King's College Choir - "I Was Glad When They Said Unto Me" - Sir Hubert Parry

Solemnity of Christ the King - A Homily by The Rev. George Rutler, S.T.D.

Homily of Father George Rutler

Pastor

Church of Our Savior

New York, New York

November 16, 2008

To Jesus Christ Our Sovereign King

To Jesus Christ, our Sov'reign King,
Who is the world's salvation,
All praise and homage do we bring,
And thanks and adoration.

Refrain:
Christ Jesus Victor, Christ Jesus Ruler!
Christ Jesus, Lord and Redeemer!

Thy reign extend, O King benign,
To ev'ry land and nation,
For in Thy kingdom, Lord divine,
Alone we find salvation.
(Refrain)

To Thee and to Thy Church, great King,
We pledge our hearts' oblation,
Until before Thy throne we sing,
In endless jubilation.
(Refrain)

An Anglican Bridge Across the Tiber

A Bob Jones University Graduate, former Anglican Vicar, and now a Catholic Priest Reflects on the Apostolic Constitution

From The Times (UK)
By Father Dwight Longenecker

Last Monday I was traveling to Tampa, Florida for a week long retreat with other Catholic priests who were once Anglican priests. In the airport I got an email with the news that the new Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus had been published. Suddenly the rest of the week’s program was decided. My brother priests and I spent time studying the document and discussing its implications.

The wider implications of Pope Benedict’s invitation to Anglicans to come into full communion are genuinely historic. It impacts discussions not only with Anglicans, but with all of the churches derived from the Protestant Reformation. It is a popular past time among traditionalist Catholics to throw dirt at ecumenism. Catholic triumphalists trumpet the truth of the Catholic faith and denigrate discussions with Protestants. They point out the false premises, the artificial camaraderie, and the fickleness of their ecumenical partners. The ecumenical movement is not without its faults, but it is also not without its accomplishments. Through the ecumenical movement Catholics and Protestants really have learned from one another. Over the last 40 years astounding progress has been made. Old prejudices have disappeared. Historic misunderstandings have evaporated. New formulas for old truths have been discovered and agreed.

Some commentators have reported the end of the old ecumenism. In one sense this is true. Through the new Apostolic Constitution, the Catholic Church is following up her warnings with action. For over a decade now the Vatican has had a consistent message to the Anglican Church, and the message can be summed up as, "Please don't do that. It puts yet another obstacle in the path of Christian unity." Time and again the Anglicans have gone ahead anyway. Each item on the progressive agenda has been another wound to the body. Now Rome has acted and with Anglicanorum coetibus, directed the ecumenical journey in a radical new direction. No doubt the old style ecumenical meetings will continue, but they will lack urgency. It is as if the Catholic Church has sent a butler with a bell into the hall where the pre prandial cocktail party was going on to announce that dinner is served. The drinks are over. Dinner time has begun. Are you coming in to dinner or not?

Ecumenism isn’t over. It has taken a new direction. To understand the wider implications of Anglicanorum coetibus one needs to look further than the shores of England and Europe. Most people have rightly focussed on the troubles within Anglicanism, and the new relationship between the Catholic and Anglican churches. However, we sometimes forget that the rest of Protestantism is struggling with the same conflicts that besiege Anglicanism. It is said that “where Anglicanism goes the rest of the Protestants soon follow." Here in the United States, where Anglicanism is just one of many Protestant groups, the Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists and Evangelicals are all battling over the same issues of modernist theology and relativist morality.

In England, the Anglican Ordinariate will benefit the small rump of Anglo Catholics who are still in the Church of England, but elsewhere in the world I believe it will eventually become a bridge into full communion with the historic Church for Protestants of many different backgrounds. In the United States there are large numbers of Evangelical Christians who are attracted to the historic liturgical churches. They hold to the historic faith, but they want to move away from the sectarian and often shallow worship and theology of the large Evangelical churches. They admire Catholic liturgy and spirituality, but they are repelled by the progressive political and moral agenda of the liturgical Protestant churches like the Lutherans and Episcopalians. They admire the Pope and much of Catholicism, but for most of them the step into the Catholic Church is still a step too far.

If the Anglican Ordinariate includes 'broad church Anglicans' as well as Anglo Catholics, then these other Protestants may also find a way to 'come home to Rome.' If this is the way the Ordinariate develops, then it will provide not only a bridge across the Tiber for Anglicans, but an Anglican bridge across the Tiber for many other Christians, and if this happens, then the harvest from the ecumenical discussions over the last forty years will be rich indeed.

Fr Dwight Longenecker is Chaplain to St Joseph's Catholic School in Greenville, South Carolina. He is a former Anglican priest, and the author of ten books on the Catholic faith. He blogs at Standing on My Head .

U. S. Navy Ceremonial Drill Team at Norwegian International Tattoo

Pope to Honor Cardinal Newman During British Visit

John Henry Cardinal Newman

From the Daily Mail
By Simon Caldwell

The Pope is to waive his own rules so he can preside in person over the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman during the papal visit to Britain next year.

In an unprecedented decision, Benedict XVI will take charge of the ceremony which will confer the title 'Blessed' on the Victorian convert from Anglicanism.

The Pope has previously insisted that all beatifications - the last step before sainthood - are carried out by a Vatican official in the diocese in which the candidate died, which in Newman's case is Birmingham.

But because the Pope has such a strong devotion to Cardinal Newman and his theological writings he has decided to beatify the cardinal himself.

With one rule already set aside, Vatican officials may now agree to the ceremony being held in London, the city of Newman's birth, rather than Birmingham, say Roman Catholic sources.

This would enable the beatification to take place at Westminster Cathedral - or even before a congregation of 80,000 in Wembley stadium.

Vatican sources say the Pope will preside over the ceremony in September.

The beatification comes as some fear the Church of England is breaking up over the ordination of women bishops and homosexual priests.

And the timing will prompt speculation that it is designed to persuade Anglicans to follow Newman into the Catholic Church.

But Father Ian Ker, a biographer of Newman, said: 'The problems in the Church of England are nothing to do with it.

Many popes have been anxious to canonise Newman. They look to him as a man who welcomed modernisation but in fidelity to Church authority.

'By breaking his own rules Pope Benedict clearly shows he regards Newman as a completely exceptional case, one of the great theologians of the Catholic Church.'

Pope Benedict announced the beatification in July after Vatican theologians ruled the healing in 2001 of Jack Sullivan, an American with a severe spinal condition, was a miracle brought about by praying to Cardinal Newman.

Newman was born in London in 1801 and converted to Catholicism at the age of 44 after leading a movement to try to unite Anglicans with their Catholic roots.

He was made a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in 1879 and died at the age of 89.

Outing Priests and Bishops

One of my wisest brothers in Christ must surely be Terry Nelson at the Abbey-Roads blog. Following is his post on plans by homosexualists to "out" closeted homosexual priests and bishops. Were such efforts aimed at the defiantly heterodox, we would rejoice that "all things work together for good to them that love God." Indeed, the sodomites would be performing a service to the Church in shining a light on the corruption. But invariably, as Terry points out:

Many same sex attracted men have struggled to live according to the teachings of the Church, and as all of us sinners, many fall - and rise again. Priests are not perfect, to preach the truth about homosexuality is not hypocrisy - even if a priest fails to live up to his vows from time to time. If he repents and strives to live accordingly, in time he will be victorious.

From Abbey-Roads

Activists in D.C. intend to begin outing closeted homosexual priests and bishops in retaliation for Archbishop Wuerl's anti-same-sex marriage efforts as well as a USCCB pastoral letter, which has been perceived as an 'anti-gay attack' - when in actual fact it is a defense of marriage, defining Catholic teaching on issues of faith and morals. From the website,

ChurchOuting.org press release: .

ChurchOuting.org is a clearinghouse for reports of priests who are openly gay men in social settings yet professionally closeted in their parishes. The campaign will also accept reports of heterosexual priests who are involved in romantic or sexual relationships, yet support the Archbishop’s efforts to harm lesbian and gay families. - Source .

Our local gay activist Michael Bayly joins his support to the organization's efforts: .

I should say from the start that I support efforts to out the hypocrisy of those Roman Catholic bishops and priests who live secretive gay lives while at the same time either publicly support the official anti-gay rhetoric and efforts of the church’s clerical leadership to strip gay people of civil rights protections, or remain silent in the face of such un-Christlike behavior. Indeed, I resonate with ChurchOuting.org’s founder Phil Attey’s hope that this campaign in Washington, D.C., will “inspire similar campaigns in every archdiocese across the country.” - Source .

Nothing new. .

Didn't Act Up launch a campaign to out closeted public figures way when? Most recently Larry Craig pretty much outed himself when he was caught with his pants down in a MPLS airport. Gay activists like Michael say that type of behavior wouldn't happen if everyone was out and being gay was on equal terms with heterosexuality. In response I like to cite people such as George Michael who seems to prefer that type of sexual adventure even though he lives in a domestic partnership - he famously and unashamedly defended such behavior saying, "It is what gay people do." Yet activists maintain such sleazy behavior is motivated by shame - although in the case of closeted 'bi-sexual' predators who may struggle against such sins, it is just hypocrisy. .

Washington gay activists may be placing all their bets on these tactics of detraction since they appear to have worked so well in the Church of England:

Furthermore, "outing" (or the threat of "outing") may help persuade some homophobic closet gays to stop doing damage to other gay people, and thereby prevent considerable suffering. It can also very effectively pressure homophobic institutions to reconsider their anti-gay policies. .

This is what happened when OutRage! named ten Anglican Bishops last November. Suddenly, for the first time ever, the Church of England began high-level dialogue with the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement. In January, the Bishops held a previously unscheduled re-examination of their stance on homosexuality, which resulted in a strongly-worded condemnation of homophobic discrimination and anti-gay violence. Church officials have privately admitted that none of these developments would have occurred if OutRage! had not "provoked a crisis" by naming the Bishops. .

However, perhaps the most significant effect of calling on the Bishops to "Tell The Truth!" is that the whole homophobic establishment is now aware that "outing" is not just an idle threat. OutRage! has ripped open the closet doors of the Church of England. We can, if we decide to, also expose hypocritical and homophobic closet gays in politics, business, the military, judiciary and the police. These people now understand that all those who abuse their power to harm other lesbian and gay people are potential targets. This will probably encourage at least some of them to think twice about being homophobic in the future. - Source .

I thought blackmail was illegal? .

Well, it is certainly not honorable. I suppose all is fair in love and war, and never forget, this is war. Consider as well that 'the sin of the Gentiles is they lack charity', therefore these kind of threats should not surprise anyone. 'Nothing is hidden that will not be revealed,' right? .

. "Fornicator I always was, heretic I never was." - St. Andrew Wourters, Gorcum Martyr .

The fact is, many same sex attracted men have struggled to live according to the teachings of the Church, and as all of us sinners, many fall - and rise again. Priests are not perfect, to preach the truth about homosexuality is not hypocrisy - even if a priest fails to live up to his vows from time to time. If he repents and strives to live accordingly, in time he will be victorious. On the other hand, perhaps there are 'bad' priests living duplicitous lives, and exposure could perhaps bring them to repentance? I don't know. I do know that some priests will suffer for the faith if this happens. Priests wrongly accused, priests who have reformed their lives, and priests actively struggling, as well as priests who reject their homosexual inclination and who have never acted on it. Priests and Bishops who preach the truth despite their failings are not hypocrites. .

If indeed there are active homosexualist priests living duplicitous lives, I strongly suspect their lifestyle is already known by many of those around them - think liberal priests in liberal parishes - therefore I suspect such outings will have little to no effect. Publicising it will only confirm that Perez Hilton is not some odd aberration of gay culture, but typifies an essential weakness of the immature homosexual personality: to complain, to attack, to wallow in self-pity, to gossip, to detract, to calumniate, to mock, to scorn. .