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

There is a very funny image over at South Ashford Priest.  Be sure to go over and visit him and read his commentary about confession in crisis.

The probable ghost writer of the book with H.E. Piero Marini’s name on it A Challenging Reform, Fr. Keith Pecklers, SJ, has contributed a piece to the ultra-lefty The Tablet.  

My emphases and comments.

Vested with symbolism

Keith F. Pecklers

With reports circulating that the Pope has commissioned a set of vestments based on those worn by the first Medici pope, Leo X, a specialist in liturgy examines the significance of the sartorial choices of Benedict XVI, who is clearly keenly aware of the messages embedded in the garments’ use

A couple of years ago, when I was invited by the Serbian Orthodox Church to deliver several lectures at its Theological Institute in Belgrade, I had the occasion to meet privately with a small group of Serbian Orthodox bishops. During our discussion, one of the senior bishops who has been compared to Joseph Ratzinger both for his theological acumen and linguistic ability raised the subject of Pope Benedict’s return to the ancient form of the pallium: "You have no idea what that has meant for us in the Serbian Orthodox Church," he said. "As that form of the pallium comes from the first millennium before the tragic rupture of 1054, we interpret this as a strong symbolic affirmation on the part of the Holy Father of his deep desire for the reunification of Christendom between East and West."

Like other elements within the liturgy, vesture is itself symbolic and papal vesture, all the more so. Thus, the fact that Pope Benedict has shown a greater interest in what he wears than had his recent predecessors, raises questions not only about the particular style of vesture being donned, but also about the symbolic message that is communicated therein. [So far so good.  I have been contending that Benedict XVI’s choice of vestments does in fact mean something, and it is part of his objective to shore up Catholic identity.  Let’s see what Pecklers thinks.] In his non-liturgical dress during papal audiences and processions, the Holy Father has restored use of the papal cape, or mozzetta, with its origins in the thirteenth century and last worn by Paul VI, made of red velvet, trimmed in ermine and lined with silk. He has also restored usage of the matching red velvet papal winter hat or camauro which has its origins in the twelfth century but was last worn by Pope John XXIII.

Within the context of liturgical celebrations, Pope Benedict has presided in a [1] cope of Pope Pius IX, worn the [2] mitre of Pope Benedict XV (pope 1914-22) (also used by Pope Pius XII in the Holy Year of 1950 and last worn by John Paul I at the Mass to inaugurate his pontificate), and a [3] mitre of Pope Pius IX (pope 1846-78) worn for the opening of Vatican Council I. Pope Benedict has also used the elaborately carved wooden [4] papal throne of Pope Leo XIII (pope 1878-1903). On Ash Wednesday, the Pope presided at the Basilica of Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill, wearing a [5] chasuble which had been commissioned in the style of a vestment collection from the pontificate of the Borghese Pope Paul V (1605-21). During the French Revolution many papal vestments had been burned in order to retrieve the gold woven into them. But two dalmatics remained from that collection of Paul V, and it was possible to reconstruct the pattern of the chasuble from the design of the dalmatics. [Interesting!] In recent weeks, reports surfaced that a set of 30 new vestments had been commissioned for Palm Sunday, which would have found the Pope presiding in a chasuble whose design came from the pontificate of Pope Leo X (1513-21) but bearing Benedict XVI’s coat of arms. It now appears, however, that those vestments will be reserved for another occasion, perhaps the Feast of Pentecost.

The fundamental question, of course, is what do all of these sartorial innovations actually mean? Conservative blogs [I think he may be talking about us.] are rejoicing that these changes give a clear signal that the Pope is bent on rescuing the worship of the Roman Catholic Church from those of the past 40 years who nearly destroyed it. [Fr. Pecklers will always defend Archbp. Marini.] They point to the changes that have been registered since the [6] appointment last October of Mgr Guido Marini as the new Papal Master of Ceremonies: the [7] placement of the cross and six candles on the papal altar; the return to the use of [8] cardinal deacons who function in the role as liturgical deacons during papal celebrations vested in dalmatics and mitres; a return to the use of [9] lace in albs and surplices; the Holy Father’s celebrating [10] Mass in the Sistine Chapel on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord "ad orientem" – toward the east. Critics of papal liturgies in the pontificate of Pope John Paul II lament the fact that the Pope was reduced to celebrating as if simply the bishop of any diocese – albeit on a grand scale – while the Bishop of Rome is really a monarch and thus, papal liturgical celebrations should better express this. [I think this may be unfair.  I don’t recall seeing people in the blogosphere arguing that the Pope should have older things or specifically "papal" thing because he is also a monarch. I have certainly never argued that. As a matter of fact, I suggested that the Pope should celebrate a TLM as a regular pontifical Mass without trying to do all the old stuff requiring the papal court, etc.]  By contrast, in his motu proprio of 21 June 1968, "Pontificalia Insignia", Pope Paul VI sought to simplify and clarify the use of pontifical insignia for all prelates linked to the Roman pontiff.

Conservative critics, then, see these changes in papal vesture as indicative of a wider papal liturgical reform under way. [This is correct.] Perhaps they are correct, [as I said] although the reality appears to be much more enigmatic and complex. [He we go…] First, there is the personal style and taste of the Pope himself. Those who knew him well as Archbishop of Munich-Freising and then at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith attest to his extraordinary attention to detail and his impeccable taste – both personally and in his official liturgical functioning. Like his brother Georg, Pope Benedict has a refined artistic sense which goes far beyond his talent as an accomplished pianist. His love of Gregorian chant, his nostalgia for the old liturgy – its artistic beauty and reverence – is clearly exhibited in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy and to a certain extent also in his motu proprio of last July, "Summorum Pontificum", which granted permission for wider usage of the Tridentine Rite. So the fact that we are seeing a return to the use of antique vestments and patterns or vestment styles of former centuries should not come as a complete surprise.  [So, Fr. Pecklers is suggesting that the Pope is a bit of an aesthete?]

In the eleventh century when the chasuble came to be reserved for the celebration of Mass, it was ample and bell-shaped in its design. But by the thirteenth century it had become a more restricted garment so as to use less material and also be less cumbersome for the celebrant. That vestment’s style and measure was further reduced in the post-Tridentine period and especially in the eighteenth century, cutting off the sides of the chasuble and creating what came to be popularly called the "fiddle-back". Thus, gradually, the Gothic penchant for the oval-shaped chasuble gave way to the less copious baroque vestment without sleeves which tended to be made with heavier, stiff brocades.  [Interesting material here, he is setting up something in the next paragraph.]

Clearly, Pope Benedict is well acquainted with the evolution of the chasuble and has particular reasons for choosing to adopt a liturgical style from one historical epoch as opposed to another. The vestments worn by the Pope on Ash Wednesday, along with the new set of vestments mentioned earlier, is a via media [indeed… as I said in my writing about that vestment, it is the first real organic development of vestments.  In a way, the very vestment seems like an icon of what Benedict is proposing: a hermeneutic of reform rather than of rupture.  Benedict is healing the rupture that occurred in liturgy.  On the other hand, the liturgical ] between the more ample Gothic chasuble of the medieval period and the more limited Roman chasuble in the latter part of the baroque period. It is much longer than the "fiddle-back" chasuble in the front, and its sides reach almost to the elbows. However, the vestment is similar to that later Roman model in its stole which widens at the bottom, and also in its elaborate decoration.

The Pope’s choice to adopt this particular style can also be interpreted as a via media on a symbolic level – between proponents of the Tridentine Rite who associate the "fiddle-back" Roman chasuble as the only fitting garment for the celebration of Mass, and those who prefer the more ample Gothic style with its association with a style of worship closer to the new rite. So there may be something more significant being communicated here on a symbolic level than a mere issue of liturgical style or taste, not unlike the strong symbolic message communicated by returning to a form of the pallium from the first millennium.  [There is a bit of a problem here.  I don’t think that most "proponents of the Tridentine Rite" see Roman style "fiddle-back" chasubles as the "only fitting garment" for Mass.  That just isn’t right.  There might be slight preference in that direction, but I don’t find many people insisting on this point.  They just want decent, beautiful vestments.  However, the so-called "gothic" style, was indeed the darling, nearly the obsession, of some of the progressivists during and after the Liturgical Movement.]

To what extent are these liturgical changes being proposed by the Pope himself or by his new Papal Master of Ceremonies? I would suspect that it is a combination of the two. Clearly, given his strong liturgical tastes, if the Holy Father were not in agreement with what Mgr Marini had proposed, he would not grant his approval for the changes to be made. The question, of course, is why return to one historical period and not another? Why, for example, choose styles and patterns from the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries rather than the older Gothic vestment styles of the medieval period? That remains an open question. Suffice it to say, however, that as this papacy proceeds we can expect further innovations in papal liturgical celebrations.

Remember… Pecklers is really defending the old Piero Marini style.  The real heroes for Fr. Pecklers are H.E. Piero Marini and Paul VI who issued Pontificalia insignia.

What is subtle here is Pecklers’s careful use of the rhetorical device accumulatio. Fr. Pecklers doesn’t say anything wrong.  He doesn’t go over the top in criticizing the Pope.   He is careful not to say anything too negative, but the slow accumulation of subtle comments leaves you with a final impression by the time you get to the end of the piece: this is really beyond the Pope’s personal taste ("He happens to lke baroque vestments."), it is about aestheticism. 

Critics of this Pope and of Summorum Pontificum will try to smear the whole issue with a sublte suggestion that this trad stuff is all rather precious, maybe not even manly. 

This was done, for example, by Fr. Mark Francis, in the same The Tablet.  Francis is also one of the three editors of the book that came out under Archbp. Piero Marini’s name, with Pecklers himself and John Page.

Still, Pecklers does point out that there may be something going on with these liturgical choices.  He raises the question, "why return to one historical period and not another"?

It may be because of the nature of the period Benedict seems to be going back to: the counter-reformation, a period of transition, a bridge between the medieval and modern times.

Each year the Sacred Penitentiary (the Church’s venerable tribunal for all things concerning the internal forum, indulgences, etc.) hosts a workshop for deacons and priests about confession and censures.  I attended this several times.  It is a highly instructive course.  I have made use of it several times.  It is critical that priests know what to do about censures when they have penitents who have incurred them.

I got this from a priest who attended the course.

I thought you might be interested/amused by these picture of Fr. Manlio Sodi meeting the Pope today.  He does some work for the Apostolic Penitentary and gave a presentation (which wasn’t all bad… wasn’t all good either… I diagnose a little touch of Pelagianism…) as part of the annual course on the Internal Forum organised by that dicastery.  In the Q&A that followed, a priest asked him whether he thought the penitiental aspect of the liturgical year mightn’t have been weakened by the elimination of rogation/ember days and whether something of the sort might be restored either at a diocesan or a universal level.  He waffled and totally avoided the question, but did have some worthwhile things to say about preaching and the formation of the congregation’s conscience.

FWIW this fellow is not a fan of the TLM or Summorum Pontificum.

BTW… I don’t include here the links he sent me to the photos. 

This article from the California Catholic Daily was sent by a reader via e-mail.  My emphases and comments:

"A convenient and available church”

San Francisco archdiocese gains Latin Mass, Santa Rosa diocese loses one

The first episcopally-approved Tridentine Mass in the Archdiocese of San Francisco since the late 1960s was said March 2, the Fourth Sunday in Lent, at the Chapel of the Most Holy Rosary in San Rafael. [NB: Since Summorum Pontificum there is no need to have the bishop’s approval, but it is nice to have it!]

The Mass, said according to the 1962 Missale Romanum of Blessed Pope John XXIII, will continue every week and on holy days of obligation at the chapel on the campus of St. Vincent School for Boys “for the immediate future,” according to the Feb. 29 Catholic San Francisco, the archdiocesan newspaper. (Once a Gold Rush-era orphanage, St. Vincent’s today is a residential treatment center for about 60 emotionally troubled boys from 7 to 17 years old.)

The archdiocese chose Most Holy Rosary chapel, archdiocesan chancellor Fr. Michael Padazinski told Catholic San Francisco, because it was "a convenient and available church that provides for the requirements of the traditional Mass."

The new Mass location will kill two birds with one stone, providing an Extraordinary Rite celebration for the archdiocese and for the Diocese of Santa Rosa as well. The celebrant of the San Rafael Mass, Fr. William Young, a retired priest residing at Most Holy Redeemer parish in San Francisco’s Castro district, has been saying the traditional Mass at St. Mary’s Chapel in Petaluma, in the Santa Rosa diocese. That Mass will be discontinued.

The discontinuation of the Petaluma Mass means that the only Extraordinary Rite celebration in the Santa Rosa diocese will be at Holy Family Church in Rutherford. This will unlikely change, as Bishop Daniel Walsh indicated last year. Since “we have the challenge of finding priests who are capable of offering the mass according to the old Missal,” Walsh said in his August “Bulletin from the Diocese of Santa Rosa,” it would be “some time” before the diocese would see what “concretely” Pope Benedict XVI’s permission of the traditional rite would mean for the diocese.

The archdiocesan Mass follows Archbishop George Niederauer’s norms governing the implementation of the pope’s July 2007 motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum allowing priests to say the traditional Latin Mass. Though the motu proprio says a priest saying a private Mass “does not require any permission, neither from the Apostolic See nor his own Ordinary,” to use the Missal promulgated by Pope John XXIII in 1962, Niederauer’s norms lay out competency requirements for priests saying the Mass.  [This rather makes it seem as if Summorum Pontificum didn’t exist, doesn’t it?]

In addition, the archbishop’s norms instruct priests that they may not on their “own initiative” schedule public celebrations [I wonder if that is in keeping with Summorum Pontificum.] of the Tridentine Mass, which are only to be celebrated in parishes having “a stable group of the faithful who adhere to the earlier tradition" and who request the extraordinary form. The norms define a “stable group” as at least 30 persons "in the same location and in an ongoing manner." [That sure isn’t in Summorum Pontificum!]

A friend sent me this.

Amazing and scary to think what has happened to education.

This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina, Kansas, USA .   It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS and reprinted by the Salina Journal..

     8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS -1895

Grammar (Time, one hour)
1.  Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2.   Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3.   Define verse, stanza and paragraph.
4.  What are the principal parts of a verb?  Give principal parts of ‘lie, ”play,’ and ‘run.’
5.  Define case; illustrate each case.
6.  What is punctuation?  Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7. – 10.  Write a composition of about  150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time, 1 hour 15 minutes)
1.  Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2.  A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide.  How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3.  If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. for tare?
4.  District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000.  What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5.  Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6.  Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days a t 7 percent.
7.  What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per metre?
8.  Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9.  What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10.  Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1.  Give the epochs into which U.S.  History is divided.
2.   Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus .
3.  Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4.   Show the territorial growth of the United States .
5.  Tell what you can of the history of Kansas .
6.  Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7.  Who were the following:   Morse, Whitney, Fulton , Bell , Lincoln , Penn, and Howe?
8.  Name events connected with the following dates:  1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.

Orthography (Time, one hour)
1.  What is meant by the following:   alphabet, phonetic, orthograph, etymology,  syllabication.
2.   What are elementary sounds?  How are they classified?
3.  What are the following, and give examples of each:  trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals.
4.  Give four substitutes for caret ‘u.’ 
5.   Give two rules for spelling words with a final ‘e.’   Name two exceptions under each rule.
6.  Give two uses of silent letters in spelling.  Illustrate each.
7.  Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word:  bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8.   Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following,  and name the sign that indicates the sound:  card, ball, mercy,  sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9.  Use the following correctly in  sentences:  cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane , vain, & vein, raze, raise, rays.
10.  Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)
1.  What is climate?  Upon what does climate depend?
2.   How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas ?
3.  Of what use are rivers?  Of what use is the ocean?
4.   Describe the mountains of North America .
5.   Name and describe the following:   Monrovia , Odessa , Denver , Manitoba , Hecla , Yukon , St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco .
6.  Name and locate the principal  trade centers of the U.S.
7.  Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
8.  Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9.   Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10.  Describe the movements of the earth.  Give the inclination of the earth.