letters from our readers

Erratum
Editor: In my article on fantasy and the occult in the last issue of HPR, an unfortunate printing error occurred. What I wrote about a Grade 5 pupil whose mother thought she was not ready to read J.K. Rowling was inadvertently published as a statement about a five-year-old. This of course altered my meaning substantially. 

Susan Moore - Sydney, Australia

Both sides of the issue

Editor: Thank you for the fine article by Michael J. Miller in the February 2001 HPR “Mediatrix Si! Coredemptrix, No!” for helping to “bring light on the subject” as you so well phrased it. Personally, 1 nave always found Professor Mark I. Miravalle’s presentation of the subject to be too fast-paced, too overwrought, and too filled with storm and stress. For that reason I have stood back and considered the matter with great care and I most certainly agree with Mr. Miller’s statement: “Right now we Catholics don’t need more blurred boundaries between the Creator and the creature, the Redeemer and the redeemed, the Giver of sacramental grace and the recipient.”

It is awesome to realize Christ established his Church upon the morally bankrupt ruins of pagan civilization. Anyone who has ever been to Ephesus thrills to know that it was here where the Temple of Artemis, (Diana) is now only a memory and that the Blessed Mother was declared Theotokos by the Third Ecumenical Council in 431. However, I and others outside the spires and ivory towers of church and academia have been troubled by the proposed “Coredemptrix” doctrine. Many feminists in traditional clothing are cheerleading a bandwagon favoring the proposal and shouting that now is the time because our understanding has finally evolved. It rather eerily feels as if the evolvement is full circle and Ephesian Diana is now being readied for Marian clothing. That’s the way I see it and I thank you and HPR for honestly presenting both sides of the issue in the face of so much propaganda being hurled at the grass roots level.

Edgar Wyatt Stephens - Montgomery, Ala.

Mary as Coredemptrix

Editor: May the pure love of God reign in our hearts!

Despite my friendship and great respect towards Michael Miller, I must strongly disagree with his article, (February 2001), “Mediatrix, Si! Coredemptrix, No!” First, he wrongly attributes the phrase “Mater — Si!; Magistra — No!” to William F. Buckley when, in fact, Garry Wills, the dissident Catholic of Papal Sins fame, was the author of that dangerous and false distinction. The Church is Christ’s very Body, and he who hears the Church hears Christ. The Church has her Magisterium or her Teaching Authority and her bishops are members of the Ecclesia docens or Teaching Church

Secondly, Mr. Miller neglects to make an important distinction, namely between objective and subjective Redemption. In regard to the latter, Mary is certainly the Co-Redemptrix since she is God’s instrument in applying the fruits of the Redemption to individual subjects. In fact, all Christians, especially priests, are co-redeemers in this subjective sense.

Thirdly, Mr. Miller fails to see that Mary must be involved, at least remotely, in the objective Redemption won by Christ. Did she not provide the Flesh and Blood, the Price of our Redemption, to her Son? Furthermore, it is fitting that God the Father would have accepted Mary’s suffering at the foot of the Cross, which would have made her Co-Redemptrix in a more proximate way. As many saints have stated, whatever is Christ’s by nature and strict justice is Mary’s by grace.

Finally, it should be noted, that the great theologians of this century, especially Fr. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, grant our Lady this title. And as this title has been used by popes and bishops, members of the Ecclesia docens, it won’t be long until this teaching of the Church is presented in a more extraordinary way.

Fr. Shannon Michael Collins, C.P.M. - South Union, Kentucky

A sense of the sacred

Editor: Conrad Donarshi’s letter (HPR, February 2001) welcomes the abandonment of Latin in the liturgy. He may have a point, but he’s deceiving himself when he seems to assume that the Holy Spirit is the force behind the current trivialization of the liturgy.

Vatican Council II states that Latin language is to be preserved in the liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium 36:1). It further states that “there must be no innovations of the Sacred Liturgy unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them” (SC 23).

I have attended the Latin Mass almost exclusively for the last ten years. It was not the Latin that drew me but rather the sense of the sacred and the supernatural. I left my charming Irish pastor who didn’t believe in the Real Presence. He told me personally that we do not adore the Sacred Species and from the altar he preached that the Eucharist mainly represents our coming together in community. Otherwise, he said, he had just as well send us the consecrated host in the U. S. mail. He also replaced our church with a round icon-less “worship center” bereft of any sacred symbols.

I see no benefit in reading the epistles and gospels in Latin and I like praying the Gloria, Confiteor and the Creed in English with the congregation. But the sung High Mass in Latin has no equal in the Novus Ordo. Furthermore, the KYRIE (Greek not Latin), ET CUM SPIRITU TUO, GLORIA TIBI DOMINE, LAUS TIBI CHRISTE, etc. have become the language of the angels and most befitting. Language must have its mode. Lovers have their own language; mothers baby talk to their infants; professors sneak in their own lingo; etc. Communal prayer and worship certainly deserve their own trappings. Surely, Latin has established its place in our tradition. In song you cannot replace O Salutaris Hostia, Tantum Ergo, the Latin Gloria and Credo of the Mass, Ave Maria, Panis Angelicus, etc.

As I travelled overseas in the 1960s, Latin represented the unity of our worship and Church. Being a dead language, Latin preserves the unchangeable nature of the liturgy and doctrine.

So Mr. Donarshi, I cheer your summation that we should look to what unifies us rather than to what divides us. Indeed, too many of my Latin Mass comrades proclaim themselves to be “Roman Catholics.” I have to remind them that there is no such thing, since the “Roman” label came from our adversaries during the past couple of centuries to mark the Church as regional instead of universal. Catholics must be catholic, not liberal or conservative or regional.

Finally, let us truly implement Vatican Council II and draw on the rich tradition of centuries of sacred worship and any innovation that certainly and genuinely bring us to the sacred nature of’ the Mass.
“He must increase; I must decrease” (John 3:30).

Patrick A. Reardon, M.D. - Lanexa, Va.

An appropriate title

Editor: On reading the article entitled “Mediatrix, Si! Coredemptrix, No!” in the February 2001 issue of Homiletic and Pastoral Review by Michael J. Miller, it would seem that there is considerable confusion as to the appropriateness of the term “Coredemptrix” as applied to Mary, the Mother of God.

It seems to me that this title is quite appropriate. Sin came into the world through the pride and disobedience of our first parents, while redemption came about by virtue of the humility of Mary in giving her free will consent to become the Mother of our Redeemer, without which consent and cooperation redemption would not have been effected according to the decree of the eternal wisdom of God, otherwise there is no point in such a request.

Frank E. Wenzke, M.D. - Dayton, Ohio

The common denominator

Editor: Each issue of your magazine is very interesting, but some are even more interesting. The April issue is the latest case at point.

I have always had a high regard for Dr. Alice von Hildebrand, and she clearly identifies the loss of the supernatural and the resulting denigration of spirituality as the primary culprit in the chaos and malaise that we can only trace to the aftermath of Vatican Council II. The Mass has become a manufactured act of aggrandizement of the community. The leading Cardinal at the council was indeed a prophet. Only when the Tridentine Rite Mass returns across the board will we experience the “renewal” intent of VCII and the return of the supernatural.

You have also sounded a clear and much-needed warning concerning the enneagram. Those that have an innate desire to seek God subconsciously sense the loss of the spiritual or supernatural and feel an emptiness. They are susceptible to replacing it with insidious superstition because of the three-generation dearth of doctrine in diocesan education programs. Our youth have been sacrificed on the altar of the modern world.

Thank you for unmasking Garry Wills so others can see what those promoting the Fatima messages already knew. May the cult of Wills “prosper” into deserved oblivion.

The perfectly described “sorry mess” over general absolution is by no means an Australian aberration. It could as well be a page from the deliberations of the American bishops in their on-going move to ignore directives of Pope John Paul II and scheme through their own electives.

There is a consistent thread of destruction in all these seemingly unrelated articles. The common denominator is disobedience to the will of God as reflected infallibly by de fide doctrine. The Real Presence gets little respect, and spirituality has become suspect. Discipline has become a four-letter word, having been supplanted by ecumenism in the mad dash to accommodate the corrosive attractions of the “modern world.” What a pity that the council did not try to convert the modern world!

Bob Rowland - Irving, Tex.

In defense of NFP

Editor: Anytime HPR publishes an article that mentions natural family planning in a favorable manner, someone will write a letter to the editor rejecting the legitimacy of NFP. Therefore, it is no surprise that Mr. W. P. Cunningham’s article (Dec. 2000), which pointed out the intrinsic difference between contraception and NFP, provoked a negative response from Fr. James Carroll (April 2001). Fr. Carroll criticizes HPR for adopting a “soft-sell” on the issue of family size and he dismisses NFP as something which good Catholic couples do not need if they really take God at his word to “increase and multiply.” The obvious implication is that couples who use NFP do not trust God’s providence; the subtle implication is that they are acting sinfully.

However, like all of the readers who have written in to HPR to impugn NFP, Fr. Carroll is ignoring Church teaching since the Church clearly permits married couples to use NFP when there are “reasonable grounds” for spacing children (Humanae Vitae, no. 16). How can Fr. Carroll and other opponents of NFP condemn what the Church allows? Their zeal to promote large families is commendable, but their disregard of Church teaching is not.

Mary R. Schneider - Cleveland, Ohio

Mandated mortifications

Editor: The April 2001 issue of HPR published a letter from a Matthew P. Whitehead on the question of whether the Church should mandate specific mortifications or merely encourage voluntary self-denial. Mr. Whitehead opts for the latter.

The writer seems caught up in viewing such mandates as symbols. They are not. Penance, however negative in appearance, is an act, not a symbol. It is an external act recognizing the penitent’ s sinfulness and need of grace and forgiveness. Mr. Whitehead himself acknowledges this when he say that the effects of such mandates “would be to impose excessive burdens on Catholics loyal to the Church.”

What is surprising to an older Catholic is that the suggested changes in discipline are merely a return to rules which were mandatory until very recently. They had not been considered excessively burdensome for some centuries. Arguments about birthdays and July 4th are, with respect, specious. The Church and its ordinaries have always been liberal with dispensations from even its lightest burdens.

Mr. Whitehead’ s suggestion that mandatory burdens would create an explosion of scruples is tendentious at best and a matter of education appropriate to the confessional. His argument that the mandatory would stifle the voluntary seems to run counter to human experience.

Mother Church today has lost substantial numbers of Catholics to agnosticism and atheism despite an unprecedented relaxation of its external demands on the faithful. History, even that of our own times, teaches an entirely contrary message. The Truth is so overpowering that its possession inevitably reduces the importance of the material world.

No convert ever came to the Church because it was the easy way. No Confessor or Martyr ever threw in the sponge because he had been misled about the value or price of the Way, the Truth and the Life. Underlying all penitential acts is the necessity of sacrifice in its ultimate meaning, sacrum facere—to make holy. One does not abstain from vices for penitential reasons. One abstains precisely because the thing abstained from is a good. The act confirms the goodness of God’s creation and reminds the penitent of the real order of the world.

The Church has always expanded in strength and numbers because of its demands, not despite them. We can all profit from occasional reminders of the true place of the material in our lives.

James T. McKenna - Dale City, Virginia