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

If anyone is wondering why, really, we needed the Motu Proprio, look no farther than this. 

With grateful anger I tip my biretta   o{]>:¬(   in the direction of Catholic Church Conservation for this horrific spectacle, which nearly ruined my day.

Mime preaching.

The ugly truth in photos is on display.

I can stomach only one on my site. 

Here is an article on the Motu Proprio from the National Catholic Register.

My emphases and comments.

Latin Mass Rising

BY Joe Cullen

July 15-21, 2007 Issue | Posted 7/10/07 at 3:05 PM

Summorum Pontificum, the motu proprio granting greater freedom to celebrate the old Latin or Tridentine Mass, puts me in mind of the mercy of God, and how he comes to the aid of his suffering people.

While not all of his people need or want the old Mass, there is a significant constituency [contrast this with The Party Line’s constant mantra that "a very few… a tiny minority" want this stuff.] for whom the lack of this familiar and time-honored form of worship has been a hardship, and Pope Benedict’s action is that of a genuine pastor.  [You mean, he isn’t trying to undermine the Council like a mean dogmatist?]

I am 50 and can barely remember the liturgy that started to drastically change when I was 8, in late 1964.

I first discovered the old Mass by coming upon pictures of President Kennedy’s funeral Mass in an old issue of Life magazine.

Later, I found a pre-Vatican II missal and was fascinated by the color photos of a young priest at various stages of celebrating a Mass.

Despite growing up in the 1960s in an “updated” Church, I was eager to know more about the Latin Mass and longed for it despite never having really known it.

By the time I was in college, this was largely behind me as I concluded that the door had been closed on the traditional form of Mass.

This was reversed in a meaningful way some 20 years ago as Pope John Paul II allowed for limited use of the Tridentine Mass. I found that my original attraction had been warranted, and that my occasional assistance at the old Mass is a great aid to prayer and faith at every level.

I am not alone — and most of the people attracted to the Latin Mass that I know are younger than me.

A now-elderly former colleague called me just this week to tell me how Sunday Latin Mass and daily Rosary are now sustaining her and her husband as he faces cancer treatment. They had been away from the sacraments for decades.

It was not as easy for a childhood neighbor of mine, a gentle and charitable woman who spoke lovingly of the Mass of her youth but who no longer went to church. Over time, it became clear to me that she was put off by the changes. She was too estranged (and too frail of health) to ever come back.

Based on what I have read and seen for myself, many fallen-away Catholics were disaffected by the drastic change in our liturgy — some without fully grasping that this was such a significant factor. Others avoided naming the reason so as not to appear out of step.  [Yes.  This was huge.  The "experts" who did this, who probably had never been in a parish, failed to see the psychological impact of changing the liturgy so drastically.  Change the unchanging, change the one thing with which you have the most contact in the Church, and you leave the impression that anything can change.]

The editor of a glossy trade publication, a man of 57 and a connoisseur of modern music, recently told me that, as a high school student, he simply lost his faith at the sight of Mass in English accompanied by folk guitar.

The late and legendary rocker Jerry Garcia was lost to the Catholicism of his childhood, drawn away by other things, no doubt, but he fondly remembered “the wonderful Latin Mass with its resonant sonorities and mysterious ritual movements.”

Many, like the poet Tito Casini, novelist Agatha Christie, and a host of other artists and intellectuals, were of an elevated sensibility, deeply appreciative of the beauty that all readily ascribe to the old Mass, and did not hesitate to identify the nature of their difficulties.

Through it all, God’s ways are not our ways. He tests us — and cares for us — in a variety of ways. I like to think that Pope Paul VI and his collaborators were doing the old Mass a great favor by insisting on a full switch to the new Mass.  [Hmmm…. that is putting the very kindest interpretation on it that I have ever read.]

It was in those years, the late 1960s, when the western world experienced profound tumult — a true cultural hurricane. When a hurricane is bearing down, you wrap your old treasures up and find a safe place for them, usually the attic, and you leave them hidden until the storms have certainly passed.

English Jesuit Father Hugh Thwaites is especially fond of this analogy because much of the blame for the collapse that Catholicism experienced in many places in those years would have fallen disproportionately on the Latin Mass — had it been around to take the hit.

Instead, the classic form of the Mass was out of sight and safe, and now those who remember it and those who are just discovering it, are reaping what the poet Casini foresaw in 1976 when he predicted the return of the Tridentine missal with the same confidence that he placed in tomorrow’s sunrise:

“It will rise again, ... the Mass will rise again … because it is the sun, and God thus established it for our life and comfort.” When it happens, he said, our eyes will be found “guilty of not having esteemed it worthily before the eclipse; our hearts guilty for not having loved it enough.”  [Sorta like Joni Mitchell’s song, right?]

 Joe Cullen writes from
Floral Park, N.Y.

Very good points.  I particularly like the way he emphasized the dire impact the changes had on some, how they fell away from the Church.

IMO, we need, like never before, a vast, system wide project to bring fallen away Catholics back to the Church.

Here is the statement from His Excellency Most Reverend James A. Murray, Bishop of Kalamazoo from the diocesan newspaper The Good News.

The first part concerns the recent CDF document.  I include it, because His Excellency makes a superb link.

My emphases and comments.

By now, you probably have heard about two brief documents recently released by the Vatican.  The purpose of the first was to clarify understanding about the unity and primacy of the Catholic Church.  The second allowed for wider permission of the celebration of the liturgy according to the 1962 Missal of Pope Blessed John XXIII, in addition to the Mass with which we are all familiar.  Despite their clarity, both documents have unfortunately caused confusion for many.  Pope Benedict XVI attributes this confusion, at least in part, to “news reports and judgments made without sufficient information.”  With this in mind, it might do us all well to take a brief look at the two documents and what they say.

The first document, “Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine of the Church” was published by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on June 29, the Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul.  In a series of five questions and answers, it explains the nature of the Catholic Church and how it relates to other Christian communities.  In so doing, it reaffirms what the Catholic Church has always taught, and should therefore neither be surprising nor scandalous.  However, like so many other truths of our faith, there is a tendency for some to emphasize one aspect of the Church’s teaching to exclusion of others, thus resulting in confusion or error.

In clarifying the nature of the Church, the document includes two ideas that may seem at first paradoxical.  First of all, the document was intended to respond to some theological errors, which in recent years and in various ways have denied the uniqueness of the Catholic Church.  It therefore reaffirms that the Church established by Jesus Christ is a visible, spiritual community and only the Catholic Church possesses the “fullness of grace and truth” that Christ desires for it.  Secondly, it explains that “the Church of Christ is present and operative in the churches and ecclesial communities not yet fully in communion with the Catholic Church, on account of the elements of sanctification and truth that are present in them.”  Several misleading news reports, unfortunately left out this affirmation of non-Catholic Christian communities, giving some the impression that Catholics are to believe that outside the Church there is merely a “churchless void.”

In truth, both aspects are important to avoid confusion.  On the one hand, the Church of Christ exists as a unique historical reality, which Christ promised to be with until the end of time, sending His Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth (cf. Mt 28:20, Jn 16:13).  The Catholic Church – with the Eucharistic mystery entrusted to her and governed by the successor to Peter and the bishops in union with him – is not just another Christian “denomination,” but rather contains all of the elements essential to the one, holy and apostolic Church.  On the other hand, although Christian communities that are not historically connected to the apostles and do not have the Eucharist cannot be called “Churches” in the proper sense, these communities are joined to the Church by baptism and still participate in the mystery of salvation through elements of the Church found outside the visible boundaries.

While non-Catholic Christians may not agree with the document’s assertions, [NB: Pope Benedict believes the Church has a right to her own document and language about it, and has the right to express them in the public square.  We must reroot our identity in our tradition and teaching if we are going to know who we are.  Only by knowing who we are can we contribute to and shape the world around us.] some have noted that honesty and clarity is favorable to fruitful dialogue between the Church and other Christian communities.  The Catholic Church’s differences with many Christian communities are closely associated with the Eucharist, which is dependent on the sacramental priesthood and apostolic succession.  Interestingly, at the same time, the Eucharist is also the foundation of the Church’s unity.  As the “source and summit” of our life and mission, the Eucharist is indispensable to the identity of the Church, to which all are ultimately called.  Indeed, both the Second Vatican Council and Pope John Paul II’s 1995 Encyclical “Ut unum sint” declared that non-Catholic Christians are oriented towards “a complete incorporation into the system of salvation such as Christ Himself willed it to be, and finally, towards a complete participation in Eucharistic communion.”

This one Eucharist of the one Catholic Church is also at the heart of the much anticipated letter by the Holy Father, issued July, 7, called “Summorum Pontificum.”  In the letter, he widened permission for the celebration of the Mass according to the Missal of 1962 – as well as for the celebration of other sacraments according to that Missal. [Probably "Ritual" and "Pontifical" are probably intended here.] The pope explains that the liturgy as it is commonly celebrated today will remain the “ordinary form” of the Latin Rite, while at the same time giving greater honor [a positive framing of the question through a careful choice of vocabulary] to the “extraordinary form” of the Rite – that is, as it was celebrated before 1970, with only minor changes from the Sixteenth Century onward.  Whereas Pope John Paul II encouraged bishops to generously respond when groups of the faithful asked permission to celebrate the extraordinary form, the new guidelines allow capable priests to celebrate it without first seeking permission from their bishop.

In his letter and an accompanying explanatory note, Pope Benedict provides some important distinctions and principles regarding the celebration of the earlier Roman Missal.  First, he makes it clear that this does not detract from the authority of the Second Vatican Council and the liturgical reform that followed.  The pope clearly explains that the current Missal must be seen as authoritative and remains the “ordinary form” of the one Rite.  At the same time, he explains, there is no contradiction in affirming the value of the Missal of 1962.  It was never abolished and “what earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.”  Furthermore, he says, this is not likely to cause divisions within parish communities, but rather is meant to provide “an interior reconciliation at the heart of the Church.”

Just as the document on the Church simply clarifies what the Catholic Church teaches about herself, the pope’s new apostolic letter simply clarifies guidelines about how the Church is to regard and celebrate the liturgy.  With regard to the extraordinary form of the Mass, very little will likely change in this diocese [...] after the new guidelines go into effect Sept. 14.  Parishes will continue to celebrate the Mass as you know it.  And already, I have freely granted permission in this diocese [...] where there have been requests to celebrate Mass according to the old Missal, provided the priest has adequate liturgical formation and knowledge of Latin.  In short, on a practical level, neither document changes much nor should come as a surprise, but they do help to clarify the importance of the Eucharistic mystery at the heart of the Church.

Note in that last paragraph two elements of what I call The Party Line, namely, "Not many people want that!  This won’t make any difference!  We are already doing enough for these people!"   Did you catch them? "...little will likely change…" and "... already, I have freely granted…".  Perhaps that "freely" make the difference?

In this case, because of the tone of the statement, while the bishop says things that are similar to The Party Line, they just don’t leave me with the feeling of being given the brush off.  The letter was respectful in tone and in presentation of the facts.  It treats the reader as important and intelligent.  The bishop makes distinctions.  There is an old Latin adage, Qui distinguit, bene docet... He teaches well who makes distinctions."  Frankly, other bishops and statements present those same two elements but you get an entirely different sense. 

His Excellency Most Rev. Armando Ochoa of El Paso has issued a statement on the Motu Proprio

My emphases and comments. 

Bishop Armando Ochoa’s Message

August, 2007

Decision on Tridentine Mass not a burden [!] for diocese

Dear Friends in Christ, Recently, Our Holy Father Benedict XVI, issued an Apostolic Letter, a ‘Motu Proprio’ entitled Summorum Pontificum.  A ‘Motu Proprio’ is a document issued by the Pope “on his own initiative” concerning serious matters and is addressed to the Universal Church .  In this particular document, the Pope seeks an “interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church” with a very small, but active, minority insisting that they want only the Tridentine Rite of the Mass.  [I don’t think so.  First, the number may not be "very small".  Second, some people might not want "only" the older form of Mass.  They may want it "sometimes".] This extraordinary form of the Mass is a concession making “it possible for all those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or to attain it anew.”  The ordinary form of the Mass, is the Mass that the vast majority of Roman Catholics, loyal to Our Holy Father Benedict XVI and to the decisions of the Second Vatican Council, attend on any given day here in El Paso and worldwide.  Unlike the extraordinary form which is celebrated only in Latin, the ordinary form is celebrated on any given day in English, Spanish, Korean, or in Arabic, [But not Latin?] here in the Diocese of El Paso

The Second Vatican Council [and Pope’s before the Second Vatican Council] has called all Catholics to full, active participation in the liturgy, that is the Mass and in the mission of the Church.  In the Mass which was celebrated before the Council, the extraordinary form about which the Pope writes, the priest did almost everything by himself.  He was assisted by the altar boys, but the people were present in a passive role.  [ARGH!] The celebrant said all the prayers in Latin, proclaimed all the Scriptures in English, [sometimes] offered the canon or Eucharistic Prayer in silence, and distributed Holy Communion by himself or with the help of another priest. It was only the altar boys who responded to the prayers of the priest; the assembly remained silent. [Except when they didn’t.] On the other hand, the choir sang some of the parts of the Mass in Latin, Gregorian Chant.  The laity was not allowed to read the Scriptures or to say any of the prayers or even to assist with Holy Communion.  [You mean except to receive it, which is the supreme expression of full, conscious and active participation] What may surprise many people, who are not familiar with the previous missal, is the fact that only the priest alone said the “Our Father.”  [Except for the fact that Pope’s before the Council even urged that people could recite it with the priest.  I will admit that that was not often done.]

For us, in the Diocese of El Paso , as in the vast majority of the roughly 189 dioceses in the United States , and I might add, worldwide, this will not be considered burdensome.  [Would it really be a burden to follow the Motu Proprio’s provisions otherwise?]  As the Pope says clearly, “the new Mass rite undoubtedly would remain the church’s predominant form of worship.”  In other words, the Mass that is celebrated daily in English, Spanish, Korean, or in Arabic, in El Paso , will continue to be the norm.  We are not being asked to revert back to the Latin Mass.   In reality, I can foresee that this might only affect one out of the 55 parishes in our Diocese.  In that parish, only one Mass will continue to be celebrated in Latin if the conditions set forth in the Motu Proprio are fulfilled. The remainder of the scheduled Masses, will continue to be offered in English and Spanish.  The Apostolic Letter will go into effect for those concerned, on September 14, 2007, the Feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross.

Sincerely in Christ,
Armando X. Ochoa,  D.D.
Bishop of El Paso 

This is a nearly textbook example of The Party Line. 

First, there is a very tenuous idea of what "active participation" is and there is no integration of the fact that the Novus Ordo is also in Latin. 

The elements of The Party Line are present: "Only a tiny group of people want this stuff!   We are already doing enough for these people!  this document doesn’t really affect us!"