| Can we not see here the utter breakdown of the hyper-papalism that makes the pope a mortal god, a divine oracle, who gets to rewrite liturgy, theology, morals, and even the record of history in pursuit of ideology? |
Only twice before have I contrived an editorial title in my dilettantish Latin, both of which concerned the liturgy.
The first was the October 2010 sub-title: "Weapon of Mass Destruction: Missa bugniniensis delenda est"(Buginini’s Mass must be destroyed). Those were the days when the Novus Ordo had a monopoly on the WMD moniker — before the Papacy of Mass Destruction (PMD; aka "Pope Francis") arose from the Modernist pit and began unloading Motu Proprios of Mass Destruction at a furious rate.
My second puerile effort was Magnum Falsum Principium (November 2017), when I inserted "Falsum" into the motu proprio Magnum Principium to underline a Bergoglian Big Lie (yes, another one). In its very first paragraph he falsely claims that "the great principle" (magnum principium) established by Vatican II, of accommodating the liturgy to "the comprehension of the people," required "introducing the vernacular into the liturgy."
Recent subscribers can find both editorials on the CO website. Apropos the latter, while many were relieved that Magnum Principium dealt only with questions of authority in the preparation of liturgical texts in vernacular languages, it remained a terrible portent. As I pointed out at the time: "There should be no doubt that a Pope who has equated attachment to the Traditional Latin Mass with mental disease is still likely to follow up with the motu proprio we feared: a nuclear-tipped WMD aimed specifically at Summorum Pontificum."
And so the inevitable came to pass, on 16 July 2021, when the PMD finally launched his liturgical WMD, blowing his predecessor's motu proprio to smithereens. For good sarcastic measure, in the tyrannical process of nuking Tradition, the Dictator Pope titled his apocalyptic instrument Traditionis Custodes — The Guardians of Tradition — mocking us all.
A classic Bergoglian "mess" — shoddy, incoherent, perverse, cruel, mendacious — the sorely misnamed motu proprio "drips with derision," says Christopher Gawley. Not so much a document, then, as a mockument — Irrisio Traditionis (Derision of Tradition) by any other name — its very title is a provocation; presenting heretical Modernism (personified by its author) as the guardian of the Sacred Tradition cherished by the Old Rite faithful it targets and misrepresents. Yet just as a fox by its God-given nature does not protect a henhouse but attacks it, so too Modernists by definition are not Traditionis Custodes but Traditionis Inimicos— "Enemies of Tradition."
The actual guardian of Tradition — the immovable roadblock to both Modernist encroachment and passing "phases of arbitrary papal rule" — is of course the Traditional Roman Rite that the motu proprio just as risibly feigns to dissolve: "Previous norms, instructions, permissions, and customs that do not conform to the provisions of the present Motu Proprio are abrogated."
The instant effect of this papal overreach is to blast us back to the liturgical catacombs; those insufferable decades during which Modernist wolves clad in episcopal garb routinely refused petitions for the Traditional Mass, even as they ghettoised TLM communities like unvaxxed human vermin, for fear the TLM might infect diocesan liturgies with the stability, reverence and piety they despise.
The sound of parched episcopal lips being licked over the long-awaited invitation to reassert the pre-2007status quo is palpable because it is a green light to act ultra vires (beyond their power); above all to ignore the fact that no authorisation ever was or is now required for a priest to offer the Traditional Rite.
If Summorum Pontificum was not a flashing red light against that abuse of power, it was at least an amber one that gave bishops serious pause. In Traditionis Custodes it is now the fulcrum and lever of action; the evil impetus for other abusive opportunities extended to the hostileprelate: who, among other things, is now called:
to ban the TLM from his parish church;
to decide where the offending Rite and its adherents may be quarantined out of harm’s way "and without the erection of new personal parishes";
to establish at the designated location the days on which Old Masses are permitted;
to ensure that "In these celebrations the readings are proclaimed in the vernacular language";
to decide whether to allow TLM-offering priests "to continue to enjoy this faculty";
to determine à la Cromwell whether Old Rite faithful accept "the validity and the legitimacy of the liturgical reform, dictated by Vatican Council II";
to centralise control of all diocesan TLMs in a delegated priest.
And if all that does not have him drooling with anticipation, there is the contrived episcopal 'power' to reject (in token consultation with Rome) formal requests to celebrate the Mass of Ages from priests ordained after the publication of the motu proprio.
The critiques and commentaries herein elaborate on these and other provisions of the mockument, many of which have already been seized upon by the usual suspects.
Within hours of its publication, Bishop Declan Lang of Bristol for one, who sanctions blasphemous Masses celebrating sexually degenerate and debilitating 'lifestyles,' shot off a letter to the Benedictine monks in the Community of Our Lady of Glastonbury banning their regular Latin Mass.
Across the pond, the Bishop of Brooklyn did not shut down existing TLMs in his diocese but immediately mandated that Old Rite readings must be in English and "from the approved translation (New American Bible)."
We should expect much more of the same, and worse, in the persecution ahead.
And yet, where wickedness abounds, grace abounds even more [Rom 5:20].
Consider Bishop Mutsaerts' ensuing robust response! Or this notice in the newsletter of a diocesan TLM parish Down Under, which lends credence to Cardinal Brandmüller's view that the "hurricane" unleashed by Francis might simply peter out through non-observance and become a dead letter:
Further to the concerns about the document from the Vatican issued recently. I reiterate it is business as usual here at St Anne’s. There will be no changes. Please rest assured that what Pope Benedict XVI said in 2007 also remains semper idem (the same forever): "what was holy once, cannot be forbidden and unholy now." St Anne’s will continue to offer the Latin Mass validly, licitly and in full communion with our bishop and the Roman Pontiff.
That's the righteous spirit of resistance we need to face down a frontal attack that mocks us, our heritage and our birthright.
But it's not just the Dictator Pope. As American liturgical scholar Peter Kwasniewski explains in the vital critique of Summorum Pontificum he presented at the Roman Forum shortly before the 16 July explosion, this motu proprio is just the latest "abuse of papal power" in liturgical matters.
"These things are not rightful commands to be obeyed but aberrations that deserve to be resisted," he writes. "Of course, they should be resisted patiently, intelligently, and in a principled manner, but nevertheless with a firm intention over time to restore the integrity and fullness of the Roman rite."
Moreover, before the abomination and cruel taunt that is Traditionis Custodes, Kwasniewski insists that Providence, as ever, beckons:
The febrile atmosphere of the current pontificate is helping in a big way to facilitate the re-examination of liturgical questions. The Lord wants us to see, very clearly, that we must find sounder principles than the autocratic will of whoever happens to be seated on the papal throne. If the pope will not honour tradition and pass it down without meddling and messing with it, we, for our part, are compelled by love of our genealogy, our family inheritance, our dignity as sons of God and heirs to His kingdom, to defend Catholic tradition, uphold it, live it, and hand it on, intact.
| - Peter Kwasniewski |