Monsignor Bernard J. Moran

Dear DSPT community:

I wish to announce the death of Monsignor Bernard J. Moran in Oakland, April 21, 2006. Your prayers are requested for the repose of his soul and for the intentions of his family.

Monsignor Moran was not only a friend of the Dominicans during his long service in the Diocese of Oakland but, because of that great service to the church in Oakland, he was also honored by the Dominican School as an Alemany Award recipient for his many years of Catholic service.

Monsignor was a priest for 53 years having been ordained in San Francisco January 24, 1953. His assignments included: St. Anne Church in SF; St. Paschal Church and St. Isadore Church in Oakland; St. Joseph the Worker Church in Berkeley; St. Raymond in Dublin and St. Theresa in Oakland. Monsignor also served as director of Catholic Cemeteries for the Diocese of Oakland.

In addition to their request for prayers from the DSPT community, Monsignor's family invite you to visit at St. Theresa Church, 30 Mandalay Rd, Oakland on Wednesday (today) after 2:30 PM, where the Vigil Service will be at 7:00 PM (tonight). All are also invited to the concelebrated Funeral Mass on Thursday, April 27th, at 10:30AM (also at St. Theresa's), followed by a reception in the parish hall, and then committal in St. Mary's Cemetery.

Scott Connolly

Vice President of Administration and Student Services

An Assessment of the “Gospel of Judas”

by Fr. Gregory Tatum, OP (Assistant Professor of New Testament)

The Press has raised a great hue and cry about the newly discovered “Gospel of Judas.” There is talk of the Church conspiring to hide the truth. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Gospel of Judas was written by a tiny fringe group of Gnostics in the second century who rejected the God of Jews and Christians. Gnosticism was a religious movement that thrived in the second and third centuries. It set itself apart from the traditional religions of the Roman Empire as well as from Judaism and Christianity by proposing a secret knowledge (in Greek, gnosis,) which was available only to an elite few. They generally believed that the physical world and particularly the human body were evil, created by a rebellious minor aeon, or divine being. Seeing the popularity of Christianity, many Gnostics associated this evil creator with the God of Jews and Christians. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church taught that the physical world and the human body are good, because created by the good and only God, and that the human body is especially holy because God became a human being in Jesus Christ.

Irenaeus of Lyons (circa CE 180) mentions the “Gospel of Judas” when he finishes his tour of contemporary Gnosticism in his book Against Heresies. Irenaeus’ analysis of Gnosticism has been borne out by the truly significant discovery of the Nag Hammadi library. After surveying the larger groups of Gnostics, Irenaeus mentions a tiny fringe group who venerate Cain and other “bad guys” in the Jewish Scriptures because they would not worship what they considered to be the minor god who created the evil physical universe. Irenaeus writes:

Still others say that Cain came from the Absolute Sovereignty above, and Esau, Korah, and the men of Sodom, along with every person of this sort, have the same origin. They were hated by the Creator because though attacked they suffered no harm, for Sophia took to herself what was her own in them. The traitor Judas was the only one of the apostles who possessed this knowledge (cf. John 13:27). For this reason he brought about the mystery of the betrayal; through him all things on earth and in heaven were destroyed. They provide a work to this effect called the “Gospel of Judas.” (Against Heresies, 1.31.1)

The “Gospel of Judas” was thus written by a group of second century Gnostics who rejected the Creator God. This group attempted to co-opt Jesus away from the Catholic Church for Gnosticism. Jesus is portrayed teaching typically Gnostic doctrines, e.g. the imprisonment of the soul in the flesh, the multiplicity of divine aeons, the creation of the world as an act of rebellion by a lesser aeon (namely, the God of Jews and Christians). Judas is portrayed as the true Gnostic who liberates Jesus from his physical body and who is rejected by the Catholic Church, represented by the Twelve Apostles, who worship “their God,” the rebellious aeon who created the evil, physical cosmos. The anti-Christian character of the “Gospel of Judas” is further shown by its portrayal of Jesus as mocking the Eucharist and vilifying the Church’s ministry. What little Christian veneer the “Gospel of Judas” has is taken from the four canonical Gospels, albeit in garbled Gnostic form. Irenaeus of Lyons quite accurately describes the “Gospel of Judas.” It was neither secret nor hidden; it simply did not excite sufficient interest to be copied very often because it was written by a tiny fringe group.

An English translation of this work is available in PDF format on the National Geographic website. The website also provides a history of the badly damaged third century manuscript that can be identified as a Coptic translation of the second century Greek “Gospel of Judas” mentioned by Irenaeus. The talk of the Church conspiring to hide the truth is nonsense. The Catholic Church has played no role at all in the entire affair. Indeed, the manuscript was lost and hidden and is so badly damaged because of the greediness of antiquity dealers. The Church has played no role other than to authenticate the document by the public description in Irenaeus’ work.

I invite anyone who is interested to read the document itself before reading the historically uninformed sensationalism of journalists. Then one can clearly see that the “Gospel of Judas” cannot stand up as a Gospel in comparison with any one of the canonical four. The “Gospel of Judas” was clearly derived from and written in relation to existing Christian traditions about Jesus; and the canonical Gospels’ portraits of Jesus simply could not have developed from the portrait of Jesus in the “Gospel of Judas.” The document illustrates second and third century Gnosticism, but it has nothing to do with the historical Jesus.

Fr. Gregory writes from the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem, where he has spent the last semester doing research. He will teach the Johannine corpus and the Pauline corpus in the fall.

Discover Tenebrae this Holy Week!

by Boniface Willard, OP (originally printed in the Arch & Vine)

Tenebrae will be celebrated at St. Albert’s Priory the mornings of the Triduum at 7:00am. All are invited to join the Dominicans in this prayer.

From the Latin word for “darkness,” Tenebrae is the term given to the liturgical office of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday as it was observed prior to the 1955 reform of Holy Week by Pope Pius XII. Dominicans have continued to pray Tenebrae each year as a particular tradition of our Order.

Tenebrae has roots as early as the 7th century, when those celebrating the Office would do so in almost complete darkness – the only light coming from a large candelabra, called a hearse. While the number of candles on the hearse has varied, today there are usually fifteen tapers.

Although there have been many changes, the contemporary Office of Tenebrae retains many traces of the ancient rite. There is no introductory verse or Invitatory, and the “Glory to…” after each psalm and canticle is omitted. After each psalm or canticle, a set of candles is extinguished – symbolizing the Apostles’ desertion in the Garden of Olives – until there is only one left, the so-called Christ candle. During the singing of the Benedictus, this candle is not extinguished but is carried out of the Church, symbolizing Christ’s death and burial.

The psalms are punctuated by three lessons taken from the Book of Lamentations: a collection of poems which grieve over the Babylonian destruction, in 587 BC, of the temple in Jerusalem and the ruin of the people of Israel. By describing the horrible situation which they now endure, the poems exhort the Israelites to mourn for having turned away from God to worship foreign, pagan gods. Each stanza begins with a Hebrew letter. When the Hebrew alphabet is used this way, it is able to express completeness or fullness; here, the complete and full desolation of Israel. The great “Prayer of Jeremiah,” which ends Tenebrae on Saturday, is a plea to God to relent in punishment and rescue the people, despite what they have done.

One cannot take part in these prayers without being impressed by their simple dignity and majesty. Today, we can make these psalms and lamentations our own. As we pray them, we can seek pardon for our sins, as well as the sins of the whole world. We can reflect on any of the ways in which we have turned away from being “the image and likeness of God.

Welcoming the Apostolic Visitation Team

by Christopher Renz, OP (originally printed in the Arch & Vine)

Many of you are already aware that the Roman curia is conducting formal visitations this year of seminaries and houses of religious formation in the U.S. So, we thought a few particulars would be helpful to bring you up to date on what’s happening here at the DSPT.

The visitation is scheduled for April 23-28, 2006. Headed by Bishop Walter Edyvean, auxiliary bishop of Boston, each of six priests will conduct twenty-minute, one-on-one interviews with all regular faculty and clerical candidates.

In addition to visiting the DSPT, the team will also visit the FST, St. Albert Priory, Don Bosco Hall (and the Institute of Salesian Studies), the Dominican Missionaries for the Deaf (San Francisco), Holy Family Friary (Castro Valley), and St. Elizabeth Friary (Oakland).

The substance for the interview is taken from the published Instrumentum Laboris, a series of questions which focus on various aspects of priestly formation, but particularly on intellectual formation, especially in the field of moral theology. While no formal preparation for the interview is needed, interested folk may wish to review the Instrumentum (available online at the Vatican website).

Faculty and involved students will be asked to sign up for a meeting time, and will be given instructions about the meeting place. Those not directly involved in the interview process can participate through prayer, and the offer of welcome to the team members.

Please feel free to send me any questions you may have at crenz@dspt.edu. For more information on the apostolic visitation see www.usccb.org/vocations/asv.shtml.