This is not the Bee. This is Il Messaggero:
The papal almoner, Konrad Card. Kraiewsky, appeared in a … I am not making this up … circus act. This is not the Babylon Bee. This is Il Messaggero.
Meanwhile, there is NO elephant in the room. That’s the secret… there IS NO ELEPHANT.
Meanwhile,…
White to move. GREAT puzzle. (Credit tomorrow)
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Interested in learning? Try THIS.
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3:16 isn’t just in John.
And I’ve sneaked in something new in the over all shop.
I suppose it is a little late for the “Re-Elect Ratzinger” swag.
Finally, today is a very lean day for monthly donors. Only 7. If you find this blog helpful or at least amusing, and you visit regularly, please consider signing up for a monthly donation. Monthly helps me to budget. I record the names of everyone who donates or sends something and remember you periodically at the altar as benefactors.
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Today, please remember in your prayers WKB, who passed away on 13 Feb 2022. He was a regular monthly donor on this day, the 11th of the month.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
One of the saddest days in the history of the Catholic Church and larger modern society. One of the saddest decades. Ten years ago today.
The confusion, pain and division caused by this is still untold.
Everyone. In regard to the Traditional Roman Rite, what we see coming from Rome is sheer will to power.
ACTION ITEMS.
From The Pillar, an examination of how – without grounding in real law – power is being grabbed in order to implement an agenda.
In the implementation of ‘Traditionis custodes,’ Cardinal Arthur Roche has been criticized for an approach that seemed to arrogate authority to his office, beyond the motu proprio’s text.
[…]
In the years since Pope Francis promulgated Traditionis custodes, it has fallen to Cardinal Arthur Roche, prefect of the Vatican’s liturgy office, to interpret the pope’s policy, and to engage with the diocesan bishops tasked with implementing the policy in their local churches.
As the Dicastery for Divine Worship oversees that process, Roche has been criticized for an approach that seemed to arrogate authority to his office, in excess of what was actually given to it in Traditionis custodes, or in the 2022 reorganization of the Roman Curia, for that matter.
In the Church’s canon law, governing authority ordinarily stems from ecclesiastical office — from a specifically delineated set of prerogatives and obligations which come by official appointment to a particular function.
But while Roche has faced criticism in recent months, he’s also demonstrated a keen insight for the way things sometimes work in the Church; whatever the canon law says, governing authority – or at least real practical power – is sometimes gained by those who act like they have it, and convince others of the same. Decrees are important, to be sure, but in the administrative life of the Church, perception is sometimes more powerful than a decree.
“Power resides,” quoth George RR Martin, “where men believe it resides.”
[…]
And in recent months, Roche has made another gamble — telling at least some U.S. bishops that they do not have the authority to dispense from certain provisions of Traditionis custodes, even while – to the mind of many canonists – the papal text itself does not support that claim.
[…]
But however much canonists fulminate, Roche’s gamble seems to be paying off in the short term. The Pillar has confirmed that bishops who received Roche’s correction on dispensations – however much outside the law it is – are mostly complying with it, albeit perhaps begrudgingly.
[…]
In the meantime, though, Roche’s continuing approach indicates that while Francis has urged that curial reform be rooted in a respect for just procedures and policies, some of his prefects seem more concerned for the outcome of their work than for the way it is conducted.
How long will diocesan bishops find that situation tenable?
Practical advice for you, radical traditionalist subversive that you are, from the always helpful Babylon Bee.
13 Ways To Tell If Your Priest Is An Undercover FBI Agent
So there you are, trying to worship peacefully, and then out of nowhere a priest tackles you to the ground and arrests you for radical traditionalism because you spoke in Latin. Now you’re in Guantanamo Bay being waterboarded about where you were on January 6.
How’d you get here? You didn’t keep your eyes open for FBI priests!
Here’s how to discern that your parish is under federal control:
If your priest is showing any of these warning signs, run!
Stay safe out there, Catholic extremists!
Don’t forget! You are all “backwardists”, too.
It was almost like a… like a signal?
Meanwhile,…
White to move.
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NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Priestly chess players, drop me a line. HERE
On this feast of St. Scholastica, sister of St. Benedict, consider getting some beer from wonderful traditional Benedictine monks in the birthplace of the two saints, modern-day Norcia, Italy.
The are now making a third beer: triple.
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A note to the priests and people of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, where someone in the chancery is trying to bully you into submission.
Someone whom I gather is the “priest secretary” to the Archbishop of Atlanta, and who is also the director of liturgy for that archdiocese, sent to the priests of the archdiocese a memo about: “Canonical regulations and liturgical changes from the Office of Divine Worship, announced Feb. 6, 2023”. Yes, “Feb.” in the title.
The memo is riddled with errors of format, grammar, spelling, law and reason.
For example, there are numerous misspellings. Footnote numbers are placed before the item cited. The syntax of one of the run-on sentences is so scrambled that it is hard to understand even what the writer was attempting to say.
It also is not signed by anyone. Instead there is given only an email address. I looked it up on the archdiocesan website.
The memo says: New legislation in the Archdiocese of Atlanta.
The first part is about “pro populo” Masses. It isn’t our concern, though it is a mess.
For something to be legislation, it has to be issued in the proper form. This embarrassing memo has none of that.
There’s more, concerning other matters. This is enough.
Here is the text as it appears in the memo.
Traditional Latin Mass and Novus Ordo
New legislation in the Archdiocese of Atlanta
In the past months, some of you have sent questions regarding the Latin Mass and Novus Ordo masses “ad orientem”. The Motu Propio Traditionis Custodes deals with the Missale Romanum of 1962 only, it does not deal with the entire liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council. The Reform of the Second Vatican Council permits priests to celebrate the Novus Ordo ad orientem in Latin and in the vernacular. However, it leaves to the Diocesan bishop if he allows his priests to celebrate pubicly in those forms as they see fitting in their ministry to the people of God or “ad casum“, meaning only with the explicit request of the priest and the explicit permission from the Diocesan bishop, in this case the Archbishop. If approved, the Archbishop must seek the permission of the Vatican for each request. Historically, the request have been denied.
Now, the sacraments and sacramentals in accord with the Missale Romanum of 1962 are celebrated at Saint Francis de Sales parish in Mableton, GA., where the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter serves so diligently. At Saint Monica parish in Duluth, GA., only the sacrament of the Eucharist in celebrated in accord with the Missale Romanum of 1962 on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation at 8:15 AM. All the other sacraments and sacramentals are in the vernacular.
After consultation with the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, starting on the Solemnity of the Resurrection of the Lord, (April 9, 2023) all the priests and bishops assigned or residing in the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Atlanta that want to celebrate publicly:
1. The Extraordinary Form of the Mass (except: Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Monica)
2. Novus Ordo ad orientem in Latin
3. Novus Ordo ad orientem in the vernacular
4. Novus Ordo versus populum in Latin
5. All sacraments and sacramentals in the form previous to the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Councilmust request, by formal letter, permission from the Archbishop. The letter should include the rationale for such celebration. I urge you to read or re-read the Apostolic Letter Desiderio Desideravi, on the liturgical formation of the people of God, and personally get involved in the decision-making that guarantees the decorum, order and nobility of your liturgical celebrations at your parishes and places of worship.
This deserves scorn.
The writer seems to think that “The Reform of the Second Vatican Council” is a… I dunno… a “thing”. Furthermore, “The Reform” didn’t “permit” priests to say Mass ad orientem and in Latin “and in the vernacular”. Priests were bound by the rubrics and law of the time. What “The Reform” “permitted” was that – according to future legislation – there could be some room given to the vernacular but that Latin should be retained.
Priests do not have to seek permission to follow canon law (which says that Mass is to be celebrated in Latin, or another approved language) and to follow the rubrics (which the pro-Conciliar Missale Romanum indicates as ad orientem worship).
This memo is an exercise in bullying. It has no legislative force. It is a list of wishes on the part of the writer. Here is what one of my canonist friends wrote about it.
What a load of draconian nonsense. But par for the course in this day and age. It deserves to be ignored as much as possible: force the Archbishop to act and discipline or remove priests for the “offense” of offering Mass according to the rubrics of the Missal. And, of course, they’re sowing the seeds that will force them, in ten years, to reap the whirlwind as the younger priests come of age. If the Archbishop can mandate versus populum, then his successor can mandate ad orientem by the same logic. This is 70’s Soviet ecclesiology. It should be obeyed with the same fervor that most folks in the waning days of Communism obeyed. In due time (I believe in short order) there will be our Gdansk shipyards, our Pan-European Picnic, and our tearing down of the Berlin Wall.
He makes a good point: IF the Archbishop can mandate X, the next Archbishop can mandate un-X. The same applies to draconian measures from Rome. If the order of law is ignored and if tradition is ignored, then chaos will be the result. Disobedience at every level will follow, and rightly so.
In the long run, people will suffer. Eventually they will say, “Enough!”
Photo by The Great Roman™
Meanwhile, …
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Black to move.
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Priestly chess players, drop me a line. HERE
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The Bruised Optimist
In chess news….
As I write, the next important match of the Airthings Masters of the Champion Chess Tour is about to start. Wesley So (YAY!) now of Minnesota (YAY!) of strong Christian faith (YAY!) is facing off with white against the amazingly strong and yet very young Arjun Erigaisi from India. The winner takes on Hikaru and that winner go against Magnus.
This is sponsored by a maker of air quality testing machines. I have a cheap one which I keep an eye on in my office. Since I opened the window a crack the CO2 has dropped by half. On the other hand, I sense a whiff of the next obsession. Figures, since there are those who want to lock us indoors forever.
[We saw a Spanish and anti-Marshall at the beginning of this Rapid.]
From Yves Congar, “Autorité, Initiative, coresponsabilité” in La Maison-Dieu 97 (1969/1), p. 57.
Nous sommes personnellement impressionné en profondeur par ce caractère propre à la liturgie d’assumer l’héritage vivant des siècles et d’être toujours, comme écrin conservant toute la Tradition, “la grande didascalie de l’Eglise.” Car, d’un côté, l’expression symbolique contient la totalité d’une réa-lité, bien au-delà de ce qui peut s’en exprimer ou s’en com-prendre notionnellement. D’un autre côté, le caractère conservateur de la liturgie lui permet de préserver et de transmettre intactes des valeurs dont une époque peut avoir oublié l’importance, mais que l’époque suivante est heureuse de retrouver intactes et préservées, pour en vivre à nouveau. Où serions-nous si le conservatisme liturgique n’avait pas résisté au goût du Moyen Age finissant pour les dévotions sensibles, aux impératifs individualistes, raisonnables et moralisants du 18′ siècle, à la critique du 19°, aux philo-sophies subjectives de l’époque moderniste? Grâce à la liturgie, tout nous a été gardé et transmis. Ah ! ne nous exposons pas à encourir, dans soixante ans, le reproche d’avoir dilapidé l’héritage sacré de la communion catho-lique telle qu’elle se déploie dans le lent déroulement du temps. Gardons la conscience salubre de ne porter nous-mêmes qu’un moment d’affleurement à l’actualité d’une réalité qui nous dépasse à tous égards : en contenu, en hauteur, en profondeur.
We are personally deeply impressed by this specific character of the liturgy of assuming the living heritage of the centuries and of always being, as a case preserving all of Tradition, “the great didascalia of the Church.” Because, on the one hand, the symbolic expression contains the totality of a reality, well beyond what can be expressed or understood notionally. On the other hand, the conservative character of the liturgy allows it to preserve and transmit intact values whose importance one era may have forgotten, but which the following era is happy to find intact and preserved, to live from it new. Where would we be if liturgical conservatism had not resisted the taste of the late Middle Ages for sensitive devotions, the individualistic, reasonable and moralizing imperatives of the 18th century, the criticism of the 19th century, the subjective philosophies of the modernist era? Thanks to the liturgy, everything has been preserved and transmitted to us. Ah! let us not expose ourselves to incurring, in sixty years, the reproach of having squandered the sacred heritage of Catholic communion as it unfolds in the slow unfolding of time. Let us keep the salubrious awareness of bringing ourselves only a moment of emergence to the topicality of a reality that surpasses us in all respects: in content, in height, in depth.
How he obtained it, I can’t even guess at, but a biretta tip to Fr. Ferguson for the copy of this concise response: o{]:¬)
Your Eminence,
I trust this finds you well.
I am forwarding to Your Eminence a letter received recently in my chancery. Obviously, some moron, who knows neither canon law nor theology, has somehow stolen stationery from your dicastery and has managed a passable forgery of your signature. I was not fooled, as it was impossible to think that Your Eminence lacked a basic understanding of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council on the episcopate, let alone a commitment to Our Holy Father’s commitment to a Church of Synodality and subsidiarity. Also lacking in this idiot’s forgery was any compassion or Christian charity, for which Your Eminence has long been known.
I know Your Eminence will want to try and track down and deal with this stupid malefactor posthaste. If there is any further assistance I can give, I stand ready.
In the meantime, please know of my deepest respect for Your Eminence in his onerous ministry.
Kissing the sacred purple, I remain,
Devotedly yours in Christ,
+ Jude Noble
Bishop of Black Duck
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
A Daily Prayer for Priests
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