The Ancient Liturgy – “The Archbishop of San Francisco on Monday praised an open letter posted online July 15, which urges Pope Francis not to impose rumored new restrictions on older liturgical forms of the Catholic Eucharistic liturgy … ” Cordileone praises US Latin Mass ‘open letter’ (The Pillar)
A Panoply of Images – “At first glance, it is somewhat counter-intuitive to think of the Blessed Virgin as a model for teachers rather than as a model of discipleship. But, of course, a disciple by one’s very nature is intended to become a teacher.” Mary, Model of Teachers (What We Need Now – Substack)
Guide to Arts and Culture – “Ever since I described my lifetime reading plan, people have asked me to recommend lists of books.” A 12-Month Immersive Course in Humanities (The Honest Broker)
The Roman Situation – “If misery loves company, then ecumenical sympathies among traditionalist Christians both East and West have a bright future, or at least a present opportunity.” Miserable Ecumenism (Touchstone)
The Assassin’s Bullet – “Fr. Jason Charron is a Ukrainian Catholic priest. He was telephoned by the Trump campaign team and invited to open Donald Trump’s rally on Saturday evening with prayers, which he did. In particular he offered prayers for the protection of the former US president.” Miraculous? Donald Trump’s bloody ear and the prayer that preceded it (Catholic Herald)
Unlikely Foes – “For more than three and a half years, Bishop Kevin Vann has pursued a libel lawsuit against [Suzanne] Nunn over an email she sent to 47 people in 2020 about what she saw as his improper meddling in the finances of a Catholic foundation where she worked.” Angered by an email, Orange County bishop sued a parishioner for libel. The cost? Millions (Los Angeles Times)
Whither Goest Thou? – “We asked five Catholic theologians to reflect on the challenges facing the Catholic Church in these early decades of the twenty-first-century—and to chart a path forward.” The Future of the Catholic Church (First Things)
Eucatastrophe – “While Tolkien was well aware of the debt that his The Lord of the Rings owed to Lewis’s constant encouragement, it’s unclear whether Tolkien ever realized the debt he owed to Williams, the very man who had displaced his friendship with Lewis.” How Tolkien’s Frenemy, Charles Williams, Indirectly Saved Lord of the Rings (Providence)
It’s About the Truth – “You don’t need an advanced degree in theology to figure this one out.” The Meaning of Life (Catholic Answers)
A New Wave – “Priests ordained since 2010 “are clearly the most conservative cohort of priests we’ve seen in a long time,” said Brad Vermurlen, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, who has studied the rightward shift of the American priesthood.” America’s New Catholic Priests: Young, Confident and Conservative (The New York Times)
Unauthorized Exorcisms – “The leaders of a Catholic group in Christchurch have been asked to leave the Christchurch diocese* following a Vatican investigation into alleged abuse and unauthorised exorcisms.” Local Catholic group ousted after Vatican exorcism probe (The Press)
(*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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Concerning the Ancient Liturgy: ”Cordileone praises US Latin Mass ‘open letter’ (The Pillar) please read Pius V’s “Quo Primum” https://lms.org.uk/quo-primum
Specifically…
“We likewise order and declare that Prelates, Administrators, Canons, chaplains and other secular priests, by whatsoever name they are called, or regular priests of any order, may not be obliged to celebrate Mass in any other way than that which we have ordered; and that they cannot be forced or compelled by anybody to change this missal, and that this present letter cannot at any time be revoked or modified, but that it shall always remain firm and valid in its force.”
Seems rather clearly communicated and not open to debate.
Joseph, thank you for sharing the reference to Pope Pius V’s Quo Primum encyclical. I am stumped to see how any other pope could attempt to restrain the Tridentine liturgy. What is the thought process? How does a pope, or anyone else, choose to be in conflict with such an explicit statement?
@ The Ancient Liturgy
A dimension that surpasses the aesthetic dimension of the magnificent compositions of Palestrina, Bach, Beethoven spiritual aesthetics and the fire of a martyr’s love. Witness to Christ through the centuries was offered by men willing to abandon everything and risk death in Africa, the savage forests of N America, the atavistic darkness of Borneo. And die they did, planting the seeds of faith with their blood. Witness of all the martyrs men and women is among the surest, definitive testament of what the faith is. This is the indomitable truth that dominates the question why the ancient Latin liturgy is treated as if an enemy by this pontificate. Because it is.
If it were for sake of unanimity of liturgical practice, retaining the present marginal practice would not be an issue. Rather it’s what the ancient Latin Mass speaks to the soul. A message of divine exclusivity of manners embodied in the human nature and acts of Jesus of Nazareth. Granted that prior to V II many priests simply jabbered the Latin making it a cacophony of sounds. Whereas the saints offered the Mass in a beautiful flow, carefully enunciating the meaning. Padre Pio was sanctioned by his bishop for taking too long to offer the Mass. The reason was that he put his heart into the words and lived their meaning. All the saints made the sacrifice of the Mass the center of their lives. To live their lives as revealed in the sacrifice offered by Christ on the cross. They did not disdain the sacred, nor did they position themselves at a distance.
What?! About TLM we read: “A message of divine exclusivity [!] of manners embodied in the human nature and of Jesus of Nazareth.” My God! Where might such backwardist non-inclusivity lead us?
Before you know it, there might be exclusivist talk of a “jealous God” (Exodus 20:5-6) in place of, say, celebrating Pachamama, or accepting the Peruvian/Marxist crucifix, or fondling the Wiccan Stang at the Synod on Youth! One might even have to question the polygamous ecclesiology of coupling the exclusive and sacramental nature of real marriage with crypto-blessing the pantheon of “irregular” couples—especially the endgame of blessing the anti-binary LGBTQ religion, one “couple” at a time!
Apart from the content, and only on the crypto-synodal “style” of Fiducia Supplicans, let’s listen (!) to a writing from prior to 2013:
“Listen, Job, to what I say and ponder all my words. The teaching of the arrogant has this characteristic: they do not know how to introduce their teaching humbly and they cannot convey correctly to others the things they understand correctly themselves. With their words they betray what they teach; they give the impression that they live on lofty heights from which they look down disdainfully on those whom they are teaching; they regard the latter as inferiors, to whom they do not deign to listen as they talk; indeed they scarcely deign to talk to them at all—they simply lay down the law” (St. Gregory the Great, “Moral Reflections,” Wednesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Times, Liturgy of the Hours).
Well, at least a synod does not a conclave make, not yet.
@Whither Goest Thou?
We read: “We asked five Catholic theologians to reflect on the challenges facing the Catholic Church in these early decades of the twenty-first-century—and to chart a path forward.”
Before even being asked, St. John Paul II penned the unmentioned “Centesimus Annus” (1991), which ends with this: “The present encyclical has looked at the past, but above all it is directed to the future. Like “Rerum Novarum”, it comes almost at the threshold of a new century, and its intention, with God’s help, is to prepare for that moment [….] (n. 62).
And, in anticipation for the channeling fluidity of our very current moment (“time is greater than space” Evangelii Gaudium, 2013), the final sentence reads: “[…] in fidelity to Him who ‘is the same yesterday and today and forever’ (cf. Heb 13:8). Jesus Christ our Lord, in whose name I cordially impart my blessing to all.”
Re “Unlikely Foes,” I believe the action the Bishop and his CFO took against the Foundation was highly improper and Illegal. And the harm he has caused that woman from his libel suit (cf I Cor 6:1-6), not to mention the huge waste of his Diocese’s financial assets because of that suit, is even worse.
@ Wither Goest Thou
On Governance by Christopher Ruddy. Our present chaos is more the result of a prepared doctrinal agenda than it is the product of evolved ideas of the nature of the papacy. Although Ruddy does make a valid point insofar as the reaction by the many to the agenda. Certainly ultramontanism facilitates the acceptance of suggested changes that conflict with tradition.
What indicates an agenda is the very fact that it was announced by Pope Francis and his leading advisors, especially consigliere Fr Antonio Spadaro SJ with the notion of a new paradigm. Ruddy nonetheless reveals his awareness in concluding with, “Synodality need not be a Trojan horse for ecclesial heterodoxy and division. But in the absence of transparent, orthodox, and genuinely collaborative governance, it will be”.
@ Whither Goest Thou
Michael Hanby dismisses the concerns of those Vatican II critics, to whom he applies the label traditionalists whether they identify themselves as such or not, and then proceeds to advance some of the identical criticisms where documents express excessive secular optimism and insufficient confrontation towards hostile ideologies himself.
The Church is in the tragic state it is because of the lukewarm attitudes of an unwillingness to be perceived as sharing the same attitudes in ecclesial disputes that have been ridiculed into irrelevance rather than contest the evilness of marginalizing the worth of anyone’s dignity displaced by a stereotype.
To Whither Goest Thou, today LIFESITE published the first part of an interview Archbishop Vigano had with Catholic Family News.
Archbishop Vigano surely has an embracing perspective of churchmen through the many upper levels of the hierarchy and other areas. I am making the suggestion that were things as bad as he indicates they are, the best answer is precisely VATICAN II. Insisting that the Council can only relate as conciliarism and holding that it is always a prejudiced conciliarism when it is conciliar, is not a fault from the Council.
It seems to me that the early Church similarly had many challenges and it met these by the witness of its faithful which triumphed over them. VATICAN II brings this unity through its doors and sends it into the world. If the Pope, or local or parish priest, is too caught up with popularist groupings, it is a failing on his part and he will answer for it before our Father.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/archbishop-vigano-the-masonic-takeover-of-the-catholic-church-began-with-vatican-ii/?utm_source=most_recent&utm_campaign=usa
Concerning the restraints on the Tridentine liturgy:
Our Vatican II fathers might have had very good intentions in mind when they replaced the Missal of 1962 with the novus ordo. But, I fail to understand why a need is seen to abolish or restrict the old rite entirely. I am 75 years of age and was schooled within the traditional Catholic educational system embedded in the old liturgy. I also served at the old mass in the early 1960s. Of all the school mates I grew up with and completed high school between 1968 and 1970 and have kept the faith to date, I have not met a single one who does not yearn for the old rite we grew up with. I have been living in Germany – outside my original Anglo culture – for the past five decades and witnessed the recent necessity felt by some German dioceses to invite African and other foreign priests to come over from their countries of origin to offer temporary support to local parishes in the summer vacation seasons. I understand that such a need, in the meantime, has arisen all over in Western countries. Seeing most of such foreign priests struggling with their inadequate German language skills at masses, has drawn my attention particularly to the importance and universalistic convenience of the traditional Latin Mass, were it to be still in application broadly.
I have read somewhere before, that Pope Pius XII who is credited with having founded the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano in 1861, when asked about the probability of shortage of priests in Europe’s future, is said to have replied in this newspaper before he became Pope in 1939 that there would be ample supplies from non-European cultures in such an eventuality. I suppose the Holy Father might have relied on his vision of the convenience of foreign priests deploying the universal Latin liturgy to cater for a global need without any problems – a proposition which has become increasingly challenging in the aftermath of V2.
But your premise is popular myth. VII did no such thing. It did not call for the displacemnet of the TLM, nor did it call for the creation of the NO.
I believe what you write above in full, Sir. Even Pope Benedict affirmed in 2005 that V2 never produced any document to minimize the significance or curtail the continuation of the pre-V2 mass. If so, what on earth really happened to bring us where we are today regarding the TLM controversies? (pd)
One source is Yves Chiron’s “Between Rome and Rebellion”. Published in French in 2022, an English translation followed in 2024. Note: The detail is sometimes excruciatingly painful, but confusion fails to reign afterward.
Patrick Dua above – What on earth happened, as far as I can tell, is that the “spirit of Vatican II” triumphed. In other words, we were duped. Suckered.