Don't call it a comeback

In a Cincinnati basement this weekend, five old friends will gather to make noise. Let's hope it goes more like this (or, more realistically, this) than that.

Issues with Issue 3

The Ohio Catholic Conference is urging the faithful to vote no on next month's Casino gambling ballot initiative. In Dan Horn's story for the Cincinnati Enquirer, he addresses the concern parish festival organizers have raised about the potential impact of the initiative on parish festivals. Here's a snippet:

But several others, including Ohio's governor and attorney general, have said a strict reading of the proposed amendment suggests charitable gambling could be at risk. Many say approval of Issue 3 will, at the very least, open the door to a court challenge over whether churches still can legally allow gambling.

"I don't know what a court would find, but I think it's a problem," said Rep. Lou Blessing Jr., a Colerain Township Republican who opposes Issue 3. "If a court would rule that the only place you can have casino gambling is those four locations, the revenue to those church festivals would be dramatically affected."

That's because gambling revenue can account for as much as 20 percent of revenue at church festivals, which parishes throughout the region rely on to help support their programs and schools.

An Enquirer analysis in July found that Catholic parish festivals generate $12 million in revenue every summer in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. That total does not include Las Vegas and Monte Carlo nights that many parishes also count on to raise money.

Even the threat of losing those games and the revenue they generate is stoking fear in some parishes.

"We take in $20,000 at our church alone in gambling," said Mike Bavaro, who has helped run the festival at Anderson Township's Immaculate Heart of Mary for the past 20 years. "There's a lot at stake here."

He said he has closely followed the debate over the impact of Issue 3 and has talked to Luken and other casino supporters about his concerns.

"I'd like to believe him when he says there will be no impact," Bavaro said. "But there is no way to know that."

Three for the East

In response to the series of letters by folks hemming and hawing about the restoration in the Tulsa cathedral of ad orientem, the liturgical posture in which the priest faces God and the altar with the people, the editors of the Catholic Telegraph publish three counterpoints. The first includes a scathing indictment of the Telegraph's editorial policies (which has a particular poignancy this week), and the third is by our very own Gail F:

Letters about the Bishop of Tulsa’s decision to revive the practice of celebrating parts of the mass facing east reveal much more about the letter-writers than they do about this ancient practice.

First, while it is true that Jesus did not celebrate the Last Supper facing east, it is also true that He didn’t celebrate it by standing at the center of a table with the apostles sitting in rows facing Him. To say that the currently common posture for celebrating mass is more Biblical is just silly. At the Last Supper, Jesus would have been at the head of the table, and all of the people eating would have been reclining (not sitting) along one end, while servants brought them food from the other side. If anyone wants to celebrate Mass this way, I have yet to hear it.

Second, many people seem to be under the impression that people celebrated the mass in private homes during apostolic times because they preferred the “symbolism” of a private meal. They celebrated them in homes because they were not welcome in the synagogues, and then they were persecuted and risked death if anyone knew what they were doing. As soon as persecution ended, people built giant churches so that they could celebrate mass the way they wanted to and the way they evidently thought was asked of them by Christ. While various practices and rites developed, it quickly became the norm in the Roman rite for the priest to lead the people in facing east.

And finally, there is the strange idea that people should “see each other’s faces” while celebrating Eucharist. Unless we stand in a huge circle, this is not going to happen in any church at any mass. Again, the assembly faces forward. They don’t see anyone else’s face but those standing at the altar. Many people argue that, rather than permitting a better understanding of Christ’s presence in the priest and in the assembly, it makes the priest into an actor whose “performance” becomes paramount.

I cannot see why some priests celebrating ad orientam at some masses is a threat to anyone. But that seems to be the subtext of many letters, if not the actual wording. Liturgical changes in the past 40 years have been exciting for many and painful for others. It seems to me that a little variation in permitted liturgical postures should be welcomed by all. Or do “diversity” and “inculturation” go only one way?

Saucy rumba

Here's one for your "Are you 'frickin kidding me!?" file.

The front page of the print edition of this week's Catholic Telegraph, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati:

The accompanying story is online.

Photoshoot

You almost wonder whether there's a Catholic photographer's handbook.

Rule 36: When assigned to a Mass for students, be sure to wait until they hold hands during the Our Father to snap your picture.

From the Catholic Courier of Rochester's otherwise interesting coverage of a Catholic students Mass celebrated by Bishop Matthew Clark:

Saints and the CRS

That font of constructive criticism, the online letters section of the Cincinnati Enquirer, includes a submission from a man complaining that the "Catholic Religious System" (CRS?) cannot "name anybody a saint." He's presumably miffed by the canonization of five new saints, including St. Damien of Molokai, over the weekend. Master catechist Fr. John Hardon, S.J., of sainted memory, wrote an illuminating defense of the Church's authority in this area by borrowing from the writings of St. Robert Bellarmine:

With two of his religious brethren being raised to the honors of the altar recently, if Robert Bellarmine were alive today he would very likely have re-edited his classic treatise on the canonization of the saints. [1] The errors against which it was originally directed are just as alive today as they were in the sixteenth century—only now our separated brethren ignore the saints instead of attacking them. In any case, Bellarmine’s apologia of sanctity deserves to be better known. It forms a substantial part of his two-million-word “Controversies against the Reformers” which Pius XI declared to be the main reason, after his personal holiness, why Bellarmine was made a Doctor of the Universal Church.

St. Robert was not a polemicist by nature, but by force of circumstances. How could any red-blooded Tuscan remain silent when apostates like Martin Luther were openly charging that “The only persons beings canonized are Popish saints, not Christian ones. The foundations made in their honor serve only to fatten lazy gluttons”? The story is told how on May 31, 1523, the Venerable Bishop Benno of Meissen was canonized by his fellow-countryman, the German Adrian VI. Luther was incensed in the extreme at the thought of the special celebration to be held the following year in honor of the new saint. He accordingly published his diatribe, “Against the new idol and olden devil about to be set up at Meissen.” He vindicates his use of the term “devil” in the title on the very first page: “Now that by the grace of God, the Gospel has again arisen and shines brightly, Satan incarnate is avenging himself by means of such foolery and is causing himself to be worshipped with great pomp under the name of Benno.” [2]

Bellarmine went to the heart of the Protestant opposition to canonized saints. It would be no use defending the Church’s right to say that certain persons were in heaven if there was no heaven for them to enter. He quotes Calvin as saying that, “It is stupid to inquire where the souls of the just now live and whether they are in glory or not. Sacred Scripture explicitly teaches us that they must all wait until the second coming of Christ before entering into their glory. [3] Bellarmine counters with a score of arguments, like the following excerpt from the Collect for the Mass of Gregory the Great: “O God, Who hast given to the soul of Thy servant Gregory the rewards of eternal beatitude”; and the prayer of St. Paul when he exclaimed, “I wish to be dissolved and be with Christ.” To which Bellarmine adds that if the souls of the saved are detained in some other place than heaven, Paul’s desire would have been a Utopian dream since Christ is assuredly in heaven.

Having disposed of the heretical denial that the souls of the blessed are even now in heaven, St. Robert proceeds to defend the Church’s custom of canonizing her heroic dead. “There is more than one problem we have to deal with here. Is there any reason why the saints should be canonized at all? If so, who has the power and the right to canonize them? And is his judgment infallible when he pronounces on their sanctity? [4] ...

Key themes

In the latest Catholic Update from St. Anthony Messenger Press, Fr. Ken Overberg, S.J., describes the key themes from Pope Benedict's encyclical Caritas in Veritate. Other than some forced comparisons to the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin's "consistent ethic of life" and an imprecise definition of subsidiarity, it's actually not bad. See for yourself. What's more, their new Update on the Creed is by Scott Hahn! What was it Cardinal Newman said about walking to heaven backwards, i.e., settling on the right thing only after trying all the wrong ones?

All in all, a good sports weekend

My girls won their soccer games
My boys won their football games
The Cardiac Cats did it again
The Red Sox were eliminated from the playoffs

A moment of peace

I don't know whether it's a good thing or a bad thing that a newspaper's best writer is on its sports page, but that's what Paul Daugherty is -- the best:

“Guys would say otherwise,’’ Crocker said, “(but) that was our main focus, to win this for him.’’

You have to figure he likes this. You have to think it brings Mike Zimmer some peace. His extended family, the players nobody wanted, wanted him on this day. They rallied around him, protected him from hurt for three hours. They honored Vikki with their play. Vikki Zimmer was the unit’s unofficial den mother, frequently baking them cookies.

“You know how Vikki felt about all of you,’’ Marvin Lewis had told his players Friday. Now, Mike knows how his players felt about her.

He got the game ball. Partly because of him, the term “Bengalized’’ is taking on a radically different meaning. The old definition had more dirt shoveled on it Sunday.

As Crocker put it, “We’re finally getting that coin flip, you know?’’

There will be pain ahead for Mike Zimmer, private moments after the games stop and the lights go out in the coaches’ offices for another year. No one envies him that. But tragedy is not empty of grace. When we hurt, our families hurt with us. We’re not alone.

“We’re going to put our arms around him and give him all the love we can,’’ Marvin Lewis said. The players already did that. For three hours on Sunday afternoon.

Serendipitous mercy

Earlier this evening, we read from Charles and Mary Lamb's treatment of the Merchant of Venice in their classic Tales from Shakespeare. The disguised Portia's beautiful testament to mercy was the highlight:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath; it is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
The earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy...

It was just quoted on tonight's episode of Inspector Lewis on Masterpiece Mystery!, as a troupe of Oxford actors performed the play. Odd that.

Reclaiming lectionary-based catechesis

Many Catholics who have spent time in RCIA or a parish faith-formation have come to dread the concept of lectionary-based catechesis. All too often, this form of instruction takes the form of faith-sharing stories or highly subjective interpretations of the readings. However, as the Latin saying goes, abusus non tolit usum -- “abuse does not take away use." Tomorrow morning at 7:35 am on the Son Rise Morning Show, we'll discuss the benefits of structured lectionary-based catechesis and highlight some useful resources to that end. Feel free to suggest aids you've found helpful in the comment box.

Here are the resources I intend to mention:

St. Charles Borromeo parish's online Bible studies – nontechnical, but grounded in solid scholarship

Dr. Scott Hahn's “Homily Helps” at Salvationhistory.com

CatholicCulture.org's new and improved site

Jeffrey Pinyan's “The Cross Reference,” a search engine that lets you find where Scriptural passages are cited in the Catechism of the Catholic Church

The Navarre Bible at the Daily Word Google group

Fr. Kris Stubna's Opening the Scriptures: A Guide to the Catechism for use with the Sunday Readings