Thursday, October 16, 2014

News roundup: sabotage in Rome and scandal in Detroit







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Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Church Militant TV reports from Rome






Related:
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Monday, October 13, 2014

Select synod roundup



Rorate Caeli Catholic World Report Fr. Z Robert Royal The New York Times
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Sunday, October 12, 2014

For the record: Synodical twists

"Cardinal Burke a pariah? Not for the Synod Fathers! - Pope unexpectedly names 6 liberals, including Wuerl, to draft report" [Source]:
Cardinal Burke was among those elected by his fellow bishops of one of the three English-speaking circles (the Anglicus A) as moderatore (chairman) of the group to help in the writing of the group reports that make the final report. There were many "conservatives" elected in the different groups, including Cardinal Sarah, moderator for Gallicus (French-speaking) A, Abp. Léonard, relatore (rapporteur) for Gallicus B; Cardinal Bagnasco, moderator for Italicus B; Cardinal Robles Ortega, moderator for Ibericus (Spanish-speaking) A.

So, what was the Pope's response to these surprising votes?

He personally appointed ad hoc, and without prior announcement on this before the synod, six other prelates for the composition of the final report (the "Relatio Synodi"), all known as strong liberals: Cardinals Ravasi and Wuerl, Abps. Victor Manuel Fernández, Aguiar Retes, and Bp. Peter Kang, and the Superior General of the Society of Jesus Fr. Adolfo Nicolás Pachon.
A translation of the Italian transcript is provided by Rorate Caeli (October 11, 2014), including the above-cited commentary.

Related: Fr. Z, "Play by Play: Card. Burke's video interview recap!" (Fr. Z's Blog, October 12, 2014), which Fr. Z describes as "the video interview that has sent a few of the catholic Left to swoon upon their feinting couches, others to beat the air vainly as so many windmills, others to erupt in spittle-flecked nutties."
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Extraordinary Community News: the wisdom of the saints on the Holy Mass & carrying one's cross, plus the latest news


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

Tridentine Community News (October 12, 2014):
The Hidden Mystery of the Holy Mass

From Dr. Taylor Marshall’s blog: Ten quotes from the Saints about the importance of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass:
  1. “When the Eucharist is being celebrated, the sanctuary is filled with countless angels who adore the divine victim immolated on the altar.” – St. John Chrysostom
  2. The angels surround and help the priest when he is celebrating Mass.” – St. Augustine
  3. “If we really understood the Mass, we would die of joy.” – St. John Vianney
  4. “The celebration of Holy Mass is as valuable as the death of Jesus on the Cross.” – St. Thomas Aquinas
  5. “Once, St. Teresa was overwhelmed with God’s goodness and asked our Lord ‘How can I thank you?’ Our Lord replied, ‘Attend one Mass.’”
  6. “My Son so loves those who assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that, if it were necessary He would die for them as many times as they’ve heard Masses.” – Our Lady to Blessed Alan
  7. “When we receive Holy Communion, we experience something extraordinary – a joy, a fragrance, a well-being that thrills the whole body and causes it to exalt.” – St. John Vianney
  8. “There is nothing so great as the Eucharist. If God had something more precious, He would have given it to us.” – St. John Vianney
  9. “When we have been to Holy Communion, the balm of love envelops the soul as the flower envelops the bee.” – St. John Vianney
  10. “It would be easier for the world to survive without the sun than to do without Holy Mass.” – St. Pio of Pietrelcina

St. Francis de Sales on Carrying One’s Cross

This Saint reminds us that good can exist even in tribulation:
“The everlasting God has in His wisdom foreseen from eternity the cross that He now presents to you as a gift from His inmost Heart. This cross He now sends you He has considered with His all-knowing eyes, understood with His Divine mind, tested with His wise justice, warmed with loving arms and weighed with His own hands to see that it be not one inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for you. He has blessed it with His holy Name, anointed it with His grace, perfumed it with His consolation, taken one last glance at you and your courage, and then sent it to you from Heaven, a special greeting from God to you, an alms of the all-merciful love of God.”
St. Anthony, Temperance, Michigan Holds First Tridentine Mass

On November 3, 2013, this column reported that St. Anthony Church in Temperance, Michigan had installed a new High Altar and removed its freestanding altar. In a logical next step of this architectural restoration, we are pleased to report that parish pastor Fr. Brian Hurley celebrated his first Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form there on Saturday, October 4. Hopefully this will be the first of many regular Tridentine Masses at the parish, located just north of the Ohio border. [Photo by Paul Schultz]


All Souls Day Mass

Because of the impending closure of Assumption Church and the relocation of the St. Benedict Tridentine Community, there will be no Mass in Windsor on All Souls Day, which is moved to Monday, November 3 in the Extraordinary Form this year.

Holy Mass will still be provided elsewhere, however: Fr. Mark Borkowski will celebrate a Tridentine High Mass for All Souls Day at Our Lady of the Scapular Church in Wyandotte, Michigan on Monday, November 3 at 7:00 PM.

Ss. Cyril & Methodius to Continue Tridentine Masses

Fr. Ben Kosnac has reversed his earlier decision and has rounded up additional priest assistance to allow the parish to continue their weekly Saturday 6:00 PM Extraordinary Form Masses.

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week
  • Mon. 10/13 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Joseph (St. Edward the Confessor, King)
  • Tue. 10/14 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Benedict/Assumption-Windsor (St. Callistus I, Pope & Martyr)
  • Sat. 10/18 8:00 AM: Low Mass at Our Lady of the Scapular, Wyandotte (St. Luke, Evangelist)
  • Sun. 10/19 12:00 Noon: High Mass at St. Albertus (Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost)
[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 Assumption (Windsor) bulletin inserts for October 12, 2014. Hat tip to A.B., author of the column.]
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Saturday, October 11, 2014

Phil Lawler: "What's wrong with this Synod, II: Debate is free, open (and censored)"

Phil Lawler's article HERE.

Among other things, Lawler reports the following:
Speaking to the Synod of Bishops on its first day of discussions, Pope Francis urged the participants to speak out boldly, “without human respect, without timidity.” The secretary-general of the Synod, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, echoed that message, saying that “discussion at the Synod is to be open.” This, we were told, would be a meeting marked by candor, by open debate, by an absence of restraint on the free flow of ideas.

The reality has been quite dramatically different. The Synod meeting of October 2014 has been far less transparent than previous sessions. The information reaching the Catholic world has been tightly controlled, heavily filtered—and, therefore, easily manipulated.

... We don’t know what is happening inside the Synod hall; the discussion sessions are closed....
Our own underground correspondent we keep on retainer in an Atlantic seaboard city that knows how to keep it's secrets, Guy Noir - Private Eye, comments from Rome this week:
It gets old, doesn't it? It is exactly the same rhetorical chess game President Obama pays, using words that mean something very different from what scenarios they spark or launch. You would have to be tone-deaf and circumstance-blind not to see the obvious manipulation afoot. And after the abuse scandals, mea culpas, and talk of openness, it really is nothing sort of jaw-dropping of people to willingly accept such governing tactics. Transparency, openness, forthrightness, directness? I see none of these, whatsoever. The 'cunning' Jesuits are infamous for makes no sense at all when they hold the key seat of power. Then such cunning becomes nothing so much as ingenuous. And disingenuousness should win no one sainthood, not even The Advocate's Person of the Year (funny, I have read not a single Catholic commentator's reaction to that laurel, btw).
Noir told me he had left behind his Valium tabs, thinking he could handle the assignment without them, but reversed his decision and wired me to overnight his meds to him in Rome; so I told him to lay off the liquor for a while, if he was going back on the Valium. He does like his liquor, as we both know.
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Tridentine Masses coming this week to the Detroit and East Michigan area


Tridentine Masses This Coming Week
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Good priest, bad priest: what's the difference, and who says?

Fr. Dwight Longenecker offers an illuminating practical example of the difference based on his experience of pre-marital counseling, entitled "On Making Girls Cry" (Patheos, October 11, 2014):
“I see that you have put the same address on the registration form. Does that mean you are already living together?”

... “I’m a Catholic priest. You have presented me with the fact that you are already living together. Now, do you think I would approve or disapprove?”

Ken finally speaks up, “Disapprove.”

I say, “That is the correct answer.”

Barbie demurs, “I thought because you are a married priest you would be more welcoming.”

... I reply, “Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m giving you a complete and unconditional welcome, but it is also my job to help you build a Catholic marriage not just a church wedding. I explain the difference

... why has Barbie started to cry?

Is it compunction for sin? Has she been given the gift of tears? Is she repentant? Does she wish to turn from her sin and seek God?

I see no sign of that.

Barbie is crying because someone has challenged her just a little–even in a very gentle way.
What's a good priest to do? How is he to navigate between what the Lord demands of a good priest and what the world sees as a good priest? Read more >>

[Hat tip to Fr. D.B.]
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(Trying to) wag the synodical dog


Deacon Greg Kandra, "From the synod: married couple speaks about welcoming gays, divorcees" (The Deacon's Bench, October 6, 2014):
This may have gone largely unnoticed, but it seems significant to me: an intervention at the synod by a married couple, Ron and Mavis Pirola from Australia. I can’t imagine this kind of commentary being welcomed, or even heard, at the Vatican just a few years ago.
As you might expect, this left our correspondent, Guy Noir, in a state of dyspeptic muttering, much like that suffered perpetually by Dale Price, pour soul. Some of his mutterings follow:
I remain a stranger in a strange land. All this hyper conversation over families, the Synod on the Family, and evangelization. It seems like we are making the simple and obvious into the exotic and the complicated. Over and over we hear that conservatives want simple cut-and-dried, black and white answers. But over and over again I am reading more liberal approaches that seem hell-bent on simplifying everything into "I'm OK / You're OK" and love papers over everything....
So, then he quotes the following lines from "intervention" of the Austrian couple:
"‘He is our son’.

"What a model of evangelization for parishes as they respond to similar situations in their neighborhood! It is a practical example of what the Instrumentum laboris says concerning the Church’s teaching role and its main mission to let the world know of God’s love."
And next comes Noir's continued commentative mutterings:
Children remain my children, loved, no matter what they do. Yes. But why that presents itself as some sort of neutralizing trump card, I do not know. Actions have consequences, and we can put immense obstacles between ourselves and God's mercy, if free will means much of anything at all. Have we doctrinally developed completely beyond any idea of mortal sin? (Don't answer that!) Some decisions, some behaviors, are very bad. Or used to be thought so. Even the phrase "Very Bad" is quickly sounding like an artifact from a "sillier" age. Some decisions, some behaviors do make it very difficult to know just how to demonstrate the right response. The unfortunate incidences of harshness, the awkwardness... It is all to be expected, not simply patronizingly condemned as mean-spirited or provincial. A bland-out of genial acceptance is hardly the helpful Christian response to every circumstance unless all we are concerned about is dispelling conflict and confrontation. And I do not know where you can get that idea if you give a proportionally responsible reading to the New Testament. The entire sacrament of confession hinges on a declaration of pardon that is every bit as much based on law as it is on medicine [in the sense of 'therapy']. In the spiritual realm, the two dimensions are intertwined to a degree unknown in the physical realm. We are sick because we are offenders. You can't apply love like a medicine while being in denial about the accompanying need of people for pardon. They are patients yes, but also rebels. I do not know who we think is going to help them see that if we all break out our king-sized spiritual [un?]comfortors.

Life IS complicated, Truth is hard-edged, and how that plays out... no it is not simple or cut and dried. That is the entire point of the current conservative objections. It seems to me the liberal approach is the truly un-pastoral one. Wishing moral choices didn't really matter, wishing we could paper over things and just all get along, is no more helpful than wishing a heroin user could simply be embraced without conflict. It only works until someone gets arrested and/or dies, physically or spiritually. I'd rather deal with things as they are versus perpetuate a Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving photo opp. But I guess that is hard to jive with images of global embrace and human flourishing. Sin as an offense as well as a wound is a rude and uncomfortable truth.
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"The Chickens Return to Rome"

I expect little to get excited about from the results of this Synod. Rome will not change her established doctrines. But this does little to gainsay the reality of the ever present temptation, evident among some Roman prelates, to embrace the vision of Protestant Liberalism articulated by H. Richard Niebuhr in The Kingdom of God in America wherein "a God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross."

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Friday, October 10, 2014

Remembering Blessed Cardinal Newman

"I have resisted to the best of my powers the spirit of liberalism in religion." (Rorate Caeli, October 10, 2014)
We cannot let the celebration of the day in which the memory of Blessed John Henry Newman is particularly remembered go by without recalling his remarkable prescience about the current condition of Western culture and the current situation in the Church, a situation that is itself a continuation of the troubled years since the Second Vatican Council.  The great irony—and Newman always understood irony—is that he has been invoked as the “absent Father” of that Council with respect to the role of the laity in the Church, religious freedom, and collegiality.  Those who invoke him in this way have obviously never read much Newman, for he would understand that  the Church today is in the parlous state in which she finds herself precisely because those to whom her ministry has been entrusted have swallowed and digested that noxious weed decried by Newman and are patting their stomachs in self-congratulation, having succumbed to that “liberalism in religion” whose heart is what Newman called the “anti-dogmatic principle”.
What is the current attempt to reduce doctrine to praxis if not an example of that liberalism against which Newman fought so strenuously in his own day?  What is the gobble-de-gook of prelates pontificating about mercy and the "law of graduality",  and the lack of true virile fatherhood among the shepherds, if not examples of that sentimentality that Newman detested and that is the acid of religion? 

One can never read Newman’s Bigletto Speech too many times.  This was in a sense his last will and testament, for he who had been shunned in so many ways by the Catholic hierarchy throughout his Catholic life was given the honor of a Cardinal’s hat in the twilight of his life, and what he said in his acceptance of that honor from Pope Leo XIII, is chillingly prescient.  And this not only with reference to the current situation of the Church.  Newman knew as few today understand that the creeping papalism of the past century has been and is being enabled not by traditionalism but rather by liberalism. Here is the voice of the prophet for our times from his Bigletto speech.
In a long course of years I have made many mistakes. I have nothing of that high perfection which belongs to the writings of Saints, viz., that error cannot be found in them; but what I trust that I may claim all through what I have written, is this,—an honest intention, an absence of private ends, a temper of obedience, a willingness to be corrected, a dread of error, a desire to serve Holy Church, and, through Divine mercy, a fair measure of success. And, I rejoice to say, to one great mischief I have from the first opposed myself. For thirty, forty, fifty years I have resisted to the best of my powers the spirit of liberalism in religion. Never did Holy Church need champions against it more sorely than now, when, alas! it is an error overspreading, as a snare, the whole earth; and on this great occasion, when it is natural for one who is in my place to look out upon the world, and upon Holy Church as in it, and upon her future, it will not, I hope, be considered out of place, if I renew the protest against it which I have made so often…. Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another, and this is the teaching which is gaining substance and force daily. It is inconsistent with any recognition of any religion, as true. It teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy… Such is the state of things in England, and it is well that it should be realised by all of us; but it must not be supposed for a moment that I am afraid of it. I lament it deeply, because I foresee that it may be the ruin of many souls; but I have no fear at all that it really can do aught of serious harm to the Word of God, to Holy Church, to our Almighty King, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Faithful and True, or to His Vicar on earth. Christianity has been too often in what seemed deadly peril, that we should fear for it any new trial now. So far is certain; on the other hand, what is uncertain, and in these great contests commonly is uncertain, and what is commonly a great surprise, when it is witnessed, is the particular mode by which, in the event, Providence rescues and saves His elect inheritance. Sometimes our enemy is turned into a friend; sometimes he is despoiled of  that special virulence of evil which was so threatening; sometimes he falls to pieces of himself; sometimes he does just so much as is beneficial, and then is removed. Commonly the Church has nothing more to do than to go on in her own proper duties, in confidence and peace; to stand still and to see the salvation of God. 
Mansueti hereditabunt terram,
 et delectabuntur in multitudine pacis.
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Caviat emptor! "Developing" the idea of biblical revelation

"DANGER AHEAD:'... developing the idea of biblical revelation ..." declared the headline of the Rorate Caeli post linked in Guy Noir's email to me (yep: no telegram or courier today -- must be trying to modernize his means of communication).

The Rorate piece carried a picture of a book being consumed by flames with the caption: "Caution: 2,000-year-old book being 'developed.'" Pretty hard to miss his point. So what's the issue here?

Noir's email carried an excerpt from a Protestant blog exhibiting some significant slippage from the traditional idea of an inerrant Bible. But this was preceded by Noir's own comment: "Here is this PROTESTANT blog reflecting the regaining [sic] CATHOLIC mindset, coming perhaps to an official document near you ..."
“IS THE BIBLE INERRANT? | IS GOD VIOLENT?”


*Is it OK to question?*

-Is the Bible the “Word of God” and free from error? If so, how does one come to that conclusion?

-What role do assumptions and presuppositions have in our belief system?

-How does one reconcile the violent and retributive God of the Old Testament with the life and teachings of Jesus?

Whenever a “new” idea is proposed to a community, the questions one can ask are:

“WHAT IF?”
“IS IT POSSIBLE?”

Listen in as Joshua Tongol shares his heart and answers questions on this very subject. It might give you a different perspective on things.
Then come's Noir's ramble:
Question: Is this not exactly the idea you would hear form most Catholics today, and is this not also exactly opposite of the ideas presented in Providentissimus Deus? To my ears it sounds lifted almost straight from one of any of several Joseph Ratzinger passages. And it all raises again the question of whether the Bible sits under the Church or the Church sits under the Bible, how so, and to what extent. Writing off Old Testament violence wholesale -- Wrath, The Flood, Judgement via Active Violence -- however, certainly seems to suggest the latter. "We don't like this, it can't be good, it seems anti-New Testament, so it most certainly is not inspired." Which would suggest we jettison the better part of the history of Israel, if we were honest. Not too mention the theologizing of 90 percent of the historical papacy.
Well it's not hard to see how the followers of "Pope" Joshua Tongol reach such a pass, but what can we say of Catholics? Could more than a handful of Catholic Bible scholars today be said to endorse the view of Scripture found in Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical? Why is this?
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Sunday, October 05, 2014

One serious Jew 4 Jesus

This one, again, from underground correspondent, Guy Noir - Private Eye, our researcher, culture analyst, and news critic on retainer:

Comments Mr. Noir:... FASCINATING.

I discovered Karl Stern while researching Frank Sheed. This piece in The Tablet is remarkable for its candid observation of how totally fogotten he now is, just like so much of preconciliar Catholicism. And it is also telling for its indication of how necessary the author feels it is to attempt a Ratzingerian-like rapprochement between old and new eras. Stern can be praised for many things, but he can't be allowed to get away with having had a complex about his own Jewishness? Is that actually so problematic? If he was conflicted, he was conflicted. Why does that have to mean the tarnishing of his testimony, or become such a point of focus? If he felt like he was the best person to tell and interpret his own journey, who are we not to take it at its word?

The Pillar of Fireis remarkable reading: it does need rediscovering. Service rendered and appreciated.

What it doesn't need is defending. Exception taken.
Deborah Ostrovsky, "The Freudian Became a Catholic" (The Tablet, August 25, 2014): "Karl Stern, Canadian psychiatrist and writer, was in his day a famous Catholic convert. Why has he been forgotten?"

Excerpt:
Who was Stern? Internet searches had turned up little. My plan was, during a European holiday, to donate The Pillar of Fire to Munich’s Jewish museum. It only seemed right: to give it to a place dedicated to a people many of whom scattered to Montreal, London, and Washington Heights, but only if they didn’t perish in Bergen-Belsen or Dachau. I had skimmed the first section and knew that Stern had adored Munich, where he had studied medicine. “With the exception of Paris,” he writes with an ardor usually reserved for descriptions of lovers or great works of art, “there has never been a town which had so much individual expression, so little of the artifact and so much natural growth.”

Later I would discover that Stern’s memoir, his novel, and assorted essays on music, medicine, and religion had made him a quasi-celebrity. Back in 1939, his young family settled in a jerry-built row house near the mental hospital where he worked on Montreal’s outskirts. A decade later, he would become one of Canada’s founding fathers of psychiatry. He would write best-sellers like The Pillar of Fire, reprinted 17 times in paperback and translated into Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, and German. His 1961 study on psychology and religion, The Third Revolution, would spark correspondence with Carl Jung. The Flight From Woman (1965), a philosophical treatise on modern society’s polarization of the sexes and its de-feminization, would make him a common name in women’s magazines. He corresponded with leading rabbis, poets, and writers—Robert Lowell, Ivan Illich, C.S. Lewis, Thomas Merton—and other religious luminaries of his day. Along with Jean Piaget and Maria Montessori, he would join UNESCO’s Committee of Experts on German Questions. Graham Greene was his houseguest. American Catholic activist Dorothy Day was a close friend. He would be profiled in Time and write for the New York Times.

The Munich museum expressed gratitude for my donation, although they’d never heard of him.

***

How did Karl Stern become so forgettable? Little has been written about him since the decades following his death in 1975....
Read more >>
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Putting first things first with Dale Price: Introductions to the Mass

Dale Prince, "Putting first things first" (Dyspeptic Mutterings, September 3, 2014), writes:
Yes, it's regrettably overused, and a part of all sorts of self-help (material and spiritual) phenomena, but...it's true.

You should put the first things first.

In my case, what drew me to Catholicism was not the fabulous shepherds, but Christ. Specifically, the Real Presence.

I've been re-learning that of late through this virtually-unknown treatise whose first edition dates from the second decade of the 20th Century.


It's...dense and very, very thorough. Too many of the footnotes are in Latin. But it is a real masterpiece, repaying re-reads of each page. I'm only 50 pages in, but I am truly inspired by it. The book starts with a discussion of what constitutes a "sacrifice," examines Christ's on Golgotha and works its way from there. Brilliant, and back in print (not sure which edition) from a reprint house, it is a meditation on the Cross and the Mass. One that deserves to be better known. Tolle, lege.
Our correspondent, Guy Noir - Private Eye, comments:
Interesting to note the com box endorsement from Michael Potemra, increasingly less visible National Review religious books editor, Episcopalian, and gay marriage advocate. It prompted various thoughts, including what books might I suggest for being helpful introductions to the Mass that emphasize what's important, don't seem like hastily assembled Books for Dummies, and also are written with some sort of enduring style (not to slam the helpful materials Scott Hahn produces, but his pun-infested prose is hard to pass along to people not so genially inclined). These are what I came to mind. I would love other suggestions.

Recent and intentionally modern (vs Modernistic)
  • Catholics and the Eucharist: A Scriptural Introduction by Stephen B. Clark
  • The Hidden Manna: A Theology of the Eucharist by Rev. James T. O'Connor
Older
  • Calvary and the Mass by Fulton J. Sheen
  • This is the Mass, by Henri Daniel-Rops
  • The Mass in Slow Motion by R Knox
Older and more expansive
  • The Mass: The Presence of the Sacrifice of the Cross by Charles Cardinal Journet
  • The Mass of St. Pius V: Spiritual Commentaries by Bernard-Marie de Chivre
  • Your Mass and Your Life by Richer-Marie Beaubien and Ella Marie Cooper
Newer and more unsettling
  • The Council in Question by Nidan Nichols and Morya Doorly
  • The Problem Of the Liturgical Reform by the ever-irksome SSPX
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Why the priests of this church lead their congregations in the Holy Rosary every Sunday

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" [updated weekly] (Assumption Grotto News, October 5, 2014):
Our Lady of the Rosary is the devotional focus for October. The Tridentine liturgy allows us celebrate this feast of Mary even today – Sunday – in anticipation of the October 7th calendar date of this feast. It’s only right that our parish should take advantage of Marian feasts that are offered to us.

We have remained rather faithful to the practice, begun a few years ago, of the public recitation of the holy rosary after each Mass, with the priest himself leading it, whenever possible. This practice was initiated as a buffer against what was foreseen to be a time of moral crisis for our country following upon the election of the current resident of the White House who has not failed to inflict alarm on people of good will generally and Catholics in particular. Our daily praying of the holy rosary was meant to fortify the Church in view of this circumstance and to help avert the worst that might follow. Whether our paltry efforts to comply with the wishes of the Virgin Mary in being faithful to the rosary have been deemed acceptable by heaven or not, we continue to do that little but so necessary a part to “beg God’s mercy on our country” (the stated intention of these rosaries).

This reliance on the intercessory prayers of the Virgin Mary is urgent in view of this intensive drive to neutralize the moral force of the Catholic Church over men’s lives. The blame for this lies not only with those outside the Church. Catholics themselves have helped erode their faith (which I attribute in great part to dissenting theologians and clergy). The clerical scandals of recent years have given those with an anti - Catholic animus to make destructive advances against the Church which puts our bishops in a defensive mode and weakens their moral voice as teachers and leaders.

Recently I was present in a rather large gathering of priests. There were many good men among them surely, and some of them are known as such to me. Yet I felt a certain sadness in being there on account of a sensing that many priests are losing a sense of the sacredness of their calling as ‘other Christs.’ So much of what the modern parish and its priests must do are about secular concerns that I fear we are forgetting our supernatural purposes. So much activity; so much less spirituality.

I am especially concerned over our young people who are often ignorant of the beauties of the Church’s doctrines, her history, her devotions, her liturgical richness, her saints. What chances have they with all the anti - Catholic bias they are likely to encounter in their secular education and in the media to find in the Church the stability, solace and peace their souls need so greatly? Where will mother Church be for these her children when they need her most? The proposal to recite the rosary publically after each Mass was meant to invoke Holy Mary to take on our families as Her own, to protect them, fortify them, to preserve them in truth and in God’s grace. I know many of you say the daily rosary by yourselves rather than in communal recitation. You would find added strength in your prayers, however, from prayer in common, as a parish united under Mary. In this way, each one prays for all – the total effect being so much the greater than prayer said in isolation.

All, priests and laity, have got to be renewed in determination to be exemplary Catholics. The Marian dimension to our faith, an essential element to the devout life, is so often missing, as is also Eucharistic piety. How we can recover these things on a wide scale is unknown. We do what we can here, admitting our own failures to attain the desired perfection. Our rosary is one means to keep us on track. I hope you will continue to pray with us after Mass in that small but mighty prayer of the holy rosary.

... (emphasis added)
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