Bp. Rivest of Chicoutimi: I’m in charge here, not Benedict XVI – no TLM!

I received an alarming note with a translation of a story in French from the site DICI about how His Excellency Most Reverend André Rivest, Bishop of Chicoutimi in Canada has a very different view of Summorum Pontificum than some other bishops, as… for example… the Bishop of Rome, Benedict XVI.

Over 100 people, perhaps as many as 130, requested the TLM from their pastor in accordance with SP 5.1.  The priest refused and consulted the bishop.  The bishop is refusing to help these people.  As a matter of fact, he is stating that he won’t implement SP in his diocese and that appealing to Rome is just a waste of everyone’s time because he, not the Pope, is in charge in that place.

The part I really like is where it is stated that the Pope says that the bishop must examine whether the persons requesting (not only the priests!) have a liturgical training and a ‘certain familiarity’ with the ‘extraordinary form’ of the Latin rite, as well as a good knowledge of the Latin language.   

No. Really.  That wasn’t a slip up.  Because it continues to say: "among the signatories, very few can meet these criteria.”

Unbelievable.

Perhaps we should have a look at what I received with my emphases and comments.

Canada: Bishop Opposes Motu Proprio
Dici
June 21, 2008

The bishop of Chicoutimi, André Rivest, is opposed to the Tridentine Mass and will not apply the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum in his diocese, in spite of the request addressed to the parish priest of Sacred Heart Church, Msgr Jean-Roch Gaudin by 130 faithful. This latter, in his parish bulletin, gave the good reasons for not applying the Motu Proprio. Here are some of the most significant excerpts:

“… A month ago, a petition signed by 100 persons was handed to me, requesting permission for one Mass a month in the ‘extraordinary form’, in one of the three churches of the parish, preferably the church of Christ the King. According to the Motu Proprio, I was entitled to grant the request[Indeed, yes.]

But as the signatories were hailing from various parishes of the diocese, and out of solidarity with the pastoral policy of the whole diocese, I thought it right to consult with Bishop André Rivest, the first Pastor of the diocese, and at the same time to give him the petition so that he may give a diocesan orientation on this issue.

Bishop Rivest consulted with his Presbyteral Council (composed of various priest of the diocese) on Monday, May 19 last, and the next day he phoned me and said he thought it good not to grant permission to celebrate Mass in the ‘extraordinary form’” in the diocese for the following reasons:

a. The Motu Proprio says: In parishes, where there is a stable group of faithful who adhere to the earlier liturgical tradition, the pastor should willingly accept their requests to celebrate the Mass according to the rite of the Roman Missal published in 1962” (art. 5, § 1). Neither in the parish of the Sacred Heart, nor in the diocese is there any stable group. The signatories of the petition do not constitute a stable group, a permanent group, a community as such, but a collection of persons from all over the diocese, and who, in their great majority, have no continual relationships between them.  [Remember what Card. Castrillon clarified… what WDTPRS has been saying all along: a group can be as small as three people.  Also, if there are over 100 who signed, that means that in the diocese, if not that parish, there are a signifant number of people who made a request.  Again, as Card. Castillon said, they need not be from the same parish.]

b. The bishop has the role of preserving the unity in the diocese and he has authority and responsibility over the liturgy and the pastoral care of the faithful. The permission to celebrate Masses in the ‘extraordinary form’ will be a source of division among priests and faithful, and the impact of such a celebration may well be negative.  [I see.  Without the slightest amount of actual experience, they have already decided.  That sure isn’t divisive… no no.]

c. Among the criteria put forward by the Holy Father in his Motu Proprio, the bishop must examine whether the persons requesting [!] and the priests themselves have a liturgical training and a ‘certain familiarity’ with the ‘extraordinary form’ of the Latin rite, as well as a good knowledge of the Latin language, [did you get that?  "the persons requesting" must be examined by the bishop to determine if they have enough familiarity with the rite and with Latin?] something which Pope Benedict XVI himself deems necessary for a fruitful celebration in ‘the extraordinary form.’ Now, among the signatories, very few can meet these criteria.”  [No. No.  No, again.  This is an entirely false reading of Summorum Pontificum.  On can understand that a priest must be idoneus, but this canonical requirement cannot be applied to the lay faithful.  Let’s just ask people what the Gospel reading was as they are leaving church after it was read in the vernacular in the Novus Ordo and see what sort of reaction you might get.  Let’s text priests as to what the texts say.  This is an obvious misreading… probably purposeful of Summorum Pontificum.  I have a hard time imagining that they could get this wrong by accident.]
 
And the parish priest concluded: “After having consulted with my parish team, I am in complete agreement with the stand taken by Bishop Rivest who has asked me to let you know his decision. Consequently, I do not allow the celebration of the Mass in its ‘extraordinary form’ in the parish of the Sacred Heart” and he added that “persons desiring to attend such a Mass” could go to a church in the city of Québec, 125 miles from Chicoutimi.  [Nice.]

In order to discourage any attempt at a recourse with the Ecclesia Dei Commission, as it is foreseen by the Motu Proprio, Msgr. Gaudin answered in advance: “It is not the pope who is the first person responsible for pastoral care and the liturgy in the diocese, but the bishop. And the popes usually respect this responsibility, unless there are some very, very, very serious reasons. The pope will certainly not intervene in this affair and will certainly not oblige our bishop to have a Tridentine Mass in the diocese. He will only ask him for additional information and respect his decision. The bishop will have lost time uselessly.”

Folks…. this is pretty bad.

This is a finger in the eye of the Pope, and you know which finger too.

I say… get to work and waste that bishop’s valuable time.

I suspect that people sending original printed material from that parish with these statements will receive a very interested hearing in Rome.

Also, see this.

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101 Comments

  1. I had always planned to retire to French-speaking Canada. Oh well, it will have to be one of the cities, I guess. A real pity…that area of Canada is exquisitely lovely.

  2. walter says:

    While, as my confessor knows, my usual response is anger at something so blatant, but this actually makes me very sad. This Bishop obviously does not care that his callousness may drive souls from the Church.

  3. Jayna says:

    I am on the verge of speechlessness. First and foremost, the Pope will waste the Bishop’s time? I detect more than one sin in that line of thought. And as to the laity needing to have training and familiarity with the mass before they’re allowed to attend one, well, I have a few choice words on that matter, I assume most can imagine what those might be.

  4. Bryan Jackson says:

    “Ce n’est pas le Pape qui est le premier responsable pastoral et de la liturgie du diocèse, mais l’évêque.” – this speaks of schism just as much as anything that Fellay has ever said.

    “Le Pape n’interviendra sûrement pas sur ce dossier et n’obligera sûrement pas notre évêque à offrir une messe tridentine dans le diocèse.” – What an uncharitable comment.

  5. Forza Italia says:

    I know it must be difficult for the priest but I think he should go ahead and say the Mass of St. Gregory the Great anyway. Then, if the bishop takes any action, the good priest should make a HUGE fuss and do everything possible to get Rome’s attention. I think a situation like that would force Rome to act, especially since a similar situation has already happened once in Italy.

    At any rate Rome must begin to enforce the Motu Proprio against the arrogant, rebellious actions of certain bishops. Bishops simply cannot be allowed to get away with such b.s. (sorry but that’s what this is.) The pope’s wishes are crystal clear, as is this bishop’s defiance.

    Sorry for the rant, Father. By any chance, do you have any idea when the clarifying document on the motu proprio is going to come out? Surely bishops will have no excuse then.

  6. Rose says:

    This is naked tyranny and arrogance but unfortunately all too common in “progressive”
    Canada. And nothing will be done by his superiors in Quebec. Unfortunately too it is exactly why I have not asked my parish priest about the Tridentine Mass-I know I will be given the same brush off. What to do? Can the personal parish concept help the 130 faithful who signed that petition?

  7. Smells like Schism in Quebec. Perhaps someone should ask Bp. Rivest of Chicoutimi, in French:

    T’as du Lait?

    Got Milk?

    Because from the whispers I am hearing, Rivest may be getting a visit soon from the Milkman with Cappa Magna, unless he starts making loads of the golden glazed donuts filled with lots of jolly jelly.

  8. Daniel Muller says:

    Among the criteria put forward by the Holy Father in his Motu Proprio, the bishop must examine whether the persons requesting and the priests themselves have a liturgical training and ‘certain familiarity’ with the ‘extraordinary form’ of the Latin rite, as well as a good knowledge of the Latin language, something which Pope Benedict XVI himself deems necessary for a fruitful celebration in ‘the extraordinary form.’ Now, among the signatories, very few can meet these criteria.

    All right, let us say that all this nonsensical “criteria” is in fact the case.

    First, I still find it hard to believe that the bishop actually contacted the signatories to find out how many had (a) liturgical training [although I am sure that he believes that it is obvious that they have not if they are requesting the EF!], (b) “certain familiarity” with the EF, and ( c) “good knowledge of the the Latin language.”

    Second, I think that the “trés peu” liturgical triple crowns most certainly ipso facto qualify [sic] for pastoral care. That is, the bishop apparently believes that some do actually fulfill all these requirements and have therefore passed the equivalent of a literacy test and paid their poll tax.

  9. Tim H says:

    Small bishop, small diocese, Canada, straddling the English/French world. Sounds like the perfect time and place for Rome to make an example of somebody.

  10. David says:

    If anyone has a contact in that area please tell them to get in touch with the Una Voce International Canadian Association our e-mail is on our website http://www.vancouvervtms.com perhaps we can be of assistance.

    David Reid

  11. AlephGamma says:

    It’s not just Canada. The German bishops are not too enthused about implementing the Motu Propio. From the Bistum of Trier http://tinyurl.com/3qgznm:

    o Die erneuerte Liturgie bleibt der Normalfall in unseren Gemeinden – und sie hat großen geistlichen Gewinn gebracht. – Yea right, I’ve seen the empty churches!
    o Wenn die erneuerte Liturgie gut gefeiert wird, gibt es keine Notwendigkeit, zur alten zurückzukehren. – So only if there are abuses will there be a going back to the ‘old.’ ?
    o Im Bistum Trier kein erheblicher Handlungsbedarf. – Yeah, there’s no need. All are lukewarm.
    o Gruppen, die die alte Liturgie feiern wollen, müssen die Legitimität der erneuerten Liturgie anerkennen. – Is he worried about schismatics?
    o Nicht jeder Priester im Bistum kann die alte Liturgie würdig feiern. – I guess it’s not about Latin in Deutschland, but just not knowing the rubrics.
    o Die Einheit von Pfarrei und Bistum achten – in Fülle und Vielfalt. – His main concern seems to be the potential schisms. Maybe there’s some weird SSPX history?

    Looks like I’ll have to look around real hard this summer.

  12. Trevor says:

    The laity need to understand Latin to attend a TLM? I suppose the same principle could be applied to attending an NO service in another country. If you’re an English-speaking American in France, then you shouldn’t be allowed to attend Mass. Obviously, you won’t be familiar with the language…

  13. Mark says:

    This is a scandalous response by the Bishop to this legitimate request from his flock. Drive your family 125 miles one way to Quebec if you are such a committed Traditionalist, and leave my diocese alone. Sure, try these little family excursions in January (and at $5+ a gallon). The “spirit of Vatican Two” soft pastoral touch at a new level.

    Since the Bishop gave a very clear “NYET!” to the petitioners (and to the Vicar of Christ), I think this should be, if it hasn’t been already, elevated to the Ecclesia Dei Commission. The mendacity of this response more than justifies it. The Monsignor’s attempt to pre-empt this, is, shall we say, revealing.

    Please continue to express our Solidarity with the Sacred Heart 130. Would they welcome e-mails expressing our support and prayers? If yes, where do we send them? We should also pray for this Bishop and his Monsignor, may they be graced to see this request with a new heart, and grant it.

    Thank you, Father Z, for posting this story.

  14. SuzyQ says:

    This is so sad. I just don’t get it … what is the problem with people worshipping they way they want??? Especially when it has been approved by the Holy See.

  15. Grateful Girl says:

    The Monsignor’s last statement reminds me of a spoiled brat of a child who is picking on his little brother.
    Spoiled Brat Child: Shhhhh before you even think of telling Dad, I have to let you know that Dad won’t care. He won’t stoop so low as to hear your little complaint,so don’t even bother. I’m gonna keep on bullying and pushing you around just because I’m bigger I want my way and, and….Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. By the way if you doooooo tell Dad, I’m gonna make it really hard on you in some other way…watch.

    Sigh, this is very frustrating.

  16. RBrown says:

    Note to George Weigel: This bishop was appointed by John Paul the Great.

  17. Grateful Girl says:

    One more thing, are they REALLY that dense that they think this will DISCOURAGE recourse to the Ecclesia Dei Commission? This statement almost insures that that is directly where it will go!

  18. RBrown says:

    This is so sad. I just don’t get it … what is the problem with people worshipping they way they want??? Especially when it has been approved by the Holy See.
    Comment by SuzyQ

    Because there’s something else going on here. Rome is trying to regain the control of the liturgy (and the Church) that Paul VI relinquished.

  19. Funny one there RBrown.

    It’s time to draw a line in the sand!
    http://www.olfatima.com/June%2017%202008.html

  20. Well it would be “nice as ice” to see all the Traddies unite against this pseudoepiscopus, but also the conservo-polticos ala ETWN, Opus Dei, etc.

    Again it may seem trite, but imagine a new Traditionalist French bishop emerging from Canada?

    Does anyone know if Abbe de Nantes is still around up there?

  21. Malta says:

    this is, indeed, bad news, and there is more from last week:

    http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Religion/Archbishop-s-anniversary–honors-man–culture

    *”The ceremony began with a Native American blessing, a buffalo dance by Santa Clara Pueblo dancers. Drumbeats mixed with the pealing of bells as people entered through open church doors.”*

    Ceremony is what it was, and the description does not give words to a pagan dance *in and around the altar* not the Holy Sacrifice; although they may have seemed to confect the Eucharist, it might not have been done.

    I have a good Native American friend, but the indifferentism at this ceremony was palpable. The great missionary martyrs to the New World, who risked all to preach Christ to the Indians, would have been flummoxed and horrified by a “buffalo dance” during the Sacrifice, which should be reserved to Christ, not spectacle.

    But there is good news, too, in New Orleans was this seemingly gorgeous mass:

    http://www.remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/archive-2008-0515-god_was_worshipped_here_today.htm

  22. Tom,

    Fascinating post with “From Lincoln to London…”

    I am not sure, I heard that EDC received certain bishops into their full communion, I am not sure who this is? Has Bp Fulham (who runs olfatima.com)received a canonical status and Titular See at least? Not sure about him, or any other of the Independent Traditionalist Bishops At Large, i.e. Thuc or Costa Lines. I think I read somewhere that there were a few “Independent monasteries” in Europe that were received into “full communion” under EDC. If anyone has details that would be excellent.

    What’s the controversy with the sub-diaconate?

  23. John says:

    To Member of 1,000,000 Strong For The Traditional Latin Mass :

    In Canada that would be loads of Tim Hortons maple glazed donuts.

    On a serious note those of us outside that particular see really have no choice of action available to us but to pray for our oppressed brethren.

  24. TJB says:

    Folks, this is one of the very few Bishop in Canada who has even taken the time to make any sort of response to the MP. To most it is so ridiculous and insignificant that it does not even warrant a response in their mind. I know of other Bishops here in Canada who would produce a much more hostile response but they won’t give the Holy Father the time of day. Things are not good up here, please pray for Canada.

  25. Bp. Fulham’s site contains information about his Holy Orders and Conescration to the episcopate. He was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Mark Anthony Pivarunas, CMRI. However, I do not recall from whom he received his episcopal consecration.

    As I have noted on my blog (http://brotherjuniper.wordpress.com), he was originally a SSPX seminarian who became attached to the CMRI and then became independent.

  26. Matt Q says:

    Walter wrote:

    “While, as my confessor knows, my usual response is anger at something so blatant, but this actually makes me very sad. This Bishop obviously does not care that his callousness may drive souls from the Church.”

    )(

    On that point, he must care about own soul either.

    ======

    Jayna wrote:

    “I am on the verge of speechlessness. First and foremost, the Pope will waste the Bishop’s time? I detect more than one sin in that line of thought.”

    )(

    Hmm, let’s see… PRIDE! …Self-Aggrandizement! Gee, I really want to be an Anglican/Epsicopalian! I suppose that’s enough to get the idea.

    ======

    Bryan Jackson wrote:

    “Ce n’est pas le Pape qui est le premier responsable pastoral et de la liturgie du diocèse, mais l’évêque.” – this speaks of schism just as much as anything that Fellay has ever said.

    [[ Exactly. It comes out more loud and clear in the French. ]]

    “Le Pape n’interviendra sûrement pas sur ce dossier et n’obligera sûrement pas notre évêque à offrir une messe tridentine dans le diocèse.” – What an uncharitable comment.

    [[ I’m sure we all a few of our own for this character. ]]

  27. I am in Ottawa and privileged enough to attend St. Clement’s Parish here. But most of the bishops in Canada are opposed to the traditional Mass and will not allowed Summorum Pontificum to be implemented. Most have no problem acting in contradiction to the Pope.

  28. The situation in Canada is not great, but it is not a lot different than elsewhere.

    On the bright side…

    Archbishop Terence Prendergast, S.J. of Ottawa celebrated his first Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite in January in a Pontifical Mass at St. Clement’s in Ottawa served by the FSSP.

    The Archbishop of Vancouver, Raymond Roussin assisted by Coadjutor Michael Miller appointed the FSSP to its own permanent personal parish which was noted by Father Z last week.

    The Archbishop of Quebec, Marc Cardinal Oulette has provided he FSSP with a spectacular church as a personal parish.

    The Archbishop of Toronto, Thomas Collins has invited the FSSP to Toronto where there are already two Sunday and one weekday Extraordinary Form Masses held in the City proper and one more just north of Toronto. Last week he publicly celebrated the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite in Latin “ad orientem” at The Toronto Oratory.

    I have just returned tonight from dinner with a priest where I hope to be consulting soon on the liturgy. He is in his late 30’s and is studying the Mass on the FSSP/EWTN DVD.

    Yes, these are small steps…but they are steps and the grace from God will flow.

    Ad mari usque ad mare!

  29. Geoffrey says:

    I don’t get it… Doesn’t Summorum Pontificum technically make the bishop’s move pointless? Any priest in his diocese could say the Extraordinary Form of Mass at any time. Though of course it is nice to have a bishop on your side…

  30. I reopened the combox. However, that doesn’t mean that you feel free to post any sort of vitriol you wish.

    Issues, not flames, folks.

  31. Dan Hunter says:

    How great would it be if the Holy Father removes this intransigent bishop and to appoint Mons Fellay in his stead. [Ridiculous.]
    I would venture to say that there would be an heck of a lot more obediance to The Vicar of Christ in that diocese. [There hasn’t been a great deal of obedience from the SSPX to the Holy Father so far. This merely underscores how you can go off the road and into the ditch on either side. – Fr. Z]

    Deo Gratias.

  32. magdalen says:

    I have also heard from my pastor in a ‘homily’ that the Holy Father is NOT the bishop of Rome but our local ordinary and we should only look to him. However since my diocese is dissenting, I have long sought what Rome says, what The Holy Father has to say. We never had an indult and have no Gregorian Rite Mass either, no surprise. Our diocese stands behind the social agenda of the pro-abortion and gay marriage party and we have priests that speak openly in approval of those things.

    The ongoing blatant disobedience of many bishops has been a scourge and chastisement upon the whole church, not to mention a scandal to the world. But we know that there are agendas tha are sought.

    We must redouble our prayers for our shepherds, for those in need of conversion and for HOLY appointments to the episcopate! We are not doing our part! We are not praying and sacrificing enough and I mean myself here; I have not done all I could to seek the graces for the shephers (and myself). My lifestyle is comfortable and I must answer to God for not doing my part. And so must the bishops! Lord have mercy on them! Their responsibility is SO huge before the Lord!
    It would be a most frightening thing to be a bishop and to have such responsibility. And for every priest entrusted with the care of souls, the burden is also big.

    None of us can omit in our daily prayers, the prayers for the clergy and religious as well as for marriages and families.

  33. Emilio III says:

    It seems to me that it is the parish priest that does not want to celebrate the TLM and the bishop is helping him in preempting appeal. All this seems to come from the parish rather than the diocese.

    Since the petitioners come from several parishes, can’t they ask another parish priest? Right now the only person denying the request is Msgr Gaudin, though he claims to be merely following his bishop’s suggestion. If they don’t want to petition another parish priest, they need to appeal to the bishop. He has not denied their request directly, and he may be able to satisfy them in a more reasonable parish.

  34. Patrick says:

    Perhaps it is time to begin the canonical process to remove the Bishop for neglecting the pastoral care of his flock.

  35. caleb1x says:

    Autrement, je vais me poser de sérieuses questions sur le sens du respect et de l’obéissance à l’autorité de la part de ces personnes.

    Anyone else see an incredible irony here?

  36. cheyan says:

    Emilio III:
    I don’t have much hope that he wouldn’t deny their request directly (though writing the letter in fluent Latin might be a sign that at least one person has “a good knowledge” of the language), but that’s still a really good idea. If nothing else, their request and the response to their request can be added to the envelope being sent onwards.

    Off-topic a bit, I giggled at Fr. Z’s typo of “text” for “test” (“Let’s just ask people what the Gospel reading was as they are leaving church after it was read in the vernacular in the Novus Ordo and see what sort of reaction you might get. Let’s text priests as to what the texts say.”) because now I have a mental image of parishioners flooding out of a church after Mass in the vernacular, turning on their cell phones (because surely none of them would have had them on), and all getting the same text message: “Summarize today’s Gospel reading in 150 words or less.” I think the number of responses would be almost as interesting as the nature of those responses…

    …actually, that’d be a really interesting project. Have a drawing for some donated prize after Mass. To enter, you have to summarize the Gospel reading. If your entry is drawn and it’s not blank and is a good faith attempt at summarization, you win the prize.

  37. Emilio III says:

    cheyan:

    I don’t have much hope that he would grant their request either. My point is that appealing directly to the PCED at this time should not be attempted. It would not be proper to go to them without a direct answer from the bishop (or at least a refusal to answer).

  38. TJM says:

    The bishop is following the liberal script: promote diversity, etc but crush any dissent that does not comport with liberal orthodoxy. Just from looking at his attire, I could tell you he would NEVER be in favor of the TLM. I think it’s time that Ecclesia Dei crush this guy like a bug. Tom

  39. Emilio: Yes, the bishop must be engage by the members of this group.

  40. TJM: I think that is pretty unfair. You cannot make such a judgment.

  41. Jeff Pinyan says:

    Mon freakin’ Dieu!

    This is pretty awful. :(

  42. Matthew says:

    I live in a small French-Canadian Diocese (Bathurst) not far from Chicoutimi.
    These Bishops are all very liberal, and don’t like anything traditional.
    Coincidentally, they have absolutely no vocations. My Diocese has had one
    seminarian in ten years. Dioceses with liberal Bishops generally seem to
    collapse, because people don’t go to Mass, and young men don’t hear God’s call.
    However, we are very lucky to have Cardinal Oullette–one good priest can make a big
    difference.

  43. Michael says:

    AlephGamma wrote:”It’s not just Canada. The German bishops are not too enthused about implementing the Motu Propio. From the Bistum of Trier http://tinyurl.com/3qgznm:”
    Enthusiasm is entirely lacking, that’s true, but the situation in Germany is far more complicated than the quoted page suggests. And the dioceses of Trier belongs to the “good ones”, having regular masses in the traditional rite in at least 6 places: Burgbrohl, Pfaffendorf, Klotten, Saarlouis, Köllerbach and of course Trier.
    In relation to the US, the dioceses of Trier is quite small: about 100 miles north to south, 60 miles east to west.

  44. EDG says:

    This was at the end of the Monsignor’s letter:

    Mon article annonce officiellement et publiquement la position de l’évêque et la mienne. J’espère qu’avec mon article, l’histoire va se terminer. Autrement, je vais me poser de sérieuses questions sur le sens du respect et de l’obéissance à l’autorité de la part de ces personnes.

    I am assuming that “ces personnes” are the laypeople who are requesting the mass. And suddenly the monsignor (and presumably, the bishop) rediscovers the “sense of respect and obedience to authority,” which presumably, is owed to them (the monsignor and the bishop) but not to the Pope. So I’m not sure that further appeal would do much good. He hopes that the result of his article is that “the story is over,” and then he tells the laypeople that if they persist, he has serious questions about their sense of respect and obedience to authority.

  45. RBrown says:

    In relation to the US, the dioceses of Trier is quite small: about 100 miles north to south, 60 miles east to west.
    Comment by Michael

    But it has over 700 diocesan priests and c. 350 religious, which would be about the same as Los Angeles.

    And the former ordinary from Tier is now in Munich.

  46. David says:

    Please pray for this bishop, priest and the Church in my native Canada!

  47. Malta says:

    I should add that I enjoy Native American dances, but I think it is inappropriate to do a Buffalo dance around the Altar in a Basilica. If you go to the “slide-show” at the bottom of this article you will notice that the Buffalo dance was done around the altar, and not just in the Sanctuary:

    http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Religion/Archbishop-s-anniversary–honors-man–culture

    The Buffalo dance is where the dancer assumes the “spirit” of the animal and “thanks the spirit of the animal,” and asks for abundance:

    http://www.aaanativearts.com/article150.html?PHPSESSID=39976eb066a2cd605cd28af8f3190594

    So, a Buffalo dance around the altar is comparable to, say, a Whirling Dervish dance. Doing it at a Pueblo can be a beautiful cultural tradition, but doing it around an Altar in a Cathedral is syncretism.

    This is just more evidence that Summorum Pontificum is a band-aid to a gushing wound in the Church.

  48. vincentius says:

    It’s ironic that this sine caritate attitude that prevailed in the decades after the council is why we’re tazlking about 3 merged parishes. Since the
    SP, these intransigents have been reduced to soldiers in the jungle fighting a lost war. All we can do is pray for them and wait for their era to finally pass.

  49. Jordanes says:

    RBrown said: Note to George Weigel: This bishop was appointed by John Paul the Great.

    Weigel was in the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, earlier this month. Among the comments he made, addressing a gathering of parish catechists and Catholic school teachers, is that John Paul II’s pontificate brought many blessings to the Church. But he observed that positive effects of his reign have not really been seen two specific areas: in the episcopate, and in male religious communities. This depressing incident in Canada would be a case in point. Hopefully the 130 petitioners will not hesitate to appeal to the PCED so this injustice can be rectified as soon as possible.

    P.S. For what it’s worth, I heard two of Weigel’s three talks, and while he said a lot of good things about John Paul II, he never referred to him as “John Paul the Great” in either of the two talks I heard.

  50. Richard says:

    So, this bishop is surmising from Summorum Pontificum that the laity need a certain familiarity with the older rite in order to request it? If this bishop truly understands this as a requirement from reading Summorum Pontificum, he doesn’t have reading comprehension skills which fifth or sixth graders should have (I am speaking from my expertise as a teacher). I find it hard to believe that he does not have such reading comprehension skills, so I think he is simply being disingenuous with the faithful in his diocese. Either that or he has incompetently taken someone else’s word for it that this it is the case that the laity need this familiarity with the old rite, which is incompetent because one shouldn’t just take someone else’s word on an issue of such consequence without personally doing to research necessary to confirm that this is indeed the case.

    So, just as this bishop is able to impose this extraneous criterion on the faithful, shouldn’t the laity have the right to ensure some sort of criteria in regard to the priest who serves as their bishop – like having fifth to sixth grade reading comprehension skills, or being honest and competent in his role as a leader?

  51. Patricia Gonzalez says:

    This response is sadly typical of the attitude here in Quebec. In my former parish, the pastor said that when anything comes from Rome, “we close our eyes”. That parish is over 100 years old, and has not had ONE SINGLE ORDINATION to the priesthood during that time. (Don’t know about religious life). Since SP came out last year, I have heard diddly squat about it in Mass or in the diocesan newspaper — the only news I get comes from blogs like this one. We are starving spiritually here — there are many more cars in front of the shopping malls on Sundays than there are in front of just about any church. Pray for the Church in Canada!

  52. Woody Jones says:

    “Member of 1,000,000”: as far as I know the Abbe de Nantes’ group is still in Canada, in Quebec somewhere. They do the English language translation of the “He is Risen” newsletter from there, I believe. The Abbe himself seems to be in pretty bad health, but his followers in France appear from the ‘net anyway, to be keeping up. And another of his followers, Dianne Moczar, is producing interesting history books, e.g. “10 Dates Every Catholic Should Know”, in which she refers to “divine surprises” but with enough prudence not to attribute that phrase to its source: Charles Maurras.

    Meanwhile this article from Father and the one on Phoenix above just add more anecdotal evidence, as far as I am concerned, that adherence to the rupture, instead of continuity, is still very strong in the Church. Even where there is no open rejection of SP, in many places, like Galveston-Houston here, it seems, there is just a studied attempt more or less to ignore it. Same with Communion kneeling and on the tongue, as the Holy Father seems clearly to be trying to reintroduce. Same with altar arrangements.

    I may have said it before here, but I will repeat, this whole phenomenon, of the indiffernce to the Pope’s leading, suggests that so many in the hierarchy, and others, including, it seems, most scandalously, those “conservative” groups who have trumpeted/marketed their closeness to the Pope’s thought and action in the past (in the “bible” of one there is the Teresian reference to the “Sweet Christ on Earth”; in the literature and web sites of the other there is reference to “in step with the Pope”), are just waiting for him to pass on to his reward.

    Where is the TLM with those groups? Where, except maybe in their own gatherings, is the communion kneeling? Where the altar arrangements? Suddenly they have forgotten their mind meld with the Pope, it seems. On the McLaughlin scale, it is a “10” for disedifying.

  53. Corboy says:

    Don’t you just want to give the Bishop a tickle?

  54. rosebudsal says:

    This is truly sad to read about. What’s shameful is that the people in this Canadian diocese won’t/don’t have the opportunity to experience both. My archbishop didn’t react positively to it at first, but we have two thriving TLM communities now, one existed prior to the SP, and will probably grow. (I’d think both the EF and OF could coexist here. We’ll see.) I’m a post-Vatican II baby, though my mom says I was baptized and confirmed (a year later) in the EF, but my first memories of Mass are in English. I recently attended Mass for the first time in the EF and the silence of it all struck me. It was incredibly moving. The other really cool thing about attending it where I did, it’s in an old chapel, where for nearly 400 years, the Mass was always celebrated in Latin, so I also felt a huge sense of history and wonder that day I went. There was a good guidebook so I wasn’t overwhelmed or overly lost. From time to time, I can see myself attending another Mass in the EF, but I do enjoy my Novus Ordo parish. The Mass is always reverently and solemnly celebrated and it’s where I feel comfortable and at home.

    To Malta: I’m sorry to hear about your frustration or disappointment. I did not attend Sheehan’s anniversary Mass that day. I considered it, but after I got home from the office I didn’t feel like trekking my way back to town to try to get one of the few open seats for the Mass. I’ve not heard of anyone complaining about the Mass or the Dance before the Mass and among my circle of friends and family, I hear about these things. I’ve attended many Masses where the archbishop has been the celebrant, most recently the closing Masses of the Novena for La Conquistadora and the recent Ordination Mass at the Cathedral and they were all be quite solemn, reverent and liturgically sound.

    One thing, you have to consider is that Spanish and native culture in New Mexico and Catholicism have been tied together for so long. I think(perhaps in a misguided way) that’s what the archbishop was trying to honor last week in his anniversary Mass.

    –Maria in Santa Fe.

  55. While this is very sad, I think it’s a good opportunity for most of us to consider how blessed we are. I thought the situation was bad in my diocese of St. Augustine, yet we can (and do!) drive 30 minutes to a city in the next diocese where an FSSP priest celebrates the Traditional Mass. But such callousness here! People “desiring to attend such a Mass” can drive 125 miles!? Even on terms of the old indult, is this a generous application? My prayers for the Catholics in Canada and everywhere else who are meeting such opposition to the EF and the will of the Holy Father.

  56. A very good bishop. This is the last bulwark of the episcopal authority guaranteed by Vatican II and systematically undercut by Ratzinger in his various Vatican roles — namely, that the bishop is the one primarily in charge of worship in his diocese (an idea to which the Motu Proprio pays lipservice).

    The Motu Proprio is now coming under scrutiny and being found to be 1. Canonically invalid. 2. Theologically unorthodox. [Weird.] But who can judge the Pope? So the most orthodox and responsible thing the bishops can do is to refuse to implement the MP and hope it becomes a dead letter.

    [Behold! The attitude of the aging-hippies, nearly flawlessly expressed.]

  57. I see on the German bishops’s site the excellent statement that “if the renewed liturgy is celebrated properly there is no need to return to the old”.

    The popularity of the TLM is a complete myth — it is tiny handfuls of people who are calling for it, usually hardly enough in a whole diocese to make up any kind of group much less a stable one.

    In Cobh Cathedral, Ireland, they has a one-off celebration. I do not know that anyone is asking for it to be a permanent fixture.

    If the TLM were so much in demand, how come it that in 35 years of being a priest NO ONE has asked me to celebrate Mass in Latin, or even to read the Roman Canon in Latin?

    And the bishop is right to point out that the petitioners have no knowledge of Latin, and therefore must be requesting the Mass for odd reasons — perhaps to avoid the kiss of peace that takes them out of their trance of individualist piety and forces them to advert to the communal nature of liturgy and churchhood?

  58. joy says:

    We are allowed every kind of unusual variation imaginable, except that which is the most beautiful and sublime expression of Catholic worship. The same old double standard rears it’s ugly head.
    The more I learn and understand of the Gregorian Rite, the more I long for it, not just on video or TV but live and in person. Surely there is room in the universal Church for all.

  59. EnglishCatholic says:

    I note he is wearing a protestant cross…

  60. Irulats says:

    Father O Leary,

    I am offering up my assistance at Mass today that you may obtain a special grace from The Father.

    Please keep my family and I in your prayers.

  61. Maureen says:

    For a Quebecois bishop in a more than bilingual diocese, this is a remarkably stupid thing to say.

    OTOH, all you Quebecker English-speakers with bad grades in French now have a dispensation from the bishop not to get up in the morning for Mass, and vice versa for the French-speakers. Deaf people and the mentally handicapped are obviously meant to keep out of sight. Heck, anybody feeling particularly non-verbal after a busy Saturday night can stay in bed! Whee!

    Meanwhile, I seem to recall my mom saying that the important thing was to get our butts to church and wear clothes that showed respect, no matter where that church was or what language they spoke.

  62. Mark S. says:

    Father O’Leary,

    I have the honour of serving the so-called Tridentine Mass in a local Church, and also attend Sunday Mass regularly at another church. At the Sunday Masses there is a regular congregation of 30 – 40 people, some of whom are parishioners and some of whom belong to the Latin Mass Society. Some attendees are children with families, including a 16-year-old who serves Mass with his father. At the Masses at which I serve, we’ve had, at times about 100 people in attendance. Another church, about 12 miles away in a city centre, has the TLM every sunday afternoon, again to good congregations, some of whom are young people at local universities. Does this sound as thouth “the popularity of the TLM is a complete myth”? How many people attend one of your Sunday Masses?

    As nobody has asked you to say a TLM, who are you to judge their motivations? Who are you to judge motivations at all? I don’t have a good knowledge of Latin, but I certainly don’t attend to “avoid the kiss of peace that takes them (me) out of a trance of individualistic piety”. You know nothing of people like me or our motivations, so please don’t be so condescending as to try to imply that we attend TLM for less-than-worthy reasons.

  63. Jordanes says:

    Father Joseph O’Leary said: The Motu Proprio is now coming under scrutiny and being found to be 1. Canonically invalid. 2. Theologically unorthodox. But who can judge the Pope?

    Your question is the right one to ask, and the answer to your question shows that it makes no sense at all to say Summorum Pontificum is either canonically invalid or theologically unorthodox, since any papal motu proprio is canonically valid simply because it is a papal motu proprio that changes previous laws that conflict with it, and because the Pope is the one who decides what is theologically unorthodox and what is not.

    So the most orthodox and responsible thing the bishops can do is to refuse to implement the MP and hope it becomes a dead letter.

    Rebellion against the Pope is neither orthodox nor responsible, and is canonically invalid. I’m afraid you’re going to have to resign yourself to the fact that the days are past when the laity would just meekly acquiesce in the face of such episcopal malfeasance. The Church offers the laity and priests recourse to remedy this bishop’s mistake, and I’m pretty sure an appeal to Rome will be made.

  64. dcs says:

    Spirit of Vatican II asks:
    If the TLM were so much in demand, how come it that in 35 years of being a priest NO ONE has asked me to celebrate Mass in Latin, or even to read the Roman Canon in Latin?

    No offense, Father, but perhaps they know, or think they know, what your response would be? I would never ask a priest to celebrate Mass in Latin unless he had previously shown some devotion toward that language. Maybe I am less bold than some, but I don’t have any desire to get into a debate with a priest about the language of the Church.

  65. RBrown says:

    A very good bishop. This is the last bulwark of the episcopal authority guaranteed by Vatican II and systematically undercut by Ratzinger in his various Vatican roles—namely, that the bishop is the one primarily in charge of worship in his diocese (an idea to which the Motu Proprio pays lipservice).

    From SC:

    22. 1. Regulation of the Sacred Liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church, that is, on the Apostolic See and, as laws may determine, on the bishop.

    2. In virtue of power conceded by the law, the regulation of the Liturgy within certain defined limits belongs also to various kinds of competent territorial bodies of bishops legitimately established.

    That says that the pope is in charge of the liturgy. The authority of an ordinary is always subject to the authority of the pope.

    The Motu Proprio is now coming under scrutiny and being found to be 1. Canonically invalid.

    Canon law mirrors the above text from Vat II:

    Can. 838 ß1 The ordering and guidance of the sacred liturgy depends solely upon the authority of the Church, namely, that of the Apostolic See and, as provided by law, that of the diocesan Bishop.

    ß2 It is the prerogative of the Apostolic See to regulate the sacred liturgy of the universal Church, to publish liturgical books and review their vernacular translations, and to be watchful that liturgical regulations are everywhere faithfully observed.

    2. Theologically unorthodox.

    Huh? On more than one occasion you have demonstrated here that Church doctrine is irrelevant to you. Why now is it so important?

    BTW, it’s not theologically unorthodox.

    But who can judge the Pope?

    You finally got one right. Here’s hoping you keep up the good work.

    So the most orthodox and responsible thing the bishops can do is to refuse to implement the MP and hope it becomes a dead letter.
    Comment by Spirit of Vatican II

    Your inability to grasp even the most simple theological argument in anything but out of date, myopic categories is bizarre.

  66. meg says:

    It must be devastating to be a priest for decades and have to face the fact that for all that time you have been lead, and have lead many of the faithful, in the wrong direction. I think many of these men simply cannot accept the magnitude of this, and so stubbornly cling to what may someday be considered another forgotten novelty created in the 60’s/70’s. Pray that they realize before it’s too late that the “revolution” they were a part of has eroded the feelings of love and tenderness and commitment Catholics once had for Christ. Pray that they have the tremendous courage it will take for them to open their hearts and souls and minds to the Mass as Christ intended it, one in which every element brings us closer to him and shuts out the distractions of the world outside, the timeless and eternal and beautiful Traditional Latin Mass.

  67. Hung Doan says:

    I don’t understand, SP was for the people, not the bishops. There was no clause in SP for “implementation” or for consultation by Presbyterial councils.

  68. Jim Dorchak says:

    I think on all sides, it is very sad when a Bishop or Priest are disobedient and cause public scandal by not joyfully supporting our Holy Father.

    P.S. Fr. Oleary I am scandalized with your refernce to Cardinal Ratzinger as “Ratzinger”. I hope that you are first a priest and then a sudo reporter, but this blog is not the NY times (plenty of room to write). Please show the Holy Father more respect so that we may respect you and your opinion more readily.

  69. RBrown says:

    I see on the German bishops’s site the excellent statement that “if the renewed liturgy is celebrated properly there is no need to return to the old”.

    But it isn’t celebrated properly simply because it is set up to permit, maybe even encourage, improper celebration.

    The popularity of the TLM is a complete myth—it is tiny handfuls of people who are calling for it, usually hardly enough in a whole diocese to make up any kind of group much less a stable one.

    Theologians judge according to truth and goodness, not according to popularity.

    But even granting your popularity argument, you are still wrong. Since the introduction of the vernacular Novus Ordo, the Churches have emptied and so have the seminaries and religious houses. And divorce among Catholics has become common.

    The Novus Ordo Church has proven itself to be very unpopular.

    In Cobh Cathedral, Ireland, they has a one-off celebration. I do not know that anyone is asking for it to be a permanent fixture. If the TLM were so much in demand, how come it that in 35 years of being a priest NO ONE has asked me to celebrate Mass in Latin, or even to read the Roman Canon in Latin?

    Maybe they haven’t asked because they think that fidelity to Church doctrine is a prerequisite for Latin liturgy.

    And the bishop is right to point out that the petitioners have no knowledge of Latin, and therefore must be requesting the Mass for odd reasons—perhaps to avoid the kiss of peace that takes them out of their trance of individualist piety and forces them to advert to the communal nature of liturgy and churchhood?
    Comment by Spirit of Vatican II

    You’re confusing the ecclesial nature of liturgy with the huggy sentimentalism that now is part of almost every mass.

  70. malta says:

    *It must be devastating to be a priest for decades and have to face the fact that for all that time you have been lead, and have lead many of the faithful, in the wrong direction. I think many of these men simply cannot accept the magnitude of this, and so stubbornly cling to what may someday be considered another forgotten novelty created in the 60’s/70’s. Pray that they realize before it’s too late that the “revolution” they were a part of has eroded the feelings of love and tenderness and commitment Catholics once had for Christ. Pray that they have the tremendous courage it will take for them to open their hearts and souls and minds to the Mass as Christ intended it, one in which every element brings us closer to him and shuts out the distractions of the world outside, the timeless and eternal and beautiful Traditional Latin Mass.*

    meg, excellent comment! The “banal, on the spot,” (in the words of then Cardinal Ratzinger) Novus Ordo has not fostered deep devotion to Christ’s Sacrifice and death, or *love and tenderness and commitment Catholics once had for Christ* but it has given us plenty of Priests as entertainters…

  71. Scott says:

    Fortasse debeamus ei epistulas latine mittere ut pervalde demonstremus utrum tam stulti simus annon.

    Et non tantum Ponfifex Maximus sed etiam Concilium Vaticanis II illis vitiis ab eo insultantur!

  72. Fachtna says:

    I don’t know who this Fr. Joseph O’Leary is but there was a priest of that name who expetiated at great length to the late Bishop Cornelius Lucey of Cork on what was and what wasn’t the Spirit of Vatican II. Having listened patiently to the long discourse, the Bishop interjected that he thought that Fr. O’Leary’s version of the Second Vatican Council was not quite what the Council had been on about. And the good Bishop added that he believed his judgement in the matter was correct since he had been at all the sessions of the Council and Fr. O’Leary had not!

    As for a permanent fixture of the TLM in Cobh Cathedral …. just hold the horses for a bit, boy!

  73. Scott says:

    *If the TLM were so much in demand, how come it that in 35 years of being a priest NO ONE has asked me to celebrate Mass in Latin, or even to read the Roman Canon in Latin?*

    Care Pater, velisne queso Missam celebrare?

    (Dear Father, would you please celebrate the Mass?)

    pax,
    Scott

  74. Ottaviani says:

    If the TLM were so much in demand, how come it that in 35 years of being a priest NO ONE has asked me to celebrate Mass in Latin, or even to read the Roman Canon in Latin?

    Would anyone, with the rants that you produce on your own blog and on here? Most people would save themselves the hassle and ask another priest – one that demonstrates fidelity to the church of 2000 years and not just from 1965 onwards.

  75. richard says:

    The Church in Quebec once RAN Quebec- litterally. Nothing was done without Church approval. Rome’s wishes rarely mattered, the Quebec church functioned pretty much autonomously for centuries. So if one bishop clings to his feudal notions of supreme power in Quebec, I’m not surprised…

  76. Prof. Basto says:

    Why canonically invalid? I sense the heresy of conciliarism in your words, Spirit of Vatican II. Canonically and theologically, it is for the pope alone to determine the level of collegial participation to be followed at any given time in the government of the Church universal; what is more, the universal Church is not a federation of local Churches!

  77. Jordanes says:

    Scott said: Care Pater, velisne queso Missam celebrare? (Dear Father, would you please celebrate the Mass?)

    Whatever you do, please, PLEASE don’t talk to Fr. O’Leary in Latin! He’s liable to take that as the signal to start posting comments entirely in Latin.

  78. Sacramento Mom says:

    Spirit of Vatican II:
    Why do you RARELY call the Holy Father by his proper title? It seems very childish and spiteful, just like a child who insists on calling their father by his first name. Maybe you do not see the blatant act of disobedience in this, especially when you call the pope, “Ratzinger.”

  79. Paul Goings says:

    I’m sure that this would have to be spelled out in whatever accord is being developed by the Holy See and the S.S.P.X., but I wonder what provision would be made for existing S.S.P.X. chapels, canonically? It’s my understanding that a personal prelature would permit a certain freedom from diocesan bishops, and that’s a good and necessary thing for the time being, at least in my opinion. Nevertheless, it is required that the local ordinary grant permission for a personal prelature to be established in his diocese. I presume that the existed chapels would be grandfathered; it’s hard for me to imagine that some (or perhaps many) of them would have to be closed if a regularization occurred.

  80. Richard says:

    Spirit of Vatican II:

    You’re zero-sum logic that one is either implementing Summorum Pontificum or truly allowing a bishop to be the overseer of the liturgy in his diocese is pretty flimsy. Could it also be possible that the bishop remains the overseer of the liturgy and actually follows what Summorum Pontificum prescribes, even if he doesn’t like it? This bishop is abusing his role as primary overseer of the liturgy in his diocese. I don’t think that Vatican II “guaranteed” that when bishops act as “primarily in charge of worship” in their dioceses that this means they may imply that Motu Propios say something which they don’t in order to dismiss legitimate wishes of the faithful in their dioceses concerning that very worship. Even he knows that acting, legally speaking, as the overseer of liturgy in his diocese does not mean disregarding papal documents. He purports to use Summorum Pontificum itself as requiring the laity to be familiar with the extraordinary form in order to request it. A spirit which would justify a bishop abusing his power so is some kind of spirit, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be the “Spirit of Vatican II”.

  81. Richard says:

    By the way, I don’t think the bishop is being very “pastoral” by dismissing the wishes of the faithful in his diocese as he is, do you?

  82. I see I touched a nerve. The argument that the Motu Proprio is canonically invalid and theologically unorthodox can be found in Andrew Cameron-Mowat, SJ, “Liturgy: The Way Forward”, The Japan Mission Journal, Summer 2008.

    The texts quoted by my respondents above prove that even papal motu proprios have to be within the law. If a Pope decided tomorrow that, for example, the whole Church would henceforth have the liturgy in Aramaic, he would be acting illegally. To unilaterally restore the rite abrogated by Paul VI acting in concord with the universal episcopacy and in the spirit of the Council is legally incorrect. The l ex credendi implicit in the restored rite contradicts with many new insights which Vatican II discerned as belonging to the fulness of orthodoxy; hence it is theologically unorthodox.

    By the way, I love the Latin language and have often celebrated the Mass in Latin, with the Roman Canon, when with one or two other priests. But the faithful have NEVER asked for this.

    There is NOTHING unorthodox or abusive about the NO, but a lot is wrong with restoring the TLM.

  83. Richard says:

    Spirit:

    The TLM was never abrogated but suppressed. There’s a difference. I think I will take our Holy Father’s word on it as opposed to that of the Jesuit you cite, thank you very much. The TLM is only theologically unorthodox in light of the theology which many have attempted to purport as acting within the reforms Council but which curiously cannot really be found in the Council’s documents – hence the need to purport that there’s some sort of “spirit” behind the letter of the Council – and, conveniently, this “spirit” seems to ignore such statements of the Council such as:

    “Regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church, that is, on the Apostolic See…” (Read: The “Spirit of Vatican II” doesn’t allow Kathy the “liturgical expert” to advise Fr. Jerry to have liturgical dancing for morning Mass on Pentecost.)

    “Therefore no other person, not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anythingin the liturgy on his own authority.” (Read: The “Spirit of Vatican II” doesn’t allow Fr. Terry to sit on his duff while teams of Eucharistic Ministers pass out the Eucharist from nine different locations around the nave.)

    “Finally, there must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them, and care should be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing.” (Read: The “Spirit of Vatican II doesn’t allow Bishop Guy to tear out the main altar and pews of the cathedral in order to be replaced with a circular table in the middle of the nave surrounded by cushioned chairs without kneelers.)

    (Sacrosanctum Concilum 22 [1, 3], 23)

    The theology against which the TLM is theologically unorthodox, is itself theologically unorthodox ACCORDING TO VATICAN II! If how the Novus Ordo were implemented did not “in some way grow organically from rites already existing” (i.e., the TLM) then those ways were “theologically unorthodox”. If by the liberalization of the TLM the Novus Ordo develops a form which looks much more like the TLM than it does in many places now, then, according to Vatican II, our Holy Father will have readjusted the development of the liturgy to where it indeed “in some ways [grew] organically from rites already existing”. And, Summorum Pontificum will indeed prove “theologically orthodox”, especially in light of the true theology of Vatican II.

  84. Richard says:

    BTW, in case you didn’t catch it, Sacrosanctum Concilum is a document of Vatican II – the “Declaration on the Sacred Liturgy” which initiated the liturgical reforms of Vatican II.

  85. JJ says:

    This is GREAT! I wish more bishops would understand his role and have the audacity to keep unity within the diocese. We are losing too much of what Vatican II called for and it’s scary for many Catholics, including all those young Catholics you keep claiming want this Rite (which by the way shouldn’t be Gregorian because it’s not from the Gregorian Sacramentary, which by the way wasn’t even written by Pope Gregory – some of you need some good lessons in liturgcal history). Yes, there may be some there, but they’re not the majority by any means and the Church still need to respond to the needs of the majority of the Church. That becomes very difficult when there are small groups, such as these, trying to push their personal agendas instead of those of an Ecumenical Council, which according to Church history weigh in pretty heavy. Also, we are called to be obedient to our bishop in matters of faith through our promise at baptism, which unites us to the ecclesial body through our relationship to the local Church/bishop who is united to Rome by his ordination and Baptism. I would suggest some of you read some books on theology and study the importance of ecclessiology. Susan Wood’s book Sacrament of Order is great.

    I understand that you may all want this and that’s great, but why is it so important to think this is essential for everyone else? Why are you making such a big deal out of all this? Can’t you just worhsip in peace and let the rest of us enjoy our Sunday celebration. This decision by Benedict, I feel, was more divisive than he thought it would be. People in parishes are arguing, people are disrespecting priests and bishops who don’t want to celebrate the rite, semenarians who don’t want to celebrate the rite are being forced to learn how to (therefore some men have decided not to enter seminary – just what we need – less priests), lay people are confused because they haven’t even fully understood Vatican II yet because parishes are still learning what it means to fully realize the charism of the Holy Spirit in the Council, etc.

    Why is this rite such a draw? I went once and felt completed alienated from the community, the prayer, the ritual. I am a liturgical historian and I just can’t understand this push so I wish someone would clearly explain why this is so important (and not in terms of your personal needs and devotions because I feel this rite encouraged private and personal devotions, which aren’t historically the root of our faith – that’s more Frontierism). We are called to be a community who stands around the altar to celebrate God’s word and be nourished by his flesh so that we too may become eucharist in our daily life as we proclaim the message of Christ’s love. If this rite doesn’t allow people to get involved, what do they do? How do they participate with each other? I want to be able to sing, pray the prayers, understand the text of what is being prayed, etc.

    Also, this Rite is not in line with the ecclesiology or liturgical theology of Vatican II so how are we not already divided? We are working in two different systems of theology.

    Let us please pray for each other and clarity in all this.

  86. R says:

    SVII:

    Why are you not addressing actual arguments? Why are copy-pasting the exact same comments to multiple blogs’ comment sections?

  87. R says:

    //including all those young Catholics you keep claiming want this Rite //

    *raises hand*

    //Yes, there may be some there, but they’re not the majority by any means//

    Who cares?

    //and the Church still need to respond to the needs of the majority of the Church.//

    Of course they do. Doesn’t mean they can’t respond to minorities at the same time. No one asked for all the parishes to celebrate the TLM.

    //I understand that you may all want this and that’s great, but why is it so important to think this is essential for everyone else?//

    I’m missing something, it seems. I don’t think anyone will be forced to attend, unless you count whatever priest would be assigned to celebrate.

    //Why are you making such a big deal out of all this? Can’t you just worhsip [sic] in peace and let the rest of us enjoy our Sunday celebration. //

    Who’s preventing you from doing so?

    People in parishes are arguing, people are disrespecting priests and bishops who don’t want to celebrate the rite, semenarians who don’t want to celebrate the rite are being forced to learn how to (therefore some men have decided not to enter seminary – just what we need – less [sic] priests),

    What parishes are experiencing arguments? At my parish the Sunday evening mass is geared towards teens and college students. I don’t usually go, but I don’t have any qualms about it going on.

    As for seminarians? Every course of study will contain topics the student is not especially interested in. I don’t know which seminaries require students to learn the TLM (apart from FSSP-run ones), but even if that’s the case, I can’t bring myself to care. If you have any evidence that teaching seminarians to celebrate the TLM has reduced enrollment for any given seminary, do share.

    We are called to be a community who stands around the altar

    I didn’t think standing around the altar was standard liturgical practice, even in an NO setting.

    to celebrate God’s word and be nourished by his flesh

    Neither of which is excluded in the TLM. The Word is preached (frequently in the venacular). The Eucharist is offered.

    Let us please pray for each other and clarity in all this.

    By all means.

  88. Michael J says:

    JJ,

    If what you say is true, you (and all of us) have already lost. By stating up-front that Vatican II taught a new theology that is fundamentally different and incompatible with what the Church previously taught, you have based your entire argument on an impossibility.

  89. Richard says:

    JJ,

    I agree that the TLM isn’t for everybody, especially for young people who are just coming to open their minds toward taking faith seriously, but we must also keep in mind that young people need something substantial – something to sink their teeth into – as they begin their walk in faith. Otherwise, if all they get from going to a youth group meeting is a motivational speech about how to feel better about themselves, or if by going to a “youth Mass” the main ploy is that their participation is elicited to join in some poorly performed praise and worship, chances are they are not going to stick around too long. As a middle school teacher, I can say that more and more teens are able to see through and not get too much out of hype designed to motivate them toward thinking and behaving in certain ways, and they can download any music they want in seconds onto their iPods.

    Those young people who are attracted to the TLM are moved by it because it conveys a sense of awe and mystery of the divine that they are certain it is something they can rely on in order to truly deepen their lives, especially in a spiritual manner.

  90. TJM says:

    JJ,

    Maybe if priests celebrated the Novus Ordo faithfully in accordance with the texts and the rubrics and the music utilized was drawn from the musical treasures of the Church’s rich tradition (and as mandated by Sacrosanctum Concilium), maybe spiritually minded young folks wouldn’t be drawn to the TLM. The typical Novus Ordo as celebrated in a parish on Sunday is banal, trite, and boring and hardly in keeping with what the Council required. Rejecting that sort of “liturgy” shows they have better judgment and taste than their elders.

    Tom

  91. meg says:

    JJ,
    I’m bewildered that you, as a liturgical historian, didn’t find the Traditional Latin Mass fascinating, if only from an historical perspective. I’ve heard many say that they wouldn’t want to attend it on a regular basis, etc. etc. but who nonetheless came away mentioning it’s beauty and splendor. It could be that, as a liturgical historian, you are actually at a disadvantage here. Unless you are elderly, you must have been educated within the confines of Vatican II thinking, and unless you open up your heart and mind, you probably never will get any answers to the questions you posed. I don’t mean to offend, but the way you speak sounds so Protestant to me. We’re not there to enjoy ourselves, be entertained or interact with one another. We’re there to witness a consecration and to worship Christ directly and, yes, personally. But you seem very happy with the Mass you attend, and no one is trying to take that away from you. Everyone deserves to feel the same way about the Mass they attend. Now imagine yourself having to drive 125 miles to find one.

    The fact of the matter is, a significant number of people share my feeling that the changes in the church at the time of Vatican II have watered down people’s closeness to Christ, and he surely deserves more. An unacceptably informal attitude has developed, a direct result of these changes, in the average Catholic church. Many people attend Mass in blue jeans, casually chit chat before and after Mass inside the church, confessions and praying the rosary are nonexistent. Standing on line and receiving the Holy Eucharist with one’s own hands doesn’t come close to kneeling in front of the altar and studying Christ on the cross up close while waiting for the Holy Eucharist, turning your face up to heaven and receiving from the consecrated hands of a priest. Mass should transcend modern life with all it’s distractions and the Church should be our haven.

  92. The Italian canonist Andrea Grillo has a detailed essay on statusecclesiae.com explaining why the Motu Proprio is canonically invalid.

    Fachtna, how amazing that a distance incident should live on in your memory. Indeed as a seminarian in Maynooth in 1971 I chatted with my dear Bishop of the time, Cornelius Lucey, about the questions raised by the “theology strike” of the students. I said something about the Council’s ideas of theological formation and Dr Lucey replied, “I was there, and that is not what they said” — no doubt correctly.

  93. Vatican II brought a new and fuller vision of the faith. Going back to a narrower vision and knowingly excluding the richer biblical and traditional perspectives of the Council is the real “hermeneutics of discontinuity”, indeed it is a “choice” that bespeaks the basic attitude of heresy (etymologically, “choice”). The supreme cafeteria Catholic is the author of Summorum Pontificum. [For that, you get to sit out for a while. See ya!]

  94. Will says:

    “The supreme cafeteria Catholic is the author of Summorum Pontificum.”

    I am amazed that you refer to the Holy Father as a “cafeteria Catholic.”

    And you are a priest, no less? I should probably reserve what I would like to say.

  95. Tony says:

    JJ,

    You must be kidding.

  96. Mark S. says:

    Spirit of Vatican II: Reading your last post, it seems we should all be grateful that Vatican II saved us from all the errors you perceive existed in the pre-Vatican II Church!

    Secondly, I know Father has blocked your comments, but perhaps somebody else could enlighten a very stupid, ignorant, illiterate lay Catholic like me. What exactly is “The Spirit of Vatican II?” I’ve read some of the documents of Vatican II, and nowhere, at any point can I find a reference th Vatican II. Which document defines it? What does it mean? My point is, officially, there’s no such thing as a “Spirit of Vatican II”. The best definition I can come up with is that it’s the interpretation that each of us individually gives to the documents of the Council, based upon – essentially – our own opinions of what the documents mean and what the Council was trying to achieve. As such, my ideas of the “Spirit of Vatican II” will be completely different from Father Zuhlsdorf’s, the Pope’s, my parish priest’s, and each and every person who has ever responded to a news story on this website.

    Can anybody enlighten me?

  97. Mark S. says:

    Sorry, I mistyped a bit in my last post. I should have said; “…and nowhere, at any point, can I find a reference to the SPirit of Vatican II.” As I said, “a stupid lay Catholic”!

  98. (Read: The “Spirit of Vatican II doesn’t allow Bishop Guy to tear out the main altar and pews of the cathedral in order to be replaced with a circular table in the middle of the nave surrounded by cushioned chairs without kneelers.)

    Wow! You must have recently visited the Cathedral here in Milwaukee, WI because that is pretty much exactly what it looks like……and it was not Bishop Guy it was Archbishop Weakland.

  99. I am a convert to the Catholic Church from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. My wife and I have an apostolate that assists former Jehovah’s Witnesses into the Church. (www.catholicxjw.com) One of the more common and more disturbing phone calls I get is from former JWs and others who have read the Catechism of the Catholic Church only to attend their local parish and hear and see all kinds of foolishness and dissent.

    I have had people call me and say things like:

    “I went to my local parish and discovered that the priest does not believe that Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes…..”

    “I met with the local priest and he says that there really is no such thing as sin since everyone tries to do the best they can anyway.”

    ‘The priest teaching RCIA denies the Divinity of Christ and this confuses me because that is the same thing the JWs teach. I understand what the Catechism says but the priest does not seem to believe what the Catechism says’

    ‘Can you tell me where the Church is that really wrote the Catechism of the Catholic Church, because that is the Church I would like to join.’

    It is at this point that I have to explain to them that there has been some serious problems and divisions in the Church and I attempt to help them find an orthodox parish with a reverent liturgy.

    I do not particularly care if the liturgy is TLM or NO as long as they learn the authentic Catholic faith in its fullness.

    I know that in my own diocese, I cannot recommend most parishes in this area since their is so much dissent among the priests in this Archdiocese. So I attend the TLM parish where I find the Mass to be very reverent and beautiful but even more importantly the priests that celebrate these Masses teach the faith in its fullness with homilies which clearly teach the evils and dangers of Birth Control, Abortion, in vitro fertilization, etc., as well homilies that give us the fullness of the faith on things such as how to pray, and how to prepare properly for Holy Communion and Confession as well as their constant challenge to us to live out the faith more completely in our daily lives at home, in our families, and in the workplace.

    I have to say that without this TLM parish I would be truly lost as would the people my wife and I are trying to assist into and back into the Church. Because the fighting and bickering over Liturgy, the dissent that is expressed in words and actions by bishops, priests, and prominent laity without any apparent disciplinary action, really does make our job in reaching out to our former JW friends and relatives extremely hard.

    Please pray for us and continue to pray for unity in the Church.

  100. Actosrep says:

    Just an non-Catholic outsiders perspective here. I believe that the use of the TLM in a true global church could certainly help to promote unity. If I were to visit another parish anywhere in the world, it would be comforting to know that I could understand the Mass and worship with the faithful. My mother-in-law, who is Catholic recently went to Sitka, Alaska and noted that due to the variety of cultures that converge there (Russian, Native American, etc…) that the TLM is used. Second, if I am reading the article above correctly, it appears that the the request only asks for 1 Sunday a month. That does not strike me as an unreasonable request. I could certainly understand the some of the strident remarks made by the bishop if the request had been for all services. Third, I am completely ignorant of the weightier theological issues, but sinking to the level of name calling by a priest is utterly uncalled for. Reasonable people can disagree reasonably. To call into question the faith and devotion of someone who has dedicated his life to the church and its flock strikes me as a VERY cheap shot. It should certainly be beneath the high calling of a priest to engage in such behavior. Nuff said.

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