Friday, February 18, 2011

Sigh

Did you sign the petition yet? Some of these rumors seem pretty bad. I mean, I'm usually pretty apathetic to such initiatives. And in fact if it were merely a question of saying that parishioners don't have a right to demand the Old Rite in their parish, I wouldn't be surprised or upset.

I frankly thought it was ridiculous that people were interpreting Summorum Pontificum to mean that a "stable group" of as few as only 30 people (out of a parish of thousands, potentially) could demand an Old Mass to be said at their parish (especially when even bination is not ideal), at least if there were a reasonably accessible Mass in the area already.

But this time it sounds like a real threat to the progress that has been made in terms of traditional liturgy. It also makes you wonder, who's behind all this? Who in the Vatican cares enough to try to sabotage things and why? Just let people do what they want! Sure, the other Western rites and the sacrament of Holy Orders weren't mentioned specifically in the motu proprio, but why bother to limit them now??

(Please note: If you are brought to a donation page after signing the appeal, please just close that window. That donation does not go to the motu proprio initiative.)

At the very least, whoever is trying to undermine traditional liturgy strikes me as politically naive. Don't they know that Revolutions usually happen when people get their hopes and expectations up, only to be disappointed or have the carpet pulled out from under them?

5 comments:

Marco da Vinha said...

I'm still trying to swallow the rumours. IIRC, HH was cited on a number of occasions saying that he would like the use of the EF to be broadened. Isn't this going against that?

IF the rumours are true, theyre's going to be a very delicate situation on the Vatican's metaphorical hands. Either a revolution or schism, I'd say.

What's the point of limiting the application of SP? If there's no malice in it, is the SSPX's situation going to be regularized and they "take care" of the EF (as in, whoever wants EF will end up going to SSPX parishes)? I know I wouldn't be in favour of such a thing. But that's just my imagining scenarios.

I'm going to sign the petition anyway, but I'm very doubtful of the rumours.

Who would want to stop the traditional liturgy? And why? When SP came out, in Lisbon they thought they could placate those in favour of it with a Latin NO Mass. So it's not Latin they're afraid of, but of something else; of the very Mass itself? Why?

sortacatholic said...

Early signatory, #mid 700's.

I will refuse to attend a SSPX church for sure. They are blatantly anti-Semitic and socially oppressive. Heck, many in the SSPX don't want women to attend higher ed or even wear pants in public! I'm traditional, but also modern and just. The solution is not to dump traditional Catholicism into the hands of a virulent hate group.

I know more than a few diocesan priests that will continue to say the EF regardless of what happens. Some of these priests have virtually ceased to say the OF and will not go back. They will enter into recusancy if necessary. Time to carve out the priest holes! I would gladly offer my house in the States for low Masses (could probably fit 30 in the main hall).

Best case scenario: only the secular liturgy (MR 1962) will be permitted and diocesan bishops will lose the right to ordain according to the old ordinal. This is a loss for those religious communities (Dominicans, Franciscans, Norbertines, etc.) that have reverted to their pre-62 missals. I am not bothered by diocesan restrictions on the Tridentine ordinal.

Worst case scenario: We are kicked back to the terms of Ecclesia Dei or worse. In that case, I say we traddies go for the "manifest disobedience" option. The liberals got all sorts of liturgical "permissions" because of their manifest disobedience. I say that priests should proudly and unashamedly keep saying their Latin Masses in churches! Crowds will still continue to hear Mass.

I am convinced that most ordinaries are frightened of the old rites simply because they are nearly impossible to ideologically manipulate! The EF is regulated down to a priest's fine motor movements. Also, I strongly doubt that many bishops today can even read Latin. It's all about fear of a powerful rite infinitely more noble than any one person. It's this beautiful nobility and that keeps us yearning for this rite.

Marco da Vinha said...

Some pro-Summorum Pontificum people on the net have offered the following explanation for perhaps limiting ordinations according to the EF: that people might begin to consider that those ordained according to the older rite were different/better than those who weren't.

I for one wouldn't really want to have to go to the SSPX.

A Sinner said...

"This is a loss for those religious communities (Dominicans, Franciscans, Norbertines, etc.) that have reverted to their pre-62 missals."

I don't understand that as being what the rumors say. I think they say that individual priests in these orders will not have "blanket" permission to use these books (like secular priests do for the 1962 books under the terms of SP), but that they will have to ask their superior. That's hardly as bad.

sortacatholic said...

C'mon. A restriction of the major religious orders' traditional liturgies to "by permission only" will effectively kill off any traditional Catholicism in most religious communities. Many (perhaps most) religious superiors, priors, abbots, &c. won't let individual monks, priests, and friars celebrate even a private Mass according to their ancient particular use. The traditional religious will have to secede and reconstitute themselves under Ecclesia Dei, or fold into existing licit traditional religious orders.

Even priests of the post-Tridentine "modern" orders (post 16th -- 17th century) will not be able to revert back to the EF even though the unreformed Roman liturgy was their "particular liturgy" before the Council. The Marianists that teach at the high school from which I graduated would throw four-alarm panic attacks if a priest entered in a fiddleback and began to recite the judica me in front of the chapel altar. Nevermind that one graduate is now a FSSP priest and another is a very traditional secular priest. ;-) (Take that for all those years of burlap vestments and misshapen kindergarten pottery church plate!)