Vatican Radio: Prof. at Pontifical school criticizes Summorum Pontificum

Apparently something interesting happened on the waves of Vatican Radio.  

Don’t be shocked.  It happens.

A Benedictine priest, p. Ildebrando Scicolone, OSB, professor of liturgy at a Pontifical Athenaeum, Sant’Anselmo, was, apparently, on Vatican Radio and, apparently, trashed Summorum Pontificum.

Vatican Radio seems to have pulled the piece.

I would like to obtain it.

An interesting occurrence on the Pope’s radio station.

Interesting that this fellow is teaching in a Pontifical institution.

At our seminary in Rome many years ago this Scicolone was dragged in a couple times to brainwash us about liturgy. 

I remember fuming at him from the back of the room in silence, blood running from the corner of my mouth.

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26 Comments

  1. Like Cardinal Ratzinger said, that problem with our world today is lack of devotion in the liturgy. I loved Ratzinger’s book “the spirit of the liturgy”.

  2. Brian Mershon says:

    Father Z. But certainly this fellow is not the only one with similar dispositions teaching at Roman seminaries, is he? [So? Of course.]

    Come on. There are dozens more like him–whether it be liturgy, doctrine, etc. Correct? [Again… so? We know that.]

  3. Tomas says:

    Father: prayer is the best rabies shot.

  4. Sandy says:

    It hurts so much, Father, when our Faith is attacked from withing our own Church. I know it’s frequent, but I always wonder: how did we get to this point! Being a “pre-Vatican II” Catholic (educated when there were real Catholic schools and colleges) I guess I have a bit more insight, but….

  5. Ildebrando Scicolone is a dying breed. and to those type of dissenters i wish them good riddance.

  6. Fr Gregoire Fluet says:

    Just curious, and really of no significance: didn’t Archbishop Bugnini teach at the same University?

  7. Ann says:

    I feel so sorry for the students who want to be orthodox when they must sit through lectures with someone who is choosing not to be. I so feel for the Holy Father, it must be quite painful for him when someone is so unable to see the value in something this good.

  8. Bob says:

    When I was studying at the Greg we have Father Pecklers SJ teaching us liturgy and he got Fr Scicolone in to give us a guest lecture – out of the frying pan into the fire.

  9. Andrew, UK and sometimes Canada says:

    The most interesting aspect of this, albeit I am pretty uninformed about Vatican Radio, is that the piece was pulled. Does this happen routinely or is it something rare? I’m not for draconian discipline but it is refreshing to see someone put their foot down every so often.

  10. paul says:

    I think the Holy Father really needs to offer the Extraordinary Form at some time during his pontificate. Prayer and fasting can cast out demons according to the Bible- perhaps this is what is needed because this hatred toward the traditional Mass in my opinion is demonic. I wish to state I normally attend the novus ordo- so there is no reason for a Catholic to harbor such hatred to the traditional Mass.

  11. The church and its Vicar are under attack from the evil one who roams the world seeking the ruination of souls. He has many minions; be afraid for our Lord was tempted also.
    1 Timothy verse 1 is instructional.
    Does anyone fine it odd that our Holy Father is being attacked from without and within?
    Pray for him and the faith

  12. Maggie J. says:

    Father Z, I believe that the Second Epistle of St. John warns us about this very thing. We must continue to pray for our Holy Father, our Catholic faith and for those who may have and have lost their way.

    God bless you.

  13. TJM says:

    Too bad this “priest” isn’t teaching in a Muslim institution. We know what would happen to him if he dissented there. Tom

  14. “At our seminary in Rome many years ago this Scicolone was dragged in a couple times to brainwash us about liturgy. I remember fuming at him from the back of the room in silence, blood running from the corner of my mouth.”

    I had a similar experience in the seminary, only it was Ansgar Capungo OSB. [Ah yes… another of the usual suspects.]

  15. Syriacus says:

    Dear Father Z.,

    Fr. Scicolone o.s.b. is well known on the waves of Italian Radio Maria, as one of the worst enemy of Summorum Pontificum. By the way: on the same Radio Maria there is also a program by Padre Nuara o.p., which is a great -and was even persecuted for this- supporter of S.P.

    See also:

    http://paparatzinger2-blograffaella.blogspot.com/2009/03/causa-della-posizione-di-padre.html

  16. Edward C. says:

    A “priest” is still very much a priest, Tom. He stands daily as an alter Christi at the altar of God. Regardless of his views, the man deserves more respect than that. To question his priestly status calls into question much more than the man in question. By labeling a priest within the Church of Christ a “priest” you unknowingly call into question the ordination bestowed upon him by his bishop. All priests validly ordained within the Church are true and valid priests all of their lives despite their views and practices. We as faithful ought to respect that.

  17. Edward C. says:

    Meant to put *alter Christus* I believe that’s the proper term.

  18. PMcGrath says:

    Dear Father:

    Our current pastor studied at the Anselmo. I would presume that he knew of him, if he didn’t take classes from him. I’m pretty sure he would have been fuming, as you describe.

  19. contronting liberalism, it’s like holy water at an exorcism. let’s pray for these Godless people.

  20. Mitchell NY says:

    I hope the Holy Father can perform Mass according to the 1962 Missal soon. A picture to headline or caption the top of the SP document seems necessary in this day and age. Ink is not enough to get the point of the document across to the many that the Pope wishes for all of us to have a place in the Church.

  21. What I really need are audio files or links to the same.

  22. Carlos Palad says:

    “I had a similar experience in the seminary, only it was Ansgar Capungo OSB’

    Anscar Chupungco OSB, who is still the undisputed ruler of Philippine
    liturgy, and who continues to spread 1970’s liturgics as Gospel truths to a new
    generation of Asian students who don’t know any better.

  23. Fr Smith says:

    I think that very few people are really at heart ideologues, but Scicolone is certainly one. I had a class on Mystagogy with him at the Greg (still not quite sure what it is!), and he was famous for giving five minute oral exams and giving out 10s (perfect scores) like candy. We had been told to read a certain book and comment on a chapter in it. I prepared a chapter which compared the ordinaries of the 1962 and 1970 Missals. He actually shouted at me during the exam for preparing something which had not been asked for and was incensed that I knew anything at all about the Latin Mass. He then began to mercilessly grill me about all kinds of things from the book, which I happened to know. It went on for thirty minutes and so at a certain point I switched from Italian to Latin, which is one of the languages we could respond to exams in. He was so furious that he cut my exam short and then gave me a 6.5! Surprise then when he came to the seminary to brainwash the seminarians by telling us how nobody knew what was going on at the Latin Mass and how grateful we should be that we never knew it. I responded by saying that I knew it very well indeed, and had served as subdeacon just that very day, and that, if he had ever been inside an Italian parish, he would knew that even though the Mass was in a language and a rite they could understand, they had no idea what was going on. Needless to say I was feted as a hero by my classmates by showing up the disagreeable abbot whose temper got the better of him once again. In retrospect, my behavior might not have been all that laudable, but it certainly touched a nerve. And how many vocations are there at his abbey? Zero, at least a few years ago. God convert him! He is like Bugnini: photographic memory for liturgical minutiae, and determined to erase anyone else’s memory of them.

  24. shadrach says:

    Hmmmm… Add the egoism of an Italian academic to the egoism of an irritable postconciliar cleric who’s been riding the wave of ‘the spirit of the council’ and you get a particularly crystallized type of egoism. Let us pray for the Pope, our beloved and loveable Pope.

  25. RC says:

    There is a clip of Prof. Scicolone on Vatican Radio’s web site today: nothing to do with Summorum Pontificum, though: just some general comments about the Lenten retreat now in progress.

    He did show a little bit of discontinuity-mindedness, though, when he delivered the opinion that during the second millennium “we almost made” Christianity a religion of passion, death, mortification, and penance. But now we place the emphasis on Easter, and in Lent prepare for our own resurrection.

    This is really very retrograde: he’s fighting against the exaggerations of the 1400s, maybe — exaggerations which were cured long ago through the Catholic Reformation.

  26. chironomo says:

    The bright light at the end of this tunnel is that the ideas of this crowd are no longer ASSUMED to be the norm… they are having got get out there and fight for their ideas, and in the arena of ideas they are losing as time goes on…

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