De Cura Animarum

But the centrality of Sacrifice, in the last resort, is more important than the worship or reception of the Sacramental Christ. I hesitate to blunder carelessly and over-simplistically around in so great a mystery; it is certainly true that both ....and is more important than either ... or. But, to be simple and crude, the Eucharist is firstly a sacrifice; only when we have said this do we go on to say that it is (we can't get away from the terminology of our Jewish roots here) a communion sacrifice. In the last resort, the Lord's Body and Blood are present substantialiter et realiter upon our altars primarily to be the propitiatory sacrifice which (since the first Holy Week) replaces the the Temple cult; secondarily, to be received so that Christ's Body and Blood can (Dr Pusey's banned sermon citing a great crop of Eastern Fathers is good on this) be commingled with ours; thirdly, to be adored.

The Church will be all the more the homeland for man's heart, the more we listen to God and the more what comes from him is of central importance in her: his Word and the sacraments he has given us. The obedience of all toward him is the guarantee of our freedom.

The Church in England and Wales is losing its Catholic identity, a senior bishop said this week.

Bishop Patrick O'Donoghue of Lancaster made the claim in a 92-page document highly critical of the direction of the Church in the past 40 years The document, described by several parish priests as "dynamite", addresses declining vocations, falling Mass attendance and the future of the Church.

The loss of Catholic identity stems from the rejection of Church teaching coupled with a wide-spread misinterpretation of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the document said.

The bishop challenged both the laity and clergy to re-examine what it means to be Catholic and to return to the "sources of our Catholic identity".

Bishop O'Donoghue wrote: "I am convinced that if we are to wake from the weariness that is taking hold of the Church in this country we must return to the sources of our Catholic identity and mission to renew our strength and vitality.

"In this way we will through the grace of the Holy Spirit be in a position to counter the negative and constraining influence of secularism and hedonism that is currently dominating our society."

The document, entitled Fit for Mission? Church was published on Wednesday and comes on the heels of Fit for Mission? Schools which called for stronger Catholic ethos in diocesan schools and won high praise from the Vatican.

Written for the diocese but also for "all Catholics who love the Church and care deeply about the future of Catholicism", it marks the end of Bishop O'Donoghue's 16-month diocesan review.

It began by asking painful questions about declining Mass attendance, a falling rate of Catholic marriages and baptisms, and lack of vocations and energy in the Church. It concluded that the Church had distanced itself from the true intentions of the Second Vatican Council and the tradition of the Church.

Bishop O'Donoghue, 74, said: "Though we are strengthened and healed by the Lord through his Word and Sacraments, the majority of us are not responding to Our Lord's call to go out on his mission of hope. In particular, mission in the parishes with families and young people are undeveloped and under developed with a few exceptions. The passion to serve the Lord is noticeably absent in many cases. There seems to be at times a tiredness and reticence to preach the Gospel.

"One of the reasons why we are 'gathered but not sent' is due to a lack of confidence and knowledge of the Catholic faith. This results from a lack of ongoing formation and trained lay catechists and prayer... our Church often seems inward looking, self-involved and detached from everyday life of our wider communities.

"It appears that many of us have forgotten the basic truth about the nature of the Church, that we have been gathered as a people of God not to be served but rather to serve God and each other, especially the weak and the poor."

In a step-by-step analysis of the problems and successes of the Second Vatican Council, document by document, Bishop O'Donoghue identified the need for a renewal in the Church principally through a reaffirmation of faith, obedience to the bishops in communion with the Pope, sound doctrine and sound liturgy.

The bishop wrote: "As I have reflected on the great issues facing this generation in the life of the Church, I have become more and more convinced that the answers are to be found through a prayerful, faithful and creative engagement with the Deposit of Faith presented in the documents of the Second Vatican Council and its great summary, the Catechism of the Catholic Church."

The bishop criticised Catholics who have strayed away from Church teaching in the name of the Second Vatican Council.

He said: "We have all witnessed with alarm many who profess to be Catholics disavowing the Church's teaching authority, particularly that of the Pope and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, dismissing apostolic traditions and the doctrines of the Fathers and giving the place of honour to the fashionable opinions of society."

Quoting the theologian Henri de Lubac, he said that in order to truly implement the Second Vatican Council "it is necessary for all of us to re-gain a Catholic sense of balance between change and continuity through maintaining the Catholic understanding of the Church which in 'practice is a continuous tradition and a living present authority'."

The first half deals with questions of direction and identity while the second half deals with the Council. In the section entitled "Have we forgotten what it is to be Catholic?" Bishop O'Donoghue said that people who deliberately missed Mass on Sunday, denied sin and did not go to Confession were not fully Catholic.

"Being 'Catholic' has the definite meaning of embracing the totality of Christ as he expresses Himself through His Catholic Church. The opposite of being Catholic would be to set ourselves as judges of the faith of the Church, to pick and choose what takes our fancy and reject what we dislike," he said.

He criticised the ascendancy of "privatised" faith which focused too much "on the subjective personal experience of faith" and overrides the "objective, revealed truth of the Church".

Justice and peace, he said, are not more important than the Mass, and the Church's teaching on the sanctity of life is not optional.

Bishop O'Donoghue insisted that the Eucharist had to be at the centre of the faith and that adoration should be encouraged. He also argued for closer adherence to Canon Law, and a renewed focus on salvation and vocations as well as use of the Catechism.

In the second half of the document the bishop argued that undue focus has been given to a man-centred interpretation of the Council, which led to popular and incorrect interpretations never intended by the Council Fathers.

Bishop O'Donoghue said: "The Council sought to give primacy to God in its proceedings, and not primacy to man as many popular interpretations have sought to argue through giving emphasis to the novelty of the Pastoral Constitution on the Modern World."

The bishop also laid the part of the blame on the bishops themselves for delegating their responsibilities to committees of lay people.

He said that agencies and departments of the bishops' conference were acting autonomously - but did not always fully uphold Church teaching in their dealings with secular authorities. The structures of the conference were preventing bishops from speaking individually on matters of importance to the church and society, he said.

He also said that the failure of bishops to reach agreement on issues had often resulted in inadequate statements or interventions instead of the witness that was "so urgently needed".

Bishop O'Donoghue said he particularly wanted to register his "disappointment" that the bishops failed to produce a "collegial response to the government's legislation on same-sex adoption" threatening Catholic adoption agencies with closure unless they agree to assess homosexual couples as potential adoptive parents.

"The problem of attempting to arrive at a consensus among bishop with sometimes divergent views is that episcopal conference statements and documents have a tendency to be often flat and safe at a time at a time when we need passionate and courageous public statements that dare to speak the full truth in love," he said.

1. The Lord Jesus Christ is the crucified and risen Savior of all mankind, and no human person can fully understand his life or find his dignity and destiny apart from a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. It is not enough to know who Jesus is; we must know Jesus.

2. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is divine revelation, not human wisdom, and the Gospel is given to us in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition which together constitute a single divine deposit of faith transmitted authentically and authoritatively by the Bishops in full communion with the Bishop of Rome. We must surrender our private judgments in all matters of faith and morals to the sacred teaching authority of the Church’s Magisterium if we are to receive the whole Gospel.

3. The seven Sacraments of the New Covenant are divinely instituted instruments of grace given to the Church as the ordinary means of sanctification for believers. Receiving the Sacraments regularly and worthily is essential to the life of grace, and for this reason, faithful attendance at Sunday Mass every week (serious illness and necessary work aside) and regular Confession of sins are absolutely required for a life of authentic discipleship.

4. Through Word and Sacrament we are drawn by grace into a transforming union with the Lord Jesus, and having been justified by faith we are called to sanctification and equipped by the Holy Spirit for the good works of the new creation. We must, therefore, learn to live as faithful disciples and to reject whatever is contrary to the Gospel, which is the Good News of the Father’s mercy and love revealed in the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

5. The sacred liturgy, through which the seven Sacraments are celebrated and the Hours of praise are prayed, makes present to us the saving mysteries of the Lord Jesus. The liturgy must therefore be celebrated in such a way that the truth of the Gospel, the beauty of sacred music, the dignity of ritual form, the solemnity of divine worship, and the fellowship of the baptized assembled to pray are kept together in organic unity.

6. Receiving the Sacraments without receiving the Gospel leads to superstition rather than living faith, and the Church must therefore take great care to ensure that those who receive the Sacraments also receive the Gospel in its integrity and entirety. Consequently, before Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion, and Marriage are administered, there must be in those who request these Sacraments clear evidence of knowledge of the Gospel and a serious intention to live the Christian life.

7. Being a follower of Christ requires moving from being a Church member by convention to a Christian disciple by conviction. This transformation demands that we consciously accept the Gospel as the measure of our entire lives, rather than attempting to measure the Gospel by our experience. Personal knowledge of and devotion to Sacred Scripture is necessary for this transformation to occur through the obedience of faith, and there is no substitute for personal knowledge of the Bible. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.

8. All the baptized are sent in the Great Commission to be witnesses of Christ to others and must be equipped by the Church to teach the Gospel in word and deed. An essential dimension of true discipleship is the willingness to invite others to follow the Lord Jesus and the readiness to explain His Gospel.

The net effect of all this is that the view of the overwhelming majority of the House of Bishops was accepted by the whole synod. The recent letter from fourteen traditionalist Anglo-Catholic bishops only five of whom have votes in General Synod, highlighted that the House of Laity vote was below the two-thirds level that will be needed for final approval of the women bishops legislation. It also pointed to close voting on the amendment offered by the Bishop of Ripon & Leeds as another indicator of less than overwhelming support for legislation without “new structuresâ€.

However, the final approval vote will not occur in the life of this Synod, but only after new elections have been held in 2010. This issue may well dominate those elections. The House of Bishops, to whom the letter writers are explicitly appealing, does not meet again until October. By that time, the Legislative Drafting Group should be halfway through its task of preparing a draft for the General Synod to consider in February. General Synod has clearly instructed the group to do so only on the basis of a statutory code of practice. The strength of support for that in the House of Bishops is now clearly on the record.

Note: Sheffield and Truro were vacant sees at the time of the vote, and there were six bishops who were either not present or who never voted at all (Coventry, Chester, Sodor & Man, Ely, Salisbury and Leicester).