Posted on 07/09/2007 11:01:19 AM PDT by AnthonyCekada
A “mark of identity… a form of encounter…particularly suited to them.….” A “sacrality which attracts many people.” (Benedict XVI, on his reasons for instituting the Motu Mass)
“Legitimate diversity and different sensibilities, worthy of respect… Stimulated by the Spirit who makes all charismata come together in unity.”( John Paul II, on the traditional Mass, to the Fraternity of St. Peter)
“Everything in their system is explained by inner impulses or needs.” (Pope St. Pius X, on modernists and the sacraments, Pascendi)
* * *
ON JULY 7, 2007 Benedict XVI issued Summorum Pontificum, his long-anticipated Motu Proprio allowing a more widespread use of the 1962 version of the traditional Latin Mass. His action came as no surprise. As a Cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger had already spoken favorably about the old Mass many times.
Here are some salient provisions of the Motu Proprio and his accompanying letter:
• The New Mass of Paul VI is the “ordinary” expression of the “law of prayer” (lex orandi), while the John XXIII version of the old Mass is the “extraordinary” expression. They are “two uses of the one Roman Rite.” (Motu Proprio, ¶1)
• Any priest can celebrate the Mass of “Blessed John XXIII” privately. (¶2)
• In parishes where there is a stable group of faithful “attached to the previous liturgical tradition,” the pastor should accede to their requests for a celebration of the ’62 Mass. (¶5.1)
• Such celebrations can take place on weekdays, “while on Sundays and feastdays there may be one such celebration.” (¶5.2)
• Scripture readings can be proclaimed in the vernacular. (¶6)
• The older rite may also be used, when requested, for weddings and funerals (¶5.3), and the pastor may allow using the older rites for administering other sacraments as well. (¶9.1)
• The diocesan bishop may set up a “personal parish” for such celebrations. (¶10)
• The New Mass and the old are not “two Rites,” but a two-fold use of “one and the same rite.” (Letter to Bishops)
• The old Missal was “never juridically abrogated, and consequently, in principle, was always permitted.”
• The two rites are “mutually enriching.”
• New saints and new Prefaces from the New Missal “can and should be inserted into the old.”
• There is “no contradiction” between the two rites.
• Priests from communities that adhere to the former usage “cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books.” So, now that the “Motu Mass” has finally arrived, what should we make of it? Here are some preliminary considerations.
I. POSITIVE ASPECTS
1. An Admission of Failure
As a seminarian in the 1960s, I lived through the liturgical revolution on the inside, and since then I have read commentaries on the reform by those who directed it — Bugnini, Jungmann, Braga, Wagner, Patino, Botte, Vaggagini, Brandolini, and many others.
In those days and for these men, there was never any question of allowing the pre-Vatican II Mass to survive, even on a restricted basis. The new rite of Mass in the 1970 Missal of Paul VI was to become the Mass of the Roman Rite, period, and it was to be a great step forward for the Church.
This was the intention of Paul VI himself. In November 1969, shortly before his New Mass was to be introduced in churches throughout the world, he developed this theme in two General Audiences:
“[The liturgical reform] is a step forward for [the Church’s] genuine tradition. It is a clear sign of faithfulness and vitality.… It is not a fad, a fleeting or optional experiment, the invention of some dilettante… This reform puts an end to uncertainties, arguments and arbitrary abuses. It summons us back to that uniformity of rites and attitudes that is proper to the Catholic Church…
“[T]he fundamental outline of the Mass is still the traditional one, not only theologically but also spiritually. Indeed, if the rite is carried out as it ought to be, the spiritual aspect will be found to have greater richness.”…
“Let us then not speak of a ‘new Mass,’ but of a ‘new age’ in the life of the Church.”
The new age is now over. During four decades of “greater richness,” ordinations in the U.S. declined by 72%, seminary enrollment by 90%, seminaries by 66%, teaching sisters by 94%, Catholic school enrollment by 55%, and Mass attendance by about 60%.
In the 1990s, a new generation of clergy started to turn away from the rite of Paul VI and look longingly towards the Tridentine Missal. Graduates of garden-variety diocesan seminaries sought out old-style vestments, took courses on the pre-Vatican II rubrics, celebrated the traditional Mass on the sly, and generally, hoped for something more Catholic than was to be found in the new rite.
If the New Mass had been a success, there would be none of this. The Motu Mass is an ad-mission that the Novus Ordo was a failure.
2. Removing the Stigma.
From 1964 to 1984, the modernist hierarchy treated those who wanted the old Mass as outcasts, crackpots and troglodytes. The 1984 Indult and then the establishment of the Ecclesia Dei commission in 1988, however, removed some of the stigma from promoting the “Latin Mass.”
Ratzinger’s Motu Mass will further “legitimize” pre-Vatican II liturgical practices in the eyes of many.
3. A Cause of Division in the Enemy Camp
Despite the elaborate safeguards Ratzinger tried to lay down, Motu Mass will inevitably cause conflict among adherents to Vatican II.
I don’t know about other parts of the world, but I can probably predict how this will play out in suburban America, where the majority of Novus Ordo Catholics now reside. There, in churches architecturally indistinguishable from chain restaurants and bank branches, committees of “empowered” and aggressive laywomen, both salaried and volunteer, together with the occasional liberated “woman religious,” now dictate parish policies and practices. They and their fellow suburbanites like the easy-going Mass and religion of Vatican II just as it is.
Should a neo-con pastor (typically: “Father Bob,” — late 30s, overweight, and in his second career) announce that, thanks to the Motu Proprio, he will be bringing out all the old liturgical gear that he’s bought on eBay and start celebrating the old Mass in Latin at 10AM on Sundays, a parish-wide insurrection, complete with protests to the bishop and a full media campaign, would be organized by the women’s soviet.
Multiply this by a few parishes per diocese, and you can see the strife the Motu Mass could cause among the enemy. A divided house cannot stand, and divisions that advance the decomposition of the new religion can only speed the restoration of the old — quod Deus det!
4. Warning Flares for Committed Trads
Most long-time traditionalists detest any tinkering with the Mass. Ratzinger, however, hints at some changes that might be in store for them at their local Motu Mass: new saints’ feasts, new Prefaces, and vernacular readings — whether even the Bugnini lectionary can be used is left unclear.
Great! Fooling around like this with the old Mass will make old-timers very uneasy, alert them to Ratzinger’s game (one hopes), and perhaps even start them on the road to thinking that modernists like Ratzinger are the problem, not the solution, for real Catholics.
5. Rubbing Priests’ Noses in the New Mass
Since 1988 John Paul II and Ratzinger have approved a great number of quasi-traditionalist religious communities (Fraternity of St. Peter, Institute of Christ the King, the Good Shepherd Institute, etc.) that are allowed to use the ’62 Missal and other pre-Vatican II rites. These have insulated many clergy who detested the New Mass from being forced to celebrate it.
No longer. Ratzinger sends them a rocket: “Needless to say, in order to experience full communion, the priests of the communities adhering to the former usage cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books. The total exclusion of the new rite would not in fact be consistent with the recognition of its value and holiness.”
Again, great! The more that priests in these institutes are personally confronted with the evil of the New Mass, the sooner they will realize the irreconcilable contradictions of their own position.
6. An Introduction to the Real Issues
Although the John XXIII Mass that Ratzinger authorizes is a stripped version of the inte-gral traditional liturgy, it still retains enough of the old to demonstrate that, in comparison, the New Mass of Paul VI represented an entirely new religion — “man-centered,” as one of its creators, Fr. Martin Patino, proudly proclaimed.
For many Catholics, the road to becoming traditionalists began when they encountered a traditional Latin Mass for the first time and compared it with the neo-protestant rite celebrated in their parishes. With the Motu Mass, the possibility of such encounters multiplies exponentially.
This will no doubt lead many sincere and thoughtful souls to look beyond the liturgical question to the larger doctrinal issue — the heresies of Vatican II and the post-Conciliar popes — and eventually embrace the only logical position for a faithful Catholic: sedevacantism.
II. NEGATIVE ASPECTS
1. Co-opted by Modernist Subjectivism
Because they still think in the old Catholic religious categories, traditionalists who pro-moted the Motu Mass will consider its approval a resounding defeat for modernism.
But in fact, something different has occurred: with the Motu Mass, the modernists will now co-opt unsuspecting trads into their own subjectivist program.
Pope St. Pius X condemned modernism because (among other things) it spurned dogma and exalted the “religious sense” of the individual believer. And the Vatican pronouncements that authorize the use of the traditional Mass — from the 1984 Indult onwards — all do so on the basis of slippery and subjective modernist categories like “different sensibilities,” “feelings,” “legitimate diversity,” “enjoyment,” various “charismata,” “cultural expressions,” “attachment,” etc.
Ratzinger now repeatedly sounds this theme: “attachment,” “affection,” “culture,” “personal familiarity,” “mark of identity,” “dear to them,” “attraction,” “form of encounter,” and “sacrality which attracts.”
Everything is reduced to the subjective.
Let the traditionalists who promoted it say what they will. For Ratzinger, the Motu Mass makes them merely one more color in his Vatican II rainbow.
2. A Side Chapel in an Ecumenical Church
As we have repeatedly pointed out elsewhere, Joseph Ratzinger’s personal contribution to the long list of Vatican II errors is his “Frankenchurch” heresy. For him, the Church is a “communion” — a type of ecumenical, One-World Church to which Catholics, schismatics and heretics all belong, each possessing “elements” of the Church of Christ either “fully” or “partially.” According to his Catechism, all are part of one big happy “People of God.”
Under this roof, some enjoy Lutheran chorales, guitar Masses, Gregorian chant, communion in the hand, altar girls, lay Eucharistic ministers, Hindu and African “inculturated” liturgies and Mariachi music. Others (in “partial communion” with Ratzinger) enjoy somber Orthodox chanting, rock music, priestesses, Anglican smells and bells, Canons with the Words of Consecration missing, accept-Jesus-as-your-perrrzonal-savior altar calls, and Filioque-free Creeds.
It is therefore hardly surprising that Ratzinger would offer traditionalists the Motu Mass, and with it a large and comfy side chapel in his ecumenical church. Just one more option…
And in fact, Fr. Nicola Bux, a Vatican official who was involved in drafting the Motu Proprio, called it just that: an “’extension’ of options.”
And of course, there is a price to be paid.
According to Ratzinger’s Motu Proprio and accompanying letter, the Novus Ordo — the ecumenical, protestant, modernist sacrilege that destroyed the Catholic faith throughout the world — is the “ordinary expression of the law of prayer of the Catholic Church.” Your Motu Mass — the true Mass, you may like to call it — is merely “extraordinary.” The new and the old are merely two uses of the same Roman Rite.
If you accept the Motu Mass, you buy into all this, and become a paid-up member of Ratzinger’s One-World Ecumenical Church.
3. Catholic Rituals, Modernist Doctrines
For decades, traditionalists rallied to the cry “It’s the Mass that matters!”
But ultimately this is just a slogan. You can get to heaven without the Catholic Mass, but you can’t get to heaven without the Catholic Faith.
Ratzinger will now give you the Mass — but the faith? Will those who accept his generous offer be free to condemn the Novus Ordo, the Vatican II errors, and the false teachings of the post-Conciliar popes?
To find out, one need only look at the Fraternity of St. Peter, the Institute of Christ the King and the other organizations already celebrating the old Mass under the auspices of the Vatican’s Ecclesia Dei Commission. The most their clergy dared to do was offer the occasional polite criticism about “deficiencies” or “ambiguities” in the new religion. They are now all sold men.
Their principal concern now, like that of the Anglican High Church wing, will be to maintain the externals of Catholicism, especially its worship. But the heart of Catholicism — the faith — is gone.
So while a neo-con priest who offers a Motu Mass may now find it very thrilling to chant the ancient collects with their “negative” language about hell, divine retribution, Jews, pagans, heretics and the like, he should remember that Vatican II abolished the doctrinal presuppositions on which this language was based.
For the good Father and his congregation, the lex orandi which they observe (the tradi-tional Mass) has no connection whatsoever with their official lex credendi (the Vatican II religion).
From its 19th-century beginnings, modernism sought to create a religion that is divorced from dogma, but that nevertheless satisfies man’s “religious sense.” It is ironic that this self-contradicting and dogma-free religion is now fully realized in Ratzinger’s Motu Mass.
4. Non-Priests Offering Invalid Masses
“Once there are no more valid priests, they’ll permit the Latin Mass.”
This was the prediction made in the mid-1970s by the Capuchin Fr. Carl Pulvermacher, an older traditionalist priest who worked with SSPX and was an editor of their U.S. publication The Angelus.
It was also prophetic. In 1968, the modernists formulated a new Rite of Episcopal Conse-cration that is invalid — it cannot create a real bishop. Someone who is not a real bishop, of course, cannot ordain a real priest, and all the Masses — traditional Latin or Novus Ordo — offered by an invalidly ordained priest are likewise invalid.
So nearly forty years later, when, thanks to the post-Vatican II Rite of Episcopal Consecration, there are few validly ordained priests left, the modernist Ratzinger (himself invalidly consecrated in the new rite) permits the traditional Mass.
As a result of the Motu Proprio, therefore, traditional Latin Masses will start to be cele-brated widely throughout the world: chant and Palestrina will echo in magnificently appointed churches, cloth-of-gold vestments will glisten, clouds of incense will fill Baroque apses, preachers in lace will proclaim the return of the sacred, solemn-faced clerics will officiate with as much rubrical perfection as the truncated rites of John XXIII will allow.
But the Motu Mass will all be an empty show. Without real bishops, no real priests; without real priests, no Real Presence; without the Real Presence, no God to receive and adore — only bread…
III. SAY NO TO THE MOTU
IN THE LONG run, the Motu Mass will contribute to the steady decline of post-Conciliar religion and the eventual death of Vatican II — Ratzinger’s devil-baby, for which Limbo was never an option. At all this, we can only rejoice.
In the short term, however, many gullible traditionalists will be lured to the Motu Mass because of convenience or the prospect of “belonging to something bigger.”
But the negative aspects of actually assisting at the Motu are pure poison. Here are two key points to remember:
(1) In most cases, your local Motu Mass will be invalid, because the priest who offers it will have been ordained by an invalidly consecrated bishop. Even some Indult parishioners already avoid the Masses of FSSP priests for this reason.
(2) The Motu Mass is part of a false religion. Sure, you have your “approved” Latin Mass and perhaps even your Baltimore Catechism. But your co-religionists in the Church of Vatican II also have their Mass and their Catechism, all “approved” as well.
By assisting at the Motu Mass, you become part of it all and affirm that the differences between you and the folks down the road at St. Teilhard’s Church are merely cosmetic — “legitimate diversity and different sensibilities, worthy of respect… stimulated by the Spirit,” as John Paul II said to the Fraternity of St. Peter about their apostolate of offering the old Mass.
But if as a faithful Catholic, you’re disgusted at the thought of compromising with heresy and becoming one more color in the modernists’ liturgical and doctrinal rainbow, you have only one choice: Say no to the Motu!
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Whited sepulchres, whited sepulchres. The glory is departed. < wink >
As I see it, it is their own pride in their own holiness and their own understanding, and their own intelligence. Just as in a marriage that seems not to be salvagable, when you stay and work at it can become a holy union but if you give up and leave because you think you are always right it will end. SSPXers may not have divorced themselves from the Catholic Church but they certainly got a formal separation.
It's always been this way. The first and worst heresey came from Arius, a Bishop. Luther was an Augustinian Monk. The worst always comes from within, not from without.
Actually, it should be a source of comfort that the Universal Church still stands after being subjected to onslaught after onslaught - and that is in addition to its teaching and insisting upon the toughest moral doctrine, a doctrine that man naturally shrinks away from.
To me it is easy to see the supernatural characteristics of the Roman church. Then again, I pray every day. To those who would rather only naturalism they may see nothing in that Church except a pest to be exterminated.
Too bad for them.
I agree with you.
Our church liturgy would probably make his head explode. We at various times throughout the year mix Latin in with our NO mass. We sing Sanctus and Agnus Dei and so many other songs of prayer in Latin. I love it.
I love the NO Mass (we're going to have to get used to calling it "the ordinary usage" :o)) at my parish. The priests celebrate Mass by the book! The weekday Mass is especially intimate, and very simple. I was a member of the choir for a while, and I learned three Masses in Latin, and another Latin Mass in Gregorian Chant. I yearn for the new Missal (a new one is upcoming) with accurate vernacular translations from the Latin NO missal. I would love to see Latin restored to some major parts of the Mass, and also the practice of Communion in the hand discontinued.
I remember the extraordinary usage, and the changes during Vatican II. I was a little kid then, but I remember the majesty and power of especially the High Mass at my parish. I remember the awe, and the sense of the sacred. Furthermore, I think that even as a child I admired the dicipline of the rubrics.
I rejoice with the whole Church that our Holy Father has given us all the gift of his Motu Proprio. I rejoice that the Holy Spirit has guided him to this conclusion. I rejoice with my fellow Catholics who yearned for this restoration of the Mass of Blessed John XXIII to the wider usage of the Church. We all have suffered with the abuses born of liberalism, and now we have hope! As Jesus says,"Behold, I make all things new!"
Could I personally go back? I would love to attend an extraordinary usage Mass, because I want the opportunity to approach it, and appreciate it, as an adult. I also want to stay with the ordinary usage, because I think that its biggest draw lies, as I said before, in its intimacy and simplicity. In addition, in terms of participation, I cherish the role I have in making the responses to the priest.
I think the most important thing to remember is that both usages of the Latin rite worship God, one in pomp and majesty, and the other in simplicity. Both also have at its very essence the priest, acting in personna Christi, through whom God offers Himself to God for the many, and then distributes Himself as the Bread of Life.
Apparently, for right now, the Holy Spirit has let us know that God wants both styles of worship for the Latin Rite. I think Benedict XVI really hit the nail on the head that the extraordinary usage will be a sacred leaven to the ordinary usage. Let's follow our Pope and see what the Holy Spirit has for us in the future!
Here's a link that you may be interested in pursuing:
ADOREMUS: Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy
God bless you. :o)
Hey wagglebee!
Wow, what a link! Fighting for Terri is what actually got me to register at FR. What a miserable, unfortunate soul this man is!
Thanks for the background info.
Every time I see parts of the extraordinary usage on TV, and when I see it in person, I’m struck by the intensity and intentionality of the priests and altar boys humbly and reverently approaching the altar as the Levites would have in the days of the tabernacle in the tent.
I have absolutely no intention of being rude, but I’m so doggone happy to be a Catholic, and I just love Benedict XVI to pieces, that I absolutely can’t focus on what you’re saying.
Really!
I love Protestants so much, and have learned immensely from them, concerning how to daily live the Christian life. I owe quite a debt of gratitude.
Glad to have you aboard! :o)
I think I get the sense you mean.
Maybe I should call the Sedevacantists the Ultimate Protestants - or the Über-Protestants, or something.
You are a delight to have on this forum! V’s wife.
Bad pope, good pope, there is nothing in there that says to separate yourself from the Church because YOU believe the pope is wrong. You continue to worship God in the Church that He provided and work for the fidelity of the Church and the Popes. Plenty of saints who came before you did when they saw the Church and the pope heading in the wrong direction.
Jesus asked St. Francis of Assisi to rebuild His Church. How about reading up on St. Francis? I think he was before Vatican II.
Only in heaven will we begin to comprehend just how much God values each act of obedience. Without it, God can't work with a soul.
abandon, abandon hope, be hopeless, bum out, despond, destroy, drop, flatten, give way, lose faith, lose heart, lose hope, relinquish, renounce, resign, surrender, take down, yield
I think relinquishers fits pretty well but resigners, surrenderers or renouncers fit quite well too.
Of course nothing will prevail against Christ's Church, the question is rather who has LEFT the Church, of whatever rank, and in whatever numbers by formal heresy.
In the examples you mentioned, those who protested were the heretics, in this instance the heretics have usurped power and stayed, corrupted and befouled the Temple.
To be a Catholic one must be baptized and hold the Faith whole and entire. The heresiarchs who have bodly taken command since Vatican 2 are in no way, shape, or form Catholic. They have insitituted a completely new and false faith, and under the guise of all heretics, pretended that it is part of our sacred Patrimony when in reality it is of satan.
Bad pope, good pope, there is nothing in there that says to separate yourself from the Church because YOU believe the pope is wrong.
We are not speaking of a "good pope" or "bad pope", we are speaking of whether this man is Catholic, because if he is not, he is no pope at all.
As I quoted CATHOLIC teaching above, a heretical pope MUST be avoided.
"Cum ex Apostolatus Officio" Apostolic Constitution of Pope Paul IV
"7. (ii) the laity;
shall be permitted at any time to withdraw with impunity from obedience and devotion to those thus promoted or elevated and to avoid them as warlocks, heathens, publicans, and heresiarchs"
St Robert Bellarmine, "De Romano Pontifice", ("On the Roman Pontiff"), liber II, caput 30:
"For, in the first place, it is proven with arguments from authority and from reason that the manifest heretic is "ipso facto" deposed. The argument from authority is based on St. Paul (Titus, c. 3), who orders that the heretic be avoided after two warnings, that is, after showing himself to be manifestly obstinate - which means before any excommunication or judicial sentence. And this is what St. Jerome writes, adding that the other sinners are excluded from the Church by sentence of excommunication, but the heretics exile themselves and separate themselves by their own act from the body of Christ. Now, a Pope who remains Pope cannot be avoided, for how could we be required to avoid our own head? How can we separate ourselves from a member united to us? This principle is most certain. The non-Christian cannot in any way be Pope, as Cajetan himself admits (ib. c. 26). The reason for this is that he cannot be head of what he is not a member; now he who is not a Christian is not a member of the Church, and a manifest heretic is not a Christian, as is clearly taught by St. Cyprian (lib. 4, epist. 2), St. Athanasius (Scr. 2 cont. Arian.), St. Augustine (lib. de great. Christ. cap. 20), St. Jerome (contra Lucifer.) and others; therefore the manifest heretic cannot be Pope.
Jus Canonicum by the Rev F X Wernz S.J. and the Rev P Vidal S.J. (1938) Chapter VII
"Indeed, a publicly heretical Pope, who, by the commandment of Christ and the Apostle must even be avoided because of the danger to the Church, must be deprived of his power as almost all admit. But he cannot be deprived by a merely declaratory sentence..."
Wherefore, it must be firmly stated that a heretical Roman Pontiff would by that very fact forfeit his power."
Epistle Of Saint Paul To The Galatians, Chapter 1, Verses 8-9
8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.
9 As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.
Oh yes! I think that part of the reason why is due to the rubrics. Like making the Sign of the Cross three times over the Chalice, or the priest’s kneeling/bowing before the tabernacle. Very deliberate, precise and extensive.
And absolutely awesome!
Like An American Mother, I am a convert to Catholicism so I was Protestant too. I thank God for my early faith formation as a Protestant.
LOL!
You know what? I think I’d like to call them “Sedevacantists” because it sounds SO HORRIBLE! LOL!
Thank you so much for the nice little surprise, V’s wife! God bless you! :o)
It is clear to me that you neither believe in Christ’s words, nor do you believe in the power and work of the Holy Spirit.
I’m so sorry. May the Holy Spirit give you His light for the sake of His Divine Mercy.
Yeah, whatever. As for me, I will serve God through the Church Christ established. I’ve read all the SSPX arguments and I still think that they are cowardly chickens. God gave us the vehicle and SSPXers stepped out of it when it was still running instead of trying to take the steering wheel and guide it to safety. They seem to think that the broken bones and bruises are a sign of their bravery when it seems to me that they are a sign of their surrender. Satan will do anything to ruin the church and those who lose the faith and do his bidding in their despair deserve my pity but they try my patience.
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