What Does The Prayer Really Say?
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Here is an interesting piece from the nearly ubiquitous John L. Allen, Jr., the former Roman correspondent for the lefty NCR.   Get this.

My emphases.

 

Benedict XVI’s approval rating in America is 73 percent, poll finds By John L Allen Jr Daily Created Sep 25 2007 – 12:14

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
New York

Nearly three-quarters of Americans, 73 percent, who say they’re familiar enough with Pope Benedict XVI to offer an opinion have a favorable view of the pontiff, according to a new poll. Benedict scored well not just among Catholics, but also white Evangelicals, black Protestants, and mainline Protestants.

The survey, conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and released today, offers the pope good news ahead of a projected 2008 visit to the United States.

To a considerable extent, the pope’s popularity crosses the normal American partisan divide. While 84 percent of Americans who describe themselves as conservative Republicans have a favorable view of the pope, 59 percent of self-described liberal Democrats also give Benedict XVI high marks. Benedict scored well among virtually every ideological subgroup, from a 68 percent approval rating among independents to 79 percent approval among conservative and moderate Democrats.

There are several fine points, however, that complicate the picture.

First, Benedict’s approval rating is substantially lower than comparable figures for his predecessor, John Paul II, who was viewed favorably by 86 percent of Americans in a 1996 poll. Benedict XVI also trails John Paul’s 1996 numbers in terms of the percentage of Americans who say they have a “very favorable” impression, at 21 percent for Benedict and 32 percent for John Paul II.

The gap is especially evident among Catholics; while 50 percent of American Catholics had a very favorable view of John Paul in 1996, just 36 percent express that impression of Benedict XVI today.

Second, growing familiarity with Benedict has not translated into higher approval ratings. In 2005, just 55 percent of the American public told Pew Forum pollsters that they knew enough about the pope to offer an opinion, while this time 68 percent volunteered an impression. Yet over that time, Benedict’s approval rating actually dropped from 81 percent to 73 percent, suggesting that some Americans who have come to know the pope over the last two years don’t necessarily like what they see.

Third, a plurality of Americans, 46 percent, say that Benedict XVI is doing only a “fair or poor job” in promoting relationships with other religions, while just 38 percent say he’s doing an “excellent or good” job.

Though the Pew Forum report does not draw the conclusion, that result likely reflects continuing fallout from Benedict XVI’s September 2006 lecture at the University of Regensburg in Bavaria, which sparked protest across the Islamic world when Benedict quoted a 14th century Byzantine Emperor to the effect that Muhammad had “brought things only evil and inhuman.” It may also reflect negative reaction in the Protestant world to a recent Vatican declaration that the Catholic church remains the lone “true church” founded by Jesus Christ.

A solid majority of Americans, 56 percent, describe Benedict XVI as “conservative" and just 5 percent see him as "liberal." Among college graduates, fully 71 percent say the pope is “conservative.” Likewise, 68 percent of American Catholics describe the pope as "conservative."

LOL!

I once asked Joseph Card. Ratzinger how he dealt with all the negative press all the time.  He responded that if he didn’t read something awful about himself every week, he’d have to examine his conscience.

Pope Benedict has been applying needed medicine to some sick sectors of the Church.  As as St. Augustine described many centuries ago, "The doctor doesn’t stop cutting just because his patient is screaming for him to stop."

That might be a little exaggeration, but the Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli has posted on his blog Sacri Palazzi:

The nomination of Msgr. Guido Marini, of the clergy of Genoa, as head of the Office of liturgical celebrations of the Pope, replacing [Archbishop] Piero Marini (who will be nominated as head of the Pontifical Commission for Eucharistic Congresses) will be announced at the beginning of the coming week (probably even Monday). Guido Marini will take possession of the appointment after 21 October, that is, after the Pope’s visit to Naples. But on that occasion he will already be present together with [his] predecessor.

La nomina di mons. Guido Marini, del clero di Genova, a capo dell’Ufficio delle celebrazioni liturgiche del Papa, in sostituzione di mons. Piero Marini (che sarà nominato a capo del Pontificio comitato per i Congressi eucaristici) sarà annunciata all’inizio della settimana entrante (probabilmente già lunedì). Guido Marini prenderà possesso dell’incarico dopo il 21 ottobre, cioè dopo la visita del Papa a Napoli. Ma già in quella occasione dovrebbe essere presente insieme al predecessore.

I think not a few of us will be getting up pretty early on Monday to read the appointments.

Fr. Finigan says:

As the former Archbishop of Southwark, Most Rev Michael Bowen, once said in response to a rumour, "For all I know, it may very well be true."

Today, as last year, in the chapel of the Sabine Farm, Holy Mass was celebrated with the 1962 Missale Romanum.  The vestments were appropriately angelic and festive. After all, the chapel was filled also with angels.

Here is a little detail woven into the fabric of the chasuble:

Here is a nice article from Catholic New York.

My emphases and comments.

Solemn Joy

Traditional Latin Mass community celebrates pope’s decree

By CLAUDIA McDONNELL

Reverence and devotion filled the air like incense [There is really something very different about the atmosphere of the older Mass, no?  Even without the incense.  Still, you can almost see and smell it in the air.] at the Tridentine Mass Sept. 16 at Immaculate Conception parish in Sleepy Hollow. There was extra joy, too, because of the occasion. The traditional Latin Mass is celebrated there on Sundays and holy days, but this was the first one after Pope Benedict’s decree granting wider permission to celebrate the traditional Mass went into effect Sept. 14.

"It’s wonderful," Anne Meeks said. "We think very highly of Pope Benedict. We’re very grateful." [It is very important to express gratitude to your priests and bishops about the older Mass.  Very important.] Mrs. Meeks, who lives in Croton-on-Hudson with her husband, Michael, and is expecting their third child, attended the Mass with their daughters, Mary, 4, and Katherine, 15 months; her husband was at work.

"We love the Tridentine Mass," she said. "We feel it’s extremely reverent. We love the beauty of it."  [There are a lot more reasons than the beauty, though that is a very good start… and they are tied together.]

The Tridentine Mass is celebrated at a number of other churches of the archdiocese, and several people at Immaculate Conception expressed gratitude to Cardinal Egan for making it available. They also thanked Msgr. Louis J. Mazza, pastor of Immaculate Conception, for welcoming them to the parish.  [Yes… everyone… do thank people.]

"He has always been so good to us," said Amy Kelley of Mount Kisco. "He really recognized the legitimacy of our attachment (to the Tridentine form)...He took us under his wing."

Msgr. Mazza told CNY, "They are a good, loving, Christian community." Though geographically scattered, "when they come together they have a lovely family atmosphere," [There is that unmeasureable sense again.] he said, and the children of some of the families receive baptism, first Communion and confirmation at Immaculate Conception.

Msgr. Mazza expressed support for the pope’s decree and said that interest in the traditional Latin Mass "is not dying, it’s growing."  [Yep.] But, he added, "Not every parish has a priest who can say a Latin Mass."

The regular celebrant at Immaculate Conception is Father Richard Munkelt, a priest of the Diocese of Scranton who teaches philosophy at Fairfield University in Connecticut. He said in an interview that he is "deeply grateful and overjoyed" by the pope’s action in making the Tridentine Mass more available.

"It’s a very important step in the direction of keeping the Church in touch with its liturgical past and heritage," [continuity] he said.

He said that the Tridentine Mass gives worshippers "a sense of the sacred, and a sense of what solemn worship is about…It’s about giving glory to God using our highest talents, in the highest artistic and intellectual manner imaginable."  [We will see a revival of many of our very best traditions of music and of art.  For two millennia the Church was the greatest patroness of the arts there ever was.  Holy Church has given to all humanity two great gifts: art and saints.  Saints express God’s truth and beauty in living, breathing people.  Art is like God’s grandchild, an expression of God’s children about His beauty and truth in the material things around us.  The holiness of saints and the beauty of art flow out of and back into Holy Mass.]

The Mass on Sept. 16 had the solemnity and formality [We must recover a sense of what Dante expresses with the Italian word "cortese", a "courtliness" of noble formality and courtesy in the face of mystery and majesty.] that older worshippers recall, and that most younger worshippers do not—and would likely find unusual and perhaps fascinating. Father Munkelt, wearing emerald-green silk vestments trimmed in gold, marched into the Gothic-style church accompanied by eight altar boys, one of whom held up the edge of the priest’s cape. After going up to the sanctuary, Father Munkelt turned and walked back down the aisle, sprinkling the congregation with holy water. Then he returned to the sanctuary and, assisted by altar boys, removed the cape and put on a chasuble. He then began the prayers of the Mass.

Singing throughout the Mass was the group’s schola cantorum, or choir. It is made up of two professional musicians—including the director, David Hughes—and six volunteers. They sang Gregorian chant superbly. Some of the people joined in the singing of Mass prayers such as the Agnus Dei, as well as the responses to the priest’s prayers. When he sang "Dominus vobiscum" ("The Lord be with you") they responded, "Et cum spiritu tuo" ("And with your spirit").

According to the Tridentine form, the priest celebrates the Mass while facing the altar, that is, with his back to the people, so that all face the same direction, which traditionally is the East, symbolic of the Resurrection. [That covers the bases.] After reading the Epistle and Gospel at the altar in Latin, Father Munkelt read both from the pulpit in English. He then preached a homily in which he called on all to cultivate the virtue of humility and the realization of "our complete dependence on Christ."

Worshippers followed the Mass in attentive and reverent silence; small children were present throughout, but they made little noise. At communion, all knelt to receive the Eucharist on the tongue.

Immediately following the end of Mass, the schola sang the Te Deum in gratitude for the pope’s decree.

Speaking with CNY after the Mass, Father Munkelt, 51, said that his vocation was inspired by the Tridentine Mass. Formerly an Episcopalian, he was received into the Catholic Church in 1983 and began to attend the Tridentine Mass at St. Agnes Church in Manhattan, "out of intellectual curiosity," he said, about the Church’s liturgical heritage. At St. Agnes, he continued, "I felt a calling to the priesthood and the altar." He is in residence at St. Anthony of Padua Chapel in West Orange, N.J., where all Masses, as well as the sacraments, are celebrated according to the Tridentine form. The chapel operates with authorization from the Archdiocese of Newark.

Commenting on the use of Latin, he noted that it is "the historical language of worship in the Roman rite."  [We need more thought about the language of worship.  The great scholar Christine Mohrmann wrote of Latin as a hierarchical language.  I wish I could scare up that reference again.]

"The beauty of Latin," he said, "is that it helps to take the worship out of the world of the ordinary," [Yes!  No liturgy is about the merely secular.] emphasizing its "mystery and sacredness." He remarked that "everyone is capable of understanding the words of the Mass through vernacular translations."

Asked whether making the Tridentine Mass more available could lead to divisiveness in the Church, Father Munkelt said, "The key point in this question is the fact that the Church has always been liturgically pluralistic. It has many rites. There have been different rites and usages within the fold of the Western, or Latin, Church. Divisiveness comes in only when a legitimate expression has been suppressed or frustrated."  ["Legitimate expression".  The Novus Ordo is legitimate expression only when celebrated according to the rubrics.]

Frederic Wolff, 69, told CNY that he still remembers the Latin responses he made as an altar boy. "The Latin Mass, for me, is my mother tongue in worship," [There is that language thing again.] he said.

Joanne Riccoboni, 43, of Brewster attends the Mass regularly with her husband, Gene, and their four children. Like many of the women there, she wore a lace mantilla. She recalled how she felt when she first attended a traditional Latin Mass as an adult.

"Tears just filled my eyes, and I had goose bumps all over," she said. "I had been away from Mass for a long time, and it brought me back. I just felt at home again."

 

It has been almost a month since the last PODCAzT.  My travels and time restrictions have kept me busy.  But today we listen to St. Augustine of Hippo talk about shepherds in union with Christ.

Also, I have provided a sound recording of my sermon on 14 September about the Exaltation of the Cross and about the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.  It was delivered in Blackfen, Kent, in England at a Solemn Mass at Our Lady of the Rosary Church where Fr. Finigan of the blog The Hermeneutic of Continuity is pastor.

A reader of WDTPRS sent in a voicemail question about whether it is necessary for women to wear chapel veils at Mass with the so-called "Tridentine" Missal, the Missale Romanum of 1962.

http://wdtprs.com/podcazt/07_09_28.mp3 
044 07-08-27 St. Monica dies, Augustine weeps; Pope Benedict greets American seminarians
043 07-08-23 Benedict XVI on Mass “toward the Lord” and a prayer by St. Augustine
042 07-08-10 St. Augustine on St. Lawrence and how to be a Christian
041 07-08-09 Ratzinger on liturgical silence; silent Eucharist Prayer
040 07-08-02 Eusebius of Vercelli in exile; my column in on detractors of Summorum Pontificum
039 07-07-27 St. Augustine on Christ the Mediator; “for all” or “for many”?
038 07-07-25 Ratzinger on “active participation”; The Sabine Farm; Merry del Val’s music
037 07-07-18 The position of the altar and the priest’s “back to the people”