Latin in the Litugry -- Hooray!!! with Quibbles

Kenny, who maintains the Sleepless Eye blogspot has linked to one of his articles titled, Latin: Reclaiming Our Heritage. These facts alone show why Latin should gain greater prominence in the life and liturgy of the Church. Kenny, as you may know from a previous blog, is from Singapore and a convert from the genteel paganism of the East. That he could write an article about Latin and title it "Reclaiming Our Heritage" speaks volumes, for as Kenny himself points out:

In 1922, Pope Pius XI said about Latin, "For the Church, precisely because it embraces all nations and is destined to endure until the end of time... of its very nature requires a language which is universal, immutable, and non-vernacular." His successor, Pope Pius XII wrote, "The use of the Latin language prevailing in a great part of the Church affords at once an imposing sign of unity and an effective safeguard against the corruption of true doctrine."

Indeed. Can anyone imagine a Chinese or African Catholic urging his countrymen and fellow believers to burnish their English, French, or Italian in order to "reclaim their heritage"? However much those languages may be part of a Chinese or African's history, they are not part of his or her patrimony, the sacred river of witness flowing through the ages, washing and connecting all men to one another. Those languages can't form that living connection, unless they transcend the vernacular and acquire a hallowed status which exists above nationality -- in other words, unless they become what Latin already is.

Latin, used properly, is a visible sign of Catholic unity that cannot be matched. Oddly enough, it is a sign badly needed as the world (and particularly the United States) becomes (once again) the home for immigrants and refugees who do not share a common language or -- unlike prior periods of immigration to my country -- a common and universal experience of the West's cultural heritage. Because my bishop -- like other bishops in my country -- has made it known that any priest who dares to use Latin (including celebration of the Novus Ordo in Latin) will be dealt with harshly, my parish has Spanish-language masses at which only Hispanics gather for worship; English-speaking masses at which only Anglos worship; and a host of vigils, benedictions, and rosaries conducted in "Spanglish", a haphazard polyglot of English and Spanish that switches between familiar and foreign tongues so frequently that we end up, contrary to the hopes and intentions of those involved, reduced to timid muttering or outright silence. This is not the "active participation" or "inculturation" which Sacrosanctum Concilium envisioned. Kenny's essay reminds us of this fact, and it's all the more significant because he is a true Catholic who is not a child of the West. If Latin can reach across the Pacific to excite us to realize a common unity, it can surely reach across the "ethnic time zones" in Dubuque, Houston, or Portland.

Another interesting aspect of Kenny's essay is his comparison between the Second Vatican Council's affection for Latin:

The Second Vatican Council itself affirmed: "The use of Latin, with due respect to particular law, is to be preserved in the Latin Rites. Nevertheless care must be taken to ensure that the faithful may also be able to say or sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them."

Compared with what the Church actually received, although it is here I start disagreeing with Kenny a little bit (for reasons I'll explain later):

While Vatican II affirmed the use of Latin, it also permitted the use of the vernacular. The parts pertaining to the people, such as the scripture readings, or where they were invited to participate, such as hymns, should be in the vernacular. The parts that belonged to the priest, like the Eucharistic Canon for example, would then have remained in Latin. Subsequent implementations did not make Latin obligatory. It is possible that Vatican II's position was one of compromise, and those who implemented the decision were on the side of "no Latin".

Although I tend to agree with Kenny that this was the liturgy the Council envisioned, I'm starting to get a little uncomfortable at this point, because "those who implemented the decision" included the Pope.

Two things are worth noting here, at least initially. First, the Council of Trent made it clear that the use of Latin or the vernacular in the liturgy was a matter to be judged, ultimately, in terms of pastoral expediency:

And whereas such is the nature of man, that, without external helps, he cannot easily be raised to the meditation of divine things; therefore has holy Mother Church instituted certain rites, to wit that certain things be pronounced in the mass in a low, and others in a louder, tone. She has likewise employed ceremonies, such as mystic benedictions, lights, incense, vestments, and many other things of this kind, derived from an apostolical discipline and tradition, whereby both the majesty of so great a sacrifice might be recommended, and the minds of the faithful be excited, by those visible signs of religion and piety, to the contemplation of those most sublime things which are hidden in this sacrifice.

-- Council of Trent, Session XXII, Chapter V, "On the Solemn Ceremonies of the Sacrifice of the Mass."

* * *

Although the mass contains great instruction for the faithful people, nevertheless, it has not seemed expedient to the Fathers, that it should be every where celebrated in the vulgar tongue. Wherefore, the ancient usage of each church, and the rite approved of by the holy Roman Church, the mother and mistress of all churches, being in each place retained; and, that the sheep of Christ may not suffer hunger, nor the little ones ask for bread, and there be none to break it unto them, the holy Synod charges pastors, and all who have the cure of souls, that they frequently, during the celebration of mass, expound either by themselves, or others, some portion of those things which are read at mass, and that, amongst the rest, they explain some mystery of this most holy sacrifice, especially on the Lord's days and festivals.

-- Council of Trent, Session XXII, Chapter VIII, "On Not Celebrating the Mass Every Where in the Vulgar Tongue; the Mysteries of the Mass to be Explained to the People."

I think these Chapters make it clear that liturgical language is dictated by the prevailing need for those "external helps" which can more easily raise men "to the meditation of divine things," and are selected on the basis of the Church's judgment about what "seem[s] expedient" to that end.

Second, the Council of Trent also taught that the Church has authority to make, re-make, change, and otherwise make regulations regarding the use of vernacular or Latin in the liturgy, again on the grounds of pastoral expeciency addressed by the previous selections from the Council:

[T]his power has ever been in the Church, that, in the dispensation of the sacraments, their substance being untouched, it may ordain, or change, what things soever it may judge most expedient, for the profit of those who receive, or for the veneration of the said sacraments, according to the difference of circumstances, times, and places. And this the Apostle seems not obscurely to have intimated, when he says; Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God. And indeed it is sufficiently manifest that he himself exercised this power, as in many other things, so in regard of this very sacrament; when, after having ordained certain things touching the use thereof, he says; The rest I will set in order when I come. Wherefore, holy Mother Church, knowing this her authority in the administration of the sacraments, although the use of both species has, from the beginning of the Christian religion, not been unfrequent, yet, in progress of time, that custom having been already very widely changed, she, induced by weighty and just reasons, has approved of this custom of communicating under one species, and decreed that it was to be held as a law; which it is not lawful to reprobate, or to change at plea sure, without the authority of the Church itself.

Council of Trent, Session XXI, Chapter II, "Decree on Communion under Both Species, and the Communion of Infants."

This is not the place or time to address so-called Traditionalist arguments that the vernacular Novus Ordo is invalid because it does not, in observance of Trent's description, leave the "substance" of the liturgy "untouched"; that's not Kenny's opinion and I have no reason to digress about it here. Suffice it to say that the Church has a plenary right and authority to change the liturgy on the grounds of prudence and expedience; and this right exists and must be respected whether or not the change is itself actually prudent or expedient. After all, if the Church's authority to regulate the worship of Catholics on the grounds of prudence and expedience were subject to individual Catholics' judgments about how well the regulation served the ends of prudence or expediency, the Church's authority would be no authority at all. It would merely be the power of suggestion, a power even less forceful than the fabled "Power of Cheese."

Lastly, I note that the plenitude of this power resides in the Church, and in her visible head, the Roman Pontiff:

Therefore, relying on the clear testimonies of Sacred Scripture, and adhering to the eloquent and manifest decisions not only of Our predecessors, the Roman Pontiffs, but also of the general Councils, We renew the definition of the Ecumenical Councils of Florence, by which all the faithful of Christ most believe ‘that the Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold primacy over the whole world, and that the Pontiff of Rome himself is the successor of the blessed Peter, the chief of the apostles, and is the true vicar of Christ and head of the whole Church and faith, and teacher of all Christians; and that to him was handed down in blessed Peter, by our Lord Jesus Christ, full power to feed, rule, and guide the universal Church, just as is also contained in the records of the ecumenical Councils and in the sacred canons.'"

Furthermore We teach and declare that the Roman Church, by the disposition of the Lord, holds the sovereignty of ordinary power over all others, and that this power of jurisdiction on the part of the Roman Pontiff, which is truly episcopal, is immediate; and with respect to this the pastors and the faithful of whatever right and dignity, both as separate individuals and all together, are bound by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, not only in with respect to this the pastors and the faithful of whatever right and dignity, both as separate individuals and all together, are bound by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, not only in things which pertain to faith and morals, but also in those which pertain to discipline and government of the Church spread over the whole world, so that the Church of Christ, protected not only by the Roman Pontiff, but by the unity of the communion as well as of the profession of the same faith is one flock under the one highest shepherd.

-- First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ, Chapter III.

We are accustomed to thinking of Vatican I as "the Council that taught papal infallibility." A reference to the Council's decrees might at first glance seem ill-placed in our discussion, which does not involve infallibility or matters of faith and morals. But papal infallibility is not the whole of the Council's teaching. The Council also taught the age-old truth that the Holy Father has immediate, ordinary, episcopal authority over"not only in things which pertain to faith and morals, but also in those which pertain to discipline and government of the Church spread over the whole world." If "those who implemented the decision were on the side of ‘no Latin'," and if they included the Pope, then the Novus Ordo should not in any way be regarded as a invalid ‘subversion' of the Council. Imprudent, or inexpedient, perhaps, but pains should be taken to explain that there is nothing about the Novus Ordo which is "wrong" in some fundamental sense -- either liturgical, sacramental, or juridical.

Kenny goes on to say that:

It is undeniable that with the promulgation of the Novus Ordo — the New Rite of the Mass — many abuses have crept into sacred liturgy. The beautiful and moving Gregorian Chant and sacred hymns has been replaced by too many "warm huggy fuzzy" songs since the 1970s or so. Songs like "Let Us Break Bread Together On Our Knees" have become more popular than majestic solid hymns like "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence". The transcendence of the Sacrifice of the Mass is mostly lost. In most parishes the most solemn and holy re-enactment of the Last Supper—and of the Sacrifice at Calvary—has become like a sing-along session. Many things that are unique to the Roman Rite, such as Gregorian Chant, have been forgotten or deliberately done away with, due to perhaps over-reactionary or erratic interpretations of the documents of Vatican II by folks who don't deserve, as much as they lay claim to, the name "liturgists". Latin, the very liturgical language of the Roman Rite, is one of the treasures of our twenty hundred years-old rich culture and heritage that has been lost.

Since I myself was just recently a teeny bit vitriolic on the subject of hymns, I daren't disagree with Kenny on what the experience of Mass has become for many Catholics. But both of us ought to remember that we're not talking about the sacrament, but about what the Council of Trent rightly called "external helps" for "the meditation of divine things," which have value to the extent that the "minds of the faithful" are "excited, by those visible signs of religion and piety, to the contemplation of those most sublime things which are hidden in this sacrifice." I can heartily endorse Kenny's opinion that a hymn titled "Let Us Break Bread Together On Our Knees" isn't conducive to that awareness -- I don't see how whacking our legs with loaves of bread is going to help us contemplate the Mysterium Fidei. But the Council of Trent's words stress an important fact -- that very mystery is "hidden" in the Mass and will always be hidden, yet mystically unveiled, until He comes in glory. The external helps by which we might more easily raise our minds to contemplate the transcendence of the Mass may well be lost in the static and liturgical malapropisms inflicted on us by a well-meaning legion of pseudo-specialists who confuse the passing enthusiasms of fashion with the enduring conversion of the soul. But the transcendence of the Mass itself is not lost. It remains, and even the most saccharine and banal presentation of the mystery can be the occasion of a great blessing: "Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." John 20:29 (KJV).

That having been said, I turn to Kenny's closing lament and question:

It is most unfortunate and shameful that we have to admit we are slowly deteriorating into a state where we have almost lost our identity as Roman Catholics. If, as described by Pope Pius XI . . . we have abandoned the very "universal, immutable, and non-vernacular" Latin language of our Rite that enabled the Church to "embrace all nations" and "last until the end of time", how can we say that we are "Roman", and "Catholic" (universal)?

Ahh, Kenny, no -- our identity does not rest on the fact of Latin. Latin is an external help, a visible excitement to contemplate a unity which endures through any vicissitude. That unity is founded on Jesus Christ:

By means of the Eucharistic Sacrifice Christ our Lord willed to give to the faithful a striking manifestation of our union among ourselves and with our divine Head, wonderful as it is and beyond all praise. For in this Sacrifice the sacred minister acts as the vicegerent not only of our Savior but of the whole Mystical Body and of each one of the faithful. In this act of Sacrifice through the hands of the priest, by whose word alone the Immaculate Lamb is present on the altar, the faithful themselves, united with him in prayer and desire, offer to the Eternal Father a most acceptable victim of praise and propitiation for the needs of the whole Church. And as the Divine Redeemer, when dying on the Cross, offered Himself to the Eternal Father as Head of the whole human race, so "in this clean oblation" He offers to the heavenly Father not only Himself as Head of the Church, but in Himself His mystical members also, since He holds them all, even those who are weak and ailing, in His most loving Heart.

-- Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, ¶ 82 (1943).

We are Catholic because He is, and we are Roman because He founded His Church on the Bishop of Rome:

[T]he person of Jesus Christ is represented by the Supreme Pontiff, who in turn must call on others to share much of his solicitude lest he be overwhelmed by the burden of his pastoral office, and must be helped daily by the prayers of the Church. Moreover as our Savior does not rule the Church directly in a visible manner, He wills to be helped by the members of His Body in carrying out the work of redemption. This is not because He is indigent and weak, but rather because He has so willed it for the greater glory of His spotless Spouse. Dying on the Cross He left to His Church the immense treasury of the Redemption, towards which she contributed nothing. But when those graces come to be distributed, not only does He share this work of sanctification with His Church, but He wills that in some way it be due to her action. This is a deep mystery, and an inexhaustible subject of meditation, that the salvation of many depends on the prayers and voluntary penances which the members of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ offer for this intention and on the cooperation of pastors of souls and of the faithful, especially of fathers and mothers of families, a cooperation which they must offer to our Divine Savior as though they were His associates.

-- Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, ¶ 44 (1943).

Wherever Christians united with the Pope pray or worship, work or rest, glory or grieve, in Christ Jesus, there is the Roman Catholic Church. In his Letter to the Romans, St. Ignatius saluted:

the Church which has obtained mercy, through the majesty of the Most High God the Father, and of Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son; the Church which is sanctified and enlightened by the will of God, who formed all things that are according to the faith and love of Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour; the Church which presides in the place of the region of the Romans, and which is worthy of God, worthy of honour, worthy of the highest happiness, worthy of praise, worthy of credit, worthy of being deemed holy, and which presides over love, is named from Christ, and from the Father, and is possessed of the Spirit . . .

The "Church which presides in the place of the region of the Romans," is not, except by passing historical coincidence, the "Church which speaks Latin." When Pope Clement wrote the Corinthians, he gave them many exhortations, told them to do many things; he did not tell them to learn Latin. The language, glorious as it is, evocative of unity as it is, is nonetheless only an external "help." Yes, it would be better if we all had that help, at least sometimes. The breakdown of Latin usage in the Church is a very bad thing, but it doesn't mean we're losing our Catholicism or even the best part of what it means to be Catholic.

Those quibbles having been lodged, Kenny's essay is an elegant proof of why the Church needs Latin -- to provide a visible sign of her unity and her continuity, to more widely spread the bounty of her heritage, and to circumvent the comparatively-ephemeral boundaries of nation, place, and culture.

Toodling Around . . .

. . . the internet, I find that the Dossier has been:

-- Linked under "Religion / Spiritual" on a list of "Recommended Blogs" maintained by TheCapitol.net, a " non-partisan firm that provides legislative, budget, communication, advocacy, and media training and information for government and business leaders."

-- Declared a "Pirate of the Caribbean" by Chris Burgwald's Veritas blog.

-- Noted as an apple of discord by Michael's Law on Blog.

-- Called "duly skeptical" by Benjamin Blosser's Ad Limina Apostolorum

-- Linked to by Let's Go Thrashers!, a Spanish-language blog supporting the Atlanta Thrashers' hockey team: "(nada de hóquei aqui)."

I like the last one, because I think I'm definitely nada de hóquei aqui!!

Homiletic Suggestion

Here's a homiletic suggestion for Bishop Sean O'Malley of the Duchy of Boston, adapted from EWTN's Biography of St. Bernard of Clairvaux and its description of the confrontation between the Saint and Duke William of Aquitaine:

A year before O'Malley had been called into Massachusetts where John, Duke of that province, was persecuting the unborn. John was a prince of great wealth, gigantic stature, and exceptional ability, who from his youth on had been irreverent and aggressive.

O'Malley's prayers and persuasion having failed to prevail on Duke John . . . he used a more powerful weapon. He went to the church to say Mass, while the Duke and other schismatics stood at the door, as under excommunication. The kiss of peace before the Communion had been given, when suddenly O'Malley laid the wafer of the Host on the paten, turned, and holding it high advanced with it to the door, his eyes flashing and his countenance all on fire.

"Until now," he thundered, "I have entreated and besought you, and you have despised me. Other servants of God have joined their prayers to mine, and you have not regarded them. Now the Son of the Virgin, the Lord and Head of that Church which you persecute, comes in person to see if you will repent. He is your judge, at whose name every knee bows, in Heaven, in Earth, and in Hell. Into His hands your obstinate soul will one day fall. Will you despise Him? Will you scorn Him as you have done His servants?"

Now Duke William's story ended happily:

Unable to bear more, the terrified duke fell on his face. Bernard lifted him up, and bade him salute the bishop of Poitiers. The duke did as bidden, abandoned the schism, and restored the bishop to his see. William afterwards founded a new Cistercian monastery and went on pilgrimage to Compostella, in the course of which he died.

Whereas I anticipate another ending for Duke John's saga:

Delighted for the opportunity to curry favor with Protestants worried about the Whore of Babylon encroaching on the Capitol, and with Abortion-Rights Activists eager to advance the cause of death, the happy Duke turned to the camera-ed throng and declaimed:

"I'm not a filthy papist. I'm a legislator running for president. My oath is to uphold the sacred and holy Constitution of the United States in my public life. My oath privately between me and God was defined in the Catholic church by Pius XXIII and Pope Paul ICVVFGHVI in the Vatican VVMMCMMII, which allows for freedom of conscience for Catholics with respect to these choices, and is therefore no oath at all, and that is exactly where I am. And it is separate. Our holy Constitution separates papism and state, and turbulent priests like O'Malley should be reminded of that."

The Duke then founded a new Planned Parenthood clinic and went on a pilgrimage to the Castro District of San Francisco.

But then, St. Bernard didn't know what William would do, either. Personally, I think it's worth a shot.

Another Draft Uncovered

In time for April 1, the National Catholic Register published a story titled, "Bishops Plan to Make New Hymn Rules." True to the occasion, the story made it clear the Bishops aren't planning to make any rules about anything, and that they are not doing that with all deliberate speed. The Dossier has obtained a draft of the story.[**] Changes from the published version have been indicated by blue text. For those not in the know, this story is part of an interminable installment series published in various Catholic media titled, "U.S. Bishops . . . . Stall . . . . Stall . . . . Stall . . . Forever . . . . Stall . . . . Stall . . . Stall . . . . on . . . Stall . . . Stall . . . Stall . . . Liturgiam . . . Stall . . . . Stall . . . . Stall . . . . Authenticam."

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NEW ROME WASHINGTON — At the beginning of this Lenten season, some Catholics in the United States were singing the hymn "Ashes" and announcing, "We rise again from ashes to create ourselves anew."

Although some might be inclined to dismiss the words as poetic license, insensitive hyper-Traditionalists who have their head in the pre-Vatican II sand others argue that it is Christ who creates us anew, and that the line is symptomatic of problems with many of the worship songs that have become part of Catholic hymnody in the years since the 1960s.

The ever-vigilant, ever-vigorous U.S. bishops agree it is time to take action about a look at what Catholics have been singing. A nother subcommittee headed by Oakland, Calif., Bishop Allen Vigneron is crafting a set of actual rules you have to follow composition guidelines to encourage ensure the Church hymns conform to Church teaching.

Msgr. Anthony Sherman, associate director of the bishops' secretariat for liturgy, said the work was undertaken in response to the 2001 instruction three years ago from the Holy See, Liturgiam Authenticam, on the use of vernacular languages in books of the Roman liturgy.

The document from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments urges "the greatest prudence and attention" in the preparation of liturgical books, saying et cum spiritu tuo they should reflect sound doctrine, use exact wording et cum spiritu tuo and be free from all ideological influence et cum spiritu tuo. It also calls on bishops' conferences to provide "for the publication of a directory or repertory of texts intended for liturgical singing" within five years.

Rather than do what Rome told them to do issue a repertory, Msgr. Sherman said it is more likely the bishops will within the next ten years try to provide a set of principles to Church composers which can be easily circumvented by anyone with sufficient wit to argue about whether "limo" is a word you can use in Scrabble.

Although he believes there is much good music in use in U.S. parishes, Msgr. Sherman acknowledges that much some of it is heretical crap falls short.

For example, he said, "there are some hymns which say ‘God' is simply a metaphor for we, us, ourselves, the Church" "there are some hymns that you could look at and say there is too much emphasis on what we are doing and not enough on God's action in our life or on God's grace that uses our instrumentality to achieve things."

Dr. Susan Treacy, professor of music at Franciscan Guerilla University of Steubenville, Ohio, and an editor of Ignatius Press' subversive Adoremus hymnal, said the hymn "Ashes" is just one of a number of current texts that contradict Church teaching. Another, she said, is "For the Healing of the Nations," which, in addressing God, makes a reference to "dogmas that obscure your plan." Well they do, if God is us, and if we are eager to see womyn priests marry gay people.

"Dogma shows us God's plan and frees us in doing so," Treacy said. "That's an undeniable fact, which no educated person can deny." "That, at least, is what the Catholic Church teaches." And it's true for us.

Treacy said what Catholics sing is important because "even if we're not consciously thinking about it at the time, we remember what we say, what the words say, and they get programmed into us." "Why, even the belief that truth is a function of voluntarism can get programmed into us."

Msgr. Felix Losito, who keeps a close watch on the texts sung by parishioners at Holy Rosary Church in Reading, Pa., added that hymns can serve as tools of instruction, which is why he insisted that a particular hymn casting the Eucharist as a symbol no longer be used in the parish.

"They'll start singing the words and start believing the Eucharist is just a symbol. They'll say it's in the hymn," he said. But, as USCC documents point out, they can use that hymn in Protestant Churches, and that's an important ecumenical step!

Treacy said the hymns in use in the Church since the Second Vatican Council fall into four categories: good, beautiful older hymns from the Catholic tradition, such as "Holy God, We Praise Thy Name"; those from the classic Protestant tradition, such as "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" Isn't anyone concerned about programming people to take Martin Luther's piety as a model for their own by singing the Battle Hymn of the Reformation?; traditional gospel songs, which make white suburban parishioners feel earthy, close to the people, more real somehow such as "Precious Lord, Take My Hand"; and those by Catholic and Protestant composers in the junky popular-music style based on soft effeminate pseudo-pop rock, commercialized folk muzak music or Broadway tunes "Euuuuuuuuu --- uucharist where the substance is really really changed!" and there's always Rogers & Hammerstein's Bali Hai, which can be used just by changing the name to Jesus Christ -- the rest fits right in with modern liturgical music.[**]

She finds classic hymns preferable not only because they are easier to sing well, that rules ‘em out right there, can't have men singing hymns but also because the lyrics are more doctrinally secure, provided they have not been "updated" by liturgists and committees ripping lines from Ankhenaton's hyms to Aton

Treacy cited "Holy God, We Praise Thy Name" as an example of a classic hymn that works. Because, minor programming glitches aside, she knows good liturgical music and has great taste!

"That is a great hymn," she said. Amen. No, no, not Ammon, Amen "The tune is easy to remember and easy to learn. It's exciting and joyful, and yet the text is the English version of the Te Deum and a song of praise to God." and not to us, we, ourselves, the Church. "That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth . . ." hmmmm . . . maybe the Mad Monk of Wittenberg's not that bad a choice after all . . . .

Robert Batastini, vice president and senior editor of GAIA Publications and a lay member of the bishops' hymn sub-sub-sub-subcommittee, said a good hymn should be biblically and liturgically based having at least one article or pronoun found in the bible or the liturgy, addressed more or less to God however conceived so it constitutes worship and consists of good poetry written by someone with genuine literary skill as opposed to good poetry written by someone who's dead and whose work can't be copyrighted. One can find such music in GIA hymnals, which include the most widely sung music in the church today, and plenty of it. Classic hymns, psalms galore, music by the most widely sung composers of our time, e.g., Haugen, Haas, Joncas, Proulx, Schutte, Dufford, and so many others; outstanding European composers, e.g., Berthier (Taizé), Bell (Iona), Walker, Farrell, Inwood, and indigenous music from around the world. You'll never run out of new music! "Wonderful -- that's the Church's idea of liturgy," Batastini said, "always having to sing hymns you're hearing for the very first time."

What Catholics sing today, he said, is "all over the place" in terms of quality. Like the aforementioned "Ashes,"; "Anthem," ("We are called, we are chosen, / we are Christ for one another / we are harvest, we are hunger / we are question, we are creed"); "Gather Us In," (God's life isn't found "in the dark of buildings confining / Not in some heaven, light years away / But here in this place . . ."); "I Myself Am the Bread of Life" (which says otherwise, that "you and I are the bread of life / taken and blessed, broken and shared by Christ / that the world may live") -- all available in the high-quality, durable hymnals offered by GIA Publications, Inc.

"I think there's some very, very fine stuff and some trash," he said, "some stuff really not worthy of anybody's time." But I publish almost all of it, because you'll see oceans of Lemonade on Mars before anybody implements Liturgiam Authenticam in this country. But Batastini said because of the sheer size of the repertoire, any attempt to revise GIA hymnals review it would be nearly impossible and so incomplete and expensive as to be worthless When asked if that was why Liturgiam Authenticam just asked for an established repertoir, rather than a perpetually-running hymn-O-meter that reviews every musical jot and tittle churned out by GIA, Batastini replied, "Hey, who's paying attention to Liturgiam Authenticam? After all we are called, we are chosen . . . we are question, we are creed. Magisterial guidnce isn't to be found in the dark of buildings confining, or in some heaven, light years away, but here in this place, 3211 4th Street, N.E., Washington, DC 20017-1194."

Batastini said a list of fuzzy, optional guidelines with samples of good and bad hymns and explanations as to why each is considered acceptable or unacceptable Oh sure -- anybody wanna bet that something GIA puts out will end up in the "bad" category? is a more practical alternative than what Rome told the Bishops to do. The bishops' committee, he said, also could devise a list of 100 core hymns that every Catholic in the United States should know, the providing continuity as Catholics move from parish to parish. "And the list could be updated," he said, "as new compositions make their way into the repertoir." He added, "you know what's funny? When the Vatican tells us to come up with a list of core hymns to be sung at liturgy, it's impractical and impossible. But when we try to make an optional list which has no practical effect, we can do it in fifteen minutes."

"Going through the potential repertoire of hymns for Christian worship would be like trying to count the grains of salt in a saltshaker. … "I could see where a committee evaluating hymns could spend a day arguing over one hymn," he said. "There are hundreds of thousands." "And that's our story for the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discpline of the Sacraments, and we're sticking to it. If they really push it, fine, we'll publish that list of 100 great hymns on our website as a suggested resource for parishes. Thus do we rise again from the ashes of magisterial interference to create ourselves anew!"

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[**] Yes, this is a parody and not a real draft!!

[***] Don't believe me? Here's the lyrics to Bali Hai:

Most people live on a lonely island
Lost in the middle of a foggy sea
Most people long for another island
One where they know they would like to be

Bali Ha'i, may call you.
Any night, any day
In your heart you'll hear it call you
Come away, come away
Bali Ha'i, will whisper
On the wind of the sea
"Here am I your special island,"
"Come to me, Come to me"

Your own special hopes
Your own special dreams
Bloom on the hill side
And shine near the streams

If you try you'll find me
Where the sky meets the sea
Here am I your special island
Come to me, Come to me

Bali Ha'i
Bali Ha'i
Bali Ha'i

Someday you'll see me
Floating in the sunshine
My head sticking out from a low flying cloud
You'll hear me call you
Singing through the sunshine
Sweet and clear as can be

Come to me
Here am I
Come to me

If you try you'll find me
Where the sky meets the sea
Here am I your special island
Come to me, Come to me

Bali Ha'i
Bali Ha'i
Bali Ha'i

Achtung!!

I've been mentioned in German, by a German blog!!! Wunderbar! I'm also a "Lieblings-Blog" which, I think, is sehr gut. And now . . . in honor of the occasion, the only other German word I know . . . Kartoffelsuppen!!!!

More About Me Than I Cared to Know

Courtesy of the quiz list at Quenta Narwenion:

William Faulkner wrote you. Yes, you're a genius, you drunken old coot.
Which Author's Fiction are You? (Brought to you by Quizilla).

You are Lord Marchmain. You're a bon vivant and an elegant fatalist, but it's all a pose. What Brideshead Revisited character are you? (Brought to you by Quizilla)

My #1 result for the SelectSmart.com selector, Medieval Figure Selector, is Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar (El Cid)

I am "avoidant," according to Which Personality Disorder Do You Have?
(Brought to you by Quizilla)

You are a GRAMMAR GOD! If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be. Congratulations and thank you! How grammatically sound are you? (Brought to you by Quizilla).

Why the Modern World Makes Me Puke

Via Fr. Sibley's Saintly Salmagundi we learn the story of a newspaper delivery man who was fired because he refused to deliver a newspaper whose art, he thought, mocked his religion. You can see the cover and the story here. There are at least three things here that make me sick.

1. Any abuse of my religion for commercial purposes makes me puke, and boring unimaginative abuse makes me puke harder. The age is preoccupied with boring abuse of my religion. Pictures of Jesus holding basketballs coupled with derisive use of the Scriptures, all to giggle about how seriously the locals take the game? That's about as shocking and avant garde as the next drip from a broken faucet. There's a reason that kind of pseudo-witty twaddle is called "sophomoric," and the reason's not intended to compliment sophomores.

2. Stupid cant makes me puke. Like John Yarmouth, the suit who publishes Leo, explaining, "It was certainly not meant in anyway to mock religion. It was an attempt to mock the passion devoted to basketball in this community." Sure, John, sure. It'll be like when I post a cover of Leo on my blog that shows how you work for Larry Flynt to print the American Association of Pedophiles' daily journal. See, my intention won't be to mock Leo, it will only be an attempt to mock how Larry Flynt pretends to be a journalist and how pedophiles want to mainstream their perversion.

3. Self-divinizing cant also makes me puke. Again, from Hustler executive John Yarmouth: "Yarmouth say he respects [the carrier's] opinion, but says it's not his job to give one. ‘You can't just do business when you allow a supplier or a vendor to essentially censor what you're publishing.'" Yeah, John, sure. You "respect" your employee so much you fired him. If Yarmouth were a man who at least had pretensions to civility, kindness, and decency, he would have just kept David Wine on, and paid someone else extra to do a double route. Or even -- gasp! -- deliver the paper himself. It's not like Wine's motives were unworthy, or that Wine's decided to exercise editorical control over every issue of the paper. A family's sustenance is worth something, and it's not to be lightly tossed away by a single misstep.

But in Yarmouth's world only other people make missteps; he certainly has no duty to react with charity or kindness to even the slightest glitch in his own plans. That David Wine refused to deliver the paper for what is, at bottom, the kind of worthy reasons our culture is supposed to praise -- "commitment," "character," "integrity" and the like -- is irrelevant. For Yarmouth, the Incarnation of charity and kindness is just a punch-line, and anyone who acts as though it were something more deserves whatever he gets.

Like all those puffed-up personages who Oliver Goldsmith called "Little Great Men," Yarmouth contemplates himself as a puissant prince of propriety. The carrier's insubordination was Censorship, pure and simple. It was a brutal and dire attack on the right of every man to be free, to quest for what is true, good, and beautiful -- the sacred human patrimony which can be kept alive only by purchasing copies of Leo magazine. Only a man of vision, a man of true guts, could repulse this minimum-wage earner's attempt to overthrow human civilization by depriving Kentuckians of one day's worth of Leo's wisdom. Stories like "Hello Norma Jean -- Did You Know that Marilyn Monroe Was Named After a Louisvillian?" put people in touch with the vital center of the human condition. Probing and thoughtful essays such as, "The Langford Files: WHAS weather gambit, other tacks put WAVE GM in the spotlight," are all that stands between Louisville and gibbering barbarity. To interfere with that is to trifle with the fate of mankind. When David Wine refused to deliver one single issue of Leo the lamps were going out all over Louisville, and we feared that we may not have seen them relit in our lifetime. Fortunately we had a Little Great Man like John Yarmouth to play the martinet plunge into the breach, to enforce his will by fear and punishment risk himself in the struggle for civilization by firing the only guy at Leo with principles worth acting on protecting Leo from the enemies of man. Yes, small people are going to get crushed in Yarmouth's Noble Struggle. But you can't call yourself the publisher of a trendy and eccentric magazine in a medium-sized city without breaking a few eggs . . . .

Of course, Yarmouth has graciously promised a Covenant with his recalcitrant creature. Wine can have his job back just as long as he promises to deliver every mocking, offensive, and ridiculous caricature of his own life which Leo might choose to publish. It's the kind of deal one expects a suit to offer, especially if the suit's made the same Faustian bargain himself, resolving in his heart to do and say anything to maintain his income. It's the kind of deal a man will refuse. Thank God David Wine is a man.

All this goes to show that people who make God into a cute tag-line haven't ridden themselves of the need to worship. They've just opened the list of candidates for divine honors. So we see that David Wine shouldn't respect Christ's rights. He should respect Leo's rights. Who does Wine say John Yarmouth is? Is John Yarmouth just employer, a man like any other man, or is He someone else? David Wine should obey Leo rather than man, you know, and what was it someone once said? Ah yes, "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat." 2 Thess. 3:10 (KJV). Let no one say David Wine was fired for worshiping God. He was fired for worshiping the wrong god. In former days that god was something terrible, titanic, world-shattering. Like Hitler, or the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Now it's just anybody. Like some suit named John Yarmouth and his little magazine.

To some extent this is a tempest in a teapot. Neither Yarmouth nor his magazine are important. They don't employ thousands. And this was a part-time job for Wine, and one hopes that the income he got from Leo will be quickly replaced. David Wine can do work around my house any time he wants the money. I know he's not going to declare himself to be God with the right to take or damage my property, or tell me I have to be happy with a disappointing performance. (Whereas Leo, apparently, discriminates against "ontologically-challenged" people who think other things are bigger than they are).

But I spend time on this story because it indicates what I think is a rising tide of hypocritical, self-divinizing cant in the United States, one which will ultimately be directed in hostility at every Christian who wants to live his faith. I think that -- especially during Lent -- we ought to praise David Wine and think about when and how we'll go about making the same choice he did. David Wine. What a name for our model in this regard -- Old and New Testaments, Christ and His kingly prefiguration, refusing to go along to get along, declining to sell his birthright for a mess of Leo's minimum-wage pottage. Let no one say God doesn't pay attention to little things.

Embarassing Quiz Results

Via Fr. Jim Tucker's Dappled Things, I find out just how trite my artistic tastes are:



which art movement are you?

"Founded by a bunch of Englishmen in 1848, "The group popularized a theatrically romantic style, marked by great beauty, an intricate realism, and a fondness for Arthurian legend." (artcyclopedia.com.) Creative license is taken here; not all Pre-Raphaelite art was dark, mediaeval, and deathly serious, like you are. But there were a lot of drowned maidens, and you'd like that. Famous Pre-Raphaelites: Waterhouse, Millais, Rossetti, and You."

Yeah, and it's trite art. But I really do like it a lot. I remember in college when I put a poster of The Lady of Shallot on my wall. If it hadn't been a postmodern, UN-flag flying sort of place, there'd have been rumors. As it was, I just got accused of liking art that "sucks."

Trite. Yeah, so what? You got a problem with that?

A Great Place!!

We learn that the Magnificent MaryH has begun a message board here. It's called St. Blog's Parish Hall, and the format is like the old Catholic Convert's Message Board. What was the old CCMB like, and what might St. Blog's Parish Hall be like? It was like Pancho's Happy Bottom Riding Club in The Right Stuff, a place where strong people gathered to be with the best without frills, frippery or glitzy hullabaloo. It was like Rick's Cafe in Casablanca, where refugees from a godless tyranny gathered to plan the resistance and dream of freedom. It was a great place, until they turned it into a glittery, spanky-clean and processed Planet Hollywood. Yeah, I said it at the time, and few agreed, but changing CCMB's format changed the place for the worse, so I left and ain't been back.

The main thing is the outline format, which isn't like the EZ-Board "rub your nose in everything right now" design. At St. Blog's Parish Hall the posts are organized this way:

Question about purgatory -- is it real? -- Seeker

Of Course it's real, just ask St. Paul! -- Catholic Momma

It's an ungodly invention!!! -- LutherFan

How can God invent something ungodly? -- Catholic Momma

You see, you can follow the discussion generally without being required to scroll through every single thought everyone wants to squeak out on the subject. You can pick and choose without being forced to wade through all the emoticons, personal graphics, stock 350-word quotes from some Church Father or Great Reformer, and so on. It seems like a little thing, but it's the little things that add character and enjoyment to life.

Go and post at St. Blog's Parish Hall. I hope enough good people go there to make all the discussions interesting and informative.

Question

Are the Spanish train bombings of March 11 a test-run for attacks in the United States, perhaps on September 11, 2004 (the anniversary of the WTC bombings, and a Saturday) in time to influence U.S. opinion before the November 2, 2004 presidential election?

Hoo, Boy!

Just subscribed to The National Catholic Reporter and The Wanderer. That's 44 weeks of absolute schizophrenia. I can't wait!

Why Criminals Can't Be Rehabilitated

From the court transcript of one of my clients:

I made a rational decision to not to use drugs any more. I know that's hard for counselors . . . to conceive [but] that's just, that's just the decision I decided to make. It was rational, it was right, it was the thing I needed to do in my life and that's what I done.

Hmmm . . . I know my counselors can't understand it, but I made a rational decision to leave off drugs. Here's a man with a high-school education who knows more about human nature than counselors who have MSWs and PhDs. I wonder how many criminals can't be rehabilitated because, in their own ways, they're natural-born Thomists thrown into a criminal-justice system designed by Fruedians?

OWWWWWW!!!

On Justice Scalia and the Death Penalty

I got myself tangled into a discussion about Justice Scalia and Evangelium Vitae over at Fr. Sibley's Blog. That's what comes from "creatively interpreting" one's Lenten resolutions -- posting on comment boxes isn't really blogging, is it? Anyhow, this is a larger reply than I can put on the comment boxes and so I'm going to put it up here before my guardian angel notices and whacks me on the head again. This subject is, by the way, something I'm going to blog on after lent. So without further ado, my reply to "David" (who is not "David Kubiak" in the thread at Fr. Sibley's). It may not make any sense, unless you read the thread, but here it is:

*****************

David:

I've already emailed you this privately, but since you also commented on Fr. Sibley's blog to the same effect, I'll reproduce my reply here. As I told you in my letter, I don't need to "add" Dulles; there is no list, and "contempt" is something being interjected into the debate by you and not me. I'd recommend you read Cardinal Dulles' comments and response to questions, which can be found here. Nowhere does Cardinal Dulles undertake to determine whether Evangelium Vitae is an ex cathedra pronouncement. The reason for that is simple. Evangelium Vitae, like Humanae Vitae or any other encyclical you can name, is not an ex cathedra pronouncement. As you may know, the First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ issued by the First Vatican Council recognizes several characteristics of an ex cathedra pronouncement:

[W]e teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman Pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals. First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ, Chapter 4, ¶ 9 (1870).

While encyclicals like Evangelium Vitae are issued by the Pope in virtue of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, the document does not contain any of the usual hallmarks by which an infallible pronouncement is recognized; there is appeal to John Paul II's supreme apostolic authority (usually done by an explicit reference and mention of the authority of Blessed Peter and, sometimes, also the Apostle Paul); no use of traditional formulae such as "we declare, define and pronounce" (another feature of ex cathedra pronouncements such as Ineffabilis Deus); nor does it warn the faithful that disobedience or dissent is tantamount to a repudiation of the Catholic faith.

There is a misconception among American Catholics, Justice Scalia apparently being one of them, to the effect that only ex cathedra pronouncements require the religious submission of the Catholic faithful. This is false. The First Vatican Council explained that, in addition to the absolute moral certainty which the faithful must give to dogmatic pronouncements made with the charism of infallibility (ex cathedra), the authority of the Roman Pontiff to bind Catholic consciences extends to matters which are not taught ex cathedra but which are, nonetheless, taught by him. Again, the First Vatican Council:

Wherefore we teach and declare that, by divine ordinance, the Roman Church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other Church, and that this jurisdictional power of the Roman Pontiff is both episcopal and immediate. Both clergy and faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and collectively, are bound to submit to this power by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in those which regard the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world. First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ, Chapter 3, ¶ 2 (1870).

Thus, a Catholic layman who is addressed by a papal encyclical must, whether or not it contains an "ex cathedra" definition of dogma, recognize that the document is issued by the immediate jurisdictional power of the Roman Pontiff and that he is bound to submit to it whether it discusses matters of faith and morals or matters of lesser import. Catholics for a Free Choice make the same mistake as Justice Scalia when they (rightly) argue that Humanae Vitae doesn't qualify as an "ex cathedra statement" and then (wrongly) conclude that the encyclical can therefore be ignored by Catholics whose respectful and thoughtful consideration leaves them with a favorable private opinion about the morality of contraception or abortion.

The authority of the Roman Pontiff is granted from eternity (Matthew 16:18) and it has never changed. So in Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII explained the Catholic understanding of the authority of the ordinary (i.e., "non-ex cathedra") magisterium:

Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: "He who hears you, hears me"; [Luke 10:16] and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians. Humani Generis, ¶ 20 (1950)

Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church issued by the Second Vatican Council, repeated the teaching:

Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking. Lumen Gentium, ¶ 25 (1964).

Again, even though the Pope does not speak ex cathedra the Catholic faithful (including Justice Scalia) must sincerely adhere to the Pontiff's judgments. Not just "respect," not just "listen to," but "sincerely adhere." This is more than Justice Scalia is willing to do -- he believes that papal statement like Evangelium Vitae which does not qualify as an ex cathedra pronouncement can be openly repudiated by any Catholic who believes his own "thoughtful and respectful consideration" to be a superior guide to the teaching of Christ. This is "private judgment" in its purest form. It is one of the worst features of fundamentalist Protestantism which is, with unsurprising irony, directly condemned by Scripture itself: "No prophecy of the scripture is made by private interpretation." 2 Peter 1:20 (DRV). Only the Church, acting in and through her Bishops, can rightly understand and guide the faithful according to God's word.

I do see, however, that I may have been too harsh on the "canonical experts" with whom Justice Scalia has consulted. In his First Things article, Justice Scalia was more vague on the nature of his consultation with these authorities. His comments at the Pew Forum indicate that he may only asked them whether Evangelium Vitae is an ex cathedra pronouncement, and received the accurate response that it isn't; it may not have been their opinions, but Scalia's own deviant understanding of Catholicism, which has produced his schismatic perspective on the authority of the Church with respect to the infliction of the death penalty.

For that matter, it's possible that he may never have had an adequate understanding of the Church's teaching authority. One of the most interesting things about his commentary on Evangelium Vitae is that it's so plagued by false and inaccurate statements that he appears not to have even read it. As I said on Fr. Sibley's blog, I don't undertake to say whether Justice Scalia is sinning, I only maintain that his views are schismatic. Justice Scalia's ignorance is, though a likely mitigating factor in an inquiry into the objective state of his soul (which I do not undertake), is nonetheless intolerable because (i) for a variety of reasons he has no earthly excuse for not knowing better, and (ii) he's publicly misleading the faithful and the non-Catholic world about the teaching of the Church, not only with respect to the death penalty, but with respect to a host of other matters connected to his disobedience. As I've indicated above, Scalia's warped theory about the magisterium is not limitable to the death penalty -- it justifies disobedience to, and disavowal of, any teaching of the Church so long as a plausible argument can be made that the teaching we dislike isn't "ex cathedra." If the Church is to rebuke Catholics who take this approach to Humanae Vitae, the Church must rebuke Catholics who take this approach to any other magisterial teaching.

Now back to Lent, and David may have the last word. OWWWW! . . . . .

I'm OK with this

My #1 result for the SelectSmart.com selector, What Civil War General are you like?, is Lt. Gen. James Longstreet (Confederate): A pre-war friend of Grant, Longstreet was Lee's most trusted general. After the war, his reputation fell in the South as he first became a Republican, then wrote his memoirs, which criticized Gen. Lee.

OWW . . . .

This is too funny!!!

I gotta love this, from the Southern Appeal blog: Separated at Birth? Gee, Feddie, why not put in a picture of Tony Robbins and call ‘em triplets?

Owwww!!! OK, OK already . . . . .

OK, my Guardian Angel Said I Could Do This

The Wonderful MaryH's Ever New blogspot is back online. I'm going to read it every day during Lent. You should, too. One of the things I really like about her blog is . . OW!!!! . . . .. Allright, allright!!!! . . . OWWWW......

OK, Back to Lent

My guardian angel is reminding me that I said I wouldn't blog a lot during Lent. OWW! Hey, I'm just explaining . . . OWWW! Boy, can angels twist earlobes or what! . . . . Anyhow, I'm returning to my Lenten intention. All critics of The Passion and/or this blog shall have the last word . . . . . OK, OK, I'm logging off!!!

Jim Cork Replies

To my criticism of his take on the soon-to-be-infamous Crow Episode in The Passion. You can read Jim's reply here. Let me reply as follows. First off, I haven't taken Jim to task for "not liking" the movie. "Not liking the movie" is fine with me, although reasons why it's not liked matter to me and I can disagree with them, as I did with Jim's criticism of the Crow Episode and his inaccurate summary of how the film ends. There are some people who're deciding whether to go see the film, and so I think comments like Jim's might deserve a response from someone who's inclined to defend The Passion, which I am. Of course I didn't call Jim demonic, or a heathen -- although it's indicative to me that Jim thinks I could well have done so given my liking of the film. More on that below, as I turn to Jim's more specific comments.

Umm... well, for starters, the Book of Job is sacred scripture. Mel Gibson's movie is a work of art, and people should be able to critique it as a work of art without being subjected to the Spanish Inquisition.

But the Book of Job is also literature, as is Sophocles' play which I also mentioned. Both of them depict physical suffering imposed by divine will, and the latter specifically uses blindness to symbolize disregard for the moral order. Given that, dismissing the Crow Episode as "just lame" doesn't do the film justice. Nor, frankly, does it do the idea of divine vengeance (which is an artistic, and not only theological, idea) much justice -- it's impossible to distinguish the criticism I've read of the Crow Episode by Bill or Jim Cork from criticism which claims that good Christian drama cannot show God wreaking painful havoc on the life of a sinner. Now, if someone had wanted to advance an argument about how the Crow Episode, inasmuch as it lacks a recognizable depiction of Gesmas' culpable rejection of Jesus' divinity, clumsily drops the ball on the idea of extra ecclesiam nulla salus I'd be all ears. I could even tolerate a little speculation about the connection between that and the way so many Traditionalists drop the same ball. But no one wants to make criticisms like that, preferring instead to pitch fits about the very suggestion that God can be vengeful or that sin can make men blind.

They also, regrettably, prefer to deplore the faithfulness of people who find The Passion edifying. That happens in the patronizing conclusion to Michael Coren's review, which Jim had also quoted: "If the movie works for you, I am happy. For me, it is prayer, Bible and a dwelling in a God-given imagination that this hyped Hollywood product can never rival." Mr. Coren is apparently edified by prayer, the Bible and a God-given imagination, but us stomachs who admire The Passion can only be enlivened by "hyped Hollywood product." It continues to amaze me that such disdainful sentiments can be regularly shoved in our faces by writers who can, whenever a detailed and (if I do say so myself) articulate objection to their own fuzzy criticisms has been given, instantly complain that their faith's being maligned by the moral equivalent of "the Spanish Inquisition." More on that below.

Nobody was fisking me when I complained about our parish singing "Ashes" or "All Are Welcome."

OK. Was someone supposed to? I don't get this point.

When the Los Angeles Cathedral was completed, many Catholic bloggers criticized it without restraint.

Yeah, it's as ugly as a goat's butt. Looks like a set from Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.

And yet the LA Cathedral contains, in its Tabernacle, not fake movie blood and torn plastic flesh, but the actual Body and Blood of Christ. If people can criticize the architecture of a cathedral containing the Real Presence, why can't people criticize a movie in which an actor pretends to be Jesus?

Ah, I see it now. This is a very good argument. But if Jim could point out where I said Catholics aren't allowed to criticize The Passion I'd be grateful for the opportunity to understand why this complaint is being voiced about my comments. Lots of people are criticizing The Passion, and I've made it clear why I think their criticisms are generally unfounded, sometimes downright silly, and (in Bill Cork's case) not a little motivated by a kind of pious anxiety about people who live Catholicism differently than he does. I don't believe I've ever said people have no right to criticize the film, or that criticism shows a lack of Catholic faith (or, in the case of non-Catholic, and/or non-Christian critics, the lack of whatever faith they hold). That, unfortunately, isn't something we can say for some critics' perspectives on people who they're disagreeing with.

Bill and Jim are presently taking the view that attempts to refute criticisms of The Passion are motivated by a false understanding of Christianity that replaces the Evangelists with Mel Gibson and the Magisterium with Icon Productions. (That's the gist of Mr. Coren's snotty review as well, that while real Christians rely on God, fake ones who like The Passion are disgracing their religion with hyped Hollywood product). I suppose that makes a kind of sense once we've dogmatically concluded that The Passion -- whether as just a film, or a broader cultural phenomenon -- is irreconcilable with an authentic Christian conscience. If one thinks that, then religious arguments for appreciating the film can no longer be voiced from a common tradition but from an antithetical one which venerates "St. Mel" and believes on his "Gospel" -- however that Gospel ends up being described by conflating it with the delusions of UFO-fantasists, Hutton Gibson, and people who think Tenochtitlan ought to be the capital of California. That's how, I think, we end up with Bill's repeated suggestion that Catholics who like The Passion are rejecting Catholicism in favor of anti-Semitism, schismatic theologies, and belief in little green men; Mr. Coren's suggestion that Christians who like The Passion might want to try prayer, God, and the Bible; and Jim's suggestion that people who defend The Passion against criticism can be analogized to "other" inauthentic exemplars of Catholicism like Torquemada.

From what I can tell, the vast majority of people who are trying to declare viewpoints on The Passion "out of bounds" are the film's critics, who generally insist that Christian orthodoxy demands that we think the film sinful or a universal occasion of sin. That's the corner they painted themselves into at the start; rather than tightly focus their criticism on the film's failure to live up to itself, they launched an all-out attack on the film's compatibility with any wholesome understanding of Christianity. With respect to some critics, I think that's because of a belief that Christianity is a toxic religion that can be tolerated only after its central narrative has been sanitized and made to conform with a superior revelation. With respect to other critics, I think that's because of the dominant intellectual failing of our times -- ignorance of the fact that while all sin is error, not all error is sinful. No, I will not name names. I shall let any critic who think he or she's described by these words claim the distinction on their own.

Barb Nicolosi's comments about the "demonic" nature of the criticism can also qualify as examples, as do some of Mel Gibson's own comments about opposition and controversy surrounding the film. I'm sure devils are trying to keep people from seeing the movie, if they've concluded that it might arouse their "patients" to an ardent love of Jesus. I'm sure devils are trying to get people to see the movie, if they've concluded that they can use it to arouse their "patients" to anti-Semitism or paranoid fantasies about the possession of everyone who doesn't think "right." I use Jim's argument here, although the point is more apt with response to Bill's campaign against the film: If someone can praise Scripture even though Satan himself quotes it, why can't someone praise The Passion even though the devil can make use of that as well? If you'll forgive my ambitions toward being a Thomist, I'd prefer we spent our time finding good and bad arguments rather than good and bad souls; the former is something we can do, the latter is something for which God is better qualified.

The bottom line is that I admire The Passion and I've read very few criticisms of it that even qualify as serious, and the few I have read don't end up holding water for a number of reasons which I've talked about at length. I think I can say that -- not only say it, but (if I do say so myself) make a pretty good case for it -- without joining the Spanish Inquisition, venerating "St. Mel," or believing in a different Gospel.

Thoughts on The Passion

Here are some initial thoughts on The Passion which I saw last Wednesday. It's an amazing movie, and seeing it was unlike any other movie-going experience I've ever had. The audience was hushed, anxious, eager for the film to begin. Several people had brought in buckets of popcorn and fountain drinks -- I watched them, and looked when the film was over. The popcorn was uneaten and the drinks untouched. The atmosphere wasn't really movielike. It was more like attending a public rosary or a litany. It's the only movie I've been to in years where no one talked. No one. Trust me -- talking during movies is something I truly abominate, and I can hear whispering from ten rows away.

The film is redolent with tiny moments and glimpses of symbolism. The upright and cross-beam of Jesus' Cross are fastened with three bolts, arranged in a triangle. O most holy Trinity, undivided unity, holy God, mighty God, God immortal be adored! During the flagellation, one of Jesus' ribs is exposed. He is the new Adam. These are all done so well that they do not distract. They're only there if you have time, or inclination, to see them. There are, I suspect, many more such touches. I recall the dramatic setting of the Crucifixion itself. Jesus' cross is set high atop an outcropping of rock, and the ground behind him quickly drops into a chasm studded with what looked like the entrances to tombs. It suggested to me that all mankind is hurtling toward that chasm, and only Jesus, His arms outstretched, can stop us.

Much has been made of the film's dialogue being solely in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin. The film's critics claim that Gibson used those languages solely to alienate the audience from the Jews, to make the Jews seem horrible, brutal and foreign. We first see and hear Jesus praying in the Garden -- in Hebrew. The use of foreign languages continues, and ends up giving events a distinctive liturgical quality. Pilate, for example, speaks Latin. But if my college education was worth the money, he uses the pronunciations of ecclesiastical Latin, the Latin of the old Mass. "Dicere me", he says to Jesus. "Speak to me." But he pronounces it "dee-cheray" whereas the classical Latin pronunciation is "Dee-kereh." I hope that holds out, because it's a wonderful layer to the story of the Eucharistic sacrifice which is all the more wonderful for being unobtrusive.

Likewise with Pilate offering Jesus a cup at their first meeting. Again, the critics find anti-Semitism here -- Pilate sympathizes with Jesus, but Caiaphas doesn't offer Him a drink. Is that why Gibson included it in the film? So we can understand that the Jews are evil people, whereas the gentiles are good people since they always offer innocent men refreshments before beating and killing them? So say the critics. From what I saw, Pilate offers a cup of wine. "And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer: For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves: For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come." Luke 22:15-18 (KJV). Is the episode anti-Semitic, or eucharistic? As I explained in my earlier essay, to some critics they're the same thing, and so it's not surprising that the alternative meaning is so easily counted for nothing.

In the film's portrayal of Caiaphas I saw an angry man, furious at Jesus' claims to be the Messiah. I didn't see him as a "Christ-killing Jew," nor was I inspired with a need to kill Jews as a writer for Jewsweek magazine says he was. One thing critics haven't bothered telling anyone, by the way, is that the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin features several Jewish priests who protest the proceedings and are quickly hustled off by other priests and temple guards. Not only this, but the priests who protest aren't Jesus' follwers and can therefore qualify as "Jews" in the critics' lexicon. It's hard to see how the depiction of a Christ-killing Sanhedrin full of Satanic pawns can be made by showing Jewish protests against Jesus' treatment which aren't motivated by a belief that He is God.

Toward the end of the film, Caiaphas advances to the foot of Jesus' cross and rebukes Him, saying that He cannot be the Messiah for if he were, he would save Himself from death. This, the critics tell us, is more proof of anti-Semitism. But as Caiaphas turns and walks away, he passes St. Dismas' cross. Jesus lifts His face to Heaven and cries "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." St. Dismas shouts to Caiaphas, "He's praying for you." Later, during the earthquake which rocks Jerusalem, Caiaphas weeps when he sees the Temple veil torn asunder. To me, it was a poignant depiction of men in a fallen world -- However much Caiaphas may have detested Jesus' "blasphemy", he could not see the Holy of Holies exposed to public view without grief. Is it grief over Jesus' death? Does Ciaphas suddenly realize there is a new Temple? Or is it grief over a calamity whose real dimensions Caiaphas doesn't appreciate? "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do." This isn't the cinematic language of Nazism.

Before the film begins, we see scripture telling us that Jesus died because of all our sins. After the film begins, we see that even Satan knows the passion will require Jesus to carry all our sins. We see a glimpse of the daughters of Jerusalem distraught at His suffering. (Yes, I wish Jesus' speech to them had been included). We see Veronica -- who is not a Nordic blonde -- wipe Jesus' face after He nods permission. We see Simon of Cyrene shout at the Roman soldiers to stop hurting Jesus, saying he will not continue to help Jesus with the Cross unless they stop hurting Him. Simon offers Jesus the gentlest words possible under the circumstances ("Not much farther. It will be over soon.") We see priests of Israel turning their faces from cruelty and bloodshed inflicted by Romans. Mel Gibson makes a cameo appearance in the film -- it's his hand that puts the first nail in Jesus' hand. Yet, we're still told, over and over again, that the film clearly says that "the Jews" are all evil and that they -- and no one else -- killed Jesus.

The violence inflicted on Jesus is horrendous, and I found it numbing. Why is that? Is it because the critics are right, and my conscience is reacting to the prurient sadism behind what Jim Cork's critic of choice, Michael Coren, calls a "pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic blood cult"? I thought Coren's line was silly on several levels, the most obvious one being that none of the documents of Vatican II preach that Jesus' crucifixion was a decorous, bloodless affair that could only be viewed from a distance and was all over in five minutes. I also had to shake my head because cult means "the service expressly offered to God through sacred signs and inward dispositions of adoration, praise, thanksgiving, and petition for forgiveness, salvation, and earthly well-being which acknowledge God's supreme power." K. Rahner and H. Vorgrimler, Theological Dictionary p. 112 (New York: Herder & Herder, 1965).

Blood of Christ, only-begotten Son of the Eternal Father, save us.
Blood of Christ, Incarnate Word of God, save us.
Blood of Christ, of the New and Eternal Testament, save us.
Blood of Christ, falling upon the earth in the Agony, save us.
Blood of Christ, shed profusely in the Scourging, save us.
Blood of Christ, flowing forth in the Crowning with Thorns, save us.
Blood of Christ, poured out on the Cross, save us.
Blood of Christ, price of our salvation, save us.
Blood of Christ, without which there is no forgiveness, save us.
Blood of Christ, Eucharistic drink and refreshment of souls, save us.
Blood of Christ, stream of mercy, save us.
Blood of Christ, victor over demons, save us.
Blood of Christ, courage of Martyrs, save us.
Blood of Christ, strength of Confessors, save us.
Blood of Christ, bringing forth Virgins, save us.
Blood of Christ, help of those in peril, save us.
Blood of Christ, relief of the burdened, save us.
Blood of Christ, solace in sorrow, save us.
Blood of Christ, hope of the penitent, save us.
Blood of Christ, consolation of the dying, save us.
Blood of Christ, peace and tenderness of hearts, save us.
Blood of Christ, pledge of eternal life, save us.
Blood of Christ, freeing souls from purgatory, save us.
Blood of Christ, most worthy of all glory and honor, save us.

So yeah, you could say we're a blood cult. I for one am proud of it. I'm sorry it scandalizes weak sisters like Michael Coren. I'm sorry it's too much for a lot of people. But we're a blood cult. We worship Holy Blood. We drink Holy Blood. We adore Holy Blood which is glorious, not only for its other mystical and magnificent divinity, but for the fact that it was shed in torture for our sins and our redemption. As far as I'm concerned anyone who -- like the Romans who crucified Jesus -- is shocked at the gruesome cannibalistic atmosphere they find in all that can go soak themselves in oh-so-spiritual readings of John Chapter 6 and imaginary depictions of Jesus as a cartoon character whose feet never touched the earth. Let them squirm at the idea of God's chest hair matted with sweat, dirt under His nails, rubbing gritty sleep from his eyes. Let them stop their ears at the thought of Him screaming in pain and gasping for breath. We love the God-Man entire. His divinity, His humanity, and everything they did and underwent. We even love His blood, especially His blood. That's why we're a blood cult.

Anyhow, I'm not too sure about numbness and squeamishness at the violence in The Passion being the infallible sign of an ennobled conscience. At least not in my case. Perhaps the thought of such suffering happening just because of my tiny little inconsequential mortal sins -- which are, after all, the kind of things everybody does all the time -- is just too much to take in. Perhaps I'm more comfortable limiting my mind to the stylized and streamlined pictographs on my parish's stations of the Cross. Perhaps my pride won't let me see what I deserve to pay for my sins, or the fact that I'm so useless I couldn't begin to pay for them. The violence in this movie is revolting. It's in-your-face ugly, because you caused it. Think of someone's hand on the back of your neck, rubbing your nose -- not in your own mess, but in what you inflicted on someone else. And people are having problems with this idea? With the number of "confession by appointment" parishes in our country I'm not surprised, not surprised at all. Maybe a blood cult could do us all a little good.

I'm still surprised at how critics of the film seem not to have a particularly clear memory of what they saw on the screen. Jim Cork laments the fate of Gesmas: "Oh, and the whole scene with the crow eating the thief's eyeball at the end was just lame. Nice way to end a movie." Actually, the movie doesn't end with that scene. It ends with the Deposition, and is tailed by a brief reference to the Resurrection.

Jewsweek gives this depiction of the film's storyline: "At the moment when Jesus finally dies, an earthquake sends shockwaves throughout Rome. (Ok, Mel, we get the metaphor.) Then, the Jewish High Priest who just sentenced Jesus to death cries in a syrupy ‘What-have-I-done?' style." But the Jewish High Priest hasn't "just sentenced Jesus to death." That's because at no point in the film does the Jewish High Priest sentence Jesus to death. Pilate does that, while washing his hands of responsibility at the same time. Pilate's order to the soldiers, "Do as they wish," represents a terrible confluence of gentile and Jewish sinfulness. It is Pilate's order that sends Jesus to the Cross -- he can try to depict himself as being aloof, but the brutality inflicted on Jesus by the Roman soldiers belies that image. Jesus appears to Pilate after being beaten. Pilate winces at His condition (just as Jewish priests watching the beating turned away at the sight), but Pilate does nothing and shows no remorse. If that reminded me of anything, it was Himmler's delicate sense of propriety that caused him to be sick after watching a mass execution during the Holocaust -- and his murderous indifference to humanity when he ordered more efficient means of killing to be developed. Anyhow, I'm not sure how all this makes Pilate's "sympathetic" offering of a drink appear as exonerating and heart-warming as the critics say it does. It makes Pilate look like an amoral and brutal nabob. Caiaphas, in my view, actually comes out better -- he, at least, is fighting for something. It's not pretty, and it's not right, but at least Caiaphas isn't killing someone because the alternative might include doing a lot of imperial paperwork.

For that matter, if Jewsweek ever paid a reviewer to actually watch the film, readers would learn that there is no earthquake in Rome. There is an earthquake in Jerusalem. It sends shockwaves through Pilate's residence. Pilate is in the scene. Pilate was not in Rome, but Jerusalem -- even most of the film's critics tend to agree that Pilate was in Jerusalem during the Crucifixion. No part of the film takes place in Rome. What would we think of a critic who went in to see Titanic and came out complaining that there are no icebergs in the Indian Ocean? We'd think he didn't watch the film, or that he didn't know anything about the film's subject, and that he couldn't care less either way.

As to double-standards, suppose Gibson had refused to give us the supposedly anti-Semitic picture of Caiaphas' "syrupy" crying and chosen to depict the High Priest as unmoved. Why, Jewsweek would be right there to tell us that this proves Gibson's an anti-Semite, because he's depicted Caiaphas as a man without human feelings. See, in the critics' main view, it's the Christian vision which motivates the film that is the source of anti-Semitism. So anything in it would be -- and has been -- called anti-Semitic without rhyme, reason, or consistency. The ADL says the film is anti-Semitic because it portrays the Jews acting under satanic influences; Bill Cork says it's anti-Semitic because it doesn't depict the Jews as acting under satanic influences. I'm beginning to think that if Mel Gibson had made the whole film without a single Jewish character, we'd be hearing indictments of The Passion's anti-Semitic theme that the Jews don't have an historical connection to the land of Israel.

Back to Jim Cork's alleged "ending" for the movie. When St. Dismas insists that his punishment is just, and begs Jesus to remember him when He comes into His kingdom, Gesmas continues to scoff and rage. A crow plucks out his eyes. He's become physically blind to match his spiritual blindness. Sophocles put a similar piece of symbolism in Oedipus Rex, but that might not qualify as "lame" because it doesn't suggest that God can and will inflict pain and deformity on us because of our sins, because He owns us to begin with, and because even such hard lessons, once accepted, can lead us to eternal bliss. If that's "lame" then so is the Book of Job.

Bill Cork watched the flagellation scene and decried it as anti-Semitic: "The Romans are egged on by Satan, wandering through the crowd (the Jews needed no Satanic encouragement)." Satan is in the group watching the beating, but from what I saw his eyes were directed entirely and intensely at Jesus. Satan is holding a malformed child, and occasionally looks affectionately at it/him while the beating is going on. Bill Cork and Michael Coren find the scene unbiblical -- Michael Coren even finds it "anti-humanity." I wonder:

Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you this? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time.

2 Thess. 2:3-6 (RSV). Who is Satan holding in his arms? Why is Satan slightly smiling, when he's not staring malevolently at Jesus? The film's beginning shows Satan trying to dissuade Jesus from undergoing the passion, because it's impossible, it can't be done. Isn't he here tempting Jesus again? As if to say, "It won't work, Son of Man. Even if you complete the task, my day will still come." It astounds me that so many indictments of anti-Semitism and "anti-humanity-ism" are being launched with such complete confidence and without even the slightest effort to consider an alternative interpretation that doesn't make the film evil.

Michael Coren's indictment of the film also rests on it's having supposedly missed the whole point of the Gospel story because it shows us that evil is ugly:

Herod is some cross-dressing lunatic, the Pharisee leaders, some of the brightest men of the age, are all obscene brutes and the Roman soldiers and the mob resemble crazed gargoyles. No, no, no! The point has been completely missed. Hate me if you like, but please listen. The point is this: We would have crucified Him. We would crucify Him. You, me, us. We'd smile, be tolerant and loving, do the right thing as we see it, and crucify Him. Then go home to hug our children and talk about how bad the world had become. Evil seduces and beguiles. It is frequently attractive. If it was as ugly as director Gibson has portrayed, Jesus would not have had to die in agony. And agony is what it was.

I'll pause here to note how blithely so many of the film's critics ignore their own "tests" for a decent passion play. So does Mr. Coren, having just excoriated us for reveling in a pre-Vatican II "blood cult" which celebrates Jesus' suffering, demand that we reflect on Jesus excruciating agony. Why isn't Mr. Coren making his own little fetish of Jesus' agony, his own pre-Vatican II agony cult? He doesn't have to say -- he dislikes The Passion and that, apparently, is sufficient. How how on earth is Mel Gibson's vision of man's ugly sinfulness "anti-Humanity" according to Mr. Coren, whereas Mr. Coren's own baleful description of every man, woman and child on earth isn't? The ease with which criticism of The Passion gleefully works both sides of every argument never fails to astound me. I would call it a rank disdain for principles, or an opposition to the Gospel which justifies every means, did I not strongly believe that we're all sometimes as stupid as Mr. Coren was when he wrote his review.

I understand a point to which Mr. Coren is alluding, but not the point he actually ends up making. People need to have their consciences shocked, and realize that the comfortable conventionality of their lives may be riddled with sin -- as Jesus Himself said, woe unto you should all men like you. Propriety is not the test of goodness. (An interesting point for critics of the film's violence to consider). It would be very useful if someone could make a movie showing how tempting and attractive evil can be. But sooner or later, if the film is going to say anything useful, it will have to show the ugliness and insanity of evil. When that ugliness isn't brought home, when Christians resort to namby-pamby catechesis that doesn't get all "judgmental" about abortion, contraception, adultery, homosexual behavior, or any of the other scourges of bourgeios life, we just end up convincing everyone that sainthood means making oneself miserable by foregoing the tangible and apparent goods of this life in the hope of other intangible and unknown goods of the next. Mr. Coren writes:

Barabas. He was a Zealot leader, possibly a local aristocrat. We read our Hebrew and Greek, know about Essenes, Sadducees and Jewish life and culture. We understand. Yet here he is portrayed as a dribbling psychotic.

I had always thought that one of the reasons evil should be disliked is that it takes things which could be good and wonderful -- like aristocracy, culture, leadership, and patriotism -- and makes them into dribbling psychoses. Yet Mr. Coren is telling us that showing the reality and end of the process misses "the point." I might agree with him if I thought Christianity was mere nominalism, the obeying of rules on the grounds that one must obey the rules. In that frame of reference there's no point to depicting men as being corrupted by evil - that they broke a rule ought to be enough to show their corruption. I might agree with him if I were a Protestant, and believed that men remain intrinsically as depraved as Gibson's portrait of Barabbas despite their salvation in Christ. In that frame The Passion's depiction of Barabbas' is redundant.

But I don't hold either of those opinions, and so I think Mr. Coren is confusing the appearance of evil with its nature. Jesus had to die in agony precisely because evil is as filthy, ugly, hurtful, and perverse as The Passion tries to indicate. That's why it took so much suffering to extirpate it from the human soul and inspire men to overcome their baser inclinations. Mr. Coren is free to tell us that he would have preferred Mr. Gibson to make another film, something along the lines of Ang Lee's Ice Storm with a clearer moral, but Mr. Coren departs from Christianity when he suggests that portraying evil and evil people as being demented and ugly "completely misses the point" of the Gospel.

Other things I noticed: The lighting in the film seemed off, lending a sickly gangrenous cast to the film's view of the world. One has the impression that the whole action occurs within a rotting body, among a dead people. Toward the end of the film, we're cut to a view of Jesus' face which seems surrealistic, made up of swirls of blood and flesh. For some reason that had me thinking about icons. The film's focus is so tight in time and the action so direct, brutal, and sparsely done that I wish the Hollywood-orchestra soundtrack had been omitted. I think, perhaps, that the film originally was meant to end with the beautiful, terrible "Pieta'," and that the Resurrection scene was tagged on at the end in response to criticisms which I find a bit wrongheaded.

Basically, they claim that the film is false to the Christian vision because it doesn't include the Resurrection. Or the Beatitudes. Or a panoramic depiction of the diversity of first-century Jewish life. Or the complete brutality of the Roman occupation of Israel. Or anything else that "ought" to go into a really good movie about Christianity. I think some of this criticism is just conditioning created by the fact that almost all the "Jesus movies" to date (King of Kings, Jesus of Nazareth) have been biographical, start-to-finish treatments of Jesus' life. I don't see why that has to be the standard frame for any film about Him. Why not a film that spends two hours on the Crucifixion, or Jesus' preaching the Eucharist, or His meeting with Nicodemus? Why not a series of films like Dekalog, each one a separate episode in His life?

Probably because it would be hard to fill that amount of time by using a cautious "ecumenical-interfaith-scholars'-approved-Bible-only" view of Christ, which is the standard test a studio would want to use in order to ensure a large market for the film. But we don't say that watching Gettysburg is disrespectful to American History because the film has action, conversations and incidents which can't be found in primary source material. Could this insistence with respect to films about Jesus also be a result of Protestant cultural conditioning that insists on limiting the Christian experience of Christ to a broadly-derived, publicly-shared rendering of Scripture alone? I'm reminded of the various criticism lodged by Presbyterians to the effect that the film is idolatrous because it depicts Mel Gibson's artistic visions and Anne Catherine Emmerich's pious visions -- neither of which is broadly-derived, publicly-rendered, and expository of Scripture alone.

Like everyone else, I was moved by the scene parallelling the Blessed Virgin rushing toward Jesus, who has fallen with the Cross, with an episode from His childhood when she ran to him after he fell down. When our Lady reaches Him, he says "Behold, I make all things new" and stands up, as though with new strength, to resume His journey. Truly, in this (and when we see our Lady praying during His scourging that He might choose to deliver himself soon) we see that He was the master of events, not the Romans, the Jews, or the Devil. I also liked the fact that He says what appears in Revelation 21, even though the book had not yet been written:

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

I hadn't really thought about these verses in connection with the Crucifixion. "It is done." Jesus said that on the Cross. "I will give unto him that is athirst." Jesus said "I thirst." I remember preaching that we must all thirst for God, His love, and one another's conversion, panting like deer in the desert. There must be full reward in Heaven -- God has suffered as any of us has suffered, done nothing that He does not expect us to do -- surely He knows how to right all wrongs, heal all scars, remove all grief.

That's it for now. I'll see the film one or two times during Lent. It's not the kind of movie you see the next night, so that may take awhile.