Not a Catholic 'Mass factory'

Catholics who treasure ancient liturgies smirk and call them "Mass factories."

These churches are visions of horizontal utilitarianism, their flat, plain walls broken by patches of metal and glass while rows of chairs face ultramodern altars. The faithful are more likely to see balloons drift to the rafters than clouds of incense veil images of Jesus, Mary and the saints.

Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Dallas is certainly not a "Mass factory," as both critics and fans of this poor but lively parish in a battered barrio would agree. Its Italian windows have been lovingly restored, Romanesque walls repaired and statuary augmented by treasures abandoned by others. Roses are popular, often in waves of 700 or more.

"Beauty is terribly important, especially for people who have so little beauty in their lives," said Father Paul Weinberger, 44, a beefy, energetic Anglo who arrived 10 years ago after a Spanish-language immersion program.

"People need something that lifts them up, that lets them glimpse something higher. So I want worship here to be extravagant. I want their church to be like a garden in this workaday world. ... I can't guarantee that they'll listen to me, but if their eyes wander around this church they're going to drawn to things that point them toward the mysteries of the faith."

But it was a change in the 1999 midnight Mass that helped create a buzz in Dallas and on the Internet.

Weinberger estimates that 70 percent of his flock speaks Spanish and the rest English. The challenge was to find a way for worshippers to gather in the same pews, at the same time, sharing a common language.

The priest's solution raised eyebrows. He embraced the modern Catholic rite – the Novus Ordo – but elected to use the Vatican's Latin text, accompanied by preaching in Spanish and English. This rite then filled the 10:45 a.m. slot in the parish's Sunday schedule, mixed in with two Spanish Masses and three in English.

Now Weinberger is being transferred – against his will – and supporters believe his love of Latin is one reason for the decision. They fear sweeping changes in this revived parish.

This is nonsense, said Deacon Bronson Havard, spokesperson for Bishop Charles V. Grahmann. It's perfectly normal for a priest to be rotated to another parish after 10 years and the next pastor will make the decision about Latin at Blessed Sacrament.

However, Havard stressed that the Dallas diocese does require priests to seek permission to use Latin rites – ancient or modern. This is an issue of loyalty. Only a directive from Rome can override the local bishop's authority on matters such as this, he said.

As for Weinberger's conviction that a Latin Mass is a symbol of unity, Havard said: "Using the Latin may mean something to him, but it means nothing to the people in the pews – especially not to the Mexican immigrants who come into this area. We've had many complaints about that."

This is news to Weinberger. Diocesan policy requires that pastors receive copies of all complaints, he noted, and none have reached his desk.

This whole Dallas dispute sounds sadly familiar, said Helen Hull Hitchcock, editor of Adoremus, a conservative journal about liturgy.

"We hear reports from Catholics across the nation who are accused of doing all kinds of horrible things, like kneeling at places in the Mass where people have been kneeling for centuries," she said. "Then people tell them that if they clash with their bishop ... they're being disloyal to the pope.

"It's all very annoying. Some people are mad that these priests and parishes still exist."

This is precisely what worries Weinberger.

The days of the Advent season are passing as he prepares for a final midnight Christmas Mass at Blessed Sacrament. Poinsettias, stacked 15 to 20 feet high, will frame the altar. Pews will be packed for the Latin Mass.

"What father does not want to see his whole family gathered around the same table? That has always been my goal," he said. "I want to see our whole parish there, from the first-generation immigrants who only speak Spanish to the native Dallasites who only speak English.

"I don't want the language to divide us. I want it to unite us."

Watching Billy and the pope

The old voice was shaky and the pre-recorded tape was poor, but the Rev. Billy Graham's words hit home during the recent Nashville tribute to June and Johnny Cash.

"Millions admired him and adored him, but only a few got into John and June's inner spiritual life," said Graham, who shared many a crusade stage with Cash. "He and June are in heaven, and we are looking forward to seeing them relatively soon."

The words "relatively soon" did not require explanation.

Another American giant will almost certainly be departing soon. There is talk of the world's most famous evangelist returning to London yet again for a 2004 crusade, but few would be surprised if Parkinson's disease prevents those altar calls.

Of course, Graham is too towering a figure to merely belong to America. And the impact of the man some already call Pope John Paul the Great has been too universal to discuss his work only in terms of Roman Catholicism. Both men belong to the ages and to the world.

Scholars and scribes who study religion are bracing for changes that are hard to fathom.

An editorial in The Christian Century asks: "Did a politically shrewd and theologically sophisticated Polish pope trigger the collapse of Communism? Did an energetic and telegenic southern evangelist foster the resurgence of evangelical Christianity in the post-World War II era?" The fact that questions of this magnitude make sense is remarkable, especially in an age that only assigns greatness to sports and entertainment celebrities.

As a journal for Protestant progressives, the Century noted that both men have always had their critics – especially on the left. In 1957, mainline theologian Reinhold Niebuhr said Graham's appeal "depends on oversimplifying every issue." The British Council of Churches once said that he uses "all the tricks of the modern demagogue." Catholic pundit Garry Wills has credited Graham with selling "golf-course spirituality" to the powerful.

On the other side of the aisle, fundamentalist Protestants accused the evangelist of fatal compromises with Catholics and liberals and warned that he had become the most "dangerous man" in Christianity.

Pope John Paul II would understand. He has faced similar sniper fire from both directions, with liberals accusing him of crushing dissent while some traditionalists insist he has failed to adequately crack down on dissent.

This is actually a sign of how influential both of these men have been, said historian Mark Noll, who teaches at Graham's alma mater, Wheaton College.

"If a person is getting criticism from radically different points on the ideological compass, at the very least that implies that they have displayed a certain degree of independence and courage," he said. It is also crucial to note that both men "worked on a great and grand stage in times of tremendous change. Billy Graham was not merely a great evangelist. He was the great evangelist at the time when evangelicalism walked onto the world stage."

Graham and John Paul became statesmen and both mastered modern media, noted journalist David Aikman, author of "Great Souls: Six Who Changed the Century." Both built bridges to the thriving churches of the Third World and defended religious liberty worldwide.

The pope's 1989 Vatican meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was merely one dramatic example.

"You can imagine this scene," said Aikman. "The pope greets Gorbachev in Russian and begins lecturing him IN RUSSIAN on how Christians make great citizens and how their beliefs and values are worthy of respect and even favor. Who knows what that meant to Russia? Who knows what impact words such as that might have in China?"

Who knows if new leaders of this stature will emerge quickly? There will be a papal lection and a new pope, noted Noll. But with Graham, there is no way for the diverse and splintered world of evangelical Protestantism to select a true successor. It is a matter of gifts and timing.

"This truly is a case of trying to say 'hail and farewell' as we face the passing of two remarkable men," said Noll. "Everyone knows that this is a moment of great meaning, but no one knows exactly what it means.

"No one knows what will happen next. This is why we struggle for words."

Episcopal actions, orthodox reactions

Few would fault the clarity of the Orthodox response to the September marriage of Denis Gogolyev and Mikhail Morozev in the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God Chapel in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia.

The bishops defrocked the priest, bulldozed the church and burned the wreckage.

"Father Vladimir Enert, who married the gay couple, committed a sin in doing so," a church spokesman told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. "He desecrated the place. We therefore needed to destroy the chapel."

They call it the Orthodox Church for a reason. This is why ecclesiastical politicos gasped when they read that an Orthodox bishop attended rites consecrating Bishop V. Gene Robinson as the Episcopal Church's first noncelibate, openly gay bishop.

This was an historic occasion and the whole ecumenical world was watching.

"Frankly, I have been surprised that so many people are upset about this," said Bishop Paul Peter Jesep of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church-Sobornopravna. "I believe Bishop Robinson was duly and prayerfully elected and, besides, I think it's inappropriate for one church to try and tell another how to fulfill its mission."

The 39-year-old bishop – a former lawyer, journalist, U.S. Senate aide and founder of ModerateRepublican.net – stressed that acted on his own and that his church has not addressed Robinson's consecration.

Orthodox leaders also noted that Jesep serves a tiny splinter church that plays no role in the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas. There are dozens of non-canonical "Orthodox" flocks, including at least 16 other Ukrainian bodies.

Meanwhile, the American bishops are standing their ground. The conference proclaimed: "The Orthodox Christian teaching on marriage and sexuality, firmly grounded in Holy Scripture, 2000 years of church tradition, and canon law, holds that marriage consists in the conjugal union of a man and a woman. ... Neither Scripture nor Holy Tradition blesses or sanctions such a union between persons of the same sex."

Greek Metropolitan Maximos of Pittsburgh was blunter: "Do these Anglican thinkers realize that an evil spirit may be behind all these things? What the Orthodox denounce in these false practices and teachings is that they are the practices and teachings which oppose the Will of God as taught by the Bible, thus, being the result of our fallen, sinful, human 'experience!' "

Nevertheless, the New Hampshire rites drew many mainline clerics. The ecumenical procession included representatives of the American Baptists, the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Unitarian-Universalists, United Methodists and others.

Lutheran Bishop Krister Stendahl of Sweden took part and it was announced that he also represented the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, said Father Robert Stiefel of the diocesan transition team. This was symbolic, because of an ELCA and Episcopal accord to share sacraments and clergy.

Apparently no Catholic clergy took part, although Jesep said several Catholic lay leaders joined the procession. Catholic bishops have often been observers at Anglican consecrations – but not this time.

Pope John Paul II recently warned Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams that the ties that bind them are at the breaking point. "New and serious" obstacles block the path to unity.

"These difficulties are not all of a merely disciplinary nature," said the papal text. "Some extend to essential matters of faith and morals. ... Faced with the increasing secularism of today's world, the church must ensure that the deposit of faith is proclaimed in its integrity and preserved from erroneous and misguided interpretations."

No additional commentary was needed, especially in a time when the powerful Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is showing a willingness to build new bridges to Anglican traditionalists in America and England. Might there even be a new "Anglican rite" in communion with Rome?

Whatever happens will happen, said Jesep. While the New Hampshire consecration may rattle other altars and pews, critics of Robinson's ministry must realize that the U.S. Episcopal Church has made its choice and acted on it.

"The larger issue is not who participated and who did not participate," he said. "The real issue is that there is a gay bishop – period. The issue now is how the church reacts to this as a Christian family.

Comic book visionaries

LOS ANGELES – The story has everything that a comic book needs, like rippling muscles, heaving bosoms, torture, seduction, superhuman feats of strength and moments of crippling guilt.

The story builds through pages of dramatic close-ups, epic slaughters and cosmic revelations until, finally, the hero faces his ultimate decision. Will he take a leap of faith and risk everything?

"Oh Lord God! Hear me please. Give me strength this one last time," he prays. "I am prepared! You strengthen me, oh Lord! ... Now let me die here with the Philistines!"

Anyone who knows comics knows what happens next in "Samson: Judge of Israel," by Mario Ruiz and Jerry Novick. What happens next is painted in giant, ragged, screaming letters that say "GRRUUNN," "CRAACCKK," "AAAIIIEEE" and one final "WHUMP!"

The great Bible stories – such as Samson in the book of Judges – are packed with the epic visions and good-versus-evil absolutes that fill the pages of classic comics and their modern, supercharged siblings known as "graphic novels" or works of "sequential art." But what is less obvious is that some of today's most popular and influential comic-book artists are drawing their inspiration from deep wells of faith and classic religious stories, according to Leo Partible, an independent movie producer, graphic artist and writer.

"Anyone who knows where to look can find plenty of examples of faith in the comics and the culture that surrounds them," he said. "There is darkness there, but lots of light, too."

Thus, in the influential "Superman For All Seasons," a young Clark Kent turns to his pastor for help as he struggles to discern what to do with his life and unique abilities. Hollywood writer Kevin Smith's "Daredevil" hero wrestles with guilt while leaning on his Catholic faith. The mutant X-Man Nightcrawler quotes scripture and talks openly about sin, penance and righteousness.

The mystery of the Shroud of Turin is woven into Doug TenNapel's sprawling "Creature Tech," which probes questions about faith and science. Artist Scott McDaniel's website (www.scottmcdaniel.net) mixes discussions of faith and art with its pages of Nightwing, Batman and Spider-Man illustrations. The graphic novel "Kingdom Come," which helped redefine the modern comics, keeps quoting the Revelation of St. John as it paints an Armageddon vision for the superheroes of the past.

The 36-year-old Partible can quote chapter and verse on dozens of other examples as he races through stacks of well-worn comics, tracing the spiritual journeys of heroes old and new. It's crucial to understand, he said, that comic books are not just for children. They are a powerful force in movies, television, animation, popular music and video games. Hollywood studies the comics.

"Comics offer a powerful combination of visual art, the written word and the imagination," he said. "For millions of people around the world, comic books are a bridge between literature and the silver screen. ... This is where some of our most powerful myths and iconic images come from, whether you're talking about stories that were shaped by the comics – such as the work of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg – or actual comic-book stories like the X-Men and Spider-Man.

"People have to be blind not to see this trend. It's everywhere."

Meanwhile, traditional religious believers who work in the comic-book industry face the same questions as believers who work in other mainstream media, said Partible. Should they be involved in artistic projects that dabble in the occult, if that is what it takes to land a job? How much sex and violence is too much? Should they flee the mainstream and start a "Contemporary Christian Comics" subculture that produces predictable products for Bible bookstores?

It's crucial, said Partible, that traditional believers stay right where they are in mainstream comics, helping shape some of the myths and epic stories that inspire millions. They also can help young artists break into an industry that needs both new ideas and old values.

"People are looking for heroes," he said. "People are looking for answers to the big questions, like, 'What in the hell am I doing here?' I asked that question when I was a kid and some of the comic books I read did a better job of answering it that many of the sermons I heard from preachers back then."