Freedom of Vulgarity
Regarding “Catholic and ‘No longer Catholic’” in the November issue of This Rock: I attended the University of Dayton School of Law. I did not take any theology courses there, but I do want to comment about a course in constitutional law. If I remember correctly, the professor set aside a day when people were encouraged to state or display foul language during the class, supposedly to increase our awareness of freedom of speech. I’m certain my knowledge of the first amendment wasn’t improved and just as certain that this was not an activity that promoted Catholic thought.
Does or should the Church’s guidelines for a school to identify itself as a Catholic look beyond the theological courses?
Vincent Lewis
Via e-mail
Editor’s reply: Indeed the Catholicism (or lack thereof) of a university goes well beyond its theology department. It includes not just what is taught in the classroom but every activity of the university and the culture that it promotes.
Pope John Paul II writes in Ex Corde Ecclesiae:
Every Catholic University, as Catholic, must have the following essential characteristics: (1) a Christian inspiration not only of individuals but of the university community as such, (2) a continuing reflection in the light of the Catholic faith upon the growing treasury of human knowledge, to which it seeks to contribute by its own research, (3) fidelity to the Christian message as it comes to us through the Church, (4) an institutional commitment to the service of the people of God and of the human family in their pilgrimage to the transcendent goal that gives meaning to life. In the light of these four characteristics, it is evident that besides the teaching, research, and services common to all universities, a Catholic university, by institutional commitment, brings to its task the inspiration and light of the Christian message. In a Catholic university, therefore, Catholic ideals, attitudes, and principles penetrate and inform university activities in accordance with the proper nature and autonomy of these activities.
Archbishop Michael Miller no doubt had the above paragraphs in mind when he outlined his “Benchmarks of Catholicity” on page 8 of the November issue.
Gay-Friendly Gonzaga
Bravo! We will not spend our money to have our five children lose their faith during college. When our daughter asked a recruiter from Gonzaga University how the HERO (Helping Educate Regarding Orientation) club fit in with Catholic teachings, she was told, “Gonzaga is probably not the school for you, because the Jesuits are more liberal and we don’t have a problem with that type of lifestyle.”
Obviously, she realized it was not the school for her. She is picking a mandatum school—and taking her outstanding GPA and SAT score with her!
Stacy Phillips
Patterson, California
Is It That Bad?
On the Catholic Answers cruise that was held in November (great cruise, by the way!), Karl Keating gave a talk that had the same subject matter as his column in the December issue of This Rock. Both were about what he sees as the impending collapse of Western civilization. I wonder, though, whether things are really all that bad. After all, in every century things have looked bleak. People have always talked about “the good old days.”
In many ways things seem to be getting better and better. At least most people seem to think so. So I wonder if the talk and December’s “Frontispiece” overstated matters.
Rebecca Ritorno
Via e-mail
Karl Keating responds: Consider just our own country. Our federal government was set up by the Framers on a tripartite basis. It was designed with three branches: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. Today we still have three branches, but now they are the executive, the legislative, and the legislative. In my lifetime the Supreme Court has been transformed from an arbiter into a lawmaker. Many of our most important “laws,” such as on abortion and contraception and even eminent domain, have been imposed upon us by nine unelected people. This is progress?
Some think so—those who like the tack the Supremes have taken—but surely it is, in functional terms, a decline from what we started with. It is a move away from representative government. People (especially our politicians) yammer about spreading democracy overseas but do not complain about this move toward oligarchy at home.
That is just one example. Another is pornography. It has been fifty years since Playboy hit the newsstands. Why is that publication still in existence? Why was it not shut down decades ago, even in the year of its appearance? It would have been, if Americans and their government had been serious about stopping pornography. The truth is that most Americans either like pornography or are not bothered by living in a pornography-saturated society. (Just consider what they watch on television.)
The list of bad signs could be extended almost indefinitely. In political, moral, and even intellectual terms, we have gone downhill, and we have gone downhill with the accelerator pressed to the floor. I am unaware of any society that declined as rapidly and managed to stage a comeback.
Some Clarifications
Marcellino D’Ambrosio gave an excellent summary of the liturgical and ecumenical achievements of Vatican II (“The Unfinished Business of Vatican II,” December 2005). A couple of clarifications and amplifications ought to be made to situate the changes of the Council as evolutionary rather than revolutionary: First, as far back as the 1940s, the Vatican was calling for more active participation by all the faithful in the liturgy. The liturgical renewal, in fact, goes all the way back to St. Pius X at the beginning of the last century. The so-called Missa recitata directly involved the congregation in many of the prayers of the Mass—in Latin. Second, the Eucharistic Prayer has always been the center of the celebration of the Mass. The word secret was applied only to the prayer that we now call the “prayer over the gifts” that immediately precedes the eucharistic dialogue. It was never applied to the entire canon of the Mass, even when that prayer was said sotto voce by the celebrant.
Deacon W. Patrick Cunningham
San Antonio, Texas
Marcellino D’Ambrosio replies: I thank Deacon Cunningham for his comments. Indeed, the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Liturgy was the culmination of decades of work to make the liturgy once again the “source and summit” of Christian life. Thanks too for his clarification of the term “secret.” But the fact that the canon was said in a low voice in Latin did cause it to appear much less prominent than it is theologically. The Council fathers desired to “heighten its profile,” so to speak, so that its words would inspire and instruct the faithful, given that liturgy is a powerful vehicle of doctrine (lex orandi, lex credendi). It must be admitted, I think, that this was needed and that the Mass of Pope Paul VI, following the directives of the Council, represents a significant step forward in this regard.
More on Friday Penance
In an “editor replies” in the December issue, you say that penitential practices on all Fridays of the year are “urged” rather than “mandated.” If Fridays carry with them no exceptional obligation, then they are no different from Tuesdays, for example, since at all times we are called to repent. Our bishops have made it clear that Fridays are special days.
Your interpretation of the bishops’ use of the word urged in their November 1966 “On Penance and Abstinence” overlooks the careful correlation between their statement and Pope Paul VI’s preceding Paenitemini and misses an important point of both. Paul VI used the words urge, invites, and voluntary several times; this does not connote a lack of authority but a pastoral mode of expressing what is clearly not optional to those who look to him for direction. The essence of both proclamations is the grave necessity to participate in the work of Christ through repentance, particularly on days and in seasons in unison with all the faithful.
As for mandates, only “the supreme ecclesiastical authority can . . . suppress . . . days of penance” (Code of Canon Law 1244) and “each Friday of the whole year” is established as “a day of penance” (CIC 1250) on which “abstinence from meat” is required (CIC 1251). The bishops do not have the power to suppress Friday as a day on which penitential practice is required, nor could the Vatican cede that power to them without violating its own laws.
The day after the bishops released their 1966 statement, the New York Times interviewed Catholics on the street. “I’ve been following the habit on Fridays so long it’s not a sacrifice to me,” one of them said. This is exactly the point of the release from the sole practice of abstaining from meat: to leave it to each individual to determine what exactly is a sacrifice. Doing so and following through was not and could not have been made optional. In fact, we are admonished to not judge those who substitute other practices instead of abstention from meat as their penance. That we are not warned about how to view those who do nothing presupposes that the faithful will understand and be worthy of the freedom to choose the penitential practice most likely to deepen their conversion.
Please reconsider your position on the observance of Fridays. I do not think your view is consistent with Catholic tradition, the documents in question, or other remarks published at the time.
Helen Stiver
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Jimmy Akin replies: In order to determine the legal obligations of Catholics, one has to look at the law and read it carefully, taking into account its developmental history.
The 1966 papal document Paenitemini was the legal basis for the U.S. Bishops’ 1966 statement “On Penance and Abstinence” (not the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which did not yet exist). Paenitemini gaves the episcopal conferences broad discretionary power in determining the way in which the discipline of penance would be observed in their countries.
In the U.S., most Fridays of the year are ones on which the Church calls for voluntary penitential practices. The 1966 document characterizes them as days for ” voluntary works of self-denial and personal penance.”
The current complimentary norms of the United States note that the penitential norms of the 1966 bishops’ document “continue in force since they are law” (http://usccb.org/norms/12521253.htm, emphasis added).