So speaks the leader of American bishops re wider use of the pre-Vatican II Mass?

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Isn’t this spokesman’s diocese in Chapter 11?

I think there should be a new “norm” binding under “obedience” that if you can’t fiscally manage your diocese, you can’t speak for the other 179 dioceses in your country.
 
Unity? They want unity? How about unity with ROME for a change!?
 
Man, I haven’t seen this much dissent, since, the word “venacular” was used.

I wish you guys would finally realize that you are just like the “liberals” you disparage so much.

You want it your way, all the time, and inflicted on everyone.
 
Personally, I don’t want it just “my way”. While I am excited at the possibility of a universal indult, I’m not counting on it to “change everything”. I’ve not even been to a Mass in Latin since I was too young to remember being there.

I’m just tired of reading about something the pope says, and then reading how much the U.S. Bishops disagree. That’s what the Protestant churches are for.
 
Pointing out historical realities isn’t “dissent”.

It’s a fact that the Catholic Church has a LONG tradition of variety in her liturgy. Not just East-West, but within each “lung” of the Church. Variety has long been the rule.

The attitude of some today - bishops, priests, laity - is that we somehow prove our “unity” by common worship, which means worship that is exactly the same for everyone. No variety.

That’s unCatholic.

You know what a bishop once told me? It was 2000. There was talk about the new edition of the Missal. This bishop frequently presided at Mass in locales where the entire congregation stood for the entire Canon. No kneeling whatsoever (there were no kneelers anyway). He took a sip of wine and smiled at me and said that if kneeling were “instituted” for the Canon (as if it hadn’t been years before), he would “comply”…and he would also make sure that the one parish left in the diocese with an altar rail and a custom of kneeling for Communion would remove its rail “within 24 hours”.

This whole issue has been about control. Local ordinaries panic at the idea of universal indults, personal apostolic administrations, pontifical commissions, celebrets.

My family and I have greatly benefited from the PCED. Quite frankly, if you’re tenacious, educated (especially if you can compose letters in multiple languages), and, alas, have some cash to finance travel, etc., you can protect your “rightful aspirations” to the Tridentine liturgy. (Or you can be lucky enough to live in a place where the bishop protects your rights - and many families have moved to such places).

But the point is, we currently live in a very abnormal and difficult situation:
  1. The typical American parish uses a 1985 translation of a 1975 Missal. Numerous liturgical texts published in recent years in Latin are unavailable in English because the USCCB has been scandalously obstructionist about getting accurate translations published. The situation with the Breviary is a total travesty - it has grown sorely out of date in its English version.
  2. Only half the dioceses in the USA allow ANY Tridentine Mass at all. Many of the ones that do schedule them at (deliberately) inconvenient hours and places (this has been confirmed to me by 2 bishops in my lifetime). The strategy then is to claim that “Ah, they really don’t want it that badly anyway.”
  3. Rome has defined that people who are attached to the Tridentine have a “rightful aspiration”. That’s a carefully chosen, significant phrase. It’s a strong phrase that has legal implications.
  4. My prediction is we are approaching zero hour and end game for the Tridentine question. Right now, just as many French people go to a Tridentine Mass as go to a Novus Ordo (in some districts of France, the Tridentinists outnumber the Novus Ordinarians). Just as in 1984, and 1986, and 1988, and 1998, various bishops - particularly French and American - are “warning” the pope not to push the Tridentine issue. What will happen? I suspect the 1988 schism is going to seem a child’s game compared to the schism that may be on the horizon.
Because, have no doubt: some prelates HATE that Mass. They can’t stand it. And, as one bishop told me, “Over my dead body.”
 
I suspect the 1988 schism is going to seem a child’s game compared to the schism that may be on the horizon.
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I say bring it on. Let us be Catholics in true union to the Holy See and let all those who want to be Febronians go the way of the Old “Catholic” movement-into obscurity.
 
jpjd said:
You are saying that the teaching on birth control is a result of a power struggle and not of theology? Oh, please. These conspiracy theories get worse all the time.
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Not at all. I think the Holy Father was entirely correct in his decision. It was many of the Bishops who saw it as an attempt to erode their authority and remove the advances they thought had beeen instituted by Vatican II.Therefore since then, they have been extremely intransigent in many areas all, in my opinion attempts to hang onto power and keep Rome as far away as possible.
 
RELAX EVERYONE!!!.. It’s all under control… just like Redemptionis Sacrementum came with thuderous applause from the conservatives and was ignored by the liberals, just like the decree on cleaning up the Semenaries came with thunderous applause from the conservatives and was ignored by the liberals, etc… this too shall pass. Already, at least two cardinals (one French and one American) have flown to Rome to protest the latest “indult” move.
 
AlexV said:
  1. My prediction is we are approaching zero hour and end game for the Tridentine question. Right now, just as many French people go to a Tridentine Mass as go to a Novus Ordo (in some districts of France, the Tridentinists outnumber the Novus Ordinarians). Just as in 1984, and 1986, and 1988, and 1998, various bishops - particularly French and American - are “warning” the pope not to push the Tridentine issue. What will happen? I suspect the 1988 schism is going to seem a child’s game compared to the schism that may be on the horizon.
Because, have no doubt: some prelates HATE that Mass. They can’t stand it. And, as one bishop told me, “Over my dead body.”
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That does offer some perspective as to why the French episcopate seems to feel so threatened by the TLM (and, for some reason, the 7 priests of the Institute of the Good Shepherd - are we giving them initials yet?) At the same time, I wonder if there are statistics as to how many of the French attending TLMs are doing so in communion with Rome, which could add a level of complexity to the issue. For instance, is it possible that the French are worried because the TLM is typically a vehicle of disunity to the point that they don’t realize a wider permission could bring some groups back under their control? Just some speculative food for thought. At any rate, I don’t really think the bishops of Catholicism’s former eldest daughter now turned pathetic old hag have any place telling the pope what pastoral strategies will be effective.
 
I think that the French and/or American Bishops will not break officially from Rome over this. They just will refuse permission for the TLM in their diocese, in writing.

To have a schism that affects the average Catholic, Rome would have to officially announce that they are in schism. Do you think that will happen?
 
Schism. Not sure. But in my diocese most people dont even know what the word schism means And they will likely not care or be misled into thinking that Rome being in charge was just an old tradition. But if there were to be a split I along with a few others in my parish would work long and hard to appeal to ROME to establish our own mission parish. We have the money and resources to build a nice little mission church. If all worked well we would build it right across the street from the current church and watch people get really really confused. And watch the liberals get really really red faced.
 
I was thinking that as well. Most people wouldn’t even realize that a schism had taken place.
 
Sadly, I think I would welcome a formal schism by the USCCB. At least people would finally know where they stand…
 
While I din’t really think that a formal schism will nexessarily take place, I do believe that the more liberal Bishops, Cardinal Mahoney comes to mind at the forefront, will resist and resist strenuously any attempt by the Vatican to implement anything that they, the Bishops, don’t endorse 100%. That has been their path all along and unless the Holy Father decides to really crack down on them, I really don’t see much happening.

If he really cracks down and removes a few from office, then you might see a schism.
 
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