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

Lately we have seen some awful photos of Masses.

For example…

and…

These can be multiplied.

However, here are images from Holy Mass celebrated for the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul this year at Maria Thann

I thinking that maybe we did. 

I haven’t found any official statement on the Motu Proprio from any source in the Archdiocese of Albuquerque, but an article from the local secular paper, the Albuquerque Journal was brought to my attention.  This article contains some diappointing and, frankly, obtuse commentary.

My emphases and comments.

    Monday, July 30, 2007
    Latin Mass Not Popular in Diocese [This sorta sets the stage, no?]
    By Debra Dominguez-Lund
    Journal Staff Writer
        Although Pope Benedict XVI recently resurrected [No.] the Catholic celebration of the Latin Mass, [No.] Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan says that probably will have little impact on the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.  [The Party Line: "Very few people want this sort of thing!  It won’t make any difference here!  We’re already doing enough for these… people!"]
        "I don’t see it as huge thing here in New Mexico, because people are pretty well settled with Mass in English and like Mass in English," [How about the people going to Mass in Spanish?  Are there any of them in New Mexico?] Sheehan said Wednesday during his program, "The Archbishop’s Hour," on 98.9 FM, the Immaculate Heart Radio Network.
        The archbishop, however, added that he’s certain the pope’s endorsement of the Latin Mass will bear fruit elsewhere. [?]
        Benedict issued a document July 7 authorizing priests to celebrate the Latin Mass, known as the Tridentine Mass, [Did this writer do even five mintues of research?] beginning Sept. 14 if a "stable group of faithful" [There’s that bad translation again!] parishioners requests it.
        Currently, the local bishop must approve such requests— an obstacle that supporters of the rite say has greatly limited its availability.  [Truer words were never written.]
        Sheehan said that the diocese has very few priests who know Latin, and that those few who know it well enough "don’t have the knees to make the 18 genuflections" [I’m sorry.  I want at all times to show respect to ecclesiastical authority, but… this is simply weird.] — an act of reverence usually consisting of falling onto one knee— that the Mass requires.
        "I think there would be maybe one or two priests who might want to study Latin (to conduct the Masses), but I think most of the priests feel like they already have more than they can handle," Sheehan said. "And if they need another language— Spanish is more important than Latin as far as (meeting the) spiritual needs of more people."
        The archbishop said that of the diocese’s 300,000 Catholics, only 150— at most— attend the diocese’s one Latin Mass that’s been offered for more than a decade, at noon Sundays at San Ignacio Catholic Church on Walter NE.  [I wonder what the size of the archdiocese is… lemme see… let’s reach for our handy Annuario Pontificio to check the stats: 158,296 square kilometers …that’s  94,978 sq miles.  Hmmm… the state of Minnesota is 87,014 sq miles …   Italy is 116,346.5 sq miles…  England is 50,346 sq miles. One Mass.]
        "That’s a pretty small percentage, but at the same time I wanted to make it available [and so easy to reach] to the people who did find it to be spiritually helpful to them," Sheehan said. "People come from as far as Los Alamos to go to Tridentine Mass there. [Ummm… about 1.5 hour drive each way?]
        "(San Ignacio’s) holy father wanted to reach out to Catholics who have attachment to the old Mass," he said.
        San Ignacio Deacon Charles Johnson said the Mass does draw high attendance, but no higher than the 9:30 a.m. English Mass. [How about putting it this way: "The Mass in English draws no more people than the older Mass."]
        "Like me, I think people enjoy the Latin Mass because it gives them a feeling of security [How patronizing.] because it’s a tradition of the church— one that’s been with us since the time of the apostles," Johnson said.  [Ah,... more of that great formation on display.]
        In reviving the rite, Benedict was reaching out to the followers of an excommunicated ultratraditionalist, [For pity’s sake] the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who split with the Vatican over Vatican II, particularly the introduction of the new Mass celebrated in the vernacular [No.].
        "It’s not going back to pre-Vatican II days as much as it’s just recognizing there’s this one same Mass," Sheehan said, "whether it’s in the extraordinary or ordinary form as the pope points out."
      
        The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Parish bulletins often have space reserved for the pastor’s elucubrations.  Well… "elucubrations"  might overly dignify what they actually offer.

Not so the Pastor’s Page by Fr. George Welzbacher of St. John’s in St. Paul.   He usually presents a tasty and gristly chew for your mind on current events.

Check out this last week’s offering.  As Fr. W told me, "This week I didn’t even have to comment."   The arguments in what follow are pathetic and the positions are nothing short of evil.

Pastor’s Page
By Fr. George Welzbacher
  
July 29, 2007 

   May I share with you a report by Robin Toner that appeared in the July 18th issue of The New York Times. It can stand on its own without comment.

*         *         *         *          *

Democrats Attack Bush on Women’s Health Issues
                                     By Robin Toner
   In a rousing indictment of the Bush Administration and the Supreme Court it created, Senator Barack Obama told a Planned Parenthood convention here [in Washington, D.C.] on Tuesday that the next election would decide a fundamental question: "What kind of America will our daughters grow up in?"
   The speech by Mr. Obama, of Ilinois, came on a day when the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination expressed their commitment to reversing the Bush administration’s approach to abortion rights, judicial appointments, sex education and contraception.
   Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton declared that President Bush had consistently "played politics with women’s health," She added, "He has chipped away at  reproductive rights, and he has worked to turn Washington D.C., into an evidence-free zone wherefacts are subordinate to ideology."
   Mrs. Clinton, of New York, argued that the Bush administration and its conservative allies had undermined and under-financed longstanding education and family planning programs while heavily favoring abstinence education. She added, to cheers, "’I want you to know that when I’m president, I will devote my very first days in office to reversing these ideological, anti-science, anti-prevention policies that this administration has put into place."
   Mr. Obama, who was repeatedly interrupted by applause, said the recent Supreme Court decision upholding a federal ban on a type of abortion [the federal ban that was upheld by the Court was the ban on Partial Birth Abortion] is the beginning of a profound retreat on women’s rights, and should be presented that way to the voters.
   "We know that five men don’t know better than women and their doctors what’s best for women’s health," Mr. Obarna said, alluding to the 5-to-4 majority in the abortion case, Gonzales v. Carhart, which upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.
   "We know that a woman’s right to make a decision about how many children to have and when, without government interference, is one of the most fundamental freedoms we have in this county," he said.
  
   Mr. Obama’s speech – and the reception it received from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund – underscored the power of the Supreme Court as a galvanizing issue for Democratic primary voters, after a session marked by conservative shifts on abortion, school integration and other issues. But Mr. Obama also argued that supporters of the abortion rights should not shy from making their case to the broader public.

   "If the argument is narrow, oftentimes we lose," he said. "But if you ask everybody, you ask the most conservative person, do they want their daughters to have the same chances as men? Most of them will answer in the affirmative."

   Elizabeth Edwards, speaking on behalf of her husband, former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, said his commitment to abortion rights ran deep.
   "He hasn’t changed, he hasn’t wavered," she said, "John is pro-choice not because he made some political calculation. He simply is pro-choice." 

   Mrs. Edwards argued that the nation was now "One Justice away from overturning Roe v. Wade," the 1973 Supreme Court decision recognizing a right to abortion.  She added that it was no time for the abortion-rights side to flinch.

   "There are times when compromise simply means capitulation, and this is one of those times," she said, "Just as you can’t be a little bit pregnant, you can’t be a little bit deprived of the right to control your body"......

Fr. Martin Fox is a little sad that he is not getting as many hits right now and the bonfire of his vanities is fading a bit.   And we know that weekend stats tend to drop off a bit, too.

Let’s give Father a little bump to raise his spirits for the weekend (even though I don’t think he links to us here… o{];¬)   )