TIA,

Thank you for your recent input on the new Instruction. Certainly you were right when the Summorum Pontificum was issued and you predicted that Traditionalists should stop rejoicing and prepare for the 'hybrid Mass' (a great name, by the way).

These latest rules envisage the inclusion of recent saints and some new texts in the older liturgy. So, we will have - God forbid - a Tridentine Mass for St. Escrivá and St. Teresa of Calcutta, and then perhaps for JPII and John XXIII as well. They foresee new editions of the Missal and other liturgical books of the older rites - the hybrid Mass Missal. Even though supposedly altar girls, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, etc. should not be imposed on it, there is no guarantee that won't change in the future as its 'development' continues.

The only real clarification of this Instruction, in my opinion, is this - it clearly and strongly affirms that the Novus Ordo and liturgical changes following the Council were a legitimate development, not a rupture, with tradition, and this must be admitted by all Catholics who choose to attend the Latin Mass. And we must expect that same development to occur in the 'extraordinary' form.

Even the suggestion that seminarians should be given the opportunity to learn the older rites has this disclaimer “where pastoral needs suggest it.” Some bishops will use the latitude permitted here to exclude such formation from seminaries. Another weakness is the Instruction’s restriction of the older rites of ordination to those communities supervised by the Ecclesia Dei Commission in Rome. The diocesan Bishops are expressly forbidden to ordain in this rite. Also, communities not under Ecclesia Dei but using the older liturgy in accordance with Summorum Pontificum could find themselves having to use the new ordination rites.

I don't believe there is any cause for celebration in this new Instruction. It is a sign of the times, bad times, the coming era of the hybrid Mass.

     P.H.

Dear TIA,

Regarding the new Instruction [Universae Ecclesiae] and the comments of Cardinal Kurt Koch, who explains that the pope's long-term aim is not simply to allow the old and new rites to coexist, but to move toward a "common rite" that is shaped by the mutual enrichment of the two Mass forms.

I can see it coming even in the sermons of our new priest who is saying a Latin Mass in my city. He talked a good deal today about the different Rites of the Church through the ages and, although everything he said seemed just fine, one can sniff on the horizon the big merge.

All of this makes one physically sick.

     C.F.

Dear Sirs,

Once again, I have to submit the seriously disturbing possibility that the NO was created and implemented as an instrument to deconstruct the "bastions" of the traditional Church. It was largely the brainchild of a man who was most likely a Freemason and, therefore, excommunicated by default, and it was approved by a pope whose private life was abominable (demonstrable evidence exists) and whose liberal Modernism had been condemned in anticipation by Pope St. Pius X.

Thus, I must agree with many traditional Roman Catholics - the NO is an abomination and I am only sorry that SSPX apparently abandoned its validity thesis set out in an exploratory booklet many years ago. Be that as it may, there is no doubt at all that many presbyters say invalid NO services because they do not believe in transubstantiation at all - I also know some of them. On occasion they use hosts that contain invalidating substances. They also use forms other than those contained in the Pauline books. In fact, this type of praxis is systemic and has been witnessed everywhere I have travelled and worked.

As a consequence to those opinions expressed above, it is unfortunate that the Instruction and the Summorum Pontificum link inextricably the Novus Ordo and the Traditional Latin Mass because, in principle, this is unacceptable to any truly traditional Roman Catholic. A factor well-understood by the current pope.

In fact, it is an inherently repugnant notion that a symbol of the liberalist liturgical revolution that is the NO ought to be equated with the Holy Mass for the Latin Rite Church, which is the historical and theologically infallibly guaranteed embodiment of the Roman Catholic Faith in its complete authentic organic sense. Nothing else will suffice.

Moreover, it is at this critical liturgical point where the hermeneutic of continuity fails. Objectively speaking, they are two widely divergent forms representing two totally different and contrasting liturgical and pastoral paradigms.

     In Christo Domino et Maria,

     H.M.C.

Hello TIA,

I wonder if you could publish this news about the ridiculous Protestants who, this last May 21, were expecting to be “raptured” by ETs to paradise. They marked the date for their rapture, and it didn’t happen.

I believe that some Catholics should take a lesson from this Protestant pretension/failure.

Why don't Catholics obsessed with marking dates for the chastisement of Fatima understand that God reserved to Himself the exact time for chastisements (Matthew 24: 36-44)? They would do a service to all of us - who also believe a punishment is near - if they would stop boasting about their calculation of dates.

It is enough to know that today's enormous religious and moral crisis deserves a punishment. Let’s pray and be prepared. We do not need these day-and-hour-diviners. Their continuous failures only serve to discredit the correct position.

     In Christ Jesus,

     E.J.



Non-Believers Planning "End of the World" Parties
Washington, D.C. - 19 May 2011 (ENInews) - California evangelist Harold Camping's campaign to warn Christians that the rapture is coming on 21 May may have won him a band of followers, especially among those who have reportedly quit jobs or used up their life savings. But Camping's acolytes may pale in comparison to the number of atheists and agnostics who are outraged - and perhaps a little amused - by the radio preacher's predictions that Christians are about to be swept up to glory. Recognizing an opportunity, unbelieving Americans are using Camping's doomsday scenario to host rapture parties, fundraisers, and conventions to raise awareness of their views. In America's hotly contested religious marketplace, atheists know an opportunity when they see one, Religion News Service reports. [624 words, ENI-11-0256]

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