How a Friar Becomes a Pastor

I arrived in Salt Lake City on the Solemnity of our Holy Father St. Dominic one week ago. However, on the first of August, by the grace of His Excellency Oscar Solis, I became the new Pastor of St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Newman Center here in Salt Lake City. My charge? To serve the Students, Faculty, and Staff of the University of Utah. Yesterday, on the eve of the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary I was formally installed as the Pastor of this parish by Bishop Solis. It was a simple, yet dignified Mass offered by His Excellecy for this very purpose.

I couldn't help but be struck by the meaning of the event. There, in the presence of one of the Successors to the Apostles, surrounded by my brother priests, close lay collaborators, and all the faithful people who were there present, there was a very real sense of unity and diversity at the service of building up the Body of Christ in this little portion of the People of God. The ceremony itself calls to mind the fraternity among all of Christ's collaborators for continuining his Mission through time, until the end of time itself, in union with the Deposit of Faith and the Magisterium of Holy Mother Church.

Being the object of these sacred rites were deeply humbling and somewhat terrifying. I kept recalling the feelings that my Godfather had when he was assigned as the Pastor of a parish for the first time. He was terrified. But while at adoration he distinctly heard in his heart Christ reminding him that he was just his priest, his tool, and that the parish itself belonged to Christ and that Christ himself would guide and shepherd it in spite of anything that his priest did poorly. I also knelt in adoration for a time prior to my installation and a similar peace overshadowed me draining me of the fear and trepidation I was feeling due to my own pride. Those same words resonated in my heart. "Have no fear, it's my church, not your church."

But this also got me thinking about the very process that is involved in becoming a Pastor as a Dominican Friar in our province. If you know anything about how this works for Secular Clergy it may interest you to know that things work a little different for us. You see, normally for a Secular Priest the Bishop just appoints his choice in consultation with those he's appointed to help him make these appointments. However, with us our Ordinary, the Provincial, can't just appoint a Pastor to those parishes we serve, even the ones we own. Instead he has to gain permission to propose a friar to the Local Ordinary, the Diocesan Bishop, with a majorty vote of the Provincial Council. Then after a positive vote is given the Provincial proposes the friar to the Bishop who is free to accept or reject the proposal in consultation with those who help him make these decisions. All this is to say that it's quite a process. But to me, the meaning of the process is what's both edifying and humbling. The meaning is that the brothers who we elect to make decisions for us, our peers, literally make a vote of confidence in the ability of the proposed brother to exercise the ministry and office of a pastor. It's overwhelming and touching to receive that confidence. I hope to do justice by it.

One, Two, or Many?

As I try to ease back into writing on this platform I want to continue to stay away from the high-tone of the academy, but also provide something of substance. The problem with striking this middle ground is that sometimes the topics that need discussion are terribly complicated and really require further and in-depth treatment.

Regardless of the difficulty, I choose to enter into the fray once again hoping that the brevity of my treatment of a topic will not be the end of something, but rather, the beginning of the readers interest in a topic. Therefore, might we consider something of grave importance to the life of the Church today. Yes, I mean that most difficult pill that is the new Motu proprio, Traditionis custodes (afterwards; TC). Instead of doing a treament of the entire document I'd like to point out a particular problem with this document, and to be fair, a problem equally present in Summorum Pontificum, the document TC replaces.

Article I of TC declares that the revised Missal promulgated by Pope St. Paul VI following the Second Vatican Council constitutes the 'only' lex orandi of the Roman Rite. Summorum Pontificum was more generous on the point. It claimed that both the form of the Roman liturgy prior to and following after the reforms done under the auspices of the Second Vatican Council are both expressions of the lex orandi of the Latin Church. Problem, the first!

In the Latin Church there is not merely one Rite with which we worship. In addition to the Roman Rite there are the various rites of particular Sees, such as the Mozarabic Rite or the Ambrosian Rite. In addition to this ancient rites there are also the rites of certain Religious Orders such as the Dominicans, Norbertines, Carthusians, and Carmelites. Therefore, there are far more than two expressions of the lex orandi than the two uses of the Roman Rite. In fact, there are as many expressions of the lex orandi as there are rites in the Latin Church. This may seem pedantic. However, as they say, the devil is in the details.

The point here should be clear, or at least the question. Do these other Rites that exist in the Latin Church, including those that have their own versions that are reformed according to the directives of the Second Vatican Council, not expressions of the lex orandi? If not, why, and more seriously, how? This would seem to be of serious importance since the law of prayer is the law of belief. So it would seem that if these rites do not share in the lex orandi then they also don't share in the lex credendi. If this is true, then we have a major problem in the Latin Church, namely, we have liturgical forms that have existed for centuries that do not credibly communicate the faith of the Church. This seems to be an untenable position to hold regardless of what one thinks about any of the particular rites themselves. What would it mean for the central act of Christian life to not be an authentic expression of the faith of the Church for nearly 1000 years?

In some ways, TC is more modest. While it makes the claim that the Missal revised and implemented after the Second Vatican Council is the only expression of lex orandi it only makes that claim for the Roman Rite and not the whole Latin Church. There are two things that we might be able to say about this.

First, it is true that the document is working to end the use of Roman Missal that was promulgated prior to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The accompanying letter from the Holy Father to the Bishops of the world is very clear about that. But, if we read precisely, this would only be applied to the Roman Rite and not all of the rites within the Latin Church.

Second, the claim that the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite is the only expression of the lex orandi remains problematic in so far as it continues to exist. Since the claim is that the Ordinary Form is the only expression that would mean that the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite would not be an expression of the lex orandi. However, this is clearly not the case, nor can it be the case.

It seems to me that a much larger conversation about what lex orandi means is in order.