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Posted on 07/12/2003 9:53:02 AM PDT by Land of the Irish
A priest at a Channelview Catholic church has taken an extended vacation from the pulpit after surprising parishioners with a weekend of Masses in Latin.
The Rev. Stephen P. Zigrang, pastor of St. Andrew Catholic Church, will be absent from the church for a two-month vacation and retreat, said Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza of the Diocese of Galveston-Houston.
Zigrang has not been suspended from his duties and remains pastor of the church, Fiorenza said.
Repeated phone calls to Zigrang were not returned. A letter to the priest from Fiorenza and Monsignor Frank H. Rossi, chancellor of the diocese, contained a "fraternal admonition that you must faithfully follow the liturgical directives of the Holy See" and refrain from celebrating the Latin Tridentine Mass that was general practice in the church before the 1960s.
In the letter, faxed to the Houston Chronicle, Rossi and Fiorenza also wrote that if Zigrang continued to celebrate the Tridentine Mass, "it will be necessary to remove you from the office of pastor and to withdraw from you the diocesan faculties."
The warning letter was a matter of procedure and "clearly leaves the ball in Father Zigrang's court," said diocese spokeswoman Annette Gonzales Taylor.
Permission to celebrate the Tridentine Mass must come from a local bishop. Fiorenza said he has had discussions with Zigrang about the Mass and had allowed him to celebrate it privately. He did not have permission to celebrate it publicly.
In general, Mass is supposed to be celebrated in languages people understand -- English and Spanish at the Channelview church. It is also important to adhere to church directives, Fiorenza said.
"The Mass is so essential to our Catholic worship," Fiorenza said. "It cannot be used as a source of confusion or division."
Confusion and division were the result after Zigrang celebrated Masses in Latin June 28-29, said Theresa Bliss, who has been a member of the church since 1980 and until recently served on the parish's governing board.
"There were so many horrified faces," said Bliss, who added that Zigrang was popular at the parish in general. "Everyone looked at each other. When we walked out of church, I would say two-thirds were crying."
But some parishioners supported Zigrang's decision to celebrate Mass in Latin.
Craig Toenniges, who has been a member of the parish since 1985, said Zigrang chose the old form out of his personal commitment to holiness, a devotion to saving souls, and a desire to reinstate reverence to the ritual.
"The way (the Latin Mass) is conducted allows for reverence," Toenniges said. "You know why you are there. It is not a social event. It is for the adoration of God."
Celebrating the contemporary Mass in the ancient language is permitted for good pastoral reasons, said the Rev. Michael J. Barrett, director of Holy Cross Chapel in downtown Houston. But the Tridentine Mass -- named because it was instituted in the 1500s after the church's Council of Trent -- was, in effect, replaced after the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, he said.
The new Mass changed some prayers, required the priest to face the congregation and omitted a series of prayers the priest says before going to the altar, Barrett said. The major change was that almost overnight Mass was no longer celebrated in Latin worldwide, but in the vernacular of a parish's country or region, he said.
"Some people found it hard to adjust to," said Barrett, who was a young altar server when the Tridentine Mass was still common.
Still, there are some Catholics who "associate the Latin Mass with going back to a more faithful time or truer liturgy," Barrett said. For example, priests affiliated with the Society of St. Pius X regularly celebrate the traditional Mass. However, they usually operate outside of local dioceses.
In the 10-county Diocese of Galveston-Houston, a Tridentine Mass is celebrated weekly at Annunciation Catholic Church downtown. A group of Catholics petitioned the diocese in the early 1990s for the service, Rossi said. A contemporary Mass in Latin is celebrated weekly at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Midtown.
Gil Tristan is concerned whether Zigrang -- who has served at the church since 1997 -- will return to the parish where she has been a member for 31 years. Though she does not understand Latin, she found the Mass "beautiful," and she supports Zigrang's decision to do it.
"It was a calling to him," she said. "He felt that was more important."
yes, attending a Tridentine was an horrific trauma. puhleeezzz
Fr. Z is probably somewhere getting "re-educated". He needs prayers.
Two negatives make a positive.Why don’t you read up a little on the real St. Athanasius? He was excommunicated for disobedience.
What about some father, who one Sunday, tells his teenage son, “You don’t have to go to Mass today. I need you to help me clean out the garage. It’s OK, because I said so”?
The son rightfully responds, “You are my father. I respect you and I shall obey you in all things, except when they contradict God’s law."
Blind obedience can be an occasion of sin.
Speaking of bull.....
The Vatican has allowed bishops to decide when and where the Tridentine Mass will be celebrated. Zigrang disobeyed the bishop.
The Vatican's not losing any sleep over this one, Tradmaster.
Oh, and Zigrang's own desire to celebrate the Tridentine was satisfied, since Fiorenza allowed him to celebrate it privately.
BTW, this parish is about 15 minutes from downtown Houston, where Annunciation Church is located. If any of these folks want to attend a Tridentine Mass on Sunday, they're just a short drive east on I-10.
Ecclesia Dei (July 2, 1988),
I consider Father Zigrang's actions part of a Catholic Revolt against a Protestanized Church.
"Nevertheless, there are also those people who, having been educated on the basis of the old liturgy in Latin, experience the lack of this 'one language,' which in all the world was an expression of the unity of the Church and through its dignified character elicited a profound sense of the Eucharistic Mystery. It is therefore necessary to show not only understanding but also full respect towards these sentiments and desires. As far as possible these sentiments and desires are to be accommodated, as is moreover provided for in the new dispositions. [Note 55: Cf. Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction In edicendis normis, VI, 17-18; VII, 19-20: AAS 57 (1965), pp. 1012f.; Instruction Musicam Sacram, IV, 48: AAS 59 (1967), p. 314; Decree De Titulo Basilicae Minoris, II, 8: AAS 60 (1968), p. 538; Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship, Notif. De Missali Romano, Liturgia Horarum et Calendario, I, 4: AAS 63 (1971), p. 714.] The Roman Church has special obligations towards Latin, the splendid language of ancient Rome, and she must manifest them whenever the occasion presents itself."
-Pope John Paul II, Letter "Dominicae Cenae", Sec. 10, 24 February 1980
"It is therefore necessary to show not only understanding but also full respect towards these sentiments and desires. As far as possible these sentiments and desires are to be accommodated ..."
In other words, in 1980, the SSPX and others should have been accomodated by allowing them to celebrate publicly in the Churches. Please note the references for the "new dispositions DO NOT refer to Pope Paul VI's "Missale Romanum". Rather the references are to documents reiterating the requirement to retain the Latin Liturgy in at least one Mass in major Basilicas and Churches. The letter "Quattor abhinc annos" from 1984 establishes a canonical method to allow this to occur properly so that Rome can track what is occuring; but the request to the Bishops to allow it was made four years previous to the Indult! The letter "Ecclesia Dei adflicta" from 1988 reinforces that the application is to be "wide and generous" to heal the rift between the SSPX and Rome.
Lastly, the requirements of "Quattor abhinc annos" are that the faithful are not to call into question the "legitimacy and doctrinal exactitude" of the Pauline Missal. They say nothing about questioning the moral or spiritual exactitude of it.
I'm not going to get into a mathematics game with you. Two disobediences against the same subject does equal more disobedinece.
-1 + -1 = -2.
However, when one disobedience is purely against another disobedience. It negates the first disobedience.
-1 + 1 = 0.
The Protestant Revolt was about heresy, not disobedience.
The Eastern Orthodox and SSPX are "disobedient" or in "discord" with Rome; however they recognize that John Paul II is the Pope. Their reasons for disobeying him are identical - the perceived desire of the Pope to supress their Christian tradition. That's why Canon Law allows us to go to their Churches and take the Sacraments. The Sedevacantists are proper schismatics, because they refuse to recognize the present Pontiff. Protestants and the like are heretics.
"Accordingly schismatics properly so called are those who, wilfully and intentionally separate themselves from the unity of the Church; for this is the chief unity, and the particular unity of several individuals among themselves is subordinate to the unity of the Church, even as the mutual adaptation of each member of a natural body is subordinate to the unity of the whole body. Now the unity of the Church consists in two things; namely, in the mutual connection or communion of the members of the Church, and again in the subordination of all the members of the Church to the one head, according to Col. 2:18,19: "Puffed up by the sense of his flesh, and not holding the Head, from which the whole body, by joints and bands, being supplied with nourishment and compacted, groweth unto the increase of God." Now this Head is Christ Himself, Whose viceregent in the Church is the Sovereign Pontiff. Wherefore schismatics are those who refuse to submit to the Sovereign Pontiff, and to hold communion with those members of the Church who acknowledge his supremacy." (St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica, II-II, Q 39, Art 1)
"Hence when several intend a good pertaining to God's honor, or our neighbor's profit, while one deems a certain thing good, and another thinks contrariwise, the discord is in this case accidentally contrary to the Divine good or that of our neighbor. Such like discord is neither sinful nor against charity, unless it be accompanied by an error about things necessary to salvation, or by undue obstinacy, since it has also been stated above (29, 1,3, ad 2) that the concord which is an effect of charity, is union of wills not of opinions. It follows from this that discord is sometimes the sin of one party only, for instance, when one wills a good which the other knowingly resists; while sometimes it implies sin in both parties, as when each dissents from the other's good, and loves his own." (St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica, II-II, Q 37, Art 1)
Back to this ...
Blind Obedience is a occasion of sin, but so is disobedience to your bishop on discipline areas such as this.
Only if one is disobeying a good for a bad, as made clear above. That is why the Pope has always termed the liturgical aspirations of the SSPX and its followers and fellow-travellers "legitimate" and "worthy of respect". They are disobeying one good for a perceived higher good.
Now YOU are the one making jokes.
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