YIKES OR LIKES, CAN THE CHURCH REPUDIATE WHAT AN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL MANDATES?

My comment first: I reprint dominic's comment from the last post. While he raises interesting objections, I firmly believe that ecumenical council and papal authority are foundational to Catholicism. Does he undermine both and is there another way to suggest reform, question and fomment discussion in a realistic direction? And isn't Pope Benedict the role model for this critique and reform of Vatican II? I report, you decide!

dominic1955 has left a new comment on your post "LET'S GET REAL ABOUT VATICAN II AND THE REFORM OF ...":

Also, I see no point in insisting upon a "reform" in the same way Sacrosanctum Concilium said. That was what was voted on in the Council back in the '60s. Hindsight being 20/20, I think it is best to preserve rather than tinker at this point. The people who wrote Sacrosanctum Concilium were diaticists and antiquarians-precisely the people who should never be given any sort of role whatsoever in any liturgical reform. The Pauline Missal is an amalgamation of faddish Liturgical Movement antiquarianisms mixed with New Theology didacticism. The expanded lectionary, the mutilated and disjointed prayers, the need to have added "eucharistic prayers" and all sorts of other things violates all liturgical orthopraxis and falls into the predictable camp of the Aufklarung Catholicism of late 18th/early 19th Century Germany, the Jansenists, Josephists, Neo-Gallicans, and Protestants.

Heteropraxis has become so widespread in the Latin Church that it is ridiculous, to the point in which many of us have come to believe that papal fiat is what makes something orthodox or not. It should be burned onto the heart and mind of every proper Catholic that the liturgy is not a project to mess with for each passing age to make it "our own". The liturgy is traditio-we need simply to pass on what we have received. Any alterations that should be made will take care of themselves, the work of progressivist egg head committees is the culmination of what Gueranger called the "anti-liturgical heresy".

THE CATHOLIC MASS IS MORE THAN SACRIFICE, MORE THAN MEAL AND MORE THAN THE HUMAN MIND CAN GRASP! IT IS MYSTERY, MYSTERION IN GREEK, SACRAMENTUM IN LATIN, SACRAMENT IN ENGLISH!

Paul Ford a liturgist and pastoral musician wrote the following: “But what are we saying during the Institution Narrative, “Take this, all of you, and eat/drink of/from it,” if we really mean “only those who are Catholics in good standing who have also observed the fast”? ”

But that made me think that his take on this is precisely what is wrong with our theology of the Mass in the post-Vatican II era and it has to do with liturgical literalism as it concerns the Last Supper and the bodily gestures of the priest and the direction in which he faces!

In fact the Institution Narrative in the Eucharistic is a prayer to God recalling the specific event of the Last Supper and the words are directed to the Apostles who alone are present as an anticipation of Good Friday’s Sacrifice and how they will offer that one Sacrifice in perpetuity as a Memorial of the Good Friday event. Only a literal expression of that by the priest facing the people and gesturing to them would make anyone feel as though this prayer is directed to them literally rather than simply a prayer recalling a specific historical event directed to God in prayer. I’ve seen priests change the rubrics and gesture toward the people dramatically during the consecration as though the congregation is the “Apostles” and the words are directed to them rather than God. That’s the pitfall of the priest facing the congregation during this prayer to God that is highly stylistic and not literalistic.

Rather the laity are called to the Banquet of the Sacrifice at the “Ecce Agnus Dei.” “Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him Who takes away the sins of the word; Blessed are those called to the Supper of the Lamb.”

The latter is directed to the laity and those called to Holy Communion and should be done facing them to make that clear and literal. In this case the Sacrifice offered through the Eucharistic Prayer with its words of institution and the share in the Eschatological Eucharistic Sacrificial Banquet which is highlighted in the Communion Rite and specifically the “Ecce Agnus Dei” and the subsequent Communion of the priest and laity form a whole and are integrally related, although as in the case of the Old Testament priest who must consume the Holocaust prior to give what is left to those outside of the holy of holies, so too does the priest-celebrant consume first the Holocaust, but not dead flesh and blood as though Good Friday is all there is, but the Glorified and Risen Body of our Lord as a result of Easter Sunday. In other words we receive the Living Lord, the Lamb of God, not a dead holocaust.


The liturgical gesture toward the people in terms of the meal aspect of the Mass is at the “Behold the Lamb of God…Blessed are those called to the Supper of the Lamb.” And this as well as the Mass in its entirety is “eschatologlical” concerning the ultimate or final things, such as death, the destiny of humanity, the Second Coming, or the Last Judgment. So in effect it goes way beyond Pentecost too. Obviously though, Good Friday’s Sacrifice would not be “memorialized” if not for Easter Sunday and if not for Easter Sunday we would not be talking about Pentecost or the Last things.

Ultimately the entire Mass is a mystery and it is a step into eternity which has no trajectory in our time constricted notions of the future in the philosophical sense, it simply is just as God is “I AM.” So we shouldn’t stop at the Last things either but go to the mind of God and back in our sense of temporal time to the creation of Adam and Eve, their original sin, subsequent actual sin, the covenants to save them, the Old Testament priesthood and sacrifice and so on to the new dispensation–there is a connection to all that too.

The Second Vatican Council did not change any dogma or doctrine. It is a pastoral council and framed the discussion of many things in a “developed” way including the Mass. But so does every encyclical a pope writes even if no new doctrines or dogmas are defined but simply described in a new or different way, which might not always be a better way or the final way.

Certainly “Pope Pius XII Mystici Corporis Christi (June 29, 1943) on the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ is one of the more important encyclicals of Pope Pius XII, because of its topic, the Church, and because its Church concept was fully included in Lumen Gentium but also strongly debated during and after Vatican II. The Church is called body, because it is a living entity; it is called the body of Christ, because Christ is its Head and Founder; it is called mystical body, because it is neither a purely physical nor a purely spiritual unity, but supernatural.”–Wikipedia

So the Mass, in whatever form one celebrates it Extraordinary, Ordinary, Eastern Rites, etc hasn’t changed, but its expression certainly does and how it is described theologically does too, but it is still the Mass and thus a Mystery.

LET'S GET REAL ABOUT VATICAN II AND THE REFORM OF THE REFORM OF THE ORDINARY FORM OF THE MASS

Father Z has a post on his blog, "Elements of the Extraordinary Form in the Ordinary Form" which produced a number of comments.

Of course I've been clairvoyant about what the reform of the reform of the Ordinary Form of the Mass will look and feel like and many believe it will be more like the Extraordinary Form but not exactly. Father Z does not seem to think that most of us will see this new Ordinary Form Missal in our lifetime. I'm not sure about that though.

Of course many comments just focused on repudiating the Second Vatican Council altogether and simple restore the Extraordinary Form Mass as the Ordinary Form and suppress the current Ordinary Form. That, in my clairvoyance, won't happen.

However, Father Martin Fox, who concelebrated here in the Spring and has his own blog, "Bonfires of Vanities" offered the most sober comment of all and my clairvoyance tells me he is on target:

Fr Martin Fox says:
22 August 2012 at 12:07 pm

Well, we’re all friends here, so I’ll be the lightning rod. The reason not to scrap the Ordinary Form utterly is because there are questions of reform in the Mass, originally raised by the Council itself (please note I am distinguishing the Council documents from what came after, and then after that after).

I would argue that there are several reforms associated with the Ordinary Form, properly understood, worth preserving:

> Proclaiming the readings once at Mass, from the pulpit.
> Introduction of the vernacular as an option.
> Expanded lectionary and added readings (yes, I know some specifically dislike this; fair enough. I simply mean I think it’s worth defending).
> Prayers of the faithful as an option–properly done, you understand.
> Proclamation of Mass prayers aloud, and even sung as options. (Please correct me, but my experience has been that even with a Solemn High Mass, many of the prayers of Mass, currently proclaimed aloud, remain in a low voice, and are “overlaid” with other, sung prayers.)

Now, in no way am I dismissing the Extraordinary Form. But again, I think these are reforms that have merit.

And it all goes to the merits of the Council. I make a careful distinction between the Council itself and it’s misbegotten implementation, guided by an unclean spirit from who knows where. I take the Council seriously; it called for some reform. If you simply return to the older form, what becomes of that call by the Council? Is that not, in effect, a repudiation of Sacrosanctum Concilium?


I wholeheartedly concur with Fr. Fox, he is as wise as a...!

HIGH CHRISTOLOGY AND HIGH THEOLOGY OF THE ORDAINED PRIEST VERSUS LOW CHRISTOLOGY AND LOW THEOLOGY OF THE ORDAINED PRIESTHOOD

High theology based upon the Old Testament priesthood which Jesus fulfills and the Christian priest immolates:

Low theology stripped of Old Testament underpinnings and classical Catholic ethos:

One the the "theologies" that has disrupted the Church and led to its "deconstruction" theologically is what is called "low Christology." In a nutshell, it is based on the "historical critical method" of interpreting the Gospels. This method, developed first by liberal Protestants toward the end of the 19th century, tries to get back to the "historical" Jesus prior to the early Church adding layers of theology to Him and reading back into His historical life later understandings of Him.

For example, did Jesus really know that He was God from His childhood. Did the Blessed Virgin Mary, did others who associated with Him? Did He actually perform miracles or was there a rational explanation for all that happened in this regard, psychological hysteria, placebo effects, water so shallow, it looked like Jesus walked on it, etc.

This led liberal Protestants to question the Virginal Conception and birth, angels, and even the Nativity as two Gospels describe it. Many even questioned the physical resurrection and spiritualized it. Would your faith be destroyed if they found the bones of Jesus was often asked?

Catholic scholars were allowed to use this method by Pope Pius XII in 1942 when the Holy Father was assured that the method could be used without iconoclastic conclusions and in fact support the Deposit of Faith. But after Vatican II Scripture Scholars who became more intently ecumenical thus working closely with liberal Protestant scholars went wild with this Protestant method that the Church had labeled the basis of the heresy of "modernism" when the sure and certain faith of the Church was deconstructed.

The way the historical critical method was taught to my class of seminarians in the late 1970's led to the loss of faith a good percentage of my class. Yes, we were asked if our faith would be shaken if they found the bones of Jesus. That's where this method ends up if it is used in an unbridled way as the liberal Protestants of the 19th century did. Pope Benedict in his first book as pope shows how to use this method in a reasonable way that lead to faith rather than away from it.

But this low Christology that merely focuses on Jesus as a good, but befuddled man that stumbled into his Messiahship has also been applied to the ordained Priest and brought the theology of the ordained priest into a low theology, one like anyone else in the congregation, but simply called to lead, say the prayers and be like an actor on the stage literally reenacting not the Holy Sacrifice of the Cross, but the Lord's Supper for the audience (I mean sacred assembly) in front of him. Even the words of institution or consecration are not viewed as a prayer of remembrance of what Jesus actually said to the apostles at the Last Supper in anticipation of Good Friday, but are proclaimed to the congregation as though these prayers are directed to them as well as the words, "take this all of you... drink this all of you..."

So a low Christology makes Christ like any of us, a good Man. And the low theology of the priesthood, makes the ordained just like any lay person, liturgically, ontologically and literally and the non ordained priesthood of all the baptized is so clericalized that there is little of no difference in the ordained and non-ordained. This theology in fact was proposed to us in the seminary where it was thought that the future Church would simply call qualified men or women to lead the Eucharistic assembly based on their gifts to do so. This in fact has been done in many places in Europe and specifically I think in Belgium and the Netherlands.

This low theology has ramifications for church architecture too and the iconoclasm of the Catholic sanctuary we've seen over the last 40 years in terms of renovations of old Church retrofitted for this low theology and new construction.

The first thing to go is the altar railing as this is seen as a demarcation between the ordained and non-ordained. The second thing to go is the altar facing the people as facing ad orientem makes the Liturgy just that of the priest who offers sacrifice rather than the congregation doing it with him. The third thing to go is the tabernacle because there shouldn't be any conflict between the static and active presence of the Risen Lord (say what?)! And anyway Jesus did give us the Bread and Wine to be looked at, but to be eaten and drunk.

Fortunately the Eastern Rite of the Church and Eastern Orthodoxy have not bought into this drivel and have preserved the "holy of holies" with the iconostasis and the distinctive character of Holy Orders in offering the sacrifice while still making sure the laity have actual participation through singing the Divine Liturgy in their parts and common gestures, although there is more fluidity for the laity to come and go during the long liturgy and so there is a form of "clericalism" for the priest, deacon and cantors who don't come and go.

The proper Catholic sanctuary must be recovered and can only be recovered through a recovery of the Church's classical high Christology and high theology of the priesthood. In doing so, a new springtime of vocations to the ordained priesthood will occur over time. Yes, I'm clairvoyant!

PREACH IT BROTHER! HOW CHURCH ARCHITECTURE WENT WRONG

My comments first: I have always been fascinated with the Crystal Cathedral and got to see it this past January. I'm thrilled that it will undergo the RCIA process and be baptized Catholic once necessary liturgical renovations are made.

But Duncan G. Stroik is a professor of architecture at the University of Notre Dame where he helped implement a new curriculum in classical architecture in 1990. He played a central role in the revival of interest in sacred architecture that led to the formation of the Society for Catholic Liturgy and the journal Sacred Architecture, of which he is editor. Stroik received his architectural education from the University of Virginia and Yale University.

He says below the following: "One of the major criticisms of Catholic architecture during the past fifty years is that it has incorrectly adopted many of the forms of low-church Protestantism: the theater form, a fear of sacred images, asymmetrical layouts, vacuous sanctuaries, minimalist liturgical elements, prominently placed Jacuzzis for baptism, and the banishment of the Blessed Sacrament to the baptistry. The altar area becomes a stage with a focus on entertainment alongside praise bands that perform upbeat music. In response, liturgists have argued that all of these things are simply the outgrowth if not the requirement of Vatican II. Are they finally admitting their agenda by purchasing a ready for TV megachurch complete with a jumbotron and three huge balconies for the 'spectators'?"

I don't think I could have said it better myself, great minds think alike.

Read his article:

Should the Bishop Have Bought the Crystal Cathedral?

by Duncan G. Stroik
August 22, 2012
Crisis Magazine

Three miles from Disneyland there is another famous theme park, which proclaims itself as “America’s Television Church.” The Crystal Cathedral, perhaps the first mega-church in the United States, is about to undergo conversion classes so that it can finally get the cathedra and bishop it has always wanted. The Diocese of Orange, California, has purchased the thirty-one-acre property and its four buildings for $53 million, a steal even in this real estate market. Realizing that recent cathedrals built from scratch have cost upwards of $200 and $250 million on the West Coast, retrofitting sounds like a financially savvy move. However, turning this prismatic beacon of televangelism into a house of God may be easier said than done.

Does this purchase signal a new role for Catholic charity: to buy up properties of bankrupt Protestant ministries? If so, there may be some good opportunities in the future. How does the bishop encourage full, active, and conscious participation in the liturgy by purchasing one of the buildings most associated with religion as theater? Begun as an open-air service at a drive-in theater, the church was designed around Rev. Schuller’s flamboyant preaching. Associated with glitz and money, it was the site of fancy and expensive holiday celebrations including trapeze artists, live animals for Christmas, and a lavish $13 million production called Creation.

Said to be the first all-glass structure built for religious purposes, it is associated with the feel-good theology of the 1980s. How to convert a building like this and at the same time disassociate it from its founder and his theology? Crystal Cathedral Ministries was a religion about self-promotion, and, appropriately, its main buildings were designed in disparate modernist styles by three well-known architecture firms: Richard Neutra, Philip Johnson and John Burgee, and Richard Meier. Each building is a personal expression of the architect, so that together they create a campus without much to unify them. Perhaps what may be of more concern to its future owner, the Neutra tower (1968) does not meet earthquake codes and the Crystal Cathedral (1980) and the Welcoming Center (2003) are high maintenance glass and metal buildings. This could be an expensive investment.

Can the Crystal Cathedral be converted to a Catholic Cathedral? We shall see. After all, the much noted cathedrals of Oakland, Los Angeles, and San Francisco are all expressionistic modernist sculptures. The diocese has said that they will not change the exterior of the church and will not compromise the architectural integrity of the 2700-seat interior. Yet, without a radical transformation the building will always come across as a technological mega-church rather than as a sacred place. It needs to be totally gutted and reconceived. And even if the interior can be functionally retrofitted for Catholic liturgy, many believe that its identity will always be that of the Crystal Cathedral.

One of the major criticisms of Catholic architecture during the past fifty years is that it has incorrectly adopted many of the forms of low-church Protestantism: the theater form, a fear of sacred images, asymmetrical layouts, vacuous sanctuaries, minimalist liturgical elements, prominently placed Jacuzzis for baptism, and the banishment of the Blessed Sacrament to the baptistry. The altar area becomes a stage with a focus on entertainment alongside praise bands that perform upbeat music. In response, liturgists have argued that all of these things are simply the outgrowth if not the requirement of Vatican II. Are they finally admitting their agenda by purchasing a ready for TV megachurch complete with a jumbotron and three huge balconies for the “spectators”?

The timing of this is wrong. A whole new generation of priests, laity, and theologians has grown up with this stuff and find these Protestant innovations dated and lacking in substance. They desire an architecture that grows out of the Church’s rich tradition and that will enable them in worship. Asked what cathedrals should look like in the twenty-first century, they point to Saint Patrick’s in New York, Saint Peter’s in Rome, Notre Dame in Paris, and other obvious suspects. These are buildings constructed hundreds of years ago, yet continue to speak to believers and unbelievers alike today. A timeless architecture built for the ages, a cathedral should be a durable building constructed out of masonry, transcendent in height, and directional in length. Unfortunately for the new generation and their children, the Orange diocese has chosen the opposite direction and will foist on them a building that is of its time and not particularly suited to Catholic worship and devotion. Twenty years from now, it will not matter that Orange got a really good deal whereas another California diocese quadrupled its budget. People will simply ask if it is a beautiful cathedral, worthy of the Creator.

This editorial first appeared in issue 21 (Spring 2012) of Sacred Architecture and is reprinted with permission.

IF ONLY, IF ONLY!!!! BUT THAT'S WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE!

This is a humble Italian parish celebrating the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. Please note how well the congregation participates in all the responses both spoken and sung. This is actual participation and what Vatican II sought for the renewal of the Mass. THIS MASS IS IN THE BLOOD OF THIS CONGREGATION, IT IS A PART OF THEM AS THIS FORM OF THE MASS WAS ONCE A PART OF ALL CATHOLICS IN THE LATIN RITE UNTIL THE DISRUPTION.

If only we had focused on what this congregation does for the past 50 years, would we be in the turmoil we are in now liturgically and otherwise? Please note how comfortable the congregation is with the passage of time and the great silences of the EF Mass. IF ONLY...oh well.

And this Italian priest sings and says the Latin sounding a great deal like I do! You've got to love us Italians.

Please read Shawn Tribe's intro to this:

Feast of St. Rocco in Val Vigezzo
by Shawn Tribe

Speaking personally, I always enjoy seeing liturgies celebrated in different places in the world, particularly festal liturgies which involve processions as it provides a real opportunity to look for local customs and traditions -- as well as shared customs and traditions.

I came across these videos on Messainlatino.it which show the celebration of the feast of St. Rocco on August 19th in the church of Santa Caterina d'Alessandria in Val Vigezzo, Italy and thought some of our readers might be interested in them. The Mass was celebrated by Don Alberto Secci who has been shown on NLM before -- though not by name (see image above).

Here is a video taken from the Mass:

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY WHEN IT COMES TO THE REFORM OF THE REFORM OF THE ORDINARY FORM OF THE MASS

This video is a Spanish Mass in the Ordinary Form, Ad Orientem with some Latin and done in the way I recommend in my post:

This video which is brief, and has the traditional priest who blogs under the title "The Hermeneutic of Continuity" celebrating an Ordinary Form with EF sensibilities. What confuses things is that the EF's altar cards are on the altar. The thing that makes it clear that it is an Ordinary Form Mass is that he has an altar girl serving. Interesting. I prefer the Spanish Mass above as it follows the rubrics and General Instruction of the Roman Missal more closely:


Certainly when a Cardinal in the curia of the Vatican says that he believes that the Ordinary Form of the Mass will be reformed in the future to be more like the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, but that it won't be exactly the Extraordinary Form of the Mass but a combination of both with one Roman Missal once again as the norm for the Latin Rite (not to exclude exceptions for those who desire the 1962 missal by way of indult) I think that this conversation that leads to the raising of the possibility of some future reform will not take place any time soon. And as everyone knows I am clairvoyant but maybe not.

So what can we do in the meantime to make the best of the current Roman Missal in the Ordinary Form which can be celebrated all in Latin or a hybrid of Latin and vernacular or all in the vernacular? What is the common sense solution that needs no revision of the Ordinary Form and embraces the Ordinary Form Missal in its entirety, options and all?

I've written it before and I'll write it again:

1. Say the Black and Do the Red as it concerns the General Instruction and specific rubrics of the Ordinary Form Missal.

2. Make mandatory the chanting of the official "Introit" and "Offertory and Communion Antiphons" but obviously not excluding good and doctrinally correct metrical hymns or anthems or other music associated with the Mass and seen as "filler."

3. After reverencing the altar, the Mass begins at the chair, which preferably is to the side of the altar and angled in such a way as facing the side of the altar, but where the laity can clear see the priest. The entire Introductory rite with the Greeting, Penitential Act in any of its forms, Gloria and Collect are prayed at the chair.

4. The Liturgy of the Word is proclaimed at the ambo with lay readers wearing Sunday best and approaching from their seat in the congregation and returning when competed.

5. The homily is preached either at the ambo or from the chair.

6. The Creed and Universal Prayer are prayed from the Chair.

7. The Liturgy of the Eucharist is celebrated "Ad Orientem" with all the options that are available to the priest-celebrant and at his exclusive discretion.

8. Holy Communion is distributed at kneelers or an altar railing. The norm is to stand, the option is to kneel, the decision until further notice is at the exclusive discretion of the lay person receiving. The chalice is given to the laity by way of "intinction" which means those who receive an "intincted" host are instructed to drink the Precious Blood by receiving the Body and Blood of Christ on the tongue. Those who choose to receive the Host on the hand do so as the rubrics expect and do not receive an "intincted" Host.

9. The Post Communion Prayer, any announcements and Final Blessing and dismissal occur at the chair and then the recessional.

Annonomous 5 makes a good point about returning to the traditional way of the priest facing ad orientem in both the Latin Rite and the Eastern Rites of the Church when he makes a comment on it in reference to Pater Ignotus and Andy Milam's debate about the term "actor." The following is A-5's astute evaluation of Mass with the priest facing the people:

Pater,

You convinced me in the last long thread that your understanding of the term "acting" is valid, but it isn't exclusively so, and nothing prohibits its overlapping with a simultaneous use in Andy's sense in the Mass, and that is unfortunate.

Given the ubiquity of performance art, especially in its televised and cinematic forms today, versus populum is going to strike a responsive chord in the congregation that is not at all desirable. Most of the congregation will have been socialized and conditioned by big and small screens to see versus populum through the filter of modern visual media that are heavily devoted to programming at odds with Catholic doctrine. It's inescapable, except perhaps for the blind, who are a very small segment of the population.

The very fact of turning the priest to face in the same direction of the population, on the other hand, will serve as an immediate visual cue that the Mass is fundamentally different from cinematic and other such experiences.

IS THE 1950'S LITURGICAL MOVEMENT TOO 1950'S AND TOO ICONOCLASTIC? SHOULD WE BE STUCK IN THE 1950'S?

ICONIC:

ICONOCLASTIC:

It is my humble opinion, that no matter how well-meaning it was for the Liturgists in the 1950's to promote Mass facing the people so that the congregation could "see" what the priest does during the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we can now confirm the old adage that the "way to hell is paved with good intentions."

What is there to see? The priest first and foremost and his facial expressions. The congregation begins to think the more holy looking, the more pious and the more seemingly authentic the priest is by his demeanor that somehow this is edifying. What it is,though, is making the priest an "actor" on the "stage" sense and not just the "actor" in the sense of the action of the Liturgy coming from God's initiative to make Holy the people of God and the offerings on the altar as He gives the people of God the means by which they acknowledge their need to worship and be saved.

What else is there to see? Nothing. The action of the Holy Spirit is invisible and hidden through sacramental and sacred signs. The "noble simplicity" of the Ordinary Form as stripped the Eucharistic Prayer of what would have been interesting to see once or twice.

Ultimately, the 1950's mentality about facing the people was a good idea gone bad and one that needs to be reversed! Will common sense prevail and steps be taken to do so? Common sense seems to be lacking in many quarters of the progressive element of the Church.

Time will tell. There is more foment now for ad orientem and coming from the grass roots then there was for facing the people in the 1950's which came primarily from certain liturgists of a certain mentality. The 1950's isn't where we need to be today.

THE HIERARCHY ORDAINS TWO WOMEN! I, FOR ONE, AM GRATEFUL

And for this ordination to take place in my home town makes me proud!

DOES THE ORDINARY FORM OF THE MASS HAVE TOO MANY OPTIONS? AND THE OPTION OF THE EXTRAORIDNARY FORM COMPLICATES THINGS TOO, DOESN'T IT?

One of the things that many others and I like about the Ordinary Form of the Mass it that there are options. Some, though, say there are too many options.

I like the option of the numerous Eucharistic Prayers that are available as well as the prefaces. The Memorial Acclamation has three options. There are about three options for the Priest's greeting at the beginning of Mass, though I usually only use "The Lord be with You," because the other options are a variation of the Trinitarian formula and thus seem redundant to me if I've already begun the Mass, "In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." I tend to like the options for the Penitential Act as well. And then there are the multiple choices for the Dismissal of the Mass.

The area of the liturgy that has the greatest number of options in terms of Scripture, prayers, prefaces and music is that of Nuptial liturgies and Funeral liturgies. In fact since the Second Vatican Council, priests are encourage to allow couples preparing for marriage to choose from the rich variety that is available for the Nuptial Liturgy. The same is true for those who are bereaved. They can choose prayers, readings and music from an approved list.

In the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, there are no choices for the Liturgy whatsoever, there is one option for Weddings and Funerals. This in a sense is the Extraordinary Form's "noble simplicity." Of course when things are in Latin exclusively, it is better to have no choices so that the missal the laity have can be followed without the laity having to figure out what choices have been made, especially at it regards the preface and Roman Canon.

But in the English Mass where people can hear what is going on and don't really need to follow in a Missal as with the Extraordinary Form, multiple choices do not present the same conundrum for the person in the pew in terms of knowing what is happening.

What do you think of all the options and if you were getting married or burying a loved one, would you like some say in what is chosen for the Nuptial and Funeral liturgies?

PEOPLE RECEIVING BLESSING DURING HOLY COMMUNION WHEN THEY CANNOT RECEIVE HOLY COMMUNION; PRAYTELL I HAD A BRAINSTORM

For a few decades now, the custom has arisen (which is neither prescribed nor forbidden by the rubrics) in many Catholic churches for people who are not able to receive Holy Communion to come forward during Holy Communion to receive a blessing. This would apply to baptized Christians from Protestant Churches, Inquirers, catechumens, candidates, those who broke the Communion fast, children of pre-Communion age and those who are in a state of mortal sin and thus should not receive Holy Communion. In fact in the latter, this allows them more dignity in at least approaching the Lord for a blessing rather than remaining at the pew as others go forward wondering why "Johnny" isn't going and what sins he committed that keep him from going.

At Praytell, the discussion was more on what the lay Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion would say to such people. Here are some examples that someone suggested in light of the fact that laity who distribute Holy Communion cannot give a priestly blessing with the "Sign of the Cross":

May Christ, present in the Eucharist,
bless you and remain with you always.

May the Lord who feeds us
Fill your heart and your mind with a knowledge of his love.

May the gift of faith in the Risen Christ
abound and overflow in your life.

May the Holy Spirit grant you spiritual communion
with all who partake of this holy meal.

Those blessings above inspired me to write my own comment on Praytell and this is it:

A little less than half of our elementary school kids are Protestant (we have a Messianic Jew and an Reformed Jew as well). For at least thirty years we’ve encouraged them to come forward for a blessing. But we keep it brief. If I’m doing it, I simply say “May God bless You” with a “small” Sign of the Cross hand blessing. Our retired bishop simply says “God Bless You” and touches the back of his hand to their head. I’ve instructed our EM’s to say what seems natural, “bless you” or “God Bless You” or simply hold their hand over the persons head without the Sign of the Cross or to touch the head as our retired bishops does with the back of their hand. At our normal Masses the same procedure is in place.

I find the longer blessings above a bit much but only in light of the Ordinary Form’s truncation (for the laity only) of the formula for distributing Holy Communion which was “May the Body of Christ keep you safe for eternal life,” but in Latin of course. The other versions for the blessings shown above are reminiscence of the old Latin formula and thus would be more appropriate in the Extraordinary Form not the Ordinary Form. But if we restored to the laity their version of what the priest says prior to his Holy Communion in the Ordinary Form, I would suggest, “May the Lord keep you safe for eternal life.” Otherwise the Ordinary Form’s formula “The Body of Christ” for those not receiving should be ” The blessing of Christ.” This September I’m meeting with our EM’s for a workshop and I think that’s exactly what I will recommend to them, not to touch, but simply look at the person requesting the blessing and say, “The blessing of Christ” which ties in nicely with “The Body of Christ” in the Ordinary Form. And if the EM, deacon or priest happen to be holding the host for the next person, all the better “symbol” of making a “spiritual communion” by tasting through seeing.

So, what do you think?

A SUMMER RERUN OF THE REFORM OF THE REFORM OF THE ORDINARY FORM OF THE MASS

The following "summer rerun" is the Ordinary Form of the Mass for the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary, March 19, 2012 celebrated Ad Orientem or "toward God" or toward the Liturgical East at Saint Joseph Church, Macon, Georgia. Of course the choir is singing Schubert's Mass in G which is not Gregorian Chant and doesn't really invite congregational participation. This is a Mass of both Latin and English and perhaps the "template" of what the norm for the reform of the reform could be in the future but of course with Mass settings that a normal parish could sing with the cantor, choir or schola.

In many ways I wish we had sung our normal English Mass parts to show how Ad Orientem can show forth the continuity of the two forms of the one Roman Rite even in an English Ordinary Form Mass. That might be my next production! I think that would show how the reverence of the Extraordinary Form can be brought to the Ordinary Form with only minor revisions when celebrated Ad Orientem. The liberties that I should not have taken but did (and really are minor compared to all the silly stuff we see today in the Ordinary Form that detract from reverence rather than add to it) apart from how the Penitential Act is executed, is that I kissed the altar as in the Extraordinary Form each time I turned from it to the congregation and I added the "double genuflections" at the consecration and after the Great Amen. But that's it! You can, of course, fast forward to these parts.

Please note especially:
1. how the Introductory Rite is carried out which is reminiscent of the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, but entirely the Ordinary Form's version of it.
2. the Communion Procession with reception of the Body and Blood of Christ by receiving both the Sacred Host and from the Chalice through intinction with the option of kneeling although standing is the norm in the Ordinary Form, kneeling the legitimate option and the choice being the communicant's. It slows things down and certainly is more dignified and reverent looking. The law of outward reverence is the law of interior Faith!

IT DOESN'T TAKE A ROCKET SCIENTIST OR A LITURGIST TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO RENEW AND IMPROVE THE SACRED LITURGY OR TO DIAGNOSE WHAT WENT TERRIBLY WRONG IN THE LATE 1960'S AND 1970'S AS IT REGARDS THE LOSS OF THE SENSE OF THE SACRED!

When I was a young adult, around 17 years old, I always loved reading the Catholic newspapers my home parish in Augusta would provide. There were three, The National Catholic Register, Our Sunday Visitor and one other which I can't remember now, similar to the Visitor. We were also provided later with Catholic Update.

Later in the seminary I became aware of the ultra liberal, post Catholic, National Catholic Reporter and its mirror image the ultra conservative, reactionary Wanderer. I never read the Wanderer for I found it acrimonious and mean spirited, but I loved the National Catholic Reporter because its articles were written in a "hard news" style and you got a lot of news especially what was happening in the "developing post Catholic" part of the Church.

At the time in the late 1970's and 80's I thought the post Catholic ethos would rule the day even from the Vatican. That shows you how fallible I was and the NCR crowd was/is. As an aside, our former bishop, Raymond W. Lessard asked priests not to provide either the Wanderer or the National Catholic Reporter in parish churches. In a conversation with the famous Scripture Scholar, Fr. Raymond Brown in the 1990's, I asked him what he thought of the National Catholic Reporter and he told me directly, "It's a rag!" with his emphasis on "rag!" Fr. Brown was well ahead of Fr. Z who refers to it as the National Catholic Fishwrap, which it is except for their reporter John Allen who is decent!

But back to the normal, more orthodox and sensible newspapers of my wonderful youth.

I can remember reading articles in these newspapers in the early 1970's where some of the columnist, like Fr. Robert Fox and Joseph Breig would raise the alarm about what was happening in the Church in general and the Mass in particular. Read the following from the "History of Our Sunday Visitor during this time:

[Early on, the Second Vatican Council convoked by Pope John XXIII had been the source of high hopes, as reported in numerous articles in Our Sunday Visitor. A reader poll found that 60 percent of the paper's readers favored having the Mass in English. Hopes ran high with an upbeat mood as each new Council decree was reported.

Even the death of the Pope on June 3, 1963, had been the occasion for rejoicing about his accomplishments. Wrote Joseph Breig: "John XXIII made Catholics feel completely at home with their fellow man of other faiths. He made the laity realize that they had a voice and status in the Church that was their right. He relaxed tensions among Catholics themselves, making Catholics aware that they were not alone in possessing truth." (MY COMMENT HERE: This first optimistic paragraph sets the stage for all that will go wrong when simple truths are exaggerated and the Catholic truth become just one amongst many other "truths" and even Jesus Christ will be questioned as to whether or not He is the universal Messiah with others in other religions!) Back to the article:

But what had begun in high hopes soon disintegrated into an atmosphere of factionalism and discontent. One writer asked, "Is this the Church of joy or of anger?" Catholics used to a lifetime of unchanging security suddenly faced numerous changes: Mass was no longer in Latin, the priest now faced the people, old hymns were abandoned in favor of folk Masses. Our Sunday Visitor wavered from whole-hearted endorsement of the renewal in the Church to questioning the direction such renewal was taking. It initially endorsed the anticommunist crusade against Vietnam, then turned against that ugly little war. It experienced a decline in readership as it alternately alienated the traditional and liberal Catholic reader.

On July 25, 1968, Pope Paul VI issued an encyclical forbidding artificial contraception. Overnight, birth control became the hottest issue of debate among Catholics. Our Sunday Visitor supported the Pope's decision; columnists asked why dissenting theologians should still be teaching at Catholic universities and seminaries.

The late 1960s witnessed the low-point for the Church in the United States: priests and sisters by the thousands left their ministry; the number of converts plummeted; vocations began to decline at an alarming rate; disagreement was widespread over whether priests and Religious should be involved in politics. Catechetical materials seemed to abandon much of the traditional faith, a development Our Sunday Visitor decried openly in print.]

Returning to my meme and comments:

It was the late 1960's and 70's that saw all of the above taking place after a Council that brought so much excitement and hope for a truly Catholic moment that would enable the Church to conquer the world with Christ's love. The greatest excitement, at least 60 percent of the Catholic liked was the vernacular liturgy. But they wanted the Liturgy of the Tridentine period in the vernacular and that is what we got to begin with, although the Liturgical Movement of the 1950's also wanted the Mass facing the people so the people could see what the priest was doing and make the "meal" aspect more intelligible.

And the vernacular Liturgy would make the Mass more intelligible to non-Catholics and spur more converts for the Church; it would aid in the evangelization of the world.

That well may have happened if the Tridentine Liturgy, with its strict rubrics and embrace of the truly beautiful in art and architecture had remained along with the pre-Vatican II ecclesiology but adapted to call the laity as well as the clergy to holiness. (This would have prevented the wholesale iconoclasm or destruction of traditional sanctuaries and churches built prior to the Council and new ones that were built afterward.) But once the door was open to change and Vatican II's documents written in an ambiguous, general way that allowed for exaggerated interpretations, even Pope Paul VI endorsed his committee's decision to revamp the Mass, dumb it down, allow for wholesale experimentation and inculturation with little or no central Roman authority. It left it to the local dioceses (Churches) and their bishops to carry out the reforms based on experimentation. And that is when the Church suffered division and fragmentation. Not only was the Mass different from diocese to the diocese but radically different from parish to parish, even parishes next door! And then the priesthood was dumbed down or "laicized" and the "priesthood of all the Baptized" elevated "clericalizing" the laity! This is the "spirit of Vatican II" ecclesiology that so disrupted the liturgy too as well as the life of the Diocese and the local parish!

The loss of the sense of reverence and sacredness did not come from the vernacular to begin with. It came from the loss of the Tridentine Mass rubrics, chant, ethos and quiet, austere, sober, appreciation for the action of God in the Mass. (God as Actor?)The second translation of the "dumbed down" Mass in the 1970 Missal did dumb down the English and dramatically so, causing the loss of the sacred content of words, Catholic liturgical spirituality and devotion, but this has been corrected in the revised English Mass.

Coupled with this was the poor catechesis that ensued that blinded new generations to the truths of the Mass and eroded the Tridentine roots of well formed pre-Vatican II Catholics into becoming something quite different than what they were prior to the Council and this difference was far from good and holy for many. They lost their Catholic identity and handed on that loss to their children and their children's children. And that's the way it is!

The reform of the reform based upon continuity with the council means returning to the basics of the pre-Vatican II Church in the areas of faith and morals, as well as personal discipline and the building up of the unity of the Church based on the acceptance of the faith and morals of the Church.

But it also means returning the Liturgy to the Tridentine spirituality and reverence. This can happen even if the vernacular stays and I believe today even more than 60% of Catholics would not want the return to an exclusively Latin Mass, but if they experienced the reverence of the Tridentine form of the Mass in English, they would embrace it wholeheartedly, at least 60% of them would!

Let me reiterate the only thing that needs to be done. The 2002 Typical Edition of the Roman Missal which we have in the 2012 English Translation of the Missal only needs to have the following changes made to the Order of the Mass and and the reconstitution of the rubrics of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass:

1. Prayers at the Foot of the Altar but eliminating the double Confiteor only (in other words it is recited by priest and laity together).
2. Introit (Gregorian Chant in Latin or English for this, as well as the Offertory and Communion Antiphons, mandatory).
3. Kyrie
4. Gloria
5. Collect (preceded by the sacred greeting "the Lord be with you" or the other options, no banal or secular greetings or introductions allowed).

6. Liturgy of the Word as it is in the Ordinary Form, with the option of the traditional Gradual and the addition of the Tridentine Lectionary for year A, the others becoming B, C, D

7. Credo
8. Prescribe Universal Litany which is brief with maybe one or two other options, but brief and very general

9. Offertory Procession (optional as it is currently in the OF)
10. Traditional Offertory Prayers
11. Roman Canon with traditional Rubrics required for Sundays and Solemnities, other Eucharistic Prayers for weekday, funerals, weddings and lesser feasts and recited in a low but audible voice
12. The Rite of Holy Communion beginning with the "Our Father" as it is currently in the Ordinary Form, but kneeling for Holy Communion by way of host only or by intinction only. The only Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion should be well trained and installed "Acolytes" who are vested either in Alb or Cassock and Surplice and assist as altar servers!
13. The Final Blessing and Dismissal after the quiet recitation of the "Placeat" and the Last Gospel only for the Low Mass, not the Chanted or Sung Mass.
14. The Roman Calendar needs only a minor adaptation to make it like the Anglican Ordinariate Calendar that returns Ember Days, the Season of Septuagesima prior to Lent and the Octave of Pentecost and Sundays after Epiphany for winter's Ordinary Time and Sundays after Pentecost/Trinity for spring, summer and fall's Ordinary Time. It is easily done without changing the Roman Missal or the lectionary at all.

It does not take a liturgist or a rocket scientist to get things back on track!

TOO MUCH HYPE; TOO MUCH HORIZONTAL; NOT ENOUGH CONTINUITY

Two forms of the one Latin Rite and two different emphasis, can you detect them?

None of these videos are meant to show liturgical abuses but each of them in their own subliminal way do. This first one shows too much hype and exaggerated gestures and diversity of rubrics. What strikes as the worst of it?

This video shows what happens when the focus is simply on the priest and the congregation, what Pope Benedict calls the enclosed circle, the horizontal to the detriment of the vertical. It is all to common today but passes as what "Vatican II wanted." Really?

This video shows the corruption of the Mass when facing the people. Just who is this ad libing, over-performing priest talking to, I mean, praying to? If there was ever a short video on the glory of ad orientem, this is it. This is the meal and warm fuzzy community theology that is way too prevalent today. Will the EF enrichment ever kick-in?

There is but one Latin Rite with two expressions of the Mass and evidently of the priesthood. Do you detect those differences in the two following two videos?

Video – FiNews #57 – I'm A Catholic Priest -... by AirMaria
This video certainly presents a different ethos, what many would call the Vatican II difference. What is it?


Pray God, that Cardinal Burke's liturgical vision and aspirations come to be:


Cardinal Burke is [in part]responsible for overseeing the Church's liturgy as a member of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship.

He is grateful to Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI for giving the Church "a font of solid direction" regarding worship, based on the Second Vatican Council's vision of a "God-centered liturgy and not a man-centered liturgy."

That intention was not always realized, he said, since the council's call for liturgical reform coincided with a "cultural revolution."

Many congregations lost their "fundamental sense that the liturgy is Jesus Christ himself acting, God himself acting in our midst to sanctify us."

Cardinal Burke said greater access to the traditional Latin Mass, now know (sic) as the "extraordinary form" of the Roman rite, has helped correct the problem.

"The celebration of the Mass in the extraordinary form is now less and less contested," he noted, "and people are seeing the great beauty of the rite as it was celebrated practically since the time if Pope Gregory the Great" in the sixth century.

Many Catholics now see that the Church's "ordinary form" of Mass, celebrated in modern languages, "could be enriched by elements of that long tradition."

In time, Cardinal Burke expects the Western Church's ancient and modern forms of Mass to be combined in one normative rite, a move he suggests the Pope also favors.

"It seems to me that is what he has in mind is that this mutual enrichment would seem to naturally produce a new form of the Roman rite – the 'reform of the reform,' if we may – all of which I would welcome and look forward to its advent."

THIS EPISCOPAL VIDEO IS PERHAPS THE BEST ILLUSTRATION OF WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SINCE THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL!

This is an educational video produced by the Anglican Church in Canada. He tries to show that in Anglicanism or the Episcopal Church there is a Protestant strain and a Catholic strain and both co-exist. The video uses the approach to the "Eucharist" of both strains to make the point.

It also makes the point for us as Catholics since the Second Vatican Council. We have become a divided Church based on the theology of the Mass, either "high Church theology" which is actually our heritage as Catholics or "low Church theology" which is the Reformation's approach to the Eucharist and the Church.

Who would have thought an Episcopalian video would make things so clear for us. Obviously we must recover our Catholic high theology and purify ourselves of the Protestant influences in our theology since the Second Vatican Council or we risk becoming Anglicans while claiming to be Roman Catholics!

TRUTH TELLING THROUGH THE USE OF HYPERBOLE CAN GET YOU INTO TROUBLE WITH THOSE WHO ARE NOW REJECTING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH'S AUTHORITY ON THE TRUTH

The following is my bulletin letter in our Church's bulletin for this past weekend of August 11/12. I got an unsigned rebuttal concerning it. IF it had been signed, I would not be writing about it in this post but would have happily engaged this parishioner in a dialogue privately. However, since it was unsigned, I have no reason not to discuss it publicly as I have no idea who wrote me this letter. This person wrote: "It is disheartening to see a leader of the Church that I belong to and love, espouse such acrid, venomous hatred and resort to name-calling in a religious document." I'll write more about that after you read this:

Dear parishioners,

Well, we just experienced a little bit more of the culture wars that are directly attacking traditional Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. I won’t be chicken about it; I will tell you directly what this culture war is! It is about fascist, liberal, social progressives in our country and throughout the world who are framing the debate on the nature of marriage as a “human rights” issue when, in the name of God and all that is holy, the debate is really about forcing the issue of same sex marriage down the throats of traditional minded people by shifting the debate to a “human rights” issue and thus marginalizing the opponents of same sex marriage as “anti-gay” and “anti-marriage equality.” Thus people like the practicing Southern Baptist CEO, Mr. Dan Cathy of Chick-Fil-A is not even allowed the freedom of speech by these liberal, intolerant fascists to proclaim his belief that marriage is a divine institution, created by God and for one man and one woman and for a lifetime and that natural law and procreation of children are intrinsic to the nature of marriage. Liberal politicians have threatened to ban his business in their communities! Will the Catholic Church be marginalized in such a way and banned next in these communities?

It does not take a giant leap for all practicing, believing Catholics to know that what the liberal, progressive fascists are trying to do to the Southern Baptist, Dan Cathy and his Chick-Fi-A business is exactly what they are trying to do to the Pope, our bishops and what we as practicing, orthodox, believing Catholics believe about the nature of marriage and our total opposition to the progressive “social engineers” in our time who are trying to redefine it for political gain and godless secular politics.

All of this is part and parcel of the current government’s administration to force the Catholic Church in this country to obey a government mandate and law that went into effect on August 1st that all employers provide health insurance that covers artificial contraception, abortion inducing drugs and sterilization under their policies, including the Catholic Church for our Catholic institutions except for those who work directly in our parish church.

President Obama and his Catholic dissident head of the Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius have in their “great” generosity given the Catholic Church an added year to comply or else! The “or else” is that the Catholic Church will have to pay a $100 fine on every employee eligible, every day. The amount of the fine will be astronomical to say the least! This is dictatorial fascism through and through and a presidential intrusion into the revealed faith and morals of the Catholic Church which has not been experienced in this country since the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

Today, Catholics, unlike any other time in our American history, are called to make our orthodox Catholic faith to hit the pavement and make a difference in this world where godless, fascist government secularism wants to destroy what the Church is called to do. Some will be martyrs for standing up for the Church. Every Catholic, clergy and laity alike, have a greater mandate to put into practice that supersedes President Obama’s mandate and what the social engineers of our time are trying to do to us as practicing, believing Catholics. God bless you.

Your pastor,
Fr. Allan J. McDonald

My Comments: Yesterday I received an "unsigned" letter from a concerned parishioner who was "vacillating between outrage and sorrow" over what I wrote in my bulletin letter. This person calls me intolerant, bigoted and hateful! Then this person says, "If you want to be outraged by something, how about the abuse of children by priests? That is a cause most of us would appreciate." Never mind that I've written and spoken about the sex abuse scandal from the pulpit about it many times and in the most outraged manner and laid blame where it belongs, on the poor leadership of our bishops as it was happening in real time and subsequently.

But the point this person makes is that bishops and priests have no right to moral outrage about same sex marriage proponents trying to ban a Christian man's business in their community because he believes what the Catholic Church believes about marriage because bishops and priests have failed in another very extremely important venue. although I hasten to add no one in the hierarchy is saying that those who are outraged by the sex abuse scandal are "anti-pedophile equality!"

This person also uses the typical "bleeding heart manipulation" when they write, "I must challenge some of your hatred toward persons who are gay. These human beings are as deserving of respect and love as everyone else...They do not "choose" this status. They should not however be treated as lepers, In fact, Jesus bathed the lepers in love and kindness. The only intolerance that I see is yours."

This is a political talking point that you will hear left-wing pundants using on MSNBC and other outlets when they go after Christians for not being tolerant of homosexuals because Jesus was. Jesus was never tolerant of sin although he loved sinners and called them to repent and sin no more. Make no mistake about that! Modernists in the Church would gladly change revealed Church teaching on sex, contraception, marriage and other areas all coming from Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and Natural Law in order to appease and accommodate the anti-traditional Catholic, anti-traditional Christian understanding of sexual morality and marriage.

(For the record, I spoke not of "gays" or "gay" bashing in my letter, but "fascists" who would want to ban Chick-fil-A because its CEO believes about marriage what the Catholic Church teaches and believes about marriage, thus you see how liberals are truly the intolerant ones and the means by which they will go to undermine the Church and her teachings on marriage--it is a political ploy and a talking point of the Democrat party today! Make no mistake about that! And finally, Jesus did bath the lepers in love and healed them too. He does the same with the sick and sinner, not just bathing them in an "enabling" love which isn't love at all, but healing them of their sins and calling them to go and sin no more. He bathes all of us in His blood on the Cross too!)

So, we as Christians are intolerant when we call a spade a spade, a liar a liar, and a fascist a fascist. My 93 year old Italian mother lived to see the rise of Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy. Mussolini had a great, charismatic personality and was well liked by Italians because he was so Italian in outward character and he made the trains run on time. But he was a fascist. Fascist try to suppressed the truth and any objections towards them. My mother had to deal head on with them and she and her family only by the grace of God are still alive today because of what they wrought upon Italy, Germany and the world! She saw them face to face and was threatened by them too and could have been killed by them as easily!

Are progressive liberals in the Catholic Church being seduced by the trends of our godless, political secular culture much like the Italians were seduced by Mussolini and the Germans by Hitler? Is this hyperbole or is it the truth? Yes, it is a combination of both and hyperbole is used to make the point in an exaggerated way.

For the record, I don't hate active homosexuals. I don't hate heterosexuals who fornicate or married people who commit adultery. But from the religious point of view we can call them adulterers, fornicators and sodomites. These are Biblical terms that refer to sin and the call to repentance. If the Church isn't allowed to do that by so-called well-meaning Catholics and government officials then maybe we are giving into fascist tendencies that want to sterilize the Church and her message of sin and repentance.

But shall we silence St. Paul in First Corinthians, chapter 6, when he writes, I presume using hyperbole: "9Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

And Jesus, did he use harsh names for those who opposed him, especially the leaders of the people (who happened to be religious leaders too)? Keep in mind, my "fascist" term was directed toward "government" officials who have become "Pharisaical" in their opposition to Christian truth, to the point of some "progressive" or "modernist" mayors in large cities wanting to ban Chick-fil-A as a business in their communities. Keep in mind that what the CEO of Chick-fil-A pronounced as his belief as it concerns marriage is what the Catholic Church teaches, believes and and proclaims to be revealed by God the same thing that Cathy announces. Will the Catholic Church be banned by these "Fascists" or "Pharisees" in government?

Throughout Matthew 23, we find Him renouncing the Pharisees - using various derogatory names. In using them against these religious leaders, it was not His intent to manifest hatred, resentment, wrath, or malice toward them for opposing His ministry. He simply called them names in order to reveal to them their true character and in hopes that they would "wake up" and repent of their sins.

In Matthew 23:15, He called them - "hypocrites" - simply because they were stage-players in religion. They were show-offs, frauds, and impersonators. They were acting the part of someone who is holy. Under the mask of godliness, they hid their polluted hearts. Their whole life was a lie.

In Matthew 23:15, He referred to them as being a - "child of hell." He mentioned that their converts were "twofold more the child of hell than yourselves." "Child of hell" was a Talmudic phrase - a Hebraism for an excessively wicked person who might very easily claim Hell for his Mother and the devil for his father. It was one who was fitted and destined for Hell.

In Matthew 23:16, He called them - "blind guides." These who professed to be "guides of the blind"(Romans 2:19), He was calling the total opposite - "blind guides." They professed to be leaders but were themselves blind because they closed their eyes to the Truth and became ignorant of divine things.

In Matthew 23:17, He called them - "fools." Didn't He say in Matthew 5:22 that if you call your brother a "fool," then you would be "in danger of hell fire"? Was He contradicting Himself here or breaking His own law in doing so? No, He was not maliciously calling them "fools" in a fit of rage or anger. He referred to them as such to open their eyes to their own stupidity, irrationality, absurdity, and moral delinquency. Their minds were so blinded by their love for money that they weren't thinking "straight" or reasoning rationally.

In Matthew 23:27, He called them - "whited sepulchres." On the fifteenth day of the month Adair - right before the Passover feast - the Jews would whitewash all the spots where the graves of the poor were situated in the fields or along the roadsides. They did this practice in order to beautify these graves or to alert the pilgrims to the areas where the dead lay. On their way to keeping the Feast of Passover, they did not want to be defiled through contact with the dead. Jesus referred to the Pharisees in this manner because - on the outside like the "whited sepulchres" they appeared pure and clean - but on the inside, they were filled with death.

In Matthew 23:28, He told them that they were - "full of...iniquity." This came as a great insult to these pretenders of holiness and righteousness.

In Matthew 23:33, He called them - "serpents" and a "generation of vipers." They were as deadly as serpents in that they expressed craft and subtlety and were of a venomous nature. They were a generation of envenomed, enraged, and spiteful adversaries to Him and His ministry.

In Matthew 23:34, He prophesied that they were - "murderers" - because they would "kill" the "prophets," "wise men," and "scribes" that He would send unto them.

I wonder what my secret letter-writer would say about Jesus and Saint Paul? I guess they should be banned too! Keep in mind, one cannot make the leap from the Pharisees as religious leaders to the bishops and priests of the Church, who are the successors of the apostles. Jesus never speaks of the apostles or their successors as he does of the Pharisee because the apostles and their successors promote the truth of Jesus and have been commissioned to do so by Jesus in the most authoritative way. Pharisees refers to those in total opposition to Jesus and who will conspire with the political authorities to kill Jesus. That's the difference and Catholics, even if they are lay or clergy, who conspire with the political authorities of the day to oppose Christ, the Church and her infallible teachings on morality and natural law are the Pharisees in other words, they are the fascists, not those who support the Church and Christ!

THE GOODNESS AND SACREDNESS OF THE BODY, CRASS MATERIALISM AND THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

T'was a time when someone died when everyone got a Christian burial or at least a burial of some kind even if it wasn't Christian. Certainly everyone who professed to be a Catholic made sure that their deceased loved ones got a Christian burial.

Today our culture is more and more pagan rather than Judeo-Christian or our Judeo-Christian culture has bought into pagan practices without realizing they have.

Note how we so many now are encouraged to treat their bodies as though they are a material possession,like a car or a house. They do radical remodels on their bodies, such as radical plastic surgery on their faces, and all kinds of surgeries for weight loss or simply to make their body look more "sexy."

People are now tattooing their bodies in the most extreme ways as well a piercing their bodies in the most unusual of places.

And then when the body is used or spent and dies. It is cremated and tossed aside, not even a proper burial is given. Rather the ashes are stored somewhere as some kind of macabre keepsake having nothing to do with Christian sentiments as body parts being a sacred relic or these are scattering or flushed down the commode or left with the funeral director to discard at his discretion.

The Catholic Church still requires that we give Catholics a Christian burial. Even when there is cremation, Church law requires that the ashes be interred in a cemetery plot or a columbary that has been blessed. The blessed cemetery is a sacramental that shows us that the human body is sacred and even as it decomposes, we look forward to its redemption when the Lord returns and the resurrection of the body occurs. Our bodies will be recreated from the mud of the earth and fashioned perfectly after the risen body of our Savior and Judge. Cemeteries are to life as Advent is to Christmas.

Look at the Blessed Virgin Mary's relationship with and experience of God. It was not just spiritual. It was physical, in and through her body. By the power of the Holy Spirit, she conceived Jesus Christ in her body. She carried Him for 9 months, in her body. She suckled Jesus at her breasts. She embraced and kissed him, held and cuddled him. She bathed and nurtured him. She saw him crucified and dead and caressed his dead body as he lay in her arms and prepared Him for the tomb.

As Catholics, we experience God in a physical way through our bodies. All of the sacraments touch us in a physical way, whether it be water flowing over our bodies, or oil anointing us, or bread and wine that becomes the body and blood of Jesus becoming a very part of us through eating and drinking. In the sacrament of marriage the Church teaches that husbands and wives experience the very presence of God in their most intimate relationships of lovemaking and life creating. In the Sacrament of Holy Orders, men become “Christ” in a visual sacramental way.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body and soul, into heaven is an event of her salvation that shows us that our body and soul are good and are redeemed by Christ.

The following gives a very good explanation of what the Catholic Church requires of Catholics where caring for their bodies after death in a Catholic way:

Question: There are some Catholics who say that the Church allows cremation. Then there are others who say that cremation was always forbidden in the Church. What should I believe?

Answer: The Catholic Church's preference has always been to bury the dead. The ban on cremation was to oppose the pagan practices that were considered to be anti-Christian. The Romans did not believe in an afterlife. As such, they cremated their dead. The Christians of the early Church avoided cremation because of the connection with the Roman view. To be cremated served the purpose of denying the resurrection and afterlife.

Since Jesus was not cremated, this is another reason why this practice fell into disfavor with the Christians. And also because of the belief that the body is the home of the Holy Spirit and it should be respected as such.

The Catholic Church's rejection of cremation was never intended to imply that someone who is cremated would never go to heaven. The church has never opposed the cremation of Catholics after disasters such as a plague, earthquakes or floods when mass casualties occurred, making individual burials next to impossible.

The Church also permitted cremation in extra-ordinary situations where transporting a body half way around the world or a very great distance would have created extreme financial hardship.

In 1963, while continuing to maintain a strong preference towards burial, the Catholic Church became more open to allowing cremation. As more and more Catholics became aware of this change in the law, there has been an increase number of cremations among Catholics.

Prior to 1997, cremations had to take place after the funeral Mass so the body could be present during the rite. Since then, the Vatican has granted permission to allow funeral Masses with the presence of the ashes.

To this day, the Catholic Church Law forbids cremation when it is chosen for reasons that are contrary to Christian teaching. These are:

a. Cremation is implemented for the purpose of denying the resurrection of the body.

b. The ashes of cremated Catholics are to be preserved afterwards as a body would be preserved, either in a mausoleum or buried in a Catholic cemetery which is holy grounds.

c. Ashes are not to be scattered.

d. Anything that is contrary to # b above, it is forbidden by the Catholic Church. You cannot decorate your living room with the ashes/urn of the dead. Nor can you keep the ashes in your basement, buried in your yard or in the yard at the cottage, and the list goes on.

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT THE INTIMATE MOMENT OF RECEIVING HOLY COMMUNION COULD BECOME SO COMPLICATED IN THE MODERN LITURGY?

This video creates mixed emotions in me. In the Extraoridnary Form of the Mass, these issues simply did not exist. You came to the altar railing, knelt, waited for the priest to come to you, slightly tilted your head back, slightly extended your tongue and you received.

Today, though, we have so, so many issues with the ways in which people approach the "minister" of Holy Communion, the styles of reverence and the accidents that can and do happen and usually every Sunday.

In the name of God and all that is holy, shouldn't this video tell us something? After 40 years of receiving Holy Communion standing and either on the tongue or in the hand, there are problems, not the least of which is people rushing, Sacred Crumbs falling and people taking the host back to the pew, home or worse yet discarding it on the floor or outside the Church. Enough is enough. The bishops need to wake up and stop the madness! The Extraordinary Form's manner of distributing Holy Communion never had such issues and doesn't today either. Isn't it time to allow the EF to exert its influence on the OF and how people receive Holy Communion during the OF?

THERE IS NO SHAME ANY LONGER LOVING THE EXTRAORIDNARY FORM OF THE MASS AS IT WILL ONLY BENIFIT THE CELEBRATION OF THE ORDINARY FORM OF THE MASS AND REFORM THE CHURCH OF TODAY

Fr. Z at WDTPRS tells us that His Excellency Most Reverend Robert C. Morlino, Bishop of Madision, told his seminarians – 32 in number! – that it was his expectation that all of them learn how to say Mass in the Extraordinary Form before they are ordained.

MY COMMENTS FIRST: I have always felt blessed that I have at least a recollection of what the Church and Catholic schools were like in the late 1950's and the 1960's prior to the Second Vatican Council. I have always felt blessed that my earliest formation as a Catholic was based on the Baltimore Catechism and the Tridentine Mass.

Even as a teenager, I felt that the Second Vatican Council was making me something that I was not intended to be, a Protestantized Catholic. I accepted that for I accepted as a Catholic our pope and the bishops in union with him. But I wondered if it was wise to discard so much that was discarded during the late 60's and 1970's and to be told that this was called renewal.

The fact that we now have maybe two generations of Catholics who never experienced the pre-Vatican II Church or the liturgy of that period worries me. Evidently it worries the Holy Father. Why else would he allow for the liberal celebration of the Mass as it was prior to Vatican II and seek to interpret Vatican within continuity with the Church prior to it.

Today, especially when I celebrate the EF Mass, I feel connected with my roots as a Catholic when God chose me in 1954 through Holy Baptism to be a part of His adopted family as a Roman Catholic in the Latin Rite. I am not ashamed of my heritages as a pre-Vatican II Catholic born in Italy of immigrant parents, one from Canada, the other from Italy and brought up in the south.

A new generation of Catholics experiencing the Extraordinary Form of the Mass will surely help the Church as she continues her "reform of the reform" using the "hermeneutic of continuity." Praise God for that.

Now Father's Z's comments on Bishop Morlino's stroke of genius, but of course it was the Holy Father's stroke of genius to be sure:

Bishop Morlino did not say that they would be required to use it all the time, but that they must know how to use it. If seminaries are not offering the opportunity to learn the older form (which they ought to be, by the way), they could go to workshops or find priests who could help them to learn it. Bottom line: they are to learn the Extraordinary Form.

I think this was a remarkable.

How many bishops, after all, are saying this openly to their seminarians?

It was also, frankly, a paternally charitable thing to tell the seminarians.

First, if there were any doubts about their bishop’s attitude toward his seminarians and traditional forms, these doubts were thereby removed. They need never fear the bishop or worry about what would happen to them when he heard that they were going to TLM’s here or there, learning the rubrics, serving Masses. They need not on this account fear the rector of the seminary they attend, since they are following the expressed desire of the bishop. Moreover, Universae Ecclesiae (the Holy See’s commentary on Summorum Pontificum) gently asserts that seminarians are to know the Extraordinary Form.

Second, knowledge of and use of the older form of Mass teaches men -seminarians and priests alike – something about the priest and the priesthood which the Novus Ordo doesn’t really do on its own. The older form stresses the sacrificial and priestly nature of the priest’s actions and words during Mass as well as the priest’s own deep unworthiness and complete dependence on God’s mercy and grace.

Third, no priest of the Roman Rite ought to rest easy until he knows also the older form. Ignorance of the older form means ignorance of his own rite. Furthermore, when it comes to their ordination, someone must stand up and attest to the ordaining bishop that the men have been properly formed. How can he honestly say they are properly formed if they have been left ignorant by their seminaries of their rite? The seminarians of Madison, by learning the Extraordinary Form, can always be at ease on this point.

At last, the bishop brought them into a larger vision for the “new evangelization”, as it were. I prefer the image of the “Marshall Plan”, by which the USA rebuilt devastated post-war Europe so as to foster good trade and to build a bulwark against encroaching Communism. In our day and in the Church, Benedict XVI is helping to rebuild our Catholic identity in continuity across borders and centuries as well as bolster a bulwark against the dictatorship of relativism. By giving these men their task to learn the older form, Bp. Morlino also brought them as actors into our Holy Father’s project. It seems to me that, as the men ready themselves to go back to their respective seminaries, this is a good start for their participation in the Year of Faith.