Fr. Perrone's homily (audio) on the importance of Lenten mortifications

In case you missed it, this is Fr. Eduard Perrone's homily from the 2nd Sunday of Lent, February 20, 2016. It's just good enough to listen to again.

There are three 'gods' of the world around you: money, sex, and power. There are three vows voluntarily taken by members of Catholic religious orders: poverty, chastity, and obedience. It's not hard to imagine how insane the Catholic practice of self-mortification looks to the world around us. What? Why punish yourself like that! Live a little. Life is short. You only go around once. So they say. You've heard it all before, and you know how mistaken it is. Yet it can get to you unless you take counter measures. The thing is, once you shoulder the burden, you find it's light. And your spiritual vision comes into sharper focus. You know this. So listen to Fr. Perrone.

'International Women's Day' eclipses feast day of founder of Brothers Hospitallers of St. John of God (or they're trying to change our calendar)

And Google (signs of the times ...) is helping along the cause, like many, many others:


You may remember that during the French Revolution a new calendar was created by a commission under the direction of the politician Charles-Gilbert Romme seconded by Claude Joseph Ferry and Charles-François Dupuis. The unspoken object was to rid the new calendar of every vestige of the Christian calendar. They stopped counting the years from the year of our Lord's birth ('AD', or Anno Domini), replacing it quite literally with year Number One. They did away with the seven day week from the Book of Genesis, replacing it with a decimal (and so much more 'rational') ten-day week. And they divided each day in the Republical Calendar into ten hours, each hour into 100 decimal minutes, and each decimal minute into 100 decimal seconds. Thus an hour was 144 conventional minutes (more than twice as long as a conventional hour), a minute was 86.4 conventional seconds (44% longer than a conventional minute), and a second was 0.864 conventional seconds (13.6% shorter than a conventional second).

Well, we all know how well that worked. The irony is that even if the secular powers and principalities refer to our current year as 2016 C.E. (for "Common Era"), they're still keeping time from the approximate year of our Savior's birth. Soli Deo gloria!

Happy original Feast Day of St. Thomas Aquinas!

His original feast day was March 7, the day of his death, but because the date often falls within Lent, in 1969, the new revised version of the Roman Calendar changed his feast day to January 28, the date his relics were moved to Toulouse.

The most amazing Doctor of the Church ever, as they say!


Happy Lent!

Fr. Perrone: candid thoughts when popes err

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" [temporary link] (Assumption Grotto News, March 6, 2016):

The Pope is infallible in matters of faith and morals. This is a dogmatic truth which no Catholic can deny and yet remain a Catholic, united to the one true Church. Yet it is evident that Pope Francis erred recently in speaking about an exceptional use of a contraceptive for married couples in order to avert a disease which may cause birth defects in pregnant women. (For the record: the context here was the use only within the marital relationship; outside of marriage, contraception is of no further moral consequence because the act is already sinful.) How we do reconcile papal infallibility with the lately publicized error?

With full cognisance of my inadequacy–nay incompetence–to speak either as a moral theologian or a critic of the vicar of Christ, I write humbly, with a filial love for the pope and a steadfast adherence to the Catholic faith. I have hitherto refrained from speaking or writing about things Pope Francis has said or done, things which have caused wonderment and confusion among many. The reason for this reluctance–besides those reasons already mentioned–is that prudence forbids hasty, knee-jerk reactions, especially when facts are uncertain and there may be the danger of giving scandal by speaking impiously when the utmost certainty and reverence are demanded. In the case of Pope Frances giving approval for married couples to employ a means of avoiding conception which is intrinsically evil (which is to say, evil under any conditions), there’s no doubt that he erred. Two disturbing things may then result: first, the scandal of a pope proposing moral error; second, the consequent questioning of papal infallibility.

Popes have not always been among ostensibly best choices for the office. Even the great Saint Peter’s somewhat mercurial and impulsive nature, would seem to disfavor his suitability over, let’s say, the ever-faithful apostle St. John. Some popes in our long history have been outright immoral men, yet the validity of the papal office established by Christ remains unaffected.

The pontificate of Pope Frances is manifestly unlike those of his immediate predecessors. John Paul II was a noted philosopher and an imposing world figure who restored a measure of stability in the Church after the shaky post-conciliar days. Pope Benedict XVI was a theologian, a teacher of considerable stature, and a repairer of the breech in restoring severed links to our Catholic tradition. Pope Francis’s contribution to the Church is as an embassador of the merciful Christ to the people of our time whose lives have been much scarred by sin, people who have felt hopeless in making their return to God. The Holy Father wants people to know that “the Lord’s mercy endures forever,” and that no one should be without the hope of reconciliation. This is much needed in our day since so many have gone very far from moral rectitude, committing the gravest of crimes with their consciences stinging from a guilt that has brought them to near despair (one of the devil’s greatest devices to secure eternal loss). As a sign of the open disposition of God to reconcile repentant sinners, the pope has made himself very approachable to people, mingling among the crowds, and speaking candidly–even off-handedly to avid and perhaps disingenuous media personnel to entrap him. Speaking off-the-cuff in such ways has not had good results. However one may decry a capricious manner of exercising the petrine ministry, one must recall that the pope is infallible only in his official teaching capacity and not in casual, spontaneous comments. He must speak ‘from the chair’ (ex cathedra), that is, with the intent of engaging his full apostolic authority, proclaiming a teaching to be held by all the faithful. A pope may  do this in an ordinary or an extraordinary way, but the binding force of such teaching must be evident by the manner and frequency of his statements on a given subject.


As it is, popes rarely employ this infallible charism of the papal office and, when they do, it is most often not in moral teaching but in matters of faith (as an example of the latter, in the papal definitions of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary). Pope St. John Paul did bind Catholics in three areas of moral teaching: the intrinsic evil of abortion, and the same of contraception; and he forever repudiated the alleged capability of women as recipients of Holy Orders (that is, as possible priests).

What then to say of Pope Francis? First of all, he is a true, legitimate successor of Saint Peter and visible head of the Church, the vicar of Christ, whose essential duty is to preserve the deposit of faith, the apostolic inheritance: a conservating not a creative function. One need not like all that a pope does–history providing many, many examples of popes imprudent in their doings. The fact remains that the pope is the Holy Father, and like the father of a human family, deserves the respect of his God-appointed position. Should dads err, or even sin, they do not cease thereby to be fathers, nor lose their claim to respect and love. Similarly (as I’ve said before in sermons), the Church as our mother suffering (note the relational words, ‘father’ and ‘mother’) is no warrant for disowning or abandoning her. Pope and clergy–and Mother Church generally–demand our love and our prayers, now more than ever, even if we cannot as a matter of conscience agree with everything they do. Realize however that there is no alternative Church, nor Pope, nor legitimate hierarchy apart from what we are given.

My constant advice is to remain calm, prudent, prayerful, charitable–and unyieldingly in the orthodox profession of our faith. This is no easy accomplishment: it is a suffering from the conflicting inner tension of a reverent forbearance with the unrelenting imperative of orthodoxy in faith.

We are not living in ordinary times and cannot pretend to live in a time past when a greater observance of God’s moral laws and a more strict observance of the Catholic faith were prevalent. You are obligated to be faithful to Christ and to His Church in this age. God, for reasons of His own, made us to live not in some idyllic past but in this time of crisis and confusion.

Be true and valiant Catholics! Love the pope, practice the faith with exactitude, and join to your prayers the sacrifice of your sorrows and your daily works, so that the glory of Christ may be made manifest in the suffering members of His mystical body. Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us!

Fr. Perrone
 

Parting shots: 1. Our annual St. Joseph dinner will take place after the noon Mass next Sunday: don’t miss it! 2. Married couples should remember to meet in the school classroom today after 9:30 and noon Masses to watch and discuss a fine video presentation on marriage.

Tridentine Community News - EWTN's Extraordinary Faith Episode 9: Church restoration; St. Hyacinth Mass on Sunday, March 13th; other TLM Mass times

"I will go in unto the Altar of God
To God, Who giveth joy to my youth"
Tridentine Community News by Alex Begin (March 6, 2016):

March 6, 2016 – Fourth Sunday of Lent – Lætáre Sunday

Extraordinary Faith Episode 9: Church Restoration

For the second week in a row, EWTN is debuting a new episode of Extraordinary Faith: Episode 9 – Church Restoration will air on EWTN today, Sunday, March 6, 2016 at 4:30 PM, and again on Wednesday, March 9 at 5:30 AM.

It can be frustrating to visit a church that has been “wreckovated”, or stripped of its original decorative elements. While such destruction was unfortunately the trend in the 1970s and 80s, in recent years the opposite has been happening: High Altars, Communion Rails, and beautiful sacred art are being re-installed into churches that had previously been modernized.


Our first stop in Episode 9 is St. Mary Church in Fennimore, Wisconsin. Perhaps the most notable restoration job of the past decade, St. Mary’s has impressive, brand new furnishings, including High and Side Altars, Stations of the Cross, a Communion Rail, and murals in the apse. We’ll meet the pastor and the designer behind this stunning project, which was completed for only $700,000.

Have you ever wondered who performs restorations such as these? Often the work is done by individual, local artisans, but on a global scale there is one firm which dominates the industry: Conrad Schmitt Studios in suburban Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a surprisingly large operation, employs designers and skilled craftspeople who paint sacred art, build church furniture, and design and manufacture traditional stained glass. We visit their facility and meet some of the artisans who show us their work.


Once a church has been restored, it needs ongoing TLC to make sure it remains in sparkling condition. We visit Milwaukee’s Basilica of St. Josaphat, a grand but formerly whitewashed edifice that has been restored to its original glory. Our crew captured staffers from Conrad Schmitt who were performing maintenance work on the High Altar and paintings in the sanctuary. The project leader gives us some background on the work that was done.


In the final segment of this episode, we meet Matthew Alderman, a young architect in the Massachusetts firm of Cram and Ferguson. Matthew is a rising star in the world of traditional church design, working for the firm which is best known locally for having designed St. Florian Church in Hamtramck and St. Mary of Redford Church.


Episode 9 will be posted for viewing on YouTube and on our web site, www.extraordinaryfaith.tv, one month after it debuts on EWTN. We encourage you to like the Extraordinary Faith page on Facebook, so you’ll be notified about the latest air dates and additional info about the places we visit.

St. Hyacinth Mass on Sunday, March 13

Detroit’s lovingly restored St. Hyacinth Church hosts its next Tridentine High Mass next Sunday, March 13 at 2:00 PM. Fr. Joe Tuskiewicz is the celebrant, and Joe Balistreri will lead the music.

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

• Mon. 03/07 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (Feria of Lent)
• Tue. 03/08 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Holy Name of Mary (Feria of Lent)
• Sun. 03/13 2:00 PM: High Mass at St. Hyacinth, Detroit (Passion Sunday)

[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 March 6, 2016. Hat tip to Alex Begin, author of the column.]

Tridentine Masses coming this week to metro Detroit and east Michigan

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

Sunday


• Sun. 03/06 7:30 AM and 10:00 AM: Low Mass (Confessions 45 minutes before and after Masses) at St. Joseph's Church, Richmond [NB: See note at bottom of this post about SSPX sites.]* (4th Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday) - 1st class)
• Sun. 03/06 8:00 and 10:30AM Low Mass (Confessions 1/2 hour before Mass: call beforehand) at St. Ann's Church, Livonia [NB: See note at bottom of this post about SSPX sites.]* (4th Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday) - 1st class)
• Sun. 03/06 9:30 AM: High Mass at St. Josaphat, Detroit (4th Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday) - 1st class)
• Sun. 03/06 9:30 AM: High Mass at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (4th Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday) - 1st class)
• Sun. 03/06 9:45 AM: High Mass at OCLMA/Academy of the Sacred Heart, Bloomfield Hills (4th Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday) - 1st class)
• Sun. 03/06 7:00 PM: High Mass at Holy Name of Mary, Canada (4th Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday) - 1st class)
• Sun. 03/06 3:00 PM High Mass St. Matthew Catholic Church, Flint (4th Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday) - 1st class)
  
  Monday
  
  
• Mon. 03/07 7:30 AM: High or Low Mass (varies) at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (Feria of Lent - 3rd class, (FSSP) St. Thomas Aquinas - 2nd class)
• Mon. 03/07 8:00 AM: Low Mass (Confessions 8:30 AM to 9:30 AM) at St. Joseph's Church, Richmond [NB: See note at bottom of this post about SSPX sites.]* (Feria of Lent - 3rd class, (FSSP) St. Thomas Aquinas - 2nd class)
• Mon. 03/07 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat, Detroit (Feria of Lent - 3rd class, (FSSP) St. Thomas Aquinas - 2nd class)
• Mon. 03/07 7:00 PM: High Mass (usually) at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (Feria of Lent - 3rd class, (FSSP) St. Thomas Aquinas - 2nd class)
  
  Tuesday
  
  
• Tue. 03/08 7:00 AM High or Low Mass (varies) at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (Feria of Lent - 3rd class)
• Tue. 03/08 8:00 AM: Low Mass (Confessions 8:30 AM to 9:30 AM) at St. Joseph's Church, Richmond [NB: See note at bottom of this post about SSPX sites.]* (Feria of Lent - 3rd class)
• Tue. 03/08 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Holy Name of Mary, Canada (Feria of Lent - 3rd class)
• Tue. 03/08 7:00 PM: Low Mass (usually) at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (Feria of Lent - 3rd class)
  
  Wednesday
  
  
• Wed. 03/09 7:30 AM: High or Low Mass (varies) at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (Feria of Lent - 3rd class)
• Wed. 03/09 8:00 AM: Low Mass (Confessions 8:30 AM to 9:30 AM) at St. Joseph's Church, Richmond [NB: See note at bottom of this post about SSPX sites.]* (Feria of Lent - 3rd class)
• Wed. 03/09 7:00 PM: High Mass (usually) at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (Feria of Lent - 3rd class)
  
  Thursday
  
  
• Thu. 03/10 7:30 AM: High or Low Mass (varies) at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (Feria of Lent - 3rd class)
• Thu. 03/10 8:00 AM: Low Mass (Confessions 8:30 AM to 9:30 AM) at St. Joseph's Church, Richmond [NB: See note at bottom of this post about SSPX sites.]* (Feria of Lent - 3rd class)
• Thu. 03/10 7:00 PM: Low Mass (usually) at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (Feria of Lent - 3rd class)
  
  Friday
  
  
• Fri. 03/11 7:30 AM: High or Low Mass (varies) at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (Feria of Lent - 3rd class)
• Fri. 03/11 8:00 AM: Low Mass (Confessions 8:30 AM to 9:30 AM) at St. Joseph's Church, Richmond [NB: See note at bottom of this post about SSPX sites.]* (Feria of Lent - 3rd class, or Sacred Heart of Jesus - 3rd class)
• Fri. 03/11 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat, Detroit (Feria of Lent - 3rd class)
• Fri. 03/11 7:00 PM: Low Mass (usually) at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (Feria of Lent - 3rd class)

Saturday


• Sat. 03/12 8:00 AM: Low Mass (Confessions 1/2 hour before Mass: call beforehand) at St. Ann's Church, Livonia [NB: See note at bottom of this post about SSPX sites.]* (Feria of Lent (Sitientes) - 3rd class)
• Sat. 03/12 8:00 AM: Low Mass (Confessions 8:30 AM to 9:30 AM) at St. Joseph's Church, Richmond [NB: See note at bottom of this post about SSPX sites.]* (Feria of Lent (Sitientes) - 3rd class)
• Sat. 03/12 7:30 AM: High or Low Mass (varies) at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (Feria of Lent (Sitientes) - 3rd class)
• Sat. 03/12 6:00 PM Tridentine Mass at SS. Cyril & Methodius Slovak Catholic Church, Sterling Heights (Feria of Lent (Sitientes) - 3rd class)
  
  Sunday
  
  
• Sun. 03/13 7:30 AM and 10:00 AM: Low Mass (Confessions 45 minutes before and after Masses) at St. Joseph's Church, Richmond [NB: See note at bottom of this post about SSPX sites.]* (Passion Sunday - 1st class)
• Sun. 03/13 8:00 and 10:30AM Low Mass (Confessions 1/2 hour before Mass: call beforehand) at St. Ann's Church, Livonia [NB: See note at bottom of this post about SSPX sites.]* (Passion Sunday - 1st class)
• Sun. 03/13 9:30 AM: High Mass at St. Josaphat, Detroit (Passion Sunday - 1st class)
• Sun. 03/13 9:30 AM: High Mass at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (Passion Sunday - 1st class)
• Sun. 03/13 9:45 AM: High Mass at OCLMA/Academy of the Sacred Heart, Bloomfield Hills (Passion Sunday - 1st class)
• Sun. 03/12 2:00 PM: High Mass at St. Alphonsus Church, Windsor, Canada (Passion Sunday - 1st class)
  
• Sun. 03/13 2:00 PM: High Mass at St. Hyacinth, Detroit (Passion Sunday - 1st class)
• Sun. 03/13 3:00 PM High Mass St. Matthew Catholic Church, Flint (Passion Sunday - 1st class)
  
  * NB: The SSPX chapels among those Mass sites listed above are posted here because the Holy Father has announced that "those who during the Holy Year of Mercy approach these priests of the Fraternity of St Pius X to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation shall validly and licitly receive the absolution of their sins." These chapels are not listed among the approved parishes and worship sites on archdiocesan websites.

'Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité': a Frenchman's accounts of revolutions personal and theological ....

Hard on the heels of the just posted article, "Disappointment with Louis Bouyer's Memoirs" (Musings, March 4, 2016), come these potent ruminations from our underground correspondent from an Atlantic seaboard city that knows how to keep its secrets, Guy Noir- Private Eye:

As you know, I have a sentimental attachment to The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, and hence to its author Louis Bouyer. He was pivotal in my conversion.

I have made an effort to read most of what he has written. Even his commentary on the Gospel of John, authored pre-conversion, which finds him at that point more mainline liberal than backwoods Baptist, so to speak. His work is easy to read but hard to categorize (in his forgotten Dictionary of Theology, he even affirmed the poena sensus [pain of sense] -- in Hell -- as if anyone can say that now, much less explain or defend it!)

For years, rumors of his memoirs circled. He'd supposedly mandated they not surface for a period after his death, so watchers assumed there were broadsides or bombshells worthy of anticipation. Given this was a man who knew Ratzinger, Tolkien, Küng (he was his doctoral advisor!), Bugnini, von Balthasar, etc, and yet who also wrote The Decomposition of Catholicism, for crying out loud.

But slow down a minute ... did you not just read of the associations with JR and HvB? He also supported the start up of and was praised by Ignatius Press... Maybe someone can see some very faint but strange pattern... Great guys all, no doubt, but would you expect Fr. Joseph Fessio or any one of them to strike a note that would offend any reigning pontiff or Vatican City commission. Remember: got...to...love...The Church....

And so we move the anticipated  and  published memoirs, issued now in, yes, two rival translations! This while The Last Writings of Reginald Garrigou Lagrange languishes out of print. Well ... 

But Bouyer's of course memoirs have been hyped. A whole lot. And yet -- surprise or no -- there is essentially just not much there. Pretty much Nada. He is the French Catholic version of Karl Ove Knausgård, prolix but revealing little other than he knows himself to be himself. Though I am now uncertain, I can't even recalling him much mentioning the name 'Jesus.' Or much else. Other than French provincial scenes and an early doomed romance that pushed him to the ministry. Some of this might be a generational or Catholic culture thing. Or French thing. But regardless, in verbosity and density it too much seems akin to the documents of Vatican II.

I look over at the memoirs of Congar and DeLubac and Ratzinger, and am struck by the fact that to my more 21st century sensibilities, none of these guys' writings or memoirs have that much defined shape -- not a one. That may explain the new generation of saints bequeathed us in soft focus.  If you are looking for clearly defined doctrine, Rome may no longer be the place to be. But read on. Amy Welborn had a similar reaction to mine in more muted tones: "These are the memoirs of a defining theologian? Odd." 

[Meanwhile, get and read The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism. Who cares if it was a grace-induced inconsistency: grace-filled it will undeniably seem to be, to any Protestant considering Rome and any Catholic considering his heretical kin.]

Disappointment with Louis Bouyer's Memoirs

I recently purchased Louis Bouyer's Memoirs, eager to read his perspective on the Vatican II liturgical reform. I was especially interested because of a certain ambivalence surrounding the figure of Bouyer.  On the one hand, he  was clearly disappointed by the direction the reform ultimately took; so disappointed with the whole direction of the Council and its aftermath, in fact, that he eventually wrote a booklet entitled La Décomposition du catholicisme (Paris: Aubier, 1968). On the other hand, Bouyer was also involved in some of the liturgical reforms that were themselves instrumental in undermining the integrity of the received form of the Mass, as in his shift from describing the Mass as a sacrifice to construing it as a 'communal meal'. This point is made with devastating clarity in Anthony Cekada's magisterial Work of Human Hands: A Theological Critique of the Mass of Paul VI (Philothea Press, 2010) [Advisory: Rules 7-9].  In fact, as is often the case with Protestant converts, it is sometimes difficult to tell how much his view of Catholicism is colored by the lens of his pre-Catholic Protestant commitments.

I haven't gotten around to reading Bouyer's Memoirs yet, but I was disappointed to read Amy Welborn's recent review, entitled "Bouyer's Memoirs" (Charlotte Was Both, January 14, 2016), not because of any defect in Welborn's analysis (on the contrary, it is penetrating and quite revealing), but because of her assessment that the Memoirs really don't tell us anything significantly new. In fact, her concluding sentence is almost damning: "It is almost as if what's more important in the telling is the personal slight to Bouyer in his desired direction being rejected rather than any concern for the Church as a whole."

Here's her review:

I finally got around to finishing Louis Bouyer’s memoirs – what an odd book.

Bouyer was a French scholar and priest – a convert from Protestantism – raised in some combined high church Reformed/Lutheran milieu, he was a Lutheran pastor. Two of his more well-known books that have been translated in English are Liturgical Piety and The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism.  I’ve read both, but don’t remember tons about them.

Bouyer’s memoir has been receiving some buzz mostly because of what he says about his work on commissions attached to the Second Vatican Council.  He was bitter.

I said the book was odd. Why?

Well, it is a memoir, but, in the end, a not terribly personal one.  The first few chapters which treat his childhood in and about Paris are quite lovely and evocative. But as he grows to adulthood, the book takes on the character of a list. Bouyer went here, studied these subjects with these people, got fed up or converted and then moved on.  Repeat.  Over and over again. In Europe, in the United States, encounters and friendships, a bit of teaching, some preaching….

Not, in the end, terribly interesting.

A couple of points struck me:

First, Bouyer was in Paris for most of World War II.  Perhaps he has written about that experience elsewhere in some depth, but here he does not.  You know the war is going on – he mentions it in sad terms a couple of times, but only as the faintest background to his writing and engagements with other scholars. It’s very strange – he was living in German-occupied Paris and he has nothing to say about that? I don’t care what he thought about some other Oratian in the house – I want to know what occupied Paris was like for these fellows.

And then, the Vatican II stuff.  To tell the truth there is not a lot more than what has been mentioned in reviews – his loathing of Bugnini, the composition of Eucharistic Prayer II in a Trestavere trattoria and Ratzinger’s aside about Rahner: “Another monologue about dialogue.”

Now, I do believe he did, indeed write about all of that in quite a bit more detail, so I can’t fault the memoir for only hitting the highlights (to him). But what I wondered about was not as much the content as the attitude.  Bouyer had a deeply negative assessment of the liturgical direction of Vatican II and makes clear that this direction was present long before the Council itself – for example, in the French context, there was some sort of conflict between liturgical groups in the 50’s, but so much was assumed in the telling, I found it very confusing and really never understood what was going on.  So yes, distress and even disgust – that’s clearly expressed. But what I found lacking was a consideration of the complexities of his own involvement or even distant responsibility, even the broadest sense for the direction of the post-Conciliar liturgical scene. It is this bad thing that happened, but why? It is almost as if what's more important in the telling is the personal slight to Bouyer in his desired direction being rejected rather than any concern for the Church as a whole.

[Hat tip to Guy Noir]

Betrayed by both parties: a millennials perspective

Millennials on both sides of the political divide, as well as on neither, can be found these days with a profound sense of alienation from the two party political options. They feel betrayed. Many of us much older than the millennials do as well.

Nick Short, a graduate of Northern Arizona University with a Bachelors in Criminal Justice, in a post entitled "America's Ruling Class vs. All" (Politically Short, January 24, 2016), writes:

Sitting back and observing the current civil war happening within the Republican party should come as no surprise to anyone who resides outside the beltway of Washington, D.C. Pundits, thinkers, writers, and radio hosts who I once admired, have now lost credibility as they have bestowed upon themselves the bastion of what is and isn’t “true conservatism”. Yet, while the civil war wages within the party, the party itself does a disservice to this nation for fighting the wrong battle at the wrong time as the war for the heart of this country wages on.

To myself, this has always been the main issue in regards to the Republicans. For far too long they’ve fought for the soul of conservatism as they’d like it to be, but not for the soul of the nation as it truly is. I highly doubt that the very pundits, thinkers, writers, and hosts whom I’ve come to follow are malevolent in their intent for overlooking this point but I have come to realize that they’ve overlooked it completely. I find it flat out astounding that they fail to recognize the zeitgeist of the times as America has reached a point in which the majority of the voters not only couldn’t give a damn about what is and isn’t conservatism, but have no idea what the word even means. Why? Because year after year, representative after representative, and election after election the elites within the Republican establishment repeatedly betray their constituency as they immediately capitulate on their promises.

...

The Republican party can cannibalize their own base all they want, but what it cannot do is stop the momentum that is only beginning to build in support of Americans from both sides of the political aisle who want to see the ruling class in Washington, D.C. utterly destroyed. The reason is simple, Americans have been betrayed by their elected leaders in both political parties and are finally coming to recognize this harsh realization. Speaking about this betrayal in his 1838 Lyceum address, Abraham Lincoln stated, “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

Both Republicans and Democrats, our ruling class, have utterly failed this nation for far too long and have betrayed their supporters, the Constitution, and the rule of law with outright impunity. My advice to all Americans in regards to this coming election is to be no longer the dupes and property of the hypocrites and traitors to our country who make up the ruling class. We must conserve what we have left before it is soon gone as whatever the betrayers of our country get, we the people must lose; and what is worse, must lose a great deal more than the others can get; for the ruling class cannot successfully remain in power without destroying, perverting, and corrupting that which is left of our America.

[Hat tip to JM]

What are you reading this Lent?

Anything interesting? Anything spiritual reading offering new insights? I would very much like to know. Your thoughts?

I have personally profited by some of the suggestions I have received previously from some of you, and perhaps that is a benefit that can be shared with others as well.

Fr. Perrone: Lent is not for the self-indulgent, who cast aside participating in Christ's passion for the softer, more delicate predilections of our age. Make a good Lent!

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" [temporary link] (Assumption Grotto News, February 28, 2016) [emphasis mine]:

Lent’s allotted forty days is the time par excellence for meditation on Christ’s Passion. That is the old thinking of many generations past but which has been cast aside in this softer, more delicate age whose predilection for comforts, pleasantries and pleasures urge its contemporaries forward. Nevertheless, that is to say, in spite of this tendency towards effeminacy, Lent is not for self-babying wimps but for serious-minded, courageous Christians, and for those who want to be such as that.

It was said of Christ that He suffered in His body as much as is possible for a man to suffer. That, in a classic understatement, would mean quite a lot. When one thinks how each and every part of the human body has a potential for suffering pain, then Christ’s Passion was indeed an overwhelming ocean of physical agonies such that no one can fully imagine them. Isaiah prophesied this of Christ when he wrote that “from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in him.” And–just to complete the true depiction of what our Lord underwent for love of our ungrateful souls–His immense physical pains were but secondary to His mental sufferings, that is, to degradation, desolation, anguish, grief, abandonment, etc. (Anyone who has suffered deep depression or desperation would concur that mental suffering exceeds the intensity of physical pains.) Our thoughts of Christ in this season ought to reflect on the consequences upon Him for our sins.

But there is yet more.

We Christians make up the mystical body of Christ–‘mystical’ here stands in contradistinction to the physical body He took on in becoming man and to His Eucharistic body in the holy Sacrament. Saint Paul said it: we, each one, are members of that mystical body. It is on account of being thus ‘incorporated’ (i.e., being in His corpus, or body) that Paul affirmed that he had to participate in the Passion of Christ who suffered in every member of His flesh. Paul’s words: “I rejoice in my sufferings for your (the Church’s) sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His body, the Church” (Col 1:24). Every
‘member’ of Christ’s body then must take its own portion, suffering with and in Christ.

Among all the saints, I highly admire Saint Peter. What a stalwart giant of a man he was! No wonder our Lord called him rock. When Peter first heard that Christ was going to receive ill-treatment, endure abuse and be cruelly tortured unto death he–mighty champion and bodyguard of Christ that he was–protested and pledged to die in defense of his Lord. But that valorous offer was rejected because it would deter our Lord from redeeming humanity through suffering. “It was necessary that the Christ should suffer and enter into His glory” (Lk 24:26). (Peter would, however, get his wish later, when he would become a martyr for Christ, when was fulfilled our Lord’s word to him: “you will stretch out your hands and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go” (Jn 21:18).

My purpose in writing this? You’re a cheat and unidentifiable as a member of Christ’s body if you’re not keeping some Lenten penances, for these things are, among others, your willing participation in the Lord’s Passion. This means that you should not only be thinking about the Passion of Christ–a wholly good thing to do–but participating in it: the difference being between pious reflection with sympathy, and compassion (which literally means ‘suffering with’). Do not neglect to take upon yourself your assigned part: life’s daily sacrifices (patiently endured, mind you); your mental discomforts, confusions and upset; your physical aches and pains; and, yes, the specific Lenten practices you pledged to keep. And whenever you’re tempted to pity yourself over what life has dealt you, think of Isaiah’s “Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief, wounded for our transgressions, oppressed and afflicted, the lamb led to the slaughter” and you will recoil in shame.

Fr. Perrone

"The journey to Rome ... as impediments multiply, and the flesh weakens."

William F. Buckley, Jr., published a piece in the April 10, 1971 issue of the National Review, entitled "Path to Rome" (reprinted, National Review, February 27, 2016). It begins with Buckley and his wife catching a sleeping-car from Montreux, Switzerland, to Rome; and ends with a Papal audience with a crowd of some 50,000 pilgrims, and Buckley reflecting:

I do not know what he said, not knowing Italian, but I must suppose that he acknowledged the sacrifices that some of those, pressed into the square, had made in coming there; and I recalled that Hilaire Belloc walked all the way to Rome from Paris during my lifetime, and that not so many lifetimes ago, a journey to Rome consumed a major part of the lifetime of many pilgrims; and now, the journey, in modern times, takes longer and longer, as the impediments multiply, and the flesh weakens.

Guy Noir then comments:

The sublety is effective, but as is my way, let me ham-fistedly appropriate and clobber the allusion home:

"[Way back when,] a journey to Rome consumed a major part of the lifetime of many pilgrims; [but today], the journey, [though physically easier, might ironically seem harder,] as the impediments multiply, and the flesh weakens."

Indeed.

Amy Welborn: "Against Popesplaining"

An interesting post by Amy Welborn, "Against Popesplaining" (Charlotte Was Both, February 21, 2016). A few excerpts from passages highlighted by the author (i.e., Welborn):

This is pretty crazy, but it’s also predictable. Students of religious movements and even students of sociology and mass psychology could predict it: When you strip principles away, personalities and emotional connections step in to fill the vacuum.

... Do you see what I’m saying?

I’m saying that the Pope, as an individual, is not supposed to be that important.

All popes have their individual priorities and areas of expertise. Sure. But…

Which is why it’s all the more important that they humbly submit those interests and priorities, those particular charisms, to service of the life of a complex, deep, broad Church that belongs to Christ, not to them.

... But perhaps it is also fair to ask…

..knowing the role of the Pope, and understanding how easily misunderstood the role of the Pope is by most people today, is it a mark of humble leadership to allow your own words to become the dominant public face of Catholicism – on a daily basis?

So here’s the paradox. No, the contradiction: to brush away certain external expressions of papal authority while actually doubling down on the authority. Communicating in one way the supposed diminishing of the role while at the same time using the role to speak authoritatively to the entire world out of your own priorities on a daily basis.

... Any servant leader must be a listener, be open and engaged. We meet Christ in each other and by loving others. But the current discussion – that doesn’t begin with the present papacy, and goes, rather, back to John Paul II – that we know Jesus better because the Pope tells us he gets us and he loves us and carries his own briefcase! – is not healthy, feeds into the equating of emotionalism with faith, and is borderline idolatrous.

[Hat tip to JM]

Mullarkey on why anti-Catholicism will rise

Maureen Mullarkey, "Why Anti-Catholicism Will Rise" (The Federalist, March 1, 2016):

When the future looks back on this pontificate, Pope Francis might well be credited with having wakened the sleeping bogey of anti-Catholicism. His staged assaults on the immigration policies of a sovereign United States are the tactics of yet another community organizer, this one with a global constituency.

Francis’ Marxoid rhetoric, advancement of deceptive climate change narratives, and cozy photo-ops with anti-democratic—even murderous—regimes, rekindle old suspicions that popery is the enemy of free institutions.

... With one voice, pope and bishops confuse the freedom to emigrate (a responsibility of nations of origin), and the right to immigrate. Nowhere does there exist a right to immigrate to wherever one chooses, whenever, or by whatever means. Mexico itself imposes high penalties on illegal immigrants and those who aid them. But let no shibboleth be violated by reality.

... Francis’ personal popularity is largely a function of public perception of him as a doctrinal liberal. But as Americans recognize in Francis an advance man for “world authority”—the concept of a mega-state cached in Vatican minds through recent pontificates—affection for the man will not stay hostility toward the workings of his church. [emphasis added]

As Guy Noir comments: "Mullarkey -- overstating as is her won't, and -- hitting several nails squarley on the head."

Tridentine Community News - 'Extraordinary Faith' episode (EWTN) on church architecture; TLM Mass times

"I will go in unto the Altar of God
To God, Who giveth joy to my youth"
Tridentine Community News by Alex Begin (February 28, 2016):

February 28, 2016 – Third Sunday of Lent

Extraordinary Faith Episode 8: New Church Architecture Episode 8 of Extraordinary Faith will debut on EWTN today, Sunday, February 28, 2016 at 4:30 PM. It will air again on Wednesday, March 2 at 5:30 AM.

Have you ever despaired about the state of modern Catholic church architecture? Think we’re resigned to bland, modern buildings that are reminiscent of hotel conference rooms more than Houses of God? Well, don’t despair, because there’s a movement afoot to rekindle the art of classic church architecture, and this episode will show you some of its fruits.

Our first guest in Episode 8 is Dr. Denis McNamara, who teaches at Chicago’s Mundelein Seminary. Dr. McNamara is the author of numerous books on the subject of proper sacred architecture. This column has previously made mention of Heavenly City, his picture book depicting the historic churches of Chicago. Dr. McNamara explains for us what sort of considerations make for proper church design.


The remainder of the episode is dedicated to the work of one of the most prolific architects in the field of neo-classical church design, Duncan Stroik.

First, Duncan takes us on a tour of the chapel he designed for Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, California.


Next we travel to La Crosse, Wisconsin, where we visit the Shine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, another Stroik design that is arguably the most ornate church built in the past four decades. Members of the family that donated the land for the shrine explain how it came to be, and one of the sisters who works at the shrine gives us a tour.


We then pay a visit to Duncan’s bustling office in South Bend, Indiana, where we see some of the projects on which the firm is working. We also learn about a book Duncan has written and about Sacred Architecture, the quarterly magazine on his favorite subject which he publishes as a labor of love.


Episode 8 will be posted for viewing on our web site, www.extraordinaryfaith.tv, and on YouTube, one month after it debuts on EWTN. Please also like the Extraordinary Faith page on Facebook, so you’ll be notified about the latest air dates and news about the sites we explore.

EWTN will be showing the following episode of Extraordinary Faith on March 6; we’ll cover that program in this column next week.

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

• Mon. 02/29 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (Feria of Lent)
• Tue. 03/01 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Holy Name of Mary (Feria of Lent)
• Fri. 03/04 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (Sacred Heart of Jesus) [First Friday]

[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 February 28, 2016. Hat tip to Alex Begin, author of the column.]