Archbishop Salvatore just responded, tweeting this morning:
"The widely diverse coalition of signers of the petition to Pope Francis demonstrates that, even beyond its spiritual value, the Traditional Latin Mass is a cultural treasure that has inspired artistic creativity of every kind & in every age, building what we know as Western Civilization. I thank them for making their voices heard."
Canceling art:
Phylis Zagano, of the National Catholic Reporter, a somewhat heterodox feminist, nails it with this commentary on Rupnick’s art:
Because it is art meant to lead people into prayer, contemplation and spirituality, people think that is should be separated from the artist. But in Rupnick’s case, this is hard to do.
But let’s speak about another type of art, much higher than mosaics, murals, canvas and paint. It’s the Traditional Latin Mass and its patrimony. Yet the Vatican, with a simple decree in 1969 and again with TC a couple of years ago, tried and is trying to suppress this ultimate and high work of art which is meant to inspire faith, hope and love within the context of prayer, contemplation and spirituality not to mention devotion and mysticism.
The Vatican and others who support Rupnick’s art and want to keep it, even as clip art, look very ridiculous at this point while at the same time they want to destroy the work of art that is the celebration of the Ancient Latin Mass. Just my most humble opinion.
And now famous people in the United Kingdom are asking the Vatican to preserve the work of art that the Ancient Latin Mass is. Among them is Mick Jagger’s ex-wife, Bianca Jagger. And if a Rolling Stone’s ex wife wants the Ancient Latin Mass to be preserved and celebrated, you know that it must be preserved! Case closed!!!!!!
This is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at Saint James Cathedral in Seattle, Washington prior to the liturgical changes in the very post-Vatican II Church. Please note how clean, crisp and uncluttered the sanctuary is and how central the altar is, magnificent in its noble decorations:
This photo is a few years after the post-Vatican II changes. This is truly peculiar. The magnificent high altar is still present, but then slightly lower there is a free standing altar present along with yet another free standing altar below it. Three altars! What the H?
Then in the early 1990’s, the powers that be decided that Vatican II demanded a complete reordering of the cathedral, out with all of the previous altars and in with the completely new and reoriented floor plan for the cathedral. It is mind-blowing to say the least. While the shell of the cathedral is beautifully painted and decorated, the layout of the cathedral is mind-numbing. It is a hodgepodge of liturgical silliness beginning in the 1970’s and culminating in 1994 in Seattle.
It is iconoclasm on many levels and an insult to the heritage of the Cathedral and the Church in general: It shows the liturgical confusion that still reigns in the progressive Church. Could you imagine this being done to any of the major basilicas in Rome. No major basilica in Rome has ever been completely reordered with Vatican II being made the scapegoat. Why? Because Vatican II did not envision this kind of layout for a Catholic cathedral or church. What a travesty!
New rules for employees of St. Peter’s Basilica issued June 29 specify that personnel may not have visible tattoos or piercings, and theoretically could be suspended if they do.
Among other things, the new rules require basilica employees to “commit to adhering to principles of exemplary religious and moral conduct,” including not cohabitating outside of marriage. Employees must not have a criminal record, and must be both baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church. They must also produce a letter from a parish priest testifying to their good standing. MY COMMENT: SEEMS MORE STRINGENT THAT VATICAN REQUIREMENTS FOR GODPARENTS, NO?
The rules apply to all employees of the basilica, who include artistic experts and architects in addition to the so-called Sampietrini, meaning laborers who carry out routine maintenance and operations.
In addition, personnel are also barred from “taking part in activities, or attending rallies, which are inappropriate for a Vatican employee.” Most observers have taken that provision, at least in part, to refer to events such as the Gay Pride rally which was staged in Rome on June 15.
Schism, though, in Catholic usage means rejection of the universal authority of the pope over the Church in the areas of the revealed faith and morals of the Church, as well as canonical discipline and her perennial magisterium which the pope must uphold.
Today, we have some manifest schisms. A small group of Poor Clare nuns in Spain are in schism. A few groups in America who have ordained women are in schism. The former bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska a few years back excommunicated a few liberal groups in his diocese. I don’t think those excommunications have been lifted.
And now we have Archbishop Viganò, who in fact is the religious “Joe Biden” being used as a puppet by those who are the power behind the man. Vigano, like President Biden, is suffering from mental issues of age or worse but being used by the sane or cognitive for their own purposes.
But the greater silent schism comprise a massive majority in the Church. They are those who have disengaged from the Church but not in a formal renouncement. Added to them are those who have joined other sects of the Protestant tradition, especially the growing non-denominational movement. A smaller group, perhaps, are those who have joined other religions, like Judaism, Islam, Buddhists and the like.
A larger group and growing exponentially are those who claim no religion although they like to say they are spiritual. Many call them the “nones.”
This silent schism comprises about 70% to 90% percent of baptized Catholics. The remaining 5% to 30% of Catholics who practice their faith by going to Mass regularly, of them, many do not accept important doctrines and moral teachings of the Church. They see no problem with abortion, birth control, LGBTQF+++ ideologies, the ordination of women or so-called “non-binary” people.
These Catholics aren’t organized under any schismatic banner; it’s more a function of the fierce individualism that we are experiencing in our Church today.
What to do? What to do? Oh! What are we to do?
Just saying. How much more should Catholics observe this? To whom much is given, much is expected on my most humble blog!
I don’t think we should minimize this disgrace and contempt for Cardinal O”Malley, but it is emblematic of the Vatican for the past 13 years.
Vatican News, this very day, June 28th used this artistic rendering of St. Ireneous for a Vatican News Story.
Here’s the art work of Rupnick:
This is a very good opinion piece on what is happening in the Vatican as it concerns Catholics who prefer to worship in the pre-Vatican II, now post Vatican II, rites of the Church. It is published by Rorate Caeli:
I draw your attention to the longer article that is linked above where Andrea Grillo states that it is a good thing that we have fewer seminarians, and thus by logic, fewer priests, so that we can have a non-clerical Church led by the laity and worship led by the laity.
As we all know, the current pontificate who vociferously condemns backward looking Catholics, is the epitome of backwardness to the 1970’s! I was there in a liberal seminary in the 1970’s, so I know what I am writing. In fact everything the current pontificate condemns, the current pontificate is an emblem.
When I was in the major seminary from 1976 to 1980, there were theologians and bishops suggesting that a priest was not necessary for the Sunday Eucharist as it was called back then. Any Catholic, properly trained and with charisms or skills, could lead the Eucharist, confect the meal and proclaim the homily.
Thus, fewer priests is an infallible sign of the Holy Spirit’s freshness for the Church of tomorrow led by laity who could confect the Eucharistic meal.
And there was no need for a uniform liturgy, just a loose structure but everything ad libbed from the heart as a sign of the freshness of the Holy Spirit.
Neo-Gnosticism has returned to the Vatican as it concerns blasphemy of the Holy Spirit when anyone from the pope to his henchmen say that such and such is definitely the work of the Holy Spirit who surprises us with heterodoxy.
This poses a threat to the security of the world in general and the United States in particular.
But deeper questions need to be asked. Who is the puppet master? Who is in charge of the country behind the scenes. Most do not believe it is the Vice President, VP Harris. She’s simply over her head and incompetent for the position she holds.
It could be Dr. Jill Biden.
More than likely it is President Obama.
Who knows, but someone is the puppet master as President Biden is mentally incompetent sad to say and can’t be the one who is in charge. It’s not plausible. Having someone behind the scenes leading the USA as a non-elected official is a clear and present danger to American democracy.
But let’s talk about the religious aspect of the second “Catholic” president of the USA. The impotence of the Vatican or the Cardinal of Washington, DC or the Bishop of Wilmington, Delaware to place a canonical censure or public excommunication against President Biden is breathtaking as it concerns simply two moral issues.
They are his promotion of abortion and the LGBTQF+++ ideologies and desiring to codify these in law. I don’t know if the puppet master has manipulated President Biden to abdicate Catholic moral principles in favor of demonic political ideologies, but he has done it and no one who has religious authority over President Biden in the Catholic Church from the pope to his two bishops have done anything to stop it for the sake of President Biden’s salvation and his immortal soul.
A dereliction of duty by the Church’s hierarchy concerning President Biden’s eternal salvation is breathtaking. But not only President Biden’s personal salvation is at stake but all those who have drunk the Democratic Party’s immoral ideologies, to include scores of Catholics, have their salvation at risk too and the bishops of the Church, not all, but those who count, standby as the world’s salvation is on fire!
This time Cardinal O’Malley indirectly called out the director of Vatican Communications about his unbelievably rigid, silly and tone deaf discussion of the use of Rupnick’s art in Vatican Communications, the last time on June 9th and the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart.
This is what the good Cardinal said:
"We must avoid sending a message that the Holy See is oblivious to the psychological distress that so many are suffering," read the letter sent by Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston to the heads of Vatican dicasteries on June 26.
"Pastoral prudence would prevent displaying artwork in a way that could imply either exoneration or a subtle defense" of alleged abuse perpetrators "or indicate indifference to the pain and suffering of so many victims of abuse," the letter stated.
Read the full article from the National Catholic Reporter HERE.
Please recall that Cardinal O’Malley wrote a similar letter about Pope Francis’ support of a bishop he appointed in Peru who was a serial abuser and continued to defend him until the pope’s absolutely disastrous visit to Chile.
Viganò in a June 20 post on Exsurge Domine recalled how 50 years ago, Lefebvre was also summoned to the Vatican to answer to allegations of schism.
“His defense is mine; his words are mine; and his arguments are mine – arguments before which the Roman authorities could not condemn him for heresy, having to wait instead for him to consecrate bishops so as to have the pretext of declaring him schismatic and then revoking his excommunication when he was already dead,” he said.
Now, “the scheme is repeated even after half a century has demonstrated Archbishop Lefebvre’s prophetic choice,” Viganò said.
This is a portion of what he writes at the end of his hit piece:
This reminded me of a visit to Toledo a few years ago. There there exists a true liturgical rite, that is venerable and has a fully developed Missal renewed after the Council. Yet when I attended the Mozarabic Chapel in the Cathedral of Toledo, I was disappointed to see that apart from a few priests who served as the Cathedral Canons (whose job it is to attend and keep the rite “alive”), the handful of people attending the Mass celebrated in the Mozarabic Rite was made up exclusively of American liturgical tourists and that no local person was in attendance.
One part of me laments the lack of historical continuity and the loss of ancient liturgical uses and rites. Yet another rejoices in this validation of the universal Roman Rite. People have voted with their feet and have found the current Missal to be more life-giving than the various other possibilities. Could this be a manifestation of the sensus fidelium confirming what Pope Francis’ affirmation in Traditionis Custodes:
The liturgical books promulgated by Saint Paul VI and Saint John Paul II, in conformity with the decrees of Vatican Council II, are the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.
While he laments that these rites are neglected by clergy and laity, he sees that neglect as the Sensus Fidelium that the older rites are rejected and thus supports the absurd assertion of TC that the current reformed liturgy of Paul VI is the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite. It is to laugh of course!
But using Father O’Donohue’s logic, he condemns the Mass of Paul VI in the same way, but he does so unwittingly!
In many places in Europe today, if 5% of Catholics attend the Mass of Paul VI, that is considered a success! In this country, the USA, many places in the northeast are seeing about 5% of people attending the Mass of Paul VI.
In the American south, attendance is a bit higher, with upwards to 20% of Catholics attending the Mass of Paul VI on Sundays.
Compare that to Mass attendance in the USA around 1965 or so, in this country about 90% of Catholics were attending the normal Sunday Mass at that time, what is now called the TLM! I have no idea how high it was in Europe; I suspect not as high as the USA, but certainly more than 5% of the Catholics there.
Thus according to Fr. O”Donohue, the sensus fidelium has spoken and the Mass of Paul VI should not be the unique expression of the Roman Rite, but something else more akin to the TLM!
Also implied in this Pillar article is the fear, the dread, the existential threat, that a new pope is posing to Vatican Liturgical Elitists, who fear, and with good reason, that the new pope will cancel the liturgical agenda of Pope Francis and his henchmen just as Pope Francis canceled Pope Benedict’s liturgical vision and legislation!
Press title for superb common sense article, something lacking in the Vatican!
And if more restrictions are coming, what could they hope to achieve?
I saw this commentary on Milwaukee’s cathedral on Facebook. If true, good news!
Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Widely considered the most infamous case of wreckovation, the Cathedral had survived a fire, the wild liturgical renewal of the 1970s, and had entered the new millennium. Not only was the renovation not asked for but numerous historical societies, the Vatican, and all of the parishioners got involved to stop this horror from taking place, sadly to no avail. Thankfully there are currently discussions to restore the Cathedral back to it's appearance before the early 2000s.
On Sunday I celebrated the 7 AM Modern Mass at St. Gregory the Great—all spoken, no music, full church and out in 40 minutes! It’s called the “Golfer’s Mass!” Then I went to Savannah for the 1 PM Traditional Latin Mass, all sung, all the bells and smells and it took one hour and 10 minutes. But time flies in eternity!
These are the photos of the TLM at Sacred Heart Church in Savannah:
But, what the Vatican press official said about Rupnick and his art really shows the tone deafness of so many in the Vatican and elsewhere. The Rupnick affair, along with the McCarrick affair and other affairs of abuse of the most depraved kind by clerics sworn to chaste celibacy seem to get a pass, but anyone wanting the liberal celebration of the Ancient Use of the Latin Rite are demonized as cultists and even worse and the Vatican tries to stamp that out while praising Jesuit Father James Martin. It truly is the upside down, inside out Church, no?
Press the title for the opinion piece:
Friday was a very bad day for Dr. Paolo Ruffini, Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, but Ruffini ought not to be the sole or even the primary focus of attention.
By Vatican News
A statement on Monday released by the Holy See Press Office said Pope Francis has appointed Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Titular Archbishop of Urbisaglia, and Prefect Emeritus of the Papal Household, as Apostolic Nuncio to Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia.
Archbishop Gänswein, who is 67, served as Pope Benedict XVI’s private secretary during his entire pontificate and retirement.
In December 2012, Pope Benedict XVI also appointed him Prefect of the Pontifical Household. He was ordained as archbishop in January 2013.
He continued to hold both positions after Benedict resigned from the papacy about seven weeks later, in February 2013. For about seven years, Archbishop Gänswein served both Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict.
Until last year, the Apostolic Nuncio in the three Baltic countries was Archbishop Petar Rajič, a Canadian of Bosnian-Croatian origin, who was appointed by the Holy Father, on March 11, as the Nuncio to Italy and San Marino. Consequently, the Apostolic See has remained vacant until now.
This is the last part of Aaron Seng’s much too long article:
Is the pope obliged to faithfully maintain the Church’s traditional liturgical rites?
Yes. The early medieval Papal Oath affirms: “I promise to keep inviolate the discipline and the liturgy of the Church as I have found them and as they were transmitted by my holy Predecessors,” and the Papal Oath decreed by the Council of Constance echoes: “I will follow and observe in every way the rite handed down of the ecclesiastical sacraments of the Catholic Church.”15
Can a pope abrogate a liturgical rite of immemorial custom in the Church?
No. Just as a pope cannot forbid or abrogate the Apostles’ Creed or Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed or substitute a new formula for them, neither can he abrogate traditional, millennium-old rites of Mass and the sacraments or forbid their use. This applies as much to Eastern as to Western rites.16
Could the traditional Roman Rite ever be legitimately forbidden for the entire Church?
No. It rests upon divine, apostolic, and ancient pontifical usage, and bears the canonical force of immemorial custom; it can never be abrogated or forbidden.17
Must we comply with the prohibition of traditional Catholic liturgical rites?
No. “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.” The rites of venerable antiquity form a sacred and constitutive part of the common patrimony of the Church, and not even the highest ecclesiastical authority has power to proscribe them.18
Is any act of disobedience to a command of the pope by itself schismatic?
No. One is not schismatic if he resists a pope or refuses to obey a particular teaching or command of his that is manifestly contrary to natural or divine law, or that would harm or undermine the integrity of the Catholic Faith or the sacredness of the liturgy. In such cases, disobedience and resistance to the pope is permissible and sometimes obligatory.19
For decades, Catholic and non-Catholics20 alike have been confused by a strange and imposed sense of “forbidding” made to surround the traditional Roman Rite—the same rite once universally treasured as most holy, most praiseworthy, most worthy of devotion; the love of countless saints and mystics, “the most beautiful thing this side of Heaven.”21
Thankfully, if a Catholic should ever need to defend his sacred heritage from misguided attempts to suppress it in the future, he now has a reliable Catholic catechism to reference for support.
My astute commentary: I do think that the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church has no authority to change defined doctrine and dogmas nor does an Ecumenical Council in union with the pope. As St. Pope John Paul II taught in a definitive way by saying the pope has no authority to ordain women as men only are validly ordained to Sacred Orders and is to be definitively held as a part of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church, so too, no pope can change the Apostles Creed. No Pope can change the Nicene Creed. Future creeds build upon each creed but no creed is ever suppressed or forbidden to be prayed if the Church has approved it in Council
The same would be true of the form of the Liturgy of the Council of Trent. Even at Trent, it was declared that certain forms of the liturgy prior to that Council with a certain number of years behind it could not be suppressed.
Thus I do tend to believe that the previous liturgy of the Church which in fact predates even the Council of Trent, which simply codified it and made it universal for the Latin Rite, cannot be suppressed.
One might argue though, that the intent of the Liturgy of the Church, meaning its doctrine and dogmas were not changed in the new form after Vatican II, just the form and canonical order were changed and new prayers added.
I am not calling into question Vatican II’s reforms, but can a pope declare the liturgical tradition before the Second Vatican Council or any council no longer allowed? I would tend to believe that if one says yes, then any pope could suppress the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed and replace it with others more developed or less developed.
