News in Rome. I was informed that the Institute of Christ the King will have an “apostolate” in Rome at the Basilica of Celso and Giuliano. HERE This baroque church is on the rather narrow street that points you directly up to the “Angel Bridge”.
It seems that the rector of the Church invited the Institute to be involved there.
This is not quite the same as what the FSSP has at Santissima Trinità dei Pelegrini, which is a parish with a pastor. The ICK place has a rector of the Diocese of Rome and they will be guests there.
Nevertheless, more places are better than fewer.
If it can happen in Rome, which is seriously hostile territory, it can happen anywhere.
Another point. This church was for many years rather hard to visit, usually closed. The fact that the ICK has been invited is a good development. A rector of a Roman church is thinking inside the box.
And it is always good to have healthy market forces in operation! Up your game!
This brings me to another point for you who embrace tradition.
Do not fear the idea of another place starting the traditional Mass in your area. “Oh no! They can’t do that! They’ll take people away from our place!”
Maybe yes. Maybe no.
You should always be incentivized to work your backsides off to make your chapel or parish church the most wonderful place to be as a Catholic. If you drift in on Sunday, ignore the collection and other parish events, and drift away again, you don’t get to complain. Also, you are part of the problem.
Do not fear the successes of others. There is an old image that a rising tide raises all boats, from the dingy to the aircraft carrier. It could be that your chapel or church may lose some attendance for a while, since there are most places where the traditional Mass is being offered. I suggest that you gripe and wring your hands and give up.
NO!
Get out there and bring in more people!
Be inviting. Never underestimate the power of an invitation.
Be also in your person alluring through your joy at being a Catholic with the great advantages of tradition.
You have so many advantages.
Get into gear!
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Fantastic! I believe this is the Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli) parish…where he was baptized.
[Yes, he was baptized there. However, it wouldn’t have been the parish church. That area would have been under the dominion of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini.]
That’s great news. As to the “leach” effect of a new TLM in an established jurisdiction, I had some minor concerns as well when a new one opened in my diocese a few years back. At first I noticed that it simply seemed to decrease attendance at my parish as some people who lived closer to the other parish chose to go there instead. Also, that parish initially had very low attendance itself after the first week, consisting mostly of those who had left my parish. Fast forward a few years. New families have filled in my parish to replace the others and attendance is fairly high. I recently visited the other parish as well, and noticed that it was filled to capacity with young families. Communion actually took over 20 minutes due to the number of people. The TLM eventually sells itself if people are aware it’s there. If you build it they will come.
[Exactly! Well explained.]
Seeing as not everyone in the world is a Catholic (or any kind of Christian or orthodox Christian), we have not yet achieved full market penetration. So we need more church locations open for service.
Seeing as not every Catholic church in the world is open or well-attended, we should be happy to get added staff for any under-utilized church.
Seeing as every Catholic attending Mass is potentially part of the “sales force” for the Gospel, we should encourage church attendance by having plenty of staffed churches offering Mass (and Confession), at various times on Sunday and throughout the week.
Above all, resist the temptation to engineer the location of a proposed TLM for your own personal convenience as opposed to a greater number of potential attendees. Other people who may not speak up may also not show up. This is one time you can be sure you’re working blind within a much bigger plan. Hard as it may be to drive hours to attend the TLM and then hours back home, reflect that in the world of today this is what it may mean for you to keep holy the sabbath day.
This is great news! I was at the FSSP’s Epiphany Mass with Cardinal Burke, and it was the most recent time (certainly not the first!) that I have commented that they need a bigger church! The Sunday high Mass regularly fills Santissima Trinita’ to capacity, and for big feasts (like Epiphany) the congregation was out the door. Another location in Rome offering regular traditional Masses will not go to waste, and I second the comments above that I expect it will increase the total number attending (after the initial splitting of the congregation as people choose based on the convenience of time or location). Make it available: they will come. Make it more available, and more will come. Well done to that rector!
Re: who Ss. Celso and Giuliano were —
St. Julian (of Antioch in Syria or Antinoe in Egypt) was married to St. Basilissa (a name meaning “Queen”). They maintained perpetual continence, and Basilissa founded a convent and/or a hospital. Basilissa died young as a confessor. Julian died a martyr during Diocletian’s persecution, but not before his example converted Celsus, the son of Antioch’s (or Antinoe’s) governor, and his mom Marcionilla, the governor’s wife. There were a few other martyrs in this group (a priest named Antony and a neophyte named Anastasius, and maybe Marcianilla’s brothers), but mostly it is a family feastday. They got decapitated. It happened on January 6, 7, 8, or 9 (feast day differs). Either way, this is a timely announcement for the parish patron saints.
It’s not the same St. Julian of Antioch who was of senatorial family, and who got sewn into a bag and thrown in the sea.
We have a thriving and bustling diocesan TLM parish. Our parish is going on five years old this coming year. There was one indult community that eventually was moved into a regular NO parish (long story), but it seems that some leave there and come to us, rather than the other way around. They were around, well, since indult times. Another priest north of us has started a TLM at his NO parish. For now, it’s just once a month, but soon, it will be every Sunday. Some of our people are really conflicted, because they love our parish, but this new one is closer for them. BUT, I ran into a friend from elsewhere when we went there for a later morning January 1st TLM and she was telling me how her family is really trying to adjust to the TLM that is being offered there even though it was all quite foreign and strange to them. It was very encouraging to see new people getting interested that normally would never even think twice about it. I do feel a twinge of jealousy, as I love all of our people in our community, but I also know that growth is sometimes painful and requires sacrifices. I’m sure it’s difficult for them, too. Still, we have to be willing to adjust and sometimes give up something for the growth that must come.
Oh WOW! Competition for the VATICAN!
But I guess like you say: “healthy market forces.”
“If you drift in on Sunday, ignore the collection and other parish events, and drift away again, you don’t get to complain. Also, you are part of the problem.”
Indeed.
What is I hope meant is that which is continuing apace in parishes and to-be parishes across our land. It is a quite understood and directed endeavor; of which we must pray for its increasing success. There, your collections (anonymous or forthright); your considered prayers and direction (from you and for those who you have set forth to battle), in its infancy shall beckon the Angels’ assistance! As it has throughout the Land, increasingly we see the results. It is a wonderful view! Those who give their prayers, those their physical exertion, their intellect, their very presence in whatever form that Christ sees in their hearts: It is a blessing to observe these things as they are acted and moved upon in our daily lives. One cannot but see a prayer life igniting of and ignited by the combination of these souls who will not be denied their Faith!
ignore the collection
That depends. Around here, most collections go off to the diocese, and if it is, say, a Church where the FSSP say Masses, neither the FSSP nor the parish they are guest of will see a cent of it. (At least so I’ve heard.)
Imrahil,
I doubt that the SSPX is turning any money over to a diocese.
Dear robtbrown,
obviously; I was talking about those EF (or for that matter charismatic, etc.) groups duly invited and delegated and so forth.
The concern about numbers in attendance is a very modernist concern. The other day here a priest refused to show up for a Motu Proprio mass because he anticipated that “only” 15 people would come (actually 60 came but that’s by the by). The point is that for a traditionalist, it is the Mass which counts, not the people. So ten masses attended by 10 people each is much better than one mass attended by 100 people
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