What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

This afternoon was the first meeting of Fr. Reginald Foster’s Latin "experiences".

It took place in the new digs for the course. You will remember that he was given the heave ho from the Gregorian University where he had taught for years. Someone came to his rescue with a location (ironically close to the Collegio Romano) for his new Latin Academy. It is now housed at the American Institute for Roman Culture, directed by one of Foster’s long time veterans.

He still won’t take money from students.

Present were a few old vets whom I had not seen for some years and many new students eager to imbibe of his approach. It was standing room, for sure.

Foster was in fine form this afternoon. The first thing he did was read to the standing room only crowd a fax he received from Austria: "Foster having been liberated…."

In the courses, really called "experiences", students are there to learn Latin. The courses are not about God or the Church or anything else. Schools, credits, etc., mean nothing. Just Latin and Latin literature. He wants people to stop talking about how great (or awful) Latin is, and start TEACHING it. If you have had Latin before, as he explained, you will maybe find something new. But the key is to teach more and more people the Latin language, without which we don’t really understand anything about Western civilization.

During the meeting Fr. Foster predictably and understandably shot some barbed comments at the "other place" where he had taught for so long and a few amusing references to the Jesuits of that institution. He talked about reading during the summer the letters exchanged between Erasmus and Martin Luther and St. Thomas More (which in illo tempore I also have done with him) all in Latin, together with documents of extreme historic importance, "the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773 … Dominus ac Redemptor a glorious thing in Latin.. a horrific document."

"I could not stand to be in a classroom today to teach theology, canon law, history, philosophy to anyone knowing that the students know nothing. It would drive me crazy. I couldn’t do it."

Foster rightly deplores is the loss of Latin from educational formation, ecclesiastical formation especially. Still, he sees some hope in the secular realm. The summer course he teaches will be nearly all lay students from secular institutions. He already has dozens of applicants for the intense summer course and, he announced, he just rewrote the entrance exam. It is now much harder.

He explained his approach to Latin and his expectations for the students by way of an old form of contract which he once asked people to use, but which he now uses to make his desires for classes clear. Here it is. Read it and see if you could follow this approach. This old contract form is no longer even proposed for a signature by Fr. Foster anymore, but it is still useful to get it through thick skulls or those not really paying attention what his "experiences" involve. In short: if you can’t do this, don’t do this. "Get out. I won’t miss you."

Foster’s approach is intended to turn out people who can read Latin and understand what it really says. However, there is a strong active component. He teaches you how to write and speak as well.

Former and future students of Fr. Foster will be relieved to know that the "experiences" are back on track and underway in the heart of Rome once again. You can be sure that students will be beating their brains out against his legendary ludi domestici sheets each week. Pray for them. It is worth the effort. Why?

"If you have this thing, you have something, friends. If you don’t have Latin you’re just sitting there looking stupid." Listen.

Tonight’s view on my return to my chamber above the rooftops.

Once again we refer you to Rorate Coeli, this time for some a rather disconcerting story of Hervé Yannou writing for Le Figaro. Yannou’s story implies that perhaps Pope Benedict has been persuaded to wait on issuing a document to free up the older form of Mass.

The kernel is this: Pope Benedict has listened to various bishops. One of the salient texts of the article is this (in Rorate’s translation but emphasis mine) :

... Cardinal Ricard assured the [news] agency I.Media that it had been only "a suggestion by Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos … as a response to the demands of Bishop Fellay … ...

The Pope assured [Ricard] that "the work and reflection are still to be done" and that not even the nature of the document had yet been defined. That is, the commotion of the French bishops was due to no more than a project of the Colombian Cardinal, considered as too favorable to the integrists, and to premature reports by the press.

So, the claim is made that Card. Ricard thinks all of this talk of a document has been blown out of proportion and Ricard is doing damage control among the French bishops.

On the other hand, too much has come out from the Holy See for us to think there isn’t something concrete going on, that it is, in fact, much more than a suggestion or project of Card. Castrillon Hoyos.

Consider the following. His Holiness was deeply involved with all these matters years before the Lefevbre schism. There is no one who knows the lay of the land better than Benedict XVI. Frankly, I don’t think the Pope, if he has really been thinking about derestricting the older Mass in concrete terms, is going to be in the least surprised by the vehement opposition of the French bishops or the "unease" of the USCCB. If he has been working on something concrete, I doubt very much that the complaints of these bishops are going to add anything new to the mix. The reactions are predictable.

However, you can imagine that a good deal of work would be necessary for any document having to do with the older form of Mass. The role of the bishops would need to be worked out. The bishops cannot be excluded from the provisions. Period. That can’t and won’t happen. And so, the document needs to be well-framed.

Think of it this way. If a bad or sloppy document is released, which does not adequately foresee some of the obviously throny scenarios that might result, the net effect for those who want the use of the older Mass would be catastrophic in the long term. The results for a healing of the schism or avoiding another would be seriously damaged. Bishops must be involved for the sake of order. Moreover, there exists now an ad hoc Commission of the Holy See, the Pontifical Commission "Eccelsia Dei" and it has its range of competence and its mandate. A document would have to deal in some way with the role of the Pont. Comm. "Eccelsia Dei". Would its competence be extended? Restricted? What problems would be referred to it?

What about liturgical questions? As it is, when you go to this place or that place where the old Mass is celebrated, you find a wide divergene of practices. The idea that all those people today using the older form of Mass all being on the same page is a dream. They are all over the map. The permission of the Holy See is for use of the 1962 editio typica of the Missale Romanum and not another. But some priests and laymen involved in the ceremonies seem to think they can do anything they please, based on some feeble arguments about traditions etc. when they are really just implementing their personal preferences. In effect, they are doing the same thing they criticize in the wackier priests of the slappy-happy-church-of-whats-happening-now. They only difference is really that they have marginally better taste. So, some sort of discipline must be brought to the picture and an authoritative point of reference must be determined for questions that will arise. The bishops will need to be involved and there must be a central point of authoritative reference.

In any event, it is fully understandable that many issues large and small must be hammered out for such a Motu Proprio to have a good long term effect.

We need a lot of patience and calm understanding.

8 November is the second of the double transits of Mercury across the face of the Sun.

A transit can occur in May or November. November transits happen at intervals of 7, 13, or 33 years; May transits happen at intervals of 13 or 33 years. The last two transits were in 1999 and 2003. The next will occur 2016.

Here is a map for visibility. Try to find some way to see it.

In case you need to make future plans, here is a 7 century listing from AD 1601 to 2300.

This is a very cool event. After the last pair of transits, in 1882, the great bandmaster John Philip Sousa wrote a march in honor of occurence aptly, if not creativly, entitled "The Transit of Mercury". Listen to it here! It is quite jaunty.

The last time it happened it was visible in Rome in May of 2003. I was coming out of the Holy See Press Office and ran into various folks with their telescopes set up just outside. The police had driven them from St. Peter’s Square because tripods are not allowed. Anyway, they were letting anyone who walked by look through their telescopes as Mercury passed across the face of the Sun. The cops were there too, all too delighted to look, but just not from the square.

Among the group were a couple of Irish high school student at a Jesuit school who had the expensive hobby of eclipse chasing. Sunny Italy was considered a better bet than Ireland at that time of year, so they hopped on Ryan Air. They had a very nice set up and a big sign so people knew they could have a gander at the celestial event. I was amazed at the videos they showed me on a laptop of various eclipses they had seen including one over Antarctica from an airplane.

The Fathers and other great writers believed that God placed the heavenly spheres in the charge of angels to guide their movements. Since angels knew God’s will, some thought that by watching the heavens we too could decipher something of God’s will.

Anyway, the transits are very cool.  Sometimes they also coincide with other transits, with Venus, for example, but they are pretty rare.  Mercury and Venus will not transit at the same time until the year 69163 and then again in 224508.  As I said, pretty rare.  I don’t know what God has planned, but perhaps He’ll have a different setup for us by then.  The coincidence of a occurrence of a solar eclipse and a transit of Mercury will be on 5 July 6757.  Book your flight to Eastern Siberia, because that’s where it will be visible.

May we never tire of watching the signs of the times.

RUMOR ALERT:

If you didn’t get it the first time, the following rumor is a rumor.

Someone I spoke to tonight, who has a friend in the Apostolic Palace, told me the document "will be signed" on 11 November.

The preceding rumor is a rumor.

Okay, this is third hand. I will ask the questions about whether or not what was meant is that the document would be merely signed on 11 November, but not promulgated, or it will be promulgated as well.

Of course the whole thing is a rumor.