Simony of a Different Sort

Simony is a term which refers to the sale of sacraments and church offices. The sin recieved it's name from Simon Magus, also known as the Father of All Heresies, a magician who converted to Christianity, but afterwards desired the gifts of the Spirit which the bishops possessed and attempted to buy the office.

A man named Simon used to practice magic in the city and astounded the people of Samaria, claiming to be someone great. All of them, from the least to the greatest, paid attention to him, saying, "This man is the 'Power of God' that is called 'Great.'" They paid attention to him because he had astounded them by his magic for a long time, but once they began to believe Philip as he preached the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, men and women alike were baptized. Even Simon himself believed and, after being baptized, became devoted to Philip; and when he saw the signs and mighty deeds that were occurring, he was astounded.

Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who went down and prayed for them, that they might receive the holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them and they received the holy Spirit.

When Simon saw that the Spirit was conferred by the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money and said, "Give me this power too, so that anyone upon whom I lay my hands may receive the holy Spirit." But Peter said to him, "May your money perish with you, because you thought that you could buy the gift of God with money. You have no share or lot in this matter, for your heart is not upright before God. Repent of this wickedness of yours and pray to the Lord that, if possible, your intention may be forgiven. For I see that you are filled with bitter gall and are in the bonds of iniquity." Simon said in reply, "Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may come upon me." Acts 8:8-25

That was then, this is now. Meet the new Simons.
From the Telegraph:

Roman Catholic schools are refusing to admit pupils who have been baptised late by parents anxious to get them into top-performing schools.

Parents are going through a "five-year epiphany" when their children reach school age, with a consequent dramatic increase in baptisms of older children.

Many schools are now refusing to accept such late baptisms. Some set the upper limit at 12 months, others within a few weeks of birth.

At St Joseph's RC primary in Maida Vale, London, said Peter Stanford, a governor, "if you have had your child baptised at two or three or four they won't get in."

At London Oratory, a grant-maintained Catholic school in Fulham where Tony Blair sent his two eldest children, the policy is only to admit children baptised no later than four months old.

Staff confirmed that it helped to weed out parents who were playing the system to gain admission. Last year the school had 700 children chasing 160 places. Its head teacher, David McFadden, said: "Our policy has never changed. There are a series of admission criteria, all of them based on canon law.

"The first criterion is based on Mass attendance. The next is to what extent the Catholic parents have met their obligations regarding the Church's sacramental practice, including baptism."

Another top Catholic school, Sacred Heart High, in Hammersmith, attended by Mr Blair's daughter Kathryn, specifies baptism within the "first few weeks of birth" to qualify for a place.

A 37-year-old hairdresser from Essex said she and her husband had converted to Catholicism two years ago to get their daughter into the local Catholic school.

"I did this purely for my children," said the woman, a mother of three who wished to remain anonymous. "I wasn't religious beforehand and I wasn't brought up in a religious family. I could count on one hand the number of times we'd been to church. But I felt very strongly that I wanted to give my children the best chance. That was my main priority."

The audacity of these parents to treat a sacrament as simply a means to a good education without any spiritual intentions is sickening. However, although I understand the point of view of the school administrators, I still think that to require that baptism occur within 4 months of birth is a bit excessive. I was not baptized until I was 6 months old. I know many church-going families who, rightly or wrongly, delayed baptism for numerous reasons.

My Thoughts on the Papal Mass Music

Now that I have had some time to organize my thoughts I will write this post which was hinted at previously.

At this time two years ago I was writing a paper for a liturgy class on multicultural influences in the Liturgy. The Mass Papal Mass at Nationals Park proved the point that I made in my paper. Incorporating multicultural aspects into the Liturgy is fine and can even be applauded when done with moderation.

Scripture tells is "For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendant, heirs according to the promise" (Gal 3:27-29). To parapharase in modern language: When we are at Mass we are neither Chinese, nor Mexican, nor Italian, nor Native American; for we are all one in the Christ Jesus. We are Catholics! That is one of the beauties of the Vatican being a sovereign nation. It is not subject or part of any nation.

As I watched the Mass I was struck by the classical beauty of the Mass of Creation. Ok, so that is an overstatement, but I think it makes my point. After listening to virtually every ethnic instrument known to man, I started to wonder where I was or what I was watching.

It was as though they were so concerned that every culture needed to be included that the Liturgy was forgotten. Catholic culture took a back seat as divisions rather than unity were shown.

When Placido Domingo sang Panis Angelicus, the look of joy and relief on the Holy Father's face was clearly visible. If the music was painful to listen to on TV, I can't imagine what it was like in person.

Needless to say, I am much more hopeful for the music at Sunday's Mass.

Invalid Baptisms

Made public today were the responses of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to two questions concerning the validity of Baptism conferred with certain non-standard formulae.

The first question is: "Is a Baptism valid if conferred with the words 'I baptise you in the name of the Creator, and of the Redeemer, and of the Sanctifier', or 'I baptise you in the name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer'"?

The second question is: "Must people baptised with those formulae be baptised 'in forma absoluta'?"

The responses are: "To the first question, negative; to the second question, affirmative".

Benedict XVI, during his recent audience with Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, approved these responses, which were adopted at the ordinary session of the congregation, and ordered their publication. The text of the responses bears the signatures of Cardinal Levada and of Archbishop Angelo Amato S.D.B., secretary of the dicastery.

An attached note explains that the responses "concern the validity of Baptism conferred with two English-language formulae within the ambit of the Catholic Church. ... Clearly, the question does not concern English but the formula itself, which could also be expressed in another language".

"Baptism conferred in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit", the note continues, "obeys Jesus' command as it appears at the end of the Gospel of St. Matthew. ... The baptismal formula must be an adequate expression of Trinitarian faith, approximate formulae are unacceptable.

"Variations to the baptismal formula - using non-biblical designations of the Divine Persons - as considered in this reply, arise from so-called feminist theology", being an attempt "to avoid using the words Father and Son which are held to be chauvinistic, substituting them with other names. Such variants, however, undermine faith in the Trinity".

"The response of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith constitutes an authentic doctrinal declaration, which has wide-ranging canonical and pastoral effects. Indeed, the reply implicitly affirms that people who have been baptised, or who will in the future be baptised, with the formulae in question have, in reality, not been baptised. Hence, they must them be treated for all canonical and pastoral purposes with the same juridical criteria as people whom the Code of Canon Law places in the general category of 'non- baptised'".

VIS

From the NPM Pastoral Liturgy Institute

I just spent a few minutes listening at the door of the NPM Pastoral Liturgy Institute. Because the doors of the room are oak, I don't know how many people are inside, or who was giving the talk, but what I heard was enough to convince me that my money is well saved.

The speaker was instructing the group on how to change the words of the Mass responses. He recommended that any changes be added to the end of the response in order to not cause confusion. In his words, "People are Pavlovian".

I heard a few of the recommended texts and none of them appear in any Sacramentary and as far as I know they are not among the changes recommended for the updated Roman Missal.

Just my update from behind the door.

Shocking Liturgical Music News

H/t to Gerald.

Brace yourself dear readers! What I am about to tell you will shock you to your core. Marty Haugen started working in Liturgy without knowing anything about Liturgy. I know this is shocking news, considering the level of Liturgical superiority in his music.

Here is his quote:

I took my first job as a way of keeping me from going to Africa in the Peace Corps. I had signed up but didn’t want to go because I was in love with the woman who was to become my wife. I thought perhaps I could take a job for a year until I could get married and find out what I really wanted to do. A chaplain suggested that I apply for a Catholic church job. I said I didn’t know anything about the Catholic liturgy, and he said, well, these days, nobody does—you’ll feel right at home. And he was right.

Not only that, but he never wanted to be a church musician. In fact, he considered giving up music.

I started Luther College (Decorah, Iowa) as a piano major but switched to psychology, thinking I would go to seminary. When my advisor asked why I was dropping music, I said the only options I saw were to be a teacher or a performer, and neither interested me. The third option was to be a church musician, and I surely didn’t want to do that. To me a church musician only directed the choir and played the hymns. That seemed so narrow, it didn’t seem like ministry, and I was interested in ministry.

It gets better.

The first Sunday I came to the Catholic church, we were instructed to sing the psalm—interactively! I was struck during that service by how badly the people sang and how poorly written the psalm setting was. It was awful. I thought to myself—I could write this badly!

And so, he apparently set out to do just that.

Learning to compose for the text—to make the music support the text—was a long process for me.

You mean as opposed to changing the text to fit the music?

You can read the rest for yourself right here.

Inflatable What?

H/T to the Ironic Catholic.
I thought this was a joke when I first heard about it, but it's for real.

Can you imagine this ad? (Note this is not a real ad for this product)

Is your local parish being unaccommodating? Are they preventing you from having the wedding of your dreams? Are you upst that they are requiring that you are follow church rules and Catholic doctrine? Just don't want to be bothered going to church?

Well, I have found the church for you. You can rent or buy the inflatable church where the theology and morality is as soft as the blown up vinyl non-structure. Even better, this church comes to you. You can worship in the comfort of your own backyard. Complete with plastic "stained glass" windows, airbrush artwork, inflatable organ, altar, pulpit, pews, candles and a gold cross. Even the doors are flanked by air-filled angels. The manufacturer claims this church can be built in 2 hours and dis-assembled in less than one.

After your magical non-religious wedding, you can have your reception at the inflatable pub.

Finally the church of me has found a home.

Who Writes This Stuff?

I have just wasted some time reading bulletin inserts on the Resource Publications website (Modern Liturgy).

While they were virtually all poorly written and some provided questionable information, there was one which stood out from the others I read. I didn't read them all.

It was on Concelebration. The article says that concelebrated Masses can bad because, "Too many priests in the sanctuary can also offset the gender balance of the worshiping assembly."

The article goes on to say, "Although women frequently outnumber men in the pews, men can easily outnumber women in the sanctuary."

If you are at Mass and you are figuring out the male-female ratio of worshippers, then you are in need of some spiritual growth.

Yes, we have a male priesthood. Get over it!

Now I have a public service announcement:
Bulletin inserts which attempt to subvert the authority of the Magisterium cause the faithful to become distracted and lead them away from the Truth with is found in the Church.

Defacing the Sacrament of Reconciliation

Imagine someone approaching a priest to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation and lying in the confessional. Then the fake penitent writes an "expose" article telling their experiences. Despite the disheartening results of the article, what the reporters did is a sacrilege. Sacraments are to never be recieved under false pretenses. To do so defaces the Sacrament and makes a mockery of it.

From the Guardian:

A yawning gulf between the stern doctrines preached by Pope Benedict and the advice offered by ordinary Roman Catholic priests has been exposed by an Italian magazine which dispatched reporters to 24 churches around Italy where, in the confessional, they sought rulings on various moral dilemmas.

One reporter for L'espresso claimed to have let a doctor switch off the respirator that kept her father alive. "Don't think any more about it," she was told by a friar in Naples. "I myself, if I had a father, a wife or a child who had lived for years only because of artificial means, would pull out [the plug]."

Another journalist posed as a researcher who had received a lucrative offer to work abroad on embryonic stem cells. With the extra cash, he said, he and his wife could think about starting a family. So should he take up the post?

"Yes. Yes. Of course," came the reply.

The church's official teaching is that homosexuality is "disordered" and that homosexual behaviour is wrong. Yet a practising gay man in Rome was told: "Generally, the best attitude is to be yourself - what in English is called 'coming out'."

On one issue alone - abortion - the priests all stuck firmly to official doctrine. A reporter who said his wife had discovered their child would be born with Down's Syndrome, and that they were preparing to terminate her pregnancy, was told: "I swear to God: if you do it, you'll be a murderer."

But on other issues, that "moral relativism" so detested by Pope Benedict was the order of the day.

A journalist who said he was HIV-positive and used condoms to protect his partner was told it was "more of a personal problem, one of conscience".

And from Catholic News Service:

The Vatican newspaper denounced an Italian journalist who posed as a penitent and confessed fake sins in order to write an expose on the sacrament of reconciliation.

"Fake confessions in search of a shameful scoop," the newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, headlined a commentary condemning the cover story of L'Espresso magazine, one of the country's leading weeklies.

"Shame! There is no other word to express our distress toward an operation that was disgusting, worthless, disrespectful and particularly offensive," the newspaper said.

The commentary said the article had exploited the good faith of confessors and offended the religious sentiments of millions of people.
"It was a sacrilege, because it violated the sacred space in which a self-recognized sinner asks intimately to receive God's merciful love," it said.

The reporter made his false confessions to 24 different priests in five Italian cities, including Rome. The magazine said the idea was to see how priests handle difficult pastoral situations and whether they followed the strict norms laid out by church teaching.

The reporter, for example, told two priests he was HIV-positive and wondered whether he should use a condom when having sexual relations with his girlfriend. One told him no, and the other said it was a question of conscience, the magazine reported.

More than once, the magazine said, priests gave quite different advice on his supposed "sins," which included matters relating to homosexuality, divorce, stem-cell research, euthanasia and prostitution.

One issue that found unanimous condemnation by confessors was abortion, the magazine said.

iPod Transmitters and Satelitte Radio

I broke down this weekend and purchased two items I have been wanting for quite some time. I got a FM transmitter for my iPod and a Sirius Satellite Radio.

Let me just say that both of them are awesome and I couldn't be happier.

Now for the down side...I am disappointed with some of the programming on the Catholic Channel on Sirius. While I did enjoy hearing Rocco and Amy this afternoon, I was very disappointed in Dave and Susan Konig's show. I have never heard their show before so this is all I have to go on. I turned the radio on this morning at 11:15 a.m. and was promptly welcomed by their telling of the Mass they "attended" yesterday.

Why is attended in quotes? Well, because while Susan attended, Dave thought it was appropriate to leave the church with their children, aged 7 and 10, to wander around the church grounds. His excuse? The church was crowded, no seats were available, and he wasn't going to get anything out of standing in the foyer.

It got more appalling when he mentioned that his children got more religion in the churchyard then they would have in the church.

What did he teach his children? What did he teach his listeners? The message is simple. Mass is not important. It is not important enough to stand in the foyer and listen to the Mass because it wouldn't be the ideal, prayerful environment.

Guess what? Going to Mass with children isn't the ideal prayerful environment either, but we still bring them. A few weeks ago, I was at a Mass and there was a child in front of me who was running wild in the pew and completely distracting me. I didn't get as much out of the Mass as I would have otherwise, but I didn't even consider leaving.

What happened to going to church to worship God. Why are we looking for what WE will get out of it. IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT US!!!! There are times when we sill be distracted, uncomfortable, inconvenienced. There will be times when the priest doesn't give good homilies or speaks with an accent. There are innumerable things that can cause us to get less out of a Mass than we normally would, but in the end why are we there. What is the essence of what we get out of Mass. It's the EUCHARIST! That is what we get out of Mass. We worship God and He gives us the Eucharist...His own Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. Seriously, what more can we ask for.

By leaving the church to wander the churchyard, he deprived himself and his children of the opportunity to worship before the presence of God in the Eucharist. He also deprived himself and at least one of his children the opportunity to receive Jesus in the Eucharist. In addition, he caused his children to miss their Sunday obligation to attend Mass.

The one redeeming part of the show was that Susan was not exactly approving of her husband's Sunday activity, but she didn't seem to have tried to prevent it.

Needless to say, I was appalled to hear this on a Catholic Radio station, much less one operated by the Archdiocese of New York. I will continue to listen and I fervently hope that this is a one time event and not standard for their program.

I will keep you updated.