Standing on My Head

Bloggers Meet

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:44:00 +0000

Kat who blogs here as The Crescat came over to Belmont Abbey this morning to see why my head is so bald. It is because I am always Standing on My Head of course. Kat's blog is a great mixture of Catholic bling, cheerful sarcasm, Eastern Orthodox eye candy, pics of her dreamland Malta, nun pictures, manlace and all sorts of goodies. I will be forever grateful to her for inspiring the Vicar and Caitlin O'Rourke--both of those alter egos sprang fully formed into my mind after I saw their pictures on Kat's blog.

We had a fun, but short meeting discussing blogs and blogging and wondering lots of things about fellow bloggers....How much money does Fr. Z make blogging? Is his blog really about Latin Mass, haute cuisine or birdseed? Is Patrick Madrid the blogger to beat? Why should American Papist get all the hits? Why are all the Catholic blogs written by conservative Catholics? Are we just sad people with ego problems who can't think of anything better to do? Don't answer that!

This Year's Boy Bishop

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:53:00 +0000

Again this year at St Joseph's Catholic School we celebrated St Nicholas Day by reviving the medieval custom of a Boy Bishop. The Middle School altar servers elected Tyler Yearwood as this year's bishop for a day. He processed into Mass with his canons--seventh graders Theo Longenecker and Patrick McClear.

Before Mass Bishop Yearwood lit the Advent candle, and after Mass he delivered a short homily about St Nicholas and the virtue of childhood. As they processed out Black Peter and Red Peter (the two masters of mischief for the day) followed the bishop--holding his cope. At lunch they handed out candy to all the students. Go here for the picture gallery.

Come to Belmont

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:24:00 +0000

I'll be at Belmont Abbey College tomorrow to speak at an Advent Retreat day along with Abbot Placid. The day starts at 8 with registration and coffee. Abbot Placid speaks at 9. I'll be talking about Praying the Advent (Joyful) Mysteries for Inner Healing at 10. There's Mass after that and then I'll be signing books at 12:00 in the bookshop.

Y'all come!

Former Episcopalian Bishop Ordained

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:03:00 +0000

John Lipscomb, formerly the Episcopalian bishop of Southwest Florida, was ordained priest this week in Florida. Here's an article from the local press. I met John a few weeks ago when priests ordained under the pastoral provision all met in Tampa on retreat. We connected because he too was brought up as an Evangelical. His father was a Baptist preacher. Both of us went through Anglicanism to the Catholic faith. John is married with two grown children. Congratulations John!

A New Missionary Martyr Spirit

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 01:09:00 +0000

My latest piece for the National Catholic Register is published online here. The article re-iterates what I've written here and elsewhere, that for the new Anglican Ordiariate to succeed the Anglicans will need to discover a new spirit of faith and adventure--a new missionary, matryr spirit.

They will need to step out in faith and respond bravely to Pope Benedict's generous offer.

Advent Doomsday and 2012

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:19:00 +0000

Have you ever noticed how humanity longs for an apocalypse? The typical doomsday merchant is the wild-eyed beardy weirdy on the street corner with his 'the end is nigh' sandwich board. He's the stuff of cartoons and comedians. He's the sort of loony who is only happy when he's unhappy.

But there are salesmen of the apocalypse everywhere if you only have eyes to see them. Last week I went with the boys to see the movie 2012. It was terrific. Apart from the sophomoric anti-Catholic bits, it was a disaster movie to end all disaster movies, and all of it built on some wonderfully kooky New Age idea that the world will end on December 21, 2012 because the ancient Mayan calendar runs out on that day.

As a child I attended a fundamentalist church, and we used to have regular visits from the evangelist Jack VanImpe. He specialized in foretelling the future with a heady mixture of Dispensationalist theories, Bible prophecies and yesterday's news clippings. We were told how there was a huge computer in Brussels called 'The Beast' which tracked everyone and how the European Community would merge with the Catholic Church to become the head of a New World Order. On top of that we were shown the equivalent of a Christian horror flick called, "Left Behind" in which the Lord Jesus returned and took all the true Christians to heaven in a flash and all the sinners were left behind. You better get saved quick or you'll be left behind. This was only one of a long series of Protestant prophets who predicted the end of the world in one way or another and at one time or another.

Then there are the secular doomsday prophets. The world was going to crash in the year 2000 when the computers would all go haywire and the system would collapse. At one time there was going to be a population explosion and we were all going to stand shoulder to shoulder and starve together. Now there is going to be a demographic winter in which there will not be enough children to continue our culture. There was going to be a new ice age and we were all going to freeze, now there is global warming and we're all going to roast and weep as we watch the polar bears drown.

The list could go on, and I expect if you knew more about history you'd find that in every age and in every culture people were expecting the end and predicting how it would come.

The gospel for the first Sunday of Advent is full of the same sort of scenario, so Jesus too was predicting the end. "There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken."

What is it in human nature that loves a doomsday? Why are we so full of fascination and fear about the end of the world?

Two reasons: First of all, because there will be an end of the world. This world is bound up in the matrix of time. There is an Alpha. There will be an Omega. Time began and time will end. One day it will all happen in a crash in a trumpet's clash. Deep down we know this and are always watching and waiting.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, we know for sure that one world will end, and that is our world. In other words, one day for each of us the lights will go out. We'll gasp our last and, if you like, our own sun, moon and stars will be shaken and the dark sea of death will roar and overwhelm us. It is our own end of the world that we fear, and knowing this, yet denying this we project our immanent end on the whole world.

Apocalypticism is a kind of sick obsession. It's a spiritual disease. It is personal fear projected to a cosmic level. What's the cure? Momento mori: Remember death.

If we constantly remember that we will die one day, and if we live each day as if is our last, and if we fear even more eternal death and the sin that will separate us forever from God, and if we strive to live each day in his life giving presence then we will be amazed at how we will have no fear.

Apocalyptic worries will dry up and we'll be able to say with a cheerful abandon--"The end of the world? Bring it on. I'm ready for it!"

St Francis Xavier

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:22:00 +0000

From a letter to St Ignatius from Francis Xavier...

Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians. Again and again I have thought of going round the universities of Europe, especially Paris, and everywhere crying out like a madman, riveting the attention of those with more learning than charity: “What a tragedy: how many souls are being shut out of heaven and falling into hell, thanks to you!”

I wish they would work as hard at this as they do at their books, and so settle their account with God for their learning and the talents entrusted to them.

This thought would certainly stir most of them to meditate on spiritual realities, to listen actively to what God is saying to them. They would forget their own desires, their human affairs, and give themselves over entirely to God’s will and his choice. They would cry out with all their heart: Lord, I am here! What do you want me to do? Send me anywhere you like – even to India.

What if we had just a small portion of the zeal of Francis Xavier? We would change the world!

The Risk of Education

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:16:00 +0000

Here is a re-published article of mine called The Risk of Education. It explores the proper resonse to teenager's questions about the faith and their quest for the truth.

Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen?

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:14:00 +0000

The world’s leaders are soon to meet in Copenhagen to work on a new agreement to reduce carbon emissions in order to stop the global warming. All of this while we’re learning that, in fact, the global temperature has actually been cooling for the last ten years, that advocates of the global warming theory have been suppressing evidence of the MWP—medieval warm period, and leading global warming scientists have been caught tampering with evidence, destroying statistics and bullying climate change skeptics.

What interests me about the global warming issue is the religious dimension. By this I am not thinking of ‘earth spirituality’ or even a proper Christian theology of stewardship. Instead I can’t help seeing that the crusade against global warming is, well, just that: a crusade. In other words, it is a religious battle, and if it is a religious battle, then it is a religion.

Does not the ‘green machine’ have all the hallmarks of a religious quest? First there is the unassailable dogma that all the devotees must believe. Global warming is happening. To doubt this ‘truth’ is to commit heresy. To be a ‘global warming denier’ is compared to being a ‘holocaust denier’. Heretics will be ostracized, persecuted and burned.

Necessary for all good religious cults, the dogma is preached under the cloud of a serious apocalyptic fervor. Lord Stern—the English ‘expert’ says Copenhagen is ‘the world’s last chance to avoid catastrophe’. The Prince of Wales has said the world only has ‘eighteen months’ to avoid disaster. If these men were holding cardboard signs on the street corner we’d give them a wide berth. Is the wild-eyed apocalyptic fervor of the AGW crowd any different from that of any other religious cult? Every apocalyptic madman has a well reasoned argument and what seems to him a watertight case.

This dogma is produced, proven and preached by the clergy of the AGW Crusade: the scientists. They are the lords of knowledge, like scholar monks, they devote their lives to arcane research, they are the ones who guard the secrets of the inner sanctum. They compile the evidence, distribute the word, organize the conferences and seminars. They interpret the word for others. They are the priests and the evangelists of the faith—making sure that more and more are converted and committed every day.

The hierarchy supports them. The men and women of power and prestige oversee the operation and ensure its respectability and success. Archbishop Al Gore, Cardinal Lord Stern of England, and at the top of the list the Defender of the Faith: none other than Charles, Prince of Wales.

I exaggerate to make my point, but what interests me most is that, just like any other religious sect or cult, the AGW religion is consistent and logical within its own basic assumptions. It fulfills the same needs that any religion does: as long as you stay within the orthodoxy, not only does the crusade make sense, but like any religion, it gives you a way to look at the whole world and make sense of everything. Furthermore, it gives you a mission and a purpose. It gives you a group of committed people to which you can belong. On a dark night when the fear kicks in, it gives you not only a focus for your fear, but someone to blame.

If this is a correct analysis; if the AGW crusade is a kind of religion, it is worth asking where it comes from. First, I think, in a secular society it has filled a void. I would love to know how many AGW crusaders are actually devotees of a conventional religion. There is no way to know this, but I suspect most of them are non-religious. I only make this guess because the words and worldview they present seems distinctly secular. If my hunch is correct then the poor souls have found solace in a religion they do not even know is a religion.

G.K.Chesterton said, “Every debate is a theological debate.” If the AGW crusade is a sort of religion, then what is its underlying theological premise? It’s the religion of the secular, humanist. The secularist rejects Christianity, but doesn’t necessarily espouse radical atheism. Most of them drift therefore into a vague sort of immanentism-- a sort of “God within” theology. “God is within each one of us!” they cry. Did not Jesus himself say, “The kingdom of God is within you?” This merges into a sentimental pantheism, “God is all around us. God is within nature” soon becomes, “God is nature.” There are some in the green movement for whom this theology has become explicit. For most it is an unconscious position held by people who have not only never had a theological thought in their lives but wouldn’t know that such a kind of thinking was even possible.

What is the proper Catholic response to the AGW Crusade? As usual, it is a response of common sense and a simple morality that springs from what we believe. God created our world and us. We should love the created world because it is a generous and abundant gift from God. The world is beautiful. We shouldn’t mess it up, and if we do, we should clean up our mess.

In the order of creation we are called to be faithful and careful stewards of the natural world. This means that while we may enjoy the world’s bounty, we’re not supposed to be wasteful. We should not be grossly materialistic. We should share with those who have less than we do. We shouldn’t steal their resources for our wealth. As good stewards we should save and plan for the future. We should not make material things into idols. We should live this way individually, corporately, politically and in the economic realm.

The Christian response is that we should love all things according to their intrinsic worth. We should love and treasure the creation, but we should love the creator more.

Anglican Vicar on Evil

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 02:15:00 +0000

George Pitcher is an Anglican priest who is also a journalist for London's Daily Telegraph. He seems to be a pretty typical liberal sort of Anglican. He writes here about a fellow vicar who is upset because he thinks there is devil worship going on in his parish.

There was certainly a witches coven in the town where I worked as an Anglican priest, and England has always had a reputation for a lot of occult activity. The witches were not a laughing matter. They took their worship seriously, and when you heard what they were up to it made you shudder. While not becoming hysterical or silly about it, at the same time I would take such stuff very seriously. In that town I had direct experience of a teenaged girl who became infested with an evil spirit after messing about with the witches.

However Rev George pooh poohs the whole thing and makes fun of such an outmoded idea as devils and demons. He waxes pseudo intellectual about 'dualism' and 'Miltonesque battles between Satan and God, supposing that if one believes in the devil and the battles against evil that one has to be dualist. He also ridicules the idea that the crucifixion was a victory over Satan. Never mind all that stuff in the New Testament... Instead of the devil, George tells us that, "Evil is the absence of the divine in humanity, made potent by the power of human imagination gone wrong."

Honestly, you couldn't make it up! It sounds just like that wonderful modernist bishop on the bus in C.S.Lewis' Great Divorce. "Really, my boy, one can't honestly conceive nowadays of a 'god' who is somehow 'up there' and a devil who is some sort of smiling fellow in red long johns with a pitchfork who is 'down here.' I mean to say, we now understand that all of this is really a projection of the conflict that goes on within all of our minds when we want something and realize we can't have it...."blah blah blah.

I think The Rev'd Humphrey Blytherington was at theological college with George Pitcher. They used to play croquet on the lawn and make googly eyes at the principal's daughter. George used to take Humph for a ride in his Morris minor estate out to a country pub where they'd have a half pint of lager shandy, eat a pickled egg and discuss the cricket scores and agree on how awfully brilliant Bultmann was.

Mark Shea Needs Your Help

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:54:00 +0000

I have yet to meet Mark in person, but it will happen eventually. But I have lots of admiration for him. He is as prolific and as jolly (so it seems) and maybe even bulky as Chesterton, and he's struggling to support a wife and family by writing. This is no mean task--especially as writing for the conservative Catholic market is errrmmm... well shall we say 'niche'?

He churns out his blog, does radio spots, is in a new Chesterton movie with our joint buddy Dale Ahlquist, he writes for NCR, Catholic Online etc etc. He seems to write five posts and articles for every one idea I ever have.

I do what I do with the security of a full time post in a Catholic school. Mark keeps plugging away producing books, going on the speaking trail. By the way--if anyone out there is jealous of those guys who are on the 'Catholic Speakers' Circuit' well don't be. It's darned hard work and very often for little return except to know that you're helping to spread the word and people seem to be helped by it.

Anyway, Mark does a quarterly tin cup rattle. If you can, hop over there and give him some loot or buy one of his books.

You might even sign up as one of his followers. The poor fellow is feeling low because I have one more than him....

Seriously, if you can help him out, do. I'm going to.

It's Odd about Todd

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:06:00 +0000

Everytime I sit down to compose a Todd Unctuous post I say to myself, "Now I really have to go over the top this time." Every time Todd appears at least one reader is fooled into thinking I've drafted a lefty journo on to my blog. So each time I make Todd even bigger, even stupider, even more contradictory and bigoted and hypocritical and I think, "Surely no one will be fooled this time!"

Still someone is taken in. Alas, if you are one of the poor people who were duped, I apologize. I'm not blaming you. What is remarkably frightening is that my satire--even when I think it is hugely overdone--must still be so close to the real MSM reporting because it still fools people.

And no one commented on the fake memoirs of former presidents. I thought Calvin Coolidge's Fewer Words Were Never Spoken was actually pretty good, (even if I do say so myself)

Can any readers offer us in the combox some of their own ideas for titles for fake presidential memoirs?

From St Gregory Nazianzen

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:44:00 +0000

The very Son of God, older than the ages, the invisible, the incomprehensible, the incorporeal, the beginning of beginning, the light of light, the fountain of life and immortality, the image of the archetype, the immovable seal, the perfect likeness, the definition and word of the Father: he it is who comes to his own image and takes our nature for the good of our nature, and unites himself to an intelligent soul for the good of my soul, to purify like by like.

Todd Unctuous on Sarah Palin

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:46:00 +0000

Guest blogger, MSM reporter Todd Unctuous opines on Sarah Palin

By now we are used to the technique of politicians who want to be elected to a high office writing a book about their life. If they have already become famous the book sells many copies and then the person becomes more famous. This technique has been around since the greatest American president, JFK wrote Profiles in Courage. It was also used by President Calvin Coolidge when he composed his memoirs, Fewer Words Were Never Spoken, and our present head of State President Barack Obama has also written books about his struggle to achieve greatness. Jimmy Carter, who was another fine president also wrote a book called, Plains Speaking, and his brother Southerner Bill Clinton is remembered for his memorable memoir, What Is the Meaning of Is?

Now this once noble form of communication is being dragged through the mud by the woman who quit her job as Alaska's governor just when the going got tough. Lured by a multi million dollar book deal, and an invitation to appear on the Oprah Winfrey show, Sarah Palin quit her job serving the people of Alaska to hit the book signing circuit. I wish I could compare her book to the moving and inspiring memoirs of President Barack Obama, who wrote Voyage Around My Father and I Did it My Way, but from what I have heard the whole book is about her. This self centered person has written all about her life because she thinks we care!

Let's just reveal for a moment the amazing inaccuracies in this volume. Sarah the Moosehunter says that when her family played the famous word game Scrabble that they were all busy hoarding 'Ks' and 'Qs' to string them together to make high scoring words. First of all this reveals the cut throat ambitious nature of the Palin brood, and if they would stoop so low to cheat at a family board game, why could we trust them in the highest office of the land? Furthermore, we know that there is only one 'K' and one 'Q' in the Scrabble game. Clearly Sarah (I can see Russia from my backyard) Palin knows about as much about Scrabble as she does international relations.

I dislike personal attacks and passing on snide jokes, but I can say that a friend of mine joked that the only 'international relations' Sarah Palin knows are her half breed family. This is the kind of joke no serious and professional journalist should write and I disapprove of this just as I do the constant reminders that Sarah Palin's daughter was thought to be the mother of her disabled 'son' and that the poor girl is now a single teenaged mother. These scurrilous facts should not influence what we think of Sarah Palin and it is not right for journalists to keep writing about them.

Finally, Sarah Palin stoops to a new low on her much vaunted 'Going Rogue' book tour. The promoters of the tour say she is travelling on a bus painted with the book cover on it. Now we learn that she is actually using an airplane to travel! This is just another example of the ease with which this woman bends the truth. Not to mention the many facts in her book which were not correct. She said that she once won a spelling bee when she was ten years old, and the fact checkers in the media have learned that she was actually nine and a half. The other facts she has got wrong are too numerous to mention. When will this country wake up and realize that this unqualified woman who claims to be a 'born again Christian' is not truthful?

To conclude, we have to conclude that Sarah Palin looks pretty good in a pair of running shorts, but do we really want a sexist person to be President? All forms of sexism are totally offensive and just because she makes middle aged men feel young again, is that any reason to vote for her? Instead of female fluff we need substance and seriousness in a politician. We need someone like Joe Biden who knows what he is talking about. What we need in a woman president is someone like Hilary Clinton who looks like a librarian and dresses in sensible pantsuits and realizes that politics is more than glamor.

Todd Unctuous is forty two. For more information on one of America's top political commentators go here.

Keep Going Pro Lifers...

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:43:00 +0000

...we're winning. Read excerpts from this article by a pro abort admitting that the tide is turning against them. Most encouraging is the news that the abortionists are getting old and the younger generation of Americans are the most pro life ever.

Chust for Nice

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:25:00 +0000

From NLM, a shot of the altar of the Church of St Andrew in Cologne. In addition to the tomb of Albert the Great, they have the arm of the saint here--the most significant relic of Andrew north of the Alps. I suspect that is the reliquary up and behind the altar, and notice that the altar is prepared for an ad orientem celebration of Mass.

Legal Cohabitation or Sacrament?

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:09:00 +0000

The fact that the Anglican 39 Articles of Religion deny that ordination is a sacrament affects the whole debate about women's ordination and the validity of their orders. While there are Anglicans who interpret the Articles of Religion in a 'catholic' way, I think the plain reading is that they are a Protestant document intended to repudiate certain elements of the Catholic faith. That they have done so in the popular Anglican mind, and in the minds of many Anglican priests and theologians, cannot be disputed.

I discussed the effect of denying the sacrament of ordination in an earlier post, and it seems that this same problem undermines the Anglican understanding of marriage, and reveals the deep fissure between Anglicanism and Catholicism on this most troubled subject.

The thinking goes like this: If marriage is not a sacrament, then what is it? Anglicans are unsure. Some would say it is a sacrament. Others would follow the Articles of Religion and deny that it is a sacrament, but say that it is a 'sacramental rite' which is graced. Still others would deny that it has a sacramental element at all and that it is simply a state of life allowed by and blessed by God through his church.

If marriage is a sacrament, however, then it effects what it signifies. St Paul says that marriage is a mystery; that marriage is like the relationship between Christ and his Church, and this is one of the supports Catholics have for saying that marriage is a sacrament. In and through the physicality of marriage God's grace is active. The individuals sharing in the marriage are changed through the marriage. They have a new relationship with one another and a new relationship with Christ. As Scripture says, they are no longer two, but have become 'one flesh'. As in the other sacraments, something has changed. A new reality exists, and if a sacramental marriage exists it is, by its very nature, unchangeable. What God has joined together man cannot divide. Not just 'should not' divide or 'may not' divide, but 'cannot divide'.

However, if Anglicans (and other non Catholic Christians) do not believe marriage to be a sacrament--if there is no real and essential change-- then this indissolubility cannot be assumed. The lifelong nature of marriage then becomes an ideal, but it is possible for a marriage to end and another one to begin because it was never anything more than a blessed contract. If it wasn't a sacrament, then nothing really happened at a mystical and ontological level, and there is no sacred bond to be broken. This is why so many non-Catholic denominations have quietly let drop any objections to remarriage after divorce. Pastoral reasons dictate a 'forgiving' policy. Without a sacramental theology of marriage this is obviously the best (and arguably the only) way.

If however, the marriage is sacramental, as the Catholic Church teaches, then something real and mystically permanent has happened, and to break that bond is not only to break a marriage, but to break a sacrament....and this is why Catholics teach that divorce is so terrible--not only because of the tragic effects in the breakdown of the family, but because a sacrament of grace has been trampled just as certainly as if you had marched into Mass seized the ciborium and chalice and desecrated the host and the precious blood.

The sacramental theology of marriage also has an impact on the very nature of marriage and the marriage act. For a sacrament to be valid we must have proper form and proper matter. The proper matter is a man and woman who intend to contract a sacramental marriage and are free to do so. Consequently, it cannot be a valid sacramental marriage if an impediment exists which means the man and woman are not free to marry. It is obvious also, therefore, that it is simply impossible for two people of the same gender to marry. It might be nice and make people feel 'affirmed' but it isn't a marriage and never will be just as a 'Eucharist' using Coca-cola and potato chips isn't a Eucharist.

Finally, this same sacramental theology of marriage influences that most controversial teaching of the church: her teaching on artificial contraception. If the marriage act is sacramental, and the matter of the sacrament must, by its nature, be open to life, then artificial contraception is also a smear on the sacrament. If the sexual act is a sacrament then all forms of fornication, adultery, pornography, etc. etc. etc. are sins not only against purity and chastity, but blasphemies against the most holy sacrament of marriage.

I realize that this topic is far more complex than can be treated in a blog post, but there are important underlying theological points here to consider, and when we think about the implications of marriage being downgraded from a sacrament to a 'sacred rite' we might re-visit the old debate on whether the 'Reformation' was actually a Revolution. The final result culturally and historically on this monumental theological revolution is seen all around us in the divorce culture and the age of sexual revolution. Of course these are abominations which the Reformers themselves would have abhorred, and which good non Catholic Christians still abhor.

Nevertheless, the end result of downgrading marriage from its sacramental status is a kind of sexual stripping of the altars--a reductionism that has brought our culture where it is today.

St Andrew

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:25:00 +0000

iPhone luxury

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:17:00 +0000

Is an iPhone a luxury or a necessity? I have to admit mine is somewhat of a luxury. Here's an article about it. It is encrusted in diamonds and costs $1.92 million. I picked it up at the Mall after my latest appeal for donations on the blog.

My other iPhone went through the wash last week and I won't say who did it because I don't want to embarrass Mrs. Longenecker. I felt bad about having to splash out for a new one, but at least it was just my everyday iPhone and not the $1.92 million dollar one. Now that would have been annoying...

Seriously...is this not obscene in a world of starving children?

Sacrament or Ministry?

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:41:00 +0000

Reflecting on Jeffrey Steel's post here, I began to realize some of the deeper disagreements with Anglicans over women's ordination. It comes down to the fact that Anglicans do not necessarily understand ordination to be a sacrament. Whether there are seven sacraments or two is one of the areas that Anglicans are happy to leave unresolved. If you are an Anglo Catholic you accept all seven. If you are Evangelical you only accept two (Baptism and Eucharist) and even then your understanding of them is not what Catholics understand as a sacrament.

As a result the typical Anglican understanding of ordination has (as Jeffrey reminds us) more to do with the function of the priest. Anglicans discuss ordination in terms of ministry and 'call.' This is a Protestant understanding based in the individual's subjective experience of a 'call' and a utilitarian understanding of their suitability for service. The ordination service is the formal recognition of that call and a kind of 'blessing for service'. For most Anglicans there is also an awareness of the Apostolic ministry and being joined with a priesthood that is bigger and wider than their own individual call but this usually remains vague or undefined.

Now, there is nothing wrong with these levels of understanding about ordination as far as they go, except (and this comes as no surprise for Anglicans do not universally believe that ordination is a sacrament) that there is no talk of the sacrament of ordination. This website which claims to outline Anglican beliefs speaks of other 'sacramental rites', and this is it's definition of ordination: Ordination is the rite in which God gives authority and the grace of the Holy Spirit to those being made bishops, priests, and deacons, through prayer and the laying on of hands by bishops.

They speak here of a 'sacramental rite' and refer to ordination as a 'rite' because Article 25 of the 39 Articles of Religion allows for only 2 sacraments, and specifically repudiates the other five. Any formal statement of Anglican belief can still not contradict the Articles of Religion. Furthermore, this language of 'sacramental rite' is used as a fudge so that both the Anglo Catholics and Evangelicals can sign up. ACs will emphasize the 'sacrament' part. Evos will deny that it is a sacrament.

But Catholics do not speak merely of a 'rite' but of a sacrament, consequently we believe much more is going on in ordination than merely recognizing a person's call for service and going through a ceremony that recognizes his qualifications and gives him the authority to call himself 'Reverend', wear clerical dress and start leading worship and ministering. In fact there is much more going on than also having the paperwork to show that the ordaining bishop is 'valid'.

The Catholic Church teaches that ordination is a sacrament, and that the symbolic levels of understanding are activated and made real. The sacrament 'effects what it signifies', and what it signifies is that the man is being configured to Christ in a new and radical way. Through the sacrament of ordination there is an ontological difference in the man ordained. He does not simply represent Christ as a symbol at the altar. He is actually given a new character which is configured to Christ's priesthood in a new way. Whether women can be so configured to Christ is what is of concern for Catholics--not whether particular individuals have been called to service or whether they would be good at the job.

Some will argue that this ontological change, this new configuration to Christ is possible for a woman, but the teaching of the authority of the church has said this is not a possibility. This is not because the Catholic Church is misogynistic, but because it does not have the authority to change the matter of a sacrament--even for what seem good reasons.

It is not a baptism unless water is used. It is not a Eucharist unless wine and bread are used. Likewise it is not an ordination unless a man is used. One could argue that in a culture where bread and wine are unknown and the staples are, say, manioc root and coconut beer that it would make better sense to use manioc root and coconut beer for the Eucharist. This might be pastorally sound, but it would not be a Eucharist. Likewise, there may be very good societal reasons for ordaining women, but the Catholic Church can't do it even if it feels good.

The underlying reason is something that I believe many Anglicans and Catholics have overlooked, that Catholics regard ordination as a sacrament and Anglicans do not. At best they may hold such an idea as a pious opinion if one is catholic minded.

In the end, this is also the foundational problem in the continuing discussion of the validity of Anglican orders. The Catholic position is that Anglican orders are not valid despite the fact that they have cross fertilized their episcopal strain from the Old Catholic succession. The underlying reason that they continue to be invalid is because the Anglican Church does not intend to do what the Church does in ordination. The Catholic Church celebrates a sacrament when a man is ordained. How can the Anglican Church intend to do that when it still formally denies that ordination is a sacrament?

Therefore, when Dr Williams asks "is this really such an important matter?" Catholics have to come back and say, "I'm afraid so. Because it points out that we haven't really agreed on what ordination means in the first place."

Jeffrey Steel writes further on this issue here.

Homily Advent 1

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:43:00 +0000

Homily for Advent 1...in which we discuss the movie 2012, the end of the world, supernaturalism, atheists, wolves in sheep's clothing and why I became a Catholic.

Jeffrey Steel on Catholic Priesthood

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:46:00 +0000

Jeffrey Steel has a excellent analysis of the Archbishop of Canterbury's understanding of priesthood. The essential conflict is between an understanding of priesthood as a function and the Catholic understanding of priesthood as having fundamentally a symbolic and therefore sacramental identity.

If the priesthood is simply a job, then of course (it is argued) that women can do the job just as well as men, but if there is a symbolic and sacramental dimension which is fundamental--if the identity of the priest (and therefore his gender) is somehow all tied up with the greater mysteries of creation, fall, incarnation and redemption, then there is more to it than just 'can the person do the job.'

You can read Jeffrey's essay here.

The Manhattan Declaration

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:34:00 +0000

Read Catholic Online's report on the Manhattan Declaration--a firm statement signed by our nation's religious leaders that Christians will not submit in the coming culture wars.

The Manhattan Declaration states that: “the lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies; that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions”.

It goes on to say:let it be known that we will not be intimidated into silence or acquiescence or the violation of our consciences by any power on earth, be it cultural or political, regardless of the consequences to ourselves. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.

The Daily Telegraph's Gerald Warner comments here. To read the whole declaration, see which Catholic, Evangelical and Eastern Orthodox religious leaders signed it and to sign it yourself go here.

The Daily Telegraph

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 21:24:00 +0000

The reason the London's Daily Telegraph is the world's best paper is that along with the best and most objective coverage of the news, they also have a good number of great Catholic columnists and they actually give fair coverage to the Catholic faith.

But in addition to this they have a great 'weird news' section. How can you dislike a paper that reports that a Swedish woman was murdered by a drunk elk, has a story on a tiny but amazingly colorful 'peacock spider' from Australia, and that students have put Santa hats on the four corner spires of Kings' College, Cambridge;

They also have a great archive of strange and funny signs that readers send them from around the world. Here's their section on religious signs, from which the above sample is taken.

Angel Time

Fr Dwight Longenecker (Fr Dwight Longenecker) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:15:00 +0000

I got to know Anne Rice through a long email interview with her for the St Austin Review. She was very friendly, and spoke at length about her return to the Catholic faith of her childhood. I first began to read her Christ the Lord series of books, and after our correspondence she kindly sent me Called out of Darkness --her memoir and 'reversion' story.

Now she has sent me he latest novel, Angel Time. It's an enjoyable read. The main character, Toby O'Dare is a solitary person--a lost soul, hardened by suffering who has fallen into a profitable profession--he's an assassin. When a guardian seraphim enters his life he is given the chance to time travel and redeem himself by saving the lives of others. I won't give away the plot, but the story is written in Anne's usual sensual, yet crystal clear style of writing. Once again she has researched the time periods she works with and moves effortlessly from modern day America to England in the Middle Ages.

Here's a fantasy novel by one of the best Christian writers on the scene today. Like Dean Koontz (also a Catholic) Anne Rice writes marketable fiction with strong spiritual themes and a powerful sense of the supernatural pulse running beneath the observable world. Catholic commentators sometimes speak of the dearth of Catholic culture today, but along with Koontz and Rice, Pat Conroy is another contemporary Catholic writer doing good stuff in the mainstream.

My only problem with Angel Time is that with the jump in time there really seem to be two stories here. I was just getting interested in Toby O'Dare's downtime life in decadent and amoral modern America when I was thrown into another time and place. Once I got used to the jump I enjoyed the story. I was moved by Toby O'Dare's growth towards redemption, and would recommend Angel Time highly.