Good Afternoon, Church,

It has been a couple of months since I have raised the issue regarding the latest translation of the Roman Missal which will be introduced to the English speaking world in the coming Fall. Much has taken place both in front of and behind the scenes and I would like to bring you up-to-date on some news that has just taken place.

Benediction monk, Fr. Anthony Ruff was the chair of ICEL (International Commission for English in the Liturgy)for the Church. Fr. Ruff has recently resigned with the letter below. I feel Fr. Ruff's position characterizes my own feeling regarding this 'new liturgy' which I will be directed to celebrate with my parishes in this coming November.

It is a decision that cannot at this time be reversed but it's implications will mark the Church I love historically and will, in my opinion, prove to more of an obstacle than an aid to help people develop in our faith and in our relationship with Jesus Christ.

I would like to thank Fr. Ruff for having the courage to address this issue from his former very influential position and for taking the time to express his love for God's people and the Church he has given his life to serve as a monk, priest and teacher. Our Church has been made richer from his experience and I am garteful for his witness.

To date the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops is moving slowly in regards to teaching about the new translation for mass but the United States Conference of catholic Bishops have a beautiful interactive website with many materials. You can find it here.

The full text of Fr. Ruff's letter is as follows:

Your Eminences, Your Excellencies,

With a heavy heart, I have recently made a difficult decision concerning the new English missal. I have decided to withdraw from all my upcoming speaking engagements on the Roman Missal in dioceses across the United States. After talking with my confessor and much prayer, I have concluded that I cannot promote the new missal translation with integrity. I’m sure bishops want a speaker who can put the new missal in a positive light, and that would require me to say things I do not believe.

I love the Church, I love the sacred liturgy, I love chant in Latin and English, and I treasure being involved with all these as a monk and priest. It has been an honor to serve until recently as chairman of the music committee of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) that prepared all the chants for the new missal. But my involvement in that process, as well as my observation of the Holy See’s handling of scandal, has gradually opened my eyes to the deep problems in the structures of authority of our church.

The forthcoming missal is but a part of a larger pattern of top-down impositions by a central authority that does not consider itself accountable to the larger church. When I think of how secretive the translation process was, how little consultation was done with priests or laity, how the Holy See allowed a small group to hijack the translation at the final stage, how unsatisfactory the final text is, how this text was imposed on national conferences of bishops in violation of their legitimate episcopal authority, how much deception and mischief have marked this process—and then when I think of Our Lord’s teachings on service and love and unity…I weep.

I see a good deal of disillusionment with the Catholic Church among my friends and acquaintances. Some leave the Catholic Church out of conviction, some gradually drift away, some join other denominations, some remain Catholic with difficulty. My response is to stay in this church for life and do my best to serve her. This I hope to do by stating the truth as I see it, with charity and respect. I would be ready to participate in future liturgical projects under more favorable conditions.

I am sorry for the difficulties I am causing others by withdrawing, but I know this is the right thing to do. I will be praying for you and all leaders in our church.

Pax in Christo,

Fr. Anthony Ruff, O.S.B.

The web address to read more is found here.

God's Surprises!

Leave room for God to surprise you!
--Ernie K.

It is human to be disappointed when we don't get what we want. But when we dwell on our disappointment, as if we should have gotten what we wanted, then we forget to trust that God may have something different in store for us. Many of us pray, "Thy will be done," but more often than not, when we don't get what we want, we forget it may be God's will that we not get it!

We can only know the present moment. This is our life – all of it. When we worry about future wants and past disappointments, we don't leave room in ourselves for the present. When we let God take care of the future and live the best we can right now , we can feel assured we'll be ready for the better things that are in store for us.

Today help me to trust in Your will.

Women Who Attend Church Happier: Virginia Study

A recent study shows that women who are regular church attendees are more immune to the ups and downs of life, and are happier overall.

Alexander Ross of the Institute for the Psychological Sciences authored the study that examined a phenomenon of decreased self-reported happiness in American women over the past 36 years.

Ross found that church attendance was a significant factor in the reported happiness of women.

In general, a drop in church attendance in the time period from 1972 to 2008 was seen to directly affect the happiness of the women in the study.

Ross noted that "the shift over time to lower attendance, a behavior that is associated with decreased general happiness, explains in part the decline in women's happiness."

Societal changes

As well, the women who reported regular church attendance were shown to be more immune to the elements that produced the general decline in happiness among their other contemporaries.

"If one supposes that the changes that our society has experienced over the past few decades have had a net detrimental impact on women's happiness," Ross observed, "the analysis supports the conclusion that it is women who attend church who have been less susceptible to that impact."

The study, published in the most recent volume of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion, noted that church attendance declined for men as well during this period, but there was no significant drop in overall happiness for males.

Ross explained that this could be due to the fact that women changed their churchgoing habits over the years more drastically than men, with females reporting a greater drop in attendance than males.

As well, he noted that "although role expectations for both men and women have changed over the past few decades, it could be argued that they have changed more dramatically for women."

"In the context of a greater sense of social disruption," Ross explained, "perhaps women benefited more than men from the stabilizing influence of regular church attendance."

"To the extent to which it provides a transcendent meaning to life and opportunities to form close personal ties," Ross theorized, "regular church attendance ought to increase a person's sense of well-being and satisfaction with life."

 He concluded, "St. Augustine would not be surprised at our findings, for he taught that mankind's chief good is God, and the happy life exists when that which is man's chief good is both loved and possessed."

To The Phillipino Bishops: Preach a Relationship With Christ

Benedict XVI says evangelization will come through the understanding that a personal relationship with Christ is the key to complete fulfillment.

The Pope affirmed this today when he addressed prelates from the Philippines in Rome for their five-yearly "ad limina" visit.

In his English-language address, the Holy Father acknowledged the many challenges the nation faces in the area of economic development, but he said that "these obstacles to a life of happiness and fulfillment are not the only stumbling blocks that must be addressed by the Church."

"Filipino culture," he said, "is also confronted with the more subtle questions inherent to the secularism, materialism, and consumerism of our times."

The Pontiff warned that the human person "creates for himself a false destiny and loses sight of the eternal joy for which he has been made" when he removes self-sufficiency and freedom from "dependence upon and completion in God."

"The path to rediscovering humanity’s true destiny can only be found in the re-establishment of the priority of God in the heart and mind of every person," he affirmed.

Keeping God at the center of people's lives requires preaching that is "personal in focus," Benedict XVI said, "so that each Catholic will grasp in his or her innermost depths the life-transforming fact that God exists, that he loves us, and that in Christ he answers the deepest questions of our lives."

"Your great task in evangelization is therefore to propose a personal relationship with Christ as key to complete fulfillment," the Pope told the prelates.

"In order to confront the questions of our times, the laity need to hear the Gospel message in its fullness, to understand its implications for their personal lives and for society in general, and thus be constantly converted to the Lord," he added.

Called

The Bishop of Rome also spoke to the Filipino bishops about ministry to youth.

He urged them to "remind young people that the glamor of this world will not satisfy their natural desire for happiness."

"Only true friendship with God will break the bonds of loneliness from which our fragile humanity suffers and will establish a true and lasting communion with others, a spiritual bond that will readily prompt within us the wish to serve the needs of those we love in Christ," he said.

The Holy Father encouraged the prelates to show youth the "importance of the sacraments as instruments of God's grace and assistance." And he said this is particularly true for the sacrament of marriage, "which sanctifies married life from its very beginning, so that God's presence may sustain young couples in their struggles."

The Pontiff affirmed that pastoral care of youth that establishes a "primacy of God in their hearts" naturally brings forth vocations to Christian marriage and to "plentiful callings of all kinds."

The Holy Father welcomed the success of Filipino initiatives to promote vocations to the priesthood and religious life, though he recognized "that in many dioceses the number of priests and the corresponding number of parishes is not yet sufficient to meet the spiritual needs of the large and growing Catholic population."

"With you," he said, "I therefore pray that young Filipinos who feel called to the priesthood and the religious life will respond generously to the promptings of the Spirit. May the Church’s mission of evangelization be sustained by the wonderful gifts which the Lord offers to those whom he calls!"

North American Priests Down; Africa & Asia Dominate

The number of priests ordained has increased worldwide, while the number of those who have given up the exercise of the priesthood has decreased noticeably, reported L'Osservatore Romano.

The Vatican's semi-official newspaper made this report based on statistics from the Statistical Yearbook of the Church, prepared annually by the Central Office of Church Statistics. It will be presented within the next few days in the Vatican.

The most recent official statistics refer to information from 2009. The total number of priests reported at that time was 410,593, of whom 275,542 were members of the diocesan clergy and 135,051 of religious congregations. This increased from a decade ago, when in 1999 the figures were 405,009 priests, of whom 265,012 were diocesan and 139,997 religious.

Thus the total number of priests worldwide in 2009, compared to 1999, grew by 1.4%, with a 4% increase of the diocesan clergy and a 3.5% decrease of the religious clergy.

The percentage has declined in North America (about 7% for diocesan clergy and about 21% for religious clergy), Europe (about 9%) and Oceania (4.6%).

However, African priests have increased (38.5%), as have Asian priests (30.5%) and the diocesan priests of Central and South America. In Africa and Asia, the number of religious clergy decreased.

The distribution of clergy by continents in 2009 continues to be characterized by a marked predominance of European priests (46.5% of the total). This group constitutes about 56% more than clergy from the Americas.

The Asian clergy is estimated at 13.5% of the total number, the African priests at 8.9% and the Oceania at 1.2%.

Repairing a Broken Church: Phyllis Zagano

The following is a reflection from Phyllis Zagano that offers a refreshing & challenging perception of the global church today. It is helpful to remember that effort is needed from all levels of God's People to help heal and enrich our Church:

The heartbreak is that nobody in the Vatican seems to be in the dot-connecting business. No matter how many official reports or media exposés, no matter how many ad limina visits or episcopal memoirs, the bureaucracy just does not get it.

The Irish church is on the verge of total collapse. A third of the theologians in Germany are calling for reform. The US church suffers a scandal a day.

I am sick of it. You are too. Let’s talk.

But let me set some parameters. For starters, I don’t think there is anything wrong with vowed celibacy. Hundreds of thousands of men and women have lived contemplative or active lives dedicated to God and to the church -- the people of God. Many have lived in religious institutes and orders. Some have lived as consecrated virgins or as hermits.

Then there is the other celibacy, the celibacy required of most secular priests and all bishops in the Western church. That’s fine too, up to a point. Too many secular priests cannot hack it. Some are infantilized by its requirements.

Why does it have to be this way? There are 153 fish in the apostles’ net. Most are lay men and women. Then there are sisters and nuns, monks and friars, hermits, virgins, and lots of healthy single men who belong to the diocesan clergy. Of course there are dented, broken ones in the catch, but the bottom line is diversity of vocations. So what’s wrong with a married priesthood?

That’s the question at the heart of the complaints and many of the scandals. What married pastor, or his wife, would allow some weirdo to cultivate underage boys or girls? Not one. You know it. I know it.

Now bishops and chancery staff who looked the other way are having their comeuppance, and the whole church is paying for it.

Irish mothers are not hoping for a son to become a priest anymore. German theologians have had enough of the erosion of belief and practice. Americans from coast to coast are staggering under the weight of unending news reports about one crackpot situation or another. 

Lately it’s been Philadelphia (head of priest personnel arrested for moving pederasts); Los Angeles (a religious priest phones up a 61-year-old woman abused by him as a teenager); Louisville (a whisteblower alleges retaliation); and priests are jailed or headed that way in Albany and around the world.

Then of course there are the allegations of financial shenanigans in Milwaukee, civil suits against the current and former archbishops of Philadelphia, and the recurring memories of so many ordinary Catholics. Some of these latter came up at lunch this week: the teacher-priest in Phoenix whom all the boys knew was “handsy” and the priest-professor in New York who gave the football players “A’s” so long as they gave him what he wanted.

The stories, no matter how many times they’re told, are both painful and incredible in their repeating. They will not go away.

Here’s one of mine. On the bus ride to my first day of Catholic high school, the sophomores warned the freshmen about Father Mott, who “liked” teenage girls. 

Years later the diocese settled with a few of them. I cannot get it out of my head. If every girl on the bus knew, how come the bishop didn’t? And if the bishop knew -- as I suspect he did -- why did he do nothing?

I mentioned this to a big shot priest of Mott’s vintage years ago. “Oh, ho, ho, dirty old Jack Mott” he laughed. I can’t forget that either.

You have your stories, too. The memories join the constant, nauseating drip. What’s next? Another story from The Netherlands? Another lawsuit in Belgium? Another thirty-year-old cover-up letter from a Curial office?

Those German theologians and the hundreds of others who’ve joined them have a lot of items in their reform agenda. Some are easy. Some are hard.

Let’s stick with the easy one: married priests. 

A wider married priesthood -- one not restricted to a few disaffected Anglican clergy -- would be a giant step toward regaining the confidence of the huge percentages of Catholics watching, waiting, hoping for some meaningful renewal of what is rapidly becoming a moribund church. 

Are the details a problem? Start by ordaining married men who have, or who can get, full-time paying jobs, as hospital or military chaplains, as professors and teachers, as social workers and canon lawyers. That way nothing -- and everything -- changes.

It’s not that hard. It boils down to getting the bureaucracy, and by extension the many malformed celibate priests around the world, to grow up. 

Loreto Sr. Luke Tobin often spoke of overhearing two bishops returning from a coffee break at the Second Vatican Council, where she was an observer.

“Why do they want to get married,” one Council father said to the other, “Let them have their women on the side.”

It’s got to stop. As the church rumbles along, all aboard are carsick from the bumps and fumes along the way. It needs to get repaired. Otherwise, each week’s church bulletin will have to include coupons for anti-depressants.

[Phyllis Zagano is senior research associate-in-residence at Hofstra University and author of several books in Catholic Studies. Her book Women & Catholicism will be published by Palgrave-Macmillan in 2011.]