Perhaps a couple of years ago, in Western Ireland, I had the privilege to be in the company of a very great prelate just after he had offered a pontifical High Mass in the old rite.
Suddenly, quite out of the blue, he murmurred: "So beautiful, so beautiful. Why do they hate it so much?"
Afterwards, I started to recall the events which followed our entry into Full Communion with the See of S Peter. A determined effort was made to prevent my own admission to the presbyterate of the Latin Church. During those long, difficult, and extraordinarily painful months, I had the advice and support of some very good and holy men. I shall eternally be grateful to them. I remember all of the things that were said to me.
One of them said, and repeated it a number of of times, "John, you simply must realise how strongly these people feel about the 'Extraordinary Form'".
Another said he would explain to me why there was such prejudice against the old Mass. "It's because they associate it with a form of Catholicism which they think of as rigid, sin-obsessed, oppressive, and, frankly, frightening. They are afraid that, with the old Mass, the entire moral and cultural complex which they think they remember will return. And the thought terrifies them."
As the Bergoglians attack the Faith, it seems to me that the most insidious detail is their attempt to keep the Old Mass entirely out of normal parish life. But we need priests in parochial ministry who share the mind and methods of the great Fr Tim, once, so gloriously, of Blackfen. God forbid that the old Mass should be, or even appear to be, a precious ghetto for precious and exclusive clergy and for laity anxious to hide away from their fellow Catholics.
What is necessary is 'dual economy' parishes ... such as those often provided by the Oratories. An easy and gracious and unneurotic symbiosis ...
Joseph Ratzinger said in the 1990s when some English Catholic bishops were violently resisting a 'Corporate Solution' for Anglican Catholics: "What are they so afraid of?"
So ... To answer the question in my heading ... Fear. They hate the Old Rite because the Enemy has set fear in their hearts.
And, as C S Lewis once put it, our Foes are "those who have no joy."
Fear is his weapon of choice.
24 comments:
This morning I read an article linked from Life Site News, which convincingly claimed that it's all to do with Lumen Gentium switching from an 'is' to a 'subsists in'.
I think this is true. And I ask myself what is the driving fear of the men and women hostile to the old rite?
My own sense is that the bedrock hostility derives from a rejection of the actual words of the ancient prayers themselves, and the theology that the prayers confess, and this rejection reveals itself when observing what prayers are literally excised or by implementation utterly shunned in the manufactured “New Order of the [non] Roman Rite (hat tip to Laszlo Dobszay of Hungary for proving the “Non-Roman” identity in the so-called NO, or as he calls it, the “Bugnini Rite”).
As examples of what is excised or shunned, I submit, in order, the “mingling prayer” and “The Roman Canon.”
As to the mingling prayer, in English (roughly here), the old vs the new reveals what is, I sense, rejected, as indicated by the text in upper case: O GOD, WHO IN CREATING MAN DID MOST WONDROUSLY EXALT HIS NATURE, AND YET MORE WONDROUSLY DID RESTORE IT ANEW, GRANT THAT by the mystery [SIGNIFIED BY] the mingling of this water and wine, we may come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity….”
Thus, in the mingling prayer, the recollection of the atonement, and what Jesus’ atonement accomplished.
And as to the Roman Canon, so many ancient words ignored, and too much to do justice to, but one example suffices, which is the connection of Jesus’s sacrifice to the primordial sacrifices of Abel, Abraham, and Melchizedek, the pre-Levitical High Priest.
There is no doubt on my part that these prayers and beliefs are rejected, as Msgr. Bugnini himself confessed that Catholic fsith content needed to be removed from the liturgy and prayers of the Church.
Putting it all together, as Fr. Robert Imbelli has observed in his essay “No Decapitated Body,” published in I believe November 2021 in the journal Nova et Vetera, what he (reluctantly) admits to be a widespread and not unintentional apostasy amounts to the contemporary pathology of the clerical cult to replace Christ as the Head of the Church, and substitute…pathetically…themselves, the spiritually impoverished, apostate priests, Bishops, Cardinals, etc, all the way up the ladder.
What a singularly lucid entry, Father: Yes, it is fear that motivates Modernist (or pseudo-conservative even) hatred of the Mass of our Catholic ancestors. Fear of the return of a religion they no longer possess or profess; fear of the supernatural power of beauty and reverence; fear of the moral exigencies of the True Faith; and, above all, fear of not being favored or "spared" by the relentless, ruthless secularist/Marxist masters that now arrogantly rule over most of what used to be Christendom. In short, cowardice. To be sure, soul-corroding fear is the engine in the hatred of tradition---no wonder these melancholy people are usually so sad, so angry, and so ruthlessly intolerant in their determination against the good, the true, and the beautiful.
Satan hates the Real Mass.
Satan rules the world.
The worldly hate the Real Mass.
Father: I live in the Diocese of Arlington, where 1/3rd of our Parishes had integrated the old Mass. It was, perhaps, one of the best possible examples of implementation of Summorum Pontificum. Recently, our Bishop exiled us to 8 gymnasiums and told the remaining 5 parishes they had 2 years to shut down their remaining Masses. So, from 21 Parishes to 8 gymns and 5 parishes.
The problem is it seems to have mad it more attractive to some. The bishop asserted only 2.5% of the population attended the old rite. I am not sure that is quite accurate. I think it's more like 5%.
They can do what they want, but they will fail. The collapse nationwide in the US is so clear that only a blind, deaf and dumb man could miss it.
Whereas in the real world of ordinary parish life there is none so rigid as the baby-boomer 'progressive' who is still living in 1972.
Richard's suggestion above that the root of all the trouble was the replacement of "est" with "subsistit in" in Lumen Gentium 8 is is a bit wide of the mark. If you read Boethius' Contra Eutychen, the meaning of "subsistit" becomes very clear. While it is true that the phrase "subsistit in" is a neologism, the meaning of it in Latin is made very clear in Becker's article on Sebastiaan Tromp's authorship of the phrase, and in Christopher Malloy's article in The Thomist.
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/examination-of-subsistit-in-a-profound-theological-perspective-10183
https://www.academia.edu/23565563/_Subsistit_in_Non_exclusive_Identity_or_Full_Identity
When I cannot get to the nearby Latin Mass, I go to my former parish near home. Three parishes have been merged into one with three sites. Masses were cut but not the Folk Mass, or the Contemporary Choir. Yesterday I was treated to an emotional bout of singing after Holy Communion. My sister was with me. For a short time she had left the Church and attended a mega Bible Chapel. She recognized the bout as a song called Ocean, which was an emotional ramble, very popular in Contemporary Christian music and radio, and an excuse for the vocalist to show us her 'range.' I kept thinking (I'm 55) When will these people die off? The folk musicians were in their 70s. The vocalist in her early 30s. I hated the Folk Masses as a boy in the mid 1970s. Never heard a Latin Mass until I was 21. I recognized the beauty at once. I can't find beauty in Folk, Contemporary or much else. They're like vampires, they will not die. They own the Holy Spirit and are possessed by the spirit of VII. Thank you for permitting my rambling.
The Anglican Church tried to be everything to everybody. It is now nothing to nobody.
The Holy Roman Catholic Church has here a model which it should strongly avoid but looks loke they won`t...
Dear Eamonn. IF subsists means the same as is, then why the change?
When it is not necesaary to change is necessary not to change.
https://onepeterfive.com/subsistit-church-partial-marriage/
Subsists in is a novelty that us Catholics were warned (by St Vincent of Lerins) to shun.
I routinely read Dom Gueranger using subsists but he would not have accepted this novelly for Jesus Christ established His One True Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church. His Church does not subsist in the Catholic Church it IS the Catholic Church.
This is jutst another example of how Ecumenism is the universal solvent of Tradition.
Christopher, you write "hat tip to Laszlo Dobszay of Hungary for proving the “Non-Roman” identity in the so-called NO, or as he calls it, the “Bugnini Rite”." How can this by put forth as having any basis in reality when it was promulgated and defended by the entire Roman magisterium, including and most ardently defended by Pope St. Paul VI himself? NOTHING Bugnini and Co. ever did was not authorized and promulgated by the Supreme Legislator, and put into practice by the vast, vast majority of Latin rite bishops in every diocese in each and every country.
Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque:
Does Satan equally hate the Divine Liturgies/Qorbanas offered in the Eastern Rites of the Church?
@ ccc: I hope that many priests in the Diocese of Arlington (where I lived until recently) will keep on saying the TLM, and do so in such a way that they don't close off the faithful. For example, they can say a private mass (in the parish church) and (a) leave the doors unlocked, and (b) just "happen to" mention that they say a private mass "in the evening" like, you know, 7:00 or so. I hope this sort of thing happens so much that the bishop simply cannot put a stop to it.
Speaking of Bishop Burbidge: I had the impression (from before this summer) that he might have been a decent bishop. But his public letter on TC is so horrific that I am unable to give him any benefit of the doubt. He managed to be even more mean-spirited than PF was in TC, (and that's saying something) and he (clearly) did it without any need even if he wanted to be seen to comply. The priests and the faithful laity need to start now to lay in plans and mental grit for the (probable) future of ignoring or even defying him when possible.
I think what you say about the Oratorians is so true. They are as enthusiastic about the Ordinary Form as they are about the Extraordinary Form. They never give the impression that the Modern Roman Rite is ‘second-best’.
Dear Dave P. Yes, Satan hates everything Holy.
As for changes in doctrine (contra Vatican 1) re Subsists ...
Italian philosopher, Paolo Pasqualucci, has produced a list of twenty six departures from Catholic principle to be found in the documents of the Second Vatican Council. He refers to them as ‘points of rupture’. The list, reproduced on the website One Peter Five, is extracted from the Introduction to his book, Unam Sanctam (Chieti, 2013) and may be found at https://onepeterfive.com/the-points-of-rupture-of-the-second-vatican-council-with-the-tradition-of-the-church-a-synopsis/
3. The attribution of the same faith in Christ to all Christians, including those “separated” from the Catholic Church, improperly equates the Catholic faith with the faith of schismatics and heretics. One notes, in particular, that the Decree Unitatis Redintegratio, On Ecumenism, even considers “separated Churches and Communities,” notwithstanding their “deficiencies”, to be true and proper “means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Church” (UR 3.4).
6. The definition of the Church given by LG 8.2 and later specified in LG 15, UR 3 and UR 15.1, affirms that the Church of Christ “subsists” in the Catholic Church and also that “many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity”. This is an entirely new definition, which seems to extend the concept of the Church of Christ to also include all the heretics and schismatics, thus exposing itself to the accusation of heresy in the formal sense, because it implies the negation of the dogma of the unicity of the Roman Apostolic Catholic Church (the one and only true Church of Christ) for salvation.
To Stephen, who posted on 3 October taking issue with my comment:
You asked "How can this [i.e., Laszlo Dobszay calling the NO Mass the "Bugnini Rite"] be put forth as having any basis in reality when it was promulgated and defended by the entire Roman magisterium, including and most ardently defended by Pope St. Paul VI himself? NOTHING Bugnini and Co. ever did was not authorized and promulgated by the Supreme Legislator, and put into practice by the vast, vast majority of Latin rite bishops in every diocese in each and every country."
Dobszay made his observation in his book "The Bugnini Liturgy and the Reform of the Reform."
Having read his book, I am sure he would reply that you are correct to say that the "Bugnini liturgy" was defended by Pope Paul VI and "the vast majority of Latin Rite Bishops" etc.
Where Dobszay's view (which I share) departs from your view is that your argument is based only what Dobszay points out is "juridical" action by the pontiff etc. In other words, your argument is "the pope et al did this, so that is sufficient" (i.e., to make "the Bugnini Liturgy" a Roman Rite.) Dobszay's view is that this is a minimum requirement, and subordinate to other priorities, which Pope Paul VI and Msgr. Bugnini disregarded. And in that sense, I suppose that Dobszay does not share your view that the Pope has "supreme authority" to do whatever he pleases, but that his authority is limited by higher principles, like preserving the central traditions handed down "by our ancestors in the faith."
Dobszay asserted that the primary principle of the Church's liturgy is preserving its cultic identity, or what some might call its "liturgical DNA." Dobszay wrote that the NO liturgy ("The New Order of the Roman Rite") fails this top priority test, and can only be called "Roman" in the mere (and insufficient) juridical sense, and for this reason, Dobszay dubs the NO as "the Bugnini Liturgy."
The problems with the intentions and deceptions and ignorance of Msgr. Bugnini et al are documented by, among others, Fr. Louis Bouyer (who worked on the Bugnini liturgy committee) in his memoirs, where he describes Msgr. Bugnini as "a man as bereft of culture as he was of basic honesty." Among the problems noted is that the "final draft" of NO Mass presented by Bugnini did not have the minimum essential Catholic theological/sacramental content to win approval by the Pontiff and his circle, and that Fr. Bouyer and and his colleague Fr. Botte were required to take the draft NO text and insert Catholic content, and they were given one day to do the job, and they did it in sitting at a cafe table in Rome.
So yes, Dobszay agrees that Pope Paul VI is responsible, as are "the vast majority of bishops," for doing what Adam DeVille (an eastern rite Catholic) calls "the disaster" of the NO liturgical action.
To ChrisB, yes that is Dobszay's analysis, much of it correct, but why did it happen?
As soon as Vatican II said some measure of vernacular might be permitted a groundswell of loathing of Latin was revealed. Paul VI feared schism, notably in the Low countries and Frisia, where dozens of amateur compositions of alternative Canons of the Mass circulated, many published. Loathing of Latin is also suggested in the USA by actions such as that of Cdl. Shehan of Baltimore banning any use of Latin at Mass in 1967 as soon as a complete translation was authorised.
So we need to look back to see the gross inadequacy of the education of clergy and laity in either liturgy or biblical studies. As someone said to Bouyer "it is easy to see that you are a convert, you are interested in liturgy and in the Bible". Whether the Church could have stayed in stasis, I doubt. Ratzinger warned at the time that much of the Church was an empty shell.
It was a grave mistake to think that people could move from railway tracks to driving free without an inculcation of rules like "stop at the red light", "keep left" (or right, whichever, but you have to have agreement)
There is also the failure, before Pius X, to address two key pastoral concerns of the Council of Trent. Neither appears explicitly in the 1570 Missal.
Trent Session XXII chapter 8 on the use of the Mass of the Catechumens to instruct people.
Trent Session XXII chapter 6 on the desirability (but not necessity) of general congregational communion at every Mass.
Both major shifts in the appreciation of the communal aspect of Mass, away from the Curial Officials private Mass used as the basis for the 1570 rubrics.
Holding contradictory concepts without reconciling them is a time-tested survival technique; yet the contradictions must be pointed out. For Dobszay or anybody to posit that he is the adjudicator of what does or not does not pass muster for a Pope is to replace the Pope is his mind with himself - what is in effect protestantism. The western concept of authority and the power to adjudicate invested strictly in the Magisterium with the Pope as Supreme Legislator of all things liturgical and related to faith (the "pontifex Maximus" = the great bridge between the visible and invisible worlds, an old roman office once held by Julius Caesar), and formerly declared as a requirement of faith to be in communion with the Pope in Pastor Aeternus, allows for no other power to declare what is or is not subordinate, or a minimum requirement, or that any higher principles exist. They do not. Note Pope Paul VI's clarification on these points in his communications with Arch. Lefebrve, here for example. https://catholicism.io/2021/07/15/pope-paul-vis-letter-to-archbishop-marcel-lefebvre/
Take on the Popes all you want. But are you in communion with the Bishop of Rome when you become the final arbiter and ask the Pope to submit to your authority, or pick and choose in the mode of what has been called "cafeteria Catholicism"?
To E sapelion -
I agree that you raise very pertinent points, snd very much agree with the analogy about “rails versus driving free.”
I think your observations are in line with what Msgr. Gamber and also Joseph Ratzinger point out. A memorable Gamber line from his book on the matter is that the Mass had become “ossified.” A continuous problem to be sure. I appreciate your insights.
Stephen -
While I understand the assertion you are making, it is not a persuasive argument because it does not address the issue raised by so many careful observers over the ages, and wrestled with at Vatican I, including at that moment for two instances John H. Newman and Lord Acton, who observed, as held by the 1st Vatican Council, that the Pontiff’s powers are limited, and he is not superior to scripture and tradition.
I believe that your position would be correct when Pontiffs are acting within the limits of their authority.
I suppose your position is that of Cardinal Manning, or to bring things up-to-date, Archbishop Scicluna.
My point of view is that of Cardinal Newman et al, and not Manning.
I believe where the logic of the Manning concept (your own?) fails is when Pontiffs and Bishops subordinate and reject scripture and tradition, as for instance, Cardinal Kasper is known to have done (wrt scripture and tradition), and Pope Paul VI and Msgr. Bugnini did with tradition.
So the standard set is not a person such as Dobszay or Newman or Ratzinger or Gamber asserting themselves against papal authority; quite the contrary, they are simply declaring what the Church had declared for millennia: that the standard is not a single man called the Pontiff, the standard is the subordination of all members of the Body of Christ to scripture and tradition. All members include the Pontiffs, as they are stewards and thus have no power to exceed their limits. And Pontiffs can and do commit errors, snd these can and ought to be pointed out by any member, including laymen, as the 2nd Vatican Council asserts.
I believe the problem is a lot simpler than we dare to admit. Catholicism and Vat2ism are two different religions that uneasily co-exist in the same juridical space. Traditional Catholicism (i.e. the religion of our forefathers, saints, and martyrs) is growing exponentially (witness the 20,000 young trads walking the Chartres pilgrimage this year. The Vat2ist religion, on the other hand, is shrinking before our eyes. I'm reliably informed that only about 55% of Vat2ists returned to Mass after the lockdown. This means that scores of Vat2ist parishes will be closed over the next 5 years. My traditional parish, on the other hand, which ignored the lockdown, doubled its congregation. Is it any surprise that the elderly hippies in Rome are terrified of us? Check out this short video: https://youtu.be/rqowXajfXF0.
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