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

From the Diocese of Orange in California comes this official statement about the Motu Proprio.  A statement from this diocese is of particular interest in that there has not been strong support for celebrations of the older form of Mass on the part of the local Bishop, His Excellency Most Reverend Tod Brown.   Here are the salient bits of the statement with my emphases and comments.

            
OFFICE OF THE BISHOP
Marywood Center
P.O Box 14195
2811 E. Villa Real Drive
Orange, California 92863-1595
PHONE (714) 282-3105
FAX  (714) 282-3029
MEMORANDUM

To:    The Presbyterate of Orange
From:    Most Reverend Tod D. Brown
Re:    The Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum
Date:    10 July 2007

...

I urge all pastors to join me in a common pastoral approach to the implementation of the Moto Proprio.  It is the prerogative of pastors when requested by “a group of faithful (coetus fidelium) attached to the previous liturgical tradition exists stably (or continuously) (continenter exsistit),” [yes… this gets the nuance right…. continenter, adverb, means the group is there continuously, not that the group is stable, in regard to its size] i.e., parishioners in the full canonical sense of that term, [interesting… in these days of parish hopping we have forgotten that there are still territorial distinctions in canon law] and who request the celebration of the Holy Mass according to the rite of the Roman Missal published in 1962, together with the other liturgical celebrations as specified in the Apostolic Letter, it is their prerogative to “willingly accede (libenter suscipiat) to their requests, if the following conditions can be pastorally met:

•    The availability of a priest, in good standing, who can demonstrate a minimum rubrical and linguistic ability to celebrate the extraordinary form.

•    The ‘group’ of the faithful (that) exists ‘stably’ needs to be of sufficient number to warrant the public use of the forma extraordinaria.  Individuals who are not geographically or intentionally part of a particular parish community should have recourse to their proper parish [TA DA   That is what I am talking about.  People drive all over for parishes, but they LIVE within parish boundaries unless they can claim the proper qualities to belong to a personal or national parish.] with their request or to the existing public celebrations that presently are offered in the Diocese of Orange at Mission San Juan Capistrano and Pope John Paul II Center.

•    If the public celebration of the Eucharist in forma extraordinaria is conceded in accord with the norms as articulated in the Apostolic Letter (Art. #6), serious consideration should be given in using the Readings in the vernacular using the reformed Lectionary [This bishop is presuming that Art. 6 means that the New Lectionary can substitute the old readings] for Mass and its expanded cursus  of Scripture texts.  In this way, the entire parish community, whether utilizing the forma ordinaria or the public forma extraordinaria may be united in heart and mind around a single proclamation of God’s word.

While great responsibility is placed upon the pastor of the local parish in making these pastoral determinations, it remains for the Bishop of the Local Church in his role as moderator of the liturgy in his own diocese, to insure peace and serenity in the implementation of the universal norms of the Church regarding the worthy celebration of the liturgy as well as to intervene to prevent abuses from arising with regard to liturgical celebrations in his diocese.  

As pastors charged with the care of souls it is incumbent upon us to do whatever we can to help build a greater sense of communion in our local Church where divisions may exist particularly in areas of liturgical praxis.  May this Apostolic Letter be an opportunity for us all to renew our commitment to being worthy stewards of the Holy Mysteries faithfully celebrated in accord with the rich Tradition of the Church.

Something hilarious from The Curmudgeon:

The Coca Cola Company allows production of "Coca Cola Classic"
By Coca Cola News Service

ATLANTA (CNS)—In a long-awaited overture to disaffected soda traditionalists, the president of the Coca Cola Company allowed limited production of "Coca Cola Classic," the original formula soft drink which was recently replaced by New Coke.

The president said the Classic formula should be made available in to consumers who desire it. He said that while New Coke, introduced a few months ago, will remain the flagship product of the brand, Classic Coke should be considered "the extraordinary form of the Coca Cola product."

This reintroduction implies no failure of the New Coke production and marketing plan, but simply "two variations on the one flagship Coca Cola product." The president’s directive came July 7 in a four-page letter to bottlers titled "Introducing Coca Cola Classic." The old formula will begin appearing in bottles and cans—not in fountains—Sept. 14. An accompanying personal letter from the president dismissed fears that the decisions would foment divisions among Coke drinkers or be seen as a retreat from the New Coke campaign.

The president said New Coke would certainly remain the company’s predominant product. Drinking Coca Cola Classic presupposes a certain degree of sophistication and traditional preferences and "neither of these is found very often," he said. But the president expressed sympathy with consumers who are attached to the old Coke formula and uncomfortable with New Coke.

In the period since the introduction of New Coke, he said, excessive, Pepsi-like sweetness often led to "unfinished bottles and unsatisfactory mixes with rum and bourbon which were hard to bear.""I am speaking from experience, since I, too, lived through that period with all its hopes and confusion. And I have seen how arbitrary changes in the formula caused deep pain to individuals totally rooted in the old formula," he said.

The president noted that many older consumers have a long connection with the Classic formula. But in recent years, he said, it has been clearly demonstrated that young people are also attracted by the old formula.

By widening its availability, the president said, he hoped to make the new and old Coca Cola formulas "mutually enriching."

The old formula has been hoarded and bottled by small, out-of-the-way bottlers since shortly after the introduction of the new formula, but customers had to make special trips—often hundreds of miles and beg bottlers for it, who did not always consent.

...[T]he new policy did not explicitly state that those buying Coca Cola Classic were also expected to buy New Coke. The company said that crossover purchasers would be presumed, however.

He emphasized that although the new formula was designed to replace the old formula, the old formula was "never formally abandoned." Its restoration as an extraordinary product thus does not undermine the company’s decisions with respect to New Coke, he said.

"There is no contradiction between the two formulas. In the history of our company there is growth and progress, but no rupture," he said."What earlier generations held as a good product remains such, and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful," he said.

Vatican Radio interviewed my friend Mons. Camille Perl, Secretary of the Pont. Comm. "Ecclesia Dei", in German, about the Motu Proprio.  

About the possibility of "mixing" elements of the two uses he said:

Kann man die Usus eigentlich auch mischen?
Das sollte man wohl nicht tun, es ist nicht ausdrücklich verboten. 

Can one actually also mix the uses?
One really shouldn’t do that, but isn’t expressly forbidden.

I don’t think Sr. Chittister has had the chance to comment on the new CDF document about subsistit in yet.  In the meantime, we can read

PRAVDA

Vatican insults other chirches [sic] saying ‘Catholicism is the only true church’
11.07.2007    

The Vatican set itself on a collision course with other Christian faiths yesterday, reaffirming the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church in a corrective document that it said was designed to clear up recent "erroneous" doctrine, AFP reports.

The document’s central claim, that the Catholic Church is "the one true Church of Christ," is likely to revive a debate that has dogged the Vatican’s relationship with rival denominations for decades.

For the second time in a week, Pope Benedict XVI has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, reasserting the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church and saying other Christian communities were either defective or not true churches.

Benedict approved a document released Tuesday from his old office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which repeated church teaching on Catholic relations with other Christians.

While there was nothing doctrinally new in the document, it nevertheless prompted swift criticism from Protestants, Lutherans and other Christian denominations spawned by the 16th century Reformation.    [So…. this is news?]

"It makes us question the seriousness with which the Roman Catholic Church takes its dialogues with the Reformed family and other families of the church," said the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, which groups 75 million Reformed Christians in 214 churches in 107 countries.

"It makes us question [Hmmm… first pete and now repeat… ] whether we are indeed praying together for Christian unity," the alliance said in a letter to the Vatican’s key ecumenical official, Cardinal Walter Kasper, charging that the document took ecumenical dialogue back to the pre-Vatican II era.

One of the key developments from Vatican II, the 1962-65 meetings that modernized the church, was its ecumenical outreach.

Another key change was the development of the New Mass in the vernacular, which essentially replaced the old Latin Mass. On Saturday, Benedict revived the old Latin Mass, saying it was wrong for bishops to deny it to the faithful because it had never been abolished. [Leave it to Pravda to spin something, get it wrong, and by getting it wrong pretty much get it right.  Folks, you just can’t make this stuff up.] Traditional Catholics cheered the move, but more liberal ones called it a step back from Vatican II.

Benedict, who attended Vatican II as a young theologian, has long complained about what he considers the erroneous interpretation of the council by liberals, saying it was not a break from the past but rather a renewal of church tradition.

[Watch the transition here.  ZOOOM!  What a mess.]

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said it was issuing the new document on ecumenism because some contemporary theological interpretations of Vatican II’s ecumenical intent had been "erroneous or ambiguous" and had prompted confusion and doubt.

The new document – formulated as five questions and answers – restates key sections of a 2000 text the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, "Dominus Iesus," which riled Protestant, Lutheran and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the "means of salvation."  [Welll…. no, that is not what either document said.]

"Christ ‘established here on earth’ only one Church," said the document released as the pope vacations at a villa in Lorenzago di Cadore, in Italy’s Dolomite mountains.  [Gotta love that.  They give the impression that the Pope is just hangin’ out, launching irritating document like so many paper airplanes down to the press waiting in the alpine valleys below.]

The other communities "cannot be called ‘churches’ in the proper sense" because they do not have apostolic succession – the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ’s original apostles – and therefore their priestly ordinations are not valid, it said. [This is journalism?]

The Rev. Sara MacVane, of the Anglican Centre in Rome, said there was nothing new in the document.

"I don’t know what motivated it at this time," she said. "But it’s important always to point out that there’s the official position and there’s the huge amount of friendship and fellowship and worshipping together that goes on at all levels, certainly between Anglican and Catholics and all the other groups and Catholics."

The document said Orthodox churches were indeed "churches" because they have apostolic succession and that they enjoyed "many elements of sanctification and of truth." But it said they lack something because they do not recognize the primacy of the pope – a defect, or a "wound" that harmed them, it said.

I wonder if Pravda is sharing staff with any English language new outlets.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Russia, we find this.

Vatican’s honest position furthers dialogue – Metropolitan Kirill

Moscow, July 11, Interfax – The Russian Orthodox Church has called "honest" the position of the Vatican published in a document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stating that the Catholic Church is the only Church approved by Christ.

"It is an honest statement. It is much better than the so-called ‘church diplomacy’." It shows how close or, on the contrary, how divided we are," Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, who heads the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, told journalists in Moscow.

"For an honest theological dialogue to happen, one should have a clear view of the position of the other side," because "it helps understand how different we are," he said. Basically, the Vatican’s current document has nothing new and is in "full conformity with the doctrine of the Catholic Church," Metropolitan Kirill said.

"The Orthodox Church is, according to Apostolic Succession, successor and heir to the old, undivided Church. Which is why everything contained in the Catholic document rightfully applies to the Orthodox Church," the Metropolitan added.

 

This is a perfect example of how true ecumenical dialogue is stimulated.

Note the lack of hysteria.

There is a very good article in the Philadelphia Inquirer.  This is what happens when an open minded reporter actually does some gumshoe reporting.There are some good themes.   My emphases and comments. 

Reviving a Latin past
By David O’Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer

With their love of tradition and their formal dress code (no shorts even for children, and covered heads for women), the members of Mater Ecclesiae Church in Berlin Township can seem a tight-laced congregation of Roman Catholics.  [An interesting way to begin.  I think we all know that our culture has become far too informal, which, paradoxically, is a symptom that the bonds of society are breaking rather than getting closer.]

But on Sunday they were ringing bells, popping corks and slicing cake, and – mirabile visu! – some were even smoking cigars.

Mirabile visu? Isn’t that Latin?

Graceful, dignified, formal and obscure, [Again, the formality theme.]  Latin is the language of choice at Mater Ecclesiae, one of the only Catholic churches in the nation where all the liturgies are conducted according to the centuries-old Tridentine rite.

Its bells were ringing and corks popping after Sunday’s Mass because Pope Benedict XVI had on Saturday issued a decree allowing freer use of the traditional Latin liturgy, which had all but withered away in recent decades.

"My good friends, we are living through and a part of a major, fundamental, awesome reaffirmation of the tradition of our faith," the Rev. Robert C. Pasley, rector of Mater Ecclesiae, told his congregation from the pulpit during Sunday’s high Mass.

"I never thought I’d see the day."

Just how Benedict’s decree, or motu proprio, might affect the availability of Tridentine-style liturgies in area dioceses remain to be seen.  [Fair enough.]

While the "new order" Mass introduced in 1970 continues as the worldwide standard, Benedict’s decree instructs pastors to willingly provide Latin liturgies if their parishes contain a "stable" number of parishioners "attached to the previous liturgical tradition."

Bishops are also "earnestly requested" to accommodate requests for the Latin rites, and told they may create special parishes or chapels (like Mater Ecclesiae) dedicated to their use.

Since 1988, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia has offered a Tridentine Mass each Sunday in one urban and one suburban parish. The Trenton Diocese offers the old rite once each Sunday in a Monmouth County parish.

Mater Ecclesiae, which is not a parish but a borderless facsimile open to all worshipers seeking to partake of the Tridentine tradition, is the site for Latin Masses of the Camden Diocese. It had 70 families when it began in 2000 and now has 520, according to Pasley, a diocesan priest.&nbs