Do you long-time readers remember how, back in the 1990’s, bishops refused to obey the commands of John Paul II regarding generosity in the application of legislation in force at that time concerning the Vetus Ordo? How they refused to follow his command, by his Apostolic authority, to show respect to those who were attached to traditional forms of liturgical worship? They dug in their little feetsies and, with crossed-arm pouty-face, they would not properly implement the 1988 Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei adflicta.
Sad years.
Then, in 2007, came the game changing Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, Benedict XVI’s “emancipation proclamation”, freeing priests and the Catholic faithful from the chains of the stingy bishops. The result, bishops were suddenly eager to implement the Motu Proprio… Ecclesia Dei adflicta, that is.
As the years went on, in the first 10 years after the promulgation of Benedict’s deft juridical solution, we saw in these USA a 500% growth in the numbers of places where the TLM was offered. “Trads” of the “rad” and the “mad” stripe were unclenching. Gladness was on the rise, vocations were multiplying, young families were flourishing.
Then Benedict ran from the wolves and the wolves took over the flock of the pasture.
Progress continued under Summorum Pontificum until finally the wolves realized that their wolfish plans were going to be thwarted through the ticking of the clock and the demographic sink hole opening under the Church. I suspect that the realization that evangelical converts as well as charismatics were discovering the TLM quite simply freaked them out.
The awesome Vatican II springtime of awesomeness turned out to be no so awesome after all and, hence, their powerbase, their raison d’être, was about to slip under the sands.
So, an enemy was identified and the Struggle against that enemy was planned and implemented.
The Struggle’s success would depend on a few key factors. First, speed. Second, lies. As Clausewitz famously said, “The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.” Thus, a “survey” of bishops was put into circulation. When the “results” came back, they hid the feedback, lied about the feedback, and used that lie as an excuse for a speedy strike.
Third, a false hermeneutic was needed to shift the terrain. That hermeneutic concerns the Second Vatican Council as the new interpretive lens through which all of Tradition, Doctrine, Law, Cult – everything – was subject not to interpretation but to reinterpretation. Whatever is old is deemed to be against what the spirit of the Council wanted. Whatever is old is holding back the Council from finally being implemented. Whatever is old has to go. Whomever grasps after what is old must be dealt with accordingly as a grave danger.
Smash the Olds! Replace them with the News!
Down with the Olds! Latin! Ad orientem! Cassock! Kneeling for Communion!
Up with the News! Pachamama! Synods! (walking together) Global Government! Novus Ordo!
With that as a kind of slogan poster, akin the Cultural Revolution, anyone who strays from Bergoglio Thought, and foundations like Spadaro Thought, Grillo Thought, etc., could be labelled “reactionaries against the Council”. The result is that local leaders, diocesan “gamma” bishops, like quivering gerbils in the view of a hawk, wait for a “beta” bishop or two to implement something on the basis of the utterly incoherent Traditionis custodes and the Dubious Dubia, cobbled up for the sake of that speedy initial strike. Then the gerbils, confident at last that it is okay to start running on their wheels too, issue their ever-so-pastoral directives, all clearly designed in intent to hurt the people who want the Olds.
On that note, here is the letter of the Bishop of London, Ontario about Traditionis custodes, which is for a change accurately spelled.
A few notes, in no particular order.
Note the stress on “I”, “me”. I guess the moment he is transferred or dies this is null and void. Otherwise, it gives the impression that this is all about the power the bishop has over people. It smacks of lording it over them.
It is FALSE that under Summorum Pontificum the priest could act “without reference to the Diocesan Bishop”.
Art. 5, § 1. In parishes, where there is stably present a group of the faithful attached to the previous liturgical tradition, let the pastor willingly receive their petitions that Mass be celebrated according to the Rite of the Missale Romanum issued in 1962. Let him see to it that the good of these faithful be harmoniously brought into accord with the ordinary pastoral care of the parish, under the governance of the Bishop according to canon 392, by avoiding discord and by fostering the unity of the whole Church.
It is FALSE that the bishop has “exclusive competence”. There’s Rome.
It is FALSE that he “needs” to seek a dispensation from the CDW for the TLM to continue in parish churches. He can apply can apply can. 87. Also, what happened to “exclusive competence”?
It is FALSE that Francis’ Motu Proprio TC abrogated the legislation of Benedict XVI in regard to the Vetus Ordo. TC says, “Art. 8. Previous norms, instructions, permissions, and custom that do not conform to the provisions of the present Motu Proprio are abrogated.”
It is FALSE that the Novus Ordo is the “unique expression” of the lex orandi of the Latin Church. First, there are the Ambrosian Rite and the Rite of the Anglican Ordinariates. Also, the Vetus Ordo is STILL IN USE, which in his letter is clear. However, I will stipulate that the Novus Ordo is, indeed, “unique” amongst the Rites of the Latin Church. It’s unique, alright.
In the penultimate paragraph we find a real howler. He struts and postures about how the GRIM must be obeyed! We saw the Bishop of Venice do that, too. Then that infamous, embarrassing video emerged.
Finally, look at the buzz words and disclaimers. “This isn’t about demeaning the faithful who want the TLM! NO! NO! This is only about marginalizing and demoralizing them to the point where they either, “Go away so I don’t have to pretend to be pastoral!” or they give in, “So I don’t have to pretend to be pastoral!”
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I am a Latin Rite convert whose local Mass is a NO. This stuff gets under my skin because it is absolutely disingenuous. One always find that this type of preening is also from a place where there is huge problems with doxology and praxis. If a diocese is sound, TLM is a non-threat/non-issue. It is only threatening in the same way public schools are threatened by charter schools — it is the corrupt that feels threatened not the sound.
I wonder if bishops understand that these types of letters that try to implement TC only act to shine a light on the problems in the NO?
I wonder if bishops understand that these types of ignorant, heavy-handed, and authority abusing letters that try to implement TC make non-NO Riters nervous?
I wonder if bishops understand that these types of sycophantic papalatrous letters that try to implement TC make the points of the Orthodox with regard to Rome?
I wonder if the bishops understand that the lying, the constant constant lying, displeases the Lord?
Father, we don’t actually know if Pope Benedict fled from the wolves, or had another strategy in mind at the time, or if he knew some information not generally known by others, but which made it imperative for him to take the action he did. He obviously thought what he did was for the good of the Church, and a man in his position was not able to seek advice from others in that nest of vipers, was he? We absolutely must reserve judgement on this, however distressing the whole situation is…
Perusing the diocese website, I see the bishop is implementing a big “pastoral plan” to consolidate even more parishes as priests and congregants die off and are replaced. He sings the praises of a wonderful new future of “lay lesdership”, where the few priests left function as roving sacrament dispensers while the remnant of elderly women run everything else and lead paraliturgical services when the sacrament dispensers are elsewhere.
A bright new future! Can’t let some traditional Catholics and their “clericalism” and “rigidity” threaten that, so let’s smack them down with heavyhanded episcopal diktats….
My friend is from that Diocese. Ironically, she was able to have her wedding in the OF, in Latin, ad orientem.
Meanwhile out west we’re praying (literally, we have 24 hours rosaries being prayed by members) that this sort of thing doesn’t happen in our own Latin Mass Community run by the FSSP, but in a parish with the OF. Things are really starting to take off between the two communities working even more together. We’ve had so many vocations, especially to the priesthood. We just had another seminarian ordained to the subdiaconate yesterday and another person enter the FSSP last summer.
In “pastoral” dioceses, we need creativity
Like the CA truckers (Ottawa 2022 is the new Gda?sk Shipyard 1980)
There are ways for mutual enrichment
Singing the Roman canon
Petition Father for Mass in Latin
Latin hymns. Rosary after Mass
Follow the GIRM exactly.
Latin classes in the parish
The Modernists don’t believe in fair play
Learn from our mistakes
You will be denied the Mass of the Ages and you will be happy.
I don’t know in what world it is that people are so mistreated and they come to love or even accept anything else you have to offer from that point on. They are counting on Stockholm Syndrome or short memories. Maybe they don’t care if the faithful remnant leave. They could be hoping for it. Maybe my cohort doesn’t even matter, nobody cares about Boomers, but I see a lot of young families at the TLM. These are serious Catholics with numerous children. It’s impossible to imagine them going Novus Ordo. The church is determined to exterminate the TLM because they hate it. It’s personal. It has to be, because the NO has no future and the TLM has it all. The only explanation left is it’s personal.
We just joined a TLM Parish.
The drive is 15 minutes further. – Well worth it.
It even places us into another Archdiocese.
Awesome Archbishop.
Needless to say – this parish is growing big time.
The busy priest is gonna need help.
Fr Z ?
Pope Francis at Angelus yesterday:
“The disciple of Jesus is a humble, open person, free from prejudices and rigidities.”
“no rubrics, gestures or customs to be found in Missale Romanum of 1962, which have been abrogated and are no longer found in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, are to be incorporated into the celebration of the Mass as found in the new Roman Missal (2011)”. But if you want to put a pachamamma bowl on the altar, at the offertory and leave it there for the Eucharistic prayer, that’s OK.
I was tempted to ask “do these people not realized how rediculous and transparent they are” as a rhetorical device. But then I realized, that they probably do. And they don’t care. They have the power and don’t feel they need to care.
The irony is that they will only succeed in creating more traditonalists and more radical traditionalists as the absurdity of their position becomes more and more obvious. This is not 1982 where the “experts” have almost total control of the flow of information. The internet exists today and people have access to information of their own that is not subject to the control of “experts:.
They had a shot at peaceful and fruitful co-existence and they rejected it.
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One wonders how Sacrosanctum Concilium para. 54 is to be enforced if the mass can only be celebrated in the vernacular: “Nevertheless steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them.”
@Gaby Carmel,
HE FLED FROM THE WOLVES… and now the wolves are ravaging the flock. To say otherwise is like going wee-wee on someone’s leg and telling them, “no really, it’s raining lemonade.”
My son was at a local TLM in an FSSP parish yesterday. He tells me it was packed, and not with octogenarians pining for the days of Pius XII: the congregants were mostly twenty and thirty somethings with lots of children. If you want to see the future of the Church, attend a Traditional Latin Mass.
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How they refused to follow his command, by his Apostolic authority, … They dug in their little feetsies and, with crossed-arm pouty-face,
Then Benedict ran from the wolves
The awesome Vatican II springtime of awesomeness turned out to be no so awesome after all
The Struggle’s success would depend on a few key factors. First, speed. Second, lies.
So, an enemy was identified and the Struggle against that enemy was planned…Whatever is old is deemed to be against what the spirit of the Council wanted.
There goes Fr. Z, again, pulling his punches. ;-) OK, maybe not so pulled after all. Wow, that’s pretty rough language.
I am sure Fr. Z saw this, but not sure others noticed: his depiction of the modernists’ hermenuetic of rupture exactly parallels the model of marxism that the Bolsheviks used to destroy Russia. (And, interestingly, the French Revolution, aimed at the ancien Rite). Anywhere you see a hermenuetic that foists on us a continuously renewed “Revolution” you have the marxist framework. The Lenins and Stalins and Bugninis and Archbishop Ferdinands of the world love nothing better than to everlastingly spout claptrap of “restore the Revolution” and “protect the Revolution” and “release the Revolution” as if revolting is not just a tool toward some other goal, it is itself the one valued goal. Because under modernism, it is. In our case “the Revolution” has been morphed into “the Council” but the model is EXACTLY the same. The same newspeak that re-invents language and history not just once, but every year, or every week, as needed. The same Big Lie that re-casts the past into whatever picture they want it to be. (E.G. TC re-inventing what Benedict said and did in SP.) The same depiction of their opponents as “enemies of the Revolution (i.e. Council)”.
“The disciple of Jesus is a humble, open person, free from prejudices and rigidities.”
Hence, the only bishops Francis likes are the bishops who had their spines surgically removed (or who never had a spine to begin with and who began their spiritual lives as jellyfish, or as amoebic dysentery bacteria). These bishops can be known by the way they waver in the wind just like those inflatable air tube dancers – and they have just as much substance to them.
I am a Priest of an Orthodox and rural church in Nevada. Suddenly the parish is training Roman Catholics to become parish members. The reason goes back to the Novus Ordo.
[Not good. And not good that that is going on.]
This is my home diocese. I’ve waited a while before deciding to comment. The strangest thing about this letter is the mention that all N.O masses are to be “celebrated at a free-standing altar with the priest facing the assembly and in the language of the gathered faithful “. I know of no Novus Ordo Masses in the Diocese that are celebrated ad orientem. All of the parishes that I’m familiar with have ONLY free-standing altars, though in the older churches you can see where the steps remain from the altars that were ripped out during the glorious #Springtime. I don’t know of any Novus Ordo Masses in the diocese that aren’t offered in the vernacular. Even the solid “conservative ” priests that are orthodox in their preaching don’t dare attempt to offer Mass ad orientum. One can only imagine the pearl-clutching that would ensue if Father dared to say Mass “with his back to us”. The ubiquitous Pastoral Minister™ would be on the phone in a jiffy to call the bishop’s office and voice her concerns. We’re a city of roughly 400,000 people and there is exactly one TLM that is offered on Sunday(and some select holidays)in a small town about 30 minutes outside of London. Anyone want to talk about those “on the margins “? I can only surmise that someone at the Diocese looked at what was being put out by some other dioceses and just wrote something similar, because the issues addressed regarding the N.O Mass aren’t happening here.
Father, what is the GRIM?
The GIRM is the “General Instruction of the Roman Missal”. Technically it is the General Institution. This is the document that that describes how Mass is to be said.
@Fr-William
I’m seeing this too. Been waiting for someone else to mention things.
Over the past few months, I have seen quite an increase in Orthodox discussing Western Rite Orthodoxy (ROCOR initiative, I believe), beyond a “take a Traditionalist to Divine Liturgy” talk.
https://www.rocor-wr.org/
There is a certain irony in that the Jesuits escaped suppression by going to Russia and that certain Catholic Traditionalists might escape suppression by a Jesuit Pope by going to Russia as well.
The Orthodox ARE paying attention to what is going on in the Catholic Church.
The Traditional Latin Mass, in and of itself, appeals not to the authority of its timelessness , but directly to God, in the face of all injustices and scandals…
Judica me Deus et discerne causam mean de gente non sancta: ab homine iniquo et doloso erue me. Quia tu es Deus fortitudo mea: quare me repulisti, et quare tristis incedo dum affligit me inimicus? Emitte lucem tuam, et veritatem tuam: ipsa me deduxerunt, et adduxerunt in montem sanctum tuum et in tabernacula tua. Et introibo ad altare Dei, ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam.