Talk about optics

The other day I posted about the implementation of Traditionis custodes … TC… by the Bishop of San Diego.  In his pastoral care for the most marginalized group in the Church, he suppressed the TLM in the northern part of the diocese.  Then he called for people to find a non-parish location which, in his beneficence, might serve as an out of the way place where the people can’t do any harm to the unity of the Church… because they are, you know, divisive.

I received this today.

Bishop McElroy will be moving the Masses in North County San Diego to the Pala Indian Reservation mission church parish hall. Talk about optics….

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13 Comments

  1. Thomas S says:

    Big Chief McElroy may hope And Then There Were None, but I promise this isn’t The Last of the Mohicans.

  2. summorumpontificum777 says:

    McElroy is the first and only bishop in California to “implement” T.C. and shut down parish-level TLMs. Always the loyal minion, you’ll get that a red hat yet, Bobby!

    On the bright side, perhaps the TLMers can enjoy a nice brunch at the Indian casino buffet after Mass. Seriously. I’ve heard good things about the Pala casino.

  3. iamlucky13 says:

    Ah yes. If he views it as a second class Mass, what then is his view of the citizens to whom he gives it?

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  5. bartlep says:

    I am in “Big Mac’s” diocese and I will be driving 45 minutes to Pala. My parish community (next week is the last Mass in my parish before starting in Pala) is drawing closer as a group. We are determined to make this work. We will be joined by another parish which also had a Sunday TLM.
    My parish (soon-to-be former) just got a new pastor who walked into this mess. He is a good priest who is going to lose a couple hundred parishioners. This past Sunday he made the announcement that the TLM would continue in Pala and the time of the Mass. He ended by saying that this would “still be our parish” and that the parish still has a “3.5M mortgage”. Many didn’t take that comment kindly. We have been betrayed and kicked out of our Mass but we should still be committed to contributing $$$$?
    A very sad time.

  6. Archlaic says:

    Look at the bright side: it could have been the BASEMENT of said parish hall! Carefully-calibrated beneficence indeed! I mean the church itself (Mission San Antonio de Pala) is designated as a “sub-Mission” – one is simply in awe of the asperity acuity of H.E. McElroy in providing these divisive folks with such a well-targeted object lesson in… submission! Can they fail to grasp it, that they have been given this splendid opportunity for mortification by dint of being packed-off to an ancillary worship space of a sub-Mission; and yet they have not been gratuitously abased any further by a forced descent into the basement thereof? For those living south of Escondido (1 son attending college there) or Oceanside (where my in-laws reside) the lesson will be a bit more pointed, since they will have an extra ~40 minutes weekly to contemplate their gratitude. I can hardly wait for my next trip to SoCal, it will be like a retreat!
    (shades of the days when I used to drive out to the SSPX Mass at a hotel in Escondido! – they may want to think about re-activating that mission!)

  7. TonyO says:

    I haven’t been subject to that kind of stinking mess…yet. But if my parish priest felt it necessary to mention the 3.5M mortgage in the same breath as the TLM departing, I would probably take action. Something like: send a letter to the parish noting the amounts of my previous contributions, the rejection of those contributions with regard to a worthy form of worship, and demand a return of those amounts, along with a “bill” for them. (Oh, and then tell my friends in the parish what I did, with copies for them.)

    No, of course the parish would not return my contributions. But they might get the message that I intend to vote with my feet. But by the time he got the 7th or 10th similar letter telling him “we will only pay when the Mass is what it ought to be” he might think about it some.

  8. IA Transplant says:

    Pala is, geographically, about as far away as possible for anyone in any corner of SD County. It might be 45 minutes from St Mary, but it’s closer to an hour and a half from St Margaret. Folks in North County might be better served trekking to St John the Baptist in Costa Mesa.

  9. summorumpontificum777 says:

    Tony, don’t blame the Escondido and Oceanside parishes or pastors. I’m sure they have no quarrel with their TLM parishioners and never wanted this and are sorry to see these good people go. This is solely the handiwork of “Mac the Knife.” He’s been on upward trajectory within liberal circles of the hierarchy ever since he was Abp. John Quinn’s adjutant in the ’80s. He was on the short list for D.C. and a red hat following Wuerl’s exit. It didn’t happen then with Gregory getting the gig, but a fellow has to make sure that Rome knows he’s a loyal capo next time something opens up. No better way to establish your bona fides these days than putting the hammer down on some luckless trads.

  10. bartlep says:

    IA Transplant.
    St. Margaret’s to Pala is 30 min. Carlsbad to Pala is 45 min.
    St. Anne’s (an FSSP parish) in SD is slightly closer but has no parking.

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  12. TRW says:

    I’m not aware of any church buildings in my diocese that aren’t parishes/parochial churches. I’m not sure what, if anything , the Bishop intends to do. Time will tell.

  13. TonyO says:

    TRW: The best response by the bishop might be to look at TC and simply say: “no”. But most bishops aren’t going to do that, and given that fact, maybe the best solution would be something like this: Suppose the bishop is faced with a having to close a parish, and usually the bishop will try to limit the damage by closing a parish where it is currently “in competition” with 3 or 4 other close parishes (such as with urban or close-in, older suburbs). Take the designated parish and go ahead and close it as a “parish” along with assigning the territory to the 3 or 4 surrounding parishes, but then re-name it a “shrine of X”. Then establish that the shrine may have the TLM masses that otherwise had been said at any of the local parishes.

    Another option would be to close the parish (or take a parish that HAS BEEN closed) and simply sell the church to a private foundation created for the specific purpose of providing a suitable place for appropriate (non-parish) masses. That way the building doesn’t even belong to the diocese any more, and so it cannot be called “a parish”.

    Either way: TC says that the bishop should designate on what days the TLM shall be available. It doesn’t actually restrict or narrow that provision. There is, therefore, nothing in TC which prohibits the bishop from deciding to have the TLM said as often as it is productive and conducive to spiritual growth of the attendees – and then decide that “the Church in general REQUIRES people to go to mass weekly, and ENCOURAGES people to go daily, because this is productive and conducive to spiritual growth”. Therefore, (he decides) making the TLM available on the very same schedule – daily – that the Church supports for everyone else would indeed be productive of spiritual growth.

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