New Ecumenical English Missal? Committee members named?

By Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I am sure that you have all seen this piece by now from this liturgy site HERE.  My emphases and comments:

New Ecumenical English Missal

A rumour has been growing about a possible review of the Roman Catholic missal translation, but no one anticipated the announcement of a New Ecumenical English Missal Project, which will mean that the words for the whole Eucharist will be the same across a number of significant English-speaking denominations. [Wound't haters of the new translation be thrilled?]

Pope Francis, ever taking people by surprise, in only the second year of his papacy, pointedly, on the feast day of a woman saint, St Theodora (April 1), is formally signing [So... did he sign it "informally" earlier ... or not sign it at all?] the declaration that he has the agreement of significant English-speaking churches and ecclesial communities to work [discrimination against the insignificant!] towards a new Ecumenical English Missal... (continued)

Read More at Father Z's Blog

Link:

• New Ecumenical English Missal? Committee members named?

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.

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

Jesus Christ was not a sissy

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.

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• Altar Girls

That Strange Mass the Pope Doesn't Like (Neocatechumenal Way)

It is the Mass according to the rite of the Neocatechumenal Way. Benedict XVI has ordered the congregation for the doctrine of the faith to examine it thoroughly. Its condemnation appears to be sealed

by Sandro Magister



(Chiesa) ROME, April 11, 2012 – With a letter written personally to Cardinal William J. Levada, Benedict XVI has ordered the congregation for the doctrine of the faith to examine whether the Neocatechumenal Masses are or are not in keeping with the liturgical teaching and practice of the Catholic Church.

A "problem," in the pope's judgment, that is "of great urgency" for the whole Church.

Benedict XVI has been alarmed for some time about the particular ways in which the communities of the Neocatechumenal Way celebrate their Masses, on Saturday evening, in separate locations.

His sense of alarm was increased by the plot woven behind his back in the curia last winter, as reported by www.chiesa in the following articles:

> "Placet" or "Non placet"? The wager of Carmen and Kiko (13.1.2012)

> Vatican Diary / The Neocatechumenals get their diploma. But not the one they were expecting (23.1.2012)

What had happened was that the pontifical council for the laity headed by Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko had prepared the text for a degree of blanket approval of all the liturgical and extra-liturgical celebrations of the Neocatechumenal Way, to be made public the January 20 on the occasion of a meeting scheduled between the pope and the Way.

The decree was redacted according to the guidelines of the congregation for divine worship, headed by Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera. The founders and leaders of the Way, Francisco "Kiko" Argüello and Carmen Hernández, were told about it and joyfully told their followers about the imminent approval.

All unbeknownst to the pope.

Benedict XVI found out about the text of the decree a few days before the meeting on January 20.

He found it illogical and mistaken. He ordered that it be scrapped and rewritten according to his guidelines.

In fact, the decree that was made public on January 20 limited itself to approving the extra-liturgical ceremonies that mark the catechetical stages of the Way.

In his speech, the pope stressed that only these had been authorized. While with regard to the Mass, he gave the Neocatechumenals a genuine lecture – almost an ultimatum – on how to celebrate it in full fidelity to the liturgical norms and in practical communion with the Church.

During those same days, Benedict XVI received in audience the archbishop of Berlin, Rainer Maria Woelki, a trusted confrere whom he would soon make a cardinal. Among other things, Woelki talked to him about the difficulties that the Neocatechumenals were creating in his diocese with their separate Masses on Saturday evening, officiated by about thirty member priests.

The pope asked Woelki to give him a survey of the matter in writing. On January 31, Woelki sent him a letter with more detailed information.

A few days later, on February 11, the pope forwarded a copy of this letter to the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, together with a request to examine as soon as possible this question that "concerns not only the archdiocese of Berlin."

The examining commission headed by the congregation for the doctrine of the faith would have to include, according to the pope's guidelines, two other Vatican dicasteries: the congregation for divine worship and the discipline of the sacraments, and the pontifical council for the laity.

And so it was. On March 26, in the Palazzo del Sant'Uffizio, under the presidency of the secretary of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, a Jesuit, a meeting for an initial examination of the question was held with the secretaries of the other two dicasteries – for divine worship Archbishop Augustine J. Di Noia, a Dominican, and for the laity Bishop Josef Clemens – and with four experts designated by them. An absent fifth expert, Dom Cassiano Folsom, prior of the monastery of Saint Benedict in Norcia, sent his assessment in writing.

All of the judgments expressed were critical of the Masses of the Neocatechumenals. Also very severe was the one that the congregation for the doctrine of the faith had asked, before the meeting, of the theologian and newly created cardinal Karl J. Becker, Jesuit, professor emeritus at the Pontifical Gregorian University and an adviser to the dicastery.

The dossier provided for the meeting by the congregation for the doctrine of the faith  included the pope's letter of February 11, Cardinal Woelki's letter to the pope in the original German and in English, the assessment of Cardinal Becker, and a guide for the discussion that explicitly brought into question the conformity to the liturgical teaching and practice of the Catholic Church of article 13 § 2 of the statutes of the Neocatechumenals, the one in which they justify their separate Masses on Saturday evening.

In reality, the danger feared by Benedict XVI and by many bishops – as demonstrated by the many complaints that have been made to the Vatican – is that the particular ways in which the Neocatechumenal communities all over the world celebrate their Masses may introduce into the Latin liturgy a new de facto "rite" artificially composed by the founders of the Way, foreign to the liturgical tradition, full of doctrinal ambiguities and a source of division in the community of the faithful.

To the commission he had set up, the pope entrusted the task of verifying the validity of these fears. In view of decisions to be made.

The judgments elaborated by the commission will be examined in an upcoming plenary meeting of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, on a Wednesday – a "feria quarta" – in the second half of April.

______________


An index of all the previous articles from www.chiesa on the Neocatechumenal Way:

> Focus on CATHOLIC MOVEMENTS

__________


English translation by Matthew Sherry, Ballwin, Missouri, U.S.A.

• That Strange Mass the Pope Doesn't Like

Fidel Castro Asks Pope For Explanation of Post-Conciliar Liturgical Changes

By Shawn Tribe at New Liturgical Movement:

As you know, Pope Benedict XVI has recently been in Mexico, followed by Cuba.

I picked up this interesting little tidbit in a Reuters story, "What does a pope do?" Fidel Castro asks Benedict.

In the course of that conversation between the Pope and former Cuban president, Fidel Castro asked an interesting question of the Pope:

Castro questioned Benedict about changes in Church liturgy and asked the pope to send him a book to help him reflect. The pope said he would think of which one to send, but had not yet decided, Lombardi said.

I find the fact that Castro asked this question interesting. Without having full benefit of the conversation, my sense is that this somehow speaks, whether directly or indirectly, to the reality of the effect, and hence the gravity, of changes to the sacred liturgy and why such cannot be done arbitrarily, either by legitimate authority (cf. CCC 1125), nor certainly by any member of the church, lay or clerical, on their own whim and initiative.

I'd be rather interested to hear what book the Holy Father will recommend.

Link:

Fidel Castro Asks Pope For Explanation of Post-Conciliar Liturgical Changes

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

Michael Voris: Latin Anyone?

H/t to Father Zuhlsdorf:

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

So with all the talk about the incredible need to evangelize and spread the Faith – there is something curiously missing. The willingness to say how much this IS ALREADY ACTUALLY HAPPENING in Catholic communities that offer the Traditional Latin
Mass.

As in Right Now .. Today .. currently going on.

We do a lot of traveling .. around the US and the world. We meet thousands of Catholics in dozens and dozens of different settings, from every race and nationality you can imagine.

In just the past six months alone .. we’ve been invited to speak to parishes and other groups in Denver, Colorado, Edmunton Alberta Canada, Toronto Ontario, Ottawa Ontario, Cleveland Ohio, Dallas Texas, Lafayette Louisiana, Manila, Cebu, BaCOLad and Davao City The Philippines, Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja Nigeria, Washington DC, Sacramento California, Minneapolis Minnesota, Summit New Jersey, Rome,
Evansville Indiana, Rome New York, El Paso Texas, San Diego California, Tulsa Oklahoma, Clearwater Florida, and Toulon France.

And that’s just in the last six months. In the next month, we’ll be adding to those numbers traveling to Auckland New Zealand as well as Melbourne, Canberra, Wagga Wagga and Sydney in Australia.

We have logged over a hundred thousand miles and met thousands and thousands of Catholics in this time. Everywhere we go, its incredibly uplifting and massively encouraging to meet and hang with Catholics absolutely on fire for their faith.

Sure they need some reinforcement. We all do. The faith is constantly being beaten down and attacked. All that said, the near constant thread we see running throughout all these locations and people is a great love for Tradition, especially the Traditional Latin Mass.

Even in places we are invited where the Latin Mass is not readily available .. there is still a great curiosity about it and a desire to know more about it. For example, just the other day, I got a text from a young fellow in Cleveland I met a few weeks back who said he was very curious about the Traditional Latin Mass.

And this is a very noteworthy point. Despite what you may hear from the stuffy bureaucratic types in the Church who seem to have some out of their mind animus to the Traditional Latin Mass, it is not a bunch of doddering old people at these masses.

When we travel, we go to Mass wherever we are invited by our hosts and frequently, not always, but frequently, it is the Traditional Latin Mass. This past weekend in Edmonton Alberta Canada being the most recent example.

What strikes you almost instantly is the large proportion of young people, especially young males as well as young families. Sure there are old people there, but the more liberal party line coming out of chanceries across the Catholic world that the Traditional Latin Mass is like a senior citizen home is pure hooey.

I know. I’ve been to these Masses on three and soon to be four continents, multiple countries and dozens and dozens of cities across the United States. London England, for example has a splendid and lively group of young Catholics called Juventutum, which is Latin for Youth.

One of the leaders in London is a splendid young chap named Paul, shout out to you Paul. Juventutum is a worldwide organization for 16-30 year olds who are especially attached to the Latin Mass and it’s only about 10 years old. They are a growing presence at World Youth Day gatherings.

What curious about all this is this. When you look around the Church these days .. practically anywhere, this is where you see all the growth and excitement and energy.

The parishes that are mired in their stale boring lives of dull liturgies complete with lifeless unchallenging homilies or even worse, Protestantized emotional liturgies, which is to say the large number of Catholic parishes in the west are emptying out and closing up.

And Church leaders can’t continue blaming losses on demographics and migration. The average Catholic knows little about his faith and cares even less. That’s why parishes are closing. Sure the other factors have some impact. But the number one reason is lack of Catholic identity.

Oh oh, but not in these traditionally minded circles. No siree! They are churning out vocations, are packed with young L-A-R-G-E families, have a parish-wide sense of community, socialize as well as pray together, generally tend to home-school their exorbitant number of kids and center their lives around the one true faith established by Jesus Christ – The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

They know their faith, make sure their kids know the faith. They live the faith and most importantly LOVE the faith. Practically all the action in the Church these days, from excitement and devotion, to vocations and young people involvement to large families -

ALL of it – is coming from the Traditional Latin Mass quarter of the Church.

Again .. I’m not reading this in brochures or promotional videos .. as if such things even existed in the first place. I’m seeing it with my own peepers .. almost everywhere I go.

As the liberal establishment Church of the last half of the 20th century turns old and grayand fades away .. one can only hope that its liberal and decidedly non-Catholic approach to the Church’s mission of saving souls fades away right along with it.

As you look around at who’s clogging the ranks of seminarians these days .. as Father Z pointed out on his superb blog earlier this week .. it's not hard at all to see where the Church will be in the next 20 years.

Here’s a clue .. it’s gonna be very hard to hear the drums and tambourines over all that Gregorian Chant.

And here’s a shout out to the liberal Catholic crowd .. the few of you that are left. If you cant beat ‘em .. join ’em. After all .. You made a living fomenting revolution in the halcyon days of the 1960s and 70s.

Well .. here’s the newest revolution you can sign up for. And never forget, what’s old is new again.

GOD Love you. I’m Michael Voris.

Links:

• RealCatholicTV.com
• RealCatholicTV Youtube Channel
• RealCatholicTV Facebook
• New Voris video addresses where the “action” is in Catholic communities.
• Brick by brick: Most seminarians would prefer the older, traditional rite

Cardinal Wuerl's Dereliction of Duty

By George Neumayr at The American Spectator on 3.19.12 @ 6:09AM

Since he won't control the sacraments, the Church's enemies will.

The road to hell is paved with the skulls of bad bishops. That's a slight paraphrase of a line from St. John Chrysostom.

The saints of old warned bishops to choose holiness and orthodoxy over the blandishments of the "world."

Many bishops today in America choose the good opinion of worldly elites over orthodoxy. These cufflinked cardinals worry not about punishment in the next world but slights in this one. They desperately crave the approval of America's movers and shakers and live in dread fear of losing it.

What will the Pretty People think if I withhold Communion from powerful pro-abortion Catholic pols? Will the Washington Post editorialize against me? Will I lose my place of honor at posh parties? Will my dissenting priests think ill of me? Will I be scorned at the next USCCB meeting?

These are some of the thoughts that race through the minds of modern prelates. Out of these anxieties comes fiascoes like Cardinal Donald Wuerl's recent one. Wuerl and his surrogates have rebuked a visiting priest from the archdiocese of Moscow for denying Communion to a self-described practicing lesbian at a funeral mass. That's not our "policy," gasped Wuerl's horrified surrogates.

But it is the policy of the Roman Catholic Church. If a person is not in communion with the teachings of the Church, said person should not receive Communion. Period. Canon law makes this explicitly clear. If you don't believe me, ask the head of the Vatican Supreme Court, Cardinal Raymond Burke. Though most of his colleagues seem to ignore his stance, he has said for years that canon law places a grave burden on priests to protect the sacraments from defiant sinners. According to Burke, canon law is not a whimsical option for hardline eccentric priests but a moral duty which "obliges the minister of Holy Communion to refuse the Sacrament" to those in "manifest grave sin. "

Wuerl rejects this authoritative interpretation of canon law. A while back he was asked if he would withhold Communion from the pro-abortion Nancy Pelosi. He said no. That style of "confrontation" makes him uncomfortable, he told a persistent reporter.

I've heard Church insiders call the cardinal "Wuerl the girl," a reference to his precious personality. He has many fine qualities. He seems a little less common to me than some of his hackish colleagues. But cufflinks, starched shirts, learning, and reasonably civilized manners do not a good bishop make. Jesus Christ never required that his disciples place roses in his room or mints on his pillow. He walked straight at the decadent elites of his time, denounced them as a "brood of vipers," and then called it a day. It didn't take long for these vipers to kill him.

Wuerl can only earn the red of his rich robes through a willingness to endure the blood of Jesus Christ's martyrdom. And the truth is that protecting the sacraments would cost him far less than death. Maybe Joe Biden wouldn't clap him on the back so heartily after that. Maybe he would get an angry letter or two from moneyed donors in the tank for the Dems. But who cares?

This latest episode isn't even a close call. If Cardinal Wuerl doesn't have the guts to deny Communion to an agitprop lesbian Buddhist, he should just close up shop and hand the keys to his chancery over to Obama.
This ludicrous controversy reminds me of another fiasco, one from 2008. Remember when San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer, while distributing Communion at a parish in the gay Castro district, handed out the sacred species to two garishly painted and costumed members of the homosexual activist group "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence."

News of this sparked furor across the Catholic world, and even the liberal archbishop had to admit he blew it, saying dimly: 

Toward the end of the Communion line two strangely dressed persons came to receive Communion. I did not see any mock religious garb. As I recall, one of them wore a large flowered hat or garland. Afterward it was made clear to me that these two people were members of the organization "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence," who have long made a practice of mocking the Catholic Church in general and religious women in particular. My predecessors, Cardinal William Levada and Archbishop John Quinn, have both denounced this group's abuse of sacred things many times in the past. Only last year, I instructed the Administrator of Most Holy Redeemer Parish to cancel the group's use of the hall on the parish grounds, once I became aware of it…

Although I had often seen photographs of members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, I had never encountered them in person until October 7th. I did not recognize who these people were when they approached me.

After the event, I realized that they were members of this particular organization and that giving them Holy Communion had been a mistake. I apologize to the Catholics of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and to Catholics at large for doing so…

Of course, the bishop's passive understanding of his duties and his fear of the liberal elite -- like Wuerl, Niederauer won't deny Communion to Nancy Pelosi either -- invited this outrage. After all, if a bishop announces that he is not a "gatekeeper," who can't come up to receive it? Such passivity was an invitation to abuse and the "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence" took it. Similarly, the lesbian Buddhist to which Wuerl cravenly apologized seized her chance to stick it to the Church.

The choice that the Wuerls face is clear: either they take seriously the duty enshrined in canon law to protect the sacraments from sacrilege and scandal, or these Communion controversies will multiply without end.
The notion that bishops aren't gatekeepers would come as a surprise to the Church's first ones. The apostles were told by Jesus Christ that the good shepherd watches the gate, lest his flock be eaten. "Do not give what is holy to dogs," Jesus warned them.

The Church's position on whether a bishop should stop sacrilege and scandal is not determined by his "comfort" level, Cardinal Wuerl. It is determined by the clear requirements of canon law. Cardinal Burke has spoken; the case is closed. Either the bishops take control over their own sacraments or the Church's enemies will.

Updates:

• Cardinal Wuerl's Continuing Crisis
• Cardinal Wuerl's spokesman files complaint with The American Spectator

Links:

• Cardinal Wuerl's Dereliction of Duty 
• EITHER BISHOPS TAKE CONTROL OVER THE SACRAMENTS OR THE CHURCH’S ENEMIES WILL

Related:

• 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’
• Cardinal Wuerl's Open Scandal
• Pontifical High Mass Honoring Pope Benedict XVI at National Shrine Cancelled
• Archdiocese of Washington reprimands priest for denying communion to a lesbian
• Father Guarnizo's Faculties Suspended - D.C. Bloggers Recommend Taking Action
• Fr. Marcel Placed on Administrative Leave 
• Fr. Marcel (!) Guarnizo receives gift from Chancery
  
• Washington D.C.: Homosexual Agenda Leads to Yet Another Priestly Suspension
• Lesbian denied Communion at her mother’s funeral is also a Buddhist
• Lesbian with kids in Catholic school demands removal of Catechism quote on homosexuality
• Archbishop Wuerl Weasels Out

Bishop Schneider and the Liturgy: Milestones for the Third Millennium

From Paix Liturgique:

On 15 january 2012, the Parisian association Réunicatho, which came into being shortly after the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, held its fourth meeting for Catholic unity. We here present an unabridged translation of the keynote address given by the conference's guest of honor, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, on the theme of "The Extraordinary Form and the New Evangelization."

Bishop Schneider, who is auxiliary bishop of the archidiocese of Saint Mary of Astana and Secretary of the Kazakhstan Conference of Catholic Bishops, is the author of Dominus Est - It is the Lord!, Reflections of a Bishop of Central Asia on Holy Communion, published by Newman House Press.

(headings added by the editors)

***

I –Turning our gaze towards Christ

In order to speak of new evangelization correctly, it is necessary first to turn our gaze towards Him Who is the true evangelizer, namely Our Lord and Saviour Jesus-Christ, the Word of God made Man. The Son of God came upon this earth to expiate and redeem the greatest sin, sin par excellence. And this sin, humanity's sin par excellence, consists in refusing to adore God, in refusing to keep the first place, the place of honor, for Him. This sin on the part of man consists in not paying attention to God, in no longer having a sense of the fittingness of things, or even a sense of the details pertaining to God and to the Adoration that is His due, in not wanting to see God, in not wanting to kneel before God.

For such an attitude, the incarnation of God is an embarrassment; as a result the real presence of God in the Eucharistic mystery is likewise an embarrassment; the centrality of the Eucharistic presence of God in our churches is an embarrassment. Indeed sinful man wants the center stage for himself, whether within the Church or during the Eucharistic celebration; he wants to be seen, to be noticed.

For this reason Jesus the Eucharist, God incarnate, present in the tabernacle under the Eucharistic form, is set aside. Even the representation of the Crucified One on the cross in the middle of the altar during the celebration facing the people is an embarrassment, for it might eclipse the priest's face. Therefore the image of the Crucified One in the center of the altar as well as Jesus the Eucharist in the tabernacle, also in the center of the altar, are an embarrassment. Consequently, the cross and the tabernacle are moved to the side. During mass, the congregation must be able to see the priest’s face at all times, and he delights in placing himself literally at the center of the house of God. And if perchance Jesus the Eucharist is still left in His tabernacle in the middle of the altar because the Ministry of Historical Monuments—even in an atheist regime—has forbidden moving it for the conservation of artistic heritage, the priest, often throughout the entire Eucharistic celebration, does not scruple to turn his back to Him.

How often have good and faithful adorers of Christ cried out in their simplicity and humility : “God bless you, Ministry of Historical Monuments ! At least you have left us Jesus in the center of our church.”

II – The Mass is intended to give glory to God, not to men

Only on the basis of adoring and glorifying God can the Church adequately proclaim the word of the truth, i.e., evangelize. Before the world ever heard Jesus, the eternal Word made flesh, preach and proclaim the Kingdom, He quietly adored for thirty years. This remains forever the law for the Church’s life and action as well as for all evangelizers. “The way the liturgy is treated decides the fate of the Faith and of the Church,” said Cardinal Ratzinger, our current Holy Father Benedict XVI. The Second Vatican Council intended to remind the Church what reality and what action were to take the first place in her life. This is the reason for which the first of the Council’s documents was dedicated to the liturgy. The Council gives us the following principles: in the Church, and therefore in the liturgy, the human must be oriented towards the divine and be subordinate to it; likewise the visible in relation to the invisible, action in relation to contemplation, the present in relation to the future city to which we aspire (see Sacrosanctum Concilium, 2). According to the teaching of Vatican II our earthly liturgy participates in a foretaste of the heavenly liturgy of the holy city of Jerusalem (ibid., 2).

Everything about the liturgy of the Holy Mass must therefore serve to express clearly the reality of Christ’s sacrifice, namely the prayers of adoration, of thanks, of expiation, and of impetration that the eternal High Priest presented to His Father.

The rite and every detail of the Holy Sacrifice of the mass must center on glorifying and adoring God by insisting on the centrality of Christ’s presence, whether in the sign and representation of the Crucified or in His Eucharistic presence in the tabernacle, and especially at the moment of the Consecration and of Holy Communion. The more this is respected, the less man takes center stage in the celebration, the less the celebration looks like a circle closed in on itself. Rather, it is opened out on to Christ as in a procession advancing towards Him with the priest at its head; such a liturgical procession will more truly reflect the sacrifice of adoration of Christ crucified;the fruits deriving from God’s glorification received into the souls of those in attendance will be richer; God will honor them more.
The more the priest and the faithful truthfully seek the glory of God rather than that of men in Eucharistic celebrations and do not seek to receive glory from each other, the more God will honor them by granting that their soul may participate more intensely and fruitfully in the Glory and Honor of His divine life.

At present and in various places on earth there are many celebrations of the Holy Mass regarding which one might say, as an inversion of Psalm113:9: “To us, O Lord, and to our name give glory.” To such celebrations apply Jesus’ words: “How can you believe, who receive glory one from another: and the glory which is from God alone, you do not seek?” (Jn 5:44).


III –The Six Principles of the Liturgical Reform

The Second Vatican Council put forward the following principles regarding a liturgical reform:

1. During the liturgical celebration, the human, the temporal, and action must be directed towards the divine, the eternal, and contemplation; the role of the former must be subordinated to the latter (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 2).
2. During the liturgical celebration, the realization that the earthly liturgy participates in the heavenly liturgy will have to be encouraged (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 8).
3. There must be absolutely no innovation, therefore no new creation of liturgical rites, especially in the rite of Mass, unless it is for a true and certain gain for the Church, and provided that all is done prudently and, if it is warranted, that new forms replace the existing ones organically (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 23).
4. The rites of Mass must be such that the sacred is more explicitly addressed (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 21).
5. Latin must be preserved in the liturgy, especially in Holy Mass (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 36 and 54).
6. Gregorian chant has pride of place in the liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 116).

The Council Fathers saw their reform proposals as the continuation of the reform of Saint Pius X (Sacrosanctum Concilium 112 and 117) and of the servant of God Pius XII; indeed, in the liturgical constitution, Pius XII’s Encyclical Mediator Dei is what is most often cited.

Among other things, Pope Pius XII left the Church an important principle of doctrine regarding the Holy Liturgy, namely the condemnation of what is called liturgical archeologism. Its proposals largely overlapped with those of the Jansenistic and Protestant-leaning synod of Pistoia (see “Mediator Dei,” 63-64). As a matter of fact they bring to mind Martin Luther’s theological thinking.

For this reason, already the Council of Trent condemned Protestant liturgical ideas, in particular the exaggerated emphasis on the notion of banquet in the eucharistic celebration to the detriment of its sacrificial character and the suppression of univocal signs of sacrality as an expression of the mystery of the liturgy (see Council of Trent, session 22).

The magisterium’s doctrinal declarations on the liturgy, as in this case those of the Council of Trent and of the encyclical Mediator Dei and which are reflected in a centuries-old, or even millenia-old, liturgical praxis, these declarations I say, form part of that element of Holy Tradition that one cannot abandon without incurring grave spiritual damage. Vatican II took up these doctrinal declarations on the liturgy, as one can see by reading the general principals of divine worship in the liturgical constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium.

As an example of a concrete error in the thought and action of liturgical action, Pope Pius XII cites the proposal to give to the altar the shape of table (Mediator Dei 62). If already Pope Pius XII refused the table-shaped altar, one imagines how much more he would have refused the proposal for a celebration around a table “versus populum”!

When Sacrosanctum Concilium 2 teaches that, in the liturgy, contemplation has the priority and that the entire celebration must be oriented to the heavenly mysteries (ibid. 2 and 8), it is faithfully echoing the following declaration of the Council of Trent: “And whereas such is the nature of man, that, without external helps, he cannot easily be raised to the meditation of divine things; therefore has holy Mother Church instituted certain rites, to wit that certain things be pronounced in the mass in a low, and others in a louder, tone. She has likewise employed ceremonies, such as mystic benedictions, lights, incense, vestments, and many other things of this kind, derived from an apostolic discipline and tradition, whereby both the majesty of so great a sacrifice might be recommended, and the minds of the faithful be excited, by those visible signs of religion and piety, to the contemplation of those most sublime things which are hidden in this sacrifice” (Session 24, chap. 5).

The Church’s magisterial teachings quoted above, especially Mediator Dei, were certainly recognized as fully valid by the Fathers of the Council. Therefore they must continue to be fully valid for all of the Church’s children even today.


IV –The five wounds of the liturgical mystical body of Christ

In the letter to all the bishops of the Catholic Church that Benedict XVI sent with the 7 July 2007 Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, the Pope made the following important declaration: “In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture.  What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too.” In saying this the Pope expressed the fundamental principle of the liturgy that the Council of Trent, Pope Pius XII, and the Second Vatican Council had taught.

Taking an unprejudiced and objective look at the liturgical practice of the overwhelming majority of churches throughout the Catholic world where the Ordinary Form of the Roman rite is used, no one can honestly deny that the six aforementioned liturgical principles of Vatican II are never, or hardly ever, respected, despite the erroneous claim that such is the liturgical practice that Vatican II desired. There is a certain number of concrete aspects of the currently prevailing liturgical practice in the ordinary rite that represent a veritable rupture with a constant and millennium-old liturgical practice. By this I mean the five liturgical practices I shall mention shortly; they may be termed the five wounds of the liturgical mystical body of Christ. These are wounds, for they amount to a violent break with the past since they deemphasize the sacrificial character (which is actually the central and essential character of the Mass) and put forward the notion of banquet. All of this diminishes the exterior signs of divine adoration, for it brings out the heavenly and eternal dimension of the mystery to a far lesser degree.

Now the five wounds (except for the new Offertory prayers) are those that are not envisaged in the ordinary form of the rite of Mass but were brought into it through the practice of a deplorable fashion.

A) The first and most obvious wound is the celebration of the sacrifice of the Mass in which the priest celebrates with his face turned towards the faithful, especially during the Eucharistic prayer and the consecration, the highest and most sacred moment of the worship that is God’s due. This exterior form corresponds, by its very nature, more to the way in which one teaches a class or shares a meal. We are in a closed circle. And this form absolutely does not conform to the moment of the prayer, less yet to that of adoration. And yet Vatican II did not want this form by any means; nor has it ever been recommended by the Magisterium of the Popes since the Council. Pope Benedict wrote in the preface to the first volume of his collected works: “[t]he idea that the priest and the people in prayer must look at one another reciprocally was born only in the modern age and is completely foreign to ancient Christianity. In fact, the priest and the people do not address their prayer to one another, but together they address it to the one Lord. For this reason they look in the same direction in prayer: either towards the East as the cosmic symbol of the Lord’s return, or where this in not possible, towards an image of Christ in the apse, towards a cross, or simply upwards.”

The form of celebration in which all turn their gaze in the same direction (conversi ad orientem, ad Crucem, ad Dominum) is even mentioned in the rubrics of the new rite of the Mass (see Ordo Missae, 25, 133, 134). The so-called “versus populum” celebration certainly does not correspond to the idea of the Holy Liturgy as mentioned in the declaration of Sacrosanctum Concilium, 2 and 8.

B) The second wound is communion in the hand, which is now spread nearly throughout the entire world. Not only was this manner of receiving communion in no way mentioned by the Vatican II Council Fathers, but it was in fact introduced by a certain number of bishops in disobedience to the Holy See and in spite of the negative majority vote by bishops in 1968. Pope Paul VI legitimized it only later, reluctantly, and under specific conditions.

Pope Benedict XVI, since Corpus Christi 2008, distributes Communion to the faithful kneeling and on their tongue only, both in Rome and also in all the local churches he visits. He thus is showing the entire Church a clear example of practical Magisterium in a liturgical matter. Since the qualified majority of the bishops refused Communion in the hand as something harmful three years after the Council, how much more the Council Fathers would have done so!

C) The third wound is the new Offertory prayers. They are an entirely new creation and had never been used in the Church. They do less to express the mystery of the sacrifice of the Cross than that of a banquet; thus they recall the prayers of the Jewish Sabbath meal. In the more than thousand-year tradition of the Church in both East and West, the Offertory prayers have always been expressly oriented to the mystery of the sacrifice of the Cross (see e.g. Paul Tirot, Histoire des prières d’offertoire dans la liturgie romaine du VIIème au XVIème siècle [Rome, 1985]). There is no doubt that such an absolutely new creation contradicts the clear formulation of Vatican II that states: “Innovationes ne fiant . . . novae formae ex formis iam exstantibus organice crescant” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 23).

D) The fourth wound is the total disappearance of Latin in the huge majority of Eucharistic celebrations in the Ordinary Form in all Catholic countries. This is a direct infraction against the decisions of Vatican II.

E) The fifth wound is the exercise of the liturgical services of lector and acolyte by women as well as the exercise of these same services in lay clothing while entering into the choir during Holy Mass directly from the space reserved to the faithful. This custom has never existed in the Church, or at least has never been welcome. It confers to the celebration of the Catholic Mass the exterior character of informality, the character and style of a rather profane assembly. The second council of Nicaea, already in 787, forbad such practices when it lay down the following canon: “If someone is not ordained, it is not permitted for him to do the reading from the ambo during the holy liturgy“ (can. 14). This norm has been constantly followed in the Church. Only subdeacons and lectors were allowed to give the reading during the liturgy of the Mass. If lectors and acolytes are missing, men or boys in liturgical vestments may do so, not women, since the male sex symbolically represents the last link to minor orders from the point of view of the non-sacramental ordination of lectors and acolytes.

The texts of Vatican II never mention the suppression of the minor orders and of the subdiaconate or the introduction of new ministries. In Sacrosanctum Concilium no. 28, the Council distinguishes “minister” from “fidelis” during the liturgical celebration, and it stipulates that each may do only what pertains to him by the nature of the liturgy. Number 29 mentions the “ministrantes”, that is the altar servers who have not been ordained. In contrast to them, there are, in keeping with the juridical terms in use at that time, the “ministri,” that is to say those who have received an order, be it major or minor.


V –The Motu Proprio: putting an end to rupture in the liturgy

In the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI stipulates that the two forms of the Roman rite are to be regarded and treated with the same respect, because the Church remains the same before and after the Council. In the letter accompanying the Motu Proprio, the pope wishes the two forms to enrich each other mutually. Furthermore he wishes that the new form “be able to demonstrate, more powerfully than has been the case hitherto, the sacrality which attracts many people to the former usage.”

Four of the liturgical wounds, or unfortunate practices (celebration versus populum, communion in the hand, total abandonment of Latin and of Gregorian chant, and intervention of women for the service of lectorship and of acolyte), have in and of themselves nothing to do with the Ordinary Form of the Mass and moreover are in contradiction with the liturgical principles of Vatican II. If an end were put to these practices, we would get back to the true teaching of Vatican II. And then, the two forms of the Roman rite would come considerable closer so that, at least outwardly, there would be no rupture to speak of between them and, therefore, no rupture between the Church before and after the Council either.

As concerns the new Offertory prayers, it would be desirable for the Holy See to replace them with the corresponding prayers of the extraordinary form, or at least to allow for the use of the latter ad libitum. In this way the rupture between the two forms would be avoided not only externally but also internally. Rupture in the liturgy is precisely what the Council Fathers did not what. The Council’s minutes attest to this, because throughout the two thousand years of the liturgy’s history, there has never been a liturgical rupture and, therefore, there never can be. On the other hand there must be continuity, just as it is fitting for the Magisterium to be in continuity.

The five wounds of the Church’s liturgical body I have mentioned are crying out for healing. They represent a rupture that one may compare to the exile in Avignon. The situation of so sharp a break in an expression of the Church’s life is far from unimportant—back then the absence of the popes from Rome, today the visible break between the liturgy before and after the Council. This situation indeed cries out for healing.

For this reason we need new saints today, one or several Saint Catherines of Sienna. We need the “vox populi fidelis” demanding the suppression of this liturgical rupture. The tragedy in all of this is that, today as back in the time of the Avignon exile, a great majority of the clergy, especially in its higher ranks, is content with this rupture.

Before we can expect efficacious and lasting fruits from the new evangelization, a process of conversion must get under way within the Church. How can we call others to convert while, among those doing the calling, no convincing conversion towards God has yet occurred, internally or externally? The sacrifice of the Mass, the sacrifice of adoration of Christ, the greatest mystery of the Faith, the most sublime act of adoration is celebrated in a closed circle where people are looking at each other.

What is missing is “conversio ad Dominum.” It is necessary, even externally and physically. Since in the liturgy Christ is treated as though he were not God, and he is not given clear exterior signs of the adoration that is due to God alone because the faithful receive Holy Communion standing and, to boot, take it into their hands like any other food, grasping it with their fingers and placing it into their mouths themselves. There is here a sort of Eucharistic Arianism or Semi-Arianism.

One of the necessary conditions for a fruitful new evangelization would be the witness of the entire Church in the public liturgical worship. It would have to observe at least these two aspects of Divine Worship:

1) Let the Holy Mass be celebrated the world over, even in the ordinary form, in an internal and therefore necessarily also external “conversio ad Dominum”.
2) Let the faithful bend the knee before Christ at the time of Holy Communion, as Saint Paul demands when he mentions the name and person of Christ (see Phil 2:10), and let them receive Him with the greatest love and the greatest respect possible, as befits Him as true God.

Thank God, Benedict XVI has taken two concrete measures to begin the process of a return from the liturgical Avignon exile, to wit the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum and the reintroduction of the traditional Communion rite.

There still is need for many prayers and perhaps for a new Saint Catherine of Sienna for the other steps to be taken to heal the five wounds on the Church’s liturgical and mystical body and for God to be venerated in the liturgy with that love, that respect, that sense of the sublime that have always been the hallmark of the Church and of her teaching, especially in the Council of Trent, Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Mediator Dei, Vatican II in its Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium and Pope Benedict XVI in his theology of the liturgy, in his liturgical magisterium, and in the Motu Proprio mentioned above.

No one can evangelize unless he has first adored, or better yet unless he adores constantly and gives God, Christ the Eucharist, true priority in his way of celebrating and in all of his life. Indeed, to quote Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger: “It is in the treatment of the liturgy that the fate of the Faith and of the Church is decided.”

Bishop Athanasius Schneider,
Réunicatho, 15 January 2012

• Bishop Schneider and the Liturgy: Milestones for the Third Millennium

Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz is Keeper of the Flame

By Leslie Reed

(Omaha World-Herald) LINCOLN — Perhaps the story of Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz's 20-year watch over the Lincoln Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church could be told as a parable of two men.

Both were trained as priests at a select seminary in Rome, their time there overlapping during the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The slightly older priest revered church tradition as a living connection between believers and Jesus Christ, established through a succession of priests tracing back to St. Peter himself. That priest, a Milwaukee native ordained in 1960, has had a storied career and went on to become the eighth bishop of Lincoln.

The younger man visualized the church as a champion of social justice, embracing all people and ending discrimination. John Krejci, a South Omaha native ordained in 1962, grew disillusioned. He left the priesthood in 1971 to become a professor of social work.

Three decades later, Bruskewitz and Krejci crossed paths again in Lincoln. Their clash of values ended with Bruskewitz excommunicating Krejci and other local members of a Catholic reform group known as Call to Action.

One of their strongest areas of contention: the role of women and girls in worship services.

Under Bruskewitz's leadership, the Lincoln Diocese remains the last in the United States to prohibit girls from being altar servers. Krejci not only would like to see altar girls, he wants the church to consider married priests and female priests and seeks more discussion of matters such as birth control and same-sex marriage.

As Bruskewitz nears the end of his time as bishop, the 15-year battle over the two opposing concepts of Catholicism is a signature theme of his tenure. It is a battle that helped win him a national reputation as a traditionalist among the nation's 65 million Catholics.

In a recent interview, Bruskewitz said his duty is to preserve Catholic faith, "unmutilated, undiluted and undistorted."

"Relativism is a great danger," he said. "There is such a thing as truth."

***

Reverence for tradition would not be the only defining characteristic of Bruskewitz's tenure, of course.
Bruskewitz turned 75 in September 2010 and, as required by church law, submitted his letter of resignation. Ordained as Lincoln's bishop in May 1992, he will step down once Pope Benedict XVI names his successor, likely within the year.

Now the oldest-serving bishop in the United States, Bruskewitz in effect serves as chief executive officer of the Diocese of Lincoln, a territory covering Nebraska from border to border south of the Platte River.

By many measures, his Lincoln career has been one of accomplishment. Church membership has grown, the parochial schools are strong, new seminaries and convents have been established, social services have been expanded, and church finances are solid.

"His influence has been profound," said Doug Curry, a retired executive with the Lincoln Electric System and a member of St. Michael Church, a fast-growing parish in southeast Lincoln.

Bruskewitz set in motion the first ever diocesewide fund drive in 1999, raising $28 million to support Catholic schools, priests' retirement, a new seminary and other projects.

Five new Catholic grade schools and five new parishes have been established, including Lincoln's Cristo Rey Church, a predominantly Hispanic congregation, and St. Andrew Dung-Lac, a predominantly Vietnamese congregation. St. Michael School, which opened in August 2011, is the newest Catholic elementary school in the state.

"The Lord has blessed us," Bruskewitz said in a recent interview. "I don't take any credit. Good things happen because of God's grace."

***

Since Bruskewitz became bishop, the number of Catholics in the diocese has grown from about 80,000 to more than 95,000.

A number of factors contributed to the growth, including an influx of Hispanic and other immigrants and new Catholic converts. But some Catholics have moved into the diocese because of its emphasis on tradition.

Paul Lewandowski and his wife, Terri, have lived in five dioceses, including in the Chicago area, Denver and Birmingham, Ala., and returned to Nebraska 11 years ago. Paul Lewandowski, an aviation professional, took a job at Lincoln's Duncan Aviation in part because of the Lincoln Diocese's reputation.

"You hear about it all over the United States and all over the world that Lincoln is a strong or devout diocese," he said. "You hear good things — that it's Rome in the United States. Or you hear bad things — it's so conservative or it's stuffy and there's no freedom."

He finds the Lincoln Diocese's emphasis on tradition to be reassuring — proof that the Catholic faith has been handed down generation to generation from Jesus.

He even likes that the diocese prohibits altar girls: "The role of altar boy is one reserved for preparation for the priesthood. It sets up boys to become men who serve."

Lewandowski said that when his family lived in Chicago, waiting lists and cost prevented him and his wife from placing their six children in Catholic school. Rather than enroll them in public school, they home-schooled.

That leads him to another major benefit of the Lincoln Diocese: the affordability of parochial school education. Bruskewitz's policy requires churches to contribute to the cost of educating children from their parish.

Senior year tuition at Lincoln's Pius X High School costs $1,800. For comparison, senior year tuition at Omaha Skutt High School is $8,325.

"It makes it so affordable, you can't afford not to send your kids to Catholic school," Lewandowski said.

***

Patty Hawk is not among those attracted to the traditionalism of the Lincoln Diocese.

The 48-year-old assistant professor of communication studies at Nebraska Wesleyan University moved to the Lincoln area from Chadron, Neb., in 1985. Growing up, she helped serve Holy Communion at her parish church and deliver it to shut-ins. She was disappointed to find that women aren't allowed to do that in the Lincoln Diocese.

Click for a larger view.

"I found out there were only two ways I could help in my church: I could be in the music ministry and I could clean," she said.

She became attracted to Call to Action in the early 1990s because of its goals of giving women and lay people more leadership opportunities. She joined the group's Lincoln chapter soon after it was formed in 1996.

As Call to Action was being organized, however, Bruskewitz warned that the group's beliefs were incompatible with church doctrine. Those who joined it anyway would be excommunicated and barred from receiving Communion.

***

Other than the absence of altar girls, the differences between a Catholic Mass in a Lincoln Diocese church and one in another diocese are subtle, almost imperceptible to the uninitiated.

Lincoln Catholics note that the language used to consecrate the bread and wine for Communion precisely follows the liturgical text of the Roman Missal, in one example.

The tabernacle, used to house Communion wafers after they have been consecrated, is always at the highest place in the church.

They say some churches in other dioceses may be more relaxed on those points.

Some churches in the Lincoln Diocese, though not all, tap women to read Scripture and to lead prayers from the pulpit.

The differences may be more obvious in the school system. The row of young priests attending football games at Pius X High School. The nun teachers who wear their habits in the classroom. The daily Mass at the elementary schools.

Those factors, Catholics say, contribute to the high number of young people who decide to enter the priesthood or join a convent. A 2006 study by Catholic World Report cited the Diocese of Lincoln as having the highest per-capita number of seminarians in the country.

During Bruskewitz's tenure, 67 men in the diocese have been ordained as priests. About 35 of them graduated from the St. Gregory the Great Seminary in Seward, Neb., which Bruskewitz helped establish in 1998.

The Rev. Steve Thomlison, once a political campaign consultant who helped conservative Jon Christensen unseat then-U.S. Rep. Peter Hoagland in 1994 in the 2nd District, left the hard-hitting world of politics in 2003 to study for the priesthood.

Thomlison, who was ordained in 2010, said he found his calling in part because Bruskewitz fostered an especially welcoming environment for priests.

Bruskewitz stresses the fundamentals for his priests, Thomlison said, much as a basketball coach who drills his athletes on the basics so they can excel on game day.

"He is this great lion that cares for us and protects us."

***

Sandy Danek, the president of Nebraska Right to Life, converted to Catholicism after her marriage more than 30 years ago. One of her sons is studying for the priesthood at the Seward seminary.

"He's just a delightful, delightful person," she said of Bruskewitz.

She disputes that the diocese stifles women.

"I'm so busy that some days I don't know how I could do much more," she said.

In addition to her anti-abortion involvement, she serves as a cantor, or song leader, for Mass and helped start a ministry for grieving people more than 20 years ago.

Last week, at least a half-dozen girls participated in a Mass presided over by Bruskewitz at St. Michael School.

Some read Scripture and led prayers. Fifth-graders Maggie Stamper and Grace Gokie concluded the service with thank-yous for parents and volunteers and a report to the bishop that students had offered up hundreds of prayers for him.

But only boys aided the priests as they prepared and served Communion.

"I believe gender equality is not the same thing as gender interchangeability," Bruskewitz said, adding that "the most splendid creature God ever made was Mary, who gave Jesus flesh to redeem us."

As the mother of four grown sons and a grown daughter, Danek said she accepts the diocese's policy that only boys can be altar servers because it has helped cultivate more priests in the diocese. Her son Timothy has told her that serving as an altar boy led him to decide to be a priest.

"Some would call it conservative; I would call it orthodoxy," she said of Bruskewitz's philosophy. "That strength in leadership is doing amazing things."

***

It is not unusual for the bishop to take a hard-nosed position.

He refused to participate in a voluntary annual audit of diocesan policies against child sexual abuse requested by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In an interview, he said he sees no purpose to the audit.

Incidents of abuse are "vile, they damage people for life. Few things are more horrible. They require immediate action, and it is a crime not to report them."

In recent weeks, Bruskewitz made headlines again, issuing a blistering letter calling for Catholics in the diocese to fight a federal ruling requiring insurance coverage for birth control, female sterilization procedures and the morning-after pill.

The letter is part of a nationwide effort by U.S. Catholic bishops to oppose the requirement included in the federal health care law.

In his letter, Bruskewitz referred to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius as a "bitter fallen-away Catholic" and urged Catholics to be prepared to incur heavy fines or imprisonment if necessary to oppose the measure, which affects religious-run social service agencies.

In an interview, Bruskewitz said he views it as a matter of religious freedom, not politics.

"This is a requirement that requires me to pay for something that happens in my view to be completely immoral," he said. "It's a distortion of the land of the free, and they know it."

***

The showdown with Call to Action occurred not long after Bruskewitz's arrival in Lincoln. The group was one of a dozen that Bruskewitz identified as antithetical to Catholic teachings. Others included the pro-suicide Hemlock Society, Planned Parenthood, the Freemasons and its affiliated organizations, and even an ultra-conservative Catholic organization that followed pre-Vatican II precepts without the pope's authorization.
It was the Call to Action group that attracted the most attention, however.

The organization is fairly small, with about 50 active members in the diocese. Its members say their goal is to strengthen the church, not undermine it, and they object strenuously to being denied Communion.

Krejci on occasion simply has taken the bread, despite attempts by priests to wave him off. As recently as last year, he said, priests in the diocese were sent reminder letters that they should not knowingly provide Communion to Call to Action members.

Many members travel outside the diocese to receive Communion.

It's a matter that causes some anguish for Jim McShane, a retired English professor from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

It reached a crisis point several weeks ago as McShane prepared for surgery to repair a stroke-like injury on the surface of his brain. He did not know whether he would be alive or fully functioning afterward.

His excommunication put him in a position, he said, "where if you were to die, you'd be damned to hell," he said. "This is an unsettling prospect."

Yet to be restored to the sacraments, he would have to renounce Call to Action.

"That causes me to assert something I do not believe is true," McShane said.

"My resolution is to say that one must trust the justice of God," he said. "So I do."

***

Bruskewitz expresses no second thoughts about the controversial decisions that have marked his tenure and dismisses labels like "conservative" or "authoritarian" as political words that don't fit religious leaders.

Asked whether he found it sorrowful to deny Communion to believers, he said it was more sorrowful for errant Catholics to put their priests in an uncomfortable position.

Bruskewitz said he finds it a tragedy that his one-time fellow seminarian now leads an "anti-Catholic sect."

"Their creed does not resemble the Catholic Church," he said. "If they want to walk their own way, let them walk their own way."

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