This captures the true ethos of the Historic Catholic Mass:
This does not:
Praytell links an inane interview with the new head of the Congregation for Divine Worship. He makes no sense and appears to lie outright about Summorum Pontificum. How does he think he can get away with making a small part of SP the centerpiece of it. This is what we are dealing with.
But, the comments are great so make sure you read them, although I fear the a certain Benedictine there will censor them because they make so much sense, but with that said here is the link with my comments below.
Roche: Experiment to Reconcile with SSPX via Old Liturgy Failed
In a recent interview, Archbishop Arthur Roche made multiple strong statements about how the efforts of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI to reconcile with SSPX by reintroducing the pre-Vatican II liturgy have not been successful:
It’s clear that Traditionis custodes is saying: OK, this experiment has not entirely been successful. And so, let us go back to what the [Second Vatican] Council required of the Church.
My comments: Prior to Vatican II, Catholics would never criticize the Mass. Most preferred the Low Mass even on Sunday. I have come to appreciate the Low EF Mass. There is noble simplicity and beauty to it which is not true of the Ordinary Form. The older Mass, even in the spoken form and with minimal ceremony, is vastly more engaging to the senses in terms of the bows, genuflection, additional rubrics for the Roman Canon and the low voice canon. This Mass captures the spiritual imagination in a way the the Ordinary Form simply doesn’t because the Ordinary Form truly is too ordinary.
Even in pre-Vatican II Masses where there might have been a poor choir, a priest who rushed the Latin words, which most laity would not have recognized as rushed because so much of the Mass was quiet, there was still a sense of awe and wonder, formality and hushed silence during Mass and in the Church prior to Mass and afterwards. There was no casualness and an emphasis on fellowship in the Church. The Church was for vertical prayer and after Mass for vertical prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Fellowship was for other places in the parish, like your neighborhood which was the parish. Or the Social Hall or some other venue.
The loss of the sense of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass replaced with a fundamentalistic or literalist approach to the Mass as a meal has contributed to the awful state of Church architecture, the wreckovation that took place after Paul VI’s contrived Missal with an ideological position not envisioned by the Council Fathers.
Who in their right mind thinks the Mass is a meal when all you receive is a small wafer or chunk of Bread and maybe a sip of Wine in the pre-Covid ignorance about the pandemic producing common chalice?
Meal makes sense only in a meal like the Last Supper, where Jesus and the 12 apostles ate a lot of food and then afterwards Jesus institutes the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with a bit of left over bread and wine.
No one eats a meal during Mass and then at the end of a sumptuous meal, the Mass is celebrated, at least I hope not.
The Mass is about the glorified experience of the One Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross which saves us from the fires of hell, opens the gates of heaven and restores the Life of God to the soul (Sanctifying Grace). Receiving Christ as the Holocaust offered for our Salvation in a palatable way is the “Food” we eat. It isn’t like Sunday Dinner, PLEASE!!!
What needs to be captured in the Revised Mass which Paul the VI invented with advisors who had an agenda that went far beyond the Council Fathers is the ethos of the pre-Vatican II Mass and its reverence for the actions of the Mass and the silence of the Church—its verticality.
It needs to take on the order of the Ordinariate’s Ordinary Form Mass with pre-Vatican II sensibilities and gestures, not only the PATFOTA, but the ancient Offertory Prayers, a more quiet voice Roman Canon with beefed up rubrics similar if not exactly to the EF Mass’s Roman Canon. The three-fold “Lord I am not worthy” and Kneeling for Holy Communion and given by only ordained clergy or a formally installed acolyte who is vested.
Our bishops here and around the world and especially in Rome at the Congregation for Divine Worship, need to get real, read Pope Benedict, interpret him properly and serve the Church in a way that brings about the inner healing the Church needs in terms of its public celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
7 comments:
Archbishop Roche should be focused on the utter failure that is the OF. The one positive thing about the business world is that they own up to their failures quickly and make adjustments, but not these guys
In 2008, when ++Arthur was bishop of Leeds, he made national headlines by forcing the closure of a church against the protests of the parishioners who chained themselves to the railings. Ostensibly this was part of a diocesan reorganization, but there was a subtext. The parish priest had had the temerity to celebrate the principal Sunday Mass as a sung Latin OF Mass, and had restored the sanctuary to allow celebration 'ad orientem'. The bishop refused to respond to any letters, including one from the Local MP, but his Vicar-General gave the game away when he said that people have a right to expect Mass to be facing them and in English (presumably this applied to all Masses). He also said the parish priest would not be employed anywhere in the diocese.
The whole affair was covered by the Catholic Herald and Damian Thompson wrote a piece on it in the Daily Telegraph. Make of it what you will, but it doesn't inspire confidence in the Prefect of the CDWDS. Nor does the fact that he was Cormac Murphy-O'Connor's favoured successor as Abp of Westminster. CMOC, it will be remembered, lobbied hard for Bergoglio behind the scenes in 2013, although he was past voting age himself.
I hate to use the "L' word about an Archbishop, but Roche's assertions about Summorum Pontificum and Ecclesia Dei are misleading and, I dare say, DISHONEST. However, this is not just my opinion. It is the opinion of no less than Pope Ratzinger, who wrote:
"Summorum [Pontificum] was about healing the liturgical breach Paul VI created in 1969."
When asked by interviewer Peter Seewald if the encyclical was a "concession" to the SSPX, Ratzinger replies:
"This is just absolutely false! It was important for me that the Church was at one with herself with her own pastL T what was previously holy to her is not somehow wrong now. The rite must develop. In that sense, reform is appropriate. But the continuity must not be ruptured. The Society of St. Pius X is based on the fact that people felt that the Church was renouncing itself. That must not be. But as I said, my intentions were not of a tactical nature. They were about the substance of the matter itself. Of course, it is the case that the moment one sees a Church schism looming, the pope is obliged to do what is possible to prevent it happening."
Fr. Z called Benedict the Pope of Christian Unity. It is becoming increasingly apparent that he was.
As regards Roche? His words and Ratzinger's rebuke speak for themselves.
Finally, another lie is getting very, very old: That the SSPX is in "schism".
The excommunications (which might not have been legit in the first place--JPII simply proclaimed that they (the bishops) had excommunicated themselves--WERE LIFTED. Yes, they are under suspension, but that is not schism or excommunication.
Further, many, many bishops have asserted that they ARE in communion with the Church, including the late Cardinal Castrillon, former head of the Congregation for Divine Worship--and he said it BEFORE the "excommunications" were lifted.
One almost needs a shovel to sift through the outright lies and distortions our Catholic "leaders" are attempting to indoctrinate us with.
Jerome Merwick
Had the 1917 CIC still been in force, Abp Lefebvre and the bishops he consecrated would not have incurred a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Holy See. Even under the 1983 code, some canonists have argued that the 1988 excommunications may not have been incurred, and Ed Peters has serious questions concerning the whole idea of 'automatic' excommunicatons.
Taking into account Benedict XVI's extensive writings on the subject, it is clear that SP and UE embody a universal principle, and are not a prudential concession to appease a few malcontents, although in fairness Benedict himself muddied the waters in his attempt to win over the French hierarchy.
Since Traditionis Custodes is inconsistent, poorly drafted and based on at least three falsehoods, the best thing to do is to ignore it. Attempts to broaden its scope having divined Francis's true purpose - 'working towards the Führer' was the expression used in Nazi Germany - contravene Canon 18 and should likewise be ignored.
Meanwhile the supreme legislator must be rubbing his hands in glee at the confusion he has sown. Come to think of it, it sums up his entire pontificate.
John Nolan,
I hope the Catholics in Leeds are in better hands today. Is Roche (does that translate as “roach?”) truly that mendacious? If he is, he should be nowhere near a position of authority
Roche, pronounced 'roach', is of Norman French origin and is common in Ireland. Incidentally, it was my maternal grandmother's maiden name. She was born in Liverpool.
John Nolan,
Hopefully your grandmother is not related to this roach!
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