Posted on 02/28/2004 5:03:12 AM PST by NYer
A layman told of a priest who addressed his congregation before Mass started, saying, “How many people believe that what we’re going to do today will bring God out of Heaven?” There was a show of hands, and the priest replied, “Well, it’s not going to happen.”
“After that incident, people stopped toing to Masses that priest was scheduled to celebrate and when the parish stopped printing the times of the Masses he would celebrate, people called up because they didn’t want to go to his Masses. When the parish wouldn’t give out that information, people just stopped going to Mass,”, siad the layman.
“I told a Cardinal in Rome about this incident,” the layman continued, “and he just sat there with an expression of unbelievable horror on his face. “How can he say Mass?” the Cardinal asked. “I said, ‘It’s simple. His whole reason for being a priest is to destroy faith’.” The layman asked that his name be withheld, saying the “Bishop would destroy me>”
The use of invalid altar breads has been a problem in the Diocese of Albany since the Installation Mass of Bishop Hubbard in 1977; that Mass used invalid altar breads. That fact caused such an uproar in the diocese that the scandal even broke into the secular newspapers and was debated in letter to the editor for some time after.
The bread at the Installation Mass contained, in addition to wheat flour and water, honey and baking soda, as admitted by a now deceased staff member of the Diocese Office of Religious Education. Her defense in a secular newspaper of the recipe utilized left many believing that it was the “unofficial” reply of the diocese.
Two months after the Sacred Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship published Inaestimabile Donum (April 1980), which described unnecessary outdoor celebrations of the Eucharist as a serious abuse, Bishop Hubbard celebrated a Polka Mass on the Fonda Fair Grounds for Amsterdam’s Annual Polka Fest ‘80.
The noon mass at the fairgrounds was celebrated barely 500 feet from St. Cecilia’s Church, in the open sided shed of a picnic grove, with the congregation sitting at picnic tables.
There have been ecumenical services where Protestants and Catholics receive Communion, services which are advertised as “a valid mass for Catholics while retaining th emeaning of Holy Communion for participating Protestants.” There have been Masses concelebrated with protestant ministers who receive Communion with the priest.
“The radicals think they have a mandate to do whatever they want, “said one priest, “and you can’t tell me this isn’t allowed to destroy the Church.” In his view, Bishop Hubbard’s support for women priests stems from a drive to humiliate his priests.
The priest told of “an event held in the cathedral where the Bishop was in the sanctuary, completely surrounded by women who helped him ‘concelebrate Mass,’ and then distributed Communion. Packing the first four pews were diocesan priests, reduced to spectators.”
In 1976, the Diocese of Albany began an effort to bring altar girls into every parish. Fr. Richard Vosko, then director of the Diocesan Liturgy Center (now a priest that operates his own architecture firm), told the Times Union that, while altar girls were a problem in some areas of the US, “it’s not a real issue with us” in the Albany Diocese. In 1976, he also said that the American Bishops had petitiioned Rome to allow them to use altar girls.
In 1978, women were being trained as acolytes as a preliminary to Confirmation in the Albny Diocese. The liturgical norm that women may not serve at the altar was interpreted by Fr. Cotugno as meaning “women may not wash the hands of the priest.”
In 1980, Inaestimabile Donum stated that girls may not perform the roles of altar boys, and may not be candle bearers, cross bearers, incense bearers and the like.
In 1989, the Albany Diocese stated that the issue of altar girls is still being studied by the Vatican, but that parishes that employ altr girls have the Albany Dioicese’s blessing. Chancellor Fr. F explained: “The question of whether girls officially can be altar servers is still under study by the Vatican. And so the debate goes on. Yes you can, because the Vatican hasn’t said no, or no you can’t, because the Vatican hasn’t said yes. And it depends on which side of the question you want to come down on.”
In 1991, Chancellor Fr. P, attempting to deflect criticism that Bishop Hubbard wasn’t loyal to Rome on the specific issue of altar girls, replied that the local Bishop has the right to decide whether girls may be altar servers. “In his push for the ordination of women, the feminization of the liturgy was a primary goal,” a layman said, “and that’s why altar girls are so important.”
In May 1987 Capital Region magazine published an article “The Boy Bishop Comes of Age” by Jeremy Bloom, marking the 10th anniversary of the Bishop’s installation. One of the bishop’s favored priests was introduced and quoted by Bloom:
“Hogan, who has known Bishop Hubbard since their days together at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Dunwoodie on LI, articulates a theme with which Hubbard and most of the American Bishops would probably agree. ‘I’m very loyal and affectionate toward the Pope,’ he says. ‘I’m not terribly loyal to the Vatican State and its bureaucracy. That has very little to do with the dying and rising of Jesus, the Eucharist, and love; it has to do with power, and like all bureaucracies, it tends toward evil’.” That view, say catholics in Albany, epitomizes the chancery view of Roman liturgical directives.
About 50 Catholics attended the Mass held in the chapel, formerly the sacristy or cloak room. The altar used was once a pedestal for a statue in the cathedral and around it on 3 sides stood the people.
The priest wore no chasuble, but over his alb he wore a long red and green knit Christmas scarf.
The homily was given seated and its theme was that "it's not what we do that counts, but how we feel." The bread and wine were offered together; there was no lavabo or Orate, Frates. After the Sanctus, there was no approved Eucharistic Prayer and the words of Consecration were made up.
There was no hanc igitur, or epiklesis. the Host was broken during the words of institution; everyone sang the Per ipsum; the prayers after the Our Father were invented and bore no resemblance to the authorized prayers. During the Lamb of God, little baskets containing Hosts were passed through the assembly and each person who wanted to receive Communion took one Host. Before the Ecce Agnus Dei, the priest left the altar to collect the baskets and then people and priest self-communicated at the same time.
After consuming the Host, the people processed to the altar to sip from one of 4 glass goblets, while the priest played a cassette tape on a portable recorder.
The entire Mass, including the homily, took just under 20 minutes.
"In lots of churches in the diocese," said a layman who viewed this film, "this mass would seem conservative."
Canon 924 §1 The most holy Sacrifice of the Eucharist must be celebrated in bread, and in wine to which a small quantity of water is to be added. §2 The bread must be wheaten only, and recently made, so that there is no danger of corruption. §3 The wine must be natural, made from grapes of the vine, and not corrupt.
Canon 767 §1 "The most important form of preaching is the homily, which is part of the liturgy, and is reserved to a priest or deacon. In the course of the liturgical year, the mysteries of faith and the rules of Christian living are to be expounded in the homily from the sacred text."
Inaestimabile Donum #10. "The faithful, whether religious or lay, who are authorized as extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist can distribute Communion only when there is no priest, deacon or acolyte, when the priest is impeded by illness or advanced age, or when the number of the faithful going to Communion is so large as to make the celebration of Mass excessively long. [Cf. Sacred Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments, Instruction "Immensae caritatis," no. 1.] Accordingly, a reprehensible attitude is shown by those priests who, though present at the celebration, refrain from distributing Communion and leave this task to the laity."
I hope a lot of the faithful in Albany watched World Over Live last night and connect the panel's advice and observations to Bishop Hubbard.
Canon 929 In celebrating and administering the Eucharist, priests and deacons are to wear the sacred vestments prescribed by the rubrics.
GIRM #81: "In the sacristy the vestments for the priest and ministers are to be prepared according to the various forms of celebration: (a) for the priest: alb, stole, and chasuble; ..."
Canon 908 Catholic priests are forbidden to concelebrate the Eucharist with priests or ministers of Churches or ecclesial communities which are not in full communion with the catholic Church.
Canon 844 §1 "Catholic ministers may lawfully administer the sacraments only to catholic members of Christ's faithful, who equally may lawfully receive them only from catholic ministers, except as provided in §2, 3 and 4 of this canon and in can. 861 §2. (note: the latter covers Baptism)"
§2 "Whenever necessity requires or a genuine spiritual advantage commends it, and provided the danger of error or indifferentism is avoided, Christ's faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a catholic minister, may lawfully receive the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist and anointing of the sick from non-Catholic ministers in whose Churches these sacraments are valid. (note: Protestant ministers do not pass this test)"
An Albany Catholic from a rural part of the diocese reported that at a Midnight Mass in 1990, a small rural parish built to hold 700 had more than 1100 people attending, because that parish is staffed by an orthodox priest.
Total attendance at Christmas Day masses exceeded 7,000, in a town with less than 5,000 inhabitants, most of whom are Protestant.
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Thank you, AAABest, for posting the norms governing the mass!
I'd say that 81% of the victims being male teens is very telling.
Nearly everyone agreed that the clergy is no place for homosexual males.
After 27 years of "Hubbard doctrine", many catholics take for granted what is served up at Sunday Mass, as being orthodox. They would probably rise up in arms if another bishop should restore an authentic liturgy - it's that alien around here.
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