Why Ostracize TLM? – “So I ask myself, how is that in a Church of multiple approved liturgical rites and many cultural adaptations of liturgical practice … cannot find it in its compassionate and accompanying heart to allow Catholics who love the traditional Latin Mass, which existed for centuries, to worship in the way they wish, with the Church’s blessing.” No Mercy for Latin Mass Lovers (The Catholic Thing)
Dr. Paolo Ruffini – “When Dr. Paolo Ruffini took the stage at the Catholic Media Conference in Atlanta on Friday, June 21, you could still hear people scraping mashed potatoes off their plates and stirring cream into their coffee.” ‘I think you’re wrong’: Vatican official adamantly refuses to listen to victims (CatholicVote)
Problematic Art – “Much has been said recently about the moral failings of ex-Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik. But what of the failures of his art?” Marko Rupnik: Modern Iconographer or Denier of the Incarnation? (The Institute of Sacred Architecture)
Indicating Indifference – “On Friday, American Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston issued a statement saying he has asked the heads of all offices in the Roman Curia to take down the artwork of a famed priest and artist accused of abusing dozens of adult women.” Pope’s safeguarding czar urges Vatican to take down Rupnik artwork (Crux)
The Second Cold War – “A government with a permanent deficit and a bloated military. A bogus ideology pushed by elites. Poor health among ordinary people. Senescent leaders. Sound familiar?” Niall Ferguson: We’re All Soviets Now (The Free Press)
USCCB Layoffs – “The U.S. bishops’ conference executive leadership wrote to bishops Tuesday, clarifying the scope of a recent round of layoffs in USCCB’s department for Justice, Peace, and Human Development … “USCCB memo clarifies JPHD layoffs (The Pillar)
Germany’s Judicial System – “A woman in Germany has been given a harsher sentence than a convicted rapist after she was found guilty of defaming him.” German woman given harsher sentence than rapist for calling him ‘pig’ (Aol.)
ReproductiveRights.gov – Joe Biden has shifted from touting his long record of supporting the Hyde Amendment and opposing late-term abortions to making unfettered abortion rights the centerpiece of his presidential campaign. With Abortions and Rainbows for All (First Things)
Jeopardizing Children’s Health – “It’s understandable to want to help troubled kids. But the evidence simply isn’t there that unproven drugs and surgeries are what they need.” Progressives’ Drive for Equity Is Leading Them Astray on Medical Gender Transition for Minors (National Review)
Technocracy and Misinformation – “In dissent from the majority, Justice Alito wrote, ‘High-ranking government officials placed unrelenting pressure on Facebook to suppress Americans’ free speech. Because the court unjustifiably refuses to address this serious threat to the First Amendment, I respectfully dissent.’” Supreme Court Rules Against Missouri in Social Media Case (The American Conservative)
The Nice Rule – “The culture has radically changed in the past two decades, making the Nice Rule a defeatist strategy.” Confrontational Catholicism (Crisis Magazine)
Dumping Pride Month – Most Americans couldn’t dream up a better way to cap off the Left’s 2024 Pride fail than another big-name company running for the exits. Tractor Supply Puts Pride Out to Pasture, Handing Americans Their Biggest Win Yet (Washington Stand)
(*The posting of any particular news item or essay is not an endorsement of the content and perspective of said news item or essay.)
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#12 – Dumping Pride Month – Kudos to TSC!
@ Problematic Art
The vacant stares of Rupnik’s art, and “clericalism”:
“If, as Pope Francis has insisted, ‘clericalism’ is a problem, then we must ask whether Father Rupnik would have ever gotten the amount of work he received if he had been simply Mr. Mark Rupnik and not a Jesuit priest. It is more likely that, as a layman, he would never have received so many commissions for such important places within the Catholic Church. It was not that the vineyards were ripe and the workers few, but rather that the workers were ready, but they were locked out of the vineyards.”
@ Why Austracize TLM
Also this news from The Pillar:https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/uk-cultural-grandees-urge-vatican
@ Why Ostracize TLM
Rereading The Pillar link (my comment, above), this afterthought…
The Pillar article reports a letter from some 40 English Catholics and non-Catholics protesting an UNVERIFIED Vatican proposal to further restrict the Latin Mass. Wondering, now, if the protest letter IS the proposal, groomed by our new generation of clericalists?
As reported by The Pillar, the letter claims that the TLM should be retained as part of “universal culture [because it] inspired a host of priceless achievements in the arts.” The phantom proposal is said to want to restrict the TLM as on a “reservation.”
“Reservation” = like the other cultural achievements, now to be a library-shelf/museum artifact?
One of the signatories to the letter is the Catholic Julian Fellowes, writer of the “Downton Abbey” popular TV series—where the last lines of the last episode effectively cast the entire series on British social change as an apologetic for inevitable social and cultural acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle. As with a possibly quarantined TLM, binary human sexuality and marriage (and Humanae Vitae?) already effectively redefined and scripted as just another museum artifact?
All any possible Vatican ventriloquists need do now is act on the British letter.
This weekly news section is falling behind the real news quite badly. The rumor about Pope Francis declaring all out war on TLM and its devotees keeps building like a frenzy. Nine days ago (June 24) Reason and Theology.com very joyfully reported that the three principle leaders of the Institute of Christ the King, while reporting on their work to the Holy Father, were greeted with much warmth, thanks for their prayers and support for their promotion of their “special chrism” The Latin mass. He even said that he would welcome all of their many clergy and religous to the Vatican for a special audience in the future. Back in March a group from the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter came urgently to Rome to inquire about their status he had to assure them that his recent criticisms of Latin Mass groups did not apply to them.
JJR
I, too, favor the NO. But, be careful who you dismiss as “falling behind the real news.”
If there is an agenda to further restrict TLM, then it well might well be confined to the “reservation” served by the Institute for Christ the King and the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter. Of course, with your superior surveillance of the real news you already considered that.
“Some few of these [faithful candidates] may be extreme in their criticism of the Novus Ordo and in their desire, should they be ordained, to serve only those whose liturgical vision coincides with theirs. But they are the exception, not the rule” (Msgr Fink).
Like Msgr Fink I’m quite content with the Novus Ordo. And like him believe the extremist attitudes of TLM are, extreme. Recently we had an avalanche of commentaries and comments on the possible excommunication of Archbishop Viganò, a man I admire. Chris Altieri accused the Archbishop of making loony remarks, the reaction by most the defense of Viganò and some rebuke of Altieri. When in fact the Archbishop did make at least one bizarre remark, That faithful priests abandon their NO parish and find a traditional Latin Mass parish. A priest who did that would not be a faithful shepherd, willing to abandon the sheep to satisfy a liturgical fancy. That attitude by the Archbishop and “the extreme few” provide the Vatican, particularly Pope Francis with justification, however narrow, to press their case against the TLM.
Fink wonders why the TLM is targeted when there is liturgical adaptation to cultures and tradition. The reason is the TLM is perceived as a barrier to progressivism. There’s no other logical conclusion considering the trend of the current pontificate. And similar to Benedict XVI there’s no better healthier resolution for the unity of the Body of Christ than to retain both liturgies, with transference within with benefit to each, primarily the enrichment of the Novus Ordo. What is needed is unity, not conformity.
Yes: “transference within with benefit to each [liturgy], primarily the enrichment of the Novus Ordo.”
And this is precisely what Benedict XVI intended and promoted back in 2007 (Summorum Pontificum) when “both liturgies” were framed as two FORMS of the ONE Latin Rite (NOT two rites)–the Ordinary form (NO) and the Extraordinary form (TLM). So, why was it beyond the pay grade or desire of inner-circle interpreters of the non-random survey results of bishops–to simply remind the Holy Father of this history, this possibility, and this awaited blessing for the whole Church?
Instead, subversives and backwardists!
Thank you Father Morello. Regrettably my pockets are not deep enough to subscribe to a site to read one article but Msgr Fink seems to be a reasonable and thoughtful man . Your comments are very much appreciated. The current furor, however, concerns the rumor that a total ban on TLM was immanent so I added some updates. To the poster who accused me of not being aware of Pope Francis dire intentions to undermine and marginalize TLM I can only say that I have read his posts(and others) concerning that opinion hundreds of times so as to be well updated thank you.
@ Problematic Art
Anthony Visco painter, specialist in sacred arts well credentialed to offer an opinion on Rupnik offers among the finest critiques of Rupnik’s art. The merging ‘third’ eye used by Rupnik situated Adam and Christ as similar identities. Whereas previous sacred art portrays the eye merging as indicative of Trinitarian unity.
A renowned Renaissance art critic Elizabeth Lev recently said that Rupnik’s art finds popularity in its simplicity. Both critiques balance the good from the bad, neither identifies spiritual beauty. Visco clearly finds that lacking.
From the perspective of many including this writer is a form of soullessness, of deep anonymity. All the men have elongated faces with no defining individual features, as well as the women all with tiny lips and wide empty eyes. As if Rupnik knowingly, perhaps unwittingly projects his own evaluation of others by subtraction of their humanness. A disturbing feature of his art that by inference relates to his sexual exploitation of the hapless nuns who fell under his Rasputin like spell.
Why does the Vatican, in particular Pope Francis tolerate, not simply the retention of his universally applied mosaics, but of the morally deranged person himself? Explanation can be reasonably assumed that it reflects a moral derangement within the Vatican.
Reflections on Rupnik’s understanding of the Trinity and his assumed spiritual pattern of abuse.
“The merging ‘third’ eye used by Rupnik situated Adam and Christ as similar identities. Whereas previous sacred art portrays the eye merging as indicative of Trinitarian unity”. Anthony Visco commented that Fr Rupnik in his identification of Adam with Christ allegedly said, “What Christ thinks Adam thinks, and what Adam thinks Christ thinks”.
If this is what Rupnik ‘thinks’, then there is in this God Adam affinity of thought, a linkage with his trinitarian theology of threesome sex that glorifies God. I’m confident that this sacrilegious ideation must have been addressed by his Jesuit examiners who judged him guilty, and that the Vatican must, or should have been aware.
I can only add that the propensity of this pontificate toward normalizing diverse forms of sexual activity, the record of pardons, recent documents Fiducia Supplementum and Dignitas Infinita, frequent elevation in rank of the convicted, appointments of homosexual friendly clergy to ranking positions appears consistent with a theological approach to human sexuality in its diverse forms as a natural expression of human behavior.