The Cranky Professor

March 11, 2010

For your Bible-quoting needs

For the medievalist in your life who has Bible-quoting needs - my favorite Douay-Rheims online!

I'm not a slave to the idea, but lots of medievalists prefer to quote the Douay-Rheims version because it is a translation of the Vulgate, close enough to the Vulgate version of Jerome that it is occasionally more representative of the versions medieval people would have known; however, there are all kinds of qualifiers, like which version of Psalms you use - and in my period there are still lots of copies of the Old Latin (the Vetus Latina - speaking of which here's a great site for that!) knocking around.

Really, the idea that there was one, standard version of scripture before the invention of printing is problematic. Printing standardized things a lot - though it opened other cans of worms.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:51 PM | Comments (1)

March 1, 2010

Haiti

Matt Labash asks the missionary priest why he bothers with giving the unclaimed dead from the city morgue an organized (if group) funeral, something he's been doing since long before the earthquake.

Frechette thinks about it a long while, then says, "If the dead are garbage, then the living are walking garbage."

This is an amazing, moving profile.

Here is a link to the organization Fr. Rick Frechette works for.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:48 AM | Comments (0)

January 15, 2010

Haiti? Donate!

Catholic Relief Services.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:04 PM | Comments (0)

December 5, 2009

Advent Penitential Cheer!

Well, it's what was on sale at the Presbyterian Church next door at the holiday Wassail Bowl. Does it count that I bought a lavender knit cap for a niece?

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:35 PM | Comments (2)

October 21, 2009

Dante Blogging - Inferno Canto XXIII

Canto XXIII

After all the noise of squabbling devils in Canti XXI and XXII, XXIII begins with silence.

Taciti, soli, sanza compagnia
  n'andavam l'un dinanzi e l'altro dopo
  come frati minor vanno per via.

Silent, alone, no escort at our side,
  we set out, one before and one behind
  as Friars Minor walk in single file. (23.1-3)

The silence doesn't last long, and the pilgrims end up fleeing devils coming back for more. Virgil grabs Dante and runs with him - and they tumble into the 6th ditch. There they find the hypocrites, walking slowly, wearing beautiful golden cloaks whose inside is all lead.

Dante runs into two Bolognese friars who recognize his Tuscan dialect. Tedious Guelphage and Ghibellinage passes. Esolen seems more tolerant - "Note how severely Dante condemns those who meddled in political affairs, even when the meddling benefited Dante's own party" (464). Maybe it's because my coffee hasn't set in yet, but I figure Dante's faction inside the Guelphs didn't come out so well in the 1266 settlement of the 36 Good Men. Nevertheless, as Esolen points out in another note, all the named occupants of the Ditch of the Hypocrites are clergy in one way or another.

Just as Dante is about to abuse the friars he catches sight of a man crucified to the path where all the lead-weighed souls pass over him - and one of the two friars reveal that his father-in-law and the whole council of which they were a part suffer the same punishment.

"That soul you wonder at, who lies transfixed,
  advised the Pharisees that it was fit
  to martyr one man for the people's sake. (23.115-117)

This is Caiphas, who Esolen points out did not call directly for the death of Jesus, since that is not how hypocrites operate. "Yet thought hypocrites usually intend more than they will say, in this case Caiphas spoke more than he intended, and was the victim of his own irony. For Jesus was slain for the people, but not as the priest supposed..." (464).

Dante, as a medieval Christian, has no doubt about Jewish blood guilt for the crucifixion. He identifies that guilt as sown by these men - but he does not pardon it. One of the sad truths of the world is that great art does not heal. It can help, but Dante, the poet of individual responsibility, who finds people in Hell who no one else thought might be there and will find folks in Purgatory who repented great wickedness still believes in inherited group guilt for the Jews.

Click here for all the Danteblogging and none of my other ramblings.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:45 AM | Comments (1)

September 17, 2009

Tobit

My Bible reading this season seems to be flipping around to a book I haven't read lately. The gone, but not forgotten Old Oligarch (can it really be 4 years ago he gave up blogging?) would understand my delight in Leviticus, but this week I'm reading Tobit for the first time in years.

I can really see why the Reformers were eager to toss this one out! In the benighted 16th Century they couldn't imagine that fragments of Hebrew and Aramaic versions would one day turn up at Qumran, and their petty argument that it only survived in the Greek would go 'boom.' Famous last words in historical disciplines: "There is no evidence that . . ."

Always say "There is no evidence currently available." Archaeology may well prove you silly otherwise.

So, Tobit. Angels who care - and tell white lies! Demons who flee to Egypt at the stink of fish, are run down, and bound hand and foot! Almsgiving and burying the dead (ooooh - Corporal Works of Mercy!). You can see how that would make Luther nuts. I enjoyed it - the description that it's a religious novel with good historical detail works for me. And why shouldn't we have a few of those in the Canon to read, too?

Further:
Even worse, from the Reformed point of view, must've been Tobit 12:10 (in either recension):
So now when you and Sarra prayed, I brought the memorial of your prayer before the glory of the Lord and did likewise when you would bury the dead.

There's your Guardian Angel right there, laying your prayers as offerings before the Lord. Can't have that!

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:39 AM | Comments (0)

September 2, 2009

Dante Blogging - Inferno Canto XII

Canto XII

A few quick notes about thoughts Canto XII threw up -

Dante and Virgil have to climb down a rock-slide to get to the next ring. I wonder where Dante got the idea that the Harrowing of Hell - Christ's Descent into Hell Virgil described in Limbo was so violently ruinous to the physical structure of Hell? Is it an ancient topos, or something new to Dante? I really should ask my acquaintance Georgia Frank over at Colgate, who has studied early descent into Hell and purgatory. Maybe we can get her to come do a guest turn in the spring of '11 when we teach this!

Remember that fraud is something that beasts can't do? The Minotaur, of course, is the offspring of a fraudulent cow - Daedalus made a cow for Pasiphaë to crawl into so she could be impregnated by Poseidon's bull (oh, those Greeks!). The Minotaur, though, is guarding the violent, along with the centaurs. Hmm.

About the Centaurs, who are racing around the river of fire, shooting arrows at any violent man (mainly famous rulers) who rises too far out of the stream, again, half-beasts to guard the bestially violent - specifically those who were violent against others. Also on my coffee table is Machiavelli's The Prince, which will come up in November in European Studies 101, and Machiavelli makes a rather different use of centaurs in his chapter 18 - "In What Mode Faith Should be Kept by Princes."

Thus, you must know that there are two kinds of combat: one with laws, the other with force. The first is proper to man, the second to beasts; but because the first is often not enough, one must have recourse to the second. Therefore it is necessary for a prince to know well how to use the beast and the man. This role was taught covertly to princes by ancient writers, who wrote that Achilles, and many other ancient princes, were given to Chiron the centaur to be raised, so that he would look after them with his discipline. To have as teacher a half-beast, half-man means nothing other than that a prince needs to know how to use both natures; and the one without the other is not lasting. (The Prince, Mansfield translation, p 69)

Machiavelli and Dante both link the centaurs with rulers, one for training and one for punishment. Hm. Since one of the ways I amuse myself when I read Machiavelli is thinking of him as writing a manual for getting Lorenzo de Medici to Hell even faster than the average member of that family, noticing this helps.

Click here for all the Danteblogging and none of my other ramblings.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:47 AM | Comments (0)

September 1, 2009

Dante Blogging - Inferno Canto XI

Canto XI

Is it worth talking about Dante as a fair judge?

Dante is even-handed only in the sense that he damns a certain number of Guelphs - otherwise he's not to be trusted. I was thinking about this because I had a talk this weekend with a friend of a scene in Purgatory where someone Dante thinks was pretty bad in life scraped in because of a moment-of-death conversion (I can't find it now - it'll wait). Some of the folks in Hell don't seem to have been given a chance for repentance, even when they had the leisure for it - like Pope Celestine in Canto III - who, after all, lived for 10 months in imprisonment after making what Dante calls "il gran rifiuto." Think he might have repented?

Similarly, Dante sometimes works with poor historical information, like here in Canto XI, when he damns Pope Anastasius as a Monophysite (one of the last of the Christological heresies of early Christianity). But then Dante was no historian - there's a reason most of his characters are, more or less, current events. By the way, I'm not at all offended by the idea of a pope in hell (I like John Chrysostom's quip, that hell is paved with priest's skulls), but given the rules Dante sets up it seems unlikely - they have too many chances for sacramental confession. I have no particular doubt that Teddy Kennedy made a good end, for instance. He had a lot to confess, but so do I.

Dante's got a job, though - he has to populate the rings of Hell.

Oh - a quick aside - I wonder why the Modern Library and Anthony Esolen titled the three books Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. He may well have explained that in some front matter I missed, but it seems a little odd to stick to the Italian in one but not the other two. Maybe a pure marketing decision - name recognition for the first may really be that high?

OK - back to the rings of Hell. Now is a time to draw on the board again - Hell has order inside which chaos is confined. Look at the bottom right (Christ's left) of the mosaic from the west wall of the cathedral at Torcello (one of the islands in the Venetian lagoon). Those boxes each contain a variety of the damned - I'd click to enlarge. Similarly, Virgil offers in Canto XI a quick explanation of the layout of the rings of Hell.

All the remaining sins have some element of force or fraud - we're past the traditional Seven Deadly Sins and into something more offensive to God. The violent are neatly divided into those who have committed violence against their neighbors, against themselves, or against God. The lowest rings, though, are crimes of fraud. Or,

Since fraud's a sin peculiar to mankind
  God hates it more; and so the fraudulent
  sink farther down, assailed by greater pain.
(11.25-27)

The Torcello mosaic and Dante go a long way to reminding us that the Middle Ages exulted in order. Whether they achieved it or not is another question - but any explanation of the history of ideas or the history of culture that presents some kind of change from disorder and darkness to balance and brightness because of some self-styled Renaissance is up against it - what can be more neurotically balanced than Aquinas? What vision of the Cosmos is more orderly than Ptolemy's as elaborated by Muslims and medieval Christians? The philosophical movement that goes along with imitation natural landscapes is the Enlightenment, not the Scholastics - who preferred their horti to be conclusi.

Oh well - professors are always fighting yesterday's battles. In fact, most of my students don't seem to have a lot of cultural baggage about the Middle Ages. They haven't really ingested any periodization at all. I should probably shut up and move on.

Click here for all the Danteblogging and none of my other ramblings.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:45 AM | Comments (0)

August 30, 2009

Dante Blogging - Inferno Canto X

Canto X

Canto IX was a Canto of waiting - Canto X gives Dante more to think about than he likes. He see great figures from both sides of the Florentine political schism damned in the tomb of the Epicureans - and this leads him to some thinking about poets. Dante is, perhaps, always about poets and poetry.

Remember the photo of les Alyscamps from my contact Nick? Look at this Gustave Doré version (the resolution is too poor to bother taking it from Wikipedia and reloading it here). Dore has a great picture, but he has the historical phenomenon wrong. Oh, well - what can you do with the Romantics? Still, the Modern Library Esolen translation is printing them, so they're going to come up.

As Dante says, "The lids have all been raised" (10.8), but you can see that in Nick's picture as well. Indeed, Roman sarcophagi seldom have their original lids; they were usually taken and recycled into later buildings or art works. In fact, lots of the Alyscamps might have ended up in the facade of St. Gilles du Gard and the cathedral of St Trophime in Arles - Romanesque carvers were never ones to overlook a good supply of pre-quarried marble. And Arles had nothing particularly good local. We call that Green Architecture nowadays.

Of course, the Epicureans in the red-hot tomb wouldn't have objected in life, because then they believed that death meant the extinction of the soul. Now that they have found out otherwise they might appreciate more permanent monuments on Earth.

Dante first talks with Farinata degli Uberti, an unpleasant Ghibelline; he thinks Dante a bounder, which he probably was. Then Dante talks to another resident of the tomb, Cavalcante de Cavalcanti, a Guelph and father of one of Dante's poet friends. Cavalcante is worried about his son, who died only months after the action is set. Indeed, the foresight of the dead is confusing - though Dante tries to clear it up. How did Ciacco prophesy? How is it that Cavalcante doesn't know about his son?

Farinata rather graciously explains that the closer the event the less clear it is.

"As a man with bad vision," he replied
  "we dimly see things far away. So much
  splendor the sovereign Lord still shines on us.

When things draw near, or happen, emptiness
  is all we see. If no one brings us news,
  we can know nothing of your human state. (10.100-105)

I'll have to think about the optics of that. What are the implications for vision if the splendor (splende) is descending from God?

Click here for all the Danteblogging and none of my other ramblings.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 5:59 PM | Comments (0)

August 28, 2009

I'm thinking these dog-groomers belong in the circle of the sodomites

Really. Go look. Are these cuts sins against nature, or what?

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:25 PM | Comments (1)

August 22, 2009

Given my current blogging hobby . . .

. . . I'm wondering to which circle Dante would send this man:

A Nebraska man who stole a painting of the Virgin Mary to finance an abortion for a teen he raped has been convicted of first-degree sexual assault and felony theft.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 4:36 PM | Comments (0)

August 21, 2009

Dante Blogging - Inferno Canto V

Canto V

Canto IV ended with the pair of pilgrims heading "out of the quiet, into the trembling air--/Into a place where nothing ever shines" (4.150-151). In Canto V we are assaulted by the shouting and grunting of Minos -- who is very rude for a king and judge. I suppose that Minos also presents the first horrible body of Hell, as he whips his tail around his torso, with the number of loops representing the circle of Hell to which the soul is sent. I've never quite understood the monstrous conflation of Minos and the Minotaur - I wonder where Dante would have learned Greek myths other than Ovid? He certainly knew the Metamorphoses, but would he have known the Heroides? I'm not at all sure. It's been so long since i've read the Ariadne and Theseus section of the Heroides that I don't remember how much topical detail about Minos it carries. I've always wondered if Dante was running together Minos and Midas - specifically the Midas-judging-Apollo-and-Pan story.

Canto V begins with a quick explanation of the structural principle of Hell, narrowing from the top as one descends:

So I descended from the outer ring   down to the next, which belts less space about   but stings the souls to greater agony. (5.1-3)

and Minos's body provides a weird echo:

Discerns what place in Hell is fit for him:   belts himself with his tail as many times   as there are grades the sinner must descend. (5.10-12)

The hardest Canto for big-R and little-r Romantics to deal with is probably Canto V, where Courtly Love comes in for some hard knocks. I'm not in the mood to blog about Paolo and Francesca except to say that luckily I will be team teaching with a friend who regularly teaches troubador material and has no illusions about chaste ladies and ideal knights, even if she does want to believe that Arthur existed.

Click here for all the Danteblogging and none of my other ramblings.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:58 AM | Comments (1)

August 20, 2009

Dante Blogging - Inferno Canto IV

Canto IV

Canto III ends with Dante falling into unconsciousness, and IV begins with a boom that shakes him awake. Not every pair of Cantos carries action across the break so smoothly (or jarringly, as in this case), but the transitions are always worth checking. Dante was a thorough craftsman. There is certainly lots of debate about the making of the poem - he started it in exile, probably in 1304, he seems to have published Inferno in 1314. That gives a lot of time for polishing.

I think the urge to see Dante as a poet who begins uncertainly is an example of the (Romantic?) failure to separate maker from creation - to assume that Dante (in this example) is speaking authentically as Dante, that he is afraid, that he does not know where he is, that he is learning from Virgil as he goes along. I'm calling the Pilgrim "Dante" out of laziness and convention more than anything. I don't believe this is Dante Alighieri speaking to us from the heart - this is a finely constructed object of art. It certainly has stress fractures and may even have some bad lines (I'm not enough of a judge of the Italian to say - though this effort will surely help that), but the Commedia makes much more sense as a unity. If there's ever a poem that repays formalist analysis it's this one.

In Canto IV we enter Limbo - and Dante asks Virgil one of those hard questions - did no one leave here before the Resurrection? What about those unbaptized infants?Is this fair??

Well, if 'fair' means playing by the rules, this is fair. It's also hard lines on the virtuous pagans. Dante suggests, though he lists only big name Jewish Patriarchs and Matriarchs, that virtuous Jews from before the Incarnation were saved at the Harrowing of Hell, when Christ descended. What happens to later Jews we will consider later.

Dante is more interested at this point in showing us that there is a hierarchy in Limbo, a hierarchy not of happiness or contentment but honor. There is honor in limbo for the greatest souls.

I've always thought that the appearance of the first epic list of names here is hardly an accident. Dante is not only giving us a long list of virtuous unbelievers - among whom he includes 2 or 3 Muslims - because he's in a castle full of them but also because, in Virgil's company, he has just met Homer, Ovid, and Lucan. I think because he is accepted into their circle as a poet, he demonstrates his mastery of the genre. If we don't believe that we have to take refuge in believing the narrative and think that a person, Dante, is walking all around the only castle in Hell with decent lighting looking at nametags.

The Canto ends with the pair leaving this Castle with clear light, headed into darkness. Dante does it with a LOT of words ending in -a.

La sesta compagnia in due si scema:
  per altra via mi mena il savio duca
  fuor de la queta, ne l'aura che trema.
E vegno in parte ove non è che luca.

Esolen gives us:

The company of six is cut by two,
  and my wise guide leads me another way,
  out of the quiet, into the trembling air --
Into a place where nothing ever shines

"Trembling air" sounds lovely, but when we turn the page we will find out what makes it tremble.

Click here for all the Danteblogging and none of my other ramblings.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:27 AM | Comments (0)

August 19, 2009

Dante Blogging - Inferno Canto III

Canto III

The inscription over the Gate of Hell:

I AM THE WAY INTO THE CITY OF WOE,
I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL PAIN,
I AM THE WAY TO GO AMONG THE LOST.

JUSTICE CAUSED MY HIGH ARCHITECT TO MOVE
DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE CREATED ME,
THE HIGHEST WISDOM, AND THE PRIMAL LOVE.

BEFORE ME THERE WERE NO CREATED THINGS
BUT THOSE THAT LAST FOREVER -- AS DO I.
ABANDON ALL HOPE YOU WHO ENTER HERE.

The hard thing is not to show students that Hell is hopeless, but that Love created it. Virgil gives us a help in the 6th tercet:

We have come to the place I spoke about,
   where you would see the souls who dwell in pain,
   for they have lost the good of intellect. (16-19)

Esolen's Appendix C will also be a help - a big dose of Aquinas. The people in Hell have gotten what they sought - separation from God, the Trinity described as Omnipotence, Wisdom and Love. If Love is to give someone, finally, what he wants then Love has to create a place like Hell. Hard lines, but it makes an intellectual sense. It won't satisfy them - I know I was one of two people out of about 18 who got it the first time when I took Dante as an undergraduate - but there we go. Maybe one of the course outcomes should be "Students will realize the way they want the world to be has consequences."

I, too, prefer the idea that Hell is not eternal - that it's really just a harder version of Purgatory, but so far as I've heard the only major 20th Century Catholic theologian to think about that possibility seriously was Hans Urs von Balthasar (Dare We Hope "That All Men Be Saved"?), but I'm not really interested in reading theology much. I'll wager with Aquinas and try to scrape in to Heaven.*

By the way, the line immediately before "We have come to the place I spoke about" reminds us of Canto II. Virgil tells Dante, "here you must put all cowardice to death" (15). Dante is going to have trouble doing that. Like us his feelings are going to get in the way of understanding again and again.

Indeed, the first time he hears the wails of damned souls he weeps - and these are the souls who, like Dante in Canto II, unwilled what they willed, changed every plan with every thought. Angels who were neither rebels nor faithful, people who never lived well or badly. Dante, and Justice, respect more those who sin boldly. This is also the first example of a punishment to fit the crime: these souls are damned to follow a banner moving fast - to finally follow, not hang back and consider what they might or might not do.

In this Canto, too, we get the first example of Dante putting people in Hell because he doesn't like their politics. Most of those are tedious factional problems of Florence, but one soul Dante recognizes "che fece per viltade il gran rifiuto," "the craven one, who made the great denial" (61). He almost certainly means Pope Celestine V, who abdicated the papacy in 1294 and left the way open for Dante's least favorite pope, Boniface VIII. Dante's hatred of Celestine is based on hearsay, and much of his hatred of Boniface is based on narrow Florentine patriotism (though Benedetto Caetani was hardly a pleasant man). Remember, Dante is not dogma!

*That is, I will be leaving money for Masses for my miserable soul in Purgatory.

Click here for all the Danteblogging and none of my other ramblings.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:18 AM | Comments (0)

July 12, 2009

The Golden Virgin of Essen

This statue of the Virgin and Child was made around 980 for Abbess Matilda, granddaughter of Emperor Otto I. I like it for two or three reasons. First, it's all golden and great. Second, she's got great enamel goggle eyes - and they're weirder in person than in photographs. Third, she undercuts a particularly tedious assertion of those kinds of people who like to see the invention of the reflective individual in the 12th or 13th Century.*

They tend to say things like "all Virgin and Child sculptures from the 11th Century are hieratic and stiff and frontal and formal and not very nice. Then in the delightful Gothic era we begin to see mothers who interact vividly with the child Jesus." I know, I'm not being fair, but one does get tired of the condescension, whether from Lady de Burgh** or other medievalists.

Well hell. Look at this one. So she's not making eye contact with Him - but the whole pose is as dynamic as a Schoene Jungfrau of the 15th Century. This artist had seen something in touch with the Classical - something Byzantine, something real, something naturalistic. The monastery at Essen undoubtedly had stuff that had percolated west from the 9th Century capital of the world - Constantinople. That marriage for Otto II with the Theophanu girl, whoever she really was, came with gear.*** In fact, one of the immediate successors of the abbess who commissioned this statue was even named after Theophanu.

What a nexus object! I was very happy to visit Her.

*You know, like this book.
**Gratuitous Jane Austen reference.
***Really. We're still debating who Theophanu was - niece of the Emperor?

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:51 PM | Comments (1)

April 28, 2009

Porphyry Column of Constantine

My life story - I walk up to famous, tall thing only to find it scaffolded (see Freiburg Münsterturm).

This elaborate scaffolding surrounds Constantine's Porphyry Column, now known as the Burnt Column - Çemberlitas in Turkish (and I can't get the little thingy to come out on the final s, sorry). From a distance I could see the porphyry surface, at least.

The Romans carefully placed it on the main street, running along a ridge top, from forum to forum. The elevation - along with it's own enormous height something like 110 feet - means that it is visible from the Sea of Marmora and the Golden Horn. Constantine topped it with an enormous statue of himself as the Sun. That's Constantine all over.

I walked around it several times, then finally spotted the inconspicuous entrance to the Çemberlitas Hamam. Gosh that was pleasant, but it was all for knowledge - Sinan designed the building! Click here and look at the images of the dome.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:40 AM | Comments (0)

April 21, 2009

Blogger Luncheon

Sorry the photo is of the wrong time of day - but the church on the horizon is Ss. Domenico e Sisto, the chapel of the Angelicum, the Dominican University. Catho-Bloggers may be able to guess who I'm talking about - yes, I got to take Fr. Philip Neri Powell to lunch! I really did live just the next hill over, but we were both busy. I'm thinking about a book, he's almost finished with one. Here - go preorder Treasures Old and New: Traditional Prayers for Today's Catholics, Fr. Philip's reflections on novenas.

I even got to tell him about a novena practice he hadn't come across - the Flying Novena. Many years ago and not so far away I was visiting Saintes Marie de la Mer, the great fortified Romanesque church on the French Mediterranean coast with Tom Lyman and an Emory group. It was some kind of holy day (perhaps St. Mary the Egyptian? Wikipedia claims for Saint Sarah, but I'd prefer something better sourced) for the Gypsies. Lots of ladies were coming in one door, heading for an altar, saying a prayer and lighting one candle, heading out a different door, coming back in the first door, and repeating.

I asked "What on earth are they doing?" Tom told me they were doing Flying Novenas. Since they wouldn't be able to come to the church for 9 consecutive days, the usual way one handles these things, they were packing it all in.

Father Philip Neri was sceptical about the licitness of this devotional practice, but then he's a Dominican and that's what they do.

We had a lovely lunch - pasta and laughter. It doesn't get much better.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:24 PM | Comments (3)

April 13, 2009

The Mother of All Vigils

I met my colleagues leading our program in Rome this year at Sta Prassede for the Easter Vigil. Luckily for my overall liturgical tourism mood I was early enough to catch the Exultet in Latin next door at Sta Maria Maggiore while waiting for them, because the Vallumbrosans were not all thhat on the ball. Not the Exultet - which, though in Italian, was full-length and lovely. But they didn't use the schola at all except for a little incidental music during the eucharist. I wouldn't be surprised if they quit. They also turned on the lights WAY too early - that church could stand some candle light.

But hey - it was the Vigil! And there was incense, and solemnity, a fine organist, and enough readings to take the whole affair seriously. Still and all, they need a real MC.

I spent Sunday wandering around and today has been about equally useful - actually more seems closed today for Pasquetta, Easter Monday, than yesterday!

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 3:53 PM | Comments (0)

April 11, 2009

Fools for Christ

Yesterday I was making my usual round of church stops. The added benefit was getting to see a lot of Altars of Repose. I didn't photograph any of those (you know, I really should get over being so nice!), but when I got close to home around noon I went by Sta. Maria ai Monti, where I had been to mass on Sunday.

The great reason to visit there is the tomb of St. Benedict Joseph Labre, an odd sort of saint. He failed to enter two or three monastic orders - all of whom seem to have detected some incipient craziness. He wandered as a pilgrim from place to place, eventually more or less settling in Rome. He lived off and on in the ruins of the Colosseum (much more ruinous then!), and eventually died in the house of some charitable person in the parish who took him in.

Miraculous healings followed at once - and he may have done a few in his lifetime. He's the kind of saint who makes the hierarchical church very nervous - but he was canonized anyway, and here he is.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:17 AM | Comments (0)

April 9, 2009

Holy Week in Rome - Thursday

I'm not a fan of the big production, so liturgy-with-pope-action-figure (which is what they look like from a distance) is not a big thrill for me. Hey - I attended, mainly by accident, the canonization ceremony for Padre Pio, so I know the big production number.

Still, Holy Week is, after all, Holy Week. I went to Maundy Thursday at Santa Prassede.

Last year the Vallombrosan Benedictines had posters up asking for volunteers for a schola, which was to begin with a retreat in Tuscany to learn chant. It paid off - tonight they had 10 voices - 6 male! - and sounded quite good. They are directed by one of the older fathers. One of the deacons has a strong voice, too, so I'm hoping he's on for the Exultet on Saturday. The altar of repose was really something, too - I think there's a new energy behind the liturgical arrangements at this old, old church.

Sta. Prassede is a parish - Santa Maria Maggiore, across the street, is not. So tonight there was a regular crowd, most of them from the neighborhood, with a sprinkling of tourists and a lot of religious sisters (all of whom, for some reason, sat on the right side of the center aisle).

I haven't decided about tomorrow - where to go venerate the cross? Hmmm....

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:09 PM | Comments (0)

March 12, 2009

Münster - Lent altar hanging

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:18 PM

March 4, 2009

Amy Welborn moves

Amy Welborn blogs for money! New blog, new name - Via Media.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 3:30 PM | Comments (0)

January 28, 2009

So WHERE is the SSPX in America? How many masses do they say they say?

I've blogged in the past about the coffee problem chez Tinkler. Well, this morning my parents are off to a doctor's appointment leaving me with ALL the coffee in the second pot! Bwah hah hah!

In my caffeine induced state of well-being, I got to thinking about the SSPX in America. I had never actually looked to see in detail what they say they are doing and where they say they are. So I checked here - on their own Chapels of the SSPX in the USA page. Since they want to maximize attendance we have to assume that this is a regularly updated list - and at the bottom of the page we see 2009.

I did some counting and find:

97 places with Mass scheduled at least once a month
16 places with priories or priests' residences
3 places with daily and Sunday masses but no listed priory or residence
50 places with Sunday Masses (and perhaps another day or two). I didn't see any places with weekly Masses where there wasn't a Sunday Mass - but I may well have missed some.

I put my list into the extended entry. Click on the "continue reading" link at the bottom if you're interested.

This information is interesting in case of a corporate reunion with the Roman Catholic Church - there will be a lot of complications over what Cardinal Ricard described as "the integration of the juridical structure of the Fraternity of St. Pius X in the Church." In other words, if and when there were to be a entry into full communion, under what circumstances will they be allowed by local bishops to work in a particular diocese.

That will be a difficult process.

Though I pray everything will go smoothly, I won't be surprised if some priests and even whole congregations refuse to go along.

Compare the 16 priories and 3 places with daily Mass with this map I did back in the Fall (and haven't updated since November - has anything changed lately?) of the residences of priests (etc, etc) who say Mass in the Extraordinary Form. That is to say, most (if not all) of these places also have daily Mass according to the books in use in 1962. Looks to me as though there are more of them than there are of the SSPX.

All of this is based on self-reporting, but there you go. I'm an amateur.

If you're really interested, here's the list I made up. I may well have made an error - feel free to offer corrections.

Places with priories or priests' residences - daily and Sunday Masses
Phoenix, AZ
Los Angeles, CA
Los Gatos, CA
Ridgefield, CT
Post Falls, ID
St Mary's, KS
Armada, MI
Long Prarie/Browerville, MN
Winona, MN
Kansas City, MO
St Louis, MO
Las Vegas, NV
Syracuse, NY
Eugene, OR
El Paso, TX
Houston, TX

not indicated as a priory or residence, but indicates daily Mass
Atlanta, GA
New Orleans, LA
Albuquerque, NM

indicates weekly Sunday Masses (and in some cases another Mass or two)
Prescott, AZ
Colton, CA
Sacramento, CA
San Diego, CA
San Pedro, CA
Bakersfield, CA (with a note)
Denver, CO
Ft Collins, CO
Hartford, CT
Davie, FL
Ft Meyers, FL
Orlando, FL
West Palm Beach, FL
Boise, ID
Chicago, IL
Ft Wayne, IN
Nappanee, IN
Louisville, KY
Baton Rouge, LA
Woburn, MA
Detroit, MI
Grand Rapids, MI
Mancelona, MI
Belle Plaine, MN
Crookston, MN
St Paul, MN
Mexico, MO
Springfield, MO
North Caldwell, NJ
Binghamton, NY
Buffalo, NY
Glens Falls, NY
Farmingville, NY
Potsdam, NY
Charlotte, NY
Cincinnati, OH
Cleveland, OH
Youngstown, OH
Portland, OR
Erie, PA
Philadelphia, PA
Pittsburgh, PA
Pittston, PA
Ft Worth, TX
Spring (Houston), TX
San Antonio, TX
Norfolk, VA
Seattle, WA
Madison, WI
Milwaukee, WI

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:33 AM | Comments (1)

January 27, 2009

Bishop Williamson - what WAS he saying?

I've read a lot of different stuff about the Society of St Pius X situation this week and last - though I've been reading about Bishop Williamson for several years.

Is he an antisemite? I've read a lot of commenters on Catholic blogs saying that Williamson is not a Holocaust Denier because he does at least agree that some hundreds of thousands of Jews died in concentration camps. I'm of the opinion that that kind of statement is denial of the reality of the Holocaust and what the Nazis were about. However, it's worse than that. One can argue that anti-Zionism or Holocaust minimization is not antisemitism, but I don't think anyone can argue about the antisemitism here, in an excerpt from Bishop Williamson's letter of September 1, 2002.

By lies, Judeo-Masonry brought about the first two World Wars. To get Americans to enter the First World War, President Woodrow Wilson told them that it would be the "war to end all wars." In fact, WWI established the Masonic League of Nations in Geneva and the Communist Revolution in Russia, and crushed numerous Christian monarchies, in particular the Catholic Austro-Hungarian Empire. And the Masonic Treaty of Versailles ending WWI deliberately paved the way for WWII, of which President F.D. Roosevelt promised it would "make the world safe for democracy." In fact, WWII established the Masonic United Nations, hugely promoted socialism in the USA and in the Western "democracies," and crushed the Eastern "democracies" under Communism.

WORLD WAR III

By lies, Judeo-Masonry is preparing for the Third World War. As the Depression of the 1930's necessitated WWII, triggered for the US by the supposed treachery of the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, so we see all the conditions created for another much worse Depression in the US, with the supposed treachery of Arabs last year against the Twin Towers in New York already igniting American public opinion to go to war against Afghanistan and now Iraq. And as we now in 2002 know with certainty that our governments and media told us far from the complete truth in 1941 as to who was truly responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor, so we will eventually know that those truly responsible for the attack on the Twin Towers were certainly not those primarily held up as being responsible by our governments and media.

Feel free to say that all this is just produced by a hatred of Modernity or Modernism (the latter being defined as a specific error in Catholicism). I can't see it. Anyone who blames World War I and World War II on Judeo-Masonry and sees a coming World War III to lay at the same feet is an antisemite.

And this man was in charge of training English language seminarians for the SSPX for how long? And for the last few years running a seminary in Argentina?

The most interesting commentary by someone who knows Williamson, a former student, is here at The Sensible Bond, commenting on the recent video from Swedish TV:

The second thing which strikes me about his remarks is that when he quotes revisionists, he follows the Thomistic principle 'not to heed who says a thing but heed what it is they say.' Now, we really are in the thicket. This principle, forged by St Thomas as a means of students' developing their theological arguments, is thought sufficient by BW+ as a principle of historical research. Bad idea. The principle more appropriate here is: ask not what they say but why they say it. It is a principle he seems able to apply to the liberals but - proof again of his anti-modern passion - not to those who attack the liberals. Did nobody ever teach him that the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend?

I find that helpful for understanding how a man lots of folks assure us in intelligent could go wrong; Thomism (and the dialectical method in general) is not an adequate resource for practicing history. However, that's not enough to explain the "Judaeo-Masonry" as anything other than Jew-hatred. I'm glad his superior in the SSPX now says "For this reason I have prohibited him, pending any new orders, from taking any public positions on political or historical questions." I hope it works.

Actually, I hope Bishop Williamson goes off in a huff into honest schism. I prefer that he not be associated with the Roman Catholic Church in any way.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:58 PM

January 20, 2009

The man with the hardest job in the world? Bishop of Arabia.

Well, really the Vicar Apostolic of Arabia, but we get the idea. The mailing address is Abu Dhabi.

Here is an interview from a Swiss weekly with the Swiss Bishop of Arabia, Paul Hinder. He talks verrrrrry carefully about what he is and is not allowed to do in ministering to the faithful in his vicariate, where there are maybe a million Christians. For instance, he is asked about the request to build minarets in Switzerland, and balances that against his church in Qatar:

In Qatar recently, we were permitted to build a church large enough to accommodate 2,700 of the faithful. There is not a church that big in all of Switzerland. But it is true that in the agreement with the government it is clearly stated that no religious symbols should be visible from the exterior. It is only in the interior that Christian symbols are tolerated. If I had not accepted this condition, my request for the building permit would have been rejected. I did not even apply for the permission to build a church tower.

Very interesting!

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)

January 18, 2009

Heaven

In honor of a discussion over at Prof. Althouse's, I'm playing this while I cook dinner for the 'rents:

Title - Artist - Album - play count (since the last time I messed up my iTunes db)

"Heaven" - Talking Heads - Popular Favorites 1976-1983 - 34
"Heaven" - Kim Wilde - Wolvie, Dance 2001, #2 - 8
"One Night In Heaven" - M People - Elegant Slumming, 1993 - 14
"Closer to Heaven" - Pet Shop Boys - Nightlife, 1999 - 16
"Heaven" - The Psychedelic Furs - All of This and Nothing, 1988 - 12
"Heaven Must Have Sent You" - Bonnie Pointer - Mega Hits Dance Classics Volume 3 - 16
"Sheep go to Heaven" - Cake - Prolonging the Magic, 1998 - 18
"Heaven" - Frazier Chorus - Ray, 1991 - 13
"Heaven's Gonna Burn Your Eyes" - Thievery Corporation - The Richest Man In Babylon, 2002 - 10
"In Heaven There Is No Beer" - The Bluebeats - Skankaholics Anonymous, Under The Influence Of Ska, 1997 - 14

I'm not through the list yet, but so far I stand by my comment at Althouse - Talking Heads are Thomists.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:44 PM | Comments (1)

December 9, 2008

End of year giving suggestions

I know that some of you are busy buying Christmas gifts from various crafty monks and nuns. I've ordered some stuff myself. However, if you want to just plain give some money away here at the end of the year, please consider these two excellent causes with convenient, online giving options! Would I steer you to anything unorthodox or inconvenient? No!

Vanderbilt Catholic, the Roman Catholic chaplaincy at Vanderbilt University. Vanderbilt is kind of residually Protestant, a little more like Duke than like Emory in that way. Catholics, though, are probably the largest registered denomination. Go see what they're up to and send them some money to do more!

Dominican Sisters of St Cecilia (the Nashville Dominicans). This order of excellent women is going and growing - they've set up shop in Australia recently! If you've never heard of them, try the video here.

Why are both giving opportunities in Nashville? Well, that's because I'm from Tennessee and both are hallowed for me by personal associations.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 4:53 PM | Comments (0)

The Mayor of Boston looks hard at payment in lieu of taxes - and wants more.

The mayor of Boston wants to renegotiate and standardize the payments in lieu of taxes currently in place between non-profits and the city. The article claims that non-profits of one kind or another own 50% of the property, but are paying $32 million in taxes. Here are two paragraphs you need to read:

Combined, tax-exempt institutions give the city $32.4 million annually in payments in lieu of taxes, a drop in the bucket when compared with what the city spends on police, fire, and other services. If their properties were taxable, the institutions would be writing checks for 10 times that amount - between $350 and $400 million each year, city officials estimated yesterday.

. . .

For example, Boston University contributes $4.6 million each year, the highest of any institution, while Harvard University - which owns twice as much land in Boston - pays $1.9 million. Northeastern University contributes only $30,600.

What a mess. I wish him luck.

via Inside Higher Ed

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:50 AM

November 20, 2008

Early Medieval Church Silver at Dumbarton Oaks

I got to visit Dumbarton Oaks last weekend with my nephews (and sister!) - the Sion Treasure is a highlight for me. It was the perfect preparation for someone to spend the week reading the Liber Pontificalis and its telegraphic mentions of the largesse of the popes. Here's what the LP (in Davis's translation, linked above) says Paschal I gave to the church of Santa Caecilia, which he rebuilt:

For love of the venerable saints [Agatha and Caecilia], to decorate this church [Sta Caecilia in Trastevere] this holy prelate provided an apse adorned with mosaic and a silver canopy of wondrous size, weighing 600 lb 8 oz. He finished and marvellously embellished the holy altar's propitatorium* and the confessio** inside and out, and its grills, with silver sheets, weighing in all 154 lb 15 oz. At this virgin's holy body he presented an image of silver sheets weighing 95 lb. In front of the altar's vestibule he provided a cornice covered in silver sheets and 2 columns, where he placed 1 arch and 2 chevrons, weighing in all 100 1/2 lb. There too he presented 3 sliver-gilt images weighing 48 1/2 lb. For this church's arches this prelate provided 26 great silver chalices weighing in all 109 1/2 lb. There too he presented 2 silver canisters*** with six wicks, weighing 2 lb 9 oz; a fine gold bowl weighing 3 lb. This pontiff provided 2 silver canisters with nine wicks, weighing 10 lb; 3 silver bowls weighing 5 lb.; a silver gilt thurible weighing 1 lb. (LP, Life 100: chapters 19-20)

And that's before the biographer lists the fabrics Paschal donated.

This kind of amazing silver work - Dumbarton Oaks' example probably coming from a provincial monastery in Lycia in Anatolia - was not uncommon in the Mediterranean world. Click and see two other views of the stuff from the same site.

The inscriptions in silver are also splendid and eye-catching - and help liven up for me some of the tedious textual inscriptions I study as evidence for how patrons wanted people to see and use their buildings.

Moments like this also make the neo-Baroque so common in modern 1962 Missal arrangements seem quite dull. This is real silver, not gold leaf or gold thread embroidery. Imagine what people thought about their altars in the 6th century as opposed to what we might surmise from the plaster and gold leaf decorations of the 17th?

*propitatorium - well, it's the word the Vulgate uses for whatever was on top of the Ark of the Covenant - what the KJV calls the "mercy seat." It doesn't show up often in the Liber Pontificalis, so we're not exactly sure what it is except that it was associated with the altar. Some people translate it as "altar frontal." I find that more convincing than "ciborium" or some kind of rear ledge over the altar.
**confessio - the container for the body of the saint.
***cannister - some kind of cylindrical floor-based oil lamp

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:28 PM | Comments (2)

November 9, 2008

Doug Kmiec - bad father?

Hey - his endorsement of Obama on the grounds of superior pro-lifedom is irrelevant here. According to Wikipedia his five children are named:

Kloe Kmiec, Kolleen Kmiec, Kiley Kmiec, Katherine Kmiec, and Keenan Kmiec.

That's probably actionable.

I grew up with a family of double-Js. I always felt faint pity for the children, and hope that it was not a multi-generational problem.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:06 PM | Comments (4)

November 2, 2008

Halloween Idealism from the Philospher-Mom

You know, only an ethicist!

The plastic pumpkin shells we supplied were tossed aside in favor of pillow cases, which were then tossed aside in favor of barrel-sized black drawstring Glad bags. The kids returned, eyes glowing neon with avarice. "Look at how much I got!" was answered by, "Pssh. Wimp. Look at how much I got!" which invariably garnered the whining response, "Hey, they got more than me!" which brought me into the conversation. "I. More than I."

That's when the orange lightbulb came on. We could reclaim the Catholicity of Halloween AND AT THE SAME TIME wage a holy war against avarice.

I went to the basement and got an industrial-sized Rubbermaid storage bin, then placed it on the table. Surrounded by eight variously-towering mountains of candy.

"Put it all in."

The silence was more intense than anything our family had achieved in church.

"Like this -- " I grabbed two fistfuls from random piles. "Put all the candy in the bin. All of it."

Read it all!!

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)

October 24, 2008

Do Baby Drop Offs (and associated laws) help?

The number of infanticide cases has not been reduced since the 2000 introduction of the "baby hatch," where parents can safely and legally surrender their infants to state care, experts said on Thursday.

Authorities have counted the same number of baby killings - an average of 25 per year - though there was a slight increase in 2007, German Ethics Council member Ulrike Riedel said in Berlin during the organization's monthly plenary meeting.

"We can't assume that baby hatches hinder infanticide," she said.

Germany has some 80 baby hatches located at hospitals nationwide, and 130 places where mothers can give birth anonymously, the Ethics Council said. But the number of babies given up each year varies depending on the source.

The federal government reported that since 200, some 143 babies were left in baby hatches and 88 babies given up after anonymous births. But adoption expert Christine Swientek estimated that some 550 babies have been left in baby hatches and 600 left in anonymous birth clinics.

Experts at the meeting did agree that counseling for young women who are considering anonymous birth has been successful. Five of eleven mothers chose not to give up their babies after counseling sessions, Monika Klein, head of a Cologne Catholic women's social service said during the meeting.

I noticed this in the wake of the Nebraska problem with their "drop your minor child off without consequences" law. The picture of a Babyklappe is from Flickr. You really should click on this link to the story to see the stick-figure sign showing how to use such a facility. Überdepressing.*

*I do my best not to steal photographs, which is why I so seldom post things I've just lifted off the web. Think of it as modeling good behavior to my students.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:49 AM | Comments (0)

October 22, 2008

The Humor of hierarchy

Auxiliary walks into the bishop's office in the morning and asks: "Everything ok today?"

Coadjutor walks into the bishop's office and asks: "How are you feeling today?"

Via Fr. Schnippel, who heard it from Archbishop Pilarczyk of Cincinnati at the press conference announcing the appointment of his coadjutor.

For those slow on the hierarchy, auxiliary bishops are just helpers, while coadjutor bishops have the right to succession at the death or retirement of the ordinary bishop. For anyone who's interested in the way the bishop-making process really works in contemporary America (hint - don't look to the skies for a dove bearing a bandarole inscribed with the name of the new bishop), I strongly recommend a book by Rev. Thomas J. Reese, S.J., Archbishop: Inside the Power Structure of the American Catholic Church. Lots of non-leftists like to dislike him, but he's a good sociologist who writes very clearly for a general audience.

The anecdotes in the book are certainly dated - it was published in 1989 - but the structure it describes is unchanged. I read it because I'm a convert and had a good excuse for not knowing these things, but anyone who has ever blogged about why the pope should just dismiss a bishop should read it. Anyone who has ever wondered why the Pontifical North American College is an important place should read it. Anyone who has ever wondered why the bishops thought they could get away with stonewalling in the last decade should read it.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:38 AM | Comments (0)

September 26, 2008

Who says there will always be an England?

From the Guardian:

Geoffrey Robertson QC, the constitutional lawyer who has represented the paper in challenges to the constitutional restrictions, said last night: "I welcome this as two small steps towards a more rational constitution.

"The Act of Settlement determined that the crown shall descend only on Protestant heads and that anyone 'who holds communion with the church of Rome or marries a Papist' - not to mention a Muslim, Hindu, Jew or Rastafarian - is excluded by force of law.

"This arcane and archaic legislation enshrined religious intolerance in the bedrock of the British constitution. In order to hold the office of head of state you must be white Anglo-German Protestant - a descendant of Princess Sophia of Hanover - down the male line on the feudal principle of primogeniture. This is in blatant contravention of the Sex Discrimination Act and the Human Rights Act."

The next stage, he said, was for the government to challenge the notion of a head of state who achieved the position through inheritance. [my emphases]

Modernity takes another step against continuity and in favor of rupture, this time in the name of Human Rights. By the way, I'm not at all sure there's a current problem with mixed race descendants of Princess Sophia of Hanover, so long as they're Anglicans. William or Harry could marry nice Nigerian noblewomen (and goodness knows there are lots of kings there!) and their children would have no constitutional problem.

We see that all this is a pretext. Labour doesn't really care about Catholic princesses or hypothetical Rastafarian princes - the goal is the abolition of the Windsors as hereditary heads of state. They messed with the House of Lords and this is next on the agenda. Not that the craven Tories seem like they'd be likely to resist something like this particularly fiercely, but they might not propose it.

Of course the pressure of Modernity has already reduced any sense of majesty a great deal - I feel more like a historic preservationist than a partisan, as though my feelings in favor of keeping a monarchy around are antiquarian. Alas!

I won't even comment on Robertson's use of the f-word in the 3rd paragraph.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:37 AM | Comments (1)

August 19, 2008

Web Latinity Coolness

The Society of St John Cantius, one of those groups offering the Mass according to the 1962 edition of the Missal, has a redesigned home page.

The cleverest new feature is a prominently displayed button linking to their Amazon.com wishlist! That's a smart way for a new group to build up a library of both reference and teaching copies of important books; this way they'll get the things they think they need, not just random donations. Very sharp! Lots of organizations could stand to imitate this.

Beside the button:

Help us build our Latin Library and Music Library
{Button} Improve our parish music library and donate music for your favorite Mass, from Mozart to Palestrina. Donate through Amazon.com to help the Canons Regular build a top notch Latin Library.

Some of their choices strike me as a little strange (this one, a Medieval Latin-English manuscript dictionary, seems particularly perverse for anyone not studying 15th Century England - but maybe that's what's going on?), but I'm not teaching their novices or their Religious Ed, so who am I to complain? Click and give 'em something, if it floats your boat!

-----------
Further:

Ah - I didn't realize they were down to 28 desired items out of 141. Many of the most reasonable items have already been bought for them! Sorry.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 2:10 PM | Comments (0)

July 29, 2008

TLM Communities and Google Maps

So I don't want to start any new non-fiction big medievalist books before I leave town tomorrow. And I was a little bored last night. And I'd been wanting to play with Google's personal mapping functions. And I've spent WAY too much time reading What Does The Prayer Really Say and The New Liturgical Movement and such lately.

So here you go -
1. residences and rectories of
2. groups, orders, etc., who are
3. in union with the Pope of Rome and
4. say Mass primarily with the Missal of Bl. John XXIII

View Larger Map

So far I've got the:

FSSP in blue
ICKSP (link not safe for work if you dwell in chant-averse lands) in purpleish pink - I wanted purple for obvious reasons but Google doesn't get that far up the color scale
CRSJC in yellow

2 disclaimers -
1. Not mass locations, residences. I'm more interested in community dispersion or concentration than I am in individual masses. I'm an historian, not a devoté here. I'm depending on the public information on their websites and sometimes there are ambiguities. For instance, the Institute of Christ the King has at least 2 oratories in the Bay Area, but there really only seems to be one priest (going by the bulletins online). Not that you can tell without compulsively reading that kind of thing.

2. I am not, myself, all that interested in the Extraordinary Form. I'm happy with a well-ordered and reverent Missal of Paul VI mass - the Reform of the Reform is just fine with me. I was very happy with the Oratory in Rome this spring. But I live in the Diocese of Rochester, so I'm hoping for a new springtime and the revivification going on in this movement seems like the best thing for the Church lately.

- - -
further - I've already accepted a name-change for the parish in Vancouver, BC. Suggestions welcome!
- - -
further still - added a 2nd location in St. Louis, MO

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:16 PM

June 29, 2008

I have never written a letter to a liturgy committee.

I have never written a letter to a liturgy committee, but there's always a first time for everything.

The parish has instituted an evening mass at the Colleges' chapel as a year round thing - yay! mass on campus is no longer under threat! However, the music has been pretty - um - minimal. Tonight was a man and woman - he played the guitar. They both had quite nice voices. I didn't like their hymn selections much (we started out with "They will know that we are Christians" and went on from there), but it was the recessional that has me stunned:

"How Great Thou Art" to a harmonica accompaniment.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:06 PM | Comments (3)

June 13, 2008

Talking about . . . religion, education, professors, a core curriculum, Darwin

Go read this interview with a Univ of Chicago professor. All of it. I can't find the heart to comment, but I'll pull out some quotations to tempt you:

And so I specialized in religions that are dead, which has the great advantage that nobody talks back. No one says, “That’s not what I heard last Sunday!” Everybody’s dead. And I like that. Now, I sometimes have to deal with religions that keep going. And they’re more problematic because then you deal with people who believe things. They also find their own beliefs puzzling or challenging or interesting—they’re almost synonyms. So they have not only their beliefs, but their interpretations of those beliefs. And I have my interpretations of their beliefs. Sometimes we can sit like this and negotiate it. Other times it’s in a book or transcript. And then in a third sense you have to run back and forth. You have to represent both sides of the conversation as you try to figure out what it’s all about. You get good at doing that with dead people because you’ll never hear from them because you have to do it all the time. And that’s what a historian does. They run back and forth to make both sides of a conversation happen.

And most people who teach religion have a clear relationship with the religions. I cannot. Obviously, most of them are dead, I would get in trouble with the ASPCA [American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals] if I sacrificed a bull ox to Zeus. I have a friend who recently died, but he actually decided to show kids what a sacrifice looks like, so he sacrificed a lamb at Easter time. “We talk about it so much—here’s what it looks like!” Half the class puked, half the class had angry letters from mommy and daddy. But he did demonstrate that it’s not just a metaphor. It’s a messy and not altogether pleasant process. Since [then] we’ve converted it entirely into an economic question. I ask students the meaning of sacrifice, and they always start talking about “mommy and daddy sacrificing so I could go to college.” We’ve been at war for four years, and I haven’t heard one person yet say some soldier sacrificed themselves. That language is gone. It’s entirely economic.

I was told [curtailing the Core] was done to increase electivity, and I think electivity is a good idea. I also think being told what you should do is also a good idea, as long as there are options. But it turns out that’s not actually how it’s been used. It’s been used to carve out spaces for double majors, to which I am unalterably opposed. One major is bad enough. I would like to abolish majors altogether. So two is unbelievable. And then you find out one is for mommy and daddy and one is for you, so then I thought let’s take this issue head-on and stop this crap. It seems to me that majors ought to be flexible enough that if you were in history and then suddenly said my real interest is in biology, they might say, “Well, why don’t you look into the history of biology”—I mean we’ve got a whole fucking library called the Crerar Library of the History of Science. I mean, they ought to be able to find some way to fit you in.

Now, the thing about a Core is it really has to represent a hard-won faculty consensus. I mean, it can’t be “we’ll put this one in for that group, and we’ll put this one in for that group.” It has to be that of all the books we could possibly inflict on you—only in 10 weeks, and you waste the first week, you waste the last week, so you’ve got eight weeks. If they’re not crazy, they’re going to take two weeks to read a book. So you’re down to four books. Now what that Core really ought to be doing is saying that if there were only these four books in the world—or the other way around, out of all the books in the world, these are the four books you should read. If they’re not prepared to say that, they should shut up shop. That’s my first comment. I find too much politics, too much accommodation. “We can’t get the so-and-sos to join us unless we read this.” And they don’t care what it is, it’s got to be a little bit of this, or the economists won’t join the social science core, or something.

via Prof. Soltan.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:11 AM

June 9, 2008

Query about a Cardinal? Go here!

Have a question about a cardinal? Go here - the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church!

The site explains its purpose thus: A digital resource created and produced by Salvador Miranda, consisting of the biographical entries of the cardinals from 1185 to 2008 and of the events and documents concerning the origin of the Roman cardinalate and its historical evolution.

I had a question - did Federico Borromeo, who followed his uncle Carlo into the cardinalate and the episcopacy, ending as Archbishop of Milan, take up the same titular church in Rome - Santa Prassede? The answer, no! Thank you, Mr. Miranda!

Carlo Borromeo:
Cardinalate. Created cardinal deacon in the consistory of January 31, 1560; received the red hat and the deaconry of Ss. Vito e Modesto, February 14, 1560. . . . Opted for the title of S. Martino ai Monti, pro illa vice declared deaconry, September 4, 1560. . . . Opted for the order of cardinal priests, retaining the title of S. Martino ai Monti, restored to the rank of title, June 4, 1563. . . . Opted for the title of S. Prassede, November 17, 1564.

Federico Borromeo:
Cardinalate. Created cardinal deacon in the consistory of December 18, 1587; received the red hat and the deaconry of S. Maria in Domnica, January 15, 1588. Opted for the deaconry of Ss. Cosma e Damiano, January 9, 1589. Opted for the deaconry of S. Agata in Suburra, March 20, 1589. Participated in the two conclaves of 1590. Opted for the deaconry of S. Nicola in Carcere, January 14, 1591.

Priesthood. Opted for the order of cardinal priests, September 17, 1593; the title of S. Maria degli Angeli was assigned to him, October 25, 1593.

Interesting, though, Federico's first titular church was Santa Maria in Domnica, built by the same pope who built Santa Prassede - and given Federico's interest in early Christian and medieval art, especially mosaics, there's no way he wouldn't have known that.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:35 AM

May 9, 2008

Death of an Ecclesial Community

I've been following the end of Seabury-Western Theological Seminary with some interest - it's always luridly interesting for someone like me to see how a board of trustees can fire an entire tenured faculty by declaring financial exigency. Hobart and William Smith has a long relationship with Seabury-Western - our previous chaplain, indeed, left these Colleges for a chair at Seabury-Western. I also have been an irregular reader of AKMA's Random Thoughts, a blog from a Seabury faculty member for a few years.

Here's the board's own position on the closure. Note the wishful thinking in the last paragraph about keeping a doctoral program open. How do you do that without a faculty?

Captain Yips points out a lo-how-the-mighty-are-fallen moment in the affair:

Considering Seabury-Western's collapse, it's worth noting that the Seabury Board thinks that they need $18.7 million, and that this goal "significantly exceeded Seabury’s fundraising capabilities."

It's not a small amount, to be sure, but in the fundraising and nonprofit worlds $18.7 mil is relative chicken feed. There was a time that a more confident and assertive Episcopal Church could have raised that money (in 1890 dollars) over lunch at the millionaire's table at the Chicago Club, from some guys named Field, Armour, Pullman, Shedd, Higginbotham, and Swift - and for this purpose, the older version of TEC would have had a seat at that table. Some of the millionaires were, to be sure, scoundrels, but they were civic minded scoundrels, and the amount needed would have barely dented their resources. Northwestern University's top student charity fundraiser, Dance Marathon, pulls in $700,000 every year. That Seabury doesn't even consider the effort is an interesting marker on the road to collapse.

Really. They didn't try to raise a little less than $20 million to save an institution in Chicago? Admittedly, the alumni/ae of seminaries are seldom sources of large contributions, but whatever happened to all those rich Episcopalians?

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:48 AM

April 27, 2008

Il Papa on the Jumbotron

I did get over to the Angelus today. The weather was beyond perfect and the crowd was bigger than I've ever seen.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:01 PM | Comments (0)

April 23, 2008

Gimme Gothic

I know all my students climbed the dome of St. Peter's and to the top of the Duomo in Florence, but I prefer my rooftop experiences pointy and Gothic.



I'm standing on the flattish roof ridge of the Duomo in Milan - all marble, all the time.


Milan photoset.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:35 AM

April 13, 2008

Reform of the reform

One reason I haven't church-hopped much this year in Rome (well, besides this week, when I might have had trouble getting on and off busses to do so or last week when I didn't go to Mass at all because I didn't leave the apartment Saturday, Sunday, or Monday until 3 p.m.) is the 11 a.m. Missa Canta at Chiesa Nuova. They have a small but excellent (to my ears*) schola singing in Latin. The ordinary is in Italian, but the mix is good for my Italian, too. Not an ad orientem mass, but six candles and a crucifix across the altar. Brick by brick.

*I am tolerant of people who don't know much about art but know what they like because I don't know much about music but I know what I like. Toleration does not imply letting people like them on committees to make decisions about buildings or letting me on liturgy committees with control over music. These are not highly transferable skills - many people who do music I like very much like art I find distressing - and they also are willing to do music I find distressing. I'm sure they feel the same about my willingness to coexist with good modern architecture.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:05 PM

March 23, 2008

Resurrexit

So here in Rome it's already Sunday, and He's risen. Yay!

They baptized two babies at the Oratory - and that was quite enough! For a recessional the organist broke into the "Hallelujah Chorus." I suppose I was the only person in the building who knew all the words in the original, for once.

For the more visual than aural among us, I offer Piero della Francesca's version - the greatest of all Renaissance resurrections. If you don't believe me just click and enlarge.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:33 AM | Comments (2)

March 20, 2008

20th Century Catholic Movements (not very much) in America

I'm reading obituaries for Chiara Lubich, founder of Focolare and clearly a future saint and wondering if there is a another group with such a world-wide presence less present in America.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:14 AM | Comments (0)

March 19, 2008

Class prep + Holy Week = Credit towards Heaven?

Bring on the Doctrine of Works - I'm having a good week!

So I'm previewing my favorite mosaics on the Quirinal Hill this afternoon for class tomorrow - I run by Santa Pudenziana, check on Santa Prassede, and hit Santa Maria Maggiore last - and just in time for the Wednesday after Palm Sunday Stational Mass with Penitential Procession. The presiding bishop was a little frighteningly doddery - I saw him holding his chest at one point while the procession was coming back up the aisle, and I'm not sure he was clutching his pectoral cross. The music was splendid - the kind of thing that having a college of canons can do for you! I made use of one of the Dominicans in the college of confessors, too, while I was at it. Is there a plenary indulgence on offer here? Readers?

I've told my students that unless they really want the vast sea of devotion thing they should evade St. Peter's this week and go to the other great basilicas - especially for the Easter Vigil. For the Easter Vigil myself I'm torn between going to Sta Prassede, as I did in 2003 (when, to be sure, it was within easy walking distance of my apartment) and going next door to Chiesa Nuova. I'm really not much of a church hopper when it comes to mass - I tend to go to the same place over and over anyway. Living next door to Chiesa Nuova has been very nice!

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:54 PM

March 13, 2008

Sabina - the best day-trip ever!

We had splendid weather today for a trip to Sabina - after a week of showers and dicey grey skies we met a bus at Termini and headed north.

By happenstance (sheer small worldism) my colleague Nick Ruth met Nicole Franchini, an alumna of William Smith College (the female half of the Hobart and William Smith coordinate system). Nicole has lived in Italy for more than 20 years, most recently in Rome. She and her family also have a house in the Sabine Hills.

Nicole arranged our trip today - and maybe even the weather!

We started at Farfa, one of the great imperial abbeys of medieval Italy - think of the abbey in The Name of the Rose but a little further south in the peninsula. One of the two Carolingian towers survives with a a bit of the Westwork beside it (and a chunk of painted wall - go look at the pictures on Flickr!). The body of the current church is later and perpendicular to the Carolingian building.

We had a good tour of Farfa and then headed on to Casperia, an incredibly beautiful hill town. There were other incredibly beautiful hill towns within sight, as was Mount Soracte, beloved of Horace, who seems to have had a view of it from his Sabine Farm.

Nicole had arranged a buffet luncheon on a terrace / piazza, then dessert and coffee at the house of the restaurant owners afterwards. We wandered around town for a little while, then back to Rome. The students seemed happy in a stunned-by-the-beauty kind of way. I certainly enjoyed myself!

We have to turn our story in to the Pulteney Street Survey, these Colleges' alumnae/i magazine!

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:17 PM

March 12, 2008

"New" Sins

The Daily Telegraph tells us: Failing to recycle plastic bags could find you spending eternity in Hell, the Vatican said after drawing up a list of seven deadly sins for our times.

Of course, that's not what the Cardinal said - see here.

Me, I'm sorry he wasn't saying that not recycling plastic bags will send you straight to hell, because I can manage to avoid THAT one.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:32 AM

March 6, 2008

Meet the blogger...

I also met a blogger today - something that I, who usually live in scenic Geneva, NY, seldom do.

Zadok the Roman invited me to meet him outside the Cancelleria, where he had a class this afternoon. We got caffé, then he showed me the Sala Riario (named after the cardinal who built the palazzo) and the Sala dei Cento Giorni, painted by Giorgio Vasari.

I had never been further than the Bramante courtyard. Here's the best picture I can find on the web of the Sala dei Cento Giorni, which is as good an answer in paint to the question "What is Mannerism?" as the Villa Giulia is for architecture. The name of the room comes from the funniest anecdote in Renaissance art history (a field of striking solemnity and self-importance, I usually find). Vasari, now better known as a biographer than a painter, showed the room to his old master MIchelangelo and bragged that he had completed the work in 100 days. Michelangelo said, "It shows." I rather liked it, but then I have decadent tendencies. Paul III surveying New St Peter's dressed as the Jewish High Priest really made me happy! There was a scene of the distribution of cardinals hats to semi-nude men in advanced states of ascetical skinniness that made no sense at all - that's Mannerism for you!

I enjoyed meeting Zadok. He had to stay for a lecture in the glorious Sala Riario on the Internal Forum from James, Cardinal Stafford. Sad to say, even princes of the Church use PowerPoint. I skedaddled.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 5:38 PM

March 2, 2008

This Way to the Miraculous Statue!

I went to Sta Maria in Aracoeli today for the first time this trip - if you've ever climbed those stairs you'll know why I was putting it off until I needed to go for class prep! No pictures of the interior, much as I love it, other than this awful 1960s sign (at least I always think of them as 1960s - maybe they're 50s?) pointing to the chapel with the miraculous statue of the Infant Jesus. It oozes oil or some such and wears a particularly horrid 19th Century crown, but when taken to hospitals there are occasional miraculous cures. Me, I prefer the image of the Virgin on the high altar, but I didn't take a picture of it.

It was a beautiful morning on the Capitoline, though - just gorgeous. Click and see.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:56 PM

February 25, 2008

The world's ugliest pulpit?

This pulpit at the front of the cathedral in Pisa may be the worst piece of 20th century religious art I've ever seen - and I've seen some doozies! Mind you, it's all marble. To make matters worse, it's within yards of one of the lovelier pulpits, by Giovanni Pisano from around 1300. I do not think this is a kneejerk medievalist reaction in favor of the Gothic (in fact, I don't much like late Gothic Italian sculpture), but look at those horrible shapes in the new pulpit! And the colors? What were they thinking? Oh, well - it looks like it will be easy to remove, someday.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 4:18 PM

February 18, 2008

The Bones of St Peter

We had another amazing-layers-of-Rome day today - the excavations under St Peter's, also known as the least pleasant place to try to arrange a tour in Rome that actually purports to be open to the public. Yes, you have to pay in advance. No, you can't necessarily choose the day you want to go. Oh, well. Luckily 1 of my 2 groups had an English speaking tour guide (a PNAC student). I haven't heard how group 1 went, but they had an Italian speaker (though she soundly vaguely Hispanophone to me while she was handing out the tickets).

I think my folks were pretty prepared. I'll put it this way, they had very few questions other than "where is John Paul II buried." That part made me feel cheerful about the semester so far.

Still and all, the tomb of St Peter is pretty amazing for students in a course like this. Folks are welcome to believe that Christ is not God and that these aren't actually the bones of St Peter, but there's just no arguing that there was considerable pilgrimage to this tomb at the traditional site of the burial by the end of the 1st century, within 30-40 years of Peter's death. And the only reason not to be sure it was earlier is that what we have left is the first remodeling of the original tomb. Talk about the hermeneutic of continuity! I still would have preferred to do this before San Clemente, but that's the Office of the Excavations for you.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:50 PM

February 7, 2008

San Clemente - a very layered site

Yesterday afternoon I got to San Clemente for a preview visit - I'm taking the Layers of Rome class there next week. Here's the basilica's site - go look - it's great! It includes what they're calling virtual reality views - draggable 360 images.

The Irish Dominicans have had the church since the 17th Century, and a Fr. Mulloly got to excavating under the building in the mid 19th C only to find that under the early Christian church was a 1st Century building dating to after the fire of 64 (Nero's fire). They also found a Mithraeum built into that level - underlying the later apses of the churches. There must have been a time when the Early Christian church was operating in one building while in the basement next door people were bathing in bull's blood! Exciting!

When Mithraism was suppressed in the late 4th Century the Mithraeum was filled in - and eventually the church of Saint Clement, the 3rd pope, expanded over it - a bit of architectural triumphalism, if they knew what they were building over.

There are some surviving 9th-11th century paintings in the lower church (they don't allow photography), one of which has an inscription that's a nice bit of early vernacular Italian.

Then there's the upper church, built using the early Christian church as a foundation - they just filled it in and started over on a slightly narrower scale. They reused lots of pieces, but the Cosmatesque floor is amazing.

The apse mosaic is strikingly odd - it's one of the few that doesn't draw on Early Christian models, instead putting a crucifix on a giant field of vine scrolls growing out of an acanthus (see - they're everywhere). The cross beams are occupied by doves. Very odd, like I said.
Then there's the Cyril and Methodius connection - St. Cyril is buried here, and the place is a major pilgrimage spot for Slavs of all sorts.

I'm looking forward to what the Layers class makes of the whole place.

Click over to the photo stream on flickr and see a lot more views of San Clemente.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:28 PM

February 5, 2008

Flavian Amphitheater - the long axis

Layers of Rome went to the Flavian Amphitheater (the Colosseum) yesterday - I was pretty pleased with how this picture came out as a photograph. The partial arena floor is a restoration made for the 2000 Jubilee; I think it helps understand the building a lot -before the floor went in it was possible to misunderstand the substructure as having been visible. They also had some great models of mechanisms for animal lifting - none of those pictures came out very well. We're looking here down the long axis. The imperial box was to our right and the Vestal Virgins to the left on the short axis.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:24 PM

There! Sant'Andrea della Valle

There! That was my compensation during the world's longest low mass.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:17 PM

February 4, 2008

It was the best of masses, it was the worst of masses . . .

Sant'Andrea del Valle is one of my favorite churches in Rome - certainly my favorite of the big Baroque basilicas - here's a nice site with lots of images. I could have sworn I'd already posted a picture on flickr - goodness knows I've taken some! It is the home in Rome at least of the Theatine Fathers, an order with very little presence in America - though they seem to have a parish in Denver. I went to mass at Sant'Andrea on Sunday. Ack!

On the one hand, I understood almost every word the priest said. He spoke slowly and enunciated beautifully (not that most Italians don't - Italian is sometimes like birds singing - but it's often too fast for me!). It reminded me of my favorite news show - the news summary for the deaf with a split screen, one side sign and one side spoken clearly and slowly for the lip readers. THAT I can always follow.

The problem was that he said so many, many extra words. It was slow, deliberate, and so catechetical I could scream. We are the church. We are the poor in spirit. We are a people of the beatitudes. There was talking before mass started, talking before each reading, a long homily, and instructions during the canon. A very low mass took 80 minutes. Lets just say that by the end I'm not sure my disposition was such as one would like to have at mass.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:58 PM

January 28, 2008

Everything's better in Rome . . .

When, during the fall of 2006 I was deciding about whether or not to apply to co-direct the Rome program this year one of my concerns was that right about now I feared I would be losing my mind because of - um - anticipating certain news. My colleague the baroquista convinced me to go ahead by reminding me that, after all, everything's better in Rome, even waiting to hear the final tenure decision.

She is right.

And I survived the final hurdle - the Board of Trustees decided not to reject various and sundry recommendations and the decision of the president of these Colleges.

I would like very much to thank everyone who helped me and pushed me and prayed for me and such.

Oh - and I got to kiss the arm-bone of St. Thomas Aquinas this evening, too! It's his memorial and I made it through solemn vespers and mass at Sta Maria sopra Minerva without coughing too much and got to venerate the relic - everything's better in Rome!

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:27 PM

January 27, 2008

Friday church going

I spent most of Friday afternoon at Sta. Pudenziana, Sta Prassede, and Sta Maria Maggiore, 3 of my favorite churches in Rome. At Sta Pudenziana I got to take this picture of the apse mosaic from the organ loft - it pays to chat up tour guides!

This is the earliest surviving apse mosaic in Rome and quite interesting. Christ is seated on an elaborate, gemmed chair which is NOT an imperial throne (well, if you believe T. Mathews The Clash of Gods argument), but a divine throne similar to the one the Phidian Zeus sat on at Olympia. My students are going to learn it that way, since they brought Mathews with them - one of the big course threads is looking at how unstable and diverse the early images of Jesus are and how they settle down at the end of the period.

Then there's the text in the mosaic, which is also appropriates soemthing from Jupiter/Zeus, this time one of his titles. The pages of the codex Jesus is holding read:DOMINUS CONSERVATOR ECCLESIAE PUDENTIANAE (sorry it's a little hard to read - my details from Friday didn't come out well enough to post). A really clever article a while ago argued really convincingly, and in advance of Mathews on iconography, that the use of CONSERVATOR is a lift from Jupiter conservator urbis and helps us date the mosaic to just after the 410 Visigothic sack.* Someone is paralleling Christ's preservation of churches, which were not sacked, with Jupiter's earlier title. In the context of conservative, pagan Rome that was quite a pointed usage.

*Schlatter, F.W. "The Text in the Mosaic of Santa Pudenziana." Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 43, No. 2. (Jun., 1989), pp. 155-165. I didn't pull that out of my head - JSTOR is my friend.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:00 PM

December 30, 2007

Year-end giving opportunity - the Vanderbilt Catholic Chaplaincy!

Looking for somewhere to send a check and get a tax deduction? Father Baker doesn't have online giving set up (hint hint!), but get it postmarked and I'm sure he'll send you all the receipt you'll need:

Vanderbilt Catholic Community
2417 West End Avenue
Nashville, Tennessee 37240

There's this, but it still involves a mailed check.

I'm not going to use superlatives here - it would be ridiculous. Just know that Fr. Baker is doing fine work.

Here an excerpt from the Giving to VanderbiltCatholic page:

Bishop Choby last summer gave me the privilege of becoming the first diocesean chaplain at Vanderbilt University in 35 years. As a native Nashvillian and a graduate of Vanderbilt Law School (1989), I have great affinity for Vanderbilt. As a priest I have a great desire to offer Jesus Christ in the sacraments to this generation and to present to them the fullness of the truth of Jesus Christ embodied in our ancient faith so that these young adults may in their own right choose whom they will follow.

I am writing you because of your love of the Church and your relationship to Vanderbilt. I know that you are aware that a university campus is a cacophony of voices recruiting for all kinds of causes and commitments. It is clear that the Church and serious Catholics have a duty to enter the fray in order to encourage these young people in their faith and to counteract the enormous pressures being brought upon them by the world, the flesh, and the devil, especially in their first years of independent decision making.

The harvest is plentiful at Vanderbilt, even though at present the workers are few. It is estimated that 25-30% of Vanderbilt students are Catholic. I had an active first year on the campus, with six RCIA candidates and five other students confirmed, daily Mass and confessions, and a more active student organization. In order to see how we should grow at Vanderbilt, I had the opportunity to visit some of the most dynamic Catholic campus ministries in the country. Two of the “best practices” that we have the opportunity to bring to Vanderbilt are the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) and the Awakening retreat program. FOCUS will place four well-trained recent college graduates at Vanderbilt to be missionaries to the campus. The Awakening retreat comes from Texas A&M, which has more graduates enter seminary and religious life than any school in the nation, and is now in place on many campuses.

He does have an online Mass Intention form! Cool, but not fundraising. Send money. I did.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:52 PM

December 7, 2007

Ave atque vale.

Fr. Jim Tucker gives up blogging.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:08 PM

November 27, 2007

Stational events for Lent

Does anyone know where I can find the list of 2008 papal appearances during Lent? I both wish to participate AND to avoid some! You know how it is. Oh - and I have the regular stational list - it's papal appearances I'm interested in.

Under the Liturgical Year link, the Holy See site doesn't have 2008 posted yet!

Oh - don't try to make fancy html links in the comments - you'll just get moved to the spam file.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 4:55 PM | Comments (2)

November 25, 2007

I Know there are some funny conversations over dinner tonight at the convent in Nashville . . .

The headline calls the St. Cecilia Domincans Buzzworthy. Well, yes, I suppose they are!

Here's the Washington Post story about the Dominicans and the new Catholic high school they have agreed to staff in Northern Virginia. A paragraph:

But the cheery 42-year-old brings another major layer of buzz to the Arlington Diocese because she is a member of the Nashville Dominicans, rock stars in the world of Catholic religious orders. Although the number of religious sisters in the United States has plunged since the 1960s, resulting in an average age of about 70, there has been an increase in recent years among traditional, habit-wearing orders, including the Nashville-based Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, which has 226 members and a median age of 35. It recently raised $46 million to expand its chapel because the sisters were spilling into the hall. [my emphasis]

Here's their own website.

Here are my previous posts on the Congregation.

They're Rock Stars! Wouldn't "Members of the Country Music Hall of Fame" have been better? Still, I think you should send them money! You know, end of the tax year and all.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:20 PM

October 18, 2007

Think Purgatory is a doctrine caused by the rising numeracy and temporalization of Medieval Europe?

Then get a look at this mechanization of the process! The Doctrine of Works goes automatic!

Every Catholic grammar school needs one!

Via Don Jim.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:00 AM | Comments (0)

September 21, 2007

Catholic Nomenclature

Fr. Z at What Does the Prayer Really Say? is running a poll - what to call things?

What should we call Holy Mass according to the 1962 Missal?
* Tridentine Mass
* classical Mass
* Latin Mass
* pre-Conciliar Mass
* Mass of all time
* the true Mass
* extraordinary form/use (forma extraodinaria)
* usus antiquior
* vetus ordo
* older form of Mass
* Mass of Bl. John XXIII
* immemorial Mass
* Mass of St. Pius V
* traditional Mass
* Johannine Mass
* Traditional Latin Mass or TLM

Me, I'm going with vetus ordo.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:11 PM

August 8, 2007

Piles of Dominicans

Via Amy Welborn's new Charlotte was Both I came across a big Dominican post, which took me to the vocations blog for the Dominican Province of St. Joseph (the East). There I noticed they have a 32-year-record incoming class of postulants. I click to read more.

The first is from Geneva, NY. The 7th is from Corning. So two out of the 15 are from the Diocese of Rochester? Interesting.

Congratulations to the St Joseph's province!

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 3:44 PM | Comments (0)

August 6, 2007

Eeeek!

Hit counters all over St. Blogs are gonna feel this.

Go here now.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:35 PM

July 28, 2007

A new Pugin book

Here's an interesting review of a new book on A.W.N. Pugin, one of the most interesting of the Gothic Revival architects. The review starts:

IN THE SUMMER OF 1852 A 40-year-old man was in a secure room in Bethlem Hospital for the Insane; he recognised no one, not even his wife; his head had been shaved, and he had become what was described as “very dirty in his habits”. This was the man who, six months before, had designed the clock tower now known as Big Ben. His name was Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin.

Yes, there was always something a little over the top about Pugin - maybe more than a little bit. His book Contrasts is one of my favorite examples of both Gothic Revivalism and architectural polemic on behalf of any style. He offers the viewer side-by-side views of England before the Reformation and as she was in the 1840s - and it isn't pretty. Dickens makes a nice comparison (one the reviewer draws).

Here's one pair - the Chapel Royal, Brighton and St. George's Chapel, Windsor. Pugin means every bit of it, down to the choice of nomenclature. A 'chapel royal' puts more stress on the royal family - and the personification of royal immorality, George IV, since we're talking Brighton - than on the company of the saints. Pugin also means us to see the contrast between the stage decoration of Brighton - look at the curtains above - and the perpendicular style ceiling at Windsor as the difference between meretriciousness and truth: truth to materials produces truth to style - and is intimately tied to truth in Religion. Pointed Architecture, which is how Pugin mainly designated Gothic, is Christian Architecture.

And here's a more Dickensian point - Contrasted Residences for the Poor - the Panopticon vs. the Almshouse. Did you know there are still almshouses? My friend at mirabilis.ca sent me a link to one she visited once - where she received a pilgrim's badge! The Hospital of St Cross, near Winchester. Click and then follow the link for Brothers to see the badge-men (click, click on 'badge,' scroll to definition #4 - or search for badge-man). Now go back to Pugin's vision of an almshouse. I'm willing to bet cash money that the outfits the pensioners at St Cross wear now are in fact a mid-19th century revival, not a continuous survival.

I'm working on an article on Richard Upjohn, an English immigrant to America who revolutionized architecture here - both by bringing a rigor to the practice of Gothic Revival and by founding the American Institute of Architects. Upjohn had copies of at least 5 Pugin books, including True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture. That fun fact comes from a handy article by Judith Hull, "The 'School of Upjohn': Richard Upjohn's Office," about Upjohn's work as an architectural educator in the days before schools of architecture in America, the first of which (MIT) opened in 1866.

The Victorian architects inspired a lot of derision in the early 20th century, but Pugin inspires devotion today - there's a Pugin Society, devoted to, among other things, saving Pugin buildings.

Click here and see the Pugin pictures (including a great view of Big Ben) from the Gothic Revival group on Flickr. The altar above is a Pugin from the group.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:10 AM

July 8, 2007

In honor of the Motu Proprio we hit bottom in the diocese of Rochester

I was thinking during Mass that I was going to come home and write about this summer's mass setting at St Stephen's Church in Geneva. I like the idea that we stick to one mass setting in the summer so that we learn how to sing it, but this year we've been listening to various small ensembles sing the Canedo/Hurd Mass of Glory - listening, because it's too syncopated for congregational singing. It's a triumph of the soloists over the congregation. Worst of all has to be the Sanctus (pardon me - the Holy), which has a decidedly bluesy sound and is far too hard for congregations. I'm not really sure that's the worst - the Alleluia is too long. I think that many parish music folks forget that these big-name mass settings were written for events, like eucharistic congresses and such. Traveling music (and let's face it, the Alleluia is traveling music for someone to get to the lectern and read) should only take as long as the journey. If a deacon is going to read and therefore gets the priest's blessing first and then moves to lectern (and maybe even censes the book!) we need a long Alleluia with repetitions. In a simple parish mass we don't. So the Holy is worse musically, but the Alleluia is worse to sit through.

But this was my first exposure to the new parochial vicar. He introduced himself before beginning the mass - ordained three years ago (here's the Catholic Courier story). He chanted the preface quite creditably! My heart was lifted.

So, we listened to the Holy. Communion. Final announcement that there would be punch and cookies to welcome the new parochial vicar. Recessional - the old reliable Be not afraid. After two verses a voice broke in on the loudspeaker:

Fr. Bill! We have something to tell you!

And then the pianist vamps a few bars and the choir of men over 60 launches into Consider yourself at home. Yes. From Oliver.

What's wrong with a little good-humored singing?

1. It interrupts the recessional
2. It's secular.
3. It's a SHOWTUNE!
4. In its original context (a context known to everyone in America who's ever been IN it, which has to be a lot of folks) it's a song welcoming a young apprentice to a life of crime!!
5. IT'S COMING FROM THE SANCTUARY.

I almost had a stroke. I'm afraid I muttered something unedifying.

Well, at least the recessional didn't end with meat packers dancing with slabs of beef over their heads. Praise Jesus for small mercies. If someone felt the need to welcome him in song, couldn't it have happened over punch and cookies?

I think it was symptomatic of what needs to be corrected in the Roman Catholic Church in America. Pray for priests and laypeople who wish to do something about the liturgical life of their churches. They'll need it.

further:
Lest anyone engage in any simple causation argumentation, this is a church with Perpetual Adoration. Honest. No one thing will help.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:58 AM

July 2, 2007

BEEEG Mosaic

Oh my! This is a big mosaic project at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in DC.

The workers will place nearly 2.4 million of the colored glass tiles — each less than an inch in length and width — transforming 3,780 square feet of plain, gray ceiling into a mosaic depicting four scenes from the life of Jesus Christ.

The artwork, which will cover the ceilings of the three domes of the basilica, has been 40 years in the making — from gathering donations, drawing up plans and hiring artists. When completed, the mosaics will fulfill the original vision of Bishop Thomas Shahan, who oversaw the construction of the shrine nearly 85 years ago.

. . .

The first mosaic, covering the ceiling of the Redemption Dome, was completed and dedicated in November after about a year of construction. Artists on May 29 began the second mosaic, which is still under construction, on the Incarnation Dome. Work is expected to begin on the third — and by far the largest — dome, the Trinity, after the current project is completed in November.

via Catholic Light.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:05 AM

June 25, 2007

Prayer for the Motu Proprio

via Fr. Zuhlsdorf, a prayer initiative for the Motu Proprio on the older form of the Mass.* Be humble - you may be the 'hard of heart' without realizing it.

May the hard of heart yield to the Holy Spirit when hearing of Vicar of Christ’s will.
May the eager rejoice graciously and with true thanksgiving to God.
May the ignorant seek first to learn before making judgments.
May the learned offer comments in charity.
May our priests use considered prudence.
May our bishops be generous and paternal.
VENI, Sancte Spiritus, reple tuorum corda fidelium, et tui amoris in eis ignem accende.
V. Emitte Spiritum tuum et creabuntur;
R. Et renovabis faciem terrae.
Oremus:
DEUS, qui corda fidelium Sancti Spiritus illustratione docuisti: da nobis in eodem Spiritu recta sapere, et de eius semper consolatione gaudere. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

[or for the hard of heart]
COME, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and kindle in them the fire of Thy love.
V. Send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created
R. And Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.
Let us pray:
O GOD, Who taught the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant that, by the gift of the same Spirit, we may be always truly wise, and ever rejoice in His consolation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

*My own position on the older form of the Mass is kind of "eh." I heard the first recent Tridentine Mass said by a priest of the archdiocese of Atlanta sometime in the 90s. It was awful - all the worst of the pre-1966 low Mass. Then I was in regular though not perfect attendance at the monthly masses of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter and hung around with some of those folks. I left Atlanta about the time they got a canonically erected parish, so I never had to make any decisions - monthly was more than enough for me. I always feel as though I ought to like it more. All in all, I'd probably prefer a Novus Ordo mass said by someone like Fr. Tucker or my friend the chaplain at Vanderbilt University (you can tell it's his operation by the devotion to the Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, who Fr. Baker has single-handedly promoted in the diocese of Nashville). All in all, I'm fine with a perfectly reverent Mass in any language. I've been lucky in our local parish and chaplaincy, especially given the diocese of Rochester. However, I'm praying for a wider application of the older form of the Mass.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:04 PM

June 21, 2007

Stop him before he digs again!

*Heave a huge sigh*

Remember the story of St. Lawrence? He was the 3rd century deacon who, when told to present the 'treasure of the Church' showed up with the widows and orphans he had the responsibility for feeding.

Some Italian archaeologist is now saying that the treasure he really had was the Grail, and that it's buried under San Lorenzo fuori le mura. He wants to open up a catacomb and find it.

It's a bad sign that he heads something called Arte e Mistero (Art and Mystery).

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:26 AM | Comments (0)

May 9, 2007

Processional Statues and Carnival Badges

It's amazing what you can find on Flickr if you search! I've spent the early morning coffee time being frustrated in what I haven't found in the world of high art - I've been looking for some paintings or prints of later Medieval or early Renaissance processions with a crowned Virgin Mary. I'm sure they're out there and I'm just being obtuse. I began with our Visual Resources Collection and moved out through a pile of image collections - and then I searched Flickr for similar things under a Creative Commons license and found a procession in Hoboken - JUST what I need. Feel free to come see what I do with it on Friday morning at Kalamazoo!

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:28 AM

May 8, 2007

Save the Catholic Schools!

A non-Catholic's call to save the urban Catholic schools in City Journal. The article centers on Rice High School in Harlem but certainly doesn't stop there. Here's a bit:

We almost lost Harlem’s Rice High School a few years ago. And what a defeat that would have been for all New Yorkers, Catholic and non-Catholic alike. For the past three decades, Rice has rescued at-risk African-American boys and turned them into responsible men who go on to college and then give back to the community. Yet despite this academic success, Rice almost succumbed to the demographic changes and financial pressures that have led to the closing of thousands of excellent inner-city Catholic schools and needlessly deepened the nation’s urban-education crisis.

Read it all - it's a great article about what can be done - but Stern doesn't skirt the hard issues - money, changes in religious orders, demographic shifts, competition from the public schools.

via Eduwonk, one of my daily reads.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:29 AM

April 30, 2007

Cistercians and High Modern Architecture

There is an interesting piece in Bloomberg.com: Muse today by Colin Amery on a new Cistercian monastery in Czech Republic, the first new Trappist community established in former Communist Europe. The article celebrates the buildings, by John Pawson. No pictures.

Luckily, the community has a website! The Monastery of Novy Dur. I start you with the choose-a-language splash page because some of the best photos are there. Sit and contemplate for a while - let the pictures change.

The best information on the monastery's own site about the buildings is under "Benefactors and donors." The best reading is under "Dedication of the church."

In a trampled, dechristianised and secularized country, one would logically expect the foundation of an apostolical convent having a charitable end; and yet we come with a monastery, a church built from the ground up, an enclosure. Certainly, there is an act of faith in this that not everyone can understand. There is even more: our monastic life, which we strive to live poorly and seriously in a western world, pagan in the east as in the west, consists in the unique praise of God and in the intercession for mankind. A limited comprehension but that we know in faith the extraordinary and mysterious extension. The Constitutions of our Order express this even better: a secret and mysterious apostolical fertility.

–––

In the context of the actual dechristianisation, one often hears: The absolute priority ought to be given, even for the religious, to apostolic work, the contemplative work will come after! This might appear to be a reflection of common sense, but in reality it is a shortsighted judgment that translates for the least pusillanimity of faith. We have known and we know what are societies without art, or even worse, with an art imposed by an ideology. They result in a debased, sterilized people. It is the same for the Church without prayer.

Whoops - I did that without linking to the original story that started me off. Here it is.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:26 AM

April 19, 2007

Pantheon Tales

I'm teaching the Pantheon today in Roman Art & Politics. It is the greatest building in the world.

I haven't seen Hagia Sophia yet, and it might be as great, but that's the only contender I can think of.

The Pantheon is a triumph of simplicity and complexity - and my job today is to get them to see both while understanding the fundamental mystery of the building - we don't really know what it was. For such an amazing building there are precious few references to it in surviving Roman writing. Its name doesn't tell us much, because it replaced a previous building called The Pantheon - hence the inscription naming Agrippa as the builder, even though the building we see was built by Hadrian. That's a stumper.

Oh - and I'll address the second thing out of every student's mouth when walking into the building - "I've heard that when it rains the rain doesn't fall through the hole in the roof."

Nope. There's even a drain in the middle of the floor. Sorry.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:57 AM

April 12, 2007

My Favorite Church in Rome

I'm in a Rome frame of mine this week. Sometime around NOW every semester - you know, 3 or 4 weeks to go - I get very, very much more interested in something that will happen next year than I am in actually finishing up this year. The combination of flickr play in the last few days and editing my photo collection to clear up some hard drive space had me looking at photos from Rome 2003 and dreaming about Rome 2008. Gosh. Sant'Agnese fuori le mura within striking distance, again. Margaret Visser's The Geometry of Love is out of print. I'll have to teach the church on my own. Not that I mind, really.

I've been in love with this little church since before I knew what it meant. The photo here is inadequate, but it is a start. Let me just point out the purple columns to the left and right of the apse - not the ones holding up the baldachino, but the 3 that show - two left and one right. Yes, there's another one on the right.

You see, the designer chose 4 matching columns from some late antique architectural parts recycling yard in Rome - the Romans were nothing if not practical about their stone - to flank the altar. The rest of the columns on the main level of the building are a serene grey; these four, nearest the altar, are a purple that any self-respecting 7th century Roman would have described as blood-colored to flank the tomb of the martyr Agnes.

Next time I promise i'll take better pictures.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:48 PM

April 8, 2007

Christ is Risen! (but you couldn't tell it from the weather)

Christ is Risen! But, as my friend the parish-council-type confided to me last night while we were waiting for the fire to be lit, it was warmer and there was less snow at Christmas.

The Easter Vigil went off well (as well as it ever does - we've had more or less the same musical selections other than the mass setting for at least the last 4 years*), my friend took her first communion, I got to sit with another friend and whisper about the anthems. My whispery companion has lived in Europe and South America and had NEVER seen a heated wading pool used for baptisms. She was intrigued and appalled. When the Upstate New York choir swung into "Wade in the Water" during the baptisms she laughed. Then we applauded to welcome the new members of Christ's Church and she couldn't quite believe it.

Oh, well. It was valid and licit and He is risen. I really can't demand all that much more without pitching myself into sacrificial service on parish committees and trying to change things - and I have enough good works on my monthly agenda at the moment.

*The new deacon sang the Exultet - it was quite good. The mass was something by Christopher Walker, 1996, from the OCP folks. It was better than the Mass of the Joyful Heart we did at least the last 2 years. The Litany of the Saints was the awful "all you holy men and women, pray for us" thing by John D. Becker (is Origen REALLY a saint?), though the man who does the solo singing has quite a strong voice. For traveling music during the baptisms, etc., Shutte's "River of glory." Ugh. I got swatted by my French friend for bar-songing that one up - but how can you resist on that last line? Then "Wade in the Water" - an awful thing. Something else new - the only Latin on offer - "Veni, Sancte Spiritus," but in a Taize setting. Better than nothing, but couldn't we sing, you know, a Catholic version? A closing Schutte hymn rounded things off and we were out into the snow.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:57 AM

April 7, 2007

Easter Vigil

Pray for those entering the Church tonight - like one of my good friends. Better late than never! This will be my 18th Easter Vigil! I find that kind of hard to believe, but there you have it.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:55 AM

April 3, 2007

Who will teach the priests Latin?

It looks like the Motu Proprio on the Mass is coming.

Here's Amy Welborn - who is working on talking points and a tip sheet (a GREAT idea).

Here's an example from Fr. Zuhlsdorf.

One of my frequent plaints - here and in comboxes all over St. Blog's - is who will teach the priests? Who will teach them Latin? Who will teach them to chant? My real point - frequently stated openly - is Let's not pretend that the current clergy, by and large, is ready to do this.

Via Fr. Jim Tucker I find this heartening announcement:

... "We felt this presented a historic opportunity for the nation's largest lay organization supporting the traditional Latin Mass -- Una Voce America -- to collaborate with a clerical religious institute whose priests actually use the 1962 Missal -- the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter," King stated.

He explained that most if not all American seminarians study only the modern liturgy that became normative following the Second Vatican Council. This has left a gap in knowledge of preconciliar liturgy that the priest training program will begin to address.

According to King, both Una Voce and the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter view the faithful's devotion to the Latin liturgical tradition as a "unique charism in support of the new evangelization championed by Pope John Paul II -- a charism that is ever ancient, yet ever new." ...

Well, somewhat heartening. I followed the link and clicked on the link to the PDF for the flyer. Una Voce and the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter have got to be the largest lay-run and largest clerical organizations in America that really know what they're doing about the Latin Mass. This is a great idea! I hope people will contribute to them so that priests who can't easily afford travel to Denton, NE, can go.

But let's not rejoice yet. These two organizations are offering 3 sessions this summer. Each session will accommodate twelve (12) priests. That means that by July thirty-six (36) priests currently not trained in the Mass of the 1962 Missal may have been trained.

This is a start. But people who care for the implementation of the motu proprio had better look into sponsoring many, many more of these week-long seminars. Start raising money to offer free training weeks to current transitional deacons - get 'em while they're early middle aged! Target priests already saying Mass in Spanish -- they'll realize the benefits of loan-words more readily than some of their monoglot colleagues.

I think that of all the diocesan priests I know personally there are precisely two who are both interested in and capable of starting up a 1962 Missal Mass pretty quickly - and I don't think either of them owns a maniple.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:46 AM

March 29, 2007

Film Version of Hildegard of Bingen? Hmm.

Google news is wonderful - where else would I come across a story from Variety? Not my usual reading. Trotta tracks back to middle ages / Vet to direct Bingen bio. That means that an experienced director is doing a movie on Hildegard! Here's the director's imdb page (or, as Variety calls her, the helmer).

If you don't know about Hildegard I hardly know where to tell you to start, other than DON'T GOOGLE HER. Goodness knows she's been poorly served. Maybe the old Catholic Encyclopedia? It's certainly sound, as far as it goes. There was some very silly stuff done with Hildegard in the 1980s by Matthew Fox, ex-O.P., et al. Part of the problem there is that medieval medicine, in its dependence on classical theory-driven medicine, is a lot like modern new age medicine (or 'traditional healing' everywhere). You know - the power of gems to heal, the life force of plants, etc.* An important reason to reject in the Bear & Co. edition of Hildegard's great Scivias ** (link goes to a better version) is that though the translation was pretty good someone (the publisher? Then-Fr. Matthew?) chose to leave out a lot of chapters. Now I'm the first to agree that there's nothing duller than most medieval mysticism, and the book is over 400 pages without the material, but it was telling which chapters they left out. You see, they printed a list of those chapter headings in the back. And excluded chapters cover LOTS of things about Sin and Damnation and Judgment that didn't line up very well with Matthew Fox's whatever-it-was-he-called-it. Creation Spirituality?

So be cautious using great ones - other ones have piggy-backed on their words.

* the relationship between pre-modern non-Western medicines is much more complicated than that, but lemme tell you - if I don't get tenure and I want to stay in Upstate New York (though why the 2nd part of that equation would be true I couldn't tell you) I could make a living in Ithaca selling my knowledge of 4 Humors Healing. "Here, ma'am - give little Johnny leeks for that jitteriness - they'll cool him down!"
** well, besides the fact that I had to buy my copy at an alternative bookstore and it STILL after all these years smells of patchouli

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:50 PM

March 22, 2007

Let's run this college like a business!

Here's what happens when you run a start-up college like a start up business - Tom Monaghan's pet board fires Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., from Ave Maria University - and asks him to clear his desk and leave campus the same day. Don't these people understand the 'not in front of the children' principle? Traumatic personnel decisions (as opposed to firing embezzlers) are best left for June, July, and August. Instead, they do it during the month between sending out admissions offers and the due date for deposits for the fall. And if they don't believe that parents notice this kind of thing? With a current enrollment around 100 I don't expect Ave Maria to have a bulging 1st year class of 2011.

The law school furore was not a good sign. I like this entirely non-Catholic-blogsphere coverage.

*Amy Welborn's
entry with lots of comments
*Whispers in the Loggia part 1, with press release. Part 2, with comments from Fr. Fessio
*For semi-insider coverage (well, this is someone who stayed in Michigan), Fumare.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:58 AM

March 16, 2007

Where do we go when we die?

Argh!

Help!

Anyone have a nice medieval or patristic theological reference to the soul escaping through the MOUTH?

You see, Heaven and Hell are irrelevant at this point - I'm dealing with the exit strategy and I thought it would be more clear cut. I'm an art historian (waaah!) and hate finding proof-texts in theology, but that's what I'm looking for.

You see, I'm writing a paper. It wasn't really my idea - but a friend of mine wanted to go to a conference and she didn't want to go alone, so she persuaded me to submit an abstract to a conference on Humor & Laughter in Literature and Film being sponsored by the Binghamton University department of Romance Languages. So here I about to talk in public again about something so late medieval that half the books I looked at to write it have "Renaissance" in their titles.

Still and all, it's fun. The low-hanging fruit in humor is the World Turned Upside Down (which has the advantage of being the keynote speaker's topic, so he might come to our session). I messed with literary devils this summer and fall so I pulled out another one - death bed scenes. André de La Vigne wrote a massive play on the life of St. Martin of Tours for production in 1496 (oh my gosh - they knew where America was already. What am I doing?). It had a cast of 200 and took 3 days. Along with the solemn business of the life of Martin de La Vigne wrote a farce (which I'm talking about) and a morality play - the farce served as an entr'acte and the morality was played at the end. I'll mention it in passing.

So there's a death bed scene in which monks say sad things about Martin and Martin says uplifting things about Heaven. Then there's an expiration scene - Martin's soul, in the shape of a dove, flies up to Heaven. Between the two is the farce!

The farce shows how the devils carry the soul of a wicked miller down to hell. It is an inversion (upside down time) of the saint's deathbed. Now what I'm messing with is this - a trainee demon, who has never attended a deathbed, shyly asks Lucifer from what orifice the soul proceeds at death. Lucifer replies "from the backside." So what we see when the death scene takes place is an angel above the bed waiting for the soul and the trainee demon underneath the bed - it is the canonical deathbed scene distorted (turned upside down).

Take a look at Bosch's 1490 version of the Death of the Miser. There's an angel behind the Miser and a variety of demons - but they're lying in wait especially above the canopy.

Or at Moissac in the 12th century - here's a view of the porch.

Here's a detail of the death of the Miser (Dives) scene - go to the center right and see the bed, the miser dying, the weeping wife, and demons above the bed grabbing the little baby, the soul, coming from his mouth.

See my point?

Yes, it's belabored. Welcome to academe. Can I make it last 20 minutes? Damn straight. I don't really have time to drag in literary sources.

So what the Burgundian folk of Seurre, the town that hired André de La Vigne, saw was Martin dying a bona mors, an entr'acte about a BAD death featuring a demon under the bed (oooh - childhood fears?), then St. Martin's good death and a dove flying up to Heaven.

You'd think I could've found what I was looking for in the works of Caroline Walker Bynum, but no. I'm dim. Call it the end of a week off and help a guy out.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 2:10 PM

December 26, 2006

Merry Christmas and Happy St. Stephen's Day!

Good King Wenceslaus looked out on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about [not here!] deep and crisp and even...

or in the Walt Kelly version I was unreasonably fond of as a child:

Good King Sauerkraut, look out!
On your feets uneven,
While the snoo lay round about...

What's snoo?

I dunno, what's new with you?

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:11 AM

December 18, 2006

End of year donations

Looking for somewhere to send a check before the end of 2006? What about the Nashville Dominicans? Going, growing, building, and adding schools in news dioceses - what a great cause!

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:19 AM

November 10, 2006

Arnaldo Momigliano and me

I'm trying to make all my reading right now do double duty - and since I'm teach 3 chronologically neighboring courses next semester that's not difficult. I just packed a book of Arnaldo Momigliano reprints for the trip down to DC - On Pagans, Jews, and Christians (1987 - most of these are articles from the last 15 years of his life). He was always good on history and historiography - and what he has to say about Judaism in the Roman Empire is useful to me for both the Roman Art & Power course and early Christian (which I call First Christian Millennium - up to but not emphasizing Romanesque). The articles on "The Disadvantages of Monotheism for a Universal State" and "Some Preliminary Remarks on the 'Religious Opposition' to the Roman Empire" are both essential.

If I have time on the way back I'll read more of Ittai Gradel's Emperor Worship and Roman Religion, which is looking very interesting (after about 20 pages).

Both of these authors are interested in what really goes on in Roman religion - and if we can even use the word religion usefully about Romans. Gradel is pretty clear that it's a word with an inherently christianizing meaning - which doesn't mean that it's useless or wrong, but that it must be handled carefully.

Two of the big topics of Roman Art & Power are Augustus's Altar of Peace and the emperor cult. One of the things I'm going to have everyone do this time through is write a short paper about a coin (shades of T.S.Burns, for those of you who've known me too long) and imperial cultus. Last time I didn't require the exercise, but one of the best things I got all semester was a short paper on a coin showing Augustus's wife (or widow, and that was the point - was she the wife or mother of the emperor at the time of the striking?) Livia as SALUS AUGUSTA, which means something like "Imperial Welfare."

This also helps me teach First Christian Millennium by reminding me in considerable detail what it is Christians are refusing to do in sacrificing to the emperor.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:33 AM

November 1, 2006

All Saints Day - cutting the head off a Zombie Error.

Someone offered me a platform and I'm gonna say something!

The Colleges' organist runs a monthly event at the Chapel called "Music, Meditation and Munchies." She usually plays a selection of seasonally appropriate organ music (occasionally there are other musicians), someone (usually a faculty member) offers a brief reflection, and there are treats. Today is All Saints Day and here's what she's playing (subject to last minute timing revisions):

Jean Langlais--Prelude for a Saints Day
Clarence Dickinson--Joy of the Redeemed (based on O Quanta Qualia)
John Weaver--Sine Nomine (which intertwines the hymn For all the Saints with "When the Saints Go Marching In")

I'm giving the meditation. Mainly I'm showing resurrection, judgment, and entry into Heaven scenes from the tympanum sculpture at Autun, France, and the van der Weyden's Beaune Altarpiece.

However - since someone asked me to say something about All Saints I'm not going to resist explaining that Halloween is not in its origins a pagan festival. Yes, I'm going to play the old "Mediterranean Popes didn't give a damn about local Celtic festivals" card. It won't work, it never does, but there's no honor in letting people believe that medieval people believed the world was flat.

Yes, there were catch-all festivals for otherwise uncelebrated martyrs as early as the 4th Century in the eastern Mediterranean (I think that most of our sources are Syrian Greek or Syriac). That holiday was celebrated in mid-May, as it was in Rome in the 7th century. In 609, the Emperor Phocas gave the Pantheon to the popes as a church (I need to go read whatever the document is for that one!) and Boniface IV dedicated it as St. Mary and All Martyrs on May 13th of that year. By the way, it's a commonplace of people in my end of the Middle Ages, I don't know how well-supported, that this was the first temple building just flat turned into a Church. Oh, well - that shows that a feast of All Martyrs or All Saints was being celebrated by a bunch of non-Celts in the Mediterranean quite early.

Gregory III (who died in 741) dedicated a new chapel in Old St. Peter's to All Saints on November 1 - transferring (at least by implication) the date of celebration in the diocese of Rome (and perhaps Italy) to that day. Gregory IV around 840 extended the feast to the Church in the West, what we nowadays think of as making a revision to the Universal Calendar. Still no sign of Celts or hollow turnips.

So the juxtaposition of Samhain and All Saints Day is just that - a juxtaposition, not an adoption or adaptation by the Church of a pre-existing Celtic holiday, unless you want to think that there were Celtic pagans living in central Italy in the early 8th century celebrating Samhain.

Oh - here's another stake in the heart - the origins of the Christian festival of All Saints is not a metaphorical harvest festival or seasonal transition - especially the harvest of the dead - since the festival was in origins a May festival. Though the 9th century Pope might conceivably have had such an idea (though to believe so you have to also bear in mind the difference between November in Italy and in northern Europe in terms of Labors of the Months), the 4th century Syrians certainly didn't. It's not a bad metaphor (there are plenty of vintage=judgment metaphors in the New Testament), but that's not behind this date.

We'll see how it goes. As anyone who has been watching television lately knows, it's hard to stop a zombie - and even if you do, there are more coming up the street.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:58 AM

October 24, 2006

Sorry for the hiatus

I apologize to anyone who missed me, but I ran off to a conference and then had to play catch up.

The conference theme was drama in the Middle Ages, and I fell back on "those who don't do, teach" - I gave a pedagogical paper. It went over well, though - I have a good module for handling the high Middle Ages in European Studies 101.

1. Read Rutebeuf's Miracle of Theophilus
2. Study the north transept portal at Notre Dame de Paris, which tells a slightly different version of the Theophilus legend.*
3. Discuss ecclesiastical administration and organization, homage, written contract, Jews in the 13th century, magic, Hell, intercession and patronage, the role of the Virgin Mary, the Ptolemaic model of the cosmos -- the list, as one says, goes on.

It was well-received in the conference sense and, I believe, in the "ooh - I'm going to try that!" sense.

And I'd like to acknowledge Another Damned Medievalist for her two read throughs.

*sorry for the link to someone's flickr site, but I'm queasy about posting copyrighted pictures and am having trouble doing better.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:43 AM

October 18, 2006

Magic Wands and the Tridentine Indult

O.k. - let's assume the new indult will suddenly open the floodgates to masses in the old rite. Who's going to teach 'em Latin? And who's going to teach 'em to chant?

The second is considerably more important than the first. I could teach a seminarian to pronounce (not read, just read aloud) ecclesiastical Latin quickly and correctly in a week if you let me use corporal punishment. We could do Greek in two weeks.

Chant is harder.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:04 AM

October 17, 2006

Fr. Foster and the Silliness of Modern Spoken Latin

Gosh am I tired of the cult of personality that surrounds Fr. Reginald Foster who has recently been let go from a job for failing to generate revenue - and have been since the first profile I read of him in the New Yorker or the Atlantic or wherever it was and I realized that he was a a classic example (pun entirely intended) of the dissenting Catholic bureaucrat.

This is a man who made his living (and let's not forget that someone let this American live in Rome all these years!) off our tithe money and enjoyed saying shocking things about what he believed.

So he said 'em in Latin. Cute. Let me ask any of his followers - how many of you actually find an opportunity to speak Latin regularly? Me, I read it. A lot. Some of you might do that, too. Me, I read and speak Italian as much as I can - once a week if I'm lucky. If I went to a bit more trouble I could watch the news all the time in Italian (RAI might help me retain linguistic competence, even if it made me dumber by doing so).

Repeat after me - spoken Latin in the 21st century is an indulgence. If Fr. Reggie really loved the poor as much as he loved Cicero he'd be feeding 'em full-time. I don't think there's much wrong with indulgence, but I recognize that the possibility for a man with Fr. Foster's university degrees to wear workman's clothes and sit in the gutter with the poor reflects as carefully crafted a persona as my tweed and service on civic committees. This article suggests that Fr. Foster starts with about 100 students a year. One of the comments in this link suggests that he had an attrition rate of about 50%. This is not someone who is going to change the state of a langauge.

Spoken languages have to be spoken constantly to be real. Go read about the reinvention of Hebrew* to see how it can and did work. Compare that to summer Latin experiences separated by 11 months of monoglottery and get back to us about how much you luv Latin.

We all have our hobbies. Mine is listening to murder mysteries on iPod while I walk the dog. Some people like to talk about rubrics they'll never live out without becoming bishops themselves. Some people spend their energy on an attempt to bring back spoken Latin. Let's not pretend these enterprises are much more than hobbies or hobby horses.

By the way, I have nothing against Fr. Foster - he's evidently an amazing teacher or he wouldn't have generated the cult of personality. But if it were all about spoken Latin for itself, Americans would have responded the same way to that other Carmelite promulgator of spoken Latin, Fr. Suitbert Seidl

*My favorite version of this shocking story is Herman Wouk's in This is my God.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:58 PM

October 15, 2006

Bible in Art

I hate this time of the semester - I'm choosing textbooks for next semester and suddenly getting more interested in that than this.

On the other hand, I'm teaching the first half of medieval for the first time in 2 years (it's a long story involving a leave and team-teaching for why I haven't lately). I haven't decided yet, but I did decide to look at the handouts I use for Bible Knowledge.

You see, I gave up long ago. None of them know anything about scripture. None of them will have learned anything about scripture since they got to college which would be useful for understanding the cultural deposit. Therefore I have to teach them - or stop and explain every other slide.

So my Art 270, Art of the First Christian Millennium, begins with a Bible Knowledge workbook. I've been doing and redoing this for a few iterations (including the semester in Rome) and it's getting pretty sophisticated. I sat down just now and flipped through my currently favored textbook and checked and am pleased with how closely the images they chose match my list of themes to cover.

Click on extended entry if you want my current list of what will get you through a pre-Renaissance art course.

Infancy – Annunciation
Infancy - Visitation
Infancy – Nativity
Infancy – Visit of the Shepherds, Magi
Infancy – Flight into Egypt
Infancy – Herod and the Innocents
Miracles – healing blind man
Miracles – Lepers
Miracles - Raising of Lazarus
Miracles – Woman with Flow of Blood
Mission – Feed my Sheep
Mission - John the Baptist
Mission – Mary & Martha
Mission - Parables - Shepherds
Mission - Parables - Vines
Mission - Peter & Keys
Mission – Storm on Sea of Galilee
Mission - Transfiguration
Mission - Whoever has done it unto the least of these…
Passion – Christ before Pilate
Passion – Crucifixion
Passion - Entry into Jerusalem
Passion – Garden of Gethsemane
Passion – Lamentation / Deposition
Post-Passion – Ascension
Post-Passion – Doubting Thomas
Post-Passion – Emmaus
Post-Passion – Harrowing of Hell
Post-Passion – Marys at tomb
Acts - descriptiosn of early Church (esp house space)
Acts – Peter and Tabitha (unusual choice)
Acts - Pentecost
Apocalypse – 144,000
Apocalypse – 4 Horsemen
Apocalypse – Devil bound
Apocalypse – Firey furnace
Apocalypse - Heaven – Elders on Thrones
Apocalypse – Matthew version – in the sky
Apocalypse – One Enthroned on Rainbow
Apocalypse – Woman Clothed with the Sun

Marian – Coronation
Marian – Dormition

Genesis - Adam & Eve
Genesis – Cain & Abel
Genesis – Noah
Genesis - Abraham – 3 Visitors, Sacrifice of Isaac
Genesis – Jacob & Esau
Genesis – Joseph
Exodus – Red Sea
Exodus – Bronze serpent*
Samuel – Choosing of David
Samuel – David & Goliath
Samuel – Jesse’s Dream / Tree of Jesse
Kings - Ark of the Covenant
Jonah – under gourd vine as well as Whale bit
Daniel – Susannah and the Elders
Psalms – David as composer
Psalm 1
Psalm 22/23
Psalm 43/44
Psalm 150

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:11 PM

October 1, 2006

Parish Consolidation

For the occasional reader curious about the Diocese of Rochester and parish consolidation (really, there are a couple!) here's a link to a reasonably detailed story in the Rochester Catholic Courier. Most of the place names will be meaningless to those who don't already know the area, but it gives you some idea of the scope of the priest-personnel-problem facing the diocese.

I didn't submit a new name because the best I could come up with is St. Peter's, which turns out to be the original name of the parish before it became St. Francis de Sales (and before the 2nd Episcopal church in town took it up, too). They switched to SFdS because he was a bishop of Geneva. St. Peter's, by the way, would be appropriate because it's the dedication of the pre-reformation cathedral of Geneva.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 5:25 PM

July 23, 2006

da Vinci Code

Talk about a waste of two and a half hours! I just went to the da Vinci Code at the Smith Opera House (a 2nd run theater, so I only paid $5). It was as bad as I'd heard - though my colleague Elena Ciletti is right that the scene of the bishops screaming at each other at the Council of Nicaea is almost worth the price of admission. And concessions are cheap at the Smith, too.

Sad sad sad, if anyone takes that kind of tripe seriously enough that his or her 'faith is shaken.'

And if you know someone for whom that's true, send 'em a copy of De-Coding Da Vinci, by Amy Welborn.

Gosh! I don't know what offended me more - the Chick Tracts view of Constantine or the idea that Isaac Newton and the Catholic Church had anything to do with each other. The conflation of the Inquisition and the Witch Hunts? The 'art history'? Oh - I don't know. Tripe. It wasn't worth sitting through even to see what all the fuss was about.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 4:51 PM

July 4, 2006

Fr. Daniel Munn, r.i.p.

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Fr. Daniel Munn, founder, pastor, and archpriest of St. Ignatios of Antioch Melkite Catholic Church and parochial vicar of Most Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church in Augusta, GA, and one of the first three pastoral provision convert-priests. Fr. Munn was not part of the Anglican Use groups (scroll to the last section to read about him).

Augusta Chronicle obituary. "Several grandchildren" is an underestimate. Many! One of whom is one of my godsons.

He was a great man. Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine. Et lux perpetua luceat ei. I apologize that I don't know how to put that in the wonderful and wacky Melkite combinations of languages, but it'll have to do.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:29 PM

April 15, 2006

The Alterante Year Vigil Plan

One of the joys of the two-parish church-Catholic Community model we live with here in Geneva is that the big services like the Easter Vigil alternate from building to building. This year, sadly, is at the violently restored St. Francis de Sales. The exterior is a quiet 1880s brick gothicky-with-a-touch-of-romanesque-revival pennies of the immigrants church. The interior is the worst of the early 90s - lots of pastel wall painting, inclluding the worst Resurrection Jesus on the altar wall that I have ever seen. Really. And I'm a professional - I've seen a lot of 'em. Maybe I'll go down there for confession this afternoon (it is marginally further than St. Stephen's (the 1910 arts-and-crafts-gothic-english-parish-church parish) and take a picture to post.

I'm able to overcome distracting interiors usually, but St. Francis de Sales is a little much even for me.

Oh, well - happy Easter everyone! I'm trying :)

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:34 PM

April 9, 2006

The Gospel according to Judas.

*BIG SIGH*

And I'm teaching the first half of medieval next year. Maybe it's providence, because the last time I taught the course was after the summer of the Da Vinci Code as beach reading. The questions I fielded!

Oh, well. Here we go again.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:24 AM

April 5, 2006

Subculture humor

Cacciguida sez SSPX SUXX.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:50 PM

March 3, 2006

I'm teaching 1500 miles TOO FAR NORTH

Crawfish and Lent go together . . . .

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:36 PM

January 22, 2006

What I want . . .

What I want is a 5-10 minute piece of video showing a nice monastic practice of the Office. The music is decidedly secondary for me! I would like best a bit of procession in, chant, standing, bowing, and sitting -- I want to show students the business end of medieval monastic prayer. I'm going to use a chunk of The Name of the Rose tomorrow, but I've never really been satisfied with that depiction. What I'd like best is a little bit of video from a restrained Cistercian house -- there was a PBS thing on Cistercians a few years ago that I can't find anywhere online to order.

Any ideas?

further: The more I think of it the more I seem to remember it being out of the monastery at Mepkin, SC. Hmm.

still further: Here it is. It was adequate, I think. I'll order one. I had no idea it was made for ABC!

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:27 PM

December 24, 2005

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

I'll offer a Christmas prayer for all my readers tomorrow - no children here in the morning, so I don't have to go to midnight Mass! Yay! I'm also offering a prayer in thanksgiving for whoever invented the gift bag.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:14 PM

December 22, 2005

Papa? Santa?

If you want to know what's what with the red hat the pope was wearing, go, of course, to Don Jim Tucker. Here's his initial entry, and here's the photo page with a dozen easily recognizable papal portraits wearing the camauro.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:51 AM

October 26, 2005

Prayer Request

I don't think I've ever done this, but here goes - please pray (or bear in mind, for those of my dear readers for whom that seems the more apt request) for a friend recently diagnosed with breast cancer. She's one of these, by the way.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:42 AM

September 23, 2005

On teaching Dante

As though 3 courses weren't enough for me this term, I'm doing what is called here at these Colleges a Readers College in Dante. Here's a description of how the process is supposed to work:

Join a group and meet new friends over great readings! Requirements are simple: read books, join the discussions and do some writing. Students who satisfy the leader's requirements receive 1/2 course credit. To sign up for one of the reading groups below simply contact the leader. Welcome back and happy reading!

So far it's doing that pretty well - the 4 students didn't know each other well before the course began but are beginning to do so. So far we've spent more time talking about the structure of the Ptolemaic cosmos than we have doing line-by-line readings, but those are happening, too.

The course is answering a felt need of mine, too -- I wanted to read my way through the whole Commedia again before I tackle teaching Dante in a regular class. It's certainly working for that.

We're using the Mandelbaum translation (though one person is using Mark Musa, so we have 2 texts for immediate comparison). I'm also reading my way through the California Lectura Dantis commentary on the Inferno. It seems they haven't gotten a 2nd or 3rd volume out. I'm also reading the Singleton notes, which are copious. Coooooopppppious. Oh, well - fun will be had by all.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:18 PM

August 22, 2005

War and the Rumors of War -- literally

He was then sent to Woburn Abbey, where he produced two rumours a day for inclusion in otherwise correct reports.

A throwaway line about war service from one of those splendid British obituaries, this the Daily Telegraph on W.H.C. Frend, whose mid-20th century take on Donatism is considerably less respected nowadays (and considerably more driven by his Low Church anti-papist background) than the author conveys. Frend never met a heresy he didn't suppose was driven by economic or class reasons rather than theological opinon; that's a form of argumentation much like modern political controversialists assuming their opponents to be insincere in their beliefs and very annoying. Well-worth reading, though. He was an important scholar and a fine man.

Here's the Church Times version.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 2:02 PM

August 7, 2005

Mass of a Joyful Heart

I am a professor at a small liberal arts college in the diocese of Rochester, NY. We are lucky to have Mass on campus each week that school is in session; this is truly an act of charity by the two priests of the Roman Catholic Community of Geneva, who offer 4 scheduled Masses in English and one in Spanish every Sunday -- our Mass makes a 5th English-language Mass 9 months of the year. I usually attend that Mass. I dress relatively simply (no jacket and tie); my first year I wore jacket and tie until some students told me that I made them feel uncomfortable and underdressed. Heaven forfend! I want to maximize mass-going, so dress down a bit.

This makes me the only person in the world who systematically dresses better for summer Sunday Masses than during the rest of the year. Of course, this schema also means that I get to get some use out of my seersucker and poplin suits (all things work together for the good, you know). That's because I get to attend Mass in a lovely 1910 Arts and Crafts Meets Gothic Revival church -- St. Stephen's (the link goes to my flickr photostream -- there are 4 pictures of St. Stephen's).

The music is usually pretty bad even during the school year. The organist is alright, but the selection is the typical round of St. Louis Jesuits and their ilk -- and I can't think about the Easter Vigil right now. Someone had the bright idea this summer of having us use the same mass setting all summer, printing it in fliers, and putting them in the pews -- so far, so good. The missa de angelis? Oh, puh-leeze! We're trying to sing the Mass of a Joyful Heart, by Steve Angrisano and Tom Tomaszek, copyright 1999, Oregon Catholic Press.

My grasp of music is analagous to those people who tell me, a professor of art history, "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like." I think that's a reasonably good starting point. I don't know much about music, but I know what sets my teeth on edge. A congregation attempting to sing the "Holy" in the Angrisano/Tomaszek setting sets my teeth on edge. After May, June, and July we're no closer to being able to sing it than we were at the beginning.

The music makes no sense -- every single "holy" is a different number of notes and the notes are not even (they use what I think are triplets at one point -- I don't think congregations sing triplets very well). The rest of it is banal. B-A-N-A-L. It doesn't sound much like 1999 -- it sounds much more like background music of about 1985. Does it make a difference that both of the authors are specialists in music for "youth"? I think so. Why, then, are we singing it at the Masses of an aging, small-town parish? I have no systematic objection to contemporary music (though in execution I have heard precious little that moves me), but can't we sing something written for adults?

In the end, I can say is that it has made seersucker and summer Mass less of a thrill than in previous summers. Only the combination of banal music and horrific interior at St. Francis de Sales' church (click, scroll down and look to the left) has kept me going to St. Stephen's this year.

Steve Angrisano's site.
Tom Tomaszek's site

further - the horrid triplets are in the "Lamb of God," not the "Holy." Today we had not only that mass setting, but TWO Bob Dufford, SJ, hymns. When I was a Protestant we never sang two hymns by Charles Wesley, say, on a single Sunday. Maybe I won't be so sorry to be going back to Mass at 4 p.m. and an open shirt collar after all.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:55 AM

July 13, 2005

Fundamental Option as a response to totalitarianism?

Amy Welborn asks a fascinating question about Moral Theology --

H as anyone ever studied the impact of Nazism and the war on Christian theology - not during, but after the fact? Michael took a class from Josef Fuchs, and he said that the moral theology of Fuchs, who had been a pastor in Germany during the War, struck him as very accomodationist...a "do what you can do" as long as your Fundamental Option is in the right direction (Fuchs being the father of much contemporary Catholic moral theology, as you can tell), and it seemed to him that this approach was very clearly reflective of Fuchs' position as pastor in that situation.

I'd very much like to read about this. I don't really care for theology or philosophy per se, but I love intellectual history (which means that I don't care much about the gossip of who-was-a-student-of-whom or the lives of the philosophers).

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:44 AM

June 19, 2005

Stop the ribbon magnet madness! JPII RIP white ribbon

Click to be horrified.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:59 PM

New Priest!

Well, at least there's one this year for the diocese of Rochester, which is better than none. And he sounds interesting . . . .

a background article

ordination coverage

Pray for Fr. John Loncle.

Please pray also for the four permanent deacons ordained for the diocese of Rochester. One of them grew up a Baptist!

The Rochester Catholic Courier has two priestly ordination stories about vocations that got away -- two natives of the diocese ordained this week for other New York dioceses: widower to be ordained for Buffalo and 26 year old ordained for New York City. The first applied to a number of dioceses -- I wonder if Rochester rejected him?

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:14 AM

May 29, 2005

Pastoral Posting

Good news on the Geneva/HWS front - Fr. Fennessy will be staying for another year!

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:20 AM

May 25, 2005

Want to be a K-8 Principal of a Catholic School in Seattle?

Go west, young person! Well, certified person who is a strong Catholic leader with teaching experience. I think a speaking knowledge of Spanish would help, too. Details at Open Book.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:26 PM

May 24, 2005

On a Married Latin Rite Clergy

It won't happen soon.

A commenter on my priestly numbers post brings up a married and female clergy and the Episcopal Church. I'm going to set the ordination of women aside (and ask that anyone interested in that topic read some serious institutional history of the Episcopal Church and learn how that process actually took place in the 1960s and 1970s before coming back to talk about it here). I pointed out to him that:

...1. the education track to the Episcopal clergy is (for many of them) more like that for deacons in the Latin Rite -- part time study for people with first careers (like my parents' opthamologist).

...2. the Episcopal Church may not be a useful comparison -- despite a certain shared history it's tiny (the figures are a mess, but it's often reported to be about 2.5 million, about the same size as the Catholics on the rolls of the archdiocese of New York.

...3. He points out that we've only had this arrangement for a millennium. I'd point out that we've had this arrangment for a thousand years. That's about half the time-span of the whole church -- which side of a balanced equation wins?

...4. In all my discussions about this I say "fine, I don't mind a non-monastic clergy." Because, you see, I don't. I even know some pastoral provision priests who ARE married!! Do you? One of my godsons is the grandson of one of the first of 'em. However, let me ask what I think of as The Question:

How much more money per week will we have to give in order to support a married clergy? That entails an expansion of housing, health-care benefits for families, automobiles, retirement benefits for spouses who outlive the harried priests, and so on.

Let's see - our Roman Catholic Community of Geneva, NY reported on Sunday a deficit of $21,922 for the year-to-date out of a budgeted-to-date $581,884. I guess the year's budget for us is about a million dollars. How much more are we talking about? I don't know, but I hope someone does. One of the main problems in the middle ages with a married clergy was the alienation of property (and remains so in churches with married clergy today - we have it in the Latin Rite church, but on a purely anecdotal level I hear much less of it than in the almost entirely Protestant city of my childhood). That is to say, the diversion of what is properly Church money and property into the hands of the immediate family of the priest. The problem may be more pronounced when the priest has children to finance. See the Borgias.

What about the role of clergy spouses? Believe me, it's a real problem. I have a childhood friend whose father was a radiologist/priest in the Episcopal church. Her older sister married an Episcopal priest. She chose to attend an Episcopal parish in Nashville other than the one at which he was an assistant pastor, because she decided not to be a clergy spouse. The Orthodox and the Eastern Rite have some ideas about this, but we in the Latin Rite don't!

Which leads to the question of clergy divorce. Google produces 294,000 hits (lots of them irrelevant, I'm sure) on clergy+divorce. The relevant question isn't "do we allow a divorced clergy," but "do we allow a divorced and remarried clergy?" Believe me, it's a problem. Indeed, the remarriage question was the last straw for some of the early partakers in the Pastoral Provision. They asked "what can a church mean by "sacramental marriage" if it allows its own priests to remarry without even a form of annullment?"

Talk to some clergy spouses and see how things go for them. Then decide if a having a married clergy will solve more problems than it creates. I am not convinced that it would. Again, I'm not opposed to a married clergy on other than utilitarian grounds -- but those ugly utilitarian arguments are important.

Does anyone have a good idea of the priest/parishoner ratio in the Episcopal Church? We can include the part-timed here, because Lord knows the Annuario Pontificio does for us.

Further: Here's a quite interesting comparative article from America. The author asks the age-bracket question that I ask in the comments below and agrees that other denominations are also having the late-vocation situation (with some attendant problems).

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:44 AM

May 22, 2005

Priestly numbers

Thanks to Anthony I have access to Catholic Statistics again - and it's worldwide! Yay! Thanks, Anthony. And this marvelous information site uses the Annuario Pontificio.

So, crisis in Rochester?

Well - look at it this way -- compare Rochester and Atlanta in this sites 2002 figures:

Rochester - 7,107 sq miles
Catholics/Total Population.....340,000/1,490,891 -- 22.8%
.....diocesan priests -- 258
.....religious priests -- 64
.....total priests -- 322*
.....Catholics per priest -- 1,055

Atlanta - 21,445 sq miles
Catholics/Total population 321,978/5,300,006 - 6.1%
.....diocesan priests -- 161
.....religious priests -- 64
.....total priests -- 225*
.....Catholics per priest --1,431

*This Total Priest number is tricky, because as anyone who's looked at the numbers in Kenedy's Official Catholic Directory may remember the TOTAL number of priests includes those retired, on service outside the diocese but incardinated in the diocese, and those -- umm -- otherwise indisposed. You know, at a monastery in the desert, we hope. Of course, we in Rochester found out that one of those folks was serving in a big suburban parish, but you know. Things are tough here. We have so few priests.

I'll try to be less snarky -- there's every chance Rochester's average priestly AGE is much higher. After all, Rochester, as I mentioned below, may be ordaining fewer than 10 per decade, while Atlanta is ordaining that many per year on average lately.

One of the biggest problems up here, as I have said repeatedly, is the number of church buildings. When I came to Geneva in 1999 there were still 2 parishes and 4 priests (they had been "the Italian Parish" and "the Irish Parish" at some point in the past). They are, respectively, a 5 minute and a 15 minute walk from my house. You can see from one to the other in winter time when the trees are leafless. They are now one "Catholic Community" with 1 Saturday evening Mass, 4 Sunday English Masses and 1 Sunday Spanish Mass staggered between the two buildings (which we still call "parishes"). During the school year there's a Sunday Mass in the College Chapel (which is threatened with every change of parochial vicars with extinction, since we are truly an extra). We are far from uncommon in the area, and the city of Rochester is FULL of churches dating back to ethnic-parish days.

Unfortunately for Geneva, the smaller and older parish did a major renovation just in time to forestall closure. Someone with no sentiment and an iron fist (say a bishop quite different from Bishop Clark) might do something about the situation. Until then the priests of the diocese of Rochester will continue to feel that they are fatally overextended with their 7,000 square miles and 1,055 Catholics per priest. The Archdiocese of Atlanta just feeels different to parishoners and priests, despite having 3 times the area and almost half again as many Catholics per priest.

related posts - Married Latin Rite Clergy?
Shrinking diocesan priesthood + shrinking religious order = parish consolidation

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:58 PM

Catholic Statistics Bleg

Sometime in the last few years I've found webpages with piles of statistics liftend (probably) out of the Kenedy Official Catholic Directory. I was trying to come up with an accurate figure for the number of priests in the Diocese of Rochester (you know, active, retired, on leave, etc) and had trouble. Anyone have a good source?

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:45 PM

Shrinking diocesan priesthood + shrinking religious order = parish consolidation

The diocese of Rochester will ordain a priest this year! A priest was ordained last year! The parochial vicar of my parish was ordained in 2002! The last time I looked there were about 200 priests in the diocese. This is not a formula for replacement.

Meanwhile, there's the St. Anthony of Padua province of the Franciscans (OFM conv), who have announced that after 80 years they are pulling out of St. Hyacinth's, Auburn, NY.

Meanwhile, I read on one of the CARA pages I was glancing at today that Atlanta expects to ordain 19 this year.

A commenter points out that Syracuse will ordain 3 this year, and Buffalo (horrible frames based website - no link allowed) will also ordain 3. So it's not that there are NO vocations in Upstate New York -- only that they're fewer and further between than we'd like.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:01 PM

May 21, 2005

Renovating a Cathedral -- Bring out the Partisans, Elide Ends and Means

I fear that Amy Welborn has closed the comment thread on the Rochester, NY, Cathedral renovation. I don't blamer her - it's at the pointless stage. She had noted commentary on the situation from Irish Elk But I have my own blog, so I can go on repeating MYself. (update - Typepad was having problems)

*sigh*

People have always renovated. Let me show you some examples:

Take a look at this 17th century painting of the interior of St. John, s's-Hertogenbosch, by Pieter Saenredam.

Was it a desecration when someone took the Gothic altarpiece of St. John's, s'Hertogenbosch, out (and probably sold it for scrap) and put in a Baroque altarpiece? What Saenredam is painting is the contemporary building (more or less - it's actually a little bit of an inside joke - read the "information" page). The altarpiece with its painting was created by a friend of Saenredam. The church was late Gothic. The stained glass had been removed by Protestant iconoclasts (but, by the way, might not have been very colorful -- there was a great craze for grisaille in the 15th century - glass in yellows and greys and silvers).

Or look at Notre-Dame. Really -- THAT'S what Notre-Dame, Paris, looked like for about 200 years, from the Baroque (I think it happened under Louis XIV, but it might have been under the Regency) until the renovations of the mid-19th century Gothicked it all up again by taking off the big marble sheets that were encasing the gothic columnar piers (the current high altar is gothic revival flanked by some lamentable baroque statuary, combining the worst of the 19th and the 17th century). Yes, the Eldest Daughter of the Church didn't respect their own Gothic buildings. Was that a desecration, or change of style? Was it illegitimate? What about music over the same time range? Is change good in itself, evil in itself, or just change?

Now what annoys me isn't renovation, but the triumphalist language of the renovator or the architect which so often promises transformation in worship -- and Thomas Gordon Smith is just as guilty as Richard Vosko in promising that HIS arrangements will somehow make it easier for us to get to heaven. I think they're both usually wrong. I prefer Smith's (and Duncan Stroik's) buildings, but really, now. Thinking that worshipping in a Duncan Stroik building will make it easier to get to heaven is like thinking that there won't be problems of abuse showing up in traditionalist groups or conservative orders -- a disconnect between end and means.

Oh - the funniest thing? The renovations of Vosko and the buildings of Stroik tend toward chilly colors -- cool greys, whites, very pale rose, yellows. Neither of them seems to have the slightest feeling for medieval styles (not that I'm in favor of unilateral revivalism of any sort), but it is a pity that Vosko has gotten to renovate so many Gothic revival spaces. They both exemplify what my dead advisor used to call the Bauhaus spirit in many modern architects who would deny the connection to capital-M-modernism.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:27 AM

May 5, 2005

It's Not Holy Girlfriend the Church

Ms. Shaidle has a thought on identity.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:21 PM

May 3, 2005

Diocese of Brooklyn Unloads a Murillo "St. Augustine"

Well, "unload" isn't the right word when Christie's low estimate is $1,500,000. The only thing the story doesn't tell me is where these paintings are currently hanging. The collection was built up by a brainy bishop in the 30s and 40s (a great time to be buying baroque religious art, by the way -- see the Ringling Museum and Bob Jones University's collection) who preferred to build another high school than a new cathedral, at one point.

I think it's entirely appropriate for a diocese to have a museum about itself, or a museum of sacred art (though no one will ever go there! I can't tell you the number of otherwise informed people who miss the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus because it's in the fee-charging sacristy museum at St. Peter's). It is entirely appropriate to have old masters hanging over altars (so long as no one suspects that's what they are). However, a tiny collection of expensive religious art held in the chancery (and I don't know that's where it's been, since the article doesn't tell me) is better sold off and used to kick start an endowment.

via Amy Welborn.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:41 AM

April 30, 2005

Harmonica Parts for HYMNS?

I have seldom been so grateful to have been raised Presbyterian as when reading the Amy Welborn guilty sung pleasures thread.

I will admit that when I was 14 I thought "Lord of the Dance" was pretty cool. It's not a pleasure for me now, though. My pleasure nowadays runs more toward bawling "a wretch like me" when we sing "Amazing Grace" in the Oregon-altered-form. My guilty pleasure is actually singing the hymns when no one else will sing. After all, I was raised Protestant. I sometimes even sing along to the communion hymns.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:43 PM

Marriage Abduction

Would you like an example of an evil that canon law succeeded in stamping out in the West during the middle ages? Bride-kidnapping. The consent rules of canon law make this one very difficult. "Secret marriages" took longer, but eventually the rules that the giving of consent had to be public (in front of a witness) took hold. The carrying-over-the-threshhold part of our wedding customary may be the last signs of abduction left in America (the "so she doesn't trip" explanation doesn't ring nearly as true as "bringing her to the marital home forcibly." Yes, it could be both.)

The article is about Kyrgyz marriage abductions and begins: "When Ainur Tairova realized she was on her way to her wedding, she started choking the driver.

It's technically illegal in Kyrgyz law, too, but no one's enforcing it.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:26 AM

April 28, 2005

Cousin marriage

Fr. Jim Tucker is blogging about cousin marriage (based on a Washington Post story about first cousins who want to marry). The laws of consanguinuity grow out of canon law; one of the things Don Jim doesn't consider (it's not really on point here) is how much the Latin Church's enforcement of laws requiring marriage outside of family lines (sometimes less successful than others, but always present after 1100) forced Europe to see families in a different way. To put it bluntly, the unintended consequence was a weakening of patriarchy. Cousin-marriage, especially arranged cousin-marriage, seems to reinforce inheritance patterns in a way that reduce the rights of women inside families.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 2:36 PM

April 25, 2005

Vestment Watch

Don Jim Tucker has an interesting suggestion about Pope Benedict's pallium. I'm not certain, but it's possible . . . .

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:08 AM

Polling the Papal Election

An overwhelming majority of American Catholics approves of the selection of Pope Benedict XVI and predicts that he will defend the traditional policies and beliefs of a church that many members say is out of touch with their views, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Meaningless, but heartening. Meaningless because that's not how popes are elected or rule. Heartening, because 8 out of 10 approve. Of course, being America, they then had to ask questions about "what do YOU think should be done about . . . ."

No information in the article about what qualified as an "American Catholic." Was this poll conducted by telephone or on the church steps? They were "self-identified" -- that sounds like telephone to me.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:50 AM

Emanations of Penumbras of Vatican II

Father Silva said he believed that priests' views about Benedict generally divided on a generational line. The youngest priests, ordained in the last 20 years, seem most excited and pleased at the thought of a pope with a clear, structured, conservative approach to theology and firm boundaries and guidelines, Father Silva said. Some older priests - those ordained in the mid-1960's to mid-1980's, in the years after the Second Vatican Council and its promises of openness to modern times and to lay people - seem "not so enthused," he said.

The New York Times publishes speculations on the clerical generation gap.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:41 AM

April 24, 2005

The Cycle of Readings

Well, Catholic readers, was that something or what? How could one not preach about papal succession in light of current events and the readings today? The order of deacons, St. Peter on the Corner Stone/Stumbling Block, and the Apostles clueless about change (Acts 6:1-7; Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 18-19; 1 Peter 2:4-9; John 14:1-12). Very satisfying. We had a useful sermon on getting what we want and wanting what we get and the first call for prayers for students and faculty facing the end of the semester.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 5:05 PM

April 23, 2005

Whininess, or what?

Oh, my. A dissatisfied customer.

Benedict finally came out of the apartment in the evening, smiled, waved a few times, got into his Mercedes and rode off. "At least he could have said something," said Amy Widnayer, 27, of Philadelphia, an English teacher here on vacation.

"I feel slighted, shortchanged, by this very small gesture," she said. "When I saw John Paul II, it was much more exciting. You need to connect with people. Even if you're inaccessible, you should have the aura of being accessible."

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:21 PM

April 21, 2005

Schadenfreude zentral

Zorak has your Schadenfreude needs filled. My favorite is her suggestion of what BXVI could have said from the balcony: "Be afraid. Be very afraid."

I am much more eirenic, but who can resist the Mantis?

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 2:18 PM

It's all about me, me, me!

The New York Times wallows in narcissism -- everything is about US! U.S.! ME! Of course, my opinion of the article isn't improved when it closes with an incredibly parochial little statement from the inexhaustible Fr. McBrien*:

But the Rev. Richard McBrien, a liberal theologian at Notre Dame, said in an interview conducted by e-mail that he wondered how much the new pope understood the more liberal strain of American Catholicism represented by leaders like Mr. Kerry or Mr. Cuomo. "I doubt if he understands it as well as he should, but then, whom does he speak with who might enlighten him, without giving a conservative spin to the explanation?" Father McBrien asked.

McBrien, who actually lived in Rome for a while** seems unaware that European politics are strikingly more "liberal" than American ones. I don't know a single Italian who thinks that American Democrats are at all left. The American center seems quite "right" to them and the American "right" really does frighten them. Similarly, even the Euro-right is full of people who are so statist that no American right would recognize them.

Believe me, Benedict XVI is aware of the "liberal strain" of American Catholicism, because it's not particularly different (other than thinking itself exceptional in that annoying American way) from Catholicism as unpracticed by, say, European politicians who are nominally Catholic. The divorce and annulment records of leading Christian Democrat politicians in Italy didn't seem better than the average Kennedy, for instance.

Oh, well - far be it from McBrien to challenge American Exceptionalism.

*The article actually identified McBrien as a "liberal theologian"! Perhaps that's improvement?

**He has one Roman degree -- but he did get it in 1967, back when the Christian Democrats were still the Christian Democrats and when they pretended a little harder in public to be, you know, Christian.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:58 AM

April 20, 2005

On Benedict XVI and Program

Joseph Ratzinger reproposed it in his last homily before the conclave: “being adults in the faith,” and not “children in a state of guardianship, tossed about by the waves and carried here and there by every wind of doctrine.”

An article by someone who actually seems to have read Ratzinger, Sandro Magister at www.chiesa

All this pope-bloggery at least led to me Sandro Magister, for which I am grateful. I first found him via Amy Welborn. For instance, you have to read his story on the St. Egidio Community -- who knew? He has a lot of dietrologia* on the "movements."

*Dietrologia, Italian, "conspiracy theory," literally, "the science of the back way." Italians are past masters of this -- I can't wait to read what the REAL truths of the Pope's Banker Murder was. You do know about the Swiss Guard, don't you?

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:21 PM

Concrete Responses to a New Papacy -- ORDER BOOKS!

O.K. - I teach at a small-liberal-arts-college which doesn't actually teach any modern Catholicism -- after all, we're semi-Episcopal in background (I mean that quite literally; while the men's college is Episcopal, the women's college was founded by a Spiritualist and is by charter non-religious). The library is underserved in Benedict XVI and John Paul II. I suppose there will now be a single-volume "documents of the papacy of JPII" volume out pretty soon, but I've got to order some of the Ignatius back-catalog of Ratzinger books. By the way, since there are no books in the library NOR a subscription to Communio it means that I get to look askance at any moaning about BXVI other than from the genuinely well-informed on Catholic theology and the church (who I can count on one hand; indeed, I'm only certain about one digit, but sometimes people's hobby reading surprises you). Everyone else is reacting to the popular press.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:45 AM

April 19, 2005

Reactions.

Poor Andrew Sullivan is truly about to explode -- and the reader's notes he's posting are similar. Of course, I don't think he would have liked any of the front runners, but its much easier to hate Ratzinger publically than the others. Pray for them. Further -- actually, Sullivan is going to pray, too. That's a start.

The Anchoress is worth reading (as per usual, but you know what I mean). Click and scroll (the tolle, lege of our time).

When the furore has stilled I'll go read what's up at Ratzinger Fan Club, but don't click yet. They've crashed.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 2:16 PM

Greeley on Ratzinger (i.e., before the election)

This is a quite interesting article by Fr. Greeley about the things to like about a Ratzinger pontificate - published before the election.

via Miss Welborn.

Further: Someone I read yesterday had blogged that Ratzinger would be an interesting pope in part because of the number, length, and thoroughness of interviews he's given, going back at least as far as the Ratzinger Report. Interesting point.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:46 PM

Gregory XVI and Brainy Catholic Trends

Oh, dear. In parallel to the rise we saw in reading St. John of the Cross and phenomenology in the wake of John Paul II, we're about to see people try to crack von Balthasar and de Lubac! Good luck, folks. Me, if I want background I'll stick to Augustine. We now have a pope whose background follows the rather different tradition of Plato->Augustine->Bonaventure.

You know, you could fit all the Bonaventure I've read into about 20 pages, and evidently BXVI's Habilitationsschrift was on Bonaventure. I've always liked the prayer after communion attributed to Bonaventure (though it's too gushing and liquid for me to have used regularly).

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:31 PM

Benedict? Benedict?

Benedict? I was hoping that if Ratzinger were elected he'd take the name of the last man whose papal name never really takes -- Pope St. Gregory the VII, cheerfully known as Hildebrand despite 15 years operating under the name Gregory. Medievalists, discuss among yourselves -- are there any other popes who are as commonly thought of under their previous names?

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:02 PM

Habemus Papam!

Habemus Papam!

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:02 PM

April 3, 2005

A Papal Transition FAQ

Here're lots of answers to things people are asking from Rev. Thomas J. Reese, S.J., editor in chief of America and author of one of my favorite recommendations for understanding the Church in America, Archbishop: Inside the Power Structure of the American Catholic Church. Reese includes information from John Allen AND links to bookies - your full service stop.

And if you want the undigested instructions, here they are - UNIVERSI DOMINICI GREGIS - on the Vacancy of the Apostolic See and the election of the Roman Pontiff, February 22, 1996.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:54 AM

April 2, 2005

Pray for the Cardinals

If what you need to do is read about him, go read about him at the Anchoress's - live blogging the Lion's last breath.

I want to go into a media blackout until 2 weeks after the next conclave, by the way - we're in for an avalanche of unhelpful statements about conservatives and liberals in the Church (tell me, quick, which one John Paul II was, and justify with examples). I'll let the Holy Spirit handle things, not CNN or Fox or the BBC or bloggers. Meanwhile I'm praying for the cardinals -- they'll need it.

further: and if you want to know what happens next and would rather hear someone better informed than a CNN host, Prof. Thomas F. X. Noble has recorded a pair of lectures on papal elections for the Teaching Company and the Teaching Company is offering them for free. Noble (now at Notre Dame) is the most impressive historian of the early medieval papacy in America* -- his Republic of St. Peter: The Birth of the Papal State, 680-825 is a fine book (for the professionally inclined - I don't know that I'd recommend it for the general reader). I haven't listened to the lectures, but I've heard him give a number of conference papers; he's a good speaker and he's certainly well-informed.

*For instance, Eamon Duffy (at Cambridge) is neither American, a historian of the papacy, nor a specialist in the early middle ages. He's British, a historian of medieval England who happens to have written a popular history of the Papacy, and a specialist (initially, at least) in the very late middle ages. He's good, but I hope he doesn't get a lot of media attention in America over this.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 4:09 PM

March 28, 2005

Happy Easter, I think.

Sorry to whine, but my parochial loyalty meant that I subjected myself to a Dan Schutte/Suzanne Toolan songfest; there were tambourines. I had to read the Exsultet to myself (Schutte used much of the text but arbitrarily rearranged it) and then look up a sound file on Sunday. I'm really not particularly musical, but the Exsultet is a great, great thing, in English or Latin I found this version via, of all places, Samizdata.net - Adriana Cronin likes it, too.

This is two years in a row for the particular musical selections we had at the Vigil. I think that next year I may call around and find a parish singing something less objectionable.

There was one utterly odd and unrubrical experience - rather than asperging the congregation with the newly blessed water between the baptisms and the confirmations we were invited to come forward and "bless ourselves with the water." This, of course, took even longer than the communion; there was only one basin of water (well, plastic punch bowl, I think) in the front center. Without extraordinary ministers of the renewal of our baptism it took a LONG time. I think that innovations which make the Easter Vigil slower than it already is are not a good thing. Maybe someone thought it would give us a chance to stretch and move around in the middle of things?

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:25 AM

March 15, 2005

Church Year and seasonal prayer intentions

There are different prayers for different seasons of the year; because I attend Mass on campus (and a big thanks to the priests of the Roman Catholic Community of Geneva, NY for continuing to provide us with this mass!) I hear regular intercessions offered for students and professors at beginnings of semesters, midterms, and finals. Now is a time to move prayers for parish priests up into high rotation -- they are starting that exhausting push to Easter. If you want to do something besides pray for them, take an appropriately sized, microwavable meal (having first determined if Father gave up meat this year) in disposable containers with a note saying "don't bother to return these plastic boxes, Fr.!" Sometime during the next 2 weeks he'll find it, zap it, eat, and pray for your intentions.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:22 AM

March 13, 2005

Catholic Musical Tradition

One of the advantages of having school out of session is that there's no mass on campus, so I can go to the gorgeous parish church. One of the disadvantages of having school out of session is that I have to hear banal 20th century religious music with organ accompaniment when I go to mass in the parish. On the other hand, I get a vivid taste of Catholic tradition - you know, singing the last refrain to I am the bread of life a capella. I also had to sit behind one of those children who make you wonder about ex opere operato -- I'm not sure her baptism took.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:16 AM

March 2, 2005

Modern Church Architecture in Bolivia. Sorta.

Oh, my goodness! Via Amy Welborn I learn of a surviving genius of Bavarian baroque! Go look at the slide show before it goes behind the New York Times archive-wall -- it's great! Fr. Sebastian Obermaier has built about 80 churches in the city of El Alto, Bolivia, and they all look like fun. You couldn't do this in America - building code would stop you - but it would be good to try.

A visiting friend said "It's like Ave Maria Grotto, only life size!" I do hope you know what Ave Maria Grotto is. If you don't, you've probably never been to Cullman, AL. Not that many people have been to Cullman . . . .

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:11 AM

February 26, 2005

New St. Peter's on Display in Washington

Neat, neat, neat. The wooden model for the dome of New St. Peter's* is on display at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington through late May. They have a show up called Creating St. Peter's: Architectural Treasures of the Vatican If you like "building of..." or "making of..." kind of things, this looks great. I love things like that.

The model is 18 feet tall and was meant to be a serious guide for the builders, not just a presentation piece to persuade a client (though it was to do that, too). The show also has one of the capstans used in raising the obelisk in the Piazza.

The part of the show I'd most like to see (I've seen the model - it's usually on display in the Basilica) is about illuminating the Basilica with candles -- a sight now lost in the 21st century. Think for a moment how much it must have cost to burn enough candles to light New St. Peter's for a long service? I've read the figure somewhere -- I think in an account of the canonization process during the 19th century. Back in those days the organization sponsoring the Cause was responsible for the lighting -- is something similarly true of the modern extravaganzas in the Piazza? Ahah - I might have read it here - go to the entry on beatification and canonization in the Catholic Encyclopedia and scroll to the bottom.

To decoration of the Basilica, lights, architectural designs, labour, and superintendence -- Lire 152,840.58
Procession, Pontifical Mass, preparation of altars in Basilica -- 8,114.58
Cost of gifts presented to Holy Father -- 1,438.87
Hangings, Sacred Vestments, etc. -- 12,990.60
Recompense for services and money loaned -- 3,525.07
To the Vatican Chapter as perquisites for decorations and candles -- 18,000.00
Propine and Competenza -- 16,936.00
Incidental and unforeseen expenses -- 4,468.40
Total -- 221,849.10 or (taking the lira equivalent to $.193 in 1913 United States money) $42,816.87.

I picked this up from a story in the Washington Post.

*Why "New" St. Peter's? Because it's only 500 years old. St. Peter's, commonly referred to by modernists as "Old St Peter's," was completed in about 340 and served until cumulative earthquake damage made the building irreparable ("falling into ruin" in the Post story is an exaggeration -- it wasn't a ruin, but there was a reasonable fear of collapse). If you want to see what St. Peter's looked like, your best bet is St. Paul's Outside the Walls. If you want to see what it looked like but on a smaller scale, go see Sta. Prassede up by Sta. Maria Maggiore. I've seen Sta. Prassede by candlelight - Easter Vigil of 2003.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:59 AM

February 23, 2005

Interested in NEW Catholic Colleges?

If you have a strong feeling that people should go to NEW Catholic colleges because they're more likely to be orthodox than old ones, try this one - Southern Catholic College. I'm not at all sure that I agree with the put-your-college-in-an-isolated-location model*, but Dawsonville isn't far from Atlanta.

Read this article about the high level administrators at Southern Catholic. These are people with appropriate professional experience to do their jobs and with good local connections. They look well-financed, and without all the money coming from a single donor.

Their reason for starting the college isn't some quirky view of education or some idea that they will provide the salvation for Catholic education -- they wanted a Catholic college in the Atlanta area and they have the money. The archdiocese of Atlanta has seen an explosion of Catholic schools - both diocesan and independent - and this is the fruit of that growth. There are now at least 6 Catholic high schools in the archdiocese (4 diocesan, 1 Marist, 1 Legionaries of Christ**, 1 independent [though with an interesting relationship to the chancery]). THEN there are all those other Catholics across the South who are severely underserved by Catholic colleges without snow on campus.

*I know, I know - I teach in centrally isolated Geneva, NY. - but I chose to go to college in Houston, myself.
**Pinecrest is up to 10th grade this year, so in 2 years they'll be k-12. They already have 700 or so students. Demography in Atlanta is kinda scary.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:33 PM

January 23, 2005

Married Clergy. Umm hmmm.

People who want a married Catholic clergy have clearly NOT grown up with a lot of Brit Lit. Here's a delightfully Trollopean news story. (And don't go giving me that "but the Orthodox have married clergy but monastic bishops" - we don't have a monastic episcopate and if you think we could have one with the state of monastic life in the 21st century you're clearly dreaming.)

Via Kathy Shaidle.

Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:19 AM