A kind reader sent this new:
To implement the Motu Proprio "Summorum Pontificum" His Eminence George Cardinal Pell, Archbishop of Sydney will celebrate Pontifical Mass tthe Throne according to the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite at St.
Mary’s Cathedral on Saturday November 3rd at 10 am.
Does anyone know if Cardinal Pell is still going forward with those plans to ‘reinvent’ his cathedral that were met with a lot of criticism? It seems rather nonsensical of him to be offering this Mass in his own cathedral when his own staff’s plan for that cathedral is the erection of a permanent free standing altar by the time WYD rolls around. Perhaps the Mass will give him and his own some insight…
This is great. If I recall correctly it takes 23 ministers attending upon the bishop for Solemn Mass from the Throne, and the differences between it and a regular Solemn Mass are more than Pontifical Mass from the Faldstool.
The fact that a bishop would be willing to go through the great effort necessary is a great gesture itself
This is glorious news indeed that such a high profile
cleric like Cardinal Pell is celebrating the
Extraordinary Rite at his own Cathedral. Deo Gratias
Alleluia! Tom
I know Cardinal Pell on a person to person basis and am Australian. The Cardinal will celebrate the Old Mass but it does not mean he does anything to encourage it. For example the Fraternity of St Peter priests have been given no accomodation and are forced to live in a very small house a Parish Priest rents to them. The Cardinal has appointed 2 auxiliary bishops who are not interested in the Old Mass. One bishop/as also unusually rector of the seminary. He is charismatic and loves guitar strumming touchy feelie things. He has refused to reply to requests from seminarans to allow the Old Mass in the seminary and to be trained to say the 1962 Missal. He has actually thrown seminarians out of the seminary who like the Old Mass. Yes it is good Cardianl Pell offers the Mass. He is just “doing something for them” as he says. The Cardinal said their was no interest from the Priests o the archdiocese in saying the Old Mass. Thre is a reason for that. It is because not only do Priests turn on Priests who offer the Old Mass. The Cardinal pushes these to the side in promotion and when parish placements come up. Cardinal Pells real interest is doctine… not liturgy. He has done nothing to tidy up liturgical abuses in the archdiocese.
I know Cardinal Pell on a person to person basis and am Australian. The Cardinal will celebrate the Old Mass but it does not mean he does anything to encourage it. For example the Fraternity of St Peter priests have been given no accomodation and are forced to live in a very small house a Parish Priest rents to them. The Cardinal has appointed 2 auxiliary bishops who are not interested in the Old Mass. One bishop/as also unusually rector of the seminary. He is charismatic and loves guitar strumming touchy feelie things. He has refused to reply to requests from seminarans to allow the Old Mass in the seminary and to be trained to say the 1962 Missal. He has actually thrown seminarians out of the seminary who like the Old Mass. Yes it is good Cardinal Pell offers the Mass. He is just “doing something for them” as he says. The Cardinal said there was little interest from the Priests of the archdiocese in saying the Old Mass. There is a reason for that. It is because not only do Priests turn on Priests who offer the Old Mass. The Cardinal pushes these to the side in promotion and when parish placements come up. Cardinal Pells real interest is doctine… not liturgy. He has done nothing to tidy up liturgical abuses in the archdiocese. Watch World Youth Day liturgical celebrations and you will see.
Jacob:
Mate – I am from Canberra and agree with you 100%. I find the fact that Cardinal Pell plans to ‘reorder’ his Cathedral so as to permanentise the forward altar in time for Pope Benedict’s visit during WYD to be truly bizarre. He is a prelate who is to be praised for celebrating the TLM on various occasions when in Melbourne; yet he also seems to be a man who has little sense of the connection between right worship and right belief. For him it seems merely a matter of learning one’s catechetical ABC and that then all will be OK. He comprehends not that the liturgy the faithful are exposed to each week – those who still go to Mass! – are affected by the seeming heterodoxy of much of what passes during ‘Ordinary Form’ liturgies. In short, he seems not intuitively to have much sense of lex orandi lex credendi; it’s all just an up-stairs matter of the intellect.
The fact that he reckons renovation of the sanctuary, in the manner you have described, as being appropriate to mark the visit of a Pontiff who has written so much and so eloquently upon the liturgy, is ironic! Is he really that thick, or is he really, in many ways, just an old liberal?
Cheers
Tony
PS: I say amen to all you have written above, too, Chris!
I agree with Jacob, Chris and Tony. I’m an Australian, too, FWIW. Cardinal Pell has a reputation in the secular media as a doctrinal reactionary, and in fact is refreshingly orthodox and not afraid of saying so; however, I agree that he just doesn’t seem to “get” the importance of liturgy when it comes to the nourishment of the faith; lex orandi, lex credendi.
BTW, I was shocked to hear about the “re-ordering” of the St Mary’s sanctuary. What was His Eminence thinking? It simply beggars belief.
For anyone who cares, this is the link that is behind my comment:
Link – Shrine of the Holy Whapping
I recall some of the same wonderings about the usually forthright and stalwart Cardinal Pell when, in an EWTN interview, he mused that perhaps we could make an exception to Liturgiam authenticam and retain the popular folk-song Eucharistic response “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” Which is an ICEL interpolation rather than an English translation of one of the three Latin responses in the official Missale Romanum. (My concern not being the merits or lack thereof of this particular response, but rather the fact that admission of exceptions in the Mass is what brought the ordinary form of the Mass to where it is now.)