Tridentine Community News - Book Review: Phoenix from the Ashes; Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

"I will go in unto the Altar of God
To God, Who giveth joy to my youth"
Tridentine Community News by Alex Begin (April 14, 2019):

April 14, 2019 – Palm Sunday

Book Review: Phoenix from the Ashes


Much Catholic media attention has been given to the 2017 book The Dictator Pope, written by British historian Henry Sire under the pseudonym Marcantonio Colonna. It was one of a number of books published over the past two years critical of the current pontificate. Somewhat eclipsed by this book was Sire’s previous book, Phoenix from the Ashes: The Making, Unmaking, and Restoration of Catholic Tradition, published in 2015. It is appropriate to devote some attention to this publication, especially during Holy Week, as the book describes what might be thought of as a Passion of the Church.

A good portion of the book is devoted to esoteric and distant history, which won’t be of interest to every reader, yet which establishes Sire’s grasp of the various epochs in which the Church has existed. To this reviewer less interested in academic history, the book really picks up steam when it describes the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII and onward.

A tremendous amount has been written over the past fifty years about the work of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, the architect of the New Rite of Mass. In this book, however, previously not well-known details are presented about how Bugnini operated, how he manipulated his colleagues, his superiors, and to some extent Pope Paul VI to achieve his objective of a dramatically different Mass experience for the Catholic faithful. Two paragraphs summarize the evidence presented succinctly:

“In the introduction of the new rite, Msgr. Bugnini, confident in the favour of the pope, again showed his astounding contempt for legal process. He had shown the text of the Mass, together with the instruction that preceded it, to the pope, who told him to submit the instruction to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, while he himself would examine the rite. Msgr. Bugnini simply disobeyed the order, and when the constitution Missale Romanum was submitted to the pope the latter signed it without reading the General Instruction. This doctrinal statement discarded the traditional eucharistic teaching and presented the Mass as a supper, a memorial, a meeting of the faithful. The betrayal of doctrine provoked reaction from those who had not yet despaired of orthodoxy. A Critical Study composed by a number of theologians was presented to the pope in September 1969 by Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci, objecting on twenty-seven counts to the new rite and especially its doctrinal prologue. Pope Paul VI was informed of Msgr. Bugnini’s act of disobedience and the scandal it caused, and when he heard it was seen by Cardinal Journet to weep with shame and anger. As a result of the intervention, the General Instruction, though already issued with the pope’s signature, was withdrawn and amended to reaffirm the orthodox doctrine of the Mass. The rite itself remained unreformed and came into use in the ecclesiastical year 1969-70. ...

The story of how the liturgical revolution was put through is one that hampers the historian by its very enormity; he would wish, for his own sake, to have a less unbelievable tale to tell. The partisanship in choice of agents, the contempt for law and consultation, the blind support given by Paul VI despite every abuse, the silencing of the Church’s official organisms for the liturgy, the spirit of conflict in which the reform of the most sacred possession of the faithful was carried out, the advance of irreverence and impiety, the prompt discarding of principles that had been declared essential only a few years before, the discrediting and sudden departure of both the men to whom Paul VI had entrusted the reform of the liturgy, all these challenge belief. Moderation seems to demand rejection of such a story; but moderation is the wrong lens through which to judge immoderate events. That the reform of the Church’s liturgical life should have been bound up with such violations seems too hard to accept, but it can be explained by two facts: the first is the initial decision of Paul VI to hand over the reform to the most extreme wing of liturgical iconoclasts, and the second is the background of Modernist clamour that existed at the time. However they chose to act, the pope and his nominees needed never to fear criticism for actions that made for change, but only for laggardness in promoting it. This noisy chorus, claiming to be the voice of the faithful, represented a milieu filled with arrogance toward the sacred and towards Christian tradition. At their demand the religious treasure house of centuries was destroyed, while the ordinary laity, under the flood of innovation, lapsed from the Church in their millions. One day it will be necessary for the Church to study with honesty the way in which its liturgical heritage was done away with and to pass the judgment that it has pronounced in the past on grave deviations from its true nature and duty.”

One would have to do a fair amount of sleuthing to find objective evidence contrary to Sire’s. Those who defend the Ordinary Form usually cite a vague Vatican II / people’s drive for these changes but fail to acknowledge the protocol-defying means and intellectually questionable engine driving the Consílium, the Vatican body charged with creating the New Mass. Has anyone actually been a true, objective apologist for Bugnini and his methods? With the benefit of fifty years of hindsight, we must judge the new liturgy by its fruits. Meanwhile the Traditional Mass – resurgent in the midst of amazing opposition – continues to gain ground and speak to younger as well as older generations. Sire’s book goes on to document the decline in orthodoxy following Vatican II, then becomes optimistic as it describes the resurgence of tradition which many readers of this column observe and live every week.

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

• Tue. 04/16 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Holy Name of Mary, Windsor (Tuesday in Holy Week)
• Thu. 04/18 7:00 PM: High Mass at Oakland County Latin Mass Association/Academy of the Sacred Heart Chapel, Bloomfield Hills (Holy Thursday)
• Sat. 04/20 8:00 PM: High Mass at OCLMA/Academy (Easter Vigil)
• Fri. 04/19 1:30 PM: Chanted Service at OCLMA/Academy (Good Friday)
• Fri. 04/19 5:30 PM: Chanted Service at Holy Name of Mary (Good Friday)
• Sat. 04/20: No Mass at Miles Christi
• Sat. 04/20 8:00 PM: High Mass at OCLMA/Academy (Easter Vigil)
• Sun. 04/21: No Mass at OCLMA/Academy

[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 April 14, 2019. Hat tip to Alex Begin, author of the column.]

“And Paul VI wept”. More fascinating notes about the Pope and the liturgical reform.

Fr. Z, “And Paul VI wept”. More fascinating notes about the Pope and the liturgical reform. (Fr. Z's Blog, April 19, 2018):

Today, Sandro Magistero offers some information about Paul VI’s true attitude about the liturgical reform sparked by “experts” such as Annibale Bugnini well before the Council, during the Liturgical Movement, and carried out through and after the Council by the same.

Read more >>

THIS makes George Carlin's 'Buddy Christ' seem 'traditionalist'

You all remember how George Carlin played a bishop in the movie Dogma and announced that the crucifix, though a time-honored symbol of our faith and highly recognizeable, was being retired by Holy Mother Church as a wholly depressing image of our Lord crucified. Christ didn't come to earth to "give us the willies," says the bishop. He came "to help us out." "He was a booster." And with that take on our Lord, he introduces and unveils a new, more inspiring image of ... 'The Buddy Christ.'


And now, in the spirit of retrieving a Gospel for our time that will titillate and hopefully avoid boring us (like all those boring traditional -- >yawn< -- liturgies and doctrines), here comes the prancing priest: Ecce homo!


Honestly, is there anything remotely Catholic or even Christian about this, anymore than fluffy Care Bears or prancing My Little Ponies?

A traditional Catholic's cri de coeur over what is happening

Jimmy Fallon, Bill Murray, Sting and Bianca Jagger all lament that the Catholic Church is in all out revolution, so why is it that so many mainstream Catholics seem intent on denying that this is the case, asks Michael Matt. The Editor of the traditionalist Remnant magazine relates his experience at a recent Novus Ordo 'Gathering Rite,' and launches into a welcome rant about the appalling indifference to the Real Presence of Christ in our churches. He also asks: "What is neo-Catholicism?" and "What is the New Mass?" Hard times for Catholics who know the details of recent changes in the Church.


I bet you anything that many Catholics would find nothing at all exceptional about the 'Gathering Rite' referenced at the beginning of this video. Matt's reaction is so different because, as he says, he's never been to one of these Novus Ordo Masses. He's apprently spend his whole life in the Extraordinary Form (the Traditional Latin Mass); and his reaction is probably similar to how some of our ancestors would react in a contemporary Catholic church. What does this tell us about changes in the Church; and what should we think about this?

Fr. Perrone on how the post-Vatican II revolution mirrors the English Reformation

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" [temporary link] (Assumption Grotto News, January 17, 2016):

January doldrums are setting in, along with the grey skies that induce them. Festivities of the Christmas season seem already well behind us. Yet these were splendidly celebrated here, as I think all will agree, with the generous participation of our parishioners whose reward was to have been a part and witness to the ceremonies of this most joyous season of the year. My thanks to everybody who put forth much effort in assisting to make these days happen. As Easter comes early this year, we will soon be entering the Lenten season, which always seems to be just the needed thing after the excesses of the holidays. I look forward to this greater concentration of spiritual energies in order to ready myself for the demands of Holy Week.

I have been doing reading once again on the period of the Reformation in England. It’s more evident to me now that the liturgical changes that were decreed for the universal Church in the wake of Vatican II mirrored the cruelly imposed demands of the Reformers. In nearly every respect what the sixteenth century revolutionaries foisted upon the people of England were adopted and forced upon the laity of the Catholic Church by the framers of our new liturgy. Could this have been mere coincidence, when so very many features of the Protestant liturgical change were replicated in our experience of the new liturgy? The gradual and near unending series of innovations we witnessed included the ruination of our churches, the barbarous removal of much sacred art, the replacement of tables for altars, the alteration of time-honored prayers of the Roman Missal dating from earliest Christian centuries, the modifications of language and church music, the reduction (but not, however, entire extrication) of words which affirmed the sacrificial nature of the Mass–by these and many other things, the laity were made to feel disorientation, confusion, and suffer much in being forced to swallow much a good deal of impiety along with the legitimate and reverently introduced liturgical changes.

It was unthinkable for a loyal Catholic to have criticized these measures that were mandated by the Church in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, until sometime in the 1990s then-Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, made his own appraisal of the liturgical fallout which deeply and adversely affected the entire life of the Church. While it is true that the liturgy was not the only change that came forth after Vatican II, it was the most consequential thing that affected all else. We are in many areas now recovering from the vertigo of these revolutionary times, but we have also far to go to restore tranquility and well-being of the Church in many ways that were formerly known to us. I have always managed to remain hopeful, even in the midst of critical moments, because of the divinely-implanted gift of faith which assures me that Christ promised to remain with His Church–not apart from it–until the end of time and that hell’s gates would not prevail against it.

Let hope then be the dominant theme to carry you through this new year, and over the slump of post-partum (referring to the Lord’s birth) depression you may be feeling. “God is our refuge and strength; therefore we will not fear...though the mountains be transferred into the heart of the sea.... The Lord of Hosts is with us, our Protector is the God of Jacob” (from Ps. 45).

Fr. Perrone

Amateur Brain Surgeon's analysis of Eucharistic Prayer II

Commenting on Fr John Hunwicke's otherwise unexceptional article, "How to enjoy Eucharistic Prayer II" (Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment, April 22, 2015), Raider Fan (A.K.A. Amateur Brain Surgeon) writes in The Nesciencent Nepenthene (April 22, 2015):

It would be comforting to learn that late in life, Annibale Bugnini, had a moment like Alec Guinness had in the movie, Bridge on the River Kwai:

What can I say? The man has a twisted sense of humor. [Laughing ... ] Unfortunately, so do I.

Meanwhile, in Seattle ...

Easter Vigil Liturgy of St Patrick Catholic Church, Seattle, 2010.


[Courtesy of an aghast son, C.B., in NYC]

My favorite spoof on liturgical dance:

Geneva Convention to ban Marty Haugen Music

"Marty Haugen Music To Be Outlawed Under New Geneva Convention Resolution" (October 24, 2013):

Geneva, Switzerland–New guidelines set down by the international community during the fifth Geneva Convention this week has extensively defined the basic, spiritual wartime rights of the Church Militant by outlawing all Marty Haugen music used in and around war-zones. What is officially being called The Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Parishioners in Times of Spiritual War has become the fifth convention establishing the standards on international law for the humanitarian treatment of spiritual war. “Our new resolution states that all Catholics who are in the process of spiritual warfare are to be treated humanely,” Said General of the Counsel Robert Durant at a press conference earlier this morning. “The following acts are to be henceforth prohibited: Violence to life and person, in particular, cruel treatment and torture by means of being made to listen to Gather Us In. Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment such as asking parishioners to sing along to We Remember. And finally, all acts requiring parishioners to listen to said music during the reception of communion.”

All this, of course, is entirely serious. I'm serious.

[Hat tip to C.N.]

A pastor thinks we may be receiving Communion too often

Pastor of Assumption Grotto parish in Detroit, Fr. Eduard Perrone, offers an interesting and thoughtful counter to Pope St. Pius X's recommendation of frequent, even daily, Communion in his weekly parish newsletter, "A Pastor's Descant" (updated weekly) (Assumption Grotto News, October 19, 2014). He writes:

... I’ve begun to think that we generally may be receiving Communion too often. This opinion – radical, controversial and much against the grain – is a reversal of the thought of Pope Saint Pius X who, in his time, encouraged the frequent and even daily reception of Holy Communion. His motives then must be seen in the context of the times in which he lived. Times have changed, however, and men’s attitudes have changed as well. What I’m proposing for consideration is that we fast from frequent Holy Communion for a time in order to make us hunger and yearn for Christ. Analogous to this would be the dietary problem of many Americans today who are eating far too much and too often, and as a consequence have health problems. In a similar way, we’re overeating the Holy Eucharist, being unmindful of Christ’s Presence therein, and being poorly suited to receive Him. The result is spiritual illness – ironic to say so – and perhaps even, according to Saint Paul again, physical sickness as a consequence (cf. 1 Cor. 11:30).

Consider those who receive Communion without a thought to Who it is they’re receiving; or take someone who frequently sins and confesses and receives Communion but without having made a firm resolution to sin no more. Saint Paul had sharp words of reproach to those who receive the Eucharist, without examining themselves as to whether they are worthy of Communion or those who communicate without “recognizing the Body.” Perhaps we should stop what we’re doing so thoughtlessly, taking “time out” from receiving Communion, in order to recover our spiritual senses. For this, a fast, that is, a refraining from Holy Communion for a while might help us to become healthier, expanding our desire for receiving Christ, becoming hungry for Him. Making acts of Spiritual Communion, prayers of desire to receive the Holy Sacrament, is useful towards that end. Hours of adoration and visits to the Blessed Sacrament may also help stimulate an appetite for a devout reception of the Holy Eucharist.

Am I proposing a new Jansenism? I think not. We’re sorely in need of a greater awareness of the Inestimable Gift of the Eucharist and of the requisite worthiness to receive It. We’ve become gluttonous children of God who need to hunger for Him....

Related: Fr. Perrone interviewed by parishioner, Michael Voris, on the mode of receiving Communion.

Eucharistic Prayer II - composed on the back of a napkin?

Well, maybe not quite [Disclaimer: Rules 7-9]; but this is interesting, as noted by our trusty underground correspondent we keep on retainer in an Atlantic seaboard city that knows how to keep its secrets, Guy Noir - Private Eye:

As a grateful fan of Louis Bouyer's The Spirit & Forms of Protestantism, I am intrigued with details of his life. And while I no doubt would fall to the right of him theologically, his comments in TSAFOP on inspiration of Scripture, as well as his very good Dictionary of Theology (where he even distinguishes between pains of loss and pains of suffering, a la The Catholic Encyclopedia!) point back to an age when "liberal" and "conservative" currents in Catholicism were not nearly so far apart and had not worked themselves out into such polar extremes in camps both opposed to Modernism. (In this regard one also thinks accommodatingly of Guardini.) So this piqued by interest. If it ever gets an English translation, I'll be in line.

Perfect for "a banal on-the-spot product" (Cardinal Ratzinger's remark)
New Catholic, "Original Sins: Eucharistic Prayer II - composed in a few hours in a Roman Trattoria" (RC, September, 17, 2014):

The unbelievable scene is not unknown, it has been mentioned elsewhere before, but now confirmed in the published recollections of one of the two men involved: during the mad rush to have the Novus Ordo Missae (the New Mass of Paul VI) ready as soon as possible, the Consilium, the 1963-1970 organization charged with the upheaval and destruction of the Roman Rite under the guise of "reform" and under the control mostly of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, had reached a new level of ignominy in composing a new "canon". The draft was so bad and dangerous that the new Eucharistic Prayer had to be rewritten in a hurry and at the last minute during a late-night meeting by two men in a Roman restaurant.

For one and a half millennium, the Canon of the Roman Mass had been almost completely unchanged (which is why it was called a Canon, a rule, unchanged and unique). Now, after the Council, and without a single mention in Sacrosanctum Concilium (the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), the Consilium decided to offer new Anaphoras as if they were ice cream flavors. The new "Eucharistic Prayers" were released in the fateful month of May 1968, while Western youth was on worldwide revolt (therefore, theoretically, for the 1965-1967 maimed version of the ancient Ordo Missae, but in truth preparing the way for the New Mass introduced in 1969). Why the rush? As with everything in the liturgical revolution, Bugnini and his minions knew they had to get everything done as fast as possible before they could be stopped by a dangerous wave of common sense. They won. And the Church got an aggressively-imposed new multiple-choice rite stuck in 1968.

The story of what would become the most popular of the new "Eucharistic Prayers" (Eucharistic Prayer II) is so insulting to the venerable Roman Rite that it beggars belief, and shows once again why the New Mass is the opposite of everything that is true and tested. It is a shallow committee-work of out-of-touch "experts" so proud and revolutionary that they thought they were entitled to pass judgment on the immemorial heritage of almost 2,000 years of organic development and sincere devotion of saints, priests and faithful, something so bizarre that wiser minds have called it "a banal on-the-spot product."

Cardinal Ratzinger was right to call the New Mass thus, as Sandro Magister makes clear below (translation from his Italian-language blog) when speaking of the memoirs of Fr. Louis Bouyer, one of the (later much disappointed) consultants of the Consilium. The memoirs were recently published in France by Éditions du Cerf:

The Fiery Memoirs of the Convert Paul VI Wished to Create Cardinal

Sandro Magister

Paul VI was seriously at the point of making him a cardinal, if he had not been held back by the ferocious reaction that the nomination would have certainly provoked among the French Bishops, led then by the Archbishop of Paris and President of the Episcopal Conference, Cardinal François Marty, a personality of “crass ignorance” and “devoid of the most elementary capacity of good sense.”

To have missed out on the cardinal’s hat and branded his arch-enemy in such a way was the great theologian and liturgist Louis Bouyer (1913-2003), as we learn in his blistering posthumous work “Mémoires”, published this past summer by Éditions du Cerf, ten years after his death.

Brought up as a Lutheran and later a pastor in Paris, Bouyer converted to Catholicism in 1939, attracted mainly by the liturgy, in which he distinguished himself before long as an expert authority with his masterpiece “The Paschal Mystery”, on the rites of Holy Week.

Called to be part of the preparatory commission for the Second Vatican Council, he understood immediately and instinctively its greatness as well as its poverty, and he got out of it fast. He found the cheap ecumenism “from Alice in Wonderland” from that age unbearable. Among the few conciliar theologians spared by him was the young Joseph Ratzinger, who gets only praises in the book. And vice-versa, among the few high churchmen who immediately appreciated the talent and merits of this extraordinary theologian and liturgist, the one who stands out most is Giovanni Batttista Montini, who was still Archbishop of Milan.

On becoming Pope and taking the name of Paul VI, Montini wanted Bouyer on the commission for the liturgical reform, “theoretically” presided over by Giacomo Lercaro, “generous” but “incapable of resisting the manipulations of the wicked and mellifluous” Annibale Bugnini, Secretary and factotum of the same organism, “lacking as much in culture as in honesty”.

It was Bouyer who had to remedy in extremis a horrible formulation of the new Eucharistic Prayer II, from which Bugnini even wanted to delete the “Sanctus”. And it was he who had to rewrite the text of the new Canon that is read in the Masses today, one evening, on the table of a trattoria in Trastevere, together with the Benedictine liturgist, Bernard Botte, with the tormenting thought that everything had to be consigned the following morning.

But the worst part is when Bouyer recalls the peremptory “the Pope wants it” that Bugnini used to shut up the members of the commission every time they opposed him; for example, in the dismantling of the liturgy for the dead and in purging the “imprecatory” verses from the psalms in the Divine Office.

Paul VI, discussing with Bouyer afterwards about these reforms “that the Pope found himself approving, not being satisfied about them any more than I was,”asked him. “Why did you all get mired in this reform?” And Bouyer [replied], “Because Bugnini kept assuring us that you absolutely wanted it.” To which Paul VI [responded]: “But how is this possible? He told me that you were all unanimous in approving it....”

Bouyer recalls in his “Mémoires” that Paul VI exiled the “despicable” Bugnini to Teheran as Nuncio, but by then the damage had already been done. For the record, Bugnini’s personal secretary, Piero Marini, would then go on to become the director of pontifical ceremonies from 1983 to 2007, and even today there are voices circulating about him as the future Prefect for the Congregation of Divine Worship. ...

[Source, in Italian (main excerpt). Translation: contributor Francesca Romana]

For more on the origins of the made-up new Eucharistic Prayers, see, among others, this 1996 article by Fr. Cassian Folsom, OSB, who would later become the founding prior of the Monastery of Saint Benedict in Nursia (Norcia), Italy.

[Hat tip to G.N.]

Mistaken for satire: Tom Reese's suggestions for liturgical renewal

Who Needs Comedy Central?

In a recent email, a reader referred me to the following article, which, he said, he first mistook for satire. "I gather he's serious," he added.

Thomas Reese, "A suggested agenda for the new prefect for Congregation for Divine Worship." Excerpts (emphasis added):

With a vacancy at the head of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, Pope Francis has an opportunity to restart liturgical renewal, which was stalled BY the papacies of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

The purpose of liturgical reform is not only to translate old Latin texts into good English, but to revise liturgical practices to allow people to celebrate their Christian faith in ways that better fit contemporary culture.

The former prefect, Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, has been appointed archbishop of Valencia in eastern Spain. His conservative liturgical views were more in sync with those of Pope Benedict than of Pope Francis. Canizares, who was appointed prefect in 2008, supported expansion of the Tridentine Mass (aka the Extraordinary Form), and in his most recent letter said that the kiss of peace should be done with greater sobriety.

The good news is that Francis is no fan of the Tridentine Mass. Yes, he did say Mass in Latin in Korea, but that was because he did not know Korean, and they did not know Italian or Spanish. As archbishop of Buenos Aries, Argentina, he forbade the Tridentine Mass in his archdiocese until Pope Benedict mandated that it be available throughout the universal church whether bishops wanted it or not. Francis has never celebrated it (he was ordained in 1969) and never will. He hopes it will fade away.

Nor is he happy with the push for literal translations, including translating pro multis as "for many" rather than "for all." As a result, the Vatican push for new Italian, German, and other translations has been put on hold.

Francis also prefers a simple liturgical style and has no qualms about breaking liturgical rules for pastoral reasons. For example, as pope and as archbishop of Buenos Aries, he washed the feet of women on Holy Thursday even though the rules say that males (in Latin, viri) are to have their feet washed.

More recently, in Korea while saying Mass, he wore a butterfly pinned to his chasuble in honor of the Korean "comfort women" who were sex slaves to Japanese soldiers during World War II. That is a liturgical no-no.

The bad news is that there is no indication that liturgical renewal is a major priority for Pope Francis. In Argentina, progressive intellectuals criticized him for his support of popular devotions. The poor he so loved in the slums of Buenos Aires were more likely to turn out for a procession or devotion than for the Eucharist. They did not connect with either the old or the renewed Eucharist. Hopefully, this disconnect will lead him to look for a prefect who is more interested in what works pastorally, especially with the poor, than in what either conservative or liberal ideologues want.

... A more intelligent and pastoral approach to liturgical change would include three things: centers for liturgical research and development, market testing, and enculturation.

What is needed are centers for liturgical R&D where scholars and artists can collaborate with a willing community in developing new liturgical practices. Seminaries and universities with liturgical scholars are obvious places for this, but some parishes might be willing to be beta sites for new practices, especially if they were allowed to give feedback.

... Trying out different settings for the kiss is an ideal project for the centers for liturgical research and development, as are the other suggestions I give below.

One of the reasons for moving the kiss of peace is that it would open up space for a more expansive rite at the breaking of the bread prior to Communion. This would require bread that actually looks like bread.

It just keeps getting "better and better." Read on >>

[Hat tip to C.G.-Z.]

For the record: changes never called for by the Church

Michael Voris has been recently compiling a list of changes in the Church that were never mandated by Vatican II, changes against which he sees (and represents) a perhaps yet small but increasingly significant "Catholic uprising." I started listing these changes in the first of several video episodes in which he offered partial listings. He states that his complete list includes 60 or more topics, which the establishment Catholic media has not touched because it considers them too controversial.

Since I find these sorts of lists interesting, I compile them for my own later reference. Here is the incomplete list I have so far. Maybe someone can point me to a more complete listing in time.

1. Communion in the hand
   
2. Altar girls
   
3. Priests facing the people
   
4. Gregorian chant insisted upon by V2
   
5. Eucharistic ministers
   
6. Protestant music in Mass
   
7. Use of Latin in Mass insisted on by V2
   
8. Movement of tabernacles from center of altars
   
9. Smashing of Catholic art and architecture
   
10. Near disavowal of confession
    
11. Near total absence of the promotion of devotional life
    
12. Parish youth ministries neglecting and/or rejecting Catholic doctrine
    
13. Parish adult religious education neglecting Catholic doctrine
    
14. Destruction of Catholic education in parishes
    
15. Catholics leading the way on gay marriage approval
    
16. Refusal to enforce Canon 915 - to pro-aborts
    
17. Orthodox seminarians being carefully monitored, or not ordained or delayed
    
18. "Gay Masses" in many dioceses with the bishops' knowledge
    
19. CCHD financial support for pro-abortion and pro-contraception groups
    
20. CRS giving donations to Obama campaign
    
21. Homosexual or homosexual-friendly clergy
    
22. Enormous resistance to the Traditional Latin Mass by bishops and priests
    
23. Non-stop emphasis on "earthly" matters like immigration and gun-control
    
24. Failure to preach against contraception

Roots of the present crisis

A Mass in the Archdiocese of Sao Paulo, Brazil (August 2012)

"The massive crisis afflicting the Church today is, at root, nothing other than a crisis of identity precipitated by an unprecedented interference and experimentation with her most holy and tradition-bearing possession, the Mass. This crisis of identity spills over into everything else: the crisis in missionary work, the crisis in ecumenism and interreligious dialogue, the crisis in relations with political entities, the crisis in Catholic education in general and theology in particular."

-- Peter Kwasniewski, "Rationalism and Individualism in Catholic Theology"
(New Liturgical Movement, September 23, 2013).

There may be various other penultimate causes of the crisis of implosion in the Church today -- secularization, materialism, political liberalism, modernism, etc. -- yet I think Kwasniewski is right about the Mass being the proximate cause: the endless liturgical tinkering and resulting casual indifference about how the faithful encountered their Lord in the Eucharist, the Source and Summit of their faith, took its toll and had the most devastating effect.

[Hat tip to Sir. A.S.]

Extraordinary ministers at Papal Mass deny Communion in the hand

While Pope Francis doesn't reject Communion in the hand (remember Rio?), it's nice to see the convention retrieved under Pope Benedict XVI continued in Rome: Communion on the tongue. Check it out:


Now just imagine one of your lay "Eucharistic ministers" try that in your local AmChurch parish! Isn't this crazy? All hell would break loose, and you know it!

For a good discussion of the issue by Bishop Athanasius Schneider, author of Dominus Est – It Is the Lord! Reflections of a Bishop of Central Asia on Holy Communion(Newman House Press, 2009):


There is also a whole series that Michael Voris is producing on ChurchMilitant.TV called "Sleight of Hand - Reception Deception," that goes into the history and theology, as well as the motive that moved some to push through the widespread change in the practice, but you have to have a premium account to access it, unfortunately. It's excellent, and pulls together a lot of material that would be difficult for one person to dredge up for himself.

"The Crisis of the Sacred and the Church kneeling before the World"?

Sounds a bit "over the top." This, at least was the judgment of Marco Bongi in an article in Riscossa Cristiano about the "dreadful words" spoken by Alessandro Gnocchi on March 8, 2014 at the annual meeting of Civitella del Tronto. The Title of Gnocchi's presentation was "The Crisis of the Sacred and the Church kneeling before the World."

Translated by Francesca Romana, Bongi's article was posted by Adfero under the title, "Clear words, 'prophetic words'" (RC, May 15, 2014), and indeed the opening quotation from Gnocchi does verge toward the alarmist:

"We will find ourselves more and more faced with someone who professes to speak to us in the name of God by telling us that we have no need of Him.”

With that, Bongi turns his thoughts, "as a simple layman who observes what is happening around him."

Whatever the religious liberty envisioned in Vatican II's Dignitatis Humanae, he says, Rome hasn't done much to resist "the demand to remove every reference to the religion of the State from the constitution." What ever was envisioned by the Council fathers regarding ecumenism, the effect has been to suggest that "fundamentally the differences among the various Christian religions and non-Christian ones too, are -- all things considered -- negligible." Whatever the Council envisioned in Sacrosanctum Concilium, the "innovators" appear to "hate [the traditional liturgy of the Latin rite] because it attributes too much importance to God and the transcendent dimension of [our] relationship with Him." Whatever the Council fathers may have envisioned about upholding the rights of God, it now appears that the rights of man are much more important: "God is not important" and "there is no sense in fighting to defend Him ...." Whatever may have been envisioned, it looks more and more like "the law of God is not important," as it now appears that it may soon be possible for the divorced and remarried may be re-admitted to the sacraments. Likewise, the result of the "pastoral" approach following the Council has been "Communion in the hand, impeding, de facto, genuflections (since the kneelers have been taken away) expelling, de facto, sin, the last things, the objectivity of morality from catechesis as well as homiletics."

Finally, even Bongi finds himself asking, by the end of his article: "Will God accept being put to the side like a useless toy for much longer?"

[Hat tip to R.C.]

The cross of visiting the ordinary form

A reader and frequent commenter writes:

Although I am a member of The Confraternity of Saint Peter and although my heart and soul remains anchored in the Traditional Mass, I am trying (since Advent) to assist at daily mass in the normative [ordinary] rite but it is a veritable way of the cross to do so.

Tomorrow I will be trying the third Parish in my area.

The first Parish has video screens on each side of the Sanctuary and while the Eucharist was being confected, the screen displayed the word "Jesus" with bright yellow leaves shimmering as they were being lightly fluttered by a zephyr; and then the Hosanna flashed on the screen with the (mis)translation "Holy...Lord, God of power and might..." that all recited...

And then, in search of a less fractious Mass, I went to another Parish where there was a substitute Priest at one of whose masses I had assisted, sadly, once before. He has a habit of dispensing the last Blessing and then he strolls over to the lectern to tell a joke - giving me enough time to exit before his joke is completed. Today, as soon as he finished the blessing, he immediately launched into a joke as he stood behind the altar.

Maybe the third time/Parish tomorrow will be the charm.

Yours in Christ,

IANS

Teletubbies for Christ?

The following occurred during the "Solemn Novena" in preparation for the feast day of Our Lady of Aparecida in Brazil, at the entry of the Bible at the Basilica of her National Shrine, the largest Basilica dedicated to the Blessed Virgin in the entire world.

Tell me: what do you think the planners were thinking? Was this a serious attempt at implementing the Holy Father's call for a New Evangelization? Mere entertainment? An intentional vulgarization of liturgy? An attempt to elevate the pedestrian into the rarefied stratospheric aether of the sublime? What?

[Hat tip to Rorate Caeli]

The Extraordinary Form and the New Evangelization

by The Most Reverend Athanasius Schneider

Turning Our Gaze Towards Christ

In order to speak of new evangelization correctly, it is necessary first to turn our gaze towards Him Who is the true evangelizer, namely Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Word of God made Man. The Son of God came upon this earth to expiate and atone for the greatest sin, sin par excellence. And this sin, humanity's sin par excellence, consists in refusing to adore God and in refusing to keep the first place, the place of honor, for Him. This sin on the part of man consists in not paying attention to God, in no longer having a sense of the fittingness of things, or even a sense of the details pertaining to God and to the adoration that is His due, in not wanting to see God, and in not wanting to kneel before God.

For such an attitude, the incarnation of God is an embarrassment; as a result the real presence of God in the Eucharistic mystery is likewise and embarrassment; the centrality of the Eucharistic presence of God in our churches is an embarrassment. Indeed sinful man wants the center stage for himself, whether within the Church or during the Eucharistic celebration. He wants to be seen, to be noticed.

For this reason Jesus the Eucharist, God incarnate, present in the tabernacle under the Eucharistic form, is set aside. Even the representation of the Crucified One on the cross in the middle of the altar during the celebration facing the people is an embarrassment, for it might eclipse the priest's face. Therefore, the image of the Crucified One in the center of the altar as well as Jesus the Eucharist in the tabernacle, also in the center of the altar, are an embarrassment. Consequently, the cross and the tabernacle are moved to the side. During Mass, the congregation must be able to see the priest's face at all times, and he delights in placing himself literally at the center of the house of God. and if perchance Jesus, really present to us in the Most Holy Eucharist, is still left in His tabernacle in the middle of the altar because the Ministry of Historical Monuments -- even in an atheist regime -- has forbidden moving it for the conservation of artistic heritage, the priest, often throughout the entire Eucharistic celebration, does not scruple to turn his back to Him.

How often have good and faithful adorers of Christ cried out in their simplicity and humility: "God bless you, Ministry of Historical Monuments! At least you have left us Jesus in the center of our church."

The Mass is Intended to Give Glory to God, Not to Men

Only on the basis of adoring and glorifying God can the Church adequately proclaim the word of truth, that is, evangelize. Before the world ever heard Jesus, the eternal Word made flesh, preach and proclaim the Kingdom, He quietly adored for thirty years. This remains forever the law for the Church's life and action as well as for all evangelizers. "The way the liturgy is treated decides the fate of the Faith and of the Church," said Cardinal Ratzinger, our current Holy Father Benedict XVI. The Second Vatican Council intended to remaind the Church what reality and what action were to take the place in her life. This is the reason the first of the Concil's documents was dedicated to the liturgy. The Council gives us the following principles: in the Church, and therefore in the liturgy, the human must be oriented toward the divine and be subordinate to it; likewise the visible in relation to the invisible, action in relation to contemplation, the present in relation to the future city to which we aspire (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 2). According to the teaching of Vatican II our earthly liturgy participates in a foretaste of the heavenly liturgy of the holy city of Jerusalem (ibid., 2).

Everything about the liturgy of the Holy Mass must therefore serve to express clearly the reality of Christ's sacrifice, namely the prayers of adoration, of thanksgiving, of expiation, and of petition that the eternal High Priest presented to His Father.

The rite and every detail of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass must center on glorifying and adoring God by insisting on the centrality of Christ's presence, whether in the sign and representation of the Crucified or in His Eucharistic presence in the tabernacle, and especially at the moment of the Consecration and of Holy Communion. The more this is respected and the less man takes center stage in the celebration, the less the celebration looks like a circle closed in on itself. Rather, it is opened out to Christ as in a procession advancing towards Him with the priest at its head; such a liturgical procession will more truly reflect the sacrifice of adoration of Christ crucified; the fruits deriving from God's glorification received into the souls of those in attendance will be richer; God will honor them more.

* * * * * * *

The rite and every detail of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass must center on glorifying and adoring God by insisting on the centrality of Christ's presence, whether in the sign and representation of the Crucified or in His Eucharistic presence in the tabernacle, and especially at the moment of the Consecration and of Holy Communion.

* * * * * * *

The more the priest and the faithful truthfully seek the glory of God rather than that of men in Eucharistic celebrations, and do not seek to receive glory from each other, the more God will honor them by granting that their souls may participate more intensely and fruitfully in the glory and honor of His divine life.

At present and in various places on earth there are many celebrations of the Holy Mass regarding which one might say, as an inversion of Psalm 113:9: "To us, O Lord, and to our name give glory." To such celebrations apply Jesus' words: "How can you believe, who receive glory one from another: and the glory which is from God alone, you do not seek?": (Jn 5:44).

The Six Principles of the Liturgical Reform

The Second Vatican Council put forward the following principles regarding a liturgical reform:

1. During the liturgical celebration, the human, the temporal, and action must be directed towards the divine, the eternal, and contemplation; the role of the former must be subordinated to the latter (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 2).
2. During the liturgical celebration, the realization that the earthly liturgy participates in the heavenly liturgy will have to be encouraged (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 8).
3. There must be absolutely no innovation, therefore no new creation of liturgical rites, especially in the rite of the Mass, unless it is for a true and certain gain for the Church, and provided that all is done prudently and, if it is warranted, that new forms replace the existing ones organically (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 23).
4. The rite of Mass must be such that the sacred is more explicitly addressed (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 21).
5. Latin must be preserved in the liturgy, especially in Holy Mass (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 24 and 54).
6. Gregorian chant has pride of place in the liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 116).

The Council Fathers saw their reform proposals as the continuation of the reform of Saint Pius X (Sacrosanctum Concilium 112 and 117) and the servant of God Pius XII; indeed, in the liturgical constitution, Pius XII's Encyclical Mediator Dei is what is most often cited.

Among other things, Pope Pius XII left the Church an important principle of doctrine regarding the Holy Liturgy, namely the condemnation of what is called liturgical archeologism. Its proposals largely overlapped with those of the Jansenistic and Protestant-leaning synod of Pistoia (see Mediator Dei, 63-64). As a matter of fact they bring to mind Martin Luther's theological thinking.

For this reason, the Council of Trent had already condemned Protestant ideas, in particular the exaggerated emphasis on the notion of a banquet in the Eucharistic celebration to the detriment of its sacrificial character and the suppression of univocal signs of sacrality as an expression of the mystery of the liturgy (Council of Trent, session 22).

The Magisterium's doctrinal declarations on the liturgy, as in this case those of the Council of Trent and of the encyclical Mediator Dei and which are reflected in a centuries-old, or even millenia-old, liturgical praxis, these declarations, I say, form part of that element of Holy Tradition that one cannot abandon without incurring grave spiritual damage. Vatican II took up these doctrinal declarations on the liturgy, as one can see by reading the general principals of divine worship in the liturgical constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium.

As an example of a concrete error in the thought and praxis of liturgical action, Pope Pius XII cites the proposal to give to the altar the shape of a table (Mediator Dei 62). If already Pope Pius XII refused the table0shaped altar, one can imagine how much more he would have refused the proposal for a celebration around a table versus populum!

When Sacrosanctum Concilium 2 teaches that, in the liturgy, contemplation has the priority and that the entire celebration must be oriented to the heavenly mysteries (ibid. 2 and 8), it is faithfully echoing the following declaration of the Council of Trent: "And whereas such is the nature of man, that, without external helps, he cannot easily be raised to the meditation of divine things; therefore has holy Mother Church instituted certain rites, to wit that certain things be pronounced in the Mass in a low, and others in a louder, tone. She has likewise employed ceremonies, such as mystic benedictions, lights,incense, vestments, and many other things of this kind, derived from an apostolic discipline and tradition, whreby both the majesty of so great a sacrifice might be recommended, and the minds of the faithful be excited, by those visible signs of religion and piety, to the contemplation of those most sublime things which are hidden in this sacrifice" (Session 24, chapter 5).

The Church's magisterial teachings quoted above, especially Mediator Dei, were certainly recognized as fully valid by the Fathers of the Council. Therefore they must continue to be fully valid for all of the Church's children even today.

The Five Wounds of the Liturgical Mystical Body of Christ

In the letter to all the bishops of the Catholic Church that Benedict XVI sent with the July 7, 2007 Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, the Pope made the following important declaration: "In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too." In saying this, the Pope expressed the fundamental principle of the liturgy that the Council of Trent, Pope Pius XII, and the Second Vatican Council had taught.

* * * * * * *

The first and most obvious wound is the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass in which the priest celebrates with his face turned towards the faithful, especially during the Eucharistic prayer and the consecration, the highest and most sacred moment of the worship that is God's due.

* * * * * * *

Taking an unprejudiced and objective look at the liturgical practice of the overwhelming majority of churches throughout the Catholic world where the Ordinary Form of the roman rite is used, no one can honestly deny that the six aforementioned liturgical principles of Vatican II are never, or hardly ever, respected, despite the erroneous claim that such is the liturgical practice that Vatican II desired. There are a certain number of concrete aspects of the currently prevailing liturgical practice in the ordinary rite that represent a veritable rupture with a constant and millennium-old liturgical practice. By this I mean the five liturgical practices I shall mention shortly; they may be termed the five wounds of the liturgical mystical body of Christ. These are wounds, for they amount to a violent break with the past since they deemphasize the sacrificial character (which is actually the central and essential character of the Mass) and put forward the notion of banquet. All of this diminishes the exterior signs of divine adoration, for it brings out the heavenly and eternal dimension of the mystery to a far lesser degree.

Now the five wounds (except for the new Offertory prayers) are those that are not envisaged in the Ordinary Form of the rite of Mass but were brought into it through the practice of a deplorable fashion.

A) The first and most obvious wound is the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass in which the priest celebrates with his face turned towards the faithful, especially during the Eucharistic prayer and the consecration, the highest and most sacred moment of the worship that is God's due. This exterior form corresponds, by its very nature, more to the way in which one teaches a class or shares a meal. We are in a closed circle. And this form absolutely does not conform to the moment of the prayer, less yet to that of adoration. And yet Vatican II did not want this form by any means; nor has it ever been recommended by the Magisterium of the Popes since the Council. Pope Benedict worte in the preface of the first volume of his collected works: "The idea that the priest and the people in prayer must look at one another reciprocally was born only in the modern age and is completely foreign to ancient Christianity. In fact, the priest and the people do not address their prayer to one another, but together they address it to the one Lord. For this reason they look in the same direction in prayer: either towards the East as the cosmic symbol of the Lord's return, or where this is not possible, towards an image of Christ in the apse, toward a cross, or simply upwards."

The form of celebration in which all turn their gaze in the same direction (conversi ad orientem, ad Crucem, ad Dominum) is even mentioned in the rubrics of the new rite of the Mass (see Ordo Missae, 25, 133, 134). The so-called versus populum celebration certainly does not correspond to the idea of the Holy Liturgy as mentioned in the declaration of Sacrosanctum Concilium, 2 and 8.

B) The second wound is communion in the hand, which is now spread nearly throughout the entire world. Not only was this manner of receiving communion in now way mentioned by the Vatican II Council Fathers, but it was in fact introduced by a certain number of bishops in disobedience to the Holy See and in spite of the negative majority vote by bishops in 1968. Pope Paul VI legitimized it only later, reluctantly, and under specific conditions.

Pope Benedict XVI, since Corpus Christi 2008, distributes Communion to the faithful kneeling and on their tongue only, both in Rome and also in all the local churches he visits. He thus is showing the entire Church a clear example of practical Magisterium in a liturgical manner. Since the qualified majority of the bishops refused Communion in the hand as something harmful three years after the Council, how much more the Council Fathers would have done so!

C) The third would is the new Offertory prayers. They are an entirely new creation and had never been used in the Church. They express not so much the mystery of the sacrifice of the Cross as the event of a banquet; thus they recall the prayers of the Jewish Sabbath meal. In the more than thousand-year tradition of the Church in both East and West, the Offertory prayers have always been expressedly oriented to the mystery of the sacrifice of the Cross (see, e.g. Paul Tirot, Histoire des prières d’offertoire dans la liturgie romaine du VIIème au XVIème siècle [Rome, 1985]). There is no doubt that such an absolutely new creation contradicts the clear formulation of Vatican II that states: “Innovationes ne fiant . . . novae formae ex formis iam exstantibus organice crescant” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 23).

D) The fourth wound is the total disappearance of Latin in the huge majority of Eucharistic celebrations in the Ordinary Form in all Catholic countries. This is a direct infraction against the decisions of Vatican II.

E) The fifth wound is the exercise of the liturgical services of lector and acolyte by women as well as the exercise of these same services in lay clothing while entering into the choir during Holy Mass directly from the space reserved to the faithful. This custom has never existed in the Church, or at least has never been welcome. It confers to the celebration of the Catholic Mass the exterior character of informality, the character and style of a rather profane assembly. The second council of Nicaea, already in 787, forbad such practices when it lay down the following canon: “If someone is not ordained, it is not permitted for him to do the reading from the ambo during the holy liturgy“ (can. 14). This norm has been constantly followed in the Church. Only subdeacons and lectors were allowed to give the reading during the liturgy of the Mass. If lectors and acolytes are missing, men or boys in liturgical vestments may do so, not women, since the male sex symbolically represents the last link to minor orders from the point of view of the non-sacramental ordination of lectors and acolytes.

The texts of Vatican II never mention the suppression of the minor orders and of the subdiaconate or the introduction of new ministries. In Sacrosanctum Concilium no. 28, the Council distinguishes minister from fidelis during the liturgical celebration, and it stipulates that each may do only what pertains to him by the nature of the liturgy. Number 29 mentions the ministrantes, that is the altar servers who have not been ordained. In contrast to them, there are, in keeping with the juridical terms in use at that time, the ministri, that is to say those who have received an order, be it major or minor.


V –The Motu Proprio: putting an end to rupture in the liturgy In the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI stipulates that the two forms of the Roman rite are to be regarded and treated with the same respect, because the Church remains the same before and after the Council. In the letter accompanying the Motu Proprio, the pope wishes the two forms to enrich each other mutually. Furthermore he wishes that the new form “be able to demonstrate, more powerfully than has been the case hitherto, the sacrality which attracts many people to the former usage.”

* * * * * * *

Four of the liturgical wounds, or unfortunate practices (celebration versus populum, communion in the hand, total abandonment of Latin and of Gregorian chant, and intervention of women for the service of lectorship and of acolyte), have in and of themselves nothing to do with the Ordinary Form of the Mass and moreover are in contradiction with the liturgical principles of Vatican II.

* * * * * * *

Four of the liturgical wounds, or unfortunate practices (celebration versus populum, communion in the hand, total abandonment of Latin and of Gregorian chant, and intervention of women for the service of lectorship and of acolyte), have in and of themselves nothing to do with the Ordinary Form of the Mass and moreover are in contradiction with the liturgical principles of Vatican II. If an end were put to these practices, we would get back to the true teaching of Vatican II. And then, the two forms of the Roman rite would come considerable closer so that, at least outwardly, there would be no rupture to speak of between them and, therefore, no rupture between the Church before and after the Council either.

As concerns the new Offertory prayers, it would be desirable for the Holy See to replace them with the corresponding prayers of the extraordinary form, or at least to allow for the use of the latter ad libitum. In this way the rupture between the two forms would be avoided not only externally but also internally. Rupture in the liturgy is precisely what the Council Fathers did not what. The Council’s minutes attest to this, because throughout the two thousand years of the liturgy’s history, there has never been a liturgical rupture and, therefore, there never can be. On the other hand there must be continuity, just as it is fitting for the Magisterium to be in continuity.

The five wounds of the Church’s liturgical body I have mentioned are crying out for healing. They represent a rupture that one may compare to the exile in Avignon. The situation of so sharp a break in an expression of the Church’s life is far from unimportant—back then the absence of the popes from Rome, today the visible break between the liturgy before and after the Council. This situation indeed cries out for healing.

For this reason we need new saints today, one or several Saint Catherines of Sienna. We need the vox populi fidelis demanding the suppression of this liturgical rupture. The tragedy in all of this is that, today as back in the time of the Avignon exile, a great majority of the clergy, especially in its higher ranks, is content with this rupture.

* * * * * * *

The five wounds of the Church’s liturgical body I have mentioned are crying out for healing. They represent a rupture that one may compare to the exile in Avignon.

* * * * * * *

Before we can expect efficacious and lasting fruits from the new evangelization, a process of conversion must get under way within the Church. How can we call others to convert while, among those doing the calling, no convincing conversion towards God has yet occurred, internally or externally? The sacrifice of the Mass, the sacrifice of adoration of Christ, the greatest mystery of the Faith, the most sublime act of adoration is celebrated in a closed circle where people are looking at each other.

What is missing is conversio ad Dominum. It is necessary, even externally and physically. Since in the liturgy Christ is treated as though he were not God, and he is not given clear exterior signs of the adoration that is due to God alone because the faithful receive Holy Communion standing and, to boot, take it into their hands like any other food, grasping it with their fingers and placing it into their mouths themselves. There is here a sort of Eucharistic Arianism or Semi-Arianism.

One of the necessary conditions for a fruitful new evangelization would be the witness of the entire Church in the public liturgical worship. It would have to observe at least these two aspects of Divine Worship:

1. Let the Holy Mass be celebrated the world over, even in the ordinary form, in an internal and therefore necessarily also external conversio ad Dominum.
   
   
2. Let the faithful bend the knee before Christ at the time of Holy Communion, as Saint Paul demands when he mentions the name and person of Christ (see Phil 2:10), and let them receive Him with the greatest love and the greatest respect possible, as befits Him as true God.

Thank God, Benedict XVI has taken two concrete measures to begin the process of a return from the liturgical Avignon exile, to wit the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum and the reintroduction of the traditional Communion rite.

There still is need for many prayers and perhaps for a new Saint Catherine of Sienna for the other steps to be taken to heal the five wounds on the Church’s liturgical and mystical body and for God to be venerated in the liturgy with that love, that respect, that sense of the sublime that have always been the hallmark of the Church and of her teaching, especially in the Council of Trent, Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Mediator Dei, Vatican II in its Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium and Pope Benedict XVI in his theology of the liturgy, in his liturgical magisterium, and in the Motu Proprio mentioned above.

No one can evangelize unless he has first adored, or better yet unless he adores constantly and gives God, Christ the Eucharist, true priority in his way of celebrating and in all of his life. Indeed, to quote Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger: “It is in the treatment of the liturgy that the fate of the Faith and of the Church is decided.” +

_______________________________________________________________________
Bishop Schneider is auxiliary bishop of the archidiocese of Saint Mary of Astana and Secretary of the Kazakhstan Conference of Catholic Bishops. He is the author of the celebrated volume, Dominus Est – It Is the Lord! Reflections of a Bishop of Central Asia on Holy Communion,published by Newman House Press, and was a keynote speaker at the Call to Holiness conference in Metro Detroit in 2009.

The present article, "The Extraordinary Form and the New Evangelization," was first presented on January 15, 2012, as the keynote address at the fourth meeting of the Parisian association, Réunicatho, which came into being shortly after the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. We here present the unabridged translation of the keynote address given by the conference's guest of honor, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, as it was first published in the Paix Liturgique Newsletter 16 of March 2012 and subsequently on the Paix Liturgique website under the title, "Bishop Schneider and the Liturgy: Milestones for the Third Millennium." The article also appears in the Summer, 2012, issue Latin Mass magazine, pp. 6-10; and this post has been permanently archived at Scripture and Catholic Tradition.

Cardinal: Novus Ordo not the Mass of the Council

"Brandmüller: the Mass of Paul VI IS NOT the Mass of the Council -- Sacrosanctum Concilium never really implemented" (Rorate Caeli, August 28, 2012):

... I must emphasise that the form of the post-conciliar liturgy with all its distortions, is not attributable to the Council or to the Liturgy Constitution established during Vatican II which by the way has not really been implemented even to this day. The indiscriminate removal of Latin and Gregorian Chants from liturgical celebrations and the erection of numerous altars were absolutely not acts prescribed by the Council.

Read more >>

"Buginicare"???!!!

LOL! THIS is almost like a Monty Python sketch. Have a look:

• "UNIVERSAL SPIRITUAL-CARE REFORM FOR THE CATHOLIC CHURCH"
  
  
• "BUGINICARE MANDATE OPPOSED BY RADICAL PROPONENTS OF DIVERSITY"

What will Fr. Z. think of next?