More homily quotations from Holy Family Parish in Illinois

6th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Fr. Patrick Brennan

Who are the lepers, who are the outcasts in our own day? Well, religious leaders in our own Church have said that gay and lesbian people are seriously disordered. ... We have some bishops and priests — and please hear this well, I am anti-abortion — but we have some bishops and priests refusing Communion to politicians who sometimes speak out on women's rights, [by "women's rights", I think he means the "right" to abortion] while simultaneously the Pope is reconciling with a schismatic group of bishops of the Lefebvrist movement, who are Tridentine in their Church-culture [Fr. Brennan is under the impression that Vatican II radically redesigned the culture (and structure) of the Church; he is opposed to the Extraordinary Form of the liturgy, Latin in general, etc.] and who have announced publicly there was no such thing as the Holocaust. [I don't think Bishop Williamson or another SSPX priest denied the Holocaust as an event, just the scope of the Holocaust] ...

If a woman stands up and says "I feel called and gifted for the priesthood", she is silenced and declared unclean and unfit. [The Church believes and teaches that women are incapable of receiving priestly ordination. When a woman thinks otherwise, she is not "silenced", etc. If she attempts to go through with it, then there are repercussions. But the Church (though various means) is willing to have a dialogue with her so that she might better understand the Church's faith.] If people talk about the ordination of married men to the priesthood, they are silenced and declared unclean and unfit. [I don't think that's the case either. Married men are ordained in the Eastern Church, and sometimes in the Western Church (the "pastoral provision" for married ministers who convert to the Church). But many who advocate ordaining married men are doing so along with, or with the goal of, ordaining women.] Some divorced people have been looked on as unacceptable and unfit; [I don't have experience with that; it shouldn't be the case, though!] and if you're a divorced Catholic and you remarry without an annulment, you are not to receive Communion. [That's because divorce is a social construct, whereas marriage is a divine construct. A valid marriage in the eyes of God cannot be broken off by divorce; decrees of nullity are recognitions that there was no valid marriage to begin with. It is a sin to "divorce" and then have sexual relations with another person.] Religious people can be so harsh and so judgmental toward other people who don't fit the model. [St. Paul also listed behaviors which "don't fit the model" of Christian life: see Romans 1:28-31; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Galatians 5:19-21]

7th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Fr. Patrick Brennan

The article was about the resurgence — the return [they never left... Vatican II didn't do anything to them] — of indulgences, first under the papacy John Paul II, and now under the papacy of Benedict XVI. [What about Pope Paul VI? He wrote X and Y shortly after the Second Vatican Council.] ... Indulgences said this: God forgives sin if we repent, God forgives sin through the sacrament of Reconciliation, but God is just and God must, in His justice, give us temporal punishment after death in an experience, in a place, called Purgatory. [The temporal punishment for sin can be undergone either in this life or in Purgatory. An easy way to understand temporal punishment (as opposed to eternal punishment, which is spiritual death and being in Hell) is that it is the "necessary" or "natural" consequence of sin.] Now there's partial indulgences, indulgences that burn off Purgatory time for days, months, years. [That is not true; the use of "time" associated with indulgences (and not in the way Fr. Brennan describes it) was abolished after Vatican II in Indulgentarium Doctrina 12.] And there are plenary indulgences that wipe the slate completely clean; though a person after receiving a plenary indulgence can go out and sin again. [Of course; indulgences don't prevent you from sinning, and a no indulgence is effective against future sins.] ...

I personally find this renewal of indulgences ecumenically insensitive. [Vatican II didn't get rid of them. Denying a truth of the Catholic faith is far more ecumenically insensitive than hiding said truth. See Vatican II's document on ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio 11.] We know what a bitter pill this was to the Lutherans and to Protestant groups that have grown out of the whole Lutheran revolution. The New York Times article said "the Church leadership today seems more interested in pointing out what's different about the Roman Catholic Church than seeking unity with other Christian churches." [Why be Catholic if the Catholic Church is just like every other Christian community out there? The Catholic Church is different! Again, false unity (along a lowest common denominator) is not the goal of the ecumenical movement: true unity in the one Church of Christ is.] Indulgences in my estimation are a human device [while on the contrary, the Church believes that "the doctrine and practice of indulgences ... have a solid foundation in divine revelation"] that places the institutional Church in an area that it doesn't belong. Indulgences and Purgatory are pretending to know more than we can know about the afterlife. [Read about myths about indulgences.]

First Sunday of Lent, Fr. George Kane

The Jewish community of faith, [why so verbose? Why not "Jewish people" or "Jews" or "Israel"?] in honing the story through the centuries, put a spin [that crashing sound is divine inspiration is being thrown out the window] on the Flood story. They made it a drama [they changed the story, nothing divine about it I guess] of sin and punishment, of forgiveness and promise.

Tradition: Refounding and Restorationism

Here is yet another dangerous homily from Fr. Patrick Brennan on the occasion of the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul. It pains me to hear him telling his congregation these things, because the dissent he feeds his parishioners will probably manifest itself as flat-out disobedience from them towards whomever is appointed their new pastor in a matter of months. My emphases are in bold; commentary is inside and outside of the homily.

1. A group called the Gnostics, they resisted Peter's leadership. They said he didn't have the right to be looked on as leader because of his denial of Jesus. And Paul, Paul also a flawed and sinful man. Paul persecuted the early Christians. The Acts of the Apostles tells us that Paul was right there participating when Stephen the deacon was stoned to death, was martyred. And yet Paul went on to become the first writer of the New Testament, and Paul more than anyone else in our history has taken Christianity and made it a livable spirituality, a way of life, a system of meaning that people can have conversions to. Peter and Paul, the "super-apostles", they really took the Jesus movement and ignited it. But two very human men. If they were here speaking today, I think both of them would say Jesus is the rock on whom we need to build our lives.

This is all quite fine: Jesus is the rock on whom we need to build our lives. Neither Peter (cf. 1 Pet. 2:4-5) nor Paul (cf. Col. 2:6-7) would say otherwise. Scripture also testifies that the Church founded by Jesus was built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles, and specifically Peter (petros = "rock", cf. Matt. 16:18-19), with Christ himself as the cornerstone (cf. Eph. 2:19-20).

2. John Cardinal Newman was declared venerable by John Paul II before he [Pope John Paul II] died [obviously]. That means he's on the way to canonization, to sainthood. By John Newman said something in the 19th century: he said there was not a papacy, and there were not bishops, while the Apostles still walked the earth. [More on this below] Other historians have picked up on that theory and say there probably was not a Bishop of Rome for 100 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. [Other historians recognize there were Bishops of Rome, like Clement.] Rome was governed by a group of priests, a group of elders, and Rome compared to the other churches in the East, was not even considered a church of great esteem early on. [When?] But then [when?] Rome began to take on a position of power and authority. Why? Because Peter and Paul, who were held in equal reverence and esteem, were martyred there. Rome was the city of Peter and Paul, the two heroes of the early Church.

What John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote in Development of Christian Doctrine, chapter 4 ("Instances in Illustration", section 3 ("The Papal Supremacy"), paragraph 2, was this:

For instance, it is true, St. Ignatius is silent in his Epistles on the subject of the Pope's authority; but if in fact that authority could not be in active operation then, such silence is not so difficult to account for as the silence of Seneca or Plutarch about Christianity itself, or of Lucian about the Roman people. St. Ignatius directed his doctrine according to the need. While Apostles were on earth, there was the display neither of Bishop nor Pope; their power had no prominence, as being exercised by Apostles. In course of time, first the power of the Bishop displayed itself, and then the power of the Pope. When the Apostles were taken away, Christianity did not at once break into portions; yet separate localities might begin to be the scene of internal dissensions, and a local arbiter in consequence would be wanted. Christians at home did not yet quarrel with Christians abroad; they quarrelled at home among themselves.

Cardinal Newman, interpreting (fallibly) the writings of the New Testament as well as the epistles of St. Ignatius, says that there was no "display" of a Bishop or Pope. That is true enough; there was display of the Magisterium of the Church at the Council of Jerusalem, though (cf. Acts 15). The Apostles were the "primitive" bishops, and there was no Pope until there was a church in Rome to have a Bishop! Newman is a bit off, since the Apostle John was still alive close to the end of the 1st century, and there is evidence of Clement being a successor of Peter in Rome long before John finally died. St. John himself laments that someone in a particular church is disregarding his (John's) authority there (cf. 3 John 9). Even earlier than that, Pauline and Petrine epistles refer to priests (presbuteroi, that is, "presbyters", also rendered as "elders") and bishops (episkopoi, that is "overseers"). I would guess that the language of "bishop" and "pope" was stressed more and more to distinguish between literal Apostles and the post-Apostolic leadership.

There is also literary evidence of Rome being held in high regard in the early (pre-Constantine) Church; one example is the epistle of St. Ignatius to the church in Rome, "worthy of God, worthy of honour, worthy of the highest happiness, worthy of praise, worthy of obtaining her every desire, worthy of being deemed [most] holy, and which presides over love, is named from Christ, and from the Father" of whom he goes on to say "Ye have never envied any one; ye have taught others. Now I desire that those things may be confirmed [by your conduct], which in your instructions ye enjoin [on others]." I do not know exactly how early Fr. Brennan was restricting his analysis.

3. But then some things began to shift, especially after the 4th century. Devotion to Peter, and the tradition about Peter, began to prevail over Paul. A tradition began to spread that indeed Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, and different powers that were assigned to different parts of the Church around the world began to concentrate on the Bishop of Rome, and we began to see emerge the papacy as we know it today, reaching its zenith in the Middle Ages.

Is this insinuating that the tradition that Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, which "began to spread" later, was a false one?

4. Now I don't intend this history to be a critique of the papacy. What I'm trying to present today on the Feast of Peter and Paul, is that Jesus did not start a rigid, monolithic institution. [Can we use some different adjectives, though? Jesus did start a single visible institution, with standards for membership and the potential for world-wide growth!] The Church is something that evolved and developed over history. And different roles, like the papacy, and the role of bishop, and the role of priests, evolved. [But there were always priests and bishops, unless Fr. Brennan is insinuating that the Eucharist back then wasn't what it is today (or even in the time of St. Ignatius). It is true that roles developed and evolved; for example, deacons didn't exist at the start.] And that same spirit of flexibility and evolution and development must be present in our Church too, if the Church is going to face the future, if the Church is going to be relevant in the future to younger people. [What happens if the Church becomes "relevant" to younger people... but becomes "irrelevant" to older people?] Flexibility, development, evolution.

There's going to be a contradictory theme to this homily: the Church evolved and developed, and the Church needs to continue evolving and developing, but some of that evolution and development needs to be erased. Essentially, we need to "evolve" and "develop" the Church back to how it was in the time of Saints Peter and Paul, but then continue evolving and developing. It's fine to "go back in time" 1950 years, but not to "go back in time" to 1950, basically. (Not that I advocate restoring the Church to what it was in 1950, but simply that recovering Church practices from the 1st century seems to take precedence over recovering Church practices from the early 20th century.)

5. I've mentioned before the work of Gerald Arbuckle, his great classic book, "Refounding the Church". [Subtitle: "Dissent for Leadership". I kid you not.] Arbuckle says in his book "Refounding the Church", in every age, the church has to go back to its founder and ask the question, "What was the founder about... Jesus?" Well he was about the reign of God. [And everything that reign entailed, not just the "social justice" aspect of it; salvation from sin was awfully high on his list.] In every era, the Church and parishes like ours, have to ask the question, "Okay, Jesus was about the reign of God... what structures, what systems do we need in 2008 to preach him and to preach his vision of the reign of God?" The Church needs to be evolving, the Church needs to be developing; this parish needs to be evolving, this parish needs to be developing. For ever-new challenges and new ages. As the parish ages, as we move into our 25th year as a parish.

I've just purchased this book (used copy for $3.50) from someone on Amazon. I'm curious to see how it renders dissent as leadership. If you get a chance, look at the sample pages Amazon has. It's got a three-page chart showing the differences between the pre-Vatican II, post-Vatican II, and "Restorationist" (explained below) mindsets. It is general and caricatured; it also assumes the "either/or" rather than "both/and" mentality. Here are some examples:

Of the "culture of the Church", it says: before Vatican II = closed; after Vatican II = open; restorationist = "closing to dialogue; fear of dissent". Just what type of dialog is this about?

Of the "structure and authority", it says: before Vatican II = "Hierarchical - vertical authority structures, under Pope; centralization of papacy, Curia; 'creeping infallibility'"; after Vatican II = "Hierarchical - collegial authority: Pope and bishops; local church restored; collaborative emphasis at all levels"; restorationist = "Desiring a milder form of pre-Vatican II structures". Perhaps the author did not read Lumen Gentium which says, in n. 22:

The college or body of bishops has for all that no authority unless united with the Roman Pontiff, Peter's successor, as its head, whose primatial authority, let it be added, over all, whether pastors or faithful, remains in its integrity. For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, namely, and as pastor of the entire Church, has full, supreme and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.

I suggest you read the whole document, especially the explanatory note attached to it which clarifies the notion of collegiality it espouses.

A third example describes the liturgy this way: pre-Vatican II = "Latin; theatrical; congregation passive; uncreative; legalistic/rubrical"; after Vatican II = "Vernacular; simple; congregation active; creative"; restorationist = "Creativity not encouraged" (is that all?). Again, a reading of Sacrosanctum Concilium is in order.

Vatican II never desired to get rid of Latin from the Mass. Furthermore, the Church has been staunchly opposed to "creativity" and "experimentation" in the liturgy because it impedes the universality of the Rite and endangers the proper transmission of the faith to those present. Pope Paul VI said the completion of the liturgical reform in 1969 would put an end to experimentation. And as I mentioned in a previous post, the Church was on guard against abusive "creativity" even during the 1970s and 1980s. I also think "theatrical" better describes the "creative" Masses celebrated in the Ordinary Form, involving clowns, dancing, secular-sounding music, etc.

A fourth example about the priesthood describes the three-way transition as "Cultic" to "Preacher of Word; builder of believing/worshiping/justice-oriented community" to "Role: confused". As for their relation to the laity, the transition is "superior" to "co-operation" to "confused". I think, perhaps, the author is confused. Just what the author means by "cultic" is undefined (although perhaps covered in greater detail in the book). I would hazard a guess it does not include preaching or building of community. Does the preacher/builder definition include a sacramental aspect? I would sure hope so.

A final example describes the Eucharist this way: from "Holy Communion / Mass / Sunday obligation" to "Union of faithful, centered on the Eucharist, symbol and source of unity" to "Vatican II directions not developed; fear of inculturation at local levels". Now I'm confused! Did Vatican II really do away with the notions of "Holy Communion" and "Mass"? And it is not possible for the Eucharist to be the "union of faithful, centered on the Eucharist". The Eucharist has always been the "symbol and source of unity" -- the Eucharistic Sacrifice is the source and summit, as Vatican II put it, and the "source and center of Christian piety" as Pope Pius XII put it in Mediator Dei n. 201. Pope Leo XIII wrote an encyclical on the Holy Eucharist which described it as "the source and chief" (Mirae Caritatis, n. 6). As for the directions of Vatican II, Pope Benedict has recently called us to re-examine what Vatican II said about the Eucharist, particularly in Sacrosanctum Concilium, so I think we're headed towards a truer realization of the Vatican II "direction".

6. In the late 19th century the doctrine of Papal Infallibility was declared by Vatican I at the encouragement of Pope Pius IX. That doctrine teaches when the Pope speaks [teaches] on issues of faith and morals, we must listen, we must obey, we must conform. [Are those bad words?] At the time of the doctrine of infallibility being passed, there was another theory of infallibility on the floor of the First Vatican Council. And that doctrine of infallibility said this: Yes, there's this theory of the inerrancy of the Pope -- we're not going to deny that, we'll not take that on -- but another connotation of infallibility is: the Church will never fail. [I think the Church knew that the whole time. Do Matthew 16:18 and 28:20 ring a bell?] The Church is under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We'll have problems, we'll have difficulties, we'll have challenges, we'll have growth spurts, but the Church of Jesus Christ will endure through the power of the Holy Spirit. [Amen!] I encourage us this morning to look at the value of both understandings of infallibility. The latter one I think is very livable and very existential: the Holy Spirit is with our Church. The Holy Spirit is with our Church. [The former one is also very livable, because it gives us assurance in the things our Church teaches us concerning the faith and morality.]

7. Quickly... Peter and Paul, equal in reverence in the early Church, have come down through history to represent two different sides of the Church. Peter obviously represents the organizational, institutional dimension of Church, Paul represents the dynamism of the Church. Paul writes a lot about charisms, he writes about the nature of community. John Paul II before he died, [obviously!] in an encyclical Redemptor Hominis, [see below] said the most scripturally accurate model of Church is the Church is a community of learners, a community of disciples. That's the model of Church that Paul preached. [The hierarchical Church is not an obstacle to the Church as a "community of disciples".] And the Church is more than just a community of disciples: the Church is sacrament to the world, herald, prophet, teacher, moral authority, agent of justice, agent of mercy. [And Bride of Christ, and Body of Christ, and Household of God.] We should never allow one image of the Church to prevail over other images of the Church. [So don't let images that may stress Her non-hierarchical nature overpower those images that make that hierarchical nature clear.] The fact that we celebrate the Feast of Peter and Paul together today is a lesson in itself that these many different sides of the Church must be held in a healthy balance and tension. Otherwise we get into mistaken notions of [the] Church.

Pope John Paul II has not released any encyclicals nor announced any canonizations after his death, just for the record. In Redemptor Hominis n. 21, he writes:

Indeed, the Church as the People of God is also-according to the teaching of Saint Paul mentioned above, of which Pius XII reminded us in wonderful terms -- "Christ's Mystical Body". Membership in that body has for its source a particular call, united with the saving action of grace. Therefore, if we wish to keep in mind this community of the People of God, which is so vast and so extremely differentiated, we must see first and foremost Christ saying in a way to each member of the community: "Follow me". It is the community of the disciples, each of whom in a different way -- at times very consciously and consistently, at other times not very consciously and very inconsistently -- is following Christ. This shows also the deeply "personal" aspect and dimension of this society, which, in spite of all the deficiencies of its community life -- in the human meaning of this word -- is a community precisely because all its members form it together with Christ himself, at least because they bear in their souls the indelible mark of a Christian.

I have no argument at all with what the Pope has written here. The minute the Church ceases being the community of disciples, She has ceased to be the Church founded by Jesus Christ. And as disciples of Christ, we are bound to "observe all that [he] has commanded [us]" (Matthew 28:20). That includes respecting the hierarchy of the Church; it's not like the Pope isn't a disciple!

Oh, and like Fr. Z, I really can't stand this trend of dropping definite articles from words like "Church", and "Eucharist".

8. I mentioned Gerald Arbuckle. Arbuckle in addition to introducing the notion of refounding the Church in every age, also coined the term "restorationism". He said beginning in the 90s, he felt there was a movement in the Church to push the Church back before Vatican II. [The extremist movement to overturn Vatican II is one thing; the "reform of the reform" movement, the "New Liturgical Movement", is another. The latter seeks to properly implement what Vatican II mandated regarding the liturgy.] Now remember why Vatican II was called: Vatican II, when I was in high school, was called an ad fontes movement, back to the fonts. Vatican II was an attempt to discover what was the nature of the Church of Peter and Paul. [While it did look to the past -- the whole history of the Church -- it was also concerned with aggiornamento, that is, "updating".] "We've become too institutionalized," the Council leaders said in the 1960s. "We're leading too much with the organization, with the institution; we've got to get back to the Church of Peter and Paul." [These are not exact quotes, of course, but when was this sentiment conveyed? Was this Pope John XXIII's vision? I'd say no.] Arbuckle is saying in this period of restorationism -- the 90s and the early 2000s -- some people are trying to push us back to the Council of Trent, back to the Council that articulated things in the 16th century. [Trent hasn't been abrogated or nullified. Vatican II quoted them. The Catechism quotes them.] I don't know if you saw in the local Chicago Catholic newspaper, The New World: the Pope is encouraging every parish to have a Latin Mass. [Amen!] Is that really the Church we want [choose your next words very carefully...] to return to? Arbuckle says at the heart of restorationism is nostalgia: nostalgia so that we don't have to do the hard work of refounding. [So if the Pope says it's not for nostalgia that he's doing this, but Arbuckle says it is, whom should I believe? Does Arbuckle know the Pope's mind better than the Pope himself?]

This is not the first time Fr. Brennan has contrasted "refounding the Church" with "restorationism". He wrote about it in his parish bulletin back in May 2005 as well. He is also hostile towards Latin, whether in the Extraordinary Form (which he caricatured in a previous homily) or the Ordinary Form. He openly questions here whether a Church which celebrates Mass in Latin, ad orientem, etc., is a Church worth having. If that Church returns, he seems to be asking, do we want to belong to it? The negative answer to that question results in schism, plain and simple.

Would he mind explaining what's inherently wrong with Mass in Latin in general, or with the Extraordinary Form in particular?

9. [Fr.] George Kane is offering a course this fall on the vision [and "Spirit", no doubt] of Vatican II. [If the budget gets approved, I'm sure it'll include actually looking at the documents!] I hope some of you will attend that course, and I'm grateful to [Fr.] George for doing that, but more than just the course in the fall, remember, John XXIII called Vatican II to open the windows of the Church because "it's gotten dusty in here", he said, and the Church needs fresh air. [That's for sure. Fresh air with a hint of incense!] The Church needs the movement of the Holy Spirit. I hope, Holy Family, that you will always keep the vision of Vatican II alive in this parish. John XXIII opened the windows; keep the windows open.

I am frightened to think what the subject matter of such a course will be. What sources will Fr. Kane use? The documents themselves, taken in context? That would be an eye-opener...

Dissent: Call to Action

I've made two posts about homilies given at Holy Family Parish in Inverness, Illinois, by the parish's pastor, Fr. Patrick J. Brennan. It turns out Fr. Brennan is a popular speaker for the dissenting group "Call to Action" (see this article, footnote 25). Here are titles of two presentations he has given: From "The Last Priest in America" to the Priesthood of the Faithful and Tradition and McChurch: Baby Busters and Generation X-ers.

I feel very sorry for the parishioners of Holy Family because they are being led by a man who disdains the very Church that ordained him, and his homilies are often peppered with dissent, misinformation, and sometimes even blatant heresy. Please pray for them, pray for Fr. Brennan, and pray for His Eminence Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I., the Archbishop of the Chicago Archdiocese.

Tradition: Dissent over the Papal Throne

Here's an excerpt from another homily [MP3] from Holy Family Parish, from the Feast of Christ the King:

One of the worst things that happened to Christianity was when Constantine made Christianity the state religion, the Church then looked at pagan Rome and said, "Well, that's the structure we should have for the Church," and they sprinkled Holy Water over a pagan system. ...

The Church has become a monarchical system. [Fr.] Richard Fragomeni told me that the last couple Popes have had just a simple chair in the Vatican... but they've restored the Papal Throne. And our Cardinals are called "Princes of the Church", and the new Cardinals today get gold rings from the Pope, and they wear purple, and they wear red: symbols of monarchy. There's the throne of Jesus Christ, right there in the center of the church. The symbols of leadership in contemporary Catholicism are in stark contrast to that throne from which he led the Church and leads the Church today, on that throne he emptied himself and allowed the power of God to fill him...

Oy vey. While Fr. Brennan makes a nice point about the altar (and therefore the cross) being the (earthly) throne of Jesus, he neglects the heavenly throne of Jesus.

Tradition: Typical diatribe opposed to the Extraordinary Form

Update: I had meant to comment on the crucifix replacement at the parish in question. (Let me give a disclaimer: my parish does not have a majestic crucifix in the sanctuary, it has a "resurrectrix" -- the risen Christ. But it's not abstract art.) Holy Family Parish has "The Cross of New Life", as shown to the right here. It's pretty hideous in my opinion. Anyway, onto the actual post's content:

I have here a homily given by the pastor (Fr. Patrick J. Brennan) of Holy Family Parish in Illinois given on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus of this year. He says that, in the days when the feast was called Corpus Christi, the days of "thick Catholicism", the Eucharist was an "object, a holy thing that you put in a gold container" that people kept their distance from because they did not always feel worthy of it. He says that Vatican II, in its reformation of the liturgy, discovered a dynamism in the Eucharist that was previously unknown, and that the pre-conciliar faith saw the Eucharist as "static".

And then he says he is afraid that the Church is heading towards that "thick Catholicism" that has no dynamic understanding of the Eucharist. He speaks of an article in The Daily Herald about the (then) forth-coming motu proprio (although he says that the Pope has "just issued" it). He is upset over the Pope's formal affirmation that priests have right to say the "Tridentine Mass" -- it's important to note that the Pope did not grant any permissions in Summorum Pontificum, but simply affirmed the right of all priests to say Mass according to the 1962 Missal. The priest displays to his congregation "what it looked like" (I assume by turning around). He calls it "mumbling Latin words over objects". He threatens the congregation (which responds with laughter) that some day they might come to Mass and see that, since any priest will have the right to say Mass according to the Extraordinary Form.

Here's the audio feed (12:58):

Here's his homily, verbatim, with my emphases in bold and my comments [in bold red] (à la Fr. Z):

Some of us are of an age that remember this feast used to be called the Feast of Corpus Christi -- the Latin words for "the Body of Christ". It usually was held on a Thursday, and in churches there would be processions with the Eucharist, with the Blessed Sacrament. Sometimes the procession would go around the church; sometimes the processions actually went into the neighborhoods, and the Blessed Sacrament, the Eucharist, would be in a gold container with glass called a monstrance. The priest would walk through the church and the neighborhood blessing and consecrating people with the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

There were some good things about those days. Those were the days of "thick Catholicism". [I wouldn't necessarily think "thick Catholicism" was a bad thing, especially compared to the "thin Catholicism" or the "watered-down Catholicism" I hear so much about lately.] Those were the days when ethnicity and neighborhood propagated Catholic culture. The people who celebrated Corpus Christi were people of deep spirituality and piety and devotion, and had great reverence and respect for the Eucharist. [Good! Keep up the deep spirituality, piety, devotion, reverence, and respect!]

But there was a downside to that period of thick Catholicism. For many folks, the Eucharist was an object [really?], a holy thing [the holiest! the "treasure of the Church" as Pope Benedict XVI said the very same day in his Angelus address] that you put in a gold container [it's worth mentioning that this parish's web site advertises 24/7 perpetual Eucharistic Adoration], and you kept your distance from the Eucharist. Oh, you had great reverence and respect as I said, but many people felt very unworthy of the Eucharist. [As St. Paul pointed out to the church in Corinth, it's not wrong to feel unworthy of it. You should not receive it unless you are in a state of grace.] So the Eucharist was an object, a holy thing, looked at and observed -- [Father] Denis and [Friar] Johnpaul were talking about how people used to use the language of "you go to Mass to hear Mass", not "to celebrate the Mass". The era [or was that 'error'?] of Corpus Christi.

Then Vatican II reformed the liturgy, reformed the Mass, and decisions were made to move Corpus Christi to Sunday, so that all Catholics can celebrate the importance of the Eucharist. And the title was changed to "the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus". What is the Eucharist, as renewed by Vatican II? Well, I think the answer is in the scripture readings today. Bear with me. [Brace yourselves.]

Genesis... Melchizedek celebrates a meal with bread and wine. Many folks in the Jewish tradition grew to believe that when the Messiah comes, he will offer a meal of bread and wine. And that's what Jesus did on Holy Thursday night, signifying to those who followed him that he was the Messiah, he was the promised one. And he takes that bread and wine, and he identifies the bread with his Body, and he identifies the wine with his Blood. As I say to second graders: if anybody were to give us their body and blood, what are they giving us? Their very self. In the Eucharist, Jesus gives us his very self. And notice the words in Corinthians: "this is for you". Jesus gives his very self to us in a spirit of self-sacrifice. "Do this in remembrance of me." This is a memorial meal, and in the ancient tradition of memorial meals, we remember a sacred event and the sacred event becomes present to us, and what we remember is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. [This is pretty good, but he's hung up more on the "memorial meal" idea than the sacrifice idea, I think. He mentions that the "sacred event becomes present to us", but doesn't say it's a re-presentation of the sacrifice (which is a key idea to get across). And it's not a re-presentation of the life and resurrection, it's a re-presentation (in an unbloody manner) of the crucifixion. The closest he comes to "sacrifice" is "a spirit of self-sacrifice", which I think falls a bit short of the mark, in terms of connotation.] And we enter into oneness with that mystery.

Vatican II said that the Eucharist is not a static object to be observed. No, the Eucharist is a dynamic celebration, in which we become one with Jesus, and one with each other, and one with God. And we're told also by Jesus and Paul that this meal is a celebration of a new covenant with God [it's more than a meal], a new bond with God, a new oneness with God, in and through the Real Presence of Jesus, and in and through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

The Eucharist is a sacrament, and a sacrament -- the word sacrament means a lot of things, but I'd like us to reflect on one thing today: the Eucharist pushes us out into a whole way of life. [Fr.] Eugene LaVerdiere [S.S.S.], a Scripture scholar [and a priest of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament], said that when you come to the Eucharist, it's the experience of living the Gospel for an hour, or an hour and fifteen minutes; it's like getting a booster-shot of Jesus, and what he meant by the good news and the reign of God so that we can go and live it when we leave here.

I mentioned before that we went through a period of thick Catholicism, where this dynamic understanding of the Eucharist was not present [I don't think he ever really proved the pre-conciliar Church didn't have a dynamic understanding of the Eucharist. Consider Mirae Caritatis by Pope Leo XIII in 1902.] in Catholic culture. I worry that we're going back to that period, and we're losing that dynamism that we rediscovered in the Scriptures and through Vatican II regarding the Eucharist. I don't know if you saw the front page of The Daily Herald this morning. The front page of The Herald says-- right now, if you want to offer a Latin Tridentine Mass, you have to go to the Bishop and say "can I do that?" And the Bishop may or may not give you permission to do a Latin Tridentine Mass. The Pope has just issued [sic] a document that says any priest that wants to can offer a Latin Tridentine Mass. [I don't think the priest read the article very carefully. See my comments after this homily.]

Those of you my age and older, this is what it looked like... mumbling Latin words over objects. [Cliché.] "Dominus Vobiscum." [True to form, he stumbles through the pronunciation of "vobiscum".] One of these days you're going to come to church [laughter] and this is what it's going to look like. Any priest can offer a Tridentine Latin Mass! Question: why is the Church so liberal in propagating medieval [another cliché] traditionalism-type [what does that even mean?] rituals, and so conservative when it comes to the vision of Vatican II? [I beg to differ; there has to be a widespread conservative application of Sacrosanctum Concilium! Perhaps the "vision of Vatican II" never made it onto paper? Fie on that oral tradition!] Why can any priest do Latin stuff [they could always do Latin stuff...] now, Tridentine stuff now, but just a few months ago: [I don't know what he's referring to exactly, but it was probably some USCCB or archdiocesan statement about the enforcement of the GIRM and another liturgical norms that this parish might have been in violation of.]

Who can stand up here? [Is this in reference to people congregating around the Altar during the Eucharistic Prayer?]

Who receives first? [Probably in reference to EMHCs communicating at the same time as the priest. The priest must consume the sacrifice in its entirety first.]

"Get away from the priest, he's a special guy." [Sounds like the pastor is trying to downplay the Sacrament of Holy Orders.]

"Don't come up here." [Possibly related to the previous statement, but I'm not sure.]

Who washes the dishes [He must have meant purifies the sacred vessels]? "The priest has to." [Probably in reference to the indult (which allowed EMHCs to purify the sacred vessels) not being extended.]

All sorts of liturgical legislation: controlling the liturgy. [It would seem this priest wants to control the liturgy himself, even though the type of control he's after (ignoring the norms) is forbidden by Sacrosanctum Concilium 22.] But when it comes to a medieval traditional mode of liturgy [and what's wrong with that?], hey, open the floodgates. [No, the Extraordinary Form (like the Ordinary Form!) has its own rubrics and norms that must be followed.] My goodness. We need good pastoral leadership in our church. [He ain't kiddin'.] Not controlling, abusive [?], top-down ideology [So no Pope? No visible head? Just a bunch of appendages?]. The liturgy, translated, is "the work of the people". [Liturgy (λειτουργία (leitourgia)) is the "public work", in this context, the worship of the Church. The "public" part is important. It's not our private devotions, it's what the Church, as a whole, does as its public act of worship.] Not the implementation of what hierarchies demand that we do.

Someone came up to me after Mass at the 9:00 Mass and she was crying. She said, "The direction I see the Catholic Church going in, I don't know what to do about it. People are leaving the Church. I feel so frustrated with it. What do I do about it?" And I didn't have an answer for her. [Not even "pray and fast"?] I told you before: 13 guys ordained priests this year -- one American, we don't even know if he's a Chicagoan. Next year, 11 guys getting ordained -- no Americans. Can you imagine that there's not one person [man] in the Chicago metropolitan area that wants to be a priest? [I don't know the source of these statistics.] You think there's a direction here? You think there's a problem here? Do you think there's something symptomatic going on here? Let's not allow our liturgy to be turned into the "holy thing" that we feel distanced from. [Perhaps the lack of vocations in the parish's area is due to men not wanting to be connected to the liturgy. Or perhaps men don't know the importance of the liturgy and how vital the priesthood is, nor how to discern the call to the priesthood.] Let it continue to be the celebration of the Body of Christ. And that's what I want to close on, folks: not only in this sacrament do we receive the Body of Christ, we realize that we are the Body of Christ. [Dangerous comparison. We do not become the Real Presence of Jesus Christ. We do not become his Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. He's mixing metaphors here in a way that can lead to a hazy understanding of the sacrifice of the Mass and the Real Presence.]

Did you notice what Jesus did in the Gospel today? There's 5000 men, and he breaks them into groups of 50. That's what Jesus was: he was a community-formation person. [And for that they crucified him?] And that's what it means on the Feast of Corpus Christi also: to realize that you and I are the Body of Christ, we're the Body of Christ in the world. [But we are not the Blessed Sacrament.] In the back of church this weekend, Wilma Growney is back there, the leader of small Christian communities, inviting folks to consider being in a small group during the weeks of summer. So if you might want to be in a small Christian faith-sharing group, a Bible Study group, a group that reads a book together in faith, please see Wilma in the back of church?

And finally, would you pass these cards down? There are different colors in the pews.

To become more genuine community, we have a ministry in our parish called "Neighborhood Ministry". If you look at the back of this card, there are 20 neighborhoods listed. Neighborhood Ministry is an attempt to get coordinators or overseers of each neighborhood, and then neighborhood representatives that at least once a year will make a phone call, send an email, to try to connect with their neighbors. I find this to be a very important ministry, and it's a ministry that's very much in need. I ask you to consider, do you have just an iota of time to be the parish's representative in your neighborhood? Even if you're interested in that, could you fill out this card, and give it to one of the ushers before you leave. Neighborhood Ministry: an attempt to connect the Body of Christ [at least once a year], instead of allowing us to live in pseudocommunity as the philosopher/psychologist Scott Peck has said so many religious people experience.

I mentioned this woman to you before, and I'll close with this. The music minister out at Orland Park where I served for eleven years, Mary Ellen Liebowein [spelling uncertain], wrote a song based on the words of St. Augustine, and the words go like this:

Be who you are: Body of Christ.
Become what you eat: Body of Christ.

I think that so captures what we're about at this liturgy today, and at this celebration. And let's pray that the Holy Spirit will bring forth new leaders in our Church that are not just trying to recreate a Church that aging male celibates [this cliché leads me to believe he did not read the newspaper article] are comfortable with. Let's pray that the Holy Spirit will call forth leaders that will create [?] a [new?] Church that the world really needs. [The Catholic Church has been fulfilling that need for nearly 2000 years. It doesn't need replacing.]

We believe in one God... [applause]

Thank you.

There are a few issues I'd like to deal with. First, the encyclical of Pope Leo XIII I mentioned (Mirae Caritatis). Its headings are "The Source of Life", "The Mystery of Faith", "The Bond of Charity", and "The Sacrifice of the Mass". I have read it (I have it at home with highlighting marks throughout) and I'll write about it some time in the near future as it pertains to the understanding of the Eucharist in the Church. I do not think, as Fr. Brennan says in his homily, that the pre-conciliar Church did not see any dynamism in the Eucharist. To think that the concept of anamnesis did not exist in the Church, or to think that Catholics saw the Eucharist as a "static object", is to display a fair amount of ignorance of the theology of the Eucharist in the Church. The re-presentation of Calvary at Mass is fundamental to Catholic theology, and it's something that seems to have slipped out of view since Vatican II.

Next, the newspaper article from The Daily Herald. Here are some excerpts (again with my emphases in bold and my comments [in bold red]).

Old Tradition, New Generation: Young Catholics reviving their faith via a return to old-style Latin rite.
From: The Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL)
Date: June 10, 2007
Byline: Lisa Smith <lsmith [at] dailyherald [dot] com>

Katie Kralka wants her children to experience their Catholic faith through a centuries-old tradition she only recently discovered herself: the traditional Latin Mass.

The 24-year-old Montgomery woman [she's not an "aging male celibate"] and her husband, Jason, [nor he] were wed in a church ceremony followed by a Latin Mass ["Latin Mass" throughout this article means what is now known as the "Extraordinary Form"] and baptized their daughter using the Latin rites. They plan to do the same for their second child, due in October.

...

According to the pope, there is a renewed interest in the rite - especially among young Catholics [see? young Catholics are interested in it] like the Kralkas. This generation is embracing a custom that's much more familiar to their grandparents than even their parents, who were young adults in the 1960s when widespread use of the Latin Mass [and the Latin language] ended following the major church reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

"We were just kind of sick of the song and dance Masses," said Katie Kralka, Virgil's village clerk. "We were just looking for something that was a little more conservative." Kralka found that in the traditional Latin Mass, also known as the Tridentine Mass because it was codified during the 16th century Council of Trent. Versions date back to the 6th century. [Congrats to Lisa Smith for doing her research.]

Unlike the typical Mass attended by most Catholics today, the priest faces the altar [with the parishioners] instead of his parishioners. Communion is received on the tongue while kneeling at the altar rail, rather than in the hands [or on the tongue] while standing [or kneeling].

...

The Latin Mass affords little interaction between the priest and his parishioners and among the laity, unlike the typical Mass in which parishioners respond verbally to the priest's prayers [which still happens at some celebrations of the Extraordinary Form] and greet each other with a handshake.

Participants can follow along by referring to a Latin-English guide provided by the Coalition in Support of Ecclesia Dei, a Glenview-based lay group that promotes the Latin Mass. The booklet includes a transcription of the priest's utterances in both Latin and English and explains the meanings behind his movements. [I'm curious how many Ordinary Form missalettes ex]

...

Two-thirds of U.S. dioceses offer at least one Latin Mass on a regular basis - a statistic [Mary] Kraychy [the coalition's director] believes could grow exponentially. [I'd like to point out, mathematically speaking, 2/3 "growing" exponentially is actually a declining trend ;) ]

...

"There's something very transcendent and beautiful about this Mass," [Cristina Borges, development director of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest] said. "People who come are searching for more depth in their spiritual life. This is a language that transcends our common day experience."

Lucretia Walker began attending Rockford's St. Mary Oratory because it was the only local church with a daily Mass that accommodated her schedule. She was taken aback when she walked in and heard Latin but began attending regularly. A few months later, she convinced her husband, Todd, to attend.

The family, who moved from Crystal Lake to Belvidere three years ago, has been attending St. Mary Oratory for two years and baptized their son, Jack, in the Latin rite Saturday.

"What keeps drawing us back was the sense of reverence that we found missing in the more contemporary church," Lucretia Walker said. "This was a new experience for us completely."

Walker hopes her children grow up experiencing a similar reverence, especially as they receive their sacraments. When her daughter, now 11, received her first holy communion at the family's previous parish, it was viewed simply as a rite of passage.

"There was a lot more focus on it being a big party and less (focus) on the sacrament," she said. "That's the difference I see. You're more focused on the meaning of the sacrament (at St. Mary Oratory). I think it's a very different environment. It's not just that the Mass is in Latin. It is the attitude that permeates everything at St. Mary's. It's very traditional."

Not all are heralding the expected return of the Latin Mass, however. A Call To Action, a Chicago-based Catholic lay group that favors ordaining married priests and female priests, said the group would not oppose an expansion of the Latin Mass as long as it doesn't result in limited access to the post-Vatican II Mass most Catholics know. [Surprise surprise.]

"If there are people who feel their spiritual life would be enriched with the Latin Mass, we don't have any problem with that as long as it's not to the exclusion of other forms of liturgy," [Fr. Z makes an excellent point about the gravitational pull of both Forms on one another. I'm hoping to see a "reform of the reform" as a fruit of this.] said Linda Pieczynski, a spokeswoman for the group. "Quite frankly, I don't see a lot of people clamoring to have Latin Masses. [Well, not with the crowd you hang out with!] Whole generations have been raised on something completely different." [Could not the same have been said immediately 40 years ago?]

...

But to the Juns, celebrating Mass in their own language is what they relate to.

"For us the participation is a big part," said Lori Juns, who lives in unincorporated Burlington Township. "Although Katie and Jason's wedding Mass was beautiful in Latin. It's just not something for us every week."

And finally, a letter to the editor (with a tone I can't really pin down) about this article:

Some folks will be drawn to Latin rite

One would never, under any circumstances, find a girl acolyte at a Latin Mass! [You wouldn't find a girl acolyte at any Catholic Mass.] Horrors! (Old Tradition, New Generation June 10, 2007).

Those who do not understand what a Mass is will be drawn to the Latin rite. [That's plain mean, and ignorant to boot. The Mass cannot have changed in meaning or substance, or else it's not the Mass anymore. Perhaps the oft-altered liturgies most Catholics get are shrouding what the Mass really is.] To them, Mass is a place for private meditation [during some of the sacred silence, certainly], or for praying the rosary, or just idly staring at the back of a priest [cliché] and dreaming about a tragic Greek drama [never heard that one before...] which the action of the Latin Mass resembles.

There is plenty of space in the Roman Catholic church for people who prefer the Latin Mass. [That's the opposite of what I thought the last sentence would say.]

So there you have it. Perhaps Fr. Z will treat this on his blog. He'd probably do a better job than I did.