he Cafeteria is Closed blog brought the following to our attention: In the December 20, 2007, issue of The Evangelist, the official publication of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, NY, an article entitled “Dancers Enliven Liturgy” appeared:

As part of the annual Family Christmas Eve liturgy at St. Mary’s Church in Oneonta, liturgical dancers will dance to a Nativity carol. The feature has been a part of the Mass for 12 years, said Michelle Gardner, coordinator for liturgical dance at the Otsego County parish. She has taught dancing for more than 25 years at area colleges and high schools. …

Liturgical dance is a simple, uncomplicated form of movement, Mrs. Gardner said, with actions that are a form of prayer. “The dance is meant to draw the worship community into the prayer,” she explained, “not to merely observe what the dancers are doing. The dancers are trained in certain movements that serve to invite the entire community into praise and worship.”

“The feedback was, ‘This is a great way to pray.’ The community was very excited about it,” she said. …

“Now, each year, college students who were liturgical dancers in high school and who are home for the holidays participate in the Christmas Eve Mass,” she said. “They’ve danced at Confirmations and monthly youth ministry Masses as well as other church functions, but the Christmas Eve Mass has become a tradition at St. Mary’s.”

In May 2006, Karl Keeting of Catholic Answers brought a similar sacrilege to our attention:

Click here to see images and here for video.
[This video] was [recorded on] April 2 at the concluding Mass of the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress. The chief celebrant was Roger Cardinal Mahony. Total attendance at the Congress was 42,000, with 19,000 attending the final day’s liturgies.

Music at the concluding Mass was provided by what organizers called a “band”: pianos, percussion instruments, guitars, electric bass, synthesizers–altogether 40 instrumentalists, plus a choir of 225. The director of music for the Congress, John Flaherty, said “we’ve worked diligently to inculturate the liturgy to accurately and authentically reflect the church of Los Angeles.”

Inculturation has come at a high price.

When you watch the liturgical dancers, you will shake your head over the lack of good taste. You will not mistake these folks for the June Taylor Dancers. Even if you make allowances for the dancers being amateurs, the video is painful to watch. The dancers are predominantly women, but there are a few men. The women wear floor-length dresses that billow out as they move. The men wear slacks and sport shirts. They all hold something in their hands — perhaps votive candles, it being hard to tell because the videographer sat far from the action. The dancers swirl clockwise, lifting their hands high over their heads, first to the left and then to the right. Then they swirl in the other direction. Since their hands are occupied, there are few variations in their arm motions: stretch high to one side, then to the other, then bow low and bring the hands close to the floor, then do it all over again.

The footwork is simple, not even to the level of a three-step. Still, it is too much for some of the dancers. One of the men, although moving slowly, manages to trip over his own feet and almost falls to the ground.

Only a heartless viewer would not feel embarrassment on behalf of the dancers. Only someone with no appreciation for either liturgy or dancing would think that this was a successful melding of the two.

Mr. Keeting continues to describe how unorthodox this ‘novelty’ mass is. He doesn’t comment on the theatrical reading of the Gospel (like parts in a play), devoid of dignity and respect. Nor does he mention the amphitheatre-like seating, the stage-like placement of the Celebrant, the ‘catwalk,’ for lack of a better term, for the dancers to parade upon, the New-Age aura that pervades everything…. But he does provide ample argument for how incompatible the dancing is with orthodoxy.

According to our present Pope, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in his The Spirit of the Liturgy:

Dancing is not a form of expression for the Christian liturgy. In about the third century, there was an attempt by certain Gnostic-Docetic circles to introduce it into the liturgy. … The cultic dances of the different religions have different purposes — incantation, imitative magic, mystical ecstasy — none of which is compatible with the essential purpose of the liturgy.…

It is totally absurd to try to make the liturgy ‘attractive’ by introducing dancing pantomimes (wherever possible performed by professional dance troupes), which frequently (and rightly, from the professionals’ point of view) end with applause. Whenever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. …

I myself have experienced the replacing of the penitential rite by a dance performance, which, needless to say, received a round of applause. Could there be anything further removed from true penitence? …

None of the Christian rites includes dancing. What people call dancing in the Ethiopian rite or the Zairean form of the Roman liturgy is in fact a rhythmically ordered procession, very much in keeping with the dignity of the occasion.

These sentiments were echoed by Cardinal Arinze:

There has never been a document from our Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments saying that dance is approved in the Mass.

The question of dance is difficult and delicate. However, it is good to know that the tradition of the Latin Church has not known the dance. It is something that people are introducing in the last ten years — or twenty years. It was not always so.

Now, some priests and lay people think that Mass is never complete without dance. The difficulty is this: We come to Mass primarily to adore God — what we call the vertical dimension. We do not come to Mass to entertain one another. That’s not the purpose of Mass. The parish hall is for that.

Why make the people of God suffer so much? Haven’t we enough problems already? Only Sunday, one hour, they come to adore God. And you bring a dance! Are you so poor you have nothing else to bring us? Shame on you! That’s how I feel about it.

Somebody can say, “but the pope visited this county and the people danced”. A moment: Did the pope arrange it? Poor Holy Father — he comes, the people arranged. He does not know what they arranged. And somebody introduces something funny — is the pope responsible for that? Does that mean it is now approved? Did they put in on the table of the Congregation for Divine Worship? We would throw it out! If people want to dance, they know where to go.

The saddest part about when a performance intrudes into the Mass is that such a thing gets printed in the official Diocesan publication as a good thing that “enlivens” and improves the Mass.

Anathema!

Related stories:

• Outrage over liturgical dance (New Oxford Review)

Recently in the Catholic Answers forums, someone wrote,

There seem to be a lot of people who protest against the teachings of the Church, but choose to stay in the Church. Or at least, they dissent from Church teaching, but still continue to go to Catholic churches and call themselves Catholic. Why do they do this?

This is so-called “cafeteria Catholicism” — you know, take what you like from the selection, ignore (or discard) what you don’t like, and move on. Some of these people may have an ulterior motive to destroy the Church from within. (Even Pope Paul VI admitted that the smoke of Satan infiltrated the Church.) But the bigger problem is ignorance.

Due to extremely poor catechism since the 1960s, the past several generations don’t know any better. They are unfamiliar with dogma. They subscribe to rationalism, empiricism, and all sorts of enlightenment and post-enlightenment secularist philosophy, because that is all they know. When confronted with religious orthodoxy, they view it as antiquated and incompatible with modern living… For example, “Abstinence? Who does that anymore? Get with the times!” “Why should I get married?” “We don’t want kids yet — we want to be able to travel for a few years before we settle down.”

But this problem goes way beyond the sexual revolution.

Poor catechism and a cultural revolution within the Church itself has translated into loss of faith. One quick example: Getting rid of Communion rails resulted in the need for processions; processions were easier and more fluid if people remained standing instead of genuflecting at the head of the line; with people standing, it was ergonomically more difficult for the priest to give Communion on the tongue; and so there is introduction of Communion in the hand. With the loss of genuflection, with the introduction of Communion in the hand, with the introduction of eucharistic ministers (some needed, most not; some good, many horrible), there gradually developed a loss of the appreciation of the sacredness of the Eucharist. The final blow was dealt by a near total absence of instruction regarding the reality of the Transubstantiation, on the pulpit, or even in Catholic schools or religious education classes. And thus, thousands upon thousands of “cafeteria Catholics” don’t believe in the Real Presence. [Want to know more? Read The Right (and Duty) to Kneel.]

Lex orandi, lex credendi.

And given this state of disbelief, or at least misunderstanding, why should people change? Our dear Lord himself said that the path to Hell is wide (but comfortable); but the path to Heaven is narrow (and demanding). If one doesn’t really believe in sin anymore (if it all boils down to “lifestyle choices” — some better, some poorer), then why should one choose the path that is uncomfortable? G.K. Chesterton once quipped, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”

Things will change only when the Church itself is renewed. If even most priests fail to preach about sin or the four last things, why should people believe in “all that fire and brimstone stuff?” They don’t know any better.

Truly, the onus falls upon the Shepherds to tend their flock and to feed their sheep. We shouldn’t expect the average “cafeteria Catholic” to log onto the internet and download the Pope’s latest encyclical. Nor will he turn on EWTN when he could be vegging on the couch, watching Sex in the City or Will & Grace. Priests must

1. Lead by example — i.e., by leading holy lives;
2. Be “lions in the pulpit” and preach meaningful sermons that challenge people to “put on new clothes in Christ;”
3. Take advantage of every opportunity to teach about dogma, faith, morals, the sacraments, and rubrics of the Mass. (This goes doubly for during Confession.)

We lay orthodox Catholics can help by encouraging this type of renewal from our parish priests and by charitably teaching those around us.

The premier political journal Foreign Affairs — touted as “the most influential periodical in print” by Time magazine — has presented a series of articles by the top U.S. presidential candidates, previewing the foreign policy agendas that they would pursue, if elected. (As this is an ongoing series, not all candidates have been represented as of yet.)

This should be required reading for all U.S. voters.

For more Campaign 2008 and political news, check out Catholicism in the Public Square.

From Karl Keating’s e-letter, dated December 4, 2007:

Let’s say you pick up a book about John Milton’s poetry. The book is handsomely printed, and at first glance it seems that the author knows his stuff. You want to learn about Milton’s poetry, and this looks to be the book you need.

You start reading and find a problem with basic terminology. The author writes that an iamb is a metrical foot of three syllables: short-short-long. Just a typo, you think. He surely knows that an iamb has only two syllables: short-long. Then he writes that a spondee is a foot of two short syllables, when it really is a foot of two long syllables. You wrinkle your nose. Sloppy editing–or is there a deeper problem?

In a chapter about Milton’s sonnets the author begins by explaining what sonnets are. He tells you they normally consist of fifteen lines in three stanzas of five lines. Now you feel even more concerned. This has to be more than just a typo. You know quite well that a sonnet consists of fourteen lines, with an octet of eight lines (divided into two quatrains) followed by a sestet of six lines.

And so it goes, throughout the book. The more you read, the more you wonder how much weight you can give to the author’s explications of Milton’s poems. If he exhibits such elementary errors about poetic forms, can he really have much insight into the interpretation of “Lycidas”?

How not to understand a painting

This was the kind of thing that was going through my mind as I read How to Read a Painting, a handsomely printed book that, according to the subtitle, provides “Lessons from the Old Masters.” The author is Patrick De Rynck. The book is published by Abrams, a well-respected publisher of fancy art books, and the text is translated from the Dutch.

In the preface De Rynck says this:

These days, many museum-goers are no longer sufficiently familiar with the Christian and Classical pictorial traditions on which European painters drew so heavily for so many centuries. What precisely were the Old Masters trying to say in their paintings; and how did they seek to express it? The aim of this book is to make a modest and reader-friendly contribution towards answering those questions. …

The final selection of about 180 paintings offers a concise yet representative survey of five centuries of Western art. The book begins around 1300, as a profound revolution in painting was unfolding in Tuscany, and concludes shortly after 1800, as artists began to shrug off the iconographic traditions with which we are concerned here. … Each entry takes up a double-page spread in which the fully illustrated picture is accompanied by a brief introduction and the discussion of some relevant details.

The layout of the book is very fine, the only problem being that it ought to have been printed in coffee-table-book format. The large pages just aren’t large enough for full images of the paintings, many of which have minute details that can be seen well only on jumbo-sized pages. Other than that, the book looks good and seems authoritative — at least to someone not very familiar with Christian–and specifically Catholic — doctrines.

How do I err thee? Let me count the ways

Let me give some of De Rynck’s bloopers. …

When discussing Albrecht Durer’s “Four Apostles” [also known as "Four Holy Men"], De Rynck notes, correctly, that the painting is mistitled since one of the figures is the Evangelist Mark, who was not an apostle. But De Rynck doesn’t put it that way. He says that Mark “was not a disciple of Christ,” which is not at all the same thing. But maybe this … was a goof by the translator.

Now we’ll turn to things that can’t be blamed on the translator.

Referring to a landscape that shows Charon crossing the River Styx, De Rynck says:

According to medieval belief, the souls of the dead were judged twice. The first judgment occurred immediately after death and determined whether they were destined for the earthly paradise or for purgatory. The divine Last Judgment as the end of the world would then decide their ultimate destination: heaven or hell.

Uh, no. The first judgment, called the particular judgment, determines your ultimate destination. If you’re bound for hell, you go there straightaway. If you’re bound for heaven and die perfectly spotless, you go straightaway to heaven, but most people who are bound for heaven will go first to purgatory, where they will be cleansed of their remaining attraction to sin.

When he talks about Jan van Eyck’s “The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb,” which forms the central panel of the Ghent Altarpiece, De Rynck explains who is represented in each group in the picture:

The fourth and final group represents the Church. The Twelve Apostles — ordinary men, dressed in gray habits–are shown at the front, followed by the prelates who were their successors: popes, bishops, deacons, and martyrs.

Un, no again. While popes and bishops are prelates (Webster’s define a prelate as “an ecclesiastic of superior rank”), deacons and martyrs are not. (While some prelates have been martyred, most martyrs have not been prelates.) What is more, while popes and bishops indeed are successors of the apostles, deacons and martyrs are not. (Again: There have been bishop-martyrs, but most martyrs have not been bishops.)

Then De Rynck comes to Domenico Ghirlandaio’s “The Birth of the Virgin” [also known as "The Birth of Mary"], a fresco I’ve seen. It’s in Santa Maria Novella church in Florence. He says,

This story revolves around the notion of the ‘immaculate conception’: the doctrine that no earthly lust was involved when Mary was conceived. It was necessary to establish her as an utterly pure being, capable of becoming the Mother of God. Since Mary was not conceived in lust, she was free of Original Sin. It was a subject that sparked fierce controversy in the medieval Church.

As well it might have, if that was the right definition of the Immaculate Conception. But Mary’s preservation from Original Sin was not a consequence of her parents’ managing to perform the marital act with “no earthly lust.” Such an idea nowhere comes into the definition of the belief and is in no way a prerequisite for the extraordinary gift given to Mary.

The Trinity: Not as old as you thought

My favorite goof of De Rynck’s comes when he discusses “The Annunciation” by Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi, an image that originally was on an altar at the Siena cathedral. In traditional format, the picture shows the angel kneeling before Mary. Above them are representations of God the Father and of the Holy Spirit. (Well, the one of God the Father is missing, but it is clear where it once was.)

De Rynck explains the event portrayed this way: “The Annunciation marks the completion of the Holy Trinity, comprising the Holy Spirit, God the Father, and the newly conceived Christ.”

What?

This guy doesn’t understand the first thing about the core dogma of Christianity. He thinks the Holy Trinity was unfinished until the Annunciation. What does he think the Godhead was doing during countless preceding eons, waiting for Number Three to show up so the Trinity no longer would be a mere Duo? Apparently it would be news to De Rynck to learn that the Trinity always has consisted of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

That the Second Person, the Son, at a discrete point in time became incarnate by taking on a human nature is quite immaterial to the existence of the Trinity. Christ’s human nature is a created thing. It is added to the Second Person but does not itself become part of the Trinity, properly speaking, since the Trinity is the incorporeal and entirely spiritual Godhead, which is unalterable and can’t be added to. Before the Annunciation the Trinity consisted of three divine Persons and afterwards of the same number.

It pays to do your research…

As you might imagine, when I saw that De Rynck got so many Christian terms and beliefs wrong, my confidence in him as an art historian was not bolstered. Too bad, really. He adopted a good approach when planning his book, but it would have been an approach better suited to someone who knows the basics of the faith. After all, most of the 180 paintings in How to Read a Painting show Christian themes. To understand those paintings, you need to understand the religion out of which they grew and which they try to illustrate. De Rynck just doesn’t have that understanding.

Until next time,

The four Sundays of Advent have led to the 12 days of Christmas. Those who are confused by a worldly culture will not have kept Advent, and their carols will stop on Christmas Day instead of beginning. The seven days right before Christmas have had special verses, or ‘Antiphons’ sung at Vespers, each anticipating the Incarnate Lord under a different title. The number seven permeates and structures the physical and moral order, beginning with the days of creation itself. It has struck me how the Advent Antiphons parallel the rainbow colors of the spectrum, emanating from pure light in ascending sequence:

• Sapientia (Wisdom) = violet
• Adonai (Lord) = indigo
• Radix Jesse (Root) = blue
• Clavis (Key) = green
• Oriens (Dawn) = yellow
• Rex (King) = orange
• Emmanuel (God with Us) = red

One could make fanciful interpretations of the symmetry, but what matters is that there is a symmetry and that the colors emanate from the original pure light. Christ is the Light of the World. The Christmas proclamation is, “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

All holiday clichés crumble before the connection between this familiar scene of the stable in Bethlehem and St. John’s mystical vision of heaven where the baby worshipped by shepherds is the Lamb enthroned in glory:

And he that was sitting like in appearance to a stone of jasper and a sardius, and a rainbow round the throne like in appearance to an emerald. (Rev. 4:3)

In the birth of Christ, there is no collision between time and eternity: There is a harmony which is sung by shepherds and angels, and all earthly hues turn toward their source who is the Light of the World.

The first letters of those Antiphons in reversed order form an acrostic: ero cras = “Tomorrow I shall be.” This year [2006], as the Vigil of Christmas is on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, we might say that tomorrow is today. This cause of joy challenges all halfway attempts at happiness. So if Christmas occasions wistfulness and even touches of sadness, that is because joy in a sense teases the limitations of human happiness, just as attempts at happiness without God burlesque true joy. There are many causes of sadness in a broken world, but to wallow in them is to be blind to Christ who has come “that your joy might be full” (John 15:11). St. Thomas Aquinas said, “Sadness, as an evil or vice, is caused by disordered love for oneself … which is the general root of all vices.” The Christmas spirit does not depend on “feeling like Christmas” because it bursts from the Holy Spirit, who is a fact and not a feeling:

Eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor has the heart conceived what joys God has prepared for those who love him. (1 Cor. 2:9)

In 2004, JibJab released its first original political satire, This Land!. President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry star in the political animation parody that started it all — this funny video was seen on every continent (including Antarctica) and even played on the International Space Station.

Admittedly, JibJab’s presentation this year (In 2007) isn’t as as monumental as in previous years, but would the year really be complete without the almighty iPhone?

Check out all the JibJab originals for a good laugh:

• In 2007
• Nuckin’ Futs — Best of 2006!
• 2-0-5
• GW’s Second Term
• This Land!
• Good to Be in DC! (DC Land)
• What We Call the News
• Star Spangled Banner
• Big Box Mart

At the end of A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge toasts to a new relationship with his long-suffering clerk, Bob Cratchit.

“A Merry Christmas, Bob!” said Scrooge with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavor to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon over a bowl of Smoking Bishop, Bob!”

This oddly named concoction is a potent deep-purple libation named for the color of a bishop’s robe. Perhaps this Christmas, try making it for your family and friends with this recipe from Dickens’ own great-grandson, Cedric:

5 sweet oranges
1 grapefruit
1/4 lb. sugar (or brown sugar)
2 bottles strong red wine
1 bottle ruby port
Cloves
Cinnamon stick

1. Slice oranges and grapefruit in half. Bake in a 350-degree oven for approximately 30 minutes (until fruit turns pale brown).
2. Stab fruit with cloves and place in a warmed earthenware-bowl slow cooker or rice cooker.
3. Add sugar and wine. Cover bowl and let mixture sit for a day or so.
4. Remove the fruit and squeeze the juice back into the wine.
5. Strain the wine through a sieve.
6. Add port and let simmer (but don’t boil) for one hour.
7. Serve in warmed goblets

Cedric Dickens
Drinking with Dickens
New Amsterdam Books, 1990

Dickens would occasionally spike this already potent brew with an additional bottle of brandy. Enjoy!