WHAT REALLY SET HOLY WEEK ON FIRE

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On Holy Thursday, at the close of a Mass of the Lord's Supper celebrated with sparsely-populated pews, plastic roses on the Altar of Repose and only nine volunteering for foot-washing, Father suggested that it might be the last time we hold the Triduum in Holy Trinity Parish. In a fairly broad hint, he mentioned Cardinal John Dew's call for the closing of more churches in the Wellington Archdiocese. And as the coup de grace, he told us that his Eminence wants us to stop calling priests 'Father'.

Same day, Holy Thursday, the official spokesperson for the Catholic Church in NZ, Dame Lyndsey Freer, told the media she was "sorry" that rugby star Israel Folau had said homosexuals would go to hell. 

Day before, Wednesday of Holy Week, a guy with gas cans and lighter fluid was stopped by police at the doors of St Patrick's Cathedral, New York. Day before that, Cardinal Timothy Dolan had said to himself, "Oh my Lord, are we safe?" He was thinking of the $177,000 just spent on new fire safety features - because St Patrick's has a wooden roof.

And the day before that, as we all know, with horror and disbelief the whole world watched the wooden spire and roof of Notre Dame, symbol of the Catholic faith in France, "the First Daughter of the Church", collapse under the assault of flames looking like they'd leapt out of hell. (And now we have the assurance of Notre Dame's chief architect that those flames hadn't leapt out of an electrical short circuit, as a new detection system was installed in 2010 and the cathedral completely rewired.)


On Easter Sunday, nearly 300 people were killed in Sri Lanka by Islamic suicide bombers, the deadliest attack being at St Sebastian's Catholic Church, where at least 104 people were killed, possibly in retribution for the massacre in Christchurch NZ.

At Holy Trinity CHB, Holy Week concluded with an Easter Sunday Mass that was all about going to heaven. Father "can't wait to get there". He must have thought the entire congregation was going there too, otherwise rejoicing publicly about how he's going to heaven, in front of people who were going to hell, would surely have been very rude.

Holy Week was bizarre, unprecedented. What are we Catholics in the pews to make of it? 

• In suggesting that after millenia of the usage, lay people should stop calling their priests 'Father', Cardinal John Dew repudiates the title bestowed by God on Abraham, on the Levite whom Micah called father and priest, on Joseph, on Job, Eliakim and Melchizedek.
  Priests who no longer give witness to Christ by dressing like priests should not allow lay people to give witness to Christ either, by calling priests by the title implied by their status: as bridegrooms of Holy Mother Church, they are spiritual fathers of Her children.
  Cardinal John is emulating Uriah Heep in 'umbleness, believing apparently that priests' being addressed as ordinary men will somehow cure 'clericalism' and priestly sexual abuse. 
  
• 25 parishes amalgamated in the Wellington Archdiocese in four years and his Eminence says more churches are to be closed.
  Catholic churches are closing because Catholic souls who hungered for the truth as taught by Jesus Christ have died of starvation. Catholics have walked away from their church in disgust at the music and the liturgy: two years ago for instance, Cardinal John announced that, in defiance of the GIRM, lay persons would read the Gospel at Mass and lead the congregation in Lectio Divina.  Does this man have a death wish? Why does he want to emasculate the Catholic priesthood?
  An apostate of my close acquaintance says he's desperate. "Oh no," I said, his Eminence claims that he's "not worried".
  
  
• Cardinal Timothy Dolan was "honoured" to sponsor an exhibition at the NY Met Museum which profaned sacred symbolism such as rosary beads. Cardinal Tim has refused to excommunicate the  'Catholic' NY mayor who signed off abortions at any old time up till birth.

• Israel Folau's disregard for public opinion and his witness to Jesus Christ should be applauded by the Catholic Church as an exemplar for priests and lay people alike. The spokesperson for the Catholic Church had no reason to be 'sorry' except that Folau fails to make the critical distinction between people with homosexual inclinations and those who perform the homosexual act (from which even the devil withdraws in disgust). However, that's probably because billboards and tweets don't lend themselves to subtlety and anyway, the distinction seems to have escaped Dame Lyndsey.
  
  
• In tweeting/bleating on the Sri Lankan massacre, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other luminaries of the left have notably eschewed the term 'Christians' in referring to the slain, preferring to call them 'Easter worshippers'. Easter, or 'Eostre' being the Anglo-Saxon word for an ancient Indo-European goddess, Obama, Clinton et al are labelling Christians as worshippers of the Anglo-Saxon goddess of the dawn.
  How do you feel about that, people? The liberal left are not just playing semantics, they are attempting to obliterate the fact that Christians are the most persecuted religious group of our day.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan, a prelate so outspoken that he's just incurred a CB (confined to barracks) penalty from Pope Francis, commenting on the conflagration at Notre Dame, puts his holy finger on the common denominator of the events of this Holy Week: 

If the Shepherds of the Church refuse to do penance for the spiritual conflagration of the past fifty years, and for the betrayal of Christ’s universal command to evangelize, should we then not fear that God might send another and more shocking sign, like a devastating conflagration or earthquake that would destroy St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome? God will not indefinitely and shamelessly be mocked by so many Shepherds of the Church of our own day, through their betrayal of the Faith, their sycophantic serving of the world and their neo-pagan worship of temporal and earthly realities. To them as well are addressed these words of Christ, ‘I tell you, unless you repent you will all likewise perish.’” (Lk 13:5)

'Anonymous' says:

I once entertained the thought of starting a blog - but reading yours has well and truly put that wanton egoistic aspiration to bed. Would I rant so heedlessly at the moon though? Defending Israel? Really? If he could quote scripture to damn all Catholics to hell he would not have hesitated one moment. I think your dominant defect is despair - a person with even a glimmer of hope in their soul would see all the present woes in the context of eternity. Work likes everything depends on you and pray like everything depends upon God - and it does. 'Anonymous II' says: Unfortunately our leaders are taking their lead from failed dioceses overseas - ones that implemented the lay pastoral leader (or similar) programmes called collaborative ministries euphemistically. All the research I could find shows that where these programmes have been developed seminary enrolments have plummeted. But then again the cynical among us might have a suspicion that that was the motive in the first place. A desperate need for priests adds fuel to the burning passion for equality of the sexes in ministry, does it not?  "Anonymous' III says: I am concerned by the weak response of Freer to the Israel Folau situation.  We must assume she is speaking for the NZ Bishops.  If this is their response, it is not appropriate.  Further, Folau is not the issue.  He is only quoting the Bible.  The Bible and the Christian faith are the real targets. It appears the power to pick Folau off comes through the sponsors of Rugby Australia.  It will be a master stroke of gender power politics if they can destroy Folau’s livelihood as a rugby player.  This will help validate in the minds of the public that quoting the Bible is socially unacceptable. The Bible will be a banned book soon. It has been a Holy Week to remember.