Worship Times

How’s Vatican II doing in your parish? In your diocese? In the larger church? The folks around Vatican City were wondering the same thing and decided to have a little get-together with 200 of their closest friends to see what’s up. The plan was to hold a congress on the implementation of the measures of Vatican Council II (1962–1965). The congress was promoted by the Central Committee for the Great Jubilee 2000 and was held in the Vatican Feb. 25–27.

Archbishop Crescenzio Sepe, secretary general of the Jubilee Committee, made clear that the principal motive for the congress was to respond to the Pope John Paul II’s call in Tertio millennio adveniente for an examination of conscience on the “reception of the council.”

The principal object of the meeting, according to Bishop Rino Fisichella, auxiliary of Rome, was not to be “the four constitutions, but a number of other specific points: the primacy of God’s Word in the life of the faithful (Dei verbum); the ecclesiology of communion (Lumen gentium); liturgy as the source and culmination of Christian life (Sacrosanctum concilium) and dialogue with the world and discernment of truth (Gaudium et spes).”

The invited guests and participants included 20 cardinals and 40 bishops as well as theologians, historians, catechists, priests, religious and lay people from various parts of the world. The meeting was not open to the public.

John Paul II, who participated directly in the working group that prepared Gaudium et spes, said at the conclusion of the congress: “A new season opens before us. It is the time to study conciliar teaching in depth, the time to reap what was sowed by the council fathers and anticipated by the present generation. Vatican Ecumenical Council II was a true prophecy for Church life. It will continue to be so for many years of this third millennium that has just begun.”

Watch your language

If you were hoping for more inclusive language than the revised lectionary has given you, it’s not too late to get your two cents in. When they approved the current version in 1998, the U.S. bishops called for a five-year trial period after which they would look at possible revisions that might have become evident through use of the new text. We Believe!, a grass-roots volunteer organization, has designed a 19-page evaluation tool to assist parishes in responding to the bishops’ request for feedback. For a copy of the document, e-mail the organization at webelieve@uswest.net

Global church

As world economies hurtle toward a globalized system of trade, parish leaders will need to struggle with the impact of a single world market on their local communities. According to William F. Murphy, auxiliary bishop of Boston, “The crucial challenge before us regarding the phenomenon of globalization is what we will make of it and how we will harness its energy and potential.”

Murphy sees the current trend toward globalization as presenting us with a choice between submitting to “blind economic forces” that concentrate wealth in the hands of a few or creating systems that are open and involve more people on multiple levels of development.

“The effective expansion of real freedoms to more and more people across the economic, political, social and cultural spectrum is the criterion for moving in this direction [of globalization],” said Murphy. “In that process there will be new challenges and amazing possibilities so long as cooperation and collaboration are practiced within the commitment to effective expansion of these freedoms.”

Murphy thinks that the challenges of globalization are not just economic ones. “They are ethical and cultural. And here the church, expert in humanity, along with ethicians and moral theologians, has a role to play. The human and cultural goods that the Church proclaims must be introduced to help formulate the programs and policies to guide globalization.”

Murphy’s remarks appeared in the Feb. 25 edition of the archdiocesan paper, The Pilot.

Celibacy is un-Orthodox

“God save the Orthodox Church from such a terrible fate,” said Father Efstathios Kollas, director of the Pan-Hellenic Union of Priests, in response to the increase of celibate priests and near-disappearance of married priests in the Greek Orthodox tradition. Kollas worries in a recent article in the Athenian-English newspaper Kathimerini that the Orthodox will soon follow the path of the “Catholic heresy” in which almost all priests are celibate.

Kollas thinks it might be a question of style. According to him, the Orthodox dress code of long black robes, tall hats and overgrown beards is ruining their marriage prospects. “If the robes create an obstacle for finding a wife — and you know they do — then the church’s leadership must do something to modernize our appearance.”

The decline of a married clergy is not a new problem for the Orthodox. “Women have always been hesitant about marrying priests …. Women who marry priests are usually older women, those who are afraid of being left on the shelf,” Kollas said.

If Father Kollas’ image of women is representative, ML suspects it may not be the beards that are keeping them away.

Sacramentaries galore

The third edition of the Roman Missal will be released by the Vatican before the end of the year, perhaps as early as this summer, according to a recent report by the Church World News Service. 

The news about the new Roman Missal came from Bishop Francesco Pio Tamburrino, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments. The new sacramentary will include feastday celebrations for many of the new saints named since the current edition was published. The document will be issued in Latin as the editio typica for the universal church and will then need to be translated into vernacular languages. 

The revised translation of the second edition of the sacramentary for English-speaking countries is still awaiting approval by the Holy See. That approval, however, is thought to be imminent. In his announcement of the release of the new third edition of the Roman Missal, Bishop Tamburrino did not mention what effect this might have on the proposed revisions of the second edition.

Virtual evangelization

The Gideons have their Bibles and the Jehovah’s Witnesses have their Watchtowers. Catholics may soon have their free internet access. A diocese in southern Brazil is giving away free access to the internet to anyone who wants it. 

“The objective is to reveal the Catholic faith,” said Irineu Brand, a priest of the diocese of Porto Alegre. “We have an interest in being known.” According to an Associated Press report, visitors to the Catolico’s website “can donate money to an orphanage, volunteer for community service, find out when the next Mass is at a local church or learn how to say the rosary. They can click on an ad and buy a computer or a T-shirt, pick an Amazon.com book or bank online.”

The site won’t carry ads for cigarettes, alcohol, birth control or astrological charts, but the portal does provide unlimited access to anything on the internet — including pornographic sites.

“We don’t have any type of control,” said Adao Oliveira, a computer technician and service coordinator for Catolico. He said Catolico’s goal is to evangelize and not to censor. “We plant the seed. If they get it, they get it.”

Catolico is at www.catolico.com.br.