Padre Pio and the Ordinary Form Mass

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There are a number of Catholics who attend TLM only even travelling big distances to avoid NO mass (not just the older generation). Why has the church decided to allow the TLM to continue to this day? Was it to avoid a potential split in the church?
 
Krisdun said:
Why has the church decided to allow the TLM to continue to this day?
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Really, no one actually knows the ultimate reasons. Speculation is all over the place, and none has enough actual evidence to back it up.

Whether intentionally or not, though, SP did end up weakening and fracturing the SSPX. Also, it had the unintended consequence of aggravating polarization within the Church itself, with many TLMers in communion with Rome forming their isolated communities. A sort of “church within a church”. On both sides of the Atlantic, that has aggravated polarization due to political ideology, as well.

I personally think that both those trends are unintended consequences, though.
 
I tend to think the Church permitted it because the OF Mass was firmly established and there was no longer any good reason to prohibit people, including clergy, from using the EF form if they wished. It also permitted groups like the FSSP and ICKSP to have traditional Masses without needing to have some degree of separation from the Church to do so. The traditional Mass is a part of Church history and it would be good to preserve it.
But as the person above said, that’s merely speculation.

In any event, it has nothing to do with the OF Mass lacking validity. I agree with the statement that if you are hanging around people or reading websites that suggest otherwise, you should cease doing that.
 
The sedevacantist scenario would be very inconvenient.
Hundreds of thousands of masses would be invalid, no pope or cardinals, 99% of clergy are just laity and heretics, 99% of churches and chapels are without the Real Presence, and not to mention the extreme loss of souls(7 billion people are on the planet, and of faithful sedevacantists I’d say about a 100.000 or a bit less), so yeah, around 6.9 billion people would be on their road to hell, and not to mention the divisions and schisms in the sedevacantist communities, one proclaiming another false, and the other doing so. So, yeah, I strongly doubt God would allow this to happen for decades and decades.
  • The reason I used 99% is because they claim their priests and bishops are the remnant, and I think some have valid orders, but still…, their claims mean millions upon millions of shepherds and leaders are heretics and even laity is just so so inconvenient and unlikely.
 
Jbrady said:
As a friar, he would know that it is not his place to second guess the Pope himself as to the validity of the Mass. And that his own personal opinion would have no significance.
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Many priests at the time voiced opinions about the changes being brought about by VII but still remained obedient and did what was expected of them.

Priests are voicing opinions about all sorts of things all the time. They are after all humans just like the rest of us and that can include sometimes struggling to follow what is expected of them, even if they are and want to remain obedient.

And voicing a critical opnion over a beer with close friends or in a private letter to close friends is not at all the same thing as openely announcing the same thing during a homily.

Having an opinion is not at all the same thing as being in open rebellion or even being in fundamental disagreement.

And often those phases pass, and the doubters come to see the Vatican was right.
 
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Exactly. 5 invalid popes, no cardinals to elect a new one, and a promulgated invalid Mass and rites which. I seriously doubt God would allow that.
 
Considering the timing, it seems as if God did not want him to have to make such a hard decision. St Padre Pio was obedient and holy at the same time and did not deserve to be given such a trial. God took Him to heaven 6 months before the Mass inspired by Cardinal Bugnini was enforced.
 
Krisdun said:
Why has the church decided to allow the TLM to continue to this day? Was it to avoid a potential split in the church?
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This question was answered by Pope Benedict XVI. As Cardinal Ratzinger he said “In the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy…:…We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries”.

It’s because the old mass is an organic development of that which was communicated by Our Lord to St Peter, throughout the course of the centuries. In Summorum Pontificum Pope Benedict explains the logical reasons why the old mass should be allowed. It doesn’t make sense to ban the recitation of a liturgy which was celebrated by countless saints like Padre Pio for example.

Imagine banning one of the Eastern rites? That would be unthinkable. Imagine the uproar? This would be no less unthinkable, because although on paper this mass is not a different rite, at least in practice there are very clear differences, and it is still the banning of something ancient if we ban it. So the church in her wisdom allows it, even if it’s not officially considered the normative or ordinary form
 
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Cirdan_XII said:
Many priests at the time voiced opinions about the changes being brought about by VII but still remained obedient and did what was expected of them.
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The ability to publicly express an opinion is much more restricted for a friar or other religious under the authority of his superior. If he had an opinion, it may have been expressed with all due humility with his superior, but would not have gone any farther than that. And any negative discussion about it with his brothers would have been seen as murmuring, something seen as very negative and disruptive to community life.

Moreover if he was exposed to the new Mass at all, it would have been a very disciplined liturgy with none of the experimentation and nonsense that went on in the secular world, except for any experiments authorized by the Vatican before the new missal was promulgated.

Moreover most religious communities introduced the new changes gradually. The abbey I’m associated with completed them in 1980. It included a new Breviary as well (Monastic Liturgy of the Hours, à different schema than the secular LOTH).

Life in a religious community is far stricter and more disciplined than in the secular world we are used to.
 
All true although I suppose friars can always ask to be transferred if they feel that another order or community would suit their needs better…
 
But, the main point is, schismatic traditionalists seperate themselves from Rome because of VII and Novus Ordo.
Padre Pio, the stigmatist saint, who was close to the Lord, who received messages and visions, who had many gifts and abilities, stayed in the, as the traditionalists call it, “VII Church”. If the Church really became a community of heretics and apostates then with the See of Peter vacant, I am sure the Lord would tell Padre Pio that. But, he stayed in the Church, and that to me is a great sign that, although there be many crises and problems in the Church, we should work while in it, and not seperate ourselves from it.
 
Krisdun said:
All true although I suppose friars can always ask to be transferred if they feel that another order or community would suit their needs better…
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Thank goodness that now this would be easy thanks to Pope Benedict etc. Although sadly back then it was much harder to find a traditional order I imagine
 
Krisdun said:
All true although I suppose friars can always ask to be transferred if they feel that another order or community would suit their needs better…
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Still not easy. He would first have needed to approach his superior. For another community within the order, first his direct superior would need to agree, then the other community, then the superior general.

For another order, since his order is of pontifical right, besides the new order, the Vatican and the pope need to agree.

He could also ask to be released from his vows and be incardinated, or laicised. That also must be petitioned to the Vatican.

Solemn vows are taken very seriously by the Church, not unlike marriage vows, and being released from vows is more or less the equivalent of asking for an annulment.

Being a saint, I’m willing to bet a beer it didn’t even enter into Padre Pio’s consciousness.

I’m also pretty sure that from his vantage point and his era, he never would have seen any of the serious abuses of the new missal, especially since he died before it was promulgated.

You’d have to search the archives of his community to learn which, if any, adaptations, the community used in its liturgy during the experimental era between Vatican II and 1970.
 
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OraLabora said:
English isn’t my first language.
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Don’t worry. That’s precisely the type of mistake that native English speakers make all the time. It didn’t even enter my head that you might not be a native speaker. 😃
 
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