Sunday, May 17, 2015

Tridentine Masses coming to metro Detroit and east Michigan this week


Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

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Saturday, May 16, 2015

Was the Second Vatican Council "different"? Is the devil in the detail of language?

"Was the Second Vatican Council 'different'? (Part 1)" (FideCogitActio, May 9, 2015). This is merely Part 1 of what promises to be a substantial discussion. Here are just a few excerpts:
“At the conclusion of one of the most important recent books on the Second Vatican Council, What Happened at Vatican II (2008), John O’Malley SJ states that the most important ‘issue under the issues’ at the council called by John XXIII was language. The Jesuit historian argues that Vatican II was ‘a language event’ and that ‘the style of discourse was the medium that conveyed the message’.”

— Massimo Faggioli, 15 February 2015

* * *

First of all, by refusing to include canons and decrees in its official teachings, Vatican II of its very nature created room for dissent and ambiguity in a way that no other council had ever done before.

Second, by intentionally adopting a novel rhetorical and ideological strategy for addressing error and articulating truth, Vatican II differed from prior councils in a way that the sensus catholicus is still attempting to digest, and, to be frank, may never succeed in wholly assimilating. The conflicts arising after Vatican II are, therefore, rooted in the conciliar intentions and documents themselves, and not, as in prior councils, in the extrinsic reactions to them. It is, therefore, a red herring to argue that, since previous councils were also followed by conflict and resistance, and were also met with unforeseeable challenges many years or even decades later, therefore the post-Conciliar crisis is just a typical function of ecclesial councils.

... In contrast, Vatican II generated such a tsunami of doctrinal, liturgical, and canonical “considerations” that it’s impossible for anyone to know precisely which horn of the many ambiguities one is required to affirm. After all, if an ecumenical council has enshrined the ambiguities, who are we to dissolve them?
[Hat tip to JM]
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Friday, May 15, 2015

St. Petersburg bishop dismantles Summorum Pontificum in his diocese


Brian Williams, "Bishop Lynch and the Dismantling of Summorum Pontificum" (1P5, May 14, 2015):
Last month members of the Latin Mass community of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida were stunned to receive a letter addressed to them by their local ordinary, Bishop Robert Lynch. Following years of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass being offered at two different diocesan parishes, the faithful of both St. Anthony of Padua in San Antonio and Incarnation Catholic Church in Tampa learned that they would be losing the traditional Mass. Instead of further realizing Pope Benedict’s vision of both forms of the Roman Rite mutually enriching each other through greater availability, Bishop Lynch has instead chosen the path of displacement and containment.

The bishop’s letter is often antagonistic in its tone, surprisingly so at times, and this despite the fact that we should no longer be surprised by such overt hostility toward this group of faithful.
[Hat tip to E.B.]
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Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Feast Day of Our Lady of Fatima



"Fatima, Saint John Paul II and the third secret" (Vatican Radio, May 13, 2015) - and, yes, I know there's much more to the story.
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Church Militant's latest report on the German bishops' proposals for the October Synod


"Hi ! We're from the German Bishops' Conference and we're here to help!"

Mr. Voris predicts a "Fur-Flying Free-for-All." Should be interesting. Hold on to your seats!

"Full text: German Bishops' Conference explains change in labor laws allowing for employment of homosexuals in 'civil unions'" (Rorate Caeli, May 5, 2015).
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Council Fathers, call your editors: Gaudium et spes needs redacting

Dr. John Lamont relates a Catholic theology professor's observation that Gaudium et spes (24), in a passage alluding to Matthew 22:35-39 about the "first and greatest commandment," reads: "Quapropter dilectio Dei et proximi primum et maximum mandatum est" (or "For love of God and of neighbour is the first and greatest commandment").

This, of course, is a small but significant error that ought to have been caught, and should be corrected.

The Holy See, the CDF, and all of us owe a debt of gratitude to this anonymous Catholic theology professor for calling this little error to our attention, do we not?
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The rehabilitation of Liberation Theology's Fr. Gutierrez & ecclesiastical amnesia


Augustinus, "The Father of Liberation Theology's full rehabilitation: A perfect example of ecclesiastical amnesia at work" (Rorate Caeli, May 12, 2015) -- a look at the previous condemnations vis-a-vis the current rehabilitation. Can consistency be found?
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Monday, May 11, 2015

Sen. Rick Santorum: "If [Bruce Jenner] says he's a woman, then he's a woman"

Fr. Mark A. Pilon, "Morally, Ontologically, Just Plain Wrong" (The Catholic Thing, May 6, 2015):
"When two [gay] people, not bound by blood or kin, love each other to such a profound depth that they want to make a lifelong commitment of faithfulness to each other, then that deserves to be acknowledged, celebrated and solemnised. We are all the better for it – individuals, families, communities and society are life-enhanced – and God in his heaven rejoices.” That’s from Fr. Adrian Egan, CSsR.

“If he [Bruce Jenner] says he’s a woman, then he’s a woman,” says Senator Rick Santorum.

These two quotations are representative of the pure twaddle we read all too often today. One can hardly imagine such nonsense being spouted even a few years ago by a Catholic priest in Ireland or by a conservative Catholic politician in America.
Fr. Pilon goes on to say that he wants to focus, in this article, on Santorum's comment and its implications and "leave the comments of the Redemptorist priest to the proper Church authorities" (emphasis added). I wonder what he expects? Does anyone think he's holding his breath?

Read more >>

Update (to be fair): Santorum explains himself (CNN, May 4, 2015), by Alexandra Jaffe, CNN.
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Magister: Pope Francis has ceased encouraging the synodical innovators

Sandro Magister, "The Closed Door of Pope Francis" (www.chiesa, May 11, 2015): "Since the end of the 2014 synod, he has spoken dozens of times on abortion, divorce, and homosexuality [Magister provides a list]. But he hasn't said a single word more in support of the “openness” demanded by the innovators."

Related: "The Bergoglio Pontificate: 'One Does Not Get Fully Rid of the Impression of Chaos' and 'Autocracy' (Interview with Robert Spaemann)" (RC, May 11, 2015).
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Sunday, May 10, 2015

Should priests stop certifying religious weddings for the state?

Canon lawyer Edward Peters, "Bad ideas know no borders" (In the Light of the Law, May 5, 2015), addresses a timely question I've heard raised in more than one quarter of late.  It's a piece worth reading in full, but the nub of it is this:
What some fear—and I understand their fear, however wrong it is—is that, in the wake of a civil redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples, religious ministers will suddenly be required to certify same-sex couples as married (says who?) and therefore (as if there were a logical imperative here, which there is not) we should preemptively cease certifying religiously married couples as married. How on earth does one arrive at that conclusion? Certifying as married, couples that are married, is a good! The fact that others might certify as married, couples that are not married is a bad, but their bad action does not make our good action into a bad.

And if the State did suddenly require Catholic ministers to officiate at the weddings of simply divorced persons, or of same-sex couples, we would refuse. Flatly.... And if the State, in retaliation for such a Faith-demanded refusal, revoked their recognition of our religious weddings, that decision is on their heads, not ours.
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Mother's Day hilarity and profundity from Fr. Perrone

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" [temporary link] (Assumption Grotto News, May 10, 2015)
In a home school reading class we are reading a book which has certain passages in Elizabethan English. Such texts are charming to read and–at times–intriguing to decipher. I offer to you here a text in celebration of today’s secular observance taken from a pastor’s column from some legendary past time–first in contemporary English for your easy comprehension, and then in its original form. In my modern translation it reads:
To whom it may concern: Happy Parent B Day! you birthing persons and child-care givers. Though you were selfish in your inability to control your desires to have offspring, and though you have, as a result, burdened the environment and consumed precious resources of Earth–Blessed be It!–in order to provide for them, have nice day, all the same.
I now quote the original text:
To those irreplaceable ladies deserving of praise: Happy Mothers Day! you who gave birth to and loving cared for your children. How generous of you in sacrificing yourselves to become mothers and in providing for your children at great personal expense in feeding, clothing and educating them with all that almighty God–Blessed be He!–gave you. May you be specially honored and blessed for this today!
Ah, yes! It is with nostalgia that we look back to former times when motherhood was honored, not as a means of personal fulfillment for certain women who made that their choice, but for the noble and indispensable role mothers have in God’s plan for the human race.....

In a more sober vein, I will have a word about Holy Mary, our spiritual mother and Mother of Christ, about Her own indispensable part in God’s plan for the human race, precisely as a mother–not only in the obvious sense of Her divine maternity through consenting to what was revealed to Her by the Archangel, but also in the sense of Her place in establishing, with and under Christ, the new order, the new Testament, the new religion of Christ. I’m thinking here of the fascinating event that took place at the wedding in Cana. Notice that it was Mary’s astute observation which precipitated the miracle our Lord was to perform. “They have no wine,” She said. As in the case of Saint John’s writings, there is a deeper significance to this than may appear at first. Our Lady was not only noticing an approaching predicament for the wedding guests, but one for all of Israel whose people had become spiritually depleted. The miracle of Christ made the new and superior ‘wine’ of the New Testament: a new faith, a new sacrifice, ceremonies and sacraments. But what concern was this of Hers? Indeed, that’s the very question Christ put to Her, not in order to belittle Her (as some have thought) but to indicate that She indeed has that concern because She has claim to the graces Christ imparts. The interceding, mediating role of Mary is one part of Her spiritual maternity. (The greater part is being the literal Mother of Christ.) We will meet with Her again on Pentecost Sunday where Her maternal position in the Church is highlighted further. Although She was not one of the apostles, She was there with them, mothering them and through them the entire Church. This event was somewhat of a parallel to the incarnation: Mary, by the fertility of the hovering of the Holy Spirit, brought about a conception and a birth: the first time to Christ; at Pentecost to the Church, His mystical body.
If even in today’s radically secularized world we have a remnant of recognition for the indispensable place of mothers, we Christians ought not to forget as well the necessary place of Holy Mary (by God’s choosing) in bringing about the salvation of mankind.
Today, at the noon Mass, we will celebrate First Holy Communion for some of our children. How much we wish this to be a memorable day for them with their beloved Jesus, and the first of many devout receptions of the Holy Sacrament! In an image from the Book of Revelation, one can see a dragon ready to devour the offspring of the woman–the evil one scheming to snatch these innocent ones from the hand of God. May Holy Mother Mary keep them ever near Christ through His sacraments!


Fr. Perrone
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Which is the nursemaid and which the mother, the RC Church or the Evangelical denomination?


The great Thomas Howard is one of those Catholic converts who I admire because he doesn't make the cornerstone of his Catholic identity a broadside attack on his own Evangelical background. Yes, the Catholic Church offers the fullness of the Faith in her Sacred Tradition, Magisterium, and 2000 years of fathomless resources. But he would defend to the end the invaluable role Evangelicalism played in his own development as a spiritual nursemaid.

In one way, you would almost have to have "been there" to understand why. But short of talking to Tom Howard yourself, about a good a glimpse into why as you're likely to get is offered by Tim Callies in "The Most Important Thing My Parents Did" (Challies.com, April 9, 2015).

Now if only those managing the stores over at Catholic Inc. [TM] could back off from pushing Care Bears, Jellycats, Pillow Pets, and Barney and Friends long enough to allow their customers to begin to re-discover that their spiritual offerings go a tad beyond feel-good fuzzy plush toys, we might have a fighting chance to stave off complete bankruptcy. As things stand, Latin America is quickly becoming a show case for how Pentecostals and other Evangelicals are harvesting a bumper crop of Protestant converts from the nursemaid of contemporary Catholicism -- or should I say "Catholic Inc. [TM]"?

If my mother were still living and I were to write a Mother's Day tribute to her, what I would say about her (along with my father) would probably be something very similar to what Tim Challies says.
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What's right with this? What's wrong with this?

Matthew Milliner, "All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Evangelicalism" (First Things, May 1, 2015). ["Here's one to make Raider Fan a bit ill."] Seriously, though, what's right as well as wrong with this?

[Hat tip to JM]
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Tridentine Community News - Are Traditional Catholics Better Informed Now Than They Were Twenty Years Ago?


"I will go in unto the Altar of God
To God, Who giveth joy to my youth"

Tridentine Community News by Alex Begin (May 10, 2015):
Are Traditional Catholics Better Informed Now Than They Were Twenty Years Ago?

Those of us who have been around the Latin Mass scene for more than twenty years might remember the bad old days: The only regular news came from the occasional Latin Liturgy Association newsletter. Hard-to-find liturgical books, such as a Latin Ordinary Form Altar Missal, had to be ordered from the Vatican, which meant writing a letter to Rome requesting a quote, waiting several weeks for a reply, only to be told once in a while that the book one was seeking was out of print and to write back again “later.”

One could argue that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s 2007 Motu Proprio Summórum Pontíficum was the key reason that the environment for traditional liturgy has improved, but in actuality the single best development over the past two decades for the growth of the Traditional Latin Mass has been the Internet.

Catholics are also now able to educate themselves about liturgy, doctrine, devotions, sacred music, and other subjects typically not taught at the parish, vicariate, or diocesan level. Web sites, books, and YouTube videos are easily discovered which can answer many questions a curious individual might have about the Faith. Practical questions, such as where to obtain vestments and supplies necessary to support a Latin Mass, are also easily answered with a simple Google search.

The Web has given a platform for special interest products to be made available to a widely scattered worldwide audience. Publishers such as Baronius Press (Hand Missals, Breviaries, and assorted religious books), Loreto Publications (Hand Missals and prayer books), PCP Books (Altar Missals and used books of all sorts), FSSP Publications and Angelus Press (Books of all sorts), Roman Catholic Books (Altar Missals and devotional books), and Birettta Books (priest training materials) can now alert a worldwide market to the availability of their merchandise without having to mail out catalogs.

Blogs have become a way to share detailed academic and practical information. The New Liturgical Movement, Fr. Z, Roráte Cæli, The Chant Cafe, and locally, Pertinacious Papist are leaders in communicating news and inviting discussion on traditional liturgical subjects. These blogs were arguably the principal means by which Catholics and existing indult Tridentine Mass sites learned about the provisions of Summórum Pontíficum; few dioceses did much to alert the faithful about the benefits this document imparted.

Conferences can now be publicized far more easily: Sacra Liturgia, the Church Music Association of America’s Sacred Music Colloquium, C.I.E.L., and numerous smaller gatherings now attract audiences that formerly only traveled to the biennial Latin Liturgy Association National Convention.

Facebook, and to a lesser extent Twitter, have become forums where Latin Mass communities, parishes, and groups such as Juventútem can conveniently announce and promote forthcoming events. Two minutes of typing can notify hundreds or thousands.

All of the above aspects of the Internet create an environment of mutual support and education. They are of direct practical benefit to the faithful interested in attending local, regional, national, and global events of interest. Equally important, they serve as inspirational examples of success to people endeavoring to start Tridentine Masses in currently underserved areas.

This writer recalls being afraid to bring up the subject of the Tridentine Mass with priests of the Archdiocese of Detroit as recently as 1997. Now we have two quasi-parishes in our region: The St. Benedict Tridentine Community in Windsor and the St. John XXIII Community in Lansing, plus the similar Oakland County Latin Mass Association. There are also established Extraordinary Form communities at St. Josaphat, Assumption Grotto, St. Edward on the Lake, and Ss. Cyril & Methodius, plus periodic Masses held at St. Albertus, Our Lady of the Scapular, St. Hyacinth, and elsewhere. As recently as 2003, such a thriving scene would have been unimaginable to the 10-odd faithful gathered at the late-but-not-lamented Villa Maria Nursing Home Chapel in Windsor, the only site in the region hosting an approved Traditional Latin Mass. We owe this progress as much to Summórum and the Internet as to our local clergy and volunteers.

Perhaps the ultimate irony of the Internet era is that the once sole source for many liturgical books, the Vatican publishing house, last year shut down its web site, paxbook.com. In recent years it had been just as easy to order books from the Vatican as from any other vendor, but now we’re back to the future: Unless you’re lucky enough to find one on Amazon.com, you’ll once again have to write Rome (albeit via e-mail) if you want to inquire about the availability of that Vatican Altar Missal.

No St. Albertus Mass on May 17

Unfortunately, the Tridentine Mass originally scheduled at St. Albertus for Sunday, May 17 has been cancelled, due to the inability to secure a celebrant. It is getting increasingly difficult to find priests available on Sundays, despite the ever-growing number of priests interested in the Extraordinary Form. Rest assured that Masses at St. Albertus will continue; rather than pick dates, then find priests, henceforth we will secure celebrants first, then pick dates.

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week
  • Mon. 05/11 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (Ss. Philip & James, Apostles)
  • Tue. 05/12 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Holy Name of Mary (Ss. Nereus, Achilleus, Domitilla, Virgin & Pancras, Martyrs)
** Ascension Thursday is a Holy Day of Obligation in the U.S. **
  • Thu. 05/14 7:30 AM: Mass at Assumption Grotto (Ascension Thursday) [Unknown if High or Low]
  • Thu. 05/14 7:00 PM: High Mass at Old St. Patrick, Ann Arbor (Ascension Thursday)
  • Thu. 05/14 7:00 PM: High Mass at St. Josaphat (Ascension Thursday)
  • Thu. 05/14 7:00 PM: Mass at Assumption Grotto (Ascension Thursday) [Unknown if High or Low]
  • Thu. 05/14 7:00 PM: High Mass at St. Anthony, Temperance (Ascension of the Lord - 1st class)
[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Albertus (Detroit), Academy of the Sacred Heart (Bloomfield Hills), and St. Alphonsus and Holy Name of Mary Churches (Windsor) bulletin inserts for May 10, 2015. Hat tip to Alex Begin, author of the column.]
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Tridentine Masses coming to metro Detroit and east Michigan this week


Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

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