The Bishop's Weekly Column from the Parish Bulletin

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

"By Jove, She's got it !"

December 30, 2006

The above photograph comes from the director George Cukor's 1964 film My Fair Lady, starring Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, and cameo character actor Wilfrid Hyde-White. The still shot is of the three actors celebrating Professor Higgins' (Harrison) discovery that his pupil Eliza Doolittle (Hepburn) has finally mastered the ability to speak Received Standard English and not her London Cockney accent. "By Jove, she's got it !" Higgins exclaims. I make my own those words in a different regard: the following message was received a few days ago. I didn't have time to reply. The author has really done her homework and I heartily concur with her conclusions.

Merry Christmas Your Excellency,

A few Christmas thoughts from your Northern Correspondent:

1.) As I've prayed, studied and read much in the last several years on the current Church crisis, the one thing that strikes me is the average traditional Catholic's lack of faith in the Church. We are blessed to find ourselves living in one of the many crises of the Church; perhaps, the most severe, however, given our human nature we always tend to think whatever we're going through is either the best or worst. Our response to that crisis has been in many ways an over-reaction to the horrors we've witnessed in our beloved Church. We must try to take the via-media (?) in our current situation, I believe; doing so with a profound trust in Our Lord and in His Church. He will not and has not abandoned us. We may for awhile have to take positions that are uncomfortable, e.g., the Old Mass, but, if we do so, we must be careful not to condemn our fellow Catholics who out of obedience attend the new
Mass. The traditional Catholic response in some measure this last year has been supported by the Vatican in the interviews by Archbishop Ranjith and the change of "for all" to the accurate "for many". The traditional Catholic response, along with the priest scandal and empty churches, has assisted in the restoration of Holy Mother Church.

As we see the slow but inexorable righting of the Church, our hearts should be gladdened. Our Lord is at work through us and in His Church. We may not live to see the crisis resolved in its totality, but we know the ending, and for that we should be extremely optimistic. However, traditional Catholics have to realize that as the Church rights Herself, which may well include a new ecumenical council addressing questions on infallibility (papal and ordinary, universal; ecumenical council infallibility) and the whole issue of modernism with its insistent claim of becoming (evolutionary) vs. being which she must come to grips with; changes are bound to enter the life of the Church. Traditional Catholics must realize that the Church didn't end in 1952. She lives, grows, ever responds to the challenges surrounding Her and besetting Her. She addresses those challenges by occasionally making changes in discipline, liturgy, and deeper explication of her doctrines. This is Our Lord working through His Church and guiding the faithful through their present temporal conditions. 2006 is not 1952, and 2050 will not be 2006 or 1952. Circumstances and world conditions alter dramatically these days, and the Church must needs respond to them without ever altering the Deposit of Faith. She, ever mindful of her duty to protect her flock, adjusts her discipline and liturgy (hopefully, not V2 style :-) ) to be a source of spiritual advancement. As Pope Pius XII said in Mediator Dei, "the pressing need of Christians today is to live the liturgical life".

We must pray for the Holy Father and for Our Church daily. We must use the armaments at our disposal: prayer, penance, daily duty, and the sacraments. With prayer and penance, we can accomplish all things. We must, however, not place ourselves in a particular time with a never-changing discipline/liturgy. We can't become the new eastern schismatics, as you've aptly pointed out.

2.) I'm kind of understanding more the limits of infallibility and the fact that the members of the Church are not THE CHURCH. There may be many bad members of the Church at times, but she's still the Church. Also, ambiguity by its very nature could never pass the test for formal heresy, I think. It's just not so black and white as I thought. Reviewing the history of the Church, the events told seem so clean and easy: the Church marching triumphant through every period, standing tall against her enemies with nary a "hair out of place". Not so, not so. The black-on-white pages don't begin to tell the conflict, pain, confusion, deception, conniving, scandal, etc., involved in much Church history. That's what's truly amazing about our Holy Mother Church. If we really understood our history on a living, breathing, personal basis; the fact that she still exists is phenomenal!!

As a humorous response: in the appropriated words of her former pastor: But you "used to be the most ardent. The most ardent !" Tisk, tisk, I say ! Merry Christmas indeed to you and a happy and a holy new year !

+TF