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.
If the degradandus be an archbishop, the degrading prelate removes his pallium, saying:
We deprive thee of the rights and privileges of the episcopal dignity, symbolized in this pallium, since thou hast abused them.
Then, even if the degradandus be a mere bishop, the degrading prelate removes his mitre, saying:
We strip thy head of this miter, emblem of the episcopal dignity, since thou hast befouled it by thy ill government.
Then one of the ministers brings the Book of the Gospel to the degradandus, which the degrading prelate takes from his hands, saying;
Give us back the Gospel! Since thou hast spurned the grace of God and made thyself unworthy of the office of preaching, we rightly deprive you of this office.
Then the degrading prelate removes the ring from the finger of the degradandus, saying:
Rightly do we pull off thy ring, the sign of fidelity, since thou hast made bold to rape God's own bride, the Church.
At this time one of the ministers brings the degradandus a crosier, which the degrading prelate takes from his hands, saying;
Thy shepherd's staff we take from thee, that thou shalt be powerless henceforward to exercise that office of correction, which thou hast brought to disarray.
Then the ministers take off the gloves of the degradandus, and the degrading prelate lightly scrapes thumbs and hands with a knife blade or a shard of glass, saying:
We hereby deprive thee, to the extent of our powers, of the grace of spiritual blessing and of sacramental anointing, that thou shouldst forfeit the office of sanctifying and of blessing, and their effects.
With the same knife blade or shard the degrading prelate lightly scrapes the head of the degradandus, saying:
We utterly erase and eradicate the consecration, blessing and anointing bestowed upon thee, and we put thee out of the episcopal order, whence thou returnest unclothed.
The ministers remove the shoes from the degradandus; thus ends the ceremony.
You're going to be disappointed. And, to not have servers just to keep girls off the altar is rather silly.
Most seminarians, TODAY, are in their 20s and 30s and haven't served at the altar in years.
Why is it silly? In the new Mass, there is no necessity to have altar boys. In my old parish in California, we never had altar boys. It would be better to cease the transmission of false messages (that women could eventually be ordained), than to continue with this just in order to have someone around to hold the Lectionary.
Do you doubt that the motivation for the presence of girl altar boys is to confuse the doctrine of a male priesthood?
Maybe in some priests' minds, and some peoples' minds, but not in the minds of the vast majority. They just see it as an opportunity to allow females to play a part in the liturgy.
I think it's silly to argue about altar girls, from either side.
And, it's rather sad to see a Mass with no servers at all, don't you think?
I have enormous difficulty trusting Justice Anne Burke, but I am taking my doubts and my bad mouth to Confession today........
Maybe they should focus more on why we are there at Mass. As far as I know, it's not so we can feel good about ourselves for participating in the liturgy. We have entirely too many "lay ministers" as it is.
I can't believe Bishop Hubbard would lie! /sarcasm
I think the board findings will not work FOR the Bishop Hubbard type bishops. And no one can claim that the board was stacked and full of the "right wing." In fact, us conservative Catholics were mostly cynical about what the board would "find" and how the board would frame what they found.
PRAYING FOR AND WITH THE BISHOP
MORE THAN 500 priests, sisters, and brothers turned out Feb. 22 for a prayer service in support of Bishop Howard J. Hubbard, held at St. Joseph's Provincial House in Latham. Here, Rev. William Jillisky, a retired priest, speaks with the Bishop.
A documented fact. See Anne Roche Muggeridge's "The Desolate City."
I've read some pretty odd stuff about Louvain but in fairness I think the seminaries are much better than they used to be (most of them, anyway).
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