Washington D.C., Aug 1, 2019 / 12:40 pm (CNA).- This story is the first part of a two-part series about how one victim of sexual abuse found healing. The second part will be published Aug. 2.
While every effort has been made to cover difficult subject matter appropriately, parents may wish to exercise prudence regarding the availability of this story to their children.
Michael* remembers vividly his high school speech class, 1982.
Each member of the class had to stand in front of the room to answer a randomly assigned question. Michael held his question on a piece of paper: “When was the last time you were in an awkward situation?”
Michael could not speak. He tore the paper into small pieces, nervously. And then, because he could not tell the truth, Michael invented a wild tale about hitchhiking home from school, getting picked up by a gay man and being trapped in his car.
Michael was then 15 years old.
He knew he couldn’t tell the truth in that speech class.
He couldn’t tell his peers that their classroom was only down the hall from the place where he had been sexually abused just days before.
Eventually, though, Michael had to speak. In the years after he was first abused, Michael told CNA that he would spend nearly $60,000 on therapy, and be diagnosed with PTSD.
About half that amount the Church would eventually reimburse.
Therapy helped, Michael told CNA. But what really helped was learning to forgive.
His abuser was Fr. James Rapp, a Catholic priest and teacher at his Catholic high school. The abuse Michael suffered at the hands of Rapp, and later others, drove him from the Church in which he was raised. He was convinced he would never again trust a priest, or set foot in a confessional.
But it was a priest, and the sacrament of confession, that eventually brought Michael the healing he needed. A miracle, he says, for which he is grateful to God.
—
Michael was raised in a Midwestern Catholic home in the 1970s and 80s. His mother and father went to Mass, worked hard and saved to see their three children through Catholic school.
Priests were more than just men in Michael’s household. They were local celebrities. To his family, priests seemed to stand somewhere between ordinary men and God himself. In Michael’s family, the homily was more than a pastoral exhortation–it was a missive from heaven. His parents were proud that Michael served as an altar boy.
As a child, Michael was, he says, “fascinated that God could speak through these men.”
On his first day of high school, Michael heard about a religion teacher at the school, Fr. James Rapp, a priest of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales.
Rapp stood six feet tall, was strong, and seemed tough. Stories about him circulated among the freshmen: that he had once been a police officer, that he let kids drink liquor in his office.
“Like any thirteen year-old kid, I thought to myself ‘that is so cool!’”
In November of his sophomore year, Michael introduced himself to Rapp at a school dance. “In a matter of minutes he invited me to his office,” Michael told CNA.
As the two walked down the hall Michael says he felt “elated.”
“I felt like a ‘big shot’ to be with him, I was beaming inside. I thought I might make it into his circle of boys that he told stories of what it’s like to be a priest, the stories from NYPD, the gun, and maybe even drink liquor with him.”
Michael says he now cringes at the memory.
Years later, following his conviction for the sexual abuse of several minors, Rapp admitted that his homosexual fantasies were tied to violence.
“I can only wonder what he was thinking as he walked me down that hallway to his office,” Michael says now. “I don’t know why I let myself think about it, but I do.”
That night, Rapp sadistically abused Michael.
—
Michael was not Rapp’s first or last victim. Michael’s was not the first or last school where Rapp would groom, and then abuse, young men.
Michael says he does not know how many other boys suffered the “pure evil” he did at the hands of Rapp. He says he does know that the responsibility for it is shared by those who shielded Rapp – “by all his superiors and peers would cover his tracks and let him hunt boys in the Catholic schools.”
“But that night, my number was up, and my life would be forever affected.”
Michael says that because of how he was taught to view priests – as figures next to God – he had no way to understand or resist what was done to him. Rapp did not just abuse him, he hurt him, taking conscious pleasure in causing pain, asking Michael to describe it.
Michael says nothing had prepared him for such a situation.
“I did not know what to do other than endure and obey. I know that sounds absurd, but it’s the way my mind was working at the time.”
—
Hours after the dance was over, the school then empty, Michael says Rapp walked him back down the same hallway, passing by the same classrooms, “but I was a different human being, I looked down the dark halls, the light had gone out for me, in every way.’”
Rapp gave Michael a ride home, a long midnight drive into the countryside. They sat in silence.
Halfway home Rapp slowed down and pulled over in the middle of a stretch of marshland.
Michael fought waves of panic and adrenaline as Rapp stared at him in silence. The swamp stretched on both sides of the road, Michael was 10 miles from home.
“I was certain he was thinking about killing me and dumping me in the swamp. He didn’t say anything for five or ten minutes.”
Without speaking, Rapp eventually put his 4×4 back in gear and continued the drive.
—
The next day, Rapp appeared in the doorway of Michael’s biology class and summoned him into the hall.
“I felt something happen inside my chest, like an intense heartache. I wanted to cry. I wanted my mom. I hovered above consciousness and walked to him at the front of my classroom, under the watchful eye of my peers.”
There, outside his office, Rapp apologized to Michael.
“He told me not to tell anyone – and I swore I never would – I did not want anyone to ever know. He was the priest and I was looking for some sort of absolution, something to make it go away. I told him I was worried about the sin of what happened. He scoffed at me and told me God wanted it to happen. He told me that God wanted me to give him pleasure.”
Rapp made Michael repeat this phrase.
“He made me say, ‘God wanted me to give you pleasure,’ he made me repeat the words until I could say them clearly and without stammering. It took me three attempts to say the whole sentence without stammering.”
Michael says he hated the word “pleasure” from that day on.
Decades later, in therapy, he was trained to say it 100 times a day for a week to break the hold it had on him.
When he returned to class, the other students wanted to know where Michael had gone, what did Rapp want with him?
“I perpetuated the rumor, that he called me out of class so that I wouldn’t tell anyone I drank alcohol in his office during the dance.”
Michael told CNA he struggles with the pain and shame which trapped him, preventing him from coming forward as a fifteen year-old.
“I effectively widened the net he used to catch more boys by adding to the validity of the rumor. I was petrified and didn’t know what else to say. Kids believed it and sure enough he went on to rape more boys.”
He told no one what had actually happened.
He came close only in speech class, as he tried to focus his eyes on the slip of paper he had been handed by the teacher.
He froze, considering the question written on it: “When was the last time you were in an awkward situation?” Rapp’s office was just down the hall.
The teacher tapped his watch. “I was melting down,” Michael says.
“Electricity spread from the top of my head to my fingers. I felt like my skin was on fire.”
As he shredded the slip of paper, he poured out his half-invented tail of hitchhiking.
“As parts of the truth came out, I stopped speaking. The room went out of focus. Maybe I stopped mid-sentence, maybe I trailed off. I can’t remember.”
When he finished, his teacher pulled him aside and challenged his story and implied he had made the whole thing up.
“He was right, sort of, but I lied again and told him it was true. My friend came up to me after class and asked if I was ok. ‘What happened up there?’ he asked me. I told him I was fine.”
By the time he was 16, drugs and alcohol had become a daily habit.
—
For seven years, Michael told no one about what he had endured. Then he went to confession.
“I knew I could not continue on with my drug and alcohol use as I was getting ready to enter medical school. I also longed to reconnect with God, as that connection had been severed. I wanted to start over, and hoped that confession might get me back on my feet.”
A priest at his college campus church, Fr. Francis, heard Michael’s confession from behind a screen. He volunteered to help.
Michael got off drugs, he began to pray, he felt that his life was on track. And Fr. Francis, whom he sometimes called Frank, became a good friend.
One night, as Michael watched a movie with his girlfriend, the phone rang. He let the answering machine pick up the call, only to hear Fr. Francis, his confessor and confident, pour out his sexual desires on Michael, loud and graphic, onto the answering machine tape.
He ran to pick up the phone, horrified, but the priest immediately hung up. Questions from his girlfriend followed: Who was that? What did it mean? She knew nothing of the priest or Michael’s past abuse. Michael did not know what to tell her.
Fr. Francis called back minutes later, offering an incoherent explanation about how he often received obscene phone calls at the rectory.
The evening resumed, but Fr. Francis called a third time, repeating his explicit sexual advances into the answering machine, only to hang up again when Michael answered. He stared at the phone, then at the wall, then out of the window, remembering the high school hallway seven years before.
The 15-year-old boy was now a 22-year old man, but Michael says that night tore through his understanding of God, faith, relationships, the priesthood.
Now, he realizes, the priest was grooming him. But then, Michael told CNA, “I was spiritually eviscerated that night. I tried to go back to church the next day, but could not endure it. Church was the last place I could connect with God. I made one last phone call to Frank, and he denied it all. We never spoke again.”
It marked the end of an 18-month relationship with a spiritual director, and the only person Michael had told about Fr. Rapp. It also marked an end to Michael’s faith.
“I had met Fr. Frank through the sacrament of reconciliation. I vowed to never step foot into a confessional again.”
—
Two years later, Michael married his girlfriend. She was Catholic and they married in the Church. During their pre-Cana course, Michael says “the dam broke” and he told her everything. But communion with his wife could not bring him back to the Church.
After searching for a spiritual home in different Protestant denominations, evangelicalism, and eastern spirituality, he settled into an accidental agnosticism.
When his sons were born, more than a decade later, Michael and his wife decided to raise them as Catholics.
“I grappled with how to raise the kids. We made the decision to raise them Catholic, including Catholic schools, but we weren’t going to church. As our sons entered elementary school, I made a firm commitment to re-engage and attend mass regularly, if for nothing else, for my sons to see me in the pew.”
That was in 2002, the year of the Spotlight scandals.
“The news was everywhere, in the car, the newspaper, on TV, table talk at work. My anxiety was intolerable. It took me to the breaking point. I turned to training for endurance sports – marathons, triathlons – just to deal with it.”
One Sunday, Michael heard a priest address the scandal from the altar. “He said, ‘We’ve been instructed to offer anyone counseling who might be affected by this abuse scandal, please contact me if needed.’”
Michael spoke to his wife that night and decided to reach out, telling only the third person in 20 years the story of his own abuse.
His parish priest ran marathons. They ran together, and talked about faith.
“He was there for me through much of the 2002-2003 scandal, but I was still struggling, badly. My wife wondered why I couldn’t ‘get over it’ – and I wondered the same thing.”
Michael says he coped with the trauma of his own experiences through endurance training, and working long hours as a surgeon.
“Work gave me a sense of control that I needed,” he told CNA.
By 2010, Michael was a leader in his field. When asked to give a speech in front of a large crowd, that control slipped away.
“I began to question my work. Was I really in a position to be lecturing anybody? I was still this messed up kid inside with tremendous anxiety. Before that talk, I broke, and realized I needed to get help.”
Michael contacted the physician wellness counselor at his hospital. In their first session he spoke about his anxiety.
When, the counselor asked, was the first time Michael had felt this way? He remembered: it was in speech class, 1982.
28 years later, he knew the answer to the counselor’s question but could not yet say it.
—
It was the start of a long and expensive process for Michael, which led to his diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and years of therapy.
As he continued in treatment, Michael began to wonder what had happened to Rapp. Was he still alive? Was he still around kids?
He discovered Rapp had been arrested in Oklahoma. Michael’s feelings of guilt increased.
“He had raped more boys there, boys that could have been spared if I had said something.”
After making contact with the local diocese, Michael received financial help with his therapy. But, he says, the contact with the diocese and the local province of the Oblates – Rapp’s order – started him back on the road to the Church.
The diocese recommended Michael make a police report. “It was difficult. I realized there was no way I could have handled it at age 15.”
Investigators went through Rapp’s file and found multiple victim complaints. They also found that Rapp had repeatedly moved across state lines, opening a window for prosecution.
On April 29, 2016, Michael had his day in court, one of ten victims to testify against Rapp. There were many more victims who did not wish to appear in court. With Michael were his family, his sons, his parents, and his closest friend.
He sat two feet from Rapp as he testified. When it was over, Rapp was convicted of three first-degree criminal sexual crimes against Michael, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Rapp would eventually be sentenced to more than 40 years in prison in total.
After the trial, Michael realized he wanted to meet Fr. Ken, provincial head of the Oblates, and with the local bishop, both of whom had offered to meet with him, and he wanted to go back to his high school.
—
Early one Saturday morning in 2017, the school’s principal gave Michael the master key to his old school. While she worked in her office, Michael walked the halls.
“There were school spirit signs on the lockers. There was evidence of normal, healthy, young student activity everywhere. I felt relief seeing these signs of high school life.”
He went to the office where he was assaulted, praying to the Holy Spirit as he unlocked the door.
“I stood where Rapp made me repeat the words. I remembered how it felt, when he made me say it, over and over. I believe the Spirit was with me that day, told me that it wasn’t true.”
It was a small room, like he remembered, but it had changed. The new occupant was a family man. Pictures of his smiling young kids were on the walls.
“I felt so good to see it that way. The room had new life, seemingly unaware of it’s past. I cried a little bit, but I was calm, and believe Jesus had his arm around my shoulder as I stood there.”
Michael went back to the classroom where he had been asked to give his speech. He gave the speech he’d wanted to give decades ago, speaking this time to rows of empty chairs.
“I suppose anyone looking would have thought I’d lost my mind,” Michael said, but it was a healing moment for him.
“I was overwhelmed with joy, I had a renewed enthusiasm for my youth.”
—
Michael says his visit with the bishop and his return to his old school were both unexpectedly helpful, but his visit with Fr. Ken proved to have the greatest impact on him.
They met in September 2017. They sat on a farmhouse porch and talked.
Michael explained how he had recovered his faith in medical school, only to have it broken again by Fr. Frank.
“I told him that faith had been a life-long struggle for me. I told him that after everything I’d been through, all that I really wanted was advice on how to get my faith back.”
Michael says that Fr. Ken gave him two pieces of simple advice: that he should pray, and go to confession.
“I saw him catch himself when he said that, I had just told him about what happened with Fr. Frank in the confessional.”
Michael brushed off the advice.
—
He went on attending the occasional Mass, mostly to be there for his wife and family. That was to change when, a few months later, Michael was back in his hometown for a funeral.
He arrived early the night before the funeral, offering to help set up the hall for the wake and found himself invited to say the rosary.
“I could not remember the last time I said a rosary, and I had planned on getting out of the funeral home before it started. I always remembered it being dreadfully long. When it started, I decided to set my watch timer to see how long it took.”
After the first few Hail Marys, Michael says he felt an “unexpected peace.”
“Before I knew it, 18 minutes later, it was over. I came away from it like, wow, what was that all about? I was so peaceful and calm just then –I wished it was a little longer.”
The next morning, Michael got up early and had nowhere to go before the funeral. He drove by his high school, he drove to the swamp where he thought Rapp was going to kill him.
“I was feeling good about going through therapy, being able to visit these places with a sense of being healed. I felt that I could look back on everything I’d been through and feel like I had run the gauntlet and I had arrived at the finish line.”
Over the years, Michael says he had decided he was going to have “some sort of bespoke faith, where God was going to allow me to do whatever I wanted when it came to faith.”
“I accepted that I would not have a ‘normal’ spiritual life. I figured that God would not hold me accountable for lack of faith or practice.”
As he drove, he passed St. Mary’s Church, where his grandfather had sometimes taken him.
“I suppose it was a seed of grace that my grandfather, now in heaven, took me there as a kid. As I drove by St. Mary’s, something compelled me to turn my car around. I pulled up in front of the church doors and I just stared at them. I really didn’t know why.”
It was 9:55 am on Saturday, the funeral did not start until 10:30. Michael wanted to see the stained-glass windows that he remembered from his childhood.
He read the sign at the front of the church: CONFESSIONS 10 AM SATURDAY.
“Man, I cannot tell you how my heart rate picked up. Fr. Ken’s words roared into my head, ‘You need to go to confession to integrate back into the church.’ I thought, “It’s a sign”, then I thought, ‘No, it isn’t.’”
It had been 28 years since Michael was last in a confessional, with Fr. Frank.
“God and I had come to an understanding that I was excused from ever having to go to confession again, and maybe I didn’t even have to go to church anymore either.”
Michael says he resolved that he was not going to confession, but would go in for a look around. Nevertheless, he found himself in line.
“When my turn was up, I could hardly feel my legs. I felt the same as I did when I was 15 being summoned out of biology class by Fr. Rapp. It was the exact same feeling in my chest and in my legs. I couldn’t believe I was walking into a confessional. I had not planned on it. In fact, I planned on never doing it.”
The confessional was tiny. The priest seemed kind. Michael says the priest let out a good laugh when he said it was 28 years since his last confession.
“Well,” the priest asked, “what brings you in now?”
“I told him I was a victim of Fr. Rapp’s. His face changed immediately. He knew of Fr. Rapp. I told him that I just wanted to have my faith back and that Fr. Ken of the Oblates told me I would need to go to confession for that to happen.”
Michael says that the priest began to speak about the devil, whom St. Peter describes as prowling a lion. “When the lion strikes, it sinks its claws in us, and the initial strike is very painful, but the injury leaves us with lasting disabilities,” the priest said.
Michael, a veteran of numerous volunteer projects in Africa, had seen more than a few lions. He says he found a spiritual metaphor for his PTSD.
“He was telling me something I already knew, but I had never thought about it in terms of good and evil. I had a disability from the strike of the lion – I was dialed into what this priest was telling me.”
“Then he told me that I needed to forgive.”
The priest explained that forgiveness is not primarily for the benefit of the person who has hurt you, it is a liberation for the one who forgives.
“When he told me that, that when I forgive I will be free, and compared the experience to Christ on the Cross, it was so inspiring. I became tearful in the confessional. To think that a soul like mine could experience something as beautiful as what he described to me, well, I’m crying again just remembering it.”
The priest also told Michael to pray the rosary, a simple recommendation that, Michael says, 24 hours earlier he would have dismissed out of hand. Having so recently experienced the peace of prayer, he embraced the direction.
“I have said the rosary every day for over 18 months now.”
Michael was also told to read the Gospel of Luke the whole way through, to immerse himself in the whole narrative of Christ’s life and power.
“He couldn’t know that I was a physician like St. Luke, or that I had said my first meaningful rosary just the night before, or that I have seen more actual lurking lions than anyone I know,” Michael says.
“He put his hands on my head and absolved me of my sins, and man, it was powerful! It was an amazing catharsis and I was CHARGED UP! I HAD GONE TO CONFESSION! And it was really good! I drove to the funeral feeling like a MILLION BUCKS!,” Michael wrote in an email to CNA.
Michael was late to the funeral, but he didn’t care. He arrived to hear the second reading, from St. Paul, announce “I have run the race to end, I have kept the faith.”
—
A few months later, Michael was running early one morning, by himself. He came to a sudden stop in the snow.
Michael told CNA he heard a voice saying “Forgive them now.”
“And I did. I forgave all the people who had abused and used me, driven me from the Church: Fr. Rapp, Fr. Francis, all of them, all at once. It was powerful.”
Michael says he dropped to his knees on the trail, sobbing in the dark and thanking God for the freedom to forgive.
Later, he wrote to James Rapp. It was a two paragraph letter.
“Dear Mr. James Rapp,” he began.
“I am writing to tell you that several months ago, after much reflection and counseling, I unequivocally forgave you. By the grace of God I finally found my way back to the Faith last year and came to understand many good things, including what it means to forgive. I forgave you with God as my only witness and it was a tremendous liberation of your unknowing grip.”
“Later, I became aware of the concept of merciful forgiveness, the act of letting the offender know they are forgiven. I do not carry the hatred for you that I spoke about at your trial. Rather, I want you to know that I forgive you for the multiple felony counts, and the psychological and spiritual inflictions that followed for decades. I am healed, I have received many blessings, and I truly forgive you. I hope that you will make an appeal to heaven for the forgiveness you need from above.”
Michael signed it simply “Victim A.”
—
By September 2018 Michael says he was happier in his faith, in the Church, than he had ever been.
The McCarrick scandal, he says, he took in his stride, but the Pennsylvania grand jury report was something else.
“Thinking I was recovered, and wanting to stand as a witness to fellow survivors, I read the first few pages of the report. I was not as strong as I thought. I had to stop reading it, and it knocked me down really hard.”
Michael says he is still in therapy, but in a way that expressly affirms his faith. The real road to recovery, he says, may take longer than he hoped or imagined.
“But as others have said before me, I believe in Catholicism because I believe it is true. I believe Catholicism is at the intersection of faith and reason. I am fascinated with our Faith. After facing so much adversity I have been blessed to know God’s grace.”
*After consideration of his particular circumstances by CNA’s editors, Michael’s name has not been used in this story.
[…]
The bishop should vigorously reiterate what Pope Francis in Traditionis Custodes envisions, that is to eventually bring all Roman Catholics into the exclusive celebration of the Vatican II Mass. The Pope asserts that the liturgy according to the reformed Missal of Paul VI, that is, the conciliar form normally celebrated in the vernacular, is “the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.” This reverses Pope Benedict’s theological gymnastics of introducing two “forms” of one Roman Rite: one “ordinary” (conciliar) and one “extraordinary” (pre-conciliar). If the lex orandi (law of prayer) is the lex credendi (law of belief), as the venerable old adage goes, the real concern of Pope Francis’s pastoral concern is the legacy of the Second Vatican Council and the contested lex credendi of the Catholic Church. Today, the law of belief of the Church has evolved into that of Vatican II, and the law of prayer should be aligned with this, that is the liturgical reforms mandated by the Second Vatican Council. To stick to the old pre-Vatican II liturgy as the law of prayer while receiving and keeping the Vatican II law of belief is, to borrow the Church’s description of and teaching about the homosexual act, “an objective disorder.”
The hermeneutic of discontinuity and sodomy certainly have much in common, although you strain to say otherwise.
Carl: Think about the nature the Church’s revered linkage between the law of prayer and the law of belief which entails to be aligned and congruent. To suggest otherwise as you appear to advocate is indeed similar to the disordered nature of sodomy. You should read not just Pope Benedict XVI’s addresses on the hermeneutics of Vatican II but read especially more about “the issue behind the issues of Vatican II” (according to John Courtney Murray), the development of doctrine – and consequent discipline – explicated in Dei Verbum 8 drafted by Yves Congar, borrowed from St. John Henry Newman, ratified by the Council Fathers, and cited by Pope Francis in Traditionis Custodes.
Emerson, your use of the expression “the Church has evolved into that of Vatican II” is curious. Evolved?
The whole point of St. Cardinal Newman in his “Development of Doctrine” (whom you cite), articulated at the time of bracket-creep DarwinISM, is to offer the Church’s path of development as not being open-ended evolution. See below. As for the Novus Ordo, the dilemma is that things done under this label since 1965 did NOT follow the Second Vatican II (Sacrosanctum Concilium) which you cite. Valid, but problematic at best…and, some say, the actual rejection of the real Council of the Documents.
Pope Benedict’s “theological gymnastics” (your extravagant hyperbole) was a skilled and pastoral effort toward what we all want, a unified liturgical prayer, that is, with an extraordinary form and an ordinary form of the SAME Latin rite. And with the latter form to be better aligned with what the Council itself retained of the former (in your words, “the liturgical reforms mandated by the Second Vatican Council”).
Newman’s contribution to doctrine assures that development does not “evolve” into mutation: “I venture to set down seven notes of varying cogency, independence, and applicability to discriminate healthy developments of an idea from its state of corruption and decay, as follows: [Abbreviated here] There is no corruption if it retains: (1) One and the same TYPE; (2) the same PRINCIPLES,(3) The same ORGANIZATION;(4) If its beginnings ANTICIPATE its subsequent phases, (5) Its later phenomena PROTECT and subserve its earlier [!]; (6) If it has a power of assimilation and REVIVAL; and (7) A vigorous ACTION from first to last…”.
The current QUESTION, with regard to the liturgy of the perennial Church, is whether abruptly abrogating/amputating the extraordinary form really serves development, or disrupts it. Overreach? Maybe even theological gymnastics!
Offering a comparison, Olson then notes that the devolution of sexual morality from binary complementarity to gender theory (with sodomy as one variant) is a discontinuity—a mutant evolution not unlike the hermeneutics of discontinuity.
As the hermeneutic of discontinuity – usually wrongly contrasted with hermeneutic of continuity – is mentioned here. It is best to go back and read the Dec. 22, 2005 speech of Pope Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia setting out his proposed interpretation of the Second Vatican Council. This needs to be properly set because this has been misused by many conservative Catholics in the wrong way, that is, as not meant by the Pope Emeritus. The proper contrast and juxtaposition in viewing the teachings of Vatican II vis a vis the previous 21 ecumenical councils, he declared, is that of between the hermeneutic (that is, the interpretation and understanding) of discontinuity and the hermeneutic of reform. It is not, as many promoters of the old pre-Vatican II mass hold, between the hermeneutic of discontinuity and continuity. The then Pope emphasized that Vatican II is best understood and applied through the lens of the hermeneutic of reform. Significantly the substantial part of the speech dwelt on the nature of reform as consisting in both continuity and discontinuity. In understanding and living the Vatican II mass as the fruit of the liturgical reform mandated by the Council, both the elements of continuity and discontinuity obviously are applied.
It’s best to read the full speech:
https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2005/december/documents/hf_ben_xvi_spe_20051222_roman-curia.html
Agreed, up front, it is not a dichotomy. But somewhere in his writings, Emeritus Pope Benedict writes of “a hermeneutics of discontinuity within (!) continuity.” The ideology of “paradigm shifts” has no place in the Magisterium of the perennial Church.
THIS is what Benedict means when he writes–in the link you supply–that continuity and discontinuity occur “at different levels”. And this is why he also explains clearly, it seems to this reader:
“Here I shall cite only John XXIII’s well-known words, which unequivocally express this hermeneutic [reform, not deform] when he says that the Council wishes ‘to transmit the doctrine, pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion”. And he continues: ‘Our duty is not only to guard this precious treasure, as if we were concerned only with antiquity, but to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear to that work which our era demands of us…’. It is necessary that ‘adherence to all the teaching of the Church in its entirety and preciseness…’ be presented in ‘faithful and perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine, which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the literary forms of modern thought. The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another…’, retaining the same meaning and message (The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, S.J., p. 715).
Some would say that the DICHOTOMY is not between earlier and current formal teachings, but between these teachings as dogma and what is enabled in practice.
A split between Faith and Morals, as in the opening-wedge of the ghostwriters’ Amoris Laetitia (2014/2015), Chapter 8 and fn. 312, regarding the new category of “irregular” relationships (previously fornication and adultery). And, about which the “dubia”, to which the response is silence…
Catholic morality and Natural Law are not explicitly denied, but apparently only SUSPENDED selectively in new objective categories (the Catechism maintains objective categories while also recognizing mitigated subjective culpability). Will relator-general Cardinal Hollerich’s synodal “synthesis” of 2023 pretend to harmonize such real contradictions (say, by not rejecting the German deconstructions, and others)? This by again responding inclusively with selective silence? And all within a broad “participation” in the wraparound synodal process—the unanimity of sensus filelium?
Some recall the doctrine of Monothelitism—and the muddling Pope Honorius I who after his death was anathematized by the Third Council of Constantinople. “It was for the ‘imprudent economy of silence’ that he was condemned.” Today, both silence and the cryptic “realities are more important than ideas” (Evangelii Gaudium, 2013) possibly VERSUS a now much less important (?) consistency between actions and moral truths (ideas?) that are absolute (Veritatis Splendor, 1993; Faith and Reason, 1998)?
In the above opening comment—”some would say”—this writer is not qualified to actually say all this stuff. But nor is this writer qualified to refute it. Who am I to judge?
Agreed – we must read Benedict’s address carefully. When we do, we see his use of hermeneutic terminology as you say: “Discontinuity” and “reform.” But two paragraphs later, Benedict makes clear that he defines the hermeneutic of reform as ‘renewal of the continuity.’
VCII’s “reform,” according to Benedict, is “renewal in the CONTINUITY [Emphasis of caps added.] of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us. She is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always REMAINING THE SAME,…”[Caps added for emphasis.]
Benedict asks: “Why has the implementation of the Council, in large parts of the Church, thus far been so difficult?
“Well, it all depends on the correct interpretation of the Council or – as we would say today – on its proper hermeneutics, the correct key to its interpretation and application. The problems in its implementation arose from the fact that two contrary hermeneutics came face to face and quarrelled with each other. One caused confusion, the other, silently but more and more visibly, bore and is bearing fruit.
“On the one hand, there is an interpretation that I would call ‘a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture’; it has frequently availed itself of the sympathies of the mass media, and also one trend of modern theology. On the other, there is the ‘hermeneutic of reform’, of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us. She is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God.
“The hermeneutic of discontinuity risks ending in a split between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church.”
It is reiterated that Benedict saw one hermeneutic bearing fruit, while the other caused confusion. Clearly Benedict saw confusion resulting from ‘discontinuity’ and fruit from the ‘renewal of continuity’ (reform).
You may find some interest in distinctions drawn between Ratzinger and Guardini in re liturgical eschatology: Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2020): 521–563.
The above comment was intended as a Reply to Lex.
Thank you all above for grappling with the papal address. I hope you now understand – taking the hint from that speech and apply that with the Mass – why many Catholics have difficulty receiving the liturgical reforms of the Council especially with the Vatican II Mass. The Pope Emeritus’ answer in the speech is clear. It is because they wrongly see the reformed Mass with the lens of the hermeneutic of – and as one of – discontinuity and rupture. This is a false reading held by lovers and promoters of the old pre-Vatican II Mass, which obviously includes those petitioning the Arlington diocese which this above article reports. BXVI corrects this and refers to the correct and proper hermeneutic of reform that should be held by all Catholics to receive and implement the Council and its reforms. In this, he elaborates that reform contains both the newness and innovation introduced by Vatican II and its continuity and fidelity to tradition. Most Tridentine Mass adherents do not mention reform but rather falsify it to mean simply as hermeneutic of continuity by deceptively omitting the reference to innovation, and so maintain that they want to stick to the old pre-Vatican II Mass. So, to sum up the papal message, so as to understand and implement the Council properly, the Vatican II documents be read not through the juxtaposition between the hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture and the hermeneutic of continuity (omitting the newness implied in reform), but rather between the hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture and the hermeneutic of reform (containing both innovation and fidelity to tradition). That is why the Vatican II Mass is one of reform not discontinuity.
“…the real concern of Pope Francis’s pastoral concern is the legacy of the Second Vatican Council…”
Specifically how do the Roman Missal and the EF misalign with VCII teaching? The Novus Ordo Missae fails to follow VCII’s teaching in its Constitution on Sacred Liturgy. Why is it not suppressed? How did it even arise? Surely it could not have been based on anything of any value!?!
Emerson also says: “Today, the law of belief of the Church has evolved into that of Vatican II,…”
Deacon Darwin! Is it seriously your premise that only the teaching of VCII is the law of belief? Since the teaching of VCII did not include the totality of Scripture,tits non-inclusion in the ‘new law’ cannot be justified. To disregard scripture is to disregard Revelation altogether. Then there is no reason for VCII to have been and no reason for us to concern ourselves with it today!
Your statements cannot be taken seriously, realizing the law of diminishing returns. By your reasoning, VCII itself is now horribly out of date. Why hasn’t it undergone evolution? Can you predict how long such perfect equilibrium will persist?
Regarding St. Newman on doctrinal development, his remains surely turn in his coffin to know his labor is so sorely abused. Doctrinal distortion, deletion, suppression, destruction, negation, or downright piddling all contradict Newman’s document on doctrinal development.
Edit: ‘tits non-inclusion’ should read “its inclusion:
I understand the desire for the Pope to bring liturgical unity to the Latin church, but why does that mean liturgical uniformity? The Latin church was once home to many diverse liturgical relatives of the Roman rite. I thought the name of the game with this pontificate was unity, not uniformity?
Besides, this is not just a disagreement on practice between the two pontificates. Francis and Benedict have made different claims about reality in these two MPs, the latter saying that the papacy CANNOT abrogate such a venerable tradition, while the former says it can. That’s a contradiction in papal teaching. I believe that Benedict is historically correct. No pope has ever dared to force out a venerable ancient tradition (at least without significant pushback and eventual backing down). Trent only abrogated liturgies that were 200 years old and younger, and then said other parts of the Church MAY use the Tridentine use if the unanimous decision of the local cathedral canons decided to. Rome even offered the re-established English Catholic hierarchy in the 19th century the opportunity to revive the Pre-Reformation Sarum Use, but they themselves chose to use the Tridentine liturgy. Great for them.
Rome had every right to offer the New Missal. Catholics have every right to use it. Rome has no right to tell the rest of the Church that they cannot celebrate using an ancient form. It is against the very nature of Christian authority (yes, even Vatican I’s definition), respect for local custom, piety towards our ancient faith, and love for the Holy Spirit’s presence in other forms of prayer. This is not just a battle for a liturgy, but also for the right relationship between Tradition and Authority. May the Name of God be vindicated, and may He give us the grace to love each other unto our salvation.
“Today, the law of belief of the Church has evolved into that of Vatican II, and the law of prayer should be aligned with this.”
What an utterly absurd, false, and in fact heretical assertion. Vatican II is not some sort of super-Council that has somehow completely changed the belief of the Church but a pastoral Council that not only did not change any belief of the Church but by the specific terms of its convocation was to protect and defend the Church’s depositum fidei.
Joseph Ratzinger, as Cardinal and as Pope, duly noted on many occasions that the dire loss of faith in the Church is a direct result of the collapse of liturgy, antecedents for which you erroneously refer to as a “law,” and in the Ordinary form of the Mass you implicitly and wrongly identify it as mandated by Vatican II. It was not.
Among the sloppy thought that was promoted by Vatican II was this opening line from Dignitatis Humanae: “A sense of the dignity of the human person has been impressing itself more and more deeply on the consciousness of contemporary man, and the demand is increasingly made that men should act on their own judgment, enjoying and making use of a responsible freedom, not driven by coercion but motivated by a sense of duty.”
Now, given the level of human idiocy necessary to produce such a childishly optimistic line of nonsensical baloney about human moral evolution, which cannot exist, in the middle of the most evil century in human history, it is obvious that not everything about Vatican II set any standard of irrevocable wisdom of Catholic witness to the modern world. Likewise, the arrogance of assuming that any thought at all of what it really means to maintain continuity with the communion of saints, and to live out the promise of Hebrews 13:8: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever, as a matter that has been definitively settled by various authors of 16 documents from the mid-sixties is objectively disordered.
The Pope said that the celebration of the TLM is “often characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform but of the Vatican Council itself, claiming with unfounded and unsustainable assertions that it betrayed the Tradition and the true Church.”
He also claimed that devotees of the TLM had “exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergencies and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division.”
Neither one of those accusations is true, and neither one of them makes any sense at all.
Sadly, in many places, especially online it is true. It seems a number of bishops reported this also. Any number of traditional-leaning websites and discussion groups show persistent insult at nearly anyone who doesn’t share the core views and opinions.
I do agree it doesn’t seem to make sense: the people who trumpet most loudly their own faithfulness seem not to embrace the values of the Gospel, or even Catechism 2478 when it comes to how they conduct themselves. Poor conduct has sunk the TLM. It’s true. It stings. But it seems clear to anyone who reads Rorate Caeli, CMAA, or any number of similar websites.
You could also say the same about people who object to New Ways Ministry. It’s just odd that the Church deems TLM supporters to be a greater threat than those who want to sell actual sin to the faithful. Just very odd. Why would Pope Francis welcome Fr James Martin into the Vatican, send him glowing letters, but then cut the knees off from the families who just want to celebrate the Latin Rite. It’s very odd.
I think the Holy Father explained well enough: it wasn’t families. It was bloggers, agitators, and others who claimed their Mass was better; the Roman Rite was deficient. They seemed disinterested in mutual enrichment. Perhaps if mothers and fathers went to their uppity priests who wouldn’t go to the Chrism Mass with their brothers in the clergy and said, “Enough! Be united with our bishop.” And to the blogger, “Leave the mainstream Catholics and their liturgy alone.” A good witness for their children, and putting schismatic-wannabes in their place.
A careful read of Traditionis Custodes is needed. The hardcore traditionalists have spoiled things for people with a genuine spirituality. The But Gays! approach fails to convince. Our parents saw through our excuses when we were kids. The social media schismatics have been outed today.
So let us say for the sake or argument that there are zealots out there in defense of the TLM. (No sin there in my opinion.) And suppose they did defend it vigorously. Is the pontiff so insecure that he responds like a lowbrow bully and paints the entire Latin Mass community with the same broad brush and then summarily shoots them in the head? Seems like a bit of an overreaction.
But I know that there is more to Francis’ motivation than that. He wants to conform the Church to the world and the TLM stands in the way of that. And just how does defending the faith as expressed in the Mass of the Ages render anyone schismatic?
The “hardcore traditionalists” have not spoiled things for people with a genuine spirituality. Francis has done that with TC.
Typo. Should read ‘sake of argument’
In light of the CWR article “Disobey and you’ll get your way” by Reverend Peter M.J. Stravinskas your comments appear to be lacking in balance.
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https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/01/26/opinion-disobey-and-youll-get-your-way/
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When it comes to insults Pope Francis has a website that has a whole laundry list of the Pope’s insults. You can see extensive documentation of Pope Francis’ acts of vilification on the website “The Pope Francis Little/Bumper Book of Insults.” URL:
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http://popefrancisbookofinsults.blogspot.com/
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The quotes are clickable links to the articles where those quotes came from. It is quite the papal rock pile with which Francis can verbally stone others with.
If they said the modern Roman Rite was invalid, that would be a lie. Therefore a grave sin.
The disruption and disunity caused by wayward priests existed before TC, and even before Pope Benedict XVI.
No, I think some traditionalist Catholics would like to pass the blame to others. But that would qualify for St John Paul II’s assessment of a lack of a sense of sin. TC presents the case with clarity.
Interesting that a convert got this going. One of the fruits of the TLM.
A convert, exactly so. And another convert (to Christianity if not quite the Latin Mass), the journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, had this to say:
“Previous civilizations have been overthrown from without by the incursion of barbarian hordes. Christendom has dreamed up its own dissolution in the minds of its own intellectual elite. Our barbarians are home products, indoctrinated at the public expense, urged on by the media systematically stage by stage, dismantling Christendom, depreciating and deprecating all its values. The whole social structure is now tumbling down, dethroning its God, undermining all its certainties. All this, wonderfully enough, is being done in the name of health, wealth, and happiness of all mankind. That is the basic scene that seems to me will strike a future Gibbon as being characteristic of the decline and fall of Christendom” (The End of Christendom, 1980).
In addition to “walking together” on an “endless journey,” what else might the Catholic bishops as “successors of the apostles”—and under the umbrella of Synodality—actually do or witness, now, in order to relieve this “basic scene” for some future Gibbon? Eucharistic coherence, perhaps?
And, in 1982 at the age of 79, Muggeridge was received into the Catholic Church, under the influence of Mother Teresa (about whom, his book “Something Beautiful for God”).
It is so odd that the Vatican has equated Latin Mass attendance with divisiveness, while apparently not coming to a similar conclusion about European bishops who publicly agitate for marriages between males and males or females and females.
Whaaaaaaat? Am I missing something?
“…the real concern of Pope Francis’s pastoral concern…”SHOULD reflect the pastoral concern of Jesus.
Jesus commanded Peter to “Feed my sheep.”
The something missing is reason within the Vatican.
I pray the next Pope will cast aside Francis’s “reforms” on the liturgy (and other “doctrinal developments”) with the same contempt as he has treated the Benedict’s legacy to the Church.
Not being a learned theologian, I somewhat appreciate Carl’s point. However in simple terms when a fellow brother ,in a way , equates those who disagree with him with acting like they would be in agreement with the objective evil of the act of sodomy he looses all credibility. Especially so many growing in their lives of faith.
By their fruits you shall know them.
By what criteria do you judge blather of one ralph waldo to have come from the mind of a “fellow brother”?
Disagreement with 2,000 years of Catholic faith tradition, Magisterium, Fathers and Doctors, and disagreement with Scripture is not disagreement with Carl by an order of magnitude approaching infinity.
Some would argue that advocates of the TLM are being “divisive” in defense of the Mass of the Ages. No. No. Let us be intellectually honest right now. The divisiveness began when the Latin Mass was violently ripped from the hearts and hands of the faithful and the Novus Ordo forced upon the faithful who were given no say in the matter. THAT was the definitive divisive act. A 2000 year beloved tradition suddenly, arbitrarily abrogated. How in God’s name was THAT not divisive?
Spot on correct. Centuries of tradition, gone. Think on that. That is where we are.
Hmmm, reasonable requests by reasonable, serious adult Catholics.
My experience with respectful correspondence to American bishops is silence. Nothing but silence.
My experience has been the same… a deafening silence from Church leadership (at all levels) when I reach out to them.
I’ve told this (true) tale many times, but to me it never gets old, so here I go again.
T’was a lovely Sunday morning in April of the year, and I arose to the song of the alarm clock so I would be able to get on the way (55 miles one way) in time to get to the 8 a.m. (in those days – now it’s at 8:30) Latin Mass at St. Peter & Paul Basilica in Lewiston, Maine. I got there around 7:15 and went into the Church, which was dark, silent and welcoming and wonderful. I took a seat and just sat there, and it was then that I realized that I was not alone – the organist was practicing. I had made no noise when entering, so (to this day I like to tell myself that) he didn’t know I was there, meaning that he believed that no one else but God was listening.
After a time he left, and I never made a sound of acknowledgement or thanks, and so I like to believe that to this day he didn’t know I was there, but I was.
Credo in Unum Deum, Patrem Omnipotentem
Addendum – ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’.
We’ll get through this – all these silly people will fade into nothingness.
How do I find the nearest Eastern Rite Catholic Church?
While wintering in Venice FL, we’re forced to endure a “circus” when we attend Sunday Mass at an auditorium- otherwise known as the cathedral for the Diocese. There is no shortage of “priests-as-performer”, distracting projections onto the walls (at least in 5 places) of very hard-to-remember prayers like the Our Father, and Marty Haugan songs led by a screeching cantor. Please, someone, find me a Byzantine church to attend Mass where they are convicted about worshipping God in Divine Liturgy.
Just go here – https://www.byzcath.org/index.php/resources/directories/find-a-parish-mainmenu-112. I have a good friend who is Eastern Orthodox (born Roman Catholic, family converted when he was about 7 years old) that gave me this link. He and I have many spirited discussions about where our Church is headed. I jokingly tell him to “save me a seat” when I finally decide to abandon this “circus” we see performing around us.
For someone to tell me that I can’t celebrate Mass the way it was celebrated in our Church for centuries just because some council decided in 1965 that they had a “better” way is akin to telling me that I can’t profess my faith with the Apostle’s Creed because some council decided in 325 that they had a “better” creed. We still recite the Apostle’s Creed in Mass to this day…along with the Nicene Creed…and yet no one seems to have a problem with that.
Given the current situation, the Pope should count himself lucky that ANY Catholic goes to ANY style of Mass at all at this point. We have seen: The Pachamama incident at the Vatican, child molester priests, the resultant bankruptcy of many dioceses, Vatican embezzlement, the betrayal of the closure of our churches for months in 2020 including cancellation of Easter, and a German hierarchy which seems to be in full schism prepared to give the ok to various sexual deviancies. We have seen the Pope back slapping the likes of Pelosi and Biden, the most prominent protectors and poster children for the pro -abortion crowd. Churches are being shut in Canada and other nations in a frenzy of covid hysteria. China closes them for no reason at all except hate, and jails it’s Christian followers. Christians and their priests are being murdered at will in Nigeria. Yet the Pope didnt even flinch. Or make a public remark about most of these issues. But the hill he chooses to die on is prohibiting a specific old form of a VALID Mass? Really? One would imagine he has more important issues to deal with.The problem with the church is that the Pope even SEES this Latin Mass as a problem at all. And appears not to recognize the rest as even an issue. Sad.
This is perfectly logical when viewed through a Marxist lens. Before you can Build Back Better, you must Tear Down Completely.