A New Breed of Priest

Los Angeles Times ^ | July 31, 2004 | Teresa Watanabe

[pascendi]

"I can agree with you that 'restoration of the TLM,' even if it were universally mandated tomorrow, is NOT the answer in and of itself, despite the screeching from the SSPX bunch, all 120 of them..."

We might agree on that, but we won't agree on this, I bet: the Novus Ordo Missae needs to be abrogated. It coddles to people with their spiritual minds made mush by worldly concerns. Every new Catholic soul is spiritual mush in the process of un-mushing itself, that's normal. But the Novus Ordo has a real flare for keeping them that way.

As for the SSPX, I don't think they believe that reinstituting the TLM would instantly solve all problems, because they know full well the Modernism lurks deeper than this. But reinstating the TLM still needs to be done, and eventually it will. A return to traditional Catholicism is needed for all rites across the board, but restoration of the liturgy is an additional, integral necessity for the Roman rite.

"OTOH, I would not be too quick to decide that the priest in the thread-head article is 'shallow.' Remember that newspaper reporters tend to be shallow..."

Let's hope not. Let's just so, I don't believe the article, and as for the priests, I'll believe it when I see it. I hope you're right and I'm wrong.

[pascendi]

"Pinging the Canonist, because I believe that he is familiar with that Commission's findings under Canon Law."

You mean The Great Gasparri?

Seen on left, giving strawman a brain.

[NYer]

I told them they needed as a parish to instute adoration of the Blessed Sacrament specifically for the wellbeing of the school, maybe once a week for a couple hours. They liked the idea, but it seemed novel to them. Yeah, let's do it, I would help it get up and running, etc.

So, just to be certain that I am understanding you correctly, you are withdrawing your children from St. Ephrem's Maronite Catholic School, which provides the students with:

* Daily Mass
* Loyalty to the Holy Father
* Solidly Catholic texts from the past and present

because, in response to their shrinking enrolment, your suggestion that Eucharistic Adoration was the solution, was met with enthusiasm yet not implemented as you would have wanted. I quote:

"I told them that if they didn't do this, the school would not make it."

Pascendi, dear, I am a middle-aged 'baby boomer', educated by the solidly formed catholic nuns of pre-Vatican II. In my 12 years of Catholic School education, NEVER did we attend Daily Mass, much less weekly Adoration of the Eucharist. This was unheard of back then, when the only Catholic liturgy celebrated in the USA (or anywhere else in the world) was the old Latin Mass. NEVER!!!

What we did 'celebrate' on a daily basis, was the crack of a ruler on someone's hands, or the humiliation of being sent to the corner of a room. Friday's were indeed fun when we were taken to church for confession. Some of us made up sins in order to have something to say. Then, knowing that we had 'sinned' by making up the sins, we then had something to say the following Friday. Our classrooms were packed! You are complaining about a school where the TOTAL attendance is 20 students. Our classrooms were packed with 55; that is why Sister had to resort to extreme measures to keep everyone in check. Back then, we had the same Sister for every class throughout the entire year. We were expected to render unto Sister whatever she demanded. In 7th grade, 'Sister" insisted that we use Peacock Blue Ink in our pens and we were graded on penmanship. That nun ran a tight ship! I don't know how old your oldest child is, but let me assure you that by 7th grade, children begin to feel their oats. My 7th grade 'Sister' was truly challenged to teach a room filled with 55 kids whose hormones were bubbling. I was so intimidated by her that I broke out in shingles. The dermatologist had NEVER seen shingles in a 12 year old child. If you have not yet experienced shingles, let me assure you that it is a very painful condition. It is often brought on by stress. In 7th grade, 'Sister' approach to teaching resulted in me being written up by the medical association. Needless to say, her approach to teaching ( or shoud I say, approach to dealing with 55 pre-pubescent teens) was more than intimidating. Having gone through the real experience of raising a teen, I do not fault her. Back then, she did the best she could with what she had.

At St. Ephrem's you have an idyllic situation; yet you have decided to walk away because they will not offer Weeky Eucharistic Adoration. Please tell me in what Catholic School you expect to find such an offering!

You and the other 'traditionalist' thinkers in this forum need to do a 'reality check'. You seem to live in some euphoric world that does not exist.

You claim that St. Ephrem's is a Novus Ordo institution because ???????

[pascendi]

"At St. Ephrem's you have an idyllic situation..."

No it wasn't.

"...yet you have decided to walk away because they will not offer Weeky Eucharistic Adoration."

For that reason? No; that was what would have made us stay instead of leaving for other reasons.

"Please tell me in what Catholic School you expect to find such an offering!"

My kitchen table.

"You and the other 'traditionalist' thinkers in this forum need to do a 'reality check'."

No we don't.

"You seem to live in some euphoric world that does not exist."

We don't do drugs either.

[pascendi]

"You claim that St. Ephrem's is a Novus Ordo institution because ???????"

No, I said the Maronite Rite has been "Novus-ordo-ized".

[NYer]

"Please tell me in what Catholic School you expect to find such an offering!"

My kitchen table.

You plan to do Eucharistic Adoration at your kitchen table?

[NYer]

I said the Maronite Rite has been "Novus-ordo-ized".

I have already posted a rather detailed explanation of what has happened to the Maronite liturgy over the course of 2000 (YES 2000 years), when the Latin Rite prelates were sent to Lebanon to "latinize" thier liturgy. They went so far as to burn their Sacramentaries! For 400 years, the Maronite liturgy was subject to scrutiny by the Roman Rite prelates. Only in recent times, has the pope acknowledged the history of the Maronite liturgy and suggested that they do their best to restore it.

Now, you tell me that is has been Novusordoized, whatever that means. Please post specifics because I am at a total loss to undertand where you are coming from on this miserable situation that was inflicted on them by the Roman Church, pre Vatican II.

[pascendi]

"You plan to do Eucharistic Adoration at your kitchen table?"

At the rate things are going...

Look, in all honesty and I do mean this, it's really good to hear that you are gaining much from the Maronite rite. There's a lot left there that's not yet tampered with that's of tremendous value. And btw, I believe you to be 100% sincere in all your intentions and efforts.

But you're missing the point. You said this:

"Pascendi, dear, I am a middle-aged 'baby boomer', educated by the solidly formed catholic nuns of pre-Vatican II. In my 12 years of Catholic School education, NEVER did we attend Daily Mass, much less weekly Adoration of the Eucharist. This was unheard of back then, when the only Catholic liturgy celebrated in the USA (or anywhere else in the world) was the old Latin Mass. NEVER!!!"

And that's probably exactly how we ended up getting punished by all that is Post Conciliar in the first place. Nobody was doing what they were supposed to, and so we get rewarded with bad priests, bishops and p... well, never mind that. The Modernists were already at a fever-pitch of a problem by 1907. What would make you think that those lousy nuns and priests were anything but part of internal decay?

Vatican II isn't the first cause of the problem. But it made the problem look legit. It codified the problem. It was an effect. But in turn, the effect becomes the cause of more problems.

You know what the solution is; Our Lady of Fatima made very clear what the solution is. Everybody does that, and things change. They don't, and they won't.

[pascendi]

"Now, you tell me that is has been Novusordoized, whatever that means."

Lumen Gentium

Gaudium et Spes

etc.

[NYer]

so we get rewarded with bad priests, bishops

Pascendi, living in the Diocese of Albany, I hear you! My introduction to this diocese came 12 years ago when my daughter entered 1st grade at one of their most prestigious catholic elementary schools ... and, it was! In October, a notice was sent home inviting "everyone" to attend the bishop's "kick off the new school year" mass at a church in Schenectady NY. This diocese was all new to me (but I had been forewarned by someone who dropped out of the seminary that the Albany diocese was ultra liberal). At the time, that did not register. I had no basis for comparison.

And so, in utter faith, I packed up myself and my daughter, drove to the church named in the newsletter and picked out a pew. When the bishop processed in, he was proceded by altar girls. This was my first exposure and I was caught off guard. When the tiime for the Consecration arrived, I looked down, saw no kneelers in the recently 'wreckovated' church, and knelt on the tile floor. Looking around me, though, I noticed that the other participants at this liturgy remained standing. I was shocked!

After 12 years of this nonsensical approach to contemporizing the liturgy in this diocese, what pushed me over the edge, was that day in February of this year when an EEM accidentally dropped a consecrated host on the ground. She truly had no idea as to how to deal with this situation! My heart sank and I choked back tears as I watched her pick up the host and toss it back into her Pyrex glass salad bowl. That was it! I walked, compiling a list of other Catholic churches within proximity to my home. On that list, I included two Eastern Rite churches - one Maronie and one Ukrainian.

When I walked into the Maronite Church one Sunday, I was overwhelmed by the simplistic beauty of a Tabernacle, a Crucifix and the Book of the Gospels. There, illuminated before me, were the elements of our catholic faith. The liturgy moved me to tears, as Father repeated the words, in the same language as our Lord, Jesus Christ, that were spoken at the Last Supper. It reminded me that Christ was a Jew, not a Roman. During Lent, Father held an Adoration of the Cross liturgy. During that, he would elevate the large Crucifix, while acolytes incensed it and we chanted the prayers of devotion. How my heart and soul devoured these beautiful devotions. At the culmination of this devotion, Father kissed the Crucifix and lovingly replaced it on its stand.

For the past 3 weeks, I have spent my Saturdays at an old protestant church that Father has purchased for this congregation. Their own church burned down many years ago and they operate out of a small shrine.

When our pastor chose us, 3 years ago, he was freshly ordained. As you know, a parish community provides for its pastor. That is not the case here. This priest arrived with no place to lay his head. He rents a room in a rectory operated by the Diocese of Albany and commutes to church. He used his personal funds to purchase the car he drives! He has worked with this very small Maronite community, to acquire a new church which is more than 150 years old and has been boarded up for the past 50 years. It was all he could afford with the monies raised by the parish community. The church comes with a parsonage. Where has Father placed his greatest effort? In the church. Each weekend, he is over there, tearing out overgrown shrubs, trees, and other debris that accumulated on the property over the past 50 years. By noon, Father is usually soaked through to the bone with perspiration and covered with dust and dirt. Today, he and I cleaned up one of the stairwells that was packed with broken plaster, chipped paint and years of dust. We did that to accomodate a fellow freeper who is handicapped and will visit us within a few weeks to examine and help restore the pipe organ that no longer functions.

I am absolutely sick and tired of the recent abusive accusations that fly against the Maronite priests in this forum!! In my entire life, I have NEVER met a priest who has prostrated themselves in service to a community as I have with our pastor. Last Sunday was this year's major fundraiser - Cow Patty Bingo. The idea came from one of the parishioners. At 7:30am on Sunday, Father and two other men from the parish went to a field adjacent to the Elks and , using a limestone spreader, mapped out a grid of more than 2000, 2' x 2' boxes. The weather was deplorable; the temperature was pushing 90 degrees and the humidity was at 100%. Having mapped out the field, Father drove back down to his rented room, showered, changed, drove back to the church, vested and began the Divine Liturgy. While that was going on, it poured rain, washing out the entire field. After mass, Father, along with some helpers, drove back to the field and relaid the 2000 2' x 2' boxes for the fundraiser.

In all my 55 years, I have NEVER met a priest who devoted himself to this extent to supporting a community and personally investing himself in the effort of growing that community into a new church ... NEVER!

Rod Dreher, a columnist with the Dallas Morning News, was once a columnist with the NY Post. He and his family, disenchanted with the masses offered up in the Diocese of Brooklyn, began attending the Maronite Divine Liturgy at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral in Brooklyn. When the catastrophic events of September 11 turned our lives around, Rod Dreher posted the the following in one of his columns.

"I live on the Brooklyn waterfront, just across the harbor from lower Manhattan. On that horrible morning on September 11, my father phoned me from Louisiana to tell me to look out my front door, the World Trade Center was on fire. It was, and I ran down to the basement to grab my reporter’s pad. Then I heard the explosion from the second crash and scrambled upstairs and out my front door.

Monsignor Ignace Sadek, the elderly pastor of the Maronite cathedral near the Brooklyn waterfront, went to the promenade park overlooking lower Manhattan and prayed for absolution for the dying as the towers burned. When the first building crumbled, and the terrible cloud of smoke, debris, and incinerated human remains began its grim march across the harbor, Monsignor Sadek remained at his post praying. The falling ash turned him into a ghost. Still, he stayed as long as he could. This is a man who came through the civil war in Lebanon, and he doesn’t run. "

Some of the trads in this forum derive great joy from bashing those who adhere to the Novus Ordo Rite. As if that was not enough, they have not expanded their attacks to the Maronite Rite. For those who believe that the Maronite priests are in collusion with the NO, I would challenge them to show a similar reaction from their clergy on September 11. The only prelate standing on the Brooklyn pier praying for the lost lives in the two towers was a Maronite priest who is not even an American.

[sinkspur]

Some of the trads in this forum derive great joy from bashing those who adhere to the Novus Ordo Rite. As if that was not enough, they have not expanded their attacks to the Maronite Rite.

Of course. And that's why these threads are largely nothing but integrists and radical traditionalists. They've driven off everyone who doesn't agree with them, save a few.

Then they wonder why bishops and chancery offices won't give them the time of day when they come storming in, demanding an Indult Mass.

Just look at FR. See how few Novus Ordo posters there are? I'm in communication with a few who have left.

It's not worth the hassle to even bother posting, when you're subjected to the kind of garbage we see on a regular basis from the Ferraras, Matts, Droleskys and their trained monkeys who post here.

[Land of the Irish]

Rod Dreher, a columnist with the Dallas Morning News, was once a columnist with the NY Post. He and his family, disenchanted with the masses offered up in the Diocese of Brooklyn,

Why did he become disenchanted?

Same reason you did?

Don't try to preach to Roman Catholic tradionalists about the virtues of the Novus Ordo, while you stand on your Maronite pulpit, unless you wish to be called a hypocrite.

[pascendi]

Go find another thread or something.

[NYer]

You missed the point of my post ... not surprisingly.

[sinkspur]

Why? So you can gang up on NYer?

You guys travel in packs.

[NYer]

Don't try to preach to Roman Catholic tradionalists about the virtues of the Novus Ordo, while you stand on your Maronite pulpit, unless you wish to be called a hypocrite.

NOT A MATTER OF FAITH

I don’t know why the Church has made all these changes. I don’t like many of them. But I am not going to help my Church by leaving it. I’m not going to put a condition on my obedience. Yes, it was easier to be obedient when I agreed with everything they did in Rome. Yes, it’s harder to be obedient now. But OBEDIENCE IS OBEDIENCE. The only time I have a right [even an obligation] to not be obedient to my superiors in the Church is when it is a matter of Faith. Fidelity to faith is stronger than the law of Obedience (St. Augustine). The New Order Mass is not a matter of Fidelity to doctrine. When the Mass changed, Padre Pio wrote to the Holy Father offering his support in the changes and turned his altar around just before his death September 23, 1968.

[Land of the Irish]

You missed the point of my post ... not surprisingly.

What's your point, then? The Novus Ordo sucks wind?

[pascendi]

"At the time, that did not register. I had no basis for comparison."

That's normal enough. Sitting in the pews growing up in the Novus Ordo, I knew there was something wacky about it all along. It had a public library feel to it, like a 70's social study book. But I never cared much to find out exactly why until later. That's probably the situation of everybody trying to grope their way up from the bottom wrung of the Conciliar Church. Patience is needed with people doing this, I would agree.

"And so, in utter faith, I packed up myself and my daughter, drove to the church named in the newsletter and picked out a pew. When the bishop processed in, he was proceded by altar girls. This was my first exposure and I was caught off guard. When the tiime for the Consecration arrived, I looked down, saw no kneelers in the recently 'wreckovated' church, and knelt on the tile floor. Looking around me, though, I noticed that the other participants at this liturgy remained standing. I was shocked!

Right; you see the problem as well.

"After 12 years of this nonsensical approach to contemporizing the liturgy in this diocese, what pushed me over the edge, was that day in February of this year when an EEM accidentally dropped a consecrated host on the ground. She truly had no idea as to how to deal with this situation! My heart sank and I choked back tears as I watched her pick up the host and toss it back into her Pyrex glass salad bowl. That was it! I walked, compiling a list of other Catholic churches within proximity to my home. On that list, I included two Eastern Rite churches - one Maronie and one Ukrainian."

Exactly! Good move; I'm all over it.

"When I walked into the Maronite Church one Sunday, I was overwhelmed by the simplistic beauty of a Tabernacle, a Crucifix and the Book of the Gospels. There, illuminated before me, were the elements of our catholic faith. The liturgy moved me to tears, as Father repeated the words, in the same language as our Lord, Jesus Christ, that were spoken at the Last Supper."

This is the experience of all people coming to the awareness of a Catholic Faith that has been ripped and stripped away from them; hidden, buried, suppressed, the descriptions are endless. This is something similiar to what I experienced when I entered into the sublimity of the traditional Latin Mass.

You have to understand something. The traditional Roman rite Catholics are right in fighting with everything they can muster in regaining and retaining the very sort of thing you describe.

The whole Roman rite needs their Faith back. When you fire on traditional Catholics, you fire on your allies.

[pascendi]

Sorry... what were you saying?

[Land of the Irish]

Did Padre Pio ever offer that New Order Mass?

And why do you avoid that same New Order Mass, yet defend it?