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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FREE INFO PACK: St. Gertrude the Great Church • 4900 Rialto Road West Chester OH 45069 • 513.645.4212 or visit: www.traditionalmass.org
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.
I thank God for my early faith formation as a Protestant.
I can see the tremendous blessing that God has given us Catholics through the Protestant tradition. From current Protestant preachers to Catholic converts such as Scott Hahn. As a cradle Catholic, including Catholic schools, I couldn't agree with you more.
By the way, my mom was not a Protestant, but she was a convert to the Catholic Church. Raised in a hazy sense of Christianity, she was baptized in her early 20's, right before she met my Catholic dad. :o) I learned so much from her devotion. Converts don't take things for granted, that's for sure!
Our Lord said He would never abandon us, and you sir, are calling Him a liar. All the fancy pronunciations and personal interpretations of anybody who may have been somebody will never get me to believe in what you are saying. I’ll stick with what the Lord said, with The Church, thank-you.
Later on, at 3:00 a.m. tomorrow morning I’ll be adoring a piece of bread in a gold monstrance, according to you. I know better. I’ll be thinking of you, because you are so very wrong and I hope you come back
Say, would this happen to be the brother of Pope Pius XIII?
At whose "election" white smoke billowed from the stove pipe of a log cabin up near where the Unabomber used to live?
Who was then "consecrated" by "Gordon Cardinal Bateman" - whom Pulvermacher then "consecrated" in return?
Hysterical website with lots of cool pictures:
http://www.truecatholic.org/pope/
Prophetic words from the brother of Pius XIII!
What good company you're in!
You don't mind if we stay with Benedict XVI, do you?
What on earth...?
You know, all of you Sedevacantist types are always so angry. Plus, haven’t you figured out that it is your group that is in schism with the Church, making you no better than the Protestant religions that you condemn as being in schism. You are the same as the Martin Luther you throw stones at. That’s why you so many of you separate yourselves from the Catholic Church psychologically, but do not formally break with the Church officially, as then you would be in schism, wouldn’t you.
Why don’t you just go off and form your own religion, and stop copping off with using the term Catholic, as if you still were one. You aren’t. You desire schism. Live with it, and officially break with the Catholic Church for good. Do everyone a big favor. There is no pleasing a Sedevacantist. You kick sand in the face of the very Pope who is bringing back the TLM, one of your big prerequisites. But that’s not good enough, is it. You want more. You will always want more, because you think you are more intelligent, more god-like, more moral, and just all around better than the rest of the mere masses of Catholics out there. Your vanity and pompousness will be your downfall. The gates of the Catholic heaven will slam shut when you try to gain entry. Hubris will be the reason for it. Enjoy your constant hostility to your own faith, which just amazes me.
The author of the piece is well on his way to heresy, or insanity, or both.
Hey! I think I'm on to something there!
I knew these people were angry but it's also clear that they are a few fries short of a Happy Meal.
Guess we better pray for them.
Just to generalize, your Presbyterians bring closely reasoned Biblical scholarship and excellent preaching (I don't think you can get much better preaching than the best Presbys, as far as reasoning, persuasiveness, and a dignified delivery), the Baptists can organize the business/committee end of the church better than anybody around, the A.M.E.s preach with fire and enthusiasm, and the Episcopalians can handle the music appreciation (they're not fit for much of anything else, I know, I used to be one.)
My first thoughts are to apologize for whatever ill I speak because I’d rather admit my imperfections than condemn myself and worse, lead other astray. Thus, I think Divine Mercy is the Forgiveness that heals division, and the Sacraments of the Holy Eucharist and Reconciliation covers this.
Mathew 12
30
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
31
Therefore, I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
32
And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
33
“Either declare the tree good and its fruit is good, or declare the tree rotten and its fruit is rotten, for a tree is known by its fruit.
34
You brood of vipers, how can you say good things when you are evil? For from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.
35
A good person brings forth good out of a store of goodness, but an evil person brings forth evil out of a store of evil.
36
I tell you, on the day of judgment people will render an account for every careless word they speak.
37
By your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
You couldn't make it up.
The Capuchin Father Carl Pulvermacher, to whom the author makes reference, was brother to Capuchin Father Lucian Pulvermacher, who was elected by a group of sedevacantists as Pius XIII.
In a log cabin.
White smoke coming out of the chimney.
He was then "consecrated" a bishop by an Australian layman named Gordan Bateman (Cardinal Secretary of State, if you please), whom he then in turn consecrated.
Pastoral letters, grand pronouncements, etc. etc.
Go look at the website - JUST GOOGLE PIUS XIII - it's a scream.
It also tells you ALL about the sedevacantist position - and the black-helicopter-sighters who hold it - that you need to know!
I’m just sitting here shaking my head, words fail me. Thanks for explaining.
Yes, I want the true Faith and the true Roman Catholic Church of Christ to be restored to the even greater glory of God.
This is a scream as well, the blasphemy of an apostate to the Most Holy Trinity, along with the the scream of billions of souls gleefully following these false shepherds into Hell.
Wojtyla Demonstrates His Apostasy
All the while this unprecedented murder of souls is incredibly justified and unwaveringly supported and promoted, and thus this wholesale slaughter of souls is most willingly partaken of, with the end of the supporters of this iniquity being the same as that of their false shepherds.
Quick, Youngstown!!!
I think if you look just above the log-cabin and just beneath the circling black helicopters, you’ll see white smoke!!!!
Maybe it will be Cardinal Bateman who emerges on the . . . back deck . . . as Pius XIV !!!!
I went to a link that let to a link, etc., and I found the website of the author's church:
They bill it as [a] "Roman Catholic Church/Traditional Latin Masses."
No truth in advertising, hmm. I wonder how many people would attend if they called it a "Sedevacantist Catholic Church," or just a "Sedevacantist Church?" Very very ominous. Gloom, doom and anger. Where is the joy that's supposed to reveal the Church of Jesus Christ to the world?
At any rate, I listened to the audio file of the above screed, which was actually a sermon. No Father (Bing Crosby) O'Malley, he!!! LOL!
Actually, from what I remember of him, the monseigneur pastor of my parish could whip this guy's butt sermon-wise, any day of the week! (He's the one that all of us kids would try to avoid in the confessional. heh heh.)
By the way, when I was a kid, I got the patent leather shoes thing. But I never did get the thing about bare arms in church. :o)
I’ve also heard some good sermons by Baptists.
I’ll have to defer to your “inside info” on the others. :o)
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