Is the revolution beginning?
From Church Militant:
Hundreds [!]of UK Priests Learn Ancient Rite of Mass
Hundreds of priests in the United Kingdom gathered in the city of Bath in England last week to learn how to say the Traditional Latin Mass. [Yep. It says hundreds.]
The event, sponsored by the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales, took place over three days, and saw a large turn-out of priests, deacons, and seminarians. This is the eleventh such conference for LMS. The first conference was organized in 2007, in the same year Pope Benedict issued Summorum Pontificum, the motu proprio granting every priest the right to offer the Traditional Latin Mass without special permission from his bishop.
The conference has been well attended each year, with an increasing number of attendees gathering at each conference.
The Latin Mass Society of England and Wales was founded to promote the traditional Latin liturgy of the Church, and is known for its well-attended annual pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, among other things.
There was a great percentage turnout of priests who signed the Letter to the Synod.
Now this.
The Benedict Effect!
It would be great if it were true, but I suspect an error has been made in the report of the number attending.
The Benedict effect? A slight touch of it, perhaps, but also the CMTV gross exaggeration effect. There are about 30 faces showing on the group photo, and not all of them priests.
http://www.lmschairman.org/2015/04/lms-priest-training-in-prior-park-photos.html
Some of us know England far too well to be taken in by CMTV hype.
In the Bath Chronicle article cited by Church Militant, it says hundreds of priests “have been flocking to Bath” to learn the old Mass… so they may be adding up the numbers from all the years and Church Militant may have misconstrued this.
I had the honour of taking part in this event as a member of the schola cantorum. I can confirm that, although well attended, the report of “hundreds of priests” is inaccurate!
I think that all priests regardless of what generation they were ordained in are going to have to start to openly and honestly comprehend that when a Catholic asks him to personally (learn and) say the EF of the Mass that to say “No” and proffer any number of excuses is to essentially condemn whole swaths of Catholics who are otherwise their very own personal responsibility to spiritually suffer and wander, particularly in those places where the lack of reverent NO Masses is an acute problem right now.
Such a situation on objective terms at this point constitutes a sin against charity and is at the least far from a generous, serving, pastoral attitude. Moreover, inasmuch as families who prefer the EF are in general raising children firmly in the Faith and tend to encourage vocations much more than average Catholics in North America, for an NO only priest to refuse to pastor them and provide for their spiritual needs, merely because they are spiritually fed by the EF, is an action that has dramatic repercussions for the whole Church and not only for themselves and their parish bounds…Already these vocations in greater abundance out of EF communities are serving Novus Ordo attending Catholics, with great joy, kindness, and generosity, when few are to be found on the scene arising out of the decades of the minimal Real Presence Masses and celebrations with the tawdry music and lack of ability for prayer.
In other words, a pastor who himself only desires the NO, for everyone, must consider that young people who desire the EF who receive a call will be the ones to show mercy to his flock in their old age. This is already happening and will only increase. The best thing that these pastors can do is accept some humility on this and encourage Catholic young people and thereby do what his flock will increasingly need, the sacraments, even in NO form…Would these pastors turn away families who ask for the EF, even if vocations will be encouraged, and essentially condemn his current flock to communion services, if that, once he is gone, and who knows what else for them? If we can protect the environment with some concrete steps in the here and now, surely a pastor can make the sacrifice to permit the Rite he may personally or “politically” dislike but which is just as good now as it was before, for the sake of his people. A pastor who wants to maintain “the status quo” for his NO flock for their aging years will go a long way towards helping that become a reality by offering the EF, right now, for the children and young adults in his parish. There truly is now something very older brother in the parable of the prodigal son about saying “No” any longer…
Clearly these U.K. priests get it.
Let’s take the “hundreds of priests” as a prophecy.
And may all the good priests of the West learn their true Mother Tongue.
The actual statement in the Church Militant article:
“Hundreds have attended over the course of years since the conference was first organized eight years ago.”
Several dozen per year could add up to “hundreds” over a period of 8 years. According to a recent statistic I recall, the total number of Catholic priests in England is of the order of five thousand.
It might be easier in England and Wales as the Church there gained a very broad indult from Paul VI. That should mean there is a wider pool of experience in the Mass of Ages than in say, the Netherlands.
Prayerful said: “It might be easier in England and Wales as the Church there gained a very broad indult from Paul VI. That should mean there is a wider pool of experience in the Mass of Ages than in say, the Netherlands.”
The indult that was received by the Cardinal was NOT for the 1962 rite in the form you are familiar with. It was the 1962 rite with all the 1965 and 1967 Tres Abhinc Annos emendations to it. I will post the indult in the next comment.
Sine the indult still stands, the rite of 1967 is still allowed in Britain also.
SACRA CONGREGATIO PRO CULTU DIVINO
E Civitate Vaticana, die 5 November 1971
Prot. N. 1897/71
Your Eminence,
His Holiness Pope Paul VI, by letter of 30 October 1971, has given
special faculties to the undersigned Secretary of this Sacred Congregation to
convey to Your Eminence, as Chairman of the Episcopal Conference of England
and Wales, the following points regarding the Order of the Mass:
1. Considering the pastoral needs referred to by Your Eminence, it is
permitted to the local Ordinaries of England and Wales to grant that certain
groups of the faithful may on special occasions be allowed to participate in
the Mass celebrated according to the Rites and texts of the former Roman
Missal. The edition of the Missal to be used on these occasions should be
that published again by the Decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites (27
January 1965), and with the modifications indicated in the Instructio altera
(4 May 1967).
This faculty may be granted provided that groups make the request
for reasons of genuine devotion, and provided that the permission does not
disturb or damage the general communion of the faithful. For this reason the
permission is limited to certain groups on special occasions; at all regular
parish and other community Masses, the Order of the Mass given in the new
Roman Missal should be used. Since the Eucharist is the sacrament of unity,
it is necessary that the use of the Order of Mass given in the former Missal
should not become a sign or cause of disunity in the Catholic community. For
this reason agreement among the Bishops of the Episcopal Conference as to how
this faculty is to be exercised will be a further guarantee of unity of
praxis in this area.
2. Priests who on occasion wish to celebrate Mass according to the above-
mentioned edition of the Roman Missal may do so by consent of their Ordinary
and in accordance with the norms given by the same. When these priests
celebrate Mass with the people and wish to use the rites and texts of the
former Missal, the conditions and limits mentioned above for celebration by
certain groups on special occasions are to be applied.
With my highest respects, I am
Yours sincerely in Christ,
(Signed:) A. Bugnini
Secretary
Sacra Congregatio
pro Cultu Divino
When I cut and pasted the above text, somehow a link was inserted that has a link to an obnoxious website. I am sorry for this.
I joined the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales just to show support, even though I am in the US.
They publish a nice magazine (though of course it deals mostly with England and Wales). They also supplied a sturdy wallet size card with instructions that, in case of death, I request a Requiem Mass celebrated according to the Roman Missal of 1962.
Papabile, all the Masses I attended under the 1971 Indult were according to the 1962 Missal. There would have been no point in using the 1967 interim rite which was simply a dry run for the Novus Ordo. Fortunately Bugnini’s grudging concession was trumped by an earlier (1967) permission gained by Cardinal Heenan to use the 1962 books.
SP superseded earlier Indults and so the bastardized rites of 1965 and 1967 (arguably allowed by QAA and EDA) are not licit even in the unlikely event of anyone wanting them.
I live in rural England and have a choice of three EF Sunday Masses within a 40 minute drive. We now have to recruit more singers and servers. In the recent LMS magazine there is an interview with the new 51-year-old Bishop of Plymouth, Mark O’Toole, who believes that the Old Rite must be not only tolerated, but encouraged. The new Bishop of East Anglia, a former Anglican priest, has celebrated a Pontifical High Mass in his cathedral.
Younger priests and bishops are pointing the way to the future.
John:
I knew about H.E. Heenan’s 1967 permission to use the earlier books. I just meant to correct the impression that the “Agatha Christie” indult allowed for anything other than the 1967 rite. It would seem to me that any 1962 rites you had attended were obtained under the Heenan permission and not the indult itself – which as far as I can tell was rarely, if ever exercised.
I am not so sure that SP somehow abrogated the 1971 indult as it specifically affected an edition of the Missal as modified. I actually consulted a canonist from who was attached tot he Apostolic Tribunal in Rome who thought that it would be possible to still exercize it even after SP.
Don’t get me wrong, I am no fan of the Tres Abhinc Annos modifications. I just think there’s a general misperception of what the”Agatha Christie” indult actually authorized.
Henry Edwards: The Church Militant article apparently was revised sometime yesterday. Originally it was as Fr. Z presented it.
Papabile, I take your point but the 1971 Indult was needed since Paul VI had promulgated a new Missal and ordered it to be used to the exclusion of other rites. You might know if the 1967 modification (which in my parish at least was entirely in English) was ever used under the Agatha Christie Indult; all I know is that such Masses were announced as being in the ‘Tridentine Rite’, which no-one in the early 1970s would ever have confused with the transient 1967 dog’s breakfast.
John, I believe you, and btw….am very much in favor of them ignoring those restrictions. :-)
“Hundreds of UK priests” means at least two hundred priests from this country, but suggests more. Over eleven conferences this means an average of at least 18 priests a year. There are 24 men on the photograph published by the Bath Chronicle, not all of whom are priests.
http://www.bathchronicle.co.uk/Catholic-priests-flock-Prior-Park-College-Bath/story-26338095-detail/story.html
The LMS website states that in April priests came not only from this country, but also Ireland, Poland and one from the Caribbean.
http://www.lms.org.uk/news-and-events/news-blog/news_blog_april_2015#prior-park-report-2015
CMTV have amended their text since I first followed the link put up by Fr.Z. The comments at CMTV include a link to Fr. Z’z post, in particular these comments, suggesting that CMTV needed to be prompted to change the text. They seem to have followed the report of the Bath Chronicle rather than check facts directly with LMS.
“Dozens” would, in all probability, be nearer the mark.
On a smaller scale, yet still impressive, just last year it was reported that seven priests in the Diocese of Birmingham Alabama were trained to celebrate the TLM
http://pblosser.blogspot.com/2014/11/extraordinary-community-news-ef-priest.html