Pope Benedict XVI is greeted by children on his arrival for his annual holidays in Lorenzago di Cadore, northern Italy yesterday
Posted on 07/10/2007 9:08:50 AM PDT by Pyro7480
Pope Benedict XVI is greeted by children on his arrival for his annual holidays in Lorenzago di Cadore, northern Italy yesterday
I STUMBLED upon a Latin Mass last winter. It was grim, joyless, interminable and disquieting. There was no music. Nobody shook hands or brought gifts to the altar. It was as exuberant a celebration of creation as an expired fly left to rot on a window sill.
The only fanfare that threatened was the persistent, pedantic locking and unlocking of the little gate in the altar railing. A priest passed through this gateway at one stage, came to the side chapel where I knelt and entered a confession box, prompting the formation of a long-faced queue of sinners.
All the while, the officiating priest droned on, with his chasubled back to the congregation. He was, of course, flexing the dead Latin tongue, but it could as easily have been Aramaic or the lingua franca of Mars, such was his incomprehensible mumbling. Clearly, he was having a private conversation with his Maker.
It was when I quit trying to eavesdrop that I noticed the disapproving glances. Worshippers in the centre aisles - youngish, older and oldish men and women, most holding missals with frayed marker ribbons - were squinting disdainfully in my direction. I did a quick inventory. Was I standing in a forbidden place? Did I lack devoutedness? Did I have serpents for arms, was a slimy green monster surging through my buttoned coat?
Then I discerned what was different between them and me: the women over there had their heads covered, mostly with flowing Grace Kelly mantillas, whereas my female head, to the eternal damnation of my soul, was unconcealed. I left before Mass was over.
In the porch, I read a notice listing the regular Latin Mass times and I resolved not to return. As I walked away, I remembered hearing that there used to be two public houses side-by-side in a village near my home town. One was called 'The Ramble Inn'. The other was 'The Stagger Out'. Their juxtaposition was an eloquent synopsis of my morning. I did not feel I had been involved in a religious ceremony. I felt excluded, belittled, resented - an interloper in my own Church, a survivor - for how long more? - of the internal schism that eats away at the insides of the Roman Catholic Church.
Condemns
How predictable it has become that, whenever the Vatican makes some announcement eroding more of its grudging democracy, the media condemns it as an insult to Islam or Judaism. So it was again last weekend when Pope Benedict lifted the post-Vatican II restrictions on the 500-year-old Latin Mass. What about reconciliation with the Jewish community? demanded the global commentariat, with more than a little justification.
But what about Catholics, for Godsake? What about the indomitable faithful sickened by the grievously sinful institutional cover-up of paedophile priests? What about the AIDS-virus carriers who could have been safeguarded by condoms? What about monogamous, loving gays? What about women?
Most 'liberal Catholics' will again bite their tongues rather than criticise this latest genuflection to the fundamentalist clique because, when you are pro-choice you cannot be a bit anti-choice too.
If some people favour a church rite more appropriate to the 16th century, their preference should be accommodated. As the post-Vatican II hippies put it: different strokes for different folks and amen to that.
But this Tridentinist concession is not a simple toss-up between guitars, tambourines and Kumbaya versus the Council of Trent. The pope's own profoundly political psyche puts paid to such simplism.
This is a man who waged a diplomatic offensive to get God into the EU constitution, who condemned record numbers of theologians when he ran the old Inquisition office in Rome, and who denounced feminism for undermining the structures of society.
This is the man who welcomed the illegal joint invader of Iraq, Tony Blair, to the Vatican as a fraternal visitor while threatening politicians in Mexico and Spain with automatic excommunication for legalising abortion and gay marriage.
Reprimands
This is a moral crusader bringing the liberals of the US and Europe to heel by dispensing reprimands and interdicts, as if he is the landlord of Catholicism.
As long as he reigns, women will not be priests. His holy grail of 'family values' is a pre-'60s kitchenscape of woman chained to the sink by her rosary beads. Being treated as second-class citizens is normal life for Catholic women. Being made to cover your arms by the Swiss Guard and having your president denigrated for wearing a flower in her lapel is par for the course. Still, it beats being burned at the stake.
THE past, however, has crept menacingly closer with this Latin Mass announcement. It is a statement about the priorities of the ruling theo-cons in Rome, at a time when a scarcity of clergy is a pressing concern in Europe.
Last Sunday, when the Tridentine news was percolating through, it was announced in a church not a mile from the one where the Latin version is routinely celebrated that evening Masses were being cancelled due to a shortage of priests.
In politics, as Pope Benedict well knows, emphasis is the message. And the destination on the message board reads: The Middle Ages.
Ladies... ;-)
This article was obviously written by a foaming-at-the-mouth CINO.
I had to stop reading it. This poor woman sounds disturbed.
She should just shut up and become a Protestant, already.
Where are the replies? I’d like to read ‘em, but I can’t find ‘em.
No happiness in her, about anything.
I found the article on another website, and I found the Cromwell comment on there.
What an unhappy person. I’d have had some sympathy with her stylistic observations, which square with my experience of the TLM, but she obviously doesn’t want anything to do with even the most up-to-date legitimate Catholicism.
God forbid we should actually shake hands and chit chat outside the church or in the vestibule before or after Mass.
Completely unthinkable! Why would we want to socialize with any of our co-religionists outside the confines of the building?
What a maroon!
Naw, she's find something to complain about the Protestants, too.
Yeah, there are people like that amongst the traditionalist crowd. But I get the impression that she was exaggerating a bit. There are women who attend regularly at my Latin Mass parish who don't cover their head.
Journalists often do :-).
And I was offering only a single person's observation, with no intention of its being understood as a generalization. Every congregation is different in some ways, I'm sure.
I know. :-)
My heart goes thumpity thump. A broad grin appears on my face.
"This is the man who welcomed the illegal joint invader of Iraq, Tony Blair, to the Vatican as a fraternal visitor...
Let's keep in mind that both John Paul the Great and Ratzinger/Benedict were strenuously, actively, articulately, consistently against the war in Iraq --- like it or not, that's the truth --- but this author tries to pin it on him by association, because he, omigosh, received a Head of State, and didn't excommunicate him --- which he couldn't in any case, because the man is not Catholic.
I mean, does she want the Pope to claim the power to excommunicate Anglicans and Methodists? Would that make her happy?
Do you think she makes better sense when she's has a little Guinness?
No, she probably just says the same things, only with a lot of swear words.
You two are cracking me up! :-D
Guinness is good for you, but only if you have a sense of humor. This writer does not seem to qualify.
*************
LOL!
Amen sister!! Viva il Papa!! Oh wait, you are against those.
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