Letters: Tabernacle

Sydney
23 March 2003

Helping the world’s kids to a new start

One in five kids living in poverty

ACU model for rest to follow: Beattie

Transsexual ‘marriage’

Refugees ‘destitute’

Curtain falls on Woomera

Expo peek aids hospital

Call for inquiry into needs of low-paid staff

Catholic Weekly takes a holiday over Easter

Pope’s 25 years in stamps

New mysteries on pocket cards

CD to help East Timorese kids

New Vinnies head wants to ensure best deal for needy

Conference celebrates the faith

Medicare principles ‘must be safeguarded’

Bougainville - after the war is over

Fast and feast in lent

Editorial: The poverty line

Letters: Tabernacle

Conversation: Dr Henry Pang, GP and aid volunteer - Dead people all around ‘changes your life’

Voice of Youth: ‘O’ - what a feeling! We’re Catholics

Plea from the bush: Come and see us

Waverley’s 100 years of ‘bright stars’

Young train as catechists

Lay ministry great, says jubilee priest

Letters: Tabernacle

I challenge Fr David Orr (Tabernacle, Letters CW 19/1) to specify where does it say in the Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy or any authoritative Church legislation that separate Eucharistic chapels are required. I fully expect he cannot do this as the directives on the position of the tabernacle clearly oppose his aspirations.

Legislation issued by the Magisterium is approved in forma specifica.

This special approbation is granted only after the Pope has given the document his close personal attention in every aspect, and possibly made changes in the text submitted to him.

Liturgical legislation issued with this legislative authority prescribes a most distinguished, very prominent, conspicuous, truly noble position for the tabernacle.

No mention is made of separate Eucharistic chapels. If this course had been intended for all our church buildings, then the Church would surely have enshrined it in canon law.

The liturgical instructions recommending separate Eucharistic chapels, e.g. Eucharisticum Mysterium and General Instruction of the Roman Missal, are legislation approved in forma communi.

Legislation approved in forma communi remains the legislation of the congregation which issued it, and not only does it have an inferior authority but in any conflict or difference it must give way to the more authorative in forma specifica legislation.

Furthermore, applying the recommendation to every church is to treat what are no more than recommendations as mandatory.

Let Fr Orr be “guided by the wisdom of the teaching Church” as he himself instructs in his letter.

M Mertens
Toowoomba, Qld

PRESENCE

If I were Satan and wanted to pull down the Catholic Church, what would I do?

What is the heart and soul of this Church that makes it unique? It is the Catholics’ knowledge of, belief in and reverence for, the Real Presence of the Body and Blood, the Soul and Divinity, of

Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, on the altar of sacrifice and in the Tabernacle. So, I must remove these feelings.

Invent an excuse for relegating the Tabernacle to some place out of sight. This should remove the need for genuflecting and kneeling, and thus reduce the air of reverence.

Next, remove the images of Jesus and Mary and the saints, also the Stations of the Cross, for even less reverence.

Remove Christ’s image from the crucifix leaving a bare cross, and move the altar out of the sanctuary into the congregation and call it a table. This should reduce the sense of sacrifice in the Mass and help reduce its significance.

Since the building will now be more like a ‘gathering place’ than a House of God and a place of prayer, allow community use of the space for all sorts of events.

The result will be a gradual lessening of belief in the Real Presence, and - hey presto! - no Catholic churches, and no Catholics. Don’t let it ever happen in your parish.

RJ Channing Wood
Bomaderry, NSW

INFORMATIVE

Last year, while holidaying in Narooma, I obtained a copy of The Catholic Weekly and found it to be an informative, enjoyable and current publication on many varied subjects relating to our faith, as didmy father, Frank Simm, in Melbourne.

As a 79th birthday present for him I arranged for him to receive The Catholic Weekly for a year; he recently renewed his subscription.

He reads each issue from cover to cover and saves them for me for collection when I visit him every three or four weeks (I live 250km from Melbourne). A great publication!

I am active in pro-life areas, particularly abortion and the stem cell issue, and was very interested to read the article ‘Cash for babies’ instead of abortion (CW 16/2).

Marianne Bagguley
Maffra, Vic

NO JUDGMENT

Maryse Usher is disappointed that coverage was given to Ivan from Medjugorje (Apparitions, Letters CW 23/2).

The Church has given no final judgment. In 1998 Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote to Bishop Gilbert Aubry of St Denis de la Reunion, answering several questions.

Archbishop Bertone says the negative view of Bishop Peric should be considered as his personal opinion.

“As regards pilgrimages to Medjugorje, which are conducted privately, this congregation points out that they are permitted on condition that they are not regarded as an authentication of events ... which still call for an examination by the Church.”

The congregation placed the matter of Medjugorje in the hands of the Bishops’ Conference of Yugoslavia in 1986, hence the reference to the ‘personal opinion’ of Bishop Peric. Note that the archbishop says the events are still open to examination.

Alice Larkin
Maroubra, NSW

DECADE A DAY

Something good has come out of Medjugorje. At least, thousands of people have returned to God.

It is the year of the rosary and schools across Australia are praying one decade a day, besides the hundreds of prayer groups across Australia and overseas who have been touched by a place called “Medjugorje”.

Adel Haddad
Palm Beach, Qld

HOSPITALITY

Congratulations on the fine article by Marilyn Rodrigues about the North Sydney-Lavender Bay-Kirribilli parish (Three in one: A parish with something for everyone, CW 2/3). May I add a footnote.

Since 1989 the former parish school building next to St Francis Xavier’s church, Lavender Bay, has housed the offices of Caritas Australia, the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council and the Bishops’ Committee for Justice, Development, Ecology and Peace. It has also been the scene of the early development of the Bishops’ new ecology agency, Catholic Earthcare Australia.

Although the staff in these agencies have limited opportunities for involvement in the life of our host parish, we know we operate in a strong spiritual environment and that our efforts are sustained and made fruitful by the prayers of parishioners here, as elsewhere. We are thankful for the hospitality we receive and for the kindness of our ‘landlord’, Fr Peter Quin, and his staff, especially Carmen and Michael Murphy.

Michael Costigan
Executive secretary,
Bishops’ Committee for Justice, Development, Ecology and Peace
Lavender Bay, NSW

‘JUST WAR’

With all due respect to John Owens (War against Saddam may be ‘just war’, CW 16/2) and all those who talk about a ‘just war” I would be interested to hear from anyone who can find where our Lord Jesus called any war “just”.

Patrick Flanigan
Doonside, NSW