Rut roh!
The parish web site? I didn’t know it still existed. We have had major problems with the parish ISP and I thought it was long gone. :-(((
Yes, weekly is so much better than monthly. I don’t care which ritual is being observed, there is a calendar and rythm to it. “The 22nd Sunda after Pentecost” really doesn’t have much to say if there isn’t a 21st and 23d also.
If you know who I am then this is the poop:
The former bishop, now retired, was the only one not to reject Ecclesia Dei. He gave the insult to the ALTAR, not to the priest. Any priest in good standing can come here and celebrate the Tridentine mas on the 1st Sunday of the Monthnow here. Before that, the indult wa granted to a differnet churhc about a mile from here.
Thi is all organize by the local Una Voce group. Wjhen I came on board, it was made clear that we could do this, at this time, in thiis place, with no advertisement, and that there would be a rotation of priests. There was not to bne one priest celebrating the Mass regularly. Unfortunately, the “Archdeacon” at the time, a local priest, was put in charge of this de facto and was very very much against it. He did everything he could to thwart it. I would jump in at the last minute (hed call me, in fact, at 2:30 one SUnday when the Mass was to start at 2PM when I was at a parish much farther form here) and I’dmake it happen. Yes, even when it started that late. Since then, gee whz! Surprise surprise! He has been dismissed from his office and is now on a leave of absence for “personal reasons.”
As such, the parish at which it was held thogh they were the very bees knees of the universe. The pastor was under HUGE pressure from the choir that this Mass was just too much of a burden for them. Bishop wrote to me and asked me to take the Mass. Of course, I did!!!
So many of the Hlier than Thous at the high places in the other parish refused to drive the mile down to us, here 8in the ghetto, fearing for their lives. ( I don’t make this up!!! This is from letters., phone calls, e,mails and face-to-face confrontations). Incidentally, that church and rectory have experienced many many more legal problems than we have. So they just made excuses. On the matter of not advertising, I am planning now on advertising, once I get a chance to make a becoming ad for the local rag and the Diocesan paper. They are expensive, though. But we have a new Bishop, and the non-advertising rule was under the old bishop. (Don’t knock him, we got the Mass that all the other bishops refused to allow! Inch by inch by inch!) It is easier to get pardon than permission and, seriously, methinks that ban on advertising came more from that other priest in charge – no longer in charge – than from the bishop. Time to try. What’s the cost? Only money. I am a pastor now. They can’t touch me. They can yell and scream at me but they can’t touch me, unless there are civil legal charges against me.)
So, all of that is to explain that I am not the one who determined the time and place for the 1962 Mass here. I am not the Chaplian to the group. ( I refused the chaplaincy no on any groujds toher than I’ve got enough work already just in parrochail matters, which must take priority, to make me immortal!!) Essentially, I am nothing but the celebrant of the Mass. There NEEDS to be a movement afoot, genuinely and officially, for changes to be made. Of course, I can petition the Bishop. That’s wonderful. But in a “special” Mass such as it is, if no one wants to come to it, what use is there in that? Yes, I would like it weekly, daily, in fact. But this is defintiely something that needs to come from the folks who treeasure the Tridentine Mass and want to reamin Kosher in attending. So, if we are on the same page and we kow each other, then . . . get to work!

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– Fr. L.