Catholic Sensibility

Mimas orbits over Saturn's night side in this January image from Cassini. Two remarkable things ... First is the size of Saturn's moons in relation to the planet. Mimas is not a giant like our own moon, which ranks number six in the solar system. Mimas is about as wide as the state of Ohio--one-eighth our moon's diameter. Saturn is about nine times as wide as the earth. Even Titan is dwarfed by Saturn, and the other moons are pretty insignifcant in size.

Below is a simulated view of Mimas as seen from Saturn. That little fingernail clipping at center is Mimas. It's about a fist away from either the left or right edge of the view below. This moon appears about as big as one of the eyes in the "man in the moon" does from your backyard.

Second, note the degree of shine on Saturn's night side. That's reflected light from the rings. And though scientists speculate that if all the ring material were put together, the resulting "moon" would be about the size of Mimas. Yet if we were hovering above Saturn cloudtops in a zeppelin at night, the arch of the ring in the sky would be far more glorious than a full moon or rainbow. Don Dixon painted this daytime scene of the rings from Saturn. The night view would be much better.

Amy's pondering it. I have more to say than might fit in a reasonably-sized comment, so let's kick off the discussion here. I think the origins and motivation of the Catholic Cantor Placement deserves more analysis. It's not going away any time soon - in fact, the determination of music groups to be placed in the front, along with their cantor, doesn't show any signs of slowing down - most church renovations/new construction feature that front position, which is just really too bad. If all it is is repositioning in the "front," then I'd agree. I do think people did give the matter a lot of thought in the 60's and 70's. Lofts were a problem for a number of practical reasons: - Sometimes the organist and choir didn't want upstart groups there. - Sometimes there wasn't room - Most old churches were wired for sound amplification in the sanctuary, so that's where groups could make use of existing technology. - Up front was also closer to members' families, and facilitated the group sitting in the pews and paying attention during the readings, the homily, etc.. And I'm sure that some people were nightclub or coffeehouse refugees and craved the attention of a Sunday morning audience in addition to what they had the night before. But that's little different from musical performing hijinx that often go on in choir lofts. Most upfront musicians in the early days after Vatican II had a significant difference from performers: they didn't get paid--sometimes the parish budget didn't even provide expenses. I've been to a couple of Masses this past year in which there was, indeed a cantor, but he (in both cases, different parishes) was in the rear, in the choir loft. Very nice, and no one in the congregation seemed to mind. If one accepts the notion that ministry implies a relationship, the American expectation might be that one would see the person. The psalmist should certainly be seen, preferably at the ambo. On hymns that everybody sings, I don't see why the music can't be announced, then led by the organ (or whatever instrument) without a singer on the mic. Granted, many parishes, including my own, are so used to a singer on mic they are actually loathe to sing the very few times they don't have a songleader. My cantors know to back off from the mic after the hymn or acclamation starts. If a congregation is trained to follow the organ rather than arm waving, then yes, they shouldn't mind not seeing a person singing the songs they know they should sing. What's missing from the discussion, however, is a frank appraisal of the rationale behind this. What contemporary Catholic music groups and cantors are attempting to emulate, it seems to me, isn't the classical Protestant structure in which the choir was, indeed, in front, but the more relaxed, mostly evangelical praise-band-group model. And why are they seeking to imitate it? Because it seems, in their eyes, to work. I think Amy misses the real reason here: good ol' fashioned American pragmatism. If you don't have enough people for a choir, use a single singer. If you can't hear the person, get them a microphone. If you don't have mic jacks anywhere but in the sanctuary, use them. If your parish and neighbors have been using altered pre-conciliar churches as models for the past decades, you imitate that when you build a new building. Trust me: we're not getting ideas from Joel Osteen or Jerry Falwell. When I arrived at my current parish, the renovation debate was raging: where will the musicians be? It was presented as a two-option deal: Go to the loft. Go up front. And all I could think of was, "What a damfool way to run a renovation!"

Go to the loft? Go up front? Which one? The obvious answer is neither one. We have a cross-shaped building, so neither the loft nor upfront provide any particular advantage. Lofts do facilitate hearing a choir because of elevation combined with being at the long end of a building. Singing around corners is another matter. The choir and cantor/songleader/psalmist are part of the assembly. They lead music when it is time to sing. Otherwise they are just plain lay people, not performers, not paid professionals, not showpieces. If the acoustics don't break the deal, a choir belongs as a part of the assembly: neither in a loft, not "up front."

More evidence that Upstate New York is not a normal kind of place: icicles don't point down.

Wind blown ice forms on a decorative light house along Lake Erie in Hamburg, N.Y., Friday, Feb. 17, 2006. Winds gusting up to 77 mph knocked out power to at least 1,000 homes and closed schools from Buffalo to Rochester. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

Thanks to my friend Tom for passing this along.

Gaudium et Spes 19

Gaudium et Spes 19 begins with a basic religious tenet, then begins to address the phenomenon of atheism as well as some related notions.

The root reason for human dignity lies in (the) call to communion with God. From the very circumstance of (their) origin (humankind) is already invited to converse with God. For (people) would not exist were (they) not created by God's love and constantly preserved by it; and (they) cannot live fully according to truth unless (they) freely acknowledge that love and devote (themselves) to (their) Creator.

This would be the psalmist's thinking:

When you take away their breath, they perish and return to the dust from which they came. When you send forth your breath, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth. (Ps 104:29b-30)

And the council bishops are careful to speak of two sets of folks: those who have never been exposed to God, and those who have rejected God:

Still, many of our contemporaries have never recognized this intimate and vital link with God, or have explicitly rejected it. Thus atheism must be accounted among the most serious problems of this age, and is deserving of closer examination.

One might thnik a more accommodating view would be to see the phenomenon of atheism as an opportunity, rather than as a problem. But the council counts it as a "serious problem."

The word atheism is applied to phenomena which are quite distinct from one another. For while God is expressly denied by some, others believe that man can assert absolutely nothing about Him. Still others use such a method to scrutinize the question of God as to make it seem devoid of meaning. Many, unduly transgressing the limits of the positive sciences, contend that everything can be explained by this kind of scientific reasoning alone ...

The flip side of this would be those who insist that God can indeed be deduced by natural observation ...

... or by contrast, they altogether disallow that there is any absolute truth.

Yes, we have a recognition of relativism.

Some laud (humankind) so extravagantly that their faith in God lapses into a kind of anemia, though they seem more inclined to affirm (people) than to deny God.

And they mean a humanism? Just for the record, I think we need to take the liturgy scuffles over "we" songs with a grain of salt when it comes to this principle. A critic would be hard-pressed to get any singing parish, much less any composer to admit the liturgy is heading to a self-congratulatory state. That's an unverified criticism coming from many people who have their own ax to grind when it comes to the issues of art, leaderhsip, liturgy, and personal taste.

Again some form for themselves such a fallacious idea of God that when they repudiate this figment they are by no means rejecting the God of the Gospel. Some never get to the point of raising questions about God, since they seem to experience no religious stirrings nor do they see why they should trouble themselves about religion.

Yes, the notion of raising questions: that's a difficult one for some non-atheistic folk. GS 19 notes that some people bring laudable values to their personal approach, but falter when such values are elevated to the level of God. Recent human experiments in marxism, capitalism, and other non-Christian philosophies.

Moreover, atheism results not rarely from a violent protest against the evil in this world, or from the absolute character with which certain human values are unduly invested, and which thereby already accords them the stature of God. Modern civilization itself often complicates the approach to God not for any essential reason but because it is so heavily engrossed in earthly affairs.

Undeniably, those who willfully shut out God from their hearts and try to dodge religious questions are not following the dictates of their consciences, and hence are not free of blame; yet believers themselves frequently bear some responsibility for this situation.

In a document addressed primarily to Christians, if not Catholics, it's appropriate for us to examine the ways in which we fail at evangelization, or worse, we succeed in a sort of anti-evangelization. Chasing people away, that is. Or as one of my commenters so brilliantly put it, SCGS*.

For, taken as a whole, atheism is not a spontaneous development but stems from a variety of causes, including a critical reaction against religious beliefs, and in some places against the Christian religion in particular. Hence believers can have more than a little to do with the birth of atheism.

"More than a little" is a generous statement.

To the extent that they neglect their own training in the faith, or teach erroneous doctrine, or are deficient in their religious, moral or social life, they must be said to conceal rather than reveal the authentic face of God and religion.

This is very much in the "spirit," if you will, of Vatican II. An acknowledgement that we have a "serious problem" in the world. A corollary acknowledgement that Christians bear partial responsibility for it. And a challenge to renew the Church so as to address our culpability.

When I read sections of Gaudium et Spes or other council documents, I find a deep sense of sin -- something which I'm not altogether sure has vanished from the Church. I think certain Catholics have certain blind spots in this regard. The challenge of Vatican II was clearly not a condemnation from the bishops, but a challenge to believers to work more faithfully in the realm of religion and the spiritual.

* Small Church Getting Smaller