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

Something odd is happening at the "Blogger’s Choice Award" for 2008

A reader alerted me to what happened when the link on the left side bar to the "Blogger’s choice award" page for WDTPRS was clicked. 

 

A little before the voting for 2007 was ended, the people who run this award site expunged well over 100 votes from WDTPRS.  Also, all the nice comments that people had made after voting are gone as well. 

Either someone at Blogger’s Choice Awards doesn’t like this blog (which is unlikely), or WDTPRS was zeroed down because someone was voting multiple times from the same i.p. address.   That is cheating.  Who would want to win anything that way?

Now … a couple days ago, WDTPRS was well in the lead in the 2008 voting.  Now, the old entry is gone, and the entry for WDTPRS that is there and active is much farther down the list with many fewer votes.  This appears to be a brand new nomination.  

I am thinking that the old entry in use for the award was probably "banned" because, again, someone was doing WDTPRS a disservice by cheating.

Folks… why do that?  I do appreciate your support, but please, if you vote for WDTPRS, just vote once!

Someone probably cost WDTPRS a spot in the top three for 2007.

So, WDTPRS has again started from zero.

If you haven’t not recently voted, I would appreciate your support, but please abide by the rules and just vote once, from one registration.

Damian Thompson at Telegraph.co.uk has gotten a threatening e-mail for his writing on the whole Paul Inwood barely dodged by the Portsmouth diocese.

Folks, you would not believe the hate mail writing on these, and other issues, generates from the progressivists and the hard-core trads. 

Oddly, regardless of the source, it all sounds the same, which is revelatory in some ways.  

As my late pastor, Msgr. Richard Schuler used to say: You can go off the road and into the ditch on the right side or the left.  Either way, you’re in a ditch.

The site Petrus has an interview by Bruno Volpe with the new Master of Ceremonies, Msgr. Guido Marini, who has replaced Archbp. Piero Marini.

My translation:

CITTA’ DEL VATICANO - He’s only just arrived in the Vatican: with a marked Genovese accent, at 42 years old, raised in the school of Giuseppe Card. Siri and a faithful collaborator of Archbishops Dionigi Tettamanzi, Tarcisio Bertone, and Angelo Bagnasco, the new Master of the Pope’s liturgical ceremonies Msgr. Guido Marini, successor of the homoynous Piero, speaks for the first time after the bestowal of this prestigious role and does so with
Petrus.

Monsignor, above all, welcome and I hope your work goes well…

GM: Thanks for that good wish, I really need it.  You know, I have only been in Rome a short time, and I am looking around, I am taking it in, and I am thinking to myself:  there is a lot to do and take care of, believe me.

So, we go from one Marini to another: what do you say to Piero, your predecessor?

GM: From my heart I thank him.  He has given a lot to the Church, has served two Popes, and I am here only at the beginning of my service.

It’s been called a difficult job…

GM: Clearly.. The life of every Master of Ceremonies for the Pope is frought with problems.  We are in the limelight, and we can’t allow here the luxury of making huge mistakes. 

Many hold that you were called up because, liturgically, you are more sober and traditional than [Archbp.] Piero Marini.  But what is your concept of liturgy? 

What the Church wants and teaches, no more, no less.  I am not the sort of person who looks for novelities or oddities.  I might seem banal, but the liturgy needs respects for the rules dictated by the Church, and I don’t see any reason why I should ignore them.

It’s said that in Genoa, whee  you have been working till now, that the liturgy was so well cared for, solemn and elegant, without flights of fantasy…

But the liturgy is that way by its own nature.  Let me repeat: No one can set aside the Church’s liturgical norms.  The Mass is a gift, a grace, not a show.  Therefore, no sort of fabrication, but absolute respect for the liturgical norms.

Pope Benedic XVI, in addition to being a very great theologian, it also a subtle liturgist.  He gives great importance to the liturgy, correctly executed… 

To collaborate with the Holy Father will be a grace for me.  The popularity of the Pope is in full view of everyone, as his preaching of the truth and his courage.  Insofar as concerns the liturgy, I entirely share the Pope’s position: Mass is sacrifice.

In your opinion, have there been liturgical abuses recently?

You know, the Church is big.  But, as the same Pontiff has himself acknowledged in his letter explaning the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, there have been abuses and outlandish interpretations.  All I can say is that, for sure, I will not be the author of any fabrication, and I will limit myself to apply scrupulously the rules existing today.

On that note, what do you think about the Motu Proprio that derestricted the Mass with the "Tridentine rite"? 

I agree with the Motu Proprio 100%, as an act of common sense, justice, freedom and farsightedness. 

Something to notice here is that the new MC is very much in favor of "freedom", but freedom within the structure of the rules, the rubrics, the legislation.  In a sense, the issue of adherence to "rules" suggests a strong understand the connection between faith and prayer.  What we believe has a reciprocal relationship with what we believe.  This is the lex orandi lex credendi principle, so much at the heart of the Church in every sphere of its life, in all corners of the world.

Note also that while he didn’t say anything critical of his predecessor, he is also demonstrating that there is now a completely different approach being applied. 

Don’t be looking for innovations.   I mean that in two senses: I suspect he will not abruptly change everything in the papal ceremonies.  That just doesn’t sound like something Pope Benedict would do.  Remember that in his liturgical writings Joseph Ratzinger knew we must take a gentle approach to correcting things, not an abrupt approach.  However, certain things will gradually start to shift in a new direction.  That shift will begin right away, but not in an abrupt way.

I got an official statement from Franciscan University of Steubenville on the initiation of the Traditional Latin Mass and I updated the entry.  It was sent by the Associate Director of Public Relations.

Okay… not every one at once.

1) What is it in very general terms?

2) What is it used for?

3) How does it differ from other online tools?

4) Do you use it and for what?

I have always been interested in the plight, and victories, of Anglicans/Episcopalians who "swim the Tiber".  The late Msgr. Richard Schuler, of St. Agnes Church in St. Paul, MN, was instrumental in helping the first Anglican priests come over to Rome (literally, he took them to meet Card. Seper of the SCDF) and I met some of them during their visits to see him, I have several good lay friends who have become Catholics, I have a few priest friends who were Anglican clergy before coming over, I have great respect for their liturgical and musical tradition, etc.

However, the Anglicans are committing religious suicide and the Catholic Church under Pope Benedict has a Marshall Plan.  They are losing their identity and we are recovering ours.

So, I was very interested to read that some Irish Anglicans, Church of Ireland, may be making the move.

My emphases and comments.

Independent.ie
300 Anglicans defect to Rome after row over women priests

By John Cooney Religion Correspondent
Thursday October 25 2007

UP to 300 Irish Anglicans could soon be joining the Roman Catholic Church to the traditional hymn tune ‘Faith of Our Fathers’.

A report in today’s ‘Irish Catholic’ newspaper claims that three Church of Ireland parishes are Romeward-bound, and may soon be received by Pope Benedict into full communion with the Catholic Church.

This change of denominational allegiance is part of a long-standing doctrinal feud over the ordination of women.  [I think it’s more than a feud.  A "feud" suggests there are good positions on both sides and that the origin of the conflict is becoming more obscure.]

All three parishes broke away from the mainstream Church of Ireland in 1991 after the House of Bishops of the Church of Ireland decided to start ordaining women, a move which they condemned as "a defiance of scripture and tradition."

Two of the parishes are in the North and one is in the Republic.

Newtownards in Co Down, Eskra, outside Omagh, in Co Tyrone, and Stradbally in Co Laois, are members of the so-called traditional rite within the Church of Ireland.

These traditionalist members, who do not have a national profile, were not listed in a separate box about religious identity in the recent census. But they say that they are true Anglicans.  [I am guessing this means "Anglo-Catholic".]

In total, they claim to have 400,000 members belonging to the worldwide 78 million Anglican Communion. So their defection to Rome could have a dramatic effect.

Earlier this month, they sent a letter to the Vatican seeking "full, corporate, sacramental union" with the Catholic Church under the authority of the Pope.

While only a few hundred Anglicans in Ireland will be involved in converting to Rome, the move, if approved by the Vatican, will see 400,000 Anglicans worldwide admitted into the Catholic Church.

Last night, Michael Kelly, deputy editor of the ‘Irish Catholic’, said it was extremely rare for entire Anglican communities to seek corporate communion with the Catholic Church.  [Here’s part of the problem.  The progressivist Catholics won’t want to help these far more liturgically traditional folks into the fold!   That was part of the problem in the USA.]

"But individual Anglicans frequently convert to Catholicism," he added.

Only last week Anita Henderson, wife of the Church of Ireland Bishop of Tuam, Killala and Achonry, was received into the Catholic Church at a private ceremony in the chapel of Catholic Bishop John Fleming, in Ballina, Co Mayo.

The prospect of three whole parishes shifting their loyalties—and churches—under the papal flag will come as a further shock to the Church of Ireland, which has been enjoying a growth in its membership, mainly of new immigrants but also of former Catholic priests.  [HA!  More power to e’m!]

A spokesman for the traditional rite based in Northern Ireland confirmed that a decision had been made "not to give interviews at this stage".

However, the spokesman did confirm that the members of the traditional rite of the Church of Ireland fervently hope to be received into "full communion with the See of Rome". The decision to petition Rome was made earlier this month at a plenary meeting of the international body known as the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), their umbrella organisation.

According to a statement: "The bishops and vicars, general unanimously, agreed to the text of a letter to the See of Rome seeking full, corporate, sacramental union.

"The letter was signed solemnly by all the college and entrusted to the primate and two bishops chosen by the college to be presented to the Holy See," the statement added.  [Imagine the emotions at that moment of signing….]

A spokesman for the Australian-based Archbishop John Hepworth, primate of the worldwide traditionalist communion, said the letter was cordially received at the congregation for the doctrine of the faith in Rome.

- John Cooney Religion Correspondent

UPDATE: 1640 GMT 26 Oct 07

Someone alerted me to a discussion at an Anglican blog germane to this entry.  On that blog, Fr. Jay Scott Newman wrote an interesting comment which I reproduce below with my emphases:

20. Fr Jay Scott Newman wrote:

“Both schools are asking themselves what the future of Anglicanism is going to look like. And the return to a biblically faithful, traditional Anglicanism isn’t just about our Bishops coming to agreement. It involves the whole Church—including its organs of theological education.”

This was the comment offered by the Reverend Martha Giltinan, Trinity’s Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology. That an ordained woman and seminary professor can talk about the return to a biblically faithful, traditional Anglicanism without any irony is an index of how far gone the Anglican communion is from any form of Christianity which is biblically faithful and traditional. Friends, this is the camel’s nose under the tent, and until and unless it is driven back out into the desert, every manner of tempest will sweep in through that gap. To put it most simply: if a woman can be a presbyter, there is no coherent argument left against two men marrying each other. And given that even Nashotah House, the once proud flagship of American Anglo-Catholicism, has accepted this profoundly unbiblical and untraditional distortion of the Church’s sacramental life, there remains no hope (that I can see) of Anglicanism in the States being restored to biblical and traditional Christianity.

 

Fr. Newman: Rem acu tetigisti!  This is very well said.