Texas Pastor Removed Over Latin Masses

Seattle Catholic ^ | July 4, 2003 | Peter Miller

[ultima ratio]

"I got it. I'm not interested in your little argument."

No, you don't get it--not by a long shot. My "little argument" is an inconvenience to people like you--a minor point, an irritation. You end up sounding like a jerk--and that's putting it mildly. If I have lied--show me how I have lied. Where have I lied? What have I said that is not true? And who have I calumniated? Who have I defamed? Cardinal Mahony? Cardinal Kasper? They more than justify with their own public and scandalous behaviors anything I might say casting doubt upon their orthodoxy. And how is it I am the one who sows confusion? Who tore the Catholic world apart--traditionalists like myself, or the modernists who overturned two thousand years of tradition? No--if you're looking for Satan, he's not with me or anything I say or with my guys who are principled and are fighting for the ancient faith--he's with the Novus Ordo bishops who have become synonymous with apostasy and corruption.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Your bigotry is spectacular.

Bigotry? Helloooooo? Having a debate is bigoted? Point out one thing I've said which is bigoted? Otherwise, quit your own nastiness and stick to the topic at hand.

[St.Chuck]

The biggest, fattest lie is that the mass is harmful to souls. It is exactly what Satan would want us to believe. He wants to divide us, he wants us to echo his, "Non servium." He wants us to distrust the Lord's Church. He wants the pope to be ignored and calumnied. He doesn't want us to hear the gospel. He wants us confused. He wants us to think the bishops are crafty evildoers subverting the faith when they aren't partaking in ritual rape. He wants us to believe that the Masons and Communists and Queers are running the show and that the New Mass is a product of their machinations to protestantize us. He wants neo-Donatists harping at every move or non-move the heirarchy makes or doesn't make. He doesn't want kids going to WYD. He wants us to despair. He wants us to accuse the pope of apostasy and neglect. He doesn't want us receiving the sacraments. He wants the faithful arguing about "all" and "many", Latin and the vernacular, kneeling and standing, ad orientem and pro populis. He does not want us to know God. I say screw the devil. Screw you.

[St.Chuck]

Point out one thing I've said which is bigoted?

You apparently can't differentiate between the fraud involved when both the NO mass and Tridentine mass are described as harmful to souls. If the Tridentine is described that way, you get all indignant, as you should. As you should when you read someone describing the NO that way.

[JNB]

I usually disagree with the rad trads, and I have no problem with a Novus Ordo that is translated properly celebrated with traditional rubrics. That said, the way the normative missal is usually celebrated is full of many problems, and the father of the Novus Ordo itself, Abp. Bugnini, was by most accounts, removed from his position of power for being a freemason.

I agree that rad trads go to far in saying the Pope is a heritic, and saying the Novus Ordo missal itself is invalid, but there are severe problems. Mass attendence keeps on dropping, and belief in the real presence of the Eucharist keeps on dropping as well, most Catholics do not know their faith. The way the Novus Ordo is celebrated at most parish' is part of the symptoms of the sickness of modernism. Another truth is many homsexuals did get in the priesthood, and tried to remake their parish and in many case stheir diocese' in their own image.

I know you take these internal squabbles personally, I know it must make you sick to your stomach to read these debates, but you can notm as a orthdox Catholic, bury your head in the sand. It was the modernists, the liberals, the hetrodox that introduced the confusesion, traditionalism is a emergency response to this mess.

[Desdemona]

Why not? Sex in marriage is a good to which a married person is generally entitled.

So is self esteem. I think a better argument is the one where the wife obeys the husband by giving up her friends, her style, her personal statement to the world to obey and finds a few years later that she is not functioning because who and what she is is lost. She's overweight, frumpy, no friends. She asks her husband if it's okay to do a make over and maybe join a bridge club and take a walk by herself once a day and he says no. So she does it anyway and he throws her out of the house. She was disobedient.

You haven't at all made a case for this priest's blatant disobedience, nor for his shockingly poor treatment of his own flock.

The priest is in charge. It's his call to make. Every parish I've ever been priests have done this sort of thing, so with me that dog isn't going to hunt, point, retrieve or go to ground. Aside from that, is it any different than when the new Mass was instituted? I know a lot of older people who were horribly offended when that happened. There really was no good warning and the people had no voice.

[Desdemona]

"A little money" covers the cost of voice training which is not cheap.

As for the Mass, maybe it is more my idea, to stay where I am and push for change there. To be an example. Yes, I get REALLY angry when there are infractions at Mass. But, does it serve the wider good to run? IMO, no.

If they'd just use the direct translation, rather than a dumbed down version it wouldn't be so bad.

[ninenot]

Well--not only the CTA-types, but the SSPX-types. Bruskewitz excommunicated both types soon after his arrival in Lincoln.

Started with a bang!

[Desdemona]

Hermann, solo work is what I do. That requires a lot more concentration than choir singing, trust me.

[Desdemona]

The very same people who recoil at mentions of a return to Latin are the ones who won't do anything inconvenient. Hmmmm... And they don't particularly like a challenge either, like learning to pronounce Latin.

[ninenot]

You noticed that, too?

While the "mental health" stuff should NEVER have been mentioned by the Diocese, it's a clue that more is going on than reported.

[ninenot]

Well--Des gets paid for her work, and you probably didn't.

I understand exactly what she's talking about re: preparation. It does take time and practice, even if you've sung the piece a million times before (although familiarity cuts down on marking phrases, breathing, and the more rote-mechanical preparations.)

When accompanying a soloist or a choir one ALWAYS insisted on at least one run-through--if not two. And there were sections of the music where there would/could/should be discussion over how it would be performed.

That's called 'doing it right.'

As to hymn-leading as part of a choir: I confess that I have done it on a 'wing' basis, and rationalize it with the knowledge that 30 other people will be singing the same words, music, etc., and the congregation will be slightly cacophonic anyway.

Not exactly a good reason, but...

[ninenot]

the nurses here at St. Elizabeth's have just injected me with my final med's for the night. I'm getting very sleepy.

Are you in Appleton, WI.? There is a St.Elizabeth up there, and it has a psych ward...

[ninenot]

You are correct with regards the "demand" for the Trid. in Lincoln. There are enough souls interested to have a couple; that's about it.

OTOH, the NO is said in Latin regularly, and there are no inventive tricks...NONE, allowed.

[ninenot]

Do you believe that one Pope can overturn a Council/Papal decree or ignore it completely? Can the Pope make up any new rule he wants?

Two questions, each deserves a decent answer.

1) The Pope is the supreme lawgiver for the Church and this applies to the matter of liturgy. Paul VI had the authority, as Pope, to suppress the Old Rite and establish the New as 'the norm.' That said, there are many (myself included) who think that this demonstrated a serious lack of pastoral judgment.

2) The Pope CANNOT 'make up any new rule he wants' in matters of doctrine and dogma. Some argue, in vain, that the NO is dogmatically or doctrinally contrary to the Faith. Certainly the translation into English is deficient on a number of levels: but it is NOT contrary to the Faith.

It seems that some people want the entire Catechism of Trent read at every Mass to assure that the proper doctrine and dogma is taught....

[ninenot]

I have a friend in Arizona--a VERY orthodox Catholic lady--who says that the problems you iterated are very real, and ongoing.

Sad. Perhaps the new Bishop (whenever he gets there) will begin working on them.

[ninenot]

It is true that more men apply for admission in 'traditional' seminaries than space allows.

That is NOT the case in Milwaukee, for example...

[ninenot]

You people are the most uncharitable group of Catholics I have ever encountered and the insults and calumnies that you thrust on men who have consecrated their lives in the service of God and His Church is reprehensible.

About a week ago, UR was pontificating (it's the only word that applies) in the political arena--he's a GWB absolutist, by the way--and I decided that he is an insufferable ass.

You were kind enough not to say so.

[ninenot]

Your inference is not always true.

We have a priest-friend who would not celebrate the Old Rite because he simply did not know, (and would not learn) enough about Latin to do it well.

In combination with the official "frowns" from the Chancery up here, that was enough to produce the necessary inertia.

OTOH: I don't doubt for a moment that the underlying thesis of "Windswept House" applies to a number of individuals, wholly. PRAY mightily for them.

[ninenot]

Agreed. And I think you know that 'traditionalism' has no truck with flagrant disobedience.

This is sort of the Republican problem: they have too many principles to act like the Dems in order to get their program through.

That's what makes Limbaugh a key player.