Advice: this standalone topical post is not a sequential part of our ongoing sub-set (Link 12.1, Link 12.2, Link 12.3.1, Link 12.3.2) – concentrating on the issue of His Grace and the matter of women priests – which forms part of our bigger Series "Searching for the Archbishop...". However, it does touch on related issues. We are also well aware of what dread day this is in the Franciscan papacy; you may find our un-connected post quite apt
It has been interesting to note the positive reception, notably in certain Traditional quarters also, of the homily given by His Grace The Most Rev. Archbishop Malcolm McMahon OP, ninth Archbishop of Liverpool, at the recent Solemn Mass of Chrism on Maundy Thursday at the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King.
Indeed there was much about it to commend. So we do.
Incidentally, as usual we are unable to show specific photographs of the Mass due to the archdiocesan media policy not to directly share images; never mind. However we can Flickr-link to the whole album as shared on Twitter [and as embedded in the Twitter grab image above].
Also, in passing, we note that the Mass was attended by the two most senior clerics from those Traditional priestly orders with ministry in or around this territory. Pictures show the procession featuring: Fr Armand de Malleray (foreground in this photo link – shown in cassock and surplice but with maniple which, amid the liturgical chaos of the Novus Ordo, especially that at our local Mother Church, at least served to symbolise, on that day of all days, the dignity of his priestly toil and labours and thus distinguishing him from the so-called "altar girls" processing immediately behind him in all but the same garb), who is Superior of the FSSP-England Apostolate (Priestly Fraternity of St Peter) who have responsibility for the fully Traditional church of St Mary, Warrington, in the Archdiocese of Liverpool; also Canon Amaury Montjean (midground in this photo link - the darker-haired of the only two priests seen in ordinary modern chasuble, i.e. not the frankly awful "rainbow wear" of the "Liverpool Diocesan Vestment" first introduced by His Grace at last year's Chrism Mass), who is Rector of the fully Traditional shrine church of St Peter & Paul and Philomena, New Brighton, overseen by the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest for the Diocese of Shrewsbury. We pray that the presence of Fr de Malleray and Cn Montjean may have afforded a passing opportunity to convey a few helpful - but always subtle, of course! - ars celebrandi suggestions to the cathedral's liturgy team.
Anyway, back to His Grace's homily. We were struck by the following: "...the sacrament by which Jesus absolves us through his priests from our sins is poorly appreciated in our days. In most of the parishes in the Western world the Communion queues are long while the Confession queues are short or do not exist at all. The confessional is sometimes called the 'loneliest place in the Church'. This looks like a crisis. We should perhaps think of how we have contributed to the crisis."
Well, yes.
Further, we noted well His Grace's thematic continuation: "...a priest must not confuse mercy with leniency. Taking both God and the penitent seriously, means not pretending that nothing the person confesses is really a sin. Too often people confuse being merciful with being lenient. Saying, 'Oh, go on, that’s not a sin', is just as bad as insisting over and over, 'but the law says this'. Neither response takes the penitent by the hand and accompanies him or her on the journey of conversion."
Of course, this being the Year of Mercy, the homily was awash with the much abused M-word but it has to be stressed that His Grace constantly contextualised the logical connection between sin, contrition and the great cleansing grace of forgiveness which the Saviour endlessly wishes to pour out on us. In fact we counted 15 mentions of sin/sinner/sinful.
Further, it was indeed refreshing to hear for once in this territory a homily citing Sts Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, with Pope Venerable Pius XII, Pope Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI also featuring for good measure. For they're not really the type of names to feature too often at our typical St Polyester of Mersey archdiocesan nu-parishes.
Interestingly, it was the teaching of the great Pastor Angelicus that His Grace really concentrated on, using one of his most oft-cited phrases as the means to examine the broader subject of sin, confessional repentance and mercy; particular focus being on the now almost completely ignored Sacrament of Penance.
"We may ask", said His Grace, "how could the reception of this so important sacrament decay so radically?"
Offering an answer, the archbishop continued:
"Pope Pius XII said in 1946 – so it’s not a recent problem – 'The sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin'."
Amen.
Whilst we're certainly not about to dispute His Grace's very welcome reference to that very stark papal statement of 60 years ago – far from it! – we nevertheless offer several reflections, one of which underscores the pervading confusion we labour under concerning our local Ordinary that lies at the very heart of this blog, as regular readers will well know.
Firstly, though, whilst it may sound pedantic, we think it's very instructive to consider the accuracy of that famous Pian quote which was has oft been alleged to have been given during His Holiness' radio message, broadcast from Castel Gandolfo, on October 26, 1946, to "participants in the National Catechetical Congress of the United States in Boston"
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| H.H. Pope Venerable Pius XII (1939-58) seated in the Sedia Gestatoria in 1939 (public domain) |
According to the official Vatican text (see link above), the exact papal quote was:
"Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin."
However, fast forward 38 years, and Pope Pius' fourth successor, Pope Saint John Paul II, attributed a somewhat different line in his Post-Synodal Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (RP), (on Reconciliation and Penance in the Mission of the Church Today), as given by the Polish pontiff in Advent 1984 following the VI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome in autumn 1983. In RP, to which His Grace also directly referred to in his Chrism Mass homily, the Pian extract was stated as exactly that given by Archbishop McMahon:
"The sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin."
Of course, His Grace can hardly be held accountable for following, by default, the officially published words of a canonised pontiff, as he seems to have done. However, leaving aside the odd mystery of how Pope Saint John Paul II's 1984 document (apparently) misquoted his Venerable predecessor, it does at least suggest that Archbishop McMahon didn't go back to source, i.e. the official transcript of Pope Pius' 1946 radio address. Had he done so, he would have encountered not only the broader context of Pope Pius' words but also a papal address that was about as far removed from the saccharine and false mercy laden ambiguities that modern Catholics are now sadly used to – lest we all get upset at the plain-speak.
Not only did he refer to "infidels" (goodness!) but the broader text of Pope Pacelli's address, making stark use of Pauline texts, was delivered to his Bostonian audience with all the subtlety of a Red Sox baseball bat (albeit mercifully and pastorally wielded, mind!).
We quote: "...and if He has given to His creature, man, the spiritual capacity to deliberate and willfully to act, He will most certainly demand of him a strict accounting of his thoughts and conduct. St. Paul made that clear when he wrote to the Romans: 'We shall all stand at the judgment-seat of God...everyone of us will render an account for himself to God.' (Rom. 14, 11-12).
"Is not this denial or neglect of God, Creator and Supreme Judge of man, the fountainhead of the rising flood of evil that appalls the serious-minded today, and strews the path of human life with so many broken homes? If men believing in God, to echo St. Paul again, if men believing in God do not glorify Him as God and give thanks; if their faith is kept in a hidden closet of their private chamber, while immodesty, malice, avarice and all manner of wickedness are given full use of the drawing-room and public resorts, is it surprising that God should give them up in the lustful desires of their heart to uncleanness, so that women have changed the natural use for that which is against nature, men become full of envy and murder, contention, hateful to God, irreverent, proud, haughty, disobedient to parents, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy? (Rom. 1, 18-32). Men must be brought to be conscious of the fact of God's existence, of their utter dependence on His power and love and mercy, and of their moral obligation to shape their daily lives according to His most holy will."
Being English, we're short on baseball metaphors but to use to a cricketing analogy that's a papal delivery that wouldn't have left a piece of timber standing.
To quickly revisit but one part of that fulminating address: "...women have changed the natural use for that which is against nature...".
[Pause for reflection; that was a Pope speaking publicly as recently (key word there, more later) as 1946.]
Imagine how that would be received today by the National Network of Catholic FemiWimminists who control, with docile episcopal approval, so much of the Nu-Church!
Also, here's His Holiness, in that same address, on God, men, women and the State:
"God is not some abstract idea decked out by scholars in alluring language to catch the adulation of vain and self-centred men and women; nor is he to be identified with the more palpable institution called the State, which at times would presume to vaunt itself the source and end of all man's rights and duties and liberties. Before the beginning of all these things the only true God, your God, was existing."
And now here's his famous "sense of sin" quote in broader context:
"To know Jesus crucified is to know God's horror of sin; its guilt could be washed away only in the precious blood of God's only begotten Son become man.
"Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin. Smother that, deaden it — it can hardly be wholly cut out from the heart of man — let it not be awakened by any glimpse of the God-man dying on Golgotha's cross to pay the penalty of sin, and what is there to hold back the hordes of God's enemy from over-running the selfishness, the pride, the sensuality and unlawful ambitions of sinful man? Will mere human legislation suffice? Or compacts and treaties? In the Sermon on the Mount the divine Redeemer has illumined the path that leads to the Father's will and eternal life; but from Golgotha's gibbet flows the full and steady stream of graces, of strength and courage, that alone enable man to walk that path with firm and unerring step."
Our Tradar is always finely tuned (perhaps overly so, we're quite ready to concede) to any potential chronological revisionism we ever detect concerning the Catholic events of the twentieth century. Call it a vocational hazard. Accordingly, we admit that we narrowed our eyes somewhat when we read the clause that His Grace rather shoehorned into the middle of his timely reflection on Pope Pius' words:
"Pope Pius XII said in 1946 – so it’s not a recent problem – 'The sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin'."
Hmm, we wondered, does that translate as "so don't go blaming Vatican II, because the rot had already well set in"?
Maybe that would be us being a little too prickly (can you ever blame us, mind?).
That said, it is a point worth dwelling on, especially if – as we suspect – Pope Pius' actual quote was the more gradually unfolding "men have begun to lose the sense of sin (*)" rather than the complete declaration that "the sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin".
(* perhaps the quote was amended later to satisfy the demands of the inclusive language lobbyists!)
In any case, we heartily agree with His Grace. For the modern-era loss of the sense of sin isn't a problem (and we'd actually use a stronger term there) that came to the fore even as "recently" as 1946. For it was essentially what His Holiness Pope Saint Pius X was warning about in his great encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis in 1907; the end result of Modernism left unchecked. The inevitable erosion of objectivity for subjectivity. A "Catholicism" where dogmas were no longer certain but bizarrely and illogically subject to "evolution" or "development" (a case in point). The crumbling of the great edifice of Truth – undermined by weasel-word sophistry – thus leading millions of souls into utter confusion; old rights and wrongs becoming new rights (in every deliberately skewed sense of that word) and few wrongs.
More sin but without it even being realised.
Ironically, even arch-Protestants of the early 20th century understood the direct connection between the evil and synthesised heresy of Modernism (though not strictly in the same sense as His Holiness) and the corrosive effects on religion of rampant sin.
Witness the stark (public domain) art-work below of Urban Abell (1876-1965) – from the prodigious, predominantly United States, evangelising school of early 20th century protestant cartoons, which appears positively Tridentine in comparison to what passes for the bulk of post-conciliar Catholic thought of the last five decades:
In Pascendi, Pope Pius X, identifying the Modernist trend, recognised the method that relies upon dogma being subject to "vicissitudes" and therefore "liable to change" (12).
His Holiness went on (our bold emphases): "Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion. (13) Dogma is not only able, but ought to evolve and to be changed. This is strongly affirmed by the Modernists, and clearly flows from their principles."
If dogma is subject to change, then "logically" so must sin be. Madness.
It is true – as Pope Venerable Pius XII, Pope Saint John Paul II and Pope Francis have stated, as did Archbishop McMahon in prudently quoting them all at the recent Chrism Mass – that the "sense of sin" is either in the process of being, or has completely been, lost. Surely, though, this is the result of some prior deficit? That of the "sense of dogma" being depleted – which is precisely what Pope Saint Pius X, speaking before them all, was warning about 109 years ago.
For, in only the second paragraph of Pascendi, Pope Sarto warned of the "partisans of error" being "not only among the Church’s open enemies; but, what is to be most dreaded and deplored, in her very bosom, and are the more mischievous the less they keep in the open. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the Catholic laity, and, what is much more sad, to the ranks of the priesthood itself."
Similarly, his second successor, Pope Pacelli – in the very opening remarks of his famous radio broadcast to Boston 39 years later – issued a further stark warning: "That Body of which you are members has been threatened. That Body of Christ which is His Church (Eph. 1, 23), is menaced not only by hostile powers from without, but also by the interior forces of weakness and decline. You have been alerted to the danger."
It could be argued that His Grace, speaking at the recent Chrism Mass was following those two great popes with equal and urgent vigilance when he said: "There can be no sanctity in the Church, nor can we speak of a new evangelisation, if Confession does not regain its indispensable place in the lives of the faithful. But how to begin?"
Well, we would suggest, first and foremost, that lapsed penitents need absolute clarity about Church teaching.
For example, concerning our neck-of-the-woods, we are left to consider the very conflicting messages we have received from His Grace in a little under just two years, which in turn have caused us to retrospectively examine – and with no little confusion, indeed deep concern – the key aspects of his entire episcopacy (per the recent sub-set within our ongoing Series "Searching for the Archbishop..." (Notes 13-16 thus far).
Accordingly, we wonder how it is that he can view dogma as being subject to "development"? Witness His Grace's thinly veiled hopes for the Synod on the Family (2014, 2015) to somehow approve Holy Communion for those who have been validly married but have since become divorced and then gone on to remarry. Also, we try to see through the ambiguous fog and consider what he might really mean when he said, in an answer to a question about Catholic teaching that "dogma's tricky because it's there on a page. It doesn't mean much while it just stays as words on a page. Doctrine is always something that you have to live out as a person". In the same critical vein, we also have deep concerns about his true views on the doctrine of the all male priesthood. How could we not? Further, he has given us good reason to be gravely alarmed about his record regarding the need to defend the Church's teaching about same sex attraction, especially given his overt support for a notoriously dissenting Catholic priest who suggests that "gay sexuality" can be "Eucharistic". And of course, encompassing all the above was His Grace's public welcome in the autumn of 2014 to the dissenting group ACTA – who basically seek an endlessly "dialoguing" Church but without teaching until they get their way on all the usual issues of dissent. Such archiepiscopal approval, of course, was in stark contrast to the hugely encouraging and public episcopal disapproval of ACTA communicated just a year ago (Link 1; Link 2) by the Rt Rev. Bishop Michael Campbell OSA, the sixth Bishop of Lancaster, the diocesan territory of which sits within the Ecclesiastical Province of Liverpool.
This, really, is the crux of the matter concerning our blog. We of course have a duty to defend against error. We also have a responsibility – and especially as laity (another reminder that this is a lay only run blog, from within the Liverpool city) – to demonstrate obedience and help foster unity. Yet we are so often left to consider our local Shepherd's questionable, to say the least, example of obedience concerning those many issues that we have covered on Liverpolitanus (as linked to above) – which is not an exhaustive list by any means. And never was that contrariness shown more to the fore (although there has been stiff competition) than when, as Bishop of Nottingham, His Grace completely disregarded (as examined at length in our post immediately prior to this) the need to show discipline in adhering to Pope Saint John Paul II's infallibly "set forth" instruction (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis) to close the discussion – forever! – about the matter of female ordination. Instead the constantly churning dissent about this closed and eternally sealed doctrinal matter was given free reign at the wretched Nottingham Diocesan Assembly (NDA) which His Grace convoked in his previous territory and which became nothing but an arena for agitation that poisoned Christ's Truth for at least six years between 2002 and 2008. We say it again, Pope John Paul II set forth infallibly an instruction to obey, yet Bishop McMahon of Nottingham disobediently approved of open and dissenting debate on the matter all the days of the NDA.
[pause]
As we await – quite literally as we type on this morning of Friday April 8th, 2016, a day we've all dreaded for at least two years now – Pope Francis' exhortation based on the infamous Synod on the Family, and the seemingly inexorable shift towards a "more synodal" local Church, we can only repeat what we have said before, given His Grace's obvious penchant for "gatherings", "assemblies", "congresses" and such like, that we would have to be utterly naive not to at least be on alert for any noises along the lines of an NDA-style dissent fest being convoked in this territory.
Anyway, we'll cross that bridge
For our foot notes in this post, aptly seeing that His Grace himself referred to Pope Venerable Pius XII's famous radio broadcast of 1946 and whilst we're also considering the much-ignored portents of Pope Saint Pius X's encyclical Pascendi, we think it's perhaps salutary, on this day of all days, that we consider what both of those papal giants had to say about congress, assembly, synod-type events in those two respective communications.
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| H.H. Pope Saint Pius X (1903-14), in the Vatican Gardens in 1913, a year before his death (public domain) |
In doing so, we are first reminded of His Grace's long-standing attendance at the revolting annual Los Angeles Religious Education Congress (LAREC), which has been shaped by the disgraced Archbishop Emeritus of that territory, His Eminence Roger Cardinal Mahony, who is a close personal friend of Archbishop McMahon and was at his side when he was "installed" as the Ordinary of this territory almost 23 months ago. We contrast the typical disobedience and disunity that is routinely promoted at LAREC with the heart-wrenching words of forewarning – "we speak with sorrow in our heart" – extended across the Atlantic by Pope Pius XII to the participants in Boston at the 1946 National Catechetical Congress of the United States. His Holiness spoke of the "growing weakness, the devitalising process" that has been "going on in not a few parts of the Church...due chiefly to an ignorance or at best a very superficial knowledge of the religious truths taught by the loving Redeemer of all."
The Pastor Angelicus then pointedly added (our bold emphasis): "Oh, We are fully aware of the magnificent results being achieved in the Catholic missions among the infidels throughout the world: three million and more receiving instruction in the Faith, almost half a million entering the Church each year. Nor does the instruction of the new converts cease at their baptism; with the glowing fervour of those who have found an unsuspected treasure they are eager to increase and deepen their knowledge of eternal Truth; and the missionaries, priests, brothers and sisters assisted by their devoted lay catechists do not fail them. But your Congress has been interested rather in those who live in countries where the true Faith has flourished for generations, in those also who were born of Catholic parents and duly baptised; and these We have in mind when We say that the vigour of the Church and its growth are menaced by their failure really to grasp the Truth they profess."
It is quite clear from this excerpt alone that His Holiness was flagging-up a diabolical process that was underway and unfolding; i.e. a sense of sin that had "begun" to be lost at that point, rather than the later (we believe misquoted) completed and categorical "loss of the sense of sin".
In any case, Pope Pacelli was speaking just 13 years before the Modernists finally seized their golden moment ahead of Vatican II, those "opened windows" they had waited decades for. He clearly sensed that disaster lay ahead if urgent action wasn't taken. We dare to say that His Holiness will have known that his predecessor, Pope Sarto, 39 years earlier, had only succeeded in keeping the Modernist weed at bay through his encyclical Pascendi (some say he simply drove them "underground" – see the erudite comments section of this fine recent Catholic Truth editorial). Further, we can reasonably speculate that Pope Pacelli surely sensed that the global disorientation caused by the two intervening World Wars since Pascendi, thus prompting the inevitable social turmoil that the world awoke to in 1946, provided the perfect storm conditions, as the second part of the twentieth century dawned, for outright dissent to wreak its insidious havoc.
Finally, let us compare what we have said about the infamous NDA era of 2002-08, with the words of Pope Pius X in Pascendi exactly one century earlier:
"(54). We have already mentioned congresses and public gatherings as among the means used by the Modernists to propagate and defend their opinions. In the future, Bishops shall not permit congresses of priests except on very rare occasions. When they do permit them it shall only be on condition that matters appertaining to the Bishops or the Apostolic See be not treated in them, and that no resolutions or petitions be allowed that would imply a usurpation of sacred authority, and that absolutely nothing be said in them which savours of Modernism, presbyterianism, or laicism. At congresses of this kind, which can only be held after permission in writing has been obtained in due time and for each case it shall not be lawful for priests of other dioceses to be present without the written permission of their Ordinary. Further, no priest must lose sight of the solemn recommendation of Leo XIII: “Let priests hold as sacred the authority of their pastors, let them take it for certain that the sacerdotal ministry, if not exercised under the guidance of the Bishops, can never be either holy, or very fruitful, or worthy of respect.” (Nobilissima Gallorum, 10 February, 1884).
We'll finish there with the words of Pope Pius X – or Pope Leo XIII if we're being accurate! – ringing in our ears.
Right, we now believe an Apostolic Exhortation has finally been published. The bloke on BBC radio has just opened up the news headlines with it. We think it best to have a cup of tea before heading into the web. Tea first. It's the English way.
We will return soon with the next in our Series sub-set which, as already communicated, will focus on His Grace's provision (and subsequent cessation, by his own order it should be stressed), whilst Bishop of Nottingham, for "pastoral care" Masses to be celebrated for...(yawn) "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Catholics" (*).
(*) So "Lesbians" aren't "Gay" then?
Oh, and we remind you about this petition.
