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

A Mass and a milestone

By Damian Thompson

Here is a photograph taken at a Mass celebrated this month in Rome in the Archbasilica of St John Lateran. The full details can be found at the magnificent website of the New Liturgical Movement. I will point out two things:

1. The Mass was celebrated by Antonio Cardinal Cañizares Llovera, who as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship is in charge of the worldwide liturgy of the Catholic Church.

2. It was a Tridentine Mass. Forgive the antiquated phrase, but it’s not so long ago that this form of the Roman Rite was celebrated clandestinely in the hotels of railway stations.

(Oh, and the subdeacon was Fr Tim Finigan, a great servant of the Church whose gifts not been fully acknowledged in England and Wales. Yet.)

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Priests’ conference in Rome to feature Tridentine liturgies

Posted on January 4, 2010 by Father Matthew Gamber

ROME — Top officials from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments will be principal celebrants at Tridentine liturgies during a conference in Rome this week. The Tridentine rite, in use before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, is also called the extraordinary form of the liturgy.

U.S. Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, secretary of the Vatican congregation, will celebrate solemn pontifical vespers and benediction in the extraordinary form at the Church of St. Stephen of the Abyssinians, located inside the Vatican walls, Jan. 6.

On Jan. 7, Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, prefect of the worship congregation, will celebrate a solemn pontifical Mass in the extraordinary form at the Basilica of St. John Lateran.

The conference is being co-sponsored by the U.S.-based Confraternity of Catholic Clergy and the Australian Confraternity of Catholic Clergy to mark the Year for Priests.

Archbishop Raymond Burke, prefect of the Apostolic Signature, the church’s highest court, will be the main celebrant at the concluding liturgy of the conference Jan. 8. He will celebrate a solemn pontifical Mass in the ordinary — or new – form in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Archbishop Burke celebrated a Mass in the extraordinary form in St. Peter’s Basilica last October.

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Instruction on Summorum Pontificum in Early January 2009?

From NLM:

"The following item was today posted on the Italian "Pontifex" site of Bruno Volpe (NLM translation). While what it says about the Instruction being submitted by Ecclesia Dei to the Holy Father agrees with the public declarations of the leadership of PCED, the rest should still be regarded as a rumour, as yet unconfirmed by any of the prestigious vaticanistas. The tone of the article, which is not exactly impartial, would suggest some caution, lest some wishful thinking is mixed into the reporting, and the last paragraph, to me at least, sounds somewhat confused. Still, if this is indeed accurate, it would be quite remarkable, and certainly more than many of the more pessimistic supporters of the usus antiquior had hoped for.

Instruction on the Motu Proprio Ready. Ecclesia Dei Strengthened.

The Instruction on the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum of 7 July 2007 which liberalized Holy Mass according to the ancient Roman rite, has been ready for some time already and is now being examined by Pope Benedict XVI. This Pontifex has learned from authoritative sources. The text, signed by Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, will be signed most likely by the Pope in late December and published in the first days of January 2009. In its most important parts the document, which had become indispensable after the many problems in the application of the Motu Proprio and forms of outright recalcitrance on the part of not a few bishops (incidentally appropriately denounced in September by the Vice President of the Commission Ecclesia Dei, Monsignor Camille Perl), addresses two crucial topics: the interpretation of the term "stable group of faithful" within an ordinary parish and the problem of personal parishes. It was even considered to list and to indicate a minimum number of faithful, but this solution has been discarded.

According to the document, the traditionalist faithful present in a parish will have the full protection of the law to ask for the old Mass, and if the bishop refuses (here is the news), saying that there are no priests capable of celebrating according to the ancient rite in that place, the Commission Ecclesia Dei will authoritatively ("di imperio") send a priest able to do so to that diocese. In short, the bishops will no longer be able to refuse a priori to have the old Mass celebrated, because in such cases, the Commission Ecclesia Dei will send a delegated priest of its own.

The document then analyzes the case of personal parishes in which the traditionalists want to celebrate the Christmas Mass or the Easter Triduum according to the ancient rite, also in cases of an absence of priests, or a prohibition by the bishop. The possibility of a shortage of priests could be envisaged, and also in this case, Ecclesia Dei will take care. The Holy See, therefore, wants to establish definitive clarity regarding the application of the Motu Proprio, and for this reason also the powers and prerogatives of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei will be better defined and strengthened.

Again, this should be taken for what it is, a rumour, and considered with due caution."

• Link

Defending the readings in the Traditional Mass

From RORATE CÆLI:

As the Synod on Holy Scripture is opened by Pope Benedict XVI in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, a good article on the forms of the Roman Rite and the Scripture readings.

WORDS OF DOCTRINE
Two theories born of Biblicism
Fr. Nicola Bux and Fr. Salvatore Vitiello

Some say that the post-Conciliar Mass is richer in Readings and Eucharistic Prayers, while the Missal said of Pius V would be poorer and less accurate. The theory is anachronistic since it fails to consider four centuries of distance; it is as if we were to say the same about "Sacramentaries" some centuries earlier than that of Pius V. What is more, it is forgotten that the pericopes of the Pius V Missal were formed on the basis of old capitularies with epistles, such as St Jerome's Liber comitis– dated 471 - or with Gospel pericopes ; a tradition in common with the Church of the East, as the Byzantine liturgy still shows today.

Secondly, the brief readings help memorize the essential and express the sobriety of the Roman Rite. Some even go as far as to say that the Extraordinary Form of the only Latin Rite gives too little emphasis to the presence of Christ in the Word, when the latter is proclaimed in the assembly; in this cas,e the liturgy loses its very essence, the 'two tables' - in Dei Verbum, n. 21, there would appear to be only “one” - forming one act of worship!

It is said that the Missal of the Council of Trent moves in a vision far from the tradition of the Church Fathers; that the Missal was planned for the priest only, not for the participation of the assembly because the congregation is merely irrelevant. In fact, it is said that the priest celebrates on his own and so does the congregation; they say the Mass of Paul VI is quite different because it is not the priest who celebrates but the Church, sacramentally present in the assembly, of which the priest, by reason of order, is the natural president.

This position is considerably problematic because it reduces everything to Word and Assembly. However “Jesus is not just the teacher, but also the redeemer of the whole person. The Jesus who teaches is, at the same time, the One who saves ” (J.Ratzinger-Benedict XVI, Gesù di Nazaret, p. 65) and this comes about effectively only through the Eucharistic Sacrament.

Another theory, widespread due to the customary phenomenon of substitution and exchanging one thing with another, is to equal the presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament with the presence of the Word in the Book of the Scriptures: the latter presence takes place only “when the Holy Scriptures are read in the Church” (Sacrosanctum Concilium n. 7). It is necessary to reaffirm that Christ's presence in the Word exists on two conditions: when it is read out “in the Church assembly ”, not privately, and when Sacred Scripture is 'read'. Therefore the holy book placed on the lectern or the altar is not sufficient for this presence.

To conclude, it is more than ever urgent for preaching and catechesis to return to making the proper distinction between Revelation, Word of God and Sacred Scripture which, although closely connected, are not equivalent. At times in fact, not without surprise, we see in this regard considerable confusion and not only among the lay faithful. Some even think that the Bible is to be interpreted with the Bible and not, as the Catholic Church has always held, with Tradition and by faithful listening to the Magisterium.

_________________________
FIDES translation, adapted according to the Italian original.

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Mixed reviews: Implementation of Tridentine ruling frustrates some

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A year after Pope Benedict XVI opened the way to wider use of the Tridentine Mass, implementation of the papal directive is drawing mixed reviews from its target audience.

Catholic traditionalists remain grateful for the pope's document and say it has given them a certain legitimacy in local church communities, as well as greater practical access to the old rite.

But some -- backed by a Vatican official -- have complained that bishops and pastors continue to place obstacles in the way of groups seeking the Tridentine liturgy.

On a long-term issue, traditionalists are pleased at new efforts to instruct priests in celebrating Mass in the older rite. Meanwhile, those who envisioned Tridentine Masses popping up in every parish are somewhat frustrated.

"We're only looking at one calendar year, and we know that in the church these things take time. But the problem -- dare anyone say this? -- the problem is the bishops. Because you have bishops who aren't on board," said John Paul Sonnen, an American Catholic who lives in Rome.

Sonnen and about 150 others attended a small but significant conference in Rome in mid-September on the theme: "'Summorum Pontificum': One Year After."

"Summorum Pontificum" was the title of the pope's 2007 apostolic letter that said Mass celebrated according to the 1962 Roman Missal, commonly known as the Tridentine rite, should be made available in every parish where groups of the faithful desire it. In his letter, the pope said the Mass from the Roman Missal in use since 1970 remains the ordinary form of the Mass, while celebration of the Tridentine Mass is the extraordinary form.

The response to the papal letter varied around the world. In the United States, many bishops -- even those not enthusiastic about the new policy -- took steps to explain it to their faithful and put it into practice.

But in Europe and Latin America, conference participants said, there's been less favorable reaction.

"In Italy, with just a few admirable exceptions, the bishops have put obstacles in the way of applying ('Summorum Pontificum')," Msgr. Camille Perl told the Rome conference.

"I would have to say the same thing about the major superiors of religious orders who forbid their priests from celebrating Mass in the old rite," Msgr. Perl said.

Msgr. Perl is vice president of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei," which oversees implementation of the papal document, so his words carried weight. Italian newspapers reported his comments under the headline "The bishops are boycotting the pope."

Two Brazilian priests attending the conference complained that they're facing a similar situation in their country.

"I think there's a great desire on the part of young priests to learn the older rite. But we don't study it in seminaries, and the bishops don't cooperate on that," said Father Giuseppe Olivera of Sao Paolo.

Msgr. Perl said letters received by his commission indicate considerable interest in setting up local Tridentine Masses in France, Great Britain, Canada, the United States and Australia. He said there have been fewer requests for the older Mass in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, who heads the "Ecclesia Dei" commission, said recently that Pope Benedict would eventually like to see the Tridentine rite offered in every parish. But for now, in the pope's own Diocese of Rome, a single church, Santissima Trinita dei Pellegrini, has been designated as a "personal parish" for traditionalists.

That's a solution that appeals to some dioceses, especially those that include large cities, but it tends to separate traditionalists from other local parishes. It also seems to put bishops in charge of the decision of where and when a Tridentine Mass is offered, instead of the local pastor, as indicated by "Summorum Pontificum."

Father Joseph Kramer, pastor at Rome's Santissima Trinita church, said that so far his parish is attracting a lot of younger people and those over 50, but not many in between and few young families.

In general, he said, it's important for traditionalist Catholics to make it clear that they accept the changes of the Second Vatican Council, in order not to frighten off "normal" Catholics who might be attracted to the older rite.

U.S. Father John Zuhlsdorf runs a blog -- "What Does the Prayer Really Say?" -- that's become a sounding board for reaction to "Summorum Pontificum" among traditionalist Catholics.

One recent comment on the blog began: "Frankly, I'm sick and tired. Tired of waiting. 'Summorum Pontificum' has been in force for one year now and, in spite of the fact that I live in a huge metropolitan area, there is no TLM (traditional Latin Mass) to which I can go" without driving at least an hour.

Father Zuhlsdorf, who attended the Rome conference, said he understands some of these frustrations but takes a generally positive view of the first year of "Summorum Pontificum."

One good thing, he said, is that the papal directive has deeply affected priests, especially younger priests, and their perception of "who they are at the altar." As time goes on and older priests and bishops retire, this interest will have a ripple effect on parish life, he said.

Another plus is that resources for the older rite, including beautifully bound missals, are being produced and published. These could appeal to Catholics and "help change the culture of participating at Mass," Father Zuhlsdorf said.

In addition, he said, some U.S. seminaries are beginning to introduce courses in celebrating the Tridentine rite. Private training programs for priests, workshops and Web sites also have been established.

He compared it to the Ford Motor Co. putting a new model into production.

"It takes a long time to construct the assembly plant, but once you get the thing built you can get the product out more quickly," he said.

In the more-to-be-done category, Father Zuhlsdorf said there are still some priests and bishops who have "a bit of a stingy attitude" about the legitimate requests of traditionalists.

He said Latin proficiency is an example of where a double standard seems to be used to create an obstacle to the wider offering of the older Mass. While it's true that a priest celebrating in Latin has to know what he's saying at the altar, he said, one could also ask about proficiency in English among priests coming from a foreign country to serve in the United States.

In any case, he said, the Code of Canon Law requires that all seminarians be well-trained in Latin. If that isn't being done today, seminary officials should be addressing the problem, he said.

• Mixed reviews: Implementation of Tridentine ruling frustrates some
• CNS: “Implementation of Tridentine ruling frustrates some”

Let us pray in Latin: priests take on Catholics’ magic circle

Damian Thompson sniffs the incense of a revolution among Britain’s parish priests

For a moment it looks as if a fire has broken out in the chapel. A cloud of smoke is billowing from the back and rolling down the aisle – and it is fiercely pungent. This is grade A incense, pure enough to guarantee an instantaneous spiritual high.

A young man walks through the door swinging a thurible on a gold chain. He passes it to a priest, deacon and subdeacon – all in gold vestments – who take turns wafting it at each other. Finally, the subdeacon turns round and, bowing low, shoots plumes of smoke diagonally across the choir stalls with the accuracy of a mid-fielder taking a difficult corner.

We are witnessing an unusual sight: a Roman Catholic solemn mass, celebrated according to an ancient Latin rite effectively outlawed 40 years ago. And it’s taking place in the 13th-century chapel of Merton college, Oxford, which has been Anglican for 400 years.

Just for a week, however, it has gone back to being Catholic – but this is not Catholicism as most people know it. I’m at the summer school of the Latin Mass Society which – to the delight of the conservative Pope Benedict XVI and the dismay of trendy British bishops – is teaching priests how to say the Tridentine mass.

The last time Merton chapel regularly witnessed this sort of complex liturgy was in the 1540s, before the Protestant reformers pulled out much of the stained glass and toppled the statues of saints. The organi-sers of the summer school are reformers, too, but their aim is precisely the opposite: to restore Latin services and rich furnishings to their own Catholic parish churches, many of which were stripped bare by modernisers after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

What makes this summer school rather controversial is that most of the bishops of England and Wales disapprove of the return of the Latin mass, regarding its sonorous Latin prayers and intricate gestures as a relic of the Middle Ages. Until recently, the Tridentine mass could be celebrated only with a bishop’s permission, usually granted grudgingly for special occasions. Then, in July last year, Pope Benedict XVI swept away the right of bishops to ban the old services. Most of them were horrified.

So these are tense times. But the 60 priests who have gathered at Merton college – to brush up their skills or to learn the Tridentine mass from scratch – are careful to avoid talk of civil war in the church. All are aware that this autumn, Pope Benedict is expected to announce a successor to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, who presides over a liberal “magic circle” of bishops unsympathetic to the Pope’s reforms. Will Benedict break the circle that has run the English church for 40 years?

Whoever gets the job, however, nobody expects a sudden return to the Tridentine mass in parishes all over the country. The seminaries do not teach priests how to say it and teaching yourself is difficult. A glance at the manual explains why: “Bring the thumb of each hand over the upper front edge of the paten [communion plate], tilting it to let the host slide off onto the crease of the front-centre fold of the corporal [linen cloth]. Place your left hand on the altar and with your right hand set the paten halfway under the right edge of the corporal.” And all the while saying: “. . . pro innumerabilibus peccatis, et offensionibus, et negligentiis meis, et pro omnibus circumstantibus . . .”

Interestingly, the most traditionalist priests here are also the youngest – and I spot four in the choir stalls who are popular bloggers on the internet. Walking down the high street later, I encounter two clergy wearing the old-fashioned soup-plate hats beloved of Italian village padres. One of them has long knotted tassels dangling from the brim, “so I can tie them round my neck when I ride my horse through the parish”.

A priest who looks barely out of his teens explains what he does when unsolicited copies of The Tablet – a liberal Catholic magazine that opposes the Latin revival – arrive at his church: “I painstakingly remove the staples and feed it into the shredder. It’s time-consuming, but God’s work.”

Most of the other priests at the summer school are less extreme: they have come because they are curious about the Latin mass and they can scent change in the air. “We’re not trying to turn them into traditionalists,” says Father Andrew Wadsworth, an authority on the old rite who is conducting classes. “We want to show priests how the underlying principles of the traditional liturgy can deepen their understanding of their priesthood.”

Father John Boyle, a parish priest in Ashford, Kent, recently taught himself to say the Tridentine mass by watching a DVD. “It’s made a profound difference to the way I celebrate the new mass in English,” he says. “There’s greater reverence now. I’m more of a celebrant and less of a compere.”

I sense a huge contrast with the atmosphere at the first Merton summer school in August 2007. Then, I was allowed to poke my head round the door of a training session. Now, Wadsworth lets me watch him take a priest right through the opening sequence of a Latin mass in a student’s room, using a reversed bookcase as an altar.

The priest, Canon Michael McCreadie, is in his fifties – yet today is the first time in his life that he has acted out the ancient gestures. He removes an invisible biretta (it’s a pretend mass). “Now, father, keep your hands joined,” Wadsworth reminds him. “Go to the centre of the altar, not touching it . . . left hand flat on the page. No, you should be over here,” and he gently turns his pupil towards the window.

After half an hour, we are still only five minutes into the order of service, but McCreadie is elated: “I wasn’t looking forward to saying the old mass, but after today I most certainly am.”

It’s only now I discover that he is dean of Leeds Cathedral. A year ago there were no senior main-stream clerics at the summer school. Later in the day, even more significantly, the Rev Malcolm McMahon, the Bishop of Nottingham, celebrates old rite pontifical vespers wearing a jewelled mitre and an embroidered cope that even Cardinal Wolsey might have considered over the top.

McMahon, a Dominican, is left-wing in his politics and certainly not part of a traditionalist faction – but nor does he belong to the politically correct, back-slapping magic circle. At dinner later, he effectively breaks ranks with his fellow bishops by unambiguously endorsing Pope Benedict’s vision of a church in which the old and new rites coexist. The traditionalists give him a standing ovation and a verse of God Bless our Pope.

He also tells Father Tim Finigan, author of the Hermeneutic of Continuity, the most influential of all the conservative blogs, to keep writing. Which is interesting, given that the Bishops’ Conference would dearly like to stop that particular blog.

Afterwards, Finigan writes: “Bishop McMahon has certainly won the hearts of the priests . . . All of a sudden, there is someone that many priests loyal to Pope Benedict will be watching closely . . . ecce sacerdos magnus!”

That’s Latin for “behold the great priest”. Those words will be read carefully in the Vatican, where Pope Benedict has been informed that the magic circle is desperate to install one of its own as the next cardinal. He isn’t pleased. Watch this space.

Damian Thompson is editor-in-chief of the Catholic Herald

• Let us pray in Latin: priests take on Catholics’ magic circle
• The Hermeneutic of Continuity - Father Tim Finigan

Course to prepare altar servers for Latin Mass

Saturday, July 26, 2008

By LESLIE PALMA-SIMONCEK

ADVANCE STAFF WRITER

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The New York Latin Liturgy Association will sponsor a training course for Catholic men and boys over 8 who want to learn how to serve the traditional Latin Mass of the Roman Catholic Church.

A year ago, the Vatican cleared the way for priests throughout the world to celebrate the Latin mass without prior approval from their bishops. Since then, according to William J. Leininger, chairman of the Grasmere-based Latin Liturgy Association, more than 100 Latin masses have been scheduled across the country, with 10 celebrated within the Archdiocese of New York. He said several Island parishes also are planning to offer masses in Latin.

The training course, which will begin in September, will teach men and boys how to pronounce the Latin Mass responses and how to serve a "low" mass (missa recitiva) and a "high" mass (missa cantata).

No prior knowledge of Latin is required.

For information, call Leininger at 718-351-1234 or e-mail him at wleininger100@verizon.net.

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Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP) Twentieth Anniversary

Congratulations to the
Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP)
on its twentieth anniversary!

posted by New Catholic at 8:43 AM

• RORATE CÆLI

Pope would like Tridentine Mass in each parish, Vatican official says

By Simon Caldwell
Catholic News Service

LONDON (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI would like every Catholic parish in the world to celebrate a regular Tridentine-rite Mass, a Vatican cardinal has said.

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos also told a June 14 press conference in London that the Vatican was writing to all seminaries to ask that candidates to the priesthood are trained to celebrate Mass according to the extraordinary form of the Latin rite, also known as the Tridentine Mass, restricted from the 1970s until July 2007 when Pope Benedict lifted some of those limits.

The cardinal, who was visiting London at the invitation of the Latin Mass Society, a British Catholic group committed to promoting Mass in the Tridentine rite of the 1962 Roman Missal, said it was "absolute ignorance" to think that the pope was trying to reverse the reforms of the Second Vatican Council by encouraging use of the rite.

"The Holy Father, who is a theologian and who was (involved) in the preparation for the council, is acting exactly in the way of the council, offering with freedom the different kinds of celebration," he said.

"The Holy Father is not returning to the past; he is taking a treasure from the past to offer it alongside the rich celebration of the new rite," the cardinal added.

When asked by a journalist if the pope wanted to see "many ordinary parishes" making provision for the Tridentine Mass, Cardinal Castrillon, a Colombian, said: "All the parishes. Not many, all the parishes, because this is a gift of God.

"He (Pope Benedict) offers these riches, and it is very important for new generations to know the past of the church," said Cardinal Castrillon, president of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei," which works to help separated traditionalist Catholics return to the church.

"This kind of worship is so noble, so beautiful," he said. "The worship, the music, the architecture, the painting, makes a whole that is a treasure. The Holy Father is willing to offer to all the people this possibility, not only for the few groups who demand it but so that everybody knows this way of celebrating the Eucharist in the Catholic Church."

He also said his commission, which also is responsible for overseeing the application of "Summorum Pontificum," the 2007 papal decree authorizing the universal use of the Tridentine rite, was in the process of writing to seminaries not only to equip seminarians to celebrate Mass in Latin but to understand the theology, the philosophy and the language of such Masses.

The cardinal said parishes could use catechism classes to prepare Catholics to celebrate such Masses every Sunday so they could "appreciate the power of the silence, the power of the sacred way in front of God, the deep theology, to discover how and why the priest represents the person of Christ and to pray with the priest."

In "Summorum Pontificum," Pope Benedict indicated that Tridentine Masses should be made available in every parish where groups of the faithful desire it and where a priest has been trained to celebrate it. He also said the Mass from the Roman Missal in use since 1970 remains the ordinary form of the Mass, while the celebration of the Tridentine Mass is the extraordinary form.

The document did not require all parishes to automatically establish a Tridentine Mass schedule, but it said that where "a group of faithful attached to the previous liturgical tradition exists stably," the pastor should "willingly accede" to their request to make the Mass available.

Cardinal Castrillon told the press conference, however, that a stable group could mean just three or four people who were not necessarily drawn from the same parish.

Later in the day, Cardinal Castrillon celebrated the first pontifical high Mass in the Tridentine rite in London's Westminster Cathedral in 39 years. The event drew a congregation of more than 1,500 people, including young families. None of the English or Welsh bishops attended.

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Traditional Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel

From The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny:

Today a Traditional Missa Cantata was celebrated with the assistance of members of our Society in the splendid surroundings of the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on East 115th Street in New York. The Traditional Mass has been celebrated here each Sunday at 10 AM since 1988 – the promulgation of Ecclesia Dei. It is intended to celebrate a Missa Cantata here on the last Sunday of every month.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel is a magnificent church especially dear to the Italian-American community. Italian immigrants – including the women who carried bricks - built it at night in 1884. The statue of the Virgin was crowned with Vatican authorization in 1903 – one of only a handful of Crowned Virgins in North America. Pope Pius X contributed an emerald but the rest of the gold and jewels for the crowns of Our Lady and the Christ Child came from the wedding rings and other jewelry contributed by the Italian ladies of the parish. The feast and procession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel draws a huge crowd in the summer, but at other times the parish quietly ministers to a small flock, including nowadays “Hispanics” and Haitians.

We hope to support the parish’s effort to keep the Traditional Mass alive at Our Lady of Mount Carmel. They need more people to attend and more servers at the mass. The parish is easy to reach from the southbound FDR Drive and parking is available on Sundays nearby. Those of you who have a table at Rao’s a block away will be familiar with the location.

For more on the parish see:

http://www.mountcarmelofeastharlem.com/olmc.html

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• Traditional Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel
• TLM in E. Harlem, NYC: an account

Pilgrims sing the praises of Latin

The Tridentine Mass is being revived by young Catholics while walking to Chartres Cathedral

Greg Watts

Religion may well be in decline among European youth but it is by no means dead. This weekend about 6,000 young Catholics will set off on a 75-mile walk from Paris to Chartres Cathedral — and as they walk they will all be praying and singing in Latin.

Pope Benedict XVI’s decision last year in his apostolic letter, Summorum pontificum, to revive the Tridentine Latin Mass, was seen as a turning back of the clock by some liberal Catholics but greeted with jubilation by some conservative Catholics.

Out of all of the reforms triggered by the Second Vatican Council, the introduction of a new Mass in 1969, replacing the Roman Missal of 1962, was the most controversial.

Instead of facing east with his back to the congregation [cliché], the priest now faced them and recited the words in the local language rather than Latin. While not technically banned ["never abrogated" - Pope Benedict XVI], the Tridentine Mass soon fell out of use, but some groups of Catholics refused to give up their attachment to it.

This weekend’s annual three-day pilgrimage through northern France, which is in its 26th year, illustrates the appeal that the Tridentine Mass has for some young Catholics disenchanted with what they say is the lack of mystery, beauty and sacredness in the revised Mass.

Gregory Flash, 28, an investment banker from London, explains why he is taking part in the pilgrimage for the second year running: “The pilgrimage is a time of prayer, penance and fellowship. It’s great to be surrounded by thousands of Catholics around the same age who, despite their different nationalities, can sing and pray in the same language and in the same way.”

The pilgrims come from several countries, including Poland, Germany, Italy and the US, and include seminarians. Some bishops and even cardinals have joined them in previous years.

They begin their pilgrimage at 6am on Saturday at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, where a priest will bless them. Carrying banners and flags, they then snake their way through the south-western suburbs of the city and out into the countryside.

“At mid-morning we attend the first Mass of the pilgrimage. A priest sets up an altar in a forest and will celebrate a full sung Mass with a choir singing Gregorian chant,” Mr Flash says.

The pilgrims follow part of one of the ancient routes to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. They walk in small groups. Some sing the rosary in Latin; others make their confession to one of the traditionalist priests who accompany them. On Saturday and Sunday nights they camp in fields.

“When we arrive at Chartres Cathedral, the local bishop usually greets us. We then have a solemn Mass. Those who can’t fit inside watch it on TV screens outside. Priests hear confessions in the side chapels or on plastic chairs in the cathedral square.”

Grace Readings, 23, who works as a PA to an MP, will be making her 13th pilgrimage. She first went as a pupil at St Michael’s School in Berkshire, which is run by the Society of St Pius X, a breakaway traditionalist group which the Pope is trying to lure back to Rome.

Abount 90 per cent of those making the pilgrimage are between 19 and 25, Ms Readings says. “You don’t meet many young practising Catholics nowadays, so it’s a great opportunity to encourage each other. When I come back, I feel, yes, it is possible to live out your faith in the modern world.

“I find the Tridentine rite more beautiful and reverent. A lot of the new Masses are happy-clappy. The Tridentine Mass is geared towards God more than the congregation,” she said.

She dismisses those who argue that the Latin language is a barrier to understanding the Mass. “Latin isn’t a problem. You follow the Mass in a missal that has the words in Latin and English. Latin is a universal language and it is very ancient. I like that.”

This youthful enthusiasm for the tradition is not restricted to the Chartres marchers. For example, members of Juventutem International Federation, a network of young traditionalist Catholics founded in 2006, will attend the International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec in June and World Youth Day in Sydney in July. The group has the support of Cardinal Dario Castrillo Hoyos, president of the Vatican’s commission set up by Pope John Paul II to reunite traditionalist groups, such as the Society of St Pius X.

John Medlin, of the Latin Mass Society, reckons that about 20 per cent of those attending traditional-rite Masses are young or have young families. “When young people who have had no prior experience of the traditional rite come along to one of our Masses only a handful go away thinking well, I found that pretty off-putting. Some think, fair enough, but not a lot happened for me. But a surprisingly large number go away thinking, I’ve just come into contact with Catholic worship for the first time. I really felt something objective was going on.”

In July, at Merton College, Oxford, the Latin Mass Society is holding its second residential training course for priests wishing to learn how to celebrate the Tridentine Mass. It includes talks on the Latin language, the rubrics of the Mass and singing, along with opportunities for priests to have a dummy run at saying the traditional Mass. Last year nearly 50 priests turned up.

Father Stephen Langridge, parish priest of the Church of the Holy Ghost, Balham, South London, and vocations director for the archdiocese of Southwark, believes that those young Catholics who are drawn to the Tridentine Mass should be seen in the context of a search for a more meaningful spirituality.

“Some young Catholics might turn to the Tridentine Mass as a way of deepening their relationship with God,” Father Langridge says.

“They find it offers them a deeper spiritual experience than perhaps they have found at their parish Mass. In my experience others find something similar attending Youth 2000 retreats or becoming involved with some of the new movements.”

www.nd-chretiente.com/index-eng.php

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