The Defined Teaching of the Catholic Church...

There is an interesting post up at the Blog of the Association of Catholic Priests.  It's penned by Fr Brendan Hoban who is keen to ditch the dissident label.  It's worthy of a thorough analysis - and it's probably worthwhile asking to what extent it represents the views of ACP members, but the first part of the statement is very telling.  Fr Hoban writes:

(i) Church teaching
The ACP does not seek to overturn the defined teaching of the Catholic Church. Confusion between what the teaching of the Church is and what some present as the teaching of the Church has led to unwarranted assumptions. Confusion between the teaching of the Church and Church governance has resulted in some people suggesting that we do not accept fundamental Church teaching. Like all true Catholics, we know and fully accept the Creed.

That might seem pretty clear, but it's worthy of close inspection.  Firstly, it doesn't say that the ACP accepts the teachings of the Church.  Rather, it speaks about not seeking to overturn the teachings of the Church.  Furthermore, it doesn't simply speak about the teachings of the Church, but rather the "defined teaching of the Catholic Church."  Are we to presume that that portion of the deposit of the faith which hasn't been codified into a Conciliar or Papal definition is - theoretically at least - open to ACP attack? Because not everything we believe as Catholics and not everything that is taught to us through scripture and tradition falls under the heading "defined teaching."
By way of contrast, we might have a look at the Profession of Faith which is sworn by those who are about to be ordained deacons, those who receive the care of a parish as a pastor (parish priest) and those who teach in seminaries.

I, N., with firm faith believe and profess everything that is contained in the Symbol of faith: namely:I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.With firm faith, I also believe everything contained in the Word of God, whether written or handed down in Tradition, which the Church, either by a solemn judgement or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed.I also firmly accept and hold each and everything definitively proposed by the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals.Moreover, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate when they exercise their authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim these teachings by a definitive act.

It begins with a Profession of the Creed, followed by a statement of faith in "everything contained in the Word of God, whether written or handed down in Tradition, which the Church, either by a solemn judgement or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed."  That's not simply "defined teachings", but also the truths of the Christian faith as passed on by the ordinary and everyday teaching of the Catholic Church.
The next section of the Profession of Faith recognises that the Church occasionally formally makes definitive statements in order to protect the deposit of faith. These must be accepted and held to. One wonders if these are the "defined teachings" that the ACP proposes not to overturn.
Finally, the Profession of faith speaks about the teachings of the Pope and the College of Bishop which are explicitly and legitimately taught, but not as infallible or definitive teachings.  These should be adhered to "with religious submission of will and intellect."  In layman's terms, they might be subject to modification and development in the long run, but they are worthy of the greatest of respect and support. In other words, when the Pope writes an encyclical, if you've sworn this oath, you need to respect it as proper teaching, even if you think it might be improved on.


Switching back to the ACP statement, Fr Hoban talks about confusion between the teaching of the Church and Church governance.  He does have a point.  There is a huge difference between the discipline of the Latin Church regarding clerical celibacy and the teaching of the Church that only males may be ordained to the priesthood.  However, despite the clarity of Church teaching on this point, one often hears that the restriction of ordination to men is a matter of Church discipline and that the question is therefore open to discussion.  That's a form of argumentation that seems palatable to many within the ACP.
Likewise, I've seen it argued that the Church can't really teach definitively on moral matters - that she can only teach dogma (the Creed and the like) and moral teachings are a matter of discipline and therefore subject to repeated revision and erosion.
When Fr Hoban writes, "Like all true Catholics, we know and fully accept the Creed." it sounds as though one can argue what one likes, as long as you don't contradict the creed. I'm pretty sure that anyone who's debated women's ordination, Humanae vitae and the like on-line with people claiming to be Catholic has been met with the question, "Where does it say that in the Creed?"


It's disappointing, but not unexpected, that the ACP has such an impoverished understanding of Church teaching and the work of the Holy Spirit within the Church.


Incidentally, if one were to confine oneself to Fr Hoban's paragraph about Church teaching, one wouldn't be left with much of a reason to value the Second Vatican Council. It's singularly light on what Fr Hoban refers to as "defined teaching".

More postively

Tomorrow is Good Shepherd Sunday and Pope Benedict's message is well worth a read. He took Vocations, the Gift of the Love of God as his theme for this World Day of Prayer for Vocations.
I always give thanks to the Lord on Good Shepherd Sunday because I am genuinely grateful for the gift of priesthood.  I know I fall short of mark in so many ways, but it is a genuine gift to be a minister of God's presence through priestly ministry.  It's a wonderful thing to welcome a small baby into the Body of Christ through the sacrament of baptism and to comfort the dying with the last sacraments.  It's a delight to prepare young children for Confession and Communion and to share in the wedding celebrations of couples starting out on the journey of married life together.  I also enjoy being part of the life of a Diocese - I'm one of those odd eggs who doesn't mind sitting on a committee or two - and the fellowship of being part of a presbyterate.  Even in these days, the welcome and friendship of parishioners - even those I haven't gotten to know yet personally - is a great privilege.
The great frustration of priesthood today is the sense of having found something - or rather Someone - and realising that so many out there seem unwilling to welcome Him into their lives.  There's seems to be assumption out there that what the Church has to offer, what Christ Himself has to offer is surplus to requirements, something no longer needed, or even something that needs to be left behind in the past.  That's doubly true when it comes to the gift of priesthood itself - there seems precious little interest in faith or in vocation amongst the vast, vast majority of our young people. Having experienced both the joys and challenges of priestly ministry, I would love to see a younger generation of men follow the same path. That'll be the theme of my homily this evening - the challenge to foster a culture of faith and vocation in our parish so that we can hear the voice of the Good Shepherd speaking to us.  As the Holy Father himself puts it:

  It is my hope that the local Churches and all the various groups within them, will become places where vocations are carefully discerned and their authenticity tested, places where young men and women are offered wise and strong spiritual direction. In this way, the Christian community itself becomes a manifestation of the Love of God in which every calling is contained. 

Extraordinary Hyperbole...

The media furore around the CDF keeping an eye on the writings of some Irish priests is continuing with the news that Fr Brian D'Arcy's articles are now being reviewed before they are published. Fr D'Arcy is "saddened and disappointed" at this. Now, it's not a nice thing when a priest's writings have to be reviewed like this - in an ideal world, such a step would be unnecessary.  However, the priest's voice is not his own and the pulpit that is given to us by the Church is not ours by right, but is given to us that we might teach according to the mind of Christ and the Church.

Two points are especially worth making - Fr D'Arcy's newspaper articles have been cleared before publishing since last March.  If you have a look at the archive of his writings over at the Sunday World website you'll see that he's critical of the Irish hierarchy and the Vatican, and writes supportively about the results of the recent Association of Catholic Priests survey. From the looks of things, a "party line" isn't being heavily imposed on him and I would guess that as long as he's not actually contradicting church doctrine in an especially ham-fisted manner, he's pretty much allowed to write what he likes. I don't think he's being dealt with especially harshly here.

Secondly, the reported comments of Fr Peter McVerry caused me much amusement. Fr McVerry is, in many ways, a fine priest and has probably done more good for homeless youngsters in Dublin than anyone else.  I readily and freely admit that in many ways I am unfit to polish his shoes.  However, having heard him speak on a number of occasions, I know that he seems to have a pretty ropey grasp of theology and Church history.  Anyway, Fr McVerry says of priests that “They are terrified that if they speak publicly they will get their heads chopped off.”

Get their heads chopped off? I know he's just using a turn of phrase, but there's no need for that degree of hyperbole.  I know our new nuncio used to work with the CDF, but I very much doubt that he'll be organising dawn raids on the homes of Ireland's favourite priests in order to have them transported to the Vatican for summary execution. 

As I say, if Fr D'Arcy's freedom of expression is anything to go by, we're certainly no-where near the level of super-villain oppression suggested by the CDF's critics.

Losing Stephen to gain Paul...

Today's first reading told of St Stephen's martyrdom & the approving presence of Saul of Tarsus at the stoning.  That reading always reminds me of Newman's introduction to The Church of the Fathers:

  THIS is a world of conflict, and of vicissitude amid the conflict. The Church is ever militant; sometimes she gains, sometimes she loses; and more often she is at once gaining and losing in different parts of her territory. What is ecclesiastical history but a record of the ever-doubtful fortune of the battle, though its issue is not doubtful? Scarcely are we singing Te Deum, when we have to turn to our Misereres: scarcely are we in peace, when we are in persecution: scarcely have we gained a triumph, when we are visited by a scandal. Nay, we make progress by means of reverses; our griefs are our consolations; we lose Stephen, to gain Paul, and Matthias replaces the traitor Judas.
It is so in every age; it is so in the nineteenth century; it was so in the fourth; and about the fourth I am proposing to write. An eventful century, a drama in three acts, each marvellous in itself, each different from the other two! The first is the history of the Roman Empire becoming Christian; the second, that of the indefectible Church of God seeming to succumb to Arianism; the third, that of countless barbarians pouring in upon both Empire and Christendom together. And, as the great convulsions of the earth involve innumerable commotions in detail and local revolutions, and each district and neighbourhood has its own story of distress and confusion, so, in the events of the social world, what is done in the camp or synod vibrates in every town and in every bishopric. From one end of the century to the other, the most momentous changes and the most startling vicissitudes took place; and the threshold of the Apostles was now darkened by messengers of ill, and now lit up with hope and thanksgiving.
So was it in the fourth century; so will it be to the end:
Thus bad and good their several warnings give
Of His approach, whom none may see and live.
    Faith's ear, with awful still delight,
    Counts them like minute bells by night,
Keeping the heart awake till dawn of morn,
While to her funeral pile this aged world is borne.

That Fornication Speech...

In yesterday's parliamentary debate on Abortion legislation in the Dáil, the speech of Mayo TD Michelle Mulherin attracted the most attention. Or, to be more precise, her use of a single word, namely "fornication" attracted people's attention.  It's not a word one hears too often, but it is usefully defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Fornication is carnal union between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality which is naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of children. Moreover, it is a grave scandal when there is corruption of the young.

Anyway, Miss Mulherin said:

Abortion as murder, therefore sin, which is the religious argument, is no more sinful, from a scriptural point of view, than all other sins we don’t legislate against, like greed, hate and fornication. The latter, being fornication, I would say, is probably the single most likely cause of unwanted pregnancies in this country.

Now, fornication isn't a politically correct word, so this caused all kinds of uproar.  (It also caused Deputy Luke 'Ming' Flanagan to exclaim, "Hurrah for fornication," which could well serve as his next election slogan.) And even though fornication is a perfectly precise and accurate word for a particular sin, it's one that I don't use very often myself because it has an inflammatory effect which detracts from the calm and rational discussion of things.
Anyway, her speech - or at least the reported parts of it - have led to her being subjected to all kinds of online mockery, implying that she's typical of the pro-life Catholic crowd who want to send Ireland into an age of pre-enlightenment darkness.  However, if one actually goes to the bother of reading her speech - a thoroughly confusing contribution - it seems to me as though she doesn't represent mainstream pro-life thinking or Catholic thought and that her position on abortion seems to be a personal opposition, but an unwillingness to legislate for its illegality.  Indeed, reading many of the contributions made to the Dáil yesterday and the day before, many of them seem to base their opposition to Clare Daly's bill on pragmatic political grounds rather than on a principled concern for the life of the unborn.

On another online forum, a commentator made the astute remark about Mulherin's speech that it was written as though "two people with opposing view took turns writing paragraphs."
She starts by welcoming the debate and her concern for the Irish women who travel abroad for abortions.  Then she says:

We are moving and have moved away from an Ireland where morality was shoved down people’s throats. The question is whether responsibility for people’s moral conduct falls on the shoulders of Government or whether we go down the road of talking about the personal responsibility of the individuals involved.

She's raising a valid question here - albeit in an unsatisfactory manner.  One of the questions faced by legislators is the extent to which morality or good behaviour should be legislated for.  It seems self evident that the state should be allowed to forbid murder or kidnap or theft.  These seem to be the easy cases. Likewise, there is little appetite in modern Western democracies for the State to legislate to outlaw sexual misbehaviour in cases where consent can be responsibly given.   However, there are tougher questions.  What restrictions should the State place on cigarette smoking, drunkenness or pornography? What about drug-taking? The evaluation of what the State and criminal law can and can't do is a non-trivial question.  And whilst morality is often used in a pejorative sense (Is Mulherin doing this?), a legislator MUST reason in moral terms in order to decide what the State does or does not have the right to do.  
Questions of justice are moral questions, as are questions of human rights.  We are comfortable making the moral judgement that such-and-such a foreign state should not imprison political prisoners.  Whether we like it or not, that is a form of moral decision.  Likewise, the pro-life movement would argue that the question of what protection should be afforded to the unborn child is, of course, a moral one, but it is precisely the kind of moral question which the State must get involved in order to justly protect the human rights of mother and child.
Mulherin then goes on to make the fair point that hard cases make bad law.  Anyone with an iota of life experience know that difficult situations arise where we are torn apart by a whole nexus of competing thoughts, emotions and principles. Legal and moral decision making isn't easy and even though particular cases may sway us one way or the other, careful legislation cannot be based solely on particular "hard cases" without regard for underlying principles. She follows this argument (which you could imagine being taken from a pro-life briefing paper) with the following paragraph:

I will be voting against the Bill, which I believe is untimely. However, it does open a debate and I welcome that aspect. There are some questions I would raise during the debate. The major objection to abortion in Ireland is religious but the rest of the Western world has no objections in this way. In the book Free and Female, dating from some decades back, Ms Barbara Seaman put abortion as part of the lifelong struggle of women for effective contraception and to be able to take control of their own bodily integrity. That is both liberal and feminist. When we legislate, we do it with an all-inclusive paradigm for our society. In short, it is not for the majority alone.

Here she sounds, not like a conservative religious pro-lifer, but rather like someone in favour of enshrining abortion rights in legislation.  Her objection to the Daly bill is a question of timing. Her statement about Ireland's objection to abortion being uniquely religious is somewhat of a puzzler.  Yes, the vast majority of those who oppose the introduction of abortion to Ireland are Catholic and are motivated by their faith.  I suspect however that in the Western world, religiously motivated opposition to abortion is far from being uniquely Irish.  (Malta? Poland? The USA?)


However, even though religious people are opposed to abortion, their grounds for doing so are far from being simply religious. It's a question of human rights and the extent and manner to which human life should be protected by the State.  Most arguments against abortion are rooted in philosophical and scientific issues, rather than questions of scriptural interpretation and there are a fair number of agnostics and atheists who make common cause with their religious fellow-citizens in arguing for the right to life.In Catholic terms, opposition to abortion is rooted in the Natural Law and is not a religious stricture which we seek to impose on society, but rather a genuine injustice against another human being which the State has the right and responsibility to prevent. Our opposition to abortion is not akin to our suggesting that everyone should go to Mass on Sundays or face imprisonment, but is based on the exact same principles as the treatment of theft or kidnapping as illegal activities.

Anyway, having put forward an argument which seems to come from the pro-choice playbook, Mulherin then makes a sort of personal profession of faith which seems to be somewhat of a non sequitur: 

I am against abortion in any form. The grace of God is so liberating and provides so many options to get the best out of life despite our fallen nature, and we all have that. Having said that, it is an ideal to aim for. In an ideal world, there would be no unwanted pregnancies and no unwanted babies. However, we are far from living in an ideal world. An honest and a scriptural view is that things are getting harder for people, so what then for the weak in our society?

I'm not sure what Deputy Mulherin's religious background is. Certainly a belief in original sin and the power of God's grace is Catholic teaching, even if some of my online correspondents detect a US-style evangelical accent in her credo.  (I'm a fan of St Augustine & don't think we Catholics think enough about grace or original sin.)  She also makes a clear (personal?) statement of opposition to abortion, but leaves it unclear as to how that opposition should inform her legislative duties.  Likewise, her description of our less-than-ideal world raises questions... Does she mean to imply that because the world is fallen or imperfect that somehow we are held back from striving for the best because it is unattainable?  Are good and evil only relative categories in a less-than-ideal world?  Her self-expression is so unclear that it's hard to see what she's really getting at, but it doesn't sit well with me.  (That thing about "an honest and scriptural view" sounds like something an American fundamentalist would say.)Her next paragraphs speak about the 1st World becoming "freer and more autonomous." She presents a narrative of Ireland moving from a society legislating according to religious principles to one where such legislation is now unthinkable.  She then makes the statement which seems to give the clearest insight into her thinking:

Perhaps the Irish, like the rest of the world, are maturing to the point that they can be trusted with freedom of choice. In fact, although divorce became legal, marriage still remains very popular in Ireland and throughout the world, including the USA. It could be argued that when people are free to abort, they will fight harder to keep their unborn babies by choice and they will value their pregnancies. For those who do not, and I believe them a minority, they will be free to choose what to do with no legal pressure. In other words, any legislation will not make a good Catholic choose abortion against her conscience.

 Deputy Mulherin presents an Ireland where there is "freedom of choice" as being a more mature place.  She seems to loom forward to the day when the minority who do not "value their pregnancies" will be "free to choose what to do with no legal pressure." Despite all the controversy surrounding her, it seems to me that Deputy Mulhern falls into the camp of those who are personally opposed to abortion but who do not want to legislatively forbid it. So, all the mockery of her as representing religious pro-lifers is mis-directed. She sounds a lot more "pro-choice" than "pro-life."
  Finally, she concludes with her notorious fornication paragraph:

Abortion as murder, and therefore sin, which is the religious argument, is no more sinful from a scriptural point of view than all other sins we do not legislate against, such as greed, hate and fornication, the latter - fornication - being probably the single most likely cause of unwanted pregnancies in this country. At the end of the day, however, it is the nature of religion to fuss over appearances above the truth and the inner state of the person.

Mulherin puts abortion into the the category of sin - and based on that paragraph and her speech as a whole, it seems as though she understands "sin" as a purely personal matter, and not something that touches on the question of the human rights of others.  It's telling that she says,  it is the nature of religion to fuss over appearances above the truth and the inner state of the person - hardly the opinion of a mainstream Christian thinker, let alone the right-wing theocrat she is accused of being in various places on the internet. It's not my business to offer spiritual diagnoses over the internet, but it seems as though Deputy Mulherin has a curious understanding of sin and its relation to religion.  Sin seems to be something outlawed by a particular religion, very important to one's personal conscience, but not something at all to do with society in a broader sense or with issues of human rights.  She presents the general thrust of Ireland's social and moral changes in recent years in an unquestioningly positive manner, but above all, I think the weakness of her position - in as much as I understand it - is a total failure to consider the question of abortion as involving the rights of an unborn child.  


It's curious that Deputy Mulherin's use of the word "fornication" had the effect of triggering a tribalistic instinct. I've seen her praised by sincere Catholics (most of whom hadn't read her entire speech) for having the courage to call a spade a spade.  I'm not sure that many of them would have much time for the pro-choice argument Mulherin seems to be making.Similarly, speaking about fornication made her an ideal whipping-girl for many in the pro-choice world who could point to her as an example of pro-life Catholic ignorance from the backwoods of Mayo - an excuse to paint pro-lifers as being ignorant and insensitive zealots.  They totally pass over the fact that her speech seems to be that of someone who doesn't at all seem happy with the idea of legislative restrictions on abortion.     Anyway, I think the real thing to remember from all this is how poor the public discourse is in our country, especially where issues of religion are concerned and how unreliable a picture of things the media can paint.  Is there anyone out there in the mainstream media trying to give a true account of what Deputy Mulherin was arguing?

Draft of a Homily for Domenica in Albis

This Sunday is traditionally known as Domenica in Albis – the Sunday for the taking off of the white clothes.  In the Early Church, adults would have been welcomed into the Church at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night and would have worn their white baptismal robes to Church for the following eight days – the Octave of Easter - as a reminder to themselves and to others of the new life they had received in baptism.  However, this Sunday they would set their white robes and would be reminded that whilst their way of dress would no longer mark them out as new Christians, their way of life should continue to do so as they did their best to keep their baptismal promises and walk in the way Christ taught them.

Our First Reading gives us a picture of the Apostles and their followers living as a distinctive community whose teaching and way of life was different from the society around them.  If we look at the history books we see that their distinctive way of life led to both the admiration and the contempt of members of the broader society around them.  Because they recognised that Christ was the Lord and that there is only One God, they would not worship the Roman emperor as a god or take part in the pagan worship of the state.  The fact that Christians were equally accepting of slaves and the nobility as brothers and sisters in Christ led to them being mocked for their disregard of the social order.  Because of the Christian principles of respect for all life and the duty to care for the vulnerable, the first Christians would have nothing to do with the Roman custom of leaving sickly new-born babies to die on the rubbish heap – and indeed, often adopted such abandoned babies.  Those who would have no truck with the Christians dismissed this as weak-mindedness, but this Christian example of compassion gradually won many admirers.  Likewise, Christ’s teaching about marital fidelity was radically counter-cultural when men saw it as their right to cast off one wife and take up with another – but the Christian community stayed loyal to the teaching of Christ in recognising the importance and dignity of marriage as a path to holiness for husbands and wives alike.  In short, part and parcel of the Christian life is living a challenging sort of life, made possible by Christ’s gift of the Holy Spirit and the support of the Christian community.

The challenge to us today is to recognise that we too have received the same Holy Spirit – we have the same religious and spiritual DNA as the Christians of the Early Church, and whether we are a small minority or a majority of the population, the challenge to us is the same – to live lives in Communion with Christ and with one another and to bear witness to the Gospel values taught by Christ and passed on by the Church under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  If we have been baptised, we have been challenged to live a life of faith, basing what we say and do on the Gospel.  St John tells us, “this is what loving God is – keeping his commandants; and his commandments are not difficult because anyone who has been begotten by God has already overcome the world.”

Objectively speaking, God’s commandments are challenging, are difficult.  I don’t think we should understand St John to be telling us that the Christian life is a breeze.  Rather, He is reminding us that if we truly believe in the power of Him who has given us new life, we will have His help in living that Christian life.  And that Christian life, he reminds us, is something that is in opposition to the world.

There was an interesting survey published during the week – the point of it was to show up the differences between the thinking of Irish Catholics and the teaching of the Church.  I suspect the desired intention was to help make the case that the teachings of the Church don’t match up with what is happening in modern life or with the thoughts of Irish Catholics.  To be frank, I wasn’t at all very surprised at the results of the survey which showed Church teaching to be very much the minority opinion, especially where issues of sexual morality were at issue.  It’s not a surprise because our opinions are shaped by the society around us and the opinion makers – the newspaper editors, the advertisers, the writers of soap operas, TV celebrities and journalists and so on, they’re the ones who are talking to us and shaping our thoughts and influencing our opinions.  The question we must ask is whether they are doing so in order to help us follow Christ and live the kind of life He asks of us.  Is it progress if our beliefs and attitudes do not correspond to anything that previous generations of Christians would have recognised as Christianity?

The question we must ask of ourselves as Christians is whether we are making a genuine effort to understand the kind of life that Christ wants of us?  Or are we accepting the common assumptions of society without criticism.  If we are puzzled about something the Church teaches, or puzzled about something that the media tells that the Church teaches, do we make the effort to find out what the Church actually teaches and why?  Do we spend time with the scriptures and with the Catechism of the Catholic Church in order to discern the call of the Lord?  Do we ever balance the hours and hours of television, radio, newspapers and chat with time spent in prayer and the study of our faith?  Have we ever asked a priest we trust to explain something about Church teaching that puzzles us?  Do we believe enough in Christ and His victory over the world to believe that the way of life He calls us to might involve holding values that do not square with the common consensus of that same world?  Is it more important for us to accept the reasoning of the society around us, or to stay in communion with the followers of Jesus throughout the ages who were not afraid to choose a radical way of life above the values of their time?

When ‘doubting Thomas’ saw the Lord’s wounds and made His profession of faith, Jesus blessed all those who would accept the Apostles’ teaching and believe in Him:

You believe because you can see me.  Happy are those who have not seen, and yet believe.

That describes our situation – those of us who have not seen Christ in the flesh, but who know Him through the life of faith.  We know Him in prayer and in the sacraments, in the scriptures and in the life of the Church.  The prayers of this Mass ask that that knowledge and faith be kept alive and life-giving in our lives, in our minds, in our hearts.  We pray that we will have the courage to entrust ourselves to the Lord & the determination to seek His wisdom to sustain us in our Christian lives.

Addendum:  You need to read The Thirsty Gargoyle's take on the ACP survey.

A thought about the Association of Catholic Priests Survey...

There has been a fair amount of discussion today about the Association of Catholic Priests survey which shows the opinions of many Irish Catholics to be at odds the the doctrine of the Church. I suppose we're supposed to think that it's time for the "Institutional Church" to catch up with modern times and revise doctrine so as to fall in line with the opinions of "contemporary Catholics".  (Incidentally, the phrase "Institutional Church" makes me cringe - it almost always betrays a flawed ecclesiology.)
The thinking behind such a point of view is the idea that experience trumps Divine Revelation and a general lack of belief in revealed religion.  Only SOME of the challenges of the Gospel are viewed as politically correct nowadays, so it's acceptable to preach generosity to the less fortunate, but less so to affirm the value of chastity.  There seems to be a sense that Christ's message is take up your cross and follow me in a manner consistent with the values of your age.
I wish one or two other questions had been included in the survey - whether it's okay to work a few hours overtime for an under-the-counter cash wage or whether it's okay to tell a few white lies.  Would we be faced with the argument that the Church needs to change its teaching on honest in order to reflect the values of contemporary Catholics?

Rather than go through the whole survey, one question in particular caught my attention - the fact that only 5% of Catholics expressed the opinion that people who are divorced-and-in-a-second-relationship should not be allowed receive Holy Communion. Given that Christ Himself taught that divorcing and taking up with another partner was adultery and that it's clear from the scriptures that from the time of the Apostles grave sin excludes one from the Eucharist, we're being asked to swallow the proposition that the words of Christ and the teachings of the Apostles need to be reviewed based on the tolerance of the Irish people. [BTW, a study of Church discipline in the early centuries would be an eye-opening project for those people who imagine pre-Constantinian Christianity as some sort of let-it-all-hang-out hippy experiment.]
Any priest who has spent any time in parish ministry will know the pain caused by relationship breakdown and will want to be as sympathetic as possible to someone in such a situation.  However, parish life shows equally clearly that a culture which places little stock in the sacredness of marriage vows and the importance of marriage as the fundamental building block of the family is a society where children suffer from the fallout of this social change.  In modern Ireland the prophetic stance is to stand up for marriage.

The one thing that is clear from the survey is that those of us - clergy and lay - who have been charged with the task of teaching within the Church have done pretty poorly.  It shouldn't be a surprise to us that the cultural mores of those who produce our television programmes and write in our newspapers influence Irish Catholics more than the 10 minutes or so of preaching that church-goers hear every week.  There is very little sense in the Irish Church that one's faith is something that one should spend time in studying and that our religious convictions should lead us to have an understanding of life that is radically different from the culture around us.  Given that so far as social and moral issues were concerned, the values of society and the Church were in harmony until relatively recently, it's a new thing for Irish Catholicism to propose a vision that's at odds with the received morality.  Still, I think we priests should be courageous. Indeed, we must be courageous!  If our vocation means anything at all, it means being configured to Christ the Good Shepherd and there's a long tradition in the Patristic literature which pours contempt on the shepherd who remains silent.  As Pope St Gregory the Great put it:

When a pastor has been afraid to assert what is right, has he not turned his back and fled by remaining silent? Whereas if he intervenes on behalf of the flock, he sets up a wall against the enemy in front of the house of Israel. Therefore, the Lord again says to his unfaithful people: Your prophets saw false and foolish visions and did not point out your wickedness, that you might repent of your sins. The name of the prophet is sometimes given in the sacred writings to teachers who both declare the present to be fleeting and reveal what is to come. The word of God accuses them of seeing false visions because they are afraid to reproach men for their faults and thereby lull the evildoer with an empty promise of safety. Because they fear reproach, they keep silent and fail to point out the sinner’s wrongdoing.