Barry Hudock's Blog, page 18
February 5, 2014
“The ultimate thanksgiving to the Father for his love”: Francis on the Eucharist (UPDATED)
A very fine summary of eucharistic/liturgical theology from Pope Francis today. The few snippets contained in the CNA report this morning caught my eye and I found myself going to find the full text. [UPDATE: Video of the address here.]
It’s only available (so far) in Italian at the Vatican website, so here it is in English:
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
Today I will talk about the Eucharist. The Eucharist is at the heart of “Christian initiation,” together with Baptism and Confirmation, and it constitutes the source of the Church’s life. From this Sacrament of love, in fact, flows every authentic journey of faith, of communion, and of witness.
What we see when we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, the Mass, already suggests to us what we are called to live. At the center of the space meant for the celebration is found the altar, which is a table, covered with a tablecloth, and this makes us think of a banquet. On the table there is a cross, to indicate that the sacrifice of Christ is offered on that altar: He is the spiritual food that we receive, under the signs of bread and wine. Beside the table there is the ambo, which is the place from which the Word of God is proclaimed: and this indicates that we gather there in order to listen to the Lord who speaks through the Sacred Scriptures, and therefore the food we receive is also his Word.
Word and Bread in the Mass become one, as at the Last Supper, when all the words of Jesus, all the signs he performed, came together in the gesture of breaking the bread and offering the chalice, anticipating the sacrifice of the cross, and in those words: “Take, eat, this is my body…. Take, drni, this is my blood.”
The gesture performed by Jesus at the Last Supper is the ultimate thanksgiving to the Father for his love, for his mercy. Thanksgiving in Greek is eucharistia. And for this reason the sacrament is called Eucharist: it is the supreme thanksgiving to the Father, who loved us to the point of giving us his Son in love. Hence the term Eucharist summarizes fully that gesture, which is gesture of God and of humanity together, the gesture of Jesus Christ, true God and true human.
Therefore the eucharistic celebration is much more than a simple banquet: it is the memorial of the Passover of Jesus, the central mystery of salvation. Memorial does not just mean a memory, a simple memory, but it means that every time we celebrate this Sacrament, we participate in the mystery of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. The Eucharist constitutes the summit of God’s saving work: the Lord Jesus, taking bread broken for us, pours upon us all of his mercy and love, in order to renew our hearts, our existence, and our way of relating with Him and with one another. It is for this reason that when we commonly speak of receiving this Sacrament, we speak of “receiving Communion.” This means that in the power of the Holy Spirit, the participation at the eucharistic table conforms us in a unique and profound way to Christ, giving us a foretaste already now of the full communion with the Father that characterizes the heavenly banquet, where with all the saints we will have the joy of contemplating God face to face.
My dear friends, we never thank the Lord enough for the gift that he has given us with the Eucharist! It is such a great gift, and this is why it is so important to go to Mass on Sunday. To go to Mass not only to pray, but to receive Communion, this bread that is the body of Jesus Christ who saves us, forgives us, unites us to the Father. It is beautiful to do this! And we go to Mass every Sunday, because it is the day of the Lord’s resurrection. This is why Sunday is so important to us. And with the Eucharist, we feel that we belong to the Church, to the People of God, to the Body of God, to Jesus Christ. We can never fully grasp the value and the richness of this. Let us ask Him then that this Sacrament will continue to keep his presence alive in the Church and to form our communities in love and communion, according to the heart of the Father. And may this happen throughout our lives, but begin on the day of our First Communion. It is important that children are prepared well for First Communion and that every child does it, because it is the first step of a close belonging to Jesus Christ, after Baptism and Confirmation.
“The ultimate thanksgiving to the Father for his love”: Francis on the Eucharist
A very fine summary of eucharistic/liturgical theology from Pope Francis today. The few snippets contained in the CNA report this morning caught my eye and I found myself going to find the full text. It’s only available in Italian at the Vatican website, so here it is in English:
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
Today I will talk about the Eucharist. The Eucharist is at the heart of “Christian initiation,” together with Baptism and Confirmation, and it constitutes the source of the Church’s life. From this Sacrament of love, in fact, flows every authentic journey of faith, of communion, and of witness.
What we see when we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, the Mass, already suggests to us what we are called to live. At the center of the space meant for the celebration is found the altar, which is a table, covered with a tablecloth, and this makes us think of a banquet. On the table there is a cross, to indicate that the sacrifice of Christ is offered on that altar: He is the spiritual food that we receive, under the signs of bread and wine. Beside the table there is the ambo, which is the place from which the Word of God is proclaimed: and this indicates that we gather there in order to listen to the Lord who speaks through the Sacred Scriptures, and therefore the food we receive is also his Word.
Word and Bread in the Mass become one, as at the Last Supper, when all the words of Jesus, all the signs he performed, came together in the gesture of breaking the bread and offering the chalice, anticipating the sacrifice of the cross, and in those words: “Take, eat, this is my body…. Take, drni, this is my blood.”
The gesture performed by Jesus at the Last Supper is the ultimate thanksgiving to the Father for his love, for his mercy. Thanksgiving in Greek is eucharistia. And for this reason the sacrament is called Eucharist: it is the supreme thanksgiving to the Father, who loved us to the point of giving us his Son in love. Hence the term Eucharist summarizes fully that gesture, which is gesture of God and of humanity together, the gesture of Jesus Christ, true God and true human.
Therefore the eucharistic celebration is much more than a simple banquet: it is the memorial of the Passover of Jesus, the central mystery of salvation. Memorial does not just mean a memory, a simple memory, but it means that every time we celebrate this Sacrament, we participate in the mystery of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. The Eucharist constitutes the summit of God’s saving work: the Lord Jesus, taking bread broken for us, pours upon us all of his mercy and love, in order to renew our hearts, our existence, and our way of relating with Him and with one another. It is for this reason that when we commonly speak of receiving this Sacrament, we speak of “receiving Communion.” This means that in the power of the Holy Spirit, the participation at the eucharistic table conforms us in a unique and profound way to Christ, giving us a foretaste already now of the full communion with the Father that characterizes the heavenly banquet, where with all the saints we will have the joy of contemplating God face to face.
My dear friends, we never thank the Lord enough for the gift that he has given us with the Eucharist! It is such a great gift, and this is why it is so important to go to Mass on Sunday. To go to Mass not only to pray, but to receive Communion, this bread that is the body of Jesus Christ who saves us, forgives us, unites us to the Father. It is beautiful to do this! And we go to Mass every Sunday, because it is the day of the Lord’s resurrection. This is why Sunday is so important to us. And with the Eucharist, we feel that we belong to the Church, to the People of God, to the Body of God, to Jesus Christ. We can never fully grasp the value and the richness of this. Let us ask Him then that this Sacrament will continue to keep his presence alive in the Church and to form our communities in love and communion, according to the heart of the Father. And may this happen throughout our lives, but begin on the day of our First Communion. It is important that children are prepared well for First Communion and that every child does it, because it is the first step of a close belonging to Jesus Christ, after Baptism and Confirmation.
Grillo’s Beyond Pius V: follow the conversation
Andrea Grillo’s Beyond Pius V: Conflicting Interpretations of the Liturgical Reform was published in December. It is a book by a gifted Italian liturgical theologian that I translated into English. (It quickly earned some high praise from Professor Paul Ford, liturgical theologian and composer, here.) An interesting conversation about the book and its main ideas has been developing on the blogosphere.
First, on January 21, Alcuin Reid, OSB, posted a critical review of the book at the New Liturgical Movement blog, which has a strongly traditionalist character to it. The criticism is not surpising, as Grillo’s book takes on some aspects of liturgy that the NLM crowd have been enthusiastic about in recent years, including the broad permission given by Pope Benedict XVI for use of the 1962 (pre-Vatican II) Mass. It’s also true, though, that he strongly supports other ideas that the NLM crowd have a deep appreciation for, like the original intentions of the liturgical movement, of the 1940s and 50s, retaining a central importance.
Next, on January 29, Professor Grillo responded to Reid’s review on his blog (in Italian). I prepared an English translation of that response for the Pray Tell blog, which was posted there two days later. It was a tad contentious — well, maybe more than a tad — but worth reading.
Then on February 1, Reid responded to Grillo’s response, again at the New Liturgical Movement blog. That’s here.
Now, Grillo has offered another contribution to the conversation — this one less heated — first in Italian at his blog, and now, in my English translation, posted at Pray Tell yesterday.
For anyone interested in liturgy and the liturgical movement (yesterday and today), it’s a conversation worth following!
February 4, 2014
John Paul II on Eucharist and social justice
“The Eucharist puts the work of social justice at the core of the mission that is ours as the church.” This comment from Charlotte Joy Martin is not a bad summary of a fine lecture offered yesterday afternoon here on the campus of Saint John’s University.
Dr. Martin is a visiting scholar at the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research. The title of her talk was “Liturgy as the Heart of John Paul II’s Social Encyclicals.” It was difficult for me to fit attending it into everything else going on in my day, but when it was over, I was glad I did.
Martin opened her lecture by explaining how a close study, at the age of 16, of Pope John Paul II’s 1979 speech to the United Nations General Assembly transformed her awareness of the world and her place in it. She went on to offer a wonderful summary of the close connections between the church’s understanding and celebration of the Eucharist and its social teachings (as expressed by JP2). This same connection is exemplified very well, as she pointed out, in the work of Virgil Michel, OSB, a titan of the early liturgical movement in the United States (and the founder of the publishing house by which I am employed).
“Some Christians,” she said, ”look at the Eucharist as the last place we’d want to be distracted by concerns about wages, wars, and social structures. But Christians who think like this had better think again, at least if they want to keep up with the thinking of John Paul II…. The Eucharist makes it the business of the church to concern itself with the entire lived reality of each and every human being.”
Another bracing statement she made that I found myself pondering afterwards: “Christians do not think like Americans, leaving American Christians often pretty dizzy … and challenged.”
February 1, 2014
Octogesima Adveniens is back
“Whatever Happened to Octogesima adveniens?” was the engaging title of an article published in 1995 by the revered journal Theological Studies. It was written by Mary Elsbernd, OSF, then the director of Loyola University Chicago’s Institute of Pastoral Studies. The Latin phrase in the article’s title refers to a 1971 apostolic letter of Pope Paul VI, published to mark the 80th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, the foundational document of modern Catholic social teaching.
Elsbernd – a beloved teacher and mentor of many students of theology who died of cancer in 2010 – points out in her article that some of the ideas in Octogesima adveniens (OA) marked a new turn in Catholic social teaching, as well as in the magisterium’s awareness of its own nature. The document marked a notable shift of attention in papal social teaching to the role of politics in the search for social justice. Just four years earlier, Pope Paul’s encyclical Populorum Progressio had highlighted human development as a key factor. But in the interim, the Medellin meeting of the Latin American bishops’ conference — with an opening address delivered in person by the Pope — had drawn much attention to the need for liberation from unjust political structures.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of OA came in a passage offered near the beginning of the document, in section 4. Making reference to the “wide diversity among the situations in which Christians – willingly or unwillingly – find themselves according to regions, socio-political systems and cultures,” the Pope then writes:
In the face of such widely varying situations it is difficult for us to utter a unified message and to put forward a solution which has universal validity. Such is not our ambition, nor is it our mission. It is up to the Christian communities to analyze with objectivity the situation which is proper to their own country, to shed on it the light of the Gospel’s unalterable words and to draw principles of reflection, norms of judgment and directives for action from the social teaching of the Church. This social teaching has been worked out in the course of history and notably, in this industrial era, since the historic date of the message of Pope Leo XIII on “the condition of the workers”, and it is an honor and joy for us to celebrate today the anniversary of that message. It is up to these Christian communities, with the help of the Holy Spirit, in communion with the bishops who hold responsibility and in dialogue with other Christian brethren and all men of goodwill, to discern the options and commitments which are called for in order to bring about the social, political and economic changes seen in many cases to be urgently needed.
For the head of an institution that understands itself as bearing a message that is universal and timeless, this is a remarkable admission. We need only compare Paul’s words to those of Pope Pius XI forty years earlier. Making reference in his encyclical Quadragesimo Anno to the publication of Leo XIII’s earlier Rerum Novarum, Pope Pius wrote:
[W]hile the question at issue [the rights of workers] was being argued this way and that, nor always with calmness, all eyes as often before turned to the Chair of Peter, to that sacred depository of all truth whence words of salvation pour forth to all the world. And to the feet of Christ’s Vicar on earth were flocking in unaccustomed numbers, men well versed in social questions, employers, and workers themselves, begging him with one voice to point out, finally, the safe road to them.
The wise Pontiff … decided, in virtue of the Divine Teaching Office entrusted to him, to address not only the whole Church of Christ but all mankind. (QA 7-8)
Pope Paul’s new approach is a reflection of the growing awareness in 1971 of the historically contingent nature of our understanding of persons and of human society. It also reflects Paul’s trust in the moral competence of local Christian communities and the working of the Holy Spirit within and among them.
We should acknowledge that despite what might seem to be the implication of the title of Elsbernd’s article, OA was not completely ignored or forgotten. Some important elements that were novel in OA have been carried on and developed in important ways subsequent teaching. Perhaps most importantly, the document included the first reference in papal social teaching to the preferential option for the poor, which has since become a fundamental building block of Catholic social teaching. It was also the first to mention our exploitation of the environment. Still, it seems safe to say – whether you say it with regret or satisfaction – that the decentralizing principle of OA 4 was not among what was carried forward from OA in ecclesial life and doctrine.
Elsbernd noted in her article that Pope John Paul II had, by the time of her 1995 writing, never cited OA 4 a single time in his 17 years as pope. I think it’s safe to presume that this remained true through the remaining ten years of his pontificate and that the passage received no further attention from Pope Benedict XVI as well. This need not be taken as a criticism; it is certainly a reflection of the fact that these two popes were attentive throughout their pontificates to emphasizing the universal validity and importance of Catholic doctrine – and that includes for them Catholic social teaching, which had an important place in the teaching of both pontificates.
Now comes Evangelii Gaudium (EG), Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation “On the Proclamation of the Gospel in Today’s World,” released in November 2013. In section 184 of the document, Pope Francis introduces two major sections, one on the inclusion of the poor in society and the other on peace and social dialogue. He notes that his intention is not to examine the whole gamut of the world’s social problems in detail and recommends the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church for our reading. Then Francis writes:
Furthermore, neither the Pope nor the Church have a monopoly on the interpretation of social realities or the proposal of solutions to contemporary problems. Here I can repeat the insightful observation of Pope Paul VI: “In the face of such widely varying situations, it is difficult for us to utter a unified message and to put forward a solution which has universal validity. This is not our ambition, nor is it our mission. It is up to the Christian communities to analyze with objectivity the situation which is proper to their own country.”
And there it is, in the quotation: OA 4. When I read the passage, I thought immediately of that memorable question posed by Elsbernd in the title of her Theological Studies article, and I found myself scribbling in the margin of my copy, Octogesima Adveniens is back.
Among the (ever-growing) list of “firsts” ascribed to Pope Francis, we can add: first Pope to quote section 4 of OA in a papal document. (Not as sexy, I’ll grant you, as first Pope to be named Esquire magazine’s Best Dressed Man of the Year. But interesting at the very least.)
What significance might be given to the appearance of the passage? That it suggests a renewed regard for, deference to, and trust in local churches and the work of the Spirit among them finds copious support elsewhere in Francis’s document. I am reminded of some observations I have mentioned previously on this blog.
First, the frequency with which we find citations in EG of documents produced by national or regional episcopal conferences around the world is remarkable. There are 14 citations of documents by the Latin American bishops conference, perhaps not so surprising given the Pope’s own background. But there are also two citations of documents of the USCCB; two of documents by the bishops of France; and one each of documents by the bishops of Brazil, the Philippines, The Congo, and India. (There is also one citation of a work published by Italian Catholic Action.) Surely no other papal document ever is anywhere near as attentive to these sources as EG.
Second, we might further take note that EG includes frequent citations of the post-synodal papal documents that resulted from Vatican-sponsored regional synods held in recent decades, mostly under the leadership of Pope John Paul II: six citations of Ecclesia in Asia (1999), three of Ecclesia in Oceania (2001), two of Ecclesia in Africa (1995), one of Ecclesia in America (1999), and one of Ecclesia in Medio Oriente (2012).
All of this is a clear sign of Francis’s respect for and attentiveness to the work of these regional bodies of bishops. It can also be taken as a concrete expression of his interest in promoting “a sound ‘decentralization’” of the Church (EG 16) and his criticism of its “excessive centralization” (EG 32). (Giving credit where it’s due, we must also acknowledge the regard for local churches expressed in the decision to call the important regional synods in the first place.)
I know these are themes that many “liberals” will praise and many ”conservatives” will prefer to overlook, if not be troubled by. My intention here is not to tell you which response should be yours (if either), but only to point out an interesting new development in the papal magisterium … and to suggest that Mary Elsbernd surely is smiling.
January 31, 2014
“Not on my shift”
This, from NBC News, is very cool:
Brain surgeon walked six miles during snowstorm for emergency operation
by Becky Bratu, staff writer, NBC News
Not a snowstorm, a traffic jam or a daunting six-mile walk through fresh powder could stop an Alabama neurosurgeon from getting to the hospital where he was needed for emergency surgery.
Dr. Zenko Hrynkiw had to travel from Birmingham’s Brookwood Medical Center to Trinity Medical Center to perform the operation Tuesday, but a sudden snowstorm had snarled all traffic, with thousands of drivers getting stranded for hours.
Authorities in Alabama had declared a state of emergency only for the southern half of the state, leaving out hard-hit Birmingham and sending available equipment the other way.
Getting to the hospital by car would’ve been nearly impossible.
Instead, the neurosurgeon decided to make the trek by foot.
“It really wasn’t that big of a deal,” Hrynkiw said Thursday. “I walk a lot, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.”
He said he left Brookwood around 10:45 a.m. ET — and by 12:45 p.m. he was already operating on the patient.
And the good doctor said he was even able to receive the patient’s CT scan via text message while walking toward the hospital.
The emergency surgery was for a traumatic brain injury and Hrynkiw is Trinity’s only brain surgeon, according to The Associated Press.
“He had a 90 percent chance of death,” Hrynkiw said. “If he didn’t have surgery, he’d be dead. It’s not going to happen on my shift,” he added.
“Without the surgery, the patient would have most likely died,” Steve Davis, charge nurse in the neuro-intensive care unit at Trinity, told the AP. “But he is doing well.”
Google Maps estimates the distance Hrynkiw walked at around six miles.
“This just speaks volumes to the dedication of the man,” Davis said. “When I saw him, all I could say is ‘you are a good man.’”
Video here.
January 27, 2014
Proud of my beloved
My wife, Toni Hudock (née Triana), has been active in the establishment of the Central Minnesota Catholic Worker over the last couple of years, and yesterday the organization, in cooperation with a few other local churches and groups, sponsored the first monthly community meal in the town of St. Joseph. The meal was free, and the emphasis was more on community building than hunger relief; anyone and everyone were welcome.
When Toni signed on as cook for the event as planning ramped up, I knew those folks had no idea how good they were going to have it. That girl knows cookin’.
So for about three weeks now, Toni has been cooking up large batches of spaghetti sauce, her grandmother’s recipe, in our kitchen at home, in preparation for the event. The house has smelled very fine. She also handled all the other food planning and purchasing for the event. She’s been working hard to make sure the meal was a good one. Yesterday, while I was away on business, it happened, and despite the fact that the weather was terrible, it drew a nice-sized crowd. And those folks got a mighty good meal as a reward for the efforts to brave the blizzard.
That’s Toni there, in the photo from the great St. Cloud Times article, serving up spaghetti. (She’s not thrilled with the photo, but service is hard work, right?) And that’s our daughter Gianna in the background, also hard at work.
A snippet from the article:
In the Legion hall kitchen, cook Toni Hudock of Albany and other volunteers stirred vats of salad and spaghetti, with sauce made from Hudock’s homemade recipe. Hudock said she has seven children, so preparing meals for such a huge group doesn’t daunt her.
“It’s not about the cooking; it’s about who comes to eat it,” Hudock said. “These people came and joined the community today.”
From the article and her own account of how it all went, it sounds like this first of what is intended to be a monthly event, was a success. I’m proud of her.
January 23, 2014
“The book of nature is one and indivisible”: The popes, abortion, and Catholic social teaching
[When I prepared this post several days ago, I scheduled it to go up on January 22, the Roe v. Wade anniversary. Yesterday morning, I decided it should wait until today. On the anniversary of the day abortion became legal, in the U.S., it is quite fitting to focus on that particular issue. As I tweeted yesterday, may God have mercy on us and transform our hearts ... and keep the marchers warm! ]
Among the many things about Pope Francis that have dismayed some conservatives – his criticism of their pet economic theories, his inattention to pageantry in the liturgy, his emphasis on mercy and respect for the consciences of those who disagree with church teaching – there is also the Pope’s insistence on viewing abortion within the context of other issues that threaten the well-being of the most vulnerable people on the planet and indeed of the planet itself.
It is an approach that some feel relativizes the church’s anti-abortion stance, doing harm to the movement. In a November 2013 New York Times article, one pro-lifer commented, “It seems he’s focusing on bringing back the left that’s fallen away, but what about the conservatives? Even when it was discouraging working in pro-life, you always felt like Mother Teresa was on your side and the popes were encouraging you. Now I feel kind of thrown under the bus.”
Francis’s treatment of abortion in his recent apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”), is a perfect illustration of his approach. It comes in chapter four of that document, in a section headed “The Inclusion of the Poor in Society.” Francis opens the section by saying that every Christian “is called to be an instrument of God for the liberation and promotion of the poor.” He calls for solidarity with the poor, a more just distribution of goods and income, and a recognition of church teaching that says “the social function of property” takes precedence over the right to private property.
Right after comments on migrants and the victims of human trafficking, Francis turns his attention to the unborn, whom he calls “the most defenseless and innocent among us.” He insists that “a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development” and defends “the inviolable value of every single human life.” In his next paragraph, he moves on to his concern for “creation as a whole,” which, he says, is “frequently at the mercy of economic interests or indiscriminate exploitation.”
This is the kind of things that has been driving some conservatives crazy. Even Francis himself is clearly aware of the criticism. Acknowledging in his big America interview that he had been publicly “reprimanded” for his approach to abortion and issues related to sex, he insisted, “When we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context.”
What too many of Francis’s critics and supporters alike seem not to notice is that his immediate predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, saw things through very much the same lens. In some of their most authoritative statements, both popes made clear that they viewed abortion within the context of the same set of social issues that Francis emphasizes.
When Pope John Paul II published his 1995 encyclical on the sacredness of human life, Evangelium Vitae (“The Gospel of Life”), he opened that document by immediately setting his words in the context of the church’s long tradition of opposing unjust threats to human dignity. In fact, he specifically made reference to its defense of the rights of workers during the Industrial Revolution:
Just as a century ago it was the working classes which were oppressed in their fundamental rights, and the Church very courageously came to their defense by proclaiming the sacrosanct rights of the worker as a person, so now, when another category of persons is being oppressed in the fundamental right to life, the Church feels in duty bound to speak out with the same courage on behalf of those who have no voice. Hers is always the evangelical cry in defense of the world’s poor, those who are threatened and despised and whose human rights are violated.
Today there exists a great multitude of weak and defenseless human beings, unborn children in particular, whose fundamental right to life is being trampled upon. If, at the end of the last century, the Church could not be silent about the injustices of those times, still less can she be silent today, when the social injustices of the past, unfortunately not yet overcome, are being compounded in many regions of the world by still more grievous forms of injustice and oppression, even if these are being presented as elements of progress in view of a new world order.
John Paul’s successor, Pope Benedict XVI, took a similar approach in his 2009 encyclical letter Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in the Truth”), on the topic of human development. This time the Pope emphasized the parallels that the church’s pro-life teachings share with its concern for the environment. Writing that “the way humanity treats the environment influences the way it treats itself, and vice versa,” he continued:
The Church has a responsibility towards creation and she must assert this responsibility in the public sphere. In so doing, she must defend not only earth, water and air as gifts of creation that belong to everyone. She must above all protect mankind from self-destruction. There is need for what might be called a human ecology, correctly understood.…
In order to protect nature, it is not enough to intervene with economic incentives or deterrents; not even an apposite education is sufficient. These are important steps, but the decisive issue is the overall moral tenor of society. If there is a lack of respect for the right to life and to a natural death, if human conception, gestation and birth are made artificial, if human embryos are sacrificed to research, the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of human ecology and, along with it, that of environmental ecology. It is contradictory to insist that future generations respect the natural environment when our educational systems and laws do not help them to respect themselves. The book of nature is one and indivisible: it takes in not only the environment but also life, sexuality, marriage, the family, social relations: in a word, integral human development. Our duties towards the environment are linked to our duties towards the human person, considered in himself and in relation to others. It would be wrong to uphold one set of duties while trampling on the other. Herein lies a grave contradiction in our mentality and practice today: one which demeans the person, disrupts the environment and damages society.
As a lifelong Catholic with strong “conservative” tendencies, I do not doubt the importance and the gravity of the church’s opposition to abortion. For what it’s worth, there was a time in my own life when a quiet abortion might have been seen as a very helpful solution to a terrifying and profoundly life-altering situation, but the child that was later born, now a teenager, has been and is still today one of the jewels of the journey of my life. My opposition to abortion is solid, both in theory and in practice.
But I am troubled by the tendency of some of my allies in the anti-abortion movement to insist that abortion stands alone as an utterly incomparable offense to human dignity, and to criticize the Pope for suggesting otherwise. Indeed, Francis stands in a strong tradition of taking a broader view.
January 22, 2014
A day of penance and prayer
General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 373
January 20, 2014
Paul Ford on Beyond Pius V: “Remember to sit down before reading”
Professor Paul Ford has offered an enthusiastic post about Andrea Grillo’s Beyond Pius V over at the Pray Tell blog this weekend. He writes:
I’m spending the holiday weekend reading Andrea Grillo’s Beyond Pius V: Conflicting Interpretations of the Liturgical Reform.
What a bracing book! His passion and clear thinking have grabbed me by the lapels. What must the book be like in the original Italian! Thanks, Barry, for translating it so well and for bringing it out.
I made the mistake of starting by drinking a cup of coffee. I may have to pour a Maker’s Mark!
The Preface, Introduction, and first chapter are online. Remember to sit down before reading.
I’m thrilled that reading the book can be as much of a kick as doing the work of translating it was. Professor Grillo’s thinking is not to be missed by anyone interested in Catholic liturgy today.
