WHY THE MASS NEEDED TO BE “RENEWED” DUE TO LITURGICAL ABUSES IN THE TRIDENTINE MASS PRIOR TO THE COUNCIL

 

I think this historical account of what the Mass was like prior to Vatican II (and still present after Vatican II in the Reformed Mass) is a bit hyperbolic, although it contains truths that I experienced as a young child. 

If you got to Mass by the Gospel and stayed until Communion, you fulfilled your obligation. Yes, some came late and left early and they still do! At least they are there for part of the Mass rather than not going altogether. In pre-Vactian II time nearly 90% or more of Catholics attended at least a part of the Mass! Compare that to today’s reformed Mass. 

With so many foreign born priests today, no one understands the priest and often they attend Mass which is only in Spanish in this country or a mix of Spanish, English and maybe even other languages making those parts of the Mass unintelligible to the Language they know.

But read the full article by pressing the title, with a money byte below the title:

The Liturgy Prior to Vatican II and The Council’s Reforms

by John Cavadini, Mary Healy, Thomas WeinandyOctober 03, 2022

Within this overall pastoral situation, a few particulars must be noted. First, while many priests celebrated Mass in a reverent manner, there were those who did not. The faithful were aware, and often pleased, that certain priests were able to “run through” the liturgy in fifteen or twenty minutes, especially on weekdays. A vivid description of the state of affairs prior to the Council is given in a blog post by Msgr. Charles Pope:

As for there being no abuses before 1970, dream on. All the old guys I trained under for the Latin Mass (back in the mid 1980s) told me that it was dreadful how the mass was celebrated in the old days: mumbled Latin, skipped prayers, half genuflections, not even waiting for the servers to finish before moving on to the next prayer; masses that should have taken a good 40 minutes to celebrate reverently were routinely done in 18 minutes. Communion was routinely distributed in larger parishes by priests, beginning immediately after the gospel, while the priest celebrant went on with the current Mass; sung liturgies were abhorred by most clergy and when they did sing them they were usually done in a horrible and tortured tone with indistinct pronunciation since they were not used to enunciating the Latin, but mumbling it. So when they sang, most just mumbled aloud. I have heard recordings from the time and can personally affirm that homilies were often skipped, even on Sundays. Most of the old guys said the Corpus Domini nostri prayer while they gave communion to as many as five people, mumbling it as a norm. The Liber Usualis had long been abandoned by most parishes and they used recto tono (usually 8th tone) chanting in its place . . . . People came late and left early and had legalistic notions that if they made it by the gospel they were safe. Leaving after communion was epidemic.[2]

BOMBSHELL: POPE EMERITUS I SPEAKS ABOUT VATICAN II IN A LETTER DATED ON THE FEAST OF THE HOLY ROSARY, OCTOBER 7, 2022…

 

You can read the emeritus pope’s four page letter at this link:

Benedict XVI Letter to Fr Dave Pivonka TOR

Money byte:

“With these considerations I only wanted to indicate the direction in which my work has led me,” he writes. ”I sincerely hope that the International Symposium at Franciscan University of Steubenville will be helpful in the struggle for a right understanding of the Church and the world in our time.”

AN APOLOGETIC FOR VATICAN II’S SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF STYLE AFTER ITS PROMULGATION…

 

This is a very orthodox and historical account of what Sacrosanctum Concilium taught and what then actually happened after Vatican II in the development of implementing what Pope Paul VI’s committee on reforming the liturgy developed, Consilium. It is a must read document, even if you disagree with this, that or the other. Press the title for the complete article, but I have a money byte quote beneath the title:

The Implementation of Sacrosanctum Concilium: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 

by John Cavadini, Mary Healy, Thomas WeinandyOctober 17, 2022

Money byte: Facing Together—Facing Christ

One other liturgical development that took place after Vatican II deserves discussion in its own right: the placement of the altar with the priest facing the people. Although this change was not anticipated by the Council, once it occurred it was fully embraced by the magisterium. Although either orientation is permitted, we hold that the celebration of the liturgy with the priest facing the faithful is pastorally and theologically more congruent with the reality of the liturgy as “an action of Christ the Priest and of his Body, which is the Church . . .  a sacred action surpassing all others” (SC §7).[12] Unfortunately, as will be discussed below, many priests took this innovation as an opportunity to wreak havoc in the sanctuary. Here we enumerate some of the pastoral and theological advantages of the priest and people facing one another.

Sacrosanctum Concilium did not address either the position of the altar in the sanctuary nor whether the priest should face the congregation. Nonetheless, once free-standing altars were introduced, it seemed logical that the priest should face the people for the very reason that the Council promoted the liturgical reform—the full participation of the faithful in the liturgy. Thus the 1970 General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) prescribed that a church “should have a fixed and dedicated altar, freestanding, away from any wall, so that the priest can walk around it and can celebrate facing the people. It should be in a position such that the entire congregation will naturally focus their attention on it” (262). Likewise the revised 2002 GIRM states: “The altar should be built separate from the wall, in such a way that it is possible to walk around it easily and that Mass can be celebrated at it facing the people, which is desirable wherever possible" (229). Unlike altars prior to Vatican II, which were attached to a wall, the altar now is to be “freestanding” in order for the priest to face the people during the Mass. It is to be positioned such that it can be the focus of both the priest’s and the people’s singular attention. On that altar, in communion with Christ the great high priest, the priest and people together celebrate and offer the one saving sacrifice of the Mass

THIS WILL BE INTERESTING: A REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS MARCH WILL BE ON TELFAIR STREET IN AUGUSTA, GEORGIA, THE STREET WHERE THE CHURCH OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY HAS STOOD SINCE 1810…

 This march will pass directly in front of my former parish, the Church of the Most Holy Trinity established in 1810:

Downtown Augusta seeing reproductive rights march on Saturday

Miguel Legoas

Augusta Chronicle

Traci George of the People's Agenda has been knocking on doors and registering voters. Now she wants to march them down to the polls.

The longtime activist is organizing a "Roe, Roe, Roe the Vote" march on Saturday, starting at the Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School parking lot, then marching a mile down Telfair Street to the Augusta-Richmond County Municipal Building, where Augusta's advance voting polls are located. 

WE ARE SEEING A POLARIZATION IN THE CHURCH THAT COULD EASILY LEAD TO A SCHISM: THIS SITUATION BEGAN IN 2013 AND IS NOW ON STEROIDS: WHO IS THE BLAME FOR THIS SITUATION AND WHEN WILL THE PERSON TO BLAME TAKE SOME OF THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR IT?

 

Sean Michael Winters who writes about his opinions for the National Catholic Reporter, writes this in this morning’s on-line edition. It has a link to another article in a French Progressive Catholic journal, La Croix International,  written by another progressive, theologian Massimo Faggioli,  longing for the collapse of the Catholic Church as it was known on the eve of Pope Benedict’s abdication in order to rebuild a Church that is on a death walk similar to what is happening to The Anglican Communion and all liberal forms of Protestantism. 

Here is Sean Michael Winter’s commentary. Press La Croix International  for Massimo Faggioli’s commentary which is a must-read:

In La Croix International, Villanova University theology professor Massimo Faggioli analyzes both the recent Ross Douthat article about the Second Vatican Council and The New York Times' penchant for highlighting only conservative Catholic voices, most of whom do not know much about the Catholic Church or its teachings. The money quote: "I do not know if this is also happening to other Christian denominations and religious traditions, but it's clear that, if one does not know anything about Catholicism and happens upon these columns in the New York Times, they will find a very eccentric and idiosyncratic view of the Francis pontificate and the Church he leads as Bishop of Rome."

My comments: Theologian Faggioli laments that the “bible” of liberal America, The New York Times, delights in printing stories about the Catholic Church and the current pontificate which are negative to the different Church Pope Francis is trying to create. 

What Faggioli fails to acknowledge is that in all polarizations, there is a cause and effect. 

I would say we can place the cause of this rather unusual effect of severe polarization at the feet of Pope Francis and his advisors who have hijacked his papacy with the pope willing it to be:

1. Pope Francis portrayed himself as the anti-Benedict starting the very moment of his appearance on the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica—this began the polarization immediately

2. After Pope Francis’ near death experience under anesthesia, His Holiness has realized that time is short for him and thus he recognizes that waiting for Benedict to die before he undoes that papacy altogether will thwart his desire for a different Church. Thus Pope Francis abrogates entirely Pope Benedict’s magisterial teachings and allowances for the liturgy of the Church and does so in an authoritarian way. Pope Francis completely disavows Pope Benedict’s request that Vatican II be viewed through the lens of continuity rather than rupture. All this while the emeritus pope is still living to see it happen. 

3. Pope Francis touts a listening Church but he has refused to meet with cardinals concerned about his ambiguous and idiosyncratic papacy. He has never met with the dubia cardinals nor responded to them privately or publicly but rather marginalized them.

4. Pope Francis’ idiosyncrasies includes his latest appointment to the Vatican’s Commission on Life. He names an atheist who is pro-choice and in a most vicious way. 

Pope Francis has done nothing to throw an olive branch to the young Catholics who were formed under the papacies of Pope St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Rather he is erasing these papacies and the millions of young Catholics who are John Paul II’s Catholics. Pope Francis has emboldened the old guard, those in their 60’s and older, most of whom are on life-support themselves but invigorated by the return of the Church to the divisiveness of the 1970’s, but now a divisiveness on steroids, not even experienced in the 1970’s. 

I DARE ANYONE TO SAY THAT THIS MASS IS NOT THE MASS THAT VATICAN II AND CONCILIUM SOUGHT

 This Mass is for the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist when it fell on a Sunday in 2012, ten full years ago.

This Mass has robust active/actual participation in speaking and singing, the propers are chanted, is is primarily in English but with some Latin. It has female lectors and altar servers. It has the common chalice for the laity and male and female Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion. The permanent deacon, Don Coates, preaches the homily.

Perhaps a novelty for a thoroughly post Vatican II Mass is that the Asperges Me is celebrated as a prelude to the Mass and for the Liturgy of the Eucharist only, the Mass is ad orientem. 

Apart from that, the Introductory Rite and Concluding Rite are from the chair and the Liturgy of the Word at the ambo. 

I defy anyone to tell me this is not a throughly Post Vatican II Mass. I can’t even call it a “reform of the reform” but it is Vatican II’s reform in continuity. Make no mistake about that!

JUST FOUND THIS GEM ON THE INTERNET: FIRST HOLY COMMUNION, MAY, 2013, ST. JOSEPH CHURCH, MACON, GEORGIA

 

MAY A CATHOLIC VOTE FOR A POLITICIAN AND A POLITICAL PARTY WHICH MAKES LEGALIZED KILLING OF CHILDREN THEIR TOP PRIORITY?

This was this mornings headline in my local paper:

 [Practicing Roman Catholic] Biden vows abortion legislation [the murder of children] as top priority next year

IS IT A SCANDAL OR JUST ONE MORE EMBARRASSMENT? AND DO CATHOLICS NEED MORE EMBARRASSMENT FROM THE HIERARCHY AND LOWERARCHY?

 

Well, it is all over the news in the Catholic press. Pope Francis has named a woman who is an atheist and pro-abortion, pro-hitman for hire to kill babies, as Pope Francis would describe it, to the Pontifical Commission for Life. 

This is a bit of the Bizarro-Church, no? 

But that is the self-referential, let’s get together in endless meetings and let us worship what we have done and say the Holy Spirit is guiding it, like the worship of the “spirit of Vatican II” and now that bastard’s child, the synodal process. Let’s have false gods to worship which are created things but not from God. 

But how do we make lemonade out of this particular lemon, tone deafness and scandal? 

Well. She’s an expert on the economy, a kind of Marxist, utopian ideology, one that always fails but not without having destroyed countless lives. But she’s an expert.

When I was pastor, I had to hire outside experts for this, that and the other. Maybe it was for an audit. Maybe it was an architect. Maybe it was a lawyer, or a construction company and workers who built things, cut the grass or whatever.

I did not hire them because of their religious and moral beliefs. They could have supported a number of things that oppose Catholic morality and maybe some were criminals, but knew what they were doing when they put up concrete walls, built bathrooms and were electricians. 

Sometimes their work was excellent despite their anti-Catholic ideologies, lack of morality, and unbelieving attitudes. 

Sometimes, though, they botched their jobs and what they did had to be redone by someone else. 

So maybe Pope Francis has hired an “outside contractor” with specialized expertise for a particular task and to seek advice on something for the common good and he thinks it is no big deal that she is an atheist and a sort of hit-woman to enable the killing of children.

FOR THE MOST PART, THIS LECTURE IS MAINSTREAM ALBEIT FLAWED

 This is a lecture on the reforms of the Mass after Vatican II. One of the major flaws in it is that the lecturer states that it was Vatican II that reformed the Mass. It was not. It was a committee men, mostly bishops and priests, chosen by Pope St. Paul VI after Vatican II, called, Concilium, who reformed the Mass and Pope Paul VI approved. 

Thus the reform of the Mass after Vatican II was a work of a committee which the reigning pope, with his own authority, approved and promulgated. 

What we have today is not what Vatican II recommended. What Vatican II recommended some vernacular but maintains Latin, Gregorian Chant, active/actual participation and the expansion of the lectionary to include more Scripture. It called for noble simplicity and the elimination of “useless” repetition. 

VATICAN II DID NOT REFORM THE MASS! THAT WAS DONE LATER BY POPE PAUL VI AND A GROUP OF MEN WHO FABRICATED A NEW RITE. FABRICATION IS POPE EMERITUS I WORDS, NOT MINE. 

But, here is a somewhat prejudicial lecture to an extremely small group of aging Catholics in a pre-Vatican II and magnificent large church in San Francisco. This Church is striking in that it is pre-Vatican II the only change a free standing altar in front of the magnificent older altar.

Vatican II did not ask that churches be wreckovated, high altars not used or removed and altar railings removed. Vatican II did not mandate standing for Holy Communion, receiving in the hand and the removal of art and statues in churches:

THIS HAS TO BE THE BEST ANALYSIS OF WHAT POPE FRANCIS IS DOING AND ALLOWING TO BE DONE TO CANCEL HIS TWO PREDECESSORS AND THEIR MAGISTERIAL TEACHINGS, ONE PREDECESSOR STILL LIVING…

 

This is a must read article from the National Catholic Register:

https://www.ncregister.com/news/clashing-visions-of-vatican-ii-define-present-day-theological-fault-lines

THIS PRIEST THINKS LITURGICALLY LIKE I DO, READ HIS ARTICLE, IT IS VERY GOOD!

 

As I have made abundantly clear, I think the Traditional Latin Mass and its ancillary liturgies should be allowed as Pope Benedict made clear in Pontificum Summorum. I also believe that bishops and pastors should be involved in these communities to keep them orthodox, meaning, they fully understand the significance of Vatican II, its authority and the authority of the Church. That isn’t too difficult. 

In the two parishes that I celebrated the TLM and the other liturgies associated with it, no one ever asked that it be every Sunday or every day, but they loved it as an option for them and when it was offered for special occasions, never replacing a Modern Roman Mass but in addition to it. 

When I was at St. Joseph Church in Macon, when there were three Sunday morning Masses (there are only two now) over the course of time from about 2007 to 2010 I think, I made the last Sunday morning Mass at 12:10 PM ad orientem for the Liturgy of the Eucharist. It was celebrated in the same way and with the same chants as the other Masses, the only difference the Liturgy of the Eucharist was ad orientem. 

Around 2014, I think, I moved the 2 pm monthly Sunday TLM to the 12:10 PM Mass time but once a month. We always had worship aids to help with active/actual participation and the English translation of the entire Mass to include the propers of the day. I really think that most who attended this Mass, already accustomed to ad orientem, thought the only difference was that the Mass was in Latin, not that it was a TLM. I kid you not. 

But read this article, because it is what I believe too:

‘Ad Orientem’: Back to the Liturgical Future

COMMENTARY: Celebration of the Mass with the priest and people facing together toward the altar is the best corrective for the liturgical abuses of recent decades.

Father Raymond J. de Souza  CommentariesOctober 16, 2022

BIZARRO CHURCH….

 

A PECULIAR NEWS ARTICLE FROM CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE QUOTING SISTER NATHALIE BECQUART…

Vatican II and the synod: Openness to Spirit brings harmony, official says

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service October 15, 2022

The process for the Synod of Bishops, like the sessions of the Second Vatican Council, is marked 

by theological, cultural and practical differences, she said, but she is confident that 

by listening to the Holy Spirit, listening to each other and being patient, consensus 

will prevail as it did at Vatican II.

Becquart spoke to Catholic News Service Oct. 14, just before she and the synod’s top 

leadership had a private meeting with Pope Francis.

The meeting came three days after the pope celebrated a Mass marking the 60th anniversary

 of the opening of the council and pleaded with Catholics to resist the temptations of division, 

“quarrels, gossip and disputes.”

My question concerns Sister’s following statement, often said by others who are in cahoots with her:

Is this neo-Gnosticism, some direct line from God to the synod revealing a new doctrine not known

To other Catholics simply by reviewing the Deposit of Faith?:

“We need a respectful, mutual listening, free of ideology and predetermined agendas. 

The aim is not to reach agreement by means of a contest between opposing positions

, but to journey together to seek God’s will, allowing differences to harmonize.

 Most important of all is the synodal spirit: to meet each other with respect and trust, 

to believe in our shared unity and to receive the new thing that the Spirit wishes

 to reveal to us.”

READ THE REST THERE…

THE SEAL OF CONFESSION IS SACRED, FACEBOOK PHOTOS OR NOT!

 I was shocked to see on Facebook this photo of me hearing confessions! As a disclaimer, I did not allow a photographer into the confessional as I was hearing confessions!

IS THIS WHAT VATICAN II WANTED? THAT’S WHAT WE WERE TOLD IN THE LATE 60’S AND WELL INTO THE 80’S AND THIS IS COMING TO A CHURCH LIKE YOURS IF WE CONTINUE GOING BACKWARDS TO THE 60’S AS WE HAVE BEEN FOR THE PAST NINE YEARS!

 Friends of mine on vacation posted on their Facebook page two photos of a church they visited on their way to Niagara Falls. It is Sacred Heart and St. Francis de Sales Church in Bennington, Vermont. Here are their two photos. They did not state where the church was, but I widened the outdoor photo to see the name:

I absolutely love the outside architecture of the Church and the way the “steeple” is situated on this neo-gothic building. But the inside photo, the only one they posted, told me that this church had been wreckovated in the most horrible way. I am sure the poor parishioners were told this is what Vatican II wanted.

Look at the confused hodgepodge of stuff and the crucifix, which would have been on the now removed high altar placed in front of the ambo! Look at the placement of the statues. Afterthoughts! It is horrible to include the temporary (thank God for small favors) banners which are contemporary and silly looking and can’t really be called art, liturgical or otherwise. 

But I did some research to find the original look and these are before and after photos. It makes me sick what Vatican II did to this Church building and to Catholics! 

But was it Vatican II? Or was it and is it a corruption of Vatican II?

Before:

After:

THE INSIDIOUS, IMMORAL, DEPRAVED AND SHOCKING IDEOLOGY OF A MOTHER’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE TO KILL HER CHILD…

 Hershel Walker knocked it out of the park on Friday night at the fights in Savannah. What a great debate between him and Georgia’s senator Warnock. 

Interestingly enough, and tragically enough, this past week in Savannah’s local news which has made the national news, a child, pictured above, went missing from his home. A couple of days ago, law enforcement has declared they believe the child is dead and has named his mother as the chief suspect. 

This mother followed the Democrat Party’s ideology about the manslaughter, infanticide and murder of innocent children based upon a mother’s right to choose to kill their child with the help of hitmen, the doctors she might or might not consult. 

Hershel Walker knocked Warnock out with one punch when Warnock said that in a hospital room a woman with her doctor should be the only ones in the room when deciding to kill a child. 

Walker came back with the knock out punch or the touch down, to mix metaphors, when he said there is one other person in that room and it is the baby! 

If you follow Senator Warnock’s ideology about government not being involved in her decision to slaughter her child, then certainly he is on board about law enforcement not being involved in determining if a mother killed her toddler in Savannah; the choice to kill her child is made between her and anyone else she chooses to consult—keep law enforcement out of it! That is what the Democrat Party, by extension of their logic about choice, is advocating!

Warnock and Walker both have skeletons in their closets, some are lies told about them, others aren’t. 

But as I was told in the seminary in 1976 by a Scripture Scholar, “the Church may be a whore, but she’s still your mother”; Walker may be duplicitous about life, but he can still speak the truth and he did so Friday night! God bless America!

A BIG FAILURE; BUT A GOOD ONE?

 I copy this from the Deacon’s Bench, press “read more” or the title for his complete article and a bit of a rebuttal:

‘THE COUNCIL WAS A FAILURE’

October 12th, 2022|Categories: Vatican II

That’s one of the bold conclusions drawn by Ross Douthat in today’s New York Times.

He writes: 

Just because a moment calls for reinvention doesn’t mean that a specific set of reinventions will succeed, and we now have decades of data to justify a second encapsulating statement: The council was a failure.

This isn’t a truculent or reactionary analysis. The Second Vatican Council failed on the terms its own supporters set. It was supposed to make the church more dynamic, more attractive to modern people, more evangelistic, less closed off and stale and self-referential. It did none of these things. The church declined everywhere in the developed world after Vatican II, under conservative and liberal popes alike — but the decline was swiftest where the council’s influence was strongest.

The new liturgy was supposed to make the faithful more engaged with the Mass; instead, the faithful began sleeping in on Sunday and giving up Catholicism for Lent. The church lost much of Europe to secularism and much of Latin America to Pentecostalism — very different contexts and challengers, yet strikingly similar results.

And if anything post-1960s Catholicism became more inward-looking than before, more consumed with its endless right-versus-left battles, and to the extent it engaged with the secular world it was in paltry imitation — via middling guitar music, or political theories that were just dressed up versions of left-wing or right-wing partisanship, or ugly modern churches that were outdated 10 years after they were built and empty soon thereafter.

There is no clever rationalization, no intellectual schematic, no sententious Vatican propaganda — a typical recent document references “the life-giving sustenance provided by the council,” as though it were the eucharist itself — that can evade this cold reality.

Read More

LISTEN UP TRADITIONALISTS, STOP KILLING A MOVEMENT BY DEMANDING AN END TO VATICAN II AND THE MODERN SACRAMENTAL LITURGIES OF THE CHURCH

 

Soon after Summorum Pontificum, I noticed some traditionalists (certainly not the majority) were becoming radicalized. They began shooting this movement of the Holy Spirit in the foot by demanding that the TLM and its ancillary liturgies be exclusive to the Church once again and that Vatican II be renounced. 

This, of course, was not the purpose of Pope Emeritus I’s gracious allowance of the older liturgies. For him it was part of Reform in Continuity and the proper reading and interpretation of Vatican II.

His prayer was that having both forms of liturgies would help to produce an influence on both, what is called mutual enrichment!

There are many good things that Vatican II’s document on the liturgy requested, like active participation and expanded Liturgical roles; more Scripture for the Liturgy of the Word; some vernacular; the preservation of Latin and Gregorian Chant; and noble simplicity. 

The Liturgy itself, prior to this request of Vatican II, had and has many wonderful things that did not need to be reformed, such as a strong emphasis on the “unbloody renewal of the One Sacrifice of Christ for the remission of sins and the salvation of souls and the Sacrificial Banquet that flows from this Sacrifice for those baptized in Christ and forgiven of Original Sin and Actual Sin (through the Sacrament of Penance). 

There is a powerful reverence, kneeling for Holy Communion and no casualness with the handling of the Sacred, meaning the Body and Blood of Christ and blessed sacramentals such as sacred vessels. These things need not be lost in the Modern Liturgy, whatsoever. 

But a layman, Larry Chapp,  writing for the National Catholic Register, has many good things to say about the current state of affairs in the Church, the elitist attitude of some traditionalists who can’t believe that the Modern Liturgy has produced good fruit for many Catholics. 

Read his commentary by pressing the title. I post a sound byte below the title:

Vatican II Sought True Liturgical Reform

COMMENTARY: As the Council hoped, it is possible to celebrate the new rites of the Mass with sacred beauty.

Larry Chapp Larry Chapp received his doctorate in theology from Fordham University in 1994, with a specialization in the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar. 

Nevertheless, for me, the main draw of the ordinariate parish I attend isn’t so much the beautiful liturgy (which I love) but the intentional community of deep faith that I have found there, just as I had found it in 1977 at the Newman Center. I also think this searching after communities of deep faith is one of the main draws for people who attend TLM parishes. 

In reality, I would rather attend a Novus Ordo parish filled with people of faith than a TLM or ordinariate parish populated by fussy, complaining liturgophiles. The takeaway, therefore, is that what is driving so many people away from our parishes, in my view, is not the liturgy as such, since they are often celebrated just fine, thank you very much, but rather the dreary state of the suburban ethos of spiritual mediocrity that hangs over so many of our parishes like a foul miasma.

WOW!

 

The party of death’s, AOC, gets the truth hurled against her, but should the truth tellers been more polite? 

VIEW THE TWITTER VIDEO HERE.

CARDINAL PELL GETS IT UNLIKE MANY CATHOLIC DEMOCRATS: WE NEED POLITICAL RULERS LIKE TRUMP AND CONSTANTINE TO NAME JUST TWO

 

Good for Cardinal Pell: His Eminence gets Trump!

I think Hans Urs von Balthasar, back in 1952, was quite mistaken to see the demolition of the bastions of Catholicism — the secondary structures and patterns that the Church has built up throughout the ages — as a long-overdue task. Some, perhaps many, bastions are gone forever, but we need all the sociological supports we can find or construct. The contributions of Trump, or Orban, of the Fratelli d’Italia are not to be rejected, small as they might be, just as some of us remain grateful for Constantine and Charles V. It is not a mortal sin to dream of a Chinese Constantine or tolerate the status of the Anglicans in England. 

CARDINAL GEORGE PELL REMINDS POPE FRANCIS ABOUT HIS ROLE AS THE VICAR OF CHRIST

George Cardinal Pell’s commentary on Vatican II and the German syndol schism printed in the National Catholic Register:

‘Gaudium et Spes’ and Germany’s Synodal Way: Reflections on the Church in the Modern World

COMMENTARY: The pastoral constitution called for engaging the world in ‘the light of the Gospel,’ but some initiatives in the Church today seek to subvert the faith to the spirit of modernity. 

Money byte:

The synodal process has begun disastrously in Germany, and matters will become worse unless we soon have effective papal corrections on, for instance, Christian sexual morality, women priests, etc. 

We find no precedents in Catholic history for the active participation of ex-Catholics and anti-Catholics in such bodies. Only the Council Fathers, almost entirely bishops, could vote at Vatican II, and the observers were all Christians. Pope St. Paul VI respected the authority and independence of the Council Fathers, intervening rarely as they laboriously produced their documents, established consensus, while remaining fully respectful of the magisterium and Tradition. Despite all this care and scholarship, and largely for reasons outside Church control, the post-conciliar story has not been one of glorious success. 

Every synod has to be a Catholic synod, bound by the apostolic Tradition, just as Councils are so bound. To allow serious heresies to continue undisturbed is undermining and damaging the unity of the One, True Church, and again, is not consistent with Gaudium et Spes’ call for engagement with the modern world in “the light of the Gospel,” but contrary to it. There can be no pluralism of important doctrines of faith or morals. Our unity is not like that of a loose Anglican federation or that of the many national Orthodox Churches.

A HEAD SCRATCHER

 

Cardinal Schola 2019:

“To those that think that the Church has fallen behind, I respond that we are rather going backwards, specifically to the epoch of the debates between conservatives and progressives after the Council,” Cardinal Scola wrote. “I am seeing a renewed opposition, with much overexcitement, between guardians of tradition as rigidly understood and the proponents of conforming practices, but also doctrine, to worldly demands.”

Pope Francis on October 10, 2022:

 How often, in the wake of the Council, did Christians prefer to choose sides in the Church, not realizing that they were breaking their Mother’s heart! How many times did they prefer to cheer on their own party rather than being servants of all? To be progressive or conservative rather than being brothers and sisters? To be on the “right” or “left”, rather than with Jesus? To present themselves as “guardians of the truth” or “pioneers of innovation” 

AS I REREAD POPE EMERITUS I’S SPEECH ON INTERPRETING VATICAN II, THE FOLLOWING QUOTE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT BECAUSE IT SHOWS THAT HE KNOWS THE LORD, THE CHURCH AND WHAT THE BISHOPS CAN AND CANNOT DO:

 

The nature of a Council as such is therefore basically misunderstood. In this way, it is considered as a sort of constituent that eliminates an old constitution and creates a new one. However, the Constituent Assembly needs a mandator and then confirmation by the mandator, in other words, the people the constitution must serve. The Fathers had no such mandate and no one had ever given them one; nor could anyone have given them one because the essential constitution of the Church comes from the Lord and was given to us so that we might attain eternal life and, starting from this perspective, be able to illuminate life in time and time itself. 

POPE EMERITUS BENEDICT XVI ON THE CORRECT INTERPRETATION OF VATICAN II THESE 60 YEARS LATER…

Below is Pope Benedict’s brilliant way forward in implementing Vatican II. His entire speech  can be found in the full speech.

…The last event of this year on which I wish to reflect here is the celebration of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council 40 years ago. This memory prompts the question: What has been the result of the Council? Was it well received? What, in the acceptance of the Council, was good and what was inadequate or mistaken? What still remains to be done? No one can deny that in vast areas of the Church the implementation of the Council has been somewhat difficult, even without wishing to apply to what occurred in these years the description that St Basil, the great Doctor of the Church, made of the Church's situation after the Council of Nicea:  he compares her situation to a naval battle in the darkness of the storm, saying among other things:  "The raucous shouting of those who through disagreement rise up against one another, the incomprehensible chatter, the confused din of uninterrupted clamouring, has now filled almost the whole of the Church, falsifying through excess or failure the right doctrine of the faith..." (De Spiritu Sancto, XXX, 77; PG 32, 213 A; SCh 17 ff., p. 524). 

We do not want to apply precisely this dramatic description to the situation of the post-conciliar period, yet something from all that occurred is nevertheless reflected in it. The question arises:  Why has the implementation of the Council, in large parts of the Church, thus far been so difficult? 

Well, it all depends on the correct interpretation of the Council or - as we would say today - on its proper hermeneutics, the correct key to its interpretation and application. The problems in its implementation arose from the fact that two contrary hermeneutics came face to face and quarrelled with each other. One caused confusion, the other, silently but more and more visibly, bore and is bearing fruit. 

On the one hand, there is an interpretation that I would call "a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture"; it has frequently availed itself of the sympathies of the mass media, and also one trend of modern theology. On the other, there is the "hermeneutic of reform", of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us. She is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God. 

The hermeneutic of discontinuity risks ending in a split between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church. It asserts that the texts of the Council as such do not yet express the true spirit of the Council. It claims that they are the result of compromises in which, to reach unanimity, it was found necessary to keep and reconfirm many old things that are now pointless. However, the true spirit of the Council is not to be found in these compromises but instead in the impulses toward the new that are contained in the texts. 

These innovations alone were supposed to represent the true spirit of the Council, and starting from and in conformity with them, it would be possible to move ahead. Precisely because the texts would only imperfectly reflect the true spirit of the Council and its newness, it would be necessary to go courageously beyond the texts and make room for the newness in which the Council's deepest intention would be expressed, even if it were still vague. 

In a word:  it would be necessary not to follow the texts of the Council but its spirit. In this way, obviously, a vast margin was left open for the question on how this spirit should subsequently be defined and room was consequently made for every whim. 

The nature of a Council as such is therefore basically misunderstood. In this way, it is considered as a sort of constituent that eliminates an old constitution and creates a new one. However, the Constituent Assembly needs a mandator and then confirmation by the mandator, in other words, the people the constitution must serve. The Fathers had no such mandate and no one had ever given them one; nor could anyone have given them one because the essential constitution of the Church comes from the Lord and was given to us so that we might attain eternal life and, starting from this perspective, be able to illuminate life in time and time itself. 

Through the Sacrament they have received, Bishops are stewards of the Lord's gift. They are "stewards of the mysteries of God" (I Cor 4: 1); as such, they must be found to be "faithful" and "wise" (cf. Lk 12: 41-48). This requires them to administer the Lord's gift in the right way, so that it is not left concealed in some hiding place but bears fruit, and the Lord may end by saying to the administrator:  "Since you were dependable in a small matter I will put you in charge of larger affairs" (cf. Mt 25: 14-30; Lk 19: 11-27). 

These Gospel parables express the dynamic of fidelity required in the Lord's service; and through them it becomes clear that, as in a Council, the dynamic and fidelity must converge. 

The hermeneutic of discontinuity is countered by the hermeneutic of reform, as it was presented first by Pope John XXIII in his Speech inaugurating the Council on 11 October 1962 and later by Pope Paul VI in his Discourse for the Council's conclusion on 7 December 1965. 

Here I shall cite only John XXIII's well-known words, which unequivocally express this hermeneutic when he says that the Council wishes "to transmit the doctrine, pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion". And he continues:  "Our duty is not only to guard this precious treasure, as if we were concerned only with antiquity, but to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear to that work which our era demands of us...". It is necessary that "adherence to all the teaching of the Church in its entirety and preciseness..." be presented in "faithful and perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine, which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the literary forms of modern thought. The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another...", retaining the same meaning and message (The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, S.J., p. 715). 

It is clear that this commitment to expressing a specific truth in a new way demands new thinking on this truth and a new and vital relationship with it; it is also clear that new words can only develop if they come from an informed understanding of the truth expressed, and on the other hand, that a reflection on faith also requires that this faith be lived. In this regard, the programme that Pope John XXIII proposed was extremely demanding, indeed, just as the synthesis of fidelity and dynamic is demanding. 

However, wherever this interpretation guided the implementation of the Council, new life developed and new fruit ripened. Forty years after the Council, we can show that the positive is far greater and livelier than it appeared to be in the turbulent years around 1968. Today, we see that although the good seed developed slowly, it is nonetheless growing; and our deep gratitude for the work done by the Council is likewise growing. 

THIS IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYING FOR THE PAST 9 YEARS, ALTHOUGH THIS ARTICLE SAYS IT A LOT BETTER AND WITH A CARDINAL WHO WAS THOGHT TO BE BENEDICT’S SUCCESSOR

 Commentary from the National Catholic Register:

Vatican II at 60: ‘Backwardist’ to the Future?

The pontificate of Pope Francis seems to feel most comfortable in the immediate post-conciliar period, yet those who desire to drag the Church back to 1972 must contend with the colossal interpretative legacy of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Father Raymond J. de Souza  CommentariesOctober 11, 2022