{"id":48189,"date":"2019-07-11T16:24:12","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T21:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=48189"},"modified":"2019-09-06T12:00:41","modified_gmt":"2019-09-06T17:00:41","slug":"are-there-things-we-ought-not-bless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2019\/07\/11\/are-there-things-we-ought-not-bless\/","title":{"rendered":"Are there things we ought not bless?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I was struck by an&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/russian-orthodox-church-considers-ending-blessings-for-nuclear-weapons-26242\">article<\/a>at Catholic News Agency that reported how the Russian Orthodox Church is considering ending their practice of blessing large weapons including nuclear bombs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Last month, a committee on ecclesial law met in Moscow and recommended ending the practice of blessing missiles and warheads, and suggested that priests should instead bless only individual soldiers and their personal weapons.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Bishop Savva Tutunov of the Moscow Patriarchate, said in an interview that \u201cone can talk about the blessing of a warrior on military duty in defense of the fatherland.\u201d However at the moment large weapons, including&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/RT-2PM2_Topol-M\">Topol-class intercontinental ballistic missiles<\/a>, are routinely blessed by Russian Orthodox clergy during military parades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there are other voices in the Russian Orthodox community, including Fr. Vsevolod Chaplain, former spokesman for the Patriarch of Moscow, who said in an&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/2019\/07\/09\/russian-orthodox-church-considers-a-ban-on-blessing-weapons-of-mass-destruction\/\">interview<\/a>that the nuclear weapons are the \u201cguardian angels\u201d of Russia that protect the country from \u201censlavement by the West.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For Western Catholic the idea of blessing a nuclear warhead is a little extreme. How ought we to evaluate this practice? The General Introduction to the 1984 Roman Catholic<em>Book of Blessings<\/em>says that the root of liturgical blessings comes from the fact that God \u201cwho is good has made all things good\u201d (#1). Yet I cannot find a blessing for nuclear bombs in the current ritual and other than a \u201cblessing of anything\u201d I can\u2019t find one in my 1964 edition of the&nbsp;<em>Roman Ritual<\/em>. However the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.academia.edu\/13386318\/THE_BLESSING_OF_SWORDS._A_NEW_LOOK_INTO_INSCRIPTIONS_OF_THE_BENEDICTUS_TYPE_Acta_Militaria_Mediaevalia_Vol._10_pp._9-20\">blessing<\/a>of different weapons was part of the liturgical patrimony of the West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So the question today is, are we allowed to bless everything? Is there a valid theological reason to bless a nuclear warhead? For example, would blessing it perhaps make it less likely to be used? What are the theological and pastoral concerns that we should take in this matter? There is a strong anti-war movement in certain quarters of the Catholic Church. So should we stay as far away as possible from any hint of blessing military activities? Or is it the case that any, even superficial, Christian presence is an opportunity to catechize and that we should take advantage of any opportunity to be near people who might not agree with the fulness of the Christian message following the example of St. Paul who says that \u201cto all people I became all things, so that by all means I might save some\u201d (1 Cor 9:22)?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was struck by an&nbsp;articleat Catholic News Agency that reported how the Russian Orthodox Church is considering ending their practice of blessing large weapons including nuclear bombs: Last month, a committee on ecclesial law met in Moscow and recommended ending the practice of blessing missiles and warheads, and suggested that priests should instead bless only [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":48191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[3117,12,43,3086],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-scholarship-new-ws","category-devotions-and-sacramentals","category-eastern-liturgy","category-popular-piety"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Are there things we ought not bless? - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2019\/07\/11\/are-there-things-we-ought-not-bless\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are there things we ought not bless? - Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was struck by an&nbsp;articleat Catholic News Agency that reported how the Russian Orthodox Church is considering ending their practice of blessing large weapons including nuclear bombs: Last month, a committee on ecclesial law met in Moscow and recommended ending the practice of blessing missiles and warheads, and suggested that priests should instead bless only [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2019\/07\/11\/are-there-things-we-ought-not-bless\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-07-11T21:24:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-09-06T17:00:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Blessing.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1432\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1432\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fr. Neil Xavier O&#039;Donoghue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fr. Neil Xavier O&#039;Donoghue\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/praytellblog.com\\\/index.php\\\/2019\\\/07\\\/11\\\/are-there-things-we-ought-not-bless\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/praytellblog.com\\\/index.php\\\/2019\\\/07\\\/11\\\/are-there-things-we-ought-not-bless\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Fr. 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Since 2020 he has also served as the Executive Secretary for Liturgy to the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference. He has studied at Seton Hall University (BA, MDiv), the University of Notre Dame (MA), and St Vladimir\u2019s Orthodox Theological Seminary (MTh). He holds a Doctorate in Theology (Ph.D.) from St Patrick\u2019s College, Maynooth and is in the process of completing a second doctorate (D.D) in the Pontifical Facultad de Teolog\u00eda Redemptoris Mater in Callao, Peru. Neil has published a translation of the Confessio of St. Patrick: St. Patrick: His Confession and Other Works (Totowa, NJ, 2009), as well editing the third edition of Fredrick Edward Warren\u2019s The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church (Piscataway, NJ, 2010). In 2011 the University of Notre Dame Press published The Eucharist in Pre-Norman Ireland an adaptation of his doctoral thesis and in 2017 the Alcuin Club published his Liturgical Orientation: The Position of the President at the Eucharist. 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He writes a monthly article on some aspect of the theology of Pope Francis in the Messenger of St. Anthony and blogs regularly at PrayTell.","url":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/author\/nxodonoghue\/"}]}},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Blessing.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48189"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48192,"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48189\/revisions\/48192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}