It is 101 degrees in Richmond Hill today and we had a Requiem Mass in the UR Form. It was for a parishioner who was born in Richmond Hill and a member of one of the three Catholic families here who in 1955 pruchased the Martha and Mary Chapel from the Ford Foundation and founded St. Anne's Mission. She and her deceased husband were the first to have a wedding there in 1955:
I just saw these before and afters on the Facebook page, "I'm Fed Up With Ugly Churches" (My comments following the photos):
Oddly enough, I was a big part of the first renovation that began with a process dating to about 1979. I arrived as a newly ordained assistant pastor in 1980 and work began in 1981 with a change of pastors as the work began with the pastor who initiated this leaving a full two months before the pastor who inherited this came. It is Saint Teresa of Avila in Albany, Ga. Rambusch and Company was selected by the then pastor to guide the committee in making decisions. The stained glass windows above the altar while confusing, were designed and executed by Father Methodius of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, GA. These were made of exquisite glass and brilliant colors and had symbolic meaning. But these were not well received but certainly a vast improvement over what had been there which were fiberglass windows with circular wood chips embedded in it with a gold color. I hope the colorful windows were preserved in another forum on church property. They were quite expensive, a controversial work of art, but art nonetheless and a donated gift.
My greatest save, though, is the crucifix which was original to the church which was completed in 1958. Rambusch wanted it removed and a resurrection image of Christ to replace it. I convinced the committee to reject that!
To be honest with you, I loved and still love the screen behind the altar for the tabernacle. The tabernacle is behind the sliding gold doors which we kept closed for Mass but open when Mass was not in progress which was the majority of the time. The tabernacle, not photographed, was quite beautiful and could be opened on either the front or the other side and there were chairs behind the screen for a more intimate experience of praying before the tabernacle.
While the old altar from a convent is quite beautiful, I think the original screen designed by rambusch and costing about $20,000 (1980 dolloars to include the tabernacle) complimented the architecture of the church.
Prior to this renovation, the tabernacle had been placed on a side altar and the priest's chair was directly behind the altar. I thought the screen with the sliding golden doors was a marvelous solution to hiding the tabernacle during Mass but exposing it otherwise given the ethos of the 1980's to rid the tabernacle altogether from the nave of the Church or have it shunted to the side.
And for laughs, this meme should have read “coastal Georgia “:
A Clifton Diocese Initiative
Every Third Sunday of the Month
Bishop Declan wishes to express pastoral care and concern for our Catholic LGBT+ community and so has asked St Nicholas of Tolentino Church to celebrate a series of Masses for this community and their friends and family and all who wish to take part.
The intention is not to isolate , but rather to ensure a warm welcome and to integrate this community into Church.
I am please to inform all that the Parish Pastoral Council has decided resume these Masses from Sunday 16th August 2020 at 3.00pm. Safe distancing, extra hygiene measures, face masks and track and trace procedures will be in place to enable this Mass to resume. Thank you for your support and co-operation.
Clifton LGBT+ Ministry Email: inclusionforall@cliftondiocese.com
There was to be a Pontifical Solemn Chanted Mass in the UA form for next Saturday’s Vigil of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as, the Dormition of the Most Blessed Mother.
However, the Cardinal Archbishop of Washington, formerly the Archbishop of Atlanta and my former Metropolitan Archbishop, in light of Pope Francis’ Motu Proprio, has forbidden this UA form of the Mass at the Basilica Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
What a lost opportunity for the Cardinal Archbishop of Washington, DC to offer a pastoral olive branch to those who had centered their vacations around this Mass while visiting Washington, DC.
The good Cardinal could have said that the Mass could go forward in the UR form of the Mass chanted in a solemn way in Latin and using the Basilica’s magnificent high altar, and the Communion rail for the distribution of Holy Communion, which in the UR form of the Mass are no longer used for some stupid reason.
Thus the choir could have chanted everything that it would have chanted. There could have been UA solemnity and reverence and the good Cardinal would have been a pioneer in showing the traditional community the way forward in light of a cruel hearted Motu Proprio.
And yet this type of Mass has no approbation and this is why Pope Francis’ Motu Proprio is such a scandal to Catholics who love the UA Mass:
Even progressives in the Church are scratching their head at Pope Francis’ autocratic, authoritarian and just mean-spirited Motu Proprio. It does show, I think, the problem with progressives in that they tout consultation, democratic processes, pastoral councils and a synodal way, yet they manipulate the outcome which they demand but the facade is not autocratic but has the cover of listening and consultation.
The only difference between the pre-Vatican II autocratic pastor and the post-Vatican II consultative pastor is that they are both autocratic, but one manipulates others to get his way or plots the outcome he wants. Thus the pre-Vatican II pastor was honest in what he was doing; the post Vatican II pastor is dishonest, duplicitous and hypocritical.
But with that said, the pastor is the pastor despite his methodologies and the pope is the pope.
Let’s enter the world of “what if?” Instead of Summorum Pontificum, what if Pope Benedict had issued a Motu Proprio making the post Vatican Mass more reverent and transcendent instead of normalizing the pre-Vatican Mass? And what if that Motu Proprio had some teeth, like the issuing of a new Vatican II Roman Missal.
I have written this before and let me write it again, what I am suggesting is no widespread revision of the post-Vatican II Mass but simply an organic development but going back to the original source for the new Mass, the pre-Vatican II Mass and what Sacrosanctum Concilium actually taught.
Here’s my plan again:
Keep the current Roman Missal but:
1. Revised the calendar to be more like the Ordinariate’s Roman Calendar which is more like the pre-Vatican II Calendar. This restores the pre-Lenten season of Septuagesima and the ember days. It also would allow for Season of the Year, but without the term “Ordinary Time.” It would revert to Time after Pentecost and Time after Epiphany.
2. Mandate that the Introit, Offertory and Communion Antiphons be chanted or spoken.
3. Keep the Introductory Rite as is but only the Confiteor, Absolution and Kyrie and the greeting after the Kyrie/Gloria, prior to the Collect.
4. Liturgy of the Word as it currently is in the post-Vatican II Mass.
5. Make clear that ad orientem is an option with the pre-Vatican II altar arrangement or facing the congregation but still with the pre-Vatican II altar arrangement
6. Make kneeling for Holy Communion and on the tongue mandatory and the common chalice only for certain Masses, such as First Communion, Confirmation, Weddings, etc and by intinction only.
Finally, Gregorian Chant and Latin must be preserved as taught by Sacrosanctum Concilium. Let’s say the Gloria, Kyrie (Greek) Sanctus and Agnus Dei only.
Most of this can be accomplished without any changes to the Order of the post-Vatican II Mass.
If parishes are not allowed the pre-Vatican II Mass any longer, why not simply celebrate the post-Vatican II Mass in Latin and ad orientem using the 1974 Graduale Romanum?
Hopefully this will end silly comments, insulting comments and comments under multiple handles.
I will see how this works. If it doesn't I will go to another plan.
Our bishop, Bishop Steven Parkes installed the new pastor of my former church at their 11 am UR Mass. He then spoke to the UA Mass that followed the 11 am Mass as a prelude to it as he had to depart.
Please listen to the organ prelude as the procession entered. This is the historic Jardine Organ order from New York to be installed for the 1863 consecration of the church. However the northern blockade of the south during the war prevented it from being shipped. After the war and due to uselesss confederate money, the church could not afford to have it shipped. Thanks be to God for Most Holy Trinity’s associate pastor, Father Abram Ryan, the priest poet of the confederacy/south, raised money with his poetry readings in Augusta and the organ was installed in 1866.
We were able to fully and historically restored it in the late 1990’s. It had fallen into grave disrepair and not used for decades. There was talk of removing it. Thanks be to God that did not happen.
Another interesting point is that the three altars were manufactured in Baltimore. But those shipping them to Augusta were willing to risk the northern blockade and bring them to Augusta where these were installed in time for the consecration:
The 94 year old, His Holiness the Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI seems to have called out not only German “c”atholism but also the synodal way as practiced by them. What do you think?
I wonder if these now and then interventions in any way contribute to the frustration the current reigning pope, His Holiness Pope Francis experiences which has led to the complete abrogation of the Emeritus Pope’s agenda for the Church to include the hermeneutic of continuity?
Was the new Motu Proprio a punishment for an Emeritus Pope who speaks?
I copy this from Crux which has adds between paragraphs. I cannot get the large spaces out in the copy and paste, so be sure to scroll down to subsequent paragraphs:
This is from CRUX this morning.
In this Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015. filer, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI attends a Mass prior to the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica, formally starting the Jubilee of Mercy, at the Vatican. (Credit: Gregorio Borgia/AP.)
ROME – In a rare lengthy interview with a German newspaper, retired pope Benedict XVI reflected on his 70 years as a priest and lamented what he said is an increasing institutionalization of the Catholic Church in Germany, making it a functional entity rather than the living body of Christ.
In written responses to German magazine Herder Korrespondenz, published in their August edition on the 70th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood, Benedict, 94, said his brief time as a young pastor before getting into academic work made it clear “that many of the functions relating to the structure and life in the church were performed by people who by no means shared the faith of the church.” (I would say that this is a critique of the use of the term “faith of the people” to change the Church when in fact it is the infidelity of the people which should be castigated not encouraged.)
Because of this, the Church’s testimony “must appear questionable in many ways,” he said, noting that faith and disbelief “were mixed together in a strange way, and this had to come out at some point and cause a breakdown that would eventually bury the faith.”
Benedict said that in his view, “a divorce was necessary,” in this regard, and cautioned against the idea of thinking of the Church as a body of saints who have already reached perfection. (I can’t help but think this is directed toward synodality as currently ideologized.)
“That this thought recurring in history is a false dream, which reality always immediately refutes, became particularly clear to me in my Augustine studies on Donatism,” he said, referring to an ancient Christian sect arguing that Catholic clergy had to be faultless in order for their ministry and prayers to be effective, and sacraments valid.
Under this belief, only people who presented themselves as true believers “without any stain” were qualified to become bishops, Benedict said, noting that this idea eventually pushed the sect “more and more into sectarianism and, in fact, proved forever that the church includes wheat and chaff, good and bad fish.”
From a pastoral perspective, then, “it could not be about separating good and bad from one another, but it could be about separating believers and unbelievers,” he said.
Since his pastoral days, the problem of this lack of faith “has become more and more apparent,” he said, insisting that in a swath of Church institutions – hospitals, schools, Caritas offices – “many people are involved in decisive positions who do not support the internal mission of the church and thus often obscure the witness of this institution.”
This seeps into the public and private statements the Church makes, he said, noting that the term “official church” was formulated “to express the contrast between what is officially required and what is personally believed.”
The phrase ‘official church,’ he said, “insinuates an inner contradiction between what faith actually wants and means, and its depersonalization.”
Unfortunately, he said, it is largely the case “that the official texts of the Church in Germany are largely formed by people for whom the faith is only official. In this sense, I have to admit that the term ‘official church’ actually applies to a large part of official church texts in Germany.”
Benedict recalled how while he was a young professor, he had asked a young bishop who was a friend of his to contribute a text to be published in the Catholic magazine Communio, in which the bishop described his work at the bishops’ conference.
“The manuscript he sent us, however, was obviously written by his section and was in fact the language of the apparatus, not the language of a person,” Benedict said, adding, “Unfortunately, this experience was repeated many times later.”
In this regard, Benedict was asked about a speech he made in the southwestern university town of Freiburg in 2011, in which he pointed to a tendency within the Church to place greater weight on “organization and institutionalization” than the Church’s “vocation to openness towards God.”
At the time, Benedict spoke of the need for a “de-worlding” of the Church – a term borrowed from German philosopher Martin Heidegger – meaning it is one detached from worldliness.
In his comments to Herder Korrespondenz, Benedict questioned whether Heidegger’s concept of “de-worlding” was the right term, saying “I don’t know whether I wisely chose the word.”
“What the church has to say ex officio, it says an office, not a person,” he said, noting that “As long as only the office, but not the heart and the spirit, speak in official church texts, the exodus from the world of faith will continue.”
“Therefore, then as now, it seemed important to me to get the person out of the cover of the office and to expect a real personal testimony of faith from the speakers of the Church,” he said.
The concept of “de-worlding” refers only to the negative aspect “of the movement I am concerned with, namely stepping out of speech and the practical constraints of a time into the freedom of faith,” whereas “it is precisely this side, the positive, that is not sufficiently expressed” in the term, he said.
Conducted in early summer 2021, the interview consisted of written responses to questions submitted by German journalist Tobias Winstel and focused largely on Benedict XVI’s brief time as pastor the at Precious Blood church in the Bogenhausen district of Munich after his ordination on June 29, 1951.
When asked if he believed he was a good pastor during that time, Benedict responded, “I don’t dare judge whether I’ve been a good priest and pastor,” but insisted that “I have tried in my own way to meet the demands of my office and ordination.”
At the close of his lengthy and wide-ranging responses, during which he addressed a variety of topics including his experience of hearing confessions, preaching to children, and his own path into academia, Benedict recalled his time at Precious Blood, saying, “Even if I will no longer be able to tread the paths of Bogenhausen in this world, they are a precious piece of my life, which I am sure will also be preserved in the hereafter.
In my most humble opinion, Pope Benedict’s hermeneutic of continuity which he enunciated in a very cogent way at his Christmas talk many years ago to the cardinals of the Roman Curia, was the centerpiece of is papacy and a way forward to heal the schism between the Church prior to Vatican II and the Church after Vatican II.
I embraced and embrace Pope Benedict’s theology and also that he wasn’t a dictator about it, which in hindsight may have been a mistake, but proposed rather than imposed his papal leadership.
A direct consequence of the theology of the hermeneutics of continuity was Summorum Pontificum and the letter to the world’s bishops that accompanied it.
The letter, in particular, was/is a good teaching devise for the theology it contains.
But now, and with the signature of the reigning pope, Pope Francis has completely destroyed the theological magisterium that Pope Benedict brought to his papacy and to the Church Universal.
And apart from anyone’s affection for the older form of the Mass or even the theology of Vatican II with the hermeneutics of continuity that preceded the Council, the authority of the papacy and the entire Magisterium of the Church is weakened by the current pope because the next pope can undo any and everything that the previous pope said and promulgated or any other pope or Council of the Church.
That’s the scandal of the Motu Proprio of the current reigning pope—he just pulled the rug out from underneath the entire papacy and its magisterium.
By Christopher Wells
As the Church marked the first World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, celebrated Holy Mass in the Basilica of St Peter, standing in for Pope Francis, who is still recovering from surgery.
Archbishop Fisichella read the homily prepared by Pope Francis, in which the Holy Father reflected on the Gospel for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, which recounts Jesus’ miraculous feeding of the five thousand with just five loaves of bread and two fish.
The Holy Father reflected on “three moments” in the Gospel: “Jesus sees the crowd’s hunger; Jesus shares the bread; Jesus asks that the leftovers be collected.” These three moments, he said, “can be summed up in three verbs: to see, to share, to preserve.”
The miracle of the loaves and fishes, said Pope Francis, “begins with the gaze of Jesus, who is neither indifferent nor too busy to see the hunger felt by weary humanity.” Instead, He is concerned for everyone, and “understands the needs of each person.”
Our grandparents look on us the same way, the Pope said. Their love helped us to grow, and we, in turn, are called to share our love and attention. “Let us lift up our eyes and see them,” Pope Francis said, “even as Jesus sees us.”
The Holy Father pointed out that Jesus fed the people with the loaves and fish shared by a young person. “At the heart of the miracle,” he said, “we find a young person willing to share what he had.”
Pope Francis insisted that “Today we need a new covenant between young and old. We need to share the treasure of life, to dream together, to overcome conflicts between generations and prepare a future together.” He added that without this “covenantal sharing in life,” we risk dying of hunger.
“I have often mentioned the words of the prophet Joel about young and old coming together,” the Pope said. “Young people, as prophets of the future, who treasure their own history. The elderly, who continue to dream and share their experience with the young, without standing in their way. Young and old, the treasure of tradition and the freshness of the Spirit.”
Reflecting on Jesus’ instruction to gather up the fragments of bread after the miracle, the Pope said, “This reveals the heart of God” who is concerned that “nothing be lost, not even a fragment.” This is especially true of people, he said, who must never be discarded.
“We need to make this prophetic summons heard among ourselves and in our world: gather, preserve with care, protect.”
Pope Francis emphasized the importance of “protecting” our grandparents, as they protected us as we grew. “Let us protect them, so that nothing of their lives and dreams may be lost.”
Grandparents and the elderly, said Pope Francis “are the bread that nourishes our life.” In the conclusion of his homily, he pleaded, “Let us not forget them. Let us covenant with them” so that, “together, young and old alike” might “find fulfilment at the table of sharing, blessed by God.”
At the conclusion of Mass, young people offered flowers to the elderly who were present in the Basilica for the Liturgy.
It is unanimous, everyone agrees that these four are related! Woody Harrelson is another grandson of my grandfather and Robert Vaughn is the long lost father of his son.
There is an article that shows how small of a minority are those priests and congregations which prefer the ancient Mass. I have to agree that we are a minority. There is a lot of bragging about how much we are growing and how young we are and that the desire for this Mass is not nostalgia but a desire for an experience of the Mass that incorporates more reverence from both the clergy and laity and is more transcendent than what is the standard staple for the more recent new order of the Mass.
Here are some statistics from “Latin Mass Hysteria”:
Above all, the list clearly demonstrates how geographically skewed even this tiny minority is: the United States, which is home to just six percent of the world’s Catholics, is home to nearly forty percent of all Tridentines Masses, with 658 sites. France, Great Britain, and Italy are the next most popular, with 199, 157, and 91 sites (which can be a parish or other chapel or designated spot) respectively. Indeed, Europe and the Anglosphere account for more than eighty-six percent of all Tridentine sites, and if you removed the fifty-seven sites in Brazil – the world’s most populous Catholic country – there would be hardly any in Latin America, Africa, or Asia, the continents where the Catholic population is largest and fastest-growing.
Yet, there is such an animus towards this Mass, the Holy Father felt he had to crush it. But why? If the more recent new order of the Mass can be celebrated in Latin, what is so different about it and the old order that the old order is viewed as some kind of poison?
And of the minority of Catholics who do celebrate the older Mass, how many are actually schismatic, meaning they do not acknowledge this pope or think they themselves are the elite remnant of the true Church that Vatican II, which they reject, has destroyed? How many?????
On this weekend when we celebrate for the first time Grandparents and the elderly, let us also recall that like the young, the old can be a mixed bag of wisdom but also narrow mindedness. There is a minority of older people in the Church that despise what younger people like and embrace. Older priests and bishops to include the pope who were when they were young at the forefront of going way beyond what Vatican II actually taught were critiqued by bishops and priests in the late 1960’s who themselves were in their 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.
There’s nothing new in the Church about this.
Today, we have Cardinal Kasper scratching his head, along with his very good friend to whom he has been a mentor, Pope Francis. Kasper is 88 and Pope Francis on his way to 85. Sometimes older people simply do not understand the desires and aspirations of the young who often make mistakes in procuring what they desire. It happened in the 1960’s and it is happening again and will always happen.
Unfortunately, some geriatrics in very high places in the Church are constructing a dead end street for this juvenile movement to stop them in their tracks when all that was needed was a detour sign to keep them on the right road but without ending their legitimate aspirations which helps the Church in the long run; does not compromise her.
July 22, 2021
Feast of St. Mary Magdalene
Dear Friends in Christ,
On Friday, July 16, Pope Francis issued the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, in which he established new guidelines for the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass (also known as the Extraordinary Form*) for the worldwide Church. I encourage you to read the document and the letter to the Bishops of the world that accompanied it in their entirety.
I was introduced to the Mass in the Extraordinary Form after my Ordination as your Bishop, and I found great reverence and mystery there. In every celebration of the Mass – regardless of the Missal being used – it is my prayer that we are all drawn into the gift and mystery of the Real Presence of Christ.
Please join me in asking for the care of the Blessed Mother and the wisdom of St. Joseph while I, as your shepherd, discern the spirit of what Pope Francis is asking of us and determine the proper implementation of these guidelines across our Diocese. Until these decisions are made, Priests in the parishes already scheduled to offer Mass in the Extraordinary Form have permission to do so.
On this feast of St. Mary Magdalene, I am reminded of her words at the tomb: “They have taken my Lord away, and I do not know where they have put him.” Her confusion and despair soon gave way to great joy…rejoicing in the presence of the resurrected Lord. We place our trust and confidence in the Holy Spirit guiding our Church and her leaders to peace and joy.
Please be assured of my daily prayers for you, your loved ones and your intentions. May we meet each day in our prayers and Rejoice in the Lord always!
Most Reverend Stephen D. Parkes
Bishop of Savannah
My dad was born on July 23, 1910 and died December 25, 1987 at the age of 77. Friday would have been his 111th birthday. My sister posted my father’s father’s ( my paternal grandfather) photo on her Facebook page. He died in 1935. He had movie star good looks.
I can’t figure out who looks like whom, my father, brother or me, compared to my grandfather.
My grandfather and father are the two bottom photos and the two top are my brother Johnny and I. I think we are all about the same age in these photos. Of my father and his two sons who looks more like Hugh Allan MacDonald, my grandfather?????
When Pope Benedict issued Summorum Pontificum on 7/7/07, I welcomed it and awaited Bishop Kevin Boland’s direction on how to proceed with the liberal allowance of the UA.
When it came, I followed his guidelines scrupulously. I surveyed St. Joseph Church parishioners in Macon to see how many would be interested in its celebration. I had 300 positive responses out of a parish of 1,200 families at the time. Then I had an educational night where I tried to explain the differences in the UA and the UR, not only in the order of things but what was eliminated and why.
I tried to explain that in the late 50’s there was a move in most dioceses including Savannah to enable people to verbally participate in the Low Mass and I showed them my St. Joseph Missal which I still have that helped to facilitate that. But I spoke of a different kind of spirituality between the two forms and that the UA Mass is more contemplative than the UR Mass, more like Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
We weren’t allowed to celebrate the UA Mass until 9/14/07, the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross. It was a Friday night. In Macon, the weather was horrible and there were Tornado watches and warnings all day long and a terrible thunderstorm at the 7pm time for the Mass.
There were over 400 people there!
Not all of these people would come to our monthly 2 pm UA Mass or our weekly Tuesday 5 pm UA Low Mass, but they were not opposed to it and there was no division in our parish. I used the UA Mass for special Holy Days, like our patronal feast of St. Joseph or Immaculate Conception. We would have more in attendance with these special Masses and our annual All Souls Day Requiem Mass was always well attended.
Finally in my last year at St. Joseph, after we had restored the old altar railing to its new position, I made our 12:10 PM UR Mass ad orientem only for the Liturgy of the Eucharist and used the altar railing for the distribution of Holy Communion where the communicants could either kneel or stand to receive on the tongue or on the palm of their hand. We had five weekend Mass, one Saturday evening, three Sunday morning and one Sunday evening. Thus I only did this at the 12:10 PM Mass.
In addition to that the UA Mass was celebrated once a month at this 12:10 PM Mass, the First Sunday of the month. We made sure there were English translations of the changing parts of the Mass. I think most in attendance thought there were no real differences other than the Latin.
This was not divisive.
In our diocese, we had the UA Mass in Savannah since Pope John Paul’s permission in the late 80’s. Our Cathedral has had it for almost 20 years each Sunday.
As far as our diocese is concerned, Pope Francis is dead wrong. That’s sad for him and papal authority and a Church in free fall in Europe and most parts of the world and not because of the UA Mass.
While I feel betrayed as well as those who regularly attend this Mass at our Cathedral do, I have always seen this Mass as a gift from God through the Church and a special permission to celebrate it. But I love the new Mass too, although I had hoped and worked for its improvement in the dignity of its celebration and a recovery of the reverence it lost which the older Mass has.
That Pope Francis did not issue a paragraph or two on the recovery of the sacred ethos of the UA Mass in the UR Mass is a tragedy. But maybe he is writing a Motu Proprio on that and asking UR Catholics not to be divisive in promoting heterodox teachings like women’s ordination as well as gender fluid candidates, married, not married or whatever and other gender ideologies as it concerns the Mass and other sacraments. I am waiting.
5th grade altar servers from Saint Joseph School, Macon, around 2012. These kids are now seniors in college. Father Dawid Kwiatkowski, our parochial vicar, was held back.
I think this is the most important aspect of Cardinal Burke’s intervention and critique of Pope Francis’ Motu Proprio:
18. Here, it is necessary to observe that the reform of the Sacred Liturgy carried out by Pope Saint Pius V, in accord with the indications of the Council of Trent, was quite different from what happened after the Second Vatican Council. Pope Saint Pius V essentially put in order the form of the Roman Rite as it had existed already for centuries. Likewise, some ordering of the Roman Rite has been done in the centuries since that time by the Roman Pontiff, but the form of the Rite remained the same. What happened after the Second Vatican Council constituted a radical change in the form of the Roman Rite, with the elimination of many of the prayers, significant ritual gestures, for example, the many genuflections, and the frequent kissing of the altar, and other elements which are rich in the expression of the transcendent reality – the union of heaven with earth – which is the Sacred Liturgy. Pope Paul VI already lamented the situation in a particularly dramatic way by the homily he delivered on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul in 1972. Pope Saint John Paul II labored throughout his pontificate, and, in particular, during its last years, to address serious liturgical abuses. Both Roman Pontiffs, and Pope Benedict XVI, as well, strove to conform the liturgical reform to the actual teaching of the Second Vatican Council, since the proponents and agents of the abuse invoked the “spirit of the Second Vatican Council” to justify themselves.
My comment on this paragraph and the problem with Cardinal Burke’s intervention:
The vast majority of the laity attend Mass in the UR and this must be admitted. For those who attend this Mass, which includes many young people and married couples with many children, they find the same experience that Cardinal Burke describes as the experience he has had and others he knows with the UA Mass.
I am glad he describes the abuses of the UR Mass by priests. And there is evidence that these abuses lead to the denigration of the Catholic Faith or a new Gnosticism about what the Church should be in some Catholics, clergy and laity, who experience these abuses.
But there are other aspects of the official, rubrics UR Mass that should and must be studied and corrected if need be. This has nothing to do with the new order of the Mass or the elimination of some “useless” repetition, but with the lax or non existent protocols for the selection of lay ministers for that of lector and the Distribution of Holy Communion. And to a certain extent, the failure of bishops and seminaries to properly screen candidates for the priesthood leading to scandal once they are ordained. But the laity also involve themselves in a variety of scandal.
Perhaps only allowing those laity, men or women, officially admitted to the ministries of lector and acolyte with a “seminary” preparation as well as a strict screening my alleviate this problem or lessen it. Of course this will lead to only a few or are allowed to do this in the parish, which is a good thing. The actual participation the council so desired for the revised Mass resides primarily with rank and file Catholics who participate from the pews not from the sanctuary.
In addition to that, the manner in which Holy Communion is distributed and according to the revised General Instruction of the Roman Missal could be the culprit that has led so many UR Catholics (a majority?) not to believe in the Real Presence of the Sacrament Risen Lord in the Species of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. What I criticize is receiving Holy Communion standing, on the palm of the hand and on the run. We do of the abuses to so great a Sacrament that often happen at parish UR Masses where Hosts are taken back to the pew and discarded or brought home as souvenir. It has happened frequently in every parish I have been assigned as a priest.
But watch how a majority of people receive standing, in the hand and on the run, especially children. Does this in any way promote awe, wonder and reverence or does it eat away at these experiences and lead to the dismal state of unbelief in so many UR Catholics?
I have asked it before and I will ask it again, rather than complaining about those who attend the UA Mass and their dispositions, would it not be better to improve the UR Mass with some minor changes and mostly revolving around the manner in which Holy Communion is distributed and received? Then one might look at strengthening the rubrics of the UR Mass and copying what is allowed by Pope Francis’ promulgation of the Ordinariate’s Divine Worship, the Missal which is ad orientem, the traditional order of the introduction Rite of the Mass, double genuflections at the consecrations, an additional genuflection following the Great Amen and kneeling at the altar railing to receive Holy Communion. Just these reforms to the UR Mass would go a long way in reinforcing good liturgy for this Mass and orthodoxy concerning the Deposit of Faith and what the Church believes, teaches and proclaims to be revealed by God.
I ask; you answer.
