Today in the Italian daily Il Foglio there is an article which starts…
Catholics increasingly persecuted after the Agreement with China
Human Rights Watch report: the situation has worsened after the agreement between Beijing and the Holy See. An assessment after eight years
The only Church is that of Xi
“Ma va!”, as they say here.
The description of how Catholics are being treated is horrifying. Silence from Rome.
One of the lines that struck me was:
From the testimonies collected, it is clear that professing one‘s faith has become more complicated: masses are scheduled at “inconvenient“ times, reducing participation.
Sound familiar?
And….
A Catholic who left China said that “we started praying like thieves, gatherings for important holidays were canceled. The authorities prevented singing and darkened the windows of the church, so that the prayers are not visible from the outside. Children, today, no longer have memory of the prayers and celebrations that took place in church.” The goal, Human Rights Watch writes, is “to sever generational ties within the Catholic community.”
Not long ago I had supper with some folks from Charlotte. They told me about the situation there now, including the imperious dictate from High Atop The Thing that there is to be no socializing by the faithful after the inconveniently scheduled Masses at the hard to reach remote location.
Think about it… from TC (Taurina cacata) no Masses in parish churches, not to be mentioned or listed in parish bulletins, priests ordained after a certain year can’t do it….
What does this sound like?
One other point. Families going to Mass cannot bring children until they reach the age of 18. Similarly there is no official religious instruction. When I travel there I always bring some books to help their children (well the parents, too) with their religious formation. The ban on children going to religious services had always been on the books but Xi started reinforcing it strongly. The other issue: once Hong Kong falls under complete Chinese rule, will this ban be extended there?
The Camel’s Nose strikes again.
– The change is allowed due to extraordinary circumstances.
– The extraordinary becomes normalized.
– The normalized becomes mandatory.
Meanwhile:
– What had been normal for ages becomes marginalized.
– The marginalized becomes forbidden.
“Birds of a feather gather together” comes to mind immediately.
The other is “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it’s a duck.”
Pray for the persecuted faithful in China and other places.
What’s happening in many American dioceses is reminiscent of Soviet-style persecution. The local ordinary, no matter how vicious, modernist…etc, can forbid Catholics from socially interacting after Holy Mass. The U.S. Constitution gives every citizen the rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. A bishop cannot, under pain of…well anything, forbid the faithful from speaking to each other.
Thank you for update Father Z.
You can’t make it up. Any word concerning the dubia sent from the 30 priests to the Vatican ?
Pope Leo recently bemoaned, “the world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants” in a well publicized speech.
He should address those tyrants under his authority first.
It seems grossly unfair to compare the Chinese Communists to the Ordinary of Charlotte and his like.
The Ordinary in Charlotte wants to forbid people to socialize after attending the inconvenient TLM he has grudgingly granted them. It’s almost as if he asked himself: “What can I do that will make me look even more ridiculous?” and came up with this answer: “NO SOCIALIZING!” And yet, I think it would be fair to expect him to warmly endorse at nervous weirdo Masses the “greeting of your neighbor” at the outset of Mass, the hand-holding at Mass, and the extended uproar during the “Sign of Peace.” (It has just occurred to me how inapt that name is when there is so much noisy socializing in many places during the misnamed “Sign of Peace.”)
I’ve long wanted a good deep dive into the level of obedience laity owe to their ordinary. It probably exists and I just haven’t found it. If your bishop says men must wear a green tie to Mass, are we obliged to obey? If he says you must not say the Pater Noster silently in our head, must we obey? If he says you may not socialize after Mass, must we obey? I think most would agree these are probably not things that are within the ordinary’s sphere, but what are the precise boundaries?
Blame it on the Collegr of Cardinals…0-2
Fr. Z:
Within the last year or two, one of the shows on Catholic radio was discussing Mass. The commentator was a teenager in the early to mid 1970s and mentioned that in some dioceses that priests who were over a certain age (in this case I think 57 was mentioned) were given a reprieve from learning the post Vatican II Mass.
While I was a little kid (I was born late 1960s) there was one Sunday Mass at our parish in Los Angeles that was in Latin. The rest of the Masses were either in English or Spanish. Even though I was little I remember mom sometimes taking my oldest brother and I to the 9:15 am Sunday Mass which was in Latin and the pastor (he was probably in his sixties) did that Mass.
I don’t know if this was “normal” in those days but I do remember reading that a parish in Huntington Beach had an old pastor who was granted permission by his bishop to say Mass in Latin until he retired. I think that bishop retired in the early 1980s. After that I heard permission ceased at that parish.
The “reprieve” mentioned by hwriggles4 was very limited insofar as it only permitted aged or infirm priests to use the ‘62 for Masses without a congregation! I think a server may have been allowed but I cannot recall for certain.
My own recollection is that not everything changed in lockstep between 1964 and 1973. We moved across town in 1966 and I vividly remember how different the Mass was between the two parishes barely a mile apart. From Latin sung Mass at the high altar at the old parish to English, guitars, felt and burlap banners, and sisters in “modified” habits at the new one. The contrast was so shocking that it made a sufficient impression on three-year-old me that I recall the shock nearly sixty years later! This was in the Archdiocese of Boston, out in the suburbs, where the liturgical spectrum was quite broad. Two parishes that I know of kept an all-Latin Mass using the “old” Missal until 1971…