Scottish Catholic Observer: No Future For Traditional Mass – Good Riddance!
In a disgraceful attack on the traditional Latin Mass in a recent edition of the Scottish Catholic Observer (SCO), Hugh Dougherty reveals himself to be about as Catholic as John Knox. Martin Blackshaw, aka Catholic Truth blogger Athanasius, wasted no time in submitting a rebuttal, which has been rejected by the editor on spurious grounds.
Interestingly, the Dougherty masterpiece has not been published on the SCO website. However, you can read it by clicking on the title Ghost dancing won’t do us any favours and then read Martin’s response below. Thanks to the internet, the editors of the so-called Catholic papers can’t get away any longer with their blatant censorship and skewing of the truth. We’re on to them. Big time!
The Traditional Latin Mass is the Catholic “Mass of all time.”
By Martin Blackshaw
It has been my experience that when a Catholic writer goes out of his way to denigrate the ancient liturgy of the Church, the Latin Mass of the saints and martyrs, it is because he is either ignorant of the subject he ridicules or he is a nominal Catholic of these morally relativist times; for whom the traditional holy Mass and discipline of the Church have become anathema.
In Hugh Dougherty’s case, I would venture to suggest that there is a little of both impacting on his objectivity (November 7).
Given that his article against the ancient Mass was clearly personal and superficial rather than scholastic, it merits only a statement of the facts in response. Fact number one is that the new vernacular Mass he values as progress is, in reality, copied from the Protestant Reformers of the 16th century.
Mgr. Annibale Bugnini, its author, admitted as much in a March 19, 1965 interview with L’Osservatore Romano. He was even more candid in 1974, describing his new vernacular liturgy as “a major conquest of the Catholic Church,” a statement not so far removed from Martin Luther’s “destroy the Mass and you will have destroyed the Catholic Church”.
Professor Peter L. Berger, a Lutheran sociologist, acknowledged the truth of Bugnini’s declaration in these words: “If a thoroughly malicious sociologist bent on injuring the Catholic community as much as possible had been an adviser to the Church, he could hardly have done a better job.”
Professor Dietrich von Hildebrand, called by Pius XII “a twentieth century Doctor of the Church”, expressed himself a little more forthrightly, saying: “Truly, if one of the devils in C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters had been entrusted with the ruin of the liturgy he could not have done it better.”
In 1967, the Synod of Bishops in Rome, having been privy to a first-hand celebration by Bugnini of his experimental liturgy (called ‘the Missa Normativa’), overwhelmingly rejected it.
This rejection was followed up by two senior Roman Cardinals (Ottaviani and Bacci), who wrote to Pope Paul VI on behalf of many prelates and theologians describing the new liturgy as representing “in whole and in part, a grave departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass.”
Cardinal Ratzinger more or less echoed this observation when he famously described the Bugnini product as “a banal on-the-spot fabrication.”
So now let us consider fact number two, ‘the fruits’ as the method given us by Our Lord for discerning good from evil. The New Mass has resulted in more liturgical abuses in its short 45-year life than all Latin Masses together from the early centuries of the Church right up to Vatican II.
To recount but a few of the more documented scandals of recent decades, I cite those infamous clown masses; balloon masses; coffee table masses; milk and cookie masses, rock masses and ‘liturgical dance’ masses, including one performance of a Salsa in the Sanctuary.
I feel certain that if Mr. Dougherty digs a little deeper into this unprecedented catalogue of sacrileges he may even stumble across some of those “Indian ghost dancers” he referenced so contemptuously as analogous to Traditional Catholics who remain faithful to the Mass of the ages.
At any rate, more telling even than the sacrileges committed in the name of the New Mass is the effect this liturgy has had on vocations to the priesthood and religious life, and the devastation it has wrought on the souls of the faithful.
It is no exaggeration to state that in the 45 years or so since Bugnini’s experiment was imposed on the Church millions of Catholics worldwide have formally apostatised from the Faith. This has resulted everywhere in the closure of parish churches, seminaries and religious houses at a rate unparalleled in history.
In Scotland alone we have seen the closure of all five seminaries, many religious houses and countless churches as vocations and Mass attendance continue to decline apace, and these same depressing statistics apply to each and every country in the Western world.
Indeed, I read just last week that in the U.S. another 100 parish churches are to be closed or merged in New York, and that in France priestly numbers have deteriorated to the extent that each priest now has a dozen parishes on average to care for.
In contrast with this inevitable decline around the New Mass, the last 10 years have witnessed enormous growth within the Church of seminaries, religious houses and parishes flourishing around the ancient Mass, which brings me to fact number three.
Contrary to the prevailing myth, it is the young rather than the old who are migrating in increasing numbers back to the pre-Council Latin liturgy of the Church.
This verifiable phenomenon brings to nought Mr. Dougherty’s depiction of Latin Mass enthusiasts as a small clique of coffin dodgers re-living happy memories of their youth like an exclusive group of ageing steam train hobbyists.
In truth, it is the younger generation which is emerging today as a sign of contradiction to those old liberal Catholic hippies who robbed them of their sacred patrimony in the name of conciliar reform.
These young faithful are being drawn in ever increasing numbers to the ancient Mass not by curiosity or nostalgia, but by that sensus fidei, that gift of the Holy Spirit which has the dual operation of attracting souls to the sacred and supernatural while making repugnant to them the irreverent and the profane.
In conclusion, then, the future lies not, as Mr. Dougherty suggests, in further radicalising our holy religion to appease the rebellious of this hedonistic age. Rather, the future lies in a return to the Latin “Mass of all time” and in fidelity to the Faith handed down unaltered for nineteen centuries up to Vatican II.
St. Paul puts it this way: “Jesus Christ, yesterday, today; and the same forever. Be not led away with various and strange doctrines, For it is best that the heart be established with grace, not with meats; which have not profited those that walk in them…” (Hebrews 13: 8-10).
Comment:
No prizes for guessing why Ms Leydon, the editor of the SCO wanted to suppress the above response to the appalling Dougherty attack on the Mass which she unconscionably published. I’d love to see her trying to explain herself to the saints and martyrs who loved that same Mass and even died in defence of it – the same Mass which she most shockingly allowed to be described as of no more importance than the steam train, happily now consigned to history. The fact is, it is her newspaper which will soon be consigned to history, along with the tired and ignorant views of the likes of Hugh Dougherty, who is (in all fairness) not alone in writing palpable nonsense in what passes for Scotland’s only national Catholic newspaper. There can be no good fruits from this publication which, in almost equal measure, routinely denies and distorts the Catholic religion. Indeed, there can be only one justifiable reason for reading it, and that is to expose the errors therein, preferably by addressing a letter or article for publication, to the editor. But that’s a hit and miss business, as we can see from Mr Blackshaw’s experience. Anyway, your thoughts on the Dougherty article and Martin Blackshaw’s response to it, should make for an interesting discussion. Comments invited.
Comments (126)
putting behind us the impersonal, almost mediaeval, world of the priest alone communicating with God.
Dougherty has fallen for the old ‘dumb spectator’ argument that assumes that because people appear to be doing nothing they actually are doing nothing.
In fact the traditional rite, by having rigidly fixed texts and allowing for silence, does actually make it possible for the congregation to communicate with God. It takes hard work and there could hardly be anything less impersonal.
On the other hand at your typical novus ordo there is a near constant barrage of noise as a result of which the poor folks in the pews can’t get a thought in edgeways. And that’s assuming that they are trying to communicate with God and not just yakking to the person sitting next to them!
Confitebor Domino,
In the old Mass, the congregation are united with the Celebrant as he, in the person of Christ the High Priest, offers Christ the Victim to the Father for the remission of sins.
The Reformation Protestants, denying the renewal of Calvary and Transubstantiation, turned the priest into a vernacular “Presider”, swiveled him around to face “the assembly” instead of God, changed the high altar for a table, took away Communion rails and distributed the “bread” into people’s hands.
Sound familiar? In that L’Osservatore Romano interview I referred to with Mgr. Bugnini (March 19, 1965), he declared: “We must remove from our Catholic liturgy and prayers all that can be a shadow of a stumbling block to our separated brethren, that is to Protestants”. He, and others, knew full well that Protestants would never enter into ecumenical dialogue with Catholics as long as the Church clung to the ancient Mass in Latin, which they considered to be an abomination. That’s why Bugnini’s new liturgy was hailed by Protestants as perfectly acceptable to them, to the extent that they would feel quite at ease at a Catholic Mass. What a price to pay for fake unity!!
“Fake unity”? Well, I don’t know, Athanasius. I read in the SCO recently, that the Orange Order has invited the Catholic Church to send a representative to its celebration of “Orangeism” next year – and the “Catholic Church” is on record as promising to give due consideration to the invitation when it arrives in the post.
So, we’ll undoubtedly be treated to the sight of at least one Bishop wearing an orange sash and carrying a flute marching, shoulder to shoulder with a string of Orange bands, through Glasgow to “celebrate” the thoroughly anti-Catholic Orange Order.
But what we WON’T see is any Orangeman carrying a rosary. So, yes, “fake unity” it is. Quite a price, as you say, to pay for dispensing with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, as generation upon generation of Catholics, including saints and martyrs, knew and love it. Quite a price, indeed.
Editor,
There have been some Catholic Masses where the Bishop has been worse regaled than with an orange sash. Remember Cardinal Schonborn with the orange balloon? Incredible!
Athanasius,
I’d forgotten about Cardinal Schonborn’s party/balloon Mass. Then there was the case of the dancing Jesuit in scanty Indian/Hindu-type attire – and, well, frankly, he could use both an orange sash and a few balloons for the sake of modesty… Maybe there’s something in this fake unity after all!
Editor,
Yes, I remember the Jesuit/Hindu performance. There are so many such scandals. I recall also that infamous scene of a celebration of Mass by a priest wearing giant Mickey Mouse ears on his head. The Church has never known such sacrileges in her 2000 years, and they are all related to the NO, sure proof of how open it is to abuse.
Athanasius
That was a really excellent letter. If the recipients had even the tiniest shred of an excuse of ignorance regarding the true Mass, invincible or vincible, that has now been well and truly vapourised.
And as for sashes, whatever about the orange variety, we’ve seen the abomination of Bishops at the 1997 WYD scandalously wearing rainbow vestments.
Leo,
Yes, I had forgotten about those horrendous rainbow vestments. It’s all too terrible for words!
Pius XII predicted this calamity when he said:
“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” (Msgr. Roche, Pie XII devant l’histoire, pp. 52-53).
Editor
I think you should go!
Mr. Dougherty’s article is a personal attack on a number of individuals in Glasgow who he fears – he knows they are more intelligent and enlightened than he is. He has not named them, but those of us who know what’s going on know who he is referring to.
Karen
I wish the rest of us knew what you know!
I see that in this week’s SCO, the self-confessed occasional (i.e. lapsed) Mass-goer, Kevin McKenna has a column, spouting the usual nonsense, this time encouraging us to recognise the Orange Order as our natural friends. He is pushing for “the Church” to accept the invitation from that bigoted outfit, to join in their celebrations in 2015. Yet Athanasius could not get his excellent article published (see thread entitled “Perspective: Vatican II in Retrospect…”)
What sort of numpty is Liz Leydon? Won’t give space to Athanasius’s superb article yet will allow a lapsed Catholic precious column inches to promote the Orange Order? Gimme strength!
“What sort of numpty is Liz Leydon?”
A diabolically disorientated one by the sounds of it!
Confitebor Domino,
I agree. This idea that everyone is participating in Mass is ridiculous anyway because only a few people are reading, giving out Holy Communion (scandalous) and so on at the NO. Most people are doing nothing except parroting responses to prayers that take no thinking about at all.
Athanasius,
Great article! No wonder Liz Leyden didn’t want it published!
Margaret Mary,
First of all, thank you for the kind comment.
It seems to me that you and CD make a very valid point about noise and distraction at the NO. It must be nigh on impossible for anyone to get recollected before Our Lord on Calvary.
One other aspect of the NO that strikes me is that no one ever refers to it as the holy sacrifice of the Mass. Almost everyone calls it a celebration of the Eucharist, which is theologically erroneous and, again, more pleasing to Protestant ears.
I must say that Athanasius’ response is superb and demolishes Dougherty. His piece is everything that Dougherty’s is not – it is educational, substantiated, evidence-based and referenced.
In particular, I liked the point about the young of today desiring their patrimony which has been stolen by the Vatican II generation. At 36, maybe I am pushing it to call myself young (!), but nevertheless its my patrimony and I want it back – regardless of what Dougherty or Bishop so-and-so has to say about it.
Small wonder the SCO didn’t publish the response, it would have highlighted them for the intellectual pygmies they are. And anyway, they probably couldn’t figure out whether to place it next to the cartoon-strips or the colouring-in section.
Dougherty is devoid of any useful arguments; he has only vague and empty appeals about “the future” and the usual sniping which so often characterises those who are against the Mass. He does not seek to convince his audience, but to flatter and reinforce ignorance and existing negative prejudice.
He talks of “the future” in the same trendy way which secular activists talk of “progress” – these terms never boil down to anything over than “everyone must do as I say”. And just as “progress” in secular terms inevitably means stupidity, perversion and confusion, Dougherty’s “future” will prove nothing but a spiritual wasteland. Just look at the Church history over the last 50-odd years. A fool could see it.
The article does not engage with reality at any stage, nor attempt to investigate the reasons behind the growing appreciation of tradition or even who it is attending these Masses. Instead we get the usual shoveled-on negative adjectives – “the past”, “obsolete” etc – in the desperate hope that these might be mistaken for an argument, or at least manage to put people off.
He conveniently glosses over the crisis in the Church with a vague comment about “recapturing some holiness”.
He claims that the Mass isn’t the way to “reconnect” with Catholics of today, yet offers no reasoning for this stance. He doesn’t address the glaring question which is implied by his choice of terminology – “reconnect” – for if Catholics are not connected, then we only have the post-conciliar period to blame for this switching off en masse .
Yet, it seems that he feels the very liturgy which has run the Church into the ground in recent decades will somehow prove to be it’s saving grace. I think it was Einstein who said that the definition of madness was to do the same thing over and over – and yet hope for something different to happen as a result.
Given the Archdiocese of Glasgow is closing about half its churches and couldn’t buy a vocation, I can only wonder about Mr Dougherty’s intellect and perception.
He mentions “obsolete” vestments and rituals, but gives no examples – or even explain why the practices which served the Church well for nearly 2,000 years suddenly became “obsolete” in the swinging sixties. Again, it is clear that he is simply banging his own drum. He is stuck in the 60s and 70s – not unlike some senior clergy of today. He doesn’t realise it is he who is obsessed with the past, it is he who is obsolete.
He even has a dig at the Church over male-only altars. After all, altar girls have been a real boon, haven’t they? I mean just look at the great success this has wrought – all the……..well,………you know…….that thing….., well they have been a great success anyway, that’s for sure, right? In no way was their introduction an ill-thought out example of pandering to secular sensibilities.
Oh – and latin – he reacts to this in the usual protestant fashion – besmirching the intellect of Catholics. After all, we simple forelock-tuggers could never grow to understand and appreciate a different language eh?
He resorts to dishonesty – or is it simply ignorance? – when he claims that tradition would not represent a boon for the Church. Sorry Hugh, that’s exactly what is happening – anyone with half a brain knows that traditional seminaries are at full, meanwhile, as Athanasius mentions, modern seminaries are disappearing. Good riddance, I say.
I feel he lets himself down when he suggests that traditional Catholics are arrogant and self-important. The introduction of personal attacks – which only betray his own feelings of inadequacy – confirms that the article is simply a desperate attempt to shore-up a dying experiment. Well, I am sure it was fun whilst it lasted.
Dougherty’s article is the typical intimidated reaction from someone who has spent their spiritual life smugly feeling like the special innovator, the trail-blazer, the messiah. The Church has been wasting its time for 2,000 years – but don’t fret, Hugh Dougherty’s here to point out where Christ, His Saints and His Popes have been getting it all wrong all these years.
The aggression towards the Mass – from lay people, but especially clergy – is born of the creeping realisation that what the Church has been doing these past few decades will be come to be seen as a complete aberration and an utterly dismal period of Church history.
Wow, sorry for such a long post – this thread really got my juices flowing!
Gabriel Syme,
You’ve put it even better than me. What can I say, other than that you should try sending that post to the SCO. Best of luck with that one!!
Actually, the one thing that is absent from the minds and writings of all writers like Hugh Dougherty, when addressing matters of Faith, is GRACE. They never speak about the operation of divine grace. Have you noticed this? They only speak and write in a general and purely secular way. It’s like they don’t believe in the supernatural life of grace.
Gabriel Syme,
“Yet, it seems that he feels the very liturgy which has run the Church into the ground in recent decades will somehow prove to be it’s saving grace. I think it was Einstein who said that the definition of madness was to do the same thing over and over – and yet hope for something different to happen as a result.”
Well, I think you’re confusing Einstein with me… I’m sure I’ve said that many times. Yes, you’ve confused Einstein with me… Or, er… maybe not!
Great post – I just love to think of Liz Whatshername and Hugh Thingumyjig reading it! They’re probably sharing a bottle of the hard stuff right now, trying to drown their sorrows 😥 Tough!
Gabriel Syme,
“I must say that Athanasius’ response is superb and demolishes Dougherty. His piece is everything that Dougherty’s is not – it is educational, substantiated, evidence-based and referenced.”
Exactly! I agree, fully. And you are so right that he “lets himself down2 when he says that traditional Catholics are arrogant and self-important. If anybody is self-important it’s someone like Bugnini who thought nothing of destroying the Mass, and those, like Hugh Dougherty, who support him so unthinkingly.
Don’t apologise for your long post – you say the thread got your juices flowing but your post did the same for me! LOL!
Athanasius:
Not for the first time I marvel at your courteous patience and clarity when responding to this and similar loads of tripe that find their way into the ‘Catholic’ papers.
The theological ignorance displayed by most ot the uncatechised NO enthusiasts makes me doubt that Our Lord on Calvary would ever enter their minds when attending the ‘Eucharist’ or a ‘liturgy’ (another word that has replaced the ‘holy sacrifice of the Mass’).
Christina
“Not for the first time I marvel at your courteous patience and clarity when responding to this and similar loads of tripe that find their way into the ‘Catholic’ papers.”
I’m still treating my tongue for bite injuries, the price of my patience!!
With the ascendancy of Franciscus, we can only expect more of this – they feel safe, including the national hierarchies, the Pope being on their side?
Sixupman,
A good point indeed. I have noticed that the SCO has changed course since Francis was elected. Under Benedict, there was a little more balance in the paper. But now that Francis is in charge, and he sent his blessing to the SCO, it’s all gone horribly liberal again. These people change like the weather to stay popular. Truth and the eternal good of Catholic souls means nothing to them.
Good point, Suxupman and Athanasius,
It came to my recollection that Pope Francis while still Cardinal Bergoglio permitted a tango to be danced within the Sanctuary being mentioned on an earlier thread.
Theresa Rose,
I’ve seen that video before and it shocked me to the core. If I’d been there and anyone had said there was a future pope up there in the sanctuary watching approvingly, I’d have laughed them out of the place. It’s incredible that Dougherty and Leydon prefer this sort of Mass to the traditional Mass.
Should we be surprised by this man’s contempt for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? Wasn’t he the one who boasted about not going to Mass every week? It’s hardly surprising he hates the true Mass if he can’t even attend the New Mass!
I also remember an outrageous argument praising the Orange Order parades in Donegal Town where Catholics come out to celebrate with the “Orange” community. How any Catholic could celebrate, or praise, anything to do with the Orange Order is beyond me.
DoughHeid ‘s articles really show that the revolution in the Church since Vatican II is the continuation of the Protestant reformation. Didn’t Martin Luther say that to really defeat the Catholic Church one had to attack the Mass? Well, that is what has happened but these faithless men, from Martin Luther to his successors in cope and mitre, have made a fatal error. The gates of hell will never prevail against the Church.
God has always raised up great men as antidotes to heresy. St. Dominic, St Pius V, St Pius X, Archbishop Lefebvre and in our tines Bishop Fellay. May He now send us a Pope in the mould of these men.
Petrus,
“God has always raised up great men as antidotes to heresy. St. Dominic, St Pius V, St Pius X, Archbishop Lefebvre and in our times Bishop Fellay”
Not to mention great women such as St Joan of Arc and St Catherine of Siena! And in our times, of course, Liz Leydon… 😀
Petrus,
I didn’t know that Hugh Dougherty had admitted to not regularly fulfilling his Sunday obligation. Doesn’t that just confirm the utter indifference that exists even amongst so-called Catholic writers today, not to mention the neglectful editors who publish them? No wonder he’s attacking the ancient Mass, if that’s the extent of his Catholic fidelity. A part time Catholic being given column inches in a Catholic newspaper to attack the Mass of the saints and martyrs! You couldn’t make this stuff up.
I didn’t know that Hugh Dougherty had admitted to not regularly fulfilling his Sunday obligation
He is not the only person to have made such a public statement. At least one stalwart of this blog said he would not got to Mass at all if he could not get to Mass in the Extraordinary Form.
Eileenanne,
Yet again, you fail to comment on the issue and throw in a red herring. Either you’re none too bright and it’s not deliberate, or you’re trying to distract us from the key issue.
I dug out our previous thread on the SCO – in which Kevin McKenna boasts about his lapsation – and noted that in that discussion you defended the SCO as a “commercial enterprise” arguing that, therefore, lapsed journalists are no big deal (although you conceded that it MAY not be a good idea to sell the rag in Catholic churches – you were fluid on that, not remotely dogmatic, of course, perish the thought.)
Now you appear to see no difference between someone who, in conscience, cannot attend a new Mass concocted by six Protestants and a Freemason Archbishop, and someone like Kevin McKenna who thinks its fine and dandy to “dodge” Mass. Really? Is that what you think? What if “Holy Father Francis” seeks to appease his pal – Cardinal Schonborn – and makes Balloon Masses the norm. Will you go along? Out of “obedience” (to the Pope? Not to the Faith, obviously).
In the previous thread you expressed the hope that the editor would publish another article on the importance of attending Sunday Mass to show “balance”.
Clearly, Leydon isn’t interested in “balance” if it means telling the truth about Catholic Tradition.
Do you object to that bias?
Editor,
Just to demonstrate the extent of that “bias” you cite, I had two lengthy letters of response to Mgr. Loftus’ erroneous column suppressed before this latest article. Prior to this, during the reign of the more conservative Benedict XVI, I had a number of Traditional articles published in the SCO together with no few letters correcting the doctrinal deviance of Mgr. Loftus.
But since Francis was elected I have been unable to get a single sentence published in the SCO. Why is that?
Eileenanne,
That would have been me, though I am pleased to declare that I am able to fulfill my Sunday obligation every week at a Traditional Mass, thanks be to God.
There is a vast difference in intention between people like me and those who miss Mass because they can’t be bothered. I thought even you would have recognised and acknowledged the importance of disposition of soul in this matter, Eileenanne. But, then, maybe you just chose to ignore that vital element that distinguishes between no sin and mortal sin!
Eileenanne
I assume you have watched the tango video: performed on what passed for an altar, just after Holy Mass? Any Catholic should be shocked, disgusted and enraged by such a spectacle, and yet you make no comment. Why is that? Are you not shocked? Disgusted? Enraged? Slightly annoyed, even? Do you have NO Catholic sensibility?
Why do you NEVER acknowledge what is staring you in the face? You choke on an anchovy and yet swallow a whale.
I don’t know which is more distasteful: that spectacle, or those who purport to be Catholic and who aren’t even bothered by it.
For reasons of clarity, I suppose I should point out what we all generally hold here concerning the New Mass, lest we be accused by the ignorant and vindictive of rejecting its validity.
Yes, the New Mass can be valid if the priest uses the correct matter, form and intention. But it remains very dangerous to souls because of all the Protestant theology surrounding it; to the extent of obscuring the Sacrifice of Calvary. It weakens faith in Transubstantiation, opens the liturgy up to all manner of abuses (Communion in the hand, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, altar girls, profane music, suppression of doctrinal truths in sermons, etc.) leading many to gradual lukewarmness and final apostasy. The bitter fruits are there for all who have eyes (and honesty) to see. That’s what happens when Popes abuse their power to altar sacred things they are not authorised by God to alter!
Athanasius,
I don’t always read Dougherty’s column, so Petrus may be correct, but I think he may be confusing HD with Kevin McKenna whom I do recall making light of missing Mass on Sundays.
But, listen, the way that paper spouts ignorant rubbish, I’d be more interested in finding out what the editor thinks of the Sunday obligation to attend Mass.
Editor,
You could be right about that mix up in names, but I would be very surprised if Hugh Dougherty turned out to be a regular Mass goer. His article just wasn’t the kind of work that comes from a man of Catholic truth and charity. It was, frankly, vindictive. A bit like the Mgr. Loftus articles we see published in that paper on a regular basis, which do great harm to Catholic doctrine and to Catholic souls.
In her decline email to my article, Liz Leydon made mention of our Catholic Church in Scotland being “a broad Church,” by which I assume she means open to many opposing and conflicting opinions. That’s the great error of the times, equating the divinely instituted Catholic religion with its fixed and determined doctrines with the a la carte model of man made Protestantism. Maybe she, Loftus and Dougherty would be more at home in Anglicanism. Nothing is fixed or certain in that “broad church”!
Athanasius,
That we have a “broad Church” is a lie trotted out by ignoramuses who forget that Christ said the very opposite: “the way to life is narrow.. and few there are who find it ! ” (Matthew: 7)
Editor,
Absolutely correct! But the ecumenists don’t pay heed to Our Lord’s words. For them, everyone is going to heaven. That’s why the priest now wears white instead of black at a funeral Mass.
Pius XII highlighted this admirably in Mediator Dei, writing: “…one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive tableform; were he to want black excluded as a color for the liturgical vestments…”
Sorry folks, I am confusing Hugh DoughHeid with Kevin McKenna. Mea culpa.
Petrus,
“Hugh DoughHeid” – LOL!
Athanasius,
Superb response to a malicious and offensive article.
I am happily unfamiliar with that Catholic paper, but I can only assume the editor must have very low standards to allow such rot to be published! 😀
Jobstears,
It was indeed a malicious and offensive article. That sums it up perfectly.
He can’t spell obsolete. Not a very well argued article. I am sure even Dowden would agree with me.
They’re all about injustice, and they’re not interested in “balance”. Never have been. It’s long, long past time when we should be expecting them to behave with anything like truth, honesty or integrity. Powers and Principalities, remember?
Are the Scottish Bishops in charge of what’s printed in the SCO? Surely not!
Helen,
They are not directly in charge, no. But they have influence in as much as they permit the SCO to be sold in the churches of their dioceses and could stop that at any time, for any reason. So there is a financial influence there.
The tragic irony is that the bishops have the duty before God to be in control of all Catholic publications in their dioceses. So said St. Pius X and other Popes who cautioned the bishops to be watchful shepherds of the flock, ensuring that no opinion published in a Catholic paper or periodical is contradictory or otherwise dangerous to Catholic doctrine or morals. They are supposed to assign sound priests or religious, amply virtuous and qualified for the task, to censure all that is not in line with the Magisterial teaching of the Church. Alas, as we see today, the bishops have become exceptionally negligent in this crucial duty to the extent that heretics and dissenters now have free reign in many Catholic publications to the detriment of souls. They will assuredly answer to Our Lord at their judgment for this grave abandonment of duty.
Novus ordoism is self-liquidating. I think at this stage of the revolution, that such woeful, embarrassing nonsense as the SCO has seen fit to publish only goes to prove the point.
In a strange sort of way, I find articles such as Hugh Dougherty’s very reassuring, in the evidence they offer of concern in certain quarters (ecclesial and elsewhere no doubt) that the Catholic remnant is, however slowly, rediscovering their patrimony which can never be destroyed. We’ve had the persecution and scorched earth policy for five decades. Now it’s a case of poisoning the wells and blowing up the bridges. Refusal to publish Athanasius’ comprehensive shredding of Dougherty’s novus ordo agitprop leaves little room for doubt.
Modernist mind rot or not, the adversaries of Catholics faithful to Tradition are sufficiently switched on to the fact that they themselves have no Conciliar heirs, and they cannot simply ignore the threat to the revolution. The growing attacks on Tradition from the progressivists and the neo-Catholics over the last eighteen months are hardly a coincidence.
We really are dealing with diabolical disorientation when addressing this opposition to the Mass of the Martyrs. With that in mind, I think it’s worth reposting 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,
I followed that link you posted. Incredible stuff, quite incredible! This is the man (Annibale Bugnini) whose Protestantised product is today called the “Ordinary Form” of the Catholic Mass. I read that Bugnini once declared in arrogance: “I am the liturgical reform”. How very true for him, how very tragic for the Church!
Leo,
That’s amazing about the restaurant. Also the quotes show that Bugnini was a liar and a double dealer. To think this man is responsible for turning the Church upside down. However, Paul VI should have been more vigilant and not trusted him so readily.
Margaret Mary,
Pope Paul VI was a complete enigma, a Pope of two minds like all Modernists. One minute he was perfectly orthodox, the next perfectly innovative. It is recorded that when he discovered that Bugnini had written in the preface of the first edition of the New Missal that the Mass was “the supper of the Lord,” a fully Protestant statement, he wept. That edition was quickly withdrawn and the wording changed to represent more the Catholic understanding of the Mass. What Pope Paul should have done, there and then, was scrap the entire project and order the continuation of the ancient Mass. Alas! that was the weakness of Paul VI.
What he did do was suddenly and swiftly remove Mgr. Bugnini from his high Curial position and send him into exile in Iran. But it was too little, too late.
Leo,
Thank you for the link, I couldn’t believe what I was reading! I knew the architect of the NO was crazed, but I didn’t think he could have actually hated the Mass – now I do. The incident of the two clerics revising the abominable new canon overnight, and in a restaurant, of all places, brought home to me why in good conscience, NO cannot fulfill the Sunday obligation for me! Right now we have a wonderfully feisty PP who keeps the archdiocese happy by taking not a cent from them, so we get the TLM, but that can change at anytime.
Editor has always said, that while the NO can be valid, it really cannot be pleasing to God and I am in no doubt whatsoever! 😀
Excellent response, Mr. Blackshaw! Bravo! Thank you for defending the True Faith. God bless you.
DOTF,
Thank you for your kind words. May God bless and keep us all in these tragic times!
There is no doubt that in last eighteen months, attacks on Catholics faithful to Tradition have become more vocal and outrageous. The subject of this thread is just more example.
Of course, on the subject of the true Mass, it doesn’t require much thought to figure out the influence that is coming from on high. Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation last year, 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.
Leo,
It’s interesting that you quote Evangelii Gaudium, the Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis. It is a very lengthy document full of the quotes of Vatican II and the conciliar popes. But it doesn’t make a single reference to the pre-Council Magisterial teaching of the Church, not one single mention.
Mind you, on reading the highly suspicious content of the document in question, this is hardly surprising! It reads, in effect, like a Gospel other than that which has been preached by the Church for nigh on 2000 years.
Leo,
The quotes from Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium just leave me cold. The very thing he, as Pope, should be protecting (“the past”) is what he is ridiculing. Pure diabolical disorientation. God forgive him.
“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. What are the chances of these words being published in the SCO?
“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.”
I’ve just skimmed some of the recent responses on this thread – superb. Leo, as ever, rockets up the pay scale for his insightful and thoroughly documented posts. Christmas bonuses for the rest of us are suspended until further notice – well, be fair; we have to make austerity cuts somewhere… 😀
One of our readers has emailed Liz Leydon, editor of the SCO to let her know that we are discussing her “broad Church” newspaper. Although I know she reads this blog and is likely to know about it anyway, a big thank you to our reader for making sure that she receives an education in the Faith which she so obviously needs. If Liz Leydon reads these comments, all thoroughly documented, she has absolutely NO excuse for continuing to allow the Faith to be attacked just because we have a Modernist Pope leading the attack.
If she has even the slightest Catholic sense left, she will apologise to Martin Blackshaw without delay, for refusing to publish his excellent rebuttal of Dougherty’s baloney.
editor,
Though Liz Leydon reads this blog, I doubt that she will spare any effort to make any comment. A pity really. I hope she reads and learns.
I have convinced my PP of the utter rubbish that is the SCO and he has stopped ordering it! “Better still”, I said to him, “order dozens of copies and bin them”. As far as I know he only needs to pay for the ones that are sold. However, he wouldn’t go that far…. 🙁
Helen,
Your PP would seem to be exceptional. Get him to sign up for this blog – we need all hands on deck these days.
Haha good on ya, Helen! I’m going to try the same! Maybe we should start an apostolate to visit as many Catholic churches as possible and to bin all the copies of SCO!!
Crofterlady,
No objections from me on that score. Apparently the great Communist convert, Hamish Fraser, when asked about whether this sort of apostolate was a “sin” replied that, far from it, that it was a sin NOT to protect the faithful from the garbage that passes for Catholic literature these days.
Another method of countering these faithless rags, which some of our readers do from time to time, is to slip copies of Catholic Truth into the middle pages, when they are lying at the back of churches. Leaving them out doesn’t work as the priest will bin THEM (irony of ironies!) but they don’t know that when their parishioners purchase a headache (copy of the SCO, for example) they are also taking home a good dose of medicine to counteract the danger to their spiritual health. We have some very imaginative (and apostolic) readers! And what the average PP doesn’t know, won’t keep him awake at night 😀
I completely agree. People would think it was a duty to bin literature promoting drugs and such like, and would be praised for it. People’s souls are more important than their bodies so it can only be a good thing to remove papers that are taking souls away from the truths of the faith and causing them confusion. That can’t possibly be a sin.
Margaret Mary,
I agree with you – it can’t possibly be a sin to protect people from these papers. You are so right about “people would think it was a duty to bin literature promoting drugs etc” and “souls are more important than bodies.” I agree one hundred per cent.
Editor, my PP is not exceptional. You see I didn’t tell him WHY I was suggesting he not order the SCO anymore because I thought if I mention Martin’s letter etc., he probably wouldn’t do it! I was far more canny than that, but I don’t want to publicly reveal my ruse, because he might be reading this!
Helen,
LOL!
Helen,
If only more parish priests were like yours and would stop feeding this trash to the souls under their care. The editors of these dissenting publications need to get the message that only wholesome Catholic reading, in line with the teaching of the Church, is acceptable. If they won’t see sense, and goodness knows many of us have tried several times to instill it, then withdraw the money and put them out of business. It’s a duty to do so.
Helen,
Love it! LOL! I must say I’m amazed that your priest agreed to cancel the SCO no matter what you said. From my own experience, most of them don’t even read the papers themselves so don’t know how bad they are.
Long live the revolution lads and lasses!!!!!!
Domchas,
At least you’re now recognising and admitting that what is going on in the Church is revolution. That’s progress. Keep reading this blog – you’ll get there in the end.
Domchas,
If there’s one thing about the conciliar revolution that is absolutely certain, it is that it will not be long lived. God is not mocked!
Athanasius, God has a greater sense of humour than you realise!
Domchas,
How do you know whether or not “God has greater sense of humour than [Athanasius] realises!”
How do you know that?
Editor, even God has to laugh at the things we poor creatures get so upset about! Just read the CT blog, to realise that He has a great sense of humour. Need I say more!
Domchas,
Do not mistake God’s infinite mercy and patience for a sense of humour. There was nothing remotely funny about Our Lord’s Passion and death, during which He was also mocked. Rebellion against the Almighty and His Commandments is no laughing matter.
Athanasius, relax, smile, God did give even you a sense of humour. Find it again and learn to enjoy God in all HIS WONDER!!
Domchas,
If you read the recent joke thread on this blog you will know without doubt that we all have a lively sense of humour here. But there is a time for humour and a time sobriety in the things pertaining to God’s Majesty and justice.
The secret of enjoying God in all HIS WONDER lies in the Imitation of Christ, not in Ken Dodd! The Church is in serious crisis right now; hardly a situation crying out for relaxation and levity.
I don’t have to go in search of my sense of humour, because I have never lost sight of it, in context. Can you say the same for yourself as regards zeal for the truths of the Faith handed down, Domchas? I ask the question in all sincerity because you appear to be completely blind to what is happening in the Church before your very eyes.
Athanasius, as much as your good self and many others on this blog assume that you and your confreres have the sole and only vision of the church as it should be,( cynics would say outdated, outmoded and irrevelant), very many others are quietly working for the Kingdom. It may not be the way you think it should be nor to your personal liking. However remember that many others work for and within the Church despite the small minded vitriol which frequents comments on this blog. Quietly prayerfully and totally within the ‘ Magesterium’ which you continually bang on about.. Rather than continuous criticism , put downs and the frequent personal insults which enamate from you and many others when faced with disagreements from others as and when they put forward a differing point of view; try seeing the huge amount of very Graced and God Blessed witness and work being done all around you. Remove the blinkers which you seem to wear at all times and see the Church in its fullness being witnessed taught and exemplified by those quiiet and normally very holy prayerful workers in the Lords vineyard, despite the difficulties, to which you add. Give praise and thanks to God that such people remain faithful to the truth of the Gospel despite the frequent attacks which you and your type aim at them .
LAUDAMUS TE DEUM.
Domchas,
You write: “very many others are quietly working for the Kingdom…” but you don’t explain what that means. In the context of the Church, what does “working for the Kingdom” actually mean?
Editor are you really so totally ignorant of your Catholic faith you don’t know what is being done to build up the Kingdom of God in the world, through the church. Be ashamed woman be very ashamed
Domchas,
Yet again, you fail to answer a question directly, but, by accident, have given yourself away when you repeat the error that building up God’s kingdom on earth means making a better world. That is NOT what it means.
Have another bash. Go on. If you really don’t know, I’ll tell you. But, go on, have a bash. Hint: salvation, souls…
PS for those of you who bewail the hostile comments from occasional bloggers like Domchas and Eileenanne, and tell me to blacklist them because they’re “trolls”. I disagree. They’re worse than trolls.
So much so that I think we need a newly coined term to describe them and the only one I can come up with right now is “grolls” (not trolls)
“Grolls” describes bloggers who come on here either to grumble about us (not about the crisis in the Church) and/or to gloat when they think (always mistakenly) that they’ve caught us out. Those are the only occasions I can think of, when the occasional hostile bloggers appear here.
However, folks, if you can think of a better description to replace “trolls” let’s hear it. “Grolls” (which doubles as “Glolls” – for “gloat”) is the best I can think of right now 😀
Domchas,
“Athanasius, as much as your good self and many others on this blog assume that you and your confreres have the sole and only vision of the church as it should be,( cynics would say outdated, outmoded and irrevelant), very many others are quietly working for the Kingdom…”
Actually, we on this blog assume nothing. The vision of the Church we have is the only one the Popes from St. Peter to Pius XII presented as divinely established; infallible and immutable in her doctrine and Sacraments.
Since it is impossible that this vision become outdated, outmoded and irrelevant, I would venture to suggest, as St. John the Evangelist did regarding those who preached a new and perverse Gospel in his day, that this Kingdom others are quietly working for is in fact the Kingdom of Satan.
The bitter fruits of the past 50 years would seem to uphold this terrible truth. Paul VI was not mistaken when he lamented that “through some fissure in the walls, the smoke of Satan has entered the Church and set her on a path of auto destruction.”
The reason why “these others,” these disciples of Modernism, cannot see the person they really serve is because, as St. Pius X said in Pascendi: “Pride sits in the Modernist mind as in its own house”. And we all know that pride blinds, Domchas. There is nothing Godly about religious innovators. They are destroyers of all that is sacred.
“…It may not be the way you think it should be nor to your personal liking…”
My personal liking has nothing to do with this. The conciliar reformation stands in so many ways opposed to the teaching of the Popes and Councils up to Vatican II, which council, incidentally, was a mere pastoral council “not treating of doctrine,” to quote Pope John XXIII. So how come we ended up with three new (previously condemned) doctrines, namely, Ecumenism, Religious Liberty and Collegiality?
“…However remember that many others work for and within the Church despite the small minded vitriol which frequents comments on this blog. Quietly prayerfully and totally within the ‘ Magesterium’ which you continually bang on about..”
Presuming you mean the conciliar liberals and innovators. Yes, they work within the Church, as St. Pius X says, “for her undoing…laying the axe to the root of the tree and proceeding to administer poison through all the branches…”
As for totally within the magisterium. No, they in fact disobey the Magisterium whenever it suits them. Here are a few examples:
Vatican II did not call for a New Mass fully in the vernacular. Quite the contrary, in fact. Nor did it command the re-ordering of churches so that high altar, altar rails, tabernacles (in many cases), etc., be removed.
Neither Vatican II nor Pope Paul VI ordered Communion in the hand. This abuse was introduced by Cardinal Suenens in Belgium and soon spread throughout the Church by revolutionary bishops, despite Paul VI’ attempts to prevent it’s spread through Memoriale Domine.
Likewise, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion were introduced by revolutionary bishops without mandate from Vatican II and against the wishes of Pope John Paul II, whose authoritative ban except in the most extreme circumstances has been completely and universally ignored.
In actual fact a deep study of documents and events since Vatican II clearly shows that it’s the Modernist innovators, not the Traditional Catholics, who are the real schismatics and enemies of the Papacy. You need to do some serious homework, Domchas, and turn to Our Lady for some light to open your mind to the truth.
Domchas
Were you at Woodstock, by any chance???
America or Oxford??
Either, or both would tell us a lot…
Domchas
How about answering Editor’s question; how, exactly, are you working for the Kingdom?
Quietly!!!
Quietly? Hardly, when you’re here boasting about it. Even if it’s not the real thing (see my previous “Kingdom” comment)…
Athanasius
You made the very significant remark (November 14, 12.29am) concerning Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium that “it doesn’t make a single reference to the pre-Council Magisterial teaching of the Church, not one single mention.”
It’s the same glaring feature of so many Conciliar documents over the last five decades. Against fact there is no argument. Nobody has yet, for the obvious reasons, demonstrated the continuity of those Conciliar documents, the continuity which is one of the essential hallmarks of Tradition and the infallible ordinary magisterium.
The grave responsibility of Popes concerning the presentation of sound doctrine has been recognised since the earliest days of the Church. Saint Paul left us in no doubt. Pope Clement XIII’s warned in his 1761 encyclical, Dominico Agro, that none of the faithful should have “extraordinary opinions proposed to them, not even from Catholic doctors; instead, they should listen to those opinions which have the most certain criteria of Catholic truth: universality, antiquity, and unanimity.”
Concerning Popes who are tempted to enthusiastic overindulgence towards untrammelled thinking when it comes to carrying out their duty as Vicar of Christ, another Doctor of the Church sets forth the guiding principle, again totally in line with constant Church teaching:
“What is found to have its origin in the opinion of some Holy Father or particular Council is not a Divine Tradition, even though it should be celebrated throughout the entire Church. For if we did not attend to this rule, we should have to admit without certain foundation, new revelations regarding faith or morals, which has been always abhorred and impugned in the Church by men the most attached to religion. Hence, the sovereign pontiffs, the Councils, and the Fathers, have been most careful to reject all novelties or new doctrines on matters of faith, which differed from those that had been already received.”
– St. Alphonus Liguori, Exposition and defense of all the points of Faith discussed and defined by the Sacred Council of Trent, Dublin 1846, Pg. 51
One additional remark concerning Evengelii Gaudium: I believe the word “new” appears approximately 200 times!
It’s hardly necessary to say any more.
Leo,
Absolutely right! The Vatican II reformers cannot make reference to pre-Council Magisterial teaching to support such innovations as ecumenism, religious liberty and collegiality. That’s why the word “new” is in constant use with overtures to some imagined “hermeneutic of continuity” with the past. It’s kind of like the infallible dogma ‘extra ecclesiam nulla salus’. They don’t deny the dogma, they just never speak about it or reference it!
I’ll send editor an email with attachment of a 6000-word dissertation on this subject, which I had published in the March/April Angelus magazine. She can then forward it to you if you wish to read it.
Athanasius,
While the Catholic Herald did have the reputation, for a while, of being more orthodox than the rest, I’m afraid I no longer have your confidence that Mgr Loftus would not be published there. I mean, I sincerely hope you’re right, but given the editor’s (Luke Coppen’s) enthusiastic editorial commentaries on Pope Francis’ every utterance, I’m not so sure.
Indeed, I was so astonished at some of his “Francis” editorials, one of which finished with “keep those interview coming Holy Father” (when gushing about the shocking betrayals of the Faith in the Pope’s various interviews, including the interview with the atheist journalist) that I emailed to ask him his age. He replied on 29th August to say he was (at that time!) 38 years of age. A baby, in other words.
Unbelievable that he should be charged with editing a major Catholic newspaper, when there’s absolutely no way he has been educated in the Faith. Not the slightest chance, having been born into this devastating period in the history of the Church.
Of course, I sincerely hope that you’re right about Mgr Loftus being denied a CH column but I can’t feel the same certainty as you appear to enjoy.
In defence of the Catholic Herald I will point out that they rang to offer us a special deal in advertising for one of our early conferences, and said that their package included an advertisement in their sister paper, the SCO. The SCO point blank refused to take the advert, and even pressure from on high at the CH (I was told at the time) made no difference. So, there’s a real nastiness at the SCO (as if we didn’t know) that doesn’t appear, at least, to be the case at the CH. Luke Coppen, for example, always answers my emails. Liz Leydon doesn’t. Rude.
I completely agree with you about the Catholic Times being the worst of all. The editor – Kevin Flaherty – publishes pro-contraception letters from a woman called Elizabeth Price, week after week and they are generally placed very prominently in the paper. Also, if any letter makes it onto the page in criticism of Mgr Loftus’ rubbish writings, as happened a couple of weeks ago when Lawyer, Neil Addison took him to task, Mgr Loftus is published alongside, replying. Most unprofessional and unethical, but above all shows Flaherty’s determination to push poison into his readers, and prohibit correction.
What I’ve said about the bishops and clergy in this matter of attacking Catholic morality and/or failing to defend it when there is a clear duty so to do, applies also to men like Flaherty. I’m on record saying that there has to be something wrong in the personal lives of priests and bishops who promote immorality, something gravely wrong in their personal lives for them to be so far away from the truths of the Faith. The same applies to editors… I mean, why would any editor of a Catholic newspaper, publish letters week after week from a married woman writing on only one subject – contraception, and that to promote it and attack the natural moral law? Why, I can’t help wondering, would he do that?
Editor,
I am always shocked at the letters from Elizabeth Price in the Catholic Times. They appear week after week. I don’t buy any of these papers but I do check out the letters pages at the church stall and her name is well known by now. I think, personally, that it’s the editor’s way of pushing contraception. That’s the only reason I can think of why he would give her letters space on such a regular basis.
Thank you very much, Athanasius.
I would be delighted to read that dissertation. I’m sure everyone else will want to see it too.
I need some good reading to distract me from talk of soccer. There was some match on somewhere tonight, wasn’t there?!
On the “non-continuity” issue, I think the only mention Mortalium Animos got in Unitatis Redintegratio, the Council’s decree on Ecumenism, was a single mention in some footnote. I believe Quas Primas wasn’t mentioned anywhere.
In Ecclesia Dei Adflicta in 1988, Pope John Paul II even admitted:
“Indeed, the extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council’s continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church.”
I’m sure many here are aware of the Dubia which Archbishop Lefebvre submitted to Rome in October 1985, setting out thirty nine doubts concerning the continuity of the Council’s teaching on religious liberty with previous Church teaching. These doubts are published in the book, Religious Liberty Questioned.
Rome’s fifty page reply, received about eighteen months later, addressed none of the doubts in particular, admitted that the doctrine on religious liberty was “incontestably a novelty”, but claimed that it was the outcome of “doctrinal development in continuity.”
Support for the Archbishop’s criticism concerning lack of continuity comes from an unlikely source:
“It cannot be denied that a text like this (the declaration on Religious Liberty) does materially say something different from the Syllabus of 1864, and even almost the opposite of propositions 15 and 77-79 of that document.” Yves Congar, Challenge to the Church, p.147
How about the following from Jean Guitton, lay French philosopher, and close confidante of Pope Paul VI.
“When I read the documents relative to the Modernism, as it was defined by Saint Pius X, and when I compare them to the documents of the II Vatican Council, I cannot help being bewildered. For what was condemned as heresy in 1906 was proclaimed as what is and should be from now on the doctrine and method of the Church. In other words, the modernists of 1906 were, somewhat, precursors to me. My masters were part of them. My parents taught me Modernism. How could Saint Pius X reject those that now seem to be my precursors?” (Jean Guitton, Portrait du Père Lagrange, Éditions Robert Laffont, Paris, 1992, pp. 55-56).
On the subject of this thread, Guitton, on December 19, 1993, during a debate on Lumiere 101 (Radio Courtoisie), affirmed that:
“Paul VI’s intention concerning the liturgy, concerning putting the liturgy into modern languages, was to reform the Catholic liturgy so that it would closely coincide with the Protestant liturgy… with the Protestant Supper.”
Later on he said:
“…I repeat that Paul VI did everything in his power to bring the Mass — beyond the Council of Trent — into agreement with the Protestant Supper.”
At a priest’s protestation, Guitton replied:
“The Mass of Paul VI is presented first of all as a meal, isn’t it? And a lot of emphasis is given to the aspect of participation in a meal, and much less to the notion of sacrifice, of ritual sacrifice…. In other words, there was in Paul VI the ecumenical intention to efface — or at least to correct — what was too ‘catholic,’ in the traditional sense, in the Mass, and to bring the Catholic Mass — I repeat — into agreement with the Calvinist Mass.”
How can anyone reasonably make the case of Conciliar “continuity” with Tradition? Again, against facts there is no argument.
I’ve just come across this Catholic website this evening. Hugh Dougherty and Liz Leydon might benefit from spending a bit of time perusing it. I’ve only looked at the first few minutes of the video on the Home page, but it appears very informative so far. The great New Springtime Myth gets the treatment.
http://www.latinritemass.org/
Thanks, Leo, great video.
Leo,
Thank you. I have already taken the liberty of attaching it to an email for editor to forward when she has time. I know she has her hands pretty full at the moment, so bear with her.
What you will notice in the piece is that I make reference to Archbishop Lefebvre’s quotes on Religious Liberty, as well as his observations on Collegiality, though not as thoroughly as I would have liked (column inches and all that). What I have written ties in pretty much with what you have stated above amidst so many other gems of information in your post.
I was particularly approving of your last sentence: “…How can anyone reasonably make the case of Conciliar “continuity” with Tradition? Again, against facts there is no argument.”
Precisely so! And that’s why when Archbishop Lefebvre went to Rome for talks, and Bishop Fellay after him, presenting the Traditional teaching of the Church against these Modernist innovations, they only response that comes echoing back with tiring regularity is “but you must obey the Council”. They know they have no argument against the facts, so they resort to obedience. That’s why Archbishop Lefebvre could state so clearly that “Satan’s masterstroke has been to sow disobedience through obedience”.
Blind obedience, if accepted, would make of the free children of the Church slaves to the individual whims of Popes. That’s not Catholic and Archbishop Lefebvre knew it.
I hope you get something from that Angelus article to keep for future use, just as I have from your many well-researched Magisterial and other authoritative statements posted here.
Athanasius,
I’ve now sent on the article to Leo.
I’ve not had time to read it myself, but I have no doubt it will be up to your usual standard and the title – Fiddling while Rome burns: Vatican II in retrospect” screamed out BLOG THREAD at me so, with your permission, I’ll post that as the lead article in a fresh thread in due course. So, if Leo would hold fire and not comment on it in any detail until then, that would be helpful.
Editor,
Thank you for sending that article on to Leo. I’ll just check with the editor of the Angelus magazine that he doesn’t mind a re-publication of the piece here. I’m sure he won’t, but it seems the courteous thing to do just to ask. I know he follows this blog and would want the information spread as far and wide as possible, so bear with me on that one.
Leo,
That site you linked seems ok at first glance. I don’t think it’s extremist in any way, although there is a video of Bishop Williamson there, but this statement caught my eye:
“If you are not Catholic, know this! There is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church, if you are not joined to one of the 23 Rites that makes up the Catholic Church there is no salvation for you, the words of the Son Of God!”
This is always a worrying statement when not accompanied by the Church’s teaching on invincible ignorance. I might message the author later to find out if it’s just an oversight on his part, or if he is a Feeneyite.
I took a quick look at that site and there is no “About us” page so I am always a bit suspicious of sites where there is no information about those who are running it. I don’t mean biographical details and photos, that sort of thing, just a few sentences about their aims/objectives/purpose. Makes me think it is possibly run by sedevacantist or “resistance” (to nothing) people. I could be wrong, of course, but that’s my general feeling about “anonymous” websites.
Editor,
I sent a message to the blog author respectfully pointing out his omission of the Church’s teaching on invincible ignorance. I haven’t had a response yet, so it remains a bit up in the air. I’ll let everyone know if and when I get the answer I’m hoping for. I don’t think he’s sedevacantist or “Resistance,” as his website carries video footage of FSSP Masses, but time will tell.
Athanasius and Editor
Thank you for those comments.
I may have taken a bit of a chance last evening posting a link to a site which I had only just come across. That said, it was getting late and before peoples’ attention had moved elsewhere, I thought it might be of some help in counteracting the ignorant and ridiculous attacks on the true Mass that are being foisted on unsuspecting Catholics. I still think that.
I actually came across a very well documented presentation by this man, Joao Machado, concerning the general apostasy in the US. His explanation, which should have widespread agreement here, is, as I read it, that there has been a massive withdrawal of graces and that that withdrawal is inextricably linked to the disobedience involved in the de facto rejection of Quo Primum, by which Pope Saint Pius V Catholics are bound to the true Mass.
I didn’t link to that particular video as it was posted on another site which tends to include very strong tobacco and occasionally gives the impression of being on nodding terms with sedevacantism. Hence the link directly to Machado’s own site.
Having seen links to Father Gregory Hesse, Father Gruner, and Sancta Missa on the site, I reckoned there was little chance of sedevacantist involvement. Ditto with the FSSP link, which was the one thing that made me a little reluctant to post the link( and I’m not trying to open another front here). Anyway, I thought that it might be a bit churlish not to link on that account, and the priority on this occasion was the defence of the true Mass against all adversaries.
Now that I’ve seen links to Ecclesia Dei Mass timetables and references to Summorum Pontificum I think it is pretty to say that Joao Machado is not in the sedes camp.
That is a fair remark, Athanasius, about invincible ignorance and the dogma of Outside the Church there is no salvation. It’s just my impression, but I would be very surprised if Mr Machado is a Feenyite. (I now expect a very occasional blogger to appear shortly, as if on queue. Hopefully Editor has her previous comprehensive rebuttal to hand, just in case.)
Apologies to everyone if the above is all a bit long winded. The last thing I intended was to cause any distractions from the main issue here.
Thanks, Athanasius and Editor for forwarding the Angelus article. I look forward to reading it.
Leo,
I think the link you posted is perfectly good. I checked it out right away and couldn’t see anything too amiss with the site except the invincible ignorance qualification I raised with its author. I definitely don’t think the guy is sedevacantist of Feeneyite either, so all seems well.
Liz Leydon is hardly, at this stage, in a position to claim “invincible ignorance” regarding the true Mass. I think the same can reasonably be said of increasing numbers of Bishops, priests, lay Catholics who earn an income from holding forth on matters of the Faith, and finally those Catholics who read the blogs of Catholics faithful to Tradition.
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.
Monsignor Klaus Gamber, who was not a “traditionalist”, wrote a book twenty one 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)
So, what have Liz Leydon and Hugh Dougherty got to say to that?
We’ve had the New Theology, New Pentecost, New Advent, New Springtime, New Movements, New Canon Law, New Catechism, New Sacraments, and New Evangelisation. Would Liz Leydon, or Hugh Dougherty seriously care to argue that the New Mass is a coincidence?
And New Mass is certainly what we are talking about. Regulars here may well know a lot of the following off by heart by now. I’d be interested in reading Liz Leydon and Hugh Dougherty’s reaction to those words, or indeed the reaction of anyone who is still in denial as regards the previously unimaginable catastrophic damage inflicted on the Church, and the consequent danger to innumerable souls, by the novus ordo revolution. I’m not holding my breath. In almost three years reading this blog, I can’t recall even once reading a plausible pastoral or theological defence of all the novelties, contradictions, ambiguities, and omissions of the last five decades. Personal attacks against this blog we get alright. But when it comes to answering factual evidence the response is eloquent silence, every time, apart from the odd rather desperate sounding argument from authority.
On November 26 1969, Pope Paul VI uttered some of the strangest words ever spoken by a reigning Pope, arguably on a par at least with the same Pontiff’s “smoke of satan” remarks:
“We ask you to turn your minds once more to the liturgical innovation of the new Rite of Mass…a change in a venerable tradition that has gone on for centuries. This is something that affects our hereditary religious patrimony, which seemed to enjoy the privilege of being untouchable and settled…It is the kind of upset caused by every novelty that breaks in on our habits…This novelty is no small thing…We have reason indeed for regret, reason almost for bewilderment.”
As for the theological stakes involved, here’s the evidence of some of the fabricators themselves:
“The liturgical reform is a major conquest of the Catholic Church and has its ecumenical dimension, since the other churches and Christian denominations see in it not only something to be admired, but equally a sign of further progress to come.” Bugnini, Notitiaem no 92, April 1974, p. 126
“It is not simply a question of restoring a valuable masterpiece, in some cases it will be necessary to provide new structures for entire rites…it will truly be a new creation.” – Annibale Bugnini, May 7 1967, La Documentation Catholique, no. 1493
“Let them compare it with the Mass we now have. Not only the words, the melodies and some of the gestures are different. To tell the truth, it is a different liturgy of the Mass. This needs to be said without ambiguity: the Roman Rite as we know it no longer exists. It has been destroyed. Some walls of the former edifice have changed their appearance, to the extent that it appears today either as a ruin or the partial substructure of a different building.” – Joseph Gelineau SJ, Demain La Liturgie, Paris, 1976, pp 9-10
“An ecumenically-oriented sacramental theology for the celebration of the Mass emerged…it leads us…out of the dead end of the post-Tridentine theories of sacrifice, and corresponds to the agreements signalled by many of last’s year’s interfaith documents.” Fr. Lengeling, Consilium member
Evidence of the intended doctrinal changes comes from an irrefutable witness- Bugnini’s assistant, Father Carlo Braga:
“Revising the pre-existing text becomes more delicate when faced with a need to update content or language, and when all this affects not only form, but also doctrinal reality. This (revision) is called for in light of the new view of human values, considered in relation to and as a way to supernatural goods…In other cases, ecumenical requirements dictated appropriate revisions in language. Expressions recalling positions or struggles of the past are no longer in harmony with the Church’s new positions. An entirely new foundation of Eucharistic theology has superseded devotional points of view or a particular way of venerating and invoking the Saints. Retouching the text, moreover, was deemed necessary to bring to light new values and new perspectives.”
I counted the word “new” five times in that paragraph.
Fr. Braga admitted that the Novus Ordo had been given “an entirely new foundation of eucharistic theology” resulting from a revision affecting “not only form, but also doctrinal reality”, dictated by “ecumenical requirements…in harmony with the Church’s new positions.” – Fr. Carlo Braga, Il ‘Proprium de Sanctis’, Ephemerides Liturgicae 84 (1970), 419
If anyone is inclined to dismiss the importance of the changes to the orations in the Mass and their effect, they need to read the words of Monsignor A.G. Martimort, another of Consilium’s experts:
“The content of these prayers is the most important of the liturgical loci theologici ( theological sources). The reason is that they interpret the shared faith of the assembly.” (- The Church at Prayer, vol. 1)
Compare the words of Father Braga when he said that the New Missal will indeed “have a transforming effect on catechesis” (Il Nuovo Messale Romano, Ephemerides Liturgicae 84 (1970) with those of Pope Pius XII who wrote in his encyclical, Mediator Dei, that the entire liturgy “bears public witness to the faith of the Church.”
I think anyone who claims that those “Ghost Dancer” Catholics who want the Mass of All Time, the Mass which sanctified and sustained so many Saints and Martyrs, are motivated by aesthetics (“bells and smells”) or nostalgia, or, God help us, feelings of superiority, really, with respect, needs to get a whole lot better informed.
Then they might understand why the “banal fabrication” of Bugnini must be returned to the workshop for permanent mothballing.
Leo,
You are so right to point out that the people like Liz Leydon and clergy who are making a living out of the Church cannot claim invincible ignorance. They have a very serious duty to be informed and it is obvious that she is not informed when she allows ridiculous and offensive articles about the ancient Mass to be published.
I looked at the letters page today in the SCO at the back of the church and there is nothing in there to challenge Dougherty’s article. So, her paper is doing the work of the devil, unimpeded. She should be really worried about that.
Margaret Mary,
I remember when I had my article against Communion in the hand published in the SCO, Professor Haldane had a contrary piece, which mentioned me and my article, published the following week. Of course, the Haldane article was one of those general observation articles that don’t contain a single fact from Tradition to back them up. Still, he was given the last word.
Athanasius,
That’s just shocking. How can Liz Leydon sleep at night?
Michaela,
It’s a sad fact that too many Catholic editors have been asleep for years.
Leo,
True that the Modernist wildcats have a very good grasp of the principle, “lex orandi, lex credendi” and how important it is.
Especially now with the kind of liturgical chaos and abuses that abound nowadays.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQPkYwIOCRM
That was Part One, now for Part 2, no wonder Cardinal Ratzinger called the Novus Ordo Mass a banal on the spot fabrication.
http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeP_EdQc5so
I wonder what Liz Leydon’s arguments are against the Traditional Latin Mass, sometimes known as the Tridentine Mass.
Sorry, I didn’t key in part 2 properly, so here goes.
Comment removed
Editor,
Understood!
I’ve been really impressed with the information on this thread. It’s jam packed with facts that a lot of (most) Catholics wouldn’t have a clue about. I do hope Liz Leydon has read it and has a stab of conscience for publishing Hugh Dougherty’s attack on the Mass.
Lily,
I’m not sure I’d ever write a sentence with “Liz Leydon” and “conscience” in the same sentence 😀
Recent graphs from France show that in 24 years the number of priests saying the EF will rise to meet the falling number saying the OF. A video from Voris indicates the numbers in the U S of A are plummeting, Mass attenders and priests, but EF priests rising. I suspect this is true everywhere in Europe.
Certainly my diocese has started a “ reorganisation”, no doubt the first of many.
It is tragic that the Mystical Body of Christ on Earth, the Catholic Church is going through such trauma, directly attributable to the disaster, I think we can now call it that, of Vat 11..
24 years is not a long time. The current shambolic mess in the Church has been going on for about fifty years after all. So In 24 years, and I suspect sooner, the number of priest saying the EF will probably outnumber those saying the OF and the EF is likely to become once again the ordinary form of the Mass.
Perhaps someone should tell the SCO, whoever they are?
The nosedive in diocesan ordinations has been planned as a transition from Ordained Priesthood to the “priesthood of the laity”. Also part of the plan, is the rise in “permanent deacons”, with exceptions, self-important individuals. In Liverpool Archdiocese, they are even listed, in the ‘Directory’ as husband and wife.The consequence also being a reduction in mid-week Masses, replaced by lay-led Communion services.
Permanent Deacons had their place in the mission fields, but such, obviously, within an entirely different context.
Even so, some priests coming through the diocesan route are Traditional leaning.
Sixupman,
You are absolutely correct about the attempt to replace the priesthood with permanent married deacons. That was clearly the game plan of Bishop Conti of Aberdeen, later Archbishop Conti of Glasgow. At one time, the website of the Archdiocese of Glasgow featured a vocations page which mentioned the priesthood only once, in passing, the rest was an enthusiastic advertisement for permanent deacons. Disgraceful. I haven’t checked it recently but will do now that we’ve launched a new thread on the subject of Vocations.
Jacobi,
We make a point of never using the term “EF” with regard to the ancient Mass. Language is important (ask any Sodomite!) so we think it is best, if we can remember, not to concede anything at all to those who have sought to displace the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM).
I do agree with your conclusion that the new Mass(es) will disappear and by default the traditional Mass will be restored. Well said.
Editor, the word Sodomite is frequently used on this blog, usually I think as an insult? What is a Sodomite, what does the word mean, where does it originate from. If language is so important, your words, why do you allow dubious expressions or words to be frequently used on the blog. Whenever I see the word in use, I get the distinct impression that the the user(author) demeans both themselves and the point they are trying to clarify or make…………..an explanation in full please and thank you.
Editor: I hope the Encyclopaedia Britannica definition and explanation is “full” enough for you… If not, take it up with them.
PS a “fact” cannot, by definition, be an “insult”. If the Encyclopaedia has attributed behaviour to homosexuals that is not true, then you need to contact them to change the definition of sodomy and the Oxford English Dictionary where they define “Sodomite” as one who engages in sodomy (and I think link to the Encyclopaedia Britannica for their more detailed definition!)
As usual Editor you pass the buck. The question was directed to you, why are you evading the answer. I would like to hear YOUR explanation. Is it possible for you to be honest and just simply answer the question.?
Domchas,
What question?
Editor,
I do apologise. Do remember i am only an occasional commentator on this blog. Not used to the terminology.
I actually like the term used by the Holy Father, “Vetus Ordo”. I understand one translation of this is “the continuing Ordo”, or Mass. Well, it has been continuing for some eighten centuries and in essence for twenty one centuries, so it’s really not a bad term?.
Jacobi,
My comment about terminology referred to the new (of course) name for the old Mass – “Extraordinary Form” – that’s one no traditional Catholic would think of using. Ever.
And don’t BE an occasional blogger here. We like you. Stick with us!
Theresa Rose
Thank you for posting those videos on November 16, 3.59pm and 4.03pm, showing the unimaginable variation of novus ordo abominations of desolation.
Reportedly, in the first video, the photograph of the “cheesehead idiot” Mass features a priest who is now a very high ranking Cardinal. I haven’t seen incontrovertible proof, but certainly there is a resemblance.
I’ve Just watched those videos and they are beyond-belief-shocking. I just don’t get how any “orthodox” Catholic as in the LMS variety,can explain that away with a “it’s because of the abuse of the way Vatican 2 was interpreted etc”. Utter lunacy. The only consolation I can see is that these old hippies (soz Editor, age, I mean in your venerable case) are on their way out. There can’t be too many more of them about and then it’s our turn!
Helen,
Watch it!
Comments are closed.