Posted on 09/17/2007 6:32:17 AM PDT by maryz
This is the most unbelievable thing I have seen! This Bishop is in open defiance of the Pope, Summorum Pontificum, and blatantly ridicules the Extraordinary form! HT to Amy Welborn
Caserta bishop prohibits traditional Mass - Parish priest obeys but says he disagrees
By Angelo Agrippa
Corriere del MezzogiornoNAPLES - He is known as the bishop of tolerance. Of immigrants. Of deprived persons. He has opened diocesan structures for Muslims to say their Friday prayers, and Ukrainian/Moldavian Orthodox to use for their worship.
But now he has prohibited the celebration of the 1962 Mass restored as of September 14 by Benedict XVI's Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.
With a telephone call, Mons. Raffaele Nogaro ordered the rector of the Shrine of Sant'Anna in Caserta, Don Giovanni Battista Gionti, to stop the Mass he was planning to celebrate at 8 p.m. today.
"This case has nothing to do with tolerance," Nogaro said later.
"The Mass in Latin is a distortion of religious fact. Not even university professors who teach Latin pray in Latin. It is not an appropriate instrument for establishing a true relationship with God. To help people to pray is an honorable effort. That is what I try to do in allowing the Tent of Abraham to be used by Muslims and the chapel next to the Cathedral, to be used by the Orthodox.
"But to assail the faithful with sacred images, theatrical choreography and esthetic embellishments does the opposite. The faithful should be offered something valid and educational, not an occasion for disorientation. In short, murmuring prayers in Latin is good for nothing."
Strong words. A clear dissociation from Pope Benedict XVI's decree regarding the traditional Mass.
"The authority for the theological, liturgical and moral correctness of a diocese is the bishop," Nogaro continued, "even if the Pope has decreed an opening in favor of other rites. I am the only bishop in Campania who has asserted this so far to control the application of the Papal decree.
"Besides, the request of 30-40 persons is not sufficient in order for the traditional Mass to be celebrated. The parish priest is obliged to report it to his bishop. And I was never informed."
In his sacristy, Don Gionti is surrounded by many of those who had requested him for the traditional Mass, and is visibly disconcerted: "I will obey the bishop," he said, "even if this loses us the occasion for a liturgical experience that is important for our community, many of whom requested this. I considered it an experiment, certainly not a replacement for the post-Conciliar Mass.
"I think a priest should respond to a request by his congregation. But the bishop has ordered me to suspend the scheduled Mass, telling me that this would create a dangerous precedent. Though I still do not understand what danger he means."
In short, the Caserta case is everything but "Nulla veritas sine traditione" (Nothing is true outside tradition) as the followers of St. Pius V love to quote.
Fr. Louis Demornex, who studied at the Collegio Russium of Rome and has been the traditionalist parish priest of the Aulpi-Corigliani district in Sessa Auruna near Casertano, commented: "The Tridentine rite is not 'democratic' but for more than a millennium, it was the backbone of the Church. By destroying a traditional valid form of teh mass, one is tearing down the Church itself. The Pope knows this and that is why he issued this decree."
Nogaro, while protesting that he did not wish to be involved in any controversy, said further: "(Celebrating the traditional Mass) is like watching a statue passing in procession and simply admiring its artistic beauty. One cannot say that this is an act of faith or an occasion to inspire spirituality. This is what happens if we communicate in a language which no one knows at all, no one uses anymore, no one understands. The practice has nothing to do with the faith and someone must speak out on what the common thinking is about this."
Anyone want to take bets on whether satanic worship would elicit a similar response from the Bishop?
Sounds like what’s happening, covertly, in the Archdiocese of Denver.
“He is known as the bishop of tolerance. Of immigrants. Of deprived persons. He has opened diocesan structures for Muslims to say their Friday prayers, and Ukrainian/Moldavian Orthodox to use for their worship.”
This tells you all you need to know.
Compare with this from Fr. Z's sermon in England on motu proprio day!
The Latin language, for example, or the position of the priest in relation to the altar, or the silence, especially the silent Canon, leaves them confused. And so these elements are thought to be defects, defects which liturgical experts couldn’t wait to correct.But we know that these characteristics which so challenge 21st century man, are actually advantages. They are precisely what we need to train the soul for an encounter with mystery. They purify us of our over-attachment to the immediate, to the easily and instantly comprehensible. The soul grows in faith, hope and charity only in contact with a reality so far beyond itself, so transcendent, that it cannot be grasped or controlled.
Rorate Caeli has a post about this bishop. The comments there are quite forthright as well.
He's got 15 more months to make mischief before he's replaced.
The Pope will likely allow him to bray until then.
True, but if Don Gionti appeals to the Ecclesia Dei Commission, he has an open and shut case. OTOH, with all of the press this is getting, he may not even have to appeal it. Bp. Nogaro may receive communication from Rome...
That would come as news to St. Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio), St. John Vianney, St. Pius X, St. Pius V, St. Maximilian Kolbe and a host of other saintly priests not to mention all the saintly men and women canonized by the Church who used this rite.
Before a demon leaves a possessed man it throws him into convulsions and screams for all it's worth, knowing that the fight has been lost. The bishop's words are the final convulsions and screams of a demon that knows that it has been defeated.
The Pope probably won’t replace him, but if he just ignores this and lets the bishop get away with it, it sets a terrible precedent and this bishop will be only the first of many to do this.
Nogaro’s sure not subtle about how much he hates the old mass, is he? They don’t even try to disguise their hatred anymore.
Is Denver bad? I thought they were allowing for training and, while Chaput didn’t really like it, he wasn’t really opposing it (unlike our bishop here in St. Augustine, Florida).
There are a good number of cranks with poor social skills in the traditionalist movement.
A year ago, a parishioner walked out during the homily of my local Tridentine rite Mass. The local ordinary had asked parishes to give a few moments of the homily time to a missionary priest serving in India to drum up funds for his mission. During his remarks he made favorable comments about the Salvation Army's missionary effort (clearly he was trying to stir up Catholics to contribute so as not to be outdone by the SA).
This parishioner stalked out mid-homily. The next Sunday he was outside of the church and tried to dissuade me from attending Mass there.
He told me that it was no longer a Catholic church because of the missionary's remarks. I told him he was being a bit hasty and that the remarks had been made not by our pastor by a missionary who may not have been sensitive to American traditionalists' way of looking at the world.
He told me that he had met with our pastor and our pastor had informed him that the missionary was there at the request of the bishop and was doing good work and what he had said was no big deal. As a result, the angry parishioner had written a blistering letter to the bishop and chewed out our pastor. He informed me that our pastor was now "a heretic" and was "headed to Hell" and that he would bring me with him if I went to Mass at my parish anymore.
I spoke to my pastor and he said he regretted this guy felt that way, and that he was most concerned that the bishop would reconsider our parish's indult if he kept receiving hate mail like that - that this guy was not only hurting himself but might hurt the whole parish.
Catholic ping!
And that's a reason for the bishop to react the way he did? Give me a break! Bishops are supposed to be like Christ and forgive those who persecuted them.
Unfortunately true! The left-wing nuts tend to have much better social skills . . . though that may be partly due to being in tune with the times, lends confidence!
Very cool.
I didn't think that was possible.
Bishops get much more negative response than positive.
So they figure further frustrating these people will help? It's in large part people who feel they aren't being listened to who resort to hate mail and confrontation, I think.
I’m sorry, what were you responding to? Can you also elaborate?
Of course not.
The question is: why give them excuses?
Everybody in the public eye gets more negative response. Human nature -- people who are angry or appalled are more likely to take pen in hand than people who are pleased.
If something doesn't matter much to you, and it matters a lot to someone else and the first interaction you have with that person is a letter condemning you to hell, you don't much care whether you continue to frsutrate them or not.
They have already announced to you that their grip on reality is tenuous.
It's in large part people who feel they aren't being listened to who resort to hate mail and confrontation, I think.
That doesn't excuse their behavior.
At least it’s just a little neapolitan bishop and not one of the College of Cardinals. I hope my hero, Pope BXVI will act. Seems like he acted with regard to a priory of Franciscans who were up to no good a while back.
That may be an understatement.
"But to assail the faithful with sacred images..."This phraseology sounds, for lack of a better word, diabolical.
There are flakes everywhere, and I agree that sometimes some people in the traditionalist movement can get too much into their role of self-appointed defenders of the Faith - even defending it from things that aren’t attacks on it.
However, that’s no excuse to do what this bishop in Naples did, nor in fact does it seem anywhere in the article that he was responding to attacks by flakes in his diocese. He just doesn’t want the Old Mass and he doesn’t care what the Pope says.
The bishop of Lisbon, Portugal, btw, just issued a similar statement. In this case, the Lisbon bishop has creatively read the Pope’s statement so that it requires that the faithful be fully competent in Latin and in addition, their “motives” in attending or requesting the old Mass have to be “examined” before they can be allowed to do so! He wrote a long, nasty statement about the old Mass, very similar to that of our Italian friend here.
No excuse can justify their breach of canonical discipline.
My point is that their animus may come from a number of different motives.
Apparently his 'tolerance' does not extend to the celebration of the Mass in a form used for hundreds of years and approved as suitable by his superior. My own bishop (Trautman) must be pleased to find another confrere as he, too, is not pleased with the Pope's approval of Latin.
You have Trautman???!! My sympathy! ;-)
He refuses Catholics the right granted them by the Holy Father to attend the Extraordinary Rite but he allows muslims to condust their infidel prayer sevices on dioscean property. The Devil's working overtime!
It’s amazing how blatant these guys are about their hatred of the old rite. They know it’s really about a lot more than a liturgical form...
The FSSP has its own parish in Denver and another one in Colorado Springs. The Latin Mass has been there for many years.
We call His Excellency “Bishop Trautperson” here, in the interest of keeping our language inclusive. ;-)
http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2007/09/high-noon-for-sheriff-ben.html
High Noon for Sheriff Ben
The lone man rode into town when things were at their bleakest. Lawlessness had become the norm. The townspeople had lost all hope and become resigned to their fate. The man rode slowly through the town surveying the damage. Vice upon vice assaulted his eyes. He asked the man upstairs, “Am I the right guy for this job?” But he knew it didn’t matter anymore, he had taken the job and that was that. He pulled his horse up in front of the Sheriff’s office and got off. Some drunken revelers stumbling by ridiculed him because he seemed different than the rest of the men in this town. “Who are you mister?”, they asked. He stared them down for just a moment and said, “I am the new Sheriff. Sheriff Ben.”
In classic western style, with a steady hand and a calm voice, he let the townsfolk know that the time of lawlessness was over. Overcome with relief that someone cared about their plight, some of the townsfolk urged the Sheriff to come out with all guns blazing. However Ben had a longer vision than the others. He knew that gunning down a few of the bad guys might give short term satisfaction but it wouldn’t help the town in the long run. He knew that discipline has its place, but that more was required to bring lasting peace to the town.
The Sheriff knew he had to reconnect the people to their roots. They had all come here from distant lands with the hope of enjoying freedom, peace, and prosperity. They came here to be liberated from their oppressors but soon found themselves enslaved again by their own greed and licentiousness. Ben knew that he needed to remind people why they were here in the first place. He reminded them of their history, not by sanitizing all that had happened in the past, but by reminding them of all that was good but had been forgotten. He urged them not to long for the past but to bring that which was good forward, to embrace it, and live it. This was the only way that the peace would last, by providing the liberty needed for the people to clean up their own act. For them to grow in goodness.
The Sheriff knew that his main job was to insure the liberty necessary for that growth in good. So even though he was slow to act, act he did. Step by step he put in place the laws necessary for his people to heal themselves and in turn heal their town.
But in every western, there is an outlaw. The outlaw in this tale was the owner of a large ranch just outside of town. Nogaro, head of the Naples ranch, saw what the Sheriff was doing and did not like it one bit. Nogaro, and ranchers like him, had owned the countryside and its people for a generation. They had rejected the past and felt themselves liberated from any and all law. As far as they were concerned, at least on their ranches and the surrounding farms, they were the law. No sheriff was gonna tell them how to run their ranches. They would even like to see him try.
Some of the farmers near the Naples ranch had heard of the good that the sheriff was doing. They had heard tales how life in the town was beginning to change, how the townsfolk were beginning to look at themselves differently. So one farmer thought he might align himself with the Sheriff and do things on his farm that the Sheriff said he could do without fear of reprisal.
Nogaro found out and flew into a rage. He could not allow this to spread. Who did this Sheriff think he was? Even worse, how could one of the local farmers defy him in such a blatant way. No, he must put a stop to this at once. He ordered his men out to the farm to put a stop to it immediately, and they did.
The farmer was shocked and scared. Seemingly with no choice, the farmer told Nogaro he would not do it again. He thought, “I thought the Sheriff would protect my rights? I thought he would stand up for me? What else could I do?”
Word of the incident got back to the Sheriff and he was now faced with a hard choice. Should he back up the promises he made with force or should he show more patience with Nogaro? But what about the farms near the Naples ranch, should he just abandon them when they were only doing what he himself had asked? What message would that send to the other ranchers who were equally opposed to the work of the Sheriff but had not directly confronted him, yet? They were surely watching this to see what they could get away with on their own ranches.
Sheriff Ben knew when he took this difficult job that this day would come, that he would eventually be faced with this decision. Today was the day and the clock was ticking toward high noon.
Sheriff Ben stared for a long time at the guns slung over the back of his chair. He knew what he had to do.
Awaiting the Next Chapter.
(For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about read here)
Posted by Patrick Archbold
LOL! Great post! Go Sheriff Ben!
There’s room for another character in this drama, though, and that’s the cowboys (the priests). The rancher is oppressing many of them, too, and they know he’s giving rotten hay to the cattle, selling bad meat to the townspeople and sometimes even using the cowboys to enforce his evil practices. Some are on the side of the sheriff and some aren’t, while many are simply intimidated by the rancher. So Sheriff Ben tells them that they are free, they must take responsibility themselves, and he will defend them if they refuse to do the bidding of the evil rancher.
Now what happens?
Post number 17. ?
Several years ago we got a remarkably orthodox priest in our parish. He made comments about being on time, not leaving early, going to confession, not living in a constant state of sin and dressing appropriately for Mass. I called the diocese to thank them for sending us this wonderful priest. The lady said they didn’t get many calls like that because most people only call when they are unhappy.
Bishop Trautperson seems to be impressed with his own self importance. Sigh.
At least one bit of credit must be given to Bishop Trautman: in spite of any kicking and screaming that came along with it, he was willing to continue the indults granted by Bishop Murphy.
You should talk up the two indult Masses in the Erie diocese; I wonder if more people would come to the one at St. Anne's if they knew it was there. Also, I wonder if there might be a possibility of a semi-regular Missa Cantata or High Mass if there were enough people to man a choir and to have enough altar boys.
For all tolerant progressives there is Never any Tolerance for traditionalists.
For all tolerant progressives there is Never any Tolerance for traditionalists.
Ping to read later
Well, I for one didn't know and I will spread the word. I get up to Erie once in a while (nice weather) and would enjoy attending. Credit - yes - pleased that he took that step and happy to give him credit, and no. I couldn't help but notice that on the heels of the announcement of Motu Proprio (sp), we had an unexpected change of pastors locally. One who was looking forward to 'brushing up on his Latin' was removed and another, a hardline Vat II fan unhappy about the 'return to the outdated' mode of worship, is his replacement. I don't want to sound like I'm ready for tinfoil hats, but we've seen this before with a Priest devoted to Adoration, and another devoted to the Rosary, both removed abruptly. But I agree, I wasn't sure that any Latin Masses would be immediately available and I, for one, am pleased. I hear there is a parish in the North Hills (Pgh diocese) that has been offering one for a while, but I will have to find out which parish and where. Of course, not a lot of people here where I am seem to view the return of the Latin Mass as a positive.
Yes, and he has demanded our obedience, even (or especially?) when differing with the Bishop of Rome (ie kneeling after Holy Communion, his objections to the ICEL translations). More sighing.
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