Apparently, one can post documents to one's blog. The previous post was just such an example (which has been subsequently removed because it was a MONSTER). I do have the "Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Latin and English" document in a 'real' document format.
Let me know if you want a copy.
Many have already seen The Epiphany Declaration and its plebe spin-off.
My question: Is this worthwhile?
Are we really so convinced that the Powers-That-Be actually give a fig about 600 signatures on an online petition? Other than the "Agatha Christie Indult", when has something like this even remotely worked?
As for the "Declaration" itself, do we really want the church to be swayed by "influential" or "big name" people putting together a Declaration? Wow! 40 Intellectuals signed a document asking the Holy Father to free the Classical Roman Rite. Ten-times as many "Catholic" Intellectuals would freely sign a document asking the Holy Father to allow for a married Roman Catholic priesthood. And the online plebe petition would easily get 6000 signatures.
I am not convinced that these Declarations are going to have an impact. I am not convinced that I want them to have an impact. It smacks of Congregationalism, not Catholicism.
Frankly, I don't want the Holy Father listening to any 21st-century-Intellectual-signed Declaration. Americanism and its fruits have infected the whole bunch. This whole "People of God" thing has gone to their heads.
Over the past couple of days, news has reached me of the impending death of two different Indult Mass locations: San Fernando Mission (L.A. Archdiocese) and Prince of Peace (Greenville, SC). Sad news indeed.
These two Mass locations have different reasons for cutting back (or closing). The SC location's priest has lost support of another priest who covered for him during the 5 p.m. Indult slot. He will only be able to offer the Indult once per month. The L.A. location is now closed by its Ordinary. (ahemm ...)
Yes, I know about the rumors of the Motu Proprio, and I will believe it when I see it. There have been too many rumors over the past 6 years.
However, the closings/cut-backs described above lends some credibility to the rumors. The lines are being drawn. The players are picking their team. The fighters are choosing a corner.
The circumstances are being arranged in such a way that those true Indult locations (not FSSP or ICR) will have a very difficult time satisfactorily justifying their existence to their Ordinary. Whether it is fear of the M.P. or vindication, these Ordinaries are cutting any and all ties to Tradition.
If/When the M.P. is issued, it will be the beginning of the war for Catholicism, not the end.
Alas, I am back at Blogger.
I just couldn't stand having to delete the crazy Trackbacks that kept popping up ... less than savory subject matter.
In the meantime, I have the first draft of a Monastic Diurnal in the works. Right now, it contains Prime and Compline, and most of the Kalendar. It is a side project to support the liturgical prayer life of Benedictine Oblates.
Let me know if you want a copy. I will also send out regular updates.
Today is the Day of the Ninja.
You can take the ninja quiz here.
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Per The New Liturgical Movement blog, the Archdiocese of Genoa has issued as statement regarding the impending motu proprio.
I take issue with the last two items:
9) two valid expressions of the same Catholic faith -- that of St. Pius V and that of Paul VI -- cannot be presented as "expressing opposite views" and, thus, as mutually irreconcilable;
10) In liturgical ambit, the decisions and deeds of Popes - namely John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI - and of Councils - Tridentine and Vatican II - cannot be presented in a conflictual way and, even less, as alternative to one another.
As for #9, why cannot the missals be presented as "expressing opposite views"? (or at least "opposing" views)? Just because one says a thing, does not make it true.
In #10, the decisions and deeds of post-V2 popes -- and the decisions and deeds of Trent and V2 -- cannot be presented in a conflictual way. Once again, why not? Because one says it cannot?
We are now Thinking Catholics. If two things, whether two missals or two councils, seem to be opposed, Thinking Catholics need good reasons as to why they are not.
"Because I said so." is not an acceptable answer.
Below is an article from the Oriens Journal. Normally, Oriens is a good read. This article is the exception. I have woven in my own commentary (mostly to point out inconsistencies).
...
Should Catholics blog?
These days almost every second Catholic appears to blog compulsively. R. J. Stove, who lives in Melbourne and is Executive Editor of Oriens, explores blogging’s intellectual and moral perils.
Blogging. By now every Catholic, even if he leads as hermetic an existence as did Saint Bruno, must know about it. Blogs – short, of course, for "weblogs" – have now become the preferred method for communication among Catholics in the English-speaking world, more especially in America. It seems every second Catholic one meets has a blog, from the staunchest traditionalist to the most oafish lesbian eucharistic minister.
Amy Welborn's blog (the work of a mildly conservative Novus Ordo wife, mother and debunker of The Da Vinci Code) is these days probably the most famous blog by any Catholic in the world. Some traditionalist blogs are Radtrad.blogspot.com, Distributism.blogspot.com, Inillotempore.com/blog, and Confiteminidomino.blogspot.com. This last is unusual in two respects: its founder is (a) Australian and (b) a priest, the Dominican Father Ephraem Chifley. Lay Americans run the overwhelming majority of Catholic blogs.
[JtH -- Not bad! Two Evil Traditionalists made it on to the short list. I will be using the list of blogs provided here as the measuring stick by which to judge the below arguments. As an aside, most of the Catholics with whom I assist Mass weekly know little to nothing about the blog phenom. And they really do not care.
And why does everyone like Amy Welborn? I don't get it.]
Allied to the blogging phenomenon is the Internet discussion group phenomenon, which is not quite the same thing, but which overlaps sufficiently with blogging per se to be discussed alongside it. (A great many members of Catholic discussion groups submit commentary to blogs.) Perhaps the most prominent of traditionalist Internet discussion groups is Angelqueen.org. Another, less acerbic in general spirit, is the Laudate Dominum forum. Distributism.blogspot.com exists specifically to uphold – and apply to modern political crises – the Chesterbelloc tradition.
[JtH -- The topic switches to online fora, which will be considered as part of the blogging craze. I am a member of the AngelQueen forum, and follow some of the more interesting threads. Per the top post of Laudate Dominum Forum, it is no longer active. As this article was penned in the Spring of 2006 (Australia time?), and L.D. Forum closed in September 2006, there might be some overlap.
Why is Distributism mentioned again in this paragraph? I thought we were talking about fora.]
Amid all this activity, much of it by Catholics who are personally estimable, the question arises. Should Catholics be blogging at all?
This essay argues that, for the most part, they should not; that blogs (and I include here Internet discussion groups as well as blogs proper) actually represent a graver objective peril to the Catholic soul than does the television set, which at least seldom presents even the façade of interactivity; and above all, that however noble specific bloggers' intentions are, far too much blogging is incompatible with a sensus Catholicus. The reasons for such apparently bizarre conclusions are explained below.
Pro-blog to anti-blog
At the risk of obscene self-indulgence, perhaps an autobiographical note is in order. I used to be among blogs' most enthusiastic defenders, for the same general reasons that I refused to weep, wail, and rend the raiment at the Internet’s arrival. The mainstream print media's intellectual and moral sleaze would in itself have inclined me towards defences of blogging, even if so many good Catholics had not become part-time or full-time bloggers themselves. I rejoiced at the speed with which blogs could transmit Vatican media releases and official traditionalist pronouncements halfway around the world before the conventional Fourth Estate's secular-humanist ignoramuses even got their boots on.
[JtH -- In other words, the author likes blogs/fora becuase bloggers pick up news and disseminate it.]
Furthermore, unlike many of my fellow right-wing Catholics, I lack in my temperament even the smallest particle of the Luddite. To be a Luddite, I soon realised, is to be a Manichean. Not on the agenda. We are called upon to be Catholics; we are not called upon to be the Amish. For these reasons I would occasionally submit a comment upon others’ blogs (primarily but not always Catholic), though I had not the faintest desire to be a blogger myself.
[JtH -- I agree. Technology is cool. Science is cool.]
These days I consider my former lenience regarding Catholic blogs to be spiritually and ethically unconscionable. Why has my attitude changed? Because Catholic blogs have become as prone as any other postlapsarian human endeavour to laws of unintended consequences. I shall continue to consult a very few even-tempered Catholic blogs, notably Distributism.blogspot.com, for international news information which I cannot get elsewhere (but which I need). Concerning the rest, I can only pray that most of them – including blogs by traditionalists – will close down, and that those responsible for them will direct their energies to more sensible fields.
[JtH -- The author had a change of heart. Blogs/fora are bad because of 'unintended consequences'. The real nugget of this paragraph is in the next sentence. "... continue to consult a very few even-tempered Catholic blogs ..."
Ahh! The author does not like the rough-and-tumble, calls-'em-likes-I-sees-'em attitude of nearly every single blog in existence. Sometimes pompacity is necessary to bring a topic to light. This will be highlighted later with the author's own remarks.
For the record, I do not hope that blogs shut down. The Vox Populi must be heard. The traditionalists are some of the few who are standing up for truth and beauty. If they are silenced, whither does truth and beauty go?]
Blogging as vice
Barring a miracle, there would seem to be five factors now at work to corrupt any hopes that the average Catholic can be a good Catholic and a diligent blogger. One could argue that these factors are mere undesirable accretions to blogging, rather than intrinsic to the blog genre; but in practice most bloggers can no more avoid them than most Communists can avoid mass murder. The factors are:
[JtH -- Despite the author's future protestations, there is an implied comparison between bloggers and Communists.]
i. Addiction, with all its dangers;
ii. Pseudonymity, with all its dangers;
iii. Encouraging smart-aleck soundbites rather than hard, detailed, historically scrupulous reasoning;
iv. Related to (iii), a general degrading of language, and of the writer’s role as language’s custodian (not to say as breadwinner);
v. De facto anticlericalism.
Let us take (i) first.
The Internet’s capacity for creating addicts is something that even the stupidest Panglossian social worker no longer attempts to deny. Every conscientious priest is aware of it; many a priest worries about it; some priests actually issue warnings to their flock about it. More priests should do so.
Without the smallest effort, and even when one leads a life otherwise reasonably replete with interesting activities, one can spend ten or twelve hours on the Net per day. What honest Catholic would tolerate similar appeasement of the Great God Television? No honest Catholic on the face of this earth, we must devoutly hope. Nevertheless, and very unfortunately, those traditionalists who understand with bitter precision TV’s menaces, usually appear entirely oblivious to the menaces of cyberspace, unless those menaces take such blatant forms as downloading porn. (That is a problem beyond this article’s scope.) We who have known what it is like to be an Internet addict – waiting with cold sweats, and with something like frenzy, for new developments on our preferred blog – wish to beg others: "Don’t go down that path. We’ve wasted months of our lives. We’ve committed the sin of sloth, which, as Evelyn Waugh once pointed out, is perfectly compatible with authorial profusion. Don’t you make the same error."
[JtH -- I agree with the whole addiction thing. But I take umbrage with the "slam the Trads" technique.
"traditionalists ... usually appear entirely oblivious to the menaces of cyberspace" is an incredible generalization. In fact, Traditionalists are acutely aware of the [hidden] menaces of cyberspace.
I am familiar with most Traditionalists blogs. Each author with whom I have spoken struggles with minimizing online time. Forum moderators are subject to the same addictions and struggles. The successful blogs/fora are those that have found the balance between online-time and real-world-time.]
Pseudonymous invective
But if only addiction’s problems were the sole, or even the worst, blogging hazards! Alas, they are among the least: which brings us to (ii). Every reader conversant with blogs’ comment sections – let alone with non-blog discussion fora – soon detects one fact above all that fills him, or that certainly should fill him, with dread. It is this: for every comment that comes from someone with the courage to sign his name, there are 100 that have been submitted under pseudonyms. If such deification of pseudonymity is not a coward’s charter, it is hard to think of what else it might be.
[JtH -- Real names are sometimes dangerous. Trads are NOT "entirely oblivious to the menaces of cyberspace". By using my real name, anyone is then able to find out where I live, work, and worship. One may find my wife and children. There are serious personal consequences to real names.]
Screwtape himself could scarcely hope to devise a more effective method of instilling mutual hate than what blogs and discussion fora provide: an orgy of ad hominem invective where each participant is fighting in the dark against fellow guerrillas.
[JtH -- Yes, the bad ones are bad. Thus are the effects of Original Sin. But of the blogs/fora listed above, the invective is kept to a minimum. Caveat emptor: Don't read that schtuff.]
Absent a full-time blog or forum moderator who will rigorously exclude such invective, and you can almost smell the witless malice oozing forth from your computer screen.
[JtH -- Was that just the afore-condemned invective?]
When, moreover, flame wars break out online between those participants who simply want to be better Catholics, and those (they are invariably male) who want to turn every last discussion group into the Protocols of the Elders of Zion Fan Club, or the League For Calumniating Women Who Were Seen To Wear Trousers For One Day In 1959, the overwhelming temptation is to burst out “Enough already”.
[JtH -- Indeed it is. And I have done as such. But are men not allowed to have opinions about the propriety of ladies' fashion? Most often, we are the ones who are the victims of said fashion. The Protocols and such are quickly becoming verboten on most blogs/fora because of the invective that ensues, as is the topic of ladies' dress. Although, the topic of post-modern fashion should be regularly evaluated and addressed according to Catholic principles.]
Dumbing-down prose
From (ii), and to a lesser extent from (i), it will be clear that most blogging, by its very nature, sins against the intellect. Regrettably, an additional sin (or, if we want to be super-generous, potential sin) arises from the typical Internet text itself. As anyone knows who has striven to write it, Internet-specific prose does two things, and only two things, very well. It simplifies, thanks to hyperlinks, the sourcing of allegations; and it encourages the aphoristic. Even on the best screens, such prose is physically tiring to read. Long paragraphs are incomparably harder to understand onscreen than they are on the printed page.
[JtH -- ... and so are terms such as aphoristic, Panglossian, & Luddite. Are Journals immune to the above criticisms?]
The constant temptation, then – as mentioned in point (iii) – is to dumb-down everything. Away with the subordinate clause. Hurl nuances into the rubbish-dump. Delete everything which requires reflection. Cultivate, at any price, the wisecrack. Sustained arguments are just too hard. Hit-and-run attacks are much more satisfying to arrange. As for correct spelling and grammar, well, who needs those? Write what you feel, baby. The egalitarian, democratic, and (therefore) deeply anti-Catholic implications of this are, or at any rate they should be, obvious. Which makes it all the more shameful that one needs to spell them out; but even the better Catholic blogs and online fora tend to abound in orthography (to say nothing of syntax) which three decades ago would have disgraced a ten-year-old.
[JtH -- I agree. Fortunately, those who suffer from such grammatical challenges are quickly called to task. Those blogs which persist in ignorance are seldom read and eventually fall away.
And where, in all this, does the unlucky Catholic author – alluded to in (iv) – happen to fit? An author, that is, who does his best to proclaim orthodox dogma;
[JtH -- Is there another kind of dogma?]
who writes as well as he can; who has a track record of publication in sane periodicals; and who hopes (however optimistically) to earn enough by magazine-writing to prevent the telephone and the hot water from being cut off? It is plain that for any such author, the blogosphere means unmitigated calamity. Who will pay for his output, when the output of every self-educated pseudo-Catholic freak can be read online for nothing? Or was Rerum Novarum never meant to apply to the scribbling set? No-one is suggesting that the Catholic author, or any author, should be cosseted; we know from the Soviet Writers’ Union and similar rackets the hazards of such totalitarian seclusion. But does the concept of a living wage for honest work mean anything at all, or was Leo XIII on a magic-mushroom trip when he said that it did?
[JtH -- Another ahah! moment. Only those 'authors' who fit the Egalitarian definition should be writing. Since everyone else is writing, opining, and pontificating for free, the Egalitarain author is severely deprived of providing a means by which to live. Amateur writers should get out of the way of the real writers.
The last part of the paragraph regarding Soviets and Leo XIII is just a disclaimer, "I'm not saying what I just said." Even though he just said it.]
Hatred of clergy
Leo XIII. Ah yes, popes. Always a sticky subject when two or three bloggers are gathered together (One Angelqueen.org participant has memorably described the present Holy Father as “that S.O.B.”).
[JtH -- As of this writing, there are over 1750 registered users on AngelQueen. One participant spoils the whole bunch? Should we apply the same standards to Bishops? Oh, wait, we are getting to that ...]
There are a few conspicuous and welcome exceptions, but the blogosphere’s overall level of anticlericalism must be experienced to be believed.
[JtH -- In general, this is because we are sheep without shepherds willing to lead. We are in a horrible crisis, and those who post to blogs/fora are fighting to keep their own faith. The clerics are not feeding us, despite Our Lord's admonition to "Feed my sheep."]
If some sadistic prelate wanted to make a case for the laity never being allowed to do anything, he need merely refer to many a traditionalist – to say nothing of many a conservative Novus Ordo – blog. (See the recent Oprah-like blog whining of one columnist, who is so upset by America’s Catholic sacerdotalscandals that he thinks he’ll join the Eastern Orthodox Church, so there.)
[JtH -- Sadistic prelates are already doing as such. They deny the Indult to groups because of what they perceive traditionalists to be. Blogs are merely the symptom, not the cause.
I will pray for the columnist who is leaving for Orthodoxy.]
Any Martian reading such blogs would assume that tarring and feathering the entire clergy for sexual abuse was not only the most important task facing a Catholic in 2006, but also the most important task that has ever faced a Catholic anywhere at any time. Those who attempt to point out the sheer self-destructive fatuity of such antics – and their repulsive resemblance to Ku Klux Klan guttersniping, circa 1924, about satyriatic priests and nuns – will merely have their comments deleted without explanation.
[JtH -- So those who spoke out against the scandals are akin to the KKK? Who, again, is guttersniping? Only non-Catholics and anti-Catholics "tarr[ed] and feather[ed] the entire clergy". Hurt and anger, as displayed by Catholics, are reasonable emotional reactions to the scandals.]
Some of us know whereof we speak. Blogs’ Americocentric nature merely exacerbates the problem. It is impossible to imagine a more effective, or pernicious, method than these blogs of spreading, among foreigners, the false but understandable belief that American Catholics are merely American Calvinists who get drunk.
[JtH -- Bad Americans! Is 'American' the newest international dirty word?
Americans have had a voice for over 200 years. We speak out against perceived grievances. To do less would be negligence.]
There might, of course, be a virtue in the blogosphere which, unmentioned in the foregoing, counteracts the above list of palpable evils.
I know of no such virtue.
[JtH -- Any blog/forum mentioned above can provide a list of participants who reverted/converted to the Catholic faith because of the information provided by said blog/forum. That is reason enough.]
In memory of Guy Fawkes Day:
Remember, Remember
The Fifth of November
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot.
I see of no reason,
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot!
Jeffrey Tucker at The New Liturgical Movement has done a great service for Traditionalists everywhere. He has scanned a 1961 Graduale Romanum, and provided free of charge the fruits of his labor.
I am currently grabbing every file he has provided and will use them to support our local FSSP Chapel Gregorian Chant choir.
May God bless Jeffrey Tucker for his labor of love.
I have put together a short document containing the Traditional plainchant propers for today, the Feast of Christ the King. I was hoping to have a more substantive post for this Feast of Feasts. Maybe this afternoon ...
Dom and Amy have some thoughts on the Liturgy. Here is what Dom has to say:
I will be at the Weston Irish Fest in Weston, MO this weekend visiting family and "taste-testing" the local brews.
During this time, my place of residence is within crawling distance of the event.
I will be the one with a pint in one hand, the wife holding the other, and 7 kids trying to keep up.
My favorite performers: Connie Dover, Eddie Delahunt, Bob Reeder, and Brigid's Cross.
A good time will be had by all.
Today be Talk Like a Pirate Day
#1: "Arrr, I have made note of yer demands and I have but one question for ye: Will ye be wantin' slivers o' potato fried in the popular French style with that?"
The BSD Test Delivery Survey is now available at:
BSD Certification
I think it would be great to take the Certification Exam, but I tend to agree with the reasons given by those who say they will not take the exam. The kinds of companies for which I work are not Certification hounds. (And if they were, I wouldn't have worked there.) This also tends to beg the question ... "Is certification valuable?"
I'm not convinced that it is.
Of course, Rorate Coeli has broken this story, which is currently only available in French. It looks like the name will be "Good Shepherd" -- 'Bon pasteur'. It will be headed by Fr. Philippe Laguérie, and subject to the Ecclesia Dei Commission.
Here is the Babelfish translation:
Rome has set up a new traditionalist fraternity to accomodate the former priests and seminarians of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X.
On September 8, 2006, the Congregation for the Clergy established a new religious institute, 'the Good Shepherd', centered around former priests and seminarians of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X, separated from Rome since 1988, according to information collected by I.MEDIA. The seat of this new Fraternity will be in Bordeaux (France) at the church of Saint Eligius. The priests will exclusively celebrate according to the traditional liturgical rites of Saint Pius V.
On the morning of September 8, 2006, the feastday of the Nativity of the Virgin, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy and charged with the EcclesiaDei Commission, signed the decree of erection of the institute of pontifical right of the 'Good Shepherd'. The Institute is an apostolic company of life dependant upon the Ecclesia Dei Commission, the Congregation for the Institute of Consecrated Life and the Society of Apostolic Life. In this decree, Cardinal Hoyos approved the statutes of the new institute,whose Superior General is a priest expelled from the Fraternity of Saint Pius X, Abbé Philippe Laguérie.
Vatican sources indicate that "Benedict XVI himself wished this step" in which "the traditional missal of Saint Pius V is not a separate missal, but an extraordinary form of the single Roman rite". In the Vatican, and among the members of the new institute, it is said that "this agreement corresponds to the requests made formerly by Mgr. Lefebvre", separated from Rome in 1988.
Among the numbers of the new fraternity, there are five priests and several seminarians, who will arrive soon. Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos committed himself celebrating these first ordinations. The persons in charge of the new fraternity also count on the fact that priests of Fraternity of Saint Pius X will choose to join them and that they will be able to found in various dioceses within 'personal parishes'. In Bordeaux, Paris and elsewhere, these priests are followed by a certain number of faithful attached to the missal of Saint Pius V, the liturgical rite liturgical in force before the liturgical reforms of 1969.
With this new institute, Rome chose to negotiate with those excluded from the Fraternity founded by Mgr. Lefebvre, rather than with the Fraternity itself. The reception of former integrist priests will not occur without in the Church of France. The Fraternity of St. Peter, founded in 1988 to accomodate faithful priests and seminarians wanting to remain attached to Rome in respect of liturgical tradition, could also suffer from this new creation. Even more so as some of its members seem ready to join 'the Institute of the Good Shepherd'.
Cardinal Ricard, archbishop of Bordeaux, Member of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, might accept Saint Eligius Church as the seat of the Institute of Good Shepherd. It 'recussitates' a church of the diocese of Bordeaux occupied since January 2002 by Abbé Laguérie, then holy member of Fraternity Saint Pius X, with the support of the city council.
The reception by Rome of priests excluded from Fraternity Saint Pius X takes place as several bishops consecrated by Mgr Lefebvre into 1988 continue to harden the tone vis-a-vis with the Holy See. Mgr. Bernard Fellay, who was received by Benedict XVI in August 2005 at Castel Gandolfo, and was confirmed last July as the head of the Fraternity of Saint X, requested as a precondition to any negotiation with Rome "full freedom without conditions of the Tridentine Mass, and the withdrawal of the decree of excommunication of the four bishops" consecrated in 1988 by Mgr. Lefebvre. Since then, it has launched an initiative called "Million Rosary Bouquet" with which it invites the faithful to request "to obtain from Heaven the courage necessary for Benedict XVI to release the mass known as that of Saint Pius V".
In March 2006, Abbé Philippe Laguérie declared that an "agreement with Rome" was "an obvious choice, such that one wonders how it could leave the head of anyone" because "it is the constitution of the Church which requires it". This agreement, as written, initially does not have "the precondition, levelled all the doctrinal difficulties". It also invites its faithful "to read the signs, the demonstrations, the possibilities of the goodwill of the Romans to deal with someof delirious doctrinal errors and scandals of the years 1960-2000". It asks for "a total freedom of the liturgy, and for basic reasons, as well as total freedom to accept the Council for what it is", noting that "the document of the Pope to the curia (December 22) (...) indicates well that the spirit of the Council is bad".
In April 2006 at Lourdes, Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard declared in front of all of the bishops of France that "the question of the relationship of Fraternity of Saint Pius X" deserved "a particular treatment". "We know that Pope Benedict XVI carries the concern from there", he explained, adding that, "in the weeks or the months ahead, it should give directives to facilitate the way towards a possible return to a full communion". "We will accomodate them in the faith and will accurately put them in?uvre" [?? - JtH], announced the Cardinal Ricard to the bishops.
Among the priests that make up the new traditional institute that were in turn expelled from Fraternity of Saint Piis X is Abbé Paul Aulagnier, a long time Fraternity Superior General in France (1976-1994), who was expelled in 2003 for defending the agreements known as 'of Campos'. In 2002, the Holy See had allowed the Brazilian Fraternity of Saint Jean-Marie Vianney to celebrate the Mass according to the Tridentine Missal with the proviso of recognizing the Vatican Council II interpreted "in the light of the tradition", and recognizing the validity of the Missal of Paul VI. Paul Aulagnier was authorized to exercise in the diocese of Clermont, without receiving particular mission in 2004. He also founded a house of reception in the diocese of Chartres.
Drawing media attention, Abbé Philippe Laguérie was expelled in August 2004 after having affirmed that Fraternity of Saint Pius X encountered serious problems related to a discouragement of priestly vocations in its various seminaries. He was subjected to an assignment in Mexico, a sanction which he refused before being expelled. Before that, within the Fraternity founded by Mgr Lefebvre, he had laid claim to the Parisian church of Saint Nicolas's Day of-Hanging-post, occupied by the faithful traditionalists since 1977. In 1993, he had tried to occupy another Parisian church, Saint-Germain-the resident of Auxerre. His work was successful in Bordeaux in obtaining Saint Eligius church in January 2002 with the support of the City Council, but not of the Archbishop.
Abbé Christophe Héry was expelled for having supported Abbé Laguérie, as well as Abbé Guillaume de Tanoüarn. The last founded the Association of Saint Marcel and Saint Paul in Paris. A fifth priest, stationed in Bordeaux, Abbé Henri Forestier, is one of the first members of the institute, with a deacon, soon to be ordained priest, Abbé Claude Prieur.
The Ecclesia Dei Commission was founded instituted by John Paul II in July 1988, and was created in order to "facilitate the full communion with the church those priests, the seminarians, the religious communities or the individual monks having had until now of the bonds with the fraternity founded by Mgr Lefebvre and who wish to remain with the successor of Peter in the Catholic Church by preserving their spiritual and liturgical traditions".
It seems that the Powers-That-Be know that "for all" is an incorrect translation of the Latin "pro multis", but the Bishops are playing the partisan card, rather than pursuing Truth.
From The Remnant:
| "For All" v. "For Many" |
| Bishops Fear Correct Translation Might be "Giving In" to "Lefebvrites" |
| Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S. |
(www.RemnantNewspaper.com) Have you seen in the June proceedings of the US Bishops' Conference, on the authority of Cardinal George, no less, that the main reason our shepherds are refusing to go back to "for many" instead of "for all" in translating the words of consecration of the chalice "pro multis" is precisely to slap traditionalists in the face?
Far from showing any pastoral concern to bring back traditionalists who have gone into sedevacantism and/or at least material schism over this issue, their attitude seems solely self-righteous and self-serving.
I had long thought that maybe their unwillingness to restore "for many" was based on their ignorance of just how much "for all" has scandalized traditional Catholics. I'm afraid it's much worse than that: they are well aware of this widespread traditionalist anguish, but don't care!
They don't even bother to pretend that the translation decision now depends on objective linguistic scholarship. No, Cardinal George assures us that the main reason the key committee has opted to stay with "for all" is that going back to "for many" at this stage might seem like giving in to the "Lefebvrites" and other traditionalists who claim "for all" invalidates the Mass!
Whatever happened to our bishops' awareness of St. Paul's teaching in I Corinthians 10: 23-29 about charitable concern for the over-sensitive or scrupulous consciences of Christians scandalized by the practice of eating meat that has been sacrificed to idols? In itself, the practice is not wrong, says Paul, because those idols are objectively nothing; but you don't eat such meat under circumstances where you are going to shock and scandalize other brethren who sincerely see things differently. Likewise, the "for all" translation is not objectively invalid, but going back to "for many" would not only be in line with Tradition (and all the published Scripture versions of Jesus' words at the Last Supper!), it would overcome a major obstacle that many over-scrupulous Catholics find in accepting the validity of the vernacular Mass.
But among our gentle and loving Shepherds of Christ's flock, a petulant (childish?) insistence on "not giving in" - not even yielding one inch! - to the despised traditionalists evidently takes priority over even that reconciliation and Church "unity" which, in the 'ecumenical' context, justifies (in the sight of most modern bishops) any number of unheard-of novelties.
Oremus!
Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S.
Do the Catholic kids get to ride the normal bus with the Protties, or do they have to ride the short bus?
Catholic children to be allowed use Protestant bus service
29/08/2006 - 09:44:40
Catholic bus ban takes new turn THE ban on Catholic students travelling on a new bus to a Protestant school in Limerick took a new twist yesterday when it emerged that there are still seats available on the bus. A Catholic couple, whose son and daughter attend the school were refused passes. Transport liaison officer, Deirdre Frawley, told Bernadette and Harry Gleeson that only children of Protestant denominations have an entitlement to transport on the bus, which will travel from Adare to Villiers School on the North Circular Road. Ms Frawley disclosed yesterday that places on the bus had not been fully subscribed yet as that process was still ongoing. She said there is provision in Department of Education guidelines to make concessions if the bus is not fully subscribed. This could enable Catholic children travel on the bus if there are places. She said that she will be writing to the Gleesons, who live at Caher Road, Mungret, shortly. Ms Frawley said: "It would be inappropriate for me to comment on this letter as it has to be cleared by our legal advisers." She said the Department sets out guidelines on who is entitled to travel on school buses. Ms Frawley said: "It is my job to determine eligibility." The Gleesons have instructed Limerick solicitor John Devane over the refusal to give passes to their children.
24 August 2006
By Jimmy Woulfe, Mid-West Correspondent
Natural Family Planning (NFP) is in the Colorado Springs Catholic News (again!). Since His Excellency has instituted new Marriage Preparation guidelines, two points have come to the forefront: the length of time for the preparation (one year), and the NFP requirement. The Bishop's article on the use of NFP is a bit lengthy for a blog post, but I think that it raises some interesting questions.
From the article:
His Excellency echoes this in his letter:
