The Dispatch: More from CWR...

Vatican prohibits Traditional Latin Mass in Bishop Strickland’s former cathedral

Kristina MillareTyler Arnold By Kristina Millare, Tyler Arnold for CNA

November 11, 2024 Catholic News Agency The Dispatch 36 Print

Bishop Joseph Strickland celebrating Mass in March 2021. (Image: Beauty of the Traditional Latin Mass/Wikipedia)

CNA Staff, Nov 11, 2024 / 15:35 pm (CNA).

Celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass in the cathedral of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, will cease effective Dec. 1, according to a Vatican-approved order that comes almost one year after Pope Francis removed Bishop Joseph Strickland, one of his most outspoken critics, as head of the diocese.

Bishop Joe S. Vásquez of Austin, who has served as apostolic administrator of the Tyler Diocese in East Texas since Strickland’s dramatic ouster last Nov. 11, announced the move in a letter to parishioners of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Tyler, which has offered a 2 p.m. Sunday Mass in Latin.

A spokesperson for the diocese also confirmed with CNA that Masses celebrated according to the pre-Vatican II liturgical form will also be halted in four other parishes: Mary Queen of Heaven in Malakoff, Sacred Heart in Texarkana, St. Francis of Assisi in Gilmer, and Sacred Heart in Nacogdoches.

The letter was first obtained by Catholic journalist Diane Montagna who published it on X over the weekend.

“Following the guidance of the Holy See,” Vásquez stated in a letter dated Nov. 6, “celebration of the liturgy according to the liturgical books approved by St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II in accordance with the Second Vatican Council” will no longer be permitted in the cathedral from December onward but will be permitted in only one parish within the Diocese of Tyler.

St. Joseph the Worker Parish, entrusted to the care of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), is the only parish in the diocese authorized to “use of the 1952 Missal, according to the provisions of Traditionis Custodes,” the motu proprio Pope Francis issued in 2021 that sharply curtailed the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass worldwide.

According to Vásquez’s letter, St. Joseph the Worker Parish is a “personal parish” established in 2003 to “pastorally care for all those in the diocese who celebrated according to the older liturgical forms.”

A spokesperson for the diocese told CNA: “Going forward, as the letter states, St. Joseph the Worker Parish in Tyler, a personal parish entrusted to the FSSP, will continue to serve the faithful of the diocese according to the norms of Traditionis custodes.”

The letter does not specify why Traditional Latin Masses are ending at the cathedral, though Strickland’s refusal to fully implement Traditionis Custodes is widely believed to be one factor that led to his removal. The Vatican has not publicly disclosed exactly why Pope Francis asked for his resignation.

Strickland said in an interview with LifeSiteNews a year ago: “I know I didn’t implement Traditiones Custodes because I can’t starve out part of my flock.”

In his letter, Vásquez indicated that he “recently received a reply” from the Vatican after submitting a letter to the Vatican Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments on how to implement the Holy Father’s motu proprio in the local Church after Strickland’s departure.

“While this transition may be difficult for some, my hope is that you will open your hearts and move forward on this path with faith and trust,” Vásquez wrote.

“I pray you will experience a deepened unity with the whole Church and a greater awareness of the liturgical richness of the ordinary form of the Roman liturgy,” he added.

This article has been updated.

If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.

About Catholic News Agency 12661 Articles
Catholic News Agency (www.catholicnewsagency.com)

Related Articles

No Picture
News Briefs

Meet the Creole nun who risked her life to teach slaves

December 22, 2017 CNA Daily News 1

New Orleans, La., Dec 22, 2017 / 04:04 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Venerable Henriette DeLille, born a “free woman of color” before the Civil War, had all the makings of a life of relative ease before her.

Born in 1812 to a wealthy French father and a free Creole woman of Spanish, French and African descent, Henriette was groomed throughout her childhood to become a part of what was then known as the placage system.

Under the placage system, free women of color (term used at the time for people of full or partial African descent, who were no longer or never were slaves) entered into common law marriages with wealthy white plantation owners, who often kept their legitimate families at the plantations in the country. It was a rigid system, but afforded free women of color comfortable and even luxurious lives.

Trained in French literature, music, dancing, and nursing, Henriette was prepared to become the “kept woman” of a wealthy white man throughout her childhood.

However, in her early 20s, Henriette declared that her religious convictions could not be reconciled with the placage lifestyle for which she was being prepared. Raised Catholic, which was typical for free people of color at the time, she had recently had a deep encounter with God, and believed that the placage system violated Church teaching on the sanctity of marriage.

Working as a teacher since the age of 14, Henriette’s devotion to caring for and educating the poor grew. Even though she was only one-eighth African and could have passed as a white person, she always referred to herself as Creole or as a free person of color, causing conflict in her family, who had declared themselves white on the census.

In 1836, wanting to dedicate her life to God, Henriette used the proceeds of an inheritance to found a small unrecognized order of nuns, the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Her non-white heritage had barred her from admission to the Ursuline and Carmelite orders, which only accepted white women at the time.

This group would eventually become the Sisters of the Holy Family, officially founded at St. Augustine’s Church in 1842. Like Henriette, the other two founding sisters had denounced a life in the placage system.

The Sisters taught religion and other subjects to the slaves, even though it was illegal to do so at the time, punishable by death or life imprisonment.

They also encouraged free quadroon women (women of one-fourth African descent) to marry men of their own class, and encouraged slave couples to have their unions blessed by the church.

The Sisters also established a home to care for elderly women, many of them likely former slaves. It was the first nursing home of its kind established by the Church in the U.S., and it was there that the early Sisters cared for the sick and the dying during the yellow fever epidemics that struck New Orleans in 1853 and 1897.

Homes for orphans and eventually schools were also established by the order, which continued to grow and spread its mission throughout the South.

Henriette Delille died in 1862 at the relatively young age of 50, probably of tuberculosis. At the time of her death, the order had 12 members, but it would eventually peak at 400 members in the 1950s.

The Sisters of the Holy Family are still an active order in Louisiana today, with sisters working in nursing homes and as teachers, administrators and other pastoral positions.

In 1988, the Mother Superior of the order at the time requested the opening of Henriette Delille’s cause for canonization. She was declared a Servant of God, and then was declared Venerable by Pope Benedict XVI on March 27, 2010. A miracle through her intercession is needed for her beatification, the next step in the process before canonization.

Throughout her life, Henriette was inspired by this prayer, which she wrote in one of her religious books when she first founded her order: “I believe in God, I hope In God. I love. I want to live and die for God.”

 

This article was originally published on CNA Feb. 12, 2017.

[…]

No Picture
News Briefs

U.S. bishops appeal to leaders to do more to ensure food security around the globe

August 7, 2023 Catholic News Agency 0
A family sits in a tent at camp for refugees at Kenya’s border town with Ethiopia, Moyale, about 484 miles north of capital Nairobi, on March 17, 2018 after fleeing Ethiopia. / Brian Ongoro/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 7, 2023 / 15:40 pm (CNA).

In a statement issued Aug 7, the chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on International Justice and Peace called on global leaders to do more to ensure food security for all.

Bishop David J. Malloy of Rockford, Illinois, cited numbers from the World Food Programme (WFP), the global humanitarian organization addressing food security, that estimated about 258 million people in 58 countries experienced crisis-level acute hunger in 2022.

“Russia’s recent decision no longer to allow Ukraine to export tons of grain means more people are likely to go hungry,” said Malloy, who along with Pope Francis is calling on world leaders “to look beyond narrow national interests, focus on the common good, and join in ensuring that critical food supplies can flow to those most in need.”

Malloy pointed out that prior to the Russian invasion, Ukraine was considered “Europe’s breadbasket” and was the origin for large amounts of wheat, corn, and barley as well as almost half of the world’s sunflower oil — all flowing through ports on the Black Sea. Those ports were blocked when Russia invaded Ukraine.

Last June the Holy Father appealed for the end of the blockades that were preventing the flow of grain through Ukrainian seaports. Malloy’s statement provided more context for the timing of this latest appeal:

“From July 2022, the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI), the U.N.-brokered agreement between Russia and Ukraine, allowed Ukraine to export about 33 million tons of grain and other agricultural products. Russia’s decision to withdraw from the BSGI and its bombing of grain storage facilities in Ukraine will greatly impact the availability of food supplies at a time when more people are in dire need of food. With the number of forcibly displaced people at a record high, the World Food Programme estimates 345 million people will face acute hunger this year, with 129,000 potentially facing famine in places like Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, the Horn of Africa, and Myanmar.

As the statement acknowledged, the war in Ukraine is not the only reason food insecurity has risen globally over the last few years. Natural disasters, the pandemic, regional wars, and other conflicts have also contributed to high rates of hunger.

Haiti, for example, is in dire need. According to a U.N. report, a total of 4.9 million people — which is nearly half the population of the country — are experiencing acute food insecurity, and large numbers affected are children. The Guardian reported that the WFP will be unable to feed 100,000 Haitians this month because it has insufficient funding to meet the needs.

“Surging food inflation in Haiti means the cost of feeding each person has increased while the number of those in need of assistance has also grown, driving up the cost of delivering WFP aid,” the Guardian article reported.

On the other side of the world, northern Ethiopia is another nation suffering from acute food insecurity. Countries in the horn of Africa rely on Ukrainian grain, and the Tigray region is just emerging from one of the worst recent conflicts following two years of fighting between Ethiopia’s federal army and regional forces. The conflict has created millions of refugees; high rates of death, injury, and trauma; and widespread food insecurity. A persistent drought has made food scarcity even worse and earlier this summer the U.S. suspended food aid there due to reports that government officials were diverting food aid. More than 20 million people in Ethiopia rely on food assistance. 

Bishop Malloy ended the appeal by the bishops with a poignant reminder that many of our brothers and sisters around the world are suffering. “The most vulnerable are crying in hunger. With the compassion of Christ, we need to heed their cries and help,” he said.

[…]

36 Comments

    • Yes, it is a typical narcissistic revenge. Say “no” to a narcissist and he will attempt to destroy just but also anything connected with you including other people (this is actually an ultimate test for that disorder but a very costly one).
      Such moments are very sad but they serve to reveal how truly concerned those who trumpet “for the good of others” are about those others.

      Reply

    • Does a bishop’s order, premised on bald-faced lies (“celebration of the liturgy according to the liturgical books approved by St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II in accordance with the Second Vatican Council”) even need to be obeyed?

      Reply

  5. If you want to steer devout people to the SSPX this is a way to accomplish that.
    A few months ago I visited a part of the country where the SSPX offered the only Catholic Mass in the entire county. They were thriving and not only flourishing in numbers but involved with local community and charitable projects.
    The other growing faith community there were the Amish.
    That’s what our future will look like. Devout Catholics, Amish, Hasidic Jews and whoever else embraces tradition above the world. Especially traditional teaching on marriage and family.
    It’s a shame our hierarchy doesn’t see the demographic writing on the wall. Even for the sake of job security.

    Reply

    • Mrscracker,
      Actually, I strongly suspect that the Pope does see the demographic writing on the wall. In my opinion, the relationship of cause and effect is so strong that a person would have to be fairly stupid not to see it.

      Reply

      • I’ve heard that Pope Francis does not use the internet & relies on his advisors for information. I pray every day that God will send him holy advisors who have our best interests at heart.

        Reply

  6. With all the troubles in the Church and in the world – Christians persecuted even killed, Chinese Catholics suffering – wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, perhaps in East Asia, secularism rampant in the West – the Vatican spends so much time and energy to wipe out a Latin Mass – in a cathedral in a small diocese in Texas!!!!
    Is this how we evangelize? preach the gospel?

    Reply

  9. “Let us walk together, except for you Latin Mass types.”

    The Church of Abandonment strikes again. I echo Leo’s comment.

    Reply

  10. As a convert from Evangelical Protestantism who considers “understanding” a major priority for me–I don’t care for the Latin Mass or any Mass in a language that I do not speak because I can’t understand it and looking at a translation is not conducive to my ability to worship. I also love the hymns in my own heart language, and perhaps because I grew up in the 1970s (horror movies e.g., Hammer films!), I find any form of chant “spooky.” But I certainly have no objection to others who love the Latin Mass and who are blessed and edified by it, and who are willing to put in the time and discipline to learn the various chants and the musical forms (Gregorian chant, etc.) that are used in the Latin Mass. I don’t understand why the Latin Mass is being taken away from its loyal attendees and celebrants. It seems like a waste of time and energy when there are so many other pressing issues in the world today.

    Reply

    • It’s mostly not about the language. It’s about the Tradition that is transmitted, in word, deed, smells, bells, song, and statues. That’s what is hated. And it is hated in large part because of the pressing issues of today. Traditionalists have all the normal sins and failings of human beings, but people who think homosexual acts, fornication, contraception, or abortion are OK, are almost nonexistent there. People who reject the Real Presence either don’t go there, or come to believe it. This results in communities where people actually support each other in believing and living the Faith, and are therefore willing to speak those truths out loud, because they aren’t alone. It is those beliefs that strengthen the family and make it possible to raise healthy, happy, holy children. And it is against children and the family that the devil is currently waging war. Breaking up those communities is a divide-and-conquer maneuver by the devil – who is entirely capable of inspiring irrational dislike or harshness in the hearts of men.

      Reply

    • When you better understand what the Mass is, a holy sacrifice of the Son, re-presented to the Father and for the Father (not for you), then you will see that it is deep, like reading scripture. You are always finding something new. Do some research on each part of the Mass and then follow carefully what the priest is doing and I think you will appreciate that you don’t need the vernacular to know what is going on on.

      Reply

  12. “Let us build a house
    Where love can dwell
    And all can safely live
    A place where
    Saints and children tell
    How hearts learn to forgive
    Built of hopes and dreams and visions
    Rock of faith and vault of grace
    Here the love of Christ shall end divisions
    All are welcome, all are welcome
    All are welcome in this place…”
    *******

    Even Marty Haugen got some things right. All should be welcome, not selectively excluded. “Catholic” means universal. Imagine if Spanish Masses were suppressed in the same way in Texas?

    Reply

      • Oh yes, thank you very much for that link. I used to sing in the choir & not a few of us would wince every time our choir director picked another “Marty” hymn for us to practice for Mass.
        I think his songs are mostly rubbish even without the association to his alleged behaviors. But it’s always interesting how “all” being welcome doesn’t always translate to “all”. Just as “diversity & inclusion” doesn’t either. Some are more welcome than others. Only certain forms of diversity apply. Inclusion ends up excluding.

        Reply

        • Mrs C, the most vicious of all intolerances is the Liberal “Catholic” (it is a contradiction in terms) who cannot tolerate undiluted sacred liturgy nor watered down doctrine. Tragically, the Liberal “Catholics” are running Rome (into the ground).

          Reply

  13. It wasn’t enough to fire the Bishop. Now, bergoglio further crushes a small but innocent diocese underfoot as if it were no better than a cigarette butt. There isn’t a single molecule of “shepherd” is his entire being.
    The adage applies to those who do good as well as those who do evil – What goes around comes around.
    In God’s good time.

    Reply

  14. Suggestion – Schedule the last Latin Mass in that Cathedral for Saturday, November 30, spread the word, and then make ABSOLUTELY SURE that the Pope is told 1) how many people attended the Mass, and 2) from how far many of them came for the Mass.

    Reply

  15. Suggestion #2 – Read this piece and then go to Crisis Magazine and read the review of the movie ‘Conclave’, and then …..

    (BTW – In the dictionary under the definition of the word ‘petty’ this article should be there as a prime example.)

    Mrs. Whitlock – I agree with you – well said

    Reply

  17. Francis claims to be promoting unity, but it’s not unity, it’s just favoring one form of uniformity over another. I can attend Mass in Poland or Brazil or the Philippines or Japan, but I don’t know Polish or Portuguese or Tagalog or Japanese. So we’re separated by Francis’s “unity.” If they all had the Traditional Latin Mass, it would be the same in each of those countries, and having studied Latin and the one Latin Mass in particular, I could follow along and participate everywhere.

    Reply

    • I pray for the Pope-the next one-especially because I know he’s like to be from the packed college and a fellow traveler.

      Since Pope Francis is so into synods; how about cadaver synod 2.0?

      Reply

  19. Francis’ burial Mass should be in Latin and Strickland should be the principal celebrant.

    It would be the best comment on his Papacy since Biden lost control.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*