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esides the disproportionately high numbers of people receiving Communion in the hand during the celebrations of the papal visit, the thing that most irked me was that Rudolph Giuliani received Communion at St. Patrick’s Cathedral — and not only that he did so, but that he was allowed to do so, when he should’ve been admonished and turned away.

Well, it turns out that this did not go unnoticed: Cardinal Egan called Giuliani into his office and reprimanded him for his actions. (Cf. analysis of this.)

And it’s about time.

Despite the protests of many liberals, priests can deny people Communion when those people are known to be in a state of sin. Consider the well-known case of Rudolph Giuliani: He received an annulment of his first marriage after he was unfaithful to his wife. His second marriage was also by Catholic ceremony but was similarly plagued by several bouts of infidelity and ended in civil divorce. He subsequently married, by civil ceremony, the lady with whom he had been sleeping and, of course, lives with her presently. Even if he had gone to confession and confessed his infidelity during his first and second marriages, he could not be absolved due to his ongoing affair. His divorce is not recognized by the Catholic Church, and neither is his third marriage; and thus, he continues to commit adultery. (He would have to end the present affair and either go back to his second wife or choose to live celibately to the end of his days in order to qualify for absolution.) Moreover, in his role as politician, Giuliani has been an ardent and notorious supporter of abortion. In the past, Cardinal Egan warned him, “that he was not to receive the Eucharist because of his well-known support of abortion” (Catholic News Agency).

Now, Giuliani should’ve know better than to have gone up to receive Communion. But he didn’t. (Or maybe he did know better, but didn’t care and, arrogantly, was going to do what he wanted to do anyway.) Handling the Host with reverence extends to denying it to those who are not properly disposed to receive it. This is for the protection of the sacred Species — as well as out of charity for Giuliani himself, since receipt of Communion while knowingly in a state of sin brings condemnation and punishment. He might not know any better, but we (and the bishops) should.

Following the papal visit, Robert Novak wrote a column on pro-abortion politicians receiving Communion.

In the aftermath of the U.S. visit by Pope Benedict XVI, traditional Catholics are asking a troublesome question: Did pro-choice politicians receiving Communion at the papal Masses indicate the pope had softened on the abortion question? The answer is no. On the contrary, it reflected disobedience to Benedict by the archbishops of New York and Washington.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sens. John Kerry, Christopher Dodd and Edward M. Kennedy received Communion at Nationals Park in Washington, as did former mayor Rudolph Giuliani at Yankee Stadium [correction: St. Patrick’s Cathedral] in New York. Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington and Cardinal Edward Egan, archbishop of New York, invited them. Given choice seats, they took Communion as a matter of course.

Similar issues were hilighted in the New York Times.

ow to respond to those in public office who commit moral wrongs has been the subject of much debate here in the United States. But what does the Pope say about all this? Again, Robert Novak reports:

Vatican sources say the pope has not retreated from his long-held position that pro-choice politicians should be deprived of Communion, but the decisions in Washington and New York were not his. The effect was to dull the pope’s messages of faith, obligation and compassion. In his Yankee Stadium homily, he talked of “authority” and “obedience” — acknowledging that “these are not easy words to speak nowadays.” They surely are not for four former presidential candidates and two princes of the church, representing Catholics who defy their faith’s doctrine on abortion.

Benedict’s position was unequivocal when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Asked in 2004 whether Kerry, as the Democratic presidential nominee, should be allowed to take Communion, he replied, “The minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it.”

Pope John Paul II agreed:

The judgment of one’s state of grace obviously belongs only to the person involved, since it is a question of examining one’s conscience. However, in cases of outward conduct which is seriously, clearly and steadfastly contrary to the moral norm, the Church, in her pastoral concern for the good order of the community and out of respect for the sacrament, cannot fail to feel directly involved. The Code of Canon Law refers to the situation of a manifest lack of proper moral disposition when it states that those who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Eucharistic communion

Recently, Archbishop Burke authored a document entitled, “The Discipline Regarding the Denial of Holy Communion to Those Obstinately Persevering in Manifest Grave Sin,” clarifying Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law. Archbishop Burke’s document is well-written and important and should be required reading for all Catholics, particularly in the United States where Cafeteria Catholicism seems to be the norm. In summary,

There is no responsibility of the Church’s shepherds which is greater than that of teaching the truth about the Holy Eucharist, celebrating worthily the Holy Eucharist, and directing the flock in the worship and care of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Can. 915 of the Code of Canon Law and can. 712 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches articulate an essential element of the shepherds’ responsibility, namely, the perennial discipline of the Church by which the minister of Holy Communion is to deny the Sacrament to those who obstinately persevere in manifest grave sin.

orty days after the Resurrection, our Lord Jesus Christ, attended by Angels, ascended into heaven, in the sight of His most holy Mother, His Apostles and disciples, to the great wonder of them all. He entered into possession of the Kingdom of Heaven, which He had gained by His sufferings. St. Paul declares that God “hath made us sit together in the heavenly places, through Christ Jesus.” “There where the Head has gone, the Body is called to follow!” (Missale Romanum).

According to Carmelite Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen in Divine Intimacy,

The central idea in the liturgy today is the raising of our hearts toward heaven, so that we may begin to dwell in spirit where Jesus has gone before us. … “Where thy treasure, there is thy heart also” (Matthew 6:21), Jesus said one day. If Jesus is really our treasure, our heart cannot be anywhere but near Him in heaven. This is the greatest hope of the Christian soul, so beautifully expressed in the hymn for Vespers: “O Jesus, be the hope of our hearts, our joy in sorrow, the sweet fruit of our life” (Roman Breviary).

Besides the hope and the joyful expectancy of heaven so characteristic of the Ascension feast there is a note of melancholy. Before the final departure of Jesus, the Apostles must have been very much disturbed: each felt the distress of one who sees his dearest friend and companion going away forever, and finds himself alone to face all the difficulties of life. The Lord realized their state of mind and consoled them once more, promising the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter: “He commanded them,” we read in the Epistle (Acts 1:1-11), “that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but should wait for the promise of the Father … you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit, not many days hence.” But even this time the Apostles did not understand how much they needed to be enlightened and transformed by the Holy Spirit in order to accomplish the great mission which was to be entrusted to them! Jesus continued, “You shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you and you shall be witnesses unto Me … even to the uttermost part of the earth.” For the moment, however, they were there, around the Master, weak, timid, frightened, like little children watching their mother leave for a distant, unknown land. In fact, “while they looked on, He was raised up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.” Two angels came to distract them from their great amazement and to make them realize what had happened. Then, placing their trust in the word of Jesus, which would henceforth be their only support, they returned to Jerusalem where, in the Cenacle, they awaited in prayer the fulfillment of the promise. It was the first novena in preparation for Pentecost: “All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with … Mary, the Mother of Jesus” (ibid. 1:14).

Silence, recollection, prayer, peace with our brethren, and union with Mary: these are the characteristics of the novena we too should make in preparation for the coming of the Holy Spirit. (Excerpted from “Ascension Thursday,” Divine Intimacy)

Holy day of obligation

The Feast of the Ascension of our Lord is this Thursday, May 1, and is a holy day of obligation.

For those in New York City, a Missa Cantata will be celebrated on the Vigil of the Feast of the Ascension (Wednesday, April 30) at 6.00 pm, in the Usus Antiquior at Church of Our Saviour, 59 Park Avenue at 38th Streeet. Music for the Mass will be the Missa Choralis of Franz Liszt, who composed the work for the Sistine Chapel in 1865 during a difficult period in the history of church music — when as a result of the increasing secularization of the nineteenth century, the practice of liturgical choral music had declined. Liszt makes use of both elements of Gregorian tradition and contemporary hymn tunes, thus taking advantage of a wide spectrum of musical possibilities. This single work combines modal writing, passages with simple harmonies, and colorful chromatic sophistication.

A traditional Latin Mass will also be celebrated on the Feast of the Ascension (Thursday, May 1) at 7.00 pm at Our Lady of Good Counsel, 230 East 90th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues.

iserere.org doesn’t get too many comments, despite the fact that we have 25-50 unique visitors per day — each of whom stays for over 10 minutes and views on average 2-3 pages (in addition to the homepage).

But today, we received the following comment from Pamela in response to Fr. Neuhaus’ open letter “On Benedict and Beauty” (posted on miserere.org here and on First Things here). It easily wins the Comment of the Year award for calling a spade a spade:

If I understand this correctly, Fr. Neuhaus is taking Pope Paul VI to task for appointing Bugnini… although he then relegated Bugnini to the back woods of Iran, because the Pope realized Bugnini was not serving the Church well. But who kept Bugnini’s “able assistant” in the same post for the next quarter century to continue to do the Church great harm? Only Fr. Neuhaus’ late “Great” John Paul II.

John Paul II and Reagan do indeed have a great deal in common…they are both teflon-coated. Nobody blames John Paul for anything that is wrong in the Church, even though he was Pope for the longest, most dreadful 25 years.

Time to reevaluate and assess blame where it really belongs… squarely on the shoulders of John Paul II, not Paul VI.

Want to join the discussion? Post your comment on the original thread.

The following is an open letter from Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, of First Things, dated 25 April 2008. Fr. Neuhaus appeared as a commentator on EWTN alongside Raymond Arroyo during the papal visit to the United States.

n my commentary here and in my coverage of the papal visit with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN, I had occasion to make somewhat critical remarks about the way the Mass was celebrated at Nationals Park in Washington. My observation that New York, by way of contrast, did itself proud was quite untouched by my notorious New York chauvinism.

In response to my comments, we received hundreds, if not well over a thousand, emails, letters, and references on the blogosphere. I estimate that they ran about five-to-one in favor of what I had said. Responses by church musicians were overwhelmingly favorable. But those in the minority expressed deep outrage. Some took my remarks as criticism of Pope Benedict. My point was that the Washington style of celebration flew in the face of much that Benedict has written about liturgy and music. Others complained that my comments insulted the musicians and choirs who were very sincere in doing their thing, no matter what others thought of it. No doubt. But most of those in the minority charged me with elitism and snobbery in trying to impose my musical and liturgical tastes on others.

Where to begin? The matter of taste—or, if you will, aesthetics—enters into it, no doubt. But the problem with the way the liturgy and music was handled is that it focused attention on the gathered people and the performers rather than on what Christ is doing in the Eucharist. It was a display of preening multiculturalism that proclaimed, “Look at us wonderfully diverse people exhibiting our wonderfully diverse talents!” I should add that this was the impression more powerfully conveyed on television, which was what I saw from the broadcast studio. Some people who were in the stadium and participating in the Mass tell me they hardly noticed the sundry musical performances, except as a vague background noise. They were the fortunate ones.

No doubt there are many parishes where people regularly suffer worse than what was perpetrated at Nationals Park. For the most part it was bad music competently performed. But one expects better, one expects much better, at a papal Mass. Especially when the pope is one who has been so very explicit in his views on liturgical and musical practices.

In the March issue of First Things, Father George Rutler has a devastatingly arch review of Piero Marini’s A Challenging Reform: Realizing the Vision of the Liturgical Renewal. Marini was the Master of Pontificial Liturgical Celebrations until he was relieved of his duties by Pope Benedict.

What Marini calls the “vision of the liturgical renewal” has over the years been strongly criticized by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict as the invention of the proponents of “the spirit of Vatican II”—a spirit in sharp contrast to what the council actually said. In Sacrosanctum Concilium, the council said:

That sound tradition may be retained, and yet the way remain open to legitimate progress. Careful investigation is always to be made into each part of the liturgy which is to be revised. This investigation should be theological, historical, and pastoral. . . . Finally, there must be no innovation unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them; and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from the forms already existing. (emphasis added)

The difference between the organic and the manufactured has been a theme constantly emphasized by Benedict. The story of how, after the council, Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, ably assisted by Piero Marini (now archbishop), manufactured multiple innovations in accord with their vision of renewal is well known. And, of course, over the past forty-plus years, bishops and priests beyond numbering, taking their cue from the likes of Bugnini and Marini, brought their own “creative resources” to bear on the manufacturing process.

The difference between the organic and the manufactured has everything to do with Benedict’s repeated emphasis on “the hermeneutics of continuity” in the correct interpretation of the council, as distinct from viewing the council as a rupture in the Church’s tradition. The hermeneutics of rupture results in talk about a pre–Vatican II Church and a post–Vatican II Church, as though there are two churches, one before the council and one after.

Nobody seems to know why Pope Paul VI allowed Bugnini to take such liberties with the Church’s worship, or why, in 1976, he “exiled” him to a diplomatic post in Iran, where he died. Without directly criticizing Paul VI, Ratzinger has written that a “pope is not an absolute monarch whose will is law, but is the guardian of the authentic Tradition.” With respect to the liturgy, he has said, “he has the task of a gardener, not that of a technician who builds new machines and throws the old ones on the junk-pile.” In the same context, Ratzinger invokes the “golden words” of the Catechism: “For this reason no sacramental rite may be modified or manipulated at the will of the minister or the community. Even the supreme authority in the Church may not change the liturgy arbitrarily, but only in the obedience of faith and with religious respect for the mystery of the liturgy.”

In his book The Feast of Faith, Ratzinger addresses the question of sacred music in a passage well worth pondering:

The movement of spiritualization in creation is understood properly as bringing creation into the mode of being of the Holy Spirit and its consequent transformation, exemplified in the crucified and resurrected Christ. In this sense, the taking up of music into the liturgy must be its taking up into the Spirit, a transformation that entails both death and resurrection. That is why the Church has had to be critical of ethnic music; it could not be allowed untransformed into the sanctuary. The cultic music of pagan religions has a different status in human existence from the music which glorifies God in creation. Through rhythm and melody themselves, pagan music often endeavors to elicit an ecstasy of the senses, but without elevating the sense into the spirit; on the contrary, it attempts to swallow up the spirit in the senses as a means of release. This imbalance toward the senses recurs also in modern popular music: the “God” found here, the salvation of man identified here, is quite different from the God of the Christian faith.

For Benedict, aesthetics is never mere aesthetics. He readily acknowledges his debt to Hans Urs von Balthasar, who has helped many of us to appreciate more fully the ways in which beauty is inseparable from the transcendent realities of the true and the good. I do not wish to be too hard on those who planned the celebration at Nationals Park. It was, sad to say, not unrepresentative of much Catholic worship in our time. The planners and the performers no doubt meant well, but it is worthy of remark that at a papal Mass there was so much that reflected an ignorance of, or defiance of, the very considered views of the pope.

Previously, we discussed the right of all faithful Catholics to kneel and receive Communion on the tongue.

Recently, l’Osservatore Romano printed an examination of this exact issue, concluding that Communion on the tongue while in genuflection is historically accurate:

The American magazine Catholic Response has published an English translation of a provocative article, originally published in the official Vatican newspaper, calling for an end to the practice of receiving Communion in the hand.

The article by Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Karaganda, Kazakhstan, originally printed in L’Osservatore Romano, examines the historical record of Catholic practice, concluding that the early Church quickly developed the practice in which lay people Communion on the tongue while kneeling. Only ordained ministers were allowed to touch the consecrated Host with their hands.

By the 6th century, Bishop Schneider writes, the Church had formed a consensus that Communion should be received on the tongue, of reverence for the Eucharistic Lord. Pope Gregory the Great chastised priests who resisted that consensus, and it was become an “almost universal practice” in the early Church, the author says.

Kneeling to receive Communion was also a pattern established early in Church history, Bishop Schneider reports. That posture, too, was seen as a means of expressing reverence for Jesus in the Eucharist, and “the most typical gesture of adoration is the biblical one of kneeling.”

By administering Communion on the tongue, priests were able to foster greater devotion to the Eucharist; Bishop Schneider remarks that that form is “an impressive sign of the profession of faith the in the Real Presence.”

He adds the argument that this form of distributing Communion can prevent accidents. The author cites St. Cyril of Jerusalem, who exhorted priests to use extra caution “so that no even a crumb of the Lord’s Body could fall to the ground.”

The article published in L’Osservatore Romano, and now translated in Catholic Response, summarizes the more complete argument that Bishop Schneider put forward in his book, Dominus Est. That book, released in Italy earlier this year, drew special notice for two reasons. It was published by the official Vatican press, and a preface was contributed by Archbishop Macolm Ranjith, the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, who said it was “high time to review” the policy of allowing laymen to receive Communion in the hand. (Catholic World News)

The article in l’Osservatore Romano was based upon a book recently published by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana entitled Dominus Est, by Bishop Athanasius Schneider, with forward by Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith. A translation of the forward can be read here. According to Archbishop Ranjith,

Now I think it is high time to review and re-evaluate such good practices [as Communion on the tongue] and, if necessary, to abandon the current practice [of Communion in the hand] that was not called for by Sacrosanctum Concilium, nor by Fathers, but was only accepted after its illegitimate introduction in some countries. Now, more than ever, we must help the faithful to renew a deep faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharistic species in order to strengthen the life of the Church and defend it in the midst of dangerous distortions of the faith that this situation continues to cause.

Listen to Bishop Schneider’s thoughts in the following videos (top=Italian, bottom=English):

See also:

1. The right (and duty) to kneel — Part I
2. Forward to Dominus Est
3. “The Theology of Kneeling,” an excerpt from Pope Benedict XVI, then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s The Spirit of the Liturgy, published by Ignatius Press in 2000.

On this “Good Shepherd Sunday,” anticipating the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI to our nation and city, we are reminded that Christ the Good Shepherd has entrusted his flock to the Apostles of whom Peter is the chief, and center of unity. The primacy of the Bishop of Rome, Successor of Peter, is clear from the start: The angelic instruction from the Easter Tomb was that the women were to tell the “disciples and Peter” (Mark 16:7), and on that same day the other Apostles and those who were with them said, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” (Luke 21:34). St. Augustine says

To Peter alone was it given to play the part of the whole Church. … Now it was not one man but the unity of the Church that received those keys. By this fact the preeminence of Peter was proclaimed, in that he bore the figure of the very universality and unity of the Church.

A journalist recently asked me to contribute to a symposium on what we would like to tell the Pope. I replied that it is more important that we listen to the Pope. As St. Ambrose wrote in the fourth century,

At length Peter is set over the Church, after being tempted by the devil. And so the Lord signified beforehand what came to pass afterwards, in that He chose him to be the shepherd of the Lord’s flock. For He said to him, ‘When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren’ (Luke 22:31-32).

We receive the Gospel in four ways, “according to” Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Greek kata means that they record what they have received, for there is one Gospel, that of Christ himself. The Pope and the bishops in communion with him have the job of proclaiming and explaining that Gospel. Times and the vicissitudes of the times change, but the Church remains the means by which the sanity of the saints guides civilization through the unbalanced perceptions of mistaken theories of man. When John Henry Newman confronted social disorders in the 1850s, no less striking than that which challenges the Church today, he said in The Idea of a University:

If ever there was a power on earth who had an eye for the times … such is he in the history of ages, who sits from generation to generation in the Chair of the Apostles, as the Vicar of Christ, and the Doctor of His Church. These are not the words of rhetoric, Gentlemen, but of history. All who take part with the Apostle are on the winning side. … The past never returns; the course of events, old in its texture, is ever new in its coloring and fashion. England and Ireland are not what they once were, but Rome is where it was, and St. Peter is the same.