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By what authority?

The Council of Trent anathematized anyone who said that “the Mass ought to be celebrated in the vernacular only.”
Vatican II stated that “the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.” It also stated that the vernacular may be used within limits. But nowhere in all the innumerable documents issued by Vatican II and subsequently can I find any instruction or statement that the vernacular must be used.

By what authority, then, does Bishop Foley require the Eucharistic Prayer in televised Masses within his diocese of Birmingham, Alabama, to be in English?

—David V. Selby
Blenheim, New Zealand

As our latest report on the controversy (Follow Up, April 2000) indicates, the canonical authority of Bishop Foley’s directives regarding televised celebration of the Mass is questionable at best. But since those directives have been accepted by the Eternal Word Television Network—the only entity which does regularly televise Mass from Birmingham—the issue may be moot.

— The Editor

Closer to Christ?

I have been reading your articles about the controversy that has arisen as to the orientation of the priest, the placement of the tabernacle, and the orientation of the congregation. A few thoughts have occurred to me about this subject. I don’t claim to have a great deal of theological training, but I think that some points may be being overlooked in the debate.

The first and foremost point that doesn’t seem to be being recognized is that at the moment of the Consecration the priest and the congregation are both facing God in the freshly consecrated Body and Blood at the altar. In the “Our Father” we pray “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth, as it is in Heaven.” The active will of God on Earth is done in its most perfect form in the Consecration. During the Consecration the totality of our being should be focused on the Consecration. It and it alone should command our full attention.

What was mightier, Christ’s mission to Earth, or the Temple in Jerusalem? I wonder how many people are treating the tabernacle in the same way that the ancient Hebrew people treated the Temple. Christ was very critical of those people who placed greater importance on the externalities of faith, rather than being concerned with God’s wishes and God’s living presence. As I recall the Temple was destroyed.

From my meditations on the Holy Eucharist I can’t help but come to the conclusion that it is at heart a pastoral sacrament. Am I in any theological error in thinking that in the Holy Eucharist Christ comes back to be with and among his people? With the priest facing the people the Consecration is performed in the closest possible proximity to the congregation, who will in short order be the recipients of the proceed of this Consecration: the Body and Blood of Christ. Christ didn’t base his ministry out of the Temple; he was out with his flock as the Good Shepherd. Am I being off base in any of these views?

As to the statement that the congregation should be facing east, I think that there will be many practical problems in implementing this view. From my experience there are a lot of Catholic churches in America that don’t face to the east. One that comes to mind is the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC; its main axis is facing generally north-south as I recall. I wonder if your magazine could publish a list of churches from around the world that are in compliance and out of compliance with the east-west orientation

—Gregory E. Borter
Ocala, Florida

There are two problems with this analysis, one of them quite important.

In either the ad orientem or the versus populum posture, both priest and people face toward the altar and the elements of the Consecration. The fact that the versus populum alternative brings the people a few feet closer is surely not decisive (especially in light of the notorious Catholic tendency to fill up pews beginning at the rear of the church). Admittedly, the versus populum orientation also allows the faithful to see the bread and wine as they are being consecrated—a fact which may be helpful to their devotion.

Far more important, however, the tabernacle and the Eucharistic Christ within cannot be dismissed as “externalities” of Christian worship. It is dangerous to focus so tightly on the Consecration that one loses sight of the remainder of the Mass, and of the Eucharistic Lord who remains within the tabernacle. Jesus does not “come back” to his people at the Consecration, because he never left.

While the eastward orientation of Christian churches is an ancient tradition, there have always been exceptions to that rule. Practical considerations—most frequently involving the space available for the building—often led to the construction of church buildings that did not follow the east-west ideal. But even in these buildings, for centuries the rubrics of the Latin Mass called for the celebrant and congregation to follow the acknowledged norm, and position themselves as if the church faced eastward.

— The Editor

The problem is ourselves

I appreciate Father Benedict J. Groeschel’s article (“Death or Rebirth in the New Decade”) in the April issue. He has made a very perceptive and helpful analysis of religious life today, offering us death or life. He encourages us to choose life.

We certainly are at the stage of “tragic unraveling of women’s religious communities.” I borrowed this apt phrase from the subtitle of Ann Carey’s well researched book, Sisters in Crisis. Taken together, the article and the book are very enlightening.

Having been a religious sister for 64 years, I have to admit that each of us has played her role in the “unraveling,” either as leaders or as members. Numerous studies have proven that the fault lies with us, but do we have the humility to admit it?

We were supposed to start with experimental changes after Vatican II. The Church supplied us with numerous guidelines. Had we read or even considered following them, would we be in this state of chaos? The faulty experimentation never ended.

Father Groeschel speaks of loss of religious conviction, “the not so very subtle denial of the supernatural and transcendent.” When Jesus Christ and the Eucharist are no longer the central focus of our lives, we have lost our reason for being religious. There is no fountain to well up into love, mercy, and justice toward others. We have lost the true perspective of the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience as well.

He is on the mark when he notes that the New Age or feminist ideology raise serious problems. The gender stress is very evident in attitudes toward the hierarchy. In liturgical practices, it raises dangers to the faith of all, but particularly to young women who might wish to enter the religious orders. Lack of living community life together is another boulder in our way of life.

Those of us in the “senior sister” category (and we are many) can still, with the grace of God, make our contributions to renewal by trying to remain faithful to the Holy Father, the magisterium, and our community charisms. We can offer our days of prayer and suffering, hoping that the Trinity will raise up a modern Teresa of Avila from our midst.

In writing this letter, I am offering my personal opinions, not those of the members of my religious community.

—Mary Louise Wiley, RSM
Lake Placid, New York

Phenomenology of religious life

Congratulations to Father Benedict J. Groeschel, CFR, for his article on religious life.

If the author would not be too embarrassed by my (admittedly limping) analogy, reading his article was for me like reading the Sermon on the Mount. Instead of writing one of those standard “us against them” pieces one finds so often in our polarized world, Father Groeschel has written an essay in which, I imagine, every member of a religious order could recognize how he has fallen short. “All we like sheep have gone astray, and we have turned, everyone to his own way.”

But again like the Sermon on the Mount, the article was not one of those generic pieces that equally spreads guilt in all directions, so that no one has to feel responsible for the current state of the Church. Rather, he gave a phenomenology of the decadence of contemporary religious life in the United States, across the whole spectrum.

Perhaps it is precisely because the Sermon on the Mount is so difficult to live out that religious life can so easily congeal into an institutionalized lie, even in new foundations explicitly founded to counteract the liberal, easy-going ways of so many orders after Vatican II. I am thinking specifically of those associations of priests that are thriving in their vocations but offer their services to a local bishop only on condition that they get to pick the “plum parishes” for their assignment—a move that predictably infuriates the local secular clergy.

In one sense, these new orders and institutes have a point, as St. Ignatius Loyola always counseled his Jesuits to aim for the most influential in society (and most Jesuit parishes are located in the very center of cities). But such rapid “establishmentarianism” can easily lead to moribund entrenchment, including ideological entrenchment. Father Groeschel has offered an examination of conscience for all religious, and I hope they are all as grateful for the piece as I was.

—Edward T. Oakes, SJ
Denver, Colorado

Sounds of surrender

In your April editorial (“A One-Sided Conversation”) you make a great deal of the point that the word “apology” was not used during the actual service in which Pope John Paul II confessed to the “crimes” of past leaders in the Catholic Church. But does it really matter whether or not that word was used? If you march out onto the field of battle waving a white flag, do you really need to use the word “surrender”? Or more to the point, if you wave a red flag, you won’t have to tell him to charge!

My old teachers were trained in scholastic theology (should I apologize for that?), and taught me the importance of signs. A ceremony has a symbolic value that is as important as the actual words that are recited. What was the symbolism of the ceremony that the Pope led, and what did it signify to the world? Every single story that I read in the secular media used the word “apology.” That was the significance of the Vatican ceremony in the eyes of the world, even if “apology” was not one of the words the Pope used.

Am I wrong to suspect that the author or authors of your unsigned news story in the same April issue (“Apologies and Clarifications”) might hold some views different from those of the editor? That story said that “many loyal Catholics viewed the Pope’s plans with misgivings.” Count me among those loyal Catholics.

Everyone applauds Pope John Paul II because he faced down his Communist enemies in Poland. But in this case, I am afraid, he has demoralized his friends and encouraged his enemies. The political status of the Church is weaker as a result.

—Mark Clouthier
Portland, Maine

Maybe the key to a proper understanding of the Pope’s actions lies in the recognition that the “political status” of the Church is an irrelevancy. The secular media, which see all things through the prism of political analysis, cannot grasp the Pope’s desire to bring about a new, radical conversion of heart among the faithful. But the influence wielded by the Church flows from such conversions, rather than from appeals to public sentiments. It is certainly true that the secular media did not see the Day of Pardon ceremony as the Pope saw it. (On that score, I have no quarrel with our reporters.) Does that fact show a defect in the Pope’s understanding of the media, or in the media’s understanding of the Catholic faith?

— The Editor

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