I hope hereby to draw the readership’s attention to the blog of Fr. John Hunwicke, Mutual Enrichment (olim “Liturgical Notes“). In particular Fr. Hunwicke posted two entries:
Since I have often been – much to my amusement – accused of being a crypto-Lefebvrite – the first title caught my eye. Both entries are worth your attention, as is pretty much everything Fr. Hunwicke posts.
However, in the second entry I found this, which merits a wider audience:
Secondly: Summorum pontificum confirmed juridically that the Latin Church had lived for some four decades under the dominion of a lie. [RIGHT!] The Vetus Ordo had not been lawfully prohibited. Much persecution of devout priests and layfolk that took place during those decades is therefore now seen to have been vis sine lege. For this so long to have been so true with regard to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which lies at the heart of the Church’s life, argues a profound illness deep within the Latin Church. And the Big Lie[™] was reinforced by multitudes of Little Lies[™] … that the Council mandated reordered Sanctuaries … that the Council mandated exclusive use of the vernacular … The de facto situation created by the Big Lie and the Little Lies combined ought not to be regarded as normative. [Do I hear an “Amen!”?] Its questionable parentage must give it a degree of provisionality, even (perhaps especially) to those who find it comfortable to live with. The onslaught upon the Franciscans of the Immaculate suggests that there are those, high in the Church’s administration, who have still internalised neither the juridical findings of Summorum pontificum nor its pastoral call for harmony.
Read the rest there. His commentary on “conciliar hermeneutics” is also good.
By the way… it really is Summorum Pontificum rather than Summorum pontificum. Pontifices, referring to Popes of yesteryear, is, in papal documents capitalized. This can be confusing. We should write, for example, Lumen gentium and not Lumen Gentium. On the other hand, we write Sacrosanctum Concilium not Sacrosanctum concilium. A small point.
Fr. Z kudos to Fr. Hunwicke.
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