What Does The Prayer Really Say?
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Here is a nice follow up story to what I posted the other day about the implementation of Summorum Pontificum in the area of Davenport, Iowa.

The following is from The Catholic Messenger with my emphases and comments.

Tridentine Mass returns to diocese
By Celine Klosterman

[Photo: Father Scott Lemaster celebrates the first Tridentine Mass at St. Anthony Church in Davenport Aug. 3. Another Mass was celebrated at St. Wenceslaus Church in Iowa City the same day.]



More than 400 people combined attended the first two Tridentine [They need a new term here, but let that go for now.] Masses held in the Diocese of Davenport since last summer, when Pope Benedict XVI issued his apostolic letter that relaxed restrictions on use of the Mass.
Fathers Scott Lemaster and Paul Appel celebrated the Aug. 3 services at St. Anthony’s in Davenport and St. Wenceslaus in Iowa City, respectively. A diocesan survey [intriguing] found that the Iowa City and Davenport areas expressed the greatest interest in celebrating the Tridentine Mass.
“For many years we have waited for our eyes to see and our ears to hear what we see and hear today — the Mass of the ages,” Fr. Lemaster told more than 200 people at St. Anthony’s.
“So many people have wanted this Mass,” said Fr. Paul Appel to about 220 Catholics in his sermon at St. Wenceslaus. He’s one of six diocesan priests who will take turns celebrating Mass according to the 1962 Roman Missal.   [If they are pastors, they can do this in their parishes as well.]
His sermon and readings of Scripture were the sole English-language portions of the service, at which people of all ages followed — or attempted to follow — the Mass in booklets featuring both Latin and its English translation.
Because of the language and “silence” of the Tridentine Mass, “you have to work harder, but I think that’s good,” said Fr. Appel. “You have to pay full attention.” [Yes… this is full, conscious and active participation desired by the Second Vatican Council’s Sacrosanctum Concilium.]
Besides the language difference, other notable contrasts from the ordinary form of the Mass were the absence of lay Eucharistic ministers, lectors and female altar servers; the general silence of the congregation; the choir’s embrace of Gregorian chant; and reception of Communion on the tongue, not in the hand.
The richness and defining characteristics of the Tridentine Mass, also known as the Latin Mass, helped Fr. Appel feel drawn to it, though it made up only a fraction of his post-Vatican II priestly formation, he said. To prepare to preside at Tridentine services, he joined other diocesan priests in traveling to Chicago for training through the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius.
“Let us pray for all those who didn’t get to see this day,” he said during his first celebration of the Latin Mass. He voiced hope that those attending would “find something profound and wonderful, that draws you closer to Christ.”  [THAT’s the point!  Good!]
“This is so reverent,” said Anna Kane of Cedar Rapids after Mass in Iowa City, one of several women who wore a head scarf, or mantilla, to St. Wenceslaus or St. Anthony.
“It puts concentration on the fact that we honor Christ at the altar,” said Peter Kennedy, a St. Wenceslaus parishioner. “And the Latin hymns create a sense of solitude and peacefulness.”  [I wonder if "solitude" here isn’t really a way of trying to say "stillness" or "quiet", rather than isolation.  The older form of Mass most certainly also can create a sense of broad solidarity as well.]
He and Kane, who each have lived or traveled in Europe, also voiced appreciation for the universality of Latin Mass. “You can go anywhere and it’s the same,” said Kane.
“Deo gratias,” said Teresa Oltman of Geneseo, Ill., thanking God after attending Mass at St. Anthony with family. Her family has attended Latin Mass [Another bad term.  Some more catechesis is needed here.] for the past 10 years in the Chicago and Peoria, Ill., areas, but “we finally have a place that is close,” Oltman said. Geneseo is about a 30-minute drive from Davenport.
The Tridentine Mass “is more proper,” said Michael Smith of Monticello, who with his four sons was an altar server at St. Wenceslaus. He wanted his sons to be trained to serve at Latin Mass, a Mass he predicted “everyone will be doing eventually.”
“Maybe someday we’ll get ambitious and do even funeral Masses” in the Latin rite, [Let me go out on a limb here, but I predict that they will be needed.] said Tom Rowland, who helped coordinate preparations for St. Wenceslaus’ service. He said he was pleasantly surprised by turnout at that Mass, having expected to see only half the number who showed up. “I think a lot of people are interested in this,” he said, noting he’s still getting e-mails from people wanting to help with the Mass.
“It will be interesting to see how many people continue coming” after the novelty wears off, he added. “This will click with a lot of people; with others it won’t.”
Still, he said, “I couldn’t be happier about the way things went today.”
Tridentine Masses will take place every Sunday at 1:30 p.m. at St. Wenceslaus and 4 p.m. at St. Anthony, and on the third Sunday of each month at 1 p.m. at Ss. Mary & Joseph Parish in Sugar Creek.
(Anne Marie Amacher contributed to this story.) 

I had a question put to me this morning at the blognic in Cleveland.

What are some good books for adult converts and reverts to the Church?

In addition to the Catechism of the Catholic Church or its Compendium, off the top of my head I could think of Fr. John Hardon’s Catholic Catechism.

Since I am on the road, I will ask you to pitch in.

The books you suggest should probably be geared to very readable, fairly short, volumes on history, liturgy, and maybe even some apologetics.

I picked up this disturbing story from Damian Thompson.  I don’t know all the details, but what I read was rather alarming.

My emphases and comments.

The suppression of a Latin-loving parish
Saturday, August 9, 2008, 12:45 PM GMT

I have been passed some correspondence which tells the shocking story of the apparent suppression of a traditionalist Catholic parish in the diocese of Leeds.

The New Mass being celebrated at St John the Evangelist

One hundred parishioners of St John the Evangelist, Allerton Bywater, have petitioned their bishop, the Rt Rev Arthur Roche, to allow the parish to celebrate Mass only in Latin, in both the old and new forms. [Priests don’t need permission to use the Latin books of the Latin Rite in either the post-Conciliar form of the Mass and sacraments or the pre-Conciliar.]  Instead, he is closing the church this month and has told the parish priest, Fr Mark Lawler, that he will not be appointed to a new parish because his ministry is "divisive".  [I must caution that we don’t know the whole story here.   But it this is simply over the issue of language, this would be pretty shocking.]

Fr Lawler told me today: "This is a parish that does exactly what the Holy Father tells us to do, celebrating the Mass reverently in the old and new forms. The bishop is determined to squash it, and to destroy me because he doesn’t want me moving to another parish and doing the same thing."

The parish pastoral council has written to Bishop Roche asking why he has ignored its two formal petitions for the status of a "personal parish" celebrating Mass only in Latin, in accordance with Article 10 of Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict’s apostolic letter liberating the traditional Latin Mass.

It has now retained the services of a leading canon lawyer to challenge Bishop Roche’s decision to close the parish as part of a wider programme of closures.  [So, apparently this is not only about the use of Latin.]

Relations between Bishop Roche and Fr Lawler have been strained for years. The bishop told Fr Lawler some time ago that he wanted him to say Mass facing the people, and that because he had told him what to do it was therefore the will of the Holy Spirit.  [?]

Pope Benedict, in contrast, has written at length defending the ancient practice of celebrating the Eucharist facing east. He has also given priests the legal right to celebrate a public Mass in the traditional rite if they are approached by a stable group of the faithful, however small. [Even if they are not approached by a group.]  At St John’s, the vast majority of regular worshippers have asked for the old rite to be made available. ["vast majority"?  My!]  On August 17, their church will be closed by the diocese.

Fr Lawler says he asked for a meeting with Bishop Roche, but to no avail. Instead, the Vicar General, one Mgr McQuinn, has written to him, telling him: "The Bishop … believes your ministry to be divisive, is uncertain that ordinary pastoral care of parishioners is taking place and does not have confidence that you will celebrate the Ordinary Form of the Mass with a generous heart for the vast majority of parishioners who expect Sunday and weekday Masses to be in English and at an altar facing the people." [And if people wanted him to wear clown makeup and say Mass on a unicycle would he have to do that?  Saying Mass ad orientem is perfectly legitimate.  And I note the phrase "generous heart".]

In an open letter to his parishioners, Fr Lawler describes this claim as "a slur on my character, an attack upon my priesthood and totally without foundation."

Clearly, this matter must now go to Rome. Perhaps the pontifical commission Ecclesia Dei might be persuaded to take a closer look at the scandal unfolding in Allerton Bywater.

I don’t know all the details, as I mentioned above, and these situations are usually rather complicated.  However, this is an opportuity to remin everyone that according to Summorum Pontificum pastors are within their rights to celebrated the older form of Mass for their people.  According to the 1983 Code of Canon Law they can celebrate Holy Mass in Latin to any degree they think proper.  According to the rubrics in the Missale Romanum and the long tradition of the Church, not to mention sound theology and common sense, they can celebrate Mass ad orientem.  Of course we wouldn’t want priests simply imposing things on groups of people who, over a long period of time, simply don’t want it and resist it, thus leading to divisions and problems.  However, people who would resist such things are a) few and b) educable and c) ... did I mention few?

However, at the same time as we all know about the Latin thing, the old Mass and ad orientem worship, we also know that priests can win this battle and that, and that bishops have a thousand ways to crucify a priest, for whatever reason it pleases them to do so.

And so, I repeat one of the most important things about Summorum Pontificum.  It was one of the first documents we have seen in the modern era which stressed the rights of priests.  

And that, friends, is one reason why some will resist it.

I am about to head off to the Cleveland blognic.