Defending Tradition Without Comprmise:
An Interview with Father Sretenovic, part 2
by Thomas A. Droleskey
[This is the final installment of my interview with Father Paul Sretenovic, who left the Novus Ordo Missae in December of 2004 and now offers exclusively the Immemorial Mass of Tradition at Our Lady Help of Christians in Garden Grove, California. Once again, I want to thank Mr. John Vennari, the editor of Catholic Family News, for his cooperation in this project, which began with interviews of Fathers Stephen P. Zigrang, Lawrence C. Smith, and Patrick J. Perez. The interview below can be found also in the May, 2005, issue of Catholic Family News. My questions are italicized and in bold print. Please pray that more and more priests will follow the brave example of Father Sretenovic and refuse to offer the Novus Ordo Missae, which is harmful to the Faith no matter what language in which it is offered and no matter what musical accoutrements from Tradition are added to its offering. We need priests of the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church to give us in the laity what is our baptismal birthright: unfettered access to the Traditional Latin Mass without any of the unjust and illicit conditions laid down by Holy See in 1984 and reiterated in 1988. The first part of this interview with Father Sretenovic was posted on March 31, 2005.]
11. You have said that you were writing your letter to Archbishop John Myers within twenty minutes of speaking to Father Lawrence Smith in December of 2004. What did you find particularly persuasive in Father Smith’s arguments?
Just in the way in which Father Smith spoke, I could sense that here was a man of God who knew what he was talking about. “There was no guile in the man.” I could not help but think of Our Lord’s statement in the Gospels, “Let your yes be yes and your no, no.” Well, Father Smith’s yes was yes and his no was no and when you speak to someone like that, any hold the devil has on you becomes evident pretty quickly and it is not a pleasant feeling. Father Smith helped me to separate bone from marrow and to overcome my fear of potential canonical penalties. To simplify things, I could sum up Father’s points in one statement. “You don’t need permission to be a priest.” I have the right to offer the Trad-itional Latin Mass and others have the right to attend those Masses, thus obliterating the nonsensical distinction between a priest offering Mass privately without getting into trouble, versus offering the Mass with a congregation, as if doing the latter would cause an earthquake. No, but if it did, it would be a testimony to the earthquake caused by Jesus’ death on the Cross, and, ironically enough, the tearing of the sanctuary veil, the significance of which is completely lost during these days of “ecumania”. As you mentioned, within twenty minutes of my conversation with Father Smith, I was on the computer typing up my letter to Archbishop Myers, which only took me about twenty minutes to write. Something of this magnitude should have taken me longer to put together, but the words were there and after looking at what I had done, I felt that it said what needed to be said.
12. Ultimately, why did you come to the conclusion that you could no longer work in the Novus Ordo structure? Why did you not consider asking Archbishop Myers to assign you to Saint Anthony of Padua Chapel under Father John Perricone?
Having dealt with the second part of your question earlier, (see last month) I would like to focus on one point that stuck out in my head on a few occasions. Whenever someone would say to me over the past, let’s say four to six months, that one day I would be pastor somewhere, I became in-creasingly less tolerant of the idea. If I was struggling as much as I was with the implementation of the General Instruction to the Roman Missal (G.I.R.M.) as a pastoral associate, how in the world would I ever be able to be personally responsible for its use in my parish as a pastor, with souls I was directly responsible for?! No way. I was in charge of the extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion at the parish and it was difficult enough to swallow simply going along with the program and even instructing them about proper distribution of the Eucharist. My conversation with Father Smith really helped me to say, “I don’t have to do this anymore.” For all that one might say to me about putting my soul in immortal danger for leaving the diocese to go where I am now, I would counter that if I had stayed, and allowed myself to “move up the ranks,” knowing what I do, now that would be something to fear!
13. Do you have any regrets that you did not meet with Archbishop Myers personally?
No. In fact, I am relieved that I did not speak to him. If I was asking his permission to leave, then I would have needed to visit with him. I was not asking permission. Whatever the consequences will be, they will be. I certainly had no illusions about going over there and converting him, so what would have been the good in it? My letter makes clear, brief and to the point, my rationale for leaving. The reasons, coupled with my actions, I believe is witness enough. I did the same for my pastor, who was ordained in 1964 and who said to me flat-out not too long after arriving, and before he knew of my “traditional tendencies” (Cassock, laced alb, Fatima meetings), “I don’t understand these young priests wanting to offer the Latin Mass.” I care dearly for the man, but I certainly was not going to have a “fireside chat” about what I was doing. I am sorry things turned out the way that they did, but they did.
14. Did you have any misgivings about your decision as you drove across the nation to Garden Grove, California?
Not really. Actually, the drive across the country was great. I felt like I had finally made a tangible sacrifice for Christ. I was too comfortable where I was. Once I got on the road, there was no turning back. One or two nights I had dreams about the situation and potential canonical penalties, but underneath it all, I had a sense that everything was going to be fine. I also reflected that if by some chance I am shown to be wrong at Judgment, I do believe in Divine Mercy, as did St. Therese who trusted so much in God’s Love that she believed that even should she have the misfortune of committing mortal sins, even then would she trust. St. Therese was not speaking hypothetically and it is significant, especially for those priests who are “on the fence”. I stayed there as long as I did for fear of making a big mistake. While we must weigh all of our options in any decision that we make of moral consequence, sooner or later, as Father Perez wrote to me in an email back in December, you have to “put your hand to the plow without looking back”. Any time I was tempted to second-guess myself, I re-membered that little piece of advice.
15. What were some of your fears of things that might have kept you from making the decision that you did? What saints most inspired you to do what you did? What would you say to your brother priests who are contemplating following your example? Will they lack for their temporalities?
I really did not have many fears, outside of actually doing the wrong thing. I was not afraid of losing friends because most of my friendships have been about having fun more than anything else, sorry to say. I believed many of the same things as my friends but I can count on one hand, maybe on one finger, the number of friendships that I will carry with me wherever I go. Many more of my relationships were actually a hindrance to my prayer life, and maybe theirs as well. Don’t get me wrong. I love my friends, but friendships do not advance without honesty and both being in union with the Will of God. I pray that doing what I have done will either confirm them in Tradition, if they were already traditionalists, or bring the rest to the ways of old for the first time.
Our Blessed Mother definitely had a central role in all of this. She has both protected me and led me forward every step of the way. I have been developing a tender and filial devotion to Our Lady through all of this and it is a foundation for my confidence, even when I mess up. The role of the other saints is not as easy to discern although I am pretty sure St. Therese had a word or two to say on my behalf. I also believe very firmly that “the Archbishop” was interceding for a friend. In the future, I think that I may turn more and more to St. Thomas more, that clear thinker whose intercession will help me to obtain more grace and win that many more souls to the cause of the Catholic Faith.
For my brother priests contemplating following my example, know that the more you contemplate, the less likely you are to make the move. I do not propose being reckless, of course, but if you are already on the fence, then you know what’s going on and need to follow through. Pray for Grace and do not expect absolute interior assurance. Remember what Jesus says to St. Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen but have believed.” I think that the Lord allows usto be hampered intermittently by doubts in order to increase the merit of our actions. It also allows him to bless us more abundantly. Imagine following through for Christ and what that will do for your priesthood. With regard to temporalities, I can speak for myself on this by saying that I have lost next to nothing. I have everything that I need and the two things I do not have, a cook and a television, are good for a priest not to have! Some may disagree with the cook part, but there are plenty of places to pick up food to make for ourselves. I am not going hungry and you will see how generous people are. I believe the Droleskeys have taken me out to breakfast after Mass about twelve times already, not to mention the parishioners who give us dry goods and lots of pasta. No complaints and no regrets.
16. What did you notice about the first Mass you saw offered by Father Perez? How was this different from any other Mass, Traditional or Novus Ordo, that you have ever offered yourself or have seen offered?
What moved me the most about the way Father Perez offers Mass is that it could be his third straight Mass and it is indistinguishable from his first or second Mass. Yes, the rubrics are the same, but I am referring to something else. Father Perez not only knows what he is doing at the Mass, as we are instructed at our ordination to the priesthood, but he is what he is doing each and every time he offers the Holy Sacrifice. Same inflection, same gestures, same elevations, same devotion. Father’s Latin is incredible and I have certainly learned more from watching and hearing him than I have in the twenty-five years I can remember going to Mass, New or Old rite. There were priests in the seminary who offered the Novus Ordo about as well as it can be offered, including, and maybe especially, our rector, which had both a positive and negative effect. In a positive way, it increased my love for the Mass, coming from the one who would be expected by God more than any other at the seminary to communicate such devotion. On the other hand, it inhibited my move to Tradition because I did not yet see clearly the intrinsic difficulties with the New Mass and I felt that one day I would be able to offer the New Mass hopefully in much the same way as priests like my rector were, and still are. I wonder if more priests and seminarians had a chance to assist at a Mass that Father Perez offers, if a number of them would be led to contemplate such a move as the one I have made.
You see, part of the problem is that most men in the seminary today either have not been to a Traditional Latin Mass, or if they have, they were very young. By extension, most people in the pews don’t think they have a choice and they don’t know anything else other than what they have at their parish, in addition to maybe a Protestant service or two. They have bought all of the complaints about the “way things were” or the difficulties understanding Latin, all the mumbo-jumbo that they hear from priests who should know better, except that to a degree they are right in that I do not doubt that their pastors mumbled the words of the Mass. But I would like to ask them, “So then, when the New Mass came out, all of a sudden did they get better?” I tend to doubt it, and such a reason for changing the Mass is not a reason at all. It sounds awfully similar to what Luther did. He could have worked for reform from within but instead, no matter what his intentions were, he began a new religion. With the New Mass, to get back to your question, other than not knowing who was going to walk through the chapel doors for morning Mass (it felt like those days of pot luck lunches at school), the whole concelebration issue was another factor for my leaving the Novus Ordo. As you mentioned in G.I.R.M. Warfare, it is a mess, especially before Masses with a bishop when there are over one hundred priests concelebrating. That very element in the New Mass I think detracted from many Masses that I assisted at. Most of what I learned about this and the other issues, I saw much more clearly when I actually did it as a priest. But just from my few weeks thus far with Father Perez, now offering Mass daily myself, there is no comparison between now and January 8, 2004. It is so much better.
17. How does your personal holiness as a priest relate to offering the Traditional Latin Mass?
To be holy, one needs to be able to do what they are intended by God to do. Offering the Traditional Latin Mass I believe is what is intended by God for me to do as a priest who is called to offer sacrifice. The whole Mass is a sacrifice, and there is not a part of it that I am not doing. Plus, the texts are clearly Catholic so that if ever I forgot momentarily what it was I was doing at Mass, I would quickly be led back to its purpose. In the Traditional Latin Mass, in persona Christi capitis means more than I am the president of the assembly. It means that without me, this does not happen. To become holy, we need to put on the mind of Christ. Well, what we do informs how we think. What am I doing as a priest at both Masses? It changes one’s whole outlook not just on what the Mass is, but one’s perspective on life and on how we need to conduct ourselves in order to get to Heaven. For those in the pews, seeing how others conduct themselves at Mass, including the posture of kneeling as opposed to sitting for the majority of the Holy Sacrifice, not to mention how people tend to dress for the Traditional Latin Mass versus the New Mass, what we see at least disposes us in a particular direction, for better or for worse. This also directly affects me because the people are more respectful of priests here. They are so because they can be. They are told to respect their priests, it is a part of the authentic Catholic culture, and that reminds me of my priestly dignity, which bodes well for my “active participation” at Mass.
18. How can you compare offering the Traditional Latin Mass to offering the Novus Ordo Missae? How does this compare with what you learned about the Mass in seminary.
In addition to what I mention in the next question, in the Traditional Latin Mass, I don’t have to worry every day about what I am going to say in my homily, which although not required for daily Masses in the Novus Ordo, is normally the standard practice. In relation to this, the homily is considered part of the Mass in the Novus Ordo, so no sign of the Cross is made before and after to distinguish it from the Mass, which I have come to see is not right. In the seminary, we were told not to sign ourselves before or after the homily. Yet, the homily is not part of the sacrifice. It is didactic in nature and can change from Mass to Mass. It can be beneficial to the people, especially on big feast days, but it is not necessary.
This highlights the fundamental difference between the two Masses. One focuses more on sacrifice and the other on communion. Both can’t be right. We learned in the seminary that after receiving Communion, it was necessary to sing the Communion hymn. Why? Because it is not an individual moment. It is a time for communion with each other. While this is true up to a point, we can’t be one together until we have had a chance to become one with Christ individually, which must extend beyond the exact moment of receiving Communion. Otherwise, Christ never gets to lay His head in our hearts. If we sing right away, even if it is a good Catholic hymn, the seed never gets planted and the devil, in effect, steals Christ from us. In the Eucharist, while Jesus does unite us and build up His Church, He really does unite each soul to His Sacred Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity first. “I” must come before “we” can ever happen.
I may have mentioned this already, but another big difference is that I am not facing the people in the Traditional Latin Mass, which means it is easier to focus on what I am doing. Also, the very direction I am facing reminds me that I am offering the Sacrifice for the people, and, in persona Christi, I am thereby offering myself for them. It is not that I cannot think of this at the New Mass, but why have to actively call it to mind when it is worked into the very structure of the Latin Mass? This too was explained away in our liturgical practicum course in favor of exclusively facing versus populum.
There is much more I could say and I will conclude by mentioning that the manner of distributing Communion is so much different that it hardly warrants insulting the intelligence of those who know both ways by commenting. However, the bishops say they want everyone to make the same act of reverence before receiving Communion in order to show the Church’s unity. Does anyone take this seriously? So then, after one has made the same act as everyone else, one proceeds to either receive on the tongue, in the hand, or to kneel for Communion if they are really “rebellious.” Then, some receive from the chalice, and others do not. Any unity mustered up is thereby destroyed and most, because they are not encouraged to kneel before their Lord, may walk away wondering, “What did I just do?” The Traditional way is easier, more devout, and it has been beautiful for me to keep my eyes on the Host each and every time, coupled with a sign of the Cross. As an extension of this, I would add that one of the practices that has really opened my eyes is the ablutions, properly done. Each tiny piece of Host is Jesus. Period.
19. As you approached the altar at your first Sunday offering of the Traditional Latin Mass in January 2005, the choir sang “Tu es Sacerdos.” What was this moment like and how did it differ from your ordination Mass and from your first Mass of Thanks-giving as a priest?
That was a very powerful experience. First of all, the choir was coming from above. I could not see them but I could hear them and they sounded really good. I was a bit dry before Mass and distracted by the moment, a disposition I worked hard to limit as much as possible. As I entered, however, it was a whole other world. I heard those words “Tu es sacerdos” and I think they went hand-in-hand with the way I was vested, biretta and all, while processing in with my chalice. It is more serious all the way around. In the New Mass, I would carry in a hymnal and sing with the congregation to show that we all represent Christ at the Mass. I distinctly remember at one point hearing it explained in such a way that, “we are welcoming Christ in each other “That’s corny and it is also incorrect. It represents yet another blur in the distinction between priest and laity. For my first public Mass, however, the understanding was clearly more in line with Catholic teaching on the ministerial priesthood. Now I was carrying in the vessels for the sacrifice. There is very little to compare. The moment was more divine for me than either my ordination Mass or my Mass of Thanksgiving. In neither case did what was actually taking place hit me. Not to say that they were not powerful moments, because they were, but, and I think this is the key, this was scarier. Now I knew that I had better know what I am doing, and that necessity was supported from the very first moment I entered the chapel.
20. How do you answer those who say that you are being disobedient, that you have left the true Church, that you are acting in a Protestant and schismatic manner?
There is such a thing as lawful disobedience, based upon abuse of the Fourth Commandment by those in authority. In abandoning Tradition for the sake of novelty and opening to the world, the Popes have abused their authority and the bishops who go along with it fall under the same category. I still recognize the Pope and pray for him at every Mass, and the bishop is still my bishop. To be in schism, I actually have to do something wrong. If I did not do this, the sheep would not be fed with the food that is their right to receive.
Until Rome publicly ad-mits the truth that Catholic priests and laity have the full and exclusive access to the Sacraments in the Traditional way, we have supplied jurisdiction, which is an extension of the principle, ecclesia supplet. There is little else to say. As I said, Archbishop Myers is still my bishop and the question I have for those who would say what you mentioned in the question, how would I be showing him the proper filial devotion if I simply stayed with the program? That would send him the message that in spite of difficulties from place to place in the diocese, the direction we are headed in is fine.
Yet, this is not simply a difficult time in the Church. It is a major crisis. The only real witness to the gravity of the situation is not accepting “yes,” for an answer. In other words, not agreeing “in principle” with the New Mass because by doing so, one is not simply saying that the New Mass is valid, but that thereby it is okay to offer it, and if called upon, to do it, that would be acceptable, even if the priest in question did not want to do it. It is an implicit confirmation of modernism because the only way to defeat modernism is to say no, not ever. That is the one answer the devil cannot tolerate because it is the only one that bears witness to his defeat on the Cross.
21. How is your family taking your decision?
All things considered, very well. I think about as well as I can expect. One can only give what they have and my parents have always given me all that they have. I don’t know that they understand what I have done, but I never expected that they would. I have kept in touch with them over the phone and they are taking it all very well, although they miss seeing me, and I them. That’s only natural. My hope is that what I have done will not only bear fruit in my life, but that my family will learn from the example and join the ranks of Tradition “soon and very soon,” to quote a song from my old parish that drove me up a wall.
I also have a brother and sister, both younger than I am, who have been very supportive, but it is hard for them to deal with not being able to see their big brother at least once or twice a month. It is too easy to take things for granted when you have them. When we are away from those we love, especially if it happens to be in the best interests of Almighty God, than it will do more for the relationships we have then if we were together every day. Better to be apart for a while and together forever in Heaven, than to remain in place and possibly lose everything. I will probably still see my family on average once or twice a year, which isn’t much, but they are moments to look forward to, and I do.
22. Finally, Father, how would you compare your situation in defense of the fullness of the Catholic Faith with that experienced by the early martyrs of the first centuries of the Church and the English martyrs, who sacrificed everything in defense of the Mass of the ages?
When the martyrdom comes, I will let you know. I knew all along that there were those who would feel betrayed by my decision and I also realized that there would be those who would more than make up for any grief that this would cause me. I mentioned St. Thomas More earlier. I am not exaggerating when I say that I am not worthy to untie his straps, and this goes for the other English martyrs, such as Saint Edmund Campion and Saint Oliver Plunkett during the Protestant Revolt, to say nothing of St. Thomas Becket some four centuries before, and the saints from the early centuries of the Church. I said it once and I will say it again. I have no illusions about my sanctity. I did what I did because I believe that it was right and I pray that, as time goes on, I might become half the man that Archbishop Lefebvre was, or that Bishop Bernard Fellay is. That is why I did what I did, to give myself a chance to become a saint. I mentioned in my first sermon at Garden Grove in the middle of January that being a Traditionalist does not give us a free pass to Heaven. But it lets the devil know that we are ready for the war. My prayer is that our forces may unite under the one banner of Tradition that we may take the Beast down together. God bless you.
