NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT

OOPS! Page change in the middle of the news-day!


THE POPE ON VACATION, LORENZAGO DI CADORE, JULY 9-27




The Pope led noontime Angelus prayers today
at Castello Mirabello in Lorenzago.




On the previous page, here is what we posted today, 7/15/07:

The Pope greets incoming Israeli President - AP story on Pope's message to Shimon Peres.

News update from Lorenzago - Interview with Bishop of Treviso about his impressions of Benedict. Account of
the Pope's audience yesterday for town officials of Lorenzago, all who worked on preparing for his visit, and
their families. Translated.

Mass MP and CDF document reinforce the message of Vatican-II - Radio Vatican interviews Mons. Bruno Forte
of Chieti-Vasto. Translated.

Fr. Lombardi confirms Papal trips to Lourdes and UN in 2008 but dates not yet fixed - Part of a wide-ranging
news conference in Lorenzago after the Pope's Angelus. Translated. Photos of Angelus.

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Here's the AP account from Lorenzago today:


Pope to visit U.N., Australia in 2008
By NICOLE WINFIELD



LORENZAGO DI CADORE, July 15 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI is planning numerous trips abroad in the coming year to the United Nations, Australia, Austria and a shrine in Lourdes, France, the Vatican spokesman said Sunday.

In addition, the archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, has invited Benedict to visit Boston next year, saying it would help mend wounds from the clergy sexual abuse scandal.

The first of the pope's confirmed trips will be a Sept. 7-9 visit to Vienna where he plans to deliver an important speech to diplomats, the Rev. Federico Lombardi said, without elaborating.

He said plans were also under way for a papal trip next year to the shrine at Lourdes to mark the 150th anniversary of the apparition of the Madonna there. The trip will also be an emotional one, Lombardi said, since Pope John Paul II's last foreign trip was to Lourdes.

Millions of pilgrims have flocked to the town in the southwestern Pyrenees where an illiterate peasant girl, St. Bernadette, said she had visions of a white-clad Virgin Mary in 1858.

Lombardi said Benedict plans to travel to the U.N. headquarters in New York next year, though no date has been set.

Lombardi spoke on Italian state television as Benedict emerged to bless the faithful at his secluded mountain retreat here in Italy's Dolomite mountains near the Austrian border. In his remarks, Benedict said the World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia, starts next July and he urged young people "from every continent" to make the trip, which he himself hopes to make.

Benedict was interrupted several times by chants of "Benedetto" by pilgrims who had hiked up a hill to the grounds of the 19th-century Mirabello castle to hear him speak. Benedict has been staying at a nearby refurbished chalet.

The Rev. Giuseppe Bratti, spokesman for the diocese, has said the pope has been keeping a "monastic" schedule during his retreat  writing, praying and reading in the morning and taking a walk each evening  often to a nearby shrine to pray.

This is the first summer Benedict has spent in Lorenzago since he was elected to the papacy in 2005; the previous two years he has spent time at a mountain retreat in Valle d'Aosta, on Italy's western border with France.

Benedict said as he arrived in Lorenzago on Monday that he hoped to start writing the second volume of his book Jesus of Nazareth. He also said he would begin writing an encyclical, which Lombardi said would be based on a "social theme." Media reports have suggested it would cover issues of globalization.

Benedict's only other encyclical Deus caritas est was a meditation on love and charity.

Benedict plans to stay in Lorenzago until July 27, when he moves to the papal summer retreat at Castel Gandolfo, in the hills south of Rome.


Strangely, Reuters limited itself to covering the Pope's Angelus homily and has not reported on Fr. Lombardi's news conference.

Get closer to God during vacation, Pope says



LORENZAGO DI CADORE, July 15 (Reuters) - Vacation should be a time for Christians not only to relax but to get closer to God, Pope Benedict said on Sunday from his mountain retreat in the Italian Dolomites.

"Every good Christian knows that vacation is the time to rest the body but also to nurture the spirit through more time for prayer and meditation, to grow in one's personal relationship with Christ and follow his teachings ever more closely," he said.

The 80-year-old Pope was speaking at his regular Sunday blessing amid the tall pines surrounding a church-owned estate in the Dolomite mountains north of Venice where he is on a three-week private retreat.

"Amid this sight of fields, woods, and peaks pointing to the sky, the desire to praise God for the wonders of his works rises spontaneously in the soul and our admiration for this natural beauty is easily transformed into prayer," he said.

Benedict is only the second pope in modern history to take private holidays outside the Vatican or the papal summer residence south of Rome, a tradition started by his predecessor John Paul 20 years ago.

Benedict has been taking short evening walks and spending much of his time reading, listening to music, playing the piano, and is believed to be in the initial stages of writing a new encyclical, the highest form of papal writing.

In his address on Sunday the Pope also asked young people to begin preparing for next year's World Day of Youth, which will take place in Sydney, Australia in July, 2008.

I was under the impression Father Mark, the Cistercian blogger from the Church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome, was still on holiday in Ireland, so I have not been checking his VULTUS CHRISTI blog, and here he has this most beautiful reflection on the Papal Motu Proprio, with a unique and original Benedictine perspective, posted on July 11.

For one, I am so happy to find someone who is just as enthused as I was over the opening line of Summorum Pontificum, and not only because it sounds beautiful in Latin. In Post`#8268 on 7/9/07, page 113 of this thread, I wrote in a lead-in:

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The first part of the MP leading to the executory provisions is a riveting resume of what Popes have done through history in order to preserve the liturgy, from Gregory the Great to John Paul II. How masterfully he framed his opening sentence the way he did, so that the first words of the MP would be Summorum Pontificum cura adhoc tempus usque semper fuit... "The concern of the Supreme Pontiffs up to the present has always been to ensure that the Church of Christ offers a worthy worship to the Divine Majesty, to the 'praise and glory of His name', and to the 'benefit of all His Holy Church.'"

The sentence says everything. It is both the basic rationale for acting as he did, as well as the criterion against which to judge any liturgy - 'worthy worship', cultus dignus. And it is the context against which media should have reported it to appreciate its full historical impact.

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Benedict XVI:
Blessed by Name and by Grace

To shepherd His Church at the beginning of this new millennium, God has given us a Pope blessed by name - Benedictus - and by grace.

Pope Benedict XVI has a Benedictine world view. The Holy Father reads life through the lens of the Rule of Saint Benedict. The wisdom of the Holy Rule permeates Pope Benedict XVI.

One might say that the style of his pontificate is abbatial; he is Father, Doctor, and Pontiff. His priorities are very much those of his great Benedictine predecessor, Pope Saint Gregory the Great.

Benedictine Zeal for the Work of God

In his Apostolic Letter, Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI reveals his Benedictine soul, and alludes to the role of Saint Gregory the Great, and to the mission of Benedictine monks and nuns in the organic development and promotion of the sacred liturgy. He writes:

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Up to our own times, it has been the constant concern of supreme pontiffs to ensure that the Church of Christ offers a worthy ritual to the Divine Majesty, 'to the praise and glory of His name,' and 'to the benefit of all His Holy Church.'

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Note the three points of the Holy Father's opening statement:

 the offering of a worthy ritual to the Divine Majesty
 the primacy of praise and doxology
 the affirmation that such worship redounds to the benefit of the whole Church of Christ

Usages Universally Accepted

Since time immemorial it has been necessary - as it is also for the future - to maintain the principle according to which 'each particular Church must concur with the universal Church, not only as regards the doctrine of the faith and the sacramental signs, but also as regards the usages universally accepted by uninterrupted apostolic tradition, which must be observed not only to avoid errors but also to transmit the integrity of the faith, because the Church's law of prayer corresponds to her law of faith.'

Vehicles of Truth and of Light

Pope Benedict XVI teaches that the Church's law of faith is expressed not only in words and in the signs proper to the seven sacraments, but also in the very way of carrying out the sacred liturgy, in all of the traditional and universally accepted usages accepted by uninterrupted apostolic tradition.

He is saying that the traditional ceremonial and rubrical elements of our Catholic liturgy are vehicles of truth and of light. It is, therefore, perilous to the integrity of the faith when these are arbitrarily or lightly changed. Over the past forty years many of these have been abandoned, with dire results for the life of the Church.

Saint Gregory the Great and the Benedictine Mission

Among the pontiffs who showed that requisite concern, particularly outstanding is the name of St. Gregory the Great, who

1) made every effort to ensure that the new peoples of Europe received both the Catholic faith and the treasures of worship and culture that had been accumulated by the Romans in preceding centuries.

2) He commanded that the form of the sacred liturgy as celebrated in Rome (concerning both the Sacrifice of Mass and the Divine Office) be conserved.

3) He took great concern to ensure the dissemination of monks and nuns who, following the Rule of Saint Benedict, together with the announcement of the Gospel illustrated with their lives the wise provision of their Rule that 'nothing should be placed before the work of God.'

Beauty

Pope Benedict addresses the intersection of culture with holiness. Whenever and wherever holiness engenders culture, that culture's distiniguishing characteristic is beauty. When an existing culture is converted to holiness, the fruit of that conversion is beauty.

Culture and Holiness

In this way the sacred liturgy, celebrated according to the Roman use, enriched not only the faith and piety but also the culture of many peoples.

It is known, in fact, that the Latin liturgy of the Church in its various forms, in each century of the Christian era, has been a spur to the spiritual life of many saints, has reinforced many peoples in the virtue of religion and fecundated their piety.

With Dilated Hearts

In promulgating Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI invites all Catholics to have hearts that are opened wide. This, of course, is an essentially Benedictine theme: the dilated heart. "Through the continual practice of monastic observance and the life of faith, our hearts are opened wide, and the way of God's commandments is run in a sweetness of love that is beyond words" (RSB, Pro 49).

Eucharistic Catholicization

Where and how are our hearts dilated to the dimensions of the Heart of Christ? In the worthy celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. One who receives the Body and Blood of Christ cannot remain narrow or closed. Actual participation in the sacred liturgy brings about our conversion . . . the catholicization of our hearts.

Enter, then, with profound reverence into the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, rejoicing in the two Benedicts whom God has given us as Holy Fathers.

Thanks to Amy Welborn, for pointing out this rare reaction to the CDF statement and to Pope Benedict's moves. Not only is this Protestant minister not offended - he also sees the big picture of Benedict's Pontificate, although of course, he stands up for the Reformation idea of the 'true church'.

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., serves as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary -the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world. He is a theologian and ordained minister, as well as an author, speaker and host of his own radio program The Albert Mohler Program.


A SENSIBLE EVANGELICAL RESPONSE:
No, I'm Not Offended
Posted: Friday, July 13, 2007

Aren't you offended? That is the question many Evangelicals are being asked in the wake of a recent document released by the Vatican. The document declares that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church - or, in words the Vatican would prefer to use, the only institutional form in which the Church of Christ subsists.

No, I am not offended.

In the first place, I am not offended because this is not an issue in which emotion should play a key role. This is a theological question, and our response should be theological, not emotional.

Secondly, I am not offended because I am not surprised. No one familiar with the statements of the Roman Catholic Magisterium should be surprised by this development. This is not news in any genuine sense. It is news only in the current context of Vatican statements and ecumenical relations.

Thirdly, I am not offended because this new document actually brings attention to the crucial issues of ecclesiology, and thus it presents us with an opportunity.

The Vatican document is very brief - just a few paragraphs in fact. Its official title is "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church," and it was released by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on June 29 of this year.

Though many media sources have identified the document as a papal statement from Pope Benedict XVI, it is actually a statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that was later approved for release by the Pope (who, as Cardinal Ratzinger, headed this Congregation prior to assuming the papacy).

The document claims a unique legitimacy for the Roman Catholic Church as the church established by Christ. The document stakes this identity on a claim to apostolic succession, centered in the papacy itself. As the document states, "This Church, constituted and organised in this world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him."

Lest anyone miss the point, the document then goes on to acknowledge that the churches of Eastern Orthodoxy also stake a claim to apostolic succession, and thus they are referred to as "Churches" by the Vatican. As for the churches born in whatever form out of the Reformation - they are not true churches at all, only "ecclesial communities."

Look at this:

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According to Catholic doctrine, these Communities do not enjoy apostolic succession in the sacrament of Orders, and are, therefore, deprived of a constitutive element of the Church. These ecclesial Communities which, specifically because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood, have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery cannot, according to Catholic doctrine, be called "Churches" in the proper sense.

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Pope Benedict was already in hot water with the media because of his recent decision related to the (limited) reinstitution of the Latin mass, complete with a call for the conversion of the Jews. He was not likely to be named "Ecumenist of the Year" anyway. This latest controversy just adds to the media impression of big changes at the Vatican under the current papacy.

There have been changes for sure. Benedict is truly a doctrinal theologian, whereas his popular predecessor, Pope John Paul II, was more a philosopher by academic training.

Those familiar with the current pope know of his frustration with the tendency of liberal Catholic theologians and laypersons to insist that the Second Vatican Council (known popularly as "Vatican II") represented a massive shift (to the left) in Catholic doctrine. Not so, insisted Cardinal Ratzinger as head of the Congregation for the Defense of the Faith.

Now, as Pope, Benedict is in a position to shape his argument into a universal policy for his church. Vatican II, he insists, represented only a deepening and reapplication of unchanging Catholic doctrine.

Evangelicals should appreciate the candor reflected in this document. There is no effort here to confuse the issues. To the contrary, the document is an obvious attempt to set the record straight.

The Roman Catholic Church does not deny that Christ is working redemptively through Protestant and evangelical churches, but it does deny that these churches which deny the authority of the papacy are true churches in the most important sense. The true church, in other words, is that church identified through the recognition of the papacy. Those churches that deny or fail to recognize the papacy are "ecclesial Communities," not churches "in the proper sense."

I appreciate the document's clarity on this issue. It all comes down to this - the claim of the Roman Catholic Church to the primacy of the Bishop of Rome and the Pope as the universal monarch of the church is the defining issue. Roman Catholics and Evangelicals should together recognize the importance of that claim. We should together realize and admit that this is an issue worthy of division.

The Roman Catholic Church is willing to go so far as to assert that any church that denies the papacy is no true church. Evangelicals should be equally candid in asserting that any church defined by the claims of the papacy is no true church. This is not a theological game for children, it is the honest recognition of the importance of the question.

The Reformers and their heirs put their lives on the line in order to stake this claim. In this era of confusion and theological laxity we often forget that this was one of the defining issues of the Reformation itself. Both the Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church staked their claim to be the true church - and both revealed their most essential convictions in making their argument.

As Martin Luther and John Calvin both made clear, the first mark of the true Church is the ministry of the Word - the preaching of the Gospel. The Reformers indicted the Roman Catholic Church for failing to exhibit this mark, and thus failing to be a true Church. The Catholic church returned the favor, defining the church in terms of the papacy and magisterial authority. Those claims have not changed.

I also appreciate the spiritual concern reflected in this document. The artificial and deadly dangerous game of ecumenical confusion has obscured issues of grave concern for our souls. I truly believe that Pope Benedict and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are concerned for our evangelical souls and our evangelical congregations.

Pope Benedict is not playing a game. He is not asserting a claim to primacy on the playground. He, along with the Magisterium of his church, believes that Protestant churches are gravely defective and that our souls are in danger. His sacramental theology plays a large role in this concern, for he believes and teaches that a church without submission to the papacy has no guaranteed efficacy for its sacraments. (This point, by the way, explains why the Protestant churches that claim a sacramental theology are more concerned about this Vatican statement - it denies the basic validity of their sacraments.)

I actually appreciate the Pope's concern. If he is right, we are endangering our souls and the souls of our church members. Of course, I am convinced that he is not right - not right on the papacy, not right on the sacraments, not right on the priesthood, not right on the Gospel, not right on the church.

The Roman Catholic Church believes we are in spiritual danger for obstinately and disobediently excluding ourselves from submission to its universal claims and its papacy. Evangelicals should be concerned that Catholics are in spiritual danger for their submission to these very claims. We both understand what is at stake.

The Rev. Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, responded to the press by saying that the Vatican's "exclusive claims" are "troubling." He also said, "what may have been meant to clarify has caused pain." I will let Bishop Hanson explain his pain.

I do not see this new Vatican statement as an innovation or an insult. I see it as a clarification and a helpful demarcation of the issues at stake.

I appreciate the Roman Catholic Church's candor on this issue, and I believe that Evangelical Christians, with equal respect and clarity, should respond in kind. This is a time to be respectfully candid -- not a time to be offended.


And here's another angle to consider:

Pave the Way Foundation
Questions the Current Outcry
Against Pope Benedict's Statements

July 14, 2007 -- The Pave the Way Foundation (PTWF), a non-sectarian New-York-based foundation dedicated to enhancing relations between religions, calls for religious persons worldwide to recognize and embrace the similarities between religions rather than concentrate on the differences that separate us.

A recent statement by Pope Benedict XVI, referring to the Doctrine of the Catholic Church has stirred up international controversy among various Christian groups, according to the media.

Yet the statement was simply an affirmation of longstanding church doctrine. Many vocal and critical religious institutions and individuals have historically made their own similar statements holding their own religious interpretation to be the true path to salvation and redemption. This is a doctrinal matter, important only to each individual belief and worship system.

More seriously and with a sense of urgency, however, Pave the Way Foundation wishes to shed light on the dangers of the universal silence of the religions to the daily use of religion as a tool to justify violence.

Gary Krupp, president of PTWF stated that:
"It is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as we hear of these many divisive remarks about the Pope's statement and yet there is a universal silence of this most terrible use of religion.

"When the extremists, who exist in every faith, try to gain access to weapons of mass destruction with a religious goal to kill millions because of our differences, we need to rally the universal voice of all of the religious leaders to condemn this illegitimate use of religion as justification for violence.

"We should be concentrating on what we can agree on, such as the benevolent messages of love, charity and the forbidding of violence and murder. This is far more important than arguing over the differences that only serve to create discord and separation.

The time has come to concentrate our energies on bringing the religions together as allies in the war against the extremists, who exist in every faith, and who are largely responsible for almost every conflict on Earth."

Ten months removed from the white-hot intensity of reaction against Pope Benedict XVI's now-historic lectio magistralis at Regensburg, what a surprise today, not just to find a highly-credentialled Western intellectual taking his side, but that Corriere della Sera should be writing approvingly about it. Where were they in September 2006?

In any case, we can only rejoice that distance in time - and the unlikelihood of threats of physical violence today over a 'closed' issue - conspire to make a public 'vindication' of the Pope's position possible. Here is a translation of a book review that appeared in Corriere della Sera yesterday.


A progressive secularist
defends the Regensburg lecture
By Dario Fertilio


A secularist, a progressive, a Jew: Andre Glucksmann, the French philosopher, is not an ally one would expect for the Pope.

But in a book of essays called "May God save reason" (Cantagalli, 200 pp), coming out in Italian next week, in which Pope Benedict XVI is represented with three essays (the Regensburg lecture and his homilies in Munich and Regensburg in September last year), Glucksmann's essay on the relationship between faith and reason is perhaps the most audacious and militant in the book.

Glucksmann places himself squarely in support of Ratzinger's Regensburg propositions: full opening to dialog among all cultures;
a comparison for purposes of distinction of the doctrinal contents of the various faiths; unequivocal renunciation of violence rationalized by any religion; and opposition to every kind of post-modern relativism.

In the background looms the historic lecture given by the Pope in Regensburg on September 12 (anniversary of the liberation of Vienna from an invading Turkish army), which generated headlines because the Pope appeared to make a direct relation between the violence of holy war (jihad) and the preaching of Mohammed.

Actually, it was a quotation from the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologue who, in 1391, in conversation with a Persian intellectual, said clearly: conversion by force is wrong, and not to act with reason is contrary to the nature of God.

That was all it took for radical ideological Islam, in many countries, to scream outrage and sacrilege, inciting to violence which resulted in the murder of an Italian nun in Somalia.

All this, while most of the West and a great part of so-called Islamic moderates kept quiet.

Against all that, Glucksmann now ranges himself with Ratzinger. The anthology that contains his essay and Ratzinger's Bavarian discourses, also includes essays by American Joseph Weilere, German Robert Spaemann [good friend of Pope Benedict], Palestinian Sari Nusseibeh and Egyptian Wael Farouq.


Corriere della sera, 14 luglio 2007


André Glucksmann is a French philosopher who supported the 1960s protest movement, opposed the communist regimes of eastern Europe and supported the 2003 war against Saddam Hussein. He struggles against complacency in the face of totalitarian ideology of whatever kind. He believes Europe is trapped by complacency and an all too human desire for oblivious contentment - and that this helps ensure the success of the nihilistic terror and extremist ideology exemplified by al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. "Nobody wants war- but genocide is worse than war," he has said .


[Corriere runs substantial excerpts from Gluckmann's essay, which I will post here when translated.]

By the way, I am very glad the editors of this book also included the homilies in Munich and Regensburg, because they are genuine companion pieces to the Regensburg lecture, and I believe the Pope conceived them integrally that way. The Munich homily led into the Regensburg homily which in turn led to the Regensburg lecture.

Unfortunately, because the homily and the lecture took place on the same day, the homily was dreadfully under-reported and virtually forgotten. Those who might want to refresh their memory about it can go back to our ...BAVARIA thread.

In Germany, perhaps no one was a more engaged advocate of the traditional Mass than Berlin-born philosopher theologian Robert Spaemann, 80, a friend of Pope Benedict XVI who participates in the Ratzinger Schuelerkreise summer seminars. Last September, he was one of the presentors at the Schuelerkreise's seminar on creation and evolution. He is a conservative philosopher whose focus is Christian ethics and is known for his work in bioethics, ecology and human rights. He taught at the University of Munich until his retirement in 1992. Paul Badde of DIE WELT spoke to him about the Pope's Motu Proprio. Here is a translation.



What do you consider the heart of the Motu Proprio?
Spaemann: Recognition of the older form of the Mass as a legitimate expression of Catholic belief that cannot be legitimately forbidden, although it appeared to be for such a long time, both for the faithful and for priests.

What surprised you most about the document?
Spaemann: Frankly, nothing at all. It is just about what I was expecting.

Any criticisms?
Spaemann: There will be problems that the Motu Proprio cannot resolve because they will really depend on the good will of the bishops. The MP assumes that inside a parish, a 'stable group' can get together to request for the old Mass. But how can a stable group be built when that which will stabilize the group - namely, celebration of the old Mass - does not yet exist?

Till now, experience has shown us that such groups will form across parishes. Persons from different parishes will band together and ask for the Mass. The Motu Proprio provides that the Bishop can allow personal prelatures to be established. And that is what we now have essentially. I think that will also be the pattern of the future. What the MP assumes will be the normal case will really be an exception.

In France, it is different. In Strasbourg, Colmar, Paris, priests already say the traditional Mass in some parish churches on Sundays. That hasn't happened in Germany.

Are you disappointed about anything in the Motu Proprio?
Spaemann: Not at all. I am happy it turned out to be what I expected. All other difficulties will be of a practical nature which will resolve themselves.

I can think of an example in Salzburg, where, not only is there a personal parish, but it also has its own Church - a beautiful old one, in which the rector, a priest of the St. Peter's Fraternity, enjoys a normal parish life. I think that could be a model. If the bishops are ready to accept or even initiate such solutions, then the whole problem will resolve.

Why was this step so passionately opposed and fought against?
Spaemann: Unfortunately, the reasons cast a bad light on many people who defend the new liturgy. If only these people could look with love, gratitude and awe, at the form of the Mass service in which they were raised, which their parents and grandparents celebrated, then that would also help them raise the standard of the new mass. But when their defense of the new Mass takes on the character 'patricide', then something is obviously wrong.

How did this come about?
Spaemann: Above all, for ideological reasons. Their violent defensiveness of the New Mass masks their desire to democratize the Church, but insofar as liturgy is concerned, I don't see how the New Mass is necessarily more 'democratic' than the traditional.

But even the fact that in the New Mass the priest faces the congregation instead of facing the altar like the congregation does, has been ideologized as a greater communion between the priest and the people.

It's the opposite. In the traditional Mass, priest and people face the same direction - the tabernacle. Now, the priest gets up in front of the congregation like a teacher and prays before them, instead of with them, leading them. So there are strongly ideological elements that have been at play here, what has made things irrational.

Do you think that tensions over the document can be cleared or minimized?
Spaemann: It all depends on the bishops and the parish priests. But it should not be a problem at all. Right now, we already see how it works out in our parishes where there are a number of Portuguese or Spanish immigrants. They attend our churches without fuss. They celebrate their rites in their own languages, in their own style, their own songs. That does not bother anyone. And that's exactly how it should work out, if there were no ideological baggage.

In some ways one could say that Paul VI's liturgicsl changes were a kind of cultural revolution. How can we describe this new step?
Spaemann: As a return to Christian Catholic normalcy. Because it was that cultural revolution that caused the rift. It wasn't from the Second Vatican Council, it was from afterwards. What Vatican-II actually said had little to do with what would be practised in the new liturgy.

It was an act of 'tyranny', to put it bluntly. The Greeks called tyranny anything that forced people to give up their old customs and follow something new overnight. Something was imposed from on top with brute force.

The old rite was suppressed...And now, things can return to a healthy state. That we now have two rites would never have been necessary. The traditional Mass could have simply been reformed.

But something else happened. At least now, the Pope has taken account of the consequences and has now brought things back to normal, sto to speak.

Does that mean that Benedict XVI has somehow 'corrected' Paul VI?
Spaemann: Well, at the very least, he is correcting the draconian way that the intentions of the council were distorted. You don't need to read the tea leaves for that. Joseph Ratzinger was always clear about it. He never hid his criticism of the forms the new Mass had taken. He did not like turning the altar around. Above all, he pointed out that it was the first time in the history of the Church that a liturgy was manufactured from scratch, rather than an organic growth in which things were added, dropped or replaced over time. Liturgy has always been a development. But liturgy created overnight by so-called liturgy specialists and then forced through was something he always criticized loud and clear while he was a cardinal. Now he has made up for it.

Does the document hide any potential sources of further misunderstanding?
Spaemann: Maybe in its execution. When a bishop for example would gladly just block it or after three years report that it failed, then he can do that easily. Even now, there's a prominent bishop who has been saying that the number of people interested in the Old Mass has always been very low. Well yes, if 70-100 people write him to ask for permission to celebrate the Old Mass, then he answers No...By no means!...Forget it!...It won't happen!...Absolutely not! ...month after month after month, then yes, eventually, he can report that very few are now applying.

Just as with the indults from John Paul II, the Motu Proprio still depends on the good will of the bishops. That is why the Pope wrote this very beautiful fraternal letter to the bishops, that is meant to reach their hearts, and I truly hope he succeeds to move these hearts.

After three years, the Pope will evaluate how things are. In your experience, how do you think it will turn out?
Spaemann: It's always easy to manipulate reports of failure. But I can tell you that in Stuttgart, where we have the traditional Mass celebrated regularly, and the priests of the St. Peter Fraternity are able to do their work, the number of people attending has quadrupled since 1998 when we began. But here, the bishop was open and forthcoming - so things prospered.

I think there will be a sort of friendly competition between the two rites. That the free celebration of the Old Mass will give the New Mass a standard for what Catholic liturgy should be, and the New Mass can then be celebrated more in the sense that Vatican-II intended.

What happens now with the schism of the Lefebvrians?
Spaemann: That is, of course, quite important, and the Pope is concerned about it. But if they really want unity and to feel they belong to the Roman Catholic Church, then they must now decide to start doing something to come back. They can no longer stay on the outside grumbling. A golden bridge has been built for them.

What does the traditional liturgy offer to the young people who have never known it?
Spaemann: Their first experience of the Old Mass may well feel strange to many young people - but perhaps a fascinating strangeness. Because the new liturgy, in an effort to bridge the profane and the sacred, often offers them the lowest possible threshold of the Mass experience. There's no fascination there for the young.

But with the old Mass, their fascination could develop, which the average New Mass cannot provide. I just heard from a friend whose children asked him why priests who celebrate the Old Mass seem to be so much more 'cool' than 'regular priests' - even if these trad-Mass types are often more strict and lay great value on observing external forms!

What does the document offer to our Protestant brothers and sisters?
Spaemann: Right now, nothing special. But perhaps it could work somewhat like it does with the young people - that they can somehow experience the Catholic Mass in a new way if they could just see it done the traditional way. Many Protestants I know envy the Church because of its highly developed classical rites, that now are hardly to be seen.

Once I attended a First Communion rite, and fled, went into a nearby Lutheran Church where I joined a penitential service. If it had been a traditional First Communion service, it would have never occurred to me to leave - least of all to go to a Lutheran Church.

The decisive question now is not what the change means for our relationship with the Protestants. Nothing much will change there because the whole Catholic Church is not going back to the old rite. It's a different thing with the Orthodox churches. Because the Old Catholic rite fits within the family of Catholic liturgies - among the Greek Orthodox, the Syrian, the Coptic rites. The Church has so many rites with none of which the New Mass fits.

Where the old liturgy can be celebrated unhindered, the Catholic Church will be rejoining that greater family of Catholic liturgies, and it makes it easier for the Orthodox to look at us us a true sister church.

Will it not sharpen ecumenical differences?
Spaemann: That's hardly possible. Followers of the Old Rite will probably remain a small group for some time. They may grow larger than they are now, but they will remain a minority.

Salt of the Church?
Spaemann: Yes as Christians are to the world, and Catholics are to Christians, then followers of the traditional Mass must equally be to other Catholics.

LORENZAGO UPDATE - 7/16/07


THE POPE ON VACATION, LORENZAGO DI CADORE, JULY 9-27




After the Angelus
July 15
LORENZAGO - The Pope did not miss his evening walk yesterday, Sunday, despite leading the Angelus and having some informal audiences afterwards with a number of local people, followed by lunch with visiting bishops.

There was one touching incident at the informal audiences:

The Pope caressed a grieving mother whose 6-year-old son has been admitted to a hospital in Pieva di Cadore for a malignant brain tumor. "I will always pray for him," he told her.

It was among the scenes caught on live TV yesterday after the Pope had led the midday Angelus at the Castello Mirabello.

The boy's parents and his sister were accompanied to the castle by his attending physician , Angelo Costola, at the suggestion of the Pope's staff when the request for this meeting was received.


Road alert:
Pope walking by!
July 14

By Francesco del Mas

LORENZAGO - What would you do if you found yourself along the same path as the Pope, perhaps in Castello Mirabello's Park of Dreams and then walk along with him for about 10 minutes, chatting? With the Supreme Pontiff laying his arm around your shoulder as you walked?

The adventure happened Saturday evening to Carla Calcagnotto, an insurance broker from Selva del Montello, who is vacationing in Lorenzago with her husband Giannino and their aunt.

"It was shortly after 7 p.m., and I had just come out of the woods," she recounts. "Suddenly I found myself stopped by a man who said, 'There's a problem. Just wait a few minutes.' I was suddenly afraid. My husband was still in the woods. I became nervous, but then the man - I learned later he was a gendarme - made a telephone call and then said I could proceed. 'The Pope is here,' was all he said."

Carla walked about 200 meters to catch up with the Pope.

"I heard one of the men with him say, 'There's a lady', and the Pope turned around and greeted me. 'Where's your husband?', he asked. 'He is farther behind,' I said. Then he laid his arm around my shoulder, as if comforting me, as if he understood how overcome I was with emotion.

"But after a few seconds, I worked up the courage to ask, 'How are you enjoying your vacation?' He resumed walking and said, 'I am very happy. It's so peaceful here, and these woods are very beautiful.'

Carla hastened to explain, 'Holiness, at the hotel, we left my husband's 92-year-old aunt, who came to Lorenzago to see you.'

Before they parted, he gave her a rosary and one for the aunt.

At the end of the same path, the Pope ran into a group of old people and children. Among them, the couple Giovanni and Antonietta Schiavinato.

"Buone vacanze", the Pope reportedly greeted them, as he approached the children. He kissed them and took the small ones in his arms.

"Holiness, what can I say? I can see you from my porch everytime you leave the grounds. Please come back next year."

Another one he encountered on this walk was Gianni Tremonti who was wearing a T-shirt that said 'Scotland'. The Pope remarked on it, "Scotland! Bravo!" and smiled. Gianni took courage and asked him how was the vacation going.

"Very well. These woods, the countryside, everything is beautiful."

Yesterday, the Governor of the Veneto region said he asked him too about the vacation so far. "Very well. it couldn't be better," the Pope said, adding he particularly liked the woods and the mountain trails.


Benedict XVI is on vacation:
But he'll probably surprise you
around the corner!
By Antonino D'Anna
Affari Italiani


Attention! If you're somewhere near Lorenzago and you see an elderly man dressed in white, rather distinguished, watching you as you play tennis, it's not a mirage. It could very well be His Holiness Benedict XVI in person, who did sit down on a park bench one beautifull summer evening last week and watched two of my friends
exchanging volleys at tennis.

Or, if you are children, be ready with a bunch of flowers and watch from the roadside. If a black car with two passengers stops near you, one of those men is Joseph Ratzinger. But don't bring your Mammas along, because the other man is Georg Gaenswein and he may well turn their heads.

Joking aside, the Pope's Dolomite vacation is getting along very well, and he obviously enjoys all his excursions with all these spontaneous encounters - often reported right away. As the Pope himself bantered to newsmen the other day, "You always know everything!"

According to his wishes, his vacation at the same villa that housed his predecessor for six vacations has been otherwise 'monastic.' He wakes up early, he says Mass, prays some more, has breakfast and proceeds to read, write, meditate.

He's working on the second volume of JESUS OF NAZARETH, and is planning a second encyclical on social issues.

Lunch at 1 with his secretary, and any visiting staff from the Vatican - he expects Cardinal Bertone on Wednesday), his midday nap, and then back to work.

His evening walks have become an excuse to make brief excursions in the area. At night before retiring, he spends some time at his piano - and the music is often heard beyond the first security perimeter set up around the villa, a plastic-covered chicken-wire wall that has been resented by some locals who think they should be able to have direct contact with the Pope when they want to.

Well, understand, folks! He's supposed to be on vacation. Even if he must continue running the Church, regardless.

It is very distressing that more than a week after Summorum Pontificum has come out, the Vatican spokesman has to say this in a Vatican TV editorial. The call to unity and reconciliation is explicit in both the Motu Proprio and the Pope's accompanying letter. Whoever doesn't get that simply doesn't want to get it.

ROME, JULY 15, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi says Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum and the message accompanying it are a call to "enlarging the heart," reciprocal openness and reconciliation.

The Vatican spokesman commented on the July 7 papal document written "motu proprio" (on one's own initiative) during the most recent edition of the television program "Octava Dies."

Father Lombardi explained the Holy Father's hopes by referring to a phrase the latter used from St. Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians: "'Our mouth is open to you, Corinthians, our heart is wide. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return & widen your hearts also!'

"Benedict XVI makes his own these words of St. Paul in the culminating point of his accompanying letter to the recent [document issued] 'motu proprio' on the liturgy, to express in a more profound way the spirit that animates him. And he continues: 'Let us generously open our hearts and make room for everything that the faith itself allows.'"

Father Lombardi acknowledged that the document has brought mixed reactions.

"As could be expected, after the publication of the document, there have been those who, on one hand - thinking themselves better interpreters of Vatican II than the Pope - lamented a betrayal of the liturgical reform of Paul VI," he said.

On the other hand, he added, there are those who, "hardening in their rigidity, proclaimed that they had always been right in the position they took of rejecting the renewal."

But, Father Lombardi affirmed, "the greater part of the faithful and all the bishops read and listened with attention and a spirit of obedience, so as to better receive the truer significance of the Pope's decision, which is a very clear message of enlarging the heart, of reciprocal openness, of reconciliation."

Father Lombardi said the liturgy accompanies the Church in its journey through history.

"We have two forms - one ordinary and the other extraordinary - of a single rite of celebration of the Mass. The mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ is so great that it cannot be identified in a definitive and exclusive way with one form or the other of the rite that is celebrated," the Vatican spokesman emphasized.

The liturgy is "a continual journey, without ruptures, guided in faith and charity by he who has supreme responsibility for the unity of the Church," he said.

Father Lombardi continued: "Neither the Missal of Pius V and John XXIII - used by a small minority - nor that of Paul VI - used today with much spiritual fruit by the greatest majority - will be the final 'law of prayer' of the Catholic Church.

"In the Church's journey through history, there is also the journey of the liturgical celebration so that we may more and more perfectly encounter the Lord, his death and resurrection, source of our life. This is the central point, that draws us toward unity."

=====================================================================

I have as little tolerance and patience for traditionalists who have greeted the MP gloatingly - and fortunately, I have not encountered any so far on the Net - as I have with the liberals who cannot tolerate any other point of view but their own.

But the one insight I picked up from Robert Spaemann's interview two posts above is that we should never under-estimate the raging force of ideological commitment among today's liberals - which include many bishops and priests.

They have become so invested in their ideological ideas of what the Roman Catholic Church should be that they don't really care what it actually is. And they really think that The Church is like purely human institutions, that will change and can change drastically under pressure.

Fortunately, we know that all this periodic passion will peak and then ebb, as other matters become more topical. Meanwhile, right now, the liberal hysteria against Pope Benedict and the Church is at rabid foaming-in-the-mouth pitch, as witness the Washington Post's weekend screeds [See Benefan's post in READINGS] and a column today in the Boston Globe.

Just remember, we went through this with the Regensburg lecture. At least this time, Muslims don't figure in the equation. Any Jewish outrage - misplaced and unwarranted - is easily answerable by objective fact.

What you can't answer is blind unreasoning prejudice that cloaks itself in all sorts of seemingly reasonable sophisms and the inevitable namecalling. Let them spew out all their venom and get it over with - until the next moment of truth, which is guaranteed to generate their poisonous bile all over.

Let's be thankful we have a courageous Pope, and may God continue to bless him. May the one true Church prevail over all those who think that they have her interest at heart better than the Vicar of Christ himself.

maryjos, 13/07/2007 21:33:

---

I would like to get a discussion going about Summorum Pontificum and also the latest letter from the CDF. Would this be an appropriate thread or not? What do you all think?

===============================================================


Dear MaryJos and everyone else who participates in the English section: - Obviously Yes! The idea for all these threads - and reporting any news item - is not only to provide information but to be a take-off point for any comments or discussion! So what's stopping anyone from such discussions????

Teresa

---

OK, girls. I used the 'QUOTE' method I described two pages ago to refer back to a discussion or post in the past to comment on it.

The quoted post is from June 13. It's June 16 today - I was expecting a deluge of opinion over the weekend...BRING IT ON, PEOPLE!

In case anyone missed it, or is not aware about this feature of the Forum, let me repeat it here:


Go to the post that you wish to comment on; on the line next to the name of the person who posted, you will see the choice 'email -profilo - edit - canc - quota'. When you click on 'quota', it will take you to a reply box in which the entire post is 'quoted', including any pictures in it. You can now go inside this 'quotation' and just choose the portions(s) you want to comment on, deleting the rest. You can then type in your comments/discussion below the 'quotation' and proceed as usual.

This way, your comment is always tied to the post you are commenting on, no matter how much later you comment on it - and it will post in the usual chronological order, so there is no way it will be missed. (If you post today, for example, commenting on a 7/7/07 post, your post will appear with the 7/16 posts, as mine does now). Try it, and see what happens.

But of course, if anyone wants to open a separate discussion thread, by all means go ahead. But DISCUSS! DISCUSS! DISCUSS!

TERESA
Panting with eagerness
to hear from anyone

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/07/2007 18:56]

The following two items are translated from fresh news material posted promptly by Lella on her blog:


VATICAN CITY, July 16 (Apcom) - "The reactions to the Pope's letter to the Catholics of China have been quite positive from both the faithful and the bishops," Cardinal Tarciso Bertone, Secretary of State, told the Catholic news agency SIR yesterday in Subiaco, where he closed the annual celebration in honor of St. Benedict, patron of Europe [Feast day on July 11).

"The movement of meditation and reflection on the letter has been extraordinary, across the Internet, from both the so-called patriotic Church and the underground Church," Bertone said.

"From Chinese officials themselves, we have not yet received any precise signals and we are waiting," he added. "This is a time for reflection and re-thinking. The Pope's letter is an expression of confidence that the Chinese people and their leaders may reconsider the official attitude towards the Catholic Church which only wants to collaborate for the good of the Chinese people."

"Concretely, we have been thinking about working along the moral code of Confucius, with its basic elements which are analogous or close to Christian values. Confucius said a man is not a man unless he is a moral being. That was the great tradition he left: morality."

However, he concluded: "Natural moral law is objectively inadequate, not only with respect to the totality of God's plan of salvation in Jesus Christ, but even for regulating social life, whether it is in the official sphere of government or the civilian community or the religious."

=====================================================================

La Repubblica today saw fit to dedicate an editorial to the Pope's letter to the Catholics of China, noting it is historically unprecedented - and gives it the signal importance it deserves after being overshadowed by the Motu Proprio on the Mass and by the CDF statement on the doctrine of the Church..

Editorial
CHINA: BENEDICT'S UNPRECEDENTED
INITIATIVE TO END A 'SCHISM'
By Agostino Giovagnoli


FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 1949 - when from atop the Gate of Heaven (Tienanmen), Mao Zedong proclaimed the birth of Communist China - a Pope has directly addressed the Catholics of the People's Republic of China in a letter.

Benedict XVI's predecessors had sent documents and messages to 'the Chinese people', 'the Chinese nation', 'continental China', without ever once naming the People's Republic, China's constituted government since 1949.

That was just the first novelty in the letter made public on June 30 which could open a new season in Vatican-China relations.

The Holy See never established diplomatic relations with the PRC, and the Church has aways considered China a special case, that cannot be likened to any other country.

Indeed for decades, the stereotype entertained by Catholics worldwide was that China represented the concentration of all evil. It was the only nation in which not only did Communism persecute the Church, but it managed to penetrate it, split it up and set Chinese Catholics against each other.

Pius XII, who is not mentioned in this letter, took the stand that not only the Chinese Communist regime should be condemned, but also the so-called patriotic Catholics, those who - out of weakness, convenience or conviction - had chosen to join a religious organization controlled by the government.

Indeed, for the Vatican, the only authentic Chinese Catholics were those who went 'underground', defying the government out of loyalty to Rome, or for ideological or other reasons.

The Vatican did not change its position even after the PRC was accepted into the United Nations and its subsequent recognition by all the Western nations.

Although the Vatican posed no military or economic threat, its moral condemnation was a source of profound irritation for Beijing which was doing all it could to gain full commercial, financial and political acceptance into the international community - and largely succeeding.

Benedict's letter shows how much has changed. Referring directly to the Patriotic Association of Chinese Catholics, he refers indirectly to the beginnings of the tragic rupture that began in the 50s.

But in general, the Pope makes it clear that even for the Catholic Church, China is no longer a 'special circumstance' - that the cold war between the Vatican and China is over.

Benedict's move was not occasioned by political-diplomatic plans, because in this respect, the Pope's letter contains elements that please neither the intransigents nor the conciliators, that is, neither those who want to keep the iron glove and those who want dialog at all costs.

On the one hand, Benedict XVI does not hold back from any demands on the Chinese government for religious freedom and the right to choose Catholic bishops in China as the Bishop of Rome has everywhere else.

On the other hand, he is also open to an understanding with the government about the nomination of bishops or about the definition of diocesan boundaries.

But all that is inspired by a theological vision which runs in a unified and consistent way through the document, revealing the personal imprint of the Pope himself (even after five months during which other eyes had combed it closely and suggested refinements to the more sensitive statements).

It is probably no accident that this Pope, who is so familiar with the Fathers of the Church in its early centuries, sees the 'patriotic' Catholics as 'lapsed', Christians who have yielded out of weakness before tremendous difficulties in times of persecution, for whom the Church doors should always be open.

Benedict XVI even notes that even among the 'official' Catholics, not all are 'lapsed' - that many of them have given testimony of their loyalty to the Church. That is not a casual acknowledgement: it was from among them that in the 1980s and 1990s, the underground movement was able to bring the official Church closer to Rome, upsetting many plans and creating the altered conditions today.

That seems to diminish somehow the 'privilege' which underground Catholics had enjoyed for decades in world public opinion. The letter makes clear that there is merit in loyalty to Catholic tradition, not in opposition to the Chinese government.

Although it expresses great respect for the underground Catholics who have suffered most, the Pope admonishes that "staying in hiding is not the normal condition of the Church", therefore he invites the underground bishops to accept recognition from the government and official control provided this does not extend to 'the religious sphere.'

After this letter, it will be difficult to exploit the underground Catholics as a symbol of a clash of civilizations between Western values and 'Asiatic barbarism.'

Pope Benedict's primary concern is the unity of the Church in China. Once he has made that the priority, then it is possible to redefine more linearly the relationship that Chinese Catholics should have with government authorities one that should be based on respect, loyalty and collaboration, but also autonomy insofar as internal matters regarding the life of the Church.

Before reaching 'normalization' of political and diplomatic relations between Beijing and the Vatican - which the letter explicitly wishes for - it first shows the way to normalizing relations between the Church in China and the State.

This proposal of 'normalcy', seemingly banal, is a great novelty in over half a century of troubled relations between the Cahtolic Church and Communist China.

We still do not know what the Chinese reaction will be - although the first signs were not negative. Will Benedict XVI's proposals be rejected out of hand as unacceptable, or will they be welcomed as positive openings?

In such a complex relationship - which does not involve only political and diplomatic considerations but cultural and human aspects - the value of the gesture and the sincerity of intentions may very well weigh more.

In the rest of the world, the Catholic traditionalist circles have shown a palpable unease, in contrast to their 'great satisfaction' over the Mass reform.

Thus, Benedict's letter to the Catholics of the People's Republic of China must figure in any interpretation of this Pontificate which has shown it does not lend itself easily to schematic or unilateral readings.

La Repubblica, 16 luglio 2007

====================================================================

And PETRUS shares a report from the Fides news agency, translated here:

Pope's letter encourages visits
to Marian shrine in Shanghai

The Marian sanctuary of She Shan in Shanghai has become a popular stop for young Chinese on their summer vacation, according to a priest in the Shanghai diocese, especially after Pope Benedict XVI mentioned the shrine in his letter to the Catholics of China.

The priest found encouragement in this:
"They represent the hope of the Church in China, our hope for evangelization and vitality in a Church that must now accelerate efforts to unify, following the instructions of the Holy Father in that much-welcome letter to us. She Shan is a symbol, and after the Pope's letter, we've had increasingly more visitors."

He said that in general, most dioceses had no problem distributing the Pope's letter. "We have heard from other dioceses and base communities, and like us, as soon as it was available on the Internet, the text was immediately downloaded copief for distribution. The Web is truly an effective tool for evangelization."

TERESA BENEDETTA, 15/07/2007 21:50:

---

Dr. Mohler wrote:

"... The true church, in other words, is that church identified through the recognition of the papacy. Those churches that deny or fail to recognize the papacy are "ecclesial Communities," not churches "in the proper sense."

I appreciate the document's clarity on this issue. It all comes down to this - the claim of the Roman Catholic Church to the primacy of the Bishop of Rome and the Pope as the universal monarch of the church is the defining issue."

---

It seems to me that Dr. Mohler got some things right in his article, but I have to disagree with his statements above. He makes it seem as though papal supremacy the THE defining mark of what the Catholic Church considers as "Church", even though he quotes the statement itself which says : "These ecclesial Communities which, specifically because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood, have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery cannot, according to Catholic doctrine, be called "Churches" in the proper sense". Yes, rejection of the primacy of the Pope is part of the reason Protestant denominations are not considered to be churches, but lack of apostolic succession and a different understanding of the Eucharist are also at least as important, it seems to me. It is interesting that one sees a positive response from the Orthodox Bishop Krill. Perhaps this statement can be seen as a reminder to the eastern Church that we have much in common with them. (Perhaps the 'freeing' of the 'Latin' mass can be seen also as a statement to them that we embrace our Tradition (and tradition), contrary to what one might have believed was in case post-Vatican II?)

=====================================================================

Dear Lily - Very opportune that in REFLECTIONS ON OUR FAITH...yesterday, I posted a brief 'primer' on ecumenism written by the French journalist Patrice de Plunkett, which I will post here for quick reference, as it brings up the very points you do:

---

...The ecumenical dialog is necessarily theological. Otherwise, what would be at issue?

For the Catholic Church, there are two essential points:

- The Eucharist (Christ really present in the Sacrament)

- Apostolic succession (Bishops can only be such in direct succession from the Apostles).

They are not secondary issues. These are the pillars of the Church of Christ in Catholic theology - and Vatican-II reaffirms them forcefully.

To state this clearly is a duty for Catholics, especially when they talk to other Christians.

Most especially with Protestants who do not have the same idea of the Eucharist and who have discarded apostolic succession.

As long as the Protestants do not believe Christ is present in the Eucharist, and they call their ministers bishops without benefit of apostolic succession, the barrier between them and Catholics is insurmountable.

To acknowledge that is not a gratuitous act of meanness. It merely means taking each other's faith seriously.

Between Catholics and Orthodox, the problem is historical, not theological: it is about the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. They agree about the Eucharist and apostolic succession.

The mass media (and some Catholics) do not take faith seriously. They scorn the Eucharist and apostolic communion in favor of encounters called 'ecumenical' but these are really post-Christian manifestations.

Of non-religious 'religion' that has been reduced to exterior gestures and secular slogans. Because that is what media can tolerate in terms of religion. Everything else they consider intolerable. They call Christians who take Christianity seriously 'fundamentalists.'

[Fundamentalism is not really about belief in God, as the media think. It is about bringing back the Church to the 19th century, mixing up religion with outmoded political ideas.]

Mass media is therefore off topic. Their public is uninformed.

Catholics who believe the media (and reject whatever the Pope says) are even more uninformed than everyone else, because the authentic source is available to them but they have no use for it.

---

And Dr. Spaemann in the interview above observed that the 'restoration' of the traditional liturgy will be welcomed above all by the orthodox.

Magister is revisiting the MP and the CDF statement together but cops out and leaves the 'analysis' to others without offering a synthesis commensurate to the potential historical magnitude of Pope Benedict's recent series of actions. Also, he leaves out the China letter which he has never commented on - he published the Vatican's explanatory note is what he did at the time. He hasn't had a real analytical-synthetic piece in months! What's with him?????


Liturgy and Ecumenism:
How to Apply Vatican Council II

For Benedict XVI, there must not be rupture between the Church's past and present, but rather continuity.
He has given proof of this with his latest decisions - receiving less criticism than foreseen, and much more agreement.
The comments of Ruini, Amato, De Marco

by Sandro Magister


ROMA, July 16, 2007 - Just a few months ago, the French bishops were extremely concerned about the news that Benedict XVI was preparing to liberalize the celebration of the Mass labeled as that of Pius V.

"Such a decision endangers the Church's unity," wrote the most alarmed of them.

Benedict XVI went ahead and released his motu proprio on July 7. But there was no reaction of rejection from the French bishops. Nor was there from the bishops of the touchiest countries: Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain.

On the contrary, their most authoritative leaders hailed the Pope's decision with positive comments: from the German Cardinal Karl Lehmann to the English Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, both ranked among the progressives.

The same happened with the document released on July 10 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which nails down some firm points of doctrine about the Church. There was no comparison with the criticisms that in the summer of 2000 were hurled - even by high-ranking churchmen - against the declaration Dominus Iesus, signed by then-cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, which to a great extent dealt with the same points of doctrine.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, one of the critics back then, decisively supported the Vatican document this time: "Clearly stating one's own positions does not limit ecumenical dialogue, but fosters it." And from Moscow, metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk, president of the department for external relations at the Russian Orthodox patriarchate, described the text as "an honest declaration, because sincere dialogue requires a clear vision of the respective positions."

Criticisms did arrive, naturally, against both of these promulgations, from within and outside of the Church, and especially from Protestants and Jews. But in the Catholic camp the protests were limited to confined sectors, mostly Italian: the sectors of the liturgists and of the intellectuals who interpret Vatican Council II as a 'rupture' and a 'new beginning'.

Among the liturgists, the one most pained in contesting the papal motu proprio was Luca Brandolini, bishop of Sora, Aquino, and Pontecorvo, and a member of the liturgical commission of the Italian bishops' conference, in an interview with the newspaper La Repubblica:

"I cannot hold back my tears; I am living through the saddest moment of my life as a bishop and as a man. This is a day of mourning not only for me, but for the many who have lived and worked for Vatican Council II. What has been negated is a reform for which many worked at the cost of great sacrifices, motivated solely by the desire to renew the Church." [I am sorry - but every time I see this quotation, I want to throw up! It is so stupid and senseless, an operatic parody!]

Among the theorists of Vatican II as a 'rupture' and a 'new beginning', the most explicit against the papal provisions were the founder and prior of the monastery of Bose, Enzo Bianchi, and the historian of Christianity Alberto Melloni, co-author of the most widely read History of Vatican Council II in the world.[Perhaps because it is the only one available as an academic tract?]

For Melloni, the objective of pope Ratzinger is nothing less than that of 'deriding' and 'demolishing' Vatican Council II.

But we know that Benedict XVI's clear objective - plainly enunciated and argued in the memorable discourse to the Roman curia on December 22, 2005 - is to rid the Council of the wrong interpretation: precisely the interpretation of 'rupture' and 'new beginning' dear to Bianchi and Melloni.

"The hermeneutic of discontinuity," the pope said in this address, "risks ending in a split between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church."

While instead the correct interpretation of Vatican Council II, in the view of Benedict XVI, is this:

"... the hermeneutic of reform, of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us. She is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God."

The motu proprio that liberalizes the ancient rite of the Mass and the successive document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are both applications of this stated aim.

The pope explained this in the letter to the bishops that accompanied the motu proprio. But he also had the foresight to expound and discuss his reasons on June 27, ten days before the publication of the motu proprio, with a select group of bishops from various countries, including the Cardinals Lehmann, Murphy O'Connor, and Jean-Pierre Ricard, Philippe Barbarin, and André Vingt-Trois of France. This preliminary meeting with the pope contributed to the later positive welcome of the provision on the part of all of these.

Among the participants at the meeting there was also, for Italy, cardinal Camillo Ruini. On July 8, the day after the publication of the motu proprio, he published in the newspaper of the Italian bishops conference, Avvenire, the editorial reproduced below.

Just after it, also on this page, is presented an interview with the secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Angelo Amato, co-author of the document released the previous day.

In it, he responds to some criticisms of the two latest papal proclamations, including the one in relation to the prayer for the conversion of the Jews in the rite of Holy Thursday in the missal attributed to Saint Pius V. The interview, released in Avvenire on July 11, was conducted by Gianni Cardinale.

Finally, as a third commentary written expressly for www.chiesa, there is a note by Pietro De Marco, professor at the University of Florence and at the Theological Faculty of Central Italy.


Solicitude for the Unity of the Church
by Cardinal Camillo Ruini

Ten days ago, at the end of the meeting dedicated to the motu proprio on the use of the Roman liturgy before Vatican Council II, Benedict XVI wanted to illustrate personally the motives that prompted him to promulgate this text.

As the first and foremost of these motives, the pope indicated concern for the unity of the Church, a unity that subsists not only in space, but also in time, and which is incompatible with fractures and opposition among the various phases of its historical development.

This means that Pope Benedict has taken up again the central message of his address to the Roman curia on December 22, 2005, in which, forty years after the Council, he proposed as the key for interpreting Vatican II, not "the hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture," but rather that "of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church."

He is not in this way bringing to bear his own personal point of view or theological preference, but rather fulfilling the essential duty of the successor of Peter, who, as the Council itself says (Lumen Gentium no. 23), "is the perpetual and visible principle and foundation of unity of both the bishops and of the faithful." [Apparently Council 'historians' like Melloni and Bianchi choose to ignore Council statements when it does not suit their views. They certainly have never behaved as though they believed the Pope has any authority at all! They don't recognize his Magisterium and they don't recognize his decrees.]

At the same time, in the letter to bishops with which he accompanies and puts into their hands the motu proprio, Pope Benedict writes that the positive reason that induced him to publish it is that of reaching an internal reconciliation within the bosom of the Church.

He expressly recalls how, looking to the divisions that have wounded the Body of Christ over the centuries, "one continually has the impression that, at critical moments when divisions were coming about, not enough was done by the Church's leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity."

From here, the pope continues, we receive the "obligation . . . to make every effort to enable for all those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or to attain it anew."

It is only by putting ourselves on this wavelength that we can truly grasp the meaning of the motu proprio, and put it into practice in a positive an fruitful way.

In reality, as the pope explains abundantly in his letter, there is no foundation to the fear that the Council's authority will be compromised and that the liturgical reform will be brought into doubt, or that the work of Paul VI and John Paul II will be discredited.

The missal of Paul VI remains, in fact, the 'normal' and 'ordinary' form of the Eucharistic liturgy, while the Roman missal from before the Council can be used as an 'extraordinary form'.

This is not - the pope clarifies - about 'two rites', but of a twofold use of one and the same Roman rite. John Paul II, moreover, first in 1984 and then in 1988, had permitted the use of the missal from before the Council, for the same reasons that are now prompting Benedict XVI to take a further step in this direction.

Besides, such a further step is not one-way. It requires constructive will and sincere sharing of the intention that guided Benedict XVI: not only for the overwhelming majority of the priests and faithful who are comfortable with the reform that followed Vatican II, but also for those who remain deeply attached to the previous form of the Roman rite.

In concrete terms, the former are asked not to indulge, in the celebrations, in those abuses that unfortunately have not been lacking, and which obscure the spiritual richness and theological profundity of the missal of Paul VI.

The latter are asked not to exclude in principle the celebration according to this new missal, thus manifesting concretely their acceptance of the Council.

In this way, the risk will be averted that a motu proprio released in order to better unite the Christian community will instead be used to divide it.

In his letter the pope, addressing the bishops, emphasizes that these new norms "do not diminish in any way" their authority and responsibility for the liturgy and for the pastoral care of their faithful.

As Vatican II teaches (Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 22), every bishop is in fact "the moderator of the liturgy in his diocese", in communion with the pope and under his authority. [Now, where do the liberal bishops get their idea that they are autonomous of the Pope and do not owe him obedience?]

This, too, is a criterion of the highest importance, in order that the motu proprio may bear the productive results for which it was written.


Knowing Who We Are
Aids Dialogue
An interview with Archbishop Angelo Amato,
Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith


Q: Your Excellency, the first of the responses published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the faith reaffirms that Vatican Council II did not change the previous doctrine on the Church. But shouldnt this be obvious?

A: It should. But unfortunately it isn't. There are interpretations which, from opposite sides, would like the last Council to have been a rupture with the tradition of the Catholic Church. Some identify this presumptive fact as a glory of the Council, others as a disaster.

But that's not how it is. And it was fitting to reaffirm this in a clear and unequivocal manner, recalling also what Blessed John XXIII affirmed clearly in his allocution on September 11, 1962, at the beginning of the Council: "the Council . . . wishes to transmit the doctrine, pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion . . ."][Melloni and other Council historians have also conveninently forgotten this.] This sure and unchangeable doctrine, to which faithful obedience is due, must be explored and presented in the manner required by our era.

The substance of the depositum fidei, or the truths contained in our venerable doctrine, is one thing, while the way in which these are expressed, though always with the same sense and meaning, is another.

Q: The second response, which is the central one, takes in hand the question of the phrase 'subsistit in'. How then should this assertion of the Council be interpreted, according to which the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church?

A: In effect, this affirmation has undergone various interpretations, and not all of these are consistent with the conciliar doctrine on the Church.

The congregations reply, based on the Council documents and also on the annals of the Councils work, which are cited in the footnotes, reaffirm that subsistence indicates the perennial historical continuity and the endurance of all the elements instituted by Christ in the Catholic Church, in which the Church of Christ is found concretely on this earth.

It is not correct, therefore, to think that the Church of Christ today no longer exists anywhere, or that it exists only theoretically, or in fieri, under formation, in a future convergence or reunification of the different sister Churches, hoped for or promoted by ecumenical dialogue. No. The Church of Christ, one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, exists in history in the Catholic Church.

Q: But why then - and this is the topic of the third response - didnt the Council affirm precisely that the Catholic Church is the Church of Christ, and instead used the term subsists?

A: This change of terms is not, and cannot be interpreted as, a rupture with the past. In Latin, subsistit in is a stronger form of est. The continuity of subsistence entails a substantial identity of essence between the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church.

With the expression subsistit in, the Council intended to express the singular and unrepeatable nature of the Church of Christ. The Church exists as a unique subject in historical reality.

But at the same time, the phrase subsistit in also expresses the fact that outside of the structure of the Catholic Church, there is not an absolute ecclesiastical void, but there can be found "numerous elements of sanctification and of truth . . . which as gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, impel towards catholic unity."

Q: The fourth response concerns the ecumenical implications of what has been affirmed so far. And it clarifies the reason why Vatican Council II attributes the name of 'Churches' to the Eastern Churches, Orthodox and pre-Chalcedonian, that are separated from full communion with Rome.

A: The response is clear. These Churches, although separated from Rome, have true sacraments, and above all by virtue of apostolic succession have the priesthood and the Eucharist. Thus they deserve the title of particular or local Churches, and are called sisters of the particular Catholic Churches.

But to this it must be added that these sister Churches are affected by a lack, by a vulnus, in that they are not in communion with the visible head of the one Catholic Church who is the pope, the successor of Peter. And this is not an accessory matter, but one of the constitutive principles within every particular Church.

Q: The last response repeats that the title of 'Church' cannot be attributed to the Christian communities born from the Reformation in the sixteenth century.

A: This is a painful matter, I know, but as the Council affirms, these communities have not maintained apostolic succession in the sacrament of Orders, thus depriving themselves of an essential constitutive element of the Church's being. Because of the lack of the ministerial priesthood, these communities have not preserved the genuine and complete substance of the Eucharistic mystery. For this reason, according to Catholic doctrine, they cannot be called 'Churches' in the true sense.

Q: Is this also true of the Anglican communion?

A: Yes.

Q: Your Excellency, what is the value of these responses?

A: They have an authoritative theological character. Authoritative. They are a clarification, formulated by our Congregation and approved expressly by the Pope, of the Councils meaning.

Q: These texts were published a few days after the motu proprio that liberalizes the so-called Mass of Saint Pius V. Some might think that this was not a coincidence, but a precise strategy . . .

A: This is no ecclesiastical or media strategy. Our documents are published when they are ready. And that's all. Otherwise, if we had to pay attention to these kinds of problems that have nothing to do with us we would risk, for one reason or another, never publishing these texts awaited by the bishops and many of the faithful.

Q: In any case, these two events were interpreted - by some - as an offensive directed against Vatican Council II.

A: Thats not the way it is. In both cases there is an authoritative and orthodox development, obviously in the Catholic sense, of the Council. The Holy Father, and our congregation together with him, does not use the hermeneutic of rupture, of opposition between pre- and post-conciliar realities.

For the Pope and for us, what applies instead is the hermeneutic of continuity and of development within the tradition. There should be an end to considering the second millennium of the Catholic Churchs life as an unfortunate parenthesis that the Vatican Council, or rather its spirit, removed at a single stroke.

Q: And yet fears remain that these events are harmful to ecumenical dialogue.

A: What is affirmed in these responses has already been stated by the Council itself, and has been restated by a number of post-conciliar documents and by the declaration Dominus Iesus in particular.

In practice, this is nothing other than restating what the Catholic identity is, in order to face ecumenical dialogue serenely and more effectively. When your interlocutor knows your identity, he is led to dialogue in a more sincere way and without creating further confusion.

Q: Your Excellency, there are those who accuse the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum of being anti-conciliar, because it offers full citizenship to a missal in which there is a prayer for the conversion of the Jews. Is it truly contrary to the letter and spirit of the Council to formulate this prayer?

A: Certainly not. In the Mass, we Catholics pray always and in the first place for our conversion. And we strike our breasts for our sins. And then we pray for the conversion of all Christians and all non-Christians. The Gospel is for all.

Q: But the objection is raised that the prayer for the conversion of the Jews was definitively surpassed by the one in which the Lord is asked to help them to progress in fidelity to his covenant.

A: Jesus himself affirms, in the Gospel of Saint Mark: "Repent, and believe in the Gospel," and his first interlocutors were his Jewish confreres. We Christians can do nothing other than re-propose what Jesus taught us. In freedom and without imposition, obviously, but also without self-censorship.

Q: A while ago, you announced the publication of an updated instruction, a second Donum Vitae, on the most burning topics related to bioethics and biotechnology. At what point is this?

A: This is a very delicate document that requires great care. I think it will still take a good bit of work before it can be released.

Q: And the other document announced, on the natural law?

A: We are still collecting the materials produced by various international conferences on this topic, which, at our suggestion, were held in various pontifical universities and Catholic institutions throughout the world.

Q: So will it be a while before we have new documents from your congregation?

A: No, there will be two texts soon. The first is on a specific question touching on bioethics. The other concerns a problem relating to the missions. But it would be premature to say any more.


Pope Benedict's Cure
by Pietro De Marco

In Summorum Pontificum, Benedict XVI firmly indicated in the Missale Romanum, promulgated by Pius V and revised by John XXIII in 1962, a completely valid and current expression of the lex orandi - the rule of prayer - and of the lex credendi - the rule of faith.

Along with the Missal promulgated by Paul VI in 1970, this represents a distinct use of the one rite of the Latin Church. Although it was marginalized, in fact, through the adoption of modern languages in the liturgy, the Missal of 1962 was never 'replaced' nor could it have been, much less 'abrogated'. It has remained in effect, being itself 'a living expression of the Church'.

The new legitimization of the Missale Romanum decreed by Summorum Pontificum brings Catholic life back to its essential nature of complexio. The pope proposes Catholic history prior to Vatican Council II as the living context of the 'spirit' of the Council itself, and of its realization: a realization that many extremists have instead interpreted as incompatible with the past.

Thus the objective of 'internal reconciliation in the bosom of the Church' becomes part of a wider curative intervention for the universal Church, even independent of local tensions with schismatic minorities.

The same rare but virulent negative reactions to the motu proprio confirm, without meaning to do so, the urgency of this curative action by Pope Benedict. Two serious accusations have been raised against Summorum Pontificum.

1. It is thought to impinge on episcopal authority, because the Pope's decision is said to take away from 'the liturgist of his church' - the bishop - the authority to discipline the liturgical styles and intentions of the priests who minister according to his delegation.

2. It is thought to introduce a paradoxical form of liturgical relativism, liturgy a la carte, according to the subjective preferences of the faithful.

The second objection is decidedly out of place. If anything has offered, for decades, a dangerously à la carte spectacle of liturgical styles, it is the rampant (and early - appearing right after the Council) abuse of the 'interpretation' or 'inculturation of the Mass rite.

Who can forget the arbitrary suppression of prayers and gestures, and the illegitimate introduction of new liturgical texts, actors, and places? This led to an exodus of believers looking for styles of celebration more in keeping with their taste. This problem has been known for some time, and Benedict XVI's recent motu proprio waspreceded by many warnings - above all by the instruction Redemptoris Sacramentum of April, 2004 - condemning the excessive 'arbitrary deformations' of the Mass.

The recovery of the ancient rite could, contrary to what is objected, act as a paradigm for stabilizing the variable liturgies in the modern languages. As Cardinal Karl Lehmann, president of the German bishops, has noted, the motu proprio is a good occasion to promote with new attentiveness a fitting 'ordinary' celebration of the Eucharist and of the other rites.

As for the first objection, the authority of the bishop is the subject of the accompanying letter by Benedict XVI to his 'dear brothers in the episcopate'. In it, there is a reminder that the ancient rite is not a different rite, that its presence in the Christian people is a constructive memory, and that its celebration is legitimate and opportune.

The historical-traditional richness of Christian worship is, therefore, the primary reality to be drawn upon; and the authority exercised by the bishop-liturgist should be understood accordingly.

The bishop does not generate autonomously, much less by inclination, neither the fact of the rite, which has its center in Christ, nor its form, which belongs above all to the one and universal Church.

Besides, the pope explains in the letter to the bishops, the very men responsible for the unity of the Church have often failed, even in the recent past, to fulfill their primary task of avoiding or healing divisions.

So in what perspective should Benedict XVI's motu proprio, as an act of governance, be understood?

Above all, the new freedom to celebrate the Mass improperly called 'pre-conciliar' will act as a corrective, if not as reparation, for the unwarranted practical and ideological fracture effected during the post-conciliar years. It was a fracture with the tradition of the modern Church, from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, and with regard to language, practically with the entire tradition.

This fracture was not intended by the constitution on the liturgy promulgated by Vatican Council II. The fracture consisted in the de facto negation of the spirit of the liturgy prior to the reform, implying or letting it be understood that the traditional liturgy was inadequate in itself.

The initiative of Pope Benedict is thus directed against the ideological and substantially 'revolutionary' interpretation made of the Council by the Catholic theological and pastoral elites, an interpretation unfortunately that slowly spread among the clergy and the parishes.

The renewed legitimacy of a Eucharist celebrated in the Latin language and according to the Roman Missal of 1962 would bring back balance to current excesses in ritual, language, and architecture, and to the frequent tendency to rid the Mass of sacramentality - with worrying implications for the faith.

It is claimed that the Missal promulgated on March 26, 1970 - formed on a 'traditional foundation' through 'mature liturgical study' - would have been sufficient to achieve these effects.

No one is unaware of the enormous work done by the Congregation for Divine Worship over the decades, nor of John Paul II's passion for the liturgical life of the Church: especially if one reads his letter Dominicae Cenae of February, 1980.

But has all that richness translated into practice? There has been no apparent capacity to provide direction, nor containment of the the 'liturgical renewal' carried out through daily dilettantisms, often extraneous to the very idea of the sacredness of the Eucharist and of the sacrifice? One must reflect on this proven impossibility to found 'great works' on the sand of post-conciliar rhetoric.

How could the Tridentine rite serve to restore a balance?

1. The Latin language fosters the perception of the ancient quality of the rite. Even occasional participation in the ancient rite in Latin will help to understand that tradition and innovation have a necessary relationship and a mutual power of moderation. This is well-known to those who have attended Latin liturgies in the monasteries these past decades, more than just the liturgies celebrated by non-monastic traditionalist groups.

2. The ritual form and discipline of the ancient Mass teach faith precisely through their way of teaching prayer. The celebrant facing the Lord - not 'turning his back' to the people, as many senselessly repeat - together with the whole assembly, as well as the position of the altar with respect to those around it, lead to a reflection on sacred space and time, on their meaning and foundation.

Neither the gathered community, nor its sentiments, nor its social company are the focus of the sacrificium missae. The actions of the praying community are governed by the norms of the sacramental sacrifice - action is at the service of the divina mysteria. The Divine Priest, Christ, sacrifices himself to the Father - the celebrant and the assembly must be drawn into this sascrifice.

Symbolically, everything is clearer for the faithful when they are permitted to look 'beyond the altar', toward the Lord. The idea of facing the Lord does away with the temptation to think of the altar as a 'spectaculum' at the center of the assembly.

Is the offering to the Father from the One Priest adequately manifested in the current 'direct conversation' between celebrant and people? In the New Mass, the assembly appears predominantly turned toward the celebrant, and the celebrant toward the assembly, fostering the impression that the assembly is the sacrament, not the Trinitarian 'mystery of the faith' at work in the liturgical action,

3. The traditional liturgy "has at its center the Most Holy Sacrament that shines with vibrant light" (as the great liturgist Josef A. Jungmann put it). It implies a catechesis and a preaching of the real presence of Jesus in the bread and wine, of the 'God with us' dear to Joseph Ratzinger the theologian. In short, the traditional liturgy will bring renewed attention to the sacrament as a proclamation of Eucharistic reality, beyond just the undeniable but secondary value of communal 'participation' by the assembly.

It seems to me this is the hope implicit in the Pope's decision: that a meaningful and deeply felt sense of tradition may channel the
disorientation of so many faithful.

The hope of a 'christifidelis laicus' such as myself is that, with the consent of the bishop, our parish priests may make possible the celebration of the Mass at least once a week, best if on a Sunday or feast day, according to the Missale Romanum of John XXIII, thus helping all to recover the deep meaning of the ancient liturgical tradition, and bring reconciliation to cultures, generations, and spiritualities within the Church.

The Latin Mass--Back to the Future?

I think I am one of a select few on this forum old enough to remember when the
"old" Mass was the "only" Mass. And I remember very well the transition to the
"new" Mass, which was more of an upheaval or revolution than a transition.

Teresa has described her memories of incense, mantillas, rosary beads, missals,
and centuries-old prayers spoken in Latin during the old Mass--mystery,
reverence, grace-filled silence, holy paintings that inspired the imagination,
and angelic music and chants that lifted the soul. I have the same memories,
even though I was raised in the midwestern United States and she was raised in
the Philippines. I have the same memories of Masses that I attended in Canada
and Mexico. That was one of the most significant advantages of the Latin Mass.
It unified the church both horizontally and vertically, through time and space.

When the new Mass was implemented, it wasn't just a change in style or language.
It didn't just simplify gestures and vestments, art, music, language, and
architecture. It removed the vertical dimension from the church. All of a
sudden, the Mass was all about Us, not so much about Him.

That shift in focus stretched out beyond the Mass to affect everything in the
church. What I recall most vividly is the response of so many priests and nuns.
Suddenly, the earth had shifted on its access. The church they had signed up
their lives to was no longer the same. The new focus on Us, not Him, made their
sacrifice pointless. They left the rectories and convents in droves. I
personally was very seriously considering entering the convent at that time. I
had become acquainted with quite a few nuns at the local Catholic school. When
Vatican II was implemented, their convent emptied out. I finally asked myself
the question, "Why go in when everybody was running out?" I didn't want to be
the only one rattling around an empty building. Not long afterward, I met my
future husband and got married. The priest who performed the ceremony quit
shortly afterward.

I have made my peace with the changes from Vatican II over the years and have
come to appreciate the more reverent forms of the "new" Mass. Luckily, many of
the priests in our diocese make a valiant effort to say the Mass with care and
respect. Unfortunately, the congregation, which has mostly grown up with the
new Mass, still behaves often as if the Mass were all about Us--a form of
entertainment, a group hug, a social gathering. The mystery and reverence are
scarce.

I don't know how much the Latin Mass will be embraced here because of Benedict's motu
proprio but I hope it helps sharpen the focus on Who should be the center of our
attention and what is a respectful way to demonstrate our attention and
devotion.

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Omigosh, Benefan, what a testimonial! It's the sort of firsthand experience of that 'revolution' that I have been looking for in vain, and have not found even among all the traditionalist bloggers and their readers. The tie-up with the exodus of religious is dramatic (and here I was thinking all the time when reading of that exodus these days - "So many wanted to leave to get married?!?!" - because that's the impression given, so already we have been getting revisionist history)...

I don't doubt that the greatest offense perpetrated by the progressives who took the lead in executing all sort of reforms not decreed either by Vatican-II nor by the rubrics of the New Mass, was in introducing and stressing those elements that shifted the focus to the assembly, making God simply into the pretext or excuse for having Mass, instead of the reason and only object for it. I have observed before that it was so typical of the 'Me' generation to make the Mass all about themselves not about God. And they have foisted that on to a whole new generation which does not now know anything different....

Now I'm still waiting for some traditionalist or even neutral observer/historian of the early years of that liturgical tyranny (as Dr. Spaemann calls it) to shed some light on how, if at all, Paul VI ever reacted to the unintended and lamentable, if not tragic, consequences of his reform. After all, he lived 8 more years after it came into force. Maybe no one told him, for the simple reason that perhaps all those around him were advocates of even the most drastic changes.

Too bad we will never know if Joseph Ratzinger ever had a chance to discuss the liturgy with the man who recognized his work enough to make him archbishop and cardinal, and if he did, what might he have said. We can only thank God that he has now corrected a historical anomaly (suppression of the traditional Mass and its de-facto prohibition and stigmatization by New Mass advocates), and the traditional Mass can now come out of the 'oubliette' to which the Novus Ordo unceremoniously consigned it.

Teresa

I do not know whether this item has been posted before, but I considered it interesting:

Pope Benedict uses older ritual for his private Mass

Vatican, Jul. 16, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI, who recently issued a motu proprio allowing all Catholic priests to celebrate the old Latin Mass, uses the older ritual himself for his private Mass, CWN has learned.

Informed sources at the Vatican have confirmed reports that the Holy Father regularly celebrates Mass using the 1962 Roman Missal.

In his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum the Pope says that the older form-- the form in universal use before the liturgical changes that followed Vatican II-- was never abrogated.

Since becoming Roman Pontiff, Benedict XVI has always used the new ritual-- which he identifies in Summorum Pontificum as the "ordinary form" of the Roman rite-- for public celebrations of the Eucharistic liturgy. However few people have witnessed the Pope celebrating his private daily Mass.

Unlike his predecessor John Paul II, who regularly invited visitors to attend the Mass that he celebrated each morning in his private chapel, Benedict XVI has made it his regular practice to celebrate Mass with only a few aides. The Pope's closest associates have established a reputation for preserving confidences.

Pope Benedict has long been known as an ardent defender of the Catholic liturgical tradition. In the early 1990s he raised eyebrows in Rome by writing a laudatory preface to the book The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, in which Msgr. Klaus Gamber decried many of the liturgical changes of the past few decades.

Then-Cardinal Ratzinger also traveled to Wigratzbad, in Bavaria, to ordain priests for the Fraternity of St. Peter, a group devoted to the use of the traditional liturgy. He performed those ordinations, as well as Mass on Easter Sunday in 1990, using the 1962 Roman Missal.

====================================================================

Thanks for the post, Andrea! Commendable enterprise reporting by CWN that not anyone in the Italian media has thought about. I always personally thought that he most likely used the old Mass for his own private Masses, but the Mass that RAI shot for the birthday docu - even if he was facing the altar because it's a private chapel - must have been Novus Ordo, because he has his Italian lay sisters in attendance, unless of course, being C&L, they are open to the traditional Mass. Also, De Carli, who did the docu for RAI, would have noticed and reported it.

Teresa

LORENZAGO UPDATE - 7/17/07


THE POPE ON VACATION, LORENZAGO DI CADORE, JULY 9-27




Benedict ventures
farther out
By Francesco del Mas






DANTA DI CADORE, July 17 - After a week of sampling country walks around his vacation house or its immediate environs, Pope Benedict ventured farther out yesterday, leaving Villa Mirabello at 6 p.m. and returning one and a half hours later.

This time he went to Danta, where he told the parish priest, "I'm in rapture over such beauty!"

The Papal convoy from Mirabello went through the tunnel in the direction of Santo Stefano di Cadore, into a scenic road leading to the chapel of our Lady of the Miracles, which had been consecrated by the former Bishop of Belluno.

When the Pope came back to the chapel after his walk through the surrounding woods, he found the parish priest waiting, Don Angelo Balcon, who then accompanied him to the nearby Church of Santa Barbara. This is located on top of a hill that overlooks the countryside, a sort of balcony looking out towards the mountain chain around Comelico with the Austrian Alps beyond.

"We prayed together," said Don Angelo. "The Pope's secretary was there, of course. Then we had a long chat - almost half an hour. The Pope didn't tire of looking around, marvelling at what he called the 'extraordinariness' of the landscape. He asked the names of all the peaks. I pointed out Mt. Zovo, which has been climbed by John Paul II, who loved these mountains of the Comelico. Also Mt.Peralba, which John Paul climbed in 1988"

Don Angelo said he found the Pope to be someone of 'exemplary simplicity.'

"I didn't feel like I was dealing with a Pope, because he was so amiable. We talked about many problems," said the priest, who still appeared emotional about the encounter, "but I prefer to keep his observations and remarks to myself. They were really beautifully profound."

When the Pope asked about the place itself, Don Angelo pointed out that Danta was one of the few mountain towns that has enjoyed great social and economic autonomy for decades because of the local industry - the manufacture of surveying instruments.

A group of families with many children among them had by now gathered around the church. The Pope had a word for each of them.

Don Angelo said that afterwards, they all agreed that the Pope was 'very fatherly" and that "he is able to establish immediate rapport with whoever is in front of him."

That the Pope was 'in movement' was perceived yesterday not so much by those who live near Mirabello but by people driving along the state highway.

"At one point, we were stopped for about 10 minutes," says the mayor of Auronzo, who was on the road. "I feared for the worst, that there had been an accident."




'Where are the flies?':
Chatting with the Pope
'like he was one of us'

DANTA DI CADORE. "Why are there no flies here?" the Pope asks a resident of Danta, one of those who came to see him while he was visiting the Church of Santa Barbara.

"Does that mean you have flies where you live?" the man answered.

He says later, "The Pope laughed - he appreciated that!" It exemplified how informal the encounter was with the group of villagers.

"You're fortunate to live here," they heard him remark to the parish priest, after he had taken his leave from them.

One man recalls, "When I saw the Pope open the door of his car, I gave in to impulse and would have rushed to him to say 'Tu sei benedetto' [You are blessed], but of course, at that point, a security agent took me firmly by the arm and led me away."

A man and his wife met the Pope while he was walking through the nearby woods. "What a marvelous place this is!" the Pope commented.

The man recalls, "Just yesterday, I was telling my wife - well, we've visited the Pope's hometown [Marktl]. Just wait, he'll come visit us too. And it happened today! I felt it in my bones!"

After the Pope left, the community gathered on the hill of Santa Barbara for a Marian procession. Don Angelo told them of the Pope's visit. "I think it became even more prayerful," he says.

The Pope has given everyone much to talk about - wherever he has been in the past week.

A boy who met him in the woods of Lozzo said the Pope stopped to remark, "So you're a football player," because he was wearing an Inter shirt. He was too flustered to answer, so Fr. Georg helped him out and remarked, "You're from Inter!", and the Pope said, "OK, then you're an 'interista'!"

And this is the man they called a Panzer [armored tank]!

Corriere delle Alpi, 17 luglio 2007


Other details from Vatican Radio and Avvenire stories on the Pope's vacation today:

Avvenire's Salvatore Mazza says that on the Pope's return from his excursion to Danta, he had his car slow down during its passage through the town of Lorenzago to give everyone who was along the main street a chance to see and greet him.

On Sunday, the Lorenzagans had to content themselves with watching the Angelus from a giant screen set in the town piazza, because the limited space in front of Castello Mirabello could only accommodate 1500 comfortably (although twice that number made it up there through security) and last Sunday's Angelus was specifically for the benefit of people from the diocese of Treviso.

Lorenzago will have its Papal Angelus next Sunday at the town piazza.


Even now that we have the Danta photos,
it's still worth re-posting this B/W picture
from today's Osservatore Romano:

Reuters reporters may not be very sympathetic to Pope Benedict XVI
but their local photographers have often preceded everybody else in
anticipating a Papal trip. Here are some photos released today through
Yahoo, taken in the Austrian village of Maria Luggau, presumably near
Mariazell, the sanctuary whose 850th anniversary celebrations the Pope
will lead on September 8.





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The Reuters photographers may have telepathically caused it but here's a story from Petrus that ties up Maria Luggau to the Pope's day today:

It was rumored
he took a chopper
to Maria Luggau!
July 17

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, July 17 - Pope Benedict XVI ended his day today with a walk in the Stabie area [around where he had his 20-minute roadside chat last Thursday] in the evening and praying the rosary at a woodland shrine to the Crucified Lord.

But he headed back home in the papal Volkswagen shortly after 7 p.m., greeting people along the Mauria Pass by waving to them from his car window.

But Lorenzago this morning was abuzz from the rumor that the Pope had taken a helicopter ride to Maria Luggau over the Alps in the neighboring Austrian province of Carinthia.

Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican press director, had to issue a statement saying, "The Pope is not going to Austria this time, not today, not at any time during this vacation."

The Pope is scheduled to make a pastoral visit to Austria on September 7-9.

If you want to work out your spleen, look at Father Z's blog entries for July 16 - a couple of the most contemptuous and deliberately ill-informed screeds you are likely to see about Summorum Pontificum and the Holy Father. Father Z fisks them mercilessly and deservedly, and he gives fair warning: What follows is ugly. But then the writers' CV puts their venom and vileness in place.

www.wdtprs.com/blog/



And for those who may not have seen it before, Thomas on American Papist has obviously just found the same NYT site I discovered last week - and posts a screen shot on his blog, which leads the alphabetical list. His heading says it:


Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Well, this is gratifying

Sometimes I think somebody in the Vatican must read our forum entries. Here is a correction of a story posted above earlier today.


Vatican spokesman: Pope concelebrates daily Mass using current missal

By Cindy Wooden
7/17/2007
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope Benedict XVI concelebrates his daily morning Mass in Italian using the current edition of the Roman Missal, the Vatican spokesman said.

Claims that the pope celebrates his private Mass using the Tridentine rite are incorrect, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi told Catholic News Service July 17.

The Tridentine Mass is the Latin-language liturgy that predates the Second Vatican Council; it was last revised in the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal.

Less than 10 days after Pope Benedict July 7 issued his letter and norms providing greater opportunity for the celebration of the Tridentine Mass, news reports claimed Pope Benedict already had been celebrating the old rite privately.

"The confusion probably was caused by our footage of the pope celebrating facing the altar, which is due to the fact that the altar is against the wall" in the private chapel of the Apostolic Palace, Father Lombardi said.

With the altar against the wall, the concelebrants in the private chapel end up having their backs toward the congregation during the eucharistic prayer. The congregation at the morning Mass generally is made up of the pope's valet and the consecrated women who staff the papal apartment.

The images Father Lombardi referred to were released by the Vatican to coincide with celebrations of Pope Benedict's 80th birthday April 16. Father Lombardi heads the Vatican Television Center, which produced the footage, as well as serving as director of the Vatican press office and Vatican Radio.

Father Lombardi also said the fact that the pope's two private secretaries concelebrate the Mass with him each morning "obviously means he is using the new Missal," since the Tridentine Mass strictly limits concelebration.

At public Masses with an international congregation, Pope Benedict uses the post-Vatican II Mass with most of the prayers in Latin. However, on occasions such as the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, which is considered a Rome diocesan celebration although there is an international congregation, the pope recites the prayers in Italian.

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Well, there goes one enterprise story - and my personal fantasy - proved wrong! I did observe the RAI producer would have reported it if the Mass he shot had been other than Novus Ordo. Teresa

When Ratzinger Last Visited New York

By Sewell Chan
New York Times
July 17, 2007, 1:32 pm

Pope Benedict XVI, who is expected to visit the United Nations next year, last visited New York in 1988, according to the archdiocese here. Back then  17 years before he was elected pope, in 2005  he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, the churchs top theologian. Cardinal Ratzinger was harassed by noisy demonstrators and snubbed by rabbis during that visit, in January 1988, according to an Associated Press account from the time. That visit drew out some of the major doctrinal controversies that have dogged Pope Benedict, who has long been one of the staunchest defenders of Roman Catholic orthodoxy.

The A.P. reported that on Jan. 26, 1988, several prominent rabbis refused to attend a meeting with Ratzinger because he maintains that Judaism finds its fulfillment in Christianity. The following day, gay demonstrators, angered by Cardinal Ratzingers contention that homosexuality is a moral disorder, heckled him during his talk at the St. Peters Church, a Lutheran congregation in Midtown.

The demonstrators  some shouting Hes no man of God, inquisitor and Nazi  interrupted a talk by Cardinal Ratzinger for about 10 minutes. The A.P. reported that Cardinal John J. OConnor, the archbishop of New York at the time (he died in 2000), sat somberly beside him during the disruption at the presentation. Six demonstrators were arrested.

Cardinal Ratzingers talk, and a closed-door conference on Jan. 28, 1988, were organized by the Center on Religion and Society at the Rutherford Institute, a conservative legal foundation based in Charlottesville, Va.

The Vatican announced recently that Pope Benedict is planning trips next year to New York to address the United Nations at the invitation of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; to Sydney, Australia, to mark World Youth Day; and to Lourdes, France, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the apparition of the Madonna.

The popes visit would be only the fourth in New York Citys history. Pope Paul VI visited in October 1964, during the first-ever papal visit to the United States. Paul John Paul II visited New York in October 1979 and October 1995.

Today, Peter Kiefer of The Timess Rome bureau spoke with the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman. Father Lombardi said there is no plan or a stable date for the popes visit to New York, but confirmed that any papal visit to the United Nations would probably be accompanied by a pastoral event. It is true that if he passes through he would not just be visiting the building of the United Nations, Father Lombardi said. It is likely that there would be some other event, other carpets to touch.

Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, said today: We are expecting the Holy Father to come. Were still waiting on a date.

Practically the first thing Cardinal Egan did after Pope Benedict was elected was to invite him to New York, Mr. Zwilling said, referring to Cardinal Edward M. Egan. We had been hoping he would be willing to come. We first got word of this several months ago that the pope had accepted the invitation to Ban Ki-moon to address the United Nations. A few days later the Holy See made it clear it would not be in 2007, so from that point on we anticipated it would be in 2008. Mr. Zwilling added that the visit to New York could occur as early as the spring, but cautioned that no firm date had been set.

About a week and a half ago, Cardinal Egan was in Rome and expressed to the pope the enthusiasm of New Yorkers for a papal visit, Mr. Zwilling said.

Turning Bread and Wine into Bread and Whine
or The Sky is Falling


Full participation before all else

National Catholic Reporter
Editorial
Issue Date: July 20, 2007

Upon learning about Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVIs apostolic letter allowing greater use of the Tridentine Mass ( see story), no doubt quite a few NCR readers reacted liked Bishop Luca Brandolini, a member of the liturgy commission of the Italian bishops conference. I cant fight back the tears, he told the Rome daily La Repubblica in an interview July 8.

Its a day of mourning, not just for me but for the many people who worked for the Second Vatican Council. A reform for which many people worked, with great sacrifice and only inspired by the desire to renew the church, has now been canceled.

On the other hand, many traditionalists see this document as the culmination of a 40-year struggle to preserve an ancient tradition unjustly abandoned.

Our Vatican correspondent John Allen thinks the avalanche of commentary the Latin Mass issue has generated comes from small minorities with vested interests.

To those who would see this as another sign of a rollback on Vatican II, Allen suggests that if they look at Benedicts full record as pope, they will find little to support the lurch to the right they feared at his election two years ago.

Furthermore, Allen finds scant evidence of a pent-up demand for the old Mass. Individual bishops have been granting permission for use of the 1962 Missal since 1984, and according to Allen, dioceses where it has been allowed report that the celebrations are often well attended, sometimes with a surprising number of younger Catholics, but there has been no widespread exodus from the new rite to the old.

In the end, Allen says, the normal Sunday experience for the vast majority of Catholics will continue to be the new Mass celebrated in the vernacular.

Allens argument, which echoes the opinions of quite a few bishops in the United States and Europe, is persuasive -- for now.

This does not mean that we do not have concerns.

Summorum Pontificum may well ease reconciliation with traditionalists and conservative groups, but what about others -- especially Catholic women -- who have felt deeply pained by the church? What outreach can they expect?

We join with Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center and call on the pope to publicly repudiate language in the rite that calls for the conversion of the Jews and for God to lift the veil from their hearts.

We know that priests are already strapped for time and energy. That was confirmed by the Synod of the Eucharist convened in Rome last October. We are concerned that priests will be further burdened not just because they have to offer additional services, but because nearly all will need training in the old rites.

But we also have deeper concerns, as we find persuasive the argument that this is a small change that presages more substantive changes.

From the opening words of their first document, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the bishops at the Second Vatican Council proclaimed that the key to reforming the church was reform of the liturgy. And the goal of liturgical reform is enshrined in the core statement of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Paragraph 14:

Mother church earnestly desires that all the faithful be led to that full, conscious and active participation in liturgical celebrations called for by the very nature of the liturgy. ... This full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else. For it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit.

We fear that re-embracing the Latin Mass could undermine the liturgical reforms that undergird the spiritual and theological developments of the Second Vatican Council. Changes that will set off our alarms include:

Reconfiguring seminary curricula to focus time, resources and talent on training priests to offer Mass and other sacraments in Latin and away from training that would support celebrating the sacraments in the vernacular.

Cutting back on seminary training on pastoral duties, such as counseling and chaplaincies.

Restricting church design and architecture in favor of old forms not conducive to the guidelines in liturgical documents written in the last 20 years.

Discouraging efforts to use contemporary music and other artistic expressions in liturgy.

Increasing restrictions on liturgical ministries open to all laypeople, men and women.

Rembert Weakland, then archbishop of Milwaukee, wrote what must now be seen as a prophetic article in America magazine in 1999 that warned of a creeping rubricism and movement to reinterpret Vatican II to assure validity and orthodoxy. Like Weakland, we have to ask: Can the two, the reform of the liturgy and the reform of the church, be separated?

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EEEEWWWWW! Trying hard not to say UGGGGHHHHHH! AND AAARGHHHHHH! instead. I tell you it all comes down to mortally-wounded egos!

They're all thinking - these NCR and Tablet types and their fellow liberals - "How dare any Pope do this to us! How dare Benedict show us up! How dare he go against our 'spirit of Vatican II' - and here we were all, doing very well for almost 50 years, imposing our idea of the Church on every thinking Catholic! Who does he think he is? Just because he participated in Vatican-II? Just because he is Pope? But we know better than Popes, we know better than this Catholic Church that clings to its past, we know best what is good for the Church. What's best for the Church is what we think is good for us. The Church should be thinking what we think and teaching what we teach. What does it need a Pope for, when here we are - it's our Magisterium that's infallible, not the Pope's."

That's what they really mean by all their bitching and whining now, but they're trying their best to cloak it in some semblance of logic. Hard to do that when it is very clear now that they really think the traditional Mass is worthless, so worthless it shouldn't even be around as a choice. The Novus Ordo - and the ordure they have made of it - is the perfect rite, and no Catholic worth the name should even think of anything else!

Once again, guys. The Pope hasn't taken anything away from anyone - quite unlike 1970! You can all ignore the traditional Mass, forget it exists at all. Why are your knickers all bunched up over something you don't even have to deal with ever, if you don't want to????? Why do you begrudge others - a scarce, insignificant, pitiful minority as you often want to picture them - the right to worship as they wish, in a way that has been valid and legitimate for all these centuries?

Why, except that you're being mean and petty and utterly selfish. Does your 'spirit of Vatican-II' not have any room in it for charity or fraternal understanding? Perhaps you didn't even bother to read the Pope's letter, asking for everyone to open their hearts and welcome everything that the faith allows.

But it becomes a circular argument because in your minds, you determine what the faith allows, not the Pope.

Come Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of thy love....

Bringing back best of old Mass can bring out better in the new

Guest column: Rich Leonardi
Cincinnati Enquirer
July 17, 2007

In the discussion over Pope Benedict XVI's liberalization of the rules permitting the celebration of the "old Mass," i.e., the form of the Mass celebrated before - and during - Vatican II, much has been made of its goal of reunifying Traditionalist groups with the Catholic Church.

What's been overlooked is the extent to which the Holy Father hopes this liberalization will reform the celebration of the "new Mass" that followed, but is distinct from, Vatican II. As Benedict writes in the letter announcing the change, "in many places celebrations were not faithful to the prescriptions of the new Missal, but the latter actually was understood as authorizing or even requiring creativity, which frequently led to deformations of the liturgy which were hard to bear."

Those "deformations" undoubtedly contributed to plummeting rates of Mass attendance. From a high of 75 percent of Catholics in the early 1960s, attendance rates have sunk to a national average of around 25 percent.

In defiance of the decrees of Vatican II, which call for solemnity-inspiring things like the retention of Latin and the singing of Gregorian Chant, celebrations of the new form of the Mass have all too often become lazy, careless affairs subject to the whims of local worship committees.

Benedict seeks something better. "The celebration of the Mass according to the Missal of Paul VI [the new form of the Mass] will be able to demonstrate, more powerfully than has been the case hitherto, the sacrality which attracts many people to the former usage."

In other words, exposure to the dignity, solemnity and contemplation that characterize the "old" form of the Mass might inspire similar sensibilities in the celebration of the new.

What can be done to encourage these sensibilities? Benedict reminds pastors and those charged with the celebration of Mass that "[t]he most sure guarantee that the Missal of Paul VI can unite parish communities and be loved by them consists in its being celebrated with great reverence in harmony with the liturgical directives. This will bring out the spiritual richness and the theological depth of this Missal."

Rich Leonardi, publisher of the blog "Ten Reasons" (http://richleonardi.blogspot.com), writes from Hyde Park.