Free Republic

As part of my ongoing efforts to keep this blog up-to-date, I regularly peruse myriad sources of news and commentary to find something that piques my interest. If I find it interesting, perhaps, some of the readers of CMR might find it interesting as well. However, every once in a while after more than an hour scouring the Internet desperately searching for something to write about, I come up completely empty. Today was such a day. Oh sure, there are important things happening in the world such as Peru, lost miners, hurricanes, etc. These are all important stories to be...

Pope Benedict XVI. wrote that "active participation" means attentiveness first and foremost. He wrote that listening to the choir attentively constitutes such participation. Of course, there's also the Conga Line school of interpretation. Another issue is the lack of silence in the Novus Ordo practice, the aim to pack as much as possible into the liturgy instead of it being celebrated for its own sake. Lastly, the loss of form - a hymn being a hymn - has been a major problem. I was pleasantly surprised to have found the following article.Godfried Danneels is the archbishop of Brussels. He's considered...

The Tidings, the newspaper of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, carries an article pretty much deriding the Tridentine Mass. It was written by two priests, columnists for Catholic News Service, which in turn belongs to the USCCB. The funny thing is that it purports to present the view of two priests, so you might be led to believe it's "point - counterpoint." Not so. Excerpts In this article, Fathers Peter J. Daly (ordained in 1986) and Eugene Hemick (ordained in 1963) --- both columnists with Catholic News Service --- offer their views on celebrating the Tridentine Mass. Will anyone come? By...

FATHER JOHN ZUHLSDORF’s blog has been the go-to point for people seeking insight into the Pope’s new document extending permission to say the Old Mass. Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio Summorum Pontificum was released July 7, and its changes take effect Sept. 14. Father Zuhlsdorf worked as a collaborator for some years with the Vatican department charged with the pastoral care of those devoted to the older form of the Latin Mass, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei. He was incardinated in Rome’s Suburbicarian Diocese of Velletri-Segni, and is pursuing a doctorate at the Patristic Institute “Augustinianum.” He spoke with Register...

A parishioner from a small town north of New York City has started an online petition with a simple, respectful request to his Cardinal-Archbishop: “Please offer this year's Christmas Midnight Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.” "Pope Benedict's release of the motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum, was possibly the most significant event of his pontificate, yet many millions of Catholics have no idea this paradigm-shattering document even exists," stated Patrick McGrath, who has lived most of his life in and near Stony Point, New York. "Then I thought that my own Archbishop, Edward Cardinal Egan, has it within...

Yes, it is highly unusual for a Bishop to be transferred to a new diocese with a smaller population and an even smaller number of nominal Catholics. Yet, Birmingham, the new diocese of Robert Baker, the former Bishop of Charleston, includes one specific Catholic institution, which deserves special treatment (for better or for worse). From our collection of episcopal reactions to Summorum Pontificum: In a letter to priests of the Diocese of Charleston, SC, Bishop Robert J Baker takes a warm and positive position. Among the many good things he says are the following, "Let us use this time of...

The motu proprio Summorum pontificum by Benedict XVI that in practice liberalizes the use of the Roman Missal of 1962 was finally published on 7 July. The motu proprio, that will come into force on 14 September, establishes that the Roman Missal promulgated by Paul VI in 1970 is the ordinary expression of the lex orandi of the Catholic Church of Latin rite. The Missal promulgated by Saint Pius V and re-edited by Blessed John XXIII must, therefore, be considered as extraordinary form. In no way, therefore, is a division in the "law of the faith" created since it is...

Copyright (c) 1999 First Things 96 (October 1999): 15-17. The recent canonization of Edith Stein as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross by the Roman Catholic Church poses a number of very serious challenges to living Jews, we who are still members of the people to whom Edith Stein believed she also belonged, even at her death in Auschwitz. Theologically speaking, Edith Stein was arguably the most significant Jewish convert to Christianity of this century. In general, Jewish tradition regards such persons as apostates who have removed themselves from the normative Jewish community in a radical way, even if they...

A while back, I noted with a touch of asperity that the “Prayer of the Faithful” too frequently deteriorates into serial sermonettes, an AmChurch innovation without foundation in the Church’s liturgical tradition. I was particularly scornful of petitions that politicize the liturgy by promoting, as self-evidently desirable objects of the Lord’s attention, various planks in the Democratic platform. The same objection would, of course, apply to petitions drawn from the Republican playbook; but given the ambience from which most mass-produced liturgical “aids” emerge these days, that’s not likely to be a big problem any time soon. It is, perhaps, an...

Here is an article on the Motu Proprio from the National Catholic Register. My emphases and comments. Latin Mass Rising BY Joe Cullen July 15-21, 2007 Issue | Posted 7/10/07 at 3:05 PM Summorum Pontificum, the motu proprio granting greater freedom to celebrate the old Latin or Tridentine Mass, puts me in mind of the mercy of God, and how he comes to the aid of his suffering people. While not all of his people need or want the old Mass, there is a significant constituency [contrast this with The Party Line’s constant mantra that "a very few… a tiny...

There is an interesting bit of news from the UK via Telegraph.co.uk.>/a> My emphases and comments. Latin lessons for young priests Fifty priests will be learning how to say the traditional Latin Mass at a conference at Merton College, Oxford, later this month. That’s 10 more than the organisers, the Latin Mass Society, had originally catered for. And, I should think, 50 more than the Bishops of England and Wales were hoping for. Also, here’s some really bad news for the trendy old prelates:the average age of the priests at the conference is about 20 years younger than that of...

NEWTON -- Boston Catholics who regularly participate in the Tridentine Mass are overjoyed by Pope Benedict XVI’s apostolic letter “Summorum Pontificum” released July 7 which they say acknowledges that the Latin Mass has an enduring place in the life of the Catholic Church. In the apostolic letter, issued “motu proprio” (Latin for “on his own initiative” and indicating a pope’s special personal interest in the subject), Pope Benedict eased many of the restrictions on celebrating Mass according to the 1962 missal. The letter goes on to say that priests may celebrate the Latin Mass in private, for religious communities and...

The Tridentine Mass, the Latin-only rite both loved and hated by many Catholics for its medieval qualities, is roaring back into use after a July 7 papal decree loosened the rules on celebrating it. Two traditional priestly societies dedicated to the rite report that priests from all over the country are signing up in droves for weeklong classes to learn the rituals and language of the Mass, named after the 16th-century Council of Trent. Monsignor Michael Schmitz, vicar-general of the Florence, Italy-based Institute of Christ the King, said he has received hundreds of calls from interested clergy. "This is a...

Editors’ note: This is a preview of our August 17 issue, which will contain four responses to Pope Benedict’s Summorum pontificum, which will make the so-called Tridentine Mass more widely available than it has been since Vatican II. The other respondents will be Peter Jeffery, Joseph Komonchak, and Bernard P. Prusak. Pope Benedict XVI’s Summorum pontificum gives broad permission for the celebration of the Tridentine Mass. The motu proprio also permits use of preconciliar liturgical rites for all the sacraments, with the exception of ordination. It lays the groundwork for the creation of two liturgical establishments within the Latin-rite Catholic...

When the New York Times Sunday Week in Review takes notice of Catholic churchmanship, you can hear alarms whooping in the background. Something the editors cherish must be at risk. This morning's topic is the Latin Mass, which 42-year-old NYT writer Lawrence Downes inspected out of curiosity. It made him feel "sheepish ... shaken and, irrationally, angry." So what indispensable element of progressive spirituality is threatened by the Motu Proprio? Boredom. [Traditionalists are] right that Mass can be listless, with little solemnity and multiple sources of irritation: parents sedating children with Cheerios; priests preaching refrigerator-magnet truisms; amateur guitar strumming that...

Last week I presented the Archbishop of Portland, His Excellency, Most Reverend John Vlanzy’s comments from a 2006 article about the older form of Mass. Click here for that entry. Now His Excellency has presented his view of the Motu Proprio in the diocesan newspaper The Catholic Sentinel.My emphases and comments. Liturgical growth and progress in the Roman Missal 07/27/2007 Archbishop John Vlazny Earlier this month Pope Benedict XVI published an Apostolic Letter under the title Summorum Pontificum. In so doing he was both allowing for and promoting a wider use of the liturgical books that were in force back...

Welcome and thank you for visiting my blog! After my return from vacation, I was very pleased to see so many messages on the blog regarding the motu proprio. We couldn’t post all of them but it was interesting to see people’s reactions, and the interest in the motu proprio. I think it only underscores the wisdom of the Holy Father’s approach to people’s liturgical preferences. I continue to echo the Holy Father’s desire that the liturgy not be the battleground but be a source of unity for all of us. We must love the Mass in all of its...

Vatican, Jul. 16, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI, who recently issued a motu proprio allowing all Catholic priests to celebrate the old Latin Mass, uses the older ritual himself for his private Mass, CWN has learned. Informed sources at the Vatican have confirmed reports that the Holy Father regularly celebrates Mass using the 1962 Roman Missal. In his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum the Pope says that the older form-- the form in universal use before the liturgical changes that followed Vatican II-- was never abrogated. Since becoming Roman Pontiff, Benedict XVI has always used the new ritual-- which he...

Many people want to express their gratitude to someone for the provisions of Summorum Pontificum. It costs almost nothing to write a note of appreciation. I suggest you write a very brief, VERY brief note to His Holiness Benedict XVI Palazzo Apostolico 00120 Vatican City Tips for writing to the Pope to thank him: 1) one side of one sheet of paper 2) unless your penmanship is perfect, type or word processor 3) don’t say anything negative about anyone 4) in two lines, express why you love the older liturgy and how you participate 5) in one line promise prayers...

It used to be that if you asked a question about the Catholic church, you got very straightforward answers. No, we did not eat meat on Friday. Yes, we had to go to church every Sunday. Not any more. In fact, the answers are getting more confusing all the time. Consider the question of how the newly revised Roman Missal is better than the last, for instance. They tell us now that Mass texts -- including even hymns -- may not include feminine references to God. And this in a church that has routinely addressed God as Key of David,...