Theology

The Peter Principle is the principle that “In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence.” As Wikipedia references people are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their “level of incompetence”), and there they remain, being unable to earn further promotions. I have found this principle to be easily observable in real life.

But I want to write about another principle, the St. Peter Principle which in many ways is opposite to the Peter Principle.

St. Peter as a fisherman was likely no ones idea of somebody who go on to head what is the Catholic Church. No doubt a capable fisherman liked by his friends and peers. But he was also a bit exuberant in his opinions as evidenced so many times in scripture. At the Transfiguration much was lost on him as he planned to build booths as a testament to what happened. He was often quick in his opinions, just not necessarily quick in his thinking prior to his opinions.

As a religious man it was his brother that led him to Jesus. Those once led to Christ came to realize who he was following. In John 6 the great Eucharistic discourse when so many followers left Peter had the sense to say “”Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life;” He did not demand to have to understand everything, but realized the simple truth” When Peter witnessed the miracle after casting the nets he said “Go away from me Lord; I am a sinful man.” Of all the Apostles he was the only one to be able answer Jesus’ question that he was the son of the living God.

Peter certainly was able to respond to truth, but could also waiver a bit. His famous denial of Jesus three times is the most famous example. But even after the Resurrection Peter could preach the truth about the Church being for the Jews and the Gentiles, yet in practice did not follow this at times and was even rebuked by St. Paul.

If somebody was taking resume’s for who was going to be the first Pope, Peter’s resume would have been quickly pulled. A fisherman with no great learning and not the capacity to be a theologian like St. Paul or St. John. Lower management maybe, but not the head of the Church.

This is where the St. Peter Principle comes in and where grace plays the major role. Peter on his own would have been an example of the Peter Principle. It was the Holy Spirit which guided his answer to Jesus’ question that he was the Messiah. When Peter heard about the Eucharist, which must have seemed quite outrageous to a Jew, it was the Holy Spirit that guided him in the truth even if he did not fully understand it. It was the Holy Spirit that guided Peter into understanding that the truth of Jesus was for the Jews and the Gentiles. The same goes when the Apostles selected a new Apostle in that they acknowledged the Holy Spirit’s role.

The St. Peter Principle shows that no matter what ability and knowledge you have God can take it and make you a saint. No matter our abilities and our countless failures when we conform our wills to Christ and let the Holy Spirit transform us we too can become saints. With grace you do not rise to your “Level of Incompetence” because in the beatific vision there is no incompetence. Though our journeys can certainly be full of incompetence. The real incompetence is not to be a saint to loosely paraphrase Charles Peguy.

Peter would not be mans idea of somebody to be the first Pope and to lead the Church. Ourselves as saints might also seem equally ridiculous, yet Jesus in fact choose Peter to lead the Church, just as he chooses each of us to be saints. So repent and let grace guide you and be yet another example of the St Peter Principle.

Here is the second in the series of Sunday Mass reflections put out by Professor Michael Barber and the students at John Paul the Great Catholic University. Good stuff. They need an RSS feed so that we can subscribe to this video feed weekly, or better yet turned into a video podcast on iTunes.

Liturgy Reflection: Sunday, July 19, 2009 from JP Catholic University on Vimeo.

They now have an RSS feed and are working on getting it submitted to iTunes.

The phony and new age “healing” practice Reiki is all too common and is used at some Catholic hospitals and retreat centers. Over time I have heard plenty of people calling into Catholic Answers asking about this. This issue has become a little more clear now since the USCCB Committee on Doctrine has released “Guidelines For Evaluating Reiki As An Alternative Therapy” and says “Reiki therapy is not compatible with either Christian teaching or scientific evidence” and is superstitious”

So this new document will be some help to those wanting to get rid of this nonsense as practiced in Catholic institutions. Though like most Church documents including those from the USCCB there are often just ignored by Catholics who want to do their own thing.

Hat tip to Fr. Philip Powell, OP.

Mark Shea on Sister Helen Prejean and her New Age Gospel at the DNC’s interfaith gathering. Like many she is a one trick pony that emphasizes one thing until it eclipses everything else. Both/And seems to be so totally lacking in progressive Christianity.

WASHINGTON (CNS) – In an effort to block posthumous rebaptisms by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Catholic dioceses throughout the world have been directed by the Vatican not to give information in parish registers to the Mormons’ Genealogical Society of Utah.

An April 5 letter from the Vatican Congregation for Clergy, obtained by Catholic News Service in late April, asks episcopal conferences to direct all bishops to keep the Latter-day Saints from microfilming and digitizing information contained in those registers.

The order came in light of "grave reservations" expressed in a Jan. 29 letter from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the clergy congregation’s letter said.

Father James Massa, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, said the step was taken to prevent the Latter-day Saints from using records — such as baptismal documentation — to posthumously baptize by proxy the ancestors of church members.

Posthumous baptisms by proxy have been a common practice for the Latter-day Saints — commonly known as Mormons — for more than a century, allowing the church’s faithful to have their ancestors baptized into their faith so they may be united in the afterlife, said Mike Otterson, a spokesman in the church’s Salt Lake City headquarters.

In a telephone interview with CNS May 1, Otterson said he wanted a chance to review the contents of the letter before commenting on how it will affect the Mormons’ relationship with the Catholic Church.

"This dicastery is bringing this matter to the attention of the various conferences of bishops," the letter reads. "The congregation requests that the conference notifies each diocesan bishop in order to ensure that such a detrimental practice is not permitted in his territory, due to the confidentiality of the faithful and so as not to cooperate with the erroneous practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

Another article referencing the recent statement by the CDF on baptismal formulas. “If someone knows for a fact they were baptized with another other formula,” they should say something, said Susan Wood, a theology professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee. But if they don’t know the wording used, they shouldn’t be anxious, she told CNS.

If the baptism took place without the words “Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” without anyone realizing it, she said the baptized person still receives grace as part of the church tradition called “ecclesia supplet,” meaning the church supplies graces if through no fault of an individual something is not quite right.

Wood, who is currently writing a book on the ecumenical and systematic theology of baptism, said she was pleased with the Vatican announcement, noting that there has been a change in baptismal practice in recent years, primarily in Protestant churches but also in some Catholic churches that use gender-neutral terms to refer to the Trinity.

“Hopefully this will bring attention to it and bring a return to the more traditional formula,” she said, adding that the pastoral response should be “to be aware of what’s correct and why and move forward, honoring the tradition of the church.”

Wood pointed out that an attempt to “avoid male language for God ends up creating more serious problems for Trinitarian theology,” because the wording takes away the relationship that each member of the Trinity has with the other and ends up reducing members of the Trinity to their functional roles.

“The personal relationship gets lost” in the attempts to “be politically correct,” she said. Quoting another church tradition, Wood said, “We believe according to how we pray,” meaning that prayer formulas influence what one believes.

In the case of gender-neutral language for the Trinity, she said, it takes away the unique relationship among the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and provides an incomplete understanding that could “seriously affect the faith life of the church.” She explains this very well, though I might quibble with the use of “ecclesia supplet” in this circumstance. The term for the “Church provides” has been bandied about recently in regards to the CDF’s clarification.

Canon lawyer Ed Peters previously explained on his blog in reaction to Fr. Francis Hoffman writing in OSV’s The Catholic Answer.

My concern is not with Fr. Hoffman’s answer but with an additional comment he offered at the end: “Nevertheless, the penitent’s sins are forgiven because it was no fault of his own the priest used an invalid formula.” Hmmm. Careful here. Continuing: “In this case, as sacramental theologians point out, Ecclesia supplet, that is, the Church provides, out of her treasury of grace, the proper remedy for the defect of the minister’s actions.” Maybe this is a quibble between canonists, but I’m not so sure.

I understand the concept of Ecclesia supplet (1983 CIC 144.1) to describe the Church’s power to supply, under limited circumstances, jurisdiction for an act. But there is no question in this case about whether the confessor had jurisdiction; rather, what was missing were sacramental words, that is, some of the words which the Church holds to be necessary for validity of the sacrament. Since what was defective was sacramental form, I don’t see how the Church’s ability to supply jurisdiction helps our penitent. To adapt a phrase, Ecclesia non supplet quod Ecclesia non habet; the Church cannot supply what the Church does not have, and the Church does not have the ability to supply sacramental form to a minister’s deficient utterance. Many historical examples of invalid baptisms, confirmations, or ordinations would seem to bear this out. Ecclesia supplet does not remedy those cases wherein innocent persons bore the consequences of ministers making invalidating changes in sacramental form, and I don’t think it does so for confession, either.

So where does that leave our penitent?

Well, even though Ecclesia supplet seems of no avail here, nevertheless, we may hold that, in some way, Deus providet, that is, God provides, or God foresees. If tragedy were to befall a hapless penitent, I think, like Fr. Hoffman, that one’s efforts to seek absolution for sins in this life would somehow be rewarded by God in the next.

But short of that, God provides in other ways, too, right here and right now. He provides by giving us priests like Fr. Hoffman who will tell it like it is and alert penitents that such absolutions are invalid; He provides by telling these penitents that, while He knows these mistakes were not their fault, He still expects them to act on their knowledge of the invalidity of such absolutions and return to confession (assuming we’re talking about grave sins, etc.); and I even think He provides by giving the faithful the confidence to contact their confessors, and if necessary their bishops, to inform them of serious violations of the gift that is sacramental confession.

Meanwhile, the rest of us need to be wary lest we assume too quickly that Ecclesia supplet will remedy serious mistakes in ministry just because they were not the fault of the faithful. Salvo sapientiorum iudicio.

It is too bad that there are other formulas being used througout Christianity, but this is not just limited to feminist theology and so-called inclusive language. A segment of Protestantism such as Oneness Pentecostals and others also use an invalid baptismal formula by baptizing “In Jesus’ name.” This is no suprise since Oneness Pentecostals are not Trinitarian, but some others also baptize this way since they think the shortcut term referenced in the Book of Acts somehow trumps Jesus’ own words in Matthew 28:19.  Though it is not just the correct formula that is important since the Vatican previously ruled that Mormon baptisms were invalid since there intent is certainly not Trinitarian even though they baptize “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In sacramental theology there must be proper matter and form along with proper intent for there to be a valid sacrament.

The chancellor of the diocese, Father Jim Spence, said the priests at the parish were ordered to revert to the traditional formula in 2004 but that some people may still be unaware their baptisms were wrongly administered.

He said he was unaware how many people it may affect. The church is currently considering whether there will be a need for those illicitly baptised to have the ritual legitimately.

“It doesn’t mean it’s invalid, it just means it’s illicit, he said.

“It doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen, it means that it shouldn’t have happened.

“I guess (those affected) would have all sorts of reactions. I would hope that anybody whos troubled by it would get in touch.”

Baptism, the first of seven sacraments in the church, is the rite of initiation into the church and is usually administered shortly after birth.

Fr Spence said the illicit baptisms did not invalidate subsequent sacraments, including confirmation, penance and marriage.

I hope that Fr. Spence was misquoted, because if not this is serious misinformation. The doctrinal note from the CDF specifically said " Hence, they must them be treated for all canonical and pastoral purposes with the same juridical criteria as people whom the Code of Canon Law places in the general category of ‘non-baptised’".

So it is not a case of illicit baptisms, but invalid baptisms. This also does effect some sacraments. For those who were married after an invalid baptism it does not change the fact that they were married, it means they will not be sacramentally married until they are baptized. It also does not effect confessions in any real sense other than that they must be baptized before they can go to confession again now that they are aware of the problem. It does though invalidate anybody who was confirmed or ordained who was invalidly baptized. These two sacraments can only be conferred on a baptized person.