O God, at Whose Passion, according to the prophecy of Simeon, a sword of sorrow pierced the most sweet soul of the glorious Virgin and Mother Mary: mercifully grant, that we who with veneration ponder her sorrows may obtain the happy fruit of Thy Passion: Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end, Amen.
In my fantasy, what is needed at precisely this point in the scene in today’s gospel is for Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof to bring down the house with his rendition of Tradition. Tradishuun! Tradishuun! How many bad but endearing productions have we seen of this endearing musical in high school performances where a blond blue eyed lacrosse player takes the part of a peasant Russian Jew and belts out “Tradition”? But there is a conflict between Tevye and his children: and the basis of the conflict is Tradition with a capital T.
And that is the conflict in today’s gospel between Jesus and the Pharisees. That Jesus chooses to eat with the Pharisees, he goes to their houses and invites himself to dinner to me is a striking example of his authenticity, because it is so unreligious, so unpietistical to do so.
The clash here, which is a foretaste of the ultimate clash that leads to the Cross, is between the understanding of Tradition, again, with a capital T. We all know that this clash has nothing to do with Christmas trees and turkey on Thanksgiving and something borrowed, something blue—all traditions—not to be scoffed at, but in the end, just traditions. The Pharisees have a corner on the Tradition of Judaism, or so they think. For they identify the Tradition with the Law, especially the complex everyday application of the Law. And Jesus comes into this situation, not as an outsider, but as a Jew who has invited himself to this dinner, and by his very person and presence challenges the Pharisees’ understanding of Tradition.
Dear readers,
If your mass (Sunday or weekday) has been suppressed following the advent of the new letter by Francis that reverted Summorum Pontificum, please let us know -- either by direct message on Twitter or by e-mail (newcatholic@gmail.com).
Thank you, and God have mercy!
[Update: Many readers have sent us news: we are updating them in this Twitter thread that starts with the tweet below (click for more updates). Please, keep sending us your information of suppression in your area, thank you!]
All 4 TLM Masses outside the Personal Parish of St John Henry Newman have been cancelled in the Archdiocese of Melbourne
— Rorate Caeli (@RorateCaeli) July 18, 2021
[Second Update: Originally published July 18, 2021, 6 p.m. UTC; the latest inclusions of suppressions and limitations were made today, Sep. 11, 2021: Atlanta and Paris. Regarding the very first item in the Twitter thread, we have learned that all TLMs previously taking place in the Melbourne Archdiocese have been restored, after Aug. 28.]
Basta! - Enough!
That was the tone of Francis to the bishops of France -- the first group to proceed to the periodical Ad Limina Visit to Rome met with him earlier today (it was the group of the bishops of the South of France and Eastern Catholics).
French Catholic weekly Famille Chrétienne has a summary of the visit, including this paragraph on Traditionis custodes:
Motu proprio: "It is necessary to establish a limit, and basta."
Regarding the Motu proprio Traditionis custodes, the pope, "insisted on the fact that it must be avoided that the celebration of the ancient rite be a pretext to refuse Vatican II." "A limit must be established, and basta," he insisted before the French prelates, so that a liturgical attachment will not be the façade for an ideological position. At the same time, the successor of Peter encouraged them to adopt a "paternal attitude" towards the faithful.
***
A short video of the visit below, from the Twitter account of the French Episcopal Conference:
The
interview was conducted by Alessandro Rico and published in La Verità on September 6, 2021.
Aldo Maria Valli, historian and highly-esteemed Vatican expert for the RAI (Italian Radio and TV), runs the blog Duc in Altum from which he has been courageously criticizing the ambiguity and the confusion of Pope Francis’ papacy for years now. We ask his informed opinion on the recent rumours about Pope Francis’s’ possible imminent abdication. Pope Francis has denied this (“I have no intention of resigning”), but declared that as soon as the health of a Pope deteriorates, there is feeling “that a conclave is in the air”.
The Wall Street Journal's Rome reporter, Francis X. Rocca, published a piece online today that will run in Saturday's paper, looking at what the traditional Latin Mass means to those who attend it.
It is an honest, opinion-free report of Catholics, young and old, who prefer the TLM. Rocca has consistently written articles for the WSJ that feature a diversity of views and people -- the opposite of other mainstream media, such as the New York Times or Reuters, which rely on the same tired sources. Seriously, look at most other mainstream news articles on Catholic issues and you will likely find John Carr, Thomas Reese, John Gehring, Massimo Faggioli or James Martin in just about every article. Mainstream media are notorious for either an obvious slant or one-sided perspective from this small group of men who feed lazy reporters by completing their preconstructed narrative concerning traditional Catholics.
Those in Lincoln, Nebraska, know the Washington Post was on the ground there recently for an upcoming article. Hopefully the Post matches the WSJ's fair treatment of Catholics who attend and love the traditional Latin Mass.
Cross-posted on LMSChairman.org
The Superiors General of the Fraternity of St Peter, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, the Institute of the Good Shepherd, and a number of other Superiors General of priestly institutes and religious communities attached to the Traditional Mass (including three communities of women), have issued a joint letter in response to Traditionis Custodes. Here it is, on the FSSP website. It is addressed to the Bishops of France, not, as some have assumed, to the Holy See.
Nativity of Our Lady & Perpetual Promise of an Oblate
Several of the Masses will be in the Traditional Rite or the Ordinariate use: please support this display of love and devotion for Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament and His Kingship. (More information here -- and here for the programme of events.)
LETTER OF THE FAITHFUL ATTACHED TO THE TRADITIONAL MASS
TO THE CATHOLICS OF THE WHOLE WORLD
What father, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? (Mt 7, 9)
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
It is with great sadness that we learned of Pope Francis' decision to abrogate the main provisions of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, promulgated by Pope Benedict XVI on July 7, 2007. After decades of divisions and quarrels, that Motu Proprio was, for all the Catholic faithful, a work of peace and reconciliation.
Rome violates the word given by Pope Benedict XVI with brutality and intransigence, far from the much vaunted fraternal welcoming.
In light of Pope Francis’s frivolous and offensive remark about how doing the readings at Mass in Latin would be “like laughing at the Word of God,” it seemed opportune to republish here at Rorate an article first published eight years ago in The Latin Mass magazine (Summer 2013), with slight revisions. Although my thinking on all of these points has developed and deepened, it has done so in precisely the same direction. Those who, moreover, think that Francis’s July 16 motu proprio requires replacing Latin readings with vernacular ones should read two articles that argue the contrary, here and here.—PAK
"The mercy of the Lord is upon all flesh."
(Sirach 18, 13)
The signatory Institutes want, above all, to reiterate their love for the Church and their fidelity to the Holy Father. This filial love is tinged with great suffering today. We feel suspected, marginalized, banished. However, we do not recognize ourselves in the description given in the accompanying letter of the Motu Proprio Traditionis custodes, of July 16, 2021.
"If we say we have no sin ..." (I John 1, 8)
We do not see ourselves as the "true Church" in any way. On the contrary, we see in the Catholic Church our Mother in whom we find salvation and faith. We are loyally subject to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Pontiff and that of the diocesan bishops, as demonstrated by the good relations in the dioceses (and the functions of Presbyteral Councillor, Archivist, Chancellor, or Official which have been entrusted to our members), and the result of canonical or apostolic visits of recent years. We reaffirm our adherence to the magisterium (including that of Vatican II and what follows), according to the Catholic doctrine of the assent due to it (cf. in particular Lumen Gentium, n ° 25, and Catechism of the Catholic Church , n ° 891 and 892), as evidenced by the numerous studies and doctoral theses carried out by several of us over the past 33 years.
Have any mistakes been made? We are ready, as every Christian is, to ask forgiveness if some excess of language or mistrust of authority may have crept into any of our members. We are ready to convert if party spirit or pride has polluted our hearts.
"Fulfill your vows unto the Most High" (Psalm 49:14)
We beg for a humane, personal, trusting dialogue, far from ideologies or the coldness of administrative decrees. We would like to be able to meet a person who will be for us the face of the Motherhood of the Church. We would like to be able to tell him about the suffering, the tragedies, the sadness of so many lay faithful around the world, but also of priests, men and women religious who gave their lives trusting on the word of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston in Texas is the fifth largest diocese in the U.S., a result of the explosive growth around the City of Houston -- the fourth largest city in the U.S. -- and its surrounding counties. It has a massive priest shortage, with just 150 active archdiocesan priests of the 435 priests serving, retired or residing in the 146-parish archdiocese. There are 411 "permanent deacons" in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.
Joseph was born in Oies, in Val Badia, a village in the meadows and woods at the foot of high mountains, on April 15 1852, into a family of peasants of deep faith. He was a Tyrolean, or more precisely a Ladin, a subject of Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria-Hungary. The Ladins are a linguistic community spread through several valleys of the Dolomites and served by the diocese of Bressanone. It was in this small town in South Tyrol that Joseph was ordained a priest on July 25 1875. He made the choice to become a missionary and entered the Society of the Divine Word founded a few years earlier by Saint Arnold Janssen (1837-1909).
From an interview granted by Francis to Spanish Catholic radio COPE:
[Q.] I don’t know if Pope Francis is a man who likes to bang his fist on the table. Would it be possible that the last blow on the table has been the pontifical document limiting the celebration of the ‘Tridentine Masses’? And I also ask you to explain to my audience what the ‘Tridentine Mass’ is, what is it about the Tridentine Mass that is not mandatory.
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| Christ unrolls the scroll at the Synagogue at Nazareth [Lk. 4] James Tissot (c. 1890), Brooklyn Museum |
Several weeks ago, Fr Albert Marcello wrote of the commemoration (in the nontechnical sense of the word) of Tisha B'Av within the propers at Mass. What Fr Marcello noticed is not an isolated incident. There are a number of commemorations of holidays from the Jewish calendar in the propers of the ancient Latin liturgy, which do not appear in the Novus Ordo.
I have complied a list of all of the ones that I have noticed, and explain in bold how they correspond to the holiday, if it is not obvious. Altogether there are commemorations of all the major Jewish Holy Days and feasts, roughly at the same time they occur in the Jewish calendar, with the exception of Chanukkah. I do not know, from an historical perspective, when each of these entered the Roman rite, but perhaps there is a liturgical historian out there who would be able to explain [1].
The feasts are, as follows:
1. Rosh Hashanah [The New Year]
As anticipated by Messa in Latino yesterday, Msgr. Guido Marini's appointment as Bishop of Tortona was included today, August 29, in the Vatican Bollettino.
The same announcement was made at the Santuario della Madonna della Guardia by the Archbishop of Genoa, Marco Tasca OFMConv. Msgr. Marini was present and Tasca placed the purple zucchetto on the new Bishop-elect right after.
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| Saint Pius V prays before the Dead Christ (Michele Parrasio, 1572) |
In
Chapter 4, Don Pietro turns to consider
the Council’s teaching on the Church and State. He explains how the Church has
a duty not only to Her members, but also to the entire world. Her role in
regard to the State is to guide Kings and governors to promote the best
interests of their citizens, i.e. in the final analysis the attainment of
eternal life in Heaven, such as has been the constant teaching of Holy Mother
Church. Readers will be amazed to learn that an
entirely new political vision was to supplant this teaching, a vision which
originates in Freemasonry and of which the most notable fruits are the Declarations of the French
Revolution and the American Constitution, namely, the total separation of
Church and State. The genius behind this devastating work of destruction was
the American Jesuit, Father John Courtney Murray, who, unbelievably, was the
author of all the speeches of the five bishops calling for these changes. F.R.
A Regrettable Step Backwards
A BUZZ IN THE VATICAN: A CONCLAVE IS IN THE AIR. HOW AND WHY POPE BERGOGLIO COULD LEAVE
In the Vatican, there is an ever greater mention of a new Conclave. Pope Francis would in fact have expressed his intention to leave.
This December, among other things, he will turn 85, which is the same age as that of Benedict XVI at the time of his resignation. But the reason for Bergoglio's resignation would not primarily be his age, but the state of health that came under the spotlight in a sudden and unexpected way with his surgery, last July 4, at the Gemelli Hospital.
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| High Mass in Westminster Cathedral for the Latin Mass Society. Photo by John Aron |
Cross-posted from LMSChairman.
A number of American writers claim that Traditionis Custodes should
spur priests to make their celebration of Mass more reflective of the
liturgical tradition. Others commentators, including a number of bishops
implementing it, apparently think the opposite.
Those in favor of the first interpretation can cite a couple of passages from the Letter to Bishops which accompanied Traditionis Custodes. Pope Francis quotes Pope Benedict complaining about liturgical abuses—“unbearable distortions”; later he remarks:
Whoever wishes to celebrate with
devotion according to earlier forms of the liturgy can find in the reformed
Roman Missal according to Vatican Council II all the elements of the Roman
Rite, in particular the Roman Canon which constitutes one of its more
distinctive elements.
The Roman Canon being Eucharistic Prayer I in the reformed
Missal.
FROM SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM TO TRADITIONES CUSTODES: CHRONICLE OF A PASTORAL DISASTER IN COSTA RICA
by Augustine Aksala*
I feel the need to write this chronicle due to the concern expressed in different parts of the world to know clearly what is happening in Costa Rica after the promulgation of the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes.
On July 7, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI published his apostolic letter in the form of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. With this document, the Pope established that it was licit to celebrate the sacraments with the liturgical books prior to the post-conciliar liturgical reform. Thus, in the Roman Rite there was an ordinary form and an extraordinary form, and no priest needed any permission to celebrate Holy Mass with the 1962 missal, edited by St. John XXIII. Moreover, the faithful who requested it were to be admitted to such celebrations.
A young boy. A symbol of a wide open future ahead of us.
In the Pontifical Mass celebrated in Philadelphia's Cathedral-Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul on the Feast of the Assumption, a very small boy was photographed at the Communion Rail. His eyes are bright with expectation: he has certainly been taught enough about Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
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| High Mass in Westminster Cathedral for the Latin Mass Society Sat 14th August |
(Cross-posted from LMSChairman blog.)
Michael Sean Winters has written an attack, mainly on an article by Michael Brendan Dougherty (MBD), and it is interest to contrast MBD's sometimes artless sincerity and distress with Winters' manipulation of the facts and instrumentalisation of Pope Francis. For Winters Traditionis Custodes is not about the liturgy at all: it is an instrument of political power. This is what theology and spirituality has come down to for Winters and his little gang.
Winters' words in black, my comments in red and indented.
For those of our readers who live in or near St. Louis, Missouri, you will not want to miss this truly magnificent festival of Catholic devotion to the patron saint of the city. Details in the poster. All are welcome.
With a goal of reaching 10 million Catholics, an incredible new documentary on the traditional Latin Mass premiered on YouTube last night, and can now be watched any time with the entire family.
Executive produced by Harrison Butker, one of the best (and current) NFL kickers who part times as a TLM server, Mass of the Ages exceeded expectations in both production and content.
With the horrors of Traditionis Custodes closing in on many traditional Catholics around the world, the need to both educate, and inspire, as many Catholics as possible is critical and urgent.
You may watch episode 1, below.
To help fund the project and ensure they can market it to as many people as possible, CLICK HERE.
“And Mary said: ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoiceth in God my savior.’” (Luke 1:46)
Two women: so different, yet women, these two women whose role in the destiny of the human race have been pivotal. Their importance transcends that of any mere man who has paraded across the pages of history. Compared to these two women, pharaohs, emperors, kings, Wall Street whizzes, tech giants: whatever the power on the stage of history, nothing compares with these two women. Secular feminism is blind to all of this, for whatever is purely secular is blind to the reality of the spiritual, is blind to that Spirit that blows through humankind from the beginning, that Spirit that brooded over the waters, that Spirit that gave the amorphous lump of clay life and called him Adam.
Doubt has taken hold of Western thought. Intellectuals and politicians alike describe the same impression of collapse. Faced with the breakdown of solidarity and the disintegration of identities, some turn to the Catholic Church. ... But is the Church capable of responding to these calls? Certainly, she has already played this role of guardian and transmitter of civilization. ...
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| [Cardinal Sarah at the Abbey of Saint Mary of Lagrasse] |
Without a sacred foundation, every bond becomes fragile and fickle. Some ask the Catholic Church to play this solid foundation role. They would like to see her assume a social function, namely to be a coherent system of values, a cultural and aesthetic matrix. But the Church has no other sacred reality to offer than her faith in Jesus, God made man. Her sole goal is to make possible the encounter of men with the person of Jesus. Moral and dogmatic teaching, as well as mystical and liturgical patrimony, are the setting and the means of this fundamental and sacred encounter. Christian civilization is born of this encounter. Beauty and culture are its fruits. ...
What is sacred for the Church, then, is the unbroken chain that links her with certainty to Jesus. A chain of faith without rupture or contradiction, a chain of prayer and liturgy without breakage or disavowal. Without this radical continuity, what credibility could the Church still claim? ...
Brethren, I make known unto you the Gospel which I preached to you, which also you have received and wherein you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast after what manner I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all, which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures; and that He was seen by Cephas, and after that by the eleven. Then was He seen by more than five hundred brethren at once; of whom many remain until this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. (I Corinthians, 1-4.)
The opening line of the recent Motu Proprio from Pope Francis begins with two Latin words: Traditionis Custodes. This refers to the bishops of the Church, including the Bishop of Rome with his special role in the Church. What these words mean in English is “guardians of the Tradition.” The bishops are the guardians of Catholic Tradition. We all know what a guardian is, someone who takes careful care of something or someone given to him to make sure that what he has been entrusted with is not damaged but rather is nourished and preserved in an authentic way. But many Catholics do not fully understand what the Tradition of the Catholic faith is. One cannot be a guardian of something that one does not understand.
