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I tip my biretta to WDTPESer GS of MN o***{]***:¬) who alerted me about an 2 November interview in the *Wisconsin State Journal *which comes from Madison, WI, with His Excellency Most Reverend Charles Morlino, Bishop of Madison. In the interview there is a very interesting comment about Pope Benedict’s Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.
Before I post the relevant section, I will recall to your mind what Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, said in a recent interview with Petrus. Archbishop Ranjith responded to a question:
Q: Your Excellency, what kind of reception has Benedict XVI´s Motu Proprio which liberalized the Holy Mass according to the Tridentine Rite had? Some, in the very bosom of the Church, have got their noses bent out of shape…
Archbp. Ranjith: “There have been positive reactions and, it’s pointless to deny it, criticisms and opposing positions, also on the part of theologians, liturgists, priests, Bishops, and even Cardinals. Frankly, I don’t understand this distancing from, and, let’s just say it, rebellion against the Pope. I invite all, above all shepherds, to obey the Pope, who is the Successor of Peter. Bishops, in particular, swore loyalty to the Pontiff: they must be consistent and faithful to their commitment.”
Now that is pretty strong.
Let’s move to Bishop Morlino’s comments made on 2 November to the Wisconsin State Journal. He is talking about a stand he took concerning marriage and requiring priests to play a taped message in their parishes, but he mentions Summorum Pontificum (my emphases):
Pope Benedict just wrote to us bishops a letter not too long ago about the permission for the traditional Latin mass. He said, ‘I know some of you bishops have agonized year after year about whether or not to permit this,’ and I’ve been one of those. I was the only bishop in Wisconsin who did not permit the traditional Latin mass for what I thought were good reasons. And the Pope wrote and said, ‘I want to relieve you of the responsibility of all of that prudential pondering, so I’m making the decision.’ He saw that as a service, and I accepted it as a service. I was the only bishop in Wisconsin not to permit the traditional Latin mass, and now, in obedience, I will be the first bishop in Wisconsin to celebrate the traditional Latin mass. I really looked upon this as relieving certain priests of the responsibility to defend marriage if they felt that somehow there was going to be a certain discomfort about this at some level or another.
Frankly, I find this statement from Bishop Morlino to be edifying.
He is of course using this occasion in a somewhat self-interested way to shore up his own authority to make decisions about other matters by citing his own spirit of obedience to Pope Benedict in the matter of the TLM. There is nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact, he did that taped messages thing in defense of the Church’s teaching on marriage, so that priests could fudge it on their own.
Nevertheless, what he writes both lays his views directly on the line, publicly, and states a determination to conform to the document, publicly.
I admire that.
Full entry…
Before I post the relevant section, I will recall to your mind what Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, said in a recent interview with Petrus. Archbishop Ranjith responded to a question:
Q: Your Excellency, what kind of reception has Benedict XVI´s Motu Proprio which liberalized the Holy Mass according to the Tridentine Rite had? Some, in the very bosom of the Church, have got their noses bent out of shape…
Archbp. Ranjith: “There have been positive reactions and, it’s pointless to deny it, criticisms and opposing positions, also on the part of theologians, liturgists, priests, Bishops, and even Cardinals. Frankly, I don’t understand this distancing from, and, let’s just say it, rebellion against the Pope. I invite all, above all shepherds, to obey the Pope, who is the Successor of Peter. Bishops, in particular, swore loyalty to the Pontiff: they must be consistent and faithful to their commitment.”
Now that is pretty strong.
Let’s move to Bishop Morlino’s comments made on 2 November to the Wisconsin State Journal. He is talking about a stand he took concerning marriage and requiring priests to play a taped message in their parishes, but he mentions Summorum Pontificum (my emphases):
Pope Benedict just wrote to us bishops a letter not too long ago about the permission for the traditional Latin mass. He said, ‘I know some of you bishops have agonized year after year about whether or not to permit this,’ and I’ve been one of those. I was the only bishop in Wisconsin who did not permit the traditional Latin mass for what I thought were good reasons. And the Pope wrote and said, ‘I want to relieve you of the responsibility of all of that prudential pondering, so I’m making the decision.’ He saw that as a service, and I accepted it as a service. I was the only bishop in Wisconsin not to permit the traditional Latin mass, and now, in obedience, I will be the first bishop in Wisconsin to celebrate the traditional Latin mass. I really looked upon this as relieving certain priests of the responsibility to defend marriage if they felt that somehow there was going to be a certain discomfort about this at some level or another.
Frankly, I find this statement from Bishop Morlino to be edifying.
He is of course using this occasion in a somewhat self-interested way to shore up his own authority to make decisions about other matters by citing his own spirit of obedience to Pope Benedict in the matter of the TLM. There is nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact, he did that taped messages thing in defense of the Church’s teaching on marriage, so that priests could fudge it on their own.
Nevertheless, what he writes both lays his views directly on the line, publicly, and states a determination to conform to the document, publicly.
I admire that.
Full entry…