Yes ... strange but true.
Proclaiming the Scriptures in a non-vernacular language is, according to our Holy Father, "like laughing at the Word of God".
I find this a most interesting insult, especially since PF is himself, according to Wikipedia, a Jesuit; and their Founder S Ignatius will, as a priest, have read daily the Mass Readings in Latin.
The records are silent about how long, after Mass, he spent laughing. Or did he do his laughing immediately after the Gospel?
Does this connect up with the boast PF once made to Altar Servers, that he himself, as a boy server, used to make a mockery of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?
(It is a good thing that, some years ago now, after reading S John Henry Newman on the Suspense of the function of the Ecclesia docens, I concluded that we must now be in precisely just such a period of Suspense as our great Doctor there described. I cannot see how else one can fit PF into any sort of Catholic ecclesiology.)
I wonder how common it is for modern Jesuits to "laugh at the Word of God". How many times a day are they required to do it? Which language does their strange rule require them to do the laughing in? Is failure to laugh at God's Word a confessible sin according to Jesuit spiritual directors?
Is this Jesuit lex ridendi associated with the first millennium mosaic recently reproduced on New Liturgical Movement showing S Ephraim with the words Blessed are those who weep for they shall laugh? Is this verbum Domini claimed by Jesuits to mean that, at the Eschaton, everybody will be a Jesuit? When the Great Judgement is declared upon all Flesh, will any Jesuits present burst into laughter? Do Jesuits in Hell still regularly laugh, or does their rule cease to apply among the damned?
I think I am getting confused.
Perhaps in these interesting revelations we have the secret reason why Pope Clement XIV suppressed the order. I wonder if he laughed as he did so. Father Zed would have done.
Father Zed makes available mugs splendidly adorned with the likeness and Arms of Papa Ganganelli.
Hooray for Pope Clement! Hooray for Father Zed!
Monita Caii Valerii Catulli implentes clamemus omnes Ridete quidquid est domi cachinorum!
Give me an elderly Jesuit, and I will show you a silly Billy.
ReplyDeleteBlasphemy, because by "laughing at the Word of God" literally, His Holimess (cf. "Hagen lio : Make a mess") also metaphorically laughs at Jesus Himself as the Logos (Word of God)!
ReplyDeleteSaints Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Isaac Jogues and John de Brebeuf would laugh Pope Francis and his Jesuit General Mini-Me to scorn. Right off the streets of Rome.
ReplyDeleteI once attended a Novus Ordo Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which was all chanted in Latin, including the Scripture readings. PF will have to get Roche onto them prontissimo.
ReplyDeleteThere is more to Fr Hunwicke’s line from Ovid’s “Tristitia” than can be seen at first glance. I was struck by the analogy between his exile among the barbarous, warlike Getae and the forced “exile” of traditionalists who are surrounded by hostile forces and are made to feel like strangers in their own land. Ovid’s lament was that the boorish Getae fools laughed at his Latin words, made malicious comments about him to his face, and even taunted him for being an exile.
ReplyDeleteWho cannot see the supreme irony of the treatment of Latin-loving traditionalists today at the hands of those unRoman Romans in the Vatican?
Correction: I went off at a tangent in my enthusiasm to quote Ovid (which I find very pertinent to the matter in hand) instead of Catullus who was quoted by Fr Hunwicke. Both quotes are, of course, relevant. Whether it’s Catullus at Lake Garda or Ovid at the shores of the Danube, they speak equally, in my opinion, to our situation today.
ReplyDeleteIgnatius far from laughing wept during Mass. He defended the rich Catholic understanding of the Mass and all the Sacraments against Protestant cheapness.
ReplyDeleteCould this impish observation of Francis stem from some charismatic enthusiasm and the devout charismatic practice of "holy giggling"?
ReplyDeleteVery amusing, Cor, but I doubt if there is anything holy or giggling going on in the house of scoffers. After all, "domi cachinnorum" indicates loud and immoderate laughing, like the guffaws in those photos of Pope Francis which give a view of his bicuspids!
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be a fashion among Prelates for such horse-laughs e.g. Cardinal Dolan of New York. But let us remember the words of the Book of Proverbs 3:34: "Inlusores ipse deludet, et mansuetis dabit gratiam". Surely we can take that to mean that we traditionalists will have the last laugh!
Proclaiming the Scriptures in a non-vernacular language is, according to our Holy Father, "like laughing at the Word of God".
ReplyDeleteHow much of the mentality is he borrowing from his late friend, dead in a biking accident, buried as a Catholic Bishop and who would have buried him as an Anglican one, had he died first?
I take it Tony Palmer was not exactly the most High Church Anglo-Catholic and not even CSL level of traditionalism?