It is probable that widespread Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and many Masses coram Sanctissimo preserved Austria from the Protestant revolt, or so I have been told.
Now, it seems as if every story about anything Catholic that comes out of Austria is nutty.
Alas, Austria. What a tragedy. What a lesson. What a warning.
All of Europe, really. Nicht wahr?
From gloria.tv:
Last Thursday, in the municipality of Kirchbach, St Pölten diocese (eastern Austria), pastoral assistant Sabine Latzenhofer, carried the monstrance below a baldachin for the Corpus Christi procession. Latzenhofer also read the gospel and blessed the faithful with holy water.
St Pölten diocese is run by Opus Dei Bishop Klaus Küng (76).
Ay…
Oy. The first problem is that the woman is a pastoral assistant. I can’t even. Then again, Adoration isn’t a Byzantine thing.
I can provide some good news from Austria. Here in the Tirol (Pinswang bei Reutte), our 83 year old Pfarrer Simon not only celebrated Holy Mass but in a blistering heat, also carried the Monstrance and lead prayer in Latin at each of the three altars erected throughout our village. Happily, here there are no so-called ‘pastoral assistants’ (male or female), no ‘extraordinary ministers’ or anyone else with such titles. I can tell you that if Pfarrer Simon were not able to do so, there would not have been a Procession on Corpus Christi.
… Dominus flevit…
St. Juliana of Mont Cornillon… The woman who recommended the celebration, pray for us!
When my wife worked for the Church in rural Brazil, travelling round communities which might not see a priest more than two or three times a year, her bishop told her to do anything that a deacon could do. I have no idea of the situation in Austria, but I notice a good crowd of people engaged in celebrating the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. Is this bad, or good?
God have mercy on us and on the whole world.
(Matthew 24, 38-39)
Klaus Kung retired and has been replaced. Some years ago I was told the following:
Years before he became bishop of Feldkirch, he was constantly going to the bishop there, insisting that some thing or another should be done to discourage the rampant liberalism and propagate the faith.
After he was consecrated bishop, he began his almost 30 year imitation of a folding chair.
Just an editorial clarification, but when a priest of Opus Dei becomes the bishop of a diocese, he is no longer affiliated with The Work. The current Prelate of Opus Dei is Msgr. Fernando Ocariz. The only bishops of Opus Dei are those who have been appointed by the Pope as prelates. One should not associate to Opus Dei the weirdness that happens in a diocese headed by a priest formerly associated with Opus Dei.
I guess the Anschluss wins.
There shouldn’t be terms like “pastoral assistant” around to begin with, to confuse the faithful. Parishioners should not be led to imagine that because someone has the title “pastoral assistant” they have some God-given capacity to give blessings or to perform actions proper to the ordained.
Second, non-clerics should not be leading liturgical celebrations at all, much less giving blessings. Third, women should not be leading liturgical celebrations anyway, nor reading the Gospel for them, nor giving blessings.
All this confusion exists because it is intentionally pushed by those of bad will, who WANT there to be such confusion, so that their agenda of destroying the ordained priesthood inches closer. They want the ignorant and the fooled to believe that there is no problem with women deacons and priests (that’s where it would start, but Anglicans can tell us it would never stop there, it would move on to bishops). And so they encourage this kind of nonsense to create confusion.
Half of the problem here is that far more than half of the bishops either DON’T care about the evils, or they are old women themselves – too afraid to stand up for what they know (deep down) is right. One of the most grave problems in the Church today is the process of proposing and selecting bishops to elevate. The apparatus is in complete disarray, it needs to be taken apart from top to bottom and replaced with something that will actually work.
@that guy
No need to get so defensive.
If the powers that be in my diocese get wind of this, they’ll be wondering how they can implement it for next year.
I just can’t believe what I just saw. Why? What is going on in Europe? I just can’t bring myself to think some of the things over there even passed some peoples minds. Let alone actually carrying it out…
TonyO,
There are liturgical celebrations that it is appropriate for lay people to lead, such as emergency baptisms of dying infants in hospitals and celebrations of the Liturgy of the Hours by families or groups of seminarians in the absence of a cleric.