The National Catholic Reporter, in its October 28 issue, ran an article about Catholics using the Internet. Thomas C. Fox recommended several e-mail lists to the liberal readership of NCR. We recommend those same lists, but for a different reason. By signing up you can counter the self-satisfaction of the heterodox for whom these lists are intended.
This is a fine way to engage in long-distance apologetics. You need have no worry about receiving unwelcomed visitors at your door or strange missives in the regular mail. In each case, when you subscribe using your e-mail program, leave the “subject” line blank. When writing your name, do not include the square brackets.
Vatican2: Sponsored by the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church, an extreme left-wing group. To subscribe, write to listserv@vm.temple.edu. In the message area write subscribe vatican2 [your name].
Sister-L: Fox describes this list as dealing with the “history and contemporary concerns of women religious,” which means the usual concerns of radical feminists. To subscribe, write to listserv@suvm.syr.edu. In the message area write subscribe sister-l [your name].
WATER: This is sponsored by Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual. Radical feminist Mary Hunt is the director. (For more information about Hunt and WATER, you should see Don Steichen’s Ungodly Rage). To subscribe, write to water-request@his.com. (Irony: Notice that the address is his.com, not her.com!) In the message area write add water [your name].
WMSPRT-L: This is a forum for “people interested in goddess spirituality, feminism, and the incorporation of the feminine/feminist idea in the study and worship of the divine,” says Fox. To subscribe, write to listserv-@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu. In the message area write subscribe wmsprt-l [your name].
AmerCath: This is described as a “discussion of the history of American Catholicism and how it relates to modern issues”–but with a properly trendy and heterodox bias, no doubt. To subscribe, write to listserv-@ukcc.uky.edu. In the message area write subscribe amercath [your name].
If you engage in this cyberspace apostolate, please drop us a line and let us know how you fare. Inquiring minds want to know.
At quite a different portion on the spectrum was the 1994 Tridentine Rite Conference, held October 13-15 in Hyannis, Massachusetts. For some years traditionalist groups have been at odds with one another on various issues, and they have undergone the splits one normally associates with Protestant denominations. This conference was intended in part to be an “ecumenical” event at which traditionalists of varying persuasions would meet to make common cause.
Attendees report two universal themes among speakers: a strong preference for the old Latin Mass (often known as the Tridentine Mass), sometimes to the point of discounting the validity of the Novus Ordo (the rite instituted by Pope Paul VI and used almost universally today), and adherence to the strict interpretation of the doctrine “No salvation outside the Church.”
The holders of this interpretation are commonly, but somewhat misleadingly, termed “Feeneyites,” after the late Fr. Leonard Feeney [1897-1978], who was most closely associated in the public mind with the interpretation that says that one must be a formal member of the Catholic Church to be saved and that there is no such thing as “baptism of desire,” as that phrase is usually understood.
Among the speakers and honorees were Fr. Paul Trinchard, formerly a columnist for The Wanderer, a conservative weekly, and now a columnist for The Remnant, a traditionalist paper that rejects the Novus Ordo and parts of Vatican II, and author of a just-released book called All About Salvation (a defense of the strict interpretation); Brother Joseph Natale, O.S.B., from Most Holy Family Monastery in Berlin, New Jersey (a traditionalist monastery that has not been approved by the bishop of the Camden Diocese, in which it is located); Gerry Matatics, a convert to Catholicism from Calvinism, who gives talks at parishes and at traditionalist and other conferences and whom some consider to be, along with English layman Michael Davies, who was not at the conference, the most effective speaker among those who promote the Tridentine Mass and Fr. Feeney’s interpretation; and Brother Anthony Mary, a tertiary of the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, one of several religious groups that claim to be the successor to the organization Fr. Feeney headed.
While nearly all the speakers and most of the attendees could be identified as supporters of the Tridentine Mass or of Fr. Feeney’s theological position, not everyone could be described as both. Followers of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who was excommunicated in 1988 for ordaining bishops without papal permission, do not subscribe to Fr. Feeney’s interpretation. (The Angelus, the magazine published by Lefebvre’s Society of St. Pius X, has run articles against the strict interpretation position and in favor, for example, of the possibility of “baptism of desire.”)
Some of the people at the conference were sedevacantists; they maintain that the papal throne is empty, and many of them claim the last legitimate pope was Pius XII. Others in attendance represented Fr. Nicholas Gruner’s Fatima apostolate, which has been at odds with the one headed by Fr. Robert Fox (an orthodox priest who publishes the Fatima Family Messenger and is not a traditionalist).
Observers of this and similar conferences say that the traditionalist movement in the U.S. is growing rapidly and that few bishops and priests are aware of the extent of the movement. Many of the newest adherents are young Catholics who have become disenchanted with what they perceive to be a lack of fidelity within what traditionalists commonly call the “Conciliar Church.”
Some, such as Gerry Matatics, seem to have few positive words for the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which they believe contains errors on such topics as salvation. Many avoid the Novus Ordowhenever possible, and some even decline to attend those Tridentine Masses (known as “indult Masses”) which are approved by the Vatican and by local bishops, going only to Tridentine Masses celebrated by priests associated with the Society of St. Pius X, the Society of St. Pius V (a sedevacantist offshoot of the former group), or other independent traditionalist groups.
Another offering from the National Catholic Reporter, this time from the October 28 letters column:
“I honestly knew not what I was doing. Suddenly, at age 50, the scales are coming off my eyes, and I do not like what I see. I am so sorry for the world I may be leaving to my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. And I ask their forgiveness.
“I confess that for 49 years I’ve been eating meat. In my name and sometimes with my own hands chickens, turkeys, pigeons, ducks, rabbits, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, bison, lobsters, shrimp, fishes, even snakes and iguanas have been killed and cut up for my consumption. And just lately I’ve learned that not only are these activities devastating to our oceans, plains, mountains, and atmosphere and destructive to the international economy upon which the majority of billions of souls who share this planet depend, but this flesh-eating is not even good for our bodies!
“I didn’t realize that eating animal flesh is totally unnecessary for the basically herbivorous creature that I, a human being, am. I have learned that meat, with its high fat content, its concentration of pesticides and other dangerous substances, is dangerous, difficult to digest, unnatural food. . . . It clogs our arteries, slows our metabolism, puts unwanted pounds on our frames, hastens a whole host of diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, and cancer, and probably weakens our bones and does damage to the genetic structure we are passing on to future generations. . . .
“Marilyn Chilcote, Oakland, California.”
Warning to our readers: Beware of mid-life crises for which cures are sought by reading heterodox papers. You never know what odd things you might end up saying.
You might, for example, end up talking like the scholars of the Jesus Seminar, who, according to an October 17 news report, have “determined that Jesus Christ was not born of a virgin, a decision that likely may elicit an icy response from mainstream Christians.”
Nonsense–no icy response here. Icy responses are incompatible with rolling-on-the-floor laughter, which was our response to this latest episode in what is probably the shoddiest example ever of biblical “scholarship.” Jane Schaberg, a professor at the University of Detroit and a former Catholic, said her research leads her to believe that “Mary was impregnated during her betrothal by someone other than Joseph, perhaps by a Roman soldier,” said the report. Schaberg noted that it was “probably consensual sex rather than rape; marriage to Joseph took away the stigma attached to illegitimate birth at that time. Why couldn’t Jesus be a son of an unknown and a son of God or a son of a nobody?” she asked.
The Jesus Seminar is a group of scholars, all at the left-wing extreme of biblical studies, who have been meeting twice a year for ten years. They determine truth by taking a show of hands. This round, Mary’s perpetual virginity lost–another triumph in the continuing search for the “historical Jesus,” who, to these people, bears no relation to the “Jesus of faith.” (In the authentic Catholic understanding, they are exactly the same Person.)
A question from Jack Gergurich, Catholic Answers’ controller:
“At a wedding I attended recently, I ran into a man, a nominal Catholic, whom I hadn’t seen for fifteen or twenty years. In the course of our conversation he asked me where I worked. I told him Catholic Answers, and that brought up the usual questions. Then, out of the blue, he said he understood the Church’s opposition to abortion, but not to contraception. I didn’t want to get into a discussion (and a potentially noisy disagreement) at a wedding, but I couldn’t let it go at that.
“One thing I’ve noticed about those who disagree with the Church about contraception is that they do not know why the Church is against it. So I asked him if he knew why the Church espoused this view. He was startled by the question, hemmed and hawed a bit, and then sheepishly said he didn’t. I asked if he had read Humanae Vitae, Pope Pul VI’s encyclical about contraception, and his eyes glazed over. He had no idea what I was talking about.
“I mentioned that many of the world’s problems he was worried about, such as crime and unwed mothers, were anticipated by Humanae Vitae. I told him that if he would give me his business card I would send him some materials about the subject. He fumbled around, putting his hands in various pockets, and, reacquiring his wits, said he ‘remembered’ that his cards were in the car. At that point we were interrupted, and the discussion ended.
“How should Catholics handle such a chance encounter in a social setting?” We invite our readers to tell how they handled similar situations.
With some regularity we read in Evangelical newsletters or magazines, such as Christianity Today, about Catholics in Mexico who bully or bruise Evangelicals. On occasion the Evangelicals are killed, and the Catholic Church is blamed.
We’ve always been suspicious about these reports. They seem a little too neat; we long have suspected a certain credulity on the part of people who spread them. Now we read, in a report on the wire services, about how VILLAGERS IN MEXICO KILL 3 EVANGELICALS. At first we thought one of the stories from an Evangelical publication had migrated to the secular press. Then we read on:
“Villagers killed three Evangelical Christians who returned home a year after being driven out for abandoning traditional Mayan Indian ways. The deaths raise the stakes in a decades-old clash between efforts to protect an imperiled culture and the freedom of belief. More than 15,000 Evangelicals have been expelled from Chamula, often violently, since the late 1970s.” Chamula is just north of Mexico’s southernmost state.
The killings came after the Evangelicals “seized the mayor, Domingo Lopez Ruiz, during a visit to San Cristobal and held him hostage for several days. Indians in Chamula have clung fiercely to a traditional form of government and to a religion that mixes Mayan and Roman Catholic elements. Village leaders see the Evangelical Christians as a threat to their culture and power. Evangelicals reject certain Chamula traditions, such as use of alcohol and payment for village ceremonies.”
The news report was scant in its facts, and it didn’t say who was the source for the facts–was it the Evangelicals themselves? Maybe the government? Probably not the villagers, who live modestly in a backward and media-illiterate culture.
We certainly don’t condone killing anyone over questions of religion, but note that the Evangelicals do not seem to have been entirely without fault: They kidnapped the mayor, an act that in some parts of the world is still considered a capital offense. And note that the villagers were adherents of a traditional religion, not of the Catholic faith, even though they have borrowed some Catholic practices or beliefs. They are no more Catholics than are Haiti’s Voodooists, whose religion is a mix of local animism and Catholic customs.
But you can count on it: Some Evangelical publication will read this story in terms of Evangelicals-versus-Catholics, with the latter as the bad guys. Oh, well. This news report has at least one good.aspect: It makes us even more suspicious about the accuracy of other reports that Catholics have been going after Evangelicals in Mexico. Yes, such things may have happened on occasion, as it may have happened that Evangelicals have gone after Catholics, but we suspect such altercations haven’t happened as frequently as some publications would like us to think.
The Fall issue of Aid to the Church in Need’s World Youth Report carries an article by Fr. Peter Muller, O. Praem. It’s called FUNDAMENTALISTS IN MEXICO. Fr. Muller, a friend of Catholic Answers, was approached on the street by proselytizers who asked him, “Do you know the real origin of Christmas?”
Of course, they expected him to have no answer, but he said, “Each December the pagan Romans used to celebrate the day of the unconquered sun; Sol Invictus they called it.” At this point the questioner was nodding her agreement. “But the Christians, in a stroke of genius, abolished the pagan holiday to celebrate the birth of Christ, the true sun that enlightens our hearts.”
Perplexed, the proselytizer continued: “But just where do you find Christmas in the Bible?”
“I looked at her in disbelief,” said Fr. Muller. “Consider the angels singing `Glory to God in the highest,’ the shepherds visiting the baby Jesus in the manger, and the wise men from the East bringing–what? Presents!”
Advocates of “inclusive language” were greatly disappointed on October 25 when the Vatican revoked permission to use the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (NRSV) in the Church’s liturgy. They had rejoiced in 1991 when the National Conference of Catholic Bishops approved the NRSV for liturgical use and began making plans to issue a lectionary based on it for use at Mass.
The NRSV was the first major translation to use “inclusive language,” which proposes to correct past “sexism” by stripping the English language of the generic uses of words such as “man,” “mankind,” and “he” (as in, “If someone wants to make an omelet, he is going to have to crack some eggs”). Unlike some previous efforts, which sought only to avoid “gender-specific” terms when they are not used in the original Greek and Hebrew of the Bible, the NRSV actually changes the biblical text by removing masculine terms even when they are present in the original languages. It thus modifies the text to fit a modern socio-political viewpoint.
The decision to revoke permission to use the NRSV in the liturgy was made in Rome by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), which is headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
The removal of permission followed the 1993 debacle concerning the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The translation originally submitted to the Vatican for approval was faulted on a number of grounds, one of which was its use of the NRSV in Scripture citations. Cardinal Ratzinger stated that the problems with the NRSV centered on theological imprecisionss caused by the use of “inclusive language” in the text (for example, when a male pronoun is dropped and the Christological reference of a text is lost in the translation) and in order to maintain consistency in the Church’s liturgical and catechetical language.
The CDF’s decision to pull permission for liturgical use of the NRSV carries the highest authority. Following the announcement of the decision, Archbishop Geraldo Agnelo, secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, stated, “From the moment in which the doctrinal congregation [the CDF] makes a statement, we cannot act differently.” Father Cuthbert Johnson, who works on English-language projects for the worship congregation, stated, “The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is the last word on issues like this.”
This means that an NRSV version of the lectionary will not appear in the U.S. and that an NRSV lectionary which has already been used for two years in Canada will have to be shelved. It also casts a shadow over a two-volume lectionary using the Revised New Testament of the New American Bible, which also uses “inclusive language,” though to a more modest extent. In 1992 the NCCB submitted this lectionary to the Vatican for approval, but neither volume has yet been approved. Following the problems with “inclusive language” that emerged with the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the NRSV, it is questionable whether the Vatican will approve the liturgical use of the Revised New Testament of the NAB.
Have you ever wanted to meet the Church Fathers we quote every month in “The Fathers Know Best”? Well, now you can! A new book by Veralyn Alpha, titled A Heavenly Journey, lets you meet early Christian writers from the apostle Paul in A.D. 53 to Augustine in 400. In the fictionalized account, the archangel Gabriel takes a young Protestant evangelist named Carter Roberts on a tour of early Christianity.
Included among the Fathers Carter visits are Pope Clement I, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Jerome. Gabriel also takes Carter to Peter’s grave and an early baptismal ceremony. To ensure that the teachings of the Fathers are accurately represented, all of their words are taken from their surviving writings (with the citations at the end of their speeches). In their final stop before returning to the twentieth century, Gabriel takes Carter to see Martin Luther in 1517. His words are also quoted from real history. Through his trip with Gabriel, Carter is given an introduction to the Catholicism of the early Church, which contrasts with the Protestant doctrines he has always accepted.
Those interested in purchasing the 84-page book, which carries an imprimatur, can order it from the Riehle Foundation at (513) 576-0032. The cost is $4.50 plus shipping and handling.
Another new offering is The Pope and the Holocaust, by Fr. John Rader and Kateryna Fedoryka. This short biography (125 pages) covers Pope Pius XII’s life from his time as a boy, though his years as a priest, bishop, and cardinal, and finally to his reign as pope. The last chapter of the book is devoted to Pius XII’s struggle to save Jews from the Nazis. It debunks the myth that the Pope stood by silently while millions of Jews were slaughtered.
This story gained currency as a result of the production of The Deputy, a 1963 play by Rolf Hochhuth. While the play’s assertions could not survive historical scrutiny, its central thesis of Pius XII’s indifference to the Jews’ plight has passed into popular culture and is often repeated by anti-Catholics today. This book is a welcome attempt to set the facts of history before the public. The book is available for $10 postpaid from the Family Apostolate, P.O. Box 55, Redfield, South Dakota 57469.
A woman who goes by the “handle” WinkieBean left this message on America Online:
“I would like to tell people about my experience with the Catholic Church. I was raised in a Protestant, non-denominational Bible church.
“I went to Christian Bible camps and to vacation Bible schools–the works. In college I was active in the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Then I married a Catholic. I went along for eleven years as a very ‘Protestant Catholic,’ and then I saw an anti-Catholic video called Catholicism: Crisis of Faith [reviewed in the May 1993 issue of This Rock], and that was it. I vowed never to set foot in another Catholic Church.
“A friend of mine said, ‘Find out what they really believe!’ So I did. I began to pray earnestly for answers. What did I find? A group called Catholic Answers. What do you know! These guys were Catholics and could actually argue Scripture with me! I was shocked at what happened. I found answer after answer. To all of it–the changes after Vatican II, praying to the saints and Mary, Mary’s role in the Church, statues, traditions, the pope, the different ordering of the Ten Commandments, the Eucharist–you name it.
“I could hardly believe that the Catholic beliefs were actually more biblical than my Protestant ones. I had had such a misunderstanding of what Catholics believe. My ‘knowledge’ up to that time had been based on what others had told me Catholics believed. Now I was seeing for myself.
“My special thanks go to Karl Keating, Patrick Madrid, James Akin, Mark Wheeler–he’s the first one I talked to–and all the folks at Catholic Answers. Also to Scott and Kimberly Hahn, Mark Miravale, and Fr. Mitch Pacwa.”
Thanks, WinkieBean.
From quite a different perspective comes a form letter from Fr. Daniel Jones, editor of the Sangre de Cristo Newsnotes and object of a few paragraphs in “Dragnet” some months ago. As you may recall, we reported that Fr. Jones had discovered the real pope, a Canadian who otherwise is referred to by him as “Fr. John.” In his letter Fr. Jones responds to “Beth,” who asked, “Why do you follow Fr. John?”
The answer: “It has been evident to me for many years that the popes of Vatican II have not been legitimate successors of St. Peter. I thought that Cardinal Siri might have been the legitimate pope in exile. But he died several years ago, and we have but one witness who has publicly testified that Cardinal Siri told him he was by law the legitimate successor to St. Peter. There should be at least two witnesses, to make a better case.
“Then I learned that it is almost certainly an attack on the dogma of the indefectibility of the Church to claim that the see of Peter has been vacant for thirty or more years.” (This means, at least, that Fr. Jones is not a sedevacantist, as were some people who attended the Tridentine Rite Conference discussed on page 7.)
“If Peter is not in Rome, he is elsewhere. There have been several claimants to the papacy since 1960: Clement XV in France, Peter II in Belgium, Adrian VI in Washington, Michael I in Kansas [also reported on by This Rock; “Pope Michael” lives with his parents above their store in St. Marys, Kansas], Gregory XVII in Spain, John Gregory XVII in Canada, and I think Time magazine had an article on one in Philadelphia. A most probably false mystic in Australia, I hear, claims he will soon be the pope. Jesus said, `By their fruits you shall know them.'”
Fr. Jones went to St. Jovite, Quebec, met Fr. John, was impressed by his spirituality, learned the Third Secret of Fatima, found out about Fr. John’s predecessor, Pope Clement XV (1950-1968) [apparently he booted out Pius XII at God’s instigation], “met [Fr. John’s] chauffeur, Fr. Vincent,” and otherwise blamed his identification of Fr. John as pope on the Fatima seer Sr. Lucy. Whew!