Adventus.org in English Adventus.org en françaisPost for October 24, 2009
A few years ago I accepted, somewhat at the last minute, to teach an introduction to theology course at Concordia University. Years later, one of the happy consequences of that decision was the opportunity I had today to preside the wedding of one of my students, Jennifer, now married to Michael.
Congrats to the happy couple, my 42nd!
» Filed Under Marriage ministry | Leave a Comment
Post for October 22, 2009
Today was a special training session for our new pastors, who were joined also by some priests who are likely soon to be named pastors. One thing they don’t teach us in seminary is how to administer a parish, and in the past a priest learned it by being an associate pastor for ten or twenty years. Well, we don’t have that luxury any more, and priests are becoming pastors with sometimes less than 3 years of experience. Hence, today’s training session.
We first covered the basic ecclesiology of what it means to be the presider of a community. Then, after lunch I presented a French-language version of a paper I once wrote on the relationship between a parish and a fabrique. Finally, we had a general overview of the administration of a parish: what papers need to be filed, how to avoid problems with the various level of government, and so on. It was a full day, to be sure!
I’m not sure how much 1 day of training is worth for the mammoth task of pastoring what can sometimes be several parishes at once. All the same, it is certainly better than nothing, and from the reactions of those just starting out, it was much appreciated.
» Filed Under Archdiocese of Montreal | Leave a Comment
Post for October 20, 2009
Hey folks, I’ve been struggling with my computer ever since the VERY nasty virus it caught sometime in the last two weeks, but I just had to take some time to write about today’s important develop: the creation of a new canonical structure in the Roman Catholic Church to welcome Anglicans who wish to become Catholics but who also wish to retain an Anglican spirituality. I thought I’d offer my two cents.
While the media are treating this like a bolt out of the blue, in fact this is a response to a request made by the Traditional Anglican Communion in October 2007, i.e. two years ago! In short, they declared that they wanted to become Catholics, but that they also wanted to retain the classic Anglican approach to worship and prayer.
Frankly, I don’t see how the Pope could have refused this request. After all, we can’t very well refuse to accept people into full communion with the Church if they publicly profess the same faith.
Of course, the Pope could have said “Come on in, just leave your Anglican traditions at the door.” But what kind of a statement would that be regarding the value of traditional Anglican spirituality and worship? Contrary to what many believe, the Catholic Church is not a global monolith of one-size-fits-all spirituality, nor should it be. There are already many (albeit smaller) communities of Catholics operating under a special pastoral provision that preserves their spiritual heritage. The grand Tradition of the Church is not negotiable, but the specific traditions of time and place and culture are (within reasonable limits). To have refused to allow these believers to come into full communion with the Catholic Church on the basis of their specific traditions would have been both hypocritical (because we already welcome it) and unjust (because those traditions are not a barrier to faith and good morals).
So what are we left with? The Pope simply had to find a way to welcome these folks and at the same time preserve good order in the Roman Catholic Church, while also not destroying our ecumenical relationship with those Anglicans who choose to remain part of the Anglican Communion. Hence this new apostolic constitution, announced today. The Pope is going to allow the creation of “Personal Ordinariates”, a kind of special diocese for those Anglicans wishing to come into full communion with Rome while preserving their Anglican heritage.
The leeway given to the Ordinariates is actually quite large. For example, their priests and bishops can be reordained as Catholic priests, even if married. If unmarried, they can be reordained as bishops! They can establish seminaries for the training of future leaders. They can publish liturgical books consistent with their Anglican heritage. It is true that they are being asked to do these things in a way that is harmonious with existing Roman Catholic institutions (e.g. their seminarians should do some study alongside “regular” seminarians, their liturgical books will need to go through the same revision process that all others go through, etc.), but that strikes me as normal as part of being members of a larger Church family.
Of course, this comes at a time when the Anglican Communion is experiencing tremendous internal turmoil. It may look to some like this is a cynical attempt by the Roman Catholic Church to tempt disaffected Anglicans to “swim the Tiber”, but in fact it is not. Like I wrote earlier, this is primarily a response to the Traditional Anglican Communion (who apparently are quite happy about the whole thing), although I hear other parallel inquiries were also being made. This decision by the Pope, therefore, settles all these parallel cases in one fell swoop, this preserving that good order I mentioned before.
I commend Archbishop Rowan Williams for appearing at a joint press conference to announce this new pastoral approach being taken by Rome. I imagine that there are many faithful members of the Anglican Communion who will not be happy at this turn of events, but take heart. First of all, the Traditional Anglican Communion had left you folks a long time ago, so you aren’t really “losing” anybody. Next, you have an important Papal declaration of the genuine validity of the Anglican Christian heritage — this heritage is not merely being tolerated, it is being welcomed in a way that will allow it to flourish, and this within the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church.
English spirituality has always emphasized the importance of following one’s conscience; Anglicans themselves have a well-known tradition of inclusiveness (even if we can debate what the limits of that inclusiveness should be). The Pope’s decision, announced today, is about allowing people to live according to their conscience in a way that is inclusive of their spiritual heritage. In a sense, then, this Apostolic Constitution is actually a testament to the best of the English tradition.
» Filed Under Ecumenism | 3 Comments
Post for October 18, 2009
I’ve been having some major computer problems the past couple of weeks.
It started with a virus that installed a tiny FTP program that tried to install a rootkit. Nasty stuff, if it had succeeded I would have had my PC completely taken over by hackers.
To get rid of it completely, I had to wipe my hard drive using a rather drastic tool called Boot and Nuke. Then, a complete Windows XP reinstall, which took some time. Now I’m installing tools.
Unfortunately, I misconfigured one tool I installed and now my entire Hotmail inbox is gone. POOF! Yes, I am very annoyed. I’ll have to work from a backup file on my hard drive. If you’ve been waiting for an email response from me for something, I regret to inform you it may take some time…
» Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Post for October 14, 2009
A journalism student wants to do a class project on religion and blogging, and I am being interviewed for that purpose. However, she would also like to interview a couple of my blog readers (I guess to get the end-user point of view).
I’m posting this to ask for volunteers. Send me your name + contact info, and I’ll send a collated set to the student. She can then get in touch with you directly.
Many thanks!
» Filed Under Uncategorized | 3 Comments
Post for October 1, 2009
Today I had a meeting of a special ad hoc committee within the diocesan structure: the “comité employeur”, which was put in place a few months ago to respond to certain elements of the ambient legal climate in which the Church finds itself.
Simply put, the Church does not exist apart from the world. We are *in* the world, but at the same time, we are not supposed to be *of* the world. Part of the secret to maintaining this distinction is to make sure that we, as Church, are strong in our understanding of who we are and what we are about. Part of this strength comes from being consistent in how we apply that understanding, i.e. we need to act justly and without arbitrariness. If we don’t do this, then the world will define these things for us — and will feel quite free about doing so, I might add, because we either won’t be living up to our own standards, or worse, we won’t even have a consistent picture of what those standards are.
Now one significant area of law other there in “the world” is the question of employment law. The rights and responsibilities of employer and employee are quite developed in the various branches of law and government. We also, in the Church, have a concept of being “workers in the vineyard”, with concept of hierarchy and obedience giving a “buck stops here” kind of structure that is parallel to what we find in most secular corporations. That being said, the fit is not perfect. Most secular employers, for example, don’t really care to what religion an employee belongs, but obviously this is a mission-critical question within the Catholic Church for most positions, particularly those where a mandate from the bishop is required.
So this “comité employeur” is all about trying to find a way to best interface with the requirements of secular society while at the same time retaining the independence of the Church and her freedom to act according to her conscience. It isn’t easy. Our legal advisors, for example, don’t all understand the nature of ecclesiatical work, and a host of jurispridence seems to indicate that even the courts and tribunals are trying to feel their way through the same questions. One thing is clear: they don’t want to wind up having to define what Catholics believe, and it seems to me all those judges and mediators would welcome a clear presentation by the Church that takes into account the complex social framework we have in place. Nope, it isn’t easy, but it is kind of fun (I like puzzles), and it is part of the challenge of the job I presently have.
» Filed Under Archdiocese of Montreal | 1 Comment