POPE LEO CELEBRATES THE VOTIVE MASS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

 Pope Leo celebrated Mass in Rome for the opening of the “chapter” of his Augustinian order. The Church is splendid.

The liturgy is the Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit, and thus the red vestments.

This could easily be a parish Mass if this way of celebrating the Modern Mass were mandated.

Since this is a daily Mass, there is only the Epistle, Responsorial Psalm and Gospel. I wish that would be the case for Sunday Masses too as we throw way too much Scripture at the people at Sunday Mass.

There is no offertory procession, so needless, useless.

The Universal Prayer is done as a litany and eliminates verbosity and demands that God do this, that and the other as well as making the Universal Prayers a kind of homily. The short petitions are followed by a brief “Kyrie Eleison” and that’s it, brief, effective and prayerful. 

The choir sings the designated Introit for the Mass of the Holy Spirit quite beautifully. The Latin Chants are beautiful and all very well celebrated!

Here is the abridged version of this Mass:

 

Here is the full Mass:

 

THE ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE LATIN RITE CATHOLIC MASS VERSUS THE MANUFACTURING OF A COMPLETELY NEW RITE!

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the 12th Sunday after Pentecost on August 31st at Sacred Heart Church, Savannah, Georgia:

Marc makes a good point about the Mass becoming a private devotion for the priest in a serial form of multiple priests celebrating Mass at side altars not synchronized, at the same time:

When we went to the SSPX chapel, there were multiple masses every morning — sometimes 4 at the same time. I even served some of these masses. 

It seemed really neat to me at the time. But with hindsight, I think this practice places an incorrect emphasis on what it is to be a priest. These masses are like personal acts of piety for the priest, which is somewhat antithetical to (what I think is) a better understanding of priesthood as a man set apart for his community. 

Rorate Caeli has an article on the organic development of the Mass rather than its replacement . You can read the full article HERE.

But here is an excerpt as it pertains to my comments below it:

 The previous magisterium: organic development, not replacement

The principle of the “organic development” of the liturgy has been repeatedly reaffirmed by the recent magisterium.

3.1 Pius XII – Mediator Dei (1947): “The liturgy cannot be considered either as a museum to be preserved or as a laboratory for experimentation. It grows like a tree from the root of the apostolic faith.”

3.2 John XXIII – Rubricarum Instructum (1960): “We confirm and order that what Tradition has received and handed down with veneration be kept intact.”

3.3 Benedict XVI – Letter Accompanying Summorum Pontificum (2007): “What was sacred for previous generations remains sacred and great for us too, and cannot suddenly be forbidden or judged harmful.”

All previous reforms, up to that of John XXIII, are justified not by a break but by continuity: what is adapted, simplified, or restored always remains within the development of Tradition. No Pope has ever claimed that the reform abolished the theological validity of the previous form.

My astute most humble comments concerning Marc’s comment and the Rorate Caeli article:

The pre-Vatican II celebration of the TLM was criticized by reformers who felt that it was too priest-centered, too much of just his private devotion and celebration and the congregation was left out of the picture, apart from being required to be at Mass and hear it. It was a passive kind of participation. 

The reform of the Mass by Consilium, that much maligned committee headed by Bishop Bugnini, and then their concoction of a reformed Mass promulgated by St. Paul VI, addressed the passive nature of participation of the Congregation, went back to early Church sources of how the Mass was celebrated, and then purged the Mass of almost all the private prayers of the priest and almost any aspect that made it appear to be the priests’ celebration alone or worse his own private prayers and devotion! 

I happen to believe, in what is my most humble opinion, that they went to far and did not respect the organic development of the TLM and allow for growth of it in terms of active rather than just passive participation of the laity. 

There are ways to address the congregation’s complete submersion into the Mass by actively singing and saying those parts previously offered only by the altar boys and/or choir on their behalf. While maintaining some Latin for the quiet prayers of the priest and the Roman Canon, the vernacular could have assisted the laity in singing the parts of the Mass linked to them. 

The TLM could have been left in tact with only the following organic revisions.

The most important to me is the revision of the Communion Rite for the priest and then the laity. In the 1962 Roman Missal, there is no ceremony for the laity to receive Holy Communion and in fact, the laity could be denied Holy Communion during Mass if the priest chose to do so. That was rare, but it could and did happen prior to Vatican II. Although, prior to Vatican II and even in the modern Mass communicants sometimes are given Holy Communion before Mass, if they can’t receive during Mass or after Mass. That is an aberration too, I think.

But let’s get back to the Communion Rite of the 1962 Missal. The priest after the Agnus Dei privately but partially out loud says the Dominus Non Sum Dignus, three times. Then he makes his Holy Communion by consuming the Consecrated Host and Precious Blood, which is necessary to ratify the Sacrificial aspect of the Mass. 

Then, somehow in an organic way, but not to be found in the 1962 Missal, is the communion of the faithful. Prior to Vatican II, the Confiteor was once again recited outloud by a server or other minister, then the priest would open the tabernacle, take out the ciborium, genuflect, take a small host from the ciborium, turn to the congregation and say “Ecce Agnus Dei…” and then lead the three-fold “Dominum Non Sum Dignus again, but this time for the laity. Then Holy Communion is given to the servers and the rest of the faithful. (I do not know how this part of the liturgy for the faithful’s Holy Communion came about or where it is to be found in an official book. It is not in the 1962 Roman Missal!

A proper organic development of the 1962’s Communion rite would simply be allowing the priest to continue with the full array of private prayers after or during the Agnus Dei, but not receiving Holy Communion, until he turns to the congregation or addresses the congregation in a Mass facing the nave, and states “Ecce Agnus Dei, even with the post-Vatican II addition, and then all together say the three—fold “Domini non sum Dignus…” The Host and the Chalice of Precious Blood is shown to the faithful, those just consecrated by the priest, with the fractured Host above the chalice of Precious Blood. Then the priest, using the full array of private prayers for his Holy Communion, needed for the ratification of the Sacrificial aspect of the Mass being celebrated, receives his Holy Communion and then distributes Holy Communion to the servers and the faithful present with Hosts consecrated at that particular Mass if possible and only going to the tabernacle in the case of need. 

That’s an organic development, not a replacement!

WAS FATHER JAMES MARTIN, SJ REMINDED OF WHAT POPE FRANCIS HAS TAUGHT ABOUT INDIVIDUAL BLESSINGS GIVEN TO TWO PEOPLE WHO ASK FOR IT TOGETHER?

Rorate Caeli is reporting that Pope Leo met with Fr. James Martin SJ at the Vatican this morning. 

This is how Fr. Martin described his meeting: 

Dear friends: I was honored and grateful to meet with the Holy Father  this morning in an audience in the Apostolic Palace, and moved to hear the same message I heard from Pope Francis on LGBTQ Catholics, which is one of openness and welcome. I found Pope Leo to be serene, joyful, and encouraging. For me, it was a deeply consoling meeting. Please pray for the Holy Father! (source)

 By saying Fr. Martin heard the same thing from Pope Leo as he did from Pope Francis, I hope that Pope Leo reiterated in no uncertain terms what Pope Francis told Nora O’Donnell of CBS’s 60 Minutes. 

I hope too, Pope Leo reiterated what Pope Francis has stated (in defense of his novel FS) to Fr. Martin that in no way should these blessings be formal or arranged ahead of time, to be photographed and distributed worldwide, as Fr. Martin did immediately after FD. And that these are casual blessings for the individuals, not their union, not a formal or casual recognition of their illicit sex or disordered sex of any kind. 

 

 The video is cut short when O'Donnell asks the pope about "Who am I to judge" comment, where she says it isn't a crime to be a homosexual. We don’t hear the full answer of the pope, when he says “no.”

In fact, homosexuality is a crime in some countries and it used to be in some states of the USA. It is no longer considered a crime in any state of the USA as far as I know, but it is in Muslim and some African countries. It is in fact a crime there.

She should have said, “being a homosexual isn’t a sin (rather than crime). And that would be correct as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches clearly.

It is sex outside of a licit marriage that is a sin, be it adultery, fornication and those disordered sexual sins that cry to heaven for vengeance. Even masturbation is considered seriously sinful in the catechism. I wonder if there are any Catholic groups promoting masturbation and asking for that to be blessed? 

Of course sinners can be blessed. If Jeffry Dahmer asked me to bless him in a sincere way, I would offer that blessing to him as a part of my prison ministry and he could attend Mass and if he had been a Catholic, gone to confession, repenting of his serial murders, some quite disordered to say the least, he could also receive Holy Communion at my prison Masses.

THE GREATEST THREAT TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND POPE LEO ISN’T THE HETERODOX RIGHT, BUT THE HETERODOX LEFT ESPECIALLY THE POST-CATHOLIC CHURCH IN GERMANY!

Pope Francis and not a few others, thought/think that the rad trads, some of whom spew out right leaning heterodoxy and meanness, are the greatest threat to the Catholic Church’s unity. Some even think that the SSPX are a great threat. Others think that having two forms the one Catholic Mass is the greatest threat.

They are all wrong. It is modernism of the leftist heterodox, organized and with bishops, some who are cardinals, fomenting a true schism built on heresy. They are strident in their divisiveness in a way that no rad trad is. 

Press the Silere non Possum title for the their full article, although I post a money byte below the title that says it all:

  

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31/08/2025

• Catholic Church

Germany: Synod or Sanhedrin?

• Leggi in italiano
• Read in English

Bonn – There is something profoundly distorted in the way a part of Western Catholicism today lives its relationship with the universal Church. The interview given by Irme Stetter-Karp, president of the Zentralkomitee der deutschen Katholiken (ZdK), to the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger is a striking example. Not so much for the content—already well-worn: structural reforms, women in ministries, revision of celibacy—but for the tone, the stance, the attitude.

Stetter-Karp, sarcastically described in Germany and Austria as a (grantige alte Jungfer) “bitter old spinster,” makes no secret of her desire to measure the work of the new Pope, Leo XIV, against the expectations of the German Synodal Path. “If he supports our demands, fine. If not, we will judge and condemn him as we did with Francis.” That is the message, hardly concealed.

THE DREADED INDIVIDUALISM—FIERCE OR NOT…

As a child, I do not recall from memory scenes like the ones in these photos, where several Masses were going on at the same time except when I was visiting Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome as late as 2016.

If you arrived at the Basilica when it opened at 7 AM, I think, you would see priests at all the side altars of the Basilica celebrating Mass. Some were using the modern Missal and others the 1962 Missal. All were welcome, todas, todas, todas.

But Pope Francis changed all of that. Maybe four or five years ago, no longer are priests allowed to say Mass at side altars as I experienced up until 2016. They have to concelebrate at regularly scheduled Masses. 

Thank God, that with all the liturgical problems that the Church experiences with the wild and individualistic celebrations of the Modern Mass, that Pope Francis saw fit to kill the TLM’s celebration at St. Peter’s and those dastardly priests who like multiple Masses going on at the same time at all the various altars in St. Peter’s.

I can sleep better at night knowing this.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL OPINION PIECE ON THE TRADITIONAL LATIN MASS AND POPE LEO’S POSSIBLE RELAXATION OF POPE FRANCIS AND CARDINAL ROCHE’S DRACONIAN DICTATES

 YOU CAN READ THE WJS OPINION PIECE HERE AND IT IS A MUST READ. WHY? BECAUSE IT IS FILLED WITH COMMONSENSE SO LACKING IN MUCH OF THE HIERARCHY TODAY EVEN IN THE VATICAN!

Here is a moneybyte from the WJS opinion piece:

By December 2021, Cardinal Arthur Roche, prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Divine Worship, was issuing new directives telling recalcitrant bishops who had no interest in alienating their own clergy that this time he really meant it. There would be no more Masses grandfathered in; all celebrations must be approved by Rome. Baptism in the old rite was made nearly impossible, and confirmation was forbidden.

In many places, bishops and priests simply ignored these Roman missives. Other prelates have been more enthusiastic. This summer Bishop Michael Martin of the Diocese of Charlotte, N.C., attempted to limit the celebration of the Latin Mass to a single chapel and ban the use of altar rails and the wearing of veils “when assisting in any official capacity.” Widespread disapprobation checked his ambitions before he could direct his clergy to check bathroom stalls for Latin graffiti.

I don’t think this state of affairs can continue. The ugliest scenes of the past four years—a grieving widow pleading with a cardinal not to shutter her parish, would-be snitches combing through online parish bulletin archives in search of the word “Latin”—won’t be repeated under this papacy.

This isn’t because I believe the rumors that Pope Leo XIV is some kind of crypto-traditionalist. There is no evidence that he is anything except what he seems to be: a decent, sensible man of prayer who understands the “universal” part of being the head of a universal church and sees no reason to cause distress to a growing segment of the faithful who know no other Mass. In the Holy Father’s house there are many mansions.

WHEN DENIGRATING “PRAYERS AND THOUGHTS” BECOMES A DEMOCRAT AND THUS POLITICALLY CHARGED “TALKING POINT”

Catholics know that prayers and thoughts must also be matched by pro-active initiatives. You don’t just pray that a serious illness will go away, you also go and visit a doctor.

But in hopeless situations, prayers and thoughts are all the more needed to assist those in hopeless situations to place their lives into the hands of God and His mercy and the promise of a new and happy life with Jesus after our personal judgement at the moment of our death. 

Yet democrats, beginning with the grandstanding Mayor Jacob Fry of Minneapolis, disgracefully made “prayers and thoughts” into a political talking point to move forward their partisan politics as it concerns their vision how to end gun violence. 

In fact, at a nationwide live broadcast press conference where law enforcement would inform the public for the first time about the details of the tragedy at Annunciation Church and School, this mayor, knowing he had an international platform and to get out front to a world audience, grandstanded before law enforcement made any announcements about what had happened and who had been shot and killed, ridiculed people for their “prayers and thoughts” and then began the democrats’ political talking point, “prayers and thoughts aren’t enough! Those kids were praying and for what?” DISGRACEFUL POLITICAL GRANDSTANDING AS A TRAGEDY IS IN PROGRESS AND THE DEAD STILL IN THE CHURCH!

Even some clergy used democrats talking points for political purposes in the midst of this tragedy!

This is a good article to read to see how horrible this strategy is and democrats should apologize to all praying and thinking Catholics and others who pray and think:

Copied from American Greatness (AG)

Minnesota Bishop Robert Barron Calls Democrats’ Mockery of Prayer After Catholic Church Shooting ‘Completely Asinine’

By Debra Heine

August 29, 2025

Minnesota Bishop Robert Barron slammed Democrat politicians like Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for mocking “thoughts and prayers” following Wednesday’s deadly Catholic church shooting, calling their criticism “completely asinine.”

“Catholics don’t think that prayer magically protects them from all suffering. After all, Jesus prayed fervently from the cross on which he was dying,” Barron told Fox News, Thursday.

Two children, ages 8 and 10, died in the mass shooting and eighteen others were injured Wednesday after trans gunman Robin Westman, 23, opened fire on Catholic school students attending morning Mass at Annunciation Church in Minneapolis, Wednesday morning. After the cowardly attack, Westman killed himself by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

After the horrific shooting rampage, Frey made a point of deriding calls for prayer.

“Don’t say this is about ‘thoughts and prayers’ right now — these kids were literally praying,” he said during a press conference after the tragedy. “It was the first week of school – they were in a church.”

A spokesperson for Frey’s office defended the mayor’s comments in a statement to Fox News Digital: “The mayor has always said that thoughts and prayers alone are not enough. They must be paired with action and solutions. One doesn’t negate the other — but year after year, students are murdered by gun violence. Enough is enough. We must do more.”

Other Democrat notables have parroted the mayor’s messaging, such as Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-FL), former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki (D.), and California Governor Gavin Newsom D.).

Some of the Dems, like Rosa DeLauro dismissed “thoughts and prayers” as “not enough” to stop gun violence and called for congressional action.

Others, like Newsom and Psaki, simply mocked prayer as a pointless endeavor.

“Prayer is not freaking enough. Prayers does not end school shootings. prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers,” Psaki posted on X, Wednesday.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reacted to the post during a White House Press briefing on Thursday: “I saw the comments of Ms. Psaki and frankly I think they’re incredibly insensitive and disrespectful to the tens of millions of Americans of faith across this country who believe in the power of prayer, who believe that prayer works.”

In response, Newsom posted on X: “These children were literally praying as they got shot at,” echoing the trans madman’s taunt scribbled on a magazine, “Where is your God now?”

Barron told Fox News that the Democrats were misunderstanding the purpose of prayer.

“Prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God, which strikes me as altogether appropriate precisely at times of great pain,” he explained. “And prayer by no means stands in contrast to decisive moral action. Martin Luther King was a man of deep prayer, who also effected a social revolution in our country. This is not an either/or proposition.”

Barron, a popular Catholic prelate who has led the Diocese of Winona-Rochester since 2022, is the founder of the Catholic media organization “Word on Fire.”  His insightful commentaries on faith and culture can be found on the Bishop’s YouTube channel.

He told Fox that the shooting should be recognized as a deliberate act of anti-Catholic violence.

“In the past seven years in our country, there has been a 700 percent increase in violent acts against Christians and Christian churches. Worldwide, Christianity is by far the most persecuted religion. That people are even wondering whether the tragedy in Minneapolis is an instance of anti-Catholic violence is puzzling to me,” he said.

“If someone attacked a synagogue while congregants were praying, would anyone doubt that it was an antisemitic act? If someone shot up a mosque while the devout were praying, would anyone doubt that it was an anti-Islamic attack? So, why would we even hesitate to say that a maniac shooting into a Catholic Church while children are at prayer was committing an anti-Catholic act?” the Bishop added.

The FBI is investigating the attack as both a possible act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime against Catholics, focusing on the anti-religious messages in his manifesto and weaponry.

According to a recent Family Research Council report, there were “at least 415 attacks against 383 churches in 43 states in 2024.”

Barron said he considered the two children slain during Mass to be “martyrs,” and described their deaths “as a tragic but powerful witness of faith.”

He acknowledged that the senseless attack on innocents raises deep questions about why God allows such evil, but pointed to Christ’s death on the cross the ultimate example of an innocent suffering.

“We know that God is all-good and all-powerful, and yet we also know that there are wicked people in the world who do terrible things. And so we must say that the just and merciful God permits some evils so as to bring about a good that we might not be able immediately to see. God is faithful in his love, but the ways of his providence are often inscrutable to us. We also know that, in Jesus, God journeyed all the way to the bottom of our suffering, accepting, as St. Paul said, ‘even death, death on a cross.’ We cannot always understand why God permits evil, but we know for sure that he accompanies us in our suffering,” he said.

I AM SURE THE GOOD BISHOP BELIEVES THAT VATICAN II OPENED PROCESSES THAT ALLOWS HIM TO DO THIS

 Headline from Lifesite News:

Mexican bishop ‘concelebrates’ Mass with lesbian Anglican in homosexual ‘marriage’ who received Eucharist

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Bishop Raúl Vera López hosted lesbian ‘pastor’ Emilie Teresa Smith for a Mass where she whispered the words of consecration, elevated the chalice, and gave the homily in contradiction to Catholic teaching and canon law.

Please note the “married: Lesbian concelebrant’s arm tattoo too:

Another reason why Pope Leo needs to reform the Modern Mass and make it just like the TLM but allowing some vernacular:

Watch the Mercifully short “X” Video HERE.

Please note that the good Mexican bishop, perhaps old and senile, allows a lay Anglican Lesbian in a civil “marriage” with another woman and who herself claims to be a “priestess” is allowed to concelebrate this Catholic Mass with a Catholic bishop. 

Please note too, how the bishop gives his concelebrant the Host! Very reverent, no?

I have some canonical questions that I can’t answer, so you doctors of the canon law help me out?

1. Would this bishop incur automatic excommunication for profanation of the Holy Eucharist and the Mass itself? Is what he is doing, especially the manner in which he gives a non-Catholic invited to concelebrate the Mass (and without her Anglican vestments to boot) sacrilegious and thus leading to automatic excommunication?

2. We don’t know from the video, but if the good bishop allowed this Anglican lay person who has received an invalid ordination to the Anglican priesthood, to say some portions of the Eucharistic Prayer, would that invalidate the Mass? I know it is certainly illicit, but does her saying a part of the Eucharistic prayer invalidate that prayer? Hopefully it did and thus the Host that the bishop gives her in a flippant way isn’t really the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Glorified and Risen Christ?