Rorate Caeli Is In For A Big (And Distressing) Surprise

The new Archbishop, Don Matteo
celebrating (not the Traditional
Latin) Mass.  

Most of the Katholik Krazy blogs are run by white post-menopausal matrons with too much time and too little understanding of our authentic Tradition and consequently are a bit down at the heels when it comes to any theological élan.  An exception used to be Rorate Caeli which, at one time had contributors who could present some cogent arguments for the neo-Traditionalist position.  Over the past three or four years however Rorate Caeli has retained the superciliousness of its glory days but due to contributors like the Reverend Doctor Richard Cipolla  and Francesca Romana and the increasingly pretentious Professor Peter Kwasniewski of Wyoming Catholic College has let the intellectual ground beneath it give way to the most vapid of neo-Traditionalist mush.    

In light of all this, I got a particular kick out of a Rorate posting by “New Catholic” entitled

New Archbishop of Bologna a friend of the Traditional Mass

Pope Francis named today as new Archbishop of Bologna Matteo Zuppi, up to now Auxiliary Bishop of Rome. He has been mentioned here in Rorate for his visits to Santissima Trinita dei Pellegrini, the Personal Parish of the Traditional Mass in Rome (run by the Fraternity of St. Peter) - for instance, in 2014 - and his discreet attempts to help the Franciscans of the Immaculate.

May God keep him faithful, and may he be a worthy successor of the faithful Cardinal Caffarra in the defense of Christian morality. 

First of all, all due respect to those who have entered the Catholic Church as adults, but you don’t let “new converts” speak authoritatively about all things Catholic.  It takes time to plumb the depths of our doctrine, our practices, and our culture.  It takes time and practice—and integration into the community of those who have been born and raised in Catholicism—to absorb a genuine experience of the faith.  Some of the clerical voices of the neo-trads—such distinguished priests as Father Z or the above referenced Rev. Dr. Cipolla or the English Father Hunwicke are all examples of converts who confuse incense with blowing smoke. They want to teach before they have even learned.  “New Catholic” is no different but this time unfamiliarity with Catholicism left egg all over New Catholic’s face and spattered onto the rest of Rorate.  Despite his having celebrated, as an auxiliary bishop of Rome, the Traditional Latin Mass for the FSSP parish at Santissima Trinita, Archbishop Matteo Zuppi is no friend of neo-traditionalism.   Quite to the contrary.  Don Matteo is a protégé Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the President of the Holy See’s Pontifical Council For the Family and a leading architect of the recent Synod and pusher of the “Kasper Agenda.”  Moreover Archbishop Zuppi has been life-long member of the left-wing Catholic Movement, the Community of Sant’Egidio.

In my Rome days I regularly attended Mass with the Sant’ Egidio Community.  In the early years when they were still in the Church of Sant’Egidio the Saturday night Eucharists were anything but rubrical.  Reverent, yes; beautiful, yes—but very unique liturgically.  Don Matteo was frequently the presider and very relaxed in his style of presiding over the two-hour plus Mass followed by the communal supper.  When the community outgrew the church of Sant’Egidio and moved into the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, the community began inviting various bishops and cardinals—invariably of the left wing of the Church—to preside and preach.  I remember often hearing Cardinal Kasper preach and in particular I remember the remarkable homily on the eve of the 2005 Conclave in which Kasper outlined what the Church needed in a “Good Shepherd.” (It was Good Shepherd Sunday) It was clear from his homily that Cardinal Kasper didn’t consider Cardinal Ratzinger as meeting the bill.  Very clear.  At Santa Maria in Trastevere liturgies became more “high church” and for the most part conformed to the Roman Missal  but remained good examples of Vatican II style liturgy with much contemporary music, communion in both kinds, and both men and women active in various lay ministries. 

Sant’Egidio was the main agency behind the Assisi Interfaith meetings which drew Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and others to Assisi in1986 and again in 2002.  The Community also sponsored yearly interfaith “prayers for peace” at various sites around the world.  John Paul II was an enthusiastic supporter of these prayer services and of the Community itself, but Cardinal Ratzinger had serious issues about what he perceived to be common worship with those not of Christian faith.  An interfaith meeting was held in Assisi in 2011 with Pope Benedict present but without a common worship service. 

The Community of Sant’Egidio has also been the principle Catholic voice calling for an end to the Death Penalty in the United States and those other countries which still resort to it.  In addition the Community of Sant’Egidio has maintained ties with dozens of organizations that promote a “peace and justice” agenda.  Both theologically and politically it sits on the far left side of the Catholic spectrum.  So while Archbishop Zuppi may know how to say the TLM he comes from a Church that is thoroughly in the Pope Francis model.  Good Luck, Rorate with men like Zuppi in key sees, the Church is getting tied in closer and closer to Pope Francis’ vision.  Let’s hope he gets to fill a few more sees and leave his stamp on the Church.  

A Tea Party in the Catholic Church

Pope Francis celebrates Mass 

in Philadelphia 

Interesting article in the New York Times yesterday about the power of Tea Party Republicans and how through the gerrymandering of districts and the rise of a right-wing sophisticated media network they have been able not only to have achieved a powerful political machine disproportionate to their actual numbers but now actually be in a position to restructure the rules of the House of Representatives to crush opposition from both the moderate wing of their own party as well as from the Democrats.  In other words, a movement which represents the views of only between ten and fifteen percent of the American People will be able to set the course of Government for the entire nation.  History as seen this sort of thing before whether it was the coup that put the Jacobins in power during the French Revolution, the Leninist establishment of the Soviet Republic in 1917, or the rise of National Socialism in 1933 Germany.  It does not bode well for democracy when small factions can dis-integrate the balance of power.  

But this blog is not about political power struggles.  I only use this example to point out some disturbing glances behind the scenes of the visit of Pope Francis to the United States last month.  It was, in most respects, a great visit but there were some disturbing glimpses in the shadow Catholic world behind the official church.  The Liturgies, at least in New York and Philadelphia (I wasn’t able to see the Washington one) were more the sort of the liturgies with which Pope Benedict would have been comfortable.  They were beautifully done but there was a sense of pomp, even triumphalism, that seemed out of step with Francis’s style and a return to the semi-Tridentine preferences of Pope Benedict.  The music, though magnificent, was somewhat consistently “old school” without integrating so much of the contemporary music, and good contemporary music,  the Catholic Church in America is producing.  Dr. Jennifer Pascual who is the director of music at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and Father Matthew Ernest who is Director of Liturgy for the New York Archdiocese are both deep into the Reform of the Reform model of liturgy that briefly flourished during Benedict’s reign but to which some still cling in hopes of a overturn of the more pastoral liturgical style that has emerged in most parishes in the years since Vatican II.  John Romeri, former Director of Music for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia actually resigned his post last summer because he and Archbishop Chaput simply could not come to a meeting of the minds about the public liturgies of the Archdiocese.  Archbishop Chaput, while a doctrinal conservative, prefers a more simple style of liturgical celebration over Romeri’s insistence on a very “high Church” approach to liturgy.  Dr. Romeri stayed on the planning committee for the Philadelphia Papal Mass and it showed.  It was beautiful but it didn’t speak Pope Francis and it didn’t speak the Catholic Church in the United States. 

There are many places where Reform of the Reform Directors of Music and/or Liturgy have installed themselves to create an opposition, and even an obstruction, to the simpler liturgical styles favored by the Vatican II and post-Conciliar generation of Catholic clergy and laity.  Now, I think a certain spectrum of High-Church/Broad-Church/Low-Church varieties in style is a good idea as it gives Catholics a choice of worship to fit their own spiritualities, but we have to be careful of tying legitimate variations to some sort of self-established orthodoxy or “authentic” Catholicism that sees other expressions as somehow less Catholic. 

I was happy to see the seminarians at Saint Charles give the pope such a welcome.  They sang a song of welcome that seemed to have been composed for the occasion as it mentioned Francis by name (Lord, grant health to our Holy Father, Francis…  I translate salvum fac as “grant health” though it could also be translated as “grant safety” or “grant salvation.”).  Now since the Pope is not particularly comfortable in English, maybe Latin makes some sense here, but again, I wonder.  I like Latin.  I like using some Latin music in the liturgy on occasion.  I particularly like the In Paradisium, the (Lloyd Weber)Pie Jesu, the Mozart Ave Verum Corpus.  I like the Missa de Angelis.  But if the Pope isn’t at home in English, why Latin?  Why not Spanish?  Small point, maybe I am attaching too much significance to it, but it just seemed a bit 1950’s.  And the cassocks.  The cassock, a bit like the biretta, is really a party-badge these days.  I am certainly not opposed to religious wearing their habits—in fact I would rather see religious in their habits than in clerical dress, but where secular priests used to wear cassocks nowadays, they wear black suits with a clerical collar.  Most priests I know don’t even own a cassock.  But I understand that in a variety of seminaries these days students are required to wear the cassock, at least for certain functions or on certain days.  And of course the inestimable Father Z was so generous as hit up his public to purchase birettas for the seminarians of his new diocese of Madison Wisconsin.  Talk about a loony bin of clericalism.  And far more serious, as I have mentioned in previous postings, large number of seminarians in such seminaries as Immaculate Conception at Seton Hall, Mount Saint Mary’s in Emmitsburg and even the North America College are openly contemptuous of Pope Francis and where he is leading the Church.  Feedback from Theological College at Catholic University, Saint Patrick’s Menlo Park, and the Dominican House of Studies in DC suggests an undercurrent of dissent in those seminaries as well.

All of this is just an indication that as in the Republican party, so also in the Catholic Church in the United States, there is a small faction preparing to steer the Church in a different direction than the majority of Catholics would choose.   There is no doubt that a restorationist vision is shared by a majority of younger priests and certainly of seminarians.  The clergy of 2030 will be significantly different in their ecclesiology and liturgical styles than the clergy of the past forty years.  This will only accelerate the number of America Catholics either falling away from the practice of the faith entirely or adding to the already swelling numbers going to other Christian denominations.  Groups such as the Latin Mass Society that favor a restoration of the preconciliar rites as the norm, or we might say making the extraordinary form the ordinary form, will be content as we slide away from the heady enthusiasms of the Second Vatican Council, but it bodes for a much smaller Church and not necessarily a “more faithful Church” but a Church that is closed in on itself and without mission except for self-preservation. 

While I think that overall the “Francis effect” is revitalizing the Church in the Southern hemisphere and even, to an extent, in Europe, unless there is some drastic changes in leadership now, the American Church of 2030 will find itself very idiosyncratic and isolated, a bit like some of the Orthodox Churches like the Church of Greece, that have closed in on themselves and pretty much even shoved the remainder of the Orthodox world away.  

As We See The New Dark Ages On The Horizon

I had dinner Saturday evening with an old friend from graduate school along with her husband and two sons.  The older son is a student in the pre-theology program of Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey.  In the course of dinner he told me that “many” of his colleagues in the college seminary program do not accept Pope Francis as the legitimate pope, claiming that “their pope” is Pope Benedict.  The objections are that Pope Francis is too liberal, he is a Jesuit and not a diocesan priest, that he favors liberation theology, that he is not strong enough against homosexuality and/or abortion, that he has “abandoned” Summorum Pontificum and the (alleged) program of Pope Benedict to re-institute the Tridentine Mass as the official Liturgy of the Catholic Church.  There are some also, the young man told us, who believe that Pope Benedict was coerced into abdicating and thus is resignation is not valid. 

Now this could just be the wild imagination of a 20 year old.  The young man himself doesn’t—or at least didn’t in the conversation—dispute the authority of Pope Francis.  His family are pretty middle-of-the-road Catholics, somewhat more conservative in their piety than I, but who attend Mass in English. Their father teaches CCD in their parish.  I have been to their parish for Mass and it is a pretty typical middle of the road parish.  They are very involved in social outreach to the poor and in particular with immigrants from Latin America.  Their faith is important to them and while the parents were encouraging their son to tell me about this submarine culture in the seminary, they themselves seemed pretty unnerved by it. 

And Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall is one of the better seminaries today.  I mean this is no Mount Saint Mary’s, or Immaculate Heart or Holy Trinity (Irving). The Archdiocese of Newark has had its ups and downs regarding its archbishops, but it has a fine presbyterate.  There are many first-rate parishes served by priests of the Archdiocese.  The Church of the Presentation in Upper Saddle River has long had an excellent reputation way beyond the Archdiocese of Newark for a “Vatican II” style parish.  Fathers Thomas Ivory and Tom Kleissler of the Archdiocee of Newark was responsible for the RENEW program that swept American parishes in the ‘80’s.  Father Frank McNulty of the Archdiocese of Newark was the priest chosen to address Pope John Paul on behalf of all the priests of the United States during the Pontiff’s 1987 visit to the United States.  The late Monsignor John Osterreicher (d. 1993) was a theological consultant for the Second Vatican Council and was on the team of theologians who drafted the decree Nostra Aetate, the Declaration on non-Christian religions that changed so much in the world of inter-religious dialogue and which especially cleared the Jews of complicity in the death of Jesus. 

“Submarine Seminarians” are not a rarity these days but they bode ill for the Church.  They go through the system saying everything they are supposed to say, concealing their true thoughts and beliefs, impervious to the sound theology being given them in their classes.  They are able to parrot back what their professors say but they have developed their own particular Catholicism, unique to them and their clique, and keep it under wraps until they are ordained.  All one has to do is look at the Diocese of Madison or the Diocese of Lincoln or the Diocese of Arlington and see the damage to the faith of the People of God these crypto-schismatics can wreak. 

Now the good news—such as it is—is that this problem is manifest at the College level and hopefully is discovered and weeded out before these burgeoning schismatics and sedevacantists advance to public ministry.  Immaculate Conception has some fine professors on its theological faculty and hopefully as these young enthusiasts are exposed to the authentic teaching of the Church their intellects—and their faith—will mature.  But if not, the road looks even rockier ahead and the threat of schism grows darker.

On a somewhat related note of seminarian dysfunction, the famous blogging priest, Father Z (Father John Zuhlsdorf) was appalled when attending a recent “Pontifical Mass at the Throne” in his adopted diocese of Madison WI (you would have to go to Madison, or through the Looking Glass, to find a Pontifical Mass at the Throne these days) the seminarians appeared “nude.”  Well it is not nearly as interesting as it sounds.  What Father Z meant by “nude” was uncovered in as that they lacked birettas.  You may not remember birettas.  They are the snappy little headpieces worn by the clergy of yester-year (and prelates of today).  They consist of a somewhat squared cap topped by three  or (in the case of some religious) four “horns” or raised ridges and centered by (except for those same religious and members of the Sacred College) a pom-pom or tassel.  The origins of the biretta is the academic hat for university scholars but it crept into church use in the sixteenth century.  Father Z is just appalled, beside himself with indignation, at the lack of proper headgear for these seminarians and has started a fund provide the young men with the old hat.  Good grief.  It looks like sanity no longer has critical mass in our seminaries.  

Fed Up With Francis

Well Pope Francis’s favorability ratings among Americans has taken a serious dip.  All I can say is that it is about time.  For two and a half years now everybody has been falling all over themselves over Francis and I have been asking myself: Are they listening to the man???  Really listening???

Well, ok, not everybody was falling all over him.  The Krazies spotted something wrong right from the first.  A Jesuit?!?  Not a good sign!  “Francis”—hmmm, a break with tradition, shoulda been a Pius or an Alexander.   And where is the papal folderol that we had grown used to again???  You know, the fur-trimmed cape, the floppy Santa-hat, the ruby-reds on his feet???  But the regular joes liked it: living simply, eating in the cafeteria with the staff, the used car to get back and forth to the office.  “A poor Church for the poor”—good rhetoric, clever marketing.  But there were a few more who saw the problem: without the fancy shoes and living on the palace, he becomes just another priest doing his job.  I mean he had might as well just get a bicycle to ride around like the Queen of Holland.  Michael Voris was first to sound the blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of a Jesuit claiming to be Pope when the real Pope is still alive.  Now that Mother A. is incapacitated, thank heavens we have Michael Voris to be our infallible guide when the magisterium fails.   

And then there was “who am I to judge.”  That alienated all the Pharisees.  I mean, if the Pope can’t judge then the rest of us can’t keep score.  This time it is Lions 0, Christians 1.  Game’s over.  Son of a Bitch called an “olly olly in free” for sinners.  Damn.  The I’m-holier-than-thou crowd still hasn’t forgiven him for that.  Poor Carol McKinley at Throw the Bums Out 2010, aka The Tenth Crusade, aka What the Pope Really Means, and Janet over at Restore D.C. Catholicism, and Mary Anne at Les Femmes: what will these women do if they can’t cast the first stone at anyone who doesn’t meet their criterion for worthy reception of Holy Communion.  If we don’t get back on track, next thing you know prostitutes and tax-collectors will be entering the Kingdom of Heaven before us. 

But despite all this, still Francis managed to hold on to the vast majority of Catholics.  Only the spiritually elite were seeing it.   Most of us weren’t interesting in sitting in judgment anyway, and most of us liked the Pope being a bit down at the heels after the previous Pope’s somewhat of a dowager’s penchant for damask and old lace.  And all that Swiss Guard, and Gentlemen of His Holiness, and stamping of feet and saluting of soldiers and thrones and things stand in somewhat dramatic contrast to the plain hard wood of the Cross.  The gilded crucifix thing used to work; doesn’t anymore.  So we could live with this guy: we liked it actually.  But then he began to move from the theatrical to the everyday and that increasingly made us uncomfortable. Of course before we run-of-the-mill Catholics realized we were being hoodwinked by this somewhat commonplace excuse for a pope, there was the famous Father Hunwicke, a refugee from women-priested Anglicanism who has been appalled at Francis’ disdain for the pontifical; but then the good Father is a subject of her Britannic Majesty and so can’t imagine life beyond the fantasy realm of Queens and palaces.  And our own America presbyter vagans, Father Z, another convert, has been beside himself about the Pope’s everyday style.  Why did these people become Catholics anyway: it certainly wasn’t the Gospel.  What did you go out into the desert to see?  A pope dressed in fine clothes?  Those who wear elegant clothes and live luxuriously are found in palaces.    If you don’t like a down-at-the-heels Jesuit from Buenos Aires, you certainly aren’t going to be happy with a carpenter from Nazareth. 

But then it began to get a little to hot-in-the-kitchen for the rest of us.  Frankly, when it comes to the immigrant thing, a lot of us want Donald Trump for Pope.  I mean if this Francis fellow wants to ramble on about Africans swimming ashore at Lampedusa, who cares?  Let the I-talians deal with their own problems, but when he starts talking about those Latino types climbing over our border wall with their diseases and their penchant for drugs and rape and violence, well, he should stick to things he knows about. 

And then it only got worse.  He won’t pontificate at the Traditional-Latin-Mass-of-All-Ages-and-Everywhere-Like-Jesus-did-at-the-Last-Supper (you know when he gave the Apostles Holy Communion—in one kind—on the tongue as they knelt around the table), but he’ll pontificate about Climate Change and how he thinks capitalism is ruining the earth.  He should stick to faith and morals.  In this age of abortion and rampant birth control and same-sex marriage any pope has more than enough to keep him busy without interfering with fracking and strip-mining and deforestation and human trafficking.  I don’t go to Church to hear about this world; I go to hear about the next world.  I mean, we are going to be in heaven (or hell) a long time; much longer than we will live on this earth.  So who cares about this world.  God gave it to us to dominate so strip ‘er bare and make what money you can doing so.  There’s no sin in being rich.  Jesus endorsed trickle-down economics when he told us about how that poor fellow, what was his name?  Lazarus?  How he used to eat the crumbs from the rich man’s table.  We need to hear more about that—what was it that Ronald Reagan said: when enough crumbs fall all boats rise.  No, this Francis fellow will destroy America as we know it.   He’s got to go.  Never trust a Pope who wears black shoes; he isn’t the real McCoy.  

Bazinga.