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November 2012

November 25

Trappists find their niche in manufacturing caskets

November 25, 2012

From forests of walnut, oak and pine on their land near Dubuque, Iowa, often comes the wood that Trappist monks at the New Melleray Abbey hand carve into funeral caskets.

November 26

Celebrating Church's universality, Pope creates new cardinals

November 26, 2012

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Recalling that Christ's mission transcends "all ethnic, national and religious particularities," Pope Benedict XVI created six new cardinals from four different continents, representing the Latin rite of the Catholic Church as well as two Eastern Catholic Churches.

Pope appeals for peace in Mideast, greets pilgrims from four continents

November 26, 2012

VATICAN CITY - Greeting hundreds of Christians from Lebanon, Pope Benedict XVI encouraged their presence in the Middle East and launched a fresh appeal for peace in the region.

November 27

New bishop of troubled Irish diocese says abuse victims to be priority

November 27, 2012

DUBLIN - The newly appointed bishop of Cloyne vowed he would make healing the lives of victims of abuse in the diocese a priority.

November 28

Late Italian cardinal honoured for rescuing Jews during Holocaust

November 28, 2012

JERUSALEM - The late archbishop of Florence, Italian Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa, has been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem for the role he played in a widespread network set up to rescue Jews following the Nazi occupation of Italy.

Catholic relief efforts post-Sandy stretch from New York to Cuba

November 28, 2012

WASHINGTON - As victims continue to recover from Hurricane Sandy, several dioceses and Catholic charities are still asking for support for the affected areas.

Advent, awash in paradox

November 28, 2012

It’s a perilous journey, but one that is filled with hope

In harmony with God, life is wonderful

November 28, 2012

Second Sunday of Advent (Year C) Dec. 9 (Baruch 5:1-9; Psalm 126; Philippians 1:3-6, 8-11; Luke 3:1-6)

Can Christianity survive in its birthplace?

November 28, 2012

It is very difficult to make sense of the latest violence in the Middle East. And as we embark on another Advent season, it makes one wonder about the long-term viability of Christian communities in the Church’s birthplace in the Middle East, whether Palestine, Israel, Syria, Iraq or elsewhere in the region.

Keys to peace

November 28, 2012

As this editorial is being written, the guns are silent in Israel and Gaza. But for how long? Hours, days, weeks? Maybe months, at best?

History is in the making for this liturgical year

November 28, 2012

History is text, or so declared the graduate student who lived downstairs from me in the Campus Co-op house on Spadina Avenue. As an undergraduate, I admired graduate students just for being graduate students, and I regarded my neighbour as an oracle. It made sense to me that time, which slips inexorably by, might be captured in written records. After all, Christians, Jews and Muslims have long preserved the idea of a recording angel, the being who records all human deeds, good and bad.

Coronation anthems and Christian culture

November 28, 2012

As the days grow colder and the nights longer, George Frideric Handel returns to the choir loft and the concert hall, to say nothing of the shopping mall. The naturalized British composer’s Messiah is sung by amateurs and professionals alike in these weeks. All of which is rather curious, for the celebrated “Hallelujah Chorus,” in salute of which both princes and peasants rise to their feet, is part of a vast biblical libretto — stretching from Isaiah to Revelation — and takes its place after the Ascension. So the chorus properly belongs more to Easter than Christmas, but Christmas is where it has stuck in our cultural imagination. Handel though, especially this year, could be considered a fitting adornment for Christ the King. In 1727, Handel was commissioned by King George II to compose anthems for his coronation. Handel composed four anthems for the occasion. So magnificently did he fulfil this royal patronage that his music is now perpetually associated with the coronation of British monarchs. Thus it was an inspired decision by the Melos Choir and Chamber Orchestra of Kingston to perform the coronation anthems at St. George’s Anglican Cathedral in celebration of the diamond jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. St. George’s just being a short walk down Johnson Street from our own Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, it was easy enough to attend the Sunday afternoon concert before returning to offer the evening Mass. For good measure, I took along the students who sing at Newman House for an afternoon of Christian culture. Handel’s coronation anthems are settings of biblical passages which, when employed for coronations, make manifest that kingship in this world is to be patterned on the kingship of Christ. The aspiration of kings should be — literally — the listening heart of Solomon, that he might govern the people wisely. King Solomon is the focal point of the most famous of Handel’s anthems, “Zadok the Priest.” The text is an adaptation of I Kings 1:38-40: “Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet anointed Solomon King; and all the people rejoiced, rejoiced and said: ‘God save the King! Long live the King! God save the King! May the King live forever. Amen. Alleluia!’ ” That biblical text has been used in every coronation of English (and later British) monarchs since that of King Edgar in 973 at Bath. Handel’s setting, after its spectacular debut in 1727, has been repeated at every coronation, including that of Queen Elizabeth 60 years ago. Indeed, after King George II died, composer William Boyce was commissioned to produce new settings for the coronation in 1761 of King George III. Boyce accepted, but declined to provide a new setting for “Zadok,” arguing that Handel’s setting could not be improved upon. He was right. The Melos musicians did a splendid job of performing the anthems, and the setting of the Anglican cathedral was a reminder that these anthems are properly prayers for a gracious and noble sovereign, even as the royal anthem of “God Save the Queen” is a simple prayer. The coronation anthems — in addition to “Zadok,” they include “My heart is inditing,” “Let Thy hand be strengthened” and “The King shall rejoice” — constitute a corpus of Christian culture. They are liturgy which soars, combining splendid sacred music with the word of God. As music does at its best, they mark something of the majesty of a moment and bring it easily to mind upon hearing just a few bars. As “Adeste fidelis” or “O Holy Night” immediately bring to mind Midnight Mass, the coronation anthems, even if performed at the concert hall instead of a cathedral, bring to mind not only the pomp and pageantry, but also the sacral character of Christian kingship. As a liturgical genre, the anthem is an Anglican speciality, combining the textual brevity of a Roman antiphon with the power of a great hymn. The coronation anthems are a fine introduction to anthems for Catholics who may be unfamiliar with them. A final treat from the diamond jubilee sacred music concert was the singing of the royal anthem — and not just the first verse of “God Save the Queen.” Here’s the Canadian verse for our Queen: “Our loved Dominion bless with peace and happiness/ From shore to shore/ Let our Queen’s realms all be united, loyal and free/ True to themselves and thee/ Forevermore.” Listen to Handel’s Messiah this December to be sure; but even before Advent begins, in this week of Christ the King, listen to the coronation anthems, from the composer of Christian kingship.

Truth in minority

November 28, 2012

In early November the Church of England announced its new Archbishop of Canterbury, the man who is the primate of the world’s Anglican communion. Justin Welby was the lucky fellow, a former oil trade executive, educated at the elite of the elite Eton school, and one of Cambridge University’s most prestigious colleges. He’s a good and intelligent man, a former worshipper at Holy Trinity Church in Brompton, London, where the Alpha course was conceived and taught, and someone renowned for his evangelical rather than liberal beliefs. What has to be immediately understood about Anglican politics if we are to appreciate its delicate yet often absurd realities is something called the three-step rule. In other words, any and every subject will always be a mere three steps away from the subject of homosexuality. As an Anglican minister friend of mine once said: “We were discussing retired vicars. First, where should they live? Second, where should the married ones live? Third, where should the same-sex married ones live? Thing is, there weren’t any same-sex married vicars in the entire diocese.” As we discovered long ago, it is not conservatives but radicals who are obsessed with the subject. And so with the challenges of the new Archbishop of Canterbury. He has been known for some years as a serious Christian and thus an opponent of gay marriage. He’s also been known for dozens of far more important things. But within moments of the announcement, activists and their friends in the media demanded to know how the new man would handle this allegedly vital issue. Instead of telling them to wait or to concentrate on more important challenges, Welby promised to examine his own thinking on homosexual marriage “carefully and prayerfully” and made a point of explaining that we must guard against “exclusion.” Well of course we must. It’s a fundamental of Christian belief that we are all made in the image of God and every human being must be welcomed into the Church. But every human being is not the same thing as every human action, and as fallen people we do get things wrong; yes, we sin. Because of the complex nature of sexuality we must be empathetic and compassionate, but this is not the same as accepting and affirming lifestyles that are completely contrary to the teachings of Scripture, the Church Fathers, the deposit of faith and all historic and contemporary teachings of Christianity. It’s not simple, in spite of what gay activists would have us believe. Yet according to Archbishop Welby, it seems, if we examine our own thinking “carefully and prayerfully” for long enough we might change our minds. And I will bet the house on the fact that after that careful and prayerful thinking Welby will change his mind in some way or another. One would have thought that before becoming an archbishop a Christian would already have spent a great deal of time considering such difficulties and that promotion would not suddenly change what is true and good, and what is not true and not good. Here, of course, is the epicentre of it all. There will now be enormous media and political pressure on the man to reform and soften his beliefs, and to fudge a compromise on marriage and ordination, so as to satisfy a tiny number of gay activists and offend the vast majority of devout Christians, including — important this — those believing Anglicans who form the majority of Anglicans but because they are black and brown and live in Africa and Asia are routinely ignored and even abused by the sometimes racist and always liberal establishment in Britain and North America. It’s pride. Always has been, always will be. What is right and wrong is decided by God, not by man. God gave us a Church, a papacy and a magisterium to guide us. When we disregard that truth, when we place our own needs and fears above eternal absolutes we lead ourselves, and those around us, on a short road to disaster. It’s why there are more than 30,000 different Protestant denominations, and it’s why good and faithful prelates worry about “exclusion” when the only people being excluded are faithful Christians.

World AIDS Day: Pope highlights problem of poverty in fighting HIV

November 28, 2012

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In a special appeal against HIV and AIDS, Pope Benedict XVI called for special attention to those unable to afford life-saving drugs, especially pregnant and nursing women affected by the disease.

Lebanese church agency helps refugees from Syria navigate UN system

November 28, 2012

BEIRUT - When Syrian refugees arrive in Lebanon, help begins with a phone call to the U.N. refugee agency -- if they can get through.

November 29

Vatican sends Holy Land a message of solidarity, peace

November 29, 2012

VATICAN CITY - On the eve of his first trip to the Holy Land as grand master of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, Cardinal Edwin O’Brien said he hoped to encourage the region’s Christian minority with a message of solidarity from Pope Benedict XVI and other Catholics in the West. “The Church in the Holy Land has been under unfriendly domination throughout the centuries, and the fact that we still exist there is almost a miracle,” O’Brien told Catholic News Service Nov. 24. “We have to do everything we can as a Catholic people to encourage them and to let them know that we are one with them in their struggle.” The cardinal left Rome Nov. 26 for a weeklong pilgrimage whose itinerary was to include Jerusalem, Bethlehem, West Bank, and Amman, Jordan. He was scheduled to meet with Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal, who serves as the order’s grand prior, and other Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim leaders. The cardinal also planned to visit a few of the more than 100 institutions that the knights support in the region, including parishes, schools and Bethlehem University. O’Brien was not planning to visit the Gaza Strip and said he did not expect the recent fighting there to affect his visit, which was planned almost a year ago. But he noted that Twal has been on the “frontlines” in aiding victims of the violence there. Eight days of Israeli airstrikes, launched in retaliation for rocket attacks by Palestinian militants, killed more than 150 people and destroyed thousands of dwellings in Gaza before both sides agreed to a ceasefire Nov. 21. “The Church does not take one side or the other” in the conflict, the cardinal said, “but simply says, do whatever we have to do to bring about peace and a secure way of living for all the people in that land that Christ walked.” O’Brien noted that the Church’s charitable and educational activities in the Holy Land often serve a greater number of Muslims than Christians, which he said helped the cause of peace. He particularly noted the contribution of Christian Brothers-run Bethlehem University, in the West Bank, to interreligious harmony. “More than half the students over the years have not been Christian,” the cardinal said. “And they graduate to leading positions in the Holy Land. Their gratitude to the Church and their influence in building bridges between Islam and Christianity, we just can’t measure the worth of that. “We don’t do it so that we can get credit,” he said. “We do it so that the dignity of every human being will be developed to its highest potential. Bethlehem University, Madaba University, our high schools — all the good work that our people far away are doing to support these institutions is going to pay great dividends in the decades ahead.”

Arab Knights reach out to Holy Land

November 29, 2012

TORONTO - Toronto’s Arab Knights of Columbus are calling on Catholics to help support Christian students in Jerusalem today to ensure the future of Christianity in the Middle East for years to come.

JRS: In eastern Congo, citizens remain on run, terrified

November 29, 2012

KINSHASA, Congo (CNS) -- As Congolese rebels initiated what appeared to be a partial withdrawal from the city of Goma, a Catholic organization said the region's civilians remained either on the run or terrified that their community would be the next target for a rebel attack.

World Youth Day vigil, Mass to be in neighborhood known for its beaches

November 29, 2012

SAO PAULO (CNS) -- World Youth Day organizers have chosen a spot in Rio de Janeiro's Guaratiba neighborhood, nearly 60 miles from the city center, for the vigil and closing Mass July 27-28.

Reading Vatican II as break with tradition is heresy, prefect says

November 29, 2012

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Traditionalist and progressive camps that see the Second Vatican Council as breaking with the truth both espouse a "heretical interpretation" of the council and its aims, said the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.