Iubilaeum Extraordinarium Misericordiae

Fr Marko Rupnik, Fair Use: Identifying Subject of Article

On Tuesday following the mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Francis (and Benedict) opened the Holy Door of St Peter's Basilica kicking off the third extraordinary Jubilee in the last 700 years. A Jubilee is a year of remission of sins and universal pardon and comes from Leviticus:

And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. For it is the jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession. 

In the Catholic Church the tradition of Jubilees dates back to Pope Boniface in the 1300's. The last Jubilee year was 2000 and since it has been only fifteen years since the last one, this is an extraordinary Jubilee in that it falls outside the standard cycle. This past Lent Pope Francis declared the following year would be a year of Jubilee, a Jubilee of Mercy.

I have decided to announce an Extraordinary Jubilee which has at its centre the mercy of God. It will be a Holy Year of Mercy. We want to live in the light of the word of the Lord: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (cf. Lk 6:36). And this especially applies to confessors! So much mercy!

I am confident that the whole Church, which is in such need of mercy for we are sinners, will be able to find in this Jubilee the joy of rediscovering and rendering fruitful God’s mercy, with which we are all called to give comfort to every man and every woman of our time. Do not forget that God forgives all, and God forgives always. Let us never tire of asking forgiveness. Let us henceforth entrust this Year to the Mother of Mercy, that she turn her gaze upon us and watch over our journey: our penitential journey, our year-long journey with an open heart, to receive the indulgence of God, to receive the mercy of God.

Vatican Announcement

Holy doors in Basilicas are normally sealed shut with cement and mortar and are sometimes bricked over, symbolizing the barrier of sin between man from God and are only opened during Jubilee years.

Those who pass through a Holy Door during this jubilee year will receive a plenary indulgence, which removes all of the temporal punishment for sins committed up to that time — provided the recipient also goes to confession, receives Communion, and prays for the pope.

Unusually, On Sunday, Dec. 13, five days after the opening of the jubilee, every diocese around the world is supposed to open a Holy Door. These doors can be in the local cathedral or other churches of particular relevance, such as a Marian shrine.  This will be a historical first, reflecting Pope Francis’ desire that the jubilee be celebrated on the local level and not just in Rome.

Crux 

Photo: Dnalor 01

 I'm not overly religious, but I do find this kind of stuff fascinating.

Religious Wars in America

John Boehner, a Catholic, spoke at the Catholic University commencement yesterday.  Of course, the left had to cook up some controversy.

The American left is so predictable. Whatever ignominy is visited upon one of their heroes, they will be sure to do the same to someone on the right, justified or not.  The right tried to delegitimize Bill Clinton, so the left delegitimized Bush.  The right talked about “cleaning up the mess” left by Clinton, so Obama parrots the line to hooting crowds of hopium smokers.

The latest tit-for-tat is an attack on John Boehner by Catholic university professors.  It is a return volley against those who protested Notre Dame conferring an honorary degree on pro-abortion Barack Obama.

The false equivalency cooked up by these snooty statists is to attack Boehner for voting against an ever burgeoning welfare state. The academic left has always been in open contempt of conservatism, but the latest strategy is to cloak their attacks in religious terms.  Unfortunately for these aggressors, Christ left no instructions to governments.

There is no moral equivalency between supporting abortion and cutting government spending

The Catholic Church teaches as dogma that abortion and homosexual acts are evil.  It has no similar iron laws concerning how to run a national government. Father Sirico, a Catholic priest, explains is better than I can…

To jump so seamlessly from the Magisterium’s insistence on the fundamental and non-negotiable moral obligation to the poor to the specifics of contingent, prudential, and political legislation is wholly unjustified in Catholic social teaching. (Fr Sirico – NRO)

He goes on to give a detailed Catholic rebuttal to this uninformed criticism.  This is one of my favorite quotes:

And then there is that passage in Pope Benedict’s most recent social encyclical Caritas in Veritate: “The Church does not have technical solutions to offer.”

He also cites the role of Subsidiarity in Catholic social teaching, which these progressive professors must not be aware of:

The social teaching of the Church is based on the human person as the principle, subject and object of every social organization. Subsidiarity is one of the core principles of this teaching. This principle holds that human affairs are best handled at the lowest possible level, closest to the affected persons.  (Catholic Culture – Subsidiarity)

This passage from the Catholic Catechism sounds dangerously libertarian...

Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiative. (Catholic Catechism)

What escapes these statist professors is the notion that perhaps, just maybe, Speaker Boehner and other like-minded legislators hope to break the government shackles that have enslaved successive generations.  Perhaps small government advocates hope to diminish the clanking, soulless bureaucratic beast and return the usurped power to individuals.  Which is more empowering to the impoverished, a food stamp or a job and a bank account?

These pontificating professors need to go back and do their homework.  Short of that, reading this George Will column will put it all in historical context:  History Lessons for Obama and Other Liberals