Doxies

TTony, a regular reader here for some time, is taking a break:

...the LMS created a fortress of insularity because it needed to. I think that time has gone, but I sometimes sense a new insularity online, that seems to value an idea of ultratrad heteropraxis. "My praxy is better than your praxy" is less bad than "my doxy is better than your doxy", but it isn't good.

Some years ago, I abruptly stopped being interested in the Liturgical Issues and have more or less stopped blogging about them. Some of my friends here think this is odd, considering I came to Rome with the express purpose of being able to worship in the traditional rites of the Latin Church. But it just tires me, bores me, leaves me feeling ennervated and kind of like a doll with not enough stuffing. It sometimes makes the after-Mass luncheon a bit of a trial, being the only one there not interested in dissecting the minutiae of styles of candlesticks, numbers and depths of bows and genuflexions etc.

But I just can't help it. Every time they get going the same thing pops into my mind. I picture some billious cleric screeching in a panic in the sacristy, "I can't wear this biretta! It's got the wrong kind of pompom on it. This is a novus ordo pompom!"

I'll just take that away and burn it for you then, shall I?

Of course, this is not to say that I will be returning to the glad-handing and banal kindergarten Masses where Father acts like a gameshow host with his microphone (yes, I've seen a bishop at a confirmation walk up and down with his microphone interviewing the kids and making jokes with them...)

I have worked out a way to avoid the Gladhand 'o Peace in Roman churches which are usually extremely large, very old, full of art and don't really have pews. You see, in Roman churches, tourists are constantly wandering around looking at the walls and taking pictures of the statues while Mass is going on. One has to pay attention, but the trick is to wait until the build-up - you know, when they all stand up after the Pater Noster and start wiping their greasy palms on their coats - and just wander over to the side aisle and pretend you're looking at the frescoes. They'll think you're a tourist and leave you alone. Helps to bring a camera.

But it's a funny thing that in all this time of being a Mad, Rad and Bad Trad, I'm really just more or less fed up with the whole thing. It just seems silly to waste one's energies trying to explain that Bach is better than Duran Duran. If they can't see it, why are we bothering?

Oo oo! I've been there!

'A greater sense of the sacred'
With pope's blessing, Latin masses reborn in Rome, drawing pilgrims anew

By Christine Spolar | Chicago Tribune correspondent
10:27 AM CDT, July 13, 2008

ROME — In the cool recesses of Santissima Trinita dei Pellegrini church, a Roman Catholic rite steeped in Latin has been reborn in this country.


Three priests, garbed in lace-trimmed white and golden robes, take to the altar as a band of brothers every Sunday, their backs to worshipers, their eyes on the mass at hand.

Dozens of people dutifully follow a service studded with long silences and soaring choral song. Many women have pinned lace mantillas to their hair. When parishioners, young or old, seek the sacrament of communion, they move quickly to kneel, with mouths humbly open.

A celebration at Santissima Trinita dei Pellegrini is a visit to your grandfather's mass—and that is exactly the chain of devotion that Pope Benedict XVI wants honored and maintained.

The 16th Century church, located near the lively Campo dei Fiori in Rome's historic district, was built about the same time that Latin liturgy was formalized. It now bears the distinction of being the first large parish in Rome to be granted free rein to celebrate the long-gone liturgy known as the Tridentine rite.

A much more successful pilgrimage

The Latin Mass Society's annual pilgrimage to St. Winifrede's shrine at Holywell, Wales.

The Mass


Not a medieval church, but very nice and perfectly acceptable for the True Rite.


The altar properly decked out.


Quite a good crowd. By the time the Mass started, all the pews were full and people were standing in the back. I am told that some people were bused up from London.


Introibo ad altare dei...




I didn't notice at first, not only is there no altar rail, but there's no ambo. Very odd.










Ite, Missa est.

Forcing Our Beliefs on Others

Via NLM:

Damien Thompson Tries to Get Sacked from the Catholic Herald
Latin Mass to return to England and Wales

The traditional Latin Mass – effectively banned by Rome for 40 years – is to be reintroduced into every Roman Catholic parish in England and Wales, the senior Vatican cardinal in charge of Latin liturgy said at a press conference in London today.

For some reason I am reminded of a scene recounted in one of Michael Davies' books about the Revolution. I don't remember the details well, so am open to correction, but it was some time around 1968, I think, and a parish priest with the backing of his bishop, had decided to join the crowd and "re-configure" the parish according to the (non-existent) norms of V-II. It was sad and weird. The parishioners barricaded the place when the workmen came in to break up the altar and put the table in etc. The police were called in by the bishop and arrests were made.

I also recall the story of a parish in...oh dear, was it Newfoundland? or Nova Scotia? I think the latter, when a group of parishioners refused to take up the new practice and insisted on receiving Holy Communion on the tongue while kneeling. Again, police...etc...

I can't help but wonder if the elderly be-Birkenstocked Easter People are going to put up the same kind of fight to retain the fruits of their revolution. I remember having a conversation once with an archbishop friend of mine. I mentioned the battles over reception in the hand and he shrugged, made some kind of dismissive noise and said, "As if it matters." I wish I had had the presence of mind to say at the time, "Well, the revolutionaries who forced the traditional practice out thought it mattered enough to go to the trouble of changing it and have fought like a pack of wild dogs to retain the new practice, so it seems to matter." It seemed to matter (a bit) to Pope Paul VI too who, while doing his usual thing of granting permission out of one side of his mouth and weeping and lamenting the change out of the other side, issued a plea for retaining the traditional practice.

Yeah. It doesn't matter. Right? So there should be no problem with the return of the Traditional Mass...we're all open minded nowadays right? It's the age of do your own thing right? Even if your thing happens to be the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar? We'll see.

The announcement by Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, speaking on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI, will horrify Catholic liberals, including many bishops of England and Wales, who were opposed to the Pope's decree last year removing their power to block the celebration of the old Mass.

Damien T. must really hate his day job...

Pope Benedict will reintroduce the old rite – which the Cardinal said should be known as the "Gregorian Rite" - even where the congregation has not asked for it. "People don't know about it, and therefore they don't ask for it," he explained.

I can hear it now. "You can't force your beliefs on us!" Ooooohhhh soooo familiar chant. But of course, it's just that people really aren't used to thinking like Catholics. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, right? But that's kind of the point isn't it? How long have we been having a non-Catholic set of ideas pushed on us and our children at Mass? And now, the screeching will no doubt begin; but think about it for a second. Actually, we can, or I should say the Pope can, and should, impose Catholic ideas on the Catholic Church...it's kind of his job, yah?

However, the new rite – in which the priest faces the people and speaks in the vernacular – will definitely not be phased out.

Hardly need to "phase" it out. It's nearly dead right now all by itself. How many of the English Catholics at our little Novus Ordo huggy fest this morning were under 60?

The Pope wishes to see the two forms of Mass existing happily side by side.

Whatever.

For a long time, I wondered why the Vatican did nothing about the anti-nuns and the paranuns and their slide into Marxism and paganism. But it is clear that such things have a rather short half-life and there is actually little need to do anything. A great deal of the problem is self-correcting, as we have seen.

Real Men Wear Lace

Fr. Blake has an excellent post on Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, a prelate it is obviously unwise to mess with:

Wearing yards of red silk, lace and gloves one might not believe the Cardinal bites open his own beer bottles and wrestles crocodiles but read this article from the Washington Post of 2005.

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, 75, leads the Vatican's office for priests. He has since retired from this job and heads Ecclesia Dei. Although dozens of priests have been killed in Italy for straightforward talk, Castrillon has a reputation for courage and outspokenness.

Over the years, he has called on a Colombian president whose election campaign was financed by drug traffickers to step down, branded lawmakers bribed by traffickers a national disgrace and urged voters to reject a presidential candidate because he supported the right to divorce.

...Castrillon is remembered as fearless in action as well as words. He would walk at night through the streets of the mountain town with a huge cup of hot coffee and bread for the beggars and mentally ill people who slept on the sidewalks.

From his pulpit, Castrillon accused Pereira police of killing prostitutes, street children and beggars in a lethal "social cleansing" program.

Well, he is Colombian after all. I expect after facing down murderous drug lords and bloodthirsty genocidal "police" in a South American rogue state, the Birkenstock-clad wrinklies of the English Catholic episcopate aren't much of a challenge.

His Eminence celebrated the Mass of All Time at Westminster Cathedral yesterday afternoon. I understand it was well-received... by some. I hope they exorcised the place first; who knows what sort of creatures were lurking around since the inaugural number of the Cardinal's Lectures on Faith and Public Life earlier this year.

Father Blake notes about the Mass:

I was on the sanctuary assisting in choro, looking down the cathedral it was glorious to see a huge number of people standing at the back and in the side aisles, there was a good mix of ages but the under 40s seemed to dominate.

From the Mulier Fortis:

The Pontifical High Mass at Westminster Cathedral was everything I hoped for, and more. It was incredibly moving to see the Cathedral completely packed out with people. Once again, I noticed that Communion was a very reverent affair, without the chatter which often accompanies large Masses.

Heh.

Face it hippies...