The comments on the tweet are scathing. Go here to read them. The Pope has only a few ideas that he constantly repeats among which are: wars are caused by arms merchants, anything he dislikes in religion is rigid, mass illegal immigration from Muslim countries is good, the traditional Mass is an abomination, conservatives of all stripes are the minions of Satan, Catholicism began with Vatican II, etc. That all of this has bupkis to do with Catholicism is obvious. What is not obvious is why the Conclave of 2013 saddled the Church with this man, and why Catholics owe any obedience to a man who has zero interest in performing the main roles of a Pope: preaching the teaching of the Church and defending that teaching. Some Catholics act as if obedience to the Pope is the core teaching of Catholicism. That has never been the case and to require obedience to a Pope who seems to have a deep hatred for traditional Catholicism and traditional Catholics, is to insult the intelligence and loyalty of every faithful Catholic.
As I recall, a lot of the liturgical wreckovations pushed on us after Vatican II were done because they supposedly brought the liturgy closer to the way it was practiced in the early days of the Church (by and large, they didn’t).
If the liturgical reforms of Vatican II are, as Gaudium et Spes says, based in a return to the sources, traditions and symbols of the earliest years of the Church — then is Francis repudiating the ressourcement and aggiornamento so beloved by the Council?
Of course not. Having respect for the work of our forbearers is only bad when people Francis doesn’t like are doing it.
Don’t much care for the Novus Ordo, but there is nothing preventing local parish priests from offering a reverent Mass even with the missal as is. They.Just.Do.Not.Feel.Like.It.
I’ve been fortunate to be a parishioner at two parishes in my life that held to tradition as much as the bishops allowed the priests that freedom in the Novus Ordo. Masses are and were celebrated with reverence. My only beef is being made to listen and sing sappy songs. I don’t want to sing to the mountains or the sea. The songs sung are not liturgical in nature. They are merely regurgitated pop/rock/folk themed melodies. Adding religious lyrics do not make them liturgical. If Novus Ordo is to be the soup du jour then I am fortunate to have it celebrated with reverence in my parish.
My parish offers two Traditional Latin Masses on Sundays and four Novus Ordo Masses. (Francis has forbidden such sharing in a parish but so far our bishop, bless him, has ignored that part of Traditiones Custodes).
While I prefer the older rite, I’ve often helped out at the Novus Ordo Mass, especially in summer when it’s harder to get lectors and servers at those early Masses.
One Sunday it happened that every priest in our parish was either sick or out of town, and a priest I’d never met was brought in to celebrate the 8am Novus Ordo. I was in the sacristy getting things ready when Father asked me if we usually process from the
vestibule or simply enter the sanctuary from the sacristy. I told him we usually process from the vestibule and then added that we only ever enter from the sacristy ‘for the traditional Latin Mass.’
The man was suddenly unhinged. “Oh GREAT! That’s just what we need! The ‘traditional Latin Mass’!”
he practically shouted.
I was shocked speechless by his sudden undisguised hostility and contempt.
And I wasn’t the only one— that priest had no idea that one of his altar boys, one lector (myself), and the sacristan that day were all Latin Mass regulars helping out at that Novus Ordo.
We all exchanged looks but said nothing. I recall later thinking that priest’s homily for that Mass was actually rather good, but I suspect word of his outburst got back to our regular priests because I’ve never seen him there since.
I don’t understand the contempt both Francis and that tactless priest have for folks like myself who prefer the older rite. As far as I can tell, there’s little interest in understanding and ‘accompaniment’, and a great deal of suspicion, hostility and contempt for us. They don’t know us, and they don’t seem to want to.
Clinton-I also have wondered at the type of hostility you described, which seems endemic among many of today’s clergy, although in my experience such attitudes are rare among younger priests, say those under about 40 years of age. My best guess is that the anti-traditionalists have been indoctrinated to despise everything that went before Vatican II by ultra-Modernists who control many seminaries in the West. As I’m sure you know, Modernism has at its core a subjective understanding of all the teachings of the Faith that makes everything subject to change, and it ultimately leads to exactly what we are seeing now in Germany and, sadly, the Holy See itself. I daresay that the Lavender crowd, which sees Modernism as their ticket to do what they please and call it holy, is the most vociferous in condemnation of traditional Catholicism. I would be happy to be proven wrong.
My only beef is being made to listen and sing sappy songs. I don’t want to sing to the mountains or the sea. The songs sung are not liturgical in nature.
Some years ago, the Diocese of Rochester commissioned a poll of parishioners about musical selections. The results: 24% of the respondents preferred strictly traditional music; 18% preferred strictly modern; 29% preferred a mix; the remainder disliked music or had no preference. In the Diocese of Syracuse next door, you have your choice of no music or a service where 85% of the selections are modern. Of the parishes with which I was personally familiar, only one had a program which favored traditional music. That particular parish was located in Chenango County, NY as far away from the main population centers of the diocese as you could get.
How this worked in practice in one small town parish was explained to me. Essentially, the pastor and parish council treated the music director as if she owned her job. They recruited a local music professor to assist in improving the program, and he ended up giving up in frustration. The pews were all equipped with Oregon Catholic Press material and she played Hallmark Channel pap on an upright piano. And no one sang a word of it. The pianist had recruited no choir.
Frank, those Catholics who prefer the old rite are being ‘othered’ by Francis— and I think that might be why the Vatican has insisted that under Traditiones Custodes parishes like my own, where both forms are offered, must cease sharing. As I understand it, TC declares that TLMs can’t be offered on the regular in a parish. Instead, TLM communities have to find a gymnasium, auditorium, or school cafeteria for their Masses.
If a diocese were to enforce TC’s segregation, and TLMs were universally banished from every parish, it would become much easier for bigots like Francis to sell their stereotype of TLM-goers.
In my parish, no matter what Mass folks go to, we’re all supporting the same parish and parochial school, volunteering for the same charities, attending the same KofC meetings, etc. We know each other. And because we know each other, it’s harder for Francis and his crew to peddle their caricature of TLM-goers as barely Christian.
The Anglican Ordinariate usage can be the salvation of our liturgy, as I’ve written before. It is reverent (from the Book of Common Prayer), the language is not contaminated by concessions to inclusivity (lots of Thees and Thous), and the music is generally traditional, the best of the English Hymnal. As a priest I knew remarked 20 years ago about the Anglicans and Episcopalians, “Great liturgy, awful doctrine. A map of where Anglican Ordinariate Usage parishes in the US and Canada can be found is here:
https://ordinariate.net/parishfinder
I assume a web search would get the same for Australia and the UK.
I read this on Second Exodus
When we cross a bridge, especially the bridge from earth to heaven, we want it to be rigid, not wobbly.
I’m happy to be called rigid, a man who stands his ground and fights in defense of what he believes for his whole life.
Jesus loves men and women who fight with all their heart and soul and strength and mind Deut 6:5 Mt 22:37.
Jesus wants us to go farther Mt 5:22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 41, 44, 48 all the way to radical transformation.
He does not admit lukewarm souls into heaven Rev 3:16.
Does he even know what the word “repent” means?!?
Nothing personal, but I find it amazing how many people self-righteously attack our Holy Father.
Why do these people believe their vision for the Church is superior to that of the Vicar of Christ?
I suspect it may have something to do with their fears.
IMHO, faith drives out fear.
If I do not understand Francis’s words and teachings, I blame my own lack of knowledge and understanding. I know of no one other than Jesus who fully understands the human condition.
The Tridentine Rite was not the perfection of the Lord’s Supper.
An important motivation for V2, was a growing awareness and understanding among the Successors to the Apostles that rigidity of doctrine and opposition to adaptation to changing circumstances was not in the best interests of the faithful or to evangelization.
I do not believe the fruits of V2 have been fully realized yet. More change can be expected. Returning to rigid structures developed hundreds of years ago for Europeans by Europeans is not in the Spirit of V2.
“IMHO, faith drives out fear.”
John 4:18
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”
“Returning to rigid structures developed hundreds of years ago for Europeans by Europeans is not in the Spirit of V2.”
Eddie, as a former Protestant pastor, I’m taken by the growing feeling I’m getting from Catholics in the era of Pope Francis that somehow the Church was going fine until those Europeans got hold of it. Now, thankfully, we’re fixing that problem and getting it on track where it needs to be. That’s actually a very Protestant take on Church history. In fact just about every Protestant denomination understands Church history that way: the Church was fine, then the captivity, but now we’re here to set it right. As if somehow it was never God’s will for the Church to be in Europe, so we can assume what came out of the Church during that time is up for grabs.
I do not believe the fruits of V2 have been fully realized yet.
The fruits of V2 are collapsing vocations, scheming homosexuals in the hierarchy, the evaporation of Catholic education at all levels, unused confessionals, liturgical practice which runs the gamut from banal to scandalous, a near absence of catechesis, the disappearance of mundane piety, and empty pews.
Yeah, but to see these things you have to be living in the real world, which is the last place the Councilolaters and Papalolaters want to visit.
Eddie, if this Pope were the least interested in our understanding of his words and teachings, he’d have responded to the famous Dubia by now.
“Why do these people believe their vision for the Church is superior to that of the Vicar of Christ?” You’re clearly not being purposefully ironic in your question, based on your other comments, but man, ironic you are, noting that Francis himself has dispensed with the “Vicar of Christ” appellation.
In a nutshell, it’s not due to his persistent injury to “my” vision of the Church that I have disdain for Bergoglio it is rather due to Francis’ persistent attacks upon formal Church teaching, which he demonstrably holds in contempt of the highest order. Now do you get it?
There were some good reasons why a number of prominent Cardinals, as well as theologians, raised serious questions about the decision of the First Vatican Council to issue a dogmatic statement on Papal infallibility. The primary argument, as I understand it from reading various accounts, was not against its substance, but rather that it would be gravely misunderstood, and thus would cause much confusion and conflict. The comment above by Eddie and the ongoing stream of Modernist swamp gas issuing from sources such as “Where Peter Is” and the National [c]atholic Reporter are perfect examples of why these concerns were valid, in my opinion. The pope is a guardian, not an oracle. It would behoove Francis and his sycophants to learn this principle.