Parishes & Commandments of the Church

Archbishop Edward Weisenberger of Detroit has supposedly told priests to remind Catholics attending Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) at one of the four non-parish venues in the Archdiocese where the TLM will at least occasionally be available that those attendees are nevertheless members of some parish towards whose support they have an obligation.

I’ll briefly relate a side comment about the commandments of the Church before getting into the parish question. Among the six commandments of the Church, one came into play last month: the Paschal Precept concerning Eastertide Communion, which extends in the United States through Trinity Sunday. (The Easter Season ends with Pentecost, but the Councils of Baltimore received papal approval that the “Easter season” for Paschal Precept purposes runs from the First Sunday of Lent through Trinity Sunday. That expansive period was probably due on the front end to the missionary nature of the Church in the United States in the 19^th century and on the back end to the continuation of Paschaltide through the now suppressed Pentecost Octave.) Did you hear many bishops reminding people about that? How about the precept to marry according to the laws of the Church, i.e., as a Catholic before a priest and at least two witnesses? Mixed marriages, marriages before civil authorities and/or Protestant ministers, and even the flight from marriage itself are indisputable modern phenomena, but any comment from our clerical class there? Remember that recent pastoral letter? (Neither do I.) Or are they rushing to embrace “ecumenical marriages”? What does it say about catechesis and clerical priorities when neither Eucharistic obligation nor marriage norms get more than a whisper, while parish contributions are tracked?

But moving beyond the “which commandments of the Church are worth reminding people about” question, there’s another: Our unresolved theology of parishes. Let me repeat: our unresolved theology of parishes. We have a clear canon law of parishes, but not one necessarily rooted in a coherent theology of parishes. We talk about the “local church” as the diocese, but the average Catholic — like it or not — identifies more with his parish than his diocese. And the bishops, having recently wrestled with what they called “Eucharistic incoherence,” might want to see what other things might be theologically akimbo.

The average Catholic long ago dispensed himself from the binding nature of the territorial parish, a jurisdictional relic from a feudal era where the subjects “belonged” to a particular parish or fiefdom. Apart from lamenting “parish shopping,” few clerics try to bring that horse back into the barn except perhaps where the canonically retentive among them decide to treat parish contributions as their index for “belonging” to the “parish community” when baptisms, marriages, or funerals are concerned — since, apparently, the “community” doesn’t know who’s part of it apart from the envelope system. A less polite age might have branded that situational simony.

U.S. bishops, many of whom are canon lawyers, not theologians, seem to have a selective approach to law. We see this in many of their approaches to civil law: they think violating the Immigration and Nationality Act itself is insufficient to get you detained (and sufficient in some places to dispense you from Sunday Mass) unless you can pair it with violating a(nother) criminal statute. I guess which Commandments of the Church to emphasize is just another aspect of selective law enforcement.

Good Observations

Raymond Arroyo recently asked a good question. Suggesting there may be too many marriage annulments, he offered a good metric: marriage annulments should be as frequent as ordination annulments.

Arroyo also made another good observation (though I know some traditionalists may disagree here). Commenting on the Pope’s recent celebration of daily Mass at Castel Gandolfo, Arroyo noted Leo seemed to have adopted an ad orientem posture and that it was “natural” at that altar. I agree. In fact, I agree with treating both postures as legitimate. The defense of versus populum is that we celebrate with the People of God. But it seems strange that the focus is always on the People of God and rarely/never on the God whose People they are. If we can get beyond liturgical polarization, would a discussion of how to accommodate both postures be worthwhile? Like they say in Boston: “just askin’!”

Great Value

A priest on Twitter suggested six things to revive a moribund parish: (1) move a daily Mass to the evening after work; (2) have a daily holy hour with confessions before Mass; (3) pray the Angelus in church; (4) have a decent choir at the principal Sunday Mass; (5) revamp the parish website; and (6) start a Legion of Mary to reach out to inactive parishioners. My reaction: There’s more value here than in a month of “synodal dialogue” or a team of diocesan “renewal” consultants.

On a Prank

The Pillar reports (here) one of the more bizarre stories so far this year. It sounds something like a juvenile frat ritual involving bear blood and Yeti costumes. Except that it happened at Colorado’s St. John Vianney Seminary and the idea seems to have come from the seminary’s vice rector, not some psychologically arrested college senior. The vice rector appears to have written a lot about  “human formation” in seminary preparation. I’ll be honest: As a layman who was associate dean of a seminary, there was not a lot of the “formation” process that I found compelling. I honestly think much of “human formation” was once upon a time considered normal “growing up,” something I’d hope a candidate for ordination does.

Retirement

Ben Shapiro recently opined, “I think retirement itself is a stupid idea unless you have some sort of health problem.” Well, no, for two reasons. First, by the time one reaches his mid-to-late 60s, after a lifetime of work, the body will be saying “enough.” (My right knee certainly does). Maybe not if you sit in front of a microphone pontificating, but perhaps that tells us something, too. Has America so “de-manufactured” its economy that the idea of a worn out physical laborer is alien to our opinion class? Second, Catholic social thought needs to make clear: “Man does not live to work alone” and then seamlessly transition into his casket (though that would make the bean counters over at Social Security happier on the Trust Fund’s solvency).  Contemplation is a human good and should exist at the end of life. Labor and leisure are part of human life. Retirement needs to be seen as a right, not a necessary expense. (Want more? Read Teresa Ghirladucci’s Work, Retire, Repeat, published by University of Chicago Press, 2024.)

Adapting Just War Principles

Richard Cassleman’s recent First Things essay, “Is Just War Theory Still Relevant?” (here) deserves a read. Unlike the exhortatory but practically useless functional pacificism we get from so many Church quarters, the author recognizes that countries will still fight wars and sometimes even for just reasons, like their defense. Adapting just war principles to modern warfare, rather than retreating to the illusions of the late 1920s that we can outlaw war (remember Kellogg-Briand?), would be a real pastoral and theological service to Catholic public officials who — unlike bishops — are expected to preserve, protect, and defend their countries.

From Hell

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer recently tweeted that “[r]eproductive freedom is a human right—and in Michigan, we’re fighting like hell to protect it.” Well, killing your baby is not a human right, though the Governor may very well be drawing inspiration from the appropriate quarters in her aggressive defense of it.

Another tweeter asked, “If Planned Parenthood needs federal dollars to survive, doesn’t that make them ‘non-viable?’” If so, we know what PPFA thinks we should do with the non-viable.

Misinfo

Under Roe, abortion was promoted by the legal drama wherein the Court tended to strike down most efforts of states to promote alternatives to it.  Since Roe, abortion is promoted via disinformation (which serves abortionists’ interests). We see this in the disinformation that suggests abortion is safer than childbirth, translated into the practical conclusion by many women of childbearing age not to “risk” motherhood absent a guarantee of abortion-through-birth. A new study (here) reported by the Institute for Family Studies shows how much misinformation surrounds adoption.  Although adoption is suggested by prolifers as an alternative to abortion, it remains a distant third among choices (after abortion and parenting, usually single). One reason is a constellation of myths about how bad/long/expensive adoption is. We need to dispel such lies if we are to translate the case for life into practically saving it.

Modern Servitude

Oxnard, California, Mayor Luis McArthur objected to an ICE raid on a cannabis farm in his town which uncovered illegal child labor. He calls raids “unjust and unwarranted.” Other California officials opine that immigration raids are impeding farm work. The latter suggests that they’re good with slave labor that also drives down American wages. The former raises the question: “Like who’s gonna grow our weed for us, man?”

The Basics

A liberal on Twitter opined that everything on earth was free until “evil people” started claiming parts of it for themselves. Where to start? (1) We’re all “evil people,” i.e., sinners. “Evil” ≠ “owner,” be it of things, places you rent out, or the means of production. (2) Because we are all “evil people,” i.e., sinners, private property is essential. For human beings to have autonomy, they need a share of the goods of the world to call their own. (3) Even Genesis doesn’t think creation was “free” in the sense God expected man to loll around Eden eating grapes but not apples. Genesis 2:15 makes pretty clear that God put man in the Garden “to work it and take care of it.” Creation was never a finished product. It’s why human co-creation by exercise of dominion over the world and giving of self in unreserved love through procreation reflects the divine image and likeness. I hope the Tweeter reads Rerum novarum. 

Name-calling

“Christians” are often liberals’ strawmen in contemporary American politics. One tweet characterized “modern American Christians” as “judgmental, close-minded, and hateful.” I won’t deny I’ve seen some folks that fit that description. But I’ll also insist that some Christians supposedly look like that because their liberal critics think that any refusal to adopt the dictatorship of relativism is “judgmental,” any belief that there is the truth (rather than “yours” and “mine”) is “close-minded,” and calling people to conversion is “hateful.”

Perpetual Offense

Finally, a tweeter was bent out of shape because on a Friday her cashier at the local supermarket asked, “So, any big plans for the weekend?” She took this as a great invasion of her privacy. Really? Have we so lost the art of civil intercourse between people that a random question on a Friday like “what’s up for the weekend?” (which implicitly suggests she hopes you have a nice weekend) is offensive? Or does having a conversation with a person both trying to be courteous and probably bored at that register exceed your utilitarian expectations of her function? Really makes it worth asking, “and who is my neighbor?”