EF in Afpak

A blogging colleague contacted me this morning with the following:

Good morning everyone.

Sorry for the mass email but I'd appreciate you taking a look at this and putting it on your blog, writing about it or, simply, emailing it around if you don't have a blog or paper to write for.

These pics show something I feel is simply incredible for so many reasons -- the Traditional Latin Mass being prayed in Afghanistan.

Please consider doing anything you can to tell this story. It's one that deserves to be told:

http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2011/10/traditional-latin-mass-in-afghanistan.html

Afpak of course refers to the Afghanistan-Pakistahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifn theater of operations. Click on the link and check it out. Be sure to pray for the Pour Souls of the Society.

Reorganization

Rorate has an excerpt directly from the source which I need not reproduce here. The gist is that PCED will be placed under the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments with Monsignor Perl, the commission's secretary, moved up to lead it as a bishop. The responses are catalogued below.

Positive:
What Does The Prayer Really Say - Father Z finds it interesting with some conditions. I put him in 'positive' due to his approval of Monsignor Perl's possible elevation to the episcopacy.

The New Liturgical Movement - The rumor, if true, is referred to as being an 'excellent' development.

Wait and see:
Rorate Caeli - The post gives no official position, though the comments cover the spectrum, though most are skeptical that this will be a positive development for the EF community. New Catholic describes his position in the comments as 'realist.'

Negative:
None outright so far that I've read.

I don't have an opinion as of yet.

Retrospective

This is going to be simple.

First, yesterday I received in the mail an envelope with a return address from the nunciature in DC. It contained a nice letter from a monsignor relaying the Holy Father's blessings and wishes for Christmas and a laminated holy card with a picture of the Nativity on one side and some printed-on handwriting in Latin that I couldn't quite make out along with the Pope's signature. A very nice and unexpected return for sending the Pope a Christmas card a few weeks ago.

Second, I can't think of anyone who really stood out this last year more than normal. Our greatest expectations though are for Cardinal Canizares Llovera. 2009 could be a big year at CDW what with a new prefect who is of a mind with the Holy Father and the upcoming clarification letter that could lead to greater authority for CDW to in dealing with recalcitrance to the 1962 Missal as well as solving problems with the calendar that are growing more and more acute.

All in God's good time.

Anxious?

UPDATE (10/8/08 1638): Father Z responses. It's pretty good. Read the comments. One snippet of Father Z's:

Is the priest afraid of the bishop? Help the priest. Keep working on the bishop. Carefully. Pray for him, perhaps using the Bux Protocol for praying for bishops: ask St. Joseph to intercede with God that He will either open the bishop’s eyes or close them permanently. Remember: the biological solution is going to be important for the future of the TLM. Therefore, work on the younger priests and on seminarians. Do you best to promote vocations to the priesthood among bright young men and boys who are interested in these things.

----------

Damian Thompson has a new piece out today on the MP's progress so far. After recounting the state of the Gregorian Mass, at the end he sums it up quite well.

Let us be blunt about this. If the Pope were to die tomorrow, he would be remembered for many fine achievements, most of all his encyclicals, but his liturgical reforms would peter out. Summorum Pontificum would remain on the statute book, but the Magic Circle in England and its powerful allies in the Vatican and Europe would quietly suffocate the work of Ecclesia Dei.

My guess is that the next Pope will be as theologically conservative as Benedict, but is unlikely to possess his blindingly intense vision of a liturgical reform in which the pre- and post-Vatican II liturgies revive each other. That reform is not yet properly under way, and the Pope is in his 80s. No wonder traditionalists are alarmed.

"Tick tock, tick tock, Clarice."

A New Link

Rorate Caeli has a link to the new Institute of Christ the King website. After browsing through it, I put the link down the left hand column along with a link to the FSSP.

The ICK website is very pretty and well designed, quite easy to navigate. Go have a look.

Huzzah!

I think Google has deemed that the blog is not spam. I didn't get the warning message on the dashboard page.

Reminder:

When: Sunday, August 3rd, 1:30pm

What: Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite aka the Gregorian Rite aka the Mass of Pius V aka the Mass of Blessed John XXIII aka the Traditional Latin Mass

Where: St. Wenceslaus' Church, 623 Fairchild Street, Iowa City, Iowa 52245

I may take the camera for pictures, but don't get your hopes up.

'Traditional Latin Mass' Announced

This has been out there awhile, but I'll post it anyway:

Una Voce Quad Cities takes great pleasure in making the following announcement:

Beginning August 3, 2008, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will be offered in the extraordinary form (Missa Cantata) every Sunday at 4pm at St. Anthony's Church in Davenport, Iowa. Fr. Scott Lemaster, Fr. David Brownfield, and Fr. Tim Regan will alternate in offering the Mass. For parish information see http://www.stanthonysdavenport.4lpi.com.

Our heartfelt gratitude goes to Bishop Martin Amos and his director of liturgy, Deacon Frank Agnoli, who administered a diocese-wide survey of interest in the Traditional Latin Mass and then encouraged six diocesan priests to seek training in the extraordinary form. We are also deeply grateful to these priests (three of whom will be offering the Traditional Mass at St. Wenceslaus in Iowa City, also beginning August 3rd, at 1:30pm) for sacrificing their time and energy to offer us the ancient form of Mass, and to the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius in Chicago who offered the (by all accounts superb) training program they attended in May.

Deo Gratias!

After the release of SP, I found my way onto someone's email list for organizing the Extraordinary Form here in IC, so I've been following along with their efforts. It is pleasing to see such efforts come to fruition.

The Good Friday Prayer, Continued

Ruth Gledhill quotes a blogger named Irene who in turn quotes a friend who commented about the revision of the Good Friday prayer:

Irene, who is currently refreshing her knowledge of Latin at Haifa uni, says: This text would not be acceptable to the majority of the Jewish people, for whom any attempt to get us to convert to belief in Jesus as Messiah goes against the tenets of Judaism. This prayer would appear to be on a par with those evangelical Christians (not all, of course) who wish all Jews to emigrate to Israel, in order to hasten to second coming of Christ.

'I have an Anglican friend staying with me at present and I read it to her and she wasn’t very amused and thought it a damned cheek, actually.

'She said. ‘It implies that if you don’t recognize Jesus Christ, you won’t be saved’. In Judaism you can be ‘saved’, or at least be worthy of heaven without being a Jew. This would appear to be the main difference between the Jewish and Catholic approaches.'

It is difficult not to conclude that this represents a re-emergence of supercessionism. A discussion of the Pope's views when he was still Joseph Ratzinger shows that the former Pope clearly regarded the 'new covenant' as the fulfilment of the covenant of Sinai.

Bolding of Irene's friend's comment is mine. A damned cheek indeed. But then of course, Jesus is only the Son of God...

The Good Friday Prayer

RORATE CAELI has the new version of the prayer in Latin and an unofficial translation.

Doctor Alcuin Reid:

Roma locuta est: causa finita est. This traditional maxim of Catholic life needs to be remembered. It refers to the right of the Holy See – and most specifically of the Sovereign Pontiff – to decide on matters of discipline and governance of the Church. Once the arguments have been duly heard and the Supreme Authority decides, loyal Catholics obey: even if they personally disagree about the prudence or otherwise of a decision.
[...]

A History Lesson, Part I

No, I do not think 'an history lesson' makes any sense when you say it.

Read this at RORATE CAELI on the events of 1988, a period of church history I never learned about during my formative years (we didn't learn much church history, period).

The Calendar

I once made this cool chart. It plotted the days of the week that Christmas could fall on and then the succeeding Sundays because I was interested in seeing if it was at all possible for there ever to be a Second Sunday of Christmas since the calendar jumps through so many hoops this time of year thanks to Epiphany's move to a Sunday. I carried it out for all seven days I think and came to the conclusion that it was impossible and that the Second Sunday of Christmas has been banished forever and ever (at least in the US).

In any case, I just thought of that. I was going to post on how today is the sixth day of the Octave of Christmas and how it strikes me as odd every year that it is the only day that is a feria, but that's not really interesting in and of itself.

I was going to wait until tomorrow to pronounce who I think is the most important player this last year, but we might as well cut to the chase:

Benedict XVI
Pretty obvious, huh? After all, he did issue the MP, he wrote an encyclical. Didn't he come out with Jesus of Nazareth too this year? Honorable mention goes to the good Archbiship Ranjith of CDW just because he's been at the fore in defending the Holy Father's work this year.

We all know what is the major story of the year (Summorum Pontificum), but what is important but largely overlooked, even at the time it was issued, is the Apostolic Letter in the form of a Motu Proprio with which Pope Benedict XVI reinstates the traditional norms for the majority required to elect the Supreme Pontiff. The two-thirds majority was something that came out of the history of the Church and as it stood, if John Paul II's reform had been in place at the time of his election, he probably wouldn't have been elected. Two-thirds requires consensus and Benedict XVI rightly restored the equilibrium of the papal election process. Of course, he added a few tweaks of this own, but they can be forgiven. Of course, it would be nice if the 'general acclamation' method was reinstated as well, but we will go on hoping all the same.

That about sums up the Year of Our Lord 2007. See you next year. Have a nice rest of the Octave and God bless.

Catholic Education

Aside from the larger places like Notre Dame, Boston College or Georgetown, I've always been interested in the status of the smaller places that advertise themselves as 'traditional' and all the other adjectives.

Father Z has a long post with various quotes from parents, students, alumni and even an official response to one allegation from Franciscan U. of Steubenville in Ohio. It's a fascinating look at 'Charismatic' orthodoxy meeting 'traditional' orthodoxy, if you all will permit me the use of such broad and non-specific terms.

Have a look.

Liturgical Doings

Though we do look at our own diocese and its liturgical doings at times, we don't stray too often into the larger currents of the 'reform of the reform' and the 'extraordinary form' except as they are referenced by the Holy Father.

However, Dan at the Holy Whapping has a post and then a clarification that sets out his thoughts on one 'methodology' as championed by the New Liturgical Movement; Shawn Tribe of the NLM responds to Dan's initial post at the NLM.

Liturgy used to be something I was interested in, but not so much now. However, the ongoing discussion is interesting in and of itself.

Links and Comment

RORATE CAELI discusses an Italian newspaper's comments on if the MP is even in effect yet. A commenter named David says that since it's not in the AAS along with other details, it's not in effect, despite RC's assertions to the contrary. Yet David never mentions whether or not the MP has or has not been published in the L'Osservatore Romano which he himself asserts is an official newspaper of record by which documents such as the MP may be promulgated. Nice try, but if you want to point out it's not been printed in the AAS but never point out if it's been printed in the L'Osservatore Romano, you're not going to sell it to me.

Father Z posts an interview of a confrere of his back in Minnesota with the traditionalist The Remnant. Good points are made all around. The comment about how people tend to buy into the 'restoration' idea is a great one since people always love to restore things (unless you were just so into the 1970s renewal that you were positively in love with Urban Renewal as well and took delight in turning America's downtowns into blocky architectural wastelands). The good Father of the interview and the The Remnant interviewer brought up an impending persecution of Catholics and the possibility that we are living in the End Times. I left a comment:

Re: The End Times and Catholic persecution

Certainly when you reach out, you’ll find those of the O’Brien frame of mind, to reference to Michael O’Brien and his book ‘Father Elijah’. Personally, I tend to be more of the ‘The Name of the Rose’ sort who views predictions and feelings of the impending arrival of the End Times with a grain of salt as so many past predictions have come to naught.

I’m of the opinion that the MP and the renewal of the 1962 Missal are too easy a temporal landmark to base ideas of an impending crisis. The End Times will come in God’s good time and not with any kind of prelude like the MP: it’s just way too obvious.
Comment by Jacob — 22 September 2007 @ 5:29 pm

For those of you who are interested in secular politics and the upcoming US presidential election, I found this post at 'Suitably Flip' to be quite interesting regarding the campaign contributions made by the Hsu guy donated millions for himself and others, all while on the run from an outstanding warrant for his arrest in the great state of California.

The MP II

The MP went into effect on the 14th. I guessed in the last post that there would be something in the next issue of the weekly newspaper. It arrived today and...

ZIPPO!

Must be hard work spelling out in your own words what the Pope spelled out in his own words. Of course, HE the Bishop could be using his Latin skills as a former teacher to actually come up with a decent translation since the Holy See has dropped the ball there. We'll wait and see, but HE is on borrowed time right now.

Three reasons

Michael McGough of The LA Times has a piece on the MP.

This little snippet really says a lot:

The worst-case scenario is that the pope is reaching out to traditionalist followers of the late "rebel archbishop" Marcel Lefebvre, whose followers have problems with post-Vatican II Catholicism that extend well beyond the language in which the Mass is recited.

By God, it's a damned travesty if the Pope actually reaches out right instead of left!

Summorum Pontificum

LITTERAE APOSTOLICAE
MOTU PROPRIO DATAE

BENEDICTUS XVI

SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM
[In Latin]

---

LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS
BENEDICT XVI
TO THE BISHOPS ON THE OCCASION OF THE PUBLICATION
OF THE APOSTOLIC LETTER "MOTU PROPRIO DATA"
SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM
ON THE USE OF THE ROMAN LITURGY
PRIOR TO THE REFORM OF 1970
[In English]

The open Church's bishop

The Atlantic Monthly has in its July/August issue an article on Jin Luxian, the longtime open bishop of Shanghai and more recently the de jure bishop of that diocese. The article online requires a subscription.

Included here are several paragraphs that aren't necessarily in order along with commends.

Under this policy, Jin was asked to take up his old responsibilities as rector of Shanghai’s seminary. Though the CPA would be looking over his shoulder, he saw the necessity: In all of China, there were at most 400 priests to serve 3 million Catholics. He believed that if the Church was to have any chance of survival, China would need young, well-educated priests, even if they were subjected to Communist propaganda during their training. Through a “foreign friend,” Jin requested permission from Rome. The response was that he should “wait for the collapse” of the Communist Party, then reopen the seminary. “They underestimated the Chinese Communist Party,” says Jin. And so, after “much prayer,” he acted in what he believed to be the best interests of China’s Catholics. “I didn’t obey the directive of Rome. I said, ‘Let the Catholic Church survive.’”
[...]

In conversation, Jin exhibits few doubts about his decisions, but occasionally his answers turn defensive. During one of our interviews, I asked about his impressions of the underground Church. He began to answer, then suddenly interrupted himself. “[The members of the underground Church] say they are loyal to the pope,” he said. “But I am as loyal as them. Why become bishop? I led the [Chinese] Catholics to pray for the pope and even printed the prayer! I reformed the liturgy. Before me, it was all in Latin. But the underground Church did nothing. If I stayed with them, I would do nothing, too.”
[...]

The last few sentences are interesting given the shifting liturgical landscape in the West. Ditching Latin and reforming the liturgy might not be the best things to take credit for when discussing one's achievements as bishop.

Then, as now, Beijing had two conditions for normalizing relations with the Vatican: the severing of the Vatican’s diplomatic ties with Taiwan (and as a consequence, the transfer of its embassy to the mainland) and an agreement not to interfere in China’s internal affairs. The Vatican has indicated that it’s prepared to meet the Taiwan condition, but the second issue, which encompasses the selection of bishops, is more difficult. Informally, the Vatican might be satisfied with a compromise similar to the process used to nominate Xing in Shanghai. However, public declarations to the contrary, it’s been suggested that both the government and the underground Church have a tacit interest in preventing a deal, since it would inevitably empower the open bishops and their conference, diminishing the government’s influence and the underground Church’s prestige.

Whether an immediate way can be found through the impasse may depend on what Benedict XVI has to say in a promised letter to Chinese Catholics. Leaked reports and the impressions of a source close to the drafting of the letter suggest that it will call, as John Paul II did, for reconciliation between the open and underground churches, and focus largely on pastoral concerns. Ultimately, it’s expected to portray China’s Catholics as largely united after a half century and to acknowledge that any diplomatic solution will need to accommodate both the vitality of the open Church and the struggles of the underground one.

Which the letter did..

The article as a whole is a biographical piece on Jin and his struggles. The main thrust seems to be Jin's efforts at creating a Chinese Church, even if it meant collaborating with Beijing. The main 'bad guys' seem to be Rome and the underground Church itself: it was described as both heroic and to blame for Catholicism's backwardness before Jin reformed everything.

It's on newsstands now, go check it out.

FUD

It gets discussed by the blogging community that concerns itself with the upcoming Motu proprio, but it is never mentioned that there is an actual phrase and acronym for it: Fear, uncertainty and doubt or FUD.

The Independent:

Church split feared as Pope backs return of 'anti-Semitic' Latin Mass

By Ian Herbert
Published: 30 June 2007

A plan by the Pope to authorise the widespread return of the controversial Latin Mass, despite concerns that parts of it are anti-Semitic, has provoked a backlash among senior clergy in Britain and threatens to divide the Catholic Church worldwide. The 16th-century Tridentine Mass - which includes references to "perfidious" Jews - was abandoned in 1969 and replaced with liturgy in local languages, to make worship more accessible to the bulk of churchgoers. But the Pope announced on Thursday that a long-awaited document liberalising the use of the Mass, which some clergy fear will also limit the Church's dialogue with Jews and Muslims, will be released next week.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, has written to the Pope to say that no changes are needed.
[...]

FUD:

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) is a sales or marketing strategy of disseminating negative (and vague) information on a competitor's product. The term originated to describe disinformation tactics in the computer hardware industry and has since been used more broadly. FUD is a manifestation of the appeal to fear.

July 7th

MOTU PROPRIO

THE 1962 MISSAL

TO BE RELEASED

7 JULY

More information: Kath.net has the scoop; Gerald and Father have translations and comments:

Kath.net | Gerald | Father Z