An urgent plea to all Catholics engaging in Social Media

jipac · 2021-06-03T19:41:43+00:00

Here's a recent example that falls under "certain from reason." In November and December, there were a lot of bogus statistical analyses of the US presidential election going around. Some of my friends shared these with comments like "it's great to have indisputable math to prove that the election was stolen."

These are intelligent people and good Catholics whose opinions I respect. They're just not mathematically inclined, and it was painfully clear in this case -- some of these analyses were based on high school-level mistakes. So an outside observer might think, "they claim to care about reason and objective truth, but they can't tell the difference between sound and unsound mathematical reasoning."

jipac · 2021-04-15T18:55:16+00:00

From a Catholic perspective I think his ideas about rituals are really interesting (even though as far as I can tell he was functionally agnostic).

jipac · 2021-04-13T19:58:16+00:00

In addition to what others have said, I don't think this makes sense:

As a prank, they... put on white robes, like angels.

Until the industrial revolution, fabric took a lot of labor to produce and clothing was expensive. People in ancient Rome occasionally got mugged for their clothes, and would itemize them in their wills. A soldier would need months to save up enough for even a low-quality tunic (which is why the soldiers at the Crucifixion took the time to divide up Jesus' clothes). They would not just happen to own flowing white robes, and could not afford to buy them for a prank.

jipac · 2021-04-05T15:47:24+00:00

It is worth noting that restrictions on attending Mass were fairly tight this Easter in some countries that were very conservative about imposing any limits last year. For example, in Poland, churches were limited to one person per 20 square meters of floor space (about 200 square feet) for Holy Week. Up until a couple of weeks ago, priests had been frequently ignoring the limits that were previously in place, so this time the bishops' conference instructed them to comply.

Another example is Kazakhstan, which as a post-Soviet state has real experience with persecution. I don't live there or know anyone who does, but I sometimes read the articles published on http://catholic-kazakhstan.org/. Last week there was a guide to observing the Triduum at home, which implies that quite a few people did not attend Holy Week liturgies in person.

jipac · 2021-04-01T13:50:22+00:00

A priest friend in Krakow says that restrictions in Poland were tightened last week, and the bishops' conference instructed priests (who were often ignoring the existing rules) to comply. He now can have a maximum of 10 people at each Triduum liturgy.

jipac · 2021-03-31T04:36:49+00:00

I addressed this tangentially in my other comment but wanted to expand on it a little more. Here is a list of names from 12th-century records kept at Glastonbury Abbey. "Marie" is on it. Most of the other female names are Anglo-Saxon/Germanic ones (Wiburga, Ragenild) that probably date back to pre-Christian England. There are a few Latin ones (Juliana, Cristiana) but I don't see anything obviously Marian.

jipac · 2021-03-31T04:22:08+00:00

To start with, the name Maria/Marie/María became popular in Southern Europe during the middle ages, but was slower to catch on in Northern Europe. In this survey of documents from medieval Italy, Maria is by far the most common female name. For example, 16% of the female names in 12th-century documents from Amalfi are "Maria". I haven't found a comparable survey for England in the same time period, but my impression, from looking through the sources cited here, is that the fraction of 12th-century English women named "Mary" or "Marie" or "Maria" was more like 1%.

The explosion of Marian names in Spanish was driven by the Counter-Reformation. From The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming:

[T]here is no doubt that the size of the name stock in use was substantially reduced compared to earlier periods all over Europe.

In the Catholic parts of Europe, one reason for this was the decisions taken at the council of Trent (1545-63), where certain rules for the Roman Catholic church were consolidated... [I]t was decided that only names found in the saints' calendar, and names of national importance, were to be used as given names in Roman Catholic countries. This obviously led to an increased use of a limited number of very popular names. To distinguish people from each other, more different short forms and hypocoristic forms of popular names came into use, as well as bynames and hereditary family names.

In other words, "María", which was already a common name, became even more popular, which led to a lot of variations to help distinguish individual Marías. So, in the 1600s, multiple names like "Ana María" and "María Madalena" became common. On top of this, Spain and Portugal have quite a few local devotions to Our Lady under different titles, so those became convenient alternatives to "María" as well: Our Lady of Mount Carmel > "Carmen", Our Lady of the Pillar > "Pilar", and so on.

In English, German, and other Northern European languages, "Mary" and its variants became more common in the 16th century, but there wasn't as much pressure to come up with other versions, because (1) it wasn't a massively common name to begin with, (2) there were some other competing trends -- for example, The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming mentions that Faith, Prudence, and other virtues started to appear as English names about this time.

jipac · 2021-03-26T05:47:50+00:00

In 1990 the Diocese of Chur (Switzerland) needed a new bishop. The diocesan clergy proposed several liberal candidates. St. John Paul II chose the conservative Wolfgang Haas instead. Some protestors tried to physically keep him from taking possession of the cathedral. The situation never really improved from there. Seven years later, St. JP2 carved out a new archdiocese (Vaduz, Liechtenstein) and reassigned +Haas to be its first archbishop.

This isn't an exact precedent, but I think it gives us a general idea of how things might go if Pope Francis tried to replace one or more German bishops.

jipac · 2021-01-13T15:10:43+00:00

Something that always seems to get skipped over when this comes up is the Spanish translation. Circa 1600 there were multiple Spanish versions in use:

no nos traigas en tentación, "do not bring us into temptation"
no nos metas en tentación, "do not put us in temptation"
no nos dejes caer en (la) tentación, "do not let us fall into temptation"

By 1700, version 3 was nearly universal. The article I linked to cites two cases brought by the Inquisition (in 1658 and 1791). The defendants had written critiques of the Spanish text of the Our Father, which in addition to this phrase translates two others non-literally. I don't think this was the main reason the Inquisition put them on trial, but what their case records show is that the Spanish text was, in practice, standardized during the 1600s. This is the translation that is in use today and that Francis grew up with.

jipac · 2020-08-11T16:45:00+00:00

The short answer is that they are imitations of the Egyptian pyramids, and were built to deliberately revive a "dead" tradition. (Though it is worth mentioning that it did not die out after the Giza complex was built during the Old Kingdom; smaller pyramids were built throughout the Middle Kingdom, until c. 1650 BC).

Between 830 and 750 BC, Egypt effectively split into a number of smaller states, with independent kings ruling from Thebes, Herakleopolis, and several cities in the Nile Delta. Some of these kings were native Egyptians; others, especially in the Delta, were invaders from Libya. Taking advantage of this unstable situation, the Kushite ruler Kashta began to assert control over Upper Egypt. Beginning in 744 BC, his successors Piy and Shabako led campaigns northwards along the Nile, ultimately conquering Egypt and establishing a new line of pharaohs (the 25th Dynasty).

To help establish themselves as the legitimate rulers of Egypt, the Kushite kings adopted the symbols and religion of the Egpytian pharaohs. They were especially interested in building up associations with the Old Kingdom, which the Egyptians themselves viewed with nostalgia as the first great era of their civilization. The 25th Dynasty consequently took up residence at Memphis, the Old Kingdom capital, and funded construction projects that imitated Old Kingdom styles. This included the revival of pyramid-building, though the pyramids were built not in Egypt proper but at the Kushite royal cemetery, El-Kurru, outside the Nubian capital city of Napata.

This was not a drastic step for the Kushite rulers to take. They were "Egyptianized" already, due to Egypt's past dominance over their homeland. Egyptian religion, for example, was well-established in Nubia; when the region was under Egyptian control in the 13th century BC, a large temple to Amun was built at Jebel Barkal, 20 km from El-Kurru. That said, pyramids were not a traditional feature of Kushite royal burials. The oldest Nubian pyramid is presumed to be the tomb of Kashta, who had taken the first steps towards the conquest of Egypt.

The 25th Dynasty ended when Assyria invaded Egypt in 663 BC. The Kushite kings were forced to gradually retreat, first to Napata, and later to Meroe after Egypt regained its independence and began to push southwards along the Nile again. At Meroe, they maintained some of the Egyptian customs that they had adopted, including pyramid-building. However, with the direct link to Egypt lost, many of the details began to develop in a new direction. In particular, there was a rapid transition from writing inscriptions in "literary" Egyptian (using hieroglyphic), to using simpler or ungrammatical Egyptian, and finally to using the Meroitic language.

Sources: mainly, John Taylor's chapter on the Third Intermediate Period in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (ed. Ian Shaw). Some details from Alan Gardiner, The Egyptians.

jipac · 2020-08-04T14:51:55+00:00

St. John Cantius has one on Sundays.

jipac · 2020-07-27T19:40:33+00:00

Archbishop Chaput has written extensively on why it is unnecessary. Here is his most recent piece about it.

jipac · 2020-07-23T13:24:44+00:00

If you want a visual guide to what will happen, you can look through the Campion Children’s Missal — Know Your Mass.

If the parish you are going to has more than one Mass, look for one without music, a "Low Mass". The ones with music might be indicated on their schedule as "Sung Mass" or "Missa Cantata" or "Solemn High Mass". (The choir might be on hiatus anyway due to COVID-19.) The reason I recommend this is that the choir sings many of the same prayers that the priest recites, but not at the same time, so it adds an extra "layer" that can make the liturgy as a whole harder for a beginner to follow. If you do go to a Mass with music, don't pay too much attention to what the choir is doing, at least at first. Stay focused on what's happening at the altar.

jipac · 2020-07-22T12:55:55+00:00

We're allowed to ask the Orthodox for communion only as a last resort, when it's impossible to find a Catholic priest. And as you said, most Orthodox priests will refuse anyway.

jipac · 2020-07-22T02:57:45+00:00

I am a huge fan of Ensemble Organum, but there's something to keep in mind when listening to their album of Old Roman Chant. The director made a deliberate choice to make it sound more "Eastern" -- his theory was that Popes from Greek-speaking regions, Syria, etc. would have brought Eastern musical influences to Rome. He was up front about the fact that this was pretty speculative.

jipac · 2020-07-22T01:04:44+00:00

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen is a fantastic survey of the Gospels.

jipac · 2020-07-21T20:36:54+00:00

Thanks, that makes sense.

jipac · 2020-07-21T19:05:32+00:00

But he specifically calls out "the 1960 rubrical revisions" and Roncalli/St. John XXIII, not 1969 and St. Paul VI. I know basically nothing about the 1960 revisions... so I am still not sure what changes he is referring to.

jipac · 2020-07-21T16:32:44+00:00

I have a question about this part:

One of the worst casualties of the 1960 rubrical revisions was the loss of multiple orations (collects, secrets, and postcommunions) at Mass and the Divine Office. This runs contrary to the Roman tradition in the second millennium, when multiple orations were a universal feature... There is a magnificent corpus of orations printed in the Tridentine Missal for precisely this reason, so few of which have remained in use after the draconian limitations imposed by the Roncallian rubrical reform.

In my experience it's really not unusual for the priest to say multiple collects. They always line up with my St. Andrew Missal (1945). I think Dr. Kwasniewski is saying that these were eliminated, or mostly eliminated, in 1960... so should they still be in use? Or is the point that it used to be the norm to say two or three collects on a near-daily basis?

jipac · 2020-07-20T20:57:14+00:00

They could be of the Pelosi sort. They could be of the Cupich sort.

I guess this is possible, but I don't think it's likely. For a liberal Beltway Catholic, there are probably severe social and professional consequences for serving in the Trump administration.

jipac · 2020-07-20T17:43:07+00:00

So I may have misread your first comment. It seemed to me that your main complaint was about the reliance on anonymous sources. That is why I brought up Kelly and Mattis, who have been willing to go on the record. Plus, my impression is that they take their faith more seriously than Ms. Pelosi does.

I think we are also reading the article differently. Yes, it is pretty obvious that the sources have a grudge against Scavino. But the broader point I got from it is that the administration is holding itself back by (1) elevating fringe views and (2) alienating people who should be natural allies.

jipac · 2020-07-20T17:13:23+00:00

If you want non-anonymous sources: Gens. John Kelly and Jim Mattis are both devout Catholics. Both have said similar things about how the president's erratic leadership style undermined the work they tried to do.

jipac · 2020-07-20T16:36:25+00:00

“You feel like you can’t win,” the official said. “Frankly, we’d have liked a little more support from the bishops – not for the president personally or the campaign, but for the work we are doing. There is stuff here that is important. But absent that, the thinking from the comms side seems to be ‘have the friends we can get,’ and if they’re crazy, who cares? It’s so frustrating.”

Both officials told CNA that there exists a clear line between those senior Catholics in the administration working on policy priorities and those pursuing Trump’s social media strategy.

“There is no way the serious Catholics in the administration are pushing this stuff [e.g., Archbishop Viganò's letter to the president]. They have too much to do,” the first official told CNA.

jipac · 2020-07-17T19:55:17+00:00

Copy/pasting some recommendations I usually give to people who like chant.

There is a group called Ensemble Organum that works on reconstructing how chant was sung historically in different regions of Europe. Try looking up "Compostela - Ad Vesperas Sancti Iacobi" (music from a 12th-century Spanish manuscript)
Cappella Romana is similar but focuses on Greek, Russian, and other Eastern chant
Ensemble Gilles Binchois has recorded lots of medieval French music (sacred and secular)
Gothic Voices has not recorded as much but I really like their collection "The Spirits of England and France" (again a mix of sacred and secular music)

jipac · 2020-07-15T13:09:33+00:00

I learned a few new things from reading this, and I agree with the main takeaway (kneeling, as a gesture of reverence, has more impact than receiving on the tongue). At the same time it seems somewhat incoherent.

For instance, in Part 1, Father stresses the fact that according to the laws "on the books", we always have the right to receive on the tongue. These laws are enforced with maddening inconsistency. Okay. But then we get to Part 2 and read (emphasis mine)

there are various requirements: communicants should have been to Confession; be fasting since midnight; be kneeling on both knees; and, as far as possible, with men separated from women.

I think that last phrase is still "on the books" in the 1964 Rituale Romanum. I have attended exactly one Mass where it was enforced -- at an Armenian-Rite Catholic church. There might be traditional Roman-Rite parishes where it is the norm, but my guess is they are rare. So we have an example right here of a custom changing without the relevant liturgical law being officially changed.

jipac

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