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

I like posting positive things. 

So, with joy I present an interview over at angelqueen.org.  I suspect this translation could have used a little different approach.  But it is readable.  Other than the questions my emphases and comments.

So, here it is. The Second Annual Interview with Father de Tanoüarn of the GSI. Thank you and bless you Father. 

The Good Shepherd Institute was founded in September 2006 – can you give us some feedback of this first year? 

Back then, some the SSPX called us “the mutineers” – a word that was supposed to indicate we were meaningless. They no longer do. [That means they are doing better than expected.] Since September 8th, 2006, when it was erected, the Good Shepherd Institute has had 7 priestly ordinations, and 35 seminarians now study in the seminary we created in Courtalain. A handful of priests joined us – others didn’t formally join but are close to us. The Institute exists in Europe and Latin America. Among our seminarians are Poles and Brazilians – this indicates that we have a future there. In France, the Saint Eloi church in Bordeaux was erected as a personal parish February 1st, 2007. We have priests here and there, celebrating their private masses, but we did not –not yet– get the chapels we hoped for.  [Hopefully this will shift and they will have more opportunities for pastoral work.  After all, I know priests in France with a dozen or more parishes and chapels under their care. Why not entrust some of them to these guys?  Would that be so bad?   (Of course, that depends on your perspective!)]

Doesn’t the Moto Proprio help?

Somehow, the bishops seem to grow stiff.  [This probably refects a phase like "digging in their heels".] It looks as if the Motu Proprio for the traditional Mass that was released July 7th made them seek vengeance on the “specialized institutes” as Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos calls them, such as the FSSP, the Institute of Christ the King – and, yes, the Good Shepherd Institute. In Avignon [Southern France] for instance, Bp Cattenoz started a transdiocesan group called “Totus Tuus” with priests celebrating the traditional Mass, in order to avoid resorting to our traditional institutes. [You know, I frankly don’t have a problem with that.  As I have stated many times, my preference will always lie not so much with "specialized institutes", as good as they are.  I will favor diocesan priests serving in their dioceses in diocesan parishes.  I think they should always have priority.  Also, and this is important, if this "Totus Tuus" is successful, then… good!  Everybody wins.  With the work in Pope Benedict’s Marshall Plan to be done, if there are more groups and they succeed, the more the better.  This doesn’t have to be seen as a zero-sum game.]  In Marseilles Bp Pontier asks the faithful to move to another church where he imposes upon them a priest of his choice. Not to mention Lyon and Versailles, where the FSSP lost control over its biggest French congregations. There is no denying such difficulties, but at the same time the traditional Mass is prodigiously propagating among priests and the laity. When the traditional Mass is largely diffused and widely available, Catholics will stop fighting each other and harmony will prevail. Those attached to the new liturgy will learn on their own about the traditional usage, and their hostility will disappear by itself as it is frequently induced by their ignorance of it.  [Right!  That is part of what I mean by the "gravitational pull"!]

What specific role does the Good Shepherd Institute play in this whole context?

The way I see it, we have a double function. We are quite near the bishops as we meet lots of them. Real relations can be built that way little by little –at least with some of them. It takes time, but scars from the past can be healed and mutual trust can develop between individuals, beyond personal agendas. Another thing we do is we try to unify all the forces on favor of Benedict XVI’s ecclesial policy, by organizing public events – such as the congress we’re planning in Paris next January to thank the pope, at the occasion of which there may be a little surprise.  [I would love more information on this.]

Speaking of Benedict XVI’s ecclesial policy, what part does the Motu Proprio play in it?

Pope Benedict XVI himself wrote the Motu Proprio, at least the essential parts of it – Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos indicated this to us by saying “I keep at your disposal the GERMAN original”. The pope proceeded with much strength and great prudence, he doesn’t impose a thing upon the bishops, but he sort of puts ‘the cause of the Mass’ in the hands of stable lay groups. Such groups have already appeared – it is inevitable that more will follow and grow in the future. In his letter to the bishops that accompanies the Motu Proprio, the pope doesn’t announce a revolution, he wishes “that all is done in peace and serenity” – at a quiet and peaceful pace. The pope acts in the Church’s time – that is a time that goes slowly but irreversibly, since it’s the Holy Spirit’s time. The irreversible thing here is the pope’s recognition of the legitimacy of the faithful attachment to the traditional liturgy.

Does the pope regard both missals as equals? He doesn’t say – but he commands “the sacrality which attracts many people to the former usage” – a sacrality that “the mass according to the missal of Paul VI [should] be able to demonstrate, more powerfully than has been the case hitherto”. He commands “the spiritual richness and the theological depth of [the traditional] missal” – that are to “enrich” the new one. To me, that’s a clear indication of the pope’s mind on the liturgical question, to say the least.

However, didn’t the pope put the traditional rite aside, so as to speak, by calling it an “extraordinary rite” – as opposed to the ordinary rite, which is the Paul VI missal?

No. In fact, the pope does NOT speak of “two rites”. On the contrary he speaks of two forms of the one same Latin rite, which means both forms – whether ordinary or extraordinary – basically enjoy the same legitimacy and the same rights. [That is something still to be seen.  After all, the Motu Proprio does define some parameters.] That cuts out all the talk about our attachment to the traditional liturgy being a mere ‘nostalgia’ for ‘the old rite’– there is no ‘old rite’ but the extraordinary form of today’s rite. The Missal we use is recognized as the “Missale Romanum of Pope John XXIII,” and it has never abrogated.

What is required from the faithful is that they acknowledge the supernatural value and the objective sanctity of the new missal – in other words, its sacramental and sacrificial validity, by virtue of its promulgation by Pope Paul VI. Abp Lefebvre spoke of the ‘essential validity’ of the new missal and he required all his seminarians to recognize this essential validity prior to their ordination by swearing an oath. I swore that oath 20 years ago, and I certainly intend to keep to it.

I find this interview very encouraging.  This fellow sounds like he is squared away.

Over at the Papa Ratzinger Blog (which if your Italian is good, you should read), there is a mention of an interview with the mighty Archbishop Ranjith, Secretary of the CDWDS.  It is about, yes once again, bishops who oppose the Holy Father over Summorum Pontificum.

I am still trying to chase down the full text, but here is what I can translate from the PRB (edited).  Read the interview in Italian HERE

Mons. Ranjith criticizes the insubbordination of bishops over Latin

"No to dances, ditties and sermons of a socio-political nature"

Rome 16 Nov. (Apcom) –

....

The attitude of "autonomy" demonstrated "among some ecclesiastics", but also "in the highest ranks of the Church" certainly doesn’t help "the noble mission Christ entrusted to His Vicar", the Pope, the Archbishop affirmed in an interview with Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.  [Here it is.]

"You hear in certain countries or dioceses that there have been issued by bishops rules which practically countermand or distort the intention of the Pope.  Such behavior is not consonant with the dignity and nobility of the vocation of a pastor of the Church."

Mons. Ranjith then calls to mind the motivation which lead the Pope to sanction formally the validity of the liturgy before the Second Vatican Council.  "The post-Conciliar reform is not entire negative", the Archbishop affirmed.  "On the contrary, there are many positive aspects which were achieved.  But there are also harmful things for the faith and the liturgical life of the Church."  In particular, "the use of dances, musical instruments and songs that have little to do with liturgy", Ranjith stated "are not in any way in keeping with the sacred context of the church and of liturgy; I would add also certain sermons of a socio-political nature, often poorly prepared.  All this perverts the celebration of Holy Mass and turns it into a backdrop (coreografia) and demonstration of theatricality, but not of faith."

 Read the interview in Italian HERE

The blog of Andrea Tornielli points us to an article in Il Giornale.

This is a must read, in my translation:

Pius XII entlisted a Jew to save him from the Nazis

"I’m not a believer, I don’t go to church, but if I found myself before Pius XII I’d get down on my knees, because if my children and I are in existence, we owe it to him."

Silvio Ascoli, Roman, class of 1945, was emotional as recounted the story of his father Bruno, "of the Jewish race" according to the norms of the infamous racial laws, whom the Vatican saved from deportation by enrolling him in its Guard.  

Last June the Cardinal Secretary of State spoke about this: "In October 1943, aside from the police and the Swiss Guard, there was also the Palatine Guard.  To protect the Vatican and the extraterritorial holdings there were some 575 Palatine Guards.. Thus, the Secretary of State asked the powers occupying Italy to be able to take on another 1425 people for inclusion in the roles of the Palatine Guard.  The Jewish Ghetto would just a little distance away…".  

Now a new witness testifies to the help.

"My father was born in 1910, my granfather’s family belonged to the Jewish community in Ancona, and his sister with her husband were to be deported to Auschwitz."  Bruno, who died in 1970, was the son of a mixed marriage and didn’t frequent the Roman Jewish community.  On 28 October 1938, just after the racial laws went into force, the man asked to be baptized.

But it was too late to escape the jaws of the regime which were closing around the Jews.  The parish priest tried to help him, writing that Ascoli had attended catechism since August of that year, but it didn’t make any difference.

"My folks tried to approach the Ministry of the Interior, attesting that they weren’t enrolled in the Jewish community.  But the response was that whoever had a Jewish parent, and couldn’t prove he belonged to another religion at the time when the racial laws went into effect, was considered to be a Jew.  My father was baptized to late.  for my family this was a terrible blow."

Thus the Ascoli were forced to declare at the Governor of Rome’s offices their membership of the "Jewish race".  Two years later, in 1940, Bruno married in church, a Catholic, Maria Bianchi, even though the marriage could not have civil effect.  "My mother married him knowind that things could go bad."  The couple found a place in the via Famagosta in the Trionfale quarter.

In October 1943, after the arrival of the Germans in the capital, Bruno Ascoli became a wanted by the police. "One day the fascists and nazis showed up at the house and asked for my father.  Luckily, he was out.  My family managed to let him know not to come back."  Bruno escaped and briefly found a place in the loft of the repair shop of a tire dealer. "He stayed there for two week, and my mother went secretly to take him something to eat.  But at the end of October, the tire dealer made him leave because it had become too dangerous to keep him there.  That is when, thanks to the concern of an uncle who worked in the Vatican Museum as an usher, my father came to be enlisted in the Palatine Guard."  Bruno Ascoli became an auxiliary of the Pope’s honor guard, and could live at the Vatican.

"He saved his skin!  He stayed there for a few months. There are photos which show him in the Palatine Guard uniform within the walls of the Vatican.  In December 1943 he got precious safe-conduct papers from the Holy See attesting to his membership in the Pope’s honor guard."  Silvio, the son, explained that he was in a kind of rotation, in the attempt to save as many persecuted people as possible.

"In the first months of 1944, the Holy See told my father about another hideout, in the Via Mocenigo, near the Vatican walls, close to a wood warehouse.  This proves there was an organized network of aid and assistance.  I also told this to my children: if the Vatican had not helped my father, I would not be here.  I believe that Pope Pacelli chose well: no public denunciations which would have provoked acts of repression – I don’t dare imagine what would have happened had the SS entered the Vatican – but rather give concrete help to the persecuted."

Some people incessantly tell terrible lies about Pius XII.  Mendacious books are given attention in paper’s like the New York Times, while the other side of the issue is virtually silenced.

Therefore, I will recommend a couple good books about Pius XII and what he did to save Jews.  These could also be good gifts. It is important to get this information into circulation.

First, try The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: Pope Pius XII and His Secret War Against Nazi Germany  by David G. Dalin.  The author is a rabbi.



Also, there are the excellent books by Ron Rychlak Hilter, the War, and the Pope.  Rychlak is professor in a law school (Ole’ Miss?) and teaches how to handle evidence.

Also by Rychlak with Michael Novak is Righteous Gentiles: How Pius XII And the Catholic Church Saved Half a Million Jews from the Nazis

Speaking of evidence, there is also Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican by Pierre Blet,

Others could be added (and maybe I will add them), but give these a shot.  They are fascinating reading.