'MP' buzz

Amidst the rumor-mongering about the prospective Motu Proprio, the most interesting tid-bits I find are these:

• The Pope received in separate audiences on March 22nd His Eminence Card. Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments; and His Eminence Card. Darío Castrillón Hoyos, President of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei". (Rorate Caeli, Friday, March 23, 2007)
  
  
• "According to Die Welt, even a cover letter to the world's bishops, which would be sent out with the eventual motu proprio, 'is ready'." (Rorate Caeli, "For the Record," March 28, 2007)
  
  For details, see: "Das Urmeter der katholischen Liturgie" (Die Welt, March 28, 2007): An English translation of the entire article has been posted by Chris Gillibrand: "The Standard Measure of Catholic Liturgy" -- the last paragraph of which is noteworthy:

  An accompanying letter to all Bishops is already in preparation. It has been decided. This is not a systems reboot, as is due with a defunct computer. Benedict XVI returns to the Catholic Church her own standard with this liturgy, a standard which from now on can be compared to the 1969 Novus Ordo decisively. The decision has opened the way to a finger-wrestling full of surprises. After all finger wrestling is a Bavarian speciality.

• "Tradition is not traditionalism," Benedict XVI, General Audience, March 28, 2007 (Rorate Caeli, March 28, 2007). While the Holy Father's remarks may perhaps be viewed as a warning against schismatic tendencies evident among some traditionalists on the eve of his prospective Motu Proprio, probably the most balanced interpretation of his remarks is that of a commentor over at Rorate Caeli, who writes:

  I think it is incorrect to view this as an attack on "traditionalists," who merely see themselves as upholders of Tradition in an age that has largely forgotten how to do this.
  
  The pope is making the point that adherence to tradition is not nostalgism, but a living transmission of the word of God from one generation to the next under the guidance of the Paraclete.
  
  When traditionalism becomes an absolute "ism" it loses its Catholic identity. The saints did not call themselves "traditionalists," they called themselves Catholics.

  In a profound sense -- even an ineluctable, unavoidable sense -- to be Catholic is to be traditionalist, although the polarizing politicization of the term, along with the anhistorical immediatism of our time, has caused many to lose sight of this fact today.
  
  
• March 25, 2007 Conference "on the State of the Church and Relations Between Rome and the SSPX": by Father Alain-Marc Nely, Second Assistant to the Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (SSPX/FSSPX). (Rorate Caeli, "For the Record," March 28, 2007)