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Reactions to Liturgical Changes in the 1960s
I recently had a message in response to one of my blog postings, asking how Catholics responded to the liturgical changes in the 1960s. This is in the context of South African responses to the most recent changes. Read more…
About 40 years ago I was waylaid in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, by an Irish Catholic priest who wanted to have a closer look at my rather snazzy Italian motorbike.
My, how times have changed. Those were the days when the most traumatic thing that could happen to you in Hillbrow was to be accosted by a priest. Nowadays, even if you drive an army surplus tank through the place at under 10km/h, you’ll have hijackers lining up to scalp you.
After promising the good Father a ride on my bike some time when he wasn’t wearing a cassock to get snarled up in the chain, we got to talking about the vagaries of mankind, particularly an inability to communicate.
At some stage in the conversation I somewhat patronisingly suggested that he was lucky to be a priest because he didn’t have to endure those every-man-for-himself business meetings and employees who were mostly self-centred whingers.
Well, he did his ecumenical nut. He took a deep breath, narrowed his eyes, and with his pallor reddening, his raised arms knocked my rear view mirror out of kilter and frightened the daylights out of a passing spaniel.
“What are ye after talkin’ about, boyo? You people in business have got it easy, begorrah. At least you’re dealing with paid employees. All I’ve got is volunteers!”
I hadn’t thought of that. Employees one can admonish, threaten, even fire. (Well, in those days you could; nowadays you don’t even think about it.)
But volunteers were another story. One wrong word and they’re off in a huff.
A while later after exhausting some rather depressing topics such as the state of Irish weather and the fact that there had never been a pope called Paddy, we moved to the equally depressing topic of parish pastoral councils.
What I found remarkable was how he dealt with his lay parishioners. “Simple. I find out quick as I can what their star signs are — you have no idea how that helps me handle the…dear, sweet people.”
I was shocked to my socks and took five paces back to escape the lightning bolt I was convinced was already on its way from an equally shocked heavenly host. Heresy, surely!
He laughed, playfully slapped my other rear view mirror out of kilter, and told me not to be old-fashioned. After all, centuries ago the Church condemned alchemists, yet today the Vatican has no problem with chemists, apart from the fact that they sell condoms. So why should astrology be unacceptable, as long as you don’t take it too seriously?
The point, however, is not that a Catholic priest was indulging in what more than just a few of his parochial mother grundies would call black magic, but that he was using star signs to help him understand people and communicate with them a bit more efficiently.
Now years later, I still resort to finding out what someone’s star sign is if I am having difficulty dealing with them. It’s superficial, but does help to get the communication process going.
And on an even lighter note, have you ever wondered how people under various star signs pray? The following guide comes from the weekly newsletter of a Catholic parish in the United States (recognising, of course, that the Church takes a dim view of horoscopes, especially of the kind that claim to forecast the future. As I said, this is a bit of fun):
Aries: “Dear God! Give me PATIENCE and I want it NOW!”
Taurus: “Dear God, please help me to accept CHANGE in my life, but NOT YET.”
Gemini: “Hello God… Who are you? What are you? Where are you?”
Cancer: “Dear Father, I know I shouldn’t depend on you so much, but you’re the only one I can count on while my security blanket is at the dry cleaners.”
Leo: “Hi, God. I’ll bet you’re really proud to have me as your kid!”
Virgo: “Dear God, please make the world a new and better place and don’t let mankind mess it up like they did the last time.”
Libra: “Dear God, I know I should make decisions for myself. But what do YOU think?”
Scorpio: “Dear God, help me forgive my enemies, even if they don’t deserve it.”
Sagittaurus: “OH ALMIGHTY, ALL KNOWING, ALL-LOVING, ALL-POWERFUL, OMNIPRESENT, EVERLASTING GOD, IF I’VE ASKED YOU ONCE, I’VE ASKED YOU A THOUSAND TIMES — HELP ME STOP EXAGGERATING!”
Capricorn: “Dear Father, I was going to pray, but I guess I ought to figure things out for myself. Thanks anyway.”
Aquarius: “Hi God! Let’s have a party!”
Pisces: “Heavenly Father, as I prepare to consume this last bottle of Scotch to drown out my pain and sorrow, may my inebriation be for thy greater honour and glory.”
Recognise yourself?
We can change the world
By Bishop Kevin Dowling
We need nothing less than the transformation of our world, our global community. It will demand the interface between deeply held and lived values, a critical and searching mind, and a spirit that does not count the cost in overcoming that which diminishes or destroys hope. Read more…
Peter, a flawed man and great leader
When the Lord called him to be a prophet, Jeremiah hesitated, giving excuses: “I do not know how to speak; I am only a child”. Simon, whom Jesus called Peter, was not like that. He was not a procrastinator.
The Bible tells us that when Jesus called him and his brother Andrew, they did not hesitate: “At once they left their nets and followed him.” When Jesus asked the disciples: “Who do you say I am?”, it was Simon Peter who quickly and correctly responded: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” But Simon had his fair share of foibles. Read more…
Why leave the Catholic Church?
Three letters in The Southern Cross of June 3-9 caught my eye: PR Margeot on the Tridentine Mass; Sibusiso Mhlongo’s observation of Catholics defecting to pentecostal movements, and Roy Glover on being ashamed to be Catholic following the revelations of abuses in Irish Catholic institutions. Read more…
Sudan: A Complex of Unintended Outcomes
When President Bashir of Sudan was indicted by the International Court for crimes against humanity, he expelled 14 Western NGOs, including the highly respected Doctors Without Borders. Another effect of the indictment has probably been to save Bashir’s waning political career, since he is now seen by many northern Sudanese as a victim of Western aggression and his popularity has grown dramatically. This is a double example of the law of unintended consequences. Read more…
Sudan: A Complex of Unintended Outcomes
<!– @page { size: 21cm 29.7cm; margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } –>When President Bashir of Sudan was indicted by the International Court for crimes against humanity, he expelled 14 Western NGOs, including the highly respected Doctors Without Borders. Another effect of the indictment has probably been to save Bashir’s waning political career, since he is now seen by many northern Sudanese as a victim of Western aggression and his popularity has grown dramatically. This is a double example of the law of unintended consequences.
However the law works both ways – to Bashir’s advantage but also against it. His government is implicated in the violent Islamisation of the South of the country. This traumatic process has created large numbers of refugees. These are Southerners, who because (as the northern government insists), they are citizens of the country, have fled the fighting and moved to the capital Khartoum, seeking security and work, even if this meant putting up with a second class status.
An observer in Khartoum painted an interesting picture for me about how this has affected the Catholic Church in the capital. Christian communities there have had a rapid addition to their numbers thanks to the refugee influx. Many refugees are already Christian but many others who were religious traditionalists, have converted to Christianity and in the 14 Catholic parishes around Khartoum the Easter season sees the admission of 3000-5000 adults every year. For a government with an Islamising agenda, this is another example of that perplexing and sometimes maddening law of unintended consequences.
There’s another twist in the working out of this law. The largely black Southern refugees in Khartoum are an ethnic mix of perhaps a million souls, (though the Government estimates them at just over 200,000). Because they are drawn from all the different ethnic groups, in order to lessen if not completely avoid tribal divisions in parish communities, the Archbishop of Khartoum has insisted that all services be conducted in Arabic. This even includes singing. The Archbishop, it seems, comes from a family of accomplished musicians that has produced a large repertoire of hymns and parts of the Mass in Arabic and my source (a fluent Arabic speaker and good singer) judges them to be very beautiful. The point here is that part of the North’s Islamising strategy was the imposition of Arabic on the southerners. But right in the capital this has backfired in our now familiar law. What was supposed to carry the message of Islam has ended up being used to carry the message of the Christian Gospel!
In the broad political tableau, the same thing has happened. The attempt to unify the country through the imposition of a uniform religious culture now seems ultimately doomed, though Bashir and his government, buoyed up by the President’s popularity windfall courtesy of the International Court, do not seem yet ready to admit this.
Things will come to a head in 2011 when, according to the agreement grudgingly entered into by the Government under intense pressure from the West, the South will have a referendum to decide its future status. All sources close to the situation in the South suggest that the vote will be overwhelmingly in favour of full independence. The Southerners, it seems, have had enough. This was not how the Northern government’s script was meant to run. The South, with its considerable oil wealth, was to continue being dominated and exploited and the people progressively culturally and religiously absorbed.
The endgame is already in motion and the shape of its dynamic is becoming clear. South Africans who were around in the transitions years leading up to 1994 will find it depressingly familiar. It’s the crude tactic of violent destabilisation. The Bashir government is already doing all it can to hobble the embryonic Southern state, setting one ethnic group against an other and paying militias to attack each other. What did not work in South Africa in 1994 will probably not work in 2011 in Southern Sudan.
The most amateur crystal-ball gazer can foresee more violence given the sky-high stakes of large swathes of oil-rich territory. The final outcome of this coming violent struggle will probably be decided more by the extremely delicate matter of international relations between the West and the Arab world and the raw economics of energy. However, a situation which has produced so many unintended outcomes is likely to produce even more.
The Year of the Priest
When Pope Benedict declared the Year of Priest, which began on June 19, he did the Church a great service. A season of celebration and serious reflection on the priesthood has been overdue.
Read more…
Telephone-speak – pronto!
In the world of aviation there is a universal language roughly based on English which is used to avoid confusion among pilots and to make sure that millions of passengers are able to hurtle about the world without hitting mountains. Read more…
Hear God’s answers
By Catherine De Valence
This morning I woke up with a lot of questions, questions which only God could answer. Who? Why? When? Where? These are always on our minds, and if we are willing to put our will aside in order for his will to be heard, we might actually listen and hear his messages. The thing is: when we do hear his messages are we willing to act upon them? The balance of life lies in this line: “Life is a frisbee; what we throw out there is what we will get back.” Read more…
