workers who through absenteeism or non-cooperation fail to ensure that their industries can continue to advance the well-being of the workers themselves, of their families and of the whole of society.

The third meaning of social sin refers to the relationships between the various human communities. These relationships are not always in accordance with the plan of God, who intends that there be justice in the world and freedom and peace between individuals, groups and peoples. Thus the class struggle, whoever the person who leads it or on occasion seeks to give it a theoretical justification, is a social evil. Likewise obstinate confrontation between blocs of nations, between one nation and another, between different groups within the same nation all this too is a social evil. In both cases one may ask whether moral responsibility for these evils, and therefore sin, can be attributed to any person in particular. Now it has to be admitted that realities and situations such as those described, when they become generalized and reach vast proportions as social phenomena, almost always become anonymous, just as their causes are complex and not always identifiable. Hence if one speaks of social sin here, the expression obviously has an analogical meaning. However, to speak even analogically of social sins must not cause us to underestimate the responsibility of the individuals involved. It is meant to be an appeal to the consciences of all, so that each may shoulder his or her responsibility seriously and courageously in order to change those disastrous conditions and intolerable situations.

Having said this in the clearest and most unequivocal way, one must add at once that there is one meaning sometimes given to social sin that is not legitimate or acceptable even though it is very common in certain quarters today. This usage contrasts social sin and personal sin, not without ambiguity, in a way that leads more or less unconsciously to the watering down and almost the abolition of personal sin, with the recognition only of social guilt and responsibilities. According to this usage, which can readily be seen to derive from non-Christian ideologies and systems — which have possibly been discarded today by the very people who formerly officially upheld them — practically every sin is a social sin, in the sense that blame for it is to be placed not so much on the moral conscience of an individual, but rather on some vague entity or anonymous collectivity such as the situation, the system, society, structures or institutions.

Whenever the church speaks of situations of sin or when the condemns as social sins certain situations or the collective behavior of certain social groups, big or small, or even of whole nations and blocs of nations, she knows and she proclaims that such cases of social sin are the result of the accumulation and concentration of many personal sins. It is a case of the very personal sins of those who cause or support evil or who exploit it; of those who are in a position to avoid, eliminate or at least limit certain social evils but who fail to do so out of laziness, fear or the conspiracy of silence, through secret complicity or indifference; of those who take refuge in the supposed impossibility of changing the world and also of those who sidestep the effort and sacrifice required, producing specious reasons of higher order. The real responsibility, then, lies with individuals.

A situation-or likewise an institution, a structure, society itself-is not in itself the subject of moral acts. Hence a situation cannot in itself be good or bad.

At the heart of every situation of sin are always to be found sinful people. So true is this that even when such a situation can be changed in its structural and institutional aspects by the force of law or-as unfortunately more often happens by the law of force, the change in fact proves to be incomplete, of short duration and ultimately vain and ineffective-not to say counterproductive if the people directly or indirectly responsible for that situation are not converted.

1987's Sollicitudo Rei Socialis 36

It is important to note therefore that a world which is divided into blocs, sustained by rigid ideologies, and in which instead of interdependence and solidarity different forms of imperialism hold sway, can only be a world subject to structures of sin. The sum total of the negative factors working against a true awareness of the universal common good, and the need to further it, gives the impression of creating, in persons and institutions, an obstacle which is difficult to overcome.

If the present situation can be attributed to difficulties of various kinds, it is not out of place to speak of "structures of sin," which, as I stated in my Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, are rooted in personal sin, and thus always linked to the concrete acts of individuals who introduce these structures, consolidate them and make them difficult to remove. And thus they grow stronger, spread, and become the source of other sins, and so influence people's behavior.

"Sin" and "structures of sin" are categories which are seldom applied to the situation of the contemporary world. However, one cannot easily gain a profound understanding of the reality that confronts us unless we give a name to the root of the evils which afflict us.

One can certainly speak of "selfishness" and of "shortsightedness," of "mistaken political calculations" and "imprudent economic decisions." And in each of these evaluations one hears an echo of an ethical and moral nature. Man's condition is such that a more profound analysis of individuals' actions and omissions cannot be achieved without implying, in one way or another, judgments or references of an ethical nature.

This evaluation is in itself positive, especially if it is completely consistent and if it is based on faith in God and on his law, which commands what is good and forbids evil.

In this consists the difference between sociopolitical analysis and formal reference to "sin" and the "structures of sin." According to this latter viewpoint, there enter in the will of the Triune God, his plan for humanity, his justice and his mercy. The God who is rich in mercy, the Redeemer of man, the Lord and giver of life, requires from people clear cut attitudes which express themselves also in actions or omissions toward one's neighbor. We have here a reference to the "second tablet" of the Ten Commandments (cf. Ex 20:12-17; Dt 5:16-21). Not to observe these is to offend God and hurt one's neighbor, and to introduce into the world influences and obstacles which go far beyond the actions and brief life span of an individual. This also involves interference in the process of the development of peoples, the delay or slowness of which must be judged also in this light.

More research material: "The Eucharistic Prayers of the Roman Rite"

I just snagged Enrico Mazza's The Eucharistic Prayers of the Roman Rite for a mere $15 from Loome Theological Books at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at W. Michigan University in Kalamazoo.  This will be excellent research material for Praying the Mass: The Prayers of the Priest.  (Although, to be honest, I'm starting to wonder if I should make this a three-volume series instead of a two-volume series:  The Prayers of the People, The Prayers of the Priest, and The Eucharistic Prayers.  This is not to imply that the Eucharistic Prayers are not proper to the priest, of course, but I am afraid the book on the priest's prayers is going to be a bit too thick — and expensive! — for the average Catholic to consider buying and reading.)

International Congress on Medieval Studies

I'll be in Kalamazoo, Michigan, for the next several days attending the International Congress on Medieval Studies with my wife. These are the papers I'll be attending:

• Thursday
• 36: Word & Image in the Mystical Experience
• Conceiving the End of the World in Word and Image: The Mystical Experience of Saint Malachy and Hildegard of Bingen
• "There is a threeness about you": Medieval Women Visionaries and the Trinitarian Image of God
• Re-cognition of the Holy Child
• String Theory: Layering Text and Image in a Medieval Persian Manuscript
• 63: Basel and Vatican II: Similarities and Differences
• Base and the Post-Vatican II Debate: Between Council and Conciliarism
• Nicholas of Cusa and the Council of Basel: Can the Prodigals Find Their Way Home?
• 143: Holy Women
• (pending)
• 167: Medieval Sources in Pope Benedict XVI
• Benedict XVI's Retrieval of the Concept of Revelation as Found in Saint Bonaventure's Collationes in Hexaemaron
• Unlocking Benedict XVI's Inner Bonaventure
• The End of Times: The Impact of Medieval Sources on Benedict XVI's Eschatalogy
• Friday
• 248: Medieval Fantasy, Alchemy, and Modern Science in Tolkien's Legendarium
• Elvencentrism: "Elven Nature Preserves" in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien
• "Worlds on Worlds": Tolkien, Lewis, and the Medieval and Modern Theological Implications of Extraterrestrial Life
• Inside Literature: Tolkien's Explorations of the Medieval Genre
• J.R.R. Tolkien and The Battle of Maldon: An Example of "Freer" Verse?
• 315: The Liturgical Office of St. Thomas Becket (Chanted)
• 337: Medieval Sermon Studies II: Cistercian Preaching
• "Each belongs to all and all belong to each": Aelred of Rievaulx and His Sermons for the Feast of Saint Benedict
• Aelred of Rievaulx's Liturgical Sermons for the Feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary
• Johannine Glorification of Christ in John of Ford's Sermons on the Song of Songs
• Saturday
• 394: The Hobbit (A Roundtable)
• 433: The Psalms
• Allegory and "Grammatica" in Pre-scholastic Psalms Commentaries
• Approaches to the Psalms in Hugh of Saint-Cher, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas
• The ... How Many Senses of Scripture, Now?
• 530: The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages
• Apocalypse Now Y1K: What a Revelation! A Comparative-Critical Literary Analysis of Anglo-Saxon Text Disguised as New Testament Biblical Study
• "Lest he should come unforeseen...": The Antichrist Cycle in the Hortus deliciarum
• "Write them not": The Depiction of Divine Concealment in Anglo-French Apocalypse Manuscripts
• No Need to Worry: Thirty-One Signs That the Antichrist Came in the Fifteenth Century
• Sunday
• 539: Liturgy and Reform in Medieval Europe: The Evidence of Manuscripts
• The Creed at Baptism: Ninth-Century Formation and Controversy in Manuscript Context
• Cathedral Liturgy in High Medieval Saxony: The Example of Minden
• Liturgical Reform in Medieval Manuscripts from Halberstadt

I take copious notes on my laptop.

Oh, and there will be daily Mass and Vespers, and many open bar receptions. I consider this a vacation. :)

Interview on WFJS

Here is the audio clip (transcript to follow) of my radio interview with Jim Manfredonia and his wife Cheryl on WFJS 1260-AM, my local Catholic radio station.  This interview happened during the Catholic radio-thon, on Thursday, April 15th. (The station's initials are for Servant of God Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.)

Here's the MP3 (42:13, 38.6 MB):

Transcript of Jeffrey Pinyan’s Interview
on WFJS 1260-AM Domestic Church Radio, April 15, 2010
(pending)