I had to share this for your Just Too Cool file.
At Task & Purpose…
STOCKTON, Calif. (Reuters) – William White, a 104-year-old U.S. Marine veteran who earned a Purple Heart in World War Two, is celebrating Valentine’s Day this year like never before, surrounded by a mountain of 70,000 love letters and well-wishes sent from all over the world.
[…]
This guy was at Iwo Jima.
Oorah!
Read the rest there.
The Exhortation following the ghastly Amazon Synod (“walking together with a demonic idol”) is now out.
No married priests and no deaconettes.
More on the Exhortation below.
First, however, something which you should know about.
Sandro Magister doesn’t often put his foot wrong. He doesn’t usually fall into the obvious disinformation traps set for those who hunger to be first with the juicy stuff.
So, I read what he wrote about Benedict XVI and Card. Sarah today with real sorrow, reflecting on the viciousness of the left, the papalatrous, the New Red Guards.
I see now that it is translated into English on Sandro’s site HERE
Francis’s Silence, Ratzinger’s Tears, and That Never-Published Statement of His
What is most striking in the post-synodal apostolic exhortation “Querida Amazonia,” made public today, February 12 2020, is its total silence on the most anticipated and controversial issue: the ordination of married men.
Not even the word “celibacy” appears in it. Pope Francis desires “to configure ministry in such a way that it is at the service of a more frequent celebration of the Eucharist, even in the remotest and most isolated communities” (no. 86). But he reiterates (no. 88) that only the ordained priest can celebrate the Eucharist, absolve from sins and administer the anointing of the sick (because it too is “intimately linked to the forgiveness of sins,” footnote 129). And it says nothing about the extension of ordination to “viri probati.”
No news on women’s ministries either. “If they were admitted to Holy Orders,” Francis writes in no. 100, “it would lead us to clericalize women” and to “restrict our understanding of the Church to her functional structures.”
The curiosity that arises immediately, from reading “Querida Amazonia,” is therefore to understand to what extent the bombshell book written by pope emeritus Benedict XVI and by Cardinal Robert Sarah in defense of the celibacy of the clergy, published in mid-January, influenced the exhortation and in particular its silence on the ordination of married men.
[…]
Sandro goes on with a postscript. He says he has this from independent sources. He relates four point. Here is the first, and the one that made me so sad. Keep in mind the vicious explosion against both Sarah and Benedict by people like Ivereigh and Beans:
[…]
The first occurred on the morning of Wednesday January 15.
All throughout the day of Tuesday the 14th the attack carried out by the radical movements against Ratzinger and Sarah had built up to a devastating crescendo, fueled in fact by the repeated denials of the prefect of the pontifical household, Georg Gänswein, of a co-responsibility of the pope emeritus in the composition and publication of the book, to the point of requesting the withdrawal of his signature, and contrasted to no avail by the precise and documented reconstruction, made public by Sarah, of the genesis of the book itself by the united efforts of its two coauthors.
So then, on the morning of Wednesday January 15, while Pope Francis was holding his weekly general audience with Gänswein sitting as usual at his side in the Paul VI hall, and therefore far from the Mater Ecclesiae monastery which is the residence of the pope emeritus whose secretary he is, Benedict XVI picked up the phone himself and called Sarah first at home, where he did not find him, and then at the office, where the cardinal answered.
Benedict XVI expressed his heartfelt solidarity with Sarah. He confided that he could not understand the reasons for such violent and unjust aggression. And he wept. Sarah wept too. The call ended with both of them in tears.
[…]
There are three other issues after this, but this is the one that left my heart heavy.
One of them concerns the sidelining of Archbp. Gänswein, and it is tied to #Bookgate.
Folks, it is hard to know exactly what influence Sarah and Benedict’s book had on the final text of the Post-Synodal Exhortation. Was there material in the document opening up the way to married priests, etc? Was there a campaign of disinformation designed to target certain writers and also to uncover internal leaks? Or, on the other hand, was the leaked information correct? In that case did the book force a revision?
We don’t know these things for certain. Magister has his view. He is pretty well informed. Eventually we will learn more. Why? Because, as the old proverb goes: “Il diavolo fa le pentole, ma non i coperchi”. The Enemy always shows you what he’s cooking.
What have we seen?
We see that the Germans have reacted with dismay about the lack of their pets in the new Amazon document. HERE “Unfortunately, [Francis] does not find the courage to implement real reforms in the questions of the ordination of married men and the liturgical skills of women, which have been discussed for 50 years.”
Of course at the German Synod (“Stechschrite miteinander”) girls distribute Communion in the hand to the Bishops. No, really. HERE
We see that Beans, one of the most vicious of the bombthrowers, is backing off from his agitprop. Quoted by CNN: “People are starting to adjust their expectations,” said Massimo Faggioli, a church historian at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. “The major reforms they were expecting of him may never come.”
And this bitter fruit…
We had – for centuries – councils on the papacy and on the episcopacy.
We need a Synod on synodality (seriously)— Massimo Faggioli (@MassimoFaggioli) February 12, 2020
Yeah… that’s what we need. More synods (“walking together”). Let’s talk about walking together while we are walking together. And then we’ll talk about the fact that we talked and walked. And then we’ll write about talking and walking and talk about the walking and the writing about the talking, until we’ve written something that we can talk and write about some more!
And Pachamama laughs.
Some are saying something like, “Well, maybe this Exhortation is official teaching and all that stuff, but we are really going to hook our hopes on the final document of the Synod rather than this document from Francis.” Check out CNA on this. It’s a little amusing, really. One of the lefty Cardinals involved in the Amazon Synod (“walking together with Pachamana”) was Michael Card. Czerny. He tried to spin his disappointment: “The final document, consisting of proposals made and voted by the Synod Fathers, has the weight of a synodal final document” On the other hand, the Exhortation “reflect[s] on the whole process and its final document, has the authority of ordinary magisterium of the Successor of Peter.” See what he’s doing? However, during the presser, it was made clear that Francis did NOT make his own the final document of the Synod, as some had expected. Instead he went this route. Surprisingly from Baldisseri:
“The apostolic exhortation does not speak of approval of the final document. It does not speak [of it]. It speaks of presentation, but not of approval,” Baldisseri continued. “There is not a clear canonical word of approval, as in article 18 of Episcopalis Communio. It speaks of express approval, not indirect, imagined.”
The final document of the Amazon synod “has a certain moral authority, sure,” he added, “but not magisterial.”
Hence the dismay of Beans and Austen. And of Antonio 2+2=5 Spadaro. This tweet:
#QueridaAmazonia accompagna e non sostituisce il Documento finale, auspicando che – nella ricerca delle soluzioni – lo Spirito Santo conduca la Chiesa a qualcosa di più grande del previsto. Il processo sinodale prosegue… | La Civiltà Cattolica https://t.co/wGpKp1dLMB
— Antonio Spadaro (@antoniospadaro) February 12, 2020
His babble…
“#QueridaAmazonia accompanies and not not replace the final Document [of the Synod], looking forward that – in searching for solutions – the Holy Spirit will guide the Church to something greater than previously expected. The synodal process continues… “
Right. The Holy Spirit. I think the Holy Spirit moved Paul VI in the matter of Humanae vitae. Is 2+2=5 saying that Holy Spirit has not yet moved Francis?
Yesterday, Card. Marx said he wasn’t going to stand for headship of the German Bishops Conference again. Maybe the Holy Spirit moved him.
More puzzle pieces.
Here is something to watch for.
The left is now in a jam. Their hero, Francis, has shelved the projects they tried to ram through, instrumentalizing the Amazon, using the power of the money of the German bishops and their crazy theologians. They didn’t get their way. It seems to me that Francis wanted to go their way, but in the end he backed off. Why? Hard to say. In any event, the papalatrous left now has to decide: back up their hero and hope for the radical overturning of the Church or, stick with him? How will they navigate this Scylla and Charibdis? I suspect that, at some point, they will turn even more on Francis, now that they are not getting their way as quickly as they wanted. They seem to be saying that a future Pope will give them what they want. But that puts them in a jam too. They don’t like the fact that there is a “Pope Emeritus”. But to get the action they want, they need a new Pope. So, what’s it going to be?
These are puzzle pieces. Slowly a picture might emerge as they fit together. That picture might not be what we would prefer it to be.
This is one of the reasons why, on both the faithful and traditional and conservative side… as well as one the iconoclastic and papalatrous left… we should all be careful about leaks and possible campaigns of disinformation. The risk of getting things wrong isn’t worthy getting to the story FIRST! Truth is more important than clicks.
Lastly, the beginning of that Amazon Synod will forever be tainted by the FACT of veneration of a demonic idol, Pachamama. Its process and deliberations will forever be tainted by the presence of demonic idols. Its conclusion will forever be tainted by the placing of a bowl with demonic symbols and purpose on the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica.
It is remarkable, really, that nothing worse came from this.
In 2013, on this day 11 February, Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, Benedict XVI announced that he would abdicate.
There are still a lot of unanswered questions about his resignation. There were several strange events that preceded his announcement. Time has exacerbated the controversies.
The evening after the Pope’s announcement, lightning struck the dome of St Peter’s Basilica. Coincidence? Could be. Portentous? At least.
Perhaps not as portentous as when Benedict left his pallium on the tomb of Celestine V.
We are still, frankly, reeling from that announcement and the subsequent conclave, as the recent controversy surrounded the excellent new book by Card. Sarah and Benedict XVI.
At Church Militant there is a piece which accuracy sums up the controversy surrounding Card. Sarah’s recently published book, together with Benedict XVI. The Depths Of Our Hearts. The book is out in French and Italian. The English, inexplicably, languishes in boxes until March.
US Pre-Order Soon HERE for 12 March 2020 release! – FRENCH HERE
What sparked the Church Militant piece was a malicious article in The New Yorker of 2 February making false claims about Card. Sarah and Archbp. Gänswein.
Also in the Church Militant piece, but not the primary reason why I bring it to your attention, is some speculation about the recent appointment of a new Vice-Dean of the College of Cardinals, Leonardo Card. Sandri, a hardly uncontroversial figure. The role of the Vice Dean of the College is important, because the new Dean, Card. Re, is over 80. That means that Sandri will run the next papal conclave (assuming that Sandri is still under 80). Some have seen in this move to shift Sandri, an Argentinian, in this key position as being highly significant, an indication that the deck is being stacked. After watching the absurdities called Synods (“walking together”) over the last few years, it is easy to see why people might think that.
From The Depths Of Our Hearts is an important book. It is important on its own merits and it is important because of its timing. The document following the Amazon Synod (“walking together with Pachamama”) is due to be released tomorrow, 12 February.
In any event, have a look.
In another post, I directed you to Michael Matt’s video. In that video he touches on several points. In my other post I underscored one theme. Here, I’ll underscore what he says, pretty disparagingly, about priests who talk in a certain way. Start at about 7:29.
What Michael is talking about has to do with a certain pitch, timber of voice often adopted by priests and bishops.
It is, to my mind, when used my men the vocal equivalent of a “French manicure”.
This is what I wrote about it some time back.
___
[T]he celebrant of Holy Mass must be taught how to say Mass, so he is at ease and can act as a normal man, but one doing something of grave, of supernatural significance, with gravitas, but not abnormally.
Priestly, not prissily.
So, in short, the priest should follow the rubrics for the Low Mass and obey the rubrics for the level of voice to be used.
If Father is at the main altar celebrating a regularly scheduled public Mass and if – seated reasonably close and not in the 60th pew in the back corner – you can’t hear anything … that’s a serious problem. NB: SERIOUS PROBLEM.
I don’t have to argue that. It’s manifestly clear from the rubrics. SAY – in the appropriate voice – the Black and Do the Red.
However, I must bring up what I really wanted to stress in this post.
And this is directly to seminarians, and to my brother priests and to bishops.
Fathers, use your normal voice when saying Mass. Don’t use a “priest voice”, different from your normal voice.
As Fortescue O’Connell (1962) says,
“The celebrant, while eschewing affection or any suggestion of formal declamation, [think of Hamlet’s admonition to the players] should so read the prayers and other parts of the Mass formulary, with such attention to punctuation, accentuation, pauses and voice inflections, as to make clear that he understands what he is saying and desires to render it as intelligible as possible to others, and that he recites the text with the reverence due to words so sacred… and in a tone which gives a lead to and encourages the people to talk out.”
By 1962, what Popes of the 20th century desired, more vocal participation founded in interior drive to respond, is being advanced. Fine. But the main point here, Fathers, is to use a natural, and not affected, voice.
What I find appalling, and surely this is what Fortescue O’Connell is describing and inveighing against, is the “priest voice”, which is often pitched higher – not to be better heard but rather for… damn, I dunno why! I think it is a subtle affectation. And sometimes it’s not so subtle. It out-Herods Herod.
This “priest voice” is often higher, sing-song, cloying, such that you feel like someone is dripping Karo Syrup on you. You hear this all the time, to one degree or another. This is the vocal equivalent of slouching around, shoulders hunched as if the weight of your amazing piety is too much to be bourne, or flitting and nearly pirouetting about with slips and slides leading with the head, or, just as bad, robotic angularity like an mannequin dancer or mime. Blech. Get over yourself!
BTW… pitching your voice higher is an old technique of the orator before the time of microphones and artificial amplification. The higher voice carries farther. That’s a different matter. That’s not what I am talking about. You can still speak with your normal voice at a slightly higher pitch to be heard, just as you can force your voice downward a bit so as not to be heard, like “golf announcer voice”. Moreover, I warmly agree with McLuhan about the damn microphone doing untold damage to sacred worship and, therefore, to people’s identity and faith.
Fathers…
Stand up straight. Move normally and with comfort without being rigid. Use your normal voice. Read with comprehension and for comprehension. Don’t know Latin? Then STUDY Latin! And at least review the prayers for their meaning, not just pronunciation before Mass begins.
In the Roman Rite, when the priest sits down, he sits sideways to the congregation. It isn’t about him. When the priest enters, turns to the people, exits, he is to keep his eyes lowered. The lowering of the eyes is described in the same terms as the low, or “secret” voice of Mass (demissis… submissa). Remember that there are distinctions to be made about gestures. There are three levels of bows, three levels of voice, three levels of eye position (cast down, or lowered, looking at the texts, and raised heavenward ad Deum). The old adage is “qui bene distinguit bene docet… he who makes distinctions well, teaches well“. Teach with your ars celebrandi. Every word and gesture teaches. Think about how 7 of 10 Catholics don’t believe in the Real Presence and Transubstantiation. The way we priests say Mass has a lot to do with that.
If the occasion – Holy Mass – is special, then let the text shine by getting yourself out of the way. People in the pews will thank you.
Fathers, please, get rid of the “priest voice”.
Michael (“#UniteTheClans”) Matt of The Remnant has a video with some really good information, which you should all know about. All of you. All of you should know this.
First, some of you will be tempted to focus on Michael’s comments about Francis and “two Popes” in Rome. Rabbit hole for the purpose of this post. Next, some will be distracted by Matt’s comments about the Novus Ordo voice some priests have. Another rabbit hole for this post, although amusing. I have written against “the priest voice” on this blog. Next, some of you will be tempted to jump on the US political angle, and remarks about Pres. Trump’s impeachment. Another rabbit hole, perhaps not for another post, but – yes – for this post.
What I really want you to understand is the incredible anti-American attitude held by those who surround Francis.
Francis surrounds himself with men like Jesuit Antonio Spadaro (who co-authored the most blinkered jeremiads against Americans I’ve read) but also with anti-American, American Jeffrey Sachs, who is 200% and more into population control through climate change hysteria.
Climate change hysteria is a ruse to gain power over you. Sachs wants people dead, through abortion and abortifacients.
Sachs is now a constant feature in conferences held at the Vatican.
What’s with that?
This is something that Michael Matt’s video exposes well: Sachs involvement.
There in the video a point at which Sachs blames the problems of the world on these USA. Sitting next to Sachs is Bp. Sorondo – the guy Diane Montagna interviewed for LifeSite the other day. Sorondo is the one who said that China is, better than anyone else, manifesting Catholic social teaching. China. Watch Sorondo. When Sachs trashes these USA, the epicene Sorondo giggles and then ever so delicately applauds. It is creepy. He knows he’s being recorded. Tune in at about 14:30.
I should underscore this. Matt says he wants a Pope who prepares people for their judgment before God, the Four Last Things rather than focusing on getting straws out of the ocean and climate change. Climate change and straws in the ocean are not the purview of Popes. Popes need to work on the spiritual state of the Church, not carbon offsets.
Another good point. As the masthead of The Wanderer has reminded for decades, quoting Pius XI, you cannot be, at the same time, both a Socialist and a good Catholic.
Why would Francis partner with JEFFREY SACHS?
I’ll turn on the moderation queue for the post, to keep the knucklehead stuff out of the combox. Thoughtful comments are welcome. Put it this way: they had better be insightful or really funny.
Here’s the video.
BTW… Fishwrap makes an argument in favor of Socialist Bernie Sanders.
Here’s a photo of Sanders at a Vatican conference in 2016. Isn’t that Jeffrey Sachs next to him?
My old friend Msgr Hans Feichtinger has a piece today at First Things about the clown-car of a synod (“walking together”) going on in that caput malorum omnium, Germany. He’s German, though not working in Germany (lucky, he) and he knows what he is talking about.
Some snips:
[…]
It is off to a bad start.
[…]
The Synodal Way is the culmination of a long history of German alienation from authentic Church renewal, going back to before Vatican II. The Germans, well-funded and theologically supercharged, have immunized themselves against inspiration from other churches, against direction from Rome, and against reforming impetuses from within. The Synodal Way has begun by doing what the German church has done for decades: Talking about itself, and looking for ways to fit in with its secular surroundings.
[…]
The Synodal Way is dealing with the concerns of a bourgeois church that wants to bend traditional Catholic teachings and practices to its own ideas and principles.
[…]
Yet the Synodal Way mirrors the actual Catholic base much less than we were led to believe.
[…]
This elite is authentically concerned about church members; in Germany, however, “church members” does not necessarily mean those who go to Mass. Church members in Germany are principally those registered as Catholics with the state, those who pay the infamous church tax.
[…]
If the German church wants a future, it needs to get over its dependency on perceived social relevance, on institutional continuity, and on its connection to societal power. None of that is a primary goal for evangelization. The future depends on actually doing the work of evangelization in every generation, and certainly in 2020.
The Church in Germany and beyond should imitate King David: Once the prophet Nathan confronted David with his sin, the king was moved to contrition and repentance, ready to face the consequences.
[…]
Unless the Synod finds its way to doctrinal fidelity, schism will be the result.
[…]
“Walking together”… straight off the cliff.
Diane Montagna posted something at LifeSite that serves a good purpose.
She sat down with the controversial head of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (you know, the crowd that has Jeffrey Sachs on speed-dial) who are musing about “transhumanism”, Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo. You’ll remember him as the guy who said that Catholic social teaching is being best implemented in China.
While I probably would have gotten into it with about China and transhumanism, Montagna asked Sorondo about the scandalous reception of Holy Communion to the openly pro-abortion President of Argentina, Alberto Fernández and his much younger concubine Fabiola Yáñez. Sorondo called Montagna a “fanatic” for pressing him on it.
Perfect.
She posted a transcript of their conversation.
Here’s part of it.
DM: How can you give them Communion? It’s Jesus. It’s Jesus. They’re living openly in adultery and he supports abortion.
BS: Sorry, sorry, do you know the canon law? Do you know the canon law? We need to follow canon law, not the opinion of some bishops. And the canon law says that you cannot not give – you are obliged to give Communion if somebody asks you for Communion. Only in the case that he is excommunicated. The President is not excommunicated, so I can give Communion if he asks me for Communion.
[…]
BS: And I didn’t know if he wanted to go to Communion. He asked me for Communion, and I didn’t have reason to say no.
DM: Not even if he’s pro-abortion and wants to pass pro-abortion legislation.
BS: No, it’s not a reason to say no for Communion according to canon law.
DM: Do you know which canon it is?
BS: Yes, I can give the canons. There are three canons. The first canon says we are obliged to give Communion to persons who ask for Communion. There is only one exception and the exception is when he is excommunicated. Of course, there are some cardinals like Cardinal Burke, but it is the opinion of the Cardinal. [Who is it, exactly, who doesn’t know canon law?]
[…]
DM: But it would be an opportunity. This was a public scandal. The fact that a pro-abortion president who’s sleeping with his mistress…
BS: So you say…
DM: He’s living with his mistress!
BS: I don’t know. I don’t know.
DM: Everybody knows. She lives with him. She acts like the first lady.
BS: I don’t know.
DM: How can you not know? You’re Argentinian.
[…]
DM: Well, you don’t have to agree with everything President Trump does. But he’s saving babies. He’s saving babies.
BS: Please, lady, understand the Catholic ideas and do not be fanatic, do not be fanatic.
DM: Okay…
BS: If you continue to speak with me, do not be fanatic. Try to use reason.
I love that last part. Condescending much?
The whole thing, his snarky comments about Americans and Pres. Trump, reminds me of the attitude that Card. Kasper manifested about African bishops. Remember how Kasper tried to wiggle out of it? And that’s when Ed Pentin was able to report on his actual words.
Anyway, that’s how it’s done.
Ed Pentin, still the best, working English Vaticanista hands down, posted at the NCReg an interview with Robert Card. Sarah. The Cardinal talks about the book, to be released in English in March.
I’ve read it already (advance English copy and French). Fathers, especially, it is WORTH your time!
US Pre-Order Soon HERE for 12 March 2020 release! – FRENCH HERE
The take away…
Your Eminence, why did you want to write this book?
Because the Christian priesthood is in mortal danger! It’s going through a major crisis.
Some important points.
[…] there is a deep flaw in their formation. The priest is a man set apart for the service of God and the Church. He is a consecrated person. His whole life is set apart for God. And yet they wanted to desacralize priestly life. They wanted to trivialize it, to render it profane, to secularize it. They wanted to make the priest a man like any other. Some priests were formed without putting God, prayer, the celebration of Mass, the ardent search for holiness at the center of their lives.
[…]
[T]hey wanted to muzzle Benedict XVI. I must confess my revolt at the slander, violence and rudeness to which he has been subjected. Benedict XVI wanted to speak to the world, but they tried to discredit his words.
[…]
All these polemics are a diversionary tactic to avoid talking about the essential, the content of the book.
[…]
[T]he real problem in the Amazon is not the ordination of married deacons. The real issue is that of evangelization. We have renounced proclaiming the faith, salvation in Jesus Christ. Too often we have become humanitarian assistants or social workers.
[…]
The West is out of breath. The West is old, with all its renunciations and resignations. It waits, without perhaps being aware of it, for youth, for the rawness of the Gospel’s demand for holiness. So it waits for priests who are radically saints.
A few points of my own.
First, on the final clipping above, I have had recently a few conversations in which the topic of saints for our time has come up. Where are the saints for our time? Has not God always raised up saints in each time when the Church was in need of great reform?
Couple that with the old chestnut that “we get the priests we deserve”, and we have a rather grim prospect.
But we must never be downhearted about even grim prospects.
Of all the universes God could have created, He created this one, into which He called us into existence at exactly the right point in time and with exactly the right set of tools to carry out our little piece of His overarching, divine Plan.
If we dedicate ourselves to our state in life, as it is hic et nunc, here and now, God will give us all the actual graces we need to fulfill our part in His economy of salvation.
It is an honor to have been called by God to live in these difficult times. Fidelity and the pursuit of His will bring greater graces than if our paths were smooth.
As for priests, just as a war-fighter in dire harm’s way is in the safest place spiritually he can be if he acts out of duty and love of God, family and country, so too the priest. Even if the priest is trodden on by his more powerful clerical brethren and unfairly attacked by world-mired laity, he is in the safest spiritual place he can be if he acts out of love of God, Church and patria. Perhaps this is why old soldiers and old priests tend to be great friends.
Next, while the world swirls and ebbs and crashes about us priests, I take note of the old Carthusian motto: Stat crux dum volvitur orbis… While the world spins, the Cross stands still. The Cross, therefore the Sacrifice of Christ, is the fixed point of the fullness of time. The priest and the Cross are inseparable, for the whole reason of the priest’s priesthood is to offer sacrifice, to renew the Sacrifice of Calvary as alter Christus, in persona Christi capitis.
If the myriad options for the priest in this heaving world are confusing, and if there have been deep flaws in the formation of priests – as Sarah and Benedict hold – there is one thing that the priest can always do, without dependence on the permission or approval of any other, to shore up the dikes and battlements, to fill in the gaps and the breaches.
He can learn the Traditional Latin Mass.
A compelling reason to learn it, Fathers, is because, clerical and lay alike, we are our rites. Who is the Roman Catholic priest if he doesn’t know his own Rite? Who is he? If you don’t know your Traditional Roman Rite, then you don’t know the Roman Rite.
Next, an nonagenarian priest friend of mine, has recounted to me what it was like at an all male Catholic academy and on the campus of a Catholic college when the changes to the Mass started to hit in the 60s. He described how the attitude of the cadets and students changed almost overnight. They began to lose discipline during Mass. They started showing disrespect to the priests beyond mere young male testing.
That’s an anecdote. But a telling anecdote. I couple it with the remark of the late Card. Heenan. When he saw the demonstration of the future Novus Ordo Missae, he quipped that men would not want to go to it.
My nonagenarian priest friend described the TLM as being like a suit of armor. It both stands on its own and it protects the one who wears it.
As an aside which isn’t an aside at all, if there is a crisis in the Church and the priesthood, it is also due to a crisis of masculinity in the Church and across society.
Fathers, you don’t need permission to learn the TLM. You don’t need permission or approval to learn it and to say it.
Time and again, priests have told me that learning the TLM changed them profoundly. They began to grasp aspects of their priesthood which they hadn’t gleaned before. In turn, that produces a knock on effect in other aspects of their work, in particular how they celebrate the Novus Ordo. Congregations note the differences. The knock on effect continues to knock.
For some of you priests out there, learning the TLM will be difficult. Things that are worth pursuing usually are.
One thing that will be hard to overcome is the lack of Latin.
Ohhhh how the Enemy our souls brilliantly maneuvered his agents when Latin was eradicated from schools and seminaries!
The Enemy doesn’t want you to learn the TLM. At all cost, the treasury door – nay rather, armory! – must remain slammed and barred. You must be denied your priestly patrimony! A thousand distractions will assail you. Doubts will pop up. The demonically oppressed, even your pastors or bishops and other clergy, will undermine you or persecute you or bully you into giving up. This will happen to many of you. When it does, invoke your angels and Mary, Queen of the Clergy, to protect you.
You can do this. Latin isn’t a mystical Eldorado that only a few can attain. As my old mentor Fr. Foster, famous Latinist, used to quip facetiously but factually, “In ancient Rome even the dogs and prostitutes knew Latin.” Over the centuries, countless priests of room temperature IQ learned Latin for the Mass. They didn’t have to dissertate with the eloquence of Leo the Great. If St. John Vianney could do it, so can you. And most of you may wind up being good at it.
Remember: Latin is a language, not multivariable calculus. The subjunctive is just another mode of speaking about things, not the Collatz Conjecture or the Large Cardinal Property.
Well… it might be that last one.
I am firmly convinced that no project which we undertake in the Church will succeed unless it flows from, is connected to, and returns to our sacred liturgical worship.
By the virtue of Religion, we have to order our acts rightly. This means pleasing worship of God. Benedict XVI’s gift to the Church in Summorum Pontificum, was precisely intended to bring about a healing and renewal of the whole Church through a renewal and healing of her worship, such that we can create a bulwark in the face of future tumult.
Fathers. You can do this. It will be hard. It has to be done.
One way to respond to what Card. Sarah and Benedict XVI wrote, and to respond to The Present Crisis in the Church, and to give something beautiful to God and his people is to…
… learn the Traditional Latin Mass.
Give it to yourselves.
Also for your Just Too Cool file, sent by a friend.
From Science Alert:
A Long-Lost Legendary Roman Fruit Tree Has Been Grown From 2,000-Year-Old Seeds
Scientists have cultivated plants from date palm seeds that languished in ancient ruins and caves for 2,000 years.
This remarkable feat confirms the long-term viability of the kernels once ensconced in succulent Judean dates, a fruit cultivar lost for centuries. The results make it an excellent candidate for studying the longevity of plant seeds.
From those date palm saplings, the researchers have begun to unlock the secrets of the highly sophisticated cultivation practices that produced the dates praised by Herodotus, Galen, and Pliny the Elder. [I’m not sure what they had to compare them to, but I’d like to try what they thought was so good.]
[…]
In an ancient palace fortress built by King Herod the Great, and caves located in southern Israel between the Judean Hills and the Dead Sea, archaeologists retrieved hundreds of seeds from the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera).
Then, a team of scientists, led by Sarah Sallon of Hadassah Medical Organisation in Israel, sorted through this bounty.
They selected 34 seeds they thought were the most viable. One was separated out as a control; the remaining 33 were carefully soaked in water and fertiliser to encourage germination.
After this process, one more was found to be damaged, and was subsequently discarded; the remaining 32 seeds were planted.
Of these, six of the seeds successfully sprouted. They were given the names Jonah, Uriel, Boaz, Judith, Hannah and Adam. (A previous attempt by Sallon and colleagues published in 2008 produced a single sapling; it was named Methuselah.)
Seedlings in hand, the scientists could now run tests and analyses they couldn’t perform on seeds alone.
First, they collected fragments of the seed shells still clinging to the roots of the plants. These were perfect for radiocarbon dating – which confirmed the seeds date back to between 1,800 and 2,400 years ago.
[…]
Okay, I had a Jurrasic Park moment, but that’s pretty cool.
Speaking of dates… here’s a pre-prandial snack item.
Try cutting a medool date open, remove the pit, and stuff a little aged Manchego cheese into it. Pop it into the microwave for a 10+ seconds and then put some good salt on it. Some people wrap bacon around the date stuffed with Manchego, but that’s a longer process… and not great for Fridays. The salt helps in the absence of the bacon.
Or, Iberico instead of bacon.
Not all salt is the same, by the way. For something like this, I’d preferfleur de selthough gray will do.
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