With a little bit of free time while I’m on Christmas break from teaching, I’ve been catching up on some light (yeah) reading, in this case George Ostrogorsky’s wonderful History of the Byzantine State. While the topic may seem dry to some, the numerous civil wars, usurpers, church controversies, and fascinating figures make it a very interesting read.

Today, I was reading about iconoclasm and how Constantine V proscribed iconography and even relics and prayers to the saints in an effort to allegedly purify the Church. Yet, he allowed images of the emperor (himself) to adorn church buildings! This took me back to my days studying the Arian controversy where I read that the Arians were happy to recognize that the Logos dwelt in the emperor just as much (if not more) as he did in Christ.

I’m not here to argue that rejection of the Church as an institution leads to an uncritical embracing of the State, but I still think that an independent Church is essential to checking the power of the government. Stalin’s question about the Pope and legions ignores the reality that people’s hearts can be won apart from military might. I sometimes just wonder if people’s hearts turn away from the Church if it’s not easier to secure them for the government. And, of course, Catholics can be shills for the government too.

A modern example would be how large numbers of Christians who would never allow an image of Christ in their midst so quickly and staunchly attach themselves to the flag. Even communities that would never allow any religious representation would be certain to have a US flag within the church building. I’m not arguing against the flag, by the way, just remarking about how odd it is that rules for religion can be so easily broken to apply to the State.

In secular society, the Christmas season, which generally runs from Halloween to December 25^th is winding down. The parties are over, the radio stations have generally stopped playing Christmas music and the trees and decorations are on their way down. Only a few traditional Catholics and Anglicans keep the old custom of putting everything up on Christmas Eve. As much as I love the holiday songs, the decorations, and other secular activities, society gets the chronology all wrong, leaving out Ordinary Time and Advent.

Yet, for Catholics and other liturgical Christians, the fun is just getting started. We have the 12 days of Christmas (kind of, thanks to various bishops conferences), feasts of Holy Family, Epiphany, Mary Mother of God, and the baptism of our Lord. And, this doesn’t include the lesser feasts of Holy Innocents, St. John, and St. Stephen. And, the Christmas festivities have traditionally lasted until Candlemas (Feb. 2nd).

So, our liturgical and holiday fun is just starting, which is actually a pretty good way to avoid the post-holiday letdown that many people experience. We get to transition back to ordinary time and it’ll be Lent before we know it!

Merry Christmas!

Along with “happy holidays” (which I actually use with my Christian friends because, I prefer covering Advent/Christmas/Epiphany in one fell swoop), “Xmas” is often the target of culture warriors, wanting to prevent Christ from getting the “x,” of all times, during the season of his birth!

However, Wikipedia (believe it or not!) points us to the truth that those who know Greek already are aware of: X is the Greek letter chi, and was often paired with rho, and used as a very ancient symbol for Jesus. In fact the chi-rho symbol was more common, and ancient, than the symbol of the cross.

In our society, in which classical education is lacking, it probably seems like a slight to our Lord to use “X” for his name, but hey, every great person needs a rocking nickname, and what could be cooler than “X?” Personally, I wouldn’t mind being called “X,” since it is sufficiently tough and yet has an air of mystery (a kind of “he’s cool, but don’t mess with him” type of name). But, in all seriousness, using “Xmas” is not an attack on Jesus, just an abbreviation with an ancient history. So, once December 25th gets here, have a very Merry Xmas, or if you have more time, a very merry Glorious Nativity of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ (let’s see the  heathens abbreviate that!).

O Sacred Lord of ancient Israel,
who showed yourself to Moses in the burning bush,
who gave the holy law on Sinai mountain:
Come, stretch out your mighty hand to set us free

- O Antiphon for Dec. 18th

As posted on Advent Prayers, and our ChurchYear.Net Facebook Fan Page

Serge has a great thought (entitled “I Love Christmas. How Uncool”) about Christmas (recognizing, as we do here, that we are not even yet in Advent as far as the Church Year goes):

Now that Holiday (remotely related to and roughly contiguous with Advent) is upon us I’ll be looking for a Hallmark TV special, ‘The Armadillo That Saved Festivus’. No, seriously, I love Christmas including in its current form. (But I know that this, right now, isn’t Christmas.) So to those who grandstand about commercialism, neener. It’s when mainstream society forgets its anti-Catholicism for a while; even hard-shell Protestants put up statues of Jesus and Mary. The Incarnation wins out. God became man (actually at the Annunciation but anyway… we need a winter festival to cheer up), life’s long celebration’s here and you and I are in the way of eternal life. Deo gratias.

Divine Providence, the recognition that God guides the world for good according to his plan, is an essential teaching within Catholicism and we may be seeing it in action. For months, the Church of England has wrestled with the issue of female bishops, specifically how that community could implement them without causing an exodus of Anglo-Catholics and certain evangelicals. Various plans were suggested, including having male bishops oversee those who could not in good conscience accept female bishops.

Now, however, a key committee advising General Synod (the governing body that guides CofE policy) has recommended that women bishops have complete control over their dioceses with no special guarantees for traditionalists. Essentially, Anglo-Catholics are being told, you must submit to this revisionist agenda or face the wrath of your bishop! Granted, the committee recognizes that individual bishops could allow charitable arrangements, but most of the first female bishops are likely to be activist types who will be in no mood for “backward” Anglo-Catholics.

So, where does Divine Providence fit in? As the CofE prepares to exclude some of its members, essentially telling them to get lost, the Pope has just created a very generous process to bring Anglo-Catholics to the Catholic Church while letting them keep a good deal of their identity. I find it amusing that the liberal, supposedly inclusive Church of England is throwing people out while the supposedly big bad conservative Pope is welcoming them in. My how stereotypes (and mission statements) can be deceiving!

Once again, Pope Benedict has demonstrated why he has been chosen at this particular time to lead the Church. In this case, it’s with regard to the welcoming of Anglicans to the Catholic fold with an unparalleled generosity. It’s a generosity that confounds all of the people who feared that his pontificate would be angry and reactionary.

The Pope has laid out quite an inclusive and broad welcome to those in strained communion (SSPX) and those outside of formal communion (Anglicans) with the Catholic Church. The terms have been opposed at times by many powerful forces (like diocesan bishops, Catholic liberal intelligentsia), but ultimately the Pope erred on the side of, well, Catholicism, which is universal. He didn’t do this by selling out Catholic teaching, but rather made converting as easy as is humanly possible in order to bring back those who may be feeling the prompting of the Spirit to be enter into communion with the See of Peter.

The Pope’s attitude is so refreshingly positive and loving. Many online Catholics see defective Anglican orders, the Pope sees a rich theological and liturgical tradition. Converts say just let them do what the rest of us did; the Pope recognizes the difficulty in making the leap for huge numbers of Anglicans. Many say these SSPX people and conservative Anglicans are too this that or the other (usually nutty, anti-whatever); Pope Benedict says, the Church is big enough for them and they have a lot to contribute.

As online voices of Catholicism, many of us need to step back and reflect on what the Pope has done. It isn’t just his reaching out to Anglicans, which most conservative bloggers would agree with. Rather, it’s the spirit in which he’s done it: holding fast to Catholic traditions while showing utmost generosity and kindness to human beings in the process. It’s a model we all should emulate.

Image by Jonathan Bennett from St. Helen Catholic Church, Newbury, OH. To order prints or download high resolution images, click here

My latest on Ancient and Future Catholics:

Many Protestants ask Catholics: why do Catholics pray to Mary and other Saints? Why do Catholics give Mary honor? Do Catholics worship Mary? Catholics are not alone in this either: Orthodox Christians and many Anglicans pray to Mary also. I’m going to approach this in two ways. First, I want to look at the general practice of praying to others and honoring them. Then, I want to address whether or not it’s appropriate to pray to Mary, someone who is deceased.

Is it ok to pray to other people? Most Christians would probably answer in the negative. The response would be: we pray to God and that’s it. However, Catholics and Orthodox operate under the more broad definition of “pray,” which means to entreat or request. Although the term is largely used of God today, we still have remnants of this usage when it was used with others, e.g. “pray tell.” So, by praying to Mary, we are simply entreating her or asking her for something. What are we asking? Two things, actually.

First, we are asking her to pray for us. We are asking Mary’s intercession before God. Most Christians would have no problem with asking someone else to pray for them. We do it all the time when we pray for others or when someone says “keep me in your prayers.” The Bible (and even our daily experience) is filled with examples of members of the Hebrew or Christian communities praying on behalf of others.

More…

Image by Jonathan Bennett from Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine, Euclid, OH. To order prints or download high resolution images, click here

The Telegraph is reporting that the Queen is unhappy with the recent craziness in the Anglican Communion and is a behind the scenes supporter of traditionalist movements. This should not come as a surprise for many reasons. The article also mentions that she has grown very sympathetic to Catholicism.

None of this really counts as news since many, many Anglicans are unhappy with the direction of the communion and find Catholicism a nice alternative. However, also like many disaffected Anglicans, this does not mean that the Queen is on the verge of converting. If Tony Blair’s conversion had potential to be messy, imagine the Queen! Still, it would be an amazing event to see the Queen of England formally become Catholic in my lifetime. The first Elizabeth had an opportunity to reconcile England with Rome, but didn’t take it. It would be excellent if another Elizabeth did.

The other day I took out my family to go shopping and since I do most of that online, I took photos at a local shrine. Since the family needed (?) three hours, I also went to have coffee and process my photos on the computer. I went to a coffeehouse run by Christians, but not specifically a Christian place, or so they advertised.

It was a good experience until I heard the man I presumed to be the owner talking to another woman. He explained that saying something over and over again has no effect on the will of God. Basically, we only have to say it once. And, he used the “Hail Mary” prayer as an example and how Catholics can repeat it all they want, but it doesn’t change the mind of God. He also told the lady that while he didn’t believe the end was coming in 2012, he did believe all the evidence pointed to it being very soon. The whole conversation took me back to my college days when I was struggling with evangelicalism.

I wanted to focus on the complaint about repeating words and phrases. Does it change God’s mind? In a human perception kind of sense, who knows? In terms of the divine plan, no. Certainly some Catholics would take that approach, but then again so would many Protestants, just with many different prayers and actions.

What this guy didn’t understand, I think, is ritual, and the honor it gives to God and his holy ones, and its value for us. Sure, saying one, or fifty, or one million Hail Marys may not change God’s mind, but it goes a long way towards changing ours, and blessing our hearts in the process. He saw prayer primarily in terms of asking; I see it primarily as worship and communication with God.

I really liked the coffeehouse itself, but it’s sad that it became a venue for bad or misinformed theology. But, little did he know that I had just been to a shrine honoring Mary as Our Lady of Lourdes and was processing photos of her right at one of his tables. Fortunately for him, I judged the place on the coffee and the wifi (both excellent), not the theology.

Image by Jonathan Bennett from Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine, Euclid, OH. To order prints or download high resolution images, click here.

]]> http://blog.ancient-future.net/2009/10/01/thanksgiving/ Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:25:15 +0000 David Bennett http://blog.ancient-future.net/2009/10/01/thanksgiving/

The heart of our faith as Catholics is gratitude, or put another way, thanksgiving. How have I reached this conclusion? Primarily because the “sacrament of sacraments” is called Thanksgiving, that is, the Eucharist*. In other words, the heart of our faith is offering our sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving to the living God, as the one sacrifice of Christ is re-presented. The Bible and tradition are full of Thanksgivings, and many saints have lived their lives basically as thanksgivings to God for what he has done for them.

Yet, it is easy to not focus on the great things God has given us – life, food, shelter, clothing, salvation, friends, family, etc – and instead focus on the bad things in our life, or at least the things that seem bad at the present moment. We are sometimes like the child that has everything, yet is depressed that he doesn’t have that one toy in the department store window that he can’t have. God offers us so much, including our redemption and eternal life, that we should really be grateful to him every minute of the day. Now, I am not saying we should be emotionally happy every minute of the day, or pretend that difficult situations aren’t difficult. However, I am saying that if you think of the magnitude of what God does for us, i.e. the God of the cosmos became man for us and offers us eternal life, then just think of what magnitude of thanks we should have for God, and for our neighbors!

My wife and I have tried to express our gratitude more often, by stating 5 things, people, etc we are grateful for each morning and each night after morning and night prayer respectively. I have also added this to the regular classroom routine in my religion classes, so students are given an opportunity to share what they are grateful for.  Sometimes, just to take our gratitude “up a notch,” we list 5 things we are grateful for that may not seem obviously good.  In other words, we try to be grateful for those things that, on the surface, are difficult to be grateful for. For example, suffering. Suffering is never easy, yet our faith tells us that suffering is redemptive and helps us grow as Christians. So there is a reason to be grateful even for suffering.  These practices have truly revolutionized our prayer life, and my classes. We have shifted our thinking from focusing on entitlement and selfishness, to gratitude and humility. We also find ourselves being more generous toward others, because as we become more grateful for God and others in our lives, the natural desire to share abundance with others.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

* thanks to Fr. Wagner for pointing this out

Bart Stupak, a Catholic, and one of the only true pro-life Democrats these days, has stood up to Obama and other Democrats about including abortion in the health care bill. In fact, he is working so that not one cent is put towards the killing of innocent children in the name of government healthcare. He’s even called Obama out for saying the plan will not cover abortion by saying “it’s just not true.”

I’m happy to see that at least one Democrat has the guts to challenge the president on this crucial issue.  I dislike the health care bill for lots of reasons, but the fact that abortion is almost certain to be covered should be a complete deal breaker for any Catholic .

Source

Jonathan and I are on vacation, relaxing and enjoying a break from just about anything requiring work.  Who is the patron saint of relaxing and vacations? Whoever he (or she) may be, pray for us!

And football is probably winning.

Yet, Australian bishop Les Tomlinson has asked that the Australian Football League not play games on Good Friday. It’s a reasonable request, but one that goes against the larger cultural trend towards “overbooking” our children and adults. As a teacher, I see it all the time. Sundays are filled with sporting events or even practices, activities, and other planned things that often conflict with religious duties and practices. Saturday evening mass is a great option, but most people who are booked on Sunday are also busy on Saturday. It’s mainly about priorities and sports games and other events take precedence over worship. I don’t see why a sports league couldn’t give Good Friday off and hearing a bishop address it is encouraging.

Derek, over at Haligweorc, has some interesting “inside” information about the upcoming conversion of the Anglican All Saints Sisters of the Poor. Check it out.

The pope has declared June 19, 2009-June 10, 2009, as the Year of the Priest, and has made St. John Vianney the universal patron of priests. In our modern society, being a priest is difficult (it has never been necessarily easy), and I think it is important to recognize those who serve us and the Church.

There are educational and prayer materials at the link I provided above, but I also want to highlight the U.S. Bishops’ Meet Our Priests Class of 2009 Page, which has a lot of information on those being ordained in 2009. There really are a lot of good things happening in our Church, and this is one of them.

Saint John Vianney, pray for us, and for our priests!

I’ve decided that there’s no better time to visit the area shrines than during this summer. Ever since I’ve been Catholic I’ve always been fascinated by shrines. They are, to be sure, special places. For example, one local shrine has a rock from where Mary stood at Lourdes and another was the spot of a miracle. You’d be surprised how many shrines are close to your area, some small, some large. I will be posting on my shrine experiences (3 on tap). Here is a place to find shrines. If you decide to go or have had meaningful experience already, please share in the comments box.

This morning, in spite of overcast skies, our parish had a Eucharistic Procession for Corpus Christi. Not as elaborate or glorious as I’ve experienced in Europe…no canopy over the Sacred Host as it moved in procession, no bands, no girls in white throwing petals before us…just our priest carrying the Lord as we followed chanting as well as we could the Pange Lingua.
But what struck me as our rather motley group moved around the Church building was that we had the Host of Heaven accompanying us. I am sure that angelic trumpets were blasting a fanfare though unheard in this world, and that the fiery Seraphim were “veiling their faces to the Presence” as we passed. You see, even if our liturgies and processions are poor in human splendor, if our hearts are fixed upon Christ, we are surrounded by the Lord’s Glory.
“Magnified, sanctified, praised, and adored be Jesus Christ on the Throne of His Glory, in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, and in the hearts of all His faithful.” And say you all, Amen!

As a former Anglican,  I still see a lot of the good in my former tradition, most especially the dignity in liturgy as shown in the Book of Common Prayer. Fortunately, the Catholic Church, through the Anglican Use, has “Catholicized” the Book of Common Prayer. It is now the Book of Divine Worship and is mostly the BCP with more Catholic elements such as prayers to the Saints. The book is huge and costly, but you can also find it online (warning: 900 + page .pdf). It may be especially appealing to those of us who used to be Anglicans.

A mixture of iced tea and lemonade becomes an Arnold Palmer. A mixture of iced tea, tomato juice, whiskey, chocolate, olive oil, beet juice, and garlic is just a tasteless mess. The same can be true of religion. There comes a point when “inclusivity” turns into such chaos that only those who believe in inclusivity for its own sake are included and anyone holding to an authentic tradition is excluded. One Episcopal parish in New Jersey seems to be in contention for the most inclusive Christian parish in the world (that also manages to exclude most of the world’s Christians) .

Church of the Redeemer in Morristown, NJ has a whole page devoted to how their worship “excludes no-one.”  To cover every base they:

-Offer an inclusive language Eucharist with collects that end with “through Jesus, our Christ”
-Admit everyone to communion, regardless of tradition
-Allow non-Christians to be leaders in their parish
-Consecrate grape juice for those who don’t want wine
-Take one of the Sunday lessons from a secular or non-Christian source
-Omit the Nicene Creed in favor of singing “Jesus is Lord”
-The celebrant receives communion last as a sign of a lack of hierarchy
-Anyone can preach
-The Lord’s Prayer is now “Our Mother, our Father”
-They have changed the liturgical year to include a “season of creation”
-Worship is modified by a committee to make sure it aligns with parish values
-Celebration of “Liberation Holidays” such as Recovery Sunday, Celebrating Men’s Journeys Sunday, etc.
-There is no junior or senior warden (too hierarchical)
-They brag about displaying rainbow and black liberation flags prominently in their church
-They use a UCC inclusive hymnal and all hymns must be inclusive of male and female images of God

I’ll tell you that at first I wondered if this was a parody. But this church is serious! Ironically, this parish, while trying to be completely inclusive, has excluded the Catholic and even classical Christian tradition practiced by most of the world’s Christians today.

Mandy Smith became famous in the 80’s for being seduced by Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman and becoming his girlfriend at the tender age of 13. The two eventually married (she was 18), but divorced a short time later. Smith has had a fairly traumatic life, including battling sickness and numerous troubled relationships. But, Mandy has been able to move on thanks to God and the Catholic Church.

Although brought up Catholic, it was never an important part of her life. She truly found her faith when she visited Medjugorje, admitting that something “clicked.” She even had a spiritual vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary while there. She attends mass twice a week, prays daily, is raising her son in the Faith, and seeks God’s guidance in all her decisions. In addition, she’s managed to forgive Wyman for the damage he did to her life.

This is an inspiring story of how God can transform the lives of those who trust in him. Some of the commenters at the Daily Mail article seem to think this is all a stunt. But, someone going from model/celebrity to practicing Catholic probably doesn’t get much sympathy from the world.

A woman bishop (or priest) seems very silly, doesn’t it?

Fr. Alberto Cutie, a Catholic priest who was caught by the media with a woman on a beach, announced that he is joining the Episcopal Church and pursuing ordination in that community. I’m sure the folks at TEC are overjoyed: they’ve gotten a youngish, fairly famous, good looking, and charismatic Hispanic priest (When I was in TEC, getting Hispanics in the church was sort of a holy grail). However, I’m not going to use this post to criticize the Episcopal Church. Rather, I want to say caveat emptor.

Here’s a guy who broke one of his most sacred vows and two weeks later left the Church where he devoted most of his life for a community he probably knows little about; but hey, they’re like Catholicism but without the rules and their ministers can get married! Although the media seems to assume that marriage=problem solved for priests who have behaved badly, real life is not so simple. Anyone who would so readily do what Fr. Cutie has done should send up any number of red flags. Celibacy is hard for sure. But, this development goes beyond celibacy to issues of commitment and TEC may find itself a victim of Fr. Cutie down the line.

My advice: go slow and make sure the guy really wants to be an Episcopalian, not just find a place to continue his famous ministry and get married. My bet: he’ll end up being an independent pastor in a few years. Regardless, he needs our prayers.

Update: Young Fogey has some good insights on this topic:

What happened to the old WASP gentlemanly values of keeping promises and honouring commitments (duty)? The man freely took a vow and disobeyed it and his bishop. Why would another Christian bishop consider bringing him on board? Looks like nothing but the upper-middle-class religion of self-esteem and other feelings. (That and anything handy to hit Rome.)

The Catholic Report has pointed readers to an excellent article entitled Vatican II and the Culture of Dissent, by Russell Shaw, which I read with great interest. The article examines a “culture of dissent” that followed Vatican II, led by those that were simultaneously disappointed by the council (that it did not go far enough), and yet, acted boldly in the “spirit” of the council. This “culture of dissent” is still around, although today its influence has waned (perhaps because of a combination of death, defection, and defeat…i.e. many of its proponents have died, left the Catholic Church, or seen their influence decline in the Church). The article explains that the culture of dissent began with some of the earliest reactions to the council:

The seeds of the culture of dissent were already sown in some of the earliest reactions to the council.

In four momentous sessions between 1962 and 1965, the fathers of Vatican II hammered out a consensus contained in the 103,000 Latin words of its 16 documents — four constitutions, nine decrees, and three declarations. While most people hailed the results (though often without quite knowing what they were hailing), extremists were not well-pleased. Ultra-traditionalists, led by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, prepared for diehard resistance; progressives hungered for far more change than the council had delivered.

Rev. Hans Küng, the Swiss-born theologian who was to become a veritable Prince of Dissenters, was bitterly disappointed. The religious revolution he’d hoped to lead had stalled. Despite some achievements, the council had done far less than he hoped, and now, he believed, progress was being blocked by Rome. “The renewal of the Catholic Church and ecumenical understanding with the other Christian churches… had got stuck,” he later wrote. Here was a logjam crying out to be broken.

The alleged corruption of the Church and its leaders often supplied the basis for dissent in the early postconciliar years. Charles Davis, a British theologian who quit the priesthood in 1966, declared that the Church was “a zone of untruth, pervaded by a disregard for truth.” Sociologist Rev. Andrew Greeley announced that the American bishops were “morally, intellectually, and religiously bankrupt.” Peace activist Philip Berrigan, another ex-priest, dismissed the Church as “a whore…”

But far and away the biggest building block of that culture was the “spirit of Vatican II.” It also had its start just after the council — in the United States, thanks especially to Xavier Rynne. Rynne, as everyone knows today, was the pseudonym of an American Redemptorist priest, Rev. Francis X. Murphy, used in a series of insider reports on Vatican II in the New Yorker. His articles spun the story as a titanic struggle pitting good-guy liberals against bad-guy conservatives. Immediately after the council ended, Rynne published an article pronouncing that from a “superficial point of view” — that is, from a reading of the council documents — nothing radical had been accomplished. But to think like that was to miss the point. “More important than the documents, the Council has consecrated a new spirit, destined in the course of time to remake the face of Catholicism,” Rynne/Murphy wrote.

For progressives, the beauty of the spirit of Vatican II was that it permitted them to dismiss the council’s teaching while at the same time claiming to champion the council. Thus Rev. Richard McBrien, then at Boston College and now at Notre Dame, claimed that Vatican II had validated the principle of “endless, unchecked change” in Catholic life (The Remaking of the Church, 1973). Yet Pope John XXIII, while commending openness to “new conditions and new forms of life” in his famous opening speech to the council, nevertheless insisted that the Church must “never depart from the sacred patrimony of truth received by the fathers.” No matter. Father McBrien had the spirit of Vatican II.

I find the “spirit of Vatican II” to be rather humorous and disingenuous. Did church leaders after Constantinople add a fourth person to the Trinity in the “spirit of Constantinople?” Councils certainly have tones and spirits, but these are based on the teachings and decrees of the council itself, not on ideas and practices that the council specifically refused to approve. In other words, I think that the argument that since Vatican II made changes to the Church, then it stands to reason that the council calls us to make far more radical and innovative changes, is bogus. The NFL changes and updates rules and such occasionally, but that doesn’t mean the Cleveland Browns are free to trade their footballs for hockey sticks and pucks in the spirit of legitimate change (although they might be more successful at hockey than football!).

I recommend reading the entire article, but I do want to highlight some things Shaw recommends to “repudiate the culture of dissent” and “recapture the real meaning of Vatican II”:

1. Stop complaining about the council. Not long ago I heard a conservative Catholic speaker tell a receptive audience that one of the crosses borne by Paul VI was a “runaway council.” That’s a good story, but it isn’t true. Now and then Paul VI had to rein in enthusiasts, but at no time was Vatican II in a “runaway” state, and the pope and bishops were in harmony at the end. Misstatements like this one play into the hands of those who want Vatican II interpreted in a way that serves the culture of dissent.

2. Read and study the documents of the council, probe its history, and make it the subject of research, writing, and teaching. With certain commendable exceptions, orthodox Catholics seem to have left this work to progressives — an omission that could cost future generations dearly. It is troubling that the massive, and unquestionably scholarly, five-volume History of Vatican II produced by Giuseppe Alberigo and his collaborators (published in the United States by Orbis Books, with Rev. Joseph Komonchak of Catholic University as editor) appears to be on its way to becoming the authoritative interpretation of the council. Its fundamental stance is that the real significance of Vatican II lies not in what it said but in the conciliar experience itself — presumably, as reconstructed by historians like Alberigo and his colleagues. (That is like saying the significance of Shakespeare is not in his plays but in his life, even though the life is incommunicable except through the plays.)

3. Welcome and cooperate with the emerging new leadership in the Church, including the growing number of solid bishops in the United States, and work for authentic reform and renewal according to the prescriptions of Vatican II. The “reform of the reform” is an apt description for this program to undo the damage of the last 40 years and realize the purposes of the council. Leaders have begun to appear in growing numbers to make this a realistic possibility.

In other words, we need to celebrate Vatican II for what it was, not what some people did in its name. On the album “Rattle and Hum” Bono said of the song “Helter Skelter,” “Charles Manson stole this song from the Beatles; We’re stealin’ it back.” The dissenters have stolen the council, using the name of the council to justify just about any whim, and now we’re stealin’ it back.

No, I’m not talking about the Cleveland Indians (but go Cavaliers!), but rather the tribalism that seems to have taken root in the USA lately. Before Obama made his decision about whom to nominate to the vacancy on the Supreme Court, I kept hearing how it’s time for Hispanics and it’s time for another woman, and so on. Rarely did I hear anything about qualifications. And, considering that Obama wants someone who will decide cases on feelings, I’m a little scared. I thought the Constitution was the guideline.

His nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, even wrote:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Egads! I think I know what she’s getting at, but can you imagine if the words “Latina woman” and “white male” were reversed?! Once again, I don’t see how conclusions should be reached based on anything other than the US Constitution or the rule of law. But, I guess that’s why I tend to be more conservative.

I don’t want to take away from Ms. Sotomayor. She is probably well-qualified in many ways and her story is inspiring. But, I don’t think, based on her comments, that she is necessarily the best choice. To be fair, other presidents have used SCOTUS nominees to appease interest groups as well. But, a SC justice is for life and represents a lot of power. I don’t know if I want it in the hands of someone who thinks simply being a Latina woman makes her qualified to reach a superior judicial conclusion (or someone who thinks being white, male, or anything else makes one qualified either).