Order of Preachers embracing liturgy of founder

On today's feast of Saint Dominic we share a bit of hope with readers, concerning the Order of Friars Preachers (aka the Dominicans).

This past Sunday the Dominican vocations office of the Province of Saint Joseph, which represents the northeastern portion of the United States, publicized a Dominican rite Mass for "young men, 18-35 years old, considering a vocation to the Order of Preachers."

EVENT: 4th Summorum Conference in Rome (Angelicum, June 13-14, 2015)

Program Below:

Sacred Music by Friars Preachers: Album In Medio Ecclesiae

The venerable Dominican Rite, just years ago mostly forgotten and limited to small congregations such as the Fraternity of St. Vincent Ferrer (France), has since Summorum Pontificum experienced a spectacular rebirth within the Order of Friars Preachers itself, particularly in America. This has also been accompanied by a new interest in the field of Sacred Music, traditional Dominican Rite plainchant, and polyphony among the Preachers. The following is just another example, and we thank the Brother who sent us this notice:

Spain: Religious Orders prepare for the end

(Note: Some minor corrections have been made to the entry for the Franciscans (OFM) as of 1750H GMT of Jan. 11, 2013.)

A reader has brought to our attention an article in Spanish, published on October 2012, summarizing the "restructuring" of some of the major religious orders in Spain (due to the drastic decline in their numbers and vocations) as follows:

Society of Jesus : Its five Spanish provinces (Aragon, Andalusia or Betica, Castile, Loyola and Tarragona, see picture to the left) will be consolidated into a single province, the "Province of Spain", in 2014. (Photo source.)

Order of Friars Minor Capuchin (OFM Cap) : In 2011 the four provinces of Andalusia, Castile, Navarra-Cantabria-Aragon and Valencia were unified into a single province.

To the right: Spanish Capuchins during the assembly that unified their provinces in 2010. (Source)

Discalced Carmelites : In 2014 the seven provinces of Navarre, Burgos, Castile, Andalusia, Aragon, Valencia, Catalonia and Portugal will be unified into one.

In 2010, there were 433 Discalced Carmelites in Spain; 230 were above 60 years of age (92 were more than 80 years old), and 203 were below 60 years of age (only 25 were below 40 years old).

Above: Discalced Carmelite Capitulars of the Province of Aragon praying together in 2010. (Photo and statistics source)

Order of Friars Preachers (Dominicans): In 2016, the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Friars Preachers, the Dominicans will unify the Provinces of Spain, Aragon, Andalusia, Portugal and the Vicariate of the Holy Rosary into one. 

Meeting in 2012 of  Spanish Dominican superiors. Photo source. 

Order of Friars Minor (OFM) : In 2015 the Provinces of 1) Castile, 2) Andalusia, 3) Granada, 4) Valencia-Aragon, 5) Catalonia, 6) Cartagena-Murcia and 7) the Custody of San Francisco Solano will be consolidated into a single entity. The Provinces of Aránzazu and Santiago will remain as they are. 

Meeting of Spanish Franciscan Provincial Definitors in Sept. 2012. Photo source. 

Franciscans of the Province of Valencia, and some Franciscan sisters, attending a conference in 2009. Photo source

Dominican rite returning to Washington, D.C.

Followers of the Order of Preachers in the U.S. have observed a curious situation over the past decade, where many young conservative and traditional-leaning men have been joining the Dominicans in Washington, D.C., while the use of the Dominican rite has largely been on the west coast.

That is finally about to change.  Mass in the Dominican rite will be offered in the main chapel of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., starting with a Missa Cantata at 7:15 p.m. on Thursday, 27 September 2012.

TLM returns to the world's largest Catholic university campus

The Societas Ecclesia Dei Sancti Joseph, a Filipino Catholic society dedicated to the Traditional Latin Mass and a member of Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce, has announced that the TLM has returned to the Dominican-run University of Santo Tomas in Manila.

University of Santo Tomas, Manila

Photo source

Founded in 1611, it is the Philippines' sole Pontifical University and the world's largest Catholic university located in one campus in terms of student numbers (around 45,000 students in the Manila campus). From their official blog:

As previously announced, the evening of August 24, 2012 saw the Traditional Latin Mass being celebrated in public in the University of Santo Tomas (UST) for the first time since the liturgical reforms of Paul VI took effect. UST is the Philippines' oldest existing university and sole Pontifical University. It is also the world's largest Catholic university located in one campus in terms of the number of students (around 45,000 students in the Manila campus).

This surely ranks among the greatest achievements of the canonically-regular branch of the Traditional Latin Mass movement in the Philippines since it began in 1987. It was organized by students and faculty of this university, with training and other forms of assistance provided by Societas Ecclesia Dei Sancti Joseph (SEDSI). 

The Mass was offered in the St. Dominic Chapel in the 3rd floor of the Tan Yan Kee Student Center. The chapel could hold about 60-70 people maximum (including choir and altar servers) but the crowd in attendance -- far more than a hundred-strong -- greatly exceeded expectations, and spilled out into the surrounding corridors. Screens and projectors had to be used to allow the faithful who were in the corridors to follow what was happening inside the chapel. The vast majority of the attendees were students of the University. Most of the servers and the whole choir were also drawn from UST students -- all in their late teens and early twenties -- who had practiced for this occasion for the past several weeks.  

The Mass was offered by Fr. Michell Joe "Jojo" Zerrudo, priest of the Diocese of Cubao, Chaplain of SEDSI and celebrant of the daily TLM in Holy Family Parish, Roxas District, QC. He is an alumnus of the Central Seminary, one of the Philippines' two national seminaries, located in UST and run by the Dominican Fathers. In choir was Fr. Winston Fernandez Cabading OP, who was vital to the whole project of returning the TLM to UST. 

It is hoped that the Traditional Latin Mass will be offered monthly in UST. Plans are already being made for another Traditional Latin Mass in September, this time in a larger venue within the University. Should this push through, the City and Archdiocese of Manila (where UST is located) will once again have a regular Traditional Latin Mass for the first time since the First Friday Mass in the tiny chapel of the now-defunct Marian Center in Quiapo, Manila ceased sometime in 2010. UST will also become the second Filipino Catholic university (after the Ateneo De Manila University in Quezon City) and, not counting seminaries, the third Catholic institute of higher education in the Philippines (the first being La Consolacion College in Bacolod City) to have a regular TLM in its premises. 

More pictures of the event can be found at the original blogpost. 

Great Thinkers of the Order of Friars Preachers

"A man who governs his passions is master of the world. We must either rule them, or be ruled by them."

Saint Dominic

"How ... strongly should we be drawn to Christ if we find our pleasure in truth, happiness, justice, eternal life: all of which Christ is!"

Saint Thomas Aquinas

"Regard yourself as more vile and miserable in the sight of God because of your faults than any sinner whatsoever, no matter what his sins."

Saint Vincent Ferrer

"The Glorious Virgin Mary...by the blessed fruit of her womb has saved a world condemned by the fall of our first parents."

Pope Saint Pius V

"God is the proper name of Truth, as Truth is the abstract name of God."

Lacordaire

"Pride, which was the sin of the rebellious angel and of the first man, is the source of all deviations because it turns us away from God to put our trust in ourselves."

Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange

"This is not to denigrate committed love of people of the same sex. This too should be cherished and supported, which is why church leaders are slowly coming to support same sex civil unions. The God of love can be present in every true love."

Timothy Radcliffe

On the eve of the Feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas,

anniversary of his natal day, March 7, 1274,

commemorated this Wednesday.

Dominican Rite website

It is absolutely wonderful that the Friars Preachers of the Province of Saint Joseph (Eastern United States) have made available a tutorial website fully dedicated to the Dominican Rite, one of the most glorious achievements of a glorious Order:

Dominican Rite: a Guide to the Low Mass.

Tip: Father Finigan




(We've received the following note from Fr. Dominic Legge OP of the Eastern U.S. Province of Dominicans:

The site features the commentary of St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Albert the Great and St.Vincent Ferrer on the ceremonies of the Dominican Mass (woven into the tutorial text), some historical background on the Rite, and other helpful resources. While it will be of great help to priests, it also gives to the casual observer a unique perspective on one of the ancient branches of the Western liturgical tradition.)

A(nother) Vatican II moment in Louvain Father De Cock and Homosexual love

"The sexual characteristics of man and the human faculty of reproduction wonderfully exceed the dispositions of lower forms of life. Hence the acts themselves which are proper to conjugal love and which are exercised in accord with genuine human dignity must be honored with great reverence. Hence when there is question of harmonizing conjugal love with the responsible transmission of life, the moral aspects of any procedure does not depend solely on sincere intentions or on an evaluation of motives, but must be determined by objective standards. These, based on the nature of the human person and his acts, preserve the full sense of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love. Such a goal cannot be achieved unless the virtue of conjugal chastity is sincerely practiced." (Gaudium et Spes, 51)

___________________

A Flemish reader reports:

At the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium) Fr. Bernard De Cock, O.P. (Dominican) has received (9th of December) his doctor's degree with a work "Touched to Love. An Attempt at a Theological Anthropology of the Body and Homosexuality."

The promotor is prof. dr. Roger Burggraeve S.D.B. (Salesian), well known for his 'subversive' opinions on sexuality and the Church. In his work, Fr. De Cock OP states "homosexual love can be God's love".

In the third part he makes use of Xavier Lacroix' method to describe the sexual gestures between homosexual men in function of the love of God for men.

In the past, De Cock has written other articles on this subject. He was also a speaker at a colloquium on 'Homosexualty and the Church', 2005 organised by the 'holebi-pastores' ['HOmosexual-LEsbian-BIsexual-friendly priests] in the Theological and Pastoral Centre in Antwerp.

Links and sources, in Dutch:

http://www.kuleuven.be/doctoraatsverdediging/cm/3H05/3H050428.htm

https://lirias.kuleuven.be/handle/123456789/251103?mode=full&submit_simple=Show+full+item+record

"G"-Belgium (Warning)

http://www.rorate.com/nieuws/nws.php?id=58728

Dominicanen

Fr. Peter Knowles OP: Eternal Memory!

(Fr. Peter Knowles OP is the bearded priest in phelonion, third from left in this picture. Source: St. Michael's Russian Catholic Church)

Fr. Peter Knowles OP died last March 11, 2008 at the age of 81. In his lifetime he had acquired a fair reputation as a preacher and theologian. This reputation was built not only on the few learned articles that he would publish every year, but also on his role as a guardian of two traditions in the Catholic Church. These were the classical Dominican tradition of preaching and sound theology, a brilliant child of the Latin tradition; and the Russian Catholic Church, that small but extremely significant community historically known for its purely Byzantine liturgy, as well as its uncompromising defense of papal primacy and the need of the Orthodox East to be in communion with Rome.

These two traditions exemplify the range and universality of the true faith; and both have been under severe stress and siege in the past four decades from modernistic currents. Much has been said about the assault on the venerable traditions of the ancient religious orders of the West. Rarely, though, do we hear about the neglect and outright hostility that the Russian Catholic Church continues to face, as not a few Catholics consider this small community of a little more than 20 chapels and small convents to be an embarrasment in the age of Ecumenism. Fr. Peter Knowles, nevertheless, enthusiastically embraced the ideals behind the Russian Catholic dream, as expressed by such great converts to Catholicism as Blessed Leonid Fedorov and Fr. Alexander Rzewuski; for that alone, his passing must not pass unmentioned in the pages of Rorate Caeli.

Fr. Knowles was assigned to serve the Russian Catholic community in 1962. He served at the Chapel of St. Nicholas in the Russian Catholic Center in Melbourne.

The Australian has a long and informative article on this fascinating priest. Some of his popular articles include Alexander Rzewuski (1893-1983): The Catholic Church viewed with 'fresh eyes', Leonid Federov (1879-1935): Russian Catholicism - a brave vision unfulfilled and How monastic life can reinvigorate the Church

Fr. Peter Knowles OP: Requiescat in Pace, Vechnaya Pamyat! May you rest in peace and may your memory be eternal.