Thoughts that make me restless in the middle of the night
The highly Latinized new missal, that will soon be imposed on the English-speaking world, is clearly a major step backwards toward a broader use of Latin in parish liturgies.
In a parish near the place where I grew up in Michigan, most week end liturgies are now in Latin. When a close relative (president of the parish council) complained about the imposition of the Latin liturgy by the new young Legionnaires of Christ pastor, he was asked, by the pastor, to resign and leave the parish. That’s what he did. No solution, really.
Major seminaries are already training future priests to preside at Latin masses.
Coming soon from Rome, and from Rome-focused bishops, will be more liturgical directives that will stress: the “traditional piety” behind communion on the tongue, a re-clericalization of Eucharist as a “priestly act,” and to help people “better focus on God” we can expect more masses at which the presider stands with his back to the congregation (so that people do not distort his contemplation of God).
New York’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan is already laying foundations for a new anti-Obama campaign — getting ready for the next presidential campaign. The theme this time will be that Obama is anti-marriage and pro gay.
We can expect to see Rome’s best dressed cardinal, Raymond Burke, putting on his own anti-Obama boxing gloves, once again, with new assertions that Obama is anti-life and a baby-killer.
Philadelphia’s Cardinal Justin Rigali is having his own sleepless nights these days. He continues to assert no sexual abuse cover-ups and no recent re-assigning of pedophile priests in his archdiocese. The cardinal’s credibility is pretty low. Can we expect a major pedophile explosion in Philadelphia…just as we saw a few years ago in Boston? Is the Vatican already preparing a safe and comfortable refuge for Rigali in Rome? Just as it did to punish Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law?
Roman Catholics in the United States are leaving the church in an historic and major exodus. Ten percent of today’s adult Americans are former Catholics.
When we were preparing for Confirmation in the midst of Vatican II, one of the questions that we had to think about was “Do you obey Jesus or the Pope?” The class responded — “Isn’t it the same thing, because the Pope is infallible??”
And the nun replied, ” No, Absolutely not!! God gave you a conscience and a brain and expects you to use them at all times… The Pope is only infallible when speaking of Dogma — and only once in the past 100+ years has he done so.
The Holy Spirit is leading the Church, by means of this Council, into new territory that no one can know all the details… Everyone is a student and we will find out many things through experience and experimentation…all working together, the clergy and the Laity, for the good of all. It is a new Pentecost, so be prepared to take your part in it… You are the new generation and maybe someday you will be the leaders in your local parishes or dioceses…”
Alas, the good nuns’ hopes have not come true. It is not the fault of the Laity, who have truly taken on the much of the burden of the work, but the failure of the clerical leadership, who got cold feet and hearts and retreated into the Middle Ages out of fear…
It’s as if the Chosen People had gone back to Egypt after Moses died, because they wanted the familiar and the desert was too scary for them, even with the Presence of God in their midst!!
The Pope chooses to live in Rome, amidst all those stone monuments to a long dead civilization, but I choose to live on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, which brims with life, renewing itself season after season.
Fortunately, I consider myself to be a non-territorial Internet Catholic, not tied to the local parish nor controlled by a retrograde Bishop who seeks the will of Rome, not God’s will, in his doings.
I feel like I am struggling against some horrible vortex trying to suck me back to the middle or dark ages. Just got back form Ash Wednesday Mass – the priest has “asked” that we use the Latin Chant Mass parts for all of Lent. It hurts my throat, it hurts my mind and it hurts my heart. I have been a music minister all my life and lived through Vatican II. We are going back down a long dark road- and it hurts.