Health warning: Please do not read this if you suffer from hypertension,heart problems or, if you are prone to hysteria.....or bouts of violent rage....
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| "Parish Liturgist approaching....." |
We are back in the Archdiocese of Southwark, in their little set up that facilitates education for permanent deacons, parish administrators, ex nuns, catechists, feminists and so on.
The organisation is the Education Parish Service and, if you recall, I made passing reference to them in a
post last week.
The EPS has a policy with regard to inclusive language (wouldn't you know it?) and it makes stirring reading.
You see, what I had not realised is that it's just not right that we exclude nice people when we pray or discuss matters theological.
It's quite wrong, bordering on a mortal sin (except we don't do mortal sin any longer), to talk of God as our Father because that excludes the 'Mother' side of God.
Our Lord was not quite on the right track when He said: "When you pray, say Abba (Father)" - the EPS regulations don't specify precisely what He meant by that but we can surmise that Our Lord was talking about a Swedish pop group that would revitalise the Faith in the wake of Vatican 2 ('By the Rivers of Babylon').
So
HERE is their website page that tells us how we should phrase things - scroll down to
'EPS Policy on inclusive language' (it's a little lengthy but please stick with it until the thin red mist descends, and then go and lie down in a darkened room (I have not fisked it, I would not know where to begin):
EPS POLICY ON INCLUSIVE
LANGUAGE
In line with many
theological publishing houses and universities in
this country, it is the
policy of Education for Parish Service to
require inclusive
language.
1. The terms ‘man’ and ‘men’
are to be used only for males.
Where both women and men
are intended then other terms must
be found.
thus we may say:
the human person
the human being
each person
humanity
humankind
the human race
turns to God in faith
2. The use of the
possessive:
rather than: the hearts of men
use: people’s hearts
or perhaps better: human hearts
3. The persistent use of
‘he’ and ‘his’ to refer to a person of either
sex is NOT acceptable.
For example:
Man is saved through
the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
He is conscious of his
past sins and he experiences God’s
forgiveness.
The use of the plural
can often be used to avoid exclusivity. Thus:
Human beings are saved
through the death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ. They are
conscious of their past sins and they
experience God’s
forgiveness.
Education for Parish
Service Version 2
Policy on inclusive
language 2 November 2009
4. It may not always be
possible to avoid using ‘he’ ‘him’ and
‘himself’ in relation to
God, without sounding stilted or losing some
of the intended meaning.
Nonetheless it is NOT acceptable to use
these pronouns
unnecessarily, or where an acceptable alternative
is available. Whether
the following alternatives are acceptable or
not will be a matter of
individual judgement.
Let us consider the
following two sentences, which are overloaded
with male pronouns:
God himself, in his
goodness, sent his only Son into the world. In
doing so he gave
himself for the salvation of the world he had
created.
And now let us consider
some possible alternatives:
‘God himself’. The reflexive pronoun
in this phrase is often used
automatically, out of
habit and piety. If all that is meant is ‘God’,
then only ‘God’ should
be used. If the point is that this is the very
God, then ‘The very God’
should be used. If what is meant is that
this was truly God, then
‘It truly was God’ should be used.
in his goodness. ‘out of goodness’ loses
very little of the sense of
‘in his goodness’ apart
from the false implication that God is male.
sent his only son into
the world It
may be that the ‘his’ in this
instance is the best
option we have to date. However ‘sent God’s
only son into the world’
would be an acceptable alternative.
he gave himself This could be replaced
by ‘God gave of God’s
own self’.
the world he had
created This
could be replaced by ‘the world that
God had created.’
What might we end up
with?
God, out of goodness,
sent his only Son into the world. In doing
so God gave of God’s
own self for the world that God had created.
It is clear that work on
inclusive language has a long way to go.
As a minimum requirement
students should avoid the routine use
of ‘God himself...’
Education for Parish
Service Version 2
Policy on inclusive
language 3 November 2009
WHY INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE?
1. When referring to the
human being
The reason for inclusive
language when referring to the human
being is to guard
against exclusion. In the 1970s and 1980s the
International Commission
on English in the Liturgy recognized the
need to stop using
male-only nouns and pronouns in theology and
liturgy when both male
and female were intended.
‘The failure of much of
liturgical and theological language
adequately to recognize
the presence of women seems effectively
to exclude them from
full and integral participation in the life of the
Church, and this
exclusion can prevent the whole Church from
experiencing the
fullness of the Christian community’. (Eucharistic
Prayers ICEL October
1980)
It is for this reason
(to prevent the exclusion of women) that the
words of consecration,
which refer to the blood of the new and
everlasting covenant
that ‘will be shed for you and for all men’
have been changed by our
bishops, so that the word ‘men’ is
deleted.
The historical
background to the prevalence of exclusive language
makes its use all the
more unacceptable. It was not simply that it
was more convenient to
use ‘men’ to refer to people generally.
Men were seen to be the
norm for humanity, and women a lesser
or deficient version.
This teaching is now officially rejected by the
Catholic Church.
Education for Parish
Service Version 2
Policy on inclusive
language 4 November 2009
2. When referring to God
The reason for inclusive
language when referring to God is to
guard against idolatry:
the worship of a false male ‘god’. The
Christian tradition has
tended to exclude from its liturgical practice
and prayer life the
female images for God used in Scripture. The
persistent use of male
pronouns reinforces the maleness of the
images that are
consistently used, and has led many to believe
that God IS male. God,
who is above and beyond sexuality, who
indeed brought the
distinction between maleness and femaleness
into being, is reduced
in the mind of the believer to the level of the
created world.
To compound the
distortion, when God is viewed as male, the
male human being is seen
to have a closer identification with God.
The status of woman as
creature made in the image and likeness
of
God is then called into question.
Now please tell me that this is all a nasty dream and that I should stop drinking that excellent Algerian red wine after 8 o'clock at night.
I have never read such unadulterated twaddle in my short life.
Small wonder that we have Muslim Prayer Rooms in ten (yes, ten) of Southwark's Catholic Schools.
No surprise that Catholic parishes have been taken over by Uriah Heep doppelgangers to greet you as you enter church for Mass or that catechesis is handed over to George who has a rather unsavoury personal odour, or that the liturgy is in the hands of a bossy harridan who crushes all who have the temerity to question why Year 4 has been commissioned to perform their interpretation of the 'Offertory Dance' during Holy Mass.
I know this is an oft repeated mantra but, for heaven's sake, what are our Bishops thinking of?
I cannot help but recall that old joke about getting into a lift (elevator) with a gun that has only two rounds.
In the lift is the Parish Liturgist and two terrorists.....
...what do you do?
Answer: Put two rounds into the Parish Liturgist on the grounds that you can always reason with terrorists!
