Question of the Day for Friday, September 12, 2008

Remove a Pope?

Q. Is there a canonical process for removing a pope?

D.K., Dawson, Ga.

A. No, there is not. The Roman pontiff, “by virtue of his office, has supreme, full, immediate and universal ordinary power in the Church, and he can always freely exercise this power” (Canon 331). He cannot be removed, although the law of the Church does provide for the possibility of his resignation (see Canon 332.2). To my knowledge, however, this has happened only twice in history.

Question of the Day for Thursday, September 11, 2008

Beatification of St. Thérèse’s Parents?

Q. Aren’t the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux scheduled for beatification? If so, when will that happen?

 P.C., San Diego, Calif.

A. Indeed they are. Louis and Marie-Zélie Martin, parents of St. Thérèse, will be beatified at the Cathedral of Lisieux, France, on Mission Sunday, October 19. (St. Thérèse is one of the co-patrons of missions.)

This is actually the second time that a husband and wife have been beatified together by the Church. The Italian married couple Luigi (1889–1951) and Maria (1884–1965) Beltrame Quattrocchi (of Italy) were beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 21, 2001 — the anniversary of their wedding day. Natives of Rome, Blessed Luigi and Maria were married for 50 years and had 4 children, 3 of whom were still living in 2001 and able to attend the beatification ceremony.

Question of the Day for Wednesday, September 10, 2008

No More “Yahweh”?

Q. What’s all this I’m hearing about how we’re not supposed to sing songs at Mass anymore that use the name “Yahweh” for God? What’s the problem?

 G.H., St. Paul, Minn.

A. First, for a little background about the name “Yahweh,” I encourage you to read yesterday’s Q&A (click here). As I pointed out there, modern scholars have sometimes rendered the holy personal name of God given to Moses, represented by the four letters YHWH, as “Yahweh.”

But “Yahweh” is really just another guess (however well-informed) at the original pronunciation of the word, which has been lost. Its frequent use is due more to what we might call a scholarly convention rather than a scholarly consensus. Many Christians understandably stumble over it as an unfamiliar and somewhat artificial term when it’s used in some contemporary worship songs.

Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli of Paterson, N.J., chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship, announced in an August 8 letter to his fellow bishops that the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments had issued new “directives on the use of ‘the name of God’ in the sacred liturgy.”

The Congregation’s two-page letter, which accompanied his, was dated June 29 and signed by Cardinal Francis Arinze and Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, congregation prefect and secretary, respectively. It was addressed to episcopal conferences around the world.

Bishop Serratelli said the directives would not “force any changes to official liturgical texts” or to the bishops’ current missal translation project. But it would likely have “some impact on the use of particular pieces of liturgical music in our country as well as in the composition of variable texts such as the general intercessions for the celebration of the Mass and the other sacraments.”

That would include songs such as “I Know You Are Near,” “Sing a New Song Unto the Lord,” “Thanks Be to Yahweh” and “Rise, O Yahweh.” Musical composers and publishers will no doubt try to find ways to rewrite the lyrics, substituting another term of address for God, so that the songs can still be used.

At the same time, the bishop noted, the Vatican decision give bishops “an opportunity to offer catechesis for the faithful as an encouragement to show reverence for the name of God in daily life, emphasizing the power of language as an act of devotion and worship.”

The document from the Congregation noted some of the history of Jewish and Christian custom surrounding the Tetragrammaton (“YHWH”) that I noted in yesterday’s entry. Then it stated:

“Avoiding pronouncing the Tetragrammaton of the name of God on the part of the Church has therefore its own grounds. Apart from a motive of a purely philological order [that is, because of the dubious historical authenticity of the term], there is also that of remaining faithful to the Church’s tradition, from the beginning, that the sacred Tetragrammaton was never pronounced in the Christian context nor translated into any of the languages into which the Bible was translated.”

The Vatican officials also noted that Liturgiam Authenticam, the Congregation’s 2001 document on liturgical translations, had directed that “the name of almighty God expressed by the Hebrew Tetragrammaton and rendered in Latin by the word Dominus [Lord] is to be rendered into any given vernacular by a word equivalent in meaning.

“Notwithstanding such a clear norm, in recent years the practice has crept in of pronouncing the God of Israel’s proper name. The practice of vocalizing it is met with both in the reading of biblical texts taken from the Lectionary as well as in prayers and hymns, and it occurs in diverse written and spoken forms [such as Yahweh, Jahweh and Yehovah].”

Now let me offer my personal perspective, for what it’s worth. (Some readers will no doubt disagree with me.)

I’ve never been comfortable singing songs calling God by a speculative name of such dubious origins. And if we think of it as God’s personal name, using it seems to assume a kind of over-familiarity with the Almighty Creator of the universe. I’ve always preferred to do what the Jews have done since ancient times: address Him instead by a term such as “Lord” that reflects more deference.

 Of course, when God the Son wanted to approach us in an intimate way, He became a man and took on the personal name “Jesus.” When I want to use a familiar, personal name for Our Lord, then, that’s the name I use. And if I want to address myself to God the Father, then I simply call Him “Father” — a wonderful name that has as much warmth and intimacy as we could ever desire, without being too cheeky. (In a similar way, I would never have dared to call my earthly father by His first name, but I delighted in calling Him “Daddy,” our equivalent of the Aramaic term Jesus used, Abba.)

Question of the Day for Tuesday, September 9, 2008

“LORD” vs. “Lord”?

Q. I notice that in my Bible, the word “Lord,” used in reference to God, is sometimes written as “LORD” and at other times as “Lord.” For example, Psalm 8:2 (NAB) says: “O LORD, our Lord, how awesome is your name through all the earth!” Why is there a difference?

 P.T., Atlanta, Ga.

A. In classical Hebrew (the original language of the Psalms and, indeed, most of the Old Testament), the two words we translate in English here as “Lord” are in fact quite different words.

The first is the proper noun representing God’s personal name as He revealed it to the ancient Jews. This name was so highly revered that they refrained from speaking it aloud for fear of breaking the commandment against taking it in vain. Instead, the word Adonai, an intensive form of the common noun meaning “lord, master, sovereign,” was substituted, even when God’s name appeared in Scripture being read aloud. (Today, many orthodox Jews still refrain from writing or speaking the word “God,” writing instead “G-d” and substituting for it such terms as “the Lord” or “the Almighty” in speech.)

The Septuagint, an ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures used by Greek-speaking Jews throughout the world (and by the early Christians), made the same kind of substitution, using the Greek term for Lord (kyrios).

Over the generations, though the written form of God’s personal name was preserved in the Hebrew scriptural text, the original pronunciation was eventually forgotten because it was almost never spoken. Since ancient Hebrew had written characters only for consonant sounds (the vowels were supplied by oral tradition), all we know for certain is that this name is represented by four Hebrew letters that are transliterated in contemporary English as YHWH. This most holy name of God is thus commonly known as “the Tetragrammaton” (literally, “that which has four letters”).

 Whenever YHWH appears in the Hebrew text, English translators have often followed the Jewish tradition by rendering the word as “LORD,” but they place it in small capital letters to indicate that it refers to God’s personal name. When the term “Lord” appears in normal type, the Hebrew word translated is usually Adonai or some related common noun form such as adon.

In the scriptural text you cited, then (Psalm 8:2), “LORD” translates YHWH (the proper noun of God’s personal name) and “Lord” translates adon (the common noun describing His sovereignty). This line could also be rendered: “O YHWH, our Sovereign, how awesome is your name through all the earth!” (see also verse 10).

An exception to this custom in translation was necessary when the original Hebrew text referred to God as Adonai YHWH, “the Lord YHWH.” Rather than translate the phrase awkwardly as “the Lord LORD,” it was often rendered instead as “the Lord GOD,” with the small capital letters in “GOD” once again indicating that the Tetragrammaton was indicated.

As an interesting aside: The Jewish scholarly tradition finally developed a system of characters to represent vowels, which were then inserted into the ancient biblical text of consonants. But to remind the reader of Scripture that God’s most holy personal name, YHWH, was not to be spoken, the custom arose of inserting the vowels from the term Adonai into the consonants of YHWH.

In earlier English, the Tetragrammaton was typically transliterated as JHVH rather than YHWH. The translators of some early English Bibles such as the King James Version used the supplied vowels along with the consonants as given in the divine Name. The result? YHWH was rendered as “Jehovah,” which actually has no real basis in the original text.  

Modern scholars sometimes render YHWH as “Yahweh,” and this term has spilled over into some contemporary songs. But “Yahweh” is really just another guess at the original pronunciation, and many Christians understandably stumble over it as an unfamiliar and somewhat artificial term. (See the Q&A for tomorrow.)

So there’s actually a world of meaning in the difference between “LORD” and “Lord.” Thinking about that difference, and about the traditional Jewish reverence toward God’s name, should spur us all to be more reverent toward it ourselves.

Question of the Day for Monday, September 8, 2008

A Final Human Authority for Muslims?

Q. We have seen and heard of Muslim imams and mullahs calling from the pulpits in their mosques for the killing of Jews, Christians and other “infidels.” Muslim clerics have been arrested for their role in planning and executing acts of unspeakable terror.

Father, is there a Muslim religious leader in Islam that is similar in authority to our pope, the Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, or the Buddhist Dalai Lama? If there is such a leader, why has he not come forward and authoritatively spoken out against the Muslim terrorists and the clerics who cooperate in the violence?

A.P., Reedburg, Wis.

A. Here’s a reply from TCA columnist Fr. Ray Ryland, Ph.D., J.D.:

First of all, none of the leaders you mentioned has authority similar to that of the pope. There is no patriarch over the entire Eastern Orthodox Church. Indeed, there is no “Eastern Orthodox Church.” That phrase is a generic title for a dozen or so independent ethnic churches.

So the question boils down to why all the religious leaders in Muslim countries have not condemned acts of terrorism, even though at least a few have done so. You can find some answers in a book I highly recommend: “The Sword of the Prophet,” by Serge Trifkovic (Regina Orthodox Press, 2002).