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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on May 22, 2009 9:51:24 GMT
Indeed.... was yesterday not the Ascension of Christ too? Was it mentioned here at all somewhere that I missed? It was actually. But is it the aim of this forum to remind us the Ordo ? I also noticed two new members, and ... no post from them. I'm not surprised that Hazel mentioned this. In some states in Germany, the Ascension is a public holiday (in Bavaria anyway and probably in a few others too - this was part of the point I was making in the exorcism thread by way of comment on the Anneliese Michel case). However, in Ireland, the bishops decided to transfer the obligation for Ascension Thursday and Corpus Christi to the following Sunday in the mid 90s (I think 1996 was the first year of its operation). There was an outpour of anger at the time: David Quinn was editor of the Irish Catholic and he said he received more corresponedence on this topic than on any other. The bishops misjudged it, though they said they consulted people before hand. Many of us knew of the process of consultation where parish clergy invited selectees to give their opinions and most of us (unconsulted but opposed to the change) suspect the mailing list was assembled to provide the 'right' answer. The reaction of such that the Hierarchy did not implement 'Phase 2' of the plan, which was to transfer the obligation for a remaining holyday falling on a Saturday or Monday to the Sunday. Most of the anger focussed on Corpus Christ, but a Church of Ireland clergyman, Dean McCarthy of St Patrick's I think, had an article in the Irish Catholic after the decision. He said he spent years working to have Ascension Thursday commemorated in the Church of Ireland, as it is a feast of scriptural significance (and Scripture says the Ascension took place 40 days after the Resurrection, not 43 days after the Resurrection). I thought at the time that if the Dean said this prior to the decision, the Irish bishops probably would never have made it.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on May 22, 2009 10:17:26 GMT
I remember this time well. And I remember being surprised both at some of the supporters and some of the opponents of the Bishops' decision. There were a lot more or the latter than the former, so I have no idea who the clergy consulted on the move.
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Post by hibernicus on May 22, 2009 11:27:02 GMT
This I think is a classic example of the way in which a lot of "spirit of Vatican II" changes were carried out. Many of the changes were based on the assumption that you could detach the 'essence' of a practice from the way it was done, so that you could produce something more "updated" and less "archaic". The trouble was that the way it was practiced had acquired all sorts of associations in people's minds which reinforced it/were not separate from it, so that when the way it was done was changed people simply abandoned the practice altogether. The second point is that there was a desire not to make things needlessly difficult for people, so many changes were meant to make things easier (the move from Thursday to Sunday being an example) but if people value something they are prepared to make sacrifices for it, and if they are told they are not to bother making sacrifices/ undertake difficult tasks any mor this leads them to downvalue it (especiallly if this seems to retrospectively make pointless past sacrifices made in principle). There is also a sense that Catholics ought to be like everyone else, that they ought not to stand out from the non-practising. (In countries like the UK and US this reflects the dominance of the church by descendants of immigrants, who want to be accepted; here and I suspect in France it reflects desire that the Church should not be seen as a small knot of Pharisees and Holy Joes.) The trouble is that Catholics are supposed to bear witness to their faith by their actions; if the most important thing is for Catholics to be like everyone else, why shoudl they be Catholics at all? I think Noelfitz's odd views (that nobody should ever be excommunicated - even though St. Paul and the Apostles are clearly on record as practising excommunication - and that everyone who has been baptised a Catholic is a Catholic even if they expressly repudiate Catholicism, derive in some way from this mentality). The abandonment of Friday abstinence is a good example of this. It is clear from the documents in which the removal of the abstinence obligation ws announced that the bishops expected people would continue to observe some sort of penitential practice on Fridays voluntarily - but once the obligtion was removed, and in the absence of a clear expectation about what they shoudl do, people simply abandoned any sort of Friday observance.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on May 22, 2009 14:07:48 GMT
There is an obligation for western rite Catholics to do penance on Friday. Most Catholics, including clergy, are blissfully igorant of this requirement.
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Post by guillaume on May 23, 2009 4:23:00 GMT
There is an obligation for western rite Catholics to do penance on Friday. Most Catholics, including clergy, are blissfully igorant of this requirement. Absolutely. Personnaly I refrain from eating meat every friday of the year.
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Post by hibernicus on May 25, 2009 9:09:41 GMT
So do I. Whether it is really much of a penence under present-day circumstances I don't know, but at least it's a sign.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on May 26, 2009 14:53:11 GMT
Abstinence from meat is the ordinary form of penance; any suggested substitution is the extraordinary form of penance. I kid you not - these are the terms.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jun 23, 2009 14:54:13 GMT
I wonder if the extraordinary form of penance is practiced as frequently as the extraordinary form of the Roman Mass or as there are extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion at ordinary form Masses?
I see little evidence of the ordinary form of penance being practiced (and I practice it myself on Fridays).
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