ADELANTE LA FE’S EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH MONSIGNOR SCHNEIDER: VATICAN II, COMMUNION IN THE HAND, CRISIS, SSPX
[BOMBSHELL] HEADLINES
["The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Extraordinary Form or to be more precise in the Traditional Form"]
["The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Extraordinary Form or to be more precise in the Traditional Form"]
“It is now a proven fact that a considerable part of those who receive the Holy Communion habitually in hand … have not more the full Catholic faith in the Real Presence”
“It is an honor and a privilege to be faithful to the Divine truth and to the spiritual and liturgical traditions of our forefathers and of the saints and being therefore marginalized by those who currently occupy administrative power in the Church”
“There are no weighty reasons in order to deny the clergy and faithful of the SSPX the official canonical recognition”
Adelante la Fe: As a secretary of Kazakhstan’s Bishops Conference, you took part in the 2005 Synod on the Eucharist. Your presentation centered around your childhood memories about the proper attitude towards Holy Communion, and you gave as an example the case of two priests, blessed Alexis Saritski, who was martyred, and Fr. Janis Pawlowski. What memories does Your Excellence have of your childhood and of the said priests?
Mons. Schneider: About Blessed Alexiy Saritski I have the witness of my parents who knew him personally. My mother told us often: “My children, I have never seen in my life a priest holier than Father Alexiy”. My parents often pointed out these his qualities: He was very meek and understanding, but at the same time taught he the people without compromising the full truth of the law of God. He was dedicated to the salvation of the souls up to the limits of his physical forces (sometimes he hadn’t eaten all the day because he heard continuously confessions). In his homilies Blessed Alexiy often said that we have to conserve the purity of the heart and the fidelity to our Catholic faith. Fr. Janis Pawlowski I knew personally, he was my parish priest in Estonia during four years. It was he who heard my first confession and who gave me the Frist Holy Communion. He celebrated the Holy Mass with such a devotion and reverence that it left in my soul a deep unforgettable impression. All his words and his gestures irradiated holiness. When I for the first time felt in my soul the attraction to the priesthood at the age of twelve, in my memory appeared suddenly the holy face of this priest. He was really a man of God. I received the great grace that I could meet him in Riga (Latvia) after I have not seen him during 27 years. He was already 86 years old, yet he conserved the same fresh and spiritually irradiating face. The three days I spent with him, were for me a kind of spiritual exercises. He helped me to put on the liturgical vestments and served me during my Mass with the simplicity and humility of a little altar boy.
Adelante la Fe: In your book Dominus est, put out by Libreria Editrice Vaticana in 2008, you reflect on your childhood under Communist persecution and offer some remarks on the history and liturgy of Holy Communion. In which ways has the practice of receiving Communion in the hand weakened faith in the Real Presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharist?
Mons. Schneider: When in 1973 my family left Soviet Union and we said goodbye to Fr. Janis Pawlowski, he gave us this admonition: “When you come to Germany, please don’t go in the churches where Holy Communion is given in the hand”. When we heard these words, we all had a deep shock; we could not imagine that the Divine and Most Blessed Sacrament could be received in such a banal manner. It is now a proven fact that a considerable part of those who receive the Holy Communion habitually in hand, especially the younger generation which had not known the manner of receiving Communion kneeling and on the tongue, has not more the full Catholic faith in the Real Presence, because they treat the consecrated host almost in the same exterior manner as they take ordinary food. The exterior minimalistic gesture has a causal connection to the weakening or even loss of the faith in the Real Presence.
Adelante la Fe: On January 15, 2012 Your Excellence participated in the 4th Rencontre pour l’unité catholique in Paris, with a lecture on New Evangelization and Holy Liturgy. In this important dissertation you addressed the five wounds in Christ’s liturgical mystical body: the priest turned towards the congregation, Holy Communion taken in the hand, the new Offertory prayers, the disappearance of Latin in liturgical celebrations and the performing of some ministries, such as those of lector and acolyte, by women. How have these wounds been produced? What would the Church need for these wounds to heal and disappear?
Mons. Schneider: None of these liturgical wounds can even remotely be supported by “Sacrosanctum Concilium”, the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy of the II Vatican Council. They have been introduced according to a specific agenda of a small group of liturgists who fatally occupied key positions in the Roman Curia in the immediate postconciliar period and who with cunning and tricks presented such radical changes (with the exception of the practice of Communion in hand) sometimes as the will of the Pope and sometimes as an almost unanimous decision of the members of the Commission of the Liturgical Reform. Such manipulations are documented e.g. in the book of Cardinal Fernando Antonelli “The Development of the Liturgical Reform” and in the book of Louis Bouyer “Mémoires”, both authors being members of the postconciliar Liturgical Commission and so eye and ear witnesses of the above mentioned manipulations. It is a mysterious permission of God that the good intentions of the Fathers of the II Vatican Council and their moderate dispositions on liturgical reform, fell into the hand of impious and revolutionary liturgical ideologues. They brought the sacred liturgy of the Holy Roman Church in a state of captivity, in a kind of liturgical “exile of Avignon”. In order to heal these wounds there could be made the following steps: 1) A thoroughly study of the history of the liturgy concerning the above mentioned five liturgical wounds. Such a study which will compel to admit with scientific honesty that the above mentioned liturgical practices in their concrete modern form never existed in the universal Church; they represent therefore a radical rupture with the perennial law of the prayer (lex orandi) and therefore also a rupture with the Apostolic tradition. 2) A careful study of the text of Sacrosanctum Concilium and particularly of the Acts of the conciliar discussions on this topic in order to know the real spirit of the conciliar Fathers (the “mens patrum”), being the Encyclical “Mediator Dei” the principal hermeneutic key of Sacrosanctum Concilium, 3) To avoid, if possible, some of these liturgical practices such as Communion in hand, celebration towards the congregation, total vernacularization, female lectors and acolytes. These four practices are not compulsory. The modern offertory prayers are however prescribed. 4) To ask the Holy See to issue a document, which will grant to the celebrant the freedom of choice between the modern and the traditional offertory prayers during the celebration of the Holy Mass in the ordinary form; the same document of the Holy See could encourage the celebration ad Dominum or ad orientem and dissuade and restrict the practice of Communion in hand. 5) To give catechetical and homiletical instructions about the ineffable Divine mystery of the Holy Eucharist, about the perennial and unchangeable Catholic theology of the sacred liturgy, about the spiritual meaning of the ritual details. 6) To organize specific liturgical scientific conferences and talks for seminarians, clergy and laity in order to show the perennial liturgical principles and the organic character of the sacred liturgy and also to unmask the modern liturgical myths. 7) To spread more the celebration of the liturgy in the ancient form and the teachings of the Motu Proprio”Summorum Pontificum” of Pope Benedict XVI.
Adelante la Fe: In 2014 Libreria Editrice Vaticana published another book by Your Excellence, entitled CORPUS CHRISTI. La Santa Comunione e il rinnovamento della Chiesa, where you address once more, and more in depth, the subject of Holy Communion. The book ends with a reflection worthy of taking into account: the preferential option for the Poorest One, the Most Helpless One: Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharistic species. With so much talk about the “option for the poor”, for the weak, why are we not aware of the presence of the Poorest among the poor in the Holy Eucharist? To what extent can we say protestant mentality has invaded the Catholic Church?
Mons. Schneider: The fact that Christ under the Eucharistic species became today really the most weak, vulnerable, defenseless and the most dishonored in midst of the Church, is a clear and sad indicator to what extent the love and the integrity of the Catholic faith in the Eucharist and in the Incarnation diminished. Indeed, the essence of Protestantism consists in the rejection of the fullness of the truth of Incarnation with all its implications and consequences: the visibility of the Church, of the sacramental life, of the concreteness and greatness of the Eucharistic Presence, of the incarnatorial characteristics of the liturgy. The current crisis of the Church manifests itself mainly in these two attitudes: a gnostic spiritualism and a horizontal naturalism, and the very root of them is the anthropocentrism, which on its part is a typical characteristic of Protestantism.
Adelante la Fe: Does Your Excellence think pre-Vatican II Church was isolated form the real world, full of privileges and closed in itself? Was the aim of Vatican II creating a different Church from that received by Tradition?
Mons. Schneider: The period before Vatican II, especially after the Council of Trent, was characterized by an amazingly great and dynamic missionary activity, comparable in its effects to some degree to the missionary period after Pentecost, so e.g. the missionary work of Saint Francis Xavier, especially the Jesuit Order as a whole, the admirable missionary work of several Religious Congregations in the African and Asian Continent in the ninetieth and the twentieth centuries. With her missionary work the Church contributed decisively also to a higher cultural, scientific and social-sanitary level of the life of many nations. In the period before Vatican II the Church made an epochal contribution to natural sciences even through her priests e.g. Gregor Mendel (genetics), George Lemaitre (astronomy and physics). For the most of the native peoples in America, Africa and Asia Catholic missionary priests wrote the first grammar books and the alphabet of their language. The Church made a decisive contribution for the abolition of slavery (beginning with Paul III and Las Casas in the 16th century until Leo XIII and the Catholic Princess Isabel of Brazil in the 19th century). With the encyclical ”Rerum novarum” Leo XIII gave universally recognized indications for the just treatment of the workers. Consequently, the Church before Vatican II was in no way closed in herself or isolated from the real world. Neither Pope John XXIII nor the vast majority of the Fathers of Vatican II aimed to create a different Church. All the documents and speeches of John XXIII, the preparatory documents of the Council (schemata) and the Acts of the Council itself demonstrate it well enough. The true relationship of the Church to the real world or to the temporal society has been always realized according to the theological principle “gratia supponit naturam”, i.e. the grace (Church) presupposes the nature (world), purifying, elevating and perfecting it. If the Church no more or not sufficiently enough influences the world and its realities with the supernatural gifts (grace, light of Divine truth) and instead deals predominantly with affaires of natural and temporal realities (e.g. social justice, ecology), than the Church closes herself in the temporal and deprives the world of the eternal, of heaven. The fact that the predominant activity of many of the official structures of the Catholic Church (associations, commissions etc.) is isolated from the supernatural, from heaven, and is immersed in the temporal and in the horizontal, represents the core problem of the current crisis of the Church.
Adelante la Fe: How does Your Excellence evaluate Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum motu proprio? Why do you think it finds so many obstacles in its implementation?
Mons. Schneider: The Motu Proprio “Summorum Pontificum” is an act of the Supreme Magisterium with real epochal dimensions. It was absolutely necessary. It belongs to the very nature of the Church to hand over to the future generations integrally and without signs of rupture the treasures of the faith (lex credendi) and of the worship (lex orandi). A noticeable or revolutionary rupture in the manner of the public faith and worship contradicts the organicity of the Church’s nature, since the Church is an organic entity (Body of Christ, grapevine, Divine garden) and not a drawing board or a technical machine. The obstacles in the implementation of “Summorum Pontificum” are based on the fact, that a considerable part of the clergy has a disturbed relationship with the principle of organic tradition and manifests a spirit of rupture towards the liturgical inheritance of the Church. On other reason of their resistance and antipathy towards “Summorum Pontificum” is the lack of self-criticism regarding some obvious defects of the postconciliar liturgical reforms.
Adelante la Fe: Can Your Excellence explain what your feelings are when you officiate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Extraordinary Form? [My comment: this is exactly my sentiment about the EF Mass when I celebrate it and yes, the good bishop, compared to former PI, is correct in calling the EF Mass, the Traditional Mass--case closed!]:
Mons. Schneider: When I officiate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Extraordinary Form or to be more precise in the Traditional Form, I have the salutary and beneficial awareness and experience that I am not the owner and the boss of the sacred rite, but really only the servant, fulfilling the will and the commands of the Church, the Bride of Christ, praying in the spirit and even with the concrete formulas and gestures which belong to the catholic generations of a more than a millennial period. One has an awareness to carry out even in the smallest ritual details something which is not pure human and temporal, but eternal and heavenly, celebrating the supreme act of adoration of the ineffable majesty of the Triune God, who mercifully overwhelms us with the redeeming graces.
Adelante la Fe: What factors are responsible for the faith crisis we are currently immersed in, where some aspects of faith are being questioned that one could never imagine that could be questioned by the Church hierarchy itself? Is Catholic identity itself in crisis?
Mons. Schneider: The deepest root of the faith crisis is the anthropocentrism and naturalism, which manifest itself in an attitude of seeing and judging the truth of Divine revelation and of Divine worship predominantly with rationalist and pure humanistic criteria and with the criteria of the changeable human history. Such an attitude leads to a dogmatic, moral and liturgical relativism and ultimately a serious defect of faith and this is then no more far from apostasy and paganism. The words of our Divine Saviour refer in first place to all disciples of Christ and especially to the current crisis inside the Church: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8).
Adelante la Fe: Can Your Excellence give some words of encouragement to those priests who, for being faithful to Church Tradition, are isolated and pushed into the background in their dioceses and not given temples where they can officiate Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form, as well as to those faithful who are deprived of Traditional Holy Mass?
Mons. Schneider: I would like to say to these priests, seminarians, young people and families: “It is an honor and a privilege to be faithful to the Divine truth and to the spiritual and liturgical traditions of our forefathers and of the saints and being therefore marginalized by those who currently occupy administrative power in the Church. This your fidelity and courage constitute the real power in the Church. You are the real ecclesiastical periphery, which with God’s power renews the Church. Living the true tradition of dogma, liturgy and holiness is a manifestation of the democracy of the Saints, because tradition is the democracy of the Saints. With Saint Athanasius I would like to tell you these words: Those in the Church who oppose, humiliate and marginalize you, have occupied the churches, while during this time you are outside; it is a fact that they have the premises – but you have the Apostolic Faith. They claim that they represent the Church, but in reality, they are the ones who are expelling themselves from it and going astray (cf. Letter to his flock)”.
Adelante la Fe: Your Excellence has recently visited the SSPX Seminars in the United States and France. We know it was a “discreet” meeting but, can you make an evaluation for us of what you saw and talked with them about? What expectations do you have of a coming reconciliation and which would be the main obstacle for it?
Mons. Schneider: The Holy See asked me to visit the two Seminars of the SSPX in order to conduct a discussion on a specific theological topic with a group of theologians of the SSPX and with His Excellency Bishop Fellay. For me this fact shows that for the Holy See the SSSPX is not a negligible ecclesiastical reality and that it has to be taken seriously. I am keeping a good impression of my visits. I could observe a sound theological, spiritual and human reality in the two Seminars. The “sentire cum ecclesia” of the SSPX is shown by the fact that I was received as an envoy of the Holy See with true respect and with cordiality. Furthermore, I was glad to see in both places in the entrance area a photo of Pope Francis, the reigning Pontiff. In the sacristies there were plates with the name of Pope Francis and the local diocesan bishop. I was moved to assist the traditional chant for the Pope (“Oremus pro pontifice nostro Francisco…”) during the solemn exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. To my knowledge there are no weighty reasons in order to deny the clergy and faithful of the SSPX the official canonical recognition, meanwhile they should be accepted as they are. This was in deed Archbishop Lefebvre’s petition to the Holy See: “Accept us as we are”. I think the issue of Vatican II should not be taken as the “condicio sine qua non”, since it was an assembly with primarily pastoral aims and characteristics. A part of the conciliar statements reflects only its time and possesses a temporary value, as disciplinary and pastoral documents do. When we look in a two millennia old perspective of the Church, we can state, that there is on both sides (Holy See and the SSPX) an over-evaluation and over-estimation of a pastoral reality in the Church, which is Vatican II. When the SSPX believes, worship and conducts a moral live as it was demanded and recognized by the Supreme Magisterium and was observed universally in the Church during a centuries long period and when the SSPX recognizes the legitimacy of the Pope and the diocesan bishops and prays for them publicly and recognizes also the validity of the sacraments according to the editio typica of the new liturgical books, this should suffice for a canonical recognition of the SSPX on behalf of the Holy See. Otherwise the often repeated pastoral and ecumenical openness in the Church of our days will manifestly loose its credibility and the history will one day reproach to the ecclesiastical authorities of our days that they have “laid on the brothers greater burden than required” (cf. Acts 15:28), which is contrary to the pastoral method of the Apostles.
[This interview may be reproduced citing the original source, adelantelafe.com]
33 comments:
It's no bombshell to people who have actually read the documents of Vatican II that the present practices and state of the Church have NOTHING to do with Vatican II.
The real bombshell is that the Holy See, under this pope, appointed a good, holy, unbending to the Faith, bishop to visit the SSPX. Usually they send the liberal, heretic......oh excuse me, merciful. That's is.....they usually send the charitable, merciful bishops like O'Malley, Dolan, or in the past Danneels to torture........I mean conduct a thorough investigation. That's the bombshell.
For my money, the biggest bombshell this week is that Pope Francis won't be celebrating mass on the Feast of the Assumption:
https://bergoglionate.wordpress.com/2015/08/08/una-bergoglionata-allassunta/
I can understand why he isn't keen on visiting Castel Gandolfo (though I'd spend most of the year there if I was pope!). But why can't the mass take place in St Peter's instead, or better still Santa Maria Maggiore?
Keep the bombshells coming (I'd never heard of Operation Snow Flurry till today).
According to the GIRM, the Novus Ordo is 'a witness to unbroken tradition' and so to refer to it as the 'Traditional Mass' can be justified. However, if you believe that it embodies a different theology or 'ecclesiology' which make the two forms incompatible, and this argument has been used by both opponents and defenders of the new rite, then honesty and logic would suggest you avoid describing it as such.
'Traditional form of Mass' is unambiguous; it can only refer to the pre-Conciliar rite, and does not prejudice the claim of the Novus Ordo to be Traditional.
No, saying it over and over and over does not close the case, Good Father.
I celebrate the Traditional mass in English and, from time to time, Spanish. These masses are every bit as Traditional as any mass in Latin, in any Catholic Rite, ever celebrated.
Bishop Schneider, in addition to saying some needful things that I am sure will be generally ignored in the Church, is also a very nice man in person. He visited our EF community and celebrated a Pontifical high mass, and managed to stop by and say some kind words to us in the schola.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider is indeed a wonderful bishop who is bending over backwards in an attempt to reconcile the SSPX, as did Pope Benedict. However, going by past performance, I think the good Archbishop's support for the SSPX will go the same way as Pope Benedict who gave the SSPX everything they asked but they still said "No" which then left the door wide open for someone to sneak in and push for the SSPX to sign a preamble.
Fr Z said the SSPX should have taken the opportunity when it presented itself and I believe he is right - that is, if the SSPX sincerely do want to reconcile with the Church. After so long, and so many attempts by Cardinal Ratzinger and then as Pope Benedict I have my doubts. I think the four bishops got what they really wanted and that is the excommunications lifted. Obviously none of the four bishops wanted to die in the same state of excommunication as Archbishop Leferbvre. However, no doubt, those four ambitious men pushed an old and frail Archbishop Leferbvre into the position he took. Having only one of them consecrated bishop didn't suit the other three and Archbishop Leferbvre was left to pay the price. One can say that if he had been obedient to Pope St John Paul II certainly Bishop Williamson may not have been consecrated a bishop at all ...
Jan
at 8:23 AM..."The real bombshell is that the Holy See, under this pope, appointed a good, holy, unbending to the Faith, bishop to visit the SSPX. Usually they send the liberal, heretic......oh excuse me, merciful. That's is.....they usually send the charitable, merciful bishops like O'Malley, Dolan, or in the past Danneels to torture........I mean conduct a thorough investigation. That's the bombshell.
Was Cardinal Gagnon, who served in 1987 A.D. as an Apostolic Visitor to the Society a "heretic"?
At any rate, the fascinating thing about the Apostolic Visitors to the SSPX is that they issued very positive reports on the SSPX.
In 1974 A.D., Bishop Descamps and Mosignor Onclin served as Apostolic visitors to the SSPX. Their report on the SSPX to Pope Venerable Paul VI was very favorable.
In 1987 A.D., Cardinal Gagnon (and Mosignor Perl) visited the SSPX and declared that he would issue to Pope Saint John Paul II a glowing report on the Society.
Now, we have Bishop Anthanasius Schneider having spoken of the SSPX in glowing terms.
On the one hand, we have such men as Bishop Morlino who exhort Catholics to shun the Society.
On the other hand, Cardinals and bishops who have been appointed by Popes to go amongst the Society...to work with the SSPX...speak of the SSPX in very positive terms.
Oh, and then there is Cardinal Castrillon, who worked with the SSPX and issued positive statements on the SSPX...and that was even when Bishop Williamson was with the SSPX.
Oh, well. Take your pick in regard to the SSPX...such men as Bishop Morlino, who from afar tell us to shun the SSPX...or Rome's Apostolic Visitors to the SSPX, who issue glowing statements about the SSPX.
Mark Thomas
Since we mere laypeople aren't nearly as smart as some of the experts who comment on this blog, I am going to quote someone who is more knowledgable about such things, at least more knowledgable than I. In his book, The Great Facade, Christopher Ferrara writes:
"In sum, neo-Catholics gladly defend and practice a form of Catholicism that would have horrified any Pope before 1960. To appreciate this, one need only imagine Pope St. Pius X attending what today's neo-Catholic would consider a "reverent Novus Ordo Mass," with women, their heads uncovered, serving as "lectors," altar girls assisting the priest and handling the sacred vessels, the priest facing the people over a table, horrendous and doctrinally suspect vernacular translations proclaimed entirely in a loud voice, ecumenically-oriented "Eucharistic prayers" that omit every reference to the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice, banal hymns and even pop music, the handshake (or hug) of peace, Communion in the hand, and lay men and women distributing the Sacred Host and Precious Blood to standing communicants. How would St. Pius X react to this spectacle? Obviously, he would react as Traditionalists do; and, as Pope, he would order it to cease immediately. But for the neo-Catholic, the same spectacle poses no problem whatever, and in his view of the situation calls only for "obedience" to the ruinous innovations that produced it.
"Whether he knows it or not, therefore, the neo-Catholic has broken with Tradition. This is not just a question of the appearance of the Church as a visible commonwealth in her worship and other praxis, but also of novel orientations, attitudes and liberal tendencies never been before seen in Catholics who considered themselves faithful."
No doubt, some readers will see the author's name and dismiss the quoted passage. However, rather than play the Alinsky-ish "discredit the speaker" game, how about someone actually addressing what he says? To me, it's pretty compelling.
I think I understand what Fr. K is saying - the one true, traditional doctrine "subsistit in" the new rite of Mass - while we acknowledge that the rubrics are new...
So we must distinguish sacrament from rubric.... there is only one Mass, said in various languages and in different ways across the 14 rites that together make up the one Catholic Church... thus the Mass of the Coptic rite is the 'traditional mass' just as much as the Armenian or smaller rites are the 'traditional mass'.
But the Latin rite's rubrics (new mass) are new...undeniably new. One may acknowledge that the vernacular and new rubrics differ even radically from the Latin and Tridentine rubrics without tossing out the baby.
But one can also acknowledge that the old rubrics are still valid and licit.
Half of the debate seems entirely about differences of aesthetic tastes about which there can be no productive argument. But the other half of the debate, the kernel of the debate has to do with, on the one hand the post-hoc, ergo propter hoc question: did the collapse of fidelity come from the change of rubrics or would it have happened regardless? and on the other, whether the new way of saying Mass can - all things being equal - lead people as easily to holiness as the old way?
I'd say the jury is still out on the latter and the latter is ultimately all that matters: does this or that rubric and rite lead people to become saints or not?
Today, in the preponderance of instances the NO features significant modifications (all more or less arbitrary) from the way even the current GIRM provides. Very rarely ad orientem, at least 50 percent of communions in the hand, lay homilies are not uncommon, communion at every Mass without confessing even once a year, no Gregorian chant but banal songs instead, and the various oddball behaviors we see on the all too frequent youtube postings. The net effect is not conducive to the propagation of the faith in my opinion.
anon-1
Said Fr. Pawlowski: "It is now a proven fact that a considerable part of those who receive the Holy Communion habitually in hand, especially the younger generation which had not known the manner of receiving Communion kneeling and on the tongue, has not more the full Catholic faith in the Real Presence, because they treat the consecrated host almost in the same exterior manner as they take ordinary food."
First, as always, I'd like to see the data, not the anecdotal evidence, that establishes what he thinks is a "proven fact."
Second, unless one is receiving nutrition and hydration via tubes, all food is taken by mouth. Taking food by mouth is how we treat ordinary food. If treating the host "in the same exterior manner" as we treat ordinary food leads to a loss of faith, then we cannot receive communion by mouth because this is how we take ordinary food. It is the "same exterior manner" by which we eat ordinary food.
Yes, the host is PLACED on the tongue. By the same token, the host is PLACED in the hand, not taken from the minister of communion.
Former PI it is common knowledge that progressives have a harder time believing that the consecrated bread is bread. So they are more concerned about believing the bread is bread rather than the Precious Body of Christ. They don't believe in the real presence, but in the bread and want it to look like the Wonder Bread they loved a children.
Fr. McD, your little paragraph at 3:24 is a pretty nice paraphrase of Luke 18:9-14.
"Common knowledge" Hmmmm... It was common knowledge that women could not be doctors, that you could get AIDS (not AIDES) from being in the room with an infected person, and that malaria was caused by "bad air."
Sic transit the value of "common knowledge."
Not more than a few years ago, conservatives and neo-cons used to bash and trash Traditionalists who said that which Bishop Schneider expressed during his latest interview in question.
That is true particularly in regard to the SSPX.
Actually, that remains the case. It remains popular among conservatives and neo-cons to insist that the SSPX is "heretical, schismatic...".
The SSPX are "Protestant-like...hate the Church...hate the Pope...are Nazis...hate Jews...hate everybody".
Yes, conservatives and neo-cons used to bash Traditionalists who dared to question the supposed "springtime" that Vatican II and the liturgical "reform" (revolution) had generated.
Conservatives and neo-cons insisted that if a Pope, Cardinal or bishop proclaimed Vatican II a "success" and the liturgical "reform" a "success", then anybody who suggested otherwise was most certainly a "schismatic".
It was a given that liberals would accuse Traditionalists of "disobedience." But it always interested me that conservatives and neo-cons used to...well, continue to...attack Traditionalists who dared to point out the obvious in regard to the New Springtime that had arrived supposedly within the Church.
It will be interesting to observe as to how conservatives and neo-cons will deal with Bishop Schneider's recent remarks in question...particularly his extremely positive assessment of the Society of Saint Pius X.
After all, the SSPX is evil and should be shunned, according to many conservatives and neo-cons.
The bottom line is that Bishop Schneider's interview in question reveals that during the past 50 or so years, our Churchmen have shipwrecked the Church.
Liberals initiated the destruction.
Traditionalists exposed and resisted the destruction.
Conservatives and neo-cons trashed Traditionalists who had the sense and guts to have exposed the destruction.
Mark Thomas
I believe that the following is the most important part of the interview with Bishop Schneider:
Adelante la Fe: Can Your Excellence give some words of encouragement to those priests who, for being faithful to Church Tradition, are isolated and pushed into the background in their dioceses and not given temples where they can officiate Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form, as well as to those faithful who are deprived of Traditional Holy Mass?
Bishop Schneider: "I would like to say to these priests, seminarians, young people and families: “It is an honor and a privilege to be faithful to the Divine truth and to the spiritual and liturgical traditions of our forefathers and of the saints and being therefore marginalized by those who currently occupy administrative power in the Church.
"This your fidelity and courage constitute the real power in the Church. You are the real ecclesiastical periphery, which with God’s power renews the Church. Living the true tradition of dogma, liturgy and holiness is a manifestation of the democracy of the Saints, because tradition is the democracy of the Saints.
*******"With Saint Athanasius I would like to tell you these words: Those in the Church who oppose, humiliate and marginalize you, have occupied the churches, while during this time you are outside; it is a fact that they have the premises – but you have the Apostolic Faith. They claim that they represent the Church, but in reality, they are the ones who are expelling themselves from it and going astray (cf. Letter to his flock)”.*******
That is not a good interview in regard to the legacy that many conservatives and neo-cons share in their longstanding attack against Traditionalists )as well as the Society of Saint Pius X).
Mark Thomas
Mark, the neo-Catholics do not have the appropriate grasp on the situation in the Church and the magnitude of the ongoing crisis. Perhaps they are willing to concede that there is a crisis, but they do not recognize that the situation requires a different sort of perspective.
The correct perspective, in my opinion, is to recognize that Catholic churches are currently being occupied by non-Catholic groups who insist on calling themselves Catholics. This is not unlike other crises in the Church's past. A similar sort of problem has happened before where many of the bishops were heretics (that is, non-Catholics) and the buildings were occupied by that group's "priests." In response to that situation, St. Athanasius remarked: "No one, my beloved brethren, will ever prevail against your Faith. And we are confident that God will one day return our Churches to us."
We could say the same thing today. However, since the neo-Catholics who are occupying the buildings and the episcopal thrones are not willing to see reality for what it is (that their faith is not the Roman Catholic faith that the Church has always held), it is a tremendous threat to their new "church" to allow the continued existence of those who keep the Roman Catholic faith in its entirety. The existence of the SSPX is a barometer that one can use to take notice that the neo-Catholics are not keeping the fullness of the faith. Without the SSPX serving as a barometer, the neo-Catholic charade would be completely successful.
Are we good weather friends or bad weather friends?
Do we fight the storm with fidelity or fight the storm with infidelity?
Are we fighting the storm at all or fighting each other's fidelity?
Christ's Church is perfect. She can weather any storm -- including those from the shepherds and the lay.
Fr. Kavanaugh seems pretty committed to defending the Protestant-insipired Communion in the hand.
What really convinced me how wrong this was is the black glove test. There are several internet videos showing unconsecrated hosts being placed on a hand with a black glove. No matter how careful the person is in consuming it, particles of the host are left on the host, and, eventually on the ground or elsewhere.
Now if we really believe the Host is the Body and Blood of Christ, should we be comfortable shaking off particles of Him when we go to Communion?
Those who serve as the barometer are the traditional orders in union with the Church, which go to prove that there is no reason for the SSPX to remain as they are.
The international lay movement Una Voce was established in 1969 and it is that lay group that has striven for many years for the provision of the Latin Mass and succeeded in obtaining first the Indult Mass and then Pope Benedict's Moto Proprio Summorum Pontificum. All the while the SSPX told its members not to attend the indult Mass and try to dissuade people from attending Masses under Summorum Pontificum.
In my diocese we have had very little support from the local people who attend SSPX. One would think that when there is a traditional Mass offered those traditional people would make every effort to come to a weekday Mass. But they don't. So how traditional are they?
In my country the traditional vocations that used to go to the SSPX are going to the orders who are in union with the Church. After all, what priest would really want to be suspended a divinis as soon as he was ordained?
The SSPX used to have Mass every four weeks in my diocese but now they can only come twice a month. This is what is going to happen to the SSPX - they will decline as the traditional orders, in union with the Church, continue to grow and provide the Mass.
Talking to members of the SSPX, much to my surprise, I found that some don't even know the very rudimentary truths of the Faith as I have found out.
A couple of things that stunned me from traditionalists, so-called, is that one told me that she didn't believe that the children at Fatima had a vision of hell "because Our Lady wouldn't frighten children". Another thing I found astounding was the belief that Our Lady had a normal birth, which is totally against the Church's teaching, and that Our Lord wouldn't have been aware of His mission as a baby. Strike me pink!
So the very group who are so very proud of saying they are "traditional" and saying that everyone else are neo-cons don't even know some of the basic teachings of the Church. And I bet that is only the tip of the iceberg.
Jan
i meant that particles of the host are left on the glove.
I am with Bishop Schnieder, who in an official capacity visited SSPX seminaries and presumably made a report of his findings to the Holy See. A number of the first 21 comments on this posting do not address the substance of the Bishop's report regarding the Mass or the SSPX. The issues he raises are important.
His comments in this interview concerning the state of the liturgy as practiced by the SSPX and the mainstream Church leaves one with the impression that the mainstream has a lot to learn from Tradition. Pope Benedict XVI, he is still alive, opined that what was good for previous generations is good for us too. At the same time, it hardly needs repeating, and it is even commonly held by many including the Pope Emeritus, that the NO Missae has structural and theological features that are problematic. Bishop Schnider enumerates many of these problems in the interview.
Why not fix the problems if they exist? Why the resistance?
It is difficult to ignore the fact that those who most stridently condemn the SSPX do so while they continue to support an apparently failed liturgical reform. Could it be that the post Vatican II liturgical reform is a cover for an otherwise hidden agenda?
anon-1
"Take this and eat..." Then, The Lord Jesus had each Apostle kneel at a railing, their hands were covered with a cloth, a male attendant held a paten under their chins, and the Lord placed the host of their tongues while the choir in the loft sang "Panis Angelicus."
The Gospel of the Lord....?
A at 7:31; are you a fundamentalist who wants the be literal with the Bible and thus the Lord's Supper? Are you for Bible alone and want to forsake Tradition and tradition, not to mention organic development under the inspiration of our Risen Lord, who is no dead hero, but alive now until He returns in the Flesh at the End of Time, but now in Word and Sacrament?
No, I am simply pointing out that communion in the hand ("Take and eat") is a Jesus-inspired practice, not a Protestant-inspired practice.
Anonymous,
For starters, the Apostles at the Last Supper had washed their hands (and feet). How many people in the pews avail themselves of hand washing when coming into Mass?
Secondly, they were ordained priests that night by being commissioned to "do this in memory of me" - thus Priests' hands are holy while us laity, in the world, are profane (have you not noticed all the prayers at Mass where we continually apologize for our sinfulness from start to finish?).
Thirdly, rubrics are not purely arbitrary. There's a reason why kneeling is considered - across MOST cultures on earth - to be supplication and humble vs. standing. Receiving on the tongue is a passive reception - supplication and humble vs. reaching out and grasping.
The 5,000 who were fed the miraculous loaves and fishes were sat down in groups of 50 or 100 and received the bread and fish from the Apostles who distributed them. They didn't come to Jesus and take the bread from his hands.
Thus biblically being passive, kneeling, and opening one's mouth like a child is much more culturally understood across all cultures than standing and taking with one's hands.
But my starting point is that the ancients and my grandparents weren't stupid. Whereas most who smugly assume that the N.O. is fantastic start with the premise that everything before 1965 was stupid. Except Marx, Hegel, and Engles of course.
"Thus biblically being passive, kneeling, and opening one's mouth like a child is much more culturally understood across all cultures than standing and taking with one's hands."
Where, biblically, is passivity in the Last Supper accounts? "Take and eat," he said. Taking is an active movement, not a passive one.
Where, biblically, do we find the source of "opening one's mouth like a child" to receive communion?
The sinfulness mentioned in the prayers of the Mass includes the sinfulness of the priest as well as that of the laity.
We do not "stand and take" with our hands at communion. The Sacred Host is placed in our hands.
Your tongue is as "profane" as your hands.
The Anonymous who insists that Communion in the Hand is "Jesus inspired" still has not answered the question: Should we be comfortable shaking off particles of the Body of Christ?
Organic development develops for a reason.
If taking the Eucharist "in the same exterior manner as they take ordinary food" is truly harmful, and if, except for those being fed intravenously, the manner in which we take ordinary food is by mouth, then why is not taking the Eucharist by mouth - the manner we take ordinary food - also harmful?
We should be as concerned about shaking off particles of the Body and Blood of Christ as we are about the evaporation of particles of the Body and Blood of Christ from the chalice that occurs every time a liquid is exposed to air under standard church conditions.
Vince Lombardi once said that when you throw the football, three things can happen and two of them are bad.
If one receives Communion in the Hand, three things can happen and ALL of them are bad:
1) Every time the Host changes hands, it is another opportunity to drop.
2) Particles of the Host will fall on the floor and stick to one's hand. The Precious Blood does not have time to do much evaporation, and even if it did, evaporation is not sacrilegious. Dropping the Sacred Species IS.
3) The Host can be taken away for the wrong purposes.
Of course, if any bishop or pastor is reading this, they are probably already planning another seminar to train more EMHC's, so why am I wasting my breath?
Every time the priest administers communion, there is an opportunity for one to drop.
Particles of the host will fall on the floor, because the particles pay no attention to whose hands are "consecrated" and whose are not.
There is no "even if it did" regarding evaporation. When the Precious Blood, under the form of wine, is exposed to air, it evaporates.
The accidental dropping of a host is NOT a sacrilege, it is an accident.
Hosts placed on the tongue are easily removed from the mouth and can be taken away for the wrong reasons.
Prior to the permission to receive in the hand (and the Episcopalians in this regard have the ancient practice whereas the Catholic church doesn't)I can not recall anyone, unless they were ignorant or disturbed, ever taking the host out of their mouth. It might have happened, but no Catholic worth his salt would have ever done such a thing so high a theology was their belief in the Real Presence. No one would even dare chew the Host!
Today, that has all changed with Communion in the hand. Children receive on the run and without much forethought. Adult Communicants bring the host back to the pew, place in a missalette or take it home. We have seen adults sharing parts of the Host with children and others. To say that this is a very low theology of the Real Presence or a complete lack of Faith in this Faith reality is an understatement!
The good Bishop is accurate in his evaluation of what has happened in the post-Vatican II era and never really intended by the Council itself but by those who betrayed the Council.
You could always do what we do: soak the Body in the Blood and administer it to the communicants.
Good luck removing it then!
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