Lex Anteinternet: New Years Day. Looking at 2024 through the front of the Church doors.

Lex Anteinternet: New Years Day. Looking at 2024 through the front ...: 

New Years Day. Looking at 2024 through the front of the Church doors.

I noted in our post  New Year's Resolutions for Other People, sort of that we weren't going to post resolutions, but we did have some comments.  That's true here as well.

New Years Day is the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, a Catholic holy day of obligation.  Like a lot of Catholics, I went to Mass last night.

Mural of the Virgin Mary in downtown Salt Lake City.

I didn't go last night as I intended to go whoop it up on the town.¹   I've never been big on celebrating "New Years" anyhow, although we did last night with family and sort of extended family, as we have a at this point another person in the second half of their twenties whose pretty much incorporated into the family, but not officially or by blood.  Anyhow, it was pretty low key and I was in bed before midnight.  I think last year I made it to midnight to observe the fireworks some neighbors set off.  This year I did not.  I'm amazed that the same people, who really like fireworks, set them off again, as we've had hurricane force winds for the past day or so.

Anyhow, the reason I'm posting this comment is due to a particularly troublesome year for American Christianity in 2024.

American Protestants don't like to believe it, but the United States is and has always been a Protestant Country.  It's so Protestant, that the Protestants can't recognize that, and even people who claim to have no religion at all are pretty Protestant.  Even a lot of Catholics are pretty Protestantized and I've known some fairly secular Jews who were fairly Protestant.

Protestantism is a pretty big tent, with there being all sorts of tables within it, and with some of the tables really not liking others.  For much of the country's history the Episcopal Church was the dominant Protestant Church, which made a lot of sense.  The Episcopal Church is, of course, part of the Anglican Communion and the English descent is dominant in American ancestry.  Supposedly this is 26% of the population now, but that figure is probably inaccurate by at least half simply because people whose ancestry stretches back away have simply forgotten it and is not celebrated the way other ancestral inheritance is.  I'm of overwhelming Irish ancestry but even I have a little English ancestry of the Anglo Norman variety, brough in through Ireland.

Anyhow, as in the 18th Century most residents of British North America were from Great Britain, most were members of the Church of England, outside of Canada, where of course they were French and Catholic.

The Episcopal Church has never been in the only Protestant Church in what is now the US, however.  Right from the beginning there were bodies of dissenters from the established church who came here to be able to practice their faith without being molested for it. That doesn't mean they were keen on others practicing their faiths, and they often didn't tolerate other Protestants at all.  But they were there, and that gave rise to a sort of rough and ready loosely organized Protestantism in some regions, particularly the American South.  These groups really prospered following the American Civil War as they hadn't gotten behind the war the way Southern Episcopalians had.  These groups really spread across the nation following the 1970s.  Looking back, its amazing to realize that growing up I knew exactly one Baptist kid (he's now a Lutheran) and the three big Protestant churches in this category didn't exist here.  Wyoming is the least religious state in the US, but at that time almost all the Protestants I knew were Lutheran or Episcopalian.  I knew a handful of Methodists and of course Mormons, but Baptists or Assemblies of God?  Nope.

So what's this have to do with 2024?

The Election of 2024 saw a really strong association of Evangelical Christianity, which is very much an American thing, and the vote.  It's distinctly different than anything that's occurred before.

Evangelical Christianity has been nationally significant in elections since at least 1950 or so, but it wasn't until 2024 that the "Christian vote" meant the Evangelical vote outside of the American South.  Because they are fractured, they are not the largest Christian body in the country.  Oddly enough, while 67% of the population self identifies as Christian, and something like 44% identify as Protestant, Catholics are the largest single denomination.

The back story to this however is that the Reformation, which started in 1517, is ending.  

The Reformation was able to start in the first place due to a large element of ignorance.  This can't be said of Luther, who wasn't ignorant, but who was opinionated and wrong.  Luther opened the door, however, to people like Calvin, Zwingli and Knox who were fundamentally ignorant in certain ways.

The spread of cheap printing and ultimately the Internet makes ignorance on some things much more difficult to retain.  For centuries bodies of Protestant Christians held to sola scriptura and a belief that they were like the first Christians, even though there's always been Christian texts dating back to shortly after Christ's crucifixion.²   Now, all of a sudden, anybody can read them.  This has in fact caused a pronounced migration of really serious sola scriptura Christians to the Apostolic Churches, as well as a migration by serious "mainline" Protestants.  Some bodies at this point, like very conservative Anglicans and Lutherans, are mostly Protestant out of pure obstinance. 

The ultimate irony of all of this is that the mainline Protestant churches have collapsed in many places.  Part of this is due to the massive increase in wealth in the western world which has hurt religion in general, but part is also because it gets to be tough to explain why you are a member of one of these churches if you can't explain a really solid reason to be, as opposed being in an Apostolic church.

At the same time, and not too surprisingly, similar forces have been operating in the Evangelical world in the US.  As already noted, quite a few serious Evangelicals are now serious Catholics or Orthodox.  Others, however, have retreated into a deep American Evangelicalism that is resistant to looking at the early Church, even though they are aware of it. This is rooted, in no small part, to the go it alone history of these bodies.

At the same time that this has occurred, the spread of the American Civil Religion has grown which sort of holds that everyone is going to Heaven as long as they aren't bad.  Serious Catholics and Orthodox can't accommodate themselves to that but Evangelicals have attempted to, while at the same time realizing it really doesn't make sense.  

Obergefell, as we noted, was the watershed moment.  At that point, Christians of all types were faced with realizing that the US had really strayed far from observing its Christian origins, or at least the Christian faith, with there being all sorts of different reactions to it.  In Catholic Churches there was the realization that we really hadn't become as American as we thought, and we weren't going to.  Trads sprang up partially in reaction with now every Church having its contingent of Mantilla Girls giving an obstinate cultural no.

In Evangelical circles it helped fuel a militant conservatism that expresses its most radical nature in the New Apostolic Reformation which believes that we're on the cusp of a new Apostolic age, which will be Protestant in nature, and more transformational than any prior Great Awakening.  They believe that the United States is charged with a Devine mission and some have concluded, as unlikely as it would seem from the outside, that Donald Trump is an improbable Cyrus the Great who will bring this about.

The support of Southern Episcopalians for the Southern cause in the Civil War damaged in the South to such an extent that the non mainline churches, like the Southern Baptist, came up as a major force after the war.  The Baptists and Protestant itinerant preachers had warned during the war that wickedness was going to bring ruin.  It seemed that their warnings were proven by the results of the war.  Episcopal linking to a wicked cause diminished their credibility.

Donald Trump is not Cyrus the Great.  Mike Johnson is not standing in the shoes of Moses.  This will all have a bad end.  Or it might.  As noted, the Reformation is dying and in some ways this is the last stand of it.  Those linking their Christianity to a man like Donald Trump are pinning their hopes, and their faith, on a weak reed. The question is what happens when it breaks and how much damage has been done, including to Christianity in general, in the meantime.

Moreover, the question also exists if you can claim to bear a Christian standard while not observing parts of the faith that are established but uncomfortable, let alone contrary to what is now so easy to determine not to be part of the early faith.  Can those who clearly don't live a Christian life really be the shield wall against decay?  

Footnotes:

1.  As with my observation on Christmas in The Law and Christmas, being a Catholic puts you in a strange position in regard to the secular world, or rather the larger American culture.  Lots of people start celebrating New Years pretty darned early on New Years Even, which means as an employer you start to get questions about whether we're closing at noon and the like, pretty early on.  And also, while in the popular imagination people hit the bars at night, quite a few people have celebrator drinks here and there by late morning in reality.  If your concern is getting to a vigil Mass soon after work, you aren't one of those people. And if you are one of the people hitting Mass in the morning, you aren't having a late night.

2.  Sola scriptura never made sense and is obviously incorrect in that the New Testament itself mentions traditions outside of the written text.  But the Bible, moreover, which is the scripture that "Bible Believing" Christian's look to is the version that was set out by the Catholic Church as the Canon of Scripture. Nowhere in the Bible does is there a Devine instruction as to what books would be included in the Bible.

Indeed, this position is further weakened in that Luther put some books he personally didn't like in an appendix, and later Protestants removed them. That wasn't Biblical.  Moreover, the Eastern Orthodox Bible contains the Prayer of Manaseh, I Esdras, II Esdras, III Maccabees, IV Maccabees, Odes, and Psalm 151 and the Orthodox Tewahedo biblical canon some pre Christian Jewish books the others do not. While Catholics can explain why the books they include in their canon and can explain the relationship to the other Bibles, Protestant "Bible Believing" Christians flat out cannot.  All of the texts in the Orthodox Bibles are genuine ancient texts without dispute.  Moreover, there are early Christian writings which are genuine that are wholly omitted from any Bible.  The Sola Scriptura position just accepts the King James version of the Bible on the basis that it must be the canon on a pure matter of faith, which is not relying on scripture alone.

Related thread:

Virgin Mary Mural in Salt Lake City

A Protestant Country. It's history, and what it means.

Churches of the West: The Bishop of Rome.

Churches of the West: The Bishop of Rome.: 

The Bishop of Rome.

By this time, most observant conservative Catholics are either so fatigued from Papal issuances that they either disregard them, or cringe when they come out. They seem to come out with a high degree of regularity.

And, while we don't technically have a new one, a "study document" issued by the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity has put out something that has the Pope's approval to be issued, that being something that looks at the role of the Papacy itself:

Now, it's a very large document, so I'm not going to attempt to put it all out here, and I haven't read all of it either.  So, we're going to turn to  The Pillar to find out what it holds.  The Pillar states:

What does it say? 

Helpfully, the text has a section summarizing the four sections (beginning on p106).

1) Regarding responses to Ut unum sint, the document says that the question of papal primacy is being discussed in “a new and positive ecumenical spirit.” 

“This new climate is indicative of the good relations established between Christian communions, and especially between their leaders,” it says. 

2) Concerning disputed theological questions, the text welcomes what it calls “a renewed reading” of the classic “Petrine texts,” which set out the Apostle Peter’s role in the Church.

“On the basis of contemporary exegesis and patristic research, new insights and mutual enrichment have been achieved, challenging some traditional confessional interpretations,” it notes. 

One particularly controversial issue, it says, is the Catholic conviction that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome was established de iure divino (by divine law), “while most other Christians understand it as being instituted merely de iure humano” (by human law). 

But the document says that new interpretations are helping to overcome “this traditional dichotomy, by considering primacy as both de iure divino and de iure humano, that is, being part of God’s will for the Church and mediated through human history.” 

Another enduring obstacle is the First Vatican Council. But the document says that here too there has been “promising progress,” thanks to ecumenical dialogues that seek “a ‘rereading’ or ‘re-reception’” of the Council’s decrees. 

This approach, it says, “emphasizes the importance of interpreting the dogmatic statements of Vatican I not in isolation, but in the light of their historical context, of their intention and of their reception — especially through the teaching of Vatican II.” 

Addressing this point in a June 13 Vatican News interview, Cardinal Koch said that since Vatican I’s “dogmatic definitions were profoundly conditioned by historical circumstances,” ecumenical partners were encouraging the Catholic Church to “seek new expressions and vocabulary faithful to the original intention, integrating them into an ecclesiology of communion and adapting them to the current cultural and ecumenical context.”  

“There is therefore talk of a ‘re-reception,’ or even ‘reformulation,’ of the teachings of Vatican I,” the Swiss cardinal explained. 

3) Summarizing the document’s third section, the text says that fresh approaches to disputed questions have “opened new perspectives for a ministry of unity in a reconciled Church.” 

Crucially, the document suggests there is a common understanding that although the first millennium of Christian history is “decisive,” it “should not be idealized nor simply re-created since the developments of the second millennium cannot be ignored and also because a primacy at the universal level should respond to contemporary challenges.”

From the ecumenical dialogues, it’s possible to deduce “principles for the exercise of primacy in the 21st century,” the text says. 

One is that there must be an interplay between primacy and synodality at every level of the Church. In other words, there is a need for “a synodal exercise of primacy.”

Synodality is notoriously difficult to define, but the document describes it at one point as “the renewed practice of the Synod of Bishops, including a broader consultation of the whole People of God.” 

4) Among the practical suggestions for a renewed exercise of the ministry of unity, the document highlights the possibility of “a Catholic ‘re-reception’, ‘re-interpretation’, ‘official interpretation’, ‘updated commentary’ or even ‘rewording’ of the teachings of Vatican I.” 

It also stresses appeals for “a clearer distinction between the different responsibilities of the Bishop of Rome, especially between his patriarchal ministry in the Church of the West and his primatial ministry of unity in the communion of Churches, both West and East.”  

“There is also a need to distinguish the patriarchal and primatial roles of the Bishop of Rome from his political function as head of state,” the text says, adding: “A greater accent on the exercise of the ministry of the pope in his own particular Church, the Diocese of Rome, would highlight the episcopal ministry he shares with his brother bishops, and renew the image of the papacy.” 

The new document appears months after Pope Francis restored the title “Patriarch of the West” among the list of papal titles in the Vatican’s annual yearbook, after it was dropped by his predecessor Benedict XVI. 

Commenting on that development at the June 13 Vatican press conference, Cardinal Koch said that neither Francis nor Benedict XVI offered detailed explanations for the change. 

“But I am convinced they did not want to do something against anyone, but both wanted to do something ecumenically respectful,” he commented. 

Another suggestion is for the Catholic Church to further develop its practice of synodality, particularly through “further reflection on the authority of national and regional Catholic bishops’ conferences, their relationship with the Synod of Bishops and with the Roman Curia.” 

Finally, the text mentions a request for regular meetings among Church leaders at a worldwide level, in a spirit of “conciliar fellowship.”

What does that mean?

Well, frankly, I don't grasp it.

Without having read it, I sort of vaguely grasp that the Pope, who recently revived using the title Patriarch of the West, is sort of modeling this view of the Papacy on the Churches of the East, sort of.  In the East, each Church is autocephalous, with the Patriarch of Constantinople holding a "first among equals" position.  I don't think the Pope intends to fully go in that direction, but vaguely suggest that the synodal model of the East should apply more in the West, and that as Patriarch of the West, perhaps the entire Apostolic Church could be reunited, and perhaps even sort of vaguely include the "mainline" Protestant Churches, by which we'd mean the Lutheran and Anglican Churches.

It sort of interestingly brings up the Zoghby Initiative of the 1970s, in which Melkite Greek Catholic Church bishop Elias Zoghby sought to allow for inter-communion between the Melkites and the Antiochian Orthodox Church after a short period of dialogue.  His position was, basically, that this reunion could occur with a two point profession of faith, those being a statement of belief in the teaching gof the Eastern Orthodox churches and being in communion with the Bishop of Rome as the first among the bishops "according to the limits recognized by the Holy Fathers of the East during the first millennium, before the separation."

Thing was, there really were no limits.  In the first thousand years before the separation it's pretty clear that the Pope was head of the Church.  Indeed, from the earliest days that was recognized.

Bishop Zoghby's initiative went nowhere and he's since passed on, but this sort of interestingly recalls it.  His effort received criticism from figures within Orthodoxy and the Roman Catholic Church, although a few Eastern Catholics admired it.  Here, I'd predict that conservative Catholics are not going to be too impressed.

Additionally, a recent problem barely noticed in the West is that the recent focus of Pope Francis on blessings for people in irregular unions, which is widely interpreted to mean homosexuals, has not only upset conservative Catholics, but Eastern Churches in some cases have backed away from the Catholic Church.  One Eastern Bishop who was getting quite close to Rome came out and stated that Fiducia Supplicans basically prevented any chance of reunion with his church.

This gets back to some things we've noted here before.  One is that this Papacy seems very focused on Europe, although the fact that this also looks towards the East cuts against that statement a bit.  Having said that, a good deal of the early focus of this Papacy was on European conditions, which have continued to be a problem as the German Church is outright ignoring Pope Francis to a large degree.  Loosening the role of the Papacy may stand to make those conditions worse, and probably won't bring the mainstream of the Lutherans and Anglicans in.  Which gets to the next point.  The Reformation is dying.

Seemingly hardly noticed is that the real story in Christianity, to a large degree, is the rapid decline in the old Reformation Protestant churches.  People like to note "well Catholic numbers are declining too", but frankly real statistical data shows that while there may be a decline, it's slight.  Indeed, what appears to be occurring in the Western World is that conversions to Catholicism offset departures. That's not growth, but what that sort of shows is the decline in cultural affiliation with a certain religion and, at least in the US, the end of the byproduct of the Kennedy Era Americanization of the Church.  Indeed, at the same time this is going on, the growth in Catholic conservatism and traditionalism in younger generations has grown too big to ignore.¹ At the same time, Eastern Catholic Churches are gaining members from outside their ethnic communities, and the Easter Orthodox are gaining adherents from conservative Protestants who are leaving their liberalizing denominations.

This is a study document, so it's not a proclamation.  Twenty years ago or maybe even ten, I would have thought this a really good idea.  My instinct now is that its time has passed.  While conservative Catholics hold their breaths about the upcoming next session of the Synod on Synodality, there's sort of a general sense of marking time here as well, and indeed, an uncomfortable one.  The current Papacy has is very near its end, everyone knows this, but it puts out a lot of material that's of a highly substantive, and often controversial, nature.  Much of this is going to have to be dealt with after this Papcy concludes. Both the volume and speed at which things are occurring may reflect this, as that knowledge operates against the clock, but it might also be a reason to slow down at the Vatican level, or even put a bit of a time-out on things.

Footnotes:

1.  Indeed, I was at Confession recently on an average Saturday and noted that as I was there a  young woman with her two children were waiting in front of me, with both children saying Rosaries and the mother wearing a chapel veil. Her mother came in and also was wearing one, and a stunning young woman of maybe 20 came in also wearing one.  Every woman, and most of them were young, were attired in that fashion.

It's a minor example, but very notable.  This is becoming common.

Lex Anteinternet: Resurrection Sunday?

Lex Anteinternet: Resurrection Sunday?: 

Resurrection Sunday?

Before this past weekend, I'd never heard Easter called Resurrection Sunday.  I heard it twice on the weekend shows, once from a conservative Republican in Congress, and once from a centerist Democrat in Congress.  The latter, an African American Congressman from South Carolina, said off hand "we're supposed to call it Resurrection Sunday now".

I don't like it.

Apparently, what this relatively newly coined word is, is part of a widely held angst that everything on the liturgical calendar might have some pagan origin.  This is silly.

The classic one is that Christmas falls on top of a Roman holiday, which is particularly odd given that the Roman holiday so noted first came into existence after the first Christian texts noting the celebration of Christ's Mass in December.  The deal with Easter, apparently, is a fear that it is tied to the northern European goddess Eostre, who was the goddess of fertility and the goddess of the dawn.  People like to say that this is "German", but in actuality it would be Norse, with the Anglo-Saxons having close connections with the Scandinavians even before they became illegal immigrants on Great Britain.  The Venerable Bede made that claim, and he lived from 672 to 735, so in relative terms he was sort of close, but not all that close, to when the Angles, Saxons and Jutes had first shown up.

Bede further claimed that British Christians, using the Saxon calendar, starting calling Easter by that name as it occured in Eosturmonath (April) or Eastermonað.  If so, it also helps explain Easter eggs and the Easter Bunny, although it wouldn't explain why a bunny would leave boiled eggs all over, or why Easter Eggs are so famously associated with the East, as in Ukraine and Russia, either.

That the egg custom is really old and seems to ahve been adopted from a Persian Nowruz tradition actually would serve to explain the eggs. . . The tradition was old by the time it showed up on Great Britain.

The Easter Bunny is more obscure.  Rabbits had no association with Eostre, however.  About all we really know about the Easter Bunny is that it was a German Lutheran custom, and originally it played the role of a judge, evaluating whether children were good or disobedient in behavior at the start of the season of Eastertide, making the rabbit sort of scary.

Back on topic, and be all that as it may, some believe that the word Easter comes from an old Germanic, in this in context it would be Low German, probably Saxon, word for "east" which also, if fully extended to "Easter" grammatically meant to turn to the east. When the etymology is really examined, this is in fact the most likely explanation.  Some who have looked at it go further and claim that the word came from a Latin loan word (of which there are a surprising number in German), that being Auster, which sounds a lot like Easter, but actually had sort of a complicated meaning, the most simple being south, but the word apparently having other more complicated implications associated with the dawn.  However, some would say, including me, that instead Auster and East have the same Indo-European root word, that being  *h₂ews-, which means ‘dawn’, with the sun rising, of course, in the East. Those people claim the Germanic East is a variant of the root *h₂ews-ro-, whereas Auster is the Italic reflex, from *h₂ews-teros.  And it goes from there.

The latter sounds complicated, but this too is more common than we imagine.  Certain elemental Indo-European words have ended up in all the Indo-European languages, twisted and turned over the millennia, which all make sense if their roots are explained, but which don't seem to when you first hear them.  Indeed, there's the added odd widely observed phenomenon that certain words in other languages that depart widely from your native language, almost instantly make sense when you hear them, an example being Fenster, the German world for "window", which is fenestra in Latin and fenêtre in French.  Just my hypothesis on the latter, but it's like because of some deep Indo-European root that we otherwise understand.

Anyhow, for what it is worth, as Americans tend to believe that things are uniquely centered around us, the German word for Easter is Ostern.  I note this as I've seen repeated suggestions that only in English is the word "Easter" used.  This isn't true.  Ostern, which has the distinct "Ost", or "East" in it, is pretty close, suggesting that the directional origin of the name is correct.  I.e., in German Ostern derives from the Ost, the German word for East.

Likewise, the Dutch, who speak a closely related Germanic language, call the day Ooster.  The Dutch word for East is Oosten.  So here too, the Dutch word for Easter derives from the Dutch word for East.

Applying Occam's Razor, and keeping in mind that English is a Germanic language related to German and Dutch (Dutch more closely), leads us to the conclusion that the word "Easter" derives from the cardinal direction East, particularly when the cousin Germanic languages of German and Dutch are considered, which they usually are not.  Once that is done, and it is realized that at about the time the word Easter was first used all the northern German languages were much closer to each other than they are now, and they are still pretty close, logic pretty much dictates this result.

Most language groups do not, however, call Easter that.  The word seems to behave the way German words did and do, and has "East" as its major component, hence "East"er, "Ost"ern and Ooster.

The Scandinavian goddess explanation is considerably more complicated in every fashion.

Most non-Germanic language speakers, and some Germanic language speakers, don't use a word anything like this, of course.  

Latin and Greek, with together with Araamic, would have had the first word for the Holy Day, and they have always called Easter Pascha (Greek: Πάσχα). That is derived from Aramaic פסחא (Paskha), cognate to the Hebrew פֶּסַח‎ (Pesach), which is related to the Jewish Passover, all of which makes both linguistic, historic, and religious sense, although in the latter case one that causes some irony as we'll explain below.  Pascha actually shows up in English in at least Catholic circles, as the term Paschal is given frequent reference in relation to the Last Supper, but also beyond that in relation to Easter.

Of interest, the Swedish word for Easter is Påsk, the Norwegian Påske, the Danish Påske and the Icelandic Páskar.  If the word derived from a Scandinavian goddess, we'd expect the same pattern to hold in Scandinavia, which was the origin point of Eostre, although that would not obviously be true.  Instead, in all of Scandinavia, the word derives from Pascha.

The Frisian word for Easter is Peaske, which is particularly interesting as Frisian is extremely closely related to English and some people will claim, inaccurately, that it's mutually intelligible.  Peaske is obviously from Pascha, but it's almost morphed into Easter, which could cause some rational explanation if Easter is just a badly mispronounced Peaske. Wild morphing of words can occur, as for example the Irish Gaelic word for Easter derives from Pascha, but is Cháisc, which wouldn't be an obvious guess.

Given the German and Dutch examples, however, the Frisian word almost certainly doesn't suggest that Easter came from Pascha.

The use of Pascha makes sense, as every place in Western Europe was Christianized by the Latin Rite of the Church, which would have used a Latin term for the Holy Day.  The difference is, however, they weren't all Christianized at the same time.  The Anglo-Saxons encountered Christianity as soon as they hit the British shores in the 400s, probably around 449. At that time, most of the residents of the island were British or Roman Christians, and they would have sued the Latin term.  Conversion of the invaders is, however, generally dated to the 600s.

The Scandinavians were however much later.  Christianity appeared in Scandinavia in the 8th Century, but it really began to make major inroads in the 10th and 11th Centuries.  When the Church sent missionaries to the Saxons, it remained a much wilder place than it was to be later.  Scandinavia was very wild as well, in the 10th and 11th Centuries, but Scandinavian roaming was bringing into massive contact with the entire Eastern and Wester worlds in a way that sort of recalls the modern impact of the Internet.  They changed quickly, but they were, ironically, more globalist and modern than the Saxons had been a couple of centuries earlier. They also became quite devout, contrary to what Belloc might imagine, and were serious parts of the Catholic World until the betrayal of Gustav Vasa.

But here's the added thing. What if, in spite of the lack of evidence, the day's name in English recalls Eostre or Eosturmonath (Eastermonað"? So what?

Well, so what indeed.  It really doesn't matter.

Early Greek and Aramaic speaking Christians took their term for the day from Passover, or rather פֶּסַח‎ (Pesach).  So they were borrowing a Jewish holiday for the name right from the onset.  Nobody seems to find this shocking or complain about it.  As far as I know, Jews don't complain about it.  It simply makes sense.

And borrowing holidays that preexist and even simply using the dates is smart.  The date of Easter doesn't fit this description at all, but if the word does, borrowing it would have been convenient if a holiday existed that was celebrating rebirth.  Explaining concepts through the use of the familiar is a smart thing to do, and indeed in the US this has been done with a civil holiday, Cinco de Mayo, which Americans inaccurately believe is a Mexican holiday celebrating Mexican independence, and which have made the We Like Mexico holiday.

So, if Eostre had a day, or if the day in Saxon was named after the month named after her, it really doesn't matter.

Indeed, on that latter note, we've kept the Norse goddess Frig in Friday, the Norse God Thor, in Thursday, and the Norse God Woden in Wednesday., in English, and we don't freak out about it. Sunday originally honored the Sun, and we don't find Evangelical's refusing to use the word Sunday, as it's also the Christian Sabbath

So what of Resurrection Sunday?

I'm blaming Oliver Cromwell, fun sucker.

Great Britain's experience in the Reformation was nearly unique, in some ways.  Really radical Protestant movements, such as the Calvinists, took root in some places on the European continent, but by and large they waned, leaving isolated, for the most parts, pockets in areas in which they were otherwise a minority.  Looked at from a distance, the initial round of Protestant "reformers" didn't seek to reform all that much.  Luther continued to have a devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and Lutheran services today look pretty Catholic.  

In England, however, official religions whipped back and forth.  King Henry VIII didn't want a massive reform of theology, he wanted to instead control the Church, but things got rapidly out of hand.  After him, the Church of England struggled between being very Catholic in outlook and being a "reformed" church.  

Cromwell came up as a childhood beneficiary of the theft of Church property in the form of the dissolution and appropriation of the monasteries.  He evolved into being a radical sola scriptura Calvinist and saw the suppression of the Catholic and Anglican Churches come about.  Under his rule, religious holidays were made illegal under the theological error of sola scriptura.  After his death, the English Restoration brought a lot back, but it was never able to fully bring back in Calvinist who had adopted a rather narrow provincial English, or Scottish, view of their Christian faith, filtered through the language that they spoke.  They heavily influenced Christianity in the Americas, and their influence continues to carry on, which explains how they can adopt a view that ignores the other Germanic languages and which, in seeking to give a new term to Easter, ignores the fact that the logical choice would be the Aramaic word פסחא (Paskha) which would appear in the Bible as it would have applied to Passover, or the Greek word Πάσχα, Páscha, which means Easter and Passover.  So modern Evangelicals have inherited the Puritan narrow focus, ignored the other Germanic language words, and ignore the original Greek and Aramaic ones, in order to come up with a new one with no history of use whatsoever.

Let's just stick with Easter.

Lex Anteinternet: Holy Week.

Lex Anteinternet: Holy Week.:  

Holy Week.

 This is Holy Week.  It commenced yesterday with Palm Sunday, which we noted  yesterday:

Palm Sunday

 

Zdzisław Jasiński Palm Sunday 1891.

From City Father:

Palm Sunday

In those countries which were spared the cultural impact of the Reformation, at least directly, at the entire week is one of celebration and observance.  In a lot of those places, people have the whole week off.  Some of Spanish and Central American friends, for example do.

Well, in the English-speaking world we've had to continue to endure the impact of Cromwell and all his fun sucking, so we'll be headed to work instead.

Lex Anteinternet: Palm Sunday

Lex Anteinternet: Palm Sunday:   

Palm Sunday

 

Zdzisław Jasiński Palm Sunday 1891.

From City Father:

Palm Sunday

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, March 7, 1274. Death of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, March 7, 1274. Death of St. Thomas Aqui...:  

Wednesday, March 7, 1274. Death of St. Thomas Aquinus.

 

Thomas Aquinus died on this day in 1274.  He was a proponent of the major Catholic school of thought, natural theology, and the father of a school of thought known as Thomism after him.

Lex Anteinternet: Today is St. Dwynwen's Day.

Lex Anteinternet: Today is St. Dwynwen's Day.: 

Today is St. Dwynwen's Day.

The ruins of the church built by St. Dwynwen.

She was a Welsh nun of the early Church, having died in about the year 460.

She is the patron saint of lovers, having lived as a hermit on Ynys Llanddwyn off the west coast of Anglesey, where she built a church.  Becoming a hermit was common amongst the extremely devout of the early Church, although it's more common associated with North Africa.  She apparently had been very sought after by a young suitor whom she could not marry, and in her isolation prayed that God look after all true lovers.

Her day is widely celebrated in Wales.

Lex Anteinternet: St. Agnes of Rome

Lex Anteinternet: St. Agnes of Rome: 

St. Agnes of Rome

 A saint, in many ways, for our times.  Her feast day was yesterday.

Martyred on January 21, 304.

Lex Anteinternet: Pope Francis on the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, what he really said, and the legacy of his Papacy.

Lex Anteinternet: Pope Francis on the Solemnity of the Epiphany of t...: 

Pope Francis on the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, what he really said, and the legacy of his Papacy.

The news medial this morning is running the headline, in regard to Pope Francis, that:

Pope warns against ideological splits in the Church, says focus on the poor, not ‘theory’

Well, what did he really say?

Here it is:

HOMILY OF POPE FRANCIS

St Peter’s Basilica

Saturday, 6 January 2024

The Magi set out to seek the newborn King. They are an image of the world’s peoples journeying in search of God, of the foreigners who now are led to the mountain of the Lord (cf. Is 56:6-7), of those who now, from afar, can hear the message of salvation (cf. Is 33:13), of all those who were lost and now hear the beckoning of a friendly voice. For now, in the flesh of the Babe of Bethlehem, the glory of the Lord has been revealed to all the nations (cf. Is 40:5) and “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Lk 3:6). This is the pilgrimage of humanity, of each of us, moving from distance to closeness.

The Magi have their eyes raised to the heavens, yet their feet are journeying on the earth, and their hearts are bowed in adoration.  Let me repeat this: their eyes are raised to the heavens, their feet are journeying on the earth and their hearts are bowed in adoration.

First, their eyes are raised to the heavens. The Magi are filled with longing for the infinite, and so they gaze at the stars of the evening sky. They do not pass their lives staring at their feet, self-absorbed, confined by earthly horizons, plodding ahead in resignation or lamentation.  They lift their heads high and await the light that can illumine the meaning of their lives, the salvation that dawns from on high. They then see a star, brighter than all others, which fascinates them and makes them set out on a journey. Here we see the key to discovering the real meaning of our lives: if we remain closed in the narrow confines of earthly things, if we waste away, heads bowed, hostages of our failures and our regrets; if we thirst for wealth and worldly comforts – which are here today and are gone tomorrow – rather than becoming seekers of life and love, our life slowly loses its light. The Magi, who are still foreigners and have not yet encountered Jesus, teach us to fix our sight on high, to lift our eyes to the heavens, to the hills, from which our help will come, for our help is from the Lord (cf. Ps 121:1-2).

Brothers and sisters, let us raise our eyes to the heavens! We need to lift our gaze on high, in order to be able view reality from on high. We need this on our journey through life, we need to let ourselves walk in friendship with the Lord, we need his love to sustain us, and the light of his word to guide us, like a star in the night. We need to set out on this journey, so that our faith will not be reduced to an assemblage of religious devotions or mere outward appearance, but will instead become a fire burning within us, making us passionate seekers of the Lord’s face and witnesses to his Gospel. We need this in the Church, where, instead of splitting into groups based on our own ideas, we are called to put God back at the centre. We need to let go of ecclesiastical ideologies so that we can discover the meaning of Holy Mother Church, the ecclesial habitus. Ecclesiastical ideologies, no; ecclesial vocation, yes. The Lord, not our own ideas or our own projects, must be at the centre. Let us set out anew from God; let us seek from him the courage not to lose heart in the face of difficulties, the strength to surmount all obstacles, the joy to live in harmonious communion.

The Magi not only gazed at the stars, the things on high; they also had feet journeying on the earth. They set out for Jerusalem and ask, “Where is the Child who has been born King of the Jews? For we have observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage” (Mt 2:2). One single thing: their feet linked with contemplation. The star shining in the heavens sends them forth to travel the roads of the world. Lifting their eyes on high, they are directed to lower them to this world. Seeking God, they are directed to find him in man, in a little Child lying in a manger. For that is where the God who is infinitely great has revealed himself: in the little, the infinitely little.  We need wisdom, we need the assistance of the Holy Spirit, to understand the greatness and the littleness of the manifestation of God.

Brothers and sisters, let us keep our feet journeying on this earth! The gift of faith was given to us not to keep gazing at the heavens (cf. Acts 1:11), but to journey along the roads of the world as witnesses to the Gospel. The light that illumines our life, the Lord Jesus, was given to us not to warm our nights, but to let rays of light break through the dark shadows that envelop so many situations in our societies. We find the God who comes down to visit us, not by basking in some elegant religious theory, but by setting out on a journey, seeking the signs of his presence in everyday life, and above all in encountering and touching the flesh of our brothers and sisters. Contemplating God is beautiful, but it is only fruitful if we take a risk, the risk of the service of bringing God to others. The Magi set out to seek God, the great God, and they found a child. This is important: to find God in flesh and bone, in the faces of those we meet each day, and especially in the poor. The Magi teach us that an encounter with God always opens us up to a greater reality, which makes us change our way of life and transform our world. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI: “When true hope is lacking, happiness is sought in drunkenness, in the superfluous, in excesses, and we ruin ourselves and the world… For this reason, we need people who nourish great hope and thus have great courage: the courage of the Magi, who made a long journey following a star, and were able to kneel before a Child and offer him their precious gifts” (Homily, 6 January 2008).

Finally, let us also consider that the Magi have hearts bowed in adoration. They observe the star in the heavens, but they do not take refuge in otherworldly devotion; they set out, but they do not wander about, like tourists without a destination. They came to Bethlehem, and when they saw the child, “they knelt down and paid him homage” (Mt 2:11). Then they opened their treasure chests and offered him gold, frankincense and myrrh. “With these mystical gifts they make known the identity of the one whom they adore: with gold, they declare that he is a King; with frankincense, that he is God; with myrrh, that he is destined to die” (SAINT GREGORY THE GREAT, Hom. X in Evangelia, 6). A King who came to serve us, a God who became man.  Before this mystery, we are called to bow our heart and bend our knee in worship: to worship the God who comes in littleness, who dwells in our homes, who dies for love. The God who, “though manifested by the immensity of the heavens and the signs of the stars, chose to be found… beneath a lowly roof. In the frail flesh of a newborn child, wrapped in swaddling clothes, he was worshiped by the Magi and caused fear in the wicked” (SAINT AUGUSTINE, Serm. 200). ). Brothers and sisters, we have lost the habit of adoration, we have lost the ability that gives us adoration. Let us rediscover our taste for the prayer of adoration. Let us acknowledge Jesus as our God and Lord, and worship him. Today the Magi invite us to adore. Nowadays there is a lack of adoration among us.

Brothers and sisters, like the Magi, let us raise our eyes to the heavens, let us set out to seek the Lord, let us bow our hearts in adoration. Looking to the heavens, setting out on a journey and adoring. And let us ask for the grace never to lose courage: the courage to be seekers of God, men and women of hope, intrepid dreamers gazing at the heavens, the courage of perseverance in journeying along the roads of this world with the fatigue of a real journey, and the courage to adore, the courage to gaze upon the Lord who enlightens every man and woman. May the Lord grant us this grace, above all the grace to know how to adore.

Hmmmm. . . like a lot of things that Pope Francis is reported as saying, when you read it, it's not as radical as might be supposed.

On supposition, I suppose that the headline is drawn from this statement, and its echoes in this homily:

Brothers and sisters, let us raise our eyes to the heavens! We need to lift our gaze on high, in order to be able view reality from on high. We need this on our journey through life, we need to let ourselves walk in friendship with the Lord, we need his love to sustain us, and the light of his word to guide us, like a star in the night. We need to set out on this journey, so that our faith will not be reduced to an assemblage of religious devotions or mere outward appearance, but will instead become a fire burning within us, making us passionate seekers of the Lord’s face and witnesses to his Gospel. We need this in the Church, where, instead of splitting into groups based on our own ideas, we are called to put God back at the centre. We need to let go of ecclesiastical ideologies so that we can discover the meaning of Holy Mother Church, the ecclesial habitus. Ecclesiastical ideologies, no; ecclesial vocation, yes. The Lord, not our own ideas or our own projects, must be at the centre. Let us set out anew from God; let us seek from him the courage not to lose heart in the face of difficulties, the strength to surmount all obstacles, the joy to live in harmonious communion.

Let's reduce that down once again.

We need to set out on this journey, so that our faith will not be reduced to an assemblage of religious devotions or mere outward appearance, but will instead become a fire burning within us, making us passionate seekers of the Lord’s face and witnesses to his Gospel. We need this in the Church, where, instead of splitting into groups based on our own ideas, we are called to put God back at the centre. We need to let go of ecclesiastical ideologies so that we can discover the meaning of Holy Mother Church, the ecclesial habitus. Ecclesiastical ideologies, no; ecclesial vocation, yes.

I'm afraid that this is going to fall on largely deaf ears.  Frankly, while much of this homily I agree with, my ears are having a hard time hearing it myself.

Ideology is, frankly, not necessarily a bad thing.  Entire religious communities are based on certain ideologies.   And much of the current problems that have gone from smoldering to raging fires within the Church are due to their being ideologies that are not being dealt with, and have to be dealt with by, well, ideologies.

Pope Francis' detractors claim that he has ideology, and given his recent actions against some of his detractors, it's hard not to give this some credit.  He suppressed the Latin Mass and has acted against Cardinal Burke's privileges, which can be interpreted as an action against a certain conservative ideological wing of the Church. Perhaps that's a strike against ideology, but at the same time he's allowed a German wing that is only not regarded as schismatic as nobody has declared it to be to carry on in its conduct, at least so far.

This could all just be an effort to keep everything together.  But by suppressing conservatives and the highly orthodox, it takes on an appearance of adopting something else.  And even if it is not, the failure to address the German Bishops and the Fr. James Martin, S.J. has the impact of allowing a certain ideology to advance.

Pope Francis probably doesn't feel that a single homily will fix things, even if he cannot be blamed for stating his hopes.  But it's hard not to regard this Papacy has having wearied the orthodox, myself included, to where really getting behind Pope Francis in a statement like this is simply not going to happen.  One recent commentator from a Catholic university expressed the desire, which he acknowledged would not occur, that Pope Francis would resign.  I wish he would.  Everyone knows that given his current age, 87, he will not be Pope much longer and now contemplation on the nature of his successor is open.

Even at age 87 the Pope is perfectly capable of making major impacts in the Church, and that's part of the current tension. By acting where he wants to, and abstaining from acting elsewhere, things are happening.  While any just soul wishes him good health and continued life, the reality of our short lifespans means that soon we'll have a new Pope. The weary, while wishing him well, look towards that horizon with both dread and hope for the future.  I suppose those who have loved this Papacy do as well.  Everyone knows that day is coming.

And everyone knows that it is going to be a rough transition.  Part of that will be due to the legacy of Pope Francis, which not everyone will look back at fondly, myself included.

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: The Agonizing Advent of 2023.* Fiducia Supplicans...Press release concerning the reception of Fiducia supplicans.

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: The Agonizing Advent of 2023.* ...: 

Lex Anteinternet: The Agonizing Advent of 2023.* Fiducia Supplicans...Press release concerning the reception of Fiducia supplicans.

Lex Anteinternet: The Agonizing Advent of 2023.* Fiducia Supplicans...: The Conversion of St. Paul.  St. Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians: " Ἢ οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι ἄδικοι βασιλείαν Θεοῦ οὐ κληρονομήσουσι...

Advent is over, but the story lives on.

Three weeks ago, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) announced that there would be no more detailed explanations of the sort of blessings suggested in Fiducia Supplicans.  Well, the DDF has now issued something and it does provide detailed explanations.  Indeed, it's a major clarification making it plain that any blessing need be both spontaneous, and quite limited, even providing an example.

The document states:

Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith

Press release concerning the reception of Fiducia supplicans

4 January 2024

We are writing this Press Release to help clarify the reception of Fiducia supplicans, while recommending at the same time a full and calm reading of the Declaration so as to better understand its meaning and purpose.

1. Doctrine

The understandable statements of some Episcopal Conferences regarding the document Fiducia supplicans have the value of highlighting the need for a more extended period of pastoral reflection. What is expressed by these Episcopal Conferences cannot be interpreted as doctrinal opposition, because the document is clear and definitive about marriage and sexuality. There are several indisputable phrases in the Declaration that leave this in no doubt:

«This Declaration remains firm on the traditional doctrine of the Church about marriage, not allowing any type of liturgical rite or blessing similar to a liturgical rite that can create confusion». One acts in these situations of couples in irregular situations «without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage» (Presentation).

«Therefore, rites and prayers that could create confusion between what constitutes marriage – which is the “exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the generation of children” – and what contradicts it are inadmissible. This conviction is grounded in the perennial Catholic doctrine of marriage; it is only in this context that sexual relations find their natural, proper, and fully human meaning. The Church’s doctrine on this point remains firm» (4).

«Such is also the meaning of the Responsum of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which states that the Church does not have the power to impart blessings on unions of persons of the same sex» (5).

«For this reason, since the Church has always considered only those sexual relations that are lived out within marriage to be morally licit, the Church does not have the power to confer its liturgical blessing when that would somehow offer a form of moral legitimacy to a union that presumes to be a marriage or to an extra-marital sexual practice» (11).

Evidently, there is no room to distance ourselves doctrinally from this Declaration or to consider it heretical, contrary to the Tradition of the Church or blasphemous.

 

2. Practical reception

Some Bishops, however, express themselves in particular regarding a practical aspect: the possible blessings of couples in irregular situations. The Declaration contains a proposal for short and simple pastoral blessings (neither liturgical nor ritualised) of couples in irregular situations (but not of their unions), underlining that these are blessings without a liturgical format which neither approve nor justify the situation in which these people find themselves.

Documents of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith such as Fiducia supplicans, in their practical aspects, may require more or less time for their application depending on local contexts and the discernment of each diocesan Bishop with his Diocese. In some places no difficulties arise for their immediate application, while in others it will be necessary not to introduce them, while taking the time necessary for reading and interpretation.

Some Bishops, for example, have established that each priest must carry out the work of discernment and that he may, however, perform these blessings only in private. None of this is problematic if it is expressed with due respect for a text signed and approved by the Supreme Pontiff himself, while attempting in some way to accommodate the reflection contained in it.

Each local Bishop, by virtue of his own ministry, always has the power of discernment in loco, that is, in that concrete place that he knows better than others precisely because it is his own flock. Prudence and attention to the ecclesial context and to the local culture could allow for different methods of application, but not a total or definitive denial of this path that is proposed to priests.

3. The delicate situation of some countries

The cases of some Episcopal Conferences must be understood in their contexts. In several countries there are strong cultural and even legal issues that require time and pastoral strategies that go beyond the short term.

If there are laws that condemn the mere act of declaring oneself as a homosexual with prison and in some cases with torture and even death, it goes without saying that a blessing would be imprudent.  It is clear that the Bishops do not wish to expose homosexual persons to violence.  It remains vital that these Episcopal Conferences do not support a doctrine different from that of the Declaration signed by the Pope, given that it is perennial doctrine, but rather that they recommend the need for study and discernment so as to act with pastoral prudence in such a context.

In truth, there are not a few countries that, to varying degrees, condemn, prohibit and criminalize homosexuality.  In these cases, apart from the question of blessings, there exists a great and wide-ranging pastoral responsibility that includes training, the defense of human dignity, the teaching of the Social Doctrine of the Church and various strategies that do not admit of a rushed response.

 

4. The real novelty of the document

The real novelty of this Declaration, the one that requires a generous effort of reception and from which no one should declare themselves excluded, is not the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations. It is the invitation to distinguish between two different forms of blessings: “liturgical or ritualized” and “spontaneous or pastoral”. The Presentation clearly explains that «the value of this document […] is that it offers a specific and innovative contribution to the pastoral meaning of blessings, permitting a broadening and enrichment of the classical understanding of blessings, which is closely linked to a liturgical perspective».  This «theological reflection, based on the pastoral vision of Pope Francis, implies a real development from what has been said about blessings in the Magisterium and the official texts of the Church».

In the background is found the positive evaluation of “popular pastoral care” which appears in many of the Holy Father’s texts. In this context, the Holy Father invites us to value the simple faith of the People of God who, even in the midst of their sins, emerge from their everyday lives and open their hearts to ask for God’s help.

For this reason, rather than the blessing of couples in irregular unions, the text of the Dicastery has adopted the other profile of a “Declaration”, which is much more than a responsum or a letter. The central theme, which invites us especially to a deeper pastoral practice which enriches our pastoral praxis, is to have a broader understanding of blessings and of the proposal that these pastoral blessings, which do not require the same conditions as blessings in a liturgical or ritual context, flourish.  Consequently, leaving polemics aside, the text requires an effort to reflect serenely, with the heart of shepherds, free from all ideology.

Although some Bishops consider it prudent not to impart these blessings for the moment, we all need to grow equally in the conviction that: non-ritualized blessings are not a consecration of the person nor of the couple who receives them, they are not a justification of all their actions, and they are not an endorsement of the life that they lead. When the Pope asked us to grow in a broader understanding of pastoral blessings, he proposed that we think of a way of blessing that does not require the placing of so many conditions to carry out this simple gesture of pastoral closeness, which is a means of promoting openness to God in the midst of the most diverse circumstances.

5. How do these “pastoral blessings” present themselves in concrete terms?

To be clearly distinguished from liturgical or ritualized blessings, “pastoral blessings” must above all be very short (see n. 38). These are blessings lasting a few seconds, without an approved ritual and without a book of blessings. If two people approach together to seek the blessing, one simply asks the Lord for peace, health and other good things for these two people who request it. At the same time, one asks that they may live the Gospel of Christ in full fidelity and so that the Holy Spirit can free these two people from everything that does not correspond to his divine will and from everything that requires purification.

This non-ritualized form of blessing, with the simplicity and brevity of its form, does not intend to justify anything that is not morally acceptable.  Obviously it is not a marriage, but equally it is not an “approval” or ratification of anything either. It is solely the response of a pastor towards two persons who ask for God’s help. Therefore, in this case, the pastor does not impose conditions and does not enquire about the intimate lives of these people.

Since some have raised the question of what these blessings might look like, let us look at a concrete example: let us imagine that among a large number making a pilgrimage a couple of divorced people, now in a new union, say to the priest: “Please give us a blessing, we cannot find work, he is very ill, we do not have a home and life is becoming very difficult: may God help us!”.

In this case, the priest can recite a simple prayer like this: “Lord, look at these children of yours, grant them health, work, peace and mutual help.  Free them from everything that contradicts your Gospel and allow them to live according to your will. Amen”. Then it concludes with the sign of the cross on each of the two persons.

We are talking about something that lasts about 10 or 15 seconds. Does it make sense to deny these kinds of blessings to these two people who ask for them? Is it not more appropriate to support their faith, whether it be small or great, to assist them in their weaknesses with a divine blessing, and to channel that openness to transcendence which could lead them to be more faithful to the Gospel?

In order to avoid any doubt, the Declaration adds that, when the blessing is requested by a couple in an irregular situation, «even though it is expressed outside the rites prescribed by the liturgical books, this blessing should never be imparted in concurrence with the ceremonies of a civil union, and not even in connection with them. Nor can it be performed with any clothing, gestures, or words that are proper to a wedding. The same applies when the blessing is requested by a same-sex couple» (n. 39). It remains clear, therefore, that the blessing must not take place in a prominent place within a sacred building, or in front of an altar, as this also would create confusion.

For this reason, every Bishop in his Diocese is authorized by the Declaration Fiducia supplicans to make this type of simple blessing available, bearing in mind the need for prudence and care, but in no way is he authorized to propose or make blessings available that may resemble a liturgical rite.

6. Catechesis

In some places, perhaps, some catechesis will be necessary that can help everyone to understand that these types of blessings are not an endorsement of the life led by those who request them. Even less are they an absolution, as these gestures are far from being a sacrament or a rite. They are simple expressions of pastoral closeness that do not impose the same requirements as a sacrament or a formal rite. We will all have to become accustomed to accepting the fact that, if a priest gives this type of simple blessings, he is not a heretic, he is not ratifying anything nor is he denying Catholic doctrine.

We can help God’s People to discover that these kinds of blessings are just simple pastoral channels that help people give expression to their faith, even if they are great sinners. For this reason, in giving a blessing to two people who come together to ask for it spontaneously, we are not consecrating them nor are we congratulating them nor indeed are we approving that type of union.  In reality the same happens when individuals are blessed, as the individual who asks for a blessing – not absolution – could be a great sinner, but this does not mean we deny him this paternal gesture in the midst of his struggle to survive.

If this is clarified as a result of good catechesis, we can free ourselves from the fear that these blessings of ours may express something inadequate. We can be freer and perhaps closer and more fruitful ministers, with a ministry that is full of gestures of fatherhood and hospitality, without fear of being misunderstood.

We ask the newly-born Lord to shower a generous and gracious blessing upon everyone so that we can live a holy and happy 2024.

Víctor Manuel Card. Fernández

Prefect

Mons. Armando Matteo

Secretary for the Doctrinal Section

This should eliminate the need for large groups of Bishops to react, as they have felt in some regions they need to.  African Bishops, for example, would not really need to formulate a response.  Having said that, however, once the ball begins to roll, it's hard to stop.

Also clear, individual Catholic clerics who were creeping up on, or even over, blessing unions or appearing to do so now have to stop.  We should not, for examples, be seeing Fr. James Martin, back in the New York Times.  Indeed, unless a Times photographer just hangs around a church or is tipped off that somebody will be approaching Priest for an informal, and very short, blessing, there shouldn't be any Press photos at all.  Priests being besieged with "can we schedule a blessing" should not be relieved of that burden as well.

And the German Church, it would seem, is left with the decision to comport or go into schism.