1) I do not think the word "deconstruct" means what you think it means. A CBC interviewer used this yesterday where I'm about 99.99% sure that he meant "unpack what you said". I am willing to be persuaded otherwise if you make clear the interviewer's familiarity with Derrida and De la Grammatologieand actually make further reference to post-Structuralist theory / procedures.
2) Phenomena is a plural, not a singular.
While it is somewhat newsworthy that the Sacred Congregation for the Faith published the Normae de gravioribus delictis as a single revised document including the most recent updates (the category was created about a decade ago pursuant to the moto propriu Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela); that among the newest additions to the normae there are not only significant updates to the treatment of clerical abuse of minors (etc.) but also several regarding sacramental issues; and that among the latter they have included the (several years old - December 19, 2007) delict regarding the attempted ordination of women in an unmodified form: it is neither shocking nor surprising that they have done so.
To hear the news reports you would think that the abuse and ordination items are the only two things in the document. In fact, the document contains a significant number of sacramental delicts (under which the ordination of women falls), some of which have been slightly modified in the revision. Most of the sacramental delicts have a very long pedigree.
The original list of delicts regarding the sacrament of the Eucharist, for example, was as follows:
Delicts against the sanctity of the Most Holy Sacrament and Sacrifice of the Eucharist:
1. Throwing away, taking or retaining the consecrated species for a sacrilegious purpose, or profaning the consecrated species.
2. Attempting the liturgical action of the Eucharistic sacrifice or the simulation thereof.
3. Concelebrating the Eucharistic Sacrifice together with ministers of ecclesial communities which do not have Apostolic succession nor recognize the Sacramental dignity of priestly ordination.
4. Consecrating one matter without the other in a Eucharistic celebration or both outside of a Eucharistic celebration.
These have been modified in the revised document as follows:
9. Regarding the Eucharist, the two delicts of attentatio liturgicae eucharistici Sacrificii actionis (CIC can. 1378 § 2 n.1) and the simulation of the same (CIC can. 1379; CCEO can. 1443) are now considered under separate numbers (art 3 § 1 nn. 2 and 3);
10. Also concerning delicts against the Eucharist, with respect to the previous version of the text, the phrase “alterius materiae sine altera” has been replaced with the expression “unius materiae vel utriusque” and the phrase “aut etiam utriusque extra eucharisticam celebrationem” has been replaced with “aut extra eam” (art. 3 § 2);
There really is little news here on the sacramental delicts side, and certainly no reason for the reactions I'm seeing. A little bit of diligent research would have shown this. Yes, we already know the Roman position regarding the attempted ordination of women -- it's been out for nearly three years in the form in which it is being republished. We know that a lot of people disagree with it (myself included, but then I'm Anglo-, not Roman, Catholic). But the administrative step of publishing the consolidated revisions to the list including the new extension of the moral delicts is newsworthy only insofar as it does introduce the formal classification of the new moral delicts.
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timeasmymeasure
