Pope: End divisions over old Latin Mass

The Associated Press

Sunday, September 14, 2008

LOURDES, France: Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday warned of the danger of a growing split among Catholics over the use of the old, traditional form of Latin Mass.

He told French bishops that faithful should be made to feel at home in their Church, whether they yearn for a return of the ancient tongue or want to stick to modern languages at religious ceremonies.

The controversy is a particularly sensitive one for the Church in France, where there is a strong following for the late French churchman Marcel Lefebvre, a renegade archbishop who rebelled against Vatican modernizing reforms of the 1960s, including replacing Latin with local languages at Mass.

Last year, Benedict issued a document giving parish priests the option of allowing Mass to be celebrated in Latin with decades-old rituals known as the Tridentine Rite if that choice is sought by a "stable group" of parishioners. Previously, only bishops had that discretion.

French bishops had expressed concern that move could be seen as a rolling back of the liberalizing spirit that was unleashed through the Church with the Second Vatican Council.

Benedict expressed concern over the split between pro-Latin and pro-vernacular Catholics as he met with bishops from throughout France during his pilgrimage to Lourdes. He expressed hope that "the necessary pacification of spirits is already taking place."

"I am aware of your difficulties," Benedict told the bishops, "but I do not doubt that, within a reasonable time, you can find solutions satisfactory for all, lest the seamless tunic of Christ be further torn."

The pope was referring to the unity of the Church cherished by pontiffs.

"Everybody has a place in the Church," Benedict said. "Every person, without exception, should be able to feel at home, and never rejected."

Benedict told his bishops: "God, who loves all men and women and wishes none to be lost, entrusts us with this mission by appointing us shepherds of his sheep."

The pope exhorted the French churchmen, ranging from the cardinal of Paris to bishops of rural dioceses, to be "servants of unity."

Benedict "doesn't want dissent to crystalize into an insurmountable schism," Paris Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, who heads the French Bishops' Conference, later told a news conference.

Benedict's 2007 document on the use of Latin was widely seen as an attempt to reach out to an ultra-traditionalist and schismatic group, the Society of St. Pius X, and bring it back into the Vatican's fold.

Lefebvre founded the society in 1969 in Switzerland in opposition to Vatican II reforms. The churchman was excommunicated after he consecrated bishops without Rome's consent.

Benedict has been keen to reconcile with the group, which demanded freer use of the old Mass, also known as the Tridentine rite Mass, as a precondition for normalizing relations.

Some cardinals and bishops, particularly in France, where Lefebvre's group is strong, have publicly voiced worry that faithful might interpret the papal directive on Latin as a rejection of Vatican II teachings.

While flying to Paris on Friday at the start of his first trip as pontiff to France, Benedict told reporters that fears of undoing the reforms were "unfounded." The document, Benedict said, represents an "act of tolerance" for those used to the old liturgy.

Besides use of Latin, the Tridentine rite called for the priest to face the altar instead of the people, among other differences with the Mass widely celebrated after the Vatican reforms.

Respect for Unborn Human Life: The Church’s Constant Teaching

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law” (No. 2271).

In response to those who say this teaching has changed or is of recent origin, here are the facts:

• From earliest times, Christians sharply distinguished themselves from surrounding pagan cultures by rejecting abortion and infanticide. The earliest widely used documents of Christian teaching and practice after the New Testament in the 1st and 2nd centuries, the Didache (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) and Letter of Barnabas, condemned both practices, as did early regional and particular Church councils.
  
  
• To be sure, knowledge of human embryology was very limited until recent times. Many Christian thinkers accepted the biological theories of their time, based on the writings of Aristotle (4th century BC) and other philosophers. Aristotle assumed a process was needed over time to turn the matter from a woman’s womb into a being that could receive a specifically human form or soul. The active formative power for this process was thought to come entirely from the man – the existence of the human ovum (egg), like so much of basic biology, was unknown.
  
  
• However, such mistaken biological theories never changed the Church’s common conviction that abortion is gravely wrong at every stage. At the very least, early abortion was seen as attacking a being with a human destiny, being prepared by God to receive an immortal soul (cf. Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you”).
  
  
• In the 5th century AD this rejection of abortion at every stage was affirmed by the great bishop-theologian St. Augustine. He knew of theories about the human soul not being present until some weeks into pregnancy. Because he used the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, he also thought the ancient Israelites had imposed a more severe penalty for accidentally causing a miscarriage if the fetus was “fully formed” (Exodus 21: 22-23), language not found in any known Hebrew version of this passage. But he also held that human knowledge of biology was very limited, and he wisely warned against misusing such theories to risk committing homicide. He added that God has the power to make up all human deficiencies or lack of development in the Resurrection, so we cannot assume that the earliest aborted children will be excluded from enjoying eternal life with God.
  
  
• In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas made extensive use of Aristotle’s thought, including his theory that the rational human soul is not present in the first few weeks of pregnancy. But he also rejected abortion as gravely wrong at every stage, observing that it is a sin “against nature” to reject God’s gift of a new life.
  
  
• During these centuries, theories derived from Aristotle and others influenced the grading of penalties for abortion in Church law. Some canonical penalties were more severe for a direct abortion after the stage when the human soul was thought to be present. However, abortion at all stages continued to be seen as a grave moral evil.
  
  
• From the 13th to 19th centuries, some theologians speculated about rare and difficult cases where they thought an abortion before “formation” or “ensoulment” might be morally justified. But these theories were discussed and then always rejected, as the Church refined and reaffirmed its understanding of abortion as an intrinsically evil act that can never be morally right.
  
  
• In 1827, with the discovery of the human ovum, the mistaken biology of Aristotle was discredited. Scientists increasingly understood that the union of sperm and egg at conception produces a new living being that is distinct from both mother and father. Modern genetics demonstrated that this individual is, at the outset, distinctively human, with the inherent and active potential to mature into a human fetus, infant, child and adult. From 1869 onward the obsolete distinction between the “ensouled” and “unensouled” fetus was permanently removed from canon law on abortion.
  
  
• Secular laws against abortion were being reformed at the same time and in the same way, based on secular medical experts’ realization that “no other doctrine appears to be consonant with reason or physiology but that which admits the embryo to possess vitality from the very moment of conception” (American Medical Association, Report on Criminal Abortion, 1871).
  
  
• Thus modern science has not changed the Church’s constant teaching against abortion, but has underscored how important and reasonable it is, by confirming that the life of each individual of the human species begins with the earliest embryo.
  
  
• Given the scientific fact that a human life begins at conception, the only moral norm needed to understand the Church’s opposition to abortion is the principle that each and every human life has inherent dignity, and thus must be treated with the respect due to a human person. This is the foundation for the Church’s social doctrine, including its teachings on war, the use of capital punishment, euthanasia, health care, poverty and immigration. Conversely, to claim that some live human beings do not deserve respect or should not be treated as “persons” (based on changeable factors such as age, condition, location, or lack of mental or physical abilities) is to deny the very idea of inherent human rights. Such a claim undermines respect for the lives of many vulnerable people before and after birth.

For more information: Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Procured Abortion (1974), nos. 6-7; John R. Connery, S.J., Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective (1977); Germain Grisez, Abortion: The Myths, the Realities, and the Arguments (1970), Chapter IV; U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, On Embryonic Stem Cell Research (2008); Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (1995), nos. 61-2.

Stem Cell News We Can't Afford to Miss

Like going directly from one cell type to another, no stem cells needed.
September 2, 2008

10:00 AM EST

Buried under news of Phelps's eight gold medals, Russia's renewal of the Cold War, Sarah Palin's charming debut, and Gustav's perilous approach to New Orleans, there was actually some very important stem cell news at the end of August.

Let's start with news related to cell reprogramming or "induced pluripotent stem" (iPS) cells. I last wrote about iPS cells in December of last year ("The Beginning of the End of the Stem Cell Wars?"). Breakthroughs reported last November in human cell reprogramming in papers published by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, and by James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin, Madison offered proof of principle that we now have an ethically and scientifically viable alternative to human "therapeutic" cloning (SCNT).

Yamanaka and Thomson, in independent studies, took ordinary human cells (like a skin cell off the tip of your nose) and "reprogrammed" them to become pluripotent cells, cells that could then be coaxed into becoming any other type of cell in the human body. In January, the scientific community was further stunned when Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch of MIT's Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research reported using the iPS procedure to treat sickle cell anemia in laboratory mice - proof of principle that the iPS procedure, though not ready for direct applications in human patients, might already be used to study and treat animal models of human diseases.

The 'holy grail' of stem cell science continues to be a technique that would allow scientists to create stem cells genetically matched to a sick patient, and then grow and develop these cells into tissues for use in tissue replacement therapies (everything from regenerating damaged heart tissue to treating Parkinson's or spinal-cord injuries). A perfect genetic match, these tissues would not be rejected by the donor's immune system. The advent of cell reprogramming would now appear to allow scientists to do just that, and to have stolen the prize from the human cloning enterprise - a technique that would conceivably afford the same benefit. We have to recognize, however, that while the 'holy grail' is certainly within reach of the reprogramming scientists, it is not yet in hand.

It continues to be the case that the science of reprogramming still requires substantial refinement before human tissues developed from iPS cells might be used safely in human subjects. Multiple scientific studies show that all pluripotent cells, including human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), form tumors (teratomas) and can convert to cancer cells. Westchester Institute Senior Fellows Maureen Condic and Markus Grompe have pointed out that the risk of tumor formation may, at this time, be higher in iPSCs than in hESCs because genes inserted for reprogramming remain within in the reprogrammed cells.

The preferable way to reprogram - yet to be accomplished - will be one which eliminates the need to insert genes at all. Ideally, the reprogramming would be achieved by simply soaking the to-be-reprogrammed cells in a cocktail of chemicals which would then jump start the reprogramming process in the cell nuclei.

Fortunately, stem cell scientists are hard at it right now trying to do just that. Papers published in May and early August indicate that they have already identified chemicals that at least facilitate the current iPS techniques. Dr. Condic, for her part, has also published a paper in which she offers a very complete analysis and comparison of the regulatory issues that will confront iPS-cell derived, human embryonic derived, and cloning derived tissues if and when their corresponding therapeutic applications ever go mainstream.

The most startling news, however, is that scientists might not need stem cells - whether from embryos, from adult tissues or via iPS - at all to develop human tissues for therapies. Scientists appear to be on the cusp of a remarkable new frontier: the ability to cut out the biological middle-man (the pluripotent stem cell) and go directly from one specific type of adult cell (like a skin cell), transforming it - directly - into another specific and therapeutically useful type of adult cell (like an insulin-producing beta cell). This new technique, if successful, will allow them to "trans-differentiate" specific cell types directly to other specific cell types without even having to make the cells first pass through a pluripotent state: no embryonic stem cells necessary, and for that matter, no iPS cells necessary either.

Experts are already calling it biological alchemy. As reported in The Washington Post last Thursday, Harvard's Dr. Doug Melton and team, working with laboratory mice, were able to transform a mouse's specialized pancreatic cells (that normally secrete digestive enzymes) into insulin-producing beta cells - with enormous and potentially life-saving consequences for millions of diabetics. We can expect to be hearing more about trans-differentiation in the coming months as other teams of scientists report in on similar assays. Melton and team, meanwhile, will be pursuing this research with human cells, hot on the trail of an eventual clinical trial. I currently see no ethical problems with this procedure.

The beauty of it, as with the advent of iPS cells, is that it completely avoids the need to harvest usable cells from human embryos. Once again, the proof appears to be in the proverbial pudding: the best stem cell science is the science that finds creative ways around ethical minefields.

***

Rev. Thomas V. Berg, L.C. is Executive Director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person.

Egan: Pelosi Positions "Utterly Incredible"

Egan: Pelosi Positions "Utterly Incredible"

Earlier today, the pile of episcopal statements taking on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's recent comments on the "history and nature" of the church's teaching on abortion was added to with one from the archbishop of New York, Cardinal Edward Egan:

Like many other citizens of this nation, I was shocked to learn that the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America would make the kind of statements that were made to Mr. Tom Brokaw of NBC-TV on Sunday, August 24, 2008. What the Speaker had to say about theologians and their positions regarding abortion was not only misinformed; it was also, and especially, utterly incredible in this day and age.

We are blessed in the 21st century with crystal-clear photographs and action films of the living realities within their pregnant mothers. No one with the slightest measure of integrity or honor could fail to know what these marvelous beings manifestly, clearly, and obviously are, as they smile and wave into the world outside the womb. In simplest terms, they are human beings with an inalienable right to live, a right that the Speaker of the House of Representatives is bound to defend at all costs for the most basic of ethical reasons. They are not parts of their mothers, and what they are depends not at all upon the opinions of theologians of any faith. Anyone who dares to defend that they may be legitimately killed because another human being “chooses” to do so or for any other equally ridiculous reason should not be providing leadership in a civilized democracy worthy of the name.

For the record, the statement from 1011 is the fifth from a top US prelate within the last 24 hours. On a related note, ostensibly reflecting the delicacy of the church-state dance in a presidential campaign's home stretch, recent buzz has foreseen the 76 year-old cardinal's succession most likely being delayed until after the November elections.

Of course, the Gotham archbishop hosts the annual Al Smith Dinner each mid-October to benefit New York's Catholic Charities. While no announcement has yet come on who's sitting atop the dais, both presidential candidates appeared and spoke at the Waldorf-Astoria soiree in 1960 and 2000, but not in 2004.

And from the Democratic speaker's home diocese, Whispers has learned that Archbishop George Niederauer will publish a "lengthy commentary" on Pelosi's comments in a column for the next edition of the archdiocesan weekly, Catholic San Francisco. A bit of patience is advised, however: due to the paper's fortnightly summer schedule, it won't hit the streets 'til September 5th.

Prayerful Elvis - well sort of

Immigration

By RAY HENRY, Associated Press WriterThu Aug 21, 10:30 AM ET

Rhode Island's Roman Catholic bishop is calling on U.S. authorities to halt mass immigration raids and says agents who refuse to participate in such raids on moral grounds deserve to be treated as conscientious objectors.

Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin asked for a blanket moratorium on immigration raids in Rhode Island until the nation adopts comprehensive immigration reform. Tobin made the requests in a letter sent Tuesday to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Boston.

The letter was released Thursday to The Associated Press.

Tobin's action comes during a heated debate over illegal immigration in heavily Catholic Rhode Island. Authorities recently raided six courthouses looking for illegal immigrant maintenance workers and Gov. Don Carcieri, himself a Catholic, signed an order requiring state police and prison officials to identify illegal immigrants for possible deportation.

"We believe that raids on the immigrant community are unjust, unnecessary, and counterproductive," the bishop's letter says. It urges individual federal agents to consider the morality of their actions and refuse to participate if their conscience dictates.

In such cases, he said, "we urge the Federal Government to fully respect the well-founded principles of conscientious objection."

ICE spokeswoman Paula Grenier said the agency would not comment on Tobin's requests. She did not know if any ICE agents have asked to be excused from participating in raids on moral grounds.

"As an agency, ICE is responsible for enforcing the immigration and customs laws enacted by Congress," she said. "That's our job. We're fulfilling that mandate."

Roman Catholic and other religious leaders have repeatedly criticized immigration raids that target migrant workers, rather than illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

Tobin's request is unusual because it suggests the raids are forcing immigration agents to choose between their jobs and their religious faith.

Tobin is bishop of the Diocese of Providence, which covers the entire state. Some 60 percent of Rhode Island residents call themselves Roman Catholic, a higher percentage than any other state.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has called U.S. immigration policies "morally unacceptable," saying they keep families divided and encourage the exploitation of migrants.

___

"Yahweh"

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Rome: Ixnay on the "Yahweh"

Last Friday, the US bishops received their second summer communique from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, this one dated 29 June.

Bottom line: the Tetragrammaton -- the Hebrew notation for the name of God -- is now forbidden to be "used or pronounced" in worship.

From CNS:
Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli of Paterson, N.J., chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Divine Worship, announced the new Vatican "directives on the use of 'the name of God' in the sacred liturgy" in an Aug. 8 letter to his fellow bishops.

He said the directives would not "force any changes to official liturgical texts" or to the bishops' current missal translation project but would likely have "some impact on the use of particular pieces of liturgical music in our country as well as in the composition of variable texts such as the general intercessions for the celebration of the Mass and the other sacraments."

John Limb, publisher of OCP in Portland, Ore., said the most popular hymn in the OCP repertoire that would be affected was Dan Schutte's "You Are Near," which begins, "Yahweh, I know you are near."

He estimated that only "a handful" of other OCP hymns use the word "Yahweh," although a search of the OCP Web site turned up about a dozen examples of songs that included the word.

OCP is a nonprofit publisher of liturgical music and worship resources.

Limb said the company would be contacting composers to "ask them to try to come up with alternate language" for their hymns. But he said hymnals for 2009 had already been printed, so the affected hymns would not include the new wording for at least another year.

Even when the new hymnals are out, "it may take time for people to get used to singing something different," he added in an Aug. 11 telephone interview with Catholic News Service.

At Chicago-based GIA Publications, another major Catholic publisher of hymnals, no major revisions will be necessary, because of the company's longtime editorial policy against use of the word "Yahweh."...

Bishop Serratelli said the Vatican decision also would provide "an opportunity to offer catechesis for the faithful as an encouragement to show reverence for the name of God in daily life, emphasizing the power of language as an act of devotion and worship."

His letter to bishops came with a two-page letter from the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, dated June 29 and addressed to episcopal conferences around the world.

"By directive of the Holy Father, in accord with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, this congregation ... deems it convenient to communicate to the bishops' conferences ... as regards the translation and the pronunciation, in a liturgical setting, of the divine name signified in the sacred Tetragrammaton," said the letter signed by Cardinal Francis Arinze and Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, congregation prefect and secretary, respectively.

The Tetragrammaton is YHWH, the four consonants of the ancient Hebrew name for God.

"As an expression of the infinite greatness and majesty of God, it was held to be unpronounceable and hence was replaced during the reading of sacred Scripture by means of the use of an alternate name: 'Adonai,' which means 'Lord,'" the Vatican letter said. Similarly, Greek translations of the Bible used the word "Kyrios" and Latin scholars translated it to "Dominus"; both also mean Lord.

"Avoiding pronouncing the Tetragrammaton of the name of God on the part of the church has therefore its own grounds," the letter said. "Apart from a motive of a purely philological order, there is also that of remaining faithful to the church's tradition, from the beginning, that the sacred Tetragrammaton was never pronounced in the Christian context nor translated into any of the languages into which the Bible was translated."

The two Vatican officials noted that "Liturgiam Authenticam," the congregation's 2001 document on liturgical translations, stated that "the name of almighty God expressed by the Hebrew Tetragrammaton and rendered in Latin by the word 'Dominus,' is to be rendered into any given vernacular by a word equivalent in meaning.