This paragraph is in the letter that a pastor of a parish in the Diocese of Knoxville where the TLM is shortly to be suppressed as part of the ongoing pogrom.
The final Mass in the Extraordinary Form to be offered at our parish will be on December 28, 2025. Until that date, the Extraordinary Form will continue to be offered every Sunday, with three exceptions. [Well… maybe not every Sunday.] In order for us to celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King as one parish family, the Ordinary Form will be offered on October 26th (30th Sunday in Ordinary Time) and November 23rd (Christ the King). In addition, December 14th (3rd Sunday of Advent) will also be offered in the Ordinary Form. [Yeah… Merry Christmas.]
One might compare the prayers for the Feast of Christ the King in the Novus Ordo and the Vetus Ordo.
As a matter of that, that’s been done. HERE
Sometimes people who run down the Traditional Latin Mass will say that the tone of the orations is too “negative”, since there is a regular emphasis on sin, guilt, propitiation, etc., and no stress on the goal, the eschatological joy of Heaven.
Mind you, I am not saying that the pastor who wrote that letter (above) is running down the TLM.*
Going on, the Novus Ordo orations were edited to remove most of the “negative” references. They now stress eschatological happiness. The problem is that the prayers of the Novus Ordo don’t clearly help us understand how to attain that heavenly joy.
The prayers of the Traditional Latin Mass do.
To obtain the happiness of Heaven, we must deal with sin, guilt, penance, propitiation, etc.
Life isn’t daisies and cuddly kittens, wrapped up in affirmations and auto-canonizations.
*They have a decent confession schedule at that parish, Wednesday: 6 pm – Saturday:
9 am, 4:30pm – Sunday: 1/2 before each Mass on Sunday. That’s often a good indicator.
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Henry Edwards weeps.
If you believe in the heresy of universal salvation, then you do not have to concern yourself with the means of salvation. You can jettison all the stuff on sin and overcoming it. Unfortunately, this heresy still permeates the thinking of many in the Church.
Poor people of that Diocese. At least confession is available and not just “contact the office – confession by appointment only”; but then that is just time with a Bishop like that. I’m sure +Knoxville has a packed seminary to cope with the fruits of the new springtime.
For the most thorough commentary on the differences between old and new feasts of Christ the King, see Dr. Michael Foley:
https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2020/10/a-reflection-on-fate-of-feast-of-christ.html
https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2020/10/the-orations-of-feast-of-christ-king.html
This too is relevant:
https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/10/should-feast-of-christ-king-be.html
I pray that this priest who penned the homily/letter to the TLM faithful has a good long look at his conscience in the aftermath of this drivel that he uttered from the pulpit on Sunday. How could someone, especially a priest who has celebrated the Usus Antiquior, go along with this talk of “unity” and “overcoming division.” Father, if you are reading this, you are speaking as politicians speak, and not as a compassionate father, modeling his heavenly Father.
We need those old prayers so very badly! We NEED a savior, Someone Who loves us and shows us how to suffer, Who suffers with us! How else, in this miserable life, will see make any sense of the great sin and suffering that penetrates everything? Looking away doesn’t help. Tambourines, drums and jokes make things worse in their denial of truth. It seems we are blessed in bearing this cross, which the Father has measured just for us. Give us strength to carry it, dear Father, and please allow us to glorify you and not complain.
The pastor made the comment in his letter that some people can make an “idol” out of the traditional form of the Roman Rite and so, for their own good, he’s going to be withholding that form, to help them out. After all, with the new Rite, one can get the Latin, and the silence, and the meditativeness, so it’s all pretty much the same anyway.
Might I suggest that it is even easier to make an idol out of money. So, instead of putting real American greenbacks in the collection, Monopoly money could be used. After all, it also comes in regular denominations of ones, fives, tens, etc. So it’s pretty much the same anyway.
(and, for the sake of the record, I am not equating the novus ordo with Monopoly money, nor am I urging the faithful not to support their pastors. It’s called hyperbole – pointing out absurdity by being even more absurd).
I take comfort in the thought that if the Novus Ordo was a success and truly the future of the Church, people would be flocking to it and there would be no need to legislate against the Vetus Ordo. The fact that they have to is an admission of failure. It will all work out in the long run.
I am thankful that I was not there. I’m afraid I would not have been able to sit there quietly.
I have been offering my Rosaries for the folks in Knoxville, Detroit, and Charlotte.
After all, with the new Rite, one can get the Latin, and the silence, and the meditativeness,
So, has anyone called him out on this: OK, Father, when are YOU going to offer the NO mass in Latin, ad orientem, with chant, and bells, and with silence? Hmmm? What’s that? Oh, you’re not? Well, then, were you just telling fibs about it?
I think I get that there are progressives who hate the TLM (and the people who love it), and who know they are attacking the TLM because it shows how much room there is in NO for repair and reform. But among the bishops who had not already suppressed the TLM before Francis died, I struggle to understand their decisions to NOW suppress it, before Leo speaks to the issue. Don’t they know that Leo’s decisions may well force them to back down at least partly, even if not in full? Don’t they want to avoid egg on their faces if Leo softens the persecution? Aren’t they even a LITTLE bit worried of calling attention to themselves for going all flaming-left extremist on the already-whupped underdogs, in the off chance that Leo actually recognizes that the TLM community has been persecuted without need or reason?
Remember, the bishopric generically is populated by people who have had their spines surgically removed in the process of moving upwards in the ranks, and they are not noted for “speaking truth to power” above them. Why would they call attention to themselves from the Vatican? Or is it that they know something about Leo that we don’t? That’s a scary thought.
JonPatrick: good comment. That large pachyderm in the corner – nah, nothing to see here, move on…
I’m reminded of Ronald Reagan’s line: “It’s not that they’re ignorant, it’s just that they know so much that’s not true!” Its the same tropes over and over again: “The TLM is divisive and anti-Vatican II”… “To choose the TLM is to dissent”… “You’re obsessed with the externals”… “Unity depends upon liturgical uniformity”… “A nice Latin N.O. with some incense will make it all better”! The only one we don’t hear anymore is: “But… Pope Benedict isn’t a liturgist!
“Liturgist” or not, Papa Ratzinger was extraordinarily well-qualified to take up the question of the TLM: he had a deep interest in the liturgy, he was in the “inner circle” at The Council, he served in academia, as an ordinary, and finally in the Curia before his papacy. He knew many of the giants of the Liturgical Movement personally… and he also knew Klaus Gamber… Michael Davies… Archbishop Lefebvre… He wrote with great insight on every single one of the points which press on this issue e.g. continuity vs. rupture, the faulty implementation of The Council, the banality of the N.O. itself and the errors of the liturgists, etc. After literally years – decades – of experience, consultation, and deliberation he produced a wise and masterful Papal solution to a festering problem: SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM!
There are REAL problems in the Church today but the TLM itself is not one of them (although the campaign against it is!) How dare the ecclesial pygmies of the past decade dismantle a solution so laboriously – and well – developed and implemented, besmirch the author’s name and memory with a campaign of lies and half-truths, and disenfranchise one of the most faithful cohorts in the Church? To simply take notice of these things does NOT make me a “protestant”!
Archlaic: yes, the whole “Benedict XVI isn’t a liturgist” thing just really explodes the utter intellectual bankruptcy of those who spout (one could use other verbs) it. Good Lord, the man was THERE ab bloody initio – as a trusted advisor and protagonist of the real movers and shakers. And a damn well informed one also, who later exposed the whole “spirit of the Council” nonsense of those with a quite different agenda. But the MiniTruth brigade can’t forgive him for that.
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My question is why is a dead letter from a dead pope being implemented? That is neocromancy, not obedience!!
I don’t see where you called out the 3rd parish in our diocese for threatening us as schismatics and Protestants… beyond being another priest asserting that all we liked about the TLM was smells, bells, and Latin.
Fr. Carter’s letter, which he read to us verbatim, is included here:
https://bigmodernism.substack.com/p/leos-knoxville-bishop-kills-the-latin