A sad, historical first...

The funeral for Fr. José Arámburu, vicar general, (on Thursday, Aug. 23 at 10 a.m.) will be the first time in our 100 year history for an incumbent member of our General Council. To allow for the larger number of people paying respects, longer communion time as well as testimonials, the Mass time was moved up an hour. As per José's wish, his body will then be flown back to his native Puerto Rico for burial.

In others news: at last month's national meeting of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM) our own U.S. Reguonal Superior Father Mike Duggan was elected to the CMSM governing board. Mike hopes to keep the mission of the Church front and center. Congratulations and best wishes to him!

At the CMSM meeting, they approved an official statement in support of our counterpart among the Sisters, the now-famous LCWR (Leadership Conference of Women Religious) in their on-going "dialogue" with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Office of the Inquisition).

Since the opening salvo was fired last April 18 when the CDF issued its "assessment" of the umbrella organization that includes the Maryknoll Sisters, I and many other Maryknollers waited impatiently for some letter of support from our side of the road. We were told to wait for the LCWR to respond, which they did in May. Then we were told to wait for our Extended Leadership Board to meet, which they did and after two days of discussions, decided to study the situation further.

In the meantime, the Franciscans (!) did not hesitate to issue their own bold letter of support. When the Franciscans beat Maryknoll to the barricades, you know our once much heralded "prophetic" role (read the documents from the 2002 Chapter) has become instead, in my not-so-humble opinion, pathetic.

The Common Table initiative, in the meantime, discussed and debated issuing our own letter of support to the Sisters. The overall membership was invited to sign on and to date I have 100+ signatories. After this is delivered to the Sisters, I will publish the letter here, so stay tuned!

Goings-on at the Knoll

Here are some brief snippets of things happening around the Knoll these days:

The eastern region Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM) is meeting here this week. Much of their discussions will center around the Presidium workshop. (Either I'm getting old or these superiors are getting younger each year.) It is nice to have an almost full house again.

At the monthly house meeting yesterday, we spent most of the hour bracing ourselves for the imminent changes to the English Mass. First of all, even the smaller chapel edition weighs a ton. How the older men serving as acolytes will be able to hold this for any length of time will be a challenge. Fr. John Kaserow, our house liturgist, suggested we may have to set up a stand in front of the presider's chair to hold the book.

But that's the least of its drawbacks. The committee who translated this may be experts in Latin, but they know squat about the English language. Here's the basic error with literal translation from Latin: it sounds awkward at best and stupid at worst in English.

I made this point when I met with the Sunday school teachers last weekend to prepare them for the changes. "Gamsa hamnida" translates from Korean as "Thank you." The response is: "Chun maneyo" but the literal translation is not "You're welcome" but rather "Ten million." Makes absolutely no sense in English.

Ergo we get stuck with "consubstantial" in the creed. And don't get me started about the Spirit descending like "dewfall." (Cat Stevens, call your publicist!)

Anyway, the burden falls on the celebrant to make the Mass prayerful, perhaps requiring a greater miracle and mystery of faith than Transubstantiation.

Lastly there was a moving, one-woman performance in our Asia Room on the life of Dorothy Day, entitled "Haunted by God." The show was sponsored by the Armistad Catholic Worker house in New Haven, Conn., in memory of Fr. Tom Goekler who worked there and who passed away a year ago in Honduras.