Third Secret of Fatima

I can now reveal the third secret of Fatima and also why it has not been properly published up to now.

As we know, that secret was not intended for immediate release in 1917, and, over the century since then, people have been desparately trying to fathom it. Even the Holy See was literally at sea in this matter.

Its revelation was so long coming that it was assumed to fortell the end of the world. And, of course, no self respecting religion or cult these days lacks such a prediction.

As it turns out, the secret is even more dramatic than that. But before we get to the substance, we have to wonder why was it not revealed before now. Well, deities are a cunning crowd and their mothers are even worse.

The secret was QR encoded, and this ensured that it would not be revealed until this complex barcode formatting was adopted in this valley of tears. I suspect we may have been a bit slower getting there than the Good Lord intended, but no matter. We're there now.

The secret in the original form in which it was delivered in Fatima is reproduced above.

To decode it, all you need to do is the following:

1. copy the following url onto your clipboard. It is the address of the image above.
   http://bit.ly/yHooXa


2. click on the image at the top of this post. That will take you to an online QR decoder.
   


3. paste the url from the clipboard into the url field in the decoder and press SEND. The content will then appear in the box below the SEND field.

Laudetur etc.

Immaculate Conceptions

From a divine point of view, this is the season of birth rather than of conception. But as there is no birth without conception, I am allowing myself a small measure of divine poetic licence to reflect on the history of immaculate conceptions.

Roman Catholics are well familiar with the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the Blessed Virgin, although even these catholics, like their separated brethern and probably the rest of the world, often confuse Mary's two claims to fame: her own Immaculate Conception, meaning that she was conceived without original sin, and so presumably never had a tempting thought in her life; and the Virgin Birth, where she delivered a son without ever having had sex.

While meditating on these matters, both of which I find dubious to say the least, it occurred to me that it must surely be inaccurate to refer to The Immaculate Conception. There cannot have been just one such event, unless Christ the man was conceived with original sin and that would surely be a theological turn up for the books.

So we should be meditating on the Immaculate Conceptions, should we not?

How then to explain Christ's temptation by the Devil, which he was supposed to have resisted as an example to us all. A charade? Can he have been really tempted if he was conceived immaculately.

Is it possible that an immaculately conceived mother and the Holy Ghost could have produced a son marked by original sin?

The mind boggles.

Surely a good start to a Christmas meditation.

Happy Christmas to all you original sinners out there.

And, while you are at it, see if you can think up a few more original sins. Repeat offences get boring and, at the end of the day, testify to a lack of a firm purpose of amendment and a consequent lack of forgiveness.

Alive, alive, Oh

While this particular publication drives me nuts, I pick it up from time to time to check out what the opposition is up to.

In spite of it being a scurrilous rag, over which the Dominican order seems to have no control, it does pose challenging questions for the unbeliever, and it does expose its own mirror image in the secular community.

You might be interested in a few items in the current edition, available in most good RC churches and online.

P 10: reports an ad which testifies to the stupidity of many people in the production chain. The ad was on the website of a Liverpool NHS trust, inviting applications for the post of trainee anaesthetist. It contained the phrase "the usual rubbish about equal opportunities". Clearly an instruction to the ad's composer and not a final text.

P 11: reports a meta-study on the adverse effects of abortion on the women concerned. This appears a reasoned study and merits a serious reply from the "pro-choice" people.

P11: reports a South African couple who travelled to New Zealand to watch their team in the Rugby World Cup who discovered that the hotel they had booked online was actually in Eastbourne, England rather than New Zealand.

p 12 : asks why the Irish mainstream media (MSM) did not report the recent World Youth Day in Madrid. This was an RC gathering but in its scale and variety it was certainly newsworthy by any journalistic standards. MSM might like to take this one up.

P 16: reports increased demand in the Netherlands for euthanasia from elderly people who are diagnosed with such conditions as alzheimers. It points out that these people want to avail of this facility while they are still compus mentis.

P 16: also reports an ad that had to be withdrawn when found offensive to Roman Catholics. UK Bodyshop had planned a campaign for a new women's cosmetic named Immaculate Complexion, which featured a picture of the Virgin Mary. [Note that the previous sentence includes both of the BVM's often confused attributes].

So the message is that even a rag can be a good read for the discerning reader.

Buddy can you spare a dime?

Is the imminent bankruptcy of the Dublin Archdiocese obliging Archbishop Martin to flog posters of the Pope to raise funds for next year's Eucharistic Congress?

The posters will be left-overs from World Youth Day currently in progress in Madrid. This version welcomes the Pope in Spanish. As he is unlikely to have the nerve to show his holy face in Dublin next year, that is just as well, and the Church, in its wisdom, can translate the Spanish in an appropriately infallible (I almost wrote ineffable!) manner for its Irish flock.

Many a mickle makes a muckle

Body and Blood

That LAST SUPPER is still causing mayhem, or rather the insistence on replicating it exactly is leading us up the garden path of division and decay.

In the first place the Roman Catholic Church's insistence on continuing with a pre-atomic interpretation of the real presence is a divisive factor among christians. The forthcoming Eucharistic Congress, despite its emphasis on ecumenism (or whatever they are now calling it), has to have a special non-real-presence service to allow Protestants to participate.

Next is the insistence on the raw material for transubstantiation being actual bread. In other words it must contain (some) wheat, which poses a problem for many coeliacs.

Next comes the wine, which must (even in mustum) undergo some fermentation, making it unsuitable for recovering alcoholics.

A sole celebrant of the mass must receive under both species, so that rules out many coeliac and all recovering alcoholic priests. Concelebration is offered as an alternative.

Next comes the screening of priests. Excluding potential abusers is one thing but the Vatican has also ruled out coeliacs and alcoholics (even recovering) from the ministry in the future (as of 1995 per Joseph Ratzinger).

Next comes the absence of women at the Last Supper (and among the apostles generally) so we can't have women priests. Is it possible that meal was prepared/served by a female hand? Well we do now have altargirls. Do they imply a waitress at the Last Supper table? But hold on a minute. Altargirls are not allowed for the Latin mass. So was conversation at the Last Supper table in Latin, the language of the oppressor? All very strange.

In fact such is the insistence on replicating exactly the Last Supper, about which we only have hearsay evidence at best, that it is a wonder the Roman Catholic Church doesn't insist on a quorum of twelve attenders at mass among which there is at least one mortal sinner.

This post was provoked by my remembering a recent trip to Galway where I noticed that there was a special coeliac station for communicants in the Cathedral. As the hosts used cannot be gluten free (only minimal content) I assume coeliac communicants with zero gluten tolerance receive under the species of wine, unless, they are recovering alcoholics. Practising alcoholics would, of course, have no problem here.

I must say I find all this conflict between pinhead theology and pastoral care a bit bewildering betimes.

For those who find reading Vatican documents difficult the Bishop of Lansing has issued a practical manual and a licensed canonist has prepared a FAQ entry.


In vino veritas?

A Nuncio Vobis

It is strongly rumoured that the current Papal Nuncio to Ireland, Giuseppe Leanza, who has been recalled to Rome for "consulations", is to be shifted by the Vatican to the Czech Republic.

This may not be as dramatic as it seems as

(i)   the Vatican will need some considerable help in crafting its reply to the recent "request" from the Irish Government for an explanation of why it obstructed Government Commission Enquiries into clerical child sex abuse, and why it was apparently involved in a cover up of these practices over the years

(ii)   Archbishop Leanza was due to finish his term as Nuncio to Ireland in mid-2011 anyway

(iii)   Leanza may stay long enough in the job to return to Dublin and present the Vatican's reply in person to the Tánaiste

Nevertheless, Leanza's removal will create a vacancy at Nuncio level, and who better to fill it than Fr. Vincent Twomey. Fr. Vincent has been calling for various Episcopal resignations over the last while, but here is a chance to aim higher, with this unique vacancy arising at a propitious moment.

Why Fr. Twomey?

(i)      He is a former student of Joseph Ratzinger

(ii)     He defends his former mentor at every turn

(iii)    He has written profusely and prolifically on Benedict XVI

(v)      He has the gravitas

(vi)     He is both e-literate and e-humble, having downgraded his earlier pontifical style website to one more in keeping with the workmanlike requirements of the next Nuncio. And let's hope, for his sake, that there will be one, even if he has to be subsequently run out of town

Gaudium Magnum

Performing Seal

In an official gut reaction to the Cloyne Report's assertion that the Vatican has been complicit, and more, in the covering up of clerical child sexual abuse in Ireland, the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) has made an unprecedented and incandescent statement to the Dáil (National Parliament) in which he excoriates the Vatican in a coldly delivered spray of red mist.

I won't even attempt to quote from it. I tried, and found myself quoting all of it. So read it in full before you go any further.

The idiot Lombardi, the Vatican spokesperson who seems to keep his foot permanently in his mouth, has responded by calling for "objectivity" in the debate and referring to the recent patronising and buck-passing letter from the Pope to the Irish people; he pleaded for the debate to concentrate on the welfare of children, an issue to which the Vatican is late in coming, if they have itself. This response is surely the equivalent of a slap in the face to an abused child. When will they ever learn?

If you have not yet read the Pope's 2010 letter you could do worse than read it in the context of the response of a fellow blogger at the time.

Fr. Vincent Twomey has also, not unexpectedly, come out of the woodwork again on this occasion. In response to the publication of the Report, he has called for the resignation of every Irish bishop, good or bad, who was consecrated before the arrival of Archbishop Martin in the Dublin diocese. Fr. Twomey is still not a bishop himself despite his fawning defence of the Pope at every turn.

The Irish State is now set to embark on comprehensive legislation requiring mandatory disclosure to the authorities where a person is aware of child abuse. The details of this will need to be considered very carefully to ensure that the results are not simply counter productive. Nevertheless it is a position of principle from which to start the debate. The Government has stated that there will be no exceptions to this requirement and the response of the Church in Ireland has been to highlight the implications for the hitherto sacred sacramental seal of the confessional.

Personally, I welcome this response as it means we may now have a debate on the role of the confessional in civil society.

When I was growing up, the Protestants often viewed RC confession as a blank cheque for serial offenders, whatever the sin. This was held up by the RC Church as an illustration of how little these heretics knew about the true nature of the sacrament. In my view, time has shown both how little the RC Church knew about the sacrament and how deficient was their instruction of their flock in this matter.

The confessional is not about the priest. He is simply mediating the penitent's contact with God, but many of the priests were seduced by the evident power conferred by the administration of the sacrament. Some became God in their own eyes, and some abused their position for self-gratification and the abuse of power.

The confessional was supposedly anonymous, but this was true only if you were a traveller from a distant land passing through, or if you lived in a very big parish. In some areas the confession box is becoming a thing of the past and the sacrament is administered on a one to one basis in the open air.

And then there is penance and the firm purpose of amendment. Unlike in the Protestant conception of the sacrament, forgiveness was not unconditional. It required what was known as a "firm purpose of amendment" which could arguably be summarised as "no repeat offence", though no doubt that statement will bring forth cries about "God's infinite mercy" and "original sin" and might even even extend to "the Prodigal son" on a good day.

I would also imagine that the Lord would expect the "penance" to be carried out as well as part of the deal. Now, in my day, penance usually consisted of saying a few prayers or, at a pinch, making a donation to some worthy cause. It was a universally missed opportunity for restorative justice. And there was no enforcement of the penance, bar the conditionality attached to forgiveness, but needless to say that was not stressed.

And why did so many people go so often to confession? Were these all new sins? Surely, despite their well celebrated genius for imagination, the Irish people were not up to such a lifetime of invention? Indeed. The simple reason was that they had the bejaysus scared out of them by the clergy with threats of eternal damnation and even a spell of indeterminate length in Purgatory, where the flames were no less intense but were expected to come to an end somewhere this side of infinity.

Anyway, to get back to the matter in hand. How should the seal of the confessional be treated, implicitly or explicitly, in the forthcoming civil legislation.

Well for starters, forgiveness could effectively be made conditional, through penance, on the penitent reporting to the civil authorities. Sexual child abuse is invariably a repeat offence so the the theological niceties could be well covered with some imaginative thinking on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities. If this approach were incorporated into the sacrament the issue of excepting confession from mandatory reporting would effectively disappear.

Meanwhile, the whole area of recognition in law of professional confidentialy needs to be reviewed in a calm and dispassionate manner, and only those exceptions retained which can be shown unequivocally to be in the longer term interests of society. This includes the area of journalism where rights are constantly asserted and obligations constantly ignored. Mary Kenny, agitator turned apologist, would proclaim this approach fascist.

If it were concluded that confession was not an exception and the Church still wished to hold the traditional line, there is always civil disobedience and even martyrdom in extreme cases. Whatever about their civil status, the martyrs could be honoured in Canon Law and Vatican knighthoods.

Paul Blanshard would would have loved all of this.

Eucharistic Congress 2012

Banner from Dolphin's Barn Church
Not everyone is aware that the 50th International Eucharistic Congress is taking place in Dublin from 10 to 17 June 2012. The venue will be principally the RDS but Croke Park will also figure.

The last International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin was in 1932, and I suppose if you were trying to find a context for that year it might have been the tenth anniversary of Irish Independence or the centenary of Daniel O'Connell's establishment of the non-denominational cemetery in Glasnevin.

The context for next year's Congress is the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Second Vatican Council. In a masterpiece of understatement, Fr. Kevin Doran, General Secretary of the Congress Committee, says that "so much of the richness of the Council has not been unpacked".

Lets hope that the Congress gets down to the unpacking early in the proceedings. There is a lot of timewasting and backsliding to be remedied in a very short time.

Unlike its predecessor this Congress will have a strong ecumenical undercurrent. The first day is devoted to the Liturgy of the Word and Water with the emphasis on Baptism, which Fr. Doran reminds us "is mutually recognised by all the christian churches".

This is particularly important because ecumenism has not yet got beyond the stage where it is "not possible for us to share in the fulness of eucharistic communion" according to Fr. Doran. No doubt the RC conception of the real presence is one of the obstacles here.

Logo of the 1932 Congress
Those of us who have had reason to study the 1932 Congress know what a mammoth undertaking it was, both for the RC church and for the newly independent state.

The organisers of the 2012 Congress are well aware of this: they are looking for between two and three thousand volunteers and a massive nationwide effort is already underway preparing for the occasion. You can get a quick flavour of it at the Congress website, or, if you have an hour to spare, listen to Fr. Doran explaining it to an American audience (below)




The general impression is of a very professional approach to the occasion even down to the use of the Congress logo.

Images and Logo

High resolution images are available upon request. Please do not use images from the website without permission from the IEC2012.

If you are looking for the use of our logo for publication the necessary permission must also be sought and the IEC guidelines must be followed. You can request permission for the use of the Logo and obtain the guidelines for its correct use by contacting our Marketing and Communications section by email [email protected] or by phone +353 (0) 1 207 1840.

As I have not asked permission to use the logo I am simply linking below to the copy on the Congress website.




A Slow Slide

Dublin's Lord Mayor, Alfie Byrne (right), welcomes the Papal Legate, Cardinal Lauri, to the 1932 Eucharistic Congress. Also in the picture are Eamon de Valera, President of the Executive Concil (Prime Minister), seated left, and Alderman P J Medlar, on Dev's left.



While the Pope normally sends a legate to the Eucharistic Congress there was some talk of him coming to Ireland in 2012, if not for the Congress itself then at least sometime during the year.

That now looks a very dubious prospect indeed. The wave of outrage and frustration which consumed the Irish people on the release of the latest clerical child-abuse report has led to some of their representatives going so far as to call for the expulsion of the Papal Nuncio and the closure of Ireland'a embassy at the Vatican. The report revealed Vatican collusion in covering up criminal activity and the continuing refusal of the current Papal Nuncio to cooperate with the investigating Commission.

This has led to reports of the Pope cancelling any possible trip to Ireland next year.

The situation today is wholly different from that in 1932 and even in 1979 when Pope John Paul II visited the country and was welcomed everywhere by enthusiastic crowds.

In 1932 the RC Church reigned supreme and was in a position even to challenge the civil power. It had a special position for itself written in to the Irish Constitution in 1937. In more recent times, and even from the time of Vatican II, there has been a steady erosion in the power of the Church. It is telling that two of the people most prominent in publicly welcoming John Paul II have completely fallen from grace.

Father Michael Cleary, the singing priest charged by the Archbishop of Dublin with bringing the Church to the youth, proved to have been sleeping with his housekeeper and even had a son with her, a son whom he never acknowledged this side of the grave.

Bishop Eamon Casey, a popular extrovert who, as a curate, had done admirable work in housing Irish immigrants in England, had an affair and a son with an American lady, neither of which he acknowledged until well after the story was broken by a national newspaper.

So the seeds were there in 1979 and revelations of clerical child-abuse in the last 20 years have stripped the Church of any semblance of moral authority. The collusion and non-cooperation of the Vatican has really put the cap on it.

It will be interesting, therefore, to observe how next year's Congress compares with that of 1932 or, for that matter, with the Pope's visit in 1979.

Ite, missa est

The Roman Catholic Church is about to publish a new English language text of the Missal.

The general idea seems to be that the initial post Vatican II venture into the vernacular actually turned out to be a bit of a sloppy job and the text is now being refined to more accurately reflect the latin original and a host of theological subtleties that had been missed in the rush to print.

For example, "and with you" will now be "and with your spirit".

Sounds to me like a return to the pre Vatican II translation. But there are many more subtle examples and you can judge for yourself.

The Good Book

The John Hume Institute for Global Studies in UCD sponsors lectures for the public from time to time. I have attended a number of these. They are well worth the trouble and admission is free.

Their latest offering was A.C. Grayling who had recently published "The Good Book", subtitled "A Secular Bible".

I wasn't sure what to expect. Was this something in the Dawkins/Hitchins vein, or might it be something else.

Well, it was something else.

Anthony Grayling explained that the book had really been gestating over the last thirty years and drew on all of his knowledge and experience accumulated over that time. It was not anti-God, or anti-Bible, or anti-any-thing-else.

It was an attempt to draw on the thinking of philosophers over the ages to produce a book of secular ethics which did not rely on the supernatural. It was designed to make you think, as opposed to simply accepting handed down precepts.

It was not exclusivist: the reader was welcome to draw on other sources, including the conventional Bible. And it did not reference its quotations in order to avoid distracting the reader and to let the thoughts expressed stand on their own two feet, so to speak.

Its format is the same as that of the conventional Bible: chapter and verse. Grayling explained that his only reason for mimicking the Biblical format was that this format worked. That is why the Bible chose it and why he was doing the same.

I haven't dipped into the book yet. I have it on order from my local library. I am looking forward to sampling it and, all being well, I might actually buy a copy.

Mind you, the reviews on Amazon are, on balance, negative, so we'll see.

Annuncio vobis gaudium magnum

It has been drawn to my attention that the following verse has appeared in a North Dublin parish newsletter:

Light-hearted Theological Verse

The doctrine of the Trinity
discloses partiality
in leaving out of Deity
all trace of femininity.

One of these should be a she

To manifest divinity
required a real nativity
and that required maternity -
a woman's creativity.

Which of the three should be a she?

Since the cosmos needs a hostess
we recommend
Father, Son and Holy Ghostess!

I think such an eventuality would have profound theological and graphical implications.

At the very least it would require adjustment of some of the illustrations of the annunciation where the Holy Spirit is shown as the putative impregnator of Mary.

The only legitimate candidate left, perhaps appropriately enough, would then be the Father.

Sign here

The RC church seems to be finally getting around to dealing with the sale of pre-signed mass cards by third parties. This sinful practice has long been a source of scandal in the church. In fact, one could argue that similar sales of cards within church precincts is equally sinful, but that may be an argument for another day.

The third party ban seems to have percolated into the market already. I was perusing the RIP.ie site the other day when I saw there was a facility for sending sympathy cards over the internet.

When I checked this out I found that the section on pre-signed cards (illustrated above) produced the result: "No products are currently available in this category."

A little strange, nevertheless, as the Mellifont Cistercian Fathers seem to have been complicit in this particular operation.

Recent Irish legislation has already reined in this practice to those operations specifically approved by the church itself.

The next logical step would be to stop the sale of signed cards entirely. The theology would require the purchaser to pay for an unsigned card and then make an unspecified (no minimum) offering for the mass (signature) element. Let's wait and see.

Infallible Blogging

Vatican City
The Pope has told priests to use modern communications in their ministry. He specifically mentions blogs. The report says that the Pope himself is not known to love computers or the internet, and suggests that he will be leaving all this stuff to the younger fry.

Meanwhile his spokesman has cautioned against people taking all this social networking stuff too far and letting Christ be crowded out, so to speak.

So we're getting the good cop, bad cop treatment, however subtly.

As far back as 1965 Cardinal Suenens was making the same point in the cutting edge publication of his day "The Word", sadly recently deceased - the publication, that is. The Cardinal has been gone this long while.

Karen has recalled his advice in a recent posting.

I wonder if I should reveal to the Pope that he already has a blog himself and that you are now reading it.

Copyrighting the Pope

Apparently the Pope and all his Pomps and all his Works and all the attendant Trivia are now to be copyrighted.

Sue me!

I wonder who holds the copyright for the living Word of God? Might we see the Vatican making a play for this too? They certainly did their best to make sure Roman Catholics read only the "authorised" version of the bible in my day.

Theologian says resign!

ALL BISHOPS named in the Dublin diocesan report “should resign immediately from their current pastoral positions”, leading theologian Dr Vincent Twomey has said.

This would, of course, create a raft of vacancies in the relevant Bishoprics.

Neat.

In the event of their not resigning, perhaps Fr. Twomey could persuade his former mentor, Joseph Ratzinger, to do the needful.

Incidentally, Fr. Twomey seems to have abandoned his earlier Vatican-style website for a more modest text-based version, in keeping with the times that are in it.

Previous posts referring to Fr. Twomey:
Follow your conscience, sort of!
The Last Word

Saint John Paul II PhD RCC

No Comment.

The last Word

Despite my own and Fr. Seán's criticism of his theology, Fr. D. Vincent Twomey, SVD, Editor in Chief, has captured the essence of the WORD magazine in his valedictory summing up of this very worthy publication. According to Fr Twomey, the Word was the largest selling magazine of any kind in the early 70s:

“It was a time when Ireland was a different place. The magazine wasn’t just religious, it was of general interest. At that time there were no glossy magazines or papers. People didn’t travel. The Word provided glimpses of mysterious cities like Prague, Vilnius and Riga and this was a breath of fresh air."

The sad announcement of its demise appeared on the magazine's website in early December last.

When I was growing up this was the best magazine in the world. It's production standards were outstanding in its day and have held up very well since. The content was first class with contributions from many of the world's top writers and photographs from the world's top photographers.

This was no mere religious magazine. It was a first class magazine in its own right despite coming out of a religious stable.

The final edition, or the last WORD, so to speak, is currently on sale (at €1.50!) and will hopefully become a collector's item in time (and, no, I haven't bought them all up, yet!). It is packed with a selection of some of the best items from years past and gives a very good idea of the broad range and quality of the content of the magazine.

On the literary front there is an interview with Brian Friel (1970), articles by Mícheál MacLiammóir (1970), Graham Greene (1974), and Paddy Kavanagh (1962). Bro. Hurley has a piece (1991) on "Famous Last Words", where he observes that "dying words tend to live on. But their standard seems to be declining, maybe because more people now die in hospitals - and outside visiting hours". There are pieces on: social and cultural affairs, at home and abroad; archeology; moral issues (euthanasia); lifestyle (Cardinal Suenens on the need to relax!); medical matters (NAPRO or Billings 2); biography (Thomas à Beckett & Agatha Christie); and, the next life (Fr Twomey on Purgatory - he attempts to extricate himself from the literal fire but does little to solve the temporal aspects and the role of prayer and indulgences).


Fr Twomey has a long editorial in the final issue. He is now going to write for the magazine Inside the Vatican. That magazine claims, inter alia, to introduce you to "movers and shakers of ecclesiastical policy". A flavour of the writing in the magazine can be got from the owner/editor in chief's review (PDF) of Mel Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ.

Best, perhaps, to finish with parting thoughts from Bro. Paul Hurley, SVD, who founded the modern version of the magazine in 1952 and edited it for 40 years.

"Yes, there’s a time for everything. Now it’s time to thank all our readers and, especially, our most generous and loyal promoters, our contributors and all those who helped us in various ways. And, sadly, it’s also time to say goodbye."

Amen.

All things new

In my post of 15 July 2007, I underlined the "no surrender" theme underlying the Roman Catholic view of ecumenism. I have seen no reason to change my mind since. This ecumenism has concentrated on unification within the Christian churches.

We thought we had dealt with the Jews. The coming and crucifixion of Christ had rendered them theologically superfluous. Judaism prepared the way. Christ came and took over the helm. Christians are now the chosen people. At least that is how I understood what I was taught in school.

Imagine my surprise to hear on the radio the other day that attempts are now being made to reconcile the theologies of Judaism and Christianity which involve Christians accepting that the Jews have an ongoing and valid covenant with God.

This was the subject of a lecture by John McDade, SJ, in town on last Thursday night. Fr. McDade is a Glaswegian, with Irish roots, and he is currently principal of Heythrop College which is the Specialist Philosophy and Theology College of the University of London.

The gist of his thesis is that Judaism and Christianity are interdependent and have their own distinct missions in this world. Christianity did not supercede God's covenant with Israel but rather fulfilled it. Both faiths are siblings in the family of Israel. Judaism is a non proselytising religion. Christianity is a proselytising one and can therefore widen the scope of the family of Israel.

In this light, Paul’s remarkable statement in Romans gains in significance: ‘Christ became a servant of the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy’ (Rom 15.8).

This thinking was further developed by Thomas Aquinas and John Paul II.

I must confess that these are new and challenging ideas and their subtlety is totally beyond me.

One of Fr. McDade's remarks did resonnate with me. In asking why we are embarking on this reconciliation at this time he ventured to wonder if Christianity was now being marginalised by the world in the same way as Christianity itself had marginalised the Jews over two millennia. Circling the wagons is a concept I understand more readily.

I also wonder, if this theology of complementarity has been brewing since the time of St. Paul, how I was served up such a lethal, exclusive and triumphalist cocktail in school? Perhaps I should not even think the question and, rather, adopt a stance of constructive amnesia.

If you wish to pursue these thoughts further, you might like to read Fr. McDade's article on which he based his lecture.

Insights in the form of comments would be most welcome.

To Every Cow Her Calf ...

It has taken me six months to cool down sufficiently to do this post. And I almost lost it again when I saw the remarks of Bishop Dermot Clifford of Cashel and Emly in last Monday's Irish Times (18/8/08).

The gist of the story is that certain Roman Catholic Bishops in Ireland have been systematically denying people direct access to parish records of baptisms and marriages despite these records being included in the microfilm collection in the National Library of Ireland.

To be fair, most Bishops have given direct access to their original records, both through the National Library and in parish offices. This allows direct consultation of the records even where they have not been filmed. Most parish offices are very cooperative in this regard.

There are, however, three bishops listed as limiting access to the filmed originals in the National Library and Clifford was the most obdurate of these. To get access it was necessary to get clearance from the relevant palace. Clifford's palace informed callers that the bishop never gave permission for direct access and that it was always necessary to approach them through the diocesan heritage office.

This office operates on computerised versions of the originals and charges a whack for what is in effect pushing a button.

I do not object to people providing a service and charging for it. It is a very useful facility for those who are not in a position to consult the originals or who are happy to have the records pre-sorted for them. My objection is to the bishop denying parallel access to the original records. As every researcher knows, there are always transcription errors in populating databases. So there is no substitute for consulting the original. Also new lines of search can suggest themselves from details spotted on the originals (eg sponsors, locations, name variations etc.).

Clifford has put forward a grandiose justification of his stance on the diocesan/heritage site.

We are told that these records are not public records and that the information in them has been entrusted to the church by the subjects concerned.

Am I hallucinating when I seem to recall clergy reading people off the altar for inadequate contributions to various collections.

No question of confidentiality here when the financial implications were in the opposite direction.

And these same people would already have been charged a whack by the church for access to the sacraments, the records of which are now yielding a further flow of income in perpetuity. I'm not sure whether this would best be described as a cash cow or a golden goose. A golden calf more likely.

I am also old enough to remember the original introduction of "planned giving" in the Dublin diocese when the church attempted to have its cake and eat it by "pawning" church furniture, from the high altar to the cruets, to top up its coffers.

It is interesting that the bishop has quoted the judgement of Diarmaid against St. Colmcille in the case of the copying of the bible. Some of St. Colmcille's arguments are extremely relevant today and in reading up the case I was struck by the extent of the uisce faoi thalamh involved. Nothing, it appears, is as it seems.


The National Library has now opened access to these filmed originals in the face of objections from the bishops concerned. It has taken a stand which is in the interest of the people of Ireland and against the mean money grubbing stance of a small minority of the RC hierarchy.

These registers are clearly quasi-public records. This emerges quite clearly if they are set in the context of their day and of the dominant position of the church over its flock.

Indeed, the roles of church and state were so entwined that the church insisted that its marriage ceremony served also as a civil one and the parish simply notified the state that the marriage had taken place. No only that, but the reading or posting of the banns in church was accepted by the state authorities in place of the usual notices in the national press required in the case of purely "registry office" marriages.

And as far as letters of freedom were concerned, these simply proved you had not already been married in a church and that a church wedding could take place. However, I'll bet many of these ceremonies were notified as civil marriages without regard to whether any civil ceremony had already taken place.

Until fairly recently, church marriage certificates were accepted as evidence of civil married status by the authorities (eg for state or occupational pension schemes).

Some priests carried this symbiosis to the point of "near-perjury". I know of a case (in 1950) where a couple got married in a Protestant church. The vicar duly notified the civil authorities and the marriage was registered by the state. Six months later, and probably due to ecclesiastical and/or family pressure, the couple married again, this time in a Catholic church. The priest duly notified the state which recorded the new marriage. In the second case, the bride and groom are described as spinster and bachelor respectively, which, respectfully, they were not, at least in the eyes of the state.

So this church (sorry, a few members of its hierarchy, in this particular case) is claiming to be a private institution, and this in relation to periods when they were anything but. (We can save the discussion on education and property and salaries for another day, or go check out Bock below.)

While I'm at it, the originals of some of the parish registers around the country are so badly kept that, had they been acknowledged as public records, those who kept them should have stood trial for malicious damage to public property. Some of the ledger pages look like the parish priest had regularly eaten his lunch off them.

I don't know the content of the legal advice that has given the National Library the confidence to do what they have done. All I can say is I hope they hold their nerve and, if the church wants to go to court, may they get the judgement of Colmcille over that of the pagan MacDe.

I was going to title this post "God Bless the National Library", and would have meant it, but I couldn't resist the temptation of the insult I eventually settled on.

If you still have steam coming out your ears you might enjoy some further ruminations at Brother Bock's Asylum for Refugees from the Pulpit.


Addendum

I really can't decide whether to laugh, or cry, or just keep banging my head off the nearest stone wall.

It has been drawn to my attention that the Bishops' latest excuse for whatever restrictions they are putting on access to parish records is to avoid the posthumous conversion of the dead to Mormonism.

The Vatican has apparently put the Bishops on notice that their deceased flock are not to be hijacked in this manner and the only way to avoid this is to make sure that parish records (from whatever era) do no fall into the hands of these evil evangelising Mormons.

What a load of theological crap and self serving rubbish.

My initial reaction to this Bishop's defence (as my chess friends might describe it) was that any bishop that believed this heretical rubbish should be immediately sacked by the Vatican. Imagine my horror to find that it was actually the Vatican itself that was circulating this nonsense.

If the Roman Catholic Church believes, which it appears to, that the Mormons can posthumously hijack its flock in this way, it should just fold up its tent and go home. This is ceding theological supremacy to the Mormons, in whose church there should not, strictly speaking, be even salvation.

How low will the RC church stoop to protect its income stream?

That we could bring back Jesus Christ himself and eject these traders from the Temple.

This article in the Irish Times of 28/8/08 sets out the background. I agree wholeheartedly with every word written by its author, as you will have gathered by this stage.

Pwy sy'n TYCWR?

Follow your conscience, sort of !

I really shouldn't read the Irish Times. Not even when the article is written by that nice Patsy McGarry.

He was close to giving me apoplexy today by drawing my attention to an article in the current (January 2007) issue of the Word magazine on the theme "what is meant by an informed conscience?".

I used to know what a pre-Vatican II "informed conscience" was - very much so. It was a wonderful concept which allowed the Roman Catholic Church to defend itself against the taunt of Protestants that it imposed its views on its flock willy nilly. "Not so", the Church would reply, "every Catholic is not only allowed but is obliged to follow his conscience."

"So", you might ask, "why are we not all Protestants, then?" Indeed, when I heard this line for the first time myself, that is precisely what I wondered.

Ah, but there is a catch, there had to be. And it lies in the definition of conscience for the Catholic. He is obliged to follow his informed conscience. "And what is an informed conscience?", I hear you ask. Well it is a conscience that is informed by the teaching of the Catholic Church. The Catholic is obliged to inform himself of the teaching of the Church, and not only that, but to accept it as a matter of obedience/discipline/faith, or whatever you're having yourself. So there is never any dilemma here. Pity the poor Protestants in their anguish. Martin Luther and Henry VIII sold them a bum product, designed to raise their adrenalin and cholesterol levels and all to no good purpose.

Anyway when Vatican II came along (40 odd years ago) it seemed to me that the pre-Conciliar Catholic position had eased up. You were only obliged to gen up on the Catholic position, in good faith, and then act on the basis of your newly informed conscience, so to speak. Mind you, there were still a lot of unresolved issues here for the Church's authority but the position seemed to be veering towards the human.

John XXIII was a nice man but he mistimed his exit to the other world very badly and left a half formed new theology for the traditional vultures to unpick, a gobful at a time.

And now we're back whence we came.

Fr. Twomey, in his Word article, gives a virtuoso exposition of the traditional informed conscience. The current formulation is neatly summarised in the axiom that to be a Catholic is to accept that the Church cannot teach what is wrong in itself.

Bottom line.

That's the sort of stuff that got it into trouble in the first place and has kept it skewered on the hook of Humanae Vitae for decades.

In the beginning was the Word, and it used to be a most readable and lookable at magazine produced to the highest aesthetic and production standards.

Maybe in keeping with this new-old theology it should now carry Divine Ads, such as for budding exorcists, which the Pope wants to recruit by the bucketful, to give the Devil a taste of his own pointed tail.

I joketh not. Check it out.

As they say in the cinema, I think this is where I came in.

Ut omnes unum sint

Is it the Antichrist at work sowing the seeds of confusion or are people just plain stupid?

Perhaps I should spell it out?

The Roman Catholic Church has always been in favour of ecumenism, healing the wounds of Christianity, call it what you will, but subject to very specific conditions which add up to unconditional surrender on the part of the non Roman churches:

• the Vatican has recently spelled out that, while elements of the one true church may subsist in other churches — who really should not have the cheek to call themselves such, them being only second class congregations of half believers — there is only one true apostolic church, which is the Roman Catholic Church.
  
  
• Reunification will therefore have to include:
  
  
  
  • acceptance of the Pope, successor to Peter, as the head of the Church with ultimate power to define dogma and pronounce infallibly, when this is considered appropriate
    
    
  • belief in the real presence, or to give it its proper scientific name, transubstantiation. This one gets harder to pin down as we enter the world of subatomic particles and wave propagation, but a suitable affirmation of faith in the matter, so to speak, may suffice here. After all, it's the thought that counts.
    
    
  • acceptance of the presence in heaven, with full plenipotentiary powers of mediation, of all those canonised as saints by the Popes, and including those so elevated by popular acclamation in the old days when people knew no better. (George and Patrick please note. Philomena, go away.)
    
    
  • acceptance of the bodily assumption into heaven of Mary the mother of Jesus, and her status there as the mediatrix of all graces. The physics of all this can be referred to a committee of experts who can sit on it in perpetuity.
    
    
  • acceptance of the infinite benefits which flow from the Mass, which is why regular attendance is advised/mandated. The philosophical rationalisation of this apparent contradiction could also be referred to the above committee.
    
    
  • acceptance of the property of remission which goes with indulgences. While precise quantification of these is no longer required, the mathematics of matching up the time-limited concepts involved with the infinite attributes of the divine world could also be referred to the above committee.
    
    
  • acceptance of the homeopathic properties of holy water, ie one drop contaminates all infinitely. The guy who succeeds in applying this process to beer will become the only saint by popular acclamation in modern times. (Blessed Bock seems to be already half way there.)
    
  
  
• there will be no à la carte menu here. You take the full shilling and drink all of the soup.
  
  
• outside the church there will be little, if any, salvation. Non members in possession of skills in short supply can make the usual application for entry visas.
  
  
• PX: Admission of Allah, Jehovah and any other deities outside the Blessed Trinity, will be subject to all of the above conditions.
  

If you think the above is intellectually taxing, try summing this up in one phrase, and forget the stamped addressed envelope.

Sicut erat in principio ...

Divine Intervention

This is the sort of stuff I like to see:



Seen briefly on another blog.