Taize

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Morgan_Hiver

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So, what is up with this? It is supposed to be an ecumenical community composed of Catholic and Protestant monks, but the founder always thought of himself and Taize as in full communion with the church. He received communion without converting, but both sides (the church and Taize) claim that he did not need to convert because he was fully inline with church teaching and beliefs. Also, before he passed away he appointed a catholic as his successor.

Taize seems more like a conversion tool to get protestants comfortable with Catholic-y things before crossing over - kind of how an ex-cult member is de-programmed?

And why is it that their music is better than VII music? I’m not saying they are the greatest compositions or anything but they are definitely better. They have strict guidelines as to how it should be played; ie the guitar must not be played in a folk style, but classical.

Anyway…what do you think about this movement? Should it be considered something dangerous to potential and existing catholics? I already saw that certain unitarian groups have altered the prayers/lyrics to make them even more ecumenical.
 
It seems fine to me. However, I think the Magisterium should keep an eye on them to make sure it doesn’t go too far.
 
If this is not considered to be an abuse by Taize, then they are definitely a new age movement for sure. I really do not understand how people develop these personalities…the type that claim MANY PATHS TO HEAVEN…1000 NAMES FOR GOD. Just right outside my abode there is a cult called The Self-Realization Fellowship and they are PACKED whenever they have services.
 
Taize received the approval of Bl. John Paul and Catholics are allowed to join the Taize community and make vows in that community.

They do not answer to the Sacred Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, because they are an ecumenical community, not Catholic. If I’m not mistaken, they may be the oldest and certainly the largest ecumenical community that has the blessing of the Holy See. One has to understand that the blessing of the Holy See does not give them a canonical place in the Church. The Catholic monks have a canonical place. They remain fully Catholic and in full communion with the Church. The blessing of the Holy See simply means that Catholics may join them. This came about, because they have never been anti-Catholic. In fact, they were one of they were the second Protestant group that welcomed Catholics without giving them a hard time about their faith. They have always prayed for dialogue and reunification.

When you visit the Taize monastery, you find that they have a daily Catholic mass for the Catholic monks and retreatants. The monks celebrate the Liturgy of the Hours in common, profess the evangelical counsels, live a structured community life, and there monastic life patterns itself on that of the early Carmelites. They are a cross between monks and hermits, as were the Carmelites before the 13th century.

The current Abbot is a Latin Rite Catholic and the founder was Lutheran. Most of their vocations come from the Lutherans, Catholics and Anglicans. They have a very close relationship with the Franciscans and the Missionaries of Charity. They always supported Mother Teresa in many ways. She visited them when she could do so. Brother Roger was often a guest of Bl. John Paul. I don’t know the details, but from the many pictures together, including traveling together, one gets the impression that Br. Roger, Mother Teresa and Bl. John Paul were good friends and shared a hope for Christian unity and peace. Brother Roger was also the most outspoken Protestant leader against the ordination of women, same-sex marriages, abortion, euthanasia and the unjust application of capital punishment. He was a strong supporter of Evangelium Vitae, which is required study for the monks in formation at Taize.

Pope Benedict XVI gave Holy Communion to Brother Roger twice, once at the funeral of Bl. John Paul and the other time at his installation. Brother was one of the guests of honor. This is allowed by Canon Law. A bishop may grant permission for a non-Catholic to receive Holy Communion, provided that the person believes in the real presence and meets the other conditions in the canon. There was nothing illegal about this. The same privilege was granted to Tony Blair before his admission to the Church. I say privilege, because the only people who have a right to receive Holy Communion are Catholics and Orthodox. For everyone else, it’s a privilege that must be granted by a bishop or the pope and it’s not to be taken lightly. That’s why it’s rarely granted.

Even though they have Catholic monks at Taize and at least one of the monks is ordained, they do not have intercommunion. That is not allowed by their constitution. They have a deep respect for the rules of the Catholic Church.

I think that they strike us as very strange, because we have very few Protestant religious orders and Protestant monasteries in the USA. They are more common in Europe. American Protestantism is much more secularized than European Protestantism, with the exception of the UK. I’m never sure what they’re going to do next. 😃 However, even the UK has pockets of very traditional Benedictine and Franciscan houses that are on the edge of Anglicanism. With the changes going on, I would not be surprised to see many of these communities reunite with their Catholic brothers.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
JReducation said:
Taize received the approval of Bl. John Paul and Catholics are allowed to join the Taize community and make vows in that community.

They do not answer to the Sacred Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, because they are an ecumenical community, not Catholic. If I’m not mistaken, they may be the oldest and certainly the largest ecumenical community that has the blessing of the Holy See. One has to understand that the blessing of the Holy See does not give them a canonical place in the Church. The Catholic monks have a canonical place. They remain fully Catholic and in full communion with the Church. The blessing of the Holy See simply means that Catholics may join them. This came about, because they have never been anti-Catholic. In fact, they were one of they were the second Protestant group that welcomed Catholics without giving them a hard time about their faith. They have always prayed for dialogue and reunification.

When you visit the Taize monastery, you find that they have a daily Catholic mass for the Catholic monks and retreatants. The monks celebrate the Liturgy of the Hours in common, profess the evangelical counsels, live a structured community life, and there monastic life patterns itself on that of the early Carmelites. They are a cross between monks and hermits, as were the Carmelites before the 13th century.

The current Abbot is a Latin Rite Catholic and the founder was Lutheran. Most of their vocations come from the Lutherans, Catholics and Anglicans. They have a very close relationship with the Franciscans and the Missionaries of Charity. They always supported Mother Teresa in many ways. She visited them when she could do so. Brother Roger was often a guest of Bl. John Paul. I don’t know the details, but from the many pictures together, including traveling together, one gets the impression that Br. Roger, Mother Teresa and Bl. John Paul were good friends and shared a hope for Christian unity and peace. Brother Roger was also the most outspoken Protestant leader against the ordination of women, same-sex marriages, abortion, euthanasia and the unjust application of capital punishment. He was a strong supporter of Evangelium Vitae, which is required study for the monks in formation at Taize.

Pope Benedict XVI gave Holy Communion to Brother Roger twice, once at the funeral of Bl. John Paul and the other time at his installation. Brother was one of the guests of honor. This is allowed by Canon Law. A bishop may grant permission for a non-Catholic to receive Holy Communion, provided that the person believes in the real presence and meets the other conditions in the canon. There was nothing illegal about this. The same privilege was granted to Tony Blair before his admission to the Church. I say privilege, because the only people who have a right to receive Holy Communion are Catholics and Orthodox. For everyone else, it’s a privilege that must be granted by a bishop or the pope and it’s not to be taken lightly. That’s why it’s rarely granted.

Even though they have Catholic monks at Taize and at least one of the monks is ordained, they do not have intercommunion. That is not allowed by their constitution. They have a deep respect for the rules of the Catholic Church.

I think that they strike us as very strange, because we have very few Protestant religious orders and Protestant monasteries in the USA. They are more common in Europe. American Protestantism is much more secularized than European Protestantism, with the exception of the UK. I’m never sure what they’re going to do next. 😃 However, even the UK has pockets of very traditional Benedictine and Franciscan houses that are on the edge of Anglicanism. With the changes going on, I would not be surprised to see many of these communities reunite with their Catholic brothers.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
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Brother JR, I have no idea how you come up all the information you do, but I praise God that you do. Thank you for the info.

One of these days I’d love to compile all of your posts and upload them to a website so they can be shared continuously.
 
Christ is among us!
JReducation said:
…Even though they have Catholic monks at Taize and at least one of the monks is ordained, they do not have intercommunion. That is not allowed by their constitution. They have a deep respect for the rules of the Catholic Church…
Br. JR, OSF 🙂
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Thank you for posting much factual information about this important community founded by Br Roger as a witness to peace and reconciliation. The murder of this man of peace was a great tragedy.
 
Melchior said:
Brother JR, I have no idea how you come up all the information you do, but I praise God that you do. Thank you for the info.

One of these days I’d love to compile all of your posts and upload them to a website so they can be shared continuously.
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:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

I’m old. 😃

I’ve been around the globe a few times. 🤷

I have always been a university professor, formator, or seminary professor. When you teach for as many years as I have, you read a great deal, meet many interesting people, and do some very exciting things. :yup:

Actually, some of the stuff I write are in a manuscript waiting for editing, footnotes and bibliography. I call it, What Sister Forgot to Teach US]/u]. I would like to present a series of essays on subjects that the average Catholic never mastered in Catholic school or CCD.

Through the years, the two areas of Catholic life which most Catholics know little about are a) religious life and b) spirituality. We leave these parts out of our religious education, when in fact, the religious life is essential to the life of the Church and Christian Spirituality is the essential tool for holiness. You don’t need to know Canon Law to be a saint. However, you do need to know how to recognize grace and know how to use it.

Most Catholics think that a brother is a teacher, a seminarian or a guy too dumb to be a priest and are not too sure what the difference is between a monk, friar and clerk regular. We call every woman religious a nun, while most Catholics have never seen a nun in their lives. The women religious they know are sisters or members of secular institutes such as the Daughters of Charity, who are consecrated women, but neither sister nor nun. We tend to call every organized group of priests an order, when in fact there are only a handful of orders in the Catholic Church and almost 1,000 religious congregations. The average person does not know the difference between a perpetual vow, a solemn vow and a priestly promise, much less how these impact the soul of the Church.

People limit spirituality to praying, going to mass and confession, being charitable and adhering to the truths of the faith. They have never been taught that those are the basics upon which we build. These are special gifts and means that God has given us to find our way to Him. They are the foundation. With the grace of God, we can build a tower on that foundation.

We have an idea that there is more, because we have read the lives of the saints. However, many people think that the saints got it right, because they’re saints. In fact, the saints followed very simple systems, but systems none-the-less. They didn’t complicate their lives as we do. The one thing they knew how to do was pick their battles with great care and focus their attention on one thing. Therein is their simplicity.

While the world around them was going to hell in a hand basket, they were very focused on the mission that the Holy Spirit placed before them. They knew that they were not God and that God would find the right man or woman for each challenge. We see this very clearly in people like Bl. John Paul, Bl. Mother Teresa, St. Giana, Ven. Pius XII, Bl. John XXIII, Bl. Pierre Giorgio, St. Pio, St. Maximilian Kolbe and many other saints. They had a mission. They achieved great holiness through fidelity to that mission. As I like to say, even if Nero came back and set Rome on fire again, these men and women would still keep their eyes on their mission. They practiced a holy indifference , which is very different from sticking your head in the sand or being out of it.

Anyway, I’d like to share my ideas and those that I have learned from other wonderful people on these subjects and a few other interesting ones that we don’t usually hear about. If the Lord gives me life and health, someday I’ll finish that manuscript.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
I know that here the Taize group is pretty big. I tried it, I can say it wasn’t my cup of tea, and my husband fell asleep when we went 😛 But I can say it was relaxing. But it reminded me too much of Eastern practices personally and it irked me a little.
 
gatewood1988 said:
I know that here the Taize group is pretty big. I tried it, I can say it wasn’t my cup of tea, and my husband fell asleep when we went 😛 But I can say it was relaxing. But it reminded me too much of Eastern practices personally and it irked me a little.
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do you mean eastern rite christianity, or eastern religions?
 
“I think that they strike us as very strange, because we have very few Protestant religious orders and Protestant monasteries in the USA. They are more common in Europe. American Protestantism is much more secularized than European Protestantism, with the exception of the UK”

This is very interesting as I currently live in a small village in Germany and have been surprised at how many Christian traditions the Catholics and “Evangelicals” (what Protestants are called in Germany) have in common. Many traditions that I would consider Catholic are observed by many people locally. An example is on Epiphany when the local children visit the houses in the village with leaders from their respective traditions (priests, lay-leaders and pastors). The children are dressed as the Three Kings (so sometimes there are many royal members in the party!) and they bless each house which welcomes them by praying and writing with chalk on the doorframe. The householders give the children candy and alms for the poor. My children participated this year and I was surprised at what an ecumenical occasion it was.

I was be interested to hear more about the reasons why protestant practices are so different in English speaking nations.
 
Kindness said:
I was be interested to hear more about the reasons why protestant practices are so different in English speaking nations.
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I think there are several reasons.

The former English colonies have not shed our arrogance. Catholics and Protestants alike, be still believe that we have some divine gift of self-determination. The problem with this thinking is that the more you repeat it, the more you believe it. The more you believe it, the less you believe that you need God. Therefore, God ceases to be part of public life.

Canadians and Americans have a faulty, bordering on the heretical, understanding of separation between Church and State. It was never the intent of the founders to abolish religion from the public square. Nor was their intent to place the State over faith. Their intent was to avoid all forms of dictatorship. They looked at England and saw the effects of a State Church. It had turned into a dictatorial situation. If you were not Anglican, you had no rights or very few. They looked at France and Spain and saw similar conditions. If you were not Catholic, your rights were trampled on. This happened because the crown considered itself entitled to dictate religion and religious practices. This total misunderstanding of the intent of the Founders has been repeated so many times, that many Americans believe that the Constitution says that there is a separation between Church and State. In fact, it says no such thing. It only says that the central government, known to us as the Federal Government, would not adopt a state religion. Because of our lack of knowledge about our constitution, we have created a schizophrenic Christianity in this country. You’re a Christian in private and a patriot in public, as if patriots can’t be Christian and Christian’s can’t be patriots.

I also believe that American, including many Catholics, are anti-Catholic. Anything that smells too much of Catholicism or anything that makes the Catholic presence to strong is to be avoided. There are people, many of them Catholics, who object to such things as Catholic churches in their neighborhoods. Not long ago, a community of Carmelite Hermits purchased land and received a permit to build a gothic monastery in one of the states in Mid-America. I can’t recall which state. The opposing voices came from the Catholics. They felt that there was no place for a Gothic monastery in the Mid-America and that it did not fit in with the landscape. They felt it was ostentatious and that it was a misuse of money. All of these reasons are non-reasons. They’re excuses to block the presence of these Catholic monks. These Americans like their monks very hidden and anonymous.

We have a house in a little town in Maryland. The house has a bell tower. The house was an old colonial Episcopal church. Every day, the brothers ring the bell three times for the Angelus. On Sundays, they ring it three times before mass, beginning at 5:00 am. The neighbors took the brothers to court. The accusation was noise pollution. The judge threw it out. There were only three Protestants in the group and 19 Catholics.

Many American Protestants have become so secular that they don’t care what churches do, while many American Catholics want to fit in, so desperately, that they turn on their own Church. The truth is that there is a middle ground. If we read the documents, Lumen Gentium, Gaudium et Spes, and Dignitatis Humanae, the Church gives the guidelines on how to live and work alongside people of other faiths and cultures and at the same time be Catholic.

The Lutheran Synod has made similar statements to their people. However, in their case, the synod walks very gingerly, because Lutheran bishops are hired and fired by the laity. Many Lutheran bishops don’t push the issue of religion in public.

Now, as sad as it is, many Rabbis have also backed off. There was a time when Jews were very obvious. Today, we’re not. It’s actually quite interesting. The Jews who are becoming more observable are the Orthodox, which are very few and the Christian Jews, which are also very few. You have people like Sr. Rosaland Moss and Brother Bob Fishman, both Jews, who are Catholic, yet very Jewish and very open about being Jewish. Brother Bob even wears a kippa. I wear one for Jewish celebrations or when entering a synagogue. There was a French cardinal, who died not long ago, who was Jewish. He always identified himself as Hebrew Catholic.

It’s the minorities in the USA, Canada and UK who are still very open about religion and are not in conflict with everyone else. Then you have two extremes, radical left and radical right. Left wants religion to be anonymous or at least cultural and the right wants it to be forced on people who don’t want it.

Human nature is humanity’s greatest challenge.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
Pope Pius XI:
  1. Is it not right, it is often repeated, indeed, even consonant with duty, that all who invoke the name of Christ should abstain from mutual reproaches and at long last be united in mutual charity? Who would dare to say that he loved Christ, unless he worked with all his might to carry out the desires of Him, Who asked His Father that His disciples might be “one.”[Jn 17:21] And did not the same Christ will that His disciples should be marked out and distinguished from others by this characteristic, namely that they loved one another: “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another”?[Jn 13:35] All Christians, they add, should be as “one”: for then they would be much more powerful in driving out the pest of irreligion, which like a serpent daily creeps further and becomes more widely spread, and prepares to rob the Gospel of its strength. These things and others that class of men who are known as pan-Christians continually repeat and amplify; and these men, so far from being quite few and scattered, have increased to the dimensions of an entire class, and have grouped themselves into widely spread societies, most of which are directed by non-Catholics, although they are imbued with varying doctrines concerning the things of faith. This undertaking is so actively promoted as in many places to win for itself the adhesion of a number of citizens, and it even takes possession of the minds of very many Catholics and allures them with the hope of bringing about such a union as would be agreeable to the desires of Holy Mother Church, who has indeed nothing more at heart than to recall her erring sons and to lead them back to her bosom. But in reality beneath these enticing words and blandishments lies hid a most grave error, by which the foundations of the Catholic faith are completely destroyed.
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Organizations such as Taize run the grave risk of religious indifference.
 
I would ask everyone to remember that Taize is a religious community that enjoys the good will of the Holy See. We must avoid any sign of disrespect toward the monks or the Holy See.

Thank You.
 
JReducation said:
I’m old. 😃

I’ve been around the globe a few times. 🤷

I have always been a university professor, formator, or seminary professor. When you teach for as many years as I have, you read a great deal, meet many interesting people, and do some very exciting things. :yup:

Actually, some of the stuff I write are in a manuscript waiting for editing, footnotes and bibliography. I call it, What Sister Forgot to Teach US]/u]. I would like to present a series of essays on subjects that the average Catholic never mastered in Catholic school or CCD.

Through the years, the two areas of Catholic life which most Catholics know little about are a) religious life and b) spirituality. We leave these parts out of our religious education, when in fact, the religious life is essential to the life of the Church and Christian Spirituality is the essential tool for holiness. You don’t need to know Canon Law to be a saint. However, you do need to know how to recognize grace and know how to use it.

(snipped for space)

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂

Br. JR,
Thank you for another wonderful and insightful post! 😃
I will pray that you are able to finish your book, I know it will be a best-seller,
and have a place of prominece in my collection!!

Re: the bolded part-
Sir, this is the most insightful thing I have ever read! 👍
It would do us all good to remember this!!

As far as Taize goes, I love it!!
Have some beautiful stuff on my MP3!

Peace be with you!! 🙂
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