I don’t know with what attitude you held when you wrote “It is much more important to be irked when someone does not feel enthusiasm for the voiceless”, but I will assume good intent on your part.
I did not mean to impugn you. When I write, I try to write so that anyone who reads the post can benefit from it. Please don’t take my comment to mean that you personally are being addressed.
Yes, you are correct, that Latin is not as important as corporal works of mercy. That being said, corporal works of mercy do not replace our spiritual heritage, which the Church has implored us to keep.
The Church has not implored us to keep Latin. The Church has given us a direction. This word is extremely important in Roman Law. Because it means that the Church has pointed to something, but not excluded something else. In this case, she has pointed to Latin and other elements of liturgy that should be preserved, but she has not excluded newer forms of music and younger languages. In Roman Law what does not exclude does not prohibit.
There are far too many anti-traditionalists that snidely assume that they are mutually exclusive: either you are obsessed with traditions,* or* you help the poor. This isn’t the case.
I totally agree with you. This is faulty thinking.
The Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate had, until their recent controversy, a thriving outreach to the poor, while simultaneously developing the '61 Breviarium Romanum as an iPhone app and celebrating the EF of Holy Mass.
This is a subject that has nothing to do with what we’re discussing.
Really there is no logical reason that this dichotomy exists at all. My parish respectfully implored our priest not to remove the altar rails at our church. That had absolutely no bearing on how much we feed the hungry, aid the ailing, shelter the homeless, and educate the uneducated.
I agree with you. If something is a work of art, as are some communion rails, they should be left alone. To destroy them is unnecessary and idiotic.
I do very much agree that “The last thing in the world that the Church wants is to see her children fight amongst themselves.” Unfortunately this has occurred anyway. The Church has told us to preserve Latin, and many who have obeyed have suffered for it.
The suffering is caused by both sides. I’m telling you, I’m in a community that uses Latin and we have no such suffering. However, I must also add to this our example. We never discuss this with people outside of the community, unless they’re interested in discussing it as is the case on this thread. Otherwise, no one would ever know. I think that there is an unnecessary negative reaction to the use of Latin and the use of the Extraordinary Form. There has also been an erroneous idea that the Latin and the Extraordinary Form are a right. This is not true. Again, in Roman Law that which is extraordinary is not a right but a privilege. Pope Benedict deliberately used the adjective “extra ordinaria”. It was not an accident. The proof is in the response that he gave to religious superiors who asked if they had to allow it. His answer was that it was a gift, not a right.
We have mistaken impressions on both sides. Traditionalists fight for these things as if they were absolute constitutional rights and the other side fights against them as if their rights were being threatened. Both sides are wrong in their perceptions, which leads to misconceptions about each other.
A tiny schismatic minority of extremists are constantly brought up as evidence that it’s the traditionalist side that’s problematic, while meanwhile anti-traditionalists do things like this and are seemingly getting away with it:
ilfoglio.it/soloqui/18390
That which “seems” is not always that which “is”. Remember that. As a superior, I always tell my brothers and the laity who complain about this or that and then say, “But those guys over there . . .” I always say to them, “What I do or say to you is your business. What I do or say to those guys over there is their business.”
I recently had a group of lay people complain about the mass and how I lend a brother to celebrate the OF, but not the EF. I told them the exact same thing. “Worry about you, not me. You do your job and I’ll do mine. Mine is none of your business.”
This is an ongoing problem. Everyone seems to feel that they can tell everyone else what to do or not do. This is not just Traditionalists. I mean everyone on both sides of the house. When and where did we get all of this democracy? It’s scary.
Self-communicating is when one picks up the chalice or ciborium from the altar and gives Communion to themselves rather than receiving Communion from the priest, deacon or the EMHC.