Popes Benedict & Francis, and the Franciscans of the Immaculate

1. For the record: Franciscans of the Immaculate - three official responses to Vatican Insider and other official statements
   
2. IMPORTANT: Pope Benedict XVI did not order the FFI visitation, PCED supported FFI norms on use of Vetus Ordo in 2012
   
3. Texts and commentary from Rorate
   
4. Update: FFI spokesman: minority wanted to scrap TLM, current restrictions "deprive us of universal right granted in Summorum" (Rorate Caeli, August 6, 2013).

Obviously great deal of disorder and confusion to be set to rights.

John Allen: Pope Francis a revolutionary

As with all writers for the National Catholic Fishwrap, one never knows with John L. Allen, Jr., whether he's trying to prime the pump (of revolution, in this case), or actually reporting something based on insight. He's a very good writer, and it's hard to tell; but this piece is quite interesting, as well as disquieting: "A revolution underway with Pope Francis" (NCR, August 5, 2013):

... It's too early to know which trajectory will apply to the upheaval launched by Pope Francis ...

Perhaps the lone certainty is that a revolution is, indeed, underway. In mid-July, the Italian newsmagazine L'Espresso ran a cover story on the new pope under the banner headline "Ce la farà?" The phrase translates roughly as "Will he make it?" or "Will he pull it off?"

There was no need to explain what "it" meant -- everyone, it seems, knows that Francis is trying to engineer a Catholic glasnost....

One could argue that in most of the ways that matter, the change has already arrived....

Polling in various parts of the world show approval ratings that would be the envy of any politician or celebrity....

In terms of public opinion, Francis is already on the cusp of achieving the iconic status of Nelson Mandela, a figure of unquestioned moral authority....

There's also a sense in which Francis is the "Teflon pope," in that nothing bad seems to stick....

... the only question most people have about a pope is, "Does he inspire?" For now, the answer seems to be yes....

... Even beggars who ply their trade around the Vatican have clued in that something has changed. Vatican personnel say that if they spurn a request for spare change today, they're likely to hear back, "Cosa direbbe Papa Francesco?" -- meaning, "What would Pope Francis say?"

... Today, [the] insider/outsider distinction is largely defunct. By living in the Casa Santa Marta, by working the phone for himself, and by bypassing the usual gatekeepers, Francis has ensured that no one has a monopoly on his ear....

What Vatican watchers have realized is that trying to figure out who's up and who's down misses the point. The novelty is that the game, as it has long been understood and played, is finished....

First, this Latin American outsider seems determined to break the Italian monopoly on governance of the universal church....

Second, Francis clearly wants to enhance the lay role -- not just in ceremonial ways, but in the nuts and bolts task of reforming the Vatican and governing the church....

Third, Francis is giving rise to a new culture of accountability, moving toward a more Anglo-Saxon understanding that "accountability" means somebody can actually get fired....

Fourth, whether it's a matter of instinct or conscious strategy, Francis seems to be repositioning the church in the political center, after a fairly lengthy period in which many observers perceived it to be drifting to the right.

Veteran Italian journalist Sandro Magister recently observed, "It cannot be an accident that after 120 days of his pontificate, Pope Francis has not yet spoken the words abortion, euthanasia, homosexual marriage," adding that "this silence of his is another of the factors that explain the benevolence of secular public opinion."

... The shift to the center also seems clear in ecclesiastical terms. In Rome, the perception is that power brokers associated with moderate positions, such as Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga of Honduras, coordinator of the commission of cardinals, are on the ascendant, while those linked to neoconservative or traditionalist stances, such as Cardinal Raymond Burke of the United States, head of the Vatican's supreme court, are in decline.

The church may not veer sharply in its political allegiances, but there seems a clear preference for the social Gospel over the culture wars.

These points alone are arguably significant enough to constitute a "revolution," but there's likely more to come, especially when the commissions tasked with studying reform report in....

Related (and VERY interesting): Pat Archbold, "10 Quotes That Prove The Pope Is A Liberal" (National Catholic Register, August 5, 2013). In this piece, Archbold takes ten quotations that appear to portray Pope Francis in a very "liberal," revisionist, or hermeneutic-of-rupture light, and then aims to show the Catholic faithful that they can breathe easy after all, because the ten quotations are actually from Benedict XVI, and there is really no break in continuity after all! (Me: WHAT in the blazes are people THINKING???!!!)

[Hat tip Fr. J. Martin, SJ, via M. Liccione]

Fr. Rutler reassigned to Hell's Kitchen

"Father Rutler, besides all his other accomplishments, is probably the only priest in the history of New York to be a product of both the ivy League and Oxford. So they send him to Hell’s Kitchen. Cardinal Newman would smile." Thus writes Guy Noir in the telegram I received from him dated July 28th.

He is referring, of course, to the event chronicled by Lawrencinium Tiberius Rochenhoffenstauffengreensteinberg-Jones in Fr. Rutler reassigned in NYC (A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics, June 20, 2013), who writes:

I haven’t posted as much from Fr. George Rutler as I should have. He’s a convert from episcopalianism, like me. He’s a very erudite man. And he’s been building up quite an orthodox parish in NYC for years. He has been pastor of Our Savior, a beautiful church, for 12 years. Well, no more. He’s been reassigned to a St. Michael’s parish by Cardinal Dolan:

Fr. George Rutler, pastor of the vibrantly orthodox Church of Our Saviour in midtown Manhattan, is being reassigned to St. Michael’s Church in Hell’s Kitchen.

At the link, we get some garbage from George Weigel about “evangelical Catholicism” and why Rutler should not have been moved. Is there a button george_rutlerwhere I can make Weigel shut up? Cuz I’d really like that button. Him, and Dr. Jeff Mirus, who just declared opposition to the shamnesty being foisted on us immoral. In fact, he declared immigration laws and any opposition to immigration in general immoral and un-Catholic.

But I digress. The reason this irks me, is because I really hate the post-conciliar canon law which permits bishop’s conferences to set term limits for priests. I know there are people who argue that this can be a good thing, as it allows bad priests to be moved around (here’s my solution: remove bad priests from ministry) and keeps “unhealthy” attachments from growing between parishioners and priest. Because, you know, it’s a bad thing to be too close to your dad. Yikes, who would want that?

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Church of Saint Michael, New York City

[Hat tip to JM]

WYD photo essay on Vatican II

In inverted order: (1) as it was presented (the lower, Copacabana beach stage used for the papal vigil and mass), and (2) its after effects (the upper, "Campus Fidei" bizarre 'Superman' stage that was thankfully abandoned after winter rains turned it into a muddy, flooded affair).

From Rorate Caeli via our correspondent on retainer, Guy Noir, Private Eye ...

[Hat tip to JM]

"It's Hard to Be a Homo in Russia"

The ironies are endless. Flag-waving "foam-at-the-mouth" American conservatives and Christian fundamentalists have been historically described as "xenophobic" about "Godless atheistic Russia." ("The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! Everybody to get off the streets!")

And now it's Mother Russia, her president Vladamir Putin, and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzkov, who fear being contaminated by the baneful moral perversions of Western culture. Some might even think that Russia is becoming more "Christian" than America.

In his article, "It's Hard to Be a Homo in Russia" (Taki's Magazine, August 5, 2013), Jim Goad addresses the issue [Advisory: Taki's Magazine often allows vulgar language]:

A new Cold War is brewing between Russia and the West, but this time it’s being fought over the rainbow flag.

As the USA rapidly morphs into a continent-spanning version of Fire Island, a homo paradise where tiny fairy sculptors dream there will one day be a 90-foot statue of Harvey Milk wearing leather ass chaps and a butt plug on the US Capitol West Lawn, Russia is currently tightening its sphincter in stubborn resistance to All Things Gay.

Former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzkhov repeatedly banned gay-pride parades, dubbing them “satanic.” In 2012, Moscow’s local parliament banned such festivities for 100 years.

Vladimir Putin, who is not averse to posing for vaguely homoerotic beefcake photos, has flexed his ample pectoral muscles in defiance of prevailing Western sentiments on issues such as immigration and anti-Christian blasphemy. And now he’s going after The Gays.

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The Franciscans of the Immaculate, Bill Buckley and the Old Latin Mass

"Sandals and Fiddlebacks" - Franciscan Traditional Latin Mass:


"If this video doesn't stir your Catholic soul," writes Michael J. Matt, "then someone has already achieved remarkable success in robbing you of your Catholic identity. If you hate this video you have become, at least to a degree, a self-loathing Catholic with a semi-Protestant identity.

"If you know nothing about this Mass, please understand that it is the Mass of all the saints, martyrs, virgins and doctors of the Church. It is the Mass of your grandmother and hers and hers. It is your liturgical patrimony; it is your Catholic birthright; it is the great jewel of Christendom and the most beautiful thing this side of heaven. If you don't know it, you don't yet know what it truly means to be Catholic because, through no fault of your own, you have been cut off from your Catholic roots by the very thing which should be the touchstone of the Catholic Faith: The Mass....

"As the late William F. Buckley wrote of the Mass back in 1979,

"As a Catholic, I have abandoned hope for the liturgy, which, in the typical American church, is as ugly and as maladroit as if it had been composed by Robert Ingersoll and H.L. Menchen for the purpose of driving people away. Incidentally, the modern liturgists are doing a remarkably good job, attendance at Catholic Mass on Sunday having dropped sharply in the 10 years since a few well-meaning cretins got hold of the power to vernacularize the Mass, and the money to scour the earth in search of the most unmusical men and women to preside over the translation. The next liturgical ceremony conducted primarily for my benefit, since I have no plans to be beatified or remarried, will be my own funeral; and it is a source of great consolation to me that, at my funeral, I shall be quite dead, and will not need to listen to the accepted replacement for the noble old Latin liturgy. Meanwhile, I am practicing Yoga, so that, at church on Sundays, I can develop the power to tune out everything I hear, while attempting, athwart the general calisthenics, to commune with my Maker, and ask Him first to forgive me my own sins, and implore him, second, not to forgive the people who ruined the Mass."

There is a bit more in this article by Michael J. Matt, some of it rather edifying; but the quote above is the jewel. That, with the juxtaposition of "Sandals & Fiddlebacks" -- the sandals-wearing Franciscan Friars celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass with their celebrant vested in a Fiddleback chasuble. Nice.

Why Would a Christian Want to Be a Republican, in Light of Pope Francis?

Fr. Z, "HuffPo: You can’t be a Republican (who hate and mock the poor) and a Christian" (WDTPRS, August 4, 2013).

Are traditionalists "Pelagians"?

This is an easy accusation to make, I would suppose. Recalling the accusations made by Tracy Rowland, for example, and discounting for the moment the rebuttals, one might be tempted quite easily to suggest that traditionalists are Pharisaical, concerned with mere externals, empty forms of liturgy, with the "letter" rather than the "spirit" of the law, with "works righteousness," and "earning salvation" rather than receiving the free gift of God's grace, and so forth. (Not so incidentally, notice that these criticisms sound very much like Protestant Fundamentalist criticisms of Catholicism generally.)

Such accusations will doubtless bolster the morale of non-traditionalist Catholics while, yet again, "making life next to impossible," as Adfero suggests, "for the traditional-minded parish priest who is, now more than ever, being accused by his flock of putting himself "above the Church" by his devotion to reverence in the liturgy and traditional Catholic teaching."

What follows, however, is a very solid retort by a Catholic priest (yes, in "full communion"), which completely turns the tables on the accusers in 6 succinct (but also well-developed) points, in a homily (?) posted by Adfero under the title of "Confused how some Catholics can be labeled 'Pelagians'?" (Rorate Caeli, August 4, 2013):

1. Widespread nonchalance toward infant baptism betrays a Pelagian indifference toward grace in the view that unbaptized infants automatically go to heaven;
2. The common assumption that man is naturally good, that even atheists can do good works, etc., often betrays a pronounced Pelagian disregard for supernatural charity infused in the soul co-operating with an actual grace given by God for an action to be truly pleasing to God;
3. The frequently declared opinion that Jews need not convert but require no more than the Old Law to be saved represents a decidedly Pelagian disregard for the indispensable necessity of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and Atoning work of Christ;
4. The widespread acceptance of the view that death is natural to man (often along with belief in Darwinian Evolution) displays a quasi-Pelagian affirmation in the dispensability of the supernatural order of grace, according to which death is utterly unnatural and never intended by God, but only permitted as a consequence for sin;
5. The widespread indifference toward sacramental Confession betrays a pernicious Pelagian that we need no more than the good moral example of Jesus to elicit our innate natural goodness and that we have no need of sacramental grace to reconcile us to God;
6. The widespread indifference toward the social reign of Christ the King reveals a striking affinity for Pelagius' denial that Christ Our Lord came to restore what Adam had lost but rather came merely to provide a good example.

The only point in which a parallel is recognized between traditional Catholics and Pelagius is in the matter of discipline and austerity, though the author of the piece expresses his wish that more traditional Catholics were austere with themselves, declaring: "Oh how they would please Our Lady who asked us over and over again for nearly 200 years… Penance! Penance! Penance! For the salvation of souls!"

Well, so who are the Pelagians? The author states his conclusion: "It is clear to me that the modern Church in her membership has become more Pelagian than ever whereas Traditional minded Catholics are seeking to hold the line against this most pestiferous return of heresy… striving not to let the precious grace of God granted them be in vain!"

Jan Garbarek: Officium Novum by The Hilliard Ensemble

My friend Paul Swanson gave me a copy of the original "Officium" after its release years ago. It's unexpected and startling combination of Sax and Chant leave one speechless. I still find myself haunted by the beauty of this combination years later, now with this Novum edition, borrowing heavily from Armenian music.


Parce Mihi Domine

Will bishops next be dancing the polka at WYD Mass next year in Poland?

Why does this matter? Should it? Shouldn't it?

Mattei: smackdown on Franciscan TLMs mirrors general anarchy

"Roberto de Mattei: Franciscans of the Immaculata Models in Situation of Liturgical, Theological and Moral Anarchy" (The Eponymous Flower, July 31, 2013):

The "case" of the Franciscans of the Immaculata is a very serious episode, which is intended to have an effect in the Church that is maybe not anticipated by those who have set about to act imprudently.

Read more >>

As a reader who called my attention to this post observed, when one as sober as Mattei goes public criticizing the Pope, you know that the hasty liberal spin has hit the patient Catholic fan. Something like that.

[Hat tip to L.S.]

Why it is a mistake to think small-case Church "traditions" don't matter

65,000+ Reddit users flock to forum founded by atheist to quit pornography, masturbation

Even a blind hog in a pigsty, as they say, can stumble upon an acorn occasionally. John Jalsevac, "65,000+ Reddit users flock to forum founded by atheist to quit pornography, masturbation" (LifeSiteNews, July 12, 2013):

July 12, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – They’re called “fapstronauts”: men and women who, for whatever reason, have signed up to take the “ultimate challenge” and conquer the urge to masturbate (“fap” in Internet slang) and/or use porn, whether it be for a certain, set period of time, or permanently. And joining their ranks is quickly becoming one of the hottest new trends on the social media site Reddit.

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What is notable here, perhaps, is that while the reasons for pursuit of the goal in question are varied, the majority of those involved are secular atheists, not Catholics or otherwise religious; and, like Catholics familiar with Church teaching, they are coming to the realization in this highly hedonistic and over-sexualized culture that pornography and auto-erotic self-gratification do not lead to happiness or joy, but alienation, emotional distancing, objectification of others, and emotional isolation.

In one sense, as Christopher Blosser pointed out to me, the movement might be characterized as a modern day grassroots revival of stoicism (exercise of will and reason, mastery over passions, etc.); but in their own meagre way, these young people -- although completely ignorant of Christianity in general or Catholicism in particular, or even anything redolent of the "theology of the body" -- are coming to parallel epiphanies. Given time, the "truth will out," as they say.

[Hat tip to C.B.]

Chilean 11-yr-old rape victim turns tables on abortion activists

Rebecca Oas, Ph.D. and Wendy Wright, "Abortion Activists Overplay Hand on Chilean 'Hard Case'” (C-FAM, July 26, 2013):

NEW YORK, July 26 (C-FAM) An 11-year old rape victim has unexpectedly turned the tables on the international abortion lobby as it seeks to use her plight to overturn Chile’s pro-life laws.

The girl, known as Belén, is pregnant after several years of sexual abuse by her mother’s boyfriend who threatened her to keep silent. Unlike other "hard cases" where abortion groups speak for hidden victims, Belén took her case to the media. She disputed her mother’s claim that the sex was consensual, and stated she wants her baby.

“I am going to love it very much regardless of whether it comes from that man who hurt me," she said.

Even so, abortion activists continue to use her as a rallying cry. Amnesty International, one of several groups joined in a "strategic litigation" campaign to exploit rape and difficult pregnancies to roll back pro-life laws in Latin America, responded to Belén's situation by saying that criminalizing abortion “constitutes a breach of international human rights law.” Going beyond the hard case of rape, Amnesty told Chile “to comply with their international obligations […] including the option of safe, accessible and legal abortion services.”

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[Hat tip to E. Echeverria]

Western same-sex propaganda rebuffed in Eastern Europe

Stefano Gennarini, J.D., "Bans on Homosexual Propaganda Advance Despite Western Outrage" (C-FAM, July 26, 2013):

NEW YORK, July 26 (C-FAM) Eastern European countries are following Russia’s lead to protect children by curbing advocacy for “non-traditional” sexual acts. Homosexual groups are reacting furiously.

Last month Moldova passed a law prohibiting the distribution of information “aimed at the propagation of prostitution, pedophilia, pornography or of any other relations than those related to marriage or family.” Lithuania recently adopted a similar law, and Ukraine’s legislature is reportedly considering the same.

The laws are designed to protect minors from graphic information that may lead them to unhealthy choices at a delicate age. Russia’s law, adopted in June, fines individuals and organizations for promoting “non-traditional” sexual behavior among children.

Read more >>

[Hat tip to E. Echeverria]