Latin Mass to be offered to mark reinterment of Richard III

(Catholic Herald)  A Requiem Mass in the traditional Latin form is to be offered at a Catholic church in Lancashire to mark the reinterment of King Richard III, which will take place on the same day at Leicester’s Anglican cathedral.

The mortal remains of Richard III, who died in the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, before the Reformation, will be reinterred in the cathedral on March 26, in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury and an invited congregation.

The Requiem Mass for the repose of Richard III’s soul will be held on the same day St Catherine’s Church, in Leyland, Lancashire, at 7.30pm. It will be a Sung High Latin Mass with singers from the Laeta Cantoribus Choir, “in the style and manner of (Richard III’s) day”.

“The idea is that it will be closer to what he might have experienced in his own lifetime, as a pre-reformation Catholic,” said parish priest Fr Simon Henry.

After the service, refreshments will be served, also in keeping with what King Richard might have expected in his lifetime.

“The food afterwards will make at least a nod in the direction of the 15th century, or at least to his Yorkshire connections,” said Fr Henry. “Though wild boar sausages are a little difficult to come by!”
The skeleton of Richard III was found under a car park in Leicester in 2012. In the days before the reinterment service at Leicester Cathedral, the coffin will be taken to Leicester University and Bosworth Field, where the king was was killed in battle.

Following the Leicester Cathedral service, Richard III’s body will lie “in repose” for three days before being reinterred.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster will be part of the week-long run of events to mark the reinterment.

The cardinal will preach at a service of compline on the day the king’s remains are received into the cathedral and will celebrate a Requiem Mass the next day at a nearby Catholic parish.
Dominican friars will also sing vespers at the cathedral in the run-up to the reinterment and Fr David Rocks OP, parish priest, will preach at a lunchtime Eucharist.

Link:

• Latin Mass to be offered to mark reinterment of Richard III

Aliens

From Ann Barnhardt:

"May I be permitted to make a Xenomorph analogy?  It’s like Aliens.  The Latin Mass people are like the Colonial Marines.  We certainly have the tools, but there is definitely a lack of… discipline.  And cohesion.

(As an aside, yes, absolutely, I wanna be Vasquez.  Not Ripley.  VASQUEZ.  One of the great movie lines of all time…"

Read More

Link:

• Wild Turkey and Sprite.

Reforming the Irreformable?

By Fr. Thomas Kocik 

New Liturgical Movement

IT COULD BE evidence of exemplary patience on the part of NLM editor Jeffrey Tucker that I am still counted among the contributors to this blog. More than two years have passed since I posted anything relative to the ‘reform of the reform’. Although I consider myself a capable writer, I am not a fast one, which impairment makes the demands of parish ministry even less favorable to the task of unpacking my liturgical ruminations for those who might care to know them. But that only partly explains the hiatus.

I have the impression that whatever can be said in general terms about the ‘reform of the reform’—its origin and aims, its scope and methodology, the various proposals advanced in its interest (if not in its name), its proponents and critics—has pretty much already been said.¹ Although the movement is difficult to define (Is it synonymous with the ‘new liturgical movement’ or but one stage of it?),² its overall aim was nicely summed a few years ago by the Ceylonese prelate who stated that the time has come when we must “identify and correct the erroneous orientations and decisions made, appreciate the liturgical tradition of the past courageously, and ensure that the Church is made to rediscover the true roots of its spiritual wealth and grandeur even if that means reforming the reform itself…”³

Long before Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, he was critically evaluating the reform of the liturgy following the Second Vatican Council, identifying those aspects of the reform which have little or no justification in the Council’s liturgical Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC) and which undermine the true spirit of the liturgy.⁴  As pope it was in his power to remedy the deficiencies—the “erroneous orientations and decisions”—of the reform on a universal scale not only by his teaching and personal liturgical example but also by legislation. He accentuated the liturgy’s beauty, promoted the liturgical and musical treasures of the Western Church (including of course the usus antiquior of the Roman rite), and introduced more tangible continuity with tradition in the manner of papal celebrations (e.g., the ‘Benedictine’ altar arrangement, offering Mass ad orientem in the Sistine and other papal chapels, administering Holy Communion to the faithful on their tongues as they knelt). His successor, Pope Francis, is a different man with a different personality and style, and his priorities clearly lie with other aspects of the Church’s life. I am not holding my breath in anticipation of further official progress along the lines marked out by Pope Benedict, who has deservedly been dubbed the “Father of the new liturgical movement.”⁵

But let us suppose, practically speaking and perhaps per impossibile, that the ‘reform of the reform’ were to receive substantive institutional support. Even so, I doubt the endeavor would be feasible—if we take that term to mean the reform of the present order of liturgy so as to bring it substantially back into line with the slowly developed tradition it widely displaced. It is not sour grapes about last year’s papal abdication that prompts my saying so. Like any movement, the ‘reform of the reform’ stands or falls on its own principles, not on any one pope or partisan. No: the ‘reform of the reform’ is not realizable because the material discontinuity between the two forms of the Roman rite presently in use is much broader and much deeper than I had first imagined. In the decade that has elapsed since the publication of my book, The Reform of the Reform? A Liturgical Debate (Ignatius Press, 2003), which concerns almost exclusively the rite of Mass, a number of important scholarly studies, most notably those of László Dobszay (†2011)⁶ and Lauren Pristas,⁷ have opened my eyes to the hack-job inflicted by Pope Paul VI’s Consilium on the whole liturgical edifice of the Latin Church: the Mass; the Divine Office; the rites of the sacraments, sacramentals, blessings and other services of the Roman Ritual; and so forth.⁸ Whatever else might be said of the reformed liturgy—its pastoral benefits, its legitimacy, its rootedness in theological ressourcement, its hegemonic status, etc.—the fact remains: it does not represent an organic development of the liturgy which Vatican II (and, four centuries earlier, the Council of Trent) inherited... (continued)

Read More at New Liturgical Movement

Link:

• Reforming the Irreformable?

Father Z: I am thinking about those red shoes

By Father John Zuhlsdorf

I am thinking about the infamous red shoes.  I am thinking about the non-wearing of the mozzetta.  I am thinking about the growing juxtaposition in some conversations of simple liturgy versus lofty liturgy.

Some people are saying, “O how wonderful it is to get rid of all the symbols of office and power and be humble like the poor.”

When I first learned to say the older form of the Mass of the Roman Rite, that is to say, when I first learned how to say Mass, because there has never been a single of day of my priesthood when I couldn’t say it, I admit that I was deeply uncomfortable with some of the gestures prescribed by the rubrics.  I even resisted them.  For example, the kissing of the objects to be given to the priest, and the priest and the kissing of the priest’s hands… that gave me the willies.

I resisted those solita oscula because I had fallen into the trap of thinking that they made me look too important.

The fact is that none of those gestures were about me at all.  They are about the priest insofar as he is alter Christus, not insofar as he is “John”.  For “John” all of that would be ridiculous.  For Father, alter Christus, saying Mass, it is barely enough.

When you see the deacon and subdeacon in the older form of Holy Mass holding, for example, the edges of the priest’s cope when they are in procession, or when you see them kissing the priest’s hand, or bowing to him, or waiting on him or deferring to him or – what in non-Catholic eyes appears to be something like adoration or emperor worship – you are actually seeing them preparing the priest for his sacrificial slaughter on the altar of Golgotha.

It is the most natural thing in the human experience to treat with loving reverence the sacrifice to be offered to God.  The sacrificial lambs were pampered and given the very best care, right up to the moment when the knife sliced their necks.

The Catholic priest is simultaneously the victim offered on the altar.  All the older, traditional ceremonies of the Roman Rite underscore this foundational dimension of the Mass. If we don’t see that relationship of priest, altar, and victim in every Holy Mass, then the way Mass has been celebrated has failed.  If we don’t look for that relationship, then we are not really Catholic.  Mass is Calvary... (continued)

Read More at What Does the Prayer Really Say?

Link:

• I am thinking about those red shoes.

Video Special Report : Benedict XVI Resigns

"Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves." - Pope Benedict XVI

Related:

• Pope Benedict XVI to resign at the end of February

Another Manifesto on Communion in the Hand

From Carol at The Tenth Crusade:

This article, written by David Gray, rebuts an apparent attempt by Voris to promote the reception of Eucharist by tongue.

Boy, the claws really come out when a Catholic tries to spread a deeper respect for the Eucharist.

The discussion always takes on a preternatural quality...as if the demons are summoned from every corner of the earth.  It never fails to get creepy and weird.  And, from sources that can surprise you.

David (on Facebook) said while he appreciates people who promote reception of the Eucharist by mouth, he's sick and tired of it because it makes people who receive by hand feel demonized.

I'll bet you know what Carol has to say about the people who feel demonized when they are reminded that their manhandling of the Eucharist is leaving particles of the Divinity of Christ on the floor, onto shoes, where He is carried out into dog poo?

Cry me a river.

David claims it is not about whether Christ is dropped onto the floor, but rather, it is about how holy the people feel about themselves as they paw the Eucharist.  It is about the reverence as you do it, he says.

I'm not sure how much success I had explaining to him that the feelings of the Deity involved in the interaction are excluded from his hypothesis, but I offered to God a valiant effort.

I learned a lot of things from a Fr. John Higgins I'm willing to bet you never heard before.

He first tried to tell me that the Church teaches that the Divinity of Christ is not in the substance of particles that fall from the Eucharist.  Only a whole piece of bread has the substance of Christ's Divinity.  The rest is dust.   Worthless dust.   He told me folks like us who believe that the Divinity of Christ is in pieces that break off of the Eucharist are like the people who worry about the fumes of the 'wine'.

He switched up the story a bit when he realized he wasn't talking to your average Catholic idiot when I asked him why, if the Church taught that Christ's Divinity was not in particles broken off of the Host, why then would they provide a Corporal and other linens which are, according to protocol, handled as if they carried particles of Christ's Divinity?   He said the Church teaches the Divinity of Christ is only in particles broken by the priest but not in particles that break off in the Communion lines.

When I asked him why the Romans would then use a paten for the distribution of the Eucharist which is only permitted by mouth, he got the big violins out.     Poor Fr. Higgins, the victim of a modernist vicious woman who simply will not listen to her superior.    He and all the Bishops and the Pope touch the Eucharist with their hands and receive standing up.   Why, Pope John Paul even gave him the Eucharist in his hands.   The paten is just for people who receive on the tongue because they are irreverent, fumble and drop the Eucharist.

He and others in the thread divulged several more of their screwball ideas, but you get the gist.

A number of pathetic sappy sorts with misplaced empathy chimed in.  Poor Fr. Higgins.  Stupid, insane woman with a filthy mouth that is a source of sin.  Blasphemer.  Shame on me for being disrespectful to Fr. Higgings (crumpled in the corner with his wounded self-esteem).   I am a modernist.  Others claimed I was a RadTrad (the use of which I explained is a perverse insult to the communion of the faithful who practice a Rite approved by the Church).  A heretic.  I need a team of psychiatrists and an exorcist.

The poor, poor lambs.

I was on my best behavior until Fr. Higgins chimed in again with more news.  The Altar rail is/was only for keeping wild animals out of the Sanctuary.   Whilst I did have the fortitude not to say what I wanted to say, i.e., it is a crying shame they don't have a gate like that at the seminary admissions office - it got a bit ugly... (continued)

Read More at The Tenth Crusade

Link:

• Another Manifesto on Reception by Hand
• New (12/30/12): Receiving Holy Communion by hand & YOUR "Reverence". Hello self-absorption.  

Related:

• Communion in the Hand
• Catholics in Blogosphere Talking about Communion in the Hand
• Calgary Bishop Suspends TLM

Trendy Catholics

"The clock is ticking on the Church of Nice. It won't be long now."

Link:

• ChurchMilitant.TV
• ChurchMilitant.TV on Facebook

Priest: "I want to start a Catholic Church television station that has the Latin Mass every day."

From Shawn Tribe:

Here is an interesting story I picked up on from a private mailing list I on:

RIPON — After a decade of shepherding the faithful at St. Patrick’s Parish in Ripon, Father Peter Carota is moving on to the next chapter of his spiritual service to the Lord.

That next chapter is a yearlong sabbatical. His last official day as pastor of the parish is Tuesday, Nov. 13.

[...]

Father Carota is planning to pursue a dream that he has nurtured for a long time.

“I want to start a Catholic Church television station that has the Latin Mass every day. That’s my dream,” he said.

Like the early pioneers who came west in search of their dream – “we don’t know where we’re going but we’re on our way,” was their common refrain – Father Carota is on his way to fulfill his dream although, he admits, “I don’t know how that’s going to happen...”  (continued)

Read More at The New Liturgical Movement

Link:

• Priest Takes Sabbatical to Promote Usus Antiquior

Bishop Anthony Taylor's Claims About the Pre-Vatican II Church not Being "What Jesus Taught" - Michael Voris Responds

By Michael Voris

Hello everyone and welcome to The Vortex where lies and falsehoods are trapped and exposed. I’m Michael Voris.

With this week’s onset of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council.. many Catholics around the world have been holding their breaths.. fearing that a round of tradition bashing would be unleashed.

It appears that has begun. The lead-off hitter appears to be Little Rock Arkansas Bishop Anthony Taylor.

He has just released an audio version of his take on Vatican II. We have attached a link for you to hear.. if you can stomach it.

Now let’s be clear right from the outset.. this is not a challenge to the bishop’s authority or anything of the kind.

Bishop Anthony Taylor

But it is a focus on a mindset that has permeated much of the Church in the west.. including many bishops.. and consequently their priests and seminary rectors and staffs at the chancery and so forth. This mindset is so pervasive.. that many may not even realize that it is the very air they breath.

It is the mindset that most of what went on before the Second Vatican Council was bad or insufficient or deficient or somehow not correct and that practically everything that happened after the council was good and better and some coming of age fulfillment of a “BETTER” church.

So with that in mind.. we are exploring Bishop Taylor’s assessment of the Church before Vatican II and after.

It begins about 4 minutes in on his audio. His point of reference is his own childhood memories of how terrible things were then and how blessedly blissful they are now.

"I was in 8th grade when Mass began to be celebrated in English.  I had been an altar boy in Latin since 4th grade.  So I remember vividly the before, during and after of Vatican II." - Bishop Anthony Taylor

If that is his base of authority on which to speak.. that he lived before during and after the Council.. then we think that His Excellency needs to be reminded that there are MANY MANY people who have the same base of lived experience who would disagree full throatedly with his points and conclusions.

First.. he has a self-admittedly four year experience with the Pre-Vatican II days.. from when he was 10-14 years old.. not a particularly mature platform that.. your middle school years.. to be making vast sweeping judgments about the world.

He first mentions a “ghetto” experience of the Church.

"It's really hard for young people today to have any concept of the ghetto mentality that pervaded the Church 50 years ago." - Bishop Anthony Taylor

Really? A Catholic GHETTO?

Let’s look at those pre-council days and consider the utter absurdity of that observation.

Does anyone remember Bishop Sheen? NATIONAL television figure?

And how about Loretta Young who, on her NATIONAL television series over several years, played Sister Ann, head of nursing at a Catholic hospital who was seen IN FOUR EPISODES making visits to the Blessed Sacrament, blessing herself with holy water, blatantly showing her trust in God etc.

And there was the series special "Road to Lourdes" about, well, Lourdes. And speaking of Lourdes.. how about the 1943 FOUR time Oscar winning movie The Song of Bernadette?

And what about "Dial O for O'Malley," Bing Crosby in "Going My Way" and "The Bells of St. Mary's" who, while obviously an idealized portrayal of a Catholic priest, was close enough to NORMAL experience of Catholic priests that he could inspire you rather than make you laugh at the absurdity of the idealization.

And how about Pat O'Brien and Spencer Tracy as Fr. Duffy and Fr. Flanagan respectively with Tracy taking home the best acting Oscar.

The Amazing thing about this supposed Catholic Ghetto was its ability to inspire a PROTESTANT.. quite often anti-Catholic culture to accept its message. This “Catholic ghetto” inspired a world with its proclamation of its ideals.

Catholics of the day had no shared anything to speak of except their faith. We didn’t dress alike .. have the same ethnic backgrounds.. eat the same foods.. do the same work.. live in the same places.

Heck.. in many cases.. depending on the ethnic background the original different groups of immigrants .. we didn’t even have the same devotions. Of course there were shared experiences.. but those experiences were rooted in the faith .. our beliefs .. what is called our Catholic identity.

Incidentally.. it is that same Catholic identity that many bishops in the US has stated quite openly we need to discover again. How prey tell can we re-discover and live our Catholic identity without fear of returning to the ghetto? There appear to be contradictions even among the bishops on this point.

His Excellency seems to have bought into a revisionist history of a time largely before he was born.

Now here was another humdinger.. that Catholics were discouraged from reading the bible for fear of misinterpreting it.

"I remember well what it was like to be discouraged from reading the bible out of fear of misinterpreting it..." - Bishop Anthony Taylor

Well, given the MASSIVE misinterpretations that have resulted from individual reading of Sacred Scripture all the way back to Martin Luther and the 500 years since, it seems that' s a pretty legitimate concern.

And those misinterpretations have resulted in a world full of woe.

Even today.. all over the western world.. Catholics gather for “Bible Studies” that are nothing more than “tell me how that passage makes you FEEL sessions.” That’s not bible study and it most certainly is not learning about the scriptures with the mind and heart of the Church.

That Catholics don’t KNOW the Bible is a Protestant canard. Sure many may not know book.. chapter and verse .. as if that’s really all that important anyway.. but faithful Catholics absolutely do know those scriptural truths.. whether they could cite the book or not.

Then he goes on to say how Catholics were discouraged from interacting with Protestants in formal worship settings.

"...and to be forbidden to attend practically anything except funerals in a non-Catholic church out of fear of contagion." - Bishop Anthony Taylor

Yep. From the point of view of our eternal lives.. what is to be gained from formally associating with people who subscribe to a heresy.

That isn’t to say shun them and be rude to them and un-Christian and uncharitable and don't invite them to barbeques. But it is to say that to mingle truth with heresy in a form that appears to be condoning of error will bode nothing but bad.

“Sharing” our faith traditions with each other gives the impression that all of them are equally valid.. and they are not.

Unless your goal is to evangelize and convert them.. what’s the point. It’s like dating a girl you aren’t gonna marry. Sure you might have some laughs or fun times along the way.. but in the end.. what’s the point? The Catholic life has a very definite end.. and it is salvation and bringing others to it.

His Excellency.. in a not so veiled slam.. implies that all that went before Vatican II was not really what Jesus taught.

"The Council Fathers realized that this is not what Jesus taught, and that it was time for us to lay aside our fear of the outside world." - Bishop Anthony Taylor

THANK GOD for 1962 when the Church FINALLY came into existence. Most of those previous 1900 years were not REALLY what Jesus taught.

In a broad and dismissive statement.. totally unbecoming of his role as a successor of the Apostles.. he says that today’s young people who are – notice the language here – GRIPPED – by a nostalgia for a time they never knew.. they just don’t realize what “those” days were really like.

"Many of those, who today seem so gripped with nostalgia for the time before Vatican II, have no actual lived experience of what those days were really like." - Bishop Anthony Taylor

Yep Your Excellency.. it must have been horrible to have packed churches.. vocations by the millions.. faithful catechism being taught in a thriving Catholic school system.. two hour long lines for confession.. Catholics attending Mass.. believing in sin.. believing in Hell.. not shacking up.. not aborting their children.. not using birth control.. not supporting same-sex marriage.. not divorcing and re-marrying like the rest of the world.. actually believing that Jesus was present in the Eucharist.. having their children baptized into families that actually believed and understood what that baptism meant.. honoring the Mother of God .. and on and on.

Oh the horror of what the Church must have been like in “those days”.

Imagine.. balanced books in parishes .. Catholic educational institutions popping up everywhere.. converts coming to the Faith by the hundreds of thousands.. award winning movies.. number-one ranked TV programs.. best-selling books.. so many vocations that we could actually export religious to the missions.. instead of now importing priests to shrinking parishes.

Bishop Taylor goes on to say more and imply even much more in the next section of his audio and we are going to pick up with that tomorrow.

And it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he takes direct aim at the Traditional Latin Mass.. a Mass he comes close to portraying as a kind of meaningless waste of time for the laity that had no real connection to anything.

Excuse me Your Excellency.. but that MASS was what brought my father into the Faith in the late 1950’s.. a Faith that he passed on to me. And his experience was certainly not singular.. millions of people came into the Church because of the solemnity and mystery of that Mass.. unlike the abuse ridden current Mass .. which while absolutely valid.. has resulted in a near collapse of the Faith in the west.

That’s why the Pope and many others in the Church are taking a long hard look at what’s gone wrong and trying in fits and starts to fix it. It’s why we have a new translation for Mass each Sunday.. to be faithful to the original Latin.

To paint pre-Vatican II types as either nostalgic children too stupid to understand what things were “really” like.. as if YOU or others are the sole expert.. or a bunch of old doddering dementia victims is an approach that should elicit an apology.

The Church before Vatican II knew who she was.. she produced countless saints and the greatest minds the world has ever known.. brought untold millions of converts to the Church established by Our Blessed Lord as his ONLY one true Church.

What do we have now? Look around Your Excellency, look around. A near bankrupt bureaucracy that needs to run one fundraising campaign after another to fleece the flock to make up for billions paid out in legal costs for homosexual predator priests.. and shrinking congregations.. nuns who hop on a bus and travel the nation’s highways whipping up support for a child murdering president.. 2000 parishes closed in twenty years.

With all due respect Your Excellency.. you need to drop the revisionist history and get out more. More on this tomorrow.

GOD Love you,

I’m Michael Voris 

Links:

• ChurchMilitant.TV
• Bishop Anthony Taylor's Take on Vatican II (.mp3)  

Related:

• Vatican II Turns Fifty – Part I: Catholic in an Age of Discontent
• Cardinal Schonborn Cuts 75% of Parishes  

Archbishop Müller on the SSPX and His Controversial Writings

By EDWARD PENTIN  

(National Catholic Register)  In the second part of this interview with Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller (Part 1 can be read here), the new CDF prefect discusses the latest on efforts to bring the Society of St. Pius X back into full communion with the Church, the current situation regarding the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and responds to what some saw as controversies over some of his previous writings on the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and on the Eucharist.

What stage have we reached in the dialogue between the Vatican and the Society of St. Pius X?

I wouldn’t call it a dialogue between two Church partners. This was a brotherly colloquium to overcome difficulties with an authentic interpretation of Catholic doctrine. This authentic interpretation is guaranteed by the Pope. The SSPX must accept the Holy Father, the Pope, as the visible head of the Church. They have a great respect for Tradition. They must, therefore, accept the position of the Pope as stated in the First Vatican Council. They must also accept the doctrinal pronouncements made since the Second Vatican Council, which have been authorized officially by the Pope.

Part of the problem is that, after 30 or more years of separation from the Church, some groups or persons can be very closed in their own dynamic, in their own groups, and very fixed on these points. I believe that these questions will be resolved in the long term.

Is it possible for reconciliation with Bishop Richard Williamson within the society?

Williamson is a separate problem to this reconciliation process. It is simply unacceptable that a Christian or even  more a bishop — of course he is not a Catholic bishop, as a bishop is only Catholic when he is in full communion with the Pope, the Successor of Peter, which Williamson is not — denies all that the Nazis had done against the Jewish people, their exterminations. How is it possible to be so cold-hearted about this? It is absolutely unacceptable, but this is a separate problem.

They [SSPX] need to accept the complete doctrine of the Catholic Church: the confession of faith, the Creed, and also accept the magisterium of the Pope as it is authentically interpreted. That is necessary. They also need to accept some forms of development in the liturgy. The Holy Father recognized the perennial validity of the extraordinary form of the liturgy, but they also must accept that the new ordinary form of the liturgy, developed after the Council, is valid and legitimate.

Some argue the Second Vatican Council was merely pastoral and, therefore, not binding. How do you respond to this?

The problem here is the interpretation of the word “pastoral.” All councils are pastoral, in that they are concerned with the work of the Church — but this does not mean that they are merely “poetic” and therefore not binding. Vatican II is an official ecumenical council, and all that was said in the Council is therefore binding for everyone, but at different levels. We have dogmatic constitutions, and you are certainly obliged to accept them if you are Catholic. Dei Verbum discusses divine Revelation; it speaks about the Trinitarian God revealing himself and about the Incarnation as fundamental teaching. These are not only pastoral teachings — they are basic elements of our Catholic faith.

Some practical elements contained in the various documents could be changed, but the body of the doctrine of the Council is binding for everyone.

In view of all this, are you nevertheless confident and optimistic there will be reconciliation with the Society of St. Pius X?

I’m always confident in our faith and optimistic. We have to pray for goodwill and for unity in the Church. The SSPX is not the only breakaway group in the Church. There are worse ones on the opposite side, too. These movements are worse because they are often denying essentials of Christianity. We must work for unity, and so it is also my task to invite all to come back into full communion with the Catholic Church, which is led by the supreme shepherd, the pope — who is the Vicar of Christ.

If they do come back, what positive aspects could they bring to the Church?

They could underline what Tradition is, but they also must become broader in their perspective, because the apostolic Tradition of the Church is not only about a few elements. The Tradition of the Church is large and wide. On the other hand, there must also be a renewal in the celebration of the liturgy, because we have had a lot of abuses of the liturgy, which have damaged the faith of many people.

Could they perhaps help correct some of the abuses?

That is not their task, but ours. One extreme cannot be the equivalent of the other. The extremes must be corrected by the center...  (continued)

Read More Here

Bishop Fellay’s “Conditions”

While the Holy See waits for a response from the Lefebvrians, it is prepared to discuss pastoral and disciplinary questions but not doctrinal ones

Andrea Tornielli

(La Stampa / Vatican Insider) The letter which the Superior of the Society of St. Pius X, Bishop Bernard Fellay, sent in response to the doctrinal preamble presented to him in the Vatican last 13 June, has not yet reached Rome. “The ball is clearly in the Fraternity’s court,” Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi had said this after the meeting. Everyone was aware that it was unlikely a response would have been sent before the Lefebvrian General Chapter held at the beginning of July. And even though over three months have gone by since the doctrinal document was handed to the Fraternity, the Holy See seems to be in no rush at all.
 
Following the meeting on 13 June, the Pope chose a new leader for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” (the Vatican body responsible for dialogue with the Society of St. Pius X): Archbishop Ludwig Müller replaced resigning cardinal William Levada as Prefect, while Archbishop Joseph Augustine Di Noia was appointed Vice-President of the “Ecclesia Dei” Commission. So the figures Fellay will be exchanging views with will not be the same as those he met with three months ago.
 
The Holy See is well aware of how delicate the situation within the Society of St. Pius X is: it knows about the group that opposes an agreement with Rome, just as it knows about the (not so small) group of priests that does not want to suffer the consequences of the extreme choices of some. There is disquiet in some Lefebvrian districts in Latin America and Bishop Richard Williamson who is awaiting sentence is already on a collision course with Fellay. It is highly unlikely the Vatican will ask the Society of St. Pius X for a response to the preamble before October.
 
Readers may recall that last June, Fellay received a draft proposal for the canonical normalisation in the relationship of the Society of St. Pius X and the Holy See, by making the Fraternity a personal prelature. He received this in addition to the doctrinal preamble prepared by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by the Pope, containing some modifications proposed by the Lefebvrian Superior himself, some of which he did not fully agree with.
 
Vatican Insider has learnt that Fellay’s much anticipated response should still be interlocutory and contain certain conditions. If these involve requests that are to do with pastoral matters or discipline, the Holy See is willing to take these into consideration. Some conditions were discussed following the July chapter. The first three were considered “absolute” and were to do with the “freedom to correct the promoters of the errors or the innovations of modernism, liberalism, and Vatican II and its aftermath.” The second condition involved the “exclusive use of the Liturgy of 1962,” whilst the third requires “the guarantee of at least one bishop.” Other less binding conditions included the possibility of having a separate ecclesiastical court of the first instance and the exemption of the houses of the Society of St. Pius X from the diocesan bishops.
 
Agreement can be reached on most points and the Holy See is prepared to discuss these and incorporate changes in the draft about the future canonical normalisation of the Society of St. Pius X. What are not subject to discussion are the doctrinal issues outlined in the preamble. Lefebvrians are required to accept the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. Therefore, although they will be allowed to celebrate mass using the old Missal (an extraordinary form of the Roman Rite), they will still have to recognise that the ordinary form was introduced as a result of the post-Conciliar reform, whose validity and lawfulness is unquestionable.

Link:

• Fellay’s “Conditions”

Cardinal Burke on the Liturgy - Traditional Latin Mass and Ordinary Form, New English Translation

Cardinal Raymond L. Burke with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN:


h/t New Liturgical Movement

Related:

• Moving Beyond
• Exile to Malta for Cardinal Burke
• The Scandal That is Eating the Heart out of the Catholic Church in America
• Cardinal Raymond Burke: Obama’s Policies ‘Have Become Progressively More Hostile Toward Christian Civilization’

This is what they have stolen from you

By Ann Barnhardt @ Barnhardt.biz

I can tell from my email box that the vast, vast, vast majority of people out there have absolutely no fathom what the Mass looked like before 1968. Most Catholics think that the Mass was pretty much like it is today, except in Latin.

Um, that would be very, very, very wrong. The Mass today, the Novus Ordo Mass, has been so radically altered, you can only tell that it is even related to the Tridentine Mass by a few phrases here and there, namely the Gloria, Creed, Orate Fratres (Pray, my brothers and sisters), Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy) and the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God).

As I explained it to one person, the Novus Ordo Mass is FAR closer to Superfun Rockband church than it is to the Tridentine Mass. His reply? "I was afraid you were going to say that."

Indeed.

I stumbled across a set of videos made by EWTN, the Catholic cable channel out of Alabama. The videos demonstrate the Low Tridentine Mass (not sung, and with only one server). What is so cool about these videos is the camera work. It is wonderful being able to see the priest's hands and everything that is going on upon the altar.

In these videos the server is an adult. Please understand that in most Masses in Latin Mass parishes today, the servers are young boys - altar boys. I would guesstimate that the youngest boy I have seen serve a Low Mass alone was probably eight or nine years old, and I have seen boys who were probably seven years old serve a Low Mass with another older boy as a team. That includes every movement and every response you see in these videos, memorized in Latin, performed not just by boys, but by sometimes quite young boys.

The sight of boys and teenaged young men not just doing something, but doing something fairly complicated, and doing it with stone-cold excellence is so rare today that it is shocking and beautiful when you see it. Boys have been run out of almost every activity except sports by girls, and they are now even trying to make sports "co-ed". Additionally, boys are hated by the Marxist-lesbian education mafia and are submitted to psychological castration from the time they enter pre-school. One of the big reasons the Marxist-homosexualists hate the Tridentine Mass so much is because it fosters and develops boys into masculine achievers and allows them to attain disciplined excellence.

Now watch this and see, perhaps for the first time in your entire life, what the Mass was for 1900 years, and what the Marxist-homosexualists have stolen from you, and are desperately trying to keep hidden from you. Look at the reverence, the solemnity, the MASCULINITY, the profound humility, the dignity, and the loving care and intricacy. Watch these videos and then contemplate what goes on at your Novus Ordo Mass. Contemplate how your priest probably stands outside the sanctuary in the narthex, fully vested immediately before AND immediately after Mass, and gladhands and socializes with people as they walk in and out - again, desacralizing the Mass AND drawing attention to himself as the "STAR of the SHOW". Because you clearly go to Mass to see Father Liza-Judy, right? I mean seriously, WHO ELSE could you POSSIBLY be there to see if not Father Liza-Judy? Hmmmm?

Contemplate the priest ad-libbing during the Mass, chatting, delivering multiple "homilies" before the readings and after Holy Communion. Compare how the priest carries himself in the Tridentine Mass to the casual and effete comportment of almost all Novus Ordo priests.

Finally, compare the orientation of the Tridentine Mass and priest 100% toward Our Lord in the Tabernacle, or upon the altar, to the self-referential and performance-driven orientation of the priest in the Novus Ordo, who is always facing the people as if on a stage, and thus has his BACK to Our Lord in the Tabernacle for the entire Mass.

The homosexualist priests will never, ever relinquish their ability to "perform" and be "on stage" as the "star of the show" - and the same goes for the lesbian nuns, who rage at the fact that they are denied full "performance" rights. They WILL schism the Church, and it will be over the Mass itself. Homosexual "marriage" and "gay rights" are merely wedge issues designed to get the ball rolling. The final schism will be over the rubrics of the Mass because it HAS to be all about THEM. It HAS to be the "Father Liza-Judy Show", and the Marxists, who recruited the homosexualists, gleefully approve because the Marxist objective is to destroy the Mass and the Church from within by desacralizing the Mass, and eliminating the priesthood. (Remember, no priest, no Mass. No Mass, no Eucharist.) They do this by denying the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist by making the whole Mass so casual, sloppy, sacrilegious and self-centered that the people who WERE taught the faith lose it by the very example of the clergy.

Finally, after four decades, the objective has been achieved - there is absolutely no denying that. The laity has NO IDEA that the Mass is Calvary made present, and are clueless that Jesus Christ is actually, physically present in the Tabernacle, upon the altar after the consecration, and in the Eucharist which they casually receive thinking It (He) is a mere "symbolic community meal".

When you watch these videos, you should feel awe at the beauty - even though this is a mere instructional set, and you should also feel burning ire at what has been stolen from you, and what is being actively hidden and suppressed by the majority of bishops yet today. THIS is how Mass was said in EVERY CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE PLANET UNTIL 1968 - exactly, precisely like this. A person could walk into any Catholic Church anywhere on the planet and be 100% oriented and comfortable, because every priest said the Mass exactly like this every day - from the tiny little town in Kansas to the largest cathedral in Europe to the remotest chapel in South America or Asia. Every word, every gesture, every prayer - completely consistent and unified, JUST. LIKE. THIS:

These videos just cover the actual rubrics. They do not cover the MASSIVE meaning and referential symbolism contained in literally every word and gesture. If you want to learn about that symbolism, St. Thomas Aquinas covers it all in the Summa Theologica.

If you want more info, a great resource is SanctaMissa.org, and I also recommend everyone buying a 1962 Hand Missal, which contains EVERYTHING, including every Mass for the entire year with English translations. Baronius Press is the main publisher these days, and 1962 Missals can be purchased easily through Amazon and most online booksellers.

But there are also many other things which Jesus did; which, if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written. John 21:25

Therefore, brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle.
2 Thessalonians 2:15

Link:

• This is what they have stolen from you.

Related:

• The Emasculation of the Priesthood - by Father James McLucas
• Men - Emasculated by the Culture
• Feminization of the Church
• Altar Girls?
• Altar girls and the Extraordinary Form of the Mass - Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei States They Are Not Permitted
• Kerfuffle! Wisconsin parish nixes altar girls - predictable outrage ensues before sanity prevails
• Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz is Keeper of the Flame
• Bishop Morlino Warns Dissenters to Stop Calumnious Inciting of Hatred of Priests, the Faith, and Himself — or Else
• Phoenix diocese cathedral won't allow girl altar servers
• Some Catholics Fear Girls Are Scaring Boys Away
• Archbp. Burke on altar girls and EMCHs in the Extraordinary Form
• Altar Girls

On the SSPX

By Ann Barnhardt at Barnhardt.biz:

I get lots of questions, and hate mail, about this, and in the spirit of getting things wrapped-up and saying everything I have on my little list to say while I can, here's my screed on the SSPX.

The Society of Saint Pius the Tenth (SSPX) is a group of traditionalist Catholics who broke away from Rome in 1970 after Vatican II when they were told by evil Marxist infiltrators inside the Church that they were forbidden from saying the Tridentine Latin Mass. They were led by an Archbishop named Marcel Lefebvre, hence the term "Lefebvrists" sometimes used to describe those in the SSPX.

The legalisms are EXTREMELY confusing, but as I understand it, Vatican II never actually forbade the saying of the Tridentine Mass. That was all a lie by the Marxist-homosexualist infiltrators. But, instead of hanging around and fighting the good fight, the SSPX took off on its own.

There have been steps toward reconciliation over the last 40 years, and as I understand it, SSPX Masses are indeed valid, but they are still not in full communion with the Church.

I totally sympathize with them - I can't imagine the fury and heartbreak that so many felt in 1970 as the Mass was literally eviscerated before their eyes and turned into a Protestant off-Broadway performance vehicle for homosexual priests and nuns, specifically designed to degrade the Church from the inside-out and ultimately destroy it by turning it into a neo-pagan Marxist-homosexualist cult.

But apparently ol' Annibale Bugnini and his masonic cohorts didn't take Christ Almighty seriously:

"Thou art Peter (Cephah) and upon this rock (cephah) I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
 
You ain't gonna win, boys. And that goes for the uber-right contingent every bit as much as the Marxist-homosexualist infiltrators. The gates of hell will not prevail against the Church, and Peter is the Rock upon which Christ built, and builds, His Church.

It does not get any clearer than that. Any argument or confusion on this point is a direct result of satanic-inspired heresy aimed at destroying the Church by tearing it into utter chaos (40,000 protestant sects in the U.S. alone, all gleefully ratifying mortal sin, and counting!), ripping people away from the Eucharist, and ultimately resulting in people being lost eternally to hell. Period. You don't agree? You don't like that? You want to be your own pope? You want to "vote" on what the Truth is? Wow. I SOOOOOO don't care what you "want", "like", "feel" or "believe." I care about what the Truth is, and scripture makes it crystal, crystal clear on this point for anyone who isn't blinded by their own pride.

So, think of the SSPX as Protestants, but on the other side of the spectrum.

Today, the head of the SSPX is a bishop named Bernard Fellay, and he is working very hard to try to get the SSPX fully reconciled to Rome and thus 100% back inside the Barque of Peter. Everything I have read and listened to from Fellay seems extremely sensible, faithful and sincere. He fully comprehends that he is a shepherd and that he needs to get his flock back into the Church, and he is trying very hard to get that done before the manure hits the spinning airfoils.

The other three SSPX bishops? Not so much. The nutty wing of the SSPX is led by a bishop named Williamson. Williamson is nuts. Just stone-cold bonkers. He is a vicious anti-Semite (and there is a considerable problem with this inside the SSPX), holocaust denier, and naturally flowing from that evil and insanity, Williamson is a 9/11 truther. Like I said, the dude is nuts. Once you know that information, you know everything you need to know about Williamson and his wing.

Now you might think that all the traddy Catholics *lurv* me and that I have bunches and bunches of "friends." Oh, you'd be dead wrong. Most of the traddy Catholics hate me too, because people like me just can't win for losing. They send me lovely emails telling me how much they hate me on a fairly regular basis. They also send me Williamson propaganda. So, I have a pretty solid dossier of evidence on this point.

Would you like to hear what they tell me? Sure you would.

A. If you are 35 and unmarried, you must be a lesbian. We hate you.

(And all this time I thought it was a combination of my shrewish personality, dull wit and acrid body odor. Huh.)
 
B. You're a convert. We hate converts. We hate you.

(The Blessed Virgin Mary, the first Convert to Christianity, was unavailable for comment. Her press secretary simply referred all inquiries on this topic to the First Joyful Mystery, the Annunciation. Oh, and the Great Commission of her Son.)
 
C. You speak to Jews. We hate you.

(If your stupid asses don't even understand Catholicism, how do you expect the Jews today to understand it, much less convert to it? Maybe if you learned your faith, understood how every aspect of the Church and the Mass is a perfected fulfillment of Judaism, and could then EXPLAIN that to people, you might actually win some converts. Oh, but I forgot. You hate converts.)
 
D. You're ugly. Your hair is ugly. You have horse teeth and bug eyes. We hate you.

(Are you sure THAT isn't the reason I'm not married? Because I'm so freakishly physically repellant? Just sayin'.)
 
And, finally, my personal favorite:

E. You prophesy before men UNVEILED. We hate you.

(Okay, I can't win here. If I say to myself, "Ahem, I am going to PROPHESY now," and put on a veil to make a video or give a talk, then I'm a delusional, megalomaniacal nutcase. If I don't, some kooky dude sends me emails telling me that I'm going to hell for my failure to accessorize. Dude, throw me a bone. Seriously.)
 
That's all good for a chuckle, but let me explain with an analogy what these people's error is, and it isn't just them. It is the error of any schismatic.

Let's say your wife was diagnosed with cancer. Would you suddenly hate your wife? Would you argue that you didn't marry a body riddled with cancer, and therefore she was no longer the person you married, and then leave her in a smug huff?

Would you hate your wife's body, and thus hate your wife? No. You would love your wife and her body, perhaps even more than before, when you saw her under attack from the cancer. You would want to fight the cancer - chemotherapy, radiation, surgery - anything to get rid of the cancer and bring your wife back to full health and vigor.

This is exactly the situation in the Church today. The Church has cancer. Bad. Fully metastasized, all over-type cancer. It is called Marxist-homosexualism, and the cancer was first observed and diagnosed 45 years ago. Sadly, instead of clinging to the Bride of Christ and fighting the cancer, some people abandoned Her, claiming that the cancer WAS her body, instead of just an invading infection. Others left out of indifference. Others stayed and embraced the cancer as a "good thing" and "progress". A tiny, tiny contingent stayed, held Her hand, and have lovingly administered as much medicinal therapy to her as they possibly could.

The Williamson wing of the SSPX hates the Bride of Christ and will never rejoin her no matter what, because they are too prideful and dim to make the distinction between the Body and the cancer. They want a new wife, one of their own making, and "cancer free." And that is what they will get, but they will quickly find out that their new bride isn't really a bride at all, but just another cheap whore. A true and loving Bride with a bad case of cancer beats a whore in her prime.

So, Fellay needs to get back into the Church ASAP, and let the chips fall where they may with the SSPXers. Even if it is just Fellay and one other person coming back into the Church, it will be worth it for that ONE person, and Fellay will have done his job as a shepherd. Our Lord made clear that men will be sifted. People will have to choose. Wheat or chaff? Sheep or goats? This is one of those "siftings."

Get back in the Barque of Peter, Bishop Fellay and all SSPXers of good will, of which there are many. Because the gates of hell and its cancer WILL NOT PREVAIL. There is going to be a miraculous cure, and your Bride wants you there to share in the joy of the healing, which is explicitly guaranteed by Our Lord Himself.



Link:

• On the SSPX

Here Rests in Honored Glory - The Mass and the Tomb of the Unknowns

By Ann Barnhardt at Barnhardt.biz

HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD.

Those are the words engraved on the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. Here is a video of the Changing of the Guard.

I think we can all agree that the Tomb of the Unknowns, the 24/7 guarding of the Tomb, and the intense precision of the ceremonial rubrics are one of the most excellent things in American culture. The old saying goes, "You may judge a nation by how it treats its fallen warriors." In an otherwise degraded and despair-inducing society, the Tomb of the Unknowns is a beacon of cultural light and hope.

The Tomb of the Unknowns is also extremely instructive, and believe it or not, it instructs us about . . . the Mass. The reason the Tomb of the Unknowns instructs us today about the Mass is because the Tomb of the Unknowns rubrics originally came FROM the Mass. For those of you who have never seen a pre-1968 Tridentine Mass and are used to the clownish, degraded, irreverent Novus Ordo Masses of the last 45 years, or of Superfun Rockband church, I hope the sense of reverent awe and solemnity you feel when watching the ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns helps you understand what exactly it is that has been robbed from you.

After watching the ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns above, I want you to imagine the guards walking about casually, maybe wearing a partial uniform jacket, but with jeans and sandals. Imagine the guards walking out and introducing themselves, "Hi, my name is Lieutenant Jones, but you can call me Jake." Then the guard might say something like, "Isn't it a beautiful day today? It sure was rainy yesterday. I had to wear a rain jacket. I'm so glad you all could make to my shift today. I'm going to be guarding the tomb for the next few hours, and I know that it can sure get BOOOORING! That's why I have asked a local band to come in and play some music for you guys, because I want this to be A FUN EXPERIENCE for all of us!"

If this happened, you would be shocked and disgusted, right? Do you understand that what I have just described is a watered-down comparison of what has happened to the Mass? The Mass went from being even more reverent than the rubrics of the Tomb Guard to what I just described above - and many times even worse than what I described above.

Let's walk through some of the many parallels.

The soldiers are in full dress uniform, meticulously turned-out and maintained. They are not in combat gear that soldiers would use to walk a patrol in Afghanistan. The Tomb guards are doing something DIFFERENT, and thus their uniforms reflect that. Really, what the ceremonies surrounding the Tomb are is the highest form of ART. It is living ART, not consisting of a mere two-dimensional representation, not consisting of inanimate objects, but ART consisting of human beings in action. The uniforms, the gait, the precise rubrics, words, gestures and movements - these all combine into a perpetual work of art that not only moves and inspires the people who witness it, but also accomplishes the goal of making tangible a RESPECT for and a REMEMBRANCE of all of the fallen unknown soldiers. The Tomb Guards walk their patrol whether anyone is there to see them do it or not. It isn't a show. It is a service. It is a liturgy.

Here Rests in Honored Glory . . . Part 2

Posted by Ann Barnhardt - May 28, AD 2012 12:09 PM MST

The Mass is exactly what I just described, except that the Mass is the most perfect artistic action in the universe because the Mass is the artistic creation of God Himself. The Holy Spirit taught the Church the Mass. The Mass is art that is so perfect that it actually causes something to happen - it causes Heaven and Earth to touch, it causes time to be bent such that the moment of "now" touches and intersects with the moment of Calvary 1979 years ago, and it causes bread and wine to be transubstantiated into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, made PHYSICALLY PRESENT. Man calls down God, and God, in His infinite love, responds and fully submits in complete love, making Himself present on the Altar both at the moment of His death, and in His resurrection, so that He may go into us physically as Food.

In the Tridentine Mass, the priest observes "custody of the eyes", never looking around and NEVER looking out at the people. Like the guards, priests are supposed to keep their eyes on exactly what they are doing without distraction. The Guards at the Tomb wear mirrored sunglasses to block out all eye contact. Priests are supposed to keep their eyes DOWN or CLOSED, with a couple of exceptions such as just before the consecration when they are to look up to Heaven. This is like the Guards' rubric of looking from side-to-side very deliberately when inspecting the rifle and the relieving officer. Did you catch that?

Priests are also supposed to walk with a very deliberate gait - slow, measured and reverent in exactly the same way the Tomb Guards walk in a slow, deliberate, reverent gait.

Priests are only supposed to say very specific words - no improvisation, no modifications. The Guards are the same way. They have a very strict announcement that they make at the changing, and they have very strict words that they say when telling people to be quiet and observe reverent silence (there is a YouTube video of that happening, look it up.) There is no chatting or extemporaneous speech. In the Church, the command is "Say the black, do the red," in reference to the layout of the Roman Missal with the words of prayer in black and the instructions for the intensely precise rubrics, down to every gesture, in red.

I would analogize the exaggerated heel-clicking movement that the Guards do to the genuflecting of the Priest (and servers, and laity, ahem) to the rubric of ALWAYS genuflecting to the right knee EACH AND EVERY TIME the axis of the Tabernacle is crossed. In many Catholic Churches, the Tabernacle, which is the center of the Church - heck, it is the center of the universe - has been moved off to the side, or even hidden in a sacristy. Where a Tabernacle is present, Our Lord, physically present inside, is largely ignored. I have never seen a Novus Ordo priest consistently observe the loving rubric of genuflecting to the Tabernacle every time the plane is crossed. In fact, most Novus Ordo priests wander around the sanctuary with their backs turned to the Tabernacle while they put on their "performance." This would be analogous to the Tomb itself at Arlington being moved "out of the way" and instead a stage being erected upon which the Guards would perform. It makes you sick to think of that happening at Arlington - but that is largely what has happened to the Mass.

There is even an analogue in the Changing of the Guard ceremony to the Consecration of the Host in the Mass. Did you hear it when you watched the video above? It comes at the 2:36 mark. A rifle is fired, its report thus commemorating the moment of death of the Unknowns. In the Mass, the moment of consecration and transubstantiation are the report of Christ's words spoken by the priest:

HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM.

(This is My Body.)
 
Finally, the words engraved on the Tomb of the Unknowns:

HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD

This is analogous to the words of the Mass:

ECCE AGNUS DEI, ECCE QUI TOLLIT PECCATA MUNDI.

(Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world.)
 
In the Mass, Christ is alive, physically present in the Eucharist, veiled under the mere appearance of bread and wine. At the Tomb, the Unknowns remain dead - only their memory, veiled in anonymity, is honored and made present.

The point is this: if we all know and understand and FEEL the power of the excellent, excellent ceremonial rubrics of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, if we understand the power of "living art", and we understand how important the concepts of reverence, solemnity, precision, dignity and beauty in movement and action are in the context of the Tomb, why, oh why, do we continue to tolerate the lack of reverence, the lack of solemnity, the absence of liturgical precision and dignity and the resulting UGLINESS that has been unleashed on the Mass, which is not just a mere memorial of Calvary, but is Calvary Itself, physically present, and Our Resurrected Lord physically present?

The Tomb of the Unknowns merits the excellent, beautiful, solemn, reverent, disciplined ceremony of the Guards.

Our Lord, Crucified, Risen and physically present to us deserves INFINITELY MORE excellence, beauty, solemnity, reverence, discipline and dignity in His Mass.

Demand it. Now.



Link:

• Here Rests in Honored Glory

Communiqué of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei" (Re: SSPX)

From RORATE CÆLI:

Communiqué

of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei"

The text of the response of His Excellency Bp. Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, requested during the meeting in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of March 16, 2012, was delivered on April 17, 2012. This text will be examined by the Dicastery and submitted afterwards to the judgment of the Holy Father.

[Source: original texts in Italian and French]

Link:

• Communiqué of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei"

Related:

• SSPX: The Positive Response Has Arrived
• Vatican Hoping to Make SSPX Announcement Early Next Week

SSPX: The Positive Response Has Arrived

UPDATE: Communiqué of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei" (Re: SSPX)

From La Stampa via RORATE CÆLI:

17.09.2012 (1900 GMT - 2100 Rome)

The Superior of the Society of Saint Pius X has signed the doctrinal preamble proposed by the Holy See, even if with some slight modifications

ANDREA TORNIELLI
CITTÀ DEL VATICANO

The response of the Society of Saint Pius X has arrived in the Vatican and it is positive: according to the informal information gathered by Vatican Insider, Bishop Bernard Fellay would have signed the doctrinal preamble that the Holy See had proposed last September as a condition to reach full communion and canonical regularization... (continued)

Read More Here

Link:

• For the record - Latest Tornielli: "Fellay's response has arrived; it is positive"

Related:

• Communiqué of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei" (Re: SSPX)
• Vatican Hoping to Make SSPX Announcement Early Next Week

The Young Shock Troops - Michael Voris

H/t to Fr. Z.   An update to Michael Voris' Latin Anyone? video:

Hello everyone and welcome to The Vortex where lies and falsehoods are trapped and exposed. I’m Michael Voris.

Its probably a safe bet that most Catholics .. at least the 500 million or so in the west have no idea of the struggle going on INSIDE the Church.

That’s because the vast majority of them .. close to 90 percent .. have almost no contact with the Church anymore. You heard right .. except for the occasional wedding or funeral and MAYBE Christmas or Easter .. MAYBE .. 450 million of more of the west’s 500 million Catholics are just missing in action.

By the way .. prior to 1960 .. it would have been almost totally reversed. About 400 million of the 500 million .. using today’s population numbers .. would have been plugged in to the Faith.

That’s quite a devastating condemnation .. from 400 million or so relatively faithful followers to around less than 50 million. WOW! That is nothing less than religious nuclear bomb.

"The world has turned militant against the Church... The only proper response to a militant enemy, is an even more ferocious militancy right back at them. The Saints knew this and they lived it. The bishops of the past who fought the evils in their own day knew this. And they protected their sheep with a ferocity reserved to a father protecting his family." - Michael Voris

Now .. as we look into the remaining 50 million .. and that’s probably an overly generous number of practicing Catholics in the west .. there is a battle royale raging for the Catholic identity.

We’ve talked about this before in various Vortex episodes .. but its worth talking about now in terms of who’s winning this battle.

Battles have casualties and in this inter-Church war .. the blows are going against the lukewarm crowd .. the parishes and parishioners who are content to simply sit back watch the world pass by.

This is most parishes .. the overwhelming majority in the United States. Even if they are larger and Fr. Popular is running the show .. the rot is still there. No vocations to speak of are emerging, many that are there .. even the weekly Mass-goers know very little about the faith and are therefore contracepting, in the very least.

They have so-called tolerant attitudes toward the militant homosexual agenda .. not really supporting it, but willing to concede that if Bob and John love each other, then they don’t really see the big deal.

The average parish in the United States is a mish-mosh of non-zealous relaxed attitudes with no real fire in the belly. Add to this, that parish is generally unofficially run by a former nun, or current version of one, who is angry and bitter about a hundred different things as she approaches her dotage .. and you have a sure fire recipe for the Faith NOT being passed on to the parish.

And by the way, these parishes are being closed down boarded up and sold off at dizzying speeds. Even the Vatican has had to step in and tell local bishops to knock off the fire sales.

Compare this to more traditional Catholic groups .. who have the exact opposite problems. Not enough room to spread out, congregations swelling with young people, vocations pouring out them, Catholics massively informed of their faith with a great desire to evangelize and take no prisoners when they do.

Almost every time you encounter this .. you find at the heart of it .. the Traditional Latin Mass. Not every time, but very frequently. Even when the TLM [traditional latin mass] isn’t offered, you find everything BUT that.

You find a deep devotional life, solid priests who love their sheep, deep involvement in the pro-life movement seen more as a spiritual work than a political one, although it is both.

But in these TLM groups, you see something else. A respect and reverence for the Mass as something bound up with the masculine. A willingness to dive in and swim through the currents of the mystery of the Divine.
The TLM is not the more feminine “celebration” that most Catholics who still go Mass encounter. It is masculine through and through. That may be one reason it is so despised by so many other Catholics .. including many clergy.

It bespeaks a strong masculinity .. a Muscular Catholicism .. a Church Militant .. and for the majority of Catholics who have been nursed for the past 50 years on the weaker .. feminine .. Protestantized .. don’t be offensive type of Liturgy .. they don’t where to go with this Mass.

And .. it’s not their fault. Even many of the priests and some bishops have a kind of knee-jerk reaction against the TLM because .. they righty intuit .. it holds forth a different style theology .. a different tone. They have been brought up on a Church that is much more Protestant in its approach .. meaning .. more accommodating .. more tolerant and all those other buzz words .. that at the end of the day .. spell out W-E-A-K weak.

Weak as in non-confrontational .. as in much more content to dialog and have donuts than do hand to hand combat with Satan and his legions. Its kind of the politicians compared to the army. Neither really likes the war, but only one is willing to fight it up close and personal.

Well .. as the lukewarm, politically correct parishes close down and the numbers of PRACITCING .. not just baptized .. but actually PRACTISING Catholics continues to dry up .. against all that failure for that is what it is .. there is a story of gigantic success in the more militant Church.

The world has turned militant against the Church .. truth is it always has been, it was just faking dialog and good will so as to deceive. The only proper response to a militant enemy is an even more ferocious militancy.

The saints knew this and they lived this.

The bishops of the past who fought the evils in their own day knew this and protected their sheep with a ferocity reserved to a father protecting his family. And this is what we see in the traditional circles of the faith these days. And unsurprisingly .. large numbers of those circles enjoy the presence of young men. They
instinctively .. intuitively have sniffed out the stench of the enemy and have enlisted in the fight.

They see the destruction reined down on their Mother .. the Church and her children and they have committed to the fight. And all of this is expressed in worship in the Traditional Latin Mass.

You’ll find no guitars or tambourines or hand holding and lovey dovey sermons in that camp. What you will find is comradeship and a preparedness for the war. And that’s exactly what the Church needs in this time and place .. men .. prepared with the sacraments .. willing to fight and die .. and in dying .. be born to eternal life.

GOD Love you. I’m Michael Voris.

Links:

• Michael Voris: Latin Anyone?
• New Voris video addresses where the “action” is in Catholic communities. 
• Fr. Ray Blake: Trad Mass: Experiment #2
  
• RealCatholicTV.com
• RealCatholicTV Youtube Channel
• RealCatholicTV Facebook
• Brick by brick: Most seminarians would prefer the older, traditional rite

Related:

• Men - Emasculated by the Culture
• The Emasculation of the Priesthood