It has been quite a week. During this last week I’ve felt a real malaise, a spiritual smog.
Many have written asking for my comments on highly visible disasters. Firstly, my insights lead me to the brilliant conclusion that, “Yup, that’s a disaster all right!” Nextly, my legendary insights leave me with the stunner that, “We must do penance for these people and make acts of reparation. Pray the Rosary. GO TO CONFESSION and make sure your own house is in order.”
There.
Seriously, the less I say about what happened at St. Patrick’s the better. Those deeply sick people want the outrage, they live for it, it’s why they do what they do. The less, the better. For what they did at St. Patrick’s I think they belong in some sort of institution with bars on the windows, but that’s not going to happen especially in NYC where people do any thing they want and walk free the same day. Lastly, there was a statement released from St. Patrick’s.
“They had no idea”. Okay. That could be the case. It stretches my credulity that they didn’t know something bad was afoot when people started to show up.
I won’t post images from that sacrilegious, intellectually offensive disaster.
Apart from who might be blamable, let this be a lesson to every priest everywhere. BE ALERT.
The Bishop of Austin – provided with cover from Rome – cancelled from what all reports say was a well-established, well-attended Traditional Latin Mass at the Cathedral. Why? Because the Cathedral is a parish. Can’t have that.
A commentator wanted me to parse the letter of the Rector with my usual emphases and comments.
The letter.
I put these two items together because they put “the signs of the times” in the spotlight.
Firstly, I don’t think that Rome should have been asked anything. The bishop himself could have found a solution that wouldn’t have required Rome’s skirts to hide behind (one way or another, truth be told).
Next, he says that they will have the Novus Ordo in Latin, ad orientem, with Gregorian Chant. Fine. They should be having that at the Cathedral ANYWAY, since it is what Vatican II commanded.
The problem is the Novus Ordo and the Vetus Ordo are not just “aesthetic moments”.
People who want the Vetus Ordo don’t want it primarily because it’s ad orientem, chant is used, and it is in Latin. Sure, they want those things too. They want the Vetus Ordo because of the content of the prayers, the whole vector of the Rite itself, which is quite different from that of the Novus Ordo. To reduce the attendees’ desires for the TLM to those externals is deeply insulting. I don’t think they intended it to be insulting, but it is. The problem is that the people making these decisions don’t know anything about the Vetus Ordo. Every bishop should be required to learn it and use it for a couple of years before making any decisions about it.
Even more insulting – again, I don’t think purposely – calling on these people who are so deeply hurt by this move to feel “faith and trust” and experience “deepened unity with the whole Church and a greater awareness of the liturgical richness of the ordinary form of the Roman Liturgy”. Then comes the assurance of “pastoral care”.
Oh yeah?
At LifeSites coverage of this debacle I read:
The indult Latin Masses that will continue to be offered in the Diocese of Austin are a 1:30 p.m. Mass at the St. Dymphna Center of St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church in Dripping Springs, 25 miles from Austin; a 4 p.m. Mass in Brenham, 90 miles from Austin; and an 11:30 a.m. Mass in Waco, 100 miles from Austin.
I’m sure the faithful of Austin will be “deepened” by their driving experience. More Rosaries, I suppose.
Remember: The powers-that-be working to suppress the Traditional Latin Mass do indeed hate the Rite itself, because of the content. They fear it. It makes them feel anxiety. However, it isn’t mainly their hatred and fear of the Rite that drives them. They don’t like the people who want the Vetus Ordo. It’s about the people.
Faithful Catholics who desire the Traditional Latin Mass are the single most marginalized group in the Church today. The irony is thick. Meanwhile, true sacrilege and perverse blasphemy goes in NYC and no one does anything to stop it. [NB: Since I wrote that I have to say that I don’t know what was done. But the disaster DID TAKE PLACE.]
These are “signs of the times” my dear readers.
Sure the staff at St. Pat’s didn’t know ahead what was going to happen. Okay. But they didn’t fall off a turnip truck and then gain leadership at NYC’s Cathedral. They sure knew when it was about to start and they let it happen. [NB ALL: Read the comments, below, also.] Sure the people in Austin read TC. They could have found another way. They could helped the people who would be hurt by this. The people in Austin who have lost the TLM and have been blown hot air and lollipops didn’t fall off a turnip truck either.
No one is fooling anybody.
These are “signs of the times.”
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I have nothing helpful to say (I’ve deleted what I’ve typed at least three times). All I can say, that I think is decent to say in a public forum, is that we in the Diocesan Church know we will be kicked out soon. And we know nobody (clergy or laity) will do anything to defend us. We are at the mercy of men who have no mercy, and defended by men who have no courage and, in many cases, no faith. We’re just waiting for the hammer to fall, as we all know it will.
Doesn’t get any gayer than this and I don’t just mean what happened in NYC.
Father, I’m deeply saddened, bereft really, since Fiducia Supplicans. I feel like a stranger in a strange land. The Archbishop of my diocese wrote a gushing, fawning letter of admiration for the decree, yet stated he would honor priests’ conscience if they refused to bless a same sex couple. Truly FS is ugly and scandalizes and divides the flock. One senses making points with Rome is at play.
What happened in NYC is an abomination of profound magnitude. Again, one senses Rome is smiling whatwith a recent trannie banquet photo-op.
Rome has lost the Faith. The Ape Church is ascendant.
As a life-long member of the Austin diocese, occasional altar server & one-time MC at the Brenham TLM, and devotee of the old rite I can say that Bishop Joe of Austin has done a fair bit to allow the faithful to experience the treasures of the 1962 Mass in multiple locations in our diocese. I would not lump him in with “the powers that be…that do indeed hate the Rite itself.”
He is definitely under the microscope of Rome whilst administering the Tyler diocese after H.E. Strickland was removed. And from my vantage point +Vasquez has tried to provide for the TLM attendees as long as possible. But the letter of the law is getting (regrettably) blacker and whiter as time goes on, and the wiggle room is getting smaller. At least the old Mass has not been squashed entirely here (Deo grátias).
One must ask: At what point does a bishop start to imperil his own soul by willful disobedience to the Vicar of Christ’s explicit orders? Is the better path to make a strategic retreat to the contemporary rite dressed in all the traditional accoutrements for the time being: showing both filial obedience to legitimate hierarchical superiors whilst maintaining as many traditions as possible within the letter of the law? Might we await a more opportune time for political waters to be less tempestuous to revive the old rite? Given the make up of the rising clergy, I am hopeful I will live to see such a time.
Until then, I hope Bishop Joe encourages priests of his diocese to adopt as many traditional postures, gestures, vestments, and furnishings as possible within the law lest these sacred things fade from living memory.
With respect to the St. Patrick’s Cathedral scandal, it is interesting that it happened on the heals of a visit by Fr. Ripperger. We are truly engaged in a war.
As to Bishop Vasquez’ attempt to replace the traditional Mass with a Latin Novus Ordo, I think perhaps someone should give the bishop to read Jose Antonio Ureta’s insightful “A Brief Study of Certain Theological Deviations in Desiderio Desideravi” (https://onepeterfive.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Ureta-Complete.pdf).
I am probably a bit off topic but would like to comment why I go to the TLM exclusively. When I tell people I go to a TLM the first question is always, why? Do you speak Latin? I usually tell them I understand a word or two and cob together a basic sentence, but its no big deal, I have a book, one side is Latin and the other side English. Latin is a beautiful language but also a dead language therefore it never changes. Prayers a thousand years ago have the identical meaning then as they do today. If only Latin was used in those baptisms in Arizona a few months back rather than the parish pastor using his own creativity in the ceremony, those baptisms would be valid today. Vernacular constantly changes, years ago cool dealt with the weather today it means something exciting and unique. Gay in the 1930s used to mean carefree and happy now it means, ah, something else.
The rubrics are the second part why I prefer the Latin mass I have learned that everything that happens has a meaning according to scripture. I recently found out that when the altar boys hold the priest chasuble during the consecration it is from scripture where the women thought if only I can touch but his tassels I will be healed, or the reason the high altar is 3 steps up which is the holy man climbing the mountain to talk to God. I attend a ICKSP oratory and their rubrics are impeccable, For me its worth the 120 mile round trip, it lets me get a glimpse of what heaven might be like.
I appreciate your commentary Fr Z as well as the other comments here.
It is so bad and so evil in the church and world that in some way it makes us realize God must be very near. This is a time for miracles, healings, and grace. A merely decent Christian must shine like the sun now.
They have made a return to Novus Ordo impossible. Not only do we insist on the TLM for what it is, but what kind of person would return to the Novus Ordo after seeing what we’ve seen and enduring what we’ve endured. There’s not going to be enough happy victims to make this work out for them. I’ve long thought, the goal cannot possibly be “unity”, because that’s never going to happen now. They’ve made sure it won’t happen.
Justice is coming for those who were so “merciful “ to the people who desire the TLM. One day soon the pontificate of synodality and mercy will be over and the pontificate of justice will arrive. And these wicked men will run for the hills and pretend to be traditional again as they did under Benedict. But, but, we all know who they are and we will not forget!
It is important to remember that the need to be forgiving is the only thing that the Lord went back to explain in the Lord’s Prayer, even stressing the FACT that if we DON’T forgive, we will not be forgiven. That doesn’t mean that we become stupid (or act stupid, as sometimes trads in their frustration have done). That doesn’t mean that we forget, either. That also doesn’t mean that we should abandon justice. But we will do well while drawing breath and writing on blogs to forgive those who are hurting us, who are determined to hurt us. If the occupant of the See of Austin is not one of them, then certainly others in Rome and elsewhere are.
“They had no idea”. Okay. That could be the case. It stretches my credulity that they didn’t know something bad was afoot when people started to show up.
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Sure the staff at St. Pat’s didn’t know ahead what was going to happen. Okay. But they didn’t fall off a turnip truck and then gain leadership at NYC’s Cathedral. They sure knew when it was about to start and they let it happen.
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The Cathedral staff (I’m presuming it was a priest from the Cathedral parish) DID realize (apparently not soon enough) and DID do something (not enough, but I’m not sure what they could have done at that point that would have caused other problems). They didn’t just “let it happen”.
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When they saw what was shaping up to be, they eliminated the Mass and just had funeral with service of the Word.
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What would you have had them do at that moment? Call in 250 of New York’s Finest to throw hundreds of prostitutes, transvestites, and HIV survivors out onto 5th Avenue so the streaming video could be on every news & social media platform? That would be splendid – NYC could retire Judy Garland & the Stonewall riots, and ADNY & Saint Pat’s could be the touchstone moment for the next 50 years!
They want to kill off the TLM for the same reason that Cain killed Able.
They know that their sacrifice is inferior.
@Rich R – I know nothing of the Bishop in Austin, so I am not commenting on him in particular. However, I wonder, at what point does “filial obedience” become the thing that endangers a soul? If a bishop blesses homosexual or adulterous couples in “filial obedience” per F.C., is that A-OK? If the Pope decreed that the Gospel of John was no longer to be read in public, would “filial obedience” be a good defense before God come the Final Judgment? If Vatican decrees demanded that a particular type of people be denied the sacraments, would it be the “right thing to do” out of “filial obedience” to deny those people and kick them out of the parishes? Even if those people, en masse, cannot be convicted of having done anything wrong whatsoever?
Or is “filial obedience” the most important of all virtues? The most sancrosanct of actions? Can it cover a multitude of sins? Including sins against charity and against the faith?
These are difficult and uncomfortable questions that I fear many bishops will be forced to answer, either here or in the here after.
Does a Bishop endanger his soul by disobeying the Pope? In 1998 I had a couple of telephone conversations with Malachi Martin. He told me that there were only a limited set of Papal commands that had to be obeyed. Now maybe he was wrong, I don’t really know. But a lot of the arguments used in defense of this idea that the Pope is to be treated like an absolute monarch seem intellectually shallow to me and border on (if not being examples of) a sort of voluntarism in which an evil act is evil only because God says it is (He wills it to be evil) rather than because it is objectively evil. In this thinking violations of the 10 commandments are wrong or evil only because God wills them to be evil rather than because they objectively are. My concern here is those who think an act is wrong simply because the Pope wills it to be. Now this seems to be common because so many thought in the 1960’s the Pope would rule oral contraceptives under normal circumstances could be used for birth control.
So, if the Pope commands a Bishop to do something unjust, isn’t he more likely to be endangering his soul if he obeys because he would be doing something he knows to be unjust. Does not the Bishop have a duty to admonish the sinner? And should not this admonishment be public because otherwise people will think the Pope has the right to be unjust?
And of course we should pray for the pope and our last Bishop and our current bishop and our next bishop, and of course we should forgive. I cannot argue with that, but I would much rather pray for the poor souls.
What about the Maryknoll priest who presided over the sacrilegious service? Will anything happen to him? Nothing will happen to him.
What about the one priest in New York who has Pope Francis on speed dial, Fr James Martin SJ? He applauded the sacrilege.
But of course that’s fine. He doesn’t do the Traditional Latin Mass, which in today’s Anti-Church is too indecent to speak of.
In Austin, hundreds of people have been thrown out of the cathedral and are now expected to drive a good distance to the St Dymphna Center, a CHURCH HALL because they are banned from the adjoining parish church.
Todos! Todos! Todos! says Pope Francis the Merciful.
Well, I can now understand why the Vatican is terminating the TLM. It definitely dampens the dervish dancing.
I hope and pray that Austin’s TLM attendees will uniformly reject the “gussied up” Novus Ordo and instead seek out the Vetus Ordo wherever they can find it. I’m not saying that the smells & bells, ad orientem, Latin Novus Ordo is a bad thing per se. It’s not. In fact, I’m sure that such a Mass would be far more reverent than a typical N.O. The problem is that for the Austin TLM faithful to accept this “sostituto” hurts us all on the TLM side in the long run. If the Vatican succeeds in bullying Austin into abandoning the TLM in favor of a N.O. substitute, they’ll push the same stratagem everywhere. No surrender!
About twenty years, I received an advertisement to help a publisher called Angelus Press (at the time I did not know who they were—such is the bliss of ignorance) to purchase their 1962 missal. Having grown up with my St. Joseph’s Sunday Missal for the Vetus Ordo, out some nostalgia, I bought their missal. After I received it, I went through it reading the prayers for the Mass. My immediate reaction was “how could we have ever given this up!” The prayers were beautiful and powerful. I shortly thereafter started attending the TLM and have never looked back.
I think the bishops can live up to the bad Vatican rules and still have the TLM. Like in my diocese where the bishop was doing some restructuring and simply, without any fanfare, changed the parish which celebrated the TLM to an oratory, keeping everything else intact, a window dressing change. Everyone was up in arms about some other parishes and a school closing, so the subtle change to the TLM parish went mostly unnoticed. It did not hurt that the parishioners were always meeting their annual Diocesan Fund goal, which will make many a bishop, except the leftist warriors, turn a blind eye to any Vatican attempt to destroy the TLM.
Some observations that I find disturbing.
Our governments, plural because it is the world over, are trying to kill the worlds population through starvation by the suppression of farming. (Spain/Germany/Netherlands/ Canada/ the former USA).
Our Church, and Holy Father, is trying to kill our faith and souls. All the while claiming to help fortify our faith and the health of the Church. In the Navy we would call it blowing smoke up our….
Right now the Holy Father, bishops and hierarchy are suppressing TLM for being TOO PIOUS, too faithful, too Catholic. They are trying to kill the Church and more specifically THE MASS. Today it is TLM. Tomorrow the traditional N.O. and later all who profess faith in Christ.
In both cases those who are supposed to support us and lead us to greater things are betraying us and their duties to Christ and Man kind.
The greatest betrayal. I have never seen the secular and the Church AT THE SAME TIME gang up on the people of Christ.
It is appalling.
At this rate of decline can the world last another 1,00 years, or even 100 years?
Charivari Rob,
First off – was the poor soul even Catholic ? Why a Catholic Funeral ?
As far the video is concerned – there was going to be a video either way. It’s a lose lose for the Church due to poor initial decisions.
I would rather have a video showing a priest with some intestinal fortitude shutting down the operation, than the video we got.
Charivari Rob makes a comment above that makes me curious: “When they saw what was shaping up to be, they eliminated the Mass and just had funeral with service of the Word.”
Is that speculation, or is that what happened? Was the scandalous funeral actually in the context of Mass? I wasn’t clear about that from the coverage I read; I chose not to watch any videos.
Your observation about the Mass of Reparation at St. Patrick’s is sound logic. In child (or teen) psychology, the behavior pattern is classified as a demand for negative attention which — if gratified — will be rewarded with repeated demands. Reparation yes — but not celebration.
@RichardR “At what point does a bishop start to imperil his own soul by willful disobedience to the Vicar of Christ’s explicit orders?”
One is not bound to obey an order that is not from a legitimate authority, one who does not have authority over the subject in question, is not following the chain of command, or an order that is against the moral order.
Is one bound to obey an unjust (not against the moral order), imprudent, or unwise order? ie. The over and over again charge from the trenches to certain death order during WWI? Yes, but one may also seek to mitigate the damages from such an order. Is Socrates obliged to drink the hemlock? Is a bishop who is protecting TLM in his diocese required to step down?
Ecclesial obedience does extend to preferring the preferences of one’s superior (n.b. the Pope is not a “super-bishop” but tends to function as such contrary to what VII desires) over one’s own personal preferences. “Filial obedience” is not equivalent to how all bishops (all equally co-heirs of the Apostles) are united in charity with the Chair of Peter. Micromanaging the actions of bishops by a Pope really is something that is against this bond of charity – as well as any sort of in-one-ear-out-the-other attitude of bishops (more often seen under Benedict XVI and John Paul II) .
It needs to be stressed very very very hard that TLM is not the plaything of the Pope or any bishop. It is the Apostolic Rite of the Latin Church that belongs to each bishop to safeguard foster and celebrate by virtue of his ordination to the episcopate as their inheritance. Unless we are suddenly going to start arguing that the NO and TLM are different rites and that NO bishops, ordained to the NO, have no right to the rite. If that is the case, then you really do have two different Churches, notwithstanding questions of doxology and praxis. TC etc. really is akin to sawing off the branch one is sitting on.
It also cannot be stressed how much various recent documents that touch on TLM and ecclesial blessings offend the Orthodox and destroy decades’ worth of ecumenical work.
Go to Eastern Rite Catholic until the storm blows over against the TLM!. They cannot shut that down!!!
In my 76 years on this earth I have seen tremendous changes in the Catholic Church and not for the better!!! All thru grade school and high school I was an Altar Boy serving the Traditional Latin Mass! After high school I went to work like many of my classmates and started to live my life! A few years after graduation the Church decided to change how Mass was to be celebrated! So like everybody else I went with the flow. But as the years moved on I noticed how some Bishops and Pastors decided “how” Mass was to be celebrated and accepted questionable actions and beliefs. Eventually in my Archdiocese of Newark we had an Archbishop who had a enormous sexual appetite for young men whereas his fellow Bishops and Priests did absolutely nothing to stop it for decades! Now we have this disgusting travesty of a “funeral service” at St. Patrick’s Cathedral!!! The rector’s office put out a memo explaining what happened and trying to absolve itself. The time has now come that the Catholic Church must stand up to what it believes is Holy and Sacred and stick to it!!! Since this travesty happened under Cardinal Dolan’s leadership, he MUST be removed from St. Patrick’s, demoted back down to a simple Priest and procedures MUST be put in place that this never, ever happens again!!! We devout Catholics have stood with the Catholic Church thru thick and thin for decades, provided them with whatever they needed with our hard earned money, now it’s time they stand up and protect the Catholic Faith, it’s Sacred Beliefs and Devout Faithful!!!
Fr Martin Fox, I saw the reference to Liturgy of the Word instead of Mass referenced in comments on another site and had to go verify the source. It was announced at the Cathedral between 27:00 & 28:00 in the hour-plus video that is on youtube (it appears most of the first 27:00 of video was prelude, milling about, receiving the body, entrance hymn).
From the comment source and the video, it sounds as if someone from… (parish? Chancery? messenger from one of those?) entered the Sanctuary and huddled briefly with the Priest before that was said.
I had gone to the time stamp the comment suggested and skipped from there until I found it – wasn’t interested in watching the whole thing myself.
monstrance,
“As far the video is concerned – there was going to be a video either way. It’s a lose lose for the Church due to poor initial decisions.”
Poor initial decisions, yes. Which I agreed to but then specifically went on to say ‘at that moment’. As in “that moment there in the Cathedral on the 16th”.
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Video either way? Not quite. Obviously, there would have been video, but – there is a significant difference between (a) one showing activists acting deceptive/in bad faith & the Archdiocese looking… hapless; and (b) one showing activists acting deceptive/in bad faith & the Archdiocese looking… hapless AND intolerant/unhospitable/malevolent. As I said above, I don’t think the Archdiocese would be well-served by providing a Stonewall moment for future generations.
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They made the poor initial decisions.
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Once they were in as deep as they were…
They made an attempt for an at-least partial course correction.
They steered away from making the situation exponentially worse.
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So, a loss, but not a lose-lose.
O that this could have become the new Stonewall. The Church is SUPPOSED to be the enemy of the world. Christ said so. If St. Patrick’s became a byword for “hate” (of sin) in the Skittles areas of society, that’s a GOOD thing.
That being said, maybe the funeral isn’t the place to have random laypeople canonize the deceased, in any case. Pray for the salvation of their soul and leave the sharing of fond memories for the meal afterwards. This goes for ALL funerals.
A few thoughts on New York and Austin:
On New York
1) * What seems to be missing from the St. Patrick’s response is something like this:
“In addition to the Mass of reparation, we are conducting an immediate review of our policies to improve our vetting procedures to insure that all future funerals will be conducted according to Catholic teaching and with due reverence. We will update those policies and post them on our diocesan website no later than Easter Sunday.” And mean it. If parish priests with practically no staff can keep funerals in check (and we do), why can’t St. Patrick’s? A public sacrilege calls for a very public response.
2) What can you do to stop it once the travesty starts? Turn off the sound system. And then if that doesn’t work, the lights. As part of above protocol, insure that you have a “kill switch” protocol in place and a monitor for funerals. Of course, this wouldn’t’ be necessary if someone was doing due diligence in the first place.
And Austin:
3) Couldn’t help but notice that the bone they threw to the TLM community (a somewhat more reverent N.O.) was at incredibly inconvenient times. Why can’t they make one of those a prime time Mass at the Cathedral. They should be doing that anyway.
What could St Patrick’s have done? Turned off the heat and opened the doors? Turned off the microphones? Started praying the rosary? (To the BVM, not the decedent). Called for order in the cathedral before continuing the service, i.e. , requesting that mourners return to their seats and not interrupt the service.
Announced that while all are welcome, no one is welcome to disrupt a liturgy?They were afraid of looking bad to those who will criticize the Church until the end of time and alienated yet more faithful Catholics. The family still called the Church sanctimonious, hypocritical and unwelcoming.
What would St. Veronica have done? St. Thomas More? St. Patrick?
Fr. James Martin backpedaled on his support of the event, although in a way that barely acknowledged that anything inappropriate took place. He had been asked to speak but was out of town. What a shame he wasn’t there to deal with the sacrilege.
“liturgical richness of the ordinary form of the Roman Liturgy” is hilarious phrasing
Generally one does not have to be browbeaten into noticing the “richness” of something. The richness speaks for itself.
Don’t see tourists being dragged into Notre Dame or St. Peter’s in Rome and forced to see the splendor. On the hand, get into a novus ordo parish and you need a guidebook to explain why there’s a pit of sand in front of the altar or dried up sticks strewn about. I’ve yet to hear an explanation as to why all post-1960 parishes look like gymnasiums or really boring office buildings. My failure for not seeing the richness I suppose.
Isn’t interesting how the sparse, mundane and pared down liturgies or prayer services or devotions in the novus ordo world have to be explained and interpreted (worship aids, slide shows & audio and even “practice” before Mass)? And it’s in the vernacular! Something can be going on at the TLM and everyone is quiet, facing forward, hearts drawn to the altar. And it’s all in Latin. The priest doesn’t interrupt to tell us what he’s doing or to tell us how to feel about it. No explanation necessary. We’re worshipping God.
Fr. Allan McDonald, over at his fine blog called Southern Orders, offers this on the St. Patrick’s debacle:
https://southernorderspage.blogspot.com/2024/02/from-funeral-mass-to-funeral-liturgy.html
With respect to the St. Patrick’s Cathedral scandal, it is interesting that it happened on the heals of a visit by Fr. Ripperger.
Folks, do trust the ages of the traditions of the Church to have some accumulated some practical wisdom, please, please.
One of these traditions, let’s be frank, was that priests singled out by the Church for the task of exorcism have to be two things. 1. Particularly holy, in the “obvious and popular” sense of holy (that is, less of doing one’s work for God and thanking God for the gift of pleasures, fine as that is, but fasting, prayer, mortifications, cilices, that sort of thing). (I do not deny Fr Ripperger lacks anything here, do not get me wrong.) 2. Doing their job in more or less seclusion and not talking about it in public.
A limited exception may have been in order, in order to get people to know that the Devil and the other fallen angels actually exist, are persons, and possession also exists. Granted. But I’d have thunk traditional Catholics at least have gotten the message by now?
And it really does happen that they then go ahead and are like “a demon, when I had him by the neck, told me that …”, and somehow Catholics don’t know that the appropriate reaction is loud singing, covering one’s ears tightly, and running away from the place, and perhaps especially if the intention is bolstering an actually orthodox faith. The demon is a liar and cunning!
Well, something very odd happened with that fiasco at St. Patricks — I mean, apart from the obvious.
As Charivari Rob observed above, it appears there was an intervention at the beginning; the celebrant was going to offer Mass — he was vested accordingly — but then it changed to a funeral without Mass.
Others have observed — based on watching the video, which I’d rather not do — that the celebrant seemed befuddled at times. Now, this could mean he didn’t know the plan, but that seems very odd. Any funeral I’ve ever had, I got notes about the readings, about the deceased (if I didn’t meet with the family myself), and about any options such as “words of remembrance,” which the bishops allow, alas. So I find it hard to believe the priest didn’t ask for such notes.
However, I readily believe people may have tried to sneak some things in; most priests can tell stories about surprises at funerals.
Even so, there’s more that ought to be explained. I’m not holding my breath.
@Imrahil
Fr. Ripperger is fully within his rights and within the historic practice of the Church to go around preaching on sundry matters of the spiritual life. That he is an exorcist is because he is a priest and was so assigned. What he really is is an outstanding Thomistic theologian who happens to be very adept at synthesizing Thomism with psychology. This is then presented through the lens of his day job in deliverance ministry.
Now Catholics, including traditionalist Catholics, do benefit in hearing what he would have to say because he is lucid and adroit at making complex spiritual topics easily digestible. Now perhaps those given to incredulity and curiosity would be better served by tuning out the exorcism stuff.
BTW That is not what the Church looks for in full-time exorsists. Fr. Ripperger talks a bunch about exorcism, but if you pay attention, he is not really talking in exact detail. What he is doing is trying to demystify his job–have it be commonplace, real, a hard-working man’s job so that people are not so superstitious.
Don’t practice other religions, magic, or flagrantly break God’s commands, but have trust in God, and live the life of grace. That is what he is out there preaching. Not devil this and devil that — that is just the backdrop.
And no, people haven’t gotten that by now because what happened in St. Patrick’s should have never been allowed to happen and should have been immediately stopped one it has started. God does not take kindly to the desecration of His temples, whether that be by potted plants on altars or LGBTQSJ++ shenanigans.
Dear Lurker 59,
good for him then. Thanks for the info. I may have been driven to… not precisely prejudices but let’s say: suspicions… by a few things I heard about Fr Amorth.
As for “gotten that by now those” was that traditional Catholics (not the rest of the Church or the world) do have grasped the fact that the devil demons exist, are persons and occasionally possess (or circumsess) people. That is all, and it is rather obviously the case.
I did not intend it to mean that they fulfil the ought-tos of “if they know that, they ought to”; much less the rest of the world (or the Church).
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Ages: out of curiosity, what source or reference are you working from?
I can find plenty of examples of
– Jesus coming to disrupt the world rather than serve it;
– Jesus having enemies in the world;
– those enemies becoming ours (moreso than they are already) if we follow Jesus;
– being in the world but not of it;
– the imperative to love our enemies;
– the imperative to forsake and even to ‘hate’ some things (parents, for example) to follow him;
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… but nothing where the Church is ‘supposed to be the enemy of the world’ (especially not “Christ said so”)!
@Imrahil
Thing is that if one would want to warn people away from a person who is doing their job, one better be real sure that they have their facts straight, that they have an obligation to say such, and that the other person has a need to hear such. Else, they are minimally in the gray area of one of the sins of the tongue.
“by a few things I heard about Fr Amorth”
Are you trying to provoke me to the sin of curiosity? People have a right to their good names/reputations there is no warrant to drag his reputation partway into this conversation in such a way that undercuts his reputation.
OK, I am intentionally being direct and harsh to make a point: Your comment regarding Fr. Ripperger was to set yourself to be a gatekeeper for what Traditionalists should do regarding his preaching.
Independently of whether or not you are a Traditionalist, it is clear that you do not really understand, nor practice, how Traditionalists should behave according to the moral order because you are not in your comments above. This underscores my point that Catholics need to hear what Fr. Ripperger is saying about the moral and supernatural order — that his activity of preaching is needed and urgently. They, like you, likely do not fully “get it”.
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The world, the flesh (or the Old Man), and the devil are omnipresent in this world and in each person’s life. If one doesn’t see that, one, or more, of the three is actively blinding the individual.
Now, grace is superabundant in the world and each person’s life for where evil abounds, grace abounds all the more. (Rom 5:20). If one doesn’t see that, that is a problem of Faith.
Those are truisms but most people do not really see – one needs to have a fairly advanced spiritual life to really really be there. This, again, is why what Fr. Ripperger is doing is needed and needs to be heard by all including Traditionalists. Simply because most people are nowhere near where they could be or should be regarding their spiritual life.
Things like St. Patrick’s and Austin happen because people in high places are not there yet but should be. We are all trying to get there.