Vatican politics, review by Harry Readhead of The Outsider: Pope Francis and his battle to reform the Church, by Christopher Lamb, The Times Literary Supplement
Showing posts with label The Spirit of Vatican II. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Spirit of Vatican II. Show all posts
"at the name of Jesus every knee should bend"
Today's second reading at today's Passion Sunday Mass included the phrase from Philippians 2:10 quoted in the post title.
The phrase has always been particularly striking to me because the long-standing practice at my parish has been no kneeling. This appears to go back to the construction of the present church building circa 1985. The interior is amphitheater style, with floor slanting down to the sanctuary, and no kneelers. Sometimes we'd hit a trifecta of a scripture passage in the readings, a hymn lyric, and the instructions in the hymnal's order of worship all referring to kneeling, but no one kneeling. Back when members of an earlier generation of priests were our pastors, they didn't genuflect during the Eucharistic Prayer.
(Some of variations in practice were a topic of my blog post back on September 29, 2002.)
Years later when Archbishop Dolan came to our parish to preside at a service, I was a bit surprised to see some kneeling indicated in the order of worship printed for the occasion. I was then further surprised when we then didn't kneel. So I inquired of our then-pastor. He indicated that the Archbishop gave an apparently last minute oral waiver of the kneeling requirement because of the slanted floor and lack of kneelers. It struck me odd that the issue didn't come up when the liturgy team, having claimed over many previous years that foregoing kneeling was authorized, didn't raise this when composing and before printing the order of worship.
At Passion Sunday Mass this morning the Gospel reading was Luke 23:1-49. We were asked to follow the order of worship in the Breaking Bread hymnal for the congregation's part. The reading included, between Luke 23:46 and 47, the instruction
"Here all kneel and pause for a short time."Upon reaching that point almost everyone did so.
In almost 30 years at the parish, I don't recall ever seeing that before. By now, I hadn't expected to live to see it. A little checking indicated it hadn't happened at Passion Sunday masses in prior years. So looks like it's news: Congregation kneels at Mass at St. Al's in Greendale.
Austen Invereigh’s speech at the ‘Discovering Pope Francis’ symposium, in Milwaukee, Oct 8-11
The Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology has organized a symposium on “Discovering Pope Francis, theological philosophical, cultural and spiritual perspectives” from October 8 through the 11, featuring groundbreaking presentations and panel discussions by world-class scholars examining the pastoral theology of Pope Francis, from his european and Latin-American roots to his Papacy today, below Dr. Austen Ivereigh’s complete presentation:continue at La Stampa
HT A Spy
Martin E. Marty on 'Confession Today'
Martin E. Marty in a Sightings feature at the
University of Chicago Divinity School,
"None of the people I cite or read with favor elsewhere are asking for the old-time-fear-of-hell approach to faith and life. But more and more serious lay people as thinkers and spiritual leaders are advocating 'confession' and 'forgiveness' as elements of great potential in our cultures of chaos."
Ultra-montage-ism
Most unintentionally funny Milwaukee Catholic Herald front page: July 19, 2001, on Vatican criticism of some aspects of the Milwaukee Cathedral renovation.
Anthony Esolen on the situation with the LCWR
I've been following with some bemusement the interchanges between Cardinal Mueller, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). For readers unaware of the developments, I'll present them here in abbreviated form:continue at The Catholic Thing
CDF: “Sisters, do you believe and affirm that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of the Father, begotten and not made, the second Person of the Holy Trinity?”
LCWR: “Why are you asking us that question? What gives you the authority to ask it?”
CDF: “Again, Sisters, do you believe and affirm that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of the Father, incarnate by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary?”
LCWR: “You have no right to pick on us simply because we’re women. You arrogant misogynists! We believe that hierarchical structures must be dismantled!”
LOL, it's worth the read.
CreamCity: John XXIII, Progressive?
continue at Cream City CatholicWe also, impelled by the weightiest of reasons … are fully determined to restore this language [Latin] to its position of honor and to do all We can to promote its study and use. The employment of Latin has recently been contested in some quarters, and many are asking what the mind of the Apostolic See is in this matter. We have therefore decided to issue the timely directives contained in this document, so as to ensure that the ancient and uninterrupted use of Latin be maintained and, where necessary, restored. ~Pope John XXIII, Veterum Sapientia, February 22, 1962
The media loves to fashion alternate narratives when it comes to writing about the Catholic Church’s recent history. It’s a great way to undermine the Church’s mission, i.e., convince a majority of something completely untrue by repeating the same thing over and over. Before you know it, the myth becomes the new reality and the actual reality becomes an illusion. Those left defending the truth are small in number and appear awkwardly out-of-touch. As has been well documented here at Cream City Catholic, the most popular example of this nowadays has to do with the revisionist history regarding the Second Vatican Council. There’s what the Council actually did, or intended to do, which a simple reading of the documents will make abundantly clear, and then there’s what the “council” accomplished in the eyes of the media and liberals. The success of this strategy has been remarkable, as we now have a healthy majority of Catholics, many priests and bishops even, who believe that Vatican II was all about revolutionizing the Church’s liturgical life.
Worth the read.
Yikes...
He's one of the most down to earth bishops you will meet, a kind and wonderful man. You will recall that Bp. Ricken is the chair of the USCCB Evangelization and Catechesis Committee, thus it's probably even appropriate for him to attend the event.
I wonder what he thought of the "Three Days of Darkness" conference. Go ahead, video is here. I wonder how many of these same "diverse liturgy" proponents would be praising this if it were a Pontifical Mass? Orchestrated even! You will see some big names, Fr. Robert Barron gave the keynote, John Allen gave a talk, probably some good nuggets in there.
His tweet was favorited by ...
Tweets by @valyermodancers
I'm having flashbacks of my Bp. Christensen Polka Mass post. Some things you just can't unsee.
On the bright side, we are probably still better off than Brazil though.
I wonder what he thought of the "Three Days of Darkness" conference. Go ahead, video is here. I wonder how many of these same "diverse liturgy" proponents would be praising this if it were a Pontifical Mass? Orchestrated even! You will see some big names, Fr. Robert Barron gave the keynote, John Allen gave a talk, probably some good nuggets in there.
Thank you to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for their hospitality in hosting @LACongress. We return to our dioceses inspired and encouraged.
— Bishop David Ricken (@BpDavidRicken) March 18, 2014
His tweet was favorited by ...
I'm having flashbacks of my Bp. Christensen Polka Mass post. Some things you just can't unsee.
On the bright side, we are probably still better off than Brazil though.
Deacon Sandy Strikes Again - Insults and Mocks Pope Benedict During Mass
[...]On the weekend following the whole kerfuffle, Deacon Sandy gave a homily at Good Shepherd. The homily includes copious use of visual aids courtesy of the the projectors on screens, projectors that cost thousands even though Deacon Sandy claimed the parish is so impoverished that they cannot afford kneelers.continue at Creative Minority Report
Later on in the homily, Deacon Sandy Sites talks about how we worry about having nice things. To illustrate the point he puts up a slide with many designer labels.
"We are extremely concerned as a society about the labels on our clothes and the brand, because we're worried about what people will think about us. Aren't we? For guys it might be Brooks Brothers, it might be Versace. Ladies, it might be Prada or it might be Coach...But we worry about that. And these are the kinds of thing God is saying, "Don't worry about it." Here is how bad it gets in our Church."
Then Deacon Sandy puts up a picture of Pope Benedict in his red Prada shoes.**[In case you didn't hear, they weren't Pradas]
And again, the victim here Deacon Sandy responds:
I have to share with you Patrick that the instances over the past several weeks have been very painful and hurtful. I wish you and others who read in CMR no ill will and respect the good intent of what you do. I do not ask that you or anyone else agree with me – what is troubling is the dark nature of the commentary, and the accusatory, divisive and judgmental tone.Seems like it's straight out of a Call to Action meeting or something.
Thanks to Ben for keeping this magic alive! :)
Menomonee Falls parish called out online for ... questionable content
via Creative Minority Report:
The triumph of the destroying Spirit of Vatican II is neatly encapsulated in this neat little video from Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Menomonee Falls, WI.
As parody, it would be over the top. As reality, it is the synthesis of all banality. Everybody please tell me how things are getting better, please.
Note**Good Shepherd has made private the original video. Fortunately, there is another copy downloaded in anticipation of this happening.HT Rorate
UPDATE
There are other troubling things on their website as noticed by Matthew Balan
For their gay outreach, they make this statement. "This ministry works to help the LGBT community find and take it's rightful place within the Catholic community. "
What exactly is the rightful place of the LGBT community in the Church as it differs from the rightful place of any sinner?
And they link to Call To Action, a group where membership is grounds for excommunication in some places.
FatherZ: The “Novus Ordo” bottle of wine from Chicago
From a reader:
When I was in Chicago, I picked up a bottle of wine called “Novus Ordo.” When I brought it back home for a priest friend he insisted that we create an appropriate wine stopper capturing the “spirit” of Vatican II.
Of course we had to honor Bugnini and even Rembert Weakland who where responsible for creating such a magical liturgy. And to mark their lasting success we crowned them with a rainbow and fluffy unicorn!
… All sitting on an orb of shinny glitter and rainbows.
continue at Father Z
LOL!
Milwaukee Director of Worship: Latin Mass is “rubric-centered”, “defensive”
continue at Cream City CatholicWe’ve written about this before here on CCC, but given the importance of the subject matter, another mention can’t hurt. The Archdiocese of Milwaukee is sponsoring a congress on liturgy on February 1. Don’t laugh, I’m serious. From the looks of the roster of speakers and their topics, I cannot emphasize enough how the “virtual Council” and not the actual Council is being reinforced here in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
It’s important to remember that, of all the things he could have spoken about, Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his final addresses before the College of Cardinals to the Second Vatican Council and the “disasters” wrought by the “council of the media”. Briefly defined, this “Council of the media” (or “virtual Council”) represents a systematic manipulation of the real Second Vatican Council on the part of agenda-driven ideologues whose aim was/is to advance an alternate narrative about the Catholic Church in the modern world; a Church in which “dialogue” and “diversity” overtake doctrine and tradition. Can anyone doubt that precisely this has taken place over the past forty years, and especially here in Milwaukee. The narrative of the “virtual Council” rules at nearly every parish in this city and its greatest success is that so few are even aware of it. It might be tempting to see this issue as something best reserved for faculty lounges and graduate students in theology. But that would be a huge mistake. This crisis has real consequences for all Catholics.
In Benedict’s own words:
“This Council of the media was accessible to everyone. Therefore, this was the dominant one, the more effective one, and it created so many disasters, so many problems, so much suffering: seminaries closed, convents closed, banal liturgy … and the real Council had difficulty establishing itself and taking shape; the virtual Council was stronger than the real Council.” ~Pope Benedict XVI, February 14, 2013
For another example of false Vatican II narratives taking hold, check out our own Milwaukee Catholic Herald. This is what Dean Daniels, the director of the archdiocesan Office of Worship (and one of many holdovers from the Weakland era) had to say about the Council of Trent and the Tridentine Mass.
Definitely worth the read. Most diocesan Sacred Worship directors have the same misunderstanding. Like the Ordinary Form isn't "rubric-centered."
I found this but didn't have time to listen:
Archbishop Listecki talks with his guests from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee - Dean Daniels, director of the Office for Worship, Archdiocese of Milwaukee, and Fr. Steve Malkiewicz, director of worship and lecturer in Liturgical Studies, Saint Francis de Sales Seminary - about the new Roman Missal translation.
Bp. Morlino: "analogous to the ‘spirit of Vatican II,’ a distorted ‘spirit of Pope Francis’ is being concocted"
[Morlino:] “Given the confusion about Pope Francis' statements that has emerged from the media coverage to date, I think it inopportune to offer extensive observations which will probably be subjected to like misinterpretation,” he said. “I think that, analogous to the ‘spirit of Vatican II,’ a distorted ‘spirit of Pope Francis’ is being concocted which is equally, if not more misleading.”
Sean McNally, president of Badger Catholic, the UW organization for Catholic students, said he interpreted the pope’s remarks as a different approach to bringing new members to the Church, rather than a change of position on controversial social issues.
“Those key issues on abortion and homosexuality, those are important,” he said. “But when you’re evangelizing to people, that’s not necessarily what you lead with.”
McNally says that although students “don’t sit around and obsess” about the hot social issues, he hinted there was still a strong commitment among young Catholics in the student community to traditional rules of Catholic morality.
“I think you’d be surprised by the number of students on campus who don’t support contraception,” he said.
Milwaukee priest explains "what Vatican Council II embraced"
continue at The Provincial EmailsDan Morris-Young reports at the National Catholic Reporter on the upcoming second annual meeting of the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests. Mr. Morris-Young interviewed AUSCP president Father David Cooper (also pastor at St. Matthias Church in Milwaukee) about the meeting and its agenda [pdf]
"Asked how he might respond to those who would say the 15 resolutions sound like a party platform for the progressive wing of the Catholic church, Cooper said, 'Well, that's what Vatican Council II embraced.'"
If only they'd explicitly said that in the documents!
Here's some more on Fr. Cooper.
Free Polyphony in Pine Bluff: Holy Thursday
Other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action. — Vatican II Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium ¶116
The all-volunteer choir at St. Mary of Pine Bluff is not numerous at the moment: at full strength we number about a dozen. Moreover, as many of the members are called in any number of directions as befitting their primary vocation to be in the world, rehearsals aren't always fully attended. (I'll probably have a blog post on handling such matters in the future.) However, the choir has been blessed with pretty good ears, at least one sight-reader on every part, and most importantly a recognition that it is the Lord we serve at the Sacred Liturgy and not ourselves.
Here are a couple of choral pieces we hope to debut on Holy Thursday. Below is a fresh setting of the first verse of the hymn Ubi caritas, which the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite assigns to the Offertory.[1]
R/. Where true charity is dwelling, God is present there.
V/. By the love of Christ we have been brought together:
V/. let us find in him our gladness and our pleasure;
V/. may we love him and revere him, God the living,
V/. and in love respect each other with sincere hearts.
R/. Where true charity is dwelling, God is present there. Amen, amen.
The second piece is a Renaissance-era setting of the text assigned for Communion.[2]
This is the body that will be given up for you;
this is the chalice of the new covenant in my blood, says the Lord;
do this, whenever you receive it, in memory of me. — 1 Cor 11:24–25
The first composition mentioned in this post was created in 2012; the second in the mid–16th century. Yet they can and will successfully stand side-by-side not also with each other but also with liturgical plainsong compositions from 2010 and the earliest eras of the Church's history. And both of these compositions are freely available on the Internet in PDF form (thus the "free" in the title of this post):
Footnotes:
[1] The Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite assigns this hymn to the Washing of Feet.
[2] The Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite assigns this text to Passion Sunday/Fifth Sunday of Lent.
Workshop: "Vatican II and the Liturgy" — Mar. 9, Madison
I will be attending this workshop. Maybe I'll see some readers there, too? See the Office of Worship for more information and registration form (to be uploaded).
Pope Benedict XVI invited us to take a fresh look at the documents of the Second Vatican Council during the Year of Faith. Join internationally known liturgist, Abbot Marcel Rooney, OSB, for a fresh look at what was called for by the Council and what still needs to be done.
The Right Reverend Marcel Rooney, OSB, has spent his life learning and teaching about the liturgy, music, and sacred art. He has now formed the Orate Institute of Sacred Liturgy, Music and Art based in our diocese. His deep knowledge and faith, combined with wit and insight, connects with both the novice and scholar.
Abbot Marcel’s comprehensive DVD boxed set, “Reflections on Holy Mass” will be available for sale.
Registration and more information:
The Office of Worship of the Diocese of Madison & the Orate Institute of Sacred Liturgy, Music and Art present
Vatican II & the Liturgy
What did Vatican II say? What still needs to be done?
Abbot Marcel Rooney, OSB, presenter
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Saint Maria Goretti Parish
5313 Flad Avenue, Madison (map)
10 a.m.–noon
 |
| Abbot Marcel Rooney, OSB |
Abbot Marcel’s comprehensive DVD boxed set, “Reflections on Holy Mass” will be available for sale.
Registration and more information:
- Before February 28: $4 per person / $2 each for 5 or more from the same parish
- March 1-9: $6 per person / $4 each for 5 or more from the same parish
Unprecedented Extemporaneous Remarks of the Holy Father on Vatican II (II) — Liturgy and Translation
(Go here for a previous post on BC. Vatican Radio link here.)
On "intelligibility" and the desacralization of the Sacred Liturgy:
On "intelligibility" and the desacralization of the Sacred Liturgy:
The Council also pondered the principles of the intelligibility of the Liturgy—instead of being locked up in an unknown language, which was no longer spoken—and active participation. "Unfortunately"—he said—"these principles were also poorly understood." In fact, intelligibility does not mean "banalizing" because the great texts of the liturgy—even in the spoken languages—are not easily intelligible, "they require an ongoing formation of the Christian, so that he may grow and enter deeper into the depths of the mystery, and thus comprehend". [Even the now-defunct English translation had the untranslated words "Hosanna," "Alleluia," and "Amen." I ask people what these words mean—even at TLM/EF communities—and I can tell you that not everyone knows their basic meaning, let alone their embedded layers of meaning, even though they're uttered at every Mass.] And also concerning the Word of God—he asked—who can honestly say they understand the texts of Scripture, simply because they are in their own language? [N.B.:] "Only a permanent formation of the heart and mind can actually create intelligibility and participation which is more than one external activity, which is an entering of the person, of his or her being into communion with the Church and thus in fellowship with Christ." . . .
There was no interest in the liturgy as an act of faith, but as a something to be made understandable, similar to a community activity, something profane. And we know that there was a trend, which was also historically based, that said: "Sacredness is a pagan thing, possibly even from the Old Testament. In the New Testament the only important thing is that Christ died outside: that is, outside the gates, that is, in the secular world". Sacredness ended up as profanity even in worship: worship is not worship but an act that brings people together, communal participation and thus participation as activity. And these translations, trivializing the idea of the Council, were [and still are] virulent in the practice of implementing the liturgical reform, born in a vision of the Council outside of its own key vision of faith.I hope the Pope's remarks are made available in full soon; this only seems like the full text of the Vatican Radio report.
Unprecedented Extemporaneous Remarks of the Holy Father on Vatican II
Unprecedented Extemporaneous Remarks of the Holy Father on Vatican II
"Awesome!!! I will post something on this tomorrow."
And we know that this Council of the media was accessible to all. So, dominant, more efficient, this Council created many calamities, so many problems, so much misery, in reality: seminaries closed, convents closed liturgy trivialized … and the true Council has struggled to materialize, to be realized: the virtual Council was stronger than the real Council. But the real strength of the Council was present and slowly it has emerged and is becoming the real power which is also true reform, true renewal of the Church. It seems to me that 50 years after the Council, we see how this Virtual Council is breaking down, getting lost and the true Council is emerging with all its spiritual strength. And it is our task, in this Year of Faith, starting from this Year of Faith, to work so that the true Council with the power of the Holy Spirit is realized and Church is really renewed. We hope that the Lord will help us. I, retired in prayer, will always be with you, and together we will move ahead with the Lord in certainty. The Lord is victorious. Thank you.WOW!
It looks like this first appeared on Rorate
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