First off, I would like to apologize for not following through on my promise of a blog talking about why I love my job. Basically, I've spent the last few weeks loving my job so much that I haven't had too much time to even thing about posting anything on this blog. I hope you'll all accept my sincere apology, all three of you who read this.

When I created this blog and named it "Fact, Faith, and Feeling" I thought that I would be speaking to people who based their whole faith on experiencing warm fuzzy feelings. As we know our faith is so much more than how we feel about it. To quote what Bishop Tyson said in one of his daily Mass homilies the other week, "We can get warm fuzzy feelings from Starbucks, which unfortunately is where many people choose to worship on Sundays." I honestly didn't think that I would be posting a little rant directed towards the people who generally agree with me and strive everyday to build their faith on a foundation of fact and truth. However, recently I've noticed that many people, sometimes myself included, have been basing their faith on their interpretation of fact and how they feel about.

The arrival of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, to the shores of our shining sea, has given plenty of people all over the spectrum plenty to talk about. My attention was drawn to several comments given about the Mass celebrated by the Holy Father yesterday in our nation's capital, most of them negative. There was criticism about the music, the Mass parts, the fact that one of the readings was in Spanish, the fact that the readings were read by laywomen, the fact that it took place outside instead of in a Church. I know that there are many who are disappointed and I've even heard the word disgusted with the people who planned this Mass and I'm sure are waiting eagerly for the Holy Father to lay smack down, given his reputation as "the enforcer" when he was the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. However, he does not hold that position anymore. He is the Pope, he is the Bishop who shepherds the people of the diocese of Rome, and the people of the Universal Church, in short he is a Pastor. Like every Bishop I am certain that the Holy Father has an office devoted to organizing and approving every liturgy that he participates in. I'm sure that these people know exactly what the Holy Father approves of and disapproves of and do not allow anyone they work with to incorporate anything in to the liturgy that the Holy Father would not approve of.

I would like to end this rant by posting something my roommate posted on her blog this morning. It addresses the issues of multi-lingual and multi-cultural faith communities. I'm making it part of this post because of the comments I head about the Spanish reading at the Papal Mass. I hope that people will read this thoughtful piece and truly reflect on the meaning of universality in our Church.

"18 April 2008

What is our problem with a multi-cultural church?
For several weeks now I have been meaning to write about one of my greatest struggles with my fellow Americans, particularly those who recite the same creed as I. When did the statue of liberty get changed to read “give me your white, English speaking, semi-affluent Europeans?” And when did the Catholic Church become an appropriate place to espouse these ideas? Let me address the later issue. The former is really just people being stupid and I can live with stupid people but I can not tolerate people using the Church to justify excluding others. So the later issue is the one that actually causes me to question what is being taught in churches and homes.
The first issue that brought this to my attention is the planning of bilingual or multi lingual ministry and masses. My first argument is this: are you kidding me? Did we deny the Sacraments to the Polish, the German, the Italian, the Spanish when they came to the United States and didn’t speak the language? No instead we had in some major US cities 4 Catholic Churches with 2 blocks of each other so each of these communities could live their faith deeply rooted in their culture. Granted for a large number of these communities the Latin mass was still the norm so nobody knew what was going on anyway, except the priest and maybe 15% of the congregation but still the culture and the language of our ancestors was embraced and accepted as being completely acceptable.
At the risk of sounding like an evil temptress who is out to destroy the Church I will publicly recognize Vatican II for the good things it brought to the Church. The first of these good things was a call to bring the mass, thereby the most real experience of the divine we have, into the vernacular of the people. I know it is an odd concept, although the graces where there all along actually letting people hear and understand what was going on. I mean what would these people do now that they actually get to hear the words of Christ and hear the words they pray in their own language? Certainly the benefits did not include people now being able to fully, actively and consciously participate in the liturgy.
So now we have the problem of discerning what the vernacular was. It certainly was not Latin, since again nobody speaks Latin in their homes and daily life. But what to do about these cultural churches that had popped up all over. The answer was clear in the Polish Church speak Polish, in the Italian Churches speak Italian, etc, etc. But oh no this is another problems people start getting married and having kids and those kids are not Polish or Italian or Irish or German they are products of America. These children of the melting pot speak English and the language of their ancestors. These children have both a Polish and an Irish identity. They are for a lack of better word Americans.
Now we add to the confusion of people no longer being defined by ancestry the diminishing number of priests. We have to start combining parishes and having priests ministering to larger communities. So these priests start offering masses in English and what ever language people still speak. We have problems with this like all other things. We got used to things being a certain way and now they go and change it all up on us. Darn these people!
All that rant is meant to do is illustrate that this is not a new phenomenon, developed in the last 5 years. What is so different about the current situation where we as a Church need to reach the needs of multiple communities with our limited resources? I have a lot of theories that don’t bode well for my respect for humanity so I am just going to assume because people have forgotten the past and don’t understand the present. I will avoid too many theories of racism or classicism and I will even avoid my most tempting theory and the one that gets my ire up most that people have exchanged their Catholic identity for a political affiliation and don’t even know it.
There is a reality we face as an American Church. We are the universal Church, we are not a European church or a United States church we are the universal Church. We were not called to speak only to those we understood, but to go forth and spread the good news to all nations and all people.
The church in the United States is called to minister to her people regardless of what language we speak. We are not all native English speakers and the vernacular of the people does not mean what we think the vernacular should be, but the real vernacular of the people. Wouldn’t mass be prettier if it were spoken in Latin? Yeah so why not have it in Spanish or Italian, those are Romance languages, and they are closer to Latin than American English could ever claim to be? The answer isn’t clear to me why people get so upset when they hear a bishop speak Spanish. I just don’t understand where this indignation comes from.
It makes perfect sense for me to hear and see the Church speak as many languages as possible, especially here in the United States where we really are called to embrace the call our country brides itself on. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
We as Catholics, especially we who are blessed to live in a place that’s principles speak so powerfully the message of Christ, are called to be the light beside the golden door and the light of Christ to the tired, poor huddled masses longing to breath. We are called to light the path to Christ and not hide our light under a bushel basket but put it on a lamp stand for all to see. "

Written by: Bridget Harris

Thanks for reading this incredibly long post. I'll work on updating this thing more regularly.