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Pope Francis’s inclusion of ‘female ministries’ continues his pattern of ruptureIt is, one might say, another nail in the coffin of the Novus Ordo, detaching it still further from the patrimony of Latin-rite worship.I do not belong to that special class of people who claim to have known, the moment Jorge Mario Bergoglio stepped out on the loggia of St. Peter’s, that we were in for a terrible time. However, within the first year, there was already evidence that the cardinals had elected a modernist, a proponent of rupture, of liberation theology and socialism; and as the years went on,...

[Catholic Caucus] Invalid baptism leads to an avalanche of invalid sacraments A rogue "permanent deacon" in the Archdiocese of Detroit, Mark Springer, administered invalid baptisms for 13 years. One of them was to someone who would eventually be "ordained" a priest in 2017 -- only to learn he was never validly baptized himself. Post-Vatican II vernacular baptism book To his credit, the priest -- Father Matthew Hood -- watched a video of his baptism and heard the word "We" instead of "I" used in the vernacular formula, "I baptize thee in the name of the Father and of the Son...

[Catholic Caucus] TURN TO TRADITION -- a response to George Weigel Fr. Richard G. CipollaRecently George Weigel offered an Op-Ed titled  “A Paradox for the Next Pope” as part of the Wall Street Journal’s Houses of Worship series.  He quite rightly calls attention to several issues that will confront the successor of Pope Francis:  confronting and ending the terrible scandal of sexual abuse by clergy; reform of the financial structure and administration of the Church; and the challenge of supporting the vitality of the Catholic faith in those disparate places in which it found and at the same time...

[Catholic Caucus] The strange birth of the Novus Ordo After several decades of liturgy wars, few are unaware of the turbulent history of the post-conciliar liturgy since the New Order of Mass (Novus Ordo Missae) was promulgated 50 years ago, on April 3, 1969, by Pope Paul VI with his apostolic constitution, Missale Romanum. The Novus Ordo was produced in a mere five dizzying years by a committee of bishops, guided by an assemblage of experts. The process itself was a novelty, starkly contrasting with the gradual and organic growth (over more than 1,500 years) of the liturgy it replaced.The...

Communion in the hand was bad enough. Priest tells people to hold hosts in their hands while he consecrates If only priests were as hard working to develop reverence in their parishes as they are to facilitate communion-no-matter-what and for-anyone-at-all.There is a piece at LifeSite, in which I am heavily quoted, about a priest who came up with wacky ideas – astonishingly tacky and irreverent – to facilitate Communion.   It is hard to believe that anyone in this day and would do this.  But, this is the depth to which we have sunk in some places.The priest put out a...

A pessimistic look at (catholic) church re-openings after Covid-19 Father Illo: I think we'll be down to 5-10 percent Father Joesph Illo, pastor of Star of the Sea in San Francisco,  gave a 14-minute homily of Sunday, July 12.A 15-second excerpt:Our church leaders are hoping that when the church restrictions are lifted that people will all come back to Mass. I don’t see it , Before Covid, 75 percent of Catholics did not come to Mass every Sunday on a regular basis. How many of the 25 percent attending will return? I think we’ll be down to 5-10 percent of...

[Catholic Caucus] Why the Latin Mass Matters in the Real World: A Review of Dr. Kwasniewski’s Powerful New Book (A guest review by Fr. William Slattery) In writing this review, I am seeking to pay off a debt I owe to Dr. Kwasniewski. It was largely due to his first Angelico book, Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis (2014), that I converted to the Traditional Latin Mass. As a priest ordained by Pope John Paul II in 1991, my entire liturgical life before and after priesthood had been the Novus Ordo. During my years in Rome, while studying for my...

FROM LIFE SITE NEWS: David Haas, 61, is known by Catholics throughout the English-speaking world for such hymns as “Blessed are They,” “You Are Mine,” and “Servant Song.” Jesuit-run America Magazine has called Haas “one of the most prolific and significant liturgical composers of the post-Vatican II English-speaking church.” On Monday, June 3, Haas announced on social media that he had written a refrain to celebrate “Pride Month.” His post included an image with rainbow colors with the word “pride” written across in bold white letters. In a now-deleted post on Facebook that was captured by LifeSiteNews, the composer wrote:...

ASK FATHER: Bishop forces priest to use table altar instead of high altar for Extraordinary Form From priest…QUAERITUR: Recently my bishop refused to let me celebrate a Solemn High Mass at the high altar of the Church, insisting altar that is used in the Ordinary Form should be used. So I celebrated the Solemn High on that altar, ad orientem, in obedience. [Praiseworthy.] The argument given was that GIRM #303  [Ooops!] says that once a new altar is consecrated the old high altar should no longer be used for offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Secondly the bishop...

Many facts once dismissed as conspiracy theories are shown to be historically accurate For Christmas I was given a copy of the newly translated biography of Annibale Bugnini, architect of the Novus Ordo Mass – and hero or éminence grise of the Council’s liturgical reforms, depending on your viewpoint. It is difficult not to tend towards the latter, though I don’t think the author intends it so. Startling things emerge: many facts once dismissed as conspiracy theories because they were originally reported by those who opposed some reforms are here held to be historically accurate, perhaps the most notorious being...

I saw this video on Hilary White's Twitter and it left me with a sour stomach. When that passed I felt the deep urge to throw down my gauntlet, like a medieval knight. This is a priest and he's acting like a third rate performer in a run down comedy club. Novus Ordo: Another Liturgical Abuse Priest on altar strips off vestments down to a referee's uniform and then mocks Beniction by using a baby.

Seminarians, calling themselves The Dameans, set liturgical music to guitars in the 1970s. Photo credit: thecatholiccommentator.org What might be the repercussions of Pope Francis’ public letter to Cardinal Robert Sarah, the Vatican’s liturgy chief, correcting him for seeking to rein in the Pope’s new liturgical decentralization?  To gain perspective on the significance and potential impact of the Pope’s letter to the cardinal, we spoke with Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, a prolific writer and international lecturer on the liturgy, as well as a cantor, conductor, and composer of sacred music. LifeSite: Dr. Kwasniewski, what in your view is the most significant...

Francis v. Sarah Responses and comments -- or not -- by a pope are rarely accidental.  When four cardinals asked Pope Francis to clarify the pro-divorce language in Amoris Laetitia the questions have been ignored for so long that half of the cardinals have since died. The remaining two still look forward to an answer. Yet when Francis has a mission, anything (or anyone) standing in its way gets dealt with by the most humble, charitable and non-judgmental pope in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. The most recent example is Magnum Principium, his motu proprio to toss translations of the...

Hot off the presses and hitting a church near you comes the pamphlet, “Our Faith Teaches: Welcoming the Refugee and the Migrant.”  The pamphlet begins the church’s two-year mass education effort to condition (especially United States) Catholics to support programs like “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” (DACA) and apparently accept “global migration” by any immigrant group -- no questions asked. The “Share the Journey” website first introduces us to immigrant “Ruth” -- a name obviously meant to invoke the Biblical Ruth who was widowed and then followed her mother-in-law into a strange land -- and famously gave the world, “Whither...

In a recent article on the state of liturgy in the French journal La Nef, excerpted in English at Sandro Magister’s indispensable blogsite, Cardinal Robert Sarah, the now-neutralized Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, presents the usual “conservative” admissions of the liturgical disaster that has unfolded since the post-Vatican II “liturgical reform” was thrust upon the Church. The usual admissions are followed by the usual “conservative” refusal to admit that the “reform” was a catastrophic blunder that should be abandoned in favor of a return to liturgical tradition. Worse, Cardinal Sarah prescribes a...

Francis: "We can affirm with certainty and with magisterial authority that the liturgical reform is irreversible" Pope Francis gave an address on the liturgical reform of Pope Paul VI today, speaking to participants of the 68th Italian National Liturgical Week. In it, Francis declares: "After this magisterium, after this long journey, we can affirm with certainty and with magisterial authority that the liturgical reform is irreversible." Francis' remarks ironically read like a Quo Primum for the Novus Ordo. Pope St. Pius V's Quo Primum (1570), which has never been revoked or abolished by any pope, decreed that the Traditional Latin Mass, which the saintly...

50 years on, a fascinating glimpse of how liturgical reform became a juggernaut by Joseph Shaw posted Thursday, 25 May 2017 A Mass facing the people, with the tabernacle attached to the altar: Eucharisticum Mysterium, issued on May 25 1967, shows the conflict between innovation and traditionToday is the 50th anniversary of the Instruction Eucharisticum Mysterium, signed by both the Prefect of the soon-to-be abolished Sacred Congregation of Rites, and the President of the Concilium, the temporary institution in charge of the liturgical reform. It now represents a fascinating snapshot of a fast-moving action sequence.In 1967 the Novus Ordo Missae,...

Fr. Thomasz Jochemczyk, of the Diocese of Albenga-Imperia, Italy, in a lecture at the International Congress for the Reign of Christ the King, presented in dramatic fashion the spiritual/theological and psychological consequences of the priest saying Mass with his back to Our Lord in the Tabernacle. Fr. Jochemczyk asks: how would you feel if someone addressed you with their back to you? Is it not an insult? And what are we to make of such a stance - literally - when the priest address Our Lord, turned away from Him? Remember, Jesus Christ is God, He is our King. He...

So, while the "Reform of the Reform" is dead for the universal Church, some particular churches (and not only parishes) may be moving ahead with bringing some elements of Roman Tradition to the new, and made-up artificial rite of Paul VI. So it is with the Archbishop of Monterrey (Nuevo León state), in Mexico, Abp. Rogelio Cabrera López, who sent the following message to all his priests: In the prologue of Saint John is found the synthesis of the Apostolic Faith, centered in the Mystery of the Incarnation: Jesus is the Word, the One who IS for all Eternity, who...