Author Archives: wjduquette

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About wjduquette

Author, software engineer, and Lay Dominican.

Old News

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I tried to post this yesterday, but my WordPress installation was having problems; probably everybody who cares has heard all about it by now anyway. But here it is.

This is big news—potentially huge news. The Vatican has announced a new provision for Anglicans to come into communion with Rome while retaining Anglican practice as much as possible.

There’s long been a pastoral provision for Anglican priests who become Catholic to be ordained as Catholic priests, even while married; and there have long been Anglican Use parishes that use an Anglican service modified to be in line with Catholic doctrine and canon law. Now there’s going to be something called “Personal Ordinariates.” I’m not quite clear on what that means, but what it seems to mean is that the Church will allow the creation of Anglican Use “dioceses,” headed by a bishop who is a former Anglican bishop or priest. I put “dioceses” in scare quotes because they aren’t diocese in the classic sense; they are clearly a special case.

The big question is the extent to which anyone takes advantage of this new provision. Many Episcopalians and Anglicans have chosen to swim the Tiber as individuals; there are many Anglican priests and even bishops who have done so. But there have been few congregations who have chosen to come over en masse, and hence few Anglican Use parishes.

Still, this is major news, and cause for rejoicing.

Troubles with WordPress

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I swear, I don’t know what’s going on. Certain things with WordPress just aren’t working. I can post short test posts, but it’s choking on anything substantive.  I’ve upgraded to the latest version, and it hasn’t helped.  I don’t get it.

The End of an Era

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But also, the beginning of something new.

Today, the congregation of St. Luke’s of the Mountains Anglican Church worshipped in their old stone sanctuary for the last time. The court battle is over; the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has won. What they’ll do with the historic building is anybody’s guess; it’s not at all clear that they can scrape together a large enough congregation to pay the bills.

It’s a sad moment. Jane and I were married at St. Luke’s and went to church their for the first twenty years of our marriage; our children were baptized there; and Jane grew up there.

Meanwhile, the congregation is looking ahead. Next Sunday they’ll be gathering for worship at a nearby chapel, and after services this Sunday they went down to take a look at it and have Coffee Hour, courtesy of a taco truck.

What are they leaving behind? The property, the old stone church, the stained glass, the pews, the prayer books, the dishes, the office equipment, the pencils, the crayons, the boxes of kleenex and rolls of toilet paper…and a message. This morning, the church sign at St. Luke’s quoted the 10th chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews:

You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.

I wonder how long it will take the new owners to get the words on the sign changed.

Secular Vampires

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Creative Minority Report on the current vampire trend:

Secular monsters are boring. I mean vampires aren’t even afraid of holy water and crucifixes anymore. They are clingy and misunderstood. If I want clingy and misunderstood, I will watch a Woody Allen movie. Come to think of it, Woody Allen is scarier than these vampires.

It’s a Pity…

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…that Zero Mostel never got to play Nero Wolfe. If he could have been persuaded (possibly with a large hammer) to play it deadpan, it could have been marvelous. Picture Zero Mostel, in Wolfe’s leather chair, looking up from his book to say

Pfui!

Now, who to cast as Archie?

16th Tcl/Tk Conference

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I’m just back from the 16th Tcl/Tk Programming Conference, which was held in Portland, Oregon. Good conference. I learned a thing or two, but more importantly, I got to see the whole gang. I figured out yesterday that I’ve been to nine of the sixteen conferences, i.e., just over half; I’ve made a lot of good friends that I only get to see once a year. (I won’t list them; there are too many of them, and I’d be sure to miss one or two.)

The conference was a little bigger this year than last, continuing a trend; and as usual I was impressed by the international presence. There were two from Australia, at least two from Great Britain, one from the Netherlands, at least two from Poland, and several from Germany. Oh, and Jeff and Andreas from ActiveState, which is in Canada. (It was good to see Andreas; I met him at the first Tcl/Tk conference I went to, and we’ve had regular contact over the years, but seldom face-to-face.)

There’s neat stuff coming down the pike. Tcl/Tk 8.6 is nearly complete, with a bunch of new features (TclOO, coroutines, among lots of others), and there was much talk about Tcl 9. It’s a good time to be using Tcl.

False Dichotomies: Peter, Paul, and Mary

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My eldest son is in 7th grade this year, and he’s taking world history. And he delights in bringing his teacher’s statements home and asking me what I think about them. The other day he told me that his teacher had said that some think that Peter was the most important of the apostles but that Paul had more influence on the course of history.*

And I said, “Well, no…it’s more complicated than that.”

As stated, it is a false dichotomy. It suggests that we must choose either Peter or Paul; which is rather like saying we must choose the heart or the lungs. Frankly, I’d hate to lose either one. It also suggests that there is a single measure of importance, and that all historical figures can be precisely ranked using it.

I remember my CCD teacher asking the class, “Which is more important: Christmas or Easter?” I raised my hand and answered the question: “Christmas!” She told me I was mistaken; Easter is more important. She’s right of course; but she was also wrong. She no doubt assumed (as you probably did) that I thought Christmas was more important because I liked Christmas presents better than Easter eggs. In fact, I thought Christmas was more important because it’s logically prior to Easter: if Jesus isn’t born, He can’t die on the cross. She was saying that Easter is more important due to its immediate effects.

There are multiple ways of looking at things. When you make a judgement like, “Paul is more important than Peter,” you need to define your standard of importance.

How is Paul important? He spread Christianity through much of the Roman World, and the churches he founded had a lasting effect. And he wrote most of the New Testament, and that had a lasting effect. He was undeniably influential, and certainly essential.

How is Peter important? He was the chief of the Apostles, and was given pre-eminence throughout the early Church, as is clear just from a reading of the New Testament. He was the first Pope, the guardian of the deposit of faith. The Christian Church was founded upon him, as Christ himself says in the Gospel of Matthew. He was undeniably influential, and certainly essential. He wrote less; but that’s not the only measure of a man’s influence.

I used the metaphor of the heart and lungs above; and it’s like that with Peter and Paul. You need both…as the Church recognizes. July 29th in the calendar of saints is the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. They are always celebrated together.

Oh, and Mary? Without Mary, no Christmas. Without Christmas, no Easter. Without Easter, no Peter and no Paul.

* I paraphrase; and I’ve no idea whether this is what the teacher actually said, or whether it’s simply what my son understood.

He Leadeth Me

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In the time leading up to World War II, Fr. Walter Ciszek, an American priest, was trained in the Byzantine Rite, with the intent of travelling to Russia as a missionary. The war intervened, and Fr. Ciszek was posted to Poland. In the course of things Poland was occupied by Russian forces. The Russians were recruiting laborers to work in the Urals, and Fr. Ciszek and two other priests presented themselves (in civvies, of course) as a way of moving closer to their shared goal.

Things did not go as they had planned; the other laborers were afraid to talk about matters of faith, and then Ciszek was arrested as a Vatican spy. He spent years in the Lubianka prison in Moscow, and more years as a prisoner in labor camps, before he was finally able to return to the United States. In all, he spent twenty-three years in Soviet Russia. In that time, the only thing that sustained him was his faith in God. Or, more accurately, God sustained him.

Ciszek wrote two books about his experiences. The first, With God in Russia, is a thick, detailed account of everything that happened to him and everything he did. The second, the thinner He Leadeth Me, covers the facts quickly and at a high level, and focusses on the movements of Ciszek’s own soul, and the spiritual lessons he learned while in Russia. Most of these, not surprisingly, concern trust in God and what it means to accept His will.

Of the two, He Leadeth Me is the book I usually hear about, and having just finished it I have to affirm all of the praise it has been given. I used it as spiritual reading, reading and reflecting on a chapter or part of a chapter before going to bed. It works well for that, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself returning to it periodically. But I read With God in Russia first, and I really think that that’s the way to do it. The description of Fr. Ciszek’s experiences in He Leadeth Me are certainly hair-raising, but they don’t make the same impression as the more detailed descriptions in his first book. Consequently, I suspect it’s possible, while reading He Leadeth Me, to misunderstand just what it meant for Fr. Ciszek to trust in God so radically—to allow God to lead him through it.

Anyway, both are highly recommended.