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questions answered
by wm. b. smith
Holy Days
Question: One of my parishioners is a public school teacher who objects to working (“servile work”) on Holy Days of obligation. She has petitioned the local School Board and asked me to testify that our Catholic religion requires this. Any guidance?
Answer: While I am immediately sympathetic with any Catholic trying to live and live out conscientious convictions, I could not say, in conscience, that our Catholic religion requires this in our country.
Let me summarize what I take to be pertinent here. Surely, for a professional teacher, teaching is their chosen “work” for which they are rightly compensated by right and by contract.
I would, however, be careful about the use of the term “servile work.” It is a traditional term and can be found in canon laws and moral theology since the 13th century right up to the Code of 1917 (“abstinendum ab operibus servilibus” cn. 1248 of 1917-Code). Significantly, the term “servile work” does not appear in the new Code of Canon Law (1983), the substance of the law (cn. 1247) is the same: participation in the Mass and rest, but the new wording is different.
Thus, on Sundays and Holy Days of obligation the faithful are positively obliged to participate in the Mass, but the negative prohibition now urges: “to abstain from such work or business that would inhibit the worship to be given to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s Day, or the due relaxation of mind and body” (cn. 1247).
No doubt, it will take some time and settled practice before a universally accepted interpretation of that new wording pervades the Catholic community. The real difficulty of interpreting “servile work” fairly in modern circumstances may have been one of the reasons for not including that term in the new Code. Further, one aspect of the present wording explicitly mentions the Lord’s Day which Sundays are and Holy Days are not. This might suggest that the “rest” aspect more properly is addressed to Sundays than Holy Days.
Still, it is also true that the Catechism (#2187) states: “Sanctifying Sundays and holy days requires a common effort. Every Christian should avoid making unnecessary demands on others that would hinder them from observing the Lord’s Day.” Again, one notes that the first sentence mentions Holy Days, while the second sentence does not.
Practically, in the United States, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day are already holidays for everyone. Apart from summer school, August 15th would not seem to be an issue for teachers, so the Holy Days in question would be: Ascension Thursday, All Saints (November 1) and Immaculate Conception (December 8).
Now, in the Latin Rite in the USA, there is an unusual and uneven observance—many dioceses have 5/7ths of a Holy Day in that if those days land on a Monday or Saturday, they are not observed as Holy Days in most places. Such an uneven application makes it more and more difficult to assert that our religion requires a particular abstention from work.
Apart from that and long before it, the question of proper interpretation remains. Canon 27 tells us that custom is the best interpreter of law; indeed, a number of canons detail a proper understanding of custom (cns. 23-28).
The fact that for over 100 years in the USA, we have observed only 6 of the 10 universal Holy Days on the Church’s calendar is itself instructive. Since ours is not and never was a Catholic country, Holy Days of obligation were not civil holidays (except for Christmas and January 1). The positive obligation of Mass attendance was always urged, but abstention from work on those days was never required.
Even today, a number of Catholic educational institutions—especially higher education—in their pursuit of adapting to the civil calendar (or the challenges of bus schedules in primary and secondary education), themselves do not observe Holy Days of obligation by closing school.
Thus, while I would decline the opportunity to testify against any conscientious Catholic, I would point out personally to that parishioner that I would not be her best witness. If asked directly: Does the Catholic religion require a Catholic teacher not to teach (work) on a Holy Day of obligation? My answer would be no! I know of no such obligation as it is understood and interpreted for over 100 years in this country. I doubt that that answer would or could help her case.
Flags in Church
Question: Are you aware of rules or regulation that permit or forbid the display of the American flag in Catholic churches? If so, where? If not, why not?
Answer: As far as I can determine, this is a custom (along with the Papal flag) that has evolved and now in some places is in decline.
First, flags (national or papal) are not ecclesiastical furnishings. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) in chapter 5 outlines the arrangement and decoration of churches for the eucharistic celebration (GIRM, nn. 253-279). There is no mention for or against flags there at all.
Next, the Order of Christian Funerals n. 132 states: “Any national flags or the flags or insignia of associations to which the deceased belonged are to be removed from the coffin at the entrance of the church. They may be replaced after the coffin has been taken from the church.” It is now part of the Introductory Rite of the funeral Mass, after sprinkling the coffin with holy water to place the funeral pall on the coffin (n. 161).
When I was a child growing up in my home parish there was an American flag and a Papal flag at the extreme corners of the sanctuary. The same was true in the auditorium of every Catholic school. But, as common as that custom was 40 years ago, I would say that flags in the sanctuary are as uncommon today as they were common in that past.
More often now, what I observe, is both flags displayed somewhere else in the church: in the nave; from the balcony; or in the vestibule of the church. It seems to me these other places are a legitimate and acceptable custom. Further, it seems to me that the sanctuary—simply because it is the sanctuary—is not the proper locus or focus for any flags of any kind. In all candor, I have seen some banners in the sanctuaries of some churches—banners so trendy that they are really goofy—for which a flag of almost any nation would be a stately and tasteful improvement.
This response concerns normal parishes since there surely are places of ready exception: military chapels; great national shrines; and the national memorials and cemeteries for the honored dead of our armed forces.
When asked, one older priest told me that flags in the sanctuary were not common until World War II and became common as an understandable form of patriotism. I can neither prove nor disprove that statement, but it seems a reasonable development.
An Australian priest friend told me he was surprised to see the American flag inside our churches because, he said, this is not done in Australia. Since the upper left hand quadrant of the Australian flag is the British union jack, it may be that many of Irish background in that country did not want that symbol displayed in their Catholic churches.
Some Italian priests tell me that the Italian national flag does not appear in Catholic churches in that country. But again, there may be painful historical reasons for that.
The only time I visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, I was amazed to see the famous Image of Guadalupe half surrounded by a gigantic Mexican national flag three or five times the size of the Tilma. And this in a country where, until recently, priests were not allowed to vote nor wear clerical clothes in public.
Since our country has no established church and has been spared bitter anti-clerical or poisonous Church-State confrontations, it seems to me that acceptable customs in peaceful possession should be left alone as they are.
I don’t know of any ecclesiastical law that forbids or commands the display of our national flag in church. While the flag does not, in my opinion, properly belong in the sanctuary, I see no problem with its display elsewhere in church. However, once such questions get politicized then a nice custom becomes the source of more heat than light.
Please address questions to Msgr. Wm. B. Smith, St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie, Yonkers, N.Y. 10704.
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