RORATE CÆLI: Traditionis in Practice

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Archbishop Gänswein: Benedict XVI’s path “is the right way,” Traditionis custodes “is and remains a mystery to me”

Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the former private secretary of Pope Benedict XVI and current nuncio to Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, recently gave an interview to Athinea Andryszczak, broadcast in two parts (1, 2) on the German Catholic television station K-TV.

Cardinal Müller to the Associated Press on the Latin Mass and the new Pope: "According to his character, I think he is able to speak with people and to find a very good solution that is good for everybody."

A good portion of the interview granted by Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller in Rome to Nicole Winfield, of the Associated Press, was dedicated to the central question of the Traditional Latin Mass -- central because Francis chose to make it so by creating division in a matter that Benedict XVI had settled peacefully. It would honestly be a muted matter now if Francis had just left it alone.

Main excerpts:

They went into last week’s conclave vastly outnumbered and smarting after being sidelined by Pope Francis for 12 years. And yet conservatives and traditionalist Catholics are cautiously optimistic over the historic election of Pope Leo XIV, hopeful that he will return doctrinal rigor to the papacy, even as progressives sense he will continue Francis’ reformist agenda.

Pope Francis with leadership of the French Bishops' Conference, December 2022

EDITOR'S NOTE

Another blog, known for its extreme adulation of Pope Francis, is currently discussing the synthesis the French Bishops' Conference put out in 2021 in response to the Summorum Pontificum Survey. They exaggerate its significance and its pertinence as a document that reflects the true opinion of the bishops. Aside from the forceful misinterpretations, sophisms, and plain exaggeration, the article also shows a desperate attempt to control the narrative on Traditionis Custodes.

A pattern on TLM indults being denied and approved

There is an interesting pattern beginning to develop.

Two U.S. dioceses (Baltimore and Richmond) that have the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter in them, with personal parishes, will no longer have any diocesan parish traditional Latin Masses offered, despite the noble attempt by the local bishops for renewals of existing two-year parish indults. In the Archdiocese of Baltimore and Diocese of Richmond, no diocesan clergy at diocesan parishes may licitly offer TLMs.

On the other hand, two U.S. dioceses (San Antonio and Arlington, Virginia) that do NOT have the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, or any other TLM personal parishes, have been granted two-year indult renewals, this week, for their existing diocesan parish TLMs offered by diocesan priests.

Pope Francis is fond of saying “everything is connected.” Traditionalists have been saying the same thing for the past six decades. We have long emphasized that those who transformed the Catholic liturgy on paper and in practice were also entertaining doctrinal novelties, oddities, and, at times, even heresies. Conversely, a radically changed liturgy has led to the weakening, and occasioned the loss of faith in, any number of central doctrines of Catholicism, or that the loss of reverence for God is bound up with moral drift in every sphere of life. It is not hard, after all, to see that the lex orandi, the lex credendi, and the lex vivendi stand and fall together.

Cardinal Gregory: "Tradition dies a slow death, sometimes a bloody death"

On Wednesday 6 December, the Archbishop of Washington, Wilton Cardinal Gregory, took part in an event at the Catholic University of America as part of their Presidential Speaker Series, entitled "Celebrating Diversity" (h/t Diane Montagna). The full video can be found below, as well as on YouTube. In this talk, His Eminence notes that "even our American Catholic comfort zone can be rattled by the vastness of God's family of cultures, languages, and expressions of Catholic worship; so much diversity can throw some people off balance and quite frankly make them feel uneasy" (16:30). He also waxes lyrical about how the "synodal process" is rooted in the "ability to give one another grace and space as you journey together, with the freedom to express yourself freely without judgment" (29:44).

"A Formal Canonical Analysis of the Rescriptum" - Circular Logic and the Grandfathering of Existing Parish Masses

by Father Pierre Laliberté, JCL

Upon reading the rescriptum ex audientia of +Arthur Cardinal Roche dated 21 February 2023, several brief reflections come to mind:

1) Despite the Curial reforms issued in Praedicate Evangelium, the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments still does not possess legislative authority. To "exercise the authority of the Holy See" in these matters, as described in Traditionis Custodes art. 7, is unclear. Therefore, the very notion that this rescript is a legal text is highly questionable, as it only rests on the authority of the prefect of this dicastery who signed it. Some have even remarked that such tactics are tantamount to "canonical gaslighting", as this is merely a weaponization of hierarchical authority against a perennially-valid, never abrogated liturgical rite which expresses the perennial faith of the Roman Catholic Church.

2) Those parish churches already offering the Traditional Latin Mass should be guided by the perennial principle of the law: "pacta servanda sunt", that agreements are to be kept. As a matter of justice, they should be understood as being "grandfathered" in. The power of the bishop to dispense is ordinary executive power. Those matters that the Holy See reserves to itself must be interpreted strictly, while the diocesan bishop's power to dispense is to be interpreted broadly.

Old Latin Mass Finds New American Audience, Despite Pope’s Disapproval
An ancient form of Catholic worship is drawing in young traditionalists and conservatives. But it signals a divide within the church.
By Ruth Graham
The New York Times

Nov. 15, 2022

DETROIT — Eric Agustin’s eight children used to call the first day of the week “Party Sunday.” The family would wake up, attend a short morning Mass at a Catholic parish near their house, then head home for lunch and an afternoon of relaxing and watching football.
But this summer, the family made a “big switch,” one of his teenage sons said on a recent Sunday afternoon outside St. Joseph Shrine, the family’s new parish. At St. Joseph, the liturgy is ornate, precisely choreographed and conducted entirely in Latin. The family drives an hour round trip to attend a service that starts at 11 a.m. and can last almost two hours.
The traditional Latin Mass, an ancient form of Catholic worship that Pope Francis has tried to discourage, is instead experiencing a revival in the United States. It appeals to an overlapping mix of aesthetic traditionalists, young families, new converts and critics of Francis. And its resurgence, boosted by the pandemic years, is part of a rising right-wing strain within American Christianity as a whole.
...

For the Record: The "Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite" is still the official name of the Traditional Roman Rite for the Vatican

[Update: not anymore…]

When Traditionis Custodes was promulgated last year, that disturbing document had as its central theoretical point the following definition, in article 1: that the Paul VI liturgical books, "are the sole expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite."

The document simply abolished the notion created by Benedict XVI (rejected even by many Traditionalists, but very useful legally) that there are two forms of the Roman Rite: the most prevalent one now (the Novus Ordo), called Ordinary Form, and the Traditional one, called Extraordinary Form.

So, it came as a surprise that the document expected since the beginning of the pontificate, regarding the reorganization of the Roman Curia, the Apostolic Constitution named "Praedicate Evangelium", was released yesterday -- Italian text only -- with the following attributes among those granted to the Congregation for Divine Worship:

Art. 93

Mexican Cardinal restores rights of Traditional Latin Mass community

TRADITIONAL FAITHFUL CELEBRATE SUPPORT OF THE CARDINAL

December 6, 2021

Press release

Children and adults pray for more parishioners to be heard.

Guadalajara, Jalisco. - The days of uncertainty lived by the parishioners of San Pedro en Cadenas quasi-parish are now gone. His Eminence Francisco Cardinal Robles, Archbishop of Guadalajara, decided to reverse his decree of suppressing this quasi-parish.

In a recent visit to Casa Cristo Rey (the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter’s parsonage), the Cardinal stated that the next step will now be an adequate evaluation on the usefulness of the quasi-parish for the spiritual good of the faithful, as instructed by Pope Francis’ Motu Proprio Traditiones Custodes.