"The Gloves Come Off"

That's Fr. William of the Beach's curt summary of the new "personal ordinariates."  He's right on target.  It hurts, and we're not even Anglican.

Oh No They Di'n't!

Oh yes, they did.

That Vatican has announced its intention to organize new non-geographic jurisdictions which will offer a home to disaffected Anglicans, allowing them to enter communion with the Roman Catholic Church while retaining their distinctive rites and practices.  (Those would be, we suppose, the BCP, married priests, and sherry).

The new jurisdictions will be called "personal ordinariates," a phrase which purposefully echoes the term used for the existing jurisdictions designed to serve soldier.  The idea is to create a diocese without borders, headed by a bishop (or some leader with comparable authority) and answerable through him to the pope.

The story is that the Vatican was approached two years ago by a smallish schismatic group called the "Traditional Anglican Communion," which objects to all the usual stuff:  female priests, the 1979 Prayer Book, yadda-yadda.  They claim to number 400,000, of whom 5,000 are in the US.  Needless to say, behind this story lies the far more important story of Gene Robinson, Peter Akinola, and the unrest within worldwide Anglicanism.

It is tempting to shrug this off.  After all, as among Lutherans, so individual Anglicans, both lay and ordained, have often found a home east of the Tiber.  Those in orders have not infrequently continued as priests.  And we aren't just thinking of John Henry Newman here, either; years ago, our dental hygienist remarked that her new priest was a former Anglican, married with children, adding, "My husband and I are okay with it, but we don't know how to explain it to the kids."  And indeed, in the US, there has even been a "Pastoral Provision" establishing "Anglican Use" parishes since 1980.

But this is different, and quite remarkable.  Those former Tiber-jumpers wound up Roman Catholics of the Latin Rite.  Their Masses, and ultimately their religious lives, were governed by the same rules which obtain at St. Malachy's down the block.  The wives and kids were an oddity, but not much more.  Now, the Pope has created a sort of "Anglican" church within the Roman Church, in which a different set of norms apply.  Although parishes of this new ordinariate will not be truly Anglican -- the point is argued, but we hold that Anglican identity is inseparable from the Archbishop of Canterbury and at least some nod toward the 39 Articles -- it will look and feel Anglican.  Which is enough for many people.

Surely, this will have an impact -- and not a good one -- on Roman/Anglican relations.  Reading between the lines, one can't help suspecting that there has been some heady debate within the Vatican.  The move was announced at a press conference, held in Rome by the prefects of two congregations:  Doctrine and Worship.  Not present, as the Times notes, were people engaged in high-level dialogue with Canterbury. 

 And indeed, not only did the Vatican deny some rumors in early 2009 of just such a move, but the National Catholic Reporter quotes ecumenical point man Walter Cardinal Kasper as saying, just a few weeks ago, that "We mare not fishing in the Anglican lake."  Um, lose a fight there, Wally?

All of which begs the question of what the papacy is up to.  Why?  And why now?

The obvious conclusion is that, seeing Anglicanism in disarray, Benedict has decided to take advantage, and poach a few hundred thousand members.  In Vatican-speak, that would be rendered as "the Holy Father, compassionately answering the request of certain faithful souls among the separated brethren," etc.  

Spinmeisters on both teams are already trying to steer us away from the obvious conclusion.  The official announcement actually says that "The provision of this new structure is consistent with the commitment to ecumenical dialogue...."  It must have been for the scribe who wrote that to keep the smirk off his face.  If he even tried.

Far more surprising, however, is a joint statement by Vincent Nichols, the [Papist] Archbishop of Westminster, and Rowan Williams, the [Anglican] Archbishop of Canterbury.  It is a notably brief statement, which attempts to put the best face on the move, claiming it as a victory for ecumenism.  It must have been hard for Williams to keep the grimace off his face when he signed it.  If he even tried.

This is true, in a small way.  If the goal of ecumenism is considered to be the reunion of the Church, then this might be a microscopically small step toward that goal.  On the other hand, it is also a step likely to defer the actual arrival, because it further estranges far more people than it proposes to welcome.

Let's put it bluntly:  this is a clear case of malicious meddling in the affairs of a different church body.  It looks for all the world like the classic Vatican overreach of days gone by -- from an index of prohibited books to kidnaping Jewish children who had been baptized by their nannies.  We had thought that decades of earnest ecumenical encounter had put us beyond this sort of thing, but apparently they have not.

Footnote Regarding the Post Below

True story:  

A year or two back, Father Anonymous and some friends, having spent the morning at the General Seminary of the (D&FMS of the) PECUSA and having delivered there a learned discourse on gluttony, adjourned to a nearby diner for French toast.

After they ordered, but before their food came, an elderly gentleman with thick glasses sat down at a nearby table.  He was accompanied by a small party, which included a couple of people who were kinda-sorta fawning on him, and one woman who clearly wasn't.

"Holy *!@%," exclaimed the reverend Father.  "That guy is R. Crumb."

 

The rest of the table seemed, shall we say, less than bowled over.  Which is funny, since had the sentence following the profanity gone more like, "That guy is George Lindbeck," they would probably have all lost their composure in a mad scramble to have him sign their clerical collars. 

So we explained, as forcefully as possible, that this old man with the Coke-bottle lenses was a superstar of Linbeckian proportions, in the small obscure world of culture that is actually popular.  "He drew, you know, the album cover for Big Brother and the Holding Company.  You know?  Janis Joplin?"  The looks were blank; apparently, the late Ms. Joplin had doomed herself to obscurity by never recording a Buxtehude chorale.

"And I think that's Aline," Father A. went on, showing off the way his scary fanboy familiarity extended beyond the man's work to include his wife.  "And the young one, that could be their daughter."

"Um, well," said one of the presbyters, clearly more concerned about when her French toast would arrive.  "If you like his cartoons, why don't you go up and tell him so?"

Father A. spluttered, "Go up and -- and -- oh, no, I couldn't.  I mean, hound the guy while he's trying to eat lunch?  That's just -- it isn't done."  Which was a small untruth; it is done all the time, to anybody who has ever had so much as their Warholian fifteen minutes.  Even minor celebrities are routinely hounded to madness and violence by the importunacy of starstruck admirers, so desperate to experience even the faintest brush with greatness that they cast dignity to the winds and crazedly pretend to an undeserved familiarity.  You remember Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction?  She's real, and you don't need to actually sleep with her to get the treatment.

And we could only imagine that the effect is worse when the person hounding you wears a black suit with a Roman collar.  To much of the world, those people look crazy to begin with.

So, muttering "Get thee behind me, Mother Anonymous," we resisted the temptation.  We ate our French toast, and tried to eavesdrop, and can't have passed by on our way to the bathroom more than fifteen or sixteen times.

All of which leads to this little note, put in a bottle and set adrift on the waves of bloggery:

Mr. Crumb, if you ever happen to read the Egg, we don't expect you to remember that one glorious day we spent together in Chelsea.  We're sure it can't have meant as much to you as it did to us.  But please know that, somewhere in the world, there is a short cleric who just cares ... a little too much.

Oh, and here's a PS on a related note:

Dear Pete Seeger,  Do you remember that flight to Rome, in 1993 or thereabouts? You were in coach, about halfway back?  And a short guy maybe ten rows up who had to pee all the time, so he kept walking past your seat?  Yeah, well, funny story ....

Books We Fully Intend To Read

You know how the movie is never as good as the book?  Except for Casino Royale?  And you know how comic-book adaptations of movies -- even movies adapted from comics -- are so comically bad that you can barely stand to read them?

Well, there have to be exceptions, and if that's true, then R. Crumb's Genesis is a likely candidate.

Crumb, of course, is a brilliant auteur, most closely associated with the "underground" comics of decades past -- Mr. Natural and all that.  In later years, he has been celebrated by a bio-doc, moved to the south of France, while his work has gone establishment, and  begun appearing in the New Yorker.  And, indeed, excerpts of his Genesis appeared there over the summer, and were immensely tantalizing.

It's out now, and a review in the Forward, reprinted in Ha'aretz, makes it sound like all that and more.  It starts with three particular points of interest.

First, this is a serious effort to interpret the text:

Crumb's "Genesis" is ... perfectly serious and the author wants us to know it. As he says on the cover, "Nothing Left Out!" Every "beget" from the King James Bible can be found here, along with plenty of scenes censored from previous graphic adaptations. 

And more prose, in the final "Commentary" segment of the book, than non-writer Crumb may have put on the page anywhere, aside from his published letters. ...

The commentary on his visual choices and his broader interpretations explores and explains his few intentional deviations, not only in the name of narrative clarity but artistic intent. Mainly, his notes drive home how he struggled to interpret the text in suitable graphic form, chapter by chapter, sometimes even character by character. There is no doubting the artist's integrity or hard work, in no small part because he redrew again and again, trying to find historically accurate clothing and scenery. The Old Testament of cinematic Charlton Heston, so to speak, became the Genesis of lived and perceived experience, socially real and super-real. Clues are provided with translations of specific Hebrew names within the visual text, essentially metaphorical in meaning. These clues may be the closest to footnotes that Crumb has ever provided. 

(Crumb also explains that his reading of Genesis has been reshaped by feminist analysis, which will appeal to some readers more than others.  But the others probably weren't going to buy this book anyway.)

Second, Buhle picks up on something that a Gentile reviewer might have missed, or neglected to mention for fear of insulting somebody:

More striking for anyone but the seasoned Crumb fan: unlike previous Biblical comic adaptations, including some published and drawn by Jews, Crumb's characters actually look Jewish, the women even more than the men. ...

Close readers will see Crumb's wife Aline Kominsky, to whom the book is dedicated, again and again, in various guises; perhaps only Chagall drew his beloved wife so often and with such varied imagination. 

Not only are the characters Jewish here, they are all ages and sizes. If, for instance, there are more drawings of Jewish elders in any single volume of comic art anywhere, I have never seen them. The women here are beautiful when young, heavily busted with large, muscular thighs. The men are strong, their beards full and noble.

To a secular reader, and Crumb will have many, this is enough.  To Egg readers, however, it may sound almost beside the point.  What about God, we ask plaintively.  We may be put off a bit by the revelation that, per Buhle, "the deity has a really big beard."  But God also "retains his notoriously bad temper," as well as his demand for absolute loyalty.   Well, that's good.  Buhle sees a greater depth, however, and even a new humility to Crumb's treatment of God: 

 Crumb treads with a caution all the more remarkable for an artist, who, short decades ago, allowed himself the full run of his imagination, heedless of the consequences. 

Well, yes, but not that humble.  This is a risky endeavor, and the likelihood of failure is high.  Granted, Crumb's source material is among the most richly textured and yet elliptically-told narratives in world literature.  But, far from guaranteeing success, that fact just raises the stakes.  They are raised again by the fact that, to a vast number of readers all over the world, this is not mere narrative, but Divine Word.  It takes a certain lack of humility even to consider it.

So, whether the book is as good as Buhle thinks or not, it is certainly worth a look.  And we will take a gander, as soon as we can. 

"An Outrageous Conclusion"

Another gem from Antonin Scalia, the dumbest smart guy we know:  the Cross is not a Christian symbol.

The issue at hand is  the propriety of a big cross in the Mojave Desert to honor the Great War dead.  Here's how it plays out in oral argument:

“It’s erected as a war memorial. I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead,” Scalia said of the cross that the Veterans of Foreign Wars built 75 years ago atop an outcropping in the Mojave National Preserve. “What would you have them erect?…Some conglomerate of a cross, a Star of David, and you know, a Muslim half moon and star?”

Peter Eliasberg, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer arguing the case [and whom Father A. is almost certain he worked with, years ago], explained that the cross is the predominant symbol of Christianity and commonly used at Christian grave sites, not that the devoutly Catholic Scalia needed to be told that.

“I have been in Jewish cemeteries,” Eliasberg continued. “There is never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew.”

There was mild laughter in the packed courtroom, but not from Scalia.

“I don’t think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead that that cross honors are the Christian war dead. I think that’s an outrageous conclusion,” Scalia said, clearly irritated by the exchange.

Bloomberg columnist Ann Woolner asks, reasonably, whether Scalia could possibly have believed his own words.  And well she might.  Scalia seems to argue that this grave marker does not violate the separation of church and state, not because religious symbols may sometimes be appropriate in public venues (an argument we might support) but rather because the cross a deracinated symbol, no longer the reminder of Christ and his sacrifice for our sake, but rather something closer to the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus, public emblems rooted in Christian heritage but not in Christian faith.

This is, to put it mildly, a betrayal of the Cross.

Fulton Sheen, if we remember correctly, claimed that a Christ without a Cross is powerless, and a Cross without Christ is blasphemy.

So please, Andy.  Puh-leeze.  You pretend, as jurists are generally required to pretend, that you are a dispassionate observer, committed only to abstract ideals and the pursuit of capital-J Justice.  But stories like this remind us that you, rather more consistently than anybody except your doltish henchman Clarence Thomas, are in fact single-minded in pursuit not of Justice, much less of Truth, but rather of your own damn way. 

Dept. of No Surprise: Health Care Division

Love the WaPo headline:  "Health Insurers Emerge as Obama's Top Foe in Reform Effort."

Really?  "Emerge"?  Did anyone ever doubt that they were dead-set against any change to the system (except, of course, a law requiring everybody to buy their overpriced products).  

These people have grown rich and fat through a system -- if that is not too generous a word for our ad-hoc mess -- which rations health care forcefully, and has increasingly put it beyond the reach of many small businesses, independent contractors, and churches.  They have been aided in this by easily-purchased politicians and the legion of frightened and somewhat dim older Americans who already have a government-run plan and don't want to share.

So here's what the coming months will bring:  more of the same.  Politicians, especially but not exclusively Republican ones, will continue to do the bidding of their corporate masters. (A few will continue to talk about socialism, but most will begin trying to look somber as they say, straight into the camera, that what they want is "real" reform, by which in fact they mean "not a damned thing.")  Meanwhile, a tidal wave of advertising (including "advertorials," some of which will actually be delivered by the supposed "reporters" on a few popular cable networks) will be directed at old people, warning them that if anything changes -- anything at all! -- they will no longer be able to see a doctor or buy their medicine.

Please, people -- for the love of God and the love of your neighbor -- call their bluff.

And Here Comes the Proof

Months ago, reviewing the constitution of the new schismatic "Anglican" organization ACNA, we pointed out that it permitted women to serve as priests but not, apparently, bishops.  This, we suggested, was a compromise between "traditionalists" who didn't like women or gays, and those who merely didn't like gays.  (The scare quotes here are used to mock the idea of an Anglicanism that turns its back on canonically regular bishops and diocesan boundaries.  Or an Anglicanism without gay priests.)

More recently, our friend Pastor Joelle, commenting on the developments of CORE (they had a big, heavily publicized meeting at which they decided to ... do nothing, really) suggested that the development of a gay-free Lutheran church (if, again, they ever get around to it) might not bode well for ordained women in the ranks of same.  And we heartily agreed.

And here comes, if not proof, then powerful evidence:  The Church of England, which began to ordain women fairly recently and which as yet has no female bishops, is considering steps to remove certain powers from those female bishops, when and if any are ever enthroned.

Here's a useful quotation:

While Anglicans in the United States, Canada and Australia already have women bishops, conservatives in many other parts of the Communion strongly oppose them. They say there is nothing in the Bible or church history to support women bishops.

Well, yes, they would say that.  They always say that, about everything.  There's nothing in the Bible or church history to support church organs, either, apart from the fact that they're beautiful and some churches have them.  Whereas the Scriptures take a pretty firm anti-tattoo line, suggesting that Navy men should be excluded from the priesthood, if not excommunicated altogether.  (S0 there, late John Cardinal O'Connor).

Anyhoo.  None of our business what the CofE does, really.  Nor the Lutheran schismatics.  But were we a woman, and a priest, we would certainly avoid joining either.

Apparently, My Toddler Wasn't Available

President Obama just won the Nobel Peace Prize.  Seriously.

After nine months in office.

We suppose it was awarded for his most extraordinary accomplishment to date, keeping the Clintons usefully employed and out of the limelight.  Because -- and we say this as great admirers of the guy, who nourish comically immense hopes for his future success -- what else has the guy actually done yet?  

In a few years, when the Taliban has been crushed, Iran and North Korea have agreed to give up on nukes and pursue decent relations with the West, when Africa is stable and headed toward prosperity, when there are two tiny little nations living peacefully together on the banks of the Jordan and every American has affordable, effective health care -- at that point, the President will deserve every conceivable medal, trophy, badge and laurel wreath.

Right now?  We're waiting.

The Matter is Not Simple

It has been Father A.'s observation that both zealots and dimwits -- categories which often overlap, but by no means always -- share a favored strategy.  They like to declare that a given matter is really very simple, and that those who seek to complicate it do so out of either folly or malice.

In politics, tax codes and the true sense of the US Constitution are often subjected to this treatment.  In religion, it is nearly always the Bible.  Never mind, for example, the stunning obscurity of Exodus 24-26, or the ethical complexity of the Akedah, which has generated not a mountain of rabbinic exegesis, but a range.  After all, the Bible is easy to understand.

So for example, our acquaintance the Rev. Mr. Slope has recently taken time away from his various schismatic enterprises to join the small army of bloggers who have re-posted a passage from Kierkegaard:

"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any word in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament. "

This passage is extremely popular on the Net these days.  We aren't sure of the original essay or journal entry which is being quoted, but the citation is to Provocations, an anthology edited by Charles E. Moore (Plough, 2002), page 201.

Read in isolation, these remarks sound as though Soren the K were entirely on the side of the Bible-spouting sectarians so thick on the American ground.  He, like they, seems ready to reduce everything to simplicity.  To heck with scholarship!  To heck with textual problems or moral conundrums!  God said it, I read it, let's do it!

But really, does this sound like Kierkegaard to you?  Oh, part of it does -- the cleverness, the call to an excruciating ethical standard, and yes, the biting contempt for "official" Christianity and its chosen tools.  But the claim of simplicity?  From a man who published under more than a dozen pseudonyms, and insisted that each one reflected a different (and contradictory) perspective?  How seriously are we to take the claim that reading an anthology of ancient religious texts ought to be more straightforward and intuitive than reading one's own publications?

(It is worth noting that, in the passage cited, Kierkegaard actually restricts himself to the New Testament.  The author of Fear and Trembling certainly understood those rabbinic conundrums.)

There is another passage from Kierkegaard also making the interweb rounds these days.  It is from his journals, dated 1848.  We wonder whether Mr. Slope and the Simpletonians would want to embrace this one as quickly, and to take it so readily at face value:

Fundamentally a reformation which did away with the Bible would now be just as valid as Luther’s doing away with the Pope. All that about the Bible has developed a religion of learning and law, a mere distraction. A little of that knowledge has gradually percolated to the simplest classes so that no one any longer reads the Bible humanly. As a result it does immeasurable harm; where life is concerned its existence is a fortification of excuses and escapes; for there is always something one has to look into first of all, and it always seems as though one had first of all to have the doctrine in perfect form before one could begin to live that is to say, one never begins.

The Bible Societies, those vapid caricatures of missions, societies which like all companies only work with money and are just as mundanely interested in spreading the Bible as other companies in their enterprises: the Bible Societies have done immeasurable harm. Christendom has long been in need of a hero who, in fear and trembling before God, had the courage to forbid people to read the Bible. That is something quite as necessary as preaching against Christianity’. 

–The Journals of Kierkegaard (ed. Alexander Dru; New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959), 150.

Revenge of the Woozles

Among the pleasures of relocating one's family to a foreign country is the respite it gives from the media flood.  In the internet age this is, to be sure, a very modest respite.  The same device which lets Father Anonymous write this blog also lets Mother A. use Facebook to stay in touch with Back Home, and Baby A. make Skype videocalls to Gammer and My Old Pa. 

But still, the waters do recede a bit.  Sure, the cable TV still has plenty of channels, but they're all in Romanian or Hungarian (except the steamy Mexican telenovelas, which are in undubbed Spanish).  Baby A. forced us flip channels the other day, and finally settled on what was, apparently, the most toddler-friendly thing showing:  Orthodox Mass from the Patriarchal Basilica. 

So we fall back on Old Media,  the handful of books shoved into our bags as we boarded the tramp steamer.   You know, the ones we couldn't live without:  Nestle-Aland, Concordia Triglotta, and the Aeneid.  That's for the kid, of course.  For the tired clergy couple, there are other classics:  H.A. Rey, Beatrix Potter and -- to be sure! -- A.A. Milne.  Because, after all, who doesn't love Pooh?

Besides Disney, we mean.  By our reasoning, they must hate the Silly Old Bear with some special, and deathless, passion.  

Now, mind you, we like Disney.  Mickey and, especially, Donald actually bring us more delight now than they ever did in childhood.  Among the happiest vacation memories of recent years was a trip to Disneyland, when -- after we were forced to board a mechanical boat for a ride we especially dreaded -- the lights went out and the robots began to malfunction in comically terrifying ways.  (We emerged from the tunnel lustily singing "It's a Westworld after all.")

It's the adaptations that bother us.  After doing fair work on the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault, Disney got mixed results from their next phase, the reduction to celluloid of various modern works.  The Jungle Book is probably the best of the bunch -- King Louis indeed!  Their version of Alice adds nothing and loses the math.  Peter Pan will break the heart of anybody who has ever enjoyed the book, and as for Uncle Remus, well, nobody under 40 will ever know, because it ain't for sale in the US.

But Pooh?  Oh, the movie is watchable enough, although markedly inferior to -- say -- sitting on a parent's lap with your eyes closed, listening to the original chapter-by-chapter. Saccharine, sure, but consider the source.  The problems set in afterward, with the sequels and merchandising, all of which became progressively worse.  The Milne estate tried to reclaim the rights, and failed.  (Well, sort of failed).  Which brought us, in due time, to the monstrous infamy called My Friends Tigger and Pooh.

This piece of carelessly animated mouse excreta, shown on Disney's junior channel, has replaced Christopher Robin with a girl named Darby, who romps through the woods with her puppy dog.  Pooh and Tigger are turned into "detectives" wearing purple uniforms -- in other words, rent-a-cops, no doubt a cynical comment on the highest professional aspirations Disney can imagine for children raised on a show like this.

This is the sort of thing -- okay, this is the very thing -- which makes you throw up your hands in despair and say, "Hang it all, I'm moving to another continent, and praying that this drivel doesn't follow me."

So you can imagine our concern, dear reader, to hear that an "authorized" sequel to the Milne books is forthcoming.  It is called Return to the Hundred-Acre Wood, and written by an elderly gent named David Benedictus -- whose name, we should observe, makes us want to rise at dawn with a song on our lips.  Now, mind you, it was authorized by the Milne estate, not by Disney.  (That's where the "sort of" comes in -- technically, Disney only owns merchandising rights.  How the Darby show qualifies as "merchandising" is a matter best left to the lawyers, or to Satan.)  This may offer some hope.  Benedictus is an accomplished author.  An illustration by Mark Burgess, reproduced in the Times, is more Garth Williams than E.H. Shepard, but there's nothing wrong with that.

We are apprehensive, because Pooh has been treated so badly.  We would rather that he dropped out of sight for a generation or two, forgotten except by a modest cult -- pretty much what is happening to Wind in the Willows, and that despite Mr Toad's Wild Ride.  But if Pooh stories must be told, by somebody besides the parents of small children, we suppose it is best that they be told by anybody -- anybody -- except the Walt Disney Studios.

PS:  Midway through this post, Mother A. sweetly informed us that Baby A. has already found My Friend etc. on local TV, broadcast in Hungarian.  There is no hope for the human race.

"Regarding Wine, We Have No Disagreements."

Father Anonymous rose early this morning -- well before dawn -- and trudged through the dim streets of a Central European city, in order to catch a 90-minute ride to St. Michael's Cathedral, and celebrate with his Papist brethren the thousandth year of their Alba Iulia archdiocese.  (Ask yourself:  How many things do you know of that are a thousand years old?)

It was quite a shindig.  The cathedral -- of which we have no pictures, sorry -- is a Romanesque building, begun in the 11th century but not completed until the 13th.  (Which explains the attractive Gothic apse.)  It was, at one time, the center of the Hungarian religious establishment.  Indeed, at one time the town, small but wealthy from its valuable grape crops -- was a sort of Transylvanian Oxford, boasting a world-class university.  Both the town and Transylvanian Catholicism have fallen on hard times, but you would not guess as much from today's celebration.

Fr. A. really was not prepared.  He expected to meet a few depressed-looking Romish priests, perhaps shake the archbishop's hand, then settle in to enjoy the smell of incense and the sound of ecclesiastical Latin.  Probably from the cheap seats.  That's what one does at these things, isn't it?

It was in the upstairs vesting room that he discovered his mistake.  The place was full of purple shirts.  Or, to be more literal, it was full of black cassocks trimmed in purple, topped by purple zucchettoes.  And at least two, by our count, were of a cardinalatial red.  One really doesn't see that very often.  It was a small room, and when we say that you could not swing a cat without hitting a bishop , we are being entirely literal.  

Most were of the Roman persuasion, although several were -- as their vesture made clear -- from Oriental rites.  Fr. A. had come with the local Lutheran bishop, for whom he works these days, and the Unitarian bishop. (Oh, what, you didn't know there were Unitarian bishops?  Welcome to central Europe.  We're through the looking-glass here, baby.)  They helped explain who was whom --   "That guy's the Archbishop of Budapest.  Maybe this guy will be Pope someday.  Maybe."  The conversation was in Hungarian and German.  (Pity poor Father A., who can make appropriate small talk in English, French or Spanish -- languages that proved to be of no value whatsoever.)  That's significant, because most of the people there, whether Roman or Evangelical or Unitarian (and of whatever citizenship), thought of themselves as Hungarian.

For the record, the Orthodox Patriarch of Romania wasn't there, although he did attend the liturgy -- with, perhaps, a slightly sour look on his face.  Those are difficult relationships.

The service itself was just what you might expect, and lots of it. Most of it was Hungarian or Romanian, and we have never in all our life been so grateful for a few words of Latin thrown into the liturgy.  The organ was fine -- we think we caught some Bach -- and the offertory procession was especially touching, as a small army of laypeople dressed in traditional Transylvanian outfits presented their gifts.  The sermon may have been excellent; the only words we could make out were "Benedictus," "Lumen Gentium," and "veritas in caritas."

Afterward, there was a reception at -- and we're not kidding -- a lonely roadside establishment called the Astoria Motel.  We'd noticed this place on the way into town -- there is a big chicken farm across the highway.  Turned out to be much better than it either looked or sounded, and the buffet was excellent.

During said buffet, we drank the best orange juice Father Anonymous has ever tasted, bar none, as well as a very fine local white wine bottled especially for the occasion.  This is a symbolic thing; remember that, in its glory days, wine was the source of the archdiocese's wealth.  And, with Christians of nearly every available tradition celebrating together, it was as though, for just a few hours, the glory and the unity of this community had been restored.

So when a Saxon pastor from somewhere near Sighisoara lifted his glass at the table and said, half-joking, "Regarding wine, we have no disagreements," leaving unspoken the qualifier "but only about theology," everybody took his point, and toasted happily.

Post-Scriptum:  And imagine Father A.'s joy when, returning home somewhat exhausted, he was summoned into the church office and presented with a card from some of his dearest friends in the United States, who had conspired to warm the Anonymous household with eight bottles of what is said to be the best wine made in Romania.  He could not have been happier, or more grateful, for this reminder of friendship and unity across time and distance.

Forrest Church is Dead

We liked his family name, but not too much else about him.

Oh, that's not true.  Exactly.  There was a lot to like about Forrest Church, longtime senior minister of All Souls Unitarian Church in Manhattan.  He was, by all reports, a man of great intelligence, and a powerful preacher.  He stood up, publicly, for many of the right causes (at least in our eyes).  And even though he was an Unitarian (about which we will say much more in the coming weeks), it was Father A.'s experience as a pastor in NYC that many people found their way into the Church -- meaning the real, honest-to-God Trinitarian one -- after passing through a period of residency at All Souls.  So even if he didn't proclaim Christ, you could argue that he served as a useful warmup act.

But here's the thing.  In the Times obit, linked above, there is a brief remark:

While married to his first wife, Amy Furth Church, he met [Carolyn Buck Luce, who became his second wife]  as a member of his congregation. Their ensuing affair caused a public controversy, but the congregation voted overwhelmingly to keep him as senior minister.

Sounds almost trivial, doesn't it?  But it's not.  Those of us who lived, and especially those who ministered, in New York at the time are unlikely to forget this event.  When the high-profile leader of a major religious institution is publicly revealed to be carrying on an adulterous relationship with one of his members, it sends ripples out through every religious community. At least to some degree, it caused the faithful of many churches to question the  integrity of their own pastors. 

(For the record, in our synod, this behavior would be grounds for what we call, somewhat clinically, removal from the roster of ordained persons.  We'd defrock the SOB.  In fact, much of the Egg's contempt for pastors who huff and puff about leaving the ELCA for supposed theological reasons has to do with a couple of gents who were found to have done just such things, and who left before we could kick their sorry asses to the curb.  And remember that they joined just the sort of dissident organizations which now claim to offer some sort of moral high ground in defense of marriage.  Ptui!).

But the tale of Forrest Church gets worse.  As reported in the Times back then, Church not only carried on an affair with one of his church members, but he sent a letter to her husband, offering marital counseling.

Seriously.  As gross misconduct goes by a public figure, this may not quite rank with the crystal meth and callboys.  But as pastoral misconduct -- that is, a specific betrayal of one's duty to the flock -- it exceeds it, by a good mile or more.

So, sure, he was a passionate defender of good liberal causes.  But guess what?  They're dime a dozen.  Sure, he built a smallish congregation into a large one.  But guess what?  He was recruiting secular humanists on the East Side of Manhattan -- it's like shooting fish in a barrel.

No, for us, Forrest Church was in life and will remain in death a reminder of what Calvinism gets right, and the rest of us forget at our peril:  the utter depravity of human beings after the Fall.  In which he did not believe.

How About Queen Freaking Victoria?

Stumbled across this lede, from the Oregon Statesman-Journal:

If you are put on the spot and asked to name three famous Lutherans, the first one comes easily to mind — the namesake of the faith, the 16th century German reformer Martin Luther.  The next might be public radio humorist Garrison Keillor.

The third might come a little slower, but not for many religious folks. That is Dr. Martin E. Marty, renowned historical theologian and author.

Oh, Statesman-Journal!  Is that really the best you can do?  

First off, Keillor is an Episcopalian.  Second, among "religious folks" who read enough to recognize Marty's name, we can only believe that Paul Tillich and Dietrich Bonhoeffer jump more readily to mind.  Not to mention Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, Soren Kierkegaard, and Rudolf Bultmann.  (Make no mistake, gentle readers:  We wish those same erudite types thought first of Wilhelm Loehe, Charles Porterfield Krauth,  and Carl Braaten -- but they don't.)

But for the not-so-erudite, or even not-so-religious, we expect there still a  lot of Lutherans more famous than Marty or even Keillor.  How about Bach?  And Mendelssohn? And Sibelius?  Or Dr. Seuss, Hubert Humphrey, and (we admit with some shame) Wernher von Braun?  As well as the English royals, from George I through the First World War.

Honestly, there aren't that many Lutherans who are famous for being Lutheran, largely because Lutherans just don't think that way.  (Unlike some religious communities we could name.  And we're looking at you, Dalai Lama.)  But there are a lot of famous Lutherans, many of them famous for reasons which are intrinsically connected to their Lutheranism (like Bach or, and we're not kidding, Dr. Seuss).

For those who have somehow missed it, there is a very funny, not to mention encyclopedic, song on this subject by Lost and Found.  Lyrics here, song here.

Dragons Live Forever ...

...not so for little boys.  Or pop/folk icons.

Mary Travers, of Peter, Paul and Mary (and Puff the Magic Dragon) is dead at 72.

Schroedinger's (Lutheran) Cat

Unsurprisingly, there are some Lutherans -- many Lutherans -- unhappy with the prospect of gay pastors abandoning lives of "celibacy" (by which we mean, as often as not, tortured promiscuity) for those of lifelong commitment to a single partner.  And, also unsurprisingly, some of them are looking for institutional ways to show their disapproval.

What is a little surprising is that they are trying to do this in a way that both does and does not involve leaving their denomination.  Per Beliefnet:

[A] conservative network of clergy and lay Lutherans plans to gather and hatch plans to "reconfigure" Lutheranism in North America. [Editor's note:  "planning to hatch plans," eh?  These people are better organized than most church groups.]

The leaders of Lutheran CORE (Coalition for Reform) are not encouraging fellow believers to bolt from the ELCA for a more conservative denomination, but neither do they want to remain part of one that has "fallen into heresy," they say.

Thus, CORE is laying plans for a "free-standing synod" that would include current members of the ELCA along with others that have exited, or plan to exit, from the denomination. ...

The free-standing synod, should the idea be accepted, would hire and train its own clergy, redirect donations from ELCA headquarters to CORE, plant churches and support missionaries, [WordAlone honcho Mark] Chavez said. Some members will disassociate from their local (geographic) synods and stop participating in the ELCA's biennial assemblies. But others who are part of conservative synods that are not expected to hire gay and lesbian clergy may choose to remain part of the ELCA, he added.

Pedantic note:  The word "synod," in US Lutheran use, has two distinct means, both of them explicitly juridical.  Prior to 1918, it referred to independent church bodies (what other people might call separate denominations), with different standards of faith and practice.  Today, the Missouri and Wisconsin Synods preserve this usage.  In 1918, the ULCA  came into existence as a federation of such synods.  This began the process, completed in the LCA and continued in the ELCA, of creating a second meaning for the word synod -- a regional judicatory.  Essentially, a diocese.  (In both the LCA and ELCA, there has been one sole exception, a non-geographic synod uniting the Slovak churches -- not for theological reasons, but for practical, and largely linguistic, ones.)

So what does CORE have in mind, exactly?  It isn't entirely clear from this article.  But only two choices present themselves:  (1) to create a new church body, which they claim they don't want to do; or (2) to create a non-geographic body within the ELCA's formal structure, united by a common objection to the ELCA's policy and somehow magically including  groups which are not part of the ELCA.  This seems to defeat the purpose of remaining in the ELCA, doesn't it?

(As an historical matter, it seems to us that this latter choice would really be something closer to what 19th century Lutherans called "a free conference," and intended as a forum for discussion among  members of different synods, but lacking the power to commit anybody's actual synod to any definite action.  [The LCMS generally asked for these in order to avoid any serious discussion of synodical unification.]  But of course to be truly "free," in the sense it was used in those days, the discussion would need to include people from other parts of the Lutheran world, such as Lutherans Concerned -- a move which, again, defeats the announced purpose of the plan.)

So CORE says they want to be in the ELCA and not be in the ELCA, and imagines that somehow this can be achieved within the ELCA's own polity.  Theirs is a strange, Schroedinger's-cat vision of ecclesiastical geometry.  (You remember -- the cat was both alive and dead at the same time.  Oh, quantum physics, how you task us!)  But it is one which has become familiar over the past quarter-century.  

Early on, Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ started talking this way, and WordAlone stole the idea and has gone further with it.  They use phrases like "loyal opposition," and insist that they exist within the mother church, while rejecting that church's policies and independently establishing fellowship with churches it does not recognize.  The idea, we strongly suspect, is to weaken the structures of the ELCA -- undermining its ability to manage either its own internal discipline or its external ecumenical relationships.

"We are loyal to our church, even though we hate it and seek to destroy it."  This is classic Scandinavian passive aggression, like the dog that jumps up to lick your face while peeing on your pants.  And it creates a semantic mess, in which people work hard to sound as though they are saying something else.

But what amuses us most about this dark comedy of ill-defined terms and expressions that mean their own opposite, is another quotation in the Beliefnet article:

"There are lots of congregations that are going to leave, lots of traditionalist congregations that are going to stay, and lots that have already left," said Ryan Schwarz of Washington, a member of CORE's steering committee. "We want to create a churchly structure that gathers all those categories."

Churchly?  They really think it is "churchly" to stop supporting the seminaries and missionaries of your own church?  We suppose that's what you should expect from people who can't tell when the cat is dead.

Best. Movie. Ever.

We are talking about Julie & Julia.

And, okay, it's not the best movie ever. (First off, no androids. Second, where's Joseph Cotten?) It's a pretty good movie, though, especially if you happen to be moving from Long Island City to Europe. And -- funny thing -- some of us are.

The scenes in LIC are overdone -- it's a great neighborhood in a great city, and any reasonable person would be happy to live here. Amy Adams should stop complaining and explore the best neighborhood in the best city on earth. (Why, she even shops at K & T Meats, around the corner from the Anonymous Rectory. And she may get all pouty-faced about it, but the nice guys at K & T have often slipped us some free sausage for our Easter breakfast).

The scenes in Paris are also overdone. Yes, it's the second-best-city on earth, but it isn't actually Heaven. So when the movie shows actual gates of pearl and a foundation of chrysoprase and jacinth, you know the producers have gone overboard. Still, they do make you want to be very, very good, so that you can go there someday.

But even if the picture is hard on New York and soft on the Frogs, it gets one thing exactly right. This is a little embarrassing, but we're just going to come out and say it, knowing that several readers will get where we're coming from. If a movie can't have androids, and it can't have Joseph Cotten, then there's only one way it can redeem itself, and that's where Julie & Julia shines: Lots of hot, steamy tall-girl-and-short-guy love scenes.

Granted, Mery Streep was wearing lifts, because Hollywood actresses aren't actually allowed to be tall. But Julia Child was a bruiser, and the movie doesn't shy away from that. The producers let her be tall, and they let Paul Child be short, and they let their lifelong romance be tender and sweet and actually surprisingly steamy for a picture which sometimes risks joining the Masterpiece Theatre school of bloodlessly mummified history. They're way hotter than Amy Adams and her whiny guy whose name escapes me but who looks like every other actor his age.

Good movie. But it would still have been better with androids.

Damn, We Love the Marine Corps

Father Anonymous may himself be a typical clergy peacenik, but he can't help but love the USMC. From Wired:

Since the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military has built a series of titanic bases, where troops can get Pizza Hut delivered, sip an iced mochaccino, surf the web wirelessly or enter salsa dancing competitions. In my limited experience, these places are greenhouses of ennui and existential angst; the comforts of home only make the residents more despondent.

At Echo company’s compound, the only air conditioning is for the computers in the operations center. The shower is a bucket. The toilets consist of a few sandbags and a wooden box, positioned over a hole. And when the Marines here leave the base on patrol, it’s a virtual guarantee that they’ll encounter Taliban trying to kill them. In 57 days here, Echo has received enemy fire on 44 of them. Which, strangely, suits the Marines here just fine.

Damn right it does. the article goes on to say a little more about who these guys are:

Just about everyone here enlisted after 9/11. They didn’t join to get college money, or to learn some profession they’d take into the civilian world. They signed up with the United States Marine Corps to go to war. “This is all I wanted to do for a long time,” [a lieutenant] adds.

Look, somebody has to do this stuff, at least sometimes. And there's nobody we'd rather have doing it for us.

Disney Buys Marvel

The Walt Disney Company is in the midst of purchasing Marvel Comics and its 5000 characters, including Spider-Man, Captain America and Millie the Model. Not to mention some very un-Disney characters, like the Punisher, Norman Osborn and Venom.

The deal still has to pass antitrust muster, but we hardly think that will pose a problem. The brands are disturbingly different. Our biggest fear is that Disney will do for the Marvel Universe what it did for the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault and Joseph Jacobs -- i.e., suck the life out of them, and leave behind soulless, saccharine-covered shells. (Come to think of it, they did this for Times Square as well).

Still, the team-ups will be good. Mickey/Cap is sort of obvious. Likewise the inevitable Donald-Howard smackdown. But howzabout Man-Thing meets That Darn Cat?

A Classy Guy

Andrew Breitbart is a member of the Chattering Classes, in the "Vicious Right-Wing Attack Dog" division. He is also a twit.

He demonstrated both these things with a recent series of Twitter tweets celebrating -- not observing, but celebrating -- the death of Ted Kennedy. Per ThinkProgress, linked above:

[When] news broke that Sen. Ted Kennedy had passed away after serving in the U.S. Senate for nearly 50 years. Soon after, conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart began a sustained assault on Kennedy’s memory, tweeting “Rest in Chappaquiddick.”

Over the course of the next three hours, Breitbartunapologetically attacked Kennedy, calling him a “villain,” “a big ass motherf@#$er,” a “duplicitous bastard” and a “prick.” “I’ll shut my mouth for Carter. That’s just politics. Kennedy was a special pile of human excrement,” wrote Breitbart in one tweet.

There's more where that came from. Class act, huh?

"How Firm a Foundation"

One of the projects we have always wanted our Beloved Godfather (perhaps in collaboration with our Beloved Godson) to undertake is the compilation of what we call "The Reference Hymnal." We imagine a collection of hymns, or at least of hymn lyrics, in their original forms with chief popular variants indicated.

This isn't easy. Which English verses of A Mighty Fortress are "chief variants," for example? And what about such hymns as Conditor alme siderum? The 7th-c. Latin original was almost completely re-written a thousand years later, as part of Urban VIII's breviary reform. Is it now one hymn with translations and variants, or two?

Still, for most hymns the idea is fairly straightforward, and might be useful to worship leaders and preachers who wanted to explore ideas which have been excised from the common hymnal versions. (Likely not to include the fervent hope, expressed in Faith of our Fathers, that England would return to papistry. But who knows what a preacher may need?).

Here, by way of f'rinstance, are the words to How Firm a Foundation, which not coincidentally we will sing come Sunday. Red indicates stanzas absent from LBW and ELW, and [brackets] indicate textual alterations.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word! [ELW: "in Christ Jesus, the Word"]
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled? [ELW, LBW: "Who unto the Savior"]

In every condition, in sickness, in health;
In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth;
At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,
As thy days may demand, shall thy strength ever be.

Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid; [ELW, LBW: "your God," "give you aid"]
I’ll strengthen and help thee, and cause thee to stand [ELW, LBW: "help you," "cause you"]
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie, [ELW, LBW: "your pathways"]
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply; [ELW, LBW: "your supply"]
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design [ELW, LBW: "hurt youu"]
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine. [ELW, LBW: "your dross," "your gold"]

Even down to old age all My people shall prove [ELW, LBW: "Throughout all their lifetime, my people']
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in My bosom be borne.

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.

In this case, the emendations are modest -- a house style that prefers you to thee, and an alteration of l.4 to avoid the awkwardness of "you, who." One might argue, profitably, over whether ELW's decision to identify the Word by name for people who may not get it is either useful interpretation or offensive dumbing-down.

As for avoiding mention of old age, well, blame a culture which worships youth and considers "old" to be a slur. And there's a sermon right there.

But the excised verses may be more interesting. The omitted second stanza rebukes the Prosperity Gospel up front. And the concluding thought of the fourth stanza -- that God will "sanctify to [us our] deepest distress" -- is actually alien to a lot of Protestants these days, especially liberal ones, despite the clear Protestantism of the hymn. (Not to mention its liberal appeal: sung at the funerals of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson). Food for thought.