July 2008 Archives

One word could have saved a million souls, but the men wouldn't say it. One man, Bartholomew, patriarch of the schismatic Orthodox confession, could have said the word and saved a multitude. The other man, Pope Benedict XVI, chose to omit the saving word.

On June 28 and 29, Bartholomew joined Pope Benedict at the inauguration of a year dedicated to St. Paul. They prayed together, preached, and professed the faith together. But they left out one word, filioque, because the Orthodox do not profess that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son but only from the Father. Because of this, the Orthodox are heretics; they need this word in order to be saved.

The irony of the affair was underscored by Pope Benedict. According to a Catholic World News article, the pope observed that St. Paul "did not shrink from controversy in his approach to preaching the Gospel. `He did not seek superficial harmony.'" Also, "Pope Benedict encouraged the faithful to keep in mind the words of St. Paul to Timothy: `Join with me in suffering for the Gospel.' He said: `In a world where lies are so powerful, truth is paid with suffering.'" But on Sunday the 29th, the truth did not include filioque, and no suffering was paid. The harmony was superficial and the Faith was compromised.

St. Paul, pray for us!

The feast of the Visitation of Our Lady to her cousin St. Elizabeth is closely connected to the canticle of the Magnificat that she sang on that occasion. I will comment on the Magnificat as homage to this feast day of Our Lady.

It seems to me that this canticle is an artistic work of logic; it shows how logic was present in the spirit of Our Lady even in moments of great joy and enthusiasm. In her words a rational structure is present that is truly impressive.

It is interesting to note how she decided to praise the grandness of God first. The other attributes of God she mentions - mainly His mercy and justice - are related to His grandness.

It is obvious that one should sing praises about the mercy of God, for without His mercy we would be nothing. At the same time, we should not be single-visioned regarding the mercy of God, just as we should not be focused only on His justice. It is necessary for the spirit to be turned to both aspects. This is what one finds in the Magnificat.

I see the Magnificat from two different aspects: first, as a completely rational and structured canticle; second, as a canticle where the grandness of God dominates through the exaltation of His justice and mercy. The consequence is that the Magnificat clearly refutes a sentimental piety that prevails in many Catholic circles.

Let us analyze the verses. The first two are these:

My soul doth magnify the Lord.
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.

Here Our Lady manifests her enormous joy. Soon after, she explains the reasons for it:

Because He hath regarded the humility of His handmaid;
For behold, from henceforth all the generations shall call me blessed.

I magnify God because from a humble slave - the Latin ancillae sua, means His slave; ancilla was the feminine for servus which means slave - He made a Queen, who all the generations shall call blessed. This is already a glorification of God’s grandness.

Then comes another reason for his grandness:

Because He that is mighty hath done great things to me; and holy is His name.

He did great things with her, and those great things manifest His grandness. For this also, she magnifies the Lord.


Then, she invokes another reason for his glory:

And His mercy is from generation to generations, to them who fear Him.

You can observe that she invokes God’s mercy to glorify His grandeur. He is great because of His continuous mercy toward men. She mentions only those men who fear God, that is, those who have reverential fear for His grandness, sanctity and goodness.

The following verse presents another reason for extolling the grandness of God.

He hath showed might in His arms;
He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.

In this verse she sings that God is also great in His justice. He not only shows mercy to those who fear Him, but He also punishes those who do not. Regarding the latter He manifests His grandness by punishing them. He is great when He shows the power of His arm by scattering those who are prideful. So, immediately after she sang of His mercy, Our Lady manifests her enthusiasm for the wrath of God.

Note how balanced this canticle is. How it praises God in His different and apparently contrary qualities. Note how these words are different from the saccharine language of sentimental piety that only sees God in one of His aspects - mercy - without consideration for His justice and grandness.

One sees how rationally structured the Magnificat is. It is like the presentation of a university dissertation that presents the main thesis and then gives the necessary arguments point by point.

Our Lady then gives another reason to praise the grandness of God:

He has put down the mighty from their seat; and exalted the humble.

Obviously, this statement does not mean that God deposes all the powerful who sit on thrones. It is not the affirmation that they should be replaced by the humble. Otherwise, after a while it would be also necessary to depose the new group of mighty ones and place other lowly persons in their places. This is an absurd interpretation.

Who is the mighty and who is the humble in this verse of Our Lady’s canticle? The humble man is the one who takes an attitude similar to Our Lady in the Magnificat, i.e., the one who attributes everything to God and recognizes that He is the source of all goodness and power. Without His accord, we cannot do nothing enduring in the natural or supernatural order. He is the one who commands everything. In this sense, the forefathers of Our Lord referred to in her canticle were humble. For example, King David, from whom she descended, was a mighty man who died in the plenitude of his power and, at the same time, humble because he acknowledged God as the source of everything he was and did.

Therefore, the mighty whom Our Lady is condemning is the one who does not recognize God’s omnipotence and imagines that he has a power independent of God. So, God deposes these mighty ones and exalts the humble.

It is another manifestation of the grandness of God who laughs at the pride of the powerful man. He can take away the power from the proud man who only trusts in himself and give his place to the humble man. That is, in face of the grandness of God, all human grandness is nothing.

She continues:

He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty away.

To those who were poor of spirit, to those who hunger and thirst for justice, He gave bountifully. As for those who did not care about the justice of God, those who were attached to the earthly goods, He sent them away with nothing. This means that to have wealth means nothing in the eyes of God. He can reduce many goods to nothing and make the poor rich as He so desires.

Then, she praises God’s grandness in protecting the elect people:

He hath received Israel His servant, being mindful of His mercy.
As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever.

That is, God is great in His alliances because He carries out His promises to the end.

Observe that from beginning to end, the Magnificat is a thesis followed by arguments demonstrating it. It sings with extraordinary balance of the justice and mercy of God to show His grandness: grandness in His mercy, grandness in His justice. It is also a demonstration that all human power is nothing independent of God and a proof of His dominion over the entire universe. It is a triumphal hymn to the grandness of God.

As soon as St. Elizabeth glorified her greeting her with the words we pray in the Hail Mary, Our Lady responded with the words of the Magnificat to show that she considered herself nothing before the infinite grandness of God. So, she praised God in an excellent manner, with an extraordinary enthusiasm, but principally with such a superb equilibrium expressed in such an extremely rational and well-articulated way that it could be compared to the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas. This is the canticle she composed under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost when she was greeted by St. Elizabeth.

In this canticle, you can see the spirit of Our Lady. These were some of the few words that she spoke that were recorded in the Gospels.

The soul of Our Lady is imbued with reason, filled with wisdom. In the words she spoke, she presented herself to us as an example of rationality and balance. The Magnificat does not have one superfluous word; there is no misplaced word in it. It is a perfect piece of jewelry in which each stone is cut and set to best express the beauty of the ensemble. This is the spirit of Our Lady, the opposite of the vacuous sentimentality and saccharine enthusiasm of an artificial piety.

To be a slave of Mary following the method of St. Louis Grignion de Montfort, we should look for this spirit of wisdom, this balance in the adoration of the different characteristics of God, a balance between reason and sentiment inspired in all things by faith. These principles give us the guidelines of a school of spiritual life whose aim is to imitate Our Lady.

The Saint of the Day features highlights from the lives of saints based on comments made by the late Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira. Following the example of St. John Bosco who used to make similar talks for the boys of his College, each evening it was Prof. Plinio’s custom to make a short commentary on the lives of the next day’s saint in a meeting for youth in order to encourage them in the practice of virtue and love for the Catholic Church. TIA thought that its readers could profit from these valuable commentaries.

The texts of both the biographical data and the comments come from personal notes taken by Atila S. Guimarães from 1964 to 1995. Given the fact that the source is a personal notebook, it is possible that at times the biographic notes transcribed here will not rigorously follow the original text read by Prof. Plinio. The commentaries have also been adapted and translated for TIA’s site.

From Fox News-

HONOLULU — The path to sainthood has grown shorter for a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium who ministered to exiled leprosy patients in Hawaii in the 19th century.

Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday was to be presented a document confirming that a modern miracle has been attributed to Father Damien de Veuster.

"At that point we will have to wait, with patience and prudence for the Vatican's communication about the Holy Father's action with regard to this document," the Rev. Ed Popish, treasurer of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts in Rome, said in an e-mail Wednesday.

The congregation, comprised of bishops and cardinals, recently approved the miracle that was previously signed off by a panel of theologians and a five-doctor Vatican commission, which determined a Honolulu woman's healing of terminal lung cancer defied medical explanation.

The woman, Audrey Toguchi, was cured in 1999 after she made a pilgrimage to Damien's mission and prayed to the priest. She attributed the healing to the intercession of Damien.

I am delighted to remind everyone that the Mass in "the extraordinary form", a solemn high Missa Cantata, will be celebrated by Rev. Ronald Check at the Carmelite Monastery of Philadelphia Sunday July 13, 2008, 7:30 PM. 66th Avenue and Old York Road. Bus stop at corner; parking lot on 66th. Doors open about 6:30, rosary at 6:45, sung litany of Loreto at 7 PM, and Holy Mass at 7:30 PM.

7:15 organ preludes
Vorspiel - Anton Bruckner
Nachspiel u fugue - Anton Bruckner
Aria (Kirchenkantate) - Siegfried Karg-Elert
Toccata per l'Elevazione - Giovanni Paolucci

*indicates choir and congregation
*Entrance Hymn Round the Lord in Glory Seated
* Asperges - simplified chant
Introit Ecce Deus - Liber Usualis chant
*Kyrie VIII
*Gloria VIII
Gradual - C Grassi (choir women)
Alleluia and verse - chant
Credo III - (choir)
Offertory - tone 3a (choir men)
O Bone Jesu - Ingegneri
Cantate Domino - Pitoni
*Sanctus/Agnus Missa VIII
Communion - Qui manducat Liber Usualis chant
Ecce Panis Angelorum - Dubois (Miss Ferraro and choir altos)
O Sacrum Convivium - Remondi
Panis Angelicus - Franck
*Panis Angelicus - Lambilotte
*Recessional - Novena Hymn to O L Mount Carmel
Organ Postlude - Postlude III on Ite Missa Est VIII - John Lee

Una Voce Quad Cities takes great pleasure in making the following
announcement:

Beginning August 3, 2008, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will be offered
in the extraordinary form (Missa Cantata) every Sunday at 4pm at St.
Anthony's Church in Davenport, Iowa. Fr. Scott Lemaster, Fr. David
Brownfield, and Fr. Tim Regan will alternate in offering the Mass. For
parish information see http://www.stanthonysdavenport.4lpi.com.
Our heartfelt gratitude goes to Bishop Martin Amos and his director of
liturgy, Deacon Frank Agnoli, who administered a diocese-wide survey of
interest in the Traditional Latin Mass and then encouraged six diocesan
priests to seek training in the extraordinary form. We are also deeply
grateful to these priests (three of whom will be offering the
Traditional Mass at St. Wenceslaus in Iowa City, also beginning August
3rd, at 1:30pm) for sacrificing their time and energy to offer us the
ancient form of Mass, and to the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius in
Chicago who offered the (by all accounts superb) training program they
attended in May.
Deo Gratias!

Thus the holy virgin St. Maria Goretti warned her attacker. Her words ring more loudly today as society has thrown all caution to the wind. In our schools, even so-called Catholic schools, adults molest the minds of young virgins with details of what belongs in marriage, to the end of seducing them to give a nod to pleasure. St. Maria's cries fall on the deaf ears of our bishops.

Pope Pius XII, at the canonization of St. Maria, amplified the struggle of the great virgin saint to those of his time, what we recall as the happy 1950's. His words are even more prescient 58 years later:

ZENIT
Interview
"Summorum Pontificum" One Year Later (Part 1)
Father John Zuhlsdorf Analyzes Its Effects
By Annamarie Adkins

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota, JULY 6, 2008 (Zenit.org).-
Benedict XVI's letter "Summorum Pontificum" on the
traditional form of the Mass has sparked an increased
interest in the Latin-language liturgy, especially
among priests, says an expert on liturgical
translations.

Father John Zuhlsdorf, a former employee of the
Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, is a noted
authority on both liturgical translations and the 1962
Missal. He also writes the "What Does the Prayer
Really Say?" column in the Wanderer newspaper, and is
the author of a popular blog by the same name.

In Part 1 of this interview with ZENIT, he spoke about
new interest in the traditional Latin Mass and various
concerns raised regarding "Summorum Pontificum."

Part 2 of this interview will appear Monday.

Q: Has there been much of a demand for the traditional
Latin Mass since the release of "Summorum Pontificum"?

Father Zuhlsdorf: No and yes. We have not seen hordes
of the faithful hammering on rectory doors to demand
the older Mass. But there has been a steady increase
of parishes where the traditional Latin Mass is now
celebrated regularly.

The trickle is becoming a stream.

To join go to: www.collegetraditionalists-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

This group has been newly formed by Master's candidate James Baresel who is attending Franciscan University at the suggestion of Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand. Mr. Baresel is the moderator and has begun this initiatve amidst his studies in Philosophy.

[Just in time for Holy Father Friday]

From MSNBC

Benedict issues statement asserting that Jesus established ‘only one church’

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy - Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches.

Benedict approved a document from his old offices at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that restates church teaching on relations with other Christians. It was the second time in a week the pope has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meetings that modernized the church.

On Saturday, Benedict revisited another key aspect of Vatican II by reviving the old Latin Mass. Traditional Catholics cheered the move, but more liberal ones called it a step back from Vatican II.

Benedict, who attended Vatican II as a young theologian, has long complained about what he considers the erroneous interpretation of the council by liberals, saying it was not a break from the past but rather a renewal of church tradition.

In the latest document — formulated as five questions and answers — the Vatican seeks to set the record straight on Vatican II’s ecumenical intent, saying some contemporary theological interpretation had been “erroneous or ambiguous” and had prompted confusion and doubt.

It restates key sections of a 2000 document the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, “Dominus Iesus,” which set off a firestorm of criticism among Protestant and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the “means of salvation.”

Heavy metal, acid jazz, reggae, rap, Gospel, Afro-Caribbean, Gregorian Chants and Christian rock - hear it all at World Youth Day is the headline at the official WYD08 website. "More than 165 outdoor concerts will take place during WYD08 week, 15 - 20 July, as part of the Youth Festival. Headline acts include the likes of Damien Leith, Guy Sebastian, Paulini, the Tap Dogs, Diesel, Vanessa Amorosi and Australian Idol finalist Joseph Gateau."

This comes from the same pope who said: "Rock music... is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects."

I guess you can have it both ways? You like Gregorian chant? That's cool. You dig acid-jazz-sacred fusion? That's cool, too. It's all part of the new synthesis.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Pray for Us!

Thanks to Paulo we have good news from World Youth Day. Excerpts from a Papal address can be found here. Below are excerpts from an article on liturgy.

"The Holy Father has requested that those whom he gives communion to will kneel, and his preference is that they receive communion on the tongue," said Father Mark Podesta, an official World Youth Day spokesman.

However, these preferences will not apply to the crowds at the racecourse, who could be pressed for kneeling space.

"His request is not a mandate for the church, it's merely an indicator," Father Podesta said.

"He is concerned with the question of reverence.

"(Standing and receiving the host in the hand) could be open to irreverence. It's a reminder for those who watch it that this is very special."

The mass will also include a recital in Latin of the Our Father prayer, and a few other words in Latin, Father Podesta added. World Youth Day was an international event, he said, and the language of the church was Latin.

A blog entry from The Gregorian Rite blog by Brian Kopp

Saturday, July 19, 2008

So, when can we anticipate the publication of the "clarification" from PCED on Summorum Pontificum?

Priests are desperately waiting for this "clarification," especially in those dioceses in which the "little tittle rules" set up by their local ordinary to undermine Summorum Pontificum have put a concrete stop to all efforts to establish a public celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass (i.e., Gregorian Rite Mass.)

Recently, a courageous priest came forward and submitted himself to the "little tittle rules" set up by the local ordinary here, only to be told he had passed the rubrics/Mass part of the exam, but failed an intensive (punitive?) Latin exam.

The local ordinary gloated at a recent presbyteral council meeting that the TLM is not being celebrated in this diocese -- since no one has passed the exams.

I wrote to the PCED in early December, 2007, about the "little tittle rules" set up by the local ordinary:

His Eminence Dario Card. Castrillon Hoyos
President of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei"
Palazzo del Sant’Uffizio
00120 VATICAN CITY

His Eminence Dario Card. Castrillon Hoyos:

Enclosed please find a copy of the "Bishop's Clergy Bulletin" for September-October 2007 from the Most Rev. Joseph V. Adamec, D.D., S.T.L., Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, 126 Logan Boulevard, Hollidaysburg, PA 16648.

In this document, Bishop Adamec states:

THE TRIDENTINE MASS

I presume that the Tridentine Mass is not being celebrated within our Diocesan Church. I make that presumption, knowing that no priest has made a request to our Liturgy Office. You will recall that such is required in order to obtain an acknowledgment of his having the appropriate skills for celebrating according to those particular rubrics. This would include private celebrations. (I refer you to the guidelines that I issued earlier.)

His Excellency, Salvatore Matano, Bishop of Burlington, will celebrate the extaordinary form of the Mass on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary at 7 PM at St. Joseph Co-Cathedral in Burlington, VT.

To join a Latin Mass Group in Vermont go here.

In 1535, St. Thomas More literally "lost his head" over the divorce of Henry VIII. Henry then created his own "church" which is now the Anglican confession, a heretical and schismatic sect. Today, Anglicans are having problems because they can't decide whether or not to ordain faggots and women. The "Archbishop of Canturbury," one Dr. Rowan Williams, who became a druid in 2002, favors such abominable "ordinations."

Rifts among the Anglicans should give us joy that sensible Anglicans might convert, no? Well, you'd better put on your Vatican II hats to understand the new mind warp going on. The Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham has asked Catholics to pray for Anglican unity (article). Below are excerpts from the article. Even Pope Benedict has said that he is praying for the Anglican convention, but he didn't specify an intention for conversion.

Readers know how fundamental the doctrine of Original Sin is to the Faith, and how it is under attack today. For example, disbelief begets tolerance for abortion. Bishops today simply do not believe that infants who die without Baptism are unable to enter Heaven. So, what do they believe about the doctrine of Original Sin? The following account, written by a bishop, shows how the doctrine has been watered down. St. Augustine, Pray for Us!

“In the story that we are considering [Ch. 3 of Genesis], still a further characteristic of sin is described. Sin is not spoken of in general as an abstract possibility but as a deed, as the sin of a particular person, Adam, who stands at the origin of humankind and with whom the history of sin begins. The account tells us that sin begets sin, and that therefore all the sins of history are interlinked. Theology refers to this state of affairs by the certainly misleading and imprecise term ‘original sin’. What does this mean? Nothing seems to us today to be stranger or, indeed, more absurd than to insist upon original sin, since, according to our way of thinking, guilt can only be something very personal, and since God does not run a concentration camp, in which one’s relatives are imprisoned because he is a liberating God of love, who calls each one by name. What does original sin mean, then, when we interpret it correctly?

July 25th marked the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae, an event lauded by conservatives and despised by many moderns. The encyclical is regarded as a condemnation of birth control, but this is far from the truth. While it condemned artificial means of birth control, it allowed that there exist lawful means of limiting the number of children in a family. This leaves open the possibility of "Catholic" birth control.

St. Thomas taught us to judge the substance of any act by its "final cause," i.e., the ultimate reason for the act, the end desired. The final cause of birth control is to limit the number of children. Hence, NFP, natural family planning, should be called by what it is: birth control.