Why IS There Such Hatred Of The Traditional Latin Mass?
The following very interesting (to say the least) article, taken from the ‘Countercultural Father’ blog, is self-explanatory, and recounts how one priest, south of the border in England, who introduced the Traditional Latin Mass under the terms of Summorum Pontificum, has been replaced by another priest who is apparently hostile (with bells on) towards the old rite. [Please note that the term “Extraordinary Form” (instead of Traditional Latin Mass or rite) is used in the original, so we allow it to remain below, but this is not a term we ever use at Catholic Truth.] Read on, and be amazed, be shocked – especially at the liturgical abuse deliberately introduced by the new priest – and then answer the question which forms the title of this thread: why is there such hatred of the Traditional Latin Mass, especially among bishops and priests? How can they possibly hate the ancient Mass, the Mass that the Church’s great martyrs gave their life’s blood to defend – why? We quoted one American bishop in our newsletter some time ago, saying that to be indifferent to the old rite Mass is one thing, but to hate it comes straight from Hell. Do you agree?
Trouble at Blackfen
So what is going on at Blackfen? Fr Tim Finigan, the hermeneutic parish priest, was moved recently to Margate. As I understand it, he left behind him a parish at which the Extraordinary Form of the Mass (traditional Latin Mass) was celebrated once every Sunday, alongside the three Ordinary Form Sunday Masses (one being the vigil Mass on Saturday evening). The EF was also celebrated on Saturday mornings and as an extra Mass on major feastdays and former holydays.
The EF was attended both by parishioners, and by a significant number of people who travelled some distance for it.
Some time ago, The Tablet tried to stir up some controversy about it (see here and here) as the editorial line is against anything that might smack of traditional, orthodox Catholicism. Despite their best efforts, there was no real story there; it is true that not all parishioners were happy: Bernard Wynne, a spokesman for ‘Catholic Voices for Reform’ (and you can guess what kind of reform they want…) was not, and there were a few others of like mind. One, Susan Reynolds, was on the radio saying that her ‘heart was broken‘ by the introduction of the EF Mass (one EF Mass, remember, when the rest of the Sunday Masses were OF). An odd reaction, one might reasonably think; but it seems she and Mr Wynne were in a very small minority in the parish. Fr Finigan’s characteristically level-headed assessment was ‘there are a few who are very much in favour, a few who are strongly against, and “the substantial majority who simply wonder what Father is doing now”.’
When Fr Finigan’s move was announced, regulars were pleased to learn that the incoming priest, Fr Fisher, was also used to saying Mass in the EF, and would continue to do so. That seemed a pastorally sensitive decision, as well as a sensible one, given that the EF Mass was well attended. I am told that ‘people were looking forward to Fr Fisher coming, that talk had been very, very positive and that his appointment had been considered a good one among virtually everyone in the parish, particularly those attending the TLM who were delighted that they would have somebody who would understand their attachment to the Mass of Ages.’
His Twitter picture @FrStevenFisher shows him in clerical dress, with a surplice, black cope and biretta, which should be enough to reassure any traditional Catholic. The odd thing is that it is an old photo, from some years back; and indeed his appearance has changed significantly. A more recent facebook profile photo, tweeted by Joseph Shaw, shows him as much leaner, and in civvies, which is apparently more typical now.
On his arrival, things started to change very quickly, and with little or no explanation. That alone was in marked contrast to his predecessor, who introduced change gradually, and explained each step along the way with great pastoral care.
One of the earliest changes was his deciding within very short order that he was cancelling all the EF Masses (about 18) that had been planned for feast days etc, including the Patronal Feast and Christmas Eve. He announced this on the evening of his second day in the Parish. Of course, he has every right to do so: he may have looked at the diary and thought that he would be over-committed. But understandably, that was not the most welcome thing he could have announced to endear himself to those in the parish attached to the EF.
His Thursday Benediction, which Fr Finigan had sung in Latin, was celebrated in English: he announced that Thursday Benediction would now be ‘Novus Ordo,’ introducing a division which had not been there before. Given that people had come with the expectation of Latin Benediction as usual, that again caused some to wonder about his approach and intentions.
He also removed the gradines and two of the six candles from the altar and made it clear that he did not want them replaced, by leaving a note to that effect on the altar. As above, he has every right to do so, but again, it was not perhaps the way to demonstrate his understanding of certain sensibilities.
For his parishioners, these were the first straws in the wind.
On his first Sunday, he preached a homily about different ‘circles of communion,’ in which he was at pains to distinguish between parishioners and visitors. Visitors, of course, must be welcomed with charity, but the parish was primarily for parishioners. Again, that caused people to wonder about his agenda.
But the point at which my friends agree that things really seemed to go off the rails was at the People’s Communion at the EF Mass. At the ‘Domine, non sum dignus,’ he paused, holding the Sacred Host in his hand, and announced that there had been considerable confusion and discussion about the correct way to receive Communion at this (the EF) Mass. He then stated that, according to the 1983 Codex Juris Canonici it was permissible to receive kneeling or standing, on the tongue, or, in England & Wales, in the hand. At least some of those present thought that he was deliberately insinuating that the previous instruction (announced by Fr. Finigan at all EF Masses) was incorrect.
There are a couple of related issues here: one is the error. The Instruction Universae Ecclesiae (2011), makes it clear (§24 ff) that the EF should be celebrated according to the rubrics proper to it (and see FIUV position paper here). One would have thought that, given considerable confusion and discussion, he might have done his research.
A second is the symbolic aspect: one of the reasons many are attached to the EF is the degree of reverence communicated by every aspect, including gesture. The manner of reception of communion is the most evident example of this, so an announcement of this nature, particularly at that moment of the Mass, naturally had a very strong impact.
This, I am told, is the point at which several of my friends were seriously upset. They wished to talk with him after Mass, but he apparently appeared in the Parish Centre (not in clericals, but in a shirt and jeans) took a biscuit, joked that he ‘followed the Canadian model’ (of clerical attire) and left without saying anything else to anyone else.
Somehow Damian Thompson heard about some of this, and tweeted from his @holysmoke account, asking why priests felt the need to change the EF Mass, which did not go down well.
On the following Saturday, he announced from the pulpit that he was shocked that he had been denounced to ‘the editor of the Spectator‘ (he meant Damian Thompson, who is an associate editor there); and that whoever had done so had committed a mortal sin by gossiping about parish affairs outside the parish. Clearly that was a rash thing to say, and did nothing to calm the anxieties already raised.
The Sunday EF Mass, the following day, had about half the usual number in the congregation: many had been flabbergasted at the previous week’s Mass. After delivering the same admonition as given on the Saturday, he then announced that the Latin Mass was a wound in the Parish: that he had had spies (sic) at every Mass, and it was only the Latin Mass congregation that was divisive and toxic. Therefore he was going to end the Latin Mass, as of the end of September. He did not deliver a sermon (unless the admonition and winding up of the EF Mass counts as one).
So what has been going on here?
I am conscious that my friends are seeing this from one perspective: that of Catholics attached to the EF, who were supporters of the restoration of tradition which Fr Finigan had gently introduced over many years.
They are clear in their own minds that Fr Fisher arrived with an agenda to change things. Indeed, he said he had had hours of discussion with the bishop prior to coming to the parish, with the strong implication that both Bishop Lynch and Archbishop Smith were backing him up on his approach, and indeed had agreed it with him.
They think that he deliberately did things to upset the EF congregation, in order either to get numbers down, so that he could say there was no longer any demand, or to provoke some to intemperate responses, so that he could point to their toxicity and divisiveness.
If that were the case, he succeeded to some extent on both counts: numbers were down dramatically; and if talking to people like Damian Thompson, or even to friends like me counts as toxic and divisive, then that too has been achieved. I understand one parishioner was so distressed when he was denouncing people for the ‘mortal sin’ of speaking to a journalist, that she remonstrated with him, reminding him that he was, in Mass, acting in persona Christi. As I heard it told, this was a gentle remonstration, which provoked a very angry response: “I will not be shouted at in my Church!” though the only shouting was, I am told, by the priest. But I can see, from his point of view, that such an interruption during Mass could seem very unfriendly.
However, another source who has contacted me sees it all very differently. Although more remote from the parish, he has known Fr Fisher previously, and believes he arrived at the parish willing to sustain the EF, but was met with such unfriendliness and hostility (and that was the reputation the parish already had) that he felt that he had to confront it.
The problem I have with that explanation is first that it comes from someone who was not anywhere near Blackfen at the time; secondly that it runs
so strongly against my other friends’ accounts who were there, and whom I trust to tell the truth (as they see it); when I put this to one of them, I was told it was definitely not the case, and that ‘we were all terrified we’d lose the EF Mass, and would have done almost anything to see it continue. We had been reassuring each other that at least Fr. Fisher said the old Mass so Fr. Finigan’s work would not be lost. He stopped to talk to parishioners after all OF Masses, but didn’t stay outside after the EF ones;’ and thirdly that it coincides exactly with what my Blackfen friends believe to be the ‘black propaganda’ that is being used to discredit them and justify the elimination of the EF Mass there.
Or is it simply a case of Greek tragedy: the priest arrived believing the parish to be divided by rabid traddies; the more traditional members of the congregation were suspicious of anyone replacing their much-missed Fr Finigan: both ended up creating the very reality they feared…?
I don’t know, of course; but the astute reader will have picked up my strong suspicions.
And if my Blackfen friends’ reading of the situation is accurate, that raises a further question: where did this plan to bring the EF Mass to an end originate? With the new Parish Priest, or higher up the ecclesiastical tree?
And in my more paranoid moments, it raises a further, and more troubling, question still: what is it about the EF Mass that arouses such fear and defensiveness, that it must be consigned to oblivion?
I should add that I have thought and prayed about whether to post all this. I have been strongly advised in both directions. The majority of my Blackfen friends wanted me to do so: they believe an injustice is being committed, and that myths about them are being created to justify that.
However, one of them was fearful that anything I might blog might lead people to think that I was in some way speaking for Fr Finigan, and get him in trouble. That is clearly the last thing I want to do, and I can make it quite clear that I have never met Fr Finigan, nor talked to him about any of this. The only communications I have had with him were some years back, in the comments section of his blog, and in a private correspondence resulting from that, which did not touch on any of these issues. He has had nothing to do with this post in any way – one of my concerns is that he will wish I had held my peace.
Another concern is that I may wrong, and almost certainly hurt, Fr Fisher. That too weighs heavily on me. But the hurt suffered by my friends is also weighty, and having heard it at first hand from a number of them, to keep silent would add to their pain.
So I have to reach a judgement: I do believe that it is better to shine a light on troubling things than to collude by maintaining silence. If I am wrong, as I may well be, I hope that this post prompts correction and clarifications, which all concerned will welcome. If I am right, then I think Catholics need to know what is being done to those whose primary offence is attachment to the Immemorial Mass.
Needless to say, prayers for all involved in this situation are of the utmost importance. Source
Comments (30)
Lord, have mercy on us!! So many good Catholics are blind to what is really going on. They are taking this a step even further than they did after Vat. ll Might as well say, they are taking it all the way to destruction of the Church of Christ. We have long years to go (according to the Blessed Mother) but when all seems lost……it is then that the dramatic change will come. Hold on to Jesus thru Mary people!! She WILL CRUSH THE HEAD OF SATAN. She has been telling us for quite some time, in messages approved by the Church, that this is the work of Masons. I believe we are seeing this in full view now.
The situation at Blackfen is not a secret and sadly on the face of it does seem contrived. I do not think that in commenting on the issue you will cause any more distress to those directly concerned. The most troubling aspect of all this is the attitude of almost blind hate to the ‘Mass’ of all the ages which I personally have experienced as I am sure others have. I am at a loss to understand this although I have heard many reasons put forward. One would think that after Pope Benedict all this would have been reconciled?
Why the hatred?
Brainwashing.
I definitely do agree that hatred of the old Mass comes straight from Hell.
I don’t think it is just down to “brainwashing” though – there are people who have been attending the novus ordo, perfectly nice people that I know, and they just like the English Mass better. They’ve never really thought about it or talked to a priest about it, they’ve just gone along with it. It’s much easier to sit through a novus ordo Mass, it’s not challenging at all. The old rite requires thought and attention. IMHO that is why a majority have just accepted the new Mass, that and they think it is disobedient not to.
It was disgraceful of Fr Fisher to speak as he did at At the ‘Domine, non sum dignus,’ when “he paused, holding the Sacred Host in his hand, and announced that there had been considerable confusion and discussion about the correct way to receive Communion.”
That was absolutely disgraceful. The rubric of the old Mass is clear, that everyone receives kneeling and on the tongue. There is no confusion at all so that seems to be a deliberate attempt to cause confusion.
I’m only astonished that the term “mortal sin” was used. I thought they’d been abolished.
It is not surprising to me that the Mass of the Ages is hated by the reformers; it runs counter to everything they believe in.
I remembered the name of the bishop who said that about “hell” so I Googled it. I couldn’t find the article where he said hatred of the old rite came straight from Hell but I found another article which I’ll put below, and the man quoted in it confirms my view that the majority prefer the new Mass because they’ve got used to it and it is non challenging.
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/news/article_a9b0748c-488e-5611-b06f-4c61399c303e.html?mode=jqm
There are other parts of the Novus Ordo Mass that were changed, and left out also. I don’t think it was only the ‘vernacular’ that changed. The celebrant facing the people vs. facing the tabernacle is only one change, and there are more. And…. just because Mass is said in your own language, the communion rails have to be ripped out, and people are ‘instructed’ to receive our precious Lord in their hands? Oh and with all the lay people serving as Eucharistic Ministers running around on the Altar dolling out the Host as if they were handing out poker chips. Not to speak of leaving parts of the Mass out altogether. As far as I can see, they wanted to down play our entire focus on the Mass with much more than the ‘language.’ The ‘focus’ now became US and NOT our precious Lord and His sacrifice, and NOT on the REAL PRESENCE. The entire Mass was kind of ‘butchered’.
Underlying the present persecution of those faithful to the Old Mass is a truly diabolical spirit. Whether they are aware of it or not, all prelates and priests who despise the old Mass are in the service of Satan and will almost certainly lose their immortal souls if they continue to support the Hellish campaign that was launched to subvert the Church’s true liturgy after Vatican II. Let us make no mistake about this, It is Lucifer himself who is behind these assaults on the Mass of the saints and martyrs. He uses our Modernist prelates and priests just as he used Luther; to the extent, in fact, that it’s Luther’s liturgical reforms they have adopted as their own as the best means to obscure and undermine Our Lord’s Sacrifice and the reality of Transubstantiation.
Remember the words of Luther: “Destroy the Catholic Mass and you will destroy the Church.” Luther spoke the truth, as we have witnessed in the Church to our great sorrow these past fifty years since the advent of the liturgical revolution. Pius XII spoke of the imminence of the tragedy and associated this diabolical assault on the sacred liturgy of the Church with Our Lady’s warning at Fatima.
Of course the Church can never be completely destroyed, we have Our Lord’s promise on that. But the Mystical Body can undergo a supernatural Passion and death that will give the impression for a time that all is lost. This is where we are right now, thanks to the infidelity, indifference and/or cowardice of so many consecrated bishops and priests. It is a truly astounding and unprecedented blindness and betrayal.
For the benefit of those who do not know of Pius XII’s prophecy, here it is:
“I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith in her liturgy, her theology and her soul…I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject her ornaments and make her feel remorse for her historical past. A day will come when the civilised world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God.” (Mgr. Roche, Pie XII Devant L’Histoire, p. 52-53).
Thank you for that really excellent post, Athanasius.
We really are dealing with a “truly diabolical spirit” when addressing this hatred towards the Mass of the Martyrs. Hatred it surely is, and natural it is not.
I think it’s worth posting the following example of the revolutionaries’ assault on the Sacred Liturgy. Novus ordoism’s “fabrication” doesn’t get much more “banal and on the spot” that this. One for the lunacy gone mad file.
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/09/original-sins-eucharistic-prayer-ii.html#more
Leo,
Many thanks for that extremely informative link to Rorati. Truly shocking stuff, surely enough to wake any indifferent priest from his Novus Ordo slumber?
The real concern was to read the name of Bugnini’s secretary and co-conspirator at the end of the story, one Piero Marini, now tipped as the next Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments following the sideways shifting of the Tradition-leaning Cardinal Llovera. And still the revolution goes on!
I’m not really going to comment on the scandalous filth and evil that has been going on at that parish, because the other bloggers have done that above, but I would like to enquire about the Benediction at that parish after Fr. Finigan was moved. In an English Benediction, are the hymns ‘O Salutaris Hostia’ and ‘Tantum Ergo’ etc sung according to an English translation of the original, or is it something totally new?
“Why IS There Such Hatred Of The Traditional Latin Mass?”
Interesting question. Something I have thought about, having experienced it myself, indirectly of course not openly. They know me too well to be otherwise!
The main reasons are,
1. Guilt, in now realising that having backed liturgical discontinuity they have backed the wrong horse, with disastrous consequences.
2. Embarrassment, at the banality of the New Mass, and that they now are no longer familiar or at ease with, and in, the Faith of their ancestors.
3. Dislike, (actually self dislike), the well known phenomena of the convert, or rebel, turning viciously on that which they have previously held to, but now rejected.
As to why this is so at Vatican level, well I suppose for much the same reasons. Also, there is much more aggressive infighting between lobbies and factions in the Vatican and this has probably influenced the Holy Father in his apparent hostility to the FFI.
At Blackfen it is obvious Fr Fin’s move is deliberate on the part of the local bishop or maybe the English bishops, and the new priiest has obviously been forbidden to to say the Usus Antiquior.
The bishops in Scotland have and are, offering little support also.
Jacobi,
Three key points which arise from your latest comment.
1) Pope Francis has not been “influenced by lobbies/factions in the Vatican” (which, you imply, explains his hostility to the old rite) HE is leading the fight against Tradition. His hostility to the old Mass and “traditional leaning” clergy in Argentina is well known. So, no excuses there (although it is never any excuse for a leader, especially a pope, to have so little character that he is easily led away from doing his duty by others.)
2) From my reading of the new priest (Fr Fisher) there’s no question of him “being forbidden” from offering the ancient Mass. He doesn’t want to offer it and is happy to go along with the Bishop’s wishes. Do you seriously believe he would have said what he did at the ‘Domine, non sum dignus,’ if he were devoted to – or had even minimal respect for – the Traditional Latin Mass? The whole thing was a set up with himself a key – and willing – player in the drama.
2) The Scottish bishops rushed out a statement the minute Summorum Pontificum was published to say “not in our backyard” so it’s not a question of “little support” – they made it clear from the git-go that they were not going to be obeying the Pope’s stated wish for the spread of the TLM. End of. Still, they paid lip service to obedience to the pontiff blah blah and the majority of neo-Catholics in Scotland drank it in and forgot the old adage “Don’t listen to what I say, look at what I do…”
Come, come ,editor I attempted to explain why. You continue to declare what.
What is your explanation of “why”?
Jacobi,
I am not aware of a single bishop who has displayed any of the signs you say are possibly responsible for general episcopal opposition to the ancient Mass of the Church. Quite the contrary, in fact. The majority feel that the New Mass has not gone far enough in liturgical reform.
No, I think my earlier post (2:58pm) more accurately describes WHY they hate the Old Mass.
On the basis of your report, the situation at Blackfen is disturbing.
For whatever reason the new priest has changed course suddenly and markedly so. If he has been instructed to do so by his bishop that is worrying and wrong since, the EF is a valid co-equal Catholic Mass. If he has changed his mind of his own accord so sharply and quickly, that does not say much for his maturity of judgement. His remark about concerned discussion with other involve Catholics being “gossiping” and a “mortal sin” is crass, wrong by any standards and coming from a priest may well be grievously sinful i.e., mortally so, on his part, in that putting people deliberately in a state of bad conscience is a recognised sin, but don’t know what exactly?
The jeans and all that, well if my parish priest did that I might not say anything but, it would not impress me or anyone else in my parish, EF or NO.
It will be interesting to see if Fr Fin introduces the EF, pastorally as is his way, in his new parish. If not then we can assume it is the bishop who is leaning on his priests.
Jacobi,
With respect, that fact that you describe the Traditional Latin Mass as “co-equal” with the novus ordo, explains why you are unable to see the real issues at the root of the Blackfen scandal.
Jacobi,
You are not clear on the nature of the current crisis in the Church. I’ve read some of your comments on another blog from time to time and it is clear that you are confused.
The bishops (and Pope Francis) are diabolically disoriented. That is why the Blackfen situation arose. That bishop, and Father Fisher, actually believe the old rite Mass has to go, it is “disturbing the peace” and is the cause of all the liturgical mayhem at the present time. It’s truly that simple. They are – whether unwittingly or due to culpable ignorance only God can judge – doing the work of Satan in the Church right now.
THAT – Jacobi – is the NATURE of the current crisis in the Church.
Who says the Germans haven’t got a sense of humour. Maybe theirs is just a bit different .Read the following story from last December and tell us the head of what was once the Holy Office wasn’t having a laugh. This stretches credulity to record breaking lengths.
“According to a report in the Tablet today, Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, credits the Second Vatican Council’s liturgy reform with stemming the tide of the de-Christianization of the West.
‘It is precisely because the liturgy was renewed in spirit and rite that it has proved an effective remedy against a godless culture.’
The renewed liturgy was ‘a good means of evangelizing’, he said. ‘All Catholics who think and feel with the Church realize that the reform was a success.’”
http://www.harvestingthefruit.com/archbishop-muller-liturgy-reform-a-success/
Did someone say “through the looking glass”?
Leo,
I notice Louis Verrecchio says HE doesn’t “think and feel with the Church” (a rightly sarcastic reference to Cardinal Muller’s words) but to the best of my knowledge, although he has sympathy with the SSPX, he attends the novus ordo Mass. According to one of our readers in the USA, he is a fellow parishioner. It was only when another parishioner pointed him out that our spoke to him to say she had found his blog through ours – probably one of your comments!
I don’t think there is a Mass in that area, which would, of course, partly explain his continuing attendance at the NO so let’s hope Bishop Fellay has made a great impact on Cardinal Muller and the end of this scandalous crisis is hastened somewhat. It won’t be over until the Consecration of Russia is complete, we know that, but it may be hastened a little if Cardinal Muller mulls (pun intended) over his meeting with Bishop Fellay.
Leo,
Read that story you linked. Absolutely beggars belief. I sincerely hope Archbishop Muller has altered his opinion since speaking that lunacy last year or his talks with Bishop Fellay won’t get very far. I suspect that 9 months of the “New Evangelisation” since that December 2013 statement may have forced a re-evaluation on his part.
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is all that is good, beautiful and holy in the Church of God. You destroy the Mass, society crumbles, the Church suffers and men are deprived of grace and the means to get to Heaven.
“The Mass is the sun of Christianity, the soul of faith, the centre of the Catholic religion, the condensation of all that is good and beautiful in the Church of Christ. The Mass is the miracle of miracles, the wonder of wonders. The Mass is the sun of holy religion, which dissipates the cloud and restores serenity to the heavens. For my part I am persuaded that if it were not for the holy Mass the world would have long since tottered from its foundation, crushed beneath the enormous weight of its many accumulated iniquities. At every moment of the day and night, during the year round, this Infinite Victim is immolated on several altars in some part of the world for the salvation of mankind, and hence the pious practice of uniting ourselves and our actions with Jesus upon the altar.” ~St. Leonard of Port Maurice
Pray for the Modernists.
RemnantoftheFaith,
The saints have so beautiful a way of relating the truths of the Faith. Compare this heavenly description of the Mass to that of today’s Modernists. There simply is no comparison.
Leo,
Did some say “through the looking glass”, I cannot make up my mind whether Archbishop Muller is believing in fairy tales, or, simply burying his head in the sand over the disaster of the Second Vatican Council’s liturgy reform. Where on earth has it stemmed the de-Christianzation of the west? Or be a remedy of the godless society?
Perhaps Archbishop Muller and the likes of Archbishop Smith and Father Fisher should read this talk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifdXbly4X_U
John Salza would disagree with the Archbishop on this matter.
http://www.cfnews.org/page10/page66/salza_novus_ordo.html
I think it is Satan behind this hatred, definitely. It’s the same when you encounter those who attack the Rosary, the Brown Scapular, Fatima or anything authentically Catholic. I’m currently reading a book called ‘The Deceiver: Our Daily Struggle with Satan’ by Fr Livio Fanzaga, about how Satan operates in the world – I would very much recommend it. Available here:- http://www.booksforcatholics.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=B&Product_Code=1929291639&Category_Code=
I think the Church tolerates the TLM as long as it poses no threat to NO. As soon as people start attending it in any numbers and begin to wonder what on earth they were ever doing at the NO in the first place, inevitably questioning its efficacy and validity, the Devil’s Destroyers are dispatched to restore, post haste, the Conciliar zeitgeist. Well, just as the D.D’s went to town on the Friars of the Immaculate they have to have a go at Fr. Finigan and the TLM. Perish the thought that sacredness, reverence, or holiness should return to disturb the democratic “People’s Mass” or “The Eucharist” – the preferred titles on many a Mass leaflet here in near faithless Ireland. Still with their heads buried in the post conciliar miasma, the motley crew of so-called bishops in the former land of saints and scholars still can’t, or won’t, admit that the destruction of the usus antiquior, ditto abandonment of devotion to Our Lady, has released the full gamut of evil upon us e.g., priestly abuse, empty seminaries and pews, bad/heterodox priests, appalling irreverence, “gay marriage”, divorce, cohabitation, contraception, abortion, and euthanasia (to come). I imagine the devil, though, having watched all this unfold without doing too much, sends memos (per Screwtape) to his Liars Minor, “Congratulations on a job done with appropriate evil, and with all the heavy lifting done by the Church herself! Who would have thought it? Luther of course, with a little help from his friends down here. Keep up the bad work. Bonus on way; the Pope himself is emerging as the Dictator of Relativism. Poor Benedict!
CC, to Jesus: you spoke truth when you called me a liar from the beginning. I was, still am, and remain so, even as we near the end.”
Effectively yours, Lucifer (such irony. Moi? the bringer of light!)
PS: “What does Peter think of Francis?”
Bradders,
Well said. As for your concluding question – there’s bound to be a joke or two out there in cyber-joke-space about the length of time Peter will keep Francis waiting at those pearly gates, not to mention the questions he will ask. I wish I’d time to Google but I’m supposed to be elsewhere right now – perhaps later, unless someone beats me to it!
“Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot: they have changed my delightful portion into a desolate wilderness. They have laid it waste, and it hath mourned for me. With desolation is all the land made desolate; because there is none that considers in the heart.” – Jeremias 12:10
Without a doubt, the Modernist wildcats have a very good grasp of the principle, “lex orandi, lex credendi” and how important it is. They know exactly how high the theological stakes are, and that no counter revolutionaries can be allowed to stand in front of the novus ordo tanks and their intoxicated drivers.
The great 19th century French Benedictine liturgist Dom Prosper Gueranger gave fair warning back in 1840, in his Liturgical Institutions. The following quotation only reinforces the point that Athanasius has made about the heretical spirit behind the Modernist attack on the Mass.
“The first characteristic of the anti-liturgical heresy is hatred of traditions as found in the formulas used in divine worship. One cannot fail to note this special characteristic in all heretics, from Vigilantus to Calvin, and the reason for it is easy to explain.
“Every sectarian who wishes to introduce a new doctrine finds himself, unfailingly, face to face with the Liturgy, which is Tradition at its strongest and best, and he cannot rest until he has silenced this voice, until he has torn up these pages which recall the faith of past centuries.
“As a matter of fact, how could Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anglicanism establish themselves and maintain their influence over the masses? All they had to do was substitute new books and new formulas in place of the ancient books and formulas, and their work was done. There was nothing that still bothered the new teachers; they could just go on preaching as they wished: the faith of the people was henceforth without defence.”
The Mass of Annibale Bugnini was a fabrication that was not in any way shape or form an organic development from the Mass handed down over two millennia. What Luther and his fellow revolutionaries failed to do in the sixteenth century, the post Conciliar reforms succeeded in bringing about. Don’t anyone take my word for it. Dr Smith, one of the Lutheran representatives on the commission which was responsible for fabricating the new liturgy publicly boasted that “we have finished the work that Martin Luther began”.
How about another Lutheran, Peter L. Berger, a professor of Sociology who at the Harvard Club on May 11, 1978 spoke as follows: “If a thoroughly malicious sociologist, bent on injuring the Catholic Church as much as possible, had been an advisor to the Church, he could hardly have done a better job.” (taken from Michael Davies’ pamphlet, Liturgical Shipwreck, 25 Years of the New Mass)
Professor von Hildebrand, described by Pope Pius XII a the Doctor of the Church in the twentieth century, wrote that “truly, if one of the devils in C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters had been entrusted with the ruin of the liturgy, he could not have done it better.”- The Devastated Vineyard, p. 71 (ibid)
Monsignor Klaus Gamber, who was not a “traditionalist”, wrote a book twenty years ago entitled The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, in which he described the new Mass as an unprecedented break with the Church’s entire liturgical tradition: “there has never actually been an actual break with Church tradition, as has happened now, and in such a frightening way, where almost everything the Church represents is being questioned.” (p. 109)
He also wrote that “the real destruction of the traditional Mass, of the traditional Roman Rite with a history of more than one thousand years, is the wholesale destruction of the faith on which it was based, a faith that had been the source of our piety and our courage to bear witness to Christ and His Church, the inspiration of countless Catholics over many centuries. Will someone, some day, be able to say the same thing about the new Mass? Many Catholics agonize over the question: what can be done about the loss of our faith and of our liturgy?” (p. 102)
On the subject of this thread, we can be confident that Father Finigan wasn’t sent to Margate to benefit from the bracing sea air, or minister to any aging and abandoned mods and rockers who might happen to be thereabouts. Father’s fate is arguably rather better than that of Father Michael Rodriguez, banished to the wilds of West Texas hundreds of miles from anywhere.
I have been very reliably informed that the ICK are treated appallingly by a so-called “conservative” Bishop in a major European city. Throw in the case of the FFI’s and Father Justin Wylie in New York, and there is no need to call in Inspector Morse to read the “sign of the times”. There is a very clear message being sent those priests who offer the true Mass: don’t even think about stepping off the reservation. If you do, there will be no survivors.
There is no doubt that in last fifteen months, attacks on Catholics faithful to Tradition have become more vocal and outrageous. I’m thinking in particular of certain lay apologists who may have less than noble considerations to the forefront of their minds.
Of course, on the subject of the Mass, it doesn’t require much thought to figure out the influence that is coming from on high. Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation of a year ago, Evangelii Gaudium, contains the following:
“In some people we see an ostentatious preoccupation for the liturgy, for doctrine and for the Church’s prestige, but without any concern that the Gospel have a real impact on God’s faithful people and the con¬crete needs of the present time.” #95
The Pope also wrote of the many who “feel superior to others” because “they remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past” whereby “instead of evangelizing, one analyses and classifies others” (94).
I know the qualification “some people” is there in the first sentence above, but really, what is the point of this statement if it is not just another thinly veiled criticism of those who hold to the true Mass,those “restorationist”, “triumphalist” Catholics?
Why should any Catholic think that there is a contradiction between sacrality, reverence, solemnity and dignity, in the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the proclamation of the Gospel?
What are the “concrete needs of the present time” if not the glorification of God, propitiatory sacrifice (an absolutely huge need), and the sanctification of souls?
I trust the Holy Father is not levelling any charges at two of his predecessors.
Pope Pius XI, who stated that “it (the Mass) is the most important organ of the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium of the Church”, summed up very well what has always been the mind of the Church down through the ages when he,in his 1928 Apostolic Constitution, Divini Cultus wrote:
“No wonder then, that the Roman Pontiffs have been so solicitous to safeguard and protect the liturgy. They have used the same care in making laws for the regulation of the liturgy, in preserving it from adulteration, as they have in giving accurate expression to the dogmas of the faith.”
“There exists, therefore, a close relationship between dogma and the sacred liturgy, as also between the Christian cult and the sanctification of the people.This is why Pope Celestine I thought that the rule of faith is expressed in the ancient liturgical.”
Three year earlier,in his lamentably forgotten and buried Encyclical, Quas Primas, the same Pontiff explained that:
“People are instructed in the truths of the faith and brought to appreciate
the inner joys of religion far more effectively by the…celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any pronouncement, however weighty, made by the teaching of the Church.”
Pope Pius XII, in his Encyclical Mediator Dei(1947),declared:
“In the liturgy we make explicit profession of our Catholic faith;…the whole liturgy contains the Catholic faith, inasmuch as it is a public profession of the faith of the Church…This is the origin of the well-known and time-honoured principle: ‘the norm of prayer establishes the norm of belief’.”
The Modernist wildcats understand those words very well.
Whatever the many dangers to souls in this time of unprecedented crisis, they certainly do not include “ostentatious preoccupation” with liturgy and doctrine.
The Mass has always been at the very heart of the Catholic Church, the bulwark against which heresy, modernism and false ecumenism have always been rejected. Of course here I am referring to the T.L.M. At the reformation the reformers (revolutionaries) knew that if they could destroy the Mass they could then destroy the rest of catholicism. History has repeated itself in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council. Destroy the T.L.M. and then the rest of catholicism can be dismantled piece by piece. As at the reformation the current crop of revolutionaries know this only too well. The reason so many cardinals, bishops and priest hate the T.L.M is that they are wedded to the revolution and know that the T.L.M. stands in the way of their ultimate aims, a church which puts man before God, a church which, if they get their way, will become part of the one world religion. As after the reformation the church was subjected to many trials and tribulations so it is now in the aftermath of Vatican 2. Eventually, as readers of Catholic Truth know, The Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph.
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