P
pnewton
Guest
I would think that the bishop is well aware of his authority, much more than the non-bishops here. I guess we will see if this unfolds any here.
- Status
W
wasserfall
Guest
If the pastor is already celebrating 3 or 4 masses on Sunday, then sure unless the bishop allows him to celebrate an unlimited number of masses, then he can’t add a traditional mass on Sunday.
Then again, no one said that the pastor was thinking of adding a traditional mass on Sunday. He could celebrate the traditional mass on some other day.
The rest of your objections have no basis in law. It is up to the pastor to decide if he has enough time in his schedule to schedule a traditional mass. The bishop simply doesn’t have a voice in the decision. The Pope has removed that competence.
T
trickster
Guest
It sounds like the bishop’s problem is one of logistics. Traditional Latin Mass has a high place of honour in our church and it should be included in every diocese.
There needs to be an education program to re-introduce the latin mass within the context of the post-Vatican II council as it is percieved by too many as a political movement to return the church to the “old days”. And I know that is not the intent of the traditionalist catholic movement.
What is problematic with the traditionalist movement is their inability to acknowledge any good out of the post-Vatican II church and they are equally to blame as liberals who don’t acknowledge any good out of the pre-Vatican II church. It is the same church, thank God we have choice in the masses we can attend as “style, imagery”, etc spiritually nourish the soul as we celebrate the mass and recieve the eucharist.
I guess the good news is tha if the bishop’s problem is purely logistical, there have been some good positive suggestions as how to move towards getting a latin mass in your diocese, and I like and support the fundraising idea…it seems to be the most logical way…also along with a diocesan education program, why not organize a latin mass in a gym for starters, and/or do as much of the latin mass as possible within the architectural limits of today’s church’s.
Look forward to seeing how this all turns out.
Bruce
Trickster
There needs to be an education program to re-introduce the latin mass within the context of the post-Vatican II council as it is percieved by too many as a political movement to return the church to the “old days”. And I know that is not the intent of the traditionalist catholic movement.
What is problematic with the traditionalist movement is their inability to acknowledge any good out of the post-Vatican II church and they are equally to blame as liberals who don’t acknowledge any good out of the pre-Vatican II church. It is the same church, thank God we have choice in the masses we can attend as “style, imagery”, etc spiritually nourish the soul as we celebrate the mass and recieve the eucharist.
I guess the good news is tha if the bishop’s problem is purely logistical, there have been some good positive suggestions as how to move towards getting a latin mass in your diocese, and I like and support the fundraising idea…it seems to be the most logical way…also along with a diocesan education program, why not organize a latin mass in a gym for starters, and/or do as much of the latin mass as possible within the architectural limits of today’s church’s.
Look forward to seeing how this all turns out.
Bruce
Trickster
L
LilyM
Guest
He’s thinking of starting a Latin Mass chapter - which sounds like a whole lot more than just one weekly Mass is involved. I may be mistaken of course.
And I see nothing in Summorum Pontificum that forbids a bishop from having his say (even though such say is not final) in the matter as both
a) the ultimate overseer of the liturgical needs of the diocese and
b) more importantly, the person to whom each priest in that diocese promises obedience at his ordination
which are matters of both legal and extra-legal authority residing in the Bishop.
T
The_Curt_Jester
Guest
The bishop cannot refuse to permit the priest to say the TLM. Since SP, priests can choose to say the TLM (and actually, they could before, but it wasn’t clearly put forth) if they wish to do so and need not seek the bishop’s permission. I think the group trying to get the TLM is going about it in the wrong way by attempting to do so through the bishop. I know of a priest who specifically does not want the diocese to know precisely because he knows they will (and they have) given him, unjustly, a hassle about it.
If the priest is willing to learn, then help him get the necessary items required to celebrate the TLM and go from there.
There are certainly many people who are still opposed to the TLM despite what our Holy Father has said, and go through pains to try minimizing it. Sad, but true. Imagine if a bishop were to ban the NO? There’d be a riot! And why ban the TLM in the first place? Many people who attend, or want to attend, one do so because they are tired of seeing the lack of reverence, the Broadway-style music, and so many other things that take away from the Mass. Are the people so against the TLM really afraid that certain Catholics actually want to take their faith seriously (not that I’m saying all people who go to the NO don’t) and are searching for something more reverent and in keeping with what the Mass should be?
If the priest is willing to learn, then help him get the necessary items required to celebrate the TLM and go from there.
There are certainly many people who are still opposed to the TLM despite what our Holy Father has said, and go through pains to try minimizing it. Sad, but true. Imagine if a bishop were to ban the NO? There’d be a riot! And why ban the TLM in the first place? Many people who attend, or want to attend, one do so because they are tired of seeing the lack of reverence, the Broadway-style music, and so many other things that take away from the Mass. Are the people so against the TLM really afraid that certain Catholics actually want to take their faith seriously (not that I’m saying all people who go to the NO don’t) and are searching for something more reverent and in keeping with what the Mass should be?
W
wasserfall
Guest
Sure the bishop can give his opinion, as can the choir director. But neither have the authority to forbid the pastor from celebrating the traditional mass as long as the conditions in Summorum Pontificum are met.
Neither of these points are relevant. Summorum Pontifcum removes the bishop from the decision of whether a pastor may celebrate the traditional mass when requested to do so by members of the parish. The bishop has no authority to contravene the provision of the Pope and the pastor owes his bishop no obedience in the matter if his bishop attempts to do so.
Granted, the pastor may feel it is necessary for his peaceful coexistence with his bishop to accede to his bishops unjust demands, but that does not change the fact that the bishop would be abusing his authority and violating the law by making the unjust demand in the first place.
If these were to be the case, then the proper response would be to take the case to Ecclesia Dei.
J
JReducation
Guest
You must understand several things here, Mary.
The Extraordinary Form was released by SP, but there is nothing in SP or in Canon Law that makes it a right. SP is very clear that it’s a response to a pastoral request. It says that the bishop should make every effort to accommodate those who request it. However, it does not command a bishop to pull a priest out of his hat to celebrate it.
SP presumes the those interested in the Extraordinary Form will approach their pastor or their bishop with a request, not a demand. Going on the Internet requesting that people write letters of protest is probably the greatest mistake that you could have made. You identified the parish and the diocese. Anyone from your diocese who sees this can forward your post to the bishop. This puts you in a legal hot seat. Canon Law does not allow the faithful to intimidate, harass or bully their clergy. Go to Catholic News forum and read the story about the parish in Madison, WI. The bishop came back citing canons that penalize anyone who pushes the clergy. Try to avoid that.
The best way to repair this, before it gets back to your bishop is for you to write a letter, not an email, explaining the desire for the Extraordinary Form of the mass and requesting an appointment to meet with him. If you want to take a few other people with you, that’s certainly allowed, as long as you ask the bishop if he will receive you. Do not show up at his office with a group, if he’s expecting only you. That can get you thrown out of the chancery faster than yesterday’s newspaper. A bishop is not an employee of the diocese. He IS the diocese and he commands respect.
He has a duty to listen. But you must approach him in a manner that will encourage him to want to listen. That means with reverence.
As to the priest who is willing to learn Latin to celebrate the Extraordinary Form, I can understand why the bishop is not factoring this in. I don’t know the particulars, because I’m not there. However, SP grants any priest who wants to celebrate the EF the freedom to do so, provided that the priest is a diocesan priest.
I have several questions for you. 1) Is this priest a diocesan priest? If he is a religious, SP does not apply to him. He needs his superior’s permission to celebrate the EF in public. 2) If he is a diocesan, why has he not approached his bishop? The laity should not be approaching a bishop on behalf of a priest. That’s called intrusion.
There is a special relationship between a Diocesan Priest and his bishop. First, he shares in his bishop’s priesthood. Without his bishop, he cannot function as a priest. Ordination alone is not enough. He must be linked to a bishop. Secondly, it is his duty, not the laity’s, to approach the bishop and express his desire to learn Latin in order to celebrate the EF. Remember, learning Latin and learning the rubrics for the EF requires training. This training is not free. Even the FSSP charges for teaching this. They have to eat too. Then there are the Latin classes. SP requires fluency in Latin, not just the ability to decode it.
Many of us had Latin in the seminary, but unless you use it, you never actually learn more than the vocabulary lessons that you had in the seminary, rules of grammar and the few translations that you did in class. Once you’re out of that environment, you lose it. I am speaking from personal experience. I was recently named Superior General of my community, which requires that I use Latin for official documents. Despite four years of it in the seminary, I can’t read or write a word of it without a grammar book and a dictionary. It’s been 20 years since I saw it. It is unrealistic to assume that everyone who studies a language that he never uses, will retain it. How many people on this thread have not studied French or Spanish in high school and how many can converse in either language? You don’t use it, you lose it. Father may have studied it in the seminary, just as he probably studied a European language, which is a requirement for a BA degree. But he probably speaks neither, unless he’s using it.
J
JReducation
Guest
If there are no other priests in the diocese who come forward to celebrate the EF, the bishop has no authority to force them and neither does the Vatican. The Holy Father clearly leaves it up to the priests to choose to celebrate it. His proposal was that the bishops can call on the Ecclesia Dei Commission for assistance, if they can’t find priests to celebrate the EF. He never promised that the ED Commission would solve the problem. The ED Commission receives the bishop’s communication. If they know of a priest or a society that is willing to go to that diocese, they put the two in touch with each other. However, the bishop has the final word as to whether that priest or that society can enter his diocese, even though he comes recommended by the ED Commission. All that the Commission is doing is hooking them up. The particulars are to be decided at the local level, not in Rome. The Holy Father did not authorize the ED Commission to assign priests from one diocese to another. That’s a violation of Canon Law.
No priest can be sent to another diocese without his consent. Diocesan priests promise obedience to their bishops, within the law. It is not within the law for a bishop to assign a priest to another diocese, if that priest won’t go. If the Commission finds a society priest or a regular priest, the superior of the society or of the religious community has the final word as to whether that priest is released to enter that diocese, but he cannot assign the priest unless the bishop is willing to hire him. It’s like any other corporation. You submit your resume and credentials and the CEO, with his personnel department, decide if you’re a good fit for them.
I strongly suggest, that you take the low road. Ask for a meeting with His Excellency. If you want to bring others, let him know that three or four of you would like to meet with him. Give him the agenda in your letter. Make the agenda short, nothing that will take more than 15 minutes of his time. Bishops are very busy people and they see hundreds of people a week. Their appointments must be brief and to the point. If the bishop is interested in a longer discussion and has the time to talk more, he will encourage you to keep talking. If he doesn’t have the time, you won’t feel frustrated, because you did not discuss everything you wanted. So plan for a short meeting and hope that he will have more time. It’s better than planning for an hour meeting and being thanked for coming 20 minutes after you arrived. That can be frustrating.
Another suggestion. Never email a bishop. It is beneath the dignity of a bishop to receive email from the laity. Bishops receive emails from their staff, but not from the laity. An email is a very informal way of communication. Send a nice letter, in a nice envelope with nice paper. Sometimes it helps if you send it registered mail. Mail at the chancery goes to a central point where it is received. and distributed form there. A certified letter lets the person who is receiving it know that it’s important. They are always very good at getting those to the bishop’s secretary very quickly, rather than passing it along several layers of people before it gets to His Excellency.
You have to deal with the law and with diplomacy. At the end of the day, the EF is not a canonical right, hence the term “extraordinary”. The Holy Father was very astute. He deliberately calls it the extraordinary form so as not to lock the Church into it. The Church is never locked into anything that is extraordinary anymore than we’re locked into an extraordinary request that our children make. The language calls for respect and attention on the part of the bishops, but it also calls for flexibility on the part of the laity.
Keep praying about it and talking. Things will happen. If you start to demand what the bishop has no legal obligation to provide, you can lose your case, before you even start. Remember, the Church moves slowly, especially on things like this, because they’re not top priority right now. Right now, the big priority in the minds of the American bishops are the Ad Limina visits, which are taking place and the issue of religious freedom. When a bishop makes his list of pastoral needs, things are lined up in order of priority. Then he has to allocate his personal time and diocesan resources to deal with things in that order. Of course, that order can change, because something new can come up.
Just an example, I know a bishop that had to cancel a Confirmation and ask a priest to cover another one, because the Holy Father changed the date for his Ad Limina visit and gave him a 10 day notice. Things like Confirmation are planned a year in advance. I’m giving you the examples to help you understand your bishop when he says that something is not a necessity. He can be looking at the many other things that demand his immediate attention, where as an EF mass is a nice thing to have, but it’s not something that the faithful needed yesterday…
Again, pray, dialogue and be patient. God and the Church are not our enemies. Things happen, but not always on our schedule.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, FFV
No priest can be sent to another diocese without his consent. Diocesan priests promise obedience to their bishops, within the law. It is not within the law for a bishop to assign a priest to another diocese, if that priest won’t go. If the Commission finds a society priest or a regular priest, the superior of the society or of the religious community has the final word as to whether that priest is released to enter that diocese, but he cannot assign the priest unless the bishop is willing to hire him. It’s like any other corporation. You submit your resume and credentials and the CEO, with his personnel department, decide if you’re a good fit for them.
I strongly suggest, that you take the low road. Ask for a meeting with His Excellency. If you want to bring others, let him know that three or four of you would like to meet with him. Give him the agenda in your letter. Make the agenda short, nothing that will take more than 15 minutes of his time. Bishops are very busy people and they see hundreds of people a week. Their appointments must be brief and to the point. If the bishop is interested in a longer discussion and has the time to talk more, he will encourage you to keep talking. If he doesn’t have the time, you won’t feel frustrated, because you did not discuss everything you wanted. So plan for a short meeting and hope that he will have more time. It’s better than planning for an hour meeting and being thanked for coming 20 minutes after you arrived. That can be frustrating.
Another suggestion. Never email a bishop. It is beneath the dignity of a bishop to receive email from the laity. Bishops receive emails from their staff, but not from the laity. An email is a very informal way of communication. Send a nice letter, in a nice envelope with nice paper. Sometimes it helps if you send it registered mail. Mail at the chancery goes to a central point where it is received. and distributed form there. A certified letter lets the person who is receiving it know that it’s important. They are always very good at getting those to the bishop’s secretary very quickly, rather than passing it along several layers of people before it gets to His Excellency.
You have to deal with the law and with diplomacy. At the end of the day, the EF is not a canonical right, hence the term “extraordinary”. The Holy Father was very astute. He deliberately calls it the extraordinary form so as not to lock the Church into it. The Church is never locked into anything that is extraordinary anymore than we’re locked into an extraordinary request that our children make. The language calls for respect and attention on the part of the bishops, but it also calls for flexibility on the part of the laity.
Keep praying about it and talking. Things will happen. If you start to demand what the bishop has no legal obligation to provide, you can lose your case, before you even start. Remember, the Church moves slowly, especially on things like this, because they’re not top priority right now. Right now, the big priority in the minds of the American bishops are the Ad Limina visits, which are taking place and the issue of religious freedom. When a bishop makes his list of pastoral needs, things are lined up in order of priority. Then he has to allocate his personal time and diocesan resources to deal with things in that order. Of course, that order can change, because something new can come up.
Just an example, I know a bishop that had to cancel a Confirmation and ask a priest to cover another one, because the Holy Father changed the date for his Ad Limina visit and gave him a 10 day notice. Things like Confirmation are planned a year in advance. I’m giving you the examples to help you understand your bishop when he says that something is not a necessity. He can be looking at the many other things that demand his immediate attention, where as an EF mass is a nice thing to have, but it’s not something that the faithful needed yesterday…
Again, pray, dialogue and be patient. God and the Church are not our enemies. Things happen, but not always on our schedule.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, FFV
J
JReducation
Guest
That’s not totally accurate. Both SP and UE state that the bishop is the highest liturgical authority in the diocese. And UE clarifies that the bishop must be informed and he must also agree that the celebration of the EF does not interfere with other responsibilities, such as taking out a mass that accommodates 800 people to put an EF for 50 people. That would be unreasonable. The bishop also has to know how many masses the priest is celebrating. Normally, no priest celebrates more than two masses in one day. If a parish is very large with five masses on a Sunday and only two priests a third priest must be brought in for that fifth mass. To add an EF can potentially mean that a priest may have more than two masses, which requires the permission of the bishop.
Just as 50 people have the right to request the EF, the other 750 people have a right to have the OF mass at the time that they have always had it. They too can go to the bishop with a very legitimate complaint.
I’ll give you an example. I help at a parish that has 8 masses every weekend in Spanish, Creole, and English. This creates a very tight situation. You must have a priest who speaks each of those languages. This particular parish has a rather small church. It sits about 800 people. Every mass is full. Some have people standing in the back, particularly the Spanish mass.
The parish has three priests and 8 masses in three languages. To cover the bases, they get a retired priest to celebrate two masses. In a parish like that, to insert an EF into the schedule, they would have to drop one of the OF masses. However, it’s not that simple. They can’t consolidate, when there is no room to consolidate. Thee is not enough seating and not enough parking. They need those 8 masses.
If they bumped one of those masses to accommodate an EF for 100 people, the bishop certainly has the right to forbid such a change in schedule, because it negatively affects more people than it helps.
Yes, any diocesan priest can celebrate the EF without the permission from the bishop. However, no pastor has the authority to upset his parish’s mass schedule. There are parishes that can consolidate, because the attendance is low. In that case, it would not be upseting to the mass schedule. If you have two masses with 1/3 of the Church, you may as well consolidate and have one mass with 2/3 of the Church. That leaves a slot for the EF and releases the priest who wants to celebrate it.
Pastors have to juggle with the schedules and with the law that says that a priest cannot celebrate more than 2 masses without the permission of the bishop. Therefore, the bishop remains in the loop. He alone can grant permission for more than one mass and he has to approve changes in the schedule. He is also responsible for the proper celebration of all the masses in his diocese. In this case, if a priest says that he can celebrate the EF, the bishop has the right to make sure that the priest can deliver. It’s the same as if a priest said that he can celebrate a mass in Spanish. The pastor must guarantee that the priest knows enough Spanish to do so. The bishop has the right to require such a guarantee.
We have to be very careful in our interpretation of SP and UE. We tend to get a little uppity when it comes to the authority of the bishop in this matter. It was never the Holy Father’s intention to take the bishop out of the loop. He explicitly says so.
From SP
**
Art. 5. § 1 In parishes, where there is a stable group of faithful who adhere to the earlier liturgical tradition, the pastor should willingly accept their requests to celebrate the Mass according to the rite of the Roman Missal published in 1962, and ensure that the welfare of these faithful harmonises with the ordinary pastoral care of the parish, under the guidance of the bishop in accordance with canon 392, avoiding discord and favouring the unity of the whole Church.**
Fraternally,
Br. JR, FFV
T
triumphguy
Guest
Those pesky Bishops!
So they’re not just there to put the kibosh on anything the laity say!
So they’re not just there to put the kibosh on anything the laity say!
R
Rich_C
Guest
Mary, I’ll say a prayer that God provides for you and all the other faithful who want the Mass of the Ages so badly. I try to pray every day that God will restore the traditional Mass to every parish some day.
In the meantime:
In the meantime:
P
prettiefly
Guest
1.) If you haven’t already, set the groundwork, get your group organized - contact Una Voce and set up a chapter in your Diocese:
www.unavoce.org
If there are any chapters of Una Voce near your area, coordinate with them. The main Una Voce website will have a list of chapters.
2.) Once you have things set up, if things still don’t move forward, write to Ecclesia Dei and explain your situation:
William Joseph Cardinal Levada
Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei”
Palazzo della Congr. per la Dottrina della Fede,
00193 Roma, Piazza del S. Uffizio, 11
Italy
Keep moving forward - courteously, with firm resolve. God will bless this good work~
W
wasserfall
Guest
I suspect you did not read the entire thread, Brother JR, because despite the quote you cherry picked from one of my posts, I believe every objection you raised was already raised and covered in the discussion.
J
JReducation
Guest
Because it’s not accurate to say that the bishop has no voice in the matter. If that’s not what it’s meant, then better words need to be selected.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, FFV
P
ProVobis
Guest
Great points. And the longer the wait, the fewer people who will be drawn to the Latin.
It’s a shame the all-vernacular was so quickly implemented. Veterum Sapientia was so quickly dismissed a few years after it was esteemed so highly.
O
OraLabora
Guest
I would suggest… offer it up.
For some from other parts of the world who do not know Thunder Bay, it’s a city of just over 100,000 or so smack in the middle of a awful lot of bush. Geographically the diocese is very large; the farthest parish reachable by road is nearly 400 miles from the city. Some parishes are reachable only by air, also 400 miles or so into the bush. The area experiences very severe winter weather.
I expect priests there are stretched as thin as most places, plus they have great distances to cover often in poor weather.
Perhaps one should think of the clergy and diocese’s needs before our own.
Another suggestion, perhaps the inclusion of more Latin in the OF Mass. Maybe one Latin OF Mass per month. Go easy on the bishop, he has a huge responsibility and task on his hands!
For some from other parts of the world who do not know Thunder Bay, it’s a city of just over 100,000 or so smack in the middle of a awful lot of bush. Geographically the diocese is very large; the farthest parish reachable by road is nearly 400 miles from the city. Some parishes are reachable only by air, also 400 miles or so into the bush. The area experiences very severe winter weather.
I expect priests there are stretched as thin as most places, plus they have great distances to cover often in poor weather.
Perhaps one should think of the clergy and diocese’s needs before our own.
Another suggestion, perhaps the inclusion of more Latin in the OF Mass. Maybe one Latin OF Mass per month. Go easy on the bishop, he has a huge responsibility and task on his hands!
T
triumphguy
Guest
Very good point!
http://www.dotb.ca/images/diocese/map_diocese.jpg
This is what it looks like from the air.
g.co/maps/8mczu
http://www.dotb.ca/images/diocese/map_diocese.jpg
I would imagine that there are also many First Nations communities who would demand the liturgy in their own native languages too.
This is what it looks like from the air.
g.co/maps/8mczu
W
wasserfall
Guest
Once again all completely irrelevant. The original poster isn’t looking for a priest or a church. She already has a willing priest. The bishop doesn’t have to approve or arrange or accommodate anything – just stand back and let the priest learn and celebrate the mass.
T
triumphguy
Guest
It means that the resources of the diocese may be stretched very thinly already.
Pastorally it may be more important for the diocese to educate its priests in Oji-Cree and Ojibway, especially since the Residential School debacle and class action suits.
Pastorally it may be more important for the diocese to educate its priests in Oji-Cree and Ojibway, especially since the Residential School debacle and class action suits.
O
OraLabora
Guest
The bishop is looking at the big-picture needs of his diocese. It’s his right, and his duty. He may want the priest to cover in another parish that is short of a priest, and in need of a Mass, rather than have an EF Mass. He may not want to burn out his priests. He may have a thousand other good reasons, or he may not.
What is relevant is that we don’t know all the facts, nor the bishop’s real thinking and arguments against an EF Mass. We are getting a very one-sided picture of the situation.
I for one am ready to give him the benefit of the doubt.
- Status