At the Italian site Messa in Latino there is an English translation of an interview about matters concerning the Vetus Ordo and – especially – the people who desire it, with Andrea Grillo (aka Mister Cricket). HERE
As MiL says:
“In the view of many in the Roman Curia, for Pope Francis, Prof. Grillo is on liturgy what Fr James Martin, S.J., is on homosexuality.”
You should read this.
Virtually everything he says is false, including “and” and “the”. That’s not the point. This fellow is a key influencer right now.
I’ve been saying for eons that the people who want to destroy the Vetus Ordo don’t hate and fear just the Vetus Ordo, they hate and fear the people who want it. They don’t like the people.
This interview underscores their animus in spades. You can sense the hostility pouring out. His contempt for you is unbounded.
As goes the Church, so goes the Country.
The left in the Country telling us lie after lie. Why do they want to destroy us?
How many CINO’s (catholic in name only) are doing this?
The Holy Ghost is always with us and will protect us.
I found the last answer had a tell. “Guéranger and Rosmini speak of a “liturgical crisis” as early as 1830-40.” The supposition is that there was a legitimate concern. Pius IX issued ‘Qui pluribus’ in 1846 the first direct mention of communism and its ills among other things. Its worth a read. It’s possible that adherents to secular humanism have been at it for quite a spell and have been taking bites out of the Church and carping about all that is right and proper in the Church since before the dates mentioned. The laity doesn’t become complacent unless there’s active diminishing of certain aspects of Church life, that can be done externally as well as internally. Its not to say certain popes didn’t try to counter this persistent threat, but, to me, it appears apathy was so rampant, that by the time Vatican II arrived very few people were equipped or cared to counter what was forced upon the liturgical life of the Church.
We are forced to accept the idea that the Novus Ordo was a fix for the future growth of the Church not the continued assault on Church by those attacking the Church. But its clear to anyone who has studied the documents of Vatican II and know of the machinations of those who concocted the current liturgy, that there is no congruity between the two. But this is old news. My only point is we know from whence this came, we are not obligated to accept the culmination of secular humanism in the liturgy. And this ticks off those that suggest we must. For them the liturgy is a performative propagandist tool.
However, as our faith teaches, we pray for our enemies, we thank God for Christ and His Church, and we continue on with the Truth the enemy failed to obliterate. The simplistic accusation of ‘nostalgia’ is a weak one. Those that accuse KNOW that that the Latin Mass feeds the soul at the most basic level. This is what they fear. Good. But they don’t need to.
~nasman2
To add to what you have said, it needs to be recalled that it is the very bishops who were trained prior to VII that brought us VII and its aftermath; it is the very priests who were trained prior to VII that implemented the aftermath of VII. It also needs to be emphasized the sheer amount of despair in the sacramental and supernatural that permeates continental theology following the Great Wars. The wars brought about a loss in faith in the old orders, old institutions, old theological systems. When we look back, we tend to see the exterior of the Church, which looks healthy, but is in fact hollow within.
Humanism (especially the idea of “brotherly love”/”human fraternity”) and action (especially in Marxist variants) stepped in to fill this void and people went after it, because they were hollow men with no roots.
–>Those that accuse KNOW that the Latin Mass feeds the soul at the most basic level<–
I disagree. You are dealing with people that deny that very thing and see liturgical worship as a manifestation of the community's "faith" or more cynically a means by which one does community organization. You might find the language of "being fed by the word of God" but they don't mean that literally — it is meant more so figuratively as "I express certain feelings, and I give a certain affirmation towards others and receive a certain affirmation from others and this is what it means to be fed."
The hatred towards TLM is because they don't find affirmation in it or from it, so they condemn it, and in condemning it, it condemns them. They truly don't see God there and are fully blind to grace. (Pray for them for this is a horrible thing.) It is no different than talking with an atheist who is blind to God – they have a hatred towards that which they do not know and that which they cannot see.
nasman2, A great book to read is Pope Pius IX Syllabus of Errors. He is refered to as the Liberal Pope. Liberal had kinda of a different meaning back then.
He really lays bare his errors.
I tried to scan the interview, but it’s too stupid for me to care about. That this delusional misanthrope thinks anybody actually cares about his crackpot ramblings is almost as sad as Pope Francis and his handlers thinking it’s “cool” and “hip” to have a meeting with Stephen Colbert and Whoopi Goldberg. The “joke” in his speech about “wiggling his fingers” and getting a laugh may be the high water mark for papal cringe.
Grillo will be lucky if he’s remembered in even a footnote in future history books describing the misguided flailings of the post Vatican II liturgical hiccup. His insignificance cannot be overemphasized.
Meanwhile, God send us enough manly priests and bishops to ignore the volcanic eruption of stupidity that is about to commence so that they can do the obviously correct, just, and charitable thing and shield the many young children from those agents who want, more than anything, to destroy their Faith. If, by now, a bishop cannot see that throwing young children out of the Church because they worship in the thousands of years old Tradition of the Church is wrong, then he’s clearly got the wrong job.
It is a strange way that he talks. For him there is nothing worth considering pre-Vatican II. There is only now and wherever we go in the future. This somehow in his mind squares with upholding tradition.
“I reply that he has not understood the meaning of tradition, within which there a legitimate and insuperable progress that is irreversible.”
Tradition services change?
This is how communists think. For them progress is change, the changes become tradition, until the next change which furthers tradition. All the while for them the human hand of change is what perfects mankind, not grace from God.
This man is so devoid of logic it boggles the mind. He has no love for the Church and Deposit of Faith. His agenda is to discredit and malign those “nostalgic” people.
God please have mercy upon us. Save us from faithless men.
[“This is how communists think.” – Yup!]
Poor man, his responses ooze ignorance. It is tragic to read, we must pray hard for him. As Fr Z says, get down, literally, upon our knees. I know the are many good souls who read this blog for whom acts of reparation are part of daily life. Blessings upon you all.
When I clicked on the link, the first thing I see is a guy flipping me off.
It went down hill from there.
[You spotted it too. Really interesting choice of a photo, no? He has used it for year, so there is no way that he doesn’t mean exactly that.]
My goodness… this man is unsufferable. You are exactly right, Fr. Z: Virtually everything he says is false. I read the whole interview, and I found myself with mouth agape several times as I read his ridiculous and cold responses. It reminds me of the scene in Billy Madison where Adam Sandler’s character is told the following by a game show host in response to his absurd answer:
“Mr. [Grillo], what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Several times he sidestepped the question, and his definition of tradition is… wrong. So yes, Grillo response is both incoherent (on a few different levels) and rambling. When asked about the eastern Catholic Churches he says NOTHING. That should be very telling as he ignored the question. Do Byzantine Catholics suffer “from nostalgic emotion for the past? Do Armenian Catholics ‘fixate the Church’ on its past” by holding to their traditions?
One last note on the Eastern Catholic Churches, who apparently didn’t get the memo about “work[ing] ‘at a single table’, so that everyone could contribute to enriching ‘the only ritual form in force’. In the second question he belittles thousands of people’s faith when asked about Chartres. The 2017 Annuario Pontifico states that Italo-Albanian Catholic Church (of the Byzantine Rite) only had 55,812 people worldwide. That number probably has not changed much in the last few years. Knowing this, would Grillo also say “What are 55,812 people compared to the great multitude of the Catholic Church? Little more than a sect that [has] very concerning customs”? I don’t know; I wouldn’t doubt it, I suppose. But whether we are talking about 55,812 people, 18,000 people, or even 180 million people… we cannot dismiss such a movement towards tradition in the Latin Rite. Yet this is exactly what Grillo does. Let’s indeed pray for him and for all those that actually listen to him.
How dare this cretin say that what POPE Benedict declared is merely nostalgic and not theological! These people are clueless about what is really happening in the Church. And how much he resembles none other than Dr. Fauci when he claimed that he WAS the Science. Fascist theology is no theology at all.
The amount of DoubleSpeak and DoubleThink coming from that man is truly astounding. Couple that with mountains of hubris and you get this, “(Traditional seminarians) don’t generate a life of faith but often great resentment and personal hardening.” Rubbish. It only proves the old adage that there are some ideas that are so stupid only an intellectual could believe them.
@Lurker 59 I used to think it was that simple, but as Fr. Z says, this is a battle of principalities. If the enemy were just unbelievers, then the stakes are pretty low. BUT if you are truly in the fight against God, then you demean the very means of our salvation. I can buy that some are ‘useful idiots’, though.
~nasman2
Verily, but I would suggest that the blindness of unbelief is necessarily hostile towards faith and the sacraments — it is not neutral but already a state of malice. You don’t need the extra oomph of direct interaction of individuals with fallen principalities; they are already under dominion and will act, without prompting, in malice.
—
Side Note: Tradition/The Faith won’t be saved by having documents, whether on shelves or issued by a new Pope. We individually must become living embodiments of the faith so that there is no separation between what one believes, what one does, and who one is. The Faith must be intrinsic not simply extrinsic. If the Enemy can make the Faith extrinsic, whether by Protestantism, Communism, or Modernism, it can then separate the individual from the Faith and eventually get the individual to abandon the Faith.
How gay!
I just read the whole interview and I must say that its answers are very bizarre, and in some cases irrelevant to the actual question being posed. Grillo’s thought patterns lack any type of coherence and logic. It makes me wonder how he was able to become an academic under such conditions.
As an example of his lack of logic, Grillo says that Summorum Pontificum “is not theologically sound and generates greater divisions than those that were present previously.” (Which, btw makes me curious if Grillo had “unity with Rome” during the pontificate of B16?).
However, later in the same interview he says: “What are 18,000 people compared to the great multitude of the Catholic Church?” When referring to the number of participants at the Paris-Chartres pilgrimage. I suppose it is fair to say that that is how he views the traditional Catholic population in general.
At this point, the interviewer should have asked Grillo that if traditional Catholics are so statistically insignificant in the Church, why is it that they are suddenly significant enough to cause “great divisions”?
And as to the word “tradition”, the interviewer together with Grillo should have consulted the dictionary to explore in depth its meaning. At least in English, dictionary.com, a secular source, defines the word “tradition” as follows:
1 the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, etc., from generation to generation, especially by word of mouth or by practice:
a story that has come down to us by popular tradition.
2 something that is handed down:
the traditions of the American South.
Synonyms: usage, convention, habit, practice, custom
3 a long-established or inherited way of thinking or acting:
The rebellious students wanted to break with tradition.
4 a continuing pattern of culture beliefs or practices.
5 a customary or characteristic method or manner:
The winner took a victory lap in the usual track tradition.
6 Theology.
a (among Jews) body of laws and doctrines, or any one of them, held to have been received from Moses and originally handed down orally from generation to generation.
b (among Christians) a body of teachings, or any one of them, held to have been delivered by Christ and His apostles but not originally committed to writing.
c (among Muslims) a hadith.
7 Law. an act of handing over something to another, especially in a formal legal manner; delivery; transfer.
There’s no reference to “change”, “irreversible changes”, “progress”, or the “future”.
Sportsfan: Ah, yes, the photo! It sums up precisely what he thinks about us and he’s not the least bit ashamed of it. He and Cd. Roche are arrogant, petty little men on a power trip.
Ratzinger headed the commission that drafted the Catechism. I’d be surprised if any of the documents promulgated under his pontificate, much less something as important and potentially controversial as Summorum Pontificum, was theologically unsound.
Grillo comes across as someone who lacks genuine supernatural faith.
Everything is political; nothing is spiritual.
Has he ridden the goat I wonder?
What struck me among many other things was his concept of “fidelity” which to him seemed to mean slavish obedience to every nuance of the current pontificate with no consideration of the necessity of fidelity to the 2000 year old Tradition of the Church.
Questions I would have liked answered:
1. Professor, if there is a single expression of the Latin Rite, please tell us how maintenance of the Zairian Use (which Pope Francis has publicly celebrated) and the development of uses for the indigenous peoples of Central America and the Amazon is consistent with having a single expression.
2. If inculturation can justify departures from there being a single expression, why can we not view maintenance of the Vertus Ordo as a species of inculturation for the particular communities who desire it?
3. We know from documented videos of celebrations of the Mass throughout the world that there are persistent abuses in the celebration of the Mass according to the Missal of St. Paul VI. What steps has Pope Francis taken to discipline bishops who continue to allow these persistent abuses to take place?
The NSDAP propagandists couldn’t have said it better….
I think folks who want to ask Grillo more questions or think there’s any hay to make out of his blatantly illogical statements should stop and consider the big picture and Grillo’s place in it. He wasn’t picked because he made arguments that were true or had any merit whatsoever. He was picked because he’s willing to bloviate for the cause. And the cause is to remake the Church in their own image. They tagged him because he’s a professional BSer. And it would be easier (and probably more pleasant) to try to nail a fresh cow patty to the wall than it would be to actually score any points in a discussion with Grillo by means of logic and reason.
They want to remake the Church. They understand, deep down, that the Vetus Ordo is a living, breathing, unchangeable monument and testament to the Church as she has always been. They understand that it must be removed, otherwise it will always function as a reference point so folks can see how bad things have gotten in the new man-made Church. It’s like a shady vaccine maker intentionally removing any control groups during testing so it’s impossible to actually measure any effectiveness or side effects.
Grillo just happens to be one of the more prolific and willing figures who will gladly sling mud and run cover for their insidious agenda. He operates in bad faith. And he was put in his position in bad faith. While it’s a good thing to point out how deceitful and absurd Grillo’s statements are to those around you who are of good faith, to actually interact with him would be like putting on one’s nicest pearls and then wallowing in the slop with the pigs.
Prof. Grillo has given one of the cruelest, nastiest interviews I have ever witnessed. Was there at all any charity in what he said? As has been discussed many times on this blog, their generation is almost finished. With their dying gasp, they are trying to drag us into the grave with them. Don’t let them! Have peace. Be savvy. Wise as serpents and harmless as doves.
Take St. Teresa of Avila’s prayer to heart:
Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.
It is a great pity MIL did not pick him up on his answer to question 5 ( a very strong argument), where the interviewee replaced the question with one of his own and purported to answer that.
I can think of many better things to spend time on than fisking this piece for false syllogisms, logical fallacies, non-sequiturs &c.. Perhaps it could be set for philosophy students as a test-piece for discovering fallacies. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
I have not seen any clarification as to whether the suspected squashing of TLM is strictly for parishes with indults, or across the board (FSSP and others). Perhaps I have missed something, or it’s unknown.
Of course, I cannot see how killing the indults does not eventually expand to killing everything, but I do wonder about the extent of the proposed suppression.
My FSSP ‘parish’ started as the TLM in someone’s house in the early 2000’s. It’s now a thriving church with a decent history. Our bishop came for Confirmation this year and did the rite (albeit in English because his Latin is not adequate). He and his predecessor have been extremely gracious. There are a couple of SSPX churches in our tri-state area…..if everything is cut off those churches will be overwhelmed.
Then again, there is always my basement and perhaps an itinerant priest…? Nothing like having your own church push you into catacombs.
I am quite concerned that an admitted heretic has been allowed to influence the development of the liturgy. If he were (for example) simply a professor of physics or biology, I would not be so concerned – but I seem to have read that he does not believe in transubstantiation and he is allowed to teach on the liturgy? “Transubstantiation is not a dogma…” contradicts Trent, does it not? If he does not accept it, why has he not been told not to present himself at the rail?
I really have to question how this man has been permitted to retain a professorial chair on the liturgy in Rome for some 30-odd years, let alone influencing policy in this area. It speaks to questionable, if only human, judgment on the part of folks in the Vatican.
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Very interesting interview, especially because he speaks his mind clearly. He seems to enjoy being the anti-ratzinger.
So, the sources of revelation are Sacred Scripture, Magisterium and Future. As concept for a sci-fi novel is interesting.
To me the main problem with the modern Church is one of covenant. The Church is founded on Christ’s New and Everlasting Covenant. It is this covenant by which I was bound to Christ and His Church through the Sacraments of Initiation. In baptism there are promises made. Holy Communion is the living embodiment of Christ’s Covenant. According to the USCCB website the Sacraments at the Service of Communion are Marriage and Holy Orders. Holy Matrimony is based on a covenant.
*
Many problems in the Church center on disputes over these covenants. Are we a Church that keeps its covenants, are we promise keepers or promise breakers? The clerical abuse scandal uncovered a serious problem in the Church hierarchy in honoring their ordinations, promises, vows, and oaths. People seemingly incapable of making or honoring covenants. The dispute over Holy Communion goes to the heart of covenant. Is the person receiving Communion truly in covenant or are they receiving Communion under false pretenses and providing bad example? As goes covenant, so goes the Church.