As he points out (and as I said on the earlier thread), there very well may be more than meets the eye at the surface of this.
It’s interesting that he (as I did) also questions whether SP applies here.
And if it doesn’t, nothing will stop this bishop.
Still a worrisome situation. Keep praying.
"What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place." - PBXVI
I too was taken by Father Z’s very lucid response, balancing the known, with the unknown. The known is a jolt and painful, on its face. Therefore, there better be a dang good reason coming, immediately.
I must say, that since Vatican II and Novus Ordo, the masses are nearly foreign, in every possible way, regrettably and fully protestant to the rules and piety established in the old form mass.
Obviously, Pope Benedict’s regard for the Tradition has been fought tooth and nail in the United States. We have seen the carnage, ever since. ( I was only received in 2000, and even in that short time have seen increasing impiety, myself.) It’s getting pretty stunning out there.
I had an opportunity to meet Dr. James Patrick, a past president of the school. He is a learned and serious man. I think the school is small enough that it might look to make a quickie move outside of the diocese.
When someone is being penalized, it is a courtesy to inform him of the penalty. “You know what you did!” isn’t sufficient for grownups. This school has kept some folks from going full-bore SSPX.
UPDATE:
A priest friend forwarded information from HIS priest friend in Dallas. Thus, I will edit a great deal and use bullet points. These things either happened or they didn’t and can be verified one way or another:
- In May a prof of FMC (Fisher More College) gave a talk and denied aspects of Vatican II
- The FSSP priests withdrew their services at FMC some time ago.
- Taylor Marshall, married with several children, resigned his job at FMC without another job.
- At Thanksgiving, 2013, Fr. Nicholas Gruner, the suspended Fatima Priest, said Mass at FMC.
- These things took place when the Diocese of Fort Worth was vacant.
- “This is NOT about hatred for the TLM.”
All of these points (except the last, which was an opinion) suggest dysfunction which the new bishop needed to address.
It may indeed be that this is not about “hatred for the TLM”. If that is the case, then Bp. Olson will surely want to make that clear in some way.
One commentator, below, observed that the bishop said that students could go to a parish, off-campus, where the TLM is offered, thus suggesting that he doesn’t have a problem with the TLM itself.
I hope that is the case. The tone of the bishop’s letter certainly fueled that suspicion. Getting some of the details out will help diffuse some of this tension about an “attack by a bishop on the TLM”. It may not be that at all, though I still scratch my head about this.
As I said above, what we don’t know can fill volumes, that it will swiftly come out, and that we must must must pray for cooling heads and the help of our angelic companions.
RM/AM, can you please highlight the update in the title? Thanks.
A new member of our TLM parish just returned from FMC, he quit because of stuff going on there.
"...Then, and most importantly, the whole coetus has to be heard - otherwise, this can be a cause for the suppression of a Mass at any time and in ANY place, including yours (yes, pay attention, including yours), if you go regularly to a Traditional Mass. That is, just one or a couple of individuals can cause the end of the Mass for any group - and I am sure you can see the grave danger in this, right? No group of Catholics must live under this kind of terror, the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads because there might be "bad apples" in the group, and always in fear of an immediate suppression of their Mass. What is the Church, a totalitarian state in which the faithful live under permanent terror of a true or false accusation that can bring the shutdown of their Mass at any moment for allegations against individual members of the whole coetus? Is it only the very minoritarian faithful attached to the Extraordinary Form who must live under this regime of liturgical terror? There is no Ordinary Form Mass shutdown for the many, many errors, heresies, schismatic notions, grave liturgical abuses being spread out openly in many regular parish churches, and university campuses and chapels? No, there are rightful procedures in Canon Law to identify apostates, schismatics, heretics, whatever may be the rite, form or usage they adhere to, providing them with the right to be heard, to defend themselves and their views, and to repent. And, even if individuals are rightfully convicted, the innocent members of the coetus must be spared.
No, we cannot remain silent because we must breathe. We will not allow ourselves to be suffocated after Summorum Pontificum by dangerous precedents. Once sacred, always sacred, said Benedict - and always free.
_________________________________ Update. After posting, we received the following sad e-mail message from an old reader of ours in a region of the world we cannot make public at the moment: "Subject: The trickling down effect is also happening here. A traditional mass in X [Rorate: name of region redacted] has also been banned regardless of the motu proprio. At this moment we cannot give details because we are trying to solve the problem with the authorities. We have decided not to go public with the details yet and I ask you to please keep it that way but I will keep you informed and will give you all the facts as things unfold, especially if our efforts are unsuccessful."
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/03/first-things-first-its-not-about.html