My Eastern Sojourn

After leaving the Bunker, I serendipitously found myself driving by Christ the King chapel in Port Richmond. This little "mission chapel" is attached to St. Mary of the Assumption church, which is a about a mile away and which is now predominantly Mexican. I don't know why or when this little chapel was created, but it's always been fascinating to me. There's nothing else like it on Staten Island, to my knowledge. When we've built churches, we've built them big. The only small chapels we have are connected with a church, a school or a larger Catholic institution. However, this chapel was at least a mile away from a church and didn't look like it could fit more than 50 people. Was it perhaps built for the private use of a retired bishop or a wealthy Catholic family? Maybe some savvy priest snatched it up on the cheap from some insolvent Protestants? Whatever the story was, it's always had an allure for me, since I have never seen it open in my entire life. However, this Sunday it was.

As I drove by, I noticed a brown-skinned man walking into the building. I saw my opportunity and parked the car. I figured it was a Spanish Mass, since the neighborhood is heavily Mexican and I noticed on the sign outside that the chapel hosts some Spanish Masses. Nothing much really surprises me anymore, but I have to say that I genuinely experienced shock when I walked through that door.

Through a thick cloud of incense, I beheld a congregation of about 30 Indian people listening to a sermon by a priest bedecked in a robe that looked like something out of the Arabian Nights. Judging by the style of the women's saris, it was obvious they were Indian. The priest's language and cadence also seemed familiar to me from Bollywood movies. I unobtrusively chose the last pew, but only after I sat down did I realize that the church was gender segregated and I had sat on the women's side. I was feeling too self-conscious to get up and change sides though. I was the only non-Indian there and received more than one double-take.

However, I did not feel unwelcome. I assumed that these people belonged to one of the Church's Eastern rites, so I felt like I was still worshipping with fellow Catholics, despite the exoticness of the ritual. Believe it or not, the priest actually preached one of the better sermons I'd heard in a long time. Perhaps to accommodate the American guest, he alternated languages as he preached, just like they sometimes do in Bollywood films. He was passionate about his subject and spoke at length and at some detail about the cooperation of grace and free will in salvation. His sermon was a happy mixture of the theological and the concrete. I was halfway thinking about joining this church, as you just don't get this kind of adult-level discourse from the pulpits of American Catholic churches. The traditionalism of the worship was also gratifying.

The priest faced away from the congregation, as used to be done in the Catholic Church until the 1960s. I imagined that the liturgy was probably quite ancient, since I know it was Thomas the Apostle who evangelized India. It would be hard to conceive of all the problems of Latin rite experimentation taking place here. The very thought of altar girls, hippy guitarists, pandering liturgical democratization, clown Masses, et al would probably be unimaginable to these people. That's the safeguard of Tradition, that what is true and valuable will be preserved and passed down. We Latin Catholics turned the very heart of our faith over to revolutionaries in the 1960s and look what's happened to us. I would have preferred to receive the Faith of my ancestors than the experimentation of leftwing clerics.

The music was sung by the congregation a cappella. They were quite a bit off at times, but it didn't really matter; they weren't on American Idol. Their singing was an act of worship, and they all participated. Strangely enough though, the priest seemed to abruptly cut them off a few times, but I don't know why. Most of the liturgy, excepting the Our Father and a few other things, was in their language but that didn't really matter. I know the basic plot of Christian mysteries: Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again; this is my Body, this is my Blood, etc. It's not necessary to understand every word in order to participate in worship. I am entirely unsympathetic to those whiners who never "understood" the Latin Mass. Everyone had a missal with a translation directly next to the Latin of the Mass. Geez, someone attending Mass every week of their life can't help but naturally absorb the Latin. I would think that by the time they were 30, a regular church-goer would be able to comfortably converse with Caesar Augustus. I think the anti-Latin partisans are just intellectually lazy or not actually regular church-goers. There are definite benefits to an unchanging, elevated liturgical language. Although I can't speak from real experience, I think I would even prefer to hear the Mass in Latin than the prosaic American tongue I hear in the agora.

There were certain things about this service I didn't understand. A man and woman went up to the front for what seemed to be a special blessing. As soon as the people received Communion, they began leaving the church or going into a side room for some sort of refreshments. So I asked an older man who exactly they were. And this was where I received my second surprise: he told me that they were an Indian Orthodox church!

Sure enough, a little googling confirmed that they were the Malankara Orthodox church. Over the years, I'd read many times about a Catholic church allowing a non-Catholic religious group to worship in our church, such as when their own church burned down. However, with so many abuses happening today, I wasn't sure if that was really allowed. I thought it was slightly scandalous. Although it's unlikely that any American was going to be converted to the Indian Orthodox church, it still smacked of indifferentism. Would I next see Protestants preaching against us from our own pulpits? So, I emailed the archdiocese.

I figured the head of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs would have the answer, and indeed, he was quick to reply that it was ok. I asked him if he could cite the relevant section of canon law or papal encyclical that allowed it, and he replied that he didn't know and said I should ask a certain other priest in the chancery office, but he gave me no contact info. I felt I was just getting a runaround, so I put my question to the experts-at-large on the internet.

Sure enough, an online priest quoted me numbers 137-142 of something called the Ecumenical Directory, a Papal document published in 1967 and subsequently revised a few times. In it, non-Catholic use of Catholic churches is permitted with the local bishop's approval. So, there you have it. It is allowed, but is it right?

First thoughts on new Archbishop

I have a generally favorable impression of New York's new Archbishop, based largely on certain stray facts I've picked up from the media, such as his authorship of a book defending clerical celibacy. However, now that he has begun his reign here, we can start judging him on his record. So far, I'm seeing positive and negative.

On the positive side, he has made a surprisingly strong statement of what on the surface seems like actual Catholic faith. According to the April 23rd issue of Catholic New York, he "...promised a ministry centered on renewal of Catholic practice in the Church, saying: 'On my first day as your archbishop I dream that we can reclaim Sunday as the Lord's day, anchored in our faithfulness to Sunday Mass, our weekly family meal with the risen Jesus.' 'For us Catholics,' he said, 'Christ and his Church are one."

I welcome such a sentiment. Besides the usual trials of existence in a sinful world, one of the Church's main problems in this age is the erosion of Catholic allegiance and identity, due mainly to the inculcation of an such an attitude from the clergy. When was the last time you heard a priest preach about the Church's divine authority or even speak the words "One, True Church"? In contrast to previous generations, most Catholics I know identify as such without knowing one good reason they should. This ignorance makes them ready prey for the ravenous wolves of the sects. Dolan's triumphal sentiment is a far cry from that of the outgoing Cardinal Egan, who seemed primarily concerned with the archdiocese's financial situation, and it is the complete opposite of Egan's predecessor Cardinal O'Connor, who preached open heresy and whose guiding spirit was a genial kind of multicultural universalism. Nevertheless, Dolan's words are just words. We shall see whether they will be translated into action.

On the negative side, I see that he's already done homage to the zeitgeist and participated in a seder sponsored by the ADL. He was even presented with a mezuzah, which he is expected to hang on his doorway (why didn't he reciprocate with a gift of a crucifix?). I've expressed my thoughts on these ecumenical stunts in a previous post. Needless to say, I'm not encouraged by this decision. It was not the action of a man who really believes that "Christ and His Church are one".

Passover at St. Teresa's

An "Interfaith Seder" took place at St. Teresa's Roman Catholic church Saturday night, with Catholics, Protestants, Moslems, Buddhists and Hindus participating in the Jewish Passover ritual in the church hall. The pastor of this parish must be a dedicated Judaizer since his church seems to host this event every year.

It's fine to understand other faiths and even to observe their worship for educational purposes, but the problem with these ecumenical stunts is that their guiding spirit, or at least the impression they impart, is indifferentism, i.e. the heresy that all religions are equally true or at least equally pleasing to God. How do these priests participate in these things with a clear conscience?

I realize that a genial latitudinarianism has prevailed in American public life, at least since WWII and especially in pluralistic New York City, but Roman Catholic priests- of all people- should realize the serious, serious implications of Christ's statement that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and that no one comes to the Father except through Him. (JN 14:6) These kinds of actions make a mockery of our Faith. If you take Christ literally- if you take Christ seriously- the logical conclusion is that Judaism (or any other non-Christian religion) is a false religion and I wonder then by what logical gymnastics a Catholic priest can justify participating in their rituals and praying to their God.

Yes, I know that the "nice" people out there will say that the god of the Jews is our God as well. To a point, we can say that we all have the same deity, since there is in fact only one God who created the universe. But to take the concept too far is to have it degenerate into the kind of mush-brained universalism that politicians are forced to spout in a multicultural society. We should expect better of our priests. When different people attribute completely different characteristics, actions and desires to their version of "God", then they are in fact worshipping different gods. Moslems also claim to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as well as venerating our Bible, Jesus and Mary. Yet somehow I doubt that even the liberal Christians at this seder would claim that Allah is the same being as our Triune God of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, just because they happen to share some of the same characteristics.

By the same token, the Jewish god is not our own. Their God still honors the Old Covenant and regards the Jews as His Chosen People, contrary to so much of New Testament Scripture. His ethical law is an eye for an eye, not turn the other cheek. He never incarnated Himself on earth and sacrificed Himself on a cross to save mankind from sin. In fact, in the holy books of the Orthodox, the Talmud, Jesus was, among other things, a sorcerer who was condemned by God to be boiled in excrement for eternity. The Talmud also states the Mary was a hairdresser who got knocked up by a Roman soldier, Jesus' actual father. How could we pretend that we worship the same God? And why is it alway such a one-sided affair? When will the Jews be coming to Easter Sunday Mass?

I just happened to have a copy of the Haggadah (the Passover liturgy) lying around. From a quick scan, I don't see anything in it that would explicitly compromise a Catholic priest (such as praying for the coming of the Messiah). Nevertheless, there is no reason for these priests to be doing this. Is it strengthening the Faith of their flocks somehow? Is it bringing non-believers to Christ? I don't see how. On the contrary, it's imparting the message that religion is a matter of personal preference or ethnic tradition, which we should respect but not take so seriously as to let it "divide" us. Just as we would politely eat the exotic dish we might be served at a foreign friend's home, this Interfaith seder teaches us that we should be just as cosmopolitan when it comes to God. Whether we're praying to Allah, Jesus, Yahweh or the Great Pumpkin, we're all rapping with the same God, which is the only important thing. Apparently, relativism is the only objective belief we're allowed to have anymore.

Our late Cardinal O'Connor embodied this spirit during his reign here. He frequently preached that Judaism was as valid a path to salvation as Christ and publicly congratulated people who converted from Catholicism to Judaism. I don't want to be part of a faith like that. I want to be a part of the traditional Catholic Faith that recognized the centrality of Christ in human history and His absolute necessity in human lives. I just wish our priests felt the same way.

"Christian Unity" at the Basilica

I signed up for email updates from the Basilica and received an announcement about an interesting event there on January 21st. The Church was hosting an ecumenical prayer service to celebrate the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. I had no idea what that entailed, but from my experience with this church, I knew it was going to be an extravaganza. I had to check it out.

When I arrived for the Wednesday evening service, the parking lots were closed and traffic was being directed by the NYPD. Upon entering the church, I was greeted by a Boy Scout and took a seat in the already crowded church. A group of middle aged men from a Catholic charismatic prayer group were playing guitars at the front of the church and singing typical "Christian contemporary" songs. The men were very talented, and the theme of their music was of course religious, but the incongruity of their surroundings (the crucifix, the altar, the holy statues and pictures) with their syrupy, happy-clappy torch songs just filled me with a vague feeling of disgust. I know a lot of people, including Catholics, really love the type of music that has been aptly dubbed "Christian schlock", but I just don't get it. Well, maybe it made the Protestants feel comfortable.

It was obvious they were well represented. I saw women in clerical robes, more African Americans than is usual for this mostly White parish, and rows of people sitting together who all had the same self-conscious, uncomfortable look on their faces. One lady however was standing with hands upraised and swaying to the music.

I opened the program and a small piece of paper fell out. It was a "Call to Prayer for the Churches of Staten Island" and explained that everyone there that night had received the same paper but with the name of different churches printed on them. The Church at the Gateway, a local Pentecostal megachurch, was the one I received. The paper asked that I pray for this church, its congregation and leaders. It recommended that I call this church to ask about prayer concerns, and actually attend a service at this church. This was rich! The Catholic Church was actually telling its flock to attend non-Catholic worship, where they will be exposed to heretical doctrines and proselytization. It might have even been acceptable if the paper had warned the Catholics that a non-Catholic service was not a substitute for our Sunday Mass obligation, but that would have obviously insulted the Protestants. Our Church preferred to lead its people into sin than do that. It was obvious that accomodation was the order of the night for the Catholic Church on Staten Island.

The song sheets contained exclusively Protestant hymns. Since most Catholic music these days is Protestant in origin, melody and spirit anyway, that was no culture shock for me. It was funny though- I suspect that the Catholics had a big hand in choosing the songs, because there were a lot of old Anglican or Methodist hymns on there, like "How Great Thou Art" and "Amazing Grace". It seems like Catholics are under the impression that Protestants still regularly sing classics like that, when they have actually moved on to more modern (and inferior) music. I felt embarrassed singing African American spirituals like "We Shall Overcome". It felt so condescending, like when the out-of-touch White guy on TV tries to connect with his normal Black friend by talking "jive". I can only imagine what the visitors thought.

The service began with hymns and prayers from the various Protestant ministers. The pastor of the Basilica and the elderly co-Vicar of Staten Island got up and welcomed the crowd. I believe they each opened with a lame joke. Why do so many Catholic priests seem like they missed their calling as ham comics? Jokes are fine occasionally, so long as they have a deeper point to make, and the priest moves on to serious ideas. Yet so many priests make the humor the centerpiece of their sermon and then perhaps throw in some vague filler about Jesus. The mysteries of the Faith are hardly fodder for comedy though. Serious occasions call for serious speech, but these guys felt like they only had to play the part of MCs.

Then came the time for the homilies. One Catholic and one Protestant would give a sermon. I figured that both sides were going to call out the big guns, wanting to put their best foot forward and make a good impression in front of the other side. The Catholic priest went first. He began by saying how much he hated the prophet Ezekiel,who was the author of one of the readings. Again with the jokes. He "explained" that he hated him because he was so great, such a hard act to follow, blah, blah, blah. He blathered on for a while in a timid little voice, saying nothing substantial, and finally sat down. I wanted to sink into the floor. Then an African American female minister got up. She too started out badly, stumbling over her words and sounding confused. But she soon found her groove. The sermon was none too deep, and I think she masked the shallowness of the message with the volume of her speech, but the passion with which she boomed out her simple message of trust in Jesus was more powerful than anything the priest muttered that night or probably ever. I imagine having someone burst your ear drums every Sunday probably grows tiresome after a while, but for the unchurched and for people who don't get spiritual inspiration on a regular basis- like Catholics- it was energizing. The priest even realized how he'd been upstaged, because when she sat down next to him after concluding, he turned to her with a sheepish smile and seemed to offer some self-deprecating congratulations.

Interestingly enough, the female minister was the only one to acknowledge that there are real, theological obstacles to Christian unity, when she admitted that she was "challenged" by "this place", meaning a Catholic church. The Catholics, by contrast, acted like all that was needed was social interaction, smiling and singing Kumbaya. In practice however, the Catholics recognize that concessions are needed, and seem willing to do all the conceding. In fact, the Protestants have everything to gain and nothing to lose by these sentimental events. We undermine our distinctive, so to speak, our claim to authority, by granting a type of equality to Protestant "churches". They, on the other hand, do not betray their principles by worshipping with Catholics or including us as fellow "Christians", because their ecclesiological theology rests on the relativistic concept of a "spiritual" Church made up of all different denominations and belief systems, rather than a visible Church in possession of objective truth and endowed with the charism of authority. When we engage in these kinds of ecumenical stunts, we lower the status of the Catholic Church and raise the status of Protestantism. It may make everyone feel warm and fuzzy, but it does no service to the Gospel. If we believe that the Catholic Church was established by Jesus Christ and is protected from doctrinal error by the Holy Spirit, then we are betraying the truth and countless souls by according equality between revelation and the theological anarchy of human opinion. We should not be praying for the success of these churches. We should be praying for their conversion and working to that end.

I later did a little googling and discovered that this "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity" had its origins with a group of Episcopalian Franciscans in New York who converted en masse to Catholicism in 1909. Naturally, one of their main concerns was Christian unity which to them meant unification in the Catholic Church, the One, True Church. They established this week of prayer, meaning that Catholics would devote this week to praying for Christian unity. The idea was later co-opted by liberal subversives in the church, who turned it into the compromised sideshow we have today.

This subversion of Catholicism was evidenced after the main sermons, when a husband and wife set of pastors snuck in a mini-sermon during their prayer period and preached open rebellion against the Catholic Church from a Catholic pulpit. The lady pastor, a angry looking woman, led the assembly in prayer for all the individual churches that we had been assigned in our bulletins. We promised to pray for the churches every day because, she hectored us, "...we're all one church, riiiight???". We then prayed the Protestant version of the Lord' Prayer, with its extrabiblical doxology, sang some songs, engaged in smug self-congratulation, said some more prayers and fled. My taste for the Basilica is growing bitter.