In the latest issue of Latin Mass magazine (Fall 2006), Editor Fr. James McLucas (right) relates two incidents that illustrate the problem:Let's begin with a young priest (ordained less than ten years) who has been uncomfortable in and troubled by the post-conciliar environment in which he has had to live his priesthood. Twice he has been given permission by his bishop to investigate religious life. He finally came to the conclusion that his ongoing distress involved much deeper spiritual and theological issues than what he had originally contemplated. He arrived at a decision to follow a course already taken by several of his priest friends from seminary days: enter the traditional priesthood through one of the traditional societies approved by the Holy See.Yet again, most of us who do not reside in dioceses where the Indult is permitted know what a burden it is to put up with the alternatives we're faced with, either of driving some two, three, four or five hours to the nearest traditional Latin Mass, or enduring various forms of the new Mass, which may range from the good to the bad to the ugly. When the question of the Indult came before the previous bishop in our diocese, he is said to have put the question back to his priests, who vetoed the matter. Our current bishop, who shows every indication of being a good and decent bishop, has nevertheless thus far withheld his permission from granting the Indult.
When the young Father went to the Vicar for Priests in his diocese to inform him of his desire, the senior priest was initially receptive and understanding. When the petitioning priest saw the same official a week or two later, the reception was much different. The Vicar now informed him that the bishop was very concerned about the stability -- and told him that he must take a battery of psychological tests to evaluate "where he would be best suited to serve in the diocese." The request for release to the traditional society was refused.
The priest consulted with a canon lawyer who related to him that Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, the Prefect of he Congregation for the Clergy, eight years ago informed another American bishop trying to force another priest into psychological testing that "it is the consistent teaching of the Magisterium that investigation of the intimate psychological and moral status of the interior life of any member of the Christian faithful cannot be carried on except with the consent of the one to undergo such evaluation...." He concluded that the bishop could not force the priest in question to be psychologically evaluated "under the pain of obedience." Unfortunately, the priest's legitimate refusal will not prevent punitive sanctions from being levied against him.
The young priest, after much anguish, decided to go the extra mile and went to be tested by a noted psychologist who has had much experience working with priests and religious. He received a clean bill of health. However, he was then informed by the chancery that this wasn't good enough: he must see the psychologist employed by the bishop of the diocese. He hesitated, and with good reason.
In a story yet to be told, since the end of the last Council not a few priests with a traditional spirituality who resisted the post-conciliar deconstruction were sent by their bishops for psychological testing -- usually with liberal psychologists who had been told by diocesan authorities what was "suspected" of the priests who were being ordered to undergo the testing. Just as grand jury (according to a popular legal maxim) will indict a ham sandwich, lo and behold psychologists time and time again confirmed exactly what had been alleged of the priest by his superiors. The condemning psychological evaluations were now permanently in the priest's file, and were used to "keep him in line."
The second instance of recent disreputable treatment of a traditional priest is even more nefarious. The priest was ordained for one of the traditional societies approved by the Holy See. The priest's grandmother had died suddenly, and tragically she had not been discovered until four days after her death. That family, as can be well imagined, was devastated. The priest called the chancery, identified himself as a priest of the traditional society sanctioned by the Holy See, and asked for permission to offer a traditional Requiem Mass in that particular diocese where his grandmother resided. He was told by the chancellor that the bishop was away and he would need the required paperwork that would verify that he was a priest in good standing and a member of this particular society. Within hours the required documentation had been forwarded by fax to the chancellor. The priest then telephoned to received the required permission - only to be denied it. The priest pleaded -- especially given the circumstances of his grandmother's death -- that his being denied permission to offer the traditional Requiem Mass would only add to the grief of his family. The answer remained, "No." (pp. 2-3)
On the other hand, those of you who are blessed with living in dioceses that have the Indult know what a burden it is when you are compelled to travel and fulfill your Sunday obligation. In the aforementioned issue of Latin Mass magazine, Edwin Faust describes this experience well:
It is when he is compelled to travel for a weekend that his sense of ecclesial exile is most felt by the traditional Catholic. The problem then arises: where might he attend Sunday Mass? He may pass a hundred churches in his sojourn, but in none of them, he knows, will he find refuge. If conscience drives him to suffer through the liturgical offerings of the local parish, he will stand among the congregation like Ruth weeping amid the alien corn, longing for his lost home.The Church has long permitted other rites -- Alexandrian (e.g., Coptic), Antiocene (e.g., Maronite), Byzantine (e.g., Melchite, Slovak, Ukuranian), Chaldean, Armenian.
... It sounds a cold phrase -- meeting my Sunday obligation -- as though it were a thing akin to paying the gas bill on time; indeed, it is an act capable of being reduced to a legal minimalism, and such an approach has always been the lamentable one chosen by many a Catholic for whom the faith is more a habit of external practice than an integral way of life.
Obligations may be met with widely varying attitudes: begrudging and reluctant; casual and indifferent; anxious and uneasy; mild and complacent; eager and loving. It is with the last attitude, of course, that the traditional Catholic wishes to meet his obligation, and if he is forced to endure the new order of Mass, he must shift his attitude; he then stands in danger of accepting the sort of legal minimalism that is so at odds with his sensus fidei. He tells himself that the new Mass is valid; that he has satisfied the requirements of the Sabbath observance, and he is unconsoled and miserable. (p. 6)
I know of no problems that Latin rite bishops or priests have had with these. The Latin Church has also had different liturgical rites -- Carthusian (Carmelite and Dominican), Ambrosian, Mozarabic, the Braga rite, etc. I know of no problems that Latin rite bishops or priests have had with these. But softly speak the words "TRIDENTINE MASS" in the company of your local ordinary and his chancery priests, or, for that matter, in your local Novus Ordo parish, and you will induce an apoplectic response such as you would not begin to elicit if you had merely bitten the head off of a gerbil and swallowed it. Why is this, I wonder?
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