I see that Fr Zed's blog is again touching on the question of Concelebration. I feel there is a risk that traditionalists who are laudably keen not to be corrupted by by modern fads and fantasies may fall into the error of despising concelebration. I don't want to deal with it again because I did around TEN posts on it last year, between October and December 2008. I attempted to expound, from the Tridentine liturgical books, what I see as the genuine Traditionalist Western teaching on this subject.
What a shame I can't induce interested Roman Catholics to read such posts. I see people are again disseminating the absurd notion that, when the Tridentine Pontifical required newly ordained priests to recite the Offertory and Eucharistic prayers with the bishop, it was just a matter of him 'showing them how to say Mass'. This is plain untrue. As demonstrated by many authorities including Pope Benedict XIV.
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was for nearly three decades at Lancing College; where he taught Latin and Greek language and literature, was Head of Theology, and Assistant Chaplain. He has served three curacies, been a Parish Priest, and Senior Research Fellow at Pusey House in Oxford. Since 2011, he has been in full communion with the See of S Peter. The opinions expressed on this Blog are not asserted as being those of the Magisterium of the Church, but as the writer's opinions as a private individual. Nevertheless, the writer strives, hopes, and prays that the views he expresses are conformable with and supportive of the Magisterium. In this blog, the letters PF stand for Pope Francis. On this blog, 'Argumentum ad hominem' refers solely to the Lockean definition, Pressing a man with the consequences of his own concessions'.
... once graced the high altar of the church of Sancta Maria in Ara Coeli on the Capitoline Hill.
Fr John Hunwicke
was for nearly three decades at Lancing College; where he taught Latin and Greek language and literature, was Head of Theology, and Assistant Chaplain. He has served three curacies, been a Parish Priest, and Senior Research Fellow at Pusey House in Oxford. Since 2011, he has been in full communion with the See of S Peter. The opinions expressed on this Blog are not asserted as being those of the Magisterium of the Church, but as the writer's opinions as a private individual. Nevertheless, the writer strives, hopes, and prays that the views he expresses are conformable with and supportive of the Magisterium. In this blog, the letters PF stand for Pope Francis. On this blog, 'Argumentum ad hominem' refers solely to the Lockean definition, Pressing a man with the consequences of his own concessions'.
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10 comments:
Concelebration is not the tradition of the Latin Rite. If has not been the tradition for at least a millennium. Those facts alone are enough to show that it should be prohibited as soon as possible.
Besides the use of Concelebration in monasteries means that many monk-priests almost never celebrate their own Mass. This damages their priestly identity and denies both the Church militant and the Church suffering the graces attached to those private Masses.
Dittos to what Christian said.
I feel that it would be more courteous if contributors who wish to dismiss point blank what I have said would only do so after they have read the very extensive posts on this topic that I wrote last year. And after they have explained to me exactly what facts I got wrong there. If they are too busy to read my attempts at careful elucidation of what the pre-Vatican II Pontificals prescribed, they ought also to be too busy to make comments.
Indeed I did read the articles in question and this in no way effects what I have just written. The only examples of concelebration that you offer are the imposition of hands at ordination and certain characteristics of the old blessing for the Charism on Maundy Thursday. These are clearly events that are very rare and special. Just because one COULD argue that the canon of the ordination Mass is concelebrated it does not mean that Eucharistic concelebration at any other Mass is not a break with the last thousand years or so of Latin liturgy. My point still stands.
Besides, your points about a priest concelebrating a Mass with others being just like saying a private Mass seems dubious at best. Physiologically it clearly does not re-enforce the nature of the priestly character upon the celebrant. Furthermore, the Mass is but one Mass. Even if the bishop has all his priests, say 50, around him it is still only one Mass. If those 50 were saying private Masses then there would be 50 Masses. Think of all the graces lost because of the radical decrease in the number of Masses said because of concelebration!
Dear Christian: I value your contributions to my humble blog, and I don't want this to become adversarial. I agree with much of what you say, particularly about the great desirability of each priest saying Mass separately each day. And I think the whole concelebration industry has got quite out of hand and is reaching the bonkers zone. But there are two points about which I think you should be frank. (1) The Church has said that each concelebrant can accept a stipend for his act of concelebration. This means that the Church regards the concelebrating action of each priest as if it werre a separate Mass. I know this seems oddish, because there is only one Mass, in one sense, going on, but it is what the Magisterium has decreed. (2){and this is the really important point} you still seem to want wriggle-room to deny that the concelebration of the neo-ordinati is Concelebration. You write 'COULD argue'. But Vatican II declared "Concelebration, by which the unity of the priesthood is appropriately manifested, has remained in use to this day in the Church both in the East and in the West". One of the most learned popes of the last centuries, Benedict XIV (1740-1758), wrote that the ordination concelebration was a true concelebration. This is not just a matter of the Magisterium of the post Vatican II period. I do not think you are a sedevacantist; surely you must accept the teaching of the Magisterium, from Benedict XIV to Benedict XVI, that this is concelebration,; not merely something which "could be argued" to be concelebration? Or you must say which bits of the Magisterium you select for your personal pic'n'mix. And I don't think you are a pic'n'mixer. Let's agree on (a) the Church being right about what it has said; and (b) the big need for a rethink of what actually goes on.
Hmmmm. Well I suppose that really gets into the issue of how authoritative the statement of Benedict XIV was. I could not comment so will have to bow to your superior knowledge on this one. That said, that still limits concelebration to but one liturgy in a lifetime for most priests.
Regarding the stipend I believe that you read far to far into the fact that each priest is allowed to receive a stipend for the Mass. Any Mass can have as many intentions as one may wish for; the only reason why priests have been limited by canon law to accepting one stipend per-Mass is to prevent profiteering. As such one stipend per-priest for a concelebrated Mass is only logical. It does not in any way imply that there is more than one Mass.
Splendid. And ... sorry ... could you give some sort of vague hint as to where, in your view, on the ladder of Magisterial pronouncements, the words of Vatican II which I quoted, come? A flawed Council; even an unnecessary Council; I COULD agree; but, according to the magisterium of five sovereign pontiffs, it was an ecumenical council. And Sacrosanctum Concilium was a decree signed willingly by Marcel Lefebvre, who never realised how it would be misused by the Bugninides. And, according to a friend of mine who was closely associated with that heroic witness to the Faith during the period concerned, Lefebvre, at the time, accepted and implemented the modifications of the Roman Rite which came out in the mid-sixties (the Ritus servandus in concelebratione Missae ... emerged in 1965).
Marcel Lefebvre may have been a very holy man but that does not make him infallible. That aside I would point to the fact that the order to introduce con celebration was hardly an infallible pronouncement requiring the assent of all the faithful. I say that I agree with the previous opposition to concelebration. That is not disloyalty to any sort of magesterium. It is a disagreement with an order; an order that does not apply to those who oppose it as it has always been clear that any priest who opposes concelebration may not be forced to take part.
PS: Never buy Baxter's 'Scotch broth' tinned soup. Having it now. Tis disgusting beyond all description. Sorry, thought it was my christian duty to spread that warning.
Religious obsequium to the Church's Magisterium is not only due to 'infallible' statements. The more solemn a statement is, the more certain one has to be that one has got things absolutely right before one refuses assent; and, even if one does reach that point, one should keep one's dissent private unless one has the very gravest reasons for publishing it. Also important is the principle of the Hermeneutic of Continuity, according to which one prefers that understanding of the Magisterium of centuries which discerns continuity and development, not innovation and rupture.
I think I have just awarded myself the Last Word on this topic. After all, it is my blog.
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