The Attack on Kirribilli

On 26th January 2013 the peaceful Sydney suburb of Kirribilli was assaulted by land, sea and air.  This resulted in no loss of life for the defenders and no change to their system of government. The assault was no doubt commanded by the military dictator of New South Wales.* In other news the government of Queensland put tanks into the streets of Brisbane, doubtless to quell unrest, as part of the imposition of martial law.

*Actually Professor Marie Bashir is a lovely lady, it is just that the photo of her in military uniform is irresistible.

A few years ago this would have been about text messages (or: Another Reason to steer clear of Facebook)

Oh yes please. I would like the "comedians" on the misnamed Footy Show* to remove a photograph of my child from the internet to make fun of it by comparing it to some cabbage eared loon. Sign me up to Facebook AT ONCE!

Yes I know it's David Knox – who has never expressed a non-standard opinion on anything – but any stick will do with which to beat the Farcebook. If you prefer, here is The Australian.

*Given the Australian predilection for Rugby League and AFL (q.v.) it should be The Handy Show.

Beer and sausages

Here in Australia, for some crazy reason, if you look for sausages you can easily find something containing a dead cow. No, my dears, those are beef sausages. Sausages have to contain pork.

That is something this bloke clearly understood.

On arriving from South Africa in 1970, O’Hagan fell in love with British beer but was appalled by the sausages, which since the Second World War had been filled with rusk and meat scraps to keep down costs. “They are the bin-end of the meat industry”, a butcher admitted to him. O’Hagan began making sausages in his garage as a hobby, and selling them to colleagues while working on the paper’s late night desk. But as his fame grew in the pubs of Fleet Street and then Docklands, he smelt further opportunities. Applying the rule “No artificial anything”, he used good quality meat with a minimum of salt and often flavoured with beer, inventing varieties he called Drunken Duck, Tipsy Turkey and Gussy Goose.

On arriving from South Africa in 1970, O’Hagan fell in love with British beer but was appalled by the sausages, which since the Second World War had been filled with rusk and meat scraps to keep down costs. “They are the bin-end of the meat industry”, a butcher admitted to him. O’Hagan began making sausages in his garage as a hobby, and selling them to colleagues while working on the paper’s late night desk. But as his fame grew in the pubs of Fleet Street and then Docklands, he smelt further opportunities. Applying the rule “No artificial anything”, he used good quality meat with a minimum of salt and often flavoured with beer, inventing varieties he called Drunken Duck, Tipsy Turkey and Gussy Goose.

Rest in peace.

The end of the Middle Ages (again)

The last Beguine, Marcella Pattyn, has recently died. This being the Economist there is the usual oogedy-boogedy about the Middle Ages, sexism, heretic burning and so on, but it is an interesting article all the same.

These places were not convents, but beguinages, and the women in them were not nuns, but Beguines. In these communities, which sprang up spontaneously in and around the cities of the Low Countries from the early 13th century, women led lives of prayer, chastity and service, but were not bound by vows. They could leave; they made their own rules, without male guidance; they were encouraged to study and read, and they were expected to earn their keep by working, especially in the booming cloth trade. They existed somewhere between the world and the cloister, in a state of autonomy which was highly unusual for medieval women and highly disturbing to medieval men.

Rest in peace.

UPDATE: Obituary from The Daily Telegraph (UK).

Funky book cover

It's ten minutes past six in the Bavarian State Library on 10th September 2012.

I think it's time to go home. (Apparently  I am late  to this party).

Descendit ad inferos

3 "Descended into hell"
 …
One can try to deal with problems either by denying their existence or by facing up to them. The first method is the more comfortable one, but only the second leads anywhere. Instead of pushing the question aside, then, should we not learn to see that this article of faith, which liturgically is associated with Holy Saturday in the Church's year, is particularly close to our day and is to a particular degree the experience of our [twentieth] century? On Good Friday our gaze remains fixed on the crucified Christ, but Holy Saturday is the day of the "death of God", the day that expresses the unparalleled experience of our age, anticipating the fact that God is simply absent, that the grave hides him, that he no longer awakes, no longer speaks, so that one no longer needs to gainsay him but can simply overlook him. "God is dead and we have killed him." this saying of Nietzsche's belongs linguistically to the tradition of Christian Passiontide piety; it expresses the content of Holy Saturday, "descended into hell".

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Introduction to Christianity, Ignatius (2004).
Part Two: Jesus Christ, II The Development of Faith in Christ in the Christological Articles of the Creed, 3 "Descended into hell", (p. 294).

An Allegory

I have this brother. He's very overbearing. Our mother arranged for us to receive three delicious meals every day. They are delicious and nutritious. The balanced diet everyone is always talking about. Nevertheless, every day at every meal – EVERY DAY, EVERY MEAL, WITHOUT FAIL – when these meals arrive from the delivery service, he just throws them away and goes to get cheap, takeaway food. He never asks me. I don't think it even occurs to him that I – or for that matter our mother – might object. She hardly ever raises her voice in protest. She is worried she will drive him away. It is true that sometimes the food Mum has arranged is an acquired taste. You have to get used to it. Above all you have to take it all in, meal after meal, and then you begin to understand the subtlety of the flavours and you see the larger picture. In any case the food never tastes *nasty*, it is just not what we are used to. And it is always very nutritious and exactly what our mother planned for us.

As I say, come meal time, he never even looks at the food which Mum arranges. Often he just ignores the doorbell while on hold for the Pizza delivery. Sometimes he has no idea what we are going to eat until just before the meal is about to start. The delivery man with the food from Mum could be knocking and my brother will call out – over the knocks – wondering what we are going to eat. Sometimes he is still putting together the rest of the meal when we have started eating the first course of whatever reheated, possibly e-coli ridden, pap he has thrown together.

Occasionally. Very occasionally. He takes a tiny scrap of the food Mum arranged for us. He doesn't treat it correctly. It might be left to go cold. Or covered in tomato sauce. But that is still a big deal and a MAJOR concession. Usually it is just McDonalds or tinned soup. Occasionally he goes on a health bender and we eat fresh fruit and vegetables for a while. Then it is back to Pizza, sugary cereal and Maccers.

When I raise the matter he points out that Mum actually said that in emergencies, under special circumstances, we can arrange suitable food ourselves. It is true, she did say this, but it is *always* an emergency, these circumstances are *always* special and the food he prepares is *always* suitable.

Apparently I am not even supposed to complain. That would be elitist.

Look. I realise you don't want your inheritance. But why do I have to do without it also?

Last night, for the procession with the Blessed Sacrament at the end of the Evening Mass of Maundy Thursday, we had the Taizé chant "Stay with me". You wouldn't think there was a rich, beautiful melodic song, written by the greatest ever Catholic Theologian (n.17), proposed by Holy Mother Church for the procession. We had one of the weird English translations of the Tantum Ergo when they got to the tabernacle.

I cannot fathom the mind that makes these choices.

The Pride of Place

Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments,  General Instruction of the Roman Missal (2003).

41. All other things being equal, Gregorian chant holds pride of place because it is proper to the Roman Liturgy. Other types of sacred music, in particular polyphony, are in no way excluded, provided that they correspond to the spirit of the liturgical action and that they foster the participation of all the faithful.*

Since faithful from different countries come together ever more frequently, it is fitting that they know how to sing together at least some parts of the Ordinary of the Mass in Latin, especially the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, set to the simpler melodies.**

* Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 116; cf. also Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction Musicam sacram, On music in the Liturgy, 5 March 1967, no. 30.

** Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium,  no. 54; Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction Inter Oecumenici, On the orderly carrying out of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 26 September 1964, no. 59: AAS 56 (1964), p. 891; Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction Musicam sacram,  On music in the Liturgy, 5 March 1967, no. 47: AAS 59 (1967), p. 314.

Greek teaching in the Unided Stades

Rod Decker provides A Recommended Bibliography for Beginning Greek Students. He lists different kinds of books (texts, grammars, lexicons, concordances) etc. by year of study. For a third year student he recommends as a lexicon the following:

Liddell & Scott (the standard lexicon for classical Greek; it does include NT material). “Liddell,” BTW, is pronounced “little” (not “li-dell”).

The surname of the co-author of this lexicon, Henry George Liddell (the father of Alice in Wonderland, believe it or not), is given the pronunciation  /ˈlɪdəl/ by Wikipedia (at least it did when I wrote this) not /ˈlɪtl̩/. I was puzzled by this apparent typo before I realised Decker is relying on the voiced American T.

Remember Anamnesis

Behold the homepage of Anamnesis, the bulletin of the liturgical commission of the Polish Bishops' conference. ("Anamnsis" at the top of the page is simply a typo, it is of course simply the Greek word for the memorial sacrifice of Num 10:10, alluded to in Lk 22:19 and 1 Cor 11:25).

In 2004 I discovered that the editio typica tertia of Missale Romanum included some new saints in the calendar. This is the Universal Calendar, also called the General Calendar. Local churches at the diocesan or national level are expected to modify the calendar usually by adding local saints or sometimes by increasing the importance of the celebration.

This being the Missal – to be used at Mass – it does not have texts for the Liturgy of the Hours (the "Divine Office", often simply just the "Office"). Using as a search text the collect (which is the same as the concluding prayer in the Office) of one of the additions to the calendar, I discovered that the Polish Bishops had put the Latin texts of additions to the Divine Office online. Additions to the liturgical books are published in the journal of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, Notitiae which was not, and is not, published online. However all the decrees from the Congregation pertaining to the Universal Church, including such additions to the calendar are, as a matter of course, published in Latin in Anamnesis.


Go to Komisja Kultu Bożego i Dyscypliny Sakramentów Episkopatu Polski (that takes you to the Anamnesis page).  Look at the column on the left hand side of the screen. Indeksy numerów 1-26 takes you to indexes for the first 26 issues. These are not very helpful as they are not hyperlinked. Issues 1-7 are not online. Click on Numer 8 to find out why. "Od Redakcij" means "From the Editor", this issue was published on 1st November 1996. When I refer to the "Editorial" of a given issue of Anamnesis in what follows, I mean whatever you read by clicking on "Od Redakcij".

Also in issue 8, "Przygotowanie do wprowadzania katecumenatu w diecezjach - materiały z Sympozjum Katechumenalnego Sandomierz - 16 i 17 września 1996" is the proceedings (I guess) of a conference held on and 17th September on the history of the rites of initiation. "Informacje" means "Information". "Spis treści means "table of contents". Click on that and you will get links to two pdfs, one of which is in dear old English, and we read:

After publication of seven issues of Anamnesis (1994-1996) – Bulletin of the Polish Episcopal Commission for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments which was designed for the Polish Bishops – a new edition of Anamnesis is being started which is addressed to people responsible for liturgy and liturgical pastoral care in the Church in Poland, anxious for more intense renewal of the Church by more conscious, active and deepened participation of all the Christians in the Liturgy. The editorial design is to create a meeting forum for the two directions of the liturgical renewal: the one “from above” (institutional) and one “from below”.

The editorials are often undated so it is hard to determine the frequency. The editorial for issue 20 is dated 28th November 1999.

The important thing for our purposes (well, OK, my purposes) is what is usually the first section of an issue of Anamnesis: Dokumenty Stolicy Apostolskiej - Documents of the Apostolic See. These are typically decress from the Congregation DWDS. Number 22 contains the authorisation for the Polish texts for the office of Blessed Pius of Pietrelcina (as he then was, i.e. Padre Pio). The decree from the Vatican is dated 26th November 1999, but the editorial is dated 1st June 2000. The series is clearly not regular since issue 26 has an editorial dated 2nd June 2001 and there is clearly a lag between the promulgation of the decree and its publication in Anamnesis. Issue 31 has an editorial dated 18th May 2002 but its URL suggests that it has been linked to by mistake because the filename for the PDF is "Anamnesis30-0aRed" which is also what you get when you click through from "Od Redakcij" for issue 30. Issue 32 has an editorial dated November 16th 2002.

I labour over Anamnesis 31 because the second pdf among the Dokumenty Stolicy Apostolskiej in that issue is Dodatki do Liturgii Godzin - Additiones ad Liturgiam Horarum. This is the text in Latin of the additions to the Liturgy of the Hours made with the 3rd edition of Missale Romanum by a decree of the Congregation dated 18th December 2001. The next issue (32) contains the texts for the Mass and Office of Padre Pio decreed by the Congregation on 26th June 2002. Finally on 12th February 2004 the Congregation published texts for the Liturgies of St Juan Diego Cuauhtlotoatzin and Our Lady of Guadalupe.

So far as I can tell there have been no additions to the Universal Calendar since 2004. Granted you have to wrestle with Polish but Anamnesis is a useful resource.

Preaching and the Biblical Languages

The Rev. Gerald Ambulance discusses the problem of preaching.

Greek is another good time-killer. Try this kind of thing: "Now the word translated 'preaching' here is the Greek word kerygma. And that comes from the verb kerysso, meaning 'to preach'. So when St Paul says 'preaching', what that word really means is 'preaching'." (Stephen Tomkins, My Ministry Manual by Rev. Gerald Ambulance, p.31).

Rod Decker, Preaching and the Biblical Languages: Garnish or Entrée Mellon or Mantra? has a more serious approach.

Some extracts.

Forty years ago as a college and seminary student I was a cook. I worked in various types of kitchen settings: short order, line cook, and commercial dining rooms. In most such situations we were concerned that the plate we served look nice. Part of the “dressing” was some sort of garnish—a sprig of parsley, a spiced apple ring, a lemon curl, etc. The garnish was not part of the nutritional value of the meal. We did not intend that our customers eat the parsley. It just looked nice. What we wanted them to eat was the entrée. Whether that was a juicy steak grilled to perfection or a chicken breast stuffed and wrapped and prepared just so, we took great pains that it be good quality, tender, and tasty. We did not, however, carry it to their table on a greasy spatula or in a crusty roasting pan. We served the finished product in an appealing, ready-to-eat form. That setting provides my analogy. 

The biblical languages should not function merely as a garnish. Too often pastors pay only lip service to the biblical languages. They may acknowledge that they are important—at least to the commentary writer. They expect others to do the dirty work so that they can garnish their sermons with impressive-sounding jargon, a sprig of Greek parsley. “In the original Greek this is an ‘ā-or-ist’ tense, therefore it means [such and such.]” Or they add a lemon curl. “The Greek perfect mood proves that we were saved in the past and will be eternally secure forever.” Or for a real “ringer” (i.e., a spiced apple ring garnish), “This word in the original Greek is number 4352 which is a compound of 4314 and 2965, so it means to lick God’s hand like a puppy dog.” All such statements are merely attempts to sound impressive or to wield the Greek as an authority club. They prove nothing and do not add anything to understanding the meaning of the text. That is neither the purpose nor the value of the biblical languages.

The languages are much more like the entrée than the garnish. They are not the entrée as such, but the tools used to prepare the entrée. We do not feed God’s people with Greek and Hebrew. What goes on the sermonic plate is an appetizing, tender piece of meat. If we are ministering in an English-speaking context, that means that the entrée—the biblical content—must be explained in relatively simple English that our audience can understand. Just as the goal of a vernacular translation of the Bible is communication, so the goal of a biblical sermon must be the communication of the Bible’s message in language that our audience can understand.

He then discusses the Doors of Durin in The Lord of the Rings. (It seems even Baptists are not immune to the lure of Tolkien.) Just as the Fellowship needed to say the Elvish word for "friend" mellon, to enter Moria, so "it is through the door of the biblical languages that we enter (certainly as friends!) into the Scriptures".

On the other hand, we ought not make the biblical languages, as important as they are, into a mantra (the last part of my subtitle). Some people, being firmly convinced of the general argument that I have proposed thus far, use the biblical languages, not as a mellon, but as a mantra. They are certainly sincere and they have commendably placed a high priority on the biblical languages, but they then go one step too far in making the tools of exegesis into the gadgets of homiletics. Just as a mantra refers to something repeated continually, so these preachers continually inflict their audience with Greek and Hebrew. They preach Robertson and Danker and Wallace in their efforts to preach Christ. Their sermons contain profuse reference to Greek and Hebrew words, to technical grammatical description, to diachronic etymologies, and even verb parsings. Some even imply to God’s people that they should (or even must) learn Greek if they are going to understand Scripture and become spiritually mature. Their churches become language institutes and their pulpits become lecterns.

According to the epilogue to Decker's paper, Dr Christopher Cone, at the same conference, argued that it is the job of preachers to teach their audiences the Biblical languages, textual criticism, genre, and so on.

God revealed Himself using language. That he revealed Himself in such a way has tremendous implications for teaching. God expected that His audience would be sufficiently skilled in the principles of the languages He used so that they could understand His meaning. We all need to understand how to understand God’s word. We all need to know how to handle variants, translations, background, rhetorical structure, grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and context.

"We all"? Everyone needs to be able to cope with textual criticism, ancient genres etc not to mention the languages? How shall we be saved?

What Cone and, to a lesser extent, Decker do, is confuse preaching the words of God with preaching the Word of God. They come rather close to the Mahometan approach of treating a particular language (at least two languages so far as Christians are concerned) as the very language of the Almighty.

Almost ten years ago, as friends of mine were ordained to the diaconate, I was always writing the following passage in greeting cards, from St Gregory the Great (Hom. in Ev. xvii) used in the Office for St Luke on 18th October.

For our Lord follows in the wake of those who preach him, since preaching paves the way, and then our Lord himself comes to make his dwelling-place in our hearts. First come the words that exhort us, and then by means of them truth is received into the mind. It was for this reason that Isaiah [40:3] commanded preachers: "Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God." For the same reason too the psalmist gives them the order: "Make a highway for him who goes on high above the setting sun" (Ps 67:5/68:4). 

Msgr. Charles Pope discusses this passage.

A really bad week

On Sunday 11th July 2010 the Archbishop of Buenos Aires attacked the Bill, then before the Argentine Senate, to create homosexual marriage. The Archbishop described it as a "destructive attack on God's plan." The President of Argentina hit back the following day.

Mrs. Kirchner harshly criticized church leaders on Monday, saying that their discourse on the issue resembled “the times of the Crusades” and that they failed to acknowledge how socially liberal Argentina had become.

Another theme of Cristina Kirchner's presidency has been demanding that the UK hand over the Falkland Islands to Argentina, regardless of the wishes of the inhabitants.

Mrs Kirchner wants to open talks with the British over the sovereignty of the islands, ignoring the Falkland Islanders who are not recognised by the Argentinians.

In June 2012, she attended a meeting of a United Nations committee on decolonisation.

At the meeting she was addressed by a committee from the Falkland Islands. It is believed to be the first time representatives from the islands have been in the same room as the Argentine premier … Mrs Kirchner said she was "not going to say anything about those who have spoken defending their position," adding: "Our dispute is with the UK."

On 11th March 2013 99.8% of Falkland Islanders voted to remain a British overseas territory.  Two days later that Archbishop she despised so much was elected Pope.

Poor woman. She had a terrible week. She might be relieved that she has at least get rid of her opponent. If so, she should probably contact some old Polish communists.

Qui sibi novum nomen imposuit

Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum; habemus Papam: Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum Georgium Marium Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Bergoglio qui sibi nomen imposuit Franciscum.

With these words did Jean Louis Cardinal Tauran announce the election of Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio SJ, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, about 8pm on 13th March 2013.

Round here I heard two channels (Fox News and Sky News) solemnly say – after the habemus Papam – "we had not yet been told" what name he would take. Come on! It is literally the very first question he is asked once he accepts the election (UDG n.87). It is written down in the Ordo Rituum Conclavis as part of the formula for the announcement. If they were going to diverge from that it would be (a) very hard to pull off in the time available and hence (b) very obvious. I had already switched off the ABC (that's the Australian government funded broadcaster, not the US network) on principle when they wheeled on an ex-priest, so I could not be sure, but certainly the news ticker did not contain the name.

Pace the media, he did not take the name "Francis I" and, unless you are travelling in time from the future and are a little confused, he will not be known as "Francis I" until there is a Francis II. John Paul I was announced as such – "Ioannis Pauli primi" – although the same Proto-Deacon a few months later announced that Cardinal Wojtyła had taken the name "Ioannis Pauli" without a numeral.

First Pope from the Jesuits. First Pope to take a name that did not exist in the first millennium. Apparently Pietro Bernadone gave his son the name Francesco (he had been baptised Giovanni; actually he had probably been baptised Ioannem, but you get the idea) because of mercantile connections with France.

First time in 50 years that the Proto-Deacon got the grammar right. Since Cardinal Ottaviani said "Paulum sextum" in 1963, this is probably the first time in 55 years that he got the grammar right and did not use an unnecessary numeral. I cannot find video of the announcement of John XXIII but Cardinal Canali probably avoided saying "vigesimum tertium". Mind you he might have made a point of it, to underline the rejection of Antipope John XXIII.

UPDATE: The last Pope to come from a religious order was Gregory XVI (1831-1846), the immediate predecessor to Blessed Pius IX (I am not suggesting that is his only distinction, just locating it in time for you). Gregory XVI was a Camaldolese monk.

UPDATE II: Of course what name the Pope will take is the first thing the Cardinal Dean asks. The Pope acts juridically, like every other sovereign, by signing his name. He cannot do anything until he has a name. Choosing a name is not something that can be postponed.

A self-depreciating smile

Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son (1846-1848), chapter xxxvii 'More warnings than one' (first published in number xii of the serial, September 1847), page 554 in the Oxford World's Classics edition.

Edith suffered him to proceed. She looked at him now. As he bent forward, to be nearer, with the utmost show of delicacy and respect, and with his teeth persuasively arrayed, in a self-depreciating smile, she felt as if she could have struck him dead. 

I was listening to this passage on an audiobook and I assumed David Timson must have simply mispronounced the word "-pree-shee-ayte" instead of "-prek-ayte". However, there it is in the text: self-depreciating where one would expect self-deprecating. Of course I expected self-deprecating: depreciation is only what happens to assets for tax purposes.

The OED has the following. First the relevant extracts from the entry for self- :

self-, prefix…1. Compounds in which self- is in the objective relation to the second element: a. With nouns of action. …

self-deprecation n.
1924 W. HOLTBY Crowded Street xxxv. 260 Don't you think that this self-deprecation of yours was a little like cowardice? 1977 A. GIDDENS Stud. in Social & Polit. Theory ix. 307 Suicide represents an extreme on a range of possible forms of self-aggression, which extends from relatively minor forms such as verbal self- deprecation to actual self-destruction.

self-depreciation n.
1827 J. C. HARE & A. W. HARE Guesses at Truth (1873) 2nd Ser. 503 Self-depreciation is not humility.

Now the entry for the verb Dickens uses, with the quotations removed except one from Our Mutual Friend :

depreciate, v. Pronunciation: /dɪˈpriːʃɪeɪt/
Forms: Also depretiate.
Etymology: < Latin dēpretiāt- (-ciāt- ), participial stem of dēpretiāre (in medieval Latin commonly spelt dēpreciāre ), < DE- prefix 1a + pretium price. Compare modern French déprécier ( Dict. Acad. 1762).
1.
a. trans. To lower in value, lessen the value of.
b. spec. To lower the price or market value of; to reduce the purchasing power of (money).
2. To lower in estimation; to represent as of less value; to underrate, undervalue, belittle.
1865 DICKENS Our Mutual Friend II. III. ix. 78, I don't like to hear you depreciate yourself.
3. intr. To fall in value, to become of less worth.

In chapter 37 of Dombey and Son, Dickens is using meaning 2.

Finally the entry for the verb we would expect him to use. Note in particular the quotations offered for the "draft additions 1993". I have taken all the entires from the online version of the OED. I assume the additions are not in the print version. Presumably entries 1-5 would have been the "a." since the draft additions are said to be "b. More generally…" I have removed the quotations from the main entry but left those in the appendixes.

deprecate, v.
Pronunciation: /ˈdɛprɪkeɪt/
Etymology: < Latin dēprecāt-, participial stem of dēprecārī to pray (a thing) away, to ward off by praying, pray against, < DE- prefix 1b + precārī to pray.
1. trans. To pray against (evil); to pray for deliverance from; to seek to avert by prayer. arch.
†2. intr. To pray (against). Obs. rare.
3. trans. To plead earnestly against; to express an earnest wish against (a proceeding); to express earnest disapproval of (a course, plan, purpose, etc.).
†4.Etymology: < Latin dēprecāt-, participial stem of dēprecārī to pray (a thing) away, to ward off by praying, pray against, < DE- prefix 1b + precārī to pray.1. trans. To pray against (evil); to pray for deliverance from; to seek to avert by prayer. arch.
†2. intr. To pray (against). Obs. rare.
3. trans. To plead earnestly against; to express an earnest wish against (a proceeding); to express earnest disapproval of (a course, plan, purpose, etc.). †4.a. To make prayer or supplication to, to beseech (a person). Obs.b. absol. To make supplication. Obs.
†5. To call down by prayer, invoke (evil). Obs.

DERIVATIVES

deprecated adj. 1768 C. SHAW Monody vii. 61 Why..strike this deprecated blow? 1839 Times 11 July in Spirit Metrop. Conservative Press (1840) I. 158 To persist in such a deprecated and odious innovation.deprecating n.

DRAFT ADDITIONS 1993

b. More generally, to express disapproval of (a person, quality, etc.); to disparage or belittle. (Sometimes confused with depreciate.) Cf. self- deprecation n. at SELF- prefix 1a. Widely regarded as incorrect, though found in the work of established writers. 1897 Daily News 8 Jan. 6/3 It looks rather an attempt to deprecate distinguished commanders of the Commonwealth to please Restoration Royalists. 1927 V. WOOLF To Lighthouse I. viii. 70 He was disposed to slur that comfort over, to deprecate it. 1960 C. S. LEWIS Stud. in Words i. 18 We tell our pupils that deprecate does not mean depreciate or that immorality does not mean simply lechery because these words are beginning to mean just those things. 1965 M. FRAYN Tin Men xv. 80 Trying to shrink into himself, as if to deprecate..his authority and to become as other men.

 So self-deprecation is "widely regarded as incorrect". It is not surprising that the earliest quotation for self-deprecation is almost a century later than the earliest for self-depreciation. Nowadays self-deprecating (or acting in a self deprecating way) is almost a synonym of modest. In fact it means self-cursing. On the other hand to depreciate means to lower the value of. It is one of the perversities caused by income tax that depreciation of assets is something to be sought.

I haven't read Our Mutual Friend so I do not know the context of the quotation. But James Carker who gives Edith the self-depreciating smile in Dombey and Son is far from being a modest man. He puts on a modest front but is always described by the narrator – who recurs again and again to Carker's teeth – as a shark.

It might be that before it was supplanted by self-deprecation, self-depreciation had more of a sense of hypocrisy. Certainly James Carker is a flatterer and a hypocrite.

Note the quotation from the Hare brothers' Guesses at Truth (ser. stands for series not, as I thought, sermon – both brothers were Anglican clergymen). This is a miscellany of "detacht thoughts", consisting of a series of longer and shorter "Maxims, Aphorisms, Essays, Resolves, Hints, Meditations, Aids to Reflexion, Guesses". Those are both quotations from the opening (not strictly a preface, the work proper begins in a following paragraph), which explicitly connects their work with (inter alia) that of Solomon. It is meant to be like the wisdom literature in the Bible. Its nearest modern analogue might be The Little Book of Calm (et hoc genus omne) which used to occupy the space around cash registers in bookshops, which is now held by great works of literature rewritten as tweets. Anyway the full maxim, printed between two horizontal lines, after and before unrelated matter, reads as follows (on page 295 of the edition at Google books):

Self-depreciation is not humility, though often mistaken for it. Its source is oftener mortified pride.

The quotation from Giddens in the entry on self-deprecation is interesting (saying that there is a "range of possible forms of self-aggression, which extends from … verbal self- deprecation to actual self-destruction"). It represents the philosopher's urge to put everything on a continuum. It is not as though someone modest about his achievements has simply got off the train earlier (so to speak) than the suicide. If I am right about self-depreciation having a sense of hypocrisy (which is certainly not the case with self-deprecation) then perhaps Giddens is accidentally reimporting that sense into the replacement word.

At some point depreciation became a technical term used by accountants and therefore self-depreciation became a nonsense. It might even be an effect of the easier spelling of self-deprecation.

But what would I know? I never took a course on lexicography or linguistic theory.

Mgr Richard Schuler: A chronicle of the reform

I had never heard of him but Mgr Richard Schuler is a big wheel among proponents of a traditional liturgy in the United States. Alexander Sample, the new Archbishop of Portland, specifically mentions him in an interview with the Catholic World Report.

In 1988 he published a long article on the history of the reform of sacred music, especially in the United States. It was reprinted as an appendix to a festschrift published in his honour in 1990: Cum Angelis Canere: Essays on Sacred Music and Pastoral Liturgy in Honour of Richard J. Schuler Robert A. Skeris, ed. A Chronicle of the Reform [pdf] can be found at the website of St Cecilia Schola Cantorum in Auburn, Alabama.

It does not have the satirical verve of Klaus Gamber or László Dobszay (scroll down), but it is a good read.

Page 2: An agreement with the Holy See granting Pustet exclusive rights for the sale of the chant books of the Church delayed the publication of the Solesmes editions which finally were adopted as the official texts and printed as the Vatican Edition in the first decade of the twentieth century.

A similar deal I believe is the reason we were stuck with out of date editions of the Roman Missal in English before the new translation. For all I know yet another stupid deal has been struck regarding the current translation

Page 3: With the introduction of these materials it was hoped that the secular, cheap and sentimental music that was so prevalent in American churches would be eliminated.

"It was hoped" … in 1906. Still waiting!

He discusses the 1958 instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Rites De musica sacra et sacra liturgia, which of course cannot be found on the Vatican website (probably because the SCR no longer exists, its functions being taken up by CDWDS – not that that is a good excuse) but can be found at Adoremus.

Page 10: Use of instruments, questions of radio and television broadcasts [nn.74-79], remuneration of professional musicians [n.102], establishment of schools of music and diocesan commissions are explained.

The foolish refusal to compensate expensively trained musicians properly (in the way that electricians, plumbers, builders ect all get paid) is in fact against Church law.

Page 16 n.4: A meeting was sponsored in Kansas City, Missouri, November 29 to December, 1966, by the American Liturgical Conference. Opposition to the sixth chapter of the constitution on the sacred liturgy was voiced by Archabbot Weakland who said that “false liturgical orientation gave birth to what we call the treasury of sacred music, and false judgments perpetuated it.” Those “false judgments” seem to have been made by the fathers of the council who ordered that the treasury of sacred music be preserved and fostered. At the same meeting, Theodore Marier, president of the Church Music Association of America, was unable to get an indication from the assembled liturgists that they accepted the constitution, including the sixth chapter.

(My emphasis). Chapter VI of Sacrosanctum Concilium (nn.112-121) covers sacred music.

He is not a fan of the Graduale Simplex:

Page 27: An effort to introduce a simpler chant for the Mass produced a Graduale simplex, which was a failure from the beginning. It neither pleased the progressive liturgists who wanted only the vernacular, nor the musicians who pointed out that it was a mutilation of Gregorian chant as well as a misunderstanding of the relationship between text and musical setting with reference to form. They objected to the use of antiphon melodies from the office as settings for texts of the Mass. An effort at an English vernacular version proved to be even a greater disaster.