Eternal Gospel Seventh-Day Adventist Church, located in West Palm Beach, Florida, took out a full-age advertisement in The Washington Times. The headline: EARTH’S FINAL WARNING. The chief subhead: “Chaos Awaits Major Cities . . . Resulting in the Enforcement of a National Sunday Law.”
In a mass of small print, the ad asserts not only that the Catholic Church is the “Whore of Babylon,” but that it promotes the “pagan” doctrine of “the natural immortality of the soul” a belief that “has been accepted by ‘Christianity’ at large. For this reason many people pray to the dead.” Worse, they believe “that the Virgin has and is appearing to them.” These and other evils are the result of the true sabbath, Saturday, being replaced by Sunday as the day of corporate worship.
This replacement has come about through the cooperation of church and state (the ad features a photograph of John Paul II with Bill Clinton). Protestant churches have adopted Rome’s position on Sunday worship, and soon those churches will start persecuting the “real Christians” who worship in Saturday. “The dignitaries of church and state will unite to bribe or compel all classes to honor the Sunday. . . . [E]ven in free America, rulers and legislators, in order to secure public favor, will yield to the popular demand for a law enforcing Sunday observance.”
(These are the same “rulers and legislators” who have eliminated the Sunday blue laws—what evidence is there that they want to limit worship to Sundays? And what about Jews? Are these leaders of the state going to tell them that they have to switch from Satuday to Sunday too?)
Then the ad proceeds to prove its case by quoting the Catholic Church against itself. Under the subhead “Catholicism Speaks, Her Mark” is this quotation: “’Sunday is an institution of the Roman Catholic Church, and those who observe the day observe a commandment of the Catholic Church.’ Priest Brady in an address reported in the Elizabeth, New Jersey, News, March 18, 1903.” Using for proof a journalistic line composed in the year the Wright brothers first flew? And what authority should be given to that oracle of religious reportage, the News? And who was “Priest Brady” (who has no first name and whom the Adventists won’t honor by calling him “Father”)?
Moving up half a century, the ad quotes Our Sunday Visitor’s February 5, 1950 edition: “Protestants . . . accept Sunday rather than Saturday as the day for public worship after the Catholic Church made the change. . . . But the Protestant mind does not seem to realize that . . . in observing Sunday, they are accepting the authority of the spokesman for the Church, the pope.”
Of course, these two old quotations are exactly correct. The Catholic Church designated Sunday as the day for corporate worship and gets full credit—or blame—for the change. As The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes, “Jesus rose from the dead ‘on the first day of the week.’ Because it is the ‘first day,’ the day of Christ’s Resurrection recalls the first creation. Because it is the ‘eighth day’ following the sabbath, it symbolizes the new creation ushered in by Christ’s Resurrection. For Christians it has become the first of all days, the first of all feasts, the Lord’s Day. . . . Sunday is expressly distinguished from the sabbath which it follows chronologically every week; for Christians its ceremonial observance replaces that of the savvath. In Christ’s Passover, Sunday fulfills the spiritual truth of the Jewish sabbath and announces man’s eternal rest in Christ” (CCC 2174-2175).
Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee disagrees with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s opinion that Pope Paul VI caused “extremely serious damage” by his reform of the liturgy. The real damage was done, says the Archbishop, by the Pope John Paul II’s grant of the indult to allow the Tridentine rite, not by Pope Paul VI’s decision to suppress it.
In an America article, Archbishop Weakland says that the indult “totally derailed the liturgical renewal” and contributed to “devastating” disunity and division in the Church. “Not only was the liturgical renewal of the Second Vatican Council called into question; the impression was created that with sufficient protest the whole of Vatican II could be reversed.” Cardinal Ratzinger, on the other hand, had said that Pope Paul VI’s suppression of the Tridentine liturgy was “a break in the history of the liturgy, the consequences of which could only be tragic.” The Archbishop admits that there were liturgical abuses during the 1970s, but by the 1980s, he feels, “the essentials of good liturgy were being emphasized.”
We are not sure what the Archbishop deems aberrant liturgy, but we can assure him that our mail and phone calls regularly bring questions from confused and anguished Catholics who are scandalized by priests chucking the rubrics, dancers at the offertory, and invalid matter used as bread.
Yes, good Catholics feel strongly about the Mass, and, yes, many flock to Byzantine or other Eastern Rites or to the indult Latin Mass rather than face crises of conscience each time they worship. And no one knows better than we at Catholic Answers that some “Traditionalists” can veer into fanaticism incompatible with orthodoxy. But the Archbishop is blaming the victim. Ironically, he accuses faithful Catholics of a trait perfected by “progressives”: “We have entered a truly ‘cafeteria’ period in Catholicism, in which one can pick and choose from Vatican II what one likes and what one dislikes. The disunity that Pope Paul VI sought to avoid has come to pass.”
A question for the Archbishop: If bishops and their priests unfailingly offered the sacraments in a valid and licit manner, in a spirit of unity with the Holy Father, does he think Catholics would leave parishes, the Pauline liturgy, or the Latin Rite altogether?
Vatican II, as spelled out in its documents, does not sanction the liturgical crassness and silliness we often see. Using the Archbishop’s borrowed metaphor, we suggest that if the fare is wholesome, Catholics will take a heaping portion of everything. But no one can survive on spiritual junk food.
Archbishop Elden F. Curtiss of Omaha noted that the vocations director of the Diocese of Arlington (Virginia) said his seminary is full because of its “unswerving allegiance to the Pope and the magisterial teaching; perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in parish, with an emphasis on praying for vocations; and the strong effort by a significant number of diocesan priests.” Curtiss sees “this formula for success in vocation ministry in our neighboring diocese of Lincoln (Nebraska), which has forty-five seminarians preparing for the priesthood and a significant number of priests at work in a largely rural diocese with 84,000 Catholics.”
So what is the Archbishop going to do? “We will have at least 36 seminarians next fall . . . with clear indications of increases in coming years.”
And how is he going to do it? “Our vocations strategy is drawn from successful ones in other diocese: a strong orthodox base which promotes loyalty to the Pope and bishop; a vocations director and teach who clearly support a male, celibate priesthood and religious communities loyal to magisterial teaching; a presbyterate that takes personal ownership of vocation ministry in the Archdiocese; two large Serra clubs in Omaha that constantly program outreach efforts to touch potential candidates; more and more parents who encourage their children to consider a vocation to the priesthood and religious life; Eucharistic devotion in parishes with an emphasis on prayer for vocations; and vocation committees in most of our parishes which focus on personally inviting and nourishing vocations.”
The spiritual leader of Omaha’s Catholics goes on to say that he is “convinced that shortages of vocations in any part of the country can be reversed by people who share enthusiastically in the agenda of the Church. We have to learn form the diocese and communities who are experiencing an increase in vocations. If we are not willing to recognize and accept the reasons for their success and incorporate them into our own local efforts, then we allow ourselves to become supporters of a self-fulfilling prophecy about the shortage of vocations.”
Jack “Doctor Death” Kevorkian has released a compact disc of twelve jazz tunes (eleven of which he composed) called A Very Still Life. Kevorkian plays flute or organ, accompanied by a quintet. The CD carries a sticker informing the buyer that $4 from the sale of each disc will go toward building a clinic to provide a safe haven for doctor-assisted suicide.
Fun facts about Dr. K.: He first earned his nickname when photographed the retinas of dying patients at the moment of death and discovered that corneas become invisible at death. In 1958 Kevorkian proposed that death-row inmates be anesthetized instead of executed, leaving their bodies alive for medical research, transfusions, and spare parts. In 1960 he testified before a judiciary committee trying to get the death penalty revised to legalize medical experiments on condemned inmates. Even the Hemlock Society, relentless promoter of suicide, has rejected Kevorkian’s concept of euthanasia as being too easily abused.
Times Have Changed Department: The leading Evangelical Anglican has called on Prince Charles to abdicate rather than marry his longtime paramour, Camilla Parker Bowles. “We are not going to have a confessed adulterer as supreme head of the Church of England,” said the Rev. David Streeter, director of the Church Society, the senior Evangelical body of the established church. “I am a monarchist . . . but I am not prepared to accept an adulterous relationship being publicly manifested in this way,” Streeter told a national television audience. Charles publicly confessed his adultery, but, Streeter says, he has not repented—he continues to spend most of his private time with Parker Bowles, a Catholic, who was divorced in 1995.
The monarch automatically becomes the spiritual head of the Church of England—a system devised by Henry VIII, whose own adultery and divorce occasioned the communion’s break from Rome in 1534. So, if we understand Rev. Streeter correctly: It’s okay for an adulterer to found a church, but not to lead one.
One of the strengths of Catholic Answers is its dedicated staff. Most people are shocked to learn that everything we do—monthly magazine, books, tapes, tracts, seminars, voluminous correspondence—is done by a mere ten staffers (two of whom are part-time). The fact is, we couldn’t survive without our dedicated volunteers. They help us with everything from shrink-wrapping books to reading manuscripts. God bless them!
Actually, we’d like God to bless a few more of you. Our shipping manager, Gary Lucero, especially needs your help. You are ordering so many books and tapes that he is sometimes hard-pressed to meet our goal of 100 percent next-day shipment. If you live near San Diego and have a few hours to offer, give him a call at (619) 541-1131. We need your help!
The “Dead Horse Abuse” citation goes to the Catholic Theological Society of America for trying to resuscitate discussion of women’s ordination. Its “discussion paper,” on which the group has spent a year, challenges the Church’s ban on ordaining priestesses (articulated in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis and reiterated in a 1995 Responsum ad Dubium from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). The document questions the grounding of the ban in Scripture, Tradition, and the teaching of the ordinary magisterium—that is, the teaching of the pope and the Church’s whole body of bishops.
Uh huh. That’s why the Orthodox communions enthusiastically welcomed Ordinatio Sacerdotalis as authentic doctrine. As a Ruthenian friend says, “When you have the Holy Father and the five major Eastern Patriarchs agreeing on something, that’s it!”
On his San Diego radio talk show, Catholic former mayor Roger Hedgecock read excerpts from the Unabomber’s manifesto and Vice President Al Gore’s book, Earth in the Balance. He then asked listeners to guess who had written which passage. A surprise contestant was Rep. Bob Filner who listened as Hedgecock read the following passage: “No one knows what will happen as a result of ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect, and other environmental problems that cannot be foreseen. And, as nuclear proliferation has shown, new technology cannot be kept out of the hands of dictators and irresponsible Third World leaders.”
“Bob Filner, who said that?” Hedgecock asked.
“Sounds like my vice president,” the California Democrat replied.
“Actually, it’s the Unabomber,” Hedgecock said, laughing.
When we used the cover blurb “Fighting the Cyprianistas” for Fr. Ray Ryland’s piece in the April issue, we had no idea how apt it would seem, given the news out of Russia. Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Kirill has invoked the principle of “territoriality”—meaning that no “outside” religious bodies may evangelize in Russia. Kirill claims the principle originated with Cyprian of Carthage. Some religious leaders say that conditions for non-Orthodox Christians may actually be worse now than under the Communists.
It remains to be seen whether existing bodies, including Catholic parishes, will be affected. The number of Catholic parishes in Russia has risen from thirteen to more than three hundred in the past five years, not primarily as a result of evangelization, but to serve the pastoral needs of existing Catholics.
To make matters worse, a bill passed by the Russian parliament turned out to be even more repressive than feared. The Communist-dominated committee’s proposal would violate the 1993 Russian constitution’s guarantees of religious freedom by creating a new category of “religious groups” that would enjoy fewer rights than registered “religious organizations.”
Even if a newly formed “religious group” meets every state requirement, it will take fifteen years for it to acquire the status of a “religious organization.” During that time it would be restricted in financial and property transactions. It would lack the rights to publish its own prayer books, invite foreign guests, conduct pilgrimages, or hold worship services in public places, such as cemeteries. It is unclear whether the fifteen-year waiting period applies to groups already in Russia or only to new ones. In either case, it will restrict establishment of new groups, like religious orders and lay apostolates.