Worse than deja vu all over again: Vatican caves

The Remnant ^ | March 31, 2004 | Thomas Drolesky

[ultima ratio]

I am not urging we be Catholic without the Pope. But when he pursues unwise, heterodox policies such as Assisi I and II, we should not follow his bad example by praying with animists and witchdoctors. We should not make excuses for his bad behavior either.

[nika]

The Pope himself is heterodox, unclear, inconsistent--and liberal. He is in opposition to his preconciliar predecessors.
--ultima ratio

Is that so? Well let's consider the words of one of his preconciliar predecessors:

...

the Sovereign Pontiff alone enjoys the right to recognize and establish any practice touching the worship of God, to introduce and approve new rites, as also to modify those he judges to require modification.

Bishops, for their part, have the right and duty carefully to watch over the exact observance of the prescriptions of the sacred canons respecting divine worship.

Private individuals, therefore, even though they be clerics, may not be left to decide for themselves in these holy and venerable matters,

involving as they do the religious life of Christian society along with the exercise of the priesthood of Jesus Christ and worship of God; concerned as they are with the honor due to the Blessed Trinity, the Word Incarnate and His august mother and the other saints, and with the salvation of souls as well.

For the same reason no private person has any authority to regulate external practices of this kind,

which are intimately bound up with Church discipline and with the order, unity and concord of the Mystical Body and frequently even with the integrity of Catholic faith itself.
--Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, Nov. 20, 1947

Now let's analyze his preconciliar remarks. The first thing to notice is that Pope John Paul II has the authority to regulate the liturgy and you don't. Your lame opinion as a "private person" really doesn't matter as "no private person has any authority to regulate external practices of this kind." Can you understand that? It doesn't matter what you think. You have no authority. What matters is what the Successor of St. Peter thinks.

These remarks of Pius XII were made long before Vatican II and did not represent new thinking, they only reiterated what has always been true: The Successor of St. Peter "alone enjoys the right to ... introduce and approve new rites."

The liturgy was in Greek for several centuries before it was changed to Latin. The Successor of St. Peter had the right to make that change. No doubt that upset those who liked the Greek liturgy and there is also no doubt that some of them left the Church over it and wasted the rest of their silly lives claiming the Pope was wrong and they were right.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

There sure are a lot of new screen names appearing out of nowhere these past few days. Interesting.

[ultima ratio]

1. The Pius XII quotation from Mediator Dei refers only to minor adjustments to the ancient liturgy. Not in his wildest dreams did this good pope ever suppose his successor would do so rash and foolish a thing as to invent a mass out of whole cloth and then ban the Mass of the Ages. By approval of "new rites" he certainly did not mean the destruction of the ancient Roman Rite itself which he took pains to argue had evolved for more than a thousand years under the guidance of the Holy Spirit Himself. In fact, he says that there are parts of the ancient Mass so sacred that no man--not even a pope--dare even touch them to modify them. Certain slight adjustments were indeed permitted, therefore--in rubrics, in minor textual additions or subtractions, but nothing substantive might ever be changed. This message was the whole tenor of Mediator Dei--an argument to liturgists, in fact, to keep hands off the Sacred Liturgy. To use this encyclical, therefore, as if that pope would have approved of the radical institution of a whole new rite is not only dishonest--it does Pius XII a disservice and perverts his message.

2. The opinions traditionalists express are the exact OPPOSITE of private opinions. They are the inherited opinions gleaned from centuries of Catholic teachings of popes and councils, from works such as MEDIATOR DEI itself which you distort by reading into that document what was never intended. We know this because such a thing as his successor Paul VI had done--the actual fabrication of a Mass by a committee of humanists--was a novelty entirely unprecedented. Never in the whole history of the Church had such a thing ever happened. It was nowhere on any good Catholic's radar screen in the 1950s and certainly not on Pius XII's--who would have been horrified by the consequent destruction of the ancient Mass for which he shows such veneration in his encyclical. So if traditionalists speak with certitude about certain issues, particularly on the Mass, it is because there is a two-thousand-year history behind us--the writings of so many preconciliar popes and saints and every one of the councils before Vatican II, including that greatest council of all--the Council of Trent, which proclaimed anathemas against the sort of liturgy concocted by Bugnini and his Protestant predecessors--one that would dare replace the sacrifice on Calvary with a memorial meal only. In any case, here are the words of Pius himself, in a few paragraphs following the ones you have cited and which tell a far different story from the passages you have highlighted:
___________________________________________________________

The Church is without question a living organism, and as an organism, in respect of the sacred liturgy also, she grows, matures, develops, adapts and accommodates herself to temporal needs and circumstances, provided only that the integrity of her doctrine be safeguarded. This notwithstanding, the temerity and daring of those who introduce novel liturgical practices, or call for the revival of obsolete rites out of harmony with the prevailing laws and rubrics, deserve severe reproof. It has pained Us grievously to note, Venerable Brethren, that such innovations are actually being introduced, not merely in minor details but in matters of importance as well. We instance, in point of fact, those who make use of the vernacular in the celebration of the august eucharistic sacrifice; those who transfer certain feast-days - which have been appointed and established after mature deliberation - to other dates; those, finally, who delete from the prayerbooks approved for public use the sacred texts of the Old Testament, deeming them little suited and inopportune for modern times.

60. The use of the Latin language, customary in a considerable portion of the Church, is a manifest and beautiful sign of unity, as well as an effective antidote for any corruption of doctrinal truth. In spite of this, the use of the mother tongue in connection with several of the rites may be of much advantage to the people. But the Apostolic See alone is empowered to grant this permission. It is forbidden, therefore, to take any action whatever of this nature without having requested and obtained such consent, since the sacred liturgy, as We have said, is entirely subject to the discretion and approval of the Holy See.

61. The same reasoning holds in the case of some persons who are bent on the restoration of all the ancient rites and ceremonies indiscriminately. The liturgy of the early ages is most certainly worthy of all veneration. But ancient usage must not be esteemed more suitable and proper, either in its own right or in its significance for later times and new situations, on the simple ground that it carries the savor and aroma of antiquity. The more recent liturgical rites likewise deserve reverence and respect. They, too, owe their inspiration to the Holy Spirit, who assists the Church in every age even to the consummation of the world.[52] They are equally the resources used by the majestic Spouse of Jesus Christ to promote and procure the sanctity of man.

__________________________________________________________


3. It is not true that Greek was used several centuries before switching to Latin--a common misconception. Scholars have found evidence of the use of Latin in the earliest days of Christianity in Rome and have revised their thinking on this. Check the scholarship.

4. Pius concluded by warning that the modernists who wished to impose a new liturgical order, if given their will, would some day cause us to search in vain for the red sanctuary light before the altar. He little knew how prescient he was being to warn of this.

[St.Chuck]

Not in his wildest dreams did this good pope ever suppose his successor would do so rash and foolish a thing as to invent a mass out of whole cloth and then ban the Mass of the Ages.

The phrase, "whole cloth" seems to me an example of the gross exaggeration you think is necessary to disseminate your propaganda. I don't see how anyone cannot recognize the old in the new.

[St.Chuck]

Other reasons will be given by bishops for these changes--but the real reason is to undermine the dogma of the Real Presence.

The real reason is to undermine the dogma of the Real Presence? Have you bugged the chanceries where this is discussed? Have you some kind of inside information to support this conspiratorial conjecture of yours? I suppose the encouragement of Eucharistic Adoration is some kind smoke screen. When I see my bishop kneeling in front of the Blessed Sacrament am I, like you, to think to myself, it is only a ruse.

[St.Chuck]

It invents new doctrines.

I've missed the new doctrine. What is it? The only new doctrine I've become aware of in recent years is YOPIOT.

[AAABEST]

There sure are a lot of new screen names appearing out of nowhere these past few days. Interesting.

Yeah really, and they all seem to have a distaste for tradition.

Methinks these n00bs aren't as new as they appear.

[St.Chuck]

Yeah really, and they all seem to have a distaste for tradition.

I don't see that at all. I see refutations of error-filled posts inspired by "formality ridden" thinking. "Thinking" is too kind. Paranoia and resentment are more likely the genesis of such musings.

[ultima ratio]

I do not exaggerate. Here is what one of the greatest liturgists of the twentieth century, Klaus Gamber, has said regarding this liturgical break with tradition:

"There has never actually been a break with Church tradition, as has happened now, and in such a frightening way." He goes on to say, "We can only hope and pray that the Roman Church will return to Tradition and allow once more the celebration of that liturgy of the Mass which is well over a 1000 years old." And he adds, "Since there is no document that specifically assigns to the Apostolic See the authority to change, let alone to abolish the traditional liturgical rite; and since, furthermore, it can be shown that not a single predecessor of Paul VI ever introduced major changes to the Roman liturgy, the assertion that the Holy See has the authority to change the liturgical rite would appear to be debatable, to say the least." (Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, pp. 109, 39.)

Here is how Cardinal Ratzinger has put it: "In the place of a liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it--as in a manufacturing process--with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product." (Ratzinger, Preface to Gamber's text.)

Here is the citation from Pius XII which I mistakenly attributed to Mediator Dei. It was from another source, but relevant here:

________________________________________________________

I am alarmed by the secrets of the Virgin Mary to little Lucy at Fatima. This persistency of the Good Lady in the face of danger menacing the Church is a divine warning against the suicide that would arise from an alteration of the faith, in its liturgy, in its theology, and in its soul…

I hear around me innovators who would like to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, to destroy the universal flame of the Church, to throw out its adornments, to make it regret its past history.

Alas, my dear friend, I am convinced that the Church of Peter must accept its past or it will dig its own grave.

… a day will come when the civilised world will deny his God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God, that His Son is nothing but a symbol, one philosophy among many others, and in the churches the Christians will look in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them.” (Mgr. Roche and P. Saint Germain, Pius XII regarding history, pp. 52-53)

[St.Chuck]

Here is how Cardinal Ratzinger has put it: "In the place of a liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it--as in a manufacturing process--with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product." (Ratzinger, Preface to Gamber's text.)

I do not know the if the cardinal's statement is explaining the thoughts of Klaus Gamber, or his own, but needless to say, Cardinal Ratzinger apparently doesn't have a problem with the N.O. mass, because that is mass he says.

[ultima ratio]

How about the one that says Jews don't need a redeemer? Or how about the one that says capital punishment is not okay? Or how about the one that says the Lutherans were right about Justification? Or how about the one that says it's okay to pray with animists and voodoo priests, so long as you do so out of charity? All these are brand new teachings, inventions. There are many of them coming out of Rome these days. Kasper just got finished telling the world reconciliation with our separated brethren no longer means they must convert to Catholicism. He's also the guy who wrote a book in which he doubts the Resurrection. He was rewarded for it with a red hat.

[ultima ratio]

Ratzinger has complained about the New Mass constantly in his writings and speeches--most recently in his new text on the Liturgy, but also at the Conference at Fontgombault where he was amazingly frank. But he's a good soldier and has to live with the Pope on a daily basis. So he goes along with a bad thing--as many priests do, unless they reach a breaking point. Many more than ever are reaching that point, by the way. Increasingly priests are turning to Tradition and saying to hell with the Novus Ordo farce and the Novus Ordo bishops.

[ultima ratio]

No, I don't read minds--but I have read reports from Rome which warn that these changes in the rubrics would undermine the dogma of the Real Presence. The bishops went ahead anyway--first by removing tabernacles from church sanctuaries, then by eliminating devotions to the Blessed Sacrament, then by reducing genuflections in the Mass, then by Communion in the hands, then by ripping out communion rails, then by officially commanding everybody to stand to receive, then by eliminating kneelers in the pews--always in the opposite direction to what really made any Catholic sense. They always give excuses--convenience, traffic control, etc.--but it all adds up to the same thing and has the same effect--frustration of the Catholic desire to adore and destruction of belief in the dogma of the Real Presence, especially among the young. In just a few decades most Catholics now believe what Protestants believe, that Communion with Jesus is symbolic and no big deal. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going on.

[solitas]

It's interesting to see all the discussion, debate, defense, and destruction that goes on over the matter of an organization steering it's adherents away from 'praying _to_ God' toward 'praying _at_ God'.

What? All of the sudden it's "wrong" and "sinful" to do something in a particular manner after God has, apparently, had no problems with it for the past several hundred years? That's why _I_ left for 'better pastures': they stopped acting like 'The Church' and started acting like 'a church'.

Thank you for your choices of the articles you post.

[Viva Christo Rey]

How about the one that says Jews don't need a redeemer? Or how about the one that says capital punishment is not okay? Or how about the one that says the Lutherans were right about Justification? Or how about the one that says it's okay to pray with animists and voodoo priests, so long as you do so out of charity? All these are brand new teachings, inventions. There are many of them coming out of Rome these days.

DOM PROSPER LOUIS PASCAL GUERANGER, O.S.B. (1805-1875:

"When the shepherd turns into a wolf, it behooves the flock to defend itself in the first place. Doctrine normally flows from the bishops down to the faithful people, and subjects should not judge their chiefs. But, in the treasure of revelation, there are certain points that every Christian necessarily knows and must obligatorily defend."
(L'anne liturgique - Le temps de la septuagesime, 1932)

Such as the Dogma that Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ rose from the dead - but Karol Wojtyla appoints as "cardinals" vermin such as Walter Kaspar who have previously denied in published books that Our Lord rose from the dead.

Honorius was dug up, sat upon the papal throne, excommunicated, and his rotten corpse dumped into the Tiber River only because he allowed heresy to prosper without extirpating it. In contrast Wojtyla has not only done that but has done more than anyone else to propogate heresy by himself.

[St.Chuck]

How about the one that says Jews don't need a redeemer? Or how about the one that says capital punishment is not okay? Or how about the one that says the Lutherans were right about Justification? Or how about the one that says it's okay to pray with animists and voodoo priests, so long as you do so out of charity? All these are brand new teachings, inventions.

Gee, must o' missed all that. What encyclical refers to the voodooo guys? Where in the latest catechism do Jews need no reedeemer? What the pope does in his role as head of state, or what theologians write shouldn't be confused with Doctrine. Also, in naming Walter Kaspar to the cardinate, I doubt very much that the pope indicated that this appointment was a reward for denying the resurrection, which, by the way, is only a schismatic legend, as anyone who has actually read the book does not share that interpretation of Cardinal Kaspar's writing.

[GirlShortstop]

How about the one that says Jews don't need a redeemer? Or how about the one that says capital punishment is not okay? Or how about the one that says the Lutherans were right about Justification? Or how about the one that says it's okay to pray with animists and voodoo priests, so long as you do so out of charity? All these are brand new teachings, inventions. There are many of them....

These points, are in truth, and matter of fact?  If so, then the proof from Catholic sources should not be hard for you to find, and post, should it?

From what I can see, you people really dig fabricating connections; feeding off one another's "theories".  YOPIOT, YOPIOF in action, baby!

Ironic that by your actions, you'd have us believe that the Tridentine rite somehow extends so far as to exempt you from proving (disputing YOPIOT, YOPIOF) with what is written in/by the Magisterium itself.  Who would that group be, the one that has no faith in the post-Vatican II Magisterium???

Further to that, what's lost on me, is the purpose you think you serve."...there are certain points that every Christian necessarily knows and must obligatorily defend".  INDEED!

[GirlShortstop]

Gee, must o' missed all that. What encyclical refers to the voodooo guys? Where in the latest catechism do Jews need no reedeemer?

THANK YOU St. Chuck.

[St.Chuck]

But he's a good soldier and has to live with the Pope on a daily basis. So he goes along with a bad thing--as many priests do, unless they reach a breaking point.

Which would make them bad soldiers.

I heard a sermon on obedience and humility today. It occurred to me that SSPX priests might have to gloss over those virtues.