Can priests still vest as deacons in the Novus Ordo?

Can priests still vest as deacons in the Novus Ordo? Father Zuhlsdorf has the answer.

Great new blog: Called to Communion

I've been in touch with a number of Catholics who were once Reformed and we've launched a new site that will examine Reformed/Calvinist theology from a Catholic point of view: Called to Communion. Obviously, our goal is to draw Reformed Christians toward the Catholic Church (ut unum sint), but we aim to avoid theological snobbery.

Go check out the site: Called to Communion.

While you're at it, check out this new podcast.

I'll be posting there some in the days to come.

-Taylor Marshall

Do kids, pregnant & nursing women, and the eldery have to fast in Lent?

In the United States pregnant women, nursing women, people over 65 and children under 14 are not obligated to fast, nor to abstain from meat. See canons 1250-3.

On Ash Wednesday a Catholic Christian is allowed two collations (light meals) and one full meal on Ash Wednesday - all without meat.

Seven reasons why you should go to confession during Lent

1. Priestly absolution is an awesome gift that Jesus gave us.
Jesus gave us this Sacrament and wants us to enjoy His grace through it. He told His first priests, the Apostles:

Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins are forgiven (John 20:22).

Christ gave us this rite of grace and forgiveness because He loves us. It is a divine gift of mercy and love.

2. You are a sinner.
You are a sinner and you need to examine the sinful patterns of your heart and have a priest give you absolution, counsel, and penance. We are often not honest with our hearts and it takes an objective "physician of souls," to help diagnose you spiritually.

3. Confession is a means of grace.
It is not scary, it is peaceful. We get excited over baptisms, weddings, and ordinations. Why not the remedy for our greatest Christian struggle? Why not be excited about Christ's forgiveness being declared by His appointed deputies - the priests of His Church.

4. You may have committed mortal sin.
There is a such thing as mortal sin:

If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal. (1 John 5:16)

Mortal sin is deadly and it separates our souls from the pure eternal life that exists within the Blessed Trinity. Contrition and priestly absolution restores our hearts to a position of love toward God and our neighbors.

5. Guilt is unpleasant.
Often Satan weighs us down with guilt. Guilt can be a good thing if we transform it into repentance. Of course, Satan hates this and God and the angels love it. So free yourself from guilt and hear a tangible person with spiritual authority say, "I absolve thee in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

6. Confession unites you more fully to the Church.
When you make your confession to a priest, you acknowledge that you have sinned not only against God, but against every single other Christian because by your sin, you have lessened the universal witness of every single Christian. You have given the non-believer the excuse that "All Christians are hypocrites." When you go to Confession you acknowledge that you have caused every Christian to suffer by your sins.

If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. (1 Cor 12:26)

The priest, who represents both God and the Church by his ordination and office receives your repentance and you have the assurance of not only God's forgiveness, but the implicit forgiveness of the entire Church.

7. Receiving the Eucharist becomes even more powerful.
Holy Communion is also one of the Seven Sacraments. When you receive communion you receive the true Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ our Redeemer. When you confess your sins in a sacramental way, you also have a stronger sacramental union with Christ in the Eucharist. Also, if you are living in mortal sin, you should NEVER receive the Eucharist because you blaspheme Christ and set yourself up for greater judgment and eternal damnation!

Fat Tuesday: Pancakes and Irish Stout

This is how the Marshall's roll on Fat Tuesday - pancakes for dinner. It's a hold back from our Anglican days. The English custom is to eat pancakes on the eve before Ash Wednesday and so we do.

We mixed it up a little this year. My wife Joy had a mimosa with her pancakes. I poured a draft of the delicious Irish Stout that I brewed a month ago. I kegged it up and it's truly magical. I called it "Pro-Bono Irish Stout" in honor of the front-man of Ireland's favorite band U2. And let me tell you, Irish Stout and pancakes are hard to beat. I was almost tempted to pour the stout onto the pancakes like syrup. I need to patent this combo before IHOP gets to it. The coffee-like hints and subtle sweetness of the Irish Stout blend perfectly with a short stack. Go get some.

Why male circumcision in the Old Testament? (Answer: It marks the member of procreation)

[Taylor: The spectacles being worn by the rabbi in this painting are awesome!]

Did you ever wonder why God chose circumcision as the sign of the Abrahamaic covenant? It is a rather odd symbol. Saint Thomas Aquinas explains why God chose the removal of the male foreskin as the sign of faith.

Nevertheless in the Old Law the remedy against original sin was affixed to the member of procreation; because He through Whom original sin was to be removed, was yet to be born of the seed of Abraham, whose faith was signified by circumcision according to Romans 4:11 (Summa theologiae III, q. 66, a. 7, ad 3).

In other words, the promise of the Redeemer Seed (cf. Gen 3:15) is signified by a sign affixed to the male member of procreation. Once this Seed comes into the world, circumcision ceases.

Augustine and Aquinas on the salvation of baptized infants

In Summa theologiae III, q. 69, a. 6, Saint Thomas takes up the question of whether children can be made partakers of grace through baptism even though they cannot yet exercise their wills. The four objections sum up the same objections that some Evangelicals and Baptists give today:

"To him that worketh not, yet believing in Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reputed to justice according to the purpose of the grace of God."

But a child believeth not "in Him that justifieth the ungodly.

Thomas Aquinas cites a beautiful passage from Augustine in response to these objections:

As Augustine says (Serm. clxxvi): "Mother Church lends other feet to the little children that they may come; another heart that they may believe; another tongue that they may confess." So that children believe, not by their own act, but by the faith of the Church, which is applied to them: by the power of which faith, grace and virtues are bestowed on them.

Mother Church lends the feet, heart, and the tongue to the infants. It may come as a surprise to Evangelicals, but Catholics do actually believe in "believer's baptism". The Sacred Scriptures reveal that there can only be "believer's baptism".

When a baby is baptized, he is infused with the virtue of faith and thus he becomes a "baptized believer". Faith is not a feeling - it is a divinely infused habit of the soul (STh II-II q. 6, a. 1). The baby becomes a real believer. It is not "faith reckoned" but actually faith that is found in the baby. Must this faith grow? Yes. Must this faith be confessed? Yes. Must this faith be understood and articulated? Yes. All of these things apply equally to adult believers who receive baptism.

Is there a physical Chair of Saint Peter?

Today (Feb 22) is the Feast of the Saint Peter's Chair. The "chair" is an Old Testament sign of magisterial authority, as Christ Himself gave witness:

"The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice" (Mt 23:2-3).

Today's commemoration honors the preeminent magisterial authority of Saint Peter to whom was given the Keys of the Kingdom. Peter's office as the Vicar of Christ recalls the promise of God to the "royal steward" or "vicar" in the royal household of the Davidic king. This prophecy promises that the king's steward will "become a throne of honor":

"And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him like a peg in a sure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father's house" (Isa 22:22-23).

Yet did Saint Peter as the first Vicar of Christ have his own physical cathedra (Greek: "chair")? There is a third century anti-Marcionite poem that seems to testify to this historicity of Peter's cathedra:

Hac cathedra, Petrus qua sederat ipse, locatum
Maxima Roma Linum primum considere iussit.

- "Adversus Marcionem" (Patrologia Latina II, 1099)

The Latin translates:

"On this chair whereupon Peter himself sat
The great Rome placed Linus and commanded him to sit."

Saint Linus is of course the successor of Saint Peter, that is the second pope of Rome. Is this "cathedra, Petrus qua sederat ipse," a literally chair or is it merely a poetic illusion to Peter's authority? I suppose that there is no way to know for sure - but Tertullian (cf. De præscriptione hæreticorum, 36) and others seem to suggest or assume that a true chair existed in Rome and had been employed by Peter at some point.

Regardless, the chair depicted above is the alleged "Chair of Saint Peter". It is enshrined in the apse of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. I don't know whether carbon dating has been performed on it. If you're aware of any studies or archeological investigations, please send them my way.

The beatific vision and the light of glory

According to Catholic Christian teaching, the supernatural end of the redeemed is the beatific vision of God whereby the blessed will see the very essence of God. Mankind is not naturally able to attain so great of a goal and so the intellect is supernaturally perfected by what theologians call the lumen gloriae or "the light of glory".

Saint Thomas Aquinas explains that the beatific transcends man's natural powers:

The beatific vision and knowledge are to some extent above the nature of the rational soul, inasmuch as it cannot reach it of its own strength; but in another way it is in accordance with its nature, inasmuch as it is capable of it by nature, having been made to the likeness of God, as stated above. But the uncreated knowledge is in every way above the nature of the human soul (Summa theologiae IIIa q. 9, a. 2, ad 3).

The doctrine is based on the passage in Paul: "We see now in a glass darkly, but then face to face" (1 Cor. 13:12) among others (cf. 1 Timothy 6:16; Matthew 5:8; Psalm 17:15).

The definition of the beatific vision was dogmatized at the the Council of Vienne in 1311 (Denz., n. 475; old, n. 403). The elect move from nature to grace to glory. Saint Paul spoke of this final glorification when he wrote: "And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified" (Rom 8:30).

Oddly enough, (the Avignon) Pope John XXII (1316 - 1334) privately held the heretical notion that the beatific vision could only be enjoyed by the saints after the Second Coming of Christ. Even the William Ockham opposed him in this. Apparently John XXII backed off of this toward the end of his pontificate. The Church teaches that the saints in Heaven currently enjoy the beatific vision.

Bryan Cross on the Catholic concept of Justification

Bryan Cross at Principium Unitatis has a great post on St. Thomas Aquinas and the Catholic doctrine of justification. Go check it out:

Aquinas on Instant and Progressive Justification.

Newman Guide - Where to send your child to college (Univeristy of Dallas)

The Center for the Study of Catholic Higher Education, a division of the Cardinal Newman Society, recently published a new list of colleges that they recommend.

The recommended Newman Guide colleges are:

Ave Maria University, Aquinas College (Tenn.), Belmont Abbey College, Benedictine College, The Catholic University of America, Christendom College, The College of Saint Thomas More (Texas), DeSales University, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Holy Apostles College & Seminary, John Paul the Great Catholic University, Magdalen College, Mount St. Mary's University, Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy, St. Gregory's University, Southern Catholic College, Thomas Aquinas College, The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts (N.H.), University of Dallas, University of St. Thomas (Texas), and Wyoming Catholic College.

Read the whole study at: www.TheNewmanGuide.com.

I'm partial to the University of Dallas. They have a solid core curriculum. An overseas semester at their own beautiful campus in Rome. Strong faculty. They are also one of the few universities on the list above that can boast of a M.A. program and a Ph.D. program. Conservative ethos. The chapel life could be stronger, but the Cistercian Abbey is literally across the street. Please feel free to email me offline if you are you or your child is considering the University of Dallas. It's a great place.

- Taylor Marshall

What did Benedict XVI say to Nancy Pelosi?

Father Z has a report on what went down between Pope Benedict XVI and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

North Dakota challenges Roe v. Wade!

The N. Dakota House of Reps has passed a bill confirming human rights to embryos from the moment of conception.

Archbishop of Canterbury theologizes homosexuality

You're probably growing tired of my repeated claim that Rowan Williams is the worst Archbishop of Canterbury since Thomas Cranmer.

If you still aren't convinced, Rowan Williams now believes that homosexual relationships can “reflect the love of God” in a way that is comparable to marriage.

Full story from the Times.

Nancy Pelosi to meet with Pope Benedict - Say What?!

According to Al Kamen at the Washington Post, Nancy Pelosi is planning to meet with Pope Benedict while she's in Italy. I am glad to hear this and I have full confidence in the Holy Father. I'm sure that he'll handle everything well and broach "the topic".

O Brother Where Art Thou?: Baptism and Human Law

My wife and I watched an old favorite last night: O Brother Where Art Thou? Here's a great dialogue regarding baptism:

Pete: Well I'll be a sonofabitch. Delmar's been saved.

Delmar O'Donnell: Well that's it, boys. I've been redeemed. The preacher's done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It's the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting's my reward.

Ulysses Everett McGill: Delmar, what are you talking about? We've got bigger fish to fry.

Delmar O'Donnell: The preacher says all my sins is warshed away, including that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo.

Ulysses Everett McGill: I thought you said you was innocent of those charges?

Delmar O'Donnell: Well I was lyin'. And the preacher says that that sin's been warshed away too. Neither God nor man's got nothin' on me now. C'mon in boys, the water is fine.

****

Pete: The Preacher said it absolved us.

Ulysses Everett McGill: For him, not for the law. I'm surprised at you, Pete, I gave you credit for more brains than Delmar.

Delmar O'Donnell: But they was witnesses that seen us redeemed.

Ulysses Everett McGill: That's not the issue Delmar. Even if that did put you square with the Lord, the State of Mississippi's a little more hard-nosed.

Here's another great one on a similar subject:

Tommy Johnson: I had to be up at that there crossroads last midnight, to sell my soul to the devil.

Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, ain't it a small world, spiritually speaking. Pete and Delmar just been baptized and saved. I guess I'm the only one that remains unaffiliated.

Cyril and Methodius - Forerunners to the Second Vatican Council

Today is St. Valentine's day, but our current calendar commemorates Saints Cyril and Methodius on this day.

The ninth century Slavs sought political and ecclesiastical independence from their dominating Germanic neighbors. St. Cyril invented an alphabet (Cyrillic) and translated most of the New Testament and the liturgy to meet the needs of the Slavonic culture and the new growing church. Methodius finished the task by translating the entire Bible into Slavonic (well almost, he didn't finish 2 Maccabees).

Cyril and Methodius established a principle that cultures need not employ a Latin-only liturgy. These two holy men were persecuted for their conviction, but Pope Adrian II vindicated their efforts. We might even say that St. Cyril and St. Methodius are the patron saints of vernacular liturgy and the AUTHENTIC liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

Cool statue at Boston College

I really like this new statue of Saint Ignatius Loyola at Boston College. Turns out they are reintroducing crucifixes in every classroom. People are protesting. Why? This school is Catholic, after all.

Full story from Boston Globe.

HT: Dwight Lindley.

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor praises Charles Darwin

Hmmm...don't quite know what to make of this. Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster (i.e. London), recently wrote a piece in the London Times entitled: "In praise of Darwin and the spirit of inquiry".

Here's a quick excerpt:

If there are ways of misusing Genesis and the Christian understanding of creation, there is also a danger of misusing Darwin. We should be worried when his theory is distorted into “the survival of the fittest” and becomes a way of legitimising policies that discriminate against the weak and vulnerable. I think the majority of us believe it is grossly wrong to use Darwin's theory to justify social engineering or eugenics. There are also those who argue that, from an evolutionary perspective, moral attributes are merely the product of evolution and our moral sense is no more than a survival strategy. Yet the theory of evolution does not entail the denial of moral truth. It leaves the genuinely free agent confronted with moral choice and the question of how we ought to live.

The cardinal writes: "We should be worried when his theory is distorted into the survival of the fittest”. I didn't think that this was a distortion. Isn't Darwin's doctrine "the survival of the fittest"?

Should the Church just remain silent about all this till we can get our ducks in a row?

Did Martin Luther hate the Jewish people?

It seems that Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ broke open the recent controversy as to whether Christians are are naturally anti-Semitic. Then there were the allegations that Pope Benedict was once a "Hitler Youth". Currently the newspapers are abuzz with the controversy surrounding the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) and their holocaust-denying Bishop Williamson.

Perhaps it's only a matter of time before the press examines the fact that the father of the Reformation was a vigorous polemicist against the Jewish people. My personal opinion is that he was a convinced anti-Semite as the two quotes below demonstrate. They are quite offensive.

Accordingly, it must and dare not be considered a trifling matter but a most serious one to seek counsel against this and to save our souls from the Jews, that is, from the devil and from eternal death. My advice, as I said earlier, is:

First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire...

Second, that all their books-- their prayer books, their Talmudic writings, also the entire Bible-- be taken from them, not leaving them one leaf, and that these be preserved for those who may be converted...

Third, that they be forbidden on pain of death to praise God, to give thanks, to pray, and to teach publicly among us and in our country...

Fourth, that they be forbidden to utter the name of God within our hearing. For we cannot with a good conscience listen to this or tolerate it...

-Martin Luther (On the Jews and Their Lies)

Here's a second quote:

My essay, I hope, will furnish a Christian (who in any case has no desire to become a Jew) with enough material not only to defend himself against the blind, venomous Jews, but also to become the foe of the Jews' malice, lying, and cursing, and to understand not only that their belief is false but that they are surely possessed by all devils. May Christ, our dear Lord, convert them mercifully and preserve us steadfastly and immovably in the knowledge of him, which is eternal life. Amen.

-Martin Luther (On the Jews and Their Lies)

What do you think? Was Luther as bad as these quotes sound? Was it merely the air he breathed or did have a certain disgust for the Jewish people?

Photo: Working with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal

This is me with my little helper at the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal's (CFR) friary in Fort Worth, Texas (my hometown). We're installing door stoppers in their kitchen.

Eskimo bapstism gone bad...

This is why baptism by affusion (i.e. pouring) became popular in northern Europe!

Hat tip to JesusCreed.

Archbishop of Canterbury makes a bold suggestion

Ah, Rowan Williams. He's the worst Archbishop of Canterbury since Thomas Cranmer, and that's saying something.

Now's he's actually starting to make sense. Check out Rowan's new bold suggestion. The Times has the story.

A Catholic Personal Prelature for Anglicans

Will the Traditional Anglican Communion receive a Personal Prelature (the canonical arrangement enjoyed by Opus Dei)? There's a new story by Damian Thompson at the UK's Telegraph:

The Pope is preparing to offer the Traditonal Anglican Communion, a group of half a million dissident Anglicans, its own personal prelature by Rome, according to reports this morning.

"History may be in the making", reports The Record. "It appears Rome is on the brink of welcoming close to half a million members of the Traditional Anglican Communion into membership of the Roman Catholic Church. Such a move would be the most historic development in Anglican-Catholic relations in the last 500 years. But it may also be a prelude to a much greater influx of Anglicans waiting on the sidelines, pushed too far by the controversy surrounding the consecration of practising homosexual bishops, women clergy and a host of other issues."

Here is Anthony Barich's report in full. My guess is that, if this happens, Anglo-Catholics in the C of E will move to Rome in unprecedented numbers under a similar arrangement.

My guess is that they won't.

The Scandal of Marcial Maciel and the Legionaries of Christ

New York Times on Maciel's 'double life'?

Legionaries renouncing Father Maciel

Legion admits Maciel's 'inappropriate' behavior but doesn't disown him

The Legion and Canon Law by Edward Peters

Lamech vs. Christ on Seventy-Sevenfold Relationships

In the Old Testament, the Bible's first polygamist, Lamech, calls down a protective curse of vengeance:

"Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
Wives of Lamech, listen to my speech!
For I have killed a man for wounding me,
Even a young man for hurting me.
If Cain is avenged sevenfold,
truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold" (Gen 4:19-24).

This pattern is corrected and reversed by Christ who said:

"Then Peter came up and said to him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven." (Mt 18:21-22).

The Old Testament's other Lamech is also a man of sevens. According to Genesis 5:25-31 he was 182 years old at the birth of Noah, and lived for another 595 years, making him 777 years old when he died.