Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Our readersAugust 14, 2006

Dynamic Universe

I am frustrated by the recent action of the bishops in considering certain changes to the liturgy of the Mass (Signs of the Times, 7/3). Why are they wasting their time and ours on trivialities when there are so many important issues that need attention?

Are they using their command function to remind us that they are in control? I would prefer that they learn to exercise leadership and lead us into the 21st century. This would involve many issues, including the priest shortage, which I attribute to their woeful lack of leadership. Leading into the 21st century would involve updating their teachings from the static universe of St. Augustine and other early leaders to the dynamic universe we know today. Some of the changes include now knowing that the universe is billions of years old and that humans have been here for perhaps millions of years.

I know the teachings of the catechism, but it is hard to relate them to the conditions of the 21st century. Since I know the bishops are not likely to address these issues, I must make my own interpretations. Yes, I am a Catholic and will remain one, but in some issues on my own terms.

John L. Coakley Jr.
Kansas City, Mo.

Defies Comprehension

Colombian Dreams, by James R. Stormes, S.J., (7/17) is well intentioned but distorts the nature of the conflict and U.S. policy. The root of a very complex problem is a weak state’s inability to provide security and governance in one of the most difficult geographies (three times the size of Iraq) and patterns of human habitation in the world, along with unequal distribution of land and wealth. Some 40 percent of the territory, even urban areas, is outside the control of the state, precisely where guerrillas and paramilitaries contest authority. Moreover, narcotics totally transformed the conflict, intensifying corruption and violence, now one of the main causes of death and the main cause of poverty. Eliminating the narcotics economy is thus key to security.

The article states: Colombia finds itself with three armed groups: the guerrillas, the Army and the paramilitary groups. They are at one another’s throats with all the resources of that other tragedy, drug smuggling, at their disposal. This is moral equivalence of the worst kind. Would the author agree that the Army is the legitimate arm of the state, while the other two groups are illegitimate? The guerrillas and the paramilitaries massacre, rape and kidnap children to fight. They sexually exploit young girls, force them to have abortions and summarily execute those who lose revolutionary morale. The United Nations and Human Rights Watch estimate that some 11,000 children have been forcibly recruited to fight for them. To put the Army in the same moral category and claim that it is using resources from drug smuggling defies comprehension. The Army has made significant progress in reforms and improving its human rights record to the point where reputable public opinion polls indicate it is the country’s most respected institution.

The article recommends that instead of fumigation, the U.S. government provide more resources to support the development of the Colombian people. No other nation approaches the generosity of the United States. But generosity will not be enough unless Colombia establishes legitimate security and the rule of law across the nation. Vietnam, Somalia, Haiti, the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq have taught us that without security and justice there can be no economic development.

Gabriel Marcella
Carlisle, Pa.

Should Be Seen

In Back to the Future (7/31) you write, The council fathers declared that the use of the vernacular may frequently be of great advantage to the people’ to help them reach full, conscious and active’ participation. Pope Benedict agrees. He wrote in Theological Highlights of Vatican II (1966), while he was still Joseph Ratzinger, The wall of Latinity had to be breached if the liturgy were again to function either as proclamation or as invitation to prayer.

There is other good stuff in there as well: ...none of the saints of the Catholic Reformation drew their spirituality from the liturgy. Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of ávila and John of the Cross developed their religious life solely from personal encounter with God and from individual experience of the Church, quite apart from the liturgy and any deep involvement with it.

I have only seen those words quoted once. They should be seen more.

(Rev.) Jack Garvey
Yankton, S.D.

Academic Marketing

Thank you for publishing the article The Corporate University, by Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C. (7/31). I retired in December 2005 after more than 35 years as a journalism professor. In my family’s Christmas letter this past year I wrote that one of the reasons for my retirement was a belief that marketing had taken over higher education and that I wanted to retain as much of my academic integrity as possible under the circumstances.

Prior to my retirement I sat on the university senate at the institution where I taught. A primary topic on the mind of the university provost when he addressed the faculty seemed to focus on the success the institution was having in putting together packages to attract students as part of a marketing plan directed at selected constituencies.

I only wish Father Miscamble had written more about the position athletics, particularly football, occupies within efforts to market higher education. The institution where I taught aggressively started a football program because, at least in my view, the administration saw it as a central marketing tool in building its version of the corporate university. (The football program has just moved up to Division I.) Murray Sperber, a professor at Indiana University, has written a highly recommended book with a title that sums up my feelings on this subject rather well: Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports Is Crippling Undergraduate Education.

David L. Martinson
Olathe, Kans.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
17 years 7 months ago
Ignatius of Loyola and Teresa of Avila may not have drawn their spirituality from the liturgy—the Tridentine, that would be—but for me the Sunday liturgy is a foretaste of heaven every Sunday. From my walk through the Mission courtyard to the final blessing, it’s the high point of my spiritual life for the week.

What makes this liturgy so precious to me is the use of English, which makes the words of the readings and the prayers and responses of the mass immediately comprehensible to all of us. I grew up with the Latin liturgy and took four years of Latin in high school in order to be able to understand the mass, but it wasn’t the same.

The use of the vernacular enables the “full, conscious and active participation” that Vatican II called for in its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, and it enables us to participate as a people rather than as individuals lost in our prayer books. Now, forty years after the Council, the prayers of the liturgy have become lodged in the very fiber of our being. To change the wording of those prayers at this point is to rob the faithful of the prayer that is at the source and summit of our prayer life. We will no longer be able to pray those prayers without stumbling.

Would you change the words of the “Star-spangled Banner?” Or of “God Save the Queen?” Only for the gravest of reasons should the words of our common worship be changed. But what reasons have been offered to justify this change of the Roman Missal? That the English wording be more like that of other European languages? Who’s translating? That the translation be taken from the Latin rather than the Greek? Greek was the original wording, but that seems like a flimsy reason in any case.

Can anybody tell me how my experience of the Eucharistic Prayer will benefit from saying, “Lord of Hosts” rather than “Lord God of Power and Might?” Quite frankly, I have about zero comprehension of the word “hosts,” and all kinds of connotations for “power and might.” It’s very difficult, if not impossible, for an adult to relearn something committed so thoroughly to memory as the mass prayers, and particularly to relearn very small changes. Has anyone tried to recite the “Our Father” with a group of Spanish-speakers? You are likely to hear at least three different versions all at one time. That’s the way the liturgy will be for us if and when this new translation gets implemented.

Is this what we want? The liturgy belongs to all of us.

Sincerely, Frances Rossi

17 years 7 months ago
This is a letter in response to your article: The Way Things are Going, by Valerie Schultz in the Faith in Forcus column.

I applaud America for publishing The Way Things are Going. The honest revelation is quite beautiful and needs to be told. America honored its commitment to readers by showing us another point of view on homosexuality.

My good friend, Catholic mother, unlike Varlerie, left the church since she heard nothing but condemnation about her gay son. He has lived happily with his partner for over twelve years, has shown nothing but caring and commitment. I visit their home and feel at home.

The Church has always been slow to catch up, but someday she will since the growing evidence mandates that we can no longer brutalize the idea of homosexulaity. It is here to stay and simply reflects God's wider act of creation.

17 years 7 months ago
Ignatius of Loyola and Teresa of Avila may not have drawn their spirituality from the liturgy—the Tridentine, that would be—but for me the Sunday liturgy is a foretaste of heaven every Sunday. From my walk through the Mission courtyard to the final blessing, it’s the high point of my spiritual life for the week.

What makes this liturgy so precious to me is the use of English, which makes the words of the readings and the prayers and responses of the mass immediately comprehensible to all of us. I grew up with the Latin liturgy and took four years of Latin in high school in order to be able to understand the mass, but it wasn’t the same.

The use of the vernacular enables the “full, conscious and active participation” that Vatican II called for in its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, and it enables us to participate as a people rather than as individuals lost in our prayer books. Now, forty years after the Council, the prayers of the liturgy have become lodged in the very fiber of our being. To change the wording of those prayers at this point is to rob the faithful of the prayer that is at the source and summit of our prayer life. We will no longer be able to pray those prayers without stumbling.

Would you change the words of the “Star-spangled Banner?” Or of “God Save the Queen?” Only for the gravest of reasons should the words of our common worship be changed. But what reasons have been offered to justify this change of the Roman Missal? That the English wording be more like that of other European languages? Who’s translating? That the translation be taken from the Latin rather than the Greek? Greek was the original wording, but that seems like a flimsy reason in any case.

Can anybody tell me how my experience of the Eucharistic Prayer will benefit from saying, “Lord of Hosts” rather than “Lord God of Power and Might?” Quite frankly, I have about zero comprehension of the word “hosts,” and all kinds of connotations for “power and might.” It’s very difficult, if not impossible, for an adult to relearn something committed so thoroughly to memory as the mass prayers, and particularly to relearn very small changes. Has anyone tried to recite the “Our Father” with a group of Spanish-speakers? You are likely to hear at least three different versions all at one time. That’s the way the liturgy will be for us if and when this new translation gets implemented.

Is this what we want? The liturgy belongs to all of us.

Sincerely, Frances Rossi

17 years 7 months ago
This is a letter in response to your article: The Way Things are Going, by Valerie Schultz in the Faith in Forcus column.

I applaud America for publishing The Way Things are Going. The honest revelation is quite beautiful and needs to be told. America honored its commitment to readers by showing us another point of view on homosexuality.

My good friend, Catholic mother, unlike Varlerie, left the church since she heard nothing but condemnation about her gay son. He has lived happily with his partner for over twelve years, has shown nothing but caring and commitment. I visit their home and feel at home.

The Church has always been slow to catch up, but someday she will since the growing evidence mandates that we can no longer brutalize the idea of homosexulaity. It is here to stay and simply reflects God's wider act of creation.

The latest from america

A Homily for Easter Sunday, by Father Terrance Klein
Terrance KleinMarch 27, 2024
As Catholics around the world observe Holy Week, the hosts of “Inside the Vatican,” Colleen Dulle and Gerard O’Connell, take a look at Pope Francis’ Holy Week plans.
Inside the VaticanMarch 27, 2024
A Reflection for Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord, by Sam Sawyer, S.J.
Sam Sawyer, S.J.March 27, 2024
Catholics: Think twice before you bury poor St. Joseph upside down in your front lawn when trying to sell your house.
Simcha FisherMarch 27, 2024