BILL MAHER AND PAULA DEEN: A DOUBLE STANDARD?

Bill Maher's very public anti-Catholic bigotry on his HBO show gets a pass and gets praised and HBO renews his contract!

But Paula Deen in her private life and never on her show gets canned by the Food Network for a racial epithet for which she profusely apologizes! Why the double standard by the mass media? No apologies from Bill Maher who used bigoted language on his HBO show and he stays, Paula Deen apologizes for something no one knew she said and she's fired!

Paula Deen has never ever on her cooking show at the Cooking Network, ever said anything derogatory about anyone. She is a good ole Georgia gal from Albany, (pronounced All-Benny)Georgia but has lived in Savannah for many years.

As one who grew up in the south, I have blushed in shock and discomfort as I heard little old white ladies, prim and proper use the "n" word and very casually. It is shocking but it is used and we all know it down here, blacks and whites alike. Yes, there is prejudice in the south and racist remarks are made, more so in the past than today, but the "n" word is still used and blacks also use it towards each other and I know this first hand and yes when they saw me blushing they laughed (but that is a cultural thing and I'm not justifying whites using the same epithet by pointing this out).

And while the south has a troubling record with racism, prejudice, not to mention slavery, I would posit that relations today between blacks and whites are much better in Georgia than in Chicago, New York and Boston. I could be wrong, but I think this is true.

But I'm not trying to be an apologist for the south in this regard, but to point out the hypocrisy and double standard of our mass media as it concerns prejudicial remarks made by an entertainer in her private life and ones made by an entertainer regularly on his HBO show. Yes, Bill Maher is perhaps the most bigoted anti-Catholic entertainer there is and weekly raunchy words spew from his mouth, especially toward the Catholic Church and her clergy.

The Catholic League has gone after Bill Maher but to no avail:

There is no other entertainer in the nation who has repeatedly spoken about the Catholic Church, especially its priests, in more vile and obscene terms than Bill Maher. Vicious beyond belief, his remarks would be condemned – indeed he would be fired – if directed at any other demographic group. Over and over again he libels [sic] priests, portraying all of them as sexual abusers. And he does so with impunity.

So, why the double standard? What has Paula Deen said on her show that has been offensive to anyone? What has Bill Maher said on his show that has been bigoted anti-Catholic diatribes?

The mass media's hypocrisy is unbelievable!

PERHAPS IT IS BEST TO FOLLOW OUR LORD'S ADVICE, "TURN THE OTHER CHEEK" AND "LOVE THOSE WHO HATE YOU."

This video speaks for itself, practicing Catholics need to take the higher road but also be willing to die for the faith and take this sort of derision:

IS POPE FRANCIS MORE OF A HARLEY MAN THAN A CONCERT FAN?

UPDATE!UPDATE!UPDATE!: It seems that the blog by La Stampa, Vatican Insider, has removed the statement attributed to the Holy Father,
"I am not a Renaissance Prince who listens to music instead of working." from that post. There is no English translation of that post at the Vatican Insider, but clearly it appears that the one who attributed this snarky remark to the Holy Father may well have been the one who wrote this piece for the Vatican Insider. Even the original headline last night included the snarky remark but now it is changed too! The Italian article though still laments that the Holy Father couldn't take a couple hours off from his rigorous work of cleaning up the curia to attend a concert and calls into question his etiquette in this situation, particularly now in his role as Head of State of the Vatican City. But why would La Stampa first print words attributed to the Holy Father that were more of the writer's conjecture, based upon something the Holy Father said about bishops the day before, than reality? What's up with that??????? More intrigue developing as we enter this Holy Father's second 100 days.

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Clearly Pope Francis didn't show up at the concert at the last minute or his chair would have been removed more promptly! Someone wasn't pleased and no one removed the chair, only to make it even more obvious that he wasn't there. Why didn't he go and are the words attributed to him as to the reason he didn't go more of the same from the so-called out of control "curia" trying to discredit him? In other words, did the Holy Father really say the snarky remark or did someone put the words into his mouth?

The Holy Father did show up for all the noise and lots of it of the Hell's Angels rally in Rome:

A bit of a brouhaha is developing in Rome tonight as Pope Francis was supposed to be at a concert in honor of the year of faith. In fact, his chair was set up in the middle aisle for him to sit. But at the last minute he was a no show.

Keep in mind that last week he made a concerted (no pun intended) effort to greet thousands of Harley Davidson Bike riders in Rome and even received two bikes and a leather jacket!

The Vatican Insider is reporting the following about this incident that has the Vatican City-State talking:

The pontiff was expected at a Beethoven concert, but Monsignor Rino Fisichella told the audience just before the concert was to start that Francis couldn't make it due to "commitments that could not be postponed."

And this rather terse statement attributed to the Holy Father (which I hope and pray isn't true, like what was reported that he said to the Msgr. Marini prior to coming out to the balcony of St. Peter's "the circus is over.")

La Stampa's Vatican Insider adds that the Pope allegedly said the following:

For the entire afternoon, Francis did not leave his room at [Domus] Sanctae Marthae and simply told his associates:

"I am not a Renaissance Prince who listens to music instead of working."

MY COMMENT: I just can't believe this is true, that he would have said this. Is this more of the diabolical intrigue in the Vatican to discredit the pope? The gay lobby? I think we'll be hearing more about this PR debacle if it is true and if it isn't true. To me it sounds like someone at the Vatican with sour grapes and an axe to grind against Pope Francis. Certainly the Holy Father would not have said such a thing. Certainly he has more class than that!

The Associated Press had this observation: The pope was smiling with no signs of tiredness when he greeted worshipers at a Mass in St. Peter’s earlier Saturday. Unlike his predecessor Benedict, who was well-known as a music lover, Francis has shown scant interest in music, liturgical or otherwise.

MY FINAL COMMENT: Yikes!

POPE FRANCIS IS CONSISTENT IN HIS MESSAGE SINCE BECOMING POPE AND AFTERWARD

Recalling and celebrating the 50th anniversary of the election of Pope Paul Vi, Pope Francis focused on Pope Paul VI’s love of the Church and said his predecessor had a “clear vision that the Church is a Mother who carries Christ and leads to Christ.”

Pope Francis quoted Pope Paul's Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi:

“After the Council and thanks to the Council, which was a time given her by God, at this turning-point of history, does the Church or does she not find herself better equipped to proclaim the Gospel and to put it into people's hearts with conviction, freedom of spirit and effectiveness?... Is she firmly established in the midst of the world and yet free and independent enough to call for the world's attention? Does she testify to solidarity with people and at the same time to the divine Absolute? Is she more ardent in contemplation and adoration and more zealous in missionary, charitable and liberating action? Is she ever more committed to the effort to search for the restoration of the complete unity of Christians, a unity that makes more effective the common witness?”

Pope Francis said these questions are also the ones which confront today’s Church.

“All of us, we are all responsible for the answers; and we should ask ourselves: Are we really a Church united to Christ, prepared to go out and announce Him to everyone, even, and especially, in what I call the ‘existential suburbs,’ or do we close in on ourselves, in our groups?” Pope Francis asked.


MY COMMENT: Are we closed in on ourselves? Pope Francis is indeed in continuity with Pope Benedict who often referred to the self-referential Church, the narcissistic Church as those groups (parishes?) who worship God in a purely horizontal way, forgetting the vertical dimension that leads us out of ourselves toward God and our neighbors outside of worship, to the periphery of salvation history in geography.

IS VATICAN II RESPONSIBLE FOR A "SELF-REFERENTIAL (NARCISISTIC) CHURCH" AND BEING SELF-ABSORBED?

As a person who has a very good memory of my childhood and religious experiences both in the pre-Vatican II Church and post Vatican II Church, I am beginning to wonder if Vatican II is the cause of most of the problems that Pope Francis wants to clean up, not by going back to 1950's Catholicism prior to the Council except in one way.

And that way is to tell Catholics to be content with the Church that is given to them and to stop trying to rearrange the furniture as and renovate the Church and church we have done for the past 50 years.

What have we been doing for the past 50 years as Catholics. Let me list some of it:

1. We've griped and complained about the way the Church was prior to Vatican II.
2. We've griped and complained about the changes in the Church after Vatican II.
3. We made change a hallmark of Catholicism thinking we can refashion the church, make it new and improved like product lines continually do and tell us in their advertizing.
4. We've focused on externals, the language of the Mass, the music of the Mass, the readings of the Mass, the style of vestments of the Mass, the style of renovating the churches for the Mass and we've caused much upheaval and unnecessarily so in all of this for parish communities driving some of the staunches Catholics away from the Church.
5. We've reinvented the way we teach Catholics and in the process dumbed everything down to the point that Catholics don't know what to believe and think personal gnosticism and personal opinions about faith and morals is on par with what the Magisterium teaches.

The list could go on and on. Yet are we giving our Catholics a mission as Catholic laity? No, not in general, but the renewal groups of the Church have been doing this for some time, especially in Europe, but also in the USA. Intentional Catholics coming together to truly be Catholic and to live their lives of faith in the world. Most of this renewal groups are conservative, accept the teaching of the Church, don't push for changes in Church teachings at all and accept the Magisterium.

I know of no liberal or progressive groups that are doing what Pope Francis and Pope Benedict want us to do which is to move away from the horizontal, navel gazing Church continually trying to make things new and improved in the superficial sense and to get back to authentic Catholic living, concerned for the poor, living simply and loving God and neighbor as Jesus taught. What liberal or progressive groups are producing vocations? None that I know of and the liberal and progressive religious orders and dioceses are producing no vocations either. It is a recipe for the death of Catholicism leaving only a faithful remnant and certainly this isn't the desire of the Church or the Lord, our Head.

While there were many warts in pre-Vatican II Catholicism, this is what we didn't and did have back then:

This is what we did have:

1. Parishes that were geographical and the majority of the Catholics in the boundaries of each parish actually went to Mass and supported the Church.
2. Large families that went to Mass each Sunday, supported Catholic education as a means to make strong the Catholic faith of children and hand it on to them.
3. Vocations galore for the priesthood and religious life and the willingness to sacrifice for a severe life in these pre-Vatican II experiences of the priesthood and religious life.
4. Mass was Mass and there were only three kinds and all in the same language: Low, High and Solemn High (although most Catholics rarely attended a Solemn High Mass, more went to the High Mass, the majority to the Low Mass (no music or simply four devotional hymns inserted into it).
5. Popular Devotions both public and private thrived
6. Lay Catholic became religious and operated all kinds of outreach to the communities not only through schools, but hospitals, agencies for the poor, nursing homes and the like
7. Religious were not see as Martians but laity who made a higher permanent commitment to full time Church work

This is what we didn't have:

1. Liturgical wars with competing visions of what the liturgy should be
2. Constant renovations of churches for liturgical purposes
3. divisions among Catholics in terms of traditional or progressive (you were either good Catholic or a bad Catholic and everyone knew what that meant
4. The Mass was celebrated by the book and most people did not experience liturgical abuse or the personality of the priest foisted upon them in a liturgical setting

How can we become what Pope Francis would like to see us become and that is "a Church that would be capable of taking to the high seas, one no longer corralled within its own fences''. Herein lies the program brand of the new pontificate, along with the Franciscan ideal of ''a Church that is poor and for the poor'': it could not be otherwise for the first Jesuit pope in history. And if Pope Francis will be able to steer Peter's boat down this route, freeing it from all the excess baggage and resistances then we will be a pre-Vatican II Church in a post Vatican II way."

So what the pope is advocating and what I advocate is Evangelical Catholicism, with the home and the Christian family the nucleus of the Church, meaning that it is in the home where Catholicism is lived and breathed, that we form strong Catholics.

Then once a week or even daily, every Catholic goes to Mass. If they wish to participate verbally or musically fine. If not fine. Just be strong Catholics. Be at Church every Sunday, weak or strong Catholics. Don't making the so-called active participation at Mass the litmus test of being a good or bad Catholic!

Make sure that the Mass is celebrated by the book. Let's limit the style of music at Mass and really give a go at making Gregorian Chant and its offspring the music of the Mass. Don't leave it up to liturgists and musicians to plan the Mass and the Music. Make them sing the official Introit, Offertory and Communion Antiphons and limit the number settings of style of music we have for the parts of the Mass or maybe mandate Latin for those parts.

What this would do is to take away from liturgists and musicians the authority to plan the musical composition of the Mass according to their tastes and agenda and return the Mass to the agenda and taste of the Church.

So, we won't get as a processional hymn "We are One in the Spirit" or "Gather Us In" or a variety of other vapid hymns with an ideological agenda or preachy message, but we'll get the Psalm that is prescribed for the Entrance Chant.

Removing authority from those who have taken it and pontificate about it will go a long way to making the Church into what Pope Francis desires.

Don't misinterpret what I am saying. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be ecumenical and in dialogue with other religions and with those of no religion. I'm in favor of the Church's teaching since Vatican II on ecumenism, interfaith dialogue and religious liberty. I am in favor of what Vatican II asked for the liturgy and the Missal we have. We don't need to keep reinventing the Church. Now is the time to settle down with what is given us in the Post Vatican II Church and stop making it less or more what we want it to be and more what God and the Magisterium want it to be.

The following is what many believe Pope Francis means by coming out of a self-referential and narcissistic Church:

The Church needs to overcome a tendency within the Church to be self-referential or narcissistic. The Church, the pope said, needed to “come out of herself”, moving not just to the geographical but to the “existential” peripheries (the troubled material, moral and spiritual edges on which people live their lives), in order to evangelize effectively. When she fails to do this, the Church becomes self-referential, which is a kind of sickness. This leads her into a very serious spiritual evil, which the great theologian Cardinal Henri de Lubac called the worst evil that can befall the Church, namely “spiritual worldliness”.

The pope is talking about a certain attitude among the Church’s members—narcissistic, self-referential, worldly in their very spirituality—which makes the Church as an institution extremely ill.

A Partial List of Examples of Spiritual Narcissism

This critique of a certain malaise in the Church can refer only to one thing: When we start defining the Church according to how we ourselves are, we are committing this sin of narcissism; we are being self-referential. And in this sense, we are making the Church self-referential in all of her operations, which must be carried out through her members.

Let us consider some practical applications of the Pope’s thesis.

-- When theologians and academicians redefine faith and morals according to their own desires (chiefly, in our day, through the cancer of Modernism), they are being narcissistic and self-referential, and they are making the Church sick.
-- When laymen use the Church for their spiritual comfort while rejecting whatever Catholic teachings they do not like, they are being narcissistic and self-referential, and they are making the Church sick.
-- When people at any level in the Church decide they are not called to express the way, the truth and the life of Christ to others because it is outside their personal comfort zone, they are being narcissistic and self-referential, and they are making the Church sick.
-- When affluent Catholics constantly find excuses, including legal and political excuses, for not stretching themselves to serve the poor, including immigrants, they are being narcissistic and self-referential, and they are making the Church sick.
-- When those with strong feelings about certain traditions and the liturgy claim that they alone are the bearers of the true light of Christ, dividing themselves from others and from obedience to ecclesiastical authority, they are being narcissistic and self-referential, and they are making the Church sick.
-- When cardinals and bishops refuse to speak truth to power, preferring to enjoy life with “people who matter”, they are being narcissistic and self-referential, and they are making the Church sick.
-- When Catholics invest their emotions and their sense of mission in unapproved apparitions or other similar phenomena, as if these hold the key to everything, they are being narcissistic and self-referential, and they are making the Church sick.
-- When priests alter the liturgy to suit their tastes or fail to teach the fullness of Catholic doctrine, they are being narcissistic and self-referential, and they are making the Church sick.
-- When religious communities depart from their founding charisms and pursue essentially secular goals with a spiritual veneer, they are being narcissistic and self-referential, and they are making the Church sick.
-- Whenever anyone defines right and wrong in terms of chronology (“Come on, it’s 2013! Don’t be so medieval!”), he or she is being narcissistic and self-referential, and making the Church sick.
-- And when Catholics fail to seek constant enlightenment from both the Church and the Holy Spirit in prayer, preferring to go on spiritually without making any real effort to lay bare their own spiritual weaknesses—preferring the comfort of an apparently serene but half-hearted and surely one-sided Christianity—then they are being narcissistic and self-referential, and they are making the Church sick.

This is what Cardinal Bergoglio was explaining to his brothers just before they elected him pope. He may have used some academic language to refer to the problem. Indeed, Pope Benedict had done the same, calling it “self-secularization”. But it really is not so difficult to understand. When we make the Church into what we see in the mirror, instead of stretching ourselves to the “existential peripheries”, we plunge the Church into spiritual worldliness. We make the Church sick.

POPE FRANCIS WANTS PASTORS NOT WOULD-BE "PRINCES" APPOINTED BISHOPS AND PRIESTS WHO DON'T SEEK BECOMING BISHOPS WHICH MEANS ALL THOSE PRIESTS WHO DON'T WANT TO BECOME BISHOPS SHOULD NOW START SEEKING IT AND QUICK!

Those priests who want to wear this need not apply:

Rather, a more sober look:

FROM THE LIPS OF THE BISHOP OF ROME, THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS, JUST THIS MORNING: "In the delicate task of carrying out inquiries for episcopal appointments be careful that the candidates are pastors close to the people, fathers and brothers, that they are gentle, patient and merciful; animated by inner poverty, the freedom of the Lord and also by outward simplicity and austerity of life, that they do not have the psychology of "Princes". Be careful that they are not ambitious, that they do not seek the episcopate - volentes nolumus - and that they are married to a Church without being in constant search of another."

THE QUIET CANON AND THE BOISTEROUS CANON

In the previous post I spoke of differing theologies in the doctrine of the Mass. This doesn't mean the doctrine is different but the expression of the doctrine through theologies that are different was the point.

For example we all know that many more prayers of the EF Mass are spoken in a low or quiet voice. Most startlingly for those who have only attended an OF Mass is to discover that the Roman Canon, is prayed in a low voice except for a few words here and there. In fact, I had forgotten from my childhood that the canon was mostly quiet and was discomforted by it when I celebrated as a priest the EF Mass my first several times.

Herein is a major shift in the theology of how the canon is expressed without changing it doctrine or dogma.

In the EF, the quiet canon leads to a spirituality of seeing this part of the Mass as entering into the "Holy of Holies." Added to that the gestures of the priests, the ad orientem position, the numerous bows and genuflections all lead those who follow it into a sense of the sacred, the sense of mystery and that we have left "ordinary" time for "extraordinary eternity."

What is happening at the altar is the same as at the OF Mass, the Holy Spirit is called down to change bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ and which the Most Holy Sacrifice of Cavalry is renewed, remembered, brought forward, made present in an unbloody way. God the Father accepts this Sacrifice and returns Jesus His Most Beloved Son to Us, Glorified and Risen and under the species of Bread and Wine for the Eucharistic Banquet, where those who worthily receive our Precious Lord's Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity are made a part of Him through His Church, His Bride, of which He is the Head and Bridegroom. We are strengthen in our Initiation into the Church by Christ through His sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Eucharist. The Sacrificial Meal that occurs after the Holy Sacrifice (as in the Jewish temple of sacrifice) is meant to seal our relationship to the Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

In the Ordinary Form of the Mass, the Eucharistic Prayer and there are many of these, not just one, but all accomplish the same purpose, is prayed aloud. This enables the laity to participate without having to follow along in a missal. They can see and hear the actions of the priest and unite their hearts and minds to the priestly actions visually and audibly. In a sense the Eucharistic Prayer becomes not only a prayer to God, but a proclamation of Prayer to God for all to hear and enter into.

Words rather that bodily gestures communicate the essence of the Mystery being celebrated, but the end result is the same as described above for both forms of the Mass. The spirituality and the theology are different, the experience is different in terms of "feeling" but the doctrine and dogma are the same, the Catholic faith is the same. This would also be true about the Eastern Rite liturgies, which have their own ethos, spirituality and theology to convey the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Faith.

IS THERE A DIFFERENT THEOLOGY AND SPIRITUALITY BETWEEN THE ORDINARY FORM OF THE MASS AND THE EXTRAORDINARY FORM OF THE MASS?

The EF's differing theology and spirituality of the Eucharistic Prayer compared to the Ordinary Form's:


In a nutshell yes, and Cardinal Ratzinger said as much in a speech he gave to traditionalists in 1998. This is an excerpt of what he said:

"On the other hand, it must be admitted that the celebration of the old liturgy had strayed too far into a private individualism, and that communication between priest and people was insufficient. I have great respect for our forefathers who at Low Mass said the “Prayers during Mass” contained in their prayer books, but certainly one cannot consider that as the ideal of liturgical celebration! Perhaps these reductionist forms of celebration are the real reason that the disappearance of the old liturgical books was of no importance in many countries and caused no sorrow. One was never in contact with the liturgy itself. On the other hand, in those places where the Liturgical Movement had created a certain love for the liturgy, where the Movement had anticipated the essential ideas of the Council, such as for example, the prayerful participation of all in the liturgical action, it was those places where there was all the more distress when confronted with a liturgical reform undertaken too hastily and often limited to externals. Where the Liturgical Movement had never existed, the reform initially raised no problems. The problems only appeared in a sporadic fashion, when unchecked creativity caused the sense of the sacred mystery to disappear.

This is why it is very important to observe the essential criteria of the Constitution on the Liturgy, which I quoted above, including when one celebrates according to the old Missal! The moment when this liturgy truly touches the faithful with its beauty and its richness, then it will be loved, then it will no longer be irreconcilably opposed to the new Liturgy, providing that these criteria are indeed applied as the Council wished.

Different spiritual and theological emphases will certainly continue to exist, but there will no longer be two contradictory ways of being a Christian; there will instead be that richness which pertains to the same single Catholic faith. When, some years ago, somebody proposed “a new liturgical movement” in order to avoid the two forms of the liturgy becoming too distanced from each other, and in order to bring about their close convergence, at that time some of the friends of the old liturgy expressed their fear that this would only be a stratagem or a ruse, intended to eliminate the old liturgy finally and completely."

Such anxieties and fears really must end! If the unity of faith and the oneness of the mystery appear clearly within the two forms of celebration, that can only be a reason for everybody to rejoice and to thank the good Lord. Inasmuch as we all believe, live and act with these intentions, we shall also be able to persuade the Bishops that the presence of the old liturgy does not disturb or break the unity of their diocese, but is rather a gift destined to build-up the Body of Christ, of which we are all the servants.

MY COMMENT: I think the liturgies at the CMAA try to do exactly what Cardinal Ratzinger foresaw in 1998. By differing theologies and spiritualities, the EF is more clerical and I don't necessarily mean this in a derogatory way and the theology of the Church does not have the insights of Vatican II in terms of ecclesiology. The Ecclesiology of Vatican II is shows a fuller awareness of the Church but it isn't a doctrinal change it is a theological shift.

The spirituality of the EF Mass is more contemplative, silent and introverted whereas the spirituality of the OF Mass is the opposite although silence and contemplation are also in it but in a different degree and different way.

YES VIRGINIA, THIS IS NOT YOUR MOST REVEREND FATHER'S TYPICAL CONCELERATED PONTIFICAL MASS IN THE ORDINARY FORM

Archbishop Alexander Sample, Archbishop of Portland, Oregon, celebrated your typical Ordinary Form Concelebrated Mass last night at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City, Utah today during the CMAA's Colloquium with photos and story at The New Liturgical Movement (Photos: Charles Cole & Joseph Dalimata) You can hear Archbishop Sample's talk at the CMAA HERE.


Please note that Archbishop Samples wears the maniple (horror of horrors) at this Ordinary Form Concelebrated Pontifical Mass!



This photo is what people would see if this Mass had the Benedictine Altar arrangement as the bishop faced them, which does not work well. Doesn't ad orientem work much better?

Kneeling for Holy Communion in the Ordinary Form:

MY FINAL COMMENTS: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, would not the liturgical renewal with the post-Vatican II Missal, even the banal one that has recently been replaced with the new resplendent English translation have been received much better by the Catholics who were formed in the pre-Vatican II Liturgy? Would there be less strife in the liturgical world today, if this style of celebrating the Mass even in the vernacular had been maintained and shows less of a breach in liturgical styles with the liturgy from which it was morphed?

What many people refuse to acknowledge today is what happened to traditional Catholics after the Council during the late 1960's and especially into the 1970's and little bit into the 1980's, but by the 1980's there had been irreparable harm to Catholic identity and faith that we have yet to recover.

Strong Catholics families united in the faith prior to the Council were divided by the changes after the council. Some used the new freedoms they thought they had in the post-Vatican II Mass to rub it in the face of more traditional Catholics. Ultimately a goodly number of strong Catholic families united in the faith were divided, some leaving the Church who prior to the Council were staunchly Catholic in the pre-Vatican II way.

This confusion and loss of Catholic identity passed on from the immediate 1950's generation of baby-boomer Catholics to their off-spring and a less solid Catholic formation for the baby-boomer's generation of children. Now the baby boomer's generation of children are having children with an even less Catholic mentality.

So we have arrived at only 20 percent of Catholics attending Mass on any given Sunday compared to almost 90 percent in the 1950's.

The Liturgy is where most Catholics experience the Catholic Church in community whether or not they actually participate in any meaningful way. We've lost that for about 80% of Catholics now.

Getting back to the Catholic identity of the Liturgy and the above photos capture it as in continuity with what preceded this form of the Mass is one way to bring things back into focus for the Church in the new evangelization, especially going after the 99 Catholics who have wandered from the flock seduced by secularism. Yes, many of them have become Protestants, joining Protestant denominations who have institutionally succumbed to the secular agenda and abandoned Scriptures for it.

BOMBSHELL FOR POST CATHOLICS AND RENEGADE CATHOLICS--CATHOLIC UNITY MUST PRECEDE ECUMENICAL UNITY AND THAT UNITY IS BEING UNITED TO THE POPE--POPE FRANCIS AT HIS WEDNESDAY GENERAL AUDIENCE!

NO SUCH THING AS CATHOLIC UNITY WITHOUT BE UNITED TO THE POPE--SO SAYS POPE FRANCIS AND HE USES THE WORD "POPE" TO MAKE HIS POINT, NOT "BISHOP OF ROME"!

Well, if anyone thought that this Pope, the Bishop of Rome, Holy Father Francis, was going to water down Catholic Ecclesiology and make it okay for post Catholics and renegade Catholics to have free reign, well think again! It ain't going to happen in the Roman Catholic Church!

Here are some sound bites: GENERAL AUDIENCE: HOW CAN WE HAVE UNITY AMONG CHRISTIANS IF AS CATHOLICS WE AREN'T UNITED?

“In the Church, therefore,” the pontiff continued, “there is a variety, a diversity of tasks and functions. There is no dull uniformity but the richness of the gifts that the Holy Spirit distributes. There is communion and unity: all are in relation to one another and all combine to form a single vital body, profoundly connected to Christ. Let us remember this well: being part of the Church means being united to Christ and receiving from him the divine life that makes us to live as Christians. It means remaining united to the Pope and bishops who are instruments of unity and communion and it also means learning to overcome selfishness and divisions, to understand one another better, and to harmonize the variety and richness of each one. In a word, loving God and the persons around us, in our families, parishes, and associations, better. Body and limbs must be united in order to live!”

Speaking extemporaneously, the Holy Father added: “Unity is always greater than conflict. Conflicts, if they aren't resolved well, separate us from one another, separate us from God. Conflict can help us grow but it can also divide us. Let's not take the path of division and struggle between one another. All united, all united with our differences but always united: this is Jesus' path.”

“How much damage is caused to the Church by divisions among Christians, by being apart, by narrow interests! The divisions among us,” he continued, “but also the divisions between the communities: evangelical Christians, Orthodox Christians, Catholic Christians, why are we divided? We must try to bring unity. … We must pray together as Catholics and also with other Christians, must pray that the Lord grant us unity, unity between us. But how will we have unity among Christians if we aren't capable of having it among us Catholics? Of having it in our family? How many families fight and are divided! Seek unity, the unity that makes the Church. Unity comes from Jesus Christ. He sends us the Holy Spirit to create unity.”

READ MORE OF THIS BOMBSHELL AT THE VATICAN RADIO WEBSITE HERE!

SSPX AND INVALID SACRAMENTS! BECAUSE OF THEIR SUSPENSION AD DIVINIS AND FROM THE HIGHEST SOURCE IN THE CHURCH POSSIBLE, THE VATICAN, ALL THE SACRAMENTS OF PENANCE THEY PERFORM ARE INVALID IN MOST CASES AS ARE THEIR WEDDINGS IN ALL CASES

On another post, Militia Immaculata said that a suspended priest cannot hear valid confessions (although the Church supplies what is lacking when a penitent who doesn't know this, goes to a suspended priest (such as all SSPX priests) for the sacrament of Penance.

I had not thought about this before and yes, Militia Immaculata is correct. Not all priests, even those in good standing, have the "faculties" to hear confession. It must be granted to them by their bishop and it can be removed by their bishop too although they would be able to do other sacramental work, such as all the other sacraments.

Sometimes priest's faculties to hear confession are removed because the priest simply isn't a good confessor or is scandalized by what he hears in confession if he has a sensitive conscience. And yes, if he were to intentionally hear confessions after having his faculties removed, it would be an invalid confession, except in the case of an emergency! Again, an unsuspecting penitent is protected by the "church supplies" doctrine in these matters. For example, all the Masses an invalidly ordained priest celebrates are valid through the same principle. Of course once this is discovered, for example, the bishop forgot to lay hands on the head of the one being ordained, then it must be rectified by either validly ordaining the priest or removing him from the parish.

The Sacrament of Marriage is another issue altogether. The validity of the sacrament is completely juridical and canonical. If a priest came into my parish boundaries, even though he is a priest of my diocese, and performs a wedding without my delegation, this wedding is invalid pure and simple.

So, this brings us to all of the priests and bishops of the SSPX. They are all suspended in the highest form of suspension (ad divinis) and thus do not have faculties to hear valid confessions. Nor do they have delegation to perform any weddings. This is a fact of Catholic doctrine.

So a Catholic who becomes aware of his ignorance concerning these things, and in his arrogance persists in going to confession to a suspended priest or bishop and seeks to be married by one is committing a mortal sin and also a sacrilege in terms of participating in the "feigning of a sacrament" such as the person who goes to a mock ordination of a female and participates in that liturgy!

What constitutes a mortal sin? Coloring book Catholics, even those who have an affinity for SSPX, might not know this:

1. Serious Matter (feigning a sacrament and going to a priest who is suspended would qualify!)

2. One knows it is serious matter (after reading this, all those SSPX sympathizers will now know this if their coloring book Catholicism didn't teach them this!)

3. Commits the act with full consent of the will. (From comments I have read here, this seems to be the case with some SSPX sympathizers here).

Thus these persons are in a state of mortal sin and must go and make a valid confession, repent, beg pardon and absolution from the priest and be reconciled to the full communion of the Church and to God.

READ MORE ABOUT THIS FROM THE QUESTION AND ANSWER AT CATHOLIC EXCHANGE BY PRESSING HERE!

WE CAN KEEP DISGRUNTLED CATHOLICS IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH BY GOOD LITURGIES, THAT'S THE GOOD NEWS, THE BAD NEWS IS THAT THEY HAVE BECOME POST-CATHOLICS BECAUSE OF POST VATICAN II BABBLE AND THE CULTURE THAT OPPOSES NATURAL LAW AND SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION! SO DO WE REALLY WANT OUR LITURGIES AND PEOPLE TO BE A "WHITED SEPLULCHRE?"?"

Will good liturgy keep post-Catholics coming to Mass? Yes, says one survey in Philadelphia!

My Comments First: Yes, poor Philadelphia has had its problems and yes it can be traced to mismanagement of clergy by the former archbishops/cardinals of that once powerful and rich archdiocese. But even with the facade of power and spirituality there was deep seated corruption and clericalism in the clergy, both bishops and priests. The whited sepulchers of many of the clergy has led to a decline in Catholic belief in natural law, Scripture and Tradition, where cultural fads, sometimes coming from the devil, replace God given truths.

So, even if good liturgies keep bad Catholics in the Church, isn't that just as bad as good liturgies celebrated by corrupt clergy? Or, is having good liturgies with sinful clergy and laity the way to re-evangelize the corrupt? I have no answers, but it does appear that good liturgy and whatever that means, keeps corrupt people in the Church and even if the clergy are corrupt, the laity will give them a pass if the liturgy is good.

POLL: CATHOLIC CHURCH'S STANCE ON SAME SEX MARRIAGE CAUSING PHILLY AREA CATHOLICS TO LEAVE THE CHURCH, READ ALL ABOUT HERE!

Many young Catholics are unhappy with the Vatican's attitude toward homosexuals and gay marriage.
Also from NewsWorks Tonight - June 17, 2013

Not surprisingly, a high percentage of area Catholics have left the church over the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the organization in the past decade. But that's not all.

A Catholic parish in Philadelphia surveyed lapsed Catholics to find out why they left. The results show a dissatisfaction at both the local level and with the Vatican.

Of the 189 former Catholics who responded to the survey, the highest percentage — 17 percent — said they did so because of the priest abuse scandal. The director of the survey, Charles Zech of Villanova University's Center for the Study of Church Management, said a secondary reason follows close behind.

"People who are going to leave the church over the scandal and the church's handling of it have already left. So people leaving the church today are leaving for other reasons," said Zech. "A growing reason we found out was the church's attitude toward homosexuals and gay marriage. A lot of younger people object to the church's teaching on that."

The Catholic Church opposes gay marriage and the social acceptance of homosexulaity and same-sex relationshiops.

In the fall of 2012, Zech was hired by a parish in the Philadelphia Archdiocese to survey people who turned away. The study will not be made public, and Zech spoke on the condition that the parish would not be named.

According to a recent national study on religious life in America by the Pew Foundation, a third of baptized Catholics leave the faith, often due to policies originating in the Vatican. (MY COMMENT: Wouldn't it be better to tell the truth, they leave for policies originating from natural law, Scripture and Tradition, which the Vatican points out?)

Nevertheless, Zech's study shows that local churches have some power to keep disgruntled Catholics from leaving, such as improving the quality of liturgies.

"Liturgies are really important. I'm not sure that parish staff and clergy understand how important liturgies are to people, that they have good music and the liturgy be meaningful," said Zech. "People who feel they are not being fed by a meaningful liturgy — they'll go where they are being fed."

Most of those former parishioners became Protestants.

YES VIRGINIA, THIS IS AN ORDINARY FORM CATHOLIC MASS IN A MODERN POST VATICAN II RENOVATED SANCTUARY

The New Liturgical Movement has photos of its opening Mass for the Church Music Association of America's Colloquium at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City. This is an Ordinary Form Mass. I can't help but wonder if the Ordinary Form of the Mass had been celebrated this way from the beginning if we would not have had and continue to have the liturgy wars and the dueling EF/OF scenario. I guess will have to wait until heaven when we can play back parallel time.

A CERTAIN PAROCHIAL VICAR IN A CERTAIN PARISH TAKES POPE FRANCIS ADMONITION TO TAKE THE GOSPEL TO THE PERIPHERY, TOGO, AFRICA!

CAN YOU PICK OUT A CERTAIN PAROCHIAL VICAR GOING TO THE PERIPHERY IN TOGO, AFRICA TAKING POPE FRANCIS' ADMONITION TO HEART IN THIS PHOTO?

LET'S PRETEND A CARDINAL REALLY DID THIS AND A LAY PERSON REALLY DID THIS TOO!

Let's pretend a Cardinal of the Catholic is celebrating Mass and has made a decision to deny someone Holy Communion for doing something at Mass that politicizes the Most Holy Eucharist.

Let's pretend that another lay person sees that the Cardinal has denied giving someone Holy Communion and completely flummoxed by this and outraged, goes up a second time to receive Holy Communion from a different "minister" and receives in the hand and returns to give this second Host to the person at his pew that the cardinal had just denied Holy Communion.

Liturgically, how could this sad state of affairs have developed in our beloved Catholic Church with the Most Precious Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Crucified and Risen Lord? I wouldn't want to get into the specifics of the why of this pretend situation, but only the situation where a lay person could think she could go up and get a host and bring it back to pew to give to a third party who had been denied Holy Communion by the Ordinary of the Archdiocese, in this case, a Cardinal, but only in a pretend scenario.

DO YOU THINK POPE FRANCIS WANTS US TO TAKE THE LITURGY TO THE PERIPHERY TO BRING BACK THE 99 SHEEP THAT ARE WANDERING IN A WASTELAND OF DANGER?

With apologies to Jeffrey Tucker, how can the liturgy go out to the lost and bring them back? Did Whoopee Goldberg in 1991's Sister Act give us the way? Is it a precursor to Pope Francis taking risks to go out and bring them back.

Remember Sister Act was about a faux nun who saw a declining Catholic Church in a particular neighborhood which needed to be revitalized and this non-religious character found the way to do it through music. Was Sister Act onto something? Is this part of the new evangelization, leaving the one person in the traditional pew and seeking the 99 lost? Just wondering!

Watch the miracle of how a new beat in Catholic music brings the lost back to Church and packs it!

Even the Bishop of Rome is impressed:

Of course the traditional habits help too! Could you imagine this movie with nuns in frumpy street dress and even more frumpy chopped off hair? It just wouldn't work in this precursor of the new evangelization!

JEFFREY TUCKER WRITING FOR CRISIS MAGAZINE HITS THE BALL OUT OF THE COURT WITH OBSERVATIONS ON THE DECONSTRUCTION OF CATHOLIC SPIRITUALITY IN THE MASS BY WELL MEANING FAUX LITURGISTS

MY COMMENTS FIRST: Jeffrey Tucker spoke at the opening session of the Church Music Association of America's "Chant Intensive" here at St. Joseph Church in early January. He is a wonderful teacher and truly imbued with the true spirit of the modern Liturgy. He is a great teacher also. Indeed, his observations hits the ball out of the ballpark. If only bishops would take his five points and mandate change in all diocesan parishes so that the liturgy would not exhibit the pitfalls Jeffrey Tucker highlights. Just doing that would move the new liturgical movement miles ahead!

YOU CAN READ THIS ARTICLE AT CRISIS MAGAZINE TOO, BY PRESSING HERE.

June 18, 2013
Five Ways to Ruin the Mass

by Jeffrey Tucker for Crisis Magazine

We are getting ever closer to an improved liturgy in the English-speaking world. The new Missal gives us a more dignified language that more closely reflects the Latin standard. The hippy-dippy rupturism of the past is finally giving way to a more settled and solemn appreciation of the intrinsic majesty of the Roman rite.

A new generation of celebrants is moving past the politicized agendas of the past toward embracing the true spirit of the liturgy. Maybe it hasn’t happened in your parish but the trend is clear: better music, better vestments, better postures and rubrics.

And yet, we all know that things are not what they should be. It is an interesting experiment to travel and attend Sunday Mass at a random parish. You might find wonderful things. Or you might find something else entirely. Having experienced many of the latter, and talking with many other people about their experiences, I here list the top five ways in which the presentation of the liturgy can ruin the liturgical experience.

1. Improvisation of the Liturgical Texts

The problem of celebrants who make up their own words on the spot, in hopes of making the liturgy more chatty and familiar, continues to be a serious annoyance. It is obviously illicit to do so. Celebrants are permitted to break to explain parts of the Mass or provide other special instructions. But they are not permitted to replace liturgical texts with something that they dreamed up on the spot.

This abuse is extremely disorienting and draws undue attention to the personality and personal views of the priest rather than to the theology and ritual prescribed by the Church. It is also ridiculously presumptuous for any one person to imagine that he has a better idea than the liturgical text formed from 2,000 years of tradition.

I have my own theory on why it is so common for celebrants to just make things up on the spot. The older Missal translation dating from 1970 and onward was so casual, chatty, and plain that it encouraged the priest to enter into this world of casual communication. The formality just wasn’t there to encourage a more sober, careful, and accurate presentation. Also, many improvisers just had a sense that the text needed fixing of some sort.

This has changed with the new Missal, and this is all to the good. The new translation is very dignified and requires careful focus. But the habit of riffing around on the prayers remains among many priests.

This is truly tragic for everyone sitting in the pews. If the texts can just be ignored, why shouldn’t the faithful themselves feel free to take what they want and otherwise discard core teachings of the faith? This whole practices encourages a general disrespect for the ritual and even the faith itself.

2. Politicized and Newsy Prayer of the Faithful

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal says of the prayer of the faithful: “The intentions announced should be sober, be composed with a wise liberty and in few words, and they should be expressive of the prayer of the entire community.”

“Wise liberty” seems to be in short supply however. Sometimes these prayers seem like last month’s newspaper, calling to mind events that left the 48-hour news cycle long ago. Or they can seem subtly manipulative, trying to get us to think and believe things about the controversies of the day that are actually more in dispute than the prayer would indicate. A particular annoyance to me are the prayers that are crafted to straddle some kind of triangulating political position that has nothing to do with the liturgy or doctrine or morals.

Most parishes today use pre-printed prayers from private publishers. Some are better than others. The best ones are brief and stick to the formula: prayers for the Church, for public authorities and the salvation of the whole world, for those burdened, and for the local community. The worst ones lead the whole liturgy astray in very distracting ways.

3. Extended and Chatty Sign of the Peace

The rite of peace has a long tradition in the Roman Rite dating to the earliest centuries. It was mostly restricted to the clergy. There are arguments and disputes about whether extending it to the congregation is a revival of a lost tradition or an innovation. Regardless, this much we do know: it is not supposed to be a micro-social hour that encourages people to mill around as if at a cocktail party.

The Missal plainly says that the extension to the congregation is optional. The requirement of the rite is fulfilled in the sanctuary alone. Therefore, if there is an invitation to have the people offer a sign of peace, it should be short. The General Instruction says: “it is appropriate that each person, in a sober manner, offer the sign of peace only to those who are nearest.”

But even this is vague. What is nearest? What if you are the only person in your section of the pew? Do you walk, wave, or just ignore people? And note that no rubric specifies the handshake as the appropriate gesture. We do that just because this is our cultural custom. But is the handshake really liturgical?

In general, this whole part of the Mass invites confusion and awkwardness, and no matter how much we try to solemnize it, it still has more of the feeling of a civic or social activity than a truly liturgical one. At best it is a distraction. At worst, it can result in hurt feelings and all around confusion.

4. Replacing Sung Propers with Something Else

Since the earliest centuries, the liturgy assigned particular scriptural texts to particular liturgical days. This happens at the entrance, the music between readings, the offertory, and the communion. The instructions are very clear: the assigned chant is to be sung. If something else was sung, the words were still said by the priest. And so it was in most countries from the 7th century until quite recently.

Today, the Mass propers are mostly replaced by something else, usually a hymn with words made up by some lyricist. Quite often the results have nothing to do with the liturgy at all. It’s actually remarkable when you think about it. Choirs busy themselves with replacing crucial parts of the liturgy. They just drop them completely. Mostly they do this with no awareness of what they are doing.

How many choirs know that their processional hymn is displacing the assigned entrance? How many know that there is a real antiphon assigned at the offertory and that it is not just a time for the choir to sing its favorite number? How many have read the repeated urgings in the General Instruction to sing the assigned chant or at least use the text in the official choir books rather than just choose a random song loosely based on the theme of the season?

To be sure, this is technically permissible to do, but, truly, this approach “cheats the faithful,” as the Vatican wrote in an instruction in 1969. The propers of the Mass are crucial. They are from scripture. Their Gregorian originals are stunningly evocative of the liturgical spirit and even define it. Even if sung in English or in choral style, the propers are part of the Mass. It should always be seen as regrettable when something else replaces them.

The General Instruction says “Nor is it lawful to replace the readings and Responsorial Psalm, which contain the Word of God, with other, non‐biblical texts.” That’s pretty definitive. But the same rationale should apply to the entrance, offertory, and communion chants as well.

Composed hymns with non-scriptural texts don’t need to be thrown out completely. They can be sung and always will be. But the real liturgical work of the choir is found in the Mass propers. That’s their primary responsibility. There are resources newly available that make it possible for any choir to do the right thing.

5. Percussion

In the first millennium, instruments were not part of the sung Mass, but as time went on, the organ was gradually admitted. By the 17th and 18th centuries, whole orchestras were used in certain locations. Even today you can find places where orchestral Masses are used that include tympani and other percussion instruments.

Most likely, that is not the context in which percussion instruments are used in your parish.

Today we hear conga drums, trap sets, bongos, and other drums played not in the style of Monteverdi processions, or Masses by Haydn or Mozart. Instead we hear them just as we would hear them in a bar or dance hall.

They are used just as they are in the secular world: to keep a beat, to make the music groovy, to inspired us to kind of do a bit of a dance. That’s the association of percussion we have in our culture. It is not a sacred association. The association is entirely profane. There’s a role for that. But Church is not the place and Mass is not the time.

And keep in mind: the piano is a percussion instrument. It has been traditionally banned in Church because it has non-liturgical associations. In today’s anything-goes environment, it is tolerated even by the liturgical regulations. But it is always a regrettable choice. The whole point of liturgical music is to lift our eyes and hearts to heaven, not drag us down to the dance floor.

One final point on this matter: you will notice that many of the songs in the conventional songbooks for Mass today seem to long for a drum-set backup. That’s because their style is borrowed from commercial jingles, TV show theme songs, power ballads from the 1970s, and so on. I don’t entirely blame choirs who choose drums to help out to make this style make more sense. What really needs to change is the whole approach here. Liturgical music has several critical marks: it uses the liturgical text, it grows out of the chant tradition, and sends a cultural signal that this is a sacred action in a sacred place.

Conclusion

A liturgy in which all five errors are committed is going to look and feel very different from one in which all five errors are completely avoided. The former will be random and unhistorical. The latter will be…more like Catholic Mass. It really is up to the pastors, musicians, and leaders in a parish to permit the voice of the liturgy to speak and sing without being impeded by these interventions, which really serve to distract from the beautiful miracle before our eyes.

FINALLY POPE FRANCIS CLARIFIES WHAT IT MEANS TO BECOME A POOR CHURCH: WE DON'T HAVE TO BECOME, QUOTE, "SPIRITUAL BUMS" CLOSED QUOTES! OH, WHAT A RELIEF! HE ALSO TALKS ABOUT ALCOHOL, DRUGS, GAMBLING AND SEX!

BOMBSHELL!, POPE FRANCIS CHANGES THE PARABLE OF THE ONE LOST SHEEP TO THE 99 LOST SHEEP, JESUS LEAVES THE ONE TO GO AND FIND THE 99!!!!


Pope Francis gave a catechesis yesterday afternoon in the Paul VI Hall for the inauguration of the Ecclesial Congress (17-19 June) that concludes the Diocese of Rome's pastoral year. He, as usual, has a way with his words:

The Pope improvised: “The Gospel is for all! Going out toward the poor doesn't mean that we must become paupers or some sort of 'spiritual bums'! No, that's not what it means! It means that we must go towards the flesh of the suffering Jesus but Jesus' flesh also suffers in those who don't know it, with their studies, their intelligence, their culture. We must go there! That's why I like to use the expression 'go to the outskirts', the existential peripheries. Everyone, all of them, [who suffer] from physical and real poverty to intellectual poverty, which is also real. All the outskirts, all the intersections of paths: go there. And there sow the seed of the Gospel by word and by witness.”

And then this little improvised ditty, so very true: I want to tell you something. In the Gospel there's that beautiful passage that tells us of the shepherd who, on returning to the sheepfold and realizing that a sheep is missing, leaves the 99 and goes to look for it, to look for the one. But, brothers and sisters, we have one. It's the 99 who we're missing! We have to go out, we must go to them! In this culture—let's face it—we only have one. We are the minority. And do we feel the fervor, the apostolic zeal to go out and find the other 99? This is a big responsibility and we must ask the Lord for the grace of generosity and the courage and the patience to go out, to go out and proclaim the Gospel.”

And yes, more about the devil, our true enemy: Let us always remember, however, that the Adversary wants to keep us separated from God and therefore instills disappointment in our hearts when we do not see our apostolic commitment immediately rewarded. Every day the devil sows the seeds of pessimism and bitterness in our hearts. … Let us open ourselves to the breath of the Holy Spirit, who never ceases to sow seeds of hope and confidence. Don't forget that God is the strongest and that if we allow him into our lives nothing and no one can oppose his action. So let's not be overcome by the discouragement that we encounter in facing difficulties when we talk of Jesus and the Gospel. Let's not think that faith doesn't have a future in our city!”

And then the pope speaks about the vices including sex: “Even in Rome there are people who live without hope and who are immersed in deep sadness that they try to get out of, believing to have found happiness in alcohol, in drugs, in gambling, in the power of money, in sex without rules. But they find themselves still more dejected and sometimes vent their anger towards life with violent acts that are unworthy of the human person. … We who have discovered the joy of having God for our Father and his love for us, can we stand idly by in front of our brothers and sisters and not proclaim the Gospel to them? We who have found in Jesus Christ, who died and rose again, the meaning of life, can we be indifferent towards this city that asks us, perhaps even unconsciously, for hope? … We are Christians; we are disciples of Jesus not to be wrapped up in ourselves but to open ourselves to others in order to help them, in order to bring them to Christ and to protect every creature.”

And then the pope says we must evangelize everyone: “St. Paul is aware that Jesus—as his name signifies—is the Saviour of all humanity, not just of persons of a certain age or geographical area. The Gospel is for all because God loves everyone and wants to save everyone. The proclamation of the Gospel is destined primarily to the poor, to those who often lack the essentials for a decent life. The good news is first announced to them, that God loves them before all others and comes to visit them through the acts of charity that the disciples of Christ carry out in his name. Others think that Jesus' message is destined to those who don't have cultural training and who therefore find in faith the answer to the many 'whys' that are present in their hearts. Instead, the Apostle strongly affirms that the Gospel is for everyone, even experts. The wisdom that comes from Revelation is not opposed to human wisdom, but rather purifies and elevates it. The Church has always been present in the places where culture develops.”

REFORM OF THE REFORM LITURGICAL BOMBSHELL: "WITH BLESSED JOSEPH, HER SPOUSE" ADDED TO EUCHARISTIC PRAYERS II, III, AND IV!

The prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship has kicked the "reform of the reform" of the liturgy up a notch by decreeing that Blessed Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, be now inserted into the Second, Third and Fourth Eucharistic Prayers. He had been inserted into the Roman Canon in 1962.

This is truly wonderful "reform of the reform" of the Liturgy news under the pontificate of the Bishop of Rome, our Holy Father, Francis. Thank you!

This is how it will be prayed:

Eucharistic Prayer II:
that with the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God,
with Blessed Joseph, her Spouse,
with the blessed Apostles

Eucharistic Prayer III:
with the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God,
with blessed Joseph, her Spouse,
with your blessed Apostles and glorious Martyrs

Eucharistic Prayer IV:
with the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God
with blessed Joseph, her Spouse,
and with your Apostles

Here is the actual decree from the Congregation of Divine Worship:

POPE FRANCIS: LOWER DEFENCES AND OPEN DOORS

Recently Pope Francis told personnel of the Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica (Catholic Civilization), which is published in Italian from Rome to build bridges, not walls all the while remaining faithful to Holy Mother Church and her Magisterium, meaning the pope and the bishops in union with him.

He used three words for them to accomplish this task: dialogue, discernment, and frontier.

1. Dialogue: Through dialogue it is always possible to get closer to the truth, which is a gift of God, and to enrich one another.” Pope Francis reiterated that dialogue means “being convinced that the other has something good to say, making room for their point of view, their opinion, their proposals, without falling, of course, into relativism. For dialogue [to exist] it is necessary to lower the defences and open the doors.”

2. Discernment: Seeks to recognize the Spirit of God's presence in human and cultural reality, the seed already planted by his presence in events, feelings, desires, in the deep tensions of our hearts and in social, cultural, and spiritual contexts.”
Mentioning Fr. Matteo Ricci, S.J., as an example, Francis observed that it is necessary to keep open hearts and minds and to avoid the spiritual illness of self-referentiality. Even the Church, when it becomes self-referential, gets sick and old. May our gaze, well fixed upon Christ, always be prophetic and dynamic towards the future. In this way you will always remain young and daring in your reading of events!”

3. Frontier: Be men of the frontier, with that qualification that comes from God. In today's world, which is subject to quick changes and is shaken by questions of great importance for the life of faith, it is urgent to have a courageous commitment to educating a convinced and mature faith that is capable of giving meaning to life and of giving convincing answers to those in search of God. This means sustaining the Church's activity in all the areas of her mission.

MY COMMENTS: At the risk of being self-referential, aren't blogs, like this one, a way to dialogue with people of different perspectives. I would like to welcome different points of view, but sometime those who comment go after people rather than debate ideas or worse yet, want to run off those with differing perspectives. How can we dialogue with those who are different than us when we want to shut them down? Please, folks, be civil, critique ideas, not people, debate and dialogue.

In terms of discernment, how do we live with a culture that seems to be diametrically opposed to the Church and her God and yet there is some good? The whole "gay" debate for example isn't just about evil but people of good will trying to make life better for those of same sex orientation. Keep in mind, that even 20 years ago, it would have been unthinkable for a priest and Catholics to speak of helping those with gender confusion or same sex attraction to know that they are loved by God. Do we use language that pushes our young people away or attracts them to Christ.

For example, our young people who are heterosexual do not like seeing their friends who have same sex attractions derided or marginalized by a generation that is fearful of homosexuality and overrates their negative effect on society. Our young people have a live and let live policy. How do we uphold the Church's teaching and yet dialogue with culture and yet remain faithful to Christ?

In terms of the sexual orientation wars, Fr. Dawid our Parochial Vicar was a panelist on the topic at Mercer University and clearly presented a position at odds with most in the audience, yet the experience was respectful and Fr. Dawid was able to get the Church's teachings discussed and in a positive way and was able to challenge the prejudices of the audience in a positive way. He could have stayed away and no Catholic perspective would have been heard and in a positive way.

How do we effectively go to the frontier? We Catholics who live in the south have always been a minority. Thus we have to live with a religious culture quite different than our own. Today's religious culture has changed greatly even in the south and secularism is more of a religion than being a Southern Baptist.

Let me share with you my vision of moving forward in today's Church. Liturgically I do believe in a certain amount of pluralism. I am all in favor of the reform in continuity that Pope Benedict kicked into high gear but I don't want to go back to the rigid authoritarianism of the 1950's when adult laity were treated as children and kept infantile. I don't want to be so wrapped up in robotic rubrics that humanity is stamped out in the actions of the priest and assembly for Mass.

What I love about Pope Benedict's reform in continuity is that he made us feel good again about our religious heritage and that what preceded the Second Vatican Council had overwhelming good with some dark spots. And isn't that true today, especially with the major problems in the Roman Curia and yes, in the post-Vatican II Church?

So I love the EF Mass but I love the OF Mass and realize that the OF Mass is going to be the Mass that most Catholics love and prefer. But the OF Mass needs the solemnity and reverence of the EF Mass even with its noble simplicity and encouragement of verbal and sung participation--it wouldn't take much to make the OF Mass more in continuity with the EF from which it morphed. This is desirable. Going forward with this means we might make some mistakes, ruffle some feathers, even the bishop's feathers, but forward we must go, not backwards to a time prior to the EF's liberalization or the reform of the reform.

THE WACKY LEFT, LEFT BEHIND

At a wacky-left mocking of a Catholic liturgy, during a so-called "ordination" of a womyn priest, the reporter stated the following:

The Communion bread, symbolizing the body of Christ, was gluten-free. The congregation prayed to “our mother our father in heaven.” Unlike during traditional Mass, Rue did not hand each parishioner a piece of the Eucharist while declaring, “The body of Christ.” Instead, Sophia’s members passed the plate of bread around the circle. Each took a piece, looked at his or her neighbor, said, “You are the body of Christ” and passed the plate along.

Then Rue prayed: “May God bless you and keep you. May she be gracious to you. May she lift up the light of her countenance upon you. And may our good God give you peace.

“Mass has ended,” she intoned.

“And the service has just begun,” the group responded.

These sentences pretty much sums up the substance of the wacky left and what Pope Benedict decries as fundamentally, horizontalism. There is no substance and certainly no transubstantiation! But in that one sentence I was brought back to the 1970's seminary days when liturgy was manipulated for social change and fads concerning the liturgy were really promoted. It was so important that congregational members bake the bread for the liturgy, which often tasted more like honey buns than bread and created more problems in terms of storing it as it didn't have a very long shelf life.

The focus was always on the signs of the liturgy and seldom on Christ Himself. In fact there was a diminished belief in the "real presence" of Christ in favor of the real presence of the sign, whatever that sign.

Let me see, if I lived in a town that had a wacky-breakaway, schismatic, ceasing to be Catholic Church and a a Baptist Church only, which one would I attend? The Baptist Church!

And let me see, if there was only a wacky, schismatic far left so-called Catholic Church, and a SSPX Church, which one would I attend? You guessed it.

The wacky left and the righteous right are miles apart, it is true. But at least the righteous right is orthodox like the Orthodox Church and of the two, the SSPX and the Orthodox Church, which one is schismatic? The Orthodox one is, of course, but the SSPX isn't yet, but it has great potential, similar to the schism between east and west, but at least the SSPX, like the Orthodox, is orthodox in substance and in living every day Catholic life. The wacky left? They are post Catholic and have lost all semblance of Catholicism even in everyday life--they aren't Christian, they are WACKY.

A NICER VERSION OF THE TRIBUTE TO MONSIGNOR JOHN CUDDY ON THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS ORDINATION

Monsignor Cuddy is now 85 years old, lives in assisted living nearby and celebrated his 60th anniversary of ordination in May. He was pastor here from 1974 until 2004. Mr. Lovel Miguel created this wonderful slide tribute:

And Bishop Emeritus J. Kevin Boland's homily for the Mass:

WOW! SAINT MARY, HELP OF CHRISTIANS, AIKEN, SOUTH CAROLINA TO BUILD MAGNIFICENT NEW CHURCH--REFORM OF THE REFORM!

The plans for their stunning new almost $9 million Church!

Their lovely old Church, which will be preserved and in addition to that, they have an even older smaller church next to it built in the 1800's which serves as their perpetual adoration chapel!

The Augusta Chronicle has a wonderful story on Aiken, South Carolina's plans to break ground for a new church building. You can read it here!

Saint Mary, Help of Christians Church (press here) is about 16 miles away from downtown Augusta where I was pastor of The Church of the Most Holy Trinity from 1991 to 2004. And of course I'm from Augusta. Aiken, South Carolina is a very well to do "horse town." In fact the horse that won the Belmont race last week lives and trains in Aiken! Aiken also has a huge number of nuclear scientists living there. The Savannah River Plant is there, which was built in the 1950's. Locals have always called it the bomb plant as it makes the major component for nuclear bombs. At its height during the cold war it employed almost 30,000 people. Today it no longer makes nuclear bombs as its primary mission is cleaning up the nuclear waste they have. In fact I glow in the dark! They are down to about 15,000 workers.

In 1962, when I was in the 4th grade, during the Cuban Missal Crisis, we Augustans knew that we would be the first to be annihilated by the Soviets when the nuclear war was to begin because of this bomb plant! As a 4th grader it was all very exciting and we practiced our "duck and cover" routine regularly. The day that the annihilation was to happen, my mother, with tears in her eyes as we were sent to school told us that if anything happened to come home right away! Oh, those where the days!

MEDIA MANIPULATION OF CATHOLICS IN THE MARRIAGE DEBATE AND WOMEN'S ORDINATION DEBATE

AP has an internet story about what the Pope didn't say about marriage as though this is some kind of a bombshell. You can read their spin HERE.

The gist of the AP story is in the following: Pope Francis waded diplomatically into the gay marriage debate Friday, telling the Archbishop of Canterbury he wants to work together to promote family values "based on marriage."

Francis, who vigorously opposed gay marriage in his native Argentina, and Archbishop Justin Welby chatted, prayed and had lunch together at the Vatican in their first encounter since both were installed in March.

Welby, the spiritual leader of the 77 million-strong Anglican Communion, has opposed proposed legislation in Britain that would legalize gay marriage, saying it seeks to abolish and redefine the institution and would weaken one of the cornerstones of society.

He delivered a speech last week before the House of Lords before it moved the gay marriage bill one step closer to becoming law. The legislation would enable gay couples to get married in both civil and religious ceremonies in England and Wales.

In his remarks to Welby, Francis said he hoped they could collaborate in promoting the sacredness of life "and the stability of families founded on marriage." He noted that Welby had recently spoken out on the issue, a reference to his House of Lords speech.

Significantly, though, Francis didn't specify that marriage should be based on a union between a man and woman, which is how Benedict XVI and John Paul II routinely defined it in a way that made clear their opposition to same-sex marriage.

MY COMMENTS: The last paragraph seems to be grasping at straws. When the Bishop of Rome, any bishop in union with him, a priest or a deacon speaks of marriage in a religious context, he is speaking of marriage, not some bogus remake of it. Would AP deduce from Pope Francis' remarks that polygamy is okay since he wasn't specific of two people of whatever gender. You get my drift.

The Catholic Church is very clear on what marriage is and what it isn't. Does Pope Francis really need to go into specifics?

Just this morning in the Macon Telegraph's religion section, the headline was: "Women Becoming Priests Without Vatican Blessing." You can read the story HERE.

The gist of that story can be found in the following ridiculous statement:

The priest was ordained in a purple Lutheran church. The Communion bread, symbolizing the body of Christ, was gluten-free. The congregation prayed to “our mother our father in heaven.”

But the real departure from Roman Catholic tradition was evident when Maria Eitz approached the altar one Sunday last month for the laying on of hands that turns parishioner into priest.

MY FINAL COMMENT: The reporter either has an agenda or is extremely stupid about the Catholic Church or both.