Ross TenEyck's Journal

...for those of you who follow the Christian liturgical year. That means it is time to once again post the link to "An Advent Meditation."

Thanksgiving this year was at my mom's house, down in Oregon. Attending Thanksgiving dinner were eight humans (comprising me, my mom, my grandfather, an uncle, an aunt, two cousins, and one of the cousin's fiancée) and four dogs (comprising four dogs.) Much food was eaten and conversation conversed, and the dogs had a great time except for the one who was wearing a Cone of Shame due to a recent tutoring expedition to the vet.

Friday was just me and my mom; I worked in a rather desultory fashion on a paper, but mostly we just chatted.

Today I came home, stopping off in Olympia to visit with my friends Ned and Jill and their kids. Also a bonus niece, belonging to Ned. Then home.

All in all, a most satisfactory Thanksgiving.

Early day tomorrow, so I should probably try to get to bed at a reasonable hour.

USA Today ad welcomes all people to the Episcopal Church

You can see the actual ad here (1.3 MB PDF). Am I alone in reading the ad as saying, "The Episcopal Church welcomes you... because we're not like the Roman Catholics"?

Playing at a rather higher level, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams speaks on matters ecumenical at a conference in Rome. He casually dismisses Anglicanorum coetibus as "an imaginative pastoral response to the needs of some" but otherwise unimportant, and suggests that if the Roman Catholic Church really thought about it they'd find that ordaining women is not such a big deal after all. I admire his chutzpah, if not his chances of convincing anyone.

Where by "this," I mean this?

It's been reprinted.

A couple more points in relation to Anglicanorum coetibus:

§1. The lay faithful originally of the Anglican tradition who wish to belong to the Ordinariate, after having made their Profession of Faith and received the Sacraments of Initiation, with due regard for Canon 845, are to be entered in the apposite register of the Ordinariate. Those baptized previously as Catholics outside the Ordinariate are not ordinarily eligible for membership, unless they are members of a family belonging to the Ordinariate.

So regular Latin-rite Catholics are not allowed to just move over to an Apostolic-Constitution-Anglican parish. That strikes me as a peculiar restriction, since there would be (by definition) no difference in doctrine or dogma between a Latin-rite parish and an Apostolic-Constitution-Anglican parish. (I sincerely trust someone will soon come up with a less cumbersome descriptive for such congregations.) The only difference would be in liturgy. Is Rome afraid that Catholics would be drawn in huge numbers to Anglican liturgy if given the chance? I like to think so :)

Also, speaking of liturgy:

III. Without excluding liturgical celebrations according to the Roman Rite, the Ordinariate has the faculty to celebrate the Holy Eucharist and the other Sacraments, the Liturgy of the Hours and other liturgical celebrations according to the liturgical books proper to the Anglican tradition, which have been approved by the Holy See, so as to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared.

So far as I have heard there has been no official word on "...the liturgical books proper to the Anglican tradition, which have been approved by the Holy See..." However, it so happens that there is a book approved for the so-called "Anglican Use" parishes -- you may recall, since I mentioned it here, that Pope John Paul II approved a "pastoral provision," within the U.S. only, which had terms fairly similar to the current Apostolic Constitution. As a result of that provision we have the Book of Divine Worship, which is essentially the 1979 Book of Common Prayer scrubbed and sanitized for Catholic use and with a Catholic imprimatur.

The BDW used to be available here, but apparently is out of print. However, they do have it as a 6.76 MB PDF. For comparison, the BCP is available online here (HTML). Comparing the Eucharistic liturgies is an interesting exercise for the student.

So will the BDW become the normative prayer book for the forthcoming Apostolic-Constitution-Anglican parishes? My suspicion is that it will not; or if it does, only temporarily and as a stopgap. The kind of Anglicans who are likely to take this offer in the first place are not, as a rule, overly fond of the 1979 American version of the BCP; and that was the basis of the BDW. I suspect that what they will ask for is a similarly-adapted and authorized version of the 1662 English BCP, which is still widely normative across the Anglican Communion. Since that prayer book is itself based on the pre-Tridentine Catholic mass -- first translated into English, then filtered through a modified Reformation theology, and then filtered again through the Elizabethan Catholic/Protestant compromise -- I would be more than a little interested to see what the Catholic version of that rite would look like.

Gesundheit.

No, actually, that is the Latin title of the "Apostolic Constitution" which makes provision for disaffected Anglicans to become Roman Catholic while still retaining some aspects of Anglican worship. That provision was announced a couple of weeks ago, and I talked about the announcement at some length a few days later.

The full text of Anglicanorum coetibus. (My Latin is so rusty as to be almost completely useless, but as best as I can make out that means something like "Union with Anglicans.")

The Complementary Norms for the Apostolic Constitution.

After a quick once-through, it seems pretty much like what we expected. A couple of points that struck me as worth highlighting:

§2. The Ordinary, in full observance of the discipline of celibate clergy in the Latin Church, as a rule (pro regula) will admit only celibate men to the order of presbyter. He may also petition the Roman Pontiff, as a derogation from can. 277, §1, for the admission of married men to the order of presbyter on a case by case basis, according to objective criteria approved by the Holy See.

I read this as the Vatican holding a firm line on the norm of the celibate priesthood, by stressing that re-ordaining married Anglican priests as Catholic priests is an exception to the rule. The "objective criteria" line suggests that the "exception" will probably be approved pretty routinely, but they seem to want to make it clear that it is an exception. But note also:

§2. Those who have been previously ordained in the Catholic Church and subsequently have become Anglicans, may not exercise sacred ministry in the Ordinariate. Anglican clergy who are in irregular marriage situations may not be accepted for Holy Orders in the Ordinariate.

So there's no back-and-forth option here -- you can't hop the fence from Rome to Canterbury and then back again and expect to retain your collar. By "irregular marriage situations" I think they mean "divorced and/or remarried."

As for married formerly-Anglican bishops, they can be re-ordained as Catholic priests (subject to the restrictions above) but cannot be re-ordained as Catholic bishops. However:

§1. A married former Anglican Bishop is eligible to be appointed Ordinary. In such a case he is to be ordained a priest in the Catholic Church and then exercises pastoral and sacramental ministry within the Ordinariate with full jurisdictional authority.

and

§4. A former Anglican Bishop who belongs to the Ordinariate and who has not been ordained as a bishop in the Catholic Church, may request permission from the Holy See to use the insignia of the episcopal office.

My understanding is that a priest acting as an Ordinary is by no means unknown in Catholic circles; an example would be a priest who is the head of a religious order. Such priests have responsibilities and privileges that normal priests do not, but they are not bishops.

However, what it would mean to "use the insignia of the episcopal office" without actually having the privileges of that office, I have no idea.

I'm sure there will be no shortage of analyses and commentaries on these documents in the next few days. If I see any that seem particularly cogent, I'll link them here.

I'd heard that after the disappointing box office of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Disney had canned the series. What I only found out recently was that it has apparently been rescued by 20th Century Fox... or at least the next movie has been. According to the IMDB and the Wikipedia article, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is scheduled for a December 2010 release.

And the Wikipedia article links to some pictures of the Dawn Treader being built in Australia. Here's the whole ship:





Nice!

In the bookstore today, I saw these prominently displayed on the "For Teens" table:

      

Yes, that's right: Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, and Romeo and Juliet, all reprinted with covers that by a remarkable coincidence are all strikingly evocative of another well-known recent book cover:



The question is: will the teens keep reading them once they realize that there are no vampires in? Or will they gravitate towards the compromise position?

On this day four hundred and four years ago, a Catholic footsoldier set into motion a chain of events that would lead, with the relentless inexorability of history, to Alan Moore disliking a movie.

...I've posted this chart before, but it seems timely to see it again:

( Cut for image size... )

Today is All Saints' Day, which among other things is one of the four Sundays a year that are customarily held to be particularly suitable for baptisms. So today at St. Mark's Cathedral, we got our baptism on.

The baptismal font at St. Mark's is a large stoneware urn which we obtained from a well-known supplier of sacred vessels. (Not exactly that one, but pretty similar.) Before the service, we fill it within a few inches of the top; then, during the service, just before the baptisms, we have a bunch of people from the congregation bring buckets of water and fill it -- to the top, and then overflowing onto the floor. The kids love that part.

After the baptisms, just before the Peace, the clergy take bowls of water from the font through the congregation and use evergreen branches to sprinkle the people with water. This is called "asperging," and it is meant to remind everyone of their own baptismal covenant.

So today, when it came time to do that, the clergy each grabbed a child volunteer from among the crowd that had come up to watch the baptisms, and had the child hold the bowl while the clergy sprinkled people. Except one of the clergy, in fact the Canon Missioner for the cathedral, who decided that she would hold the bowl and the kid would get to get people wet. This was a boy about, I would guess, six or seven years old. It so happened that I was sitting at the end of the pew in the front where they began, and as they came up I wondered to myself if this kid had grasped the notion of "sprinkling."

He had not.

He grabbed the branches and basically scooped about half the water out of the bowl and onto me with a mighty splash, incidentally whacking me with the branches at the same time -- fortunately he wasn't tall enough to hit me in the face, so the branches just hit my chest. But he got me good with the water. The left half of my head and chest were pretty well soaked.

This was startling for a moment, although not completely surprising, kids being kids and all. Then I thought it was pretty funny, which was fortunate because so did most everyone else. A kind soul brought me a spare towel -- we had several ready to hand to wipe up the floor where the font overflows -- so I could dry off a little, and later during announcements the Canon said she wasn't sure about the validity of second baptisms, but I sure wasn't going to forget this one.

And how was your church service this morning?

In reference to this, some background, a few more links of reactions and news stories, and then some thoughts of my own.

( This got long... seems like they always do )

"NOTE OF THE CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH ABOUT PERSONAL ORDINARIATES FOR ANGLICANS ENTERING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

"With the preparation of an Apostolic Constitution, the Catholic Church is responding to the many requests that have been submitted to the Holy See from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful in different parts of the world who wish to enter into full visible communion.

"In this Apostolic Constitution the Holy Father has introduced a canonical structure that provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal Ordinariates, which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony. Under the terms of the Apostolic Constitution, pastoral oversight and guidance will be provided for groups of former Anglicans through a Personal Ordinariate, whose Ordinary will usually be appointed from among former Anglican clergy."

Read the whole thing here.

"JOINT STATEMENT BY THE ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER AND THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

"...The Apostolic Constitution is further recognition of the substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and spirituality between the Catholic Church and the Anglican tradition. Without the dialogues of the past forty years, this recognition would not have been possible, nor would hopes for full visible unity have been nurtured. In this sense, this Apostolic Constitution is one consequence of ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion."

Read the whole joint statement here.

Rowan Williams' letter to the bishops of the Church of England and the Primates of the Anglican Communion is printed in this news article.

A statement from Bishop Christopher Epting, the Deputy for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations for the Episcopal Church, is here.

A news article with a rather over-the-top headline is here.

The Basics

This was a civil case about wrongful termination. The plaintiff alleged that she had been fired from her job, in part, for taking leave under the Family Medical Leave Act -- which, if true, would of course have been illegal. The defendant (her former employer) denied the allegation and asserted that she had been fired solely for being chronically late to work.

( The rest of this gets pretty long. )

As noted previously, we were in recess Thursday and Friday.

The evidence and closing arguments concluded today, so the case is now in the hands of us, the jury. Unfortunately we did not finish deliberating today, so we have to go back tomorrow. Even more unfortunately, this means I have to miss a second session of my Theology of Eucharist class; this makes me sad, but that's the way the dice fell.

With luck, we should be done tomorrow. Then I can tell you all about it.

It is remarkably tiring to sit in a chair all day long and listen carefully to people talking about minutiae. It is especially tiring when you can't interject.

We're in recess Thursday and Friday, so I get to go to school and work as usual. We convene again on Monday, and with luck (and depending on how fast the jury can deliberate) we might be done then. If not, we should at least be done by Tuesday.

I am filled to overflowing with observations and opinions which I am not allowed to speak.

I have been empaneled.

Now, obviously, I can't discuss the case until it's over; so here's what happened today before I was put on a jury.

I had to get up at some ungodly hour of the morning so I could make it down to the downtown courthouse before 8:00 AM. Then I had to completely empty my pockets so I could walk through the metal detector, which caused me to reflect that I carry a lot of stuff in my pockets. After asking the information desk person where I was supposed to report for jury duty, and having him point down the hall to the giant sign reading JURY ASSEMBLY ROOM¹, I checked in and cracked open my book. I'd been warned by experienced friends to take plenty of reading material.

At 8:00, they played a pleasant little video about how awesome we were for not just blowing off the summons like most people do², and what we could expect in exchange for our awesomeness. Then a judge came in and gave us a brief history lesson, beginning with King Henry the Nth³.

Then they started calling names. They began by announcing that they were going to call 100 names for the first trial; so I don't know what that's all about, but thank God they didn't call me for that one. I was called in a subsequent, smaller group shortly thereafter.

So I did not actually get to read that much of my book before I got to discover what voir dire⁴ is like. At this point we're verging into the territory I'm not allowed to discuss, so suffice it to say that by the time jury selection was over, I was in the box⁵.


¹Remember, this was before 8:00 AM

²Oddly, the summons itself did not mention this as a possibility; instead, it had a rather ominous note in bold print about it being a felony to not show up when you were summoned.

³Where N is a number I would remember better if it hadn't been 8:00 AM. Seriously, I am not awake at that time of the morning.

⁴If nothing else, it's fun to say.

⁵And apparently, thinking outside it is strongly discouraged.

On the one hand, this will be my first time and I'm curious to see how the process works. On a closely related hand, civic responsibility and all that.

On an entirely different hand, while it seems petty to put my own convenience above the pursuit of justice, I have to say that it would be convenient if this didn't last too long¹. It would begin to get awkward rescheduling everything.

It's the open-ended nature of the time commitment that's frustrating; I don't know how to plan for it.


¹This is a "two days or one trial" deal. But they claim the average time served is 2.25 days, so I'm guessing an awful lot of people aren't picked for juries.