Two years ago, the Archdiocese of Washington decided to end the Traditional Latin Mass at Old St. Mary and five other parishes. Like much of the Church, the Archdiocese had been experiencing rapid decline for decades. That decline was exacerbated by the revelation of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's sex abuse in the 2018 "Summer of Shame." But through it all, the seven parishes with the TLM were among its most thriving and generous in the Archdiocese.
The restoration and reopening of Notre-Dame in Paris was perhaps unthinkable to those who watched the great cathedral burn on April 15, 2019. What has been as beautiful as seeing the cleaned and restored cathedral is the fact that the general public clearly preferred making Notre-Dame look exactly as she was.
However, as we have seen before, bishops from the left just can't let beauty stand on its own without doing something to destroy it. While the secular government of France heard the will of the people and heeded their desire for a traditional restoration of Notre-Dame, the archbishop of Paris first fought to redesign the interior to create a museum instead of side altars and confessionals, then hired a furniture maker to design a hideous table-altar, lectern, tabernacle and baptismal font. He just could not let Notre-Dame look like a traditional cathedral without something from the Vatican II era inserted to ruin the day. Next up is a contest to replace stained glass windows with modernist designs.
This past weekend, though, we got to witness how the archbishop of Paris spent an undisclosed amount of money on ghastly new vestments. Not just a few -- but thousands of them. In fact, the archdiocese's website originally announced they hired the modern designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac to produce "700 liturgical garments" for the cathedral's reopening.
Cross-posted from the FIUV website.
The Council of Una Voce International has voted to welcome the
as a member of the Federation.
We have been in touch with a founders of this association for some years, and are delighted that they have taken the step to establish a formal association and to apply for membership of the Federation.
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| The Traditional Mass celebrated in Korea |
Korea takes its place among a good number of associations in south east Asia: China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, and the Philippines. These are all nations with a rich Catholic heritage, going back to the 16th century, and with their own saints and martyrs who were formed in the Traditional Mass.
(Reposted, for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Sunday, December 8, 2024.)
In omnibus Ipsa primatum tenens
By Fr Serafino M. Lanzetta
Christ is first
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The semi-official daily newspaper of the French bishops, La Croix, had news on this startling development yesterday: the greatest Traditional pilgrimage in the world (and largest Catholic pilgrimage in France) under threat.
From our friends at French blog Le Salon Beige:
The Vatican may ban the celebration of the traditional Mass at the Chartres pilgrimage. According to information gathered by La Croix:
Our friends from Arouca Press have just re-published a masterpiece on the Kingship of Christ:
XIII Books, our new imprint dedicated to the social doctrine of the Church, is proud to release a new edition of Father Joseph Husslein’s masterful book, The Reign of Christ, a magnificent exegesis of Pope Pius XI’s encyclical “On the Feast of Christ the King” (Quas Primas) perfectly timed to celebrate its centennial in 2025.
First Sunday in Advent
December 1, 2024
Fr. Richard G. Cipolla
I knew that morning that I had forgotten something important. I had the idea that I misplaced something. I checked my phone, my ipad, no they were there, I who insisted that I would never have these devices now wedded to them as if they contained my life. My car keys, house keys, all there. But there was this stubborn thought, this feeling that I had misplaced something important. If I could remember what it was I needed to remember I could look for it. But I have done this before: I have gone to the pantry to get something to add to what I was cooking and then forgot what it was I had to get. But it always came back.
This Sunday, the first of the ecclesiastical year, is called, in the chronicles and charts of the middle ages, Ad te levavi Sunday, from the first words of the Introit; or, Aspiciens a longe, from the first words of one of the responsories of Matins.
My thanks to the Wall Street Journal, which published my op-ed on Christmas music.
Some excerpts:
Radio Has the Christmas Season All Mixed Up
The lyrics of holiday pop songs tend be anticipatory rather than celebratory, which is why stations pull them on Dec. 26
By Kenneth J. Wolfe, Wall Street Journal, November 25, 2024The Christmas season gets going earlier and earlier in the U.S., often before Thanksgiving. Artificial pine trees and colorful string lights start popping up at the beginning of November.
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| Fr Stefan Pfluger, SSPX |
There seems to be confusion on the feast of the Immaculate Conception this year, as December 8 falls on a Sunday. Although the novus ordo transfers the Marian feast day to December 9 this year, with conservative dioceses emphasizing the obligation to hear Mass both Sunday and Monday, it is worth noting the rubric governing the traditional Latin Mass:
"Sunday I class takes precedence over all feasts in occurrence. The feast of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, however, takes precedence over the Sunday in Advent on which it falls."
Chapter 3, #15 of the rubrics
Rorate has been sent the following announcement for a new Traditional Catholic app:
A new Traditional Catholic app, Sanctifica, has been recently created and is available for free to help Catholics access and leverage treasures of the Catholic faith. Users can immerse themselves with the liturgy and traditions through the timeless wisdom of Dom Guéranger's "Liturgical Year" combined with Butler's Lives of the Saints and other great resources.
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| Thomas Cole, Destruction, 1836 (The New-York Historical Society) |
The triumph of Donald Trump has been the latest proof, of planetary dimensions in this case, of a reality that has been apparent for some years now. What was crucial was not Trump's triumph, for which I am very happy, but the crushing defeat not so much of Kamala Harris, a poor and mediocre wretch, but of the media, unconditional and indispensable allies of world progressivism. We had seen the same phenomenon last year in more modest dimensions with the triumph of Javier Milei in Argentina, and the astonishing popular support he retains after a year in office, and in other countries in the Americas and Europe -- but the American case, like it or not, is paradigmatic. In a few words, it has been demonstrated to the whole world that a change of Age is at hand.
This December 22 will be the 50th anniversary of the martyrdom of Carlos Alberto Sacheri, besieged by a commando of the terrorist group ERP (People's Revolutionary Army), when he was returning from Mass with his family. I do not hesitate to recognize that his death was a martyrdom, fruit of his charity. In the history of the Church there is a history of martyrdom. What makes a martyr such is not the suffering imposed on the martyr, but the charity that impels him to embrace the Cross. Charity, I stress, the agape of the New Testament. The martyr, with Christian fortitude, surrenders to death.
The Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, has gone through a lot in the last couple years, with severe restrictions, segregation and suppressions of traditional Latin Masses, plus a ban on all other sacraments by diocesan priests.
But the good priests and the laity carry on, filling the gyms, attics and parish halls where the TLM is allowed, and rearranging their lives to comply with three parishes that have temporary indults for the TLM with a condition that once a month we must go elsewhere for the traditional liturgy.
One example of marching forward can be found with traditional vocations. In a front-page article of the new Arlington Catholic Herald, the diocesan newspaper, a feature on all of the women religious from Arlington who have entered the Benedictines of Mary can be found.
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Although it would have been nice of the diocesan paper to include the words Latin Mass -- or even Latin -- at least once in the article, it is still a positive action to have a front-page article about a flourishing Latin Mass-based order of sisters.
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| PRUDENTIA: "Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves." |
The current regime in charge of the Vatican cannot remain in place forever. At nearly 88, Francis is not getting any younger.
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by Fr. Richard G. Cipolla
Pope Francis has famously said that a true priest should have the smell of his sheep on him. Those may be the best words that have come from the mouth of this pope, at least so far. Those words should be taken to heart by those career priests who have never tasted the stew of parish life, many of whom wander around the corridors of the Vatican bureaucracy as well as those in the bureaucracy of diocesan headquarters just talking to each other. No lambs, no smell.
October 31, 2024
The Synod that closed on Oct. 27 at the Vatican seemed like an attempt by Pope Francis to put out the fire set by the German bishops with their “synodal way” launched in January 2020. The ambitious goal that the progressive bishops, not only the German ones, set for themselves was to take a decisive step forward from the 2019 Pan-Amazonian Synod in 2024, achieving the diaconal ordination of women, the marriage -- under certain conditions -- of priests, the implementation of the LGBT agenda, and the granting of doctrinal authority to bishops' conferences. None of this is present in the Final Document approved on Oct. 26. A document that displeased everyone and caused Vaticanist Andrea Gagliarducci to write that “there are neither winners nor losers” (“Aci Stampa,” Oct. 26, 2024).
A retired priest, Rev. Gerald Bednar, in the Diocese of Cleveland -- the former vice rector of the seminary there -- had a letter to the editor published in the Wall Street Journal, taking an opportunity to oppose reciting the Saint Michael prayer after Mass, which is done at nearly all traditional Latin Low Masses, as well as a growing number of novus ordo liturgies in conservative parishes.
Father Bednar's letter from a few days ago follows. So does one, published in today's paper, from His Excellency Thomas John Paprocki, bishop of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois.
Our thanks to Bishop Paprocki for a succinct response and defense.
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Wall Street Journal; October 22, 2024
St. Michael Is Out of Place At the End of Catholic Mass
Contemplate the Maternal Priesthood of Mary.
By Karen Darantière
“It’s so insulting to keep on saying that the only valid role that will get the approval of this pope is to be nurturing, is to be a mother, while you can be nurturing and mothering and be a priest.” (1) So says Miriam Duignan, an advocate of female ordination and of abortion, in response to comments against the female diaconate made by Pope Francis, recently reiterated by Cardinal Fernandez. One cannot help but wonder at the extraordinarily successful propagandizing which has enabled this incongruous coupling of “only” with “mother”. Future generations will be dumbstruck by how readily women espoused such a degradation of their most sublime vocation. Undoubtedly, such feminists nonetheless nurture a glimmer of hope due to the Pope inviting the Synod on Synodality to discuss the possibility of the ontologically impossible. For, after duly debating thesis and antithesis, the Synod may render a synthesis more suited to their tastes. (2) However, a better response might be proposed to disgruntled feminists: Turn your gaze upon Mary, who alone is both Mother and Priest.
“A Priest Before God’s Altar”: The Mother’s Share in the Priesthood of the Son
The “Traditional Ordinariate”: A Ghetto for Traditionalists?
Fr. Antoine-Marie de Araujo
Fraternity of Saint Vincent Ferrer, France
In a recent article, Father de Blignières proposed the creation of a “traditional ordinariate,” similar to that created in Brazil for the Union of Saint Jean-Marie Vianney and to the personal ordinariates created for Anglicans who wish to join the Catholic Church while preserving their traditions. (1) This complementary hierarchical structure would allow the faithful to have access to the sacraments in the old Latin rite and to benefit from the traditional disciplines and teachings. Father de Blignières’ proposal is specifically intended for France, but people in other countries could ask for a similar “traditional ordinariate.”
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| The "Abrahamic Family House" promoted by Pope Francis |
[Rorate note: the article below reflects exclusively the position of the author, and not of the blog. As usual, the blog is open to posting different positions on current matters, even if they may differ from our editorial lines.]
What Are the Consequences of Francis’s Theology?
John Lamont
Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”(John 18:38)
I dreamed the other night I was dying. The priest came, and the only question I asked him as he was anointing me was this: “How will I recognize him? How will I know it is He? The priest whispered in my year: “The one with the crown, that’s how you will know whom to go to.” Of course! The crown, the one with the crown, that’s how I will know whom to go to! Of course, the crown, the King, the King of heaven! That’s how I will be able to tell, and in this situation, it is crucial to recognize the King, for to get into heaven you have to know the King. And so I died, and I found myself looking into the eyes of a stranger, yet someone I vaguely knew, but still a stranger, and someone not wearing a crown. But he had his hands outstretched to me, waiting for me to approach. But there was no crown, so this was a trick, so I went on looking. And then I saw someone in the distance. As I walked toward him, he walked toward me. I began to run now, for I could see a crown on his head. This was it, the key to heaven, the end of the game. I had won! And before I could stop myself, I ran into the mirror, the mirror shattered, and I was alone in the darkness, where I heard bitter lamentations all around me.
