SSPX Bishop to Elevate Monastery?

[StTommyMore]

I don’t know that I’d go so far as to call it a “mistake,” at least not insofar as the SSPX itself (minus the “affiliated institutions”) is concerned. It’s simply a priestly fraternity and itself could be re-integrated with a minimum of hassle. But those “affiliates” present another matter, and one that is far less easily dealt with.

The very idea that a religious order such as is the topic of this thread could come under the umbrella (I will not use the term “omiphor” here) of the SSPX is kind of frightening. What can it mean other than that the SSPX claims “jurisdiction” and hence thinks that it is in the canonical right to sponsor (or “care for” or whatever euphemism one wants to use) such groups? As I said in an earlier post, the idea that they consider themselves a “parallel Church” keeps peeking out from a variety of corners.

More evidence of this is on their website. it is obvious that they are trying to set them selves up as some kind of alternative “magisterium”

 

[Pregustator]

There doesn’t seem to be any doubt that there are many who hope these SSPX negotiations/talks with the Vatican fail.

Count me amongst them; I don’t think there is any doubt that the SSPX are playing the Vatican for a fool. Pope Benedict XVI approaches the table with goodwill and an upright heart. He hopes for reconciliation, and for the healing of old wounds. The SSPX, on the other hand, approach the table with lip service for the pope, speaking words (to his face at any rate) that indicate loyalty and respect for the Vicar of Christ, while at the same time conducting activities that prove the very opposite. Surely, they intend to have their cake and eat it, too: they wish to call themselves faithful Roman Catholics, and yet continue to design and govern their parallel Church without any reference to a pope, to a Holy See, or to local bishops.

Even if that were to cease, the SSPX is still plagued with a shockingly verbal anti-semitism that one can hardly excuse under any pretext, an inclination towrds the embrace of conspiracy theories, and an end-times mentality typical of right-leaning “fringe” cults.

What can one say about the SSPX on the positive side? They do project the pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic liturgy and ceremonial exquisitely; boy do they ever. From everything I’ve seen, nobody can touch the SSPX for precision, nay perfection. Fortescue and O’Connell would applaud them. The SSPX do for rubrics what Solesmes did for chant. And their chant isn’t bad, either.

Shame, then, that the schismatic tendencies still seem quite prevalent…not to mention all the other unfortunate attributes of the SSPX. In my opinion, the lifting of the excommunications, without evidence of goodwill on the part of the SSPX, has only led to confusion and does not truly benefit the Church at this stage.

 

[ProVobis]

Count me amongst them.

I gathered that from a post on another thread but thanks for being honest about it.

And I understand there are those on the other side who feel that Bishop Fellay has already sold them out so it seems we have a broad base of opinionated feelings on the whole “reconciliation” process.

It’s unfortunate that the Latin Mass has to be “used” in such a way. Having gone on occasion to the SSPX Mass, I agree with you that it’s hard to beat the SSPX for precision of the Latin and the rubrics.

 

[roadsend]

Our last two popes have made this crystal clear. It ts the will of the Church that traditionally Catholic worship practices including the TLM be made fully available to Catholics who desire them.
As long as bishops and their clergy continue to stonewall or to outright refuse to meet the needs of these Catholics, there will be a niche for the hard working and dedicated padres of the SSPX; formal jurisdiction, or lack thereof, notwithstanding. My congratulations to these monks on their new monastery.
There isn’t a heck of a lot of visual and auditory difference between the Mass I attend weekly and a Lutheran worship service. I have to keep telling myself over and over again, that it really is a valid Catholic Mass (at least most of the time it is).
Count me on the side of our Holy Father in his desire for full reconciliation of the SSPX folks, who so often have acted as an oasis of sanity in a diocesan liturgical wasteland.

 

[StTommyMore]

Our last two popes have made this crystal clear. It ts the will of the Church that traditionally Catholic worship practices including the TLM be made fully available to Catholics who desire them.
As long as bishops and their clergy continue to stonewall or to outright refuse to meet the needs of these Catholics, there will be a niche for the hard working and dedicated padres of the SSPX; formal jurisdiction, or lack thereof, notwithstanding. My congratulations to these monks on their new monastery.
There isn’t a heck of a lot of visual and auditory difference between the Mass I attend weekly and a Lutheran worship service. I have to keep telling myself over and over again, that it really is a valid Catholic Mass (at least most of the time it is).
Count me on the side of our Holy Father in his desire for full reconciliation of the SSPX folks, who so often have acted as an oasis of sanity in a diocesan liturgical wasteland.

There is a right way and a wrong way of doing this. The SSPX do it by snubbing their nose at the Holy See, while paying lip service to the Pope. Dedicated? Not to the Holy See. Obedience is important. If you want to celebrate the TLM, then there are options besides allying yourself with those that try to set themselves up as an alternative Magisterum, issuing their own decrees about what a Catholic may or may not do. The right way is finding those parishes and chapels that celebrate the TLM licitly.

 

[Pregustator]

…there will be a niche for the hard working and dedicated padres of the SSPX; formal jurisdiction, or lack thereof, notwithstanding.

Isn’t that tantamount to saying “God’s will as expressed through the legitimate authority of Christ’s Church notwithstanding”?

That mentality, right there, is precisely what I find myself concerned about with respect to the SSPX. It’s that attitude of “we know best what is good for the Church right now, therefore anything we do, any action we take, is justified”. “We do not need authority to canonically elevate monasteries: we have deemed it good…that is all the authority we require.”

Bewail the “Lutheranized” liturgy if you will (and I empathize with you on that score, I really do), but the attitude of the SSPX is every bit as Protestant as those things you dislike about the “OF” Mass as celebrated in your parish. Can you not see that?

 

[crazzeto]

Isn’t that tantamount to saying “God’s will as expressed through the legitimate authority of Christ’s Church notwithstanding”?

That mentality, right there, is precisely what I find myself concerned about with respect to the SSPX. It’s that attitude of “we know best what is good for the Church right now, therefore anything we do, any action we take, is justified”. “We do not need authority to canonically elevate monasteries: we have deemed it good…that is all the authority we require.”

Bewail the “Lutheranized” liturgy if you will (and I empathize with you on that score, I really do), but the attitude of the SSPX is every bit as Protestant as those things you dislike about the “OF” Mass as celebrated in your parish. Can you not see that?

At least according to Fr. Pacwa, the Lutherans took the ruberics expressed by Pope Paul VI and the post VII implementation of OF and integrated it in their “ligurgy”. Thus it could be said the lutherans “catholised?” their own woship.

I don’t think we should regard Mass in the venacular with the distain many here do. Our Church has a long history of making not only scriptures, but yes the mass available in the venacular. Why do you think it was ever translated into Latin to begin with? The west lost all sense of greek, it was no longer spoken. thus the original greek liturgy was translated into latin.

I do wish the english translation received better treatment than it did, in fact I an extatic for the new missal because it’s what we should have gotten in the 60s. More over I pray for a return to communion rails world wide in OF (even though I just started as a Echaristic Minister my self, hey I can be consoled by the fact that I eventually plan to explore a vocation as a deacon).

But there is no sense in considering schism, and certainly not tending to it just because the Church has done what she has historically done in the past.

 

[Pregustator]

I don’t think we should regard Mass in the venacular with the distain many here do.

I suspect that most of the disdain is on account of the typical presentation of the ordinary expression of Mass, and not so much the reformed texts or the fact that they are spoken, typically, in the vernacular.

Let’s face it, if the revised liturgical texts were the only thing that changed at Vatican II, and the rest were all preserved: Latin, fiddleback chasubles, lace albs, incense, bells, birettas, ad orientem posture, the whole nine yards, I doubt we would be having this discussion today.

I think what happened after Vatican II was that the presentation of the Catholic Mass changed so drastically as to make it appalling to a significant number of more sensitive Catholics…Catholics who were misguidedly assured by improperly-informed nuns that “the Mass will never change”.

I think the irony of it all is that, had Vatican II never happened, and had the Tridentine Mass remained the “ordinary form” of Mass, it would have reformed itself, so to speak, over time. I have no doubt that the Tridentine liturgy would look, sound, and feel rather different today, in the year 2010, than it did in 1962. New hymns and new musical settings would have been composed over the decades, fiddleback vestments would probably have fallen out of vogue for the most part (the gothic form was steadily gaining popularity by the 1960s), birettas would probably have vanished altogether, rules would have been relaxed permitting vernacular readings and hymns. It would not have stayed just the way it was prior to the Vatican II reforms.

And the Roman Catholic world would not have this argument going on today. There would be one form of Mass that all of us would call, simply, “Mass”.

Would that it were so.

 

[ProVobis]

Why do you think it was ever translated into Latin to begin with? The west lost all sense of greek, it was no longer spoken. thus the original greek liturgy was translated into latin.

A little OT, but Latin has been around since 700 BC. It didn’t suddenly replace Greek. If it had, it probably wouldn’t have lasted too long. It simply became more popular as a worship language in the West and became responsible for the development of Western civilization, especially in matters of law and as a basis for a lot of the Western vernaculars, including over 50% of the current English vocabulary.

There is absolutely no reason why Latin should be suppressed in the Latin Rite as they’ve managed to do.

 

[StTommyMore]

A little OT, but Latin has been around since 700 BC. It didn’t suddenly replace Greek. If it had, it probably wouldn’t have lasted too long. It simply became more popular as a worship language in the West and became responsible for the development of Western civilization, especially in matters of law and as a basis for a lot of the Western vernaculars, including over 50% of the current English vocabulary.

There is absolutely no reason why Latin should be suppressed in the Latin Rite as they’ve managed to do.

Latin has not been suppressed. At least it hasn’t been according to Papal documents.

 

[Pregustator]

Latin has not been suppressed. At least it hasn’t been according to Papal documents.

But ProVobis says “as they’ve managed to do”, and the laws on the books notwithstanding, he’s essentially right. By and large, Latin has vanished from the liturgy. And it vanished overnight, too.

 

[ProVobis]

Our last two popes have made this crystal clear. It ts the will of the Church that traditionally Catholic worship practices including the TLM be made fully available to Catholics who desire them.
As long as bishops and their clergy continue to stonewall or to outright refuse to meet the needs of these Catholics, there will be a niche for the hard working and dedicated padres of the SSPX; formal jurisdiction, or lack thereof, notwithstanding. My congratulations to these monks on their new monastery.

To be fair, most of the current clergy have not been trained enough in Latin to be able to say the Latin Mass. In order to the EF to succeed more Latin Mass priests are needed. The SSPX priests are, of course, a great source for not only saying the Latin Mass but also for training other priests. If nothing else the reconciliation will make the Latin Mass more available for mainstream Catholics as well as show that the Vatican is serious in preserving Latin in the liturgy. If not, there will be very dire consequences as more and more babalization is introduced.

 

[StTommyMore]

But ProVobis says “as they’ve managed to do”, and the laws on the books notwithstanding, he’s essentially right. By and large, Latin has vanished from the liturgy. And it vanished overnight, too.

No it hasn’t. At my Novu Ordo parish, Benediction of the blessed Sacrament is done ONLY in Latin. At my school (accused of heresy by radicals on the right, and being “too orthodox” by those on the left) has an EF Mass every week). If it vanishes, then it is the fault of the laity for not making it known that they desire it. If I were to venture a guess, most who complain on these forums have not once brought it up to their pastor.

 

[roadsend]

There is a right way and a wrong way of doing this. The SSPX do it by snubbing their nose at the Holy See, while paying lip service to the Pope. Dedicated? Not to the Holy See. Obedience is important. If you want to celebrate the TLM, then there are options besides allying yourself with those that try to set themselves up as an alternative Magisterum, issuing their own decrees about what a Catholic may or may not do. The right way is finding those parishes and chapels that celebrate the TLM licitly.

Uh, who is “snubbing their nose at the Holy See”?
I see the many diocesan bishops and clergy who have for the past forty plus years been destroying our liturgy and vandalizing our church buildings as the ones who are “snubbing their nose at the Holy See”. These are the same ones who have made it so unworkable for folks to “find(ing) those parishes and chapels that celebrate the TLM licitly”. It is hard to find what does not exist in many of our dioceses.

 

[crazzeto]

But ProVobis says “as they’ve managed to do”, and the laws on the books notwithstanding, he’s essentially right. By and large, Latin has vanished from the liturgy. And it vanished overnight, too.

It certainly hasn’t in the Diocese of Raleigh. In Dunn NC you can celebrate weekly, at the Cathedral they offer the first Sunday of the month. If you have have enough people behind you, should be able to get a Latin mass going.

Latin is hardly suppressed, in fact I would say it’s been making a huge comback. Regardless, my original point stands.

 

[Pregustator]

No it hasn’t. At my Novu Ordo parish, Benediction of the blessed Sacrament is done ONLY in Latin.

I’m sure you understand that your parish, in that case, is not the rule, but the exception to the rule. At any rate, Benediction is hardly the same things as Mass.

If it vanishes, then it is the fault of the laity for not making it known that they desire it.

No, I feel I must strongly disagree with you there. The clergy and the hierarchy are responsible for preserving the integrity of the liturgy, not the faithful. Our job is to attend Mass each Sunday and Holy Day, to go to work, to raise our families, and to go about the business of our daily lives. Our job is not to police the Church, on top of everything else, and ensure in our parishes that Vatican directives are being carried out by our pastor. If that’s our job, what the heck is the clergy’s job?

It is most certainly not “our fault”.

 

[crazzeto]

To be fair, most of the current clergy have not been trained enough in Latin to be able to say the Latin Mass. In order to the EF to succeed more Latin Mass priests are needed. The SSPX priests are, of course, a great source for not only saying the Latin Mass but also for training other priests. If nothing else the reconciliation will make the Latin Mass more available for mainstream Catholics as well as show that the Vatican is serious in preserving Latin in the liturgy. If not, there will be very dire consequences as more and more babalization is introduced.

In order for what you suggest to happen, SSPX needs to drop all pretext of crisis and accept Vatican II as well as OF and the fact that OF will in fact, remain OF. When they do this, then yes they can reintegrate and become a terrific source for the origninal mass to flourish in. Until they do so, they will remain dangerous to those who might be led astray by them.

 

[roadsend]

No it hasn’t. At my Novu Ordo parish, Benediction of the blessed Sacrament is done ONLY in Latin. At my school (accused of heresy by radicals on the right, and being “too orthodox” by those on the left) has an EF Mass every week). If it vanishes, then it is the fault of the laity for not making it known that they desire it. If I were to venture a guess, most who complain on these forums have not once brought it up to their pastor.

Here is one who has brought it up.
From your perspective in a Latin Rite parish, perhaps it is hard to grasp that there are a whole heck of a lot of padres out there, who have never had a Latin class, much less even seen a Latin Mass. (Canon #249 provisions requiring seminarians to be “well versed in Latin” notwithstanding).
BTW you might look around and take note how many parishes there are which don’t even have a regularly scheduled Benediction.

 

[ProVobis]

It certainly hasn’t in the Diocese of Raleigh.

What percentage of Masses in the diocese have ANY Latin in the Mass, including a choir-sung Latin hymn? And what did Vatican II say about perserving Latin in the Latin Rite?

 

[StTommyMore]

I’m sure you understand that your parish, in that case, is not the rule, but the exception to the rule. At any rate, Benediction is hardly the same things as Mass.

No, I feel I must strongly disagree with you there. The clergy and the hierarchy are responsible for preserving the integrity of the liturgy, not the faithful. Our job is to attend Mass each Sunday and Holy Day, to go to work, to raise our families, and to go about the business of our daily lives. Our job is not to police the Church, on top of everything else, and ensure in our parishes that Vatican directives are being carried out by our pastor. If that’s our job, what the heck is the clergy’s job?

It is most certainly not “our fault”.

First, you said it has disappeared “from the Liturgy.” Benediction is Liturgy. No parish is required to offer the EF as matter of course. If the laity does not make it known, then there is no reason to offer a mass that may well have no one in attendance. Since the promulgation of Summorum Pontificum, the celebration of the TLM has increased. It is not offered in my home parish, because my priest gauges his decision based on (name removed by moderator)ut from the congregation. Only a handful of the congregation has asked him about it, barely enough to have enough altar servers to do it right. So I stand by my analysis. The laity needs to speak up.