Amnesty International & Domestic Politics

John Waters in today's Irish Times turns his attention to Colm O'Gorman's recent comments about the proposed civil partnership bill, and in particular the position of Amnesty International in the debate. Now, I was wondering whether his remarks were made in his capacity as Amnesty International's executive director or in a private capacity. I guess its coverage on the Amnesty Website resolves that to some extent.
I recall Amnesty visiting our school when I was 11 or 12. I think I unnerved the visitor somewhat by asking whether their defence of human rights included protection for the unborn child. She explained that they stayed out of that debate - and in retrospect, one can understand why an organisation concerned with representing prisoners of conscience might steer clear of such a disputed and divisive issue in order to focus on their core mission. However, in recent times, Amnesty has dropped its neutrality on the issue of abortion.
(By the by, I should hope that it's obvious to readers involved in education that Amnesty should no longer be welcome in our Catholic schools.)
John Waters notes that Colm O'Gorman's statement on civil partnerships also represents a shift away from what used to be Amnesty's priorities:

WITHOUT ANYONE emphasising or questioning the shift, Amnesty International has gone in recent years from being an organisation devoted to the rights of prisoners-of-conscience in foreign jurisdictions to a lobby group concentrating selectively on ideological issues within the immediate jurisdictions in which it operates. I often wonder what its founders would have thought about this. I wonder, too, if people who stuff cash into the boxes of Amnesty’s street collectors are aware of the implications of what has occurred.
Twenty years ago, the idea of Amnesty lecturing the Irish Government in partisan terms on a matter on which there is democratic controversy would have been inconceivable. The old-style Amnesty considered human rights too vital to be mixed up with everyday political argumentation within democratic societies.

What's also interesting is that Waters valiantly attempts to point out how O'Gorman and other gay rights activist try to (and in general succeed) to change the meaning of the concepts used in our national discourse in order to muddy the issue and demonise those who promote a traditional understanding of marriage and the family:

O’Gorman’s statement was laden with disingenuous constructions and weasel words. Amnesty is either arguing for gay marriage or it isn’t, but can’t have it both ways. The Bill does not discriminate against gay couples any more than unmarried heterosexual couples can claim to be “discriminated against” for similar reasons. In not dealing with the adoption of children at all, the legislation might be said to discriminate, in accordance with public policy, against both categories by comparison with married couples, but this is a false comparison. And nor does the legislation discriminate against adopted children being brought up in gay unions any more than against adopted children being brought up by unmarried parents who are not gay. It does not deal with adoption at all. O’Gorman’s reference to “the right not to be discriminated against because of who you love” is a piety designed to fudge the issue and bully the public.
[snip]
The gay lobby has made its case by mangling the meaning of terms such as “marriage” and “discrimination”, and by bullying with accusations of “homophobia” and “bigotry” anyone who refuses to acquiesce in the new definitions.

Of course, the question should be about what is meant by marriage and why it's an institution worthy of legal recognition.

Marriage, a contract between a man and a woman, is an institution maintained by society for reasons having little or nothing to do with “love”. All men and all women have a right to marry, provided they wish to marry members of the opposite sex to whom they are not closely related by blood. Heterosexuals, like homosexuals, are prohibited from marrying people of their own sex. It is no more valid to allege wrongful discrimination in this context against gays than to argue that cycle lanes “discriminate” wrongfully against wheelbarrows.

Now, that statement needs a lot of unpacking, and it probably says a lot about the quality of catechesis in Ireland that not many of the decision makers in our society are willing or capable of doing this.

Holy Communion Services without a Priest

One of the vexing questions facing us here in Ireland is how we should cope with the increasingly severe shortage of priests. Of course, relative to much of the world, there's still an abundance of priests in Ireland - and maybe the past has spoiled us in terms of our expectations, but what is clear is that many Irish parishes will be losing priests at a very rapid rate over the next few years.
One consequence of this is that communities will find the number of Masses celebrated on weekdays and on Sundays cut back. Should these simply be dropped or should they be replaced by lay- or deacon-led services? If they are replaced, what form should these services take and should they include distribution of Holy Communion?

There's been a lot of muddled thinking about this issue, and I think that there are a number of points which should be made clear. Firstly, the absence of the celebration of Mass in one's local church doesn't necessarily dispense one from one's serious obligation to attend Mass on a Sunday or Holyday of Obligation. If one can travel to another nearby church for Mass, one should, and it would be a very worthwhile thing for people to assist their elderly neighbours and all others who have difficulty making it to Mass. Consequently, we should be extremely cautious about replacing our Sunday Masses with other forms of service when it is practicable for the faithful to travel to nearby churches. Redemptionis Sacramentum is very clear that this is the preferred way of dealing with this situation:

Therefore when it is difficult to have the celebration of Mass on a Sunday in a parish church or in another community of Christ’s faithful, the diocesan Bishop together with his Priests should consider appropriate remedies. Among such solutions will be that other Priests be called upon for this purpose, or that the faithful transfer to a church in a nearby place so as to participate in the Eucharistic mystery there.

However, circumstances may arise where Sunday celebrations in the absence of a priest may be appropriate. It should be noted that the distribution of Holy Communion need not be part of such a celebration. Obviously one would have to take into account how long the community would be deprived of Holy Communion in such a case.
It's worth noting that the guidance of Redemptionis Sacramentum very much frowns on weekday services where Holy Communion is distributed outside the context of the Mass:

Likewise, especially if Holy Communion is distributed during such celebrations, the diocesan Bishop, to whose exclusive competence this matter pertains, must not easily grant permission for such celebrations to be held on weekdays, especially in places where it was possible or would be possible to have the celebration of Mass on the preceding or the following Sunday.

I note that there has been a certain amount of press coverage given to a priest who, whilst on holidays, arranged for a lay-led service with the distribution of Holy Communion. That would seem to be contrary to the liturgical guidelines, and in my opinion, a bad idea.

One of the sad things one encounters pastorally is the lack of understanding of the Holy Mass. The separation of the distribution of Holy Communion from the Mass inevitably increases this confusion. Anecdotally, I've heard of situations on the Continent where parish communities have refused the offer of holidaying priests to celebrate a Sunday Mass for them because they like the 'Mass' (sic) celebrated by their local lay pastoral worker. To my mind, it's incredibly sad that a community deprived of the Mass due to a shortage of priests would refuse the opportunity to participate in the Eucharist when it is offered to them. The personality of the lay pastoral worker or the community's own self-regard has displaced Christ as the focus of their worship.

One of the central advances in liturgical and sacramental theology of the past century or so is the re-connection of the participation in the Mass with the reception of Holy Communion. It might surprise modern readers to learn that until the early 20th century Masses were frequently celebrated without the distribution of communion to the lay faithful, and the reception of communion often happened in a ceremony separate from the Mass. One of my professors in Rome told me of a convent which had the following custom on the eve of the Second Vatican Council. The nuns would receive Holy Communion outside the context of the Mass, and then attend Mass as their thanksgiving for Holy Communion. This, of course, ran totally contrary to the teaching of the Popes from St Pius X onwards who encouraged frequent communion in the context of attending and participating in the Mass.
Now it seems we have another problem - people equate going to Mass with the right to receive Holy Communion. It's becoming increasingly difficult to explain to people why they might attend Mass when they are not in a situation where they could receive Holy Communion. The celebration of the Mass seems to have become subordinated to the reception of communion. Divorcing the distribution of Communion from the Mass would only increase this confusion.
I was recently re-reading Dom Ansgar Vonier's 1925 classic A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist and found that the following passage inadvertently prescient:

There ought not to be in classical Christianity a real division of spiritual attitude between Mass and Communion. Suppose per impossible, that there were an extreme multiplicity of private communions by the faithful on the one hand, and an ever-dwindling attendance at the sacrifice of the Mass on the other hand, it would indeed be the gravest spiritual disorder; it would falsify the Eucharistic setting; it would lower the sacrament through a misconception of its true role.

Caritas in Veritate - New Papal Encyclical

Just a reminder that the Pope's new encyclical letter Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) has been published.
It seems quite dense and deals with "integral human development in charity and truth."